[IC] Wear a Badge, Carry a Gun

[ladyarcana55]

Kiloni speaks to Hart afterwards. She had been watching the exchange between Hart and the captain, thankful that she did not have to deal with that.

Kiloni

Wow, that was awkward. Anyway, I have some ideas for our masks. When you have some time, perhaps we can all sit down and discuss them?

[Icelander]

Hart

Just so, Ms. Queldrona.

Shall we say a team meeting at 1000 ZULU tomorrow? That should allow for departure and spin-stabilisation.

Hart keys in the time and agenda for the meeting, sending off a message to those who didn't hear his conversation with Kiloni. Evidently, Bear and Penny Drake are expected to give progress reports of their assignments as well.

[Agemegos]

Four hours after the team get aboard the Stratheden there is a series of gentle lurches having something to do with casting off from the highport and moving out to a safe distance on attitude jets. Fifteen later minutes a gong sounds and a contralto voice announces a warning.

Voice

Acceleration warning. The ship will begin accelerating in two minutes. Secure loose items. Strap yourself in. One-half gee in two minutes.

A minute later:

Voice

Acceleration warning! The ship will begin accelerating in one minute. Strap yourself in. One-half gee in one minute.

And fifty seconds later three plangent gongs.

Voice

Hold on, hold on! Acceleration!

There is a steady application of immense power, and the gravity rises smoothly to half a standard gee. Bear wonders how the hell anyone is supposed to sleep through all this. But when he decides to go out and find a fresher he discovers that the door to his stateroom is now in the roof. This state of affairs persists for about half an hour, after which weightlessness returns and the first sitting of breakfast is announced. Bear never gets hungry much in free-fall anyway, and reckons that he does not want to be there while groundhogs are attempting breakfast in free fall. So he does on PT kit and goes to find a gym and a shower. When he gets back to the stateroom Hart is gone, and the beds have reconfigured themselves in the knowledge that what was once a minutely-curved bulkhead will soon be the deck. Bear shrugs himself into a summer-weight service uniform and goes out to find out where everything is.

At 09:00 they start putting a spin on the ship, with interesting transitions. But everything is settled down in time for Hart's 10:00 conference. The trip is going to take nineteen days. Bear wonders how much of it Hart is going to try to fill with activity.

[Agemegos]

After a couple of hours in team conference, Penny and Kiloni go to scout the passenger facilities. Stratheden has enough people aboard to count as a small town or very large village. Many of them are rich. And nearly all are at a loose end, their jobs and lives suspended for twenty days while they wait to arrive at Rohan. They are idle, incommunicado, cut off for weeks from both their hopes and their cares. Stratheden is designed to keep them occupied, and a surprising range of ways to pass the time has been packed into her limited space.

The passengers haven't had time to get bored yet, and there is a holiday atmosphere in the ship. The casinos and the holo-cabarets are thronged. The squash-courts are booked out for days. But for a mercy the eating-places are not congested, perhaps because nearly half of the passengers are Rohanese, and do not care to witness alimentation, even when they are playing at being sophisticated, cosmopolitan citizens of the Empire.

Penny and Kiloni take a booth, buy an overpriced coffee each, and settle down for a chat and some people-watching. The very first people who pass are a couple of strangers in the grey and maroon of the ICfJ, each with a maroon and cream chevron on his or her upper arm, and a device on his or her cuff of a pair of crossed keys. Kiloni catched Penny's eye. Penny shrugs. Kiloni halloos and calls the couple over.

The man is not especially tall, but has exceptionally broad shoulders, and legs like hams. His face is good-looking enough, but lacks animation; his hair is an erect pelt of coarse and shiny black; and his brick-red complexion clashes vilely with his uniform. His name-tag says "Bowen".

The woman is as tall as her partner, big-boned and athletic. Her features are too strong and blunt to be called good-looking, and her complexion would seem to have spent a long time out of doors. Wavy blonde hair is trained into a neat, self-maintaining short-back-and-sides, parted on the left. Her eyes are a pale and somehow disquieting yellow-green. Her handshake is firm.

Freyja Bowen (with a marked accent)

Hi! I'm Freyja Bowen, and this is my husband Jaeger.

Jaeger nods deeply or bows slightly as he shakes hands. There is something odd about his smile.

Kiloni (shaking hands)

I'm Kiloni Queldrona

Penny (shaking hands)

Penthesilea Drake. Call me "Penny".

Freyja

You'll be the marshals for Rohan, I reckon. Jaeger and I are going to be bailiffs. Pleased to meet you at last! You marshals are like phantoms! Though I hear that one of the lawyers met one last week.

Before long a lunch has been proposed and agreed to, and each party is busily dialling their friends.

[Icelander]

Hart is already wearing his service uniform and does not consider changing for lunch. He'll turn up shortly after the call is made, pausing only to access his immense store of Rohanese detail gathered by Penny Drake and review the names and personal details of the bailiffs posted to Rohan.

He'll introduce himself formally, but warmly. Make a point of mentioning that he hopes for a close and cordial relationship with the bailiffs once the post is reached. He'll ask everyone his name and what he used to do before this. Also what motivated him/her want to join the Sherrif's division of the ICfJ. He will likely have all this data already, but he wants to observe how they say it, not just what they say.

If he's asked about it, no matter whether it's in a curious or angry tone, he'll be quick to confirm that he is indeed that Colonel Hart, late of the Homeland Aegis Directorade on New Eden. He will say this without apparent shame, but not in a combative manner. Just a forthright statement of fact. Further conversation from that would depend on whether there were further questions.

[Agemegos]

At lunch there turn out to be ten ICfJ staff besides the marshals. Once all the introductions are made and the life-stories exchanged, it emerges that they all are as follows.

• Freyja Bowen, 51, bailiff
  • A former deputy sheriff from the Wyeva County Sheriff's Department, on Ritho.
  • Joined up because she had had to cut her husband down after a lynch-mob got him. Twice.
• Jaeger Bowen, 42, bailiff
  • Formerly a professional of some sort of full-contact body sport that is hard to explain, on Ritho.
  • Joined up because his wife did.
• Willem Chu, 81, chief bailiff
  • Formerly a corporal of the 209th Regt., Imperial marines.
  • Native of Rohan.
  • Signed up because he didn't want to leave the Service, hoping for a job as a cop or something.
• Millicent Compair, 90, clerk to the Imperial Judge
  • Formerly a litigator specialising in personal injury, on Bonanza.
  • Joined up because she was sick of trying to climb the ladder.
• Winston Dieguez, 35, prosecuting barrister
  • Formerly a police-court prosecutor in Piraeus.
  • Transferred to get more challenging work.
• Boral Ferguso, 28, psychtech.
  • Formerly a psychiatric registrar on Todos Santos.
  • Wanted interesting and useful work.
• Faisal Golding, 35, bailiff
  • Formerly a SWAT officer in South Oceania, New Eden.
  • Signed up after being fired for "undesirable political activities", and finding himself blacklisted from any work except sales on commission and modelling swimwear.
  • Looks like a swimwear model.
• Bhutt I'Anson, 40, bailiff
  • Formerly Mayor's Protective Detail, White City, Pegasex.
  • Boycotted by his colleagues after turning State's Witness in a bad shooting.
• Arudhami Sorizoki, 76, defending barrister
  • Formerly puisne judge in New Sunrise, Tau Ceti.
  • Had reached compulsory retirement age on Tau Ceti.
• Spulak Raymona, 65, bailiff
  • Formerly Wildlife and Fisheries Inspector on Paradise II.
  • Had inspected enough fish and wildlife to last a lifetime.

Hart reckons that his prospects of forming a warm relationship with Golding are remote.

Bear finds Dieguez's greeting cool, and is at first perplexed. He doesn't remember treading on the man's feet at the Ball. In fact he doesn't remember meeting Dieguez at the Ball at all. After a couple of minutes he twigs: Dieguez was the date whom Lisa Hermeline dumped when she and Bear met the first time.

[Agemegos]

At 18:40 the ship is 100,000 km from the highport, and more significantly from Metheglin itself. Chimes ring through the the ship, and the officious contralto warns of a transition into warp, to occur in five minutes. There are no instructions as to what to do about it, but the old hands at space travel make short work of their remaining pre-dinner cocktails, and a few elderly passengers mutter something about taking a nap before dinner and make themselves scarce. At 18:45 the speakers chime a mournful and urgent little tune, and there is a profoundly disturbing sensation, a revolting internal wrench, feeling as though a large ball bearing had rolled down an iron pipe from each person's pelvis to his or her head, and there stopped with a sudden clunk against a lead stopper. The effect is deeply revolting, and many of the weaker brethren go green around the gills.

The ship is now encapsulated in a little bubble of warped space, it's own private universe. And here it will stay for nineteen days, until it arrives at Rohan.

[Icelander]

When Hart hears the announcement, he pales visibly. He puts down his club soda and heads for his quarters. He does not quite run, but nor does he linger for more than a desultory comment to the end that he looks forward to seeing all ICfJ personnel at dinner. Hart makes it the room he shares with Bear with about 30 seconds to spare and manages to put his steel-rimmed glasses to the side before throwing himself down on the bed.

He remains there, profoundly miserable, until his datastick chimes to remind him of dinner. Rising slowly, Hart moves to put on mess uniform. He suddenly remembers that he was told that dinner on the first night would be casual clothes and elects to retain his service uniform. The fact that he has just spent considerable time curled into a ball on his bed while wearing this uniform does not enter his mind. He simply grabs his glasses, puts datastick and visor into uniform pockets and heads for the ‘fresher in the hallway. There he splashes water in his face, forgets to comb his hair and from there proceeds to the dining room.

[Adina]

Dinner is marked by the sound of lively and spirited voices as the new ICfJ staff for Rohan get to know one another.

As dinner is ending Bear rises to his feet and picks up his glass.

Bear

Fellow Justicars, (is that a word?), if you would take up your glasses, and let me take up your attention, I find that I would like to propose a toast. This is an ancient and honorable toast, one that goes back to days on Old Earth when those in service sailed in ships of oak and wind. Days when they would be gone from home and hearth for months and years. By tradition this would fall to the person who has been in service the longest. This night I am going to pretend that I am that person, though others may take up this duty on future Saturdays.

Bear bows slightly to Chu, who simply raises his glass in answer.

Bear

And Saturday is the proper day. For now we are all in service and in the traditions of our new service, this is the end of our week. For us tonight is both a beginning and an end. A beginning, for we have answered the call of Justice, and travel now, to take up that yoke of Duty. An end, for we have left our homes behind. We have left friends, comrades, families, or lovers behind to join together. We have trained relentlessly, these past months, made new friends and lovers, and of these too we now find that ‘Seas between us braid hae roared’.

So lest we forget, I offer this simple toast.

To absent friends.

There is a moment of silence. then quietly, yet strongly, the reply comes.

Omnes

To absent friends.

[Icelander]

Hart does not quite feel up to rich food yet, so he has tea instead. After taking some time to steady his stomach, he is able to request porridge flavoured with a pinch of salt. He deems this least likely to further upset his innards, still somewhat jittery from the use of the Eichberger drive to drop into warp.

During the meal, Hart converses with the new people who will be sharing their post. He seeks the opinions of the prosecutor, defence attorney and the clerk to the Judge on the interpretation of the rights of the accused, citing a need to explain them to detainees. He will also query those people with previous experience of Rohan about their impressions of the place and its culture.

At the end of the meal, when Bear rises up to drink the Navy toast of the day, Hart lifts his tea cup with the others and mouths ‘To absent friends and those at sea’ while thinking of other liners sailing the deep black seas of space.