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Armali, 2217
“We’ll just cut through the park again,” Thaia said to Aella as they walked through the Kepeia District’s typical light mid-morning crowd. While the box for their new model—the Limited Edition Parnitha Mass Relay with Real Eezo Glow!—rested on Thaia’s right shoulder fairly comfortably, she was eager to get home and start putting it together with her daughter.
“Are we going to sneak through?” asked Aella, who’d stayed on Thaia’s left and occasionally held her hand when the crowd had thickened closer to the shops.
Thaia frowned. “Why would we have to—oh, fuck. You’re right.” She set the box down in front of herself and activated her omni. “We’ve got bunch of other ways to get home but let’s find the second most optimal route since we’ve been denied the best one.” The incident in Guildhall Park had occurred less than an hour ago and she’d already forgotten because, honestly, it shouldn’t have been an incident at all. Nothing and no one had been harmed except apparently a matriarch’s delicate sensibilities.
Aella eyed the long rectangular box that stood taller than her. Way taller. Goddess, this build was going to be so much fun. “Is there real eezo in it or are they just boring blue lights that are supposed to look like eezo?”
“If there’s real eezo in it, there’s a chance we could accidentally make a working relay.” Thaia flicked off her omni. They’d cut behind the park through Palla Square, which also happened to pass by Armali Union’s practice complex. Perfect. She still scowled at the park entrance across from them. A shortcut through the park would’ve meant a ten minute head start on their model.
“Oh!” Aella smiled up at her and bounced on her feet. “That would be cool, too!”
“Yes, it would. Downside would be explaining to your mum why we have a functional mass relay in our living room that wasn’t there when she left this morning.” Thaia’s statement garnered a few curious looks from passersby, but she ignored them.
“That’s easy,” said Aella. “We just tell her the truth.”
“That might work, but I’m not sure anyone at the house would want to keep it there. Anyway, the list of contents is on your side so you can see for yourself if there’s eezo.” There was. Thaia had checked at the shop because actual eezo instead of tiny lights was a damn good feature at its price point.
One hand on the box, Aella scanned the list and then pointed. “Element zero!”
“Awesome!” Her kid being this excited about the model made Thaia even more excited.
When Thaia went to lift the box again, Aella darted between it and Thaia and shook her head. “I can do it by myself.”
Thaia raised an eyebrow. “You can?”
Aella set her jaw and nodded, signaling she’d found a new hill to die on and Thaia could argue with her about it at her own peril. Except Thaia didn’t see the harm in letting Aella’s stubborn little ass try to carry the box. They had all day and had already lost access to their shortcut, so another five minutes tacked on their travel time while her kid tried to carry a box literally twice her size was worth the wait. And the show.
In the end, Thaia shrugged. “Go for it.” The plasteel boxes were meant to take a beating, too, so it wasn’t like Aella could hurt the box if she dropped it or knocked it over. Due to the eezo content, the parts inside were especially well protected, so there was that.
It occurred to Thaia that she should make sure they weren’t expecting any non-asari guests at the house. Uncle Khel was on Illium at the moment, so warning him to take extra meds wasn’t a concern. But if, say, Harry or Karin were stopping by, better they take the bigger dose beforehand rather than risk immediate accidental eezo overexposure.
She checked the time. Good, Lexi was between practicals and a class. As Aella wrapped her arms around as much of the box as she could and attempted to lift it, Thaia called Lexi. Audio only. Best if Lexi didn’t ask extra questions.
Lexi answered almost immediately. “Did you and Aella enjoy your time at the park?”
Thaia narrowed her eyes. Going to the park had been a spontaneous thing because her lab time had been usurped by some other ‘more important’ project. Instead of bothering with battling over a stupid power move, she’d opted to take her kid to Guildhall Park for a pickup skyball game and whatever else they could find.
Unfortunately, ‘whatever else’ had turned out to be trouble, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence when Thaia and Aella went places without, as Sula called it, ‘adult supervision.’ But wasn’t that Thaia didn’t want Lexi to know what they were up to. It was because Lexi had been in a practical and Thaia hadn’t wanted to disturb her unless there was some kind of incident that required her help. If not, Thaia would simply tell her the entire story when she got home. Or someone else would’ve told her before she even got home because Thaia and her family knew way too many people in this part of Armali.
Also, Aella had successfully scaled the monument to Matriarch Atapalai and her reward had been been them getting booted from the park and banned for the rest of the week and ‘maybe you should teach your child some decorum during that time.’
First of all, Thaia was pretty sure that the matriarch who’d had the tits to go out and find the first relay and then used the fucking thing within days because ‘fuck sitting around on my ass and being cautious like the rest of you’ would be completely fine with a kid climbing a statue dedicated to her. Cheer her on, even.
Second of all, Thaia had wanted to see if Aella could get all the way to the top because it was pretty fucking high up. Then Aella had reached the top and Thaia had been too busy being proud as fuck to chase her down before a cluster of matriarchs got their panties in a twist over it.
So, to help them feel better after getting unjustly banned from the park for a week, Thaia and Aella had gone to the hobby shop. And now they felt better.
“Yes,” Thaia said to Lexi. “We did.”
Aella tried cramming a foot under the box. She immediately winced and went another route, trotting over to one of the trees lining the walkway. Little purple flower petals drifted down around her when she bumped into the trunk instead of stopping of her own volition like a normal person. Then she grabbed a good-sized stick, held it aloft and, with the petals still swirling around her, ran back.
Lexi sighed. “I suppose I should be grateful no one was hurt.”
“I don’t know, Matriarch Agera got all worked up about a scuff mark on the statue. Maybe someone should examine her for a heart condition.”
“That mark was there before!” said Aella, working the stick under the box for leverage.
“It was.” Thaia shrugged even though Lexi couldn’t see her. “Anyway, I called to see if Harry was visiting Thessia and I didn’t know or if Karin was coming over at any point today.”
“I don’t believe so. Do I want to know why?”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“Do I need to know why?”
“We’re fine, I promise. We just wanted to be sure. Okay, have a fun class, love you, bye!”
“Bye!” Aella echoed without interrupting her battle with the box.
Thaia ended the call before Lexi could interrogate either of them because Lexi was unfairly good at it. Plus, neither Thaia nor Aella could lie to save their lives.
Thaia turned to her daughter, who’d given up on the stick and was now using all of her might to push and drag the box.
Successfully. Shit, her kid was strong. Freakishly strong, according to Celaeno. However, it was slow going and Thaia was admittedly excited about putting the model together with Aella. Sooner rather than later. And she hadn’t bargained on her kid being this fucking stubborn and being able to move the box enough where they were actually making forward progress.
Incremental forward progress.
“You sure you don’t want help?” Thaia asked.
Aella stopped, put her hands on her hips, and glared up at Thaia. “I can get it!”
“Okay, okay.” Thaia held up her hands in surrender. “I won’t ask again.” She also had to hide a laugh because for all Aella shared a similar bone structure to Thaia, that fucking glare had been all Lexi. Seeing it on someone so small was funny as fuck.
The next twenty-seven minutes—Thaia kept track—were spent with Aella grumbling and grunting as she pushed and pulled the box along the strip of sidewalk leading from the Kepeia District to Palla Square. During that time, Thaia also drew several amused or annoyed looks from onlookers and, really, the annoyed ones could just fuck off. Obviously, they’d never had to deal with spectacularly stubborn child. In the stone-paved area outside the complex’s entrance, the sharp scent of ozone hung in the air. Thaia couldn’t hear the snaps of biotics or shouting that accompanied playing, so practice must’ve been over for the day.
As Aella stopped to catch her breath and Thaia silently wished she’d just give up and let her carry the box, members of Armali’s team began exiting through the complex gates, some pausing to sign autographs for enthusiastic younger fans. From behind a couple clusters of sizable backfielders emerged a comparatively pint-sized player whom Thaia and Aella immediately recognized.
Fejla Na’vis, who’d been their reliable source of skyball tickets for almost seven years; who’d obtained a pass for Thaia to attend a one week long pro-level skyball camp a month before Aella was born; and who, along with Harry, was Lexi’s best friend of decades.
The only reason Thaia hadn’t known about Fej during the two years she was being a dumbass about Lexi was because Fej was a pro player for Armali Union, Thaia’s favorite skyball team ever, and Lexi had—rightly—suspected that Thaia would react with an undue amount of enthusiasm should she ever meet Fej.
She had. But during the months before Aella had been born and especially after their unintentionally galaxy-spanning misadventure shared with Nef, a black-market body part, and a stack of ancient krogan data-readers, they’d become excellent friends. And Thaia had stopped being a completely over-enthusiastic fan.
With the exception of playoffs.
“Auntie Fej!” Aella abandoned the box and sprinted toward Fej, practically slamming into her for a hug and almost smashing Fej’s nose with her forehead in the process. Luckily, Fej was able to dodge the head blow.
Shit, if Aella’s forehead was a threat to Fej’s nose, that meant she was already catching up to Fej in height. Thaia did her best not to laugh. It wasn’t fair that Aella was on the ridiculously tall side for an asari six-year-old and Fej was on the decidedly small size for an asari adult. Given another few years, Aella would probably be able to look her in the eye.
“What’ve you got there?” Fej asked, pointing at the box after Aella let go.
“We got a model relay!” Aella ran back to the box and demonstrated her dragging technique. “Look, I can carry it by myself!”
After observing Aella move the box a whole-ass third of a meter in five minutes, Fej placed her duffel bag on the grass and smiled. “Wow, it’s bigger than me! I bet you’re excited to get it home. Do you want some help carrying it? I’m going in the same direction for a bit, so I don’t mind.”
Thaia waited for the ‘determined Lexi glare’ to appear on Aella’s face like it had when she’d offered to help.
It fucking didn’t. Instead, Aella grinned and said, “Yes, please!”
“What the fuck,” Thaia said, mostly under her breath.
When Fej stood next to her, Aella looked between her and the box and back again. Then she scratched her chin and did it again. After a third time, she said to Fej, “I bet I can pick you up.”
Fej opened her mouth, closed it, and then after thinking it over for a moment, shrugged. “You know what? Give it a try.”
Aella immediately crouched and grabbed Fej around the knees.
Fuck, she’d figured out the best method to pick up someone bigger than her. She might actually do it. Thaia hurriedly activated her omni. This needed to be recorded for posterity.
After setting her feet, Aella lifted with all her tiny might. Face flushed a darker blue and her legs trembling with the effort, Aella got Fej a good ten or so centimeters off the pavement before she lost her balance and fell backwards. Fej, possessing the body awareness and quick reflexes of a pro ballplayer, flipped in the air and landed on her feet while catching Aella with biotics the same time.
“I did it!” Aella announced, triumphantly raising her arms in the air.
The startlingly large audience they’d collected during Aella and Fej’s stunt gave the two a round of applause.
Thaia had the best kid in the entire fucking galaxy.
“That was hard,” said Aella, shaking out her arms. “I don’t think I can carry the box the rest of the way home.”
Fej gave the top of Aella’s crest a fond rub. “I’ll still help you.”
“Good, because Daddy didn’t help me on our way here.”
Okay, maybe not the best kid.
“The fuck,” Thaia said, loud enough for the others to hear. Then she decided not to remind Aella that she’d declined help lest she provoke Aella’s independence again. Instead, she welcomed Fej’s help, including when Fej had to split away from them to head to her place, but somehow got Aella to agree to accept Thaia’s help in her stead.
No one had been home when they’d finally gotten there, so after grabbing water and snacks, Thaia and Aella had quickly claimed the living room on the main floor—the biggest continuous open area in the house—and gone straight to work. If they were far enough in by the time someone else got home and could object, they still couldn’t be ousted from their mini-shipyard until they were done piecing together the model.
For a while, things went along swimmingly. As members of their family started arriving home by ones and twos, no one even commented, much less objected. The list of problems from the day slowly faded and they settled in.
Then Aella asked, “How many of me long do you think the model is?”
Thaia, sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor, didn’t look up from piecing two gyroscope curves together. “I dunno.”
“Can I measure?”
“Yeah, just use your arms since your arm span is roughly the same as your height.”
“Okay.”
Ten seconds later, Aella said, “Daddy?”
“Yeah?” The fucking gyroscope was harder to align than Thaia had assumed and, just like on actual relays, it had to be perfect or it would fall apart. Or fall apart and then blow up. This model had real eezo in it, so blowing up wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
“I think I need help.”
There was enough of a thread of worry in her kid’s voice that Thaia looked up.
Aella had one arm extended along the relay’s long lower barrel and the other arm extended toward the ring side. Said arms were also so close to the relay that there was a possibility they’d touched the still-drying adhesive.
“Is your arm part of the model now?” Thaia kept the please say no to herself.
Aella lightly pulled her arm away from the model. Well, tried. It didn’t move much before she grimaced. “Maybe.”
Fuck.
Thaia studied her daughter, entire left arm stuck to the relay’s lower fork and part of her right affixed to the ring, and then attempted to calculate exactly how much skin was attached to the model. Then it occurred to her that, while the dissolver was safe for use on skin, the amount of dissolver required to detach Aella from the model might be dangerous.
Fuck.
“Hold on, I have to message your mum about the adhesive remover.” Thaia held in a sigh and activated her omni, hoping Lexi wouldn’t believe she needed to come home, but knowing Lexi would probably insist on it within ten seconds of starting their conversation. At least it would only be the tail-end of a class she’d have to bail on. Still, Thaia felt bad whenever Lexi left for reasons that included her and Aella when said reasons could’ve been avoided. Then again, it was hard to predict your kid getting whole limbs stuck to models.
“But you know how to use it,” said Aella, puzzled right before turning accusatory. “You had to use it on your finger last month when we built the turian fighter.”
Thaia looked at her through the holodisplay. “One, it wasn’t my fault that Eirian bumped the table and I caught the nose cone. Two, this is about you being stuck, not me. Three, even if it was about me, I’ve never had to unstick an entire limb from a model before.”
Aella’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Goddess, she didn’t have to look that fucking surprised. “I know, I’m shocked, too. Now hang on, I need to message her.”
Ha, she’d told her to hang on.
> Babe, is there an amount of skin-safe adhesive remover that can be dangerous?
Lexi answered within five fucking seconds. Five. Might’ve been a new record.
> Please tell me no one’s ingested any.
> No accidental poisonings. I meant when using it properly, but the skin area is more than usual.
> How much more?
> A whole arm and maybe a third of an arm. Kid-sized arms, though. Not adult arms.
> I’m coming home.
There it was.
> It’s fine. I just wanted to make sure the remover won’t be absorbed by her skin and make her hallucinate or something.
> It’s not a hallucinogen and you need to wait until I get home to separate her from—what is she stuck to?
> Part of a mass relay.
> You brought home a piece of a mass relay?
Goddess, she’d brought home part of a prototype one fucking time and her entire family still hadn’t let it go.
> No, the prototype materials are at the lab. This is a model.
> I need to see a picture so I know the scope of what I’m dealing with. And if I’ll need anything I don’t have in my medkit there.
> Give me a minute.
Thaia held up the omni. “Smile for your mum!”
Aella full-on grinned. “Make sure to tell her I’m fine! This would be fun if I could move more.”
“If you could move more, you wouldn’t be stuck and we wouldn’t be messaging your mum.” Thaia sent the holo to Lexi.
> See, she’s fine.
> How big is this model?
> About two Aellas long. She was trying to measure it, coincidentally.
> I’m on my way. Don’t try before I get there. Give me fifteen minutes.
> We really are fine.
> Fifteen minutes.
Whenever Lexi repeated how long it would be before she got home, it meant she was already on her way. There wasn’t a point to protesting after that.
> Love you too, babe.
Thaia looked up at Aella. “So, we’ve got fifteen minutes. Want to keep building? You’ll mostly be holding things until you can use your arms again. Oh, maybe we’ll keep you like this. You’d make a good coatrack.”
“No!”
“A sign outside the roller coaster in that theme park on the Citadel saying ‘you must be this tall to ride the attraction.’ Your arm’s just the right height for it.”
“No!”
“I guess you’re stuck being part of a mass relay model until your mum gets home. Any longer and I might have to move you to the lab.”
“Daddy!”
She sounded so fucking offended that Thaia gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m kidding.”
She smiled back, offense gone. “Okay.”
Well, if she’d gone back to normal that fast, then she hadn’t been offended in the first place, and so Thaia would keep going. “I mean, I can’t get into the lab right now anyway.”
“Daddy!” Her little laugh at the end undermined her outrage, though.
Thaia surveyed the parts arrayed on the living room floor. “Fine, you read the directions and tell me what piece is next.”
It took Lexi almost her entire hurried walk from the classroom to the public tram to convince herself not to worry. She wouldn’t be able to shed the concern entirely, from a medical or personal perspective. Worry was what she didn’t need to do. Aella had appeared perfectly healthy—aside from her predicament—and the adhesive wouldn’t harm her skin beyond a mild contact rash. The remover wouldn’t hurt, either, but caution was a best practice when using that much of it. There had been a conciliatory subtext to Thaia’s messages, as well. Lexi knew Thaia didn’t like interrupting her while at school or the hospital, and Lexi appreciated the attempts, but the stark reality was that Aella was far too much like her father had been as a child. And so, wherever Thaia and Aella went, mischief followed, their constant companion.
Lexi loved them with all that she had, but the sheer amount of worry they could induce in a person could be frustrating.
As she waited at the sparsely populated stop for the next tram, Matriarch Indah, Thaia’s mother and Aella’s grandmother, joined her. Heart rate rising, Lexi reflexively checked the time. If there was a true emergency, Lexi wouldn’t have been the only one summoned, and—
“I just finished teaching a seminar,” said Indah. “Beyond the usual, there is nothing to worry about.” A glint of humor sparkled in her eyes. “However, Sula did send me a delightful picture of an Elen-inspired decorative piece.”
Elen, the asari goddess of chaos in the old pantheon. That meant the picture had been of Aella and the model mass relay.
Since Sula worried more than the rest of the family combined—as long as one were to leave Thaia, swiftly following in her father’s footsteps, out of the equation—if anything was actually wrong, she would be making frantic calls via omni. Knowing that Sula was already home and gleefully sending pictures of her youngest granddaughter’s current plight instead did help in lessening Lexi’s concern. Yet, it also served to illustrate the remarkable difference between Sula and Indah’s reactions when it came to the many capers of their children. Thaia, in particular.
Even now, serenity surrounded Indah, and it couldn’t be entirely attributed to her being a matriarch.
Lexi resisted a sigh. “You wouldn’t think she’d be this happy while literally stuck in one place.”
“Her ebullience informs all that she is and does, whether at rest or in motion, her happiness irrepressible.” Indah tilted her head to the side. “Exhausting as that may be to those charged with her care. In fact, throughout the day, I was inundated with pictures from friends and acquaintances who happened to catch one aspect or another of Thaia and Aella’s morning adventure.”
“As was I,” said Lexi. “I was surprised that they were banned from the park. Aella’s behavior wasn’t particularly egregious.” The statue had stood for thousands of years. An asari child whose biotics hadn’t even reached a tenth of their potential surely wouldn’t be able to damage it.
“Their banishment from Guildhall Park was unwarranted. However,” Indah said, both pride and amusement present, “without Agera’s overreaction, we wouldn’t have the thorough display of Aella’s stubborn nature or the image of a child lifting up an adult skyball player. In addition, Thaia climbed the same statue around the same age without repercussion, aside from the considerable worry within Sula that grew with every centimeter Thaia ascended.” Then affection overtook her voice with such strength that it was almost tangible. “She does worry so. But with both of us present, Thaia was perfectly safe.”
Indah weathering Thaia’s impulsivity and Sula’s anxiety simultaneously was a feat in of itself, in Lexi’s opinion.
Once they had boarded the tram and it was zipping its way from the University District to its next stop, Lexi asked, “How did you deal with it? Thaia insists you were always calm.”
In the western light of the setting Parnitha, Lexi caught Indah’s small, ready smile. It was much like Thaia’s, only Indah’s was a reflection of equanimity where Thaia’s was roguish. “There was a lot of frustrated screaming into pillows after she fell asleep.”
Her answer was given so evenly that it took a moment for Lexi’s surprise to catch up. “Truly?”
“There were times.”
Lexi sighed. If Indah had encountered that much difficulty in raising Thaia to adulthood, it didn’t bode well for her own ability with Aella.
“Don’t fret,” said Indah. “Aella’s inherited some of your sensibility. There is hope for her and you. Thaia, however.” Indah audibly sighed, surprising Lexi yet again. “Elen prolonging her protection is our best hope.”
Strangely, Indah’s forthrightness in how even she wasn’t always as unflappable as she appeared did help. It bolstered Lexi’s own confidence in her ability to deal with the situation waiting at home, and perhaps a few of the new situations that would inevitably crop up in the future.
They continued speaking amiably for the rest of the trip, further easing Lexi’s anxiety and frustration. When they stepped through the doorway of the family home, she felt refreshed. To save time, Lexi fetched her medkit before she went to find her bondmate and their daughter. Indah kindly laughed, wished Lexi luck, and then disappeared down the hallway.
Lexi braced herself and entered the living room.
“Hi, Mum!” Aella said as soon as she saw Lexi standing in the entryway. Despite her arms stretched lengthwise along the lower half of the partially-assembled model, she was as bright and happy as could be. “Look at our relay!”
“Is that what this is?” asked Lexi, carefully stepping over a stack of unassembled pieces. There was a rather alarming amount of them, which Lexi chose to ignore for the time being.
Thaia was positioning a sticker directly on Aella’s nose. The task was proving difficult because Aella was giggling, moving not just her head, but the entirety of her body that wasn’t affixed to the model. It was how Aella was, throwing her entire self into whatever she was doing, so much like her father did. Whenever Aella squirmed and threw off the positioning of the sticker, Thaia frowned, which only made Aella laugh harder.
Lexi loved watching the two of them together.
“Swear to the goddess there’s a step that says ‘glue your six-year-old daughter to the lower barrel,” said Thaia, bopping Aella once on the nose after finally attaching the sticker. “No complaining. Your face is blocking where the sticker’s supposed to go, so on your face it is.” Thaia looked over her shoulder at Lexi. “I still say she’d make a good coatrack, though.”
“No!” said Aella, wriggling her nose in a futile attempt to dislodge the metallic grey sticker.
Lexi gave up on keeping her composure and laughed. “It would be easier to keep an eye on her.”
Aella gasped. “Mum, no!”
“You needn’t look so betrayed,” Lexi said, setting the medkit down next to her as she bent to kiss Aella on the forehead. Then she began assessing exactly how much of Aella’s skin was glued. “I wouldn’t let you stay like this forever. I wouldn’t be able to hug you anymore.”
“Not with that attitude you wouldn’t,” said Thaia, kneeling and clearing space around the model and the low table that had been coopted to serve as its base. Then she frowned and flattened onto her stomach, reaching under the table and grabbing an errant skyball. Grinning, she tossed the ball between her hands. “Imagine her trying to play skyball like this.”
“I’d probably knock someone out,” said Aella, disheartened. “Then they couldn’t play.”
“I meant you’d be the goal.” Thaia softly chucked the ball over Aella’s head through the empty ring where a mass relay’s gyroscope would have been.
“Daddy!”
Suppressing another laugh, Lexi retrieved the medical-grade adhesive remover. Then she carefully began the process of separating her daughter’s arm from the model.
“Are we going to ruin it?” Aella asked after Lexi eased free her right shoulder. Her left arm would take longer.
“No,” Lexi said. “This is the same as any other time, just on a larger scale. You’ll have to check the integrity of the build, however, once you’re free. If it collapsed, I don’t think I could withstand the tears.”
“I don’t think I’d cry if that happened.”
Lexi glanced in Thaia’s direction. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about your father.”
“Hey! It happened one time and do you know how limited that edition of the Alliance flagship is?” Thaia, back on her feet and tube of glue in hand, gestured toward the wall-mounted model in question. “We were two pieces away from finishing it and that spider snuck up on me! It had it out for that model, charging at me until I ran backwards and pushed it over.”
“Maybe it wanted to play on the ship,” Aella said.
Thaia sighed.
The last of the adhesive dissolved, freeing Aella’s body once more. She jumped in place and clapped. “I’ll go wash my arms now!” Then she bounded out of the room so quickly Lexi would swear she felt a wind against her cheeks.
After packing her supplies away in the medkit, Lexi stepped back to ascertain the actual size of the model relay. Goddess, it took up so much space it could rival the statue on the Citadel. Lexi fired an accusatory look at her bondmate. “Did you get one this large because you aren’t allowed within fifty meters of the Relay Monument?”
“Of course not.”
Since Thaia had answered without making eye contact, Lexi raised a brow and waited.
It didn’t take long for Thaia to feel the forming glare. When she finally looked at Lexi, Thaia had a lopsided half-smile on her face. She also had a stray reflective sticker on her cheekbone, along with a second on her bare bicep. “It just isn’t the same without a ten story fall, a mild concussion, a dislocated shoulder, a hot doctor to fix me up, commando squadmates with questionable amounts of enthusiasm, a bar, pain medication, and curiosity.” As she’d spoken, Thaia had gotten within arm’s reach.
Lexi removed the sticker from Thaia’s cheek. When she went to do the same with the one on Thaia’s arm, she was distracted by the muscles on display. She traced the slight curve that divided the biceps and triceps. “I do like this shirt on you,” she found herself saying.
“You like it even more off me.” Just to make her entirely correct statement all the more infuriating, Thaia flourished it smirk.
Instead of encouraging her further, Lexi plucked the other sticker from Thaia’s arm and showed it to her.
Thaia dismissed it in favor of leaning forward and whispering against Lexi’s crest, “That wasn’t a no.”
Already, Lexi could hear the stomping of their daughter’s sprinting feet as she approached the living room. “Later.”
With that, Thaia shot her a knowing smile. Then it changed when they heard Aella rounding the corner, broadening to the brilliant smile she got whenever she saw Aella. Thaia spun and greeted Aella the moment she bolted into the room. “Are your hands dry?”
Aella’s head drew back in offense. “Yes.” Though, Thaia’s question was justified. Aella had forgotten once and the result had been a ruined sticker set that left her glum for hours.
“Good.” Thaia put a hand on Aella’s shoulder. “Let’s say we finish this thing.”
“Wait!” Aella scooted out of Thaia’s grip, used a slide-step to get in front of her, and then trained pleading eyes on Lexi. “Will you help? Please?”
When Thaia added a pleading look of her own, Lexi couldn’t possibly have been expected to say no. So she agreed, and within the span of a couple hours, ended up narrowly avoiding gluing herself to the repaired and nearly-complete model. To lessen the chance of another near-miss, Lexi moved to the tips of the two barrels, assigned the job of painting thin shadows that would add depth. Aella stood behind the ring on the far end of the relay. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she used a fine-tipped brush to apply dabs of quick-drying reflective paint. Thaia stood on the opposite side of the ring, jaw set as she inserted the wiring for the mass effect field emitters that would eventually hold the gyroscope in place.
“Want to know a secret?” Thaia loudly whispered to Aella, a tiny wire clamp held between her fingers.
“What?”
“It’s a serious one. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Yes!” In the rush to defend herself, Aella oriented her paintbrush vertically and looked at Thaia through the ring. In the process, a few flecks of silvery paint landed on her forehead.
The laugh shining in Thaia’s eyes gave away that she’d noticed, but she didn’t tell Aella. “All right.” Thaia made a show of checking around the room and then leaned a little closer. “I love your mum more than mass relays.”
Aella gasped. Meanwhile, Lexi was both touched that Thaia admitted the strength of her love out loud, yet somewhat dismayed that Aella believed Thaia’s love to be the other way around.
“There’s more.” Thaia until Aella leaned in again to stage-whisper another secret. “I love you more than the Destiny Ascension.”
Another gasp, and this time Aella covered her mouth with both hands, paining a stripe of silver over one of her eyebrows. Lexi muffled a laugh.
“There’s more,” Thaia said.
Aella went back.
“And I would gladly throw your Aunt Meir through an unexplored relay. Fortunately for her, it’s against council law to activate new relays without prior authorization.”
“Daddy!” Aella said through a burst of laughter.
“And you started out so well,” said Lexi, sharing a warm smile with Thaia that didn’t convey nearly enough of her true appreciation. Perhaps her promise of later would provide the opportunity.
They were finished soon enough, the gyroscope and its mass effect field the final pieces to be added. However, when Thaia examined the field emitters for installation, she declared their containment measures insufficient. She sighed and returned the minuscule components to their small box.
“Can you fix them?” asked Aella, turian fighter model clutched in one hand as she watched Thaia examine the box the model had come in.
“Oh, yeah, easy. But I need to do it in the lab, so I can’t until tomorrow.” Thaia was now crouching behind the box. “I’m just looking for the manufacturer’s contact information.”
“Whew, good.” Hefting the fighter over her shoulder, Aella stood back and admired the relay. Or at least that’s what Lexi thought she was doing right before Aella drew her arm back and threw the fighter. Right as it exited the relay’s ring, Indah strode into the room on a course for the bookshelves. Lexi braced for the inevitable hit, Thaia swore, and Aella said, “Oh, no!”
On her part, Indah didn’t deviate from her chosen path, fluidly dodging the projectile. She caught it behind her back as easily as if it was a perfectly normal thing for someone to do. She gently deposited the model in Aella’s hands, gave her shoulder a squeeze, retrieved a book, and then exited.
“What just happened?” Thaia asked, looking over the top of a box so tall that it sat right below her her eyes.
“Amma did!” said Aella, a note of wonder in her voice as she bolted to the model’s box. “The fighter was going to hit her in the face but she dodged it and then caught it and she didn’t even stop walking!”
Used to her mother’s extraordinary reflexes and grace, Thaia accepted the answer without need for further explanation. She stepped out from behind the box. “I’d question why the ship was in the air in the first place, but my guess,” she said, crouching to Aella’s height, “is that you tested the relay.”
She nodded.
Thaia lightly tapped the turian fighter in Aella’s hand. “You got lucky that time. So, no more unannounced trips through the relay. You have to communicate with it first, like real ships do.”
“Okay.” Aella trotted over to the relay and began a new close study before asking, “Can people go through relays?”
“People go through relays all the time.”
“Just a person going through it. Well, in a hardsuit since they’re in space.”
“I don’t see why not. Part of the protocol for going through involves giving the relay your mass and transit destination, so as long as you give it your correctly calculated mass when you transmit your destination, you should be fine.”
“Has it been tested?” Aella circled the relay, taking in the entire model. Lexi headed over to that side of the room, just in case the ship somehow ended up on another speedy flight path toward the entryway.
“I don’t know,” Thaia said, the holodisplay of her omni springing to life. “But now you’ve got me curious. There’s got to be journal articles about it somewhere.”
Aella nodded and then muttered something under her breath, her gaze distant. Likely, she was solving a problem in her head. It was the same look of deep concentration Lexi often saw Thaia wearing when working through a challenge and it warmed her heart each time. Even now, Thaia’s expression was a mirror of her daughter’s as she skimmed through a journal article she’d pulled up. Lexi made a note to herself to have her forward it later. She had to admit to some curiosity of her own about the biological effects resulting from a nearly unprotected trip through a relay—categorized by species, of course—
Suddenly, Aella was diving, with perfect form, through the relay’s ring.
It seemed to happen in slow motion, Sula stepping into the room as Aella spiraled through the air, Sula’s trip cut short by an elbow slamming into her eye. The impact sent Sula reeling backward as Aella plummeted to the floor, Sula impressively recovering enough to grab Aella with biotics and soften her landing. Except Thaia reacted at nearly the same speed, her pull colliding with Sula’s dissipating stasis as Aella squeaked and rolled away. With her daughter and the relay safely behind her, Lexi formed a barrier of her own between them and the inadvertent detonation. Thaia and Sula, former commandos both, could handle themselves against an explosion that small, while potential debris from a shattered mass relay model could harm Aella. But a new stasis suddenly surrounded the shockwave, rendering it to nothing more than a light show followed by a muffled whump.
Thaia frantically looked at the other half of the room, her shoulders visibly relaxing when she saw Lexi and Aella perfectly fine. Then she even smiled when she looked behind them to see an intact relay model. She grinned. “Babe, you’re the best!” Then she turned to Sula. “Was that second one yours? I thought—”
“You’re welcome,” Safira called from the corridor. “I’ll go fetch an ice pack.”
“Granddad!” Aella leapt to her feet and ran over to Sula. “Are you okay? I think I hit you pretty hard. Your eye’s turning weird colors. Looks kinda cool, though.”
“You got me good, kid, but I’ll heal,” Sula said to her. Then she tenderly prodded at her eye and grimaced. It was already visibly swelling. If not properly tended to, she would have a fully black eye within hours.
Wincing internally, Lexi picked up the medkit she’d brought with her and walked over. “Here, let me have a look at it.”
Aella’s frown of concern only partially lessened, her focus on Sula’s face. “Why didn’t you catch me like Amma did the fighter ship? Then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
Sula rolled her good eye. “One day you’ll learn that not all of us possess that level of goddess-given reflexes. Now, why were you flying?”
“Testing the relay!” In case Sula could have possibly failed to see the relay taking up nearly a third of the room, Aella swept her arms toward it.
Thaia straightened from where she’d been examining the floor for damage, features hardened enough to effectively convey her dismay. “Aella T’Perro, what did I say about communicating your mass and transit destination with the relay first?”
“I did!” Aella’s chin quivered a little even as she stood her ground. She never dealt well when she thought her father was disappointed in her behavior. However, Lexi knew Thaia equally disliked moments like this from her side, even though Thaia did agree that limits needed to be enforced, especially where safety was concerned. But it always left them both pitifully mopey afterward. “It isn’t my fault you didn’t hear me!”
“Shit, is that what you were mumbling about?” Barely had Aella started to nod when Thaia scooped her up and wrapped her in a hug, offering a quiet apology for the misunderstanding.
Lexi wasn’t sure which of them looked more relieved.
“So what destination did you give?” Thaia asked, Aella still in her arms as she returned to the relay.
“The kitchen,” said Aella, climbing down. “I’m hungry.” Then she took off, grabbing the fighter from the couch on the way and making engine noises as ran down the hall.