The Gay Space Adventure

Chapter 5: Rania

As Arkovf had stated, with luck, we should have been able to get to the security sector of the castle easily and without interruption. I would like to say that luck was nothing more than a superstition. But life had proven time and time again that luck did exist. Good luck, though, I had yet to discover, and it wasn't happening now.

Arkovf was high off his rocker, practically on cloud nine. I did know how to drive a speeder, but hers was so old it required keys. It was safe to say our ride was a bumpy one. And Zyren was missing (judging from the drug's effects on Arkovf, probably also high off his rocker). One would think that luck would be on our side after all that, but the gut punches continued to roll.

The imperial palace was nothing less than impressive. It was hard to get a good view of it from the window of our small apartment in the lowest parts of the city, and this was the closest I had been in a long time. It towered above the rest of the buildings, scraping the clouds from the sky until the wisps spun around the tallest spire, from which the tip of a telescope protruded. The walls were made from a clean mixture of metal and crystal. It shone like the ice caps of the poles, like the cold gray span of the north. It reminded me of the merciless tides of the oceans, buried deep beneath the ice where no one could hear the shouts of the drowning.

Cheery.

"What entrance should we use?" I asked Arkovf, slowing the speeder before we reached the massive plot of property.

"Mmm..." Arkovf thought about it. And took quite the amount of time thinking about it, too. "Probably that balcony right there," she said with a point.

The balcony in question was a small landing pad, and seemed to be a side entrance. "Are you sure we won't get jumped by security?"

"No. But it's easier to explain entering a balcony than a window."

Well, that was a fair point.

"Alright. Should we wait to go in?"

"Now why would we do that?"

"Are you... in the right mind to take us through the palace?"

Arkovf looked offended. "Why, I—Rania, of course I am! I stopped seeing things ten minutes ago!"

Well. The sooner we could find Zyren, the better. I wasn't about to argue. "If you say so." The speeder lurched forward, in the clumsy way that only something decades past its deathbed could accomplish. Maybe that was why Arkovf was always tripping.

Oh, that was a good one.

I landed the speeder on the balcony, parking it next to a few other (much younger) small ships and cycles. Arkovf barely even stumbled. Barely. She didn't seem too impeded by the drugs anymore, so at this point, it just seemed recreational. At least that was less suspicious.

"Do you have authorization to enter the palace?"

An imperial guard had walked over from their post at the grand, pointedly arched door. Their uniform matched the palace itself: cold, bleak, and black.

I looked to Arkovf for this one. All that money had to give them some status. A higher social level than mine, anyway.

Arkovf, in turn, looked at me in utter disbelief. I had a hard time knowing whether this was all an act, or if he was genuinely offended. "Did she just say what I think she said?" She put her hands on her hips, the wind pulling at her skirts, and turned to the guard. "I'll have you know, I happen to know the emperor's great great great great great great great great great great great great great great—" I lost count of how many greats Arkovf added on "—grandfather and he has given me full permission to enter." Now I knew he was bluffing, judging from how Arkovf talked about this other man.