by M. D. Cooper
Isa had always known Martin was wrong, but she’d also known she could never have convinced him of the fact. Erin had seen the big picture more clearly than he had. Even though the invasion drill had turned her special event into a disaster, Isa also knew that Tanis was only doing what was necessary.
New Canaanites had lived under a false sense of security for years. Most of them had been in stasis during the Battle for Victoria and the Battle of Five Fleets in Victoria. Even many who had been awake had fallen into complacency in the utopia that was New Canaan. They’d forgotten that their enemies could return at any time.
Isa knew only too well that it was never safe to relax and let down your guard. That lesson had been drilled into her mind over and over again.
Martin had only seen Jude’s terror. He’d thought Tanis didn’t care. But the truth was she cared about them all. When the time came to fight for their lives and everything they believed in, they had to be ready. What was one person’s opening event, business, or even life compared to that necessity?
Jude giggled. Lost in her thoughts, Isa hadn’t noticed that he’d turned his attention from the spike on Government House to what was happening behind him.
He covered his mouth and said in an excited whisper, “Daddy and Mommy Erin are kissing.”
Isa glanced back again and said, “Yes, they are. Let’s not stare, huh?”
“OK.” Jude looked out the window and rested his head on her shoulder.
Canaan Prime had set. Heliopolis was ghostly grey. The Cradle was flickering to life. From the high hospital window, Isa could see beyond the city to the Sea of Marmara. She was looking forward to bringing Erin home, though the clifftop house had never really felt like home to her. It was beautiful, but she still missed the beach house and the simpler, easier life they’d led in Landfall. She wasn’t sure how long they would remain on Troy.
“There it is,” Jude exclaimed, sitting upright and pointing his small finger at the Government House spike, which was twinkling its many vivid colors. “It’s pretty.”
“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Isa said.
But prettiness wasn’t everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
STELLAR DATE: 05.29.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Marathon, Grecia
REGION: Athens, New Canaan System
The night on Athens was hot and sticky, but that didn’t matter to Erin when she was at a beach party and there was a limbo dancing competition going on.
It was her turn to get the drinks. When she went up to the bar, she was surprised to see a familiar, tall, beefy blond.
“Mikkail! What are you doing here? How come you aren’t on the Odyssey?”
“The same reason you’re here,” the bartender replied. “I’m on vacation.”
“But if you’re on vacation, why are you working?”
Was she slurring her words? Erin thought she might be slurring her words. She didn’t care.
“I’m not working,” Mikkail said. “I’m doing this for free. I just love mixing cocktails.”
“That’s great, Mikkail.” Erin stared at him intently. “Really great. People should do what they love, right? Now, take me. I love—”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Oh yeah. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Let me see.”
Erin scanned the list: New Canaan Cannonball, Pilot’s Challenge, Bob’s Fury, Davy Jones’s Soda, Silven Sunrise, AI Ale, Picobomb, White Dwarf, Syzygy, Hot Jets. There were so many. How was she supposed to choose? And she seemed to remember she was supposed to be getting drinks for Isa and Martin too. Only she’d forgotten what they ordered.
She asked Isa,
The dancing competition was in full swing on the sand. Marines on R&R were lining up to take their turn at shimmying under the low pole. The beat of the music was deep and insistent, and the Marines’ antics mesmerizing. Erin guessed she must have gotten distracted on the way over.
“I want one Galactic Overlord, one, er, Zero G, and I’ll have a…a…what’s an EVA?”
“Your brain leaves your body for a while.”
“Oh, maybe not. I better pace myself,” Erin said, though she suspected that the time for pacing herself had come and gone. “I’ll have a Warp Drive.” She held up a hand as Mikkail opened his mouth to speak. “I don’t want to know what it’s going to do to me.”
“I was only going to say ‘coming right up’!” Mikkail began to mix the drinks.
Erin turned away from the bar and leaned back, resting her elbows on it. The Marines were having a fantastic time. Like everyone else on Athens, they were wearing only the skimpiest swimwear. Usef was there in his thong. To Erin’s delight, he’d turned up on the final day of their vacation. He and Martin hadn’t been able to hold their surf-off, but that could wait for another time.
She didn’t think she would ever cease to be amazed at how different Usef was out of uniform compared to Major Usef. Plain old Usef was a total party animal. He’d already reduced his fellow Marines to laughing wrecks with his stories, and he was also in the line for limboing. Erin couldn’t imagine how he would ever contort his thick, muscular body into the shape required to get under the pole.
While she waited, she also took in the entire beach scene. The sea, the stars, the sand stretching into the distance. It was perfect, exactly like their vacation had been. She’d missed Jude, but she felt reassured that he was in Tanis and Joe’s care, where she knew no harm would come to him.
“Your drinks,” Mikkail announced.
He’d put them on a tray for Erin to carry. In their oddly shaped glasses, the drinks’ colors were a mixture of vivid and subtle hues, inviting and a little bit intimidating.
Mikkail pointed at one. “This is the—”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.” She grabbed the tray and set off, stepping slowly and carefully. Between the soft, dry, slippery sand, the easily overbalanced glasses, and her very slightly inebriated state, Erin wasn’t confident she was going to make it back to Isa and Martin without mishap.
Cutting a wide circle around the limbo spectators took Erin on the harder sand at the shoreline, where the waves reached her feet. For a moment, her mind flew back to her shock encounter with Tony under the Sea of Marmara on Troy. She gave a shudder and pushed the memory from her mind.
This vacation was all about forgetting such things, and they’d all done a great job of that.
“At last. What took you?” Isa asked when Erin arrived. “Hand them out. Usef’s limbo dance is about to begin.” She took a drink and handed it to Martin.
“Is this mine?”
“Do you care?” asked Isa.
“Not really.”
Erin dropped to their blanket on the sand at the edge of the dancing area. The Marines had already started up a chant, egging Usef on as he approached the pole, facing them.
The pole looked incredibly low. Erin wondered how he could possibly get under it. No one else had managed so far. She sipped her drink. It definitely tasted more like a Galactic Overlord than a Warp Drive.
Usef spread his legs wide and began to inch toward the pole.
“Stars,” Martin said, “that’s….” He was clearly at a loss for words, because he failed to finish his sentence.
Erin could see what he meant. Usef was only wearing a thong. The closer he approached the pole, the wider he spread his legs. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet in time with the beat of the music.
Isa shrieked with laughter. “I can’t look!” She covered her face with her hands and opened her fingers to peek through the gaps.
Erin guffaw
ed and nearly spilled her drink. She laughed so hard, tears squeezed from her eyes. For a moment, her vision of Usef was blurred until she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrists.
The Marines were chanting louder. “Go Usef! Go Usef! Go Usef!” They were making circles with their fists in the air.
Unbelievably, Usef had moved his knees under the pole. His upper body was almost parallel with the ground. The muscles of his chest and stomach were like iron. His legs were impossibly wide. He jiggled forward.
Isa shrieked again and fell into Erin, who was in no state to hold up her wife. Martin looked like he was in shock.
The extraordinariness of the feat that Usef was close to pulling off suddenly hit Erin. She put down her cocktail and leapt up.
“Go Usef! You got this! You can do it.” Her hands were in fists as she jumped up and down.
Usef’s thighs were under the pole. He bounced forward. The pole was over his hips. He turned his head to one side, ready to avoid hitting the pole with his chin.
“Gooooo Useffffff!” Erin shouted, rigid with excitement.
“Oooohhhhhh.”
A sigh of disappointment ran through the Marines. Usef collapsed onto his back, a look of good-natured resignation on his features.
“What happened?” Erin asked. “Why did he stop?”
“His back touched the ground,” Isa replied. “He’s way too burly for limboing.”
“Darn it.” Erin flopped down.
She was about to pick up her drink when Usef’s massive calves appeared in her vision. She looked up at him, blinking.
“Hey, Usef. Nice try. Next time, huh?”
He held out a hand to her. Confused, Erin took it. She found herself on her feet again without any apparent effort.
“Your turn.” Usef jerked his head at the limbo pole.
“Me? Nuh-uh. No way.”
“Go on, Erin,” Isa said. “It’ll be easy for you.”
Erin looked at the pole. The night was hot, the music was loud, and she was pretty drunk. The corner of her lip lifted in a smile.
“Do you think so?”
“I know so,” said Martin, grinning.
Erin thrust imaginary sleeves up her arms. “’Kay. Let’s do it!”
Usef stepped out of her way as she marched to the pole. A roar went up from the Marines. Someone turned the music up louder. Erin looked at the pole. All of a sudden, it looked much lower than it had from a distance.
What did I sign myself up for? Then she thought, Eh, if I make an ass of myself, who cares? Usef did it.
Erin spread her legs wide and started to bounce forward. The Marines were chanting again, and in amongst their shouts, she could hear Isa and Martin. She could do this. She knew it.
Erin bent backward, lower and lower. She opened her arms for balance. Her knees were at the pole. Then they were under it. She couldn’t believe it—all she had to do now was make the rest of her body as low as her knees.
The pole was at her thighs. She grazed it.
An ‘Ooooooh’ went up from the crowd, but the pole was holding.
Now for her hips.
Erin’s stomach was a ball of pain.
Erin would rather have had her AI’s analgesics.
The pole was over her chest. She turned her head to the side like she’d seen Usef do. Keeping her hands low, she bounced the last short distance.
She was done. She’d made it under the lowest pole that night.
Marines were yelling their congratulations and pounding her back.
Erin threw up her arms. “I did it!”
Usef was beaming at her, his arms folded over his great chest.
“Did I win?” she asked him.
“You did.”
“Yay! I won! I won! Do I get a prize?”
“You do,” he said.
“Fantastic. What did I win?”
“Come on, Marines,” said Usef.
He moved toward her, and the rest of the crowd of brawny men and women closed in.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Erin asked.
Hands grabbed her arms and legs. She rose into the air, supported by ten or twelve pairs of arms. She was being carried toward the ocean.
“What are you doing?” Erin asked, though she had already guessed. “Oh, man,” she said resignedly just before she hit the water.
It was a good thing they spaced out their vacations on Athens.
* * * * *
Tanis read the message again, and sat back in her chair, running a hand over her ponytail and tugging on it gently.
Angela didn’t reply, and Tanis rose from her desk, walking to the window looking out over Landfall.
Angela said after a moment.
Tanis wasn’t hopeful. She turned from the beautiful view of the planet she was trying to make into her home and walked back to her desk.
“Maybe.”
THE END
* * * * *
AFTERWORD
What a wonderful pleasure and privilege it’s been to return to the Aeon 14 universe. I’ve enjoyed following Erin, Martin, and Isa’s journey as they experienced living on Troy.
As I was writing the story, I stumbled across the word that describes our three main characters’ relationship: a throuple (as in a couple, but with three people), which was a fun discovery. I also had a lot of fun naming the throuple’s child. Jude wasn’t inspired by the famous Beatles song, however. I’ve always liked the name since reading Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.
The octopuses’ garden was totally inspired by the Beatles song.
Inspiration for Lindsey’s marine park came from one of my favourite films, Local Hero, where a young marine biologist and possible mermaid dreams of creating just such a site.
The idea for the pinnacle on Troy’s parliament came from Taipei 101, which spent a few years as the world’s tallest building and is visible from nearly everywhere in Taiwan’s capital.
The Island of Aeolia is reminiscent of Jules Verne’s and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories of expeditions to places cut off from the march of evolution, and the rainforest in the cave there is similar to the San Doong Cave in Vietnam. I’ve never been there, but I’d love to go.
Now I’m looking forward to writing Athens, the final book in the Building New Canaan series. It’s going to be a wild ride.
J.J. Green
New Taipei City, 2018
ATHENS
BUILDING NEW CANAAN – BOOK 4
BY J.J. GREEN & M. D. COOPER
THE MISSION
STELLAR DATE: 03.12.8942 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Prudence, 91 AU from Canaan Prime
REGION: New Canaan System, Transcend Interstellar Alliance
The engineer settled into a chair near the back of the Prudence’s aft enlisted mess hall, waiting for his friend to arrive. He preferred to think of the contact as a friend, though he really knew nothing about the other person.
Rather, I’m certain that everything I know about him is a fabrication.
Chief Kars was the friend’s name, and he was an effusive person, always going on about some new delight he’d discovered, and sharing it with others on the crew. Given the fact that Iysra’s fleet had been lingering beyond New Canaan’s heliopause for over a decade—with little rotation on or off—new delights were in short supply.
Someone had found an ancient song, called ‘Hotel Calypso’, that matched the feeling of the fleet. It was a mournful tune with a haunting reprise that said, ‘you can check out, but you can never leave.’
The engineer all but symbolized that feeling. He was totally checked out. But New Canaan and the colony being built there was top secret; the fewer people who knew that this was where the Intrepid and its crew had come to rest, the better.
And so, once you were assigned to Iysra’s fleet, you stood a very good chance of being in it for the duration.
“Hey! There you are!” Kars roared his greeting as he sat across from the engineer, immediately dropping a small device on the table that would allow them to establish an undetected point-to-point link.
The engineer was passably good at maintaining two conversations, but Kars’ nature masked any inefficiencies in his partners.
The newcomer began to talk about a new sim he’d managed to get smuggled in, and how it was perfect for killing time between shifts. The engineer nodded along, asking periodic questions and doing his best to look interested.
Which he was—in the real conversation taking place over the Link.
