Torsten covered a laugh. Deo'ta intercepted an awkward moment: "This ship is not made to land, Captain. It would not survive the trip through the atmosphere, let alone the—"
"Hold on, what's that?" Colton asked, turning his attention fully to the windows. Outside, in the pitch black of space, were... objects. A dozen objects, almost imperceptible except as they gradually eclipsed the stars.
They were coming toward them.
Torsten was trying to make the map show him the relevant information, but wasn't having much success. But Deo'ta, seeing what Colton saw, shrank back, eyes wide and voice a horrified growl: "Keep her safe. Whatever it takes."
A second later, the ship shuddered and lurched sideways, and all hell broke loose.
20
The enemy ships knew exactly where to strike to disable the Royal Yacht. Weapons systems first, taking out the three big guns before picking off the smaller ones in a second, seamless pass.
Protocol demanded the Yacht captain take evasive maneuvers in such a situation, and get far enough away to make an emergency jump — but before he could even give the order, the enemy took out his jump engine, his ambler jets, and indeed the inertial dampeners he'd need to survive anything but the gentlest of motions. The Yacht, crippled, began to drift toward Kgego, unable to escape the massive planet's gravity.
Inside, alarms blared and panicked courtiers ran for their lives, but Colton kept his head on straight. Careful not to touch the Empress, he led her down the hallway toward what Deo'ta had described as a "safe room." Colton hoped that meant the same in alien as it did to him.
"Wait, wait!" the Empress called, and stopped moving. Colton took two steps back, weapon still at the ready, to see what was up.
The Empress kicked off her high-soled shoes, knocked them to the side of the hall. "I can't run in these," she told him, and he nodded his appreciation... though he doubted she could run in that dress, either. Too tight around the legs.
"Empress!" came a frantic voice, and he turned to see a young man in a bright purple outfit come charging at them, arms flailing. Colton aimed his gun, and fired—
The wall right behind the man exploded in sparks, stopping him dead in his tracks. He looked genuinely horrified. He was no assassin.
"Stay clear," Colton warned, shifting his aim to right between the man's eyes.
The man nodded, and scrambled for safety.
"Keep moving," said Colton, and continued to guide the Empress down the hall.
Then, another shudder. And another. And two more. The lights above them flickered, and Colton swore he heard a hissing sound from further up. He holstered his pistol, switched to the MP5, letting it guide him.
"How much further?" asked the Empress.
"Not a question of distance, your Majesty. It's—"
Screams ahead, and the sounds of laser fire. Pop, scream, splatter, crackle. A woman with a flaming dress came running at them, eyes wide with pain and panic, before a blast took her head clean off. Her body tumbled at Colton's feet.
He didn't slow his pace.
If the boarding party had expected him, they didn't show it. The second they came into view, he let loose with the MP5, short bursts of plasma punching holes straight through them like they were made of butter. The gun had kick, but damn did it have punch, too.
Another three invaders — wearing triangular, black glass helmets and carrying big-ass guns themselves — realized they were under attack and made a try at fighting back, but he took them all out in less than a second with surgical precision. They were playing at being badasses. He was a pro at killing posers.
The hallway was a bloodbath, and on fire, and there was a hole in the ceiling that seemed to lead up to the inside of one of the attacking ships. Colton did a precautionary sweep, but saw no targets. He nodded to the Empress, who was having trouble stepping around the dead bodies everywhere. "There's more where these came from," he said. "We have to keep moving."
Another few yards down the hall, he heard the sound of boots running — multiple, and heavy. He pushed the Empress against the wall for cover, ignoring whatever objections she might have had, and got ready to let loose again.
The footsteps got closer, louder, and he could see their shadows on the far wall, and—
He lowered his gun, put his hands up. "Clear! We're clear!"
Parr and his men swarmed into formation around them, taking up position with expert precision. Parr himself was breathing heavily, had a cut on his forehead that was bleeding steadily, but still took the time to bow to the Empress.
"Your Majesty," he said to her, by way of greeting, and then, to Colton: "Glad you're done puking."
"Me too," Colton said, trying to listen for any more footsteps in the area. "How far to this safe room?"
Parr shook his head. "The safe room's compromised. They hit it first, looks like. They knew where to strike."
Colton looked back, back the way they'd come. "So what's the fallback? To the Suites?"
"No, we have to abandon ship," said Parr, and the Empress pushed past Colton to take control of the conversation.
"Abandon ship?" she said with a tinge of panic in her voice. "Abandon the Royal Yacht?"
"Apologies, your Majesty," said Parr, keeping his eyes downcast. "There's no choice at this point. The engines are offline and we're getting dragged into the planet. Even if we fend off the boarding parties, there's no way engineering can save the ship in time."
"But my brother," she said, somewhere between a plea and a demand, "and Minister Deo'ta. Are they—"
"I don't know, your Majesty, but I'm going to—"
Something clearly registered on Parr's radio, because his eye twitched, and he turned to speak to one of his men: "Lay charges. Do it now."
"Lay charges?" Colton asked, watching three of the guards run a little ways down the hall and attach devices along the floor at even intervals. "How bad is this?"
Parr motioned for his men to take up positions, then answered Colton: "At least fifty men headed this way," he said. "I don't have the guns to stop them, but we can slow them down."
Colton unclipped the MP5. "You've got me."
Parr looked like he wanted to deck Colton, all over again. "No, she's got you," he said, and nodded to the Empress, who was wide-eyed and trembling. "We'll buy you time, but you need to get to an escape pod and get off this ship."
"What escape pod? Where?"
"The Royal Suites. Follow the red lighting. It'll be hard to miss, even for you."
Colton didn't know what to say. The success of the mission was always paramount, but it still felt wrong to leave his comrades to die, while he ran away. Even if they were Parr.
He handed Parr the MP5. "Here, take it," he said.
Parr smirked at the gesture. "No thanks. I have my own."
"Yeah, but this one looks cooler."
Parr grinned, smacked Colton on the arm. "Get moving, Captain." And then, at the sound of shouts from down the hall, his grin turned grim. "Get moving now!"
Colton and the Empress were barely out of sight when they heard the first bursts of gunfire, and the booms of good men dying.
21
The doors to the Royal Suite were blown open and still burning when they got there; one or more guards had been torn apart by the blast, and were in pieces on the floor. Colton jerked his weapon from target to target, checking each one in turn, praying none of them moved — friend or foe.
The hardwood was slick with blood, and the drapes were tattered, shredded by shrapnel and plasma. The windows themselves had cracks in them that did not sit well with Colton at all, but that particular dread paled in comparison to the sight of Kgego getting closer and closer. They really were falling... and faster than he'd expected.
"They're not here," said the Empress, standing at the edge of the still-intact table and looking at a
ll the bodies laying at her feet. "Torsten and Deo'ta... they're not here."
Colton had a terrible thought: "It's not an assassination, it's a kidnapping."
"What?" the Empress snapped, then took in her surroundings in a whole new way. "So my brother is—"
"We don't have time to find out," said Colton, and led her to the back, around a corner and into a narrow passageway. Flashing red lights guided the way, ending at a utilitarian portal that led to the Empress' escape pod.
Colton checked the edges for some kind of handle, then remembered where he was. He nodded to the Empress: "Hand, please."
She waved her hand in the portal's direction, and the door slid open...
And inside was a bomb. Colton only had to see the blue light on the side of the contraption flashing to know it was bad news. He grabbed the Empress by the arm and tore down the hallway so fast, they bounced around the corner and ended up sprawled on the floor.
The Empress looked up, dazed, and opened her mouth to speak—
—and the bomb went off, blowing them both sideways, off the ground, and into the already-cracked window. Colton hit the ground hard, gasped for breath... but found it very hard to do.
He was being dragged across the floor by a sudden evacuation of air from the compartment — the explosion had left a hole in the hull, and the vacuum of space was being a greedy bitch. Colton grabbed the base of the table, held tight.
"Help!" screamed the Empress, and Colton just barely caught her hand in time. All around them, the bodies of courtiers and guards were being sucked down and out the escape pod portal, spraying blood everywhere as they went.
"We..." Empress called, but started to choke on the lack of air. "We... have to... we..."
Colton agreed, but how? The main doors were too far away; besides which, they were damaged, too. They wouldn't slow the depressurization at all. He needed to find somewhere with a solid seal, where they could...
He looked at the table. It'd do.
He yanked the Empress up higher, until her head was at his waist, and positioned her hand around the supply kit he still had slung over his shoulder. "Hold tight!" he called.
Her eyes went wide. "Why?"
He didn't have enough air to answer. She did as she was told, squeezing the strap in her fist like it was the only way she'd survive — which it was.
Colton tried to take a breath to brace himself, but couldn't, so he just got down to it: he let go of the Empress' wrist — she yelped as the vacuum grabbed her fully again — and he snagged the MP5. There was no way to do it right, so he just did it: he fired three shots at the base of the table, blasting it free.
Now the table top and Colton and the Empress were untethered and sailing through the air, tumbling toward the passageway and the portal. The table top smashed into the walls, into the floor, and nearly into Colton himself, as physics had its way. Colton wrapped himself around the Empress, cradling her head to save her from the worst of the abuse — and it was abuse, as they smacked into corner after corner.
Smack! The table top wedged itself at the mouth of the passageway — too far from the blast zone to help. Colton collided with it so hard, he lost his grip on the Empress. She screamed the last of her air away, reaching for him...
His fingers snagged her ankle before she was sucked outside. There, only a few yards away, he could see the bright orange hellscape of Kgego outside the ship. Colton pulled, tried to get her back—
—but ended up sliding off the table! The bitter cold of space was coming up far too fast. He tried scraping his boots to slow them down, but there was just not way to resist, no way to escape their fate.
Crack! and the table came loose, pinwheeling down the passageway, straight past them — too close for comfort — and crashing into position, right atop the hole the blast had created.
Colton and the Empress landed on the ground with a heavy thud, wheezing, trying to get their bearings. There was a loud hissing sound from the piss-poor seal the table had made, and — more ominously — a slow creaking of the table coming apart.
Colton grabbed the Empress' arm again. "Run!" he shouted, and sprinted for the exit.
Out into the main room, they slipped on the blood but kept on going. Out into the hallway, looking left and right for some sign of safety. Smoke from the left — they went right. Colton pulled the Empress so hard, he was basically dragging her, off toward a set of heavy doors at the end of the hall.
A voice shouted from behind, and Colton whipped around and let off a blind shot at one of the boarding party raiders. The shot went wide and the ceiling burst with plasma. More shouts, and more trouble. Colton wanted to try again, but he knew it was only a matter of seconds before—
The table cracked, and the vacuum came back with a vengeance. The raiders behind them were sucked off their feet and went tumbling back toward the Royal Suite, screaming in terror they rightly deserved.
Colton was near enough the wall to grab hold the edge of a doorway. His fingers seared with pain at the effort, but there was no way he was letting go.
They wouldn't make it to the big doors, so this one would have to do. He just didn't know how to open the fucking thing.
The Empress grunted in pain, and the answer came to him: with a wrenching heave, he hoisted her up, past his head, and held her hand out toward the door. It slid open immediately.
Four wretched movements later, they were inside, and the door slid shut again. Air hissed in around them. Colton felt like vomiting again.
"What do we do?" the Empress asked. "Where do we go?"
Colton shook his head. "I don't know yet. Give me a second."
Crunch went the door, and shuddered violently. It was evidently not as strong as they needed. No telling how long they had.
Colton got back to his feet, looked around the room they found themselves in. It was like a storage closet, filled with hefty containers with writing he couldn't read. Could've been weapons, could've been food, could've been toilet paper, for all he knew. No matter what, it was almost certainly not going to save them.
Further at the back, the floor was layered with a kind of treaded rubber. Well-worn. To help with moving the crates. But it started at the back of the room, which meant the loading wasn't happening from the hallway outside...
He shoved a panel aside and saw it: an industrial-sized portal. There was a hand-sized window in it, and when he looked through, he saw... a ship.
"Your Majesty," he called, and she stumbled to his side, looked out the window, too.
"That's not an escape pod," she said.
"As long as it can get us off this ship, I don't care," he said, as the door behind them creaked even louder.
The Empress clearly had strong reservations about his "plan," but she played her role regardless: she waved her hand at the portal door, and it slid aside on command.
Inside was definitely not an escape pod... maybe a cargo shuttle? Colton had doubts it was even meant to have people inside it: the shape of it was perfectly-sized to hold eight of those containers, packed in tight. Up at the front was a control space, but he couldn't see anywhere to sit and—
The door outside started making a deafening hissing sound. It was losing air. It wouldn't last long. He had to figure out how to launch.
"Why aren't we leaving?" shouted the Empress, at his side.
"I don't know how! I can't read this shit!"
It took a second for her to realize what he meant. She started scanning the control panel, frantic, until she found what looked like a nondescript button in a sea of nondescipt buttons.
"Is this it?" she asked.
He hit it, hard.
The airlock behind them rolled shut — just as the outer door ripped free and away. The tug of the vacuum lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was enough to slam them back into the wall behind them — where they discov
ered a pair of seats, folded up and out of the way. They smiled at their good fortune, reached around set themselves up—
And got flattened against the wall as the cargo shuttle ejected itself from the Royal Yacht. Colton tried to turn his head enough to see what was happening, but all he saw was Kgego looming large.
And then the alarms went nuts.
22
The shuttle was out of control. The alarms coincided with the two of them being pinned to the wall so hard, Colton thought his ribs would crack again. It felt like they were racing forward at full tilt, but if so, how had they not crashed into the planet yet?
After far too long, the alarms cut off very suddenly, and the ship pivoted sideways, and gravity went normal again. They landed on the floor — one time too many, today — and caught their breaths.
"Emergency autopilot engaged," said a pleasant voice from the console. Colton wished his fucking translator worked visually, too. Fucking aliens.
He reached out to the Empress, stopping short of touching her, of course, since the emergency situation had passed. "Empress?" he asked, voice hoarse.
She looked up at him, nodded like she'd just been through a torturous ordeal or something.
He dragged himself upright again, pulling the seat down from the wall, then doing the same for the Empress. The two of them settled in, fastening their safety harnesses, and for a blessed few seconds, did nothing but breathe.
"Alright," said Colton. "Let's—"
"Warning," said the console, as the lights went red again, "unsafe entry angle. Warning. Unsafe entry angle."
Colton was about to ask what that meant when the whole shuttle shook, and the viewscreen up front washed over with flames. The ship jerked violently, then started to rattle so intensely, it felt like his teeth were in danger of falling out of his head.
A jolt, then a sway to the left. Their harnesses kept them in place, but it still hurt like hell.
The Galactic Empress' Bodyguard Page 8