This morning's prompt is 'sad little crab'.

"Sad little crab," Costigan muttered, waving a hand over it. Multiple eyestalks tracked (he counted seven) and the sad little not-crab backed sideways into the furthest corner of the enclosure.

"Sorry I was bothering you, little guy. Are you a pet, or dinner? Should I call you 'Lunch'?"

"She's not for eating, Dad," Alex said by his elbow. Frank didn't jump, but he did share a light elbow bump with his son.

"Not bad, you are definitely your mother's son, but she and your Grandma Boyle can sneak up on a ninja." He waved at the not-crab. "What about her?"

"Greebs graze and make greeb butter, of course."

"Of course. Is that edible?"

"Not exactly. We can get some nutrition out of it, but eat too much and you get sick. I'm working with some terraforming directorate bio wizards on tweeking the gut bacteria-"

"Too much information. I'm good." Costigan thought about things for a second and asked. "Working with?"

"Well, I'm their lab assistant/apprentice. Learning the covenants, which are mostly common sense protocols."

"Common sense isn't, especially when it comes to asking if you can when you should ask if you should."

"Trust me, Dad, these are all veterans of the atavist wars. They've been there, done that, have the tee-shirts..."

"Huh, plural?"

Alex looked uncomfortable. "There are a couple of Trike war criminals who've been through the wringer." He winced at the look on his Dad's ugly mug, broken nose and scars, he could do 'scary'.

"Does your mother know? More importantly... wait. This has your grandmother's prints all over it!"

"She's the one who took them into custody, originally. Saved their lives, probably."

"Alex, I know some of their victims. I know survivors. I remember three quarter tonne Markov showing me their bellies and pissing themselves to me and my friends after surviving the loving attention of the 'fallen angels'." Frank shuddered. He knew former, recovering, fallen. He remembered seeing 3D of the atrocities, like he'd been standing there, without the sounds or the smells.

"I'm sorry, but we're going to have a little family meeting about this tonight. You're a bright kid, but still a kid and this is not a good idea." He muttered to himself, "Sometimes I worry about Karen, she's always putting the Rangers and the Conservancy first!"

"Don't be mad, I asked to help!"

Costigan exhaled. "And there it is again. The price of 'you-topia' is always 'you'! You people cheerfully pull in the harness every day of your lives until you are spent, used up, tossing children at the problems of the previous generation."

Frank saw his little boy, still way too young for this, the family business of saving the Galaxy and making it a better place to be weird, staring wide eyed up at him and grabbed him into a bear hug. "Gods and Ancestors, molten heroes, every last one of you."