Work Text:
“Captain Pendragon of the ship Camelot is requesting permission to dock.”
The broadcast, delivered with a certain tense edge, startled Dockmaster Gawain Orkney out of his attempt at stacking cards. His half-built house of spades collapsed. “What?” he said. “Which one?”
There was a pause. “Captain Pendragon of the ship Camelot,” Officer Ascolat said peevishly over the com. “Guinevere Pendragon. She captains the ship Camelot, which is the ship that is requesting permission to dock.”
“Oh,” said Gawain. He thought for a second, his gaze drifting out the window of the command bay down to the revolving docks. “Fuck. Well, let her in. She’s Union, technically.”
Beside him, his legal advisor and most useful brother Gareth peered over at the screen. “She— she wouldn’t have requested permission if she wanted to threaten us. Right?”
“I think requesting permission is pretty threatening,” Gawain said vaguely, watching as the landing lights blared and the deck was evacuated for opening. Guinevere Pendragon, captain of the Camelot. She had killed the old captain of the Camelot, they said, when they had had too much to drink and didn’t know the good-looking man listening to them ramble in a dark bar was Arthur Pendragon’s nephew. Married him and killed him.
Outside the bay, the final countdown to opening commenced. Officer Ascolat kept her voice steady, but Gawain knew her well enough to hear she was not feeling good about their newest arrival. “4… 3… 2… 1. Dock opening.”
Gawain kept a single white-knuckled grip on the wall handle as the spinning central portion of the dock slowed to a halt and gravity dissipated. His house of cards, jolted into motion by the acceleration, floated dreamily through the air away from him. The Jack of Spades winked.
“Transmission to Captain Pendragon of the ship Camelot,” said Officer Ascolot, her voice crackling over the com. “This is Communications Officer Elaine Ascolat of Logres Station. Permission to dock. Repeat, permission to dock. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
All in all, Gawain thought he was dealing very well with meeting the woman rumoured to have killed his uncle. His heart rate was steady, his vision clear, and there was none of the tingling in his hands like when he had run into Pellinore Gallis one memorable alterday eight years ago. There would be no repeats of that particular incident. His mother had pulled all the strings she had getting the affair hushed up.
When gravity had been restored and the docks had been reoxygenated, Gawain found himself standing in front of the vast expanse of the Camelot, gazing up at his uncle’s ship. He had never met Arthur. Had heard about him, yes, in snippets, but his father had loathed the man and his mother didn’t talk about him. Guinevere Pendragon, though, she was a different matter. People said she had sold her soul to the devil to chase down renegade Company privateers. People said she had shot her own troops at Badon’s Star. People said a lot of things.
He wasn’t expecting a demure woman with a polite smile, her hair dyed brown but showing silver at the roots from rejuv… Gawain had thought about going on rejuv, wondered if he would pull the trigger this year, but twenty-six was very young for it and he didn’t want to spend the next hundred years having his authority questioned. Not that anyone would question Captain Pendragon’s authority. She had a certain something in the set of her shoulders. “Who are you?” she said, her eyes barely flitting over his face, not granting him a moment’s respect.
He stuck out his hand and took his most amiable expression out of the closet. “Dockmaster Gawain Orkney. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Charmed.” She shook his hand, not firm or arrogant as he had expected but politely gentle. “We’ve got a cargo hold full of stragglers from Rheged. Old refugees from the Company stations that collapsed before the Company went under.”
That had been nearly six months ago, and it had changed everything Gawain had expected from his life. The Company wasn’t much of a threat for stations deep in the Union, but for a border station like Logres, raids from their privateer fleet had been an omnipresent threat. Gawain had been appointed Dockmaster because he was handy in a crisis and knew how to shoot ships from the sky. Now he was a glorified bureaucrat. Still, this was troubling. “Refugees? Do they need urgent attention?”
“Used to be refugees. They’ve been well-looked after in the time since Rheged changed hands, but there’s no space there. You lot just built another sector.” She eyed him, an unreadable expression on her face. “I had this all cleared with the Stationmaster.”
Ah. That would be the problem, then. Inwardly, Gawain cursed his good-for-nothing brother, useless when he was sober and obstructive when he wasn’t. If the Company was still a threat, Gawain would have been the most important Orkney brother— but it wasn’t. He favoured Captain Pendragon with a winning smile. “We’ve had a lot of correspondence from the central government recently. Agravaine forgets to tell me important things. You have clearance to unload your crew and passengers— would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Black. I’ll send my first mate to go over the papers with you, is that alright?”
“Mmm.” Vaguely, Gawain wondered if it was his familial responsibility to kill this woman and jettison her body into the deep vacuum of space. This was the thought that had been hovering at the edge of his mind since Ascolat had first announced the ship’s arrival. He didn’t want to do this, mainly because he had never met Arthur, but also because a small part of him was wondering if anyone went up against Guinevere Pendragon and won. She was as slippery as an eel, they said, and it wasn’t even a derogatory innuendo. She had to know his name. After all, he was famous, at least if you made your career raiding stations and wanted to know which ones to avoid. She had to be on her guard. “I’ll be in the command bay. Tally-ho, or whatever it is you ship people say.”
That got him a very small grin, and it almost seemed genuine. “Tally-ho, Dockmaster Orkney. Thank you for your kind acquiescence.”
This was how, half an hour later, Gawain found himself sitting at his desk with his feet propped up on an empty chair, tossing his com up and down in the air and waiting for Pendragon’s first mate to find him. They couldn’t be any more unsettling than the captain, at least— that was what he was thinking when the command bay doors slid open to admit the most handsome man he had ever seen.
It wasn’t a compliment. Something in the perfectly symmetrical gaze, the pristine unrejuved hair and elegant bearing, sent a shiver down his spine. With a jolt, he remembered the stories of azi, the lab-made people created deeper into Union territory. You never saw any of them out here. You certainly didn’t see them on an ex-Company ship, surrounded by born-people. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that Captain Pendragon’s first mate had been sent as a threat.
The rest of the bay felt it too, he could tell, that very faint revulsion that came from seeing something too perfectly made to be natural. He didn’t think they would make the link to azi. Hoped they wouldn’t. He himself barely dared to harbour the thought in his mind. But he repressed the tension in his frame and gave the man a cheery smile. “Hello! Welcome to Logres Station, Officer…?”
“Du Lac.” His voice was quiet, not as cold as Gawain would have expected— not as cold as that of his captain. “Could I please speak to the Dockmaster?”
“You are! I’m Gawain, pleasure to meet you.” Generously, he took his feet off of the chair and kicked it in the vague direction of Officer du Lac. “I was told you have papers for me?”
A thick binder thudded onto his desk. “Our customs papers, plus the civilian identification papers for the four hundred from Rheged.” His voice was soft, polite. “We need your signature on— uhm, lots of them. The Captain already signed.”
For several minutes they sat in silence as Gawain scanned the forms, scribbled his name on each one. The murmur of conversation around them returned. Finally curiosity got the better of courtesy. He was very bored. “Where are you from?”
Du Lac gave him a nervous look. “France. The planet, not the Earth country. Well— sort of. I was on France for a bit.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Not much for talking, this one. Still, he had an odd sort of charm, and Gawain liked odd people even more than he liked charming ones. After all, he prided himself on his charming oddities. “Isn’t France mostly oceans?”
“Mhm.” Silence. Anxious glances around the room. Just as Gawain was about to give up on conversation, du Lac added, “First time I’ve been on a station in a while.”
Bait, hook, bite. “Oh? By choice or circumstance?”
Du Lac shrugged, his eyes fixed on Gawain’s absentminded signing of the forms. “Don’t like them much. Bad memories. Plus, you know— if you’re born a merchanter, stations stay too still.”
“Are you a merchanter?”
“No.” Pause. “I was a Union gunner for a bit, before— the war, you know.”
The war had technically spanned nearly fifty years, but when a soldier said it in that tone of voice, they meant the final bloody spat that had lasted two. Three Company stations had fallen in quick succession with an untold death count, leaving only Rheged, clinging to its pretense of neutrality as its own fleet turned against it and rebellion fomented within. The renegade fleet had turned up on Gawain’s doorstep, once or twice, and had run swiftly away with its tail between its legs. It hadn’t taken it long to learn to leave Logres alone.
“Wow. That’s neat.” That was not the right thing to say, but du Lac seemed unfazed. A hint of a smile quirked up, so Gawain elected not to apologize. “I was born and raised on Logres. Never been away, actually. Is it true there are ghost-ships in the Deep?”
“Lots of— stories, you know, I guess.” Which wasn’t an answer. “I would have taken you for a central Unioner.”
Taken by surprise, Gawain let out a bark of laughter. “What? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it because of my good looks and suave air?”
“Uh— more the jewellery.” He looked very embarrassed. “Don’t take it personally, I’m from the center, technically.”
Scan. Sign. Date. “Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
No further explanation was provided. Gawain turned the information over in his mind, wondering where exactly Union kept their azi labs. That wasn’t the sort of thing you asked, not if you knew your place and minded your business and kept polite company. Gawain didn’t do any of those things. “Are you human?” he said, propping his chin on his hand to signal he meant no threat. “I ask out of curiosity, not concern.”
Du Lac froze nonetheless, a hunted look flashing across his face. It was replaced in an instant with the impassive dead gaze of a shark. “Why?”
...which was an answer. Not that it was hard to guess, with the unsettling perfection of the man’s face. “Well, first off because you walked through that door and I thought, gee, no one moves like that unless they’re supernaturally dangerous— or, you know, superhumanly so. Second off because everyone else in this room is going to start wondering sooner or later, and if you’re staying on station for any length of time, you should know that we’ve only been Union for thirty years or so. There aren’t any azi out here. People won’t necessarily know what you are, just that you look scary— I mean, I like scary very much, but— shit— are you laughing?”
He was, very quietly, his shoulders shaking. When he had recovered from his bout of humour, he looked far more at ease. “Most people don’t ask me, you know. I think you’re the first since Captain Pendragon. They just— give me weird looks and keep me under armed guard.”
“Should I keep you under armed guard?”
“I’d prefer not,” said du Lac earnestly, “it makes all the political sabotage and rampant murder I’ve been programmed for so much more difficult.”
Gawain burst into laughter. “I— I certainly— you know, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your political sabotage and rampant murder. I would be very sad to do that, it sounds like a lot of fun. Would you like to politically sabotage and rampantly murder here on Logres? I’m exceptionally bored and it would at least be eventful on my end.”
“I’m good,” murmured du Lac, but he was smiling, a small genuine thing that was all the more endearing for seeming out of practice. “It was a phase. I’m over it now, you know, youthful indulgences and such.”
“Uh huh?” said Gawain, who couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Du Lac nodded. Didn’t clarify. If Guinevere Pendragon had seemed a wolf in sheep’s clothing, with her courteous smile and unprepossessing stature and bloody reputation, her first mate seemed almost the reverse. He reached out and tapped the forms Gawain had forgotten were there. “Ah— I don’t want to be rude, but— could you sign the forms? I don’t have all day.”
“Of course, of course.” He scribbled for a few moments in silence, turning over the matter of blood feuds in his mind. It didn’t count if you had never known the relative, right? You didn’t need to avenge that? Stationmaster families were an insular lot, nearly as self-obsessed as merchanter ones, and the Orkneys of Logres had ruled for centuries. But Arthur Pendragon hadn’t been an Orkney. If he had been, he wouldn’t have been left stationside for a ship.
(If Gawain was brutally honest with himself, which he never was, he would have admitted his curiosity had been dangerously piqued by the crew of the ship Camelot. It would be a pity to kill their captain, who was clearly one of the most fascinating of the lot.)
He finished the last of the forms with a flourish of his hand. “There you go. Say, is your Captain the friendly type?”
Du Lac’s eyes flitted over him and a faint blush appeared on his cheeks. “Not with you,” he said. “What did you say your name was?”
“Gawain. And not like that, don’t worry. Look, Officer du Lac— can I call you something else?”
An exhaled breath. “Lancelot.”
“—Lancelot, you see, I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m very bored. Not a lot happens here. The pirates stay away.” Deep inside, some horrible monstrous part of him said: and now the Company leaves us alone there’s no blood to be had at all. He silenced it. Even to an ex-gunner, that wasn’t the sort of thing you said out loud. “Until they come knocking on my door, yes?”
“We’ve got papers,” said Lancelot du Lac sullenly, as though Gawain had been complaining. “And the Stationmaster cleared us ahead of time—”
Gawain waved his hand. “My brother never should have been put in charge of anything more important than an accounting office. I love him, you know— it’s not his fault the job broke him. But what he says doesn’t mean anything. That’s the first thing you’ll learn about Logres Station.”
“I thought that the first was that people would be scared of me?”
“Hey, I said I thought you looked nice.” Gawain paused, wondered if he should flirt, opted not to. Judging from his earlier blush, it seemed like it would make Lancelot uncomfortable. “Friendly, kind of personable once I asked inappropriate questions about your birth circumstances, you know. Odd way to get to know a person, but it did the trick.”
He got another of those small, minnow-quick smiles in return for that. “Yeah. I appreciate the bluntness, honestly.” Lancelot stood, gathered the papers under his arm. “I’ll see these to Captain Pendragon.”
“Hold on, hold on.” Gawain pushed off from his desk, his rickety spinning chair careening dangerously. “Wait. You and Captain Pendragon— and anyone else interesting, I suppose, I love meeting people. Are you free tonight?”
“I guess that’s up to you and station security.”
“Haha, very funny.”
“Thank you. I’ve— I’ve wanted to use that line for a very long time and this is the first time the circumstances have been right. Uhm, yes, unless something comes up with customs or the crew. Why?”
Gawain shrugged. In the end, Arthur hadn’t been an Orkney, just a Pendragon. He didn’t need avenging. “Dinner? I have no friends but a lot of money to spend on overpriced food and drink. You can bring whoever you want as long as you dress like a civ.”
“And my face?”
“Bring that too. And the— the political sabotage and rampant murder.”
Pausing at the door, Lancelot tilted his head and favoured him with a strange half-smile. “I told you,” he said, “I don’t do that anymore.”
Then he was gone.