Chapter 11 Best Behavior Protocol #2
My garden tour goes brilliantly. Patel takes notes, and Omarion photographs my tomato plants and asks if I’ve considered publishing my growth data.
“I’m eight,” I remind him.
“Eight-year-olds can publish research papers. I’ll send you the submission guidelines for the Junior Botanical Society journal.”
I decide Omarion is my favorite adult after Papa and Dove.
We’re heading back to the operations center when I remember Phase Two: the accident.
It’s not really an accident. Dove and I discussed contingencies last night—“circuit breakers” for when tension gets too high. She meant emotional tension, like if Patel got aggressive.
I’m interpreting it more broadly.
I swing past the kitchen area and grab the container of nutrient solution I positioned earlier this morning. Then I walk into the operations center, trip over absolutely nothing, and send the solution cascading across the deck plating directly between Papa and Dove’s workstations.
“Oh no!” I say, with the right amount of dismay. Not too much. Enough.
“Small person,” Pickles announces through the room speakers with perfect deadpan timing, “sensors confirm this corridor is an asteroid-free zone. The cause of your fall remains under investigation.”
I’m going to reprogram him.
“Tavia!” Papa’s at my side immediately, checking me for injury, his hands gentle and careful with their retracted claws. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, Papa. I’m so sorry—I was carrying it for the plants and I tripped on... a floor irregularity.”
“The floor was resurfaced four months ago,” Pickles adds. “It is, in fact, immaculate.”
“Thank you, Pickles,” I say through my teeth. “Very helpful.”
Dove’s already grabbing cleaning supplies. “I’ve got it. Cetus, can you help me move the equipment crate? Solution’s getting underneath.”
They kneel together to mop up the spill. Dove reaches under the crate for a cloth, and her forearm slides across Papa’s thigh. He jerks like she tased him.
“Sorry.” Dove pulls back. Her cheeks have gone dark pink. “Tight space.”
Papa inhales sharply through his nose. His markings flash so bright his neck glows through his collar, and he shifts his hips away from her at an angle that looks deeply uncomfortable.
“Pickles,” I whisper, confused. “Why is Papa’s leg doing the tense thing? She barely touched him.”
“That is a biomechanical response to proximity stimuli in a... sensitive region,” Pickles says carefully. “I will explain in greater detail when you are approximately twenty-five years old.”
“That’s a weird age.”
“It is the minimum I am comfortable with. Moving on.”
Dove reaches across him for more absorbent cloth—whole arm crossing his chest, hand bracing against his far shoulder.
They both freeze. Her face inches from his neck. His hand hovering over her hip like he forgot where to put it.
Three seconds. They stay like that for three full seconds while I count in my head.
“The cloth,” Papa says, his voice dropped into those low harmonics that make the air feel thick. “It’s behind you.”
“Right.” Dove pulls back slowly. Very slowly. “Right. The cloth.”
Their fingers brush during the handoff. Papa’s whole neck lights up gold.
Behind them, Omarion is suddenly very interested in reading something on his data pad. Patel makes a note.
“Small person,” Pickles says in my ear, dry as recycled station air. “I calculate that spill was engineered with a ninety-six point seven percent probability of deliberate execution. Your technique is improving.”
“Thank you.”
“Your Papa’s cardiac output spiked to one hundred forty-two beats per minute. The Captain’s to one hundred twenty-eight. For reference, these readings are more consistent with physical exertion than cleaning a floor.”
“Pickles!”
“I am providing educational biometric data. This is my function.”
The inspection continues. Patel finishes her systems review. Omarion completes his technical assessment. They step aside to compare notes, and for a brief moment, the adults in my life can breathe.
Dove leans against the console next to Papa. Not touching. But close. So close.
I’m pretending to read my data pad across the room. Pickles has the audio feed piped into my earpiece. I should tell him to turn it off.
I don’t.
“You’re doing amazingly,” Papa murmurs.
“We’re doing amazingly,” Dove corrects. She tilts her head, and her hair brushes Papa’s arm. “Your station is genuinely impressive, Cetus. They’d be idiots not to approve expansion.”
“The station is impressive because you reorganized its entire documentation system in one night.”
“Well.” She smiles at the floor. “I had good material to work with.”
Quiet. The kind of quiet that has weight.
Then Dove’s voice, barely a whisper: “Cetus, if we get through this—all of it, the inspectors, the collectors, everything—I need you to know. You’re not just strategy to me. Not just a safe harbor. You’re—”
“Home.” Papa’s voice drops into those deep harmonics that make the air hum. His hand finds hers behind the console where the inspectors can’t see. “Mine. You’re mine, Dove. Tonight, after this is over. I’m going to show you exactly what that means.”
Dove’s breath hitches. Even through the earpiece I can hear it. “Promise?”
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.” His fingers tighten around hers. “And I intend to keep this one. Thoroughly.”
His markings settle into the deep, steady pattern. The one Pickles called “home.” The one that means forever.
I look at my data pad. My own markings glow warm and bright and hopeful, and I need to not cry right now because inspectors are present and I am on Best Behavior Protocol.
“Small person,” Pickles says quietly. “I should not have transmitted that exchange.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because you deserve to know your family unit is progressing toward permanence. I calculated the reassurance would be beneficial.”
“You’re such a softie, Pickles.”
“I am a military-grade AI core. This conversation is over.”
But he doesn’t turn off the audio feed.
Why do grown-ups make everything so complicated? If you like someone, just tell them and hold their hand and stay forever.
Except—looking at them now, at the way Dove touches her throat where I noticed a mark this morning, at the way Papa angles his body between her and the doorway like he can shield her from everything coming—maybe it is that hard.
Maybe wanting something this much is scary when you’ve lost things before.
I get that. I lost Mama. And wanting Dove to stay hurts almost as much as wanting Mama back.
No. Not today. Best behavior. Save-the-family behavior.
They’re doing the eye thing again. The one where they look at each other too long and the whole room gets warmer and Papa’s markings start their slow, deep pulse and Dove’s lips part slightly and—
“Inspector team,” Pickles announces over the main speakers, interrupting with spectacularly terrible timing that I suspect is actually spectacularly perfect timing, “I am detecting an incoming vessel on long-range sensors. Configuration suggests a civilian transport. Transponder identification in progress.”
Everyone snaps to attention.
Papa straightens. The warm patterns cut off—replaced by something sharper. Alert.
“Classification?” he asks.
“Transponder identifies as registered to the Blackstar Collective. Commercial recovery vessel.”
The room goes cold. Not temperature-cold. Scary-cold.
Dove’s face goes blank. The courier mask. I hate that face. It means she’s thinking about running.
Papa moves one step closer to her. One step. But his markings blaze bright enough to throw shadows—danger-bright, the pattern his biology uses when something threatens his family.
His family. Dove and me.
Patel looks up from her data pad. “Blackstar Collective? The debt recovery operation?”
“They’ve been harassing our OOPS courier,” Papa says, voice flat.
Controlled. Furious underneath. “Captain Foxton is the subject of fraudulent debt claims currently under Commerce Authority investigation. We have six hundred twelve evidence items compiled and flagged for review. The raid is scheduled within forty-eight hours.”
Patel and Omarion exchange a look.
“They’re requesting docking permission,” Pickles says. “Shall I respond?”
“Not yet,” Papa says. “Inspector Patel, I believe this is relevant to your assessment of station security protocols.”
Papa is brilliant. Collectors arriving mid-government-inspection, with two PDC representatives as witnesses. They can’t touch us.
Patel’s expression shifts from skepticism to something harder. More focused. “Specialist Storm, are you telling me that a known predatory debt operation is attempting to access a PDC-registered terraforming facility during an active compliance review?”
“That is exactly what I’m telling you.”
She taps something on her data pad. Something official and important.
“Omarion, flag this for our report.” She looks at Papa. “Specialist Storm, deny docking permission. If they insist, they’ll be interfering with an active PDC inspection. That carries significant penalties.”
Dove’s hand finds Papa’s. A squeeze, quick and fierce, before she lets go and picks up her clipboard.
Papa burns steady-gold. Certain. Protective.
I sit very still in my chair, watching all of it—the inspectors mobilizing, Dove organizing documentation, Papa standing like a wall between our family and whatever’s coming.
“Pickles?” I whisper.
“Yes, small person?”
“Are they going to fight? The collectors?”
Pause. When Pickles answers, his voice is different. Softer. The way he sounds when he’s not being sarcastic or educational but just... honest.
“I calculate a low probability of physical confrontation given the PDC presence. However, verbal conflict is likely. Your Papa and the Captain are well-prepared. And I am monitoring all channels for any escalation.”
“But what if—”
“Small person. Tavia.” He almost never uses my real name. “I have been operational for eight hundred fifty-three days. In that time, your Captain has survived seventeen dangerous situations. Your Papa has maintained this station through nine Category Five storms. Together, they are—”
He stops. The little pause that means something real.
“Together, they are formidable. And they have me. And they have you. The family unit is functioning at optimal capacity.”
My markings glow warm. Steady. The settling pattern, like Papa’s.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. What do I do?”
“You do what you have done all day, small person. You be brave. You be brilliant. You be exactly yourself.”
I straighten in my chair. Hands folded. Best behavior.
Through the viewport, a dark ship grows against the stars. Its hull gleams predatory-black.