“You’re kind of smelly, MD. You fell asleep before we could get you cleaned up at all.” He untied the robe that he had just tied, sliding his hands inside and around my waist, caressing my skin and making me shiver.
I stepped into his embrace. “Uh huh. I’m a mess.”
“There’s still blood on your cheek and–”
We kissed, gently at first and then harder as our ability to control it faded and my robe slipped from my shoulders to the floor. I knelt in front of him, the better to help him out of his clothes and to see what I might be able to find hidden under them. “This looks interesting.”
He laughed, a warm wonderful sound that added another ten or fifteen beats per minute to the pounding of my heart.
Pounding. Someone was pounding on the wall separating our room from Winona’s. I could feel her irritation mixed with a touch of amusement. Deal with it, Winn. I’m taking him right damn now. I went back to what I was doing.
We made it to dinner on time, freshly showered and in standard issue Union tan and brown. I sat down next to Winona and Kal. “What’s for dinner? Something special?”
“It was supposed to be moussaka. A nice potato moussaka with bacon. Guess what? No potatoes.” She sighed. “We’re getting something called pannenkoeken instead.”
“I know the best place for those. We should go sometime, if…” I stopped, unsure.
“If it’s still there?” Winona finished for me. “You haven’t looked at the news at all, have you? Too busy…” She made a circle with her thumb and index finger and then poked the finger of her other hand through it over and over.
“Winona!”
She looked from me to Sam and back again and smiled while Kal laughed. All of the irritation evaporated from her mind. “It’s all right. You earned it, and then some. And we do need more Tarakana.”
“What happened down there?” I didn’t want to know, but I had to know.
“All of the damage was confined to the area close to the hospital. Merrimac and Storm were amazingly accurate. Civilian casualties should be around fifty thousand killed and the heavy rain kept the firestorm under control. We were lucky.”
“Lucky.” The walls that Merrimac had built in my brain quivered, but held. “Now reunification will be impossible.” Kal passed me an order card and I keyed in ham and cheese for my pannenkoeken and handed it back. “They must hate RuComm and the Union.”
“Colonel Gerbrandij is managing the public relations for us.” Kal told me. “I think Ms. Weldon is pulling his strings, though. He looked seriously pissed while he was being interviewed this afternoon, like someone had a gun pointed at his head. A figurative gun anyway.”
“Mom’s not that subtle. She probably had a gun pointed at his head. What’s the official story, Kal?”
“About what you’d expect. The separatists fighting the provisional government destroyed the Esprit Orageux, and then conspired to drop the pieces on government offices in the capital. Public sentiment seems to be hardening against them. I talked to some of the shipyard workers over lunch. They’ve run out of patience with the violence, and it sounds like the major factions on the surface are tripping over each other pledging support for peaceful coexistence and cooperation. There’s a big meeting scheduled for a couple of days from now. Friday I think. The Utrecht Covenant is on top for the moment, pushing for a small federated government.”
“That’s my mom. Did you see Dad at all? She usually needs him close by for this kind of operation.”
Winona answered. “He’s working with a committee of mine owners to get production ramped up. He’s doing the RuComm thing while your mom is working behind the scenes with a gun in one hand and a sword in the other.” Winn sighed. “I’ve never seen her so happy.”
“You want to be with her, don’t you?”
She nodded. “The only useful thing I did was to help slaughter a bunch of Puca on the roof of the hospital after the DCI dropped Sam and me off to prep the shuttle for you. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us next.”
“What do you mean?”
“With the ship destroyed and Captain Rostron dead, we’ll all be reassigned,” Kal answered. “The Marine detachment will be scattered all over space as replacements for other units, most likely. That’s what happens to the survivors whenever a ship is lost. Mala Dusa, you’re a ship’s engineer without a ship. We’ll all get new orders in the next few days.”
“I need to talk to Mom. That can’t be allowed.” I was so focused on Kal that I didn’t see Winona’s finger until it had whacked into my forehead. “Ow!”
“Sometimes, even a princess doesn’t get everything she wants.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I will this time. You wait and see. I need all of you.”
The pannenkoeken arrived and I took a bite, still angry at the thought of my friends being taken away from me. I chewed and then forced myself to swallow. “What is this? It’s terrible.”
“Freshly printed pannenkoeken,” Winona answered. “Because all of the potatoes are gone.”
“Storm, can you hear me?”
“Of course. What do you need petite âme?”
“Do you control the shipyard’s kitchen?”
“I do not.”
“Well, take it over. We have some work to do tomorrow. I’m going to get some new recipes for you.”
CHAPTER 21
REUNIFICATION
It was Christmas on Earth. If I had been home, there would have been skiing, long soaks in the hot tub, and Sharlot, our household AI, would have been singing carols non-stop. Dad had modified that silo of her personality, and he loved every part of Christmas.
The calendar on Kastanje had shifted over time, and they thought Christmas was still a couple of months away. I knew better. I could feel it all around me, even at the Hoog Schelde Yards.
Sam bought me a small potted plant to use as a Christmas tree on the first day of December, a native plant of intertwining, wiggling vines. I put ornaments and lights on it and the vines grew over them, covering them completely in a few days. Sam thought the lights shining through the greenery were pretty, but it made me feel far from home.
Storm sang the old carols with me in my cabin and in my office and even while I did my inspections on Hull 58. Hull 58 was also known as Frigate KDF-45, and as the Pieter Florisz. She was going to be fast and she was already beautiful. I loved her so much that sometimes it hurt when I stood on the observation arch and watched her being built. Sam told me that I was excessively emotional because I was eight months pregnant, but it was more than that.
Sam stood behind me, his hands wrapped low across my belly. “She’s awake and feeling feisty. Feel that kick? I can’t wait to see her.”
“Uh huh. I can’t wait to evict her. She thinks my bladder is there to be her personal punching bag.”
He gave me a little squeeze, which didn’t help. “That’s my little Elisabeth.”
“Marie Félicie Elisabeth. Our daughter. Don’t squeeze me too tightly or you’ll be meeting her right now.”
He kissed my neck. “Are you ready for tonight?”
“No. How did I let myself get talked into this?”
“You volunteered. You asked the yard chief what he was planning to do to celebrate Christmas, and he told you that Christmas was still two months away. Then you argued with him about calendars for fifteen minutes and it ended up with you volunteering to do a Christmas service two months before Christmas.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas. I don’t care what their calendar says.”
“Of course it is. And I want to hear what you have to say. You were supposed to have done a church service when we on board Wandering Star. Instead, you…”
“I blew up the ship. Don’t remind me.”
“And Father Ryczek wanted you to do one of the services at the Mission on Bodens Gate. But b
efore you could do it, you…”
“I got shot. Don’t remind me of that either.”
He kissed my left shoulder. “You got an interesting scar out of it. It gives you an air of mystery and danger that I find very attractive.”
“Uh huh. Another reason to get this baby out of me.”
“Your parents will be here tonight, along with Winona and Kal. He has a new dog he’s training that you haven’t met.”
“Are you sure it’s a dog?”
“Winona says it is.”
“Poor Winn. Kal is still refusing to let her introduce him to Merrimac. She wants to have that emotional link with him, but he’s afraid.”
“I can understand that. The idea of you seeing into my soul still terrifies me.”
“You have nothing to worry about. You glow. I’ve seen it. Kal is still convinced it’s his destiny to die in combat. He doesn’t want Winona to feel him die.”
“I can understand that too.”
“It’s worth the risk. We are one soul and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
That earned me a longer kiss. “Sam? You’ll keep me from panicking tonight?”
“I’ll be right there with you.”
Winona was wearing a dress, a long one that brushed against the tops of her feet and left her shoulders bare. I had become so used to seeing her in uniform that it shocked me how beautiful she was. I hugged her.
“Thank you,” she whispered in my ear.
“For what?”
“For thinking that I’m beautiful.”
“Reading my mind again?”
“Yes. I miss having you close enough to do that. Come down to Oranjestad after your ship is christened next month. We could use you, and it would be better for little Elisabeth. She’ll need room to run. Hannah and Ted miss you.”
“But not Kal?”
“You scare him.”
I laughed. “Big Marine, scared of the stick girl.”
She giggled. “Come down. We’d have fun. We could all go dancing, and out to dinner…”
“You like it there because you’re learning how to be Hannah. The DCI, the Intelligence Community, the whole ‘world-building’ thing you’re doing? It holds no attraction for me. I’ve seen all of that that I ever care to see. Being involved in Kastanje’s internal political struggles is the last thing I’d want to do.”
“There’s opportunities for Sam. He could be a biologist again. Tell me that you’ll at least think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.” By which I meant ‘no’. Hull 58’s sister ship was being laid down in less than six weeks. So much work still to be done.
Mom was wearing a dress too. She looked capable of running a world, which was just what she was doing. She put her hand on my belly after hugging me. “I can feel her. God, she’s so much like you.” She chuckled. “You’re in for an amazing ride.”
“Thanks. Where’s Dad?”
She pointed. Dad was deep in conversation with Ingenieur Schatzki, my boss on the Hull 58 project. Dad had a rock in his hand and they were passing it back and forth, turning it to catch the light, both of them excited.
“Dad brought a rock to my Christmas service.”
“I do so love him.”
“Yeah, me too.” I watched him a few seconds longer. “I need to go hug him.”
“It’s time for your service to start.”
“Hug first.”
Ingenieur Schatzki nodded to me when I approached and then excused himself.
“What’s with the rock, Dad?”
He had that look in his eyes that he gets when he’s seeing my birth mother instead of me, eyes focused on my stomach. “Ore sample. Naturally occurring magnesium diboride.” He reached out to me. “May I?”
“Sure. Most people don’t even ask.”
He put both hands on me, lost in the wonder of it. “She’s about ready. Are you?”
“She needs to wait a couple more weeks so I can finish my work on Hull 58.”
She pushed hard against his hand. “I don’t think you have two weeks.”
“Hush. She’ll hear you.” Dad still had the distant smile on his face, so I had to ask him The Question. “Dad,” I whispered, “do I look like her?”
He answered the way he always answers. “Yes. You look so much like Alice. But even more beautiful, the most beautiful girl God ever created. She would be proud of you.”
“You always say that.”
“I always will. Because it’s true.”
“Thanks. I think I need to get up there and do Christmas now.”
I went to the front of the Hoog Schelde shipyard’s main chapel and waited while everyone found a seat. I prayed, and then started.
“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.”
I paused, and Elisabeth freaked out. Fear, excitement, yearning, all mixed together in her little heart. I put my hand on my belly, trying to calm her while I looked around the room. Each of her emotions echoed in me and I swayed, losing balance. Of course. A group of eight or ten people had entered the chapel a little late, and I recognized one of them. Machiel Kornhauser, Evert’s father, had brought him to celebrate early Christmas with us.
It was the first time I’d seen Evert since his father had picked him up. He was eight months old, and I could see the shock on his tiny face as he felt Elisabeth’s emotions. He turned in his father’s arms, crying, and tried to hide from my daughter.
I managed to steady myself against the podium. “Christmas is a celebration of the most remarkable birth in history. My daughter’s birth won’t be that remarkable.” Polite laughter. “But I think it might be about to happen. I’m sorry, everyone. We’ll have to try this again in a couple of months. Sam? A little help please?”
I tried to catch my breath. Birth. Elisabeth had responded to that thought, and now she was acting on it.
Sam and Kal each took an arm and helped me from the stage. “Sorry about the mess,” I told them. “Water broke. I told her not to, but would she listen? Stubborn, willful, little princess.”
Marie Félicie Elisabeth Coleridge came into the world two hours later with a scream, both hers and mine. We were in the company of family and friends, and she was the most beautiful baby girl God had ever made.
Sam laid her on my chest after she had been cleaned up, and I fed her. Afterwards, I talked to her while she napped. “There is so much I want to show you and tell you. The first thing you need to do is find a good friend, like my Winona. You need someone that will love you even when it doesn’t make sense; that will love you no matter what stupid thing you do. Then there’s Merrimac. I know you can already feel him. He’s your friend. Always believe that, no matter what anyone else tries to tell you. And boys. You’ll find out about them later. A lot later. I’ll help you sort out the good ones from the bad, because that’s a hard thing to do. There are so few worth keeping. We’ll find you one like your dad. Merrimac will help us with that. Just not that Kornhauser boy, Evert.”
Elisabeth stirred in her sleep, tiny arms swinging.
“That’s right. When you think of Evert, think about punching.” I sighed. “And there’s RuComm. I’m going to tell you to stay away from them, but I’ll be proud of you when you graduate from th
e Academy.” I pulled my blanket up over us to keep her warm. “I’m going to teach you Chinese. I’ve been practicing, and there’s a planet we’re going to move to in a year or two. You’ll like it there and we’ll go exploring and take long camping trips every summer. I just have to convince your Aunt Winona to move with us.”
I kissed the top of her head. “God, I love you, ma cherie. I love you more than life. Please promise me that you won’t be as big a pain in the ass as I am.”
She yawned, and spit up all over my chest.
“Thought so.”
The End
Wandering Storm Page 32