GblaRCS Chpt 25

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 25 -==
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"I don't know who had the idea for all of you to get the greek letter gamma tattoos, but you'd better make sure that none of Sibling Company Zeta, or any of the other sibkos, copy you until they're at least eighteen as well."General Franklin Hallis lays down the law to Sibling Company Gamma - 2834CE
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===Family visit with Friends===
Capital City – Niops Association (Niops VII) – 2833
The neighborhood near the university where Philomena's parent's apartment block was situated was by no means the bad part of town. Not that any part of the city was particularly run down as Niops was too wealthy, and the building stock generally too new to have actual slums, but as she followed her two friends along the sidewalk into the indisputably 'good' part of town it was pretty obvious when they had got there. This was not just because of how nice the houses actually were, though they were very nice, but also from how expensive most of the cars parked outside them looked and the fact that there seemed to be a car in front of every house, rare in a city where public transportation was good enough that most people didn't even bother to own one.
If she had not been as deep in conversation as she was Philomena might have made comment about the ornate architecture of some of the buildings, that being something that had come interest her after growing up in an underwater habitat designed by engineers that valued functionality far more than form, but at that moment she had other issues to address.
"I still say that I looked ridiculous." Philomena contended. "If I'd known you were going to dress me up like that, I would have never agreed to wear a costume you chose." she complained. "I knew I should have been more suspicious as to why you wouldn't let me see it until it was far too late to find a different outfit to wear."
"You looked great!" Alice wholeheartedly disagreed, setting the pace because she was the shortest of the three. "Everyone thought so, you won the prize for best costume didn't you?" she asked rhetorically, thinking that was a slam-dunk argument in itself. The previous nights party, held at a venue hired for the purpose by one of the richer kids in class, had been entirely awesome in her opinion and she couldn't understand why the Frobisher girl was still sore about it.
"You dressed me up as a character from that stupid anime cartoon from the Draconis Combine you like." Philomena exclaimed. "I don't know what part was worse, the blue wig or the skirt that was so short that if I had body hair I would have needed to get it waxed. All of it" she said, grimacing. It wasn't like skirts that length were ever seen on Niops normally, especially without leggings underneath, the climate was less than suitable for them.
"I did warn you to wear panties that were skimpy but not too skimpy, but besides that it's not a stupid anime it's great" Alice replied. "Getting to watch that old anime series on television is the best thing about me ever coming to Niops." she defended her favorite show.
"Hey!" Frederick objected. "What about meeting me?"
"Calm down, you make the top three on the list." Alice told her boyfriend.
Frederick pouted. "That means I don't even rate the number two spot?" he realized.
"You're a great boyfriend, but you were edged out of second place by the fried chicken at Gloria's Diner." Alice told him apologetically. "You ranked above her bacon cheeseburgers though" she consoled him.
Frederick thought about that. "I'll take it." he decided eventually.
"You thought Philomena's costume was great didn't you?" Alice asked him, seeking an ally.
"Yeah" Frederick agreed, smiling and nodding enthusiastically.
Philomena frowned. "You don't think the blue wig looked stupid?"
"You were wearing a wig?" Frederick replied, feigning to be visibly confused.
"See" Philomena exclaimed, throwing up her hands.
"He's joking" Alice told her. "Right?"
"Yeah" Frederick said again, unconvincingly.
"Well, I still think it was an absolutely inspired choice of costume for the party last night." Alice declared, looking pleased with herself.
"Because my eyes make me look like a freaking cartoon character?" Philomena retorted. "Even if that wasn't hurtful nobody was looking at my ****** eyes."
"Other than the blue wig your eyes were the best asset towards making it the costume absolutely perfect" Alice contended.
"In that skirt my ass was the only asset that was getting any attention unless I was stood bolt upright" Philomena muttered bitterly to herself, loud enough to be overheard.
"That's not true is it?" Alice checked with Frederick for verification.
Frederick shrugged. "Henry walking into that table just when she dropped her purse and bent down to pick it up might have been a coincidence" he posited uncertainly.
"Right, you're only guessing that it was because of your skirt" Alice told Philomena.
"No, it was definitely because of the skirt" Frederick responded, "it's just that Henry told me he thought you had nice legs after he saw you in your swimming costume the first time, so it might have been them not your ass that caused him to not look where he was going" he suggested.
"Aargh!" Philomena exclaimed, wondering how she was going to face everyone again at school come Monday. "I'm not going to forget that you didn't choose a costume for yourself that showed anything like as much skin" she told Alice menacingly.
"I couldn't" Alice defended herself. "Frederick and I wanted matching costumes, he was Buck Rogers so I had to be Colonel Deering." she argued. "That flight suit was pretty tight though, and I did unzip it a little to show some cleavage like she did in the show."
"You could have gone as Princess Ardala instead" Frederick suggested.
"All she wears is a jewel-encrusted bikini and a see-through silk skirt!" Alice exclaimed. "Compared to her Philomena was dressed like a Catholic Nun."
"Just saying" Frederick replied, wondering if he could talk her into wearing that at the next costume party they got invited to.
"If it wasn't for what Clarissa Anderson was wearing I would have had the sluttiest costume in the party" Philomena complained, she was not letting this go. "And she is a slut so she can get away with it."
Alice looked appalled. "You can't say that about another girl. It demeans all of us" she chided.
"Even if it's true." Philomena asked, smirking. 
"Yes!" Alice exclaimed. "Not that I'm saying it is" she added awkwardly.
"Here we are" Frederick announced stopping outside a townhouse. "My stepmom's in, that's her car." he pointed out the sleek electric vehicle parked on the road outside. "She works Saturday mornings at the factory catching up on paperwork so I wasn't sure if she would be back yet."
"This is your house?" Philomena asked. "This is really nice." she said, looking it over. It was a three story building made of brick and stone and far removed from the austere concrete tower block near the university where she lived with her parents.
"It's not really mine, I mean I've got a room here but most of the time I actually live in barracks." Frederick replied, punching a combination into an electronic keypad on the door.
The door lock disengaged and Frederick pushed it open.
"Why do you like in barracks if you've got a room here?" Philomena asked reasonably.
"Because he's a masochistic weirdo that likes to be woken up by bugle call at 6 AM." Alice told her, grinning.
"Nah, it's the daily bed inspections and the 5K run before breakfast that I can't get enough of" Frederick replied deadpan. "Give me a second, I'll make sure the coast is clear" he requested, stepping inside after cleaning his boots on the welcome mat.
"Are we trespassing or something?" Philomena asked, concerned.
"Nah, he just wants to make sure that his stepmom's mom isn't visiting" Alice explained. "You don't want to have to deal with that" she said. "To be honest neither does Fred, she's not a fan of you genetically engineered people."
Philomena sighed. "And I don't even look like a regular person like he does" she replied with a shrug. The number of people that stared at here was a lot lower now than it used to be nearly a year ago when she first came to Niops but some people still did, and there was even a little noticeable hostility to her presence on occasion. Alice had offered to have her boyfriend beat up anyone that stepped way out of line, but that wouldn't exactly be in keeping with a desire to hold the moral high ground.
"All good." Frederick told them, appearing at the door again and ushering them inside.
The house was even nicer on the inside than it was on the outside. "How does your Dad afford this place? How much do generals get paid anyway?" Philomena wanted to know, checking out the expensive décor.
"Well Barbara's got a good job too, but it's mostly down to the fact the bank let him have a fifty-year mortgage" Frederick told her. "He'll be over a hundred before it's all paid off, so definitely no early retirement for him" he continued, chuckling. "Barbara pretty much strong-armed him into it not long after they got hitched. He was happy enough living in married quarters in Arecibo, but they had only been married a couple of months before he knocked her up and then she really wanted a nicer home and she was hormonal and terrifying."
"I was not terrifying, I was persuasive" a woman's voice interrupted them. "Maybe a little terrifying" she conceded after thinking about it a little more. "Wasn't expecting to see you, Frederick, thought you were spending all day at mall with Alice."
"I'm not staying too long." Frederick replied, "Barbara this is Philomena from school, Philomena this is my stepmom, Barbara." she introduced them. "We're all going to the movies later, I hope it's alright that I brought Alice and Philomena back here until then?"
"Just as long as you not expecting to bring two teenage girls into your room with door closed it just fine." Barbara replied. "Father not approve of you having more fun as teenager than he ever did." she added, trying not to laugh.
"Geez, Barbara." Frederick responded, blushing.
"Nice to meet you, Philomena." Barbara addressed the Frobisher girl, doing her best to ignore her uncanny 'not quite right' appearance. According to Frederick after a while you mostly stopped noticing after a while. "Frederick mention you become friends with Alice" she said. "Alice very nice girl, bad taste in men" she added, looking pointedly at the boy.
"Oh, come on!" Frederick objected. "You married Dad and I'm practically his clone."
"Not trying to say that my taste in men any good." Barbara countered causing Alice to laugh. "Hang up coats and hats, come through into living room." she told the girls, leading the way. "Soda in fridge if you want one?"
"Not for me thankyou Mrs. Hallis" Alice replied. It somehow felt wrong to call her 'Barbara' like Frederick usually did himself. Although he did refer to her as his 'Stepmom' he rarely called her 'Mom' for whatever reason, though of course he also called his father 'Khan Hallis', 'General', or 'Sir' more than he did plain 'Dad' and you couldn't say that their family dynamics were exactly typical in many regards. 
"Me neither, Mrs. Hallis" Philomena added for herself, using the style of address her friend had, as they arrived at the living room which contained some very comfortable looking chairs and a crib that was against one wall.
"Is Judith awake?" Frederick asked, walking across to the crib.
"Was a few minutes ago when I change her diaper." Barbara replied.
"Hey, sis." Frederick said, leaning over the crib and looking down at the baby inside. "Yep, still awake and still more interested in looking at this thing than she ever is me." he said, tapping the mobile hanging over the baby so it moved a little more. "I still think that tiny model aerospace fighters and battlemechs would be better than stars and planets." he criticized it as his infant sister lay there seemingly transfixed by the random movement.
"Battlemechs don't even fly." Alice pointed out, going over to join him.
"LAMs only, obviously" Frederick replied, wondering why that needed to be explained. "Or maybe regular mechs with jumpjets" he added, thinking about it. Land-Air Mechs had never really worked that all well in practice.
"Come take a look, she's adorable." Alice told Philomena.
"Wait until she throw up on you, opinion change a little." Barbara told her sagely.
Baby Judith might not have been particularly interested in looking at her brother, but when Philomena's face appeared above her as well the mobile became rather less fascinating. The infant stared at her, somehow looking almost puzzled.
"Everyone always stares at the eyes." Philomena wryly observed.
"I thought we already determined that depended on the length of the skirt?" Frederick joked, earning himself a poke in the ribs from Alice for his trouble. "Alternatively, she's thinking, 'holy crap, someone with even less hair on their head than I have' instead" he then offered an alternative explanation, one that now caused Alice to glare at him.
Philomena thought about that and couldn't entirely dismiss the latter theory. Having Alice stood next to her certainly made for a contrast, what with the girl's great mass of wavy copper-coloured hair that was barely restrained from chaotically sticking out in all directions by several scrunchies.
Naturally enough Frederick wore his hair short in a military style, something that made his look even more like his father than he would have otherwise. The girls in his sibko tended to wear it a little longer, like Jennifer with her pixie cut, but genuinely long hair was frowned upon, not just because it looked more unkempt but because it was something to grab hold of in a fight.
"I saw on television news that mother appointed ambassador from Frobisher to Niops, Philomena" Barbara commented while she slumped down on one of the chairs. Judith might be being quiet right now, but the infant had kept her up most of the previous night crying for no discernible reason and she was tired. Annoyingly Franklin was away so he hadn't been there to do half the work.
"I think they're calling her 'Envoy' rather than ambassador because Frobisher is legally going to be a self-governing protectorate, not a fully independent foreign state with diplomatic recognition" Philomena replied, looking away from the baby towards its mother. "That's assuming that the people back home agree to the terms your government wants us to, anyway."
"Do you think they might not?" Alice asked, frowning.
"Not really. Without Niops Frobisher is screwed six ways from Sunday" Philomena stated flatly. "You're probably the only people that can fix all our broken equipment and almost certainly the only one that can help us out with our population issues" she continued. "And that's putting aside the fact that the technology we have that does still work is becoming more and more valuable every day, valuable enough to attract pirates or worse, and we need protection from them too."
"Worse being the Mariks I guess," Frederick surmised. "You're further away from the Free Worlds League than we are, but just not far enough for comfort." he said while pulling faces at his baby sister to try and make her laugh.
Philomena nodded. "We've never been that worried about the Magistracy, they've always been decent neighbors, but while the Mariks aren't Kurita or Liao, thank God, they've still done some pretty heinous stuff themselves. If they could justify to themselves the killing of billions of normal people on other Hegemony worlds then they're not going to have many qualms killing a few thousand that look like me to take what we have."
"Your people safe with Niops." Barbara said confidently. "Anyone turn up looking to make trouble, General Romanova send my husband to teach them lesson not ever forget."
"Where is Dad? I thought he was off-duty this weekend?" Frederick asked, sticking his tongue out at baby Judith to try and get a reaction.
"Still off playing soldier on Reykjanes Island, should be back tonight." Barbara replied.
Frederick smiled. "Military training exercises aren't 'playing soldier' you know." he replied.
"Then why they call them 'War Games' then?" Barbara replied, smirking. "Battlemechs just big toy for overgrown boys to play with."
"How do you explain all the female mechwarriors like General Romanov or Aunt Trish then?" Frederick countered.
"Girls only humoring them like do always." Barbara replied, winking at Alice. "Nietzsche said that men like war because only time they absolutely sure women not laughing at them behind back."
"Nietzsche?" Philomena queried.
"German philosopher, 19th Century." Barbara explained, she had originally started reading philosophy because she liked to quote them to people when they seemed to be assuming that because her spoken English wasn't perfect she must be stupid and ignorant, but she actually ended up enjoying it. There was more to intellectual pursuits than just studying the hard sciences regardless of what the social hierarchy on Niops thought.
One day she hoped to get Frederick to look a bit further afield than Immanuel Kant and Georg Hegel when it came to philosophy but it was an uphill struggle so far. The only reason she managed to get him to even read those was because Karl Von Clausewitz was a fan which he considering a ringing endorsement.
After some polite chit-chat between Barbara and the girls Frederick asked Alice and Philomena if they wanted to listen to some music in his room before they headed off to the movies. Given that his room was on the top floor, and Barbara wasn't, Philomena wasn't sure what use leaving the door open was as a deterrent to unapproved of teenage activities but he left it open anyway.
"Sorry about the mess." Frederick apologized for the state of his room.
"What mess?" Philomena asked confused, looking around. There was barely a book, magazine or item of clothing out of place.
"If anything in barracks is more than a millimeter out of place he gets a demerit." Alice explained. "You can bounce a quarter on his bed after he makes it and I swear he'll happily sit there shining boots for hours" she said, not exaggerating nearly as much as Philomena assumed she was. 
"If you were taught to march almost as soon as you learned to walk you'd be a bit weird too" Frederick responded with a shrug.
Alice giggled. "Tell her how you learned the ABCs at kindergarten, or whatever it is you weirdos called it instead." she told her boyfriend.
Frederick sighed. "A is for Alfa, B is for Bravo, C is for Charlie…" he began.
"You're kidding?" Philomena responded incredulously.
"No, really. I thought he was making it up too, so I checked with Jennifer." Alice told her. "You should hear some of the nursery rhymes they were taught like: 'Jack and Jill charged up the hill, to take the heavy mortar, bombs rained down and cut Jack down, and Jill came tumbling after'."
Philomena looked at Frederick more than slightly appalled.
"It's a lesson about needing cover-fire to suppress enemy artillery when you attack a fortified position." Frederick explained awkwardly.
"It was brainwashing." Alice contended, and not entirely without cause.
"That's an exaggeration." Frederick replied, unconvincingly.
"It really isn't," Philomena agreed with Alice. "Isn't that how they did it in Ancient Sparta? Train the boys for war from when they were little?"
"Not exactly. In Sparta they left it a little late to really benefit from how fast kids learn when they're young" Frederick replied. "They didn't start training them until they were seven, I already knew how to read a map and call in an artillery strike by the time I was six" he said proudly. "By seven I knew where to stab a man so he bled out fast, and I could field-strip and reassemble a Mauser 960 blindfold" he said. "Lasers are a good choice for teaching little kids to shoot, no recoil, although the Mauser was way too heavy for us at that age so we usually shot it off a bench rest."
"The mind-blowing thing is that his people were genuinely the least unhinged clan as far as I can tell" Alice responded sadly, shaking her head. Most of the time her boyfriend came across as pretty normal, but then he told a few childhood stories, or spent the weekend playing with demolition charges, and it brought home that he really wasn't.
If it wasn't for the ever-present spectre of impending doom if Kerensky's Clans ever found them, or one of the Great Houses attacked, the government would have almost certainly forced the SLDF to scrap the remaining parts of the sibko system that were still running. Unfortunately it was a dangerous galaxy, and Sibling Company Gamma and the younger sibkos might come in very handy in a few years if the Niops Association found itself in great need of some very good, and very enthusiastic, mechwarriors and fighter pilots.
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===Fate of past and future Sibkians===
"I'm not surprised you make plastic models of battlemechs as a hobby" Philomena observed, noticing a couple of them sitting on a desk.
"Only the ones I've gotten to pilot" Frederick replied. "That's a Locust, the first mech they let me take out, that one is a Wasp, I got to fire the guns on that one, and I'm working on a Phoenix Hawk because I got to try one out last month, but it's taking longer because I have to customise the model" he said. "The one I got to take out was a Royal with an ERPPC instead of a laser and the model shop only sells the PXH-1."
"There's a model shop on Niops?" Philomena asked, wondering how there was enough local demand to keep a business like that running. Niops VII might have a huge population compared to Frobisher but there were villages in some places with practically as many people living in them as on her homeworld.
"He means the toy shop downtown" Alice explained. "If he calls it a 'model shop' instead it doesn't sound as lame."
"You're as bad as Barbara" Frederick muttered to himself, pouting.
Philomena noticed a few photographs stuck to the far wall. "Who's that with you on the beach?" she asked. The picture looked recent judging by how old Frederick looked, but clearly hadn't been taken anywhere on Niops however, way too sunny.
Frederick grinned. "That's not me." he replied.
"That is definitely you." Philomena stated with certainty.
"There's a Frederick Hallis in that picture, but it's not me, and it's not the one you think it is either." Frederick told her. "The older guy is my grandfather, the original Frederick Hallis, the kid is my father when he was fourteen or so."
Philomena stared at the photograph. "I know you look a lot like your dad but are you sure you're not a clone?" she asked, looking at the boy in the picture and then back to Frederick.
Alice laughed. "Look at the woman in that other photo next to it, the one wearing the flightsuit, and then look at Fred again." she suggested. "Pay attention to the eyes."
"They're the same." Philomena realized.
"Yep, exactly the same, and I don't just mean the color." Frederick told her. "That's my biological Mom, well kinda anyway." he continued. "I'm something like sixty-five percent dad, twenty-five percent her and ten percent a few other people combined." he told her. "I've got her 20/10 eyesight, her reaction times and her hand-eye coordination too, they're all better than my father has. I should end up a little taller than him too when I'm fully grown, but that's because of someone included in the ten percent, not because of my bio-mom."
"She's a pilot?" Philomena asked, correctly identifying what she was wearing and the insignia upon it. You couldn't live on Niops for a while and not learn that sort of thing, current and former SLDF personnel made up a fair proportion of the population and there was a definite degree of militarization of society that she assumed had not existed before Fredericks people turned up. 
"Fighter pilot, or at least she was. She was killed fighting the Clans as part of the rear-guard holding them off during the secession." Frederick told her. 
"Oh, I'm sorry." Philomena replied awkwardly.
"It's okay. I never even met her in real life, but she was kinda my Mom so Barbara thought I should have a picture of her, and Dad managed to find a decent one in an old personnel database." Frederick said, smiling. "I do see her eyes every time I look in a mirror, so I suppose I have sort-of met her in a way at least." he continued. "I've read her files. She day before she died she shot down a couple of Snow Ravens, the first of which was the tenth aerial kill of her career making her a fighter ace twice over. She made ace the first-time during Operation Klondike, so I guess they made the right decision using her genes as part of the program, which is something nice to know about myself." 
Philomena nodded, though unsure if she really understood exactly how his thinking processes worked there. In many ways the Ironborn kids, or 'kits' as they preferred, were far stranger than her own people, gills and all. The culture and society on Frobisher was very much Terran Hegemony in the way they did things and saw the galaxy around them, in that they were actually very much like most people on Niops that weren't of Capellan extraction, with some of the sometimes downright odd hard-core Wolverines really standing out from the crowd. 
"That's Fred when he was six." Alice spoke up, pointing to a larger picture, one showing two groups of young children formed up next to each other in front of an imposing stone building, all wearing cadet uniforms. "I bet you can recognize a few other faces too." she added, grinning.
Philomena took a closer look. "That's Jennifer, and that's definitely Dave." she decided. "I think that's Henry right there." she pointed to another child.
"Yep" Frederick confirmed. "That's us stood outside city hall in Bearcat, the Wolverine city on Strana Mechty the clan's capital world". he said. "Just after they took that photo they stuffed us all in a VTOL for a visit to Katyusha City where they gave us a tour of the Hall of Khans" he said. "We actually met the ilKhan there, Nicholas Kerensky, if I'd known what was going to happen less than a year later I'd have shanked the bastard." he said regretfully.
"I don't recognize any of the kids in the other group stood next to yours." Philomena remarked, trying to rid herself of the mental image of an angry six-year-old stabbing a man to death.
"That's sibling company Beta, the sibko just ahead of ours, so a year or so older than we were." Frederick told her. "They were just regular humans like…" he paused, "well not like you but like Alice I suppose." he corrected what he was initially going to say.
"Do they go to a different school than us?" Philomena asked.
"No, they never made it to Niops, we think they all got incinerated when Great Hope got nuked, but if any of them survived then they were probably executed after being taken prisoner." Frederick told her, something cold and dark in his eyes when he said it though his tone remained even.
Philomena stared at the photograph. "But they were just little kids..." she responded, appalled.
"They were Warrior Caste little kids." Frederick replied, voice still calm. "Kerensky ordered that every one of us should be killed, and that everyone in one of the civilian castes, laborers, technicians and the rest should be sterilized. When we say we were escaping from attempted genocide we weren't kidding. Once all the Wolverines that got left behind for whatever reason eventually die of old age we'll be the only ones there are anywhere."
"Fred helps out training the younger sibkos, don't you, Fred?" Alice asked him rhetorically.
"Sometimes" Frederick replied. "Sibko's Zeta, Theta and Iota, the Ironborn generations from 2819, 2821 and 2822, are pretty numerous compared to us Gammas, they had expanded the program a lot by the time the Zeta's came along and also improved the Iron Womb tech. We give the instructors a hand with them sometimes. It's kinda fun with the Iota's, having a bunch of eleven year-olds running cadence behind you I mean. Zeta and Theta don't treat it as more of a game than they do serious business so you do as well."
"Cadence?" Philomena asked.
"He sings a line, they all echo what he just said." Alice explained. "People used to do it on Buffalo Meadows too. Usually just the adults trying to keep fit, not the kids though."
Philomena nodded her understanding. She had seen some of the SLDF and NAM soldiers doing that around town on occasion but hadn't known what it was called. "What about the 2820 batch?" she asked Frederick. "You didn't mention them."
"Sibling Company Eta? They didn't make it out of the Clan Homeworlds, we're not entirely sure what happened to them." Frederick told her, immediately making Philomena regret asking because it wasn't likely to be good whatever it was. "Kappa, the 2823 kits, was never really a thing so they'll probably re-start the program with that name eventually. That'll probably be delayed even longer now because they'll want to get the anti-agathic treatments working before they spend a load of resources on more Ironborn." he reasoned. "Mechwarriors that are still able to take the field past their tenth decade are much better value for money than ones like me that never got the gene-therapy. There's actually a good chance I'll die of old age before my Dad does, which kinda sucks for both of us when I think about it. I just hope we get the treatments before Judith hits puberty so she can have them, dad really wouldn't want to outlive his baby girl too."
Alice nodded. "My grandfather looks the same age as my father because Pop-Pop was Hegemony born but Pops was born on Buffalo Meadows like me." she said.
Developing the anti-agathic treatments, or at least making reasonable progress in that direction, was something that Philomena was hoping for too, although for a somewhat different reason. She could not help but suspect that until Frobisher and Niops were more closely intertwined at all levels that she might never be able to go home.
Given what she and her parents now knew about Niops the authorities would surely want to make sure that none of it leaked out to the wider galaxy. That meant they were going to be extremely loath to let the 'Envoy' for Frobisher and her family leave, at least not until they were certain Frobisher could be completely trusted, that trust largely predicated on utter dependency.
Frobisher was probably screwed without military protection that Niops could provide. Moreover, they were definitely screwed in the long term without technical assistance from the Association, including the provision of Iron Wombs as a remedy for Frobisher's population issues. Frobisher providing the genetic know-how to recreate Hegemony anti-agathics in return would at least make the arrangement less of a one-way street, and Philomena knew it was better to be a partner than a dependent when it came to negotiation.
The Niops Association wasn't some kind of authoritarian dictatorship that harbored dreams of ruling over its 'Protectorates' with an Iron Fist, but they definitely saw themselves as the 'Terra' in their vision of a new Hegemony. While that was probably inevitable Philomena much preferred her homeworld to be accorded status more like a regional capital such as Tyrfing once had in that arrangement, rather than effectively being a poorly-populated colonial fief like Sirius, for example.
Frederick grinned. "I still can't believe you call your grandfather 'Pop-Pop' he responded.
"What would you have called yours?" Alice wanted to know, narrowing her eyes.
"Sir, he was a general" Frederick replied.
"My great-grandmother was a general too, but I wouldn't have called her 'Ma'am' like one of her soldiers" Alice retorted.
"I think I need more friends that aren't army brats" Philomena wryly suggested. Alice was certainly more 'civilian' in outlook than the Wolverine kids but the Buffalo Meadow's people were still very SLDF in origin. Alice's great-grandmother Leigh MacArthur had commanded the 295th before General Romanov, which was why her grandfather had ended up joining that particular unit and ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere as a result.
"Any problems with maybe getting yourself an army brat for a boyfriend, because it sure seems like Henry likes you?" Alice suggested.
"Nah, that's not on the cards" Frederick interrupted, "he's still smarting from getting burned when he tried to make a move before."
"Burned? How?" Philomena asked in confusion. "Also, when is this supposed to have happened?" she reasonably wanted to know, having no idea what he was talking about.
"You know, when he asked you if you wanted to grab a milkshake after school and you gave him the brush-off with a lame excuse" Frederick replied.
"What?" Philomena responded, no more enlightened than before, maybe even less so.
"He told me you gave him a lame excuse why you had to go straight home" Frederick persisted.
"You didn't give him the old 'I can't, I'm washing my hair' line, did you?" Alice asked rhetorically, 'because that's a crap one even if I said it and I have hair, and mine does take a long time to wash and then get dry."
"No, I told him the truth why I couldn't go get a milkshake. I didn't know he thought I was making it up" Philomena replied.
"Well, what did you tell him?" Alice wanted to know.
"I told him that I had to go home and walk my pet fish" Philomena told them. "Both my parents were working late and he needs to exercise every day, we've got a schedule for him."
Alice and Frederick both stared at her. "Do you know how stupid that sounds to someone that doesn't know your pet fish is amphibious and really does need to be taken out of his tank to exercise" Alice asked eventually.
"But everyone does know, I talked about it during biology class when we discussed xenobiology and types of alien fauna" Philomena reminded them.
Frederick pursed his lips. "And you're sure that wasn't when Henry was off school for a couple of days after he got that concussion playing football?" he asked, trying to remember himself.
"Oh" Philomena responded, looking and feeling extremely perturbed as to that possibility. "Telling him 'I've got to go home to walk my pet fish' does sound pretty made-up in that scenario." she admitted.
"To the point of insulting his intelligence, albeit because of his ignorance of your pet mudskipper I'd say." Alice concurred.
"I should probably talk to him to explain." Philomena decided, wondering how best to handle that.
"Good idea." Alice told her drily.
Frederick thought about the situation. "If you want to make reparations, and maybe get asked again if you want to grab a milkshake, just wear that skirt from yesterday." he advised.
"I am never wearing that skirt again" Philomena told him forcefully.
"Okay, but don't tell Henry that." Frederick replied. "You already pissed him off because he thought you insulted his intelligence with a really BS excuse for a rejection, you shouldn't break the poor guy's heart too."
If looks could kill Philomena's large-caliber glare would have vaporized Frederick and blown out the wall behind him, which would have been a shame because it was a very nice house.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : Finding a leash to fit a pet Alphard Mudskipper is not easy, though not as hard as teaching them tricks (getting them to stand up on their hind flippers to beg is particularly difficult).It's not Philomena's fault that girls in anime shows from the Draconis Combine with all their Japanese cultural influences look more like her than they do regular humans (except the hair of course, not many bald Drac anime girls). The 'Big Eyes' thing in Japanese manga and anime well pre-dates the 1980s which is when the Battletech Universe diverges from our own incidentally. Naturally, in the version of 'Where's Waldo' books Frederick had as a small child Waldo was in a forest wearing a camouflage gillie suit.If Sibling Company Gamma were the 2816 generation (the first Wolverines from the Iron Wombs) then running with that Alpha and Beta (2814 & 2815) were regular kids and they're generally a lot less weird. Sibko Zeta (2819) was the first after the system was properly up and running and they and later sibkos are considerably more numerous than the Gamma kits.Part XXVI (Chapter 26) will be entirely lacking in teenage crap... but I hope you all got a few laughs out of this part regardless.
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Chapter 25