by Deanna Lee
“Would they move?”
“No, it’s a logistics nightmare. Ganymede is just one of twenty research posts that Jupiter Station is responsible for. There are other people, some of them alone just like I was, that depend on the schedule we’ve established.”
Eliza nodded. “Okay.” She ran her hands through her hair. “Jason McAlister was someone I could trust.”
“And?”
“The game he’s playing with this and with you especially puts my teeth on edge. I want to believe he was just trying to protect me, and this was the most expedient way.”
“But?”
“He’s always five moves ahead of the people he goes up against,” Eliza said. “He was already a rear admiral when I received the command of the Kepler mission, and he’s only two years older than me. I actually received my promotion to captain in the same week I was given the command of the Columbus.”
“The two members of your crew that abandoned ship,” Sean began. “Where did they come from?” He held up a hand when she frowned at him. “Arti, relay the information that is public knowledge about the Kepler Exploration Initiative.”
“The NAU-SC Columbus left Mars Colony with a crew of twenty on January 9, 2145. Led by Captain Elizabeth Hawthorne of Union Space Command, their mission was to find and locate the theorized planet within the life zone of the Kepler-47 star system.”
“But there were twenty-two of us,” Eliza murmured.
“The general population of Earth didn’t find out about the civilians on board the Columbus until the mission was declassified forty years ago, Eliza,” Sean explained patiently. “The press tours and information given to the public before then only listed the military personnel.”
“I knew that,” Eliza murmured. “But they said that the mission and the identities of the civilian crew would be revealed after we left Mars. I mean, we were all chosen because we had no family ties on Earth or in the colonies, but Space Command promised that all of our names would be acknowledged.” She shook her head. “Why was the mission declassified finally?”
“Because a member of your crew lied,” Sean said dryly. “Well, maybe he didn’t know, but Dr. Charles Elba left behind an infant son whom would eventually learn that his father disappeared after being recruited by the NAU and taken to Mars Colony. He sued the government for information concerning his father’s disappearance, and due to kinship laws, they had no choice but to reveal his placement on the Kepler mission. It snowballed after that.”
“Kinship laws?” Eliza asked.
“During the war years, people disappeared a lot due to government interference or even unofficially sanctioned kidnappings. People were forced into service, experimented on medically. You name it—it probably happened. Though it didn’t happen in the NAU or EU, some countries resorted to murdering large sections of their populace in order to save resources.
“After the war, the UN Security Council forced every participating member of the United Nations to pass kinship laws. Parental and social responsibility, reproduction rights, and the sanctity of family. It’s why Admiral McAlister encouraged us to marry. I’m your family—legally and socially as long as we’re married. We are responsible to and for each other. The NAU nor Space Command can deny me access to you if you’re held in government custody. You can’t disappear.”
“And if they just kill you?” Eliza asked softly.
“They have to deal with my parents, siblings, and grandmother, which is the point of it all really. My grandmother is a world leader and sits on the UN Security Council. Getting rid of her grandson would be social and political suicide.”
“If they get caught,” Eliza murmured.
He stood and walked to stand next to her. “I have an excellent sense of self-preservation.”
“Beyond your foolish heroics and patriotism,” Eliza said with a little sad laugh. She turned fully to look at him and huffed. “I think you could be crazy.”
He started to protest, but she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and jerked him forward. His words were lost against her full mouth, and Sean exhaled shakily even as he wrapped his arms around her. Eliza shuddered in his arms and buried her fingers in his hair as he deepened the kiss.
He licked into her mouth as he pushed her up against the window. A soft, sweet moan slipped out of her as he cupped her ass and lifted her easily off the floor. Eliza wrapped her legs around his waist and shuddered as he settled between her thighs. His cock was hard and thick against her.
Sean’s mouth left hers, and he trailed soft, sweet kisses along her jaw before scraping his teeth against the side of her neck. She surged against him, her legs tightening around his waist.
“Fuck,” she whispered fiercely.
The tinkle of bells made him lift his head, and he sighed. “Damn it, Arti.”
“My apologies, sir, but there is an incoming transmission from Callisto Station. Since the window for direct communication is only six minutes at this time, I had no choice but to interrupt you.”
Sean frowned but nodded. He pressed a firm kiss against her mouth and let her legs slide down his body. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” Eliza murmured. She leaned against the window as he walked back to the main console in the operations center.
“Open communications,” Sean ordered as he sat down. The screen in front of him activated, and he offered his ex-girlfriend a raised eyebrow. He hadn’t spoken directly to Dr. Jessica Danvers in nearly four years. He glanced at Eliza and wondered if Arti had commented on that particular relationship. It hadn’t ended well. “Dr. Danvers, how can I help you?”
Jessica leaned back in her own chair and threw her feet up on the edge of the console in front of her. “Got a data-packet for you from Jupiter Station. Priority One and encrypted. Arti should be receiving it any second now.”
Sean checked the incoming transmission on a small screen just left of the main viewing screen and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Heard a rumor that you conquered your marriage phobia,” she offered with a practiced smirk. “Picked up some chatter from a cargo ship about an hour ago.”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Sean answered dryly and tried not to smile as her smirk fell away only to be replaced by thinly disguised fury.
“It’s true then? You retrieved the evacuation pod of some high-ranking USC officer and married her?” She huffed. “That’s insane!”
“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Sean said and shrugged. “But it’s really none of your business.”
“We were together for five years,” Jessica protested. “We broke up because you didn’t want to get married!”
Eliza appeared at his side then, leaned against his chair, and dropped her hand on his shoulder.
“Dr. Jessica Danvers, meet Captain Eliza Hawthorne, Union Space Command.”
Jessica’s eyes widened in what Sean figured was horror, but it was very brief. She gifted them with a brazen, insincere smile and shook her head. “Well, congratulations, Captain Hawthorne. He’s not a complete bastard.”
Eliza shrugged. “Fortunately, Dr. Danvers, his attractions more than make up for his flaws.”
Jessica’s gaze narrowed, and she frowned at them both before abruptly cutting the transmission.
“That’s a cat fight waiting to happen,” Eliza said dryly. “Does she have any combat training?”
“No, you can totally take her,” Sean promised with a little laugh. “Sorry about that—we rarely receive transmissions from Callisto Station no matter who is running it. Teko Solutions has eight research stations in the Jupiter system, but we’re so spread out that we rarely interact with one another. Our communication relays aren’t powerful enough on their own for anything more than direct line of sight communication.”
“I’m honestly surprised that communications have advanced as far as they have,” Eliza admitted. “Real-time communication with Earth was impossible from Mars before I left.”
“There are communication relay
s spread throughout the solar system, but they depend on both military and civilian installations to amplify and broadcast the channels. People complain a lot about the lag and blackouts, but scientists around the world have been focused intently on keeping our species alive. It’s only been in the last fifteen or so years that we’ve really had the time or the inclination to invest in luxury technologies. The communication systems we had worked, and it was left at that for decades.”
“So, no food replicators and no transporters.” Eliza shook her head. “I’m severely disappointed.”
“Both are in the works,” Sean admitted. “Teko Solutions has a huge team dedicated to protein replication. That kind of technology is and would continue to be a life saver. They’ve already had some limited success, but it’s not economically feasible for any sort of real use. I have every faith we’ll get there in my lifetime though.”
“You just want to ban rations,” Eliza said as she slid between him and the console. She leaned there for a few seconds, staring at his face. “You two broke up because you didn’t want to get married?”
“Well, there was my solemn vow to consider,” Sean started and grinned when she frowned at him. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “I come from a big family, as you know. I already have ten nieces and nephews from various siblings. I’m really looking forward to being a father myself, and Jessica is morally and politically opposed to having more than one child. I always figured I’d have several.”
“Arti said that women were encouraged to have multiple children.”
“There are those that believe that if our species were to die out that it is the natural order of things. Jessica’s own parents had to be threatened with a jail term before they would accept bio-modifications for their children. They refused them and both died of cancer twenty years ago. Jessica hasn’t let anyone upgrade her nano-tech or bio-mods since she was in her twenties. She turned sixty-one last year.”
“Sixty-one?” Eliza’s eyes went wide. “That woman didn’t look a day over thirty!”
“And she won’t until she’s pushing over the two-hundred-year mark,” Sean said dryly. He spread his legs and shifted her between them. “So how do you feel about kids?”
“I…” Eliza took a deep breath. “I can’t have kids, Sean.” She pulled free of him and rushed from the room before he could say anything else.
Chapter Four
Eliza stiffened when the door opened and Sean entered. Since she couldn’t very well deny him access to his own bedroom, she sank deeper into the large bay window and pulled the blanket she’d pulled off his bed closer. “Sorry, the other personal quarters are all empty….”
“I can pull some linens out of storage.” Sean cleared his throat. “But it would look better if we appeared to share quarters.” He put a data-pad on the bench between them as he sat down. “I rechecked your medical scans.”
She flinched. “I wasn’t forced to do it. Only three of the women on the mission even accepted the…procedure. The rest were going to depend on birth control injections.”
“Your ovaries are intact and are perfectly functional. You have no genetic abnormalities, no mutations, and no cellular damage.” He paused and cleared his throat. “You might have had the choice, but women after you in the NAU military forces weren’t so lucky. Endometrial ablation became commonplace and was often done during or shortly after basic training. Space Command and the NAU Marines were actually sanctioned heavily by the UN Security Council for forcing their female soldiers to be sterilized. In some young women, the endometrium grew back, but it wasn’t the norm. The procedure was perfected through practice, and their success rate was disgustingly high.”
“And me?”
“Your procedure was entirely successful.” Sean shook his head. “But my father…dedicated his life to fixing this problem.”
“What? Why?” Eliza demanded with a frown.
“Because my mother served in Space Command and they sterilized her against her will,” Sean said shortly. “Eliza, my mother and father are both over a hundred years old. It took him nearly twenty years to create a bio-modification that would cure my mother.” He offered her the data-pad. “I had Arti pool all of his work together so you can read it. The Cohen Reproduction bio-mod has been part of the standard package young women receive for forty-seven years.”
“So, I’ll get one.”
“Your bio-mods have already been built,” Sean murmured. “They’re preparing an emergency cargo pod for us, and they’ll launch it as soon as we’re out of the orbital blackout. Clothes for you, food, etc.”
Eliza blinked rapidly, but the tears welling in her eyes slid down her cheeks anyway. She hastily brushed them away one handed as she read through the first report Arti presented. “What else does it do?”
“Well, the bio-mod basically works as a monitor for the reproductive system. It’ll control when you’re fertile through your nano-tech net, balance hormones, etc. My dad is pretty much championed all over the world for his work in ensuring that most women have control over their reproductive future.”
“What exactly is a bio-mod?” Eliza asked, and her face heated when he looked at her shocked. “You didn’t explain it.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not often I encounter someone who doesn’t know what they are.” Sean sat back and settled in opposite her after toeing his shoes off. “A biological modification is an enclave of nano-bots that exist for a single, unified purpose, which is governed by a protocol within your nano-tech net. These enclaves are never redistributed or repurposed. They are used for advanced organ management, cancer prevention, physical development, enhanced sensory perception, and reproduction.”
“So you have a Cohen Reproduction bio-mod?”
“Yes, the protocols for men are different, and they came nearly fifteen years after the one for women was approved for usage in the population. For men it monitors hormones, prostate health, erectile function, and sperm count.”
“Erectile function,” she repeated with a small laugh.
“Proper circulation is very important,” Sean said as seriously as he could muster, only to ruin it by grinning when she laughed again.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Sean shifted his body around and leaned forward slightly. “Can you… Will you tell me why you agreed to do it when you obviously didn’t want it?”
“I wasn’t ever going to see Earth again,” Eliza said after a few moments of silence. “We all knew that going in—even with the nano-tech some of us had and the cryo-sleep, we weren’t going to come back. The best we’d be able to do is send back data—to let the people we left behind know if we located a habitable planet. I’d been working toward the mission for five years—I tailored myself in every way I could to get the attention of command. I wanted on that ship. I sacrificed for it, bled for it, and I felt like I deserved it. When I made the first cut, I threw myself into training like I was possessed. Looking back on it, I was just really desperate to make a difference.”
“Why the desperation?”
“My mother killed herself,” Eliza said abruptly. “It was reported as an accident, but she killed herself, and my father grieved himself to death.” She rubbed her face with a shaking hand. “I was both devastated and relieved by his death. He’d been miserable for ten years.”
“And having living family on Earth was hurting your chances of being chosen for the mission,” Sean said quietly.
“That sounds really horrible put that way,” Eliza admitted. “His death almost got me thrown out of the program completely. I took it hard mostly because I was relieved he was finally at rest, and I felt like the most horrible person to ever live for that. He hated life, barely tolerated me, and his only reason for living was my mother. When she killed herself, life itself became a cruel torture for him.”
“You obviously stayed in the program.”
“I was quite plain,” Eliza said. “Did you know that? I don’t imagine there are many undoctored
pictures of me before the mission.” Her laugh, hollow and sad, filled her ears, and she cringed at the sound. “I overheard two of the people on the mission committee comment on it. One told the other that he wished I was more attractive—that it would be great PR for the mission to have a beautiful woman in charge of it.”
“Your cosmetic enhancements failed after you came out of cryo-sleep,” Sean said pointedly. “It didn’t detract from you at all. I only reinstalled them because I figured you’d want me to. We can disable them if you want.”
“Oh, Sean,” she began with a genuine smile. “This isn’t the face I was born with. When my father died, he left me a substantial amount of money in insurance. I used it to…get some sculpting done. I didn’t do anything drastic. Just changed the shape of my nose, sharpened my jaw line, and…” She sucked on her bottom lip. “I always wanted full lips like my mother. I’ve never been a particularly vain woman, but I did regret that I didn’t get her lips, so I got those done as well. I skipped the cosmetic enhancements altogether. Then I volunteered for sterilization. After I was chosen for the mission, the committee hired a PR consultant who insisted on the enhancements because I couldn’t be bothered to put on make-up half the time and never did it to suit her.”
“It’s unfortunate that you felt you had to do that to get the mission you deserved,” Sean finally said. “I can’t say the results aren’t stunning, but honestly, I don’t see how you could’ve been unattractive before the surgery.”
“Just plain,” Eliza said. “Ordinary.”
“There is nothing ordinary about you—not even your old nose,” Sean said with a laugh and left the bay window. He pulled his shirt over his head and headed toward the bathroom. “I have about forty-five minutes before my next hibernation cycle.”
“Right.” Eliza nodded and stared at him as he rummaged through a clothes storage bin. He dropped his shirt into a slot in the wall and pulled out a pair of fitted boxers and socks. “I’ll just go find something to entertain me then.”