Copyright J.B. Norman
The hypertram glides across the ice fields of Ledu, carrying hundreds of tourists to the Crystal Labyrinth. Kathryn has been trying to not make a scene, especially on a packed tram full of civilians, but she’s noticed a problem since the tram first pulled away from the terminal.
“Look over my shoulder,” Kathryn whispers, leaning in close to Amarantha as she stands next to the Alvaraean princess’ seat on the packed tram car. “That guy’s been following us since we left the Hotel.”
“I bet he’s up to something,” Dunstella notes, peering through the crowd on the tram. “He looks like he’s up something.”
“The one with the glasses with no lenses and the big moustache?” Amarantha replies.
“Yeah. He’s probably from the Kraken Special Squad,” Kathryn says.
Amarantha frowns. “The Kraken Special Squad are some of the most accomplished mercenaries in the entire galaxy. Who knows what kind of brilliant strategy he’s concocting at this very moment?”
They had Muspel Fireblossom-scented bubblebath, Operative Slyce thinks to himself. I love the smell of Muspel Fireblossoms.
“What do you suggest, Captain?”
“Well, first, stop staring. We need him to think we haven’t noticed him yet.”
“Oh,” Dunstella mutters. “Then I probably shouldn’t have waved to him.”
“Now, you’re going to offer your seat to that nice old Eleftherian lady and come stand with me,” Kathryn instructs. “Because that’s a completely normal thing to do on a packed hypertram that won’t give us away.”
Amarantha stands and offers her seat.
“Now,” Kathryn continues. “We’re going to slowly move up the tram and try to put as many passengers between him and us as we can. Hopefully we can lose him.”
“The tram only has one stop, Captain,” Amarantha notes. “How are we going to lose him when we’re going to the same place?”
“Well,” Kathryn offers. “There’ll be a lot of tourists there, right? Plenty of people to hide behind.”
Kathryn tries to quickly glance over her shoulder.
“Can you still see him? Is he still watching us?”
“Oh,” Amarantha groans, trying to look over or around Kathryn for a glimpse of their pursuer. “There are too many people. I can’t tell.”
“The good news is,” Kathryn offers. “He probably can’t see us, either.”
She looks up to the digital display tracking the tram’s progress to the Crystal Labyrinth. They’ve just passed the halfway mark of the trip.
“I’ll figure something out,” Kathryn says. “There’s still plenty of time for me to think up a plan.”
“Let’s just jump him,” Dunstella offers.
“We are not going to jump him. Especially not now,” Kathryn hisses down at his sister.
“Sure,” Dunstella answers. “But if we don’t jump him now, it’s only a matter of time before he jumps us. And he’s probably got some kind of crazy attack plan already worked out.”
But why is it pronounced leff-tenant? Operative Slyce asks himself. I’d never even heard that until I joined the Squad. And if she’s the leff-tenant, why does the Captain always say she’s his right-hand woman?
So, basically:
If you’ve enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me through Ko-fi or Patreon, or through Paypal by scanning the QR code below:
Follow Realmgard and other publications of Emona Literary Services™ below:
Subscribe to the Emona Literary Services™ Substack newsletter here.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
