So this is the last part. Tell me what you think. Is this worth sending off to a publisher? The total length is about 100,000 words.
Part Two of Chapter One
http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic22719.html
Part One of Chapter One http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic22642.html
The Prologue (you don't really need to read it and it's really long... so... XD http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic21141.html
And will someone tell me how to make links pretty like"Part One" instead of looking like, "http://blahblahblahblahblah.com/whatever.html"
Thanks.
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“My daughter…” Baalith made a grunt. “She is a sensitive girl and I wouldn’t want her upset by this horrible business. I try to keep my personal and business life separate as it is.”
“You have a personal life?” Rodax started, unable to help himself. “I thought you lived here at the embassy. Why bother with a home after all, hookers don’t really care if it’s a bathroom. Aw, I bet you don’t even pay. You probably just put a round in the back of their heads and chuck them in the trash with the threat-note. How many of them are men?”
Maybe that had been a little far.
“Mercenary! That‘s quite enough. You‘re upsetting me.” Baalith shouted.
“If there was one thing that would upset me,” Rodax yelled waving his fist in Baalith‘s face. “It would be if I was in someone’s sights and my own father wouldn’t tell me!”
Jeez, what a moron.
Baalith snapped back, his placid politician’s face replaced with bared teeth. “You don’t even know know her! It would disturb her and cause her unnecessary worry. If I can have this resolved without her ever knowing, that would be perfect.”
Rodax shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You can’t protect someone and not let them know you’re doing it. Executive protection is all about letting the other person know exactly what they’re up against and keeping them alive by any means necessary.”
Baalith pointed at Rodax. “That’s why you’re here. You should be able to do it my way.”
“Your way sucks, Baalith! I bet you don’t even have a guard for her right now!”
Baalith was motionless.
Rodax shook his head in dismay. “I thought you were only an idiot when it came to politics. I should shoot you now and solve your daughter‘s immediate problems.”
Baalith shot to his feet and slammed his thin hands down on the desk, his black hair swinging forwards. “Mercenary, you have gone too far! Give me one good reason why you shouldn’t be arrested for that statement.”
Rodax clenched his fist, popping his knuckles, as he brought up his lip back. “Because hiring new embassy security personnel is a time-consuming business. And ‘cause you know I’m right and that if anyone is going to be able to do it ‘your way’ it’s going to be me. No one else my age could do this. I doubt someone older than me could either.
Rodax spoke slowly, putting his words precisely. “I am your daughter’s only hope.”
“So you take the job?” Baalith asked his face flushed.
Rodax nodded, working his jaw.
Baalith snickered lightly, calming back down. “I guess I have to put up with the attitude if I want someone your age.”
Rodax snorted. “I’d say I have a better attitude than most people my age.”
Baalith smirked. “And just how old are you, Rodax?”
“Late teens, maybe.”
Baalith scowled. “What do you mean? You’re older than that.”
Rodax pursed his lips. “Meet many twenty-year-olds who act like this?”
Baalith sniffed. “Maybe you are in your late teens if not-.”
Rodax continued. “As I was saying, I can do this job better than any loser you can find on your own. Let me tell you, if there’s one person who can keep your daughter alive, it’s me.”
Baalith mouthed the word, punk, to himself with a frown and shrugged. “I believe you‘ve made your point.”
“Right.” Rodax felt his blood pressure go back down. “Let’s talk price. I want 20,000 a month.”
“A month!” Baalith was outraged.
Rodax considered doubling it just to watch Baalith turn purple.
“I also want you to get this whole terrorist problem solved in six months or I’m going to come back and solve it myself. When I do that, I’m gonna want 750,000.”
“You’re out of your mind.” Baalith declared.
Rodax smirked. “That’s relative.”
Baalith almost said more but he stopped and shook his head.
He turned to look out the window and sighed the sigh of an old man. “Please don’t let anything happen to my daughter. If she dies,” more sighing. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Rodax thought up all manner of caustic retorts that would probably get Baalith worked into a furor again. He shoved them back down his throat, a rare occasion, and held his peace.
Baalith looked back up with the most human face he had ever seen him wearing. “And I know you’re only human, but if you use this situation to extort… whatever from Veema-“
“So she has a name?” Rodax asked. “I thought she was called ‘Daughter #1’.”
Baalith brought his lip up and looked like he was chewing glass.
Rodax waved him off. “Don’t worry, I’m less human than I look. These eyes -” he pointed to what he knew looked like bright contacts”- are actually implants. My left leg is a prosthetic and my middle fingers-” he held them up ”- aren‘t real either.”
He received a scowl.
“Okay, I was kidding about the fingers,” Rodax held them up again, “but the leg and eyes are for real… or would it be fake?”
Baalith was not amused as he put a pad down on the table.
Rodax picked it up and looked down over it. “So this is her? The same one as on all these pictures in here?”
Baalith nodded.
Rodax looked at the pictures on the pad and pulled the picture out of his chest pocket.
“Then I guess I won’t be needing this.”
Baalith was even less amused. “This does not inspire confidence.”
Rodax sorted a few more things out and then left the embassy. He grimaced and scratched the back of his head.
Oh dog, this is going to be so eye-crossingly boring. What was I thinking?
Threats from terrorists were almost never carried out. Especially ones as bogus as this. Who would go onto a pacifist planet, where Veema went to school, to kill a daughter of a politician? The daughter of a politician was more self-important than vital to the function of the Federation.
The threat's probably from one of her enemies like her father said. Rodax was going to spend more time trying not be arrested by the local authorities.
Once he got on planet, he was supposed to rendezvous with an advance team who would have things like surveillance equipment and a safe house. They were also supposed to back him up if things went awry. He didn’t need it, but Baalith insisted on it.
The guy worried too much, plain and simple. He had almost gone into a conniption fit when Rodax told him he didn’t need any help getting there and would rather stay under the radar if he wasn’t going to be an “unofficial” protection agent.
Don’t worry Rodax. Think of it as a paid vacation.
Oh, how wrong he was.
CHAPTER 2!!!!!! WHERE'S CHAPTER 2?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
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