Teddy’s New Rules

Session Seven: September 14-15, 2007

It’s beginning to feel normal. The stress. The sensation that something bad’s about to happen. The knowledge that the next flight won’t be uneventful; the next jump won’t be normal; the next planetfall won’t be quiet.

This is all going to end badly, when it finally ends. And by that time, my perception of ‘bad’ will probably have changed a great deal.

Unfriendly Relations

I was longing to be away from the Zuviev Estate. Waking up with my head about to drop off didn’t help. I’ll admit it was nice to wake up with Shui-Lin hovering over me, but given I’d just fallen off the couch after a very bad nightmare I wasn’t in any mood to appreciate the vision.

I have a vague recollection of words with her, possibly about the inappropriateness of my having spent the night, and I think I also spoke to some of Sava’s Death Dolls, but neither conversation really made much of an impact on me. I woke up a second time quite late in the day, still a bit light-headed and ravenously hungry.

There was an odd fellow in the dining room, sharing breakfast (and a hangover) with me. One of the Decados minor houses I think, though I couldn’t tell you his name. He had the same...leading...way of talking that Prince Hiram had.

After breakfast (it was my first meal of the day, I’m allowed to call it breakfast) I took the train back to Elibyrge and from there took our borrowed transport up to the station. Our man on the station was a bit surprised to see me in the flesh, and he seemed to assume that my ill-humour was a factor of my rank rather than a lingering hangover and a general disaffection with everything Decados. He’d been keeping an eye on outgoing shipping for me, and thanks to some bright spark in the engineering department they’d found the broadcast Oxana had managed to send out before she died. Her words “execute; execute” had been tight-beamed to a specific location near the jump gate, and the clerk confirmed that a ship had transited the gate a few moments later. So they had a few days head start on us, and the Pancreator only knew what they were off to ‘execute’.

I took the Embrace back to Zuviev and passed on the new intel to Sava, who was wrapping things up by that point. I stayed out at the ship, not really wanting to set foot back inside the estate if I could help it. Brother James joined me there, for another of his ‘talks’.

I really wish he’d just stop trying to understand me. We get along so much better when our personalities aren’t getting in the way of us doing our jobs.

Essentially, he wanted to know where my loyalties lay. Which is not a question a man like him should ever ask a man like me. James is literal, perfectly up-front, and very straight. He knows exactly how much loyalty he owes to each of his charges and he can rattle them off with perfect clarity. A guy like me has rather more flexible loyalties, and which one’s on top depends on the situation. So we had another one of those conversation where he asked me pointed questions and I tried to answer them to the best of my ability, which is never enough for James way of thinking. He ended up casting aspersions at my mother, implying that my absentee father would discard one son in favour of the other, and asserted that I was probably after Sava’s titles and lands.

And the really irritating thing is that it made me think about my mother’s role in all this. Damn him.

He’s right about one thing—I don’t know what her goals are. Never have. In fact, I’ve never asked, or even cared to. She does her thing and I do mine. And maybe she is angling for Yevgeny’s hand in marriage. More power to her, I say. She knows she won’t have her charms forever, and what better retirement can a courtesan hope for but to marry one of her old flames? If she wants him, I’ll stay out of it. If she tries to drag me into it though, I’m going to have to break a rule and disobey my mother.

Because there’s no way in all the dark stars I’ll have anything to do with disinheriting Sava. Especially not after everything Yevgeny’s done to him.

Welcoming Committee

The trip out to the Cadiz gate was tortuously slow. I kept expecting something to go wrong—for a ship to burst out and shoot at us, or for James to another of his little ‘chats’ with me. Everybody was sullen and brooding about the twins. They’re about our only topic of conversation these days. That their reach extends so far beyond their graves disturbs me.

We transited the gate to Manitou without event, and began the trip down to the planet. I was on the lookout for ships fitting the description of the one that had passed through the gate after the execute message, and lo and behold I found one, heading towards us for the gate. I started a friendly chat with them to see if they checked out, and although nothing they said was precisely wrong there was something not right about it. Thankfully, Sava was happy to follow my hunch. He had a chat with their captain, ostensibly to pass messages back to Cadiz, trying to get more info on who they were and what they up to. As they passed us, despite the speeds and risks involved, they took a pot-shot at us. Yeah, I was a bit gob-smacked. Thankfully the shields caught the blast and both ships continued on their courses, us for the planet, them for the gate.

Frantic messages got sent around. The Dean on Manitou was informed of the situation, and was asked to dig up any info about that ship. Thinking that they were headed through the gate, I tried to raise a ship just coming through it, in the hope of catching them before they engaged their engines for the planet, and maybe convincing them to re-transit and send a message to the Decados garrison.

What answered was a Vau. Apparently the look on my face was priceless.

Sava spoke to him (it?) and explained the situation. The Vau very kindly offered to stay on station at the gate and relay information to us. I guess he thought it sounded like fun. His sensor data was frankly astonishing—full ship schematics and crew numbers. What I wouldn’t give to get a hold of some of his tech. Ah well.

We finally made planetfall (after several iterations of the “why can’t we go any faster” conversation) and I headed straight for the Dean’s office while the others...I don’t know, whatever the heck it is they do on planet while I’m working. The Dean fell all over himself to help me out. That’s still taking some getting used to—they call up my service record and their eyes go wide. Anyway, the ship in question had left after taking on some very suspicious cargo, including a heap of Vau explosive devices.

That’s the sound of my brain going ‘doink’. Haven’t these people ever heard of prohibited exports? I know Manitou’s outré and neutral and weird and all that, but sheesh.

I commented that they were probably going to try blowing up the gate. The Dean’s eyes got a bit wider. I asked him if there were any Muster on planet I could borrow for the job. Thankfully, this was in fact the case. I was introduced to the Muster team, and their ugly little troop transport, and their very gung-ho sergeant (aren’t they all?).

Then came the fun of passing all this info on the the others.

“Blowing up a jump gate” are words nobody should ever have to hear, let alone repeat.

I really hate these guys.