With that Admiral Thompson got up and walked over to me with a small dark blue box with the Admiralty HQ logo in gold on top. I stood up as they all did, realizing this was going to be something formal.
He handed me the box and I opened it. Inside was a Purple Heart. All three men saluted me. I began to tear. I couldn’t help it. I was speechless. They all returned to their chairs and I gradually sat down. I still didn’t know what to say. We were all quiet for a few moments. Then Admiral Boyce coughed and the Commandant pulled a set of orders from a briefcase he had beside him on the table. The briefcase was dark blue with the Admiralty HQ logo on the cover in gold. I had never seen one before. But I had heard about them. They were very rare.
“Cynthia, here is a set of orders for a special mission we would like you to accept,” the Commandant began. I realized they were bribing me. I took the orders and looked them over. They were very sketchy. I couldn’t tell where I was to go or what I was to do. Only that I had my choice of ships from the fleet and my choice of first mates for the mission.
“Commandant, Admirals, please, I have to think this over. A lot has happened on Caryna in the last few months and I have just started a family. I have to weigh the risks against that, sir. Is there anything else you can tell me about this mission?”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Admiral Royce began, “but the details are still classified. All I can say is your unique abilities and skills set were deemed essential to the mission’s success. Please let us know your decision as soon as possible.”
With that the men stood up and Admiral Royce picked up the briefcase. I presumed I was dismissed. An important mission that I was uniquely qualified for and they couldn’t tell me anything about it. Sounded scary as hell. And I was already planning our family. What awful timing! I had a lot to think about as I left that meeting.
I hitched a ride from an Admiralty courier ship and arrived back at Natasha’s condo in just a few hours. We prepared to leave Earth. The WitchCraft’s pod was standing by in the condo’s parking garage. We went down to the garage, got into the pod and left for the ship. I hugged and kissed Natasha for being such a good sport about this. She was going to make more money for doing this than she made in a year as a holo star. But I got from her attitude that she really was looking forward to the pregnancy. I think she identified with Caryn and I guess me too in some way. But she and her husband also had a secret. She was keeping it well.
One of the requirements negotiated by the Admiralty for sending their fleet to assist Caryna during the war was they wanted transfer of the three Parent ships which had assisted Earth into their possession. Caryn agreed, with a large cash exchange, assuring she would actually become the richest woman in the galaxy over time. She considered it a good investment, as she still had possession of 224 operational ships, the other few having been damaged by the Pirate fleet.
She made the men who had volunteered to man these ships her own system Star Fleet, with generous pay and land grants to them all in exchange for their loyalty and promise to serve until normal retirement age. She made sure that any young people who were qualified were sent to the Admiralty training center when it was rebuilt on Earth and they were always welcome. Eventually some returned to Caryna upon graduation and some ventured out on their own in the Admiralty fleet.
Months passed. Caryn and I had established a kibbutz type of family, with everyone sharing in the care of our children, the cooking, the replanting and everything else. It was an idyllic time as the planetary system was rebuilt. Day to day administration of the star system was turned over to an elected government and as the population grew to several million with three large cities and widespread outposts, it began to look like any other frontier star system. Most of the survivors of Last Chance decided to settle here and a thriving gambling resort was established on Caryna 5, apparently with the acquiescence of the Admiralty and the Frbylzks. We found out after a while that the humans paid protection to the Frbylzks, a peculiarly human habit.
Natasha was doing very well after four months. It was after all her third pregnancy during production, a record for a major star of a holo soap opera.
But eventually I knew the Admiralty would remember me and want their Captain back in the saddle. What I would do was a question that hadn’t been answered yet. I had visited the remains of the Silver Hornet. The Repair Station asked if I wanted to have her repaired and on a whim I said yes. I decided to contact the Admiralty and find out what they had in mind, assuming the mission was still available to me.
My specifications for the rebuild of the Hornet, or Sassy as everyone began to call her, were unique.
“Merlin, I was thinking, how would you feel about being combined with another ship?”
“I perceive your plan. You would like me to combine with the rebuilt Sassy. I am not against that plan.”
“Repair Station, can this be done?”
“It is possible. However we feel you must agree to have all the information about the Silver Hornet downloaded into the new ship,” the Repair Station said.
So I spent a few days in the Library on Caryna 4, recording not only the construction and performance details of the Silver Hornet, including everything Meph had installed in her, but also all my memories of the last few years as a human, including the terror of my capture as a spy by the Pirates. The Parents wanted to update the gold tablets and records in the Library and I was only too happy to cooperate.
I sent a message to the Admiralty that I would be ready to resume my duties in one year and that I had chosen a ship. I left the position of first mate open until I could discuss it in detail with Mike and the others. The Admiralty for their part was as secretive as Natasha, but we finally found out from her in her second trimester with my clone, what she was hiding.
“We have a surprise for you and Caryn. We hope this will please you both,” the Parents said to me one day out of the blue while we were discussing modifications to Sassy.
“What surprise is this?” I asked; in this case again it was the kindly older voice of Station 3. I was curious since they had never done anything behind our backs before. Caryn and I were playing with Kyla and the other children in a new playground near our house on the outskirts of the city that had grown up from the waste of the war. Caryn looked at me with surprise. I looked at her. We decided to sit down together on a bench and wait for this unexpected revelation.
“You may be aware that we saved the remains of Caryn’s body and placed a genetic sample with the same hospital on Earth as your brain sample. After discussion with Natasha, we decided that your clone, Cynthia, would best be served with a sister, so a clone embryo from Caryn’s genome and DNA was also created and implanted at the same time. Natasha is going to give birth to fraternal twin girls.”
We sat there, staring at each other as we received this message. I saw Caryn’s mouth open and close several times. I’m sure mine did too. This was an unbelievable shock! Twins. Us! The universe would never survive! We jumped up and began dancing around, singing, hugging, kissing, twirling; all the children on the playground stopped what they were doing and watched us in amazement. Slowly they came closer, wonder in their faces. They had never seen us act our physical age before. We began crying and laughing. Soon several of the adults attached to the children came near. We stopped and stood, just looking at each other, not seeing each other at all, but our children. Kyla walked up to her mother.
“Mom, why are you and Aunt Cynthia behaving this way? Are you okay?”
“Oh yes, Kyla! We are very much okay.” I answered, kneeling down to take her hands.
“My lovely daughter is going to have two younger sisters.” Caryn told her, also kneeling down in front of her. Kyla’s precocious face looked at us in great seriousness.
“Momma C, Aunty C, how can this be?” she asked us, puzzled and serious. She probably thought we were joking. She called us that when she was serious about something.
“Oh, it’s a long and hard story to tell, b
ut when you were saved, I didn’t know that my broken body was also saved by the Parents.” Caryn began.
I continued, “The same way I’m going to have a daughter, your mother is going to have another child and Natasha’s going to carry them both. They will be twin cousins and when they grow up they’ll look just like us. You are going to have twin baby sisters to play with.”
Kyla looked sad for a moment and pensive. Caryn spotted it instantly and knew what was troubling her beautiful daughter.
“Kyla, don’t fret. You will always be my first born, my oldest daughter. You are the child I have with Fred and that will always be special to me.”
Kyla brightened up, finally realizing that like many of the other children she played with, she was going to have a younger sibling. Two actually. She began thinking about that and ran off to tell her friends. Natasha came over to us and now that I thought about it, I saw that she might indeed be pregnant with more than we thought. Caryn and I hugged her and showered her with kisses. It was a day I’d remember for my entire 1000 yearlong life.
We told Fred and Mike when they got home in the Falcon two days later. We didn’t want to discuss it over the comm system and distract them during their mission though the surprise was almost bursting. The starship base on Caryna 5 had become an Admiralty base and Harry, the Commandant from Caryn’s old base on Hamarabus, had asked to be stationed there to open it up and run exploration missions for the Admiralty. (And I suspected to also keep a close eye on Caryn and me for them.) I knew the time was not too long away that I was going to have to go back to work and he knew what my mission was going to be.
But for the mean time we all took care of Natasha and our embryos as they grew. I suspect Natasha had second thoughts when she was being too well cared for by us, but her husband kept her spirits up and the holo station’s film crew set up shop in town and began preparing for the next season, which would include “Caryn’s” double birth.
I checked in on the rebuild of Sassy from time to time and kept myself filled in on the systems that were being installed. It helped keep my mind off the problem I was going to have when Natasha gave birth. How could I continue my career and care for my daughter too? For that matter, I decided I had to have a long talk with Caryn, Fred, Natasha and her husband and of course Mike, about this family stuff.
“Caryn, I feel torn. I want to be a mother in the worst way, but I’m also itching to get back in the saddle as a Scoutship Captain,” I opened one sunny morning in the grassy back yard under a large umbrella.
“So I know I can’t do both. I can’t have a kid running around the new Sassy while we’re on a mission,” I continued. I was really worried. No one was willing to talk to me from the admiralty about the proposed mission unless I agreed to go, and it was undoubtedly extremely dangerous, perhaps life threatening.
“Oh sis, you are really in a pickle, aren’t you? What is it? You want to find an abandoned star system and claim it like I did?”
“Of course I do!”
“Well, it’s not my choice, of course sis but I would say you shouldn’t worry so much about it. The one thing I think is not in doubt is that your child will get all the love everyone here has to offer.”
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The others had it all worked out; they just hadn’t remembered to tell me their plans.
Chapter 22.
Revelation
Mike and Fred brought the Falcon to roost in the new Admiralty base and Caryn and I were there to meet them. We were bursting with so much to tell them, that when they joined us in the debriefing room our non-stop talking confused the heck out of them. They finally just started laughing uproariously. Caryn and I stopped and stared at them. We couldn’t figure out what they were laughing about.
“You two are just like a couple of sisters,” Fred said between giggles. Mike nodded.
“But we are sisters, you numbskull!” Caryn retorted. Mike laughed again and hugged her.
“Of course you are. But you two are so beautiful and different and ageless, that it’s hard to think of you as sisters,” he blurted out.
“Why don’t you both collect yourselves and tell us what’s on your minds, at human speed?” Fred said.
Caryn and I looked at each other and grinned. Then we grabbed our respective man and gave him a big kiss. Then I nodded to Caryn and she started the dialogue. I mean, technically I was now older than she, because I was reborn first. But she was and will always be my older sister, so she got to go first.
“You guys know that Natasha is again pregnant, thanks to Cynthia.”
“Yes, we heard. Congratulations Cynthia!” Fred said. “And congratulations to you too, Mike,” he added. Then Caryn dropped the bombshell.
“There is another baby coming. Natasha is going to have twins.”
“I didn’t know you were planning twins, Cynthia.”
“I wasn’t, Mike. This is something the Parents decided without my help. But I’m not going to have twins, actually.”
Fred said, “Then who’s going to have twins? You say Natasha has two babies inside, right? So is the other one hers?”
Caryn got up close to Fred and said in a silky voice, “No lover, it’s mine.”
“Whoa!” Mike exclaimed and stared at the two of us. “Are you telling me, I think this is what you’re telling me, that there are going to be two more McDowell girls – they’d have to both be clones! Is Natasha going to have a clone of each of you?” He and Fred stepped back a little, not very much though and stared at us. Or more exactly, they examined us, to make sure we were serious and I think to get the idea of what four of us around would look like.
“That’s right, Mike,” I soothed, stepping up close and petting his face. “The Parents salvaged Caryn’s blasted body, at least enough to put genetic material into the top cloning facility on Earth and at Natasha’s request they implanted her with it along with my clone. She’s going to have another Caryn and Cynthia, or whatever we all decide to call them.”
Fred chimed in quickly, “Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 I’d call them.”
We all laughed and walked arm in arm to the WitchCraft’s pod to take it home. When we got there Natasha and her husband were with several of our neighbors, Kyla and the assorted children and there was a big bar-b-q going in the yard. We dug in and helped finish the meal preparations and then all sat down at the large picnic tables Natasha’s husband had built. He was handy with tools and they were like traditional picnic tables, with native wood that was reddish colored and everything. We ate and chattered and had a great time. When everyone was about finished the fragberry pie was brought out and there was real whipped cream on top from the newly set up dairy. It was just like I remembered, oh, from before I became a space ship. I decided it was time for me to voice my worries and get it all out in the air.
“Look, Caryn, Natasha, I have a quandary and I don’t know how to solve it. I want to be a mother and I want to continue my military career and I can’t do both.”
I looked from one to the other. They looked back, serious at first, then they couldn’t contain themselves and they broke out laughing.
“What?!” I asked. “Why are you laughing? This is serious!”
Caryn spoke up first. “Oh Cynthia, we figured that out as soon as we found out your clone was going to be born. It’s all arranged.”
I must have looked dumbfounded. They already figured it out?
“Yes dear Cynthia,” Natasha chimed in. “Caryn and I are going to share your mothering duties. All of us, even the men, will be caring four your daughter and Caryn’s daughter as if they were our own, which in a way they will be. We’re going to be one big happy family and they will be the best of friends and cousins too. Fred and Mike will be their fathers and they will have the best of all our worlds. Not to mention being the richest children in the galaxy.”
Caryn smiled and hugged and kissed Natasha and her husband. Then all of them came over to my side of the table and hugged and kissed m
e in turn. I felt very loved at that moment.
The evening went along and it was a very happy day and night for me and I think everyone else. Even Kyla, who had grown used to the idea of having two sisters, even enthusiastic about it, was hopping up and down with the other children.
“Don’t worry sis, we’ll keep you up to date on everything,” Caryn said.
“That’s right. I’ll let you know how the babies are doing, and if you miss the birth, I’ll make sure the Parents relay pictures,” Natasha added.
Fred grabbed Caryn and they took Natasha to Caryn’s pool. Mike took my hands in his.
“I’m going to miss you, darling. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I’m just worried, not knowing what this super secret mission is going to be.”
Cynthia- Empress of the Stars Page 14