by M. D. Cooper
He’d thought it was only one of the marine park’s exhibits, but apparently it wasn’t. The creature had some amount of intelligence, which meant he could communicate with it. In that case, he still had a chance.
Tony’s hope plummeted. They’d set the damn octopus as a trap. But even uplifted, it was only an animal. He was sure he could persuade it to let him go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
STELLAR DATE: 05.27.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Heliopolis, General Hospital, Ithaca
REGION: Troy, New Canaan System
Isa and Martin each held one of Jude’s hands as they walked along the hospital corridor.
“Which room is Mommy Erin’s?”
“Three more doors to go,” Isa replied.
Jude’s grip tightened on her hand. “One…two…three!” He wriggled his hand free and raced into the room. “Mommy Erin!”
When Isa reached him, he was trying to climb onto Erin’s bed, but he was too short to make it. Isa bent down and kissed her wife, who was propped up on pillows.
“Is it OK to lift him up?” she asked.
“Sure,” Erin replied. Her new arm was propped on a support.
Isa picked Jude up and put him by Erin’s side. He scooted up close and hugged her, planting wet kisses on her face.
“I missed you, Mommy Erin.”
“I missed you too, sweetheart.”
“And I missed you as well,” Martin said, leaning over his son to also kiss Erin.
“Did you bring my clothes?” she asked.
In reply, Martin placed a bag on her bed.
“Are you sure you’re ready to come home?” asked Isa.
“I am. I don’t want to stay here longer than I have to. My arm’s working fine. I’m only resting it because the doctor told me to take it easy for the first couple of days.”
“I guess it isn’t very nice here,” Isa said, imagining that Erin’s experience staying at Heliopolis’s hospital probably reflected her general experience of Troy.
“It’s OK, actually. The staff is great.”
“They are?” said Isa. “Are they Trojans?”
“As far as I can tell. And not an asshole among them.”
Isa chuckled and Erin joined in.
“Am I missing something?” asked Martin.
“I’ll explain another time,” said Erin. “Did you see Usef as you came in?”
“We didn’t,” Martin replied. “He was here?”
“He came to see me. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”
“He came to see you here?” asked Isa. “I thought he lived in Carthage.”
“He does. Said he happened to be here on military business, so he thought he might as well pop in and see how I was doing.”
“Awww,” said Isa. “That’s guy’s all muscle on the outside and pure mush in the middle.”
“That’s a good description of him, but I don’t think I’d tell him that to his face. He informed me that after my actions during the invasion drill and the attempted picotech theft, he’s taken me off his list of military sim-practice victims.”
“I said he was all heart, didn’t I?”
“Maybe he finally forgave me for disobeying orders during the SSS attack on Tyre.”
“About time,” Isa said. “That was ages ago.”
“I thought he might be here to pick up Tony, but Usef said he was already on his way to prison on Carthage,” Erin replied. “Tanis plans on finding out the truth about him. If he was using some sort of mental coercion on the politicians and folks like Pietr, then he’s a piece of human trash and will get the full punishment that the Phobos Accords allow.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that’s what he was doing,” said Martin. “Poor Pietr. His body was unrecognizable when they found him. I couldn’t understand why he would be going after the picotech. He was a nice guy. He had to have been under mind control. Think Tony was working for the Transcend somehow?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. “I thought Tony was a nice guy too.”
“He might not have needed mind control to orchestrate the secessionist uprising,” Isa said. “It seems to me like the Taranian faction of Trojans were ripe to be persuaded.”
“Maybe,” said Erin. “That’s another problem for Tanis to deal with, I’m happy to say. I’d hate to have her job, though I might enjoy extracting the truth from Tony.”
“Would you really?” Martin asked.
Erin made a disgusted face. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”
“That’s the difference between you two.”
“Hey, that isn’t fair. You don’t honestly think Tanis enjoys that kind of thing?”
Martin didn’t answer. He gave Isa a meaningful look.
“Jude,” she said. “Let’s go look out the window.”
“I don’t want to.” He had snuggled up to Erin’s side.
“Come on. The light on Government House will turn on soon.”
Jude reluctantly allowed Isa to lift him up and carry him across to the window.
Dusk was approaching Heliopolis and the white capital had turned sunset colors.
“Watch the spike, Jude. It’s going to start shining soon.” Isa glanced over her shoulder.
Martin had joined Erin on the bed, his long legs stretching nearly all the way to the bottom. He had taken Erin’s hand and was talking to her in a low voice. Isa knew what he was saying, though he hadn’t told her.
No one who had witnessed what Erin did when her son was under threat could imagine for a second that she didn’t love him with her entire, full heart.
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 wi
ndow 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’d 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 guffawed 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.
