Footsteps are really loud in the middle of the night.
Especially when you're wearing boots. Especially when you're flanked by armed guards, who are also wearing boots. Oh, and you're walking through the deserted corridors of a palace that is, let's face it, ludicrously big. There were still a few servants up and about, and they gave us wide berth, looking at us speculatively. I knew there'd be gossip in the morning, and even if they didn't identify me on sight, they could ask the guards who I was.
I'd walked these corridors hundreds of times, and even after years away I knew my way. But even though the layout had stayed the same, the place seemed... calmer? When I'd been here before, there was always a sense of bustle and intrigue, that there were people in the palace who would have conspiratorial meetings under cover of darkness and then scale the battlements for trysts with... well, whoever, really. Swinging on chandeliers optional.
I never got the final figures for injuries on Thayer and Becki's wedding day - I wasn't sure if more would-be swains were injured by drunkenly falling off their walls or by drunkenly climbing into the wrong windows. I'd discovered the next morning someone had thoughtfully paintballed a few of Terra Group's windows in luminescent paint as a signal that those windows were Out Of Bounds, so the falling count was definitely in with a shot.
But now, the place seemed domestic. There were still comings and goings, but it seemed like a bit of the melodrama had leaked out of the air. Maybe it was just the fact I hadn't been here for a while, and maybe I just had rose-tinted memories of this place, even the ones where I was blowing bits of it up to scare some droids.
Maybe that was it. No whir of astromech motors, no gonking of power droids, no shrieks from protocol droids as they jumped at their shadows. No roar of TIE engines keeping watch in Mendellia's skies. No hum from the Batcave's generators. No strange creatures from exotic worlds looming out of the darkness, unless the Ewoks were still in the palace.
Y'revil coughed softly. "Ah, sir, there's something I've been meaning to ask of you," he said, his voice hushed.
"Ask away," I said, but I kept my voice hushed. I didn't seen any need to go booming out like Brian Blessed.
"We're approaching the Royal chambers, sir," Y'revil said nervously, "so I'm charged to relieve you of your weapons."
I went to reply, but thought better of it. In bounty hunter society, such as it is, my first reply of, "Oh, if I wanted Thayer dead, I wouldn't need a weapon to do it," would possibly lead to slaps on the back and purchases of alcohol. Bravado, moxie, veiled threat. That's the ticket. In Royal Guard society, however, it would be more like disapproving looks. If I was lucky. So, instead, I unholstered my carbine and handed it to him, butt-first.
I tried to ignore his relieved expression as he took it. "Sorry, sir," he said, "but near the Royal person and all. Protocol." I nodded at him, and gave what I imagined to be a reassuring smile. I wasn't sure how well it came across, but he started looking nervous again. "Sir, uh... do you still carry your sword?"
"I'm keeping the lightsabre," I said. "The last time I yielded it and let it out of my sight, some nutter went Darkside and killed people with it, and it was only by chance I got it back." Syl hadn't gone into a lot of details about her escape from Perdition, and I hadn't really pressed her, but she'd told me about Solun's last stand against Herthrir. She'd returned the 'sabre as my 'two-eyes-again present'.
"I am charged..." began Y'revil, and I held up a hand.
"I swear, on what honour I have left, that I intend no harm to the Royal Person, and give my parole that I will not draw my blade. I have worn it in His Majesty's service, and perhaps soon will again." I had no idea if this would cut it, and maybe in most countries it wouldn't have. But I was at least slightly a known quantity, and a solemn oath carried power here that it lacked elsewhere in the world. Y'revil nodded.
"You left it on your ship, sir, I understand," he said, poker-faced.
"Exactly," I replied.
Once we got to the Royal Personal Chambers, Y'revil and his men ushered me through the grand formal reception chamber, the formal reception chamber, the formal informal reception chamber, and finally to the informal informal reception chamber. A high honour indeed. There was a butler by a small kitchenette who'd already brewed coffee - and austerity measures or not, by the smell of it, Thayer still got the good stuff - and was frying an omelette on a small pan over a metho burner. He ignored me, for the most part, but it was clear I was Not Supposed To Be There.
But, since I was Being Ignored, I took the liberty of wandering around a little to check the walls. There were photographs of children - Becki was a mother now, several times over, and that still struck me as a little strange - but there they were, smiling out at me over the years. These weren't the publicity photos - these were genuine treasured memories. As genuine as the smiles of the Royal Couple.
There was a candle burning on a small table in one corner. I ambled over to it for a closer look, and realised that candle was surrounded by photographs. I didn't recognise some of them, to begin with, but after a while I realised they were all of members of Terra Group. Sure enough, there were photos dating back to just before the Battle of New Hampshire, with all the familiar faces, but I actually got a chill with how many faces there were that I didn't recognise at all. I'd been away, sure, but the parade of unknowns was enough to ram home just how thoroughly I'd turned my back on my homeworld.
Was that a photo of a Twi'lek? Weird.
The candle was a solid, long-life number, and was set on a small metal base. Wax stains on the base indicated that the candle had burned down and been replaced many times. The base bore a simple inscription: NOT FORGOTTEN.
I choked up a little, I have to say. I'd been away for so long, I supposed I'd thought people had moved on and I'd never meet them again. But this simple little shrine took me by my metaphorical throat and shook me. Regardless of what it might have cost, or how much I wanted to deny it, I'd mattered. Not as much as some of the Group, of course, but I'd made a difference, and some people - like Thayer - would never forget it.
And I'd run away.
I shook off maudlin thoughts, and stepped over to one of the wedding photos. We'd posed just after we'd 'stolen' Becki from the ship that was supposed to be her father's. Everyone had a goofy grin, most especially the bride and groom, and there was I, hanging in the rigging, wearing an eyepatch over my cybernetic socket. I'd arrived the afternoon before and left a couple of days later, hung over. I was still in therapy at the time, but I didn't try to genuinely kill anyone during the mock battle, so that was all right. (Yeah, I have a moon-sized ego, looking for myself in photos. Sue me.)
Finally, I heard the creak of a doorhinge, and a rustle as every Mendellian in the room dropped to one knee. I turned, and beheld Thayer in a robe, looking only slightly bleary, smiling a little as he gestured everyone to stand. I bowed - it's only polite, and I was, after all, a citizen - and tried very hard not to notice the pink bunny slippers he was wearing.
I clearly didn't do as good a job as I could have, because he nodded when I came back to vertical. "A birthday present from my daughter," he said, and approached me, right hand outstretched. I took it, and he used it to pull me into a manly hug. (I'm contractually obligated to point out it was manly. It's a testicles thing.) It was a little disorienting - the last person to hug me that hard had actually been trying to kill me - but I apparently responded satisfactorily. The King grabbed me by my shoulders and gave a little shake. "I didn't think you'd come. You're looking well."
I shrugged. "Bacta," I said dismissively, and he smiled broadly. "You're looking well yourself, Thay - your Majesty."
"Thayer will do," he said, and gestured at me to sit in some chairs. The butler unobtrusively poured us coffee, and Thayer gestured at the guards. "Thank you, Sergeant. You may leave us now." Classic Thayer - regal words, but said with... respect? Wisdom? If I knew, maybe I'd be a king somewhere. At any rate, the guards snapped a salute and left. "You've a little more grey in your hair than the last time I saw you," he said, turning back to me and picking up his coffee.
"Wages of sin, I'm afraid," I said. "I've been a mercenary and a bounty hunter for the last few years, and it's not exactly a low-stress gig." I gestured at the photos of his family around the walls. "I see you've got a lot of grey hairs in the making."
He chuckled, and had a sip of coffee. "Worth every strand, my friend. Of course, it's much easier to say that when they're asleep."
I picked up the cup the butler had left for me. "Thayer, your message - you didn't sound like you just wanted to chat." I took a sip. I'd been subsisting for years on whatever stimulant drink I could find out in the Galaxy, but none had the symphony of flavours that this coffee did. Of course, I'd been trawling the 'cheap' and 'nasty' end of the spectrum. (If you ever get offered a Rodian drink called 'kwerk' or something similar (the phonemes are a little off), don't have any unless you plan not to sleep for a week. I had two cups. That was a Mistake.)
He nodded, and he began to lay it out. The Pacific Monarch, the attempted abduction of Becki, and the conclusions the group had come to about the attackers. He was as Thayer as ever, but I could tell as he spoke that he was afraid - not only were these people moving against his country, they were moving against his family. His unconscious glances to the photos of his children were heart-rending.
When he'd finally finished, I'd drained one cup which the butler stealthily refilled. "I don't know how much help I can be," I said. "SACUL is supposed to be regulating offworld contact, so I'm guessing these people have links or hooks into them. And SACUL know I'm here."
Thayer nodded. "On the other hand, they likely underestimate you." I raised my eyebrows at that, and he continued, "I mean no offence. All of the members of Terra Group I've met have been startlingly intelligent. But you have been Terra Group's blunt instrument. It is easy to lose sight of your shrewdness among all the explosions and corpses you tend to leave in your wake. And it is all too easy to mistake directness for stupidity."
I smiled. "You think I can run interference," I said. "Draw them out. Misdirect them."
"Precisely," he said. "It might be dangerous..."
"Don't be stupid," I said. "I'm in."