If Jove Stray

Chapter 34: congress meeting part 1

Cameron knew a congress meeting was coming, but dreaded it all the same. She spent too long picking an outfit and combing her hair, all the while worried about what would be discussed.

"You could not go?" Harper offered. "Send someone in your place."

"I'm not sending Keller," she snorted. "And Michelle and Kipling are working on the paperwork for those we're waking from cryo next week. Also, both of them are terrified of congress."

"Well then," Harper laughed. "I wish I could come. I imagine it's going to be madness in there."

Cameron looked her partner over. He had lost weight in the medical bay and his skin was still quite pale, which dark bruises under his eyes. While his shoulder was healing, his leg was stretched out in its cast as he sat on the couch. She nearly lost him, she thought. And no sooner was he home; Cameron had found herself a part of another base crisis.

"What's wrong?" Harper asked. "Babe, come here."

She sat on the couch and let Harper wrap his arms around her. It was comforting, being here with him. The stubble on his cheek tickled her neck as she leaned back into his arms.

"I'm glad you're here," she said. "I wouldn't have wanted to do all this by myself."

"I'm glad that Lincoln was a terrible shot," Harper replied. He placed one hand on her stomach. "We will get past this. We'll be a family, and we won't need all this chaos that Levi and Dashiell and the others generate. It'll be you, me, and Harper Junior."

"Oh, so it's a boy again," she teased.

Her holo-rib trilled her alarm and she reluctantly pulled herself out of Harper's arms, though not before turning to kiss him. He smiled, squeezing her hand.

"Just let me know if I need to cause a scene," he said. "I can message you saying I've fallen and taken half our dishes with me. I can even make that really happen if needed."

"Harper Harris, you stay on that couch or I'll wheel you to the medical bay when I get back," Cameron told him sternly.

He groaned as she left the berth, walking briskly down to the meeting room. She didn't want to arrive too early and appear like she was colluding with Dashiell. But she didn't want to arrive too late and look like she was avoiding this meeting. Of course, she wasn't thrilled about being here, but she was grateful for the chance to have a say in what went on. She hoped that Alcott passed along the word that Cameron wouldn't have the chance to vote against Dashiell Turner. What was to come was too important.

"Good morning, Cameron," Dashiell remarked.

"Good morning," she replied, noting with chagrin that she was still too early. Perhaps everyone was also fighting their reluctance to come. She was the only one in the room.

"Austen says that the earthstorm should only be eight more days. Those eight days are going to feel like an eternity," Dashiell mused. "Earth had hurricanes, they were smaller and only lasted a couple days, maybe a week. I don't think Earth would have survived with cycle long storms."

"Libba said that hurricanes also contained mostly water?" Cameron inquired. "I guess we don't have large enough bodies of water for that to happen."

"That I wouldn't know," Dashiell admitted. "I haven't been following the satellite images closely." He checked his holo-rib rib and then set it down again.

"You were right," he admitted. "I moved too fast and it upset everyone. But damn it all people here move just as slowly as they did back on Earth. We will be old and gray before anything changes."