walkir
Member
Nah, they'd just ask if they should kill two randoms to teach six feet or if she has someone specific in mind.
Battletech Death of the Author (SI)
- Thread starter prinCZess
- Start date
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- battletech self insert
I get the feeling that Gastocoui would be one of them.
Also, this is a long shot, but Dame Murderess Extraordinaire seems convinced that her sister was also plotted into the Battletech universe, and I wonder if
Her sister landed in Sarah's body. On the one hand, dramatic irony almost demands it. She's desperate to get away and find her sister, and yet is ever more dismissive of the slave who is right next to her.
On the other hand, I think they would have recognized each other by now. I dunno, they're siblings, so even if her sister rapidly absorbed Sarah's demure slave persona, body language or DME's corny jokes would be a dead giveaway.
On the other hand, I think they would have recognized each other by now. I dunno, they're siblings, so even if her sister rapidly absorbed Sarah's demure slave persona, body language or DME's corny jokes would be a dead giveaway.
3 - A Coward Many Times... (pt. 6)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Gastocoui blinks in confusion for a moment before looking to me. Dropping his hands to his sides, he gives me a bow. In the edge of my eye, I can tell the other slaves have already performed a much deeper version of the motion around me, I just didn’t notice because them doing it is not worth the notice. It’s what they’re supposed to do, after all.
Sarah is the exception. She remains where she is propped against one of the mansion’s columns, still visibly twitching and shaking uncontrollably from the aftereffects of the whip’s direct stimulation of her nervous system’s pain-receptors. That very much reminds me that nothing about this is what is supposed to happen at all. She’s a person, not some disobedient animal. And if anyone was going to punish her it should be me!
“My lady. Welcome. I hope your visit to the range was relaxing. I am at your command.”
If the man was any more of a toady his neck would bulge and he’d croak. Or try to sell me Budweiser—which would only make it even worse. A suck-up was bad enough. A suck-up with bad taste? Worse. A suck-up with bad taste who hurt people? I should have him hold targets on the range for me…And deliberately miss and hit him instead!
I’m a hypocrite, yes I am
My righteous thoughts are but a sham!
“Would you care to explain what’s going on here?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even and hold down the horrified rage in the back of my throat.
At least the man takes a moment to think about his answer. “Discipline?”
He couldn’t sound any more perplexed, and now that I have a moment to consider, I can understand why. I’d stepped in while he was punishing a slave. I might as well have asked why he was shoving a dog’s face into its own mess for all the sense it made to him.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…
I can feel Arthur’s eyes on my back once again. I don’t have to see Gastocoui’s face beyond his bowed-over forehead to know it’s all screwed-up in confusion. They’re going to figure out I’m a fraud! And then I’m dead!
I don’t want to die.
“And you didn’t think to inform me of this why?”
Just gotta buy some time to come up with something…
He looks up from his bow, mouth twisting, “I did not believe it necessary to waste your time with such a minor matter. Gr—The former master directed me to ensure household discipline, and I will do my utmost to provide the same for you, m’lady.”
That’s it!
I step forward so I can bring one finger up underneath the man’s downward-tucked chin, and draw him upwards. I offer my best sadistic smile. It must be pretty good, because I can feel him twitch through my hand. With the same finger I’d brought him up with, I direct his head to turn towards Sarah.
“I very much appreciate your enthusiasm to please, my wonderful servant, but you’re far too functional in your punishment. Applying pain to the human body is an art, and I can’t just stand aside while my property is hurt and I’m not the one who gets to enjoy painting the masterpiece.”
Gastocoui’s eyes flash with pleasure as I compliment him. I have the disturbing image of him as some cat preening as its owner rubs its chin. Because as I speak he develops a knowing, infuriating smirk as he stares at Sarah and I can see him piece together what he thinks my goal is.
I’m more successful than I’d intended. I can’t actually come up with any way to object when he passes me the neural whip. At least not one that makes it seem as if I’m backing down.
“I apologize, my lady. I did not mean to deprive you of any relaxation. In the future I will leave punishments in your capable hands until you direct me otherwise. I was working towards seven lashes.”
The whip is natural in my grip, folds of synthetic leather over the lightweight handle molding into my palm like it has always belonged there. I run my thumb along the side, feeling each of the uneven dimples there that let me get a better grip. All I need to do to activate it is squeeze the handle just-so. Unlike the sword, I feel immediately comfortable with it. Like it’s something I could use! Like something I have used! Unable to contain myself, I give it an experimental flick that snaps the end over where it sits on the ground. I’d never used one in the 21st-century, but in this one I’m an artist with it! I’m pretty sure I could pull off some real Indiana Jones shit with the thing!
“Is there a reason you do this in the courtyard?” I ask, now trying to buy time to come up with a reason I shouldn’t use the whip. I know I should be giving it more thought, and it should be easy, but…
It is tempting.
The crowd feels terrified around. I can feel the horror and fear in the air. It’s positively intoxicating.
Sarah is still twitching against a pillar of the mansion, on the edge of a complete physical breakdown.
I can’t. But…
It would be really fun to bring both the crowd’s terror and Sarah’s pain to a crescendo! And, to balance things out, I could use the whip on Gastocoui as well afterwards! A trifecta! Sarah, Gastocoui, and the then some lucky contestants from the crowd! That would make it alright, wouldn’t it? If I punished everyone? It would remove any lingering suspicion there might be about me! Make sure everyone knew exactly who I was! Exactly what I was! More importantly, it would let me—
“The former Lord of the Manor directed me to find the most efficient means of keeping disobedience down, and I found public punishment most effective to that.”
I was barely listening anymore, absorbed in caressing the whip in my hand and trying to decide if it was the right decision to restrain myself from actually using it. Because I wanted to, and what else mattered but that? Somehow though, a few of the words penetrated the haze in my mind.
“Ah. So Gronley never took a personal role in things?” I asked. Gronley nodded and I snorted, “Typical. But so like him. So unimaginative.”
I wanna. I wanna, I wanna, IwannaIwannaIwanna…
“I have a sneaking suspicion that such spectacle won’t be necessary with some…creative changes I might be able to make to your methods that Gronley clearly never bothered with. Let’s investigate. Bring her up to the master bedroom for me.” I force myself to say, then look over the small crowd of other slaves and let my voice drop so only Gastocoui will hear, “Fear of the unknown may be even more effective, I would think.”
As the man rushes to obey and the other slaves disperse with visible uncertainty and fear, I can’t help but be a little disappointed in myself. The worst thing is I’m not sure if it’s for wanting to use the whip in the first place…Or because I’m not actually going to get to. Not properly. Not with the audience that would make it better.
I set Arthur back to his duties and return to my room. Gastocoui meets me outside the door with his usual vigor to suck-up, but a careful allusion of how I’d prefer privacy for my ‘punishment’ chases him away with a knowing twist in his lips that makes me some bizarre combination of giddy and sickened that has my stomach wanting to puke rainbows. But it’s too useful to dispel. I enter and close the door on the rest of the house’s insanity in favor of my own.
The slave, who is standing in a corner of the room with her hands set against the wall and still trembling from the three lashes she’s already taken, is already on the verge of collapse. Her head is locked straight-ahead, looking into the flat, white drywall.
I slowly cross the room so I’m a dozen steps behind it. Just once wouldn’t be so bad, right? Just to make sure that if Gastocoui was listening-in he would know I was serious? And it’d be less than it would have faced outside! Everybody was better off that way! It got fewer lashes, I got to enjoy them! I was making things better this way! For everyone!
Before I can think any further than that I’m twisting around, the neural whip unfurling and my arm coming back up and over my head. The whip coils back, its body making a beautiful whoosh through the air as it shifts that reminds me of that last, heavy breath Gronley had taken before I’d ended his miserable life.
I rotate my waist and throw the whip forward overhand, locking my eyes on the trembling back of my target as I squeeze the whip active. This was better for everyone. But more importantly I’m free, dammit! FREE! That means I can do as I like! Nobody can stop me, nor should I let them! What have these people done for me? Nothing! What did the people in power here do for me? NOTHING! Now I am the one who has the power and Sarah doesn’t! I have the power! I can do as I like with it! Use it how I like just like everybody else does! The only person worth listening to is myself and I want everyone in this miserable universe to make up for everything I'd lost! Here and on Earth! I want to hurt them until it helps me feel better!
Coward!
I jerk to a stop. The head of the whip chunks against the floor at my side and skitters a meter—a few feet—or so forward, all its energy sapped by my sudden halt. The trembling disgust that takes-over from my prior certainty and anticipation isn’t enough to move the popper at the end, but it bobs the thong of the whip against the outside of my leg, pressing the pant-leg onto my skin.
Oh my God! I had been about to--
I don't really want to be forced to address that. I don't really want to think about it. At the same time...I don't want to let myself off scot-free. On a whim born from a mountain of self-criticism and guilt I can physically feel descending on me, I squeeze my hand to trigger the neural whip’s pain activators while it's still touching my side.
My leg explodes.
Or, more accurately, I wish it had. An explosion might have sent me into shock. Instead I can feel a hurricane of searching, stabbing, spreading agony radiating from the bit of skin the whip had been in contact with through my pants.
Fire and fury and pain course through the outside of my leg, digging downwards towards my knee and upwards towards my ribs. It reaches out burning fingers towards my stomach and curls into a fist at the junction of my inner-thigh. Everything is on fire, everything is freezing! Everything is squeezing, everything is stretching! Everything. Hurts.
My mouth pops open on instinct, but the pain is so intense I can’t actually scream. I can’t even croak. I don’t even manage to breathe-out because it might make things hurt more. My good leg could hold me up, but I don’t want it to and collapse across it to get away from the buzzsaw of horror that’s in my right hand and that I’d just hit myself with.
I remember to release the trigger for the neural whip’s activators when I’m halfway to the ground. I could probably cry out with joy when the pain subsides and I’m instead left with ‘only’ a twisting, coursing wave of aftershocks and muscles that feel like they’re ‘only’ squeezing around my bones instead of either being cooked off of them or actively trying to break them.
I'm crying again.
Why is it whenever I come in this stupid room I end up crying! Why is it whenever I come in this stupid room I act like an insane bitch?
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Author's note:
This was about to be a cliff-hangar ending a little earlier at 'coward', but I decided I couldn't stand doing that. But it loses me the perfect opportunity to share my edgy, goth-era poetry, so you will, unfortunately, not get to read that dear reader!
...Okay, you wouldn't get to read that anyways because, as english teachers I've had probably give thanks for, such poetry doesn't exist from me. But if it did this would have been the place for it. Because this feels about the same level of edgy, Green Day-listening teenage angst-y. But it should be the low point of things in that regard. Or, at least, a low point that the crazy cat-lacking Lady of too many stupid titles and names should buoy back from, hopefully.
Sarah is the exception. She remains where she is propped against one of the mansion’s columns, still visibly twitching and shaking uncontrollably from the aftereffects of the whip’s direct stimulation of her nervous system’s pain-receptors. That very much reminds me that nothing about this is what is supposed to happen at all. She’s a person, not some disobedient animal. And if anyone was going to punish her it should be me!
“My lady. Welcome. I hope your visit to the range was relaxing. I am at your command.”
If the man was any more of a toady his neck would bulge and he’d croak. Or try to sell me Budweiser—which would only make it even worse. A suck-up was bad enough. A suck-up with bad taste? Worse. A suck-up with bad taste who hurt people? I should have him hold targets on the range for me…And deliberately miss and hit him instead!
I’m a hypocrite, yes I am
My righteous thoughts are but a sham!
“Would you care to explain what’s going on here?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even and hold down the horrified rage in the back of my throat.
At least the man takes a moment to think about his answer. “Discipline?”
He couldn’t sound any more perplexed, and now that I have a moment to consider, I can understand why. I’d stepped in while he was punishing a slave. I might as well have asked why he was shoving a dog’s face into its own mess for all the sense it made to him.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…
I can feel Arthur’s eyes on my back once again. I don’t have to see Gastocoui’s face beyond his bowed-over forehead to know it’s all screwed-up in confusion. They’re going to figure out I’m a fraud! And then I’m dead!
I don’t want to die.
“And you didn’t think to inform me of this why?”
Just gotta buy some time to come up with something…
He looks up from his bow, mouth twisting, “I did not believe it necessary to waste your time with such a minor matter. Gr—The former master directed me to ensure household discipline, and I will do my utmost to provide the same for you, m’lady.”
That’s it!
I step forward so I can bring one finger up underneath the man’s downward-tucked chin, and draw him upwards. I offer my best sadistic smile. It must be pretty good, because I can feel him twitch through my hand. With the same finger I’d brought him up with, I direct his head to turn towards Sarah.
“I very much appreciate your enthusiasm to please, my wonderful servant, but you’re far too functional in your punishment. Applying pain to the human body is an art, and I can’t just stand aside while my property is hurt and I’m not the one who gets to enjoy painting the masterpiece.”
Gastocoui’s eyes flash with pleasure as I compliment him. I have the disturbing image of him as some cat preening as its owner rubs its chin. Because as I speak he develops a knowing, infuriating smirk as he stares at Sarah and I can see him piece together what he thinks my goal is.
I’m more successful than I’d intended. I can’t actually come up with any way to object when he passes me the neural whip. At least not one that makes it seem as if I’m backing down.
“I apologize, my lady. I did not mean to deprive you of any relaxation. In the future I will leave punishments in your capable hands until you direct me otherwise. I was working towards seven lashes.”
The whip is natural in my grip, folds of synthetic leather over the lightweight handle molding into my palm like it has always belonged there. I run my thumb along the side, feeling each of the uneven dimples there that let me get a better grip. All I need to do to activate it is squeeze the handle just-so. Unlike the sword, I feel immediately comfortable with it. Like it’s something I could use! Like something I have used! Unable to contain myself, I give it an experimental flick that snaps the end over where it sits on the ground. I’d never used one in the 21st-century, but in this one I’m an artist with it! I’m pretty sure I could pull off some real Indiana Jones shit with the thing!
“Is there a reason you do this in the courtyard?” I ask, now trying to buy time to come up with a reason I shouldn’t use the whip. I know I should be giving it more thought, and it should be easy, but…
It is tempting.
The crowd feels terrified around. I can feel the horror and fear in the air. It’s positively intoxicating.
Sarah is still twitching against a pillar of the mansion, on the edge of a complete physical breakdown.
I can’t. But…
It would be really fun to bring both the crowd’s terror and Sarah’s pain to a crescendo! And, to balance things out, I could use the whip on Gastocoui as well afterwards! A trifecta! Sarah, Gastocoui, and the then some lucky contestants from the crowd! That would make it alright, wouldn’t it? If I punished everyone? It would remove any lingering suspicion there might be about me! Make sure everyone knew exactly who I was! Exactly what I was! More importantly, it would let me—
“The former Lord of the Manor directed me to find the most efficient means of keeping disobedience down, and I found public punishment most effective to that.”
I was barely listening anymore, absorbed in caressing the whip in my hand and trying to decide if it was the right decision to restrain myself from actually using it. Because I wanted to, and what else mattered but that? Somehow though, a few of the words penetrated the haze in my mind.
“Ah. So Gronley never took a personal role in things?” I asked. Gronley nodded and I snorted, “Typical. But so like him. So unimaginative.”
I wanna. I wanna, I wanna, IwannaIwannaIwanna…
“I have a sneaking suspicion that such spectacle won’t be necessary with some…creative changes I might be able to make to your methods that Gronley clearly never bothered with. Let’s investigate. Bring her up to the master bedroom for me.” I force myself to say, then look over the small crowd of other slaves and let my voice drop so only Gastocoui will hear, “Fear of the unknown may be even more effective, I would think.”
As the man rushes to obey and the other slaves disperse with visible uncertainty and fear, I can’t help but be a little disappointed in myself. The worst thing is I’m not sure if it’s for wanting to use the whip in the first place…Or because I’m not actually going to get to. Not properly. Not with the audience that would make it better.
I set Arthur back to his duties and return to my room. Gastocoui meets me outside the door with his usual vigor to suck-up, but a careful allusion of how I’d prefer privacy for my ‘punishment’ chases him away with a knowing twist in his lips that makes me some bizarre combination of giddy and sickened that has my stomach wanting to puke rainbows. But it’s too useful to dispel. I enter and close the door on the rest of the house’s insanity in favor of my own.
The slave, who is standing in a corner of the room with her hands set against the wall and still trembling from the three lashes she’s already taken, is already on the verge of collapse. Her head is locked straight-ahead, looking into the flat, white drywall.
I slowly cross the room so I’m a dozen steps behind it. Just once wouldn’t be so bad, right? Just to make sure that if Gastocoui was listening-in he would know I was serious? And it’d be less than it would have faced outside! Everybody was better off that way! It got fewer lashes, I got to enjoy them! I was making things better this way! For everyone!
Before I can think any further than that I’m twisting around, the neural whip unfurling and my arm coming back up and over my head. The whip coils back, its body making a beautiful whoosh through the air as it shifts that reminds me of that last, heavy breath Gronley had taken before I’d ended his miserable life.
I rotate my waist and throw the whip forward overhand, locking my eyes on the trembling back of my target as I squeeze the whip active. This was better for everyone. But more importantly I’m free, dammit! FREE! That means I can do as I like! Nobody can stop me, nor should I let them! What have these people done for me? Nothing! What did the people in power here do for me? NOTHING! Now I am the one who has the power and Sarah doesn’t! I have the power! I can do as I like with it! Use it how I like just like everybody else does! The only person worth listening to is myself and I want everyone in this miserable universe to make up for everything I'd lost! Here and on Earth! I want to hurt them until it helps me feel better!
Coward!
I jerk to a stop. The head of the whip chunks against the floor at my side and skitters a meter—a few feet—or so forward, all its energy sapped by my sudden halt. The trembling disgust that takes-over from my prior certainty and anticipation isn’t enough to move the popper at the end, but it bobs the thong of the whip against the outside of my leg, pressing the pant-leg onto my skin.
Oh my God! I had been about to--
I don't really want to be forced to address that. I don't really want to think about it. At the same time...I don't want to let myself off scot-free. On a whim born from a mountain of self-criticism and guilt I can physically feel descending on me, I squeeze my hand to trigger the neural whip’s pain activators while it's still touching my side.
My leg explodes.
Or, more accurately, I wish it had. An explosion might have sent me into shock. Instead I can feel a hurricane of searching, stabbing, spreading agony radiating from the bit of skin the whip had been in contact with through my pants.
Fire and fury and pain course through the outside of my leg, digging downwards towards my knee and upwards towards my ribs. It reaches out burning fingers towards my stomach and curls into a fist at the junction of my inner-thigh. Everything is on fire, everything is freezing! Everything is squeezing, everything is stretching! Everything. Hurts.
My mouth pops open on instinct, but the pain is so intense I can’t actually scream. I can’t even croak. I don’t even manage to breathe-out because it might make things hurt more. My good leg could hold me up, but I don’t want it to and collapse across it to get away from the buzzsaw of horror that’s in my right hand and that I’d just hit myself with.
I remember to release the trigger for the neural whip’s activators when I’m halfway to the ground. I could probably cry out with joy when the pain subsides and I’m instead left with ‘only’ a twisting, coursing wave of aftershocks and muscles that feel like they’re ‘only’ squeezing around my bones instead of either being cooked off of them or actively trying to break them.
I'm crying again.
Why is it whenever I come in this stupid room I end up crying! Why is it whenever I come in this stupid room I act like an insane bitch?
***********************************************************************************************************************
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Author's note:
This was about to be a cliff-hangar ending a little earlier at 'coward', but I decided I couldn't stand doing that. But it loses me the perfect opportunity to share my edgy, goth-era poetry, so you will, unfortunately, not get to read that dear reader!
...Okay, you wouldn't get to read that anyways because, as english teachers I've had probably give thanks for, such poetry doesn't exist from me. But if it did this would have been the place for it. Because this feels about the same level of edgy, Green Day-listening teenage angst-y. But it should be the low point of things in that regard. Or, at least, a low point that the crazy cat-lacking Lady of too many stupid titles and names should buoy back from, hopefully.
Last edited:
D
Deleted member
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Oh, it's fine. It's like you're trying to psychologically negotiate what you've become.
3 - A Coward Many Times (pt. 7)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
I spend a few seconds in blessed peace on the floor just breathing. My right leg is already twitching the same way Sarah’s whole backside is. It’s only remembering her presence that gets me off the floor—otherwise I’d be perfectly happy to sit there for a few minutes and try to let the pain fade away.
I stumble back onto my feet, pleased to see Sarah is still focused on the wall she’s up against, “Can you fake screams?”
Sarah jerks, as if she’d been expecting a whip to strike her. After a moment’s hesitation her head twists over her shoulder to stare at me. Clearly she hadn’t expected the question.
“Well?” I push, scowling. I have a hell of a scowl and I don’t want her looking at me as I try to keep my leg from shaking.
“Y-Yes?”
“Good. Do so after every stroke.” I tell her, interrupting any potential question by throwing my right arm back, twisting my hips, and then snapping the whip forward. I put just enough energy into it the tip slices through the air maybe a meter away from her with a loud whisper-snap that makes it sound like its hit flesh instead of empty air.
I am very good with the whip. Rotating on my right leg still makes it a horrendous process that’s lost much of the enjoyment it might’ve had anyways.
Sarah screams in turn with my strokes as I begin to work myself through the four more ‘lashes’ she was slated for.
How much I still enjoy the screaming doesn’t help. Worse are the bubbling thoughts in the back of my mind that remind me with each stroke that if I let my wrist rotate just a little further…If my grip loosens just a little bit…the screams would be the real-thing instead of just a hollow imitation and I’d feel that much better.
I add another stroke and force my aim further away from Sarah. I hope it’s for the benefit of anyone who might be listening-in. This time Sarah dramatically cuts her scream off as if she’d finally passed-out. It’s a good bit of improvisation on her part. Good initiative. I hate the fact that it reminds me how largely unremarkable the punishment is in her mind.
Breathing through my mouth, I let my arms hang at my sides, shoulders slumped. I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. I mean, I’ve never run a marathon, but everything has that fuzzy, fatigue-clouded air to it you get after a day filled with of too much driving and too much go-juice combines to keep you from sleeping for an entire night until you thriller-zombie walk your way into the Super Eight’s continental breakfast and pass-out on top of a plate full of Belgian waffle and syrup only to be shaken awake and not remember how you got there.
It’s like that, only emotional.
Affecting as much casualness as I can, I throw the whip off to the side and limp my way over to the liquor cabinet in the corner. Sarah turns and simply stands there, awkwardly staring at me until I wave her towards one of the room’s lounge-chairs. I’d rather she didn’t look at me and notice the trouble I was having with my right leg. I definitely would rather she didn’t look at me like that. As if I’d just done something for her instead of almost hurt her just because I wanted the satisfaction.
I pour myself a glass of the halfway-decent bourbon Gronley’d had in his personal collection. It still tastes like shit, but...No. No ‘but’ to pair that with, really. The stuff was still nasty like hard booze in general is. If I wasn’t in the asshole of the Periphery where drinking the water was liable to get me a disease, maybe I would avoid it. What I wouldn’t give for a Diet Coke! Still, the side-effects are nice.
Only when I turn and get halfway to another of the chair’s and see Sarah’s everything still randomly spasming do I think of making one for her. It just hadn’t occurred to me!
And why is that?
I hesitate for another beat. I don’t want to waste the stuff!
When I recognize the thought for what it is, I force myself to turn back and pour another glass.
Barmaid instincts from both of me have me casting an eye about for a napkin or a coaster briefly. I settle on its absence and bring the glass over to Sarah.
“Here. To help calm the tremors.”
It takes a great deal of effort to keep the shakes under my own clothes from seeping their way into my voice. Ashamed and trying to cast about for any explanation I can use as a distraction, I try to focus back on the problems of The Company. The benefit the drink would buy me from the girl in attitude probably made up for giving it . Especially if…Hey! That’s not a bad idea!
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, but I might be able to fill-out my crew’s grunt-work positions on the dropship with slaves. If I treated them right, they might actually be more loyal than the cutthroats who signed-on with me, and much as it might potentially mean less bounty money, freeing them would up my chances of a pardon and make a good PR cover. Especially if I can make sure most or all of them are former citizens of the Federated Suns…
“You…Aren’t like Gronley.” Sarah says, interrupting my thoughts as she accepts the drink. “Aren’t like you’re supposed to be…my lady.” She adds quickly before taking a very long drink—probably, rightly, worried that I’m going to take it away.
I’m not quite sure how to respond, so I don’t. Silent, I let Sarah sort out her own thoughts and try not to let the guilt at how wrong she is show. I take my own seat nearby and cross my legs as I wait. The drink in her hands has the added benefit of making the woman quit looking at me the way she was. Instead she stares down into it.
“We’d heard about you. Gronley threatened to bring you in to carry out punishments on any of us who were too unruly. Gronley’s men told us how much you love hurting people. Killing people. How the people sent to you for disciplining never came back. I don’t understand why you’re being so…nice.”
And there was that look again. Brought back just as quickly as it had left. I should crush it by being direct that my façade of kindness was just a means to an end. A way for me to benefit myself, not something I was doing with any honesty. I’d much prefer the fear and terror Sarah had shown in the past or outright disgust to whatever the look on her face now is!
I try to explain it’s an act. That everything about me is a sham. But I can’t bring myself to actually form the words.
I drain my glass of its foul-tasting contents and as I get up for a refill try to come up with a compromise. I could just tell her. Not the truth, of course. I speak that and people will think I’m a loon. But I could come up with some BS about how I’d seen visions of the future after coming out of my most recent jump and pretend like I’m acting off of those. It wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to ever happen, really. There were always stories of mystical Periphery voodoo or magical bushido bullshit and whatnot in Battletech.
I’m only a half-step away from her knowing I’m not who I’m supposed to be already, and it would be very nice to have someone who at least knows something that I can unload on. Arthur’s been of amazing use the last few days, but he’s too…morally questionable…to rely on for anything else. He’s really too questionable to justify using at all, but here I am trying to think up justifications!
But I can’t even tell her some crackpot nonsense about knowing the future. Even that would be enough to make her think I was insane, and I don’t need anyone to bitch to. I don’t deserve it and I can bitch myself out in my own mind quite well-enough, thank-you! Not like it’s permanent after all. I dump all these stupid pirate-lord obligations and complications and get myself to the other side of the Sphere and I can bitch as much as I like to my sister. Someone I won’t need to invent even more lies for. I was just being healthy by shutting-up instead of making up a story.
I sigh. At best Sarah would stay quiet about it if I unloaded on her. At worst…She wouldn’t. And then I’d have to think about how to keep her quiet to protect myself, wouldn’t I?
I don’t want to let myself consciously think about potential ways of doing that. It scares me what options I can tell are floating there at the top of my mind, almost eager to be used. Waiting for a justification that sounds good.
The balcony is so close, and the fall from it likely to be unsurvivable. My pistol is closer-still at my side, and nobody will ask questions I don’t want them to.
I jerk myself away from event eh hypothetical, disgusted, “It’s very simple, Sarah. I need to keep up my public image. How people see you affects how they treat you, and that can be useful to exploit. Fear and punishment are just tools to building an image, not something to be enjoyed themselves.”
Liar liar pants on fire! My conscience screams, reminding me of how tempted I’d been to ‘accidentally’ hit the other woman while I was using the whip solely so I could enjoy it. Reminding me of how I’d fantasized about firing a laser into Bar-Dyness earlier. Reminding me how much I’d relished running a sword through Gronley’s heart and feeling—
Moving on!
I rotate on one heel so I’m staring out towards the balcony and drain my glass again. It’s going to be another of those kinds of days, “I have had difficulty in attracting a large enough group of ship laborers for my upcoming expedition. I would like you to make a list of 40 or so…individuals presently owned by me…who might fix that. With preference for any who might have background on dropships or jumpships.”
If I came right out and told Sarah I planned on freeing them, the rumor would spread like wildfire no matter how careful she was about who she told to invite onto the ship. No. I needed to play things close to my too-small, disgustingly freckled chest. At least until we lifted-off from Tortuga and there wasn’t the likelihood of a small riot starting as slaves fought over who got to escape.
If I really pulled things off, maybe some of them would stick with me after I freed them! Maybe even at lower wages than it might take to hire independent crewmen!
…Right. They’d certainly love to keep working under their literal former slave-master and bitch of a pirate-lord. I wouldn’t have to worry about having my throat slit by them at all!
Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell Sarah blinks a few times and swings her head around slightly, probably confused at the turn the conversation had taken. “I’m sorry, my lady, but what?”
I don’t really like repeating myself.
“I want to use you people for ship’s crew. Basic labor, really. I want you to find the right ones for me. Consider it your punishment for...What was it you were being punished for, anyways?”
The blonde woman gapes, “I broke a serving dish full of food?”
“Right then. Consider it your punishment for that nonsense. Find a batch of slaves I can use as crew. Ones from the Suns and with ship experience should be preferred whenever possible.” I explain again, keeping things as short as I can. “You’re included in that number, of course. I will need a personal attendant.”
I will also need a very good plastic surgeon, an amenable planetary duke to sell my crew out to, and a host of other things besides, but one thing at a time for now...
I stumble back onto my feet, pleased to see Sarah is still focused on the wall she’s up against, “Can you fake screams?”
Sarah jerks, as if she’d been expecting a whip to strike her. After a moment’s hesitation her head twists over her shoulder to stare at me. Clearly she hadn’t expected the question.
“Well?” I push, scowling. I have a hell of a scowl and I don’t want her looking at me as I try to keep my leg from shaking.
“Y-Yes?”
“Good. Do so after every stroke.” I tell her, interrupting any potential question by throwing my right arm back, twisting my hips, and then snapping the whip forward. I put just enough energy into it the tip slices through the air maybe a meter away from her with a loud whisper-snap that makes it sound like its hit flesh instead of empty air.
I am very good with the whip. Rotating on my right leg still makes it a horrendous process that’s lost much of the enjoyment it might’ve had anyways.
Sarah screams in turn with my strokes as I begin to work myself through the four more ‘lashes’ she was slated for.
How much I still enjoy the screaming doesn’t help. Worse are the bubbling thoughts in the back of my mind that remind me with each stroke that if I let my wrist rotate just a little further…If my grip loosens just a little bit…the screams would be the real-thing instead of just a hollow imitation and I’d feel that much better.
I add another stroke and force my aim further away from Sarah. I hope it’s for the benefit of anyone who might be listening-in. This time Sarah dramatically cuts her scream off as if she’d finally passed-out. It’s a good bit of improvisation on her part. Good initiative. I hate the fact that it reminds me how largely unremarkable the punishment is in her mind.
Breathing through my mouth, I let my arms hang at my sides, shoulders slumped. I feel as if I’ve run a marathon. I mean, I’ve never run a marathon, but everything has that fuzzy, fatigue-clouded air to it you get after a day filled with of too much driving and too much go-juice combines to keep you from sleeping for an entire night until you thriller-zombie walk your way into the Super Eight’s continental breakfast and pass-out on top of a plate full of Belgian waffle and syrup only to be shaken awake and not remember how you got there.
It’s like that, only emotional.
Affecting as much casualness as I can, I throw the whip off to the side and limp my way over to the liquor cabinet in the corner. Sarah turns and simply stands there, awkwardly staring at me until I wave her towards one of the room’s lounge-chairs. I’d rather she didn’t look at me and notice the trouble I was having with my right leg. I definitely would rather she didn’t look at me like that. As if I’d just done something for her instead of almost hurt her just because I wanted the satisfaction.
I pour myself a glass of the halfway-decent bourbon Gronley’d had in his personal collection. It still tastes like shit, but...No. No ‘but’ to pair that with, really. The stuff was still nasty like hard booze in general is. If I wasn’t in the asshole of the Periphery where drinking the water was liable to get me a disease, maybe I would avoid it. What I wouldn’t give for a Diet Coke! Still, the side-effects are nice.
Only when I turn and get halfway to another of the chair’s and see Sarah’s everything still randomly spasming do I think of making one for her. It just hadn’t occurred to me!
And why is that?
I hesitate for another beat. I don’t want to waste the stuff!
When I recognize the thought for what it is, I force myself to turn back and pour another glass.
Barmaid instincts from both of me have me casting an eye about for a napkin or a coaster briefly. I settle on its absence and bring the glass over to Sarah.
“Here. To help calm the tremors.”
It takes a great deal of effort to keep the shakes under my own clothes from seeping their way into my voice. Ashamed and trying to cast about for any explanation I can use as a distraction, I try to focus back on the problems of The Company. The benefit the drink would buy me from the girl in attitude probably made up for giving it . Especially if…Hey! That’s not a bad idea!
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, but I might be able to fill-out my crew’s grunt-work positions on the dropship with slaves. If I treated them right, they might actually be more loyal than the cutthroats who signed-on with me, and much as it might potentially mean less bounty money, freeing them would up my chances of a pardon and make a good PR cover. Especially if I can make sure most or all of them are former citizens of the Federated Suns…
“You…Aren’t like Gronley.” Sarah says, interrupting my thoughts as she accepts the drink. “Aren’t like you’re supposed to be…my lady.” She adds quickly before taking a very long drink—probably, rightly, worried that I’m going to take it away.
I’m not quite sure how to respond, so I don’t. Silent, I let Sarah sort out her own thoughts and try not to let the guilt at how wrong she is show. I take my own seat nearby and cross my legs as I wait. The drink in her hands has the added benefit of making the woman quit looking at me the way she was. Instead she stares down into it.
“We’d heard about you. Gronley threatened to bring you in to carry out punishments on any of us who were too unruly. Gronley’s men told us how much you love hurting people. Killing people. How the people sent to you for disciplining never came back. I don’t understand why you’re being so…nice.”
And there was that look again. Brought back just as quickly as it had left. I should crush it by being direct that my façade of kindness was just a means to an end. A way for me to benefit myself, not something I was doing with any honesty. I’d much prefer the fear and terror Sarah had shown in the past or outright disgust to whatever the look on her face now is!
I try to explain it’s an act. That everything about me is a sham. But I can’t bring myself to actually form the words.
I drain my glass of its foul-tasting contents and as I get up for a refill try to come up with a compromise. I could just tell her. Not the truth, of course. I speak that and people will think I’m a loon. But I could come up with some BS about how I’d seen visions of the future after coming out of my most recent jump and pretend like I’m acting off of those. It wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to ever happen, really. There were always stories of mystical Periphery voodoo or magical bushido bullshit and whatnot in Battletech.
I’m only a half-step away from her knowing I’m not who I’m supposed to be already, and it would be very nice to have someone who at least knows something that I can unload on. Arthur’s been of amazing use the last few days, but he’s too…morally questionable…to rely on for anything else. He’s really too questionable to justify using at all, but here I am trying to think up justifications!
But I can’t even tell her some crackpot nonsense about knowing the future. Even that would be enough to make her think I was insane, and I don’t need anyone to bitch to. I don’t deserve it and I can bitch myself out in my own mind quite well-enough, thank-you! Not like it’s permanent after all. I dump all these stupid pirate-lord obligations and complications and get myself to the other side of the Sphere and I can bitch as much as I like to my sister. Someone I won’t need to invent even more lies for. I was just being healthy by shutting-up instead of making up a story.
I sigh. At best Sarah would stay quiet about it if I unloaded on her. At worst…She wouldn’t. And then I’d have to think about how to keep her quiet to protect myself, wouldn’t I?
I don’t want to let myself consciously think about potential ways of doing that. It scares me what options I can tell are floating there at the top of my mind, almost eager to be used. Waiting for a justification that sounds good.
The balcony is so close, and the fall from it likely to be unsurvivable. My pistol is closer-still at my side, and nobody will ask questions I don’t want them to.
I jerk myself away from event eh hypothetical, disgusted, “It’s very simple, Sarah. I need to keep up my public image. How people see you affects how they treat you, and that can be useful to exploit. Fear and punishment are just tools to building an image, not something to be enjoyed themselves.”
Liar liar pants on fire! My conscience screams, reminding me of how tempted I’d been to ‘accidentally’ hit the other woman while I was using the whip solely so I could enjoy it. Reminding me of how I’d fantasized about firing a laser into Bar-Dyness earlier. Reminding me how much I’d relished running a sword through Gronley’s heart and feeling—
Moving on!
I rotate on one heel so I’m staring out towards the balcony and drain my glass again. It’s going to be another of those kinds of days, “I have had difficulty in attracting a large enough group of ship laborers for my upcoming expedition. I would like you to make a list of 40 or so…individuals presently owned by me…who might fix that. With preference for any who might have background on dropships or jumpships.”
If I came right out and told Sarah I planned on freeing them, the rumor would spread like wildfire no matter how careful she was about who she told to invite onto the ship. No. I needed to play things close to my too-small, disgustingly freckled chest. At least until we lifted-off from Tortuga and there wasn’t the likelihood of a small riot starting as slaves fought over who got to escape.
If I really pulled things off, maybe some of them would stick with me after I freed them! Maybe even at lower wages than it might take to hire independent crewmen!
…Right. They’d certainly love to keep working under their literal former slave-master and bitch of a pirate-lord. I wouldn’t have to worry about having my throat slit by them at all!
Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell Sarah blinks a few times and swings her head around slightly, probably confused at the turn the conversation had taken. “I’m sorry, my lady, but what?”
I don’t really like repeating myself.
“I want to use you people for ship’s crew. Basic labor, really. I want you to find the right ones for me. Consider it your punishment for...What was it you were being punished for, anyways?”
The blonde woman gapes, “I broke a serving dish full of food?”
“Right then. Consider it your punishment for that nonsense. Find a batch of slaves I can use as crew. Ones from the Suns and with ship experience should be preferred whenever possible.” I explain again, keeping things as short as I can. “You’re included in that number, of course. I will need a personal attendant.”
I will also need a very good plastic surgeon, an amenable planetary duke to sell my crew out to, and a host of other things besides, but one thing at a time for now...
D
Deleted member
Guest
She already built a terrible enough pirate Empire when she was a crazy murderess. Now your blended self is getting smart. That's truly dangerous. I say blended self at the moment because I'm not really sure you're you anymore.
4 - Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates' Death for Me (pt. 1)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
This fits a Lay-man to preach and pray man,
'Tis this can make a Lord of him that was a Drayman;
-The Power (or Dominion) of the Sword, ballad from the English Civil War
'Tis this can make a Lord of him that was a Drayman;
-The Power (or Dominion) of the Sword, ballad from the English Civil War
“Silence the lot of you! Or you’ll be tossed out after the engines light and we’ll watch you roast while we leave for entertainment!” Arthur screams from beside me, leaning out over the rail of the catwalk and waving his arms over the assembled crowd of cutthroats and murderers.
I mimic the action, though keeping my arms below me against the catwalk as a contrast to the man’s wild gesticulating, and glare at the pirates below. The closest thing to a uniform in the rabble are the somewhat-common bits of white cloth hanging off or tied-around men’s shoulders. They’re loud, obstinate, a good number of them are probably still drunk, but with Arthur’s threat they almost universally begin to tamp down on their conversation and look up at me. It’s intoxicating—though it’d be better if I didn’t know that despite the dyed-white cloak and clean clothes I look more like a carrot than anything thanks to my hair.
“Members of the Company, welcome to our shareholder meeting!” I proclaim to a sparse couple of chuckles. “I’ll not waste your time or mine with long speeches. We’ve a journey ahead of us, and there’s much to be done on it to save ourselves from the life of obscurity and deprivation those ‘lords’ in the Inner Sphere would wish on us, eh?”
There’s a louder round of chuckles this time. Apparently, appealing to their self-interest got a better reaction than cracks about corporations. Philistines. No real taste in humor at all.
“So. With that in mind, we’ll proceed right to the important part. Because unlike those vaunted folks who fancy themselves lords in the Inner Sphere who waste the lives of their ‘lessers’ on their own ambitions, we here on Tortuga are civilized. Yes, even me!” I raise my voice further, and twist my head back so I can shout the words to the bulkheads overhead, “Would all those brave and resourceful enough to stand up as free men and willingly embark with me, Lady Death, on this journey to earn a princely fortune voice your agreement now!”
A chorus of enthusiastic cheers greet the words, and I contribute my own to the screaming mix as I look over what are now firmly and solidly my men—much as I might be uncomfortable with that. They’ve all already signed contracts, voting no and refusing at this stage would require them to pay me a penalty, so it’s a formality more than anything. But, as dishonest as it is, it has a point. All this nobility and leadership-by-bloodline humanity had reverted back to was some horseshit if I’d ever seen it. At least this has the form of a less borked system!
It might have some substance if the slaves serving on the crew weren’t excluded from these proceedings…Or if the people voting weren’t total jackasses—myself included.
“All those who’ve reconsidered their search for fortune and wish to go back to their homes like cowards and fools, now is your time to sound off and skulk out!”
The bay is quiet. I grin. The collective bounty on the bastards calculates out to more than 500,000 C-Bills! Combined with the bribe from the Duke of Gronholt for Bar-Dyness as well as Arthur’s bounty, it’d set me up to have more than seven-hundred grand starting out!
It’s not enough, of course. I’ll probably have to grease out some of it for a pardon even with the added leverage the slaves bring me—I have raided and killed people on Federated Suns’ planets after all.
…
I shake away that thought. With my jumpship and dropships underneath me to make more, it’ll be a good start to a fortune! That’s the important thing here. The fortune and the chance it would get me to get out from this and move on to doing the better things, for myself and everyone else in this rothole universe, that I know I deserve.
Me getting the hell out is the best for everyone. Someone with more military background and support, and a corresponding better chance of success, can be the one to stomp down the rot on Tortuga and free the slaves and all that righteous work. It’s not my problem and they’d face less problems than I would—and be much more deserving of the credit.
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A/N A Short update because NaNoWrimo has me writing on original stuff, hunting has me out of the house a good bit, paperwork has me sidetracked a whole mess, and [insert various other excuses here].
Be trying something a bit 'different' to me with the next few updates--as travel bogged me down previously and I adore character-interaction for the sake of it alone rather than a point or story reason a lot...Going to aim for condensing the next bits down to snippets and flashes more-so than extended narration (of which I have lots of ideas and desires...But few of which actually serve much point beyond further character-building and exposition which might not be as necessary as some plot-progression at this point).
D
Deleted member
Guest
So there we have a version of The Dominion of the Sword updated for the modern day. I wonder how one would update it again for Battletech. It's suitably dramatic, unlike a lot of versions I found of the original.
And here's a Martin Carthy live rendition of the original lyrics from the 1980s:
4 - Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates' Death for Me (pt. 2)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Space is beautiful.
I stare at my room’s display and try not to cry. Tortuga is just beginning to fade into the distance behind us, but my eyes still track back to it where it should be as a central focus-point for the wheel of stars around it.
I dreamed of going to space since I was young—on Earth and on Tortuga. On Earth, space had been the future. A place mankind had only just begun to reach into in the scope of history—and the place all the corny sci-fi books I read had been set. But it was the last frontier in ways even remote terrestrial places like Alaska couldn’t compete with, a place of opportunity and optimism and that was just…cool in a way that I never could describe.
On Tortuga, space had been a much more immediate freedom. An escape. A way out of a life serving drinks in a rathole—and since I’d served drinks in plenty of ratholes on Earth as well, I could understand the sentiment. For the me on Tortuga, space had been a distant hope I knew I’d never get to see that I could daydream about during a search for justice I knew I would never complete.
But then I had completed it. Jack Magee, the walking, talking refuse who’d killed my mother—one of them, at least—had walked into the bar. I’d taken his Banshee, his guns, and his life. It wasn’t enough compensation for what I’d lost, but it had been justified! Nobody else on Tortuga was going to make things right!
The problem was that I’d loved it. And that attitude and my new Banshee had earned me a spot on Gronley’s crew. Where I’d spent years haring off into space and other planets so I could do the same thing to people I didn’t know. People that had never done anything to me. Solely for personal profit and pleasure.
I stare at Tortuga as it fades into the background of stars, and tell myself I need to let everything else do the same thing. It’s not my home. There’s nobody I care about on the miserable rock. Forget about it and just focus on my future. Now that I’m off the planet, it’s not my problem. It’s not!
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Zero-gravity is an experience. If I overthink anything or try to do much else besides let my body control my motions, I go haring off into bulkheads like a pinball—and I have a painful knot on the side of my head to prove it. I have to basically ignore the screamed warnings in my thoughts and my inner ear and just go with the flow that my arms and legs seem to be experience-enough with to offer by themselves. If I wasn’t too busy mentally partying at how cool it is it’d be really relaxing. That same thoughtless zen feeling you get when you practice something you’ve done a thousand times before and instead of focusing on movement or planning you can just do it.
I swing myself forward, passing through the lock between the dropship and the jumpship we’ve docked with. I can’t shake the feeling that the jumpship’s entryway looks rather like the insides of the Correllian Corvette from the first Star Wars movie. There’s a great deal more grime and dirt cemented on the walls, and no real discernible floor or ceiling, but the hallway I’m in is an oval with white bulkheads on each side. Small grates and half-open accessways into the bowels of the ship run off the sides.
Does that make me the Darth Vader of this scene?
Reaching out with one arm, I arrest my movement using a grab-bar mounted on the edge of the hallway for that exact purpose, and pull myself to a stop before the jumpsuit-wearing man who’s come to greet me. Brenton DuPont is older, salt in his hair and full, close-trimmed beard suggesting fifties or maybe even sixties. From the particular glare in his eyes, I suspect that if not for the impossibility of doing it in zero-g, he’d have his arms folded across his chest and be tapping his foot against the floor. Instead, he keeps his hands locked at his side, one absently resting on a bar, and fixes me with a stare that borders on insubordinate.
I extend one hand, keeping my other on the bar to keep the motion from sending me anywhere. I’ve dealt with DuPont a little bit since my ascension to Gronley’s former position, but the man had a tendency for keeping electronic communication very short and to-the-point. He had also been notoriously difficult to work with for Gronley. I’d heard the man complain about ‘that damned jumped-up jumpship bastard’ plenty of times. Maybe some simple courtesy would ease things along—I’d really rather not have any more crew-problems. I’d already had to stomp down on the gasbags on the dropship who’d thought the slaves were there for their entertainment instead of my benefit.
Wow. When I put it like that…It really doesn’t sound as good as it should. I was getting them off Tortuga, dammit! It was a good thing!
“Captain DuPont. Pleased to finally meet you in person.”
He drops his eyes to stare at my hand like it’s a poisonous scorpion. I can’t even really blame the guy for it. It’s a solid few seconds before he brings his eyes back up to focus on me with the same message in them. He doesn’t extend his own hand. When words come, they are the same overly-formal feigned-politeness he’d used communicating with me before.
“Commander Trevaline,”
I shudder a little at the name. It’s not me. I don’t like it. I don’t like every bit of it. I’m not some soldier with a rank or command, and I’m not Trevaline. Or, at least, I hope I’m not. I don’t want to be. I think.
“Welcome aboard the Tortuga Dominion Ship Ravager.” DuPont continues in a near-monotone, hands still at his side, “The crew and I await your orders.”
Great. Apparently the guy has a bug up his ass that’s trying to chew its way out. Lucky me. That’s exactly what I need! More of other people’s stupid bugs to worry about that make my own bug-out more of a pain in the butt.
“So is that a ‘no’ on the handshake, or what?” I half-ask, raising my voice valley-girl style. The lilt disappears a moment later and I replace it with just a little venom, “Will there be a problem here?”
“No problem, Commander. But I do have a few…requests that should be cleared up before we go any further.”
I can tell from the way he says ‘requests’ he means something more like ‘conditions’. I try not to frown. Always other people trying to take advantage of me in this crappy corner of the universe!
DuPont raises a finger, “I’d like to have full authority over our jump scheduling and process.”
“Done.” I answer immediately. Letting the people who knew what they were doing with the physics-breaking sci-fi bullshit be the ones to handle it seemed like a good idea to me.
“I’d like full control over my crew’s disciplining and oversight. If you have a concern with them, you bring it to me and I decided what, if anything, to do about it.” DuPont continues as if I hadn’t even spoken.
My frown gets deeper, but after a moment of pretended thought and hesitation I nod. Someone else taking over that part of the job sounded peachy-keen to me. I wonder if there’s any way I can convince him to take on the responsibility for my crew?
DuPont raises a third finger, “No slaves on my ship.”
I blink, for a moment not even sure I’ve heard the man right. “You do know what our job is, right?”
“I do. And whatever you wish to do in your dropships is none of my concern. But I don’t need the disciplinary headache slaves aboard this ol’ girl would bring.” DuPont lowers his fingers.
“You and your crew voted for me to replace Gronley. Is there a reason I’m getting these conditions now rather than earlier?”
DuPont shrugged, “A little change in leadership, now and then, is a good thing. If you believe any of those three requests are asking too much, you’re free to replace me and my crew with another after buying-out our shares.”
I can feel my eye twitch, and the self-satisfied smile DuPont grows underneath his beard when he notices only makes the involuntary action repeat itself.
You smug sneaky shithead!
I can’t tell if the thought is complimentary or criticizing. Even if I could afford to buy out the jumpship’s crew, There’s basically no way I’m going to find another set of them, and poaching one off the other Pirate Lords would be a process that would require some shooting and killing I wasn’t in a good position for. The guy was leveraging his position to get what he wanted, and on a certain level I had to admire it. His moral stand against slaves was rather threadbare and compromised…But, then, if I criticize him for it at all I’m being pretty damn hypocritical, aren’t I?
What’s more annoying about it is the fact he’s telling me what to do at all. For being one of the baddest bitches on the planet and a virtual license to kill anyone I like who gets in my way, I sure have ended up compromising and dealing in exchange for getting off the planet like I want instead of being able to just take it like I deserve. At least DuPont’s case is one where he's 'extorting' me into something vaguely positive. I was dealing the same way with complete garbage like Bar-Dyness--even going out to get a bribe for him! Even if I'm going to put that money to better use than he ever would…it feels wrong for some reason.
"I'm sure that won't be necessary." I say, not sure what else I can say at this point. I try to recover as best I can, "At least not for the immediate future."
DuPont nods and waves with his hand, clearly expecting exactly that for an answer.
The money that selling out will get me should make up for how much of a pushover I'm being to get out of the place. I won’t feel bad then. And Tortuga would be out a mess of war material, a jumpship, and Lady Death herself! Bar-Dyness would wither and die on the vine eventually, while I would be able to get back with my sister and get my feet underneath me for a real game plan that might do more for everyone in this crapsack universe.
It wasn't like this wasn't useful. I was doing plenty of good right as I was. There was no need for me to do any more. It wasn’t my responsibility! I don’t know how!
I repeat that simple fact to myself as DuPont takes me on a brief tour of Ravager. I think I even manage to convince myself eventually...That or the fact I'm on a no-shit spaceship that can jump through time and space in the blink of an eye that I own puts it out of my mind.
I stare at my room’s display and try not to cry. Tortuga is just beginning to fade into the distance behind us, but my eyes still track back to it where it should be as a central focus-point for the wheel of stars around it.
I dreamed of going to space since I was young—on Earth and on Tortuga. On Earth, space had been the future. A place mankind had only just begun to reach into in the scope of history—and the place all the corny sci-fi books I read had been set. But it was the last frontier in ways even remote terrestrial places like Alaska couldn’t compete with, a place of opportunity and optimism and that was just…cool in a way that I never could describe.
On Tortuga, space had been a much more immediate freedom. An escape. A way out of a life serving drinks in a rathole—and since I’d served drinks in plenty of ratholes on Earth as well, I could understand the sentiment. For the me on Tortuga, space had been a distant hope I knew I’d never get to see that I could daydream about during a search for justice I knew I would never complete.
But then I had completed it. Jack Magee, the walking, talking refuse who’d killed my mother—one of them, at least—had walked into the bar. I’d taken his Banshee, his guns, and his life. It wasn’t enough compensation for what I’d lost, but it had been justified! Nobody else on Tortuga was going to make things right!
The problem was that I’d loved it. And that attitude and my new Banshee had earned me a spot on Gronley’s crew. Where I’d spent years haring off into space and other planets so I could do the same thing to people I didn’t know. People that had never done anything to me. Solely for personal profit and pleasure.
I stare at Tortuga as it fades into the background of stars, and tell myself I need to let everything else do the same thing. It’s not my home. There’s nobody I care about on the miserable rock. Forget about it and just focus on my future. Now that I’m off the planet, it’s not my problem. It’s not!
**********************************************************************************************
Zero-gravity is an experience. If I overthink anything or try to do much else besides let my body control my motions, I go haring off into bulkheads like a pinball—and I have a painful knot on the side of my head to prove it. I have to basically ignore the screamed warnings in my thoughts and my inner ear and just go with the flow that my arms and legs seem to be experience-enough with to offer by themselves. If I wasn’t too busy mentally partying at how cool it is it’d be really relaxing. That same thoughtless zen feeling you get when you practice something you’ve done a thousand times before and instead of focusing on movement or planning you can just do it.
I swing myself forward, passing through the lock between the dropship and the jumpship we’ve docked with. I can’t shake the feeling that the jumpship’s entryway looks rather like the insides of the Correllian Corvette from the first Star Wars movie. There’s a great deal more grime and dirt cemented on the walls, and no real discernible floor or ceiling, but the hallway I’m in is an oval with white bulkheads on each side. Small grates and half-open accessways into the bowels of the ship run off the sides.
Does that make me the Darth Vader of this scene?
Reaching out with one arm, I arrest my movement using a grab-bar mounted on the edge of the hallway for that exact purpose, and pull myself to a stop before the jumpsuit-wearing man who’s come to greet me. Brenton DuPont is older, salt in his hair and full, close-trimmed beard suggesting fifties or maybe even sixties. From the particular glare in his eyes, I suspect that if not for the impossibility of doing it in zero-g, he’d have his arms folded across his chest and be tapping his foot against the floor. Instead, he keeps his hands locked at his side, one absently resting on a bar, and fixes me with a stare that borders on insubordinate.
I extend one hand, keeping my other on the bar to keep the motion from sending me anywhere. I’ve dealt with DuPont a little bit since my ascension to Gronley’s former position, but the man had a tendency for keeping electronic communication very short and to-the-point. He had also been notoriously difficult to work with for Gronley. I’d heard the man complain about ‘that damned jumped-up jumpship bastard’ plenty of times. Maybe some simple courtesy would ease things along—I’d really rather not have any more crew-problems. I’d already had to stomp down on the gasbags on the dropship who’d thought the slaves were there for their entertainment instead of my benefit.
Wow. When I put it like that…It really doesn’t sound as good as it should. I was getting them off Tortuga, dammit! It was a good thing!
“Captain DuPont. Pleased to finally meet you in person.”
He drops his eyes to stare at my hand like it’s a poisonous scorpion. I can’t even really blame the guy for it. It’s a solid few seconds before he brings his eyes back up to focus on me with the same message in them. He doesn’t extend his own hand. When words come, they are the same overly-formal feigned-politeness he’d used communicating with me before.
“Commander Trevaline,”
I shudder a little at the name. It’s not me. I don’t like it. I don’t like every bit of it. I’m not some soldier with a rank or command, and I’m not Trevaline. Or, at least, I hope I’m not. I don’t want to be. I think.
“Welcome aboard the Tortuga Dominion Ship Ravager.” DuPont continues in a near-monotone, hands still at his side, “The crew and I await your orders.”
Great. Apparently the guy has a bug up his ass that’s trying to chew its way out. Lucky me. That’s exactly what I need! More of other people’s stupid bugs to worry about that make my own bug-out more of a pain in the butt.
“So is that a ‘no’ on the handshake, or what?” I half-ask, raising my voice valley-girl style. The lilt disappears a moment later and I replace it with just a little venom, “Will there be a problem here?”
“No problem, Commander. But I do have a few…requests that should be cleared up before we go any further.”
I can tell from the way he says ‘requests’ he means something more like ‘conditions’. I try not to frown. Always other people trying to take advantage of me in this crappy corner of the universe!
DuPont raises a finger, “I’d like to have full authority over our jump scheduling and process.”
“Done.” I answer immediately. Letting the people who knew what they were doing with the physics-breaking sci-fi bullshit be the ones to handle it seemed like a good idea to me.
“I’d like full control over my crew’s disciplining and oversight. If you have a concern with them, you bring it to me and I decided what, if anything, to do about it.” DuPont continues as if I hadn’t even spoken.
My frown gets deeper, but after a moment of pretended thought and hesitation I nod. Someone else taking over that part of the job sounded peachy-keen to me. I wonder if there’s any way I can convince him to take on the responsibility for my crew?
DuPont raises a third finger, “No slaves on my ship.”
I blink, for a moment not even sure I’ve heard the man right. “You do know what our job is, right?”
“I do. And whatever you wish to do in your dropships is none of my concern. But I don’t need the disciplinary headache slaves aboard this ol’ girl would bring.” DuPont lowers his fingers.
“You and your crew voted for me to replace Gronley. Is there a reason I’m getting these conditions now rather than earlier?”
DuPont shrugged, “A little change in leadership, now and then, is a good thing. If you believe any of those three requests are asking too much, you’re free to replace me and my crew with another after buying-out our shares.”
I can feel my eye twitch, and the self-satisfied smile DuPont grows underneath his beard when he notices only makes the involuntary action repeat itself.
You smug sneaky shithead!
I can’t tell if the thought is complimentary or criticizing. Even if I could afford to buy out the jumpship’s crew, There’s basically no way I’m going to find another set of them, and poaching one off the other Pirate Lords would be a process that would require some shooting and killing I wasn’t in a good position for. The guy was leveraging his position to get what he wanted, and on a certain level I had to admire it. His moral stand against slaves was rather threadbare and compromised…But, then, if I criticize him for it at all I’m being pretty damn hypocritical, aren’t I?
What’s more annoying about it is the fact he’s telling me what to do at all. For being one of the baddest bitches on the planet and a virtual license to kill anyone I like who gets in my way, I sure have ended up compromising and dealing in exchange for getting off the planet like I want instead of being able to just take it like I deserve. At least DuPont’s case is one where he's 'extorting' me into something vaguely positive. I was dealing the same way with complete garbage like Bar-Dyness--even going out to get a bribe for him! Even if I'm going to put that money to better use than he ever would…it feels wrong for some reason.
"I'm sure that won't be necessary." I say, not sure what else I can say at this point. I try to recover as best I can, "At least not for the immediate future."
DuPont nods and waves with his hand, clearly expecting exactly that for an answer.
The money that selling out will get me should make up for how much of a pushover I'm being to get out of the place. I won’t feel bad then. And Tortuga would be out a mess of war material, a jumpship, and Lady Death herself! Bar-Dyness would wither and die on the vine eventually, while I would be able to get back with my sister and get my feet underneath me for a real game plan that might do more for everyone in this crapsack universe.
It wasn't like this wasn't useful. I was doing plenty of good right as I was. There was no need for me to do any more. It wasn’t my responsibility! I don’t know how!
I repeat that simple fact to myself as DuPont takes me on a brief tour of Ravager. I think I even manage to convince myself eventually...That or the fact I'm on a no-shit spaceship that can jump through time and space in the blink of an eye that I own puts it out of my mind.
4 - Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates' Death for Me (pt. 3)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
I’m falling, dropping down ass-first in that endless, ear-whistling, moment-before-hitting-the-ground that comes whenever I trip myself up. Air sings past my ears and pushes around my sides as I drop, and I can only imagine the fading, tin-whistle sound effect from old Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons as I scramble to try and grab hold of something to slow my descent.
The worst part is how familiar it is. This is the shit that got me here in the first place, and I’m slowly growing to hate it.
Instead of hitting the ground, I slam back into reality. In the next moment my stomach slams into the bottom of my esophagus. I gasp down a breath as if I’ve been holding it for hours and strain against the belt that holds me into my bunk.
“Jump’s complete. You lot are free to move about the dropship. We’ll have the grav-deck unfurled in a few hours, don’t bother asking about it until we make an announcement.” The ship’s intercom bursts into a fuzz of static.
Jumpships, as far as I understood from both reading about them and memories of previous-me using the things, made light-year spanning jumps between two points of space using a germanium core and some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo that was related to fusion. I didn’t even begin to understand the science involved. I’m pretty sure even the jumpship’s navigator didn’t understand that.
What I did understand was the aftereffects. Each jump we’d made through the barren space between Tortuga and the Federated Suns was over instantly, even if it didn’t feel like it. But for hours afterwards my vision spun around-and-round as if I’d covered the distance we’d jumped by windmilling myself through space and my stomach felt like it was trying to decide between punishing me for something stupid or just up and leaving me entirely. And I was one of the lucky ones. There were more than a few people aboard who were laid-up puking themselves silly—or worse—for a full day or two afterwards. I knew it could get worse still for some people, but none of them tended to make it aboard a pirate-crew. Some of the slaves I have aboard might suffer from jump sickness, though…
Stomach rumbling, I decide to find something to distract myself from the civil war going on inside me. Maneuvering myself into the long corridors of the dropship, I make ‘the rounds’, floating place-to-place in the dropship to peek in and make sure nobody’s doing anything too screwed-up. It was a concept that the me from Before had never worried about on previous voyages, but that was before I had a bunch of corny fiction novels about space-travel in my head…And before I’d had a crew that partially consisted of slaves. I hadn’t needed to draw the sword again to encourage anyone not to screw with ‘my property’ since the first incident burning away from Tortuga, but my crap-acting, bounty-fetching bastards underneath me clearly needed the reminder I was present and attentive to keep from pushing their luck in that regard.
I palm open a door to one of the dropships bunk-rooms and exchang a few words with the half-dozen pirates inside. That so many of them were clearly discomfited by me peeking-in on them was really just a bonus. It’s rather thrilling to so obviously make shitty people uncomfortable because they’re afraid of me. It’s just as enjoyable as it is when it happens with the slaves, but without the guilt afterwards.
Another few bunk-rooms, the bridge where I patter with the dropship’s captain for a few minutes over some minor details, and then a brief venture through the ‘Mech bay completes my tour. I return to my room with my stomach still twisting and rebellious, but less obnoxious than it had been. With a full hour before Sarah’s supposed to bring me the vacuum-packed soup that serves as post-jump food until the grav-deck of the jumpship gets unfurled, I steer myself so I’m floating near the terminal that’s inlaid on my desk and navigate through the different layers of security I’ve put on it.
I’ve started a few dozen barely-organized note-files in the course of the trip, spewing out whatever I can remember or guesstimate about Battletech. Instead of any of those, I find myself opening the one that’s completely empty except for the ‘Dear Sis,’ I’ve written at the top.
I chew my lip as I, again, try to come up with some way to start.
‘I hope you’re actually’
I stop. Read it back. Delete it. I can’t start like that. For my own sake.
‘I know who you are. I hope you know who I am. It feels like I’ve gone insane and I’m not myself’
I stop just as I think I’m getting onto a roll and delete everything I’ve written. It’s too serious and depressing to open with. It’s not true either. I’m me all the time. I just…I can do better than Paula Trevaline did. Maybe. Hopefully.
Running away like I am is already doing better, so mission accomplished! Go me! I was a solid person doing solidly respectable things.
Because commanding a crew of rapists and murderers on a trip to collect a bribe from a planetary duke while attended to by slaves was definitely a respectable thing to do. Definitely.
‘Information is ammunition’
I look at that the longest before wiping it. It was the most clever opening I’d come up with thus far, playing on an in-joke only me and my sister would get to subtly call attention to the message, but it still felt too flippant. But that might be true of anything I try.
I don’t want to send some stupid fucking text message where I have to be clever, dammit! I want to see my sister! She’d have a more solid plan, and she wasn’t some murder-crazed pirate bitch in the ass end of nowhere!
At least not yet.
In a huff, I spin a little and open one of the drawers of the desk. I stare at the pouch strapped inside and sigh. I was going to try and stop drinking after we’d left Tortuga, and I’d left behind most of the booze for that exact reason but…But I have no earthly idea when or even how I might be able to send a message. It’s going to have to wait at least until I get a pardon and can get into a ComStar facility without getting strung up for piracy. But even ignoring that, I have no real address to send it to. I don’t even know if I can trust the…woman’s intuition, I guess it is, that tells me my sister is out there at all living it up as Maria Morgraine on the other side of the galaxy. My entire plan could be pointless from the start! What would I do then? I don’t know what to do then.
And if that didn’t entitle me to a little bit of morose drinking while I carry on with this damned waiting, I don’t know what does.
I try not to let myself go too crazy. Squeezing out a generous globe-shot of the drink and watching it bobble through the air is more entertainment than anything. But even after chasing it and a follow-up of similar size about with a straw until they’re gone, trying to come up with what to write proves difficult. I can’t write anything straightforward. ComStar is somewhat famous for reading the mail and having a liking for pirates. If I give anything away, especially something as bonkers as knowing the future when I’m Lady by-God Death…Well, maybe they’d just assume I was crazy. Or maybe they’d abduct me, drug me, and learn how to make themselves the grand marshall poo-bahs of the universe. And I’d be responsible for putting nutjobs who worshipped technology and were absolutely convinced of their own moral superiority in charge of all humanity. Go me.
I growl and bring my hands up to rub my eyes, launching myself into a slow backwards rotation with the movement. This damn paranoia is probably the thing I hate the most about being here. I have to second-guess myself and hedge everything I do when I’m dealing with my pirates, I have to do it when I’m dealing with my slaves, and now I have to do it when I’m dealing with this when this was the last case I should have to. A person could spin in circles trying to navigate their way through the minefield, and knowing some of the ‘secrets’ only makes it worse! It’s going to drive me mad. If it hasn’t already. If I wasn’t already.
Who do you trust as a voice of reason when your own conscience is nuts and you’re surrounded by assholes?
“I wasn’t aware you had a sister, m’lady.”
I jerk at the voice that shouldn’t be there, and scramble to get at the computer before Sarah reads something more by accident. The wild movement does me no favors, throwing me in a half-dozen directions at once in the zero-gravity of the dropship—most of them away from the screen itself. It takes me until I slap against the upper bulkhead of my cabin a few seconds later before I can twist around to get the slave and my computer back in my vision and another moment after that before I remember I had nothing written to be worried about beyond the first two words.
Sarah’s face is hovering at a level between amusement and outright laughter for that moment.
“What are you doing here?” I ask with as much self-restraint as I can manage.
For some reason, the poor girl’s look then fades into something much more apologetic. She drops her eyes to the floor and holds up a plastic pouch that’s in one hand.
“I brought this. As you asked. I’m sorry if I’m too early and interrupted something.” Sarah sputters out in a machine-gun staccato. There’s not as much fear in the words as there might have been weeks earlier, but it is plain she’s still plenty concerned.
I flick my eyes to the sealed pouch of soup/mush in her hands and then to a clock. She was a full two minutes early. Nothing approaching an amount she should be apologizing for.
“No. It’s fine. You just…surprised me.” I grind out after firmly stomping on an insane urge I have to berate her.
I take the packet of vacuum-sealed mystery-mush. The cabin goes quiet, and from the way she awkwardly fidgets as she floats, have the impression Sarah would be shifting from foot to foot if she could.
“Unless there’s some other way I may serve, I’ll be going then.” Sarah says, doing the best bow possible before she starts to turn.
My insides twist at the prospect of being alone with my own thoughts again. Or, probably, they’re just still upset from the jump. Or the booze. I did lay it on pretty strong for not having anything in my stomach. Whatever the cause, I find myself speaking before I have time to second-guess the impulse.
“I…Didn’t even know about her until recently.” I say in late answer to Sarah’s comment, “I’m still not sure if she knows about me or…not. I’ve been trying to come up with how to phrase a letter to her, but nothing sounds right.”
Saying the words themselves is hard enough. I feel like I have to fight each one out past a constant pressure in the back of my throat that’s urging me to silence through each one of them. But it’s almost worse when they’re all out. Because the cabin goes quiet again and I’m left staring at the floating blond ponytail of a woman I own and that I’m trying to talk to as if she’s a possible friend.
At best it’s a friend I don’t deserve. At worst…It’s someone I’m looking to unload to who doesn’t deserve to be burdened with the copious quantities of bullshit I have coiled up in the tall grass of my mind waiting for the chance to pounce. Not only because they’ve got their own things to deal with, but because my owning them was one of those things.
The girl is a slave. My slave. And I have the sheer, unadulterated levels of bitch required to complain to her about the difficulties of my life?
Selfish of me. But, then, what else is new? But if I don’t have something that at least resembles a normal human conversation where I’m not watching every word I say and stomping on my every impulse and emotion sometime during this voyage…I don’t know what I’ll do but I’m sure it won’t be good. This is an opportunity I can’t pass up, even if I maybe should…
“Do you have any family?” I ask in that reaching, clawing manner you do when you’re trying to keep a conversation going. It’s only afterwards it strikes me how it’s both something I should have asked much sooner—before leaving Tortuga, even—and an incredibly dumb question to even ask.
Even in null-gravity, Sarah’s whole body visibly tenses. When she speaks, the words are a very different kind of clipped from her hurried apology before. “Not any that are alive.”
I wince, secure in the fact that she’s looking away from me. I deserved that. It’s what I get for asking damn-fool questions to the other woman I haven’t earned the right to voice, much less have answered.
I can’t say how long we stay there, her staring at the door of my cabin, me staring at her back. But I can say it’s awkward.
“Have you had anything to eat?” I try.
Her ponytail bobs up and down in a nod.
Come on. Give me something here! Please. Yell at me, even! I’d take criticism at this point if it was at least honest!
“Sorry.” I whisper, barely even forming the word. It’s more a mental thought than it is spoken, and I’m pretty sure the woman didn’t hear because she shows no reaction. It’s not anywhere approaching enough. Can’t really correct or do anything by itself, so it’s really pretty pointless. But it makes me feel the tiniest, most insignificant amount better.
Sarah and I stay there for another minute or two in stone silence before she finally swings back into motion and exits.
I toss the pouch of mush aside. Trying to repeatedly hit your head against a desk is a slightly more complicated operation in zero-gravity than it is otherwise. Even more-so after another couple drinks makes it difficult to remember which direction is which. I manage.
The worst part is how familiar it is. This is the shit that got me here in the first place, and I’m slowly growing to hate it.
Instead of hitting the ground, I slam back into reality. In the next moment my stomach slams into the bottom of my esophagus. I gasp down a breath as if I’ve been holding it for hours and strain against the belt that holds me into my bunk.
“Jump’s complete. You lot are free to move about the dropship. We’ll have the grav-deck unfurled in a few hours, don’t bother asking about it until we make an announcement.” The ship’s intercom bursts into a fuzz of static.
Jumpships, as far as I understood from both reading about them and memories of previous-me using the things, made light-year spanning jumps between two points of space using a germanium core and some kind of scientific mumbo-jumbo that was related to fusion. I didn’t even begin to understand the science involved. I’m pretty sure even the jumpship’s navigator didn’t understand that.
What I did understand was the aftereffects. Each jump we’d made through the barren space between Tortuga and the Federated Suns was over instantly, even if it didn’t feel like it. But for hours afterwards my vision spun around-and-round as if I’d covered the distance we’d jumped by windmilling myself through space and my stomach felt like it was trying to decide between punishing me for something stupid or just up and leaving me entirely. And I was one of the lucky ones. There were more than a few people aboard who were laid-up puking themselves silly—or worse—for a full day or two afterwards. I knew it could get worse still for some people, but none of them tended to make it aboard a pirate-crew. Some of the slaves I have aboard might suffer from jump sickness, though…
Stomach rumbling, I decide to find something to distract myself from the civil war going on inside me. Maneuvering myself into the long corridors of the dropship, I make ‘the rounds’, floating place-to-place in the dropship to peek in and make sure nobody’s doing anything too screwed-up. It was a concept that the me from Before had never worried about on previous voyages, but that was before I had a bunch of corny fiction novels about space-travel in my head…And before I’d had a crew that partially consisted of slaves. I hadn’t needed to draw the sword again to encourage anyone not to screw with ‘my property’ since the first incident burning away from Tortuga, but my crap-acting, bounty-fetching bastards underneath me clearly needed the reminder I was present and attentive to keep from pushing their luck in that regard.
I palm open a door to one of the dropships bunk-rooms and exchang a few words with the half-dozen pirates inside. That so many of them were clearly discomfited by me peeking-in on them was really just a bonus. It’s rather thrilling to so obviously make shitty people uncomfortable because they’re afraid of me. It’s just as enjoyable as it is when it happens with the slaves, but without the guilt afterwards.
Another few bunk-rooms, the bridge where I patter with the dropship’s captain for a few minutes over some minor details, and then a brief venture through the ‘Mech bay completes my tour. I return to my room with my stomach still twisting and rebellious, but less obnoxious than it had been. With a full hour before Sarah’s supposed to bring me the vacuum-packed soup that serves as post-jump food until the grav-deck of the jumpship gets unfurled, I steer myself so I’m floating near the terminal that’s inlaid on my desk and navigate through the different layers of security I’ve put on it.
I’ve started a few dozen barely-organized note-files in the course of the trip, spewing out whatever I can remember or guesstimate about Battletech. Instead of any of those, I find myself opening the one that’s completely empty except for the ‘Dear Sis,’ I’ve written at the top.
I chew my lip as I, again, try to come up with some way to start.
‘I hope you’re actually’
I stop. Read it back. Delete it. I can’t start like that. For my own sake.
‘I know who you are. I hope you know who I am. It feels like I’ve gone insane and I’m not myself’
I stop just as I think I’m getting onto a roll and delete everything I’ve written. It’s too serious and depressing to open with. It’s not true either. I’m me all the time. I just…I can do better than Paula Trevaline did. Maybe. Hopefully.
Running away like I am is already doing better, so mission accomplished! Go me! I was a solid person doing solidly respectable things.
Because commanding a crew of rapists and murderers on a trip to collect a bribe from a planetary duke while attended to by slaves was definitely a respectable thing to do. Definitely.
‘Information is ammunition’
I look at that the longest before wiping it. It was the most clever opening I’d come up with thus far, playing on an in-joke only me and my sister would get to subtly call attention to the message, but it still felt too flippant. But that might be true of anything I try.
I don’t want to send some stupid fucking text message where I have to be clever, dammit! I want to see my sister! She’d have a more solid plan, and she wasn’t some murder-crazed pirate bitch in the ass end of nowhere!
At least not yet.
In a huff, I spin a little and open one of the drawers of the desk. I stare at the pouch strapped inside and sigh. I was going to try and stop drinking after we’d left Tortuga, and I’d left behind most of the booze for that exact reason but…But I have no earthly idea when or even how I might be able to send a message. It’s going to have to wait at least until I get a pardon and can get into a ComStar facility without getting strung up for piracy. But even ignoring that, I have no real address to send it to. I don’t even know if I can trust the…woman’s intuition, I guess it is, that tells me my sister is out there at all living it up as Maria Morgraine on the other side of the galaxy. My entire plan could be pointless from the start! What would I do then? I don’t know what to do then.
And if that didn’t entitle me to a little bit of morose drinking while I carry on with this damned waiting, I don’t know what does.
I try not to let myself go too crazy. Squeezing out a generous globe-shot of the drink and watching it bobble through the air is more entertainment than anything. But even after chasing it and a follow-up of similar size about with a straw until they’re gone, trying to come up with what to write proves difficult. I can’t write anything straightforward. ComStar is somewhat famous for reading the mail and having a liking for pirates. If I give anything away, especially something as bonkers as knowing the future when I’m Lady by-God Death…Well, maybe they’d just assume I was crazy. Or maybe they’d abduct me, drug me, and learn how to make themselves the grand marshall poo-bahs of the universe. And I’d be responsible for putting nutjobs who worshipped technology and were absolutely convinced of their own moral superiority in charge of all humanity. Go me.
I growl and bring my hands up to rub my eyes, launching myself into a slow backwards rotation with the movement. This damn paranoia is probably the thing I hate the most about being here. I have to second-guess myself and hedge everything I do when I’m dealing with my pirates, I have to do it when I’m dealing with my slaves, and now I have to do it when I’m dealing with this when this was the last case I should have to. A person could spin in circles trying to navigate their way through the minefield, and knowing some of the ‘secrets’ only makes it worse! It’s going to drive me mad. If it hasn’t already. If I wasn’t already.
Who do you trust as a voice of reason when your own conscience is nuts and you’re surrounded by assholes?
“I wasn’t aware you had a sister, m’lady.”
I jerk at the voice that shouldn’t be there, and scramble to get at the computer before Sarah reads something more by accident. The wild movement does me no favors, throwing me in a half-dozen directions at once in the zero-gravity of the dropship—most of them away from the screen itself. It takes me until I slap against the upper bulkhead of my cabin a few seconds later before I can twist around to get the slave and my computer back in my vision and another moment after that before I remember I had nothing written to be worried about beyond the first two words.
Sarah’s face is hovering at a level between amusement and outright laughter for that moment.
“What are you doing here?” I ask with as much self-restraint as I can manage.
For some reason, the poor girl’s look then fades into something much more apologetic. She drops her eyes to the floor and holds up a plastic pouch that’s in one hand.
“I brought this. As you asked. I’m sorry if I’m too early and interrupted something.” Sarah sputters out in a machine-gun staccato. There’s not as much fear in the words as there might have been weeks earlier, but it is plain she’s still plenty concerned.
I flick my eyes to the sealed pouch of soup/mush in her hands and then to a clock. She was a full two minutes early. Nothing approaching an amount she should be apologizing for.
“No. It’s fine. You just…surprised me.” I grind out after firmly stomping on an insane urge I have to berate her.
I take the packet of vacuum-sealed mystery-mush. The cabin goes quiet, and from the way she awkwardly fidgets as she floats, have the impression Sarah would be shifting from foot to foot if she could.
“Unless there’s some other way I may serve, I’ll be going then.” Sarah says, doing the best bow possible before she starts to turn.
My insides twist at the prospect of being alone with my own thoughts again. Or, probably, they’re just still upset from the jump. Or the booze. I did lay it on pretty strong for not having anything in my stomach. Whatever the cause, I find myself speaking before I have time to second-guess the impulse.
“I…Didn’t even know about her until recently.” I say in late answer to Sarah’s comment, “I’m still not sure if she knows about me or…not. I’ve been trying to come up with how to phrase a letter to her, but nothing sounds right.”
Saying the words themselves is hard enough. I feel like I have to fight each one out past a constant pressure in the back of my throat that’s urging me to silence through each one of them. But it’s almost worse when they’re all out. Because the cabin goes quiet again and I’m left staring at the floating blond ponytail of a woman I own and that I’m trying to talk to as if she’s a possible friend.
At best it’s a friend I don’t deserve. At worst…It’s someone I’m looking to unload to who doesn’t deserve to be burdened with the copious quantities of bullshit I have coiled up in the tall grass of my mind waiting for the chance to pounce. Not only because they’ve got their own things to deal with, but because my owning them was one of those things.
The girl is a slave. My slave. And I have the sheer, unadulterated levels of bitch required to complain to her about the difficulties of my life?
Selfish of me. But, then, what else is new? But if I don’t have something that at least resembles a normal human conversation where I’m not watching every word I say and stomping on my every impulse and emotion sometime during this voyage…I don’t know what I’ll do but I’m sure it won’t be good. This is an opportunity I can’t pass up, even if I maybe should…
“Do you have any family?” I ask in that reaching, clawing manner you do when you’re trying to keep a conversation going. It’s only afterwards it strikes me how it’s both something I should have asked much sooner—before leaving Tortuga, even—and an incredibly dumb question to even ask.
Even in null-gravity, Sarah’s whole body visibly tenses. When she speaks, the words are a very different kind of clipped from her hurried apology before. “Not any that are alive.”
I wince, secure in the fact that she’s looking away from me. I deserved that. It’s what I get for asking damn-fool questions to the other woman I haven’t earned the right to voice, much less have answered.
I can’t say how long we stay there, her staring at the door of my cabin, me staring at her back. But I can say it’s awkward.
“Have you had anything to eat?” I try.
Her ponytail bobs up and down in a nod.
Come on. Give me something here! Please. Yell at me, even! I’d take criticism at this point if it was at least honest!
“Sorry.” I whisper, barely even forming the word. It’s more a mental thought than it is spoken, and I’m pretty sure the woman didn’t hear because she shows no reaction. It’s not anywhere approaching enough. Can’t really correct or do anything by itself, so it’s really pretty pointless. But it makes me feel the tiniest, most insignificant amount better.
Sarah and I stay there for another minute or two in stone silence before she finally swings back into motion and exits.
I toss the pouch of mush aside. Trying to repeatedly hit your head against a desk is a slightly more complicated operation in zero-gravity than it is otherwise. Even more-so after another couple drinks makes it difficult to remember which direction is which. I manage.
D
Deleted member
Guest
That was absolutely beautiful. Well done!
4 - Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirates' Death for Me (pt. 4)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
The jumps through the uninhabited space between Tortuga and the Rimward-sections of the Federated Suns ‘Outback’ had been an exercise in boredom for much of the crew. After a few of the jumps I was beginning to understand why someone might come to view it as routine…But I still hadn’t caught on to how. Space-travel is fricken’ amazing! If only there was anyone I could express that to without sounding insane…
The stop-over in Great Gorge establishing an alibi as a legitimate trading ship en route to Gronholt for Totally Legitimate Business when we were going solely to retrieve Bar-Dyness’ bribe had been a similar exercise in boredom. Thanks to the simple expedient excuse of being under contract and behind schedule and thus needing a significant fee for anything Great Gorge wanted shipped, the authorities left us alone at the jump point for the entire recharge cycle. In that time, no new jumpship arrived that might blow our cover or present any difficulties, and we made the jump to Gronholt, where Baron Tsanma would—at least in theory—support our alibi when an inquiry into our ‘raid’ was launched and muddle any timeline or ship-ident the Feddie investigators tried to assemble.
I drum my fingers against the controls of my Banshee, glad that I’ve at least got some privacy and can wince and strain under the g-forces of atmospheric reentry. Now, descending into Gronholt’s atmosphere in the lead dropship of the pair I now own, I can’t help but worry. Baron Tsanma was willing to sell out his countrymen and people to pirates, he’d probably be willing to backstab pirates with the proper incentive. Which put me in a bit of a pickle, because I want to get the bribe he intends for Bar-Dyness from him before I backstab him—it would give me a much more compelling argument when I turn state’s evidence and make buying my pardon much easier.
I glare at the bare-bones display my Banshee has on the bottom-right of the console. It doesn’t tell me anything new, showing little more than the basics of the atmospheric reentry. But it gave me something to focus on while I fight myself out of the doubt and questioning that’s plagued me. There was little else I could do at this point. I was just going to have to see where the chips fell.
“Ahoy, Mister Peterson!” I transmit to the bridge as the dropship descends through sixty kilometers, “This be the time to hoist the colors high.”
Just because I’m the bad guy doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it, right?
Bad jokes might be the only thing keeping me sane.
I’m met by an awkward silence on the other end.
“What?”
I break the connection for an instant while I sigh. Besides the giant ‘Mechs, the space-travel, and the return of glorious hairspray and neon-legwarmers fashion that everyone in the 1980s seemed to think the future would adopt, the future is so disappointing. Nobody besides my sister is ever going to get the bad pop-culture jokes I make, and she's across the universe. And at that point where nobody gets them, they're not really even jokes. They're just pathetic.
“Break out of our approved reentry course, make for the meeting-point Baron Tsanma sent us, and drop our bogus identifier.” I explain, pushing through the looming wall of sadness before I can get depressed considering it.
After all, I shouldn’t be sad! It was time to go a-pirating…And I wouldn’t even have to get into a fight with anyone. Just get paid a bunch of screw-off money by a corrupt sleazebag of a politician.
…
Maybe having to get in a fight would be better?
I shake my head and try to clear it of the whining and focus on what's ahead. I just have to keep my eye on the prize. Not get distracted.
“Do what you want ‘cuz a pirate is free. You. Are. A. Pirate.” I half-sing to myself.
I hate the undeniably true words even as I form them. It wasn't 'are'! I was a pirate, dammit! Right now I'm...Right now I'm just...being pragmatic by acting like one. Because getting killed isn't on my to-do list. When it's safer for me, then I'll worry about the rest.
**********************************************************
A/N
Short bit. Insert the usual excuses here.
Should (cross fingers, toes, legs) be the last bit before things, hopefully, shift gears a bit. Once again I feel like I've somewhat descended into navel-gazing character establishment and monologue-musing to little purpose in the last half-dozen or so bits in a perpetual spinning-wheel of that 'rejecting the call' phase of things...So, going to try to move forward.
The stop-over in Great Gorge establishing an alibi as a legitimate trading ship en route to Gronholt for Totally Legitimate Business when we were going solely to retrieve Bar-Dyness’ bribe had been a similar exercise in boredom. Thanks to the simple expedient excuse of being under contract and behind schedule and thus needing a significant fee for anything Great Gorge wanted shipped, the authorities left us alone at the jump point for the entire recharge cycle. In that time, no new jumpship arrived that might blow our cover or present any difficulties, and we made the jump to Gronholt, where Baron Tsanma would—at least in theory—support our alibi when an inquiry into our ‘raid’ was launched and muddle any timeline or ship-ident the Feddie investigators tried to assemble.
I drum my fingers against the controls of my Banshee, glad that I’ve at least got some privacy and can wince and strain under the g-forces of atmospheric reentry. Now, descending into Gronholt’s atmosphere in the lead dropship of the pair I now own, I can’t help but worry. Baron Tsanma was willing to sell out his countrymen and people to pirates, he’d probably be willing to backstab pirates with the proper incentive. Which put me in a bit of a pickle, because I want to get the bribe he intends for Bar-Dyness from him before I backstab him—it would give me a much more compelling argument when I turn state’s evidence and make buying my pardon much easier.
I glare at the bare-bones display my Banshee has on the bottom-right of the console. It doesn’t tell me anything new, showing little more than the basics of the atmospheric reentry. But it gave me something to focus on while I fight myself out of the doubt and questioning that’s plagued me. There was little else I could do at this point. I was just going to have to see where the chips fell.
“Ahoy, Mister Peterson!” I transmit to the bridge as the dropship descends through sixty kilometers, “This be the time to hoist the colors high.”
Just because I’m the bad guy doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it, right?
Bad jokes might be the only thing keeping me sane.
I’m met by an awkward silence on the other end.
“What?”
I break the connection for an instant while I sigh. Besides the giant ‘Mechs, the space-travel, and the return of glorious hairspray and neon-legwarmers fashion that everyone in the 1980s seemed to think the future would adopt, the future is so disappointing. Nobody besides my sister is ever going to get the bad pop-culture jokes I make, and she's across the universe. And at that point where nobody gets them, they're not really even jokes. They're just pathetic.
“Break out of our approved reentry course, make for the meeting-point Baron Tsanma sent us, and drop our bogus identifier.” I explain, pushing through the looming wall of sadness before I can get depressed considering it.
After all, I shouldn’t be sad! It was time to go a-pirating…And I wouldn’t even have to get into a fight with anyone. Just get paid a bunch of screw-off money by a corrupt sleazebag of a politician.
…
Maybe having to get in a fight would be better?
I shake my head and try to clear it of the whining and focus on what's ahead. I just have to keep my eye on the prize. Not get distracted.
“Do what you want ‘cuz a pirate is free. You. Are. A. Pirate.” I half-sing to myself.
I hate the undeniably true words even as I form them. It wasn't 'are'! I was a pirate, dammit! Right now I'm...Right now I'm just...being pragmatic by acting like one. Because getting killed isn't on my to-do list. When it's safer for me, then I'll worry about the rest.
**********************************************************
A/N
Short bit. Insert the usual excuses here.
Should (cross fingers, toes, legs) be the last bit before things, hopefully, shift gears a bit. Once again I feel like I've somewhat descended into navel-gazing character establishment and monologue-musing to little purpose in the last half-dozen or so bits in a perpetual spinning-wheel of that 'rejecting the call' phase of things...So, going to try to move forward.
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4 - Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate's Death for Me (pt. 5)
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
“Here comes the Baron and his men, boss-lady.” Arthur says, taking a few steps to bring his Shadow Hawk around ninety degrees to put the road the convoy is approaching on directly in his line-of-fire.
I fight down a frustrated growl. The damn hip assembly being out on the thing seriously damaged the value. Both to sell and for battle.
I confirm the message from Arthur and focus on the crest of the rough dirt road across the mountaintop clearing we’re in, trying to console myself from the annoying reminder of how crappy some of the equipment I’m stuck with is with the knowledge that in a few minutes I’ll be tens of thousands of C-Bills richer. Money will help to relieve the sadness and get me out of the funk I’ve been in since arrival in-system.
If I empty out the cases of C-bills I'm owed onto my bunk, there will probably be enough to roll around in like I’m some kind of human, redheaded Scrooge McDuck! Money heals all wounds!
Thoughts of money-angels abandon me as Baron Tsanma and his guard march into view. Arthur and I alone have a handy tonnage advantage over the short-lance of Wasp, Locust and Blackjack that appears. Even with some of our systems broken or half-functioning, I’m confident we could take them. I have a vague understanding that the Blackjack was a better machine than it was given credit for, but Tim and Michelle, not to mention the trio of cobbled-together tank, technical, and armored transport that were with them being near enough to help put the nail in the coffin no matter what. My forces, even crewed by morally-deficient lunatics out for nothing but blood-money and blowjobs outmatched the locals.
The handful of militia tanks, armored cars, and semi-trucks hauling trailers that follow the Baron’s ‘Mechs over the road must be some desperate attempt to pad their death and violence resume? There was nothing among them that looked all that frightening and, quite simply, my Banshee alone was so much bigger than any of them it was hard to take them seriously. My Death resume is much better than theirs! I have more years of experience, better education, and my references--A Mister Autocannon and Ms. PPC of Banshee Independent Terrorism Consolidated Holdings, BITCH for short--are outstanding!
It is so good to be powerful!
To be secure enough in the face of other people I can make jokes.
It's definitely not bizarre to be so nonchalant about turning dozens of people into smoking embers.
...
Right?
“Baron Tsanma. So good of you to join us. We were just starting to play a game of ‘name-the-most-burnable thing on the planet’ before you showed up! Just for an insider’s perspective, do you think those industrial refineries on the southern continent or that fusion power-plant facility outside Riftoofar would be more entertaining to blow up?” I transmit over the frequency we’d been given, doing my best to lilt the words into a half-psychotic pitter-patter of barely-restrained violent impulses.
It feels very easy. Maybe too easy. But I must not have been very successful and there must not be any reason to worry like that, because the Baron sounds positively tired when he answers.
“I suppose if I didn’t believe you were Tortugans before, that would seal it for me. You must be the latest low-end of the totem pole stuck with coming out here to the ass-end of nowhere for collection duty.” He snorted, “Let’s get this shitshow over with then. You’re distracting me from more important things.”
Ahh space-feudalism. I could just feel his deep desire to protect and defend the people of his fief from my predations through the airwaves of the radio. Ass.
I barely restrain the desire to key down the Banshee’s autocannon and PPC at the Baron’s ‘Mech. If I blow him to kingdom-come, I won’t get my money...Even if he does deserve to get blown.
“Alright. Let me just slip into something more comfortable.” I tease before flipping off the channel, almost giggling at my own mental double entendre.
It felt good to be top-dog in the biggest ‘Mech around, but it was, sadly, a feeling I’d have to give up to actually meet the scumbag. At least in large part. I was going to have to lose the ‘Mech for a little while. If he thought I was losing the guns or the sword that’d be around my waist in case he pulled something, he was dreaming. But for a few minutes of discomfort, the money I got would be worth it. Both what I got immediately and what I’d earn eventually for bringing the guy down.
I slide off my neurohelmet, rise from the couch and give myself a final once-over in the reflection of the cockpit-glass as I tighten the cinch of the holsters sitting on my hips. The high-waisted unitard tiger-striped in neon-red and robin’s-egg blue is actually surprisingly comfortable for how much it assaults the eyes. Even the white knee-high leather boots and half-open cooling vest aren’t uncomfortable so much as a bit awkward to wear in combination. With the pistol and sword at my waist and a tribal-patterned sweatband around my forehead the whole mishmash together combines to make me look like one of Jane Fonda’s backup-dancers got transported into a Mad Max movie, and it’s everything cliché-80s and terrible I’ve ever wanted in an outfit! Bless you 80s future-fashion you gloriously cheesy ridiculousness!
More pragmatically and importantly than how much it suits my own fancy, it checks the expected boxes for ‘MechWarrior-pirate’ in peoples’ minds, all while the leg, thigh, and cleavage it leaves exposed should make it just that little bit easier to pull a fast one on the Baron and his lackeys. The microphone-pickup I’d carefully sewn into the rear of the cooling vest wasn’t completely visible even if someone was staring right at it instead of what should be more interesting things, but I’d rather not put any more pressure than necessary on the appearance of my stitchwork when the consequences might be deadly. I'm not a very good seamstress.
It probably would have been easier to distract onlookers with my chest if I actually had some bust to work with in the first place! In this case the pox-looking bullshit that are my freckles kind of help, but I can't get myself to feel happy about that.
I get thrown into another universe, become a whole different person with mental problems equal to entire bowls of fruit loops, and I still can’t luck into D-cups or clear skin! God has a cruel sense of humor.
I shake away the self-pity and force myself into action. Crawling over the couch and through the cockpit, I cycle the lock and carefully feel my way into the stirrup of the unloading-wench. The bulk of the Banshee is still between me and Baron Tsanma’s forces as I descend, and he should be descending as well. But that doesn’t stop me from fretting the entire trip down, waiting to hear an explosion go off or laser superheat the air.
I reach the bottom safely, but the trip into the clearing feels much longer than it really is. The tanks and other small-fry that were on the opposite end and had been so blasé when I was wrapped in a hundred tons of death-dealing are suddenly much more concerning when it’s just my skin and the bulletproof material of the vest staring them down.
Baron Tsanma meets me roughly halfway between our forces.
Oh no, he’s hot!
Oh no, he’s not carrying a case!
Even as I cock one hand onto my sword and offer the man my greatest glare I grind my teeth at the traitorous order of my own thoughts. I had been expecting some fat, balding jerk. The image of noble corruption and evil. Some stereotype that would be easy to mentally rail against. I had not been expecting this, and it’s distracting. I know the fact the nobleman is a verified asshole that is willing to shell out C-Bills as bribes to pirates—and that any sign of those C-bills is missing—are what matters! I shouldn’t care that he’s a six-foot slab of hunk with a side-order of sexy-face who is wrapped in a cooling-vest of his own that does little but emphasize the Caesar-salad appetizer of his abs and french bread pecs! But the man is cut, and I just want to sprinkle parmesan over his midsection and use my tongue to…It didn’t…None of it made…
Dammit, dammit, dammit! I am supposed to be the one distracting him! I am supposed to be getting a bunch of money from him! He just looks bored, he's not even looking at me, and he’s not brought any money with him! This is so totally unfair and not-cool and him being easy on the eyes doesn’t make up for that!
But he is easy on the eyes, though...
“You must be Bar-Dyness’ latest bottom-bitch. Tremaine, I think my people told me?” The Baron says, eyes moving from my 'Mech onto me and giving no indication he’s actually at-all distracted by my own attire.
You can call me whatever you like, baby...
“I go by Lady Death, actually.” I growl, rallying around the flare of annoyance in my chest. I don’t really care that he’s gotten the name wrong. But at the same time, I do, and the microphone on my chest provides the best, if delayed, way to pay him back. Both for being an asshole nobleman and for being so treasonously gorgeous. “And if you’re finished posturing, I do believe you came here to bribe me so we wouldn’t burn your capital and take your stuff.”
Instead of getting angry, the Baron barks out a laugh that’s surprisingly endearing. Or maybe that's still other things distracting me. This sucks. “Alright, alright, ‘Lady Death’. No need for the dramatic threats. Not when there’s matters of mutual benefit we can get on to.”
He steps slightly to the side and holds a hand out towards the semi-trucks back on his side of the clearing, “My payment is enclosed. I assume, based on your lack of suitable transport, that you’d prefer for my men to deliver to your dropships?”
The way he says it is infuriating. The way he doesn't have my money like he should is infuriating. I consider my options, and finally just ask. Making him clarify exactly what’s going on will be helpful for the recording I’m making and my own peace of mind. He doesn’t need trucks to move the necessary amount of C-bills, so what’s his game here?
As he tells me, I can feel any and all appreciation I've got for his appearance flitters away as a much more stereotypical image of an asshole-noble comes to the fore. I successfully manage not to shoot him when we part ways in the meadow, and I again succeed in not shooting his Blackjack when I get back into my Banshee. But I really want to.
**********************************************************************************************************
A/N: Maybe getting a little too overly-humorous here but...maybe not? I dunnow, my writing is a vehicle for inflicting my bad jokes and pretensions of cleverness on others, so any readers will just have to live through it when it gets groan-inducing.
I fight down a frustrated growl. The damn hip assembly being out on the thing seriously damaged the value. Both to sell and for battle.
I confirm the message from Arthur and focus on the crest of the rough dirt road across the mountaintop clearing we’re in, trying to console myself from the annoying reminder of how crappy some of the equipment I’m stuck with is with the knowledge that in a few minutes I’ll be tens of thousands of C-Bills richer. Money will help to relieve the sadness and get me out of the funk I’ve been in since arrival in-system.
If I empty out the cases of C-bills I'm owed onto my bunk, there will probably be enough to roll around in like I’m some kind of human, redheaded Scrooge McDuck! Money heals all wounds!
Thoughts of money-angels abandon me as Baron Tsanma and his guard march into view. Arthur and I alone have a handy tonnage advantage over the short-lance of Wasp, Locust and Blackjack that appears. Even with some of our systems broken or half-functioning, I’m confident we could take them. I have a vague understanding that the Blackjack was a better machine than it was given credit for, but Tim and Michelle, not to mention the trio of cobbled-together tank, technical, and armored transport that were with them being near enough to help put the nail in the coffin no matter what. My forces, even crewed by morally-deficient lunatics out for nothing but blood-money and blowjobs outmatched the locals.
The handful of militia tanks, armored cars, and semi-trucks hauling trailers that follow the Baron’s ‘Mechs over the road must be some desperate attempt to pad their death and violence resume? There was nothing among them that looked all that frightening and, quite simply, my Banshee alone was so much bigger than any of them it was hard to take them seriously. My Death resume is much better than theirs! I have more years of experience, better education, and my references--A Mister Autocannon and Ms. PPC of Banshee Independent Terrorism Consolidated Holdings, BITCH for short--are outstanding!
It is so good to be powerful!
To be secure enough in the face of other people I can make jokes.
It's definitely not bizarre to be so nonchalant about turning dozens of people into smoking embers.
...
Right?
“Baron Tsanma. So good of you to join us. We were just starting to play a game of ‘name-the-most-burnable thing on the planet’ before you showed up! Just for an insider’s perspective, do you think those industrial refineries on the southern continent or that fusion power-plant facility outside Riftoofar would be more entertaining to blow up?” I transmit over the frequency we’d been given, doing my best to lilt the words into a half-psychotic pitter-patter of barely-restrained violent impulses.
It feels very easy. Maybe too easy. But I must not have been very successful and there must not be any reason to worry like that, because the Baron sounds positively tired when he answers.
“I suppose if I didn’t believe you were Tortugans before, that would seal it for me. You must be the latest low-end of the totem pole stuck with coming out here to the ass-end of nowhere for collection duty.” He snorted, “Let’s get this shitshow over with then. You’re distracting me from more important things.”
Ahh space-feudalism. I could just feel his deep desire to protect and defend the people of his fief from my predations through the airwaves of the radio. Ass.
I barely restrain the desire to key down the Banshee’s autocannon and PPC at the Baron’s ‘Mech. If I blow him to kingdom-come, I won’t get my money...Even if he does deserve to get blown.
“Alright. Let me just slip into something more comfortable.” I tease before flipping off the channel, almost giggling at my own mental double entendre.
It felt good to be top-dog in the biggest ‘Mech around, but it was, sadly, a feeling I’d have to give up to actually meet the scumbag. At least in large part. I was going to have to lose the ‘Mech for a little while. If he thought I was losing the guns or the sword that’d be around my waist in case he pulled something, he was dreaming. But for a few minutes of discomfort, the money I got would be worth it. Both what I got immediately and what I’d earn eventually for bringing the guy down.
I slide off my neurohelmet, rise from the couch and give myself a final once-over in the reflection of the cockpit-glass as I tighten the cinch of the holsters sitting on my hips. The high-waisted unitard tiger-striped in neon-red and robin’s-egg blue is actually surprisingly comfortable for how much it assaults the eyes. Even the white knee-high leather boots and half-open cooling vest aren’t uncomfortable so much as a bit awkward to wear in combination. With the pistol and sword at my waist and a tribal-patterned sweatband around my forehead the whole mishmash together combines to make me look like one of Jane Fonda’s backup-dancers got transported into a Mad Max movie, and it’s everything cliché-80s and terrible I’ve ever wanted in an outfit! Bless you 80s future-fashion you gloriously cheesy ridiculousness!
More pragmatically and importantly than how much it suits my own fancy, it checks the expected boxes for ‘MechWarrior-pirate’ in peoples’ minds, all while the leg, thigh, and cleavage it leaves exposed should make it just that little bit easier to pull a fast one on the Baron and his lackeys. The microphone-pickup I’d carefully sewn into the rear of the cooling vest wasn’t completely visible even if someone was staring right at it instead of what should be more interesting things, but I’d rather not put any more pressure than necessary on the appearance of my stitchwork when the consequences might be deadly. I'm not a very good seamstress.
It probably would have been easier to distract onlookers with my chest if I actually had some bust to work with in the first place! In this case the pox-looking bullshit that are my freckles kind of help, but I can't get myself to feel happy about that.
I get thrown into another universe, become a whole different person with mental problems equal to entire bowls of fruit loops, and I still can’t luck into D-cups or clear skin! God has a cruel sense of humor.
I shake away the self-pity and force myself into action. Crawling over the couch and through the cockpit, I cycle the lock and carefully feel my way into the stirrup of the unloading-wench. The bulk of the Banshee is still between me and Baron Tsanma’s forces as I descend, and he should be descending as well. But that doesn’t stop me from fretting the entire trip down, waiting to hear an explosion go off or laser superheat the air.
I reach the bottom safely, but the trip into the clearing feels much longer than it really is. The tanks and other small-fry that were on the opposite end and had been so blasé when I was wrapped in a hundred tons of death-dealing are suddenly much more concerning when it’s just my skin and the bulletproof material of the vest staring them down.
Baron Tsanma meets me roughly halfway between our forces.
Oh no, he’s hot!
Oh no, he’s not carrying a case!
Even as I cock one hand onto my sword and offer the man my greatest glare I grind my teeth at the traitorous order of my own thoughts. I had been expecting some fat, balding jerk. The image of noble corruption and evil. Some stereotype that would be easy to mentally rail against. I had not been expecting this, and it’s distracting. I know the fact the nobleman is a verified asshole that is willing to shell out C-Bills as bribes to pirates—and that any sign of those C-bills is missing—are what matters! I shouldn’t care that he’s a six-foot slab of hunk with a side-order of sexy-face who is wrapped in a cooling-vest of his own that does little but emphasize the Caesar-salad appetizer of his abs and french bread pecs! But the man is cut, and I just want to sprinkle parmesan over his midsection and use my tongue to…It didn’t…None of it made…
Dammit, dammit, dammit! I am supposed to be the one distracting him! I am supposed to be getting a bunch of money from him! He just looks bored, he's not even looking at me, and he’s not brought any money with him! This is so totally unfair and not-cool and him being easy on the eyes doesn’t make up for that!
But he is easy on the eyes, though...
“You must be Bar-Dyness’ latest bottom-bitch. Tremaine, I think my people told me?” The Baron says, eyes moving from my 'Mech onto me and giving no indication he’s actually at-all distracted by my own attire.
You can call me whatever you like, baby...
“I go by Lady Death, actually.” I growl, rallying around the flare of annoyance in my chest. I don’t really care that he’s gotten the name wrong. But at the same time, I do, and the microphone on my chest provides the best, if delayed, way to pay him back. Both for being an asshole nobleman and for being so treasonously gorgeous. “And if you’re finished posturing, I do believe you came here to bribe me so we wouldn’t burn your capital and take your stuff.”
Instead of getting angry, the Baron barks out a laugh that’s surprisingly endearing. Or maybe that's still other things distracting me. This sucks. “Alright, alright, ‘Lady Death’. No need for the dramatic threats. Not when there’s matters of mutual benefit we can get on to.”
He steps slightly to the side and holds a hand out towards the semi-trucks back on his side of the clearing, “My payment is enclosed. I assume, based on your lack of suitable transport, that you’d prefer for my men to deliver to your dropships?”
The way he says it is infuriating. The way he doesn't have my money like he should is infuriating. I consider my options, and finally just ask. Making him clarify exactly what’s going on will be helpful for the recording I’m making and my own peace of mind. He doesn’t need trucks to move the necessary amount of C-bills, so what’s his game here?
As he tells me, I can feel any and all appreciation I've got for his appearance flitters away as a much more stereotypical image of an asshole-noble comes to the fore. I successfully manage not to shoot him when we part ways in the meadow, and I again succeed in not shooting his Blackjack when I get back into my Banshee. But I really want to.
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A/N: Maybe getting a little too overly-humorous here but...maybe not? I dunnow, my writing is a vehicle for inflicting my bad jokes and pretensions of cleverness on others, so any readers will just have to live through it when it gets groan-inducing.
Heh. Good chapter. I never thought I'd hear a stud described like he fell out of the menu at Olive Garden, but here we are.
No, he's going to bribe her with-
-and the next chapter is going to open with the two of them arguing over the Blue Book value of the semi-trucks. Cash is hard to come by out here.
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
carterhall
New member
I enjoy the fun asides and descriptions. It fits the tone of the story and protagonist.
5 - Death Throes
prinCZess
Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
It venters, it enters, it circles, it centers,
-The Power (or Dominion) of the Sword, ballad from the English Civil War
-The Power (or Dominion) of the Sword, ballad from the English Civil War
I shudder underneath the white overcoat Sarah had brought me when I got out of my Banshee after the cooler outside air had ceased to be refreshing and started to be uncomfortable. But I know that even if I had it closed instead of just hanging off my shoulders I’d still feel cold. I force myself to loosen the grip on the manifest in my hands while still not letting go of it. If I let go of it, I know I’m going to do something terrible to as many of the militiamen that are unloading the ‘cargo’ from the new trio of tank, APC, and truck that had been brought up the dropship’s ramp and into the bay. I need something to restrain myself.
It was all very business-like and straightforward, really. Baron Tsanma owed a substantial C-bill tribute to Tortuga in exchange for five years of no raids on Gronholt. Gronholt and Tsanma, being Outback shitholes in the crappy corners of the Federated Suns and Periphery-noblemen of little import because they ruled over such a shithole, respectively, were not rich enough to pay in actual C-bills. But they could pass off some equipment as ‘destroyed repelling a pirate raid’ and, as the man himself admitted, almost been proud of, he also had large collection of people filling cells that could make up the difference.
I hold down a half-mad laugh. I deserved this, didn’t I? It was what I got for letting some jumped-up pirate tell me what to do…And what I got for running for safety after that rather than trying to do anything for the planets-worth of people he had under his thumb. I keep make-believing I’m some bad bitch when I’m a coward!
I’m not sure how long I stand there, ashamed in the knowledge that despite all my mental protesting and complaint, I’m going to keep being that coward. Because I don’t want to die.
“The new equipment is all loaded and secured, m’lady. Arthur said getting the people properly situated won’t take much longer and then we’d be underway, but they might need to rig in extra scrubbers for the slaves during the trip back to the jumpship.”
Other than a desire to wince, Sarah’s report only barely registers as I continue to eye the militiamen below as they casually retreat back down the ramp. They show the same utter lack of any concern that their boss had, loading themselves back into their own trucks, obviously exchanging comments back and forth with one another, one pair even high-fiving before getting into their vehicles. They delivered not just equipment but people they are supposed to protect into the arms of a pirate. Baron Tsanma could have given me enough equipment to pay his debt easily, but instead he’d shoved people he is supposed to protect into the arms of a pirate to round out the balance on his account.
I feel something dark shiver inside me, just above my stomach.
I’m the pirate he was bribing. And I’d let all of it happen. Played into it because I might benefit from it. I’m not even certain if a good bit of my rage isn’t at the fact I didn’t get cash-money out of the deal! Who am I supposed to be pissed at without being a hypocrite, here?
I drum my carbon-fiber reinforced, poison-coated nails against the board in my hands and try not to imagine using them on the men who’d delivered people to me as if they were things. Try not to imagine what the toxin distilled from Tortuga scorpions would do once it got into their bloodstream. I fail. Those militiamen had a responsibility towards those people they had given up. And they’d given them up anyways. For what? Money, safety and power?
It made every action I’d taken since showing up on Tortuga of weaseling out of any responsibility in the name of money, safety or power considerably more…embarrassing. I can feel the board in my hands beginning to splinter, and force my hands to loosen and try to shift my thoughts onto other topics—again. I seem to spend a lot of time doing that these days.
Besides the bigass truck, the APC that might be of some use and the tank…Well, it would be good against civilians. Besides them I’ve brought on eighteen more women ‘valued’ at two-thousand C-Bills a piece. Then there are ten ‘technically-skilled’ men—one-thousand each. Finally, four children from pairings of the men and women that were there for leverage more than anything—seven-fifty a pop—and not a single C-bill. Even sidelining the ethical issues, I am getting screwed-over!
I suppose I never should have expected money. Bar-Dyness had never said it would be a cash bribe. He’d just let me make the assumption. Probably on purpose. Feeding and caring for the extra slaves destined for him would all be my responsibility, and, if I had planned on going back to Tortuga, any that died would be on me to pay for. Add that to the fact the three vehicles take up room in the holds I might otherwise be able to use for valuable shit that actually belonged to me, I can almost appreciate the simplicity of this scheme to indebt new members of the Council of the Damned firmly to Bar-Dyness. Almost.
All I can actually do is imagine strangling the man who had somehow been a looming presence over me since I’d arrived. Strangling the man who’d driven me into running away and taking slaves despite the giant war-machines and spaceships I literally own. Despite every chance I’ve had to do something about any of it. About the slaves.
I’m selling my soul…and I’m not even getting a good deal for the damned thing! I’m banking on the kindness and responsibility of others to help people after I leave, when I am in every position to help right now…And instead I’m just hurting people more so that I don’t have to be the one to risk anything against shitty people like Bar-Dyness or Baron Tsanma. Cowardly and selfish.
I’m knocking it out of the park on being a pirate, aren’t I? And I’m not going to do a single thing different because I’m scared and running away for the sake of my own future.
Something in the bay in lets out a loud, industrial pop. I glance around, searching for the source of the noise, but don’t immediately see any techs working on anything. Only Sarah’s careful pointing to it makes me notice the broken clipboard I’m holding, the nails of my fingers stabbed through the cheap plastiboard sheet. The statuesque slave that I’m still jealous of pulls the two sides of the board free, careful to keep her hands a safe distance from my nails as she does so she doesn’t scrape against them.
“Thanks.” I mutter, tossing the little bits of pulp that had exploded into my palms out onto the deck.
Sarah makes an odd humming noise and tilts her head at me. “Of course, m’lady. I’d not want you to overexert yourself.”
The dark shivering in my abdomen is joined by a stiletto knife the words drive into me. She’d said it so innocently, but…What did she mean by that?
Or am I just imagining things?
I nod arrogantly down towards the bottom deck of the bay we’re in. “I want you to keep an eye on our new guests. Try to set them up properly with anything reasonable from our stores, and remind any of my illustrious crew that might get ideas in their heads about them that they aren’t our loot and are not to be touched. Understood?”
The blonde nods.
“I am going to get a shower.” I continue, spinning my way out of the overcoat I know she’ll pick up for me and turning towards the nearby ladder off the ‘Mech-maintenance scaffolding. “If anyone tries something stupid with them, just be nice and tell them Lady Death will have a word with them unless they stop causing you a problem. If that doesn’t stop them, come get me and I’ll troubleshoot the problem.”
I laugh at the implication as I drop down the ladder. I can’t hear it over the other sounds in the ‘Mech-bay, but where she’s kneeled picking up my overcoat, I can see Sarah’s lips twitching as well. That’s progress, right? If someone laughs at something you say, it means you aren’t a bad person!
I take a very long shower when I get back to my quarters and try to laze around in a towel. It doesn’t really help, so I put some proper clothes back on over a sports-bra and boxer combo that, sadly, isn’t quite as loud as the unitard and try to ‘work’. Listening to the recording I’d made of my meeting with Tsanma and fantasizing about how much better off I’ll be if I can just manage to make it to the next system and turn all this in doesn’t help either. Even field-stripping the laser-pistol and marveling at how fucking cool it is doesn’t settle me down.
“Twenty minutes to liftoff. All personnel, there are twenty…”
I open my desk. Stare at the container of booze inside. I just have to run away one more time and then—
The door slides open. I slam the drawer closed to make a point to whatever idiot was dumb enough to barge into my room unannounced! Throwing my head up, a dozen different ideas for furious comments come to my mind. They die on my lips when I see who it is and the peculiar look of panic and horror in her eyes.
“There’s a problem.” Sarah growls.
Not even a half hour? I HATE my crew. No wonder pirates were declared enemies of all humanity. This constant inability to have even a shred of decency or let me have any kind of peace is so damned annoying! I am going to love waving at them as they march towards the hangman's noose!
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A/N: Things might actually be almost on the edge of the verge of actually happening!
...I seriously need to work on cutting-down character-building exposition-y monologue thoughts in my writing. I take way too long to progress into things actually happening in the story because I get distracted by asides and commentary and stuff...
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Ganurath
Well-known member
The grand sum value of 18 woman at 2k each, 10 technicians at 1k each, and 3k worth of children is 49k... he sold 32 people into slavery to save his precious Blackjack a Medium Laser and a little under a metric ton of armor.
How much damage can the drives on your Dropships deal, or their weapons?
How much damage can the drives on your Dropships deal, or their weapons?
Blasterbot
Well-known member
on the one hand FASAnomics. on the other that is offensive both morally and economically. you should at least be able to get a medium lasers worth of taxes out of one of those kids over the course of a life time. hell if that is how it works trading a pair of medium lasers and some armor should be easy enough to manage if you want to barter instead of going the cash route.