Savage World

by Jennifer Slusher

  While Roanoke's fate was being carried out, the bigwigs argued ad nauseum over the location of the new settlement, named Babel. When the dust settled, and the feathers were swept away, it was determined Babel would be built in Olivia Valley, ten miles from Roanoke Crater, along the banks of the Hanae River. Luke had been extraordinarily pleased they'd accepted his naming suggestions for both locations. Honouring Olivia was a no-brainer, but he'd liked Hanae's sense of adventure. Naming the river after the first person who was brave enough to wade in barefoot was fitting.

  Somewhere in all that, he had been put in charge of some of the engineering projects on the ground. While the military was highly efficient in establishing a firebase, setting up permanent operations was needed and fast.

  So now here he was, snagging a quick break and a cup of coffee while reaching out to Derick. For once, their schedules meshed, and he didn't have to leave a message.

  “Hey, I'm just nodding my head and keeping fights from breaking out. You're doing all the real work.”

  When Derick grinned, Luke nodded tiredly. Truth was, mapping out the new proposed settlement was hard work. Trying to manage a ship's worth of surveyors, civil engineers, and environmental scientists was like trying to herd cats. More than once, he was glad for the presence of the Shark contingent. The Olympia, the Ruthie, and the Beamer had sent squads down and the place actually felt secure.

  Besides, anyone complaining about the number of Sharks down here changed their tune very quickly after seeing a mulk, an Audrey or the trashed Firefly.

  As Luke made his goodbyes and disconnected the call, he downed the rest of his coffee and got to his feet. Heading to the trash, he spotted a tired-looking Cori Harwood lower herself onto a bench with a meal packet and bottle of water.

  He hadn't intended on speaking to her. Not yet, anyway. But it wasn't lost on him how much of a wreck he'd been after Tammy's death. He would have been no good to anyone if he'd been allowed to let the grief swallow him up. While Tom's talk had served to bring him back to the here and now, it was Harwood who kept feeding that fire.

  She'd nudged his intellect, pushing him to keep working to get them out of Roanoke. Her ideas fuelled his own and together, they'd done what was necessary to get a message back to the fleet. There was a lot of back slapping when they'd gotten back to the Ruthie, but Luke wasn't sure Harwood had received her due.

  Changing course, he headed over to her table and offered a friendly smile when she looked up. “Hey, can I sit?”

  “Sure.” Cori smiled back at Luke, glad to see him. She'd been too busy to personally check on him, but she'd bugged the Gunny a couple of times for Luke's sitrep. Going strong had been the answer and now, Cori could see that for herself. Good. “Did you eat yet? You don't mind if I eat in front of you, do you? I mean, my grams would kill me if she was alive … Oh.” Cori's eyes widened. “Shit. I'm sorry.”

  “Nothing to apologise for,” he dismissed the perceived slight with a wave of his hand and took the seat in front of her. “I wouldn't want you to snub years of tradition.”

  Smiling, Cori didn't waste a minute tearing into her meal. “I'm starving,” she said, making a face at the first bite. “This is so not chicken alfredo. How have you been? I heard you were put in charge of the surveying?”

  She hadn't been surprised at the news. Gunny had told her once Luke's IQ was higher than most. The work would do him good, keep him busy and keep his thoughts off his dead girlfriend. Someone had told her they weren't sleeping together. Yeah right, a guy like Luke Rickman? Nope. She wasn't buying it.

  “If you mean being in charge is me telling them we got bigger things to worry about than what we name that rock, yeah that's me.” He offered her a ghost smile, hiding how much satisfaction he drew from being the go-to person capable of herding squints.

  Sitting across from her, Luke noticed for the first time that, beneath all that jungle-bunny kit she was wearing, she was pretty. Hot, Luke. The word is hot. Baser instincts fought the current of his wounded emotions to kick start the charm needed when in proximity of attractive women, except Luke didn't want that right now. Reducing her to 'potential tail' was cheapening what she did for him and he didn't want that.

  “Look,” he spoke, refocusing his thoughts. “I wanted to thank you for your help in Roanoke. I wouldn't have been able to get through it without you.”

  “Oh!” Cori shot him a warm smile and shrugged. “Just helping out. You would have made it. You're tough. I just hate not doing something, you know?” Her words bore the worn bitterness of experience. Her pretty features hardened for a split second before she beamed her trademark grin at him. “So, are people seriously naming rocks?”

  “Rocks, the squishy thing that just crawled by, you name it.” He noted the gratitude made her uncomfortable, but he had to get what he wanted to say off his chest. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know I'm grateful for what you did; and I hear you, I'm down here because I need to do something too. Besides,” he raised his eyes to the world outside the tent, “we get to be here.”

  “Amen to that, right?” Cori grinned at him. “I can't get over how green everything is! I was raised by ice miners. Our landscape had two basic colours: white and a hundred shades of grey. If there was colour, it was because we planted it,” she chuckled, digging her fork into the meal packet. She made a face and scooped out a bite, wolfing it down despite her apparent distaste.

  “Chin up, Shark,” Luke teased and indicated the packet. “When I can manage it, I'll cook you something much better than that.”

  Yes, he, Luke Rickman, could cook. With a sizeable gap of time between his arrival and that of his younger sister Lily, their mother wanted to pass on family traditions not involving the best way to police an area or store your weapon, (yes that was a thing in the Rickman household). Luke became the recipient of all her culinary expertise, which helped when he was on his own, living on a budget. It was also a great way to end a one night stand the next morning.

  An eyebrow went up dubiously as Cori put another bite in her mouth. “You cook?” she asked when she'd finished chewing. “Like cook, cook? Something that doesn't involve lichen or squishy, crawling things?”

  Luke made a face. “I won't ask, but yeah I cook. My mom wanted one of us to know her recipe for Thanksgiving stuffing and my sister Lily was a few years away.”

  There was also the fact that while Chris and Derick were very much Dan Rickman's boys, Luke was his mother's son. He spent the most time with her at home and his success with women had a lot to do with Janice Rickman's teachings about how they should be respected and treated.

  “Oh my God, it's like you're a Rickman, but not really. Cornbread stuffing?” Cori asked, eyeing him because really, honest-to-god homemade cornbread stuffing and gravy?

  “Oh, I'm all Rickman, baby,” he puffed his chest, feigning great ape posturing, “I just stayed out of the family business, and that meant staying at home longer. I came home every day from college to save on dorm fees, so I spent a lot of time with mom.”

  At the time, he'd thought it was limiting, having to come home, but it meant the world to his mother and now, he wouldn't have traded those extra years for anything.

  “Oh yeah? That is so cool!” Cori didn't show it, but she sighed inwardly. He was so far out of her league. The kind of guy that usually went for her didn't cook with his mother, unless it was a narcotic. “I make a mean roast beef sandwich, but that's about it,” she grinned. “My sister wouldn't let me near the kitchen after an unfortunate incident while making divinity. Before it sets, that stuff is like napalm….” An alarm from the vicinity of her link made Cori look down at her wrist as she tapped the earpiece everyone carried. “Oh shit,” she exclaimed, rising to her feet just as several other sharks in the galley did the same. “Have to go, survey team's coming in hot…”

  Without saying goodbye or even a hesitation, Cori hurried off to join the other Sharks as they hustled out of the galley tent.

  Even growing up a
round them, Luke was always impressed at how fast Sharks could get it together. Getting to his feet, he grabbed Cori's trash and deposited it in the recycle bin before heading out himself.

  Warm, mid-afternoon heat sheathed him as soon as he stepped out into the open and the sun's glare made him squint. His brain identified the faint odour of animal spoor, pollen, and dust in his lungs when he took a breath. In a second or two, the Sharks would be rallying them up, no doubt to avoid the next scary thing with too many teeth, discovering human was now a tasty part of the menu.

  For now though, Luke took in the sight of the new world and knew as long as Tammy and Olivia were buried here, he was anchored to Gaia and Babel.

  They were home.

  Epilogue

  Sleep

  Meeting after meeting… after meeeeeeting. How the hell did Tom do it without shooting something? Derick yawned as this last one adjourned, which drew a raised eyebrow from the big Russian general. When the man, who dwarfed him, approached afterwards, Derick expected a reprimand. Instead, he received an order to get some sleep and a fatherly smile.

  With that order in mind, Derick made a strategic retreat and went in search of a shower and his rack. If he could sleep. The last four days saw him living off jet fuel disguised as coffee and a few protein bars. His earlier conversation with Luke got him through the last meeting, but Derick was running on fumes. He knew this…but damn, it was good to see Luke with some life in his eyes! With everything Derick had to do, he worried about his little brother, but it relieved and humbled him when both Harwood and Shiny stepped up. Cori kept Luke from wallowing in his grief while Shiny mothered him, forcing him to eat, etc.

  Making his way through the tight confines of the makeshift bunk room at the Cave, Derick had one destination in mind. Well, two, counting his own bunk. Right now, he was there to find Ren and make sure that she was following doctor's orders. She probably wasn't, knowing her. Turning down the aisle to her bunk, Derick froze.

  The light in her bunk was on, illuminating Ren, and in a single heartbeat, Derick realized there would never be anyone else for him. She was glowing, from her bare legs to the gold tones sparking off her hair like fairy lights as she bent over a sketch pad. For once, her hair wasn't muscled into its tight braid but instead, hung slack over one shoulder. A long, lithe leg hung off the side of her bunk, with toes tapping the deck to some unheard tune. Warm skin disappeared under her shorts leading to a body he'd only dared to map in his dreams.

  When he first met her, a few years ago, Derick had been entranced. The red hair, the curls, the grin, the swagger, the way she was so damned determined to carry her own weight. All of it in was wrapped in a gloriously hot package of femininity and smell-pretty. In short, Renee Richards was the kind of beauty a guy automatically pegged as waaaay out of his league. Like she was the frigging Milky Way and he was an Earth-bound primitive, captured by beauty he'd never understand, much less have. Their ranks, him being her senior non-com, didn't even register.

  About two years ago, at some function or other, his mother met Ren and spent the evening with an enigmatic smile. Derick hadn't understood then but damn, he sure as hell did now.

  These past six days had seen the noise in his head coalescing into a single song. He stared at her now, struck dumb with a clarity that explained the peculiar way his gut twisted when he'd carried her out of the temple. And his mother, God love her, knew. Susannah's gaze had reached across the horizon and saw the coming dawn.

  In the years they'd served together, Ren became so much more than ethereal hope. Peace, when his mind needed calming. Light, when the darkness of combat and loss threatened to swallow him whole. He knew what his mother saw that day and he wouldn't deny it now. He was in love with Renee Richards.

  Just then, she looked up at him and grinned. Derick's breath actually caught. All his tension, all the fretting over Tom, his brother, those god-awful meetings… it all melted right away.

  “Hey,” he said, though he didn't move forward. “You're listening to the doc for a change.”

  Yeah, he might be in love with her but that didn't mean she was getting a reprieve from his teasing.

  Normally, Ren was so attuned to the Gunny's presence, she would have noticed the moment he entered her orbit. Not today. She'd been so immersed in her own world, he slipped right into her presence without her being the wiser. How long had he been standing there watching her? The thought made her stomach flip.

  “Hey Gunny,” she beamed at him automatically before her eyes narrowed upon getting a closer look at him. “I thought I was in strung out shape.” She gathered up the loose sketches around her bunk to make room for him to sit, “but you look like crap.”

  Tit for tat.

  “Thanks, I was hoping for shit but I'll take crap,” he retorted dryly, moving towards her. Her bunk was tempting in oh, so many ways… but he didn't take it. Instead, he lowered himself slowly onto the empty bed opposite hers and stretched his long legs across the narrow aisle. “How's your head?”

  Neatly tucking the pulled sketches back into the pad, Ren set it aside. “Better,” she admitted, cautiously shifting to face him. “I mean, I'm not ready to do cartwheels, but I'm well enough to work on these.” She tapped a pencil on the cover of the sketch pad before flipping it open. Gently thumbing through the sketches, she removed one and held it out to him. “Here, for Luke.”

  While she'd been at Medical, Maya dutifully fulfilled all of Ren's requests, including hitting Supply for a sketchpad and pencils. According to Maya, many tears were shed for a child with terminal lycanthropy who just wanted to make drawings for his mummy when she came to get him. Only, his mum was dead and wasn't coming…

  Hell only knew if Maya was telling her that preposterous story to make her laugh or did she actually try to pass that by the techs in Services. But hey, she'd come away with a sketch pad. With the desire to indulge again in her long-buried passion and a self-prescribed mission, Ren got to work.

  Capable of sketching from memory, Ren breathed life into the empty canvas with images of the temples, the wildlife and, most importantly, the people lost on Gaia.

  The portraits, when they were completed, would go to the friends and family of those lost. She knew it was a small thing, but for years the folded photo of Emma was such a comfort because Ren could hold it in her hand. That tactile bit of contact was worth more than a thousand tera quads of digital data. Giving the mourners something, they could touch or trace with their fingers was Ren's way of easing the anguish of their loss.

  Carefully flipping the page over, Derick paused at the extremely life-like sketch of Tammy Adelaide smiling back at him.

  “Wow…” he whispered, staring at the picture. The portrait captured the little wrinkles in Dr. Adelaide's eyes when she smiled as well as the young woman's quiet, understated grace. Even if he'd known her for only a day, Derick was able to see it.

  “This is amazing,” Derick's voice was reverent with sincere gratitude as he smiled at Ren. “Seriously. Thank you. Luke will definitely want this.”

  Even though she'd received praise for her artistic talents for most of her life, his genuine appreciation caused a swell of pleasure to flow through her.

  “I don't know how long he knew her, but he must have cared a lot about her. I thought he ought to have something to remember her at least.” Everyone saw Luke's devastation over Dr. Adelaide's loss, and if this helped then Ren considered it mission accomplished. As her favourite teacher once claimed, art capable of touching the soul, was also capable of healing it.

  “He met her right after he was assigned to Dr. Hall's team. They took care of each other after the Exodus.” Derick's words felt bittersweet as he studied the face of someone he'd never be able to give his gratitude.

  Just then, Ren realized the shadows on Derick's face weren't from the lighting. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and a hint of stubble, all indicators of a man on the edge of exhaustion. She wanted to take care of him, just like h
e took care of her on Gaia. Screw their ranks. Nudging his leg with a toe, Ren dropped her gaze enough to distract him from the drawing.

  “How are you doing, Gunny?”

  Even though she used his title, her tone implied he was so much more than her senior NCO.

  Derick didn't reply at first. Instead, he handed the paper back to Ren. Normally, he wouldn't admit to just how fucking dead on his feet he was, but this was Ren. Only to her did it not feel like an admission of weakness.

  “Hold on to that for now, it will be safe.” He indicated the drawing as he dragged tired hands over his face. Whatever fumes he'd been on were gone. He was completely tapped out. “I am so tired, Ren. I need to sleep and…” He paused, caught up in her pretty green eyes. “Would…you know…I slept better when I knew where you were in the room. Would you… The only thing I can think about is sleeping near you because I can't sleep anywhere else.”

  Such a simple request, even so stuttered was more romantic than any love letter. Scooting to the edge of her bunk, she smiled and crooked a finger for him to come closer.

  Dear God, that smile was lethal. Derick eased off the bunk to his knees and leaned in, one hand on either side of her hips. He leaned in close, knocking on the edge of her personal space. “Yeah?” he smiled.

  Ren met him there, kissing him just enough to taste him before she pulled back and caressed his cheek.

  “Sleep. You know I always have your back, Derick.”

  Derick watched Ren for a minute before his eyes dropped to her lips. When she raised her hand, he grabbed it, instead of seeing out her intent. If he kissed her back, he wouldn't stop. He put a soft kiss on the back her hand and let it go. “I know.”

  He pushed back to the empty bunk and rolled into it. Dropping an arm over his eyes, he was asleep almost instantly.

  Ren watched him for a few minutes until he surrendered to deep sleep and his breathing became a light snore. With a little smile, she flipped open her sketch pad and started to draw.