(no subject)

[umgekehrt]

...

Well I know Two's about this time.

Chief Stildyne, recently of the JFS Ragnarok. For any interested parties.


Stildyne Away.

Comments

[una_persson]

Hello, Stildyne. I'm given to understand belated congratulations are in order?

[umgekehrt]

Ms. Persson. [He dips his head, respectfully.]

Mister Braxiatel actually managed to graduate despite my assistance. And stole Rhade off the ship like a good art collector, too, if intelligence is right.

[una_persson]

I thought something like that might have happened. Well, in any case, well done to both of you. You're staying on?

[umgekehrt]

I am. One inmate more. I've got a few things to see to.

And it'll be difficult to leave. I can't make a home here, too much to go back to, but a little more time.

[The people, that's the hard part. Some of them make him want to throw his hands up and head back to Gonebeyond on a daily basis; others, saying goodbye to will be like having a limb removed.]

[una_persson]

For all its flaws, you can't help getting at least a little attached to life on the Barge, I found.

I hope the next inmate isn't too dreadful.

[umgekehrt]

I imagine I've got hard duty coming after Braxiatel. He managed himself more than I could manage him; I think I was there to keep him honest.

How's it been, back in the universe, after the Barge?

[una_persson]

You speak as if that wasn't a significant challenge on its own. [Joking, totally joking, except kind of not.]

It's very quiet. A kind of quiet I can certainly live with, at least for now. I'm in a very stable London with only a few minor adventures. I expect to move on eventually, but not yet.

[disobedientfish]

Ah, so we are to be shipmates, then, Chief Stildyne.

Andrej Koscuisko, soon to be Chief Medical Officer, Ship's Surgeon.

[umgekehrt]

[Stildyne looks, for a long moment, even more like someone's just hit him with a lifting machine than usual. The stunned, impacted expression melds neatly with the general damage.]

Your Excellency.

We've been shipmates more than five years.

From my point of context.

[The barge. The damned barge that he should get to talk to Andrej again and the little bastard doesn't even know him!]

[disobedientfish]

[He is not yet strictly familiar with this face, but of course no one would know better of his talent from reading others.]

Ah, have we, Chief? It seems like my future has been well-read before I've even lived it.

I hope I haven't made too much of a fool of myself in the future.

[umgekehrt]

[A joke about spitting in the face of authority or something jumps to Stildyne's lips and he has to literally bite his tongue.

Isn't this just like Andrej, to find a new and unique form of trouble to be.

The damned nerve of him, being from too far in the past!

And other similarly useless complaints.]

Not so you'll be much differentiated from the crew in general. You've probably been told Ragnarok's a Fireship. Half undesirables. Captain Lowden keeps her in decent political graces.

He's very Reasonable about it.

[It's all the warning he can give-- the standard code. 'Reasonable people'-- corrupt, bribable, wheeling, dealing, thieving and requisitioning. Lowden's all that and more. But how could Stildyne possibly convey everything that Lowden was going to mean to him and his sanity?]

[disobedientfish]

Ah, always my sincerest pleasure to be under the command of Reasonable fellows.

[An unpleasant smile curls on his lip; he is quite good at hearing things unsaid.]

I certainly hope the ship is not too Reasonable - too many senseful folk in one place can make danger without thinking.

[umgekehrt]

Lowden was the most obliging out of all of them. His lieutenant Cowil Brem followed decently enough. Lieutenant Wyrlann tried but never got the hang of boundaries.

...sorry. The tenses. I'm obviously not with the ship now.

[His grasp of generally opaque language fails him, and he has to simply admit:]

I'm sorry. There's too much. I can't tell you even half of it.

[alwayshasaplan]

[He's fully awake by now and drinking three fingers at a time from a fifth of Jack.]

You uh...really rock being on a spaceship crew?

[umgekehrt]

On the barge and off it, as it happens.

Mister-?

[alwayshasaplan]

Gecko. Seth Gecko.

Welp. I have to say that the fact we actually make it far enough into the space age to need interstellar travel raises my opinion of humanity. About half a notch anyway.

[umgekehrt]

Oh, wherever we go, we largely stay the same. From what I've seen of Earth, when the barge stops in.

[alwayshasaplan]

Meh. Guess that can't be too much of a surprise. But...at least we made it offplanet.

...sounds pretty cool actually.

[Yeah, he's ten.]

[umgekehrt]

Has its advantages.

Any relation to a Richie Gecko, Mister Gecko?

[amongthedead]

Allison Kerry. New York City Police Department.

[She'll just-reach-tentatively at the screen] How are you...on a police tape of a recorded crimescene Chief?

[umgekehrt]

Kerry? Hoffman mentioned a Detective Kerry, didn't he-? [He's near certain.]

But; I'm not on your tape. You've intercepted a broadcast gone astray. Happens on our comm network sometimes.

[amongthedead]

Hoffman?

[She stares] ...Mark-Detective Hoffman? I'm Detective Kerry.

[She doesn't sound interested. In fact she sounds mildly annoyed]

But this is on a tape. In my apartment. It's not a broadcast.

[umgekehrt]

The same. A friend of mine; he's mentioned you and the department a time or two.

But it isn't taped, or else I wouldn't be responding to you.

[amongthedead]

[Allison sits back and stares at the tape.]

...You're his friend? I didn't think he had friends outside of Dan and Eric. I can promise everything he said is a filthy fucking lie.

[She hesitates-reaching for the TV and lowering her hands] I see. what do you do?

[umgekehrt]

I take what he says with the sufficient amount of salt.

[Which may be none at all, in fact, but Stildyne likes to think he does know how to decipher Mark when he's speaking through a filter of frustration as well as better times.]

I'm a warden aboard a rehabilitative prison vessel. We've got a powerful comm array, I'm sorry it's hijacked your viewscreen.