Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  She’d dedicated the better part of her day to talking with the crew about the clones. It had shaken them up and could maybe buy them more time. Pleased with herself, she whispered to Gian, “Maybe I should tell them about the infection next?”

  “Wish I’d thought of that. Which symptoms shall we choose,” he asked, lips brushing against her cheeks.

  They’d decided on a pleasant mixture of stomach lurches, blindness, and near insanity before each choosing a circle to infiltrate. A grimacing Hawkes returned to his tent, clutching his omnitablet close to his chest. She’d have killed to know whom he was contacting.

  The second expedition called to report a pack of clones advancing toward their camp. The soldiers managed to kill most, but not all, of the creatures. More importantly, there were no signs of the two young scouts.

  An hour or more passed before another call came in, this one requesting backup. The remaining soldiers leapt into action over the shouting opposition of Hawkes. Gian literally plucked her from a sea of activity, hoisting her over his shoulder and into the tent they’d shared the night before.

  “Got a message, close enough for audio conversation. Help is on the way. We can’t get caught up in this.”

  Hawkes burst in, his cowl flapping behind him, interrupted her response. “You’re one of them,” he said to Gian. “They won’t listen to me. Talk some sense into them. Backup will get here eventually.”

  “Not their backup, Hawkes. Yours. If they love their leader, they’ll follow him into hell and back. You’re an idiot if you go out there and try to stop them.”

  “You don’t give a damn about me,” he said, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth.

  “Of course I don’t. However, I want to get paid as much as you do. That doesn’t happen if you get yourself killed.”

  “Worthless.” Hawkes glared at Solia as he stomped by on his way out the tent.

  She met his gaze straight on. She couldn’t care less one way or the other if he left or stayed. When Gian started pacing, she flounced onto the makeshift bed.

  “I’m sorry, we bored you.”

  Don’t get snippy, Gian. What choice do we have, but to let them go?”

  He lifted the edge of the tent flap with a hooked finger. “They’re all heading out. Hawkes is going ballistic, but it looks like he’s hanging back. Hmm. That’s sweet of them.”

  “What,” she asked, propping up on her elbows.

  “They’ve given him a gun. Never fear the man with a gun and a mission; he usually knows how to use it. It’s the shaking coward you have to worry about.”

  A skeleton crew of eight stayed to defend the camp, leaving everyone but herself on edge. She found herself gloriously uncaring, and it unnerved her. These mercenaries were just hired hands and didn’t deserve what they were in store for. But then, neither had the clones. The one thing she could be certain of was that things were looking up, at least for them. Gian, however, insisted on stomping a hole in the ground. “Take a knee, soldier.”

  The bed sank beneath Gian’s weight, but he didn’t lie down. “He’s losing it out there. He can’t handle not being in control. I served with a man like that once.”

  “Yeah, me too,” she said, answering his raised eyebrow with, “Mol.”

  Two hours later and you could have heard a pin drop in the middle of their dusty encampment. Two more messages had come in that they were under attack, but both carried the tenor of confidence.

  She’d already regretted leaving her tent when Hawkes’s ranting picked up. “Ten minutes… they should have responded by now!”

  Any common-sense explanations that didn’t involve painful deaths had been summarily dismissed by the green-and-blue-decked businessman. She didn’t like how he’d been waving his gun around while talking, though he hadn’t directly pointed it at anyone.

  Gian elbowed the outside of her leg. “Incoming.”

  “Well, it is about time,” Hawkes said, pointing toward a small armada of landing shuttles.

  Solia looked from one smiling man to the other. What in blazes could have both similarly excited? But by the time she’d gone back to Hawkes, his face fell until it finally shattered like tossed glass.

  It must have been the beautiful, perfect, and glittering shield of the Outer Settlement Agency that did it. It took a minute to catch her breath. A few minutes. There had to be a couple dozen landing. “We made it!”

  “Not yet. Lower the toroid output on your firearm. If Hawkes makes a move, knock him out,” Gian whispered, stepping forward and casually blocking her from the man’s field of vision.

  “Hawkes,” he called out in a conspiratorial tone, “don’t back out on me. Seventeen and a half, got it?”

  Solia stepped from behind Gian’s back in time to see hope swell in Hawkes’s eyes. Oh please, let their luck hold out for another few minutes. When the first shuttle opened and out ran a lanky kid screaming “Father,” her heart dropped to her knees. Solia reached for her gun, but a grimacing Gian shook his head.

  The boy, dressed in OSA apprentice gear, stopped short of his father’s reach, went for his sidearm and screeched, “I hereby arrest you for crimes against Earth, man, and galaxy. Everything you say is being recorded as evidence.”

  She fought to keep her jaw off the ground when the boy came over, running dirty hands through his mousy brown hair and grinning like a three year old. “Boss?”

  Solia hoped she didn’t look like an idiot, but one glance over to Gian and, well, at least she wouldn’t be alone. He’d gone bug-eyed too.

  “All of this is you? But I sent my message to Evers on Europa.”

  “Yeah, I was kinda sorta listening in. Sorry, boss. Maybe I should start from the beginning.”

  “Let’s do that,” Gian said, arms still folded.

  “Before you left, back when I got the first missive from Enceladus, I sent it to my father. Then I kept thinking about what you said and I didn’t want him yanking my chain my whole life. I knew he was moving in. Just didn’t know what to do with the information, so I kept listening. That’s when I intercepted your request for pickup. I called in what I knew and they let me join in. They even let me arrest—”

  “We were here for that part.”

  “Right.” The boy seemed to notice her then and saluted with a quick “ma’am” before jerking his head toward the shuttle. “This is huge, sir. I didn’t know if you’d make it back alive, so I blasted it across all the channels. I swear, by the time we get back you’ll have the most famous face in the galaxy.”

  Gian shielded his mouth but didn’t bother to lower his voice and never took his eyes off the boy. “He did all this to impress a girl named Greta.”

  “Oh, really?”

  The boy’s long lashes dropped and his cheeks flushed, but only for a bit. Then his eyes brightened and he graced her with one of the most mischievous smiles she’d ever seen. “Think it worked?”

  Chapter Lucky Thirteen

  One Year Later

  It was one of the more dramatic entrances he’d seen in a while.

  Solia hurled her earrings, shoes, and onmitablet across the room in one seamless movement. “If I have to listen to one more sniveling politician, I’ll blow up this whole moon.”

  “I missed you too. Since you asked, I was off entertaining their wives and husbands as all first spouses must do. Shame I’ve been reduced to a pretty face. Does no one around here remember I’m still a sheriff of the Agency?”

  “No, not really. Did you get a chance to read those files I sent you? We’ve got meetings first thing.”

  He shook his head, not that she was watching. She was too busy hurling things. “How can I? My inbox is filled with messages from Steven that he’s been kicked out of the house again. Never mind the three from Greta assuring me he deserved it. How I became a stand-in father for those two, I’ll never know. Oh and there’s word from Titan that some idiot was arrested for trafficking. First one of those cases in a while, hmm? Caught, tried, and sen
tenced in two days. What’s your news?”

  His wife huffed and reached for the glass of wine on the table. “The Kin-Humanoid Committee submitted a proposal to make ‘clone’ a discriminatory and illegal moniker. They want it classified as a Class VII offense.”

  He winced at the harsh sentence but didn’t disapprove. “The peacocks I went out with today wanted to view the old cages. Scratch that. They wanted to get inside them. I’m getting really tired of explaining the difference between an exhibit and a curiosity. Would you hate me if I asked you to rub my shoulders?”

  “Yes.” She plopped her feet across his legs. “Rub my feet first and then we can talk about shoulders.” She slapped a pillow over her head when her omnitablet hummed beneath the shoes in the corner. “I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to. I’m here, Lunar Director Solia Sable. It’ll wait until tomorrow.”

  “But I need to read through—”

  “I’m here.”

  It was the same everyday and would be for many more. She futzed. He calmed. And together they solved the problems of the day. She let out a whoosh of air and sagged against him. “So you are.”

  “So I am.” And with a kiss for the journey, he carried her upstairs, forever the hero she needed him to be.

  Thank you for reading Solia’s Moon.

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  Part One

  Chapter One

  Kiernan Fyn heard the high pitched whine of a ship and could tell it was in trouble, even without the dark smoke trail spewing from the tail. It was coming in too fast and too steep.

  The pilot must be dead—before the thought finished, the ship started a series of brutally sharp turns. Okay, not dead Yet.

  Fyn strained with him through each turn, remembering how those turns felt, remembering trying not to crash.

  And crashing anyway.

  The pilot still hadn’t slowed enough, and if he didn’t turn soon, he’d go straight into the water. Kikk had a lot of water. Not a lot of ground. Only one place that was flat enough to attempt a landing.

  The nose of the ship edged up a bit, but still not enough—it made sudden turn toward him. Okay, he’d seen the beach. Now he just had to make it. It dropped below the tree line, and after a bit, Fyn felt the impact ripple through the ground under his feet. The ship popped briefly into view again, then dropped out of sight. Another impact tremor. Longer this time, then…nothing.

  No explosion. That was good. There’d be something to salvage.

  He broke clear of the thick jungle and saw a deep hole in the sand. A break, then a furrow stretching down the beach so far he couldn’t see the end. He hesitated, searching the blue-green sky for any pursuit, but it was empty of everything but the drifting remains of the ship’s smoke trail. He jumped down on to the white sand and walked along the furrow. Soon he could see the downed ship, the front crunched up against a tree.

  He approached cautiously, doing a complete circuit, looking for signs of a secondary explosion, but it just hissed a bit, then subsided into a resigned silence. It wasn’t like any ship he’d seen, though he liked the look of it. It was long and sleek and dark. He traced an odd drawing on the side, under some unfamiliar symbols. A small square of dark sky and stars, and a larger section of dark and light stripes. The damage from contact with the tree wasn’t too bad, but—he walked to the rear—weapons fire was. He bent close and sniffed. Dusan energy blast. There was another scorch mark on the side. That it had landed almost intact told him it was a tough, little ship—and a decent pilot.

  He looked at the cockpit and saw a figure slumped over the controls. Fyn climbed up on the wing, studying the mechanism that kept the cover in place. After a few tries, it retracted with a loud, almost angry hiss. The pilot’s gear was as dark as his ship, his face hidden by a sturdy looking head covering. He also wore a heavy, dark flight suit, with the same symbols from the ship imbedded in the material. Some flexible tubing stretched from his face mask to the ship. Probably his air supply. Fyn felt along the side of the mask and managed to unhook it. Now he could see a gap between the suit and the head gear. He worked his fingers in until he felt skin and was surprised to feel blood pumping beneath the still warm surface. He found the strap, undid it and lifted the head gear off. The pilot’s head fell back against the seat.

  A woman?

  He’d never seen a woman fly a ship and he’d been all over the galaxy. Her hair was red, it was so many shades of red, it flashed in the sunlight, catching the rays in the strands and reflecting them back as fire. He touched it, almost afraid it would burn, but it was as soft as the skin it lay against. Matching lashes lay in neat half moons against pale cheeks.

  She moaned and shifted, turning her head and he saw a nasty gash on the side of her face, near the hairline. Blood dripped sluggishly down the side of her face. A harness held her strapped in the seat. He explored the clasp for a few minutes and finally it popped apart. He felt along her arms and legs, then checked her ribs for damage, before easing her free of the craft and laying her in the sand. She was tall, but surprisingly light. Her suit made her look more bulky than she was.

  Inside her ship, he found bandages in a box with a red cross on the outside. She stirred again, when he cleaned her wound, but she didn’t wake. Once he’d contained the bleeding and applied a covering, he went back and searched the cockpit again. He found a bag of what he assumed were emergency supplies and a couple of weapons. He would have liked to study it all in more detail, but the light was fading. He needed to get them both under cover before dark.

  He carried her and her stuff back to his cave, lowering her onto his bed, a pile of leaves and vines culled from the surrounding jungle. He pulled off her heavy gloves. Her hands were narrow with long, well formed fingers. Her dark suit seemed constrictive, but was secured with an odd metal track that pulled down to below her waist. Under her flight suit, she wore clothing that was unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was mottled in the shades of the earth and clouds. This clothing had many pockets, filled with more stuff. No wonder she looked so bulky. He emptied the pockets, studying each item, before adding it to a pile. She also had a knife in a holder and what looked like a holder for the smaller of the weapons he took out of the cockpit.

  Two of her weapons were curious. They seemed to operate on a projectile penetration basis, unlike his energy based ones. He tucked all three behind a boulder. No reason to arm her until he found how she felt about him. He settled down next to her, watching and waiting for her eyes to open, wondering what color they’d be. It was hard not to feel like the gods had sent him a gift for not giving up, but he realized she might not see her arrival in quite the same light. He ran a finger down the smooth curve of her cheek, then across her soft, full lower lip, relieved to see the slow rise and fall of her chest.

  As light faded, worry replaced curiosity. Perhaps she had some injury beyond his ability to detect.

  He’d expected to die here, and to die alone. None of the Ojemba would look for him. Their numbers were not large enough to risk men in fruitless searches for lost comrades. Every time he went out on a mission, he knew he went out alone. Every day since he’d crashed on this miserable planet, he’d decide to get it over with. He’d stood by the ocean, telling himself to walk in and finish it. If he couldn’t fight anymore, what good was he? And each day he turned and walked back into the jungle.

  Hope was a hardy plant, to keep growing in a place like Kikk.

  It was a brutal, hostile place. In the season since he’d been stranded here, only the occasional Dusan patrol had come by and none of them had landed, just buzzed the surface. They came for the same reason Kalian had sent him here.

 
They were looking for the lost Garradian outpost. He could have told them, if it was on Kikk, it wasn’t on this continent. He’d had plenty of time to search for it.

  Fyn didn’t believe in the Garradians or the outpost. He did believe in killing Dusan. Since they’d over run his planet, it was all he believed in.

  But now, as he watched the woman, he remembered other things he had believed in, things he used to feel. He’d cursed the gods, and not just because they’d stranded him here. Why had they sent him this gift now? And what cost would they demand in return?

  There was always a cost.

  Just before the light faded outside, he pulled a weapon and fired it at the rocks, adding an orange glow to the deepening dark. It provided warmth, but also helped keep the biters out.

  Finally, when he wondered if she’d ever wake, she began to stir. He retreated to the other side of the cave and waited...

  * * * * *

  A vague throbbing in her right temple towed Sara back to a consciousness she didn’t want to face, though she was a bit fuzzy on why…

  She opened her eyes to zero dark thirty—a darkness somewhat lightened by an eerie orange glow.

  Okay, starting to remember.

  She not only wasn’t in Kansas anymore, she wasn’t in the cockpit of her bird. The rough hewn rock over head seemed to indicate she was in some kind of a cave, but how did she get from Dauntless to cave?

  She remembered…

  …the dog fight.

  …the double hit to her six.

  …heading for the closest planet like a fast falling star.

  …doing bat turns to slow her descent.

  …seeing the long stretch of flat, white beach between tangled mass of jungle and sparkling ocean.

  …endless feet-wet finally giving way to feet dry.

  The narrow beach had skimmed past way too fast as she struggled to manage her uncontrolled descent. She remembered pulling her nose up long enough to clear a rugged tumble of rock spilling from high bluff into ocean, but on the other side ground was ground and no landing is a good one that ends against a tree.