Anvil stood patiently outside the intricately carved sliding doors of the closed bedchamber, his skin metalled up and dressed in his regal Realm uniform, the one that had been presented to him for the previous night’s gala banquet. It was morning now, and the bright sun of the throneworld shone through ceiling-length windows at the end of the hall.

He waited and listened, then pulled his wrist to his face and checked his watch, then remembered it was set to Earth time and he was on another planet. And in another galaxy, for that matter. As he did, a pair of amber-skinned serving girls came around the corner nearby, talking candidly amongst themselves. At the sight of him, they went silent and lowered their eyes respectfully, and walked slowly past him. But neither could long resist the urge to steal glances at him, and the girl on the right broke into a shy and slightly excited smile.

“Ladies,” he greeted cordially with a nod and a grin as they passed. Both girls burst into giggles and hurried past him at a quick-step, and disappeared, still giggling and now whispering, around the next turn. Mark smiled, feeling a little puffed up. He straightened his jacket and stretched his neck.

“Must be the uniform,” he muttered to himself, guiltily pleased. Well, that, or the fact that his shiny face was now famous across countless star systems.

He pressed the greeting button on the panel beside the doors again, and again got no response.

“Holly!” he called through the doors, and got no answer. After a moment he tried knocking. Still nothing. Finally starting to feel a twinge of concern, he went ahead and tried the open button, just in case. The door turned out to be unlocked, and the twin rectangles slid apart with a small hiss.

He poked his head in the doorway, finding the opulent, and darkened, room seemingly empty. The luxurious round bed had its covers all a-tangle, but no one was in it. He went ahead and stepped inside, mentally on low-level alert. The wall hangings of the VIP chamber were much like his, portraits of the throneworld’s landscape and landmarks, visions of a fantastical world that he still has some trouble believing he was on.

It seemed like such a short time ago he had been on a plane to Seattle, having agreed to be part of a Forte delegation to Stronghold, the tesseract city below the cold Washington coastline that was home to the sea-dwelling Cassian peoples. And he had been piloting the current Forte’s jet/sub, the Mariner, not long after, making the short journey with two of his former teammates and Holly, thinking that would be one of the more interesting cultural experiences in his life. Little did he know he’d end up accidentally transported across several galaxies and into the middle of an interstellar war, one that he and his Forte comrades had helped end before it properly started. And their actions had made them heroes of an Empire, and ever since they had been treated as such, wined and dined and hosted like royalty across several worlds. Last night was the apex, the ceremony where the leader of the Realm Empire, the Realmsovereign, had presented them with medals, made them official citizens of the Realm AND given them rank as Realm Commanders, and made them members of the royal hero team—the Realmwatch—to boot. Not bad for just falling ass-backwards into trouble like they always seemed to. The outcome was rarely this spectacular. And as for cultural experiences? The cake was officially taken.

He looked around the chamber, and quickly found Holly’s own uniform in a wad on the floor next to the bed, resting next to her boots.

“Holly?” he tried again, aloud, peering around.

He looked over toward the open entrance to her bath chamber, where the light was on, and spotted something inside. He could make out Holly’s bare feet, bottoms up, with her toes curling. And the sound of a wet cough.

Mark rolled his eyes and relaxed his caution. “Weeeeaaak,” he said, loudly.

Something obscene from Holly echoed hoarsely from the bath chamber. Mark tried not to take it personally.

He sighed and stepped to the door and stood beside it, his back to the wall. And he grinned. “Guess I don’t need to ask if you’re all right, huh?”

Holly made some kind of indecipherable (and pathetic) sound in response, something even the translator he wore couldn’t help with.

“Are you decent?” he asked.

“Do I SOUND decent?” she croaked back.

“Are you suitable for prime-time viewing?” he clarified.

“Yes,” she finally answered.

He slid his head around the opening, and immediately grimaced. “Ohhhh,” he said, with some empathy. “Will you look at this sad sight here.”

Dyna Girl was on the polished stone floor, mostly on her knees, wearing the sort-of-silk light blue nightgown that had come with her room. She was half-leaning-on, half-clinging-to the bowl of her regal toilet, her limp hair covering half of her face, and the other half looking pale and pasty and ashen. The eye that showed was heavily lidded, and looked up at him helplessly. The smell in the beautiful chamber, even with the air processors, was far from pleasant.

He smiled carefully, and painfully, and took a couple of steps toward her and crouched down to her level. Having spent too much energy raising her head, Holly let it droop again.

“Pretty good ale they whip up on this planet, isn’t it?” Mark asked her.

Holly managed to slowly raise a warning finger. “Don’t ever…mention…the ale again.”

He let one short nasal laugh out, but kept it to that, and was careful to keep his volume down when he spoke again. “You been at the alter all night?”

“No,” she managed, with a voice that sounded like she’d been gargling gravel, carefully bringing her raised hand back to support her on the bowl. “I think I slept a couple of hours first.”

Marked rested his elbows on his knees. “There’s a price to pay for being the life of the party.”

She looked up at him with a tired kind of pleading on her white face. “Tell me I didn’t do anything stupid.”

He watched her and raised a metallic eyebrow. “You don’t remember floating above the banquet table and singing the national anthem?”

Her small sound of desperate disbelief came out slowly. “I didn’t.”

He nodded sympathetically. She dropped her head again, onto her curving arm.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It wasn’t on the big Realm-wide TV broadcast. It was just in front of the Sovereign. And the royal family. And the ‘Watch. And gathered dignitaries…”

Holly started to cry.

“Hey, hey,” he said, panicking a little, cocking his head to try to see her face. “It’s okay. Really. Everybody loved it. You were a big hit. I swear.”

She sniffed hard. “I didn’t start any intergalactic wars?”

“A couple of minor border skirmishes. Tops,” he offered.

She began to cry more, and clung harder to the smooth bowl. “I’m gonna to die in space, Mark,” she wept miserably. “I’m gonna die and I’m not even gonna get to say good-bye to my dad.” The last word was almost too high-pitched to be heard.

“Holly,” he laughed. “You’re not going to die, okay?” He gingerly pushed her hair behind her ear with his steel fingers. “You’re just going to pray for it to happen for a few hours, that’s all.”

That didn’t seem to help much, and her quiet, childish sobs continued.

“You want to lay down?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, sniffling, with pronounced sadness. “But I can’t. My legs don’t work anymore.” More tears.

Mark sighed. “Okay,” he said, changing his position. He very carefully, and slowly, got his arms under her legs and back. When he lifted her up from the floor, she managed to get her arms limply around his neck, and her head lay on his shoulder.

“Don’t blow on my jacket,” he warned. “We only got one of these suits each, you know.”

He paused to kick the jeweled flush button and get rid of the evidence, and she immediately buried her head in his chest and squeaked a cry of pain at the sound.

“Sorry,” he said to her, wincing. She wept a little more as they left the scene of the crime behind.

He carried her slowly across the chamber and to her bed, and softly lowered her onto her sheets, getting her head mostly on one of her pillows. She immediately curled into fetal position. He reached for the covers and bundled them around her.

“Hang on,” he said, leaving her and heading for a fine table against the wall, beneath a painting of a grand waterfall from the southern province. There was a sizeable bowl filled with exotic fruit there, and he dumped the soft contents onto the table and carried the bowl back to her, placing it on the night table next to her bed. “It’s right here,” he said, crouching down again. “In case you can’t make it.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, with the helpless gratitude of the truly hung over.

He moved hair off of her face again, as she seemed incapable of doing so (or just lacked the urge to care). “You know,” he grinned, “we’re actually reenacting the time that Bree came home from her first sorority party. She was in about the same shape.”

“I doubt it,” she said, closing her eyes tightly.

He smiled, and the slight light from the dimmed lamp on her night table reflected off his stretched cheeks. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. I hope you learned an important lesson, young lady.”

She made a disapproving and slightly indignant sound and readjusted her head on her pillow, pulling the covers tighter around her. After a few seconds she carefully opened her eyes again, halfway.

“Where are the guys?” she asked.

“Well,” Mark said, thinking about it, “last I saw Tommy last night he was going back into the zero-G chamber with Meta4. All four of her, actually. She multiplied at some point after cocktails, I guess. Haven’t seen him since.”

“He’s not being naughty with the space girl, is he?” she asked, trying to focus her eyes.

“Space GIRLS,” he corrected. He shrugged. “Beats me. She seems to like him a lot. Don’t know how much. But you never know. Wouldn’t be the first time the big doofus got some co-hibernation without even trying. I wish he’d at least PRETEND to not be surprised by it.”

She closed her eyes again and rubbed her face on the pillow. “She’s nice. Chrinn. I like her.”

“She is,” he agreed. “I had a great time with Arc,” he said, speaking of Legionon. “Big bastard really warms up after a couple dozen pints. Full of war stories. Great guy.”

She sniffed and asked, without opening her eyes, “What about Jeremy?”

“Up at the crack of dawn, out doing morning combat training with the Realmguard.”

“Showoff,” she mumbled, bitterly, concerning Lightsedge and his apparent self-control with his imbibing.

“He really hit it off with those guys. I think they liked that he ditched the celebs to hang out and talk with them.”

“He probably likes that they have to salute him now with his new rank,” she said. “He’s probably trying to convert them all to his order as we speak.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Mark grinned.

She sighed heavily and was silent for a moment, and then her eyes crept open again and she seemed to study Mark. “Why are you in uniform?” she asked.

He sighed a different kind of sigh, a mostly guilty one. “Tregulen delegation lunch. Two hours. Remember?”

Her eyes widened and looked a little horrified. “Nnnnnnooo!” she whined, now, in fact, remembering.

“Sorry,” he said, again with sympathy. “You’ve got an hour to sleep, then it’s in the bath and back into uniform. And you need the bath. You smell like my Uncle Don.”

“I don’t WANnewww,” she whined again, pouting and pressing her face into her pillow.

“Well, you gottew,” he said. “Big day ahead, party girl. You were the one all hot to be the ambassador when we were going to see the Cassians. You got your wish on the other side of the known universe. With great ego comes great responsibility.”

She made exaggerated weeping noises into cloth and feathers.

“We all gotta be there. The Sovereign will be in attendance. So sleep fast and look less green. I’m going to come back and get you up.”

“But, Mark, I’m dying!”

“Long as you live through lunch. Listen, I’ll check in with that royal doctor, see if they’ve got some kind of cure for this kind of thing. I’m sure you’re not the only one in need of it this morning. Maybe we can get you a shot or a pill or something.”

“Don’t make me go,” she pleaded.

“Got to, kiddo. Sorry again. We’re representing Earth, here. Got to be done.”

He stood up as she made more (now resigned) noises of protest, and he switched off her lamp for her. “Try to sleep,” he said, leaning over and rubbing her temple. “I’ll be back. Hopefully with the doc. You’ll be okay.”

“Space sucks,” she muttered.

He grinned and turned away, leaving her to her self-inflicted misery. He walked quietly to the doors and went into the hall, closing them behind him. He had an hour to kill. He figured he’d better find Tommy and make sure he wasn’t suffering from a different kind of hangover, and make sure he remembered their upcoming engagement, too. Then check in with Jeremy. And then, after finding the doctor, he might have time to take a stroll around the amazing garden near the gathering hall and check out lush fauna from a dozen different alien worlds, and get some more pictures for Erin (who he would owe for quite some time for this impromptu disappearing act and all the worry his wife was certainly going through. His wife and his daughter both).

A group of three Realmguards, in full uniform, came marching around the corner. Spotting him, they all, almost in unison, did the fist-on-left-shoulder salute to him. Having gotten more natural at the ways of the Realm, Anvil returned their salute with the fist-over-heart salute of a higher-ranking officer. They nodded respectfully to him as they stoically passed, and he nodded back. He watched them reach the windows and turn right, and beyond them, outside, a royal shuttle came into view, lifting off and smoothly sliding into the morning sky.

“Yeah,” he said to himself, grinning widely. “It sucks out loud.”

Straightening his jacket again—and making sure Holly hadn’t drooled on it anywhere—Realm Commander Anvil strolled down the halls of the royal palace, off to find a magical polar bear that had more luck with women than he, himself, would ever know.