Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #9.

Much as Dean hated to admit it, Nick had been right about the belyaevs.

After his roommate had been gone a few weeks, Dean had caved under the emptiness of their living quarters and looked into acquiring a pet. The online forums led to some doubts as to whether belyaevs were a wise choice for the average Androsynth. Since everyone was, truly, working twelve-hour days, this left precious little time for pets, particularly those that wanted lots of company, like tame foxes. Already there was an order from someone higher-up not to produce or breed more of the animals until the situation was under control, as there were no personnel to handle stray or feral belyaevs.

Then, just to test things further, Dean borrowed one from a friend of a friend. And that convinced him that Nick was right – a pet, or at least this type of pet, just wasn't practical for them.

The little fox, named Neutrino, was plenty sociable, and a lot of fun to play with for the first hour. Then it was hungry. Then it was thirsty. Then it needed to be walked, and about that time it decided it really missed its master, so much so that it ran from room to room, barking its head off, stopping only to whine and scratch at the door and look pleadingly at Dean to let it out.

After an hour of futilely trying to calm Neutrino down, Dean wondered if the belyaev's owner had seen this as an opportunity to get away from his own pet.

"Sorry, sport," he said to the unhappy animal. "I guess it wasn't meant to be. Let's get you back to José."

Proof that tameness and brains don't go hand in hand, the fox ran faster than ever, scooting under Nick's bed and making itself the tiniest ball Dean had ever seen. He reached under the bed as far as he could and barely brushed the beautiful black-and-white fur with his fingertips.

Then the thing bit him.

Dean yelped and swore and reached in again, ignoring Neutrino's teeth as he grabbed hold of what felt like a leg or a tail and pulled. Neutrino stopped nipping, only to howl and cry and carry on to the point where the person on the other side of the wall hit it a few times in the traditional "Keep it down!" knocking.

At last Dean had the belyaev free from the safety of under-the-bed, leashed, and held by the scruff of the next for good measure, at arm's length. "Just 'til we get outside, you little monster," he growled at the whimpering fox.

Neutrino responded in a most primitive fashion that convinced Dean that pets had no room in his life. At least he had time to clean the mess, since Nick wouldn't be home for a while anyway. "You're goin' home, belyaev."

~ ~ ~

If this had been a movie, Dean thought, or a book, then that night would have been the one for Nick to suddenly, unexpectedly come home, just in time to catch Dean cleaning up belyaev piddle, and a great chance for Nick to lay out some choice I told you so! verbiage.

But Nick didn't come home, because this was real life, and actually Dean hadn't heard anything from his erstwhile roommate since one message the day after the KORB-series had left for training: Got here. All is well. No problems. More later. Nick. It didn't terribly surprise him; Dean supposed military training must be taking up a lot of time. And Dean, at least, had a large network of friends and acquaintances, so it wasn't as though he lacked for anyone to talk to.

Still, when he saw a KORB-series anywhere, he usually looked closely to see if it was Nick. The hands were the giveaway, of course. But Nick was off at Skyhook – well, maybe; who knew where they were doing all this – not in Whitehills. And how many KORBs could there be on this planet, anyway? It had to be fewer than XR4-ITs, his own series. There were two others in this part of Whitehills already. When you were an Androsynth, you got used to seeing the same faces, even your own, on a regular basis.

That night, after retouching the contact adhesive he'd doused his belyaev bites with, he sent a message of his own.

Nick – hope all is still well. You were right about belyaevs. They're nasty little things. He wasn't sure if he should put Try not to get killed or The place is empty without you or The damn thing bit me, so he ended abruptly: When do you get out? It's weird without you here.

Dean looked over the message, chewed on his lip, decided to delete the last sentence, and accidentally hit Send instead.

"Crap! Crap! Crap!" Dean clicked in a fury to "unsend" the message, but when he did, the machine told him, in essence, too late: it's already been read.

"That must mean he's on," Dean said aloud, then shook his head at himself. He blinked twice as a one-word response came back from Nick:

Good.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com