"I suspect it beats not getting your binocular vision back, sir. Also, it looks amazingly gross, which is a plus." You send the footage as instructed, and tell him you've done so. To Salmon, you propose, "Can he have painkillers if I keep an eye on him?" Your emphasis on 'eye' is so subtle, you're proud of yourself.
"No," Sal says. "The interactions between narcotics and regeneration stimulants are not good. He will shit out his entire digestive system, forever." "I'm willing to risk it," you offer hopefully. Sal glares at you. Then he glares at Bel. "Take him away," he says. "He bugs me. Worst captain. See if I care what happens." You are warmed. "I'm going to fire you," you tell him happily. "I'm going to fire you and during your going-away party I shall mash your face into the cake." Sal picks you up under the armpits and holds you out to Bel.
"Sir," you say gravely as you collect him, "as your first mate I advise you to allow your internal organs to remain that way. You will simply have to sack up. I'll cook for you, though." Before you leave, you glance back at the girl, the 'black market job', and for a moment you remember being eight sweeps old. How deadly and invincible you felt. She looks so tiny and so fragile. Before your weird lusus feelings can run away with you, you give her a nod and carry your captain out to the car. "I believe I remember the way," you say, setting out, "but please try to stay conscious, sir. In case I get lost."
"I am a champion at staying conscious," you say. "I do it every night, in fact." You giggle again. "Oh, hold up, hold up, three doors down," you say, when he gets to the cart intersection closest to your hive. "No, wait." You concentrate. "I'll let you in. To my place. We can wedge a crate in the door so you can go in and out. Then I want to go to Lainey's. I don't care what she's fondling or where, I am going to interrupt, I need a hug."
"Sir, why not just give me a key?" But this is apparently not on offer, so you wedge the door as instructed and let him direct you to his matesprit's quarters.
"Mm. No key, it's a thumb lock," you say. "I don't want to give you a thumb, I use it for things." You're very tired, and drape over his shoulder like a basking scalebeast. He's pretty warm for a blueblood. It's nice. After a few rounds of snapping back awake to give more directions you are finally deposited at Lainey's front door. You thumb the lock and lean in. "Lainey? LAINEY." "ERSKIN," she yells back from some far room. "CARRY ME TO MY REST, O SWEET VALKYRIE," you yell at her. "WHAT DID YOU DO NOW," she yells, from closer, then makes a startled and irritated noise when she beholds you. "I made Hardcase eat his horntip, it was great, I can't stand up, this is Kadros," you explain. You are summarily kissed about the head and horns by your beautiful best friend and feel much better immediately. Psybil pokes her long neck around the corner and puffs a bit of flame at you in greeting before coming up and letting you throw an arm over her broad, flat head. "Hallo, dear," you say, patting her hot nose. "Have you been good?" She flicks her tongue out a few times, then coils about and leads you back into the respite block. "Dismissed, soldier," you call back over your shoulder. "And thank you! Good dayyyyoh good lord Lainey." That is definitely her hand on your butt. You're not even around the corner! When you are around the corner, her hand goes around to your front, and you have less to complain about.
You just sit for a few moments, thinking... you're not sure what, absorbing the sheer ordinariness of life maybe. Then you shrug and drive off. You have your quarters and your lusus to see to. The next few nights are a mixed bag. You communicate with Aspera mostly via phone, since he's recuperating at his matesprit's quarters. When you do see him in person, he's a bit snippy and impatient, but that seems more due to not liking the enforced rest than to any real flaw of character. You tolerate it without protest. On the whole, you think you like him personally and would enjoy being friends with him, and the crushy feelings don't seem to be getting worse. As for the crew... you haven't met such a bunch of individuals since ascension. While a significant proportion of them adapt easily to your leadership style, there's a nearly equal number who buck at the merest hint of authority. Basic things like addressing you as 'sir' or 'commander' rather than 'bro' or 'pal' when you're on duty and in uniform. You don't get into a pissing match with them. You just deliver a calm rebuke and take down their names. You know dozens of tricks for letting the rank and file know that laughing you off isn't a great idea. You implement the first of these tricks on your third night on duty, in fact. The paperwork you're taking over from Aspera includes authorizing pay transfers. The names on your list get their pay authorized one hour later than the rest of the crew. Not long enough that they can protest it or accuse you of anything; just long enough for them to freak out a little when the comissary computer spits their card back out. Just long enough that their buddies are already well sloshed by the time they sit down with their first drink. You mention it to no one, and you're prepared to stoneface like a champ if anyone asks you about it, but no one does. Maybe they think it's just bad luck. That's all right; even if no one notices consciously that the crewmen who buck you are unlucky, their social credit will erode until they cave in to keep from being left out. On the whole, if it weren't for the low-key, but constant, paradoxical combination of agoraphobia and claustrophobia, you don't think you'd mind being first mate of a carrier much at all. The fourth night, as you're trying to sort out requisitions for the hydroponics without the help of an obstinate ensign who seems to think the captain's 'scribble on the req form and hope' method was perfectly adequate, you get an email from Hardcase, inviting you to dine on his ship. You ponder the possible purposes and outcomes of this fuckery, and at last send a gracious acceptance. And then you call the captain. "Hardcase invited me to dinner, sir," you tell him when he picks up. "Would you please have the area around his ship cleared? I'll be carrying explosives on a deadman switch just in case."
"WHAT. Explosives? No! Good lord!" You sit up in the pile of shed skins and snakemom. Soldiers! "No collateral damage," you snap. "I won't have it. If you get yourself killed it's your own damn problem."
"Damn," you sigh. "It's such a good bargaining chip, sir, are you sure you won't let me --? Oh, well. I guess it's more of a challenge that way. Shall I bring you a doggie bag?" You hold the phone away from your ear with a wince at his reply, and hang up. The uncooperative ensign is staring at you. You make a mournful face. "He complains that I'm allergic to fun, but when I try to have a little..." You shake your head as you depart. If Hardcase tries to, for instance, kidnap you to exchange for the helmsman, you'll simply have to carve your way out by hand. (every time i say i'm going to bed, i inevitably wake up again and take another turn. i should just not announce it, then maybe i can stay asleep!)
Still grumbling, you flop back down. Arguus, curled up around Reggie, sleepily incorporates you into the bundle. He kisses your cheek. Sleep takes you again.
Hardcase's crew doesn't scan you for recording equipment before letting you aboard. You initially think this means he doesn't intend to try courting your support, but it turns out they're just either sloppy or sabotaging him; he barely waits for the food to hit the table before he starts buttering you up. He wants you to smuggle out the little helmsman for him, which you expected. He also wants you to set up Captain Aspera for an embarrassing revenge involving the sewage recycling system. He promises you the captaincy of the Sunslammer in exchange. "Think of it," he wheedles. "The first cobalt-caste carrier captain! Just rolls off the tongue, eh?" "How is that yours to offer, sir?" you ask blandly. So far you have neither encouraged nor discouraged his blandishments. "I know people." He winks. "Forgive me, sir, but I'm skeptical. I'm well versed in current Admiralty policy, and it's quite firm on top topic of hemocaste. No cobalt-caste troll may command a vessel rated higher than Class Two Line-Of-Battle, which is to say, a battleship of fewer than seven gigatons weaponpower and less than one mile in length. The Sunslammer is twice that length, and its helmsman alone is a planet-killer class weapon, so it's above my pay grade on two counts." "Pish tosh, no one cares about this heap and you know it. Just a word in the right ear, and... eh?" He elbows you wincingly, somewhat impeded by his bandages. "Which ear would that be, sir?" He finally catches on that you're trying to get him to implicate whichever crony has let him get away with his turd-in-the-punchbowl act for so long. His face changes. "Take him!" he commands, and two of his crew step forward and sieze your arms so you can't equip a strifekind while a third puts a gun to your head. "Er. Sir? You do know I was a Commandobliterator originally," you point out politely, but he's busy with his phone already, trying to get someone to wake up Aspera. This would be the point where you would've mentioned the explosives, if you'd brought any. But Aspera's scrupulousity put paid to that scheme. Rather than initiate the inevitable ultraviolence, you decide to wait a little and see how this plays out.
You wake up, as usual, to your phone going off. "Yes, what," you grumble. "What? Hardcase? Is that you, old cheese? Do I have to make you eat your other horn?"
"What you have to do, Aspera," he snarls, "is give me back my helmsman!" He holds the phone up momentarily, presumably taking a picture of you looking skeptical about the wisdom of this course of action. "You have fifteen minutes, and then I start chopping pieces off your pretty blue bitchboy here." Your other eyebrow goes up to join the first.
You tip your head back against Psybil's warm sigh and go hrrrrngghaaaaaah at the ceiling in profound exasperation. Then you say into the phone, "You and the bitchboy may do as you like, I'm not here to indulge either of you in this sort of childish nonsense," and hang up. "Bluebloods!" you say. "Bluebloods," Arguus agrees, and nuzzles your neck. "Hey," Lainey mumbles, and swats vaguely at you two. "Oppression," Arguus says, and cuddles down underneath you. You graciously deign to offer your services as a meat shield, Lainey scurrilously offers her services as a dastardly no good case of blueblooded sexual entitlement, and things devolve a bit from there.
The split second Hardcase frowns and starts to take the phone from his ear, you know Aspera refused his offer, and you spring into action. Or rather, drop into action; you slide forward off your chair while kicking the table up and over your head. The two holding you lose their grip, the gunman's shot goes wild, and Hardcase is just in the process of recoiling in confused surprise. The crewman with the gun starts to swing it toward you. You punch him in the head, take the gun, turn and shoot Hardcase in the face. The flash of Hardcase's strife-equip fizzles, and his gauntlets hit the deck in card form along with his body and the rest of his sylladex. You turn and look at the crew, all of whom are very carefully not attacking you. The one you punched is lying with his eyes open and blood pouring from his ears and nostrils. Damn, you killed him. But at least you won't have to kill any of the rest of them. "You're on Aspera's mercy, you lot," you tell them. "Don't leave this ship. If you start your engines we'll shoot you down. I'll send medics to collect the dead." One of them, a smart-looking teal CPO, steps forward and looks you in the eye, though her forehead looks dewy with nerves. "Commander. Sir. Do you think Captain Aspera will take revenge on us? Since, er, he wasn't able to finish..." She glances at her late captain. "No," you say, a little surprised to find you fully believe it. "I'm going to order you detained for questioning, but it'll be about Hardcase's black-market helmsman and attacking Sunslammer crew and so forth. As long as you don't do anything stupid like tamper with the logs, you'll be all right." "Thank you, sir," she says, and salutes. You return the salute, and stroll out of the ship none the worse for wear except for a bit of sweet-and-sour sauce on your uniform.
You are pulled out of a pleasantly fizzy afterglow to the ringing of your goddamn phone. "If it's Kadros again I'm spacing him," you growl, and pat around for where your pants got off to. "Hello, yes?" It's the medics. Your blood goes ice cold. "Right. Thank you. Send the usual files to my quarters and I'll have him over to discuss them." "Sugargrub?" Lainey mumbles, then wakes further up. "Oh, no. What happened." "It's a murder," you sigh, and rub your face with your hands. Arguus pushes your hands off and substitutes his own, and you lean in gratefully. "The maniac's little hero games got someone killed, of course. He seemed sensible enough, I hadn't thought..." "Not your fault." Lainey kisses your cheek. "I'm the captain, it's my job to be at fault," you grumble, and get upright. Three days on you're mostly just twingey, save your fingers which throb a steady fire all the way up your arm, but your sleep backlog always bowls you over like a tidal wave whenever you're put on bedrest for so much as an hour. Damn nuisance. "Dress uniform," Lainey says sleepily. "You think?" "Mmhm." You huff, but take the advice. long pants, stupid shiny shoes, stupid shiny buttons, a few pointless jingly medals, enough gold braid to make you feel like a show pony in full harness. Horncaps. A bit of eyeliner. "Good?" "You're terrifying." "Good." You set off to your hive, phone in hand. "Kadros," you say, very nearly calmly. "Meet me at my hive. Front room, not the office. Thank you." Your front room is a reasonable facsimile of the desert badlands you spent the last three sweeps of your planetside life: high pale ceiling, dark sand and glossy, sharp-sided obsidian boulders, fat thorny succulents in every dusty shade of the hemospectrum, a dozen or so threateningly iridescent lizards enjoying themselves under sunlamps, chirping and flaring at one another as they jockey for position. You feel comfortable here, in the bleak sharp color-spattered brightness, the heat turned up twenty degrees past ship-regular. Regular trolls, real trolls, can hardly stand it. The smell is almost right... You stand very straight with your hands folded behind your back, and wait for Kadros to arrive.
As soon as you see he's wearing his dress uniform, you are a stonefaced Marine again, as impenetrable as if the past five nights had never happened. You knew this ship was too good to be true. You stand at attention, eyes forward, and say, "You wanted to see me, sir," without inflection. You don't react to the strange desert biome area he chose to meet you in, though sweat has immediately started tickling its way down your collar.
"Sit," you say, pointing at a rock about as tall as a chair. In your head you privately think of it as the Rock Of Shame. "Tell me why I have a dead man in my medical bay," you order, once he's sat.
"Sir. You have two dead men in your medical bay, sir." You produce the incident report and a thumb drive containing the video. "I was wearing a recording device, you may wish to go over the footage yourself. In summary, I was invited to dine on Captain Hardcase's ship. I accepted because I wished to obtain any evidence I could regarding how he obtained the little -- the unauthorized helmsman, and any other misdeeds he may have committed. I suspect there may be someone else in the command structure who abetted him, or at least looked the other way. As you instructed me not to bring explosives, I simply equipped my stealth fistkind before approaching the ship. "Hardcase began by offering me the captaincy of the Sunslammer in exchange for helping him to kidnap the young helmsman again, and to 'break every bone in Aspera's body and drown him in a septic tank'. I expressed skepticism due to caste regulations. He hinted that he has a friend at the Admiralty who can fix it. When I inquired who that might be, he ordered his crew to capture me, and called you with his demand. "I was fully prepared for you to refuse, sir, but was it necessary to refuse so promptly?" you add reproachfully. "You could have at least pretended to think it over." You clear your throat. "In any case, I freed myself using the aforementioned fistkind, seized a pistol from a crewman, and shot Hardcase. Unfortunately, when I punched the crewman with the pistol, I killed him. I would appreciate the chance to make my apologies to his quadrants, sir. He was only following orders."
"Orders he was only following because you chose to involve yourself in a situation I already had controll of," you say. "Tell me his name, soldier."
