Chapter 1: Brunch and Benificence
Fire, pain and suffering-- Lance felt the mindbending pain as his skin began to melt, sloughing off his face and hands, his uniform crisping, hair long since torched... even the grim gratitude he felt at having saved the others withered in the face of what he was becoming.
Oh. I'm dying, he had the wherewithal to think, the only words that he could summon to mind...
The memory shattered. He found himself staring off into space, holding a pan over an open flame where one part of the many-part meal he'd been preparing was beginning to get unfortunately toasty.
A hand was waving in front of his face, and attached to it, a beautiful woman who... right, was his good friend. He gave his head a little shake, pulling the pan off the heat. "Do you really need to do that?" he asked, tamping down embarrassment and shame as he reeled the last bit of his focus to the present moment, away from his impending fate.
"You tell me, sir." Hana had already retracted her hand, going back to chopping the herbs she'd volunteered to help with. Her tone was the same smooth calm of a river rock, with undertones of amusement and concern that he was familiar enough with her to pick up easily. "You looked as if you'd lost an argument with those eggs. Is everything alright?"
He considered saying 'no', but like every time before when he'd managed to lose his grip on reality, the fear of losing everything by facing the future that was coming for him swayed his hand. "Oh, trust me, if the eggs and I are fighting, you'd all have known it. No, I'm alright. Just thinking about the bad old days."
The future at the Nidus was as bright as the new sun around which their home now orbited. For everyone but Lance, the world was one of opportunities. The mists that the Nidus had been lost in for ten long years had cleared out unceremoniously one day and left them all in a strange, new world. And it was exactly what he and Hana and their entire corps had been training for. Hoping for... in some cases, praying for.
"We've lost so much time," he continued, allowing his mind to wander down old, familiar paths of hope and worry and regret. Coming back to himself always took time, and he was loathe to have to do it in front of anyone... but Hana was at least his confidante in every other regard. He felt he could talk about this with her. "All those worlds to explore, all those people to meet. If I'd graduated with that kind of opportunity, you bet I'd be out there in a heartbeat."
He grinned with his usual boyish charm, allowing it to buoy him as much as he hoped it'd buoy her. "Instead, here we are hoisting the latest graduates up to do it for us. It's quite a trick, isn't it?"
She had been watching him out of the sides of her eyes with a gently hard-to-read expression as he ruminated, making short work of the chives. When he smiled, she smiled back, a tight little thing meant to stay between the two of them. There was ease between them, two ranking officers amongst a double-handful of cadets at varying stages of ability and nearness to graduation; Hana carried herself with ease in a place of authority, but at times it seemed she couldn't entirely meet him in the space of informality that he so easily blended with his own brand of leadership.
"Getting the young and spry to take on the hard work for us? It is quite a trick." She neatly scraped the chopped chives into a pile, moving on to the parsley. "Certainly our ducklings seem eager enough to start in on it, with or without us."
That earned a glance back at the more sociable sitting area of Lance's quarters, where cadet Indy sat with one leg propped up in a cast on the coffee table, and cadet Kapelle was speaking with a great deal of animation. It was no surprise that everyone and their dodrian were volunteering for things like scout-work and exploration on their new world, but the two cadets who had gone ostensibly on an herb-gathering and plant-cataloguing day-trip had ended up getting themselves into a ferocious scrape with an unknown alien creature, rescued at the last minute only because of good information from the Nidus's local two-bit fortune-teller and his slightly more efficacious dragon.
It was wise of Hana not to bring up that two-bit fortune teller, or perhaps just lucky. Lance, following her gaze, found his grin had turned a little wistful. "They're going to get into worse scrapes if we don't keep them in line," he considered. But that was the old thinking. That was the thinking that came with a boundless enthusiasm for exploration tempered by a thick fog that swallowed anyone foolhardy enough to press doggedly onward into it.
That could have been his fate. It would have been his fate if he hadn't lost his best friends to it, first. He still believed they were out there, somewhere, passed through the mist to somewhere else, now that they had proof that it could be done. Wherever they were, though, he didn't want the trainees... the cadets, now, ready to graduate in their own right, to get lost. To get hurt.
He worried for them. He tried to make it up frequently with meals like this, what he couldn't give in brotherly or even fatherly camaraderie. The last of the fried scallops went into a bowl and he brought those along with a few others out to the counter. "Alright, cadets, soup's up if you like surf better than turf!"
Voice lowered, he added to Hana, "I'm thinking it might be time we went on a new adventure." A spark flickered around in his chest, a feeling of hope that he'd been harboring every chance he got. "Sure, we can send them out in trios and fours, map the landmass. But the dragons have that. What they need is a wider experience." He winked at her, "and so do we. I have a plan."
She gave him a look like >is that so?, but the cadets had sprung up like meerkats at the dinner bell. Hana was not the sort to discuss in the open what seemed as if it might warrant being said behind closed doors.
Indy had stayed back amongst the comfortable chairs, yelling after Kapelle to grab her some scallops, to which the young medical cadet flapped a hand. The others -- Kapelle's mentor, Jabilo, the young science specialist, Skahl, buttoned-up Shan, and in the back their engineering specialist Martall gently shepherding the youngest cadet, Angani. It was an odd assortment of people, brought together at Lance's perogative and to some degree by a handful of pre-existing friendships. It was no surprise Indy and Kapelle were the first to get into trouble, for example -- the pair had egged each other on to similar results for years.
Hana watched over the lot of them with a discerning eye, a little separate, but greeting each as they came up to have brunch doled out in great steaming scoopfuls. Without being asked she took over the drinks station, and if some of those orange juices turned into mimosas she turned a benignly blind eye.
"Eat up," Lance said, saving just a special little grin for Hana as he addressed the crowd. "We have a lot of work hitting our plates, and soon. You all know that the Nidus is unpacking its bags, getting comfortable, and making a space for itself.
"But we also know that this planet isn't entirely ready for us to be here. It has its pointy bits just like anywhere." He raised a glass Indy's way, grin turning wry, with a hint of gratitude that the young cadet was with them today.
"That's the same as the rest of the worlds out there. We might have our roots somewhere far distant, a home our parents talked about on Earth," and, pausing to look Skal in the eye, he added, "-- or elsewhere, of course -- but where our roots brought us, and where we're growing to next, that's a big step.
"We take it together. As a community. As friends." He looked to Jabilo, Shan and Martall, the seniors among their cohort, and he said, "before our next induction of cadets this year, we need to adapt to the changes coming our way. Guaranteed, whatever we're doing to reach out into the big, wide Nexus, there'll be someone reaching back. Our job, what we've been training for," she looked to Angani with a sparkle in his eye for her fresh-faced enthusiasm, "is to meet those head on and learn everything we can."
He paused, a flash of his mind pushing against him, reminding him of a fiery death, of the sacrifice of saving those he loved like family. It gave him a somber edge... but he didn't let it take him. Not this time.
"We'll be getting our new assignments from the leadership within the next ten days, but what I want is for us to be ready before they can say 'go'. It's not class time anymore. Can we do that?"
Indy sent up a woop, while Shan and Agani were immediate with their "yes, sir!"s, one sharp-edged and ready and the other a little round-eyed alongside her enthusiasm. The others chimed in in their own ways, Hana watching it all with quiet pride from her own plate of scallops, eggs, and fried tomatoes.
"Do we have any notion of what those orders are liable to be, sir?" Asked Martall, the eyeless engineer from Kynn, putting voice to the biggest question the pep talk had raised, in a tone that was a bit like asking about the weather.
"Yes we do," Lance said, bargaining on a chip he had already nudged forth with his connections to the powers that be in the Nidus.
But he'd get to that.
"I'm not at liberty to give you the details, yet, but I can say you'll be wanting to pack your bags. We're heading off world."
Martall let out a quiet hmph, not properly ill-humoured so much as a bit self-satisfied, and went back to sedately eating his eggs, but the reaction from the rest of the room was much more boisterous. The younger cadets sent up a hubbub -- mostly Indy and Kapelle, though Angani was leaning in on their little grouping asking after what they knew, if anything. Shan seemed to steel herself, shoulders back, posture straight, eggs forgotten.
Hana leaned in a little. "Hell of a plan, sir."
"It's always been the plan," Lance murmured back out the side of his mouth. "Hasn't it?"
The rest of the meal passed in a flurry of questions that Lance did his best to answer. He noticed that Skal had gone silent during the meal, though his pointy ears were definitely straining to pick up the many conversations.
He made a note to approach their half-human friend about it later, but for now he was having enough of a time answering the younger cadets. When they were done breakfast, it was clear that those would be the bringers of gossip, so he happily left them to spread it around the ranks who hadn't merited brunch with their corps leader.
Skal hung around after most of them had left, casting a dark-eyed look Hana's way as Lance got back to the work of scrubbing pots and pans.
"Sir," he said, approaching the bar-like counter between the cooking space and the rest of Lance's sparse quarters. "Is it wise to scatter our forces when we haven't even secured the unbonded segments of the Nidus on this planet?"
Lance glanced at Hana, then back to their friend and peer. Skal had a way of coming across as cold and calculating to most, but Lance had long-since learned it was just the way he was. He didn't mind it; everyone was who they were, after all. He answered, "if the 'unbonded segments' of the Nidus wait on dragons and their riders to do all the work, we might as well bury our heads in the sand and pretend the mists are right back where they came from."
He set his pan back in the sink, taking a half breath as he thought. "Hana, you got here just before the mists settled in, didn't you? You both know what it was like to be off-planet before all this happened." He was looking to her for support, it seemed, unconscious of the ask even for having made it.
There was a question in the look she shot back at him, but Hana was ready, as she always was. She'd been tidying, tucking utensils and ingredients back in their places, but she took a pause. Wiping her hands on a dishcloth, she set herself across the counter from Skal and cocked her head thoughtfully.
"Correct, sir, though that brings it to a point. What I think is that we've been out of the loop ten years running, and even those of us from other worlds aren't even much help on the intelligence front. Though that's not entirely the impetus here, is it? We have that experience," she nodded to Skal, expat solidarity that he might care about or might not, "but it's one thing to know other worlds exist. Quite another to visit one. Truth is, if the Nidus needs defending from something on this world it's going to fall to the draconar forces whether we're here or not. They're promising," she waved a hand at the door the cadets had left from, "but they're green. The greenest. We need to see how they do with the unexpected, and moreover, we need to see how it is out there these days. From our own perspective."
Skal raised a brow, dark hair contrasting with his moon-pale skin. Lance looked at the pair of them, outsiders born and bred in the way that they interacted... and he felt fondness. He kept his mouth shut as Skal responded, "field training could be improbably dangerous. We *are* ten years out of contact. It would behove us to wait for the intelligence we can glean from the draconar, not to do the field work for them."
Lance raised both of his silvery brows at that. "Skal, you're telling me you'd rather miss out on all the fun?"
"Fun, sir?"
"First contact, the back and forth of negotiation. Person to person, not just draconar to draconar. There have to be hundreds of worlds and thousands of species out there."
"Yes, and not all of them are friendly." Skal cast a scathing look at Hana. Apparently he was used to these kinds of outbursts from Lance, so he turned his attention on the other emigrant. "When I entered the Nidus, it was on the back of a similar exodus, one meant to bring new ideas and ways of being to the Aigard. As a... half-breed, I was considered a prime vassal for this task." He didn't look uncomfortable, necessarily; Skal never looked any particular way, except perhaps a little bit pinched and intense. "The initial attempts to make contact with outsiders had brought a war to my people, which, presumably, wages on to this day in the best case scenario. By the time that I was put on the line to explore, it was with a sense of... haste. Allies, powers, and solutions born of urgent scouring were all that my people could hope to find. Our attempts to grow were turned on their heads, because we proceeded without caution."
Lance watching Skal's passionless explanation, found himself frowning. "You'll have a chance to reunite with your people, Mr. Tilhormand. I can see why this plagues you."
When Skal's response amounted to a stiff nod, Hana interjected.
"It's a reasonable concern. But from my understanding, your people reached out into the wider Nexus with no or very little knowledge of what it held. A tragedy, to be sure, and one I think we can circumvent in our case. We're armed with a baseline of knowledge, and allies already in place." She smiled, a short, warm transformation of her countenance. "We are already a multi-world community, Skal. We can start the chicks off gently. Tris'hath, or the Healing Den, or the Vella Crean -- we know, at least, that most of our old allies have not been disastrously compromised by the Drift."
cherrehc — Today at 16:58
"You might just have a point." Lance's grin warmed to match Hana's. "You know, if we're looking at exploring a strange, new world, what we know about the Vella Crean suggests they had a very similar experience as a people." Darting an apologetic glance Skal's way, he said, "What we need is advice, and I'm not too ashamed to admit it. Once we know more about our own predicament, we can look into helping your people, too."
He rested both hands on the counter, settling a little forward on his shoulders as he took in his senior officers. "The cadets were lucky with that latest encounter. I don't want that happening again." Though, if his vision was anything to go by, fate had a very different thing to say about it. Lance sighed and gave them both a tight-lipped grin. "I can take care of the rest. You're both dismissed."
Both gave crisp little nods, Skal turning to leave immediately and Hana hanging up her hand-towel.
"A moment, if you please, sir," she intoned the moment Skal passed beyond the threshold. "Let me handle reaching out to the Vella Crean."
Lance gave her a short, considering look. "You have the inside track, lieutenant?" His grin was still quirked, but there was some serious intention behind his eyes. It had been ten long years since they'd entered the mists as a community... and though there was a certain amount of hobnobbing that went on between the original organisation of the UNIS, the Avengaeans, the Vella Creans, the Tris'Hathians, hell, all those who'd settled at the Nidus to make themselves a home, Lance wasn't aware of what made Hana's connection with the Court folks strong enough to head up.
Maybe she was just gunning to show her dedication. Maybe it was something else. He'd grown to trust her, though, so whatever answer she gave, he was ready to accept. "In that case, I'll write my report for the Admiral and the Optio. I want to get this show on the road as much as anyone else. Let me know what you bring back."
"Yessir." She snapped her heels together, and while she didn't salute, Hana was all business in every line of her amazonian frame.
If he didn't salute her back, it was because their relationship was that odd blend of friendly and formal. Instead, he gave a sharp nod, the sparkle in his eye still curious... but he could be patient. He'd been patient for ten years, waiting to explore the stars, after all.
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