by H. E. Trent
Owen threw his hands up and paced. “I just hate having so little information.”
“Fill in the gaps for us, please,” Esteben said.
Erin pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes and chuckled. “That’s right. You know even less than I do.”
“In a nutshell,” Court said, “Lillian Devin sent those two folks to fetch our grandfather. Salehi and Allan actually go way back. They deserted the military at the same time. The lady with him is Eileen, a shuttle attendant who did everything she could to keep me out of Buinet’s pseudo-marriage mart.”
“Eileen was her name,” Erin said. “She was on my shuttle.”
“Yup. She tried to look out for me.”
“And me too, I think. Huh.”
“Anyhow,” Court said, “I guess Lillian thought the time had come to put Granddad back to work. Granddad’s been in stasis for a number of years, knowing he couldn’t easily get back to Earth, and I guess he didn’t want to wile away his years waiting to act.”
“They’re going to bring him here?” Headron said. “To the farm?”
“That’s the plan,” Owen said. “We should start looking out for them within a week to ten days.”
“Grandma’s going to be so happy to hear he’s okay,” Court said.
Erin grunted and dropped her hands from her tired eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure she’d like to have him back at home, but is that even possible right now?”
“If it were, would you go?” Esteben asked.
He seemed to have been very careful to keep his tone neutral, but she knew him too well. Her words mattered, because her future wasn’t solely her own anymore. Whether in words or actions, she’d promised something to those men, and she’d let her heart convince her brain that she could take what they were offering.
She slipped her hand into his and let him squeeze it. “I think we were talking about building a house.”
“Yes.” Headron smirked. “And other things.”
“That’s right. “Let’s go eat. If you want to pepper me with questions, let me fill my belly first.”
“You might actually be able to get a full night of sleep tonight,” Court said. “No more perimeter patrolling unless there’s an alarm. Just think of what you can do with all that free time.”
“I can think of some things,” Esteben said in a sultry undertone as he nudged Erin toward the door.
So could she, and she thought she might even be cooperative the first time he told her to do them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You’ve gotta pardon me for being a little confused, sir, but you don’t look your age.” Eileen folded her arms over her chest and gave Owen McGarry—senior—an assessing look.
He had the same startlingly blue eyes as Courtney and the same “try me” set to his jaw as all the McGarry kids. He was big, tall, and the wrong age. There wasn’t a single strand of gray to be found in his dark blond hair. No age spots on his large hands. No hunch to his back.
He sat slowly onto the bunk behind him and pressed his hands to the edge of the mattress. He drew in a deep, rattling breath and closed his eyes. He was probably still trying to shake the feeling of cold he’d complained of earlier. “McGarrys age well. Luck of the Irish or some shit like that.”
“Have you been in stasis this entire time?” Edgar asked, one brow raised.
Owen shook his head. “Mostly. I don’t think Lillian completely trusts the technology. She would occasionally ask for the techs to rouse me for a while to make sure I still had my wits about me. How’s my wife? Is she well? No one ever tells me anything. They sent me to this damn rock, and—”
“Hold on,” Eileen said soothingly. “I’m sure your wife is fine. I can’t speak with any certainties, but I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. I’m sure your grandkids will fill you in as soon as we get to Jekh.”
He shook his head again and briskly rubbed his palms together. “Of all of my kids, I shouldn’t be surprised it’d be those three.”
“Mostly Courtney. She was first. The other two thought they were rescuing her.”
“How are things on Earth? Better?”
Edgar made a non-committal waving gesture. “Owen’s been transmitting data packets back to Earth as often as he’s able to get a connection out, as has a friend named Brenna. So, the evidence is there that things on Jekh aren’t what they were advertised to be. There’s been some shifting of sentiment. I can’t say for certain what the majority opinion is, but I know real change takes time.”
Owen smirked. “Still not a safe place to be a McGarry, huh?”
“I don’t think they’re all ready to come out of the closet yet, if that’s what you’re asking,” Eileen said.
“Are the kids trying to get back? Courtney, Erin, and Owen, I mean.”
“Not so sure Courtney’s invested in returning,” Eileen said. She’s got a baby and a farm.”
“On Jekh?”
Eileen nodded and waited for the man to put two and two together on his own.
“She has a Jekhan child?”
Eileen nodded again.
He pushed his hair back from his eyes and let out a dry breath through his mouth. “A great-grandchild. I never thought I’d live to see it.”
“Not it, her. A little girl named Kerry.”
“Is she well? Is she thriving?”
“I believe so. Lillian didn’t give me a whole lot of information. Just the bare minimum, but as far as I know, the child is fine.”
“You don’t have…pictures, or—”
“Hey, you’ll see her soon enough. You can hold her on your lap and dote all you like.”
“Assuming he can get her away from her fathers,” Edgar said under his breath.
“Behave yourself,” she muttered over her shoulder to him.
At the movement of pale blue fabric in her periphery, Eileen turned and caught a glimpse of Ais in the cabin hallway.
She’d ducked quickly back into her room.
“I saw you, Ais,” Eileen called over. “Might as well come on out.”
“Who is that?” Owen asked.
Edgar grimaced. “That’s complicated. We’re not entirely sure what to do with her, but hope to figure that out when we get to Jekh.”
Ais poked her head out of her cabin and clasped her cloak together under her chin. Edgar had lowered the temperature in The Tin Can at the cryo-tech’s suggestion. He’d suggested they keep the thermostat set ten degrees colder than typical until Owen got his body temperature fully stabilized. The Texas girl was about to freeze her tits off.
“Are we here…my fault?” Ais asked.
Edgar drew in a deep breath, and then let it out in a sputter. “Nothing is your fault. Are there people looking for you? Yes.”
“Who?” Owen asked.
“Best we can tell,” Eileen said, “Reg Devin’s got a bunch of bounty hunters out being petulant little shits because we not only stole his ship, but the lady inside it, and her Tyneali foster father has folks out looking for her, too.”
“Tyneali? Why the hell would they want her?”
Eileen leaned outside of the cabin and waved Ais over. “Come here so Mr. McGarry can take a look at ya.”
She tightened her cloak even more and padded slowly across the hall and into the room. She stepped just inside the doorway.
Owen immediately furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s the newest Jekhan incarnation.” Edgar looked to Owen. “Ais said there aren’t many like her. She’s an experiment, and I imagine they’d like her back for that reason. We don’t know how different she is from the standard hybrid, but I guess we’ll find that out, too, when we get to Jekh.”
“Why does Devin want her?”
“Reg wants anything he perceives to be valuable. After all, he wanted Courtney.”
Owen balled his hands into fists, and started to stand as if he were about to run off on some reckless crusade already. They couldn’t even get off the damn planetoid.
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“Simmer down,” Eileen said. She poked Edgar with her elbow and gave him a warning look. He should have known better than to drop that bombshell on a man who hadn’t even completely finished thawing. “I know you probably think of Courtney as the little kid you last saw her as, but she’s a big girl now, and I don’t think Courtney’s people are going to let that ninny get anywhere near her. Also, Courtney’s pretty scrappy, anyway. If it comes down to a conflict between her and Reg, I’d put my money on the lady. She was a cop, you know.”
Owen furrowed his brow again. “Little Courtney?”
“Oh, she’s still little, but you don’t have to be two-hundred pounds to hold a gun.”
He nodded slowly, seeming to have considered that.
“I want to see my family,” he said after a minute. “How long until we can get the hell off this planetoid?”
“Our contact in the tower patched through a message from Lillian about an hour ago,” Edgar said. “She was working on creating a distraction for the ships in orbit, but needed a little time.”
Owen scoffed and lay back slowly on the bunk. “The lady’s got contacts everywhere. I don’t doubt she’s got folks at the ready in this part of space who are moving into position now.”
“We’ll know as soon as the guy calls up,” Eileen said. “We’re just waiting for the COM panel to beep.
From the front of the ship, it beeped.
“Well, shit. Looks like it’s go time. Y’all better find someplace to strap in. If Salehi takes off the same way he lands, you’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Edgar sighed and pushed away from the door. “So I’m Salehi again?”
“Yup. You’re Salehi until we clear this rock.”
He sank into the captain’s chair and buckled his harness. “What would I have to do to get you to call me Edgar all the time?”
She fastened her buckle and then studied her jagged nails. “Not sure you want to know.”
“And if I do?”
She shrugged and leaned forward, hovering her hand over the COM buttons. “Get us off this rock and out of this system, and maybe I’ll show you.”
He grinned.
She hit the Connect button and leaned back, ready to ride.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Although Allan and other locals who knew anything at all about traveling in their region of space had repeatedly warned Erin that she should double a trip’s estimated time and then add half of that figure to the sum, she’d been a ball of anticipation for ten days.
By everyone else’s calculations, there was still plenty of time for them to prepare for the arrival of the stolen cargo ship, and that didn’t seem like enough time.
“Calm yourself, woman.” Esteben laid his hands on her shoulders and stopped her from pacing a rut beneath the tree she’d been seeking shade under.
Her men had been, with Owen and Allan’s assistance, marking off the footprint of the new house. They wanted construction underway before the next big rain hit the area—the foundation poured and cured, at the very least. The local cement pourer was thrilled to finally have something to do. In fact, much of the basic construction would be poured cement: the foundation pillars and crawlspace, as well as the outer walls. They’d decided to reserve the minimal amount of Terran wood they had access to for the interior.
She gasped. “Know what? We could plant hardwood trees for harvesting.”
“Wood?” Esteben curled his lip. “Where is your head today? You’re extraordinarily scattered.”
“No, no, listen. Think about it. There’s no reason the trees couldn’t grow here. Lots of plants from Earth do just fine. We simply need to introduce the species to the area the same way Trigrian’s trying to grow coffee and cocoa beans. I mean, we’re talking about things to plant and forget about. The trees need decades to grow big enough for us to do anything with, but if you stagger the planting, you’d have a continuous cash crop later.”
“Investment for much later profit,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.
“Yep.”
“You know, there are ways to accelerate tree growth.” Allan lifted the lid on Erin’s empty coffee cup, and sighed.
She snorted. “Court’s rationing again. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Sure damn does.”
“What do you mean about the trees?” Esteben asked.
Allan grunted and jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “When I was still on Earth and in the military service there, I worked at a scientific facility. Very little of what they were doing had any potential military application, but the boys in the Department of Defense liked for us to have first dibs on any new patents, anyway. Someone developed an accelerant. The application was intended for areas that had been ravaged by disasters—tsunamis or arson-caused wildfires. That sort of thing. But, the boys in The Pentagon being what they are, they thought that’d be a good thing to have to help with war zone recovery. Trees don’t seem like they would make such a big difference to an area, but they do a few things besides pumping oxygen into the air.”
“Right,” Erin said. “They stop erosion and the foliage lowers ground temperatures. My maternal grandfather used to fuss whenever Mimi planted new trees close to their house. He was worried about the roots cracking the basement walls.”
“And Mimi was worried about having to continuously air condition the entire house because of the strong midday sun,” Owen said.
“Exactly.” Erin started walking toward the marked-off perimeter. “I miss them. I talked to them late last night when the long-distance COM satellite connected,” she said for the benefit of the men who weren’t Owen. “All three of our grandparents who are still on Earth were there.”
Headron caught up to her side and walked with her. “What did your grandmother McGarry have to say about your grandfather emerging from stasis?”
“She wanted to empty her savings account and get on the fastest ship heading this way. She’s been waiting for him for a long time. I don’t think she ever let herself believe that he wouldn’t go home.”
“He’s going to seem the exact same to her, but she’s certainly a different person now.”
“I doubt she’ll care. Still, I hope they can endure the hurdles without too much more strain. They’ve already endured so much. We all have.”
It had taken her weeks, but Erin finally accepted that she’d suffered some, too, just in different ways from the people on Jekh.
A sound like a sonic boom reverberated from the east, and Erin scanned the sky, clutching her chest.
“Shit,” Allen spat. He started running toward the truck he’d parked on the path. “Slow it down, Salehi.”
“Where is he?” Owen asked.
“If my ears are anywhere near as good as they used to be, I believe we’re gonna see the vessel descending toward the mountain range. Dude is some kind of hotshot.” He climbed up into the front seat of the truck with Owen.
Erin scrambled onto the bed with Headron and Esteben, and hit the band of her chirping wrist COM as Allen got the thing flying.
“What the hell was that?” came Court’s voice through the tiny speaker. “Did you hear that?”
“Couldn’t help but to hear it. Allen thinks Salehi is—shit, there they are.”
The gray spaceship was a blip in the sky, and rapidly hurtling closer.
“I see it,” Erin said. “Looks like they’re on descent and circling.”
“Why was the entry so loud?”
“Probably turned the noise suppressors off,” Allan called through the open window, and picked up some speed. “That’s the only way he could have enough power to manually enter with the kind of precision he’s known for.”
There were no roads on that part of the farm and the ship’s turbines would probably do some damage to the tall grasses they were flying over, but given the circumstances, Erin didn’t think Trigrian would care too much.
“If he’d come in quiet and slow, he might have been tagged by too many se
nsors in the closest cities,” Allan said. “The maneuver was risky, but he wouldn’t have done it if he’d thought the ship’s structural integrity was poor.”
Erin cringed.
“We’ll get in the flyer and meet you out there,” Court said.
“See ya.” Erin tapped her COM off, and got on her knees to turn and peek through the truck’s back window so she could see what was ahead.
“I can’t believe he’s here.” She’d been talking to herself, really, but Owen nodded.
“We’ll have a lot of catching up to do.”
“What if we don’t recognize him? I’m afraid of that. I’m afraid he’s not the same man I remember from when I was a kid. I’m afraid I remember him wrong.”
“I doubt you do. We all remember him the same exact way, so how could you be wrong? Trust me, he’ll just be happy to see familiar faces.”
“Familiar enough, anyway. It’s been a long time. We’re not little kids anymore.”
“So, he’s hit the fast-forward button and missed your childhoods,” Allan said. “Are circumstances ideal? Hell no. I hate the idea of missing any part of my kids’ lives or any grandkids I might live to see, but here’s the thing—Owen is alive, and that’s more than you expected for the longest time.”
Erin turned and sat flat on her bottom.
Headron took one of her hands, and Esteben took the other.
“What are you so worried about, really?” Esteben asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just afraid that things might actually start to get better. I don’t know what I’ll fucking do with myself if things were actually easy.”
___
“What are they waiting for?” Erin asked.
Salehi was taking so long to open the hatch that Erin worried that the folks inside the silver ship hadn’t survived the landing.
Court had caught up along with her men. She’d left Kerry at the house with Fastida.
“Don’t get worried yet,” Allan said, barring Erin closer access to the ship. “Probably just taking a little while for environmental controls to adjust. In a ship the age of that one, that’s hardly an instant process. Right now, they’re trying to adjust to the surface conditions.”