Liberty Call

A short story about 2 Drakkus Empire Space Marines on leave, what could go wrong?

The following is a short story I’d originally planned for an anthology that hasn’t happened. In lieu of that, I’m posting it here for my reader’s enjoyment. Feel free to share and tell your friends, please don’t copy it or post it elsewhere.

This is a Star Portal Universe story.

Liberty Call

By Kal Spriggs

“Do not add to the population of this lovely world, do not subtract from the population of this lovely world,” Captain Lorr’s steely gaze swept across all of us and I didn’t miss how he stopped and his gaze leveled upon my general vicinity like a particle cannon array. “Do not become involved in the local constabulary or military in any way, shape, or form.”

“He’s looking at you when he says that,” Stripes muttered.

“Shuddup, Stripes, he’s looking at both of us,” I snarled under my breath.

Captain Lorr proved me right as he went on, “Do not impersonate a local peace officer or member of the local clergy, do not sell real-estate, imaginary, digital, or otherwise…”

Stripes sighed next to me as the Captain went on… in rather more detail and length than he had on previous ports of call.

Then again, maybe we had given him reason.

“…lastly, do not get married or arrange marriages for any members of the crew, with or without their permission,” Captain Lorr finished.

This time, I kicked Stripes in the ankle a bit, because that whole thing had really been a pain.

“Most importantly,” Captain Lorr’s harsh voice snapped, “do not miss ship departure in… eighteen hours and thirty seven minutes. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” We all chorused. No one would dare to do that, not in the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps. Missing movement counted as desertion. Desertion carried only one penalty.

I’d rather drag my bleeding body up the shuttle ramp with missing legs than bring down the wrath of the Drakkus Empire on me for that.

“For the Emperor!” Captain Lorr snapped.

“For the Emperor!” We chorused and I felt that same thrill as I shouted it with the others. We served the Drakkus Empire, and the Emperor, the rightful Emperor. Sure, I was probably one of the lowest of the low, with possibly the exception of Stripes next to me, but I was proud of that service, proud that I had been selected to serve.

“Let’s go before he changes his mind and locks down the shuttle,” Stripes ruined the moment.

Still, I followed after him as he went to the shuttle. I loved the Empire, I loved what I did, that didn’t mean I wanted to stay on the ship and breathe recycled air for another minute if I didn’t have to.

Stripes was the first one aboard the ship’s shuttle and I followed right after him, as the rest of us lucky enough to take liberty hurried aboard. It was mostly enlisted crew, the handful of ship’s officers were always too busy.

One more reason to be glad I’m not an officer, I smirked to myself.

Stripes had taken one of the seats by the door, that was, until Petty Officer Han stopped in front of him, “Get out of my seat, Stripes.” She was a short, fireplug woman and she terrified me, so I kept quiet and still as she glared at Stripes.

“But, Petty Officer, I was here first…” Stripes began.

“Back of the shuttle, Stripes, move it,” Han snapped.

Stripes got up and I could hear him muttering to himself as he slouched to the back. I started to follow and Petty Officer Han caught me by the shoulder. Her gaze bored into me. “You shouldn’t hang out with him, he’s trouble.”

“He’s my friend,” I answered her simply.

“For your own good, you probably need to make new friends, Corporal Mura,” Petty Officer Han released my shoulder.

I didn’t have an answer for that. Stripes and I had been friends for as long as I could remember. We’d come up on the streets together. He had watched my back and I had watched his. It had been his idea for us to join the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps, to volunteer for the Marines, to do any of this.

I walked to the back of the shuttle, my head awhirl, struggling with what to do, what to even think. We had been drilled to listen to orders, to follow what we were told, no matter the circumstances. The petty officer telling me leave Stripes, though… it didn’t sit right with me.

I gave my friend a look, as I sat down. He was on his tablet, reading up on the planet, I knew. Stripes wasn’t his real name, of course, it was the nickname he had gained at basic training… a sarcastic one. Stripes, because you’ll never have any. The drill sergeants had derided his antics, even then, as he scrounged extra food, found ways to hide out and sleep when he should have been working, and invariably got caught for every minor infraction and demoted again and again.

I’d made corporal in the time since… and Stripes, well, he still was private. We would have new recruits coming aboard when we got back to the Empire who would outrank him.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Stripes growled.

“Nothin,” I looked away, suddenly nervous. Stripes had always looked out for me on the streets. We hadn’t been in a gang, just the pair of us surviving in the warrens back on Drakkus Prime. Fosterlings, orphans, it didn’t matter, we came from nothing and we had nothing… nothing but one another.

“Says here that the local stars never set on Ten Sisters, crazy, huh?” Stripes asked me.

“Is that where we are?” I hadn’t paid much attention to where the ship was, it hadn’t really mattered. We went where we were told, we fought who we were told.

“Yeah, just annexed by the Guard a few years back,” Stripes nodded. “I guess the locals aren’t all that happy about that, I bet that’s why we’re here, to show them that the Empire is here and maybe they could get lucky and fall in with us.”

“What, and go to war with the Guard?” I asked in surprise.

Stripes gave me a scowl, “No stupid, it would be some kind of shadow op, I’m sure. The Admirals and Generals and High Houses would maneuver, money would trade hands, and the next day there’d be a new flag over their planetary government buildings. That’s how it happened at Tenure, right?”

I frowned, “I’m pretty sure that’s not how stuff works against the Guard.” They controlled most of known space, after all. I didn’t know much about them, save that they sort of liked the Empire. But they controlled hundreds, if not thousands of star systems.

My mind shied away from thinking of how powerful that must make them. They couldn’t be more powerful than the Drakkus Empire, surely. We were mighty, we followed the Emperor. We were blessed by the Divine Dragon, surely that gave us greater might than our mere numbers showed.

“Anyway, there’s a big garrison here on the planet to keep the locals in line, we’ll steer clear of that,” Stripes flipped through sites on his datapad. “Oh, look at this, she’s a looker, eh?”

I glanced at his tablet and my eyes went wide, “Uh, where is the rest of her clothing?”

“It’s seasonal wear,” Stripes grinned at me. “I guess the women are in charge here, and they wear what they feel comfortable with, temperature-wise.”

“Huh,” I shook my head. “Maybe this will be a nice liberty call.”

“You bet,” Stripes grinned.

“Too bad we don’t have any currency,” I grumbled. Our last… unfortunate event had seen us docked three months’ worth of pay. I had enough to maybe buy some street food, assuming the exchange rate worked in our favor.

“You let me worry about that,” Stripes grinned as he patted his pocket.

“What… what do you have?” I asked in a low voice. I was painfully aware that we were probably under observation. Imperial Intelligence watched all of us, there were informants among the crew for certain. I didn’t want us getting arrested or detained if Stripes was doing something criminal or even outright treasonous.

For that matter, I didn’t want to do anything against the Empire. It gave me a proud feeling to serve, to wear the dragon emblem over my breast, to know that I served the Emperor.

“Don’t worry about it, nothing that would get us in trouble,” Stripes assured me in a tone that I didn’t trust in the slightest.

The shuttle had begun to maneuver, though, and the noise of reentry drowned out any conversation I might have held with him.

Once it landed, too, there wasn’t time to talk. It wasn’t quite a mad scramble to get off the shuttle, but no one wanted to linger and get caught up in any work details for loading fresh supplies or parts.

I followed Stripes as we hurried away, both in our black Drakkus uniforms. We were halfway out of the spaceport before I really had a chance to look around, first taking in the humid warmth, so different from the chill, damp cold of Drakkus Prime.

Only as that registered did I look up… and my jaw dropped.

The sky above us was full of light. There were stars, three or four of them in the sky above us, bright enough to light the place up like day.

“Stars never set here, Mura,” Stripes reminded me. “There’s ten of them, three or four in the sky at any one time. Now come on, you’re staring around like a tourist, we got a tight schedule to keep.”

“Sure, sure,” I shook my head and followed after my friend.

He had his tablet out again. I marked the gate on my neural implant as we walked, being sure to tag our route so I could find my way back. Stripes and I both had good senses of direction, but this was still an alien world and I didn’t want to get lost.

As we got away from the spaceport, I saw more and more of the locals and, if anything, Stripes’ image on his tablet had overstated their use of clothing. Most of the women wore nothing more than short shorts, and the men often wore less than that, little skimpy thongs that had less cloth than my undergarments.

Stripes snickered and elbowed me as two men went jogging by with their butt cheeks in the breeze. “No wonder the Guard rolled over them, eh?”

“Excuse me?” One of the two stopped and turned, his expression hard.

“Sorry,” I smiled at him, “My friend misspoke.”

“You take those words back, gaijin, or…”

“Matan, it is not worth it, they are Drakkus,” his friend told him. They spoke on in the local language, their words rapid and angry in tone.

Stripes grinned at them the whole time, even as I elbowed him, “Keep your voice down.”

“It’s fine, see, they’re on their way, we’re not in a fight, it’s all good,” Stripes waved a hand.

He led the way on, coming to a stop outside of what was unmistakably a local dive bar. “Stripes, I don’t have money for a drink.”

“I can cover you, we’re good,” Stripes led the way inside.

The place looked worse on the inside, with painted-over windows and an assortment of drunk spacers and sour-faced locals. The woman at the bar gave us a slight bow, “What can I do for you?” She had a slight accent, similar to back on Drakkus, but different.

Stripes drew a small wrapped package out of his pocket and put it on the counter. “I have product to sell.”

Her eyes went wide and I saw her scan the bar. “I’ll need to talk to the manager.”

Shit, I thought to myself. I leaned over and spoke into Stripes’ ear, “Tell me that isn’t drugs.”

“Oh, it is, Mura,” Stripes grinned. “A hundred grams of Rex Prime, the good stuff. Straight from the factories back on Drakkus Prime. I spent all my pay from basic on it, an investment for a rainy day.”

“Are you insane?” I hissed at him, looking around to make sure no one was in ear-shot. “That’s illegal in three-quarters of human space.”

“Yeah, and very valuable. Look, I bought this before we left, its legal back there to own…”

The Drakkus Imperial Space Korps didn’t like their personnel using any of the various illicit substances they produced, though, not while on duty. There were regulations against trafficking it to fellow enlisted and officers, too.

There were special units, within DISK, made up of addicts, those who couldn’t shake their chemical dependencies. The rumors were they were the ones sent into the worst fights, fed into situations where survival wasn’t a consideration.

The bartender came back up, her expression hard to read. “The manager will see you. Through there,” she nodded slightly at the door at the back of the room.

Stripes grinned at her, “Thank you, lovely woman.”

She didn’t smile back. Her eyes followed us as we walked to the back of the bar.

“I don’t think she likes us,” I said to Stripes in a low voice.

“Its fine, we’re fine,” Stripes assured me.

We stepped into the back room… and we were not fine.

There were three men and two women waiting there. An older woman, her face lined and her hair silver, sat behind a desk, dressed in a silk outfit that went all the way up to her neck. The others wore high-collared shirts, also in silk… but more importantly, they had guns out and aimed at us.

“Come,” the older woman gestured at two chairs in front of her desk. “Sit.”

“Ma’am, we’re just here to do a quick sale,” Stripes gave her an uneasy smile.

“Sit,” the old woman ordered. Stripes and I were seated before we really knew what was going on.

“The product?” She asked.

Stripes held up the wrapped package and the armed woman next to us took it from his hand, snatching it viper quick and depositing it on the desk. The older woman waited while the younger one scanned it.

“Rex Prime,” she announced.

The old woman cocked her head, “Do you know the penalty in Guard Space for trafficking in Rex Prime?”

“Uh, no ma’am,” Stripes suddenly sounded far less certain.

“Death,” she answered.

Oh… by the Dragon, I thought to myself. I tensed up and I could see Stripes out of the corner of my eye do the same. We weren’t going to go down in the back room of a seedy bar, not without a fight.

The old woman took the small package, holding it by the corner with thumb and forefinger as if it were a dirty diaper, and then she dropped it into the waste bin next to her desk.

“Now, gentlemen, let me explain something… I own you,” she told us. “I could snap my fingers and the two of you would be rotting in a cell here, waiting on the Guard to try you. Do you understand?”

I kept quiet and Stripes, for once, kept his mouth shut.

The old woman smiled, “Well, then. Here is the deal. You will do what I tell you. I want details of your ship, officers, NCOs, crew. I want your schedule, I want details on where you keep your weapons, I want…”

“Lady, you can kiss my ass,” Stripes told her.

She cocked her head and I could hear her thugs ready their weapons behind me. I sat straight next to my friend, “We are sworn to the service of the Drakkus Empire, we will not betray that.”

“Yet you smuggle drugs, violating a dozen Imperial regulations?” She raised an eyebrow. “You are here, on a planet controlled by the Guard, peddling a small fortune in illegal drugs? You expect me to think your loyalty is not for sale?”

“I would rather die than betray the Empire,” I told her.

Stripes, to my surprise, gave a nod.

The old woman sat back in her chair and I almost expected her to order her people to do just that.

“Very well, Corporal Mura… you and Private Tran have passed the test,” The old woman told us. “I am Institor Nakimato, Imperial Intelligence.”

“Imperial Intelligence?” Stripes leaned forward next to me, “What are you doing here?”

Her gaze went to him and he leaned back, “Uh, ma’am, sorry ma’am.”

“That is not your business. What is pertinent, however, is that you two idiots stumbled into my operation like a couple of marsh ushi with zero awareness, and quite probably endangered everything I have worked for,” she snapped her fingers and the display on the wall came to life. I realized she had controlled it with her implant, it still impressed me. The display showed security feed from out in the bar and it zoomed in on a pair of men that had come in from outside. They wore heavier clothing, clearly from offworld, rather than being locals.

The Institor spoke, “They’re Guard Intelligence, they followed you two, and you idiots led them to me. I’d been running my operation as a little cartel of criminals, which didn’t draw much official attention, but two Drakkus Imperial Space Korps personnel showing up on my doorstep has done so. You two have endangered an operation that has been years in effort.”

I was smart enough to realize that wasn’t a good thing.

“Are we in trouble, then?” Stripes asked.

Her gaze went back to him and he melted into his chair under that basilisk stare.

“I am here on the behalf of the Empire,” she went on. “So, while my first inclination is to cut your throats and dump your bodies where the authorities will find them, and assume that you ran afoul of local criminals doing something shady, I hate to waste the lives of loyal Marines of the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps… for now.”

I was much happier without getting my throat cut. I kept quiet and waited.

“I need something,” she went on. “With their official attention on me, now, I won’t be able to go anywhere near it. You two, however, might be able to do so.”

“Uh, ma’am, if they followed us here, wouldn’t they follow us out?” Stripes asked.

“If they recognize you, yes, Private Tran, they would,” The Institor smiled. “Fortunately, idiots like them only see what they expect to see. The Guard are complacent, they feel they are superior… and we will use their superiority and prejudice against them.”

“Ma’am, how will we do that?” I asked.

She smiled, “I think you two boys would look lovely in the local outfits.”

***

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you,” I told Stripes a little later as we walked down the street in a pair of thongs.

“Jog, boys,” I heard through my neural implant as the Institor messaged us. It frightened me a bit that she had that level of access, to communicate straight into our military implants. “The local men jog everywhere to show their women that they work hard for them.”

Stripes and I broke into jogs and I felt a flush climb my face as we went past a cluster of women, one of them giving a whistle as Stripes and I jogged past.

“Three more blocks, then turn right,” the Institor ordered.

We jogged on. In the lighter gravity on the planet, we probably could have kept this pace up for hours without an issue.

We jogged past a foot patrol of Guard Army personnel and a couple of them jeered at us, one throwing cat-calls. The flush climbed my cheeks again and I had to suppress the impulse to turn around and show them what I thought of their crude humor.

“You do have a nice ass,” Stripes puffed as we jogged on. “I’m sure it looks very pert.”

“Shuddup,” I snapped at him. This was all his fault, I knew. I’d just wanted some fresh air and a meal, maybe to see something besides the inside of the ship. Petty Officer Han was right.

We turned right and jogged on. Institor Nakimato painted a doorway on our implants. “That’s the building, the target is in there.”

The building looked like an armored bank, and I saw locals going in and out with packages and a pair of armed guards at the front.

“What’s the target, ma’am?” I sent over my implant, even as the pair of us slowed our pace.

“A security box. I need the contents,” she went on. “The owner is Ashirigara. It is box Thirty-Nine. You have the one security key, the bank manager has the other.”

“I suppose we do not have Ashigara’s permission to take the box?” Stripes asked.

“Unfortunately for everyone involved, Ashigara had an unknown heart condition and did not survive my attempts to persuade her to turn the contents over. So you have her key,” she told us. “It is likely that her family is aware of her death at this point, so you need to obtain the contents before they arrive.”

This whole thing got better and better.

“Grieving children, then?” Stripes shot me a look.

“Worth a try, I guess,” I answered.

I kept my expression calm as we walked past the two armed guards and into the building. “At least they know we aren’t armed,” Stripes joked as we went past them. I shot him a look, he just slapped my ass and kept walking. I’m going to kill him, I thought to myself.

There was a line for security boxes and we went over in that direction, me holding the small envelope even as I kept my expression calm.

“Four guards inside,” Stripes noted.

I gave him a nod. We might have robbed a bank or two before, back on the streets of Drakkus Prime. Joining up brought a pardon for all past crimes, though, and that felt like a lifetime ago.

Now, though, with my military training, I couldn’t help but scope out fields of fire and the angles. The guards looked bored and hot in their protective gear. The temperature climbed as we waited and I didn’t envy them their armor and fatigues.

Well, not much, anyway, seeing as I had my ass hanging out for the Dragon and everyone else to see.

We were two people from the front of the line when Stripes elbowed me. An older man and two younger men and a woman had come into the bank. A clerk spoke to them.

“That is Ashigara’s husband, daughter, and two sons,” Institor Nakimato told us as she watched through our implants. “You are just about out of time… they’ll probably sign some paperwork to transfer her accounts over first.”

Wonderful, I thought to myself, even as the two people in front of us finished up and stepped out of the way.

“Good day,” Stripes bowed slightly to the woman behind the counter, “We are the sons of Ashigara, our sister has sent us to retrieve our mother’s security box.” He had somehow managed to emulate the local accent and speech. He’d always been good with that kind of thing.

The woman at the counter frowned, “I thought her sons were Atori and Namko.”

“We are her other sons,” Stripes elbowed me. “We have our mother’s key, see?”

I held it out and unlike Stripes, I wasn’t a talker so I kept my mouth shut.

The woman looked between us, her frown deepening, though she gave a nod, “Very well, come with me.”

She lifted the drop counter and we followed behind her, our pace moderate as she led the way into the back. “It is most unfortunate, your mother’s passing. We were very saddened to hear the news.”

“Yes,” Stripes nodded. “We are very saddened, my brother cries hourly.”

I elbowed him in the ribs hard enough that he coughed. When the clerk looked back at him suspiciously, he turned it into a fake sob, “I do as well, my apologies.”

Her hard expression softened, “we all deal with grief in our own ways, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes we do,” Stripes dabbed at non-existent tears.

I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut.

We came to the vault and the woman led us past the guard and inside. “Here is the box, I will have to go and get the manager for his key,” she told us.

“Yes, of course,” Stripes gave her a bow.

We waited as she stepped out and then he was looking at the boxes, “Thirty-five, thirty-seven… there it is, thirty-nine…” He took the key from me and tried it, “It isn’t working.”

“The key you have opens it,” Institor Nakimato spoke. “It will take it and the manager’s key to get it out of the wall. You have to turn both keys at the same time or the bank security system will lock the box in place for twenty-four hours.”

I went to the front of the vault, waiting, which is how I heard the clerk coming back a moment later, “…they told me they were her other sons, kun.”

“Ashigara has two sons and one daughter, they must be imposters, did you check their identification?” The female manager’s voice was sharp.

“No, kun, they had her key…”

“Go and notify the butai, tell them to come at once, and you there, guard—”

I wasn’t getting arrested and I certainly wasn’t going to jail. As the security guard at the door turned, I stepped out, drove a punch right into his jaw, and then caught him as he dropped. I heard a shout behind me and I pulled the guard’s submachine gun up and aimed it at the manager. “Step into the vault.”

Stripes caught the woman as she hesitated, her eyes going wide.

His voice was smooth and calm, “Right this way, ma’am, I think we need your key.”

Out in the lobby, I heard another of the guards shout something and point in my direction.

For a brief, crazy moment, I wondered if this was going to end up in Captain Lorr’s next liberty call safety briefing. “Don’t rob a bank while wearing a thong.” I couldn’t imagine him saying that with a straight face, though.

I ripped off several shots into the ceiling and bank staff and customers screamed and started running in all directions.

“We have to go!” I called to Stripes.

“One sec, one sec…” he answered. “Alright, bank manager, ma’am, stick your key in the slot, there you go… don’t make me break your fingers by turning it too soon, perfect. Now, turn it at the same time as me, okay, one, two, three, perfect. Now, we’re all done with you…”

The bank manager ran out past me, I felt a bit bad that we’d made her cry.

“Shoot them, shoot them both, they’re armed and dangerous!” She shouted as soon as she got out of the vault. Well, that wasn’t very nice of her, I thought.

Gunfire roared as one of the guards followed her orders, bullets cracking past overhead and bouncing and whining off the vault door. Alarm klaxons sounded and red lights flashed throughout the bank.

“I have the box, how do I open it?” Stripes panted.

“Open it later, we gotta go!” I caught him by the shoulder and dragged him bodily out of the vault, both of us staying low as more gunfire roared from another of the guards.

I instinctively moved up along the back of the counters, pausing at the open drop leaf even as I heard bootsteps.

A guard came through and I tripped him, Stripes dove on top of him and thumped him in the back of his head, pulling his weapon away. “Just like old times.”

Unfortunately, I really couldn’t argue. There was a reason we had enlisted, after all, to get a pardon for any past misdeeds.

I caught the box under one arm, wincing as the hard metal jabbed into my bare skin. “Let’s go.”

I got up and ran for the door and managed to run right into the two guards from outside as they came inside. I out-massed the pair of them, good eating and lots of physical training in the Marines, and I managed to knock the pair of them over, landing on them and the three of us tumbling out into the street.

Stripes came down the steps, helping me to my feet, even as passers-by stared.

Worse, the Guard foot patrol stood just a few meters away and they didn’t seem amused.

“Guard Free Now!” Stripes shouted and ripped off a stream of gunfire over the heads of the crowd and the foot patrol. “Freedom from the Guard, death to the tyrants!”

People in the crowd started shouting and scattering, the Guard dove for cover, and Stripes ripped me to my feet and we ran the opposite direction.

“What the hell was that?” I panted as we got into cover behind a ground car just down the street.

“Hey, they’ll think we’re freedom fighters or something, maybe some of the locals will help out?” Stripes grinned.

Gunfire from a heavy machine gun ripped through the front end of the ground car, bullets smashing through the light façade of the building behind. Stripes and I both dove for the ground and low-crawled away, even as more gunfire ripped the car apart. We got into the alleyway, gunfire still blasting holes in buildings.

“Next time, keep your mouth shut, will you?” I shouted as we got to our feet again and ran.

I heard alarms, sirens, and bells, though the ringing might just have been my ears from all the gunfire.

We rushed out of the alleyway and into a street, two men wearing thongs and carrying guns and a security box… and we managed to run right in front of two police vehicles, their lights flashing.

“Stop, Butai, stop!” A man shouted from an open window.

“I don’t know what that means, sorry!” I called over my shoulder as we sprinted the opposite direction.

“I’m going to guess that butai are their red-badges,” Stripes panted as we ran. “At least they were polite and asked us to stop instead of shooting at us.”

Gunfire cracked behind us and we both dove sideways into another alleyway.

“Will you shut up?” I shoved him ahead of me and we ran onwards.

Either the ringing in my ears was getting louder or we were close to a lot of bells, I wasn’t sure which. That was, right until we ran out of the alleyway and into some sort of temple grounds. There were pagoda structures and manicured gardens and all sorts of flowers. And bells. Lots of bells. A tall, bearded man in orange robes was ringing a bell only a few meters away, with a big mallet looking thing that I didn’t want to get hit with just now.

Stripes and I ran on, ducking through a building absolutely filled with bells, and then out the back, down through what looked like a dormitory, through a kitchen with more orange robed men cooking, and then out the back.

I felt a cord wrap around my neck and sweep me off my feet and then ten robed figures all piled on top of me, wrapping me up as I shouted and flailed. “Run, Stripes, I’ll hold them off!”

I was done for, but I fought on, though instead of doing the smart thing and running, I could hear Stripes laughing at me as it all happened. The idiot didn’t even help me as I fought against them all.

That was, until I realized that I’d run into a laundry line… and the robed figures were just robes, hanging to dry in the warm air. I was fighting their laundry… and losing.

Stripes was still laughing at me as I untangled myself. I hit him in the face with a robe. “Shut up.”

“But, Mura, you were so brave. Telling me to run… I didn’t know you cared,” Stripes grinned.

I grabbed another orange robe and pulled it over my head, tucking the weapon underneath and picking up the security box and wrapping it in another. “Let’s go.”

We went right out of the back of the temple grounds, past another butai vehicle, two of the law enforcement men shouting into their radios.

Institor Nakimato had gone quiet on our implants. I wasn’t sure if she had given up on us or if she just wanted to keep any signals from giving us away.

We walked calmly past the butai, past another Guard Army foot patrol, and then back onto the street with the dive bar. There were sirens and klaxons going off all over the city. Twice we had to stop and wait for more butai cars to go past, lights and sirens going.

I thought I heard more gunfire, too, but I wasn’t sure.

We got back to the back door of the dive bar and I rapped on it until they opened it and we slipped inside. I unwrapped the robe from around the security box and set it down on the desk in front of the Imperial Intelligence officer and stepped back.

“Well, Corporal, Private,” she gave us both nods. “You certainly know how to enliven the situation.”

“Ma’am?” I asked.

She turned on the wall display with her implant. “…riots began when two Guard Free Now terrorists robbed a bank in the Sakura Chan district just an hour ago. Guard Army personnel have ordered a curfew and decreed that all offworld personnel should immediately move to the spaceport.”

Institor Nakimato shut it off. “You stirred up quite the hornet’s nest, the Guard are certain there are armed Guard Free Now terrorists running around, the locals think there are freedom fighters trying to start a revolution, and no one at all is asking questions about that missing box. If I thought for a moment you planned any of it, I’d be recruiting you to work for Imperial Intelligence. As it is, I am wondering if the two of you are such agents of chaos that I should cut your throats and dump you.”

I felt sweat bead my forehead. “Ma’am…

“Relax, Corporal, I am loathe, as I said, to waste the lives of loyal servants of the Empire. Go ahead and take off those ridiculous robes and put your uniforms back on. My people will see you back to the spaceport,” she told us.

“Yes, ma’am,” Stripes and I chorused, only too eager to be done with all of this.

Within a couple minutes, we had our thick black uniforms back on and we were headed for the door.

“Oh, and Marines…” the Institor’s voice shifted between one word and the next to something as cold as the weather on Drakkus Prime, “If either of you say a single word about any of this, to anyone, I’ll make you both wish I had cut your throats and dumped your bodies, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” we both snapped.

“Good, back to your ship, then,” she smiled.

She was good to her word. Her people got us in a ground car and within a few minutes, they had dropped us at the gate to the spaceport. Within a few minutes more, we were back aboard the shuttle, seated in the back, as the last of our ship’s personnel filed aboard.

“Stupid locals, got to riot on the day we get liberty,” Petty Officer Han growled from the front. “I found out what caused it, I might do something about it.”

I shot at look at Stripes and the pair of us kept very still and very quiet.

We got back to the ship with no issues, slinking off the shuttle after everyone else, keeping our heads down and hoping to make it back to the barracks without having to explain anything… that was, right up until the Captain spoke from where he stood, watching all of us come off the shuttle.

“Corporal Mura, Private Tran,” his voice was hard.

We snapped to attention, my gaze going to the bulkhead behind him, desperate not to give anything away with my expression. “Sir.”

“I received a very strange message, just a few minutes ago,” Captain Lorr’s tone was icy.

Immediately, I wondered if something had gone wrong. If we had got the wrong box, if the Institor had changed her mind. If we were going to be arrested for treason or drug trafficking, or any number of other crimes.

I went through all the things we had done on the planet, any number of which could get us in a lot of trouble.

“What message was that, sir?” Stripes asked in a tone of dread.

“Official thanks, from our embassy here on Ten Sisters. It seems you two Marines assisted some embassy staff in some of the… troubles occurring on the planet. They expressed their official thanks to me for the fine work and bravery displayed on your parts.” He looked rather like he had bit into something sour as he said it.

I stood a bit straighter and Stripes slouched a little less next to me.

“Good job, Marines,” Captain Lorr gave us a nod. “Dismissed.”

As I hurried away, I heard Stripes mutter next to me, “Mura, we got to be careful. Words like that will make people think we’ve gone straight.”

I glanced at him, “We robbed a bank, we had Guard Army and local police shooting at us, we dressed up as local priests to avoid capture, and you were caught trying to sell drugs.”

“Yeah, but we got thanked for it,” Stripes shook his head. “Next thing you know, I might even get promoted.”

I started laughing, then. I couldn’t help it. This whole thing had all been so dumb, so stupid. I was sure, the entire time that we were either going to jail or going to die… and somehow we had even been thanked.

Maybe Petty Officer Han was right, maybe I should avoid Stripes. If I had, though… maybe the Empire wouldn’t have got whatever was in that security box. Maybe the Guard would be sitting fat and happy on their conquered planet, instead of running scared over riots and imaginary terrorists.

The Empire needed Marines, loyal, dedicated, and willing to lay down our lives. But maybe it also needed malcontents like Stripes, people who were born trouble.

It was a thought that stayed with me long after I got back to the barracks.

###

The End

Just a note, Corporal Mura and Stripes both are characters found in the Forsaken Valor series, if you want to see more of their adventures.