If you remember my previous story, it left off with teh Shivan getting killed.
What's happened-A GTVA rescue team showed up, discovered the Ancients computer was smashed to pieces and apparently unusable, at least as far as they can determine.
Somehow (I don't think anyone knows exactly how), Byron got Joe's minicomp off the planet, with him, without the GTVA quite realizing what happened.
The rest, I may want to reference in the story...embarassingly enough I don't remember what time I set it, exactly, but suffice it to say that it's now basically around the time of FS2.
The GTVA is dying, Admiral Millard thought. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look. The military had been cut back, despite the support and charisma of Admiral Bosch.
Staring at the flimsy fleet, Roger Millard couldn't help but feel a twinge of forlorn pride. It was possibly the largest fleet ever gathered in recent years; one of the new Hecate destroyers, two of the six Aeolus cruisers still in-service, four Leviathans, and a Deimos-class corvette. Huddled together in the Gamma Draconis system, the vessels awaited only the arrival of the 'garrison' force - an Orion and another two Leviathans.
Further ahead was the reason the fleet was here. Between the impossibly-rotating array and the fleet, an aging Fenris cruiser drifted ahead on minimal power. Two gas miners followed at a distance, as if reluctant to leave the protection of the fleet, even at such slow a speed.
On board the cruiser, an awkward silence hung in the air.
"Well," Frank said from the captain's chair. "I thought it was funny."
Matt snorted from the flight console.
"Hon, I think everyone has heard some variation on that one by the time they're thirteen," Jezebel.
"You just had to be there. In fact, I'll prove it to you."
"Oh, don't you dare." Jezebel smirked. "I'd make you regret it."
Frank half-turned around to catch the look in Jezebel's eye at NavComm. "Oh. Well, that doesn't sound too bad."
She made a gesture.
"Oh. Oh. Ow. You promised."
"Oh, I must've forgot that."
"That's not true."
Matt half-raised a hand. "Care to provide a glossary for those of us who haven't spent the last six years?"
Frank rubbed his jaw. "Not particularly. 'sides, Byron would just skip through all the juicy parts."
Byron. The last member of the bridge crew, and also the quietest, sitting at the weapons control console. Frank couldn't figure that one out; he'd been on the bridge when they'd gotten there, 'relieving' the lone GTVA crewman. Actually having one of these things, he'd learned, was downright boring. The thing ran itself; even the lowest of the low capital ships in the GTVA still far outshone the most advanced civillian model he'd ever been on. They'd given it to him on loan, supposedly because it was a step away from being decommed.
Frank suspected otherwise. The ship'd been in service for a long time, but could still give pirates a run for the money. And the officer he'd dealt mostly with had seemed a little too...eager. He had a growing feeling that the Fenis was one step away from being decommissioned - but the GTVA was desparate enough to hold onto it to give it to a civvy who could afford to keep it.
But Frank also thought it was because of Byron, and this expedition in particular. The GTVA wanted the system on the other side of that thing - wanted it pretty bad - but Frank'd had the foresight to park a probe outside the system before the GTVA had managed to scout it out. No one knew what was on the other side of that thing.
Except, perhaps, Byron. The sole person who knew what exactly they'd discovered so many years ago...or at least as much as anyone could know. He'd become downright reclusive; as near as Frank could tell, he hadn't spoken to almost anyone much since he'd last seen him. Nor did he speak to anyone else much. So much for the grand reunion.
And at the moment, Byron was doing a great job of spoiling the fun.
"Hey, snap out of it, will ya?" Frank said. No response. "Byron?"
He could almost feel Jez making her just-drop-it face at his back. Well, his turn to be nasty.
"By-"
"What?"
"If you're gonna be up here, would you at least do us the courtsey of paying attention and not skulking in the corner? It's kind of disturbing."
"Fine. I won't be here." Byron tapped the terminal a few times, got up, and walked out.
"Good job, sugarplum."
Frank rubbed his jaw again. "See, this is why I don't want kids."
Jez sighed, and went back to whatever she was doing.
Frank sat back and idly watched the array spin.
