Embrace the Romance

by S. E. Smith

  “When, Trysh?”

  But, Zeke. Don’t you want to see her? “I saw him once. When I was four years old.” For the first time, she had shared the story of her father’s refusal to leave his new family to see her, how he turned his back on her and Mama and walked away. “He’s never seen me, outside of photos. If he ever looked at any. I wouldn’t know.” She shrugged.

  Rornn had looked horrified. Family was so important to the Vash Nadah that it was part of their religion. It came before everything else in their culture. This would be incomprehensible to him, she supposed. “And you have never told me this, why?” he had asked.

  “My father acts like I don’t exist. That’s not the kind of thing you want to tell many people.”

  “I am not ‘many people’. Trysh.” He had looked so angry. No—not angry. Hurt.

  “He dated my mother while he was in Nebraska for flight training, but they broke up before I was born. She raised me alone.”

  “General Milton is a baby daddy.”

  She had almost laughed at the way “baby daddy” sounded in his accent, and to hear the slang phrase applied to legendary General Zeke Milton, Chief of Off-World Security, but Mr. Urban Dictionary looked so intense that she squelched her reaction. “He agreed to a DNA test, so I know I’m legally his.”

  “If I may be so bold, I have to say General Milton is not the man I thought he was.” He gestured to her. “Here is this highly accomplished woman, his flesh and blood, and he cannot even take a few moments to show his pride in her.”

  Her heart had swelled with his compliment and his willingness to come to her defense. But he still didn’t grasp the situation. “Zeke Milton is from a famous military family—a long line of heroes that go all the way back to the American Revolution. He comes from money. The best schools. A stellar reputation. My mother’s family barely scraped by. She never even graduated high school. Then she gets pregnant out of wedlock at eighteen years old. Class differences, Charming. It was never going to work. Poor Mama. She really believed Zeke was going to be her happy ending. That’s not his fault, is it? It’s not what he signed up for. He did the right thing—he sent some money. There’s no law that says he’s required to be a father in anything but name only, Charming.”

  “Decency requires no law.” His outrage had faded some, but his disappointment was still sharp.

  Trysh dropped back to the present. She had been lost in thoughts of Rornn and that old conversation while Jack chatted with her. She winced, realizing she hadn’t heard half of what he’d said. Charming kept sending Jack mistrusting looks as he walked next to her. Jack kept eyeing Rornn. She could sense some sort of competition thing zinging between them. Rornn had certainly never hesitated to “plow the field” on the station; why should she live a nunlike existence just because she was obsessed with her best friend?

  Obsessed with, not in love with. If she kept telling herself that, it might eventually stick.

  She turned back to Jack and gave him her sweetest smile. Maybe if she tried harder, Jack Freeman would grow on her over time.

  A loud crying pierced the chow hall hubbub. It sounded like a crying animal.

  “Hey, Captain Freeman!” one of the cargo rats bellowed. “We got ourselves a runaway stowaway!”

  Rornn

  “It’s a puppy!” voices cried out. The crowd in the mess hall surged toward the commotion.

  “Oooh. I want to see,” Trysh said. “Two things I’ll never turn down—a homemade brownie and the chance to hold a puppy.”

  These were the things Trysh desired most? An Earth confection called a brownie and a puppy?

  Rornn blinked at her as she angled toward where one of the cargo rats wrestled with what looked like a puff of black-brown fur. He could not fathom how such an ear-piercing sound could come from a creature so small. It was barely larger than the size of two fists held end to end. It had a mottled dark brown coat, huge black eyes and upright ears.

  It was a cute little thing.

  But the noise it made… It was an unholy, ear-splitting screeching.

  “Do you want to carry it down to the docks?” Jack said, hurrying after Trysh. “I’ll catch it, calm it down, and you can cuddle it all you want.”

  Rornn narrowed his eyes. This man, Jack Freeman, was an opportunist and an interloper. The way Trysh had reacted to his clumsy probing about her father had caused Rornn’s protective instincts to surge. Rornn knew that Trysh hid the pain of General Milton’s rejection deep inside her. Under all her confidence, beneath all her fighter pilot swagger, it was a tight little ball of shame she concealed from everyone except Rornn. No man would ever understand her as he did. Or love her as he could.

  Yes, love. He’d been a fool not to have admitted it to himself sooner. He would be even more the fool to allow her to waltz away into this other man’s life without a fight. A man who would never be the mate she deserved.

  Carlynn laughed. “If you could see your face.”

  Rornn frowned at her. “What does this Jack Freeman have that I do not?”

  “A puppy?” Danger offered.

  Rornn groaned. Earth people had a famous fondness for their domestic creatures. Pets—their felines and canines. Feathered beasts too. Even fish. There were no pets in residence at the palace—unless one considered the cranky, genetically engineered pink-feathered Arkeets pets, which he certainly did not. Able to pose, wings spread, on perches for hours on end, they were used for decoration. When he was a little boy, he tried petting one and it nearly bit off his finger.

  Now Jack Freeman had leaped in while Rornn was “snoozing” to fulfill this unanticipated need of Trysh’s. The need to hold a pet.

  “She’s got it bad, Charming,” Carlynn said. “The feels. She keeps quiet about it, but it’s right there. You can’t miss it. But I guess you did.”

  “She has only just met him!” he protested.

  “Not Jack, you goof.” Carlynn laughed. “You! She’s smitten. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  “Smitten…with me?” This was the best news imaginable. Yet, she had gone off with him. She made her choice. He would endeavor to unmake it.

  I will win you back, Firefly. Rornn’s hopes surged as the bracing promise of a new competition overtook him. He started forward.

  Danger warned, “Wait, Charming, remember what I told you—”

  “Minutes matter, my friend.” Rornn set his jaw and strode off in the direction of the chaos.

  Three

  Puppy

  Yelping, Puppy struggled in the grip of a Tall One that carried the faint odor that made her sneeze in the crate she escaped earlier. The same smell as the Tall One that chased her and tried to hit her with a stick. She snarled in this one’s grasp, but it only caused all the Tall Ones gathering around to laugh. Unwelcome hands from all angles stroked over her body. Instinct told her to keep fighting.

  The Tall One who held her handed her to another. She used the opportunity to wrestle free. The yells of other Tall Ones boomed in her ears as she hit the ground running. Darting between their milling legs, in a strange place that smelled intoxicatingly like food, she ran, following her insistent inner voice that urged her not to stop. Not to give up.

  I am not yet home.

  Rornn

  Jack, the cargo rat, an MP, and a hulking Space Marine chased the fleeing puppy through the mess hall. Personnel stood on tables to better watch the show. Although there was a K-9 facility on Bezos, no Earth dogs had arrived on-station yet. Studies were still being done to determine if they would be able to adapt to the variable gravity. But this was a street dog from the colony—a “yipwag” in the local dialect. And it didn’t sound happy to be here in the least.

  More cargo handlers from the supply squadron arrived in the mess hall, accompanied by Sergeant Spratt, whose barrel chest heaved as he joined the chase. “Doctors Without Common Sense,” he complained for all to hear. “They won’t listen, won’t stop feeding the damn strays. Then I have to deal with an infestation in
my cargo!”

  A cargo handler laughed. “They eat them down in the colony, Sarg. The Baréshtis. Listening to this one screech, I can see why! Nom, nom!”

  Trysh’s focus veered to the man and her expression turned downright deadly. “If he touches that puppy—”

  “He will not. I will see to that.” Rornn recognized him as one of the members of the group cracking jokes while watching the Earth First protest. Alone, the cargo rat avoided Rornn’s eyes, which did not surprise him. Cowards were usually always more cowardly alone.

  Jack careened past them and lunged for the runaway. “Come to daddy.” He scooped it off the floor and hugged it to his stomach. Rornn felt a strange sense of impending loss when the puppy’s cries ceased in Jack’s grip and Trysh’s expression changed to one of rapture. He could feel her slipping away from him. But a second later, a dark stain appeared down the front of the man’s gray uniform and the puppy resumed its piercing yelping, its entire body convulsing with the effort.

  Jack thrust the dripping puppy to arm’s length. “Great. Just great. It peed on me.”

  Rornn smothered a laugh. The puppy’s huge panicked eyes shifted to him. Why did something in those expressive eyes hint that the act of urination had been intentional? It seems we are on the same side.

  “Allow me.” Rornn had never held a puppy in his life. As he reached for the barking little creature, he glimpsed tiny, needlelike teeth, a small pink tongue. The peculiar and foul odor of the Barésh Colony wafted from its patchy coat as he cupped his hands around its body. There was no soft, rounded belly like those of the Earth puppies he had glimpsed in Texas. Sharp bones poked out from under loose skin. He could feel every internal organ. This tiny, impossibly fragile thing was near starvation. At first, his motivation had been to impress Trysh, to compete with Jack for her affections, but all that drained away upon feeling the yipwag’s terror. Gently, he held her little body against his chest, sensing she would want to feel the beating of another living thing’s heart. He knew he would. “You are safe with me. I will not let anything happen to you. You are home.” He knew not where that last sentiment came from, but, somehow, he felt it in his soul. The puppy trembled so hard he felt the vibrations go up his arms. Then, after a few seconds, the trembles eased.

  Then there was silence.

  “Holy shit,” the Marine said. “Did it die?”

  “That or my eardrums are permanently damaged,” growled the MP.

  For a terrifying instant Rornn thought he had killed it. But the puppy made a few soft grunting sounds as she rooted around with her nose. Something inside him melted as she placed one impossibly small paw over his heart. Rornn grinned at the surprised people around him, skipping over Jack to wink at Trysh, who watched him with the kind of gaze he had waited to see since the day he first met her. His grin grew even wider. “They don’t call me Charming for nothing.”

  Trysh

  Trysh spent the rest of the day taking turns with Rornn looking after the puppy in the K-9 center, leaving only when they had to be in the hangar for official duties. “You’re trading away flying to make time to pet-sit?” their squadron commander, Colonel Amanpour, had asked, tugging on his earlobe as if his hearing had malfunctioned when she requested permission to swap her next shuttle run with Carlynn’s. Rornn had done the same with Danger. “Isn’t this the culprit that ate Box Cutter’s pie?”

  “I don’t think she’ll ever get back in his good graces, Sir, but maybe she’ll help with security one day down at the docks. She won conditional acceptance into the K-9 training program. She’ll need to get a little stronger before it’s official. I always heard that yipwags are unbelievably smart, but you have to see it to believe it, Sir. She looks me in the eye, and it feels like there’s someone home in there. A little person. It’s crazy, and she’s just a baby.”

  Amanpour had gaped at her. His bristly silver hair gleamed in an old-school, what-used-to-be Marine Corps “high and tight” style, not a clipped strand out of place. Where he would have once worn U.S. Marine Corps emblems on his uniform, Earth System Frontier Forces pins gleamed, matched by his piercing blue eyes. As the commander of the Mighty Titans Starfighter Squadron, he was her direct supervisor and the highest-ranking officer under Colonel Duarte. He was at times their boss, bully, and den mother. But in that moment, he had acted as if she were speaking in tongues. “So, you think an alien animal can be trained to do the same things Earth K-9s do.”

  “More things, we think. Lieutenant Frank, one of the Space Marines, adopted a stray yipwag yesterday. He says Bang-Bang’s already learned a dozen commands.”

  “Bang-Bang…”

  “Yes, Sir. That’s the dog’s name. We haven’t named ours yet.”

  “‘Ours’?” The colonel laughed. “Now I’ve heard it all. You and Charming have finally learned to share.”

  “We’re trying, Sir.”

  “Don’t lose your edge, Firefly,” he joked.

  “Never, Sir.”

  But that was exactly what she sensed was beginning to happen as she sat on the floor in the K-9 center that evening and watched Rornn train the puppy. After being treated, bathed, and given bowls of a nutritious mash to eat, the puppy wanted to play nonstop, dashing from Trysh to Rornn, her tummy bulging, her huge eyes full of intelligence and curiosity, her skinny little tail a blur as it wagged. From the start, she showed a clear preference for the two of them, but she also seemed to trust the MPs who managed the K-9 center. Jack, Box Cutter, and most of the folks who worked at the docks got a different reaction. It must be due to the trauma the puppy experienced on her trip from the surface to the station.

  “Sit.” Rornn stood in front of the puppy. The yipwag dropped her bottom to the floor. “Good girl,” he praised. Sitting on one haunch, she tipped her head sideways as she awaited his next command. “Are you ready to try something new? Maybe fetch.” More head tipping. “Ah, good. I am ready too. Let us shake on it.” A large male hand gently clasped a tiny paw. “Did you see that, Firefly? She already knows shake!”

  “Yay! Good girl!” As she clapped, she saw pure joy suffuse Rornn’s face. His grin was triumphant, his golden eyes alive with excitement that he clearly wanted to share with her. He looked like a proud dad on the sidelines of a soccer field, turning to his wife after watching their kid score the winning goal. It revealed a side of him she had never expected. For the first time, she could imagine him loving a child.

  Loving her.

  Don’t be ridiculous. Talk about losing her edge! This was Rornn B’lenne—sweet talker, slayer of women’s hearts, jokester, hotshot, Vash Prince. Believing in the possibility of sharing something real with him was the same kind of thinking that got her mother in trouble. What was in those tacos at lunchtime? It had stolen her higher brain function.

  But he came back for you.

  As she watched Rornn carry the puppy to a dish of water then crouch next to the tiny animal as she drank, the wrenching moments in the simulator that morning filled her mind. Rornn speeding toward her starfighter to blast attacking Dragaar warcraft to smithereens. It wasn’t real, it was a VR world, but the feeling that Rornn B’lenne would come back for her no matter what, no matter where, wouldn’t quit. The certainty of it had been planted inside her, spreading its roots. What would it be like to go through life, knowing someone had your back like that?

  “But, Zeke, don’t you want to see her?” Just like that, the memory of her father turning away from her, walking out of her life, came rushing back and doused her enchantment with Rornn’s actions. The memory was hazy, almost black-and-white it was so long in the past, yet it somehow maintained its power over her. Despite all her counteracting logic, despite her longing for true love and a family of her own someday, her father’s heartlessness and mother’s poor choices had kept her in an emotional stranglehold. “He was never going to settle for a girl like me. That’s the difference between real life and Cinderella, sweet pea.”

  Puppy leaped into Trysh’s lap, a writhing,
wriggling bundle of unbridled joy. In an instant, puppy kisses and a wagging tail blew away her doubts and dark thoughts. Giggling, she rubbed the puppy’s warm belly as little legs kicked. A surge of love expanded in her chest. It felt as if a door inside her that she kept tightly sealed had just cracked open a little bit more.

  Rornn dropped to the floor next to Trysh, one long leg sprawled out in front of him, his other bent at the knee, a shiny boot providing new excitement for the puppy as she bounded from Trysh’s lap to Rornn’s boot to nibble on the leather. It was chilly in the kennel area but his body blazed with heat. It was the reason she moved closer until their shoulders touched. At least that was what she told herself.

  The puppy made her way to Rornn’s lap, turned in a circle then curled up. Trysh folded her hand over her tiny, bony body, stroking the patchy fur. Soon, little snores told her the pup had fallen asleep. “I don’t want to move,” she whispered, leaning across Rornn’s torso.

  “Don’t,” Rornn whispered back. His warm breath on her cheek sent curlicues of sensation spinning down her neck and spine. “Not quite yet, at least,” he said. “I like this too much.”

  She smirked. “I bet you do.” She kept her eyes trained on the drowsing puppy, trying to pretend the rumble of his voice in his chest didn’t do crazy things to her insides. She had no more luck ignoring the proximity of the rest of his body, the slivers of hot skin at his neck and forearms, his scent, and the sweet, thick heat it generated, gathering low in her belly. He was aware of her reaction to him; he had to be. He had gone very still. If she turned her head, she would find herself mouth to mouth with him. Then he would catch her staring at his lips, and his eyes would glow with knowing amusement. Because a year of experience told her he never failed to recognize his effect on her, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.