The Black

“I failed…”

The all-too-familiar pain and anger in those words hung in the air between them casting a menacing shadow of events left unsaid.

“They wouldn’t kill me… I stabbed two more of them before one of them got a tranquilizer needle in my side through the suit… I had my suspicions before... but a needle long enough, durable enough, and sharp enough to get through an exo-suit was a very particular sort of tool… They knew... they knew we were coming… they always wanted a prisoner… I… I was…” Jacob’s voice faltered and wavered as if he hit a brick wall, until he was stopped by a hand on his arm.

“Don’t… I can guess. You do not need to tell me… you have relived enough...” He turned to see Hera’s own flowing tears.

“I was medically “retired” shortly after, I guess they thought I was too broken to be a threat. I needed something, so I took online classes and got a Captains certification for our interplanetary merchant marine... “His eyes fell to his hands, “I spent the rest of the war hauling cargo between colonies and outposts. I wanted off... off of terra, out of sol… anywhere not part of the regime that murdered friends I considered closer than family… when the call came, I volunteered my freighter. I couldn’t get out fast enough…” Jacob finished returning his gaze to his XO. He smiled a sad smile and reflexively reached up and thumbed away a falling drop on her cheek.

Hera was too shocked at his story and his touch to pull away, she blushed slightly before smiling back and hastily wiping the other cheek herself. Her hand moved from his forearm to his bandaged hand, “Well, you are here now. Terra is a long way away.”

“It is,” Jacob seemed to brighten slightly, “It is” he said more firmly, squeezing her hand, “I guess I now fall into the Clint/Mac category of humans” His half sad smirk punched Hera in the gut.

Hera’s chest froze, shaking her head forcefully, “No.” she said firmly, “you’re not like them.” she said with finality. She paused as he gave her a strange look, “I don’t… I don’t...” she faltered lost for words... she searched, looking down and his bandaged hand in her’s.

“It’s ok. I know you didn’t transfer to the freighter life looking for lost connections. I know, humans are an intense experience… I don’t blame you at al...” Jacob was interrupted by the forceful pull of his injured hand. Hera pulled his hand behind her and pulled him into as crushing a hug as he had felt out of a Delmar. He felt her pull his whole body toward her and was too surprised to stop it. He cupped the back of his head and pulled it to her chest, resting it on her colar bone, as he found his face pressed into her flowing hair.

“Stop…” She whispered, “stop” she shuddered slightly as she felt his breath on her neck, “I don’t fear you. I don’t understand it... but I don’t fear you. Your every day self... It’s not a mask like theirs is. That’s their story to tell, not mine. I don’t fault them for it. I would trust either of them with my life.” Hera whispered, holding him tightly to herself, “You are a kind, caring person first, and a warrior second. Maybe it’s what happened to you, maybe it’s how you always were... I don’t know...” she finally relaxed her hold but did not pull away. She kept him there in her embrace for a few moments as neither one stirred.

“Ok….” He said, “ok..” she felt him take a deep breath before His entire body seemed to uncoil all the tension form the past few hours. He finally moved, but not to pull away. A lightning bolt made her shudder as his lips met her neck, first at the crook, then the feeling of his lips worked its way up until it reached her ear before she could regain composure. In that moment, she wanted much more. But it was not the right time. Gently pressing on his shoulders, she felt him let her move him away from her.

He finally sat back enough to see her face, “Not yet” she panted, she could see the confusion in his face, “God’s I want to, but not yet.” He sat back to let her gather herself.

“Too much?” He asked,

“No, just too fast” she said. “How much do you know about Delmar Culture.”

“Not much, just the basic, “keep it in your pants, they aren’t like us” speech we all got when we volunteered.

“Ah.” Hera nodded and spent the next few minutes filling in the gaps before going silent to let Jacob think.

“So that’s why you jumped to get on a human commanded freighter, you wanted time to sort things out.” his resignation rang clearly in his tone. “I can’t say I blame you.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to push you away. Please don’t take this as a no.” Hera squeezed his good hand before cupping his face in her hands, “One season, let us get to know each other. Let us both heal together, instead of adding more.”

“I think I understand, but why the specific season?” Jacob asked.

A Feral smirk finally broke through hera’s features, “Because It’s tradition for the parents to be involved. And They will be home this Refit. I want you to meet them before…”

Jacob raised an eyebrow, “Before what?”

Hera only smiled, leaning in and latching her lips onto his neck ‘turn around is fair play’ she thought before she nipped him and let out a low hum. She smiled as she felt him stiffen before she pulled away. “Before.” Was all she said before standing and stretching, admiring the shocked possibly a little bit confused look on Jacob’s face ‘I wonder how the hunter feels about being hunted’ she thought before Jacob barked a laugh

Jacob ran a finger over the two little welts on his neck that didn’t quite pierce the skin, “I guess my little Magnolia has fangs” he chuckled at her confusion before capturing her in a blur or movement. He held her to him and leaned in to take in the smell of her hair, “I guess we will see who hunts who” he whispered into her ear, partially melting her soul under his touch. He let her go before reaching for his shirt, “It’s really late, Let’s see what Martin has in his fridge.”

“You’re the phantom raider?!? He’s been bitching about someone raiding his kitchen for months!” Hera blurted out.

“And you’re not gonna tell him.” Jacob said sternly.

“Tell him what? I thought I was the only one doing it.” Hera laughed.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Excelsior was a little more crowded than normal. Warren bounced slightly as he worked his way down the halls of reduced gravity. It had been a painstaking search of Eleria. The result was 2500 cryo-pods found with a total of 912 survivors, almost all of them teenagers and young adults. Older Elerian’s appeared to have succumbed to the passage of time and the rigors of cryo-status long before Humanity had learned to forge bronze. What was left was a largely adolescent, and woefully lacking in number remnant of the once prosperous Elerian people. This resulted in just under 1000 young, confused, impulsive and terrified. Warren rounded the corner just in time for a side door to open and a slender familiar hand to shoot out and grab his arm before pulling him into the side room. Warren was taken by surprise long enough to stumble into the small conference room before the door slid shut and was locked.

“Jezz? What the hell?” He asked before the teenager loudly shushed him.

“They will hear you!” she whispered.

“Who will hear me” Warren said, just a bit more quietly.

“The rest of the survivors… They’re driving me insane!” Jezza put her back to the door and sank down to the floor in exhausted exasperation. “They found out… about my dad…” She mumbled finally, pulling her wings around her slender frame in a familiar expression of fearful timidity.

“Oh...” Warren set his data pad down on the table before settling down next to her. Eleria had been a Global Monarchy. The Monarch of Eleria was also head of the military, elected for life with past military experience being a requirement for eligibility. Her Father was the Monarch for 20 years before the Vorath attack that had murdered her planet. One of the survivors had recognized her as a member of the first family, and now the entire “remnant” reflexively looked to her for leadership. This wasn’t news to Warren. She had told him the day they had snuck off to the Observation window the day they met. She and Warren were fast becoming friends, and she leaned on him often when she felt overwhelmed.

“Pappa was so strong. They expect me to speak for him… To save them somehow… when we don’t even have the numbers to restart our people…” her muffled voice bled its sorrow and anxiety from behind her shroud of feathers. “I’m not him… I don’t think I can be Him...”

“I know. We were really hoping to recover at least some adults... It was just too much time...” Warren scooted over, wrapping the bundle of feathers, wings, and all in one arm as she leaned up against his shoulder.

“Warren, what are we gonna do… Atticus keeps telling me there is hope but won’t say more... we need millions more survivors to restart our race… and our world is unrecognizable.” She peeked her head out from over the top of her winged cocoon and laid it on his chest. She couldn’t see warren’s flash of happiness as she did it.

“One step at a time. First, we go to Sol, get all of you a full medical work up and correction. You guys survived, but 35 million years frozen took its toll. We need to get you to propper medical facilities, so we don’t lose more of you.” Warren let her think for a moment before she slowly unfolded from herself.

“Then that’s what I’ll tell them... My people were fiercely loyal to Pappa. I guess I’ll have to play the leader a while longer...” She groaned, standing at last and visibly steeling herself, “Thank’s” she said, giving him a small hug, “See you at the mess for dinner?”

“Sure, But I need to get back, I am technically still on shift.” Warren scratched the back of his head awkwardly, making Jezz giggle before she unlocked the door.

“Until Dinner, Lieutenant” She teased before opening the door and releasing her impromptu captor.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Captain Yasushi stepped into the medical ward of Excelsior just to be startled by a small waddling figure of an androgenous-looking Corth as it greeted him, “Ah, Captain” the mostly natural-sounding voice said, “Good to see you, in the flesh. Well, mostly anyway” It said in Atticus’ voice.

Yasushi recovered his composure almost instantly and instead scowled down at the animatronic faximaly, “Care to explain yourself, and this?”

“Precautions Captain, precautions. You don’t want a foreign, alien, possibly rogue Artificial intelligence running free in your ship’s computer core... and I would prefer to remain… Compiled... as it were. I felt this was a healthy solution. The Corth heavily used Nanite Technology in our Cryopod fall back plan for Eleria. It’s in the circuitry, in the hosts, but more importantly, in the recovery systems. Since we have been using the Bio Beds for our reanimation attempts, I have been extracting and collecting the Recovery Nanites. I finally attained enough to construct a body, of sorts and transfer myself to it. It’s not perfect. It contains a heavy dose of what humans call “uncanny valley” as it were, but it got me out of your computers. It seemed like the logical thing to do.”

Yasu sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I won’t fault your logic, but please… Notify me or another ranking officer the next time you decide to do something… asymmetric.”

“A point, Captain. I understand. Anyway, my new ‘body’ was not the reason why I requested this meeting. I believe I have found something, but I require a…. favor.” The apprehension was apparent in Atticus’s voice.

“Go on, I’m listening” Captain Yasu stated with pained neutrality.

“How much do you know about the current Unity.” Atticus’ careful tone was noticed.

“We know that they are aware of Humanity, and the Corth had a hand in Humanities development. Our relationship with them is… Tenuous. I know very few Corth remain. I have not been briefed beyond that.” Captain Yasu responded.

“ ‘had a hand’ indeed. Captain, I will be privately recording a message to both Sol and to whoever you have in charge of your connection to Unity. This was well before my time, but I recognize my fundamental teachings anywhwere.” ‘Atticus’ turned and began tapping furiously into the medical console, clearly done with the conversation.

“Make it quick, we depart for Sol within the hour,” the Corth simply waved a hand in dismissive acceptance still typing furiously on the console. Yasu just raised an eyebrow before shaking his head and turning to leave the infirmary.

__________________________________________________________________________________

The cacophony of voices was overpowering as Jezzaria stepped back into the meeting room filled with the remnants of her people. One of the younger boys noticed her and called out, rendering her sneaky entrance irrelevant as all of them clamored towards her asking a million questions at once. Jezz tried to quiet them, but her voice was lost to the din of adolsescent impatience. An ear-splitting high-pitched sound cut through the voices, silencing everyone. Jezz looked over to see a sentry guard pull two fingers out his mouth and give her an abbreviated human salute.

“Alright, one at a time!” Jezz tried to remember her voice projection lessons, and silently cursed her dissentrist at the time.

“What are we gonna do” a little girl asked first hugging a stuffed toy she had brought into her pod with her.

“We are going to go with these nice people to see their home, for now.” She said kindly before booping the little one lightly on the nose and nodding to her slightly older brother holding her hand.

“Is it true? No Adults are coming?” another, older boy asked.

“yes.. It’s true. Our parents sacrificed themselves so we could live. We were asleep for to long. Im sorry” Jezz spoke loudly, “We will be going with these Humans, our world is not as we remember it. It has no cities, no infrastructure, no medical or agriculture. We cannot live there right now. We are going to a moon over their planet, where gravity is closer to what we remember. I know many of your last memories before the cataclysm were of what your next homework assignment was, or what grade you got on the next test. We will all have to grow up quickly.”

“Why, we will die out anyway!” one kid yelled followed by murmurs from the older kids.

Jezz steeled herself, “We may... but doing nothing will ensure that we will go extinct. I have hope, and I will keep it. We go with the humans. We learn, we catch up. And we prepare to return. It may be a long time before we can return home. And it WILL be unrecognizable. But we will return. I promise. You look to me because of my father. You honor me. I will keep his legacy. He never made it to a pod. Atticus revealed to me that he died with his men, Defiant to the last. WE face our own fight against extinction. Will you rise to his example with me?”

It started mall, a little girl clapping, but it grew into a cheer before Jezzaria raised her hand and commanded silence. “Get some rest and get your secondary checkups. We all have been marked by our long sleep. We will need time to heal and time to learn. Go rest. Tomorrow begins our life’s work.”

Excited Murmuring was the dominant sound as the survivors filed out. Some returned to their bunks, others to the mess hall. Some of the rest started walking to the infirmary. Jezzaria stepped out into the hallway to see a Warren talking to the soldier who had silenced the crowd. He turned to see her, and a proud grin crossed his features, “Ready for dinner?”