Date Point 10y6m2w1d AV
The Box, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, Earth
Xiù Chang
“I’m telling you, Tangled has the best songs!”
Xiù giggled and scraped her mixture of crushed garlic and chopped onions into a pan to start frying. “It so doesn’t! Yeah, they’re good but they’re not like… Everybody can remember The Lion King’s songs, but nobody remembers the ones from Tangled.”
“Well they should!” Allison insisted, “‘When will my life begin’? ‘I’ve got a dream’? They’re amazing!” She glanced conspiratorially around the room even though they both knew they were alone. “…Julian tears up during ’I see the light.’”
Xiù put her knife down just in case she cut herself laughing “He doesn’t!?”
Allison nodded with an impish smile as she finished putting the last of the laundry away. “My right hand to God! He gets all misty-eyed when they’re singing in harmony.”
Xiù made a conciliatory motion with her head. “Okay, yes, it’s a beautiful scene and that song’s really good. But it’s still not the best.”
“Okay then, what is the best?”
“Classic? I mean, I’ve still not seen any of the movies they did after I was abducted…”
“Sure. Classic.”
Xiù didn’t even need to think about it. “Reflection.”
Allison scoffed. “Of course you’d choose one from Mulan.”
“She was my hero!”
“I guess it’s the nice thing about Disney that everyone gets their princess…”
Xiù giggled, starting in on cutting the celery. “Actually, when I was very little, I wanted to cosplay as Merida, but mama said I couldn’t.”
“Now why’d she do a thing like that?” Allison asked, sarcastically.
Xiù fought a losing battle to try and keep a straight face. “Beats me. Can you think of a reason why little Xiù Chang wasn’t allowed to dress up as a curly Scottish redhead?”
Allison made a performance of inspecting Xiù’s hair, which on the rare occasion she was able to let it down was a straight glossy curtain of black that reached her knees. “I think I might have an idea…” she hinted, battling with her own deadpan.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Blue isn’t your color, babe.”
Xiù snrrk-ed and swept the celery into the pan to fry.
“Mulan and Merida,” she mused. “Guess I like the warrior princesses, huh?”
“Come on, Rapunzel kicked just as much ass with a frying pan.”
“She beat up one guy! Mulan took on-!” Xiù caught Allison’s trollish expression and finally realised she was being teased. “Oh, okay. You can chop the tomatoes, then.”
Allison laughed and did as she was bidden, though her fingers deliberately brushed against Xiù’s hand as she headed for the fridge. “Yes ma’am.”
She seemed to have a knack for doing exactly what would get Xiù most flustered. Blushing, Xiù turned away and washed her knife off, dried it and slid it back into the block.
“How’d you do on that flight test?” Allison asked, deciding she’d had her fun for now.
“Eighty-seven percent,” Xiù answered. It was a solid pass, but she was secretly a little disappointed – she’d been dead-set on a ninety or better.
“Aiming for higher, huh?”
Feeling completely transparent, Xiù sighed “…Yeah.”
“Amen,” Allison mused. She finished chopping the tomatoes and, at Xiù’s gestured urging, dumped them in the pan all over the sizzling onions and garlic.
Being Allison she then just dumped the knife and cutting board into the sink without washing them and leaned conversationally against the counter. Xiù just smiled to herself, rolled her eyes and washed them for her.
“Same for you?” she asked.
Allison nodded. “I squeaked over the line on the computer systems module. Eighty-two.”
“My head just feels full of… fuzz and static,” Xiù confided.
“Ugh, mine too. Some days I just-”
They were interrupted by the decontamination buzzer and the sound of Julian removing his boots with uncharacteristic force. He crashed through the door without a word, wrenched the couch angrily out of its hiding place in the wall and collapsed onto it as if it had done him a personal injury.
Xiù fought down her fight-or-flight reflex. Even after all this time it was still on a hair trigger, and Julian in a rage was genuinely scary. When he was in a good mood, it was easy to forget that he’d thrived on the very worst the galaxy could throw at him, and that under his equanimous veneer he was a killer and a survivor.
Then again, so was she.
Allison squatted down next to him and put a hand on his arm. “…Baby?” she asked.
“I completely fucked up.” Julian groaned. He ran both hands up his face and through his hair, and the brown envelope he was holding crinkled and creased as he did so. “Wrecked the whole goddamn specimen. I only managed to salvage, like, three samples.”
Xiù glanced at Allison, and retrieved one of their precious supply of beers from the fridge. Talking the mission team into letting them have some supply of alcohol along for the ride had been a tense negotiation, but the compromise had finally been reached that they’d be allowed to take along enough for special occasions and a rare treat. Julian hesitated when she offered it to him, then sighed, nodded and accepted. He popped the screw top and drained a third of the bottle in one go.
He settled back and breathed out most of his stress. “…Thanks.”
“So you failed?” Allison asked, gently. While they had an allowance of test failures each before it would negatively impact their bid to get on the ship, there weren’t many, and they were all far too competitive to be happy with using even one of them.
Julian held up the brown envelope containing his test score. He hadn’t bothered to open it.
Xiù kissed his forehead and busied herself with the cooking as Allison borrowed a knife and slit the envelope open.
“…Huh,” she grunted. “Wow.”
Julian groaned and covered his eyes. “How bad is it?”
“…Ninety-one.”
“…What?”
“Ninety-one percent!” Allison brandished the printout. “Surprise equipment malfunction test. Examiner’s notes: ’Showed exceptional focus under pressure and was able to recover three samples. Exemplary performance marred only by slight hesitation at the moment the equipment failed, and by frustration over factors outside of his control’.” She lowered it again, beaming. “You aced it!”
Julian made the exact same ‘huh’ noise that she had, then looked at his beer. “…Damn. Now I feel bad for wasting one of these.”
“Fèihuà!” Xiù told him, then corrected herself. “Nonsense. That’s your celebration beer now, you hear?”
He went still for an instant, then shrugged and smiled. “Yes ma’am.”
Despite his best efforts to help, neither of the girls let him – he was forced to sit on the couch and finish his drink as Xiù threw together her improvised lamb and tomato curry and Allison set the table, which would ordinarily have been his job just because, as the tallest one, he had the easiest time getting it down from its nest in the ceiling.
Sure enough, when Xiù skewered him with regards to his favorite Disney song over dinner, he corroborated Allison’s account.
“Yeah, I did. I dunno, it’s just… something about that moment. You know?” He sang a couple of bars, and once again Xiù was struck by just how good his singing voice was. “♪’And it’s warm and real and right♫♪’, that bit. It’s only, what, a few seconds long? But it gets me right here.” He knocked on his breastbone.
“I thought Frozen was your favorite?” Xiù asked.
“It is, yeah, but Al’s right that Tangled has the better songs…”
Xiù snorted and tidied up so as to escape from Allison’s smug expression.
She felt strangely as though their collective relationship was progressing via some kind of a time warp. They were moving constantly forward and yet, once they had moved, everything was familiar and comfortable as if they had always been that way.
Nothing seemed to change, exactly, in that there were no sudden revelations, no sudden collapsing of barriers or giving-way of passions – things had just… steadily become more comfortable. Mostly it was the little gestures, like the way Julian put a hand on Xiù’s hip when he leaned around her to steal a cheeky morsel from the fridge, or how Allison’s flirting still raised her pulse and blush, but in a happy and confidence-boosting way. They all touched each other a little more and a little more, smiled and joked more, and performed the domestic ballet of keeping their living space tidy with increasingly efficient unconscious teamwork. Little things had mounted up.
She fondly recalled the time that Allison gave her a deep, therapeutic massage after Xiù came back sore and tired after a hard PT session, humming so softly and so peacefully that it put her right to sleep. On another occasion, Xiù gave Julian a coffee and a kiss as he struggled with his studies, then cuddled up with Allison on the couch to watch cartoons. There was always fresh coffee waiting for her when she returned from simulator sessions, and Allison had promptly lodged a request with Ericson for a heating element in the towel rack after Xiù made an off-hand comment about how the worst part of getting out of the shower was the cold air.
Xiù’s dreams didn’t stop, though. Her ingrained habit of being a light sleeper meant that every night was a surreal cinema reel in which childhood friends, Gaoians, mystic symbolism, odd objects, sex, places both real and imagined and an assortment of lurid contradictions acted out their incomprehensible scripts on the back of her eyelids.
Mostly they were peaceful. Vivid and often disturbing, but peaceful.
Mostly.
Date Point 10y6m2w1d AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Admiral Sir Patrick Knight
Gaoians apparently enjoyed their tea sweet and milky. A brief experiment in Earl Grey with a slice of lemon – Knight’s personal tipple – had not ended well, as it turned out that something about lemon just didn’t agree with the Gaoian palate.
Once Regaari and Shipfather Yefrig were both furnished with a civilized beverage to hopefully lubricate the wheels of discussion, though, the conversation began in earnest.
“You appreciate that I can’t just take a nonhuman ship and integrate it into the fleet,” he said. “You have different doctrine, different weapons and tactics, there are – forgive me – rafts of security concerns involved… Frankly you haven’t delivered an exciting new addition to the fleet, you’ve brought me a flying headache.”
“The Racing Thunder” is technological generations ahead of your ships,” Father Yefrig observed, clearly a touch offended. The translator certainly thought so, giving him a tooth-grinding edge to his simulated English voice.
“My dear chap, I don’t doubt that for a second,” Knight placated him. “But if… hmm…” he sipped his tea then hit on a useful analogy and put the cup down to deliver it. “If what we need is a spear, then you have brought me an excellent sword. For which I’m of course grateful, but…”
Yefrig settled, ear rotating sideways as he thought. “I understand.”
“So the question is, what am I to do with you? You’ve formally requested asylum; under our own rules and those of the Dominion I’m obligated to at least weigh the request… but in the longer term?”
“In the longer term,” Regaari said, “an asset is an asset. This asset wishes to work with you. Please don’t pretend that you couldn’t use them.”
Knight gave him a stern look. The Whitecrest was wearing his George Medal ribbon bar and from what he knew of the chap, that was undoubtedly a calculated move. Certainly his ears were up and forward, and his gaze level. Challenging.
But of course, that decorated Gaoian who’d most likely saved the whole SOR had implants in his head. There was a non-zero possibility that the entity he was talking with today was no longer Regaari.
“I can’t,” Knight told him. “Not for the moment, anyway. For reasons that I simply cannot go into, not with the two of you.”
“What can you do?” Yefrig asked.
“I can negotiate. I can discuss our options with my colleagues and superiors. But I cannot and will not guarantee anything, gentlemen. You will simply have to wait and see.”
Bitterly disappointed though both Gaoians clearly were, they took it with good grace. “May we at least send the females and civilians down?” Regaari requested.
“I’ll have Cimbrean Colonial Security notified,” Knight told him, nodding. “They can apply for visas and begin the immigration process. For now, Shipfather, if you would please remain at anchor above Cimbrean Five…”
“Near the Dominion embassy?” Yefrig made a growling noise.
“…Its moon, then.”
“As you wish, Fleetfather… ah, admiral.” Yefrig corrected himself. Knight smiled, quietly enjoying the title, and raised his fingers off his desk to acknowledge the respect.
“If I could speak with Regaari alone, shipfather…?” he requested
Yefrig duck-nodded, finished his tea, stood and, after a moment’s dithering, ducked and bowed in what was presumably something similar to a Gaoian salute, and departed.
That left Regaari, who was still watching Knight attentively.
“You’ve taken quite a liberty,” Knight accused him. “Presumed on our time, our resources, our manpower… Do you know how much it costs every time the SOR put on their spacesuits?”
“I am trying to forge an alliance,” Regaari informed him. “Something I understood you too were interested in.”
Knight frowned. “And you thought that imposing on us might make us better-disposed to such an alliance?”
Regaari angled his head slightly in a disarmingly canine gesture of thoughtfulness, and then duck-nodded as if he’d reached a decision. “There are…certain powerful Clan elements,” he revealed, “who are interested in pulling us closer to the Dominion. Fathers and the occasional Mother too who stand to gain personally by dragging my people in what I think is the wrong direction. Your people by contrast have been more than gracious with us… Gracious, in fact, to a fault.”
“How so?”
“If your fleet had simply disabled the Racing Thunder alongside the rest of the Dominion ships at Perfection, we wouldn’t be in the position of having to exile a valuable and powerful ship and all its crew. Our relationship with the Dominion would be effectively unchanged. Now, however, we are under pressure, and those pro-Dominion elements have pounced.”
“They would have been destroyed by the Hunters, and a hundred and eighty-seven One-Fangs would be dead.”
“In the big picture, sir, that’s a disposable number. Commodore Caruthers may have felt he was protecting human-Gaoian relations by leaving that ship untouched. In practice, it may have been a mistake.” Regaari scooted forward on his chair so that his paws were touching the ground again – a much more dignified posture. “That decision has… I believe your phrase is ’forced our hand’?”
Knight nodded.
Regaari put his empty teacup down and sat on the very edge of his seat. “Gao is not in a position to defy the Interspecies Dominion. The sanctions or punitive action would be… crippling. We had to get rid of that ship. The options before me were to bring it here and, yes, presume on your time, resources and manpower… or to exile them in earnest.”
Knight nodded. “And your pro-Dominion elements would have claimed a victory.”
“The Dominion is stagnant, corrupt and stifling,” Regaari said. “And badly prejudiced against life-forms like you and I who are natural carnivores. We need an alternative, and humans are it.” He growled slightly. “Worse, exiled Gaoians have a history of going pirate. Some of the most successful and dangerous pirate captains around are Gaoians, and all of them came from much less experienced stock than Father Yefrig, and started out with much inferior ships. The Racing Thunder is one of our best.”
“Surely the Dominion won’t be happy if we take that ship in…?”
“The Dominion is already not happy with you. You must be aware of how precarious your position is, Admiral.”
Knight sat back and laced his fingers gently on his belly. “More than you know,” he acknowledged.
“Meanwhile, Gao is badly in need of a gentle push away from the Dominion. Your kindness and grace have put us both in a dangerous place, Admiral, but it’s a position we can turn to the good. I would never presume on your time, resources and manpower unless I deemed it absolutely necessary, I promise you that.”
Knight gave him a long, calculating look, then exhaled and nodded. “I’ll put it to Allied Extrasolar Command that we should take them on as a deep-space patrol and assign them to watching the nearby systems,” he offered. “That, realistically, is the best I can offer for now.”
Regaari’s ears came down and slightly sideways as he relaxed. “Thank you.”
“Yes, well.” Knight tidied some papers on his desk. “Please don’t make a habit of this.”
“Of bringing you advanced warships with veteran crew?”
Knight couldn’t help himself – he snorted a laugh. What he knew of Gaoian body language made it clear that Regaari knew he’d won that point.
“I can see why your Fathers give you the difficult assignments,” he said. “You’re trouble.”
“Thank you, sir.” Regaari stood, and pulled off an acceptably passable salute considering that his shoulder wasn’t entirely the right shape. Knight did him the courtesy of returning it. “I’ll be staying in the Alien Quarter if you need me.”
“For how long?” Knight asked.
“Until there is a ship to take me home.”
Date Point 10y6m2w1d AV
The Box, Omaha, Nebraska, USA, Earth
Xiù Chang
There is a hole in her parents’ living room floor, which Xiù knows contains something dangerous. When she approaches and sticks her hand in it, sharp teeth bite off her arm.
At least, that’s what would happen if she did approach it. Instead she keeps a wary distance. She steps outside, onto the open farmland in Minnesota. Knowing what’s coming, she looks up and watches the fireballs across the sky. She can see forever, and wherever the weapons land they send up huge, fat, slow mushroom clouds.
She runs against the blast waves as they tear her long clothes out behind her. She finds herself stuck in traffic, leaning desperately on the horn but making no progress. When she gets out of the car to run the rest of the way, the ground collapses underfoot.
Down through an echoing dark cavern, falling along the beam of light she created when she broke through, until she lands in what might be tar, or quicksand. She reaches desperately for the light as a million hands close over her, and a million teeth rip her, gnawing, biting, chewing, eating-
Dream. Just a dream. She propped herself up on her elbows and willed her panicked hyperventilating to slow.
“That sounded like a bad one.”
Xiù rubbed her face and rolled over to look down on Julian. “…Yeah. Did I wake you?”
He waved a reassuring hand. “We both sleep light, it’s fine.”
Xiù contemplated trying to sleep some more, then kicked her legs over the side of her bunk and dropped noiselessly to the floor. She smiled at the sight of Allison sound asleep, then stooped.
“Can I-?
He scooted to the back of his bunk. “Sure.”
She rolled in next to him. Having never shared a bed with anybody before – the Sanctuary escape pod didn’t count – it took some prompting and whispered instructions before she was properly settled, with his left arm under her head and his right resting across her waist, holding her close. But once she was settled…
She couldn’t remember having ever felt so safe.
“Better?” He asked.
“Al won’t mind, will she?”
Julian brushed her hair out of the way and kissed her behind the ear. “She’ll be delighted,” He promised.
Xiù sighed happily, and listened to her instinct to wriggle into him some more.
She woke up to, exactly as Julian had predicted, a delighted noise that was half a squeal and half an “ooh!” As Allison discovered them in the morning.
“Oh, hey… Uh…”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” Allison ordered. She flipped out of bed and beamed at them. “You two look so cute together!”
Julian chuckled. At some point in the night, without her noticing, he’d withdrawn his arm from under Xiù’s head, and now he pushed himself up on it. “Told you.” He whispered into her ear. “Sleep well?”
“That’s the best night of sleep I’ve had in…I don’t know how long!” Xiù realised, sitting up.
Allison, who had turned and was stripping for her morning shower, nodded enthusiastically. “He’s like a magic comfort blanket, isn’t he?”
“Better,” Xiù agreed. Julian was a blusher too sometimes, and as he finger-combed his hair she shared a grin with Allison, who vanished into the washroom.
He cleared his throat, wriggled out past her, then stood up and stretched. His spine and shoulders made several loud popping sounds.
“…Are you okay?” Xiù asked.
“Male burden,” He joked. “Big spoon, small bunk. I’ll loosen up.”
“We can’t have that!” Xiù said. “Are you stiff and sore every time?”
Julian shrugged. “Worth it.”
Xiù considered the bunk. “Are you sure?”
Julian twisted his waist, bent over to touch his fingertips to the opposite toes, and then straightened with one final shimmy of his neck. “You know what I wanna do?” He asked. “I wanna say, ‘to Hell with the beds’ and just make a nest on the floor. They’re too soft anyway.”< /p>
“Ugh, I know what you mean,” Xiù agreed. She’d grown almost used to sleeping on hard metal floors during her exile. “They feel like you could fall through them! And… yeah, that way all three of us could cuddle up.”
“Oh, I see. You just want more magic comfort blanket.”
“Duh!” She agreed with a laugh. “Especially if you don’t get backache from it.”
“That would be nice…” he agreed, then raised his voice. “Whaddya think, Al?”
Allison’s voice was slightly muffled through the shower door as she called back. “What?”
“Building a kind of cosy nest on the floor instead of these tiny bunks!”
The shower shut off. Allison slid the door aside and reached out for a towel. “The floor?” she asked, drying her limbs.
“Yeah!” Xiù enthused. “It doesn’t make sense that Julian has to get backache and somebody gets left out…”
Allison frowned at him, as she dried her torso. “You get backache?” She asked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Nothing a hot shower doesn’t fix,” He promised. “Still…”
“Well go on then!” She stepped aside for him. Julian chuckled and obeyed, receiving a slap with the wet towel to his bare ass from Allison as he stepped out of his shorts.
Allison grinned, and scrubbed at her hair. Xiù still felt that she’d done an embarrassing butcher’s job of that shorter cut, but there was no denying that it needed far less maintenance.
“So.. what, just pull all the sheets and blankets down here and sleep?”
“It’s soft enough,” Xiù pointed out. She stood up and started making the beds.
“I guess it can’t hurt to try…” Allison sounded dubious, poking at the floor – which after all was only as ‘soft’ as a gym mat – with her toe. “…okay, We’ll try it tonight!”
“You don’t mind?”
“Why would I mind cuddling up to my two favorite people, dummy?” Allison asked, affectionately. “Ooh! Do I get to be in the middle?”
“Well… I kinda wanted to…”
Xiù trailed off at the extravagant pout on Allison’s face, rolled her eyes and raised a fist. Beaming, Allison raised hers and they silently counted out three beats. Xiù threw scissors, and Allison went for paper.
“Shit!” Allison threw her head back. “Best of three?”
”No.” Xiù asserted, laughing. “Go put some clothes on!”
Allison giggled and headed for her wardrobe. “Yes ma’am…” she sing-songed
“Good girl!” Xiù called after her, using the same cadence. She wriggled out of her own clothes as Julian finished his shower and stepped out to grab a towel for himself, shaking the water out of his prosthetic. She slipped past him almost before he was out of it and turned the shower back on before the water could go cold.
Normally, she was last in because she liked to luxuriate under it, but this time she spun through, soaked, soaped and rinsed in record time, eager to start the day.
The sooner it was started, after all, the sooner it was done, and she could try the joys of two magic comfort blankets.
Date Point 10y7m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Gabriel Arés
“So how are you settling in at the new workplace?”
Ava smiled and grabbed a handful of cutlery from the drawer to set the breakfast table. Since her return from Earth, she’d clearly and obviously relaxed and become happier. The haunted, sorrowful look that had darkened her expression for months now was finally going away, and her smile was coming back, which was lifting Gabe’s spirits in ways he couldn’t really describe. Adopted be damned, he loved Ava like she was his actual flesh-and-blood daughter, and no parent liked to helplessly watch their child go through hard times.
The fact that she and Adam seemed to be back on speaking terms, strained though they were, was even more cause for celebration. He regretted their breakup and bitterly wished he could have done more to stop it, but there came a time when a parent just had to get out of the way and let his kids be idiots.
Having them round for weekend breakfast on a regular basis was a treat for Gabe, too. Adam had loyally worked out how to fit a weekly bacon-and-eggs fried breakfast into his macronutrients, and if there had been a hint of wanting to avoid Ava for a while… well, to his credit he’d been big enough to get over it. And so had Ava, for that matter.
He wasn’t allowed to help, though. He was so huge nowadays that he was under strict orders to sit at the table, on the grounds that it was the only way for him to stay out of the way.
“It’s pretty good!” Ava said. “We’re all impatient to start putting articles out though. The website’s taking forever.”
“I suppose a whole new media network doesn’t just pop into existence overnight,” Jess observed. She loved their Saturday breakfasts – it was a lazy day for all three of them, and Gabe could cook it at his own limping pace, which was his way of thanking her for the blitzing, busy breakfasts she put together during the working week. It was that kind of happy give-and-take that was making their marriage work beautifully. Their worst argument ever had been over the orientation of the toilet paper. Gabe still didn’t know how a sane woman could tolerate having the roll the wrong way round, but he’d given up trying to persuade her and just settled for flipping it as needed.
“Mm-hmm!” Ava deftly spun a fork round her finger before putting it down. “I’m still trying to decide if I want to focus on Security or Extraterrestrial Affairs.”
“You’ve got the contacts for security…” Adam mused.
“I’m not sure I’d want to interview either of you,” Ava shrugged, before Gabe could reply.
“Why not? And…why would you interview me?”
Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re right, why would a journalist who’s just starting to make a name for herself want to interview one of the Beef Brothers?”
Adam snorted at that, but it was an amused snort. He was still an essentially shy guy at heart, and mentioning the way that the Internet had fallen in love with him and Baseball as they escorted Earth’s first official extraterrestrial visitors was a sure way to make him go slightly red in the ears.
“But… I mean, I guess it’s just not a good idea to interview your family,” Ava continued. “And the SOR don’t like me at all.”
“Sounds like the decision’s made, then, surely?” Jess asked, heading off Adam’s reply.
Ava sighed. “Yeah…”
“But security’s what you really want to cover, isn’t it,” Gabriel observed. He got a small smile for that.
“Yeah… but I guess ET Affairs probably has a big overlap, with the Hunters and, uh, all the rest of it…”
Gabe resisted the urge to grimace. He’d had a long and tense conversation with Admiral Knight over the fact that both his kids had been put in harm’s way in Egypt. Knight had been as reasonable and agreeable as always, but his apology had been for the necessity of it, not for the decision itself.
After reviewing the debrief on EMPTY BELL for himself, Gabe had been forced to agree that it was necessary, but he was damned if he’d ever be happy about it. He hadn’t yet had the chance to discuss it with either of them: with Jess around, classified matters were off limits, and he got the impression that Ava wanted to put the whole affair behind her anyway.
He settled for chuckling weakly. “Well, if you want to combine them, interview me about Gaoians sometime,” he offered. “They’re CCS’ most regular customers.”
Ava mulled that one over. “Hmm. Could be a good angle. The challenge of reconciling alien morality with human laws…”
“Regaari’s here right now,” Adam offered. “He’d have some interesting stuff to say.”
“Isn’t he your friend? You wouldn’t mind?”
“Trust me, he’d prolly thank me for arranging it.”
“Hmm…” Ava finished setting the table and sat down so as to stay out of the way. “And the rest of the guys? I kinda wanna stay in their good graces as best I can…”
Adam ’pff’-ed and poured himself an orange juice. “Stay?”
“Ohhh, no. Stop that,” Jess warned him, putting the finishing touches on the French press coffee. “That wasn’t nice, Adam.”
“…You’re right. Sorry Ava.”
“No se preocupe. You’re right.”
“Regaari’s would be an interesting perspective on these duels that cause us so much trouble,” Gabe suggested, carefully transferring the toast onto their plates as well as dragging the conversation back on course.”
“Are they really that endemic?” Ava asked.
“Every day there’s some incident, and we only have a few hundred Gaoians,” Gabe replied, parting out the scrambled eggs. “As far as they’re concerned it’s perfectly acceptable and normal, as far as we’re concerned it’s aggravated assault. Not that we can ever make the charges stick.”
“If it’s their culture, though-”
“Me vale madre por su cultura.” Gabriel grumbled, serving the bacon. “They can act however they like on a Gaoian planet, but so long as they’re in my jurisdiction… And the same goes for humans, too. Culture be damned, if you come to Cimbrean, you live by Cimbrean’s laws. Our house, our rules.”
Jess and Adam both nodded emphatically. For her part, Ava gave his words a moment’s consideration before nodding. “I guess,” she agreed.
“It’s not about saying they can’t be who they are,” Gabe clarified. “It’s about saying, ’this is who we are’, right? These are the things that matter to us, these are our values. And if we’re not willing to stand up for those values…”
This time Ava’s nod was more solid. “Then who are we?”
“Exactly.” Gabe served the sausages, tomatoes and mushrooms and Jess helped him transfer the four plates – one noticeably more laden than the other three – to the table. It was very much a British style breakfast, but Jess had won him over to the dark side. He was damned if he was going to let her convert him to black pudding, though, a sentiment apparently shared by Ava but not by Adam, who couldn’t seem to get enough of the stuff.
“You’re getting political, darling,” Jess noted.
“Sorry. I just worry one of these days one of my officers is going to lose an eye. Gaoians may not be deathworlders, but those claws are sharp.”
“What about the females?” Ava suggested. “Now that they’re here, maybe you could ask them to help you?”
Gabe inclined his head thoughtfully as he sat down “…Hmm…”
Ava smiled, then lowered her head. Jess and Adam sat back and let them say grace silently, before they tucked in.
“…Talking to the females could work,” Gabe admitted, after a few silent minutes of appreciative gourmandizing, when half his plate was eaten. “Possibly. Though, one of the new females fancies herself a warrior. The commune’s not even built yet and she’s already gone to the Thing requesting a change in the weapon licensing laws.”
“A warrior? What kind of a change does she want?”
“She’s a ’commune guard’. Apparently it’s her job to keep unwanted males from harassing the females and cubs. She’s eligible for a security license, which would cover her to carry a gun or a taser, but she wants the license expanded to include fusion swords.” Gabe cleared his throat.
“A sword? A Gaoian with a sword?” Adam laughed.
“Yeah, she’s a fierce one. A real mama bear.”
“Maybe you should interview her,” Jess suggested.
“I think so!” Ava agreed, fighting to keep her amused expression down to a mere wide smile. “She sounds like a firecracker.”
“Well, her name’s Myun. She should be easy enough to find.” Gabe told her. “Try not to create tension, mija.”
“Wait, Myun?” Adam asked, “Dexter was tellin’ me about her. Her first cub is his.”
“That so? …Dexter is Regaari?” Gabriel asked. When Adam nodded, he had to ask further. “Why Dexter?”
“Because of his left hand. Paw. Whatever.”
“Anyway: Just the facts, dad, I promise,” Ava reassured him. “That’s what we want this to be all about.”
“Isn’t ’Just the Facts’ Byron Media’s thing?”
“That’s their slogan…” Ava shrugged. “But Carl – that’s our political editor – he thinks it’s all about public image with the Group.”
“Moses Byron is a very clever man who wants to be remembered as one of the good guys,” Jess opined.
“Exactly. So everything they publish is about making the Group look better. Our mission statement is the truth, no matter what the truth may be.”
“That’s a mission that might get you buried,” Gabe warned her. “People aren’t rational and they don’t always like or want the truth.”
Ava shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?” she asked.
“…Nothing you can’t handle, I suppose,” Jess mused.
“I hope so,” Ava agreed. “We’ll just have to go for it and see. But don’t worry, I’m not going to stir up trouble. It’s all going to be about letting the ETs describe themselves and us in their own words.”
“Gaoians are a good start,” Gabe told her. “They’re generally well-disposed to us. You should get some opinions out of them that’ll make readers smile.”
“What about the others?”
“The Vizkittik. Are the most… cautious. They’ll probably give you some more, uh… less inspiring interviews. The Kwmbwrw are outright hostile to us, and in fact I think the handful we had are planning to emigrate now that more Gaoians are arriving. I think there’s a family of Locayl and a Qinis tailor…”
“I guess I’ll just get the bioscreen and a pass to the alien quarter, see if I can do some old-school, candid street voices stuff,” Ava decided.
“Could you see if you can get a piece on education in the alien quarter?” Jess asked. “I want to see how they compare to our own schooling.”
Ava held up her hands. “Please! I’m the new girl! I can only do so much! I can come up with any story I like, but what we actually publish is up to the editors.”
“It’s for my own interest, really,” Jess said. “I’ve got… well, a bit of a problem case. I suppose I was just hoping maybe the aliens have figured out how to deal with some of the things I haven’t.”
“When it comes to humans? I doubt it,” Gabriel muttered.
“Mm.” Jes nodded sadly and finished her coffee.
“Is there anything I could do, maybe?” Adam offered. “Admiral Knight’s been pushing for more community outreach. We’re supposed to look for chances to help people out…”
“Maybe. I’m… a little reluctant to involve either of you directly.”
“Why?” Ava asked.
“Because… well, it’s Jack Tisdale.”
Ava and Adam both nodded understanding and glanced at one another. Gabe knew that neither of them had managed to re-engage with Jack since the Tisdale family’s return to Cimbrean, which was a shame. He should have been their last link to his late sister, Sara, and they should have been the same for him…but it hadn’t happened.
“Lemme guess,” Adam said, quietly. “He’s getting into fights? Giving you attitude?”
“I don’t blame him,” Jess hastened to say. “He lost his sister and fourteen’s a tricky age anyway. But he keeps picking fights with bigger and older boys, and bless them they’re pretty good about it, but he’s going to get hurt if somebody doesn’t turn him around, and I’ve… well, I’ve done everything that I can.” She shrugged helplessly. “There’s only so far a teacher can go.”
Adam nodded. “I’ll talk with him when I… I tell you what, next time he gets in a fight, give him some alone time and call for me, I’ll come down if I can.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to put you-”
“It’s no problem, I promise,” Adam interrupted, kindly.
Jess sighed. “…Thank you, Adam.”
“De nada. I hope I can do something for him.”
Ava’s smartwatch made a pinging sound, and a second after checking it she smiled hugely. “Oh hey! The website’s going up!”
“You’d better get into the office then,” Gabe told her.
“Uh-huh. We’re in for a busy couple of weeks… I’ll see you next Saturday?”
“Of course!” Jess gave her a hug and they shared a couple of familial cheek-kisses. “Always!”
Gabe was given similar treatment, and Adam got a hug sans the kiss, but it was still a big improvement on the first few awkward, strained breakfasts.
“I’ll wash up,” he said, looming upright and squeezing past into the kitchen. This was the easy job, seeing as Jess had insisted on a dishwasher.
Gabe was left to finish his coffee and sit back, feeling a good deal more relaxed and happy than he had in some months.
On the whole, life was going okay.