Keeping faith, Arc 6 of "Gone with the Sun"
Chapter 80 Amor omnia vincit
Let's think of something we can talk about
Bailey had radioed on ahead. Silon was waiting for them with two Huerta nurses and an orderly with a wheelchair. It had taken forty minutes to declare him safe to stand up, let alone travel. And at that he had to endure intravenous nanite therapy.
"How did you know where to find me?" - asked Kelly
"We asked Harkin, which got us your assumed name. And there was a faintly supernatural element, too."
"He told you, just like that?"
"No. He refused point blank until I showed him Felicia's picture."
"Oh. Now I feel bad again."
"I'd have felt worse if she'd gone too. And it might have killed Mom."
"Not helping!"
"Let's change the subject. Please don't feel bad. I don't want you to feel bad."
"…All right. I'll try. What was the supernatural thing?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Try me?"
"Way back, just after you picked me up I think, as I was going under I had a dream that I needed to find you in the docks. But they were dark and open to vacuum. Which didn't seem to bother the people walking around. Looking back on it they were like ghosts, but that never occurred to me in the dream."
"The mind is a very strange confection, John. No-one really understands some of the ways it draws inferences, certainly not me. Did you find me there? In the dream?"
"You believe me? My rational girl? And no, I didn't, everything just went away."
"Well, I certainly believe you had the dream. What's odd is your remembering it."
"That's almost word for word what Chloe said."
"Okay. It may have been chance, but space-time is strange. Ehrenfest worked out nearly three centuries ago that faster-than-light communication of any kind means global causality violations, even using special relativity, never mind tachyons."
"… What was your Psych degree's minor?"
"Mathematics and statistics. Also cellular biology."
"Uh huh. Not orbital mechanics, though? No physics?"
"A bit. There's a lot we have to learn about mind and matter. But I was just trying to say, there's no question that given FTL, the future can call the past and say yoohoo. Combine that with some brain mechanisms operating at the quantum level and your dream is not so outlandish."
"I love you, but you are quite the most unusual girl."
"Nonsense. Dad just thought I might want to go into engineering, for some weird reason. I refused to do second-year Physics, there were only so many hours in the day, but there were some things he insisted any space traveller needed to know. That was one."
"I wish I'd met him. And your mom."
This was the wrong thing to say. Her face crumpled up. He drew her to him and she buried her face in his chest.
"Last I heard, Hackett said you'd been trying to get your island back."
"It's going to take too long. I can't wait on Earth." There was a sob in there.
"We'll get you there eventually. But I've put an offer in for a little place in the Bay of Islands. All of a sudden, real estate everywhere is cheap, who'd a thunk it. It has macrocarpa pines at one end, and even a little beach."
Her face emerged from his chest.
"White sand? Near Russell?"
"Yes, but you need a boat. About a dozen kilometres to the North. EDI found the place for me. It's one of these titles that reverted to the crown, bona vacantia. I'll get a prefab put on it. With a jetty, too."
She kissed him again, and they held each other in silence till Bailey came for them.
Midnight at the Oasis
Meanwhile, Shepard had tried to call home. Oriana advised that Hackett, Liara and EDI were still on the way back in the Normandy. Bailey was apprehensive.
"Hackett's got a head of steam up about something. None of them are coming straight back."
Kelly had a very thoughtful look.
"Alliance stuff?"
"Maybe not just Alliance. There were orders for a full Council meeting in the Presidium tower. Right now Hackett, the Primarch and Sparatus are conferring in the Normandy's war room."
"Good god. Troop movement orders?" - asked Shepard.
"Don't think so. But lots of engineers being mobilised, running around, systems going up and down all over the shop, including my C-Sec VI mainframe, goddammit."
"Not an AI then, Bailey?"
"No, Shepard, just a ginormous VI. It's one thing to be in a frigate where you need something that can get out of the way faster than human reflexes will permit. We, I mean C-Sec, don't want an AI second-guessing carefully laid plans. Mind you I wouldn't say no to an EDI, she's not like the bloody commercial ones."
"I'll keep that in mind, but there's not many of them. Jana says EDIs have to be grown, not made. But I notice they can grow on the job."
Kelly, still thinking, asked: "Bailey, just who exactly did they talk to down there?"
"They went looking for you, Kelly. And knocked on the door of the UNAS President."
"Oh dear. And I was down there just hours previously. Did I cause this?"
"No, honey. They know you're back, and they're happy. If there wasn't something more dramatic being prosecuted, they'd be home rejoicing."
"That's a relief. So they found something important down there?"
"It's a reasonable assumption, but no-one who knows, and that seems to be a damn short list, is telling me anything. Which is unusual. Shepard, you?"
"Me neither. I feel like a mushroom – you know, kept in the dark and fed–".
"Yeah. Just call me toadstool. But Hackett did mutter, via EDI, that if Kelly ups sticks again without official leave, she'll get a spanking."
"Ooo… I thought I had a bit more than a week?"
"I really wouldn't try to argue that, miss," noted Bailey, a bit grimly.
Kelly gripped Shepard's right arm and rested her head on his shoulder.
"I won't. But now I'm a little concerned."
Shepard felt a tremendous protective impulse. Bloody hormones, shut up.
"You're practising now, aren't you?" Sly grin from Kelly. But that didn't mean she wasn't a little concerned, and a little fearful.
"Don't worry, love. But Mom's collapse frightened him."
"That's at least fair… There is something about the President and Veep I need to tell … somebody. Steven, ideally. On reflection, it might be important."
"He's not here yet. Tell Mom about whatever this President/Veep vibe is. She's improving after Michel got involved. It is a vibe, right?"
"Um. It's hard to describe. And you don't need to know… mister mushroom."
"(Stop sniggering, Bailey.) This thing, whatever it is, will Hackett need me?"
"Doubt it, John." Kelly lifted her head and looked at him sharply. "I see Liara and EDI haven't left his side. What does that tell you?"
"He needs data, analytic skills, and processing power. I'm not a clueless grunt."
"It tells me this is not a Shepard emergency."
"Thank you so much. Look, I doubt Hackett's unhappy with you."
"You haven't been threatened with a spanking, in however jocular a manner."
"Touché. But Mom's collapse frightened him, you know. On the other hand, if it wasn't for your wanderlust, they'd never have picked 'it' up, whatever it is. You might get a medal. Or at least, some antispanking pixie dust."
That got him a peck on the cheek, which soothed his wounded ego a little.
"Is Hannah going to be alright? I don't want to stress her."
Morning girls
By the time they actually reached the door it was almost morning, Citadel time. Shepard could feel Kelly shrinking back as they approached.
The door opened before they had to ask. Oriana stood in the doorway, cradling Felicia. She took two steps forward and gently but firmly thrust the baby in his arms. Then she waited to one side. Kelly and Hannah faced each other in the doorway. No-one moved for a moment.
Just as Shepard was about to clear his throat, Hannah opened her arms and Kelly was enveloped in her embrace. It lasted so long Bailey had to press the override button to stop the door's VI nagging them.
After Bailey left – some computer emergency in C-Sec again – only the four of them were left in the apartment, plus Felicia. Shepard carried her around to her cradle as Kelly helped his Mom to a chair in the kitchen; she hadn't really needed that a few hours ago. The prodigal's return must have been a bit overwhelming.
Kelly helped him lay the child carefully back in her cradle on the kitchen bench, waking her despite their best efforts. But she didn't seem inclined to cry. As he gazed on her face, she regarded him solemnly for half a second, then an enormous smile broke out. Shepard gave Kelly a startled look. She returned a sweet sunny one.
"Lots of milestones to come, Shepard. Next one you will be interested in is walking, I hear."
"Well, make sure I'm around when she talks."
Not so futile
The captain showed Brooks her new cell in Limbo. Big improvement. There was a coffee perk, even a library terminal, and that stupid warder Lawsoned. Only trouble being, what had she done to earn this? She could think of nothing; she had alienated Petrovsky. So what would she have to pay? Then she recalled she'd left the bug on.
And Baba Yaga had it. Oooh.
Armistice
Oriana and Shepard finished packing away the dishes and hit the washdry button. Oriana stood erect, put her hands in the small of her back, and stretched back, before looking meditatively towards the sofa.
Hannah and Kelly were both still sitting there; their discussion just seemed to be getting more and more animated over the last twenty minutes.
"I wonder what they're on about now?"
Shepard had been wondering the same thing.
"They engaged the security field about quarter of an hour ago. Whatever it is, it's gone well beyond I'm sorry/No, I'm sorry. I think it's about something Kelly alluded to in Bailey's squad car on the way back."
"… Hmm?"
"Sorry, Miss Newsie, further than that deponent sayeth not."
"Damn. Hey, something's happening…"
Kelly and Hannah trooped off to the library at the back of the ground floor. Shepard cautiously ventured out toward the bar there, but heard nothing; the auditory dampeners were in place. However, his Mom was deep in discussion with Hackett on the viewscreen.
"Whatever Kelly brought back, it's apparently of some relevance to Hackett's current preoccupations."
"And what are those exactly?"
"Bailey and I were both complaining that neither of us were in the loop on that."
"Oh well… Wait, what are your next orders?"
"To get well. In a couple of days we both report to North Cape, I'm officially her captain for shakedown trials. We head to Russell, which is as far away from trouble and strife as one can imagine while staying on Earth, and raise Felicia for a few months."
"While Chakwas watches over you. Can I come visit?"
"Do! Flirting strictly by arrangement. That perfume was a weapon of mass seduction. No cameras, either."
"Aw…"
"Maybe for posterity. Not for news."
"Deal. I want to document Felicia too. Somehow I think she's going to be big."
"Well yeah."
"You know what I mean."
"I do. Just so long as you don't look too closely at me. I'm supposed to get spinal implants in a month, and initial work on replacing my military ones. That could take a year, and I won't be pretty for a while."
"What's Kelly doing?"
"Looking after me. Nurse, remember? And last I heard, Hackett's promised to let Jana start an Alliance medical school there – with Chakwas' oversight. Or at least a research school for projects they'd rather have out of the public eye."
"Kelly's to be a doctor?"
"One way or another, yes, but something special 'cos Jana's got dibs on her too. And Chloe. God only knows where she's going to get the time."
"From you, of course. If you can't do soldier stuff you can bloody well learn how to raise your kid while she hits the books and datapads."
"Ack. What are you doing then?"
"Covering the Nest chain. Me on Overlord, Allers on Pegasus. It'll involve some cold sleep."
Next chapter: #81, "The Heart in the Right Place"
Sunday, August 9, 2015