MGiS 6 - Proportional Response - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Look, when I told you to prioritize messages originating from Clan McLaughlin, I meant it! I don’t care that I was in a meeting.

By the time that I found the transmission notice on my desk, the opportunity window had already closed.

This is a deal between Clan Sire Desmond McLaughlin and the Irongrip Consortium. Not Adept McLaughlin in his capacity as a member of the Hegemony military. Frankly, I don’t care if his clan is small right now. This opportunity is too big to miss or put at risk by skirting protocol.

We have to play this entirely by the books, which means using the public comm lines and having official meetings.

Next time Clan Sire McLaughlin contacts me, you interrupt whatever you need to in order to let me know. 

~Nadine Irongrip, Head of the Irongrip Consortium, overheard chastising her secretary.

The next two days of leave on the station passed in a whirl of errands. Now that Bell had officially joined their team, Arsenal flew into action.

All five of Desmond’s girls pooled some of their funds to help get Bell and Audra’s equipment up to par with the rest of the squad, obstinately refusing to let Desmond do it this time.

Bell moved into the remaining spare room in Desmond’s quarters, one that had been vacant since Faye had left to resume her duties as an imperial quester. The discovery that she had the room to herself, rather than sharing one with Audra, was such a treat that Bell had broken into a silly dance on the spot.

“You have no idea how nice this is!” Bell had crowed, stretching her arms and wings out wide. “I’ve shared bunk space with three other sergeants for the last several years. Having this much space to myself is way more than I had hoped.”

Desmond just watched in amusement as the Gaur woman inspected her new quarters while the girls smothered snickers of amusement. None of them spoke out though, as they all—save Audra—had acted similarly when joining Desmond’s squad.

Bell integrated with their squad seamlessly, happily folding into the group dynamic. The only issue came when the girls had all contributed to a fund to help equip her properly, but those protests had died when Chloe took her aside and explained how Desmond split up the squad’s pay.

Despite Monika’s assurances that her grandmother would reach back out to him, Desmond did not receive a response from the Irongrip Consortium before the Fist of Defiance departed again on their next patrol. He did send Monika a thank-you message though and let her know he was waiting to hear back.

It honestly didn’t surprise him that a galactic-level company took longer than a few days to respond, so he didn’t worry about it too much. Meanwhile, Audra continued to expand her research into options for investments to keep their assets diverse.

Desmond did his best not to think about the fact that his bank account had seven digits even after Audra’s initial ‘test’ investments were made. His mates had suggested pooling their funds for the investments to make it a ‘Clan McLaughlin’ venture, but Audra had asked them to hold off until she had more market information.

So the Fist of Defiance once more sailed into the glittering night sky, back to its patrol with two more adepts on board to lighten the load on its crew.

‘Light’ was definitely the mood of the crew that first night back aboard. There were quite a few among the ship’s marine complement who were suffering hangovers even well into the evening, but like marines everywhere, they did not let that get them down.

“It is astonishing how many people are playing this game,” Jorgia murmured as she stared at the holographic play surface. Desmond’s squad was huddled around the table, getting themselves set up for the evening.

“It’s easy to pick up, and cheap to get started,” Desmond said with a shrug, gesturing at the nearly dozen other groups of between four and eight folks playing. Easily three times that number were spectating and chatting as the rattle of metal on metal echoed while dice were rolled. “Plus, it’s a fun distraction from the regular media. Tomorrow is a movie night, so expect three times this many to show up.”

“Movie?” Jorgia asked, rolling the word around on her tongue like she was tasting it.

The regal Va’Aelfa woman had two of her guards with her at the moment, one of the ursine Taari that Desmond had still not managed to get the name of, as well as Giselle, who gave Desmond an extra-deep head-bow when they caught eyes.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like a holo-vid, but only two dimensional. My species hasn’t developed the technology for holo-vids yet, but we’ve been doing movies for a long time now. The crew really likes them,” Desmond said with a shrug.

“That might be due to the creators’ penchant for getting the male characters to end up shirtless,” Raegan suggested.

“I think it’s more to do with novelty, but I won’t argue that point probably helps,” Desmond shot back, matching Raegan’s shit-eating grin with one of his own. “Regardless, I got a data-dump of media as a gift from the ambassador in charge of handling Terra’s integration. So I do showings here in the rec room twice a week. Not everyone comes to them, but enough folks enjoy them that it’s worthwhile.”

“Ooh, I came at just the right time,” came a familiar, higher-pitched voice.

Desmond craned his neck to spot the speaker, as Zee’s shorter stature made it easy to lose her amongst the other women wandering about. The shuttle pilot squeezed between two of the couches, coming to a stop next to Lila and giving the Va’Aelfa a friendly fist-bump.

“Hey, Zee. What’s up? You got a new schedule for Lila’s shuttle time?” Chloe asked.

The horned woman was, for once, not sitting directly next to Desmond. Their game nights were basically the only times she wasn’t glued to his side while at rest, since Desmond needed the space to run the game. Instead, she sat on the next couch in the U-shaped formation, right beside a happily bouncing Sasha.

“Naw, everything is still good on the old schedule,” Zee answered with a wave of her hand that sent her myriad bits of jewelry clattering and rattling. “I wanted to ask your boss fella if the movie had been scheduled or not. I got a couple more of the girls from the shuttle crews interested, and—”

“Ooh ooh ooh! Top Gun!” Raegan interrupted. The thick Boghet woman laughed and pointed directly at Raegan while nodding in agreement.

“Yup, she gets it. I know you’ve aired that one a few times, but I’ve been talking it up to a few of my girls and figured it couldn’t hurt to ask,” Zee said with a grin, turning her attention back to Desmond.

“I’d normally consider bumping it up in the rotation, but the one I have scheduled is a classic. Predator won’t disappoint, I promise.”

“That’s a new one,” Sasha said, her ears perking up excitedly. “I thought we’d watched everything from the files.”

“Naw, we just watched all the ‘standard classic’ movies. Predator straddles the line between action and horror fairly well, so I’ve been saving it,” Desmond said with a grin. “There are still dozens of movies we haven’t gotten to yet. I think you girls are going to love Treasure Planet when we get to it.”

There were several excited murmurs from the groups watching Desmond’s table as they got set up, confirming that the rest of the crew was already looking forward to it too.

“Any chance I can get in on this game?” Jorgia asked curiously, looking closer at Audra’s data-tablet when the Nagat offered it to her so she could see the character sheet. “It looks interesting, and you are right, something simple to get started would be fun. There is only so long you can play holo-games without getting bored.”

“Not tonight,” Desmond said immediately as he started populating the game map with tokens. The figures that had been rendered for each of the girls popped up, as did their car and the various enemies. “Gloomtreader is normally not too bad when it comes to having a character dropping in, but they are in the middle of finishing a job. If you want to watch though, you are welcome. There are other games folks are playing if you don’t feel like this one. Bell is sitting out too, since she missed the planning session on this job.”

Desmond nodded to the Gaur woman, who sat on the couch to his right with her wings draped over the back of the couch. She was studying her data-tablet intently, tapping through menus while the other girls settled in.

“Gloomtreader?” Jorgia asked, shifting over to where Bell sat. “Do you mind if I ask you about it, Bell? I don’t want to distract from their game by peppering Desmond with questions.”

“We appreciate that,” Lila said heartily. “This is going to be a complicated enough mess to get out of as it is.”

“You guys were the ones who chose not to hire the shaman for a concealment ritual,” Desmond reminded them with a smirk. “Just because this gang focuses on production and sale of illicit drugs doesn’t mean they are dumb.”

“Cyber drugs,” Chloe grumbled playfully, fishing the cloth pouch that held her dice out of her pocket and spreading it out on the side table beside her to rest the metal shapes on. “Why would a group that produces cyber drugs hire magical protection?”

“Because the magical drug trade doesn’t like competition,” Sasha suggested, her tail wiggling happily behind her back. “I did suggest it, but the group agreed that it would cut into the profits too much to do.”

The girls continued to poke fun at each other while Jorgia murmured questions to Bell, which the Gaur woman answered in an equally low tone.

Despite talking to an adept and a member of a noble family, Bell addressed Jorgia with a smile and a relaxed demeanor. Jorgia had shown over the last several days that, while she had rank, she didn’t try and hold it over people needlessly.

If she did, then I wouldn’t be associating with her, Desmond thought wryly as he finished populating the map.

Checking his notes one last time, Desmond queued up the combat music on his data-tablet. When the strident guitar solo started up, conversation at the table died away and all eyes, even Jorgia’s and her guards’, turned to him.

“All right. Where we left off last time…”

<><><>

Gaming nights ran for several hours, so Desmond always planned in several breaks for folks to stretch their legs and make runs to the bathroom. As the storyteller, he rarely got to enjoy those breaks himself, because both his players and folks from other groups would come over and ask him questions during those lulls in the game.

“I know it’ll take time, but there is a list in the back of the reference book that’ll give you a step-by-step process for building the stat block for custom monsters. But if you don’t want to do that, try adding a template on top. That’s usually something you can do on the fly,” Desmond said while Nadia Radford nodded thoughtfully.

“I’ll probably have to design it from the ground up. My group has run into the standard monsters often enough that they’ll know how to handle them too easily,” Nadia said finally.

“That is a problem, but also acceptable as long as they are keeping what they know separate from what their character knows. If they don’t, it’s known as ‘meta-gaming’ and is considered bad form,” Desmond explained easily, using the Terran term, as Hegemony Standard didn’t have an equivalent term for ‘meta-gaming’ that he could think of.

“Yeah, they are good about that. I guess this is what you were warning us about when you mentioned the downsides of the mega-dungeon, right?” Nadia said, her striped tail flicking back and forth in annoyance while the claws of her forepaws scraped the metal decking quietly.

“Yeah, either you slow play it and your party ends up extremely familiar with the one to three types of monsters that are the primary occupants, or you build up a massive ecosystem that is somehow balancing itself until your group shows up.” Desmond shrugged, not at all bothered by the rasping of the Latsu woman’s claws.

Nadia had come over during the break to discuss an issue she was having, namely that the interest of the party was starting to wane as her players were more focused on the combat part of the game they were playing. She had been hoping that Desmond might have a trick or two to reinvigorate the party or some way to recycle monsters to keep up their current pace.

“Hmm… what about having a rival party showing up?” Desmond said after thinking for a moment. “Rather than having to come up with a bunch of new monsters, maybe have some of the more intelligent monsters band together? Also, have you been using the terrain?”

“Terrain? They are in a cave, there isn’t really a lot of terrain,” Nadia said in confusion.

Desmond grinned wickedly up at her and raised his eyebrows.

“Isn’t there? We are on a ship right now. Is every single inch of the ship the same ten-foot-wide corridor? Would invaders on the ship necessarily know every passage?” Desmond suggested. Nadia’s eyes lit up in excitement a moment later.

“Oh, that is devious! I was also thinking that they’d gotten too confident just storming into each cave and confronting the monsters, but I can use that…” Nadia murmured, a wicked grin growing on her lips.

“Let that devious mind work. If you need ideas for comparable cave systems, think about the layout of something like the Vigilant Titan or one of the space stations we stop at,” Desmond continued coaching her. “I guarantee that anyone living on board those would know far more secret ways around than any invader. Even something as simple as a kobold can be dangerous when they strike in numbers and from unexpected angles.”

“Thanks! I need to get back to my table,” Nadia said quickly, whirling to pad across the room to where her sisters waited with a few of their friends.

“You know that it’s kind of terrifying watching you do that, right?” Jorgia said from behind Desmond, and he turned about to glance at the Va’Aelfa questioningly.

“What do you mean?” Desmond asked, looking to Bell, Lila, and Raegan—who had just gotten back from the bathrooms to tag out with the others—in order to see if they knew what Jorgia meant.

“Dunno,” Raegan said with a shrug while finger-combing her thick mane, the metallic hair-clip she used held in her teeth. “Des, my hair—”

“Tonight is a brushing night, I won’t forget,” Desmond cut her off with a smile, and Raegan grinned back at him happily.

“Watching you handle problems and coaching the crew like this,” Jorgia answered when Desmond turned his attention back to her. “You handle them with so much ease, and the crew looks at you with so much respect that if I was Captain Skytreader, I’d be worried about doing something to offend you that would reflect in my entire crew’s morale or actions.”

“What?” Desmond asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“She’s right, you know,” Bell said smugly, her pink eyes scanning the room with a casual glance.

“But I’d never do something like that, you all know that,” Desmond countered, his tone terse.

“You wouldn’t have to,” Jorgia said, taking the conversation back over once more. “It’d likely happen without you even being aware. The fact that you aren’t doing it consciously just makes it more impressive.”

“I’m not doing what consciously?” Desmond’s irritation was growing at the circuitous way that Jorgia was addressing this. “No one from the command staff has said I’m doing anything wrong, beyond a couple who have complained that I’m not ‘upholding my rank,’ but they don’t talk for long because no one listens to them.”

“I’ve only been on board the ship for a few days, and I see it, Desmond. It’s not a bad thing, not with you doing it at least,” Jorgia said reassuringly, shifting to lean her hip against the sofa she’d been standing behind. “You naturally make others feel welcome around you, and you take their problems to heart.”

“She was just asking a question about her game… It’s not that complicated,” Desmond growled, rubbing his face with one hand.

“Yeah, but you didn’t just answer her question for her,” Jorgia insisted. “Instead, you led her to the idea, and only when she’d discovered the answer did you open the path further for her. I’ve seen more folks come by and do the same thing, asking you questions or just checking on you. The Boghet from earlier was one such example. She came by to say hello and make a request of you. One that I guarantee she wouldn’t have made of me or the other adepts aboard the Fist.”

“It’s just how you are, Desmond,” Lila said with a soft smile. “It was the same way with me. I half expected you to get upset with me because of my energy, but you embraced it and helped me redirect it positively.”

“I’d hardly say letting you teach Raegan parkour was a positive thing. Just watching you two wears me out…” Desmond teased back with a roll of his eyes, getting broad grins from both girls mentioned.

“Desmond, have you thought about the officers track?” Jorgia asked suddenly.

“Yeah, I actually got a recommendation for it before my assignment to the Fist of Defiance,” Desmond answered with a shrug. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the admiral and the others at the inquiry. I’d rather get experience in the field first before considering officer school, because I know there is a lot to learn from hands-on experience in tactics and leadership.”

“I definitely like it when you put your hands on me to learn,” Raegan said with another exaggerated eyebrow wiggle. Unfortunately, she’d raced with the comeback too quickly while she had her hair-clip between her teeth and dropped the item on the ground.

While Raegan scrambled to grab her dropped clip, Desmond just rolled his eyes at her.

“You are lucky Chloe isn’t around. That would deserve a boob smack,” Lila teased her friend.

“And that’s why I’m not getting them pierced,” Raegan said while bent over, her voice muffled from the position. “No matter how cute I think it’d look to match with her and Sasha. Chloe'd slap the piercings right out of them!”

“You’d be fine if you could just keep from making smartass comments,” Bell reminded her gently, though the smirk the Gaur was wearing said she knew it was an impossible task.

While the three of them bickered playfully, Jorgia leaned in to Desmond before speaking again.

“I won’t try and pressure you to go for officer, or even recommend it for you. But as someone who grew up with several commanding officers in the family, I wanted to let you know something.”

“Which is?” Desmond asked, letting the playfulness fall aside and seriously listening to Jorgia. While he was still conflicted about her words earlier and the potential accusation that had been in them, he was fairly sure she hadn’t meant it in a bad way.

“Officers who can command the loyalty and respect of their crew effortlessly are hard to find. Those who forge true attachment and connections to their crew are even more precious, because of what they can achieve as the heart of their loyal crew.”

Jorgia’s earnest expression grew somber before she continued, and Desmond paid close attention to her words.

“The hardest part about those precious ones though, is that close ties to their crew takes a toll on them when they have to give the hard orders. So I can understand you being wary of going into that position. I guess I just wanted to say that I see what you are doing, and I think pursuing an officer position is the right call. Having people amongst the crew that can approach you for anything can be more important than many believe.”

With that, Jorgia stood upright once more and wandered away with her two guards in tow. Desmond watched her go while he thought over her words and what the Va’Aelfa had meant.