Notes: Let's get down to business! Also, stiff upper lip, my fellow Americans, we'll get through this no matter what comes next. I'm so fucking ready for the election to be over, but also, PLEASE VOTE!
Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eight, Part Two
***
Chapter Eight, Part Two
It was so hard to stay steady. All Kieron wanted to do was leap up and confront the woman who’d been both so much, and so little, to him as a child. It wasn’t as though he had a flood of positive memories associated with her; she’d barely ever visited him in the creche, and then when he joined the older recruits in the capitol, she’d given her father free rein to treat Kieron like everyone else—or in his case, even worse.
But she’d saved his life. She’d put him on a ship and gotten him and the other survivors out of there before the end. She’d clasped her hands on his shoulders, the closest thing to a hug she’d been capable of back then, and squeezed hard before walking away. For all their complex relationship, for all her myriad faults and Kieron’s dramatic overcompensation, she had been his mother, and he’d loved her.
Now she was the person who’d shot first, shot Catie, unforgivable even if she didn’t realize the ship was sentient. Now she was holding a gun that could kill the son she’d saved. Now he’d learned she was alive, damn it, alive after all this time spent wondering and mourning and looking back.
Kieron wanted to throttle her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. He opted for leaning back in the chair a little harder, so Doubles’ spinning stabilized. “Carlisle,” he said with a nod.
“That’s Captain to you.”
“Not my captain.”
“Clearly not, or you’d know how to behave.”
Ouch. After a childhood spent disappointing this woman with his behavior, that hit home in a way it wouldn’t for his alter ego. And she seemed to see it, arching one grey eyebrow at him knowingly.
“So you know you’re a bad crewmember, then. Maybe you were left behind deliberately, hmm?”
“I was, but not for the reason you’re thinking,” Kieron replied. “Most people would prioritize the life of a child over that of an adult, after all.”
His mothe—no, Carlisle, she was just Carlisle to him right now—narrowed her eyes. “There’s no way you brought a child to this place.”
“You presume we had a choice when we did it.” They’d chosen very deliberately, in fact, but she didn’t need to know anything even close to the truth. Fuck the feeling-out phase; Kieron needed to stop sparring and start working toward a compromise that would end up with everyone living. “We were due to rendezvous with the rest of our exploratory party on the other side of the planetary cluster, but we had a mechanical malfunction that led to us crashing here.”
Carlisle scoffed. “No one wants anything to do with this planetary cluster, not even the Drifters. The Central System gave up on developing it a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t mean there aren’t still people out there who could have a use for a home base that’s close enough to System space to get the conveniences and far enough away to avoid most of the notice,” he replied.
“And you expect me to believe that’s you?” She looked him up and down. “No one goes in for development like this without a damn good reason. For some it’s religious fanaticism or modification cult, for others it’s Naturalism or some other ingrained sickness. You look pretty healthy to me.”
“I never said it was about me, did I?”
She stroked her chin thoughtfully. “What’s wrong with your kid, then?”
She’s smart. “She exists,” Kieron replied with perfect honestly. “And she’s not supposed to be able to. A lot of people would like to take her apart and figure out what makes her tick, and I’m not going to stand for that.”
“Boss,” Doubles interrupted, his arms going limp. “I’m feelin’ kinda sick here.”
“Just a little longer,” she said, not looking away from Kieron. “So you and your crew made an emergency landing here, you say. And one of those crewmembers is a child.”
“She’s my daughter,” Kieron emphasized. “Family.” He watched Carlisle weight whether what he was saying was true or not, let her spin out scenarios that had her do everything from killing him here and now to helping him and his ship get off-planet. There was a lot of space in between those two extremes, and Kieron needed to be on guard against a bad deal. He began to rock his chair idly, and Doubles groaned as the movement jostled him.
“You’re part of a larger party?”
“Yes.” People know where we are. They’ll come looking for us. You can’t just get rid of us and get rid of all your problems.
“Hmm.” She tilted her head slightly. “How about this. You use the comm on our ship to reach out to your family and reunite with them. We can help fix what we inadvertently broke and you’ll get to check on their welfare, then we’ll work on getting you off-planet.”
Kieron shook his head. “No deal. Once you have all of us in the same place, there’s no assurance you can give me against killing us all just to take the ship for scrap and denying any knowledge of our presence here if someone asks.”
“I’m not that mercenary.”
He laughed. “You are literally a mercenary. Or a pirate, I suppose, but guns like those speak to planetside engagements, not shipside. Don’t try to sell me a lion and tell me it’s a catterpet.”
“Boss…” Doubles slurred. “Think I’m startin’ to see things…”
“Just a moment longer, Doubles,” Carlisle replied. “Fine. Believe it or not, I was trying to be polite. Your ship is far too small to be useful to us, and obviously not well protected. But if you don’t want our help retrieving your family, that’s your call. We can let you comm someone in the rest of your party instead and get a timeline together for your retrieval.”
“Boss…”
“Still no guarantee there.”
“You haven’t earned a guarantee,” Carlisle snapped at him. “Not after you took out my guy and used him as bait. You’re lucky I don’t have Trapper shoot you from outside and take my chances rescuing Doubles from a fall.”
Kieron shrugged. “Bit worse than a fall going on down there.”
“Oh please, there’s no—”
“BOSS!” Doubles shrieked, and a second later he jackknifed his body in half as a reptilian launched itself up through the hole. It snagged its teeth in the back of his jacket and pulled, hard.
Kieron didn’t stop to think. He jumped out of the chair and whipped it toward the reptilian, lodging the seat under the huge creature’s right foreleg. Doubles was screaming and Carlisle was trying to grab him, but she was on one of the weakest parts of the floor. Kieron saw her consider using her gun, then rethink it; the odds of her shooting her own man in the struggle were too high, especially given that it would take more than one shot to do in this monster.
Kieron pulled his knife a moment before Doubles’ jacket finally tore free from his body, then jumped forward as the reptilian fell. He sliced through the rope while he wrapped his other arm around Doubles’ waist, then tugged him in close as he landed them on their backs the floor on the far side of the hole.
Shit, still unstable! Kieron rolled them toward the door, feeling the floor start to fall out from under them as he did. It took a strong hand on the back of his collar to pull them free of the building entirely, and then there was the barrel of a gun against his forehead.
“I ought to kill you for that stunt,” Carlisle snapped. If he’d been a little more stable, less tired or worried or not staring at the face of the woman who’d given him life, Kieron might have stayed calm when he went to answer. Instead—
“Do it,” Kieron taunted. “Fucking do it, then, and when I jam this knife through your guy’s windpipe on my way out you can look back on this as a teachable motherfucking moment, can’t you?”
Carlisle stared hard at him. Doubles wheezed in alarm at the knife pressed against his throat, his face still purple from the pooling blood. Right beside them, the creche began to collapse. Kieron didn’t blink, though, and after another moment Carlisle holstered the rifle across her back. “Fine.” She grabbed Doubles and helped pull him to his feet. “But don’t try my patience any further, Mr. Desfontaines. I expect you to trust us after this.”
“As much as you trust me,” Kieron replied.
Just as much as you trust me.