the princesses and the frogs

You saw the downed drop ship and emblazoned on its side, almost lost among swirls of gold and sculpted adornments, was the crowned crest of the Firenzian royal guard. Your heart sank when you recognized the old-fashioned profile of the marine-shuttle.

Firenzia was an oddity in the federation. An early gift to a traditionalist Earth-based faction before hyper-jump travel became safe enough for routine travel, the planet developed largely independently of the other Earth colonies. Fiercely proud of their heritage and refusing to adapt their ways to the norms of the other planets in the federation, Firenzia was the only UTF planet governed strictly by a collection of feuding monarchies.

In theory the 287 different kings and queens and millions of nobles who ruled the patchwork of countries covering this world all owed allegiance to one single High King, but it had been years since the peoples of Firenzia had followed this practice. It served as a standing example to the virtues of democracy (even the authoritarian form it took in the UTF).

With so much disunity, so many nobles and so many plots and shifting alliances it was no wonder Firenzian technology lagged so far behind the rest of the UTF. Furthermore, a strict code of male-dominated sexual morality came with the outright banning of contraceptives so common in the other planets of the UTF. The consequences of this fundamentalism and lack of birth control was not hard to predict. The wealthiest lords often took two or three wives and did their best to sire as many sons as possible to prove their virility. Not even counting illegitimate bastards, remarriages and various oddities it was not infrequent to have over 15 or 20 heirs to one tittle.

What to do with all the sons of daughters born of these unions? Lines of succession were cryptic, territory was so scarce that splitting territory it for inheritance could include cutting rooms in half in some of the many castles of the world.

A decree proposed by an UTF ambassador was ratified unanimously (the only point of accord in the recent history of the planet.)

Every son after the oldest of every noble family will join the prestigious Firenzian Royal Guard and receive the highest honor of fighting bravely for the future of humanity, (in exchange for a tax rebate for their family.) If the primary heir was found to be unworthy, the successor would be determined from the remaining brothers by the merits of his performance in combat. Although the daughters of these families were not required to join the Royal Guard, positions were available for these princesses as well if they so chose.

The Firenzian royal guard was of the worst qualified armed **** of the UTF, thousands of young brats drafted each year convinced that blue blood and rank would make the enemy flee before them went to battle without training. (Average annual attrition rate observed in the last two centuries 97.4%)

There were voices and laughter but no human ones. A trio of girls with fancy hairdos were standing naked knee-deep in a pool of steaming water. Surrounding the terrified young women were laughing bipedal frogs who poked and prodded at their captives with long flint-tipped spears. The males in the ship had even less luck than the stripped young women as their dead bodies were impaled on stakes around the ship like grotesque scarecrows.

You have absolutely no desire to end up like those hanging corpses, but on the other hand there were three humans who desperately needed your help. You have to make a choice.