Originally posted 3/12/07At last, the long-promised "Family Ties" fic.
This is set about 6 weeks after "Reentry." If you haven't read them, all the "Family Ties" stories are posted here, but the easiest way to find them all is to check out
my site. (The stories are posted in roughly reverse order there.)
Setting: About 13 cycles after PK Wars
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through PK Wars
Disclaimer: I don't own anything about this universe, and I'm not making any money here, I'm just indulging in a little more Farscape....
Many thanks to imloco2, MadScientist and Shipsister for encouragement and beta duties! You're the best!
This is a longish story, for me, over 10,000 words, with actual plot! I'm going to try to get away with breaking it into just two chunks to post here, one after the other.
I hope you'll enjoy it.
Fun and Games
A sharp rap on her bedroom door brought Chiana to a state of drowsy wakefulness.
“Chiana? If you want breakfast while it’s hot, you’d better come now!”
The Nebari groaned and rolled over in bed, hoping Aeryn Sun would go away and leave her to sleep.
“Chiana? Are you all right?”
In the six weekens since Chiana’s arrival, Aeryn had taken to treating her much like her fourteen-cycle-old son, D’Argo – with a mixture of no-nonsense discipline, and the caution one might show around unexploded ordinance. When Chiana had first realized the similarity, she’d been pretty tinked, but then she thought, Why not? After all, she’d never quite had the opportunity to grow out of her own Terrible Teens. No, wait, that was Terrible
Twos. But little Nelja was two, and she wasn’t terrible at all, she was really pretty sweet....
“Chiana!” Even muffled by the closed door, Aeryn’s irritation came through loud and clear.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Chiana called back grumpily. “I’ll be there.” Presumably that satisfied the warden, since Aeryn didn’t say anything more.
Chiana threw back her covers and climbed out of bed and went to get dressed. It was still a novelty to sleep in nightclothes, instead of being prepared to leap out of bed and run immediately, should trouble find them in the middle of the night. Collecting fresh clothing, she wondered briefly how Nerri was, if their last, terrible raid on Acknar Prime had had any fallout...and then she shook her head and headed for the washroom that was adjacent to her sleeping quarters.
She dawdled a bit, at least half hoping to miss the family breakfast. Despite Crichton and Aeryn’s welcome (once they’d decided she wasn’t going to run off with Pippin the microt their backs were turned), she sometimes felt more than a little like she had back when she’d first arrived on Moya – when everyone else (it had seemed to her, anyway), was bonded together, and she was the outsider. Crichton kept repeating that she was “family,” but she had a feeling he was trying to convince himself of that more than her.
Despite her half-hearted efforts, Crichton and Aeryn and the whole brood were still finishing up their morning meal when she arrived in the dining chamber. She stifled some hurt feelings when D’Argo and Hope got up and excused themselves the microt she entered the room. After all, it
could have been a coincidence. Who was she kidding? The two older Crichton kids didn’t trust her any more than they’d have trusted a Scarran or a Peacekeeper.... They weren’t rude about it – neither of their parents would have permitted that – but they were kids; they weren’t exactly subtle, and she’d spent her whole life reading people’s reactions to her. Chiana sniffed and pretended she didn’t give a frell. She was incredibly grateful that Pippin, at least, greeted her cheerfully before he went back to shoveling food into his mouth.
“Mornin’, Chi.” Crichton saluted her with a cup of what he persisted in calling coffee, though Chiana thought its only resemblance to the Earth drink was its color.
“Hey,” she replied, tossing her head to the side as nonchalantly as possible.
“There you are,” Aeryn said to Chiana, looking up from trying to clean food off of Nel. It never ceased to amaze Chiana how messy the runt of the litter was. Chi gave the little one an involuntary smile, and focused back on what Aeryn was saying. “The nevek’s still warm, and I don’t think D’Argo ate all the fresa berries. Help yourself.”
Without comment, Chiana collected some food, dodging around Crichton when he headed for the kitchen. Plate loaded, she sat down next to Pippin. With a grin, her boy stuck his hand out her way, palm up, and she returned his “high five.” The exchange picked up her spirits some, because it always made her think of Crichton and Ka D’Argo, cycles ago back on Moya, sharing the same silly ritual. She knew it meant something to Pip to share it with her, ‘cos he’d learned it from his (adoptive) father, and considering how she’d missed most of the kid’s life, she was grateful for any closeness she could get. After a rocky start, the two of them were getting along pretty well.
“Hey, kid,” she said impulsively, “how about we practice some of those bleeka surl moves after breakfast? You’ve gotta work hard if you’re gonna beat me!”
Pippin’s dark eyes sparkled, and she knew he was going to say yes, but Aeryn interrupted. “Chiana, it’s a school day.”
Pippin’s attention went straight to Aeryn. “Mom—” But it was a half-hearted protest on his part, dropped immediately, because that was how things were around here. You didn’t skip school just because you wanted to do something fun, you did what you were told, like a good little soldier. He looked back at Chiana and shrugged with a casual smile. “We can practice after school, Chimama.”
“Yeah. That’ll be good,” she agreed, forcing a smile, and tried to tell herself not to be tinked because the boy was actually thriving with all of Aeryn’s rules. Chiana went back to eating, and shortly thereafter Pippin excused himself to go get his gear together, taking his dishes with him as the older kids had done.
As he left, Aeryn finally deposited the narl on the floor near Chiana’s seat. “Your father will get you in a microt,” she told the child, then looked at Chi and elaborated, “John doesn’t have any classes scheduled today, so he’s going to take her with him to his lab. I’ve got a full schedule.”
Chiana looked down at the little girl, the only one in the family who'd greeted her without reservation when she first arrived. Nel leaned her head back and gave her a wide, toothy grin. Impulsively, Chiana looked back at Aeryn and offered, “You could leave her here with me.”
Aeryn frowned and started to shake her head.
“Chi-ma! Chi-ma! Chi-ma!” Nelja chimed in, her voice a joyous high-pitched shriek. She crouched down and jumped up, arms outstretched; then, black hair flying, she flung herself on Chiana.
“Aw, come on, Aeryn," she said, settling the little one in her lap. "We’ll be fine here. We’ll have fun!”
Aeryn’s frown softened, but before she could say anything, Crichton stuck his head in the room. “Hey, baby girl,” he called. “Come to Papa! We gotta go!”
Nel turned her head towards her father. “Stay wiv Chi-ma!” she said brightly.
“Chiana’s offered to watch her,” Aeryn told him, a hint of questioning in her voice. Their eyes met in that way they had of discussing things without words. After a few microts, Aeryn nodded.
“‘Preciate the offer, Chiana,” Crichton said, “but I think she’d better come with me today.” He patted the bag he had slung over his shoulder. “I’ve already got all her junk packed up, and we’re running late as it is.”
Stung, because she knew a lame excuse when she heard one, Chiana lifted the little girl and set her on the floor. “You heard your sires,” she told the kid. “Scoot!” Determined not to look upset, she sat at the table and focused on the rest of her food while Crichton scooped up his daughter and shooed the rest of the kids out the door. A few microts later, Aeryn called her goodbyes and left as well.
With the whirlwind that was morning at the Crichtons’ finally over, Chiana abruptly threw her plate across the room, and followed it with her cup. They made a very satisfying crashing sound hitting the wall. She wavered between penitence and satisfaction, and after a few microts, she got up and stalked out of the room without bothering to check and see how much damage she’d caused.
Microts later, she stomped out of the house with no clear idea of where she was heading.
* * * * * * * *
Chiana walked the streets in an aimless spiral outwards from the Crichton home, trying to work off her anger and frustration. She'd seen enough and matured enough over way too many cycles in the Resistance so that she got it that Crichton and Aeryn had their own way of doin' things, and it worked for them and for their brood. But it made her heart ache to see how different Pippin's life was from what she would have given him, if she'd kept him with her after she’d birthed him....
If he'd been with her, he'd know how to have fun!
A tiny voice inside her said he was actually a really happy kid with lots of interests, but she slapped it down. Any kid who chose to go to school when he coulda ditched was definitely being repressed. Oppressed. Some kind of pressed!
So much for walking off her anger. She was more tinked now than she’d been when she left Crichton’s place, which was saying something. Her heart was pounding, she could feel it in her chest, and she was trembling, too. Frell!
She stopped for a microt to assess where in the city her feet had taken her. There was enough pedestrian traffic that she quickly decided it was safest to move to one side of the walkway to avoid being run down while she looked. Scanning the skyline, she recognized the building where Crichton and Aeryn lived, off to her left. So, that meant...the spaceport was about ten metras in the other direction, not really that far. She’d walked it the day she arrived, injured leg and all.... She continued scanning the street, and with a start, she realized that she was at most half a metra from the school where her son was, at this very moment, being turned into an obedient little robot. She brooded on that fact for all of three microts before deciding that for once in his life, the kid needed to have some frelling fun!
Determined to make that happen, she took off at the fastest pace she judged wouldn’t attract undue attention. When she reached the school, she kept moving, circling the block and checking the place out. The entire square block was surrounded by a solid, transparent fence. Through it, she could see a single large building with three, maybe four levels, sitting in the center of a good-sized play area which at the moment was unoccupied by kids or oppressors, either one. The fence didn’t worry her much. In her experience, schools were more interested in keeping students
in than in keeping parents
out. However, she thought with a pang, this school wouldn’t consider her a parent, so she was going to have to be a little creative to get the boy out.
After a second circuit of the premises, she felt sure that she’d spotted all the components of the security system on the main entryway as well as two secondary gates. Coming in through one of the side gates would mean crossing the open play area without cover, but the front gate would have more surveillance, which was always a pain to deal with. It might have been better to wait for physical training time and hustle the kid off the playground in the midst of a crowd, but she had no idea when that was, and she was in no mood to wait. She made her decision. She wasn’t exactly sure how she’d get him to come away with her once she got to him, but she’d think of something! With a quick glance up and down the street, Chiana took a deep breath, then with practiced efficiency, disabled the alarm and the lock, and opened the gate.
Once inside, she felt much better immediately. She was taking action, much needed action, on behalf of her kid! Keeping an eye out for security of any sort, she crossed quickly to the building. She opened the entry door quietly and slipped inside. No one materialized to challenge her, so she headed resolutely towards the second level, where she knew her son’s class was.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure exactly which of the mind-numbingly similar rooms was his. There were no windows in the doors so she couldn’t peep in looking for a little Nebari boy...probably the only Nebari in the school, she thought, even though Crichton and Aeryn had settled in a trading center with just about every species you could think of in it. She’d give ‘em credit for that, anyway. Well, there was nothing for it except to stick her head into as many rooms as it took to find him – and hope she didn’t stick her head into Hope’s class first and get recognized. At least she didn’t have to worry about D’Argo sounding the alarm, she thought sourly; the older boy went to a different school.
She opened the first door and popped her head in. No sign of Pippin’s unruly mop of black hair, and the kids there looked older than he was, anyway. She was closing the door by the time the instructor turned to see what the interruption was. “Sorry,” she called, and moved on to the next door. The next two classrooms also had no sign of Pip, but the children appeared to be getting younger. At the fourth door, she hit pay dirt.
About fifteen children of half a dozen races sat in the room, each quietly studying his or her lesson pad. A blond sebacean male, evidently the instructor, was bent down speaking to one of the children. Pippin was sitting near the back of the room, and she picked him out instantly. She let out a breath in relief, and then, unsure of what to do next, she stood there, half in and half out of the room, until one by one the children noticed her and stared. Pip cocked his head and frowned with curiosity, just like Aeryn did when she wanted to know what was going on.
The instructor turned an inquiring gaze on her.
It had been cycles since Chiana was a schoolgirl, but she remembered that haughtier than thou look all the same. It rattled her slightly, Hezmana only knew why, it wasn’t like she was a kid anymore, and she announced, “I’m here to pick up Arpella.” It came out more as a question than a statement, and she could have kicked herself, especially when the instructor narrowed his eyes and asked, “Who?”
Frell! What had possessed her to use the name she’d given him? It’s not like anyone around here called him that! “Pippin,” she amended, jerking her head towards her son. And then, just like that, she had a frelling brilliant idea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “His real name’s a secret, I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. You guys all forget you ever heard that, okay?” She bobbed her head at the other kids, who began to smile.
Less impressed, the instructor looked from her to Pippin and back again. The man crossed his arms and waited.
“No, really, I have to take him!” she said earnestly, waving her hand towards Pip. “He’s, he’s secretly a Prince of Dessia, yeah, Dessia, and he was hidden here for his own safety, but now we need him to save his people from the Evil Empire!”
The instructor’s eyes narrowed, but the children, including Pippin, were giggling. Chiana was sure none of them believed her for a microt, but, feeling relieved that Pippin was joining in the laughter, she continued to play to her young audience. “No? Well, uh, how about, how about, he’s gotta go to practice because he’s the starter in the rudek game tonight? If we don’t have him on our team, we’ll lose for sure! Pip’s our only hope!” She paused dramatically and added, “You don’t want us to lose, do you?”
“No!” the kids squealed, and Pippin pumped the air in “victory.”
The instructor, fascist that he was, told them to settle down, and then fixed Chiana with a glare worthy of her childhood instructors back on Nebari Prime.
She judged she’d dragged this out long enough. “All right,” she “admitted” reluctantly. She nodded towards Pippin again. “He needs to see a medic for an inoculation or something boring like that! His mom sent me to get him.”
“Did she give you his release token?”
Chiana blinked. Ah, frell. She’d been counting on being able to talk her way through this. “What?” she asked, stalling for time to think.
“I need his token to release him from class.”
“Ah, she must’a forgot I needed it.” Banking that the rule-bound frellnik was tired of having his class disrupted, she wheedled, “Look, can we just go? If I have to go all the way back and get some stupid chip, he’ll be late! We’ll bring the token when he comes back, okay?”
With a sigh, the instructor looked at Pippin. “Is that true, Pippin?” he asked. “Do you have an appointment?”
Apparently unsure what to say, Pip shrugged. He slid his eyes towards Chiana and she mouthed, “Say yes!”
She held her breath while he gazed at her for a microt, weighing his options. Then, eyes sparkling, he turned to his teacher with his most earnest, wide-eyed expression. “Yes, sir, it’s true. I forgot, but my mom told me about it this morning!”
With a sigh, the instructor gestured towards the door. “If you stop by the administrator’s office, you can sign out there,” he said. “Next time,” he added sternly, “be sure to get the token from his parents!”
While Pippin grabbed his gear and scurried up to the front of the room, Chiana clapped once and gave the jailer her best bulldren. “That’s great! We, we’re heading right there! Thanks!”
Once outside the classroom, she leaned over and whispered, “Keep quiet till we get out of this place, okay?” Pippin nodded conspiratorially, and scooted along right beside her down the hall and out the door. They stopped simultaneously and scanned the play area to make sure it was empty. “Three, two, one....” she counted down, and when she hit, “Go!” they raced across the play area, not stopping till they were outside of the school and the gate was locked behind them.
Standing on the sidewalk, the two of them bent over laughing with the sheer exhilaration of the escape. “So,” she said when she could finally talk, “Where do you want to go, Your Highness?”
Pippin’s unrestrained giggle was music to her ears.
* * * * * * * *
“Can we get neeva cakes?” Pippin asked eagerly.
Chiana restrained herself from groaning at the thought of the sickeningly sweet pastry. She should have guessed that Pip’s choice of amusement would involve food. Crichton said the boy had a hollow leg, a colorful saying she’d filed away in the back of her mind for future use, and he did seem to eat constantly. Unfortunately, his request only served to remind her that in leaving the house the way she had, she’d neglected to bring any currency – which was going to put a bit of a crimp in their good times. Frell! Of course, there were other ways of procuring treats besides paying for them, but she already knew that Pippin had been soundly indoctrinated against stealing. Well, against keeping what he snurched, anyway, which made it not such a good way of acquiring food, ‘cos you couldn’t eat food and then give it back....
As the silence stretched, Pippin must have figured out she didn’t have any cash, because he rolled his eyes and dug into his pack. He fished out a small handful of ceramic coins and held them out to her. “This should be enough for two cakes each!”
A better mom might have refused them, or at least apologized for taking his pocket money, but frell, you couldn’t party without a little cash, and she could replace his money when they got home! Chiana took the credits from him and shoved them in her pocket. “Thanks, kid! I’m good for it, you know that, right?”
He tilted his head sideways and examined her thoroughly, in a way that made her feel uncomfortably like he was the adult and she was the child. And then he broke into a large grin and nodded. “I know.” He grabbed her hand, tugging her in the direction of the commerce center that was within easy walking distance of the school they’d just escaped from.
The center was a big open air market with foods and specialty items from all the worlds in the sector, and some that were considerably further away. The merchants were as varied as their merchandise, which was displayed in everything from push carts to well-built permanent structures. On a
school day, as Aeryn had called it, most of the customers were adults, some with a narl or two in tow. Chiana had been here once or twice since her arrival, but she hadn’t done any real exploring. She just hadn’t been in the mood....
“This place is frelling huge!” she told Pippin, shaking her head, when he’d led them past several food stalls without even slowing. She dodged a slow-moving toddler. “How are we supposed to find these neeva cakes of yours, huh?”
“This way,” he said insistently, and she shrugged and followed him. After all, he was the native guide on this planet.
Several times her eyes were drawn to a rack of bright clothing or carefully-watched displays of jewelry, but this outing was for Pippin, not for her, and she pushed avaricious thoughts out of her mind. Still, she couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be little in the way of center-wide security – no cameras, no bouncers....
Pip stopped so suddenly that she nearly ran into him, and did some arm-waving to catch her balance. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” she said, cheerfully, and ruffled his hair.
He scowled, as he did whenever anyone did that, and then pointed to a cart loaded down with pastries. “See! Neeva cakes! This place has the best ones in the whole zocolo!”
Chiana scanned the area briefly. They were just off the central plaza, and not far from a collection of tables that seemed to be intended for the use of customers with food. The tables were shaded by brightly colored awnings, which was a good thing, because the sun was really shining down now. Some shade would be nice while they ate Pip’s choice of junk food.
She dug deep into her pocket and handed Pippin his own coins back. “Go buy what you want! I’ll get us a seat.”
Grinning from ear to ear, he scooted off to the cart. Chi watched him, grinning herself. He really had a spring in his step that was great to see! The vendor – an Ilanic, she noted, and that was near enough to Luxan to give her a quick pang of loss, even after so many cycles – didn’t see him immediately, and he hopped up and down a couple of times to attract the man’s attention. The vendor took his currency gravely and handed him a pair of disposable plates containing two pastries each. The boy made sure he had a good grip on the plates, and walked carefully over to the table.
“There,” he said gleefully, setting one plate down in front of Chiana, and the other in front of himself. He dug right in without waiting to see what she was going to do.
She picked up one of the two pastries on her plate between thumb and forefinger and examined it. Yep, it looked like what she had thought a neeva cake was: a layer of thin, spongy cake, spread with gooey filling, then rolled up into a cylinder. The whole thing was covered in a fruit-flavored glaze. Sticky, and sweet – and, she had to admit, exactly the kind of thing she had loved to eat when she was Pippin’s age. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she’d really outgrown this kind of stuff. She’d just taken a tentative bite when Pippin shoved the last of his first cake into his mouth.
When he finished chewing and swallowing, he picked up the second one and waved it at her triumphantly. “This is great! Thanks, Chimama! Mom never lets me have more than one!”
Aha, she thought, the perfect way to get rid of one of hers. “Well, since your mom’s not here, I think....I think you should have three!” She shoved her plate across at him, making a show of holding back the one that was still in her hand.
Pippin considered refusing for just a microt, but greed won out. “Thanks!” he mumbled with his mouth full.
They finished eating and washed their hands, and then got a drink to share as they walked along, looking for something interesting. A stall selling children’s toys caught Chiana’s eye, and she and Pip stopped to look at the offerings. The boy’s eyes lit up when he saw a heap of small toy spaceships. She would have liked to buy him one, but....they didn’t have any money. Ah, frell, he had lots of toys anyway. But, she could see his hands twitching. One thing she’d learned about him in the last few weekens was that he liked the thrill of snurching things. Crichton and Aeryn had clearly done all they could to discourage it, but it definitely hadn’t taken. That was one of the things Crichton had meant when he’d said, “We see you in him every day, and I don’t mean just because he’s gray!” Yep, he’d definitely inherited that from her, and she couldn’t help but be pleased!
Hmmm.... Remembering the lack of security, she had a sudden idea for a game. She pulled the kid across the street into a quiet place and whispered, “Hey, Pip! You think you can get one of those ships without getting caught?”
“I’m not supposed to snurch things,” he said, but she could tell by the longing look in his eyes that he wanted to.
“No, no, I get that!” she assured him. “It’ll just be a contest! You take something, and I’ll put it back. Then you pick something for me to take, and you can put it back! I bet we’re good enough we can take lots of stuff and no one will ever notice!”
His black eyes sparkled and his smile widened. “Deal!” he said, and gave her a high five. She watched while he scooted back to the stall. He pretended to examine some throwing sticks until the proprietor was distracted with another customer. Then he moved quickly –but not so quickly as to attract attention – and slipped one of the shiny spaceships into a pocket in his pack. He sidled back across the street with a barely-suppressed grin of triumph.
“Good job, kid!” Chiana said proudly. Fulfilling her part of the bargain, she made sure no one was looking and then took the ship from him and walked him back across the street. As they passed the stall she deftly slipped it back into the pile, no one the wiser. “Okay, now you pick something for me!” she said when they were in the clear.
Chewing on his lower lip, Pippin considered as they walked, looking with apparent casualness at the shops and stalls they passed. “That!” he said at last, nodding at a stall containing all manner of cosmetics in jars, bottles, and shiny boxes. “Something from there.”
“Right,” she agreed, and brought him with her while she checked it out. Since they weren’t going to keep it anyway, she picked out a pretty bottle of scent without regard to whether it was something she’d actually use. It was really too easy, because the proprietor was busy with something at the back of his stall. She slipped the bottle into her hand and then dropped her hand to her side, sliding the container partway under the edge of her sleeve and cupping the rest of it in her hand. From there, she rested her hand against her thigh, where the bottle was pretty much unnoticeable to casual scrutiny. Satisfied, she jerked her head down the street and said, “Come on, kid, let’s go see what they have at the next place, huh?”
The keeper of the cosmetics stall didn’t even turn around to make sure she wasn’t walking off with something. She checked over her shoulder just in case someone was watching or following, but they were clear.
Definitely too easy!
When they turned a corner, she extricated the bottle from her sleeve. She couldn’t resist taking a sniff just to see what it smelled like, but it was too flowery for her taste, and she stoppered it again and tossed the container to Pippin. He caught it deftly, and examined it with glee. “This is really drad!” he said, tracing the metallic design with his finger.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is pretty drad at that,” she said, adding a bit of a swagger when he looked up at her with shining eyes.
Take that, Aeryn! she thought with just a hint of malice. “So, go on, what are you waiting for? Put it back!”
He threaded his way confidently through the modest foot traffic, and she followed him at a discreet distance. He wasn’t tall enough to use her walk-by approach to returning the item, but he waited until the proprietor was distracted again, and simply reached up and put the bottle back on the display.
He scooted back to her, and when they cleared the corner again, he snorted. “That was too easy!”
Pleased that he understood their mark had been an easy one, she pointed out with a straight face, “Yeah, well, you picked him, didn’t’cha?”
“I didn’t know he was going to be as stupid as a werry! I woulda picked someone else if I knew!”
He was so indignant, she found it hard not to laugh, but she remembered how much she’d hated it when her sires had laughed at something she’d done or said because they thought it was “cute,” when she’d been deadly serious. So she distracted herself from chuckling by promising to try to find a more challenging target.
She upped the ante by choosing an actual enclosed store that made it harder to just fade into the crowd with their booty. Pip returned promptly with the ball she’d chosen, and she replaced it equally promptly. They continued down the road, popping in and out of stores, looking at carts and stalls, and taking and returning several more items smoothly, until disaster struck.
Pip had upped the ante yet again, by choosing an item from an actual enclosed store front, one with several minders instead of just one. Chiana removed the palm-sized jeweled trinket box from the premises with no problem. It was really beautiful, and she couldn’t help thinking that it wouldn’t hurt if they just kept this one thing, would it? But she could see Pippin beginning to frown, and she handed it over to him with a sigh.
She lurked in the doorway, keeping an eye on him to make sure he was alright. Just as he pulled the box out of his pack to slip it back on the pile, one of the shop minders turned around. Chiana watched with horror as the slegnot took two large steps across the room and grabbed Pip’s arm, pulling so hard that the boy had to stand on tiptoe to touch the floor. The box, unfortunately, was clearly visible in Pippin’s fist.
“Caught you, you little meega!” the man said in satisfaction.
Chiana’s heart caught in her throat, but she held herself back for a microt. Pip could bluff like the best of them, and she waited tensely, hoping he could talk his way out of this. “I was just looking at it! I was thinking about buying it for my mom!” Pippin screeched. “I have credits!”
The proprietor wasn’t having any of it. “You were stealing this!” he said, snatching the box from the boy’s hand and giving him a shake.
“Was not!” Pippin countered, his voice rising in what Chiana suspected was very real fear.
Furious with herself as much as the bully man-handling a six cycle old, she abandoned the doorway and strode into the room and gave the man a shove, hands planted firmly on his chest. “Hey, what are you doing with my kid? Get your hands off him!”
He let go of Pip’s arm, but declared, “I’m calling the garda!”
Aw, frell! That’s all they needed! When the man turned around to direct his partner to use the comms, she grabbed Pippin by the shoulders and spun him around, hissing, “Run for it, kid! I’m right behind you!” Pip didn’t need to be told twice, and the two of them were out the door before the outraged shopkeeper could react to their movement.
There was a lot of shouting behind them, as they ran and dodged their way into the maze of the marketplace. Apparently the law abiding citizens of this planet didn’t feel the need to interfere, because no one tried to stop them, even though the mark was bellowing about theft. Once again Chiana found herself following Pippin’s lead, while listening to the diminishing sounds of pursuit. At last they emerged back onto the regular streets. Her heart was pounding and her breath was coming hard when she finally signaled Pip to duck into a side street that was little more than an alley, and stop.
They bent over with their hands on their knees and breathed deeply, but the fact that they were both giggling with glee over having escaped made it hard to catch a proper breath.
Pip was facing in her direction, back the way they’d come, and abruptly he stopped laughing, and his eyes widened.
“Hello, Chiana,” came a familiar voice from behind her.
Frell! she thought with dismay.
* * * * * * * *
Author
