James hesitated before asking, “Query. Reason.”
Max could've offered any number of explanations. He was trained to defend civilians. He had a bias toward protecting the young. It was a rather unreasonable bias in this part of the universe, but he wasn't ready to let go of his human tendency to shield younger members of sentient races.
But in the end, there was only one reason that mattered. He tangled his fingers with James’s tentacles. Xander had always loved the gesture, but James and Kohei were so full of energy that they rarely sat still long enough to embrace Max's hand. But this time James reached out with as many tentacles as he could fit around Max's fingers.
“I gave birth to you. You grew in my body. That makes me your father. It makes me responsible for seeing that you are safe and happy. I will kill every bastard on this ship before I will let them touch you. But I can't do something that puts you in danger. I need you safe.”
James tightened his tentacles around Max's hand. “Max goes into more danger.”
James wasn't stupid, and Max wasn't going to lie to him. “Yes. I'm going to try to get these two guards to enter the storage area, then I'm going to open this door and fire on them.” Max touched the screen to show where he planned on carrying out his attack.
The access passage he would need to use was a vertical shaft with no intersections anywhere close to that deck. If Max had to flee, if the aliens got to that door fast enough, Max would have nowhere to hide. That access shaft was so long that Max had never found the bottom before abandoning his explorations.
“Danger,” James said with a little burping noise added at the end.
Maybe it was some sad and lonely piece of his psychology needing to feel loved, but Max imagined that James was distraught. “Yes. That's why you need to stay here.”
James pulled his tentacles away from the screen. He tightened his hold on Max's hand before he spoke. “Conditional. If Max is hurt, invaders come for me and brothers and other father.”
Bands of fear tightened around Max's chest so much so that he couldn't speak, but he did nod.
James touched the corridor door next to the one where the invaders were guarding. “I need me here. I wait for Max. Conditional. Max fails. I protect. I am cognitively mature.”
Max closed his eyes and swallowed. He didn't want to think of James having to pull the trigger. James was his hyperactive little boy, his explorer. He wanted James to grow up and chase skirts and, like his namesake, find peaceful solutions.
However, Max couldn't deny the real danger that he might fail. If that happened, he couldn't leave the rest with no defense at all. Max had seen how fast the children absorbed new ideas, and unfortunately, James had seen him fight. Of everyone on the ship, James was probably best positioned to defend the family.
Max hated it.
Max curled his arm around James's body and leaned in, so that he could rest his forehead against a section of James's oversized head. He was surprised when James allowed the touch. Of the three children, he had always been the least tactile and affectionate. After a second, James pushed him away.
Max tugged on James’s leg tentacle, urging him to uncurl it. “You have to protect yourself. Don't let them hurt you,” Max said. He pulled on the hand he had intertwined with James’s tentacles and drew the second weapon. When he handed it to James, James curled several tentacles around it. “Don't fire if you're too close to them.”
“I watch. I learn.”
Max nodded and then put James down on the floor. They were close enough to the storage room that James would be able to get himself there. But Max was going to have to do some climbing to reach the access point to the shaft he needed. “Be careful,” he told his little explorer.
James made a soft whale sound and then said, “Don't be dead.”
That was the best advice Max had ever received.
