Commander Fyodr (Teddy) Valenti

Teddy's Background...

Rule No. 1: Never reveal your true background

…because some people can be a bit funny about it. When people see a Charioteer, they expect certain things, and it’s up to us to keep those expectations intact. They don’t need to know that the scruffy-looking guy they’ve hired on wasn’t born on the streets with a gun in his hand. So hone the funny accent, learn to swagger a bit, and always be ready with a story about the hard life on the streets. Especially if, like me, your only experience of ‘the streets’ is from the safety of careful planning.

I’ve spun a few different stories about where I came from, depending on who’s doing the asking. I tell people I was born on Cadavus and grew up the hard way on the streets, or I say I was born on a ship and teethed on tech. The accent’s part of the act, like the flashy gun and the loud shirt. It’s just what people expect of a Charioteer. People are easier to deal with if you’re what they think you are.

I was born on Cadavus. See, there is a fact hidden in my story after all. And you thought I was a compulsive liar. For shame. My mother, bless her, is a Decados courtesan, which is a fancy word for an upper-class whore. She’s my Mum, I’m allowed to call her that. She’s had a few different clients, usually only one at a time, but her most famous beau was Yevgeny Zuviev Decados.

Courtesans are fine ladies who are often more personable than their client’s wives, and certainly more capable of carrying on intelligent conversation. And they don’t complain about boudoir duties. Courtesans are sort of an open secret amongst the nobility – everybody politely pretends they don’t exist, but they seem to accept that they’re a necessary part of noble life. After all, most nobles get married off to women they don’t like, so a courtesan is a nice, almost-acceptable way of getting pleasant female conversation and regular nookie without sacrificing your social standing. There’s one thing a courtesan isn’t allowed to do: get pregnant. It raises all sorts of problems.

My mother got pregnant. The stars only know how. Getting pregnant was a big enough problem, but compounding it was the fact that Yevgeny’s wife (his own sister, if you can believe it) was currently childless. Nobles are funny about heirs and inheritances, so my mum up and left Cadiz before Yevgeny found out she was carrying his first-born. He was pretty broken up her leaving. He gave her a fair sum of firebirds as a going-away present, along with a very unique piece of jewellery belonging to his family. Mum passed it on to me when I was ten (it’s a pretty thing, not that I show it off – it hangs around my neck, safe under several layers of clothing).

Anyway, after Mum left Yevgeny’s household she went home to Cadavus (she’s distantly descended from one of the Li Halan vassal houses) and that’s where I was born. Once she got her figure back she found herself a new nobleman and life for her went mostly back to normal. I did my best to stay out from under her feet, which was relatively easy in a big house with a lot of servants. Actually, I probably spent more time with the servants than I did with my mother’s crowd, but I certainly picked up a few things about how to impress nobility. After all, my mother’s an expert.

Rule No. 2: Always remember where you are

…because the way you should act in a Decados court is completely different from the way you act in a church, or a Charioteer market, or a Muster bar. Be adaptable.

I grew up a borderline pampered brat. I wasn’t exactly rolling in money, but we had more than enough to be comfortable, and I spent a lot of time around the kind of people who get their noses out of joint if the staff speak to them without first being prompted to. But I didn’t really enjoy it. Mum did, but then it was her job to. I was tolerated by her noble friends because I was quick-witted enough to be amusing. When it came time for me to choose a profession (and given Mum’s bank balance, I had my pick of academies) I chose the Charioteers Guild. I wanted to leave Cadavus and see the universe, before the stars vanished completely. I wanted to meet new people. But most of all, secretly, I wanted to meet my other family – the father I’d only ever seen pictures of.

So with my mother’s blessing and a very large tuition fee, I hopped a freighter for Leagueheim. It wasn’t a short trip – four jumps in all – and I wasn’t the only Academy hopeful on the ship. My pretty manners and backwoods Decados accent went out the window as fast as I could manage it, and I traded the richer items from my wardrobe for a fellow student’s poorer attire. I didn’t want to stand out. I especially didn’t want the other students to see me as upper class. The kid I traded the toff’s clothing to, by the way, got himself beat up a few times for ‘putting on airs’. Better him than me.

Rule No. 3: Always remember who you’re talking to

…because it’s easier to live down to other people’s expectations. Stand out just a little, but not too much – nobody likes a show-off.

The best thing that can be said about my time at the Academy is that I fitted in. My grades were good, sometimes outstanding, but never genius-level. The geniuses vanished very quickly, sent off to secret labs to study alien technology. Poor bastards probably never get let out. Nobody wants to be one of them.

I was reasonably popular, as much as anybody can be in such a saturation of wanna-be Charioteers. My main goal was to get out with good grades, a few friends, and enough contacts to get me apprenticed somewhere useful. I even sucked up to the teachers just enough to get a few of them on side. Most graduates have to wait months, sometimes even years for their first postings. I walked out of the Academy and onto a ship.

It was an engineering gig, which meant I spent more time in the guts of the ship than on her bridge, but I didn’t mind. I was out in the deep and learning useful stuff at the same time.

Engineers are a funny bunch. They treat their machines like living things (which I really can’t make fun of, given the way Charioteers talk about their ships), and they like alcohol more than any other group I’ve ever met. They were nice blokes though, and like most Guilders they were thick as thieves. Down here, it’s all very ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. However, there’s also a certain amount of picking on the new kid. They held off on that bit ‘til we got to Cadiz. I guess they wanted to get a feel for me before they threw me in the deep end.

Rule No. 4: Never get drunk in a strange town

…and if you do, make sure you know where your friends are.

Stupid-like, I’d told one of the engineers that I was looking forward to seeing Cadiz. I was going to take my shore leave there, hang around a bit, see if I could get a look at Yevgeny Decados. I may have even let slip that I was looking to meet some Decados. My compatriots decided that my shore leave was a perfect opportunity to find out if I was worthy of being a proper Guildsman.

Totally clueless, I let them take me drinking. I let them buy me drinks (hey, if somebody else is paying, you don’t complain). I got very drunk, very quickly, and I vaguely recall singing some Decados ballads. Then I must have passed out, because the next thing I remember I was groggily waking up to a pair of angelic faces peering intently into mine.

I say angelic, but that was really only a first impression. They were anything but. They can’t have been more than twelve, but they already embodied every loathsome quality the Decados’ detractors level at the family. They were quite probably mad, and certainly depraved, and I would even go so far as to say they were Afflicted. I’m not a very religious man, but if an Avestite had happened by I would have begged him to turn his cleansing fire on those revolting twins.

Under pressure, a man sobers up pretty damn fast, and through a combination of greater strength and sheer luck I managed to free myself and stagger back into the suddenly very comforting lights of the space port. I remember crawling onto the ship and falling into my bunk, just happy to be alive. The captain sent the doctor to look me over and when I got a glimpse of his little black bag I freaked out and gave him a few blows for his trouble. They left me alone for a while and eventually I calmed down.

The engineers were very apologetic. I told them that next time, they should find some nicer Decados to abandon me to. I didn’t tell them what the twins did, but I hinted enough to get what I felt was a proper amount of sympathy. I’ve got some very odd little scars, and I’m very glad that I got out of there before they got beyond ‘exploring’.

A few days later, when I was feeling brave enough to leave the ship again, I made a few enquiries and discovered, much to my horror, that the twins were none other than Konstantin and Oxana Zuviev Decados. Yevgeny’s children. I was related to that. Worse, there was an elder brother, Sava. I decided I didn’t want anything to do with the family after all, and I stayed on board ship for the rest of the layover.

The day after we left Cadiz, floating in space before a jump gate, the engineers held a huge piss-up for me, formally accepting me as a member of the Guilds. The chief, a tiny woman named Rajiya who up until that point had treated me with indifference, personally gave me the traditional ‘welcome to the Guild’ gift – a beautifully maintained blaster pistol.

Rule No. 5: Never be the last one to join in a fight

…because somebody always notices. Be ready with a pistol, but not too ready – only a hothead shoots first, and only a coward shoots last.

With my apprenticeship over I had an actual rank in the Guild and could be slightly more choosy about my next tour. Rajiya recommended me to the captain of a trading ship, which rather took me by surprise, but I thanked her all the same and took the job.

It was a good job – traders visit the most interesting places, and meet the most interesting people. I even met a Vau. Well, I saw one from across a room. He was very tall. Mostly I spent my tour running errands, sealing deals, and making a few deals of my own on the side. The captain got a cut of course, but I made a tidy sum. But the point of the exercise wasn’t making money, really – it was making contacts. You name a planet, any planet, and if I haven’t been there I know people who live there. Dump me anywhere and I can give you all the best local gossip in a few hours. I’ll probably get slightly drunk in the process, though. Small price to pay.

The one problem with spending a lot of time in markets and bars is that eventually, you get into brawls. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, because being in brawls gives a certain sheen to your personal backstory, but you have to be a bit careful about it. Always let the other guy start it. That means he’s lost his cool. And a man who’s lost his cool makes stupid mistakes.

And yes, I have been the ‘other guy’ in several bar brawls, and I’ve made all the stupid mistakes. I’ve thrown my drink in the face of a guy who was cheating in a poker game; I’ve accidentally insulted a Hazat’s sister; I’ve raised a toast to the Emperor in a room full of surly Decados lordlings, and I once narrowly missed being beheaded by an angry Sister Battle. I feel that all this experience makes me a better person.

My captain was amazed that I survived to be made lieutenant.

Rule No. 6: Avoid religion and politics

…because people will lynch you for expressing any opinion on either. And which opinion they’ll lynch you for differs from city to city.

My second tour was on a Guild courier ship called the Virtuously Mendip. Her captain, one Ivo Hamer, was a twitchy ex-military type, doing what for him were cake runs after several rather hairy tours on the frontier. He interviewed me because my last captain had told him I was a ‘bit mad’, and he hired me because I swaggered into his ready room with a blaster pistol on my thigh and an autofeed in my armpit. He liked the cut of my jib.

Courier ships do all sorts of things, usually at high speed. You get to see a lot of places zipping past the viewscreens, and sometimes you get a few hours on shore to meet the locals. I loved it, because I get bored pretty fast and all that constant motion appealed to me. I also got along famously with Captain Hamer. He had a bit too much cyberwear than was probably good for him, and he treated the Mendip’s engineers like priests. I was very careful not to bring up religion in any conversations with him, except for one very scarily memorable one which I must stress he started. I suppose he was trying to sound me out, to see where I stood on cyber-sin. I kept telling him that I didn’t care, and he kept yelling that I had to have an opinion because nobody could be neutral all the time. In the end he went completely over the top and actually smacked me one, and thank the stars I was too shocked to do anything to but stare at him, because the next thing he did was burst into tears and beg my forgiveness. I gave him a drink and left him alone. The next time I saw him I pretended nothing had happened, and life went back to normal.

He must have decided he could trust me, because from then on I was privy to just about everything that went on aboard the Mendip. I pretty much became his XO, and a large part of my job was meeting and greeting any Church types, since I wasn’t squeaking with cyberwear. I got very diplomatic. I also got very good at telling Avestites new and believable reasons why they couldn’t meet the captain today.

While refuelling on Severus we got hired by a nobleman for a quick run to Cadiz, and when I looked over the paperwork there was a familiar name – Sava Zuviev Decados. The elder brother of the loathsome twins, and my younger half-brother. I’d never met the man, but after my experience with the twins I had no desire to see another Zuviev. I told Hamer I had reservations about the client, but he was a single well-paying fare, and we had a job waiting for us on Cadiz anyway, so I couldn’t raise any argument compelling enough to cancel it. Hamer did have the good grace to order me onto the bridge when Sava came aboard, so I wouldn’t have to meet him.

Courier ships are pretty compact though, so it was inevitable I’d run into him eventually. I was happily ensconced in the mess, half-drunk, when Sava wandered in. He seemed to assume I wanted company, or else he was looking for company himself. We finished the bottle together over a game of cards, and I rather charitably didn’t fleece him. He was actually okay. A bit funny around the edges, but nowhere near as freaky as the twins. Or maybe he just hid it better. In any case I actually found myself liking him. When we hit Cadiz I was sorry to see him go.

Rule No. 7: Never forget a favour

…both the ones you owe, and the ones owed to you.

Captain Hamer’s recommendation got me a promotion to Commander at the end of my tour with him, and I put him in touch with Rajiya, who knew a genius engineer who did a nice job of making Hamer’s cyberwear a bit less obvious. Last I heard, he’d found a wife on Vera Cruz who by the sounds of it was making an honest man of him.

I kept tabs on Sava through the usual networks, not that there was much in the way of interesting news coming out of Cadiz about him. There was the usual boring guff about duels and broken-hearted ladies, but you expect that of nobles. I have to admit that I took a small measure of pride in the fact that Sava never lost his duels. Just on the QT, I’ve made a few firebirds betting on him.

I’d gravitated back to Leagueheim and was checking out ships for my next tour when I got an urgent message from Mum. She’d fallen out of favour with her most recent client and had moved back to Cadavus, but she’d fallen ill and wanted me to come home and give her a hand for a few days. Since I was between jobs I said yes, but because I didn’t know how serious it was, I took whatever jumps were available and it was nearly a week before I got home.

Any longer and I might have been too late. It was terrifying seeing my mother like that – wasted and frail, without her makeup and not a trace of her usual easy smile. I pulled in every favour I had, and nearly drove myself broke getting her on a fast picket for Leagueheim, to the best doctor in the Guildhall. I couldn’t afford two fares.

All I could do was sit on Cadavus and wait. It was the worst week of my entire life. Eventually I got word back from Leagueheim – she was recovering, but slowly. I was so relieved I went out and got royally drunk.

Rule No. 8: Forget the damn rules

…they make you predictable.

So there I was, stuck on Cadavus, twiddling my thumbs while I waited for a job to show up. Word came to me that Sava had gotten himself into some kind of trouble on Cadiz – the twins had registered a vendetta against him and he’d vanished not long afterwards. I had a quiet little panic, but he soon showed up again on a trader leaving Malignatius. I guess he couldn’t be too picky about where it was headed.

Good for him, because he landed on Cadavus, where there just happened to be a Charioteer willing to help him out in his time of need. And good for me, because travelling as the retinue of a noble has a cachet all its own.

Image

A cheerful fellow, just over six feet tall, with pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He dresses in a slightly disreputable flight suit over which is pulled an eye-hurtingly bright Hawaiian shirt and a short leather coat for armour. He wears a carefully-maintained blaster pistol prominently on one thigh, and carries a pistol in a holster under his coat.

He is friendly and outgoing, with an easily likeable manner and enough good looks and charm to make just about anybody comfortable. He can’t sell fridges to Eskimos, but he could probably sell them ice-cream.

Blessings & Curses

Curious: Being a Charioteer, Teddy gets very excitable around new things, be they places, people, or things. He’s especially attracted to shiny bits of tech, and has a tendency to pocket loose bits of wire and stray screws.

Nosy: If thwarted in seeing something shiny and new, Teddy gets a bit stroppy. He doesn’t like to be told he can’t touch, or isn’t allowed to go there, or shouldn’t speak to such-and-such.

Well-liked: Teddy is very charming, and is easily likeable.

Handsome: He’s also quite good-looking.

Rank: Teddy holds the rank of Commander in the Charioteer guild.

Gossip network: Being so likeable and well-travelled, Teddy has access to a vast network of people who tell him stuff. Sometimes they ask for stuff in return, though more often than not they’re happy with a few drinks at the local pub.

Bastard: Teddy is the illegitimate son of Yevgeny Zuviev Decados.

Debt: Teddy got himself into a bit of debt in order to get his mother to the best doctor as quickly as possible.

Secret: Yevgeny Zuviev Decados has no idea that he has a son by his former mistress, Sophiya Valenti. Such a revelation would damage him, because his family believes very strongly in the purity of the Zuviev bloodline, and because Teddy is Yevgeny’s first-born. As proof of his heritage, Teddy owns a Zuviev family heirloom – an amulet which Yevgeny gave Sophiya when she left him.