Stepping Stones (Founding of the Federation Short Stories Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  “You knew. You cheated. You used your feminine intuition or something, naughty girl,” he accused. He slapped her on the ass, making her gasp in protest. “What? Got a problem with that lady?” he teasingly demanded, squeezing her abused fundament. She rolled her torso enough to turn accusing eyes on him but knew better than to wrestle with Max in the room. Max took her side rather than Rob’s in their play fights. When he did intervene, he was harder to handle for several days. Rob didn't need the potential distraction; it could be life threatening. Instead she vowed to get even with him later.

  “Yeah, that's what I thought,” he said, slapping her other cheek. He leered as Max growled softly. Max wasn't the only one growling, however.

  She snorted as he got up off her in a rustle of fabric. He tugged a pair of shorts on, threw on a t-shirt, and then grabbed Max's favorite tennis ball.

  “Come on, you dumb mutt. Why you can't go potty without supervision is beyond me,” he growled, headed down the hall to the dining room sliding glass door. The dog bounced and then padded ahead of him, brush of a tail wagging furiously as his nails clicked down the hall.

  Ursilla smiled as she watched them leave. She rolled out of bed, only slightly frustrated by the interruption. She pulled the sheets over her and then walked to the door, padding silently. When she got there, she leaned against the jam, smiling as her husband and lover played toss with his partner.

  When he caught sight of her, he threw the ball into a corner. It bounced off the fence and went behind a battered blue garden gnome. The German Sheppard went after it, panting and on the hunt.

  “That'll keep him busy for a minute,” Rob said, coming over to her. He smiled, wrapping his arms around her waist. She smiled coyly back and allowed him to kiss her. “Careful, lady, I might want to get us both into trouble and have my way with you right here, right now,” he accused, grinning.

  “And if you didn't have a partner and didn't have a shift soon, I'd probably let you,” she said grinning right back as he kissed the nap of her neck just how she liked. “It's been a while since we've done it in the kitchen,” she said as he backed her into the room. When he let her go, she stepped back and turned to give him a coy look over her shoulder.

  He couldn't resist though; he swatted her on the rear again then caught her again for a kiss and nibble before she could scamper away to the shower. They kissed until a damp mutt came back and dropped the filthy tennis ball on the floor between them. Then Max went to town growling and playing with it, knocking them about with his mass and tail.

  “Damn it, Max,” Rob growled in exasperation.

  “Like having a kid you said,” Ursilla laughed, rubbing the dog's ears. Rob snorted. “Good practice for later I suppose,” she murmured as the dog growled.

  “That's one thing I wish you could do, make him smarter. That way we can tell him to get lost and he would.”

  “Oh yeah, right, like that would work. Do you really want to let him go get lost in a video game you mean?” she accused, shaking her head as she thought about the outlandish concept. She'd heard the wistful request a few times from Rob, his sister Belle, brother-in-law Owen, and from other canine partners in the Lagroose side of the family. It seemed the entire Lagroose family had gone to the dogs, either as canine partners or trainers. “Then he really would get in the way when we were trying to have some quiet time, not by accident,” she said with a smile as she pulled on his t-shirt. He still wasn't ready to let her go; he had an arm around her waist trapping her to him. She reached down and gave a flank a squeeze. Max looked up and cocked his head at her.

  “Though I could do without the audience, thank you very much Max,” she said, eying him in mock severity. The dog snuffled and then sat down, twisting his head this way and that at them. Ursilla shook her head and sighed in exasperation. “Men. You are all perverts and voyeurs honestly,” she said with enough affection to make her husband chuckle.

  “We do need to talk a bit about having a family though, honey. I know you want to do something about it before you get your career going too far …,” Rob said then let his thought taper off as she started to swell in indignation.

  Her eyes glittered as she stared at him, good mood forgotten. “Rob! That's not fair! And it's not just me, it's you too!”

  “I know. I misspoke. Let's not fight,” he said quickly, holding her crushingly tight until she gasped. “Sorry,” he murmured, slowly easing up. She swatted his ass a few times until he grunted and the dog growled.

  “Serves you right. Put a sock in it, you dumb mutt,” she said, looking at Max. The dog whined and then licked his chops with a loud thock sound. “Yeah yeah, breakfast …,” she said, shaking her head. “Some people have a one track mind.”

  “Whereas others …,” Rob held her close and ran a mischievous hand over her flank and into a naughty area until she gasped.

  “You can be distracted too, bub,” she teased as he kissed her shoulder and collar and then throat. Not that she wanted to distract him …, but she couldn't afford to run late either. Traffic was a pain in the ass if they got their timing wrong. Besides, he wasn't the only one who loved his job.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked, kissing her neck and running his hands through her hair.

  “Vampire,” she accused with a laugh. “And yes. All I have to mention is coffee …,” she said with a wicked gleam.

  “Coffee,” he groaned, right on cue. He turned to the pot, letting her slip through his fingers.

  She laughed and danced away, smirking as he realized he'd been tricked. “See how easily you let things slip through your fingers, boy? And you, a cop! Tut tut!” She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “I just might have to run you down and arrest you …,” he accused, “after my coffee.”

  “Sure you will,” she mockingly teased as she padded down the hall to the bedroom and shower. She made sure he got a good look, throwing in a bit of a hip wiggle as she walked just to get his goat. There was more than one way to get a man's engine going in the morning. “Make sure you use the right blend,” she called out as she turned the shower on.

  “Right,” he muttered. He put the pot on, then fed the dog. He checked his email status, but the sound of the shower was distracting. All sorts of naughty thoughts entered his mind as he got his first sip of coffee down. By the second he'd given up on finishing the cup. Other things needed his attention. There was one sure fire way to rid that smirk off her face. At least for a little while he thought. He padded down the hall himself, shucking his clothes.

  “Rob!” she yelped as he entered with her. The cold air wasn't the only thing that made her nipples stand on end.

  “You were saying?” he asked as he bent down and kissed her in the steam. She returned the kiss, hands caressing just like his and forgot about being on time and the morning traffic.

  ~~~>

  A few days later Ursilla looked and was reminded of Max and the Lagroose request for smarter dogs. She did a little digging, but her program was focused on humans exclusively. There was no room for canines. When she brought up the idea to Doctor Thorpe about branching out, he shook his head. “Too much chance of cross contamination here. It will also draw too much unwanted attention our way,” he said.

  She frowned then had to reluctantly nod at his logic.

  “Besides, I'm not a vet. Nor are you. Let's focus our efforts where they most need to be,” he said, pointing her back to her lab.

  “Yes, Doctor,” she said meekly and went back to her work.

  ~~~>

  Max woke her before dawn. She got up, opened the door and let the dog out, then went back to their bedroom. She watched her husband sleep, endeared and a little envious of him. She checked the clock and then groaned. The damn mutt had woken her two hours before her usual time to get up. That sucked; there was no way she could get back to sleep. She was tempted to wake Rob, but he was shagged. He'd come in near midnight and hadn't eaten. She'd heard about the search for the little boy on the news. She knew he woul
d be up and out there again as soon as his body let him … or at dawn, whichever came first.

  Max scratched at the door, so she let him in. “You've got plenty of energy,” she murmured, ruffling his ears. The dog looked up at her, then went back to his bed. She snorted. Rob wasn't a fan of locking his partner up in a cage, at least not at home. In his SUV was a different story, Max tended to get into everything, and he didn't need the mutt in his lap or in a suspect's lap while driving. Besides, it was protocol.

  “Hey,” a voice said as an arm wrapped around her stomach. She eeped, then looked at her husband. “What are you doing up?” she demanded softly.

  “I missed you,” he murmured. He sounded tired. Her heart went out to him. She reached up and stroked his face.

  “Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you,” she murmured, upset that she had. “I thought if I took care of Max first …”

  “He had a lot of water last night. He needed to stay hydrated. We both did. If his bladder hadn't woken us both up, mine would have anyway,” Rob said, giving her another squeeze. He let go and then went to the bathroom. She looked on as the light came on, and he cursed at how bright it was. She smiled at that. She heard him pee and blinked when it lasted a while. Apparently Max wasn't the only one with a fully-loaded bladder. When he finished he washed up and then came back to bed. She watched in amusement as he flopped down. “Time is it?” he mumbled.

  “Time for you to sleep.”

  “Gotta be at the command center by dawn,” he mumbled.

  “Fine,” she sighed, resetting the clock. “You've got an hour. Rest,” she said, sitting on him to keep him still.

  “What are you doing?” he mumbled into the pillow.

  “Giving my man a massage for being a hero,” she said, rubbing his bare shoulders. There was no romantic intent, just appreciation as her hands rubbed the knots out and helped him to relax. He groaned greedily and did his best to let himself go. After a moment he was in a light trance.

  As her hands worked, she let her own mind drift a bit. Not to work, though she was tempted to think of a few equations. They always helped her to relax as long as they weren't too thorny or too cutting edge. Those tended to stick in her mind and keep her up pondering them.

  No, her thoughts were to the parents of the missing child. She didn't envy them. Nor any other parent that had to go through this sort of nightmare. Rob may not be a parent yet, but she knew he was feeling the stress. He was going through his own sort of stress she thought, stroking his hair then moving down his spine. Should she massage his feet? She looked back at them and then shook her head no. He was too ticklish. Best to toy with them at a later time she thought.

  If the search didn't turn up anything within seventy-two hours, it would enter a grimmer phase, that of body retrieval as well as criminal investigation. It would be a relief to get Rob back. Max wasn't trained for cadaver search, but she knew it would haunt him. Probably for days. He'd be a ghost of himself until something broke him out of the spell.

  She closed her eyes as her fingers touched a few of the scars on his back. Two were from before they had met. He was conscientious about wearing his armor, but one shot had gotten under it at just the wrong angle. Fortunately, it hadn't gone deep, but it had left a scar on his right shoulder.

  The other scar she knew about was lower, where a perp had stabbed him with a pen during a struggle. Her fingers traced that one, then moved on.

  If there was one thing she could do, it would be to break the cycle. His family had served enough, put enough of their blood, sweat, and tears into serving their community. She wanted her children to find other ways to serve.

  She bit her lip as emotions roiled through her. And she definitely didn't want to have to bury them. Bury them or Rob she thought bleakly.

  ~~~>

  Ursilla threw herself into her work while Rob wrestled with his own personal demons. Not finding the child alive had been harsh. Things like that happened, and that was why there was mandatory counseling for the searchers. She was glad of that.

  She would be there, try to help, listen, but there were times when his brooding became too intense. When a man had to be alone. To do “man things.” To bond with his brothers Owen and Ed. The entire family loved to camp. She didn't mind it, but she definitely wanted access to a proper toilet. Rob and his family had lovingly put up with that a few times, but they preferred going totally bush. She'd finally given in and stayed home to let him have his fun.

  Besides, her idea of relaxation lately was in the lab. She loved to read and spend time with her husband, but even she enjoyed her own pursuits. One of them was solving puzzles that intrigued her.

  She quickly gained the reputation as a fixer. She could be brought in to examine a thorny problem that had stumped everyone else. Her exterior perspective tended to find a solution. Some of them weren't elegant, some weren't the answers they wanted, but they were answers. She tended to try to apply the KISS principle whenever possible. Doctor Thorpe called it her “crap cutter approach.”

  Once things settled down into a rather boring routine of grow, test, and retest on her latest line of improvements, Ursilla was asked by an enlisted man Nate Chalice to help a friend screen for radiation damage.

  “Sure,” she said frowning. “You can have them come by … I mean I'm not a fertility clinic.”

  “I know, Doc. They can't come by. And this has to be kept quiet,” Nate looked around.

  “So …,” she frowned. “I was thinking you were the friend. But …”

  Nate put his hands up. “I'm not I swear. I'm … a relative, let's call it that. And a friend of a friend is helping with this. They are heroes, so they deserve a happy ending.”

  “Um …”

  “Here,” he slipped her a contact number. “Give them a call when you can. There will be a time delay and well …,” he shrugged helplessly.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding as she took the paper. “I'll call them after lunch.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” he replied, smiling brilliantly as he departed.

  ~~~>

  When she entered the contact number, she was surprised by the long delay. Then she was further surprised when it connected to Mars. Her eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline when Wanda Irons came online.

  The two-way delay in the conversation made the eight-minute conversation bits a pain in the ass. But it did let her multitask. It also allowed her time to brood on the why of the call.

  Wanda worked through small talk, which was annoying and distracting, to eventually get down to the point. “I don't know if you are the one or not. Mario was exposed to a lot of radiation on the surface some time ago. We tried for a while to get pregnant but failed. But then when I did get pregnant I …,” she looked away, practically in tears, “I had to abort the fetus. The radiation …,” she stopped and dashed tears with a finger. “We haven't tried again,” she finally said softly, looking forlorn. “We've grown … distant. Apart. It's painful. I want my husband back. I want … I want a family. Just like he does.”

  Ursilla looked up from the scope she had been looking down to the view screen. She sat up straight and nodded. “You have my sympathies, Doctor. Do you have his genetic profile or samples? Is his sperm viable?” She pulled out her tablet and started to make a list of questions while she waited for the inevitable response.

  “We shipped Nate and a couple of other doctors some samples. NASA also has his samples from before we left. I was hoping …,” Wanda's voice tapered off.

  Ursilla frowned thoughtfully. It would have been nice if they'd done this in an email, delivered her the samples … anything. The conversation was maddening to her. “I need to see those samples. The prior ones from NASA too if we can arrange it. A single DNA strand would be enough; we can use it as a template to correct the damaged sperm or screen out the damaged genes in the sperm.”

  “I …,” Wanda licked her lips and then nodded. “Thank you,” she finally whispered.

  “Don't thank me yet, I'm
on the case, but I don't know what will be involved or how far we can go with this. But I will try.”

  “Thank you anyway, Doctor,” Wanda repeated. She nodded. “I need to go.” She looked off camera. “We've got some chores to do … I've got some chores to do,” she said, touching a hand. It was the first time Ursilla realized someone else had been in on the conversation the entire time. She immediately thought of Mario.

  A lot was probably tearing at the man. He probably had psychological issues with what had happened to him. Did he feel any less of a man because his sperm was … tainted? Was he kicking himself for being irradiated? She puckered her lips.

  “You two are heroes to a lot of us grounders. I'll contact Nate. You try to relax and do what it is you do best.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Thank me when it works,” Ursilla replied as the signal cut out.

  ~~~>

  Nate arrived with the samples the next day. He left the containers on her desk and left without a word. She finished her other projects, two were in the bioreactor. With free time on her hands, she cracked the case and started to work on cataloging and examining the samples.

  She found after an afternoon with the scope that his little swimmers were mostly dead. Only a few showed any sign of life once they were warmed up. Some were deformed. That meant she couldn't do anything with the sperm samples; the sperm that was still alive were too damaged.

  She had to think outside the box. Instead she used the DNA sample she had received from the Irons’ source at NASA to clone it a few million times. Then through some trial and error she managed to empty out a cell and turn it into a stem cell. Then she replicated that process a few thousand times.

  Once she had a viable supply, she paused. If she inserted the stem cells into the host … well, someone on Mars could do that. But if they did, according to her research the stem cells would eventually turn into sperm. If they were inserted into someone's ovaries, they would turn into eggs. The problem was that Mario had other sperm they didn't want.