• Julien King, CO

When the door opened to begin with it looked like no one had answered it. However if Julien looked down he would she Sheeah standing there in a pink rabbit onesie, a little red crayon tucked behind her ear. Sheeah looked a lot like her mother but she had her fathers eyes. She looked up at Julian, she cocked her head to the left, then the right then looked him up and down. Her antenna moving in a inquisitive manner. She then giggled and smiled “Hello Mr Capi.. Capin.. Capt.. capian. Hello Mr nice man capian. come in. Shoes go there” She said in her tiny little voice pointing at a little shoe rack by the door. She then walked slowly off into the center of Chan’s quarters and sat on a small table. “Mommy Nice man Capian is here” She called.

“Nice man Who?” Chan asked, she was by the replicator and her back was to Julien. She had taken off her uniform jacket leaving only her undershirt and her trousers on. she had also took off her boots and had a paint brush behind her ear. She finally finished at the replicator and walked over to the table. she carried a plate of chicken nuggets and chips in one hand, a fish finger sandwich on a plate in the other. She put the plates down and then looked at Julien “Hello Captain. This is a surprise. Can i get you anything sir?” she asked.

Lieut Chan (Sub-DH Robotics)

<BUMP> for CO

Julien laughed and swooped his godchild up in a hug. When Chan came he sat her down again and looked at Chan with a sad smile.

“Since when do you sir me Chan, I’m off duty.” he sighed.

“I haven’t seen you in anything but an official capacity for a little while. I assumed our dynamic had changed.” Chan said simply. However Chan was annoyed by it. but it was not the time or pace to cause a scene.

“Chan, I have to tell you something. I’ve resigned. I need to be with La’kia when she gives birth to my daughter, and that can only happen on Earth. I’ve come to tell you that. I shall miss you and Sheeah.” he said, his mismatched green eyes looked happy and sad at the same time.

• Julien King

Chan just stood there for a moment not sure how to react. He was leaving, he visits after a little while only to tell her he was leaving. Chan didn;t know what to do. So the silence wasn’t broken by Chan but by Sheeah.

“You’re going. why? Don’t you like us anymore? Did i do something bad? Sheeah asked s she started to cry. Chan instinctively took Sheeah in a hug and tried to comfort her.

“sshh It’s not your fault angle. sshh” Chan said comfortingly she then looked at Julian, the look on her face was a mixture of feelings surprise, sadness, anger and perhaps the most painful of all hate, it flashed across Chan’s eyes briefly but it was there. “You don’t see us for a little bit then the one time you do, you tell us your leaving. Why? you know dam well what we have been recently through. What Sheeah is trying to deal with. How did you think she was going to handle the news? Again why? Is it OK for you to give me the option of risking my child’s life but not OK for you? Is she too high and mighty to raise her child on a ship? Well tell me why? I can mange to raise a child on my own on a ship, while trying to find my husbands murderer and dealing with a thousand and one other things. Why can’t you?” She asked it was clear that Chan’s knee-jerk reaction was anger.

Lieut Chan (Sub-DH Robotics)

Julien stood there as if lightning had struck him. To say that he had not anticipated that reaction was an understatement and the emotional impact his news had on Chan and little Sheeah hit him deeply, so hard that he took some seconds to collect his thoughts and man up. He should have anticipated it. Chan was Andorian and she had all right to lash out at him. Maybe she was the only one who actually voiced what all the others thought…
He was letting them all down and he knew it. No matter what he decided, he was letting somebody dear to him down. It was, and had always been, a no-win scenario.

He stepped closer and smiled at Sheeah. “No darling, you didn’t do anything bad and I still like you.” he said, then his eyes locked with Chan’s and he met the storm in them steadfastly.

Sheeah looked at Julian “Then why go” she asked she had stopped crying but it was clear she was still very sad. in one swift and elegant motion Chan sat on the sofa and laid Sheeah’s head on her knee. She began to stroke her daughter hair.

“But I am a doctor and currently I am the only doctor who can make sure La’kia and my soon-to-be born daughter Flavia won’t die in childbirth on Earth. It’s true Chan, you can do all those things, because you are strong, a fighter like me.” he sighed still looking into Chan’s eyes, his left human eye looking infinitly sad.

“But La’kia isn’t and she can’t. Medically she can’t stay on the Genesis with the children for a long time while we go on our deep space mission, far away from Earth and Zahara and I can’t let her do this on her own without my help and medical experience from my son’s birth. Humans and Zaharan’s are only borderline compatible, that she conceived again is a miracle…” he cast his eyes downwards “… though I’m not sure it’s a good one.”

• Julien King, CO

“I wouldn’t call it any sort of miracle.” Chan said the anger in her voice replaced with sadness and concern “I’d call it a mistake, a very costly mistake. Think about what it’s cost you, your command, your career and in some ways the respect of your crew. Think about it Myself and all of the crew probably thought you and La’kia had split and you were seeing Marishka. So it makes you look unfaithful, either you were with La’kia the whole time and openly cheating on her with marishka or You where with Marishka and you cheated ion her with La’kia. either way it doesn’t paint you in a very good light, it also puts you in a category i never thought i would see you in, someone with questionable morale fiber.” she said simply.

“So i need you to tell me something. why? why did this happen? and what where you thinking?” she asked .

Lieut Chan (Sub-DH Robotics)

Julien held her eyes although it cost him. She was relentless, but in a way he needed this, needed her, and oh he would miss her so badly, and not only because she was never afraid to speak out when others stayed silent.

“It happened before I got together with Marishka. I visited La’kia and my son on Zahara during my leave, and for a while it was as if we had never separated. That’s when it happened. Soon enough reality caught up with us. Her culture isn’t monogamous, she didn’t want to become my wife, she dissolved our engagement and didn’t want to be ever bound to one partner only. Zaharan culture is mostly martriarchal, the men kind of donate the semen but all the rearing is with the kija, the community into which the child is born and the child is physically attached to the mother after birth for a few months and thereafter to the kija and the mother, most never know who the father is.”
he shook his head.

“At first I thought I could make myself get used to it, but I can’t. When I was a young Lieutenant I had a lady-friend in every starbase, it’s true, but none wanted to get serious with me, they knew I was married to my career. So I yearned… I am yearning for one woman, one love to be mine and I hers and I definitely most assuredly can not bear sharing with another man! It is not in my nature. So when we found this out about us, that we were at a dead end, I left Zahara, returned from my leave and back on the Genesis I met Marishka. She .... she wants the same. And now I have to leave her. So you see, I got ample of punishment for this. I can’t be a proper father, I’ve lost my command, I can’t be with the woman I love and probably ruined my career, because I am the only one who can make sure that my daughter will be born alive and survive.”

Saying it out loud hurt even more and he had let himself fall into the armchair, his added android weight making the chair creak under the sudden weight as he burried his face in his hands.

• Julien King