* * * *
Jarl located her suitable female uniforms to wear until he could have some custom-tailored for her. Act’huran women generally stood much taller and larger than Aine, and there were few of them on the ship. At least the garments were a better fit than the male uniforms. With Sammuel’s return to command the ship, the first officer transferred to his new permanent assignment as captain of his own vessel. Sammuel promoted the second officer to first and installed Aine as second. Between her job duties and the men, she had little time for thoughts about her left-behind life.
Remembering not to swear in a colorful fashion, at least around her men, was getting easier. Especially after three more spankings by Sammuel, one of them for letting a loud “fuck” fly in engineering one afternoon when she bashed her knuckles with a sonic wrench while trying to repair a faulty relay.
After that incident, they mutually agreed she could substitute the old vernacular word “frak” in its place.
Her ass certainly appreciated that concession, especially since Ker made Sammuel use his belt on spanking number three.
After six months she knew the Act’huran language well enough the men no longer had to speak to her in English. The crew came to accept her as not only one of them, but as a superior officer. With her engineering skills, she helped make modifications to their systems that were implemented throughout the Act’huran fleet. Her hair now hung past her shoulders, and while still short, she could pull it back into a ponytail and plait it. Streaks of blond appeared at the roots as well, more changes as she melded with her men.
The only thing missing…
Her own command.
She chided herself one day about the thought when alone in engineering and going through a systems check. Most women would kill for what she had, and yet there she was, complaining.
She looked at her father’s ring, stroked it with her thumb. Was it wrong to settle for a life of well-loved luxury?
Aine forced the disquiet away and returned her focus to her work.
Chapter Eleven
Eighteen months after her rescue by Sammuel, Aine had almost learned to control her swearing, and the Confederation needed another group of Act’huran ships for a shadow mission. Aine’s pulse raced as she listened to Ker and Sammuel discuss it one evening at dinner until, finally, Ker smiled across the table at her.
“You shall explode if you do not say it, so say it.”
“All right, fine. Can we go?”
Sammuel frowned and leaned back. “I was not planning on any of us going anywhere. The Ab’yoika Maru would simply be the base ship the shadow vessels depart from.”
“But I know the raiders in that sector! I’ve fought them dozens of times. I know how their commander thinks. I could be useful!”
Sammuel started to put his foot down to absolutely forbid it when Ker spoke. “I think we should.”
Sammuel’s head swiveled. “What?”
Ker nodded. “I think she is right. No other captain, perhaps other than yourself, Ki’ran, knows their ways like Aine.”
“But Master, that would put her in danger!”
Ker lifted an eyebrow at him. “Have I ever denied your requests to go on missions? Does it not put you in danger?”
“But that…” His face reddened as he stared at his plate.
She felt what he’d been ready to say. That’s different. I’m a man, she’s a woman.
Aine battled between love and anger at Sammuel for wanting to protect her and not having confidence in her skills.
His head whipped around again, this time to her. “I did not say I do not have confidence in your skills!”
Whoops. Her turn to redden. She didn’t realize he’d heard that thought.
“I just want to keep you safe. Is that a crime?”
“We will all go,” Ker said, ending the argument. “Ki’ato, it is simply his old human ways of thinking. Do not judge him harshly. Anyway, I cannot bear to be away from either of you yet. So we all go. If we die, we die together.”
* * * *
Regardless, dying wasn’t on their to-do list. When it was revealed the Confederation wanted a new sensor beacon installed on the surface of an uninhabited planet the raiders frequently used as a stop-over station, Sammuel grudgingly admitted Aine was the best qualified for the job.
She had, after all, designed the sensor beacon.
Triumphant and more than a wee bit nervous, the three of them, accompanied by a contingent of six guards and techs, loaded into a lander for their trip to the planet’s surface. Temperate in some places, the equatorial region consisted of many thick rainforests dotted with active volcanic peaks. The planet was otherwise encased in an ice age, with the polar ice sheets extending to almost thirty-five degrees north and south of the equator. Raiders braved toxic plants and highly venomous insects, as well as voracious reptilian animals, to refill their water tanks and hide out in deep canyon crevasses of volcanic rock to evade sensor sweeps by Confederate forces. An orbiting satellite would simply be destroyed by the raiders.
But the sensor beacon Aine developed wasn’t detectible unless there was a receptor beacon on a ship with the proper frequency codes to access it. This meant nearby Confederation forces could check to see if any raider ships entered or left the planet’s atmosphere without having to get into firing range and risk being ambushed.
When they landed, Sammuel skillfully guiding them down to the rocky outcropping where the sensor would be placed, he turned to the crew. “Keep careful watch for any animal or insect life.”
Before he opened the hatch Aine had second thoughts. “I frakking hate planets,” she muttered as she looked out the front view ports.
Sammuel laid a soothing hand on her shoulder after playfully tugging on her braid. Plaited, her hair now hung past her shoulders. She loved it when the men took hold and tugged or used it to keep her where they wanted her. Loose, it fell halfway down her back. Large patches of blond now competed with brown. While she was tempted to dye it all blond to speed the process, Ker and Sammuel wouldn’t let her.
“It is part of the process and a badge of honor, showing everyone you are a t’wren,” Sammuel had insisted. “It took my hair nearly five years to fully turn.”
Ker stepped close and spoke, pulling her out of her reverie. “Ki’ato?”
She ran her hands up and down her arms to soothe her nerves. The last time she set foot on a planet had been when Sammuel rescued her. She associated planets with death and dying. Her parents and Aggie died on a planet. She got the news about her fathers while on a planet. She nearly lost her life on one, as did Sammuel. Space was much safer.
Space felt like home. “I’m okay. Let’s get this done.”
Two men kept close watch while the others helped move the beacon out of the cargo bay and up the hill into position. Working quickly, they anchored it to the ground and stepped away so Aine could program it. It had been camouflaged to blend in, and being solar powered, it shouldn’t need maintenance. Aine worked quickly, her skin creeping in waves of gooseflesh as she hurried to complete the calibrations.
When she stepped back to switch it on with her remote controller so she could test it, her boot slipped on loose gravel, sending her tumbling backward. With her right hand securely holding the controller against her stomach to protect the device, her left arm instinctively shot back to break her fall.
She hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of her and skinning her left palm.
Sammuel turned just in time to see her go down. “Aine!” He rushed up the outcropping to help her.
She looked at the controller. It was okay.
That’s when she felt a hot, stabbing pain in her left wrist.
She screamed and jerked her hand up. She spotted the grey spider, nearly the color of the surrounding rock.
Sammuel finally made it to her. “Love, what’s wrong?”
Still stunned, and with her arm feeling like fire raced up it, she fought a dizzying wave of vertigo.
Following her gaze, he swore and crushed the six-inch wide arachnid with his boot. “Did it bite you?”
She nodded. “I have to finish the setting.” Her tongue already felt large in her mouth. She wondered what the fuck the venom did to her to hit her that quickly.
Despite Sammuel trying to pull her to her feet, she dialed in the settings and activated the beacon. Seconds later, she received an acknowledging signal from the Ab’yoika Maru that the beacon was working.
Her vision grew blurry. By this time, Sammuel’s initial cry of alarm drew Ker and two of the men back to the outcropping.
“What happened?” Ker asked.
Sammuel scooped her into his arms. “Tosky spider nailed her in the hand.”
“Oh, no!”
“I told you I fucking hate planets,” she mumbled before her tongue felt too thick to talk anymore. She had just enough time to register fear on Ker’s normally strong and placid face before her conscious faded.
* * * *
Shouting, angry voices woke her. She shivered, then felt a wave of heat wash through her. Struggling to open her eyes, she realized she was back in the lander. Sammuel bent over her, yelling at someone over the com link for instructions.
She spotted the back of Ker’s head in the command seat and a blanket of stars in the front vid ports. They were on the way back to the Ab’yoika Maru.
Oh, good. Off that fucking planet. Thank the gods.
Hot pain engulfed her arm, slamming her momentarily into full awareness, so much that she let out a scream of agony.
“I know, love,” Sammuel soothed. “I am so sorry. I know it hurts. Please hang in there. Please hold on for me.” He injected her with something. She had just enough time to catch his thoughts before fading out again.
“Please do not let her die. Please do not take her from me.”
* * * *
Pain washed through her, making her scream. Yet, she couldn’t because of the tube down her throat.
Panicked, she tried to rip it out when she realized her arms had been restrained.
She looked up and saw what she thought might be the ceiling of the Ab’yoika Maru’s med bay, but she couldn’t tell for sure.
Everything hurt, deep, excruciating, fiery waves of pain rolling up her left arm and throughout her entire body. And still, it felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Aine thrashed against her restraints before Ker’s face came into view. He placed his palms against her cheeks and lowered his face to hers as far as he could because of the breathing tube.
“Relax,” he murmured. “Relax, Ki’ato. Please, do not fight. They are trying to treat the venom. They cannot give you more drugs for the pain right now.”
She heard doctors talking in the background, frenzied tones and lots of activity she knew centered on her.
Sammuel appeared on her other side. Her eyes flicked to his worried face before Ker spoke to her again. “Look at me, Ki’ato.”
She finally remembered how to communicate with him. “I can’t breathe!” she mentally told him. It felt like the breathing tube choked her. She couldn’t even swallow.
“Yes, yes you can,” he soothed. “Take a breath.”
She finally tried to pull air into her lungs and marginally relaxed when she realized she could, in fact, get air.
“See? It is all right. They had to stabilize your airway when we returned to the ship.”
“Am I going to die?” Hot tears ran down her face.
Ker looked angry. “You are not going to die! You are strong and fierce, and the doctors are working on formulating an antivenom that will work on your anatomy.”
“I love you.” Another blistering wave of agony took her focus again. It felt like her body had been drenched in boiling oil. She knew for certain her skin must be blistered off her body.
“We love you, too, Ki’ato. The pain is the effect of the venom in your blood. You are not burned.”
“It hurts!”
She heard Sammuel sob. When she tried to look at him again, Ker kept her face firmly in his palms. “No, look at me, love. Look into my eyes and breathe. Deep breaths.”
Despite her pain she suspected Sammuel was overwrought, crying, and Ker didn’t want her to see him like that for fear it would frighten her.
When a wave of pain stronger than the previous ones swept through her, she let the dark places in her mind coax her into oblivion.
* * * *
She dreamed of Aggie. Looking up into his face from a child’s height, she saw his smile, heard his voice with a clarity her dreams hadn’t possessed in years.
Playing in the small, dusty backyard of their parents’ home, feeling loved. Feeling safe, even as he threw her up into the air.
“I’ll catch you, Annnnnyyyaa.”
He always did.
Usually only his voice came to her, not their parents. But in this dream, she saw her mother and father watching from the back door with smiles on their faces. “You’re such a good brother, Aggie,” her mom said.
Her father nodded. “You’ll make a good father.”
Aine hugged her brother tightly, her arms slung around his neck. “No! I won’t share you with anyone!” she said.
He laughed and kissed her cheek. “You are number one in my life, Little One. Don’t worry. Always.”
That dream faded with another wave of pain.
She hid in the dark alcove. Noises echoed around her, frightening her, but she didn’t cry.
Boys do not cry.
The sound of a hatch opening, then men’s voices.
She struggled to push herself deeper into the recess and prayed it was Aggie coming for her, but she suspected Aggie was badly hurt. Or maybe dead, like their parents.
When the man’s face came into view, she bit down on her lips not to cry out, afraid he would hurt her. Afraid he might be a bad man.
But then he sat and talked to her and his soothing voice calmed her. He didn’t sound anything like the bad man. He reminded her of Aggie, in a way. When he called her “Little One” she thought maybe she could trust him. It was what Aggie always called her. Her father…
That faded.
She lay in her bunk at school and struggled against the tears wanting to drown her from the inside out.
Boys do not cry.
Service Before Self.
Father and Da wanted her to have a chance to accomplish all she could. They had taken the last, extra mission to make sure they had more than enough money for her Academy tuition fees.
They would have been home sooner had they not taken that last run. They never told her that, but she put it together after reading her father’s correspondence with the freighter assignment division.
She said she wanted to be a captain and they died to make that happen, to make sure they could put her through school.
Service Before Self…
A new dream. Waking up on that damn planet with Sammuel bent over her. How he called her “Little One.”
She loved them, both of them. How could she ever give them up when they felt like part of her?
Yet…
What about what she set out to do with her life? To make her fathers proud? To wipe out as many raiders as she could for killing her birth parents and causing Aggie’s death? Was that disrespecting them, dishonoring their sacrifice to turn her back on her duties?
Service Before Self…
Blackness absorbed her.
* * * *
Restraints still kept her arms immobilized, but the breathing tube had been removed. She shivered. When she tried to lift her head to look around she felt too weak to do even that.
She still lay on a bunk in the med bay, the lights dimmed.
Sensing Ker and Sammuel close by, she closed her eyes and called out to them with her mind. The men immediately appeared on either side of her.
“We are here, love,” Ker said. He smoothed her brow. “We are always here for you. Always by your side.”
Her tongu
e felt dry and thick in her mouth, and it took her a while to make it work right. “How long?” she croaked.
“Shh, don’t tire yourself.”
“How long?”
He sighed. “Nearly two weeks. The worst is past, and you are healing. The doctors say you may feel residual effects for a while. They had to not only adjust the dosage of the antivenom, they had to carefully calibrate it to human anatomy.”
“I fucking hate planets.”
Sammuel laughed. “Love, I shall give you a pass for that. I also promise I will try to never take you onto a planet again if I can help it.”
“Good.”
Ker must have pulled a chair next to her bed, on her right side, because he sat with his chin resting on the mattress. “Sammuel, go get some sleep. I shall sit up with her tonight.”
“But Master—”
“Go. It is all right. Tomorrow morning you return, and you may sit with her while I sleep.”
He nodded, resigned. She saw how tired he looked.
Exhausted by talking, she mentally spoke to Sammuel. “Please go rest. I love you.”
He mustered a weary smile. “I love you, too, Little One.” He brushed a kiss across her lips. “In the morning, then.”
Once they were alone, she focused on Ker. She knew there was more to his command than simply sending Sammuel to bed.
“What’s going on?”
He smiled. “You have very strong instincts, do you realize that?”
“Do not bullshit the worn out woman in the hospital bed.”
“I shall let that pass as well.” He kissed her. “Do you wish to talk? Mentally. I do not wish you to tire yourself.”
Her mind flashed to her dreams. “Talk? Why?”
“Exactly, your dreams.”
She tried to recall them. Some of them she could, some she couldn’t, and she told him just that.
“Sammuel did not see them. I do not think he could because he felt too distraught and filled with guilt over you getting bit. He blames himself.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
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