Family Matters

The harem had earned the approval of her parents. Sammie did her best to surreptitiously sag in her chair without her mother noticing, the relief that her relationship had approval from her family washing over her - until she sat bolt upright again just before Leora’s gaze could turn back in her direction. They still had to go and meet Meli and Trea’k, but the people present in the ready room at least had met whatever strange criteria her parents had dreamed up before they arrived on Sola.

Dustin was nearby, and seemed to be keeping things more or less under control. Her mother made a rather pointed comment regarding Emely’s obvious bump, and he diverted it without any apparent effort. Vaguely, Sammie realised he’d suggested they head somewhere else, and snapped out of her reverie. “What?”

Smiling, he held out a hand to help her up. “I said, we should go introduce your parents to Meli, Trea’k and the kids. They’ve met everyone here, so we can pop down to the nursery and then head up to the bridge.”

Sammie frowned at that. “Why the bridge?”

Her fiancé grinned at her. “Payback for you asking your dad without talking it over with me beforehand. I figured we could say our vows there; there’s enough space if we have our attendees manning their stations instead of the regular crew, and it’ll certainly be memorable. I figure I should at least show your father where we’ll be getting married before making him do the ceremony.” For a moment, Sammie paused as she took in his words, then she scrambled out of her seat and kissed him. The idea was amazing, absolutely perfect… and she was kicking herself for not thinking of it first.

Sometime later, Dustin lounged in the captain’s seat as Sammie talked enthusiastically about the flight controls with her father. Sola’s setup was top of the line, and while Devin had been keen to ensure the new inter-system hauler he commanded was as advanced as possible, cargo ships just weren’t as high spec as the ambassadorial flagship. Leora meanwhile was busy discussing catering for the wedding with Naera; the Caenii had rather smartly left gaps in her plans for the Coastwood matriarch to slot herself into on Sammie’s advice, and Dustin was pleased to see that bit of pre-emptive organization appeared to be going well.

While Sammie’s family were busy with their own things, he finally had chance to see to the other reason they’d flown to this system. Excusing himself, he headed back to the now quiet ready room and put a call in to the planet below. “Izzy? We’re more or less done with all the organizing here now - Sammie’s just going over the final details with her parents. Well, actually, Naera’s going over the final details, Sammie’s mostly waxing lyrical about bi-directional thrust control switches, but in any case we’re clear if you and Terri want to come up?”

The line crackled a moment - Izzy’d clearly muted the call while she spoke with her girlfriend, for what reason Dustin couldn’t tell - before it cleared and she replied. “That’s great, Dusty. We’ll get the next shuttle we can up - don’t get hitched without us! First flight with free spots that won’t cause massive arguments is in… eighteen hours. See ya then?”

Nodding to himself, Dustin smiled. “Alright, Izz. I’ll speak with Sammie - I don’t think we’ve actually got any exact time locked in for the ceremony, and Devin said they were going to be busy unloading cargo for another four or five days at least so we won’t be holding her family up if we wait. I’ll see you at some point tomorrow then.”

The craft was called the Joyeuse. It was the newest design - faster, sleeker, with the shield generators mounted in concentric rings around the reactor core in a way that allowed a secondary set to engage as soon as the primary became overloaded. It was also still very much on a test flight; the captain came from a naval engineering rather than combat command background, and they were planning on this being a short trip out to the border to link up with the scouting fleet for some light combat practice before heading back to Titan to overhaul anything that didn’t hold up.

Eve tapped the dial on the reactor and frowned. Things were looking better than she expected, and history had taught her that when things appeared to be going too well it usually meant something was lying to her. “Yo Mikey, check the flow regs on reactor three would ya? Reactor one’s running smooth as silk, not even a wobble on the output and I don’t trust it,” she yelled over her shoulder, rolling onto her back and sliding under the console to double check the sensor links were connected properly.

A shadow loomed over her as she worked. Sliding out from under the instrument panel she looked up into the exasperated face of the chief engineer. “Coastwood, how many times have I told you to go OFF DUTY? You’ve checked and rechecked every damn panel in my engineering bay, Joy’s not going to fall apart because you went to go get some rest for the last few hours until we drop you off with your family. You’ve got a wedding to get to in potentially as little as eight hours time, and I will never hear the end of it from my cousin if you fall asleep during your sister’s marriage.”

Eve scrambled upright and dusted herself off - not that there was any dust, or grease, or indeed dirt of any kind in the warship’s spotless engineering bay. “Alright, alright, I’m going. Sheesh, it’s not like she’s anyone that important…” She saw the look in the chief’s eyes and waved her hands as she backed towards the door. “I know, I know, she’s marrying the ambassador and that’s a big deal, but Sammie herself is just a half-decent pilot!” Then, she turned and bolted before she could get into any further trouble.

Back in her room, Eve considered herself in a mirror. She didn’t look that tired… sighing, she shook her head. If she didn’t look at least presentable, her mother would insist on dragging her off to fuss over until she met whatever standards Leora had decided on this week. And, she forced herself to admit, she wanted the surprise of her arrival to be a good one for Sammie. With a yawn, she turned and flopped onto her bed. Then grimaced, pulled a scanner out of the back pocket of her overalls where it’d been digging into her spine, tossed it onto the floor and curled up to sleep.

Sola’s announcement that a warship was arriving in Lemth space had Dustin scrambling rapidly back from the nursery to the bridge. He arrived at a full run, sliding into his chair right as Yril’k vacated it. “Status?”

The Vex’ess warrior shrugged as she walked briskly back to her station. “Sola’s sensor’k array detected a heavily’k armed vessel leaving’k the weave a few minutes’k ago. They do not’k match anything’k in our database’k but do not appear hostile’k.” As she spoke, the screen chimed. Dustin’s eyes flicked up, before looking over at Emely - that had been an incoming communication request.

The Feliax woman tapped her console - then paused. “It’s a human ship, Dusty. We’re being hailed - I’ll put it on the main screen.”

For a moment, the vidscreen flickered - and then a tired looking man in a captain’s uniform appeared. “Ambassador? Pleasure to meet you - Captain Atem, at your service. My comms officer is currently requesting permission to stop at the station you’re moored at to resupply before we take the Joyeuse on to join the rest of the fleet, but before we dock I wanted to get in touch to let you know I have some important cargo on board for you.”

Dustin frowned. “Important cargo?”

The captain nodded, glancing to one side. “Come over here, engineer. They didn’t spring for a widescreen video feed on the new Épée class, so you won’t be visible to the ambassador stood over there.” At the man’s words, a young woman in an engineer’s overalls walked into shot and waved.

“Hi, soon-to-be-brother in law! I see my sister’s not on your bridge at the moment; mind asking her to meet ‘someone’ at the airlock once we’ve docked? I really wanna see her face when it opens and I’m stood there!” Eve said, grinning at the man that had apparently won Sammie’s heart.