Teddy’s New Rules

Session Five: June 23-24, 2007

You know, looking at myself in the mirror right now, I look a heck of a lot more like the upper-class wannabe I was when I first hopped that freighter to the Academy. The scruffy flightsuit’s gone, replaced with a suit of the kind Sava thinks looks good on me. I’m feeling more comfortable in my own skin. The doubts are still there, but they’re little background things. I’ve got better things to do than wallow. And, well… The new image suits me. Damn Sava’s good taste.

PTSD

I think we were all a bit shell-shocked after the run-in with the symbiots and the week-long decontamination. Rothwell was the only one with a grin on his face, but then he was sort of entitled to it. I let him do the piloting – I was still shaky from the Symbiot encounter.

We parted ways with Rothwell on Istakhr, and I have to admit that I was just a little bit sorry to see him go. For all his moaning and poor conversation, it was nice to have another Charioteer around. A competent one, that is. More on that later.

We all had jobs to do and set off on our separate paths – Sava and James to track down Freka, Shui-Lin to see her order, and me to dig up rumours. There was a lot of bad feeling towards the Decados, as they’d recalled their ambassador, shut down their embassy, and were no longer sending food. I ran into an old comrade from the Mendip, who was suitably in awe of my shiny new reputation (which I was still trying to get used to). He was stationed on a grain ship, the Spite Enpaulisch, whose captain I hoped could be convinced to take us incognito into Decados space. He was waiting for parts, and not having much luck with the engineers. I told him I’d see what I could do, and he agreed to ship us to Malignatius.

I caught up with the others at the main port, where there was ample evidence of our earlier dramatic departure – huge glassed craters showed where my guild had vented wrath at the Jakovians. I love my guild. Ship weaponry trumps surface-to-air missiles.

There was a pleasant pause for shopping; an afternoon spent in cheerful conversation with Shui-Lin, who was in a freer mood than normal and wore her smile near-constantly. She actually laughed at some of my jokes. Of course, her good humour with me didn’t last, and I was chiefly responsible for cocking it up.

Sava and James had found Freka and taken her to a safe-house (little more than a garage, really). I was sent off to fetch Shui-Lin and whatever healing supplies she might need, but not before a frank discussion with Sava about what I wanted done with Freka. She’d been responsible for a great many Charioteer deaths, and I’m not ashamed to say that revenge was foremost in my mind. I told Sava that I wanted her dead, and wouldn’t baulk at doing it myself if I had to (I was probably bluffing about that part, but I’ll never really know). Sava was okay with that, chiefly because he also seemed to want her dead.

Shui-Lin tended her charge with utmost compassion. I have to admire her ability to put aside personal opinion and just do her job. Eventually though, she had to admit that Freka’s wounds were beyond her healing abilities, and the lot of us shipped down to the Amalthean temple.

Freka didn’t last much longer. I was glad of being absolved of the need to kill her, and I would have been happy to forget the whole gruesome episode, but for Shui-Lin. Sava had told her about my wanting to kill Freka, and there was a roaring argument about who intended to do what when. I tried to explain that I would never had done anything to Freka while she was under Shui-Lin’s care, but she was having none of it and stormed off in high dudgeon. And just when we were getting along so well. It only got worse after that.

Weight, for throwing around

I wrote up my report to the Kilroys, adding in Freka’s uncomfortable revelations about the twin’s possible psychic abilities. The port master was happy to see me, in the manner of a man aching to be seen to be ‘helping out’ the better-connected. Which I’m not, but if he wants to think that, fine. He arranged for the Spite’s engine part to be delivered promptly, and I asked him to do what he could to support the Charioteers back at Stigmata.

The Spite’s captain was a gnarled old cyber-jockey who on first impression put me in mind of Captain Hamer. On closer inspection though, he had even fewer interpersonal skills and no gumption to speak of. So I started out being polite and deferring to the more senior rank, and in very short order ended up practically running his ship.

Shui-Lin remained bad-tempered, and her mood wasn’t improved by some not-so-gentle joking on mine and Sava’s part. The Spite consisted of a cargo contained at the rea, a bridge and quarters at the front, and a long gantry in between. An indifferently-lit, well-windowed gantry with faulty grav systems. I got slapped for my troubles. I deserved it, too. I should remember that women take a lot longer to get over things than men do.

We slipped through the gate to Malignatius without incident (discounting Sava’s current ‘little problem’ with jump gates, which I really don’t want to go into). The story got interesting as we started to pick up transmissions – a hymn being wide-broadcast, singing the praises of the celestial twins, who had rained holy fire on the unbelievers at Malignatius and ended the war with casual ease. All sung in proper Avestite church-Latin. I slapped on the brakes and ordered us back through the gate to Cadiz. I may have used the word ‘abomination’. That’s about when the captain locked himself in his cabin.

By the time we gated into Cadiz system I was running the bridge. Which was a little odd, to say the least. As we headed in towards the planet I stayed on the bridge (only a little to do with the fact that I was avoiding Shui-Lin’s righteous anger). We were picking up all sorts of transmissions about the twins – they’d quelled the resistance on Malignatius, and were several days ahead of us, back home on Cadiz and humbly accepting their accolades. It was all teeth-clenchingly irritating. Then the Decados flagship came through the jump gate.

Sava spoke to Prince Hiram, whose whole opinion on the matter boiled down to “I will look good no matter what happens, I’ll be congratulating somebody when I arrive at Zuviev Estate, and I don’t much care whether it’s the twins or you”. Which left a nasty deadline hanging over our heads. And a grudging respect for the man who runs House Decados.

In trying to get information about where Sava’s parents were, I sent messages to two Charioteer vessels heading in the planet. The first knew nothing. The second immediately changed course to intercept. At this point, I’m not sure who was stupider – me or them, but I’m the one who came out on top so I get to write the history.

We exited the Spite, sending a very relieved captain on his way and full burn back to the gate. Then I got to play chicken with starships. Which is as fun as it sounds, but only if you pull it off successfully. I came haring at the other ship at full-burn (which is a not inconsiderable speed in our little tug), then flipped her over when we hit weapons range and hit full burn in reverse, catching two missiles in our engine splash and trapping the other vessel in the tractor beam as we passed overhead. Textbook manoeuvre. They’ll probably name it after me.

We boarded pretty smoothly, with James taking care of the greeting squad and me talking the ‘captain’ into surrendering. The little shit was working for the Jakovians, who had given him the ship after killing the Charioteer captain. I relieved him of the stolen jump key and we trussed him up in the hold. We let him loose on Cadiz – deposited in a Muster sell for a set period to give us time to be well clear of him.

Just as an aside, I’d worked up a pretty big hate by this point. At the twins, mostly. They needed killing in my opinion. Badly. They’d brainwashed two units of Jakovians, almost slipped a symbiot infection past the quarantine, and been personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Charioteers and the theft of a similar number of jump keys. Nobody fucks with the guild. I never thought I’d take this stuff quite so personally. I mean, I’ve been loyal to the guild since I joined, but lately it’s been dawning on me that the buck stops with me. There’s nobody out here to give my problems to – that was abundantly clear at Stigmata garrison, with me and Rothwell the only captains in the vicinity. ‘Captain’ and ‘Kilroy’ means I have to fix the problem myself.

And hell yes, that’s ego. Shut up.

When all else fails, fake it

We settled in to a mediocre hotel near the Zuviev Estate and went to work gathering intel. That nearly got me arrested by local security, but I run a pretty good line in bullshit and they let me go, having been convinced I was undercover.

Shui-Lin, who was still a bit shitty with me but was at least deigning to speak to me again, picked up some interesting gossip from her mother superior – Sava’s father had left Zuviev for Leagueheim some time ago, after hearing that ‘somebody he cared about’ had fallen ill. If that’s my mother, I’m going to be very…something.

Anyway, the others decided they’d get into the estate as nobles attending the ‘do, while I got in with the security detail. It was easy enough to get hired by the Muster as roaming security, and I got partnered up with a young grunt who quickly developed a high opinion of my ability to get us posted inside the nice warm house out of the rain. With detours through the kitchens.

The others didn’t have it nearly so good, and a little after nightfall gunshots rang out and a general call to arms came through. Which I neatly sidestepped, to the mounting awe of my companion. I headed deeper into the house, called off the guards with a false call about bogies on the other side of the grounds, and opened a window for Sava and the others. I did apologise to my ‘partner’ for having to knock him unconscious and stuff him in a cupboard. I’m sure he understood. Heh.

I’d clearly used up all my luck though, because that’s when it started going pear-shaped. We were spotted, chased, trapped, and then ambushed by Konstantin’s men. Fortunately, Sava and James are very good at dealing with stuff like that, so Shui-Lin suggested we leave them to it and get after the twins, who’d run on ahead. Very odd to hear her advocate chasing the bad guy. Of course, she’d just been badly shot up by their ambush, so maybe she wasn’t feeling very charitable.

Halfway up the stairs to the roof, we were joined by security, who I managed to convince were on the same side as us (and we were still dressed like militia, so it wasn’t much of a stretch). We hit the roof and there were the twins, heating up a flyer for their getaway.

Two things stick in my head about that moment. The first was the very cold and unconcerned way Konstantin looked at me as I raised my gun and shot him. The second was the little grin on his face as he said “Looks like big brother’s all grown up”.

As if I needed another reason to be ashamed to be related to that.

I think he shot me at least once, because Shui-Lin patched me up later on, but I don’t really remember much beyond standing in the doorway and calmly pulling off round after round, first at Konstantin, and then when Sava closed with his brother, at Oxana.

She tried to get away in the flyer, and I remember moving out on to the roof, firing blaster bolts at the engines in some addle-headed desire to shoot it out of the sky. Sava ordered the men, his men now, to fire on it, and after some convincing they did. She avoided the first missile. The second one blew her to hell.

Then we were standing in the rain on a roof-top, with Sava in a pool of blood cradling Konstantin’s dead body, and James shaking off whatever Oxana had done to him. Shui-Lin was somewhere back in the stairwell, helping the security guards Sava and James had gone through on their way to the roof.

It felt good to take off the Muster militia gear and put my Captain’s insignia back on. But man, do I need a drink.