by H. E. Trent
Curious as she was about the number of beating hearts on the ship, she headed to the main hatch, anyway, sprinted across the open depot to the back door, and got ready to let Salehi in. They could check the hold together while the gates were opening and the ship was undergoing its start sequence. She may have been a cowgirl at heart, but she wasn’t reckless.
She put her ear to the door and, at the sound of soft scratching on the other side, opened it a crack.
Spotting Salehi, she huffed with relief, and let him in.
She took note of his killer smile and the way his very male physique looked in all-black—tight shirt, cargo pants, ass-kicker boots—allowed herself a moment of indulgence, because Salehi was a fine sight for the eyes, and then took one of the many bags he was carrying.
“Divide and conquer,” she whispered. “Get your command controls locked in and launch ready. I’ll get the depot door sequenced. After that’s done, we can see what’s in that cargo hold.”
“Understood.”
They jogged to the open ship door. Even carrying three bulging duffels, he outran her.
She tried not to feel too wounded. After all, he was a trained soldier.
Dayum. He could probably carry twice his own weight and drag another hundred pounds behind him.
He wouldn’t have had any problem picking her up, anyway, and she had one mind to let him carry her wherever he needed her to go, or wherever he needed to come.
Get your mind out of the gutter, girl.
“Let me introduce you to Ais,” she said when she caught up to him at the door, “so you don’t spazz her out. She’s a little thing.”
He dropped the bags in the hall and shook his head. “I’ll be in the cockpit for five minutes, so don’t stress about the introductions yet.”
“Okay. I just don’t want her freaking out until we know what’s what.”
He nodded and stretched his lips into that killer smile again.
She let out the tiniest sigh, dropped her bag, and headed right back out into the hangar. “Gonna go work on that door.”
He didn’t say anything and didn’t make any movements, but she kept going so she didn’t have to talk. She didn’t get to talk to anyone anymore with Amy being gone and her mother being so far away. If anyone sat still long enough, she could probably talk their ears off.
At the computer input panel beside the hangar door, Eileen looked over her shoulder at the ship and, finding that Salehi had moved away from the hatch, got to work running the bit of software the commissioner had developed expressly for their mission. The computer would conveniently forget the doors had been opened. The cameras inside the building had been reprogrammed the moment Eileen had swiped her key at the outside. If anyone were monitoring the footage, they’d be seeing the scene from an hour before her arrival on a repeating loop. The cameras would go back to normal once the hangar doors closed behind their launch. The exterior cameras at the depot as well as all of the municipal ones in a three-block area would stop working similarly when the doors opened.
“That lady’s got a scary brain,” Eileen muttered as she punched in the initialization code the commissioner had provided to her. “Glad she’s on the white hat side.”
She tapped a coding chip into the open notch and tried to keep up with all the technical gobbledygook streaming down the tiny view panel. There was a code she was supposed to watch for: 00101-10.
It flashed briefly.
“Countdown started.” She yanked the chip out of the notch and ran back to the ship.
“All right, Salehi,” she called up to the cockpit as she pulled her gun again. “We’ve got ten minutes to get out of here.”
“We’ll be ready.” He joined her in the hall, stepped over a couple of the bags he’d left there, and pulled the hatch closed. Slipping his firearm out of his holster, he nodded toward the back of the ship, and she nodded, too.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go see if we’ve got any more stowaways.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After three days of nonstop rain, Esteben began to wonder if the storm would ever end.
He was bored out of his skull, having decided that the best course of action when confined in such tight quarters was to avoid potential sources of conflict.
Erin was peeved at him, per usual, so he stayed away. He’d also been giving Headron an extraordinarily wide berth. Esteben could have certainly amused himself by antagonizing the baker, but he suspected a hostile exchange would turn into something more. Since their tête-à-tête in the bathing room, whenever he saw Headron, his compulsion wasn’t to terrify the other man, but to lure him closer.
Like a fly into my web.
He scoffed.
His dreams in the past decade had so often been about people he’d mistakenly trusted—people he’d shared his life and his love with who’d later cast him aside like worthless garbage when times got hard. Lately, his dreams had been different. They hadn’t been about betrayal, but of opportunity. He’d forgotten what opportunity felt like, and his dreams said that opportunity looked and felt like Headron.
He’d also forgotten how clearly he could think when testosterone was at its peak. It’d been years. Headron was why the hormone had obviously spiked. He was both competition and a prospect.
Low-class, yes, but beautiful. Like his father, Esteben preferred that his things be pretty.
“What do you think?” he asked Kerry, who was sitting beside his head on the floor in the room that had probably once been a small granary. Murki and his mates used it to store the water cooler and Terran pantry items like flour and sugar. The room was quiet, had a sunroof he could watch the rain through, and—due to its proximity to the kitchen—the room was comfortably warm.
“No answer for me?”
Kerry kept pulling his hair, and made some babbling response in no language he could recognize.
“You’re the only person I can ask,” he said. “You don’t judge, do you, sweetheart?”
She patted his face in a way that somehow, in spite of her extreme youth, seemed condescending.
“Just like your mother, aren’t you? You expect perfection.”
She patted him again, and then resumed the hair pulling.
He groaned. “Had things been different—if things had been the old way—you’d have quite a number of luxuries at your disposal. You’re a Beshni, sweetheart.”
“Ugh. Are you brainwashing my child again?” Courtney asked, likely from the doorway.
He didn’t turn his head to verify her position. “I’m only telling her the truth.”
“You keep forgetting that she’s a McGarry, too. McGarrys aren’t used to luxury. Most of the time, we’re surprised when we have money left over after paying bills at the end of a pay period.”
He propped himself up onto his elbows, and confirmed that she was indeed leaning into the doorway, and with an eyebrow cocked, at that.
So much like her sister.
He didn’t want to think about Erin. His dreams about her weren’t anxiety inducing like the ones about Headron, just salacious. He’d lived nearly forty years and had never spent so much time thinking about the treats that could be found between soft thighs.
He closed his eyes. “Things I shouldn’t have,” he muttered.
“Maybe I’m wrong, but I think we’re having two different conversations at once.”
“Don’t mind me. I’m just thinking.”
“In my pantry?”
“I like the warmth in here. The heat suits my current biological cravings, and Kerry has fewer places to flee to in here.”
“She certainly seems content enough with the small space, but, you know, there are enough folks in the gathering room that watching her could be a group effort. You don’t have to be a martyr.”
“Preferable to the alternative.”
“Which is what?”
He opened his eyes only for Kerry to grab both sides of his face and place a sloppy kiss on his forehead.
He gave her one in return and scooped her onto his lap.
“The alternative,” he said, nuzzling the top of Kerry’s curly hair with his chin, “is being social.”
“I thought Beshnis were social creatures by default.”
“Generally.”
“But, what? You don’t like the company?” She cracked a grin. “Are we not well-heeled enough for you?”
“The company suits me fine,” he said. “Perhaps I am the one who is unsuited for group participation at this time.”
“Bullshit. Come on.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on. Get up. We’re about to have lunch and watch a bad movie or something. The wind is picking up, and Trigrian thinks the power might go off soon, so we’re getting our electronic entertainment in while we can.”
Esteben forced himself upright and pulled Kerry onto one arm. “What makes him think the wind will get so violent that power will be disrupted?”
“Owen managed to get online long enough to pull a weather report. If you thought we were wet before, well, apparently, you haven’t seen anything yet. This weather system is bad. The middle is going to be over us in a couple of hours. We’ve already got our flashlights charged up and candles ready just in case.”
“I missed all that preparation.”
“Well, admittedly, when we were doing the work, you had your head down over one of those maps of yours and were totally out of it.” She took Kerry from him, so he stood. “What are you looking for on those maps, anyway?”
“Old associates. Before I was ill and when I’d just established my own contacts, I used to travel a particular route from Buinet to the northern coast. There were some very well-situated traders and engineers dotted between here and there.
“Engineers? Tell me more.” She stepped out into the kitchen.
He followed, and closed the pantry door behind him. A large tray of sandwiches sat on the counter, which Courtney took as she canted her head toward the gathering space.
Since her mother had one overly full arm, he took Kerry back. He didn’t want to go, but he didn’t think Courtney would leave him be, either. He didn’t have the energy, mental or otherwise, to subvert her.
“Forming attachments to them again might be advantageous,” Esteben said. “They had ways of acquiring goods and information that rivaled any established professional in Buinet or any other city.”
“And I take it they were all off the grid?”
“Most of the traders were, yes, and they may still be. They may be aware of the mess occurring on the planet and have been able to deflect any threats.”
“You think those folks could do something for us?”
“Connecting with those groups would go a long way in having the communications grid running at its peak again. Those groups tend to hide the best engineers.”
“Why is that?”
Apparently, Courtney wasn’t quite ready to go into the gathering room, either. She stood near the doorway, clutching the big tray just over her rounded belly, and furrowing her brow.
Esteben switched Kerry to his other arm. She was growing heavy, but he didn’t really mind so much. He was pleased indeed to see a healthy Jekhan child. There’d been too many in Buinet who’d never known health.
“Maintaining the grid is an isolating job. The COM boost substations dot the countryside, and the planet’s population isn’t dense enough for there to be a village around every one. The western coast of this continent is hardly settled at all. The terrain is too rough and there are few natural resources. That’s likely why the Terrans aren’t interested in establishing bases out there just yet. Only a few of those engineers and their families live and trade there.”
“And those substations aren’t marked on your maps.”
“No. They never were. My father and I used to visit them just from memory, but it’s been so long, and I was ill, so—”
She nodded. “I understand. Seems to me that folks like that are exactly the ones who should be working with the Jekhan Alliance, and they’re probably not.”
“Agreed.”
“Court, are you going to bring those sandwiches?” Erin called out.
“Yeah, I’m coming. Don’t get your panties in a wad.” She turned back to Esteben, blue eyes narrowed. “You know, if we can control the communication network, we could control the planet.”
“We?”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Jekhans.”
He chuckled and followed her into the gathering room. “It was a joke, Courtney. Terran though you may be, I’m certain no Jekhan in his or her right mind would want to see any harm come to you.”
“I guess the McGarry name is good for something somewhere, if not on Earth.”
“What are you joking about?” Erin asked, looking pointedly to Courtney as though her escort had been invisible.
Esteben swore inwardly. Obviously, they needed to have a discussion about his behavior, though he didn’t particularly wish to have one in front of an audience.
“Oh, just plotting strategy and thinking of ways to fuck stuff up. The usual.” Courtney set the food tray on the cluttered, low table in the center of the floor and plucked a sandwich from the pile. The meat was held in a kind of dark brown bread Esteben didn’t recognize.
“What is that?” he asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Roast chicken on molasses rye. Want some?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
“I find that rye is less…” Headron—seated at the far end of the highest semicircular bench—made a gesture of uncertainty. “Upsetting to the constitution than their wheat.”
“It all tastes good to me,” Amy said.
Esteben turned and looked at her lounging at the opposite end of the middle bench. She was on her side beneath a blanket, curled up like a child, and lying with her head atop what had to be three pillows.
“Taste is unimportant,” Fastida said from her seat beside Amy’s feet. “What the grain does to the belly is what matters. I haven’t yet found a Terran grain that doesn’t make me double over at the waist.”
“You keep trying them, though,” Amy said.
“Because they smell so good when they bake. Why should you get to have all the fun?”
“Because I’m not painfully gluten intolerant or allergic to wheat or any other thing?”
“Unfair.”
Amy appeared to shrug under the blankets. “Maybe they bothered me more earlier—after I first went into hiding when the troops showed up and that was all there was to eat. My system had to adjust to the offerings or else, and it did.”
“I think I’ll die before mine adjusts.” Fastida clutched her stomach, growling as if the aforementioned sensation of intolerance had been called forth just with her words.
“The sandwiches on this side of the tray—” Courtney drew an imaginary line down the center of the platter and pointed to the paler cluster of sandwiches closest to the kitchen “—are all suitable for Jekhan consumption. Per Headron.”
Headron chuckled. “I only made the bread. You made the sandwiches.”
“Way to throw me under the bus if something goes wrong.”
“Under the bus, Courtney?”
“A Terran expression.” Esteben knelt in front of the table, let Kerry choose whichever morsels pleased her to gnaw on, and took one of the rye concoctions for himself. He was curious enough to risk the pain.
“What is a…bus?” Headron asked.
Esteben sat with his back to the seating and stared intently at his sandwich.
When Courtney didn’t respond to Headron’s query—whether purposefully or not, Esteben couldn’t tell—Esteben let out a breath. “A bus is a kind of wheeled mass transportation vehicle that is driven on roads. Can move dozens of people.” He took a bite of his sandwich—a large one—and held it in his mouth. There were so many unusual and unfamiliar flavors, and all were delicious. He closed his eyes and chewed. The pain later will have b
een worth it.
“Why would someone get thrown under one?” Headron asked.
There was so much naive innocence in his query. He needed someone to teach him things. People like him wouldn’t have had excellent tutors who understood more of the vagaries of Terran cultures. He hadn’t had the education people like the Beshnis had, and yet he’d still managed to network himself just fine with people who could do him good. He knew Amy, and Amy had taken care of him.
Esteben turned his sandwich to the other corner and took another bite. The creamy white cheese was phenomenal, and he intended to ask Courtney what the name was, but later.
In Jekhani, he said, “English is a very idiomatic language. I am not certain what the origins of the figure of speech are, but suffice it to say that being thrown under a bus means you’re taking the blame for someone else’s mistake. At least, I think that’s the gist. Even I get so many of their more colorful sayings confused.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Headron responded in turn in Jekhani.
Esteben looked over his right shoulder at the other man.
Headron was wearing the same intent expression that had been on his face the night he’d been on his knees. Not hostile. Open. Curious.
The last person who’d looked at Esteben that way had craved his instruction…and every other person with a cock’s, too. Esteben hated that his mind always went to that point in his past. After so many years, he should have been free of such youthful regrets, but when he’d been ill, he’d been tortured by the repeated flashbacks. His lover’s indiscretions had played out for him in his mind again and again, and no amount of screaming or thrashing could shut off the visions.
Owen was fiddling with the controls of the projector—a perfect distraction for Esteben. A good reason to pull his gaze away from the baker’s beautifully earnest face.
“Don’t try to make anything make sense,” he said on a final note.
“Jekhani is such a pretty-sounding language,” Brenna said from somewhere above him.
“Yeah,” Courtney said. “They could be melodically telling each other to go fuck themselves and we’d never know.”