The Technician's Fight, Draft 1, CH40

Jeremy removed the visor to look at the welds. Even with it blocking most of the arc welder’s intense brightness he had trouble seeing his work through the spots in his vision. He knew why Atarikna was forcing him to do this instead of printing the armature for whatever this would end up being. If it was going to be anything.

This was part of his punishment, and while they might be friends, she wouldn’t let him avoid it.

The previous builder had used him to clean up the mess that passed as his storage room, so at least she had him make something, instead of wasting time cleaning up something that shouldn’t have been allowed to turn into a mess to start with.

Able to study the welding, he confirmed it was done as best as he could. Another way she was enacting his punishment, he wasn’t allowed any tools to confirm he’d done the work properly.

She’d wrapped the instructions around, “A hunter won’t always have all the tools he wants.” A saying he was confident she’d made up on the spot. There might be some value in it, but it was ridiculous to ask him not to use all the tools at his disposal. But she wasn’t the one behind all this.

*

“Don’t touch me,” he’d snapped when Thur reached for him after the training session. He’d turned his back on him and walked off, ignoring the way everyone looked at him. He hadn’t mentally lengthened the name, so he knew there was still hope for them. But he needed to resolve the utter unfairness of the punishment his supposedly friend had saddled him with.

It had been Toom’s sleep shift, so he’d headed to Prertiros to wash and the added distraction.

*

Another weld, more waiting for the spots to clear, then checking it and moving to attaching yet another bar to the armature.

“What is this even going to be?” he asked Atarikna when she came in to check on him.

“A base to hold a mobile kinetic gun.”

He looked at what he was assembling, estimated the rest of the mass once the armature was finished. “Mobile by what standard? Even before you add that gun, that’s going to be impossible to push.”

“I’ll add anti-grav to cancel the mass.”

“You can’t cancel all of it. You need some percentage of friction otherwise you’ll be stuck needing someone ahead to keep it from sliding out of control.” He frowned and stared at her. “Are you using me to find problems with your design?”

She chuckled. “No, I’ve already calculated the ratios needed. Might be off a bit, but I’m making the system adjustable so that won’t be a problem.”

“You could just print this. Maintenance and Repair have printers that can handle something this size.”

“But I was told to give you a task you wouldn’t enjoy.”

“Thanks a lot.” He slammed the visor down.

“I can’t be your friend, Jeremy,” she said, before he turned the welder on.

He snapped the visor up and glared at her. “How do you manage that, then? This shutting down of being my friend? What am I, some stranger whose name you shouldn’t shorten.”

“You are hunter who broke Rank.”

He was up, brandishing the welder. “All I fucking did was say what I was thinking on an open comm.”

“You talk to your beta. He decides—”

“She said it was a good idea!”

“Beta Zorfiel isn’t your Beta.”

“It’s not fucking fair.”

“What did you expect your beta to do, Jeremy? Just let this go?”

“Of course not, but this is way out of proportion for just speaking my mind.”

“You broke rank, Jeremy.”

The way she said it made it clear he was missing something; he just wished she’d tell him what. But she seemed to be as much at a loss as he was about it.

*

He moaned as Nirlakasar’s hand pressed into his back.

This time, the builder who’d handled his punishment had used him as a cargo mover. Jeremy had been able to tune out of the utterly monotonous activity, but his body had registered all the work, and a massage had been the only cure he’d been able to think of for all the aches he’d gained.

What he hadn’t considered when checking if there would be an available spot was who tended to be his masseur. He suspected he’d have to specifically request someone else for Thur’s mate not to make herself available. And now that he was here, with her undoing knot after knot, the usual silence was becoming unbearable.

“How come you aren’t asking me to patch things up with Thur?” he asked when she lifted her hands off his back.

“Your relationship with my mate isn’t something I get to dictate.”

When her hand rested on his shoulder he asked, “How is he doing?” before she had him unable to speak.

“He misses you. He doesn’t understand what caused this rift between you.”

Once she was done with his shoulder he asked, “Do you think it’ll help if I explain it?”

“I’m not a hunter, Jeremy. I don’t know how you and him think in that aspect.”

“Doesn’t he tell you about that stuff?”

“I never asked. Hunter is part of the male I love, but not the part I love.”

“That’s…. I don’t get how you can think that way. I love all of Gral. Every part of him. I’m pretty sure he loves all of me.”

“Did you demand that of him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then I’m glad he does, and that you do as well.”

*

“We need to talk.”

The way Thur stiffened told Jeremy he hadn’t managed to keep the anger out of his voice. He’d made sure to find Thur while they were both off shift so there would be no chances this could turn into a beta-hunter situation. He needed to resolve this with his friend, not his superior, since it had become clear they, somehow, weren’t the same person.

“Where do you want to have this conversation?”

“Neutral ground. Somewhere public—” to force him to hold his anger in check “—where we can still have privacy—” so they wouldn’t have to worry about what they said. “—I have a reservation at a restaurant, if you’re okay with that.”

His friend nodded.

He’d researched the best places, and this restaurant catered to business meetings and those looking to be amorous. This certainly qualified as business, although if they were able to reach a point where affection could be expressed, Jeremy would take it as well.

As soon as they were seated, the sounds muffled. He could make out intonations from the other tables, but not the words. He, and they, would know if someone raised their voice, but not what was said in anger.

He placed his order, keeping it simple. He didn’t have much of an appetite.

“I think this is a species difference,” he said, once Thur put away his tablet. “But I figure the only way we overcome it is by talking. Do you understand why I’m pissed at you?”

“No.”

“And I don’t know how it is you don’t. It hurt that you treated me so unfairly.”

His friend studied him. “Is this about you proving you are upwind? In the right?”

“This is about understanding what the fuck happened.”

Thur nodded. “Do you understand why I punished you the way I did?”

“Because I broke rank.”

“Do you understand what that means?”

“I’m realizing I might not. I thought rank just meant you’re my superior. That when I broke rank, I acted without your approval.”

“Rank is privilege and duty.”

“Yeah, you look after those under your command, Gral explained it.”

“Your Heart might not have realized something didn’t carry through if that is how you understand it. Rank means I protect you.”

“Yeah. That’s what I said. You look—”

“Jeremy, let me speak. When you break Rank, you step outside that protection.”

“It’s not like I need that much protection. All I did was talk.”

“That isn’t how this works, Jeremy. A hunter can’t be allowed to choose when he is or isn’t under my protection.”

“But she said it was a good idea.”

“Others might not think so.”

“Who else gives a damn what we did during the hunt?”

“The Leadership, the adjudicators, Federation adjudicators.”

“Why would any of them care what we did on the station?”

“In this specific case, I doubt anyone other than the Leadership would, but this isn’t about this specific case. It’s about you breaking Rank.”

“But I broke it there, and you just said hardly anyone is going to care.”

“But what of the next time?”

“So this punishment is what…preventive?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s…. It just is. You broke Rank, Jer. You put yourself in danger when I’, supposed to protect you.”

“Is this because of how you feel about me?” he asked cautiously.

“No. If any of my pack had broken Rank, they would have received a similar punishment. I love you, Jer, but I can set that aside to be your beta.”

“I have no idea how you can do that.”

“It might be a species difference.”

“Alright. So, me breaking Rank puts me in danger. You don’t want that—”

“I am not allowed to let it happen, Jer.”

“But you can’t control what others do.”

“It’s my job as your beta to make sure you understand you can’t do it.”

“Maybe it’s so ingrained in your species you haven’t been confronted by it before.”

“It happens. I’m not the first one to have to punish a hunter in his pack for it. But I doubt any of them did without knowing what they did.”

“I know I broke rank.”

“But you still don’t understand what it means.”

“I put myself in danger, and you can’t allow that to happen.”

“And you still don’t understand what that means.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.” While Thur thought, their food was delivered. Jeremy forced himself to spear a cube, dunk it in sauce and eat it.

“And Helrarvnir set down the Ranks, so that all would know where all stand,” Thur recited. “From the hunter to the Alpha, Rank upon Rank duty accumulate. Duty to never forgo else the fall takes all.”

Jeremy waited for his friend to continue.

“This duty wasn’t set on me by our Alpha. He acted for our god. Helrarvnir is who made me a Beta. Who placed hunters under my care. Our Alpha isn’t going to demand to know how it was you broke Rank. He trusts that I will handle the situation. But when my time in the Forest comes, I will have to look at Helrarvnir and explain myself to him. Explain how I let one of his hunters face peril when he was entrusted in my care.”

“You’re that scared of him?”

“It’s not fear. It’s having let him down. Not having lived up to what he saw in me.” He sighed. “I can’t explain it better than that, Jer. You’re right. It’s something ingrained in us. Enough that Rank made it outside the hunters. It became how every section of work is divided, with equivalent responsibilities. The Leadership’s trying to get it out of the military, but they’ve yet to make that happen.”

“So it’s religious. It’s about your gods.”

“It’s more than that, Jer.”

“We lack a common frame of reference.” The idea some fictitious figure having that much of an effect on his friend was utterly beyond his ability to understand. “But this is what I’m getting. Me, going through you when on a hunt is more important than me, getting my idea out there for someone to act on quickly.”

Thur closed his muzzle on what Jeremy expected would have been him saying he was oversimplifying.

“In essence, yes.”

“The implication is that if the delay causes things to get worse, that’s your responsibility.”

“I’m the one with Rank.”

“That’s definitely a species difference. I doubt an Earther would hold it against them if someone fixed a problem before it escalated, no matter how they went about it. I’ve screamed at techs for putting themselves at risk doing that, but in the end, I thanked them. This means I’m going to have to fight my nature, but I’ve already learned to do that in Engineering. I can learn to do it here.”

“I’m glad. But you understand I can’t end your punishment just because we talked.”

“I know. And I’m still going to be pissed about it. But now I understand why you felt you needed to do it, even if I don’t get the underlying reasons. My mistake, here, was not asking why things happen in a certain way. I took for granted that a vague knowledge that there is a reason would be enough, when it is clearly not.” He popped a sauce-covered meat cube in his mouth. “Is there a manual on all those responsibilities you have? I figure I should research them ahead of time.”

“There are. Helrarvnir’s words are well documented.”

Outline section 

Jeremy is glad to be back on the ship. Babysitting a reactor reconstructed by humans based on an original pirate model... it brought back all the most combustive memories of working on R&D research back in human territory. Whoever was originally working on that monstrosity probably worked under Jeremy back on the station.

Right now they were parked at a kelsirian station, arranging for salvage of the ship. Then it’s off to a federation station to offload both their prisoners and we-swear-these-aren’t-pirates. Which, yeah, that is a bit of a sour taste, but they’re escaping from the human government so they deserve a second chance if they are willing to take it.

Walking through the halls on his way to the promenade to do some shopping, because of course Gral doesn’t keep the kitchen stocked without Jeremy around, he runs into one of said pirates. Any of the non-human species. The pirate will ask for directions to Leiha; he got directions but then got lost so he needs directions again. Jeremy isn’t so busy he can’t take a detour, so he’ll do the pirate one better and just take them to Leiha’s office.

They head out, and are there soon enough, and when they get there they are surprised to see one of the human pirates in session with Leiha at this moment. The alien pirate will panic slightly and try to excuse himself, but the human pirate will stop him... or at least try to. It eventually comes down to him saying he’s sorry, which to Jeremy is all too familiar behavior.

The eventually close the door, with Leiha on one side dealing with the human pirate, and Jeremy dealing with the alien pirate. And, yeah, this isn’t likely going to result in sex, but it should still be heart pulling tender.

Addition 

More of Jeremy’s punishment. How he has trouble dealign with what Thuruk did as his beta. This needs to be resolved before they reach the station. Jeremy going to over the ship, possibly with Toom, to get it ready to be handed over to Kelsirians.

So, the outline is clearly not being followed currently. Probably wont for quite a while since I ahve an entirely new section of story planned.

of this outline, about the only piece that will survive to show up in the next ones is that they will be at the station.

This ended up being exclusively about resolving Jeremy and Thur’s friendship. And that turned into dealing with the gods, which I didn’t see coming. I keep being caught by surprised with how into every part of a hunter’s life the gods are.

This almost certainly need serious cleaning up, but I’m pleased with it