The Black

Ambassador Gwen Mackenzie Trenton stepped off her shuttle and admired ‘The Hall’. Clint would be landing shortly as well by air car from the hospi…

The aircar approached and began to land as Gwen raised an eyebrow.. It would have been a dead ringer for anything from the 1920s or 30s America if it had wheels instead of hover jet clusters in its wheel wells. Clint stepped out of the passenger seat and waved an abbreviated salute as the car lifted off once more, presumably back to the hospital.

He quickly spoke to one of the Delmar security details, and Gwen had to suppress a chuckle as the Delmar guardsman’s shock at being spoken to in his native tongue bled through his features.

“How many did we get” she asked quietly in English.

“15… they didn’t have time to decompress from the look of the damage….” He whispered. “It wasn’t pretty…”

“We can debrief later, let’s go. I’ve been waiting months for this. Your brother doesn’t know” Gwen’s eyes twinkled.

“Doesn’t know what?” Clint asked slowly

“Who the Ambassadorial staff are. I put in a ….. personal…. Request to have specific names left out of the official messages.” Ambassador Trenton said primly.

A massive feral grin spread across Clint’s features as he realized what was about to happen. A few of the Delmar security contingent took a step back. The Human marines simply chuckled.

“Oh you evil woman... “ he said in a low playfully menacing tone, “let’s not keep them waiting then…”

———————————————-

Lyrian barely managed to only flinch slightly as a nuclear bomb went off inside Mac’s mind. A mushroom cloud of surprise and elation almost flattened her as she snapped her head over to him. He was frozen, locked in iron discipline that was straining under the weight of his feelings... she turned to follow his gaze as the doors closed behind the Ambassadorial designation, and her hand flew up to over her shocked face as Mac’s only living mother figure and his brother formally walked up the hall to the Delmar delegation.

The Ambassador was a titanic specimen of a female human. She stood rail straight and was nearly as tall as a Delmar male. Even with her advanced years and silver/grey hair. Her presence clearly dared anyone to give her an excuse to snap them in half. She shared Mac’s piercing ice blues as they scanned the room in a familiar calculating gaze.

Mac’s brother behind her and to the side was of less legendary proportions. He was within an inch or so of her Mac’s height with darker hair and brown almost black eyes. The two of them walked up the center of the hall to greet Darclemus and his entourage stopping a few steps away under the watchful eye of both security teams.

The mountain of a Scot gave a Delmar nod of greeting, “Ambassador Gwen Mackenzie Trenton and my chief of staff Commodore Clint Stevens; a pleasure to finally meet you.” she said in perfect if not a touch formal Delmar.

“Ambassador Trenton, I am Tribal Head Darclemus. Just Darclemus will due, petty formality has always felt... wasteful.” He responded before extending a very human handshake gesture to the shock of Clint and the amusement of the ambassador.

“Ah, I see we both have been studying each other. Gwen will do nicely then.” she glanced at a still-shocked Mac and then back to the Head of the Helyon tribe.

“Mackenzie, I believe I have a tribesman of yours, He has been quite the surprise. Go on boy, we are all family here.” He outright reached over a pushed Mac out of formation. Mac took two steps before him, and his aunt impacted in a long overdue, and mildly violent embrace.

“Ciamar (how come)” Mac gasped finally releasing his and only to catch a bear hug from Clint, shit-eating grin and all.

“Sgeulachd fhada (long story)” Gwen responded before walking over to the glorious Delmar female who was smiling at their exchange. “Let me look at you,” she said in Delmar, taking Lyrian by the forearms and smiling down at her niece-in-law for the first time,

“Christ, he got lucky with you!” She said finally. She released Lyri only to have lyrian pull Gwen's head towards her own in a traditional family greeting of Delmar

“Chan eil e cha mhòr cho fortanach sa tha mi (not nearly as lucky as I am)” Lyri whispered in Gaelic before drawing the stunned woman into a full human hug.

The small family reunion complete, Ambassador Gwen turned back to the head of Helyon. “Thank you. Now, I believe we have matters of state to attend to.”

“Yes, now that matters of family are tended, we shall move this to the conference room. The Grarzia’s have opened their home to the two of you, and I have made transit shuttles available should you wish to rotate your crews for shore leave.” He began, turning toward Mac and Lyrian, “you two take the evening. You look exhausted from this afternoon’s events, get some rest.” He then turned to lead the ambassador away.

“Clint, go with them. See to our accommodations. I’ll send for a shuttle to catch up. ” Gwen knew he didn’t need to. She was releasing him to be with his brother and his new sister-in-law.

———————————————————-

“Ok, you crazy fuck! What the hell! I send you off with one stupid joke, and the next time I see you, you’re married, part of an alien tribe, no offense; and pissing off an entire galactic government… oh and merc’ing a metric shit ton of pirates along the way.” Clint laughed as they walked over to Vito. Lyri drove while the two caught up. By the time they were settling in Mac had finished his story from the beginning. Lyri made a point of circling around the hanger and the landing strip, finally touching down on the pad built into the balcony/foundation of the elevated structure.

“Welcome to our home.” lyri said in English. And Clint raised an eyebrow.

“English and Gaelic? How busy have you been.” He asked.

“Too busy” she replied with a giggle.

“She wants to visit Earth, and she caught me saying a few things in the old tongue. After that, it was all immersion. We mostly speak English or Garlic at home. It started as a way of giving her some immersion, but now it’s just our thing” Mac explained.

“Chuir mi iongnadh air leis cho luath sa dh’ ionnsaich mi an t-seann chànan. Ach tha gaol agam air (I surprised him with how quickly I learned the old tongue. But I love it)” She grinned at Clint.

“Cha bhithinn a 'tachairt a bhith a' faighinn piuthar a tha singilte? (You wouldn’t happen to have a sister that’s single?)” Clint smirked at her confused look.

“Down, nitro, it doesn’t quite work that way here!” Mac said with a laugh. Clint looked a question at him, so Mac continued, “Mix Victorian England with James Cameron’s Avatar. Then sprinkle in a little old fashioned arranged marriage and you come close.”

Lyrian snorted at Mac’s analogy, then opened their front door.

“Holy fuck…. This place is yours?” Clint’s awe crept in.

“Yup. Apparently protecting a freighter from Pirates is a dam good bonus. The rest is a sort of Tribal inheritance for Lyrian once she wed. We got a bigger plot on account of being so far from ‘in town’. Keep your sidearm on you at night. This place has flying bat, snake, tiger shark things that like to jump people this far out.”

“Oh? How do they taste?” Clint laughed as Lyri whipped her head around in shock.

“Donno, yet.” Mac chuckled.

“Huuuumons..” Lyri said in her habitual deliberate mispronunciation. Promoting Clint to break down into a true belly laugh.

The three of them grabbed Delmar’s version of Beer while Mac pulled some food from the ‘food cooler’ and reheated them on the stove. Lyrian asked about embarrassing stories and the war of the tall tales began.

3 hours later Aunt Gwen arrived and joined in in the little family reunion.

Exhaustion eventually demanded its revenge as everyone crashed out one by one.

—————————————————————-

Mac was woken early the next morning by a sharp ping of terror. Lyri was whimpering next to him. She hadn’t had a nightmare since the assassin’s attack. Thankfully it was a short one as the morning sun woke her to him holding her and gently stroking her head and mane.

“I saw their faces… everyone we lost…”

She sobbed softly into his chest.

“I know… I know… it’s ok… the first battle is always the hardest…” He felt a pinch of his own sadness at her having to go through this.

“Don’t” she said looking up at him, “don’t you dare. I chose this…” she nuzzled back Down on his chest. “I have you, I’ll be ok.”

A cuddling hour later, Lyri snapped her head up to the sounds of the kitchen and the smell of food.

‘Oh boy,’ Mac thought before opening his mouth, “Easy Tiger, It’s Aunt Gwen’s tradition. She always cooked for me and Clint after we got back from a rough one. And I don’t quite think you could take her enough to kick her out of the kitchen... yet anyway.”

“I’m going down there. She might need help.” Lyri decided. And Mac just chuckled.

He followed her downstairs and found Clint sitting at the table already. Aunt Gwen was looking very confusedly in the Delmar style refrigerator. Lyri flashed the boys a smirk before walking over to ‘help’.

“This is gonna be good.” Mac said sitting down.

“Huh?” Clint was clearly hung over.

“Oh, you’ll see.” Mac leaned back in his chair, as the great battle of the Breakfast After commenced.

————————————————————

Darclemus looked up from his own breakfast as an aid walked in. Without knocking.

“Sir, we have a problem… a ‘patrol fleet’ from the UGN is claiming to have heard reports of a pirate raid on the Delmar homeworld. They are demanding entry into Delmar Territorial space under the ‘exigent circumstances’ clause of the treaty.” the man said quickly.

Darclemus’ annoyance disappeared as the urgency of the matter matched the young man’s actions. “Details of this ‘fleet’.”

“It’s a full-on battle group, sir… an assault carrier, two ‘Compliance’ class frigates and three frontier Brigantines.” The man said quickly.

“They knew. How is for another day; Recall everything, we have left. Is the Confederation Council aware?” Darclemus asked.

“Yes, the other tribes are recalling their ships as well. But we don’t have many. We Lack the weight of numbers or firepower to stop them. We lost too much in the attack.” The man’s head fell. He had lost two brothers at the failed beacon ambush.

“Send a car for the ambassador, she needs to be aware of this. Put all surviving Helyon fighters and attackers on Alert. Get them in orbit.” Darclemus stood, “I will have words with the council, we have no time.”