Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

 Notes: Still having mushy feelings, So Many FEELINGS, but we'll get back to more plottiness soon.

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

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Chapter Fifteen, Part Two

 

It was fascinating to watch the Lizzie’s rescue unfold. Lizzie was an extremely modern ship, on the cutting edge of AI technology, but between the damage from the radiation and the labyrinthine circumstances Kieron had left her in, her computer simply hadn’t been up to bringing her back on its own. If Kieron hadn’t understood how far ahead of the competition Catalina was before this moment, he certainly would after watching things now.

The new programming that Elanus had just barely been able to shove into Lizzie’s AI from a distance wasn’t meant to modify her code to be smarter—it modified her to allow Catalina a backdoor through her numerous firewalls and automatic lockdowns and viral defenses. Essentially, it kept the Lizzie from bricking herself when Catalina exerted outside control over her systems.

Kieron and Elanus watched through Catalina’s own optical array, projected as a hologram for them right there in the hangar, as Catalina brought her sister home.

“Easy there…make sure you’ve calculated in the trajectory of that meteoroid, you don’t want to—”

“I seeeeeeeee iiiiiit.”

“I’m just making sure!”

“I seeeeee, Daddeeeeeee! Beeeee quieeet!”

Elanus huffed and rubbed a hand over his mouth, but Kieron could see he was pleased with how well Catalina was performing. “Haughty little miss,” he muttered, then glanced at Kieron and rolled his eyes. “You’d think she was the one who built me, the way she’s bossing me around.”

“Children do build up their parents,” Kieron replied absently, still staring at the projection. “Or destroy them. The fact that she’s so comfortable pushing back with you says a lot.”

“No mutually assured destruction for us?” Elanus asked, his tone assessing.

“It certainly doesn’t look like it.” Kieron looked over when he felt Elanus’s eyes stay on him. “What?”

“How old were you when you escaped from Hadrian’s Colony again?”

A surge of anger rose up inside of him. “We’re not talking about me right now,” Kieron said coldly. “We’re focusing on getting your ship back. Pay attention.”

“Catalina has it under control.”

“You still need to oversee it. Kids need to feel like their parents give a damn about what they’re doing.”

Elanus raised his hands peaceably. “She knows I do. She also knows I trust her to be able to pull this off.”

“You need to make sure she knows that by not getting distracted with me.” Speaking of distracted… “Where do you want the Lizzie? Because we can’t fit her in here.”

Elanus frowned. “What do you mean, we can’t fit her in here? She’s almost as compact as Catalina; there’s plenty of space.”

“Not if you want Catalina to keep her stage.”

“Her—what?”

“The stage.” Kieron indicated the space in front of them where the holographic rescue was playing out. There was a brief alert on one of the Lizzie’s starboard sensors as Catalina brought her close to a meteoroid, but it dissipated a few seconds later once the coast was clear. “She loves putting up her projections for us here. If you bring the Lizzie into this space, there won’t be room for them anymore.”

“She can do them on a smaller scale,” Elanus suggested, but he already looked like he was recalculating in his head. “Or…internally. Or to the front, if she fabricates a new holographic array that—”

“Just put the Lizzie in Hangar Four,” Kieron said. “It’s close enough that they’ll be able to communicate easily, you’ll be able to go back and forth without a problem, and Catalina can keep her play space. I’ll go prep it—it looks like the Lizzie will be back in another twenty minutes or so.” Kieron got to his feet and walked out, passing through Catalina’s hologram on his way to the door. Elanus didn’t call out after him, and he was grateful for that.

Prepping Hangar Four was easy, rote work, the kind of thing he didn’t have to put a lot of thought into, which was nice, since he didn’t want to think right now. Kieron made most of the adjustments manually, rather than going through the computer—even without his implant he could have made it work with voice commands, but he just wasn’t feeling very talkative right now. There was a weight hanging over him, living within him, bearing down on him more and more the harder he considered it. The best defense against that weight was hard work, labor physical enough to make his mind stop thinking and exist in a state of calm that only came from focused exertion.

By the time the Lizzie was back to the station and outside the hangar, Kieron had gotten everything prepared for her. He was hardly even sweating, too—a big improvement from just a few days ago. Soon he’d be ready for his implant again, and then he could speak to the station without the clunky intermediary of the tab, check on the calculations to find Zakari without having to stop what he was doing (playing with Catalina, fucking with Elanus, literally fucking Elanus), and talk to Catalina without having to hear her voice…her strange, beautiful voice.

“Are you just gonna stand there, or are you going to let my ship in?” Elanus drawled from over by the door, and how long had he even been standing there? Shit. Kieron hadn’t realized he was that lost in thought.

“Sorry.” He moved back into the safe zone, depressurized the hangar, and opened the main door. He and Elanus watched in uncommon silence as the Lizzie made her way back to safety, finally setting down in the very center of the floor. The ship was dinged up, no question, and Kieron felt a surge of guilt for what he’d let happen to her.

“Let me help fix her up,” he said before he could quite stop himself.

Elanus glanced at him, and Kieron didn’t have to be looking back to know that there was a heap of curiosity in his gaze. He didn’t know what he’d say when Elanus asked “why” other than that he wanted to, which would be an embarrassingly honest admission, but—

“Sure.”

That’s it? That casual acquiescence was all he was going to get? Now it was Kieron’s turn to stare at Elanus. “Are you—really?”

“I am, in fact, really.” Elanus was smirking, the bastard, but it was better than facing down a mouth full of questions. “It’ll be good for you. Therapeutic.” What the… “For your muscles,” he added. “Good for grip strength, good for fine motor work, good for all kinds of things. I know Catalina will feel better with you working on Lizzie, too.”

“She…will?”

“Sure. Of course she’ll be jealous, because she wants you all to herself, but she trusts you to take care of her bestie. After all.” Elanus’s smirk melted into a smile. “You took such good care of her.”

“I…” Kieron couldn’t stop himself—he reached out and clasped Elanus’s face in his hands and pulled him down into a kiss. It was awkward, given that the Ganian man was over a foot taller than him, but it felt perfect all the same. “Thank you,” he said when they finally separated. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for letting me have more of you than I should.

“You’re welcome,” was all Elanus said in return, which was the perfect amount of reply.