“So I’m a standard-bearer now?” Jason asked from his position on the sofa as he glanced up from his data-pad.

The colonel had dismissed the pair of them for the day after his impromptu ‘promotion’, so they were the only ones home. Everyone else was at their relevant jobs – with the notable exception of Tarcil, who was still on leave and sunning at a nearby beach.

Yaro shrugged from her seat, her own data-pad in hand, as she familiarized herself with what her own new role entailed.

“Technically, you’re the standard,” she said, a small smirk forming on her features as she gestured to her device. “From all indications, I’m closer to being the standard bearer.”

Jason just rolled his eyes at the obvious innuendo. “Color guard. You’re the color guard.”

“Color guard?” she asked, eyes quickly flitting over her own list of duties to see if she missed anything.

“Sorry, human term,” he said. “I doubt you’ll find it there. It’s basically the moniker for the people that guard the regimental standard.”

Of course, he hadn’t known that himself until a few minutes ago, defunct and outdated roles from the age of European Imperialism not exactly being his strong-suit. Unfortunately for him, it seemed the Shil’vati military did not consider the notion quite as outdated as the militaries of Earth.

During the Shil’vati equivalent of the first world war, when humans were retiring flag-bearers from battlefields on account of the fact that they were great big targets, the Shil’vati had instead switched the onus of upholding the regiment’s honor onto the shoulder of the flag-bearers themselves rather than the flags.

And they’d dubbed that role…

…The regimental ‘champion’, he thought, feeling out the idea in his mind. A mascot by any other name.

Part of him had been worried it was some kind of… super commando role. It wasn’t. The reality was much more grounded. He was essentially a representative of the regiment as a whole. When on parade, he would be first. When at a function, he would attend with the colonel. Most importantly, in his eyes at least, in the event of a catastrophic loss in battle, he should be the last to fall – because so long as he survived, the regiment was said to still have its ‘soul’.

Something that suited him right down the ground.

“So, it’s like a hearth-guard?” Yaro asked.

“Sure.” He shrugged, trusting in the canine-woman’s good sense to have reached the correct conclusion.

They’d both already pretty much figured out what was expected of them from the briefing packets they’d been given, so at this point they were just voicing ideas aloud to confirm them in their own minds.

Silence grew between them as they each focused on their own respective readings. Finally though, Jason broached the topic that had been niggling at him from the moment the colonel had dismissed them.

“Do you trust her?” he asked.

Yaro, in classic Yaro fashion, didn’t even blink. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t. She’s our superior officer.”

Jason scoffed. It was moments like this that reminded him that for all that had happened, Yaro still wholeheartedly believed in the Imperium. Where he saw it as a thuggish expansionist empire that absorbed all in its path, Yaro saw it as a collection of races and creeds brought together for the benefit and protection of all.

It wasn’t quite a point of contention between them, mostly because neither saw a need to bring the other around to their point of view, but it was close.

“I wasn’t talking about her acting in her official capacity.” Though it wouldn’t be incorrect to say he had his reservations about the woman there as well. “I was talking about her saying she’d try to keep me protected from any fallout that came about as a result of our time on Gurathu.”

Hela’s family, essentially.

Her ongoing trial was a media circus that dwarfed his own. Because as much as the Imperium was rife with corruption and class-based protections, it had a cultural loathing for both slavers and traitors. And the story of a noble scion engaging in both was something that interested the public far more than him bringing her to justice.

Still, that wouldn’t last forever.

Hela’s actions were only the scandal of the week after all. Eventually it would fade from public perception – and then he knew the knives would come out as the venerable family of merchants sought to get their pound of flesh from everyone that had ‘wronged’ them. Something even Yaro, with her rose tinted view of the Imperium, was aware of.

Hell, even Raisha had warned him against political reprisal – though, to be fair, she’d been getting her own crash course in noble politics, given that the exo-piloting program at the Aviary was a veritable dumping ground for rich brats from noble families. To hear her talk about it, the place was a cutthroat microcosm of the politics of the greater Imperium.

“I…” Yaro paused, her ears twitching. “I have no doubt that Colonel Cleff meant what she said.”

Jason looked up at her. “But?”

“While I hate to presume, I believe that the colonel is in a tenuous position herself. Which may limit her ability to provide you political protections going forward.”

“Why? Has she been involved in some kind of scandal herself?”

It felt a little unfair to say, after having only had a five minute meeting with the woman himself… but he could definitely see it. Because their new colonel reminded him of himself.

Only worse, he thought. Because her rank doesn’t require that she censor herself at every turn.

Yeah, he could well imagine the outspoken moth-woman rubbing some nobles the wrong way.

Yaro coughed awkwardly, no doubt coming to the same conclusion. “Personality aside, it was not her possible past actions I was referring to, but her race.”

“Triki?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t stumbling over the pronunciation.

He’d wasted no time in looking up his new commanding officer’s species the moment they’d returned from their meeting. It was literally the first thing he’d done.

Because he’d just had to know why she had breasts!

And the answer is that they aren’t breasts, he thought happily. They’re venom glands.

Which meant that the universe made some sense again - and that their wasn’t some mad god out there that insisted that all aliens in the universe be sexy curvaceous babes.

“Not so much because she’s a Triki, but because she’s not Shil’vati,” Yaro continued, interrupted his mammary based thoughts.

Ah, he thought.

He could definitely see that being a factor, though the question did need to be asked.

“Why would that be a problem for her?” he asked. “The Imperial military has plenty of aliens in it, hell, it encourages it.”

“It does,” the Rakiri allowed, shifting uncomfortably, “it also stamps down hard on any perceived animosity based on race within the ranks. We all serve the Empress after all.”

“We aren’t taking about just those in the ranks though, are we?”

She shook her head. “The higher up the ranks an alien climbs, the more push back they can expect to face. Nothing official. Nothing spoken of. But it’s there. Subtle, but there.”

Jason found himself thinking back over most of the aliens he’d seen in the Imperial ranks, and sure enough, he found that they’d almost universally been of the lower ranks. Off the top of his head, the highest ranked alien he could recall seeing was a dragon-woman with lieutenant’s bars.

Actually, he thought, brow furrowed as he vaguely recalled a rakiri woman with major’s stripes that had been present at his awards ceremony.

He opened his mouth to speak, only for Yaro to cut him off.

“If you were about to mention some high-ranking member of the Milita that you saw, know that the issues I referred to tend not to be as present. Gurathu was a rakiri world, and if it’s a predominantly rakiri world, rakiri officers aren’t uncommon at all.” She shrugged. “In some cases, they might even outnumber the Shil’vati.

Jason scoffed. “Of course, the regular military disdains the Militia and the Interior can just order them about, regardless of rank.”

Yaro arched an eyebrow at him, as if to say, ‘really?’.

Which was fair, he could admit. The situation was a little more complicated than that. In practice, a lower ranked Interior agent couldn’t just commandeer a militia company. Still, the general sentiment still held true.

The Interior had command authority over the militia – and if there was an organization that was almost entirely Shil’vati, it was the Interior. He’d yet to see even a single member of the group that wasn’t a Shil’vati. Though surely, some had to exist. Even if they were merely token members.

“So what you’re saying is that our colonel is likely to have our own problems?” he said.

Yaro nodded. “As I understand, the higher one rises in the ranks, the more politics comes into play, and the more one needs to engage in the act of trading favors.”

Jason stared at her and wondered – not for the first time – just how Yaro knew all this stuff. She always seemed remarkably keyed into the goings on of higher society for a woman who ostensibly occupied the same rank as him.

“Tisi often complained about it,” Yaro said remarkably quickly, after noticing his gaze.

In the end he just shrugged, much to her visible relief. There was clearly more there, but if Yaro didn’t want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to be the one to drag it up.

She does the same thing when her family comes up, he thought absently. So it’s probably got something to do with them?

Maybe she was a runaway daughter of Rakiri nobility? He didn’t know, and until Yaro felt the need to tell him, he didn’t need to know.

“Well, here’s hoping our dear colonel can play the game better than our old one could,” he said finally, reaching over for his drink.

He pretended not to notice Yaro’s look of relief.

--------

“Is it too much to ask that in those few moments I’m with you, where you aren’t fending off your harem, you actually spend some time paying attention to me?”

Jason glanced over his glass to where Tarcil was sitting, some kind of fruity drink in his hand, as the hustle and bustle of the little seaside café they were in continued behind him.

“Are you saying you aren’t part of my harem?” The human smirked lowering his data-pad.

The purple alien scowled, or perhaps more accurately pouted, though their was no missing the light dusting of blue that colored his cheeks as he flushed. Which, given that he was clad in little more than a pair of swimming trunks and a white shirt, proved to be a slightly more tantalizing vision than was likely intended.

At least for Jason, for whom the alien across from him still read as ‘feminine’ in his monkey brain, despite the fact that he knew for a fact what rested between the alien’s legs. Yeah, his relationship with Tarcil was complicated. He had no idea what to call it – and he had a feeling the sentiment was reciprocated by the alien himself.

“I…” Tarcil started to say, before glancing around. “I think it would be best for both of us if you keep from making comments like that in public.”

That wasn’t a no, he felt like saying.

He reigned the impulse in though. Say what you would about him, he liked to think he’d learned at least some tact over the past year he’d spent in military service.

“Sorry,” he said, finally switching back to the original topic that had raised his diminutive male friend’s ire. “Just got a data-net message from Rocket.”

Even as he spoke, he found his eyes glancing back down to the open screen, where the message was still visible.

“The pilot from your old crew?” Tarcil said, curiosity coloring his tone. “I thought you said you parted ways on poor terms?”

“Somewhat.” Jason shrugged, not wanting to re-open that can of worms. “It was complicated.”

“Complicated,” Tarcil sniffed derisively. “One of them wanted to sell you down the river to save her own skin, and none of them beyond the captain and Yaro spoke out against her. Then immediately after you save all their lives – in a frankly stupid display of heroics – said captain kicked you off her crew for upstaging her.”

“That wasn’t what happened,” Jason said weakly, but he knew not a word of it was getting through to his friend.

The Shil’vati male had come to his own conclusions about the old crew of the Whisker, and none of it was complimentary to anyone but Yaro and Kernathu – and even there, his opinion on those two was lukewarm at best.

Tarcil glanced at him, his features twisting in confusion. “I honestly don’t know why you keep defending them all.”

Jason sighed. “I’m not defending… well, I sort of am, but I’m just trying to be fair.”

Was Assisse’s decision morally bankrupt? Certainly. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand the logic though.

When faced with annihilation, any alternative was preferable, after all.

So he just couldn’t find it in himself to hate her. He didn’t like her, but he didn’t hate her either. And as far as punishments for her actions were concerned, he figured that her being essentially kicked out of the military was enough for him.

The same went for Tisi. As far as he was concerned, she’d always done right by him during his time on the crew. Had she always made the correct decisions? He couldn’t say. What he could say was that he understood her decisions. Kicking him off the crew had hurt, but he had disobeyed her orders and essentially gone AWOL to perform a ridiculous plan that frankly had only the tiniest chance of working. And in doing so, he’d done exactly what she’d said, proven that he didn’t trust her as a leader.

So no, he didn’t hate his old crew. He was disappointed by some of them, certainly, but he didn’t hate them.

Perhaps he had an underdeveloped sense of revenge?

“What are you smirking about?” Tarcil asked.

“Just thinking of an old movie.”

The alien looked at him oddly, but chose not to comment, probably putting it down to a ‘human’ thing.

I really need to get everyone together to watch the Princess Bride at some point, Jason thought as he picked up his own drink.

“Point is,” he said, returning to the previous topic. “Rocket and I still keep in touch.”

Scales too, though far more intermittently.

“I…” he started to say, only for his data-pad to ping.

“Two messages from her in a single dispatch?” Tarcil commented airily. “Girl must be thirsty.”

Jason ignored his friend – even if his latter comment was essentially correct – his eye’s widening as he saw who the message was actually from.

“It’s from my old CO,” he said slowly. “Tisi.”

Tarcil might have said something in response to that, but Jason heard not a word as his eyes roamed feverishly across the data-pad’s screen, absorbing the runic Shil’vati text displayed.

Then he read it again.

Then a third time.

“She’s quit.”

“Quit what?” Tarcil prompted.

Jason put the data-pad down, feeling… odd. “The whole thing.”

“She left the military?”

His friend sounded entirely nonplussed by the idea. Which wasn’t that odd. People left the military all the time. Hell, one didn’t even technically need to serve their initial term of service. You could buy your way out for a hefty fee – an option that was only really available to those individuals from a noble background.

Which was exactly what Tisi had done.

Two acts that flew in the face of everything Jason knew about the woman. First of all, serving in the military wasn’t just a choice for her. It was an expectation. Her entire family served, and had done since the times of the ancient Imperium. Secondly, he knew she hated leaning on the privilege provided by her noble status. He knew for a fact that had she been so inclined, she could have greased some gears to get a posting more prestigious than the Gurathu and the Whisker. But she hadn’t, taking to the shit assignment with aplomb, because that was where the military has posted her.

Yet, here and now, she messaging him to tell him that she’d quit, buying off her remaining term of service with her family’s funds.

“Probably for the best,” Tarcil opined. “After everything that happened. Just another rich girl that got a taste of what real military service was like.”

That snapped him out of his thoughts. “Because you spent a great deal of time being shot at in your first survey expedition?”

To his credit, Tarcil flushed a little. His job could be dangerous, with him traveling into the unknown to map new worlds for the Imperium. But just because it could didn’t mean it often was. In fact, to hear him describe it, most of his time was spent in mind numbing tedium as he took samples or waited for mapping equipment to finish scanning.

“Fair,” he acknowledged. “But you can’t deny that by buying her way out the moment she ran into a real setback, she proved that she wasn’t any better than any other noble that signs up for the prestige, but goes running home to daddy the moment things get ‘real’.”

Jason glanced down at the message. It was short and to the point. Really all it contained was an apology for being blind to Hela’s deceit, and a sentence informing him that she’d left military service.

“Perhaps,” Jason allowed. “It just doesn’t seem right to me.”

His friend just shrugged, clearly saying that he could provide no more insight than what he’d already said.

Sighing, Jason glanced up and realized that the third member of their party was still missing.

“Kernathu’s taking a while, isn’t she?”

Tarcil shrugged, taking a sip of his drink. “She’s probably getting grilled in the bathroom by that group that was eying us when we walked in.”

Alarmed, Jason glanced over and realized that sure enough, the group of unsubtle Shil’vati teens that had been eying both him and Tarcil when they stepped into the café were gone.

“Why?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Tarcil looked at him like he was slow. “To see if either of us have an opening in our harems.”

Using his fingers to flick his friend with a bit of water from his drink for that bit of sass, Jason chuckled. “Should I go rescue her?”

Looking a bit like a grumpy cat as he wiped his cheek with a napkin, the other male grunted. “Leave her. If she’s going to be dating you, she’s going to have to get used to fending off girls hoping to muscle in on the arrangement.”

Jason frowned. Leaving Kernathu on her own felt wrong, but in the end, he submitted to his friends judgment.

It was his culture after all.

Besides, I doubt I’d be too appreciative if my girlfriend came in to ‘rescue’ me from a bunch of guys, he thought.

…Unless the girlfriend in question was Yaro or Freyxh. Because each positively oozed stone cold badass, if in different ways. He had no doubt Raisha might try, but he knew that she was too much of a goof to properly pull of the femme fatale persona.

In the end though, Tarcil was proven correct. A group of Shil’vati teens appeared from the bathroom a few minutes later, sporting scowls and looking frustrated. Kernathu emerged a moment later, looking slightly rattled but standing triumphant as she walked over to their table.

“So, what did I miss?” the engineer asked, trying to appear nonplussed as she took a seat.

“Tisi quit the navy,” Jason said immediately.

“She did what!?”