This story has had a rather long hiatus but i'm finally back to work on it. Sorry for the short chapter but it seemed appropriate.

Abby

Previously ---

“Remember, you are small and weak. The time for you to strike is when others have weakened each other with fighting. Your brain is your best weapon, you must use it!. Hide if you have to, wait until the time is right for you to strike. This way, your victory will be assured.”

“Well, I don’t know about assured,” she thought wryly to herself “but it just may be that I can give the good guys a fighting chance!” Her fingers played over the keypads in front of her, setting up a complex burn sequence that would take advantage of every gravitational slingshot she could find. When she finally settled back into her chair to await the first burn, she noted with satisfaction that her trajectory would put her in the Uranian system almost a full month ahead of the fleet. She didn’t believe in prayer, but at that moment she found herself uttering one.

“Please, let it be enough time, and just let it be enough!”

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James Bosphors sat in the mess hall casting glances at the newly minted Lieutenant Masters as she made a little moue of distaste with every spoonful of rice and beans before chewing and swallowing with a look of determination. He was glad to see the new air of self-confidence she was beginning to display but it made him feel even more hopeless. She was now his superior officer and no matter how much he wanted to approach her that had been made even less possible than before. He jerked his eyes away, suddenly afraid she would catch him looking at her and bolted down the remainder of his food before making his way out of the mess hall as quickly as possible.

He had a particular spot he liked to go to think, hidden behind one of the massive structural beams which held the giant ship rigid. There are always spaces on a ship which for some reason are unused and seldom if ever visited by anything other than maintenance bots and they are usually only known to a very few. He had been there for a very confusing half hour, thinking through every angle and coming repeatedly to the conclusion that he had no way to move forward. He would simply have to love from afar, unrequited…

The hand that came down on his shoulder very nearly caused him to scream from shock. He looked up and his shock deepened to see his captain standing there, proffering a handkerchief to wipe the tears he had been unaware were spilling from his eyes. He took it gratefully and went to stand but Captain Hunt sat beside him instead. For a moment she just wrapped an arm around his shoulders and let him get himself together.

“A matter has come to my attention James, and I need your help to resolve it.”

“With all due respect ma’am, I think you’ve come to the wrong person. I suck at issue resolution. Why me?” The disbelief was as plain in his voice as on his face.

Helen settled back against an intersecting support beam and adopted a look of relaxation, subtly inducing Bosphors to follow suit. “I find myself with an issue… not one that was unexpected, not one that hasn’t been considered by every military and corporation for centuries now. I’m sure I don’t have to quote the rules about fraternization to you of all people…”

“Ma’am I haven’t, wouldn’t… couldn’t even…” James realized he was crying again and the tears felt like burning shame to him.

“I know that James. You and I have served together for a very long time now and I know you to be a man of such honor that you took a demotion that rightly should have been handed to your worthless shit of a subordinate. I remember the young man who spoke at his classes’ commencement at the academy, standing in a downpour that could have drowned a frog and doing his duty nonetheless.” She put her arm back around his shoulders and drew him closer, feeling his slight resistance give way after a moment.

“I was proud of that kid and I’m proud of the man you have become but that still leaves me with a problem and its not just about you and Masters. Everything has changed James, and we have to change with it. We can’t just put you in separate command structures and deal with the issue that way because there aren’t any other commands.”

Helen continued before he could protest his honor again. ”I’m not telling you not to have a relationship with Sarah. At this point that would be a net negative for both of your productivity and overall usefulness at your posts, which have remained in both your cases beyond exemplary. I’m actually going to do the opposite and not just for you. The rules on that level have to change for everyone to adapt to reality.”

“I’m not used to feeling stupid Ma’am but I feel pretty stupid right now. What do you mean?”

Helen rose from her resting position, knelt in front of the still seated Bosphors and reached toward his collar before he could react, fiddling for a moment and coming away with his symbols of rank in her hands. He stared at them in disbelief. Had he just been demoted, or even worse separated from service?

Her words took a moment to penetrate his mental haze. “Look in the mirror Lieutenant.”

His gaze travelled upward to the small mirror she held in her hand and jerked to his collar where two silver bars sat. It was almost a full minute before he was able to process the image and realize what she’d said to him.

“I don’t deserve this ma’am. If this is just to clear the way for Sarah and me then I’d like my old insignia back please.”

She laughed at him and pocketed both mirror and insignia. “Gods you’re a stiff one. Just like your uncle. This isn’t to clear the way for you two, although you do have my blessing and that’s a part of what I mean about having to change the rules about that sort of thing. This is about me undoing an injustice I couldn’t do anything about at the time and giving you back something that is yours by right. Your rank and so much more was taken from you by your own sense of honor and the blind idiocy of a command structure too overloaded with power hungry assholes.”

She sighed and sagged a little to rest on her heels, still kneeling. “It is beyond my power to do anything about the rest of what they did to you but this one small act of atonement… this I can offer. For the rest, I need your help.”

“Ma’am I…”

“Please stop calling me ma’am in private James… Jimmy. I changed your diapers when you were a baby. When its just us, I’m Helen, or Aunt Helen if you feel like being all formal about it. I wish I knew what happened that bubbly boy I hugged goodbye when I went off to the academy.”

James shook his head. “He grew almost 3 feet taller and 300 pounds heavier in a little over 2 years. I was this size by the time I hit 13 and as uncoordinated as a spastic octopus. I broke things just moving around, hurt people without intending to… so I withdrew. Mom helped some, she taught me to dance before she died. Mother took over after that, taught me martial arts and fencing and I learned to not just randomly destroy everything around me but… Mom dying destroyed Mother. It was years before she finally came out of it and even that was only because Elissa came back into her life. By that time I was at the Academy so saw very little of either of them in person since Mother and Steph had moved to Mars to be with Elissa and her family in Hale city.”

“Then the war happened and…” he shook his head. “I had my duty and it kept me alive.”

“And now you’re becoming a little more alive, learning to have feelings again and you don’t know how to handle it, right?”

“Yes ma... Helen. I’ve never had a relationship before and I don’t have the beginnings of a clue how to go about it. I’m too scared to even talk to her when we’re not on shift together. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong, frighten her, maybe hurt her by mistake. I might be better coordinated but I’m still… This…” he gestured at his own bulk.

“Just… go talk to her. We’ll deal with rewriting the rules later but for now there’s no rule on this ship against you two having a relationship. There’s so little happiness left in this world Jimmy… we have to hold every scrap of it dear. “