Arena

An Apex Short Story

-by Ninmast Nunyabiz-

Dregar reached over with his foot and kicked at the primate's leg. "Hey, Fresh Meat, you alive?"

The primate was a female, which normally would have meant throwing her in here would be like a chunk of red meat, but she was clad in the heavy chains used only for the extremely dangerous. Nevermind attacking her, the room held its breath over what might happen with just this attempt of his.

The chains were comically large on her small frame, and she shifted slowly, as if moving them was difficult. Dregar had seen those chains on monsters three times her size, never taken out of them except to fight. Some, he was sure, were certainly deathworlders. Those beasts wore their heavy chains like they were tribal jewelry, but the whole reason he had approached this tiny whelp of a monkey was because the chains weighed even her head down, keeping it bowed as if she were asleep.

But shift them, she did, even raising that head to look at him. "I'm alive," she confirmed, and her voice was strong despite her posture. "Something I can help you with?"

She didn't immediately snap at him. That was a good sign, and some of his own tension relaxed. "Chatty for someone in those chains, aren't you?"

"You started it."

Despite himself, Dregar let out a bark of laughter at the simple reply. "I did, didn't I? That's on me."

But he narrowed his eyes to focus on her reaction. "You're wearing the chains of a powerful predator, but you look like a tailless Undpani."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," she replied with bemusement. "And you want to know why little ol' me was put in these big, bad chains, is that it?"

The room was dead silent for once, all of the two dozen predators with enough brain cells to care having already been paying close attention since Dregar rose to the dare to disturb her. Now, they were dripping with anticipation for her response.

A smirk spread across the primate's lips, and then ...

"Dunno!" She shrugged dismissively. "I didn't get a chance to ask!"

The tension in the room collapsed into growls and swearing, many muttering at the futilities of turning to a monkey for a serious answer.

Dregar wasn't one of them. His eyes were still narrowed at her. "It amuses you to lie, Monkey?"

She threw her head back and laughed, a clear, surprisingly pleasant staccato sound that didn't seem fitting for something in this place.

"Sorry," she apologized once she'd settled down. "It's just that the tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife! I had to do something."

"Your people fear tension?"

"Fear it," she repeated questioningly, but shook her head. "No, we don't fear it, but it's really uncomfortable, don't you think? All of those nerves so high up that they could stand on the tip of a needle. That's when someone is liable to do something stupid that they'll regret. So my people developed a habit of dispelling tension so that cooler heads can prevail. An ill-timed joke may seem like a failure to read the room, but the shock of incongruity forces people out of that tensed-up state of narrow focus."

Dregar scoffed derisively. "You're one of those fools that believe words are on the same level as fangs and claws."

"Words have the power to compel action. They allow me to control you, to a limited degree. I can start a fight by provoking you to attack, or keep one from happening by soothing the conflict over. Words are so powerful that we even have a saying for it." And that smirk came back. "The pen is mightier than the sword."

He let out a growl of annoyance, not dissimilar from the ones the others had used before. "Now, I know you're insane! I've never heard of anyone dying to a pen unless they were stabbed with it!"

But she frowned, her tone taking on a much more serious air all of a sudden. "Words are responsible for more deaths than any number of swords could ever hope to achieve."

The tonal shift gave Dregar pause, momentarily wondering if he'd gone too far and was about to find out why she was in the horrid place.

But then the primate gave a wide smile, and he got his first real look at her teeth. A front row of sharp choppers bookended by fangs. Most predators had either one or the other. It was unsettling for some reason to see both in one mouth. Unnatural.

"It doesn't really matter if you believe me or not, though, does it? You still want an answer to your question. Why they bothered putting someone like me in these chains."

She looked forward and to the stone floor under their feet again, her tone returning to something he was more accustomed to hearing in this place. "It wasn't a lie, I really don't know how they got me. I remember being on edge, but I can't point to any single thing why. There certainly wasn't any fight."

The primate lifted one chained arm, staring at it speculatively. "Since they were given no reason to do this in response, it must have been preemptive. They knew what I am before they came for me."

For the most part, that fit every narrative Dregar had ever heard. Nobody knew how they were captured. They just went from being in the open to being locked up in here. Nobody ever described being on edge, though. Whoever was in charge of hunting predators was a master of stealth.

There was that last part that still bothered him, however. "What do you mean, what you are?"

She turned back to look at him, and there was no smirk this time. "Well, I don't know where we are, but there's a high chance I'm the most dangerous predator on whatever rock we're on." And after saying that, she looked around the room, and Dregar was glad most of them had written her off and gone back to ignoring the two of them. "Definitely in this room."

He stared at the primate in stunned silence for a moment, some part of his mind sure he hadn't heard her right.

"You?" When he finally found his voice, it was with a scoff. "The most dangerous predator? What, with your words?"

She actually seemed to take the question seriously. "A strong command of language is a sign of intelligence, but even I know it's not much good when the fists are already flying. No, I mean conventionally dangerous. As in, I could kill you with relative ease. I'd rather not, you seem nice enough, but I could do it."

The conversational way she said it unnerved him. It was like she was just stating facts, not boasting about her strength. But then he looked over her form again and laughed. "Those chains are so heavy on you, there must be twenty guys stronger--"

The movement was slower than it would have been without all of those chains weighing her down, but as if finding a sudden well of strength, the primate woman lunged for him. It was so sudden that he stumbled backwards after she'd already stopped in front of him.

"What in the hells?!" Dregar clambered back upright. "How can you move like that when you look like it's about to break you?!"

"Because I'm not a monkey," the woman corrected him. "I'm a great ape. With all that implies. It's exhausting to move around in these things, but I CAN move."

Dregar shook his head in disbelief. "You're the smallest great ape I've ever seen. You some kind of runt, or something?"

"Nope, pretty average for my people," she admitted.

"And where, exactly, are your strange people from?"

"We're apex predators from a class ten death world."

Again, he was struck silent, unable to believe what he was hearing. This time, however, she interrupted him before he could find his words.

"That's enough about little me, though," she said as if the conversation had been completely normal. "I said I don't know where we are. Mind filling me in? What's the routine here? Slaves? Merchandise? A zoo?"

Dregar shook his head. "A gladiatorial arena, for the entertainment of a tribe of predators headed by a chieftain that proclaims himself emperor of all space. His agents gather the most powerful beasts and sapients and make them do battle."

Her eyes narrowed at that in a way that made him slide back on the bench a step. But all she said was a sarcastic, "Lovely. How many captives are there?"

"Only around fifty sapients at any given time," he answered, "half in this pen, half in an identical one on the other side of the arena. The reigning champion of the arena is over there, a predator named Threx."

"And how is that determined?"

"Most wins," he stated simply. "Fights are to the death, unless the emperor favors you, so he's gone the longest without dying."

The primate glanced to him. "And how many wins do you have?"

"Six, a good number, but mostly against beasts. Sapient kills are considered more respectable."

"How often are fights held?"

Dregar rubbed his jaw in consideration. "Regularly enough. Opponents are taken either from the other pen or from the beast warrens, so either way, those of us here don't fight each other unless they shuffle us around." He tilted his head to catch the distant, dull rumble that had been growing over the last decisol. "Crowd's about gathered, should have another fight soon."

As if on cue, two guards appeared at the doorway. Literally, appeared. The door didn't open, they didn't walk in. One moment, there was no one there, the next, two guards in high-tech armor and wielding shock-spears were standing there.

No one batted an eyelid, except the few who were within reach that were quick to scurry away from them. That's how it always was. If a fight broke out, the guards would appear out of nowhere. There would be no alarm, just guards the moment there was trouble, ready to restore order. They didn't usually show up to escort fighters out, however, except with the high-risk ones in chains.

Dregar turned back to look at the primate. If he hadn't been looking right at her before the ruckus at the doorway drew his and everyone else's attention, he would never have noticed that she turned her head first, firmly before anyone else had noticed their arrival.

And now she was smirking again. "Heh, so that's how they do it."

He didn't get to question her strange statement, however, as the guards made for them immediately. Or rather, for her.

"Up with you, brute," one said as the other primed his staff, blue bolts of electricity jumping from its end. "Time to earn your keep."

She arched an eyebrow at the name, but didn't resist the order. Against the weight of her chains, she pushed herself to her feet and began a slow, heavy walk toward the gate.

"Well, that was faster than expected," she said to Dregar before the guards ushered her out of convenient range. "Here's hoping they don't put me up against a sapient."

"Less yapping," the other guard ordered, brandishing his spear threateningly, "more walking!"

The other guard made it to the door and pulled off a glove to put his hand against the panel beside it. It glowed for a moment before beeping, and the big door opened down the middle, sliding open to the left and right.

Dregar watched the strange primate go through that door into the blinding light beyond and sighed as he shook his head. Nothing he could do but pray to the ancestors that the kid's first hunt was a good one, and that she was half the predator she claimed to be.

* * *

Ash squinted her eyes at first at the change in light level. The lighting in the cells wasn't terribly low, but it was midday in the painfully cliche coliseum outside. As soon as they adjusted, she strained her eyes to make out as many of the people in the stands as she could. All were the same species as the guards.

Prominently seated at the height of the seating, but built flush with the front-most stands, was a grand seating area where a far more richly decorated member of the lizardlike race could be seen, clad in as many bones as he was golden discs. That must have been the self-proclaimed emperor of everything or whatever.

Her gaze went around the arena, itself. One, two, three, four ... Security was tight, the only way out either to climb into the stands or try your luck breaking through the heavy, airlock-grade gates. There were four of them, counting her own, and the guards would no doubt jump anyone before they could break through them. The only other thing of note was the earthen ground covered in sand, a time-old practice for making blood and other bodily fluids easy to clean up.

Fanfare boomed from speakers above her, followed by an energetic announcer's voice she thought might have been female.

"And now, for your viewing entertainment, your emperor brings you the finest of galactic threats! Don't be fooled by her size, boys, this girl's a killer! Dozens of preds have fallen to this single specimen of a hitherto unknown species from the galactic rim! What kind of world could birth such a brutal killer in such an unassuming package?! Why, nothing less than the first-recorded Class Ten Deathworld!"

They knew entirely too much, she immediately decided. Some of that still hadn't been released to the public, and what had been released wasn't commonly known. Some of it, the parts that could have only come from her service record, would only be in Defender record banks and data files.

They had spies on the inside of the Galactic Union, that was the only explanation that made any sense. The only consolation was that she now knew for certain that they had captured her knowing what she was. Because of it, even.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

She glanced to one of the guards busying himself with undoing her chains while the other stood ready in case she tried anything. "So do I get a weapon, or is this bare-handed?"

"Head forward, brute," his buddy barked at her, driving her to sigh and shake her head as she obliged them. Once they finished, they both seemingly vanished into thin air with her chains. She made it a point not to watch them do so.

"But she's completely untested in our Galactic Arena," the announcer continued above her, "so we'll be starting her off light ..." And the door across from her began to slide open. "... With a mughi!"

Coming bounding out of the doors as if loosed from a leash was a beast that seemed either a lean black bear or a buff big cat. It had claws on its feet she could see from where she was standing and a mouth full of sharp teeth. It was unquestionably a predator accustomed to having its way ... but it wasn't sapient.

The way the crowd roared, it was easy to assume that starting the human off lightly had been intended to be sarcasm.

As the beast locked eyes with her, she lowered herself into a half-crouch, ready to move however she needed to in order to keep out of the way of those claws. They probably wouldn't break her bones, but they could lash through flesh and muscle, and her rib cage didn't extend down to her vulnerable guts, or up her fragile neck.

Basically, she was in a knife fight bare-handed with an opponent she couldn't disarm. There were a lot of ways this arrangement could be better for her, but there was no point in giving them any thought. This was the situation she was placed in, and she had to focus on what she had available to her, not wish for what she didn't.

The bearcat charged at her in a slavering rage, pouncing as soon as it came within range. She dove to the side and spun to face it as it slid past her. It came to a full stop before it turned to face her again.

So its reaction time wasn't as fast as an earth cat's, that was definitely a point in her favor. She didn't want to compete with a cobra killer.

The beast lunged again for her, but this time, instead of throwing herself out of the way, she tried a wide step to the side, bringing herself closer to the mughi.

It responded predictably, wheeling about and swatting at her, but she backed out of the way again. It gave a very ursine growl as it backed away from her, not out of fear, but because it needed the distance.

It was like playing the knife game, testing your control by rapidly stabbing a knife between your splayed fingers. If you weren't precise, you'd stab your hand or take off a finger. Or, in her case, she'd get flayed alive. But it was important.

If she had a spear, this fight would have been over with the beast's first pounce, but she had to get within reach of the beast, a feat that would inevitably also mean she was within range of all of its weapons, as well. So she would carefully feel this beast out and decipher its vulnerabilities.

"The deathworlder seems to be having trouble getting close," the announcer bellows over the crowd's raucous roars. "She doesn't seem to be equipped with any natural weapons of her own! Is there something she's concealing, perhaps?"

The bearcat lunged again, and this time, she dared to meet it with a blow, sending her foot up and kicking into its nose. The beast yowled very much like a feline as it landed splayed out, then began flailing to find its feet.

Meanwhile, it was Ash's turn to back away. That was dangerous. If she'd missed, she could have lost her foot to the thing's mouth. The crowd was roaring at the blow, but she was letting her nerves get to her. She couldn't afford to get sloppy, as much as these skinks seemed to love it.

The beast found its feet and followed her, more wary of her now that it'd been on the receiving end of such a sharp, sudden pain. It padded after her with that low, ursine growl and went off to her side to prowl around toward her back.

For now, she turned to follow it, and it gave a growl of annoyance before speeding up. She kept turning until it started running and then let it. No sense making herself dizzy. She knew what it was doing now.

The bearcat got behind her and swung its butt around to line itself up with her once more. It gave an ursine roar and charged right for her.

She hadn't expected it to be stupid enough to take the time to roar. Maybe species on its homeworld were prone to freezing in place as a defense mechanism, and it evolved to exploit that? Well, all it did was give her more time.

Once it started charging, she jumped back and to the side so that the beast charged right past her, then she grabbed its fur as it moved by and threw herself onto its back.

Understandably, the mughi freaked. It began to flail even as she grappled for better purchase, getting hold of its neck coif and clamping down in its torso with her legs. It thrashed, but she held on. It rolled, but she held on. It tried swiping at her, biting at her, gnashing its teeth toward the pest on its back, but nothing it did could reach.

When she pulled, it finally started running, just trying to get away from her. As it did half a lap around the arena (to the absolute delight of the crowds), she let it get up good momentum, then heaved to the side, driving it head first into the wall.

The beast staggered back, dazed and bloody, and she reached down, grabbed it by the far side of its slack jaw with one hand and the close side of the back of its skull with the other.

She heaved with her entire body, there was a loud crack, and the whole animal collapsed.

Ash swung her leg over and got to her feet. She stretched out her back as she made her way over to the center of the arena. She didn't feel good about killing a random animal, but neither of them asked to be put in this situation. It was probably better off dead than undergoing whatever treatment had it so aggressive, anyway.

That's what she'd tell herself and she wouldn't dwell on it any further.

"... Amazing!" The announcer seemed to have trouble finding her voice. "Our deathworlder had some hidden talents after all! The mughi is not getting up! It seems to be dead! The fight seems to be over! That was ... sudden! It would seem when she decides to act, it's ... decisive!"

The announcer went silent for a bit before coming back on. "And we've got new orders, imperial citizens! Your emperor has deemed this display insufficient for your viewing pleasure! Right this moment, the guards are bringing out the one, the only, your reigning champion, ..."

The gate started to open again, and Ash started to get a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her hope for only a non-sapient opponent was being bashed right before her eyes.

"Give it up for Threeeeeeex!"

Threx was a tall, lean male with vulpine features and a scaled hide. Looking like a fusion between a lizardman and a foxman, he sported a tuft of fur on top of his head like a floppy mohawk and nine spindly, snakelike, prehensile tails from the base of his spine.

Ash had a hunch she didn't want to get caught in those tails. She didn't see any signs of poison, but she had a feeling they wouldn't be easy to break out of. Fortunately, his front didn't have anything special about it, and that was the side she'd most likely be fighting.

* * *

Threx looked across the arena to see the special opponent he'd been called out to face. He'd been on standby ever since the current match started, and he took the time now while his handlers unchained him to consider her.

Yes, her, as they'd sent him out against a woman.

Still, he couldn't discount her entirely. There was a dead mughi in the arena, with the woman seemingly completely unharmed. He'd fought a few of them and emerged without any meaningful injury, but he was also the pinnacle of the arena. It was expected of him. That this female did it on her first go meant she had some threat level of her own, despite having no visible natural weapons as he had.

He possessed claws to open up the guts of his enemies, prehensile tails to strangle their necks, and scales to protect his front. This woman possessed nothing but common street clothes and open hands.

The last chain fell off, and he only waited until the guards disappeared and the gate to his den slid shut.

Threx threw himself forward without hesitation, charging headlong toward the stranger. If the novice was going to be so green as to allow him the first strike, then he would rip her apart before the match even started!

The woman only put one foot forward and one back, turning sideways with her hands raised before her, one up by her chin and the other out ahead of her chest.

But when he swung, bloodlust flaring his nostrils and dilating his eyes, there wasn’t the satisfying sensation of rending flesh, of crushing bone. Instead, gravity went sideways and all of his momentum shifted him upside-down and still going.

The crowd was dead silent as he crashed into the ground, but he hissed as he untangled his feet and climbed back up, head toward the woman who had hardly moved but to turn toward him again.

What just happened? Was this woman some kind of psyker? He’d heard tales of beings with abilities beyond the physical realm, and claims that their captors were one such race, but he’d always disregarded them as too fanciful to be real. But the way everything in existence seemed to twist when he went to make contact with her had him second-guessing.

He went over the moment again in his mind. She’d touched him twice, he was sure, light grips around his attacking arm. She’d twisted out of the way of his attack.

His shoulder hurt, he realized. Had that been the point of rotation? Whatever had happened had been fast, but he pushed the idea of psychic powers out of his mind. If they were real, there was precious little he could do about it but fight around them, but his mind still rejected it as impossible.

He rushed again, more cautious this time. He stopped short before he swung with his right hand, but she bobbed back away from it. He followed with his left, the side he hadn’t attacked with before, and she weaved again.

But then, like twin vipers, her arms shot out and grabbed him as his arm reached full extension, and there was a twist that sent pain shooting into his shoulder blade, then his face was in the dirt again.

If it were him, he would have followed up with a stomp to the skull, end it right there, or at least seriously disorient his opponent, but perhaps she was afraid of his tails, because she left him alone and only circled away from him again.

The crowd was beginning to boo now, their shock fading away to disappointment in their champion as he pulled himself back up once more. That was a death sentence if he couldn’t turn it around. There was no chance of a mercy verdict if he continued to give such a poor showing.

“Wow, our new deathworlder sure is fast,” the announcer cooed into her microphone. “Poor Threx can’t seem to lay so much as a claw on her! But she’s yet to do anything serious to him, either! Is she just drawing it out to embarrass him?!”

Threx growled at that idea as he wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. Green blood came away from where his lip had been smashed between his teeth and the ground. First blood, little as it was, was hers, an insult he couldn’t leave be.

A deathworlder, though? That would explain her anomalous abilities. He, himself, was from a Category Two death world, and knew firsthand exactly the kind of hellish place it could be. What kind of death world had this woman come from to look so soft yet dance around him so?

But still, she wouldn’t attack on her own, content to wait for him to gather himself and select his own strategy. Was it arrogance, or some sort of endurance strategy? Was she trying to wear him out, or did she just think that little of him?

It didn’t matter. He’d end her, one way or another. He charged, tails wide and claws fully extended, ready to grab for her or impale her if she tried to throw him again.

She didn’t. Again, she grabbed his arm, but this time, she turned to the inside, avoiding his tails and grabbing his other arm with her opposite hand when he swung with it. Her grip was strong, and in the time he considered how to break out of it, she’d turned with a jump.

She didn’t just use her hands to attack. Like some sort of monkey, she threw her feet at him, too. The first one snapped across his face, stunning him so sharply that he hardly registered the second, burying into his chest hard enough that he felt something snap, and then he went rolling backwards again.

He couldn’t hear the booing anymore. He could hardly tell where his own limbs were. His arms got tangled in his tails and dragged him back down again as he struggled to discern where his everything was located.

More blood came from his mouth, this time from a broken jaw, and there was a deep pain in his chest that made it hurt to breathe. Nevermind a monkey, it felt like he’d been hit by a gorilla.

His slowness to return to his feet cost him as he turned blurrily toward the woman to see her finally on the attack, charging toward him. She really was fast. He only had a moment to wonder how she would attack him at so low an angle before her foot was coming up to punt him again, and everything went black.

* * *

The entire arena was silent as a grave for a long moment as they processed what had happened and that their champion wasn’t getting back up again. Then the emperor gave a motion of his hand and two of the guards stepped forward and appeared.

One kept his electrified spear pointed toward Ash while the other knelt down to check on Threx. After only a moment, that second guard stood up again and shouted, “He lives!”

The stadium erupted in a cascade of boos and shouts of profanity, but a gong rang out and all fell silent. The emperor stepped forward on his balcony and pressed something, then it was his voice that came over the speakers.

“Newcomer, you have proven your strength by overcoming our greatest champion. Now, to take his place, you need only finish him off, as you did the mughi.”

Ash figured that was where this was going, but she didn’t move from her spot. “I won’t do it,” she shouted back.

The place was filled with silence again, this time confused. Then the emperor spoke again. “You must. It is the rule. Kill him. Your emperor demands it.”

“I don’t have an emperor,” she replied. “I work for the Galactic Union! If you want this man killed in cold blood, you can come down here and make me!”

It was the emperor’s turn to growl into the microphone. “You will do as you are told, or you will join him in death!”

“Go ahead and try it!”

He made a motion, and the two guards that had come in to check disappeared. But they didn’t go anywhere. Instead, two more came forward to join them from around the ring.

Ash knew she was surrounded, but she could just make out the subtle shifts of motion. That was how she’d known the guards were there, while the ones that ushered them out into the arena had shuffled back into the bays where the slaves were kept.

But as she stood there with her stance wide and ready to move in any direction, they still thought themselves unseen. So when the first one lunged for her, he was completely unprepared when she turned to the side and grasped back, hand closing around the invisible spear shaft before she buried her foot into his gut.

The spear reappeared as the lizardman involuntarily relinquished his grip on it, and she immediately spun it about to parry another spear with its back end before shoving the business end into the attacker’s chest. The jolt of current rushed through him with writhing lightning before he collapsed, visible, to the ground.

Ash couldn’t help but grin as she spun the spear back like a bo staff into a more ready position. Finally, a real weapon. She was getting sick of fighting empty-handed.

“SHE CAN SEE US!!!” It was the announcer again, who nearly screeched over the speakers, and sure enough, the other two guards were backing away, unsure of what to do.

She pursued, determined to finish them off before they got any wise ideas. Another was hit with the taser end, while the other caught the back spin and went down from a major concussion.

Oh, yeah, it was so good to be a tool-user with an actual tool.

“It doesn’t matter.” The emperor, meanwhile, was calm and collected. “She can go nowhere. She is stuck within the arena, and she will inevitably be overwhelmed.”

Instead of that, Ash went sprinting toward the vertical wall surrounding the arena. The crowd seated there were already panicking, no faith in their emperor’s words, and sure enough, she ran right up the side for several long strides before she gripped the railing with her off hand and hurled herself over.

Guards rushed to meet her, but they met the same fate, even in the more cramped arena stairs, as the ones below. If anything, the length of the spear proved its value as she could thrust past one and strike the unsuspecting guard behind them.

She fought her way up the stairs toward the emperor’s balcony, where two elite guards waited in ambush, but she didn’t even hesitate as she came bursting through the door in a diving roll, passing between their attacks to tackle the emperor, himself.

He had a moment to shout out some order or another, something about stopping and can’t, and then she had him pinned to the ground with her knees and the spear drawn back.

“I told you to come down and do it, yourself!”

And then the spear was buried into his neck, where it continued to discharge until the only reason his body was still twitching was because of the current running through it.

She stood and pulled the spear back loose again as she turned toward the dumbstruck guards. “Well? Gonna join him or stand down?”

Both of their spears hit the ground.

The arena was silent, and a glance at the console behind her showed the whole thing had just been broadcast across the entire arena. And probably to countless telescreens across whatever constituted their real population.

When the announcer spoke again, it was in a quiet, plaintive voice, only audible because of her own microphone, wherever she was.

“Wh-what are you going to do with us?”

“Nothing,” Ash answered. “I’m grabbing a ship, taking the slaves that want to leave, and I’m going back to Galactic Union space. And if I ever catch any of you sneaking around there, I’m bringing you in.”

“Bringing us in?”

“That’s what I do,” she explained from the emperor’s own microphone. “I’m a Union Defender. I protect and serve the people of the Galactic Union.”

She moved toward the console and looked out over the assembled crowds.

“You can call me Apex.”