Date Point: 13y11m2w AV
Chiune Station, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches
Clara Brown
Taking Daniel Hurt along for the ride had been part of the plan right from the start.
The question of where to actually put him had resulted in a moment of tension. The hab room…sure it had a bed, and the kitchen, the table, the bathroom and shower. So he’d argued that he’d figuratively sleep on the couch.
The trio had had a hive-mind moment and told him in certain terms that while they liked him well enough and were happy with their professional relationship, there was no way they’d be happy with him sleeping in their bedroom. He was welcome to ride along, but he could bring his own copy of Clara’s pop-up hut.
Dan wasn’t unreasonable, but he also pointed out that it probably wasn’t safe for him to sleep outside at first. Later, sure, but immediately after introduction? He’d suggested the mission prep room instead, and Allison had just shrugged and said “Sure. You can try sleeping in there tonight.”
The constant roll and gurgle of the water processor, the roar of the air system and the unfiltered sounds of *Misfit*‘s mechanical guts churning away even in idle made for an impossible sleeping environment, as Hurt had instantly discovered. And that was before he finally nodded off into a restless slumber and after a minute of stillness the power management system’s motion sensor decided that the room was now empty, prompting it to turn off the gravity. The shift from Earth gravity to Cimbrean gravity had instantly jolted him awake again.
Misfit had a soundproofed, insulated and pressurized hab room for a reason—the rest of the ship just wasn’t a restful environment by anybody’s standards. The lab, sample storage and engineering didn’t have enough floor space, the pantry was too full and too cold, and the pilot’s seat was A: custom-built to Xiù’s measurements, and B: designed to keep her upright, awake and alert.
Daniel had suggested a hammock in the airlock, and the idea had immediately been vetoed by Clara on safety grounds, not to mention sentimental ones. Her father had been fatally wounded in that airlock after all.
Clara tried her best to be a level-headed and practical person, but that fact cut just a little too deep. The idea of somebody sleeping in there made her feel sick to her stomach. It was hard enough just having to go through that airlock, or see it. Let alone send it away to an alien world.
Thus the discussion had bounced back and forth until finally an alternative presented itself.
“I can’t fucking believe they called it the Drunk On Turkey…”
Allison folded her arms and shook her head as she watched the JETS ship align itself over the landing pad and lower itself onto the concrete with a kind of artless straight-line stiffness that suggested it was completely on instruments. A human pilot would have been more graceful.
Misfit had instruments, but Xiù claimed that she could literally land on a dime from all the way across a star system without turning them on, and Clara believed her. The Drunk On Turkey on the other hand was Gaoian-made and probably didn’t even need a pilot at all thanks to the hundred-year tech advantage, but it was just…lacking that balletic quality.
“Well, the acronym is DOT…” Julian observed.
“Bet that’ll piss them off if we call their ship that,” Clara said.
“Mm,” Allison nodded. “You heard about that ship some dude built in Folctha years ago now, out of junk and spare parts?”
“No?”
“Yeah. Back when there was still wreckage around from some battle. Apparently the crazy asshole cobbled a ship together out of the scrap and called it Spot.”
“Christ,” Julian shook his head. “Spot, Drunk On Turkey, My Other Spaceship Is The Millennium Falcon…Misfit almost sounds like a normal name next to those.”
“I like Misfit,” Clara told them. “It just…uh…fits.”
“You think we picked good?” Allison asked.
“Yeah. You did.”
“Thank fuck they agreed to take Dan along for the ride,” Allison said. “That argument was getting old real quick.”
“Mm. A day or two of their company and he might come hammering on our airlock…” Julian warned.
“And I will smile and turn over in my sleep,” Allison said, sweetly.
Clara just laughed silently through her nose. She watched as DOT—and she would now never not think of the ship by that name—dropped a ramp from under its shovel-shaped nose for the crew to disembark. Clara would have preferred a ramp for Misfit, herself, but the ship’s design just hadn’t left an appropriate place for one. Not without dramatically and unacceptably increasing its mass, anyway.
Still, maybe it was just loyalty to her own creation, but she quite liked *Misfit*‘s steel ladder and cargo dumbwaiter. They were caveman-simple, reliable and sturdy.
The JETS team clearly thought their ramp was cool, though. They ambled down it while it was still unfolding itself, and Walsh definitely had a swagger in his step when he alighted off its end exactly as it finished deploying.
“Ain’t she beautiful?” he called.
Allison and Julian shared a mutual tolerant glance, then Julian shrugged and called back. “She looks more like a dick than ours does, I’ll give you that.”
Walsh blinked, frowned, then turned and considered the Drunk On Turkey with his head on one side.
“…I don’t see it,” he said after a few seconds.
“Gotta be honest babe, neither do I,” Allison whispered.
Julian grinned. “Yeah, but it shut him up,” he murmured, causing Clara to stuff a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.
Daar saw it though, and straightened up to give Walsh a swat with the back of his paw. “They’re messin’ with you,” he said. He’d shaved right down to the silky underlayer of his fur, and that change had taken some of the shaggy feral murder-beast edge off him and replaced it with sheer muscle definition. He looked as big as a bear and as lean and fit as a fighting dog.
Walsh wasn’t easily deterred. “Nah, bro. I think I see it. Like, the engine nacelles at the back there, and…”
Daar turned and considered the ship for a second then shrugged, dropped to all fours and padded lazily away from him.
“If you think dicks work that way, whatever…” he growled.
“Admit it, part of you is curious about the spinny bit on the top.”
“I’ve seen what ‘yer packin’ down there Tiny, and that spinny bit can’t possibly be normal.”
“I’ve seen you Tiggs, and if you think you get to define normal, then—”
“Oh yeah,” Allison interrupted sarcastically. “Workin’ with you four is gonna be great. I was just saying to Clara this morning, what my life really needs is more conversations about dick.”
She got a selection of chuckles plus a deep chitter from Daar, and smiled. “So…I’d ask how Drunk On Turkey there stacks up against Misfit, but I’m guessin’ that kinda information is confidential.”
Coombes nodded. “Pretty much. But…you got a good ship there. I’ll say that.”
“And she’s ready to fly,” Clara chimed in, inwardly glowing with pride.
“What, no pomp and ceremony?” Walsh asked. “Where’s the band and the dude in a fancy suit to wish us godspeed and all that shit?”
“Humans are weird,” Daar grumbled indulgently, while draping his weight affectionately around Walsh’s shoulders.
“If we’re very very lucky,” Julian said, “We might just be able to sneak away before the dude in the fancy suits notices.”
“Wait. Is that the fat man who smells like dry cleaning and too much drama?” Daar asked.
“He wears a paisley cravat…” Clara shuddered.
Daar tilted his head. “I’m gonna regret ‘Googling’ that, aren’t I?”
“Nah. It’s just a frilly silk cloth around the neck, and paisley’s just a stupid-ass pompous fabric pattern,” Hoeff told him. “But it means he’s a cu-” he caught himself mid-slur, made eye contact with Allison and morphed the word awkwardly into “-ooomplete poser.”
“Oh, okay,” Daar said giving every indication he didn’t get it and no longer cared. “Plus, I mean, he’s not all bad. He’s friendly for-real, I can smell that. Just…that cologne.”
“It ain’t cologne, bruh. It’s fuckin’ perfume. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, I looked it up. The difference is in the strength of the solvent and the composition of the base and top notes, and what that composition’s family might be is actually dependent on who mixes it and what language you’re speaking. So…which language?”
Six humans took a moment to gave him the same faintly incredulous look.
“What!? Have you looked at my face? This nose ain’t for show! That stuff is actually interesting.”
“It is, huh?” Allison—a woman whose only forays into the world of perfume had involved borrowing Clara’s—asked with obvious skepticism.
“Yeah! Some of your ‘colognes’ are more complex compositions than a woman’s full-strength perfume, did you know that? Hell, Rebar’s got one that has, by my estimation, at least thirty different scents in its mid- and top notes, though everything he wears has big sandalwood and civet musk base notes. Ooh, and leather too. He has good taste, I think.”
“…Huh.” Clara managed. She personally couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d launched into a complex oenological lecture and revealed himself to be a sommelier. Daar pant-grinned at her.
“You wear Signature Sin, right? I like that one. It’s…arrrgh, English ain’t got the word. Closest I can think of is ‘luxurious.’”
Walsh shook his head and knocked him on the upper arm. “Daar, stop flirting with the nice human lady.”
“I’m not flirting! Can’t I just banter?”
“Nah brah, you’re totally flirting.”
Clara was astonished to find herself blushing. She cleared her throat so as to interrupt them and wrench the subject back to business, and made a mental note that Dane was not going to find out about that conversation.
“Uh…Look, we’ve been waiting for this for months now,” she said. “The ship’s ready, the provisions are loaded, the crew are ready…right?” she checked with Allison and Julian who both nodded vigorously. “So as soon as Xiù and Daniel are here…”
“And this.” Coombes handed Allison a jump beacon minisat in its cardboard tube packaging. “Tuned and ready to bring us in on your go.”
“Gotcha.” Allison took it and stuffed it into her pocket. “We’ll need to spend a day or two doing a slow approach…”
“Yup, we got briefed. We’ve got enough provisions for a week, if we need.”
“Only a week?”
“Yup! We’re bringing a jump portal with us so we don’t need to worry about food and basic supplies. It’s just the equipment that won’t fit through that we’ve gotta take with us. That’ll be a bitch…”
Julian made a noise something like a chuckle and a groan, and shook his head ruefully. “‘Horse knew! No wonder he went after me so hard!”
Walsh gave him a grin and crossed his huge arms over his chest. “Well, I mean…why wouldn’t we use it? And by the look of things you didn’t try very hard to say no, dude.”
He certainly hadn’t, and as far as Clara was concerned Adam and Dane’s little conspiracy had been wildly successful. Boys really were endearingly easy in some ways.
“Anyway, yeah.” Coombes got back on topic. “We’ve got a portable jump array and we can safely fire it once every couple of weeks. That’s the plan, anyway. Daar?”
“Got it, Boss.” The Gaoian dashed back up the ramp with startling swiftness considering his size.
Walsh shook his head indulgently. “He’ll take any excuse to move. Y’need help?”
Daar’s reply boomed hollowly down the ramp. “Nuh!” Almost as soon as he’d vanished into the ship, he came charging back out at an alarming clip considering the enormous pack he’d strapped on. For a second it looked like he was about to barge Allison off her feet, but instead he swung himself around on his forepaws and skidded to a halt at her side.
“It’s heavy!” He said, ridiculously, then cocked his head. “Where you want it?”
Allison blinked at him for a second, then looked toward Julian and raised an eyebrow with a smirk on her lips. “Better put those new muscles to work, babe,” she prompted.
Julian chuckled softly. “Yes ma’am,” he replied, and led Daar towards *Misfit*‘s cargo dumbwaiter. Clara and Allison watched as the Julian hauled the heavy pack off Daar’s back and into the dumbwaiter with a single massive heave, then swarmed up the ladder as easily as anyone else might dash up a small hill.
“Your dude really built himself up!” Walsh commented approvingly.
“Mmhm,” Allison agreed, with folded arms and an entirely unchaste smile in her eye. “We ain’t complaining.”
Daar chittered up at something that Julian yelled down, then proceeded up the ladder with a bit more care. Immediately there came the sound of heavy things being reshuffled onboard.
“Why are we carrying it, though?” Allison asked.
“Dude. Our ship’s even smaller than yours,” Walsh said, using his hands to illustrate.
“We got just enough room for the emergency food,” Coombes revealed. “And we’re already living dick-to-ass in there. As it is we’re gonna be all crowded up on the floor, feet in each other’s faces and everything.”
“What, no spooning?” Allison asked.
The noise of heavy stuff being moved stopped, and Daar flowed down from the airlock door like a mountain lion before bounding towards DOT on a quest to move more stuff. Julian took the more conservative route of sliding easily down the ladder and jogged after him.
“Combat spooning is always an option,” Coombes said drily. “Tiggs won’t give us much of a choice anyway.”
Allison’s smile got wider, and Clara caught herself giggling at the mental image. “Much better,” she said, then returned to business mode. “I’d better do the visual inspection…Clara, could you check and find out what the hell’s taking Xiù and Daniel so long?
Clara nodded and excused herself, pleased to have a chance to fetch Dane as well. The pair of them had a parting gift to share, an important one seeing as their own lives were about to enter a new chapter as they started working on BGEV-12.
She stopped by Daniel Hurt’s office first, and the source of the delay immediately became apparent: He’d had a last-minute academic’s panic and decided that he needed to double-check that he’d properly inventoried everything he was bringing.
He wasn’t being unreasonable, he was just nervous as hell. He’d been able to resist Xiù’s assurances that everything was fine, but when Clara joined her and ganged up on him he finally managed to get his head back in the right place.
“You’re out of time, Daniel. They’re loading the ship now so if you don’t get your cart over there, there won’t be room for anything.”
“…Right.”
Easy enough. Clara left him in Xiù’s capable hands, retrieved Dane from his office where she teased him slightly about the YouTube videos he’d been watching rather than working, and dragged him back to the concrete. They got there just as Daniel and Xiù were adding Daniel’s luggage to the pile.
In the interim the men had everything stacked out on the flightline and ready to go, with Hoeff and Coombes going over the inventory at the last possible second while Julian, Daar and Walsh did the actual heavy lifting and Allison was vanished inside *Misfit*‘s landing gear doing a cursory visual inspection of the ESFALS array. An alarming amount of cargo was already on board.
“…And our nutty professor’s stuff, I see.” Coombes said it gruffly but with a twinkle in his eye.
“Sorry. Just, uh, a last minute, uh…” Daniel cleared his throat. “…What now?”
“We load the ships up, then we suck in our guts and squeeze in there ourselves…Hope you didn’t have a big breakfast.”
“…Right.”
It was the last thing of any substance that any of them said for about an hour. There was a fair bit of talking, but most of it was simple communication of what each box was and where it was going and who was going to put it there. Allison and Xiù vanished inside to boot up the ship, fire up the fusion power and charge the capacitors. Julian, Dane, Walsh and Daar made a friendly contest out of who could move the most stuff, while Hoeff and Coombes mustered pallets in loading order and Clara mostly found herself standing around with Daniel at a loose end, fetching bottled water for the sweating quartet and staying out of the way.
And, in Clara’s case, quietly enjoying the view.
It was an entertaining hour, though. The minutes just…vanished. As the work wound down the banter got more frequent and less civilized, until Walsh and Daar seemed to be plunging headlong into a series of progressively less and less appropriate—and less plausible—anecdotes that nobody seemed to know how to stop.
That was, until Coombes looked up, straightened up, and spoke in a low voice.
“Old man’s here. With the Padre.”
He was indulging in considerable understatement. Chiune Station had just welcomed a convoy of black SUVs and a couple of motorbikes, which did a stately lap of the compound’s frontage before rolling out onto the landing pads.
The one in the middle wasn’t an SUV at all, it was the distinguished black state limousine decorated with Cimbrean’s flag. Governor-General Sandy’s car.
Somebody, apparently, was making a bigger deal of the departing mission than they’d first thought.
Clara was interested to see how the military personnel prepared as the cars slid to a halt only yards away—they tidied themselves up. Walsh and Coombes carefully put down what they were doing and threw on their blouses—possibly the stupidest name for a uniform shirt ever—while Daar quietly ditched his utility harness out of sight behind the cargo, and Hoeff adjusted his underwear.
“There goes the quiet no-fuss departure,” Julian muttered.
Coombes had enough time to chuckle darkly before the first car door opened and a muscular man with a handsome but stern face and piercing blue eyes stepped out, wearing the black beret of the SOR. Coombes immediately straightened and clearly enunciated a loud “Squad, a-ten-SHUH!” that caused the others to follow suit.
The big man nodded at them and they immediately went to some different posture, while Coombes and Daar walked up, stood tall again, and saluted.
“Good afternoon, Sir.”
“Put your men at ease, master sergeant.”
“AT EASE!”
To Clara’s eyes, the ‘at ease’ posture looked only marginally more comfortable, but she didn’t comment. She just took a step back and stood between Dane and Daniel, watching with interest. She’d kind of assumed that the military side of the operation had taken care of all their formalities before leaving HMS Sharman.
“What’s the officer’s name again?” she whispered to Julian.
“Powell,” he replied. “Lieutenant-Colonel Powell.”
“He looks kinda…severe.”
“He’s alright.”
*Misfit*‘s airlock produced its characteristic sharp CRACK! sound as its seal disengaged, and Xiù and Allison emerged from inside to see what was going on. Powell glanced up at them, gave them a nod of recognition, then returned his attention to Coombes and Daar while they slid down the ladder.
“What’s your status, Coombes?”
“Literally just finished packing, sir.”
“Aye. Sergeant Daar. Are you still prepared to go on this mission? We are aware of your many commitments…”
Daar duck-nodded furiously. “I know sir, but I am serving them better by going. The Gao will not leave a Brother people to suffer harm under the auspices of an uncaring Dominion. The Conclave and the Clan of Females have both endorsed this mission.”
Daniel grunted to Clara’s left. When she glanced at him, he murmured. “I think we just watched some serious power politics.”
Powell, meanwhile, had acknowledged the same thing with thanks and was lining his men up for the Governor-General’s benefit. The civilians were shepherded into position at the end of the line and left in varying states of mild confusion and bemusement when he called them all to attention yet again.
At that point he freed Governor Sandy from the state limousine and offered a salute, which was acknowledged with that smile and nod, the one that came installed as standard in heads of state the world over.
Clara wasn’t actually clear on what the governor-general was for in a constitutional sense, despite ample opportunity to learn. She’d been much too focused on work ever since leaving Earth. The most she’d paid attention had been some big televised occasion about “Opening the Thing” where he’d read a speech on behalf of the King of England, though the speech had actually been written by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. And there was a ceremonial thing about how he couldn’t just enter the Thing chamber but had to be invited in, a symbolic gesture to signify…
…And so on. How the hell a colony that wasn’t even ten years old already had traditions like that she didn’t know, and thank God the next election was years away—Maybe by the time it arrived, she’d have had time to figure out how the damn system was supposed to work and how the Social Alliance Party was different from the Democratic Liberal Party, and…all the rest of it.
Sandy himself was a willowy figure with more salt than pepper in his hair and a wide red sash over his right shoulder. He straightened his jacket upon alighting from the car, and began his inspection.
He met Daar with the kind of formal warmness that completely supported Daniel’s observations about the political power at work here. He exchanged polite small-talk with Coombes, Walsh and Hoeff. Allison, Julian and Xiù handled a relatively lengthy conversation with him in confident style born of far too much time in the public eye.
Daniel, meanwhile, seemed almost comfortable. Of course, he’d actively sought out TV shows and the celebrity of an academic and thinker, so his small-talk with the Governor-General ended with Sandy actually hinting that he’d quite like an autographed copy of The Road To Reason someday.
Clara wasn’t sure if she’d have wished for him to spend longer with Daniel or not. On the one hand she’d been growing sick with nervous anticipation, on the other hand it was a relief to finally pitch over the edge and take her own turn.
Powell introduced them. “Doctor Clara Brown, *Misfit*‘s chief design engineer, and her husband Dane Brown, the crew’s personal development manager.”
Sandy shook Clara’s hand with a sympathetic expression. “Doctor Brown, while it’s a pleasure to meet you I must offer my condolences for your father. I gather he was able to protect several others.”
To Clara’s distant astonishment, far from being trite or insufficient she actually found the simple words…moving. She blinked at the sudden complicated medley of sadness, pride and gratitude he’d managed to inspire in her and found herself smiling reflexively. “I…thank you. Knowing that there are some people alive today who wouldn’t be…it helped me,” she admitted.
“You have a lot to be proud of,” Sandy told her. “Not just in him, but in this ship. The first manned mission to Mars, and several other alien worlds besides is a profound accomplishment.”
“I hope her best missions are still ahead of her,” Clara replied. “Though, uh, technology is a ruthless process. As much as I love Misfit, the next one will be even better.”
“The next one?” Sandy looked amused. “Straight from project to project, then?”
“Absolutely,” Clara grinned, then decided that she had a good moment to give the crew her parting gift. “We have a lot to get done before the baby arrives.”
She’d waited three weeks since the positive pregnancy test for the look of shocked delight that burst onto her friends’ faces, and it was worth every second. Sandy caught it too, and chuckled. “I take it you were saving the news for today?” he asked. “Congratulations, both of you.”
“Thank you,” Clara said, and meant it.
Oddly, that seemed to conclude the formalities as far as Sandy was concerned. Coombes hadn’t been wrong about the padre though—Powell was standing patiently alongside the SOR’s chaplain. He was a former operator himself, quiet and self-possessed, and had dropped by himself some months previously to introduce himself once the details of the SOR’s involvement with the mission had been finalized.
The tiny Gaoian by his side had come as a surprise when Clara had first met them. He seemed a bit wobbly on his feet so Daar rushed to his side and offered himself as a steadying weight, which was accepted gratefully. The change was something; Daar went from boisterous and bouncy to solicitous and concerned in a fraction of an instant.
The chaplain stepped forward and everyone quieted down.
“We live,” he began, “As an old curse has it, in interesting times.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“I could remind you of the responsibility you chose to shoulder today. I could speak about how the future of an entire species will pivot on your decisions…but you know. You know better than anybody and you don’t need an old man to remind you. You’re carrying the lights of Mercy and Justice into a dark place, and we shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer.”
He looked around, nodded at whatever it was he saw, and then bowed his head.
The Gaoian intoned, “Let us pray.”
Date Point: 13y11m2w AV
Waterside Park, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Gabriel Arés
Movement. Blessed, glorious, free movement. Just the simple act of being able to jog by the river, in the company of his daughter and her dog.
It hadn’t worn off. After nine months Gabe kept expecting the sheer joy of his regained mobility to have faded, but it didn’t. Instead, like a hiker climbing a mountain and finding that the vista unrolled with every new rise in the landscape, Gabe kept finding new things to enjoy in his mobility as his fitness returned to and even surpassed what it had been before the shooting.
He had been given a gift: squandering it was unthinkable. And he was nearly able to keep up with Ava now. Just a few more months, and she’d be struggling to keep up with him.
It was just a shame that Jess hated jogging with a passion. She got her exercise tax deductions with yoga, tai chi and swimming. It would have been nice to have her along as well.
Still. It was a good opportunity to catch up with Ava when they stopped at the east end of the park for a quick break before they turned around to run back.
And his Father Senses had been tingling all morning.
“…So what’s his name?”
Ava blinked at him as she closed the top of her water bottle. “…Eduardo. How did you know?”
“You’ve been radiating deep, uh, satisfaction all day.”
“It’s just one date…The first date.”
“Gonna be a second, then?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Is he cute?”
“Try…Hnngh.”
Gabe laughed and parked himself against the handrail that ran alongside the river. “He got a brain in his head, too?”
“…He’s smart enough…”
Gabe chuckled again and shook his head. “You always did like ‘em a bit dense.”
“He’s a model. And he’s not dumb!”
“Never said he was—¡Desde luego! Hannah, your boyfriend’s here. ¡Llegas tarde, Bozo!”
The SOR’s giant mutt was trotting toward them with his huge rudder of a tail held high and a single enormous indestructible rubber “tennis” ball in his mouth. He seemed to have a magical sense of when and where he could meet up with Hannah, and as always he was a perfect gentleman.
It made it legitimately hard to deny him his fun. He parked his butt in the dirt a few yards from Ava, dropped the ball and let out one of those gut-punch barks of his.
“WURF!!”
Ava giggled. “¡Mira qué cabrón! I know why you’re here, don’t play innocent.”
Bozo was far more intelligent than any dog had a right to be. He cocked his head on one side and his tail excavated a fan-shaped indent in the trail.
Ava sighed, scooped up the ball and let Hannah off her leash. Both dogs were immediately locked onto it and circled around each other in hungry anticipation of the throw.
She didn’t keep them waiting. She turned, lifted her knee like a softball pitcher and sent the ball flying down the trail. It promptly became invisible in a cloud of paw-scrabbled dust.
Gabe watched them go with a grin, then gestured over his shoulder to suggest they resume their jog.
“So a model, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah. And an aspiring photographer. We’re, um…helping each other with our portfolios.” The redness in Ava’s cheeks was definitely more than just exertion.
“Uh-huh. And how much are you wearing in these portfolios?”
“Dad!”
“Uh-huh. I thought so.”
“There’s artistic value in the human body,” Ava said, affecting a dignified air.
“I’m sure there is.”
“It’s fascinated artists for centuries.”
“Mhmm.”
“And it’s important to have a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere during the shoot…” God, the way she blushed was adorable.
“So…dense, cheerful, and a god-like body, huh? I’m sensing a trend.”
“So I have a type, shut up,” she grumbled, though she was grinning.
“Just make sure you’re happy.” Gabe told her, though he couldn’t resist just a little more fatherly teasing.. “…And try not to wear yourself out too much!”
“…I’ll tr—Dad!!”
Trolling his kids was one of Gabe’s little joys in life, too.
A thought struck him. “Where are the dogs?”
Ava’s running shoes slid in the dirt as she came to an abrupt halt and checked behind her.
“…Oh Hell. It’s that time of year. I completely forgot!”
Gabe raised his eyebrow. “Somehow I bet Bozo didn’t. We’d better find ‘em quick.”
They turned back to the East, but barely made it twenty strides before possibly the worst sound Gabe could have heard in the circumstances reached their ears—kids, giggling.
There were four of them gathered on the trail with a soccer ball, pointing at something in the bushes and chattering excitedly among themselves. They looked up when they heard the adults coming and immediately tried to pretend they were angelic figures of purity and virtue and that nothing was funny at all. They weren’t very good actors.
The dogs didn’t have any such pretensions. Sure enough, they’d found a spot in the bushes and the look they gave Gabe was unrepentant and, in Bozo’s case, somehow smug.
“Oh, Hannah…” Ava groaned, and turned away shaking her head. The kids made themselves scarce, fighting to contain their laughter.
“…Cold water?” Gabe suggested.
“Too late.”
“…So…”
“Yeah. Hmm.”
Gabe sighed, turned away and let the dogs get on with it. “…How much do you know about raising puppies?” he asked.
Ava shrugged, glanced back into the bushes, then laughed and shook her head. “…Guess I’ll have to learn.”
Date Point: 13y11m2w AV
BGEV-11 Misfit, Orbiting Planet Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Xiù Chang
“…Two more minutes?”
“I don’t think we can, Al…”
Allison sighed, and relaxed into a reluctant nod.
“…Okay.”
They stood together for two minutes anyway, watching Cimbrean turn below them through their viewing cupola. Misfit was in space again, where she was most at home. They were in space again…where they belonged.
It had been far too long in coming.
Xiù broke the silence again “Seriously. They’re gonna wonder what’s taking us so long…”
“Yeah…”
Allison nodded, and seemed to come back into herself. “…Yeah,” she repeated. “Ready.”
Xiù smiled, and kissed her. “Good.”
She got Julian’s attention and kissed him too. “Ready?”
He nodded. “More than,” he said, but cast one last glance back out the cupola. Cimbrean’s blue-green light left dark shadows on his cheek and nose, but his eyes were focused.
He nodded, turned away and took their hands.
“Just…Hard to believe we finally got here,” he said.
“It’s been a tough fight.” Allison agreed.
“Well…just in case it gets any tougher from here…I love you both.”
“You don’t need to tell us, dummy,” Allison told him, but she reached out and took Xiù’s hand as well, completing the triangle. “We kno w. …And I love you both too.”
“And I love you both three,” Xiù finished. They both rewarded her with nervous smiles.
Allison took a deep breath. “Are we actually ready now?”
Julian nodded. “…Yeah. I think we are.”
“Awesome.” Allison let go of their hands, and the triangle broke. “Let’s go make the future.”
They tore themselves away from the view, and went to work.
Date Point: 14y AV
HMS Sharman (HMNB Folctha), Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Admiral Sir Patrick Knight
“So the decryption keys it provided are bearing fruit?”
“More than.”
Gaoians, it had to be admitted, were alarmingly good at poker. They all used the same trick of sitting upright and forward with their ears pricked up and an expression of intense watchful interest on their faces that managed to give away absolutely nothing.
Genshi, however, could have made millions playing professionally. The closest thing he had to a tell was the subtle twitch of his nostrils when he first picked up his cards, and Knight was becoming convinced that it wasn’t actually a tell at all, but that the Gaoian was using his sense of smell to win.
Still, the fact that he and Costello had each won a few hands was encouraging. The humans weren’t out of the game yet.
Genshi tossed a chip into the pot with a claw, and Knight promptly folded. He couldn’t have articulated why, but somehow he knew not to challenge this one.
Costello gave the flop a long and thoughtful stare before calling, which immediately suggested confidence in his hand. “So between this…entity’s…gift to us and interrogating the Hierarchy Daemon we have interned at Camp Tebbutt we should be getting something soon?” he asked.
“Meereo and Niral are hard at work right now,” Genshi duck-nodded. He knocked on the table, and Costello dealt the turn. Genshi knocked again, Costello bid, and Genshi promptly folded.
“How long until we see results?” Knight asked as the Gaoian gathered the cards.
“Soon, we hope. Of course, it would go faster if we could educate some of your people in the principles involved.”
“Press down on one bubble and another pops up elsewhere,” Knight sighed.
Genshi flicked an ear at him. “I’m sorry?”
“It means we’re in one of those situations where if we solve one problem, we’ll create an equal problem somewhere else. We already have as many Longears in on this as is sensible, we can’t spare the ones we have to train human analysts, but if we don’t train more humans we’re going to need more Longears.”
“Mister Williams is a capable engineer, though like the Longears he’s much more focused on networks and communications. What we really need are Shortstride programmers but we’ve only just brought Champion Wozni on board.”
“I thought Mister Williams worked for Byron.”
“That’s the other Mister Williams. This Williams has been contracted by Meereo directly. Something about…well, forgive me but I am not a Longear. It’s a bit too arcane for me.”
“…How many Williamses do we have?” Costello asked.
“I am tempted to poke fun at your repeating surnames, but our Clans are hardly better.”
Knight paid the big blind. “It would be too much to ask that fighting an enemy with an æon-deep technological advantage should be easy…” he muttered.
“Fortunate for us that they decided not to remain corporeal,” Genshi said. “You ever wonder what…?”
His question went unfinished. All three of them looked up at the distinctive sound of a Gaoian at a blundering, headlong scrambling run slamming painfully into the wall at the far end of the hall where it turned a right angle.
Seconds later there was a desperate scratching at the door. A human would have been hammering on it with their knuckles.
Knight put his cards down. “Come.”
Sister Niral barged inside looking entirely feral. Her claws were out, she was panting heavily, her ears were plastered back on her scalp and even to a human’s nose she smelled sharply of distress. Genshi was on his feet in a heartbeat.
“Sister?”
Niral blinked at him, and then handed over a printout.
“Gao,” she choked out. “The Hierarchy, the Hunters. They’re going to hit Gao. Soon.”