[b]Redana![/b]

The Auspex always gives you the impression that it is condescending to you. 

Denied the opportunity to pump raw, unfiltered data directly into your cerebellum it finds creative ways to get its ideas across. So when it looks at the Phalanx it overlays them with pictures of silly, fat, fluffy animals - plush sharks falling over whenever they try to stand on their tails. It's how you'd explain to a toddler that these soldiers are not a threat - a Phalanx is so slow and immobile, and the hangar is so wide and open - that you could almost walk around them and they wouldn't be able to stop you. They're here to stopper an entire corridor if a scout reports a large armed group is coming that way - after all, they don't know just how skeleton your crew is.

But the Skirmishers - the Auspex gives them the faces of scary (but not too scary!) tigers, with big triangular eyebrows and smug tiger mouths (>:3). They're dangerous, Redana!! They're mobile enough to chase you, and if they catch you then you'll be buried underneath a pile of goofy sharks!

The Auspex gets a little carried away with animating that particular scenario. It snaps back to attention, and then animates a big angry wild boar crashing in amidst the pile of sharks and tigers and sending them running and flopping in all directions - yes, okay, thank you Auspex, you get the idea now. 

The boarpedo isn't an escape vessel, but it does still have fuel and powerful thermal cutters on the front end. You just need to get on board for a second and you can send it crashing across the hangar firing lasers in all directions.

[hider=Skirmishers][b]Imperial Skirmishers[/b]
[i]Underpaid, underfed, underappreciated [/i]
[b]Solid Projectiles[/b]: If hit by Imperial Skirmishers, make your next roll with despair
[/hider]


[b]Vasilia![/b]

"In a heartbeat," said Jas'o, and you realize you've miscalculated. "Let me be extremely clear: you are negotiating with the voice of Imperium. Compliance will be rewarded on a scale grander than you can imagine. Defiance, however, will be punished in similar scope. Defy the Admiral and she will find your homeworld. She will shatter it with a single blow. She will find the survivors and work them to death mining the shattered ruins of their planet. She will make a wasteland of the entire sector of space you originated from as a warning to others of your pathetic kind. Everything that you can imagine as valuable is but dust and starlight before the whims of Admiral Odoacer and the Armada."

There was a long, cold pause.

"So, what do you say? Let's put those [i]silly[/i] threats behind us and work together! Everyone will be happy that way - even the Princess! We're just taking her [i]home[/i], after all!"

[b]Alexa![/b]

You are thrown in an unceremonious heap before the feet of King Jas'o right as he finishes his speech. "What's this?" he said. "Some sort of statue?"

"Deadly, sir," said one hoplite.
"Right fearsome," confirmed another.
"Mm. Looks valuable," he said, looking Alexa over. His men exchange glances like the bloodstains and rents in their shields should be telling a more sombre story, but the King is treating this as lightly as a feather. "I think I'll take it as my prize for capturing this vessel."
"My lord, I -"
"Up-up-up-up. I'll make sure you're rewarded for bringing it to me, don't worry, Galnius," said Jas'o. "But don't you think it'd look [i]fine[/i] in my foyer?"
"I - as you say, lord," said Galnius with a sigh.
"Get the Hermetician in here," said the king. "Bring it to compliance - and then move on. The princess couldn't have gotten far."

A shuffling, clanking hunchback in yellow robes makes its ungainly way through the crowd of soldiers. Gleaming metal and rubber tubes like intestines are visible through the folds of its heavy saffron cloak. Sleeves unfold as appendages, tendrils, tools and assortments of limbs emerge from under the cloth. The subhuman cyborg cultists of the Order of Hermes, technology specialists who seek the Divine Mysteries left by their elusive deity. The Empire treats them with strange contempt - assuming they can do anything but that they're worth nothing. Pet wizards, attendants to kings when they deign to interact with technology.

There was a rotary click from somewhere inside that clattering machinery, and a voice like a soul preacher recorded on cassette tape. "Blessing be upon you -" another heavy click "- child of Athena. In the name of Hermes I will speak to your secrets. In the name of Zeus I will show you your place. In the name of -" heavy click, "King Jas'o and Admiral Odoacer I will return you to function. Blessed be, o miracle! Show us the golden path through your enlightenment!"

[b]Bella![/b]

Have you ever spoken that way to a human before, Bella? Have you ever spoken that way at all? Was this the first time you ever really let your mask slip and your true feelings out like this?

Because it's had an [i]effect[/i]. You got to watch in real time as cold, haughty pride cracked into a moment of wide-eyed panic. You got to see the kind of person who'd lord it over you without thinking instead thinking of how to not be crushed underneath your boot. The Praetor title didn't come with respect, the Olympic medal didn't come with respect, being the Princess' faithful servant didn't come with respect... 

But showing your anger? [i]That[/i] got you respect. 

Ivory Smile doesn't even manage to comment as you drag him up by the collar - him, a priest, a human, in a room full of the Empire's elite. He's shorter than you, hauled up to the tips of his toes, eyes glancing down at the long scars on the tabletop over and over as that powerful mind of his unhelpfully wastes valuable time by imagining how easy it would be for you to do that to him.

"Your way, Praetor," he said, voice so dry he barely got the words out. "Your way sounds better."

How does respect feel?