The Queen's Honor Guard
by Nyohah
V.
During all those months living on a ship, Ming thought she would be overjoyed to go outside again. She had planned to spend her first night outside, sleeping on the grass, under stars that she knew by heart—stars in which she could point out all her favorite constellations. She never thought she'd spend her first night huddled on a tiny bed in the forward room on the starboard side of a starship, with the sole window, a circle with a diameter smaller than the span of her hand, glowing yellow from the harsh light of an Edenian sunset.
But that was when there was a Mandalore. The irony of its being gone was that the sorrow caused her to need it all the more. But if she couldn't have Mandalore, she needed something familiar. And a tiny bed in the forward room on the starboard side of a starship, even if she didn't know whose room this had been, had become far more familiar than the plush and sparkling Edenian palace, gems in every room.
Kei Sa's letter lay on the rumpled bedding, the crispness of the parchment making it retain a flatness even amongst the folds. She had read eight words of it. Li Yuen Ming, my queen and my friend—
She couldn't get past those words. She had only had two friends in her life, two true friends, though so very different. Kei Sa had always been there to help her. Had Ming ever helped Kei Sa? Did she deserve to be considered a friend?
Li Yuen Ming, my queen and my friend—
Kei Sa certainly didn't care, but Kei Sa had been raised to never think of herself. And somewhere along the line, Cai Yue had learned not to. Ming had never learned; had Kei Sa ever cared how selfish she was?
She forced herself to read the next word, and whereas the salutation had thrown her backward, Kei Sa's resignation pulled her in.
I hope against hope that you will never receive this letter, that the parade will go as planned and I shall burn this letter when we return to our home, to our people. I fear it shall not be so. My dreams tell me it shall not be so.
Ming, I shall protect you at cost of anything, not because I have pledged to do so, but because you have been a part of my life since the time that I feel my life began, and you have always treated me with kindness and with love. I feel I love you as much as I love anyone and as much as anyone loves you, but I feel I also know you as well as anyone knows you.
Do not blame yourself for what evil has done to you. To linger in your guilt is a weakness, and you have proven yourself so very strong.
Ming, I beg you to remember the duality in your nature, the duality that has haunted you for your entire life. You have learned to juggle well; I pray you don't forget how to be yourself if the world you know vanishes.
You are the ruler of Mandalore, but you are more than a ruler. You are the symbol of Mandalore every bit as much as the dragon. But you are more than just a symbol. You are Mandalore. When people look at you, they see our entire people. I am not only writing of those who are not Mandalorian. I speak also of our own people. When you are strong, we see ourselves as strong, and we are strong. When you are weak, we are weak. I know you despise this, but it is true.
But, Ming, I know you are not only our ruler. You are a woman. You must also balance yourself, your husband, and your child. I know you find this distasteful as well, but it is who you are, and you cannot escape it. You are not allowed the luxury of thinking only of yourself as men are, and you are not allowed the luxury of thinking only of yourself as common people are.
Please, Ming, I've previewed the horror to come, but I beg you, stay strong, and stay sensitive. And please, watch after my girls. I feel they are special.
Your ever-loving servant and friend, Hua Kei Sa.
Ming picked the letter up and folded it carefully, creasing it only when she had lined the corners up perfectly, then rubbing her thumbnail along the crease to flatten it. She picked a hard-bound book off the compartment's shelves and placed the letter inside. She slammed the book shut and rubbed her thumb along the spine. Navigation and the Fifth Dimension: Avoiding Disorientation in a Worm Hole. So this had been the pilot's compartment.
On a shelf under the window was a bowl of water. She dipped her hands into it and gently washed them, even Edenia's sun not transmitting warmth through the thick glass. Or rather, not glass. She wasn't sure what it was, but it had never been glass.
She pulled her hands out of the water and reached for a towel. When she turned back to the window, the light had turned blood red. She dropped the towel when the floor began to shake beneath her.
Tieh Chen Yi stood in front of the palace, staring at the sky in horror as it faded from red to indigo. The wind picked up, and the ground began to tremble, and people came running from everywhere.
He thought he had seen chaos before. Some of the markets on the planets the Mandalorians had visited had been chaotic. Some of the wrecks of their colonies, the parade. He had thought they were chaos.
This was chaos. Edenian soldiers ran out of the palace. Kitsune guards ran into the palace. Civilians ran to their homes, to the now-emptied barracks to try to fetch the army, to the palace, to the sole Mandalorian ship that was overflow from the shipyards into the area beyond the courtyard.
And that was before the armies came, falling from an enormous rift in the sky, the ugly cousin of Cai Yue's portal. Ugly behemoth cousin.
He recognized the soldiers at once as those of Shao Kahn: mutants, Shokans, now even Centaurions, all dressed in ragged armor that varied from clan to clan. They had fought off invasions just like this one before. The Mandalorians and the Vyrenchi.
Neither were here to protect Edenia. Edenia was going to fall.
Tieh Chen Yi raised his left hand and ignited his dark yellow light weapons.
"We have time, yet," General Li suddenly shouted from behind him.
Chen Yi whirled. "What, General?" he yelled back, the wind gusting in his ears and lightning cracking above him.
"The portal is distant. We won't have to fight for a while yet. We need to organize ourselves."
"Organize ourselves for fighting," Chen Yi said flatly, disbelieving.
"No, organize ourselves for running," the general replied.
"We're running?" Zhen Feng Qui asked as he ran up to them.
"Yes, of course," the general answered.
"Oh, good," Zhen said.
"This look like a good place for a portal?" Rah Cai Yue asked as he joined them.
"Good as any," the general said. "Get to work."
Rah Cai Yue closed his eyes, and they made a circle around him. Hua Quy Ling and Yen Sa arrived from opposite directions, and took their places around the circle.
"A portal?" asked Yen Sa. "Where to?"
"Earth," the general. "It's protected from Kahn."
"Mortal Kombat," Hua Quy Ling said. "He has to win a tournament."
"Well, why didn't they do that here?" Zhen asked. "I'm good at tournaments."
"Quickly, now," the general said quietly, rubbing his hands together. "The portal won't be done before the armies get here. That means our priority is protecting Cai Yue. We also need someplace to gather people to keep them safe until—"
"We need our children," Quy Ling said.
The general's mouth hung open, and he blinked. "Our children. I'd completely—"
"You haven't had one around like I have," Quy Ling reassured him.
"Okay, we'll go get our children—"
"I'll come, too," Zhen said.
The general nodded. "We three will go. You two—" he pointed at Chen Yi and Yen Sa, "—protect Rah Cai Yue." He stopped and took a deep breath. "But we still need somewhere to keep people safe. Somewhere very well protected, so they don't get slaughtered while they're waiting on the portal."
"If we set up a base somewhere, that line from the base to the portal is going to be a focus for attack," Chen Yi said. "It'll be like a slaughterhouse. Unless we can pick up our base and push it through the portal—"
They all turned to look at the ship. The queen was slowly descending the ramp, looking worse, if that was possible.
"Ming, get back in the ship!" the general yelled. "Now!" She obeyed, and the honor guard reformed its circle.
"Everyone clear?" asked the general.
They nodded.
"Let's go."
Hua Quy Ling and the general sprinted toward the palace. Zhen took a few steps, then turned back around.
"Yen Sa," he said, ignited his light spear. "Just in case I never see you again, I really like these weapons you made us." He turned and took a few more steps, then turned back around. "Just thought you should know."
With his long strides, it didn't take him long to catch up to the general and Hua Quy Ling.
Chen Yi watched them enter the palace, then turned to Yen Sa and nodded.
"You ready for this?" Yen Sa asked.
"No," Chen Yi said. "I just meant I like these weapons, too."
"Oh." Yen Sa swallowed and turned away.
As he watched the fighting grow closer, Yen Sa was reminded of the last battle they had fought before leaving to save the colonists. It was somewhat fitting, the first battle after so closely resembling the last battle before so that it seemed things had stopped while they were away and waited for them to come back to pick them up again.
But things hadn't stopped. They moved forward, irreversibly. And the battle only seemed nearly identical from afar. There were Edenians in the place of Mandalorians, and the Centaurions fought alongside the Shokans and mutants.
And they were going to lose.
Yen Sa didn't feel like fighting. If anything came near the portal, he would have to. It was their only hope of survival. But things had changed so completely that he felt he had been cracked and would have to be remolded.
He heard a shout, and saw Vendetta run toward him. Vendetta hadn't bothered to remold himself after the death of Emperor Yuen, and he'd always seemed to not quite fit as a result. Possibly he was made of something harder than Yen Sa—something brittle that couldn't change its shape without shattering or being chipped away. Granite.
Yen Sa felt more like putty.
And he didn't feel like fighting.
"What a horror," Vendetta said, as he reached Yen Sa, glancing to Cai Yue, whose eyes were shut and who was sweating, and to the burgeoning portal, the dark energy steadily pulsing and collapsing, but gaining a little size each time. It would only be a matter of minutes, and then the exodus would begin. Or, at least, he hoped enough people would escape for it to be considered an exodus.
Yen Sa began to nod, but he froze, seeing, of all things, children. Lost children. A small Edenian girl was crying as soldiers rushed past furiously, and a little beyond her, an older Edenian boy, but still far too young to fight, clutched a box and looked around for someplace to go.
"Children," he said, feeling stupid immediately afterward that he hadn't thought of it before. He turned to Vendetta sharply. "Take my place here," he said. "Guard the portal, while I get the children. Direct anyone who comes here into the ship to wait for the portal."
"Absolutely," Vendetta said, but Yen Sa barely heard him as he headed for the girl. He ran to her and knelt down.
"Come with me," he said.
She babbled back at him. She only spoke Edenian.
He picked her up, and, surprisingly, she didn't struggle, as though even a stranger taking her couldn't be worse than standing alone in the chaos.
The boy was quite a ways from him, moving away from him. Yen Sa shouted at him, but he was not surprised when the boy didn't turn. Who could discern one yell from another? He began to walk toward the boy, noticing that the battle was fast approaching.
The boy moved toward an arch. Yen Sa guessed he was trying to find shelter any way he could. Yen Sa shouted at him again, and this time, the boy moved. He jumped backward, and then he fell, motionless.
Yen Sa stumbled backward and nearly dropped the girl. As he regained his balance, he noticed the shadows continued to move after he stopped, then quickly settled.
The ships engines fired behind him. He turned and ran as well as he could with the girl's weight bouncing against him. As he passed a side entrance to the palace, an Edenian boy stepped into the doorway. Yen Sa ran toward him and grabbed his hand.
The ship was through the portal before he got back to it. The ship was through, and the queen was safe. Apparently someone with at least rudimentary flying skills had made his way aboard.
Yen Sa hesitated in front of the portal. Vendetta nodded at him. Cai Yue was still, his fists clenched so his knuckles whitened.
"I'll be back," Yen Sa said, then picked up the boy and stepped through the portal.
Its force flung him to the ground in the middle of a field. He stumbled but kept his balance.
The ship was landing a short way from the portal. Yen Sa set the children down to the side.
"Stay here," he said, in the best Edenian he could muster, which wasn't very good. "Safe here." He pointed to the portal. "No touch."
They nodded at him, wide-eyed, and he jumped back through the portal. It was much easier to keep his balance on exit without extra weight making him top-heavy. He ran past Vendetta. There had to be more children.
But he couldn't see any. He whirled around, scouting, but he couldn't see anything. Any children out in the open were in more danger, but maybe there were no more. Maybe they were all inside. And even children inside would have no hope when Shao Kahn completed taking over the planet. He started for the courtyard of the palace.
He almost tripped over her.
At least, he guessed it was a her, from the ribbons tied in what little hair she had. A fat, healthy baby, lying in a bassinet in the middle of an empty courtyard. A fat, healthy, Mandalorian baby.
He picked up the bassinet, and she smiled at him. And with screams and the clang of swords becoming ever louder from the west, Yen Sa smiled back at her.
Rushing back to the portal, he saw the first mutant break through a fast-decreasing row of Edenian soldiers. Vendetta swung his sword—a metal one—in an upward arc, and Yen Sa was through the portal.
He landed wrong, so he twisted himself so he would land on his back, the bassinet on top of him. He wrenched his ankle and lay on the ground, hissing in pain with every breath in and out. The baby cooed as her bassinet moved up and down in time with his hissing.
The bassinet rose off his chest suddenly, and Yen Sa opened his eyes to see the queen setting it gently on the ground. He sat up, and pushed himself to his feet. He tried to hobble to the portal, but the queen spoke for the first time he'd heard since their arrival on Edenia, and he knew she was right.
"No."
The atrium of the Edenian palace was empty and silent. Compared to the Edenian heat outside, it even seemed chilly. A precursor of the ghost world that was to come, Hua Quy Ling thought.
The change was so abrupt that all three of them stopped just after they entered. Despite Zhen's having been raised in the self-proclaimed more culturally advanced city, Quy had always thought he was a little more superstitious than most, so he was surprised when Zhen stepped forward first.
"Well," he said.
Neither Quy nor the general moved.
"Let's get these children and get out of here," Zhen said. "I just want to be out of this place." He turned toward the staircase and started up it. "I want to be through with this."
"Agreed," Quy said, and followed him. When he heard the general's footsteps join him on the stairs, echoing, they all began to run.
He didn't think they had much time to spare. The palace was the prime target. It had to be. And it couldn't be as empty as it seemed. Lots of people had run out. But lots of people must have locked themselves in their rooms, as well.
He didn't know where the rulers were. In their throne room? In the royal quarters? On the field?
It didn't really matter.
The nursery was only on the second floor of five, but it was far to the back, as far from the portal as it could have been. Quy knew the way, though. He had spent most of his time since landing there.
The halls were empty, but, as he had suspected, a nurse was hiding in the nursery with the children. The door had no lock. She looked as frightened as they did.
His older daughter Tung, three years old with his round face, ran toward him immediately. He picked her up, then walked over to Ching's cradle.
"Come here, Zhen," he said. He handed Tung to him, then reached into Ching's cradle. She began to cry.
The general picked up his son and nodded toward the door. Quy found that it was much harder to run while holding a child, but the halls were still empty.
They made it all the way to the atrium again before they saw anyone, and then they met exactly what Quy had been fearing. Four mutants filed in the entrance. Scouts.
They froze. Quy glanced around but saw nowhere to put the children. He looked back at the mutants. They slid out their blades.
Zhen tapped him on the shoulder. Quy turned to him and found Tung being pushed at him. He shifted Ching into his left arm, glad that she was small and he was fairly large. He grabbed Tung around her legs so she could hold onto his neck.
"Let me take this," Zhen said. "You go out the side."
Quy adjusted Tung and stared at him. Zhen lit his light weapons and stepped forward.
"You'd better hurry," he said.
Quy found that he couldn't run at all carrying both the children. He had to settle for walking very quickly so as not to drop one of them, and it was only then that he realized he and the general had left Zhen and were out in the courtyard
The courtyard was not empty either. Three horses were tied off to one side. And a larger group of mutants stood between them and the portal, at the boundary of the courtyard.
"This way," the general said, and headed for the horses. He mounted the grey one, pulling his son in front of him. Quy stopped next to one of the other two horses and glanced back at the mutants, who were advancing.
"Put Tung on my horse," the general said. He looked down at his son as Quy gently set Ching on the ground and lifted Tung onto the horse. "Hold on to her tightly, Nei Jen," he said.
Quy picked Ching up and struggled his way onto the horse's back. The general drew his sword and slashed the ropes tying the horses to a post. He grabbed the rope to the unmanned horse and kicked his forward, plowing his way through the line of mutants. Quy, the less experienced rider, followed in his wake.
As they galloped their horses out of the courtyard and past the entrance to the palace, Quy heard the victory cry of a mutant.
Rah Cai Yue could feel the battle nearing. He could also hear it nearing, as he could begin to pick out individual sounds in the cacophony—he could hear almost everything in the nearest individual fight to him if he concentrated. But he didn't have much left to concentrate with, drained as he was by maintaining the portal.
But he could listen to the sounds gently, and he was almost sure that he would know when the battle was close enough that he would have to open his eyes. Either way, Yen Sa—no, Yen Sa wasn't here anymore. Tieh Chen Yi—but he hadn't heard him in a long time. Only Vendetta was left. But Vendetta would let him know.
After an indeterminable time—not that he was bad with time; it was just that creating a rift in the space-time continuum messed things up a little and gave him an overall woozy feeling—he heard hooves running toward him. His first thought was the Centaurions, but the hoof-beats were much too quick and light.
He opened his eyes to see Li Wei Yong with two children in front of him on one horse, leading another, running toward him. Hua Quy Ling was on another horse with his baby, just behind. They galloped up to the front of the portal, and Cai Yue squinted at them. The general looked down at him, staring so long and hard that Cai Yue got the feeling he was searching for something in Cai Yue's face. Cai Yue nodded, and it must have been enough for the general, because he kicked his horse forward into the portal. Hua Quy Ling, clutching his baby protectively, didn't hesitate to follow.
Cai Yue looked out at the battle. It was still remarkably far away. Possibly it wouldn't even get to him before Kahn took over entirely. He wondered how he would know so that he could go through the portal before it happened. If Kei Sa had been there, their combined concentration could have sustained the portal even on the trip through. Without her, Cai Yue didn't want to risk it. If the flow of people through the portal ever stopped, he would jump right through, but just as he thought no one else was coming, someone else approached. At first it had been all civilians. A few Edenian soldiers had gone through. More recently, it was Kitsune guards, seeing that they could do no more and thinking of their own survival. Cai Yue didn't blame them. There was nothing to do—nothing to do but keep the portal open.
He was watching another Kitsune guard approach, her two fur-wrapped braids slapping against her shoulders, when he saw a shadow in the distance shift.
He knew he wasn't thinking very clearly, but he knew that shadows weren't supposed to move on their own. His stomach started to twist.
"Vendetta!" he called.
The ninja slit a mutant's throat and jogged back to Cai Yue.
"Get out of here," he said.
Vendetta didn't answer.
"There's something out there," he said, pointing to the shadow.
Vendetta looked in its direction for a few seconds. Either he decided to believe Cai Yue, which Cai Yue didn't think was very likely, or he saw the shadow, too, because he jumped through the portal immediately.
Standing alone by his portal, Cai Yue knew he was tiring, because time kept shifting on him. He watched the shadow approach in jerks of motion that were too improbable to be anything but the effect of the portal. He reached over his shoulder to pull out his sword, his real sword because he was much too tired to manage a light sword, and found himself unable to do it. He was stuck in slow motion, but luckily for him, so was everything else. Nice of it to work that way.
Suddenly his sword was out in a burst of increased speed that brought the shadow up to his face. It had solid form, which he never would have guessed. It brought up a sword, as black as its clothes and skin, and Cai Yue swung his around to deflect it, stuck once again in slowed time, but his wrist was trembling, and his sword flew out of his hand. He watched it spiral, silver on the deepest purple, before time spurted forward again long enough for ice-cold metal to suddenly be in Cai Yue's stomach.
The portal closed, and real time started again for Rah Cai Yue. Four minutes passed.
The Mandalorian ship was emptied, and a crowd of survivors had gathered to watch for their loved ones to come through the portal. Some—the ones Yen Sa assumed had most of their closest family sitting next to them—sat in the grass, staring at the portal calmly. Either they were very patient or in shock. Any time a loved one came through the portal, the family of that person came running to the front to cover him in kisses and tears. The Kitsune who comprised most of the recent escapees were met only with stoic greetings from the Kitsune already present.
The two Edenian children, to Yen Sa's great relief, were snatched up almost immediately by their families. He guessed they had just gotten lost in the journey.
But he couldn't find anyone who knew whose baby he had rescued. He carried the bassinet around the crowd, but no one knew anything about her.
He heard horse's hooves and turn around to see the general and Hua Quy Ling on horseback, with all three of their children, and an extra horse. The queen rushed forward to greet them.
He approached a young-looking Mandalorian woman he thought he recognized from the Mandalorian palace a long time ago.
"Hello," he said.
She looked up at him.
"I was wondering if perhaps this was your child." He lowered the bassinet so that she could look in. She didn't.
"Don't you know who I am?" she said. Without waiting for his reply, she continued, "I am Hsu Lin. You would know if I had a baby."
Who?
"Besides," she said. "I am not even married."
Well, he couldn't imagine why not. He turned away and started walking back to the other side of the crowd. He approached the queen. She was arguing with her husband over his having taken the time to rescue the horses. He claimed that they needed them to get away from some mutants. She pointed out that he didn't need the third one.
Yen Sa shook his head and sat down. He adjusted the baby's blankets and felt something hard underneath them. It was a book. The story of Mulan. He smiled down at her.
He raised it up and looked at the queen. The spread of such feminist literature among the Mandalorians was most likely her influence after all. It might make her smile for a few seconds, which would be a few seconds more than she had since the disaster on Coruscant.
Something silver glinted in the corner of his eye, and he glanced over quickly to see a sword fly out of the portal. It landed hilt first and slid on the slick grass, stopping just in front of the queen's feet.
It was Rah Cai Yue's sword.
The queen was sobbing by the time the portal closed, two seconds later.
It was over.
Yen Sa looked around. He saw about a hundred Edenians, about twenty of whom were Kitsune. There were also fifty or so Mandalorians.
Five honor guard, including himself. Li Yuen Ming, Li Wei Yong, Hua Quy Ling, Vendetta, and Yen Sa.
So that was it. It was the second time Yen Sa's life had been reset. The first had been a tragedy for only two people—the slain—and had allowed him to reach a much better place. The second was a tragedy for two entire planets. His challenge was to let it take him to yet another better place.
Yen Sa put the story of Mulan back in the bassinet. 'Mulan' would be a nice name for the girl.
The ship that Braeden Leer was on smelled like vomit, and the engine clanked irregularly. He sat in a sticky seat, trying to ignore the engine noises, and stared at the glowing stone he held in his hand, thinking of the luck of the man who had given it to him to have left when he did.
Had the ship's pilots been clean and young, he wouldn't have trusted it. But its pilots resembled the ship, and so he assumed that they also knew it well—its limitations as well as its capabilities. And they claimed their ship would take them all the way to the Unknown Regions without a single problem.
They were pirates, of course, running to escape the change of government just as Braeden was. They'd had a niche in the system of the Old Republic, one of those little nuances in the balance that could never be completely wiped out or the whole system would collapse.
The whole system had collapsed now, and new one had risen in its place. A system with zero tolerance for much of anything except following its orders, let alone piracy.
It had happened almost immediately after the Mandalorians left. Palpatine had declared the Republic an Empire, and himself Emperor, proving that the bad vibes Braeden had always gotten off of Palpatine weren't just creepy politician vibes after all. It was a good disguise for an evil man.
What was strangest about everything was the lack of chaos. The overthrow—one of the system rather than the leader—had occurred almost overnight. The next morning, those not in favor were struggling to try to figure out what they should do about it, many of them struggling to take it in after finding themselves suddenly in jail cells.
Tascilo was probably doing something stupid, taking all his loyal men to death along with him.
Braeden had preferred to leave. It had made his galaxy into a place he liked even less, which he hadn't really thought possible. His teachers on Calyaar had always said there wasn't a bottom to hit—if you went low, you could always go lower.
The Republic had gone lower before it fell. There wasn't much that hadn't been corrupted—military, senate, leader, Jedi even. Anakin Skywalker, who had been the most controversial Jedi since Braeden Leer, had surpassed Braeden when he had killed the leader of the Mandalorian Supercommandoes and proceeded to join Emperor Palpatine as some sort of second-in-command. Braeden didn't think the Jedi Council itself had actually been corrupt, but it didn't raise his opinion of them any.
Palpatine had been scheming for years. He had his followers stationed in all the positions that mattered, and the change in government had meant different titles and a new rulebook and not much else at the center. The ripples were beginning to distort things beyond belief.
So Braeden was leaving. He hoped to find a civilization worth existing in.
He tossed the glowing crystal—the sunstone—into the air, thinking that the Mandalorian civilization hadn't seemed quite as bad as the Republic. It was almost a pity they didn't actually exist in his galaxy's Unknown Regions, and he didn't know how to get to their planet.
He tossed the stone again, and it stopped glowing.
He forgot to catch it.
He should have known. Home was not always a haven. He knew that as well as anyone.
And luck? There was no such thing as luck.
He hoped, at the very least, that the Mandalorians found someplace to settle, to rebuild. He doubted that he ever would.