Conversations On The Utopian Ideal: Thirty

Sergeant Helmi Alpassi submitted to the security scan at the entrance to Captain Night’s hangar stoically.

It’d be pretty fucking hypocritical of me to complain about getting checked for chips and jacks, after all.

She was less resigned to leaving her sidearm in the security locker there, but that was procedure they insisted on back at Pilot Roth’s hangars too and she had no reasonable justification to refuse.

And it wasn’t as if she was appreciably less deadly without her weapon as with it.

Still, options are nice things to have.

Pilot Roth, of course, had no weapon to turn over. She passed through the checkpoint with a polite, if slightly absent-minded, smile for the marines, accepted back the small parcel she had brought with her, and headed for the docking umbilical. An ensign was waiting at the top to escort them through the Utopian Ideal’s corridors, and not, this time, to the officer’s mess or the office of either Captain Night or Commander Invelen, but into an unfamiliar part of the ship where the occasional open door revealed scientific equipment and terminals that looked as if they’d be at home in the most up-to-date research facilities in the Cluster.

The ensign stopped. “Dr Toin’s lab is just along here, sir,” he said.

“Thank you very much,” Pilot said warmly. “Helmi, why don’t you wait here while I – ”

“No,” Helmi said.

“I’m quite sure,” Pilot said, in the dry tone she used when she thought she was being a woman of the world, “that I’m not in any danger from one research scientist, Helmi.”

One research scientist with spirits’ know what going on in her head after two years collared like a dog in a kennel. Helmi considered giving Pilot a brief explanation of what a person could do in the mindless panic of post-traumatic anxiety, illustrated with a couple of colorful examples from her own personal barracks-room experience, then looked at Pilot’s soft blue eyes and settled for: “No.”

Pilot sighed. “Fine. Just don’t scare her, Helmi. I don’t think she’s had a very good time of it.”

Helmi nodded. I won’t scare her.

If she doesn’t scare me.

That seemed, to Helmi, to be about fair.

She expected the door to lead to another sterile grey laboratory with banks of monitors and machines, but her first impression of the room beyond it was color. Reds and pinks, golden tones shading into orange, spilling around the room in shapes that seemed vaguely familiar from long-ago classes, strings of numbers and symbols that swooped and spun and had Helmi’s heart-rate ticking up a little in the half-second before she identified holoprojection and cut in the optical filters that damped it down to a pastel blur.

At the center of that blur was the object of Pilot’s visit, clear and sharp now in contrast to the haze in her dark blue insignia-less uniform. ID confirmation spooled across Helmi’s retinas as her internal neocom made a facial recognition match, Dr Nolikka Toin, Corporation: Ishukone, Rank: Restricted, Posting: Restricted, Age: 37, Hair: Brown, Eyes: N/A, Height: 178 cm, Weight: 50 kg.

That last Helmi assessed as being out of date, as Nolikka turned at the sound of footfalls and the holoprojection stilled. Incarceration will do that to a person.

Do other things, too.

Still, the woman didn’t seem about to fly off the handle, tense though she was, and so Helmi moved aside and let Pilot through the door after her.

“Hello,” Pilot said, her soft Gallente accent softer than usual. “Dr Toin? My name’s Cia, Cia Roth. I’m, well. Ami’s sister, among other things. I brought you – I brought you some things.”

“Ms Roth. Sir,” Nolikka said, her voice clear but without any weight to it, a voice, Helmi thought, neither used to giving orders nor having to raise itself to be heard. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to ‘sir’, me,” Pilot said. “I’m not – in your chain of command, is that the term?”

“Yes, Ms Roth.” The scientist didn’t relax from her at ease posture, not as straight-backed as Helmi would have liked to see from anyone under her command but not bad. For a techie.

Pilot set the bag down on the nearest bench. “I’ll put them – I’ll just put them here, shall I? It’s just some – some things I’d want, if I were …” She paused. “Um. Just some things.”

Nolikka looked a little baffled, as well, Helmi thought, she might. Perhaps it was the done thing in the Federation to give scented soaps and handcream to people recently escaped from slave labor factories. I’m sorry about your illegal imprisonment and abuse. Have some lavender water!

Helmi wouldn’t know.

“And this is, um. My friend Helmi,” Pilot said.

“Hello,” Helmi said neutrally.

“Sir,” Nolikka said.

“Do you have everything you need?” Pilot asked.

“Yes, Ms Roth. Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I … ” Pilot pulled a stool out from under the nearest bench, and perched herself upon it, even as she went on, “Do you mind if I sit down? It’s a long walk from the lock to back here.”

“No, Ms Roth, I don’t mind.”

Which was, Helmi judged, a lie. A good one, told with a straight face, and no betraying flicker to the voice, but a lie nonetheless, polite courtesy from a woman who wanted nothing more than for them to leave her in peace.

But Pilot hears what she wants to hear.

“How are you holding up?” Pilot asked.

“I’m well, thank you, Ms Roth.” Nolikka’s voice was inflexionless.

Pilot toyed a little with the bag on the bench. “I remember, for me … it was such a relief that it was over. I couldn’t feel anything else through the relief for a while. And when I did, it seemed so … inappropriate.” She smiled, as if Nolikka could see her. “It was over, it was past, I’d been fine. So why … ?”

There was a small silence, and then the scientist asked softly, “For you?”

Pilot shrugged. “It was different, for me. Not so long. Not for … the same reasons. I’m not pretending to know how you feel. But …” She toyed with the bag again. “After, the first thing I wanted, well, after I slept for about twenty hours, was to be clean. A bath with bubbles, and nice soap, and all the things that … just weren’t part of what had happened. I thought you might …”

“Thank you,” Nolikka said, and this time Helmi thought she meant it.

“But not,” Pilot said with a little wry twist to her lips, “Not what you were wanting?”

“I don’t want for anything, here,” Nolikka said. “But thank you.”

Pilot looked around. “Silver said you’ve been doing some exceptional research.” Nolikka looked slightly baffled, and Pilot went on, “Captain Night. He said your work is extraordinary.”

A faint hint of color in the scientist’s cheeks, then. “He’s too generous. I am quite out of the loop on latest developments.”

“I’m sure you’ll catch up,” Pilot said, studying her. “Have you thought about what you’ll do? When this is over?”

“When this is over,” Nolikka said blankly.

“Will you go back to Ishukone? Do you have family there?”

“I have a sister,” Nolikka said, and paused. “Go back to Ishukone? Of course.”

“Of course,” Pilot said gently. “Besides your sister?” At the other woman’s expression of incomprehension, she prompted, “Someone special? You’d like to see again?”

The answer came with the speed of pre-prepared fiction. “No. No-one like that.”

“I see,” Pilot said softly.

From the expression on that pretty Gallente face, Helmi thought that Pilot did see, even if what she saw was not what she'd been looking for.

And for once, heard what she didn’t want to hear, too.

Flash Flood

((co-written with Stitcher))

Helmi Alpassi knew that she'd originally been tapped to train into Pilot Roth's personal security detail because Sarge had known she could keep her head when it mattered.

Had known it from the first moment they met, after all.

And if there ever was a moment not to panic, Alpassi, this is fucking it.

"Pilot, Lieutenant Etay," she said calmly, "if you'd come to the front of the house with me now, the shuttle is on approach."

Charles Etay was carrying one of the babies in a safety-capsule. Amieta Invelen had the other. Helmi couldn't tell which was which and really didn't give a shit, so long as the total number of babies equalled two and they were each in the most expensive and sophisticated piece of protective child-transport equipment available in the Cluster. Helmi had picked those capsules herself, after a lot of research.

Finding out they were tested by dropping them out of a second story window with an actual child in them had sealed the deal.

Still, she would have preferred them to be carried by her people, would have preferred all the civilians to be hoisted up and hauled at speed to the assembly point, really.

If speed had been an issue, Pilot's feet wouldn't have touched the ground. But the shuttle won't be here for another three minutes anyway.

And Pilot was prone to panic. Helmi knew that part of her job description was making sure Pilot felt safe, as well as was safe.

So she let Etay carry one of the twins. And she didn't take Pilot's elbow to hurry her along, even when Pilot paused and said something about flowers and the nursery.

"I'll make sure they're packed," Invelen said reassuringly, and Pilot started moving again. Helmi scanned the sky, looking for spikey sansha shapes, saw none, saw ...

The sky.

It was wrong in a gut-wrenching way, the familiar off-black interstellar dust clouds of New Eden as seen from Debreth at sunset shifted towards an ugly yellow-green, like a gathering storm of forces Helmi didn't want to guess at. The Intel suddenly went from an intellectual threat to a real and immediate one. Adrenaline pulsed her implants to a higher pitch, burning copper on her tongue.

And on the horizon, burning rain. Five stars, moving as stars shouldn't, glowing like a banked furnace in the fading light as they twisted and writhed, shedding speed. Almost hidden behind the wind, the banging of the air as it raged  impotently against this supersonic violation swept across the valley, echoing like a distant battle.

Nothing so clean and wholesome as thunder and lightning rode on the winds of this storm.

And the floods it brought were not the kind Debreth was build to withstand.

Implants on her retinas read the friendly, so that's fucking something IFF broadcasts from the falling constellation as it shed the last of its speed in one low looping bank over the river and swept in towards the estate.

A surface-to-orbit shuttle painted in the livery of Re-Awakened Technologies Inc settled in the wide avenue as three of the remaining ships – angular Caldari gunships bristling with weapons - screamed overhead, their hulls bearing a blue starburst on bare gunmetal. The fifth, much larger ship settled in to a relative stop above the Roth estate and the grounds thrummed with the subsonic rumbling of immense graviton pads keeping the staging platform aloft. A percussive blast rattled the windows as explosive bolts blew along its flanks and four humanoid giants, armoured and massive, dropped from the flanks of the the thirty meters to the ground and landed in a blast of pneumatic gas. Within a second their guns and sensors were tracking the skies as they fanned out, covering the grounds.

Only a moment behind them were the ropes, ten of them, and before those ropes had even finished uncoiling to the ground, the first of the troopers was on it, her arrestor hook buzzing harshly as it slowed her descent. She hit the ground and rolled, moving aside with only a heartbeat to spare before the next trooper, and the next after him hit the deck, rolled and bustled to cover, each claiming three drones from the swarm that swept from the dropship's bays. Almost-white painted ceramic hardsuits, each with that blue starburst splash and a mirrored visor covering the face, Kaalakiota assault rifles. Airtight, nanite-proof, damn near bulletproof, but still light and clean-lined enough to allow the soldiers to move with grace and ease in Debreth's low gravity.

The flurry of activity swept towards the little knot of people on the lawn, parted around them, and left them untouched, except for the wind whipping their hair.

One of the troopers, the first one out, jogged towards them, heading unerringly for Pilot Roth. No rank insignia, Helmi noted, just a blue sunburst, and the words Hakatain Dynasty Holdings and A. Sihayha. I.D. confirmation spooled across her retinas and Helmi stopped the instinctive reach for her sidearm before it was more than a flicker of muscles as Captain Hakatain's personal bodyguard tapped the side of her helmet to clear the faceshield, saw a corresponding flicker in the other woman's eyes.

"Captain Roth," the woman said. "Chief Aato Sihahya. Captain Hakatain sends his regards."

Pilot - surreally, given the circumstances - extended her hand and said with a smile, "I'm very pleased to meet you. I hope you had a safe trip?"

"Safe enough, ma'am," Sihahya said, returning the handshake with a gauntlet that could probably have crushed Pilot's hand flat if she wanted. "With your permission, we'll see to the defence of your estate and the town in your absence."

"With my ... " Pilot's voice trailed off, and Helmi suppressed a sigh. One day she'll learn that she's in charge.

Her mouth was open to translate Pilot-speak into marine, one more part of her job, Pilot Roth appreciates your offer and certainly extends all the permissions you need to carry out the protection of the Roth property and surrounding area, when Pilot surprised her.

"Thank you," Pilot Roth said, quietly but clearly. "That would be appreciated. Please do anything you feel required."

One day turns out to be today, Helmi thought, as Sihahya saluted and re-opaqued her visor with a brief nod to Helmi. Either the the Ancestors are with us, or the world is about to end.

Or both.

"Pilot, we need to be getting you on the shuttle," she said. Invelen was already moving. Helmi herded Pilot and Etay up the ramp as armoured forms set up defensive positions around them, mostly missing the flower-beds.

One baby started wailing, then the other. Pilot tried to comfort them as Invelen secured the capsules but the twins refused to be consoled and their piercing screams were a counterpoint to the rumble of the shuttle engines as it lifted off. Helmi linked her optical implants into the shuttle's external cameras and watched as two of Hakatain's gunships escorted the shuttle into high atmosphere, then stalled into a graceful backwards dive towards Debreth again as the shuttle raced towards its rendezvous with the Feather.

As the gunships shrank to invisibility against the blue-green globe below them, Helmi let the connection fade. Spirits watch over you, she wished the men and women they were leaving behind.

And Ancestors sharpen your aim.

Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty Eight.

((co-written with Silver Night))

Captain Silver Night waited at the foot of the docking umbilical, watching the small woman - the word came to mind unbidden - waddle towards him. Ciarente should, of course, have taken a passenger transport platform rather than walk the length of the hangar, and he knew his crew would have offered her one at the security checkpoint. Knew, too, exactly what she would have said, the same response she gave when he offered to take her place in the labs at HQ or overseeing a production line. Relax, Silver. I'm pregnant, not crippled.

Reaching him, a little breathless, she smiled. "Hello, Silver. How are you?"

"I'm well, Cia. How are you?" He started towards the ship. "Shall we?"

Tired, he thought an honest answer to his question would have been, judging from the blue shadows beneath her eyes and the pinched look to her face that the warm smile couldn't quite hide. But -

"Fat," Ciarente said instead, with a laugh, and then nearly overbalanced as the umbilical sloped upwards. Silver offered his arm, and Ciarente tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow, leaning on him lightly. "Ooops. Fat and with a centre of gravity that changes daily. I find it hard to believe that there's still more pregnant for me to get, but they assure me it'll happen."

"Well, you're most of the way there, from what I understand." They crossed the airlock threshold and Silver hesitated, considering the distance to his office. " I think ... " Security station, no, medical staging, no, non-com break-room .... "I think this should be suitable.

Ciarente, of course, had an apologetic smile for the non-commissioned officers who accurately read their Captain's expression as a suggestion that elsewhere would be a better place for them to be at the moment. And if she walked the length of the ship and went into premature labour she would no doubt apologise to medical for the inconvenience.

Sinking awkwardly into a chair, Ciarente smiled and said as if she could read his mind, "I'm not going to suddenly have the babies on B deck just from walking to your office, Silver."

"Shall we not take the risk, nevertheless?" he said.

Ciarente laughed. " All right. It's your ship, after all." She folded her hands over the swell of her stomach. "And I admit, although I'll deny it in public, my ankles are starting to complain a bit at the extra weight."

"Not so very much longer," Silver said. "And there's nothing wrong with taking it easy, when you can. Tea?"

"Yes," Ciarente said. "Yes, tea, thank you. And yes, time's been passing. It's ... getting to be time for me to think about names, perhaps."

"Oh?" Silver poured for both of them.

Ciarente picked up her cup and spoke to it, rather than to him. "Verin told me it's traditional, Caldari tradition, to chose an ancestor's name. It's not so different, where I come from. A grandparent, a great-grandparent. Someone you want to remember, maybe."

"I suppose it is somewhat common in many places," Silver said.

"Camille," Ciarente said with fond exasperation, "Camille thinks I should name my daughter Camieta. But I ... I've been thinking more about boy's names."

Silver sipped his tea. "Oh? Like what?"

"People it's important to remember. Important to family." Ciarente picked up her cup again, and put it back down, tapping the rim gently with one finger. "I haven't talked to Ami about it yet, Silver. I don't want to ... blunder in, I suppose."

"Blunder in?" Silver asked. "I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me a little more than that, Cia."

Ciarente looked down at her stomach and told it in a whisper, "I thought, perhaps, well, I wouldn't, of course, I know reminders can be painful, but I got the idea, and it seemed like the right thing, and I ..."

"Cia?" Silver prompted gently when she stopped.

"I was thinking about Jan," Ciarente said quietly, and then hastened to add, "But of course, not if, I haven't even mentioned it to Ami, it's a stupid idea, isn't it, I - "

"Cia," Silver said. "I don't think it's a stupid idea at all. Yes, reminders can hurt, but it's also good to remember."

"You think?" she asked hopefully.

"I think he would have been honoured, Cia," Silver said. "It would have made him very happy, I think. Having a niece and nephew."

"All right," Ciarente said, and smiled. "I'll talk to Ami."

Silver nodded, and sipped his tea. "Speaking of Ami. She and I discussed things, yesterday."

"Oh," Ciarente said, and went quite still. "Silver, are we - how secure are we, here?"

"Secure," he assured her.

"All right," Ciarente said quietly.

"I think Amieta is right," Silver told her. "A great deal has changed."

"Yes," Ciarente said. "That's what she said to me, and I suppose she is right, it has. I ... I just need to know that you're sure, I guess. That it's the right decision, for you. Not because of me, or what Ami said, or ... but that it's what you want."

"I'm sure, Cia."

"I don't want to put you in a position where ... I don't want it to be just because I'm ... a mess, about things."

Silver realized with alarm that Ciarente's eyes were filling with tears. Hastily, he offered her a handkerchief. "That isn't it at all, Cia. I would like ... to be able to have holos on my desk and spend holidays together without worrying about being seen."

Ciarente gave him a watery smile. "Like normal people? I know. I've felt that way, too, sometimes. But ... we're not, Silver. Are we?"

"Maybe a little at a time."

"Yes." She rested her hands on her stomach again. "It would be nice. Not to have to wait until my children are old enough to be able to keep secrets, to tell them who you - oh!"

"Cia?" Silver rose to his feet, making the comm connection to Medical with a thought. "Are you all right? Cia?"

"Give me your hand," Ciarente said urgently. "Quickly!"

"Do you need medical?" Silver asked, leaning over to offer her his hand.

Ciarente shook her head, taking his hand in hers and pressing it firmly against her stomach. "No. Wait. Just wait - there!"

Silver felt a vibration against the palm of his hand, faint but unmistakable.

"Did you feel that?" Ciarente asked softly.

"Yes," Silver said as softly, and felt the movement again, as if in response to his voice.

Ciarente's fingers tightened over his. "That's my daughter, on the top there," she said. "They can hear us, you know. I guess we sound like - when you're swimming underwater and people are talking by the pool, I suppose. But they can hear us." She smiled at him, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. "Say something to her."

"What ... " Silver cleared his throat. "What should I say?"

"Tell her hello," Ciarente said gently, and when he hesitated: "It's all right. Go on. Tell your - "

He saw her lips start to shape the word and forestalled her. "Don't - " say that. An automatic, reflex response. Never say it, not aloud, no matter where, no matter when. Never say it.

"Of course," Ciarente said, the ghost of a sigh. "I'm sorry."

Her smile was apologetic, but Silver thought he could see sadness there as well. He looked at his hand, both of Ciarente's now folded over it, felt the quiver in her skin that told of a new life moving, growing, listening to his voice. All three of them, he thought. Right here beneath my hand.

He would bury who he was and who he cared about behind an alias, behind a million secrets and a thousand locked doors, if that was what was best for them.

Or shout it from the hangar gantries, if that was.

Or say -

"Hello," Silver said hesitantly. "Camieta. Jan. Or whoever you're going to be. I'm - " He paused, and Ciarente squeezed his fingers. Silver took a deep breath. "I'm your uncle. Most people call me Silver. Most people do. But my name ... my name is Val."

Entirely True

Avolier Girane paused at the gate to the DeGrace house, straightening his tie and smoothing a palm over his hair. Of course it was impossible to imagine Lorraine DeGrace, or Lorraine Roth as she is now, living anywhere other than the DeGrace's ancient house on the broad terraces above the river, but the restrictions on private vehicles in the old part of town did mean that guests were forced into a closer encounter with the public transport system than a councillor like Girane was used to.

Satisfied that he was at least presentable, Girane made his way up the path between the manicured shrubs. The door opened as he approached, and he recognised one of Lorraine's sons, the polite one, Michel or Marc I think, doing duty as a doorman, offering to take Girane's coat with a smile that made his resemblance to his father all the more marked.

And there was the father himself,  topping up another guest's glass with a wink and a laugh, Lorraine DeGrace's folly they used to say, until Jorion Roth, spacer, became Jorion Roth, capsuleer.

"Bon soir, Avol, you're well?" Jorion draped an arm around Girane's shoulders and drew him further into the room. "I'm glad you could make it tonight, I'd hate to get sent back upstairs without a chance to see you. Pesellian's well? He's not here tonight?"

Jorion's smile was, as always, infectiously warm. Pesellian always said it never reached the man's blue eyes, but Pese's always been jealous of every man better looking than he is, which is why he refused to come tonight and left me to make his excuses. Girane paused, vaguely aware that though the thought was entirely true, it didn't quite feel like the entire truth, and then realised Jorion was waiting for a reply. "I couldn't drag him away from the lab, I'm afraid."

"Ah, scientists, eh? My eldest, Cia, she's the same." Jorian gestured toward the back of the room, where a plump girl was moving among the guests with a tray of canapés. "Lorraine had to drag her down here by the ear, or close to it. She's been accepted to the Ecole de Physique, you know, we couldn't be more proud, but a girl her age needs more in her life than the books, non?"

Girane nodded agreement and took a glass from a tray offered to him by a younger girl, one with a far stronger resemblance to Lorraine. And there was Lorraine DeGrace Roth herself, her eyes and smile as bright as the gemstones around her neck, pausing to kiss her husband's cheek before extending one slender hand to Girane.

"Avol," she said fondly. "Such a pleasure.  Is that darling man of yours brewing up some sort of elixir of eternal youth in his laboratory? Because I swear you look younger every time I see you.  Therese has gotten you a drink?  And - Cia, don't stand there dreaming while Avol is hungry."

With a murmured apology, the older Roth daughter held out her tray, wearing an echo of her mother's bright smile. "M'ser Girane, how nice to see you again."

Girane contemplated the potential damage to his waistline in each pasty-wrapped parcel on her tray, but Lorraine's cook was famous in society circles, and rightly so, and he couldn't resist. The girl smiled again, and began to turn, and Girane hastily cast about for a topic of conversation that would delay her and the tray she carried.  "Jorion said you're studying to be a physicist?"

"Oui, M'ser," she said, politely but a little distantly. "Perhaps less useful than Dr Aurelim's work on tuber yields, but it interests me."

"Oh, you know Pese's latest?" Girane discreetly took another pastry.

"Great potential, perhaps not here but in places with more marginal conditions," Cia said, almost the exact words from Pese's Science Merit Citation, and entirely true, although with no mention of the military applications, not the entire truth. The girl gave him another bright, Lorraine-DeGrace-smile, and said,  "You must be very proud of him, M'ser. Please, do try the ones on the left. They're cheese, quite delicious."

"Oh, well, if you insist." She was right: they were quite delicious. He said so, and Cia's smile broadened, genuine warmth in her eyes for the first time, as if she'd been somewhere else until them and briefly stepped inside herself. Fortune, she's almost pretty, Girane thought with surprise, and then, "Did you make them?"

Cia nodded, flushing a little, and lowered her voice to say confidingly, "The secret is the - "


A loud curse behind her made them both turn. Doetre Tumame, past and most say future mayor, was hopping on one foot, swearing, the crumpled child's model of a sharp-edged space ship on the floor an eloquent explanation.

"You stupid cow!" a shrill voice declared. The owner of the voice, a small girl with startlingly ginger hair, glared up at Tumame. "You ruined it! Why don't you look where you're going, you - "

"Camille," Lorraine DeGrace said, and cast a laughing glance around the room. Children, the glance said, inviting complicity from all the parents there,  what can you do?

""Well, she should!" the girl said furiously. "That took me and Cia ages and - "

"Then you should have taken better care of it, cherie," Lorraine said. "Now pick it up and take it to your room."

"Not until she says sorry!"

Lorraine lost her smile. "Camille! That is not an appropriate tone to use. If you are looking to be -"

Whatever Lorraine thought Camille was looking to be was lost as the tray Cia had been holding hit the floor with a crash. She stared down at it and then looked up with a bright smile. "Fortune," she said. "I'm so sorry, everyone, I really am a butterfingers."


"Oh, Cia," Lorraine said with a disappointed sigh.

The girl flushed a dull red and bent to gather up the spilled food, murmuring apologies.

Jorian put a hand on his wife's shoulder and said genially, "Well, I think Cia has announced it's time to move into the dining room, everyone.  Mayor Tumame, let me offer you my arm, I trust Camille's Drake hasn't caused permanent injury? They are quite a sturdy little ship, we pilots call them flying bricks for a reason."

The tension in the room lifted as the guests followed Jorian and Tumame towards the dining room.  As the staff set out a first course of delicate white fish and lemon butter, even the former mayor forgot her injury.

Girane would not even have remembered Jorion and Lorraine's youngest and least well-behaved child, except, leaving the house full of excellent food and better wine, he heard a child's voice from the shadows beneath the hedge at the front of the property.

"I don't care, Cia! I am running away and you can't stop me!"

The eldest daughter's voice sounded somehow softer and warmer in the darkness. "But I will be lonely when you've gone, cherie. And sad, without you."

"You're going away anyway, to college!" Camille said sullenly.

I am eavesdropping, Girane thought, with a faint, guilty thrill. Still, it's always useful to know what one can about a family like the DeGraces.  As a councillor, it's almost my duty to.

As  a justification, it had the benefit of being entirely true.  Girane stepped further into the shadows as Cia said gravely, "Only a little way away. And I have to, to get a good job so I can get a house of my own."

"Of your own?" Camille asked. "With just, like, you?"

"Mmm. There might be room for one more, cherie. If you wanted."

"We could be running away together!" the child said excitedly.

A faint rustle of clothing. "We could. If you weren't running away now, that is."

"Oh." A small foot scuffed gravel.  "Maybe I could wait, for you. If you didn't take very long."

There was a smile in Cia's voice as she said, "I promise I'll be as quick as I can, how about that?"

"Okay. I guess I can wait, if you're quick. Ow, don't squeeze, Cia!"


The girl laughed quietly. "I can't help it, you're too squeezable.  Hey, since you're not running away, do you want to help me fix your ship?"

"It's too smashed," Camille said sadly. "That stupid lady has big feet! She should watch where they go!"

"Yes, she should," Cia agreed. "But I bet it isn't too smashed. I bet we could fix it, with maybe some replacement bits."

Camille sighed. "Then it won't be the same, with new bits."

"No, it'll be like a real spaceship. They get fixed all the time, you know," Cia said. "And new parts get put on them when they're too broken."

"Really?" Camille asked.

"Uh-huh.  So your ship will be even more real, if it's been fixed up after a collision."

Camille said hotly, "Mama should have made the stupid lady 'pologise, not me, Cia! That wasn't fair! It was on the table and everything, she knocked it down with her big fat backside, I saw!"

Girane had to stifle a laugh, thinking Tumame is rather broad in the beam, as Cia said quietly, "Well, maybe Mama didn't see."


"She should have been on my side anyway! She's my mama!"

"Mama can't help being Mama, Cami. Don't be mean about her. And I'm on your side, hmm? How about that?"

"Okay. Cia?"

"Yes, cherie?"

"Can we go and fix my ship now?"

Girane stepped back out of sight hastily as feet scuffed and bodies moved in the shadows. "If you've finished running away."

"I have," Camille said, as the two sisters joined hands and started back to the house.

Then as they passed the shadows where Girane stood, she added thoughtfully, "Well.  For now, anyway."

Perhaps it was that carefully considered qualification that stuck like a grass seed on Dry Day to Avolier Girane's memory.  Certainly, when he heard that Jorion Roth had fallen victim to some sort of cloning accident, he wondered first, not about the man's beautiful now-widow but about the eldest and the youngest of his children.  When the Roth family left Debreth, suddenly and completely between one day and the next,  Girane found himself thinking For now without quite knowing why he did.

And when, some time after that, Ciarente Roth called upon the town council to explain that sometimes Air Traffic Control regulations were made to be broken, Mayor Avolier Girane surprised his fellow councillors almost as much as he surprised himself when he found himself agreeing with her.

She was a DeGrace, he explained to them later, even if this pilot fellow she wanted them to recognise as a hero was Caldari. There had always been DeGraces in Debreth, even back before the first of the nine bridges had been built.  Humouring her, especially now she was a capsuleer pilot and richer than Fortune's right hand, was an entirely prudent thing to do. 

Eventually he won their agreement.  Fines were cancelled, a statue commissioned, a public holiday gazetted.


After all, what he had said was entirely true.

And in the end, Girane thought to himself, standing on First Bridge on the first Debreth annual holiday to celebrate capsuleer pilots, watching Ciarente Roth watch Captain Night make a gracious speech thanking Debreth for the honour, in the end ...

No-one knows the entire truth, in the end, except perhaps Fortune.

Who keeps her own counsel. 

Even, he thought, joining in the general applause, even  from capsuleers.

The Worst Of It: Two

You can hold onto pain, like it's a physical thing, curl yourself around it like the little sister you'd die to protect, if you want to.

Put your faith in it like the ancestors you don't have and the spirits you only pray to in foxholes.

Hold it close, so you can't feel shame or guilt past the fire of your cramping muscles, can't see the endless chain of sleepless nights ahead past the jangling colors spiraling across your field of vision, can't taste the copper coin of despair past the sour bile burning in your throat. Fill yourself with it until the hum of it in your veins drowns out everything else, until it coils through your body like smoke through a crematorium.

Amieta clung to the pain, clenched her fists on it until the servos whined and the joints grated in protest.

No more than I deserve.

There were voices, sometimes. Sometimes they were voices she knew. A woman's, soft and tender as the hands that smoothed her hair, that wiped her face. Ami? Can you hear me? Ami?

More often they were harsh, Amarr-accented, voices that went with blood and screaming and everyone dead, every single one of them but me.

The voice she thought she knew, her sister's voice, told her It isn't real, Ami, what you see, it isn't real. You're safe, with me, I'm here, Ami. Gentle fingers tried to prise open her fists, but flesh-and-blood was no match for Zainou's finest work. Cia gave up and wrapped her own hands around Amieta's, fingers tucked against the crook of rigid metal joints. I'm here, Ami. You're safe.

That might be true.

It might not be.

From moment to moment Amieta wasn't sure which of those was the worst of it.

The pain was true, the jagged edges of it in her gut, the burning cold that washed over her in waves, the hot ache in her bones.

The pain was real.

She wrapped herself in the pain like a blanket, drew it over her head and curled under it, fists clenched in its edges.

You can hold onto pain, like it's the most precious thing you have.

If you want to.

Drown yourself in it, let it wash away the knowledge that you've hurt the ones who love you, the fear you'll hurt them again, let the acid bath of it etch away the lies you told. You can let the pain eat away the shame.

And the reasons for it.

If you want to.

Even through the pain Amieta could feel Cia's hands curled around hers. She cracked an eyelid to see her sister's honey blonde head leaning on her arm, the edge of her face, one closed eye.

You can hold onto pain.

If you want to.

A new pain, different, signals firing from the machinery of her hands. Metal ground on metal, joints abused past tolerance.

The blonde head lifted. Cia blinked, eyes still cloudy with sleep. "Ami?"

Voice rusty with disuse, Amieta cleared her throat and then again, croaked, "I'm here."

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Amieta opened her hands.