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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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PARADOX PLANET (1 part) The arrival of men on the World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to the World of Sea

GONE TO SEA

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

Excerpt from a novel of Sea presently in progress

2579 words

writing begun 2005

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1. Paradox Planet

This was going to be difficult, thought Captain Alain. In the wardroom of his ship, the ESA 14, he faced Mr. Torres, the leader of the colonial expedition. Mr. Torres was not a happy man.

“This is an outrage!” he said ferociously. “I can read clocks and calendars as well as any! We were to be awakened from Crossover Sleep on arrival at the system. It has been over a year, local time, since you got here.” He paused to breathe heavily, angrily and went on, “Now, only I have been awakened! What are you up to?”

Captain Alain Looked over at the gray painted metal bulkhead relieved only by pictures mounted to the wall. The duty crews painted them as a hobby to fill the long empty years of the passage. Even faster than light Crossover Drives had limits. Stars were still an unimaginably great distance apart, many of them were years apart. This expedition, two hundred and eighteen light-years distant from Earth, at just over twenty one years of flight time, was no exception. Unless some further distant worthwhile planet had been found in the passing years, this was the longest colonial run that the ESA had tried.

Captain Alain looked down at the pile of files, data disks and crystals in front of him and back to Mr. Torres. He decided to be blunt.

“You know that due to energy constraints, this had to be a one way trip for you and the other colonists. We were trying to find a way to save your expedition’s lives. We failed.”

That brought Mr. Torres up short. “Trying to save us? You failed?” His eyes went wide, “Did my people die?”

“No, they are all well and asleep. The problem is not on the ship. It is the target world. It is everything that the probe reported. We need to report back and have the probes reprogrammed. Nobody expected a world like Sea.”

“C?”, asked Mr. Torres, puzzled. “Is it because it’s the third world? Why call it C?”

“Sea, as in ocean,” said Captain Alain reaching into his pile of data and handing over a crystal. “Look for yourself.”

Mr. Torres activated the viewing controls and knit his brows in concentration as he examined the picture and data flowing beneath it. “Where are the land masses? On the other side? It says that I’ve rotated the view but it’s no different.”

“It did rotate, Mr. Torres. There is no land anywhere on Sea.” Captain Alain paused to collect his thoughts. “So far as we can tell, the last island sank for good between one and a half and two and a half million years ago.” He gestured at the image. “If you boost the magnification far enough you will find floating weed mats and shallow areas that you can use to follow the rotation of the globe.”

Mr. Torres looked again, at high magnification. The skilled ecologist in him rebelled at what he was seeing. “This is not possible. Without land masses to break up air flows by both barrier and convection effects the atmosphere should turn into high speed bands of wind.”

“My crew and I are well aware of the problem, Mr. Torres,” said Captain Alain with the air of one who wished that he had not found the answer to a puzzle. “The reason that the atmosphere does not band is every bit as bad as what you have just seen.”

Once again he removed an image crystal from his pile of data. “As you watch this, bear in mind that it is a direct recording of an actual event. You can change the time compression to suit your own taste. It won’t alter what you will see.” Wryly he added, “We have already said that it’s impossible. It will spare you the effort.”

In utter disbelief, Mister Torres stopped the crystal playback and restarted it several times. It showed the birth of a storm. A large rotating depression was forming at about sixty five degrees South Latitude. Sympathetically, Captain Alain said, “Go ahead and let it play. It only gets worse.”

The storm swept north along a large curve that appeared to be dictated by Coriolis force. The warmer seas of the tropics fueled the storm and it grew into a monster with a core of powerful storm cells over a thousand miles across. The vastly aberrant storm’s clouds did not limit themselves to the troposphere. They towered high into the stratosphere, where no sane cloud mass, let alone a whole cyclonic storm, belonged. The wind speeds achieved over three hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.

The counterclockwise rotation of the storm should have killed it when it crossed the equator to the Northern Hemisphere where the same Coriolis force would now try to make the storm rotate clockwise. Instead, the storm broke apart into individual thunderstorms that followed precise vectors across the equator and reassembled themselves into a giant clockwise rotating storm, all angular momentum preserved, and with no loss of wind speed.

It followed a Coriolis arc north and finally cold northern waters robbed its energy. It broke up into thunderstorms, squalls and fogs about sixty five degrees North Latitude.

Captain Alain said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it? We have observed eight of those aberrations of nature and they ALL do that. Because of the form of the path that they follow, we are calling them Coriolis Storms. It’s as though there were a guiding intelligence handling the storm. Lovely fantasy. It would take at least nine of the most powerful synchronous orbit Weather Sats with a fleet of Low Orbit backups to get even one of those storms across the equator. It would be touch and go, even with equipment like that. All that we have here are the three moons and the primary star. We just haven’t figured out the natural mechanism yet, that’s all.

“The worst part of this is that while the spacing and placement of the storms appears to be completely unpredictable, statistically every part of the planet will get hit at least once every five years by one of these monsters. The crew has a betting pool on where and when the next one will occur. The sample is still too small to be sure but it is beginning to appear that the storms are not completely random in their occurrence.”

Mister Torres surprised Captain Alain. He accepted the statements without comment and quietly sat, thinking. At last he spoke thoughtfully, “I’m not an engineer but perhaps we can deal with the storms by going under them. Build domes or habitats on the reefs maybe. The water is calm only a few feet below the waves.”

Captain Alain gave Mister Torres points for being quick on his mental feet. Gently, he said, “My crew and I ARE engineers. We did think of that. Unfortunately, it can’t be done. A dome is an engineering nightmare. The buoyancy is massive. The pressure gradient from top to bottom is all wrong. The air pressure inside the dome is controlled by the depth of the lowest part of it. That means that the dome will try to burst at the top because the water pressure is lowest there and the inside air is at the pressure of deepest part where the water pressure is highest. Small habitats would be possible except that we don’t have the materials to build that many of them and can’t get what we need from the environment.

“We brought equipment to mine on land or in space. We can fabricate almost any device except for a tiny problem. There’s no land to mine and the rest of the system is metal poor. This world does have quite a lot of high quality ores. Unfortunately they are under about fifty to over nine hundred meters of water. We can’t get at them. Captain Alain inhaled heavily and added, “We can’t even get useful silica sand on this planet. It’s in the same situation as the metal ores. The common coral sand is useless for glass making.

“What we can do is process the local coral and coral sands into a form of concrete. It is possible to get useful amounts of aluminum, magnesium and small amounts of titanium from the seawater. We can go to the three moons for silicates to make glasses. They even have small amounts of available iron and some other useful metals. The silicates make structural glass a real possibility. Fiberglass is also practical. Many of the local seaweeds will process to yield various useful plastic resins for both the fiberglass and to mold directly into useful objects.

“In this environment, only the titanium and structural glass are durable. Corrosion will destroy the other metals in short order. Concrete made from coral is subject to long term erosion by the water, not to mention the many animals and plants that will attack it. Even the fiberglass will have a limited life due to long term water absorption. Of course you can recycle the fiberglass materials.”

Now it was Mister Torres who spoke. “You know about the nutritional deficiency issues of this world, um … Sea? Good name, by the way.”

Captain Alain accepted the compliment with a nod and replied, “Yes. You will be short a pair of critical amino acids, a small raft of vitamins, and there’s a carbohydrate problem of some sort.”

It was Mister Torres who spread his hands now. “You are right. We brought the solutions to all of that along in the form of crop seeds and embryonic animals. We did not expect to have no place to raise them. Hydroponics could answer the plant problem, perhaps. The animals are a different matter altogether. They have to have a certain amount of space for proper development.” He paused and looked thoughtfully at a painting of Mt Fuji, back on Earth, “Could we bypass the growth of the animals and do a carniculture system? I ask because that is more an engineering problem.”

Captain Alain considered in his turn. Mister Torres let him think. A thousand lives hung in the balance. At last, Captain Alain said, “It could be done. It has been done before. There is a nutrient limitation. You have to be able to supply the culture tissues with the necessary amino acids. The whole animal would manufacture its own from the crops fed to it. The culture can’t do that. I think that with the available resources, you are stuck with raising the animals whole. I can ask. We didn’t think of that solution.” He dictated a note for his ship’s system engineers to look into it.

Suddenly Mister Torres exclaimed, “Those storms all follow the same pattern! That means that if we build a platform, we can design it to be strongest in a direction that will resist the storms best! What sort of tidal variation are we dealing with?”

Captain Alain thought a moment and consulted his data. His brows knit as he worked through the problem. “When the sun and the moons line up unfavorably, the sea level can drop until the shallows become shoal-water. At the other extreme, the water depth can go to twenty meters. A storm depression coupled with a low tide can actually bare the upper parts of the coral. That kills the coral and limits upward growth.”

Mister Torres shook his head. “Between storms, coral should grow on the skeletons of the dead coral and cause island building. Why doesn’t it?”

Captain Alain realized from the form of the question that Mister Torres was giving him credit for intelligence and was pleased. He answered, “There’s a common fish with a hard beak. It seems to think that the dead coral is a delicacy and mows the reef down as it grazes. It chews up the stone to get the dead organisms. That’s what makes the coral sand.”

Mister Torres nodded. “Like the parrot fish back home. Makes sense. The same fish attacks our concrete too?”

Captain Alain just nodded. Then he had a thought. Excitedly he said, “We could put titanium mesh in the outer layers of the concrete. That would keep the fish out of anything structural. Once the platform was built, you could process more concrete on your own. You could re-plaster the areas that the fish attack.”

He subsided, “You’d have all your eggs in one basket, though. The thing would have to be huge. We can only marshal the resources to build one.”

“It’s not really that important,” said Mister Torres softly. “There’s no possible way for us to survive until a ship can return with what we do need. Still, we have to have the platform for morale reasons. My people need hope. It’s all that we can really do for them.”

Captain Alain suggested, “We can request a recovery expedition as soon as we get back. It is ESA policy to have a colony ship ready for just such an emergency.”

Mister Torres shook his head negatively. “I fear that the war that was shaping up will be long over when you get back. I pray that you will be able to survive your return. I do not think that there is any possibility of our survival.”

Captain Alain looked compassionately at Mister Torres. He shook his head. “You’re right. The war will change everything back home. We received messages from Earth before we got The drive up to threshold energy. The shooting did start. We were ordered to return but disobeyed. I can only hope that some form of the ESA has survived.

“As for your platform, even with the Crossover Drive to push us faster than light, we can’t get back to you in time. No platform that we can build will survive long enough. It is going to get hit by at least five and probably more of those Coriolis Storms. One of them will sweep it away. Without its facilities, your people will die of malnutrition in fairly short order.”

Mister Torres looked back at Captain Alain and said bleakly, “I know that. What we are going to do is simple. We will lie to your crew and my colonists alike. We will fake evidence to show that the necessary nutrients can be found in the ecology. We just can’t localize them well enough from space. The search will keep hope in them to the last.”

Captain Alain closed his eyes in pain. This was indeed difficult. Why couldn’t Mister Torres be angry, rail at fate or just cry? This calm acceptance, this cold blooded planning to deceive a thousand doomed people was beyond him. He shook himself and said, “Very well, we will follow your lead. Two of my crew will have to be in the conspiracy. They are needed to create the false data.”

That simply, the decision was made. With massive labor, a platform was built with all of the best systems, electronic controls and computerized communications. It held laboratories, shops, apartments, docks for boats, recreational and farming spaces. All critical exposed areas, like the upper levels of the farms, could be closed over with locking domes in bad weather. On the platform, a space one kilometer by one and a half kilometers, several stories thick, a thousand people were left on a planet that could not support them. Only one of their number actually knew what had been done.

–The End–

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to the World of Sea

#PARADOX PLANET #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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staffcommandershepard · 7 years

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A Second Chance at Family

So I’ve been throwing around some ideas of a mom!Shep as I have posted a lot about in the past day or so because I found this deleted audio of femShep and Anderson talking about her being a mom and I cried

After destroying the reapers, Jo and Kaidan retire to his land on the Sunshine Coast in Canada to spend the rest of their lives with one another, but Jo learns they had brought another life into the world.

*Note: This Shepard is a Colonist/Sole Survivor, so she had lost her mother, father, and brother on Mindoir.

Part one: A Mother Like Mine

“How far off are you?”

“Riika is saying an hour, maybe less.”

“Alright. I'll get the oven going, make you something hot to eat.”

“As long as it’s Kaidan’s fried eggplant, I’ll be happy. I'd be even happier if you actually told me what was going on, Jo.”

“I’m sorry Liara. I'll see you in an hour. Be careful.”

“I will.”

I take in a deep breath as the vid between us goes dark and I turn off my Omni-tool before putting eggplant, potatoes, some different mixed veggies, and steak into one pan, seasoning it a bit as I put it into the oven. It isn't Kaidan’s necessarily, but it's his recipe. I wouldn't be able to cook worth shit if he didn't show me simple things. I sit back down on my stool at our counter, looking down at my tablet to read a bit more, but I don't take in a single word as I realize my mind is wandering to other places, places it hasn't wander in a long time….I get up and head for our bedroom, the floor creaking beneath my socked feet as the lonely silence in our home grows even lonelier as more memories come and go in my brain. Too many memories, and now is definitely not the time to stress myself out. I roll my eyes at myself as I push the door open, taking a few more steps to the closet and digging beneath old gear and clothes as I find the cardboard box that is beginning to show some wear and tear after almost twenty years. I take a deep breath as I sit on the floor, staring at the lid and running my hand across the top of the harsh writing. Mom’s handwriting was as bad as mine is, which is most definitely a curse a lot of the times, but I can't help but love how hastily she’d write things and how Dad would just ask her to type her notes up instead.

I smile as I put the lid aside, my smiling growing wider as the first face to greet me is a six year old me with the absence of my two front teeth, a very bloody smile across my face.

Of course, my eleven year old brother is next to me, smiling just as wildly as he holds up a string with my teeth at the end of it. Ripped the loose suckers out with his toy helicopter, it was all my idea but we were both so surprised and happy that it worked that Dad had to take a picture. I place the photo aside, reaching in for another and I find the one of Henry and I with our parents, the four of us dressed to the nine for Aunt Catherine’s wedding. In this one, I was twelve, Henry seventeen, and I can't help but laugh a bit as I place that one aside to find Henry at the same age, but standing with Rosalie, his absolutely insane ex-girlfriend, ready for a school dance. I remember when she cheated on him with his best friend, Freddy, but told everyone they broke up because he put his hands on her, rather than owning up for what she did. Mom went ballistic because she couldn't deal with the fact that a girl was accusing her son of being abusive, so she let Henry go to school the next day, armed with a megaphone and Freddy to let everyone in the cafeteria know what nasty deeds she and Freddy did. I put that one aside as well, flipping through a few more as I see my first baby picture, one of Henry and I playing in snow, and a beautiful one of my mother on her wedding day. If I showed this to any of my friends, they'd think it was me, just with green eyes. I had my father’s blue eyes and his bright smile, Henry had his eyes too and his strong jaw line, but he was lucky enough to get Mom’s dimples. All of us has deep brown hair though and you knew a Shepard in the colony when you saw one. Henry and I looked so much alike, it was scary sometimes. I pass by a few more childhood memories, but my heart skips a beat when I find the picture of the two of us in our backyard together, his large hands cupping my tear-stricken face as we smile at one another. I was sixteen and he was twenty-one, and he looked handsome in his fatigues.

It was a few years after he had joined up with the Alliance and he was actually being stationed back on Earth for a while. He told my parents he’d be in Japan for two years and he’d schedule a leave in between, and the next leave he got was supposed to be for Christmas, but there was too much going on on Earth for him to make it home, so I was angry because I couldn't see him. He had promised me he’d be home for Christmas and for my sixteenth birthday on February 8th. The day of my birthday, I got home from school, still hurt that the holidays came and went without Henry. Mom had told me to go outback, “Will you just listen and go outside?”, she had actually said and I was pissy, but I listened. He was sitting on the picnic table with my gift. I had asked for an Alliance hoodie from him with our last name on it for a while, but I was just excited to see him after so damn long, and he said he had gotten two weeks of leave to celebrate with me since he was in good with his CO. My mom got the perfect picture. It was the last picture of the two of us, and the last picture Mom had taken. Batarians rolled in three days later.

I close my eyes, still smiling as I grip the picture in my hand, hearing his laugh in my head as if it were yesterday. Twenty years….I look back down at the box full of photos, the box full of every memory of my family, the box that I will always keep and I grab some of pictures of the four of us. The one of us at that wedding, one of all of us smiling and having fun at a beach when Henry and I were young enough to be held in our parents’ arms, and the picture of us at Henry’s graduation from boot camp. Simple, happy memories with all of us included. I put the remaining photos back into the box, returning it to the bottom of the closet as I grab my chosen ones and head for the kitchen. He would be thirty-eight this year, probably one of my higher ups, but I can see him settling down on Earth with a beautiful wife and a ton of beautiful kids. Henry always loved Earth and he had told me once that he wanted to live somewhere sunny and warm, and have a big family. He was the family-type, it was how our parents raised us. He would love Kaidan, well definitely love torturing him because he’s engaged to his little sister, but love him for how good he is to me. If he were here though, things definitely would’ve turned out differently. I wouldn’t be in the Alliance, that’s for sure, but I think it’s best I focus on the future for now, considering it just got more complicated….I grab a few magnets and stick my pictures to the fridge, the bright smiles of my family brightening up the kitchen. Never thought I’d be able to bring the pictures out, but it’s time I stop hiding them away inside of myself to mask the pain. The sound of the oven beeping startles me out of my reminiscent daze and I turn to grab oven mitts, the sound of the doorbell sounding just as I pull the steak out. “It’s open!” I yell across the house, the heat coming through the gloves as I toss the hot pan onto the ceramic surface of my stove, looking to my hand to make sure it didn’t really burn me. We need actual mitts, not just decorative ones. I realize the difference now. I look up, greeted by Liara who is now laughing at me and I realize she saw my lovely housewifing at work. “Listen, give me a man at eight hundred yards and I can blow his head off without breaking a sweat, but cooking is like a foreign language to me,” she sits at my island counter, still laughing a bit as she shakes her head at me.

“Funny, considering you can speak two separate Earth languages and quite fluently. That steak smells absolutely delicious, by the way.”

“Gracias, mi hermana. I know I’m not great at cooking, but Kaidan’s taught me a thing or two, so I think this is good enough to be edible, at least.” I hand her a plate of meat and vegetables along with a glass of water, grabbing my things as I head for our porch, opening the sliding glass door to allow her entry first. My heart begins to race as we sit across from each other as the Sunshine Coast lives up to its name, the sunshine warming us up and relaxing me as bit as I take a gulp of water before digging into our lunch. I have to bring it up sometime, but I can’t help but not want to talk about it. I’ve never been good expressing how I feel about things, especially anything to do with my personal life, but Liara is part of my personal life, and she understands me so well. She’s the first person I thought to talk to before I talked to Kaidan. When will I talk to Kaidan? It’s only a matter of time before I can’t hide this anymore. I swallow hard, the only noise being whatever comes from the nature around us and our own chewing, but I can feel her eyes on me as I stare down at my plate, pushing a potato wedge around before I take in a deep breath, but nothing really comes to mind. Everything just flies out before I can come up with a way to actually begin saying what I need to. I have never had trouble talking in front of people, I actually am pretty calm making speeches and doing interviews, but put me in front of a friend and tell me to tell a secret and I forget how to speak.

“You and Kaidan still have one of the most beautiful homes, Jo. But I know you didn’t invite me all the way out here days before the Alliance requested my assistance to enjoy this view and a good meal. You said you had to talk about something, that you needed me.” I nod, putting down my fork as I take in another deep breath, but I hold it in this time as I close my eyes. Just tell her, Jo. She is the easiest person in the galaxy to talk to. You didn’t call her just to stare at her, you called her because you know she can give you good advice and say exactly what has to be said without worrying about feelings. I finally look up at her, her face still calm and collected as she waits patiently. Out with it.

“I’m pregnant.” She drops her fork and her mouth falls open as if someone’s electrocuted her, her reaction not necessarily happy, but she is definitely shocked to hear my news. It isn’t everyday that someone can surprise the Shadow Broker. She starts to smile as she gets up from her seat, coming around to my side as I stand up as well, her arms wrapping around my neck as she hugs me and I squeeze her just as tightly as she squeezes me. I sigh deeply, closing my eyes and melting into her hug like she’s a warm bed as the weight of that secret falls off of my shoulders. So much built up tension gone in the blink of an eye as if it was nothing. This was definitely a good idea. She pulls away, cupping my face to smile at me and I return the smile.

“How far along are you? I know humans carry children for almost a full year, so you can’t be that pregnant unless you’re just very good at hiding it.” I laugh as we retake our seats, her seat changing to the one next to me rather than across as she pulls her things in front of her. I take another sip of water, rubbing my stomach with my hand as I look down at it and then back to her. She still sits there with such a huge, warm smile that makes me feel even happier for telling her first.

“Doc said a few days ago would make me two months, so yeah, it’s not necessarily obvious yet. I’m still trying to believe it honestly.”

“This is such beautiful news, Jo, I am absolutely thrilled for you and Kaidan. The two of you are going to make the greatest parents. Your child is so very lucky,” I smile widely, rubbing the back of my neck with my hand as she holds my other one. She watches me, her smile changing as she releases my hand and her expression is now one of skepticism. I look at her, my eyebrows touching as I grow confused. “He doesn’t know yet, does he?” She raises an eyebrow at me as I refuse to make eye contact with her. I let out a small laugh, shaking my head as I take another sip of water. Liara knows me entirely too well.

“No, Kaidan doesn’t know yet. I found out a few days ago and you were the first person that came to my mind. I don’t know what to tell him because honestly, Liara, I am so fucking scared, it’s crippling. I’ve been a soldier for almost twenty years, I haven’t really known anything else except how to shoot a gun and talk to people. I don’t know how to make a bottle, how to change a diaper, how to console a screaming baby at four in the morning, and I couldn’t tell you if I even know how to hold a baby. The two of us have known one life our entire lives, neither of us know how to be parents.” I look down at the table, shaking my head as I rub the back of my neck again. These are times I wish that my mom really was here. I miss our family all of the time, but this is just one of those days where I know she would know exactly what to say and know how I feel. She and my dad were young parents, she had Henry at 20. She had siblings though, a niece and three nephews that she looked after before she had him and she had that first-hand experience with children that I don’t have. She was the best mom, I know I may be a little prejudiced, but it was the truth. She never judged us, never even really had to punish us because Henry and I got along so well, since day one. They did everything they could to make our home life easy, to make us feel loved everyday and not hinder the opportunities that came about in our lives. We were encouraged to chase our dreams, no matter the barriers holding us back. To her and my father, we had no barriers. We could do anything we wanted. I close my eyes, Liara’s hand grabbing my own tightly once more.

“If I learned anything in my last one hundred years of being alive, it’s that no one knows how to be a parent, Jo. Every parent is thrown into a rough fire the second they find out that they’re going to be parents. It’s alarming and terrifying, but they say that the second you hold your baby, you just have answers. No one is necessarily a bad mother or father, no matter what they truly believe. Look at Wrex, look at how far he’s come. Wrex knew he always wanted kids to keep the krogan a living race, but the second that the genophage was cured, he got Eve pregnant and didn’t even have a second thought. He just knew in his heart that he could be a good dad, well a dad to many, many krogan children, but you’ve seen him with Mordin and Tangsley, you’ve seen him roughhouse with them and hold them close to him afterwards. Wrex is an amazing parent and his race hasn’t seen many living children until now. Half of the babies now are most likely his, but he embraced that heavily because he just knew in his heart that he could do it. There will always be a struggle on whether or not you are doing the right thing, but that is with everything in life, Jo. I will always hold my mother on a pedestal because even though she was changed and twisted into the monster you only knew her as, my mother was my best friend and my teacher. She is the reason that I love archaeology and learning, and why I love so deeply. She taught me that there is always a beautiful good in this galaxy, no matter what is out there. She thought she was a failure because she lost to Saren and Sovereign, with her last dying breath, she thought she had messed up as a mother, but in the same instant, she had told me she was proud of me. She knew that even if she had failed, that she knows that I didn’t, and I would give anything to have my real mother back, but I know that she is looking down at me, at everything I have accomplished with my closest friend with whom I consider family, and I know that she couldn’t be more proud of me if she tried. That is parenthood, Shepard. I know I don’t have a child to speak for, however I know for absolute fact that you and Kaidan are going to amazing parents. The two of you have a beautiful life to share with your baby, Jo, a baby who will one day be able to go around telling all of their friends that their mom and dad saved the galaxy.” I close my eyes as I wipe a tear from my cheek, thinking to Liara’s words and to the memories of Benezia and to meeting Wrex’s new family on Tuchanka. My heart begins to swell as I picture Kaidan with our child, sitting on the couch in our living room, biotiball or an old movie playing on the TV, both of them sound asleep as I pick the baby up out of his arms, but it startles Kaidan awake, his panicked look as he tries to find them, only to find them still asleep in my arms. The smiles he would give that baby, the love he would have for them. God….She holds my hand tightly, tilting my chin up and I open my eyes to look at her. She smiles softly, just watching my expression as I hold her hand with both of mine now.

“Thank you for being so goddamn good at these things, Liara. I don’t know where I’d be without you, really, I don’t.”

“Probably in a miserable, lonely state of mind. You should tell him soon, Jo.” I hug her tightly, her hand rubbing my back lightly as I just squeeze her again.

“I know, I know. He really is going to be a great dad, at least that’s what I think. He has such a big heart and he’s so calm all of the time. He reminds me a lot of my dad, honestly.” We both turn back to our plates, but I can still feel her eyes on me as I finish off the last of the vegetables in front of me.

“What was he like?” I smile, seeing his warm smile and hearing him call my name in my head. Charlie Daniel Shepard, or Chuck as my mom and his friends would affectionately call him.

“He was always cool, calm, and collected. No matter what was going on, he’d turn it into a joke and do anything just to make my mom laugh. He’s where I get my lovable sense of humor from.” She laughs along with me at my joke, her own plate becoming nearly empty as we just sit in the cool breeze of the Canadian air, the sun gaining a slight orange tint as dusk grows closer. I swallow the last piece of steak, placing my plate on top of Liara’s also empty one as I head back into the kitchen, placing both of them into the dishwasher and I hear her close the sliding door. I still can’t believe any of today is real, well any of the last week, honestly. She is going to be this baby’s godmother. That’s something for Kaidan and I to discuss together, but I’ll let him pick the godfather, that’ll be a good trade. Neither of us are religious, but I am technically Catholic. I was baptized when I was a baby by my parents into the Catholic church, and we went every Sunday to the church on Mindoir, but once I hit around twelve, we went less and less because my parents were one of the “I am Catholic but don’t need to go to church to prove that” couples, so my brother and I never complained. We used to sleep in the pews honestly, but having godparents was more of a symbol. Mine was my mom’s best friend growing up, May, and my uncle Clark, and I was close to both of them until that last day. It was a promise sort-of thing, like if anything had happened to my parents, that May and Uncle Clark would take care of me. They lived on Mindoir too, though. I look up at Liara, who is looking at the new additions to our fridge and she smiles widely, grabbing the picture of us at Henry’s graduation. She shows it to me and points to my mother.

“By the goddess, Jo, she is absolutely beautiful. You look so much like her, but you and this other man have your father’s eyes.” I smile, looking at the picture with her as I point at the man she speaks of.

“That’s Henry, my older brother. He was only eighteen there, so I guess you could consider him a man.” She looks at me, her eyes wide as she smiles. I forget sometimes that they don’t know my past. By they, I mean my friends. Sharing my family’s life story isn’t something I usually bring up to them, and Kaidan is the only person who actually knows anything about my family. When he proposed to me, I made sure that there were no secrets between us, and my family is my most well-kept secret because of how protected I’ve kept them from the journalists and reporters who have written stories about Mindoir after it happened, and the countless stories they’ve written about me over the years. Write about me, sure, but no one has to know about my parents or my brother. I let them rest a long time ago, so I made sure no one would talk about them. Anderson actually helped me seal up my records a very long time ago so they didn’t get brought up by reporters. Actually taking their pictures out of the box is a huge step for me. Kaidan and I have started a family and I think I’m ready to speak of my family more outloud now. I smile at her as she studies the picture once more in her hands

“I hadn’t known you had a brother. He is very handsome, and it’s hard to believe that he is only eighteen there. It does make sense though, honestly. You’re very much a tomboy and having an older brother could influence that rugged behavior of yours,” I push her shoulder lightly as I laugh at her joke, but hey, she isn’t necessarily wrong. “He is in an old style of Alliance fatigues though, I haven’t seen those in a long time. He’s the reason you joined up, isn’t he?”

“Yes, actually. He’s the exact reasoning,” She frowns slightly, but smirks again to try and hide it as I realize the sad tone in my voice. I clear my throat and lean against the counter as she returns the picture to the fridge. She leans next to me and I lay my head on her shoulder, taking in a deep breath as I close my eyes. “I want you to be the godmother to our baby, Liara. Kaidan and I decide that together, but I know he will agree. There’s no other person I would rather have watch over them than their Aunt Liara.” I feel the corners of her mouth pick up as she lifts her head to look at me, a slightly curious but happy expression on her face.

“Godmother? I remember learning about human religions just out of curiousity, so I think that’s from catholicism, right?” I nod my head, smiling as she cocks her head to the side, her expression more like confused now. “I hadn’t know the two of you were catholic, or having your baby be catholic. I am also not catholic, Jo.” I laugh and shake my head at her. I had almost forgotten how literal Liara was. Almost.

“Well I didn’t think you became catholic, Liara. Kaidan and I really aren’t, my parents were catholic and I was baptized, but I don’t practice anything, neither of us do. It’s more of like a symbolism thing to me. My godparents were the closest people to my parents, just like my brother’s godparents were as well, and they were a huge part of their lives and mine. Godparents take care of their godkids if anything happens to their parents and you are my best friend, Liara. There is so much you can teach our child and if anything should happen to us, I would be grateful for you to continue loving them the way they deserve to be loved.” A smile breaks across her face as she nods at me, her eyes growing glassy, but she doesn’t let a tear fall as she hugs me again.

“I would be honored.” I hug her just tightly as she hugs me and we stand there for a few beats until I hear her sniffle, breaking the hug and wiping her face with the back of her hand. She looks to my oven, reading the numbers as she opens her omni-tool. “I should probably start heading to Vancouver to greet the Alliance. They’ve been waiting for some numbers from Thessia and Illium to see how we’re doing over there.” I nod as she hugs me again, kissing my cheek.

“Please be safe. You’re welcome to come back and join us instead of staying in a hotel there. We have plenty of room.”

“Well one of those rooms will have to be claimed for that baby soon. But yes, I would love to stay with you while I’m on Earth. I will send word when I’m on the base.”

“Sounds good. Thank you for everything, Liara, really. I didn’t know who else to tell and I knew you’d give it to me straight. I love you.”

“I love you more. Give Kaidan my love when he gets home.”

“You know I will.” She waves as she returns to a small asari aircraft and I wave her off before shutting the door behind me.

#liara t'soni #female shepard x Kaidan #femshep #kaidan alenko #Jo Shepard #mass effect #mom!Shepard #mass effect trash #ugh #my heart #I'm sorry for this

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ask-de-writer · 6 years

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PARADOX PLANET : World of Sea : Science Fiction : 1 part

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PARADOX PLANET

Glen Ten-Eyck

This is an excerpt from a novel in progress called GONE TO SEA

2579 words in chapter 1

writing begun 2005

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