A/N: Dean has young Prince Samuel confined aboard and Dean is on downtime. For now...

The Pompatus Box (Chapter 6: Escort Duty) by frostygossamer

Satellite News is the organ of intelligence throughout Terra and her multi-satellite system. Broadcast from an HQ on the motherworld, it has a Terran bias, naturally, but the standard of journalism is high. Relayed throughout all the colonies, it brought welcome news from home to early settlers. It now helps to unite the Earth and her moons under one banner, Freedom of Information. It's undoubtedly worthy in intent but sometimes it can serve less than worthy interests.

Dean can remember seeing good news items about the young royal now in his charge during his own time growing up in that hated orphan institution. He and his fellow inmates were forced to loyally watch Satellite News as part of their so-called education.

The sight of that privileged little Fauntleroy, up there on the visualizer, only rubbed in the orphans' sad situation. The staff didn't seem to get the irony. Or maybe they did and that was the point. Show them how the 'more deserving' lived. Taunt them with what they could never have. Family.

When Dean's mom died in an incendiary attack, his father away being a war hero, John became all the family Dean had left. After John was murdered, Dean had nothing, was nothing. That stupid blue-blood prince had a whole loving network to support him. So what was he doing trying to get himself dead in the butthole of oblivion? Doesn't he know how lucky he is?

Dean has no time for dumb ingratitude like that. What he needs is a drink.

=O=

It's a few days after the darkside incident. Dean is listening to Satellite News, out of habit, and toying with a cut glass tumbler of fine malt whiskey. He's leaning back in his comfortable armchair, enjoying the smooth flavour of the expensive liquor, when he's interrupted by the tingling of a bell. It's a message from Convoy Control. He flicks a switch and the image of Jo's politely smiling face floats before him. The second she sees Dean the smile morphs into a beam of sunshine.

"Hi, Dean. How's it going? Found our missing prince yet?"

Dean smiles back at her, radiating charm. "Got leads."

He's careful not to sound too confident. "I'm thinking one or two might go someplace."

"Oh great! I'm really hoping you find this guy. Used to have a big old crush on Prince Sammy. He was so cute, um, back when I was eight or nine."

Dean feels the slightest pang of... No, it isn't jealousy. Jo is like a little sister to him, and he values that. She knows a lot more about him and what he does than most, but there isn't and can never be more between them. He can't do that to such a nice girl. Dangerous guys like Dean do NOT have relationships, let alone relationships with sweet, respectable girls like Assistant Convoy Control Officer Jo Harvelle. Especially when he sometimes lies to her.

"Looks like it could turn out a bigger job than we first thought, Jo. Gonna need a little extra for expenses on this one. Old man good for it?"

Jo grins. Campobello is a small but prosperous state. The Grand Duke is metaphorically rolling in it.

"Sure he is, Dean. He'll fork out whatever it takes. Grandson's the apple of his eye, not to mention a favourite target for the paparazzi. He keeps Campobello in the society columns."

Dean whistles. "Awesome. Guess we can write our own paycheck on this one then, huh?"

"Uh-huh. Take whatever time you need, Dean, but bring the guy home."

Dean raises his glass. "Jo, that's what I do."

"OK, keep me updated."

With the unofficial business out of the way, Jo moves on to the official reason she called.

"Uh, and in the meantime, they need you on convoy duty again. There's an official transport leaving Terra tomorrow at dawn and they're expecting trouble. There'll be a Diplomatic Courier aboard."

Dean's day job is riding shotgun on transport convoys for the Terran shipping company. That is how he keeps his license to captain a rocketship and operate her in the official space lanes. It's an honest living, although it doesn't attract anything like enough credit to bankroll his YED habit.

"Where they bound?"

Scheduled transports take off regularly for all three of Terra's moons. Dean has contacts everyplace, but he has a definite favourite amongst the three satellites.

"Eno."

Dean punches the air. Eno, the first of the two man-made moons to be constructed, was intended as a home-world for the overflow of scientists, engineers and technologists Terra's bow wave of industrial progress was generating. The institution Dean grew up in didn't provide him with much more than a basic education, but he can appreciate guys who know their way around an engine and whose national anthem is a modern rock classic.

He doesn't hold the same regard for Eno's slightly younger sister Emo. Conceived as a home for the arts, abode of poets, philosophers and dreamers, it has never endeared itself to him at all. Emo's fashionable artsy-fartsiness and equivocal attitude to right and wrong offend him somehow.

Dean really HATES Emo. He lets out a relieved breath.

"Great. Eno. Guess I can pick up some spares and supplies for Baby while I'm over there."

Jo snickers. "Yeah, sure, Dean. But don't get too cocky about the assignment. There've been rumours of Selenite pirate activity on the Terra-Eno run. It's not going to be a breeze this time."

Sure, Dean has picked up on Satellite News items about latent hostility between Eno and the mother planet, but he's never paid them much attention. Teenage tantrums happen.

"Pirates, huh? I'll believe that when I see them."

Dean has heard those rumours too, but he gives them little credence. Selenite pirates sound like something from science fiction. They have to be regular hijackers out of Terra, or even Emo where they tolerate almost anyone. He wouldn't put it past the dipsticks of Emo to think pirates are romantic and exciting. And Emo doesn't exactly have a cordial relationship with it's twin.

Besides, those mythical Selenites don't exist. The earliest terraformers proved that, right? Luna never had an aboriginal population, of anything. It was a dead world before the Terrans brought it to life.

Still, this duty assignment is honest work and Dean has nothing better to do until he's ready to hand back his newest charge to his loving family. It will give the idiot the chance to heal and even put on an inch or two of fat. Maybe Dean can talk him into being grateful he actually has a loving family to go home too and staying put this time.

"Fine, Jo. Wire me the data and I'll be there, fired up and ready to go."

Jo supplies the details, Terra-date, coordinates, and they show up in Dean's diary automatically. Baby will compute the flight plan. All Dean has to do is rest up.

"Out." Jo's image vanishes as the transmission ends.

Dean decides to get some sleep before his rendezvous.

TBC

A/N: Just another regular assignment. But will it be as easy as it sounds? Next chapter will be along very soon.