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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/icallshogun on 2024-12-03 13:11:26+00:00.

Wellspring

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Once again, having diplomatic access paid off. Alex had never left a station so quickly before, with the exception of the launching of the Kshlav’o. The Scoutship program had dedicated hangar bays and approach lanes, and a ship coming or going was planned days in advance so there was no overlap.

The GX8 still handled like a dream, and Alex took third position in the convoy of Tsla’o ships back to the Sword of the Morning Light, setting it up to follow the ship in front of him just like on the trip there.

Alex made note of the time and shut off the ARGUS. Having to think about what he was saying in front of both the ONI and Imperial Intelligence was tiring. Then he went to do a little eavesdropping of his own.

Sliding the pilot’s chair back, he slipped on the remote hud and crept silently as possible back to the stairs, crouching down to peer into the main cabin. The two royal guard were in the first row again, the dichotomy between alien armor and plush white leather chairs still weird. He gave them a little nod. They nodded back. That felt pretty good. Actual recognition.

Carbon and Eleya were all the way back on the right. Carbon had turned her seat around so they were facing each other. He had heard them talking while they stood in the entryway to the ship, but now a good ten meters away he couldn’t hear anything they were saying, just the sound of voices. At least it sounded copacetic. A little tense, which was about as good as he could imagine if they were having the conversation he was expecting to hear about later.

Alex parked himself sideways in the navigator’s station, leaning against the armrest and tapping his feet in the aisle. It was their conversation, one he had been very particular not to put himself into so far despite Eleya’s attempt at getting him to spill some details for her. While he was interested in what exactly Eleya was saying, he was relieved that it seemed to be going well enough that there had been no shouting, or attempted murder.

He suspected that a discussion of that magnitude would take more than the entire flight back. Man. This was going to be worse than listening to Eleya sip a drink at the bottom of the cabin stairs because he wouldn’t let her bring an alcoholic beverage onto the flight deck.

Eleya had understood why he had stopped her from bringing it up, and even approved of his steadfast insistence that it remain in the cabin. The Tsla’o had similar rules about intoxicants and operating vehicles. It did not make her stop drinking as passive-aggressively as she could to be annoying.

He wished he had brought something to drink up here, though. Alex was sure that even creeping down to the head to get some water would be a distraction. He looked back at the cabin, the plush cream carpet at the bottom of actual wood stairs standing in sharp contrast to the utilitarian gray floor plating in the flight deck. Wait. The GX8 was originally a luxe shuttle, the intrasolar equivalent of a private jet. This area wasn’t necessarily meant to be seen by the passengers. There was even a sliding door to close so you could be sure that those passengers wouldn’t have to bear witness to employees.

One of the down sides to having nearly all of your experience with a ship being in a simulator is that you traditionally start off in the pilot’s seat. There’s no interacting with the rest of the ship, save for glancing back at the CPU navigator. Alex’s preferred GX8 variant in a sim were stripped racing models, usually with the Italia livery. He only knew where things were because he’d seen videos of the interior without all the luxury bits taken out, before a crew came in and stripped out every unnecessary gram of weight. Which included a whole bunch of what he had thought were just computer racks that took up the left side of the flight deck, across from the navigator’s station.

If they were going to put a pilot and navigator up here for eight or twelve hours at a time…

The two furthest back were obviously server racks. Rows of blinking lights and little displays telling anyone who would read it what was going on. Even navigation systems that didn’t handle FLT were not exactly compact, and these were fully loaded from floor to ceiling. The three remaining were just lightly decorated pressed metal to carry the motif of server racks. He popped the first one open, pressing the door inward to unlatch it. Coat closet and luggage storage. Ok. fair. These were not turnaround trips.

The middle one hid a kitchenette. Score. A little fridge, a sink, recycler, and a microwave. The forward-most locker was mostly emergency gear, but two shelves were stocked with snacks and prepack meals, and a third with some cups and dishes. Now wasn’t the time for snacking, he was still very much full from dinner, but if there was something good in the fridge…

It too was fully stocked, though not as extravagantly as the wet bar. A few of the usual sodas, juice, water - both still and sparkling because people on the flight deck are very fancy apparently - and the thing he reached for almost instinctively when he spotted it: a can of Vietnamese coffee.

The next question was how was this supposed to be eaten. There was no extra room up here and holding a packet of food over the controls of your expensive ship was not generally approved behavior. Alex looked over the Navigator’s seat, as it was convenient. Sure enough, there was a tray table in the arm rest and a button to make the chair rotate ninety degrees so none of the console was directly in front of where you would set food and drink.

He hopped back up into it and cracked open the coffee, then scanned the hud on the eyes he was wearing. They were still accelerating, forty minutes until they would have to turn it and start the deceleration cycle.

While Alex was very enamored with the ship, the reality of using it to scoot around the system was starting to set in. There was a lot of down time and he had not prepared for that, though there was little to be done in this case. Carbon or Eleya sitting around up here would have been more than enough company. Next time he’d have to make sure Neya came with, or snag somebody from his security team. Zenshen and Amalu would probably be cool with it, but for the rest of them it would literally be their boss telling them to hang out.

He sighed, the worst case scenario having arrived. Alex pulled out his phone and started playing games.

Two hours and three cans of Vietnamese coffee later, they were once again aboard the Sword of the Morning Light and parked back where the GX8 had started earlier that day. Eleya and Carbon were still talking. They had nearly thirty years of trouble to walk through, so condensing it down into just a two hour flight was unlikely. Condensing it down into a single conversation was unlikely.

The Royal Guard were just standing there at the stairs to the hatch when he finally departed the flight deck, the ship fully shut down save for auxiliary power. This was probably not a very common occurrence. Alex continued down the short, luxuriously appointed cabin.

They stopped talking as he approached. “Hey, I’m sure you guys noticed, we’re back. I don’t know if you want to move this conversation somewhere else, or would prefer to keep it going here.” This was no doubt a fantastically important conversation. The incident and the fallout from it had been eating at both of them for decades, so now that it was happening, he would do what he could to facilitate that forward momentum.

The two of them looked up at him, surprised. No, they looked up at him drunk. They both had lowball glasses and that bottle of whiskey Eleya had opened earlier was resting next to hip in her seat, now past half empty.

Carbon looked at him and then to Eleya. “We have arrived?” Now she was surprised, turning to look out the little window a little too fast and swaying in her chair. “Oh.”

“So it is.” Eleya was pleased, a sublime sort of smile on her face. She looked more relaxed than Alex had ever seen her. “I had not even noticed the landing, so talented is the young pilot.”

“So it is.” Carbon echoed her aunt before turning back to Alex, bright blue eyes focusing on him after a moment. Her ears and antenna raised before she spoke, working fairly hard to keep that focus from straying. “What did you say?”

“Do you guys want to continue this conversation elsewhere now that we’re home? You don’t have to stay on the ship.” The amount of concentration she was putting into that was kind of cute. “It’s up to you, I get the impression it was fairly important.”

“It is, yes. Long overdue.” Carbon nodded, staring hard to keep eye contact with him as she spoke and switching back into English. “I feel it may be a good idea to continue it tonight? It is not very late yet.”

She was right, it was only a little after eight. Several hours left in the evening before they normally went to bed. “You up for that, Empress?”

Eleya perked up immediately. “Oh, I am! There is still much left to discuss.”

Alex was momentarily taken aback by the raw enthusiasm in her voice. Eleya was in fact ready to get this done. “All right. Where are we going? Or, I suppose, where are you going?”

“You pick your words carefully, young Prince.” Eleya approved of that, whate…

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