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  The thought of it made her smile and momentarily forget the chaos all around her. That is until one of her panicked crewmen ran into her. She shoved him roughly, slamming him into a wall as she addressed her crew.

  "All right you panty-waisted rejects, listen up . . ." she hadn't really thought past that, and they were now all silent staring at her expectantly, which was a lot of pressure since she really didn't have anything to follow that up with. She didn't really have anyone to blame but herself. But that didn't stop her trying."This is all your fault! What sort of a crew considers itself space worthy, and doesn't even take the time to read the emergency manual? I'm very busy being queen and running the corporation and all. I can't be expected to do such a piddly-assed thing as read manuals and mollycoddle you bunch of titty-sucking babies through a bunch of silly-assed drills . . ." Towards the back of the group Jurak was excitedly waving his hand in the air."What . . . what the hell is it, Jurak? Do you know where the raft is?"

  He looked more than a little defeated."No . . . I was just wondering if we were supposed to address you as Queen or Captain now?"

  Drewcila pulled at her hair and jumped up and down."Gods! I'm completely, astoundingly, surrounded by morons. Our ship has crashed and we're sinking in a fucking lake, and you're such idiots that you don't even know where the life raft is. Call me shithead if you like, I don't give a damn."

  She stood perfectly still, then slowly walked over and leaned her head against the hull of the ship. She held her hand up towards them in a silencing gesture, and said in a suddenly calm voice, "Give me a few seconds."

  They all nodded silently and waited as their illustrious leader mumbled inaudible whispers to herself. Finally she straightened, turned to look at them and took in a deep breath.

  "Jurak?"

  "Yes . . . Captain," he said deciding that of his three options this was the least likely to get him slapped.

  "Do you know where the safety manual is?"

  "Yes."

  Drew glared at him and spat, "Then go get it!"

  "Yes, of course," he said as sudden realization came to him. He ran off in the direction of the bridge and came back a few minutes later with the electronic manual, which he handed to Drew. Drew snatched it from his hand and started punching the buttons.

  She sighed deeply.

  "What is it Captain?" Jurak asked.

  "We're standing on top of the damned thing. It's under these floor panels." She sighed as she looked from the escape hatch they had already opened to the floor beneath her feet. It made perfect and logical sense."Gee, no wonder we couldn't find it," she mumbled to herself.

  It took her another ten minutes to get all the crew off of it so that they could actually remove the floor panels and pull the raft out. The raft was bulky and heavy, and that was before some idiot pulled the handle which started the raft inflating.

  "Quick, quick push it out, before it inflates!" Drew yelled.

  They only managed to get it half way out before it had finished inflating, successfully lodging it in the escape hatch opening. Drew looked around with total disdain at her crew."Which one of you morons did that?"

  A little guy towards the back of the group sheepishly raised his hand.

  "Why?"

  "I . . . it was heavy, I thought perhaps it was a gravitational lifting device to make it lighter."

  Drew pulled her blaster and leveled it at the crewman who had erred.

  Jurak quickly grabbed her arm."Captain . . . I'm sure . . ."

  "The planet will be a much better place if this stagnant member of the gene pool is never allowed to breed." She jerked easily out of his grasp, as the crewman fell to his knees and crawled over to her.

  "My queen, I beg of you . . ."

  "Ah, get up, you've ruined it for me now." Drewcila holstered her side arm. Then she turned to glare at Jurak."The moment is gone." She looked at the lodged raft and threw her hands up with a defeated air."All right, everybody push."

  Fifteen minutes later the raft broke free and floated down to the surface of the lake, which turned out to be a good twenty feet below them. Drewcila grabbed the raft inflating guy and threw him out the hatch and down into the water.

  "You grab the raft and bring it back over here. If it gets away and we have to swim, I'm going to blast your ass and leave you for fish bait. Understand?"

  For answer the man swam after the raft, caught it by a rope on the side, and started pulling it back.

  After a quick check in the safety manual she found the switch which activated the emergency ladder, and they climbed down the side of the ship into the waiting raft.

  They started rowing towards shore, at which point Drewcila announced, "Let us never talk of this incident again." To which they all nodded their silent agreement.

  They were halfway to shore when the king's army showed up to "save" them.

  Drew slung her hands in the air and flopped back into the raft."Oh, now the bastards show up. Isn't that the way it always is with the cops?"

  "I believe it's the military, Captain," Jurak said.

  "Police, military, it's always the same thing. Where were they when idiot boy opened the raft in the escape hatch? That's my point. We don't need them now."

  Jurak moved to sit beside her and whispered in her ear."You are a good leader."

  She smiled, and patted him on the back."And you're a great lackey. I won't tell if you don't." She took a deep breath as she looked at the army waiting on the shore getting ready to board water crafts to come to their rescue.

  "All right, people, listen up." She cleared her throat."The king didn't actually want me here, so I have no idea what sort of reception we can expect. You are all going on a long overdue shore leave. Jurak and I will be the only ones going to the palace."

  "But my queen, our loyalty is to you, not the king," said wet raft inflating boy."If you are in danger, we will protect you." The others all mumbled their agreement.

  "Gee, that's great, guys," Drew said, acting all choked up. Then she glared at them all in turn and hissed, "Listen up you sentimental dumb asses." She flicked raft boy on the head with her forefinger for good measure. She made her hands look like a scale."Look: big, ugly, well trained army with weapons in this hand. Small starship crew that has been mostly drunk and screwing for weeks—admittedly on my orders—possessed of three hand-held blasters between us, and riding in a rubber raft, in this hand. Big army, boat full of idiots; big army, boat full of idiots. Oh! Oh, oh! Look! I think the fucking scale is tipping, and the boat full of idiots is sinking." She took a deep breath and counted to ten. Life was so much easier when you were too drunk to make decisions.

  "Once again. Here's the plan. I'm going to tell them you're going on shore leave. Jurak and I will go to the palace, and I will try to fuck Zarco into submission. In the meantime you will all go to Hepron Station and tell the morons there to put double security on my—as it turns out, not-so-secret—vault. As soon as communications are back up you will send for my old ship, the Garbage Scow. Wait there and hole up. I will call you if I need you. It's a simple plan. You idiots don't have to do anything. Nothing. You can do that, can't you?"

  "Yes, my Queen," they all said.

  They were about fifty feet from shore when the army boats came out to "save" them. The young captain who addressed her said, "My queen! Thank all the gods that you are alive."

  "Good to see you, too. Have we screwed? Because you don't look familiar to me."

  After three days locked in a cell, with the three of them sharing the same small bed and toilet, and with no word or sight of Zarco, Stasha had given up all hope.

  She sat on the wooden bed and groaned."We are fucked, we are so fucked."

  "Stasha!" Facto said in shock."You have to quit saying that. Do you even know what it means?"

  "No."

  To spare his lady wife he walked over and whispered the meaning in Stasha's ear.

  "All right, but now I really don't get why it's a bad thing to say," Stasha
said with confusion.

  Facto looked thoughtful, then confused."Well, I suppose it has something to do with the way in which you do it." He shrugged."Or say it."

  "We mustn't give up hope, Stasha," Margot said, stopping her pacing to sit beside Stasha on the hard bed.

  "Why? Why mustn't we? We have been caged up like animals. Zarco swore that he loved me, and now I have been locked up so that he can pursue my sister."

  "Well, she is his wife," Margot reminded her gently.

  "Only in name. Drewcila Qwah isn't Taralin. She'd be the first one to tell you that. I can't believe you're defending Zarco. Look what he's done to us . . . and for what crime?"

  "I wasn't defending him. Just, well . . . he never did really belong to you. You have to look at this realistically . . ."

  "I am. That's why I said we're so fucked!"

  "Calm down, ladies," Facto said, although right then he didn't really feel like being the voice of reason. In fact, he had to agree with Stasha."Let us not lose sight of the real horror. Zarco has started a war. A war in which all the people of our country will suffer and many will die." He turned to face Stasha and his wife, lowering his voice."Your sister, dear lady, is walking into a trap. A trap from which, as you so rightly stated, even she may not be able to escape."

  "Meaning that the whole thing is hopeless, and we are going to rot in this cell until they decide to execute us," Margot said, and started to cry. Facto moved to hold and console her.

  "No, no! That's not what I was saying at all."

  "Funny, that's more or less what it sounded like you were saying to me," Stasha mumbled.

  "My point, though I apparently fumbled rather badly along the way, was that we can't give in to these feelings of self pity. We have many allies among the people. The house staff has not changed, and many of them are loyal to the queen . . ."

  "Do you hear yourself, Facto? We are to be rescued by the cook and the cleaning lady!" Stasha said in disbelief.

  "I was merely suggesting that one or more of them might come to our aid. They might find a way to free us. If we got out, if we could only make it to the bar . . ."

  Stasha laughed."The bar! Facto, I fear you've been working for my sister too long."

  "Your sister had a state of the art security system installed on the bar. Force fields on the doors, anti-discharge weapons, the whole works."

  "What on Barious for?" Stasha asked.

  Facto looked confused."I don't really know . . . It's not important now. We must stay strong and convicted. The time may come when we can help. We must stay alert, ready to strike. If our moment comes, we will have but a second to act. The fate of the whole kingdom may very well rest on our shoulders, we must be prepared to move without a moment's hesitation."

  "My husband is right, Stasha," Margot said drying her eyes.

  "Maybe, and maybe it's way past time to do anything. Perhaps the fate of the whole kingdom has already been written in stone, and we are now impotent to do anything except protest." That said, Stasha got up, walked to the cell door and started yelling.

  "Zarco! Zarco, you let us out this minute! Do you hear me? This is insane. It's all insane! Please!" She kept her tirade up till her voice gave out, but no one ever appeared. Not Zarco, not even a guard. Exhausted, she slid down the bars to the floor and started to sob again.

  One of the guards, a young man in his early twenties, came around the corner and knelt beside her."Hey, royal chick."

  She looked up at him, a little startled.

  "Listen . . . there are still some people here loyal to Drewcila. We know what they have planned for her, and we have our own plans, see? So just cool your heels for awhile, and everything will be fine." He looked around quickly then to make sure he hadn't been noticed."For the record, I think the King's a pud. I mean, Drew's all right, but you are one fine babe."

  One of the other guard's footsteps could be heard coming their way, so he rose quickly and walked away, leaving a little wake of hope behind him.

  Chapter 5

  You didn't get to be as rich and powerful as Drewcila Qwah had become because you were slow witted and unobservant. It didn't take a genius to realize what it meant, that she couldn't find a single familiar face among the palace guards, or that they held themselves more like aristocrats than soldiers.

  She wasn't surprised. It was more or less what she had expected to find. These men were too stupid to pretend to approve of her, much less give her a friendly greeting. The men Drew had handpicked to fill these positions would have had her on their shoulders by now, carrying her towards the bar.

  When she was met halfway through the palace gardens by Zarco and some new ass licker, with no sign of Facto or her sister, she knew that things were even worse than she had anticipated. That, in fact, she might have bitten off considerably more than even she was able to comfortably chew.

  "Oh, my darling," Zarco embraced her."Thank the gods you are all right. When I heard you had been caught up in the fire fight . . ."

  "Fire fight, what fucking fire fight?" Drew shoved forcefully away from him."What the hell are you talking about? A Lockhede battle cruiser locked on us and opened fire. We fired back. They lost. We won. Yay, good guys! Unfortunately, our ship was buggered up, and we had to make an emergency landing. Not the easiest thing to do on a good day, and made worse because some moron screwed up all the communications on the planet and surrounding space. So, I guess what I really want to know is . . . Are we the morons that fried all the communications on this planet, or would that be them?"

  Zarco turned to glare at Atario.

  "Sire . . . Our ships had been ordered to that sector. I naturally assumed . . ."

  "You're a lying little worm, aren't you, butt kiss? I can call you butt kiss can't I? Me being queen, and you being a flunky and all?" Drewcila said, glaring at Atario with utter contempt. He turned a very gratifying shade of red, and was visibly seething."That's what I thought." She turned her attention back to Zarco."All right, idiot, what did you do with Facto, my sister, and for that matter, all my people?"

  "You will not talk to me in such a way, Taralin . . ."

  "Oh, you're on that kick again, are you? So let me guess, you have put the whole country at war, ruined my profit margin, and destroyed the economy of our planet because years ago the Lockhedes kidnapped me . . ."

  "The Lockhedes are our sworn enemies."

  "It's in our best interest to make trade with them now. They are crippled as a nation. Let them trade with us, and they in fact work for us. We hold all the contracts, we control all the shipping, we tax the living shit out of them, and we take them over slowly, economically, and so painlessly that they don't even know what's happening till it's too late. I say let bygones be bygones, and get on with the business of commerce."

  "I will not be party to mollycoddling the Lockhedes. For the gods' sake, Tara . . ." Drew glared at him. '. . . Drewcila. These monsters stole you away from me. They tortured you. They took out part of your brain."

  "Gee! And what a loss that was! I could have gone on being one of you boring royal fucks the rest of my life. Oh, boo hoo, boo hoo. Get over it, move on, next page already." Drew started to walk towards the castle."You didn't answer my questions. Where are my sister and Facto?"

  "I have sent Facto, his wife, and your sister, as well as your advisors to a place of safety. We can't very well have all the heads of state in one location during a time of war," Zarco answered quickly.

  "Gee, now that didn't sound like bullshit at all," Drewcila whispered to Jurak, who nodded silently.

  "What's that?" Zarco asked quickly.

  "I asked him if, after we go through all this boring formal bullshit, he'd like to ball."

  Zarco grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and spun her around to face him."Damn it . . . you will not talk this way to me. You will not. You will show me respect!"

  His fingers were pressing hard on the flesh of her shoulder, hard enough to leave a bruise, but Drewcila canceled her condit
ioned response which was to knee him in the nuts. Right now he held all the cards. She didn't believe for a minute that he'd sent Stasha, Facto and Margot off to some safe house, and there was no way he could have forced Arcadia to leave when she knew that Drewcila was on her way. No, he had done something with them, and she had to play this game his way a couple of hands, until she found out just exactly what he had up his sleeve.

  Of course, it would be easy for her to play his game, because she knew exactly what his weakness was. It was easy for her to understand, largely because she was sitting on it about half the time.

  Instead of attacking him she leaned into him so that her lips brushed his ear."I like it rough." She moved and winked at him."I'll be good, daddy." She turned and started walking again, and the others followed.