Reni's Trial by Fire

by Alyssa Hope

  Reni tried to sort that out. “Gods, I am sorry. The sensors that can tell us if structures are stable or not, did they malfunction?”

  “We have them now, but we didn’t then. After that tragedy, as the anguish needed to be turned into something more productive, everyone saw the need for that type of sensor, and my team invented them, while they were trying not to go crazy with the grief. Out of loss, we found a way to move forward.”

  Reni nodded slowly, and Oki smiled at him. “It never gets easier, my friend, but someone has to be sitting in your chair, and the crew needs it to be someone who cares. Trust me – you will all be stronger from this, although I know it hurts now.”

  “Thank you, my friend.”

  “And your triad? I have heard a rumor that you have maybe found them?”

  Reni lit up with happiness. “Yes, Sari’s sibling Dena, who we just rescued, and a large human named Donovan. And I have to do a little bit of research on these humans. I hear they are different from us in some ways …”

  Oki choked and laughed. “Oh yes, very much the same in some ways, and very different in others. Next time we meet in person you will have a pack of children, I think! Excellent!” He sobered up again. “Never doubt that you do a valuable job there, Captain Reni. You were not assigned to the post lightly. Take care, of yourself, your beloveds and your crew.”

  “Thank you, sir. May the gods be good to you and yours.”

  He checked in with the commanding officers of ships from other worlds who had joined them in orbit over the planet, and then made his way back down the ship. On the door of the children’s room was a messy hand-written sign which informed “All gone to gym”, so he kept moving.

  In Medical, Nisa was curled up asleep in a chair, two of the med techs were standing watch, and Leah was fast asleep curled into the side of the gray-eyed man. The man made eye-contact with Reni and managed a smile, and one arm tightened protectively around the young woman. Reno smiled and moved on. Maybe the universe was indeed unfolding as it should, at least sometimes.

  At the Transport station, his first impression was that everyone had disappeared, and then that they had been replaced by disembodied legs sticking out from underneath the consoles. He cleared his throat, and someone requested a laser tool, which he passed to them. There was some banging around, and some sizzling noises, and a fair bit of swearing, and then one of his engineering staff slid out and froze when he saw Reni.

  Reni smiled and motioned to him to carry on, so he selected the tool he needed and slid back under again. There was also, Reni realized, the tail end of a puppy sticking out from under the console, and from the way the tail was wagging the pup was having an excellent time.

  The next body to slide out was one of his computer techs, who apologized rather absent-mindedly for having to move Reni out of the way. Reni moved, and watched as the officer did a test of some kind on one console, and then the other. The view screen of the small transport bay showed an increasingly annoyed herd of goats appearing and disappearing, in varying numbers.

  Whatever results the crew were looking for they seemed to have achieved, as there were a lot of happy noises from under the consoles. Several more bodies slid out, and his transport officers froze when they saw him leaning on the wall.

  “Oh. Uh, sir.”

  He smiled and waited, and finally the senior officer explained. “You see, we can’t do anything about the maximum mass and weight that can be moved at any one time with one transporter, that’s simply physics, but we realized that the consoles had the potential to become two separate stations, two separate transporters. The way it was, they over-rode each other, with the one on the bridge over-riding this one. Which it still does, but with these as two separate stations, and two staff working in unison, we can transport twice as many people now, or goats, and still have a back-up. We practiced on some of the native goats, but we put them all back where we found them …”

  The officer trailed off.

  Reni smiled at him. “Congratulations to all of you. Brilliant. Will you transmit the final version of this data back to headquarters? It will save many lives, as well as making things easier for everyone. I can see why everyone tells me I have the best crew in the universe.”

  He saluted them and left, hearing several of them expelling their breaths as he did so.

  The large transport bay had been cleared of people, with the women now housed more comfortably together in one of the larger crew quarters, and there was only Lita’s coffin left. It would remain there until the coming morning, so that everyone had a chance to say goodbye. Reni stopped by the coffin again, and touched it gently.

  “You won’t be forgotten, my friend.” Another tear joined the paths of many others on the hard surface, and he didn’t wipe it off. All the marks would still be there when the Honor Guard accepted it at the Transport Hub on Cerulea, and when Lita’s birth triad said goodbye to their child one last time at the cemetery. The tear tracks spoke of the love that so many had for their son.

  He wandered up to the gymnasium, and watched Donovan putting his young troops through their paces. It was a mix of gymnastics and hand-to-hand combat, and Reni was impressed with Donovan’s skill as an instructor. He pushed everyone, but not too hard, keeping a fine balance between challenge and praise that had all of them striving to improve.

  He’d had several comments and compliments about the big man’s sharp-shooting skills, and thought that he had just found the instructor he’d been looking for. With weapons or hand-to-hand, Donovan not only knew what he was doing, but how to teach it.

  Donovan finally set the kids to doing laps and came over on lean on the wall. “They’re a good bunch.”

  “And you’re helping them reach their potential. Pity you couldn’t be the trainer for the whole crew.”

  “Why couldn’t I …” Donovan was offended, then amused. “You’re a stealthy one. We could give it a try. I need something to do other than keep my Captain’s bed warm.”

  “Do you know this man we have in Medical, that Leah’s so taken with, and him with her?”

  Donovan straightened up in surprise. “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t know. He’s barely conscious, and that only occasionally. We found him below, in bad shape. Big man, your size probably, gray eyes. That’s all we know about him so far. Leah and her healing saved his leg, and she says he’s special but isn’t sure how. Maybe just because she’s young and falling in love? I’m not sure how you humans deal with being in love.”

  They headed for Medical, but half-way there Reni received a message from the senior officer in Transport.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We may have a problem …’

  ‘Do you need me there?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The news when they got there didn’t make him happy.

  ‘Dena transported down to the planet surface, to the middle of the ruined town …’

  Reni felt like one of the goats had butted him in the stomach. He tried to breathe, tried to think, and Donovan held onto him, obviously just as shaken.

  ‘Sir? Should we not have …?’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. He is a free person,’ Reni managed. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That he had to get something, sir. We kept a transport lock on him, just in case. He said he wouldn’t be long. But it seemed strange, and we thought you’d want to know.’

  Reni fought back the urge to transport down to be with his beloved. If Dena had wanted him there, he would have said something, yet why would he have gone alone?

  ‘Sari, Tani, we need you in Transport, right away.’

  Tani turned a paler shade of blue when he realized where Dena had gone.

  ‘That’s the house where we were. But he wasn’t always there. My owners were decent enough, and they bought Dena when they found out that he was almost dying where he was. There was a human, a doctor, I think, who told them, asked them to purchase him. He c
ame to us very sick, with only an old tunic and a small box which I never saw after he arrived. I think he buried it in the basement. I don’t know what it was, never asked. He needed privacy, I thought …’

  Reni hugged Donovan and told the Transport officers to wait, to not bring Dena back unless there was any other activity around that building or any danger. Donovan started to object, but then stopped himself.

  ‘Gods, you’re right, he is an adult. But the second there is any risk, bring him back.’

  After what seemed an eternity, Dena came back out of the ruins of the building, holding a small box and walking unevenly. He staggered and then fell to his knees, wrapping himself around the box.

  ‘Bring him back to us.’

  Reni and Donovan met Dena in the bay, and wrapped themselves around him, but all he could do was curl around the box and cry, seemingly endlessly, until he finally passed out.

  Donovan picked him up, ever so gently, and carried him to Medical.

  ‘Nisa, please, help, something’s wrong …’

  The Medical Officer sighed. ‘Yes, it is. Sit down, please. I cannot give out personal information, you understand, because you are not bonded yet. But maybe I can tell you some information about our people and how they function that is not widely known.’

  He didn’t look happy, and Donovan and Reni sat closely side-by-side and together cradled Dena and his precious box on their laps, staring at Nisa. Sari and Tani stood behind them, stroking their heads almost unconsciously, offering comfort.

  ‘You know, of course, that it takes all three in a triad to create new life, the seed from two for the other one to become bearing. But it isn’t as well known that one of our people can become bearing outside of a bond once only the first part of the morph has completed, if there are multiple rapes, for instance. It is a very rare thing to happen, thank the gods, but not totally unknown. But there is no chance of a baby conceived in such circumstances going full term. Absolutely none.’

  Donovan leaned down to gently kiss Dena’s head before clarifying, ‘You mean there would be a miscarriage.’

  Nisa thought about it and nodded. ‘Yes, our people don’t even have a word for it, but that would be correct.’

  Once again tears ran down Reni’s face. ‘Poor little one, to have gone through that, and alone …’

  Tani knelt in front of them, and cried as well. ‘Gods, I never knew, but that’s what he brought with him and buried. That’s why he fought so hard at being taken, and why he’s been so unhappy here, even though he’s tried to hide it. He had to leave his baby behind.’

  Sari hugged Tani, and tried to comfort him, as much as he could. ‘You couldn’t know, sweet one. How could you?’

  After making sure that there was nothing further that Nisa could do, Donovan picked up Dena and the small box he was still clutching to his chest, and carried them both to their quarters. Reni stayed at their side, and stroked Dena’s head gently and kissed him, hoping that he would come back to them soon. They placed him and the dusty box containing the baby’s remains onto the big bed, and wrapped themselves around him.

  Donovan was crying now, as well as swearing. ‘Damn it, I never knew. This was my fucking fault and I never even knew.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault …’

  ‘Wasn’t it? Dena would have begun to morph when I arrived on the planet, wouldn’t he, and that made him vulnerable to rape.’

  ‘And you are psychic? No, we have to accept that the universe has a reason for what happens, even if we can never see it. And we can love each other, and Dena, and this poor little one who never saw life.’

  ‘Cera.’ Dena’s voice was weak, but he was at least with them again.

  ‘Cera? That’s a pretty name, beloved.’

  ‘Named after the planet he would never see. I didn’t know why I was changing, morphing, and then my owners found out and said that it was so they could use me …’ He broke down into sobs.

  His beloveds held him, and waited. It was all they could do.

  ‘I was doing alright afterwards when I was with Tani, when that doctor took me there and it was safer, but now with everyone talking about having babies ... What if I can’t have babies, and this happens again? Gods, I think it would kill me …’ Dena broke down into shuddering sobs, curled up like a small child into Donovan’s big body, while Reni stroked him on the back.

  ‘Shush, beloved. Within the bond you’ll be able to have healthy babies, you’ll see. As will I and Donovan, gods willing. And we’ll always love each other, babies or not. Triads are about having each other, not just about having children.’

  They rocked him gently, and consoled him, and more tears fell all around. When Dena was calm again, but still hanging onto the box, Reni thought to take a risk. He wasn’t sure if it was the right thing or not, but it felt like maybe it was.

  ‘Beloved? We are sending Lita’s body home in the morning, to his family. What, would …’

  Donovan caught on. ‘To send little Cera home, to your family there? Would you want that, beloved? Are you ready?’

  Dena gulped, and then he managed a faint smile. ‘Maybe that’s what I need, some closure, for both of us. This would be alright with them? We should ask …’

  Reni just held onto him and purred. ‘Silly beloved. They never stopped loving you, and little Cera is part of you.’

  Donovan slid off the bed, and picked the small box up respectfully. ‘I’ll get it ready, beloved, with your permission?’

  He dredged through the laundry on the floor and picked out the battered military jacket that he had been wearing on the planet, and wrapped it carefully around the box. Then he dug through Reni’s closet until he found a blue silk dress tunic, and wrapped that around it as a second layer.

  ‘There is some fine wood that I saw, in your ship’s stores, that would make a proper outer coffin for our precious one. I’ll take care of it, beloved.’ And he left them alone, still holding onto each other and crying.

  Chapter 6.

  They assembled in the large bay early the next morning, all the crew but the few needed to keep the ship running in orbit, along with the children and the refugees. Reni spoke a few words about Lita and many others took their turn as well. Others just stepped in to touch the coffin silently, their heads down. Then Reni nodded at the Transport officer, and Lita’s coffin disappeared, headed home.

  He turned to the smaller coffin next, and was somehow not surprised when the crew followed him there. Everyone gathered around that, offering their support to give Dena strength.

  Reni spoke a brief eulogy through his tears.

  “Cera was a good baby who was born too soon and never had a chance to see the peaceful green world of his people. We send him there now. May the gods treasure his soul.”

  Reni looked at the small plaque that Donovan had attached to the outer coffin, and let himself cry, once again, still. Each of the crew members passed the little coffin and touched it gently, and some of them cried too. Then Donovan and Dena came to stand beside it.

  Dena made a startled sound, and then sobbed as he read for the first time the plaque Donovan had made.

  Cera

  born too soon,

  but loved forever.

  Cherished child

  of

  Dena

  Reni &

  Donovan

  He hugged Donovan and Reni, and then that little coffin was gone as well, sent home.

  ‘Thank you, beloveds.’

  Reni retreated to the bridge and watched on the main screen as the Honor Guard escorted Lita’s coffin to the cemetery and he was laid to rest in his family’s plot. He wondered if he was ever going to stop crying. Crier in Chief, that was him.

  Donovan brought Dena up to the bridge to join him, and they watched silently as a different part of the cemetery filled up with Sari and Dena’s family, and then more and more people. As it became crowded, almost as much so as the other corner had just been, Dena turned to Reni, confusion evident in
his voice.

  ‘What? I don’t understand …’

  ‘Your birth triad, beloved, and mine, and all those from both houses, and all of their friends. Every life is precious, beloved.’

  It was vid-only, but they could see the tears running down faces as the little coffin was laid to rest, and mouths moving as prayers were murmured.

  Dena turned his face into Reni’s chest and hiccupped as he tried to stop crying, and Donovan held onto them both. Reni remembered Oki’s words, and finally understood them.

  ‘Don’t hide your tears, beloved. Who would you be if you didn’t mourn, didn’t cry?’

  ‘Thank you, my beloved Captain. And my beloved Donovan.’

  Reni gave Sari the bridge, and they headed back down to their quarters, hoping for sleep, or perhaps even for time for the bonding.

  They made it halfway down the corridor before Sari contacted Reni.

  ‘Sorry, Captain, one more thing. I was talking to the refugees, the human women, and they wish to stay together, at least for now. With your permission, I’ll contact our consulate on Veria?’

  ‘Veria?’

  ‘We have a good working relationship with them, sir. They are a progressive, prosperous human colony, and we have sent a number of human refugees to them previously. And Quin is there, who lost his triad …’

  ‘Yes, of course. If they would like to send a delegate to speak to these women, they can make a decision for themselves. Thank you for thinking of that, Sari. And Sari?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I’ve been told that back home new triads take a traditional bonding week.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ve heard the same thing.’

  ‘We will be taking our bonding week, or at least a bonding night. Maybe a bonding hour. Unless something happens, of course.’

  There was a slightly choked laugh from Sari. ‘I will try and make sure there are no emergencies for at least an hour, or ten. Blessings on all of you.’