The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
V.
Kei Sa handled the labor far better than Ming had. Of course, Kei Sa handled everything far better than Ming could ever hope. But Kei Sa had hours left when Yen Sa rushed to the room and stood in the doorway, flushed and distraught.
"Ships," he said simply with a wince.
Ming rose with a start, still tightly gripping Kei Sa's hand. "Enemy?"
Yen Sa nodded, breathing heavily from the run between the ship in the canyon and headquarters in the mill.
"Find Wei Yong," said Ming. "He's down the hall."
Yen Sa nodded and left.
"Ming, Quy," said Kei Sa, her eyes closed, her normally pale cheeks scarlet from exertion, "go."
"I couldn't," said Hua Quy Ling, still sitting beside her. "I won't."
"You will," said Kei Sa. "I have done this before."
"That doesn't matter. It doesn't make this any less important."
"There's something dangerous out there, Quy. Not just idiot pirates, something powerful. They need you."
"You need me," said Quy.
"If we are killed, it won't matter that you were here to see this child born."
"I have to stay and protect you. What if they find this ship?"
"I can protect myself," said Kei Sa, and an invisible force shoved her husband backward. "I won't let you stay, if I have to push you out and lock the door."
"You're unreasonable." Quy stepped backward to the door, then turned to follow Ming out.
"I'm frightened."
Quy looked back sharply, but the door closed with a forceful slam.
Yen Sa found the general standing outside a room, his arms crossed and staring at his feet.
"We're going to be attacked soon, general. Twelve small ships."
The man straightened. "Where's the honor guard?"
"Scattered," said Yen Sa, almost panting. "Which is why I'm trying to gather everyone. And send them back to the mill, because the ships landed not too far from there, and since they didn't attack from the air, I'm suspecting a ground attack."
"We do well against ground attacks."
"If we have troops there to fight!" Yen Sa made a frustrated arm movement, which wasted energy and served no purpose other than to waste the energy without using it to hit someone, which is what he really felt like doing.
"Calm down, Yen Sa," said the general, putting a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "I understand. I just don't think it's worth panic when there's such a small force to worry about."
"Kei Sa thinks it is," said the queen, hurrying down the hall, followed by Hua Quy Ling. "She feels something powerful."
"Then we'd better get to the mill," said the general.
"You think so?" said Yen Sa.
"Calm down, Yen Sa," said the queen. "What has gotten into you?"
"I guess I'm just a little panicked," Yen Sa said. "It's just that something tells me when they send such a small force and they don't even use their advantage, that small force must be something formidable. Like us."
"It's a keen observation, Yen Sa," said the general.
"I wouldn't want to fight us."
"Neither would I," said the queen, obviously fighting back a smile.
The general leaned into the room. "Come on, Chen Yi. We have to fight."
"I won't leave An," he said, sounding even more on the verge of panic than Yen Sa.
"Yes you will," said the general. "Zhen doesn't need you here to get out the poison. In fact, I don't think he's even aware of your presence anymore."
Yen Sa looked in at the tall honor guard who held the young woman's arm, kneeling on the floor with eyes closed in complete concentration. "So we're down to eleven, then?"
"But An needs me," pleaded Chen Yi.
"She doesn't even know you're here," said the general.
Tieh Chen Yi looked as if he'd just been poisoned, too. "How do you know she doesn't? She needs me."
"It's an order, Chen Yi. Unless you want everyone to die." The general turned and walked away. With one last, forlorn glance, Chen Yi followed.
They all sprinted to the mill.
"I don't know where they're coming from, for the fortieth time!" said Ta Lian Shi, poking random buttons on the panel on the table in the corner. The table was made of the same yellow wood as everything else in the mill and reeked even more, if that was possible.
"Can't that thing tell you?" said Vendetta, whom, judging by the sound of his voice, would have been more aptly named 'Vexation' in the situation.
But he didn't deserve the name as much as Lian, who protested back, "I don't know how to work it!"
"Maybe you shouldn't mess with it," said Nai Do Xian, unflustered as usual.
"Yen Sa'll fix it if I mess it up," argued Lian, "and I'm only messing with it because you're all yelling at me. Where are they coming from, where are they coming from?" He slammed his hand on the panel and it made a strange blurt of a sound. He wished it would crack or something satisfying.
"You were in here when the ships arrived," said Lan Yiao Nih. "Didn't Yen Sa tell you anything? Or were you not listening—"
"He was gone by the time anyone else got here," Rah Cai Yue interrupted, then said to Lian, "Don't you have any idea how to work that thing?"
"No. Why should I? I'm not the electronics expert."
"You were in here with Yen Sa while he used it. Didn't you maybe see what some of the buttons did?" Cai Yue said.
"I was playing with the map thing." Lian shook his finger in its direction.
"He let you play with the map thing?" The priest's voice expressed his shock.
"I know how to work the map thing!" Lian defended, not caring whether he sounded insulted or surly, not really sure himself which he was.
"But not the tracking thing? Shouldn't they be similar?" asked Captain Lan.
"Tracking thing: inventions by Yen Sa," Lian said, holding both arms in the direction of the chipped panel. "Translation: confusing, and rather shabbily constructed." He turned in the direction of the holographic display. "Map thing: highly advanced tool taken from pirates. Translation: Lian-proof and Lian-friendly."
"Translation: any idiot could use it," said Captain Lan.
"Except of course our good friend the captain," Lian returned, "who everyone knows isn't bright enough to be considered just any idiot."
"Whom everyone knows, idiot," Captain Lan said, pronouncing the last word with a raise of his chin and excessive articulation.
"You want to take this outside, petulant dolt?"
"Oh, I cower in fear of your almighty vocabulary."
"Does it not bother you two," interrupted Vendetta, accompanied by a slight raise in the temperature of the room to match his rising temper, "that we're about to be attacked by who-knows-how-many people with superior weaponry and you're arguing like eight-year-olds?"
"We need to set up the room to our advantage," said Tempest. "So we're not easy targets for them when they come. Rather, so they're easy targets for us."
"Ambush or be ambushed," said Rah Cai Yue.
But the room didn't offer much opportunity for hiding; Lian didn't have to be a ninja to recognize that. It was open and square, doors on either side of the room, a single table, and a really high ceiling. In fact, it was the ceiling that offered the only hope of any sort of hiding. The rafters crisscrossed all the way up, kind of like an obstacle course. They were spread just far enough apart, with enough of a gap in height, and narrow enough, that Lian grinned, thinking about running across them and leaping to the next, all the way up to the windows on the roof—
"Considering our weapons are short range," said Tempest, seeing the direction of Lian's focus, "not long distance, climbing up in the rafters isn't going to help us much."
"So don't bother us with your suggestion, all right?" finished Captain Lan.
"I wasn't going to suggest it," Lian said quickly.
"Yes, you were," scoffed Captain Lan.
"No, I wasn't."
"You were staring up there with that longing look in your eyes—"
"I was admiring the craftsmanship—"
"Of this dump?"
"Shut up!" yelled Vendetta. "They're probably standing outside the door laughing at you at this very moment."
"Well, then, they're not prepared for an attack, now are they?" said Lian.
"For some reason," spat Vendetta, "I doubt your arguing is going to serve as a very good defense."
"Lieutenant," said Tempest. "Try to find a place up there that's suitable. I trust your judgment." The sniper nodded, stepping on the table to leap up and grab the lowest rafter. "Everyone else, against the wall on either side of this door. Try to get them as they come in."
"Not to sound insubordinate, or anything," said Lian, "because, well, I leave that to—" He stopped when the temperature began to rise again at Vendetta's glare. "Anyway, what about the door over there, where, if they come in, we make really nice targets. Doesn't the outer hallway surround this entire room, so couldn't they just as easily get to that door?"
"We'll just have to hope they don't come in that way," said Tempest.
"That's reassuring," Lian muttered. "I've always wanted to be fried in a mill, you know."
"Vyrenchi!" Rah Cai Yue suddenly shouted. "Where are they?"
"Good question," said Captain Lan. "Be nice to have our shields."
"Lian?" asked Vendetta.
"I thought Yen Sa was going to get them," Lian said. "He's the one who's all friendly with the energy and stuff."
"You sent Yen Sa to get everyone?" Tempest said.
"He just kind of ran off. Without telling me anything, I might add."
"So we're shieldless sitting ducks," said Captain Lan. "Sounds like my kind of battle."
"I really hope you're being sarcastic," said Rah Cai Yue.
Captain Lan started to reply, an answer that Lian thought began rather like 'not really', but with a short, startled yell and a thud, Nai Do Xian hit the floor in the middle of the room.
"Lieutenant!" shouted Tempest.
"You all right?" asked Rah Cai Yue, leaving the wall to help him up.
The lieutenant groaned and rolled over, and accepted the priest's outstretched hand. "Yeah, I'm okay." Then he inhaled a loud hiss and winced. "No. Arm," he managed.
"Yeah, I heard the crack all the way over here," said Lian.
"Come on," said Cai Yue. "Let's get out of the way."
"Except there really is no out of the way in here," said Captain Lan.
"Don't worry about me," said Nai Do Xian. "Just turn over the table, and I can still shoot. I think."
As Lian moved Yen Sa's equipment to the floor and dragged the table to the corner, Cai Yue said lightly, "If I'd known you were going to fall, I could have made a gravity well to catch you."
"Yeah, I'll try to remember to warn you next time." The lieutenant's voice was pained, but he smiled.
"What happened? Cracked beam?" said Tempest.
"Momentary suspension of coordination?" said Lian. "It happens, you know."
"No, I was already in position. Pretty secure," said Nai Do Xian, sitting below the table, and laying his crossbow on the floor. "Then it felt like I was pushed. And I fell."
"Someone pushed you?" demanded Vendetta. "They're already here?"
"No, no one actually was there. It was like some invisible force. Not even like a gust of wind or anything. I was just moved."
"So they are here," said Cai Yue. "Or something is, at least."
"Maybe it's ghosts," said Lian. "This place does look rather haunted, you must admit, with the cobwebs and the creaky wood—"
"Lian, please try to stay realistic while our lives are in danger," said Tempest.
The poison had traveled quickly, entirely numbing the girl's arm and dangerously close to rendering the muscles that controlled her respiration inactive by the time Zhen had begun to try to heal her. And then it had taken him a little too long to completely identify the not-belonging organic molecules interspersed in all her belonging organic molecules. He'd had trouble in the beginning, tracking each molecule and beginning to pull it away from her lungs and back to her burn on her arm, where he could extract it through the broken skin and blood vessels.
Maybe he was still having trouble narrowing in on the molecules, but it was getting a mite easier each time, and he had collected a huge swarm of the malicious little pests that he was pulling a bit closer to the burn with every molecule collected. It was a lot like raking leaves. This yokel girlfriend of yokel boy probably had a lot more experience than he did in that matter. Or maybe they just let them blow around and be pesky in yokel-land.
She shuddered—again—and he jumped—again—and struggled to keep his concentration, sending his psyche out to frantically make sure he hadn't missed anything. He knew they'd let her get a little too close to the point-of-no-return condition in their attempt to minimize the yokel's hysteria before they started, and accordingly, every gasp and pained twitch the girl made sent him into a short flight of panic. As it was, he already had doubts for her arm.
If she died on him, the poor kid would never forgive him.
The dry air stung her lungs as they ran, and she fully understood Yen Sa's earlier pants, if not his agitation. After all, he didn't have the psychic powers to feel the possible danger that Kei Sa did. All he had known was that they had twelve to twenty-four attackers, probably just normal attackers, whom they'd beaten with quite a lot of ease in the past. After all, their laser weapons were worthless against—
The Vyrenchi were protecting the ships. Which was why Ming was not worried about the civilians, or Kei Sa, Hseh An, and Zhen. Which was why she should be frightened for the rest of the honor guard—shieldless.
"Vyrenchi!" she cried.
Her husband was opening the door to the mill, and halted momentarily to say, "What?", the door half-open.
A laser bolt came from the hallway beyond the door and caught him in the chest. He fell back and Tieh Chen Yi slammed the door shut, another bolt splintering the wood.
"Wei Yong!" Ming gasped, and Hua Quy Ling pulled her away from the door, away from the weakened wood.
"I'm fine," he said, pale and looking surprised of the fact himself.
=We caught it. No harm was done.=
"Honor?" said Ming.
=Yes, Yuen Ming. It is us. We are here.=
"It would have been nice of you to let us know that as we were running into combat."
=We are sorry, Yuen Ming.=
"Are you the only one here?" asked Yen Sa.
=Yes, we are.=
"I think we all need a Vyrenchi to shield us, Honor," said Wei Yong. "It's kind of nice not to be fried."
=One moment.=
Less than that, realized Ming, as they all gasped slightly at the feeling of Vyrenchi energy merging with their bodies.
"Are we ready?" asked Hua Quy Ling.
"Couldn't be readier," said Wei Yong.
"Neither could they, I imagine," Chen Yi said.
"Yes, but they don't know quite how ready we are," answered Wei Yong.
"And I think it's probably a good thing we don't have Captain Lan here to get such enjoyment out of the looks on their faces when they find out," said Yen Sa, taking a deep gulp of air as he held up his right hand and activated his life-force sword.
In the moment she saw the luminous blade materialize, Ming understood Yen Sa's erratic behavior. It wasn't panic—not entirely anyway. He was nervous. This was his field test.
"Let's go," said Wei Yong, drawing his sword and reaching toward the door handle again.
Cai Yue wasn't ashamed that he flinched when the first bolt made it through the now-shattered door. The only protection against their attacker's weapon in the entire room was the table that only the lieutenant and one other small person, like perhaps Ming, but no one who was actually in the room, could fit behind. And judging from the speed with which the door was wasted, the table probably wouldn't hold up too long.
And Cai Yue wasn't ashamed that he gasped and sank to the floor in relief when the bolts were seemingly absorbed just feet in front of them.
When had the Vyrenchi come, and why did they have to be so alien and not understanding that when they couldn't be seen, they had to orally—mentally—announce their presence?
The onslaught only lasted a few seconds before the attackers seemed to be distracted by something in the hall, but he didn't doubt he was as pale as everyone else when it ended.
In a small room of a ship nested in a canyon, a newborn girl wailed her first breath.
The attackers, human and dressed in dark, multi-pocketed uniforms, turned their weapons away from the doorway into the mill's central room almost immediately when the honor guard members entered the hall. Ming flinched under the first several bolts, but the energy merely tickled as Honor absorbed it, and she followed the others in their reckless sprint down the hall and into the clump of attackers.
Unlike the larger men, she didn't run full-force into an attacker and knock him over—she probably wouldn't have—instead opting to reduce her run to a slide that ended with one end of her double-bladed staff bisecting one of the attacker's heart. She pulled it out and jammed the other end of the spear to her side, into another attacker's stomach, which she cleanly sliced open as she removed the staff.
She turned to see Yen Sa's energy blade swing cleanly through an attacker's torso and the metal weapon that he had begun to lower.
And the last attacker hit the floor dead.
"That was easy," said Tieh Chen Yi with a shrug.
But instead of the giddy smile Ming expected to see on Yen Sa's face, an appropriate expression to fit the irrefutable truth that his invention worked exceptionally well, she saw a troubled frown as he looked around at all the bodies on the floor.
"Problem," he said. "Only eleven people dead here."
"You were hoping for a total massacre?" asked Wei Yong.
He looked up and shook his head. "As a general rule, eleven people can't fly twelve ships."