Mara watched the two brothers working on the navigation console in the center of the TARDIS. Gray had made much progress in the last six months. The rebalancing of serotonin and cortisol in his body was showing a positive effect. However, talk therapy was much slower. Gray was opening up, but would often relapse into a guarded and resentful manner. Although Mara attempted to establish a connection using her experience of war, Gray insisted that no one could know what he had been through. He was right. What he experienced as a child was a kind of hell beyond conception, beyond words. The abandonment was worse than the torture in his mind. Although Jack used every skill he had to connect with his brother, Mara could feel there was still a distance between them.
As Gary interacted with the team, the grim demeanor he displayed after leaving his cryogenic tomb gave way to a more relaxed and friendly young man. He was more reserved than his extroverted brother, but his interactions with the crew were polite and cooperative. When he ventured into general society with the team, he followed their lead and blended in comfortably with whomever they met. Mara did have some concern with his drinking when they went to pubs, but if he had too much, his brother made sure he got home safely.
Jack had passed through his initial anxiety, and was delighted that Gray had come so far. Jack's captivating smile, the wild stories, and playful jokes were back. He helped with Grays physical training, often spotting on the weights and lifts. As Gray's health improved, Jack included him on minor missions. Later on when the core team got together for meetings, he advocated to include Gray as a member of the team. Jens still insisted that anything that could become a weapon was locked down and out of Gray's reach. When Jack pressed on the weapons training, Jens yielded. However he made sure he was discretely nearby during the sessions. The Captain took Gray whenever he could as a member of the team on routine meetings and missions for the Conservancy. He even participated in some of the search and rescue operations, but if the team was involved in a confrontation that might erupt into violence, Jens insisted that Gray stayed back as support.
There was one odd thing, Mara thought. Although Gray was friendly to all members of the team, Ajit did not warm up to him. When Mara first brought her assistant on to the TARDIS, she gave Jens and Jack a little background. Ajit was not just her assistant, he was her adopted son. She found him in an orphanage on Caputo 7, when he was only ten years old. He had been brought to the orphanage at the age of eight by soldiers, and little was known about his family.
At first it was thought that Ajit might have been abandoned because he was autistic. In the first year he said nothing, and cringed if anyone approached or attempted to touch him. The Catkin sisters at the orphanage were perplexed, and asked for a doctor to work with him one-on-one. Mara volunteered and discovered that he was not autistic, but a selective mute. Slowly she developed a trusting relationship in which he would respond, however haltingly. Mara herself was a victim of war and had dedicated herself to trauma victims because of this. When she was an intern, her entire extended family was destroyed in the bombing of Shiriat during the civil war. Over time she grew to dearly love the child, and decided to adopt him.
Ajit had grown into a shy teenager, brilliant in technology, computers, science, and a very capable medic, however he still kept odd ways. He kept his room on the TARDIS in a minimalist decor in black, with no keepsakes or colors found in an average teenage room. He dressed in black covering his entire body: black boots, black pants and turtleneck, usually wearing a black hooded sweatshirt or coat when venturing outside. When he retired for the night, he would activate a laser light security pattern near the door that would alert him if anyone entered, even though Mara and Jens had assured him he was perfectly safe on the TARDIS.
The teenager had a small ring-tailed lemur as a companion when the soldiers brought him to the orphanage. They were inseparable. Jack was concerned about an animal being on the TARDIS at first, especially after the death of Charlie. However, he eventually warmed up to her and she to him. Asha had free range in the TARDIS would climb around to play with the crew. Her antics would often create comic relief during tense situations. When Ajit retired to his room, Asha would go with him and sleep in the left hand corner his bed near the headboard. She always faced the door as if to guard the entrance. Sometimes she would perch on Jens or Mara's shoulder and would often curl up on Jack's lap as he worked, but she avoided Gray. If Gray entered the room, she would quickly scamper away to a corner or behind another teammate. He tried to lure her with her favorite fruit, a bitter wild pineapple, but she continued to keep her distance.
As Mara continued to watch the two brothers work, passing tools and advice back and forth, Jack wove a bawdy joke about the shape of the tools they handled. Gray smirked. Family. The doctor remembered her sisters playing among her mother's knitting skeins, sisters lost long ago to war. She smiled sadly and returned to her task.
Jens opened the door to the TARDIS, and walked in with a thick file under his arm. He came to where the men were working, placed it on the conference table and beckoned them. Jack and Gray stopped what they were doing and took their places. Mara summoned Ajit and joined the group.
"The Conservancy wants us to coordinate with them on an intervention in the Cygnus star system." He spread out a star map of the region. "There have been raids on the outer colonies here, here, and here. It is thought that this is a coordinated effort pattern to drive away colonists and sometimes native populations to clear the planet for illegal mining."
Jack studied the map noting that the planets were near interstellar shipping lanes. "Is it the Aurora Cartel? They used rogue Sebiccian paramilitary on Taurus."
Jens nodded. "The most plausible perpetrator is the Aurora Cartel, but they are not using Sebiccians. These raiders are much more vicious and a different species. They do not merely drive away their targets, they destroy them in such a way that no one dares to come back. No known survivors.
"I'm up for it," said Jack. "Mara would be valuable as medical support, and Ajit can coordinate technical support."
"What about me?" asked Gray. "I can fight."
Jack turned to his brother, "I think you are ready. I can train you on the current weapons…"
"Not so fast…" Jens interrupted. Jack looked back in surprise.
"What's the matter, you still don't trust me!" Gray frowned. "What is it going to take?"
"He's ready, Jens," insisted Jack. "Besides, he'll be with me."
The Time Lord stayed silent, then looked towards the doctor. Mara shrugged. Ajit hung back with Asha on his shoulder, watching the exchange. Jens carefully picked up the star map and slowly folded it.
"There is a meeting at the Conservancy headquarters involving the coordination of several agencies in three days. The first day each of us will meet with our counterparts. Mara will meet with the medical team, Ajit is assigned to communication and technology, Jack will head to search and rescue, and I will meet with the Conservancy's administrative liaison. The second day is a general meeting to coordinate all participants. They would like us to attend." Jens paused glanced at Jack and then looked directly at Gray. "All of us."