The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
III.
Braeden disliked being stared at. Surely everyone disliked being stared at. But all these young Jedi on the little ship with him obviously didn't know that or didn't care. Even Shaak Ti kept smiling at him then stifling her smile into a frown when she remembered that he was not approved of.
Apparently, he was their idol. Radical and out of control or not, they still thought he was the best fighter anyone had ever seen. They were little fighters themselves, every one having participated in the last tournament and eager for the next. Every one wanted tips from the recurring champion. Every one secretly wanted to fight him, secretly convinced that he would be the one to finally beat Braeden.
He felt Shaak Ti smiling at him again and when he smiled back—sarcastically, but she didn't notice—she was unable to stop.
"We all admire you very much," she confessed.
"Really? I never would have guessed." More sarcasm, but it wasn't a technique that her race, unlike his, ever used; she was oblivious. The other Jedi were too far away to hear.
"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "We've all seen all the holos of your fights in the tournament. They're simply remarkable."
"Yeah, thanks. Especially the last, don't you think?"
Her three head-tails pattered against her shoulders and back.
"My crowning achievement, don't you think?" he continued, pleased at her shock. "Although the last few days have been fun."
She recovered quickly. "Most unwise of you to defy palace guards in that manner. It's a wonder they let you go on this mission. Why do you jeopardize your calling, when you were in your prime as a Jedi, and now, when you can get it all back?"
"It's a matter of principle."
"Then your principles are vastly different from those of the Calyaar as a whole. They seem in direct opposition to those presented in your literature—the transcripts of your plays, anyway. I guess you don't have literature."
"Those are the galactic society as a whole's foibles. They are not in any way representative of the Calyaar."
"But your plays embrace them so thoroughly."
"Trust me; they don't," he said, closing his eyes and crossing his feet. Even sentients who understood sarcasm often did not realize from transcripts what was obvious from performances of Calyaar plays—they mocked and vilified galactic society. Calyaar rarely left their planet because they hated the outside world. Visitors were kept out to avoid tainting the Calyaar culture. Braeden had been warned not to leave, but he had gone anyway, and he had failed. He was tainted.
"I'm surprised you even speak to me," he said. "I'm dangerous, remember?"
She whispered, afraid the others would hear. "I never understood why they threw you out for one sadistic fight."
"Huh. There's hope for you yet." He grinned.
Yen Sa's first reaction to Lian's demand was irritation, not worry. They'd always had trouble with the mechanized doors in this building. He guessed it was old, and the circuitry was glitchy. Sometimes the doors wouldn't respond to the buttons beside them; sometimes a door would slam open or shut far more quickly than usual when someone just walked by. Once, the door to the bathing room had clanged open and back shut every second without reason. It had taken him a day and a half to find the glitchy bit of code and another day to figure out how to fix it.
But one miraculously fixed number didn't give him any idea how the doors actually worked, and when Lian announced that they hadn't even made it to the outside doors—that it was basically every door in the building except those that never worked that were 'locked', and they were 'trapped like rats'—that was when Yen Sa's stomach turned queasy.
"They can operate our doors better than we can," he said. "We're trapped."
"Like rats, Yen Sa," Lian repeated. "Rats. Smelly vermin. That's what we are to these people. I can't be the only one who's worried what they'll do to us."
"No, we can fight," Tieh Chen Yi said. "We've driven back attacks before. We actually have the advantage here, since they'll be coming through one at a time."
"Yeah, or maybe they'll just open the door, roll a bomb in here, shut the door, and leave," said Lan Yiao Nih. "That's what I'd do."
"Rats," said Lian.
"Yen Sa," said the general.
"I know," he answered, already trying to find out how it was they had been locked in. The power wasn't out, so it must be a program of some sort. The real problem was how he would hope to have the skills to override it.
"Or they could just poison us," said Zhen.
"Yes, I like the poison idea much better," Lan said. "That's what I'd do."
"Yeah, well I don't like the idea of my starving in here with all of your green, bloated, putrefying corpses," Zhen said.
Yen Sa found the program, and his queasiness struck again. "Can I have some quiet in here please?" he yelled. The characters for the program were scrolling by almost too fast to be seen, and worse, they seemed to be in the Basic alphabet that looked nothing like the English one he somewhat knew.
"For being our death warrant," Lian said, looking at the screen, "it's kind of pretty."
With the fifteen best Jedi Knight fighters and the legendary Braeden Leer behind her, Shaak Ti felt that her mission was not fated to fail as all previous attempts to fight the Mandalorian Supercommandoes had been. The Jedi now had sole control of the building the Mandalorians had chosen as their headquarters, a building that would keep them incarcerated as well as any prison. It was their fault for choosing and abandoned agricultural 'worker's colony'—easy to defend and self-sufficient, but also set up to keep the slaves inside at all costs in the event of an uprising. Its use of outdated, experimental fiber-optic wiring so the slaves wouldn't have access to electricity meant that they couldn't even manually override their doors. There was no escape for the Mandalorians.
She didn't know who the people surrounding the complex were. They looked military, but she thought the troops had retreated some time before. But as they made no reaction to the Jedi shuttle landing on the complex's roof, she supposed they could be appreciated as just another level of defense or defeated soldiers eager to see their foes' ends.
The seventeen Jedi disembarked from the shuttle, and at Shaak Ti's signal, one of the Jedi Knights pushed a key on his mini-datapad and opened a roof ventilation shaft. They slid carefully down the shaft and crept noiselessly to the control room that all thirteen Supercommandoes were trapped in. The Jedi outnumbered them, and especially with Braeden Leer along, she was sure they outmatched even the Supercommandoes' fighting prowess. Their strange powers were perhaps to be feared, but Shaak Ti had 'strange powers' of her own.
She and the fifteen Jedi ignited their lightsabers just outside the control room, and she turned to nod at Braeden Leer, her way of giving him her respect.
He was gone.
"This is a bit of an emergency, isn't it, Ming?" Wei Yong said. The accusation in his tone made her want to snap at him and start some silly argument, but he was right. It was an emergency.
"We grew complacent here in our cozy little base," he continued, "and now everyone is paying for it."
"Don't be smug now, Wei Yong. If you had really wanted to recommence running around this galaxy receiving clues about the use of clones leading us to their source, but never enough to get any closer to it—if you had wanted that, you would have tried harder. You were tired like the rest of us. No one else supported you, did they? We made our own fate; now we have to face it."
"Stupid doors," whispered Wei Yong, glancing at Yen Sa, who was working frantically.
"They're close," said Kei Sa, igniting her light blades. "Jedi."
"Well, there's a surprise," said Lan.
"I know our elemental powers have not had much success with the Jedi in the past, but I will try to destroy their minds. Who else has a chance?"
"We already know my poisoning them from afar didn't work very well," said Zhen.
A funny look crossed Cai Yue's face, and he said, "I know this isn't the time, but remember—" He saw the looks he got and said, "Well, no. Later."
"My water doesn't work either," said Lian. "They just pushed it away. Same with Vendetta's fire, Quy's smoke."
"I can trap them," said Cai Yue, "but they can still move things with their minds."
"The more destructive elements—wind, earth—would hurt us as much as them in this little place," said Wei Yong. "And conducting electricity in a metal building would be kind of bad."
Mind sighed. "And there's no plants. It's up to you, Kei Sa."
Everyone ignited their weapons except Yen Sa, who was pushing buttons with abandon.
The door in front of them clanged open, and Kei Sa shut her eyes. Among normal troops, her attack had a one hundred percent success rate. One of the Jedi fell, and the rest were startled. The door shut.
"Their powers give them amazing mental defenses," Kei Sa said. "I cannot kill them."
"We'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way," said Wei Yong.
The door behind them opened.
"What did I do different?" asked Yen Sa.
"It doesn't matter," said Ming. "There's no one waiting to kill us behind this door. Quick, we have to go."
"Yes," said Wei Yong. "Even if it's a trap, it's better than here. We know this is a trap. You first," he added to his wife
She nodded and stepped outside.
The door shut.
"Ming!" shouted Cai Yue from inside.
"I'm here; I'm not hurt!"
"Yen Sa didn't do anything. We don't know what happened."
"Get the door open!"
"We don't know—they're coming! There are more of them than there are of us. Ming—" He grunted, and she heard a crash.
"If Yen Sa gets the doors open, go to the ship, Ming," came her husband's voice instead, and tears came to her eyes.
She chewed on her thumbnail and forced herself not to cry. She even managed to stop the happy tears that came when she finally heard Cai Yue's voice again, alive and fighting.
Then behind her, barely discernable over the battle's cacophony, she heard someone tap a foot.
Mere seconds after the door closed behind Ming, the door across from it opened, as suddenly as the other had. Unlike the other, it opened to reveal a cluster of armed Jedi. Wei Yong, near the door Ming had exited through, was across the room from where he would have done the most good, but he was not the only experienced fighter there. Even as suddenly as the door had opened, nine of the twelve other fighters were ready for battle, their weapons ignited. Yei Sa was working on opening the door, and Rah Cai Yue was talking to Ming through the door.
The Jedi tried to enter, but Lian, Tempest, and Vendetta were all but linking arms and daring the Jedi to try to break their grasp to keep them out of the room. Wei Yong ignited his blade but kept back. There were still six honor guards waiting to fight. He turned his attention to Yen Sa, who was nearly hyperventilating in panic and muttering to himself, far too immersed in technology to notice Wei Yong looking at him.
A female Jedi with red skin, wide horns, and three long tails coming off her head raised her hand, and Lian, Tempest, and Vendetta were thrown backward by an invisible force. Lian collided with Cai Yue, who was still yelling through the door at Ming. Cai Yue slammed against the wall, grunted as his head hit hard, then fell unconscious. Vendetta landed on a table, and it broke with a crash.
Wei Yong stepped to the door, and helped Lian off Cai Yue. "If Yen Sa gets the doors open, go to the ship, Ming," he yelled at the door, then turned to face the Jedi now entering the room.
The quarters were cramped. The honor guard could hardly move without eviscerating a friend, but luckily, the Jedi had the same problem. The small room had its advantages though: it made it possible for the honor guard to hold one side of the room—the Jedi would have had to walk through their weapons to get past them—and thus protect Cai Yue by the door Ming had disappeared through, and Yen Sa, at a computer near the side door. It also negated the Jedi's advantage in numbers; not all of them could reach a Mandalorian.
Still, the tight quarters were annoying. Wei Yong grunted in frustration every time his weapon collided with someone's he wasn't fighting.
Beside him, Zhen let his weapons disappear and grabbed his opponent's hand, who started to look immediately sickly, but Wei Yong had to block the poisoned Jedi's light-sword before he slammed it into Zhen's head. Zhen hastily recreated his weapons and looked abashed.
At the end of the row, Quy Ling hissed in pain, and Wei Yong looked over to see him stumble backward, holding a hand. The Jedi he had been fighting overbalanced and swung his light-sword into a wall. A flash of light erupted from the gash.
The light seemed to rouse Cai Yue, who shook his head, sat up on one elbow, and raised his hand. The Jedi were sucked through the doorway they came from and smashed into a group quite a ways beyond it. Two screamed in pain as they were speared by light-swords that were not turned off.
Behind Wei Yong, Yen Sa snapped his fingers. "This wiring," he said, "it doesn't carry electricity." He reached into the gash in the wall, pulled out a wire, and touched his finger to the end.
The side door opened.
"Light wiring?" Wei Yong asked dubiously.
"Officially the best wiring ever," laughed Yen Sa.
"Let's go," said Tempest.
"Right," said Wei Yong.
Chen Yi helped Cai Yue to his feet, and they all ran.
Braeden was completely out of patience. First, he'd been stared at. Then he was stuck in a group of Jedi who were trying to ambush their enemies by being capable of attracting a flock of vrdvs—deaf, carnivorous birds from his home planet—with just their breathing, not to mention the clomping of their feet and the rustling of those awful robes. He had simply needed to get away before he lost his temper. They might as well have been skipping to their enemies with their lightsabers ignited and singing a jolly little folk song. And now this Mandalorian woman he had let out of the door he'd opened had failed to notice him at all. True, he had been hiding when she had first come out to avoid warning her back into the room before he could shut the door again. And true, he actually was silent, so he couldn't blame her ears. But he was ready for her now, and she seemed to be engrossed on the door he'd opened and shut, having some human-femalish emotional breakdown if her irregular breathing and the racing of her heart meant the same for Mandalorians as they did for humans.
He lifted the toes of one foot and slammed them on the ground in an ill temper. She didn't move. He tapped his foot again—four, five, six times, and finally she turned.
She gasped and suddenly her light blade was there; it was as long as his double-bladed lightsaber, and she held it as a staff. It was also a rich, true green, like that of the forest, not like the washed-out green of his home waters or the fluorescent green of his lightsaber.
He ignited both ends of it and her heart skipped again. She was unused to seeing a different style of weapon in the hands of a Jedi. He was grateful that her emotions had such a physical effect on her. She'd be easier to read. He concentrated on her heart, the pulse of her blood, her breathing—she had a little catch in her throat as if she was getting ill. He hoped she was vocal in her fighting; it would make her easier to track and help counterbalance the advantage she had in a silent weapon.
She stepped forward, soft soles of her shoes padding on the hard floor, clothes rustling. She attacked with a quick but mundane thrust of her right hand, testing his speed. He parried easily and was surprised at the amount of sparks—very rare in lightsaber-on-lightsaber collisions. Whatever her weapon was, it was completely incompatible with his.
She kicked at his ankle with her left foot, and as he stepped backward to avoid the kick, she switched feet with a one-hundred and eighty degree hop, planting her left foot and knocking him backward with a kick to his stomach with her right foot.
He was impressed. She was sufficiently quick, and he didn't often encounter opponents who used their legs so freely in an armed fight. He would have to keep her from kicking—low kicks were hard to track with his vision and without using the Force. He assumed she knew enough not to kick high when he had his weapon. He'd have her leg off in a heartbeat. One of hers.
As he regained his footing, she attacked high with her weapon. He blocked with the left side of his lightsaber, holding the weapon horizontal to counter her vertical strike. She swung the bottom half of her weapon toward his stomach. He spun his weapon to bring his right lightsaber down to push her weapon to the side.
Then he took the offensive.
Then (humiliation!) he lost it in three strokes.
He had thought he had her. It was a trick he'd used innumerable times before. The fourth stroke would have either left her armless if she didn't block or open to a full-force head-butt if she did, but he didn't quite make it to the fourth. At the very instant she blocked the third, she knocked him off his feet with one of those pesky ankle kicks that was so subtle and quick that it confirmed all his suspicions of the first having been an elaborately telegraphed feint.
He swung his lightsaber at her feet from the ground. She jumped over it, back-flipping far enough away to give him time to rise. But she switched her grip on her weapon to hold it at the very far end—another advantage he had over him, and swung it at him as he began to rise, forcing him to hit the ground again. She continued to swing it crudely from side to side in front of her, the weakness of the move countered by her now having more than twice his range.
He had one new advantage, although she kept him on the ground. Holding her weapon like that, she had not only less control, but also a weaker grip. He should easily be able to knock it out of her hands. But he couldn't, though by all rights every swing of his weapon jerked her arms so fiercely that hers should have flown out of her hands and hit the wall. On the fourth strike, he managed to hit her blade so hard that it fizzled out, but a split-second later, it reappeared in her hands in the original grip, giving him just enough time to roll backward into a standing position. She began to spin in her weapon in vertical strikes, shifting from arm to arm in a display of agility he couldn't mimic because he'd cut his own arms off.
He was in a bit of trouble.
With a guttural expression of annoyance in his own language, Braeden opened himself up to the Force. It was like being alive again—everything was vibrant and full of the energy of life, and so clear to see with unfailing eyes. In that instant he knew hers were the very green of her blade.
Braeden closed his eyes and hated how complete he felt. He could only pretend to have been missing nothing until the gap was noticeably filled.
Her pesky little feet were shifting slowly, silently, across the floor, and she rotated her weapon one half-turn so she held it straight up and down. It was a beacon of life energy—her life energy—and the means by which she focused it were tied to her hands. He couldn't touch her weapon, couldn't manipulate the energy that powered it. He still couldn't disarm her.
She hopped in from the side, thinking that with his eyes closed and her movements silent, she could take him by surprise. He hit her blade in the exact middle with his, right between her hands and heating the flesh of both of them. He pushed it away with such force that he turned her, then kicked her in the back and sent her sprawling to the floor on top of her weapon. She tried to kick him off his feet, and he jumped. When he landed she had rolled onto her back and was bring her weapon toward him, holding it at one end again for added range. He slammed it as hard as he could, and this time when it flickered out, he reached out with the Force and ripped her finally vulnerable gloves off.
She gasped and looked up at him with wide eyes as he kept one side of his lightsaber a few inches from her heart.