Since the controls were automated, his crew simply needed to watch over the programs and override the nav system if an emergency occurred. But nothing out of the ordinary was happening now that they’d left the asteroid belt behind. Space out here was relatively empty of cosmic dust, stray meteors, or debris, and Beta Five’s programming worked flawlessly. When they kicked into hyperdrive, Derrek left Sauren at the helm of the bridge and headed down to the cargo bay, where he found Azsla.
She was sitting on the deck, tweaking the timing device with her mini computer, a last micronbit adjustment. He recalled those same fingers running down his back last night, encouraging him to take her harder, faster, deeper. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her and prayed this mission would go smoothly.
Azsla seemed calm enough now, but after they’d both fallen asleep in one another’s arms, she’d awakened him in the early morning hours, a nightmare causing her to sit up with a violent gasp. He’d asked her what was wrong, but she hadn’t answered, just sleepily hugged him and pretended to return to sleep.
But it had taken a long time before she’d relaxed in his arms, and he still wasn’t certain if she’d slept since then. Perhaps the use of tactonics haunted her as it did him. The weaponry had been tested long ago, and no one living had ever set one off. However, the ancient texts describing the weapon told of destruction so massive, radiation so severe, that no one within detonation range had enough flesh and bone left to bury.
Derrek found the tubular-shaped missile, with its tactonium-enriched core, threatening but necessary. While the tactonics might be their last hope of saving Zor, he hated the idea that within its tiny compartment, one nudge would connect the tactonium to the reactor and start a reaction that couldn’t be stopped.
The timing device was not sophisticated. Once Azsla turned on the damned thing, she had no way to turn it off.
With his thoughts focused on how he would set down on the asteroid without jarring the bomb, he didn’t notice exactly when Azsla had gone so still. Too still.
She’d almost totally stopped moving. She was sitting like a statue, her eyes unseeing, her chest barely rising and falling. The eerie spike of fear he felt at her unnatural pose almost unglued him.
“What is it?” he asked, his mouth dry.
She didn’t answer.
He hurried around the bomb and shook her shoulder. “Azsla?”
When she didn’t come out of her trance, his concern escalated to frantic. He had no idea what to do and hit his link to summon Doc Falcon. “I’ve never seen anyone so far gone who didn’t have a severe injury. Should I shake her harder? Or will that harm her?”
“Don’t do anything until I arrive,” Doc Falcon ordered.
Derrek turned back to Azsla. “Talk to me,” he begged. “Damn it. You’re scaring me.”
Her eyes were open. Her pulse seemed normal. But her mind . . . wasn’t there.
What the hell was going on? Was she acting out some secret First ritual? Was she sick? Had her mind snapped?
Gently, he gathered her into his arms and rocked her against him. Her skin seemed a bit colder than normal, but unlike last night, she didn’t hug back. She didn’t respond. It was as if she had no awareness he was there.
Derrek couldn’t help worrying that he’d asked too much from her. Maybe the pressure had gotten to her and she’d snapped. Maybe the idea of setting the timer on a tactonic bomb had caused her to lose it. But she’d always seemed so in control of herself during battle. As if she could deal with any emergency and keep a cool head. If this was his fault, for assuming she could handle the pressure and she’d cracked, he’d never forgive himself.
“Please. Come back to me. I need you. Azsla, please. Talk to me. Hug me. Give me some indication that you’re still here with me.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t respond.
Where was the doc?
Derrek was about to hit the com link to ask where he was, when Azsla blinked. One micronbit she’d been gone, the next she was back.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Define all right,” she muttered with a sarcasm that relieved him.
“Are you ill?”
“Nope. Just pregnant.”
“What!” Her announcement decked him. Here he’d been worrying if she was losing her mind, and she came out of her trance to make an out-of-the-vacuum statement that made her sound crazy. “How can you be pregnant when I took precautions?”
“You did?”
“I had my yearly anti-insemination shot. Those shots never fail. Never.”
Just then Doc Falcon hurried into the cargo bay. Derrek waved him back. “She’s fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. False alarm.” Derrek wanted to speak to her before asking the doctor to examine her, especially after her statement. Everyone knew pregnant women sometimes fainted . . . but she’d looked to have been in a trance.
“Whatever you say, boss man.” The doc shook his head and departed.
“I’m carrying twins. Your son and daughter,” Azsla insisted, a pleased smile lighting up her face.
“But—”
“Your alien friend altered your body chemistry. Apparently children are necessary.” She spoke in a dreamy tone, as if she had yet to process and comprehend all she’d said.
“But—”
“Careful, dear. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want our children to hear.”
What did she mean? That their children could hear? “They haven’t been born yet. And babies can’t understand conversation. You aren’t making sense.” Even worse, they were on an important and dangerous mission. She should not be pregnant. The timing was—
Hi, Pop.
Hi, Dad.
“Who thought that?” Derrek leaned against the console, his knees ready to buckle, his thoughts churning like a redlining hyperdrive engine. He had to be asleep and dreaming. Nothing made sense. But he wasn’t asleep. And he couldn’t discount the thoughts in his head. His children had yet to be born, but they were communicating with him telepathically. But human babies didn’t do that.
We’ve shocked him.
You think.
“Are you saying my kids are speaking to me telepathically?” he asked Azsla, so stunned he could barely force the concept into words.
Our gestation period is faster than normal.
Ready or not, we’re going to be born soon.
Okay, so beings were communicating with him. But that didn’t mean they were his kids or talking to him from Azsla’s womb. Derrek placed his hand on Azsla’s stomach. There was a bump in her belly, one he could have sworn hadn’t been there the night before. But babies didn’t grow that quickly. Had she been pregnant all along and he’d failed to notice? Not possible. He’d had his hands all over her delicious body. That bump had grown—literally overnight. “When did this happen?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But there’s more I have to tell you.”
“More?” Even as he braced himself, he didn’t know if his heart could take any more news.
Easy, Mom. Dad’s heartbeat is elevated.
His pulse is racing. We don’t want to give him a heart attack.
“Our children are telepathic?” Derrek asked, his thoughts swirling in a fog of surprise, shock, and disbelief.
“Apparently. Your alien friend . . .”
“Pepko!” Derrek shouted.
Under his hand, the babies jumped.
Don’t be mad, Dad.
Yeah, Pop. Pepko did us a favor.
“He altered your DNA.” Derrek’s anger began to soar now that he was finally getting over the shock. “How dare he change you?”
It’s necessary. Derrek recognized the mature telepathic voice of Pepko, so different from the twins. About d
amn time he showed up and accounted for his actions.
“Necessary? Why?” Derrek asked.
The survival of your species and ours is at stake.
“There are more of you?” Azsla asked. “Was that who I dreamed about?”
Derrek looked at Azsla’s face. She had this faraway look in her eyes, as if she were recalling her vision. That’s when it hit him. Her strange trance earlier when she wouldn’t respond or move must have been another vision. Pepko was manipulating them.
Only a little. I nudge. You aren’t doing anything you don’t want to do.
“I’d call expediting the pregnancy process and altering my children’s DNA a helluva lot more than a nudge.”
Dad, it’s going to be all right.
We like being telepathic.
“My children haven’t even been born yet, and they are arguing with me. It’s fripping unbelievable.”
“Don’t swear in front of the babies, dear,” Azsla instructed him in a mild tone as if she totally accepted what was going on here.
Yeah, don’t curse, Dad, or you might singe our delicate ears.
You don’t have ears yet, one twin teased the other.
“Enough,” Azsla interrupted. “You two be quiet and let your father and me talk.”
That’s what you get for being fresh.
I wasn’t.
Was too.
“Quiet,” Derrek ordered, surprised when they actually listened. “That’s better. Now give your mother and me some privacy please. Or is that impossible?”
We’ll tune out, the babies both promised. And he chose to believe that meant they weren’t listening. However, he wasn’t certain. After all, there was no way to check. Nor was he sure if he really wanted to know. So he took them at their word.
“When did you know about the babies?” he asked Azsla.
“Last night . . . I suspected, but I wasn’t sure until just a few micronbits ago when they started communicating telepathically.”
She hadn’t said if she wanted to be a mother, but from the pleased look in her eyes, he didn’t have to hear her say the words. Her look of wonder said everything he needed to know. He’d always hoped to have more children someday, so he couldn’t say he was displeased. Children would bind Azsla and him tight together. They’d be a real family.
Sweet Vigo. What if the children had the powers of a First? What if they could dominate him? His people?
“Do you know if our kids will be Firsts?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral, for Azsla’s sake.
“That will depend on their salt intake. If we keep it down, they won’t become like me,” she sought to reassure him. And he wondered how she knew, if Pepko and the twins had given her information he wasn’t privy to, then decided it didn’t matter. Any former slaves could give their children too much salt and turn them into Firsts. For the moment, doing so was illegal. The escaped slaves of Zor hadn’t wanted to turn into arrogant, superior Firsts. Too much power was not a good thing, at least not with humanity at this stage of evolution.
However, now he had to wonder how telepathy might alter them. If one could feel another’s pain, would that stop people from abusing their powers? Derrek didn’t know, but just thinking about it made his head ache.
“Alert. Alert.” The nav system set off a shrilling alarm. Derrek stood, about to head for the bridge, when Sauren’s voice came in over his link. “We’re under attack. Brace for impact.”
Attack? He hadn’t had time to process that he was going to be a father again, never mind the fact that he was having twins who were genetically altered and telepathic, and now he had a new emergency.
Sauren could handle the bridge. Derrek had a duty to protect Azsla and his yet-to-be-born babes. He kneeled, took Azsla into his arms, and braced.
Missile fire shook the ship. An explosion ripped through the hull. Automatic shields kicked in, and Derrek heard Sauren give orders for his crew to make repairs.
Reports came in. No injuries except minor bruises and cuts. All systems were good to go. But the second cargo hold had suffered damage. The crew was making a quick inventory.
Derrek stood and took Azsla’s hand. As if still dazed by her impending motherhood, she silently accompanied him back to the bridge. Derrek frowned at the blinking light on the vidscreen. “What is it?”
“A Raman ship. Tomar’s ship.” Sauren’s hands flew over the monitor, calculating distances and vectors. “He jumped out of hyperspace and fired. There was no way to avoid the attack. I counter fired, but did little damage. He’ll be back.”
“Get us out of here. Jump through hyperspace for Katadama,” Derrek ordered.
Tomar was like a hound with a scent in his nose who wouldn’t give up the chase. Every time Derrek thought he’d seen the last of Tomar, the First showed up again and caused trouble. He regretted being unable to finish him off back on Zor. Now Derrek was about to set down on an asteroid, where he, Azsla, and several engineers would plant the tactonium bomb. Then they’d set a timer to delay the explosion, to give them all time to return to the ship and use the new portal device to escape the resulting blast.
But now he had to worry about an attack, too.
“Sir,” one of the crew reported in. “We’ve got a problem. The oxygen tanks were damaged. We only have enough left for two people to go down to the asteroid.”
With Tomar ready to attack again soon, Derrek worked furiously to come up with a plan to take Azsla to safety. “Tomar knows we’re heading to Katadama. We have to get there first. If we redline the engines, we can offload before Tomar’s within striking distance.” As he explained, he boosted the engines to the max and turned the controls back over to Sauren.
Azsla nodded, her face serene, her eyes composed. “All right. But I’m going alone.”
“No.” Derrek shook his head.
“We’re short on oxygen. As much as I love you, I’d rather have double the amount of air than have you with me. And I can set the bomb by myself.”
“You need me to drill.”
“I can do it.” She looked at him with a hard stare that made his stomach boil as if in acid. The moment had come where he had to trust her. If he set her down on that asteroid alone and she refused to set off the bomb, Katadama would destroy Zor as her people wanted. Tomar could stop by, pick her up, and she could return to Rama a heroine.
But she wouldn’t do that. Of course she wouldn’t. Derrek believed in her. Yet he didn’t want her to go alone. Where she’d be unprotected, where he couldn’t help her. In fact, to help her, he’d have to lead Tomar away from here. He hadn’t had time to process how much her pregnancy meant to him, but he knew he didn’t want to let her go. He had to use all his willpower to keep himself from reaching out, gathering her into his arms, and holding onto her.
And he couldn’t go with her. She needed that extra oxygen.
“This is going to be tight, Azsla.” He took a deep breath. They had no other choice. “Get into a space suit. Make sure to take every micro unit of extra oxygen.”
Her eyes calm, her face serene, she nodded as if she too understood the gravity of what they were about to do. And the consequences.
By the Stars, he didn’t want to lose her. “Promise me that you won’t set the timer until I’m done with Tomar and am free to swing around to pick you up.”
She nodded, but he noticed how her hand dropped to her womb.
“I expect you to take good care of yourself down there.” Derrek hated altering the plan. He was supposed to set down on Katadama, help her with the bomb, and then they’d leave together in Beta Five. Since Tomar was spoiling for a fight, Derrek needed to take the battle elsewhere.
He would have left Sauren in charge and gone with Azsla, if not for the loss of the extra oxygen.
Quark. It was bad enough to
put her life in peril, but it was just too much to risk the babes, too.
We’re ready.
We were made to do this.
Maybe they should abandon the tactonic bomb and Katadama. Go home to Alpha One. Derrek didn’t say the thought out loud. As much as he wanted to save his family, protect them—no matter what—he thought of the hundreds of thousands of Zorans whose lives depended on their success. They’d already been through so much. The escape from Rama. Building a new world. Even considering turning around felt like giving up. Like cowardice.
Yet, his family meant more to him than all those strangers.
There’s no reason you can’t have us and save them, too.
Come on, Dad. We’re young, but we can help.
“You aren’t supposed to help,” he muttered. “Sweet Vigo, you aren’t even born yet.”
“Did you say something?” Azsla asked.
“Our children don’t want us to turn back,” he admitted, scratching his head at how the twins could already have language skills and knowledge of their world. Obviously, they’d absorbed a lot of information quickly, and he suspected they were not only telepathic but off the charts in the smarts department. Raising those two hellions wouldn’t be easy, but he was damned certain he wanted to live long enough to try.
Azsla sounded proud and calm. “Of course they don’t want to quit. They take after you that way.”
“I’m not the one setting down on a fripping asteroid—”
“Language, please.”
“—with a tactonic bomb tucked under my arm. With Tomar hunting us, I don’t like it.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You were willing to let your brother and his wife risk their lives. Now it’s our turn.”
25
PERHAPS AZSLA WAS already hormonal due to her pregnancy, but she paused on the asteroid, taking a few micronbits to get her bearings. She didn’t know which was stranger, walking on an asteroid, her upcoming motherhood, or Derrek’s trusting her. Wanting her for who she really was.
For a moment back there, she’d thought he might insist on accompanying her. But he’d kept his word. When he trusted . . . he trusted with his whole heart. He trusted her enough that he was risking all the Zorans’ lives on her word. And that trust—meant everything to her and was like a shining sun deep in her soul that kept her warmed from the inside out.
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