The Duke of Painite - Part 2 - A Knight of Kutjalangai
04 Dec 2019Smertkopf
I attained my knighthood with less fanfare than might be expected. It wasn't like the period-holos where the knighted one is down on one knee while some hoary and ancient Lord taps them on each shoulder with a sword. My knighthood ceremony came in the form of a message from the Pilot's Federation on my comms panel informing me of my new status. It wasn't a complete anticlimax, however, for I also received by actual space-mail a badge of office denoting my rank and offering the congratulations of Emperor Alyssa herself. As tempting as it might be to believe otherwise, I very much doubt that the Emperor has any clue that I even exist, but I could be mistaken.I hadn't been much involved in Imperial society before this foray into social climbing, so I will share some of my observations from the perspective of an up-jumped nobody with more green in his bank balance than blue in his blood:
Slavery: The elephant in the room. At least here in Kutjalangai, there seems to be a don't ask/don't tell attitude about it. Amongst the many missions I am doing here in the system there are delivery contracts, and occasionally I will see hauling offers to transport Imperial Slaves from one system to another. These missions I always pass up, and it makes me feel fairly awful to think that I'm doing business with people who allow such an indignity as chattel bondage.
Of course and as always, it's never as simple as it first appears. One hiccup is the disturbing number of slaves who themselves support the institution. I spoke with more than a few who had sold themselves in order to get out from underneath a debt. When I protested that the loss of one's freedom was a very high price to pay in order to resolve a debt, one young woman destined for the pleasure gardens of Chawla Orbital for a three year term as a courtesan retorted that if she had to pay her debt off through the free work available to her, it would take her twenty years to do so, so why not lay on one's back for three years instead? I shudder at the thought, but there is a cold practicality to the slave girl's outlook, and I silently hoped for her that the three years would go by quickly and not ruin her completely. Something tells me she'll be alright.
Knighthood: I haven't made a lot of noise around Hawker Vision that I've attained social rank, but nonetheless it would appear that there is an underground network of sorts that keeps tabs on all new and current members of the local aristocracy, whose lowest ranks I had now entered upon becoming a Knight. I learned of the network when I was contacted by one of its agents, a man who went by the handle of Master Theodoric Archibald XIII, and who was every bit as foppish as the name would suggest, believe you me. I immediately took to calling him Theo, and though I could tell it clearly annoyed him, I outranked him and so he had to put up with it. Before you judge me too harshly, reader, you should know that Theo is insufferable. He is every stereotype of Imperial arrogance and complacency rolled into one, and what's worse, he knows it. In fact, I think he glories in it.
Theo at first attempted to impress me with his expensive clothing and Imperial airs, but I'm no rim-world rube, and before long I ordered him to tell me what he wanted and to then be on his way. Choking on the contempt that my superior station forced him to hide, he stiffly presented me a package wrapped in gold-leaf paper and tied with a black silk ribbon and then coldly took his leave with a perfunctory "Sir" and the minimum amount of bowing required. Inside the box was an invitation to the penthouse of one Lord Evyn Bartleby on Langley Terminal the very next evening in honor of my attainment of rank. I had heard of this Bartleby, and he had a reputation as a bit of a loon, so there was no way I was missing that soiré.
I was greeted at Langley by a trio of the most beautiful women I've ever laid eyes on, who claimed to be sent by Lord Bartleby himself and swept me into a gleaming black luxury transport with a fully-stocked minibar that took us all to the Lord's penthouse, a complex of apartments featuring levels of opulence that could best be described as 'obnoxious'. After being ushered through a foyer containing a few hundred million credits worth of antique holo-art from the 21st century (a thing for which Bartleby apparently has a passion, as the stuff seemed to be displayed everywhere), I met the Lord of the penthouse, a very fat and very gregarious man whose garish clothing seemed designed to give headaches to onlookers. He grabbed my hand in two greasy mitts and shook it heartily, yelling for a glass of the house vintage for the guest of honor. I never got a word in the entire night, but I received from Bartleby's loose lips a treasure trove of gossip stretching across every level of the Imperial hierarchy, information that will certainly prove invaluable to my future ambitions should any of it amount to anything more than meaningless bluster.
I did not spend long as a knight. The day after Bartleby's party in my honor, I took on a full roster of pirate assassinations and delivery missions. The systems around Kutjalangai are a hotbed of pirate activity, and having no love for those pillaging bastards, I happily flew out to send them to whatever hell awaits their kind. By the time the day was up, I was turning in an Imperial Navy strike contract for my promotion to Lord. It is there that we will pick up in the next entry. Until then, fly safe, and pay your debts!
o7
CMDR Smertkopf