by R. A. Mejia
Tears in my eyes, I realize that SAI always knew that she couldn’t come with us. Perhaps it was the orders from her former captain, or perhaps it was just her own willingness to make sure her friends escaped, but whatever it is, I won’t let her down. “Yeah, SAI. I promise to make it home and tell my wife that my great friend sacrificed herself to help me escape.”
Her robotic head nods once, and then she props herself up, flips over and starts firing while crawling toward the men shooting at us. Her rolling movement and the constant stream of heavy fire confuse the pirate, and they all focus on her. With them distracted, I’m able to run back to the ship where Crewman Joseph is already waiting. He closes the ramp behind me, and the two of us strap in while he quickly runs through a series of procedures to get the ship started. Tears still streaming down my cheeks, I give a whispered ‘thank you’ and ‘goodbye’ to my friend as the ship’s engine finally turns on. The pirates realize we’re escaping and turn their fire to us, but it’s too late. A series of loud explosions echo behind us as the hangar bay doors open enough for us to rocket out. I know SAI has finally set off the explosives she planted as we fly off into space. Even from our vantage speeding away, I can see the pirate cruiser rocking with internal damage as more explosions occur. Even if they aren’t crippled, they shouldn’t be coming after us any time soon.
Chapter 18
While we were able to escape into hyperspace, our engines were damaged enough by the pirate’s weapon fire that we weren’t able to stay there long. They gave out after about twenty hours’ worth of travel, and we dropped back into normal space. Thankfully, our communications system worked, and we were able to contact a mining vessel on the edge of the system, which picked us up. Captain Jack of the SSE Big Digger will always have a special place in my heart for saving us. From there, we were able to contact the Federation, which had a good many question for us to answer.
They sent a small fleet to the coordinates we gave them. Thankfully, the Federation found the damaged pirate cruiser before they could repair their ship. They even rescued some surviving pirates that had been trapped in their ship by our explosive escape, including one Captain Arnold. From what I’ve been told, the military does not treat pirates well, especially when they try to take their stuff. Interestingly enough, the military-grade fabricator that was the goal of the original attack was recovered. It’s apparently made of some pretty tough stuff and survived the explosions.
After several days in military detention, I was released. Aaron wasn’t so fortunate. He confessed to his part in leading the pirates to the Argonaut and was charged as an accessory after the fact for the deaths of the crew. My testimony to the Federation emphasized how brave Aaron was during our escape and that without him, we wouldn’t have made it, and the Federation wouldn’t know who had taken their fabricator. The prosecuting officer assured me that he’d take that information into consideration during Aaron’s sentencing.
It takes two months of hyperspace travel to get me back to Luna, but the sight of my wife and daughter greeting me when I step off the ship is worth the long trip.
There they stand: the two people who had kept me going despite the hardships, the pain, and the challenges. My wife, Annie, wears the green dress I love seeing her in. Tears stream down her face, and she bites down on the knuckles of her left hand to keep from sobbing. She never liked to cry in front of our daughter. Marie still hasn’t spotted me and yet, and she’s looking around the busy spaceport at all the aliens. She holds her favorite stuffed animal, Sam the Septapod. Annie taps her shoulder to get her attention, and the moment she sees me, her chubby little face lights up, and she runs forward with surprising speed. She bumps into several people but doesn’t even pause. She just keeps going till she grabs my legs and looks up at me and yells, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
I scoop up my precious child and wonder at how quickly she’s grown up. She was only crawling when I left for my business trip. Now, she’s running. I hug her tightly, and I feel her short arms around my neck as I kiss her chubby cheeks. “Hey, princess. Daddy missed you so much.”
A soft hand on my shoulder makes me look up, and Annie is standing there crying. Still holding Marie in one arm, I use the other to pull my wife to me. Before I can say a single thing, I feel her soft lips on mine, and the two of us kiss for what seems like an eternity--or, at least, until a little hand reaches up and pulls on my ear. I look down at the little girl I’m holding in my left arm, and she has a slight frown on her face. I can only marvel at the expressiveness she’s developed, and I realize that she feels left out of the moment.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. Daddy missed you too.” I kiss her on the head, and her little frown turns upside down, and she giggles. I hug the two most important people in my life and mentally promise to never leave them again. An announcement over the P.A. system reminds me that we’re all standing in the middle of a busy spaceport. Still carrying my daughter in one arm, I take my wife’s hand in the other, and we walk away to find transport home. My heart aches with happiness, knowing that I have my family back.
Inside the house, I’m putting my daughter to bed when my daughter asks where Daddy was, and in a simple story, I tell her about the mean pirates that tried to take the ship daddy was on, the adventures he had on the weird alien world, and the special princess A.I. SAI who ended up saving daddy from the pirates when they were captured. My daughter, the best kid a guy could ask for, tells me it was a good story, but that she would like to meet the princess SAI and tell her ‘thank you’ for saving her daddy.
She falls asleep with a big yawn, and I find myself wishing that SAI had survived. She turned out to be an amazing friend.
Returning to my own bed and my waiting wife, I find that taking off my arm in my own home and going through the routine of setting the limb on its charging station before getting into my PJs with one sleeve hanging empty is an interesting experience. My wife takes off my shirt and touches the metallic connections where the arm connects to my nervous system. I search her face for signs of disgust or pity but only find a look of love in her eyes when she looks up at me. Not everyone can deal with a spouse losing something.
That night, we make love and reconnect passionately. After, we lay there and talk about our lives apart from each other. I comfort her when she tells me about how it felt to get the notice that our ship was missing and how she just couldn’t bring herself to tell Marie that her daddy might be dead. In turn, I tell her about crashing and how, every single day, it was the thought of her and Marie that pushed me to keep surviving, how I would have kicked the bucket many times without SAI, and how a computer A.I. became my friend and sacrificed herself to make sure I came home. We talk well into the morning and fall asleep in each other’s arms, just happy to be together again.
The next morning, I wake up to the smell of bacon and coffee, and I leap out of bed just happy to be home. When I go to grab my arm from the charging station, it’s gone. Thinking maybe the kid or my wife moved it, I search the room and find it lying on the floor of our bedroom closet. A jolt of excitement shoots through my body as I read the message scratched into our wooden floors:
Hello, John. Want a new quest?
Just then the hand’s index finger begins tapping impatiently against the floor, and I smile.
From the Author
Thanks for reading Planet Bound. It’s taken me a long time to write and edit the story. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you liked the story, you may also like my other series Adventures on Terra, and Project Alpha.
Also, please do me a favor and leave a review. Even if it’s only a couple words, it helps a self-publishing author like myself tremendously. Plus, it helps other readers find the book.
If you want to read the next story in the series as it’s being written and get exclusive artwork, support me on Patreon.
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Some of the great Patreon Supporters even got put into the novel. You might recogn
ize some of these names in some form. Thanks guys for your support on Patreon.
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Jason Myers
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If you liked this story you might like others in the LitRPG genre. For a list of recommended LitRPG books, you can visit http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/lit-rpg-novels/
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If you want to read something that combines RPG mechanics, crafting, lots of combat, and a love of beer and bacon then you should give War Aeturnes a try.
I can also whole heartedly recommend The Divine Dungeon series written by Dakota Krout. You know all those dungeons that adventurers go into to fight monsters and get treasure? Well, this story is told from the dungeon’s perspective. Yup, it’s as cool as it sounds.
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