Home in the Stars Box Set

by Mason, Jolie

  She lifted the tank top and threw it left. The soft whisper of the fabric tangling with the ladder and falling to the floor followed. She was as bare as he was as their mouths tangled again. The sub deck ran toward warm as they each strained to find snaps and enclosures on clothes. Hands running over torsos, shoulders, shoving down pants. The whole galaxy reduced to them.

  He tugged her to him and lifted her by two strong hands on either cheek of her ass. Shifting her weight to one arm, he swiveled, tapping a large access panel with his fist, and Luca found herself seated on a work surface that had been inside the wall. She looked surprised a second, then said against his swollen lip. “Handy”.

  And it was. It had been designed to hold tools, to allow for a standing work area. She assumed the developer hadn't envisioned this use for his handy work space.

  She didn't have time to even assist in positioning, as he placed her body where he wanted, open before him. She gasped as he rammed home. He captured the sound in his kiss, a kiss that screamed goodbye, whispered frantically of hopelessness.

  She pulled away, caressing his cheek, his hair. Luca shook her head at him and smiled. “We're not giving up.”

  He pushed forward, smiling a little. “Okay.”

  She continued to calm him with slow gentle touches, kissed his ear. “I mean it. I want fat grandchildren. I realize this may not be the time to bring it up.”

  He laughed, but his pace picked up. He kissed her again, until they had to choose between kissing and breathing. Her body spiraled up, wound tighter. He reached between them and, with one twist of his hand, dropped her off a cliff. Her voice echoed off the walls, filling the sub deck, and, when she quieted all she could hear were the slaps of his flesh to hers. His cries echoed hers with an exception. Emery hoarsely whispered, “I love you” in her ear.

  Luca felt the tears filter down her cheeks.

  ***#***

  They set a countdown clock in the center of the pod for the moment when they could wait no longer. Air would be getting too low to last at the end of that countdown, and they had to begin the push toward planetary orbit. And a probable descent into oblivion.

  The large, white numbers stared back at Luca as she sprawled on the bench that doubled as sleeping quarters. She'd been staring at the descending numbers for an hour trying to sleep. The lights of the cabin were dimmed, and Emery sat at a console trying to solve an impossible technical dilemma, how to boost the distress beacon without draining too much power. It couldn't be done, but he refused to give up.

  She watched him with a heaviness in her chest. Proximity Klaxons began to chatter and the lights changed to alert signals casting blue shadows about the pod. She jumped for the main console.

  “Approaching vessel. Reads NCR Salvage Frankenstein. Seriously?” She looked at Emery with humor shining in her eyes. “A literate rescue. How interesting? Salvage Frankenstein, do you read?”

  “Reading, Imperial pod. You appear to need a ride.”

  She laughed. “That we do. I sure would love to kiss the dirt right now.”

  “Strap yourselves in for retrieval, and we'll see if we can't find you some dirt to kiss, Ma'am.”

  “Copy.”

  ***#***

  The Frankenstein pulled them into one of eight side docks. The pilot tractored them into the docking and then waited as she and Emery set up the tubes. Finally, the clamps lowered in place anchoring the pod in place.

  The captain waited on the other side of the final hatchway leading from the salvage platform. He wore a full beard of rich brown hair and clothes that would fit more on a Taarken mudgrubber. He stood with hands on hips, smiling a greeting.

  “How the hell are you?”, he boomed jovially.

  Luca found his smile to be infectious. “Glad to see you, Captain.”

  He waved her off. “None of that captain nonsense on this boat. Call me Wade.”

  Emery shook his hand. “Wade, Are you heading in to the planet?”

  “Yeah,” He looked Em over as if taking his measure. “I got a local satellite to haul into reclamation, and a few supplies to grab. You looking to get to Dorenda?”

  “We're looking to get out of space. Things were getting a bit hairy for us.”

  The big man chuckled. “I can understand that sentiment. Got stranded myself once. Wasn't sure I'd fly again. There's something awful unsettling about being stuck out in that black. Come on. Let's find you two some coffee.”

  As Luca followed the two men down the dingy corridors of the Frankenstein, she thought they might find a lot more than coffee. She looked at the next docking clamp, then asked, “How much salvage have you got aboard? Is there any news from the Empire about the battle? What are they saying?”

  The man tossed her a speculative look over his shoulder. “Oh, it's the same bullshit story you'd expect from an alien invasion with the empire involved. I expect you two know something about that.”

  Emery met her eyes.

  “You've found something?” He asked the salvage captain.

  “Oh, yeah I found something.” He stopped and looked Emery up and down. “What the hell. Let's get some coffee, and I'll show you. I'm hauling the damn thing back to SCR 202 so I can get the creep thing out of my hold.”

  ***#***

  Coffee helped Emery feel better about life in general as they wove their way deep into a long central hold that suggested the ship they occupied could use some more crew, but all this man had was robot and drone workers. Periodically, one of the be-armed metal workers crossed their path. The didn't even have faces as was the marketing norm. Interesting, he thought, looking the captain over once more.

  “Up here”, the captain said finally. “I have a freezing unit.”

  He ran a hand over the panel and the door slid open with a shoosh. Frost misted out over their faces. Inside, the whole space stood frozen and white, and mostly, empty.

  Lying on a table at the back of the chamber, Em spied a long black figure, straight and stiff. Beneath the ice layer of frost, there was a shiny surface indicative of some type of armor plating. It was humanoid, but totally encapsulated in the suit, suggesting it needed environmental controls.

  “What the hell.” Luca walked around the table, visibly shaken. She pierced Emery with a searching look. “Do you think?”

  He nodded.

  “Found him in a fighter craft.” That was the Captain who watched each and every reaction, probably trying to gauge how much they knew about the creature.

  “May I?” Emery gestured to the broad, mechanized helmet. At the captain's nod, he reached over to slide his fingers across the side, locating a mechanism. It hissed open.

  He stepped back on reflex. The ghostly pale face startled all of them. Flat, smooth features, barely eyes and a nose, lay in repose before them. There was a cool, slimy texture to the skin.

  Luca gasped beside him. “It's dead, right?”

  “Oh, it's dead all right.” Captain Wade Halsey said decisively.

  “It's not human, is it?” She replied. “How can we be certain?”

  “Well, shortly after I pulled him out of his craft, he started in to twitching and beeping. I took that as a sign, then I put him in here, which I take as another sign. Once no life signs are detected in the chamber, it switches to cryo. If he's alive, I would love to know how.”

  Emery pressed gingerly at the near translucent face, wide set eyes and cheek bones flared. The face itself bore no resemblance to the smooth featureless helmet which he was certain had a significance, but he had no idea what it could be. The skin didn't give when he touched it, and his finger burned with cold. “He's dead. But what is he?”

  “I kinda hoped you could tell me.”

  “The alien ship blowing up stranded him is my guess.”

  Wade nodded. “I figured as much. Imperial Guard is swarming the sight of the battle right now, doing their damnedest to out salvage the rest of us. As soon as I picked this guy up, I knew we were in the shit. How bad is it? You two were
there.”

  Luca looked up at Wade. “Bad”, she said. “Nothing we've ever seen before.”

  “Nothing any human has ever seen before”, Emery corrected. “Translation matrix barely made a dent in their speech. Who knows if it was even correct?”

  Wade whistled. “Not human at all then.”

  “That's my guess. And”, Emery fiddled with the panel of the suit.

  “If there were IG out there, why didn't you just hand him over, Captain?”

  The captain smiled slyly. “Maybe because I had a fair certainty that I wouldn't get any recompense for my trouble. I'm a salvage operation. That's salvage.”

  Emery said nothing in response to the Captain's clearly mercenary thinking and continued poking at the suit.

  “Judging from the mechanics, I'm thinking they are totally space faring as a race. These suits are an adaptation.”

  “It would explain the size of the ship. Might need a lot of room, but why do you think totally space faring?”

  Emery put a finger near a collection of tubes and switches. “These are much more complex than your average human space environment suit. Looking at the fragility of the actual body, I'd almost believe they were seldom, if ever, exposed to gravity. I don't even know if they would breathe oxygen, to be honest. Only thing we know for sure is there's a lot of them.”

  “How big was this thing?” Wade asked, concerned now.

  Luca looked at him. “We had to throw a cruiser at it.”

  Something akin to horror appeared on the man's face. Emery closed the helmet and panel. “Billions of years of civilization and science, and we were basically reduced to throwing rocks. I'm not optimistic of our chances if there are more of those ships out here.”

  “And just what's the chance there aren't?” Luca's sarcasm pretty much echoed his sentiment.

  He simply sighed, turning back to Wade. “How long till landfall?”

  “Oh, bout an hour, I'd say. You two wanna come with me we'll see if we can't hurry that up. I'm not too anxious to hang around with my tailfeathers hanging out.”

  “Me neither”, Emery nodded then gestured for Luca to precede them out of the cryo hold. For so long, human beings believed themselves to be the only thing in the universe because they'd traveled so far and found nothing else. Eventually, they'd convinced themselves they were alone. They settled and terraformed across galaxies, evolving, but remaining basically the same. Today, believing in aliens was akin to being crazy. He couldn't remember, but he thought it might actually be part of a few diagnoses of mental illness. Well, that would have to be revisited, along with everything they'd ever believed about themselves.

  Suddenly, scientific fact boiled down to egocentricity, and the whole picture changed. As the small group walked onto the dusty, grimy bridge of the salvage ship, he looked down at the blue dot appearing on the viewscreen. He couldn't wait to get some real sky between him and this mess.

  The planet was low tech, meaning the inhabitants had a tendency toward a hardier lifestyle without the newest toys. Some low tech planets even had horses brought in for the locals or old-fashioned automobiles. He sort of hoped this one was like that. Going low tech would be the very best way to disappear themselves for a while.

  ***#***

  Luca's legs shook as she stepped off the Frankenstein onto solid ground. There had been a moment when she'd thought she might not see land again. Drone machinery flitted around the salvage yard. Luca waited a moment to get her legs beneath her.

  Emery's arm wrapped around her waist from behind. “I've got you”, he whispered. She felt the smile on his face curl up next to her ear. “Getting your land legs?”

  She merely nodded. “Horses, cars and sliders. This place isn't so much low tech as all tech.” He agreed.

  “Apparently, the city proper is higher tech than anywhere else. The ranchers don't do much with AI.”

  She brushed her hand over his where it rested at her waist. “What are we doing?”

  He pulled back to look at her face. “What do you want to do, Zoe?”

  “Zoe?”, she asked. She spun in his arms as he handed her an identity chit. “Your parents were environmentalists on Sensor. Divorced once, but all other men pale beside me. You worked in customer service in Imperial, until you met me. I, of course, swept you off your feet and into a life of adventure and plain living to fulfill my dream of horse ranching.”

  “You. You. You. Is there anything about me that isn't about you?” Amusement sparked in his eyes. He was enjoying his fiction very much. He thought really hard before answering no.

  “All right. And I am…?”

  “Zoe Parker. I'm your husband, Braxton.”

  “Braxton Parker?”

  “Yes,” he said feigning offense. “And you love my name.”

  “So, we're settling in?”

  “Until it's necessary to move on. This is the best idea. God knows who will be looking for us?”

  “What about Havoc Station?” She meant the kids on the station, and he knew it.

  “They have money and the shuttle. I think they may blend better without us. You and I are going to be a priority for someone. Somebody sent Valek.”

  She let her head drop sadly. “They're so young”, she said.

  “I know”, he replied resting his chin on her hair. “We're a danger to everyone, until we know who might be looking for us. With this war, it's possible they'll lose interest. We can't count on that though. You would be evidence that the program exists, especially since they want to bury the thing now. I'm evidence of about a dozen things they want kept quiet. We're a liability. They'll either try to buy us or bury us.”

  “Which do you expect?” She asked pulling away.

  “Honestly, everything comes down to money. Valek claimed he was put in charge to extricate the empire from a sticky situation. That could indicate a lack of desire for bodies to start piling up. Gods know, there will be a few with a program like this. We won't know till someone finds us.”

  “That's not optimistic.”

  “No, it's reality. These guys trained me, Luca. I know them. It's a matter of time before someone knocks on the door. We just have to be ready. In the meantime, my plan will work. We become ranchers.”

  He pulled her forward down the dusty street surrounded on each side by simple, clapboard buildings. It wasn't real clapboard. It was a fused fiberglass that was easy to ship out to border planets and insulated perfectly. Despite the materials, the stores still had an old west feel to them from the stories of Old Earth, probably to attract the tourists.

  “I don't know how to ride.”

  “I'll teach you,” he answered dragging her closer to his side to swing her over an unexpected mud puddle. There had been some rain. She squealed as he squeezed her to his side.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We are headed to the settlement office to see about staking a claim, then to the hotel for a room, Wife.” It was his gentle reminder that they were married on this planet. She smiled a small smile.

  “Then a bath,Husband.”

  He shot her a grin. “As you command, My lady. I will personally fetch you a bath.”

  “Wait”, she dragged on his hand with both of hers. “They have plumbing on this planet, right? This isn't one of the religious worlds, is it? I'm not trying to time travel here. I just want a bath every now and again.”

  “When did you become such a hothouse flower?” He asked incredulously.

  She bristled. “I am not a flower! I just like to be clean.”

  Grumbling, she followed him into the settlement office. Under her breath, she whispered, “There better be plumbing.” He found it all very amusing, she thought grumpily, as he laughed.

  ***#***

  Within a week, she found herself on a dusty ranch in the plains area of the planet. Emery really found his element with the ranching thing. Luca did okay, she thought. It wasn't space, but it was a nice change of pace.

  She'd learned how to ride,
and how to fall in bed physically exhausted. Drones did a lot of the work, but the actual herding still required ranch hands to move cattle back and forth.

  Even now, Emery was out at the quarantine pen with the newest thirty head to arrive on a mechanized truck today. She washed her hands standing at the sink and looked at him out the window. He'd laughed at something Perky said, and then looked toward the window like he felt her watching. Luca actually blushed. She blushed a lot these days when he'd smile at her. Like a kid in love, she mused.

  She noticed he waved his hat over toward the east pen while giving Perky orders. It was impossible not to notice how comfortably he wore his new role, how much he enjoyed the physical side of ranching. For her, this would be okay for now, but she worried about the future. What if she missed space? She couldn't fly at all. They'd be looking for a pilot. How would she stand the monotony? A frown settled between her brows. Her hands stilled on the counter.

  “Now, what's that for?” She started. Emery stood leaning casually against the door frame.

  “Just thinking”, she said.

  “No, you were brooding.”

  She shook her head. “Not brooding. Worrying maybe.”

  “Is there a difference?” He smiled at her, and Luca felt the worries melt a little.

  “No, I guess not. I'm worried I won't fit into the ranching life. You're a natural at the business.”

  He moved forward to put his hands on either side of her waist. “Luca, you belong in the sky. I have no illusions about that. This is temporary.”

  She frowned harder. “How did you know I was spacesick. That's just unsettling.”

  He kissed her nose. “You should always remember, my soul knows yours, right?” He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Also, I'm a master of disguise, remember? I can play at just about anything. You are a pilot. It's in your blood. Once we figure out where we stand with the empire, you're going back to your family and your stars.”

  That made her heart skip a bit. “And you're going to be where?”

  His easy smile dropped just a smidge, and she read the worry on his face so easily. Something about the bounty on them wasn't getting mentioned when they talked. He'd promised he'd never lie to her. It didn't take a quantum engineer to figure out that he still omitted information, in order to carry the burden alone.