“Belix told me she'd already started creating a construct, that it, he, was in a nutrient vat undergoing accelerated growth at that very moment, and would be fully grown and available to begin serving on the crew in about two years.” He grimaced. “It wasn't an immediate solution to my crew attrition like I'd hoped, don't know why I even expected it would be, and honestly the entire project was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. So a few months later I told her to finish this construct and make that the end of it.”
Aiden smiled bitterly and glanced over at Ali, who looked back with an expression of supportive sympathy. “The next time I was feeling frisky and headed down to the engine room to be intimate with her, she shot me down. Told me that if I didn't want any more constructs then there wasn't much point to frequent sex, and the only other reason to do it would be for recreation, which she wasn't in the mood for at the moment. She was miffy about the entire thing, mad that I'd canned her sick construct project.”
“And to be honest, once the realization of what she was saying sank in I was more than a little pissed myself.” He still remembered how he'd felt when he discovered what the construct growing in the vat really was. Who he was.
Turning away to hide the fresh surge of fury he couldn't suppress, he continued in a growl. “No, that's an understatement. She'd just casually admitted she'd conceived my son without my permission, screwed with his DNA, was accelerating his growth so he'd be an adult in under two years, and planned to turn him into an emotionless mentally conditioned super crewman.”
Aiden clenched his fists in his lap. “I don't think I've ever been so furious, and I let her know it. That pretty much ended the relationship, and left things between us about like you see them now. I would've kicked them right off my ship if I could've spared them.”
Ali finally left her seat and came over to sit beside him. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing his head comfortingly to her soft shoulder. And, surprisingly, in that moment he didn't resist. Maybe he was too emotionally spent to be ashamed to be seen in such a vulnerable position in front of Lana.
Although even now, the young woman refused to be moved. “That doesn't explain why you treat Dax like dirt, when you even bother to acknowledge he exists.”
Aiden absently ran his hand through his companion's silken hair, watching the light shimmer in blue highlights across its inky expanse. “Thanks to the accelerated growth process, he was already about toddler age by the time I found out what was going on. I couldn't in good conscience terminate the experiment and dispose of him as if he was garbage the way Belix suggested. I'm not a monster.”
He eyed Lana as he said it, as if challenging her to contradict him. She didn't, so he continued grimly. “Belix told me that trying to take him out and raise him normally at this stage of the process would cause numerous serious complications, and even if she managed it he would essentially be a child with an adult's knowledge and skills. Better to simply finish the process, especially since if I insisted on doing anything else she promised she'd wash her hands of the project entirely and leave it all on my shoulders.”
Taking a shuddering breath, he burrowed his face in Ali's neck as he continued. He felt as if he was unburdening himself of a deep shame, which he supposed he was. “I didn't know what else to do, so I let her finish making her construct. Not just the growth but the mental conditioning. I made the gunner part of the crew, ordered the twins to treat him as a fellow crewman, and from then on just did my best to pretend he didn't exist. And it was hard not to think of him as a construct when he acted with such complete control, complete discipline, almost like he was a robot. It was just easier to see him that way.”
“He's not a robot, though,” Lana said softly. “He thinks, he feels, and he hurts.” She paused significantly. “And you're the biggest cause of his hurt.”
Aiden closed his eyes, unable to think of a response. Ali stroked his back, his hair, and didn't respond either. He wished he could feel comfort at his companion's touch, but at the moment her impossibly soft, smooth fingers felt like sandpaper.
After a minute or so Lana got up and left without saying a word. “It's not too late,” Ali said quietly after the door closed behind the young woman. “Maybe it's still possible for you to have some sort of relationship.”
With who, exactly? Lana? Fat chance of that now, most likely. With the gunner? After five years it would feel ludicrously belated. Certainly, she couldn't mean Belix . . . that ship had sailed, been targeted by a fleet's worth of atomics, and gotten blown across several lightyears as irradiated dust.
Of course, that was probably about where he was with everyone on this ship, now.
Aiden pulled free of his companion's embrace and dragged himself back onto his bed, feeling as drained as if he'd spent hours in the exercise room. Part of him just wanted to go back to sleep holding Ali close, but his stubbornness wouldn't allow him to indulge in that sort of self-pity.
So he rolled onto his back, raising his head just enough to look at the beautiful woman still seated on the end of their bed, and did his best to make his voice casual. “So, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?”
* * * * *
Lana wasn't sure she was glad she'd insisted on getting the Aiden's story from him.
When he was on the bridge battling Deeks, or striding confidently through a seedy spaceport, it was easy
