The Black

-flashback to the arrival at Pru’Mrul-

The trip from Bricus to Pru’Mrul went by in a dizzied blur for Mac. He had spent his time with Doc Icario and later with chief navigator and 2nd in command Margaretti Solvilque, Bryton’s mother, in an attempt to figure out where he had actually ended up, compared to Sol. He was hesitant at first, but he eventually shared his star charts aboard Concord with Chief Marg (she seemed to insist on that one). He and Lyrian had been spending most of the last few days together, mostly swapping snacks and cultural tidbits. Mac had finally gotten his blue tooth speakers to work with Delmar tech, and an entire evening was been spent in the Rec room. Mac, Lyrian, Martin, Tristen and Bryton explored through several genres of Human music. Tristen and Bryton had gravitated to techno industrial instrumental music , and promptly demanded play lists to workout to. Apparently life aboard a freighter had made the majority of the Delmar exceedingly health conscious. Martin has gotten a Kick out of Reggae, and had promptly received Macs entire Bob Marley collection. Lyrian had been more reluctant to say anything until Mac had stumbled into his Uncle Martins Slow Jazz/Blues collection. She had just sat there in stunned silence as one of the tracts finished before asking for a copy of all of it. That had made Mac smile. Martin and the crowd had wandered off by that point and Lyrian had absent mindedly leaned against his shoulder with her eyes closed, head on his the top of his shoulder. tail wrapped around his waist, completely lost in the music. Tili had wandered in at some point to check on her daughter, staying to observe as the evening wound down.

*cough* “Lyrian, Dear it’s late, your leave ends tonight, you have the Con for our arrival tomorrow”. Lyrian jumped at her mothers voice. She sat back up from Mac who had had a hand gently tracing the main down the back of her neck. It turned out that All Delmar were basically as hairless as humans, save for a ‘mane’ that started from where their very human like hair ended at the base of their head, down their spine like a velvety soft razor back. Mac had been lost, deep in memory of the man who had saved him, given him purpose. His uncle Martin for whom these songs belonged. He shifted awkwardly, but didn’t protest. He let her go as she jumped up.

“Shit it's late, I’ll send you all this in a data pack.” He had yawned.

“Yea… uh… see you tomorrow”, Lyrian mumbled as she practically ran out of the room.

Tili remained and watched Mac pack and clean up from the groups musical exploration, Human snacks and all. ‘I hope I didn’t give Martin too many ideas’ Mac thought before noticing Tili Was still there.

He sling his backpack and started to walk by her toward the entrance.

“Please….. “ Tili started

“Hmm?” Mac paused and turned to look at her

“I…” Tili rallied, “I don’t know what you are, nobody does... what I see confuses me… I see a being capable of great violence… and of great darkness… yet you are so Kind...“

Mac set the backpack down, “And you don’t want me to hurt your daughter” he walked over to Tili.

“.....Yes… my husband trusts you.. my captain is beginning to do the same… but… I fear you… I have never seen Lyrian react to another male like she does to you… please don’t betray that. Ours is a dangerous life; and while my daughter has been aboard ship since her age of majority, she has been luckier than most. These last 6 years have been very peaceful. It is not always so… she has much to learn despite her age.”

Mac reached out suddenly and pulled Tili into a human hug ‘he is warm’ she though going stiff for a moment before relaxing into the embrace.

“The truth is, you are not wrong. I have lived more of my life on the edge of Death, survival, vengeance, and slaughter… than I have lived it in peace.” Tilli not so much heard his words as felt them rumble through the embrace, “I feel that, for the first time, I am healing. I cannot say I am fully at peace… yet.. That’s a long road for me.. but your daughter treats me like something other than a roaming silent assassin of the Black. And I like that.” He released Tili from the hug and picked up his pack again, “I hope you can understand what that means to me. And I hope that gives you your answer.” He finished with a small smile. Then a big goofy yawn ended the conversation.

“Shit, it’s late, ‘night” he waved, and left her there to her thoughts.

—————————————————————-

It was just after the next morning's breakfast. Lyrian was currently on duty, and Max had just finished his run. He was wandering into Doc Icario’s office to meet the two of them, an the look on their faces gave him pause… They had found something…. And it was not good.

“Mac, sit down.”, Doc Icario spoke first, clearly attempting to soften what he could of the blow to come.

“You found something” Mac sat in the offered chair.

Marg started, “We Did. We took what you gave us and analyzed what we had from the sensor reading from when you first arrived. We don’t know how you did it. But your ‘slip-space drive’ has never been attempted before. It appeared to be surfing on the boarder of subspace and real space. It is taking advantage of calculations we have never seen before, as incomplete as what we could dig up is; but we did find one thing. Your slip space drive and our subspace drives both have one key similarity. They are both orders of magnitude easier to control, when there is a beginning and an end coordinate. Your ‘LEAP’ research assumed that you could figure out distance as a function of speed. Subspace does not work like that.. you need the two points together to both regulate the drives output and keep from being thrown off course from subspace compression and fluctuation. Simply put… you had no end beacon… so your test was doomed from the start.”

Mac hung his head, he suspected something like this. But hearing it as fact was…… devastating.

“We do have ... more. ” Doc Icario spoke up. “We found the Sol system.”

Macs head shot up! “Whah!! How!”

“The beacon you were to use as a reference.” Icario began.

Light house protocol” Max finished. I guess they had turned it on.

“Yes, well they did. At least for a few days. It was enough to register with the Galactic Unity Astrophysicist Ministry as a subspace beacon. But they dismissed it as a natural phenomena because it ceased so quickly," Icario continued, “but it matches your flight timeline that you gave us from concord. And the conversion of the charts you gave us. It’s Sol." Icario took a breath, "Mac, it’s also 20years away by traditional subspace… through currently unexplored space… without figuring out your slip space drive… I don’t think you can go home any time soon.”

A Stone sank deep into his gut….‘Shit’ Mac sat motionless…

“Doc, Marg.. If that’s all, I think I need to retire to my cabin… “

Mac got up and walked out of Doc’s office.

——————————————————————

Lyrian bounded out of the Bridge, at end of shift. The Traveler was safely docked and taking on her next contract. Lyrian was looking forward to more of they Human ‘jazz’ music of Mac’s. Rounding the corner of the corridor to the mess hall her stomach rumbled.

“Martin! Got anything entertaining for dinner? Maybe something Humooon.” she was hoping Max would hear that. It got a laugh about of him every time, and he had promised to explain it, one day.”

“Yea, he calls em ‘Sandwiches’ but I haven’t seen him since this morning.” Martin replied. "But I've been super busy, these ‘sandwiches’ were a hit."

“He won’t be joining us for dinner.” Lyrian heard her mothers voice from behind her.

“What, why?” Lyrian asked looking up as her mother and father walked up. Da’ had a look on his face… the look she had only seen after giving a patient the news that modern medicine had run out of options.

“Da’?” She asked, worry crept into that one syllable..

Tili looked up at her husband and Icario took a long pause before sighing, “We found Sol…. It’s 20 years away.”

The entire mess hall was instantly silenced at the sound of a metal tray and dishes clattering to the ground, but Lyrian was already well down the corridor

——————————————————————

The Door chimed, Mac lifted his head from in his hands. A mostly empty bottle of Jeremiah Weed and a tumbler with another two fingers in it sat on his desk.. he had lost so many friends during the war.. he had actually grown to tolerate the taste. The bottle had started full.

“Whooiiissirt!” He half shouted

“It’s me…. May I come in?” He knew that voice.

“Please, Da’ told me…” she tried, he could hear her voice quaver.

Mac reached over and slapped at the console on his desk finally managing to get the gravity down and unlocking the door.. “Oooopeeeggnn” he said standing up just to stumble into his hanging spare G suit. He wisely sat back down.

The door opened and a familiar figure rushed in, silver locks a-fly as she buried his head in her shoulder. He fell off the chair, down to the floor, she sat there with him. Arms and tail wrapped around him, “I’m so sorry, James, I’m so sorry” was all she whispered to him.

'when did she…' It was too much, It broke him, he reached up and wrapped his own arms around her….

And wept.

It took the entire cargo on-boarding to get Mac to come out of his cabin. Lyrian was the only one he let in. She asked about his home, his Martin, his Sol. He didn’t tell her much, but he let her ground him.. he emerged for breakfast on the day they departed for Argorania. Weighted vest on and all. Headed to the Rec room mumbling a song to himself

“Take me out, to the Black..”

—————————————————————

-return to current time-

Silu’s conversation with Icario been both more and less productive as he had hoped. He leaned back as Traveler made her burn toward the jump point remembering the conversation.

“We have a UGN ship on an intercept for us.” Silu had started. Icario settling down into the indicated chair.

“Well, that escalated quickly? I assume it has to do with Mackenzie?” Icario offered taking the dram poured for him by his captain.

“It’s is.. and it has placed both him and us in a very precarious position.” Silu started. “As you know, Mackenzie has indicated that he has a serious interest in staying with this ship long term.. until now, hiring him as a security contractor was going to be enough…. We could ride the out the rest of the season and refit to wait for his license and paperwork to come in to make it legal, and move on.”

“We definitely don’t have time for that any longer, I assume. ” Icario stated taking a sip.

“No, they will most likely catch us half way to Argorania. The licenses won’t be ready.” Silu nodded. “And without those papers… or tribe membership… we can do nothing to protect him from the UGN confiscating his ship, or worse… sinking them or running isn't an option.. that would risk our flag, our tribe, and our livelihood through Traveler.”

“Shit..” Icario nodded draining his glass.

“Shit..” Silu agreed finishing his as well.

“I will talk to Tili in the morning.” Icario stood to leave.

“What? No my friend, I would not ask that.” Silu stopped him.

“Maybe, but it is the only mildly safe path forward, and not the worst one I can imagine.” Icario gave a genuine smile. “Hopefully you won’t see me on a bio-bed in the morning” Icario chuckled, then departed for his cabin he shared with his wife and dauther.

—————————————————————

“NO! It’s too soon!!!! WE KNOW NOTHING!!” Shouted Tili the next morning. Lyrian had left that morning to meet Mac for morning run before duty shifts and was out of the family cabin.

“It’s the only way.. Tili, we need him just as badly as he needs us, and without this he will become a pawn of the GU or worse, their science project. We both know what they do to species they can get away with experimenting on until the threat of reprisal becomes too great? Mac is 20years from home. There is none of his government’s power to keep them from filleting him alive! We owe it to him.. or we would not be here now. We still don’t know who ratted is out at Bricus… we need him. He also told the captain that he wanted ‘in’ but I suspect he didn’t know what that meant at the time.

“What do you mean..” Tili asked. At least a little more conversational.

“To quote what Silu told me, ‘If you will have me, I offer my services, and my... expertise to you, Your ship, and your people for so long as I am able, or until I find a way home. You are good people, I have seen enough death, Horror, and Evil out in the Black to see this. You were attacked for doing nothing but bringing in relief supplies, lost men and had the world of that wonderful young woman shattered with her first experience with Death…. I could do worse’.”Icario finished.

“…. something other than a roaming silent assassin of the Black…” Tili mumbled to herself.

“I’m sorry what?” Icario’s asked confused.

“I caught them leaning on each other in the Rec room the other day… before you broke the news to Mackenzie. I… asked him not to hurt our daughter… that’s what he said in return, ‘your daughter treats me like something other than a roaming silent assassin of the Black.’ and that ‘I hope you understand what that means to me’. “ Tili shuddered then took a deep breath. “Ok… but we will not pressure ANYONE!! We tell them both. At the same time, all our cards on the table. Let them choose.” Tili out as much sternness in her voice as she could.

“We can give them a week” Icario nodded, “Mac needs time to recover from the news about Sol”

—————————————————————-

-one week later-

Mac’s brain hurt. He was trying to learn a new language… and it SUCKED. The Delmar language was a beautiful language. A cross somewhere between classical French and Italian. He could make all the sounds at least, but god dam was it difficult. He was fumbling through some work sheets Doc had given him to do on the desk console. Calling it a computer was a stretch as it was not a singular unit, but simply an interface to the ships mainframe supercomputer.

*beep* a light lit on the console, he had an incoming call I hope this won’t take long, it’s almost dinner time.

“Yello!” He called, tapping the button to receive.

“Mackenzie, so was hoping to catch you before dinner, for the second half of that chat I promised you.” Silu’s voice spoke through the console, “10 ‘minutes’ ?”

“Uh, Captain.. Sure be right there. Mackenzie out.” Mac closed the call ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck’ he had just convinced Martin to make proper mayonnaise for BLT’s and it was supposed to be a surprise for Lyrian. Mac hoped he could keep this short. Maybe he could pass it off on Doc, after all he had gotten most of what he was gonna ask the captain, from Icario.

10 min later, Mac walked up to one of the conference rooms, odd.. and stepped through the door..

Doc was there, along with an apprehensive looking Tili, and a thoroughly confused Lyrian, who bounded up to give him a quick hug before retaking her seat.

“What’s going on” he asked quickly during the hug, “no idea, I’m hungry.” was her response.

Mac suppressed a chuckle and sat down in an open chair next to Icario.

Silu leaned forward and began, “Mackenzie, this is obviously not the part two you were hoping for in our conversation,” he paused until Mac nodded, ”However, current situations have… limited our options.“

“That does not sound comforting Captain” Mac responded. Practiced cool in full swing. Save for Lyrian, she could see a slight pinch in the corner of his eyes, he was concerned.

“Quite, So I will put it simply, the UGN sent a warship to investigate our, little skirmish. The Convergent Dawn, I think its name is, is on its way to intercept us. And we cannot risk our charter or our ship by trying to dodge them. They picked up our flight plan at Pru’Mrul and are following us. They will reach us in 4 days time.

“Shit” Mac spat. “Options?”

“First, we were going to sign you up as a security contractor. Seeing as this is our last stop before we return to Delmar for our yearly refit/upgrade, that would have given you enough time to get paper work in order as a SecCon. We no longer have that time. The UGN Ship is faster, heavily armed, and the GU likes to…. Experiment on races and technology that doesn’t have the full force of inter species war as a threat of reprisal…. Simply put, humanity is too far away and not FTL capable… if we were to turn you over, you would be filleted alive and Concord ripped apart to her last bolt.

“Well where does that leave us”, Mac looked down trodden, “concord is in your ships computers as at least a launch and retrieval, not to mention my beacon… “

“The Tribe” Icario interrupted. “That leaves the Tribe”

“I don’t follow” Mac said flatly, “I’m not going to put your people under threat.” His voice was stern

“You misunderstand” Icario began, “There is an ancient treaty between the Delmar Confederation and the GU. While we are part of the GU technically, we hold our own government, our own laws. We also own our own rights to technology, weapons, ships, and people and intellectual property. The Delmar as a species controls the transport of roughly 80 percent of the entire economy of the GU. Our close knit familial nature allows us to make longer voyages than most races are capable of doing without significant physiological strain, hence the cornered market. Simply put, if you were to become Delmar; you, Concord, all your belongings, and all your intellectual property, becomes protected under Delmar Confederation Treaty."

“I must ask this once and only once” captain Silu’s voice cut true. Eyes burning into Mac’s, “what you said during our first conversation.. do you still hold it true.”

“Yes, nothing has changed, if anything what I have learned of your tribe has only confirmed it as the course I must take. What must I do to become Delmar?”

Icario spoke once more, “For an outsider? Simply put, You must marry in.”

Lyrian sucked in an explosive breath and Mac just Stiffened as he put it together.

“My boy, I did tell you about my cultures propensity for arraigned marriage..” Icario was nervous, but also enjoying himself.

“You did, but it’s been barely a couple of weeks. I can’t and won’t force anyone into that kind of com…

“Yes,” everyone went silent as Lyrian spoke “yes,” she repeated, “I agree.”

Mac turned in his chair to face her, “Lyrian, are you sure, it hasn’t been that long. By my people’s culture, we barely know each other; and from what I’ve learned from you, Delmar don’t take these things back.”

She looked him in the eye’s, “James, I care for you, more than anyone I have met aside from Ma’ and Da’. I don’t know where this will go, but I will not loose you. So yes, I am sure.”

Mac was taken aback by her using his first name, it had become her thing during his grieving for the practical loss of his species. Max sat up a bit straighter but he was looking gently at Lyrain before turning to her father, “Ok, I accept and agree.”

“I’ll have the paperwork ready tomorrow” Silu stood, “I’ll transmit it before breakfast. Lyrian, Mac, congratulations.

The group filed out of the Conference room. Mac and Lyrian slowly walked back to the dining hall, but Lyrian stopped at his door, "Can we Talk."

'Oh boy, here it comes' Mac thought, His heart sinking, "Sure" he opened the door and lead her in.

As soon as the door closed, Lyrian turned and wrapped him into an embrace that did not feel like a normal hug. She pulled him close at the waist with her tail and pressed him into a full bodied pressing affair. he wrapped his arms around her putting her head on his shoulder. She said nothing, but proceeded to turn her face into the crook of his neck softly humming. she didn't let him go for 2 full minutes.

"You really want this.." he whispered to her, equal parts surprise and joy.

"Yes James, I do." She used his first name again as she nuzzled her head down further. "Things move a bit faster with Delmar than with Humans I guess." She gave a soft giggle

"I guess they do", he finally pulled her away from their embrace, She gave a token of resistance. before being slightly startled by his Hand under her chin.

He pulled her chin in and gave her a Peck on the lips. He let her go as she bounced back in wide eyed surprise while touching her mouth with her fingers, "What was that?" she asked slowly licking her upper lip.

"Its called a Kiss, and its like a Hug; but only for very very special people" Mac answered with an amused twinkle in his eyes

She leaned in and kissed him again with a quick peck before pulling away again licking her lip. "I think I like kisses" She giggled

"They are n...." Mac chuckled, just as Lyrians Stomach gave a mighty grumble.

"BLT's?" He asked instead.

"BLTs" she laughed, grabbing him by the hand and They walked out to dinner.