MGiS 6 - Proportional Response - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I think that people are often confused by the dynamic between me and my Auntie Lo. She’s not actually my aunt, she’s my half-mother. But I always thought that sounded demeaning. How can you be half of a mother?

So instead, the woman who gave birth to me is my mother, and her sister-wives that circle my father are my aunts. It’s a personal thing, but apparently it confuses the heck out of some people.

Not Lee though, she got it right out the door. But she’s also got a different view on it, since her father ended up married to three sisters, so her other mothers are actually her aunts. So maybe she had it worse than I did?

Either way, I don’t love my Auntie Lo any less than my mother. It just made sense to my child mind, and now it’s an ingrained habit. I am going to have to be careful to not address her as that while I’m deployed. That might actually be a challenge.

~Jorgia Tre’Unath, personal journal.

The introductions were quick, and thankfully missing on the drama that Desmond had experienced during his introduction. But without Windracer here to stir things up, that made sense.

“I need a volunteer to show our new adepts around and get them settled in. I know it’ll cut into your shore leave time but—”

“I’ll take them, Captain,” Desmond spoke up, interrupting the captain’s request. He’d seen Mia and Jessica’s reluctant looks out of the corner of his eye and figured he might as well step up.

Besides, Bell is still on duty and she did agree to come with us on the station walk. Still hasn’t given me an answer yet on joining the squad, but she’s got another day on her three day limit Chloe gave her, Desmond thought as the captain turned a relieved look his way.

“Adept McLaughlin, thank you. Are you okay to take both groups or…” Bree Skytreader let the question trail off and raised her eyebrows, to which Desmond waved a hand dismissively.

“I’m happy to escort both of the ladies. It won’t take us long to get them settled in, I promise.”

“All right then, I leave them in your hands,” Skytreader responded with a nod and a searching glance before turning her attention to Mia and Jessica. “You two are released to go on shore leave. Don’t perform math with the population of the station and don’t get arrested for anything, and make sure you thank McLaughlin. McLaughlin, you are released once you finish settling our new arrivals in.”

“Yes, Captain!” Both adepts replied with sharp salutes, though they were all suppressing excited grins.

Jessica glanced Desmond’s way and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

“I’d save you a seat at the bar if you want, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t enjoy the floor shows as much as my girls do,” the big Uth’ra adept said, showing off all her teeth in a wide smile as the captain strode away. From the way Bree’s head shook back and forth, Desmond could tell she was exasperated with the antics of her crew, but apparently unwilling to do or say more.

“Don’t worry about it,” Desmond said dismissively. “I wouldn’t dream of getting between you and… what was it again? ‘Wetting your lips?’ ”

Jessica boomed out a loud laugh, the sound echoing through the shuttle bay despite the whirring of the machinery as the loading arm came out and locked onto the shuttle in preparation of tucking it back into the rack on the wall where they were stored.

“See, this is why you are my favorite, Desmond! You get it. Come on, girls. McLaughlin is covering for us, let’s go find some fun!”

While Jessica led her squad off in a raucous celebration, Mia gave Desmond another salute and a nod, her fox tail flicking happily back and forth.

“Thank you, Adept McLaughlin. We’ve all been looking forward to a chance to unwind and stretch our legs somewhere new. If I see somewhere that might make for a good celebratory dinner, I’ll message you.”

“Thanks, Adept Rowett,” Desmond replied, returning the salute and nod before the vulpine Taari also led her team towards the door.

With those finished, Desmond turned his attention to the two Va’Aelfa and their squads standing in full armor. He gave them a quick once over, noting the nervous looks on the guards' faces and the smile still hanging on Jorgia’s aristocratic features.

“Well then, let's get this show on the road. I’m sure you all would like to get your gear stowed so you don’t have to carry all that around, right?” Desmond said, planting both hands on his hips as he spoke.

Jorgia blinked in confusion initially, her smile fading and Desmond realized that the euphemism must have been a miss. But Natalie stepped in while the other Va’Aelfa blinked a few times.

“I would appreciate that, Adept McLaughlin. We are in your hands,” Natalie said, tossing him another quick salute.

“Just call me Des or Desmond if it’s just us,” Desmond said with a wave of his hand. “Save the full thing for when it’s something important.”

“Then you should do the same for me. Call me Lee, please?” Natalie said with a broad smile, hefting the duffel bag she’d been carrying onto her shoulder. “Come on, Jorgia!”

“Of course, Lee,” Jorgia said with a put-upon sigh before replacing her smile and inclining her head towards Desmond. “It is good to see you again, Desmond.”

“You as well, Jorgia,” he replied as they started across the decking. “I’m both surprised and not surprised to see you.”

“Yes, well Auntie Lo tried to get me to accept the assignment to the Vigilant Titan, but I declined. I don’t rate a dreadnought posting right out of the academy, regardless of my family connections,” Jorgia said as she fell in on Desmond’s left, while Natalie moved over to take his right.

The guards shuffled about to match the new arrangement, with the new adepts’ teams streaming out behind them. Lila and Sasha moved up to take the lead before they made it more than ten feet, with Chloe, Audra, and Raegan falling into their normal positions around Desmond and making the other guards shift to accommodate them.

“I can respect that,” Desmond replied. “The Fist of Defiance is still a comfortable post, especially now.”

He hadn’t meant to say that last part, but it had slipped out before Desmond could stop it. But Jorgia didn’t react to it, beyond nodding in understanding.

“I had heard that there was some fracas with one of the previous adepts aboard, but not the specifics about it,” Lee said from his other side. “The fact that there were two open spots on a battlecruiser was a welcome thing, which is one reason we picked this posting.”

“Oh?” Desmond asked, glancing between the two Va’Aelfa as they maneuvered through the doors and into the Spine of the ship. “Sasha, let's get them out of their armor first, okay?”

“You got it, Chief,” Sasha called over her shoulder and turned their formation to head towards the Armory.

“Yes,” Jorgia answered, taking over for Lee. “I’ve been friends with Lee for most of a year now, and having a familiar face on board was reassuring.”

Desmond rubbed at his chin ruefully and shot her a mock offended look.

“Now, I know I’m not the most handsome man right now, I blame not getting enough sleep, but I would hardly say I’m so far gone as to be unfamiliar,” he teased.

Jorgia rolled her eyes at him playfully and reached over to give Desmond’s shoulder a gentle shove. A gentle shove that did absolutely nothing to budge him, much to the Va’Aelfa’s surprise.

“Stars and Suns, Desmond! You are as solid as a rock!” Jorgia exclaimed, before turning pink at the muffled snorts of amusement from her guards at the other meaning behind her words.

Doing his best to keep the amusement he was feeling off of his face, Desmond nodded serenely to her.

“Oh, why thank you, Jorgia. My guards and I train hard to be ready for anything. Which is good, considering how rough the last few weeks have been while working short handed.”

“The density of local Rifts has also been higher too,” Chloe reminded him gently, and Desmond nodded in agreement before steering the conversation back to the previous topic.

“Yes, that didn’t help either. But either way, it’s not like I’ve changed that much to make me unfamiliar, have I?”

“No. You have not, Desmond,” Jorgia said, fighting back her blush still. “It wasn’t until after we’d accepted the posting that I found out the other adepts on the ship, though.”

“That must have been nice,” Desmond sighed. “I know that we’ve been wondering who we’d get ever since they peeled Windracer off the ship. Must have been the communications blackout that they put us into while we are underway.”

“Yes,” Jorgia answered with a sharp nod that sent her platinum blonde hair bouncing and fresh glimmers sparkling over her purple-blue skin as the motes lit up. “Auntie Lo always complains about it, though she has access to the secure comm lines as the admiral. She can get messages and mail in and out, but she can’t get the news feeds unless someone records it and sends it to her.”

“I don’t know, that might be a good thing,” Natalie said with a grimace. “I’m getting tired of only hearing about disaster after disaster in this region. We spent a week on the station and you’d think that there were Jaar’ti hunting packs in every system with how often they were running news stories about those bastards attacking settlements.”

“Sensationalism sells,” Desmond said with a shrug as Sasha pulled to one side and keyed open the door that led into the Armory. “Here’s our first stop. Hey Anya! Got two new adept teams to drop their gear off, are their storerooms ready?”

Desmond called the last part as he stepped into the main section of the Armory and spotted one of the Radford triplets behind the counter doing some maintenance on a rifle.

Anya looked up and blinked rapidly for several seconds before she responded.

“Yes? Yes! Void it, I knew I had forgotten something. Nadia took care of that this morning when we got word that we’d be docking with the station soon. Sorry, I was sulking because I pulled a shortened leave this rotation and I had forgotten they’d be coming in.”

“Understandable. Hopefully your sisters didn’t tease you too much about being able to head out while you were stuck here?” Desmond asked and got a nod from Anya before the tiger-striped Latsu set her work aside and padded around the counter to emerge in the hallway.

“They still gave me hell, but that’s just part of working with them. Adepts, the private arming rooms are this way. I’ll show you where you and your guards can secure your gear.”

“I’ll wait for you all out here,” Desmond said reassuringly when Jorgia and Natalie glanced his way. “No reason for us to crowd the hallway up. Things can get a bit cramped back there at the best of times.”

“All right then,” Jorgia said with a small smile. “When we get back, I’d be interested to hear more about what to expect and any advice you can give us since you’ve spent a few months out here already, Desmond?”

“Sounds good,” Desmond agreed with a smile before the two squads trooped off after Anya.

Desmond’s squad immediately closed in around him to talk in hushed whispers.

“So that was the Admiral’s niece?” Audra asked in a whisper as they got comfortable.

Chloe was leaning against the wall with Desmond turned so that his back leaned into her side as well. This allowed the horned woman to drape an arm over Desmond’s chest while her blonde-tufted cow’s tail switched happily behind her. Raegan stood opposite Desmond, blocking him from view from the doorway of the Armory, while Sasha and Lila did the same for the hallway. Audra was pressed to the wall on Desmond’s right, her coils pulled tight to keep from cluttering the room as well.

“Daughter actually, half-daughter I guess,” Desmond answered with a shrug.

“And she’s the one that you—” Audra began to ask and Desmond cut her off. He’d made sure Audra was fully in the loop on everything that had happened before, even the things under gag orders, since as his guard she would be involved going forward.

“Yes, that’s her. I can only hope that we don’t see more of such on the Fist, because that would just be ridiculous.”

“It’s not like she’s the protagonist in a TV show or book,” Chloe said reassuringly. “They don’t have to dream up some new drama for her every few episodes. I’m willing to bet that the entire bit with the assassination attempt is the first and only one she deals with.”

“Here’s hoping,” Sasha mumbled resignedly. “Chief is already Fate’s Squeaky Toy, we don’t need any more trouble finding its way here.”

“Speaking of trouble…” Desmond said, his grin widening as he dragged the sentence out.

“Oh yeah!” Raegan exclaimed in excitement, and Sasha’s resignation immediately transformed into excitement.

“What?” Audra asked in confusion, glancing between the grinning members of the squad and Lila, who was just as confused as she was.

“I don’t know,” Lila responded to the questioning look. “I didn’t get to find out before stuff started happening. Did you hear back from Bell or something?”

“No,” Desmond answered, his excitement tempering, but only by a small amount. “I heard back from another type of trouble. Monika finally got back to me.”

“Monika… oh your contact with the Irongrip Consortium?” Audra murmured before snapping her fingers sharply. The Nagat woman’s copper-colored eyes widened when she realized what that meant and she turned an expectant look to Desmond. “What did she say?”

Rather than summarize it, Desmond lifted his left arm up again and began accessing the menu for his comm-cuff once more.  Bringing up the message, he read it aloud for them.

“To the Thief-of-all-the-hotties,” Desmond began, wiggling his eyebrows in a mimicry of Monika that made anyone who had met the lascivious Dwerg woman snicker. “In regards to your questions about investing in my family's company: I’m happy to say that it’s simple enough to buy shares of Deez-Nuts!”

“Oh Stars, I missed that part,” Raegan said with a groan, slapping her hands over her face as Sasha giggled and Lila rolled her eyes. “Why did you teach her that joke?”

“Because,” Desmond snickered. “It gets exactly this reaction when she uses it. Also, the chance of spreading ‘deez nuts’ jokes to the greater galaxy as one of humanity's first contributions was too historic to not try.”

“What does the rest of it say, Chief?” Sasha asked, her tail making excited shapes behind her as she bounced from foot to foot.

Not wanting to drag out his mate’s anxiety, since he’d reached out on her behalf after all, Desmond nodded and continued reading.

“Seriously though, if I didn’t know you as well as I do, Des, all you’d be getting from me would be the lewd jokes. But I looked over the proposal information you sent me because I trust you. And because I trusted you and Sasha, I bounced the information over to my auntie, who passed it on to her mum, my grandmother. Granny Nadine was apparently all sorts of excited by the information and wants to do a holo-call with you to discuss the details. She knows you are on active duty, so she’ll make an opening in her schedule next time you have shore leave. I’ll enclose her comm line so you can correspond with her. Don’t let her talk you down too much. You’ve got a good product and are coming on as a seed investor as well as providing research data, which is worth a lot. I don’t think granny will try and take you for a ride, but the point remains the same. We need to chat more when you get a chance, but with us both being on deployment we probably won’t get a chance to holo-call. Keep your head up and your lovely mountains safe!”

Desmond smirked and stopped reading there, not needing to list out the communication codes at the end of the message that were labeled as for one ‘Nadine Irongrip.’

Looking up at the group, he was met with mixed reactions. Raegan was grinning, her sharp teeth on display while her orange-red eyes flickered in amusement. Sasha was bouncing up and down even more in excitement as she flexed her artificial right arm, the tiny servos whirring quietly in the mechanical construct. Lila and Chloe both looked thoughtful, but it was Audra’s reaction that made him pause.

The Nagat woman was staring at him in surprise, her brows furrowed in thought while she rubbed her palms together in front of her face slowly.

“Audra?” Desmond asked quietly, breaking the Nagat out of her silence with a start that ran from her shoulders all the way down her body to the end of her tail, which thumped firmly against the wall.

“Ah, sorry about that. I… uh…” Audra stuttered before glancing down at Desmond’s glowing comm-cuff and back up at his face. “You said ‘Granny Nadine’ as in ‘Nadine Irongrip,’ right?”

“Yeah?” Desmond responded, quirking an eyebrow. He glanced down to double check the name on it before nodding. “That’s what the comm contact says, is everything okay?”

Audra wet her lips with her tongue before rummaging in one of the pouches that hung from her belt. Since it was impossible for the Nagat to wear pants with pockets, Audra made do with large pouches on the belt that supported her skirt.

Producing her data tablet, Audra quickly keyed through several screens, typing in what Desmond guessed was a password as she talked.

“When you mentioned investing in the Irongrip Consortium, I did a fair bit of research. The company is family-owned, but still accepts investors from outside the family. They stubbornly ensure that the controlling interest of the company stays within the family, something that is common amongst Dwerg-owned businesses.”

“Yeah, you mentioned this before,” Desmond said, gesturing for Audra to continue. He could hear the others coming back down the hallway now and wanted to get this business out of the way before the new adepts got back. “It’s part of why we decided to inquire with them after all. That and I know Monika and she was proud of her family.”

Audra didn’t answer him at first, tapping through several more entries before flipping the tablet around to show it to Desmond.

On the screen of the tablet was a Voidnet article with the image of a stern, female Dwerg seated behind a desk. Her iron-gray hair was styled up in a tight bun at the back of her head and decorated with a thick band of gold set with emeralds. She was dressed in an immaculately tailored black shirt that fit her wide shoulders and full bust well, allowing the bright red gems that served as buttons to shimmer like dark stars on the black expanse. The article title was what caught Desmond’s attention, more than just the image.

“Nadine Irongrip, Head of the Irongrip Consortium, announces her company plans to begin construction of the fifth Dwerg star-forge in the next year…” Desmond read the title aloud, his mouth falling open in surprise.