Reformation: Chapter Twenty-Five

Notes: New Reformation at last! I'm mostly over my damn cold at this point. Enjoy some Ferran and Jason. Also--comment on my contest post, let me give you a copy of my supervillain audiobook! C'mon, play along with me ;)

Title: Reformation: Chapter Twenty-Five

***

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ferran had long ago become accustomed to human-style parties. He was inevitably surrounded by curiosity seekers, some of them genuine in their interest, many of them looking for nothing more than a photo op or a chance to feel superior—or worse, feel entitled. Socializing was part of his work as an ambassador, and he bore it gracefully. Positioning himself as the center of attention allowed his husband to escape some of the more rigorous social niceties at these things, and Jason always made it up to him later.

Right now, Ferran was answering the same question for the fifth time tonight and making a mental list of the many, many things Jason would be owing him later tonight. “Yes, my quills do respond to my mood, and no, I would prefer that you not touch them, thank you.”

The woman facing him looked nonplussed, her bright golden hair floating around her head like thousands of tiny tentacles. “I thought that Perels liked touch! Your species has a reputation for being rather…open to that sort of thing.”

“Our youth certainly can be,” he replied calmly. “Especially when they’re on their post-adolescent tours, but I am part of an established relationship and save such liberties for my husband.”

If anything, the feel of her interest increased. Ferran resisted the urge to roll his eyes, a purely human reaction that he’d picked up over the years. “Well, I’d be more than happy to include your husband in any touching that happened between you and me.” She winked. “Shall we go and find him?”

Jason, come and rescue me before I’m forced to be rude.

On my way. His mental voice seemed—worried.

Is everything all right?

We have to leave. I’ll explain when we’re alone.

If both of them had been Perel, Ferran could simply have looked a little deeper into his husband’s psyche and divined whatever it was that had him so concerned. A psychic and empathic connection between spouses was the standard for their people, but no one had thought that Ferran and Jason would manage to develop the same thing. He was human, after all, and they weren’t notorious for their psychic abilities. They’d managed to build a strong connection anyway, but it wasn’t a typical one and didn’t behave that way.

Jason walked up behind him a moment later. The woman brightened. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear! Commander Kim, my name is—”

“You’ll have to forgive us,” Jason said, taking Ferran’s hand. “Something has come up that requires our immediate attention.” He turned away. Ferran went along gratefully, even though his own worry was growing.

“Enjoy the party,” he called over his shoulder before they were out of the ballroom. They walked in silence to the docking bay, but their minds were active with each other.

What is it?

A distress call. Our ship is the closest to handling it.

Ferran frowned. From whom?

Claudia Caractacus and her daughters.

Ferran was stunned. He remembered—vaguely—a plan that Garrett Caractacus had worked out, the equivalent of a mutual defense pact, between members of his family, the children, and those close to them. Ferran knew that he and Jason were on the list, but he’d never imagined they’d actually be called to act on it. Where are they?

Phracian Colony, above Kyres. The distress call has been going for the past five minutes. I conferred with Garrett and we can be there in under half an hour if we burn enough fuel.

Ferran tried to remember the details of the emergency protocol that had been set in place. They’ve abandoned their residence, then.

Their residence was destroyed. Local law enforcement found three bodies in the wreckage, none of them Claudia or the girls, but their bodyguard was there.

Ferran felt sick. And the other two?

Unidentifiable.

No one is unidentifiable in your modern society.

Jason’s forehead furrowed. These two were. It’s a dark op, pure and simple. They’ve undoubtedly got more people looking for the escape pod. We have to move fast.

They made it to their ship, got permission to leave and were in the air in record time, leaving behind the thronging party moon they’d been booked at and heading for the tiny Central System planet of Kyres.

“If there are people looking for the pod,” Ferran said, checking that their nav system was appropriately keyed in to the distress signal, “then they will certainly be on their guard against interference.”

“That’s true.”

“We won’t be able to get them without a fight.”

Jason leaned over and kissed Ferran’s temple. The strength of their emotional connection surged with touch, and Ferran felt himself calm as his husband’s equanimity swept over him.

Then he saw what his husband planned to do, and his calm vanished.

“That is a bad plan!”

“They won’t expect it.” Jason kissed him again, then went back to pulling on the thin suit that would provide a barrier between his body and the atmospheric suit that he’d layer over it.

“Because it isn’t sane.”

“Marines do these sort of ship-to-ship maneuvers all the time.”

“Between friendly ships, not enemy ones,” Ferran reminded him. “And what about the pod?”

“You’ll have to grab that while I’m dealing with them.”

“What if there is more than one of them?”

“Then we’ll handle it.”

Ferran narrowed his enormous amber eyes. “You are never this optimistic. Are you sick?”

“Just determined.” Jason reached out and stroked a hand over the small, soft quills at the edge of Ferran’s neck. “Imagine if it was Grennson. Wouldn’t we want someone to do everything they could to take care of him?”

“Of course,” Ferran whispered.

“And Miles is doing that, right now. The least we can do is look after his family in return.”

When Jason was right, he was right. Ferran turned back to the control. “We’re coming up on the location of the distress signal.”

“Slow us down, get us as close as you can. And when I give the signal, open the top airlock.”

“I will.”

***

The suit had been a gift from Ferran’s mother, part of a matched set. “To keep you safe while you explore the emptiness that is most of space,” she’d said, and whoever she’d commissioned them from, they’d done a fantastic job. It was close-fitting, with all the latest amenities to keep him from feeling the vacuum around him. Jason had thanked her, and then taken it to Wyl and had it modified to include some less-than-legal weaponry. Laser cutters, pulse emitters, a miniature gravitational tractor beam powered by a nuclear battery, even some old-fashioned vibro-blade in his gauntlets—it was stocked. Wyl had been amused.

“What, you’re going to storm another ship the old-fashioned way?”

“If I have to.”

“You do know that’s dangerous, right? I mean, the last person I heard of doing it was a cyborg, and even that’s just hearsay.”

Jason had shrugged. “I like to be prepared.” He would have called it overkill if he wasn’t so naturally inclined toward caution. As it was, he considered his extras adequate. Tonight would test that theory.

He’d been a part of dark ops in his distant military past—not participating directly, but hosting operatives on his vessels and running them from afar. Jason knew that the people going after Claudia and the girls wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than success. Even if the pod was hard to track, they’d stay in the area, trying and trying. Soon they wouldn’t have to try—they could just follow his ship’s trajectory and find them that way. Jason couldn’t let that happen.

We’re close. I’m homing in on the signal.

Good. Jason sent a little surge of pride through their connection to his husband—Ferran had come a long way in his piloting skills. And what about interference?

There’s one other ship in detectable range. It’s starting to close the distance.

Patch the coordinates through to my suit. A moment later a breakdown of their relative positions appeared in his visor. Jason patched his implant in, running the heavy math with his own mind. Three minutes to minimum approachable distance. He could do that. I’m going to use our ship as a launch pad when they get close. Open the airlock.

Jason…be careful.

I will be. A few seconds later, his suit firmed up as vacuum surrounded him. He pushed out of the tiny dorsal airlock, let the implant image overlay his natural vision, and assessed.

They were definitely being followed now. The ship was small but well-armed, rather anomalous for something the size of a trader. Ferran was keeping them on course for the pod, which wasn’t visible to the naked eye yet. A few more hundred yards, and Jason would be within range of deploying toward their tail.

If he was seen, he could be shot. The guns on that ship would turn him into frozen slurry in an instant. So as much as he wanted to take the direct route, he couldn’t. His body should be slight enough to slip under their radar, but he needed to avoid coming at them head-on. Which meant he needed to let their ship get close if he was going to swing around behind it.

Slow down.

If I slow much more, I won’t have time to get the pod aboard before they’re on top of us.

I’ll handle that, but I have to reach them first. He felt the ship’s velocity drop off, and attached a nanotube filament and reel from his back to the airlock. As long as he didn’t sever it accidentally, he should be able to reel himself back in to the ship. Jason took a deep breath, waiting for the perfect moment, and then carefully pushed off their ship.

His suit didn’t have thrusters, exactly, but he could redirect his spare oxygen into exhaust vents to give him some sense of direction. He floated, silently, toward the false trader. Damn, those guns were…big. Really big. Good thing they weren’t motion sensitive—a precaution against overzealous firing, smart for a ship meant to be doing covert work. Jason relaxed a little as he passed under the ship. Now all he had to do was get around to the back of it, locate the closest fuel port and—

Jason! They’re preparing to fire!

What? What?

Over the comm, they just said—they’re going to fire if I don’t transmit them the location of the pod! They can’t see it yet, I almost have it, but—

Don’t reply. Fuck going around the back. He was going to have to get friendly with the guns after all. Just—stall, I’ll take care of it. Jason activated his tractor beam and let it pull him onto the bottom of the ship. He adjusted the strength of it to allow for him to move, then began to crawl back toward the front. He could hear the guns adjusting, going from neutral to firing position and readiness. He moved faster, as quick as he could, using the vibroblades to gouge grips into the bottom of the ship that propelled him faster. He rounded the nose just as the guns began to fire.

Ferran!

We’re not hit! Jason shut his eyes for a split-second in sheer relief. It was a warning shot, but they’re going to fire again in ten seconds. Jason, I can see the pod, but I’m not going to bring them on board if we’re just going to be killed.

You’re not going to be killed. He crouched beneath the right-side gun, leveled his laser cutter up at the belly of it and turned it on high. The laser made enough of a hole that he could jam a pulse emitter into the gap, which began to break the hardened metal apart. The growing whine of an impending shot abruptly cut off.

He moved over to the left gun, doing the same thing. By the time he had the second emitter in place, the first gun had already shaken itself into pieces. Flashing lights on the ship’s hull indicated their state of emergency. Good.

It wasn’t enough to just disarm them, though. He had to disable them. They knew the energy signature of Jason’s ship now, and if they were desperate enough they might try to ram it before they could get up to speed. Jason situated himself right beneath the control cabin and turned his laser cutter on.

Ship shields were designed to combat laser systems. Big ships had big defenses in place, and lasers were considered a primitive means of fighting them. Little ships like this, though, while still shielded, weren’t nearly as tough. A powerful, focused laser with enough time could penetrate a hull, and Jason wasn’t going anywhere yet. It took five minutes, but when he felt the ship shudder beneath his hands, he knew he’d penetrated deep enough. He put his last few emitters into the subsequent hole, then pushed off and away. Let them fly with the hole that was about to erupt from their belly.

I’ve got them! Are you coming?

I’ll be there soon. Jason set his reel to bring him back. He kept his eyes on the ship, watching with cold satisfaction as it began to list. Their fuel storage had been compromised—excellent. The shaking was growing more pronounced—even better.

Where do we go now? To find Garrett? Ferran asked.

No. Nowhere in the Central System would be safe for them now. We go to Perelan.

An explosion in the enemy ship lit the darkness for a moment. A second, larger one followed. The shock wave helped push Jason along a bit faster.

At least we won’t be followed.

Reformation: Chapter Twenty-Four

Notes: Another new perspective--I'm jumping all over the dang place, huh? Keeps you on your toes! Not the most cheerful thing ever, but it moves the plot along ;)

Title: Reformation: Chapter Twenty Four

***

Chapter Twenty-Four

Once upon a time, Claudia had been a botanist. She had gone to school for it, graduated with honors, and gotten a job with one of the premier vintners of the Central System, on her home planet. She had planned to dedicate her life to the finer things in life—rare vintages, new breeds of grape for pressing, and testing flowers, herbs, and additives to see what would make the most fragrant, harmonious combination on the palate. She had had it all worked out.

That was before she met Miles Caractacus, at the time an active-duty general in the Federation fleet. She hadn’t met him on duty, though; Claudia had been hired as the sommelier for a party his mother was hosting, and had been required to attend it as well. Required, in those very terms—not invited. That wasn’t something the Lady of the house did. But despite the rudeness of her interactions with her hostess, Claudia had agreed. It was an important event, full of important people—the networking opportunities would be tremendous.

And then she met Miles.

He was older than she usually looked for in the people she was interested in, but he had a way of moving, of speaking—a brilliant vitality that drew her and every other person in the room into his orbit. But he’d been drinking a Hoffman red while eating an octopus skewer, which was just an offense to Claudia’s sensibilities. Before she could stop herself, she’d walked up, held out a new glass of wine—a delicate pale pink Winnemaker from the mountains of Delgado—and said, “I recommend you try this instead.”

Miles had looked at it doubtfully. “I generally prefer reds.”

“I understand, but a red like that is for drinking on its own. It destroys the flavor of food, particularly seafood. This wine will enhance it.”

Miles had smiled a little half-smile. “I’ll let you in on a secret.” He’d leaned in close to her ear. “I despise seafood, but my mother has it at every party. This wine is the only thing I’ve found that lets me get through a plate of it without gagging.”

Claudia had blushed, but managed to keep from laughing out loud. “I see. Well.” She’d drawn back and put the Winnemaker down on the nearest table. “In that case, let me get you a refill.”

“How about I come with you instead, and you can tell me more about what I could be drinking tonight?”

“Oh, please don’t let me take you away from your friends.”

“Nonsense.” He’d smiled politely at the people surrounding him. “They’re all perfectly capable of amusing themselves for a while.” He’d held out an arm to her. “Shall we?”

She’d gone with him to the bar, spent the rest of the evening at his side in easy conversation, and ended up spending the night with him. He’d left the next day and Claudia had figured that was it, a delightful interlude in her very normal life, but then he’d commed her. Kept in touch, despite the distance and the challenges, and after two years of mostly long-distance courtship, when he’d asked her to marry him, she hadn’t had to think twice.

It was wonderful. It was terrifying. It was more responsibility than she’d thought she could handle at first—wife of the governor? Wife of a senator? She came from a planet with fewer than a million settlers, for crying out loud! What did she know about organizing events or schmoozing with politicians or living a life in the public eye? And it wasn’t easy, even beyond that. Miles was still gone much of the time, and there were moments when Claudia missed him so badly she wept, but she never let on. Thank god Garrett had been around for most of her adjustment period, or she wasn’t sure how she would have come out of it sane. Who would have guessed that Miles’s son by his first marriage would end up as one of her best friends?

Then Claudia had Renee, and life became more beautiful. Through Garrett moving away and starting his own family, through Miles almost dying during an assassination attempt, through the birth of her second daughter Yvaine, Claudia had found her center. She had settled into her abilities, come to a reckoning with her life. She could do this. She could live and thrive and be happy, no matter what happened.

Circumstances were testing her resolve right now, though.

“Nooooo!” How could a six-year-old girl howl so loudly? “I don’t want to!”

“Well, you have to,” Claudia told her firmly. “You did it yesterday, Yvaine, why won’t you do it tonight?”

“Because look!” She pouted and pointed at her knee. “I have a scrape today. I can’t have a shower when I have a scrape.”

“I told you I would fix it. Five times. You’re the one who said explorers don’t use Regen.”

“They don’t.” Yvaine folded her arms stubbornly across her chest. “And they don’t take showers either.”

“Little explorers in this family do, if they want a story before bed.”

Yvaine’s mouth dropped open. “I have to have a story. I have to!”

“Then you better get in the shower, my dear.” Claudia waited while her daughter mulled that over in her mind, then finally—reluctantly—acquiesced.

“Fine. But when daddy gets back, no more showers. I’m having baths forever.” She flounced off in the direction of the bathroom, and Claudia straightened up with a sigh and looked over at her friend and bodyguard, Thérèse Tousaint.

“I’m sure you’re happy you got babysitting duty with me instead of following Miles now, aren’t you?”

“Considering where he’s going? Yes, I rather am,” Thérèse replied with a smile. “Besides, if you think your husband isn’t on babysitting duty with hundreds of cadets under his direct command, then you’re dreaming. I’ll go make sure she’s actually getting in the shower if you want to check on Renee?”

“Thank you.” Claudia found her older daughter in the living room of the bungalow they were currently living in, on the outskirts of a low-G tubular colony that projected from the surface of Kyres, a Central System planet—barely. It was a place billed as selling gentle, rehabilitative space to those suffering from transition illness or gravity sickness, both conditions that were more mental than physical, and untreatable by Regen. It was comparatively rural, but also moderately defensible, and bustling enough that Thérèse expected they’d be largely ignored.

Renee didn’t really seem to miss the crowds of Olympus, that much was clear. She was self-directed enough that leaving school had been as easy as anything, for her. Right now she was staring out the window and making notes on the glass screen.

“What are you looking at?” Claudia asked as she joined her daughter.

“See that ship right there?” Renee pointed at a decent-sized shuttle on the other side of the Ring Twelve. “It’s violating the timing clause.”

“How long has it been there?”

“Ten minutes! And the rules say that you can only leave your ship attached for personal loading and unloading not to exceed five minutes, because cargo is supposed to go through the ground docks.” Renee frowned. “It’s going to mess up the incoming traffic.”

“Hmm. What makes you so interested in it?”

“I’m doing a traffic census for my statistics class. I loaded my program into the visual computer system for our windows and set coded it to count all the makes and models and times, but when it throws up an outlier it alerts me. That ship—” she pointed again, “—is an outlier.”

Claudia was prepared to tell her daughter that sometimes allowances were necessary in life, but when she glanced at the ship again, she noticed that none of the dock’s light were flashing. Everything surrounding the shuttle was inert, standard green, like the ship itself wasn’t even there. Like it hadn’t even docked. Only there it was, and—

Claudia was moving before her thoughts could catch up with her, pulling Renee away from the window and turning off all the lights inside with a breathless command. The whole house went dark except for the emergency lights.

“Mom, what—”

“It’s just a precaution,” Claudia said before calling out, “Thérèse!”

She came out of the bathroom a moment later, holding Yvaine all wrapped in a robe on her hip. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a ghost ship out there.”

Thérèse’s expression went stony. “Where?”

“Straight across from us.”

“The Vacarra’s place. They’re away right now, but anything docked there should still have to follow protocol.”

“No acknowledgement by the docking mechanism itself, even though the lights are working. It’s been there over twice the usual allotted time, too.”

Thérèse nodded once. “Get to the pod.”

Claudia’s blood chilled. “Are you sure?”

“We’re not taking any chances. Get to the pod now. Two minutes, go, go.” She handed Yvaine, who was thankfully quiet, to Claudia before darting for the front door. Claudia took a deep breath, then turned toward her room, leading both her daughters along with her. She pushed the bed back into the wall, then pressed her hand to the center of the floor.

“Emergency protocol 99, initiate.”

When Claudia lifted her hand up again, the print remained, glowing green. A moment later the floor retracted, opening up to the door of the stealth pod beneath it. The escape pod was covered in a substance that made it invisible to light, radar, and emitted no radiation of any kind to follow. After launch, it would continue on the original course essentially dead in the water, but Claudia had a protocol to follow for that too.

“Mom…”

“Mama, what—”

“We can’t—”

“We’re not taking any chances,” Claudia said. “If it’s a false alarm, then we’ll—” The security system suddenly started to blare. Claudia turned wide eyes toward the door, where Thérèse appeared a moment later.

“They’re using acid-laced micro-explosives, trying to melt through the wall around the door rather than blow it up,” she said grimly. “They want you alive. Get in the pod, now!” Renee clambered down into the little black pod, then reached up for Yvaine. Claudia handed her youngest over, then looked back to her friend.

“Come on, we can all leave together.”

Thérèse shook her head. “Someone has to cover the energy signature of your escape.”

“They’re not looking for that right now, they’re trying to break in! We have time, it’ll fit four!”

“If they’re good enough to get this far without being noticed, then they’ve already seen more than we know.” She looked grim, but determined. “Get in there and leave immediately. Remember, don’t send out the signal until you’re at least twenty-four hours out.”

“No.” It didn’t make sense. Or rather, it did, but it didn’t seem like it could be real. Even with the scent of the acid at the door, the low thud of the micro-explosives digging deeper and deeper, Claudia couldn’t quite believe it. She couldn’t lose Thérèse. They had been friends almost as long as she and Miles had been married. “No, please—”

“Claudia, go!” Thérèse turned and vanished into the hall, and a moment later the security alarm said, Warning: Structural Damage Detected. Structural Damage Detected. Evacuation Required.

They had to go. There was no choice. Claudia lowered herself into the pod, then shut the hatch. Vaguely, she was thankful her girls both seemed too shocked to speak—she didn’t think she was capable of comforting them right now. She repeated her instruction—emergency protocol 99—and the pod obeyed. A moment later, they fell through the bottom of the bungalow and out into space, heading away from the planet.

A moment after that, the bungalow exploded.

Reformation: Chapter Three

Notes: Have some happy married person sex! I mean, it's a flashback, but it's still nice. Also, plot.

Title: Reformation: Chapter Three

***

Chapter Three

 

Garrett wasn’t panicking.

Panic wasn’t something he did. Panic was for people who didn’t know how to handle the unexpected. Panic was for people who got caught off-guard. Panic wasn’t for someone who had a contingency for almost everything. Garrett wasn’t panicking―he was being concertedly concerned.

Jonah’s call was late. Garrett let it go for a while, but after an hour, he called Jonah’s personal comm. No reply, just the message machine. Then he tried the house, but apparently the power had been out. So, a storm? The colony was shielding, interfering with the comm arrays? Garrett tried the comm on Jonah’s ship just to check, but instead of a blank signal, he got a steady dot dot dot-dash dash dash-dot dot dot: the SOS call signal, a universal cry for help. That could mean a lot of things, though; it wasn’t necessarily that the ship was disabled. He tried Jezria Dowd, an old friend and Pandora’s former governor, and again got nothing.

What the fuck was going on?

Three hours and two hacked Federation comm satellites later, and Garrett finally managed to bring up a broad energy signature for Pandora. If there was a bad storm, then he should be seeing almost nothing of the colony itself, and maybe a dozen personal ship docked at the tiny space station above the planet. Instead he saw…

Garrett blinked, then counted again. Almost thirty mid-sized energy signatures, all of them active, none of them big enough to be the space station. Which meant that there was no space station. Pandora’s Eye, it had been called. Well, now it looked like Pandora was blind.

Garrett was dimly aware of his heart rate increasing, but he ignored his sympathetic nervous system’s response to his unacknowledged stress and kept looking at the energy signatures, searching for anything that would serve to identify the ships milling around above the colony. He read streams of data that could only be live fire, most of it seeming to splash off the barrier below. Pandora City was equipped with an energy shield that could hold off the worst storms the planet had to offer. If there had been time, one of the engineers could have modified it to reflect, or at least reduce, the impact of the plasma fire. If Garrett had been there, he could have done it in under ten minutes. If he’d been there.

 

“You could come with me.” Jonah’s hand stroked Garrett’s arm with absent tenderness as they lay together in bed. Touching Garrett like this was unconscious for Jonah, something he didn’t even think about before doing. Garrett thought about it, though. He felt every brush, catalogued every kiss and hoarded them like credits. He didn’t mention it to Jonah, in case it made his husband self-conscious, but it was one of his favorite things about him. Expressing his love came so easily to Jonah, it made it that much harder for Garrett to disappoint him.

“I can’t. I’m sorry,” and he genuinely was, “but with the election coming up, I really have to be here.”

Jonah sighed. “You’re not even runnin’ for office, you get that, right?”

“I know, but I might be able to tone down some of the violent rhetoric, and all this stupid business about not being able to vote if you don’t have an implant. It’s a last-ditch effort by the Central contingent to disenfranchise colony voters who can’t afford embedded implants, and I’m not going to let—”

Jonah laughed. “Oh my lord, I know, darlin’. I know. I’ve been hearin’ you talk about it for months now.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I get it. I shouldn’t be complaining. I’m just gonna miss you, that’s all.”

“I’ll miss you too.” He would. Garrett could barely breathe when he thought about it, being separated from his husband for months at a time. He was on the verge of asking Jonah to stay, but that wasn’t fair. Jonah wanted to be useful, and running much-needed supplies out to Pandora did that for him. Garrett had been selfish with their lives for long enough. He could let someone else have their way.

For a while, at least.

Garrett rolled on top of his husband, straddling his waist and grinding his ass down against Jonah’s groin. It had barely been ten minutes since they’d finished their last round, but he felt Jonah’s soft, sticky cock begin to thicken against his bare skin.

“Darlin’,” Jonah groaned, moving his hands to Garrett’s waist and stroking his sides. “You tryin’ to kill me?”

“I’m just making sure I give you some fond memories,” Garrett said lightly, but he kept moving, rubbing up against Jonah and getting both of them hard again, fast. He leaned in for a kiss that quickly went from sweet to hot, soft lips to clashing tongues. “And something to look forward to returning to,” he gasped when they separated for a moment.

“You could never fuck me again and I’d still look forward to comin’ back to you every time,” Jonah groaned. “Don’t mean you can’t fuck me now, though,” he added, and Garrett reached back and positioned him at his entrance. “Darlin’, wait—”

“It’s fine,” Garrett assured him. “I’m still good from last time, I’m good. I want it like this.” The penetration stung a little, but he was still relaxed and slick inside, and too soon he sat flush to his husband’s hips, moaning, rocking back and forth as he took Jonah as deep as he could.

“Sweetheart.” Jonah leaned up on one hand and pulled Garrett into a kiss. Their whole torsos were flush together now, Garrett’s cock pressed tight to Jonah’s stomach. “This what you need?”

Garrett nodded jerkily. “Yeah.” This and more, every day for the rest of forever. Garrett had long ago come to terms with his greed when it came to his family, but Jonah had a way of making that vice seem like a virtue, because he was so happy to give Garrett everything he could. Their life together, their son, every hope that Garrett had for the future: all wrapped up in the generosity of this one, single person. It made being less honorable than Jonah bearable, when Garrett knew he was wanted anyway. “Like this.”

They shifted so Jonah could lean against the wall, which Garrett softened with a quick touch to the control panel. He barely moved, just enveloped Jonah like if he tried hard enough he could subsume him, and Jonah held him tight, hitching his hips just enough to give them some friction. It was slow, drawn-out and delicious, the sort of sex Garrett hadn’t even known he could have until he met Jonah. It was less about the heat and spark of getting off fast and more about being close, joyful with and in each other, a long goodbye for their minds and hearts.

Jonah finally came with a hitching sigh, and Garrett leaned back just far enough to slide his hand between them and stroke himself off. They moved flat onto the bed again, and Garrett shut his eyes and soaked in the perfection of how he felt right now. He’d need to recall the feeling a lot over the next few months.

Jonah kissed his shoulder. “Love you, darlin’.”

 

Garrett couldn’t remember whether he’d said it back or not. He could remember everything else about that night with perfect clarity, but he couldn’t remember saying “I love you.” Not that Jonah didn’t know, of course he knew, but still…

An incoming comm drew him out of his fugue. Garrett blinked and accessed the call. “Claudia?”

“Garrett, what’s going on?”

“Where? With what?”

“With Miles!”

Miles?  “What are you talking about?”

“He got an emergency message from Federation Central Command calling him to report in! They sent a ship to take him down to Olympus―he left five minutes ago. The message didn’t explain anything, not a damn thing, just said he had to show up or risk court-martial.”

Garrett frowned. “They can’t court-martial him, he isn’t active duty.”

“Could that be changing?” Claudia asked tentatively.

“I don’t―” See how, he wanted to finish, but all of a sudden Garrett could see exactly how his father’s duty status might be changing. “Call your aides on-planet,” Garrett told his father’s wife. “Get them to the command office as fast as possible, so Miles has some backup on site. Get them started on filing a public records request for everything that’s happening to Miles right now, and get them in touch with the legal team. We need to get everything that’s going on into the public sphere, and we need the reveal to be as fast as possible.”

“Is it President Alexander?” Claudia didn’t wait for him to reply. “It is; it has to be. He’s making his move now, before the election. He’s getting Miles out of the way somehow.”

“And I think I know where he’s sending him,” Garrett muttered, staring balefully at the energy signatures swanning through space over Pandora. “You and the girls should get away from here.”

“Where would we go? Where’s out of Alexander’s reach? And I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s happening with Miles.”

“Fair enough.” For a moment Garrett’s throat ached with the urge to tell Claudia what was happening over Pandora, to share his suspicions with a sympathetic ear. Now wasn’t the time for dwelling on potentials, though. Garrett needed more information, and fast. “I’ll contact you as soon as I know something, all right?”

“All right. Thank you, Garrett.”

“I’m always here for you. You’re family.” He ended the call, then started another one.

There was still one member of his family he hadn’t talked to, and Garrett wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else without knowing Cody was safe. If what he thought was happening was verified, then the Academy wouldn’t be safe enough.

He needed to pull Cody out now, before it was too late.

 

 

Vignette: The Academy: Family Time

Notes: Okay, this wasn't the vignette I was planning on writing. I was planning on giving you smut and then plot happened. Introspective, character-building plot with someone who isn't one of the biggest characters, but I was thinking about his situation and decided it needed some exploration. You can see where Garrett gets a lot of his predilections, honestly. So I give you Miles, and the promise of another vignette soon. With smut! 99% sure!


Title: Vignette: The Academy: Family Time

***

 

It was the sort of evening that Miles had given up on lately, the kind where he had almost his entire family with him. The Federation senate was on a surprise recess, ostensibly to give senators a chance to go home and speak with their constituents about the massing independence legislation, but Miles knew that was just a front. The truth was that the latest political spin was going against President Alexander, and he needed the time to regroup and figure out what the hell he was going to do about his little brother.

“Driven crazy by his desire for approval,” pundits said on their holo-shows, hosting psychiatrists and nodding their heads sympathetically.

“A sign of the president’s failure to lead within his own household, never mind the entirety of Federation space,” Alexander’s opponents said, although that was a tactic that Miles himself had avoided. He knew better than anyone that sometimes family was more complicated than you might want, and he wasn’t going to cast any stones that might lead people to scrutinizing his own son in even more miniscule detail.

“All a ploy to distract us from the fact that the person Kyle Alexander was supposed to have murdered was actually an interstellar psychic assassin under the president’s thumb!” the conspiracy theorists shrieked, and it was amusing and more than a little troubling that they were the ones who were closest to right this time around. Regardless, despite how President Alexander and his powerful political allies had tried to keep the situation quiet, Kyle Alexander was still news. Big news.

If one of the side-effects of that was that Miles got a much-needed reprieve from wrangling in the senate and the courts so he could come, quietly and secretly, to see his family, well. He wasn’t going to say no. It had been months since he’d seen his girls, and Claudia had looked tired and stressed when he first saw her. Miles shut his eyes for a moment, trying to purge the image from his mind.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?” he said, turning and looking at his youngest daughter, tucked in close to his side. Yvaine was still small enough that she fit perfectly under his arm—Renee was starting to get tall, her head nearly reaching his shoulder now. His girls were growing up, and he was missing it. Again. Just like he had with Garrett.

It’s different this time, Miles told himself. The girls still had their mother, and Claudia understood the demands on Miles’ life. He called every day, he made sure they were someplace safe and beautiful, made sure they had access to other families with kids their own age, and he made their security staff as unobtrusive as possible. Basically everything he hadn’t remembered to do for Garrett as a child until his son was in a hospital. It’s different.

“When can I go to Perelan?”

Ah, right. His girls were Perel-mad right now thanks to a recent documentary done on their planet, and the fact that their cousin—the best analogue for Cody that any of them had found was cousin, since the girls didn’t think of themselves as his aunts—was going there right now had lifted their admiration to obsessive heights. Garrett was just finishing a call with Cody, actually, and each of the girls had had their chance to speak and ask questions. Talking to Grennson was a special treat for them, and the giggles had echoed through the house as they tried to learn how to say “hello” in Perel. Their voices weren’t anywhere near deep enough, and they ended up sounding more like purring catterpets than Perel, but they’d had fun.

He brushed her dark hair out of her face, eyes like his own staring sleepily up at him. Both his girls looked far more like their mother, but there were touches of his face here and there. “When you’re a little older, baby.”

“Like Cody’s age?”

“Maybe then.”

Yvaine thought about that. “But he’s already old! It’ll be forever before I’m that old.”

Oh lord, if Cody was old now then that officially made Miles ancient. “Well, baby—”

“Renee! Wash that out of your hair right now and get to bed!”

“Mom!” Renee protested, walking backward into Miles’ study even as she kept arguing. “I’m just figuring out how to make it look like quills, it’s not like it’s dangerous!”

Miles hoped not. His daughter’s long hair was separated into thousands of waving strands, held aloft with what looked like a mild electric charge coming from her jury-rigged headband. She hadn’t stopped there, though. The strands looked…oh, what was the old Earth word…shellacked.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping, not experimenting with new hairstyles,” Claudia said as she followed her daughter into the room. Yvaine was already on her feet, poking curiously at her sister’s low-hanging locks. Renee batted her hand away, which naturally made Yvaine even more determined to bury her fingers in the slender spikes. “Both of you,” Claudia added as she caught sight of their youngest.

“Mom, quills are an important part of Perel physiology and interpersonal communication, this is for science,” Renee insisted, still swatting at Yvaine.

Claudia crossed her arms. “You’ve been listening entirely too much to Tiennan. Miles,” she turned to him expectantly and he knew he had to step in. Renee also stared at him, looking prepared to argue.

“Quills are an important means of expressing emotion to Perels,” Miles said, standing up and looking Renee’s efforts over. “But they have to be mobile in order to be effective. Right now a Perel would probably think you were offended or shocked, and you wouldn’t want to leave them with that impression.” He squeezed Renee’s shoulder. “You can experiment more with it after classes tomorrow, honey. Right now you need to get clean and get to bed.”

“And you can do it to me tomorrow!” Yvaine cried. “I want quills too! Mommy, make Renee do it for me too!” Her sister didn’t look too enthusiastic at the thought.

“Additional test subject,” Miles whispered to her, and then Renee smiled.

“Good point. Okay,” she said. “I’ll cleanse and go to bed. Dad, you have to come say goodnight, okay?”

“I will, honey.”

Claudia sighed but accepted her daughter’s partial acquiescence. “Go on, then.” The girls ran down the hallway toward their rooms and Miles reached for his wife’s hand, stepped close and kissed her gently. “Quills are pretty mild in the grand scheme of things,” he offered.

“I suppose,” she replied, winding her arms around his waist. “As long as she doesn’t use toxic chemicals on her little sister, I’m happy. I’m just…I don’t know, a bit tired.”

He hugged her tight. “I know.”

“And I feel terrible complaining to you about anything when you’ve got so many more things to worry about than I do, Miles, and I’m so happy that you’re back with us. I just wish you could stay a little longer.”

“I feel the same way.” A week here and there, a standard month this time around—it still wasn’t enough, but Miles couldn’t relinquish his responsibilities. He had millions of people to think about, to fight for, and he couldn’t give that fight up. Not yet. “I’d be with you if I could. I’d bring you back with me if it was safe.”

Claudia smiled and kissed him again. “I know.” She sighed and stepped back. “I’m going to go check on the girls, they’ve already said goodnight to Garrett. Meet you in bed?”

“I’ll be there soon.” Miles watched her go and flexed his hands, feeling the extra warmth from her body dissipate into nothingness. He ached to go after her, but he did have a few things to talk to Garrett about first. Miles sat back down and began parsing through the news feeds flashing across his tab, sending his personal assistant notes about the ones that could be relevant to their cause.

A few minutes later Garrett came into the study and flopped down onto the couch next to Miles. “I take every bad thing I ever said about myself back. I was a saint as a child. An absolute saint.”

“And what is it that makes you saintly now?” Miles asked. “Because I seem to recall some distinctly wicked moments.”

“Maybe, but I’ve never hijacked an ambassador’s ship controls for the sake of performing dangerous experiments in my bedroom. Acid, Dad. Ten was experimenting with acid. Ze also completely rewrote the power supply conduits in order to facilitate localized zero-gravity conditions. No, you’re right, I’m not a saint, my kid is. And so is Jason for not throwing Ten in the brig when he found out.”

“Diplomatic vessels don’t have brigs.”

“I’d jury-rig one just for hir.”

“Ten adores you.”

Garrett exhaled loudly. “Ten adores my husband, ze only respects me.”

“I think in the long run, respect is going to get you further.”

“I think in the long run, the only person capable of exerting any influence on Ten is Cody. Thank fuck for that, too, because otherwise ze’d probably invent something that would blow up the universe just to see if ze could.”

“Don’t underestimate your own influence,” Miles advised him. “Being there for hir as a family is important, especially since ze’s never really had that before. You matter, kiddo.” Before Garrett could prevaricate, Miles changed the subject. “When’s Jonah getting in?”

“Sometime tonight, late.”

“It’ll be good to see him.”

Garrett scoffed. “You’re telling me. I’m glad he feels useful now but I really hate that it took sending him out across the universe to manage that.”

“He’s a Drifter in his bones, Gare. He’s got a wanderlust that has nothing to do with not being happy with you,” Miles assured his son. “I didn’t get a chance to bring this up earlier, but any word from Tamara?”

“She’s been in touch with Admiral Liang, but nothing new. Kyle’s still destined for prison, it’s just a question of which one. Either way, though, I’ve got someone on the inside.”

“Good,” Miles said. “Because as much as I like fighting the good fight, I’d like to retire again one of these days. We’re going to need Kyle Alexander if there’s ever going to be anything approximating peace again.”

“I know. I’m on it.”

“You put me to shame, kiddo.”

“Well, I am brilliant,” Garrett said with a mocking grin.

“I know you are.” Miles leaned in and kissed his son’s forehead, politely ignoring the surprise on Garrett’s face, then stood up. “See you tomorrow.”

“Right…”

The girls were already in bed when Miles got to their rooms, Renee’s hair freshly cleaned and Yvaine barely able to keep her eyes open. He kissed each of them on the cheek, turned the lights down and watched a dim hologram of the forests of Perelan spring into existence around them. Fluorescent beetles crawled along the floor, and a bright blue one slowly made its way up a tree that sprouted from the middle of Yvaine’s bed. She hummed happily as she watched it.

“Was this your idea?” Miles whispered to his older daughter.

“Yeah. Do you like it?”

“It’s beautiful, honey.”

“I want to go there someday,” she said. “Cody gets to do everything cool.”

Oh baby… If only she knew. “Someday,” he promised. “You’ll see it for yourself.”

“Thanks, Dad.” He left them to be lulled to sleep by the gentle movements of beetles and headed for his own bedroom, where Claudia was waiting for him in bed, reading an antique paperback. She was just as beautiful as when he first met her, almost twenty years ago now. Regen kept her youthful, but Claudia still had the same spirit, the gentleness and the strength that had attracted him then, the first time he fell for a woman since his first wife.

Claudia looked up at him and smiled. “Come to bed.”

“I still have to clean up.”

“Clean up after,” she suggested, setting her book aside and stretched suggestively.

After…oh.

He could do that.