Rising Tides

by Rebecca Royce

  “Don’t cry.” He looked away. “I miss you, too. And we’ll be together soon. Until then, we’ll get to talk some now, and I’m going to send messages through to your tablet. Be safe.” His gaze met mine again, and I was proud that I’d pulled it together. He touched his lips and then the screen again. “Love you.”

  I nodded. “Love you, too, and get some sleep. You need it.”

  “I will.”

  I got to my feet to check the med machines. Everything showed perfect. I stared down at the faces of my sister and her new son, who I already knew I was going to love as much as his brother. Ben was tucked in tight with Diana, watching movies with her daughter Helene. They were as safe as I could make any of them.

  I’d never wanted to return to Earth, but now here I was somehow the caretaker of everyone here with me on this planet that had birthed humanity. Nausea hit me again. I had to be getting sick. I rubbed my arms. I didn’t have any time for that so this was all just going to have to work itself out without illness overtaking me.

  “Hunter’s going to reach your husbands. Your newest love is getting stronger by the minute although he was already so strong at birth. Your Ben is with Diana who loves him like her own. I’m sorry I can’t have the universe fixed when I wake you tomorrow but I tried to make the reasons your world turns as safe as I could make them. I love you, Paloma. All will be well.”

  I spent so much time assuring others of things I wasn’t sure of myself.

  “Talk to me.” I turned and then gasped as my brother-in-law Quinn Sandler strode into the room. He had a beard, which was a new look for him, but otherwise he was the Quinn I was used to. His gaze swept over the machines and then back to me. “Are they going to be okay?”

  I hugged him. Quinn was the least huggy of the bunch of my brothers-in-law. But it was so nice to see him I had to do it just the same. He squeezed me for a second, and I found my voice before I stepped back.

  “I’m just about to wake both of them. Paloma should be fine, now. She had a lot of blood loss by the time we got to Artemis. When she got to the med bay, she wasn’t bleeding, but by the time we got here, she really was. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. I couldn’t… find out why but it stopped as soon as I delivered him. No obvious clots or tears in her uterus. Maybe Ari or someone else could have figured it out.”

  He waved his hand. “Don’t do that. You would have found it if it was findable. Go on.”

  “He was obviously too early. Six weeks premature. Almost five pounds. His lungs weren’t ready. That’s the biggest problem right now. They developed overnight. She has recovered her blood loss. What we need now is for him to stay warm, gain weight, maintain his body temp. I don’t know yet if he can do any of that. So it may be in and out of the machine. What I do know is he needs her and she needs him. And probably Ben. She needs Ben. And oh, Quinn, she needs you. They all need you and you’re here. How are you here?”

  He touched the med machine, staring down at Paloma and then at Aaron. “Your husband, he found me, which couldn’t have been easy because I’m basically holed up in secret, tracking the heads of their fleet around and passing that information where it needs to go. But he found me, contacted me, and I got here just as fast as I could.”

  I looked at the time. “That was less than five hours ago.” I couldn’t believe even that much time had passed.

  “Fast ship. It might be better to have one of my brothers. They’re better in stress like this but I love her more than anything so I’m going to try not to fuck this up. And I want to see Ben. Can he come here?”

  I thought about it. “Not yet. We really don’t want Aaron getting sick and Ben is a perfectly healthy little boy loaded with germs, living underground, picking up everyone else’s germs. You’ll have to go to him.”

  “Got it.” He nodded. “What now?”

  I needed to wake them up.

  “Amber,” Paloma’s tired voice caught my attention. She sat on Quinn’s lap, Aaron attached to her breast. It was such good news that he’d latched on with no trouble. Him gaining weight out of the machine was what we wanted.

  The Z couldn’t find Ari, and Wade was up to his ears in patients. He’d also let me know he wasn’t wonderful with pediatrics. That wasn’t helpful. Wade was funny. He alternated between the best person I knew and the grumpiest.

  Maybe we were all that way.

  “Paloma?”

  I was leaving her with a nurse for the next hour. I had to go get a pill or lie down. Wade and I were going to have to bite the bullet and make a schedule. Neither one of us was going to be able to keep this up unless we got some sort of help. The Z were after me for my treatment but I think even they recognized I couldn’t get in the machine while things were a non-stop chaotic fight to save lives.

  “Thank you.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing to thank me for. I love you. And I think Ben can come when Aaron is in the machine, okay?”

  “More than okay. Thanks for getting Quinn here.”

  That hadn’t been me. “That was Hunter.”

  “Semantics. You told him. I’m too tired. Just thank you.”

  I nodded at the nurse. “Let me know if anything changes and put Aaron back in the machine in an hour. Okay?”

  I was pretty sure the woman nodded back to me. I was going to go take a shower and then find Ben and bring him so he could see his brother. Matt met me outside the med bay on Artemis, which meant that Brenden must be sleeping. What time was it?

  I hurried to get to my room, stopping to make sure the water ran when I entered the underground living quarters. It did. The waterfall was still there. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because it was so darn old, but as long as that waterfall stayed functional, then somehow we would all be okay.

  I put my hand out to touch the stream, something I’d never done before. It was cool to the touch.

  “Your husband Master Shane does that every time he passes it. But I’m told he doesn’t need to because he can basically smell if it’s off.” Matt spoke in a low voice. He rarely addressed me first. I must have been standing there long enough to make him nervous.

  I nodded. “I’ve seen him do that. He has a real gift for the water. This will still be as it always was when they all get back.”

  That felt like a vow as I said it. I wasn’t usually so… dramatic.

  “It will.” If Matt thought what I’d said odd, he didn’t indicate it, which I appreciated. I made my way to my room. Applesauce met me by the door, letting me know in no uncertain terms what he thought of my long absence. He had an automated feeder and a machine that also cleaned his litter. It was my company he missed, and I felt the same for him.

  I didn’t have a lot of time but I spent ten minutes of it petting the cat. That must have been enough. He walked to the air vent, sat on it, and proceeded to clean himself. I followed his lead and took the shower I’d sought out in coming here.

  I let the water rinse away my day.

  Ben stared at his little brother, a very serious expression on his face.

  Quinn held him tightly, his nose pressed to his nephew’s hair. They might not have been father-son but there was no sense of that in Paloma’s household. They all loved that boy like he was their biological son, not one bit less than Clay, his actual father, did.

  “What do you think?” Quinn asked him, sparing a look at Paloma.

  She was asleep in the chair. I checked her readings, and they were strong. My poor sister just needed to sleep.

  “He’s my responsibility.” Ben finally answered him.

  I stared at Quinn. That was a new word for him as far as I knew. Quinn looked back at me. I shook my head. He hadn’t gotten that from me. Maybe Paloma said that? But I doubted it. I didn’t think she was sticking her three-year-old with that kind of job just yet.

  Quinn squeezed him. “What makes you say that?”

  “He just is. I’ve seen brothers, and I know how it goes now. I’m going to take care of him.”

  Th
is was so cute. “Well, maybe you could help all the grown-ups take care of him a little bit. And then when you’re older, he can be your playmate, and you can help him out when he needs it.”

  “I’m going to take care of him.”

  He was so darn cute. I…

  An alarm sounded that jolted Paloma awake. Her blood pressure skyrocketed, and the machine yelled out an alert. Yes, we were all probably up there right at that second.

  I jumped up. “Stay here.”

  Matt rushed in the room. He held his ear, obviously getting an update through the Z network. “Evander is on the ground, heading here.”

  “Fuck.” I hardly ever cursed, but sometimes those words were called for and appropriate. “Matt can you fly this ship? It’s old.”

  He blinked. “Yes, ma’am. I can.”

  “Good. Get them out of here. Somewhere nearby, but in the air. Safe. I know I’m asking the impossible, but this is my family, and I’m trusting you with them. Do you understand?”

  He looked like he was going to argue, and then he stopped. “Yes, Dr. Chen. I’ll do just that.”

  “Thank you.”

  I ran past him, not stopping for Paloma’s yell. There were things to do and one of them was to get them out of here.

  The Chens had kept the water running and safe for hundreds of years. I was the only Chen here. I was going to see to it that happened.

  This was my job.

  I got off the ship as the engines roared to life and nearly collided with Brenden in the process.

  “Dr. Chen?” he shouted. “What are you doing? Where is Matt?”

  I pulled Brenden with me. He was exactly what I needed. “We’re under attack. He’s saving my family. As I told him to do. Come on. We have to get to the water.”

  I thought he might have objected, but he didn’t. “Can you reach Wade?”

  “Yes.” He touched his ear. “I can get to most people using this as long as they’re in the area.”

  “Tell Wade he has to evacuate the med center. I can’t help him. That water and the people there are my job. It’s what the Chens do.”

  He nodded. “You honor us.”

  Normally, I would object to that phrase. I hated it. Honoring this, honoring that. But I had no time for that sort of thing right now. It wasn’t an honor, it was my right as Amari, Hunter, and Shane’s wife to take care of things here. I would hold this place for them so it was here when they got back.

  “Will our forces hold?”

  He winced. “I don’t know. The ground forces here are weak. We’ve been uninteresting to Evander until now. Just people, not resources they need. Maybe they’re turning here for the purpose of collateral damage.”

  I doubted that. “No. They want something. Evander is about business. Sandler Corporation wanted domination. That isn’t Evander’s way. Earth is a resource. People can be a resource if they’re put to work until they’re too old or too sick to matter. Otherwise they kill them to get them away from the resources.” What did we have here? “They don’t need water. There’s plenty on Earth unless they eradicate it, and they aren’t going to do that. They are resource seeking. They aren’t moving here. They’re taking things, taking over, and bringing them across the black hole. They’ve used up their resources over there. It makes sense to take ours while theirs recuperates and then they’re going to do it again.”

  I’d stopped running. In the distance, I could hear the foray coming. Bombs. Guns. I knew these sounds too well lately. I had to think faster.

  “What do we have?”

  He pointed. “You. They want the Chens to stop. They take or kill you.”

  “No, I’m nothing to Evander. If I die, if I live, I’m just another person on an expense report. They don’t care about people. They care about…”

  Fuck. How could I have forgotten? All this time and I’d not focused on Sienna. They’d told me when I took her from that space station that Evander wanted her. She was a commodity to them. Why? I still didn’t know.

  “We have to move Sienna.”

  Brenden blinked, staring at me. “Who?”

  She was a well-kept secret, so unknown that Brenden didn’t even know. When I went to check on her, he thought I was looking at medical supplies.

  “You’re going to be very upset with me. Yell at me later.”

  He stared at me like I had two heads. “I would never presume…”

  “Yes, you would.” I tugged on his arm. “We have to go to storage. We have to move her.”

  “Dr. Chen, I don’t understand…”

  I had no time for this. “You will. Brenden you have to trust me. If we move Sienna, we can save the water, save the people. If they’re tracing her, then we have to move her away. And fuck. Send a message to one of the guys. Tell them to call for help. Tell them to say that Evander is here. The signals are open. Someone will come.”

  I hoped.

  The storage unit in the very back of the living quarters underground held mostly medical supplies, bedding, shelving units filled with air filters, rat traps, and Sienna MacKinnon, who I had been charged with taking care of for nine months now.

  “Is that a woman in cryogenic sleep?”

  I nodded. “Yes it is. My husbands know. I had to keep her secret.”

  “Evander wants her.” Brenden stated the obvious, catching up. “Where should we take her?”

  “Onto a shuttle. I’ll take her. I’ll keep moving until we can figure something else out. They can chase me.”

  He shook his head but even as he did we grabbed the chamber together. It had wheels. That didn’t make it any less awkward to move. We rolled her together down the hall. “There’s no way in hell, Amber, that I’m letting you do that. I’ll do that.”

  “You can’t. She’s sick. She might need medical help if something happens,” I sighed. “It has to be me.”

  We nearly hit a wall. “Do you have any idea how dead I will be if I let you go up in a shuttle by yourself with this lady and you were to get hurt? Forget it, I wouldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t want to live anymore. You are my responsibility. The Z Warriors do not let the Chen wives get hurt. We have failed you over and over. You are brave to the point of distraction. You don’t sleep or eat. You do for others constantly. I know I just called you Amber. Sometimes I slip because you seem so human and not like a… like a distant, cold, old woman who made my mother miserable.”

  He couldn’t have been talking about me, he had to mean my mother-in-law. “Okay.”

  “So no, you may not…”

  I collided with a solid figure behind me, shrieking. I whirled around. I didn’t have a weapon, but I was sure that Brenden did.

  With my heart in my stomach, I recognized Blaze, the Super Soldier who had once convinced me to stop being a coward.

  “Evander’s coming. They want the girl.”

  I put my hands on my knees. “We’ve figured that out.”

  This was proving to be a very long day.

  4 Explosions

  Blaze ripped the chamber from me. “I’m taking her away from here. We have some troops on the ground. It might take a little, but we’ll push Evander back. Sorry they got here at all. We didn’t foresee this coming. Fortunately, we got the call from Quinn on Artemis and we came fast.”

  “You can’t just take her.” Wade rounded the corner. Was the entire world going to descend on the storage area? “She’s not well. That’s why she’s still asleep. We don’t even know what’s wrong with her yet because we can’t devote anytime to finding out since we’re constantly under siege.”

  A muscle ticked in Blaze’s jaw. “Then come with us.”

  Wade looked at me and then at Sienna again. “I can’t take off with you. We’re overwhelmed as it is.”

  “Don’t you have the kids to look after?” His brother and sister counted on him.

  He shook his head. “They’re on Venus Colony in a school. I sent them off two weeks ago.”

  He had? Did I know that? “Okay. Wade,
go. It’s fine. Don’t argue. Sienna needs help and she’s your patient now.”

  As I said it, I realized that by doing so, part of what Ari had told me would happen. Future Ari in my only experience with time travel told me that Sienna would be my patient and then at some point would become Wade’s. There, it happened. In some ways, it was a relief.

  “Okay. I’ll come with you.”

  Blaze pulled the chamber along, Wade chasing after him. I ran behind. This was all lunacy.

  “Got her?” A man I’d never seen before called out, running off a shuttle.

  “Yes, and this doctor is coming with us.” Blaze plowed ahead onto the shuttle.

  The man stared at Wade. “Oh good. Another non Super Soldier. It’ll be a relief. I’m Trenton. Hey, anyone seen my buddy Ari?”

  Well, I still didn’t know who he was, but apparently he knew Ari. That was good, I guessed. Trenton. Blaze wouldn’t hurt Sienna would he? I ran toward Wade. “Take care of her.”

  He nodded. “I will. I’m sure we’ll be back.”

  “Not necessarily,” Blaze supplied.

  I wanted to go back to having almost next to nothing to do with Blaze and his Super Soldiers. Canyon, Rohan and Sterling were nice. I didn’t know about this man. I pointed at him. “I know you don’t think highly of me, but mark my words, if anything happens to this woman, you will know pain. I promise you that.”

  He stared at me and then past me. I looked quickly. Brenden and three other Z Warriors stared back at him. Blaze nodded. “I think you would find a way to hurt me if I hurt you. I misread you, Amber. All those months ago. I would never call you a coward now.”

  “You called her a coward?” Brenden’s voice didn’t rise. If anything, it lowered.

  I pointed at the shuttle. “See if you can find my sister while you are up there and see if they’re okay.”

  “Today I am apparently taking orders from everyone. Yes, I’ll do that. Good luck, Amber. I imagine we’ll see each other again. I’ve become a big fan of your husbands. They’re brutal.”