“She’s not dead, big guy,” Ford insisted with his arms tightly wrapped around his lover. “Aaron’s wrong. I feel it. If raiders got her, they would have kept and stripped the pod, not turned it loose. Or left a ransom note. She’s a DSMC fleet officer. They wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to ransom her, or at the very least pretend she’s alive and leave a note. She’s not dead!”
It didn’t comfort him. Ford stroked Caph’s hair, rocking him as the force of Caph’s grief overwhelmed him, too.
* * * *
Donna sat in the K-2’s cargo bay and stared at the empty lifepod. When Rob tried to get her to come back up to their quarters, she angrily slapped his hand away.
He knelt next to her. “Hon, there’s nothing you can do but torture yourself sitting here.”
“Maybe I’ll feel something.”
“You’re not a trained empath.”
She turned and sent him a “fuck you” look.
“We went over every inch of it.” His voice softened. “We found nothing.”
She clenched and unclenched her fists to keep from slugging him. “That’s right. Nothing. No blood, no signs of a struggle, no signs of her being injured or killed. Do you think Emi would go without a fight?”
She refused to give voice to the common sense answer, that perhaps Emi had died before someone else found the pod.
“Raiders would have kept the pod,” she rationalized. “Or scavenged it. Or tried to ransom her.” She returned her gaze to the pod. “I’ll come up when I’m ready to come up and not a second earlier, Captain.”
He held up his hands in supplication. “Okay, babe. You win. Just remember, me and the guys, we love you and we only want to help you. To be there for you when you decide to let us back in.” He stood and left the cargo bay.
She jumped when she heard the door slam.
Wiping at the tears now streaming down her face, she stared at the pod.
We’ll find you, Emi. I promise. I know you’re not dead.
* * * *
With the help of Yanna, Pachya, and Pabo, Erin soon found herself learning the Beyant language. Idioms were hardest for her to grasp, but at least by the end of her first week she could navigate her way through the ship without getting lost and could ask for basic directions. She started learning the names of the crewmen, who all acted helpful and friendly. The ambassador took special interest in her and also helped with her language studies.
By the second week, she and Pachya discovered she had a knack for science and experimentation. With Yanna carefully translating, Erin was able to help Pachya test and discover not only more safe foods, but identify ones potentially harmful to her.
“Perhaps you are a scientist?” Yanna helpfully suggested.
“I don’t know.” She thought about it. “That sort of feels right, but not quite.” She played with the rings on her hands. She’d cut her hair short, to just above her shoulders, when the water made it frizzy and weird and she realized it was starting to change color at the roots. Most likely an effect of the Beyant water, but she would feel better when it was all a similar blond color as her shipmates’ hair. She would feel even more at home then, like she belonged.
Like they were family.
By the third week, Erin was speaking a sometimes hysterically funny jumble the men had dubbed “Erant.” A mix of English and Beyant, she fluidly slipped back and forth between languages as she talked and didn’t know a word in her new language. She was the only female on board. While she suspected in some cultures this might be a bad thing, she felt one common emotion from the nearly one hundred men—they felt responsible for and protective of her, like a sibling or a child. Every male greeted her with friendly affection that sometimes threatened to overwhelm her in a good way.
They had welcomed her as one of their own.
It wasn’t until her fifth week on the B’autachia, as she learned the ship was called, that she found out why. “My sister used to serve with us,” Yanna explained over dinner one evening. He could now speak mostly in Beyant to her. Erin found it helpful to be immersed in their language at this point. If she didn’t understand something, she asked him to repeat it. For the most part, she comprehended. “She was a healer,” he said.
“A doctor?”
“Not exactly. Pachya, he can heal a body or run tests to find out what is wrong physically. A healer, in our culture, they work on the why, not the how.”
She tried to feel his emotions for clarification. She’d learned from the men it wasn’t a common ability, but a highly respected one. “A…psychologist?”
He frowned, not understanding her English word. She reformed the question in Beyant. “A healer focuses on the mind and emotions instead of the body?”
He smiled. “Aha! That’s exactly it. They can also heal bodies, but they do more than that.” A brief wave of sadness trickled from him. “You remind us all very much of her.”
“What happened to her?”
He frowned. The dark expression didn’t fill her with fear, but grief tinged with anger. “She was killed in an unprovoked attack by raiders. She had long wanted our people to sign the treaties, but we had always held back, afraid to get pulled into other planets’ conflicts that were not our concern. Her legacy is that we fulfill her wish to sign the treaties and join the Interstellar Treaty Coalition and become stronger so no one else hopefully dies by these lawless animals.”
Raiders.
Erin felt a twinge of fear of her own. He set down his utensils. “What is it, Erin?”
She shook her head. “I thought I was remembering something.” It fully slipped away the more she tried to focus on it. Erin finally looked up at him and smiled. “So I’m a little sister, huh?”
He returned her smile. “A very cherished one.”
* * * *
Two months after her arrival, Erin rarely needed to speak English standard anymore other than the lessons she gave to the crew. She worked side by side in the labs with Pachya, learning Beyant physiology and teaching him what she could remember about hers. They had discovered a tiny electronic chip in the back of her neck, just under the skin, near her hairline. With her permission, Pachya gently removed and preserved it for closer study. She felt she should know why it was there and what it was for, but as with nearly everything else in her past, she couldn’t remember.
She couldn’t recall any useful information like that, although the periodic table of elements popped into her head one day while they were testing more food for her.
Her hair had completely grown out in the new color, a darker shade of blond than the men, almost honey-colored, but much lighter than it had been when she arrived. She kept it cut short enough it wasn’t in her way, but not so short it looked strange to her in the mirror. Yanna, Pabo, and Pachya approved when she did it, telling her it looked good.
They would reach their rendezvous point in three more months. While part of her looked forward to the event, part of her felt nervous and scared. She listened to the recording every night before she went to sleep. The mysterious Ford’s voice soothed her.
Is he my husband? She had dreamed several times of three men, handsome men her heart seemed to ache for. One very large, almost as tall as Yanna, with shaggy blond hair and playful green eyes. One shorter, slimmer, with dark hair and blue eyes. The third, in the middle height-wise, with brown hair and sad, brown eyes.
One thought always accompanied those dreams. Aaroncaphford.
She wished she could figure out what that meant. Was one of those three men the Ford in the recording? Were any of them? Was he, or they, alive or dead?
Did the fact that she called the man Ford in the recording match with the mysterious Aaroncaphford word?
Nearly three months after her arrival, she caught herself thinking in the Beyant language. She had finally mastered their alphabet and while not totally fluent in the written form, she could now read and write well enough in it to help with status reports.
That was when her sense o
f safety shattered.
An alarm sounded while she was on the bridge with Yanna. Yanna, the ambassador, who was a retired ship commander, and several guards raced through the ship to the engine room. Erin followed. In the tangle of orders and information exchanges, she realized an electronic relay had overheated and short-circuited, causing a flash fire that burned two crewmen. Before they could shut down the electrical panel, a small explosion rocked the room, sending a computer section tumbling onto the ambassador.
He screamed with pain. Erin ran to his side. His leg was trapped, but a jagged piece of metal had sliced through his thigh and into a vital artery.
“Move this! Now!” she screamed at the men as she pressed her hand to the wound. They freed him, and she kept her hand on his leg, trying to staunch the bleeding as they carried him to the sick bay.
Erin felt something instinctive kick in. She barked orders to the men without hesitation, ordering implements, supplies, and other needed items as she had Pabo rip the ambassador’s trouser leg open. Pachya gave him anesthesia while she immediately started repairing the wound. It wasn’t until an hour or so later, after she’d completed the emergency surgery and while she sat in a chair next to the bunk and watched the ambassador’s vital signs, that she realized the other Beyant men stared at her in awe.
“What?” she asked, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious.
Despite her being covered in his father’s blood, Yanna grabbed her from the chair and nearly crushed her against his chest. His immense feelings of gratitude threatened to overwhelm her. “You saved him!”
“I’m a doctor. That’s my job.”
She froze as she realized what she’d said. He looked down at her, a grin on his face. “And now you remember!” He laughed. “Doctor Erin, the medical healer.”
Amazed, she realized she did remember, but not how she got those skills. “I knew what to do. It felt instinctive. I don’t remember anything else, though.”
He whirled her around before crushing her to his chest again. “You were amazing, a’tein!” A’tein was, she’d learned, the affectionate Beyant term for sister. Yanna had started calling her that a few weeks earlier.
“How are the others?” she mumbled against his chest.
He finally set her back on her feet.
Pachya nodded at her. “Minor injuries. They will recover.” He studied the ambassador’s leg. “I doubt I could have done a better job. That was very skilled and extremely impressive. Will you please teach me how you repaired the nerves?”
She nodded. “I’ll try.” She looked down at the front of her shirt, which was stained dark rust by dried blood.
“Go,” Yanna told her. “Clean up. We will wait here.”
She returned to her cabin and stripped off the soiled uniform. After a quick shower, she dressed and returned to sick bay. The ambassador was already sitting up and talking.
Despite his pain, he broadly smiled when she entered. “There she is! My little cay’tein!”
She looked at Yanna, wanting help with the unfamiliar Beyant word. He grinned. “Daughter,” he said in English standard.
It wasn’t just a term of endearment. The ambassador officially adopted her, making her part of the ruling family, meaning she had diplomatic privileges and immunity. It would also smooth the way if any potential complaints arose from them having her with them for so long.
But who was she kidding? The dreams of the three handsome, mysterious men had mostly stopped, even if the ache in her heart and soul had yet to ease. She hadn’t listened to the recording in weeks, the pain of longing for the strange voice of the man named Ford now too much for her soul to bear.
Until she could find out who she had been, who they were, and if they were even alive, she decided to be content with who she currently was.
Erin Cafford Raoulx, the Beyant ambassador’s daughter, and the commander’s sister. Healer.
Doctor.
Not a bad thing to be, she decided.
Not bad at all.
Chapter Seventeen
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
—William Shakespeare, Sonnet 43
Ford sat up as a message icon blinked on the command console. Aaron hadn’t been to the bridge in days. He was holed up in the hydroponics lab. Caph could barely function and would spend hours sitting on the bridge with Bucky in his hand as he stared at the vid screen. Ford had taken to slipping antidepressants into Caph’s morning juice to keep him vertical and out of bed.
Ford couldn’t remember the last time either of the other two men spoke.
Ford, however, refused to let go of his hope that they would find her one day. That she would come back to them.
But he had quit speaking of it. It angered Aaron and saddened Caph, both of whom wanted to sink into their grief and guilt.
Still, he wouldn’t accept it. Not when he felt in his soul she was alive.
He opened the message. They were to proceed to the Robards Alpha space station for supplies and a debriefing. A DSMC psychologist would meet them there to evaluate them so Graymard could decide if they would be pulled from duty or not.
Aaron originally swore he would refuse to relinquish their ship, wanting to keep searching for Emi, but Ford knew the new truth—Aaron might not have the heart to stay. The Tamora Bight was full of memories, everywhere they turned, of Emi. Ford was the only one who could set foot in the sick bay. Caph refused to go to the hydro lab, where she’d spent a lot of time working and enjoying the plants.
Ford couldn’t look at the Java Max Excel 10k coffeemaker without wanting to cry when he made his coffee every morning. Several mornings he had caught himself before he fixed Emi’s cup first, like he used to do.
Ford confirmed receipt of the message and signed Aaron’s command code. Aaron had, in every way but officially, turned over his captaincy to Ford. Caph had already changed the log to appoint Ford the first officer and himself the mate.
How did he keep the two men going?
At least when Kels had died, they had a focus, Caph and him, to keep Aaron alive and heal his body and mind. Without that, they were all adrift.
The station was too close to make a jump practical. Ford set course. It would take them nearly two months to get there.
He didn’t bother to tell Aaron about it. He’d find out eventually.
* * * *
Ford sat in the command chair while Caph manned the nav console. “Robards Alpha Dockmaster, this is DSMC Vessel Tamora Bight. Where you want us?”
“Welcome back, Captain. We’re putting you in berth A-12 because you’re a full heavy and it’s the only berth I’ve got available right now that’s big enough to hold you. Congrats, you get the VIP quarters.”
Ford didn’t bother correcting the dockmaster’s use of “captain.” “Say again?”
“We have to put you next to the Beyant emissary vessel, B’autachia. They’re a battle cruiser. Be prepared for a pretty significant security presence in the station, but they’ll be gone in a few hours. They’re heading for Mars after they pick up a diplomatic escort convoy and some supplies. Our newest treaty race. Well, they will be once they get to Mars and sign on the line.”
“Roger that. Locking on nav beacon now.”
Ford sat back and let the auto systems take over. Caph passively watched the vid screen and said nothing.
In his hand he held Bucky.
Caph hadn’t said anything in the past week. Ford had consulted with the computer references and tinkered with his med doses, wanting him fully functional for their talk with the shrink, but he thought he might have to bump the dosage up even more after today.
Caph was a large man with an even larger well of grief.
Aaron had taken to sleeping in the hydro lab. They hadn’t seen their other lover in nearly two weeks. Ford only knew he was okay because he checked him with the scanners several times a day, tracking him through his chip. Aaron t
imed his galley visits for when they were on the bridge, and left messages for them for when he would take watches. He always waited until they left the bridge, and he departed the bridge before the next man went on duty. Baskets of fresh fruit and vegetables would appear on the galley counter once or twice a day.
Ford wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation he knew was coming.
An hour later they were docked, and their umbilicals and main and cargo gangways had been connected and secured.
“Feel free to debark when you want,” the dockmaster said, “but you will find a guard when you come out. He’ll escort you to the office here so you can get special security access passes.”
“Roger. Tamora Bight out.”
Ford took a deep breath and headed for the hydro lab. When he entered, he found Aaron sitting on a mattress in the back of the room. He was staring at the ceiling, which was barely visible now for all of the vines growing up trellising wires that crisscrossed the room.
He’d set the window sims to show Bozeman, Montana. Emi’s favorite setting.
Ford sat on the floor in front of him and waited for Aaron to finally look at him.
“What?” Aaron softly asked.
“We’re here, Cap.”
“Where?”
“Robards Alpha station. Talk with the head shrinker. You need to get your head on straight, or we’ll end up losing the TB and getting a one-way return ticket to Earth.”
Aaron’s eyes swiveled back to the ceiling. “Em loved it here.”
Ford knew now was not the time to have an in-depth discussion with him. “If you want to keep it, for her, I need your help. I’ve got to get the big guy talking again. I’ve already got him dosed up enough to make an asteroid sing and dance, but it’s not working. I can’t do this without you. You’ve got to pull your weight, Aar. I need you. Caph needs you.”
Aaron slowly nodded. “I’ll be up in a while.”
He’d also said that three weeks earlier, the last time Ford had tried to coax him up from the hydro lab.
Out of Bight, Out of Mind [Deep Space Mission Corps 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 13