Part 1
Chapter 2: Halcyon Station Hospitality

Martin sat on the edge of his new bed, reading from his datapad again. A few days had passed since he arrived at Halcyon Station, and since he missed some schoolwork because of the move, he'd spent most of his time catching up on assignments from his VI tutor. He still wanted to check out some of the shops and entertainment in the hallway outside the new apartment, but that would have to wait.

He was wearing his semi-formal white shirt and dress pants again, since his father had accepted the dinner invitation from Commander Fortier's father-in-law, but Martin figured he might have enough time to squeeze in another chapter before he and his dad had to head up to the Fortier apartment. However, he wasn't quite as fast a reader as he'd estimated, and he had just barely begun when there was a knock on the door. "Come in," Martin responded.

Captain Shepard opened the door, entered the room, and noticed that his son had been reading. "Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were doing your Literature homework."

Martin put the datapad down on the bed beside him. "I'm not. I was just reading for fun. This is from about the same time period as some of the stuff I've been reading for Lit class, though."

Shepard strolled over next to his son, casually picked up the datapad, took a glance at the book's title, and frowned. "The Mark of Zorro? Martin, you ought to know better than to read the kind of book that paints robbers and bandits as the good guys. Heroes don't break the law; they uphold the law and promote justice."

"It's just a cheesy old fictional adventure story," Martin protested. "It's not supposed to be realistic." While Martin was staying with his mother on her last tour of duty, one of the ship's engineers had rigged some secondhand receiver equipment to pick up centuries-old radio and television broadcasts from Earth out in deep space in order to keep the kid entertained and out of the crew's hair, and before long Martin had found himself FTL-jumped into adolescence by the daring escapades of such warriors as Robin Hood, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Captain Blood, The Three Musketeers, and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Captain Michael Shepard, however, was not happy about his son's fascination with swashbuckling rogues. "Even though you know it's not realistic, you chose to consume that kind of entertainment anyway. If you're serious about maintaining your integrity, you'd better not expose yourself to this type of book or vid ever again." He let out a sigh of frustration. "I didn't come here to lecture you. I came here to let you know that it's time to head out."

"Okay, Dad."

Martin followed his father out of their apartment, down the hall a short distance and into an elevator. The door of the transparent box slid shut behind them, and the transportation device began moving at a pace that seemed to Martin like approximately the speed of cold molasses.

When the elevator finally arrived at its destination floor, a tall, well-dressed, somewhat elderly man was waiting there to greet its passengers with a wide smile plastered across his face. "You must be Captain Shepard," he schmoozed in a warm drawl, holding out his hand. "I'm John Beaumont, District Manager for Eldfell-Ashland Energy. My son-in-law, Commander Fortier, has told me so much about you."

Shepard shook Mr. Beaumont's hand. "He's told me a bit about you as well. I appreciate the chance to meet you in person. And this is my son, Martin."

Beaumont looked Martin over as if he were evaluating him. "Well, now. You're about the same age as my granddaughters. I'd better warn them to watch out so they don't get their hearts stolen."

Martin froze like a space cow caught in the headlights of an oncoming M29 Grizzly. Most Alliance military families only had one active duty parent and kids stayed groundside with their other parent, which meant that so far Martin had been lucky if there'd been another kid to hang out with onboard his parents' ships, so he didn't have much experience interacting with people his own age. And he had no firsthand experience at all with courtship, even though his adolescent hormones drove him to seek romance. His internal monologue stammered, "Th-there are… girls… here?"

Martin managed to snap himself out of it enough to follow his father and Mr. Beaumont to the apartment. Beaumont opened the door and showed his guests in. The Beaumont-Fortier apartment was larger than the one the Shepards had just moved into, and even though the structure of the place had been hewn out of the asteroid and built to look clean and modern just like all the other apartments, the décor had more of a homey style, color-coordinated in browns, sunflower yellows and subtle greens. The guests had entered into a living room area, furnished with plush couches and chairs, a couple of end tables and a coffee table, and countless throw pillows. A holo-fireplace was built into one wall with a vid-screen above it, and on the opposite wall was a screen made to look like a window that showed an image of idyllic rural scenery to create an illusion of the outdoors. A medley of savory smells, most of which Martin couldn't identify, wafted in from beyond the living room.

Two girls were seated on opposite sides of a sofa in the center of the room. They almost looked like identical twins, except that one of them was Martin's age and the other a few years older. Both of them had brown curls flowing over their shoulders, and they were both dressed like they were about to head off to prep school and go straight to cheerleading practice afterwards. Martin wished with all his might he could've walked into the room oozing confidence and charm like the protagonists from the old swashbuckler vids — instead, the sight of these enchanting maidens left his brain barely functional enough for him to be able to put two words together.

Before anyone could say anything, a boy who looked about nine or ten years old popped up from behind the couch with a brightly-colored toy shotgun in his hands. He pulled the trigger, and a gust of air sent a soft dart made of bluish-white foam flying out of the fake weapon's nozzle straight towards the younger of the girls, but she quickly picked up a throw pillow that was resting on the couch and used it to deflect the projectile. "No fair!" the boy protested when he saw that his attempted sneak attack had failed.

"Protecting myself is totally fair," the girl retorted.

The boy looked like he was about to say something else to his sisters, but then he noticed that Shepard was there. "Oh, wow!" he exclaimed, his bright blue eyes sparkling with enthusiastic reverence. "It's the new Captain! How many alien bad guys have you killed, Sir?"

The expression on Captain Shepard's face showed that he thought the question was an odd one to ask right off the bat. "I don't keep a running tally of exactly how many pirates and mercenaries I've fought," he answered honestly, "or of how many of them were human or alien."

"Pirates!" the kid exclaimed enthusiastically. "Please, Captain, you gotta tell me some of your war stories about fighting pirates sometime!"

"Tales from the front lines aren't appropriate for children."

"I'm old enough and tough enough to handle it! When I grow up, I'm gonna be an Alliance soldier, just like my dad!"

"You've still got quite a ways to go, Benny," Beaumont chuckled. "Captain Shepard, Martin, these are my grandchildren: Angelique, Renée, and Benoit." He introduced them in order of age, oldest to youngest.

Martin finally managed to find his voice. "Nice to meet you," he said with a smile, mostly directed towards the girls. Renée gave a slight smile back.

"When I left to greet you at the elevator, my daughter assured me that supper would be on the table by the time I got back," Beaumont commented. "Have you ever been to a crawdad boil, Captain?"

"I can't say I have," Shepard responded.

"Well, this'll be your first, then. It's a time-honored Louisiana tradition. Normally the guest list is a lot bigger — friends, family, neighbors, you name it — but we figured, even with a small party, there'd be no better way to welcome the station's new CO. We spared no expense to treat you to some good old-fashioned down-home cooking — fresh crawdads are hard to come by outside of Earth. Right this way, if you please."

Beaumont led the way into the dining room, where a dining table in the center of the room was set up for a feast – not with plates, bowls, spoons or utensils, although there were tall, clear glasses and plenty of disposable napkins. The star of the show was the mishmash of potatoes, artichokes, garlic cloves, slices of sausage, slices of corn on the cob, and whole crayfish spread out on large sheets of paper on top of a protective-yet-decorative tablecloth. A woman who must have been a youthful beauty years ago and continued to take meticulous care of her appearance in middle age was setting out even more napkins. "Welcome to our home, Captain," she greeted her husband's superior officer in a similar drawl to her father's. "How kind of you to come. And this must be your son! I'm Suzanne Fortier – pleased to meet you... uh... what was your name again, honey?"

The teen boy held out his hand. "It's Martin Shepard, and it's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Fortier."

Mrs. Fortier shook Martin's hand with a satisfied smile on her face. "Such a well-mannered young man," she commented. "Well, y'all better hurry and wash up, now; these crawdads ain't gonna eat themselves!

Everyone scattered to the kitchen and the bathrooms – anywhere there was a place to wash their hands. Martin found himself standing in line behind Benoit in front of the kitchen sink, with Renée waiting behind Martin, as Benoit quickly ran some water over his hands, squirted a dollop of soap into the palm of one hand, rubbed his hands together, rinsed the suds off, grabbed the nearest towel and gave his hands a cursory wipe before dashing back into the dining room to make sure he got a chance to claim at least one nice big crayfish for himself.

As soon as they were alone in the kitchen together, Renée leaned casually against the kitchen counter next to Martin, resting her lower back on the countertop's edge. "So, what's it like?"

"What's what like?" Martin asked as he started to run water over his hands.

"Traveling all over the galaxy! Seeing far-off worlds! 'Boldly going' and all that kinda stuff from nerdy old vids."

"You come from a military family too," Martin commented. "Your father must get transferred to a lot of different places."

Renée shook her head. "Ever since my parents got married, Granddad's pulled every string he could to make sure Dad stays here. Dad's risen up the ranks a bit since I was a kid, of course — he didn't start out as the second-in-command of this place, but all of his assignments since he married Mom have been right here on this station. Dad doesn't even mind; he, Mom, Granddad and Angelique say it gives the family stability. That annoying little twerp Beignet is still too young to be tired of this place, but I'm not. I've spent all my life on this chunk of space rock, and I say it's a boring chunk of space rock. Sometimes Granddad treats us to a sea cruise back on Earth for family vacations, but trading a space station for a boat loses its appeal after a while."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint," Martin replied as he finished washing his hands and turned to face her, "but when my parents' ships arrive at some uncharted planet or besieged colony, I don't get to go ashore — it's always too dangerous. And most of the time, the view of the inside of one ship or station isn't that different from another. It's pretty…" For half a second, his voice trailed off as he looked at her; saying the word 'pretty' in her presence instantly reminded him that she was pretty. However, Martin recovered quickly from being sidetracked. "It's pretty boring, too," he finished his sentence. Then, in an attempt to distract from the short pause he'd just accidentally made in the conversation, he went on. "But at least you don't have to leave your friends every few years."

"Do you stay in touch with the friends you've made while traveling around?"

"Kinda. I play extranet games with them every now and then."

"But it sounds like you might be lonely a lot of the time," Renée commented.

Martin saw an opportunity and tried to go for it, even though he didn't really have any clue what to do. "Oh. Right. I mean, I'm calm and cool enough to handle it, but yeah, sometimes it gets reeeeeaaal lonely."

"Angelique and I will have to introduce you to our friends sometime. I bet they're going to be so jealous we met the new Captain's son before them!"

Martin was about to reply that he'd appreciate being introduced to Renée and Angelique's friend group, but then what she said about making her friends envious made him feel almost as if she just wanted to show him off like a designer accessory. In fact, that statement might have been a bit of a turn-off if Martin was older and more mature, but as it was, his hormonally-supercharged adolescent limbic system still insisted on trying to land a date with her.

Martin and Renée returned to the dining room, where Mrs. Fortier was filling four large glasses from a pitcher of homemade sweet iced tea; she had already filled up three glasses with what appeared to be beer. Her father put on a recording of zydeco music and then sat down at the head of the table. Commander Fortier himself was on duty, so he couldn't join the rest of his family in playing host, but Mrs. Fortier and her children all took their places at the table. As the guest of honor, Captain Shepard got to occupy the chair at Beaumont's right hand. Martin claimed the seat next to his father, and the two of them joined their hosts in saying grace.

With that, the feast began. Martin played it cautious at first, sampling a few of the potatoes with garlic and some of the corn – all delectably spicy. He tried making small talk, comparing schoolwork with the other kids and things like that, while he observed the members of the household carefully as they peeled the shells off their crayfish and ate the meat from the tails, trying to get a sense of how it was done. After a few minutes, Martin decided to try a crayfish himself. He picked one up from the table in front of him and took his best shot at cracking it open. However, his first ill-fated attempt at shelling a crayfish ended with the boiled crustacean's insides spattered across his white shirt.

Benoit cackled uproariously at the disgusting fate that had befallen his guest. Martin didn't care all that much about the goblin kid's opinion, but the fact that he'd barely had a chance to get to know Renée and Angelique before they saw him with crayfish innards all over his best shirt made him want to sink into his chair and disappear. Beaumont looked a bit annoyed at having his dinner event interrupted. Captain Shepard didn't show much of a reaction, although it was hard to say whether he was trying to save face by pretending nothing was going on or if he was simply not making a big deal of the situation. Mrs. Fortier fussed over Martin, offering him several handfuls of extra napkins and reassuring him that the stains would come out in the laundry, but her mother-hen behavior almost made him feel even more embarrassed.

Still, the meal went on, and eventually Martin kind of got the hang of eating crayfish, although it was messy business even when he shelled the crustaceans correctly. He went through quite a few napkins. Meanwhile, Mr. Beaumont spent several minutes monologuing about his work. Martin was just starting to zone out from the conversation when Beaumont mentioned something to Captain Shepard that caught the teen boy's attention: "So, Captain, considering the presence of the lowlifes that plague this station, I'm sure you understand how grateful my colleagues and I are for the Alliance Military's protection of our assets and personnel in this system."

"A soldier's duty is to serve and protect, Mr. Beaumont," the Captain replied.

"Of course." There was a momentary pause before Beaumont went on. "Captain Shepard, rumor has it that you've been assigned as Halcyon's Commanding Officer in order to lead the garrison in eliminating crime on the station altogether, and that you're planning to reorganize Alliance resources to send more patrols into Sector Three… and to establish a foothold for 'aid programs' to give handouts to those freeloaders."

"I'm afraid I can't say anything one way or another about 'freeloaders' until I've learned a bit more about the situation in Sector Three," Shepard responded, "but brute force alone won't be enough to resolve this station's crime problem effectively."

A spark of tension seemed to flicker through the air between the businessman and the military leader. "Diverting military resources and personnel from Sectors One and Two would put both Alliance and corporate interests at risk," Beaumont pointed out.

"A highly calculated risk," Shepard retorted, "and a temporary one. The most likely scenario is that increased pressure in Sector Three would more than make up for reduced patrols in the other sectors. In the long run, lowering crime rates on Halcyon would keep everyone on the station safer, including corporate personnel."

"It would be impossible to keep everyone on Halcyon safe," Beaumont scoffed. "The Alliance should focus on protecting the people who matter — the ones who contribute to their families and to society. If the lazy crooks on this station don't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they deserve to stay where they are, robbing and murdering each other. As long as they can't harm us."

By this point, Martin could almost feel the tension crackling in the air. Captain Shepard said nothing for a moment, and then he looked Beaumont straight in the eye as he spoke in a dangerously quiet voice. "You and I have very different ideas about what makes a person matter, Mr. Beaumont."

"B-but," Beaumont stammered, "how can you not see things my way, Captain? I always invite the station's Commanding Officers over for dinner after they first arrive, show them how we do things around here, and they always agree with —" He stopped himself short as he realized he'd revealed his hand too soon.

"This line of conversation has reached a stalemate," the Captain stated. "We should talk about something else, at least for now."

There was a longer pause than before as everyone waited for someone else to change the subject. Martin may have only been fourteen, but he wasn't born yesterday — as Beaumont's words hit home, it dawned on Martin that the businessman's little dinner party had been an attempt to butter up the Captain into falling in line with Beaumont's own agenda. Fortunately, Captain Michael Shepard wasn't so easily manipulated. But the previous COs of Halcyon Station were also Alliance Military officers, so Martin figured that they must've been just as honorable as his father. No Alliance soldier would ever neglect justice for the sake of self-interest — would they?

The dinner went on, but any further attempts at chatting felt cold and constrained. Once everyone at the table was too stuffed to eat another bite, it was time to clean up. Martin offered to help wash dishes even though, under the surface, he still felt a simmering anger at Beaumont for daring to attempt to treat his father like a puppet. However, Mrs. Fortier insisted that guests shouldn't need to lift a finger. So instead, Martin said a quick goodbye to Renée and Angelique, then he headed back down the elevator to his and his father's apartment and changed into a more informal and less crayfish-stained outfit. He'd had enough of Beaumont's schemes.

Later, Captain Shepard returned home. Martin was pacing around the living room like a caged animal, but he stopped when he saw his father. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What happens now?"

"If the bourgeois businesspeople on this station think they can keep treating the Alliance Military as their personal guard dogs, they've got another think coming," Captain Shepard replied. "Mr. Beaumont and I still don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but at least I was able to convince him of the benefits of a joint venture between the Alliance and EAE's Da Vinci System branch."

"What kind of venture?"

"I'll be ready to make the official announcement in a day or two. Until then, you're just going to have to keep a tight rein on your curiosity."

Martin gave a frustrated huff. "Okay, Dad. Fine. I'll try to keep my nose out of your work. But I still need to know what's going on."

"Be patient, Martin. You'll find out."