Prelude 3: Red Skies (2052)
"Zor, wake up!" a feminine voice yelled from his wrist communicator lying on the storage shelf in the rear of the VBF-2 Expedition, above the heads of the sleeping couple.
"Yes, 'mother'," Zor Freeman replied, sitting up from his and his wife's air mattress, inside the tent that had been deployed around the underside of the Beta derivative.
"I'm not you're mother, and you know it," the voice replied. "If anything, I'd be your stepsister."
"Then, she shouldn't have programmed you with her voice and personality. It's bad enough that I have two mothers already; then, I have you to put up with on missions."
"It could be worse..."
"How's that?"
"Well, the tent could be surrounded by giant carnivorous rabbits."
"Cute." It was the third time ABBI had used that line in the last month; Janice must have watched "Night of the Lepus" while programming ABBI. "Why don't you check and see if our fearless leader is up and about?"
"Since the commander of the diplomatic and scientific elements of the mission is by your side, I assume you mean Commander Hunter."
"Who else?"
"He's currently talking to his girlfriend, using his allocation of personal subspace time on my link back to Earth. I was letting everyone get in their personal calls, before setting up the conference call concerning our discoveries, as that call will probably take all day."
"Report what? That we found an inhabitable world, that's been just as depopulated as all the sterilized worlds we'd already passed?"
"That's a start. After all, your great-uncle is always looking for worlds for his allies to utilize. A lot of the people he's worked with were unwelcome in their own society before he befriended them."
"Oh, like the training moon over Fantoma, where he brought in people from the 3WA to train our special forces? He could had at least warned the planet about just who he was bringing, and what their reputation and apparent curse was. We could have lost Tyrol!"
"One Dirty Pair incident does not mean the whole concept was bad," Aurora punned sleepily, sitting up finally. "That reactor incident could have happened without them; their Murphy talent just made it happen sooner. Good morning, ABBI. Have you finished those star map analyses I had you start last night?"
"As best as I could. That crashed flagship's databanks had a lot of memory dropouts. Once we get back to Little Luna, I can run the data mirror through the systems that were designed to recover data from such corruption, although it would work better if we could haul the entire original data block back later."
"My mother, the Veritech," Zor mused.
"Mom, Dad, are you two getting up, yet?" Cathy yelled in from outside the tent. "We've already gotten all the other equipment stowed, and you two are still in bed."
"Give us a minute, honey," Aurora moaned, grabbing her uniform blouse. "We were up late last night working on the salvaged star charts."
"Oh, really? According to Dennis, you two were making out like you were your real age, not your physical one, and were practically undressing each other even as you walked to the tent. Sounds more like you were working on producing me a brother or sister, more than the mission."
"Dennis talks too much," Zor snapped back. "We waited until we were in the tent to start stripping each other." He bent over and started nibbling on Aurora's earlobe.
"You two are too much," Cathy replied. "If you hurry, you might get dressed before the breakfast gets cold. Then again, since Sammy's the one cooking, you better hurry, because her cooking rarely ever has time to get cold."
"All right, all right... We'll be right out."
*********
The campsite looked better in the early morning light, than it had when they hurriedly set it up last night as darkness fell. As per SOP, they had set up camp in an area that was roughly similar to Macross Standard Time in its nighttime cycle (what was called "US Mountain Time" prior to the battle with Dolza's Grand Fleet), that was reasonably close to one of the ruin sites. In fact, the second of the planet's twin dwarf primaries was rising over the crater in the distance, which had been one of the local governmental centers prior to the empire's collapse.
Zor had already made the decision that after the diplomatic mission, he wanted to come back for a science mission to study the stars, that circled each other at a distance closer than the distance of Venus to Sol, and managed to support a habitable planet somehow at about the distance of Mars. The only thing that seemed to keep the planet in a reasonably stable orbit was that the orbit was in resonance with the stars' mutual orbit, and a planet finding its way into such a position was extremely unlikely to occur naturally.
For now, all he really had to consider was the force that he, his wife, and Roy commanded. As this individual mission held the greatest chance yet of recontact, they had handled the mission personally.
Usually, each of them had their own specific 4-person team, and were in charge of a total of 3 such teams. The fourth flight of 3 teams had finished training right before their departure, and the fifth flight would graduate in the spring. Each flight had 6 pilots, three sensor & communications specialists, and three scientists. The scientists on a team were one technology specialist, one biologist with full medical doctor training, and one physicist. All twelve were trained to pilot the Veritechs in a pinch, but usually the six pilots handled that duty.
Their mecha were outwardly similar to the mecha of the last Robotech War; the Alpha and the Beta, and retained that attachment modularity. However, the mecha were somewhat larger, to handle their new mission and larger crew, the Alpha being closer in size to its ancestors, the VAF-2 Veritas. The VAF-8E Explorer was a two-seat aircraft, while the VBF-2E Expedition could sit two in the cockpit, and one more in the internal compartment. The communications tech could take the rear seat in either cockpit, but usually opted for the VBF-2 when the mission profile didn't require that seat to be occupied by the scientist, for direct access to the superior communications and sensor suites of the Expedition. Other than that, the only other mission requirement that might make the Explorer's back seat get used, would be stuffing the Expedition's third seat with mission supplies. The Expedition also held the survival gear (like the tent system), additional gear oriented toward the assigned scientist type, and a fold engine capable of jumping distances totaling slightly over 100 Earth light-years in one or more jumps, before requiring refueling. VAF-8 & VBF-2 variants were also used by the dimensional exploration teams of Aurora's sister & brother-in-law, but those were dedicated carrier craft, with less support gear, and minimal fold capability, in exchange for more potent weaponry.
The crew for this particular mission, because of it being such high priority, was even more peculiar than normal. This was typified right off the bat, by the "family" sitting over by their portable canteen. Samantha Fokker was a dusky-skinned beauty, being the daughter of the clones of Roy & Claudia (Grant) Fokker. The Grant family, while technically African-American, had come from a cultural background where the family probably was more white than black, genetically, as was reflected in the eye colors of Claudia, and her nephew Bowie. The result would be what in Samantha's great-great-grandparents' day would have probably be called an "octroon" shade, dark enough only to hint at African ancestry, and potentially light enough under some circumstances to pass as Caucasian or Hispanic.
The two men with her were her "boyfriends", Tommy Rico & Greg Bron. The two men, both half-Zentraedi and also the children of clones (their mothers having died once before, in the same event as Sammy's mother), had grown up together, and were good friends - but at the same time, both of them loved Sammy. After a few years of good-natured rivalry over her, it finally dawned on them that the same laws that were put in place to allow polygamy - the result of dealing with Tyrolean triads, as well as the 3/1 female to male imbalance in the reproduction-age population - did not specify the sex of the shared spouse of the relationship. If she wanted, she could have them both, as they were both willing.
Of course, that was up to her, and her decision was simple - not while they were in the service. Once they had all put in their time (their terms were up in mid-2053), she would make her choice of one, or both of them. To an extent, she felt a little guilty, with so many women going without, and she having a wealth of men. She encouraged both of them to explore opportunities with other women - after all, relationships seemed to strike like lightning among the Seconds, and perhaps they are meant to find someone else along the way. Once they were civilians, less in the public eye, they would consider the less-common version of polygamy. Besides, it wasn't like one of them couldn't leave later on, if they wished.
On the other side of the camp, was the other officially married couple, Mike and Karen Steiner. While Sammy, Tommy, and Greg were children of the clones of Tisiphone Base, Mike & Karen grew up at its opposite number, Fortress Gloval, to four of the members of the original Korra'ti mission. Their parents had opted for command of the semi-secret base in the Arabian wastes, having felt severe dread about going on the SDF-3 mission, and suffering the severe deja vu that the Freemans ended up dealing with in depth. Early Seconds, with little obvious difference between themselves and normal humans until after the Invid departure. They had, indeed, aged at a completely normal rate, and, after Tisiphone had been evacuated to Gloval, Karen had actually been tapped as a teen to babysit Sammy and the others, during the time of the Invid occupation.
Sitting across the campfire from the Steiners, were Dennis Brown, Jr. and Jean Carlson. Dennis & Jean were an engaged couple, born on Tyrol of evacuees from Earth that had left in the wake of the destruction of Monument City. Dennis' parents were a couple of Southern Cross officers, while Jean's were a Southern Cross medic and his patient, one of the clone-sisters of Musica. As such, this made Jean sort-of an aunt of the much-older Aurora, as Aurora's mother was created from the genetic material of Musica combined from some unknown, long dead, Tyrolean. As Zor's grandmother was also created in a similar manner, though with a different "paternal" donor, that made Jean related to him as well.
The last two people in the team were Roy Hunter and Lisa Freeman. Roy had just finished sending a quick report off to his parents, who were now retired and considered to be statesmen without portfolio, advisors to the government with great personal clout, even if they had no official vote, and were on the reserve officer rolls. That done, he was using his remaining personal communications allotment to talk to his girlfriend. If anyone had bigger shoes to fill than Lisa, whose parents were in charge of the dimensional exploration team that had brought back people and technology to help restore Earth, it would have to be Roy, the son of Rick & Lisa Hunter. Aurora personally felt glad that her sisters Dana and Marie had take that onus off her shoulders, in terms of great expectations, in that regard.
Lisa was Aurora's niece, the daughter of Scott Freeman and Marie Sterling Freeman - the latter a clone of Dana that Zor's mother created when she herself was under six months old, but already physically adult. Lisa was also chosen to be the roommate and mentor for Roy's girlfriend, who was one of the new graduates of the system; Lisa planned on talking to her roommate, once roy was done. Roy seemed to be oblivious to it, but it was obvious to Lisa's relatives that she carried a major torch for him, but the nature of how she, Roy and Kayla were all raised made them not even consider polygamy, even though her own cousins and siblings were constantly urging her to open up, and tell the other two how she felt - and given her "special condition", the idea really shouldn't have been so foreign to her.
Roy's girlfriend, the eldest daughter of Kyle and Minmei, was the butt of a few jokes concerning the Hunters and Lynns. There was a bit of cross-dimensional knowledge that had been intrusted to Zor & Aurora, concerning Lynn-Kayla - or more accurately, whom the ova that made up half her genetics had become in another dimension, after fertilization by the counterpart of Zor Freeman's father instead of Kyle. The nature of that alternate universe led Zor Freeman and his twin sister to consider a little sister of sorts, that was encouraged by both sets of parents (after all, the special abilities possessed by the two meant that Kayla would be safer with them, than any normal human bodyguard).
"You think those three will ever get their act together, and buck that monogamous streak their parents pounded into them?" Aurora asked.
"Not without help, and probably a lot of misery for the one that forcibly excludes their self from whatever relationship finally does shake out, initially. After all, I'm not sure, given his upbringing, how Roy will react to the 'accommodation' that the girls have come to, for Lisa's problem. I'm sure that his mother would be a bit perturbed by it, given all the troubles Steve has created for interdimensional diplomacy over the last decade with his multiple relationships."
"Yeah, not even being her namesake would probably help - not that Aunt Lisa's all that thrilled with Roy dating Minmei's daughter as it is. If she knew what was going on between Kayla & Lisa, she'd probably freak."
"Speaking of freaking, you might want to put some more clothes on before you go outside, or Cathy might freak. That shirt doesn't really cover enough by itself, even without you bending over."
"Yeah, that might be a good idea," Aurora said, ducking back in the tent. "It's a shame we can't find a guy that would meet both Lisa & Mir's criteria in men. That would solve that problem, without having to track down your mother to muck around in their heads to break that connection. You'd think she'd have left someone the ability to do that sort of thing, but she locked those powers down in your sisters and Steve to prevent people getting too used to that kind of manipulation, from its potential for abuse."
"After Mom led Uncle Scott through that first trip, she started making plans for her and Zor to go off on their own. When she left, she insisted that this time, no one was to come looking for her - though that's not stopped Steve from looking around when he's out wandering. I'm just glad she left the keys to the place with Tinya - I'd rather not have that kind of responsibility."
"Of course, if she had, she would have taken you and Musi back with her to Omphalos, and it's unlikely we'd have gotten married, as you probably would have been married off to one of the new Invid princesses."
"Yeah, that would have been too much of a long-distance relationship, especially since she kept quiet for all those years, until the Dreamweaver launched. Then again, I think she knew what would happen beforehand, when she suckered Janice and your parents into taking Musi and me in."
"Who else but Karen could have known?"
"Well, it was a start, but we still had to fight for the right to be together."
*************
First Family
"God gave man the breath of life
To grow up strong, to take a wife
To change the world
And love is the ritual..."
-Styx
14 September 2035
After the SDF-3 returned at the Norristown concert, a lot of plans had to be scrapped, and a lot more had to be put together on short notice. The initial plans were for the rebuilding of Brasilia and Monument, but that was long-term. When Bernard's group pointed out the continued existence of the Delta Six/Tiamat facility, that became the temporary home of the REF personnel relocating back from space, as the new incarnation of New Denver. Within a few months, everyone was settled into a non-combat lifestyle for decades.
The Freemans took land grants outside the city, in a cluster of ranches where the homes were located around the cross-roads that cut the production areas of the ranches into four sections. Scott & Marie had a home built that was on a grand scale, that was adjacent to the homes' shared airstrip. Shannon & Kayra built a smaller home there as well, on the other side of the street. Marie's parents had a home under construction in the area as well, but were still living in New Denver until the house was complete. But, the strangest house was that built belonged to Rem and Janice, as they based its floorplan on one from a 70s sitcom about a blended family.
It was at this house that the birthday party was being held for the twins. The shared cake had twelve candles; six each for Zor & Musi. The irony was that the two whose birthday it was, each looked older than if all the candles were for one of them, alone. The kids had decided the theme for the party, and the theme they chose was the myriad Star Trek series that they'd grown up watching, as most of the Earth entertainment that the REF took with them on the SDF-3 was science fiction.
Each of the children in attendance were in costume, as were a number of the adults. Scott Freeman and his two daughters were in uniforms like those of the 80s movies, while Rem and Janice, perversely, were dressed up as Data and his short-lived daughter, Lahl. Zor had chosen to dress up as the early, beardless, Will Riker, while Aurora had dressed as the Deanna Troi of a much later point in the series (as the version from Zor's costume's era was a fashion disaster). Most everyone else was in a mix of uniforms from the original series up, through the Voyager series that was in progress despite the Global War, when most science fiction had been rendered moot by the arrival of the SDF-1.
Musi about brought the party to a screeching halt with her costume, however. Her father, stepmother and brother had all thought she was going to do one of the female characters from Deep Space Nine, and she kept up that pretense right up to the party. The costume she actually wore into the party was enough to have most the males have to excuse themselves temporarily to regain their composure, as she came out as a green-skinned Orion dancer, complete with the near-lack of clothing associated with that "costume". Even at her young age, she had a body that the costume suited, and as she planned for the reaction she got from the crowd, she had a blouse and skirt ready - both made of sheer material that really only served to placate the adults, not hide her attributes. In the later hours of the party, the kids served as judges for the mini-convention that had resulted from their semi-public party, and then retired to their rooms.
The plan was that the girls were going to have a sleep-over at the house, as the house was actually over-equipped for the presence of kids - Musi's room actually had three beds, as did Zor's (though he typically used the bunks in his room for storage of various projects, and the mattresses had been pulled from them to put on the floor in Musi's room for the sleepover). In the morning, the older-looking kids would be getting their first official flying lessons from some of the best retired pilots on Earth (aka the Sterlings), while those not ready for the controls (the Freeman twins, Sammy Fokker, and a few of the other kids from the old secret bases) would be flown around.
There were actually some other boys in both groups, but that old sit-com-based room was really too small for multiple people (a point made by the three brothers in the series, leading to the eldest getting the attic converted later on). Besides, Zor had never really been all that social, having had no male friends prior to returning to Earth, and wouldn't really be integrated into an environment to develop such bonds until the beginning of October, when the first quarter of the new educational system was set to begin (10 weeks on, 3 weeks off, of classes, with no set grades but curriculum based on what each student was ready for, in pursuit of their diploma or degree).
Because of her body paint, Musi would get first shot at the shower between the two bedrooms, followed by Zor, while the younger girls would start using the master bathroom. After Zor was done, the remaining girls could use either shower as they became available - luckily, as both showers used independent on-demand water heating systems, no one would get scalded or chilled from water running out or someone turning water on or off elsewhere in the house.
Musi settled into the shower, and began lathering up with the special soap that would remove the body paint. She had applied the paint everywhere, even places her costume wouldn't show, to suit her rather un-childlike sense of self, and had posed for some nude photos using her computer's camera, before dressing for the party. She'd hoped that there would have been someone at the party that reacted in the way she'd hoped from the costume, that she could further entice with the photos - and she wasn't really all that particular about their age. She had urges and needs that most people would not understand that a person only six years old by the calendar had, even though she was obviously externally in her teens (and to an extent, emotionally the older age as well - she definitely had the hormones of a teenager). But, no one truly met her expectations, and as she scrubbed herself clean, she had to settle for self-satisfaction, as empty as that seemed.
When she was done, she left the shower running as she cleaned the remaining paint out of the tub. She knocked on her brother's door, then went out the other door. As she did, she ran into her best friend, who had been waiting longer than expected for her turn.
"Musi, would it be okay if I got the next shower?" Aurora asked.
"Uh..." Musi hesitated. She knew that Aurora must be going through some of the same problems, the same feelings. But, she had someone she could turn to, if she'd just work up the courage to ask. But, that courage seemed to be lacking in her. If Musi couldn't help herself, maybe she could help her friend. "Sure, go ahead; the towels are under the sink."
Aurora stepped into the bathroom, closed the door, and removed the tee she'd put on after removing her costume, and the underwear underneath, hanging the gown she'd wear to bed on the door, and placing the dry towels where she could get them on leaving the shower. She stepped into the shower, adjusted the temperature a little, then reached for the shampoo -
- as Zor teleported straight into the shower from his room, already undressed. Both, unexpecting the other, jumped in surprise, slipping and falling together against the back wall of the shower.
"'Rora, I'm sorry - Musi told me she was next, before she left the-"
"No, it's my fault-"
Then, it suddenly hit them of the position they were in, and it was like an electric shock passed through them. Aurora tilted her head up, meeting Zor half-way as their lips touched.
"Zor, please..."Aurora sighed, embracing him tighter. "It's time..."
The shower took a second priority to their needs, and when they left, Aurora spent the night in Zor's room, the two becoming lovers as Musi hoped, and she watched them from her room empathically, feeding on the emotions that the two most important people in her life finally had let loose in their hearts, to help soothe her own loneliness.
*******
29 April 2039
In the three and a half years since Zor and Aurora had become lovers, they had developed a routine for their nights together. Musi and Zor would lock their rooms, and Aurora would teleport over, her bedroom being locked as well. Musi would then put on one of Aurora's spare nightgowns, and teleport back to Aurora's room. If Max or Miriya decided to check on Aurora in the night, it was simple for her to cloud their perceptions, and in their minds they would see and hear their daughter; besides, one of the things Musi had inherited from her mother, was the ability to be a very accurate voice mimic, so it was unlikely they'd even open the door. Likewise, with both bathroom doors open between the two bedrooms, if Zor and Aurora were disturbed by Rem, it would just take a telepathic message to get Musica to teleport back. The only fault in the plan was that often Musi's bed wasn't slept in, so if she did have to jump back, the made bed might cause problems if the persons entering the room did so quickly. Frankly, though, Rem wasn't all that perceptive, and Janice was actually programmed by the original Zor to be fairly clueless in her standard human emulation mode.
Musi had finally decided that, at least for the short term, looking for love herself was not in the cards. She'd lost her virginity to someone that she'd, in effect, mind-controlled to do it, and wiped the memories of the event from him, realizing that what she'd done would only cause problems for him. On the other hand, she and Aurora had become lovers, usually when Zor was busy, or there were other considerations (mainly, it was Aurora convincing her friend that she had too many built up frustrations, and needed a release every now and then, after hearing what Musi had done to that unsuspecting normal teen). Of course, the smells of Aurora on the bedding and to the gown (as typically she put it on, right after Aurora took it off in her room) made her standing in over at the Sterlings somewhat of an arousal for her, to where she had to do something to sate that feeling before returning home.
This morning though, as she was preparing to take a quick shower in Aurora's private bathroom, something just seemed off. Typically, after she was done, she'd leave the water running, to disguise that Aurora wasn't home yet, as typically Zor and Aurora showered together after Musi woke them up. This time, though, she didn't make it to the point of turning on the water, trying to figure out what is was that disturbed her. She finally placed it - there was a hint of the smell of vomit around the toilet and garbage can. As she used the toilet herself, she started going through in her head what could be making Aurora sick to her stomach. She wasn't sick last night, and knowing every inch of Aurora's body as well as she did, she knew it wasn't bulemia.
Then, it hit her like a punch to the gut. She quickly raced over to Aurora's study desk, going through the pile of pre-med textbooks and other study guides, looking for Aurora's calendar and PDA. What she didn't find there, pretty much clinched her suspicions. Hurriedly, she teleported back home, not taking the time to get back dressed from her aborted shower plans. Things had been going so well; Zor was already taking post-graduate engineering courses, and both she and Aurora were to get their bachelor's degrees next month. But, if what she suspected was true, and her gut feelings were rarely wrong, this jeopardized everything they'd accomplished in their short lifetimes. How could they ever hope to explain this?
She practically stomped her way through the bathroom to Zor's room, where the two young lovers were sleeping - at least until she woke them with the telepathic equivalent of a scream at point blank range.
"Musi, what the hell?" Her brother asked, shaking his head as if it could somehow shake loose the shock from being bounced from deep sleep by the telepathic intrusion. "You're early."
"Yeah, and she's late. Aren't you, Aurora?"
"Huh?"
"Don't tell me you weren't even TRYING to follow your period, cousin. Have you two been playing sexual Russian roulette for the last three years? I know for a fact that her period and mine have been relatively in-sync ever since we started having them; why do you think I kept her company about the same time every four weeks for the last year? It wasn't just for my enjoyment, though I sure liked the attention. But, noooo... What did you do? A quickie in a supply closet on campus? Or, did you just catch one set of parents or the other not home, when I was having to run late getting home?"
"Actually, we teleported down to Alex & Noel's island while they were visiting up here, and took advantage of their private beach. It slipped my mind until now."
"Hold on - are you saying what I think you're saying, sis?"
"Yes, brother - you're going to become a father. And, in doing so, pardon the pun, you and Aurora have well and truly screwed up. After all, nine to ten years old isn't exactly what one thinks of as prime child-bearing age, regardless of how mature our bodies are in reality. The legal repercussions alone are staggering, let alone what those bigots in the 'Pure Earth' faction will probably target you two and our families with, over the matter."
"Aurora, tell me she's wrong."
"I can't; now that I'm actually looking for it, I can tell she's right. I thought that, being as early in my cycle as we went down there, it was unlikely I could get pregnant. When I got sick the other morning, it was when just about everyone else got sick the day before from something going bad at our cookout. What are we going to do?"
"Well, the first thing we need to do is talk to someone that can keep our secret, that's in a position to help us figure out our options."
"Who might that be?"
"The obvious choice is Cabell. We're like grandchildren to him, and he's on Earth for the Alliance's rotating forum schedule in two weeks. If he was willing and able to keep the secret about Dad from the Masters, I doubt he'd tell anyone if we asked him not to. Plus, given his knowledge of genetics and life-support technology, he might be able to provide us with options."
"Options? I don't like the sound of that."
"No, nothing like that, sis. He created the Zentraedi with Zor, after all, and most of the equipment that the Masters used for their clones. He probably could transfer the baby to an artificial womb, or remove it and store it until we could re-implant it at a later date."
"That sounds too risky," Aurora interjected. "I'd prefer to not have anyone mucking around my insides, thank you. Perhaps we can find a more legal method of dealing with this. We do look older than most twice our age. I got stuck with acting as a non-voting advisor for that forum, since Noel's too busy with her regular position to advise on paranormal affairs. I'll be able to talk to Cabell for such reasons, so it won't draw any suspicions for us to meet with him. If he can help us come up with some sort of legislation to grant us majority, we can get married, and if the pregnancy can be drawn out long enough, the fact that it predated the legislation might not be apparent. After all, some of us only took six months to be born."
"Now, that sounds like a plan, but we'll be cutting it rather close. I suggest we meet in the office they've lent you down at the Gloval Building, sweep it for bugs, then use the secure equipment to get Cabell's advice now, so that we can have a draft ready for consideration when he gets here. No one has anything scheduled for lunchtime, right?"
"Sounds good to me, brother. 'rora?"
"Same here - oh, great... Mom's looking for me - I gotta get back home, and hope I don't throw up on her."
"How do you know?"
"Eric told me." Eric was a pollinator that Dana and her husband had given Aurora as a Christmas present a couple years before, and it had gotten named for Monty Python's "half a bee", since it always seemed to "not be" half the time - like when Musi was there alone, as it seemed to take exception to the lack of attention when Aurora was gone. "Musi, I'm gonna grab one of your sleeping shirts and teleport back. Hopefully I can come up with a good cover story - Mom's still not as quick to catch stuff as Dad."
"You think it will work?" Zor asked his sister, as Aurora ran through the bathroom to Musi's room.
"It'll take a miracle..."Musi replied, shrugging, thinking she'd rather be REALLY storming a castle than having to deal with this mess.
************
"Zor, my boy; I didn't expect to hear from you before my trip - especially on a secure channel. What can I do for you?" Cabell was in his Tiresian labs, working on completing one of his many projects before he had to set it aside for the 'foolish politics'.
"Do you remember how Aurora and I used to play family together, and how we took it so seriously sometimes?"
"Why, yes; are you two involved for real, now?"
"Actually, that's what we need to talk to you about. Aurora and I have been lovers for quite some time, and would marry if we were able. But, there is a slight problem..."
"Your ages, I assume. Have you considered applying for a special exemption? I'm sure that, given a few months, you could convince the authorities to make a special case for you."
"I'm afraid it's beyond such slow, simple, measures," Aurora interjected. "You see, I'm already pregnant."
"Oh, dear; that does complicate things."
"If we don't do something about this, quickly, our families will probably be ruined, not just our futures."
"What do Maximilian, Miriya and Rem have to say about this?"
"That's another problem - you're the first person we've told, other than Musi, and she figured out what Aurora's condition was, before Aurora even did. In fact, other than my sister, no one else knows that we've been sexually active for the last three years."
"That long? Well, you are well and truly adult in body and mind, though some might try to argue the latter, from your lack of caution - I suspect most of those would themselves be hypocrites in such a position, anyway. I'm sure that Exedore and I can come up with a battery of tests to fix you at a certain developmental level, though we'd have to have Jean Grant consult on them, to get the standards acceptable for legislative consideration. Once benchmarks for maturity are established, I could introduce a binding resolution that would allow not only you two, but all of your kind, to be given adult status as soon as you qualify and petition for it. The only problem I can see would be getting the required number of votes. The recent arrival of several new races, courtesy of your younger sister, has complicated the politics of the council, lad."
"Complicated, how?"
"While not general knowledge, the world that arrived in the new Zentraedi home system is actually an alternate version of Earth that had experienced a temporal trauma that makes Peryton pale in comparison. There's several different human societies, only one of which is currently eligible for council status, a variant on humanity that has biology that is almost as complicated as your own and much more technologically advanced than we are, a race of sauroids from a variant history where mammals never rose to ascendency, and a group of sentient robots at least as advanced as the Haydonites, that outlived their creators - some say the faction of the androids that were purged by your family had turned on their creators, then on their own that had not supported such action. Regardless, that has added two full member nations to the council, and several associate members - and each has their own reason to be suspicious of other societies, let alone ones that suddenly they are dependent on for their rebuilding from their recent wars with each other. The politics of that world has also caused dissension among the previous members of the council, as some favor one of the societies over the others.
"There is the scope of who all will be covered by such legislation, within our own society. Currently, persons such as yourselves are relatively rare in the Sol system, and are mainly among the children of the REF and the former slaves of the Invid. But, every Praxian, Tyrolean and Zentraedi born in the last decade is also showing the traits originally seen only in your bloodline. Both normal humans, and the non-human races, might seen action on your behalf to be favoritism towards those that were their heirs, rightfully or not, of the Masters. We'd have Bela's support, and that of Breetai, Exedore, and Musica Grant, but beyond that, it will be much more complicated. The Garudans would probably see you as a sign of humanity advancing to join them in their level of enlightenment, but the Karbarrans would most certainly be hostile to the legislation, and the Perytonians most certainly as well. The two-thirds supermajority might take some complex political deals to achieve, if you want it to take affect quickly enough so that your child doesn't, to quote Jon Wolfe, 'have a front row seat for your wedding'. I didn't understand what he meant back then, but I understand it now."
Musi finally spoke up, from where she had been sitting on the office couch, having tried to stay out of the conversation as long as possible. "We could offer the council something in return, such as compulsory military service."
"In some people's eyes, that would only make us too powerful;" Aurora countered. "They would be afraid that we could just waltz in and take over the world. Those 'Pure Earth' types have as their core platform the elimination of all Zentraedi, Tyroleans and other humans originating from societies other than Earth, and what they think of us special types is even more hateful. At best, they'd try to use our kind as cannon fodder in whatever conflicts they could engineer to further their goals, like against any other civilizations might encounter. Just because the colonies haven't encountered any yet, doesn't mean there aren't any out there."
"That's it!" Cabell interjected.
"What's it?" Zor asked.
"Scott Freeman and several others in the ranks of the former REF have proposed several missions for future funding, to utilize the reserve fleet. One of them, his project to attempt dimensional travel, is primarily an Earth-only project, and is under construction already. Other projects are much further down the road, including additional colony missions, but the one that will be important to you is one called the Outreach Service. It is meant to go out in search of the Lost Worlds."
"Lost worlds?"
"The lost worlds of the pre-Masters Tyrolean Republic. In the thousands of years of Tyrolean history before the Masters seized power, Tiresian explorers contacted several other intelligent races, as well as setting up dozens of colonies of various size. Most of these were nominally independent, much as the Sentinel races were, but were subjugated by the Zentraedi under the order of the Masters. After Zor's death, the fleet was pulled from more and more of the conquered worlds, to search for his ship, and then to replace the ships that were depleting their Protoculture supplies, ending up in Dolza's fleet. As the Zentraedi left, the Invid started attacking those worlds, around the Earth year 1990; and by the time the Masters consolidated their remaining clone forces for the trip to Earth, only the Sentinels worlds were known to be as yet unconquered by the Invid."
"How come no one has contacted them yet? It should be relatively easy to do so."
"You forget the Masters' paranoia. They didn't want the worlds conspiring to rise up against them, so they had every existing star chart, save those on the factory satellites and their own command ships, wiped. Zentraedi ships could only find their way to the worlds from being programmed on pre-set courses, and of course that ended what little commercial shipping had survived. Not even Breetai's ship had the coordinates, and the factory satellite Earth captured was in such bad shape that Breetai had to use his ship's computer to have it fold to Earth. We've been looking for almost fifteen years for the original star maps, but all we have found are a few destroyed worlds, and those were not at the positions that the charts we found indicate that they should have been. Most likely, when the Sentinels worlds were isolated from the other worlds, the Masters in charge of overseeing interstellar transport released a virus into the navigation systems of the Karbarran and Tyrolean merchant fleets, to prevent them from making illicit contact with the interdicted worlds, that were much further separated from the core worlds."
"Would contacting the worlds even be all that good of an idea? If any of them survived, they probably have a lower opinion of Tyrol and the Zentraedi, than even the Pure Earthers."
"For one thing, sis, they might be interested in reopening trade; that would get Karbarra on our side, to give them new trading partners. There's also the chance that there are Zentraedi out there needing recalled and introduced into real society; there were millions of Zentraedi whose fate are unrecorded - it's probable that some of them still survive. In either case, our finding some of those worlds might be their last chance to recontact them before any survivors totally revert to barbarism, if the Invid hit them as violently as Tyrol or Earth."
"That makes some sense. But, do you think that will get it passed quickly enough?"
"We can only try."
"If it passes, it still will be years before the mission is ready. You will probably have to also serve with Freeman's group as well, in the interim. That will give you the time, and access to a selection of potential personnel for the Outreach group."
"Selection of personnel?"
"Isn't it obvious, girl? You're a politician, whether you like it or not, and will be a certified xeno-biologist and doctor by the time the explorations begin. Combined with your being the oldest of your highly-powered type, you are the obvious candidate to head up the project. If you think have concerns now, you're only just starting down that road.
And, even if you hadn't got you into this situation with your affair of the heart, you'd have been the primary candidate for it, anyway. But, there are dozens of those that have some special ability that are older than you, that are your physical age or younger, as well as the children of the original Korra'ti accident participants, and even some of the clones from Mars Division. Some of them will choose, from their age, to not be part of the active missions, but they will certainly be called on to staff the Dimensional Exploration Corps, and will be excellent choices to be the training staff for those that do join you."
"Then, we'll have our work cut out for us, if this is passed," Zor sighed, looking over at his sister and his lover. "Musi, you can probably opt out after a term or two of service, but this will probably end up being a decades-long commitment for Aurora and me. Not just from the length of time it will take to put together the force, but because once the pregnancy becomes common knowledge, we'll be under fire for using the legislation for our personal gain. We won't have the option of quietly fading out of the limelight, until the mission is done. Are you two willing to make that sacrifice?"
"Yes," Aurora replied softly. "There really isn't any choice."
"I'm in for as long as you two are, brother," Musi replied. "I'm not exactly cut-out for a semi-normal life as a doctor to the masses."
"Then, it's settled. Cabell, can you take this idea to Scott and Noel, and and get them to co-sponsor it? All you have to say is that Aurora approved it, and act as if it was your idea."
"I'll get to work on drafting the legislation after the mid-day meal. If your aunt and great-uncle approve, we should have it set for a vote on the first two days of the council meeting."
30 May 2039
Surprisingly, the resolution passed unanimously in council the first day, and was sent to the individual planet governments for ratification. Within a week, enough governments had ratified it to make it law.
As, at Cabell's suggestion, Jean Grant had provided the yearly physicals of Aurora, Zora, Musica and several others as supporting evidence for the legislation, all they had to do was consent to the psychological evaluation. This was a relief, as a new physical would have blown the situation wide open. Those hurdles cleared, they became the first official beneficiaries of the law on the 27th, just in time for the girls' graduation ceremony the next day.
After the obligatory graduation party with friends and family, ostensibly to celebrate their graduation (and their adult status) further, they headed to Las Vegas with a bunch of their classmates. Zor left the next morning, supposedly to go on a camping trip with some of his grad-school classmates; a trip he was going to back out on, once they were on the road. Instead of camping gear, his Cyclone's saddlebags were loaded with his suit, and Aurora's wedding dress. Aurora had bought the dress in New York, using several pre-paid debit cards she'd gotten for holiday and birthday gifts, but had never gotten around to using. Musi, ever watchful, went into the bridal store after the purchase and fitting, and made sure none of the customers and staff would remember that it was her future sister-in-law that had made the purchase - something that Aurora would not have done, even though it was in her best interest to do so, as Musi justified it to herself.
After Zor arrived in Vegas, similar mental nudges helped speed the marriage license in the refurbished Las Vegas, once again the quick-marriage capital of the world, and getting it kept private, though Zor and Aurora were a bit more condoning of Musi's actions there. While the others were getting ready for their wedding, Musi teleported back to her and Aurora's hotel room, and checked them out of the hotel.
She then took Musi's baggage over to Minmei's resort, where Musi and Zor had effective status as "whales", able to get free complimentary rooms on demand. This was due to Minmei's treating them as family after learning of the origins of the original Zor in what was referred to as Timeline Zero (and that her timeline's Zor was effectively a copy of that person, as were his parents). They'd only used it a few times, mostly for school vacations that (still as legal minors) they had to have Minmei supervise. As the desk manager keyed in the comp room, Musi reached into the computer with her powers, and changed the mid-tier room to the best honeymoon suite (that often went unused for days, due to its cost), and put the transaction under a false name. She then clouded the manager's mind to not notice the changes, and to forget she had been in his office. With that done, she teleported back to the wedding chapel, and served as one of the two witnesses for the ceremony.
After a few pictures and other minor festivities that came with the package, Musi drove them to the parking structure of Minmei's Macross Resort & Casino, gave them their room keys and baggage, and told them to have a good time. She then drove the rental car back to the airport, returned it, then grabbed her bags and Zor's Cyclone and teleported to her Aunt Noel's place in the Virgin Islands, which was empty except for the housekeeping staff in the main house since Noel, Alex and Vanessa had stayed up north to visit with family after the council session, and not due back for a couple weeks. Musi went to one of the guest bungalows, and unloaded her stuff. The staff knew her, and would assume that she was there with the knowledge of her aunt. With any luck, it would be a week or so, before anyone noticed anything awry, and there was something soothing about having a private beach all to yourself. And, some of the guys working over at the plantation were cute...
********
3 June 2039
"Jan, have you heard from the girls?" Miriya was worrying, as mothers often do, when their children were on vacation. Janice, being an artificial person, hadn't really developed those feelings to much extent.
"No; did you call the Sands?"
"Yes, and that's what's worrying me. The desk manager said that they checked out the day after they got there, with no mrntion of where they were going. The rest of their group was still there. None of them have seen them since that first night, either."
"Hmm... Have you tried Minmei's hotel, yet? They could get a better room there for free, than what they were paying for with the group. They might have decided that the rest of their group wasn't their style, and decided to go for some more pampering."
"Not yet; most hotels won't tell you if someone's there or not."
"Well, Minmei can help you there. She's been in Vegas since New Year's, to have her third daughter and do mommy stuff, while waiting for that new house that she and Kyle are building in Japan to get finished. She considers Musi as family, and I'm sure that Musi's connections can find someone who has seen Aurora, since your little girl's somewhat of a celebrity from the press coverage of the council."
"Do you have her number?"
"Even better; I'm adding her in as a three-way call, right now."
"Hello?" the video phone panel stayed blank.
"Minmei? It's Janice; I've got Miriya on the other line, and we were needing to talk to you, about some family issues."
The blank screen flicked on; Minmei had her baby in her arms. "Sorry about the blank screen; you called while I was breast-feeding Karen, and I didn't recognize the other number. The last thing I need is for a paparazzi to get a screengrab of me with my top down, even with a baby nursing. What do you two need to talk to me about?"
"Musica and Aurora have disappeared while on their graduation vacation in Vegas. We were wondering if you'd seen them, or if they'd checked into your hotel."
"Well, I haven't seen them myself, Jan. However, the hotels in town share a registration network, that allows us to check each others' registration logs for purposes of tracking cheats, as well as for arranging convention registration across multiple hotels. I can check for their names."
"Okay, do that."
"Well, I don't have any persons matching their names registered here, and the only thing showing up for their names is their checkout at the other hotel. Besides, if they were here, they'd be in a comp room... hmm... that's odd..."
"What's odd?"
"I'm showing one of my most expensive rooms as a comp, and it's one that typically the Hotel Operations Manager or I have to okay the comp for personally - and he's on vacation. He couldn't have done it, and I know I didn't authorize it, despite it showing it approved."
"Might it be them?" Janice asked. "Musi's shown an ability to be able to link into non-sentient computers and manipulate data; even rewrite code from within."
"I don't know - besides, why would they choose that room? It's hardly cut out for a couple girls in town to have fun."
"Why's that?"
"It's the premium Honeymoon Suite."
"No... it can't be..." Janice pondered, her being an AI not being a preclude to her having feminine intuition.
"What 'can't be?'"
"Earlier today, someone called for Zor, and when I told them he was gone on the camping trip, he hung up. I could have sworn it was one of the people that was on the trip with him."
"That's silly, isn't it?" Miriya asked, then got nervous when the other two said nothing. "Well, isn't it?"
"Miriya, I hate to break it to you, but consider those kids spent most of their lives together - and while they've pretended to be disinterested around us, I've had my suspicions that something's been going on for months, at least. They can teleport from place to place after all, and just because Zor spends five days a week in an apartment near Emil's lab for his classes, doesn't mean that they can't meet any time or place that they want to. A couple months ago, I called Aurora's dedicated line at one in the morning, to get her to take something she'd borrowed from us the week before to school, and send it home by Musi - but Musi answered the phone, when I thought she was in her room studying. She said she jumped over to your place to do a study session with Aurora, but I never actually saw Aurora there. For that matter, she was wearing one of Aurora's nighties, and it definitely didn't fit her well, which is kind of odd to be studying in."
"Hold on; let's not go there until we know what's really going on," Minmei pointed out. "We're jumping to conclusions, without any real evidence. We still don't know who is in that room, and it might well have been an impromptu sleepover you interrupted, Jan. Let me go ahead and search the security recordings for the hall, for the time periods when the digital keys were used." Minmei punched in the proper security codes, and search parameters, then went quiet.
"Minmei?"
"Me and my big mouth... I think you two need to see this." Minmei transferred the video feed from her terminal to the vidphone screen.
The black and white video started with a couple stepping off the elevator, the young man in a rather subdued suit, the woman in a rather nice wedding dress. They progressed up the hallway, to the door to the suite, where he opened the door, and then picked up the bride. All this way, they hadn't been able to get a look at their faces. However, when the groom picked up the bride, her headpiece fell off, and even if they'd somehow not recognized Aurora (and it was most certainly her), the fact that the groom used telekinesis to grab the bonnet off the floor and float it up to the woman in his arms was a dead giveaway that the groom was definitely a "Second" - and the only male that appeared older than the equivalent of a normal pre-teen that had exhibited such casual use of telekinesis so far was Zor.
"They can't be!" Miriya exclaimed.
"On the contrary, yes they can, Mir," Janice countered. "Don't you remember that Paranormal Rights resolution that was ratified last week?"
"But she's eleven, and he's nine!"
"Yes, by the calendar - but they are the equivalent of their late teens, and have degrees that normal people don't get until their mid-twenties. That was the whole point of the resolution, to not have people like them trapped as minors for abnormal lengths of time. Remember - even with him in graduate school, Rem and I had to grant temporary custody to Emil to let Zor stay in that apartment, and he's been riding his Cyclone since he was seven, yet prior to the resolution he was still six years from being eligible for a license to drive it in any of the major cities. I suspect that they had Cabell present the resolution for them, just for this very purpose - and as Vegas has some of the quickest and most discreet ways to tie the knot, it means they probably really are married, and there's nothing we can do about it."
"Nothing? NOTHING???" Miriya disappeared off screen as sounds of things breaking came over the speakers, her branch of the call ending when something, apparently a piece of furniture, hit the screen/camera combination.
"Well, 'Lynnie'," Janice asked Minmei, "What do we do now? I'm still not that good with human relationships to figure out the next step."
"First thing, call Shannon & Kayra, and tell them about the elopement. Then, call Marie and Dana, and have them go over to Kayra's, and the four of them go to Miriya and try to calm her down. Have them also break the news to Max. You also need to go get Rem from whatever mad scientist project he's working on, and head that way too. Did you ever hear the story of what happened when Max and Miriya found out about Marie?"
"Yeah, Karen could spin a good story. It might or might not be a good thing to bring up - I'll mention it to Marie to see if she wants to use it to defuse the situation. However, I'm going to take a neural stunner with me, just in case. Are you going to do anything on your end, before we can get out there?"
"Yeah, I'm going to go up to the suite with my master key as soon as I hang up, and try to find out just what possessed those two to pull this stunt, and prepare them for the blasting they are about to receive. When the war party arrives; I'll have security waiting for you all to give you an escort, just in case."
"Bye, my crazy best friend - and you have my permission to spank my stepson."
"Since when do I need permission? He is my sorta-grandson, in some weird other-dimensional sort of way. See you when you get here, Jan."
**********
"Zor! Aurora! Open the door, I know you're in there!" Minmei yelled, pulling up the closest thing to a stern parent voice she could muster. Even at about 40 physically, nearing 50 chronologically, her normal speaking voice was still high and squeaky enough that she was asked to do voice roles of small children in animation projects. "Don't make me have to use my master key to come in there, because if I do, I'll have to go all Kyle on you!"
"Aunt Minmei-" Zor began, opening the door, wearing a bathrobe.
"Don't you 'Aunt Minmei' me; you and I know full well our true genetic relationship, and it isn't on Janice or Karen's side of the family, either." Minmei barged into the room, past her quasi-grandson. "What in the world possessed you two to pull a stunt like this?"
"Should I tell her now, or do we wait for the others?"
"Wait? Don't even think about waiting, child."
"Well, Ma'am," Aurora interjected, "if your finding out means that his grandparents are going to find out in the next hour, Noel's staying at their ranch, and that means whatever lynching party that will be coming will probably get teleported here by Noel and Dana."
"Well, I don't want to wait. After all, I'm here now, and if I need to have security on hand, I want to know why."
"Okay, but be prepared. Zor and I have been lovers longer than most people would think; since, well, his sixth birthday party. Given the time involved, and the fact we've had to keep it secret and couldn't exactly go down to the corner drugstore for supplies, it's amazing that it's taken this long for this to happen." Aurora stood up out of bed, naked, and the slight tummy bulge that her clothes choices had kept hidden for the last couple weeks was apparent to someone who herself had bore children.
"Sweet Mary and the saints... you two are expecting. Do you know what it's going to be?"
"A girl; based on the Secundus development charts Jean Grant worked up for the presentation to the council, my guess is that she'll be born around the beginning of September."
"So soon? You're barely showing."
"That's not the half of it; I'm actually only about eleven weeks along, and we've only known for about a month. You know how quickly children like us develop, first hand, from your own pregnancies. After all, little Karen only took six months, didn't she?"
"That's right." Minmei's phone had a page go off, and she looked at the ID. "Well. That's quicker than even you expected. I told them to page me when your families arrived. Get dressed while I stall them a bit."
*********
Three minutes later, Max Sterling came charging into the room, dragging Miriya and Minmei, who were doing their best to slow him down. The rest of the collective mob of Freemans, Sterlings, and those that were both, were still coming down the hallway.
"Aurora, get your things. You're coming home with us, right now!"
"No, I'm not."
"YES, YOU ARE."
"NO, SHE ISN'T!" Minmei screamed into his ear, twisting his arm, then releasing one hand and bunching him in his abdomen as hard as she could. The move actually stunned Max enough to where he had to take a couple seconds to regain his breath, as the others finally made it into the suite.
"What makes you think you have a say in this, Minmei?" Max Seethed.
"Listen to yourself, Max. You don't have a clue about what's really going on, yet you're charging in, fists first, and not even waiting for an explanation. That's not like you."
"Why should you care?"
"Do you forget already that Zor's my genetic kin, from the original Zor being the son of another universe's Minmei? That effectively makes me this boy's grandmother - Which means that you and I have something in common."
"What's that?"
"Their daughter... That's right, she's pregnant. THAT'S why they went to so much trouble to get married, that they actually had to get a law passed to allow it. Max, they're not little children - hell, they've not really been children since before the SDF-3 returned from Tyrol. When we were their chronological age, we didn't know about things like sex, or love, or what being an adult really meant. They've been physically more adult than you were when you joined the RDF, for a couple years - in fact, they've been having sex under all your noses for over 2 years, and none of you even noticed! They're both college graduates, and left puberty behind sometime a year or two ago. We can't keep treating them like they are the pre-teens that the calendar says they are - that was the purpose of the law, after all, and you didn't seem to have any problem with it before she used it to get married. You can't keep them from growing up, any more than our parents could stop us."
"Father," Aurora said, softly. " The reason that we ran like this is because of how you're reacting now. Minmei's right; everything about my childhood is completely different from the world you grew up in. I'm not a little girl, playing with dolls - I outgrew that on Haydon IV. All I ask is for your forgiveness, and your acceptance of what I've done. I should have come to you and Mom, and told you about Zor and me. But, I was afraid you'd try to hurt Zor, based on how you reacted when you found out about Marie."
"I... I will try, honey. But, it's such a shock."
"I think I understand a little more than Max does," Miriya added, going to her daughter's side. "After all, I think it's in the genes my daughters get from me, to be so spontaneous in actions of love. At first, I overreacted as well, but as we got ready to come here, I realized that the signs of the bonds between the two of you were obvious almost from the day you two first met. I just wish that you had come to me first, before the two of you had become lovers."
"It wasn't actually planned - well, except maybe by Musi. One of the times I stayed over with her, she arranged for Zor and me to end up in the shower at the same time, without our knowledge or consent. When he teleported in, we lost our balance, ended up all tangled up in the tub; and with that physical contact, hormones kinda took over."
A wave of chuckles and snorts came from the peanut gallery, that got stifled quick by a glare from Max.
"Miriya's right," Zor finally spoke up. "From that first day on Haydon IV, Aurora and I have felt, in our hearts, that we belonged together. It was more than mere love at first sight; it was if we suddenly realized that we were two halves of a whole we never even realized existed before then. As we grew up, that feeling became stronger and stronger, and even after you separated us, we kept in touch with each other mentally every day with our telepathy, right up to the SDF-3 launch. Max, Miriya; I'm sorry for the trouble we've caused you, and I ask your forgiveness, as well your blessing. We can't change the past, but the future is ours to make."
Max thought for a second, then spoke.
"There's nothing to forgive; I was the one blind to events, and it's not like I asked permission of my superiors that first night with Miriya. In fact, I didn't mention it to anyone till the next afternoon, and you should have seen how Rick took it. And, you have my blessing; well, as long as you don't name my granddaughter Maxine - do that and I WILL kill you." A smile pread across Max's face, which turned into a bit of a wince as he tried to hold his emotions in check. "Minmei?"
"Yes, Max?"
"It occurs to me that these two newlyweds haven't had their wedding reception yet. How quickly can you arrange a banquet for us, and whatever guests we can get here by this evening?"
"I'm sure getting something together won't be that big a challenge. After all, wedding cake doesn't go well with the breakfast buffet, and we'll need time to buy gifts. How does six sound?"
"That should work, if we start calling people after breakfast. And, people, don't skimp on the gifts - this is the best duty-free shopping zone on the planet, after all."
********
Musi didn't show back up until that afternoon, and she actually got into more trouble than the bride and groom, as she was the one that rushed their first sexual encounter into being, and had helped engineer much of the coverup surrounding the wedding, instead of coming to the family first with the issue. The reception went off without a hitch, which was really the calm before the controversy that erupted the next week, when news of the wedding became public.
The faction of anti-alien types that had helped cripple the world government and ASC with their blind hatred, and perverted the "diplomatic" council that had tried to drive the REF into destroying Earth in a blind, futile, effort to destroy the Invid, had not been fully extinguished. Indeed, some of the ones that had remained on Earth, and had disappeared with the Invid arrival, had reappeared with their departure, and had strong followings. Naturally, they had been vehemently against the ratification of the Seconds Resolution in the planetary government, and had never been happy with "half-alien abominations" such as Noel and Aurora having positions on the interplanetary council - or that Earth was even part of such a council that included non-Earth-derived cultures. Noel having a daughter with a normal human was one thing - having two of the half-alien mutants reproducing with each other was just too much.
The "Pure Earthers" challenged the validity of the resolution, since it appeared (correctly) that it was put forth under less than honest circumstances - however, as only one person who actually voted for it, its primary author (Aurora holding a non-voting position), was aware of those reasons, that challenge was dismissed. They then turned to personal politics of the vilest nature, pointing out that Zor & Aurora were cousins, and that their marriage and reproduction was incest. They insisted that the court annul the wedding, and order the child be aborted as the product of an incestuous relationship.
However, despite their case being before a judge they believed friendly to their views, it was obvious that they were going too far. Experts pointed out that, due to the clone series of Kayra and Miriya only being half-siblings, the actual legal relationship between the two was actually only about as close as that between Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt, and that even first cousin marriages were still the norm in most cultures outside North America. Even Minmei & Kyle were made an example, though apparently the Pure Earthers weren't bright enough to remember that Kyle was actually only Lena's son, and that her husband, Minmei's uncle, married her from a combination of love for her and to keep her from becoming an underaged single mother. (Ironically, Kyle's biological father went on to finish high school, became a successful businessman and father, and moved to Macross City with his wife, and remained friends with the Lynns, so much so that Minmei was babysitting Kyle's half-brother Jason prior to the fateful launch of the SDF-1).
Eventually, someone supposedly had second thoughts about the whole matter, and forwarded the correspondence of the Pure Earthers to the press and to the judge, anonymously. It was said "supposedly", because there were at least two Seconds on Earth that could have hacked the servers and forwarded the material using their powers (for that matter, so could Janice, through purely technological means). The material contained an encryption/decryption key that allowed decryption of several video conferences between PE members that had been recorded previously as part of a terrorism investigation - and one of those contained dialogue that made it clear that the attacks on the couple had nothing to do with legalities, and everything to do with damaging them, their families and Earth relations with other worlds. Between that revelation and the other things decoded, the charges were dropped, and most of the leaders of the Pure Earth movement were arrested for myriad illegal activities, conspiracy, terrorism, and even treason. The movement had effectively neutered itself, and wouldn't rise again.
Catherine Renee Freeman was born August 27, a bit earlier than expected but an otherwise routine delivery. Given that she weighed close to six kilos, Noel and Musi assisted with the delivery, blocking Aurora's pain, and using their healing powers to manipulate the birth canal to allow natural birth. As typical for seconds, she was already more developed than most normal babies were at six months, with a thick head of blue hair, a bit closer to the shade of Octavia & Allegra than to her mother's hair, as Aurora's hair had darkened with age, to where it was currently darker than Max's favorite hair dye shade. Her eyes were golden, with green flecks. Both mother and child were able to go home the next day.
Home, of course, was part of the spread that Max & Miriya had outside New Monument, though for a few more months they'd be staying in the spare bedroom across from Aurora's old room, which was being used temporarily as a nursery. Their new home was still being built, slowly, because even four years after the SDF-3 return, there were still many more construction jobs than there were available construction workers - let alone contractors. Dana and Zor were living in the guest cottage, and the whole family usually had breakfast together (even Marie, her twins and baby Steve most days, as Scott was in orbit during the week, working on the Dimensional Corps flagship construction project). The family was constantly doing things together, as if to make up for the time lost on the SDF-3 mission that put half a galaxy between parents and children. Breakfast was one of those things, if only because Aurora grew up too quickly for Max (who was a fairly accomplished cook) to teach her more than the basics, and Dana had apparently inherited Miriya's ineptness in the kitchen.
Although Dana and Aurora had become fairly close in the last four years, Dana was a bit mad that Aurora hadn't been honest with her about the extent of her relationship (after all, Dana did know that Aurora and "little Zor" were having sex, but thought it was something happening once every month or two, not 2-3 nights a week, all night long). It also didn't help their relationship since that fateful day in May, that Dana was still childless at 27 years old, and that her much younger "baby sister" had beaten her to the delivery room.
It hadn't been from lack of trying on Dana's part; as she had been pregnant twice. The first pregnancy was tubal, and had required a surgical abortion for health reasons, while the second had ended in a miscarriage. The second one had been especially hard - Dana hadn't even known she was pregnant, until the miscarriage had begun. Thanks to their accidental first contact, back when Dana was in the final battle aboard the Masters' flagship, Aurora knew Dana better than any other living person, from where their minds touched across the galaxy, and only she understood the travails Dana had suffered over those fifteen years without their parents.
As a result, Aurora made Dana Catherine's godmother, and let her spend as much time as she wanted with the baby. As Cathy grew quickly over the next year, she seemed to respond to Dana's needs, often going to aunt with her toys and drawings first, before showing them to her parents or grandparents. and whenever she did something wrong, it was always Dana she ran to, as Dana almost always sided with her. Cathy kept them all on their toes, as she was walking within the first month, and was already the size developmental equivalent of a two-year-old in time for her first Christmas.
The first year passed quickly, as you could almost watch Cathy grow from week to week. She was as big as a five-year-old, when her second Christmas rolled around, and already taking accelerated early elementary courses. That Christmas marked by a Santa-like visit from Cathy's grandmother Karen, though she only showed herself to Cathy. While Karen left gifts for everyone in Cathy's room, only Cathy got hers in person. It was a platinum pendant, with unidentifiable gems that seemed to glow with their own inner light, and glowed more brightly when Cathy used any of her innate powers. Like its giver, it defied attempts at analysis, but Karen had told her granddaughter that it would protect her when she needed it most.
Of course, this only made the rest of the family more anxious to go out in search of Karen. It would be the summer of 2041 when the First Dreamweaver
Mission launched, with very little hoopla outside the space forces of Earth, as most people could care less about other worlds while they were not only
rebuilding their own, but helping New Zarkopolis, Tyrol and Orguss rebuild as well. Aurora had been specifically asked for by Scott Freeman for the mission, as
she had shown a natural aptitude for celestial navigation. Zor decided to stay home with Cathy, who now was the size of precocious seven-year-old and starting
her middle-school-equivalent classes. That mission would change both the public opinion of the project, as well as the lives of those took part.
(end, chapter two)
