Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Eight, Part One

 Notes: It all starts to come together...or fall apart, depending on your perspective.

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Twenty-Eight, Part One

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Chapter Twenty-Eight, Part One

 

Leaving Lizzie was harder than Kieron had expected. Not because he was worried about her, exactly—she was more intelligent than he was, and had run simulations of every scenario they could think of that might happen in his absence to prepare her. He wasn’t even going to be gone for long, so that wasn’t it. No, leaving her behind was hard for two reasons.

The first reason was the soft one—that he simply wanted to be with her right now. The revelation that she cared for him enough to want to make him a forever part of her life, to give them a permanent and legal connection, was devastating. In a good way. It made Kieron feel like he’d been stabbed in the chest with a blade made from hopefulness, an edge that both cut and cured. It was bittersweet, to think that family could be something that made you feel good.

He couldn’t remember much about how he felt for his mother, or his grandfather, but Kieron knew that any warmth he’d had for them, or them for him, had been gone before he could speak. He had been a soldier-in-training, and a disappointing one at that. Every touch had been a pinch, a slap, a smack—stand straighter, go faster, why are you so slow, why are you so stupid? They had taught him not to rely on family for any sort of positive feeling.

Zak had taught him that warmth could come from friends. Profound emotional connections could be made between people who had nothing in common other than the will to reach out, and what a revelation that had been. It wasn’t family, toxic, toxic family, and that was a good thing. Kieron didn’t need a family when he had someone like Zak in his life.

And then he lost him, and then…

Well, then he had kept going. Made new connections, despite being sure he’d never be able to. Found a lover and a daughter and a sweet little ship who’d broken down his walls in Catie. And then, somehow, he’d looped back around to family, and now here he was, about to break another family up.

No. You’re making them whole. Xilinn’s spouses had thrown her to the wolves. If they didn’t want her, then fuck them. Kieron would take her.

If he could get out of this damn port.

That was the other reason it was hard to leave Lizzie—the presence of Traktan military personnel at the port had grown exponentially over the past twelve hours. They were working nonstop on the ships they were going to be sending their political prisoners away in, undoubtedly trying to make them space-worthy for long enough to deflect blame if anything went wrong up there. Now that they’d severed ties with the Federation, undoubtedly the government wanted to keep their best resources for the people they valued, but these ships…they were heaps. They looked like they’d been salvaged from scrap piles and recycling centers. Their lights were flickering, hulls covered in shoddy patches while technicians worked feverishly to get them sealed up.

They wouldn’t last for long. Or if they did, they wouldn’t be given enough fuel to get the people on them very far.

It took more than an hour, but Kieron eventually made it out of the port and to the skimmer he’d left tucked away behind a nearby shipping container. He let Lizzie take care of guiding it to the forest behind Pol’s house as he reached out to Pol. The boy’s implant wasn’t reacting very quickly—it felt sluggish, so slow that nothing but emotive burst could come through instead of actual words. The emotions behind the bursts seemed an odd mix of frustrated and happy.

I’m coming, Kieron sent to him, giving up on understanding the blend of emotions. Meet me in the back as soon as you can.

He got another burst of frustration. Ooookay.

Getting to Pol’s house was easy—the flight lanes were practically abandoned, everyone huddled in their homes so that no one had to witness the atrocity that was about to happen. Parents, children, siblings—they were about to be thrown out, cast into space so that a group of fundamentalists could keep dissent under control. This place was about to be irreparably broken.

Or perhaps it already was.

Kieron hated it here. He had never liked it, but now he felt like his early animosity was completely justified. He was ready to leave, and never come back. He just had to get Pol.

Once the skimmer was tucked away, invisible to cameras and as camouflaged as possible against the road’s backdrop, Kieron climbed down the vines into the space behind Pol’s backyard. He pressed himself up against the wall and listened for the sound of movement, or a small child’s voice.

He got two children’s voices instead.

“—with me, Szusza!”

Oh. She’s here. Xilinn and Zak’s daughter was here. Kieron might actually be able to take her with them. A thrill of hope filled his chest, and he almost looked around the wall.

“You can’t go!” a quiet but harsh voice snapped. “I won’t let you!”

The hope fell away, quelled by the fury in that little girl’s voice.

“But Mama—”

“She’s going to a new home! She decided to leave us, Pol, that was her choice. Mama Laina says that—”

“Mama Laina is a liar!” Pol shouted, giving up on all pretext of subtlety.

“Shut up! You don’t know anything!” the girl retorted. “They’ve told us all about this in school, about how these people are trying to shut down the schools and the stores and the government and how they don’t want us to be able to live like normal people now that we’ve left the Federation, and the Federation was no good anyway. We’re going to be better now! We’re going to be fine, but Mama wasn’t happy with that. She wasn’t happy with us. So I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

There was silence for a long moment, and then—“I’m going.”

“You’re not.”

“Am too.”

“No you’re not. I’m going to—ow!” There was a shriek. “You bit me! Mama! Mama Laina, Pol bit me! He’s running away! Mamaaaa!”

A second later Pol appeared around the corner of the wall, tears and an expression of fear on his face. Some of the fear dissipated when he saw Kieron. “You came,” he whimpered, and threw himself into Kieron’s arms.

There was no time to stay here and hold him. Laina was coming, Szusza complaining at her side. As fast as he could, Kieron lifted Pol up and tucked him against the camouflage of his suit, then pulled both of them back into the thick, verdant vines behind them. A second later Szusza and Laina came around the corner.

“He went where?” Laina asked in an irritated tone.

“He said a friend was coming to rescue him.”

Oh, Pol. The little boy tucked his head even harder into Kieron’s chest.

“Ridiculous stories. He’s probably just run into the edge of the forest to make us worried.”

“We should get him then,” Szusza said uncertainly. “Right? It’s dangerous in there.”

“He’ll head home once he realizes we’re not playing his game,” Laina said dismissively. “Come back inside.”

“But…he might…what if he gets hurt?”

“Then he’ll learn that he shouldn’t go running off every time he doesn’t get his way, won’t he? Inside, Szusza, now.”

Kieron watched Laina turn around and stride back into the yard. Szusza stayed a moment longer, staring up at the distant treetops, a pained look on her face.

Now. You could reach out to her now, ask her to come…she might say yes.

“Szusza! Now!”

The girl, the girl with Zak’s round face and dark, curling hair, turned around and followed her other parent back inside.

The moment was lost.