[IC] Wear a Badge, Carry a Gun

[Icelander]

Hart leaves the classroom, but Bear stops Kiloni and Penny before they follow him out the door.

Bear

You've not been in Imperial Service before have you?

Penny and Kiloni both shake their heads.

Bear

Right then, Imperials use proper name only while on-duty or in uniform, full personal names off-duty, nicknames only in the mess among equals. At least that's how it was when I was in the Marines, the DoJ may be a little looser. So on-duty it would be Hart, Drake, Queldrona, or Karapyetchenko. Off-duty it would be Specter, Penthesilea, Kiloni, or Dmitri Feodorovich. In the mess I could call you Penny or you could call me Bear but none of us could call him Uncle. As our section leader we can call him 'boss'. Clear? Good.

Now I am going off-duty. Seems sensible enough even if he's a bit of a suit. Kiloni you said you needed tickets to the ball for your brothers? I am squiring a young lady - do be sure and ask her to dance- so mine is spoken for but I will ask around and give you a call.

---

Meanwhile, Hart goes directly to his room from the classroom where he dismissed his team. His head is still pounding and he's aware that what sleep he's had has been too little and too rough. Calibrating the drink machine for the most powerful energy and electrolyte recovery drink he can, he sighs and starts to take off his service uniform. Then he washes his face and hands in cold water and guzzles down as much as he can of the drink.

Hart does not doubt that some of the more socially active graduands have supplies of quicksober and painaway in their rooms. He could probably find a pill that would relieve much of his pain easily just by walking out of his room and asking around for a few moments. But something in him rebels against the idea of admitting to being hardly able to perform his duties due to a hangover. The effects of poor judgment and discipline the night before.

Instead, Hart applies himself to readying his dress uniform for the day. He lays it out, dusts imaginary specks of it and straightens the crease-free fabric. After another drink of electrolytes and another thorough washing of his face in cold water, Hart feels ready to dress himself again. He does this carefully, employing all the experience gained in a lifetime of military service to ensure that his appearance is professional and proper. He will at least appear like a responsible person, if he cannot behave like one.

Once Hart is satisfied with his preparations, he checks his datastick for the time. Still some twenty minutes until the meeting. Hart forces himself to sit down and work on a requisition list.

Once the time is 1023 ZULU, Hart cannot wait longer. He stands up and starts a slow walk towards Room 101. He aims to arrive there at 1028 ZULU and take up position at attention until summoned in or the time hits 1030 ZULU exactly.

[Agemegos]

The 25 graduands who have been notified of a posting as acting Imperial Marshal, including Hart, gather in the corridor outside Room 101 in the few minutes before 10:30. Five bells chime, and the door slides open with a hiss. The acting-marshals-to-be file in.

Inside is outside. The scenescape covering the walls and ceiling projects a faultless holographic imagine which makes the classroom seem to be on a rocky hill, littered with classical ruins and looming over a sprawling, ill-planned, and frankly ugly city. Despite its ugliness, however, the city is vital, bustling. It is full of people going about their lives, and the chaotic mix of buildings three thousand years old and as new as yesterday is a symptom of the city's neverending life. The Principal is at the far end of the room, in the midnight blue and brushed-aluminium of the Colonial Office. There are three stripes around her cuffs, and the badge of the Commission for Justice above them. Behind the Principal, on another, higher hill, is the Acropolis of Athens, Earth. Somewhat to the left, in the distance, is the original port of Piraeus. The hoizon is hazy, but the sky overhead a cerulean vault. The sun is quite high, it is early afternoon in Athens, in the Spring, six hundred years ago.

As each graduand enters a steward in a white coat hands her or him a crystal zinfan in a silver filigree zarf. The cups are filled with a purple liquid and frosted with condensation. When the last cadet has come in the steward takes the 26th cup to the Principal and leaves by another door. The serving table folds itself away into Mount Lycabettus, depending on your point of view.

Superintendant Isabo Wickramanaijke

Cavallieri, I will ask you to reserve your drinks for a moment. I will wish to propose a toast before it has a chance to get warm.

You might be expecting me to welcome you to the ranks of the Independent Commission for Justice. Indeed I wish to do so, but that privilege has been pre-empted by others of higher rank. They will do so at great length, by and by.

On an occasion of this sort you might also expect that I might give you a generous helping of advice that distilled the wisdom of experience and conveyed the unwritten secret of our craft. In time one of you will be principal of this school, the course will be four years long, and the graduands will be 22 and still wet behind the ears. Then perhaps such a speech will be possible. But I am no older than some of you, nor wiser than many, and as for the secrets of our craft I am unquestionably less experienced a detective than any.

Since the conventional is impossible, I shall have to risk the unconventional, and put this occasion to an important use. I shall have to say something that matters. I shall have to tell you what I care about.

The Independent Commission for Justice upon which were are all embarked is an experiment. It is a thing until now entirely of the mind, and no-one can be quite sure how it will operate in practice. Many of its institutions are unformed, undecided. We are sending you and your classmates forth as experimental animals: we will reinforce your successes, and evacuate your failures—and if you do badly enough in the first two years the Senate or the Imperial Council might yet exercise an option to cancel the trial.

Cancellation is not very likely, but there is as yet a real question over the matter of Imperial Marshals. One group of interests wishes to see professionals in the post, promoted through the ranks of detectives, impartial, experienced, pragmatic, and competent. Another wishes to see marshals appointed by deputy commissioners from outside the Commission and the Imperial Service. They would be police bureaucrats, civil rights commissioners, investigating magistrates and so forth, appointed not to optimise the investigations of crimes but to maintain standards of probity and independence. A third faction fears, or professes to fear, that with independence goes irresponsibility, and that Imperial Marshals not answerable to their colonies will be arbitrary, capricious, and instruments of Imperial oppression. They wish to see marshals politically appointed, and responsible to colonial governments.

Either alternative to marshals who are chief detectives would be a disaster. Our hands are already tied by politically-appointed judges, and all of you are going to see grave injustices unpunished, repeated, and perpetuated as a result. Additional restraint and ignorant management is the last thing we need.

When the Senate comes to vote on the Independent Commission for Justice Act 567 Amendment Act 573 (Appointment of Marshals) it is vital that they vote for you. If your bureaux are not effective, if they are not detached and professional, if they act to menace the independence of the colonies the experiment will be wrapped up, and it will be back to the science laboratory for the experimental animals. If they are merely perceived as these things, we lose, the Commission loses, and Justice loses.

You have to fight crime and win, because your effectiveness is our stock in trade. Your bureaux have to be disciplined and professional, because the Commissioner will beat us if you are mavericks. And you have to be scrupulous about treating both colonial governments and Imperial Residents without fear or favour, because the LRA will beat us if you are partial.

Up until today the making of the Commission for Justice in Pegasus Sector has been in my hands. Tomorrow it passes into yours. When the gumshoe hits the pavement you will be the only authority within reach, the Deputy Commissioner a roaring but distant voice. From now on you set the standards, you make the reputation, and you decide the fate of the Commission for Justice.

And now it is 10:45. In twenty other scenescapes of the Hill of the Areopagos, twenty other groups of future acting Imperial Marshals have just heard a speech by their academy principals, similar in intention to this but perhaps better expressed. Simultaneously across the Empire we raise our cups and drink to our strangely uninspiring slogan: "Effectiveness! Probity! Impartiality!"

The cups contain grape-flavoured Kool-Aid.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

The cups contain grape-flavoured Kool-Aid.

With a barely perceptible shrug, Hart drinks the Kool-Aid.

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by t@nya

Penny (shaking her head)

I'm afraid not, sorry. I'm already using my guest ticket for my uncle.

Kiloni

That is so okay! I'm glad you were able to use it.

Kiloni watches the proceedings with rapt interest although she cannot suppress the smile and the occassional bounce as she does so.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Hart

That is all. Enjoy your graduation. I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Kiloni lets out an excited squeal she had been holding in for quite a while. She runs out of the room as she speaks into her phone.

Kiloni (into her phone)

Hi Marshal! How did you do? What? <laugh> Marshal the acting marshal, that is so funny! Hey, listen, I need your help. Do you have a guest to the ball tonight? I need at least one more ticket for my mom. My dad is using my guest ticket.

She waits anxiously as she makes her way to the restaurant where she is meeting her family.

Kiloni

You can take her? Yay! Thank you you are the BEST!

She makes it to her destination and she plops down at the only available chair at the table.

Kiloni

Mummy, I was able to find an extra ticket for you and Daddy will be using my guest ticket but I'm not sure I'll be able to find tickets for Victor and them.

Marcus (laughing)

Good! I don't care too much about going to a stuffy ball. We have enough of those at home!

Donny

Really sis, don't worry about us. We came to see your graduation.

Marcus

Yeah babe. Don't worry about us. We'll take advantage of the lack of people and hang out somewhere. Seriously, don't worry about us. Please.

After recieving assurances from her brothers, she happily lets it go and she starts telling them about her new teammates. But she waits for call backs from various people. Eventually her phone rings and she answers it...

Kiloni

Hello...Oh! Hi Bear! Uh huh...<gasp> really?!? Oh that is so great! Helens and Young Mi? Fabulous! Just one more ticket then! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I owe you big time. Okay...See you tonight!

Kiloni

Oh my gosh! You won't believe it! One of the guys in my new team found a couple of young ladies who are in need of escorts! Yay! Now we only need to find two more tickets!

Donny (with fake enthusiasm)

Oh...joy

But then he laughs and gives his sister a hug.

Donny

Seriously kiddo, if it really means that much to you for us to go then we'll go. You just have to find that last ticket so we all can suffer together. And, in case the last two tickets don't turn up, who gets the reprieve?

Kiloni (laughing)

I'll leave that up to you guys to fight over. Oh my gosh! That was so sweet of him to do this for me! I really think this team will all work out fine!

Daddy (indulgently)

We will see, my dear, we will see. Your mother and I will meet them tonight.

After eating, she goes back to her room so she can prepare for the graduation and the other scheduled events, and to find that elusive last ticket. It takes a few more minutes and several more phone calls but by the end of it, her mission is accomplished and she is so giddy and excited she almost forgets to call her brothers and lets them know that everyone is going.

[Adina]

After meeting with Hart Bear heads out to visit with the other cadets. He sees several other foursomes coming out of or going into classrooms as well. Returning to the Refectory he chats with his classmates, informing them that they WILL dance with Liselle tonight (if they want to be able to dance at all for the next month that is) and asking around for Kiloni. Helena and Young Mi agree to take her brothers so he gives her a call.

At 10:00 he returns to his room. First he calls and arranges for an air-taxi to the ball. He spends the next half-hour reviewing the data on Rohan. After checking the program for the ball the next half-hour is spent reviewing dances. Then he freshes up, changes into dress uniform, checks his hair and after some final preening heads out to the Luncheon.

[Agemegos]

When each cadet returns to her or his room in the college, she or he finds that there has been a delivery made in her or his absence. A standard-size cabin trunk, dark grey in colour, is standing by the end of the bed. A maroon plaque on the door of the trunk has the cadet's name in cream lettering, and above the name is not the ignominious title "cadet" but "investigator".

Opening the trunk, the cadet finds unfamiliar uniforms: dark grey, deep maroon, and cream. The dress uniform trousers are dark grey with a maroon grosgrain stripe covering outside seam; every cadet has lost weight since her or his cadet's trousers were issued: the new ones fit perfectly. The dress shirt is a maroon turtleneck, the dress jacket double-breasted cream, with a stand collar and changshan closure. The white cadet's labels on the cuffs, each secured by a silver button, are agreeably subdued.

Any cadet who tries on his or her uniform in front of his or her dressing mirror will not be alone in doing so.

Riffling through the rest of the trunk, you find that the service uniform trousers are dark grey with a narrow maroon piping in the outside seam. The mess jacket is maroon, and the service jackets plain dark grey with maroon lining—without the contrasting fronts that are common in Imperial uniforms. Both are to be worn with a cream turtleneck. The cuffs of the mess and service jackets conspicuously lack white labels: they are already embroidered with the Justice Department badges of an Investigator.

There is a black baseball cap embroidered with the ICfJ badge, a dark grey dress cap with a shiny black peak and a removeable cream cover, but no cap-badge.

The space for the dress belt is empty. The service belt is retro-reflective blue and white chequering (Sillitoe tartan), with Sillitoe tartan strap and Day-Glo pink holster: one of the most hideous items of uniform ever issued, even though it does have an ICfJ-badge cloisonné buckle.

In the bottom of the trunk is a duralsteel drawer with a stout lock. The foam lining has wells for an issue stun pistol, spare battery, stun-wand, and pocket multitool. It is a gun safe, with ample space for two more pistols.

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

When each cadet returns to her or his room in the college, she or he finds that there has been a delivery made in her or his absence. A standard-size cabin trunk, dark grey in colour, is standing by the end of the bed. A maroon plaque on the door of the trunk has the cadet's name in cream lettering, and above the name is not the ignominious title "cadet" but "investigator".

Kiloni starts to bounce in excitement as she notices he new title.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Opening the trunk, the cadet finds unfamiliar uniforms: dark grey, deep maroon, and cream. The dress uniform trousers are dark grey with a maroon grosgrain stripe covering outside seam; every cadet has lost weight since her or his cadet's trousers were issued: the new ones fit perfectly. The dress shirt is a maroon turtleneck, the dress jacket double-breasted cream, with a stand collar and changshan closure. The white cadet's labels on the cuffs, each secured by a silver button, are agreeably subdued.

Riffling through the rest of the trunk, you find that the service uniform trousers are dark grey with a narrow maroon piping in the outside seam. The mess jacket is maroon, and the service jackets plain dark grey with maroon lining—without the contrasting fronts that are common in Imperial uniforms. Both are to be worn with a cream turtleneck. The cuffs of the mess and service jackets conspicuously lack white labels: they are already embroidered with the Justice Department badges of an Investigator.

She takes the time to examine each piece of clothing before putting them on. As each outfit is assembled, she inspects herself in the mirror silently critiquing the cut and colors and how it looks on her. And at the same time, she mentally plans on how best to fix her hair and makeup to compliment both the outfit and her skin.

Kiloni (thinking to herself)

Am I being a little too girly? Nah!

Originally Posted by Agemegos

There is a black baseball cap embroidered with the ICfJ badge, a dark grey dress cap with a shiny black peak and a removeable cream cover, but no cap-badge.

The space for the dress belt is empty. The service belt is retro-reflective blue and white chequering (Sillitoe tartan), with Sillitoe tartan strap and Day-Glo pink holster: one of the most hideous items of uniform ever issued, even though it does have an ICfJ-badge cloisonné buckle.

In the bottom of the trunk is a duralsteel drawer with a stout lock. The foam lining has wells for an issue stun pistol, spare battery, stun-wand, and pocket multitool. It is a gun safe, with ample space for two more pistols.

She inspects the rest of the items carefully and with great excitement. She looks at the weapons drawer.

Kiloni (thinking to herself)

Am I really going to need all these weapons? Hmm...I wonder if I can use some of these spots for my manicure and makeup kits.

[Icelander]

After the ceremony with Superintendant Isabo Wickramanaijke finished, Hart exchanged a few desultory words with classmates. Most of them were polite, but distant. Hart had formed few bonds of friendship in the six months of training. His only close friend in the Academy was Horus Vomact.

Vomact was pleased with his posting, but preoccupied with the problems of learning to adapt to the strange society on Nahal. They agreed that they should meet before heading out for their respective colonies, but no firm time was given and the commitment was vague.

Hart started for his quarters, reviewing data on his visor while walking. He’d need access to the Imperial Supply Net before he could properly get started on a list of what his people needed. He decided to get started on that. First he looked up the contact information for the Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Administration. He got a administrative assistant LAI telling him that the ADA (Administration) was busy and that queries could be directed to the Infonet Gateway for the Independent Commissioner for Justice.

No great surprise, Hart supposed. When he reached his quarters, he tried the ADA (Personnel) office, but didn’t get much further with them. After a few calls, he got a person who appeared to be in a great hurry and briskly explained to him that all access privileges for cadets assigned as Acting Marshals would come into effect after the graduation ceremony. She was not amenable to persuasion otherwise.

Hart sighed and leaned back in his chair. Then he smiled wryly at himself as he considered that he would get what he wanted after the ceremony was over. That was just a few hours away, while it could have taken days of alternating shouting, wheedling and filing reports to get anything like this done in the South Oceania Armed Defence Forces these days. Of course, that was in a peacetime service filled with the sons and grandsons of apparatchiks hoping a few years among the sword and shield of the fatherland would help them toward success. But the Empire is at least as efficient as we were when we were young, lean and at war for our lives.

Hart was pleased that he was working for a vast organisation filled with competent and intelligent people who were all as dedicated, efficient and selfless as he demanded from the picked soldiers under his command in a time when the whole of his nation was engaged in a desperate war. But some part of him, that part which watched the rest of him, found it vaguely disquieting.

[t@nya]

Penny hurries back to her quarters as soon as the briefing is over, feeling pleased that her new boss is dedicated and doesn't waste any time getting to work, even if that work hasn't officially begun yet.

Upon arriving, she notices the trunk with her new title on it, and can't help but repress a smile as she opens it and discovers her new uniforms.

She leaves those for the time being, however, and brings up a search program on her computer, instructing it search for anything to do with the planet of Rohan, and sends some time reviewing the results, learning all she can about the place where she will be working.

With some time to spare, she then prepares for lunch, sending her uncle a reminder message to hopefully jog him out of his no doubt alcohol induced sleep.

Having showed and changed into her morning dress uniform, she heads to the place where the graduates will be having lunch, arriving a little before the designated time.

[Agemegos]

The buffet lunch for the ICfJ investigator's graduation is held outdoors, in a park beside the lake. This is a mercy, because outdoors one can put one's hat on, which leaves both hands free. There is an art to managing a plate and glass at a stand-up luncheon when one has one's hat under one's elbow, but the investigator's course didn't cover it. Even with both hands free, one hand to hold a plate, one to wield a fork, and one to hold a glass makes for a pretty problem. The old hands at this sort of thing reveal their expertise by the fact that they ate before they came, and are ignoring the food, the better to concentrate on drink.

About three hundred people a present: the graduands, the freshman class, the instructors and the staff of the residential college, the Deputy Commissioner and his staff in civilian morning suits.... Friends and relatives of the graduands are few and far between: most of the class have no family within ten light-years, nor has had time to make the sort of friends who will come to a boring official dress-luncheon in the middle of a work day. Kiloni is unique in having family who have made an interstellar journey to attend her graduation, and her flock of brothers and parents is in some demand for small-talk. Also, it seems, as possible escorts for tonight.

Five cadets are wearing medals, including Bear Karapyetchenko and Horus Vomact. Vomact has previously only made an impression of being rather good-looking and of making quiet comments that turn out on consideration to be rather barbed, and those few people who can read his ribbons are quite surprised to discover that he is wearing the Distinguished Service Medal, which has to be awarded by the Capital. Such jewellery is not found in crackerjack boxes.

Bear and Vomact have just got around to discovering that they are both veterans of the same regiment when the Deputy Commissioner, systematically greeting all the graduands with the help of smart nametags and a locating system, arrives to take over the conversation. He is wearing a civilian morning dress suit, and utters a flow of polished commonplaces, which fails to impress either of the marines. When he moves on, Vomact makes no attempt to take up the previous thread of the conversation.

Vomact

I'm stationed to Nahal, where one has to learn to do without that sort of thing. Trials of the Service.

Karapyetchenko

Nahal? What's it like?

Vomact

I've never been there, but the people sound stark mad. It's an anarchy enforced by small-arms fire, and the locals pretend they can't tell men from women. On the other hand, everything is said to run on honour, and soft-soaping self-promoters are shot on sight as a general precaution. I think I'll be able to adjust. Where have you got?

Karapyetchenko

Some place called "Rohan", where everyone wears masks.

Vomact

Ah! Hart told me about it. You'll be on his team?

Karapyetchenko

That's right. Do you know Hart?

Vomact

Met him on the course.

Presently the Deputy Commissioner returns, and approaches from the other side. He says exactly the same things to Karapyetchenko that he previously said to Vomact, and then moves on to find #66 in class order.

Eventually the alloted time for this nonsense draws to a close, and the graduands' softly chiming computers lead them to their places for the start of the ceremony.