Haven 6

by Aubrie Dionne

  Phoenix trilled a soft tune. Per­haps he was im­pressed by Striver’s know­ledge of their lan­guage, or maybe he found the ges­ture just as mean­ing­ful. Phoenix scratched his feathered head. “Do you think the people in your vil­lage and the col­on­ists will get along?”

  Striver sighed and shook his head. “Let’s hope so. The ce­re­mony to­mor­row will be a step in the right dir­ec­tion.”

  “Some­thing tells me in­ter­galactic re­la­tions are not the reason why you’re go­ing through with it.”

  Striver laughed and the heavy weight of the day’s task dis­sip­ated. He winked at Phoenix. “Guard­i­ans al­ways know the un­der­ly­ing truths.”

  …

  Aquaria ad­jus­ted the blos­soms in Eri’s hair. “You look rav­ish­ing.”

  Eri blushed. “I just want to look present­able, so don’t overdo it, okay?”

  She stuck an­other stem above Eri’s ear. “Just one more of these cute pearl berry flowers. They are ab­so­lutely ad­or­able. And they match your hair.”

  “Ad­or­able isn’t what I’m go­ing for either.”

  Aquaria shushed her. “Not you! The flowers. Shouldn’t a lin­guist know what rav­ish­ing means?”

  Eri shook her head. “Ex-lin­guist, re­mem­ber?”

  “Of course, Eri, coleader of the nat­ive clan.” Aquaria circled around her. “You’re go­ing to be much busier try­ing to work with Litus to blend our cus­toms and make sure no one gets jungle fever.”

  Eri smiled. Both of her dreams had come true. She had the lifemate she’d al­ways wanted and an es­sen­tial job where she could make a dif­fer­ence to go along with it. “I like it that way.”

  Aquaria tightened the back straps of Eri’s dress un­til her breasts shoved up like a table in front of her. She wore the ce­re­mo­nial lifemate pair­ing gown from the Her­it­age em­broidered with beads made by the wo­men in Striver’s vil­lage. “Ouch. What are you do­ing?”

  “Mak­ing you less ad­or­able.”

  Bone flutes trilled and a low drum­beat began. Anxious ex­cite­ment bubbled in Eri’s veins. “That’s our cue, Aquaria! I don’t want to be late.”

  “Show­ing up a few minutes late is fash­ion­able. Be­sides, it in­creases the ex­pect­a­tion.”

  “Ugh! I should have picked Uncle Ral to walk me down the aisle.”

  Aquaria took her arm and they headed up a mossy in­cline. “Non­sense. You picked me be­cause you knew I’d be the best.”

  “Or be­cause I had two sets of par­ents and couldn’t choose between them.”

  Aquaria slapped her hand and they cres­ted the hill. Rows of people turned to watch Eri des­cend. On the right sat the vil­la­gers who’d lived on Haven 6 for hun­dreds of years, wear­ing their crudely knit clothes, blend­ing in with the long grasses of the meadow. Carven sat with his large fam­ily, two tod­dlers squirm­ing on his wife’s lap. Be­hind them, Riptide sat with Ri­ley, match­ing heads of mid­night hair. On the left, the col­on­ists wore their white flight uni­forms from the Her­it­age, match­ing the ivory hull of the S.P. Nautilus be­hind them. Eri spot­ted her birth father sit­ting with his as­signed lifemate and her birth mother, three rows ahead, sit­ting with hers. For a mo­ment she wondered if her mom and dad still loved each other today, but she put it aside to honor their right­ful matches. No longer would such pair­ing pains arise, no longer would any child feel second-class.

  Eri’s gaze grav­it­ated to the cen­ter row, where Striver waited. He wore a loose white shirt and leather pants with new black boots, shined to catch the rays of the sun. He’d threaded white feath­ers through his long, wavy hair.

  She re­membered the day she first saw him, run­ning at the Law­less to save her. Eri’s heart skittered. He was stand­ing there for her. To be with her. Her own lifemate, a bet­ter fit for her than any­one on the Her­it­age could ever be.

  The flutes rose in pitch as she ap­proached and the drums quickened, in synch with her heart. Only months ago, she’d been a nobody, punch­ing keys in deep space, and now she was a hero, a war­rior, and a fu­ture wife.

  Aquaria kissed Eri’s cheek as they reached the plat­form. “Good luck.”

  Eri glanced at Striver and the in­tens­ity in his em­er­ald eyes made her feel like he saw no one else. She turned back to Aquaria and smiled. “Thanks, but I don’t need it.”

  The mu­sic trailed off and Phoenix stepped to a stone po­dium dec­or­ated in climb­ing vines. “This is the ex­act spot where Striver’s an­cest­ors, Ar­ies and Striker, took their first steps on this world, the spot where I flew for the first time. Now it will be the first union of your peoples, where they will take their first steps united on Refuge.” He glanced at the col­on­ists. “Or as you call it, Haven 6.”

  Eri wove her fin­gers through Striver’s. His hand felt warm and re­as­sur­ing in hers. He whispered in her ear, his lips tick­ling her lobe, “I love you.”

  His fin­gers pushed a small, hard-edged ob­ject into her hand. Mak­ing sure Phoenix wasn’t pay­ing at­ten­tion, Eri glanced down and opened her palm. A bead carved with two fig­ures hold­ing hands stared up at her. The man had a bow across his chest and the wo­man had short, curly hair. She had no idea how Striver could put so much de­tail into some­thing so small.

  She glanced back at him and mouthed, “I love you, too.”

  Phoenix gave them a ques­tion­ing tilt of his head.

  Striver laughed and bowed. “Go on.”

  Ruff­ling his feath­ers, Phoenix gave them an ad­mon­ish­ing quirk of his beak be­fore con­tinu­ing. “This is the first chosen lifemate pair­ing ce­re­mony; the first of many yet to come. As our cul­tures blend, you have agreed to up­hold the prime dir­ect­ive of our found­ing an­cest­ors, and free­dom of choice will reign.”

  Ap­plause erup­ted be­hind them, and Striver squeezed Eri’s hands. Her dream and his were one.

  Epilogue

  As the uni­verse ex­pan­ded, hu­man­kind spread across the stars, sprink­ling the galaxy like dan­delion seeds in the wind. Some civil­iz­a­tions re­ver­ted to sim­pler means, liv­ing in the solitude of their chosen star sys­tem, while oth­ers de­veloped new ways to speed travel through deep space, thereby re­con­nect­ing with the colony ships strewn across para­dise plan­ets.

  The people of Haven 6 lived in sym­bi­otic code­pend­ence with nature and the Guard­i­ans, de­vel­op­ing a demo­cratic so­ci­ety with deep philo­soph­ical val­ues and pure ideals. The mys­ter­i­ous golden li­quid con­tin­ued to draw dream­ers into its grasp, but fewer and fewer ven­tured each year to make the choice of an eternal, though hol­low, life. Tun­dra 37 be­came a bust­ling met­ro­polis as the planet warmed, and sci­ent­ists worked for gen­er­a­tions to build an­other colony ship to com­plete the voy­age they had aban­doned so many years ago. After five hun­dred years, a New Hope em­barked for Para­dise 18. Para­dise 21 turned out to be less than para­dise, with poison pod plants, and wars with ag­gress­ive alien spe­cies for plan­et­ary rights.

  All civil­iz­a­tions shared the same past, a com­mon thread bind­ing them to­gether. In the darkest of times, when battles had still raged over re­sources, it had been this single her­it­age that brought the dif­fer­ent fac­tions to­gether, in­stilling peace be­fore the wars raged out of con­trol like on Old Earth.

  Made cau­tious and wise, hu­mans learned from their mis­takes of the past and flour­ished.

  Ac­know­ledg­ments

  I’d like to thank my agent, Dawn Dowdle, for be­liev­ing in my ma­nu­script and find­ing such a won­der­ful pub­lish­ing com­pany. Also, thank you to Liz Pel­letier and Heather How­land at En­tangled Pub­lish­ing. Thank you to Kerry Vail and Stacy Ab­rams, my eagle-eyed ed­it­ors, who worked so hard to pol­ish this ma­nu­script and find more depth in every plot strand. My beta read­ers come next: the best sis­ter in the world, Bri­anne Di­onne, and my mom, Joanne, for giv­ing me sup­
port and in­triguing in­sights. My awe­some cri­tique part­ners de­serve nu­mer­ous thank-yous: Cherie Reich, Theresa Mil­stein, Lisa Rusczyk, Kath­leen S. Al­len, Lind­sey Duncan, and Cher Green. My flute teacher and life mentor, Peggy Vagts, comes next, for en­cour­aging me to pur­sue writ­ing and flute as dual dreams. And lastly, my hus­band, Chris, for al­low­ing me the time I needed to work on ed­its, do re­search, and most of all, write.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One, Un­ex­pec­ted Call­ing

  Chapter Two, Match­ing Eyes

  Chapter Three, Secret Spunk

  Chapter Four, Quest for Know­ledge

  Chapter Five, Plunge

  Chapter Six, Memory Li­quid

  Chapter Seven, Sa­vior

  Chapter Eight, Sur­vivor

  Chapter Nine, A Real Alien

  Chapter Ten, New­bies

  Chapter El­even, Blank Eyes

  Chapter Twelve, Look­ing Back

  Chapter Thir­teen, Camp­fire Tales

  Chapter Four­teen, Match­ing Breaths

  Chapter Fif­teen, Faith

  Chapter Six­teen, Ab­ductee

  Chapter Sev­en­teen, Es­cape

  Chapter Eight­een, Odd One Out

  Chapter Nine­teen, Home­com­ing

  Chapter Twenty, Hope

  Chapter Twenty-one, A Great Catch

  Chapter Twenty-two, Just One Dance

  Chapter Twenty-three, Eaves­drop­ping

  Chapter Twenty-four, Event Ho­ri­zon

  Chapter Twenty-five, Swim­ming with Leech­ers

  Chapter Twenty-six, The Dark­ness Within

  Chapter Twenty-seven, In­ev­it­ables

  Chapter Twenty-eight, Con­ver­gence

  Chapter Twenty-nine, Re­spons­ib­il­ity

  Chapter Thirty, Ven­geance

  Chapter Thirty-one, Etern­ity

  Chapter Thirty-two, Delta Slip

  Chapter Thirty-three, Mes­sage from the Grave

  Chapter Thirty-four, Clos­ure