by Selina Rosen
Facto cleared his throat."Speaking of Zarco, you're going to have to deal with his body, the services."
"I thought I made myself pretty clear. Cremate the body, flush it down the toilet. I don't fucking give a good rat's ass. Get rid of it, move on . . ." She had walked into the middle of her office. She turned slowly and sighed."You know what? I'm not his widow. My sister is his widow. She loved him, I didn't. She's played me before, let her do it again. Let her decide what to do with Zarco, and you help her. I'll take care of getting the equipment I need myself."
Facto looked shocked past the point of speech.
"Hey . . . Got to keep up appearances. The kingdom wants a grieving queen, we'll give them a grieving queen."
Facto nodded silently.
"Go find Stasha and tell her."
Facto turned to go, then turned back around, the glimmer of tears in his eyes."My queen . . . that's very kind of you."
Drew smiled wryly, "Just good politics."
He nodded and walked away.
She watched him leave, then walked farther into the office. She had to step over a broken bottle of Arcadian gin lying close to the wall under a hole the bottle had made when it hit."Now that was uncalled for. A victim of senseless violence, cut down in his prime . . ."
"Are you writing a speech for Zarco's funeral?" Margot asked from the door.
"No." Drew bent over and picked up a piece of the broken bottle, "A fitting send-off for a good vintage. Margot, I need a communicator. Anything stronger than my wrist com, and I need it yesterday."
"I'll see what we can find."
"Since the king's office is apparently empty, I'll be moving in there. Have the staff find me suitable furnishing, I'll work on getting all the technical equipment. And have Arcadia's and Dylan's rooms cleaned. I ran into Arcadia briefly in the hall a minute ago, obviously nursing the father, mother, and illegitimate brother of all hangovers, and all she could talk about was that they had pissed on her clothes."
"Drew . . . the staff. Well, they still aren't all back. Many of them fled before the fighting started. Others were hurt. I don't know how much they can realistically handle."
"Then we'll ask for workers from the city . . . no." she smiled wickedly."Have the guards pull the prisoners out of the dungeon, and have the prisoners muck out the mess. Two guards watching six prisoners. If they try anything, the guards' orders are to kill them immediately. And the guards are to make sure the nobles know this. The guards will work in their normal eight hour shifts, but the prisoners will work in twelve hour shifts until the castle has been completely repaired and cleaned. Oh . . . and I love this. Put a member of the household staff over each group as a foreman, and if any prisoner talks back to the foreman, it's an instant death sentence. The nobles did all this because they didn't want to live like the "common" man. Let's see how they like it when they really are living like the "common" man. Read it back."
Margot had written it all down on her power pad, and as she read it back to Drewcila, her smile seemed to grow.
"What's so damn funny?" Drewcila asked when Margot had finished reading.
"Nothing funny, really it's just . . . well, you're so smart, you always seem to know how to fix everything. How to turn a liability into an asset."
"Yes, yes so true, and I'm so fucking good looking and humble, too. Go now, and do my bidding."
She didn't feel so smart when she was sitting in her newly recycled, refurnished office, trying desperately to find the equipment she needed without having to wait for a week or gut her ship, when Dartan appeared at her door with his crew.
"Ah, fuck!" she said
"Is it a bad time, my Queen?"
"No. Get your luscious ass in here. Listen, I need a transmitter and transceiver with intergalactic capabilities. I need a computer with intergalactic links, and I need it yesterday. Can you get that for me?"
"My Queen, for you . . ."
"A simple yes or no, Dartan."
"Within the hour."
"You're a good man, I don't care what the others say."
"Can we talk to you?"
"Get me the stuff I need, and I'll do a fucking tap dance for you. Get it here in thirty minutes, and I'll do a strip tease."
He nodded and left at a run with his staff right behind him. She needed to know what the Lockhedes were planning. In order to figure that out, she needed to know how badly they'd been hurt in the battle at Hepron Station. It had looked like the whole of their fleet, but that was probably just wishful thinking.
She had to figure out how to win this war, and do it quickly before it completely bankrupted her. Or at the very least she needed to put out an all-out effort till this crap wore off her tongue and she could open her damn safe.
"So . . . do you have time to talk to me now?"
Drew sighed. She'd gotten up that morning, showered and dressed, and was almost out the bedroom door when Van Gar had announced that he had an idea she needed to hear. She'd known at the time that I don't have time to listen to your stupid assed idea right now I'm busy had probably been a little harsh, and that he'd force her to at least pretend to apologize later.
"I'm sorry I blew you off," Drew said half-heartedly.
Van Gar just nodded, indicating that he knew damn good and well she wasn't really sorry. Then he finished walking in and flopped in the chair across the desk from her."Half-assed, completely insincere apology accepted. Before you blow me off again, I have a proposition for you."
"Does it include lots of flavored body oil?" Drew asked with a wicked smile.
"Wrong lover. You know that stuff mats my fur up. This is a business matter."
"All right," Drew said her curiosity aroused, "I'll bite, what's your proposition?"
"I have roughly fifteen thousand displaced Chitzskies waiting for a new homeland which they are expecting me to buy them. Here's the thing. If I buy them something, I won't have as much money."
"Well, duh."
"Not only are these my people, but they are also probably the meanest mother fuckers in the galaxy, so I don't want to screw them over. Or at the very least, I don't want them to know that I have screwed them over . . ."
"I'm still busy, Van Gar, a point sometime, please."
"You're fighting a war. I have a small army of some of the most fearsome beings in the universe. They want land. You're queen of half a planet. You need fighters . . ."
"You fight for me, I give you land," Drewcila nodded appreciatively. It was a good plan. But she couldn't give them shit land, because if she did they'd be pissed off at her. And like Van Gar said, they were some scary mother fuckers. However, all the decent land in the country was owned by private parties or was a damn national monument. If she gave them a national treasure or started kicking the locals off their land to give it to aliens, there was bound to be shit. She told Van Gar as much.
'. . . the real problem is, Van Gar, that I have a serious battle constantly raging inside me that I have only recently become aware of. You see the forces of I want everyone to like me are constantly kicking the living crap out of I really don't give a damn what people think of me. I'm in constant conflict."
A noise in the hall drew her attention. She looked out the open doorway and saw the "noble" work detail being prodded along by a pair of exuberant guards who were obviously enjoying their new assignment immensely. It brought a smile to her face, and slapped an idea into her head so fast it made her lightheaded.
"The nobles had vast holdings, huge houses, surely your Chitzsky brothers and sisters couldn't balk about that."
"What about the nobles' families?"
"What about them? They are traitors by proxy. We sling them into the street and let them fend with the common man . . . offer them the choice of serving in the army or civil service, and redeeming themselves through service to country."
"How do you explain that you're giving the nobles' estates to a bunch of Chitzskies?"
"They pay us for the land. We use the money to help w
ith our war effort. When they fight with pride for our country, they will prove to the common man that they deserve to be citizens."
"Wait a minute, Drewcila. The idea was for me not to have to pay for land . . ."
"You said you'd give me forty percent if I helped you . . ."
'. . . to keep my money."
"You pay the kingdom the forty percent you were going to give me."
"You'd give up your part of the take to help my people and your country?" he said in disbelief.
"Dumb ass! Who is the Queen of this kingdom?"
"You are."
"So if you pay the kingdom, who ultimately gets the money?"
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh." She laughed and reached into her desk drawer to get a cigar. She flipped it up, caught it between her teeth and lit it with her side arm. She threw one to Van Gar, who caught it easily. He put it in his mouth and was about to light it when it sparked to flame.
"Damn it, Drewcila!" Van Gar yelped."You might at least warn me."
Drewcila smiled back, shrugged and put her blaster back in its holster."You just can't be nice to some people. You know, Van . . ." she took a long drag of her cigar and blew out a stream of smoke rings before she started talking again."I think being around all that religious bullshit has dulled your senses."
Van smiled back at her in spite of himself."You know you went to sleep in the middle of my story last night. I was really quite magnificent."
"Sorry, that was so insensitive of me, but I was a little tired, oh, you know, what with saving the planet, and screwing you senseless, and all." Drew smiled at him."Magnificent, huh?"
Van Gar started telling the story again. He was about to get to the part where he was oh so incredibly magnificent, when the reporter dude showed up with all the communications equipment Drewcila had ordered. She completely blew Van Gar off as she started shouting out orders concerning where she wanted this and where she wanted that and what she was going to do with it if they made the screeching noise sliding it across the floor even one more time.
Feeling rejected, Van Gar left in a huff—which was wasted because Drew didn't even notice he was gone. He wandered off in the direction of the bar, thinking a good stiff drink might help clear his mind.
He saw Arcadia sitting at the bar and almost turned around and left. Deciding he wasn't about to let her stop him going anywhere he wanted to go, he walked up to the bar, stepping over Shreta's prone body before picking a bar stool and sitting down. Arcadia looked up at him and pulled a face.
"Van Gar," she hissed out.
"Arcadia," he hissed right back, making the same face."What happened to her?" Van Gar asked indicating Shreta with a flip of his head.
"I made her come so hard she passed out hours ago, and she still hasn't come to," Arcadia answered.
Van Gar laughed loudly, then stopped, shaking his head."Come on, Arcadia, who are you trying to kid? You wouldn't fuck her with my dick."
"True. We were hoping it might make you and Drew jealous. I told her it wouldn't work."
"Hair of the dog?" Van Gar asked, pointing at the glass of Hurling Monkey Arcadia held in her claw.
"Is it that obvious that I'm hung over?" she asked.
"Sugar, you're either hung over or you took one of Shreta's ugly pills." Van laughed."So . . . how long do you plan to stay pissed off at me?"
"Me?" Arcadia laughed then."What about you? You have her most of the time, yet you resent the little bit of time I have her, and I had her first."
"Prior ownership seems to be a big deal with her," Abear said standing up from behind the bar."What's your poison?"
"Bend Me Over and Fuck Me, with a cherry," Van Gar answered. He thought about what Arcadia had said and answered decisively."You most certainly did not have her first. She said she'd only had six lovers before me, and I know who all of them were. You weren't on that list."
Arcadia laughed."You believed her? Hell, she probably had six lovers before noon on that day. I've been sleeping with the bitch off and on for six years. I figure that beats you by about three, four years."
After three drinks apiece, and an hour of arguing, pulling up dates and places and times, Van Gar had to admit that indeed, Arcadia had had Drew first.
"I don't really see what difference it makes," Van Gar said.
"How can you say that? You treat me like I'm the interloper, when it's obvious that you, and not I, are the interloper," Arcadia hissed back."Besides, I love her."
"I love her more than you do."
"Oh, you most certainly do not."
A whole new argument ensued. It was about to come to blows when Shreta came to and pulled herself off the floor. She stumbled over to the bar, and let it hold up her weight as she said, "Why don't you just agree to share her?"
"That's sick!" they exclaimed in unison.
Shreta shrugged."Like it or not, it's what you've been doing. Sharing her with each other, and every other man, woman, midget, and goat which catches her fancy."
"She said the goat belonged to the midget," Van Gar objected.
"My point is that she obviously has feelings for both of you, since she's kept you both around longer than anyone else. You're both hopelessly in love with her, so neither of you are going to just walk away. Maybe you should agree to share her, and then work together to keep everyone else away," Shreta said, taking the glass of water Abear handed her and downing it in one gulp.
"You know what? That's so crazy it just might work," Van Gar said.
"I'd rather share her with you than share her with you and half the galaxy."
"And between the two of us, surely we can satisfy all her many kinky urges."
"I'm not fucking you," Arcadia said.
"Certainly not," Van Gar said pulling a face.
Arcadia looked over at Shreta and then at Van Gar."This girl's a genius. We've got to do something about getting her laid."
Van Gar nodded in agreement. They spent the next hour making out a schedule.
When the equipment was in place and functional, Drewcila watched the reports from Lockhede concerning the raid on Hepron Station with a mixture of anger and appreciation. Their reporters were calling Hepron Station an all out victory, no doubt the military had doctored tapes of the raid so that it looked like Barion ships were falling from the sky instead of their own. And they had enhanced the damage on the station. They had even doctored a tape of herself so that it looked as if she were crying for mercy.
She had called in her best communications expert from one of the stations, and he had easily linked her to the Lockhede capital, although they had obviously gone to great lengths to keep her out. Apparently someone wanted nothing to do with any chance of negotiations between the two countries' leaders. Drewcila was pretty certain she knew who.
She was soon staring at the Lockhede President, and he was glaring back at her.
"I need to talk to the lot of you. I suggest you call your colleagues, all of them, and be prepared to talk to me in ten minutes." She closed the transmission and watched the clock.
Reluctantly, President Ralling called the heads of the military and his vice-president to his office. General Tryte had assured him that Drewcila Qwah wouldn't be able to contact them again, and yet she had done so in less time than it took him to get comfortable with the fact that she couldn't. He was beginning to have less and less faith in Tryte.
Roughly one-fourth of their Air Force had been totally annihilated by a few small planes and a fistful of salvaging barges. It was an embarrassment of mass proportions. They hadn't known Qwah had been there. If they had, it would have just made them more determined to target Hepron Station. Yet the truth was that if the whore hadn't been there, their attack most probably would have succeeded.
Drewcila Qwah was an unbelievable problem, and one he had no idea how to deal with. Without her, Barious would crumble. But getting to Qwah was impossible, and with her leadership there was a good chance that Barious, militarily inferior or not, was going to pl
ow a row right through his country.
He hated taking orders from anyone, much less that salvaging whore, yet he found himself calling Trailings and his three generals back to his chambers for yet another teleconference with the ever-growing thorn in his side, the Barion Queen. They of course arrived just in time, and then she had the nerve to make them wait for a full ten minutes before making an appearance again. When she did she was abrupt and to the point.
"All right, first things first. Someone is trying to make sure that there can be no chance for negotiations by keeping me out of your system. I suggest you all find out who the hell that is and kick their ass to the curb, because negotiations are your country's only chance of survival."
