A/N: This is, obviously, not the update of my fic "Speak, Friend, and Enter" you were looking for. Between moving house, job-searching, and being ill, my muse is being difficult on me both on that fic, and on others I've been working on. So, this was written as just a short thing to blow off some steam. I'm not even going to call it a fic – it's a character/family dynamic piece, inspired by all the fics on FFn that feature Grace having a daughter/foster-daughter/niece turn up on Pandora. And, once again, it was written to blow off steam and enjoy myself, so it's so very one-shot. Hope you get some entertainment out of it anyway!
Liberty on Pandora
It's said that happy, successful people don't go to frontiers. My mother was successful, but she sure as hell wasn't happy, so to Pandora she went. Because misery loves company, she dragged me along as well.
Okay, so that's a little harsh; I was nineteen, I had a choice. I'd graduated MIT the year before, so I could do post-grad, I could work...But while being gifted has its benefits, a social life isn't one of them. I didn't have enough friends to tie me to Earth when there was Pandora up ahead. And family? Hah. The Augustines might have been old money, but most of it wasn't going my way, and my nearest relations besides my mother were second cousins. My father doesn't count, as I have no idea who the hell he is. Given my mom's college politics, I suspect he's some anti-corporate terrorist in jail somewhere (yeah, I was a college-baby – my birth must have played havoc with mom's study schedule. When I'm feeling generous, I like to think that it was sleep-dep that lead to mommy dear calling me Liberty). I liked the mental image too much to actually try and find out the truth.
Besides, there were going to be aliens on Pandora. And computers.
Even I could admit that the aliens were cool.
– –
Also, I was nineteen. People are idiots when they are nineteen.
– –
Sometimes, I think that the RDA was bribed to take my mother on-board. Not by her, because her pride is stronger than her ambition, but by the other academics. I mean, sure, palaeobotany is a tiny field, but I'm sure it felt smaller with her in it.
They could have pooled their resources.
– –
Look, seriously, the Marines were the only ones who actually had people in my own age bracket when I arrived, and they are fit. They also have gadgets that get legitimately knocked around and hot-wired.
It doesn't take a degree in psychology to work out who I was going to be spending time with.
– –
We both look similar and don't, my mother and I. We're tall, dark-eyed, with curly hair; mine is longer than hers, a darker red. We both wear glasses, although I wear mine more. My skin is brown, Ethnicity Unknown, to her Caucasian white, so there's a difference.
There are others, too, I mean, you wouldn't confuse us if you saw us standing next to each other. Which we don't really do anymore. It's easier on the ears if we don't even try and talk to each other.
– –
Estranged has such a lovely ring to it, don't you think? It rolls off the tongue, sounds sophisticated and precise instead of petty, messy, empty.
– –
I could have left. I have enough experience to be extremely employable, I'd tinkered and perfected and invented systems and codes and...
I liked it on Pandora, liked it at Hell's Gate. There is sex and booze and a steady circulation of people, there are gadgets and computer systems and all the stresses and strains of the environment...
I like it here, and after fifteen years, where the hell else would I go?
(Of course, if my mother ever finds out that I actually know how Parker Selfridge is in bed, I might just take the next shuttle back to Sol's solar system, and find out what the job market is like on Mars.)
