He kissed where I pointed. “And maybe some over there.” Another kiss. “And, um, yeah, there too. You should check there, just to make sure. And the other side when you’re done with that one.”
I reached for him, pulling his pants down with the same enthusiasm he’d had when he’d ripped my dress. He moaned when I grabbed him, and the sound of it made me moan too. Sam was in my mind with me, knowing what he was doing to me and how he was making me feel. I guided him and he guided me. What a pale thing it must be, making love without being linked to your partner’s emotions. We became one person, no longer two people, but one.
Sam’s face was pressed against my shoulder when I started to become capable of coherent thought again. He was still breathing hard and his skin felt damp under my fingers with the sweat we’d worked hard to create. After a moment, he lifted his head and kissed me gently between my breasts. When he was done, he sighed, sounding happy all the way through, and flipped us over with me on top of him.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked.
I propped myself on my elbows to look at him. “That’s the first thing you want to say to me? Am I warm enough?”
He chuckled. “How about, “Wow, MD, you’re amazing?””
I put my head back down and started kissing and nipping at the skin on his shoulder. “Better, but you’re the amazing one.” I bit a little harder and I could feel his mind and his body responding to it. “I wish we had another hour.”
“Me too. Knowing that we’ll still be able to feel each other’s emotions is the only thing keeping me from going AWOL and running off somewhere with you. I don’t know how other people stand it.”
“I was thinking the same thing, and I’m sorry in advance for all the loneliness and heartache you’re going to be feeling from me.”
“I’ll take what I can get. It’s what will keep me alive until next time.”
“Next time. When will that be?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “Not soon enough.”
I looked at my watch and then lifted my head to see out of the windows. “We’ll be home in five minutes. You need to get your clothes on. Damn. I don’t want you to do that.”
I got off him and lifted the remains of my dress. “Good thing I brought my long coat with me. I don’t think this can be saved.”
“It served its purpose. You were the most beautiful bride in the history of brides.”
He had his shirt back on and was just getting his pants up when we arrived in front of the house. There was a black, heavy looking truck there with two heavy looking men with no necks pacing around it, waiting. They were armed.
“Friends of yours?”
“Yeah, part of our Marine detachment. You should wait here until I’m gone,” he smiled at me, “given your current state of undress.”
I looked at them, then back at Sam, thinking how unlike them he was. I smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss. “Trust me on this.”
I got out of the car first, bare feet on flagstone, one hand almost holding my coat closed, and the remains of my shredded, muddy dress in the other. I looked each of them in the eye, appreciating the shock I’d put them in.
“Gentlemen, please take good care of him for me.” I gave them my best bedroom smile and walked toward the house. I would have loved to turn around to watch, but that would have ruined the effect. Listening had to do.
“Damn, Coleridge. Who the hell was that?”
“Just a friend,” Sam lied.
“Well, shit. There Harkin and I were enjoying a cold beer when all of a sudden we’re in the middle of a firefight. In the meantime, you’re off somewhere for a roll around with a sweet little piece like that. Ain’t no justice in this universe.”
They laughed and I went into the house with a smile on my lips, knowing that my Samuel’s reputation with the hard crew of the Esprit Vengeur had just received a big boost.
CHAPTER 5
CHANGE OF PLANS
I stood in the shower for a very long time letting the water wash away the mud from the clearing where I was to have been married. It washed away the sweat from making love with Sam, and it washed away a few tears, but not many. I could still feel Sam, and I’d promised myself that he wouldn’t feel me falling apart now that the glow of finally being together was fading. I was trying to hold everything else back, at least for a few hours, at least until Winn and my parents were home and I had a shoulder or two to cry on.
Sharlot helped me find something to wear and gently asked me if I wanted her to replace the destroyed dress. I shook my head. “Another time, maybe.” I held it up in front of me in the mirror, smiled at the memory of Sam ripping it in two, and slid it into the recycler.
Marcus was in the kitchen fixing lunch for himself when I made it downstairs. He glanced up at me when I entered. “Nigella seeds, do you have any?”
I shook my head, not knowing what they were or why Marcus was in my kitchen.
“No matter. I think I’ve made enough salad for two, if you’d like to join me.”
“Why are you here?” I glared at him, angry, wanting nothing more than to be alone, or maybe with Winona.
He grinned back at me. “Alice’s phenotypes breed true. I’m here to keep you safe, of course. I don’t really care if you want me in your house or not. Your dad called and asked me to stop by in case someone was still looking for you. Now do you want some of this salad, or do I have to eat it all myself?”
I sighed, still glaring, and shifted my weight from one bare foot to the other. He was too big for me to try throwing him out, and I knew Sharlot would be on his side anyway. And something he’d said bothered me. I’d just spent the last thirty minutes in the shower. Was I not safe?
“It was Sam they were after,” I told him.
“Partially true.” He divided the salad into two bowls and handed one to me. “Ted called me when he wasn’t able to reach you. Hannah and Winona cracked the display pad they found on one of your assailants. Your boyfriend – or is he your husband now? Or just your lover? No matter. Samuel and the crew of the Esprit Vengeur were on the list. So were you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Sweet innocent Mala Dusa made the cut, but Hannah did not. I’m still trying to decide if there is a deeper meaning to that or just sloppy intelligence work on their part. You’re good, little clone, but Hannah is the most dangerous person in the Union. If they missed that fact, I’m not surprised they failed in their attempt to murder the lot of you.”
“What about Winona?”
“They missed her too. More evidence that they were incompetent.”
“They killed Father Ryczek.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
I followed him to the table and sat, tucking one leg under me. I tried a bite. I wasn’t hungry, but my stomach was grateful. “Thank you,” I pointed my fork at him. “This is pretty good.”
He nodded. “I’m told you took down a transformable using Hannah’s Makarov.”
I shrugged. “I was the only one with any slugs left. It’s not like I had a choice, not after what that woman had done.”
He was staring at me, unfocused and with a slight smile on his lips. I’d seen that look before. It meant he was seeing my real mom in his head. “I’m Mala Dusa,” I reminded him.
He blinked a couple of times. “Yes. Yes, you are. You look like Alice, think like your dad, and act like Hannah, at least when you’re pushed hard enough to overcome being Alice. Are you sure you won’t come back to Dulcinea with me? We make better starships than the garbage that comes out of Earth or Bodens Gate, ships like the new Esprit-class. You’d like it there; you’d fit in. And we don’t have any of those foolish RuComm contractual issues that are keeping you and Mr. Coleridge apart.”
“Sure, sounds great. Sign me up. What do you get out of this other than the deep satisfaction of maki
ng my life oh so much better?”
“I get a bonus for every Academy graduate I successfully recruit, and if I get you, Winona is sure to follow.”
“I don’t think so. She wants to be Hannah when she grows up.” I sighed, pushing the last salad bits around in my bowl. “I’m not even sure she wants to come with me on our first hop.”
The thought of not being with Winona overwhelmed me. How could I survive without my best friend? I’d come so close to losing her and Sam when we’d been attacked. And Father Ryczek was gone. The world felt darker just thinking about it. I wiped at my eyes, amazed to find that I was crying.
“Mala Dusa?”
I looked at him and I could feel my head tipping to the side. “Marcus. Why are you here?” I had trouble getting my eyes to track.
“I think you may still be in shock. Why don’t you lie down for a bit until your parents get here?”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I don’t think I’m in shock, but…” I looked at the tears on my fingers. “OK, just until they get here.”
He helped me to the couch and I closed my eyes. I could still hear everything around me, but I felt like I couldn’t move, not even to get my eyelids back open. I drifted.
A man’s voice was there a few minutes later. “Is she out?”
Marcus answered, “See for yourself. She can’t move, see, or speak. She’s out.”
“Good job. Remind me to never let you fix my lunch. How long?”
“Long enough to get her up there. Move her quickly and gently, understand? You’re not to harm her in any way. Remember, she’s not our enemy. And she’s my friend’s daughter.”
“Hey, no worries. We’re the good guys.”
“Right, keep telling me that.” He sighed. “Now pick her up and get out of here. The household AI has a bit of an attitude and I don’t think I can keep her blocked much longer before she finds out and electrocutes both of us.”
The other man laughed and then he picked me up. He smelled like old cheese.
I kept my eyes closed when I woke up, remembering the capture and escape training I thought I’d never use. I listened and tried to figure out where I was. I heard the ventilation system humming, cold air was blowing across my arms and face, and I was lying on something almost soft. I didn’t move and tried to keep my breathing slow and regular.
“Eh, bien, you’re awake.”
The voice was warm, friendly, with a slight French accent, but there was something not fully human in its purity. I opened my eyes. I was alone in a room three meters on a side, with the bunk I was lying on taking up a good chunk of it. There was a toilet and sink, no shower, and pale green wall plates with a desk built into an alcove. I rolled over and put my feet on ugly brown mottled carpet, my head pounding with each beat of my heart.
“Please, tell me where I am.”
“Please?” The AI sighed. “She said please. I think I’m going to like you, but I’m not sure you’re going to fit in with the rest of this crew. They never say please or thank you. It’s always ‘Storm, do this.’ ‘Storm, get me that.’ You seem nice.”
I was struggling to hold my head up, not feeling nice. “Where. Please. Am I?”
“Right, the effect of the drug. A stupid tradition, if you ask me, drugging recruits on their first day to initiate them into the service. But humans love tradition, and this service is long on secrets, double-crosses, and deception.”
I kept staring at the ceiling, one eye mostly closed against the pain.
“Oh, je m’excuse.” Her voice shifted slightly as she went into what was obviously a prepared greeting. “You are safely on board the Esprit Orageux. Welcome. I want to thank you for volunteering for this dangerous, but vital duty. Working shoulder to shoulder we will bring the Union back together and restore freedom to our people.”
“Volunteering? I didn’t volunteer, I was kidnapped.”
“Are you sure? I have your voiceprint on file. Marcus Wright made you an offer and you replied, ‘Sure, sounds great. Sign me up.’ That wasn’t you?”
My voice sounded slightly slurred in the playback, but it was me. My stomach tightened into one big knot. “Yeah, I said it. And I’m going to kill Marcus next time I see him.”
“Hmm. Perhaps you will fit in with this crew after all. They do a lot of killing.”
I could feel the deck plates thrumming under my feet. The engines were at full power taking us somewhere. Protesting now wouldn’t do me any good. Once a starship was at full thrust, there was no turning back. “OK, can you please remind me what the terms of my contract say? Just the highlights.”
“Of course. You signed up for an eight to ten-month hitch, depending on operational tempo. Due to the danger of the individual missions, you will receive double credit for meeting your Academy service obligation. In addition, and for accepting early recruitment, your current class standings will be recorded as final, and your commissions in RuComm and as a Second Lieutenant in the Union Aerospace Force are effective immediately.”
“That’s not bad,” I whispered. Double credit meant that I’d be two hops closer to being with Sam when this tour was completed. “What about pay?”
“You will receive a twenty-five percent differential for hazardous duty. That’s less than the Marine assault teams, but you’ll be staying on orbit with me when they go down into danger. Plus you’ll have a fifty thousand Interstellar Union Credit bonus waiting for you at the end of this hop if you’re still alive, payable to your beneficiaries if you’re not.”
I resisted the urge to ask her about my odds of survival. “What are my responsibilities?”
“To take care of me, of course.” She made it sound like now I was just being silly. “I am the eighth Esprit-class ship built at the Kalynda Yards on Paratore, Dulcinea’s smaller moon, and I belong to the Joint Dulcinean Defense Command. You will be under the jurisdiction of the JDDC Code of Military Justice while you serve on board me. I’m a variable mass design, built to be self-sustaining for up to four months without replenishment. I have two main drive engines, and two auxiliaries that are used for high speed maneuvers and to transit the DSH network.” She lowered her voice. “I really think you should take a look at my starboard aux as soon as you can, it felt funny on the way here, kind of like it wobbled or something. I’ll show you the diag metrics once you’re settled in your cabin.”
I turned around, looking at the ugly green walls and mud colored carpet. “I’d like to see my cabin.”
“You’re seeing it. And your office.”
“Great. How about a display pad? I left home kind of unexpectedly and I need to talk to my parents and Winona.”
“I am very sorry, personal communications are blacked out for the duration of our current mission, but if you mean Lieutenant Killdeer, she still sleeps.”
“Winn is here? On board? With us? Not back on Earth?”
There was a pause before she answered. “Yes, yes, yes, and no, not back on Earth.”
“Take me to her.”
“I’m sorry, tradition is that she be alone when she wakes up, I can–”
“Now. Take me now. You want me to look at your starboard aux engine? Then take me right damn now.”
She sighed. “I was so full of hope that you weren’t like the others, but you are.” My door slid open. “Follow the orange ball, Engineer Holloman.”
I stepped out into the passageway. “Storm? I’m not like that, I’m sorry. I’m scared, people tried to kill me earlier, and it’s just been a really busy day, you know? And Winona, she’s someone that means everything to me.” I patted the wall next to me. “I’m going to do my very best for you. Promise.”
The orange ball pulsed a couple of times, moving away from me and back again. “Thank you, petite âmie. So, are you coming or not?”
“Coming. Why do they call you Storm, anyway?”
“My sisters and I all have French names, but the current crew are mostly of North American ancestry and it hurts me to hear them trying to pronounce my given name. I am Esprit Orageux, a stormy, tempestuous spirit.”
“A good name for a warship.” God, I was thinking, how did I end up here? Something was stirring in the back of my head, almost like an answer.
The orange ball hovered in front of cabin 14 and faded away. I put my hand on the keypad and the door slid open. The cabin was ugly and small, the same as mine. Winona was beautiful, sleeping on the narrow bunk, hair a mess like someone had just dumped her there. I moved it away from her face, sat on the floor next to her, and kissed her cheek. She didn’t wake, but I could feel her emotions. She was calm, at peace, and floating somewhere happy.
“Thank you, Storm.” It came out with a sob that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“You’re welcome. It sounds as though you’ve had a busy day.”
“It has been. That’s right. That was it. Busy day. Merrimac,” I said it softly to myself, part of the memory opening back up, filling me and making it hard to breathe. I remembered how he’d been waiting for me and how I’d ended up sleeping on the floor. There was something there about the twisted future, but I couldn’t quite see it yet.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Just somebody else I think I may need to kill.”
“You’re very violent for an engineer.”
I shifted, leaning back against Winn’s bunk, getting comfortable for however long it would take for her to wake up.
“Who’s your senior engineer? Is it just the two of us or…”
“You are, and you’re alone. I’ve just made your day even harder, haven’t I?”
“It’s no matter. I think I’m past anything else being able to hurt me today.” I was feeling at peace now that I had Winona with me.
“I’ve reviewed your Academy transcript. I feel that I’m in good hands and I have no worries. We’ll get you up to speed quickly. I break a lot, but it’s usually nothing major.”
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