30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Kieran shouldn’t have underestimated the girls.
To hell with that; Elenus shouldn’t have underestimated the girls.
He’d programmed them, after all—made them into the thinking, feeling, whole-person beings they were.
Catie was brilliant, and Lizzie was right there with her, and Lizzie had already managed to surprise Kieron more than once.
Analyzing risk factors, creating code that acted better than any shield, working together to do something far more efficient and safer than their parents could: that was them.
And they did it so well that Kieron was completely taken aback when, on the second standard day, still three hundred thousand kilometers inside Trakta’s danger zone, he found himself being woken out of a fitful sleep by the leader of a mercy fleet out of Daenar.
“Lizzie, this is Captain Kingston Hu of the relief vessel Caladrius. We’re nearing the indicated coordinates, please advise.”
Kieron tried to pull away from Pol, who whined in his sleep and clung to Kieron’s shirt.
The boy had been hard to deal with over the past standard day, careening from wildly excited about reuniting with his mother to terrified everything was going to fall apart.
His anxiety had passed straight on to Kieron, who didn’t know how to handle it—he’d trained himself out of the physiological reflexes of anxiety as a child, and trying to understand how to deal with Pol’s state was harder than it should have been.
It had ended with both of them exhausted, on the verge of breaking from too much, too quickly.
“Captain Hu, this is Captain Kieron Carr of the Lizzie,” Lizzie said before Kieron could dislodge—and probably wake up—Pol. “Thank you for responding so quickly. I trust the signal spoofers are working well for you?”
“Brilliantly,” Captain Hu said in an appreciative tone. “I have to thank you for these. They work better than anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“We have some very smart engineers on staff,” Lizzie-as-Kieron demurred. “Do you need any assistance linking up with the refugee ship?”
“No, this part we’ve got down to a science. As long as there are no problems, I anticipate we’ll be able to get all of them on board before shift change, no more than four hours.”
“Excellent. Did you bring your scrappers? I know in the contract negotiations, you mentioned needing aurellium, and given that their ship is Traktan, it’s likely to contain several kilograms of it in the circuitry.”
“Yes, and thank you for pointing that out! We …” Captain Hu and Lizzie kept chatting, and Kieron …
well, he knew he ought to get up and take over.
Knew he ought to speak for himself, to be himself, to take command, but …
the truth was, he didn’t know the details of what Lizzie was talking about.
He knew about the mercy fleet, of course, but that was as far as he’d gotten before Pol had broken down.
It shouldn’t have mattered—they weren’t supposed to show up for another full day, plenty of time to make decisions and run them by Elenus, but instead … here they were. Now. Transferring refugees, and Kieron had apparently slept right through everything that had led to this point.
[Are you hearing this?] he sent along his implant to Elenus. There was a pause, and then—
[Catie! Did you help your sister subvert an entire fleet into doing your bidding?]
[Um …] Those were Catie’s harmonics in his mind, pink and bright … and sheepish. [Maaaybe? But it is a mercy fleet, Daddeee! Just nooot the oriiiginal one. Theyyy’re headed to another disaster now, so weeee could have the clooose one.]
[Catie.] There was a sense of Elenus very deliberately pausing, probably reining in his anger. He tried to do that when he was talking to the girls. [That’s not your call to make. You can’t just take over communications for entire fleets and reroute vessels because you feel like it!]
[Weeee didn’t! Lizzie said Kieron was siiiiick and needed Pol’s mamaaaa! This will get her moooore quickly!]
[Not the point, young lady!]
There was an electronic huff. [Just because yooooou’re old and slooow and huuuuuuman, doesn’t mean weeee should be puniiished for—]
[It’s not that,] Kieron interrupted before Catie could go full temper tantrum on Elenus.
[You’ve both shown a lot of initiative with taking the lead on this.
You’ve come up with some brilliant plans, and I’m proud of that, but.
Catie, you didn’t tell us what was going on.
You and Lizzie didn’t even bother to inform us, much less ask us. ]
[Lizzie said you were tiiiiired,] Catie whined.
[It’s true,] he said. The colors inside Lizzie were warbling between warm and cold—she knew they were talking about her.
She was probably listening in. Kieron continued.
[I was. I am. But that’s not a good enough reason to leave me out of the loop.
What if things went wrong? What if the mercy fleet you rerouted ended up in trouble because of it, or if their captain had an alternate reason for wanting to come into Traktan space?
And what about what you gave him to get them here?
Your spoofing algorithms are cutting edge, the best …
and now they’re in the hands of someone we don’t know, that we haven’t vetted, someone who could use them for all sorts of things that aren’t legal and could hurt a lot of people. Do you see where I’m going with this?]
[But … I thought we were doing good!] This was Lizzie. [I thought you would be happy, Kee.]
[I’m happy you’re looking out for me,] he assured her.
[Less happy you’re giving away what should be very rarified information to a man we’ve never met before, without any sort of fail-safe.
The Traktan refugees aren’t having fun, it’s true, and Pol does need his mother, and I am sick and tired.
But that’s life, honey. We get through the tough times and end up safer, or at least I hope we do. In this case? Now we don’t know.]
[Oh.] That was both girls, Catie sounding contrite, Lizzie sounding devastated. [We’re sorry.]
[You should be!] Elenus finally couldn’t contain himself anymore.
[Why do you have to be so smart? I should have given you both slower processors; it would keep you from growing up so fast and getting to the point where you want to argue over everything, and—what’s next, huh?
You decide someone’s been mean to Kieron, so you invade their planet?
You think Pol needs his own moon, so you steal the tech you need to swipe it for him?
After we get these people back to Gania, you girls are grounded, do you hear me? No connectivity for a week!]
[Daddeeeee!] Catie wailed. Lizzie didn’t say anything. [That’s not faaaair!]
[Neither is going behind our backs to arrange all of this. Be happy it isn’t for a month.] He closed his link, and a moment later, Catie closed hers, too, although not before she sang a little song at Kieron. That left him alone with Lizzie.
[Are you really angry at me?] she asked after a moment.
[I’m not angry, I’m just a little disappointed.] He wasn’t expecting her to wail when he said that, but she did, all the colors around him going a dark, muddy purple.
[I’m sorry,] Lizzie said in a small voice. [I thought it was helping you.]
[It was, in a way. But it’s also not good that you negotiated in my name, with someone I don’t know, and went so far as to imitate me over the comm without asking my permission.] Pol stirred again, and Kieron sighed and tried to hold still. [But I know you won’t do it again.]
[No, I won’t. I promise.]
[Good. Thank you.] Reaching out, he patted the wall of the ship. “It’s okay,” he murmured out loud. “It’s all going to be okay.”
And the purple slowly lightened to blue.
***
After that, Kieron worked harder to keep up with Lizzie and Catie’s technical arrangements and manipulations, which were somehow getting them all to Gania two days ahead of schedule.
He also made sure to schedule time for Pol and Xilinn to talk every standard day, sometimes twice.
Xilinn’s implant had been shut down, like everyone who’d been on the refugee ship, and the mercy fleet didn’t have the technology to reinstate them, but they made private communications possible for the mother and son.
No one else over there needed them, after all—it would be far too dangerous to communicate with someone back on Trakta via implant, and all ship-based comms were being intercepted by the government.
Making time for himself was harder. There was just too much to do.
Lizzie should have never felt like she had to take such a leading role for this mission—she was just a child herself.
That she and Catie would go behind his back to do so wasn’t surprising.
They were both compassionate people, and Catie, at least, had Elenus’s sense of mischief.
But he was … he was the parent, damn it.
He wasn’t going to be like his own mother, throwing a child into the wilderness and telling it to survive or else.
He was going to take care of Lizzie, and Pol, and everyone else he damn well could until he didn’t have to anymore.
Pulling that off meant consuming more coffee than was good for him, having short daily Regen sessions to replenish his reserves, and putting a good face on their still-precarious position.
Everyone involved in this, from Xilinn to Pol to Captain Hu to Elenus himself, was relying on one person to make sure it all stuck together: Kieron.
He wasn’t going to let them down by being too tired or too fuzzy headed to handle whatever came their way.
Apart from some sickness on board the mercy fleet vessels, thanks to ill refugees and an engine malfunction that had them all paused while Lizzie in her “Kieron” guise figured out what to do for it, though, it went as well as he could hope.
They made it to Gania in good time, and although everyone was restless by the time they got there, no one was actively having a mental or emotional breakdown, which …
had been a problem early on. Thank goodness, the mercy fleet had a large staff of medical professionals in addition to Regen treatments because they’d intervened in three suicide attempts and were treating a host of anxiety disorders in the refugees.
Elenus had coordinated with Captain Hu to provide everyone with informational sessions on Gania and what to expect when they got there, but Kieron mostly ignored those.
He had to if he was going to have time for everything else.
That’s why he thought it was excusable when they finally had Gania in their sights, and all he could do was stare at it for the longest time.
It was so … shiny. The oceans were shiny, the land was shiny, the city was shiny …
“There is a great deal of mica in the natural environment,” Lizzie supplied quietly.
Kieron sighed. “How did you know what I was thinking, hmm?”
“You haven’t blinked in nearly a minute, Kee. I assumed it was a reaction to the planet, and that the mostly likely cause was the unexpected appearance of it.”
“Good assumption.” He rubbed his eyes, which were rather dry now. “You’ve got the landing coordinates, I take it?”
“I do.”
“I’ll let you handle taking us in, then.” He glanced at Pol, who was also rapt at the striking image of Gania. “Ready to see your mother?”
“Yes,” Pol whispered, reaching out and taking Kieron’s hand.
Kieron gave him a gentle squeeze as they neared the planet, finally descending through the atmosphere and heading toward Kellin, Elenus’s home city.
The mercy fleet followed suit, and soon they were all landing at a large, well-appointed space dock at the edge of the metropolis, held up on elevated platforms.
The city itself was an amazing sight, with buildings so tall that they seemed to create their own ecosystem of light and dark, heat and cold.
Kieron was sure he saw clouds drifting off one of the larger ones—perhaps created by releasing water into the sky?
Why bother, though? He’d have to ask Elenus …
whenever he saw him, which likely wouldn’t be for hours yet.
City officials came in a delegation to meet them, along with immigrations experts and several lawyers.
After reviewing documentation with both Kieron and Captain Hu, they allowed the passengers to be released from the ships.
The first person off a mercy fleet vessel was Xilinn, and the second Pol saw her, he dropped Kieron’s hand and ran with all his speed toward his mother.
She cried out and opened her arms to him, and then …
It felt too personal to watch. That had to be the reason that Kieron’s eyes were tearing up.
Or perhaps he was just too tired to do this right now, too tired to handle more questions and demands.
He’d done so much already, more emotional lifting than he’d ever done before in his life.
The physical was something he could handle, but this?
And now it was almost over, and he was more exhausted than ever, and all he wanted was …
A warm hand on his shoulder made Kieron spin around, but his body knew who it was even as his mind briefly panicked.
He immediately leaned into Elenus’s tall frame, burying his face against the other man’s chest. Elenus smelled like lightning and fresh rain and machine oil, like perhaps he’d been in his workshop right before flying here like some sort of angel.
He held Kieron up with ease, which made it that much easier for Kieron to allow himself to sag, just a little bit.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Elenus laughed. “I never thought I’d be reduced to monosyllables, but I suppose you’re always surprising to me.”
“Mmm.” Kieron’s hands tightened across the back of Elenus’s shirt.
“Mmm indeed.” Miraculously, Elenus shut up and just let Kieron hold onto him after that.
This, this was what he needed, what he’d been missing.
Someone who wasn’t a dependent, or a beloved child, or a fellow professional he needed to keep at a distance.
He’d been missing his partner, the understanding and support that only that person could give him.
He had a partner. Not just someone he loved, but someone who made him feel like everything was going to be all right because they were together again.
“I’ve got you,” Elenus said at last, with the faintest tremor in his voice. “I’ve got you.”
Good.