by H. E. Trent
He didn’t look back as he walked around the perimeter of the gathering space past his tittering sisters. He kept moving out the door and toward the clump of volunteers gathered toward the bars.
Luke was peering over Salehi’s shoulder at the tablet he held.
Owen tossed his bags in the general direction of Luke’s stolen ship and joined the party.
“Here’s how this’ll go,” Salehi said. “We’ve got four ships. We’ll dispatch the two slower passenger ships to the nearest of the outposts. The smaller scout ships will be sent out farther. If the slower ships happen to hit the jackpot first, the scout ships will double back to give support. Whatever you do—and I can’t stress this enough—stay in contact. Do not go into any scenario half-cocked. Make sure you’re in touch with at least one other ship. If your communication system goes down for some reason, follow the route of the last ship you were in contact with and stick to them until you resolve the situation. Understood?”
Everyone in the crowd, of what had to be twenty Jekhans and Terrans from Little Gitano, murmured agreement. The Jekhans in the group probably wouldn’t find any of their relatives on those outposts—they hadn’t lost nearly as many as the people from the bigger cities—but they were going anyway because someone had to and they could help.
“If you’re assigned to one of the larger ships,” Salehi continued, “pick a buddy. You watch their back and they watch yours. Make sure no one gets left behind, and don’t try to be a hero unnecessarily, okay? All right. Here are your assignments.”
Owen only half listened. He already knew where he was going, but he was curious to see whether Salehi had put Eileen on the same ship as him.
He did.
Eileen grumbled and walked toward her assigned ship.
Owen chuckled and turned on his boot heel toward Luke’s ship. His COM buzzed on his wrist—a familiar triple chime that always managed to make his gut lurch.
Shit.
He gave the band a double tap. “Granddad?”
Granddad chuckled. “You always sound like you expect to hear someone else’s voice and that they’re gonna tell you they’ve got my head on a pike.”
Owen rubbed his suddenly-throbbing temple and climbed up into the sleek, black, stolen ship. From the sides, Luke’s conveyance took on the shape of a dome with tapered front and back. From the front, however, it was perfectly rectangular. The ship wasn’t much bigger than a larger Earth RV. There was sleeping space for six and some room for eating and lounging, but they wouldn’t be carrying back a huge load of refugees in that thing, not without creating interesting safety hazards.
“I just wanted to wish you good luck, and to tell you that your grandma says for you to not do anything stupid.”
Owen dropped his bags near the rest. “You talked to Gran?”
“I did. Just a few minutes ago. Long-range satellites are playing nice right now. She expects frequent updates to assuage herself that her man hasn’t got himself frozen or something again.”
Precious stepped into the cabin and wriggled her eyebrows at Owen as she turned her baseball cap backward on her head.
“It’s Granddad,” he told her.
“Hey, Mr. McGarry,” she said.
“Who’s that?” Granddad asked.
“Precious from the neighborhood.”
“No way that’s Precious.”
Precious snorted. “Yes way. I’m a grownup and everything now, Mr. McG.”
“You tagged along with those dolts you’re related to?”
“Hey!” she balked. “I like a little adventure on occasion.”
“Make sure you watch your back. I won’t have your mother screaming at me when I get back to Earth.”
“She’ll find something else to scream at you about if not this.” Precious shrugged. “That’s just Ma.”
“Don’t you kids do anything stupid.”
Owen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Granddad…”
“What?”
“You don’t have room to talk.”
“I resent that tone, young man. It’s not my fault you hauled your ass halfway across the galaxy and found yourself a sticky predicament.”
“Uh, it kinda is. Court came here half-cocked to investigate the rumors about you. We followed her. Ergo…”
“Ah, you ungrateful—”
Owen emitted a cheerful grunt. “How are things in Buinet right now?”
“Oh. Fine, just fine. I’m about to record another one of those awkward motivational speeches for Lillian and such to blast out. We’re hoping to get a few more folks out of hiding so. That young man of Erin’s is doing a beautiful job getting those COM engineers out.”
“Yeah, well, Erin would like to have Esteben back sooner rather than later.”
“McGarry women do seem to stick by their men for some reason. I’ll never try to understand the phenomenon.”
Owen would probably never understand it either. If Ais were going to insist on clinging, he’d be stupid to send her away. His grandmother had waited nearly twenty years to hear her husband’s voice again. That was devotion even the coldest of men should have appreciated. Maybe Owen didn’t deserve her, but he wanted her, and being wanted back wasn’t such a bad thing.
“Well. Best get moving,” Granddad said. “We’ve got queries coming in from places I don’t even know how to locate on a map. Should probably see what they want.”
“Queries from Terrans or Jekhans?”
Granddad snorted. “A bit of both. Some of the Terrans are making threats, and some are begging us to get them off the planet. Once we figure out who’s actually capable of doing some harm, we’ll get everything sorted.”
“Hope so. Good luck.”
“Same to you, Third.”
The COM signal went dead. Owen knitted his fingers through the back of his hair and glanced toward the cockpit. Luke was waiting near the door, Marco was rooting through the glove compartment, and Fastida had stepped in with a backpack and a familiar-looking food basket.
Owen shook his head. Apparently, his sisters actually worried that they’d starve. He had on good authority that they’d stocked the galley, so the extra food was probably unnecessary. “Just us five in here?”
Luke grunted and plopped into the captain’s chair. “Yeah. I think we’re pretty balanced, though.”
“Who’s piloting the others? Obviously Salehi has got one.”
“Yep. Salehi’s got one. Allan’s got one of the big boys, and one of their buddies has the fourth.”
“Had no idea there were so many pilots in Little Gitano.”
Luke furrowed his brow. “According to Allan, almost everyone in the part of the unit that deserted had at least some piloting skills. I think they were specially recruited.”
“Good to know.”
“All right, let’s see if this sucker will connect.” Precious initiated the communications console and started making hails. “Fleet One, this is Unit Commander—”
Luke threw his head back and groaned.
Precious pulled her finger off the mic button and wagged the digit at him. “Hey. You get your fuckin’ chuckles in where you want, and I’ll do the same.”
“They’re gonna think you’re nuts.”
She shrugged. “So, what else is new? She put her finger back on the mic button. “Fleet One, check in with Unit Commander, please.”
Salehi responded back, chuckling. “All set to take off, uh, unit commander.”
“Thank you very much. Fleet Two, I need to hear from you.”
“You know,” came Allan’s crackling voice. He sounded far away and tinny. His system probably needed some upgrading, but he was on the oldest ship. “I like the sound of your voice a whole lot better than my last commander’s,” he said. “That dude always sounded like he gargled with thumbtacks every morning.”
“Well, then,” Precious said in a dulcet purr. “I’m glad you like the sound, because you’ll be hearing a lot of it until we’re out of this system.�
��
“What exactly did you say you did for a living?”
“Bye-bye, now. Fleet Three, check in please.”
“What does she do for a living?” Fastida whispered to Owen.
He covered his mouth from view of the front of the ship and whispered back, “What did she tell you?”
“I realized just then that she’s never said. Certainly, she’s had plenty of opportunities. We talk about those sorts of things whenever we’re in the group.”
Owen scratched his head and furrowed his brow. “Huh. You know what? I actually don’t know. All I know is that she always has money, and I’ve never heard her ask anyone for any.”
Fastida’s dark eyebrows danced upward. “Something illegal, you think?”
“Why do you sound like that’d be a turn on?”
“Because I’m screwy in the head. Esteben informs me of such whenever he’s at home, and coming from him, that’s quite a compliment.”
“I don’t know if compliment is the word you’re looking for.” Fastida had superb English fluency, but Owen didn’t think she quite caught all the nuances of the words she used.
Her slow, broad smile, however, indicated that perhaps she actually did.
Damn.
Precious growled at the console. “Fleet Four, can you hear me?”
“Yeah! Yeah, sorry,” came the final harried captain’s voice. “Had a bit of a fire to put out.”
“Literally?”
“Oh! No. Sorry. Not like that. Just a bit of a septic problem. Had to have Eileen come over and look since she’s been on this ship before.”
Owen cringed. Fleet Four, also known as “The Tin Can” was a cargo ship previously owned by the shit stain known as Reg Devin. He’d clogged up the secondary plumbing systems by storing coke packets in the pipes and apparently Eileen and Salehi had forgotten to inform the new passengers.
“You got everything sorted out?” Precious asked.
“Yep. We just turned the backup system off. Hopefully we won’t be in space long enough to regret that.”
“All right,” Luke said. “Let’s get moving. Everyone got their coordinates?”
“Excuse me?” Precious said. “I’m unit commander.”
Luke flicked her finger away from the mic button. “There is no unit commander. You’re just the lady on the microphone, and if you don’t behave, I’ll yank your user access.”
She narrowed her eyes at her brother. “I hate you. Why can’t you let me be great?”
Luke pressed his fingertips to his temples, rubbed them, and then cut a look toward Owen. “Maybe we were wrong about who needed to get away from whom in Precious’s last relationship.”
She plucked Luke’s forehead, and depressed the mic button. “Copy that? Does everyone have their coordinates?”
Everyone checked in yes.
“All righty, then. Buckle up and lets get these puppies into space.”
As Fastida, Luke, and Precious got strapped in, Owen and Marco strapped down any objects that would shift during takeoff and checked the door latches.
The last time Owen had been in a space-worthy ship, he’d been heading toward Jekh to “rescue” Courtney. Being in stasis, he’d slept through that trip. The adventure looming ahead would require wakefulness and concentration.
“Maybe now I’m heading after people who actually need to be rescued,” he muttered, strapping himself into a jump seat.
Marco took the one across from him. “Did you remember to call your mother and put on clean underwear before the trip?”
“I talked to my mother yesterday.” Or rather, Ais had. Apparently, she’d been far more worthy of conversation than Owen and he’d been expelled from the conversation about forty seconds in. “And I’m out of clean underwear. Haven’t had time to do laundry.”
Marco scrunched his nose. “You had all last night. You knew we were leaving.”
“Are you that slow?” Precious called back. “He was busy getting busy.”
Marco’s dark eyes went wide in delayed understanding. “Ohh.” He furrowed his brow. “With who?”
“Seriously?” Luke asked. “Are you that oblivious?”
“Obviously.” Marco shrugged. “Must be, because I don’t know nothing about nothing.”
“Maybe you should spend more time with people who don’t live on the Internet and then you’d notice stuff.”
“Eh, fuck you,” he said quietly but, oddly, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of heat behind his words. He actually sounded a bit forlorn. For Owen to have noticed, there must have really been something the matter.
“Marc?”
Marco shook his head hard, once.
Owen let him have his silence.
He, better than anyone, knew that sometimes a man needed to be left to his thoughts. He’d share when he was ready.
Maybe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Suddenly bashful, Ais shifted her weight and stole a glance at the doctor.
He stood by the kitchen table with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“You didn’t have to go to such extremes if you just changed your mind about the experiment, Ais.”
Courtney, poking some savory-smelling thing in a large pot on the stove, snickered. “I’m betting you a pound of Colombian roast that her eyes were the last thing on her mind when she was going to those so-called extremes.”
Doc shook his head again. “I suppose we can abstain from the treatment until afterward. I’m not comfortable administering a viral element that’s specifically designed to manipulate DNA to a pregnant woman.”
“She’s gonna have a purple-eyed kid, isn’t she, Doc?” Erin asked. “That kid’s gonna have purple eyes.”
“Seems as likely as any other color, but I’ve stopped trying to predict hybrid combinations. I’m almost always wrong. I didn’t even guess right with my grandchildren.” Doc took off his glasses and tucked them into a special pocket of his tunic. “I’ll certainly entertain any guesses of how far along you might be.”
Ais shrugged.
“When was your last period?”
She told him, or at least her best guess. She didn’t generally do the greatest job of keeping up with calendar dates. No one really did at the farm except Trigrian, and that was only because he needed to get certain plants into the ground by specific dates. Owen had been gone for three weeks, and all she could say was that conception had occurred sometime before then.
Doc sighed. “I’ll get my portable ultrasound and scan you the next time I swing by. You could be anywhere between two and three months and I don’t want to speculate on where that puts you in proximity to the end. Hybrid pregnancies tend to be shorter, but you’re a little more human than most of the Jekhans I work with.”
“I’ll be pregnant forever? I didn’t even think I could get pregnant.”
Erin snickered and grabbed a piece of fruit from the bowl on the table. “You’ll probably feel like you are.”
Ais couldn’t get too upset at the prospect. Before she’d met Owen, she’d hoped and prayed that she wouldn’t get pregnant by any of the men who touched her. Having the baby of someone she actually adored was actually a pleasant prospect. She couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Why didn’t you think you could get pregnant?”
“Because with Reg, he never…” Ais cringed and twined her fingers together in front of her belly. “I thought I was…barren.”
“Maybe he’s the one who’s infertile,” Erin said through clenched teeth. “We can only hope that bastard can’t spawn.”
Nodding, Ais turned on her heel toward the hall, thinking she’d go prepare a message to add to the COM queue, but Courtney called over, “Don’t tell Owen we let you out of the room.”
Ais waved over her shoulder at her. The doctor had examined her in the kitchen simply as a matter of necessity. The bedroom was too dark and too cramped for easy movement. While she’d been feeling even more pinned up than usual with Owen being gon
e, having had her suspicion of her maternal state confirmed by the doctor gave her a new reason to persevere.
A baby, and that baby would have a heap of cousins and family around. He or she wouldn’t be isolated and alone like Ais, growing up never knowing where they belonged or who they belonged to. So much family. Two grandparents, four great-grandparents. Two aunts and an uncle. The prospects were very nearly overwhelming.
“Need to learn all their names.”
She needed to make a list.
She shooed Nestor away from her tablet and carried it to the kitchen. “Courtney, can you help me—”
“What was that?” Erin asked, streaking to the window.
“You saw that?” Courtney asked. She threw down the oven mitt she’d been holding and went to the window over the sink. “I saw something dark in my periphery but I figured it was just a floater. I get them sometimes when my blood pressure is screwy.”
“No, something definitely flew past.”
Ais gulped. “A…red something?”
“No.” Erin took the tablet from Ais and rooted through the menus until she found the perimeter sensor data monitor. The software was installed on every computer and tablet on the property. “It wasn’t a person. It looked like a little flyer passing in the field nearby.
Courtney tucked her hair back from her ears and peered down at the screen. “Shit. I hope that was just Doc swinging a U-ie. If we have any unwanted visitors, they picked a good time to bother us.”
“If by good, you mean worst possible time,” Erin said, “then sure.”
The sensor data was slowly loading. The hardware probably needed an upgrade, but Owen hadn’t had time before he’d left.
“Headron and Murki went into town with the bread orders, Trigrian is working way out toward the mountain range with the farmhands today, and Esteben’s in orbit with the engineers. We’ve got a whole lot of estrogen around today, and not even kick-ass estrogen, but probably-shouldn’t-get-in-any-fights-right-now estrogen.”
“All right, just be easy. We could be worrying about nothing.”