Fortune's Folly (Outer Bounds Book 2)

by Sara King

  “Gee,” Joel said. “I’m feeling dizzy. Blood loss. Lack of food. You have any food in here, Jeanne?”

  “I said no, you can’t stay, you demented weasel!” Jeanne snapped. “Get out!”

  “You like platinum?” Joel asked. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good lead on some Coalition platinum they’re pulling out of the South Tear near the Bracketts’ old place. Good twelve tons of it.”

  Jeanne went quiet. Then, “Seriously?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “What heart?”

  “The one that’s already pounding at the idea of making you mine, baby.”

  “Joel, I think that was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard. You have a ship fetish, don’t you?”

  “Do I ever,” Joel said, grinning.

  Another long pause. “I can’t decide if I want to electrocute you, shoot you, or vent your bullshitting ass into space.”

  Joel reached out and patted the wall. “Jeanne, baby. Consider this love at first sight.”

  “I’ll shoot you. Always loved the gore from a good round to the head.”

  Joel glanced at the pilot’s seat, which was even then gore-spattered from a similar incident. “Uh…” he started.

  “Yeah, on second thought, I’ll just electrocute you.”

  “Look, Jeanne, it’d be fun!”

  “So would electrocuting you, Joel. You keep telling me you want to dance.”

  “Think of the things we could do together!” Joel cried. “Think of the fun you could have as we take to the skies together and I masterfully stroke your body into a perfect arc…”

  Jeanne electrocuted him.

  CHAPTER 16: The Uh-Oh Light

  22nd of May, 3006

  North Tear

  Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds

  When she wasn’t flying, Tatiana was a city girl at heart. She loved to paint her nails and flip through fashion mags and drink martinis in the local officers’ club while watching Nephyr beefcakes pick fights on the dance floor. The longer she stayed away from civilization, the more depressed she got. When Milar had promised her a safe place to stay at the end of a gajillion-mile, sweaty, bug-infested climb up a jungle mountainside, she had expected a nice cottage with lit-up windows and smoke coming out the chimney at the end of it.

  Seeing the tent that Milar intended to be their home, Tatiana just about broke down and had a kicking, squalling, fist-pounding tantrum right there on the rocky, wind-scoured slope. She compromised with a bawling fit in her true love’s arms.

  “But Tat, honey, we can’t go to an established town,” Milar told her again, because she obviously hadn’t heard him the first three hundred times. “They’re looking for us, and you stick out like—I mean we both stick out like sore thumbs!”

  Tatiana gave the tent a miserable look. Babe, because he found forlorn, sobbing women to be boring, had gone off to hunt craig-rats.

  “Besides, it’s got a nice view…” Milar gestured out for Tatiana to take in the sweeping, majestic view of the jungle and, in the distance, the jagged crack of the Tear. He looked more than a little uncomfortable. “Fresher air this far up out of the jungle.”

  Tatiana grunted, still sniffling from her earlier sobbing fest, when Milar had broken it to her that nobody else on the planet wanted to spend any time with her. He’d found a ship and called for help, but none of his old pirate buddies were willing to pick up the ‘psycho who’d taken out half of Rath.’ Even worse, she’d begun frying Milar’s electronics just by being near them. First his scavenged GPS, then the commset he’d taken from one of the fallen ships, then the screen on the super-high-tech sniper rifles he’d acquired, then the r-watch… All had experienced the same flash-fading followed by sudden too-bright surges, and then they had grayed out and simply stopped working. She could just imagine what she would do to a ship, which meant she was never going to fly again. Captain Tatiana Eyre. Grounded for life.

  They might as well have cut off her head.

  In truth, Tatiana was struggling against a total meltdown, which, in turn, thanks to demon-child’s experiments on her brain, would very likely kill Milar, who still hadn’t recovered from her mind-screaming on the dead hiveship, and was finding more and more reasons to hang out in the jungle away from her, ‘hunting.’ Because she was killing him just as inevitably as a Shrieker. Because she was a monster. A walking, talking, mind-reading monster.

  “And there’s less bugs up here…” Milar went on, oblivious. “You’ve got good reception, if you wanna tune to the station in Silver City…” Then he hesitated, obviously remembering that she had fried their only portable holobox during one of her tantrums. He cleared his throat. “I mean, as soon as I get some tech that wasn’t damaged in the crash and fritzing out on us, I’m sure you’d be able to watch Station 1—you like football? Station 1 does it all. Football, soaps, old movies…”

  A planet with only one holostream station. Welcome to the Dark Ages. Would you like to have head of pig for dinner, as well? Hell, maybe they would have her shitting in a hole and washing her face with a foamy root.

  “I dug a hole for your latrine out back, but until I can go get Patrick, I don’t have the time to build you a proper outhouse,” Milar continued. “There’s some homemade soap on the table beside the bed, though. Good stuff. There’s a plant that grows out by the western ocean that bubbles up real nice when you rub its seeds together.”

  Tatiana groaned and dropped her face into her hands.

  “I can get you commercial soap!” Milar cried, hurriedly putting a big hand on her shoulder. “Tat? What do you like? Lavender? Rose?”

  Tatiana waved him off. She still felt like crying, but she was more or less managing to keep it under control. They’re abandoning me out here, she thought, miserably thinking about all the people going about their daily lives on Rath or the Orbital, obliviously drinking their martinis and flirting with the local Nephs, having no idea there was a traitorous little operator stuck in the wilderness with a hole to poop in. She wondered what her mother would think of her now, huddling in a tent on a rebel planet, hiding from her own buddies because she’d shot her own teammates out of the sky to save a known criminal.

  “Hey now,” Milar said, reaching out to pull her close, mashing her face against his dragon-covered chest. “You’re gonna be fine, pumpkin. This is only temporary. Just until we can find some cure for what she did to you. I swear.”

  Tatiana could think of a pretty effective cure. She eyed the Laserats on Milar’s belt.

  Milar’s arms tightened on her protectively. “I sometimes get images of what you’re thinking,” he warned her.

  Tatiana grunted again, but let her eyes drift elsewhere. She couldn’t fly, couldn’t be close to other humans, couldn’t die…

  An ear-piercing shriek emanating from her chest interrupted that thought. “Warning,” her heart node suddenly blared. “Abnormal hormone levels detected. Please see a Coalition Space Force medic immediately. Code 2. This is a Code 2 Emergency.”

  Tatiana froze even as Milar grunted and pulled away from her in confusion.

  The alarm shrieked again. “Warning,” the node went on. “Abnormal hormone levels detected. Please see a Coalition Space Force medic immediately to discuss your contractual obligations and enlistment options. This is a Code 2 Emergency.”

  Tatiana swallowed and ripped open the front of her shirt. The Uh-Oh light was flashing red.

  “Shit,” she whispered. Her heart was suddenly hammering in her ears, and she was finding it hard to breathe, remembering the warning that Encephalon had given her before it died. “Shit.” In all the chaos afterward, she’d actually forgotten.

  Her big colonist was eying the node like he thought it might explode. “What’s that?” he asked, obviously ready to try and rip it out of her.

  “Warning,” the node repeated. “Abnormal hormone levels detected. Please see a Coalition Space Force medic immediately. Code 2. This is a Code 2 Emergency.”

/>   “Understood!” Tatiana roared, slapping her shirt closed over the node’s blinking light, terrified Milar would figure out what it meant, terrified she was about to be ripped apart on the inside as her tech made way for an exponentially-growing parasite.

  The node stopped blaring its alarm, but it continued to flash bright enough that it caught Milar’s eye through the fabric of her shirt. He lifted up a big, brutish finger and pointed at her chest, his mouth falling open. “Is that…?”

  “No!” Tatiana cried hurriedly. “No. It’s just a routine test. Is this Thursday?” She laughed nervously. “Yeah, they like to do it once a month on Thursdays, just to test the system.”

  Milar’s gold-flecked eyes lifted up to her face. “It didn’t say it was a test,” he said slowly. “It said it was a Code T—”

  And then Tatiana realized that, in preparing himself to meet a woman he’d been dreaming about for decades, Milar had learned everything there was to know about operators.

  “It’s faulty,” Tatiana babbled, hating the nervous jitter that her voice made as she said it. “That warning goes off like six times a week. I put in a ticket, but the techs are too lazy to get to it.” She couldn’t let the big brute know it meant she’d gotten herself knocked up. He’d want to do something stupid, like, oh, keep the child, maybe even fornicate some more to make sure it stuck. Damn it! How was she supposed to know the colonist floaters were too backwards to be on birth control?! What the hell kind of idiot didn’t treat his sperm?!

  Milar raised a single, unimpressed brow.

  Tatiana swallowed, heart pounding. “What?! It’s true!”

  “You realize I can hear everything you’re thinking, right?” Milar said. “You’re so worked up you might as well be screaming at the top of your lungs, sweetie.”

  Well…crap.

  “And to answer your question,” Milar said, “the kind that wasn’t expecting to have sex.”

  Oh. Right. The virgin kind.

  “Fuck me,” Tatiana whispered.

  Milar felt himself grin. “Anytime, princess.”

  Tatiana shoved him out of the way and started to pace. Her first response, knowing that they were definitely not going to have access to a pre-approved Coalition operator facility to remove the incompatible tech and guide her through the process, was anger. “You knew I was coming! How could you not treat your goddamn sperm, you colonist floater?!”

  Coalers are so spoiled with their fancy tech. He crossed his big arms over his even bigger chest like this was somehow her fault. “Coalition colonists’ breeding habits are regulated by the Encompate. They don’t let us use birth control until we’ve hit a population landmark of twenty million.”

  “You’re a rebel!” she screamed. “You could’ve found some!”

  “Sure I could,” Milar said, nodding agreeably. “If I wanted to spend a month’s wages to get a month’s supply.”

  “Stolen it, then!” Tatiana cried.

  “Pumpkin,” Milar said, “I had more important things to worry about than sperm treatments.” He held up a big, sexy hand. “Food, shelter, fuel, ammo, Coalition patrols, skinning Nephyrs…” …finding my soul mate, killing coalers, getting enough sleep… “I figured you weren’t worried about it, so you must’ve had things under control.”

  Ugh. Men. Tatiana remembered her fellow operators complaining about not being able to get any colonist ass because they didn’t want to put their enlistments on hold while they had some hairy, knuckle-dragging collie kid, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Milar—suave, dragon-tattooed, sunglass-wearing Milar—could get somebody pregnant. He’d been a virgin, for the love of Phage! How could a virgin get someone pregnant on the very first try?!

  Milar, who didn’t seem to be taking this seriously, grinned and said, “If you want, I can show you.”

  Tatiana spun around and jabbed her finger into his big, meaty chest. “This is not funny. We need to find a reset pill. Now.”

  Milar’s big grin just widened. “Yeah, coaler. Good luck finding those on Fortune.”

  Tatiana squinted at him. “Huh?”

  “Population controls,” was the entirety of Milar’s response.

  …which meant that the Encompate didn’t care if colonist women didn’t want to be pregnant. It was for the good of the galaxy and all that. Tatiana swallowed, hard. “I need to get back to the Orbital. Find me a doctor! Now.”

  “Really?” Milar asked. He was wincing and tilting his head to one side as if avoiding an extremely strong light. “’Cause it seems to me you’re not in a state to go waltzing into a populated area, sweetie.”

  Tatiana froze. “A state?” It was as if the world had come to a halt around her, leaving only the narrow, one-foot target that was Milar’s face still in focus. “And just what kind of state might that be, you colossal spawn of incest?”

  Milar blinked. She really doesn’t wanna be pregnant.

  “You think?!” Tatiana screamed.

  Immediately, he groaned and grabbed his skull. Aanaho, she’s gonna kill me.

  “You see the future!” Tatiana howled. “You knew this would happen!”

  “I didn’t!” Milar cried. “Please calm down, sweetie. I just got caught up in the moment—you know, a lot like you?”

  Tatiana could not believe that the floater could possibly think this was her fault, ever. “This,” she said, grinding her finger into his breastbone, “is your fault. You produced the sperm. You stuck it in there. You got me pregnant.”

  And she enjoyed every minute of it, Milar thought, grinning. Every single minute.

  “This is not some manly coup!” Tatiana cried. She jabbed his meaty chest again. “You need to find us a doctor. Bring him to me. Like, yesterday.”

  Milar froze. She wants to get rid of it?

  “Yes I want to get rid of it!” Tatiana snapped. “Go!”

  He stared at her in what looked like shock. “Why?”

  Tatiana squinted at him. “You’ve obviously not had the benefit of a few hundred briefings on how an abdominal parasite rips apart tech and plays havoc with nanos and lots of times simply dies because the placenta got attacked by patrolling bots.”

  “We’ve got doctors,” Milar insisted.

  “Are they nanotech-qualified, Coalition Space Force operator biomed specialists?” Tatiana snapped.

  Milar swallowed and glanced outside. “We’ll find you a doctor.” Maybe I can get him to help me change her mind.

  “I’m not changing my mind!” Tatiana cried.

  Milar’s attention snapped back to her, looking like a guilty puppy. Nonetheless, he pressed, “Tatiana, it’s a big decision, on both our parts. We should really think it over…”

  “No!” She stamped her foot and pointed. “Doctor. Now!”

  Milar narrowed his eyes and thought about leaving her there and dropping her bread and water by air every few days.

  Tatiana forgot to breathe. Had he just…

  “Get out,” she managed, so enraged she could barely see.

  Milar’s eyes widened. “Now honey, I didn’t mean that—”

  “OUT!” she screamed.

  Milar gave her an odd look, kind of like she’d snuck up and licked his armpit, then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he collapsed like a rag doll on the floor in front of her.

  Seeing the colonist’s crumpled form, all of Tatiana’s fury dissipated in an instant. She dropped to her knees beside Milar, babbling an apology. Her collie lover didn’t respond, mouth open, drool dribbling down his face to the dirt floor of the tent.

  “Milar!” Tatiana cried, horrified that she’d killed him like the rest. “Please, Milar!”

  The colonist didn’t answer her. When she shook him, his head rolled, and his golden eyes were open and much, much too wide…

  CHAPTER 17: Journey into the Wide

  ????????

  The Wide

  Infinite Dimensions, Infinite Timelines,

  Infinite Possibilities

  Milar tu
mbled.

  Like a madman falling through the rocky river of reality, Milar’s mind was bruised, cut, and snagged on obstacles impeding his chaotic plummet into the Void. Visions of himself at all ages slammed into him from all sides. He was young, he was old, he was kicking in the womb, he was dead on a road. Then he was dead in a house, then dead in a ship, then dead underground, then not dead underground, but pounding at the insides of a casket and screaming. The current increased, tugging him along, slamming him into dozens of images at once. Milar had no grounding, no sense of place, nothing but the all-too-vivid images hitting him a thousand times at once. He screamed, but it didn’t make a sound.

  Go back home, Miles.

  The voice slammed into him like a leash going taut, tugging him short.

  You need to go home. For the first time, Milar was able to make out some shapes in the void in front of him. You can’t stay here. The voice was familiar, triggering something long-buried within him. Some old longing. Some aching sense of loss.

  You’re needed back home, son.

  …son? Milar had the feeling it wasn’t being used in the colloquial sense. Immediately, however, he grew sick with the knowledge that his father was just a babbling madman whose diaper he or Patrick had to change three times a day. He began to see images of Wideman Joe carving vegetables in the garden, dirt and strands of zucchini clinging to his beard and clothes from the ferociousness of his carving.

  Focus, Miles. Where are you?

  Milar opened his eyes to find himself sitting beside an infant. But not just any child. A younger version of himself, seated in a high-chair at a rough-hewn table that his uncle Dregg had made them before leaving on his final, fatal flight back to the Core with Dad. Sitting in the next chair over, his brother Patrick was babbling and spitting masticated green goo over his bib. Beside him, Caroline was shoving spaghetti at her chubby cheeks with a tiny fist.

  Seeing the three of them together again made Milar’s heart ache.

  His mother and father were paused in feeding them, arguing across the table.