Solaris IV Part 2

"All right Nagor, we will scan the three closest planets. It's only been a week so she couldn't have gotten far."

"Yes sir, the three closest planets are Dorga, Sando and Irva."

"Give me a rundown."

"They gave the name Sando to illustrate the barren nature of the planet. Droga is like Earth, minus the species. In fact, it was the first colonized planet after the creation of the warp drive and Irva soon became home to the Golden Gordons." Amanda explains.

"Stupid name, start the scanners."

"Sir, Solaris didn't finish the repairs, it will take a few hours." Nagor says.

"Just get it done, I have to deal with my son."

"Yes, sir."

I get up from the chair, careful not to burn myself on the exposed copper wires coming out of the arm. The door creaks as I force it open, "You know, it'd be easier if you kept this open."

"I want to be alone."

"Come on, don't be like that…"

"Leave me alone."

"Your grandpa is probably worried about you Aiden."

"I don't care about him."

"I think you do." His bed sinks, the light catching the silver sheets.

"No. All he cares about is his honor. He hates you and he hates Mom for keeping me. Most of all he…" Aiden tears up, "he hates me. He hates the fact that I was born."

"He does not."

"I was sitting in that barrel for two days. He knew I was missing, but you didn't. Why?"

"Noone told me."

"Because he doesn't want you to know."

"Aiden. When we find your mother. We will hail your grandfather."

"And then what? Beam me back aboard? Because you don't love me either."

"You couldn't be more wrong Aiden. No one is going back on that station, the only beaming is probably bringing over Amanda's boyfriend and I love you more than you can imagine."

"Then why didn't you come get us earlier?"

"Because…"

"Exactly."

I sigh, "Because I had no ship. You're right about your grandfather hating me. When he found out that your mother was pregnant he ordered my ship to dust. I drifted for days in an escape pod until I came upon a station. I made friends there, got a job, finally got a ship. Well, half of a ship." This makes him laugh.

"Any closer to finding my mother?"

"We're waiting for the scans to come in." I spend more time with him, introducing him to tennis before Nagor walks in and says that the scans are in. Aiden runs ahead while Nagor and I briskly walk side by side to the bridge. She's silent as we walk, until she asks, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

"There is none."

"That's not good, whatever, what's the bad?"

"She's on Irva."

"Refresh my memory."

"Home of the Golden Goldons."

"Alliteration much? I've heard of them. When I was a pirate, they were a single ship and then moved to a full planet. What's their security like?"

"Irva is-"

"She's on what?" Our heads snap to the side to notice that Aiden had stopped running and was listening to our conversation.

"Irva is just a planet Aiden." Nagor tries to cover.

"No, it's not."

"What do you mean?"

"It's the home of the Golden Goldons. They tried to take Grandpa two months ago and now they've taken Mom."

I kneel to his level, "We'll get her back Aiden."

"No, you won't! No hostage ever comes back Irva!" He pivots and sprints off. Nagor lowers to slither like her other snake half but I stop her.

"Let him go." We walk the rest of the way in silence, I can feel Aiden following us but I say nothing.

"Hail George."

"Why?"

"Juna is on Irva."

"Shit. Hailing Solaris IV."

A female Goldon appears on screen, "Hello, thank you for calling Solaris IV. How can we help you?"

"We need to talk to George."

"He's in a meeting."

"We know where his daughter is."

"Forwarding your hail now."

"Thank you." The screen flashes to the council room, last time I was there I was learning my punishment for piracy.

"Hello again gentlemen."

"Where is she pirate?"

"See that's the thing. I'm not a pirate anymore but the people on Irva are and they just love taking important people."

"WHAT?"

"Chill George. If needed I'll go down there myself. Beam aboard so you can say hi to your grandson and discuss the next course of action." His eyes widen, accusing glances look his way.

"What? You kidnapped my grandson?"

"MY kid was sitting in a barrel for two days before anyone found him. Shut the hell up about being ignorant. You knew he when he left and, you did nothing. You have no right to call yourself his grandpa. You're lucky I'm letting you see him, asshole."

"I- I swear I didn't know he was missing."

"How do you not know your grandson is missing after a few days?" One of the council members says.

"Well, he's locked himself in his room for-"

"Shut up George! You're not my grandpa and you never will be. You hate me, you hate my dad and you hate that my mom had me, so just shut up and leave!"

"Like father, like son."

George gives me a death stare as he watches his political career take a massive hit before saying, "I will be there as soon as I can." The screen goes black.

A few minutes later I am regretting firing shots at him as he burns a hole in my head with his eyes, "What is the meaning of this Reegen?"

The regret, however, is washing away like sand on a shore and being replaced with anger, rage, hate, "This is about me being nice at the request of my son. If it were up to me, you and your entire station would be dead."

"Why are you so upset, you didn't care about him before."

"I made a promise before he was even born that I would return. I'm fulfilling that promise. Now follow me, my crew has outlined some solutions for getting her off of Irva."

"Take that monster with you when you leave, he's not even fully Goldon." Gritting my teeth I keep walking, making a sharp turn into the meeting room, I'll let Amanda have a field day.

"All right now that we are all-"

"Hold up. Let me get this straight you were only pretending to love him to get political advantage?" I gratefully stop so that Amanda can go ham.

"Yes."

"What is wrong with him?"

"He is not fully Goldon."

"I wasn't talking to you, geezer, I was talking to the captain."

"Everything is wrong with this man… everything. Geez, I mean George you can sit there, I sit here. Now that we are all in attendance I believe that Nagor had a solution."

"Do we have a word limit or…"

"No, if you can keep it to one word please do, and then explain."

"Always games with you. Ok, so word. Uh- war. Self explanatory right? Just go there and kill everything in sight, find Ree's girlfriend and then get back to the ship and let Solaris deal with them. Sorry George, but from what I've seen of you, I hate you. Sorry, not sorry."

"That is-" Amanda starts

"The greatest idea I have ever heard, Amanda you got anything better?" She glares at me for a bit before answering.

"I have two solutions, do you want the better or the worse?"

"You and I have very different definitions of those. Worse."

"We try to negotiate a trade deal with them. Something we have for Juna. Seems fair, but they might keep her and use her as a bargaining chip against Solaris, we can never be sure about that."

"Negotiating is not an option! These are not a peaceful people and Goldons hate negotiating. A bargaining chip is unlikely because it would spark a war." Nagor says

"Well then, why would they kidnap her?" Amanda counters

"Maybe to sell her as a slave, a highly valuable one at that."

"Ok, that's enough girls. Let's move on to Amanda's second solution."

"Humph."

"Right then, the next one is most likely going to be the Captain's favorite as it deals with him going down to the surface and being on the front lines."

"I like where this is going."

"It will be a little more dangerous than usual, however, because the rest of us will be up here in The United helping orchestrate an aerial attack."

"I love it."

"It is the most dangerous and only a daydream that we couldn't pull it off."

"Thank you, Amanda for detailing the reasons I love this plan."

"You can't think about going through with this Reegen!"

"I have to agree with her Captain. Despite the taste of adventure and fear in the air that I have gained, this is too much."

"Well, I believe that it is a great idea!" George pipes up

"Of course you do! You hate him."

"What? I do not!"

"Bullshit. And you know it. Now for the rest of you, it is my decision as to if I go down to the surface or not. I am still your captain and if after this mission you don't want to serve with me anymore I will end your contract, at your request, however we will do some kind of variation of Amanda's second plan."

"Wait what? I thought we were going with the first. What if we hit Juna?" George panics.

"If we hit Juna, I hit Nagor. But Nagor has never missed a shot."

"You don't use the computer?"

"The computer missed once. It was an air strike similar to this one, it got me kicked out of the Alliance Military."

"The Com Massacre."

"Yes. Nagor has never missed."

"And I don't plan to."

"You hit my daughter I will put a bounty on your head so high that nowhere is safe."

"Oh, shut up you, old fart."

"Nagor, chill."

"He needs to chill."

"Ok, let's say that you make it down there and all goes well. What about him?" Amanda jabs a finger toward George, "What if he messes things up?"

"He won't, because he'll be on the station."

"Reegen, what about your son?" Amanda asks

"What about him?"

"I'm sorry Nagor but you're not perfect. Noone is. If you miss and hit Reegen there goes all hope of ever getting Juna back alive. Adrien needs at least one parent. He's almost lost one, he need not lose another."

"He won't lose both, I trust in Nagor's aim."

"I'm not saying that Nagor doesn't have amazing aim, but she's bound to miss at some point. Everyone is."

"Even if Nagor's aim is perfect-again- the chance that we fail is high. They could easily kill you down there!"

"But they won't."

"But they could!"

"As much as I don't like you Reegen, my daughter loves you. I hate you, but a dead you is a distraught daughter."

"See, even George agrees that you shouldn't go down there. Their weapons are more powerful than ours."

"There are functional, carry weapons on the ship?" Nagor chimes in.

"Yes, but… well… they're… how do I say this?" Amanda stammers.

"Old. They're old. I thought they didn't work."

"Yes, so they malfunction."

"How old are they?" George asks

"Cut the shit Reegen. They were from his last job as a pirate, the one he didn't finish."

"Right back where we started ain't we Amanda?"

"Yes, the weapons in the cargo bay used to be a delivery to Irva. He knew what was Irva, Nagor. Because he used to be one of them."

"And now they are about to die."

"You were the weakest of them!" Amanda says

"I lied."

"What do you mean?"

"Leaders need adventure too. Or an escape. They think I'm dead."

"So what your saying is that you can go in undercover?"

"No. I don't even want to go down there in case they recognize me. They will try to get me back. If I went by my actual pirate name, we could have anything we want out of fear. No. I thought we could do the air strike and let her get to the surface so we can teleport her."

"I like that plan." George replies.

"Wow, the captain is doing something rational. All right."

"Nagor? Your thoughts?"

"I've got the aim."

"All right let's go."

George heads back to Solaris IV after he talks to Aiden.

"I love you Aiden."

"I'm just a pawn to you… George."

"At least call me Grandpa."

"You don't deserve it."

"I am older than you."

"And yet I have more honor."

"You little brat, you're right I don't love you. I never will." Aiden turns around to show that it doesn't affect him but I can see his eyes water.

George leaves the ship and I kneel to his level, "Are you going to be ok Aiden?"

"I knew he hated me."

"Come here." I let him cry into my shoulder for a few minutes before I carried him to the bridge where I ordered Nagor to head to Irva.

"Captain?" Amanda walks up to me as Aiden sleeps on my chest.

"Yeah?"

"Can I talk to you outside?"

"Of course."

I leave Aiden on my chair and follow Amanda out into the hallway.

"Are you sure about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nagor will chase her with a high powered, highly lethal laser. She could kill Juna."

"She wouldn't."

"But she could, if she twitches just a fraction of an inch Juna is dead."

"I know Nagor better than that, she wouldn't."

"Just- think about it." She turns on her heel and back into the bridge where she takes her seat on a pillow next to my chair.

I don't shut the door behind me as I place a sleeping boy on the other pillow before sitting down, "Sir, we have arrived at Irva." Nagor reports.

"Suggestions?"

"Attempt negotiations first?"

"Amanda?"

"Sounds logical."

"Open a channel, no visual."

"Yes, sir."

A Goldon in dark colors appears on the screen, "What is the meaning of this? Show yourself."

"We do not wish to. We only wish to retrieve Lady Juna and return to Solaris IV."

"You cannot have her."

"We will use force."

"So will we." The screen goes black and suddenly I'm reeling from the impact of a phase blast; they've gotten upgrades.

The ship settles and I call out, "Roll call!"

"Amanda."

"What?" Aiden comes to, confused.

"Nagor, roll call," No response, "Nagor?" I look beside me to see her unconscious on the ground, shit.

"Dammit." Amanda rushes past me to Nagor.

"Dad? Is she going to be ok?"

"She should be fine." I take deep breaths. Keep the secret. Keep it in. Keep it deep.

The Goldon appears on the screen again and says, "Any more issues you wish to discuss?"

"Amanda open visual."

"What? We should worry about Nagor!"

"Open visual. That's an order."

"Damn you Reegen." Despite her arguing she gets up and rushes over to open visual.

"Red?"

"Hello there."

"S-sir, I didn't know!"

"That doesn't matter, you have my girlfriend and now have knocked out a member of my crew. Not cool. Goodbye. Close channel."