“Excuse me, who are you?” Kim asked.
“Please accept my apologies, I am Faye Anne.”
“He has the utmost respect for you,” Kim said.
“Thank you. I have often wondered. My first question, do you love him?”
“Yes, I do. Wren said that when you ask a question you usually know the answer before you ask it. Was that the answer you expected?”
“It was the answer I hoped for. I was not sure what to expect. You don’t have to answer this second question. I will understand if you wish to keep the secret, but I will probably find out sooner or later. Is Tracker sentient?”
Kim gasped. Faye Anne inclined her head knowingly.
“He is, isn’t he?” Faye Anne probed.
“Yes, he is, and he is a brilliant, sensitive, caring being,” Kim added, Tabitha and Faye Anne grinned at each other.
“I told you he was,” Tabitha said. “Wren figured out Peter’s secret.”
“Do you know the secret?” Faye Anne asked.
“No,” Kim said.
“That’s the answer I expected. Wren would have disappointed me if he had revealed it. Perhaps it is better his secret alone for now. Last question. Does he love you?”
“I think he wants to, but I think he needs permission. He needs someone specific to tell him he is allowed to love me.”
“Who do you think this is?”
“Either his grandmother or Elizabeth.”
“How much do you know about Elizabeth?”
“That she is sentient and he considers her more like his mother than either his mother or his grandmother.”
“That’s a surprise,” Faye Anne said. “I expected him to present you and him as a done deal. Asking for permission is not like him. Everything we can determine tells us he loves you very much and that makes us happy. There are two Marines outside who will escort you to see his grandmother. I wish to have a word with Wren.”
Kim exited and found two Marines waiting for her. One of them was an impossibly tall man and the other a woman. They quickly drew to attention and popped salutes.
“Federation Marine Major Terrance Rattigan and my wife Captain Madison Rattigan at your service, Miss Stoll.”
“Um, thank you.”
“We are to escort you to the Queen Elizabeth,” Madison said. “But first we have a question.”
“Everyone has a question,” Kim said, exasperated.
“Well, we have an ulterior motive,” Madison said with a grin. “When you do martial arts drills do you hold your own or does he wipe the floor with you.”
“I hold my own most of the time. He’s teaching me well. I’m improving,” Kim replied.
“We trained him and know his weaknesses. If you ever need to clobber him, call us. We’ll show you,” Madison said with a chuckle.
Kim laughed. “Thank you.”
The Marines took Kim to Rachel’s private conference room.
“Welcome, Kim, can I interest you in some coffee and cinnamon rolls?” Rachel said.
“Yes, that would be very nice, thank you.”
“Please sit,” Rachel said. “By now I guess if one more person asks you one more question you will explode. What would you like to ask me?”
“Ma’am, Wren has compared me to your mother and I am not sure I can live up to his image of her. What do I do?”
“Don’t try,” Rachel replied. “My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic with violent tendencies. She was not the wonderful person historical revisionists would make her out to be. Wendy and I lived in fear that one day she would turn on us and we would have no choice but to kill her to save our own lives. It’s a horrible thing, but in the end that is what happened in a way. Trying to be like her would be a mistake. Be who you are. That’s an excellent question.”
“Wren reminds me of what I read of Greg’s writings. How much is he really like Greg?”
“They are two very different people. The only similarities are their quick minds and their approaches to combat. Greg was much more complex and conflicted than Wren is. Wren is more confident and self-assured. They will both get to the same place, but Wren will enjoy it more.”
“You love him very much, don’t you?” Kim asked.
“We all do. Do you want to marry him?”
“If he will ask me.”
Rachel smiled. “He’ll ask before the night is over.”
“But what about his parents?”
“Saul is my son. I can take care of him and Fiona both. You take care of Wren.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Oh, if we tease Wren a little, play along.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Follow me.”
Wren stopped by his grandfather’s office in Queen Elizabeth’s medical wing as instructed.
“Hello, Grandfather, Uncle Joshua.”
“Wren, we heard you picked up a stray,” Wren’s grandfather said.
“Now, Issac, he didn’t pick her up, she picked him up,” Joshua corrected.
“Well either way, we understand you’ve been seeing a lot of each other,” Issac joked.
“A lot of each other and fairly often,” Joshua teased.
“Will you knock it off,” Wren said. “I’m not sure this is funny.”
“Come on,” Joshua said. “You know more about our sex lives than anyone has a right to know and we want to know about yours. Is she a lady or a tiger?”
Wren sighed and shook his head. “A passionate, caring woman.”
“Who you love very much,” Issac said.
“Yes,” Wren said tentatively.
“But?” Joshua probed. “But what?”
“What if Grandmother does not like her.”
“Let me get this straight,” Issac said. “You don’t care what your parents think, which you demonstrated rather forcefully, but you care what your grandmother thinks?”
“Yes, and Elizabeth,” Wren admitted.
“Do you care what we think?” Joshua asked.
“I’m not worried about you guys,” Wren said with a smile. “You’ll love her right away. Just don’t tease her too much until she has a chance to get used to you and your senses of humor.”
The older men laughed and ushered Wren to the galley where the majority of the Queen Elizabeth’s crew who had been his friends and some cases his playmates as he grew up were gathered. The party was well under way when he arrived. Wren was immediately surrounded by his former companions who demanded to know the details of his travels. A half hour after Wren arrived, Kim arrived with Rachel.
Rachel stepped up to the small stage and took the microphone. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ll bet you wondered why I called you all here.”
A chorus of voices shouted, “Why did you call us all here?”
“My grandson, Wren, who some of you may have met once or twice has returned, and I decided it has been too long since we had a party and we needed an excuse, so he’s it. Welcome home, Wren.”
“Thank you, Grandmother.”
“But, what would you think of a man who kidnaps a woman and keeps her captive on his ship for, for, Faye Anne, how many months is it?”
“A year at least,” Faye Anne joked.
“No, it’s not that long, but whatever,” Rachel said. “He kidnaps this woman and then he goes gallivanting all over the galaxy with her and doesn’t even tell his sickly, tired, weak, old grandmother that he’s got her. What do you think of that?”
The people in the room, obviously in on the joke, chorused, “Shameful!”
“And he doesn’t tell his grandfather who loves him dearly that he has her.”
“Shameful!”
“And then, lo and behold, he discovers that she’s a better shot than he is.”
“Amazing!”
“And he still doesn’t tell his grandmother.”
“Shameful!”
“But he keeps her to himself all quiet and out of sight as if he is waiting for something. W
hat could he be waiting for?”
Elizabeth’s lofty British accent filled the galley, “A voice from above telling him that he has the appropriate blessings, forms and requisitions filled out in triplicate as mandated by higher powers to ask for the lady’s hand. In fact, this particular higher power is seriously wondering what took him so long.”
Wren looked at his grandfather who smiled and nodded. He looked to his grandmother who made a little sweeping motion with her hand as if pushing him in Kim’s direction. Wren looked around the room at the smiling faces. He took Kim’s hands in his. “Miss Kimberly Anne Stoll, formerly of the planet Eretz, will you marry me?”
“Mr. Warren Elias Mahoney Solomon Rothschild Cohen, citizen of the galaxy, I will marry you.”
The applause was deafening.
“There is one little detail we need to attend to,” Rachel said. “I think it would be inappropriate to hold the ceremony without at least attempting to get the bride’s parents to be at the ceremony. If I were them, I would at least wish to be asked. It could take up to six months for them to get here from Eretz. I know that is a long time to ask the two of you to wait, but it would be the right thing to do.”
Wren and Kim faced each other and said, “We’ll wait.”
WREN - CHAPTER FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING, WREN logged in to the database of free-lance pilots and ships to post their availability. This was the database that the Colony Service had used to procure his services in the past. Within twelve hours of submitting his post, Wren, Kim and Tracker had been contracted to provide escort services for a freighter headed out to one of the nearby mining sites where increased pirate activity had been reported.
One of the reasons this location had been chosen for Stellar’s headquarters had to do with the proximity of several mining sites which produced large amounts of bulk freight. Coupled with the scarcity of habitable planets in the vicinity, this was an ideal place for someone who valued their privacy. The station itself sat on the moon of a planet about the size of Earth with a breathable atmosphere that was in the throes of an ice age. Only a limited band around the equator was habitable. This made it unattractive to the Colony Service, but ideal for the Rothschild patriarchs, some of whose activities might not have passed Federation scrutiny.
The shipyard itself had two parts. The main hub was on the moon’s surface where the majority of the activity took place. The second part orbited the moon and was where the freighters too big to land on the moon could be serviced and their loads transferred. After a full day of procuring supplies and hauling the food they would need for the trip, Kim, Wren and Tracker lifted off the moon to meet their freighter client. The freighter pilot was the son of the pilot that had carried Wren and his family to earth several years ago. He had accompanied Wren on that trip and they had been friends ever since. Seeing Wren’s name on the roster of available pilots, he took advantage as quickly as he could.
The trip to the planet was uneventful. Wren and Kim spent the time running simulations on Tracker’s systems, exercising in the special seats provided for that purpose, playing computer games and talking for long periods of time. They quickly learned to not include Tracker in any game of chance. He cheated with unrepentant lack of subtlety. He even cheated at the combat simulations. He would materialize an entire squadron of warships that did not exist at the beginning of the simulation. When challenged, he would laugh. They knew better than to oppose him at strategy games. He would move pieces when he thought no one was looking. Tracker’s sense of humor and his frequent costume changes did make the time go faster. Wren often reflected that he laughed more on this trip than he had any time in his life. He was genuinely sorry when they arrived at their destination.
As predicted, there were pirates waiting for them when they dropped out of hyper drive. The three small pirate ships had clearly expected an unarmed, unescorted freighter and were surprised to find a P I warship prepared to engage them if they made the slightest wrong move. Rather than test their mettle against Tracker’s superior firepower, they quietly fled.
“Well, that was no fun,” Kim complained as the pirates departed.
“How about on the next encounter, you take the front seat,” Wren offered.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, you’re ready for it.”
The two times a freighter was most likely to be assaulted by pirates were when it was arriving at a planet and shortly before it was ready to leave fully loaded. As the freighter sealed its hatches, Wren and Kim waited partially hidden by the big ship’s bulk.
“We have incoming,” Tracker said calmly. “Are you ready Miss Kim?”
“It’s show time!” Kim exclaimed.
Wren shook his head. She enjoyed this way too much.
They waited until the pirates were in missile range before revealing themselves. By this time the pirates had established targeting radar locks. Wren’s strategy was based on the knowledge that the pirates were not interested in destroying the ship, but rather in capturing it for ransom and the black market sale of its cargo. That meant that they had to board it to take it since it could not be controlled any other way. Still, the freighter could be expected to have some defenses and these had to be neutralized before the ship could be taken. A single laser licked out of one of the pirates aimed at the freighter’s sensor array. Tracker was still close enough to the big ship that all but most sophisticated targeting systems would have missed him. Where the pirate’s opening shot had been a tentative probe for a target, Kim’s response was a confident blast from all forty-eight of Tracker’s lasers. The pirate ship vaporized within seconds.
“YEE-Haw!”
The second pirate was too close to his buddy to do anything but slam into the debris that was all that remained of the first ship. The shrapnel ripped through the light armor and the second ship exploded.
“Score!” Kim shouted.
“Doesn’t count,” both Tracker and Wren said at the same time.
“You don’t get credit for his stupidity. Two down, two to go.”
“But,”
“But, nothing!” Wren said. “Doesn’t count.”
The two remaining pirates turned to face what they recognized as their real enemy.
“Tracker, short jump behind them,” Kim said.
“No, we have to stay between them and the freighter. Our job is to protect the freighter, not to kill pirates.”
“But,”
“But, nothing.”
Wren fired a fan of four missiles each programmed slightly differently from each other. Two were armor piercing heat seekers programmed for different temperature ranges. One was a range effect seeking radio frequency transmissions with high explosive and the last was a light sensor with grapeshot.
The first heat seeker missed its target as the pirate ship dodged at the last moment, but the range effect went straight in and eliminated the ship’s sensor and control arrays. The ship was out of action, but not completely dead. The second heat seeker found the cooling panels for the last ship and detonated inside the reactor compartment. The ship ripped apart in agonizingly slow motion as explosions rippled from one end of the ship to the other. Converging on the ship that had been disabled but not killed, the heat seeker that had missed it the first time, came back around and caught the propulsion system as the light seeker blew through the crew’s view-port and exploded inside the cabin.
“That was messy,” Kim observed. “You know I’m not sure I like watching out the view-port. Maybe I should stay inside the shell with the displays.”
“Whichever you prefer,” Wren said.
“I didn’t know missiles could come around like that,” Kim said.
“You have to be careful how you program them. You can shoot yourself down if you aren’t paying attention.” They moved back next to the freighter and inspected it for damage. Finding none, they traveled with the freighter until it jumped into hyper drive.
“Why aren’t we going with him?” Kim asked.
“I’m moving to the back seat.”
“Suit yourself. Tracker, can you query the satellites and determine where the pirates came from?”
“Stand by.”
“Wren, one of the satellites is not Federation.”
“Whose is it?”
“Swordsman.”
“Swordsman? What would a Swordsman satellite be doing out here?”
“Excellent question. It knows we are here.”
“Tracker, let’s get a courier off with our report before we go any further.”
“Aye, Captain.” A minute later Tracker reported, “Courier away.”
“Well, Kim are you ready to go satellite hunting?”
“Can we just go up to it and kill it? Aren’t there rules or something?”
“Yeah, Swordsmen are not allowed to put satellites at Federation controlled planets and the Federation can’t put satellites around Swordsman controlled planets. If you find it you can kill it.”
“Is it likely to be able to defend itself?”
“Probably. We’ll approach it with care.”
“Wren, those weren’t pirates. They were Swordsmen. I intercepted a transmission. There’s another dozen of them around here.” Tracker sounded nervous.
“Well, if we don’t do something about them, they will attack the mining outpost and make it look like pirates. Kim, get ready. What we just did was fun, but this will be work.”
“I’m ready. I know what Swordsmen do to women they capture. I don’t want that to happen to those miners down there.”
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