“That’s what all this is about?” Alex erupted, hands thrown wide. “He fucked somebody from the wrong species? That’s why he’s treating Carbon like shit? Putting-” His words devolved into a snarl, lips curled up in near-incoherent rage as everything he’d tamped down to keep his shit together since he had come on board slipped loose of that confinement.
That piece of shit had actually yelled at his own daughter for something he had done. Sharadi was actually, literally sanctimonious. A hypocrite of the highest order! It wasn’t even the same! There was no ‘dalliance’ here. There had been no point where Alex would have used such a trifling, floral word to describe anything happening between Carbon and himself.
Sharadi had hurt her, and Alex was ready to return the favor with the same gentle touch that the Tsla’o had bestowed upon him several times already. He’d start with a knife in the-
He stood up abruptly, his chair tipping and clattering to the floor behind him. He was so very close to just boiling over, fantasizing about murder for the second time that afternoon. “I’m gonna... Be out there. For a minute.”
Alex would like to imagine that he had swept out of the room smoothly, despite the fact he was seething. Instead he had wrenched the doorknob so hard something in it broke before he tossed the door open, slamming it into the furniture on the other side and stalking down the narrow hallway back to the ship corridor. A little bit of what had become normal to him, plain gray bulkheads and the stink of ozone in the air.
He wanted violence right now. The realization sent another surge of adrenaline through his body, and he inhaled sharply at the prospect. The potential. How good it would feel to just make this problem go away with a couple of punches. The swing of a cane with a suspiciously heavy pommel. A firing squad.
It solved everything this afternoon, right?
No. No. That wasn’t who he was. He hadn’t grown up to be a killer. His parents hadn’t raised one. He hadn’t enlisted as an actual soldier, he wanted to explore. To help others through that endeavor. Safe planets, mineable asteroid belts, accurate maps. Yes, it had been for Humanity at first, but he readily extended that same desire to assist the Tsla’o. He wanted to help people.
But he had been ready to kick Hatae’s face in. Just as a matter of following through, a quick boot to the skull. The SERE trainers had been real specific about that. Putting someone on the ground and curb stomping them was something you did to kill. Sometimes it was necessary so they didn’t kill you.
Hatae had been on the ground, out of the fight. Nothing near a threat at that point, but hindsight was 20/20. How long would it have taken for Alex to lift a foot and cave his skull in? A second, maybe two? Would he have done it again if the first one didn’t look like it had worked?
How would Alex handle being a murderer, if Mateku hadn’t gotten there when he did? He could tell himself it was in self defense, and he was sure everyone who mattered to him would echo that sentiment. Eleya could say it was his right until she was blue in the face...
But he’d know.
He’d remember looking down at somebody who was curled up on the ground, crying about getting his nose broken, and then making the decision to snuff him out.
And he earnestly considered killing a few more people after that.
“That’s not who I am.” Alex repeated that mantra quietly to himself a few times, sitting down in the corridor, leaning against the cool metal of the bulkhead. He said it as though that would make it more real. That he would believe it right here and now.
Carbon crouched down next to him, setting a hand on his knee so gently that he barely felt it. “Alex?” Her voice was unusually soft, cautious. Scared. She sounded so scared. Even when faced with dying out in the middle of nowhere in a ship with half a working engine, she had never sounded like this.
Alex did that to her. This was his fault.
“I just need a minute.” Alex unclenched his jaw and exhaled, nice and slow. He could put this back together. Get his shit straight.
Her ears twitched and she gave him a little nod. “May I stay with you?”
“Yeah.” Alex was hard pressed to imagine how bad things would have to be for him to tell her no. Maybe if he had actually put his boot through-
He banished that particular thought, settling in to doing some breathing exercises they had taught him back in the CPP. Exert control over his body to regain control of his mind. It had sounded stupid at first, and he still felt silly doing it, but that shitty little voice that wanted blood for blood was already more distant.
Carbon slumped against the bulkhead, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him. Present but silent as he worked this out. It was nice that she understood him well enough to know that he processed things quietly, working through them in his head. He appreciated that.
He appreciated her.
One last deep breath, and a slow exhale to build his courage up. “I didn’t tell you everything about what happened when Kaleta... Sharadi showed up.” Why was that so hard to say?
Carbon gave him an affirmative noise and another nod.
“Things happened like I explained, I glossed over how I reacted to all this.” That was a lie, of course, he had hardly thought about his reaction to almost getting brained at the gym. “I guess I haven’t even really processed it. So.”
She waited for him to continue, bright blue eyes watching with no small amount of concern. Carbon slipped her hand into his and laced their fingers together. “I will be here for you.”
Would she? When she found out that he was ready to murder her fellow-
Alex grumbled softly and closed his eyes, doing another set of breathing exercises before he continued. “If it had just been Kaleta and Hatae, I think I probably would have killed him. He’s not good at fighting. I broke his nose, put him on the ground. That should have been the end of it, but I was ready to curb stomp him. I almost did. Training, you know? If someone hostile is on board, they need to be stopped. Permanently if need be. I almost did.”
Carbon let him say his piece, squeezing his hand while he spoke. “I imagine there is more?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t like how long it took to organize his thoughts on this, but it had turned out to be a complex moment. “We... we threaded the needle here. If Mateku hadn’t arrived when he did, I probably would have killed Hatae. At the same time, if he wasn’t an old man with a bad leg, he probably would have killed me with the first blow.”
Morbid curiosity brought his hand up to where the cane had impacted, just above his mandible. It was fully healed, had been for a while, but he was interested in distance right now. Alex measured the space between ground zero and his temple with his thumb and index finger, just about ten centimeters. He held them up for Carbon to see. “He was that far from landing a fucking mace where my skull is thinnest.”
He didn’t figure there was really a good place to have a mace to make contact with your skull, but that seemed like it was the worst spot.
Carbon sighed softly and set her head on his shoulder. “I am glad he did not.”
“Me too.” He got a half-hearted chuckle out of that. “I’m thinking about it now and I can see so many ways this could have gone even more out of control. The people who have been tasked with my security are allowed to use lethal force, right?”
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She nodded. “They would defend you with any means at their disposal, yes.”
“Right. Sharadi didn’t know Tenaha would step in, that I had half my squad on their way, that Sergeant Zenshen had a gun. Even if it hadn’t happened there, I’m sure Eleya would have had them killed. I think she entertained having Sharadi put to death for this, before the first report on his communications came back.”
Carbon didn’t respond to that, just giving his hand another squeeze.
“The thing that really gets me, though... There was a good second or two where I really thought that killing was acceptable! I was ready to do it. I had a weapon in my hand and I was this close to ending her life.” He held up his finger and thumb again, much closer together this time. “I was ready to go back and finish off Mateku. And the worst part?”
He sucked in a terse breath through his teeth.
“If other people hadn’t been there to see me do it, I would have. It wasn’t some better part of me staying my hand. Not the fact I don’t want to be a murderer, or how immoral I find the idea of killing, particularly for retaliation.” Alex boiled silently, grinding the teeth he had left together as he got himself in order again. “It was witnesses.”
“For this, I am glad. While I am mad at Kaleta... She is important to me. She carries the last echoes of my mother, and the father I may not have anymore.” Carbon reached over and drew idle circles on the back of his hand with a warm fingertip. “While you say it was not a better part of you staying your hand - are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Another deep breath, another sigh that felt like it was on the edge of a breakdown. “At that moment I knew I had almost limitless power. One step from the throne, right? Eleya finally convinced me of something, I guess.”
“Then why did witnesses override that?” She tilted her head to look up at him. “You had power beyond reproach, did you not?”
“I mean, I guess.” Where had his mind been in that exact moment? His head was a constellation of pain, despite the adrenaline dulling it and making his hands shake. Blood blotted out his sense of taste and smell. The urge to act, to expend the energy that was flooding his body. “I wanted someone else to hurt, you know? I wanted these attacks to stop, once and for all, and putting that cane through someone’s head felt like the way to go.”
There had been his snide comment to ‘dad’ followed a heartbeat later by the realization that he could impose a reprisal with as much violence as he desired. A warning to the next guy who thought putting a gun in his face was a good idea. He had gotten the cane to about shoulder height, halfway up the backswing. Right there was the point where it stopped, the surge of madness quelled by his squad arriving. Soldiers all, and all younger than he is.
“I saw Amalu coming in with the rest of my detail. He looked straight at me and just froze up...” Amalu had been in front of the group. He’d been looking at Kenath just behind him and laughing about something. He was the first one to see Alex. The way his face shifted from an easy smile to horror crystalized in Alex’s mind. Riding that surge of adrenaline and distant from reality, Alex had assumed it was because he knew what was about to happen, as though Amalu could see the violent intent that had swirled in his mind. In retrospect it was more likely that Alex standing there with his face smashed up, blood all over his mouth and neck, was a surprise he hadn’t been prepared for.
“But why did that stop you?” Carbon enquired. “They are yours to command, they could have assisted you.”
“I don’t know, because I’m not a psychopath?” Amalu was actually an adult, sure. After Carbon had pointed out he still had fluff that marked Tsla’o youth, Alex couldn’t stop thinking about him like he was too young to be a soldier. Too young to kill, to die for somebody’s title. Mentally filing him into the same category as his nephew. “He’s a good kid. Fuck, that would be like asking Jason to hold somebody down while I beat them to death.”
She made an affirmative hum. “So was it really witnesses that stopped you?”
“No.” Carbon had managed to get him to talk himself down off that ledge, which did really fit for her chosen field of study. “And a little yes. Their arrival interrupted the fury in me long enough for me to realize what I was doing. I still got lucky. We still threaded the needle.”
“These are not incidents you could have known you were going to experience.” Carbon looked up at him as she set her hand over his heart. “They are not normal for anyone. Luck may be the best we can hope for, there is no way to train for situations that are all but random.”
“Yeah. I’m tired of this. I want to be with you, but it’s becoming clear that this is needlessly dangerous. This little incident could have wiped away what’s left of your family, and...” It was so easy to say that he was all in with this relationship when it was just him in the crosshairs of some terrorists. Only his life on the block, and relatively sure that Eleya actually meant to protect him. Even when he had doubted his place in Carbon’s life, or had the occasional run in with alien cultural sensibilities, that was quick to turn around.
The math was starting to look real complex when things like ‘the last vestige of Carbon’s parents’ became part of the ledger. What kind of damage could that do, particularly if it was by his hand? All the resolve in the universe didn’t matter if he ended up poisoning their relationship with something like that. Yes, this was unlikely to happen again, but the fact it had happened at all worried him more than the entire first assassination attempt.
For now, resolve would have to do. “And I really need to talk to a therapist.”
“Neya has not had the time to notify you verbally, and I suspect you have not checked your comm, but you have an appointment with Doctor Kasia tomorrow evening.” A wry smile curled the corner of her mouth, a faint laugh. Her ears shifted, tension she’d been holding in starting to release. “Though I suspect she would rearrange her schedule further for something of this scope.”
He hadn’t checked his comm. It hadn’t so much as beeped at him all afternoon... was it on silent? He did actually consider asking about having the appointment pushed up. Nothing in this situation felt good, but he was sure that nothing would get worse in the next day. Famous last words, perhaps, but the rest of tomorrow’s schedule could get fucked. It was all Intel meetings and line readings anyway. He would simply not leave their cabin without a full escort. “No, I think I’m good enough to wait.”
“You are more than good enough.” Carbon stretched up to kiss him, a soft peck on the lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit. Better, but still like shit.” He wasn’t a bundle of barely restrained anger storming around anymore, so that was an improvement. “What the hell are we going to do with your dad?”
“I... Do not know. You said Eleya has a report on his communications?”
“Eleya started an investigation just after Kaleta left her quarters. The AI scrape said he told them not to use force. Insisted I not be harmed, just removed, as he was afraid of retaliation from the Confed. The amount of planning that went into this was minimal. I guess I was just supposed to be convinced to go with them and they’d take me back to Earth.” Easy as that, if their pointman wasn’t a violent drunk.
Carbon was silent for a few seconds, and confused when she spoke. “That is it? Take you back to Earth?”
“I guess!” He tossed his free hand into the air and shrugged. “Doesn’t make any sense to me, either.”
“I may understand it. His first reaction when he was notified was that this was all Eleya’s doing, a bit of theater to make Humans more palatable to our kind. My insistence and Eleya’s assurance that it was not just made him more furious. I think he might have held onto that first assumption. Reasoned himself into believing that you could be talked into leaving, or simply told to go.” Carbon exhaled softly, shaking her head. “He has worked with Humans in the past, he knows you are sensible people.”
Alex got a chuckle out of the idea Humans were sensible. Maybe some of them, but he personally did a lot of stuff that didn’t fall into that category. “He’s not entirely wrong, part of this is to make Humans - well, Human assistance - more agreeable. Strikes me as a very threadbare understanding of how Eleya plans things, and I’ve just met her. Anger does have a tendency to make complex things look real simple in the moment...”
“So I have heard.” There was a soft smile on her muzzle as she looked to him again. “All this is supposition. Once the inquiry is complete, the fog should be lifted. We will not know the exact path, but we can begin a plan that is more than guessing.”
“Yeah. I just... I don’t want any more death. Particularly not from what little family you have left.” Alex tipped his head back against the bulkhead, the metal wicking heat away from him as he rubbed his eyes. “And I sure as hell don’t want to be the one responsible for it if there’s some other way to handle the situation.”
“Thank you. He may be a hypocrite, but I do not wish to discard him. Not yet. We will see what else Kaleta knows. She rests close to his heart.” Carbon patted his chest and looked at the ceiling, punctuating that statement with an annoyed huff. “She used to, at least.”
“You’re taking this news pretty well. Better than I have.”
“Yes. I am not a hypocrite.” She paused, a rueful laugh echoing down the corridor. “He is in the middle of his life. Forty or fifty years is a long time to spend alone, and I would not want him to for my sake. I made peace with that thought not long after the Cataclysm, that she was gone and there was much unknowable ahead of us. We will hold tight to what has survived, and cherish whatever we find borne from the ash.”
“That’s deep.” Alex laughed in earnest at his reaction. “I will certainly cherish you.”
“Oh, no...” Carbon waved a hand and grumbled, annoyed. “I took that line from a speech Eleya made.”
“Still gonna do it.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“I will allow it this time.” She smiled and kissed him back. “Shall we return? I do not know if they are waiting for us, or if Eleya has begun interrogating Kaleta herself...”
“Suppose we should.” He pushed himself up and held out a hand to help her up as well. “Otherwise we’re just going to be sitting here making out in front of the Guard.”