Char Li's Angels: The Skull of Saint Diana - Part IV

Sir Ulrich has been spending his time during the journey from Midian in profitable research, and had finally discovered that the ship the Troupe are on had, until this mission, been called the Zealous Fury.  He was also able to get a solid understanding of the Expiator class spacecraft, especially the Zhanche variant, such as The Blessed Saint Horace.

 

While the ship's records are intentionally unclear what the crew did during the war, the implication is that they were involved in covert operations. After the Emperor war it appears that they may well have been part of Lord Admiral Chan's "asset recovery" fleet.

 

The Troupe were on the bridge to witness the jump to the Icon system, after which Zillah, who is well accustomed to military vessels, noticed that the crew were behaving as if on combat readiness.  Zillah asked the first officer, Mr Smmey, about it, who denied any such thing, but Zillah could tell he was lying.

 

Once in Icon space they were advised that there would be at least a twelve-hour wait until the next jump.  During this, using their Vis Sense, Zillah noticed a shift change in the ship's power-flows. A fact that Sir Ulrich was able to confirm; the ship was under thrust once more when they should have been holding position in the queue with the rest of the fleet. After checking that the ship wasn't being controlled from the secondary station hidden in the chapel, the Troupe determined that they needed to access the ship's bridge to find out what was going on.

 

Upon arrival at the bridge they found that the bulkhead doors were sealed shut. Sir Ulrich recalled that the doors "opened to the pious".  They tried several signs of piety and worship, eventually opening it by making the sign of the jumpgate cross.

 

Once on the bridge it was clear that the ship was speeding away from the Jumpgate in pursuit of something.  Captain Ahgera claimed it was a pirate vessel but by now the Troupe were suspicious of everything the crew were up to. There then ensued a  battle of wills between the captain, Alexi(u)s and Ulrich. The priest castigated the Vorox for a dereliction of duty, while Sir Ulrich surmised that the captain was following an old order issued by their previous commander. They made excellent arguments regarding honour and obedience to their current commander and their duty to the current mission, and after a significant battle of wills (and a huge amount of VP spent on each side) they eventually convinced the now well castigated captain to back down and call off the pursuit.  They were also able to confirm that Ahgera felt duty bound to follow the final orders of Baron Sasha Li Halan, her deceased former commanding officer.

 

Meanwhile, Zillah was fascinated by what was out in space, using their psychic powers to zoom in their sight to see something that was unnaturally hard to look at: the stealth vessel that was their quarry.  Zillah whispered to Mr Smmey, asking what she was: he confirmed it was The Blade of Night, a Decados Nightwing stealth ship commanded by Lady Ahgera's old nemesis; Sir Olga Decados.

 

They recieved communication from The Tiger of Tashrak. Lord Admiral Chan demanded to know what The Blessed St Horace thought it was doing. The captain had the communication routed to her office and asked the Troupe to come to bare witness. The Lord Admiral was furious. He considered forsaking their assigned duty to charge off on their own, and against a superior vessel, was foolish and a complete dereliction of duty. The captain was stripped of command and ordered to hand herself over to confinement aboard the flagship.

 

Zillah and Colonel Sir Fa Zhou Li Halan, the other passenger aboard ship, had a conversation about duty, in which Zillah admitted their own error in judgement: they were all for the pursuit rather than ignoring the Decados vessel.  The Colonel gave some insightful advice and seems to have started to form a bond with the Thana knight.

 

The Lord Admiral came aboard with a guard of marines to personaly escort the captain away.  He asked Colonel Fa Zhou to take command but he immediately, but respectfully, refused.  He maintained that his days of leadership and action are long past and that he is only on the mission as a spiritual pilgrimage in his twilight years. However he would happily provide council to whomever the Admiral promotes to the position. The Lord Admiral left to decide who to place in command instead, but, before leaving, appeared to recognise Bas, but when questioned by the other members of the Troupe Bas refused to be drawn on how.

 

It appears that, orchestrated by Belvoir, members of the enlisted crew across the flotilla have already started "running a book" on who will be the new commanding officer of The Blessed Saint Horace...