Second or Third Taro Beginning

Though I know they won’t work, I’m very fond of these scenes. So I shall give them life here. Yay for the internet, that I don’t have to kill my darlings dead!

****

Any moment they would know I was there.

Damn. Focus, Taro. One fight at a time. I set my eyes on the bar above me. Set my hands.

“Release.”

Down slowly…up…damn thing, go up…

“Spot!”

Hooks caught, the metal bar lifted. I let go; the machine set the weights back in the cradle.

Slag.

The loader hadn’t miscounted. Only 90kg and I couldn’t even make five effing repetitions.

Bloody hell. Eve could lift twice that, and do it all night long.

Yeah, so it was one more thing my sister would probably always do better than I could. That, and keep a rhythm without music. Throbbing drums filled my ears. The beat was to keep me from speeding up, but it made me think of primal darkness and half-naked dancers twirling fire. So it was startling to look around and see a sunlit and bare gymnasium. Grey mats, brushed-steel walls, mirrors. Equipment lockers and workout machines. My sister the Marine believed in efficiency, and here in the heart of her territory it showed. Eve didn’t play music when she worked out; that was unneccesary embellishment. She didn’t mind the quiet, though; the gentle hisses and murmurs of her ship were enough for her.

Too much quiet made me want to throw things. Especially when any moment–

Focus. The barbell still hung above my chest, waiting for me to try yet again. But I’d earned the right to work out alone by not being stupid. I wasn’t blowing that.

“Loader, reduce weight by ten kilograms.” I could do eighty. And I would. Until my arms fell off. I clapped my half-gloved hands as the bar lifted to the loader. Set my grip as it came back down. All right.

“Release.”

Down, I will, up, do this…

One.

Down, I will, up, do this…

Two.

Down, I will, up, do this…

Through the pounding in my ears, I heard the door open.

Hells.

“Spot!”

The bar lifted. I sat up.

“Kentaro, it’s here!” My blue-haired sister bounded into the gym waving something white that crackled. In her “work” clothes of silver Marine fatigues and ever-present jacket though we’d been in port for an hour. Her lover Ben was right behind her, carrying a squirming Kat. I wondered what my three-year-old niece had done this time that he needed to keep hold of her.

Better not to know. “What’s here?” I asked instead. Eve wouldn’t be so excited about a court summons, so what–

“Your determination letter, what else?”

Oh. Blast. That was…quick.

Eve yanked off her boots. My whole life–such as it was–flashed before my eyes as she marched across the mat to stick the paper in my face. Ben left his shoes on and started around as I reached for my towel.

“What does it say?” I asked. Eve snorted.

“Like I opened it.” She waved the message again; the paper scratched my nose. An envelope, as Ben had predicted. The more formal the communication, the more tangible it needed to be. So my fate would be printed on a piece of paper. Stuck inside another piece of paper. And sealed, as if anyone with five seconds and fingernails— “Come on, kid,” Eve said, “no point in being scared now.” She took my hand and shoved the envelope into it. Bouncing as she did, springing up on her toes and back. Never saw that before. It meant so much to her. What if–

“Read!”

“Eve,” Ben began, “if he wants to—“

“Don’t start,” Eve growled. “We all worked our asses off getting him ready. We got a right to know.”

“I’m fairly certain when the tuition bill arrives—”

“Daddy, Taro!” Kat interrupted. “Bye!”

“Hold on.” Ben snatched, grabbing the toddler before she wiggled out of his arms. “Not now, sweetheart. Momma is harassing Uncle Taro. Wait your turn.”

Eve stuck her tongue out at him, then turned back to me. “Come on, kid. There’s only one way to get me off your back and you know it.”

If there were any way at all to get her off my back…I turned the envelope over. Light from yet another sun—the crew of the Pendragon’s Dream sat in our third star system in a month—light streamed in through the high viewports, glittering off the square seal. UGMT spelled out in fancy gold letters. University of Greater Ma Terr. Home for the next four years?

The Dream was home.

Eve had made fists to keep from snatching the envelope back, but she wouldn’t restrain herself for long. I slid a fingernail under the edge of the thick paper and popped it open. Extracted the letter.

“Dear Mr. Hibiki-Marcori, we are delighted to inform you that—“

Accepted. I’d been accepted.

Blast. Bollocks. Bloody effing hell.

“Failed, huh?” Eve snorted, tried to brush it off. To hide her disappointment. She usually had a great game face, but not this time. “Oh, well—“

“No.” I handed her the letter. “I didn’t fail.”

“Kentaro!” Eve ‘the Bitch’ Marcori, freighter captain, Leopard pilot, and Marine veteran, squealed and snatched me off the bench to hug me. She’d never done that before. I hugged back. She whirled away to show Ben.

“Look, Doc, the boy’s going to college!”

“The boy,” Ben observed, “doesn’t look very happy about it.”

“What?” I smiled and lied. “No. I’m just…surprised. I didn’t think I did that well.”

“Whattaya know.” Eve turned back to grin at me. “Kentaro’s going to college. Early, no less. Your mom’d be proud, kid. Damned proud.” And she reached out and ruffled my hair like she hadn’t done in two years.

“Yeah.” I grinned back. “I’m going to college.”

“Stuff.” Eve shoved the letter back at me and went to scoop up her boots. “You’re going to need stuff. Saddle up, people, we’ve got work to do.” She whipped out her comm, calling whoever had the rest of the kids. Of course it had to be a whole family affair—

“May I?” Ben asked. I traded him the letter for my niece and followed Eve out the door. Kat wrapped her tiny arms around my neck. I held her and breathed. Four years. She’d be–gods, she’d be seven–

“Taro, some of these are excellent scores.”

“Thanks.” Slag. So much for the plan to come in a few points below acceptance. Damn my luck, I must have guessed right on every single question I didn’t know.

“So how do you feel about going away?” Ben waved the letter, my eyes followed it to bare walls. In the cabins and some gathering places, the crew had personalized the Dream. The corridors, though, like the gym, were subject to Eve’s aversion to frippery. So they were boring tunnels of brightly-lit brushed steel. Kind of like my future. The boring tunnel part, not the brightly-lit metal.

“It’s not forever,” I told Ben and me. Not forever. Not yet.

Breathe.

“The Dean of Freshman will help you adjust,” he said, going back to the letter. “You have an appointment with her on—“

The attention notes sounded; Eve had switched her comm to the whole ship. Her voice boomed from the walls.

“All right, kids. Port Control seems to have forgot our last visit. First liberty crew, get to the airlock before they remember. And nobody better end up in jail this time.”

“Momma means you,” my niece said, poking my chest.

“I know.”

Frakkin’ hell.

“Maybe,” Ben suggested to Eve, “we could give Taro a chance to shower first?”

****

The bazaar was like most such tourist traps. Bright, dusty, smelly—whether good smell or bad depended on the wind and the neighbors–busy. A few interesting things for sale, a whole lot of repetition. I would never, ever, understand the spoon-collecting thing. The weapons section wasn’t bad, though, if it was too close to the pet section. Made my eyes sting. But we couldn’t get away; Eve and Ben were arguing. As usual. The kids and I stayed out of it. As usual. Kat and I looked at the tables, David hid his face in my leg, and the babies in their floating strollers tried to eat their toes or their fingers, whichever appealed most at the moment. Ben tried again to reason with the most stubborn woman in the galaxy.

“Eve,” he said, “I don’t think this is the sort of thing he’ll need.”

“Man always needs a good knife, Doc.”

“I want that one!” Kat yelped. Her mother leaned to look. Ben closed his eyes, drew a deep breath. Hells. Distract, before he opened his mouth–I looked around. Just in time.

“Unarmed,” was all I got out before a stranger was on us. Brown curly hair, sparkling brown eyes, delighted grin–he grabbed Eve’s shoulder and spun her. She used the spin to attack, but only with a fist. The stranger had already bounced away. Eve checked the next blow, stared.

“Rafe?”

Target disarmed, he pounced with an enthusiastic kiss.

Enthusiastic wasn’t the word. “Rafe” bent Eve backwards and kissed her thoroughly. Striped pants, blue baggy shirt open at the neck–not that I could see it, at that moment–he looked like one of the pirates in a play Ben had taken me to see. The one where they sang at the top of their lungs about sneaking up on a house in a pirate raid.

Rafe went on kissing my sister while I wondered if he was an actor. Eve continued not killing him. I looked to Ben, who shoved his dark hair out of his eyes and crossed his arms to wait. So I waited too. Batted a bug away from my face, and waved off Kat, who thought Momma was under attack. A few people moved by; a woman muttered and laughed. I glared them on their way.

Finally Rafe released Eve. A couple teenagers applauded. Rafe took a bow. Eve whacked him one, but gently. While she grinned.

“You’ve been working on that.” So she had basis for comparison? Rafe snatched a hat from the next booth to tip to her, and finally noticed the rest of us. Starting with Kat standing in front of Ben, ready to deal with the impertinent stranger if Momma didn’t. He blinked, obviously counting blue-haired children, then the delighted grin beamed again.

“Clearly you’ve been working harder,” Rafe said as he offered a hand to Ben. And coughed, with a look to Eve. She cuffed him. About time.

“What, you want polite outta me? Doc, this is Rafe. Rafe–hell, if I ever knew your last name, I don’t remember it.”

“Does it matter?” Rafe asked, shaking Ben’s hand. “Rafael Rylie Ballard. Rafe. And do you have a name, Doc, that someone who isn’t a Marine would feel comfortable using?”

“I’m Ben Alexander, M.D. Our children, Katana and David,” Ben added, pulling Kat back and David forward. “And Ilsa and Teresa.” He tugged the leashes of the baby-floats. Displaying his claim to Eve? I couldn’t blame him. It had been one hell of a kiss.

“Oh, an actual doctor? Wow, Cori, a ship, a doctor, four kids–you’re doing well!” And he slipped an arm around Eve to squeeze her. She shoved him off with a laugh. That was…

Wait a minute. I’d seen that before, though never on Eve. She was acting like–like a girl.

Rafe Ballard wasn’t much older than me, five years at the absolute most. Since he’d clearly known Eve before Ben did, that meant he’d been my age when she knew him. Or younger. And I’d eat Eve’s boots without sauce if those two hadn’t been lovers.

Interesting, yes. Useful, no. Ben had eyes—they were watering at the wind change, like mine—so he’d surely seen what I had. The opportunity to see if blackmail worked on Eve continued to elude me.

Damn. I could really use the help.

Finally they were turning to me, last and least of the party. Ballard took my hand and stepped close as Eve introduced “my brother, Kentaro Hibiki-Marcori.”

“O-kay…” He looked from her blue hair and blue eyes to my black and brown, from her white skin to my dark beige. “Should I even ask where and how Cori acquired a full-grown brother in the last five years?”

It wasn’t that great a story. “You don’t want to know,” I told him. His eyes gave an extra sparkle, adding voltage to one hell of a grin. It was one for the records, all right. A smile from Ben was like…hot cocoa after night-watch in the rain. Donte, another of Eve’s adoptees, had a mischievous angel grin that made me willing to do anything to get him to do it again. Rafe Ballard was a devil grinning at me, his eyes promising the party of a lifetime. If I just ignored the horns and tail.

“So, Ken?” he asked. “Kent?” Still holding my hand.

“Kentaro,” Eve answered. “Rafe, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Fate reunites us, and you complain?” Ballard released me to spin to her. This time she fended him off, a hell of a lot more gently than I’d have expected. Before the kiss, anyway. He didn’t seem to notice; it certainly didn’t damp him. “Imagine my joy when I saw Captain Eve Marcori listed in the arrivals this morning. I had to come find you!” He waved around us. “So, of course, I headed straight for the weapons.”

“Why were you looking at arrivals?” Eve demanded. “You’re no spacer.”

“Because I need a ride, of course.” The melodramatic sap fell to one knee in the dirt. “O Captain, my captain, get me off this benighted rock and–“

“Get up, you idiot.” Eve laughed again and even shook her hair. But then she put her arm through Ben’s, a more sensitive move than I’d have expected from her. Her lover was looking overwhelmed–maybe he’d never seen Eve act like a girl before either–but Eve wasn’t the most perceptive person, even regarding him. Especially regarding him. “First I want to know what you’re running from,” Eve told Ballard. “Come on, we were about to find lunch.”

“If you still like killing your own food,” the fool bounded to his feet, “I know a restaurant.”

“If I’m buying?”

“How could I refuse such a gracious offer?

Eve shook her head again and waved Ballard to lead the way. She pulled Ben after, then looked back to me. I motioned her on.

“I want to look around a bit.”

“Stay out of trouble,” she ordered. “And Old Greater, which is the same thing.” While she was distracted, Rafe Ballard slipped his arm across her shoulders, though her arm was still through Ben’s. She shoved him off gently. And chuckled. What the hell?

Ballard bounced away, Eve dragged her family after him. I turned back to the case.