Thinking back, he'd never left me with such a cold look in his eyes
26 Apr 2021User319792
"Is that really why?""mmhmmm"
The man in the black suit stood on the platform looking at me. His eyes were squinting and his eyebrows were pushed together and slightly raised in the middle of his forehead and his mouth was slightly opened.
"So Ovid wasn't just some weird word you came up with? I always wondered why you never came up with any good ship names."
"They're all good ship names."
"Wait, but I thought you hated the overall Imperial oeuvre."
"I don't see how me looking into the history of our race based on the hoity toity bullcrap my slave-owners used to talk about at their benefits and galas to make themselves feel like they were higher on the rungs of Imperial status would in any way disqualify me from being someone that hates Imperial 'society.'"
"Well... I mean..."
He looked away briefly before looking back at me.
"So... What's the deal with this one?"
He looked up at the ship I called him over to check out.
"Well, apparently there was this huge war on Sol way before people were even flying in a place called Rome. This guy was a dictator or something and then a bunch of Senators murdered him to save the government from his dictatorship and then the war broke out and his nephew was on one side of the war and then finally won and made himself the new dictator."
I walked just underneath it and waved my arms at the nameplate.
"So this guy Octavian was the guy's nephew?"
"Yeah, something like that. Apparently he changed his name a bunch after that but that was his real name."
"Don't you have to be a Duke to get the clearance to buy one of these things?"
I squinted.
"I am a Duke of the Imperial Navy."
He immediately started laughing.
"You can't be a Duke. You don't even like Imperials."
"Its a Naval rank. It doesn't really mean anything in Imperial society, apparently. They made me read a bunch of stuff and recite a bunch of lines about always representing the Empire with honor and treating people with respect and the kindness appropriate to someone of such high stature and a bunch of other mumbo jumbo. I don't know, they probably went straight back into their briefing rooms to plan more slave raiding missions afterward."
He laughed again while looking around for anyone within earshot.
"Cadence... you can't," he tried through the laughs before giving up and moving on to the next thought, "So where are you headed now? We haven't inked any deals yet with any specific factions for you and Coral."
"I was thinking I just sign up for that courier gig, again. I'm probably gonna do some trading, too, so I can pick up some more credits. I've gotta get this thing outfitted before taking it out"
"Wait, you don't even have enough to take this thing out, right now?
"Well, no..."
"So why would you even..."
"Don't question my decisions. Anyway, I might try to get myself a Kingship just to see if these Imperial fluff-pieces actually live by their own ideals"
He stopped laughing. His face was stone.
"Hold that thought."