A/N: Well, here it is: the highly-anticipated sequel to "Pleakley's Story." SMYZZYX!!! Pleakley's father returns after abandoning a pregnant Vay thirty years earlier. Leera is pregnant now, and Pleakley resolves to be the world's best dad, something his own father never was. But as the birth of their child approaches, domestic turmoil threatens the ohana, and as if poor Pleakley doesn't have enough to deal with already, an old enemy resurfaces… an enemy presumed dead and defeated… Enjoy and please R&R!
CHAPTER ONE:
WEEKENDS
It was a Saturday. The second sun was just rising over the eastern hemisphere of Iyerba when Vay Pleakley and her twin brother Gidgel started to work on tuning up the 12047-XM vintage police cruiser. Gidgel had been a mechanic for the Federation's military fleet for nearly thirty years, and now and then he would bring home a small ship or cruiser as a trade-in and make repairs and renovations to it. Vay often joined him in his hobby, especially when he brought his current project over to her house to work on. This he did whenever his own garage and front yard were not sufficient workspace. As they were usually occupied by the hollowed-out hull and debris of another 'project,' Gidgel tinkered over at his sister's house more often than not.
This particular weekend had the feel of any other weekend, but there was something slightly off about it. Vay sensed this the moment she stepped outside to greet her brother.
"Well have a look at this baby!" Gidgel shouted happily as he towed the old cruiser up the driveway.
"Is that what I think it is?" Vay asked as he climbed out of his ship.
"If you think it's a twelve-o-four-seven XedMod, you're right. I didn't think there was one of these babies left in the entire galaxy, but Chuzer pulled me aside the other day and showed her to me. Been keeping it in the Area Nine storage. Pretty tight security down there. This beauty probably hasn't seen the light of day in over fifty years!"
Vay gasped in amazement as she admired the vintage vehicle.
"And Chuzer actually let you have it?" she asked incredulously. Gidgel nodded and started limping around the cruiser. Vay followed, looking it over.
"Myep. At a price, of course. Traded in my sixty-seven VL-three for it."
"You traded in your Turian high flitter? Gidgel, I don't believe you!"
Gidgel stopped and shrugged. "Hey, we all gotta make sacrifices sometimes. When it came down to choosing between the two of 'em, I'd a taken this here XedMod in a heartbeat."
"And do you think it's really worth it?" Vay asked, "Trading it in for this?" She gestured toward the caved-in driver side door and the laser-made gashes in the hood, among other damages. "I'd hate to think you lost your VL-three for a cruiser that looks like it drove its owner into a death match up on Errgo Four. And lost. I wouldn't doubt it if he or she died right there in the driver seat."
"Oh puh-leaze, Vay, you make it sound a lot worse than it looks. I'll have you know I got the history on this baby from the owner himself, and it was a game of zero-G roulette that did her in, not a death match on Errgo Four."
Vay snorted and rolled her eye. "I just hope for your sake it was worth the trade-in."
"Oh, it will be," Gidgel affirmed, limping over to unhook the cruiser from his wrecker. "Once we get it fixed up a bit."
"What do you mean 'we?'" Vay asked coolly.
Gidgel looked at his sister in disbelief. "I usually have to beg you to get off my back when I'm working on a cruiser! Since when did you decide not to get involved?"
"When you decided this hunk of junk was worth more than the old flitter. I liked that old VL-three."
"So did I, until I found out the bluebook value of this XedMod was three times what that old flitter was worth brand new! And all she needs is a fresh coat of paint and an overhaul."
"Just like a certain brother of mine," Vay mumbled, opening up a toolbox.
Gidgel picked a tool out of it and looked at her suspiciously. "What was that?"
"Oh, nothing," Vay said simply, turning toward the cruiser.
"Didn't sound like nothing," Gidgel muttered, following her to the front of the vehicle where she forced the hood up and peered inside. "If you weren't a woman, or my sister, I'd slug you for that."
"And if you weren't a cripple and a crybaby, I'd slug you just because."
"You never let that stop you before," Gidgel argued. "What's stopping you now?"
"My hands are full." Vay held a flashlight in one hand while holding the hood up with the other. "From what I can see here, you're going to have to rewire the entire ignition system. That's not cheap, you know. That and the overhaul are gonna cost you a couple weeks' wages at least. Not to mention all the hours of labor involved."
"You make it sound like childbirth," Gidgel chuckled.
Vay pulled her head out from under the hood and looked him straight in the eye.
"Childbirth is no laughing matter," she told him, quite frankly, "and neither is this. Look."
Gidgel obeyed, propping the hood up further and following the beam of the flashlight with his eye. " 'S not so bad," he said. "With the both of us working on it, and some of the parts I got in last month, we can fix this baby up in half the time, and at half the cost."
Vay cast him a sideways glance. "Did I just hear 'we' again? It's the darnedest thing, but somewhere along the line one of us must've gone schizo, 'cuz either I'm hearing things or you're under the delusion that I'm going to help you with this."
Gidgel set the hood down and turned to his sister with a look of exasperation on his face. "Aren't you?" he asked.
"Normally I love to spend my weekends getting greased up grunting underneath totaled cruisers, but I'm taking off this next weekend. Remember? I'm going to Earth to help Wendy and Leera with the baby."
"Oh, that's right!" Gidgel slapped his forehead. "How could I have forgotten? Damn. When's the baby due again?"
"Forgot that, too? Jeez, Gidge, what's with you? Spring another brain leak? On the eighteenth. In about three and a half weeks."
"That's it? Blitznak, and I was thinking she had another month and a half to go. I guess I've been so busy with the councilwoman's new ship that time just flew past me without even a nod."
Gidgel sighed and closed his toolbox, then hobbled over to a tree on the front lawn and sat down under it. Vay joined him.
"Where does the time go?" he asked, sighing again. The shadows of the tree's leaves fell criss-crossed over his face, making him look suddenly older. Though he was in reality just beginning to show his age, he was still very good-looking, by Plorginarian standards, as was his twin sister Vay. The only thing that daunted his appearance was a scarred and misshapen leg. Gidgel had been crippled in a freak accident nearly twenty years earlier. Though that one leg was pretty much dead weight, he managed to get around pretty well without aid.
"Seems like only yesterday we were waiting for Wendy to be born," he went on. "And then you had to go on that crazy mission that could have gotten you both killed and give birth to him on a tiny backwater planet in the middle of nowhere."
"Yyyyup," Vay answered wryly, "and now his kid's gonna be born on that same planet."
"What?" Gidgel looked at her in shock. "I thought they were coming back to Iyerba to have the baby!"
"That's what I thought, too, but Leera insists on staying on Earth. She doesn't even want to leave the island until after the baby's born."
"But why in Bluzark does she want to have it there?"
Vay shrugged, leaning back against the tree. She picked up the mini-scope she had been using to diagnose the cruiser's ignition trouble and started playing with the dials. She stared at the analysis readouts on the tiny screen with an unseeing eye.
"I think she's afraid," she said, in a voice barely above a whisper.
Gidgel looked at her curiously. "Leera? Afraid? Of what?"
"I don't know. It just seems like the obvious answer."
"Now where'd you get an idea like that? Leera, of all people, afraid. That's a joke."
"I don't think so," Vay replied. "Something about her seems… troubled, lately. She's all bright and happy whenever I talk to her, but when the subject of the birth comes up she gets tense and - it's hard to explain, but trust me, she's worried about something, and it's not the normal anxiety about giving birth."
"Well, a strong, courageous woman like Leera… I just can't imagine her being scared of something," Gidgel said. "Are you really so sure about that? And what do you think it could be?"
Vay thought for a moment. "Yes, and I don't know. Maybe she is just worried about giving birth. I know I was. Maybe she's afraid of having it prematurely like I did with Wendy."
Gidgel sat up straight and looked at Vay. "Well, in that case she should come back here! If she has the same problem you did with Wendy, then that baby's at risk being born in a place like that."
Vay snorted. "Not really. She's in a lot better circumstances than I was. Remember? I was in the middle of a desert and being pursued by hostile aliens when I had Wendy, but Leera's in a tropical paradise, and among caring individuals who will be there to help her when the time comes. I'm going to be there, too, of course. And most importantly, Wendy will be there." She chuckled to herself. "Leera complains that he never gives her a moment alone these days. Says he's more worried about the baby than she is. Says she can't even roll over at night without him waking up and panicking that it's time." Vay sighed dreamily. "He's going to make a wonderful father."
Gidgel grunted in agreement. "Yep. That boy turned out pretty good, in spite of the fact that he never had a father figure himself."
Vay glanced sideways at her brother. "He had you, Gidge. I don't think he could have asked for a better father figure. It's only a shame you never had any kids yourself."
Gidgel sighed. "Yeah, but I'm just his uncle. It really wasn't my place to play the fatherly role."
Vay frowned. "Are you saying you wouldn't have had a hand in his upbringing if he did have a father?"
"Of course I would have! I would still have been there for the both of you, but that's not the point. The point is, a kid needs a father. I'm just glad that Wendy sees it that way, too, in spite of what his own father thought."
Vay growled. "Wendy didn't need a father, especially not one like Kirk. I did a good enough job raising him myself."
"So did I! I helped, too," Gidgel said. "Did you forget about me already?" he joked.
"Oh, sorry," Vay said, watching a bright blue cruiser pulling up to the house next door. "I got distracted thinking about that jerk."
"Who? Kirk?"
Vay nodded. "Kirk the Jerk."
Gidgel snorted and started to say something smart, but one look at his sister's face shut him up. Vay looked like she had just seen a ghost. Gidgel followed her gaze to where the blue cruiser was parked, and the man who had just gotten out of it. He looked familiar.
Vay paled as the mysterious man approached the driveway. "Speak of the devil…"
