Jove immediately rolled out of Aster's bed and began pulling his clothes on.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll go check on my Mom and Eve."
"Jovian," said Aster, narrowing her eyes. "I'm your aunt, in case you forgot. I'm going with you."
He nodded slowly, but his mind was already elsewhere. "It's probably nothing. Maybe the wind blew something against the station, or something got knocked over."
It was what he wanted to believe, but the situation felt off. He paused at the door, remembering that there was someone he could ask with far ranging eyes.
"Andromeda," he said. "What's going on?"
He winced as he realized that, in all likelihood, the AI had listened to and recorded the entire kinky, bondage inspired sexual encounter between him and his aunt. But the AI's response never came, and any relief he might have felt by discovering that they'd been unobserved was dashed by the implication.
"What does that mean?" muttered Aster. "Has she gone rogue? Left the station again?"
"I don't know," he said. "Stay close."
They slipped out into the hallway and took stock of the station. It was quiet again, and nothing obvious seemed off. Aster clung to his side, still in her distractingly sexy kimono.
A sharp noise came from Jove's left, snapping him into motion. It was just Eve, poking her head out from her own room. She gave him and Aster an odd smile as she took in their closeness and attire.
"Jovian," she said, with a knowing nod. "Aunt Aster. Did you hear that noise a minute ago?"
"Yeah," he said. "Where's Mom?"
"Let's go check her room," said Eve.
Jove nodded. "Give me a second."
He slipped into his own room and took out one of his newly acquired guns. The first one he picked up was actually unloaded, which made him wonder about the situation he'd taken it from.
The other had a full clip, and he made sure the safety was off, though he was only somewhat sure of what he was doing. He noticed that Eve had also grabbed her gun when he came back out into the hallway, similarly on edge.
The three of them checked the command center, followed by the director's office, followed by their mother's room. Each empty space intensified Jove's unease, until he was all but jogging for the entrance chamber.
"She must have gone outside," he muttered.
"I left my skis in the entrance chamber," said Eve. "I can look around faster than you can."
She slipped by him as he opened the door but stopped almost immediately. Jove saw his mother sitting next to the door leading out into the cold, face marred by a line of blood dripping from a cut on her forehead, mouth bound with tape.
"Easy now," came a low, threatening voice. "Think you're going to want to put that down, missy."
Eve tried to spin around, but the man - one of Victor's bodyguards - pushed her to the ground with the strength of a linebacker. Jove was next through the door and immediately found himself pointing a gun at a tall, grey-haired man, who coincidentally was also pointing a gun at him.
"That's my gun," said the bodyguard, a tall, deep voiced man of perhaps forty with faded blond hair.
The man reached out to take the weapon, but Jove stepped backward, opening up the arc of his aim. Both of the men were still clad in their outerwear, minus gloves for maneuverability. They looked cold, like they'd spent hours on the ice, long enough to acquire the desperation that comes with it.
"Relax," said the grey-haired man. "Nobody has gotten shot yet and nobody needs to get shot. Let's all just have a friendly conversation and work this out, yeah?"
"Fuck you." Jove bared his teeth, but swallowed his anger, trying to think. "From what I can see right now, you didn't afford my mom that same opportunity."
Kira's eyes were desperate, like she was trying to tell him something, but what? He couldn't look at her for long enough to play charades. The blond-haired man was staring at Aster, who glared venom back at him and held her ground. He slowly crouched down to scoop up Eve's gun and pointed it at their mother.
"Your mom was friendly enough," said the blond man. "Not like what you're thinking, at least not yet. Talking all about how we should work together, take a message back to Victor to start cooperating and sharing supplies and maybe even getting some of the weak and elderly to the safety of your nice little shelter."
"Our nice little shelter," said the grey-haired man.
The blond man furrowed his brow at his companion.
"Why should we even bother going back?" The grey-haired man held up a finger as though presenting a dangerous, but enticing point. "You know how that billionaire fuckhead acts. He'll take this place completely for himself. Maybe he'll let us in, but only to do whatever he says, whenever he says it."
"He's got more men than just us two," said the blond one.
Jove gritted his teeth, wanting to take a shot while they were still in discussion. His finger settled on the trigger, but he couldn't make himself do it. He might take down one in time, but both, before his mother, or Eve took a bullet, or before he took several? No chance.
"They'll never find this place," muttered the grey-haired man. "We barely found it. Those snowmobile tracks we were following are long gone. We lucked out, and I gotta say, we're overdue for some luck."
Both intruders glanced at the women again, and Jove could practically see the gears turning in their head. They'd kill him, imprison his sister, aunt, and mother, and do whatever they wanted.
He looked at his mom again, feeling a rise of anger at the fact that she hadn't trusted any of them enough to wake them up before acting. Her eyes met his and then flicked up, and then back to his again, and then back up.
Not just up. He tried to be subtle as he followed her gaze. She was looking at the intercom. Jove realized that there was one other person in the chamber with them, and suddenly knew exactly what to do.
"Andromeda kill the lights!" he shouted.
He ducked just as all illumination cut out of the room, firing at the same time. There was an unfamiliar gasp - the grey-haired man taking a bullet. Another gunshot, this one not from his weapon, ricocheted off metal within the chamber.
Kira must have limited the AI to only having eyes and ears in her presence, at least while she took on the decision-making responsibility of dealing with their guests. Jove saw how it must have made sense from her point of view but didn't have time to feel annoyed.
A body crashed into his, presumably the blond man from its crushing size. Jove tried to twist the gun up to aim at his attacker's head, but the other man was trying to do the same thing to him.
He heard Aster screaming his name in the background. He tried to roll sideways while keeping one hand on his target. The blond man grabbed at him, yanking him back close by the shirt. Cold metal touched his neck, searing in its significance within the moment.
Another gunshot, this one so close to his ear that he couldn't hear a goddamn thing. He bucked his shoulder, knocking the gun hand of his attacker back. The lights flicked back on unexpectedly and Jove saw his attacker.
He fired twice in a row without thinking. One bullet struck the blond man in the chest, the other straight through the eye, killing him instantly. Jove slid back across the ground, adrenaline surging alongside other unexpected emotions. Satisfaction, alongside a strange and nauseating rush of power, like he'd just beaten a video game on hard mode instead of ended a life.
"Fuck," groaned the grey-haired man. "Oh fuck…"
The man started crying, tears rolling from his face, sobs escaping his mouth like tiny little burps. Jove lifted the gun and aimed it at the grey-haired man, not really knowing why or where the urge came from. Eve had gathered up the dropped guns and was taking the tape off their mother.
"Help me…" muttered the grey-haired man. "Please help me."
Jove started to pull the trigger.
"Jovian Faremont!" screamed Kira. She broke into a cough and spat something on the floor beside her, mouth freshly uncovered from the tape.
The grey haired man seemed to echo the gesture, except with blood, groaning as he coughed up a fair bit of it. "I can't… breathe. I can't… I can't…"
He took several increasingly wet breaths. Kira stood to her feet on unsteady legs. Aster was at her side in an instant, but Kira refused the shoulder her sister offered her.
"Run to the infirmary!" shouted Kira. "Get the surgery kit!"
Aster stared at her blankly, mouth open, but no words came out.
"Surgery on this level of injury would be most comfortably performed under sedation," said Andromeda, voice eerily calm.
"Go!" shouted Kira. "What are you waiting for?"
"Why… would we help him?" muttered Aster. "He was… he would have…"
"Hey." Eve crouched down next to Jove, who'd slid back to lean against one wall. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just…" He shook his head, looking at the blond man's corpse. "I just killed him?"
"You didn't mean to," said Eve.
"No." He looked her in the eyes. "I did."
He felt an echo of that feeling he'd had during the melee. It hadn't been fear or panic, closer to a desperation with an edge of something wicked. As though he'd tried out violence like a new food and enjoyed the taste a little too much.
He shifted sideways, suddenly nauseous. The wet breaths of the dying man didn't help.
"We will not just let this man die!" shouted Kira.
She was still favoring one leg as though she'd sprained her ankle and finally did grab Aster's shoulder, though more in an attempt to push her toward the infirmary than to lean on her.
Aster pushed her sister back roughly, knocking her to the floor, sexy kimono billowing open as the belt slid out of its knot. "Kira, you almost got us all killed! I'm not cleaning up your fucking mess!"
"Well… we will have to do something about the blood," said Eve.
"Figure of speech," said Aster.
The dying man let out one final breath and cough before going silent. Jove distantly acknowledged that he'd killed two men now in cold blood. Except… it hadn't been cold. The rush, the brawl, the ease of it. He'd struggled only with how his opponents had fought back. Pulling the trigger had been far too easy.
"We'll… strip the bodies and move them outside," said Kira, voice calm but forced. "That's all we can do for tonight. Give me the guns."
Nobody moved. Jove didn't hesitate consciously. His hand was still gripping the gun like a lifeline while dangling from a cliff, though his finger was off the trigger.
Eve shook her head. "Mother. I love you, but I'm not giving you this gun back."
"Excuse me?" said Kira, with an incredulous laugh.
"No, she's right!" snapped Aster. "What the fuck were you thinking, Kira? You opened the door for these men thinking… what? That you'd negotiate with them and send them on their way? Give them a room?"
"It's the fact that you didn't tell us and you specifically restricted Andromeda so she couldn't tell us either that freaks me out," muttered Eve. "You aren't all powerful, Mother. That was incredibly stupid."
Kira held up a finger. "It was. I see that, in retrospect. They looked pathetic, like they had frostbite and were on the verge of death! I thought if I opened the topic for discussion, they might die while we were busy surviving!"
"Well, they're dead anyway," said Aster. "Great job!"
"The last thing we need is more potential for violence, especially after this." She looked at Jove specifically and he found that he couldn't meet her gaze. "Give me all of the guns. I'll put them away until if and when we need them again."
"I refuse," said Eve. She held her gun along with the gun the blond man had been holding. "I think I speak for all of us when I say we'll all sleep sounder if the weapons remain spread out."
Kira looked unsettled by her daughter's sudden rebellion. She looked at Jove again and stepped closer to him and crouched down, speaking in a quiet voice as though trying to calm an unruly stallion.
"Jovian?" she asked.
Jove pulled the gun back slightly, but only to turn it around so he wasn't holding the handle. "I don't want it."
She waited a second before taking it from him. There was still the other gun in his room, but at least that one had no bullets. He tried to wipe his hands off on his track pants, but there was no visible blood on him, somehow, aside from the side of one sock that had slid through a puddle.
"I think we should all agree to vote on every major decision from today forward," said Eve.
"I think that would be a good policy, darling," said Aster.
Kira laughed again, but it was bitter, rather than incredulous. "So, what? You're going to discount my leadership because of one bad decision?"
"If your ideas are good, you can still lead," said Aster. "Just not with an iron grip and a refusal to hear objections."
Jove stood up. All eyes turned toward him, and he had the distinct sense that he was the only one in the room who would be heard and taken seriously unequivocally. But he had no grand proclamation to make.
"I… think I'm going to take a shower," he said.
"Oh, Jove," said Kira. "Of course."
He didn't remember walking through the base or even taking off his clothes. He was just in the shower the next time he really stopped to think, lukewarm water raining down on his head and back. How long had he been in the bathroom for? He wasn't sure.
A knock came at the door. He turned the water off with wrinkled fingers and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist, but stopped there.
"Jove," came his mother's voice. "Can I come in?"
He didn't answer. The door slid open anyway. Kira had changed into her nightwear, a tank top with no bra underneath and sweatpants. She had a bandage on the cut on her forehead, the tape holding the gauze looking almost like a headband under her loose red hair.
"I'm fine," he said. "I just needed to… clear my head."
She stepped closer to him, which only made his struggle to meet her gaze more conspicuous. His mother cupped his face in her hands and gently forced him to look directly at her.
"You protected me," she whispered. "You saved us. You did what you had to do."
"I know."
Steam had occluded the mirror, blocking the reflection that would have normally shown them standing almost body to body, mouths inches apart.
"Things are different now." She nodded slowly, still holding his gaze. "Some of the old rules just simply don't apply anymore."
"It was easy for me," he whispered. "Too easy. I shouldn't have… I could have…"
"No." Kira leaned forward and planted a hot, lingering kiss on his cheek. "It's okay."
He felt his heart pounding in his chest, so aware of her presence and scent. He leaned closer, not that there was even much distance between them. His mother's eyes fluttered, and she didn't say anything as his lips met hers.
"Mmm." She made a noise as her mouth moved against his and one of her hands gently rubbed his chest.
Jove's towel came loose and fell to the ground, breaking them from the spell… almost. His mother's eyes glanced downward at his crotch, and it was as though she'd flipped a physical switch, suddenly turned on the current of his arousal. He started to get hard and pulled her closer by the hips.
For a couple of seconds, they did nothing but kiss and press into one another. Jove felt his cock pressing against her stomach. His mother made another little noise and reached down, her fingers briefly running along his cock.
She pulled back, blushing and smiling and clearing her throat. "Whoops. I… think you dropped this."
She slowly crouched in front of him to pick up the towel, mouth and eyes level with his semihard erection for a solid second of erotic temptation. Then she stood up, wrapped it back around him, made the fold at the waist, and kissed him one last time.
"Get some sleep, Jovian," she said.
"You too." He let his thumb gently touch the edge of the bandage.
"I love you so much."
"I love you too."
He breathed out as she left and closed the door. Somehow, just knowing that she still loved him, that she wasn't as horrified as he was by his actions, was enough to keep going.
For now.