'Til All the Stars Are Yours: A Homestuck Snippet.
Eridan Ampora is a young, well regarded Captain in Her Imperial Condescension's fleet. He learned a lot of lessons from sGrub, but maybe not all the ones he should have.
...he pinned the visiting troll with a look that he'd practiced for weeks in front of a mirror. (It was important to have eyes and a gaze that could freeze opponents with fear, Dualscar had written, and it had certainly proved a useful skill.) "I do not recall givin you permission to touch my crew. In fact, I think I'd fuckin recall givin an aggressive fuckup like you permission to do anything besides breathe on my ship."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I said to read out the results of the scans, wiggler." The blueblood loomed, growing clearly more agitated as the orange blooded troll fought with the terminal in front of him, clearly unable to find the information he needed. Eridan, seated in his captain's chair, noted in approval at the way Zakti's shoulders set and the tension that ran through his ops troll's frame without interfering with his work. It had been a risk taking on a troll of such a low caste, but he had proven his mind was sharper than most of his blood type.
"I'm sorry highblood, b-but the data seems to have b-been erased or corrupted. The system registers the scans were done b-but I can't access any of the recordings. I've b-been trying to retrieve them since I started my shift, sir."
The blue-blood - a lieutenant-commander being transferred to a new ship after a black romance had gone brutally wrong - swung his arm back, a small, short crop appearing in his hand at the top if his swing, the damn thing whistling as it cut thorough the air. Showy and useless. If Eridan had been his captain he would have fined him for having such a stupid strife weapon and forced him to carry something actually offensive: the high blooded tendency to carry fashionable weaponry that couldn't kill a troll without extensive effort always made him unconscionably angry. The sound of the razor-sharp crop hitting flesh made several of his officers flinch.
The blue-blood stared in confusion and horror as magenta welled on Eridan's arm - held at an angle over Zakti's head - blood blossoming into a weal as the crop was pulled back, and before it splattered on the floor. "What - you - You moved! I wasn't trying to strike you!" Panicked he stuffed the crop away and stepped back, trying to distance himself from what he'd done. The bridge was deathly silent, the hum of machinery the white noise everyone grew accustomed to, not a single troll daring to even breathe loudly at the scene.
Eridan resisted the urge to smile. He looked at the bloody weal on his arm, judged that it had been aimed at Zakti's head and likely his rather pronounced horns, and let the arm fall gracefully to his side while he pinned the visiting troll with a look that he'd practiced for weeks in front of a mirror. (It was important to have eyes and a gaze that could freeze opponents with fear, Dualscarhad written, and it had certainly proved a useful skill.) "I do not recall giving you permission to touch my crew. In fact, I think I'd fuckin recall givin an aggressive fuckup like you permission to do anything besides breathe on my ship."
"He was disobeying me! You'd let a rust-blood disrespect me? How can you even have one on your bridge?" Scrambling for something to justify spilling the blood of a captain - a captain on his own ship, of a higher caste by two levels, Lieutenant-Commander Antares made his last mistake. "What are you, some sort of class sympathizer?"
Eridan refrained from breaking his nose outright, but the blue bruise the troll would be sporting when they docked with his new ship would have the telltale indentations of his captains rings in a neat row right under his eye. "If you called that disrespect I would hate to see how you manage your own crew. No wonder you're bein shipped." It was a black mark against any troll to be unable to control his romances and allow them to affect a fleet ship. Antares must have had some decent connections to avoid being culled outright in her Condesce's annoyance. "I think I ought to be sending you with a report. Disrespectful to the captain. Spilled blood. What do you think they'll do when the magenta blooded captain adds a second black mark to your dossier, Antares?"
"Are you threatening me?"
Eridan snorted. "No, threatening you is where I tell you what happens if I space you, takin footage of your explosive decompression to use as motivational videos for my crew. And if you fuck up so much as an inch more on my ship that's exactly what's gonna happen, Lieutenant-Commander. I'm no fuckin sympathist, you nooklicking piece of floatsam. Zakti's got a nack for the systems that makes him better than his betters - and he's on my bridge because he has a fuckin backbone." Eridan gave the orange-blooded troll a pat on the shoulder for the fact that he still wasn't flinching, despite the fact that the blue-blood was. He was a rare low-class troll who could keep his cool in a fight, and Eridan rewarded that accordingly. "If you think I'll let you randomly punish my crew for things they're not fucking responsible for, you're possibly too ignorant to let live. Now sit your fuckin ass back down." Eridan gestured to the guest's chair on the bridge that the blue-blood barely deserved, but he gave anyway. Keeping the troll around instead of dismissing him would serve three purposes - one, to assert that Eridan was the captain and in charge here; two, to keep the troll off balance and show his crew that he kept the rules of accountability on his ship, even for guests,; and three, because if he sent the troll out, he'd undoubtedly take his anger out on one of the low bloods working the drudge jobs on the ship, and that would have ruined the whole point of getting his arm trashed.
"What are you doing now?" The troll's hands hadn't stopped moving across his console during the last five minutes, another point to be pleased about. Eridan Ampora did not allow idiots on his bridge. Present guest exempted.
"Searching for the data trail sir. The computer was tampered with, to hide that anything was wrong. I think the computer will b-be able to restore what we lost, it's just looking for b-backups right - got it Captain Ampora!"
"Very good Zakti. Transmit the data to Lieutenant-Commander Antares's chair, he can read a display just as well as you can." Eridan's voice slipped lower, into a register he liked to think of as dangerously soft. He wasn't positive on the reception, but it did ensure trolls around him focused very clearly on his words. "Now, who's shift did the sabotage occur on.?"
"...Officer Tansib, sir."
"I won't ask if you're certain."
"Yes Captain. His login was the last on the terminal and they were his overrides to the system. If it wasn't him someone else has his access points."
"Well." Eridan typed a command into the interface of his captain's chair and waited patiently for the answering chime - the teal-blooded troll was on his way. He turned to Antares, who was at least hiding his discomfort by examining the planet data last night's scans had compiled. "Anything useful for the Empire?"
"The iron reserves need a new mining planet. I'll suggest we use this one and the asteroid belt as a staging area. The indigenous race are not much more than feral animal packs, they won't be an issue."
"Her Imperial Condescension will be pleased." And a happy Condesce meant less commanders and captains bleeding out on the floor of her ship, or handed to the subjugglators for their 'miracles'. The relief on Antares' face made it clear he agreed as well.
When Tansib made his way to the bridge, Eridan was disappointed. The teal-blood's guilt was written across his face as clearly as if he'd shouted. It wasn't even worth his time, the weak denials of wrongdoing falling on deaf ears. Eridan knew his computer systems could not be tampered with flawlessly, the traces always showed up sooner or later and they were always right: his helmsman was one of the best at monitoring for the sort of sabotage the rebellion was prone to, and even though this had clearly been an accident of stupidity instead of an act of attrition, it wasn't something he'd let float by.
"Nighclaw, take him to the brig-"
"What? You're not going to flay him alive? You make a big deal about the right troll being punished and you're not going to even touch him?"
Eridan didn't even acknowledge the interruption. "When we reach Insula put him on the slave block. A quarter of the profits are yours to keep." He glanced through the troll's dossier, though he hardly needed it. He knew his crew quite well - but some of the finer details... yes. "His Kismesis serves on the Embato. If you can't get at least two hundred credits for him with a spade involved, you're not the troll I believe you are." The blue blood grinned - Eridan was well aware of his gambling habits and obsession with collecting credits and had lowbid what the troll would likely make for a teal-blooded petty officer, especially with a higher ranked kismesis. He'd return victorious and proud of the achievement, Eridan would have half the credits for his own discretionary funds, and "A quarter is yours as well, Zakti."
The troll sputtered, hunched a little in embarrassment, and then nodded. "Thank you Capitan." Eridan watched him slowly unhunch and straighten as he resumed his work, and in a few minutes his ops officer was as straight backed as he should have been, intent on his display and the work ahead of him.
That, Eridan wanted to say, is how you handle your crew. Pay the highbloods in credits and privileges, pay the low bloods in praise and credits. Highbloods responded to violence but lowbloods - lowbloods needed only the threat of worse than violence. Lowbloods expected violence, and it was never as effective a deterrant because of that.
Instead he scowled at the nearest petty officer. "Get someone in her to clean up my arm and bring me a fresh jacket now." A press of his hand to his console and he had a direct line to his helmsman. "Break orbit, direct course to Insula. Docking with the Fleet Ship Orgold."
The disembodied voice of the helmsman he knew bothered some of his crew: a troll they'd never seen and would likely never earn a glance at controlling the whole of the ship; he found it rather comforting, all things considered.
"Yeth Captain. Courth thet."
They broke orbit and flew between the stars, and Captain Eridan Ampora could not think of any place he would rather have been. He had his ship, his helmsman, and the stars to sail to. Anything more would have just been greedy.
Not that he wasn't greedy. He'd just learned to be fuckin realistic.
