Supergiant (Gigaparsec Book 2)

by Scott Rhine

  Truth be told, she couldn’t stand seeing Kesh after he emerged from the regeneration tanks. The scars were hideous, but Max claimed Saurians liked them. “The more adversity their bodies face successfully, the better a mate they are.”

  If that were true, Max was going to be quite the catch with all his scars.

  During a lull at the port, the crew celebrated Alyssa’s fiftieth birthday. Roz baked the cake herself. Herb provided the ice cream between the layers, and Ivy frosted. When Max tried to light the candles, Alyssa stopped him. “Don’t waste the air. I already have everything I want … except maybe a grandchild.”

  Roz cut rows of cake mechanically, shoveling cold squares onto tiny, disposable plates. She wasn’t certain she could even bear children, especially alien hybrids, let alone in the time her mother had left.

  “We can’t risk that until after we return to Magi space,” Max repeated firmly.

  “Says the man who takes three cold showers a day,” Reuben joked.

  Roz grinned, glad she hadn’t been the only casualty. However, the magnitude of the delay loomed before her. The Magi capital could take years to reach. If the subbasement drive malfunctioned, the journey would exceed a decade. She might enter menopause before they arrived. Thirteen more years of this torment?

  Worse, the team had to block all access to Echo while the ship was full of strangers. Worker Bats were coming and going at all hours. She couldn’t afford a single germ in her current, fragile state. Echo would spend the next month and a half receiving a treatment to bolster her immune system.

  Without her daily connection with Echo, the back of Roz’s neck itched constantly. Only intimate time with Max seemed to scratch it. If she neglected her fix, she couldn’t seem to sleep. More than once, she had climbed out of bed to find him. Was she addicted to the Magi mental contact? Would sex enable her to break the habit? Her growing agitation had become apparent to her roommate.

  As Roz served birthday cake to the crew, Ivy cleared her throat. “A motivated doctor should be able to come up with a few safe alternatives.” She even suggested a few acts Roz had only heard about from racy movies and on the walls of public bathrooms at bus stations.

  Far from shocked, Alyssa offered more risqué options.

  Roz missed the last plate and dropped a chunk of ice-cream cake on the floor. She smiled and bent over to clean up the mess. When Dr. Lisheen chimed in with popular Bat variations, Roz literally crawled under the table. Her face couldn’t possibly get any redder.

  “You don’t think I want to do all that and more?” Max growled. “If I seek pleasure with Roz on my own, I’ll be unfaithful to Echo. The grief could kill her. Waiting won’t cause me physical harm.”

  Roz decided to take the wasted food to Jeeves. The mimic could use the extra calcium, and she could stand to have some fresh air.

  She appreciated Max’s gallantry, but the fact that he abstained for Echo’s sake stung.

  Roz decided she should test out the newly repaired stasis unit in person during the upcoming jump to the shipyards, freezing herself until the crew needed her again. That’s what Echo often did during prolonged periods in normal space. Roz would remove the temptation for all concerned. The longer she brooded in the jungle, the more depressed and jealous she became.

  Nuts fell off the tree overhead.

  Her talent seemed to be interacting with her dark mood. She wasn’t safe to be around.

  When Deke arrived for Jeeves’s Bat language lessons, she asked how soon she could take off for a personal emergency. The copilot said, “The next leg of the journey is so routine and well-traveled that the automatics can handle it. We’re superfluous.”

  Roz applied for her weeks of accumulated shore leave and went straight to the stasis unit. She emailed Ivy her reasons and pinned a note to the controls asking not to be disturbed. If the device functioned flawlessly, it would remove all thought and feeling for the next five weeks.

  Chapter 31 – Retrofit

  A heartbeat after activating the stasis field, Roz felt so dizzy that she fell over.

  Max caught her arm and eased her into a chair. “Idiot. You need vitamin injections and a thorough exam before you use one of these units, especially the low-grade ones.”

  “Then give ’em to me.” Roz said, gripping her seat.

  Max slapped a diagnostic strip over her forehead and another over her finger. “Your vacation is up. We’re about to leave the shipyards, and we want you to inspect the workmanship of the renovations.” Based on the test results, he prepared a glucose injection.

  “All that time passed? You let me?”

  He glared at her as he administered the booster shot. “The team took a vote. Ivy and your mother supported your need to keep others safe. I wanted to treat your depression with medication, but I was outnumbered.”

  “Thank you for honoring my wishes.”

  “They even gave you a couple extra weeks for the construction. Grady was glad to oversee. Open your flight suit please. I need a heart check.”

  She unzipped just enough for the doctor to slide a heart monitor in place. His hand was so warm that she closed her eyes.

  “Are you going to pass out?” he asked, anxiously.

  “Unfortunately not.” The pain was still there. She didn’t need pharmaceutical help, though.

  “What do you mean?”

  Roz took his hand away from his wrist computer and placed it back against her chest. “I’m in love. I need to know if you feel the same way.”

  His breath caught as she shifted his hand under her breast. “I—I thought the engagement would have been enough.”

  “You’ve done everything for Echo. I understand, but I’m selfish.” She stood and leaned into him to press their lips together, but he resisted. “You’re holding me at arm’s length until she returns to the Magi worlds. After this mission, you’ll come up with another delay because you know as soon as she surrenders her secret, she’ll release her hold on life.”

  Max swept his eyes over her, swallowing. “I told you how I feel about you.”

  “No. The analogy of the woman with the birthmark? That was Echo, too. You confuse us sometimes, even when we’re necking.” He removed his hand from her and turned away in shame, but she continued, “The moment she gets what she needs, you’re afraid she’ll leave. So you try to postpone that event as long as possible. Every time you do, my hope dies a little more.”

  She could see this was news to him, but he wasn’t denying anything. A few moments of reflection passed before he said, “I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to correct an old wrong.”

  “I understand. Your compassion was part of what drew me to you, but how do you feel about me?”

  Max turned to face her. “You’re perfect.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “It’s true!” he said, with just as much volume and force. “You’re everything I never knew I needed. You complete me. The truth is, I let them keep you in this glass coffin because I wanted the smell of you, the touch of your body, too much.”

  “Then why do you keep your distance? Why aren’t you touching me right now?”

  Max clenched his hands and bit his lip.

  She kept pushing. “Do you want me to wear her costume? Style my hair like hers?” Angry at his stoicism, she shoved his chest. “Talk to me, or I walk!”

  “I’m a killer. I spoil everything I touch. My life is full of broken things that will never be right again.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to ruin you, too. You’re too important.”

  “Prove how important I am,” she whispered. “Don’t wait. Marry us.”

  “Kesh is the only one around who can perform ceremonies, and I don’t think he’s qualified.”

  “So you’d do the deed if we could find someone with suitable gravity?”

  “Yeah.”

  Roz snuck an arm around his neck. “Like the pontifex of the Bat religion? Would that be big enough?”

  “Uh. If he knew
the Magi ceremony, I guess.”

  “Hmm.” She slipped her other arm around him. “The Cathedral of Veekarat houses the chief listener, second-in-command of the Church of the Void. Deke already put in a special request for us to stop there for a pilgrimage. We could have the listener do the job while we’re in town.” She tickled the hair at the back of his neck.

  “He? What? Would he?”

  “The nuns and Sir Deke could petition for us.” Her mother’s persuasiveness and Roz’s talent could give the odds a little nudge. “If the listener agrees, we could honeymoon until we reach the prison system.”

  Max closed his eyes. “What’s the hurry for the ceremony?”

  “If the subbasement doesn’t work or pirates ambush us, I don’t want to die apart from you.” She sprinkled him with kisses. “I want history to record that we found each other and faced our challenges together.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m giving myself to you, and that’s the best you can do?” Roz asked with a pout.

  That broke his resolve. The next thing she knew, Max had her backed against the wall, whispering hoarse yeses as he returned her tokens of affection.

  His panting broke off as they both heard slow clapping behind them. Ivy stood in the doorway. “About bloody time.”

  “Don’t you have something important to do?” Roz hinted.

  Ivy shook her head. “No. You’ve had your Sleeping Beauty mouth-to-mouth. Time for you to give the cargo and repairs a probing that thorough.”

  Roz gave Max’s butt a cheerful pat. “Sorry. Duty calls. While I’m gone, your job is to talk to Echo and figure out what our new last name is going to be.”

  “Name?”

  She loved reducing him to monosyllables. That was just the ego boost she needed.

  Ivy led her from the cargo bay to the inner ring. “Your mother is going to love planning the ceremony and reception.”

  “It’ll need to be on the ship if Echo is going to attend, even as a hologram.”

  “Alyssa will probably buy a nanofabricator to generate your dress.”

  “We’ll want one anyway in case we end up ten years from nowhere. Maybe two fabs, just to be safe,” Roz said, filled with fresh energy as she bounded through the hall past the dining hall.

  Ivy grunted. “We don’t want them on the manifest. I’ll work it out with Kesh. We can dump all our remaining cheese wheels for one last trade.”

  “Did we cash in the gold cubes yet? The shipyard can use gold for electrical wiring.”

  “No. The guys want Aviar to believe we’re cooperating for one more star system. If he thinks we dumped the radios in the church domain, we’ll have an excuse.”

  Together, they examined the new security layers between the dining area and the elevator. The loop was cut in half, just the way she had marked on the blueprints. To reach the lift, visitors had to enter through the crew quarters, pass a security desk, and pause inside a reinforced scanning chamber. If the applicant didn’t pass inspection, he could be gassed from above. “How much knock-out gas did we get?”

  “Enough for three uses.” Ivy pointed out a new grating on the ceiling. “Based on the security system at the cigar store, Max added sonics around the perimeter to confuse any group of Bats that may storm the crew quarters.”

  Roz double-checked each seam and right angle. “The security precautions will slow us down, but it’s worth it to save lives.”

  “You don’t have to sell me. I just wondered why your cage has a back door to the jungle.”

  The other two biomes could be accessed by any of the passengers, but she had installed blast doors sealing off the jungle habitat from the outer ring. “Ship safety dictates that every sealed area have at least two exits in case we experience a hull breach.”

  “Admit it—you just want somewhere for Jeeves to play.”

  Shrugging, Roz said, “It also give us extra life support and food if someone does gain a foothold on board.”

  Ivy smiled. “Not likely. We reinforced the docking bay and put in a laser turret.”

  Roz checked her pad for changes she hadn’t authorized. “You realize that throws the ship out of balance. We’ll need something of equal mass on the other side.” She scanned her wish list for something in the proper weight class.

  “Such as?”

  “An industrial-grade spinner and steel feedstock for it, in case an engine-mount strut goes bad.” Roz showed her friend the catalogue entry the way a man would share a photo of a sports car.

  “You don’t think small, girlfriend.”

  “I know what I want, and I don’t accept less.”

  They tracked Kesh to the bridge. While Roz double-checked fuel, water, and air levels, Ivy greeted him. “Hey, big guy.”

  “You won’t believe it. Credits are still pouring into the charity account. More with every system the news cubes spread to.”

  “Great. We have some last-minute cargo requests.” Ivy related the tools and the rationale. “If we get stranded, we’ll wish we had them. If we don’t, we can sell them for a profit at the agricultural world where we’re planning on traveling after the prison.”

  Kesh took some convincing, but he finally agreed on one condition. “If we’re stockpiling for a rainy day, I want to save one of the reactors for the frontier worlds. The farmers will pay a lot more than the shipyard.”

  “Did you already secure the jump vector?” asked Roz. The information had been transmitted to the ansible there so often, someone had to keep a local copy to save money.

  The Saurian grunted. “I forwarded the algorithm to Echo. The nexus moves constantly. The expensive part was purchasing the inspection in Niishamboor.”

  Roz asked, “Why? The governor already signed our request.”

  “The military has to inspect every ship for contraband and verify the transport papers on every Bat,” Kesh explained. “We have to pay what it costs for their ship to fly out to meet us plus the salaries of everyone aboard.”

  “We have to pay to go to prison? That’s not fair.” Roz flounced on the pilot’s chair in protest.

  Ivy asked, “Anything else we need while we’re here?”

  Kesh shook his head. “I have no idea why they built in this star system, other than the centralized location. They barely produce enough oxygen to survive.”

  “That’s obvious,” said Roz. “This is a trinary star system. That means they can test their new ships by hopping between two points in the same system. If there’s a problem, you want to shake it down on a microsecond hop, rather than misjumping a month’s travel away.”

  “These things are second nature to you, and we’d never question your expertise,” Kesh said. “I see bribes and comparative economy the same way. You manage the ship, and we’ll worry about the people. Will you trust me?”

  Roz sighed. “Fine.”

  She checked over her anti-tamper monitors, expecting nothing. Two of her safeguards turned up access attempts. “Uh … guys, we have a problem.” The first site showed only vibration activity. On the bridge console, the second sensor played back an image of Yenang leaning over the liquid-crystal junction with a camera.

  As usual, Ivy was the first one to curse. Kesh followed soon after. Both expletives involved reproductive requests and colors. Neither sounded comfortable.

  “I thought you guys were keeping an eye on him!” Roz said.

  “It’s Reuben’s turn,” Ivy replied.

  “Tell me Yenang hasn’t been in the jungle room, too.”

  “He was assistant supervisor during the construction. Of course he was.”

  Roz growled as she located the power engineer by his badge. “He’s in the lower crawl spaces, probably videoing ever square centimeter of this ship. Damn him. I wrote a stellar recommendation and primed him for the best job in the sector. This is how he repays me?”

  Kesh hit the intercom button for Max. “Doctor, it’s imperative that you catch Yenang before he leaves the ship.”

  “What ar
e you asking me to do?”

  Ivy replied, “He’s been spying. We need to know how much and for whom. Until then, we can’t risk him contacting anyone outside this ship. Have Reuben fake his entrance onto the space station and toss him into stasis until we check his camera.”

  “That’s kidnapping,” Roz whispered.

  “Not technically.” Kesh spread his hands in a facsimile of a reasonable man. “Our contract with him gives us permission to suspend and transport him until we find a mutually beneficial employment site.”

  Roz watched as the blips on her screen moved closer to one another. “At the cathedral?”

  “Too close. He’s proven he has no intention of keeping his non-disclosure agreement.” Kesh punched up Deke in the cargo bay. “Yenang is stealing from us. Block corridor three south so he doesn’t try to run.”

  “Are we going to take him to Niisham prison against his will?” Roz asked.

  Ivy replied, “That’s where traitors go, honey.”

  “We’re behaving like the bad guys.”

  “No, we’re behaving like people with something to hide because that’s what we are. Would you rather induce amnesia with a stun gun to the back of the head?”

  “I need to spend time with Jeeves,” Roz said as the manhunt progressed.

  ****

  Roz couldn’t bring herself to leave her quarters while the others examined the evidence against Yenang. Jeeves babbled happily in Bat, and her earbud AI converted most of it into toddler-ese. During her absence, the mimic had grown heavier. Jeeves’s ears had also become taller and more Bat-like. Still, when Roz showed him the technique of domed-roof building with the red, rectangular blocks, Jeeves clapped enthusiastically and said, “Mommy neat.”

  Ivy came back to their room an hour later. “The good news is that Yenang wasn’t working for any intelligence service. He’s doggedly loyal to the crown and would never leak information to the Bankers. He was hoping the Royal Navy might use your ideas to improve their fleet.”