Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 30 - Family Ties (VIII)

The attackers began to withdraw back out through the windows, firing particle beams and memetic bursts to cover their escape. Mitzner pushed her way towards them, heedless of the energy blasts, firing her ion pistol. She killed one with a shot to his head, fulfilling her prophecy about the tomato, and blew the leg off another.

Then they were gone. Out the windows and into the rain-forest-like gardens. They were quickly swallowed by the thick trees.

With the threat gone and the memetic blasts no longer reinforcing the meme, the partiers began to calm down. Most looked sheepish, many were injured.

Mitzner could her the Queen's voice, he own voice, screaming over some kind of communications system. She held her finger to one ear so she could hear the unfortunate on the other side, leaning on her plasma weapon like a cane.

"...this entire level locked down! Nobody in or out of the gardens. I want the next ten levels above and below on lockdown! Right now! I hope you're initiating the protocols while we're talking and not waiting for me to finish! Yes now! No! Martial law! Yes! Everyone, do you hear me? I want everyone on this. Everyone. If those rebels think I'm a tyrant now they have no idea the wrath I'm about to rain down on them with the thunder of the gods!"

She was ranting and spitting by the end. Barely coherent. Mitzner hoped whoever was on the other end didn't have a headset.

"What just happened?" Mitzner demanded.

"I let my guard down," replied the Queen. "And some very foolish people who are about to be very sorry they did so kidnapped your friend. Don't you worry, Zarah, I will make this right. Your friend was my guest. She was under my protection. Even if she wasn't your friend I could not tolerant such an affront to my authority. If I have to tear this entire arcology apart with my own two hands I will find her."

"Who are these people?" asked Mitzner.

"Terrorists," said the Queen. "Either political anarchists, neo-marxists, antimonarchists or a doomsday cult. Probably not the anarchists, the operation was too well equipped. Has to be communists or antimonarchists. We'll know soon. They'll be wanting to take credit and make some absurd list of demands."

"Do you think they'll hurt her?" asked Mitzner.

"I wouldn't put anything past them," said the Queen. "Anything. But I don't believe it's their intention. They wouldn't have gone to all that trouble to kidnap her if she didn't want her alive."

"It looked to me like you were the real target," said Mitzner.

"I'm sure they would have loved to get lucky and grab me too but they knew they weren't going to get me," said the Queen. "I've personally beaten too many of them to within an inch of their life the past few times they tried. Two envoys from the Huxley Foundation, however, you they probably saw as more vulnerable."

"That makes sense. Do you have another one of those ear pieces you're using?" asked Mitzner. "I'm going to head out into the gardens and try to track them."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said the Queen. "You don't know the terrain and they do. It would be too easy to lead you into an ambush. Now, since you're going to go anyway, take my earpiece I'll get another," the Queen removed her earpiece and handed it to Mitzner. "I'm the Queen I can just make someone give me theirs."

Mitzner took the earpiece and put it in her ear.

"Why can't everyone just be an exact genetic clone of me?" she asked.

"Things would go so much more smoothly," agreed the Queen. "Killing everyone else would just be prohibitively expensive."

Mitzner ran to one of the windows, vaulted through it, and ran off into the gardens.

The Queen snapped her fingers at a nearby guard. He was startled into action, quickly removing his earpiece and handing it to her. The Queen wiped it off on her sleeve and inserted it into her ear.