Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-One: Part One

 Notes: All right, back to plot! We're closing in on a finale here, darlins :) Exciting!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

***

Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

 

Picture by Frank Tunder 

Kieron ended up spending the next four days well out of the way.

He wasn’t deliberately setting out to isolate himself. He wasn’t getting lost in a sea of his own thoughts or a maelstrom of emotions that he didn’t want to face and could barely look at anyway. No, overall, he was happy. His family was coming together; there was hope that they were going to escape from Hadrian’s Colony without having to wait for the storm season to pass; and the people he loved most in the universe were safe.

Kieron understood that at heart he was a simple creature. He had never been a man of wild hopes or big dreams. Those were for bigger, wilder people whose wants couldn’t be contained in small spaces. Undoubtedly his therapist or, more likely Elanus, would have a lot to say about that if he actually said it out loud, but there was no point. Kieron was content with the way things were. He liked his life. He liked the people in it. And he had learned definitively at this point that chasing answers from the past only led to pain. All Kieron wanted to do at this point was live in the present.

He didn’t quite trust himself to look forward to what would happen after they got off Hadrian’s Colony yet. It was probably going to involve a lot of the talking that he didn’t want to do. But if Elanus asked, he would do it with a glad heart because nothing was more important to him than being healthy, safe, and sane so that he could take care of the ones that he loved.

Part of staying healthy, safe, and sane was knowing when listening in on certain conversations was only going to drive him up the wall and exiting them.

It wasn’t that Kieron wasn’t smart, but he was not smart enough to follow the math that Elanus and their two daughters were bantering around. Most of the time, there wasn’t even any conversation involved at all, just discussion between Elanus and his implant and the girls in their hard drives. It was a way of being together and solving problems collaboratively on a level that Kieron had never experienced before and, quite frankly, didn’t really care to.

He wasn’t able to talk with Pol and Xilinn much, and even Ryu gave over the com so that Lizzie could focus all of her energies on helping establish trajectories, weight limits, and weather reports. That meant Kieran ended up spending a lot of time with Bobby. He didn’t mind. He liked it, actually, being around someone who made him remember that he wasn’t the most inexperienced person here.

“Those are some good-looking legs,” he told Bobby on the second day out from help’s impending arrival. It was raining outside. Naturally, it was raining outside, but the worst of the lightning storms had passed, and the forecast was as good as it was going to get for the time being. Kieron, as much as he loved Catie, had grown absolutely sick of being locked in her interior, and he could tell Bobby was stir-crazy as well. So they’d taken themselves for a walk, a walk that necessitated Bobby, well, work on his walking.

[Are you sure?] Bobby tapped out. [They feel weird.]

You haven’t done a lot of bipedal stuff yet,” Kieron told him. “I think it’ll probably feel weird for a while, but they look great. You want to give them a try?”

[I guess so,] Bobby said. He took a few tentative steps, stumbled, then darted back to lean against Kieron’s legs. [I don’t think I can do it.]

Kieron smiled and pet the little robot on top of the head. “I know you can,” he told him. “You’re so clever. You’re so…” What was the word Elanus had used to describe him? “Protean,” he said after a moment. “Adaptable. Just work on it a little more, and soon walking around on two legs will be like nothing to you.”

[You make it look easy,] Bobby said, with a bit of a desultory echo to his taps.

“It’s really hard for human babies,” Kieron replied. “It takes them months and months to learn how to stand, much less walk. You’re doing a great job.”

[Thank you,] Bobby replied.

“You ready to try again?”

[Yeah, okay,] and he did. This time he made it five steps before tripping. The next time he took twenty. After that, he skipped right ahead to running, and it turned out being able to leap over the barriers in front of him was a lot more intuitive for Bobby than having to stumble over or go around them.

[This is easy!] he tapped out as he ran in literal circles around Kieron. [I love hydraulics.]

“Just wait until you try out some springs,” Kieron replied with a grin, which meant of course Bobby had to try springs instead of hydraulics, which led to some rather hilarious pratfalls as he adjusted the tensile strength. Eventually, though, he was able to leap almost fifteen feet through the air, land on a single limb, and turn flips all in the space of a couple of hours.

“So cool,” Kieron applauded at the end of it, then frowned as he realized his hands had practically gone numb from the chill. “We better head back in, though, before Elanus wonders where we’ve gone off to.”

[Okay,] Bobby said. They returned to the ship, where sure enough, Elanus had lightened his trance state so that he’d know the moment they came in.

“You’re soaked through, this is stupid,” he said the moment Kieron stepped over Catie’s threshold. “This is not the place to get soaked. What are we going to do if you get pneumonia? Are you insane?”

“That’s not how you get pneumonia,” Kieron pointed out as he shucked off the poncho that Catie had thoughtfully made for him.

“Oh, so now you’re the expert on how people get pneumonia on Hadrian’s Colony, huh? For all you know, it is carried in the water. Maybe it’s a seasonal variety of illness that can only be dredged up by the force of winds stirring waters from miles below sea level. You don’t know.”

“Neither do you,” Kieron said, but he let Elanus fuss over him while Bobby soaked the attention up like a sponge. It was nice. It was homey. It was exactly what he wanted.

When Lizzie and all her passengers finally came into close orbit around Hadrian’s Colony two days afterward, Kieron was tentatively ready to accept that this was going to be a good thing. That something wonderful, in fact, was happening to them. Their rescue was here. Their family had come for him, for all of them.

“Can you see us?” Lizzie asked.

“You shine briiight,” Catie told her. “So briiiight!” The refit had done a lot to boost her signal. Lizzie didn’t just appear like some random object in the night sky on Catie’s sensors; she blazed like a close contact star.

“Approximately five hours and you’ll be able to drop the parts,” Elanus said, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Another fifteen hours of refits—”

“More like eighteen, Daddeee,” Catie said.

“To hell with it, rounded up to twenty. Twenty hours of refits, and we could be off by tomorrow afternoon.”

They looked at each other and grinned, and then—

“We fucking see you people now” came over Catie’s wide-open radio transmitter.

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eighteen, Part One

 Notes: There's nothing quite like coming home...but it's got its own special sense of turmoil as well. Especially when you're strung out and exhausted like Kieron is. Poor baby, let's give him some love.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Eighteen, Part One 

***

Chapter Eighteen, Part One

 

Photo by Luiz Rogerio Nunez

Kieron was only vaguely aware of things happening around him once he was back in Elanus’s arms. His body barely felt like his own; it was moved, made to lie down, had things attached to it as a perturbed Catie shared his long list of injuries, and then feeling became a little more difficult because he was given something that made it all fade back a bit. Like the stimulant his mo—Carlisle had given him, but different. Less sharp.

Bobby stayed with him. The little bot was vibrating with his need to communicate, clicking all sorts of news to Catie and Elanus, but he never left Kieron’s side. Elanus didn’t leave either; he was always right within reach, and more often than not he kept a hand on Kieron. It wasn’t until he finally laid that hand on Kieron’s face that Kieron managed to come up out of his stupor and really register the fact that he was back with his family.

They’d survived. Elanus and Catie had found them. That meant… “We need to leave the plateau,” Kieron said hoarsely.

“We already have,” Elanus assured him. “Hours ago.”

Hours ago? But they’d only just been found…hadn’t they? “People are looking for us.”

“They won’t find us.”

“They’ll kill us on sight.”

“They won’t find us,” Elanus repeated. Kieron wanted to find the surety in his voice comforting, but he knew the truth. There was no surety on this planet, no guarantee of anything. Not life, not hope, not family.

Certainly not family.

“Baby.” A long thumb with a calloused pad brushed along Kieron’s cheek. “What’s making you cry?”

I’m crying? Kieron’s face was too numb for him to really register it, but as he looked up at Elanus and saw the lights waver with wetness, he realized that he was. “We can’t go back there.”

“Of course not,” Elanus agreed, and it felt like a stab in the heart. Kieron shut his eyes against the rush of tears down his cheeks.

They couldn’t go back to the plateau to look for Carlisle. They couldn’t go back to Hadrian’s mercenary outpost for any reason; it wasn’t safe for them. And Carlisle couldn’t go back either, for the same reasons, but she didn’t have anyone there to help her.

She was alone. She’d chosen to die alone, with the corpse of her father, Kieron’s grandfather. She’d chosen her death, but he was the one who had to live with the knowledge that he wasn’t enough.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped through his tears, and Elanus gave up whatever had divided his attention and laid down next to Kieron on the narrow bed. It was still the softest thing he’d felt since being separated from his family. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry for anything,” Elanus soothed.

“I do, I’m not…I did it all wrong, I did all of this wrong, we shouldn’t be here.” He grabbed the front of Elanus’s tunic with his good hand—the injured arm was splinted now, an IV of Regen-infused saline doing its job, but slowly—and held on too tight. But Elanus didn’t fight it, he didn’t try to pull away. He let Kieron hold him as tight as he needed to. “I wish we’d never come back.”

“You and me both, but—”

“I left her,” Kieron insisted. “I left her, she made me leave her. I didn’t want to but she wouldn’t come with me, so really she left me first. She left me a long time ago, and I thought for a moment I could have her back, but…I can’t. You can never go back. Nothing undoes the past, nothing, and I’m sorry for that, I’m so sorry. I—” Memories crowded in his head, a hundred things he regretted and a hundred more he didn’t really understand, flashes from a place in his head he hadn’t been able to touch ever since he woke up after being blown into space.

Kieron cupped the side of Elanus’s face. “Why did I hit you? On the station? I should never have done that.”

Elanus’s eyes went wide. “You…I kind of deserved it at the time, baby, it’s fine.”

“I should never hit you. She hit me, and so did the general, and that’s not what you do with your family, you shouldn’t do that, I shouldn’t…”

“We weren’t with each other like that when you hit me.” Elanus’s voice was shaking, like he was reliving the moment. Or perhaps that was his rising excitement. “You remember that?”

Kieron shook his head. “Just—flashes. Things I don’t really understand, like me floating in a—in an asteroid field, and I can see Catie in front of me like she’s waiting for me. And sitting inside of Lizzie on a green beltway behind Zak’s old house. I remember thinking about family.”

“Why are you thinking so hard about family right now?” Elanus leaned in and kissed the corner of Kieron’s mouth. “Did you miss us so much?”

“Yes,” he whispered. That was part of it, certainly. “Of course I did, Bobby and I missed you terribly, but—” How could he explain finding his mother to Elanus? How could he explain the person that she was, the person she used to be? “They took me to my grandfather.”

Elanus’s eyes widened. “He’s still alive?”

Kieron gingerly shook his head. “Probably not anymore, but he was earlier today.” Or maybe it was yesterday now. Kieron couldn’t be sure how quickly time was running anymore.

“He…and you…baby, I’m not getting the connection. Did the people who fired on us take you prisoner?”

“I gave myself up to them.”

“Why?”

Kieron sighed. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had no idea where you were and if you were all right, or if Catie…and I couldn’t let them come after you, I had to keep them occupied. And then the woman in charge of them ended up being my mother, only she didn’t know me.”

Elanus looked poleaxed. “Your mother. You found your mother on this star-forsaken rock in the middle of nowhere?”

“No.” Kieron’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “Because she didn’t want me.”

“Baby—”

But Kieron didn’t want to listen to whatever Elanus was going to say to him. It would be sweet, and kind, and loving, and it would be a platitude from someone who didn’t understand just how deeply disappointing Kieron had been as a child, as a human being. That he was disappointing to a cultist and mercenary who would rather be dead than stick with him was beside the point, or perhaps made it—in two different timelines, two different lifetimes, he hadn’t been good enough. And now he was back with the people he loved, that he cared for so much more than his distant memory of a mother, and all he could do was wallow in sadness instead of joy.

There was the worst, and then there was Kieron.

“Sleep.” Familiar lips pressed another kiss to his face, this time to his forehead. “You must be so tired, sweetheart. You’ve worked so hard getting back to us, haven’t you? You haven’t had a moment to take care of yourself.”

“I did…” That was what the stim was for, after all.

“Well, then you did a shit job of it.”

That was so blunt, so Elanus, that Kieron briefly cracked a smile.

“There.” Another kiss, now to his cheek. “I see you, Kieron. All the parts, all the complications, all the breaks and bruises and the soft spots that you’re afraid to let people touch. I see it all, and I love it all. I’m not scared of you, and you don’t have to be sorry. Please, rest now. Okay? I’ve got this watch.”

Elanus was here. He could take care of things now. Kieron could let go of all the strange thoughts crowding around behind his eyes and just. Stop for a while.

“Love you,” he muttered as fatigue pulled him under once more.

“Oh, baby. I know.”

 

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

 Notes: Who wants more peril! Peril, get your mortal peril here! But--there's a light at the end of this tunnel, my darlins.

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

***

Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

 

Picture by Joe Shields

It took Kieron a moment, in the dimness, to make out the tunneler against the darkness of rock and shadow. It wasn’t as big as the other one, not nearly; this was less than half the size of the first, and that was bad because it was, apparently, much better suited to climbing. At the moment, however, it was on the other side of the slender canyon. That was about ten feet of separation that Kieron was very grateful for right now.

Move on, he murmured silently to himself. Just move on. You sensed the vibration of the rain, you sensed the crack of the thunder. You can’t see us. He watched its massive shovel-like protrusions dig into the rock around it, crunching and cracking it like it was nothing. Please, fucking move on.

Bobby tapped out a message. [Do you want me to stop pinging?]

Oh shit, he’d been sending out a signal all this time? “Yes,” Kieron tapped back. He’d forgotten about that…and that might be the thing that had guided whatever ship this was to them. The General’s people were looking for their rogues—Kieron vaguely hoped that the fact that they were still searching, this far from the closest edge of the plateau to their home base, meant they’d missed Carlisle and the rotten old husk she kept faith with.

Or maybe they were retaken, and she’s being tortured right now while he gets medical care. Or maybe they were eaten by a fucking tunneler, and the ship did pick up on your signal, and it would have left you alone if you hadn’t let Bobby go at it for so long.

It was too late for regrets. Kieron tucked Bobby under his free arm and hunkered down a bit closer to the rock. They just had to wait it out. As long as it didn’t fly right over the top of them, the odds of the ship finding them were low, even with their scanners—it was too wet and cold out for infrared to do much for them. As soon as the ship gave up, they could climb back up to the top of the ridge, away from the tunneler, and move on. Then they could—

Crunch—SMASH! Kieron bolted upright, turning to stare at the tunneler. Or rather, at where the tunneler had been. It wasn’t there anymore, but it took less than a second to realize where it had gone when the rock they were clinging to shuddered.

“Fuck,” Kieron whispered. “It jumped.” Or it might have just fallen from one side of the canyon to the other, if its body was long enough. “Fuck, fuck.” The tunneler wasn’t visible yet, but Kieron knew it was climbing up toward them. They couldn’t stay here.

But they couldn’t get back up on top of the ridge, either. They might be faster than a tunneler—and that was a big if, on the slippery rock—but they couldn’t outrun a ship. If they saw them, if they opened fire…maybe they could slide sideways, or down the other side to get away from the tunneler. But if it came after them, especially once they were downhill from it, there’d be no escape.

[Papa, it’s okay. I can help.]

Kieron blinked, only just realizing he’d been on the verge of hyperventilating. Stars, how could he be so exhausted and so keyed up at the same time? “What do you mean, Bobby?”

[I can move the tunneler.] Bobby pulled out of Kieron’s hold and onto the rock, wiggling nimbly. [I can make it chase me!]

Kieron stared at the little bot, aghast. “Absolutely not!”

[I think it will work.]

“We’re not separating.” After a second, Kieron amended, “Unless I’m stuck and it’s the only way for you to survive.”

[No!]

“Yes.” Fuck it, they were going to have to run for it. Kieron gathered the rope in his fist and began to climb back up to the ridge, moving even faster once he made out the edge of those iron-dark mandibles appear below them. “Shit, let’s go.” He was almost at the top when the brilliant yellow of a search light, bright and ominous, shot overhead. “Shit!”

[Plan B, Papa.] Bobby moved a little farther down the rock wall.

“Bobby, wait—”

But it was too late. Kieron watched as a little piece of the bot rolled downhill, bouncing merrily, until it was at the same level as the tunneler.

Then it exploded.

It wasn’t a big explosion, technically speaking. Kieron only perceived it as big because he’d been in near-silence for so long now, but it seemed like an enormous crack rent the air as the bot-bomb went off. The tunneler, which had made it a few feet closer to them, didn’t like it either—it reeled backward, mouthparts snapping as it tried to figure out why it was under fire. It was, Kieron had to admit, a good distraction.

Now if only they could capitalize on it. “Come on,” he said, reaching a hand up toward the top of the ridge. All he needed to do was unloop the rope, and they could start their scramble. “We’re going sideways, okay? We just need to—”

[It’s coming back!]

Damn it, the tunneler was coming back. Kieron had hoped it might drop off completely, but it had apparently decided to double-down on known prey rather than waste time on an enemy it couldn’t find. Before Kieron could respond, Bobby sent another piece of himself toward the creature. The explosion was percussive, but the tunneler wasn’t as distracted this time.

[I need to make a bigger bomb.]

“You’ll run out of parts,” Kieron argued. The tunneler was moving again. They’d never be able to outpace it going sideways.

Screw it. He picked Bobby up, hauled them up onto the ridge, and swung the rope around his neck. “We’re running.”

Easier said than done. Even with adrenaline rushing through him once more, Kieron was unsteady on his feet. It had been hours since he’d drunk or eaten anything, longer since he’d slept. Every ache and pain, every fracture, every effort he’d laid out over however many hours he’d been held by the General was catching up to him now. He got ten feet, stumbled, and collapsed down onto one knee. He saw the searchlight scanning in the distance and hoped, hoped, hoped it didn’t turn their way.

Scuttle-scuttle-scuttle… The tunneler was coming. Bobby released another microbomb, but it barely made the creature pause.

The searchlight suddenly flooded them. Kieron blinked against tears, the light far too dazzling. He needed to run but it was all he could do not to fall, and the tunneler was coming closer, and if it was a choice between being eaten, being taken captive once more, and falling to his death he genuinely wasn’t sure what he preferred right now, he was so tired and he had done everything so wrong and he was never going to see Elanus or Catie again—

A whip-thrum shot past him, and the tunneler screeched. Whatever had hit it, it did a lot more damage than Bobby; Kieron could hear the creature slide down the slope and over the edge, landing with a distant clatter. Bobby crouched beneath him, clinging to his leg, so no throwing himself off the ridge then.

The light was so close it was blinding now. He could hear the ship’s engine, hear the hum of its hatch door opening, hear the person inside it yell, “Kieron? Blobby?”

…Elanus?

And then the ship was close enough to swallow them up, warm arms reaching out to draw them inside, and Kieron was definitely in a dream, because the person holding them was Elanus, and Catie was shrilling with joy, and Kieron could finally let himself go and just…

Fall.