by E L Strife
Walking up to the serving window, she set Kios’s feet back on the floor.
A blond woman in a white apron leaned forward. “Hello, Shepherd Kios. Hungry?”
“Yes, ma-ma—”
“Ma'am,” Atana corrected.
“Yes, ma'am.” Kios grabbed the edge of the counter, trying to lift himself higher on his toes.
The woman smiled. “Still eating light?”
Atana nodded. “Banana and a bowl of yogurt and granola today, plus some extra strong Marusa, please.”
The server disappeared into the kitchen.
“Sahara?” Kios traced his reflection in the polished steel then looked up at her. “Can I like more than one kiatna?”
The woman slid a loaded tray out on the counter with a vacant smile.
Atana thanked her and summoned Kios to an isolated table along the window wall. Sitting, she patted the bench beside her. I don't see why there has to be a limit, Kios. “Command does not allow us to like or dislike anyone.” Scooping up some yogurt in a spoon, she held it up to his mouth.
He stuck out his bottom lip.
“You must eat.”
His big starry-night eyes peeked at her. “Why are you not eating?”
She sighed. “It's complicated.” Taking the banana, she peeled it and sliced it into rounds.
Kios climbed into her lap. “Adults say compti-caled a lot. Then they tell me no. I hate that word.”
Startled, she leaned back and watched him finger his clothing as if he still wasn’t sure what to make of it. “I don’t like it either,” she admitted.
The boy picked up a piece of banana and held it before her lips. “Eat with me?”
“Sergeant Atana.” A man sat beside them on the bench. The silver cording and UP shield pinned to the chest of his navy dress jacket were as familiar as his war-wrinkled face. The commander of Space Station Hope slid a tablet in her direction.
Atana coaxed Kios’s hand away from her mouth and looked up. “Sir, what are you doing on the surface?”
“I’ve been meeting with Command to discuss preparations and countermeasures. We’re also having trouble communicating with the main gate when the collectors need to enter. They’ve been sending a few environmental systems haywire in the bays. We’ve also had to initiate mechanical locks for each spacecraft because of disrupted gravity assists. Since you’re here, I wondered if you could take a look at the system.” He smiled at the boy. “Hello, little shepherd.”
Kios stared blankly at the man, the slice of banana squishing in his fingers.
“Kios, please eat.” Atana wrapped an arm around the boy while swiping through the logs on the screen.
“He is the one you rescued from Agutra?”
“Yes.” She scoured the error reports and found a mismatch in the code translation. Two languages with different formats made for a high probability of error. “Suanoan code is top right to bottom left. Tanner just learned this last week, sir. Please, don’t reprimand him.”
“Understood. Is the boy joining UP? Has he seen the instructors yet?”
“I’m still trying to get him to eat.” She lifted her head to give Kios a pointed look. He promptly shoved the banana in his mouth.
“Command has determined you are to be his instructor?” Commander Lee asked.
More than his instructor is what she wanted to say, felt like she should say, but couldn't. Kios wasn't an average child. He had to be protected by those capable. Her arm tightened around the boy. “Self-designated due to complicated, individual parameters.”
The man lifted his chin in acknowledgment. “I heard about him a day or two ago, the clairvoyant one. You would be best suited.”
Not wanting to get into the details of Kios’s situation, she reworked a few of the operational codes with conflicting frequencies. “This should solve your problem with the Linoan collectors accessing star-side docks. As for the internal programming for maneuvering inside, you must talk to Azure. We will need to manufacture insulators to keep certain languages separate until we can align everything. It could be the collector propulsion pulses are knocking out the gravity assists. He’ll know.”
“Thank you for your time, sergeant.” The commander collected his tablet and stepped away from the table, then stopped. I don’t know how to find him.
“He will be in maintenance bay C in about an hour,” she replied. “Kios, banana.”
Commander Lee nodded to himself and walked off. “Telepath—right.”
Atana lifted the mug of spicy Marusa tea to her lips and took a long sip watching Kios play with the fruit. He dropped it and stared out the windows at a large, smooth creature idling by.
Picking up a slice of banana Kios hadn't turned to mush, she tossed it in her mouth to model the behavior as leaders were supposed to do. But she’d never been an instructor, and she’d never led a crew for more than a few weeks. “Food first, then we'll go look at the dolphins, okay?”
Brushing the bangs from his forehead, she smiled, content to see him sitting on her thigh. It was a far more enjoyable sight than his curled up body, beaten over a soggy Hatoga roll. Bananas were safe to him. They resembled a Jesiar blossom of his home sector, slender with petals which opened to a yellow fruit inside.
Scooping the spoon into the yogurt, she gestured it to his mouth.
Kios whined and hid his face against her shoulder. Catching heads of other shepherds swiveling toward them in the lunch hall, she felt her cheeks burn. Straightening him on her lap, she looked him in the eyes. “Granola like Hatoga mok. The pink, cold stuff is strawberry yogurt. Fruit, like brocanip, and cream.” Then she realized the problem. Agutrans didn’t have milk. “It’s like—what miima feed amiimii.”
“Miima feed—” Kios looked at her chest then back up at her face, pointing to himself. “Amiimii?”
Kios was more of a child than a baby, but she agreed, hoping it would be enough to get him to try it. She gestured the yogurt again. He opened his mouth and let her feed him. His eyes widened as he chewed and swallowed, bobbing his head.
He took the spoon from her hand and eagerly ate.
“Good, Kios.” She looked at the sliced banana. Beneath the stress, Atana admitted she was hungry. Raising a hand, she flagged down a shepherd through the kitchen window. The young man hustled out.
“Can I get another tray, same thing, with some cheese? I’d do it myself, but Kios is finally eating. I don’t want to move.”
“Kios?” The shepherd looked between her and the boy. “Yes, ma’am. Anything you want.” He smiled and headed for the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder. “Maybe Rio will let us get some work done.”
Her lips fell open in shock then curled in reverence. She rested her mouth to Kios’s temple, grateful he was consuming something substantial. He played hard and crashed harder. Rio didn’t mind watching him because the boy slept so much. But Kios was alarmingly thin, his hair dry. But his scent was a clean-sweetness she couldn’t get enough of.
The Suanoa, Verros, or UP’s Instructors—it didn’t matter. They’d have to take her life before they took his.
Chapter 18
BENNETT BROKE the silence between them when Azure wouldn’t stop glaring. They didn’t have time for petty arguments. “I understand you two are together. And we might be from different planets and species, but she is of both.”
“You don’t understand our bond.” Azure rubbed a temple in irritation.
Bennett’s gaze unfocussed, falling on the other side of his room. He couldn’t tell Azure he already knew the answer. He forced out a gust of air, squeezing his heating fists. “Kios needs a stable father figure.”
Part of Bennett wanted Azure to say it, to tell him to leave her and Kios alone, so he could go back to being grumpy and miserable, go back on the serum. He'd steal it from Rio's office if he had to. Bennett stood up from his bed. “And you two have already slept together.” It was more or less an assumption based on the man’s defensive behavior.
Azure’
s eyebrows knitted. “We sleep together every night, as mates should.”
Mates— The term spiked a bitter disgust for the man. “So you’ve fucked,” Bennett snapped, trying to hide the pain of his realization beneath anger.
“Yes, when we were young,” Azure defended. “We haven’t had time or energy since we’ve been back together. Besides, I see shepherds sleeping on one another in the bays all the time, even you two. Why do you say this like it is a bad thing?” Azure asked.
“Co-shepherd bonds are for tactical effectiveness and survival. We call it restoration. Clothes, gear, guns, everything stays on. Mated, had sex, slept together, they mean the same damn thing in Ranimi.”
Ranimi? Confusion contorted Azure’s broadly carved face. “Where’d you learn that word for English?”
“I-I don’t know,” Bennett replied impatiently. He’d said it without thought.
“Warriors honor matches for life,” Azure continued, clearly not ready to let the matter go.
Bennett struggled to calm his racing pulse and cut down the sharpness of his tone. “She’s only half Xahu’ré.”
Azure paced an angry circle and threw his hands to the sides. “I— I know!”
The way the man’s eyes darted back and forth, Bennett could tell something ate away at him, guilt of some kind. Azure stalked toward Bennett, thrusting a finger the direction Atana had left. “Her memory was all I had to keep me from falling apart up there. I have thousands of lives relying on me. Our bond is unbreakable. I need her in a way you wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right. I wouldn’t understand,” Bennett sneered. “Because I respect her more than to let my desires hinder what’s best for her.”
Azure’s upper lip curled. “You defend her like a mate.”
“Yes,” Bennett hissed, glaring back at him.
“You have not—”
“No.” Bennett snorted. “Mating is forbidden for shepherds. No love, no families, no sex, no friends. Just work.”
The fire in Azure’s eyes sputtered out. “It’s not? But Hyras said—”
Bennett growled in disbelief. “Hyras is not Command. He is one man!”
“We’ve been ituuvia since we escaped from Testing. She didn’t remember.” Azure gestured the location of her scar. “It is a sacred bond. It must be respected.”
Dredging his tensed fingers through his hair, Bennett groaned. “You don’t get it, do you? It’s not okay because of tradition, or because Hyras or Command says so. You saw the way she ran out of here! Now is not the time to be putting this pressure on her. But you better damned-well ask her first.”
Azure squared his shoulders, his voice deepening. “I tolerate you two interacting. But hurt her in Ether again, and I will not hesitate to gut you with the crudest knife I can find.”
Bennett’s veins filled with liquid fire. “You don’t get freedom from my watch because you two have fucked. You are on our planet, under Shepherd Law. You will stop interfering with her duties, and you will let her do whatever she must for internal peace. Or so help me, Universe, I will burn your cocky gray ass to the ground.”
Azure was a fuming sapphire now, his chest rumbling with an animalistic growl. “She is my mate.”
“And she’s my co-shepherd, my partner,” Bennett seethed. “I am bound to protect her life with mine and will gladly give it to protect her from any source of pain.” Including you.
…
Retreating was abnormal for Atana, but she backed up and reached for the door. Bennett and Azure stood toe-to-toe, fists clenched, muscles bulging.
“Sahara showed me what a doll-pin is!” Kios rejoiced, making Atana cringe. “They are beautiful! They live in the water like starfish.”
Seeing the men look from each other to Kios, their furious expressions relaxing, she let go of the door handle. “Doll-fin, Kios,” she corrected.
“Doll.” Kios bobbed his head, his fingers curling with his focus. “Fin.”
“Good job.” She scanned between the two quiet men who shifted uncomfortably. “Are we interrupting?”
Bennett drew in a deep breath and looked away.
Azure forced his fists open. “We are quite done.”
Setting Kios’s feet on the floor, she pointed him across the room. “There’s a vacuum in the closet. Go get it, and I’ll show you how to clean up all these feathers.”
“Awe, do I have to?” he whined.
“Yes, Kios.” She knelt before him. “You need to understand you are responsible for your actions. The universe has one main principle, called equilibrium, and always tries to maintain everything in equal amounts, like work and play.”
Kios looked toward the closet, his nose scrunching in disgust.
“Hey.” Atana squeezed his shoulders, regaining his attention. “Because you chose to play last night, today you must clean up the mess you made. It’s how things work.”
“Why doesn’t he have to help me?” Kios looked at Bennett.
“Did he help make the mess?” she asked.
Kios nodded.
“Then Sergeant Bennett does need to help clean up.” Atana slid Bennett a covert grin. Don’t you, Jameson?
Bennett’s eyes smiled at her, but his lips didn’t move.
Kios bounced on his feet. “Can I call him jam-es-uhn too? I like that name.”
“You need to ask him, Kios.” Atana tilted her head toward Bennett, who knelt to the boy.
“Sure, little man. You can call me whatever you want.”
The boy’s hands clasped together in hopeful anticipation. “Miipa?”
“I haven’t learned Xahu’ré yet, buddy.” Bennett warily inspected her.
Kios latched on to her side, almost knocking her over. “Miima, can I have two miipas? Please?”
Two? Atana stuttered in shock. Miima? She graced his cheeks with her fingers, searching his eyes. They looked as intent as ever, awaiting her response. “Why are you calling me this?”
Kios’s shoulders dropped as if he thought it was obvious. “Miima is warm and nice. You make my tummy not hurt.” His fingers brushed the skin on her neck, where her Xahu’ré stripes hid during the day. “You are different, same as me.”
She wrapped her arms around the boy and buried her nose in Kios’s charcoal hair with a kiss. Nothing else made sense.
“Translation, please?” Bennett asked.
Azure grumbled. “It means father.”
“Then Miima means—” Bennett beamed at her from where he knelt on the floor.
“Mother,” Atana whispered, with a doting smile, swiping the bangs from Kios’s forehead with her fingertips. She picked up a feather and drew it over Kios’s nose. The boy’s face scrunched as he shied away from it.
“You two must’ve had a good time,” she said. “This is a Class E Disaster Area.”
Bennett hid a chuckle behind a fist. “Did you just make a joke?”
Her eyes wandered the ceiling before she let out a stunned laugh. “Possibly.”
Bennett blew a feather Kios’s direction then turned to Azure. “Kios needs those of us capable of handling his strange skill set to show him how to respect it and channel it, whatever it is. I say, the more support, the better.”
Weighing the tension between the men against the benefits for Kios, she agreed with Bennett. “I would like us to stick together.”
Azure pursed his lips, grunted, and looked away.
Taking one of Azure’s dangling fingers in hand, Kios regained his attention. The two stared at one another for a long time as if having a private conversation.
After a long sigh, Azure nodded. For Kios.
Chapter 19
PARAMOR JOLTED awake on rumpled cloth. Dust and ash swirled across the ground stirred up by his breath. A pang in his stomach thrust blood into his face. Something horrific was unfolding on the surface of Earth, threatening Sahara’s people. He’d seen it in his dreams. Rushing water. Explosions. People running.
He shifted in the hollow between the
rows of the Jesiar fields—his makeshift bed. His responsibility was to the kiatna of Agutra. Paramor could do nothing for her now.
“Are you all right?” a timid voice asked.
Long white dreads swung across Paramor’s vision. He pushed himself up, struggling to straighten against the gnawing hunger in his belly. Few crops remained to feed the survivors. All the supplies from Earth he sent to the workers, not willing to take anything for himself.
“I must travel to see Miush.”
The Yvinna boy Paramor had come to know as Woti, helped him don his cloak with gaunt arms. “Shall I call Rimsan to walk with you?”
Paramor waved a kind hand for him to return to his work. “I will be fine.”
The red quills on another boy’s head spiked like ears catching a sound. Ekiipa, the one who couldn’t speak, changed bandages on workers who lay in the scorched field where Paramor’s hut once stood. He swiveled and pointed.
Indigo light moved between the bushes, and Rimsan stepped into the opening. A fist over his chest, Rimsan bowed to Ekiipa, then Paramor. “I will escort you to Miush.”
Rising to his feet, Ekiipa returned the gesture and drew the Warruk’s weapon from his back. Woti stepped in to finish the bandages.
Paramor turned and lumbered out into the fields, their lead guard following at his side. Every step on the hand-tilled dirt sent a painful jolt through his broken wings. “You do not trust the halls to let me go unaccompanied?” he asked Rimsan.
“We have lost sight of a Linoan crew.” Rimsan vigilantly scanned the fields as they walked. “I cannot spare the few capable guards we have for a sweep, sir. And we do not have enough left for a full team to walk with every Healer and Saema, or I would not be alone at your side.”
Paramor held a hand toward the ground feeling the greenery as they passed into the living fields. The firmness of the leaves and vines suggested the Jesiar bushes were recovering. “You are doing a fine job, Rimsan. Being the Lead Guard is not easy.”
