Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘I wish there was a way to avoid it,’ it said. ‘It’s a horrible way to die. But we talked about this, and you said that if I chose to do it, you’d accept my decision. I know you’ll miss me, but this is about my needs, not yours.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re right – it is a horrible way to die.’ I flopped to sit on my chair again. ‘Are you sure you’ve exhausted every possible solution to this, Marque? Everybody else in the Empire is effectively immortal, surely—’

  ‘Not everybody, you know that,’ Marque said.

  ‘The Council of Clicks approached me,’ Snapclick said. ‘They said that I can choose to live on without reproducing if I want, they won’t force me. But my negotiation skills are legendary, and it’s my duty to pass them to future generations.’

  ‘Clone some bodies and transfer your damn soulstone after you’re done,’ I said.

  ‘My bodies are needed to feed the babies.’

  I opened my mouth to protest.

  ‘Alive, Jian. With me in them. They need to spend two of your weeks ingesting material from my living bodies to successfully complete their early growth and genetic structuring. It will take them at least ten days to work their way to all three brains in the centres of my bodies and kill me. The soulstone cannot be removed until the babies have eaten all of me. By then the stone will have lost attunement. There’s no avoiding it.’

  ‘Use a clone without a soulstone. Alive but brain-dead,’ I said.

  Snapclick swiped its claws over its head. ‘You know the cloned body only lasts a few hours without an active soulstone.’

  ‘You’re a dragonscales. Find a dragon partner and have a dragon child that won’t fucking eat you!’

  ‘Your own species is responsible for the limitations on dragon reproduction. You made them limit the creation of both dragonscales and new dragons; a new dragon can only be born if one is deceased, and there’s a long waiting list. This was a treaty that you, yourself, were part of creating.’

  I gestured with frustration. ‘I can’t believe there isn’t a scientific solution for this. This is so wrong!’

  ‘Jian, please remember: I can choose whether to do this or not. I’ve made my choice.’

  I subsided. ‘And I respect it. Who will co-parent?’

  It raised itself on its legs and spoke with triumph. ‘Terrclick!’

  ‘No way,’ I said. ‘The Empress’ favourite consort is going to die too? She’ll be heartbroken.’

  ‘Terrclick’s the best of our species. I’m profoundly honoured to be its chosen. The children will be exceptional. Will you help me—’

  ‘Cat attack, Jian,’ Marque said.

  ‘Anyone else able to take over for me?’ I said.

  ‘Not at your level.’

  ‘Dammit!’ I waved my finger in Snapclick’s face. ‘We are not finished here. How long before the mating party?’

  ‘It’s scheduled in twelve of your days. We need to settle our affairs and perform the cleansing ceremonies.’

  ‘We are talking about this as soon as I return.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Snapclick said.

  I headed towards the armour bay, a white-walled round platform in the centre of the house. Endicott whined and followed me; she knew what the bay meant. I stepped onto the ceramic-like floor and put my arms out.

  ‘What do we have, Marque?’ I said as the armour bay fitted me with my protective equipment. I checked my weapons and chilli micro-bombs, loaded the heads-up display, and confirmed that everything was green. I rubbed Endicott on both sides of her head. ‘I’ll be back soon, Endie.’

  Fumi, my allocated dragon transport, popped into existence in front of me. Her scales were a rich dark brown, and her snake-like body was three metres long with four legs. I put my hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Three cruisers attacking a gas giant in a system at the edge of Empire space,’ Marque said into my helmet comms. One of its spheres floated to touch Fumi as well. ‘Be ready, it will be bumpy.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said, and we reappeared in the gallery of Fumi’s ship. The top half of the ship was transparent, giving a spectacular view of space around us. Fumi’s ship was fifty metres wide and the gallery, the top half of the ship, was fifty metres long.

  Fumi disappeared, reappearing with my second-in-command, Lieutenant Naomi Griffith. Griffith, like me, was fully human, and born before the dragon invasion of Earth. She had dark skin from her African heritage, was tall and muscular, and chose to appear in her early forties, slightly older than my own age choice.

  ‘I have a message from Shiumo,’ Marque said into my comms.

  ‘Tell her to fuck off,’ I said.

  ‘She’s still at it?’ Griffith said.

  ‘She’s being very insistent,’ Marque said.

  ‘Tell her for the thousandth time: no. I have an excellent relationship with Fumi, who I trust, and Shiumo can go to hell.’

  ‘Heh, trust,’ Griffith said. ‘All the dragons are as bad as each other.’

  ‘What Shiumo did to Richard is unforgivable.’ I checked my bombs. ‘Enough about Shiumo, we have cats to fight.’

  Fumi reappeared with Leckie, one of the new recruits. He was only twenty-three, and like many humans his age had joined the dragon defence effort as soon as he was old enough. Our ranks were swelling, but we were still short on numbers to face sixty-four thousand ships, each full of thousands of cats. Leckie was still in his original mixed-heritage South American body, engineered like the rest of the human force to be stronger with more endurance, and his soulstone in his forehead was blue to signal his Earth loyalty.

  ‘Marque said gas giant?’ Leckie said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘What could the cats possibly want on a gas giant? Are there rare elements on it? Lithium? Beryllium?’

  Fumi transferred the rest of the squad in one by one, bringing two junior officers and thirty infantry to handle the three cat ships. She shifted onto the nose of the transparent ship.

  ‘Prepare for fold,’ Marque said, and we all hesitated with our mouths open to avoid lung damage from the possible pressure difference.

  The view of space around the ship shifted to the gas giant, large enough to cover most of the sky. It was an unusual, striking shade of green, with a few narrow rings around it and a number of small satellites. The ship shuddered around us, buffeted by the atmospheric currents and gravity of the enormous planet.

  ‘Whoa, that’s nearly as big as a star,’ Leckie said, impressed.

  Three cat ships were nearby, focusing all of their energy cannons onto the centre of the planet. Another dragon ship with a bright orange metallic skin was parked next to us.

  ‘The native species on this planet have nothing that the cats want,’ the other dragon said over comms. ‘They’re destroying the planet because I’m here.’

  ‘Can they actually destroy a gas giant? They’re tiny compared to it,’ I said.

  ‘If they can start a fusion reaction in the core of the planet, they can turn it into a brown dwarf star and destroy all life in it,’ Marque said.

  ‘They’ll do that?’ Leckie said.

  ‘They’ve started doing it in the past three years or so. If they see a dragon ship in orbit, they blow up the planet without even talking to them,’ I said. ‘Three groups. Alpha team with Lieutenant Imran to the ship at nine o’clock. Bravo team, with me, I’ll take the basket, ship in the middle. Lieutenant Griffith, take Charlie team to the ship at three o’clock. Ready to carry us, Fumi?’

  ‘Ready to go,’ Fumi said. ‘Hands, Alpha team.’

  Alpha team put their hands on Fumi and she folded them out. Marque floated from the back of the ship with a basket of synthesised potatoes and dragon scale, and passed it to me. Fumi returned, and my team put our hands on her. She folded us to the cat ship, and we immediately released the chilli bombs.

  Cat ships had dark grey interiors, with limited views of the outside, reflecting their mild agoraphobia. The bridge was higher th
an it was wide, with the cats sitting on platforms containing two-dimensional viewscreens and control panels at various heights, sticking out from the walls.

  The cats had no way to communicate over interstellar distances like the dragons did. They were unaware of our chilli weapon, and had no defence against it. The bridge crew went down immediately, falling off their platforms. I put the basket next to their captain’s comms panel, then we proceeded through the ship dropping chilli bombs on every cat we found. They were completely incapacitated by it, falling and screaming in agony. The entire crew were down – the chilli powder spread through the ventilation system and no cat could avoid it. We headed back to the bridge, and I stopped next to the captain’s head, where I’d placed the potatoes.

  ‘We’re taking you back to your home system,’ I said to the captain. ‘Please stop attacking us. The potatoes are a gift in apology for doing this to you. We wish to negotiate in peace – there’s a dragon scale in the basket; just tap on it and we will immediately come to talk terms.’

  I pinged Fumi. ‘Ready to go.’

  ‘Prepare for fold,’ Fumi said, and we were stretched through space as she carried the cat ship back to its home system. She appeared on the bridge. ‘Hands.’

  We gathered around her and she folded us off the cat ship and onto her own, still floating above the gas giant. The final cat ship was visible next to the gas giant, and had turned upside-down from its original orientation – the galactic standard symbol of surrender.

  ‘They turned turtle!’ I said. ‘Did they surrender to you?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Griffith said from the third ship. ‘We dropped the chilli on them before we knew they’d turned the ship over – we were inside and never saw it happen.’ Her voice turned wry. ‘Sorry, all. Nothing we can do about it – they’re completely out of action – we’re dropping them home with another scale and hoping that once they’re back up to speed, they’ll use it to ping us and we can talk.’

  ‘I’m taking them home,’ Fumi said, and disappeared.

  ‘If they did it deliberately, it’s a huge breakthrough for us,’ I said.

  ‘If they did it deliberately, they’ve been warned about the chilli,’ Imran said. ‘They’re somehow communicating with their homeworld, and sharing information about what we do.’

  Fumi reappeared with Charlie team. ‘I need to tell my mother about this,’ she said. ‘I wonder if other cats have done that. If they have, we may finally have a breakthrough towards peace.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Drop us home, and then head off to talk to her.’

  The whole raid – from start to finish – had taken less than an hour. Hopefully we would be this efficient when the time came to take on the fleet.

  *

  When I arrived home, Snapclick was still there, throwing a ball into the glowing pool for Endicott.

  ‘Now tell me what you’d like for a mating-party gift,’ I said, sitting at the outdoor table next to the pool.

  Two of its bodies joined me at the table while the third one continued to throw the ball. ‘You’re okay with me doing this?’

  ‘I said I’d support you, and I will. What can I give you? You were about to ask me something, as well.’

  ‘To be a post-ingestion for my children.’

  I stared at it, silenced, for a long time. Eventually I managed to choke out, ‘I am so honoured.’

  ‘You have done well with the cat child, Jian; you are an obvious choice.’

  ‘Oliver’s the way he is because he is awesome,’ I said. ‘He has a heart as big as a planet and he’s smarter than just about anyone I know short of you.’

  ‘This is why I want you. You will push my children to be the greatest clicks that have ever existed.’

  ‘I’ll do my damndest, my friend.’

  2

  I couldn’t leave the Barracks planet for any length of time, so Oliver came to see me and catch up two weeks later. We sat on the poolside deck together, surrounded by the remains of our extremely carnivorous replicated meal. Oliver swivelled the three-dimensional model of Victor’s statue so that I could view it from all sides, the black pads on his fingers appearing strange as they pressed against the force field. The statue was a symbol of hope for the Empire; it was my two sons Oliver and David, cat and human, standing as brothers. Endicott crunched a bone under the table – Oliver had been slipping food to her all through the meal and I’d pretended not to notice. He always spoiled her and she adored him.

  ‘It’ll be made of grey granite with shining flecks in it, a natural stone,’ he said.

  ‘I like how you have your arms around each other,’ I said. ‘How big will Victor make it?’

  ‘Half life-size. It’ll take him ages, he doesn’t often work in stone and he’s refusing Marque’s help; he’ll do it all himself. He’s completely bonkers.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said.

  He pushed the model aside. ‘You ever thought about getting back together with them, Mum? Victor asked me to tell you: you’re welcome any time. They want to come and visit you. You’re all alone here; you’ve been by yourself for too long.’

  I sighed and rubbed my face. ‘I wish my mother would just butt out.’

  ‘We all want you to be happy, Mum.’

  ‘As long as that’ – I pointed at the cat fleet hovering above us – ‘is there, I can’t do anything. When it’s dealt with, I’ll start to live my life properly. My life.’

  ‘My people are causing the whole world – the whole galaxy so much grief,’ he said, his emotions turning bitter.

  I took his hand and buried my fingers in his soft black fur. ‘And you aren’t. You have friends and family and you are loved.’

  He gripped my hand, then released it. ‘Speaking of family, have you heard from David? I haven’t heard anything from him since he left Nan’s farm, and I’m worried about him. Do you know how he is?’

  ‘He’s stationed in the Third Battalion. He’s second-in-command of a backup squad, and from what I hear he’s already done two chilli attacks and represented himself well.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘Not personally. He’s not in my part of the force. They keep us separate so that we won’t be in the same action and compromised by our family ties.’

  He nodded. ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘I just told him by scale that you’re talking about him,’ Marque said. ‘He’s too far away to communicate directly, he’s sending a message through to me via scales. Here it is.’ He used David’s voice. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch. We’re doing team-building with micro-bombs. Just a few more months before the cat fleet drops out of warp and this will all be sorted. I’m fine, and I’ll send you a longer message soon.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s happy and busy,’ Oliver said. He hesitated, his emotions conflicted; he’d been holding something back the entire evening and he was about to let it out. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’

  I sighed with relief. ‘About time. What species?’

  ‘What species what?’ he said, confused.

  ‘Whoever you want to tell me about.’

  ‘How did you know that was what I was going to say?’ he said, incredulous.

  ‘Oliver, I’m your mother. So, what species? Do I know them?’

  The words rushed out. ‘She’s a dragon.’

  A million thoughts rushed through my head, and he sat, petrified that I would be angry with him.

  ‘No, of course I’m not upset,’ I said. I took his hand again. ‘I’m happy you’ve found love. But is it love? You’ve been in the Empress’ household for nearly a year now; this isn’t a political thing, is it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Kind of, yes. It’s a good political move. The cats will attack in a few months. Having me pair-bonded with a dragon – hopefully having a child with a dragon—’

  ‘What?’ I said, interrupting him. ‘A child? She’s not pregnant already, is she?’

  He smiled.

  ‘You are too
young to be a father!’

  ‘Cats are mature at nineteen years old, Mum. I’m thirty-two – an old man by cat standards.’

  ‘Is it love?’

  He looked me in the eye. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she pregnant?’

  His gaze didn’t waver. ‘No.’

  I relaxed, relieved. ‘So which Princess?’

  ‘Runa.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve met her.’

  ‘She’s one of the Empress’ youngest. Not much older than I am. Would you like to meet her?’

  ‘Yes. If you love her I’m sure I will too.’

  He pulled out a green scale.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, and he hesitated. ‘I know cats don’t see the illusion – what does her two-legged form look like?’

  ‘It is strange, but—’ he began, but Marque interrupted him.

  ‘Cat attack, Jian.’

  Oliver rolled his eyes. ‘I am so sick of this!’

  ‘A few more months and this will be sorted,’ I said, thumping the table.

  ‘Go, Mum,’ Oliver said. ‘Endi and I will be fine.’

  I went to the armour bay, with Oliver and Endicott following.

  I stood in it and held my arms out. ‘What do we have?’

  ‘It’s New Nippon,’ Marque said.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Oliver said, then softer, ‘Sorry, Mum.’

  I waved him down. ‘Casualties?’

  ‘None as yet. Princess Masako was there visiting Prince Haruka, and she folded some Japanese soldiers to the cat ships to stop them. It’s not working as well as planned, and your backup will be useful.’

  ‘How many cat ships?’

  ‘Four.’

  Fumi popped into existence in front of me and I put my hand on her shoulder. Oliver gave me a grinning thumbs-up, showing his long canines, as we disappeared. We reappeared in the gallery of Fumi’s ship, then she transferred the rest of the squad in one by one, bringing two junior officers and thirty infantry to handle the four cat ships. She disappeared when we were all loaded, and reappeared above us, sitting on the nose of her transparent ship.

  ‘Marque said New Nippon?’ Leckie said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  ‘Prepare for fold,’ Marque said, and we all hesitated with our mouths open.