Pretty in Punk 4/6 by Thea and feldman
Jun. 23rd, 2005 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feldmanPretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
Part 1/6 located here
Part 2/6 located here
Part 3/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
"They look like tadlings at feed time."
Aeryn's wearing a maternity uniform, low-slung pants and a tailored tunic-style shirt in dark material, her growing pudge of a belly tenting the generously cut front. Beneath it all he knows she's got a black pair of the highest-waist undershorts he's ever seen, complete with holster pockets angled low under the sides of the belly. He's told her they're the sexiest granny-panties he's ever seen.
"Wait until I throw in the chum." He tosses the markers in, and joins her on the side bench so they can talk over the shouts and splashing.
She nudges his bare ankle with the toe of her boot and he gives her a smile.
"They're fighting me over Seiris," she says. "That it's too close to the Breakaway Colonies, has tentative ties to a group that's aligned with the Scarrans."
He wants to laugh, this far into a marriage and raising a family and she's still not one to mince words, to start up the small talk.
"I've had a good morning too, baby. Confiscated three Sprek games, taught a little subatomic theory, assigned some celestial navigation without dedicated reference points."
She pauses, derailed for the moment. He knows she's been working on a big project, one of the colonies that they'd visited a few cycles ago, one of the colonies that his name had opened up. John Crichton, mascot for the masses, for the unwashed and the suicidal. The Crichton Sun Roadshow had come to town and all of a sudden a bunch of industrial pig farmers decided they wanted to be free. Damn the Peacekeepers and full speed ahead.
Problem was that Aeryn was George Washington to his Patrick Henry. Or maybe Thomas Jefferson with a pulse cannon. She got as caught up in the revolutionary zeal as the farmers, looking at them with more strategy than fervor thank god, but nonetheless she wanted 'em trained and wanted 'em free.
Ten cycles, he thinks and rests his hand on her knee. Ten cycles ago, they'd stopped off on a backwater planet, stayed with a contact of Nerri's who had held the world's least-secret secret meeting and John had mentioned the redcoats, had mentioned that if the PKs were smart, they'd let the locals handle their own security gigs in exchange for ready-made cannon fodder for a rainy day. Aeryn's eyes had lit with that shrewd understanding, that rapid fire strategizing she was capable of, and the momentary conversation had over the years turned into a life's work for them, for her really. He didn't much care if a bunch of pig farmers learned to fly combat and to get to fire the big guns.
The splashing in the background escalates and he puts his fingers in his mouth, whistling sharp and shrill. "No elbowing, and Kai-Sen, that means no elbowing with your knees!"
Aeryn chuckles, throaty and rich and heat beats in his belly.
She looks at him, sloe-eyed and sultry, licking her bottom lip.
He grins, runs his thumb over her chin.
"Baby, I'd be a lot more flattered if I didn't think you'd throw me over in a microt for a cheesesteak."
She chuffs out a laugh, but her eyes are speculative now, contemplating the likelihood of a multitasking quickie and John shakes his head.
"Seiris?" he reminds her.
"Starving," she counters.
***
Aeryn compensates for her changing shape with shifts of her weight, the punches coming in from lower outer angles and D'Argo has to bend and bob in new ways in order to meet them, to block and to feint around them. She doesn't pull her punches when she spars with him, wanting to train him well, but she is careful, focusing her efforts on teaching and not harming.
"When I learned to swim," he urges, rolling up on his toes, nearly losing his balance in the complex flurry of the exercise. It's a trick he's learned from John, talking and training, needing something to deflect her attention and focus his own. It doesn't work--has rarely worked for either of them--but she lets it go, knowing that it doesn't betray a lack of focus just a different sort of perspective.
She sweeps out her foot and he trips a little, gives her a wry grin and John snorts, elbows resting on his knees, back up against a padded column as he watches them.
"When you learned to swim?" Aeryn pauses and pretends to think hard, scratching the side of her belly with her eyes to the sky. "Are you *sure* you know how to swim?"
Her son gives an impatient hop, sliding around on the padded flooring. "C'mon."
"All right, all right," she gestures to the sparring pad at the edge of the mat. He fetches it and hands it over, expectant. "We'd had you for about two and a half cycles when we returned to Hyneria--"
"He's not a car, Aeryn," John laughs.
She shoots him a look. "You want to come up here and trade places with him?"
He shakes his head with a bright, lusty smile. "Don't think it's good for the boy's psyche to know his mom can whup my ass."
"Dad, everyone knows that."
"Thanks a lot, son. That's the kind of heart-warming validation I'm looking for from my own flesh and blood, the fruit of my loins, the--"
D'Argo gags, hands around his throat in a gesture she knows he learned from his father.
"Do you want me to finish this story or not?" she asks them both. It's a moot point. She likes this tale, likes the outcome and the way it's set their course.
"We came back to Hyneria because Rygel wanted a show of strength, wanted to shake up his detractors and cement the peace in his own kingdom before he signed any trade treaties with the Peacekeepers or their allies."
"You guys were on the negotiating team." D'Argo has paid attention in some of the history modules, and knows enough to read some of the things between the lines.
"At Rygel's request." Insistence was more like it, verging on blackmail, but there wasn't much she wouldn't have done for the Dominar after he'd carried and cared for their child; after he'd finely done something noble, no matter how unwilling. This favor had been the last thing they'd agreed to, their last public appearance as a silent implied threat.
It had been exhausting and frustrating and terrifying, all of that hate and fear leveled at John, his delicate place in the universal scope of power still a haunted, haunting thing. She'd been afraid to close her eyes until every last ambassador had affixed their stamp and fled the kingdom; too worried that something or someone would get past her guard, slip inside their rooms and harm her husband or her son.
"Things hadn't been going very well," she says, and John barks out a harsh laugh.
"'Course that finally caused your mother to step in, tired of the bellyaching and the threats and the name calling, all of these big time politicians acting like a bunch of heavily armed kindergartners."
"I hadn't slept in nearly two weekens. My judgment was not unimpaired."
John presses his lips together.
"So you took your gun," D'Argo prompts.
"They should have disarmed me," she says, shaking her head at the laxity. They'd both been armed, D'Argo safely hidden deep in the palace with a bevy of guards, nowhere near the action. The Illanic representative had stood up, banging her fists on the table and looking at John with such a fierce hatred and fear that something had snapped.
"Your mom'd had enough of the sniping and the focus on finding blame, she wanted the conference over, she wanted the agenda realized and she wanted everyone to frelling play nice and act like they really were as grateful for the peace as they kept saying they were between insults. So she'd said so. At pulse-point."
"It was stupid and ill-thought out."
"And effective," John says quietly, meeting her gaze.
"And effective," she agrees, matching his tone.
"They knew she'd shoot, " he said to his son. "She's not a
woman who makes empty promises."
"No." She turns to her son and catches his eyes, wanting him to understand the seriousness underneath the levity. "No empty threats. A threat with a weapon behind it is a statement, but never bring arms to bear if you're not prepared to use them."
John swallows hard, eyes sweeping down the rounded curve of her belly and then over to his son. "They finally figured out that I was the sane one, that she was the one to watch out for."
She curves her mouth, sardonic, knowing better. She was simply an understandable threat, unlike John. She hurries to finish the rest of the story. "Once a tentative agreement was reached, Rygel had his courtiers escort us to the Palace pools, to relax."
"To work the room alone and close the deals without delegates reneging afterward because of undue pressure." D'Argo adds with a grin, "Papa Ryg showed me some of the treaties last time we were there."
"He's too smart."
"Who's fault is that?"
"So we went to the pools," D'Argo prompts again, pushing himself back into the conversation.
Aeryn leans to pick a towel from the mat, squishing her belly enough as she bends that the girl kicks back, a low and dirty blow to the bladder. "I wasn't certain about taking you into the water, you were so small, but as soon as you saw it you raced over the edge, had to be pulled back from skittering in."
"Dad took me in, right?"
She nods, willing herself not to think about urination.
"You were squirming like a tadpole," John says, "slippery and slick and I nearly dropped you, and your mom was shouting at me to hang on to you, and I'm shouting back that she worries too much and then you slid right out of my grip like a greased pig."
Fear had wrapped her throat the instant he'd gone under, even with John right there, his strong hands reaching instantly after her son.
She was in the water before she realized she'd acted, pants wet and heavy, shirt soaked as all she could think about was the feeling of lungs full and heavy and useless, the terror of the water pulling her down, thoughts and fears that hadn't surfaced in cycles, and then John ducked under the surface and D'Argo's head popped up; hair plastered down around his small face, plump cheeks in a smile and his bright high ring of laughter echoed by John's chuckle of relief.
"You scared the bejesus out of us," John says, "but you started kicking your feet and I held your belly up and you swam. Well, you sort of flopped around in the water, but you stayed upright and looked like you were having a great time. You even got your mom to come join us, clothes and all."
"It made more sense than sitting on the edge," she says, scrubbing at her face with the towel, "waiting to see what kind of disaster you two would encounter next."
***
He kisses her neck, fingers pushing back the heavy fall of her hair. He's not wild about leaving her, but there isn't anything he could do anyway, and he knows this is important for her. They've been coasting the past few weekens, Aeryn working like a fiend, he and D'Argo doing the summer school and swim team thing. It's been a decent mellow interlude, as easy as life on a carrier in the midst of a not quite hostile former enemy can be.
He's had time, luxurious time with Aeryn, sated with sex and affection and banter whenever possible, satisfying his need to be with her, to monitor her health, help her bleed off some of the energy and hormone rushes. They've had a good run, and now it's time to fulfill his end of the bargain.
"Sweet dreams," he murmurs, feeling sappy.
She shifts minutely, mumbling, "Fly safe."
***
The room assigned to them on the xeno-carrier is generous in size, but with only a small console work station, enough for John to pull messages out of the mail-cache and voice conference with his telacademy students.
They're the quarters of a visiting guest with no rank function on the carrier, and while this is technically true, Aeryn's work requires a more resourceful set-up. Combined with the fact that for each tier farther away you summon a document tech from their department, it tends to add two arns to their response time, Aeryn finds that she gets far more accomplished if she goes to the source of bureaucracy and signs in to a carrel for the day. She has access codes to the long-range comms, the Council Ministry nodes and the authority to assign work to document techs, all within easy reach in a hard-seated cubicle the size of a cockpit.
She misses flight.
She also misses her husband and her son, but things have been such a mess setting up this next militia program on Seiris that she's busy enough to blank that out for whole shifts at a time. Besides, they'll be back in a few days.
To be fair, it's not like the monen or two that it takes to set up a new program on the ground; it's not the kind of mission-length absence she's enforced on them in the past, and will in the future if this next one ever gets through the approval process.
And not all of her family has left. The girl seems to be sleeping, her flutter kicks stilled for now. Halfway through the pregnancy and she's already more active than D'Argo was even at the end. Maybe she can hear the bureaucracy, so she makes her own fun.
Aeryn keys her access code into the terminal and sees that the Colony Minister is finally in her office. She puts the call in so fast that it's almost reflexive. Her meeting is third in the queue, and already meetings are stacking up after that; the time pressure should work in her favor, gain her the concessions she needs, get the Minister to lean on the local PK garrison on Seiris to allow the militia program after all.
Aeryn sits back with a predatory sigh, hand absently stroking the swell of her belly and the sleeping girl within. This *will* be settled today.
***
"Mom said you get to pick out the baby's name."
"That's the deal, yeah."
"You should name her Nhsk-hgoc."
John doesn't even puzzle out the tangle of consonants and hiccups that just came out of his son. "Your mother put you up to that?"
"She said it's an old family name."
"No D', it's an old *punchline*. That's different."
***
"Sun. I've been expecting you to contact me." The Colony Minister had been a blonde back when she was a mere captain, and a washed out grey when she was an admiral. Now her hair is cropped short and silver, as if each advancement in rank has purified the color as well as honed her skills. "And yet your report has not been transmitted."
Aeryn's feet are planted on the deck, her spine straight and every fact at her fingertips--and she has no idea what the Minister is talking about.
"Keratos?" The Minister prompts, then eases back in her padded chair. "Or did you set this appointment to agitate for a program on Seiris? If so, then why am I looking at a stack of incident reports for Keratos?"
She left Keratos less than a monen ago--how could the situation have deteriorated so quickly? And why hadn't she heard about it before it reached the Minister of Colonies? Aeryn opens her mouth to take control of the situation but the Minister cuts her off.
"I'll have my staff send copies of the pertinent information to you. Again."
Reports blossom in the document queue to the left of the minister's image, tagged as re-sent from three weekens ago despite Aeryn's never having seen them before. Property destruction, mostly, and civilian damage (Aeryn translates this phrase out of PK-lingo and reads them as reports of civilian deaths) but in the last two days a second wave of incidents has broken out, this time resulting in two casualties of garrison personnel, which makes her job even more difficult.
"So unless you have information that I do not regarding the situation on the ground; or would like to assist in implementing a plan of action to quell this Keratos insurrection by more efficient means than the standard colony procedures, I believe our meeting regarding Seiris can be indefinitely postponed."
"I'll have a report for you by--"
"I'll be issuing orders regarding Keratos at the end of ministry arns today, Sun. If you want to have any input on my decisions, you should be compiling that report now."
The connection is severed and the node system inquires whether she would like to schedule another meeting.
"Frell." The girl shifts and Aeryn's stomach growls. She resists the urge to call her own staff right away, taking a moment to calculate the time of day on Keratos. She needs to read the reports first, be ready to listen to what they have to say about the situation planet-side. She also needs to eat. She uploads the documents to a reader and heads to the galley, her fury banked and growing hotter.
***
Helian City is the closest commerce station that doesn't actively ban Peacekeepers and John's not in the mood to fight the mobs at Parakalor anyway. The trade off is that Helian is a little... seedy, despite the plethora of goods.
D' walks vaguely in front of him at a little more than arms length, and even that distance makes John's skin itch. Too much here, too many things, too many species and goods and distractions. It's an alien arcade of wonders - noisy, neon and only nominally safe. His kid is better at the wariness than he is, but it's been drilled in since D' could walk. Look, listen and learn. It's all about the wonder until someone gets hurt. John himself still tends to get distracted and has come home a little dazed, cheek grazed from a fight, from a run in with good, bad and ugly and had to face the wrath of his girl as she winds her hands through their son's hair, stills her anger, saves it up then learns to diffuse it. They've all spent the last thirteen cycles learning.
The Xylian prostitutes at the milba stand give D' a quick leer, smile wide for John and he grins back at them, repressing his shudder at their sharp teeth, the wide jaws that can unhinge like a python's, the scaly shimmer of their skin. The Xylians took them in, cycles ago, hid them from a band of arms dealers that had just gotten the bottom cut out of their market by the first effort of Crichton Sun Revolutions R' Us Incorporated. But the Xylians still scare the crap out him.
He's made reservations at a small hotel on the edge of the city, near enough to town to be shopper friendly, far enough away not to get more than a glimpse of the nightlife. But they have Simpa racing every evening before the bars really get hopping and D's never been old enough to go before.
D' looks longingly at an open air stall displaying a range of Sprek offshoots. John nudges him, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder and moving him along. If he has to endure yet another variation of the Sprek and their ilk, he's gonna lose what little mind he has left. D' flashes him a grin as he's circumnavigated around the stall. "We should get t-shirts," he says. "For the team."
John chuckles. It's a good idea, and he's sure they make t-shirts with multiple armholes for the tripods and the Kai. "We'll hit the strip mall by the dock on our way out," he says.
They've got a list - clothes, medical supplies, diapers - but John figures he can put off the big shopping until the next day. Tonight he wants to grab some dinner, take in the Simpa racing, and not think about Aeryn alone on the station, engrossed in what she was working on, so engrossed that she might be ignoring important signs that things weren't... He derails that train, and keeps his fingers hooked in the collar of D's leather jacket.
There's a bookstore he wants to check out before they swing by the local comms cafe. Supposedly a new ration of the unified field theory findings that the Pathfinders are publishing in dribs and drabs are out, and he wants to pick up the latest articles. He also wants to send a message home that they're safe and plan to make themselves thoroughly ill on hot dogs, nachos and sugar at the Simpa races. Aeryn only goes to humor him. She's not interested in watching fast things that can't break atmosphere.
John spies the bookstore up ahead, and pushes his son through the crush of Sheyangs and ragtag Sebaceans to get to the entrance. The doors slide apart and they step into the filtered air of the quiet shop, both stopping short at the holo display in front of them.
***
"Goddamn sonofabitch, I should have drowned him when I had the chance."
The holo flashes images, spinning them out on the display – a space battle, a half-dressed Xylian gyrating on stage, a blonde woman with a white dress and familiar features, a bloody cage match between a Luxan and an Ilanic, a man in a funny hat with a thin spike through his head, the sea of Cepertz with the multicolored sea snakes and metra long fish, a bright-eyed grey girl.
D'Argo's not sure whether to look away, to look at his dad, or to just keep gaping. His dad goes on muttering and D' decides to take a closer look as the images cycle through again. Where's he seen that blonde lady before?
His dad snaps his hand through the holo, shutting it off and grabs the projector.
D'Argo swallows, closes his mouth and looks up. His dad is more than a little pissed.
He strides up to the back panel where the clerks are sequestered and bangs on the glass partition with the butt of the projector. D'argo follows him, waiting to see what will happen next.
The window slips up and a four-eyed Helian blinks both sets of eyes in syncopation. "Can I help you?"
D'Argo watches as John tamps down his anger, tries on a smile. "Your display up front..."
"Peacekeeper," The Helian flutters his lashes as if shooing away a cloud of fillimir-bugs, taking in the projector clutched in his dad's hand, "you'd best put that back where you found it."
His dad growls low in his throat and the Helian raises a thin, bony hand, probably to shut the partition or trip a signal to security.
"Sir, if you have a question, please ask it. If not, I'd advise you to put that projector back and leave."
"Fine." He puts the projector down in front of the Helian with an overly careful motion. D'Argo hears it click against the counter and the Helian winces, glares. "This display have anything to do with something you guys are selling?"
"It's a retrospective. The best of Yoti's work."
"Fuck."
The Helian's hand rises again. "There is no need for that sort of language, sir. This is not a Simpa pit."
His dad taps the top of his fist on the projector and his tone, when he speaks, is the one that makes D sit up and take notice. It's the 'I'm tired of this shit and it's ending right now' tone. His mom's the only one who fails to react to that tone, but then his mom's the exception to a lot of rules and right now, D'Argo's trying to parse how the blonde woman with the wide smile looks so much like her.
"I'd really appreciate it if you'd take down the display."
"Sir," the Helian laughs, a scratchy sound of sour amusement. "That holo is one of our best sellers--why would we take it down?"
"Because the guy who made it is an amoral, manipulative, opportunistic scumbag who plagiarizes other people's memories in his work."
The Helian shrugs, lashes sweeping low. "That's certainly not our problem. We sell information. That holo is a much requested commodity, and we have an arrangement with the gaming establishment down the street. It's a tie in to the re-release of several of Yoti's most popular games. There is no possible reason for us to take it down."
John glances back at D'Argo, who shrugs and tries to look unobtrusive.
"How about if you don't frelling take it down, I'll personally make sure that all the copies of those games end up as fuel for my Prowler?"
"I see..." The Helian yanks the window shut and presses the security button, his voice muffled by pulse-resistant plexipane. "Peacekeepers are no longer allowed to threaten innocent civilians simply because they can, sir."
"Frell."
Two guards appear out of the shadows, burly Sebaceans with rough sewn uniforms. His dad's hands are up before they get within handcuffing distance. He holds up a finger, keeping his hands far away from Winona, and slips his hand into his pocket. His eyes go wide, and he mouths, "Shit," then pulls out the confirmation chip for the hotel.
He tosses it to D'Argo. "I'll meet you back at the hotel in a couple of arns, D'. We'll go to the Simpa races after dinner."
D'Argo wants to protest, wants to stay and see how all of this shakes down, but John jerks his head and points. "Go on, son. No worries, I'll meet you in an arn."
He looks at the larger of the guards. "Can someone make sure my boy gets to our hotel?" They exchange glances and the smaller Sebacean nods, gestures D'Argo out the door.
***
He's gone through all of his homework, and can't concentrate on the Sprek game. He flips on the telecom, but all he gets is planetary news, a bad Sheyang family drama and scrambled porn. At least he thinks it's porn. With Xylian's, it's kind of hard to tell.
The room is small, and the streets outside are teeming. The viewers show all of the entrance ways to the different bars and restaurants and Simpa arenas sponsored by the hotel, and he's itchy to get out, to explore, to go somewhere beyond this room, but his dad will be royally pissed off if he gets back and D'Argo's not there.
He's also a little nervous about going out by himself, thirteen cycles of warnings ringing in his ears. The temptation to ignore the warnings is strong, the bright colors and the insistence of the viewer images calling out to him, but he doesn't want to cause any more stress for his dad. He's been on edge since mom got pregnant. D'Argo tries to still the niggle of fear that thoughts of the pregnancy stir in him. He keeps hearing his dad's voice ringing out, the accusation that his mom is risking her life. He doesn't want think about losing her, doesn't want to end up alone in the universe, just him and his dad.
D'Argo hangs out for another arn, sprawled on the floor, joggling the telecom dial every few microts to get flashes of the porn. A Xylian woman is kneeling on the floor, flat eyes wide, jaw unhinging when his dad bangs into the room. D'Argo flips off the telecom so fast that it zips the transmission, freezing it for a crystal clear microt before fading to black.
John looks at his son, looks at the telecom and barks out a laugh, then collapses into a chair, tossing the bookstore's broken projector onto the table. He's antsy, boot heel drumming into the soft carpet, fingers shifting his jacket around and tapping on his thigh. "You ready?"
"Yes! I'm starving."
John quirks his mouth. "Me too, kid."
D'Argo stands, grabs his jacket. "The arena on Xeiv Street has races starting in half an arn."
"Guess we can grab some food there."
D'Argo bounces on his heels, nods. "So are they gonna take down the display?" He wants to ask if he saw what he thought he saw, if he really knows those people in the holo, his folks, his Aunt Chi, sort of. But his dad doesn't much look like he's going to answer those sorts of questions.
John shrugs. "For now. Until they get a new projector. This one got...broken. Someone dropped it on the ground and managed to walk on it. Sucks for them, but..." He stands up. "C'mon kid, let's go watch some Simpa."
***
"Where you going so early, son?" His dad scratches and speaks through his yawn, "Thought we'd get some breakfast and start hitting the stores."
"Just down to the hotel arcade. They've got a few of the new Sprek modules already and I want to see what the new transformative levels are--"
"Just downstairs, then, okay? I'll shower and meet you down there in a few."
"Do you have any coin?"
"What, am I being mugged now?" He wanders toward the fresher, gesturing behind him. "In my pants. You can have five krindar--but it has to last you the whole trip."
D'Argo pauses with his hand already deep in a leathers pocket. "Do I have to use it for the shirts?"
"Shirts are on the coach."
D'Argo rifles through the clothing, creating a pile on the bed of receipts and tabs, hotel and dockpark key chips, spare change and a data crystal.
His dad picks the data crystal from the pile, swearing under his breath.
D' plucks out five krindars and heads out the door to the arcade.
He even walks up to an empty Sprek module and reaches into his pocket to touch his own mini-console. Kai-sen would die of envy if he came back with a new level or two loaded onto his unit.
The guy's name was Yoti. D'Argo recalls it as an attendant shuffles past, and he finds himself asking the bored Sebacean where the Yoti re-releases are.
His Aunt Chi has pale eyes like her grey clothes, but in the flash on the holo she had black eyes and colorful clothes. The Nebari woman painted on the side of the Yoti game module is curvy and perplexed, big black eyes and nothing at all like the one he knows, but he slips his krindar into the machine anyway. He has 1500 microts of play, easily enough to finish before his father's typical morning shower.
It's a boring game, really, not as engaging as Sprek and nothing like the fun stuff he usually does when Auntie Chi comes to visit. Everything is weird and distorted, even Papa Ryg, and the Luxan with the candy repels him. He doesn't even want to know if it's supposed to be the D'Argo who was his parents' friend.
He says, "I want out." When the booth reappears around him he sees he still has almost 800 microts left, so he hits the change button and pockets the few measly piltres it spits out.
The arcade is still pretty empty, his dad fiddling with the dead controls of an atmospheric flight simulator. He looks tired instead of angry, but D'Argo's spine straightens nonetheless.
"S'okay, son. I figured as much."
The idea that someone cared enough to steal his father's memories hadn't seemed quite real. Even after playing the game it still feels like a joke.
His dad scratches the side of his nose. "Did you get to the Moya levels?"
"There are Moya levels?" D'Argo turns to go back in but his dad lunges and grabs him by the jacket collar.
"When you're older. *Maybe*. Not now."
"The princess is mom, isn't she?"
"Your mom isn't in that game, son. It's just some confused thoughts about her, that's all."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Nope."
D'Argo shakes his head as if to clear water from his ears.
His dad wraps a hand around the back of his neck, slightly warmer than D'Argo's own skin, and gives him a slow shake. "You hungry?"
"Yeah."
Arm draped across the shoulders, his dad steers him out into the station proper.
***
The thing about living for the most part on a Leviathan who likes to explore the fringes of settled space is that it forces you to buy in bulk. Fortunately, most commerce stations are set up like catalog stores, so John can pick and choose the exact supplies he needs and then have a gross ton or two delivered straight to the shuttle pod.
"The medicine and hygiene parts of the list are done." John reads off from the datapad in his hand as they make their way toward yet another shopping district. "Which leaves clothing and equipment."
D'Argo perks up at the word 'equipment'. John doesn't have the heart to tell him it boils down to a sanitizer and a breast pump.
"What about toys?"
"We can get those, too."
"You don't have them on The List?" D' shoots him a look to let him know how painfully embarrassing he is, both by having a List and by it being less than comprehensive. "She needs stuff to play with."
"They don't really play too much for the first few monens, son, just eat sleep cry and poop, and not necessarily individually in that order."
"How many eema-covers did we just buy?"
"Enough for half a cycle, give or take a few bad days."
"So she needs toys, too. Don't be such a damned lame-ass."
John sighs. It's been months since Chi's last visit and he's still coming across the latest batch of swear words she'd seeded into his son's vocabulary. It's like an Easter egg hunt with turds, you never know when you'll stumble across one, but it's going have to be cleaned up regardless. This time it's English, bent and twisted underneath the Nebari and Sebacean accents: demmmd'laymiss.
And yeah, maybe he is being one. "Alright--toys, tech, then togs."
D' hoots like a Kai and ranges farther ahead.
***
Aeryn looks up from her reports on the 'pacification' of Keratos, the uneasy feeling of eyes on her leading her gaze straight to the table across from hers.
In her preoccupation, she'd sat in the crew section of the mess instead of at the tables set aside for allied-guests. Two girls and a boy, ensigns by their rank insignia, snicker and look away from her. Perhaps a little older than her own son, though she finds it hard to judge now that her experience is all tied up with one hybrid child, uncannily smart and empathetic, strangely coddled like a rare and delicate specimen.
The girls nudge each other and the boy smirks, offers a comment that makes one of them howl out loud. There's a gesture of hands spread out away from stomach and Aeryn realizes they're mocking her.
She turns her eyes back to the datapad beside her empty meal tray. The current report is from one of her staff on Keratos, a detailed rundown of the civilian casualties and the political reaction of the native government. The native militia lost every one of their decent pilots, but they still train and they've stuck to their stated mission parameters; they refuse to give the garrison an excuse to wipe them out completely. The program may survive yet, and after a few monens of peace she can begin agitating for a program on Seiris again.
She hasn't slept for nearly two days. Pressing duty and driving hunger had kept her awake by turns--it seems the less she sleeps the more she eats--but this last meal seems to be sticking with her for now. She rises to her feet and slips the datapad into the empty holster-pocket of her 'grannipannies'.
When she passes the ensigns' table one of them is brave enough to call out a taunt.
Aeryn stops. She walks to the table and studies them each in turn for a moment.
The boy is helpless with silent laughter, but he's not the issue. The girls challenge her with stares and Aeryn can see them in double vision; see their bravado and disgust, and the fear underneath. Old habits die hard, old thoughts walk like ghosts, and Aeryn is a contamination, a living manifestation of the old system brought low, cast out and for all they know begging for scraps, alien life swelling beneath her skin.
Pregnancy is an honorable duty that every female soldier expects to be assigned. Often it comes after a mission, when the regiment is on light duties while some members recover from injury. If you haven't sustained too many wounds, you're likely to spend the downtime pregnant.
Aeryn doesn't fit into that system, even though she wears the same uniform and is often accorded the same surface respect. Once they recognize who she is, and that what she's carrying *isn't* a comrade, the tone tends to change even as the words remain the same. On a xeno-carrier assigned to allied missions, only raw ensigns like these dare to say it aloud.
New regs or no, Aeryn is still considered defiled by her association with a lesser being; she *must* have been lesser herself, must have been stupid or damaged, no real Peacekeeper would let this happen, hence they are safe from the idea of change. But these girls are just now entering the system and they can feel that change is already happening, that nothing is as stable as they were told it would be. What's to keep this from happening to them, down the line? The more they mock Aeryn, the more distance they can put between them and her, the safer they feel.
Aeryn clarifies the question, her tone amused and far from cold. There's no way for her to reassure them, even if she wanted to. "What does *what* feel like?"
The girl in front of her pulls her shoulders forward and Aeryn leans down over the chair to close the distance. The other girl across the table glares even hotter, lip curling as she scoffs, "What does it feel like to be a brood mare for a dirty primitive?"
A primitive who can't seem to work a simple message queue, Aeryn adds to herself as she pretends to think on the question. The downside of their carefully-cultivated obscurity is that knowledge of her husband's few competencies requires high level security clearance.
"How does it feel?" Aeryn lays a hand on quiet girl's shoulder and hugs her close with one arm, smiling across the table at the scowling girl. The quiet one shirks away like D'Argo, which makes her laugh a little and angers the other girl even more. The boy is silent and still. She whispers into the quiet's girl's ear and then kisses her cheek.
She ruffles the angry girl's hair as she passes by, deftly avoiding the furious blows the girl throws to block her.
"Filthy tralk!"
There's a scuffle behind her as she keeps walking, the angry girl demanding, "What did she say?"
Aeryn shakes her head and chuckles to herself as she exits the mess, savoring the pallor that her words had sent through the quiet girl.
"She said it felt like the future."
The confrontation with the cadets settles something inside her, eases back her annoyance with John, tamps the hunger momentarily and she allows herself the luxury of a light workout and an arn in one of the flight sims before returning to her quarters to go over the last of the reports from Keratos. The uprising there will require an actual presence soon, but as long as she can get in touch with Rexa and her cohorts, Aeryn thinks she can talk them into a temporary cease fire before the Peacekeepers exert real firepower and raze the community.
She yawns as she keys in a final request for a comms link in the morning, sends an urgent report to the minister, then stretches until her back cracks. The girl kicks and swims, energized by the change of pace and Aeryn places her hand firmly to her belly.
"You liked the flight sim, didn't you? So did I. But we won't tell your father about that. He worries needlessly." He had in fact ordered her to remain grounded, orders seconded with a shrug by the med tech. She'd merely rolled her eyes at the med tech. For John, there'd been a lambasting on the hubris of giving her orders.
He'd been unfazed by her wrath, had simply apologized and called it a request.
He knows better, and while she is sympathetic to his fears there are limits to her patience. As a concession, she's been seeing the med tech every other day, monitoring her blood pressure and other vital signs on her own in the interim, and so far there have been no irregularities. Sitting on the bed, she checks her levels and enters them into the log. She showers and then slips between the cool sheets, wishing that John's warm, solid body was there to snug herself to.
They've spent much time apart in the last few cycles, something they'd agreed to for the sake of the work, but they both know that it comes with a price, with risk. She hadn't missed the way he'd said goodbye before she left for Keratos, the way each time she leaves his mouth sets harder even as he holds her, the way he prepares for her not to return.
Letting her go requires an act of faith that she hasn't until recently allowed herself to understand. But when he'd slung his bag over his shoulder a few days ago, convinced she was asleep, there'd been a look in his eye, a reluctance to leave even for a few days that had slid between her ribs and curled around her heart.
He was making his own sort of concession and perhaps it was time to negotiate a new set of terms, time to find a way to do the work with less distance, to involve him more actively, or to recruit other trainers.
They'd both been wary of the way that the different factions would react to being lead by a notorious outlaw, the harm that could come to him with that level of notoriety, the resentment on the part of the Peacekeepers, but she is growing tired of putting the universe's needs ahead of her family's. She loves the work, showing these people what freedom can mean, how to protect themselves. But her first obligation is to protect her family, to make certain that they're safe from the dangers of the universe.
Bringing in new people could mean giving up some of the autonomy they've built, but with another child to care for, she and John both will be harder pressed to shepherd revolutions, to train militias and farmers to form independent coalitions. It is time to explore some new options.
Her mind is running sharp and hot now and she wants to get up, to assess further details and logistics of her current mission, figure out how to start delegating some of that work, see if it's even a possibility she's willing to explore, but physical weariness eclipses that need. Instead she gets up, her awkward belly a dance of negotiation between her and the girl shifting within, and sits in front of the console to call up her will and testament.
She has no fear of death, only of what she will leave behind, and John has not said anything about losing her since that last fight. But she will hold true to her bargain, will leave him words, if that's what he needs. She banks her irritation over the lost message queue. There will be time enough to make him pay for that when he returns.
***
His dad hooked up the pod eons ago with speakers and while his Mom discourages putting on tunes while they fly, his dad seems to find some sort of calm in the speakers, in the Earth music. D's actively co-piloting on the return trip.
They'd gotten up early, neither of them getting much sleep after the Simpa races. That poor guy hadn't even known what was happening, his face broadcast on the holo screens, laughing and hollering about his victory right up until the point where his electric system shorted, sparking on his fuel source and the whole thing had blown, shutting down the races and starting a riot of panic. His dad had grabbed him, hustling the two of them out of the crowd with a ruthless efficiency, Winona drawn and a heavy hand wrapped around D'Argo's upper arm.
D'Argo keeps looping the explosion through his mind, the look on the Hokothian's face, the smell of fuel burning, of flesh and grease and metal. His stomach rolls and he hitches in his breath, trying to breath through the nausea.
"Go sit down in the back, D'." John's voice is steady and serious, concerned.
He waves his hand. "I'll be okay."
"D'Argo, go."
He pushes out of the seat, stumbling into the back to wedge himself up beside the ribs next to a small crate of toys, gulping down water.
The small speakers play one of his dad's favorite songs, but John doesn't hum or sing, doesn't turn up the volume.
"Think he had kids?" D' hears the tremolo in his own voice and grimaces at the weakness.
John turns to look at him. "Maybe."
D'Argo scrubs at his mouth. "I don't think I'm gonna puke."
"Drink some more water; vomit is a bitch to get out of biomech skin."
D'Argo snorts through his nose in an effort to stifle the giggle, caught between appalled and honestly amused, but he flashes back quickly to the races. "That why mom doesn't like going?"
"No, I think your Mom just finds any sort of competition that doesn't have real stakes to be sort of stupid. She isn't much interested in tech for tech's sake, no matter how cool. She may be a kick ass fighter jock, but she's still a girl."
"You gonna tell her what happened?"
"'Course. She's your mom. She's my wife, and she'd have both of our asses if we didn't let her know. She's gonna be pissed though."
"You didn't know that something like that would happen."
John shakes his head. "It's not that uncommon in the final tier of races, and I should've thought ahead. Just wanted us to get to do some guy stuff."
D'Argo fiddles with the lock on the toy crate, flips it open and pulls out the new blanket that lay on top. It's a dark rose color, embroidered with old Sebacean designs and words.
"Why..." he pauses, rubbing the cloth between his fingers, then stops. He knows there aren't a lot of satisfying answers to most questions that begin with why.
"Life's weird like that," John says softly, "Fate has a hellish sense of humor. That poor guy thought he was about to realize a dream, and maybe it was just crappy luck and maybe he took a shortcut in his wiring, made a bad call, I don't know. I wish I had an answer, D'. Awful is it sounds, mostly I just wish that we hadn't been there to see it. There are better ways to demonstrate that you've gotta appreciate the time you have, the people you love."
D'Argo clears his throat, feeling embarrassment flush his cheeks along with a strong desire to go ahead and say it anyway. He mumbles, "Love you dad."
"I love you too, son."
***
D's stumbling with exhaustion by the time they make it back to the carrier. It isn't all that late, but John can feel his own shoulders sag, weary and worn out.
He steers the boy down the steps and pays the levy for keeping the pod in the secure dock. No one waits for them other than the regular guards and soldiers on patrol. One of them will do a security check on the pod, make sure no contraband or illegal arms have been brought on board.
He decides at the last minute to get the blanket that D'Argo picked out for the baby, wanting to tell Aeryn the story about the old man who'd sold it to them, about blessing a baby with new fabric and old words, a little piece of Sebacean heritage that they can adopt, something unique to half of his children's genes, something inherent that isn't related to PK life or carrier born heritage.
He's surprised that she isn't there to meet them. He'd sent word ahead of their arrival time, but the chip in his pocket might have had larger repercussions than simply missing a mail call. The messages were weekens old, but the classification stamps and the content weren't anything he could transmit to her over open channels.
He's starving, pretty sure that they should both eat before crashing out, but he wants to see Aeryn, make sure that her absence is more about work than about something gone wrong, wants to work out the knots in his gut before he can think about eating.
He takes D'Argo's rucksack and sends him to the mess to grab a sandwich with the promise that he'll meet him there. At his quarters he keys in the code, hits the door release and steps inside. The lights are low and he lets his bag slide off his shoulder with a thump, tosses the blanket onto a chair and stands there for a few minutes, just looking at his wife.
She's sleeping like the dead, laying on her side on top of the covers, a throw over her hips, boots on the floor. She's in her underwear, round belly bare, the thin tank rucked halfway up to her breasts. Her hair is loose and her breath is steady, and he savors her, beautiful, fecund, quiet and alive, there in the bed with no trauma pending despite the tongue lashing he knows he's due for, and he can't resist. He goes to the bed, and sits down in the curve formed by her body, leans in to kiss her shoulder.
"Hey baby," he murmurs.
The words drift up from the depths of sleep. "Are you talking to her or me?"
"You. And the kidlet."
"And the kidlet you took with you?"
"Waiting for us in the mess."
Her skin is warmer than usual, but that's to be expected, her metabolism cruising at breakneck speed to bake the baby in record time. "Feeling rundown?"
"Didn't get much sleep last few days." She shifts her elbow under her head, opens one eye to see the worried look on his face. "The levels are all within range."
"Good. That's good."
"It's the only thing that's good." She stiffens into a stretch that vibrates her limbs and clears her eyes. "I've been busy putting out fires on Keratos."
He was going to tell her about the Simpa races, bring her up to speed on D'Argo's latest assignment in the Life Lesson Plan, but with those words he can feel the message chip in his pocket poking his leg. "Bad?"
She pulls the throw aside and gets to her feet. "We may lose their program."
Which puts all the other programs in jeopardy, planned or established. It goes beyond the handful of misdelivered reports on the chip. "What happened?"
"The details of the incidents aren't important." She pulls her uniform trousers up over her hips, the gathered flaps on each side of her belly bunched in her fists. "The problem was that I didn't know about them for weekens because those messages were intercepted."
"Shit."
She nods with a raised eyebrow.
He stands and digs the chip out, handing it to her.
She wraps her fingers around it, straightening her arm down. "That's what I thought."
"I downloaded them off the queue when I thought we were leaving soon, when you first came back. I didn't remember it was in the pocket of these pants until we were already at Helian." He rubs his forehead. "I looked the messages over as soon as I realized, but I figured transferring them over open channels was a bad idea."
He can feel the thrum inside of her, frustration and anger kept in tight check. With a touch or a word he could set her off, but her belly swells in his peripheral vision, bigger than when he left, nearly viable. She's so close to pulling this off, to coming through the other end of this safe and whole...he finds himself unable to take her anger personally, to fight back or protest. So what if they lose a program or two? If this is all the damage they take, it's nothing that can't be rebuilt.
"You've got what, fourteen programs under your belt now? They aren't going to fall like dominos because of one garrison commander with a bug up his ass. You of all people should know that the militia mindset isn't something you give up without a fight. Keratos will fight for their program, they just need guidance on the best way to do that."
"Which is why I've been on long-range comms for days pulling this out of the fire." She fastens her trousers, fingers flicking. "I sent Elti in my place, even though she isn't ready."
"She'll be fine." He slips her boots on, latching them for her and listening to her talk out four hard days at the shop.
"I need to train more people."
"That's a good idea."
"I told her to take the whole ground staff off of Seiris for now, there's no point in it if the program dies on Keratos. They should be there in three more days."
"When we're through here we'll head there. We'll get it back on track just like we did on Avenicia."
"By the time we leave here it will be done, there's no point."
He takes her hands and helps her lever up to stand, belly bulging between them. "Clean-up. Debriefing. Field promotions. Building your bigger staff."
She sighs. "You have a point."
"That's why you keep me around." He grabs her jacket and she lets him help her into the sleeves.
"Good thing you keep reminding me."
"We help each other, remember?"
***
It's times like this when D'Argo misses Papa Ryg the most. He pokes at the pieces of burhk shoot on his metal plate, fresh from the carrier's hydroponics and then cooked well past the point of being edible. The grayish green lumps look like flook dren, and he clicks to himself like a migrating flook, wishing there were someone at his table to get the joke.
A tray bangs down in front of him, but it's not his dad.
***
"They have Simpa races on Helian, now?"
"It's a minor circuit, that's how we got seats. That, and we were close to an exit."
"Doesn't that make it harder to flag down food vendors?" Trust her to find the food angle right now.
"Small price to pay when it gets you out of the 'drome ahead of the riot."
"You'd better be kidding."
"Wish I was."
***
"At least her first abomination sits in the right section."
D'Argo keeps his eyes on his own tray, his heart kicking. The mess is nearly deserted, and the three cadets arrayed around his table look like they've come from a late assignment of hard training.
The girl across from him is slightly bigger than he is, dark hair in a queue, tendrils at her forehead still wet from the showers. Her uniform jacket is open and her sneer bare. "Maybe he's mute."
At the edges of his vision he can see a boy behind him to the right and a girl behind him to the left; standard guard deploy. The girl guard is smaller than the boy, her face flushed. He wonders how long they've been watching him, how persistent they'll be.
"He has to talk a little." The leader shoves D'Argo's tray down the table, overcooked burhk slopping like dren. "He begged food, didn't he?"
***
"He's shaken, but he'll be okay. The riot was nothing, I don't think he batted an eyelash when the crowd came to a boil, but seeing that guy's racer crumple and fly apart, pieces and parts where a life was--he's not going to forget that. He wanted to know if the guy had family."
Aeryn is silent for half a corridor. "You know, if he ever finds out about the things we did, he might hate us."
"Maybe. But none of us would be here if we hadn't." John's gaze includes the personnel they pass as they round the corner. "And we've finally figured out how to build things instead of just destroying them. That counts, too."
Her words are thin and tired. "Even if they hit the wall and fly apart?"
He brushes the back of his hand against hers, mindful of the protocol. He can't wait until they're off this boat and he can kiss her in public again.
***
D'Argo tries to control his breathing. The leader presses her heel into the instep of his boot, just above where the metal reinforcement ends, hard leather and grommets biting through his sock into flesh.
"Tell me," Her tone is saccharine and conversational, "when is she due to shit that obscenity out?"
D'Argo nearly swoons with anger but the black only catches the edges of his vision. If you give them what they want, they win.
"Look he's all red." The boy snickers, seeking the leader's approval.
"Maybe you should take his fork, before he hurts himself."
D'Argo chucks it lightly across the table, where it clatters through the smear of burhk and skids into the leader's lap. That felt *really* good.
***
The rest of it happened in retrospect.
The boy laid a hand on his shoulder to do something, maybe pull him backward or steady him for a punch. Something tripped in D'Argo, like an overflow circuit rerouting a power surge.
Everything slowed. He curled his body down and saw the small girl's elbow swing through the space where he head had been. He used the leverage of the leader's boot on his foot to swing his body under the table.
He grabbed her calf, fingers hooking behind her knee, and crawled up her body, knocking them both to the floor behind her bench. He raked the back of his head on the table edge, but that only made him angrier.
According to the security logs, it lasted less than two hundred microts.
***
"Look, I'm sorry about the thing with the mail."
"You're sorry." Her tone makes it clear; that and a few credits will buy you some lukewarm raslak, buddy.
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
"The situation is under control, as much as it can be. Let's just drop it."
"But I feel bad."
"Good."
"I want to make it up to you."
Aeryn stops inside the doorway of the mess, the room nearly empty mid-shift. "I thought you said he was here?"
"I told him I'd meet him here--"
"Aeryn Sun?"
They turn, and are confronted by a mid-level security sergeant wearing a deck officer's badge.
"Yes, I am Aeryn Sun."
"If you'll come with me?"
"What's the problem, Sergeant?"
"Your...offspring...has been detained."
~*~concluded tomorrow~*~
Next part here
by Thea and feldman
Part 1/6 located here
Part 2/6 located here
Part 3/6 located here
Pretty in Punk
by Thea and feldman
"They look like tadlings at feed time."
Aeryn's wearing a maternity uniform, low-slung pants and a tailored tunic-style shirt in dark material, her growing pudge of a belly tenting the generously cut front. Beneath it all he knows she's got a black pair of the highest-waist undershorts he's ever seen, complete with holster pockets angled low under the sides of the belly. He's told her they're the sexiest granny-panties he's ever seen.
"Wait until I throw in the chum." He tosses the markers in, and joins her on the side bench so they can talk over the shouts and splashing.
She nudges his bare ankle with the toe of her boot and he gives her a smile.
"They're fighting me over Seiris," she says. "That it's too close to the Breakaway Colonies, has tentative ties to a group that's aligned with the Scarrans."
He wants to laugh, this far into a marriage and raising a family and she's still not one to mince words, to start up the small talk.
"I've had a good morning too, baby. Confiscated three Sprek games, taught a little subatomic theory, assigned some celestial navigation without dedicated reference points."
She pauses, derailed for the moment. He knows she's been working on a big project, one of the colonies that they'd visited a few cycles ago, one of the colonies that his name had opened up. John Crichton, mascot for the masses, for the unwashed and the suicidal. The Crichton Sun Roadshow had come to town and all of a sudden a bunch of industrial pig farmers decided they wanted to be free. Damn the Peacekeepers and full speed ahead.
Problem was that Aeryn was George Washington to his Patrick Henry. Or maybe Thomas Jefferson with a pulse cannon. She got as caught up in the revolutionary zeal as the farmers, looking at them with more strategy than fervor thank god, but nonetheless she wanted 'em trained and wanted 'em free.
Ten cycles, he thinks and rests his hand on her knee. Ten cycles ago, they'd stopped off on a backwater planet, stayed with a contact of Nerri's who had held the world's least-secret secret meeting and John had mentioned the redcoats, had mentioned that if the PKs were smart, they'd let the locals handle their own security gigs in exchange for ready-made cannon fodder for a rainy day. Aeryn's eyes had lit with that shrewd understanding, that rapid fire strategizing she was capable of, and the momentary conversation had over the years turned into a life's work for them, for her really. He didn't much care if a bunch of pig farmers learned to fly combat and to get to fire the big guns.
The splashing in the background escalates and he puts his fingers in his mouth, whistling sharp and shrill. "No elbowing, and Kai-Sen, that means no elbowing with your knees!"
Aeryn chuckles, throaty and rich and heat beats in his belly.
She looks at him, sloe-eyed and sultry, licking her bottom lip.
He grins, runs his thumb over her chin.
"Baby, I'd be a lot more flattered if I didn't think you'd throw me over in a microt for a cheesesteak."
She chuffs out a laugh, but her eyes are speculative now, contemplating the likelihood of a multitasking quickie and John shakes his head.
"Seiris?" he reminds her.
"Starving," she counters.
***
Aeryn compensates for her changing shape with shifts of her weight, the punches coming in from lower outer angles and D'Argo has to bend and bob in new ways in order to meet them, to block and to feint around them. She doesn't pull her punches when she spars with him, wanting to train him well, but she is careful, focusing her efforts on teaching and not harming.
"When I learned to swim," he urges, rolling up on his toes, nearly losing his balance in the complex flurry of the exercise. It's a trick he's learned from John, talking and training, needing something to deflect her attention and focus his own. It doesn't work--has rarely worked for either of them--but she lets it go, knowing that it doesn't betray a lack of focus just a different sort of perspective.
She sweeps out her foot and he trips a little, gives her a wry grin and John snorts, elbows resting on his knees, back up against a padded column as he watches them.
"When you learned to swim?" Aeryn pauses and pretends to think hard, scratching the side of her belly with her eyes to the sky. "Are you *sure* you know how to swim?"
Her son gives an impatient hop, sliding around on the padded flooring. "C'mon."
"All right, all right," she gestures to the sparring pad at the edge of the mat. He fetches it and hands it over, expectant. "We'd had you for about two and a half cycles when we returned to Hyneria--"
"He's not a car, Aeryn," John laughs.
She shoots him a look. "You want to come up here and trade places with him?"
He shakes his head with a bright, lusty smile. "Don't think it's good for the boy's psyche to know his mom can whup my ass."
"Dad, everyone knows that."
"Thanks a lot, son. That's the kind of heart-warming validation I'm looking for from my own flesh and blood, the fruit of my loins, the--"
D'Argo gags, hands around his throat in a gesture she knows he learned from his father.
"Do you want me to finish this story or not?" she asks them both. It's a moot point. She likes this tale, likes the outcome and the way it's set their course.
"We came back to Hyneria because Rygel wanted a show of strength, wanted to shake up his detractors and cement the peace in his own kingdom before he signed any trade treaties with the Peacekeepers or their allies."
"You guys were on the negotiating team." D'Argo has paid attention in some of the history modules, and knows enough to read some of the things between the lines.
"At Rygel's request." Insistence was more like it, verging on blackmail, but there wasn't much she wouldn't have done for the Dominar after he'd carried and cared for their child; after he'd finely done something noble, no matter how unwilling. This favor had been the last thing they'd agreed to, their last public appearance as a silent implied threat.
It had been exhausting and frustrating and terrifying, all of that hate and fear leveled at John, his delicate place in the universal scope of power still a haunted, haunting thing. She'd been afraid to close her eyes until every last ambassador had affixed their stamp and fled the kingdom; too worried that something or someone would get past her guard, slip inside their rooms and harm her husband or her son.
"Things hadn't been going very well," she says, and John barks out a harsh laugh.
"'Course that finally caused your mother to step in, tired of the bellyaching and the threats and the name calling, all of these big time politicians acting like a bunch of heavily armed kindergartners."
"I hadn't slept in nearly two weekens. My judgment was not unimpaired."
John presses his lips together.
"So you took your gun," D'Argo prompts.
"They should have disarmed me," she says, shaking her head at the laxity. They'd both been armed, D'Argo safely hidden deep in the palace with a bevy of guards, nowhere near the action. The Illanic representative had stood up, banging her fists on the table and looking at John with such a fierce hatred and fear that something had snapped.
"Your mom'd had enough of the sniping and the focus on finding blame, she wanted the conference over, she wanted the agenda realized and she wanted everyone to frelling play nice and act like they really were as grateful for the peace as they kept saying they were between insults. So she'd said so. At pulse-point."
"It was stupid and ill-thought out."
"And effective," John says quietly, meeting her gaze.
"And effective," she agrees, matching his tone.
"They knew she'd shoot, " he said to his son. "She's not a
woman who makes empty promises."
"No." She turns to her son and catches his eyes, wanting him to understand the seriousness underneath the levity. "No empty threats. A threat with a weapon behind it is a statement, but never bring arms to bear if you're not prepared to use them."
John swallows hard, eyes sweeping down the rounded curve of her belly and then over to his son. "They finally figured out that I was the sane one, that she was the one to watch out for."
She curves her mouth, sardonic, knowing better. She was simply an understandable threat, unlike John. She hurries to finish the rest of the story. "Once a tentative agreement was reached, Rygel had his courtiers escort us to the Palace pools, to relax."
"To work the room alone and close the deals without delegates reneging afterward because of undue pressure." D'Argo adds with a grin, "Papa Ryg showed me some of the treaties last time we were there."
"He's too smart."
"Who's fault is that?"
"So we went to the pools," D'Argo prompts again, pushing himself back into the conversation.
Aeryn leans to pick a towel from the mat, squishing her belly enough as she bends that the girl kicks back, a low and dirty blow to the bladder. "I wasn't certain about taking you into the water, you were so small, but as soon as you saw it you raced over the edge, had to be pulled back from skittering in."
"Dad took me in, right?"
She nods, willing herself not to think about urination.
"You were squirming like a tadpole," John says, "slippery and slick and I nearly dropped you, and your mom was shouting at me to hang on to you, and I'm shouting back that she worries too much and then you slid right out of my grip like a greased pig."
Fear had wrapped her throat the instant he'd gone under, even with John right there, his strong hands reaching instantly after her son.
She was in the water before she realized she'd acted, pants wet and heavy, shirt soaked as all she could think about was the feeling of lungs full and heavy and useless, the terror of the water pulling her down, thoughts and fears that hadn't surfaced in cycles, and then John ducked under the surface and D'Argo's head popped up; hair plastered down around his small face, plump cheeks in a smile and his bright high ring of laughter echoed by John's chuckle of relief.
"You scared the bejesus out of us," John says, "but you started kicking your feet and I held your belly up and you swam. Well, you sort of flopped around in the water, but you stayed upright and looked like you were having a great time. You even got your mom to come join us, clothes and all."
"It made more sense than sitting on the edge," she says, scrubbing at her face with the towel, "waiting to see what kind of disaster you two would encounter next."
***
He kisses her neck, fingers pushing back the heavy fall of her hair. He's not wild about leaving her, but there isn't anything he could do anyway, and he knows this is important for her. They've been coasting the past few weekens, Aeryn working like a fiend, he and D'Argo doing the summer school and swim team thing. It's been a decent mellow interlude, as easy as life on a carrier in the midst of a not quite hostile former enemy can be.
He's had time, luxurious time with Aeryn, sated with sex and affection and banter whenever possible, satisfying his need to be with her, to monitor her health, help her bleed off some of the energy and hormone rushes. They've had a good run, and now it's time to fulfill his end of the bargain.
"Sweet dreams," he murmurs, feeling sappy.
She shifts minutely, mumbling, "Fly safe."
***
The room assigned to them on the xeno-carrier is generous in size, but with only a small console work station, enough for John to pull messages out of the mail-cache and voice conference with his telacademy students.
They're the quarters of a visiting guest with no rank function on the carrier, and while this is technically true, Aeryn's work requires a more resourceful set-up. Combined with the fact that for each tier farther away you summon a document tech from their department, it tends to add two arns to their response time, Aeryn finds that she gets far more accomplished if she goes to the source of bureaucracy and signs in to a carrel for the day. She has access codes to the long-range comms, the Council Ministry nodes and the authority to assign work to document techs, all within easy reach in a hard-seated cubicle the size of a cockpit.
She misses flight.
She also misses her husband and her son, but things have been such a mess setting up this next militia program on Seiris that she's busy enough to blank that out for whole shifts at a time. Besides, they'll be back in a few days.
To be fair, it's not like the monen or two that it takes to set up a new program on the ground; it's not the kind of mission-length absence she's enforced on them in the past, and will in the future if this next one ever gets through the approval process.
And not all of her family has left. The girl seems to be sleeping, her flutter kicks stilled for now. Halfway through the pregnancy and she's already more active than D'Argo was even at the end. Maybe she can hear the bureaucracy, so she makes her own fun.
Aeryn keys her access code into the terminal and sees that the Colony Minister is finally in her office. She puts the call in so fast that it's almost reflexive. Her meeting is third in the queue, and already meetings are stacking up after that; the time pressure should work in her favor, gain her the concessions she needs, get the Minister to lean on the local PK garrison on Seiris to allow the militia program after all.
Aeryn sits back with a predatory sigh, hand absently stroking the swell of her belly and the sleeping girl within. This *will* be settled today.
***
"Mom said you get to pick out the baby's name."
"That's the deal, yeah."
"You should name her Nhsk-hgoc."
John doesn't even puzzle out the tangle of consonants and hiccups that just came out of his son. "Your mother put you up to that?"
"She said it's an old family name."
"No D', it's an old *punchline*. That's different."
***
"Sun. I've been expecting you to contact me." The Colony Minister had been a blonde back when she was a mere captain, and a washed out grey when she was an admiral. Now her hair is cropped short and silver, as if each advancement in rank has purified the color as well as honed her skills. "And yet your report has not been transmitted."
Aeryn's feet are planted on the deck, her spine straight and every fact at her fingertips--and she has no idea what the Minister is talking about.
"Keratos?" The Minister prompts, then eases back in her padded chair. "Or did you set this appointment to agitate for a program on Seiris? If so, then why am I looking at a stack of incident reports for Keratos?"
She left Keratos less than a monen ago--how could the situation have deteriorated so quickly? And why hadn't she heard about it before it reached the Minister of Colonies? Aeryn opens her mouth to take control of the situation but the Minister cuts her off.
"I'll have my staff send copies of the pertinent information to you. Again."
Reports blossom in the document queue to the left of the minister's image, tagged as re-sent from three weekens ago despite Aeryn's never having seen them before. Property destruction, mostly, and civilian damage (Aeryn translates this phrase out of PK-lingo and reads them as reports of civilian deaths) but in the last two days a second wave of incidents has broken out, this time resulting in two casualties of garrison personnel, which makes her job even more difficult.
"So unless you have information that I do not regarding the situation on the ground; or would like to assist in implementing a plan of action to quell this Keratos insurrection by more efficient means than the standard colony procedures, I believe our meeting regarding Seiris can be indefinitely postponed."
"I'll have a report for you by--"
"I'll be issuing orders regarding Keratos at the end of ministry arns today, Sun. If you want to have any input on my decisions, you should be compiling that report now."
The connection is severed and the node system inquires whether she would like to schedule another meeting.
"Frell." The girl shifts and Aeryn's stomach growls. She resists the urge to call her own staff right away, taking a moment to calculate the time of day on Keratos. She needs to read the reports first, be ready to listen to what they have to say about the situation planet-side. She also needs to eat. She uploads the documents to a reader and heads to the galley, her fury banked and growing hotter.
***
Helian City is the closest commerce station that doesn't actively ban Peacekeepers and John's not in the mood to fight the mobs at Parakalor anyway. The trade off is that Helian is a little... seedy, despite the plethora of goods.
D' walks vaguely in front of him at a little more than arms length, and even that distance makes John's skin itch. Too much here, too many things, too many species and goods and distractions. It's an alien arcade of wonders - noisy, neon and only nominally safe. His kid is better at the wariness than he is, but it's been drilled in since D' could walk. Look, listen and learn. It's all about the wonder until someone gets hurt. John himself still tends to get distracted and has come home a little dazed, cheek grazed from a fight, from a run in with good, bad and ugly and had to face the wrath of his girl as she winds her hands through their son's hair, stills her anger, saves it up then learns to diffuse it. They've all spent the last thirteen cycles learning.
The Xylian prostitutes at the milba stand give D' a quick leer, smile wide for John and he grins back at them, repressing his shudder at their sharp teeth, the wide jaws that can unhinge like a python's, the scaly shimmer of their skin. The Xylians took them in, cycles ago, hid them from a band of arms dealers that had just gotten the bottom cut out of their market by the first effort of Crichton Sun Revolutions R' Us Incorporated. But the Xylians still scare the crap out him.
He's made reservations at a small hotel on the edge of the city, near enough to town to be shopper friendly, far enough away not to get more than a glimpse of the nightlife. But they have Simpa racing every evening before the bars really get hopping and D's never been old enough to go before.
D' looks longingly at an open air stall displaying a range of Sprek offshoots. John nudges him, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder and moving him along. If he has to endure yet another variation of the Sprek and their ilk, he's gonna lose what little mind he has left. D' flashes him a grin as he's circumnavigated around the stall. "We should get t-shirts," he says. "For the team."
John chuckles. It's a good idea, and he's sure they make t-shirts with multiple armholes for the tripods and the Kai. "We'll hit the strip mall by the dock on our way out," he says.
They've got a list - clothes, medical supplies, diapers - but John figures he can put off the big shopping until the next day. Tonight he wants to grab some dinner, take in the Simpa racing, and not think about Aeryn alone on the station, engrossed in what she was working on, so engrossed that she might be ignoring important signs that things weren't... He derails that train, and keeps his fingers hooked in the collar of D's leather jacket.
There's a bookstore he wants to check out before they swing by the local comms cafe. Supposedly a new ration of the unified field theory findings that the Pathfinders are publishing in dribs and drabs are out, and he wants to pick up the latest articles. He also wants to send a message home that they're safe and plan to make themselves thoroughly ill on hot dogs, nachos and sugar at the Simpa races. Aeryn only goes to humor him. She's not interested in watching fast things that can't break atmosphere.
John spies the bookstore up ahead, and pushes his son through the crush of Sheyangs and ragtag Sebaceans to get to the entrance. The doors slide apart and they step into the filtered air of the quiet shop, both stopping short at the holo display in front of them.
***
"Goddamn sonofabitch, I should have drowned him when I had the chance."
The holo flashes images, spinning them out on the display – a space battle, a half-dressed Xylian gyrating on stage, a blonde woman with a white dress and familiar features, a bloody cage match between a Luxan and an Ilanic, a man in a funny hat with a thin spike through his head, the sea of Cepertz with the multicolored sea snakes and metra long fish, a bright-eyed grey girl.
D'Argo's not sure whether to look away, to look at his dad, or to just keep gaping. His dad goes on muttering and D' decides to take a closer look as the images cycle through again. Where's he seen that blonde lady before?
His dad snaps his hand through the holo, shutting it off and grabs the projector.
D'Argo swallows, closes his mouth and looks up. His dad is more than a little pissed.
He strides up to the back panel where the clerks are sequestered and bangs on the glass partition with the butt of the projector. D'argo follows him, waiting to see what will happen next.
The window slips up and a four-eyed Helian blinks both sets of eyes in syncopation. "Can I help you?"
D'Argo watches as John tamps down his anger, tries on a smile. "Your display up front..."
"Peacekeeper," The Helian flutters his lashes as if shooing away a cloud of fillimir-bugs, taking in the projector clutched in his dad's hand, "you'd best put that back where you found it."
His dad growls low in his throat and the Helian raises a thin, bony hand, probably to shut the partition or trip a signal to security.
"Sir, if you have a question, please ask it. If not, I'd advise you to put that projector back and leave."
"Fine." He puts the projector down in front of the Helian with an overly careful motion. D'Argo hears it click against the counter and the Helian winces, glares. "This display have anything to do with something you guys are selling?"
"It's a retrospective. The best of Yoti's work."
"Fuck."
The Helian's hand rises again. "There is no need for that sort of language, sir. This is not a Simpa pit."
His dad taps the top of his fist on the projector and his tone, when he speaks, is the one that makes D sit up and take notice. It's the 'I'm tired of this shit and it's ending right now' tone. His mom's the only one who fails to react to that tone, but then his mom's the exception to a lot of rules and right now, D'Argo's trying to parse how the blonde woman with the wide smile looks so much like her.
"I'd really appreciate it if you'd take down the display."
"Sir," the Helian laughs, a scratchy sound of sour amusement. "That holo is one of our best sellers--why would we take it down?"
"Because the guy who made it is an amoral, manipulative, opportunistic scumbag who plagiarizes other people's memories in his work."
The Helian shrugs, lashes sweeping low. "That's certainly not our problem. We sell information. That holo is a much requested commodity, and we have an arrangement with the gaming establishment down the street. It's a tie in to the re-release of several of Yoti's most popular games. There is no possible reason for us to take it down."
John glances back at D'Argo, who shrugs and tries to look unobtrusive.
"How about if you don't frelling take it down, I'll personally make sure that all the copies of those games end up as fuel for my Prowler?"
"I see..." The Helian yanks the window shut and presses the security button, his voice muffled by pulse-resistant plexipane. "Peacekeepers are no longer allowed to threaten innocent civilians simply because they can, sir."
"Frell."
Two guards appear out of the shadows, burly Sebaceans with rough sewn uniforms. His dad's hands are up before they get within handcuffing distance. He holds up a finger, keeping his hands far away from Winona, and slips his hand into his pocket. His eyes go wide, and he mouths, "Shit," then pulls out the confirmation chip for the hotel.
He tosses it to D'Argo. "I'll meet you back at the hotel in a couple of arns, D'. We'll go to the Simpa races after dinner."
D'Argo wants to protest, wants to stay and see how all of this shakes down, but John jerks his head and points. "Go on, son. No worries, I'll meet you in an arn."
He looks at the larger of the guards. "Can someone make sure my boy gets to our hotel?" They exchange glances and the smaller Sebacean nods, gestures D'Argo out the door.
***
He's gone through all of his homework, and can't concentrate on the Sprek game. He flips on the telecom, but all he gets is planetary news, a bad Sheyang family drama and scrambled porn. At least he thinks it's porn. With Xylian's, it's kind of hard to tell.
The room is small, and the streets outside are teeming. The viewers show all of the entrance ways to the different bars and restaurants and Simpa arenas sponsored by the hotel, and he's itchy to get out, to explore, to go somewhere beyond this room, but his dad will be royally pissed off if he gets back and D'Argo's not there.
He's also a little nervous about going out by himself, thirteen cycles of warnings ringing in his ears. The temptation to ignore the warnings is strong, the bright colors and the insistence of the viewer images calling out to him, but he doesn't want to cause any more stress for his dad. He's been on edge since mom got pregnant. D'Argo tries to still the niggle of fear that thoughts of the pregnancy stir in him. He keeps hearing his dad's voice ringing out, the accusation that his mom is risking her life. He doesn't want think about losing her, doesn't want to end up alone in the universe, just him and his dad.
D'Argo hangs out for another arn, sprawled on the floor, joggling the telecom dial every few microts to get flashes of the porn. A Xylian woman is kneeling on the floor, flat eyes wide, jaw unhinging when his dad bangs into the room. D'Argo flips off the telecom so fast that it zips the transmission, freezing it for a crystal clear microt before fading to black.
John looks at his son, looks at the telecom and barks out a laugh, then collapses into a chair, tossing the bookstore's broken projector onto the table. He's antsy, boot heel drumming into the soft carpet, fingers shifting his jacket around and tapping on his thigh. "You ready?"
"Yes! I'm starving."
John quirks his mouth. "Me too, kid."
D'Argo stands, grabs his jacket. "The arena on Xeiv Street has races starting in half an arn."
"Guess we can grab some food there."
D'Argo bounces on his heels, nods. "So are they gonna take down the display?" He wants to ask if he saw what he thought he saw, if he really knows those people in the holo, his folks, his Aunt Chi, sort of. But his dad doesn't much look like he's going to answer those sorts of questions.
John shrugs. "For now. Until they get a new projector. This one got...broken. Someone dropped it on the ground and managed to walk on it. Sucks for them, but..." He stands up. "C'mon kid, let's go watch some Simpa."
***
"Where you going so early, son?" His dad scratches and speaks through his yawn, "Thought we'd get some breakfast and start hitting the stores."
"Just down to the hotel arcade. They've got a few of the new Sprek modules already and I want to see what the new transformative levels are--"
"Just downstairs, then, okay? I'll shower and meet you down there in a few."
"Do you have any coin?"
"What, am I being mugged now?" He wanders toward the fresher, gesturing behind him. "In my pants. You can have five krindar--but it has to last you the whole trip."
D'Argo pauses with his hand already deep in a leathers pocket. "Do I have to use it for the shirts?"
"Shirts are on the coach."
D'Argo rifles through the clothing, creating a pile on the bed of receipts and tabs, hotel and dockpark key chips, spare change and a data crystal.
His dad picks the data crystal from the pile, swearing under his breath.
D' plucks out five krindars and heads out the door to the arcade.
He even walks up to an empty Sprek module and reaches into his pocket to touch his own mini-console. Kai-sen would die of envy if he came back with a new level or two loaded onto his unit.
The guy's name was Yoti. D'Argo recalls it as an attendant shuffles past, and he finds himself asking the bored Sebacean where the Yoti re-releases are.
His Aunt Chi has pale eyes like her grey clothes, but in the flash on the holo she had black eyes and colorful clothes. The Nebari woman painted on the side of the Yoti game module is curvy and perplexed, big black eyes and nothing at all like the one he knows, but he slips his krindar into the machine anyway. He has 1500 microts of play, easily enough to finish before his father's typical morning shower.
It's a boring game, really, not as engaging as Sprek and nothing like the fun stuff he usually does when Auntie Chi comes to visit. Everything is weird and distorted, even Papa Ryg, and the Luxan with the candy repels him. He doesn't even want to know if it's supposed to be the D'Argo who was his parents' friend.
He says, "I want out." When the booth reappears around him he sees he still has almost 800 microts left, so he hits the change button and pockets the few measly piltres it spits out.
The arcade is still pretty empty, his dad fiddling with the dead controls of an atmospheric flight simulator. He looks tired instead of angry, but D'Argo's spine straightens nonetheless.
"S'okay, son. I figured as much."
The idea that someone cared enough to steal his father's memories hadn't seemed quite real. Even after playing the game it still feels like a joke.
His dad scratches the side of his nose. "Did you get to the Moya levels?"
"There are Moya levels?" D'Argo turns to go back in but his dad lunges and grabs him by the jacket collar.
"When you're older. *Maybe*. Not now."
"The princess is mom, isn't she?"
"Your mom isn't in that game, son. It's just some confused thoughts about her, that's all."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Nope."
D'Argo shakes his head as if to clear water from his ears.
His dad wraps a hand around the back of his neck, slightly warmer than D'Argo's own skin, and gives him a slow shake. "You hungry?"
"Yeah."
Arm draped across the shoulders, his dad steers him out into the station proper.
***
The thing about living for the most part on a Leviathan who likes to explore the fringes of settled space is that it forces you to buy in bulk. Fortunately, most commerce stations are set up like catalog stores, so John can pick and choose the exact supplies he needs and then have a gross ton or two delivered straight to the shuttle pod.
"The medicine and hygiene parts of the list are done." John reads off from the datapad in his hand as they make their way toward yet another shopping district. "Which leaves clothing and equipment."
D'Argo perks up at the word 'equipment'. John doesn't have the heart to tell him it boils down to a sanitizer and a breast pump.
"What about toys?"
"We can get those, too."
"You don't have them on The List?" D' shoots him a look to let him know how painfully embarrassing he is, both by having a List and by it being less than comprehensive. "She needs stuff to play with."
"They don't really play too much for the first few monens, son, just eat sleep cry and poop, and not necessarily individually in that order."
"How many eema-covers did we just buy?"
"Enough for half a cycle, give or take a few bad days."
"So she needs toys, too. Don't be such a damned lame-ass."
John sighs. It's been months since Chi's last visit and he's still coming across the latest batch of swear words she'd seeded into his son's vocabulary. It's like an Easter egg hunt with turds, you never know when you'll stumble across one, but it's going have to be cleaned up regardless. This time it's English, bent and twisted underneath the Nebari and Sebacean accents: demmmd'laymiss.
And yeah, maybe he is being one. "Alright--toys, tech, then togs."
D' hoots like a Kai and ranges farther ahead.
***
Aeryn looks up from her reports on the 'pacification' of Keratos, the uneasy feeling of eyes on her leading her gaze straight to the table across from hers.
In her preoccupation, she'd sat in the crew section of the mess instead of at the tables set aside for allied-guests. Two girls and a boy, ensigns by their rank insignia, snicker and look away from her. Perhaps a little older than her own son, though she finds it hard to judge now that her experience is all tied up with one hybrid child, uncannily smart and empathetic, strangely coddled like a rare and delicate specimen.
The girls nudge each other and the boy smirks, offers a comment that makes one of them howl out loud. There's a gesture of hands spread out away from stomach and Aeryn realizes they're mocking her.
She turns her eyes back to the datapad beside her empty meal tray. The current report is from one of her staff on Keratos, a detailed rundown of the civilian casualties and the political reaction of the native government. The native militia lost every one of their decent pilots, but they still train and they've stuck to their stated mission parameters; they refuse to give the garrison an excuse to wipe them out completely. The program may survive yet, and after a few monens of peace she can begin agitating for a program on Seiris again.
She hasn't slept for nearly two days. Pressing duty and driving hunger had kept her awake by turns--it seems the less she sleeps the more she eats--but this last meal seems to be sticking with her for now. She rises to her feet and slips the datapad into the empty holster-pocket of her 'grannipannies'.
When she passes the ensigns' table one of them is brave enough to call out a taunt.
Aeryn stops. She walks to the table and studies them each in turn for a moment.
The boy is helpless with silent laughter, but he's not the issue. The girls challenge her with stares and Aeryn can see them in double vision; see their bravado and disgust, and the fear underneath. Old habits die hard, old thoughts walk like ghosts, and Aeryn is a contamination, a living manifestation of the old system brought low, cast out and for all they know begging for scraps, alien life swelling beneath her skin.
Pregnancy is an honorable duty that every female soldier expects to be assigned. Often it comes after a mission, when the regiment is on light duties while some members recover from injury. If you haven't sustained too many wounds, you're likely to spend the downtime pregnant.
Aeryn doesn't fit into that system, even though she wears the same uniform and is often accorded the same surface respect. Once they recognize who she is, and that what she's carrying *isn't* a comrade, the tone tends to change even as the words remain the same. On a xeno-carrier assigned to allied missions, only raw ensigns like these dare to say it aloud.
New regs or no, Aeryn is still considered defiled by her association with a lesser being; she *must* have been lesser herself, must have been stupid or damaged, no real Peacekeeper would let this happen, hence they are safe from the idea of change. But these girls are just now entering the system and they can feel that change is already happening, that nothing is as stable as they were told it would be. What's to keep this from happening to them, down the line? The more they mock Aeryn, the more distance they can put between them and her, the safer they feel.
Aeryn clarifies the question, her tone amused and far from cold. There's no way for her to reassure them, even if she wanted to. "What does *what* feel like?"
The girl in front of her pulls her shoulders forward and Aeryn leans down over the chair to close the distance. The other girl across the table glares even hotter, lip curling as she scoffs, "What does it feel like to be a brood mare for a dirty primitive?"
A primitive who can't seem to work a simple message queue, Aeryn adds to herself as she pretends to think on the question. The downside of their carefully-cultivated obscurity is that knowledge of her husband's few competencies requires high level security clearance.
"How does it feel?" Aeryn lays a hand on quiet girl's shoulder and hugs her close with one arm, smiling across the table at the scowling girl. The quiet one shirks away like D'Argo, which makes her laugh a little and angers the other girl even more. The boy is silent and still. She whispers into the quiet's girl's ear and then kisses her cheek.
She ruffles the angry girl's hair as she passes by, deftly avoiding the furious blows the girl throws to block her.
"Filthy tralk!"
There's a scuffle behind her as she keeps walking, the angry girl demanding, "What did she say?"
Aeryn shakes her head and chuckles to herself as she exits the mess, savoring the pallor that her words had sent through the quiet girl.
"She said it felt like the future."
The confrontation with the cadets settles something inside her, eases back her annoyance with John, tamps the hunger momentarily and she allows herself the luxury of a light workout and an arn in one of the flight sims before returning to her quarters to go over the last of the reports from Keratos. The uprising there will require an actual presence soon, but as long as she can get in touch with Rexa and her cohorts, Aeryn thinks she can talk them into a temporary cease fire before the Peacekeepers exert real firepower and raze the community.
She yawns as she keys in a final request for a comms link in the morning, sends an urgent report to the minister, then stretches until her back cracks. The girl kicks and swims, energized by the change of pace and Aeryn places her hand firmly to her belly.
"You liked the flight sim, didn't you? So did I. But we won't tell your father about that. He worries needlessly." He had in fact ordered her to remain grounded, orders seconded with a shrug by the med tech. She'd merely rolled her eyes at the med tech. For John, there'd been a lambasting on the hubris of giving her orders.
He'd been unfazed by her wrath, had simply apologized and called it a request.
He knows better, and while she is sympathetic to his fears there are limits to her patience. As a concession, she's been seeing the med tech every other day, monitoring her blood pressure and other vital signs on her own in the interim, and so far there have been no irregularities. Sitting on the bed, she checks her levels and enters them into the log. She showers and then slips between the cool sheets, wishing that John's warm, solid body was there to snug herself to.
They've spent much time apart in the last few cycles, something they'd agreed to for the sake of the work, but they both know that it comes with a price, with risk. She hadn't missed the way he'd said goodbye before she left for Keratos, the way each time she leaves his mouth sets harder even as he holds her, the way he prepares for her not to return.
Letting her go requires an act of faith that she hasn't until recently allowed herself to understand. But when he'd slung his bag over his shoulder a few days ago, convinced she was asleep, there'd been a look in his eye, a reluctance to leave even for a few days that had slid between her ribs and curled around her heart.
He was making his own sort of concession and perhaps it was time to negotiate a new set of terms, time to find a way to do the work with less distance, to involve him more actively, or to recruit other trainers.
They'd both been wary of the way that the different factions would react to being lead by a notorious outlaw, the harm that could come to him with that level of notoriety, the resentment on the part of the Peacekeepers, but she is growing tired of putting the universe's needs ahead of her family's. She loves the work, showing these people what freedom can mean, how to protect themselves. But her first obligation is to protect her family, to make certain that they're safe from the dangers of the universe.
Bringing in new people could mean giving up some of the autonomy they've built, but with another child to care for, she and John both will be harder pressed to shepherd revolutions, to train militias and farmers to form independent coalitions. It is time to explore some new options.
Her mind is running sharp and hot now and she wants to get up, to assess further details and logistics of her current mission, figure out how to start delegating some of that work, see if it's even a possibility she's willing to explore, but physical weariness eclipses that need. Instead she gets up, her awkward belly a dance of negotiation between her and the girl shifting within, and sits in front of the console to call up her will and testament.
She has no fear of death, only of what she will leave behind, and John has not said anything about losing her since that last fight. But she will hold true to her bargain, will leave him words, if that's what he needs. She banks her irritation over the lost message queue. There will be time enough to make him pay for that when he returns.
***
His dad hooked up the pod eons ago with speakers and while his Mom discourages putting on tunes while they fly, his dad seems to find some sort of calm in the speakers, in the Earth music. D's actively co-piloting on the return trip.
They'd gotten up early, neither of them getting much sleep after the Simpa races. That poor guy hadn't even known what was happening, his face broadcast on the holo screens, laughing and hollering about his victory right up until the point where his electric system shorted, sparking on his fuel source and the whole thing had blown, shutting down the races and starting a riot of panic. His dad had grabbed him, hustling the two of them out of the crowd with a ruthless efficiency, Winona drawn and a heavy hand wrapped around D'Argo's upper arm.
D'Argo keeps looping the explosion through his mind, the look on the Hokothian's face, the smell of fuel burning, of flesh and grease and metal. His stomach rolls and he hitches in his breath, trying to breath through the nausea.
"Go sit down in the back, D'." John's voice is steady and serious, concerned.
He waves his hand. "I'll be okay."
"D'Argo, go."
He pushes out of the seat, stumbling into the back to wedge himself up beside the ribs next to a small crate of toys, gulping down water.
The small speakers play one of his dad's favorite songs, but John doesn't hum or sing, doesn't turn up the volume.
"Think he had kids?" D' hears the tremolo in his own voice and grimaces at the weakness.
John turns to look at him. "Maybe."
D'Argo scrubs at his mouth. "I don't think I'm gonna puke."
"Drink some more water; vomit is a bitch to get out of biomech skin."
D'Argo snorts through his nose in an effort to stifle the giggle, caught between appalled and honestly amused, but he flashes back quickly to the races. "That why mom doesn't like going?"
"No, I think your Mom just finds any sort of competition that doesn't have real stakes to be sort of stupid. She isn't much interested in tech for tech's sake, no matter how cool. She may be a kick ass fighter jock, but she's still a girl."
"You gonna tell her what happened?"
"'Course. She's your mom. She's my wife, and she'd have both of our asses if we didn't let her know. She's gonna be pissed though."
"You didn't know that something like that would happen."
John shakes his head. "It's not that uncommon in the final tier of races, and I should've thought ahead. Just wanted us to get to do some guy stuff."
D'Argo fiddles with the lock on the toy crate, flips it open and pulls out the new blanket that lay on top. It's a dark rose color, embroidered with old Sebacean designs and words.
"Why..." he pauses, rubbing the cloth between his fingers, then stops. He knows there aren't a lot of satisfying answers to most questions that begin with why.
"Life's weird like that," John says softly, "Fate has a hellish sense of humor. That poor guy thought he was about to realize a dream, and maybe it was just crappy luck and maybe he took a shortcut in his wiring, made a bad call, I don't know. I wish I had an answer, D'. Awful is it sounds, mostly I just wish that we hadn't been there to see it. There are better ways to demonstrate that you've gotta appreciate the time you have, the people you love."
D'Argo clears his throat, feeling embarrassment flush his cheeks along with a strong desire to go ahead and say it anyway. He mumbles, "Love you dad."
"I love you too, son."
***
D's stumbling with exhaustion by the time they make it back to the carrier. It isn't all that late, but John can feel his own shoulders sag, weary and worn out.
He steers the boy down the steps and pays the levy for keeping the pod in the secure dock. No one waits for them other than the regular guards and soldiers on patrol. One of them will do a security check on the pod, make sure no contraband or illegal arms have been brought on board.
He decides at the last minute to get the blanket that D'Argo picked out for the baby, wanting to tell Aeryn the story about the old man who'd sold it to them, about blessing a baby with new fabric and old words, a little piece of Sebacean heritage that they can adopt, something unique to half of his children's genes, something inherent that isn't related to PK life or carrier born heritage.
He's surprised that she isn't there to meet them. He'd sent word ahead of their arrival time, but the chip in his pocket might have had larger repercussions than simply missing a mail call. The messages were weekens old, but the classification stamps and the content weren't anything he could transmit to her over open channels.
He's starving, pretty sure that they should both eat before crashing out, but he wants to see Aeryn, make sure that her absence is more about work than about something gone wrong, wants to work out the knots in his gut before he can think about eating.
He takes D'Argo's rucksack and sends him to the mess to grab a sandwich with the promise that he'll meet him there. At his quarters he keys in the code, hits the door release and steps inside. The lights are low and he lets his bag slide off his shoulder with a thump, tosses the blanket onto a chair and stands there for a few minutes, just looking at his wife.
She's sleeping like the dead, laying on her side on top of the covers, a throw over her hips, boots on the floor. She's in her underwear, round belly bare, the thin tank rucked halfway up to her breasts. Her hair is loose and her breath is steady, and he savors her, beautiful, fecund, quiet and alive, there in the bed with no trauma pending despite the tongue lashing he knows he's due for, and he can't resist. He goes to the bed, and sits down in the curve formed by her body, leans in to kiss her shoulder.
"Hey baby," he murmurs.
The words drift up from the depths of sleep. "Are you talking to her or me?"
"You. And the kidlet."
"And the kidlet you took with you?"
"Waiting for us in the mess."
Her skin is warmer than usual, but that's to be expected, her metabolism cruising at breakneck speed to bake the baby in record time. "Feeling rundown?"
"Didn't get much sleep last few days." She shifts her elbow under her head, opens one eye to see the worried look on his face. "The levels are all within range."
"Good. That's good."
"It's the only thing that's good." She stiffens into a stretch that vibrates her limbs and clears her eyes. "I've been busy putting out fires on Keratos."
He was going to tell her about the Simpa races, bring her up to speed on D'Argo's latest assignment in the Life Lesson Plan, but with those words he can feel the message chip in his pocket poking his leg. "Bad?"
She pulls the throw aside and gets to her feet. "We may lose their program."
Which puts all the other programs in jeopardy, planned or established. It goes beyond the handful of misdelivered reports on the chip. "What happened?"
"The details of the incidents aren't important." She pulls her uniform trousers up over her hips, the gathered flaps on each side of her belly bunched in her fists. "The problem was that I didn't know about them for weekens because those messages were intercepted."
"Shit."
She nods with a raised eyebrow.
He stands and digs the chip out, handing it to her.
She wraps her fingers around it, straightening her arm down. "That's what I thought."
"I downloaded them off the queue when I thought we were leaving soon, when you first came back. I didn't remember it was in the pocket of these pants until we were already at Helian." He rubs his forehead. "I looked the messages over as soon as I realized, but I figured transferring them over open channels was a bad idea."
He can feel the thrum inside of her, frustration and anger kept in tight check. With a touch or a word he could set her off, but her belly swells in his peripheral vision, bigger than when he left, nearly viable. She's so close to pulling this off, to coming through the other end of this safe and whole...he finds himself unable to take her anger personally, to fight back or protest. So what if they lose a program or two? If this is all the damage they take, it's nothing that can't be rebuilt.
"You've got what, fourteen programs under your belt now? They aren't going to fall like dominos because of one garrison commander with a bug up his ass. You of all people should know that the militia mindset isn't something you give up without a fight. Keratos will fight for their program, they just need guidance on the best way to do that."
"Which is why I've been on long-range comms for days pulling this out of the fire." She fastens her trousers, fingers flicking. "I sent Elti in my place, even though she isn't ready."
"She'll be fine." He slips her boots on, latching them for her and listening to her talk out four hard days at the shop.
"I need to train more people."
"That's a good idea."
"I told her to take the whole ground staff off of Seiris for now, there's no point in it if the program dies on Keratos. They should be there in three more days."
"When we're through here we'll head there. We'll get it back on track just like we did on Avenicia."
"By the time we leave here it will be done, there's no point."
He takes her hands and helps her lever up to stand, belly bulging between them. "Clean-up. Debriefing. Field promotions. Building your bigger staff."
She sighs. "You have a point."
"That's why you keep me around." He grabs her jacket and she lets him help her into the sleeves.
"Good thing you keep reminding me."
"We help each other, remember?"
***
It's times like this when D'Argo misses Papa Ryg the most. He pokes at the pieces of burhk shoot on his metal plate, fresh from the carrier's hydroponics and then cooked well past the point of being edible. The grayish green lumps look like flook dren, and he clicks to himself like a migrating flook, wishing there were someone at his table to get the joke.
A tray bangs down in front of him, but it's not his dad.
***
"They have Simpa races on Helian, now?"
"It's a minor circuit, that's how we got seats. That, and we were close to an exit."
"Doesn't that make it harder to flag down food vendors?" Trust her to find the food angle right now.
"Small price to pay when it gets you out of the 'drome ahead of the riot."
"You'd better be kidding."
"Wish I was."
***
"At least her first abomination sits in the right section."
D'Argo keeps his eyes on his own tray, his heart kicking. The mess is nearly deserted, and the three cadets arrayed around his table look like they've come from a late assignment of hard training.
The girl across from him is slightly bigger than he is, dark hair in a queue, tendrils at her forehead still wet from the showers. Her uniform jacket is open and her sneer bare. "Maybe he's mute."
At the edges of his vision he can see a boy behind him to the right and a girl behind him to the left; standard guard deploy. The girl guard is smaller than the boy, her face flushed. He wonders how long they've been watching him, how persistent they'll be.
"He has to talk a little." The leader shoves D'Argo's tray down the table, overcooked burhk slopping like dren. "He begged food, didn't he?"
***
"He's shaken, but he'll be okay. The riot was nothing, I don't think he batted an eyelash when the crowd came to a boil, but seeing that guy's racer crumple and fly apart, pieces and parts where a life was--he's not going to forget that. He wanted to know if the guy had family."
Aeryn is silent for half a corridor. "You know, if he ever finds out about the things we did, he might hate us."
"Maybe. But none of us would be here if we hadn't." John's gaze includes the personnel they pass as they round the corner. "And we've finally figured out how to build things instead of just destroying them. That counts, too."
Her words are thin and tired. "Even if they hit the wall and fly apart?"
He brushes the back of his hand against hers, mindful of the protocol. He can't wait until they're off this boat and he can kiss her in public again.
***
D'Argo tries to control his breathing. The leader presses her heel into the instep of his boot, just above where the metal reinforcement ends, hard leather and grommets biting through his sock into flesh.
"Tell me," Her tone is saccharine and conversational, "when is she due to shit that obscenity out?"
D'Argo nearly swoons with anger but the black only catches the edges of his vision. If you give them what they want, they win.
"Look he's all red." The boy snickers, seeking the leader's approval.
"Maybe you should take his fork, before he hurts himself."
D'Argo chucks it lightly across the table, where it clatters through the smear of burhk and skids into the leader's lap. That felt *really* good.
***
The rest of it happened in retrospect.
The boy laid a hand on his shoulder to do something, maybe pull him backward or steady him for a punch. Something tripped in D'Argo, like an overflow circuit rerouting a power surge.
Everything slowed. He curled his body down and saw the small girl's elbow swing through the space where he head had been. He used the leverage of the leader's boot on his foot to swing his body under the table.
He grabbed her calf, fingers hooking behind her knee, and crawled up her body, knocking them both to the floor behind her bench. He raked the back of his head on the table edge, but that only made him angrier.
According to the security logs, it lasted less than two hundred microts.
***
"Look, I'm sorry about the thing with the mail."
"You're sorry." Her tone makes it clear; that and a few credits will buy you some lukewarm raslak, buddy.
"Yeah, I'm sorry."
"The situation is under control, as much as it can be. Let's just drop it."
"But I feel bad."
"Good."
"I want to make it up to you."
Aeryn stops inside the doorway of the mess, the room nearly empty mid-shift. "I thought you said he was here?"
"I told him I'd meet him here--"
"Aeryn Sun?"
They turn, and are confronted by a mid-level security sergeant wearing a deck officer's badge.
"Yes, I am Aeryn Sun."
"If you'll come with me?"
"What's the problem, Sergeant?"
"Your...offspring...has been detained."
~*~concluded tomorrow~*~
Next part here
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:57 pm (UTC):D
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 05:04 pm (UTC)Very nice cliffhanger, although I suspect D'Argo more than held his own. I'm definitely looking forward to the next part.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:38 pm (UTC)this is torture, you know. pure torture.
great update though.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 10:12 pm (UTC)hee! ""Dad, everyone knows that.""
and the way you describe aeryn as an "understandable" threat. oh yes. and this: "It's all about the wonder until someone gets hurt." is very fine.
the part about the game, that just blew me away, perfect to have it pop up, and powerful to boot.
gah! d'argo! *hyperventilates while patiently waiting for the next chapter*
no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 10:42 pm (UTC)hell, he's aeryn's and john's kid. of course he did. ♥
no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 02:07 am (UTC)attanaw
no subject
Date: 2005-06-24 02:10 am (UTC)attanaw
no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-29 06:41 pm (UTC)