Date Point 10y4m3w4d AV
The Box, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, Earth
Julian Etsicitty
The first day of their “training” had consisted entirely of talking with the BGEV team, being introduced to the basics of their curriculae, discussing what their roles would be on the ship, the mission, and all the other technicalities of organizing their coming education.
On the face of it, it was quite simple. Allison was to be their mechanic. The ship apparently was being designed for the kind of practical, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-fix-it maintenance and repairs that she had performed on his grandpa’s trucks back in Minnesota, but there was still going to be an intense academic course to go with it, at the end of which she would be a qualified welder, electrician, computer and network technician and have a basic grounding in electrical engineering. She’d looked equal parts daunted and excited by her dense curriculum.
Julian’s own schedule was packed full with everything needed to turn him into the ultimate laboratory assistant. Previous BGEV missions had learned the hard way that staffing the ship with a mixed bag of actual scientists specialized in useful fields only resulted in their having nothing to do. Julian’s job, therefore, would be to have just enough education to know what the people with doctorates would find interesting, and the training to record, sample and store any conceivable specimens, be they mineral, chemical or organism.
His “laboratory” in fact, wasn’t even going to be a lab – it would have practically nothing in the way of scientific apparatus, and would instead be built around the task of preparing and storing samples for long-term transit, in stasis if necessary.
Xiù’s skill with languages and alien social interactions were being put to work in her secondary role as their representative and negotiator. She’d also be tasked with keeping Allison and Julian fit and well, and of course there was her primary role: Pilot.
The fact that she’d never flown so much as an RC quadcopter didn’t matter at all. In fact, her flight instructor had been relieved.
“That means you’ve not got into the bad habits of atmospheric flight and we can teach you how to handle spaceflight properly first,” he’d said.
After the grilling and hazing they’d received from Keating the night before, having such positive and encouraging sounds coming their way had given their morale a welcome boost.
The only stumbling block came at the end of a long day of meetings, talks and briefings, when they were finally released to go “home” – Ericson delivered some awkward news.
“Mr. Keating asked us to stress upon you the importance of grooming and hygiene,” he said. The sun had gone down and he was walking them back to the Box in the company of his daughter.
“Specifically, the Assessment team want you to know that the three of you need to shower twice daily, minimum,” Doctor Brown elaborated. She was one of those women who hadn’t inherited much at all from her father genetically, but was her old man in miniature when it came to personality. Both had the same easy-going, mild practical joker approach to life.
Julian liked her. She’d politely interrogated him about the nature of his relationship with the girls, and the impression she’d given was that, as a happily married woman herself, she didn’t disapprove and was maybe even slightly envious.
“Makes sense, I guess.” Allison mused. “It’s a small space, between us we’d stink it up pretty quick if we’re not careful.”
“Now you mention it , they did say something keeping your living space tidy and hygienic, yeah,” Ericson joked softly.
Xiù exhaled powerfully and said something. Julian recognised Gaori immediately, which was a sure sign that she was distracted. In fact, she was so far adrift from the here and now that she didn’t even notice and correct herself, until Brown nudged her with an “…I’m sorry?”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, sorry… Um, I said ‘no privacy, either.’”
Doctor Brown smiled sympathetically. “You’ll adjust,” she promised. “I think you’ll be surprised by how natural it’ll seem once you’re used to it.”
Xiù only nodded. Clearly the immodest realities of their near future were bothering the hell out of her.
They parted ways with Brown and Ericson at the Box’s airlock and ran through a quick green decon cycle.
No sooner was the door closed than Xiù let all her worries out before Julian or Allison had even got a chance to ask her. “Ooookay, so we’re getting naked,” she breathed, nervously and musically. “Hooookay.”
Allison laughed. “Nervous?” she asked, as they took off their shoes and left them in the airlock.
Xiù nodded, flushing. “It’s… earlier than I’m really ready for.”
“It’s not that big a deal, right Etsicitty?”
Julian did what he knew was an unconvincing job of agreeing with her, earning a skeptical stare from both the girls.
“Julian-!” Xiù complained. “I really need this to not be a big deal right now!”
“Sorry. It’s just…you’re really hot.” Julian shrugged awkwardly. “Kinda hard to be dispassionate, you know?”
He knew immediately that he’d said the wrong thing, but before he had a chance to apologize Xiù had gone crimson, scowled at him and flounced into the Hab without a word.
Julian glanced at Allison, who was vibrating with pent-up laughter and shaking her head. “…I didn’t think before I said that,” he confessed.
“Oh, no, you’re fine!” she snarked. “That was smooth as baby oil, really!”
“Yeah, yeah…shit… I get it, this is gonna be awkward and un-sexy as hell, I shouldn’t’ve-”
“That’s not it, dummy,” Allison interrupted him.
“Then what?”
Allison sighed, folded down the excursion room’s armory table, and sat on it. “I love you, but you can be so dense some-”
“Al…”
“Okay, Mr. Genius, okay…” Allison glanced toward the Hab door and scratched thoughtfully at her ear. “What’s she getting out of this? Out of us? What are we doing for her?”
“Well, she’s-”
“Do you love her?”
Julian’s pause was entirely from being thrown by the question – he had no hesitation over the answer. “…Yes.”
“You’ve not had sex with her.”
“So?”
Allison smirked. “Exactly,” she said.
“I love you too.” Julian pointed out.
“You have sex with me.”
“That’s not why I love you, though!”
“I know, dummy. I’m making a point.”
Julian shook his head slightly, not following. “O… kay?”
“I think Xiù still feels like she’s intruding,” Allison explained. “She thinks this is our relationship – yours and mine – and like she’s the third one who’s breaking into it. Uh…. But she isn’t, right? That’s not how you see it?” she checked.
Julian shook his head. “No.”
“Neither do I. She’s… I love you both, because you both do things for me that I need. You fulfil me, but in different ways. See? You’re kind of an outsider and a misfit just like me, you don’t wanna be popular or part of the mainstream. She wanted to be a movie star and despite being here with us, I think she’d go back to that if she thought she could. But you’re maybe a bit too quiet for me, and Xiù likes to go wild sometimes. And I think it wouldn’t be fair of me to try and force just one of you to try and be everything I need. You follow me?”
“I follow,” Julian nodded. “I guess… I love you, but you really don’t get just how alone I was. Xiù does…But she doesn’t bring me out of my shell as much as I need.”
“Right! You get it! And that’s important, because none of us have a relationship that’s just sex, see? We all do something for each other.”
“But she still feels like she’s intruding?”
“She needs to know that she’s loved for what she brings into our lives. And I think she knows it up here-” Allison touched her pointing finger to her temple, “But…” she knocked on her chest.
“So when I told her she’s really hot…”
“Yeah.” Allison gave him an apologetic half-smile. “I mean, you’re right, she’s ridiculously hot. I’m not usually into girls but…” she bit her lip and made an “nngh!” noise. She grinned when Julian laughed, then sobered. “…But she’s gotta be sure in her heart first that we love her before she’ll be happy to start with the sexy stuff.”
Julian aimed his thumb at the Hab door. “I’d better go apologize.”
“You better, yeah.”
As it turned out, Xiù wasn’t exactly in the Hab itself – she was in the shower. There was a line of angrily discarded clothing marking the direct route from one door to the other, and the sound of rushing water.
Allison laughed. “Yeah, she’s a brawler alright.”
“Fights the things she’s afraid of head-on.” Julian nodded. “…What should we do?”
“Get naked.”
“Wh-?”
“We’re gonna go through that shower one by one and we’re gonna normalize this shit so that it’s never this awkward ever again,” Allison told him. “And if that means spending the evening buck bare… suck it up.”
“I dunno, Al…”
She folded her arms at him. “She’s gonna step out of that shower in a minute. She’s taking a huge step here. And you’re damn well gonna reward that step, you hear me Etsicitty?”
“…Ye-”
Julian didn’t get the chance to reply further. They both turned as the hiss of water stopped, and a second later Xiù stepped out of the shower onto the absorbent microfiber mat in front of it..
Julian had seen that expression on her before. Eyes cold, jaw clenched, muscles tense – the last time he’d seen her looking so fierce, she’d been beating the crap out of Zane.
She glared at both of them and spread her arms, which was a powerful gesture considering she was only wearing water droplets. “Well,” she announced, “…here I am.”
Julian cleared his throat, not quite sure what to say, but before he could think of something Allison beamed and wriggled out of her own clothing. “My turn!”
“Wh-?” Xiù began, but Al was already stepping out of her pants and underwear. The moment she was nude, she pirouetted.
“And here I am!” she echoed. “See? No big deal. Your turn Etsicitty!”
“Uh-”
“Um, he doesn’t need to if-” Xiù began, but Julian interrupted her by sighing and tugging his t-shirt over his head by the collar.
“No, I do. Al’s right.”
“Damn right I am,” Allison agreed. “Besides, you’re really hot.”
“Gee, thanks…” Having his own words repeated back at him had the effect of making Julian feel entirely un-sexy. It took an effort of will to undo his belt and an even bigger one to hook his thumbs over belt, pants and underwear and give all three the encouragement they needed to land around his ankles.
The three of them stood in an awkward triangle for a few seconds, not sure who to look at, or whether eye contact was the more or less awkward option.
Then Xiù giggled, and completely dispelled the discomfort. That set Allison off, and Julian shook his head and relaxed, chuckling.
“No big deal?” Allison repeated herself as a question this time. Xiù sighed and smiled, but shook her head.
“Not the end of the world,” she conceded. “Still weird though.”
“We’ll get used to it,” Allison promised. She gestured Julian toward the shower. “Go on baby, your turn,”
Grateful for a moment’s private space to think, Julian restrained himself enough to walk to the shower rather than bolt for it. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good boy!”
XIù touched his elbow as he passed. “Sorry I got mad,” she said.
Julian felt some tension he hadn’t noticed that he’d been holding onto slip away. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
They kissed and made up, earning a quiet little clap and cheer from Allison, and Julian went for his shower with the feeling that a milestone had been passed.
Date Point 10y4m3w4d AV
Heathrow Airport, London, England, Earth
Simon Harvey
“That’s my desk-” Ava was in the middle of pointing at it when she stopped dead in her tracks. Simon had to dance sideways on one foot to avoid crashing into her. “…Oh my God.”
“What?” Simon looked at the queue in front of the desk. There was a family of four there – a huge blond man who looked like Thor in jeans, a petite brunette mother who was fussing over a gloomy teenage boy who was her spitting image, and a little girl no more than five or six years old who was riding on her father’s shoulders.
Ava took a step forward, which became a rush, and only the smallest difference from being a run. “Hayley!” she called, “Mark! Jack!”
The mother turned. Her jaw dropped and she collided with Ava in a huge squealing hug. It looked for all the world like a family reunion.
Simon collected Ava’s bags and joined them at a discreet distance, waiting for the laughter and happy exclamations to die down and for an introduction.
He finally got it when Ava finally turned and aimed an open palm at him, still babbling enthusiastically. “…All thanks to Simon here! Simon Harvey, this is Doctor Hayley Tisdale-”
They shook hands and exchanged a “Hi” and a “Hello”
“-Doctor Mark Tisdale-”
“Nice to meet you,”
“…Jack, and Hope.”
Simon shook the teenage Jack’s hand, and aimed a smile at the little one, who was treating him with wary-eyed uncertainty but who managed a little “H’lo”
“You really lent her the money to come back?” Hayley asked.
“Oh, it wasn’t entirely selfless,” Simon demurred, turning on the charm with a self-effacing smile and a handwave. “Having a promising up-and-comer like Ava in my debt will pay off handsomely some day, I’m sure.”
Mark chuckled at that. “Very mercenary.”
“So you’re flying to Hamburg too?”
“We’re moving back to Cimbrean,” Mark explained. “Now that the second gravity generator’s up, it’s finally safe to raise kids there.”
“Hey, we turned out okay!” Ava objected. “Right, Jack?”
Sullen as he was, Jack managed a small smile and nod at that.
Privately, Simon had his doubts, but he held onto them. Considering how huge and robust his father was, Jack was remarkably skinny. Even his mother, who was a waifish specimen herself, out-massed him. Then again, maybe the boy was just a late bloomer.
“Well. I guess I’ll leave you to catch up…” he suggested. To his surprise, Ava gave him a crushing hug, causing him to stiffen and not know what to do.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
Simon finally relaxed, and hugged her back. “Promise me, it’s all uphill for you from now on. No more stupid bastards like my nephew, no more firefights in the desert.”
She laughed and let go, wiping an eye. “The former, I promise.”
“Oh… good enough, I suppose.” Simon smiled. “I’ll be watching you, Ava.”
She nodded, and he left her to reunite with the Tisdales.
The original plan had been to go back to Islington, have a glass of wine and work on his novelization of the events in Egypt. Instead he spent forty minutes listening to Adele on the motorway as he returned to Finchley, and parked outside Sean’s house.
It took four rings of the doorbell before his sister’s eldest opened the door.
“…Simon?”
“Can we talk?”
“If this is about Ava-”
“It’s about you, you tosser.”
Sean blinked as if Simon had just slapped him around the ear, which Simon still was of half a mind to do anyway. “Alright, if that’s how it’s going to be-” he began, and started closing the door.
“FIne, I’ll go discuss it with your mum, shall I?” Simon snapped, wedging his shoe in the door. “Or are you going to man up and take some advice from the bloke who’s trying to stop you from turning into your father?”
“Like you care.”
“Of course I fucking care you blithering twat!” Simon spat.
“Then how come you helped her leave?!”
Simon took a deep cleansing breath. “That? That question you just asked me? That’s the problem with you, nephew mine. That’s your worst trait.”
Sean glowered at him, but finally did something faintly creditable in opening the door and standing aside. Simon stalked into the living room and sat down.
“…You thought you’d won, didn’t you?” he accused, the moment Sean sulked into the room. “Her fella wasn’t taking her back, she had nowhere else to turn, you thought that was your chance. Win her off the big meathead alpha male, right?”
Sean’s expression hardened. “If you just came here to insult me you can fuck off.”
“The truth is never insulting, Sean.”
“That’s not the truth though!”
“Isn’t it?” Simon crossed his arms. “Go on, then. Let’s hear your explanation.”
Sean took a deep breath, licked his teeth sighed and then shook his head and raised both his hands in a plaintive gesture. “She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“Eh?”
“Ava. She’s fucking stunning. That wavy hair, those big innocent brown eyes… and just… everything about her. She’s just-”
“Sean, are you going to get to the point, or are you going to start wanking?” Simon demanded, impatiently.
“How much did you give her to get by and get set up? You put in a good word with a colleague, you gave her… what, three thousand quid?”
“Three thousand five hundred.”
“Would you have done that if she’d been a pimply, scrawny mate of mine?” Sean asked. Before Simon could answer, he shook his head. “She’s got her claws in you, Simon. That’s what she fucking does.”
“Oh come off it-!”
“No, I’m serious!” Sean patrolled the room, getting into his angry stride. “This is what Ava does. She turns on the fucking waterworks and she tells you about how her parents never really cared for her, and how she lost her home, and about her friend who got murdered and how her boyfriend neglected her, doesn’t she? And it’s such a sad story, innit? It fucking- it gets you right here, doesn’t it?” he thumped his fist to his chest. “And because it’s so sad and she’s got those innocent eyes, you just want to make the world a better place for her don’t you? You and anybody else she suckers into falling for her.”
“And of course she got caught playing her game but she’s sooo sorry and it was ’the worst mistake of her life’!” he added, sarcastically. “She’s just a poor sinner, isn’t she? An innocent fucking girl who’s trying her best but life’s just too har- cry me a fucking river!”
“Sean-!”
“Fuck off, Simon, she played you,” Sean snarled. “She got her claws in you and plucked her pretty fucking damsel-in-distress tune on your heartstrings like a bloody banjo, and you went and give her three grand and change and a new career with a good friend of yours, didn’t you? What the fuck are you getting out of that, eh? Nothing! At least I was smart enough to shag the manipulative cunt before she fucked me!”
Simon willed his jaw closed and sat forward.
“Alright. That’s your explanation,” he acknowledged, in a shaky voice. “You really think that’s what she is?”
“That bitch will get her fangs in you and suck you dry, Simon,” Sean insisted.
“So why the fuck didn’t you kick her out?” Simon asked. “You could be making far more off the room she was renting than she was paying you.”
Sean didn’t answer – he scowled at something invisible in the corner and went silent. Simon nodded.
“I think you need to think some more, nephew mine,” he advised. “Take a good long look.”
Sean gave no sign of having listened, and so Simon stood and headed for the front door.
“I’ll see you Monday,” he said. There was no reply.
Simon left him to his thoughts.
Date Point 10y4m3w5d AV
Whitecrest Enclave, City of Wi Kao, Planet Gao
Regaari
The Gaoian equivalent to a human’s polite knock was to scratch one’s claws on a metal plate installed on most doors for exactly that purpose. Regaari’s was quite thoroughly scratched nowadays – being the only male to set foot on the human homeworld had earned him some considerable prestige. Younger Brothers came to him for advice or to hear his stories, Fathers came to him for counsel and to keep an eye on him, and…
Well, okay, the Females weren’t actually physically scratching at his door – the Enclave was off-limits to anybody who wasn’t actually a Whitecrest – but they were certainly doing so in the metaphorical sense. He’d noticed a pronounced uptick in how easily he was able to seduce them into mating deals, these last few paws of days. A surprising number were trying to seduce him, which was a situation most males could only fantasize about. In a species where males outnumbered females three to one, and that ratio was only as low as it was by dint of quite a high mortality rate among the males, to be in demand was a rare and coveted thing.
It was almost getting in the way of his actual work. It was certainly having interesting resonance for his career in the Clan. For one thing he was actually out-performing their Champion, Genshi.
Regaari was no idiot – a career of cartwheeling on the precipice of scandal had made him an expert at brinkmanship, and he was always sniffing the political air, watching the fallout as, carefully out of earshot, his Fathers bickered and schismed. He knew that his success was generating jealousy, rivals and plots but that was how the Clan worked. You fought your way to the top with fang and claw if you had to, and you had earned it once you were there.
Genshi himself couldn’t be happier, but of course part of the reason he’d been made Champion in the first place was his fanatical sense of Clan. Genshi didn’t see other Whitecrests as competition, in marked contrast to his predecessor Yirik who’d exemplified everything about the Clan’s ideals except quiet humility. If Regaari had started to out-compete him then fur and blood would have flown, and at least one of them would have walked away with some impressive new scars and the other might not have walked away at all.
Genshi had just given Regaari a brotherly play-fight (and beaten him with embarrassing ease) and redoubled his efforts. Regaari meanwhile kept applying the pressure, carefully prodding the right Fathers in the right ways at the right times. Already the momentum was shifting – the Clan was in practical terms much less pro-Dominion than it had been years ago when Giymuy had given her blessing for Gaoians becoming full members of the security council. A few of the more corrupt Fathers had quietly been promoted into the same kind of dead-end positions through which they’d once tried to dispose of Regaari.
“Come in.”
He rose to his feet to welcome Father Mavil. The respectful gesture was decorum rather than genuine pleasure at seeing him – Mavil was a foe, one of the last few holdouts of the profiteering neoplasm whose influence had been bought by Dominion interests, and he was proving much harder to dislodge than some of his co-conspirators.
Rudely, the Father just threw himself onto the couch opposite Regaari’s desk and got down to business. “The Racing Thunder,” he said, dropping the name with neither preamble nor context.
Fortunately, Regaari was well on top of it. Mavil would have known he was – Regaari’s ‘weakness’ for humans was a common angle of attack with the coterie of Fathers in the Dominion’s pocket.
“…Yes, Father?” He asked, politely.
“What are you doing about it?”
Regaari set his ears at a quizzical half-twist and inclined his head. “That ship is a One-Fang matter,” he pointed out.
It was true. The Racing Thunder had screamed back into Gaoian space with its engines redlining mere days after the Perfection attack, and with the hull fairly crackling with accumulated static charge. When she’d discharged the potentially fatal load into Gao’s upper atmosphere, the result had been a spectacular, though small, aurora.
It had arrived less than half a day ahead of an official request from the Interspecies Dominion fleet commission that its crew be arrested and tried for dereliction of duty and treason. By that point, Clan One-Fang had reviewed the ship’s logs and comms records and were backing their Brothers to the hilt.
On the face of it, it was a satisfying vindication for Regaari and his fellow Dominion-skeptics. In reality, though, Gao really wasn’t yet in a position to be able to defy the Dominion. The ensuing sanctions might be crippling.
“The One-Fangs have requested our aid. Your aid specifically. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
Regaari had already been searching his mail.
“Intriguing, Father,” he said. “You seem to have beaten that message to my desk. I’ll have to ask Brother Ruuvi to check if there’s something wrong with the server.”
Mavil’s ear flicked irritably, and Regaari awarded himself a win.
“I would have thought, shortcrest,” Mavil said, using the same slightly patronizing and insulting term that the Clan used while training new cubs for their Trials, “that you’d leap at the chance. Your precious humans are involved.”
How had the guileless four-pawed grey-nose managed to cling on if that was his idea of subtlety?
Unless of course he was being deliberately and misleadingly artless. Regaari spread his arms in an open, deferential gesture.
“I admit, humans are a weakness of mine,” he agreed. “But unless there are any on that ship, I don’t see…”
“Again, One-Fang have asked for you by name,” Mavil repeated.
“To do what, Father?”
“They didn’t say.”
“And have the Fathers agreed to lend my services?”
“I have, yes.”
…Ah.
That was the problem with being a Whitecrest. Sometimes the clan’s passion for the guileful solution made it easy to forget that straightforward approaches such as an outright abuse of authority were even an option. Mavil clearly foresaw that whichever Brother wound up caught between Clan One-Fang and the Interspecies Dominion was going to have to scrap for his life, and had seen the chance to extend his claws and swipe.
Regaari abandoned all pretense at circumspection. “I… see. And I assume you’ve arranged matters so that there aren’t enough Fathers on hand to countermand that order.”
“Now that you mention it, all the ones who could overrule me are away on urgent business.” Mavil bared his fangs a little. “How strange.”
Gaoian males were, at heart, a violent breed and for a tempting moment Regaari envisioned himself pouncing on the old bastard and claiming a promotion the old-fashioned way. Those bad old days when males could kill each other almost without consequence if the circumstances were right weren’t so far behind them as the females and civilized Clans like the Whitecrest wanted to believe.
But a real Whitecrest won his battles with wit, or not at all. Genshi would have been disappointed in him.
He stood up, and raked the fusion-edged claws of his prosthetic across the wooden desktop, which left three deep smoking gouges in it by way of making his feelings clearly known. “As you order, Father.”