Redux Vol1 Ch7: Understanding...

Hethuk was the first to come out of the room, he still had a sort of angry expression but it seemed like the worst of his mood had passed. He walked over and silently sat down next to Jack, both of them not looking at each other. The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity before either of them decided to take the first move. "Listen-" he started but before he could get a word out Jack cut in.

"I understand, I do, I get the whole protective father bit, and I would like to apologize, it was inappropriate for me to-" he paused, he had been about to say it was inappropriate for him to act that way with his daughter but the truth of the matter was that it wasn't. Jack was now engaged to her, which meant the two of them had every right to do as they pleased with each other. "I should have chosen a better time," he amended. "It's not like me, normally I am more careful, it just-"

"Its like you lose control, and there is nothing but the desire," Hethuk nodded, Jack looked over at him, expecting him to have an angry expression on his face. Instead he looked over at jack and nodded. "It's not actually you, the cause is Hisra or rather the bond."

"The bond that makes it so if I die, she dies?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, that one, it does many many things, but in this case, it is influencing the two of you." he sighed a sly smile on his lips. "You know, I never thought I would be having this conversation with a male, Trilska males are rare and I never had a son," he chuckled to himself. "Anyway, you two initiated the bond, it linked you together, both body and soul, and eventually mind, but we can get into that later, as I was saying you are linked, her body is now prepared to change, prepared to reformat itself so that the two of you can procreate, the only issue is the bond is not complete, her body doesn't yet know what it needs to change in order to procreate with yours, so she is subconsciously sending signals through the link that are influencing the both of you."

"So, signals can be sent over this link?" Jack asked, "and that is what is causing our, shall we say indiscretion?"

"Yes, I don't like it, really really want to blame you for that, but," he shrugged.

"So, uh, what exactly does happen when she, you know, changes? How can you trilska adapt like that?" He looked at Jack, his eyebrows raised.

"Wow, I know I shouldn't be surprised you don't know, but, wow..." he took a breath and leaned back, his head. "Don't expect me to go into detail, you want that you will have to look it up yourself, the basics is that her body read the DNA, and essentially runs a sort of test, adapting the design, this could take anywhere from a month to a year or longer, but during this process she cannot have a child, once that is done however she can," he shrugged looking up at the ceiling.

"So, what else should I know about Trilska?" he asked, only half-joking, but only half.

"Well, let us see," Hethuk said, rubbing his chin as he thought. "Well, I could get a basic crash course of sorts ready for you," he said.

"That would be nice," Jack said as he got up and walked over to the console, he pressed the eject button and pulled the disk out, placing it back into the proper case and setting it on the shelve.

"Are those all videogames?" Hethuk asked setting forward and looking interested at the shelve/

"Yeah, I used to play a lot of games, I don't have as much free time anymore," He laughed, "Well perhaps it isn't a lack of time, I come home and I just lay on the couch and pass out most nights before I play anything."

"I understand, trust me my responsibilities make it difficult to get anything else done," he sighed, "What do you have up there?"

"Lots of games, mostly fps games or RPGs," Jack shrugged.

"What is the best one?" he asked.

"I don't know about the best, but this one is my favorite," Jack said, pulling the mass effect trilogy, and handing it over.

"What is this one about?" Hethuk asked, Jack opened his mouth and paused, realizing for the first time he was talking to an alien about these things. Hethuk turned it over and looked at it curiously. Mass effect would be like some sort of an alternate reality to them; maybe it would be completely ridiculous and hysterical to someone like Hethuk who actually knew the races of the universe. And perhaps it would be insulting, Jack had no way of knowing.

"Well, its a story about a human named Shepard, you make your own Shepard, so he can be male or female, and it is about a war with an ancient race of aliens called the reapers, throughout the games you have to make decisions of who to ally with, there are a lot of fictional alien races in it and they all have their own cultures. You have to unite the races despite years of hate between some of them and get them to work together against the reapers before all sentient life is wiped out."

"So, diplomatic interactions with different races?" Hethuk said under his breath so low that jack couldn't hear, "that would come in handy, so it is not just war training these games do but also something like this, huh?"

"What was that?" Jack asked.

"Oh, nothing, do you think it would be ok if I were to try this one out?"

"Well-" Mass effect might not be the best one for him, he was about to suggest a different one when the door to the guest room opened, he turned towards it.

"Jack! Can we get some help here please?" Hisra poked her head out of the room and gave him a smile, there was something tight in that smile, something he didn't really recognize. He sighed and nodded so she pulled her head back in.

"Yeah sure feel free to try any game, the ones that have the green case are for this machine, and the ones with the clear case are for this one," he pointed to the Xbox and PlayStation in order and turned on his heels heading to the guest room as quickly as a walk could take him. He paused at the door, as there was some sort of strobe lighting that seemed to be pulsing out from under the door. "What the hell is that?" he muttered to himself before taking a deep breath and opening the door. A wave of colored fog rolled out, and he had a really bad feeling about this entire thing, but he steeled himself and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Well then, I will take you up on that offer," Hethuk said, putting the disk into the consul and picking up the controller off the ground. "In fact I want to try all of these to get a scope of what training situations they have available, who knows perhaps we can adapt them for the trilska." He ignored the startled curse that jack shouted once the door was shut and went about doing his research, after all, one of the key things to knowing a person was to know the culture they came from, right?