Using his cybernetic link to the house AI, he alerted the food processor to prepare the midday meal and for the droid to bring the food into the sitting room. He did a scan on Carly’s body and sent her measurements to the AI.
Joven considered not dressing, but eating naked with Carly also naked would be too distracting. He went into the walk-in closet and pulled out a black jumpsuit for each of them. Initially, the technology was developed for the cyborg shifters, but it had also become a famous line of clothing for the public. Joven wore them almost exclusively, and Carly came to like them as she got used to wearing them.
Their food was laid out on the table in front of the multipurpose view screen on the wall. “I thought we could look through the catalog online while we eat. I programmed your image and measurements so your hologram can model the clothing for you.”
They sat down at the table side by side.
“That sounds good, and the food looks great,” Carly said. There were two plates with protein patties, green vegetables, and fruit, with a glass of iced liquid for each of them. She picked up her glass and took a sip. The flavor reminded her of root beer soda without the fizz and not as sweet.
While they started to eat, Joven brought up the clothing catalog with casual clothing that looked much like the clothes that Carly usually wore. Most all of it was made from natural fabrics woven to breathe and stretch as the wearer moved. They picked several outfits with billowy tunic tops with varying sleeve lengths, even a couple jumpsuits in softer colors. Then Carly asked it to show some more elegant outfits for the dinner party Joven planned.
When they completed their selections, the AI unit presented them with a private holographic fashion show starring Carly. Twenty Carlys walked a catwalk like professional models showing off each one. Then they returned to the screen and formed a line.
“Oh, my God!” Carly exclaimed and laughed at her images, each wearing one of the outfits they liked. She ruled out several quickly because she didn’t like how they looked on her. She ruled out a few more that were similar to the others, and her final selections were five sets she could mix and match and an embroidered wispy purple set with tiny amethysts set into the embroidered design.
Joven showed her how to complete the order, with everything scheduled for delivery in two days.
Chapter Seventeen
When they finished with the orders, Joven suggested taking Carly to tour around the property. They took the little ground car because it was a big property. He told her the size in a measurement that she couldn’t translate into acres, or hectares. Visually it looked like it went on for miles, definitely too far to walk in a few hours.
They passed endless fields of grain native to Glasica. From the way Joven described it, she considered it comparable to oats or wheat. It was used to make traditional sourdough bread that originated on Narova. The potential profit was modest in smaller quantities, but worthwhile in the quantities grown on his farm.
There were other crops in other areas, but Joven wanted to show her the forest trails he loved. Ever since Carly arrived on Glasica, she marveled at how Earthlike it was. Joven’s grain fields closely resembled the wheat fields of Earth. As they passed by them, she half expected to find corn fields interspersed in them.
When she said as much to Joven, he noted that some farms on Narova grew corn from seeds imported from Earth. In their four-hundred-year history of covert operations on Earth, Narovians had introduced many plants and animals, dogs, cats, and horses. Besides corn, they also grew coffee and tea, hemp, and cotton.
It took almost a half hour to get to the forest that extended from Joven’s land into the Selkeres Mountains. In many places, the trees were so thick that little light reached the forest floor. Carly thought they were going to walk the path in the forest, but Joven said there were miles of trails all the way into the mountains. The trails through the Reserve land were only high enough for a big cat to pass through the underbrush.
Where Joven had removed trees from the paths on his land, he had only cut through the underbrush in the Selkeres Reserve. That was the agreement he’d made with the government. It was all primordial forest with some trees as big as the ancient redwoods of Earth. The tree leaves resembled deciduous trees on Earth, but the climate never got cold enough for the trees to shed all their leaves at once.
Winter on Glasica was more like Fall where Carly grew up temperature wise. That meant crops would grow year around there. Joven explained that a different crop would be planted after the grain harvest, which would rejuvenate the soil.
Joven parked the “wheeler” at the edge of the forest in a small meadow. From there, they would walk for a while.
“This is just beautiful,” Carly murmured as they strolled onto the path. A green leaf drifted down on the light breeze, and she caught it in her hand. “I can’t believe it. This leaf looks almost exactly like the ginkgoes. back on Earth.” She drew in a deep breath. “It even smells like the woods back there, too.”
Joven smiled down at her indulgently. “It’s very much like Narova as well. Although, I only spent a few rotations sets there, after I was awakened. They sent us off-world for training, then to war.”
“What about…? No, you never had a childhood.”
“I had a virtual childhood while I was growing in the nurturing tank.”
“Right, I remember that you talked about that in one of your vid-mails. What was it like?”
“It was real to me. I had parents and brothers and friends; Rader Knight was one of them.”
“Skye’s husband.”
“Yes. It was a highly sophisticated program that could adjust to our behavior. When I became an adolescent, I went to military school.”
“What about girlfriends, dating?”
“I had you.”
“What?”
“A virtual meomee,” he said. He stopped and faced her, putting his arms around her.”
“How could they know?”
“It was a composite extrapolated from my DNA to complement mine. They constructed the female counterpart for me from that extrapolation. But she wasn’t as beautiful as you are,” he smiled hopefully.
“But why would they do that?” Carly frowned. “How come you never told me about her?”
“She could have been a younger you.” Joven frowned, too, uncertain why this revelation seemed to upset her. “The scientists did that so we would have emotional ties and a vision of the future when we were released from service.”
“To give you something to fight for, and live for if it came to that,” she realized.
“Early cyborg creations, didn’t have that, they were too dangerous to integrate into society. They had to be decommissioned.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is against our laws to kill them. They are in stasis off-world, living in virtual reality for the rest of their lives.” Joven pulled her against him and hugged her, resting his cheek on top of her head. “My sense of you dimmed while I was at war because of the emotional suppressors.”
“But that wasn’t really me.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t then. Think of her more as a hologram representing you.”
“You loved her, though.”
Joven’s brows knitted. “I thought so, then… But it didn’t come close to what I feel now.” Joven raised his hand and drew his fingertips lightly down her cheek. “You are meomee,” he whispered and tilted up her face to kiss her. His kiss became steadily more passionate until she moaned against his mouth. “If I didn’t know the difference, then, I certainly do now.”
“I believe you,” Carly said shakily. Her eyes narrowed as he gave her his now familiar sexy smirk. He knew just how aroused he had made her. “No fair!” she pouted sassily.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said, kissing her forehead. “Let’s walk a little further. I want to show you something.”
Joven took her hand, and they walked a few more minutes down the path. He stopped just as they ca
me to a small clearing. There was a small herd of dragons grazing and eating leaves from small bushes. Among them were three tiny babies.
Carly sucked in a breath, and her eyes lit in wonder. She glanced up at Joven and smiled. Neither of them spoke so they wouldn’t spook them. Their heads were shaped almost like seahorses, and the shape of their bodies was somewhat equine. Their front and back feet each had four toes, but the front feet had longer toes and an opposing thumb. Their wings were folded on their backs.
Their colors varied from gray to brown to gold. The little ones had black and gray spots. A small furry animal was trying to cross the field. One of the baby dragons caught sight of it and began to stalk it. As it got closer, the baby leaped to pounce on it, but it broke free, scurrying away.
One of the adults looked up as the baby leaped to pounce on it again. When it did, a large raptor swooped down and grabbed the baby dragon and flew away with it, screaming for its mother.
“Oh, no!” Carly cried.
Two of the adult dragons launched themselves into the air and flew after it while the other adult herded the babies together.
“Joven, can’t we do something?”
“There’s nothing we can do. Two adult dragons should be able to handle the raptor. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Carly sighed. “I used to see stuff like that on TV all the time. I just hated to see the baby ripped away like that, but raptors have to eat, too.”
“There’s still a chance they can rescue the baby,” Joven said. “They looked docile grazing quietly in this small meadow, but they are fiercely protective of their own. I got to close to the herd in my cat form, and they attacked me.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran.” He smiled sheepishly. “I could have taken them, but they are protected. I was just there to look. I don’t hunt, I just prowl.”
“You killed Crazell.” She looked up at him with a slight frown.
“That was personal. He took my meomee. That was all the reason I needed. After you told me how he tortured you, I wished I could do it again.” Joven hugged her tightly. “Are you ready to go home, or would you like to see some more?”
“Let’s go home. I’m starting to feel hungry,” she said.
“Me, too.”
Carly laughed as she looked up at him. She knew very well that was a double entendre. She meant food, and he meant sex, but she was game. She laughed as she thought it.
He had that look in his eyes that sent a flash of desire through her body. And she liked it.
Chapter Eighteen
With Joven’s new team came a fifth member of his first team. Although Joven might take a security run through the star system occasionally, this job was supervisory. He would be monitoring his units and space from the ground.
Joven had an interstellar com system in his home, but Glasica Space Security had that plus scanners that were set to monitor the whole star system and beyond. That was connected to a satellite orbiting Glasica Prime.
So, far they had caught one dragon poacher trying to land in the Selkeres Reserve and another apprehended orbiting Glasica Six to plunder the mining operation there. The heavily armed star jumper convinced them they didn’t want to do that. With the choice of doing battle with the star jumper or being boarded and detained, both captains chose to abandon their plans and leave the star system.
When Joven was ground side, he didn’t have to stay in the monitoring station. He could monitor everything through his onboard CPU. He did, however, spend a few hours a day there watching over operations and checking in with ground side law enforcement.
Carly spent those hours working on her education projects, researching and recording a series of lectures. The school system where she was formerly employed was one of her first customers. When she wasn’t busy with that, she went exploring around their property.
One of those times, she heard what sounded like a lamb bleating for its mother in a small grove of trees about fifty meters from the house. She knew that cry. It was like the sound the baby dragon had made as the raptor had carried it away. Only this baby sounded more forlorn than scared.
Carly walked toward the copse of trees where the sound came from as quietly as possible. She stopped at the grove, looking around for exactly where the sound came from. A weak bleat came from a few meters to the right, and Carly spotted the baby lying under a bush.
It was a lot smaller than the ones she had seen in the forest. She guessed that it was probably only a few days old. Carly stopped and turned in a slow circle looking for a sign of any other dragons in the area. She looked up in the trees and in the sky.
There was a raptor soaring overhead. “You dropped it, didn’t you? Well, you’re not going to get it if I can help it.”
She ambled toward the baby lying under the bush. It was wounded and bleeding from several wounds, probably from where the raptor gripped it with sharp talons. One of the wings was twisted at an odd angle, apparently broken.
“Oh, you poor little thing,” Carly murmured and squatted down beside it.
The baby looked at her through a haze of pain but was too week to even try to get away. It hissed at her as she reached for it, but it had no teeth.
When she was compiling her virtual lectures, she did one on the dragons of Selkeres. The babies were born without teeth and fed by both parents regurgitating partially digested food into their mouths, much the way wolves fed their cubs and birds fed their young.
“Baby, I’m not going to hurt you, at least any more than you already are. I wish I could keep you and nurse you back to health. I can’t, but I will get you help if I can. Will you let me pick you up?”
The little dragon hissed at her when she reached for it again, but Carly didn’t let that stop her. She picked it up and stood, holding it against her taking care not to disturb the broken wing. She knew its blood was probably staining her tunic, but she would deal with that later.
As she emerged from the shelter of the tree grove, Carly heard the raptor cry, a sound more like a vulture than an eagle. She looked up to see it circle overhead and turn toward her. It started into a dive, and Carly began to run toward the house.
While running, she looked back to see how close the huge bird was. Her foot caught on something, and she fell hard, twisting so she wouldn’t land on top of the baby dragon in her arms. She hit the dirt hard on her right shoulder and felt her collarbone snap. The pain was excruciating, and she blacked out.
Joven emerged from the security building in time to see the raptor swooping down at his mate. He morphed instantly into his cat persona and bounded toward her roaring. That scared the raptor, so it pulled up and flew away instead of landing. With the raptor gone, Joven trotted to Carly and saw the baby dragon clutched in one arm.
A quick scan told him where she was injured. An injection of nanites would repair the damage. He reverted back into humanoid form on bended knee and carefully lifted Carly and the baby dragon into his arms. Carrying her back to the house, his mind went through the probability the raptor could have killed her and didn’t like the odds.
Of course, he knew Carly couldn’t resist trying to help the tiny, helpless dragon. With her soft heart, she would try to rescue any baby animal that was injured.
Joven carried her to their bedroom and laid her on the bed then went to the walk-in closet and opened the med drawer. Inside was a tray containing the same array of nanites and drugs that he carried with him through every combat mission. He took out a prefilled syringe of universal nanites. Crossing the room in three strides, he injected the nanites into her damaged shoulder.
Using his internal computer, he contacted the Selkeres Reserve veterinarian regarding the little dragon. They confirmed that the nanites would work on the baby and asked him to go ahead and inject it. The vet would come to get it right away.
Joven went to get another prefilled syringe and injected the baby dragon. Then he found a larger syringe and filled it with water because his scan of it t
old him it was dehydrated. Since it seemed content to lay on the bed beside Carly, Joven left it there once he’d watered it.
He then sat down on the bed beside Carly and took her hand in both of his, watching her, silently urging her to open her eyes. The little dragon snuggled up against her other side. Joven wished he could let her keep it, but it was a wild animal and not meant for captivity.
It was also against the law, and he was an officer of the Glasica Law Enforcement. Carly would have to understand.
About twenty minutes later, the Selkeres veterinarian arrived. Joven met him at the door and led him to their bedroom where the tiny dragon lay cuddled against Carly. She opened her eyes when the two men entered the room.
“How do you feel, meomee?” Joven asked.
“Oh, I fell. Where’s the baby?” As she said it, the little one nuzzled her arm. “Hey, little guy.”
“I commed the Reserve, and vet Honric Meksaj is here to take the little dragon to the reserve.”
Carly made a plaintive sound and stroked its little head.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. We will mend his little wing and take him where his herd can find him. The raptors are notorious for stealing dragon young.”
“But we were just starting to bond…”
“We can’t have that,” Honric said. “He’s small and very cute right now, but soon he will grow to a hundred kilograms. Then he will be dangerous. These dragons are not pets.”
“Will they take him back?”
“Usually. If they don’t, he will be raised with a few other orphans we’ve found or have been rescued. When they are old enough to fend for themselves, we will release them back into the mountain forest.”
Joven leaned over her and picked up the dragon carefully. Honric had brought a small carrying cage which he held open for Joven to slip the animal inside.
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