Everyone has regrets. No matter how freely you try to live your life by the time we reach our forties we have accrued a long list of regrets in virtually every aspect of our lives. Whether it be not making a move with the rather attractive person giving us the eye across the room at sixteen or not taking the risk and switching jobs at thirty we all have regrets of every kind.
Despite a successful career and quite a happy personal life Naskia Freeman had her fair share of regrets reaching all the way back to childhood. The earliest big regret that occasionally nagged at her was not telling her domineering mother to fuck off and let her live her own life when she was thirteen. Of course Naskia wouldn’t know the phrase fuck off for another ten years and it would take a further five before she would use it but she did eventually and she was happy when she did so.
Her next big regret involved her friend Nonah and that was too painful to think of.
Naskia’s final big regret was weighing on her at this particular moment as she supped at a cup of tea in her kitchen and listened to the sound of her daughter once more packing to leave for an extended trip away from home. She and Niall had been repeatedly offered the chance to live and work on Avalon. An offer they’d turned down in an attempt to give their daughter a normal life and upbringing. As normal as possible given the circumstances anyway.
Naskia was kicking herself for not taking it. Sorcha’s life on Arachavia had been closer to traumatic than normal and she’d upped sticks and moved to Avalon the first chance she’d got. Now both she and Niall were committed to their lives here and Sorcha had committed herself elsewhere. She missed her daughter terribly when she was gone. If only…
“Do you know when Dad will be back from work?”
It took Naskia a moment to snap out of her daze and realise her daughter was talking to her.
“Sorry Tuppy, what was that?” She asked forcing a smile on to her face.
“What time is Dad due back from work? I was hoping to get a bit of time, just the three of us, before I have to go.” Her daughter repeated.
Naskia did her best but there was just a bit too much for her to keep inside and a sob escaped.
“Oh Mummy, don’t cry!” Sorcha said and pulled her mother into a hug.
“I’m sorry Tuppy, I didn’t mean to. I just miss you when you leave. And you’re going away for so long this time. And I won’t be able to come see you.” Naskia sniffed and held her daughter tightly.
“I know Mummy. It’s going to be a tough year but we’ll get through it. And you never know, Loona could sack me and I’ll be back in a couple of weeks!”
Naskia laughed in spite of herself.
“It’ll fly in. I’ll be finished, unemployed and getting under your feet in no time.” Sorcha said releasing her mother and looking her in the eye.
Naskia sighed and shook her head. “I can’t help but worry. And not just because you’re my baby but I know you tend to lose yourself when you head into situations like this…
“I won’t try to pretend I’m all Human this time Mummy, I’m over that.”
“Sit down please?” Naskia gestured to the sofa.
Sorcha sighed but obliged her. She sat back on the large sofa, pulling her legs into her and letting herself sink into the same spot where she’d had a conversation with her mother on this same topic not too long ago.
“I know you were trying to understand what these people went through…I’ve tried to understand too…” Naskia started.
“But I never can…” Sorcha said solemnly. “…I get it now. I didn’t when I went into that holosuite. I thought if I ignored the outside world and pretended it was real, made it as real as it could be then I might feel something.”
Sorcha sighed a long slow sigh.
“The only thing I felt was more and more anger. Anger at the people who did this. And it’s not right, but it’s like Dad says. You’re not like that. Loona isn’t like that. Nan isn’t like that. No one I associate with is like that and I’m not like that. It’s not my fault. I can’t hate myself for something I’ve never been a part of.”
Naskia smiled. “You’re starting to get it…”
“I am. And I want to say…I want to say I’m sorry…to you in particular…” Sorcha looked down to her lap briefly but forced herself to look back and hold her mother’ gaze.
“Why?”
“For resenting you…for wishing you were Human. For telling Lessy I wished you were Human.” Sorcha paused “For occasionally wishing you weren’t my Mum…”
Sorcha could see her mum was welling up. Her eyes fluttered, but didn’t close entirely. Sorcha’s feelings on her Titan half, and therefore her mother, had been an unspoken source of tension for years. She was close to her parents but she was always closer to her Dad and always a bit harder on her Mum than she should have been.
Naskia breathed deeply and smiled. “It’s ok Tuppy. I know why you felt that way…”
“It’s not ok Mum,” Sorcha leaned forward and took her mother’s hand. “I have been pretty terrible to you, not all the time, but I have been. You never deserved it. I want you to know how sorry I am and that I’m proud to be your daughter.”
Naskia almost dived on her daughter and squeezed her tightly. She could feel Sorcha squeezing her back so hard it almost hurt. But Naskia didn’t care. She’d waited a decade for this. She could feel all the tension that had sat in the air for years seeping away.
“I’m so proud of you as well. More proud of you than anything.” Naskia said eventually.
“I love you mum.” Sorcha said not quite able to hold back the tears.
“I love you too.”
After a little while the two women separated.
“I should probably get back to packing…” Sorcha said.
Naskia got up. “Come on then, I’m sure you’ll need a hand.”
They walked through to Sorcha’s room and Naskia was surprised to see a neatly packed and nearly full suitcase.
“It’s not my first trip away Mum…” Sorcha said.
“I suppose, I don’t think I could have packed it better.”
“Well I did learn from you.” Sorcha smiled. “There is one thing you could help with though.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Despite my cool and beautiful exterior,” Sorcha said with distinct sarcasm. “I’m a little terrified I might mess this up. It was ok on Avalon, I was just advising. But on the colony I’ll be in charge. I won’t have anything, or anyone to fall back on…”
“First, you’re not on your own. You’ll have Lessy and your Titan staff not to mention all the people Avalon are sending. Your job is to make decisions and delegate. Don’t do other people’s jobs for them but just make sure they do theirs and do them well.” Naskia explained.
“But how will I know what the right decision is? There’s so many people involved, if I make the wrong choice it could go wrong quick.”
“My second point, before I was interrupted.” Naskia jokingly punched her daughter’s arm. “We’ve always told you that Human souls are full of curiosity and you’ve embodied that. You have several lifetime’s worth of knowledge to fall back on.”
“But…” Sorcha interrupted.
“But more important than that!” Naskia spoke over her. “You also embody the soul of a Titan. You’re fiercely protective. You showed that on Titan Station. You’ve shown it time and again. Listen to your Titan side. Listen to your Human side and let the two work together and you’ll be unstoppable.”
Sorcha grinned and looked down at her mother. “A little cheesy Mum, are you going to tell me the force is with me next?”
“No! I’m being serious…”
“I know Mummy. Thanks. I’ll make you proud. I promise.”
“I know you will.” Naskia turned and left the room. “Now given all the emotions I think we should go get your father, head to Tuaut and go for a nice meal with the Armacs. I’m sure there’s as many tears there as there are here.”
“A good idea but isn’t Dad teaching?”
Naskia shrugged. “Sure he is. But where’s the point in having an assistant if you can’t dump your classes on them once in a while?”
Sorcha chuckled and followed her mother out of the house and to the shuttle. “What would twenty three year old you make of that?”
Naskia smiled and rolled her eyes. “Probably would have had a minor panic attack and complained to my teacher for leaving my grades in the hands of an amateur.”
“I don’t think we would have gotten on when along if we were the same age…” Sorcha plonked herself down in the pilot’s seat. “I have no idea how Daddy put up with you.”
Naskia smiled. “Because I’m incredibly beautiful.”
“And modest.”
“And if your father ever complained I’d just stuff him in my boobs.”
“Ew…”
****
The Walak Imperial Records Branch was a grey, impersonal building, even by the standards of Imperial Records Branches. It had been built for function, not form; concrete greys were the dominant colour of the building and the clerks’ area; the only colour to be seen was the faded green-and-black of an Imperial banner, and the slightly newer green-and-black of a Federation banner, with its rainbow Knot of Archavia in its middle.
Terta Fadi sighed as she wound her way through the line. Ridiculous that she even had to be here. But that was life in the Federation – if you were a Titan, and a Titan Party true believer, it was probably great. But while she was a Titan, the Titan Party….
“Next, please,” a male clerk toward the end of the line called.
“Here we go,” Terta said, walking briskly to him.
“What can I do for you, darlin’?” the man asked, as she walked up to his window.
“It’s not what you can do for me. I’m here for my friends,” Terta said, as she reached into her purse.
“Well, sucre, sorry, but they have to be here. Can’t help ya if they aren’t.”
“Oh, they are,” Terta said, pulling out her hand. She set two humans on the counter, one male, one female, both impeccably dressed.
“Good morning, sir,” the human man said. “Enti and I qualified for citizenship under the Zeramblin Act, and we were supposed to receive our documents, but they haven’t arrived. I called the Interior Ministry’s helpline, and they said I could get them printed here.”
The clerk didn’t look down at them. He looked at Terta, eyes blazing. “This some kinda joke?”
“Why are you talking to me?” Terta asked. “I’m just giving Pesabro and Enti a lift.”
“Don’t talk to pets. They aren’t allowed in here anyhow, Federation Law.”
“Which has been invalidated by the Zeramblin Act,” Enti, the human woman, said. “Under the charter, provincial laws which conflict with Imperial laws are invalid. As an employee of the Empire, I’m sure you know that.”
“Take your pets and go, before there’s trouble,” the clerk said.
“They aren’t my pets. They’re citizens of the Empire,” Terta said. “What’s your name and ID number?”
The clerk didn’t answer. He simply walked away.
“We demand to see a supervisor,” Terta said. “If you’re unwilling to help these two citizens, you’re violating Amendment Sixty of the Charter, you know.”
“They ain’t citizens,” another clerk said.
“They are,” Terta replied. “As much as you or I.”
“What seems to be the problem?” an older woman said, storming out of the back room with the first clerk.
“My friends here have come to ask about their papers. This man won’t talk to him. Are you the director of this office?”
“I am, and I’m sure he told you, pets ain’t allowed here,” the woman said.
“We aren’t pets! We’re citizens! You are obligated to serve us under Imperial Law.”
“I don’t answer pets,” the director said.
“Maybe you’ll answer me, then,” Terta growled. “Your office was responsible for sending out citizenship papers to all the human citizens on Senedj XXII. You haven’t done that, have you?”
“Humans aren’t citizens,” the director said.
“We are! That’s the law!” Enti shouted. “Gorram it….”
She didn’t say anything else. With a casual flick of her finger, the director knocked her out.
“Now, I’d say you need to get your pet to the veterinarian. And now. Unless you want to take both of ‘em there.”
Terta stared at the woman in shock. “You assaulted an Imperial citizen! That’s attempted murder!”
“That’s me dealin’ with a back-talkin’ pet. Trust me, dearie, you call the peacekeepers, they’ll see it my way. Just like everyone here, ain’t that right?” she said, loudly.
Terta looked over the room. A few people were studying their shoes, a few others were shocked. But most were staring in anger.
They were not staring at the director.
“All right,” Terta said, gently cradling Enti and Pesabro, who knelt by her on Terta’s palm. “I can see what you’re up to. Typical Federation hatred.”
“I don’t hate pets, dear. They just gotta know their place,” the director said. “And so do you, human-lover.”
Terta didn’t respond. She simply carried the two humans out of the building, fighting back tears of rage and embarrassment.
None of them – not Terta, not Pesabro nor Enti (who would, thankfully, recover), nor the clerk nor the director, nor anyone in that room – none of them knew that they had witnessed an event that would live in infamy. But it would. It most certainly would.
(thanks to DX for providing the second half of this chapter)
Naskia smiled. “Because I’m incredibly beautiful.”
“And modest.”
“And if your father ever complained I’d just stuff him in my boobs.”
“Ew…”
_________
Hmmm I could think of a few other places she could stuff him, but since this is a PG(ish) family messaging board I will refrain from speculation….
I wonder (uhh oh) if Sorcha ever consider having fun with a human boyfriend…you know… 🙂 🙂 🙂
(ok so I didn’t refrain………)
Seeing how disdainful she was of her titan half, I doubt she’s gotten that far with a human boyfriend, if she even had any other than Ryan.
When wherePesabro, Enti, and Terta. Introduce? I know the names but I am drawing a blank on what story they were in
I think they where added in the wiki a while ago, but this is their first story appearance.
Another sweet moment between Sorcha and her mom. It’s quite ironic Federationners are humanophobe and sexist.
They aren’t phobic. There’s no fear there. They’re just racists.
And so we finally meet Pesabro, Enti, and Terta. It’s hard to believe it was two weeks ago I first knew of them due to a copy error in Enti’s article, and over a month since they were quitely added to the wiki. I wonder what kind of surely epic story OHH and DX have to offer on this Federation trio, and how this relates to the Hybrid story at large.
As for Sorcha, no doubt she’ll do fine. I think she’s being a bit hard on herself. I think she really does have the best of both worlds, hopefully being able to succeed where a pure Human or Titan might not be able to.
Wow, Sorcha actually acknowledged that titans aren’t inherently evil. That epiphany was long overdue.
“But I never can…”
Some things you’re better off not truly knowing.
As for the Federation, it’s as toxic an environment as I’d imagined it to be. Reading about that sort of thing makes me wonder what kind of person I’d be if I grew up surrounded by all that bigotry. Would I be a bigot myself or would I be able to see through the lies?
******
By the way, OHH, in case you were wondering, your little slip of the keyboard did not go unnoticed.
Others may not have noticed it, FH, but I doubt any of us are surprised you did. 😛
—
Would I be a bigot myself or would I be able to see through the lies?
Always the tough question, isn’t it? To give an example from my family’s and nation’s great shame, one branch of my family tree goes back to slaveholders in colonial Maryland and Virginia. They continued to own slaves until near the beginning of the Civil War, when my great-great-great grandfather, himself an abolitionist, either chose to leave or was run out of Virginia, bringing a runaway slave along with his family.
I like to think I’d be like my great-great-great grandfather, that centuries of family tradition would yield to the simple truth that no human should be held in slavery. I’d like to think that, but it’s by no means guaranteed.
One of the reasons I wanted to write for this series is that we spend a lot of it examining just this question. There are “decent” people in this series who do horrible things because they either can’t or won’t see the inconvenient truth.
Of course, there are also horrible people who do horrible things, so…you know….
“” decent” people who do horrible things because they can’t or won’t see the inconvient truth”
This is why I see Prenn as such a tragic character. Admittedly, her first appearance was a bit villainous, but her later appearances shows that she really does care. She genuinely thought she was saving Darren. She exemplifies Titan protective nature to an extreme. I feel like she deserves a redemption story; something to help clear or lessen the “ice queen” stigma she’s developed with the readers.
The issue with Prenn is that any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice. If she’s genuinely as stupid as she was with Darren, if her training guidebooks have text literally lifted from a military guide on how to torture prisoners into compliance, then for all practical purposes she is a malicious person and should be treated as such. I suspect a number of things have changed between her handling Darren and now (such as openly admitting that humans are people, simply viewing ‘freeing’ them as more inherently dangerous because she knows Titans will abuse and abandon them) especially seeing as she actually listened to the one other human we saw her with.
But if we were to assume she’s remained the same all these years? Still going out of her way to try and screw over an entire tribe of humans (who’s ancestors theoretically escaped from her father’s enclosure) still being dumb enough, oblivious enough, to not even realize that her father was working with the insectoids? That he had eaten humans himself? Okay, she’s kind, she’s protective, she’s caring, and if Titans genuinely were a superior species to the point they’d completely dominate without any form of competition, if Titans genuinely were too intelligent for humans to even comprehend, then her logic and actions would have been not only sound but outright helpful.
But its not. Her seeming complete lack of empathy nullifies her caring nature, her lack of insight nullifies her protective habits with ideas that a human should be a broken husk with suicidal tendencies, and her overwhelming oblivious stupidity nullifies her attempts at kindness. This is like looking at a woman who genuinely believes that if you chop off a child’s arms and legs it will make them live longer, because now they can’t run away to go play in traffic. It doesn’t matter how nice she thinks she’s being if she’s that bad at it.
On the other hand it would be very interesting to see what happened to her during all this time. We have hints that something happened to Scroof, and that it wasn’t a good thing. We know she’s still working with humans, we know that she’s doing her best to be the hero in spite of this upcoming disaster. We know that her opinions have warped at least a little bit, and that she’s not exactly favorable in the public image. Too nice to humans for the people who dislike them, and not nice enough for the human lover’s tastes.
I’m far more interested in what she’d think upon finding out that Darren is now a political leader and in charge of Avalon, I’d want to see the awkwardness of an interviewer from earth coming up to ask her a few questions on how travelers from earth should be treated. (Hey, pet carrier for humans is a good idea, making it a barren, frigid box where anyone with a spine injury would die on the second or third bump and force said human to quickly starve to death if a Titan doesn’t let them out are all bad ideas) I’d want to see what happens as Lyroo Prenn has to take her own humans in for citizenship and how she’d react to these married couples.
She’s an incredibly well written character and it would be wonderful to see more of her. But redemption? The only way to redeem oneself from stupidity is to stop being stupid. And that would either be a drawn out exploration of herself as a character, or a complete willing overhaul of her entire personality like what Nasika went through.
Dammed Titans just when they take a step forward to making things better, they and go and take several more steps backwards and because of a few really stupid ones that are so simple minded they can’t see what has played out in front of them go and have to lay down the seeds of a rebellion through out the empire. I smell a war approaching over the horizon.
I guess this is “The shot heard around the world” type of thing. That’s how I see it.
Oooh, does the incident spark off a civil war within the Empire?
Can we have some german accent for the next villains please? Maybe for the insectoids?
How would you add a German accent to chittering and body language?
“– none of them knew that they had witnessed an event that would live in infamy. But it would. It most certainly would.”
I’m kind of a fan of historical event stories that begin with these small chance encounters or disruption of everyday routines. So I take it this’ll turn into a kind of rallying cry that sparks the main conflict.
Obviously the encounter was recorded by the Feds’ own security cameras and possibly by some titan in the office. Assuming there were no human sympathizers working in the office then it was someone in the public and they could be either pro-human and simply post the video to the net or anti-human and trying to share the video quietly with other Fed types and it gets out unintentionally.
Once it hits the net outside Fed territory then Loona’s handpicked Law Minister Jonto Cethje, will be caught between Loona and Qorni with the emperor quietly weighing in as well. Cethje is suddenly faced with enforcing the law and events spiral out of control, aided and abetted no doubt by the Fed separatists and very quietly by the Insectoids. Eventually the Feds will openly blockade Fed space, the fleet will be called away from the borders to deal with the blockade and the bugs do their thing.
And if those events do play out, suddenly human-built ships and the possible armies of non-titan species are all that can stand in their way. Which won’t nearly be enough because they haven’t cranked up production into the thousands yet. Which means there might need to be a re-use of nanobot weaponry as a viable method to counter numbers with infection (and greater numbers.)
You expect the Empire to just totally abandon its borders? No way. Its neighboring superpowers are nowhere near friendly enough to allow for undefended borders. Not even Qorni wants to leave the Empire open to an insectoid or drazari invasion. What’s much more likely is that the Empire is going to pull a few ships from all its fleets. The Empire can then combine those ships into a taskforce capable of dealing with the Federation’s refusal to comply with Imperial law. However, this will leave Gama fleet weakened, enabling the insectoids to break through the Empire’s defenses and take long-desired Imperial territory. Or at least that’s the insectoids’ and the Federation’s intent.
The Insectoid strategy is becoming clearer and the good guys response.
For the bugs: Cooperate with the Fed seperatists to instigate a rebellion that will weaken Gama fleet, then attack Tau Ceti colony dividing the remainder of Gama fleet between Tau Ceti and Sol Earth so that they can get at the real target: Titan Station. Take out the station, deploy base ships to both systems and repel the fragmented Titan relief force. With Gama Fleet eliminated move on to Azatlia, then Avalon, then Vorsha and inward.
The Empire/Human forces have to neutralize the Fed rebellion to free the fleet’s reserves, use the acolyte force to hold the line at Tau Ceti while the reinforced Gama fleet takes out the threat to Titan Station then moves on to relieve Tau Ceti before it becomes a 2nd Kumari.
This lets the authors neatly restage both the 2102 Final and the Battle of Sperikos and cement the essential Human presence in the Empire as a neat wrap up of the series.
It’s all hugs and kisses and then *WHAM* a helpful reminder the Federation is shit. I’m pretty sure that was against the law (or at least frowned upon in sane parts of the empire) before the Zeramblin Act.
This is going to have consequences, Lyroo already pointed out how the HOS in the federation was acting but these are employees of the Empire. If Tetra can get word out (and hopefully she watches her ass) this might accelerate things to an alarming degree.
Frowned on in sane parts of the galaxy, but in the federation it was socially acceptable to shove them in a bag and drown an entire handful.
If you’re refering to Xene’s brother (the farmer), he lives on Nuvokorafia, a rural world, sure, but not even in the Federation province. So it’s more widespread.
Having to be gentle to humans is only a social imperative on more “civilized” worlds.
Yeah its that cultural thing you know…. Wonder where I heard that before??
Jeez the second half of that chapter… “Darlin” “ain’t” Southern style slang all over. I get the reference that the (con)Federation is at a point similar to the Civil Rights era but why are the accents the same? What does that serve but to grate on people.
Well, you need something of an accent to differentiate the various parts of empirical society as it does differ from location to location. And if you want to showcase that someone is a posh, gentlemanly villain who will stab you by the law while being polite about it, you give them a British accent. If you want to show, instantly, that someone is a deplorable stupid villain who beat you to a pulp and set your hair on fire, you give them a southern accent. That’s more stylistic shorthand than any particular facet of the story itself, and goes into the larger point that Titans are just giant humans rather than anything alien. Meaning you can get away with this shorthand and not have it seem out of place.
“And if you want to showcase that someone is a posh, gentlemanly villain who will stab you by the law while being polite about it, you give them a British accent.”
Like Pryvani 😛
As for grating, I’m from Texas which was part of the Confederate. I use those words in my vocabulary daily, sweetie. I don’t find them grating. I agree with Arbon. It’s a stylistic choice based on how we have been trained to see accents. Style? Grace? Charisma? Use the Queen’s English and corresponding accent. Clumsy? Bumbling? Foolish? Use a Southern accent. Or perhaps a Cockney one. Uneducated? Use the broken English accent of any nation. Savvy, darlin?
Like Darren? I don’t know he seems pretty on the ball to me.
Darren’s accent is very well done. He seems to be one of the few characters that has a distinct accent that is written in to his dialogue, aside from the Ler. There is an exception for every rule and Darren is the exception for the accent rule.
I can tell you the origin of the name “Federation” came as a play that in scifi Federations are generally good and peace loving and Empires nasty and warlike. Dx’s idea I think.
Its a direct analogy to the South of the civil rights era and perhaps today. Intentional on the author’s