Homeguard

by Jason Cordova

  As she broke out of the forest, she shuddered. The wind had definitely picked up, and snow stung her face, each snowflake becoming an icy missile of pain. Without the cover of the trees to slow it down, the wind was brutal. Half-closing her eyes, she shifted the heavy sari to cover the lower half of her face. It wasn’t great, but it was an improvement over sucking in icy wind with each breath.

  Damn, she thought as she caught sight of the vehicle that had been following her earlier. Not sure if she’d been spotted, Christine ducked between a bank and a neighboring building. She found a small alley somewhat protected from the wind. Litter was strewn about, but it was remarkably clear of snow. From what she could see, the alley dumped into an area where a number of paths crossed, all of which appeared to congregate in the center of a commercial block. There were benches lined up around an open area. She hurried toward it and, once out of the narrow alley, was reintroduced to the arctic wind.

  The tips of her ears felt numb, but Christine pressed on. It was only a matter of time before she froze to death or found an open café. The buildings around her appeared to be the large, soulless corporate towers that were common and popular on the larger worlds. Not knowing which way to turn, she looked around.

  “Hey!” a voice called out from her left. Christine whirled around and saw that it was the driver from the air carriage. He had seen her, and now she didn’t have the forest to protect her. The man was half-out of his carriage and was talking on a small, handheld device, probably a mini datapad. He reached behind his waistband. It was time to move.

  Christine fled toward Victory Circle. Knowing the alley she’d been in would be a death trap, she made her way as fast as she could to the street. There were more cars there, and since this was one of the larger commercial centers in Lares, there were even a few open shops. None of them were the much-sought-after cafés, however.

  Checking for a gap in traffic, Christine crossed the street. Behind her, she could still hear the Praetorian yelling at her to stop. Risking a quick look over her shoulder, she saw that he’d gone back to his air carriage. There was no time to spare.

  She made it across the street and walked around a building, trying to put more visual barriers between herself and her pursuer. She passed another skyscraper and almost paused as she spotted an entrance to a café on the other side of the glass. She was still within sight of the street, though, so instead of going straight inside, she walked around to the back of the building. Once there, she ducked inside the café and quickly walked to the restroom.

  Shivering, Christine entered one of the empty stalls and closed the privacy door. She latched it shut and hung her bag on the coat hook behind the door. Hurriedly, she fished her datapad out of her bag before crawling onto the toilet, keeping her feet off the ground and out of sight. While uncertain whether the man chasing her was that dedicated, it never hurt to be cautious.

  Quickly accessing the ’net, Christine began the hunt for a jump-gate-capable ship for sale near Lares. It didn’t take long to find one, considering her budget, but she wanted to keep the cost low in case she needed the funds later. And, she wanted to give most of the money back to Lady Ravenwood. Generosity aside, there was no way Christine could possibly need that much money in her life, especially since she now knew where to look for the hidden accounts of Jericho. It didn’t take long for her to find a ship that met her specifications, and the transaction was fairly smoothly. The only issue now was whether the owner would have it fully fueled for her in time.

  “Yes, sir, I saw a woman enter the bathroom a few minutes ago,” Christine heard a voice say outside the bathroom. Her moment of elation at scoring such a good bargain on the ship quickly evaporated. The Praetorian had found them, and she and Maxwell were both in immediate danger. “Sir, you can’t go in there…”

  “Shut it,” a man’s voice growled, and the door to the bathroom opened. Heavy footsteps could be heard just outside her stall. Silence. A shadow loomed for a moment on the other side of her stall door before moving to the next stall. “I know you’re in here. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  Christine’s heart hammered in her chest as her hand dropped to her sidearm. It would definitely be heard, and there’d be no way for her to hide what she’d done. There was the off-chance nobody would remember her if she pulled the sari up to cover her face, but those were rather slim odds.

  At the end of the row of stalls, a toilet flushed, and a door opened. Another woman gasped at the sight of a man in the woman’s restroom. He coughed and mumbled an apology, but the other woman wasn’t having it.

  “This nation is not that free, mister!” her voice snapped angrily. It was an older woman with a harsh voice, Christine realized, as she tried to focus on calming her breathing. “It’s utterly despicable, marching in here and acting as if you own the place!”

  “Ma’am, I’m just—” he tried but was rudely cut off by the elderly woman.

  “You just what? Want to be a pervert and watch women use the restroom?” Her voice was shrill and grating on the nerves, but Christine would rather listen to the harpy’s voice all day than face the Praetorian hunting her. The berating continued, “You’re nothing but a disgusting pig! Have you no shame? How do you even look at your mother? You disrespectful, arrogant, dirty little boy!”

  Maxwell stirred in the midst of the woman’s scathing dress down of the Praetorian, his whimpers quiet, but loud enough to set Christine’s teeth on edge. The angry woman’s voice drowned him out for the time being, but it was only a matter of seconds before his whimpers turned to crying, and then the gig would be up. She had to make sure he stayed quiet, but since she was precariously perched on a toilet seat with her bag out of reach, there was little she could do.

  Thinking quickly, Christine reached across her sari and pulled her breast out. She shoved it into Maxwell’s mouth, and the infant greedily began to eat. Her hand dropped back down to her sidearm, and she thumbed the safety off. Whoever this Praetorian was, he would die before she allowed him to harm her or her child.

  Maxwell was quiet now, happily feeding, while Christine had transformed from nervous wreck to angry mama bear. If the Praetorian so much as touched the door to her stall, she’d empty every round in the magazine into his body, noise be damned. He was threatening her child, and he’d die by her hand.

  “I’m sorry! I thought you were someone else!” the Praetorian said in a defensive tone. Christine could hear him slowly backing out of the bathroom, the shrill harpy hot on his heels. She wanted to smile, but all she could do was loosen the murderous, cold ball in her stomach. Carefully she thumbed the safety of her sidearm back on and waited. She had time to get to the ship, considering a full refuel of a vessel that size could take up to six hours.

  Christine leaned back against the tiled bathroom wall and sighed softly. Almost there, she thought. Just a little longer and they’d be safe.

  Time passed at a crawl. Maxwell finished feeding and fell back asleep. Christine could smell that his diaper needed changing but, unable to get off the toilet until she was certain the Praetorian was gone, she simply left it. Maxwell seemed blissfully unaware of it but, judging by the past week, Christine knew it was only a matter of time before it woke him up. She readjusted her sari and made sure she was decent again.

  Four more hours passed before she risked coming down off the toilet seat. Maxwell was whimpering, and the stench of his dirty diaper finally defeated her. The baby needed a fresh diaper, and she needed to stretch her legs. She’d heard nothing but women entering and leaving the restroom. There was no telling where the Praetorian had disappeared to, but there was still a chance he was waiting in the café for her to reappear.

  The restroom had a changing station near the door, which Christine took advantage of. As she peeled off Maxwell’s diaper, she got a whiff of the horrific odor and gagged. There was no saving the diaper, so Christine tossed it into the trash.

  Maxwell gurgled and looked around as she wiped him clean. Ch
ristine quickly checked the sarong she’d been using to carry Maxwell and was pleased to discover that none of the mess had leaked through to damage it. She looked down at her smiling little boy and played with his knees.

  “Mommy’s lucky, isn’t she?” Christine cooed at him.

  Finished, Maxwell burped and promptly fell back asleep. Christine put a new diaper on and swaddled him once more. His hearing protection had stayed on during the changing process, and she saw no reason to remove it. Situating him back inside the sarong, she went through the long and complicated process of wrapping the ballistic silks around him before finally positioning her sari.

  With Maxwell set on her right side, she decided to leave her sidearm in its previous spot. Far more confident with her right hand than left, it made drawing slightly more difficult, but allowed her to use her left arm to protect Maxwell better. She’d expected it to be more awkward than before, but it actually felt much more natural, so she decided to stick with it for the time being. Striding into gunfights with an infant wasn’t something they’d covered at the Academy.

  Everything situated at last, she took a deep breath and pulled the bathroom door open. Peeking out, she couldn’t see anything in the café, with the exception of a few tables near the windows. Those were empty, and Christine began to wonder if the store had closed and accidentally locked her inside. While irritating, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to happen.

  Walking into the main seating area of the café, she was dismayed to discover the Praetorian sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of him and a bit of biscotti remaining on a plate next to it. Their eyes met for just a moment, and Christine looked around the room, wondering who might get caught in the crossfire. There were quite a few people in the café in spite of the blizzard outside, which was dismaying. When she’d been younger, weather like this would have sent everyone home. Ceres people are nuts, she thought as she decided to confront the bull head-on.

  Christine walked over to the table and sat down on the other side. A cute young waiter bustled over and smiled.

  “Coffee?” he asked her. Christine nodded.

  “And a Rueben sandwich, but use turkey, please,” she added. The waiter nodded and looked at the Praetorian. The look of fear that flickered in the eyes of the waiter told her all she needed to know about her server and the man before her.

  “Anything else, sir?” the waiter asked the Praetorian.

  “No,” he answered. “Leave us.”

  The waiter scurried off, leaving Christine and the Praetorian alone. The table next to them was empty, as was the one beyond that. It was as though the customers in the café wanted to be as far away from the Praetorian as possible. The realization almost made Christine laugh. Imperfects were bad for society, everyone knew, but when the watchers of the subclass were viewed as lesser than the Imperfects they were supposed to police, it was almost comedic justice.

  She must have smiled, because the Praetorian looked at her strangely before picking up his biscotti and dipping it into his coffee. His face was pockmarked and lined with age, and his five o’clock shadow looked about four days old. It was a slovenly appearance, but about what she’d expected from a Praetorian. His dark chestnut hair was unkempt. If he’d made an effort, Christine guessed some woman somewhere might have found him reasonably attractive, provided she remained ignorant about his job choice. He finished off the hard pastry and brushed his hands clean over the plate. Neatly folding his hands on the table, he leaned forward and began to speak.

  “I see a woman alone in a blizzard, and I can’t help but wonder why an unregistered Imperfect is out in this storm,” the Praetorian said as his green eyes inspected her. Christine kept her chin up and refused to be cowed by the bully across from her. “Which is very strange. Then I notice the added bulge, and can’t help but wonder why an Imperfect is carrying a child in this horrific blizzard. My concern for the child’s well-being and yours, led me to wonder why you’re running. It dawned on me that you could be kidnapping a child from a Perfect family, and I decided to question you. You fled. Do you know what that looks like to someone in my position?”

  “Like a single mother trying to get out of a fucking blizzard,” Christine snarled in a low tone. The Praetorian cocked his head and smiled thinly.

  “That’s how you want to play this?” he asked her. “That’s fine by me. I’m Praetorian Jacob Randal, duly appointed official serving at the behest of the honorable Misha Burnett, Praelictor and servant of the court. Do you know what the Praelictor is?”

  “He was Raoul Posey before his untimely death on Ibliss,” Christine said in a snide voice. “He also happened to be the lord commander of the Marine Corps, before some reshuffling of duties by the then-newly elected Prime Minister, Laird Christophe McCarroll. Now the Praelictor is Laird Misha Burnett of Bogpeat Grove. Poor guy. It’s a crappy job that nobody wants. The marines, in the meantime, were shuffled under the command of the Justice of the Service, where they should have been all along. Last I heard, there was a bit of a tussle over who precisely the proper Justice was. Smart money isn’t on Admiral Rankapurta, though.”

  “You’re very well informed for an Imperfect,” Jacob said as he rested his narrow frame against the back of his seat. His face was twisted into a parody of concern and warmth. It sickened Christine, and it took all her self-restraint not to kill him. “Perhaps my assessment was wrong, but that would mean you’re fleeing a lawful government figure for other reasons. There are only a few things I can think of that would cause a woman to run through a blizzard with a child. Would you like to hear them?”

  “Not really,” Christine said.

  “The first would be, you’re fleeing the law,” he continued, ignoring her. “But what crime could cause you to risk the health and well-being of your child? The answer? None that I can think of. But then, I really started to dig into the reports from this planet, and I started to do some simple math. There’s a missing-persons report on a woman who somewhat matches your physical description. There’s also a warrant out for the arrest of a noblewoman for associating with a man who recently died resisting arrest. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Lady Jane Ravenwood of Avalon.”

  He’s trying to goad me into revealing something, Christine realized as she stared at the man’s unpleasant face. “Nope,” she answered calmly. The Praetorian clucked with his tongue and smiled. It was an ugly smile.

  “I didn’t think so,” he stated. The waiter returned, sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He set them both in front of Christine.

  “Anything else, ma’am?” the waiter asked. He didn’t glance at the Praetorian, who was focused intently on Christine’s face and nothing else. Christine swallowed and shook her head.

  “No, thank you,” she said. Nodding, the waiter walked quickly away, putting as much distance between the duo seated at the table and him as quickly as possible. Not that the Jericho agent could blame him. Normal Praetorians made the skin crawl, and from what she could tell so far, Praetorian Jacob Randal was a definite piece of work.

  “Please, eat,” Jacob told her, waving a hand at her Reuben. He tried to sound magnanimous, but to her trained ears, he was simply being impertinent. “I’ll talk, you listen, and when you finish eating, we can continue to discuss matters.”

  Christine didn’t need any encouragement. She set her napkin on her lap and picked up the sandwich. Jacob continued to talk as she began to devour the Reuben.

  “The longer I sit here, the more convinced I am you’re running from someone,” he said as he looked around the café. “What’s troubling me is I can’t figure out why someone would be on the run on Corus, of all planets. I could run a background on you, but I’m certain it would come back clean. I don’t know why I feel this, but then, I’m good at my job, and I trust my hunches.”

  “My name is Jane Cobb,” Christine said, reverting back to the cover ID she’d used when she arrived on the planet.
“I came here with my manservant a week ago. I’m trying to get to the launch terminal.”

  “Going through a jump gate with an infant?” Jacob asked her, feigning surprise. It didn’t fool Christine, but then, she suspected it wasn’t supposed to. “Do you know the odds of your child escaping the effects of a jump gate and coming out…different? You don’t want him to end up at the Hub, do you?”

  “Less than twenty percent,” she mumbled around the turkey and sauerkraut. It should’ve been the most delicious sandwich she’d ever eaten in her life, but with the Praetorian seated across from her, all she tasted was ash. The Hub, she wondered. What the hell is the Hub? She set the sandwich down and took a sip of hot coffee. It was caramel flavored, which caught her off guard for a moment. The Praetorian nodded as he recognized her expression.

  “This café flavors all their coffee with caramel,” he informed her. “A crime, if I do say so myself. The best coffee is a pure black bean roasted to a dark and smoky flavor, then ground to perfection, before being filtered through a press and made into coffee.”

  “To each their own,” Christine said as she took a second sip of the flavored coffee. It was delicious. She set the cup down. “You aren’t a law enforcement officer. Praetorians have no arresting powers, as defined by the Constitution or the Twelve Laws. All you’re doing is harassing a law-abiding citizen who’s done nothing wrong.”

  “Am I?” Jacob asked, his expression quizzical. “Are you? Unfortunately, your claims don’t quite add up, because I did some digging once I lost you in the bathroom. By the way, that was very clever, getting that old hag to go off on me. I almost gave up, but then I realized I never actually checked the stalls, so I decided to be patient. It’s a virtue, after all. It took far longer than I anticipated, but with the weather the way it is, it’s not as if I have anywhere else to be. All the Imperfects under my care are currently at their domiciles. Then there you were, my wandering, lost snow angel. Patience paid off, and then you decided to join me, which saved me the trouble of causing a scene.”