“Are you certain you have everything?” Nelya asked, watching Martinez and Kyroll load the bags into the rental SUV.
“It should be all there, but we will double-check,” Kyroll assured, hefting one of Lysa’s several bags up, the weight causing his healing rib to pang. He knew Martinez was likely similar to him and would not have left anything behind, so he was not worried about it, but if it made Nelya happy, he would ensure it was that way.
“Don’t worry, we will get everything,” Martinez smiled, turning about to look at Nelya, leaning against the side door to the house, clutching a mug of steaming tea in her hands—a boon considering the weather had been getting colder by the day.
Martinez and Kyroll had taken up the role of packing everything for Lysa. They did this for several reasons: it was the right thing to do, but Lysa also felt a bit under the weather. Her sickness had been on and off for the last four days, and Martinez was starting to worry.
When he and Nelya found her and Kyroll cuddled up and sleeping on the sofa, they thought it was adorable. That was until they found the evidence of all the clean-up: vomit on the toilet, rags in the trashcan, and Lysa’s clothes in the washer.
It was then that Martinez and Nelya figured out that Lysa was unwell—but that did not mean they would wake them. If Lysa had been so ill it warranted so, Kyroll would have dragged her to the hospital.
The Human just hoped that Lysa would start feeling better soon after they returned to Draun. He had never experienced her being sick before; now that he had, Martinez was glad of that fact.
Lysa certainly could be moody when sick. It was not that she was angry, but everything seemed to bring her near to tears or upset her—or her random thoughts would blurt out like she was some sleeper agent. One moment, they were cuddling on the couch; the next, Lysa ranted about how one of her coworkers upset her months ago.
It all seemed so random.
“I know you will, Deary. I’m just being a doting mother,” Nelya replied in a light, self-teasing way. “I fully trust my two lovely men.”
Martinez smirked at Kyroll, cringing at hearing Nelya refer to them like that. He knew that Kyroll had accepted Martinez when it came to remaining with Lysa, but the idea of a Human being entirely a part of the family must still be a bit sensitive.
At least after Martinez and Nelya went on that walk alone the other day, he knew Nelya had entirely accepted him as a future member of their family. The entire time they were out, Nelya excitedly told him about the things they could do once Kyroll and Lysa started getting along, and he and Lysa finally gave her grandkids.
He reminded her that they still had to go to a clinic and needed to graduate school, which meant nothing to the motherly Aviex. She was talking like having kids was already a done deal. It was cute that she was so confident about what their futures would look like.
Martinez knew the GU could guarantee their offspring through genetic manipulation; even then, that took years to get signed up for and even longer for the geneticists to prepare for any procedures. At least she was optimistic.
“Come on, let’s go make sure we got it all,” Kyroll said, stepping toward the back of the house.
“Righto,” Martinez followed.
“Oh, will you two have Lysa meet me in the living room? I want to talk to her about something before you two leave,” Nelya requested before they made it around the corner.
“No problem,” Martinez waved.
Once they made it through the billowing snow and to the guest house, Martinez and Kyroll found Lysa moving the last of her bags into the foyer, struggling to move the heavy luggage. “Good Morning, Father,” Lysa wiped her brow, letting the bag thunk onto the wood floor.
“Good Morning, Little Huntress. Is there anything else?” Kyroll replied, pointing at the bag.
“No, that is everything,” Lysa shook her head.
“Okay, just leave it there. Nelly wants you,” Kyroll said, pointing out the grand window toward the house. “Martinez will handle the bags.”
Martinez did not comment on Kyroll voluntelling him to do something. It was just a few bags, and he would have moved the luggage anyway.
“Very well,” Lysa replied before walking over to Martinez and kissing his cheek. “Thank you, Ruh'ah.”
Martinez smiled as warmth spread throughout his chest. Thank God Lysa seemed to be feeling somewhat better today. She was a little bit lethargic this morning, but after some breakfast and a shower, she was back to her usual self.
“No problem,” Martinez replied, watching Lysa sashay toward the door, her tight black pants outlining her flawlessly pear-shaped ass, letting him see it sway and pop with each step.
A sudden heavy hand dropped onto Martinez’s shoulder, pulling him out of the short trance he had fallen into. Turning to look at Kyroll, Martinez awkwardly smirked, seeing Kyroll’s two remaining eyes glaring at him.
“Sorry about that,” Martinez chuckled.
“I might be alright with you—but Human, I'm still her father. Could you not do that in front of me?” Kyroll sighed. “I still find you two kissing awkward enough.”
That Kyroll was embarrassed by their little forms of PDA was funny to Martinez. It was not like they did anything beyond what Nelya and Kyroll did. For god's sake, Martinez and Lysa have been subjected to them mordaining, with Kyroll groping Nelya’s ass just this morning. Maybe it was just about Kyroll being Lysa’s father, but Martinez doubted it.
Kyroll had been racist against anyone non-Aviex for decades; Those sorts of behaviors and habits are not unlearned overnight. The older man likely still held some lingering resentment toward Martinez because he was a Human, but at least Kyroll was clearly trying to make things work.
“Yeah, I just was—-,” Martinez said before Kyroll cut him off. It wasn’t malicious by any means; it was just that Kyroll found the conversation he wanted to have to be more important.
“Follow me; I got something to give you,” Kyroll said, turning about and walking toward the bedroom Martinez and Lysa had been staying in.
“What about the bags?” Martinez asked.
“Get them later,” Kyroll replied, not turning back to ensure Martinez was following.
Once inside the room, Kyroll wandered toward the headboard and ran his hand between the mattress and the wooden headboard itself. After a few moments of muttering in annoyance, he smirked. “There that bastard is,” he praised, just before a loud thunk sounded out from underneath the bed.
Leaning over with a painful groan, Kyroll pulled out what looked like a military weapons case from underneath the bed. It was about as long as the bed itself and must have weighed a ton, based on how it took Kyroll a moment to heft it onto the bed.
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“What is that?” Martinez questioned, stepping beside Kyroll.
“How about I don't ruin the surprise and just show you?” Kyroll replied, inputting a combination into a built-in control screen on the case.
After a pneumatic hiss announced that the seal on this long-forgotten weapons case had been released, Kyroll tossed it open and inspected its contents. At the same time, Martinez went slack-jawed.
Inside the case were not just weapons that would cause the most war-hungry Marine he knew to get a raging hardon, but ammunition and low-profile armor to accompany them. Additionally, amidst the contents were some devices Martinez had not seen since his time in the Marines. Frag grenades, explosive charges, flashbangs, and what he could have sworn were stacks of Vreck anti-personnel drone mines.
“Why do you have all this? And why in all the universe did you think letting me and your daughter sleep on a bed of explosives was a good thing?” Martinez gawked, reaching in and checking a C-7 rifle chamber—it was loaded
The C-7 rifle and the UB-21 blaster in the box were standard-issue weapons in the GU and Human militaries. The C-7 was more common in Human hands, while the GU regulars generally preferred the lighter, handier, but slightly less lethal UB-21. That did not mean the 21 would not put you in the dirt; it was just different.
The weapon diversity in the active forces was an issue of how new Humans were to the GU and intergalactic warfare. Go figure: Generals who first joined the Human military before the GU helped Humanity rise to the stars still had skepticism about the energy-based weapon. As such, the C-7 was preferred. It used caseless ammo and was close enough to traditional slug throwers that Humanity trusted the automatic weapon.
“It pays to be prepared,” Kyroll chuckled, pulling out a small gray bracelet and a pistol. “Some old habits die hard.”
“What about letting us sleep on them?” Martinez asked again, not letting Kyroll get out of answering the question.
“They can’t go off without set up, you know that,” Kyroll shrugged, tapping the pistol onto one of the bricks of plastique just to emphasize.
“Why leave these out here then? Would you not want them in the main house? You can’t use your kit if it’s out here,” Martinez said, setting the C-7 back down.
“I have other caches up all around the property; this one was just set up here,” Kyroll commented.
Martinez did not miss the gravity of that explanation; their property was as sprawling as a city and would take him an entire day to traverse. If Kyroll had caches as set up as this dotted around his property, Martinez could see the man being able to outfit a small army.
Kyroll turned around and flipped the handgun around to offer Martinez the grip. “You familiar with the JKL and NanoFlex armor?”
“I’m not,” Martinez admitted, taking the pistol and being sure to follow the four weapon safety rules by pointing it away from Kyroll and keeping his finger straight and off the trigger.
Kyroll took a few minutes to teach Martinez how to use the JKL without shooting himself or inducing a malfunction. The pistol was a ten-millimeter caseless pistol with an integral suppressor. Its operations were similar to any other autoloading slug thrower pistol that Martinez was used to using. So, that period of instruction was simple and straightforward.
A piece this slick almost felt wrong in Martinez’s hands. He had never seen the JKL in person but had heard that special forces and mercenaries across the galaxy coveted the weapon for its reliability and concealability.
This pistol model had cult status in the Human Marines, rivaling the now-ancient Kalashnikov pattern rifle. Despite not being produced on Earth for hundreds of years, that rifle still managed to worm its way across the stars and end up in the hands of both Humanities and the GU’s enemies and allies alike.
Following that, Kyroll showed Martinez how to use a piece of technology that he thought he would never be able to use—NanoFlex armor.
Considering this armor was usually reserved for Humanities, L.O.S.T troopers, special advisors, and deep recon, it was surprisingly simple to use. There were only two buttons on the wristband, one to activate it and one to deactivate it.
Martinez pressed the activation button, and the small wristband essentially disintegrated and crawled up his arm in a wave of dry, gray particles. Once up his arm, the wave spread out and covered his entire chest underneath his shirt and jacket, forming a thin layer of light nanocomposite. It stopped just below his jaw and at his waistline while covering his arms like a T-shirt, offering him coverage far beyond the rigid polycarbonate plates most Human troops wore.
“That’s so fucking cool,” Martinez exclaimed, peaking down his collar at the small black hexagons coating his skin. “What is it able to protect against?”
“Most threats, bullets, blasters, knives, claws, you name it. But it has limited power, so try not to get hit too much,” Kyroll said, silently chambering a round in the pistol. “You know, use hardcover and whatnot.”
“What do you mean limited?” Martinez said, looking up just in time to see the JKL recoil and launch a slug into his stomach.
Freaking out, Martinez jumped back and clutched at his gut, expecting that he would have to hold in his blood by shoving his finger in the hole and running away from Kyroll. But there was no blood or hole; instead, he found the armor had essentially engulfed the bullet and nestled it inside the material, keeping him safe from all harm.
Before Martinez even had a chance to react to the news that he was fine, Kyroll buckled over, laughing at him. “You should see the look on your face!”
“That’s not fucking funny, man,” Martinez barked, “you could have killed me!”
His argument only made Kyroll laugh harder, causing the older man to lean against the bed for support. “It would not have.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Martinez stood upright, almost ready to shove Kyroll because of his nonchalant attitude to shooting him.
Waving his hand at Martinez, Kyroll indicated he needed a moment before he could keep speaking.
While Kyroll composed himself, Martinez was livid. This motherfucker just shot him. Plenty of races have odd and downright dangerous training methods around the galaxy, with some including just this. But Humans were not one of them.
Humanity had long abandoned practices like that save for some zealots who settled outside the GU.
Kyroll took an entire minute to steady himself. Once he did, the old man explained that he shot Martinez to demonstrate the effectiveness of the incredibly light armor.
When Martinez asked about them having set it up on something and then shooting it as an alternative, Kyroll looked embarrassed but then shrugged and dismissed the idea. Insisting seeing that your armor worked was always better than just blind trust.
Kyroll then explained how his drill instructors did just this for demonstration for him and his fellow recruits. But unlike what he had just done for Martinez, they shot one another with progressively larger weapons—to the point it was knocking the victim flat on their ass.
Martinez was glad his training did not include anything like that. It was stupid, dangerous, and unnecessary, but it did explain a bit more about Kyroll's attitude toward violence.
“You're still a fucking asshole,” Martinez grumbled, turning off the armor by pressing the button on the small remaining wristband, so Kyroll would not shoot him again.
Much like when it was activated, the armor slinked back down Martinez’s body and wrapped tightly around his wrist, leaving him with an odd cold feeling around his chest without it. After the armor dissolved, Martinez felt an odd rubbing around his belt; He moved his shirt to look, and the smashed slug fell to the ground.
“That’s kinda neat,” Martinez said, picking up the bullet.
“Yeah, it will hold the round and any spall in place until you shut it off,” Kyroll explained, “as for knives, it will harden and repair any cuts.”
“Why the fuck don’t they give everyone these?” Martinez looked down at the bracelet.
“It costs too much for the average troop,” Kyroll shrugged, closing the pistol into a small case. “Anyway, I'm giving you these,” he said, handing Martinez the sealed box.
“Why are you doing that?” Martinez raised a brow.
Kyroll's face took on a sudden, serious look, leaving no room for misinterpretation of his feelings about the topic. “Simple, you are keeping Lysa safe from now on–not me,” he grumbled while looking away from Martinez. “Now you will have the tools for anything that might happen.”
Martinez was about to speak and question why Kyroll thinks he needs weapons to ensure Lysa stays safe until he recalled what Nelya, Kyroll, and himself knew about the broader galaxy that Lysa was ignorant of—namely, the dark history of the Aviex and why so many other aliens would wish her harm. The events of their date were also cast in a new light with that knowledge.
With that in mind, even Martinez had to admit that keeping a weapon on hand, or at least in his backpack, could be helpful.
“I will keep her safe, but am I able to have this—legally, I mean?” Martinez questioned.
Kyroll wrapped an arm around Martinez’s shoulder and jostled him. “I’m glad you will, and don’t worry with your experience in the military, you can own it. Just ask the police at Draun or check on the data net; both will tell you the same.”
“If you say so,” Martinez replied, holding the case close. “Thanks.”
“Now I can blame you when something goes wrong,” Kyroll chuckled, letting Martinez go and heading toward the door. “Come on, let's get the last of the bags.”