The door slid open as they arrived, and Deo'ta let Colton go first. "After you, Captain."
Inside, the marble-and-stick device was already fastened to the wall. Deo'ta tapped commands into a little screen to the side — setting coordinates, probably.
"Before you go," he said, working away, "a parting thought."
"Sure, whatever," said Colton.
"The Empress' actions are, indeed, extreme. Flying into a rebellion is a dangerous gambit by any standard, when other, less-direct strategies might suffice. The prudent choice might be to keep to herself, take some hits, wait out the storm." Colton nodded in agreement, but Deo'ta continued: "Much like the prudent reaction to an armed robbery... is to not interfere."
Colton glared at him.
"The only difference between bravery and foolishness, Captain, is how well you follow through. Which is why we need you."
His smile was creepy, but effective. Deo'ta felt like an ally, the kind Colton hadn't had since he was in the Marines. And his ally needed help.
Colton shook his head. He couldn't believe he was considering this.
"Stopping two morons at a gas station, and stopping ten thousand assassins, those are very different things," he said.
"Indeed," said Deo'ta.
And his smile kept on goin'. Nudging Colton along.
He sighed.
Dammit.
"I'm going to need a better gun," he said.
"That can be arranged. Anything else?"
Colton glanced at the portal, got a smile on his face. He clapped Deo'ta on the shoulder. "I'd better make a list."
18
Boots. Real boots. Cargo pants (desert ready) with a proper fucking belt. A jacket with style and function, overtop an AC/DC t-shirt peeking out from a tried-and-true body armor vest. Slim supply kit, slung over his shoulder, full of all the goodies he could cram in. Two guns: a modified Sig Sauer that fired "short-burst laser bolts", and an MP5 that shot absolute hellfire. Up top: a ball cap — red devil skull — backwards, and shades.
Oh, and a six-pack of real beer hanging from his fingers as he looked out the window at the goddamn Milky Way. He cracked the can open with one hand, guzzled it hungrily, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and felt real again.
"You're just going all in, aren't you?" said Dr Iko, sidling up to him on the Royal Yacht's observation deck. "Like you were thinking: ‘I don't look uncivilized enough. I need to up my game.'"
Colton smiled, didn't take his eyes off the view. "If I'm gonna die, I'm doing it in style."
"Oh, so you did bring other clothes..."
"You're a riot," he said. "Don't you have patients to kill?"
"Well oddly, not many people have been injured in the first hour and a half of our journey."
"So you're up here because...?"
"Just waiting for you to get space-sick," she said. "Want to get it all on video."
He laughed, offered her a beer from the set. She frowned at them, shook her head. "That's OK. I'm not big on intestinal cancer."
Colton shrugged. More for him. "So I've been wondering," he said, pointing out the window. "Why the ship? Why fly? I took a magic portal to get here, so why not save some time and do that?"
Iko raised an eyebrow. "You really want to portal onto a strange planet with no idea what's on the other side?"
Colton hadn't really thought it through, honestly. "I guess that might be a bad idea," he admitted.
"Well, don't feel bad, it's almost impossible. Most civilized planets have distortion fields to keep people from portalling in. Been that way for generations. Aside from the security risks, turns out unrestricted instantaneous teleportation leads to a fuck load of adultery."
Colton laughed. "You're kidding."
"No I am not," said Iko. "The advance of civilization, held back because some people just can't keep it in their pants."
"So wait, how did Deo'ta come and get me if it's—"
"I said civilized planets. Civilized. So. I mean. Obviously..."
He gave her the finger, because she so richly deserved it. She gave him a gesture back that he didn't recognize at all, but he had a funny feeling it was way ruder than what he'd done.
"This Earthie bothering you, doctor?" came a voice from behind, and Colton suddenly found himself stuck with two hostile aliens, on either side of him. The newcomer was another ash-head, in a crisp military uniform and a blaster at his side. He was just about Colton's height, but leaner — and, one suspected, meaner, too.
"No troubles, Chief," said Iko. "He's just trying to poison me with Earth beer."
The Chief raised an eyebrow at Colton. "Is that so?"
Colton offered him the beer. "Help yourself."
The Chief sniffed the air, screwed up his face. "I'm on duty."
"No shit, so am I. Hi, Colton Shaw. The Empress' bodyguard." He held out his hand, but the Chief didn't take it. He looked disgusted at the thought of it. Evidently all ash-heads were the same.
"Wokam Parr," he said. "Chief of Security aboard the Royal Yacht."
Colton smiled, nodded. "So you're the guy who didn't tell your boys it might be a bad idea to let a stranger walk around with automatic weapons on-deck. Not a single one of them have asked me for ID the whole time I've been here."
Parr scowled. "Oh, they know who you are, Captain. You have special dispensation to act like a one-man army."
Colton got in Parr's face. "That make you nervous, Chief?"
"Who wouldn't be nervous at the sight of farm animals packing heat?"
It might've been the beer, but Colton felt the very strong urge to deck Chief Parr. He took a step closer, jaw clenched, and—
"Speaking of Shaw's sexual partners," said Iko, "did anyone else see that woman having a meltdown at the in-dock?"
Colton didn't want to back down, but Parr was (wisely) shifting his focus to Iko, and taking a subtle step back. "Lady-in-waiting," he said. "We had to sedate her."
"Scared of space?" asked Iko.
"Scared of death," said Parr. "Someone's been circulating a data-sheet about the structural integrity of the Yacht, and folks are panicking that a well-placed explosive could depressurize the whole ship."
Colton frowned: "Well? Can it?"
"Sure," said Parr, "just like a well-placed punch can kill a man in one blow. But landing that punch isn't easy. It's next to impossible."
Colton remembered the ambush in his room. The barrage of punches. The ash-heads who kept at him without mercy.
He scowled at Parr. "You fellas really like your punching, don't you." He set his hand on the back of his pistol.
Parr noticed that, didn't move a muscle. "Do we have a problem here, friend?"
Colton sneered. "You tell me."
"If you don't move that hand away from your sidearm, we most certainly will."
"Well then," said Colton, "let's just—"
Iko stepped between them, arms spread wide. "Boys, please," she said. "We're all on the same side here."
"Are we?" asked Colton. "Are you sure about that?"
That got Parr's back up. "What's that supposed to me?"
"It means I've had enough experience with you fuckers to keep my hand on my weapon any time you come near. You get one swing, that's it, and I'm putting you down."
"Shaw..." warned Iko.
"'You fuckers'?" growled Parr.
"You broke into my room, beat me unconscious, and would've done worse if I—"
"OK, that's it—" shouted Parr, but Iko shoved him back, and shoved Colton back too. She was angry. Very angry.
"Stop it!" she shouted. "Just stop!" She pointed at Parr first: "You know better. Don't take the bait." And then Colton: "And you... you don't even understand what you don't know."
"I—"
"Shut it! Shut. It," she said. "Let
's do some grade-school sociology here. Chief Parr here is an Edoji, broadly identifiable by the lack of chroma pigment in his skin." She pointed to Parr's face. Ash-like. Good. "But — and this will blow your mind, I know — there are all kinds of Edoji. Different planets, different histories, different languages... it's a mess."
Parr seemed a little uncomfortable with this, but not in an angry way. More in an "I don't want my dirty laundry aired to a stranger" way.
Iko continued: "Some Edoji are elitist, racist shit-for-brains, and they take great pleasure in roaming around, beating the crap out of anyone less pure than them. Which is everybody, to them." She motioned to Parr. "Even other Edoji."
Colton looked over at Parr, saw the expression on his face, felt whatever beer had been in his bloodstream melt away. He'd been so focused on being an Earthie, he'd echoed the same prejudice right back at someone else.
He took his hand away from his gun.
"I was out of line, Chief," he said. "I'm sorry."
Parr squared his shoulders. "You will be sorry if you pull that shit again." Something caught his eye out the window, and his expression went back to business again. "You'd better get back to quarters. We're about to make the jump."
Colton looked around, confused. "What happens then?"
"Then," said Iko with a smile. "You puke your guts out like a motherfucker."
Parr gave him a wink. "Probably don't want an audience for that. Everyone hates you enough already, for some reason."
19
Colton did puke his guts out, which was made even worse by the fact that he couldn't find the toilet in his quarters, so he had to use the sink. He had been through physically-trying experiences before, but whatever the fuck they did to "jump" was pure, vicious evil. It was like someone had taken his worst hangover, overfilled it with air, and then beat it with a baseball bat. He puked out all his guts, and even some guts he didn't know he'd had.
The real joy was in discovering the jump had two parts: starting and stopping. They happened approximately 30 minutes apart, which left him about 10 seconds of agonizing moaning before started puking all over again.
When he finally opened his door, ragged and ruined, Deo'ta was standing outside.
"Ah," he said. "Good. I was afraid the jump may have caused you distress."
"I hate this fucking mission."
"Do not worry," said Deo'ta, pleasantly. "The physiological effects of the jump lessen with experience."
"How much experience?"
"Oh, certainly by your fiftieth time, you'll be fine."
That made Colton want to throw up again.
They made their way to the Royal Suites, at the bow of the ship. Colton was about to comment how the security was too lax, when a pair of guards slammed him against the wall and frisked him a little too aggressively, given he was openly carrying two firearms.
"The Chief says hello," said the green-skinned one.
Colton gave him a finger to relay back.
The inside of the suites was like the fanciest hotel in Vegas, but on an interstellar scale. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the what seemed like an exploding nebula, shiny hardwood floors and rich velvet drapes hanging all around massive sunken seating areas, each with their own fire pit. And the amount of crystal and gold on display was just... sickening.
Deo'ta sensed Colton's reaction, and whispered: "Excuse the extravagance. The Empress has not yet chosen her royal aesthetic, so many areas still reflect the tastes of her father."
"Her father was a pimp?"
"You should not say that again, please."
"Right."
In the center of the room, underneath the universe's most unnecessary chandelier, was a large, round table showing what appeared to be a real-time hologram of a planet. Around the table were an assortment of old men, and Torsten, and the Empress. She was wearing another cloak today, and a headdress that reminded him of a rooster being electrocuted.
The dark makeup around her eyes made them blaze even brighter when she looked at him. He kept forgetting to look away, like he was supposed to. Oh well.
"Pardon the delay, your Majesty," said Deo'ta to the Empress, with a bow. "I thought it best that Captain Shaw get a sense of the Kgego situation ahead of our arrival."
The Empress glared at Colton, turned away. Evidently, their relationship was still rocky.
Torsten moved his hands around the edge of the table, and the map of the planet shifted into three dimensions, rotating slowly. With another gesture, continents illuminated. With another, key cities were outlined. And then large splotches of dark red, heavily clustered in what seemed to be mountainous areas.
"Kgego is a difficult place," said Torsten, projecting his voice like a high school teacher. "Historically, the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere have fought over a narrow band of fertile land, here around the equator..." A messy streak of green lit up. "But in recent centuries, the discovery of allium stores has made the poles not only important economically, but politically, as well."
Colton pointed at what looked like a large cluster of towns, south near the bottom of the southern hemisphere. "So one of those is the capital, I'm guessing?"
Torsten shook his head. "No, those are the mining camps. The capital, Sirra-zo, is located here..." He pointed to a medium-sized city in the fertile equator zone. "A relic of the old days, I suppose."
"And where are the rebels?" asked the Empress, checking again, in case she'd missed it.
"That's the problem," said Torsten, and now a new layer of red dots appeared all over the map. All over the map. A large cluster around Sirra-zo, but hundreds or thousands more across the globe. "The rebels are effectively everywhere, in every state, on every continent."
It was a daunting sight to see; that many incidents across so that much geography... that was a full-blown war, right there. They might not want to call it that, but there was no way a few stern warnings from the Empress was going to smooth that over.
Torsten continued: "The leader of the rebels, Piro, appears to be based here, in the Tegurra Mountains." He lit up a long stretch of mountains in the southern hemisphere, near the mining outposts. "Pinpointing where exactly is proving difficult."
"It always is," said Colton, leaning in closer. "What's he like, this Piro? How's he lead?"
Torsten seemed at a loss. "I don't... I don't understand, Captain."
Colton tried again: "Some men lead with violence, right? Punish disobedience, and the others fall in line. Some men lead with charisma; they charm people into dying for them. And some men lead with a cause. Whether it's religion or freedom—"
"They are free," sneered the Empress.
"A great leader could convince them otherwise," said Colton. "People are stupid that way. They're easily confused. Now, if he's a bully, all you need to do is be a bigger bully. If he's a charmer, all you need to do is outspend him. But if he's got a cause... this is going to be even more dangerous than I thought."
Everyone looked to Torsten for the answer, which he didn't seem to have. Instead, he waved a few commands, and overlaid on the map was a kind of holographic photograph, taken from a fair distance, of a man in a military uniform, barking orders at subordinates.
If this was a Kgegan, Colton was going to have to get over his fear of coyotes: he had the body of a man, but a head somewhere between a fox and a wolf — an angry wolf. His armor was splattered with blood, there was a deep scar along the right side of his face and neck that Colton had no doubt he had returned with interest. If you were looking for someone who looked like a bloodthirsty terrorist, you'd say Piro was too over-the-top.
Torsten let the image sink in before saying: "He kills indiscriminately. He punishes civilians en masse. He fits the definition of a bully, but..." He looked at the map again, waved all the filters away except for the cities. "But he says he's fighting to free
the Kgegan people, so—"
"So we're fucked," said Colton.
Deo'ta cleared his throat and tried to reposition the conversation into something a little less depressing. "Security recommendations, then, Captain?"
Colton squinted, leaning into the map to see. "You sure we can't do this from orbit?"
"Yes," said the Empress. "If I am not there, I must as well be back on Iffrysilia."
Colton rolled his eyes at that. "I'm not too keen on Sirra-zo as a base of operations, on account of all the attacks, but I'm guessing the capital has better security forces, right?"
"Correct," said Deo'ta. "An Imperial Guard and two separate police forces."
Colton shook his head. "Let's keep the police out of it. I don't want to be worrying about their loyalties." He pointed around the city. "We'll set up checkpoints here, here, here... every half mile or so."
Torsten's face twisted into a smirk. Colton was about to ask why — and maybe not in a diplomatic way — when Deo'ta intervened: "Your sense of scale may be off, Captain," he said. "Sirra-zo is a city of half a billion people."
"We don't have enough men to make a perimeter that tight," said Torsten.
"Jesus..." said Colton. "How big is this planet?"
"About four times the size of your Earth," said Deo'ta.
"See for yourself," added Torsten, and nodded toward the windows. As Colton approached, his breath left him. Outside, and far below, was a staggeringly large planet, spreading further than his mind could comprehend. It was orange, red, with roiling clouds and flashes of lightning here and there. He couldn't pick out water at first, but then realized the water was red, like seas of blood. He was feeling a little queasy again.
When he turned back, Torsten was zooming the map, pulling closer to show a satellite view of Sirra-zo. It was big, complex, and built up like a place nobody expected to be important; haphazard streets, oddly-shaped buildings strewn this way and that, like every available space had to be used, and used it was. In the center, there was a large clearing like a park, and at the head of the clearing was what seemed to be palace. Massive, from the looks of it.
Colton frowned as he tried to make sense of it all. It was like planning an LZ for a chopper, but from space, and for something twice the size of an aircraft carrier. "So we, what, land down there, and—"
The Galactic Empress' Bodyguard Page 7