A saucer shaped object streaked across the horizon, moving rapidly towards a deep ravine. The flame of its terrestrial entry turned a calm sunset into a chaotic blaze of rock and machine. As it hovered over a mountain pillar, eight robotic legs stretched out its sides and land on the summit. The ground shakes as the massive object began to settle and drill into the rock. Slices of the mountainside is sheared off and slides into the river with a crash, upsetting the slow moving river that flows at the bottom of the ravine.

Upstream, the river pools around the obstruction and is dammed, unable to move around the massive slices of rock. Down stream, a tsunami swells and moves rapidly down the river overwhelming the hamlets and small towns that dotted the river banks, washing away all traces of life and human habitation. Leaving empty canals and upturned river barges and fishing trawlers as the only proof of life.

Farther still down that great river, the landscape flatten to a great prairie where large horses and long horned cattle shared space in search for food. Herds of cattle congregated around overflowing waterholes as the horses bully their way through for a drink before it was all gone. Suddenly, ears twitch and wet snots poke up at the sound of approaching hovercars. The massive beasts turned in unison to watch the motorcade pass by. The horses moved toward the road and stand by the fences, looking out as each vehicle passes by.

Viceroy Kalen Ochoa glen’Lopez shifted uncomfortably in the back of his limousine and shuddered as he stared back at the many pairs of eyes looking at him. They glow bright in the high sun, like burning embers through his soul. Their chestnut coats shimmered into a cascading checker pattern of cardinal red and gold, before turning the backside to the passing vehicle.

"Hurry up, Jackson," Viceroy Ochoa said, tapping on the glass divide to his driver. “It’s getting hot out here…”

The viceroy wiped a bead of sweat from his brow even though the usual temperature of his compartment was cool enough to keep his beverage chilled to perfection. Horses always made him nervous. Ever since that far off day, as a boy, when he was thrown by an Echasian mare, the sight of a untamed and unbridled horse made him nervous.

"We're coming up to the turn now, Lord Ochoa."

“Good,” Viceroy Ochoa said as he settled back into his seat, and watched as the gated entrance of their destination appeared on the horizon.

The viceroy activated a datapad and reviewed the reason why he made the journey to this backward star system of a worthless Electorate. If it weren’t for the fact that Solheim and her neighboring star systems lay at the edge of the Crimson Line, he would have never had cause to visit this godforsaken place. In the hour and a half it took to get from the spaceport to the Glen Sola manor house, all there was the see was pasture land bordered by mountain valleys and foaming rivers. Since they left the capital city of Solvang, they haven’t seen one spec of normal civilization.

“Damn country farmers deserve what they’re gonna get,” Viceroy Ochoa huffed as the hovercar pulled to a stop at the stairs of a two-story manor house that seemed squat to him.

He waited for his driver to open the door before he stepped out, groaning as got to his feet, using his cane as support. It was a daily reminder that he was getting old and his time was short in this galaxy.

“Not yet,” the viceroy whispered to himself, “Not until everything is in place.”

The first person he saw was short-legged dark-skinned man whose elaborate style of dress belied him an stranger himself to this strange world. The man wore a large brimmed hat that shielded him from the high sun, and overly large collard suit that dovetailed into lined short pants with a purple and silver stripe. Lord Protector Jean Lefevbre glen’Vega paced the front of the veranda of the great house in a crazed form that gave the viceroy cause to wonder if he’d made the right decision. He was relieved when the Lefevbre stopped and walked towards him.

“Damned Vegans,” Viceroy Ochoa mumbled as he feet crunched on the gravel walkway. “Can’t take them anywhere…”

“My lord, Viceroy,” Jean Lefevbre greeted him in a voice that made Ochoa want to cringe. “We’re so pleased to have a visit from your illustrious personage…why I was just telling…”

“Come along, Lord Protector,” Ochoa cut him off, ambling towards the entrance. “Let’s conclude our business arrangement so I can get back to some semblance of human activity.”

“Yes, yes, of course, my lord,” Lefevbre deprecated himself before the powerful viceroy, “I am sure that the Viceroy will find that everything is in order—and if I may say, my—”

“You may not say,” Ochoa said dismissively as they marched through the grand foyer, heading towards the library, where Lefevbre held as an office, “I will speak and you listen!”

Ochoa had no patience with men such as Lefevbre, always gravitating and attaching themselves to more capable and powerful men like leaches, sucking the lifeforce from them if you allow them to be. As chief of the Great House of Glen’Lopez, Ochoa was used to such people. They were always fawning themselves over him, seeking whatever crumbs he was willing to cast out to them.

He looked at this little man, the Lord Protector, the man that is sworn to keep his rival Great House, Glen’Sola, from demise. In a way, Ochoa felt sorry for the girl he sought to destroy, and her House along with her. Having to endure the insufferable antics of an overcompensating idiot. He could never understand why the Countess married this man. Why did such a glorious example of the female version of humanity even condescend to bed a man who could barely dress himself?

Perhaps the woman deserved what she got in the end, Ochoa thought. If it had been up to him, this day would not have been necessary at all. The whole matter would have already been resolved and he would be the man sitting atop the Emerald Throne at the Citadel.

Ochoa waited for Lefevbre to take his seat and servants to deliver refreshments before turning his hard gaze onto the man.

“Lefevbre, you know why I’m here…and I come here with the blessings of Lord Vega.”

The little man shuddered at the mention of his grandfather. Lord Percidious Marcelous Vega was a notorious old man whose wrath was as legendary as skill in the arena had been. Rules in the Tournament arena was changed because the old knight never left an opponent alive after a joust. It was said that the El Matador practiced his skewering on a random slave he kept on his lands. Lefevbre shivered at the thought of being impaled by a vibro-electro lance.

“You…you…you talked to my grandfather?” Lefevbre, visible shaken sunked back into his chair. “I could have settled this without his—”

“You could have settled nothing,” Ochoa barked as he tossed over the tablet that contained the long listed of debts the man incurred as the Lord Protector of Solheim. Lefevbre had gambled away or frivolously spent the profits of a once self-sustaining planetary economy, leaving him no choice but to allow outsiders to come in and take their peice of paradise, one slice at a time.

“I have prepared a contract of sorts, an agreement that would absolve you of any debts and prevent you from losing all that you value and keep you off a prison colony.”

Lefebre perked up and picked up the datapad that was thrown at him and quickly read what the viceroy was offering. Ochoa watched the man’s facial reactions for clues on his acceptance. Eyebrows rose and fell, a grin quirked on the sides of his face, and the annoying smirk that he wanted to reach out and knock off his face remained as he Lefevbre looked up.

“You want to give that bitch of a step-daughter to your son?”

Ochoa’s face darked and his eyes grew cold as he spoke in a slow measured tone.

“That girl is the rightful heir to the position and land that you’re pissing away with every drink of Arcadian ale, and a better man than you.”

Lefevbre suprised Ochoa with a sign of defiance as the little man sneered at the insult. “Fine, take the bitch and her useless land…I don’t know what kind of dowry it’ll make but that’s not my problem.”

Lefevbre continued reading and looked up sharply, “I see my granfather’s hand in this next one… What pretense should I create to give me cause to call out to Glen Vegan for troops to occupy Solheim. No Household Guard of another Great House has ever occupied the ancestrial glens of another….you must know that.”

“Of course, I know that, you fool!” Ochoa barked, “I don’t care whatever emergency you create,just do something…your grandfather’s troops are assembling at this moment.”

Lefevbre grunted and continued on before sighing, putting the datapad on the table in front of them.

“And what to do I get out of this deal?”

The man looked as if he had something up his sleeve. Ochoa could smell the smugness emnating from the little weasel and it angered him to no end. “Do you part, and your debts will be forgiven and I promised your grandfather to take care of you.”

At the last words, both men stared at one another in hard silence. Each knew that that promise could be taken two ways. Ochoa had in mind to stash the bastard off onto a asteroid mine, out of the way and as insurance. He did think of killing the man outright, but sense he could still prove useful.

Lefevbre concluded that the viceroy aimed to kill him. He didn’t trust the two men that held his fate in their hands. His grandfather and the viceroy. Both were powerful men not to be trifled with, and both did not tolerate the misfortune the seemed to follow him around. But he had a wild card to present.

Lefevbre smiled and moved to a large hologram of a ancient Solari glenlord. He reached his hand throw the hologram and drew out a thin crystal datarod. Lefebre held it up, presenting it to Ochoa, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“My lord Ochoa, it is no secret that your House desires to return to the Emerald Throne and that the present occupant, Glen’Montrose is no friend to you and I, and the cause we support.”

“Yes, the King is another undeserving bastard,” Ochoa replied, “What’s that got to do with this?”

Lefevbre rolled the datarod across the table to the viceroy who stopped it with his finger. “What’s this?”

“Information that I wish to exchange for the guarantee of my welfare,” the Lord Protector said in a serious-yet solemn tone of voice.

It made Ochoa take notice and he carefully picked up the ancient storage device. He looked through the prism of light that shimmered through the golden crystal. “What information?”

Lefebver leaned over the desk and whispered, “I know what you’re doing to the Royal Family…but you forgot one.”

Ochoa raised an eyebrow and had to reevaluate everything he thought about this little man. Perhaps surprises do come in all shapes and sizes, even this little one. He had an idea of what this datarod may contained but wanted to wait for a more secured location.

“And if I find this to my liking?” Ochoa asked.

“I want you to convince my grandfather to let me stay here.”

"What about the girl?"

Lefevbre pressed his thumb to the signature box and let the datapad take an iris scan to confirm his signing and pressed the seal of his ring of office against the receiving port before tossing the datapad back to Ochoa.

“What about the girl, that bitch is your problem now, not mine.”