Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Nine, Part One

 Notes: Oooh baby, we're cooking now! Prepare to meet someone even more annoying than Elanus ;)

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Nine, Part One

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Chapter Nine, Part One

 

It wasn’t sulking. Kieron wasn’t the type of person who sulked. He was brisk, he was professional, he was prepared to do his job. He absolutely wasn’t sulking when he didn’t bother to open his door when Elanus knocked, or when he ignored the slice of pizza on a plate left outside of it, or when he did his pre-flight check in total silence while Elanus hovered nearby, watching him with eyes as dark and consuming as a black hole. It wasn’t sulking, it was self-defense.

Who knew he’d be so sensitive about being called out on his heritage? Zakari and his family had never mentioned it, because they were kind and understanding and not beautiful, rich, self-entitled assholes. It was the sense of hurt he got from the question that bothered Kieron the most. Why should he be hurt? He didn’t care what anyone thought of him, so why should he care when it came to Elanus?

He wasn’t sure why he cared, but he did. That, more than anything, hurt. It was so much better when Kieron was alone, and nobody could make him feel anything. It was so easy to be cool, calm, and controlled when he was alone. Maintaining that sort of control over himself had been one of his biggest sources of satisfaction since he’d first gotten off of the colony. Losing that control now was…disconcerting.

“All right.” He set his helmet in the Lizzie’s other driver’s seat. He was in his greenie suit, mostly because he knew it annoyed the hell out of Elanus. “I should be back in two hours. You’ll be able to monitor communications from the main console as long as an especially big asteroid doesn’t block the way.”

“Great. Fantastic. Shiny.” He didn’t move, though.

So much for trying the indirect route. “You can go now.” Kieron enunciated each word slowly and clearly.

“I don’t know if I should let you go, Sparky.”

Kieron felt like tearing his hair out. It was amazing how fast Elanus Desfontaines could evaporate his veneer of control. “You need to make up your fucking mind, because I’m tired of trying to figure out what you want only to be slapped down when you change for the seventieth time.”

Elanus stared at him in disconcerting quietude for another minute, then nodded and left. Just like that, without a parting shot or a final insult or any of the things that Kieron had honestly expected. He was immediately on edge, because what, but he was more ready to take advantage of the escape route being offered. He shut the doors, got the engine purring, and a few minutes later was heading back into the asteroid field, with Lizzie responding beautifully to his most minute adjustments. Elanus might be an asshole, but at least the man knew what he was doing when it came to repairs. Maybe he had a few redeeming qualities.

“So, now that I’ve got you alone…”

Ugh. Kieron tried to ignore the radio. Unfortunately, safety protocol didn’t allow him to shut it off completely, which meant that even though he had no intention of responding to his irritating companion, he couldn’t avoid listening to him.

“I was thinking that I ought to apologize to you. For something. I guess for calling you a killer, but let’s be honest, that’s the buzz when it comes to the Hadrian colony and you’d probably be offended if I implied you were nothing but a big soft catterpet.”

Fuck you, I’m not a catterpet.

“I bet you’re being offended right now, aren’t you?”

Fuck you times two.

“It’s okay, it’s not like I can tell from here, except I think I kind of can. If you really didn’t care, you would have finished the pizza with me. How you could let it get all gross and congealed outside your room—that’s just wasteful, Kieron. It’s not like you’ve got a friendly dog to clean up after you here, which…do you think we should rescind that rule? Let people bring pets onto the station?”

Absolutely not, are you insane?

“Probably not. The smarter ones might end up getting into places they really shouldn’t be, and a lot of them aren’t as resilient to radiation as we are. So to speak. Actually, now that we’re talking about that—”
We’re not talking about anything, you are talking about everything.

“I understand that the greenies are, like, your own personal form of pacifier, but it’s a little insulting that you don’t trust my technology to keep you safe after you’ve seen it in action. I mean, c’mon, the Lizzie is amazing and you know it. No other ship—apart from Catalina, of course, but she’s more than just a ship—could do so well for you out there. Do you honestly think that greenie suit is going to save you if something goes that catastrophically wrong? You’d get, what, another ten minutes of life out of it? Fifteen, if you were really lucky? What could you do with that?”

Not listen to you, which would be a pretty good way to spend the last ten minutes of my life. Even as he thought it, Kieron didn’t really believe it though. There was something about Elanus, something in addition to his profusion of irritating qualities, which made being with him kind of…enjoyable. Even when he was being a terrible human being, which had been most of the time so far.

“My point,” Elanus droned on like he didn’t have a care in the world, like Kieron didn’t need all his concentration for getting back to the part of the asteroid field where they’d identified Catalina’s call, “is that you should have a little more faith in me. I’m flippant, but I’m not an idiot. Why do you think I let you get away with benching me today? Even I can acknowledge when I’m in the wrong.”

Not directly, apparently.

“You’re probably calling bullshit on me in your head, but it’s true. I could have forced things, but I didn’t, because I respect your opinion. I respect you, and I’m telling you that out loud because I think you might not see that, but I feel like you should know it. I can’t even imagine how hard it must have been to come from a place like Hadrian’s colony and end up even a semi-decent human being—”

Thanks for that gracious evaluation.

“—and you’re way more than semi-decent, I’d go so far as to call you ‘exemplary’ if it wasn’t for your inclination toward smacking me, but—kkksht—kkksshtkk—kkkkkkkttteeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Elanus’s voice broke up in the wake of the sudden interference. Now that Kieron knew what he was listening for, he could identify the particular harmonics that marked this metallic cry as Catalina. Elanus’s baby was still screaming.

Kieron found himself gritting his teeth, and forced himself to stop. He released the latest round of drones, and watched as they spread out in a glittering array in front of him through the viewscreen, shiny silver balls twisting and correcting as they made their way in between the asteroids between him and Catalina. Hopefully they’d come up with more specific information this time, something that would let him get close enough to—

One of them suddenly blipped out. The occasional impact wasn’t unheard of, but that had been fast. Kieron watched with first curiosity, then dismay as another drone vanished, then another, then another. After five minutes, fifty percent of them were gone, and the data coming from the rest of them was what could only be called “garbled.” What the hell was going on out there?

“Impact detection,” Lizzie’s AI announced.

Impact? What impact? He hadn’t felt a thing. Kieron checked the instruments, looking for the damaged panel, and found nothing. “Locate impact,” he said.

“Front dorsal panel.”

That was right on top of him. Kieron glanced up automatically, but of course he didn’t see anything. What the—

“Hello there,” a new voice suddenly said. This wasn’t a person he’d heard before, but the accent was familiar. Male, older, curled his vowels like a lock of hair around a finger—this had to be Elanus’s partner, Deysan Moritz.

How the hell was he broadcasting through all this space junk?

“Whoever you are, I’ve got a proposition for you. I suggest you hear me out before making any rash decisions. Otherwise, I’ll have to detonate the bomb I stuck to your ship.” The man laughed. “My little trinkets are pretty good at hunting down energy signatures, aren’t they? I took out most of your drones that way. Don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”

Oh. Oh, fuck.

That wasn’t good.