by Elin Wyn
“No, I didn’t. You just have an overactive imagination,” I maintained. I walked over to where Amira and Mariella were sitting.
“Can I show Rouhr what you’ve come up with so far?” I asked.
“Sure.” Mariella handed over the datapad she’d been working on. “Be sure to tell him to teach his crew how to take better field notes.”
“I can do that.” I laughed.
“You’ll criticize him, but you won’t tell him you’re worried about his sleep schedule?” Evie lifted a brow. “You must be in love.”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve heard all day.” I shook my head. “It makes no sense. I’m not in love with anyone, for your information. I’m going to go be productive now.”
I waggled my fingers at them as I left the lab.
In love.
Really.
7
Rouhr
Vidia always knocked four times in quick succession, lighter than anyone else in the crew.
Other than Thribb, but he rarely knocked anymore.
Vidia’s interruption was welcome.
“This is a surprise.” I smiled as I opened the door for her.
“The ladies and I have been doing our homework.” She stepped into my office.
“Your what?” I closed the door behind her and offered her my office chair.
“Homework,” she repeated. “In human schools, teachers give the students assignments to complete at home based on the material taught in class.”
“And I’m the teacher in this scenario?” I clarified.
“Exactly.”
“But I didn’t give you an assignment.”
“We’ll call it extra credit, then,” she shrugged.
I knew the meaning of both of those words separately, but combined in this context, I had no idea what she meant. “You’re just making up words now,” I complained.
She rolled her eyes and smiled. Then she noticed the changes I’d made to my office.
“What the hell is that?” She stared at the cot I’d pushed into the back corner of the room. I’d shifted my desk to the right by a few feet to accommodate it.
“It’s efficiency at its finest,” I retorted.
“I can’t tell if that’s sad or genius.” She stared blankly at the little cot. Since the Aurora wouldn’t have such a thing on hand, I’d asked for a crew member to find someone to make something.
I suspected he’d found a human for the job, as the pallet wasn’t quite long enough for me. My legs hung off the edge of it when I used it, but it was great for short spurts of sleep.
“It’s genius.” I kind of felt that I was really trying to convince myself instead of her.
“If you say so,” she chuckled.
“Now, what’s this about the homework?” I sat down on the edge of the cot.
She stared at me for a few moments, then shook her head. “You look ridiculous. Let’s switch seats. Take your chair back. I’ll sit on the cot.”
I protested. The cot was perfectly suitable.
“You’re two feet off the ground!” Vidia laughed.
She was right. I was in more of a squatting position than a sitting position. But still...
“It’s comfortable,” I insisted.
“Whatever you say.” She nodded but clearly didn’t believe me, just handed me a datapad showing a map of the area. “We’ve been figuring out the best way to attack the camps.”
“Have you now?” I examined the map. They’d marked out a surprisingly detailed plan of attack for a group of females that had never done something like this before.
“I must say I’m impressed. I’d been thinking along the same lines. I’m sure the strike teams will find this very useful.”
“There’s something more,” Vidia said, her words a trifle hesitant. “I want to have an active part in the air strike. As do Leena and Evie.”
Cold ran down my spine and I straightened, as much as I could in this ridiculous position. “Out of the question. None of you have ever received any formal training. It would be a huge liability to involve you.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “We’re not exactly asking to fly the damn plane. Shuttle. Whatever. Think about it.”
“I am. The answer is still no.”
It was like she didn’t hear me, just rolled on. “You need pilots. And you need as many of your men on the ground as you can spare to fight the Xathi and deal with the cured humans.”
“Still no.”
She leaned back with a slight grin, obviously enjoying this more than I was. “It’s really the only responsible thing for you to do.”
“What?”
“By having us go with the pilots, we can deploy the canisters and take notes as to the dispersal patterns and effectiveness without you having to pull more fighters from the ground force.”
I shook my head. “Nice try, but still no.”
She raised good points, as always, but not enough to get me to agree. My crew understood the nature of combat—the human females didn’t.
Even if they were up in the air, high above the camps, something could always go wrong. I wasn’t prepared to put more lives at risk than I absolutely had to.
“I’m not going to let this go,” she warned, a playful gleam in her eyes.
“Believe me, I know you won’t,” I teased back.
“Lucky for you, you’re off the hook for now. I have other things to discuss with you.”
“Off the hook? You humans have the strangest way of speaking.” I shook my head.
“It’s called an idiom,” she laughed. “It means I’m not going to hassle you about letting me and the others go on to the camps.”
“Why not just say you’re going to stop hassling me?”
“Because that’s boring. Humans like to spice things up when they can.”
“They like to what?” I laughed at the ridiculousness of her words.
“Make things exciting,” she clarified.
“War is exciting. You don’t need to use idioms to add excitement when there’s war.”
“That’s a terrible argument,” she laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
This was why I always enjoyed talking to Vidia. Conversations flowed naturally between us like they were second nature.
She could make me laugh, and I couldn’t say that about many others.
“What else did you want to discuss?”
“Oh, right. I was going to say something else before you got hung up on idioms. And yes, hung up is another idiom. I didn’t realize how heavily my language relies on them until I met you and your crew.”
“Glad I could help enlighten you,” I chuckled. She narrowed her eyes in my direction.
“Anyway,” she continued, “there are two things we can’t calculate in the lab. We can’t calculate how many hybrids there are or how many will be successfully cured. I assume Thribb has calculated how many lifeforms the Aurora can support?”
“Many times,” I agreed. “Many, many times.”
“Do you have any of those calculations? I’d ask Thribb myself, but I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“I’m not sure Thribb likes me, either,” I chuckled dryly. “He continuously sends his calculations to me, but he clears them when variables change and he has to redo them.”
“How often do the variables change?” She tilted her head slightly to one side.
“At least twice a day.”
“Wow.” Her eyes widened. “That seems…excessive.”
“It’s fun for him.” I shrugged. “Or therapy. I assume he’s trying to figure out how many the Aurora can afford to shelter. Would you like me to ask him to forward the results to you?”
“No.” Her brow furrowed. “That’s alright. I’m sure he’s going to say we’re already over capacity or something like that.”
“You’re probably right.” I nodded.
“Is it really the best idea to house the cured people here? They would have just been throu
gh a painful and traumatic experience at the hands of aliens. Perhaps they would be more comfortable around other humans.”
“That’s an excellent point.” I rocked back on the cot slightly, thinking. “And I think it’s worth mentioning that the med bay on the Aurora isn’t as extensive as the one on the Vengeance when it comes to treating large populations for trauma.”
“Isn’t it?” That surprised Vidia. “I thought the Urai’s technology was more advanced.”
“It is. However, this is a starship. All starships have finite resources—whether it’s power, beds, supplies, or even space. The Aurora med bay is advanced, but it’s not designed to be a shelter forever. It can treat the symptoms of extensive physical and mental trauma, but not for a population as large as what we may bring in.”
“What happens if one of the crew gets injured?” Her violet eyes widened with concern.
“We aren’t completely helpless.” I smiled gently. “Dr. Parr and the Urai medic have our backs.” Vidia’s expression brightened.
“You just used an idiom!”
“I must’ve picked it up from you,” I winked.
I picked up that particular gesture from Axtin, Sakev, and Dax, who often used it with their mates.
Which meant it was probably completely inappropriate for me to use it with Vidia.
Of course it was.
But when her cheeks colored, I couldn’t help but feel a small surge of pleasure.
“We keep getting distracted.” She looked down at her hands.
“Right. We need to figure out where to put the cured humans.” I agreed.
“What do you know about Glymna?”
“A well-fortified and tranquil city like that could be ideal for the recovering humans.” I considered the possibilities. “They’d be surrounded by their own kind, too, in a place that, so far, has been left alone by the Xathi.”
“Amira suggested using the Gateway for the air strikes. I think we should use them to move the cured people, too.”
“Glymna it is,” I declared.
“We’ll have to appeal to the city, of course,” Vidia reminded. “We can’t just show up with hundreds of traumatized humans and leave them there.”
“Naturally. I’ll organize something right away.”
“Good.”
We fell into silence.
“Was there anything else you needed to discuss?” I asked after a few moments.
“That’s all for now.” Vidia smiled. She lifted herself from my chair and stepped toward the door. She stopped before opening it and looked back at me over her shoulder. “The girls in the lab said something funny to me earlier.”
“Oh?” I was secretly glad she’d found something else to talk about. “What’s that?”
“They said I’m the human female version of you, but with twice the energy.” I could tell she found the idea amusing.
“I have plenty of energy,” I said defensively, though I found the comparison pleasing.
“We both know that’s a lie.” She looked pointedly at the cot.
“There’s nothing wrong with my cot,” I laughed.
“How many hours of sleep do you get on that little thing?”
I hesitated before answering. “It’s not so much sleeping, as resting my eyes,” I admitted. “It’s enough.”
“Next time I bring you coffee, I’m spiking it with a tranquilizer.” Her lips curved in a sweet, teasing smile. Probably teasing.
“Now I know not to accept coffee from you.”
“I’ll find another way,” she called over her shoulder as she walked out. “And you’ll never see it coming.”
8
Vidia
I felt like all I’d been doing was running back and forth between the lab and Rouhr’s office. Late in the evening after I showed Rouhr the attack plans we’d come up with in the lab, I was on my way back to his office once more.
I’d heard from Leena, who’d been talking to Axtin last night, that a short trip to Glymna was scheduled to appeal to the city leaders.
Which puzzled me.
Rouhr and I had come up with that plan together. I had a hard time believing he’d move forward without me.
He was stepping out of his office when I approached. I almost didn’t recognize him. He was wearing a holo-disguise, but the scar on his face was a dead giveaway.
I briefly wondered if he chose not to hide it or if the holo-disguise wasn’t capable of camouflaging it.
“I heard some strange news.” I placed my hands on my hips, fingers drumming in annoyance that I tried to keep from my tone. The disguise all but confirmed my suspicion.
“What’s that?” Rouhr asked. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely oblivious or faking it.
“You’re going to Glymna without me.”
He took in my tone and posture, finally realizing that I was annoyed. He sighed deeply, as good as an admission.
“Any particular reason why?”
“We’re using the Gateway to get there,” he said, as if that was a sufficient explanation.
“What’s your point?”
“It hasn’t been fully tested. Anything could go wrong when we use it.”
“Amira and her team used it, and nothing happened to them,” I pointed out.
“Which they shouldn’t have done. That was too big of a risk.”
“But nothing happened to them!”
“That doesn’t mean something won’t happen to us this time.”
“Your logic is flawed. You know that, right?”
He opened his mouth to say something more, but I didn’t let him.
“I know the city leaders. I know how to do this kind of negotiation. But you’d rather keep me here out of fear that something might happen?”
“Alright,” Rouhr said.
“And another thing—wait, what?” I paused.
“Alright. You can come. I know you well enough to know that you’re not going to let up. And you’re right, I could use your help with the negotiations. I didn’t realize you knew the city officials.”
“I’m glad you’re seeing reason.”
I was thrown by how quickly he’d changed his mind. I was prepared for a better argument.
I was almost disappointed, really.
Wearing him down was kind of…fun.
“What was your negotiation plan, anyway?”
“Ask nicely.”
“That’s a good start.” I laughed. “But that’s not going to work. City leaders are politicians, not charity workers. If we’re going to ask something, we have to be prepared to offer something in return.”
“Protection,” Rouhr offered.
“Now you’re getting it.” I grinned. “And another thing, you should lose the holo-disguise.”
“What? Why? All of the other towns had vicious anti-alien groups. I don’t think striding in in all of my red and scaly glory is a wise move.”
“I can understand how you’d think that at first,” I admitted. “But if you show up without the disguise with me by your side, it will send a message of trust and openness, which is something we need right now.”
“That makes no sense,” Rouhr groaned.
“It’s politics! Of course, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s an intricate dance. I know the steps. You don’t. So, a little trust, please?”
“A dance? Was that another idiom?” He cracked a smile. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“No, that’s a metaphor. You’ll figure it all out eventually.”
He shut off the disguise, and I followed him down the corridor.
“Besides,” I muttered to myself, “I like your red and scaly glory.”
Together, we made our way to the ground floor and then to the outside of the ship. I was surprised to see Fen, holding the Gateway in her hands. It amazed me that a little black sphere could open up the whole of space.
“I’ve asked Fen to come along.”
“Oh, so you have no problem dragging her through an experimental rift
opening?” I joked.
Rouhr chuckled. “It’s not my fault that she’s the only who really understands how to use the Gateway.”
“I find it hard to believe you didn’t have something to do with that, too,” I teased. “But it’s good that she’s coming. I believe we can use the Urai’s sonic barriers in the negotiations.”
“Ready to head out, General?” My attention snapped to a small team of strike team members, including Axtin and Daxion, standing at attention and armed to the teeth.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They’re coming, for insurance purposes,” Rouhr explained.
“No, they aren’t. How is anyone supposed to trust us if you bring in more weaponry than Glymna has in its entire city? They’re academics, remember?”
“You can’t expect me to go in without backup.”
“You’re going to send the wrong image,” I insisted. “Do you want this to work or not?”
After a long moment of consideration, Rouhr sighed heavily. “I really hope you’re not wrong about all this,” he muttered to me before addressing his crew. “Change of plans. You’re all dismissed.”
A murmur of confusion rippled through the assembled team.
“Uh, yes, General.” Axtin nodded. The team dispersed slowly, as if they were expecting to be called back at any moment.
“Go ahead and open a rift, Fen,” Rouhr instructed.
Fen nodded and pressed on the sphere. In front of us, a bright white strip of light appeared. It grew wider and wider until I could clearly see the entrance to the city of Glymna on the other side.
Rouhr took my hand in his and lead me to the rift. He stepped through first, then pulled me through once he was sure it was safe.
Fen followed behind and closed the rift when she was through.
“Looks like you were all worked up over nothing.” I gave Rouhr a gentle shoulder nudge.
“Is holding hands part of the dance?”
I’d forgotten our hands were still intertwined. “Not the political one.” I bit my lip and released him from my grip. I must be more flustered than I thought, saying something like that aloud.
City officials quickly gathered at the main gate of Glymna. Some drew their blasters, while others just stared at the three very different beings approaching their city.