Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Seventeen, Part One

 Notes: Did I say we were back to plot? We're almost back to plot!

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Seventeen, Part One

***

Chapter Seventeen, Part One

 

Three days of running revised location algorithms, all greatly refined thanks to the fleet of probes guided by Catalina, had left them with only one truly viable spot to check for the remnants of his and Zakari’s old ship in. It was within a reasonable amount of drift from his last known location, it allowed for all the impact variation the ship could have withstood without breaking apart, and it was relatively protected from the rest of the field. If Zakari wasn’t there, then he wasn’t anywhere.

The thought rested with odd quietude in Kieron’s mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel the importance of such a discovery, or look forward to finding out his friend’s fate once and for all. It was more that…well, there was only so much anticipation and exertion he could take at any one time, and all of that personal bandwidth was being fully occupied right now by Catalina and Elanus. They’d kept him so busy, working on Lizzie and remembering to eat and sleep and watching light shows in the dark of Hangar Five that, well…resigned despair just didn’t get the chance to find purchase inside of him. Which, he knew, was surely much of the reason the pair of them had been so insistent on keeping him occupied, but he couldn’t find it in himself to resent it.

He knew better than to try, too. Otherwise he might end up cornered in his room again, having affection and guilt forced on him in equal measure.

“It’s going to be a tough spot to reach,” Elanus commented, tapping the point of his chin with one long finger. “Doable, but tough. Baby, you’ve been working on your new defensive laser array, right? How long until full implementation?”

“Tonight!”

“Pull the other one, you only started that project two days ago.”

“Tonight, Daddeee!” Catalina was insistent, the whine evident both over the implant and in the air of the hangar. Listening to her in two different frequencies had been a little overwhelming at first, but Kieron was quickly getting used to it.

“Since when have you been able to implement system-wide hardware changes in under a week?”

“Since noooooow.”

“She’s getting so big,” Kieron whispered just loud enough for Elanus to hear him.

“Shut up,” Elanus snapped, but there was no real heat to his voice. “She’s big when I say she’s big. Until then, she’s my baby.”

“Kids don’t work that way.”

“I’mma biiiig ship!” Catalina added, because of course she heard everything they said no matter how softly they said it. “Smart and faaaast!”

“I know you are, but—”

“Not a babeee!”

“You’ll always be my baby, and that’s final.”

Kieron headed off the useless argument before feelings could actually be hurt. That was something he knew how to do now—wild. “If you can get that upgrade done by tonight, then we can test it after some rest and head into the asteroid field at 0400. Does that sound good to you?”

“Mmm.” Suddenly Catalina sounded a little less sure of herself. “I don’t like it therrrre.”

Elanus didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow at Kieron. “I know,” Kieron said after a moment of wrestling with himself. “I don’t like it there either.”

“You doooo! You’re verrry brave. But it makes me scarrrred.”

Uh-oh, tread lightly. “It’s only natural that it makes you scared,” Kieron said gently. “You were brought here against your will and made to sit in the middle of that place for days. It must have been so exhausting for you to always been on the alert, especially with that awful guy calling the shots.”

“Heee’s down in the darrrk now, and I’mm with you and daddee, and I’m still scarrred.”

Down in the dark? It occurred to Kieron that he should probably be more interested in exactly where Deysan Mortiz had been held since he’d been taken into custody. Elanus had arranged everything—he’d had to, since Kieron had been more goo than person by the time he and Moritz had gotten back here. But he could focus on that later.

“I was scared too,” Kieron admitted. “It’s scary out there, extra scary when you have less control over your situation. But you’re going to have full control when we go out there next, Catie. I promise. I won’t make you do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” If he had to, he could finish fixing Lizzie in another seventy-two hours and take her out instead.

It would put the ship at the very limits of her capability to withstand radiation to go that far and back, but Kieron had no choice. The longer he waited, the longer the odds of finding anything left got.

“I don’t want to go.”

“Then you don’t have to,” Kieron said immediately. Elanus straightened, a look of alarm on his face. What? Had he thought Kieron was going to force Catalina to take him out there? “I’ll go in the Lizzie and—”

“I don’t want you to goooo.”

“I have to.”

“Baby, we talked about this,” Elanus said, gentle but firm. “You can’t tell other people what to do. Kieron said you don’t have to go, but he’s going. And I’m going to help him. No more argument about that.”

“But it’s not saaaafe!” Catalina wailed, and Kieron wished for the umpteenth time that he could hug her, just wrap her up in his arms and hold her tight.

“It’s as safe as we can make it, and—”

“It’s safest with meee, so I’m going toooo.”

Kieron and Elanus exchanged a confused glance. “I thought you said you didn’t want to,” Kieron said.

“I dooon’t!”

“Then—”

“But you’re going, and you’re safer with meee! So I’m going too! I want to be brave like you and Daddeeee!” She pushed the color orange through the implant—firmness, resolve, a little bit of fear but not enough for it to overwhelm her.

“Well then,” Elanus said, relaxing his spine a little. “I guess you are a big ship now, aren’t you?”

Catalina glowed with his praise. “Yesss!”

“And we’re going to make sure you’re a very safe ship too,” Kieron added. “So let’s make sure we have lots of time to test the laser array, okay?”

“Okay, Keeeeeron.” Catalina’s feed went dark as she refocused on her upgrades. Kieron sighed with relief and turned back to Elanus, only to find himself jerked out of his chair by the man, who was already marching them out of the hangar.

“What? What’s going on?” Had he fucked up? Was he about to get another lecture?

They only got as far as the hall before Elanus turned around, lifted Kieron onto his toes, and latched onto his mouth like it was his sole source of oxygen.

Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 Notes: A little more emotional resolution before we dive back into plot! Enjoooooy :)

Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

 

The shouting stopped when Kieron began wincing every other word, but the strong hand holding onto his arm as it towed him back to his rooms had a grip so tight that Kieron didn’t think he could get out of it as he currently was. If he hadn’t been coming off of surgery? No problem; Elanus was strong, but he wasn’t a fighter. Right now, though…

Kieron relaxed into the hold and let Elanus lead the way, closing his eyes to spare his brain some pain. The medbot hadn’t been kidding about overstimulation; even with Catalina’s help, the elevated sensory input left him throbbing, almost as though his brain was being scraped out to make room for all of the new equipment. It was easier to ignore everything but Elanus’s hand, the brisk tug as they walked down the hallway, the smell of Catalina’s fabricator clinging to his clothes…

Kieron stopped when Elanus did, let the other man pull him into the darkened room that they’d been sharing for a while now, and lay him down on the bed.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Elanus said, thankfully with a low voice now. “The lengths you go to to avoid acting like a human being with human needs. You should have told me you wanted the implant back in. I could have made that surgery go so much smoother. We could have prepared your room, prepared you better for it. Now Catalina’s pouting because she can’t talk to you through your feed without giving you a fucking nosebleed and can’t see you in person yet either.”

“Sorry,” Kieron whispered. It was the best he could do.

“Don’t say sorry, just do better.” Elanus pulled the blanket up over Kieron’s body. “What set you off, anyway?”

Kieron was too tired to dissemble. “Made her upset.”

“Who, Catalina? Because of—is this because of what you said about Moritz?” The silence must have been answer enough, because he sighed in that way that Kieron knew meant he was also rolling his eyes. “It was a minor slip-up, not the end of the world. If I had to get mad at everyone who inadvertently reminded my baby of what that asshole did to her, I would be mad at myself every hour of every single day.” He paused long enough to lie down and stretch out next to Kieron, delicately weaving his long fingers into the hair on the top of his head.

Kieron winced in anticipation of those fingers accidentally floating over his implant, but they avoided the entire back of his head, instead scratching in slow, rhythmic circles over the safe spots on his head. In ten seconds, Kieron felt his shoulders and neck relax. In thirty, he actually felt his scalp relax, something he hadn’t even known was possible. The awful pain finally began to ease.

“Closeness doesn’t preclude hurt,” Elanus finally said, effortlessly picking up the conversation. “We always hurt the ones we care about. As long as it’s accidental, that’s just something to deal with and move on from. If it’s deliberate, well, there’s therapy for that. But I know you weren’t being deliberate, and I know you care about Catalina.”

Kieron didn’t speak—he couldn’t, he didn’t want to do anything to restart his headache—but he sighed more deeply, his own little effort at affirmation.

“Yeah. Exactly. Honestly, there’s only so much room for rage in me, and I can’t spare any of it for being angry at you anymore. I can hardly even spare any of it for being angry at myself, and if anyone deserves to be punished as an accessory to Catalina’s torture, it’s me. I trusted a monster, and he abused that trust. Catalina has forgiven me, if she was ever really mad at me to begin with, but I’ll never quite be able to forgive myself.” He shrugged. “Which is fine, as long as I don’t dwell on it and learn from what I did wrong. Now.

“Here’s the part I want you to really get through that fucking thick skull of yours, okay? Take it as a fact or on faith or whatever you have to do, but get this: Catalina loves you. She’s still a child, and she reacts like a child, but she loves you. She doesn’t want you to hurt yourself over idle words or feel bad because of her. You’re her hero. Enjoy that for as long as you can, because every other parent I’ve ever met has reliably informed me that this phase doesn’t last for long.”

Kieron huffed. He didn’t deserve to be anyone’s hero, but…he didn’t get to tell Catie how to feel, either.

“Yeah, so, communication is important in any relationship, but especially with a child. No running away and doing dangerous, painful surgery on yourself without backup whenever you two get into a tiff.” Elanus brushed some of Kieron’s hair back behind his ear. “You stay and talk it out. Or take some time apart, then talk it out before you have brain surgery. Got it?”

Kieron hummed.

“Good. Now, you’re going to be miserable for a while without more painkillers, so how about I go grab you some, and some water, and you sleep the worst of this off?”

“M’kay,” Kieron managed.

“Good. Don’t go anywhere.” Elanus got up before Kieron could pinch him for that—honestly, where was he going to go—and left the room. He came back before Kieron could fall asleep, injected him with a painkiller that made everything go floaty, then put a straw to his lips so he could suck up water that he hadn’t even realized he’d needed before it sated his growing thirst.

“Time to sleep.”

“Mmm.” Kieron barely had time to turn his face into Elanus’s side before he did just that.

Waking up felt like being wiped clean. The pain was gone, but Kieron’s mind was clear too, which meant he’d probably been asleep for a long time. Elanus’s side of the bed was empty, but Kieron could read the imprint of his body there in the curve of the blanket, and smell his scent on the sheet. There was a full glass of water waiting for him, and a note on his tab: Try it now.

Try it…ah, his implant. It had gone into hibernation mode when he fell asleep. Kieron reached out with his mind and, a little gingerly, activated it. The old station overlay came into focus in his vision, complete with its new update, Catalina’s little pink eye. Kieron opened his implant to the main channel, and—

“Keeeeron!”

“A little quieter, baby.”

“Sorry, Daddee. Hi Keeron!”

Kieron smiled. “Hi Catie.”

Pink bloomed in swirls around the eye icon. “Come baack,” she said, sounding both eager and plaintive. “I miss yooou.”

“I miss you too.” Kieron heaved himself into a sitting position, then onto his feet. He drained the water in the glass. “I’ll be there in a minute, after I clean up.”

“Good,” Elanus interjected. His voice was almost the same over the implant as it was in person. “Then we can start talking about the algorithms you’ve got running to find Zakari while you get to work on Lizzie. Don’t think you’re getting out of that. You broke her, you fix her.”

Technically it was an asteroid field that had broken her while Kieron was risking his life for Catalina, but this was one of those times he knew it was best not to get caught up in the details.

No blog story post today because...

 This past weekend was a doozy. Two birthday parties for two different kids under 10, which means lots of participation, and Mother's Day. 

Also I tripped at the bottom of a staircase and fell down, cracked my phone screen, and twisted my ankle, so that happened too. Yay. It could be a lot worse, I don't think there's any permanent damage, but I'm icing and elevating and generally feeling a little blah, so...yeah. I needed a little break from the blog story (AT THE WORST MOMENT, I KNOW, THE FEEEEEEELS!!!). But I'll be back to it next week!

Thanks, darlins.

Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Sixteen, Part One

 Notes: Sometimes it's hard to allow people in close. It's especially hard when you grow up in a militaristic cult on a faraway planet with no parental guidance or love, but we're working on it!

 Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Sixteen, Part One

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part One

 

Even during the very best of times with Zakari and his family, Kieron wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced happiness quite like this. Zak’s kids had been so small when Kieron was around them, he’d been almost afraid of them—scared of dropping them or mishandling them or doing something ungentle that would leave a mark. Zakari had made fun of him for his overcaution, but Kieron knew better than to trust in luck. Sometimes the best thing you could do was create and maintain a little distance, and so as much as he loved those kids, the only person he let himself be really free with his affections with was Zakari, and only by mirroring. Back slaps, hugs, the occasional gentle punch to the shoulder—if Zak had done it, Kieron let himself do it. He never went beyond that, though.

Being with Catalina and Elanus was incredibly freeing in that way. Catalina was the perfect child in some respects because, well, she was almost impossible to hurt—in the traditional sense, at least. You couldn’t drop her on her head and give her a boo-boo, you couldn’t break one of her bones. Her bones were made of elaborate polymer metals that Kieron didn’t have the first clue of how to break down, and Elanus had built so many security features into her structures that even getting close enough to take a look would ultimately prove futile.

“Moritz really got past all of that?” Kieron marveled as he looked at the blueprint hovering in the air in Catalina’s projection area. She was helping Elanus make upgrades by showing off current pictures of her own…in a person, Kieron would have said viscera, but this was layers and layers of wiring and solid-state data and all sorts of other things that were well outside Kieron’s areas of expertise. “How?”

The blueprint abruptly vanished, and Catalina made a sad, whining sort of noise. Her lights dimmed, and her ports began to close.

“Aw, honey, don’t be upset,” Elanus wheedled even as he shot Kieron a “see what you did?” kind of expression. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Oh, right. Elanus had mentioned how trusting Catalina was. She’d probably let Moritz in herself, and been subsequently brutalized by him.

And he’d just gone and reminded her of that.

Kieron stood up abruptly. “I need to—go.” He did, he needed to go somewhere else, somewhere away from this little family unit that he was bumbling around at the edges of, like a satellite with an uneven orbit. Either he was going to crash and burn against one of them, or he was going to careen into the distance, cold and alone.

Better that he throw himself there.

Kieron went straight to the clinic and checked the program for replacing his implant. He let the medbot take samples and readings and finally, when the diagnosis came up “ready for implantation,” Kieron scheduled the procedure then and there.

“As you wish,” the clinic’s computer, which had a different voice from the rest of the station, said pleasantly. “Do you have a preference in painkillers and anesthesia?”

“Fast-acting and local only.” Kieron wanted this over and done with as quickly as possible. He needed to restore his full functionality, and he’d be out for at least a day if he let the medbot put him all the way under for the implantation.

“Would you care to inform your party of your procedure?”

“No.” Just…no.

“You will be required to have accompaniment for the following twelve hours after the procedure, to ensure that there are no side-effects. Do you have this accompaniment?”

“Yes.” It counted if they were in the same station.

“Please lie face-down in the Regen chamber. Your procedure will begin shortly.”

Kieron stripped down to his briefs, then got into the Regen chamber, which changed its topography to make a hole for his face and properly support his neck and back. He heard the medbot whirr into place, smelled the antiseptic it sprayed on the implant that he’d handed over to it earlier. It was just a few inches long, but would be set close enough to his brain stem that the procedure was a little risky.

“Please don’t move.” There was a brief sting where the medbot injected him with a local painkiller, and then everything above his shoulders started feeling rather…floaty. “How do you rate your pain?”

“Zero,” Kieron said dreamily.

“And now?” He could hear it moving above him, probably testing his body to ensure he really was completely numb, but he couldn’t feel a bit of it.

“Still zero.”

“Very good. This procedure should take no more than five minutes. Please inform me if you feel the need to move, and do not sneeze.”

No sneezing. Yeah. Smart. “Understood.”

Kieron relaced into the process. Being operated on was simple—not fun, but simple. He could see why some people got addicted to it, adding mod after mod and changing themselves so fundamentally that over time, you wondered if they were even the same person anymore.

They always were, of course. You could change the outside all you liked, but the inside never changed. Whatever was at the heart of you, that was what you would go through life with. People could lie to everyone else about it, they could even lie to themselves, but in the end the truth would always out.

Kieron was blunt and inelegant. He was suited to life on Cloverleaf Station, suited to an existence playing guardian to a rotating group of renegades who needed nothing more from him than a place to sleep, food to eat, and someone to keep them all from killing each other. He needed to remember that.

“Finished,” the medbot said, and Kieron blinked down at the blue lights glowing beneath him and wondered how it had been five minutes already. “Please wait another five minutes for the anesthetic to dissipate. Your painkiller has already been injected. You will need another injection in twelve hours.”

“Switch the implant on.”

“That is inadvisable so quickly after connection. Your central cortex has been understimulated for the past—”

“Switch it on!” Kieron insisted. It was time to get back to business as usual—no more of Catalina’s voice echoing through the room, no more getting distracted by her light shows. Time to buckle down.

“Switching on implant.”

It started like static—a fuzzy feeling that traveled from the back of his neck to the space right behind his forehead. Even with a painkiller, Kieron felt like his brain was about to throb right out of his skull. He pressed one hand to his head in a futile attempt to soothe the pain, didn’t dare open his eyes and risk seeing nothing but blackness, and then—

“Keeron? Keeron!”

Catalina was there, smoothing out the edges of the static, covering the harshness of the new connection like a warm blanket in his mind. Kieron opened his eyes and saw the stats overlay come up like it used to, but in the lower right corner was a new icon—a glowing pink eye. Catalina.

“You have some fucking nerve.”

Ah, right…the procedure was over, so the door to the clinic was open now. Kieron turned and looked at Elanus, who seemed on the verge of bursting a blood vessel.

Join the club.