Date Point: 4y 9m 1w AV
Clan Fastpaw Orbital Defence station “Pride and Vision,” Orbiting Planet Gorai.
Gyotin.
“Brother? What are you doing?”
Gyotin coughed, embarrassed, and unfolded himself slightly. The Zafu he’d had imported from Earth wasn’t really ideal for Gaoians—humans had longer legs with a slightly better range of motion in the hip and a slightly different take on the theme of “spine”—but he had found a comfortable, straight-backed position that served the purpose of keeping him steady and centered and pain-free.
“It’s…something I picked up from the humans.” he said. He rose and embraced his old friend. Tagral had been a cub in the same commune as Gyotin, and had followed his sire into the Fastpaw clan, whereas Gyotin had chosen a slightly more wildcard route in life under the now-notorious Chir.
“Picking things up from humans seems to be very easy.” Tagral sniffed, returning the hug. “You should see what the females are all eating these days. The mother of my most recent cub seemed to be looking forward to these “pancake” things more than the actual siring.”
“You don’t sound like you approve. Congratulations on the cub, though.”
“We can’t ever be deathworlders, brother.” Tagral warned him. “I’m worried that if we try to imitate them too much, we’ll forget what being Gaoian is like.”
Gyotin lowered his ears slightly. “I don’t think we’re in danger of that.” he said.
“No? When you’re doing…whatever that is.” he indicated the Zafu, candle and incense.
“Meditayshun.” Gyotin said, using the English word though it fit awkwardly in his muzzle. There was no word with an equivalent meaning in any dialect of Gaoian that he knew of.
“And what does that translate to?”
“It…doesn’t.”
“You see? An alien concept. A Deathworlder concept, brother. You’re playing with something very dangerous.”
“I know that better than you do.” Gyotin retorted, hackles rising slightly. “Humans are incredibly dangerous, I’ve seen it first hand.”
“So why this?”
Gyotin looked his brother in the eye and quoted. “Ignorance is comfortable, but deadly. Recognise that?”
“No.” Tagral admitted.
“You don’t recognise the words of your own Clanfather?” Gyotin asked.
“Really? The Clanfather said that?”
“He did. Humans are dangerous, but so is a pulse gun, and what are the first things you learn about pulse guns, before you’re allowed to even fire one?”
“Keep your claw off the trigger unless you are firing, always assume that it will discharge, never aim it at somebody unless you intend to kill them if you must, beware of what you might hit should you miss.” Tagral recited.
“Exactly. How to handle something dangerous, in a safe way. That’s ‘why this’.” Gyotin said, indicating his meditation equipment again. “Nobody knows how to handle humans safely, yet.”
He looked his brother in the eye and repeated that last word for emphasis. “Yet.“
Tagral had opened his mouth to retort, but shut it again, ears starting to droop as he thought through what Gyotin was saying.
“What…what is this meditayshun thing anyway?”
“You…sit and think. Breathe in and out slowly while concentrating on the breathing.”
Tagral blinked. “That’s all?”
“It sounds simple, doesn’t it?” Gyotin said. “But…well, sit down and try it…”
Date Point: 4y 9m 1w AV
Folctha Colony, Cimbren, The Far Reaches
Sara Tisdale.
“Hey, these are good!”
Sara beamed. One of the great frustrations of her life this last couple of weeks had been the abundance of real news crews and real reporters to try and talk with, to try and get some kind of an education from in how to become a journalist herself, and pretty much every single one had just chewed her out for daring to address them, or at least just shooed her away.
It was a real pleasure to meet a reporter who was more than a stuck-up pretty face in a suit who could stand in front of a camera.
She blushed happily as the Al-Jazeera reporter scrolled through her camera, admiring shots she had taken. It kind of helped that he was really handsome too. “Oooh…” he suddenly examined a few of her snaps with considerable interest. “These are some great ‘before’ shots. We could use these for our next report.”
“You could?”
“Oh yeah. This one…no, no. This one especially. Hey, you used exactly the right filter on this.”
She knew her ears were going pink, but was too happy to really care. “Thanks!”
“Tell you what, I think I’ve got some…yeah, here we go. This is our standard contract, if you can get your folks to sign this on your behalf then I can use your pictures and you’ll get credited and paid for them. Does that sound good?”
It sounded like everything Sara wanted, and her delight didn’t contain itself. She practically bounced on the spot as she took the paperwork and her camera back and dashed away, promising to get the pictures to him ASAP.
The mental image of her own name appearing on a global news broadcast had her so distracted that she only noticed the convoy of trucks when a hand grabbed the back of her collar and firmly yanked her back from the road.
“Watch yourself there, love.”
Sara watched the huge vehicles rumble by, thoroughly sobered by the sight of those huge, crushing wheels that she had very nearly run under. “Shit. Thank you!”
Captain Powell seemed amused, which was a strange sight on his face. Usually he looked so intense. “Oi, didn’t your mum and da’ teach you not to swear?” he asked.
“Not really.” Sara shrugged. “Dad says that ‘fuck’ is one of the oldest and most important words in the English language and that everyone uses it anyway so there’s no real point in being squeamish about it…besides, I’ve heard you swear all the time!”
This seemed to amuse the captain no end. “Aye? I’ll have to watch myself in future I guess. You never know what bad habits you might pick up off an old war-horse like me…Wait, I recognise you. You’re the one who tried to sneak onto the base trying to take pictures of us.”
Sara laughed. “Yep!”
Powell shook his head, clearly still amused but also clearly wanting to be serious. “You know that’s all top-secret stuff in there, aye?” he asked.
“All those classified tents and portacabins?” Sara teased him. “Please, it’s not like I actually managed to sneak onto the base.”
Powell grunted.
“Yet.” She added.
“By ‘eck you’ve got some cheek.” he said, but the glitter in his eyes said that he enjoyed that, to some extent. “Seriously though, you could have got in very serious trouble, and the only reason you didn’t is because I’m a foo- a big softie and I don’t want to have to throw that kind of trouble at you. It’d ruin your hopes of becoming a journalist.”
“What, for being curious?”
“Aye. Those rules exist for a reason miss, even if you don’t know what that reason is.”
“But if I knew the reason why, then the rules wouldn’t be needed, would they?” she objected “Rules should be explained.”
Powell gave a rueful shake of his head. “I thought you’d say summat like that.” he said. “Alright, would it persuade you not to try again if I just asked nicely?”
“Maaaybe.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, well. Asking nicely, I’d be grateful if you—seeing as I just stopped you from being run over—never tried a stunt like that ever again.”
“What’s the magic word?”
Powell made a kind of a laugh, one big silent one that rushed out through his nose. “Please.” he said, though his expression was starting to get serious and Sara decided not to push her luck.
“Okay. Since you asked nicely.”
Powell stuck out his hand and they shook on it, after which he nodded at the departing rear of the last vehicle in the convoy.
“Get on with you, go on. And try not to become the next lorry’s hood ornament, aye?”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I hope so, my arm’s not that bleedin’ long. Off wi’ you.”
Date Point: 4y 9m 1w AV
Starship Sanctuary, Free Trade Station 1090 “Endless Possibility”
The Mwrwkwel system, the Signal Stars
Julian Etsicitty
“That was an apology, dumbass.”
“You’re kidding. Giving me a gun is her way of saying sorry?”
Lewis laughed. He was surrounded by holographic screens, the central one of which was, for now, blank. Around it floated a halo of smaller screens full of notes, useful lines of code, or places for him to write notes. All the tools of the hacker’s trade.
“Julian, dude, you and Allison are, like, the craziest fucking badasses I’ve ever met, but you both SUCK at being real with each other.”
“Docking in ten minutes.” Amir called.
“Cool.”
“Real with each other?”
It was Amir’s turn to laugh. “Bruv, I could lean against the sexual tension between you two.” he said.
“What sexual tension? She treats me like I’m a goddamn toy!”
“Dude.” Lewis grinned. “Trust us. She wants you.”
“She wants you bad.” Amir agreed.
“Oh come on. I knew girls like her back in high school, they’d flirt and giggle at you then laugh in your face if you asked them to Prom.”
“I’m sensing a life history there.” Amir deadpanned.
“You’re not in high school no more, man.” Lewis told him. “And that’s not what she’s up to.”
Julian watched him work as lines of code assembled themselves on the large central screen directly in front of Lewis’ face. “So what IS she up to?”
“Come on, do we need to spell it out for you?” Amir asked.
“Apparently you do!”
“Dude, it’s simple.” Lewis told him. “She’s nervous around you. She doesn’t know how to talk to you.”
“Give me a break, she’s got confidence for years.”
“All a front, bro.”
Amir nodded. “You’re shit with girls. She’s shit with dudes. You get flustered, get mad at her and go hide. She gets flustered, doesn’t know what to say to you, so she gives you a bit of T and A because she’s hoping you’ll take the bait.”
“That’s not what she told me.” Kirk ducked into the room. “How are we doing?”
“Docking in, uh…seven.” Amir said.
“Piece of cake, they’re still using version four point two.” Lewis said. “And yeah, I saw that conversation. Protip, Kirk, women never tell men the whole truth about what they’re thinking.”
“Sexist, bruv.” Amir chided him.
Lewis just shrugged. “True, though.”
“What did she say?” Julian.
“Doesn’t matter.” Lewis said, dismissively. “Point being, she wouldn’t be acting like that if she wasn’t into you.” His screen chirped and he grinned. “In like Flynn. Running our sniffers.”
“Six minutes.” Amir added.
“So, what do I do?” Julian asked.
“Fucking…take the bait, dude!” Lewis said. “She gives you an ass to stare at? Stare away! She wants to get up close and personal on the mat or in target practice? Fucking enjoy it!”
Julian turned to the only nonhuman present. “Kirk?”
“Leave me out of this.” the alien said. “I don’t do that whole cliched ‘alien commentary on human behaviour’ thing.”
“Isn’t that itself a…?” Amir began, then abandoned the question when Kirk gave him what they all guessed was a tired, patient stare, though the effect was spoiled slightly by the fact that the positioning of his eyes made it hard for him to look at anything nearby with both of them. “Never mind. Docking in five minutes…mark.”
“I still kind of feel like I’m being used.” Julian objected.
Kirk slapped him upside the head as hard as he could. “Mind on the job. You two can sort it out between yourselves.”
Chastised, Julian nodded. “Right. Sure…what’ve we got, Lewis?”
“Oxygen recycling, grav plate power draw and…yep, food ration dispenser bills are all up by a bit next to her population.” Lewis said. “Right up to half an hour ago. Reckon we’ve got a human on board, boss.”
“Good.” Kirk did one of his slow nods. “We’re a long way from Hunter space here so hopefully he’s been able to live openly.”
“Hey, this is weird.” Lewis added.
“What is?”
“Looks like all those metrics spiked by one human’s worth about…five months ago. There was somebody else here, but they either died or moved on, and there’s nothing in the census logs about a dead human, so…yeah, she moved on.”
“She?”
“Yep. Definitely a woman. The one still on board is a dude.”
Amir frowned at him. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“I programmed the sniffer to check the sewage processor logs for haemoglobin contamination warnings every fourth week.”
“Huh?”
“Blood, dude. Every month. Think about it.”
Amir blinked then realisation dawned with an uncomfortable grimace. “Oh! Oh, right! Uh…three minutes.”
“Weird though. See here? This was just her, then there’s two of them on the station for, like, a week or so, then it’s just him. You think they didn’t get along?”
Kirk patted Lewis on the shoulder and turned to Julian. “Go get Allison and meet me at the airlock.”
“Uh. D-do I, uh-”
“Get over it, Julian. I need you two working together. You can sort out your [unpronounceable crackle of untranslated alien syllables] when we’re back in deep space.”
”…Yes, boss.”
“Something else, K.” Lewis said, as Julian exited the flight deck.
“What?”
“I’ve synched with the military relay. Look at this.”
Lewis called up a graph of four writhing coloured lines: piracy, smuggler activity, Alliance scouts, and Hunter raids.
The Hunter line became a vertical cliff at a date three weeks previously.
Kirk leaned in, as if by his taking a closer look the data might change.
“No sightings? No raids? Nothing?”
“Just this.” Lewis zoomed in a little, and a tiny blip in the otherwise flatlined Hunter activity became visible.
“What is that?”
“The whole Swarm-of-Swarms, tracked by a Kwmbwrw listening post, hauling ass back towards Hunter space at ninety kilolights.”
As Kirk stood back up, Lewis looked up at him. “What does that mean, dude?”
Kirk’s four arms described a convoluted approximation of a human shrug. “I have no idea. But it worries me.”
Date Point: 4y 9m 1w 2d AV
Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Ava Rios
Returning to Cimbrean was a lurch, not least because the trip was so much more crowded this time around. Everyone was jammed in as much as was safe.
Adam wasn’t there to see her step through the decontamination field. Gabriel was. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to face him yet but…
The thought got abandoned as he stepped forward and hugged her, hard.
“Me asustaste.” he said, simply.
Tears sprang up unbidden. “Lo siento.” she whispered back, returning the hug, realising just how lucky she really was. “I swear it was an accident, I do.”
“It’s okay…You’re lucky it was only the once. The doctors reckon that plant’s probably really addictive, and the Tisdales and a few of the others who were using it are apparently really suffering.” He turned back down the hill towards the town, which seemed to have grown alarmingly justin the few days of her visit to Earth. “How are you feeling?”
“It sucked.” she confessed. “I had the shakes, I felt weak…it hurt.”
“Weird how there’s no drug on Earth that’ll hook you so bad, but there is here on Cimbrean.” Gabriel mused.
“Where’s Adam?”
“Swimming.”
That brought a slight frown to her face, which she tried, and failed, to suppress. Okay, so her return to Cimbrean had only been authorised an hour or so ago, so if they’d gone down to the lake there was no way he could have known, but it still bothered her that her boyfriend was hanging out with Sara, and how.
“Have they been…doing that a lot?” She asked.
“While they still have a lake to swim in, yeah.”
They passed the faith center. There really were a lot of people running about the place, wearing tough clothes, one or two half wrapped up in plastic protective gear. A gang of men she didn’t recognise were busily moving crates and pallets of equipment out of the barn that served as the cargo terminus for the jump array, hoisting the equipment easily in the low gravity.
“While they…? Why wouldn’t they have a lake to swim in?” she asked. “And are these those research teams you mentioned? What are they doing here?”
Gabriel stopped. “You mean you didn’t hear?” he asked.
”…Hear what?”
Date Point: 4y 9m 1w AV
“How are you finding it, sir?”
The captain didn’t hear her at first, but eventually the question seemed to percolate into his brain. McDaniel could hardly blame him. Her own experience of Gaoian politics was an awful lot like trying to conduct international negotiations with nations that occupied the same land, cities and facilities rather than having their own geographic territory. It wasn’t that Gaoians were deliberately abstruse, or at least not more so than any human diplomat. It was that the only time you could be absolutely certain which clan a given Gaoian belonged to was if they happened to be female.
That fact alone might have been a comfort and help, had Gorai been home to a larger female population. Apparently the route from homeworld to colony was less than perfectly secure and more than one colonial transport had gone missing en route. The Corti Directorate had been unsuccessfully implicated in a few of those cases, the Hunters in most of the rest, and the best efforts of the male naval clans to patrol the spacelane linking the two worlds had not completely restored a sense of confidence that might encourage Mothers to bring their Sisters and cubs with them to the new world. Despite the much larger population and more complete infrastructure, Gorai was in some ways less of a success story than Cimbrean.
In any case, two weeks of dealing with Gaoian politics was starting to wear on her sanity, and she was much more comfortable with such things than the Captain who, she guessed, had probably been staring fuzzily at the same document for five minutes before she entered.
“Sorry Lieutenant, what was that?”
“I asked how you’re finding it, sir.” McDaniel repeated herself, patiently.
“Like hiking through a minefield.” Bathini confessed. “This is a diplomat’s work, not a ship captain’s.”
McDaniel nodded. “I brought you a cup of tea, sir.” she said, setting it down. Technically, as Caledonia’s First Lieutenant, delivering tea was a bit below her, but she had always found that little touches like that went a long way, especially when it came to meetings involving sensitive information. The captain accepted it as if she was a beneficent angel.
“Good news also, I think we may be able to eliminate Father Mo from the list of potential Hierarchy agents.” she said. “The out-of-character behaviour Father Reyiki mentioned to you is almost certainly because the most recent cub he sired died shortly after the birth.”
“With their medical technology, I’m amazed that still happens.” Bathini mused, reading the note she handed him which elaborated on the subject. “A genetic defect?”
“Yes sir. A mutation. Not his fault, but if I understand their society correctly then that kind of thing carries a substantial stigma and has probably shot his chances of ever arranging another mating contract ever again.”
“Plausible.” the captain conceded “But I’m not convinced it’s enough to take him off the list entirely. The Hierarchy are ruthless, they might have arranged the cub’s death to provide plausible deniability for his behaviour. Knock him down to a yellow.”
McDaniel nodded, and jotted a quick note to herself, recording the instruction. Orders fresh from Earth, delivered by a member of Tawhaki Flight, were now to assume Hierarchy activity wherever neural implants of any description were involved. Given that neural augmentations were practically ubiquitous among Gaoian diplomats and senior clan leaders, that meant that every single one had to be considered not only in terms of what they were trying to achieve for their clan and their disposition towards humanity, but also in terms of their potential to act as a Hierarchy agent.
Bathini’s comparison to hiking through a minefield was, if anything, understatement. The orders had included a rough-and-ready risk colour-code to try and classify the probability that any given person was host to one of the enemy, running from green (no implants), then yellow for lowest risk up through orange (“Possible”), red (“Likely”) and finally black for “confirmed Hierarchy Agent.”
Of course, the mere existence of the Hierarchy was still need-to-know information, but Caledonia’s captain and her First Lieutenant both definitely needed to know.
Bathini signed a few more documents, sipped his tea then leaned back and stretched. McDaniel could hear the popping in his spine as he worked the kinks out. “God I’m sick of politics.” he groused. “What’s that you’ve got there?” he indicated the folder she was carrying.
“Latest update on the Type 2 space destroyers, captain.” She handed it over. “Ceres Base is restructuring but a lot of their people are recovering from having their translators removed, including the team leader who was overseeing construction of the shipyard. The project’s delayed by a good few months while they find a suitable replacement or wait for him to convalesce.”
“Funny how getting the damn thing installed was so easy but getting it out again proved to be so major.”
“Well it might work to our advantage. BAE say that the delay is giving them time to test some systems that they would like to update the Type Two’s design with.”
Bathini snorted. “A bird in the hand, Lieutenant…” he said.
“Not to argue with you sir, but I don’t think we can count on the Hunters to have failed to learn anything from our last battle. Some new tricks might be just what we need to keep our edge.”
“On which note, any news about Myrmidon?”
McDaniel shook her head “As per their last prediction I imagine sir, seeing as we haven’t heard from them.”
“Good, I suppose.” Bathini said.
“You suppose, sir?”
“Oh, this is more Manning’s thing than mine. I keep hoping they’ll make a sudden unexpected leap forward so he can take over…” he tailed off as he sipped his tea again. “how soon can we be done here?”
“We’re fully charged sir and the last of the ETs shipped out this morning. We’ve had a request from Gyotin, however.”
“We have?”
“He said he wants to come back to Cimbrean with us. Apparently he’s attracted a few males to join him in forming a new clan, and wants to set up a Gaoian enclave and embassy in Folctha.”
Bathini considered this. “He is aware of the ecological disaster, right?”
“He says so sir, yes. He says he’s confident that they can protect themselves.”
“Fair enough. What’s in it for us?”
“He’s offering to bring a Dominion-spec FTL comms relay with him, sir.”
“For us, or for the embassy?”
“One each, sir.”
Bathini raised his eyebrows at her. She smiled shyly. “Yes captain, you do have me to thank for that.”
“How long does he need?”
“Two days, sir.”
“Well then. Sound out the Gorai planetary authority, ask them if there’s any way we can arrange shore leave for some of the crew during those two days, what precautions they would want us to take and so on. And tell Chief Williams that I will be coming down like a tonne of bricks on any seaman who displays anything less than exemplary behaviour during shore leave.”
“Aye Aye. Will that be all, captain?”
“Thank you, it will. I need some rest, see you at oh-six-hundred.”
“Yes sir. Good night.”
McDaniel let herself out and took a second to catch her breath.
There were moments when the sheer strangeness just caught up with her. The promising start to her career as a Midshipman aboard the decidedly aquatic HMS Duncan really hadn’t prepared her to be First Lieutenant aboard a captured alien spaceship, nor for negotiating with an alien species, let alone one that looked so disarmingly Procyonid. And all just days after a vicious skirmish with monsters straight out of a Hollywood movie.
If it were just those things, she speculated that maybe she’d be adjusting. But when Gyotin had expressed an interest to live among humans and study Buddhism…and had attracted friends who shared that interest?
It kind of drove home the fact that less than five years ago, during her first days aboard HMS Albion, humanity had still been treating the idea of being alone in the universe as a big unanswered question. Every so often, the absurdity of it all gave her a ringing slap in the face.
She could hardly blame the Captain for wanting to get the hell out of Gaoian space. What the shit had happened to the world? It used to make sense.
She shook the thought off. When it came down to it, keeping a ship running smoothly hadn’t changed much. The universe might have turned out to be indescribably weird, but the realities of a warship were a comfortable anchor.
She ducked past a petty officer and his team, who stood aside en route to whatever they were doing, and bustled towards the bridge, glad to be busy.
Date Point 4y 9m 1w AV
Free Trade Station 1090 Endless Possibility”
Mwrwkwel system, the Signal Stars
Allison Buehler
“Christ.“
“What?”
“I think I found our human.“
“Good. That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t understand half of what he’s saying.“
Allison stopped alongside Kirk, who shared a confused glance with her. “What do you mean?”
“Just…listen.”
What followed over Julian’s shotgun microphone was scarcely comprehensible, but Allison recognised it immediately.
“I an’ I cyaan do it, bredda. Dis ya’s dread heavy, ya no see it?“
She laughed. “Man, we’ve got a lively one. What’s he doing?”
“Arguing with some Kwmbwrw shopkeeper. Listen.” his mic rustled again.
“Blood clot gwan f’dem ya Locayl saps?! I an’ I need-”
“What is he saying?” Kirk demanded.
“Fuck if I know.” Allison shrugged. “Here’s hoping he can tone the Patois down.”
“Good luck.” Julian muttered over the link.
As always, she cleared the crowd simply by being there and looking lean and dangerous, but this was definitely a station that was used to having a human about. The glances she received weren’t the usual disbelieving “could-that-really-be-one-of-the-legendary-Deathworlders?” stares, but simple curiosity at seeing more of her species. She had learned to tell the difference.
Their target turned out to be a tall guy who, yes, was vigorously arguing with a Kwmbwrw shopkeeper over the matter of a large sign which the alien seemed to expect him to lift into place and mount over the shop’s window all by himself, obviously overestimating the famed Deathworlder strength.
“This guy giving you trouble, fella?” She asked.
The human turned, and an almost cliched brilliant white smile cut across his face, causing the shopkeeper to flinch away. “Well would ya look at that.” he said. “I an’ I get an actual angel take me away from all this.”
Allison mentally rolled her eyes. Give her Julian’s awkwardness over too-smooth any day. “Cute. You say that to every girl who walks into your life?”
“Only the beauties.”
Her comm crackled. “Jesus. Laying it on a bit thick there, pal.“
As Kirk stepped forward to introduce himself, Allison exploited the dermal patch microphone on her throat to mutter a reply. “Just a bit.” she agreed.
“Can we leave him here?“
“What’s the matter, Etsicitty? Jealous?”
Answer came there none. Allison smirked, then returned her attention to their new rescue, who treated her to another smile.
“So what’s your name?” She asked.
“I’m Zane.” He said, extending a hand.
She shook it. “Allison.” She replied, then nodded to his side. “That’s Julian.”
“Juli-? Ya!” Zane flinched a good foot sideways upon glancing down at where Etsicitty had appeared next to him. “Coo yah screechie creation stepper! Bad bwai gone fi give I a heart attack!”
“My bad.” Julian’s remorse didn’t extend beyond the words themselves. His tone, expression and language said otherwise. “Kirk, Lewis reckons he’s got a lead on the woman who was here five months ago.”
“This Lewis bwai found Xiù?” Zane asked.
“You met her?”
“First human she laid eyes on in years, sight? She move on though. Restless child, that one.”
“You didn’t go with her? People tend to band together out here.” Julian noted.
“Dawta had her fund, ya nuh see? She made her way sellin’ food. ET nyam her cooking right up.” He shrugged. “She wan’ fi move on, I couldn’t afford it, seen?”
“Did she say why?” Allison asked. Again, Zane shrugged.
“Babylon.” He opined.
“Well, I guess we’re going after her next, while the trail’s warm.” Allison said. “That might mean a delay getting you back to Earth.”
“Ah, me donkya. ’S a dread galaxy out there, no place for a biscuit on her own, nuh?”
“True enough.” Allison agreed.
“We’re parked on flight deck two-thirteen.” Kirk informed him. “If you have any personal effects you want to gather, we’ll move on as soon as you’re aboard.”
They watched Zane go as he produced a vigorous agreement that he’d be there.
“I hope the ship’s translator can handle him.” Kirk said.
“Mm.” Allison agreed. To Julian, very quietly, she murmured “Did something about his story about this Xiù seem off to you?”
“I didn’t want to say it.”
Allison nodded, frowning in thought. “He creeps me out.” she decided.
“Yeah. Who comes up with a line that smooth at a moment’s notice the first time he sees a woman in months?”
She laughed a little, ignoring the way Kirk’s ear flicked as he tried to eavesdrop. “Jealous, Etsicitty?”
”…Yeah.”
She paused mid-stride and turned to look at him, but he’d vanished into the crowd.
Date point 4y 9m 1w AV
Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Adam Arés
Folctha had changed drastically in just the last two weeks, since news of the disaster had broken, on the same day that Ava and a few of the others had been shipped back to Earth. What had been a large-ish clearing out of the forest had been cleared right back for more than a mile around. Heavy forestry equipment: Bunchers, Forwarders, Harvesters, Loaders, Skidders and more had been JA’d to Cimbrean as rapidly as the Earth end of the Array could charge, the aim being to create a “safe zone” around Folctha with a buffer of Terran plants that would, hopefully, prevent the bacterial filth from ever reaching the town.
The drive into Folctha, therefore, had gone from being an exhilarating blur of trees and undergrowth whipping by on either side, to a dreary crawl across an open and increasingly muddy field that was being turned and tilled ready to receive the planting of Terran crop species.
Exactly what was to be done with all of the now-endangered lumber was unclear. If the evidence of the forest was anything to go by then the living wood, once dead, decayed rapidly under the aggressive attention of Deathworld bacteria, and if that was the case then the only hope for the wood to have any use at all was to ship it offworld and sell it to alien collectors who might be interested in the definitely finite quantity that might survive.
The alternative, Adam guessed, being to burn the lot, but that could only exacerbate the huge CO2 emission problem than the Decay Zone was already causing.
In any event, the picturesque little forest town that Folctha had once been was gone: in its place was a field of machinery, lumber stockpiles, tree stumps and the tarpaulin-shrouded blocks of crated spares and equipment. The plans that Adam had seen drawn up would leave Folctha looking beautiful again, but that would come only after a months or years-long process of interventive botanical therapy.
It was like the whole of Cimbrean’s story in miniature. Destroying Folctha had taken days. Building a replacement that might match it would take years at the minimum, assuming it was possible at all.
The sight, plus the bad news about the lake, put him in a melancholy mood that was only lifted when they pulled into the vehicle pool only for Ava to be waiting for him by the side of the cleared patch of compressed dirt that served for a parking lot. She was dressed in her hard-wearing colonist’s clothing—thick hiking trousers, study boots, a jumper and the tough jacket with the custom “From The Ashes” embroidery that mirrored his own, plus a sheepish smile, but she looked just as beautiful as if she had been wearing a summer dress.
They collided in a huge hug.
“No me hagas eso de nuevo.” he begged her, through her hair.
She giggled and tightened her hug. “Te extrañé.” she replied.
“Estás bien?“
“Sí.” she reassured him. “Siento haberte asustado.“
Spanish had become their private language. So few people spoke it on Cimbrean that it was perfect for intimate moments like these, even though English was first language to both of them.
“Me alegro de que estés bien.” He told her. “Te amo.“
“Yo también te quiero.“
That was everything he had needed to hear. They switched back to English as he took her hand and they started to head back towards the palace, neither noticing Sara’s little harrumph at being ignored. There was a Thing scheduled for tonight, and they were hunting the local game animals as much as they could, appreciating what they could get before the poor creatures went extinct. The smell of roasting meat was already on the wind.
“This place went to Hell while I was gone.” Ava commented. Adam sighed.
“Yeah.” he agreed. “Two weeks ago it was paradise, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah…” she looked down. “Hard to believe one person did that much damage. How was the lake, is it still good?”
“For now, yeah. We’re, uh…planning to head down there again tomorrow after school, while there’s still time.”
“Can I come with?” She asked. “I want to try again.”
Adam hugged her tight around the waist. “It’s okay to have hangups.” he said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to…”
Ava laughed and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “I want to.” she reassured him. “Its…important.”
“You’ll enjoy it.” Adam promised her.
She smiled a little uncertainly, then looked him up and down. “So look at you! You’re all tanned and fit! You’ve been keeping up your exercise while I was gone.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “You like?”
If her expression was anything to go by, she liked. But her tone was light as she reached up and ruffled his hair. “You’ll do.”
They stood aside as a Mule towing a variety of heavy equipment grunted its way down the street, which was beginning to be in dire need of a proper asphalt surface. “Where the heck did that come from?” Ava asked. “The Jump Array’s over that way isn’t it?”
“They built a new one.”
“Who did?”
Adam indicated a team of men in high-visibility jackets and hardhats who were riding in a trailer being towed by another Mule as they bounced past. “Some guy called Moses Byron got involved.” he said. “Big billionaire hombre, said some stuff about wanting to turn Cimbrean into ‘the breadbasket of the human race’.”
He shrugged. “Like half these people work for the guy. They’ve got their own Array over that way now, twice the size and I heard they’re going to build one twice the size of that.”
“How the heck is anybody keeping this whole thing organised?” Ava asked
“You got me. I don’t think anybody really is.” Adam told her. “It’s been insane. There was, like, a quiet day or two after the news broke, and then people and gear just started arriving and it hasn’t stopped since. Dad reckons we’re either going to completely screw this up or settle into a rhythm sometime soon where we can start getting organised again, but for now it’s…he called it ‘anarchy on a good day’. I offered to help out with policing but he said…Well, he said no.”
“You sure he didn’t say ‘over my dead body’?”
Adam laughed. “Yeah, that’s closer.” he admitted. “There was swearing.”
“Do you think there’s anything we can do to help?” she asked.
“I wish.” Adam said. “I’ve been trying to find something useful to do and everybody says things like ‘just don’t get in the way, kid’ or whatever.”
“Ugh.” She grimaced. “I hate that.”
“You and me both. I need to be doing stuff, you know?”
“Tell me about it. I had a lot of time to sit and think in the Hospital and it just…”
She trailed off, but Adam knew exactly what she meant. Quiet time, thinking time, was remembering time. Remembering time…hurt. On e of the news crews that was covering the unfolding events on Cimbrean because the reporter had a SoCal accent and tone of voice that reminded him painfully of his mother.
“Hey…you’re here, and I missed you.” he said, taking her hand. “Can we just forget about all this and just…hang out?”
She paused, smiled, and wiggled her head into his shoulder, hugging his arm as they approached the warm and noisy circle where the first of the night’s whole roasts was just starting to be sliced up.. “Yeah.” she agreed. “Let’s do that.”