The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
IV.
It was a surprisingly pleasant planet: the wind was dry and brutally gusting across the tall, scratchy grass, but the clean air, open spaces and lack of population reminded Tieh Chen Yi and Hseh An of home.
They stood outside in air refreshingly filled with the smells of soil and grass, staring up at the shipless space around the planet—they had seen only one ship, leaving as they approached, and it hadn't seemed to notice them—and smiled that even their base was something with which they were familiar: a rustic, abandoned mill—perhaps the grass wasn't just grass?
They had hidden most of the ships in a stretch of eroded canyon, less visible if not quite hidden, and only the necessities, the honor guard, and a few extra soldiers had been unloaded into the mill. The civilians were told to stay on their ships and be ready to leave whenever they needed to.
Hseh An's upbringing and her consequential familiarity with hard work had lifted her above the common rank of 'civilian' to something substantially more useful. She used the calm moment to tell Chen Yi of her efforts with the data cards they had taken from the pirate ship.
"It took a lot of time," she said, breaking off the brittle tip of a blade of grass, "deciphering and translating and fitting it all together, but it wasn't so hard."
"You're just lucky Yen Sa showed you how to work the machine to read those cards," Chen Yi replied, taking her hand and pulling her a few steps farther from the mill.
"And really lucky that Rah Cai Yue had a dictionary translating English to Mandalorian—where and why he came by that I'll never know. Sometimes I don't quite understand him. He certainly doesn't act like a priest."
"Don't feel bad about that, An. Sometimes no one quite understands him. But it is well known that he has an unusually high interest in the planet Earth."
She smiled back at him. "I'm just glad I didn't have to take the time of someone who actually knows English. Can you believe that no one outside the honor guard does?"
"We never thought we would have to."
"Then the spellings weren't quite the same," she continued. "This Basic is more phonetic than English. Makes more sense."
"I think for them to use it as the primary language for the galaxy as a whole they'd have to—"
"Make it an easy language to learn— Oh!" She paled a little, embarrassed at her lapse of proper womanly meekness. "I really didn't mean to interrupt like that. I'm just excited and nervous and—"
"It's all right. You don't have to apologize." He squeezed her hand, and she smiled again.
"I hope it's as good a medicine as the cards seem to indicate," she said looking down at the ground. "We should probably be getting back. We are testing it soon."
"Of course," he said, and they turned to head back. "But this stuff—what did they call it?"
"Bacta," An ventured, stumbling on the pronunciation and blushing slightly.
"This bacta," he pronounced it no better—she blushed more, "I guess I just can't seem to dissociate yellowy-green liquid from acid in my mind."
"Most acids are clear," she scarcely more than whispered. "Like water...they're diluted in water."
"I know that now," Chen Yi said, shaking his head slightly, "but I could swear that when sick as a child, I vomited stomach acid, and it was that color."
"This is a botanical product, not stomach acid."
He stopped and clutched both her hands. "Look, An, I don't want you to try it on yourself."
"Who else?" she said. "I must be the only one of all of us who isn't afraid."
"But that's why you shouldn't! If everyone else is frightened, shouldn't you be?"
"No one else has read about it like I have, Chen Yi. Someone who is afraid might imagine something bad is happening when there is really only good."
"And your faith in the stuff might cause you to ignore the bad or see it as good."
She sighed. "Chen Yi, you must realize there is no one else willing. And what would happen if we force someone who isn't willing and something bad does happen?"
He gave her arms a shake. "I'm willing!"
"But you and the rest of the honor guard are too important. If it is toxic—"
"Toxic?" He sucked in breath in almost-panicked little gasps. "An, you can't!"
"Chen Yi, don't take this away from me," she said sternly, pulling her arms from his grasp. "I have sat this whole trip until now with nothing to do, so just don't take this away from me. At home maybe I did nothing for my reasons and everything just because it was my duty and I was supposed to, whether or not I wanted to, but at least I was always able to help. My work was always worth something. This is my chance to help, so don't take this away from me, Chen Yi, don't."
He turned his head half away from her, staring at the grass. "The queen really has corrupted you. I guess I should have listened to Lian back at home."
"I'm not sure there is any situation where that would be advisable."
And much as he hated and fought it, he couldn't keep a smile from his face as he turned back to her.
The only other passenger on the shuttle was the governor of the barely populated planet, headed for Coruscant to speak with the Senator of his quadrant in a fuss over a recent decision as though the wishes of a few hundred were to be elevated above those made by a Senator representing a few billion, the votes of the few billion disregarding that nearly half were of a barely sentient rodent labor race.
But all 'due respect'—a term Braeden Leer abhorred almost as much as fiendishly conservative leaders who championed millennia-old musings as absolute law—aside, the man kept glancing at him, even as he ate the nauseating steamed vegetables of the shuttle's vegetarian meal—why was it that they never served carnivorous meals?
So after Braeden had finished eating the scarce meat of his meal and cleaning the scraps from between his twin sets of pointed incisors with his tongue, he said, "And your problem is?"
He heard the man's chair move as he jerked in surprise. "You look familiar... I was on Coruscant a few years ago and I can't stop thinking that I saw you or a picture of you there."
"Humans tend to not be observant enough to distinguish between individuals in an alien races."
"You're not a very polite man—err, alien."
"I'm Calyaar. And you're a politician, so what right have you to criticize?"
The man shut up for a few blessed minutes after an offended grunt. Then: "Did you see that big string of ships back before we entered hyperspace?"
See? Braeden sighed deeply. "Yes, I 'saw' them." In a manner of speaking, his abilities allowed him to see things more clearly than the sharpest of sight. He resented having to resort to his abilities at any time, but the ships had held a special interest for him.
"What do you suppose they were? We don't get visitors like that very often. Were they from Coruscant do you think? Should I have made the ship turn around—you wouldn't have minded, would you?"
For one long second, Braeden considered a lie. That was the Supreme Chancellor come to discuss your ideas personally. or That was the entire Republic army come to obliterate your pathetic little settlement. But he doubted any cruel fiction he could imagine would have less effect than the truth.
"They were Mandalorian ships."
The man gasped and sat up abruptly, splashing his drink across his tray. "Those clones? On my planet?"
Braeden clicked his tongue once. "Funny," he said, "I thought it was the people's planet."
It stung and she flinched. It began to burn and she grimaced. A rush of potent pain flew up her arm and left in its wake a chilling numb and finally she cried out.
They had a towel rubbing the yellow-green syrup from her arm in an instant, and a bucket of water running down it the next. That served to streak the burning down her arm and she gasped, but it also reduced the pain to a sting as the water pooled on the floor.
The next bucket cooled and removed the sting, but her arm was left with a vacant numb and it pulled at her shoulder with what was surely double its true weight.
The air was pungent with the stink of the syrup, and every breath seared her sinuses, her throat.
She blinked rapidly, then fainted.
Tieh Chen Yi caught her before she fell off the bench. "An!" He shook her. "An!"
The vapors were a flame in his throat, and his eyes were watering, trying to expel the airborne particles of the syrup from their surface.
"I'm getting her out of here, away from this stuff," he said, lifting Hseh An's limp body and cringing at the sight of her arm, the ivory skin scarlet and swelling.
"Get this mess cleaned up," the general ordered the group of medical officers as he opened the door for Chen Yi.
Chen Yi carried her hurriedly down the hall of the ship until he couldn't smell the stuff anymore, and laid her on a bed in the closest empty room. Her face was flushed but her breathing was steady, if somewhat rushed. The burn on her arm was oozing blood. He gently wiped it away with a clean, soft towel, hoping that the escaping blood would carry with it any remaining contaminants.
"Is she all right?" asked the queen, rushing into the room, followed by her husband, and placing her hand on An's cheek and then her forehead.
"I don't think she's in any immediate danger, but," he swallowed, gently patting more blood away with the towel, "what if it's in her?" His next question came more quickly, "Is she poisoned?" Then, softly and slowly: "Do you think she'll die?"
"We'll have Zhen in to check for poisons as soon as someone finds him—I've already sent officers after him," said the general. "As for the burn on her arm, I doubt it alone is capable of such dire consequences."
"But we don't really know, do we?" Chen Yi said, his nostrils flaring. "Not with this stuff."
"We'll eject the lot of it, soon as we go into space again. We'll lock it up so no one can take some."
"She'll be fine," said the queen.
"I told her not to do it," Chen Yi said, his angered expression melting.
A medical officer stepped in and saluted. "I found Mr. Zhen."
"That was fast," said the queen.
"Well," said the tallest of the honor guard, leaning on the doorframe, "everyone's in the medical wing of this ship, anyway. Seems An here's not the only situation."
"Who else is hurt?" asked the general abruptly.
"Well, I imagine Kei Sa's in quite a lot of pain."
The queen stood. "Kei Sa! What happened to her?"
"It's all right, queen," Zhen said, raising his eyebrows. "Perfectly natural, actually. But it is a lot of pain. Wasn't it for you?"
"This isn't the time for games, Zhen," said the general.
"All right, all right. She's having her baby."
"Now?" said Ming.
"No, yesterday," said Zhen.
She punched him in the side as she ran out the door.
Zhen straightened. "What's wrong with her?" he asked, pointing at the girl on the bed.
"She tried out the bacta," said the general.
"Bacta?"
"The yellow-green syrup," said Chen Yi.
"Oh, yeah, the yellow-green syrup. Sure." Zhen stepped into the room, looking carefully at An.
"It was the stuff that was supposed to be some sort of medicine, but obviously," Chen Yi pointed to the burn on her arm, "it doesn't work on us."
"Oh, that yellow-green syrup medicine stuff."
"You still don't have any idea what we're talking about." The general crossed his arms.
"I guess I missed the yellow-green syrup medicine meeting." Zhen shrugged.
"Just look at her arm and see if you can find anything foreign in her system."
"Certainly." Zhen grabbed her arm and pushed lightly on the wound, peering intently. An groaned, shifting her head. "Hmm," Zhen said, then suddenly added, "You let her put this on her skin?"
"She'd done the research," explained Chen Yi. "It was supposed to be medicine. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn't listen. Stubborn."
"Probably gets it from his wife." Zhen jerked his head in the direction of the general.
"Oh, funny," Li Wei Yong responded.
"I think you really should have tracked down your toxins expert when he didn't come to the yellow-green syrup medicine meeting."
"We didn't have a meeting about it," said the general.
"But we have meetings about everything," said Zhen. "Shields and lasers and planets and all other sorts of nonsense—"
"Look, can you just get it out of her!" interrupted Chen Yi.
"Well, it's botanical," said Zhen. "Organic. That's—" He stopped, seeing the panic threatening to overcome the younger fighter, evident in the horrified expression on his face. "Easiest," he lied.
Coruscant. Population: did anyone have the tenacity to find out? Seat of the galactic government. Center of all politics. Glittering realm of anonymity. For, could anyone be noticeable when millions of their kind were on the planet at any given time and billions of sentients of all forms came and went each day?
Braeden Leer even laughed with some emotion that tried its hardest to mimic true mirth at the actuality that he would be less noticed on the planet from which all condemnation of him had originated than on planets where no one had ever heard of him.
His ship had landed in the middle of everything—the starport that was the least classy and most dangerous, but startlingly close to military ports; that detail made the trip much more enjoyable. If They knew he was so close to such sensitive areas, They would choke, and the thought of that—especially imagining Their specific reactions—brightened his day considerably. He would have to stop by the Galactic Central Library two floors beneath the Council chambers before he left, not be recognized, and gloat to himself that he had been right under Their noses—literally—and They hadn't had a clue. He lived for the little things, anymore.
His starport of choice (with only two passengers, the shuttle pilots had dropped each off at his preferred destination—the politician had chosen the highest-profile) was among the least popular, but because it was Coruscant, even it was amok with tumultuous sound and movement. Such sensory overload always gave him a headache; luckily, he was Calyaar and imbued with special talent in addition to his specie's abilities, and he cycled through the auditory input, choosing a sound to listen to as one might choose a holonet program. Whining children, out; bickering parents, out; general idiots, out; people of various illegal occupations, out; alien speech that was just aurally appalling, out. Panicked-sounding military personnel? Were they high-ranking? He almost grinned in anticipatory glee.
Unfortunately, no. And not too bright from the sound of it. But they definitely had reason to be panicked.
"C'mon, Raon, we can't keep something like this a secret."
"No? Well, then, you go tell the Admiral."
"No way! I'll get court-martialed."
"You'll get court-martialed? You weren't even on duty at the time. You can just tell the Admiral, 'Sir, when I got on duty today, a squadron of your ships had mysteriously gone missing.' I have to try to explain why they went missing while I was on duty!"
"What were you supposed to do? Grab onto their wings and keep them down? We should tell. The Admiral'll understand."
"No, Iveson. These weren't the Admiral's ships. Special Forces ships. They were the General's."
"Tascilo's?" Raon made a sort of squeak—strange sound for a human. "Well, they'll come back, right? And no one'll know they didn't have permission to leave if we don't tell, right?"
Iveson was much less excitable, although still human. "Worse comes to worse, we can claim the Jedi who's on that team made us let them go."
Braeden clicked his tongue as the hangar personnel moved into a turbolift. Jedi were now involved in the theft of Republic armaments and he was the one who was excommunicated?
He entered a turbolift down the row from the ones Raon and Iveson had taken. It was packed with unpleasantly noisy people, but lacked any more interesting military scandals, having only the type of scandal that the press adored and that threatened politicians' reputations. Choosing the lowest floor available allowed him to have the trip down the last few floors alone and exit the lift into blessed, if slummy, vacancy. But even at this 'frightfully' low level, he was nowhere near even the halfway point of the massive tower.
This level of this tower seemed to be deserted, but only recently, so he found the nearest bridge and headed for the next building. The bridge was probably one of the last that was not enclosed, and he took a deep breath—even the air felt unnatural, empty, and lifeless, but did anyone breathe the outdoor air anymore?—and looked down into the darkness that formed long before the ground. Some said no one had been down there for centuries—he suspected it hadn't been anywhere near that long.
The floor on the next building was still in use and still had the public computer terminal for which he'd been searching, but likely not for much longer. In a continuing struggle for power and prestige in direct defiance to gravity and engineering, the buildings would all receive more floors in an almost predictable order after so many years, and everyone would move up, the top of the galactic hierarchy living in the top floors, everyone else crowding in underneath. He was fairly certain someone somewhere still walked on the actual ground of Coruscant. He was also absolutely certain that the 'somewhere' was not so near the 'galactic center' (quite off-center on the planet, and the planet quite off-center in the galaxy) and that the 'someone' was no human.
The terminal was ridiculously slow, and he thought perhaps it had been disconnected from the planet's network after more than a minute had passed with no result, but with great patience—something he supposed he was supposed to have—he was able to send a message:
GT: (That ought to annoy him.)
You're not supposed to lose your ships. (Well, one could never be too helpful. His grandmother had taught him that, although she had meant it in the exact opposite manner than that for which he had adapted it.)
- The RE-J Committee (A signature that shouldn't alert any suspicion in Tascilo's secretaries or anyone else who might glimpse it, as the Republic had so many committees that only a droid could know them all, and those the general hated. Besides, he'd grown rather fond of the moniker They'd given him, even if he had had to change the first word to 'Radical'. Renegade, indeed. They only wished They had a reason to hunt him down and kill him.)
He clicked the terminal back to its default menu, waited for it to load, and set off to find a place to stay—specifically, the Calyaar district, one of the very few places where Calyaar gathered besides their planet. He couldn't bear to go back home, not after having braved the outside against the advice of those who'd loved him and having been sucked of all worthiness and discarded by the outside, just as those who'd loved him had feared. He had such misfortune in common with every other Calyaar he would meet in the district, although the circumstances of his were unique.
It was such a lovely place, with its abundant pools and air cool with moisture. Not a 'pond scum!' in hearing distance, even if he suspected the random splashes of color on the walls were that epithet scrawled. Pity the Calyaar couldn't see well enough to read and take offense.
Ah, Coruscant, center of hospitality.