Weekly Drabble #280: Bad Romance (Patreon)

This week's drabble continues some more Star-crossed, with N3R0's prompt of 'awful romance'. Awful, like beauty, can be in the eye of the beholder.

Though I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to go full ham with that prompt with Hugh Dick and his lady companion Chesty LaRue.

~

Bad Romance:

Could it be...?

That question had been plaguing the general. He should have been celebratory, or at least satisfied. The king had agreed to his plan and while that hadn’t truly been in doubt, you never could tell with the nobility. The throne’s previous resident had gone soft in his old age. He’d started to have misgivings about the empire’s course and once those misgivings had started to get in the way, well... the military’s job was to protect the empire from all threats. All threats, including a king who was no longer worthy to lead the Akshari people to the destiny that they deserved.

Some people said the greatest threat to the realm was to have a fool wearing the crown, but that wasn’t the general’s opinion. A fool for a ruler was fine and dandy as long as he listened to those actually in charge and did what he was told. No, the greatest threat was a heedless fool. The current monarch was a pompous, wet-spined milksop, but he trusted his experienced advisors, including his military counsel and followed their advice.

Still. You never could tell with nobility. Sometimes they got it in their heads that they were more important than they were and they had to do something other than pose for cameras and make affirming proclamations. It was a dangerous conceit to have and many monarchs had fallen prey to it.

Fortunately, there hadn’t been any need for strict measures with the current ruler. His Royal Highness Amaras was easy to manipulate: his vanity, his need to be accepted and adored and his general weakness of spirit were easy levers for the general to pull whenever he wanted something done. Nonetheless, the general occasionally found himself wishing one of the more... marketable members of the royal family were still around. Though it was probably for the best that they weren’t, as the previous throne’s occupant had demonstrated.

It had been a relatively bloodless affair, all things considered. Those closest to the previous monarch had been quietly neutralized, either by convincing them to take a step back from public affairs – and keep their mouths shut – or by being implicated as parties to the king’s tragic demise. Of those, a few had been executed, while most were kept in prison where they could spend the rest of their miserable lives thinking about how they’d backed the wrong side.

None of them – not one of those powerful lords and their women – were as much of a pain in the old man’s ass as one young noble-blooded quim. Letting Arina Ysvera get off-planet was bad enough. Letting her get halfway across the galaxy was worse and the final insult was when she’d showed up in Primality propaganda broadcasts like a bitch on a leash.

He’d thought that had been the worse of it, but attempt after attempt to get the princess back home had failed, from so-called reliable bounty hunters, to family acquaintances who’d promised they could bring her back – and hadn’t that been a fiasco in and of itself? Even the successful extraction hadn’t gone the way it should have.

Killing the princess would have been easier, and there’d been some in the general’s inner circle who’d suggested that, but his position hadn’t changed. They needed Ysvera alive. There were still some damn royalists hiding in the court like children behind their mothers’ skirts and if he tried to pass off a fake or illusion as the real princess... the quiet discontent in palace could explode.

Some days, he relished the challenge of it all, balancing strategy and tactics against intrigue and cunning. Other days, it just pissed him off. The Foundationists were the actual threat. The human savages were an annoyance, too small to merit much attention, no matter how loud they barked or what dockside magician tricks they had. He had hundreds of times more ships than they did. If it ever became necessary to crush them, it would be a short and decidedly one-sided affair.

Until then, they were a suitable monster in the closet he could use to control the population, to twist dials and pull levers like a theater showman, standing between the cowering audience and the slavering creatures in the dark. That was the plan, until the Ixorae-damned princess had stood shoulder to shoulder with those frenarl, calling him and the rest of Black Destiny traitors and cowards. Then, people started to wonder if the humans were as rabidly monstrous as they were being told they were. That was when an annoyance had become a problem.

Getting reliable information from the sectors beset by the savages was always difficult. The Primality was almost entirely human, so inserting agents into their ranks was next to impossible. The most reliable way was to compromise or insert agents into the humans’ auxiliaries among the fringe. The Primality relied heavily on pirates, smugglers and freebooters but kept them isolated from any sensitive information, restricting what True Council assets could learn.

Surgical modification or the use of Terran agents were required to get into the Primality forces directly, which could take years of effort that would immediately be thrown away the instant some Ixorare-damned telepath walked by. Possibly even worse then that, Terran assets had a shockingly high rate of betrayal. It was always a danger that undercover agents would start sympathizing with their targets, but the species was either too intrinsically mush-minded or barbaric not to be swayed by their xenophobic cousins.

That was neither here nor there, though. Getting information out of the Primality was tricky, that was the important thing. That was why documents like the one the general had only recently received could take far, far longer to arrive than normal.

The data pack itself was hardly interesting, acquired from a low-level source but anything pertaining to the princess was to be sent directly to him. There was a single bit of video, only a few seconds’ long, that had caught his attention. One of the mercenary groups he’d hired to retrieve Ysvera had managed to get farther than most, setting off multiple bombs during a meeting between the Primality and some local government. He’d give them credit for bravado and skill, but for endangering the princess he’d still have had them all killed if the humans hadn’t taken care of that for him.

He didn’t know how the agent had gotten this footage, but it was from the locals’ own security systems from the moments after the bombs started to go off, shaking the building. He had the clip playing on a loop, staring intently at one small part of the screen, trying to understand what it was that he saw there.

There was the first blast, a faint thud – the sound on the recording clip was low, and the picture was grainy – and the reactions of the attendees. Then the second blast and the third and the fourth, the latter just outside the building. The concussion blew the armoured windows in, glass shards of various sizes hurtling across the room. Sadly, no one was killed.

In the few seconds the loop showed, the traitor delegation were turning around in shock, some already ducking for cover. Among the humans, their guards were moving with a speed and clarity of purpose that the general found himself grudgingly respecting. They might be savages who’d had to make up for their inherent shortcomings as a species with genetic alterations, but there was no substitute for a will, nor dedication. The armoured creatures didn’t hesitate, grabbing human diplomats to pull them out of danger, while others vaulted the tables to put themselves between their wards and harm’s way. In the midst of all that chaos, the old man could recognize the smooth efficiency of order imposing itself, just as it should be. It would almost be admirable if those involved weren’t little more than barbarians.

Though that initially caught his tactician’s eye, it wasn’t what now held his attention, an unhappy, confused scowl on his features as he stroked his beard. A cigar lay in the ashtray next to him, all but burnt down. He didn’t consider himself an unintelligent man – his record and accomplishments spoke for themselves without him needing to preen like a woman or foppish court youth – but he found himself flummoxed by what was on the screen.

As the final blast went off and the outer wall started to crumble, the human commander spun, grabbing the traitor princess and pulling her against him, putting himself between her and the threat. When he did so, she latched onto him and the look on her face... she was frightened and shocked by the explosion, but as the savage seized her, there was a small shift in her expression.

The general played the scene again and then one final time, freezing on that frame. He was an astute observer of people. The Akshari prided themselves on their self-control, but he often saw more in the twitch of eyes or the tiny curl of lips than what an otherwise stone-faced opponent might wish to reveal. It was these moments of vulnerability on the princess’s face that were defying his attempts to understand the situation.

If he didn’t know better, that looked like trust. No, not just trust. Concern was there, too. Ysvera didn’t know what was happening or why the human was grabbing her, but amidst the uncertainty and fear of what was going on around her, she knew the frenarl’s actions were to protect her... and she was worried about him.

That made no sense at all. Of course the human would want to protect Ysvera. She was an important asset and mouthpiece for their nation. Keeping her safe and out of Akshari hands would be absolutely vital, even more than the life of a squadron commander. But why should she care about the risk to a human?

The general picked up his cigar, frowning as he saw how little was left. He stubbed it out in the tray and lit a fresh one. It wasn’t uncommon for Akshari to take alien lovers. Well, for male Akshari. For a woman, let alone a noble to let herself be sullied in such a manner by an alien of all things... that was quite different from a man having a little piece on the side.

He himself kept a spirited example of human femininity in a discreet apartment well away from prying eyes. She was quite a mercenary thing and eagerly spent his coin. Not that I don’t make her work for it, he thought with a soft chuckle. But she was still an alien and a frenarl, not a truly civilized creature. If the time ever came that she became a liability, he’d have no qualms about cutting off the relationship in the most expedient manner necessary.

He certainly wouldn’t put himself in front of a bomb for her, and she was smart enough to know that. Akshari were the pinnacle of evolution and though other species might be their equals – within a certain margin of error – there were many that were, and would always be, inferior. Humans were obviously one of the latter.

With such creatures, there could be no true connection between them, not like his people could share. For a highborn who’d grown up in court, born with psychic gifts that separated her and other nobles from even other Akshari to look upon a human like that, like she was worried for his sake... he couldn’t wrap his head around it. If he didn’t know better, he’d say that was genuine affection. But that was impossible. Even for a worldly man as himself, the concept was just too much.

The princess simply had to be a better actress than he gave her credit for. Perhaps she’d even played the blinkered fool, but the general just couldn’t bring himself to believe that a woman who’d been two heartbeats from the throne of the empire could desecrate herself like that.

But.

Could it be?

He stared at the image for long minutes, letting his office fill with fragrant cigar smoke with what he knew had to be true battling with an uncertain and disgusting possibility.

Could it be...?