"Stinger," scolded Jupiter, her brow crumpled slightly.

Stinger jumped, Kiza carefully arranging Jupiter's hair, was smirking. It was never a good thing when his little larva was smirking. The fact that she could now, could be mischievous when before there was only fear, was beautiful. Beautiful, but also on the annoying and frightening side. It never bodes well for me. It didn't help that Jupiter usually sided with Kiza, as did Grey. It was a conspiracy, Stinger was sure. Everyone working against him.

"Yes, Majesty?"

She wrinkled her small nose. In the years since he had met Jupiter Jones, Stinger had more or less come to understand the young Terrestie. She still didn't like being called by her title. No matter how much she embodied what it meant to be a queen.

It only made him call her that more, really.

She sat carefully back straight and careful on the clothing trunk they had brought, making her just the right height for Kiza to place her hair into the arrangement she wished. Her crown, golden and a complex weave of honeycomb and bejeweled bees was set on the table beside her. She was already dressed, and they were set to arrive within the next couple of hours. She had been a beautiful still little girl and had grown into a beautiful preadolescent, with only a touch of awkwardness in her features. Lingering childhood fat, a touch of acne starting to form that she was quick to zap away, not quite knowing how to walk with her growth spurts. Her thin limbs only growing slimmer, her hair, once short and to her shoulders, was midway down her back, nearing her hips, dark and full. Her skin had tanned since he had met her, days in the sun, picnics in fields along with combat training for what he considered members of his hive. He wasn't a drone, he was the combat type, his daughter and Grey a step behind him as attendants to his queen. That's how he had thought of it, but the words family had been said so many times, so many ways, that the old thought had faded.

It was startling, really, to see her grow so quickly. He knew objectively, that humans were genetically unaltered as splices were. 'Pure' was the word that was thrown around. What Jupiter had gently corrected to say was 'stilted', genetic stagnation with their increasingly low birthrate. Humans of the Entitled level did alter themselves, they prolonged life with medicine to contradict their deterring mental states, they cared for organs and optimized them. The only thing that they didn't do was change themselves on the genetic level. Sometimes to their detriment.

And that meant their growth cycle was startling quick.

It had frightened him.

Because Jupiter had become like Kiza and Caine to him.

His child.

One minute she had been a babe, just a small thing that barely reached his waist, and the next she was nearly Kiza's height, and his larva and his queen looked closer in age. Soon, it would be Kiza who would look younger physically, no matter the fact that she hadn't changed from her adolescent phase. The fact that the 'fountain' as Jupiter had called it, existed, had been working and testing had been exactly as Seraphi Abrasax had predicted just before her life had ended had eased that fear. Stinger did not want to lose Jupiter to age, to time. 'We don't use RegenX'. That was the line that Jupiter refused to cross, and he expected the little girl to die in a scant few decades. The fact that the 'fountain' would make that impossible as long as he kept her alive, would give her as long as life as she was able, had eased his worried old heart.

Well. Not all of it.

"You need to stop pacing. We're going to be fine," said Jupiter, her brow crumpled further. Trying to reassure him, yet at the same time worried herself, he knew.

Trying desperately to be calm… Or perhaps she was just jittery because of the performance she was about to do. He had seen her rehearse her speech patterns and her way of moving for months leading up to this trip, and she had personally used Seraphi's clothing and metallurgy looms to create the appearance of a true Entitled Ascending to her inheritance. Her paperwork had been created, she had removed any official mention of her origins on Earth, and even if they managed a workaround her efforts as she had suspected, she had laid a false trail years ago to conceal her direct family members. Balem could do a planet-wide sweep, but it would be an arduous process that would be halted with her personal ownership of the Earth. Already, she had set missives to automatically begin towards the Aegis to seize her assets in her name, contracts outlined and money budgeted for that action of acquiring her own fleet within her ascents, as well as a direct inquiry over any members of his former Skyjacker squad to be brought to him and let them decided their fate. He strongly suspected few of his old squad would leave, if any, and would become the little Majesty's personal guard.

They had planned this for nearly eight years. They had planned and planned. They would do well as long as they could follow their plan… But things rarely followed a plan. And that was what had Stinger pacing up and down the bay of Jupiter's ship.

Kiza twisted more hair, pins in her still smirking mouth.

"Da," she said sweetly, talking around the pins, "Is it because you're dressed so-"

"Much like a peacock?" he snipped, pressing needlessly at his uniform. Calloused hands touch fabric soft as silk, as strong as diamonds.

Black. Crisp. Body-armor of the highest grade, much more than anything Stinger had ever worn. Displaying golden lines in honeycomb patterns, marking his place as her Captain of her Guard, a formal shirt of double-breasted construction, gleaming buttons shined to perfection. The fact that Jupiter was using the image of a bee as her official Entitled symbol had touched something in him. His uniform was a simpler, more practical mimicry of Jupiter's own military-inspired dress, and her's was a gleaming white that stole your attention. Modeled also after some film space princess that the girls and Grey adored.

"I was gonna say handsome."

Stinger snorted. Bathing in the fountain had shaved off nearly two decades from his face, just before his departure from Earth, just to be in the best condition he could be in for the sake of what was to come. He tries not to remember how much Jupiter had scolded him for performing his little test, even though her own smaller-scale tests had been so successful. Thankfully, he had shared the blame with poor Grey, who had set up the machine of the fountain for both their uses. And he was always a handsome splice. But the uniform made him feel a touch ridiculous.

"Stinger, please know that everything will be fine. We have eyes on Balem, Titus, and Kalique. They have no idea this is happening. Thank goodness they've been distracted by that stupid civil dispute in the Courts… Bless Titius for being so ridiculously sloppy."

"Kalique was still looking into the Earth, last we checked, despite the time she's been busy with that ridiculous Entitled Century Event. I have the right to be nervous. Allow me that much, Majesty," he said to Jupiter, trying to ease her himself.

Monitoring the Abrasax family had been depressingly simple. Apparently, before her isolation, Seraphi had kept a close eye and leash on her children. The spy network had still been in their own software systems. They were still connected to an overarching network that had once been Seraphi's. The system had fragmented, both in part due to lack of upkeep and Balem's lack of understanding of how to use it properly. Heir, he may be, but Seraphi had never trusted any of her children with everything.

"Right. Still won't change the fact that we are about to enter enemy space, Majesty," he told her seriously, "And that the Orous Ascension process is a pain in the arse."

She laughed. Then her brows furrowed.

"And right after-"

"We are going to reactivate your former life's home ship, the Red Hawk."

"Okay, then we are-"

"We are going directly to the Jupiter Refinery."

"But-"

"Caine is fine, Jupiter."

"He's in the Badlands-"

"That runt is alive. He is the deadliest and craftiest person I have ever worked with. I raised him better than to die. We have to settle your affairs first. Then, we get back my son."

"But-"

"No buts, majesty. Not on this. If we're going to save the Verse as you want, you have to work together. We have to make tough decisions. This is one of them. I am making this decision. Caine is fine where he is for now. What matters most is everything else that isn't time-sensitive."

She frowned. Then she sighed.

"Okay. I know… But he's important to you. And to Kiza. I want you to be happy."

Warmth settled in Stinger's breast bone. Even with what was to come, he does not think he would regret following behind Jupiter Jones.

"I am Majesty. I am."