They're not exactly mixed messages
19 May 2021User319792
The man in the black suit looked disinterested when his face appeared in the holofac. It'd been nearly a week since he set me up in Achenar with a suit that was clearly in love with The Emperor. I got out of there after a few days of cruising around and hit some resource extraction sites in Tzu before picking up Cortez."How's Octavian, Cadence?" His eyes slowly rolled downward as he asked the question before swinging them upward to meet mine.
"She's fine, I suppose. I'm sure she'd be doing a lot better if I had her with me right now instead of sitting at Dawes, though." His eyes gazed unfocused at me through the holofac and he stared at me for a short before before tilting his head slightly upward and to the right.
"Oh, is it still there? I thought I already told you that I must have just mistaken you for Coral. What an unfortunate error on my part, Cadence." I squinted and furrowed my brows.
"Are you still upset about that? You know... if anyone should be upset, it should be me. I'm the one that can't even fly some of my own ships- my own property, by the way- without having to suffer the indignities of the onslaught of appropriation and expansionism." It was his turn to squint. His eyes darted to the left for a short moment before a wave of comprehension came upon his face. His eyes looked back at me and his shoulders jumped.
"Are you talking about Imperials in the way your slavemasters used to during their galas again?" I remained silent for a while, my eyes darting to and fro, before looking back at him.
"Yes," I looked away and continued, "yes I am. Do you even know what its like in there if you're not a bonafide supporter of the Emperor?" He looked at me, again, his eyes taking on that unfocused look.
"Yes, Cadence. Yes I do. I thought you'd really like it around The Emperor's most devoted." It seemed like he was avoiding something. I squinted at him again before moving on.
"If I knew you were gonna be such a baby about this whole thing, I wouldn't even have bothered putting in for the promotion. Would it make you feel better if I just sold Octavian, huh? If I sold it, could I just bring the rest of them back to Cubeo or wherever?" He responded with exaggerated clarity in his voice,
"No, you may not, Cadence. What you may do is as you were instructed pertaining to the remainder of your work with the Imperial Navy and the berthing of your Gutemaya vessels." My chin dropped to my neck and I looked away. I'd just dropped off a cargo load full of Aisling pledges at Kuwemaki and came close to donating some credits to Cubeo Silver to help them keep their control territories in order.
"So, what... I'm just supposed to stay in Achenar, then?"
"I don't have any recollection of those being your instructions, Cadence. Your instructions were extremely specific to Gutemaya vessels and Imperial advancement missions. You're free to do as you choose, otherwise." I looked back at him in the holofac, half-rolling my eyes, and let it go.
"Well, good. I just picked up half-a-billion credits running Bauxite over to Semeonis in the past three days of work. I'm a trader by trade. You do know that, right? I'm not just some Imperial lackey-in-the-making." His eyes took on a look of understanding.
"Ohh. You seem to be operating under a misapprehension, Cadence. We're not interested in being an Imperial lackey. What we're interested in is YOU DOING YOUR JOB!" His rapid change in volume startled me and I inadvertently moved my head back to dodge an invisible punch. I laughed a little after realizing what I'd just done. I rolled my eyes again and they settle on him. His face had taken on the look of disinterest again.
"Again, if you're gonna be a baby about this I can leave them where they are and I can take Imperial missions at Dawes. Fiiiiine. Can I at least do some trading before I go back over there? I wanna refit Descartes and Hobbes. Some of the guys I've been speaking to said I can fit a manifest scanner and an FSD interdictor and still have enough room to for enough shield boosters and hull reinforcements to get some real work done." He leaned back in his chair, briefly exiting the range of the holo sensors before responding. His voice preceded his face by half-a-sentence.
"Absolutely not, Cadence. Aren't you a trader? How could you even think to do something like that?" His face took on the sternest of looks. "Piracy and smuggling is extremely illegal around the galaxy and you'll be placing yourself onto the radar of various factions as a potential threat to their sovereignty and trade." As he shut off his comms, I could see him looking at me with the corners of his lips tucked tightly into his cheeks as his chest shuddered repeatedly.