Her Robot Wolf: Gift of Gaia

by Jenny Schwartz

  “We’ve locked with the flotilla,” he said.

  The door to the cargo hold opened and Kenner strolled through. You had to admire the kid. Here he was about to face what he believed would be crew justice, and he’d managed to scrape together a surprisingly convincing bravado. “Good morning, Jaya. I would have slept in, too, but Uncle Vulf had Ahab wake me. Wasn’t the shaking of the wormhole intense?”

  “Um, I didn’t notice it.”

  The kid stared at me.

  I blushed. A bit embarrassed despite myself. “You should have told me we’d be traversing a wormhole,” I said to Vulf. “I could have smoothed it. If I don’t know, I tend to just unconsciously rearrange my personal atmosphere to accommodate the rough trip.”

  “You mean you can sleep through a wormhole crossing?” Kenner looked shocked.

  I smiled ironically. “Yeah. It’s a gift.”

  Kenner missed the irony. “You’d fit right in on a pirate ship—or with Uncle Vulf.”

  Vulf intervened before I had time to question if Kenner suspected something between Vulf and me. “Bree is waiting for you on the Capricorn.”

  “Ah. Um, Uncle Vulf.”

  “She’s expecting you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.” The boy squared his shoulders and started back for the cargo hold and the hatch down to the exit.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” Vulf might have infinitesimally softened in the face of Kenner’s acceptance of his doom.

  When Kenner was out of hearing, I looked at Vulf. “Will other shifters be able to sense the…that thing between you and me?”

  “The mating heat is private.”

  “Whew.” I dropped down on to a bench seat at the table. “I thought maybe when you met them…and Kenner will tell them I’m onboard the Orion…I thought they might guess.”

  “You won’t be onboard the Orion.”

  “Huh?” Was my intelligent response to that comment.

  Vulf looked at my coffee mug. “You can bring that with you. It seems like you need the caffeine.”

  I ignored the humor lightening his expression. Instead, my hands tightened in horror around the mug. “I’m not joining you on your cousin or aunt’s—or whoever Bree is—pirate ship.”

  “Bree is my great-aunt, and yes, you are.” He grabbed my elbow, levered me up, and without spilling a drop of my coffee, we were walking through the cargo hold.

  A touch of my sha energy kept the coffee in the cup as we descended the hatch. I took a great gulp, then left the coffee there. “Ahab?”

  “No problem.” A cleaning robot darted out to grab the mug.

  Vulf and I strode through the exit and into the tube that connected the Orion to the massive pirate starship, the Capricorn.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but a woman running up and hugging Vulf was not it.

  My hands showed a tendency to want to curl into fists, but I was a graduate of the Star Guild Shaman Academy, and damn it, I could and would control my emotions. Or at least, not reveal them.

  Who knew that jealousy tasted like bitter coffee?

  “My youngest sister, Edith,” Vulf said.

  The bitter taste of coffee vanished.

  “Hi,” Edith said brightly, and looked at me with curiosity and open friendliness. The only thing that conformed to my expectations concerning pirates was the blaster holstered at her belt. She wore a dark blue utility suit similar to that of the two guards who watched us from the far side of the decontamination unit. “Vulf told Aunt Bree—darn.” She shot a guilty look at the two guards. “Captain Darnell. He told her he would be bringing a guest to the flotilla.”

  “And Kenner,” I added, trying to lessen my importance. Although maybe it was only my hypersensitivity this morning to anything that linked Vulf and me that made me think Edith seemed strangely excited to see me standing by Vulf. Not quite beside him. He was fractionally, protectively, positioned in front of me.

  Edith wrinkled her nose. She was shorter than me, but stockier; fit and strong, with the same shade of blond hair as Vulf, although she wore hers in a short pixie cut. “Everyone kind of expects Kenner to behave crazy. But Vulf bringing a female guest…” Her hands gestured wildly.

  Fortunately, an authoritative voice came over the communication pin on Edith’s uniform. “Subaltern Edith, stop your chatter and let your brother and his guest enter.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Edith saluted. “Follow me, please.”

  Vulf snorted. “I know my way.”

  This time the voice from Edith’s pin chided him. “Vulf, let the child do her duty.”

  Edith led us through a large and scrupulously clean ship to a wood-facade door. A few people greeted Vulf. More simply stared, assessing though not overtly hostile. When their gazes hit me, there was veiled curiosity.

  “Officers’ mess,” Edith said as she knocked.

  The door opened.

  Vulf put his hand at my back and ushered me in.

  The cabin held eight strangers, plus Kenner. Every single one of them stared at Vulf’s hand flattened against my lower back. Mouths dropped open. Eyes swiveled from his hand, to me, back to him. Dart-dart-dart. People couldn’t decide what to gawk at.

  I stepped back semi-consciously, but made sure my boot heel landed on Vulf’s toe, and landed heavily. The devious devil! He’d told me that the mating heat was private, that shifters couldn’t recognize it in other pairs. But then, his body language had alerted his family to the attraction between us. The resemblance of the people in the cabin was obvious, all blond, tall and muscled with that direct look that subtly challenged the world. They had to be his family.

  “Jaya,” Vulf’s deep voice rumbled. “This is my great-aunt Bree, Captain Darnell. Aunt Bree, please welcome Jaya Romanov, starship shaman.”

  Seven jaws dropped.

  Kenner grinned. “I didn’t tell them you’re a shaman.”

  “A shaman?” Edith questioned, disappointed. “Not a shifter?”

  I knew what had her worried. Shifters only mated with shifters. They could enter into unions, casual or otherwise, with non-shifters, but such unions always risked a shifter encountering their mate. Non-shifters didn’t rate in the shifter world. The way my father had abandoned me was the truth of that fact, one I’d accepted and lived with for years.

  And now the mating heat between Vulf and me threw all of that traditional wisdom out the hatch.

  If I was Vulf’s mate…

  Surely a mating heat didn’t guarantee that we were a mated pair. There had to be a choice, didn’t there?

  His hand remained at my waist, lightly possessive.

  “My father was a shifter,” I said. More to break the silence than because I thought these people deserved to know.

  “Who was he?” Captain Bree Darnell asked. She looked to be in her late fifties, but shifters lived longer than average lives, and aged well. Her practical pixie haircut told me who Edith modelled herself after.

  “I don’t know,” I said bluntly.

  Bree’s eyebrows rose. “Shifters don’t abandon their children.”

  I kept my gaze and voice level. “My father did.”

  “Is that what your mother told you?” A woman somewhat older than Vulf pushed forward.

  “No,” he answered for me. The growl in his voice said he’d taken offence. “Her mother is dead.” He positioned himself fractionally in front of me again, ready to fight. “The rest of this lot are Regan, Amber, Tyrone, Greta, Phil, Winona and Mitchell. My cousins.”

  “And they’re in big trouble,” Kenner sing-songed.

  His family all turned to glare at him, but it was Edith, the nearest in age to him, who spoke. “You’re the one in trouble.”

  “Huh, no.” He drew out the no. “It’s not me that Vulf’s ready to beat on for being rude to Jaya. She likes me.”

  Despite my discomfort, a smile threatened to make my mouth curve. The kid was right. I did like him.

  As for Vulf’s readine
ss to avenge my emotional disturbance with violence. I sunk an elbow into his ribs. “You’re the one who started this by making it seem as if I was something to you. I don’t know what kick you get out of fooling your family.” I was making this up as I went along, but I really didn’t want to be under the microscope here as the woman who messed up Vulf’s chance to mate with a full-shifter. I spoke over his mutter. “Vulf and I are partners—business partners—on a confidential venture.”

  “They’re looking for some guy.” Kenner had appointed himself the expert on our affairs. Judging by their scowls, his family didn’t approve of it.

  “Regardless,” Bree said brusquely. “A half-shifter child should know her parent. We’ll look into it.” A nod of her head indicated the matter was settled.

  It wasn’t, not according to me. “How?”

  “We’ll take a blood sample from you and cross-reference your genetic markers with the pirate database.”

  I looked from her to Vulf. “Is that possible?” He nodded. “Why didn’t you offer to do it?”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t seem that keen to claim your father or your shifter heritage.”

  I folded my arms and studied the floor. When the man was right, it made it difficult to argue with him.

  “We’ll discuss it back on the Orion,” he added.

  At which point I belatedly realized that everything we said and did on the pirate ship would be observed. While we were here, there could be no assumption of privacy—unless I used sha energy to shape sound waves and distort light to create that privacy. But Vulf was right, my personal issues could wait till we were back on the Orion.

  So why exactly were we on the Capricorn, and more specifically, why was I? Transferring Kenner for delivery back to school on Corsairs didn’t require my presence, even if Vulf perhaps wanted to catch up with his family. Not that he was looking particularly enthused at the chance.

  “A man has a right to know his child,” the man Vulf had introduced as Phil said.

  I didn’t need Vulf to tense with instinctive protectiveness. I put a hand on his forearm to tell him without words to stand down. I had this. “Shifters protect their blood. That’s why it’s not in any galactic databases. I could have located my father any time if it was. He chose not to put his blood out there. I am at liberty to do the same.” I stared at the man who was taller and broader than me, but not as big as Vulf. “Unless you want to challenge me, a starship shaman, to a fight to steal my blood.”

  Sha energy swirled around me. Other starship crews had told me how eerie that felt. Ordinary humans couldn’t see sha, but the effect of it gathering around them was apparently disconcerting.

  Phil’s eyes widened and although his feet stayed stubbornly set, his body swayed backward in retreat.

  I smiled.

  “That’s so cool,” Kenner cried. “You gonna fight her, Phil?”

  I shook my head. The kid couldn’t help himself. He shouldn’t have added that taunt. Phil transferred his murderous glare to Kenner.

  Tyrone took a step forward, breaking Phil’s line of sight. “Whatever kind of partner she is, Vulf, we should have known you’d choose one as difficult as yourself.”

  I detected a bit of an insult there, but Vulf relaxed.

  A jerk of his chin acknowledged Tyrone’s comment. His attention, though, returned to Bree. “I need to speak with Cyrus.”

  Bree stared at me. “You know where he is.”

  Vulf seemed to take that as permission to leave. He turned and nudged me toward the door.

  “Lunch in forty minutes,” Bree added. “We’ll expect you.” It was an order. “Both of you.”

  “We’ll be there.” The door slid open and Vulf pushed me through.

  I had one final glimpse of Kenner. The kid finally looked worried, but then Edith stepped up beside him and I noted Tyrone’s attentiveness. No, despite his own worst actions, Kenner was safe with his family.

  Vulf punched the call button on a nearby elevator and we stepped in, swooshing down to the engineering deck. When the elevator’s doors opened, the air smelled of metal and grease. I sometimes thought that engineering units on starships altered air filtration systems just to ensure that they lived with those traditional Earth era smells.

  “To your left.” Vulf didn’t touch me, but he walked near enough that I was fully conscious of him. He walked that fraction too close for us to be merely business partners.

  We wove through the maze that made up the engineering deck before a door in the wall suddenly slid open.

  Vulf stepped around me and in, checking for danger.

  Evidently while Phil was convinced that I could take him in a fight, Vulf still saw me as weaker. That bothered me less than it might have. I was more used to people reacting to my shaman status as Phil had: with fear of me, rather than for me.

  So I waited till Vulf had determined the cabin was safe, and gestured me in.

  An elderly man sat at a complicated screen display. He’d had time enough to hide the various feeds of places within the Capricorn and far distant from it. I recognized a coconut palm tree from a beach resort scene such as one might find on Tyger Tyger. It was intriguing that the man let me see a hint of his surveillance network.

  He stood, extending one ropy arm in a welcoming gesture. “I’m Cyrus. Delighted to meet Vulf’s new business partner, Jaya.”

  Vulf sighed as he sat down in one of the comfortable visitor chairs. “If Aunt Bree discovers you’ve been bugging the officers’ mess again she’ll cut off your ears.”

  Cyrus grinned, not even attempting to look innocent. By his wrinkled skin and wiry build, he appeared to be in his eighties. Assuming he was a shifter, that meant he was probably aged in his hundreds, like Ivan. Unlike Ivan, the expression in his pale blue eyes was one of easy humor. Where Ivan was obsessive and squirrelly, Cyrus had seen everything and accepted the strangeness of life. It amused him.

  “Pleased to meet you, Cyrus.” I’d have offered him a more formal title, except that neither he nor Vulf had provided me with that information. I decided to assume that Cyrus was the Capricorn’s chief intelligence officer, and for some reason, ran his unit from the engineering deck. Quirky.

  “How badly did Kenner’s intrusion onto Station Drill affect the operation to take down Scipio?” Vulf asked.

  “That boy has the luck of a Sidhe lord.” Cyrus tapped his desk and the screens behind him changed to show a Boneyard Sector station, presumably Station Drill. Unlike the relatively empty section where Vulf had landed the Orion, this area was crowded with hangars and other buildings, and a surprising bustle of people. “The men who captured Kenner weren’t interested in revealing that they also lost him, and to who. When they checked the log to see which ship had departed recently, they saw your name, Vulf. Within three hours, they’d scattered and departed the station.”

  “They didn’t warn anyone?” Vulf asked.

  Cyrus shook his head. “No honor among this lot. They guessed trouble was coming, and they’ve left Scipio to face it. The tournament is to go ahead tonight. Scipio has just landed on Station Drill.”

  Vulf exhaled deeply. “Aaron?”

  “Hiding behind an unstable asteroid with his team.” Cyrus took pity on my obvious ignorance. “Aaron’s my son. He shamed the family even more than Vulf, here. Refused to join a pirate ship.”

  I peeped at Vulf. Did his independence as a bounty hunter cause trouble with his family?

  Vulf folded his arms and looked monumentally unaffected. “Aaron’s a captain in the Galactic Police.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  Cyrus guffawed.

  Vulf smiled at my dumbfounded expression. “Shifters operate in all walks of life. We’re most famous as pirates, but we’re everywhere. Cyrus coordinates and monitors our network. He worked with Aaron to set up the takedown of Scipio. The Galactic Police have prioritized ending the illegal tournaments.” The cruel animal fights. “After Scipio went after Ellis at school on Corsairs, he be
came of interest to the clans.”

  By clans, he obviously meant the shifter network. Which likely meant that Cyrus was a clan chief. I had heard of that title in my research into shifters. Bree might be captain of the Capricorn, but Cyrus outranked her. She could slap him down for interfering on her ship, but he could reassign its command from her to…well, to anyone, even Kenner!

  Cyrus seemed awfully nice for someone so powerful.

  “You’ll need to be returning to the mess if you’re to make lunch,” he said. The topic of taking down Scipio was closed. Scipio was as good as dead, or else captured, tried and imprisoned. Either way, his time as a crime boss was over. The clans had decided.

  “Cyrus, if you had an anonymous starship on Station Drill and lost access to it, where would you go to buy or steal another in a hurry?” Vulf asked.

  I froze as I realized he was asking the shifters’ intelligence chief for his opinion on where Ivan was. Would Cyrus guess the intent behind the question?

  The old man’s friendly yet shrewd eyes studied me. “It takes a thief to catch a thief,” he said to Vulf. The meaning was clear: it takes a shaman to catch a shaman.

  Vulf merely looked at him. There was no response, neither guilt nor satisfaction in his cleverness in allying with a rare shaman. What I was to Vulf was personal between him and me, and although he’d staked a claim to me earlier with his closeness and touches, he guarded the knowledge of the mating heat that had burned us last night.

  Cyrus studied us. “Surveillance footage on Station Drill blurred about two hours after you left with Kenner. We were studying it closely to see what Kenner’s attackers did. The blur preceded the departure of the starship Marmalade for Station Folly. It’s a tramp ship, buys and sells recyclables.”

  “Station Folly is ridiculously close to Station Drill,” Vulf said.

  “Maybe. But the Marmalade travels at a snail’s pace.” Cyrus called up information on the desk screen. “It’s still to dock on Station Folly.”

  “Is it on route?” I asked. I bit my tongue to keep in the next impulsive question: has Ivan hijacked it?

  “It’s on route and reasonably on time. It’s old and slow, and so is its captain.” Cyrus tapped a hand on the desk and the screen blanked. “You’ll be late to lunch if you don’t move it.”