by Rachel Ford
“I believe they’ve already forgotten them,” Maggie observed dryly.
She smiled sheepishly. “I should not count on that if I were you, my dear. They might like to forget. But our side will remind them, regularly and vociferously.”
We left with warm goodbyes from J’kar and the Inkayas. “I hope you will both come to our wedding, Katherine,” F’rok said. “We’d be delighted to have you.”
“And the christening of our child,” F’riya agreed. “We’ve gotten to know you both so well, you’re practically family now.”
“Yes,” Ger agreed. “I hope you will consider it at least.”
We promised that we would, and then headed to the car to give Frank a chance to make his final farewells. The minutes ticked by, but, eventually, he returned.
He was quiet and pensive on the ride back to the ship. “You’ll be back soon enough,” I said after a while.
He nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”
We spoke no more of it that afternoon, and I was soon distracted by the rest of the crew. Ginny threw a hug around me. “Damn we were scared, Kay.”
Fredricks clasped my hand. “It’s good to have you back, Katherine.”
“I’m glad that detective of yours listened to us,” Dave nodded.
But, somehow, it was Sydney I was happiest to see. He was waiting patiently behind the assembled crowd. “Syd.”
“Katherine. I am gratified that you are returned to the Black Flag unscathed.”
“So am I. Believe me: so am I.”
“We were, for a time there, ‘worried sick.’” He paused, then assured me, “Not literally, of course.”
I smiled. “We owe you – all of you. Without everything you all did, we might be headed back to jail now. Or already there.”
“Well, Katherine, that would not have been good.”
“No,” I agreed. “Not very.”
“It would have probably meant a war between the Union and Kudar.”
I blinked. “A war? How?”
“Well, it would have resulted in a Union privateer vessel sieging a Kudarian prison to liberate three wrongly held prisoners. What else would have happened?”
I laughed. “Your humor routines are getting pretty good, Syd. You had me going for a second there.”
“Humor routines?”
“You were joking about breaking us out. Right?”
“Oh.” He paused, and for an uncomfortable second I wondered if he had been joking after all. Then, he said, “Yes, of course, Katherine. Just exercising my humor routines, as you say.”
Chapter Sixty-One
We’d been underway for a day and a half. Maggie had already found a contract for us, and everything seemed back to normal. As normal as could be, given the circumstances, anyway.
But not where Frank was concerned. He was still glum and quiet and unlike his usual self. Mags and I had finished lunch and were leaving the mess hall when I glanced back at him, dragging a fork through his plate and seeming a million miles away.
“Babe,” I said quietly. “I need to talk to Frank. Go on without me.”
She glanced over to him, then nodded. Putting a kiss on my cheek, she said, “I’ll see you later, love.”
I turned back to Frank, pulling out one of the seats opposite him. “Mind if I join you?”
He seemed surprised, but shook his head. “Go for it. Couldn’t get enough cream of chicken casserole the first time? Back for seconds, eh?” He smiled, in good imitation of his typical grin.
Sinking into the seat, I shook my head. “No. Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“Everything okay, Frank?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Course.”
I smiled. “You know, you’ve always been a shitty liar.”
He glanced up from his plate now, and smiled too. “Yeah, yeah.”
“I’m not trying to be nosy. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, I completely understand. But I want you to know that I’m here if you do. And if not me, maybe someone else. Maybe Fredricks or Corano. Or, hell, there’s counsellors who do remote sessions. You wouldn’t even have to wait until we reached a base. Point is, you’ve been through a hell of a lot. And if you need to talk to someone, you should.”
“I’m fine, Kay. Really.”
“You don’t look fine, Frank. You’re never sad. Not like this.” Impulsively, I stretched a hand out to his. “Whatever it is, you know I’m here for you, right? And not just me: Mags, everyone.”
He nodded slowly. “I do, Kay. And I appreciate it. It’s just…it’s not anything anyone can fix.”
“Maybe not. But sometimes talking about it helps anyway.”
He held my gaze for a moment, then shook his head. “Alright, alright. I surrender: I’ll tell you, if you’ll stop worrying.”
I laughed lightly. “You don’t have to tell me, Frank. If you’re not comfortable-”
“It’s nothing like that, Kay. It’s not about comfort. It’s just…I don’t know. It kind of feels like the end of something. It’s not, but…” He shook his head. “Before we left, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but…well, I realized that I’m not the kind of eldest child my parents wanted. And I don’t want to be. I don’t think I can be.”
“Maybe not, but you’re a great guy, Frank. You’re smart and good and loyal. You’re one of the best people I know. Maybe not the most traditional Kudarian, but only because you’re a hell of a lot better than most people, Kudarian or otherwise.”
He smiled softly. “But estates and family honor and all that?” He shook his head. “I don’t give a damn about any of it, Kay. I never have. It’s why I left in the first place. I thought maybe, as time went on, I’d care more. But when I was in that jail, I wasn’t thinking about getting out to go back home. All I could think of was getting the hell off Kudar.”
“That’s not surprising, given everything that happened. But you’ll want to go back eventually.”
“Yes. I will. I’ll want to visit. Hell, someday, I might want to marry and raise kids there. But…” He shrugged. “I don’t want to manage an estate. I don’t want to put up with the politics and social games.”
I squeezed his hand. “Well, it’s a long way off yet.”
He shook his head. “No. Before we left…I told my mom. I abdicated my place, as heir to the Inkaya estate.”
I blinked. “Wow. Really?”
“Yes. I’m not going to change my mind, Kay. I know that. But I realized something else, being there.” He shrugged. “My family already has an heir. And she’s everything the head of a household should be, not least of all, a homebody.”
“You mean…F’riya?”
He nodded. “She does everything I should have been doing. She’s done it for years. She knows the estate, she loves it in a way I never could. And now she’s married, and they’ve got a kid on the way.”
“What did your mom say?”
He laughed, a quiet snort of a laugh. “She didn’t argue. F’riya did. She didn’t want me to give up my ‘birthright’ and all that. But my parents were less surprised. Father said, ‘It might be for the best,’ given the recent attacks on my character.”
“Hell.”
“He’s not wrong. Still…” He grinned. “It might have stung a little less if they’d been less eager to get rid of me. If they’d at least pretended to be sorry to hear it.”
“I don’t know if it helps at all, Frank,” I said in a moment, “but I’m not sorry to hear it, if it means you’ll be under less pressure to leave the Black Flag.”
He smiled. “I think I’m safe, now: free to do as I please.”
I laughed. “So no more arranged marriages then?”
“No.”
I nodded, but then grew more serious. “They do love you, you know. You might be a little less traditional than they wanted, but your parents love you, Frank. They were wrecks, waiting for you to get out of jail.”
“I know. I just…I wish I was l
ess of a disappointment to them, is all.”
“They were disappointed in F’riya and F’rok too,” I reminded him. “And now they’re proud of both of them. Their expectations are very narrow, but they can adjust.”
He nodded slowly. “So, what you’re saying is, all I have to do is fall in love with a really rich guy or get pregnant, and all will be forgiven?”
I laughed. “Something like that.”
He grinned. “Well, I suppose I should get back to work.”
“Me too.”
“This ship’s not going to fly itself.”
“I guess not.”
We both stood, and he said, “Katherine?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks for listening.”
“Of course. Any time.”
“One more thing, though, before you go.”
“Yeah?”
“If I ever recommend a destination again, don’t listen. Please. For all of our sakes.”
I laughed. “Deal.”
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About the Author
Rachel Ford is a software engineer by day, and a writer most of the rest of the time. She is a Trekkie, a video-gamer, and a dog parent, owned by a Great Pyrenees named Elim Garak and a mutt of many kinds named Fox (for the inspired reason that he looks like a fox).
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More from the Author
The Time Travelling Taxman series (humorous time travel):
Book 1: T-Rexes & Tax Law (ebook, paperback and audiobook)
Book 2: UFOs & Unpaid Taxes (ebook & paperback, and audiobook)
Book 3: MarvelousCon & Tax Cons (ebook & paperback, audiobook releasing soon)
Book 4: Time Slips & Tax Thieves (ebook & paperback, audiobook releasing soon)
Book 5: Mob Bosses & Tax Losses
Book 6: Gullibe’s Travels & Taxing Rabble releases August 15th, 2019
The Tribari Freedom Chronicles series (dystopian sci-fi):
Book 1: Catalyst (novelette – ebook and audiobook)
Book 2: Uprising (novel – ebook, paperback and audiobook)
Book 3: Liberation (novel – ebook, paperback and audiobook releasing soon)
Book 4: Absolution (novel) releases June 30th
Black Flag series (space opera sci-fi):
Book 1: Safe Passage
Book 2: Lee Shores
Book 3: Troubled Waters releases September 24th
Other works available now:
Prison Break (sci-fi space opera novelette, ebook & audiobook)
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