Sel blinked to suddenly be the focus of attention. To the eyes of the Great and the Good she no doubt looked like an orc in a tuxeodo, the fine new uniform clashing with her battered and bruised face and the clunky las pistol protruding from her holster. In other circumstances it would have made her look grotesque and shambolic but thanks to Kayden's apparent introducton the noble company had apparently decided to look upon her as a dashing martial warrior, the plain faced woman of the Imperium whose heroism they secretly both envied and sneered at.

"I was only doing my duty ma'am, as do we all," Sel replied trying to keep the slight touch of her gutter-hive accent out of her voice. They swooned appropriately, flattered to be included and condesending to smile at a dog who had been trained to do a particularly entertaining tick. Sel hoped that might have been it, but a blonde piece who tits were all but hanging out of a satin dress waved an orderve fork in a cultured wave to attact the attention of her fellow diners without taking it from Sel.

"And tell us corpral what great deed did you do to be assigned to our young lord's service?" she asked, her voice honeyed and with the cadance of a cat playing with a wounded mouse.

I shot a grox with a las-cannon so my squad could barbeque and got put on the shit list for life, an insane part of her mind almost said but she managed to clamp her mouth shut before the words escaped. The palace was warm and dry, and beat the assembly area all to hell. Plus there were a great many small and valuable items that might find their way into an enterprising guardswoman's pockets. She wracked her brain for a good lie and hit on one as soon as her eyes fell on Kayden.

"I was merely fortunate to be placed under Prince Kayden's command your ladyship," she replied, "We also serve, who only drive trucks." For a moment she thought she might have laid on the humble Jane a bit to thick but the heavy set aristocrat with the impressive mustaches convulsively swolled a mouthful of port and thumped a hamlike fist on the table hard enough to make the cuttlery jump with a musical clatter. Everyone else flinched slightly but judging by the ruddy complection of the man in question this wasnt the first, or even the fifth, bumper of port for the evening.

"Jolly good!" he boomed in a basso before trailing off in apparent perplexity at his now empty glass.

"Sir," Sel cut in, making deliberate eye contact with Kayden so that there would be no question as to whom was being addressed. Every bloody person at the table probably had a rank in some local dog and pony show that they dusted of twice in their lifetimes to look good a at a ball.

"The Colonel's compliment's sir, Captain Colditz is indisposed and he would like you to take over the establishment of pickets," she said, producing a completely blank piece of folded paper from her pocket and flourishing it offially. It was complete nonsense of course. What Lieutenant Campion had said was closer to, "Get Caradwalden off his ass and have him throw out a proper sentry screen before the locals scrag us all in our sleep," but she thought that her more offical sounding delivery was probably better given the circumstances.