The Galactic Empress' Bodyguard

by Ben Harrington

  Oh yeah, time for beer number right.

  "I don't know what you want me to say," Colton growled, after finishing off the bottle. "I'm sorry for stopping a robbery? For saving lives?"

  "But you didn't save lives, did you? A man's dead. Another man's dying."

  "I have the right to defend myself."

  Weyland stood, stepped closer to Colton, so close he could smell the tobacco on his breath. It made him antsy. Antsy and angry.

  "You have siblings, Captain?" he asked. "Younger siblings?"

  "Only child," said Colton.

  "Well I have siblings. Little brother. Irritating piece of shit. When we were kids, he'd just follow me around, gettin' in my way, messin' up my fun, y'know?"

  Colton waited for the point.

  "And he'd push me too far, now and then. Really get my goat. So whack! I'd clip him one. Set him straight, right? And my ma, she says to me: ‘You never hit your baby brother, ‘cause you ain't an even match'. You ain't an even match."

  He looked around the house. It was pretty bare. Pretty wretched.

  "They made you into a weapon, Captain. They trained you to kill, and part of that bargain is you swore an oath to use it for good, not for evil."

  "And two thugs robbing a store aren't evil?"

  "Two thugs robbing a store are like ants to you. You can snuff ‘em out without even trying. And you did. And it's wrong." He leaned in close. "And I think you know it, too."

  Colton's face was ice cold. "You're going to want to take a step back there, Marshal."

  Weyland grinned. "Or else what?"

  "Or else I might spill beer on you. Ruin your shoes."

  Weyland smiled, nodded, stepped away. "Alright, Captain. Alright. You keep that charm of yours. You're gonna need it on the witness stand." He snapped his fingers, and Hoben hopped up and after him like a well-trained dog.

  They paused at the door, as the thunder roared and the wind howled, and Weyland said: "You think you're special, but you're not. You're just another thug who danced in the fire. And now you're gonna get burned."

  They left, slamming the door behind them.

  Colton thought about what they said.

  Thought about what it meant.

  "Who the fuck dances in fire?" he asked, and found another beer.

  4

  Gary was a bear of a man who could bench an F150 on a bad day... but he was a lousy actor. So when he said: "Oh, sorry, man. We're all full up," Colton knew it was utter bullshit.

  "Bullshit," he said, but kept a smile on his face to make it friendly. "You're never full up."

  Gary set the bookcase down next to his pickup, and tried another approach: "No, you're right. But a client stiffed us on a big move, and I wouldn't want to pass that trouble on to—"

  "Gary," said Colton very, very seriously, "what's going on?"

  Gary checked over his shoulder like he was afraid of the boogey-man. He shuffled his massive feet a little closer. "Are you in trouble?"

  Colton sighed. "No, I'm not in trouble."

  "But I heard you executed six people in—"

  "For fuck's sake," Colton said. "No, I did not execute six people. Or four people, or even two. I stopped an armed robbery—"

  "By killing people?"

  There was no getting around it. He couldn't lie — it would come back and bite him in the ass later. So all he was left with was a tainted truth that nobody would bother to understand. So instead of answering, he pivoted the conversation: "I just really need a job, Gary," he said, dripping sincerity.

  Gary was cracking. Gary was a good guy, despite looking like an oversized Viking warrior who routinely killed wolves with his bare hands, just for shits and giggles. Gary was going to say yes.

  Colton helped him along: "You know I can help. I carried heavier gear for miles over there. I've got my own truck, I can work evenings and weekends, and—"

  Colton couldn't help but notice Gary had stopped listening. He was looking at something across the street. Something moving. Colton followed the gaze, and... it was Marshal Weyland. Driving along, making direct eye contact with Gary, making it very clear he was unhappy.

  Colton sighed. "You know what? Never mind. I'll figure something else out."

  Gary didn't even hear him.

  * * *

  "I can cook," he said.

  "You can't cook," said Chelsea, wiping another glass.

  "I have cooked."

  "Doubtful."

  "I can learn."

  She leaned in close — God damn that never got old — and gave him her best "fuck off and die" expression. "US Marshal's been askin' about you."

  Colton grumbled into his beer. "I heard."

  "You never said you stalked the guy you killed."

  "Stalked?"

  Chelsea started wiping down the bar, keeping a wary eye on him. "I can't believe I almost fucked you. No wonder you couldn't get it up."

  He got to his feet at once: "Excuse me! I most certainly can—" He noticed how the bar had gone very quiet, and how everyone was looking at him, and how everyone seemed very scared of what he might do.

  He let out a long, cleansing breath. Smiled at Chelsea. Gave her a mock-salute. "Fuck you and your shitty beer," he said, and finished the glass anyway. "Fuck you all."

  As he left, he heard her call: "As if you could!" and he worked real hard not to punch a hole in the door.

  * * *

  It was a shitty river, but it was all they had. Colton had been coming here since he was a kid. Back then, it was the place to go for a forbidden swim — his parents never let up about how forbidden it was.

  It wasn't until he was a teenager trying to skinny dip with Maisie Lewis that he found out swimming was forbidden because the town ten miles upstream dumped their sewage into the river. It was a wonder he hadn't grown a second head.

  So yeah, it was literally a shitty river, and he had shitty beer, and he was listening to shitty music on a radio with shitty reception... which pretty much suited his day just fine.

  "Beautiful country," said a voice from behind, and Colton half-turned to see a slim figure with a coal-black suit and a very wide mouth standing beside his truck.

  Colton went back to his beer like nobody said nothing.

  "Captain Shaw," said the man, unfazed. "I am here—"

  "You're here to bust my balls," said Colton. "To rewrite history so somehow what I did at the gas station makes me worse than Hitler. Well no thanks. You can fuck the fuck off."

  The man said nothing for a moment. Then he stepped closer, carefully, on the uneven terrain. "What you did at the gas station is what brought me here," he said. "But not for the reasons you surmise. My name is Taka Deo'ta, senior advisor to—"

  "Don't care, go away," said Colton, finished his beer, and threw the can over his shoulder so it very nearly hit Mr Deo'ta in the head.

  That made things awkward, but not impossible.

  "I would like to offer you a job," said Deo'ta. "A job I feel you are inordinately qualified for."

  "Not interested," said Colton.

  "But you just spent your entire day trying to—"

  Colton stood, shoulders square and eyes narrow to make it clear he meant business. Deo'ta was taller than him, but still looked tiny by comparison.

  "I don't work for suits like you," he growled. "I don't care how desperate I get, there's no fucking way I will ever eat what you're shovelling."

  Deo'ta nodded slightly, maybe accepting the answer, maybe just afraid to argue. He gave a slight bow and turned to leave... but before he did, he held out a business card.

  "If you change your mind..." he said.

  Colton spat at his feet.

  Deo'ta put the card in Colton's jacket pocket anyway, and started the long walk back into town. With no car in sight. Jesus.
What a freak.

  Colton went back to his shitty river. He cracked open another shitty beer, thought about his shitty day, and stayed out in the open to watch a shockingly un-shitty sunset.

  5

  The pounding on the door was so intense, Colton's half-awake brain thought he was back in Afghanistan again, under fire. He jerked out of bed, reached for his weapon — but realized it wasn't there. He tried to shake out the confusion, but before he made much headway, the pounding started again.

  He stumbled to the door in his boxers, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and yanked the door open to find none other than his best friend Marshal Weyland, and Deputy Hoben, and a few other officers with their guns drawn and flashlights out.

  "It's two in the fucking morning," he slurred, trying not to get blinded.

  "Colton Shaw, you are under arrest," said Weyland.

  "Fuck off," he said, and slammed the door.

  The pounding started again. Colton tried to shake off the hangover he was very suddenly feeling, but it was an uphill battle.

  He grabbed his bloodied jacket off the hook by the door, slung it on, and with no time to find pants (boxers and jackets are all the rage in NYC anyway) he opened the door again.

  "Captain Shaw..."

  "Listen, I'll take one box of chocolate, one of vanilla, but none of those fucking mint cookies." He squinted at Weyland. "You're the ugliest Girl Guide I've ever seen."

  That earned him some over-tight cuffs and an "accidental" collision with the side of the police car.

  * * *

  Interrogation tactics 101: keep your subject off-balance. So there Colton was, wearing nothing but boxers and a light jacket, sitting cuffed to a metal chair in a police station where the air conditioning was cranked all the way up — in the dead of night.

  Unlucky for them, Colton had endured hypothermia in the deserts of Afghanistan — twice! — so this was a fucking walk in the park.

  When Weyland finally returned after four hours, Colton was shivering, but his anger kept him from feeling cold.

  "Want some ice water?" asked Weyland, and Colton just smiled.

  "Let me ask you something," said Colton. "How is this worth the time and effort you're spending on it? I mean, you bring this to trial, and no jury's going to convict me for—"

  "Quincy County," said Weyland, and Colton froze.

  Quincy County. The leftest of all the left-learning counties in the whole fucking state. Famous for a (failed) class action lawsuit to keep the military from shipping soldiers home after seeing combat — on account of the public safety hazard they might pose.

  Quincy County was a death sentence for Colton. Well, not an actual death sentence, of course, but definitely not good.

  "There's no way—"

  "The man you shot? The one who lost a leg this morning? Yeah, he's from Quincy. Family's there. Long way back. The judge agreed to transfer the case on account of it being easier for his family to attend."

  Colton's jaw clicked. He tried to size up his opponent, find another way through.

  "What's this all about, really?" he asked. "A promotion? A quota? Someone upstairs on your ass for a big kill?"

  Weyland grinned. "You don't remember me, do you?"

  Colton squinted real hard. "Wait... are you that shit I took last week? After the burritos? Jesus, I knew you smelled familiar."

  A laugh. A cruel laugh. "You tripped me," said Weyland. "Back in the day. I was on track to being a Marine, and you... you tripped me on the obstacle course. Ruined my chances. Made me wash out."

  Colton couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around what he was hearing. "I... what? When did I... why did you..." He shook his head to see if it helped, but no. "Are you fucking high?

  "When your name came across my screen, I had to be sure it was you. I couldn't believe it, because..." He smiled. "Because suddenly, I have the opportunity to even the score."

  "Whoa, hold on. You do not fuck with somebody's life over some stupid—"

  "You fucked with my life!" shouted Weyland. "You took everything from me, and now I will take everything from you."

  He slammed the door so hard when he left, Colton felt it in his teeth.

  He sat there another four hours, shivering in the cold, imagining Quincy County in all its elitist glory, and felt like he was going to vomit.

  At the end of the four hours, Deputy Hoben came in with a cup of coffee and an apologetic face. He took the cuffs off, wrapped a blanket around Colton.

  "Sorry ‘bout all this," he said, nodding to himself like he'd make everything OK with that apology. "Things'll pick up once you get to Quincy."

  Colton tried not to laugh. "Yeah," he said. "Pick up."

  Hoben got ready to leave, but paused and said: "You don't want me to... call you a lawyer, do you?"

  Colton sighed. He didn't know any lawyers, and definitely couldn't afford one. And the local ones would get eaten alive by the Quincy DA, so—

  But then something tweaked in his memory. He pulled Mr Deo'ta's card from his jacket pocket, and handed it over to Hoben.

  "Deo...ta?" read the deputy.

  "Let's hope he earned that suit."

  6

  The prison transport was due to arrive in fifteen minutes, and Colton still hadn't heard a thing about Deo'ta. Worse, his bail hearing had been fast-tracked by the judge in Quincy, and was going to start about a half hour after he arrived — apparently his case was already big news there.

  Every time Marshal Weyland walked past his cell, Colton got the unmistakable feeling of a lamb being led to the slaughter. It was way less fun than the expression implied, and the expression implied a fucking slaughter.

  "Anything?" he asked Hoben, as the deputy passed by.

  Hoben just shook his head.

  They had him in a prison jumpsuit now, with a proper prisoner ID number on it. He had a great memory for numbers — he could tell you the ID for every soldier in any of his units, ever — but this was not one he wanted to memorize. He wanted it off, but knew that was becoming less and less likely.

  "Up!" snapped Weyland, as the cell was unlocked. Colton stood as ordered, kept his wrists out so he didn't pose a threat. Weyland looked so self-satisfied, it was sickening.

  Down the hall, out the front of the station, he could see the transport van. Dusty and crusty, it was like a freedom hearse.

  They marched out into the sunlight where the mid-afternoon heat was sudden and crushing. Colton wheezed at the weight of it, turned his head downward as they took those last few steps to the van, and—

  "Captain Shaw," came a familiar voice, and Colton looked up to see Mr Deo'ta approaching, suit as impeccable as ever. "Please excuse my tardiness, but—"

  "Who the hell are you?" snapped Weyland, jerking Colton around by the arm as a show of dominance, probably.

  "I am Mr Deo'ta. I am Captain Shaw's attorney."

  Colton and Weyland were surprised at this, but Weyland spoke first: "What attorney?"

  "I must speak to my client at once," said Deo'ta. "Time is of the essence."

  "No can do," said Weyland. "The transport's all ready to—"

  "The transport is empty, Marshal," said Deo'ta. "I'm sure you can spare five minutes now, to prevent countless headaches later?"

  Weyland really didn't want to, but (much like Colton) he seemed to have a baked-in fear of bureaucracy.

  He led Deo'ta and Colton into a small room with no windows, or vents, or any sort of opening besides the door... and locked them in. Colton could see Weyland's shadow right outside, waiting.

  "Listen," he said, the second the door closed, "I'm sorry for bugging you, but—"

  "You will accept the offer?" asked Deo'ta.

  "What offer?"

  "The job offer."

  "OK, yes, but what's the job? Because..." He sighed. "I nee
d a lawyer right now, not a job. So if you won't help me with the one, I can't—"

  "We require the services of a bodyguard," said Deo'ta. "Someone with experience in handling complex situations."

  "But I've never—"

  "Trust me when I say you've never done much of what we require. But I have confidence you will excel at it."

  Colton noticed Weyland's feet shifting. Was he listening? Was he going to cut it short?

  "OK, fine," said Colton. "Whatever, I'll do it. But you have to convince the judge in Quincy to let me out on bail, or I'm—"

  "Oh, you won't be visiting Quincy," said Deo'ta, standing up and pulling a small device from his pocket, like a pair of jet-black marbles attached by a short stick.

  But it wasn't a short stick at all, because it extended out about four feet wide. Deo'ta fastened the two marbles on the far wall, roughly horizontal, and with a tap on the rightmost marble, a sheet of blue paper dropped down from the stick, almost to the ground. It was like a really boring painting with a really fascinating mounting system.

  "What... are... you..." Colton said, a half-second before the blue sheet of paper shimmered to life, looking very much like what you see when you run into a wall while extremely drunk.

  "After you," said Deo'ta, gesturing toward the... blue... thing.

  Colton stood so suddenly, his chair fell over. "What the hell is this?" he asked. "Who are you?"

  Outside, Weyland had noticed the commotion and was struggling with his keys, trying to find the right one to unlock the door.

  "Captain, please," said Deo'ta, gesturing more urgently now.

  Colton really didn't like his options, but given everything he was facing, there wasn't much of a decision to make. He heard the keys in the door, he thought of Quincy in the winter... and he ran straight in to the blue paper, and disappeared.

  7

  Colton tumbled across the room and knocked over a table before coming to a rest, in a heap, against the far wall. Upside-down. And aching everywhere.

  Deo'ta approached him cautiously, bending down to get a better look. "In general, we try not to run through portals. One never knows what's on the other side."