Scott looked at his garden with pride and a little bit of sadness. It was easy to get lost in the fear and amazement of the last few months and forget about all he'd done while on this planet, but looking back, it was kind of incredible. He'd used just about every skill he'd learned in his survival training and made up a few new ones to create this life for himself and his sister, but soon that was all coming to an end. Their family wasn't quite whole yet. There was still one important member missing, John.
Scott had never been John's biggest fan, but with the benefit of seeing his own father in a new light, suddenly a boring banker who'd never done anything exciting but was always there for his family seemed like a pretty good guy, all things considered. Certainly, he didn't deserve...well, whatever he was enduring.
Thinking of his father, Scott couldn't help but think back to the funeral they'd held. Scott had argued that Charlotte should just eat the man and be done with it, especially given what he'd done to Alice, but his mom had insisted. She said funerals weren't for the people who died but rather for the people who were still alive. Scott had cursed his dad, the lies he told, and the secret life he'd lived. It hadn't been lost on him when his mom flinched after he called the man nothing but a low-down waste of humanity pirate.
In the end, Scott threw his father's medallion onto the fire and walked away. He didn't know if the thing would melt, but it didn't matter; it was the last tie to the lies his father had told him as a kid, and he wanted to be rid of it. But a part of him did mourn his dad, or at least the man he'd pretended to be. The one who told him all those stories growing up. The man who inspired Scott to become an explorer. It was weird, mourning a man who'd never really existed. Scott still didn't know how to feel about that.
His brooding was interrupted when Alice popped up again, cheerful as ever. "So what are we doing today?"
Scott nodded toward the garden. "We're harvesting anything even close to being ready. Charlotte said she'd ensure we have an area to grow plants like we do here. So, I want to bring along as many of the more beneficial plants to try out as we can. If I mess up a few times, we'll still have plenty more to work with."
Alice nodded and grabbed a hoe. Scott was a little sad to see how efficiently she now worked. Charlotte said that in this new body, her mind matured a little faster than usual due to the way her brain interacted with the body's chemistry, though not in those specific terms. Still, there was a lot of his sister in the person he worked beside. She still hummed those tuneless songs she always used to as a kid. At the time, they used to drive Scott crazy, but now it was comforting to have something that tied this new Alice to the one he'd grown up with. Things like that told him he'd made the right choice in saving her mind.
Scott got to work beside his sister with a smile. He wasn't about to be shown up by his little sister, even if she now had superhuman speed and strength.
-
Looking down at her new "hand," Lacy flexed it. It moved just like her old one had, curling into a fist, then relaxing back into an open palm. Functionally, it was the same or better than before. It was considerably stronger and more durable than her old hand and could be used as quite an effective weapon in a pinch, and yet, something was off about it, and it wasn't just the fact that her hand had a shiny black carapace like some insect. It was the fact that it reminded her of Alice...
Lacy shook her head. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she just be a good mother? After all they'd been through, her kids deserved that much, yet several issues prevented her from focusing on the job at hand.
Of course, it wasn't that simple. A few of the problems were perfectly legitimate. For one thing, their family wasn't all back together yet. John was still missing, and Lacy suspected it would be up to her to track him down. At first, she hadn't had any idea where he might be, but then she remembered that pirate whose face she'd recognized. Charlotte had long since "consumed his biomass," and boy was that a loaded statement full of uncomfortable connotations she didn't want to think too much about, but looking through his stuff, she saw a name that also provoked a feeling of recognition, Johnson.
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There was one very capable pirate she'd known from a long time ago named Johnson, but he didn't work for or with Cooper. Quite frankly, Cooper should have been working for him. The only reason that man would have taken a position on Cooper's ship as a subordinate was if someone else wanted him there to keep an eye on things. Someone she'd cut ties with a long time ago. Someone who could very well be behind Cooper's sudden renewed interest in his abandoned family. Someone who even now might have John, her current husband, in his possession. Her father. A man even she only knew by the name Captain Drake.
He'd been a somewhat aloof father, more interested in making her a woman worthy of inheriting his empire than raising her like a daughter. She'd had all the best instructors as far back as she could remember. Of course, there were plenty of lessons on how to fly a ship or shoot a gun, as expected, but he'd even gone so far as to kidnap private instructors whenever his crew lacked the knowledge base she needed. Not that she always paid attention. In her defense, it was hard to focus on math when you were going to learn to fly a small spacecraft through an asteroid field next. Although it turned out, asteroids weren't nearly as tightly packed together as she'd thought, so even that was more about keeping your position straight when navigating through moving terrain than it was about fast action flying like in the movies, but that was beside the point.
And yet, Lacy couldn't shake the feeling that, at least in some way, she was using these reasons as an excuse to neglect her family again. She watched as Scott and Alice worked in their garden. Not that Alice really needed plants to get vitamins or minerals in her diet anymore, and that was part of the problem.
As she watched the girl who had once been her daughter, Lacy couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Of course, she smashed down those feelings and buried them deep inside, but she couldn't deny they were there. Even in her head, Lacy made sure she referred to Alice as her daughter, and she did her best to be there for the girl, even more so than she had before. And yet, in some ways, she still mourned the loss of her daughter, who still lived. Try as she might, Lacy couldn't reconcile the large spider person with the little girl she once was.
Looking at her hand again, Lacy felt ashamed and guilty but couldn't deny the truth. She wanted a little space and time to process everything, and rescuing John would give her the perfect excuse. Though maybe Lacy wasn't being fair to herself. Saving John was important, and dealing with her father would be essential for her children's safety. Also, it's not like she was just abandoning them to the wilderness this time, nor would she be going alone.
As Charlotte walked up beside her, Lacy nodded in acknowledgment. The spider hivemind had opted to make her new "interaction appendage" more similar in appearance to her old one, having decided with Scott's advice that it would be better to allow Alice to maintain a sense of her individuality. Having fought beside the alien to protect her children, it was easier to accept the odd spider hivemind as a person. Of course, in a way, that only made her guilt over her daughter even worse. She shook her head again, worried it might become a nervous tick if she kept this up.
Charlotte watched the children as she spoke to Lacy. "My preparations are nearly complete. Then we can begin the operation to save your partner."
-
Charlotte watched over her humans with something between happiness and pride. True, they were damaged in more ways than the simple loss of Lacy's hand would indicate and a little crazy in their unique human way, but they were still going strong.
It was a little odd, though. Typically, Shes felt little attachment to others, even other Shes. As a species, they were united more in a logical sense rather than an emotional one. Although it wasn't entirely unheard of to develop an attachment to one's offspring before letting them loose to create their own colonies or alternatively being usurped by them, it wasn't particularly common either. And yet, She'd risked nearly everything on behalf of these humans and likely would again.
Apparently, Lacy's new prey, her progenitor no less, had more men and better training than the last one. But he also had the one thing Lacy couldn't walk away from without a fight: her family. Looking at Scott, Alice, and even Lacy, Charlotte agreed with the sentiment. Family was worth fighting for. And next time, She'd be a little better prepared...