Chapter 7:
An eerie quiet descended on the scene. Apart from a few fires, burning themselves out, and the occasional crashing sound as another piece of debris fell or sunk lower, nothing moved for at least twenty microts.
Then a speck fell from the sky, growing ever larger, taking only a handful more microts to resolve into the shape of a Peacekeeper Marauder. As it landed, two leather-clad figures stirred, emerging from beneath the debris of the house.
"You OK?" John asked Aeryn as two concerned Peacekeepers rushed from the Marauder and rushed to fuss over them, helping them to sit up. By some miracle, he seemed to have a thousand cuts, bruises and splinters embedded in his leather pants, but, as far as he could tell, nothing more serious. Well, that and Aeryn's braid seemed to have come loose, but he was fairly certain they could easily fix that. The commando from the veranda had not fared so well: He lay, bloodied and disturbingly still amongst the debris.
Aeryn waved her hands at the Peacekeeper attending to her, indicating that he should deal with their fallen comrade instead. The newcomer nodded, turned away and did as he was told.
The trio of Peacekeepers guarding the perimeter presumably remained in place, continuing to fulfil their assigned roles. However, of Grayza or the remaining Peacekeeper who had been in the lodge there was no sign.
Aeryn shook her head and gestured with a long face and open hands that either she didn't understand what John had just said, or maybe that she didn't know if she was alright. Maybe both. That was when John realised that the only sound he could hear was a ringing in his ears.
As Aeryn got to her feet, batting away the helping hands of the two further, understandably concerned Peacekeepers who had followed the first pair out of the Marauder, John turned and surveyed the remains of Grayza's lodge, now just so much smoking and burning matchwood.
"Why….. She must have killed herself…. Why…?" Aeryn said to herself, unheard by John's abused and deafened ears.
"Babe," John said, equally pointlessly as, with the ringing in her ears, she could not hear him either. "We gotta stop booking Kiss as the opening act."
"~"
"This incident is unacceptable," the Secretary of State blustered. "We cannot allow you to just go around like this…"
"YOU cannot allow?" John raged, interrupting. "In the same way you couldn't allow your people to do anything about someone we told you was a criminal and who was doing her darndest to smear my wife's reputations? And now we've got two people dead and one badly hurt because you let that bitch…"
Aeryn raised a placating hand. "It's fine John," she told him calmly. John blustered on, under his breath, as Aeryn turned her gimlet gaze to the Secretary. "We quite understand, of course. Mele-On Grayza was a resident in your jurisdiction, and if you chose to harbour her, despite our concerns, we had no right to interfere."
"Damn straight," the Secretary confirmed.
"So, to reduce the chances of future misunderstandings, I want to ensure that my people are no longer in a position to interfere in the internal affairs of your country." Aeryn stated calmly.
"As it should be!" The Secretary replied.
"Which, of course, would require us to withdraw from all programmes to share our technology and knowledge with your administration."
"You…. What…?" The Secretary challenged. "On what basis… you can't just unilaterally pull out…"
"Look on it as us exercising the Prime Directive," she flashed him a predatory smile. "That would be an appropriate Erp cultural reference, would it not, John?" She added, ingenuously, turning to John and smiling faintly.
"It would," John smirked. "Spot on."
"Besides, we have no intention of abandoning Earth or its people. It is only your administration that this would affect. I can't see any reason, for now, that we cannot continue as we were in our dealings with other countries." Aeryn seemed to ponder out loud.
"But you… can't…"
"Of course, we would not want it to be a permanent arrangement," Aeryn continued. "We would hope it would only be necessary until we manage to work out a better way of… respecting your jurisdiction in future."
"Are we done here, Aeryn?" John asked, brushing an imaginary mote of dust from his trousers.
"I think we might be." Aeryn smiled again. "Good day, Mr. Secretary," she concluded, standing. "I'm sure we can sort out this little misunderstanding. In time."
'~'
The loud burst of laughter from the couch caused John to look up from his book and glance across the room. He allowed himself a small smile at the sight that greeted his gaze. Aeryn, dressed for once in casual Earth clothes and with her feet tucked under her, sat in the centre of the big, white, leather couch. To her left, Livvy snuggled under a protective motherly arm. To her right, still close but asserting his extra cycles through a dench or two of personal space, sat D'Argo. The eyes and mouths of all three twinkled and smiled in unison in response to the goings-on on the TV: from the voices coming out of the speakers John recognised that they were enjoying their favourite sit-com.
Slyly trying not to attract their attention and destroy the moment, John continued watching them, peering over the top of his book. He revelled in the warm, fuzzy feeling that, for this moment at least, everything was fine. Livvy had even called a truce to her sulk about being taken out of school, possibly shocked by her parents' brush with death, possibly hoping that now she would be allowed to return to her studies. His family were safe and content.
And Grayza was dead. She would never threaten him, his family, nor anyone else ever again. He knew that he had more reason than most to be happy at that turn of events. However, the rift that the events surrounding her death had caused between the US administration and the Peacekeepers was not a cause for joy. He just hoped they could fix that relationship, and soon. And at the back of his mind, he could not ignore the thought that the circumstances of her death had been rather strange.
Aeryn, D'Argo and Livvy all erupted in laughter as another bit of slapstick befell one of the characters on the TV. John frowned, suddenly struck by how, in real life, it wouldn't be so funny to trip over a concealed obstacle like that, just when everything seemed to be going fine. Sometimes, as he knew very well, fate could be so cruel.
The end