Notes: Because the other mama in the room had to chime in at some point ;)

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Interlude: Xilinn

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Interlude: Xilinn

Picture by Leonardo Rios 

Xilinn stared out Lizzie’s viewscreen as the stars sailed byfar faster than she was prepared for. It wasn’t Xilinn’s first time flying inLizzie, but she hadn’t been boosted to this degree before.

In the more crowded spacelanes, it wasn’t possible to gothis fast either; a collision would be deadly, which meant knowing where theships were and who was cutting what edge on the gravity waves that defined mostof the lanes in the first place. It was one of the things that made piracy inthe Central System so difficult; the potential take was astronomical, but thechance of an accident was high enough to make it a terribly risky proposition.

That might be the only highlight of this trip for Xilinn. Reachingthis sort of speed would have been impossible without being in lightly-traveledspace with an AI as smart as Lizzie to do the intense calculations required forthe travel. It was the sort of thing she’d only dared to dream about as achild, before her parents’ expectations caught up with her and Xilinn settledinto a standard career, in a standard quad, for a standard life.

Not that there had been anything standard about Zakari. Hereyes closed as she remembered her closest spouse, the father of her children. Hisface had been as round as a moon and shone just as bright, and he’d laughedwith her and dreamed with her and touched her with a tenderness that she cameto crave. By the time Pol was born, Xilinn had decided to limit her sexualcontact to Zak, to the distaste of their other partners. And then once he wasgone…

Oh, how they’d made her pay for it.

She would have given anything to have him back, anything tosettle his soul back on Trakta in the family mausoleum. It had seemed hopeless,but Kieron had found a way. Kieron, who’d loved Zakari as fiercely as Xilinnhad, who was kind to their children and polite to their quad. Kieron hadreturned a piece of Xilinn’s own heart, one she’d thought gone forever. When she’dlearned what Lizzie and Ryu were discussing, she’d insisted on being broughtinto the fold.

“It’s easier if we don’t,” Ryu had said bluntly. For allthat they’d been living together for months, in Elanus’s own home nonetheless, Xilinnstill hadn’t known whether or not to trust him. Assassin… but Ganianshad different rules than Traktans did around killing, and he hadn’t succeeded,after all. “You should stay here and mind the house with Pol. You’ve got ahearing coming up as well, and—”

“Don’t tell me what to do again.” It rankled something deepin Xilinn’s soul to be dismissed in such a way. She’d been taken for grantedback home, then punished the moment she stood up for what she believed in. Shewas finished with that dynamic. “I’m not a child you need to coddle or a chesspiece to move around a board. Tell me what’s going on, Lizzie, please.”

Lizzie, good girl that she was, did so. She played therecording for Xilinn, gave her her impressions, and in the end let her be partof the decision-making process with an air of relief. Of course, she’s justa child. And Xilinn’s conclusions were...well.

“We can’t expect them to get themselves out of this.”

“No,” Ryu agreed.

“But it would be pointless to alert the nearest inhabited planetand ask for them to send a force.”

“It would.” Apart from the fact that the nearest inhabitedplanet was a farming colony populated almost entirely with bots, they werestrictly non-interventionist and would have no reason to go after someonefoolish enough to go down onto Hadrian’s Colony.

“And equally pointless for us to go there looking for somesort of fight.”

Ryu had stroked his chin thoughtfully. “It’s more than theweather won’t allow for any sort of direct interference, I think. We’d have theadvantage either way, being in space; I doubt they’ve got the sort of armamentsthat could shoot through the atmosphere.”

“But we don’t know that for sure.”

“No.” And it wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to guessat, either.

“Then we help them help themselves,” Xilinn said. “We equipourselves for a rescue mission but plan on staying above the planet, not goingdown to it.” Not unless the need was extremely dire. “We could have them off ofthere in less than two weeks, if Lizzie’s calculations are correct. Which Iknow they are,” she added, and Lizzie made a happy sound.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ryu said softly. “I know youfeel like you owe Kieron, but he would never expect you to—”

Xilinn held up a hand. “He never expects anything fromanyone, which is part of the reason I’ve got to do this. The rest…” The uneasethat had been growing in her for weeks was getting stronger and stronger, madeworse by the fact that Trakta had cut off all unofficial communication witheveryone—even its former allies. They’d gone completely dark except for aweekly proclamation of events, and as someone who was used to reading betweenthe formal lines, Xilinn could tell that things were bad.

What’s happening to my Szusza? To Filip and Ophred? Herformer spouses were supposed to be looking after Szusza, but Xilinn didn’t believethat they would do so equally. And she loved their other children dearly—were theysuffering now? It would take someone truly masterful to penetrate Trakta’ssilence and get her the answers she needed in order to keep from going mad.

Kieron and Elanus, together, were the masters of just aboutanything. With the girls to help them, they were unstoppable.

“I love Kieron like family, and I owe Elanus a debt,” shesaid at last. “I do have some hopes for after we rescue them, but that canwait.” It would have to.

Not for long, though.