Surface: Doomed Planet

Excerpt 6: The Man In Silver

"My brother was a Praetorian", I said, "course he was part of the royal family so he didn't have to work his way up."

"That's not exactly fair", the kid grinned.

"Executive privilege grasshopper", I smirked.

"I'm just messing with you by the way", the kid said bowing, "I know it's you Prince Imesee. I just wanted to see if the rumors about you being a sarcastic Bounty Hunter that I heard back home were true."

"They are", I said, "I've been a Merc since I was about your age."

"How come you haven't gone back to Bespin? King Aegean doesn't wanna be in charge anymore."

I sighed, smiling at the same time. Unlike Chy, Aegean surviving an execution wasn't so far fetched. Somehow I wasn't surprised, even though I knew I should have been, "so he survived that execution attempt huh? I should have guessed, Aegean never knew when to quit."

The kid nodded, "yeah, he wasn't able to continue being a Praetorian because of a brain injury it left him, so he was crowned King. But he doesn't wanna do it."

"Any idea why?", I asked.

"Just something about how he thinks you should be King instead", the kid said, "everyone back home thinks your dead, but Aegean thinks your still out there."

"You should know that is my ultimate plan here", I said, "my girlfriend Chy's in the military too. I was little at the time, but if my memory of watching my brother run the Praetorians serves me, the Bespinite Army has a rule that sates that units gone missing will have their missions retraced up to the point of last contact, then the search will begin."

"Exactly correct", the kid said, "we covered that in Basic."

"For now soldier", I said facing him, "as current Prince of Bespin, and thus being in command of all deployed ground units, I'm placing you under the command of 1st Sargent Chy Vysk until King Aegean feels the need to override me."

The kid gave me a salute and went to the railing where I instructed as I went back inside through the garage, meeting Sonya and Chy at the base of the staircase up to the balcony.

"I managed to get three people to agree to take guard duty", I said, "also Chy, Your team is up to three members, one of the kids on guard duty is a Bespinite Navy member."

Chy nodded, "got ya. And to report on other manners we managed to get almost everyone up stairs to move out into the parking lot. They promised to keep the main driveway clear for the Ford though."

"Good", I said, "see what you and Sonya can do in getting this tower cleaned up and since we still got a few hours to kill, the next thing on my hit list is getting all the supplies and weapons organized so I can get to them when I need them."

'Are you asking Chy and I to clean up because were females?", Sonya asked sarcastically and putting her hands on her hips.

"No", I said, "I'm asking you to see what you can do to get things cleaned up. Has nothing to do with the fact that your girls."

"Sure", Sonya smirked, "we totally believe you."

"Do something else then", I said sneezing, "I don't really care, as long as everything gets done."

Sonya opened her mouth to say something else, but Chy stopped her.

"Come on Sonya", she said, "he's sick as it is and every time he sneezes a crack in his rib cage gets a little bigger. As much fun as it is to screw with him, now is not the time."

Sonya smiled, "all right, I didn't know that his ribs were cracked, I'll back off, least until he gets better."

"Shut the trap", Chy said, "get some others to look around and see what we can find in the way of cleaning supplies. This place is starting to stink."