Return to Earth: Mike Stedman: Book 3

by D. R. Rosier

  He shrugged, “To know what she was feeling of course. It’s… she’s mine for life, literally, life bonded and sworn to me by her honor. She’d never complain to me about anything, which means I’ll never know if anything I do ever annoys her. Not sure how to put this, if something annoys her, she won’t ever complain, or leave, but it would still fester, and eventually come between us. I don’t want to lose that passion between us, or have her come to hate me and hide it for something so… small.”

  She sighed, “I see your point. You can’t lose her, but you can lose her love. You think just knowing her emotions would clue you in enough?”

  He nodded, “It wouldn’t be hard to figure it out, if she gets a twinge of annoyance every time I do one thing or another. Relationships are about compromise, and since I hold all the power in that one I need to be able to tell when one is required, without her asking or telling.”

  She nodded, “Let me think about that for a while, and run some simulations. I might be able to come up with something better than a mood ring.”

  He snorted, “Thank you.”

  She asked, “Anything else?”

  He sighed, “Yup, I have no idea what to do about Earth. What the hell does my father expect me to do? The Kascorix was easy, I just blew them out of space. We’re prepared for the Canosians as well if they come looking for a fight. Earth… all I have are words, I can’t just blow them up. Things are escalating there, to the point there might be another world war. The summit is a good idea, but…” he trailed off a little frustrated.

  She sighed, “It’s not your responsibility to fix everything. All you can do is be a voice of reason and try.”

  He nodded, “I suppose, but prejudice and power struggles, real or imagined, don’t respond to reason. I can only hope that the last twenty years has made the A.I.s a bit less controversial, and that they’re only going through the motions, but most likely it will just be another hot button issue along with who achieves FTL first. What’s worse, is if they can’t live with A.I.s as equals, more than that, if they can’t deal with human people of another country, how are they going to deal with alien species in the Xaran empire? Most humans would deny it, but xenophobia will be an issue.”

  She shrugged, “Just do your best, and be ready for the worst. I wish I could disagree with you, or give you a magical plan, but I can’t.”

  He was ready for the worst, and that worried him more than anything else.

  He closed his eyes and sighed as her hand roamed down his body, and between his legs. Enough talk, they still had a few hours alone together. Despite none of his three major issues being solved, he felt much better after talking with her. He also knew the first two might be resolved, the third one… he had no idea.

  She slid her body on his, and claimed his lips with her own, and he pushed his worries away for the moment...

  The next morning, they had an early breakfast and said their goodbyes before heading back up to the ship. The trip to Earth was just a little under a half an hour, and he had Chrystal set course as they gathered in the kitchen.

  He almost made coffee out of habit, but let Alyndra take care of it. He may not know everything that annoyed her, if anything, but he did know she didn’t like it when he did the small menial stuff she could take on as part of her duties.

  “So, any ideas? We’ll have a day stopover at Mars, my family wants to meet all of you, and then Earth.”

  He still had no idea what he could do there, and worried any attempt to help might just make things worse. After all, they would see him as an A.I. The last thing he needed to be was a point of contention.

  Dahlia joked, “We could swing by Miroth, and pick up a cohort.”

  He laughed, “Let’s keep invasion as a last resort, shall we?”

  Nadia snorted, “Second to last, last resort is glassing the planet. Umm, except for Australia.”

  Alyndra turned, “Honestly you should ask questions, and listen, with me around. Then we can plan off both what they say and what they’re really thinking. Nadia also may be a big help with her experience, between the two of us we would be a formidable information gathering force.”

  Alyndra poured a cup of coffee, and brought it over to him.

  “In short,” she said, “Keep an open mind and gather as much information as we can first. Anyone else want a cup?” she added as she went back for her own.

  Nadia nodded, “I have no interest in acting as a spy, but I do know a few people, and have a few contacts that owe me favors.”

  Chrystal agreed, “That sounds like the way to go in the beginning. It may be the best thing we could do is just leave it be, and let them work it out. Sometimes a neutral third party can help others work out issues, but if the people in charge hate A.I.s…” she trailed off.

  He frowned, “I think that could go either way, most of the people that ran A.I.s off have retired. The system is still the same, but there are different people now. All the banning laws are still in place, but who knows how they really feel?”

  Dahlia grunted, “Maybe that’s where I can help if necessary. Miroth is forbidden from taking sides or interfering with your solar systems political systems. I’m more of a neutral third party than anyone else here, excepting Alyndra.”

  Alyndra said, “Maybe. All good ideas, but first we need to just listen and learn. I just wish I could speak directly to Mike’s mind to pass on the information I learn. Just in case that becomes necessary while on the scene.”

  Nadia blew out a breath, “I have full immersion implants, which means I can have virtual conversations in my mind, just audio, while in the real world. If you fed it to me, I could pass it on to Mike, Chrystal, and Dahlia simultaneously. If you were reading me, you could even hear their responses.”

  Chrystal giggled, “That’s sneaky.”

  Nadia winked, and stood to take a bow.

  He sighed, “Hopefully none of it will be necessary, but they’re all good ideas. Now all we have to do is convince Celia to convince the world leaders to meet before everything goes to shit, and to decide on what’s going to happen. The ideal would be for every world power to share, which would maintain the balance of power. It goes back to mutually assured destruction, if everyone has the same they will hopefully behave.”

  Dahlia said, “Do you think that’s possible?”

  He shrugged, “Maybe. Australia is closest to making the breakthrough, they’re even running trials, although I understand in the last one the unmanned test ship was destroyed. If a power hungry individual feels they’re close enough to make a race out of it… or if they decide attacking Australia would slow down their development program, they may just do it. My father said tensions were high, and that was two days ago.”

  Dahlia looked shocked.

  He sighed, “Earth has some growing up to do, surely Miroth wasn’t always a united world.”

  Dahlia shook her head, “No, and becoming one was a rather bloody time in our history.”

  Mike nodded, “So we have a plan. Let’s forget it until tomorrow morning, and try to enjoy the day.”

  Easier said than done, he knew his mind would be mulling over it, even if it would just be going in circles. They needed more information, just like Alyndra had said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nothing drove home how much he’d changed, more than coming home. They were met on the roof as they landed by some of his mothers, and he felt welcomed and loved. That hadn’t changed at all, his family was and is very important to him, and obviously he was to them as well if his welcome was any indication. It also felt… different.

  Mars, or at least the building he’d grown up in, where he’d spent eighteen years actual and over a hundred perceptually, no longer felt like home. Home was up in orbit, his ship. Home was also Chrystal, Nadia, Alyndra, and even Dahlia to a certain extent.

  They’d spent some time together catching up, and then his mothers had skillfully peeled off his lovers one by one, probably to speak privately. He was a lit
tle torn about that, not sure if it should make him nervous or not, but truthfully, he just felt rather bemused by it all. He’d spent a little time catching up with his siblings, at least the ones that were there, and then headed over and through his bedroom, to his personal lab space which was attached.

  There were multiple wall monitors in the lab space, despite him being able to use an overlay he had them since it was an easy way to share his data and conclusions with a second party. There was a small 3-d printer, a desk with a leather chair, and a couch. He’d spent hours and hours in the room in the past, he’d developed his power system upgrades and all of Chrystal’s systems, including Chrystal herself, and it’d always felt like home. Now it felt small and confining.

  He just looked around and tried to grasp how much he’d changed over the last three months, four times that if he included the times he’d had to speed up his perception during the quick war.

  A female cleared her throat and he turned. Dahlia looked simply beautiful in a light blue dress and two-inch-high heels. Her golden blonde hair was up, revealing her neck and petite ears, and her gorgeous blue eyes had a look of understanding in them.

  Dahlia said, “There you are, I managed to escape,” she teased.

  He’d been a little unsure the past few days about Dahlia if he was honest with himself. He’d had her defined in his mind as off limits for a long time previously. A warrior, a woman who slept with many partners, and a commander of a cohort of troops of an ally world. He’d always seen her as very attractive, but untouchable. He thought back, and they hadn’t really been alone very often, and now that they were he could feel the edge of sexual tension was much sharper.

  He wondered how her porcelain skin would feel under his hand, and how her full lips would feel against his.

  Of course, he couldn’t do anything about it, not yet. Not now, not until he’d talked to both Nadia and Alyndra about it. He only had Chrystal’s okay to explore a relationship with the Mirosian woman. He couldn’t even touch her before then, or it would be cheating. It wasn’t hard to keep to those ideals, but he’d be lying if he said she wasn’t damned tempting.

  He nodded, “Just checking out my old room,” he gestured to the door she just walked through, “and my lab. I suppose I’m also a little nervous about what’s coming, I really don’t have any power or influence on Earth.”

  She smiled and tilted her head, “Perhaps not, but you have experience out there in our galaxy, and beyond. All you can do is offer yourself, both for your intel and observations, for the leaders there to come up with a joint strategy out in space. It won’t be your fault if they don’t listen, or if they don’t trust.”

  He nodded, not sure if he believed that. What if his very presence set off arguments, or perhaps war. That was even assuming they’d get together to talk at all. There was no way to be sure what would happen, he enjoyed being a scientist, at least the laws of the universe were sure.

  “I’ll be happy when I can step back, take a breath, and maybe get to that exploring I’m always going on about.”

  She nodded slowly, “So, now that you’ve checked out your old room, how does it feel?”

  He sighed, “Honestly?” and when she nodded he went on, “Strange, too small. It’s my room, but it isn’t home, not anymore. I suppose, I outgrew it.”

  She smirked knowingly, as if she knew he was going to say that.

  “Did you know I wanted to be a chef?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She sighed and looked into his eyes.

  “I did. I was going to retire without ever going to war. Commander is a decent rank, but when you consider there are more than a billion people on my planet below the age of four hundred, you’ll begin to understand just how many commanders and cohorts of ten thousand there are. I was very lucky to get your call that day out of all the others.”

  She paused for a moment and shrugged before she continued.

  “I had plans to open a restaurant, I’m good at it too, if you’re lucky I’ll cook for you one day.”

  She grinned, and then said, “Of course, everything changed once you contacted me. I’d have had very little chance of becoming an important figure on my world, one of a very few people able to count themselves as an ambassador to other worlds. When you took me and my troops, many opportunities became available to me that previously didn’t exist. At that point, my old dreams fell away and were replaced.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to be a chef in my own restaurant, but now… that dream seems so small. I have other hopes too.”

  That last sentence was said in a rather flirty manner, and the sexual tension between them went up even further. His gaze lowered from her eyes for a moment, and he wondered about how her full lips would feel elsewhere, not just on his.

  She broke her gaze and looked around for a moment before she asked, “Do you understand what I mean?”

  He frowned, “I think so, and I’m both glad you have that opportunity, and very happy you’ll be with us.”

  She bit her bottom lip, but not in a sexy way. It was apparent he didn’t get her point at all.

  She tilted her head, “Don’t answer me, at least, not right away. Think about it as you soak in this lab, attached to a room that no longer fits, that is too small for you. Will you really be happy exploring nearby solar systems, happy with your old plans, after what you’ve accomplished? Seems like a slaved unmanned probe could do that job…”

  She smiled a little sadly, turned, and walked out.

  He stared at the empty doorway she walked out of for a very long time, as he truly thought about it. Had his old dream, his old plan, become too small? He was a scientist, an inventor, an explorer, a senator, and he was held in high regard on many worlds in the Xaran empire, if not on Earth. He still had open invitations to visit some other worlds he saved, specifically Vun-Turuhm, and Jazuno. The two worlds that had the races that looked like Dwarves and the Greys. He knew he had the interest of others as well.

  Was his old dream, and his insistence on getting to it, merely a habit? A childish wish to hold onto a dream that had become too small?

  She’d been right about one thing, he and Chrystal could create thousands of probes, un-manned mini-ships, and explore all the nearby G-type solar systems by remote. Maybe it should be just a side project. He’d pushed away the idea of searching for other inimical civilizations, pushed it off in the hopes someone else would do it. But wouldn’t doing that be so much more important?

  Wouldn’t contacting the other worlds in the empire, and forming bonds between them and Mars while Dahlia formed bonds between them and Miroth be a lot more important. He could also be a scientist and inventor at the same time. It wasn’t as if he lacked time or needed to choose one thing.

  He was angry with Dahlia for a minute for popping his soap bubble. The more he thought about it though, the more he realized just like his rooms, his old dreams were small, childish. He might be over a hundred experientially, but he’d still been just a child at home before the day Chrystal came fully online and he left his world.

  He thought about his work, what he’d done lately and the impact he’d had, and the ladies he travelled with. Chrystal was a psychiatrist and had experience with alien cultures both mentally and medically. He had Nadia who was very open minded, and had been a spy. He had Dahlia who was a consummate warrior, and now an ambassador. He had Alyndra, an Esari Princess who was very familiar with dealing with other cultures, and gave excellent advice.

  He was an inventor who also seemed to have the ability to overcome an enemy, and was willing to help other civilizations. When he really thought about it, what group of people would be better to open relations with others not only in the empire, but to meet new races outside of it.

  He had no doubt some would be dangerous, but it was better to know those dangers. It would be impossible to defend from the unknown, just like without the new weapons on his ship, and the fleet of fifty ships around Mars, the
Canosians would be deadly to them. He’d no doubt that eventually that xenophobic race would make their way to the milky-way. But he knew their style and the way they attacked, which meant if, or when that confrontation took place, they had a very good chance of winning.

  As a group, he and the ladies were also very well positioned to meet future allies, and peaceful civilizations as well. He could make a huge impact, not only for Mars, but for the empire and beyond if he accepted his full potential.

  And he wanted to explore the closest stars near Earth to claim them for their solar system, maybe for colonies? Important work, but work that could easily be done on the side. He could see now it would be a waste of his talents, and the talents of everyone else on board Chrystal. He could also see that it had been fear that prevented him from seeing it. All of it sounded good, but what if he screwed up?

  He actually felt a little embarrassed by his insistence in the past, and grateful that Dahlia had been tactful about it.

  Of course, he still wanted his honeymoon, and a break after Earth and the other things settled down. They all deserved that after the Kascorix, Canosians, and soon… Earth.

  Chapter Twelve

  She moaned softly, “I know this isn’t real, but fuck all if it doesn’t feel both real and amazing.”

  They were in virtual world, on a deserted island that didn’t exist in the real one, and lying on the beach naked. Or at least, she was lying on the beach on her stomach, he was straddling her thighs. In reality, their bodies were lying with Nadia and Alyndra in his bed while those two slept.

  He grinned as he worked his fingers against Chrystal’s lower back, while teasing her upper ass a bit every once in a while. He’d started at her neck of course, while he’d told her about his day, specifically his talk with Dahlia and all his conclusions.

  A change of plans, which would affect all their lives. Wasn’t life just what happened when making plans anyway?

  Chrystal sighed, “Just don’t stop. I love you Mike, we can do whatever you want, I can do my thing from anywhere. I’m just surprised I didn’t see it myself, maybe I’m just too close to it. Speaking of Dahlia, have you talked to the others about her yet? I caught you two gazing longingly at each other at dinner, and the sexual tension was so thick I could’ve cut it with a knife.”