The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
IV.
Somehow, probably because Cai Yue's eyes were still half-unfocused for the entire trip, they got to their ship before they remembered Ming.
"Someone'sta ge'er," he said, blinking.
"Someone has to get the people to their ships, too," said Lieutenant Nai.
Vendetta whirled on him. "Someone has to get the queen. I've sworn to protect her; haven't you? Aren't we the Queen's Honor Guard?"
"Oh, so now you protect her with as much ferocity as you killed for her father?" said Hua Quy Ling. "Why don't I trust you?"
Vendetta glared. "We have to protect the queen. She's more important than any—or all—of the people."
"She's just a figure-head—" said Captain Lan.
Wei Yong kicked the wall. "She's my wife!"
"An' you forgot 'er," Cai Yue muttered, leaning heavily on the wall Wei Yong had kicked.
"She's the only one the Vyrenchi will talk to," said Kei Sa.
"—but!" yelled Lan. He waited until everyone quieted. "She's a really important figure-head, and some of us here—" he looked at Cai Yue, Kei Sa, and Wei Yong, who was still glaring at him, "are obviously really attached to her. I'll get her."
"What?" snapped Lian.
"We'll have a much better chance if we all go," Tieh Chen Yi said. "Those Jedi are still there."
"We'll probably all die if we all go," Lieutenant Nai said. "Little tricks aren't going to save us again."
"That wasn't li'l," Cai Yue pouted, looking at his fingertips, than sucking a panel off the wall onto them.
"Please don't dismantle the ship," Nai said.
"Who said mass force is the way to go?" Lan said. "I'm talking sneaky stuff. Ninja stuff."
"Then why don't we send the ninjas?" Chen Yi said.
"Because we don't trust the ninjas," Quy Ling said through his teeth.
"And we trust him?" said Lian. "He's the traitor, remember?"
"Then who do you suggest?" said Wei Yong.
"Me. I'll go."
"Well, we can't send the slacker," said Lan. "He'll probably get distracted, or decide he's too tired halfway there and take a nap."
"Having to wonder if my companion is going to stab me in the back would probably keep me on my toes, don't you think?"
"I'd probably have to stab you to keep you going. You'd probably go coward halfway there."
"I like danger. Danger is fun."
"Danger is more than fun. It's what keeps us alive and interesting."
"No, don't sully it with your mercenary ways. It's what keeps life interesting."
"That's what I just said."
"Just go!" yelled Tempest.
Lan and Lian stopped and stared for half a second, startled by the reserved ex-Lin Kuei's outburst.
"Really, please go," Wei Yong said. "And hurry."
They ran from the room.
"The rest of you, get the people to their ships. I don't think I need to tell you to be quick about it."
Quy Ling stepped up to him, bending his head down slightly to whisper at Wei Yong, the shorter man. "Do you think they'll actually make it?"
"Either their bickering will create competition and improve their chances, or they'll kill each other."
Quy Ling sighed. "We've as much as abandoned her."
"Don't worry about Ming. She can take care of herself. Trust me, I know," he added with a wry smile.
The younger man didn't look satisfied, but he bowed and left to do his duty.
"And if they don't come back in a while," Wei Yong added to the wall, "we'll send someone else." He kicked it again.
The pale Jedi held his bright green blade steady, ready to puncture her heart. Ming couldn't look at it, focusing her eyes instead on the curious towel-like fabric he had wrapped around his neck, the only pink of his skin showing barely above its top edge, the trails of water dripping from it darkening his gray shirt.
He didn't kill her.
The silence increased into such a void that Ming could hear a squeaky, little gasp in her breath, and she wanted to cry because it made her sound like a child. She thought maybe she was just a child: she was selfish like a child, and she fought with her husband like a child.
She could see his blade move, though she tried not to.
She still pouted over Cai Yue like a child. She thought she could avoid her fate by pretending she didn't see it, like a child.
He didn't kill her. When she looked down, he had moved his blade away from her chest.
"Get up."
She watched a drop of water be absorbed into his shirt.
"I'm not going to hurt you if you do what I say," he said slowly. "Now stand up. Slowly."
She did as he said, and he glanced down for a split second to push a button on a device he had strapped to his wrist, then jerked his weapon toward the door.
"You first."
She walked.
Following closely behind her, the hum of his still-ignited weapon ringing in her ears, the Jedi began to question her. She never said a word.
"Lian," Lan said, speed-walking beside him at a ridiculous pace as they tried to beat each other to the base without being obvious about it, "I doubt this has entered your lazy little brain, but I don't think there will be enough doors open for us to sneak inside there."
"Well, I'm so glad I have your military brain to tell me these things," Lian answered, squinting as the light of the planet's large sun began to come over the horizon. "What does your military brain say to this?" He viciously ignited his weapons, trying to get the captain to jump.
He didn't. "And those beacons aren't going to help us sneak in."
"Who said anything about sneaking in?"
Lan stopped short and grinned. Lian stopped a few paces ahead and turned to glare at him.
"Look at you," he said nodding his head in approval, "you're determined."
"I don't really like light shows anymore."
"What?"
"The Jedi."
"Hate 'em."
"Me, too. Do you want the seven on the left or the seven on the right?"
"Right," Lan said, then laughed and started running.
Braeden knew his captive understood the language. She had stood slowly when he told her to, but now she pretended to be confused at everything he said. Too late. He wasn't that blind.
The sound of a struggle—thumps, blades crashing, screaming—further along his way stopped his transporting of the Mandalorian girl for a few minutes. He heard various exclamations in Basic, and the girl seemed to get a bit of a grin on her face. Finally, there was a cry in a language that Braeden couldn't place, then shouts of victory in Basic and other languages he had heard many times, and his captive became distressed and looked as though she wanted to run to the scene. He had to point his lightsaber at her chest again to keep her from bolting.
"Walk," he said, when all was quiet again.
She turned, looking at the ground, and continued going in the direction he pointed. Braeden opened two doors, then rounded a corner into the hallway where the Jedi had gathered.
"I have a prize," he sang.
The captive turned to him with a horrid glare on her face that made him want to laugh. He could only see it because he was still embracing the Force—he tried to tell himself that he was because he couldn't risk her getting the slip on him again, but the truth was that it was hard to let go.
He turned to the captive and triumphantly said, "I knew you could speak our language," but she was no longer glaring.
She was staring at the bodies on the floor. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, and she started to cry. Loudly.
Lying on the floor were four dead Jedi in seared brown robes and the two men who had put them there, both Mandalorian.
"Oh," Shaak Ti said. "You got a live one. That's a lot better than these. Dissection probably won't do us much good, but I believe that these gloves are the way—"
Braeden held up the gloves he had taken off of his captive's hands.
"You figured that out, of course," Shaak Ti continued. "It's very strange, though, isn't it, how their weapons don't harm them."
"They're made of the life force of the people who wield them," Braeden said flatly. The deaths of the two Mandalorians began to cut into him. "You can't hurt yourself with your own life force."
"Well that's very interesting. How did you find that out?"
"I looked."
"Oh." Shaak Ti looked unsatisfied. "Here, let us take her." She reached toward the Mandalorian woman.
"No," Braeden said, and pushed her behind him.
"This is part of the mission," Shaak Ti insisted. "Our orders. Let us take her."
Braeden held up his lightsaber, and Shaak Ti took a step back in shock.
"I think I understand," she said, frowning, "why you were—"
"Don't," said Braeden. "Don't even think about making a comment like that again."
The other Jedi were beginning to mull around behind Shaak Ti, looking as though they all struggled with wanting to just take Braeden out and wanting to beat him in a fair match, one on one.
They never got the chance to decide. Precisely one second before fifteen hundred hours by Braeden's chronometer, the door to the room slid open, and twenty armed Republic soldiers walked in.
The officer in charge paced with perfect form to Braeden and saluted him.
"You're an entire second early, Lieutenant," said Braeden, glancing at the officer's rank pin.
"Your chronometer's slow," the lieutenant said seriously, and Braeden had to grin.
"Did Tascilo send enough of you?" Braeden asked sarcastically. "You've got the whole place surrounded—do you think there's enough of you?"
"The general thought that there might be a battle, and we should be prepared. The entire force was volunteers."
"Really?" Braeden clicked his tongue. When men were loyal to Tascilo, they were loyal. Then he remembered the human's last sentence. "Was, lieutenant? Surely they haven't all been killed by the Mandalorians."
"No one's been killed. I gave the men orders to leave after you sent us confirmation of a capture. They were needed elsewhere."
"Of course," Braeden said. "We can handle ourselves, can't we?"
"We'll begin securing a room in which to keep the prisoner," the lieutenant said, "and the general said that you will be in charge of the interrogation." He pointed to Shaak Ti, and she smiled. "You will be allowed to observe, but have no authority, and the rest of the Jedi will have to wait outside."
Shaak Ti frowned at the snub, but the lieutenant gave Braeden a look that said, "Politics...sigh..."
Braeden decided that he liked this human.
Shaak Ti turned her frown upon Braeden.
"There's something wrong with this conflict," he said firmly before she could speak, "and we are not killing anyone else until we know what it is."
Hua Quy Ling was used to silence. He was silent. His wife was even more silent. He'd spent a great deal of his life wishing for it—as a bodyguard to an emperor with a temper, silence meant he didn't have anything more to do, and he wasn't going to be punished.
Some silence was unbearable, though. Such as when all the queen's guards left her behind in a locked building with a bunch of enemies then sent on a rescue mission the two most reckless and least likely to succeed of the group. For instance.
In his current situation, he would welcome the silence that had meant probable safety and excruciating boredom as a guard. That sort of silence was dispelled by playing word games with oneself or by spinning one's sword on the ground when no one was paying attention. Or by imagining cruel emperors and heartless ninjas meeting a thousand gruesome deaths.
For instance.
This sort of silence devoured everything around it, a cloud of poisonous vapor spreading ever outward to vanquish everything around it. It sucked the life out of everything and everyone.
Except Rah Cai Yue, of course, whose vivacity, as usual, seemed amazingly resilient.
"I know this still isn't the time," he said, the first thing spoken since Lian and Lan had left, "but I have to know, Zhen."
Zhen rasped, "Know," then cleared his throat, and started again. "Know what?"
"Poisoning from afar. You said you couldn't do it at the tournament, but I've seen—"
"Cai Yue," said the general. "It is not the time."
"I know," the priest repeated harshly. "But if I talk about this then I won't have to think so much about how Ming is not here."
The two stared at each other for a few seconds, the general looking as though he was going to speak again. Then he looked down and twisted his hand like he was imagining spinning a sword.
"Like I was saying," Cai Yue continued, "you said you couldn't do it, Zhen, but you did when we disabled all those pirates' ships a few months ago."
"Yes, that is true," Zhen said. He glanced up once at Cai Yue, then quickly turned and looked at the wall, flushing.
"So he learned how to do it, Cai Yue," said Chen Yi. "It's nothing special. We've all learned a lot since we formed this group."
"But he didn't just say he couldn't do it," Cai Yue said. "He said 'of course not', as though the thought was absurd—as though to poison something from afar was impossible."
"Yes, I said that," Zhen said.
"So, explain," said Cai Yue.
"No," Zhen said.
"Why not?"
"I don't want to."
"Why not?"
"Why do I have to have a reason to not want to do something? Shouldn't not wanting to do it be enough?" Zhen looked around at everyone. No one spoke. "Sometimes you just don't want to do something for no reason, right?"
"Just tell him what he wants to know, Zhen," said the general, "or he'll never shut up."
Cai Yue glared at him again.
Zhen sighed. "I could poison people from afar even then. We were in front of a very large group of people who were frightened enough by everyone using elements that I didn't want them to know that I could kill them where they stood—sat."
"Zhen," said Yen Sa, "you do realize that almost all of us could do that then. Not me, of course, but, well, everyone else except for..."
"Well." Zhen faltered. "But. Poison is such a mysterious thing. It works completely unseen."
"So does air, Zhen," said Tempest. "And wind if nothing's blowing around."
"I just didn't want them to know," Zhen said. "Are you going to tell me I need a reason for that too?"
It was an interesting point—that Zhen was very strange—but nothing they didn't already know. No one even laughed. Silence regained control.
The minutes passed—the general still pretending to spin a sword, Tempest looking asleep, Vendetta looking stir-crazy, the others fidgeting in various other ways, Zhen still not meeting anyone's eyes—and still no one would state the obvious. They would instead let the silence oppress them into doing nothing rather than break its hold with an unpleasant truth.
Quy Ling spoke. "Lian and Lan are not coming back."
"A stealth mission takes time," Chen Yi said. "We have to give them time."
The general shook his head, then looked to Kei Sa.
She shook hers.
"Well," the general said. "Lan and Lian are not coming back."
Zhen looked at him, finally meeting his eyes, his own embarrassment overwhelmed by the corroboration.
"Lan and Lian have not rescued Ming, and they are likely dead."
Everyone shifted at the unpleasantness but the ninjas, who were highly trained in physical control, and Kei Sa, who had flawless physical control by nature. No one, however, was in any way surprised.
"But just because Lan and Lian are dead doesn't mean Ming is," the general said. "They likely did not even come close to finding her, knowing them. So we send another mission, and we send a properly thought out one this time."
"Stealth, I assume, is the key to this mission?" said Tempest.
"There's no other way," answered the general. "So you're my first choice, Tempest. Who do you recommend?"
Tempest didn't speak for a few seconds, giving the subject obvious thought. "Chen Yi is probably our best fighter, and he has the self-control necessary for stealth. I would take Lieutenant Nai, but I don't think laser bolts will do any good."
"Who else?"
"You need me to work the doors," Yen Sa said. "They're operated by light."
"Tempest?" asked the general.
"Yes."
"Let me go," said Cai Yue.
"Cai Yue," the general said softly, "we shouldn't let emotions affect our choices here. We have to be very cautious and deliberate."
"I was excellent on the last mission—the one to destroy the ships? Gravity is great for this sort of thing."
"He was a great asset," said Tempest. Before the general could protest again, Tempest added, "We shouldn't take more than four."
"So he gets to go and I don't?"
"You have to stay with the people. You're absolutely in charge now. And we really shouldn't take more than four."
The general swallowed, then nodded. "Well, good luck then. Be careful."
Quy Ling nodded. This group had a chance.
When he left the ship, the first thing Tieh Chen Yi noticed was that all the soldiers who had been surrounding the building had left. He had completely forgotten about them in the panic after the attack—just as he had forgotten about Ming. He felt ridiculous and green for having completely lost his head, but the fact that all of them had made him feel slightly better.
They were still out of sight of the building, so he decided he could whisper.
"Were the soldiers still here when we left the building?"
"I don't know," answered Rah Cai Yue.
"They couldn't have been," said Yen Sa. "We would've noticed if they were."
"Considering none of us noticed that the queen had not managed to leave the building," Tempest said, "I don't think we can trust that the soldiers weren't there just because we didn't notice them."
"Don't look at me," said Cai Yue. "I'm the one who was concussed."
"I forgot about that when I picked you," muttered Tempest.
"Well, thank you for your confidence," said Cai Yue.
"But if the soldiers were there, why wouldn't they have stopped us?" said Yen Sa. "You said they were here to keep us from leaving, Tempest."
"I said they were here to keep us here until something else arrived," he answered. "So if they didn't keep us here, that something else obviously arrived."
They approached the building. It was unguarded now that the soldiers had left.
"What if it wasn't until something else arrived?" said Chen Yi. "What if it was until they had captured someone?"
"They have our queen," said Cai Yue bitterly, "and they know it."
"Do you think there's someone behind this door waiting to kill us?" said Yen Sa.
"This building has a lot of doors," Tempest said. "If I were them, I would guard the prisoner, not the doors. They have to know there's nothing we can do to take out the lot of them at once. We'd have done it when we were fighting them."
"Open it," said Chen Yi.
Yen Sa pried the cover off the controls by the door then studied the wires. A second later, the door slid open. The hallway was empty.
"This is some stealth mission," said Cai Yue, as they walked through the door.
Braeden Leer felt like beating his head on the table. He didn't know what strange world General Tascilo lived in if he expected a captive to answer questions without any sort of incentive to do so. Using any form of torture was completely out of the question, and they had no rewards to give her. The person asking the questions counted for next to nothing in the galaxy, and she had to know that. It was obvious he was no one of influence anywhere. He was an extremely talented soldier, but he was only a soldier.
The woman wouldn't have talked to the Supreme Chancellor if she'd had stacks of credits and Corusca gems waved in her face. Braeden wouldn't have.
But even Braeden would have said something, albeit something sardonic, after being asked "What is your name?" for the seventeenth time.
She was the most stubborn creature he had ever encountered—himself, Jedi Masters, and nxlfn pack animals included—and she had been glaring, arms and legs crossed, at the exact same spot on the table for the past half hour.
If she wouldn't even tell them something insignificant like her name—they had no information on her culture so they could gain nothing from it—how would they ever get answers to the more relevant questions, like where she was from or what her status in her culture was? Or how their ships traveled quickly; they didn't have hyperdrive. Why they even came. Why they fought. How their weapons worked and how they managed to have personal shields.
Shaak Ti couldn't even get the information straight from the woman's mind. The largest obstacle was that she thought in a language none of them could even begin to understand. The images Shaak Ti saw gave them no answers, either. A picture of her world, almost completely covered in ocean, with shockingly green islands didn't help them to determine where it was. They already knew their ships entered violet wormholes. What they needed to know was what they were and how they were made. The other images made no sense. Silver earrings and white makeup. A richly furnished room with a corner that seemed to waver.
"We know you understand us," the lieutenant said again. "What is your name?"
Quite the interrogation.
They wandered quietly through the building, Yen Sa carefully prying plates off the wall and getting so experienced with opening the doors that he was sometimes able to open them a crack so they could look in before they entered. Sometimes the doors snapped open and startled them with their speed. Yen Sa insisted that different wires did different things, and that they were sometimes in completely different places. Chen Yi wondered if perhaps they were just old and had different sensitivity in different places. They'd always had problems with the doors, after all. Not that he even began to understand how electronics worked.
They all agreed on places where they would store a prisoner if they had captured one, and headed to each in turn. The first three were empty. They'd been in the building for ten minutes and seen no one. Chen Yi began to wonder if the Jedi had taken the queen and left. From the pained looked on his face, Chen Yi imagined Cai Yue had begun to wonder also.
The fourth possibility was a tiny room on the side of a large room that they had used as a cafeteria. As they walked down the hall to the large room, Chen Yi shook his head.
This is some stealth mission, he mouthed deliberately, echoing Cai Yue's earlier comment. Tempest gave him a stern look. He continued so that his comment would not be inappropriate, mouthing, I think they might have already left.
Yen Sa had taken the panel off beside the door, and it opened a crack. As Yen Sa leaned forward to peer through the crack, it slammed open. Yen Sa tripped backward into Cai Yue in shock.
On the other side stood eight armed Jedi.
The lieutenant stood up and motioned for Braeden to follow him. They moved to the corner of the room.
"I don't think she's going to answer us," the lieutenant said.
Braeden raised his eyebrows. Maybe this human wasn't all that great.
"Well," he said, "if we worm one answer out of her, we want it to be the big one. Concentrate on that."
The lieutenant nodded sharply, and turned back to the table. He stood, staring at the Mandalorian. She did not look back. Taking a deep breath, the lieutenant said, "Listen to me. My next question is the most important in deciding how the Republic is going to deal with you and your people."
She did not move.
"How and why do you make your clones?"
She did not answer, but her expression changed completely. She moved her head to look more closely at the wall nearest the door, then began to smile.
Braeden sensed a new presence in the room—a strange gathering of energy unlike anything he'd ever encountered. It was completely silent.
The lieutenant followed her gaze, and his brow furrowed. "Strange," he said. "There's distortions along that wall. They remind me of heat waves in the desert."
He looked at Braeden.
Shaak Ti stood. "That's exactly—"
Metal clanged outside, and Braeden heard eight lightsabers ignite in quick succession. He stood up, heading for the door, and Shaak Ti joined him. Just before they reached it, they were slammed into it with stunning force.
Then came the table.