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Six Ways to Get Past the Shadow Shogun’s Goons, and One Thing to Do When You Get There

By Stewart C. Baker

1. Dust ’em

“Listen, little lady,” the guy in front of the door is saying with a sneer. “There’s two types of swordsman…”

Chiyome’s already heard enough to peg his type, so she tunes out his braggadocio and pulls out a bag of nanite dust. She’d hoped to use her status as the Shingen warlord’s only child to bluff her way in to the Shadow Shogun’s presence, but the dust works too. She blows a handful in his face and he shrieks, drops his sword, then follows it to the floor, thrashing in the station’s artificial gravity.

Behind her, Rui whistles. “What’d you give him?” The other woman asks.

“You know how my father’s always talking about unsanctioned violence and other threats to order?”

“Sure, but I always figured he only says it because he’s the one doing the sanctioning. No offense.”

“None taken. The point is, every time this guy even thinks about violence for the next 4 hours, this will happen.”

“Not bad.”

“Not bad? It’ll take you longer to beat the next one with your naginata, I bet.”

“A bet, eh?” Rui cups Chiyome’s chin in one long, slender hand and tilts her head up. “Well and good, then. We’ll bet a favor.”

“A favor and a kiss.”

“And a kiss,” Rui agrees, then frowns. “Wait. Is that if I win, or if I lose?”

Chiyome snorts and pushes her away. “You’ll figure it out. Now pay attention–someone’s coming.”

---

2. Bust ’em

In fact, there are two someones coming: a pair of swordsmen, silently furious, hands on their still-sheathed laser swords.

Rui strides out into the hallway to meet them, spinning the long haft of her naginata idly. “Gentlemen!” she says brightly. “Nice day for a stroll, is it not?”

“It’s a station, Rui,” Chiyome cuts in. “They have rotations, not days.”

“Oh, hush.”

If the swordsmen are taken aback by the banter, they don’t show it. They spread out, hands on their weapons, waiting for Rui to make the first move.

It’s a mistake, but before they can realize it Rui’s already taken them down, the swift crack-CRACK of her naginata’s shaft as it bounces off the sides of their skulls echoing down the hall.

Rui turns to Chiyome before they’ve even hit the floor. “Well?”

“Nearly twice as long,” she says, shaking her head in mock sorrow.

“What,” Rui sputters. “But there were two of them. And I didn’t even use the blade, which has to count for something.”

Chiyome shrugs. “I don’t make the rules,” she says. “I just call the shots. Now help me search their pockets.”

---

3. Split ’em up

Chiyome’s just found the passcode on a crumpled up holo when another trio of goons strides down the hallway.

“It’s a regular parade,” Rui grouses.

“Cheer up,” Chiyome tells her. “You can try to beat me again.”

“One each, then?”

“First one done gets the extra.”

Chiyome pushes the button on a long-range electrical destabilizer she put the finishing touches on just last night and one man’s sword short-circuits in his hands, the current sending him to join his colleagues on the floor.

“Another win for me,” she says. “I’m a little embarrassed that you’re doing so badly.”

Then she sees the smirk on Rui’s face and looks again: her bodyguard’s hands are empty of the naginata. Instead, the weapon lies on the floor, and next to it is goon number five.

“You threw it at him?!”

“Hey,” Rui says, sotto voce. “I don’t make the rules. I just call the shots.”

“I do not sound like that.”

“If you say so. Now, what do we do about him?”

The last of the swordsmen–who’s been watching with a look on his face like milk that’s been left out of the gravity well too long–raises his hands in surrender. “How about I open the door and you let me go?” he suggests.

“It’s a nice offer,” Chiyome says. “But unnecessary.”  She pushes the button and his laser sword–still buckled to his hip–jolts him into unconsciousness.

“Speaking of unnecessary,” Rui says.

“He might have told someone we were here,” Chiyome points out.  “Besides, I already had the passcode, and now we’ve done three each.”

---

4. Dance

Passcode in hand, the door opens easily enough.

Inside is a small room that does not, in fact, contain the shadow shogun. Instead there are four more goons, lounging in various states of unreadiness. Set in the room’s far side, inconveniently beyond these new opponents, is another door.

“I told you space priests can’t be trusted,” Rui says, nudging Chiyome in the ribs with one elbow as the goons scramble for their weapons.

Chiyome pulls out a tube of what she thought was super-sticky bonding agent, but which turns out to be instant disco. “But he seemed so nice!” she shouts over the sudden burst of noise.

“They’re all the same,” Rui insists, raising her own voice to match and bringing her naginata hilt down on the head of the first goon, who’s struggling to extricate himself from what looks to be a very ancient sofa. “Grandiose promises about the path that the future will take, but very little accuracy.” She grimaces at the noise. “Why do you even have this, anyway?!”

Chiyome throws a plush crab robot at the second, then ducks his flailing arms as the mechanisms inside the toy activate and it clamps its squishy claws around the side of his head. “Do you remember that colony where they’d hollowed out all the asteroid cores and strung them together?” she shouts.

Rui slips her naginata between the flailing goon’s legs and spin-kicks him in the back of the head as he goes down. “The one where they put mirrors on the ceiling so the place looked bigger?”

“Yeah!”

“The one where a certain woman tried to put on, and I quote, ‘the biggest laser light show since Eta Carinae,’ even though she knew bright lights and loud noises give me migraines?”

“Uh… Yeah?”

“I remember as little as possible about that place.” She stops to dance out of reach of the remaining two goons, then looks over at Chiyome, eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Chiyome finally finds the bonding agent tube. She engages the timer and throws it at the other two goons, then watches with satisfaction as it arcs between them and explodes, coating them with a thick, viscous paste that turns their clothes as solid as steel and instantly secures them to the floor.

“No reason,” she shouts into the silence caused by the disco’s sudden decision to terminate its building crescendo, then clears her throat and continues in as upbeat a voice as she can muster. ” Now that this hideous din has stopped, shall we be on our way?”

Rui nods. “Okay,” she says. “But I’m taking full credit for one you crabbed.”

“Ugh, fiiiiine.”

---

5. Take the Scenic Route

The second door leads to an elevator built into the outside of the station.

It’s a small elevator–clearly built for the shadow shogun instead of uninvited guests–but Chiyome isn’t exactly upset that she has to huddle in close to Rui for the two of them to fit. There’s only the one button, so Chiyome pushes it, then takes a sharp breath as the room rises, revealing a glimmering view of the ice planet the station orbits.

“How beautiful,” she says.

“Why thank you,” Rui replies. “I do try.”

A flare of bright orange light draws their attention to the far side of the planet’s gentle curve, and Chiyome mumbles a quiet curse. It’s the Shingen warlord’s fleet bursting into real-space, their warp engines’ ejecta setting them off against the whorled blues and whites of the icy surface.

“Fleet’s closer than I thought they would be,” Rui comments, voice even.

“Yeah. We should hurry.”

Rui squeezes her shoulder, and Chiyome puts her hand on top of the other woman’s. They ride in silence for a minute, then Rui clears her throat.

“About that bet,” she says. “I’ve been thinking…”

This time, it’s not the view that takes Chiyome’s breath away. “Yes?”

“What happens if it’s a tie? Do we both owe each other a kiss? Or do they cancel out?”

For a minute, Chiyome very carefully says nothing. She counts up to ten, then down again, inside her head.

“Well?” Rui prompts.

“I don’t want you to kiss me because you think you have to,” Chiyome says at last.

“Oh,” Rui says. Then, after a pause: “Oh.” She clears her throat. “Oooooh. Right.”

Chiyome fights the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she leans back into the taller woman. “Right,” she murmurs.

The elevator chooses this moment to slide to a stop, and the two of them stumble backwards as its doors open behind them. Rui–ever quick on her feet–catches herself before they fall, then spins around, using the motion to push Chiyome behind her. Chiyome digs out another stuffed crab bot and glances past the other woman’s outstretched arm, expecting to see another batch of goons. But except for them and a thirty-meter tall robotic statue of a man clad in the traditional armor of Earth long dead, the room is empty.

With a slow outblown breath, Chiyome puts the robot away again. She tries to step around Rui and into the room proper, but the other woman pushes her back again. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Something’s not right.”

“You’re being paranoid,” Chiyome says, but then she hears it too–a quiet whirring, somewhere at the edge of sound. “It’s a trap.”

“It’s a trap,” Rui agrees.

And then, with a creaking, groaning sound like the station falling apart, the statue moves.

---

6. Disconnect the Power Supply, Stupid

Before Chiyome can so much as think of what device to reach for, Rui pushes her away towards one corner of the room, diving into a roll that takes her to the other just as the robot’s sword smashes into the ground, shaking the room with an echoing clang.

The statue lifts the weapon and steps forward with a shudder, then chops down with the blade a second time. It’s more like someone tilling the earth in those vid-dramas about newly terraformed planets than the smooth motions of a warrior, Chiyome thinks, some screen jockey’s idea of how a sword should move. Not like she can really talk, she supposes, but the thought gives her an idea. She whips out her datapad, tapping in commands as fast as she can go.

Rui, meanwhile, has leapt onto the massive sword’s hilt. She darts up the giant robot’s arm to its head, letting out a primal yell as she spins her naginata around above her head and brings its blade down in a vicious slash.

Despite herself, Chiyome stops what she’s doing to watch.

The edge of the naginata bounces off the robot’s metal helmet, and Rui uses the momentum to execute a spinning leap, slamming the hilt of her weapon into where the eyes would be on a human opponent. The robot, however, takes no notice. It just lifts its other hand, stop-motion slow, and flicks her away as though she were some kind of bug.

“Rui!”

“I’m fine,” Rui snaps, sweat beading her forehead as she staggers back to her feet. “But some help would be wonderful!”

“On it!” Chiyome replies, fumbling with the datapad. “Just give me a couple more minutes.”

The robot brings its weapon down with a clang, so close to the warrior woman it ripples her uniform. “I’ll try,” she gasps. “But don’t blame me if I’m a pancake by the end of it.”

She and the robot continue their mismatched battle, and Chiyome tries to stay focused on what she’s doing. Although, truth be told, hacking the station’s systems isn’t difficult–the shadow shogun really ought to invest in better cyber-defenses.

“Any luck?” Rui asks, readying herself as the robot creaks through another sword-lift.

“One more second… There!”

As the robot brings its weapon down again, Chiyome types in the last command and hits the execute button. The sword creaks to a stop a few feet above Rui’s head, and then the lights flicker off, plunging them into the dim, flickering yellow of emergency backup power.

“What did you do?” Rui asks.

“Not to brag or anything,” Chiyome says. “But while you were keeping the robot distracted, I rerouted all the station’s non-essential functions to fabricating ten million strawberry shortcakes. It’ll take nearly ten hours, and while that’s going on none of the station’s doors, lights, elevators, or–and I think you’ll agree this one is important–thirty-metre tall death robots will work.”

Rui groans.

“And the best part is,” Chiyome continues, “I built in an automated lockout procedure, so that nobody can stop or override the command. Not even me!”

“Chiyome,” Rui says.

“The robot can’t kill us, and none of the Shadow Shogun’s goons can get in, either.”

“Chiyome!”

“What?”

Rui holds up her hands in a gesture of compromise. “It’s better than being flattened by this behemoth,” she says, “I’ll give you that. But there’s one little problem.”

“What’s that?”

Rui points to the door behind the robot, dimly illuminated by the emergency lighting. “We can’t get out, either, and the fleet is nearly here.”

“Oh.” Chiyome looks down at the datapad in her hands, its warm little glow as it counts down the shortcakes looking less hilarious by the second. “Right.”

“Right,” Rui agrees. She crosses the room and gives Chiyome a hug, tight and desperate.

Chiyome realizes belatedly that the other woman is shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” Rui admits. “But I’m not dead, and neither are you. So… thank you for that.”

Chiyome blinks back sudden tears, wraps her arms around the other woman, and rests her head on her shoulder. “You’re welcome,” she murmurs. “And Rui?”

“Yeah?”

“About that bet…”

Rui pulls back, tilts her head up with one hand again. “Forget the bet,” she says. “I want to do this. Do you?”

Chiyome swallows, throat dry. She nods, not trusting herself to find the right words.

“Good,” Rui whispers, leaning her head down to meet Chiyome’s–

–only to be interrupted by slow, begrudging applause and a woman’s low laughter.

---

1. Collect Your Reward

Chiyome pushes Rui gently away, her face flushed, and the applause stops.

A moment later, the shadow shogun herself emerges from one corner of the dimly lit room. Lithe, muscled, and seated in a sleek metal hover-chair, she carries a matched pair of swords and a laser pistol in her lap and looks nothing like Chiyome had expected. Although, now that she thinks about it, she isn’t sure what she had expected–something like the robot, maybe?  Like the goons?

“Bravo,” the other woman says. “Bravura! You’ve defeated every challenge I’ve thrown at you.” She hovers closer, one hand tightening on the pistol grip. “A pity I’ll have killed you both before the Shingen warlord’s main force arrives.”

Chiyome clears her throat. “About that. My father doesn’t exactly know we’re here.”

The shadow shogun narrows her eyes. “Doesn’t he, now?”

“No,” Chiyome tells her. “He doesn’t. But a few of his advisors do, and they’ve sent me here to make a deal.”

“A deal,” the shadow shogun repeats. Her grip on the pistol loosens, but she makes no other move.

“They’re tired of his threats and his obsession with control,” Rui comments. “Tired of the way he monopolizes their local resources, how he siphons off their citizens to fuel his endless wars of expansion. They want a fairer master.”

That gets a dry laugh. “And they think that would be me?” She gestures to herself with a wry look in her eyes. “I know what they call me. Lady of darkness. Tyrant of the Rimward Arc.”

Chiyome shakes her head. “That’s what he calls you. They’ve seen what you’re doing out here. How you treat the planets and stations that sign up for what you have to offer.”

“And what,” the shadow shogun asks, fingers drumming on one arm of her chair “do they have to offer me?”

“Their allegiance,” Chiyome says. “And their help in turning back his fleet.”

“They’ll help me defeat your father, in other words. Even though his death will mean the death of their loved ones he’s holding as hostages on his flagship.”

“Yes,” Chiyome says, jutting out her jaw defiantly. “They will. Nothing will change without sacrifice. Nothing will get better.” She manages, just barely, to keep her voice steady.

For a long moment, there’s no sound but the drumming of the shadow shogun’s fingers.  Rui puts her hand in the small of Chiyome’s back, and Chiyome joins it with her own, giving it a quick squeeze.

Then the shadow shogun nods. “Very well,” she says. “I accept. But on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You finish up here,” the shadow shogun says, “and we go have some of that cake. I do adore cake.”

She pushes a button on the arm of her chair and the lights flicker back on, the robot returning to the position it occupied when Chiyome and Rui arrived.

Rui raises one eyebrow, her lips quirking in a smile. “I thought you said it couldn’t be stopped.”

“Oh, hush,” Chiyome says. She waits for the shadow shogun to leave the room, then pushes any thought of the coming battle away as she reaches up and pulls Rui down for that kiss, at long, long last.

---

Host Commentary

By Tina Connolly

And we’re back! Again, that was Six Ways to Get Past the Shadow Shogun’s Goons, and One Thing to Do When You Get There, by Stewart C Baker, narrated by Valerie Valdes.

One of the many things Stewart is good at is memorable titles. (I ran a delightful Stewart C Baker flash story on Toasted Cake long ago called Concerning Your Recent Creation of Sentient Horse-things On the Next Planet Over.) We have both been part of a flash fiction writing contest on Codex where you can submit titles anonymously and other people can grab the ones they want and write stories about them. And Stewart writes very intriguing titles, so yes, I coincidentally have a Stewart title sitting on my OWN hard drive that I will definitely come up with an amazing story to suit, any day now.

But the thing that’s great about this sort of title is it sets up the whole story for you. It’s an old writing rule not to infodump…but then, you may ALSO have heard by this point that that can be a perfectly delightful rule to break. (I mean, what would the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BE without all its hilarious sidebars and infodumps?) Anyway, in this case, it means less that has to be worked into the opening sentences. Nobody has to say, “Hey Bob, wow, looks like we’re standing here trying to get past the Shadow Shogun’s goons.” (Not that you can’t do that either…even Shakespeare was fond of a well-placed “Welp, here we are in the forests of Arden.”) At any rate, this title tells us where we’re going, and it cleverly tells us what structure we’re going to use to get there. Sort of like a heist movie, where things either go wrong, or seem to, you know to sit back and enjoy the six methods about to be presented to us.

And of course, within this structure, there’s room for surprises, too. The goons steadily escalate…one goon, two goons, three…but on the fifth method there are no goons. So don’t get complacent! But sit back, and enjoy all the goon methods.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please, go forth and share it.

How do you share it, you ask? Well! In addition to your social media of choice, consider rating and/or reviewing us on podcast listening sites, such as Apple or Google. More reviews makes for more discoverability makes for more Escape Pod for you.

Escape Pod relies on the generous donations of listeners exactly like you. And remember that Patreon subscribers have access to exclusive merchandise and can be automatically added to our Discord, where you can chat with other fans as well as our staff members. So! If you enjoyed our story this week then consider going to escapepod.org or patreon.com/EAPodcasts and casting your vote for more stories that fabricate ten million strawberry shortcakes.

Our opening and closing music is by daikaiju at daikaiju.org.

And our closing quotation this week is from Else Holmelund Minarik in Little Bear, simply because I want to quote Little Bear, who observes: “Birthday Soup is good to eat, but not as good as Birthday Cake.”