There was absolutely no future for them. They would have this time, until they were rescued, and then he would return to his family and the life he was born into. And she would… do something. Immigrate to Yonder or move to some Zh Cle’ friendly planet. Maybe she could travel with Dooley back to her homeworld and find relatives.
She’d spend the rest of her life trying to forget him.
The first site didn’t yield much of value. The three did come back with clothing and blankets which would need a scrubbing and airing. They left those in the loading bay.
After they ate a midday meal they moved on to the next site. They saw a lot of scattered debris as Dooley flew low over the terrain.
“I think that might be a fuel cell,” Dooley said. They landed near a small tubular piece of wreckage. Gema was glad it didn’t smell of death, and it was out in the open. She wandered around the wreckage with the others, looking for long metal cylinders.
Kellac climbed a small rise ahead of the rest of them. He gave a shout and then laughed.
“Fuel. Lots of useable fuel.”
“Star Gods above. We do have some luck,” Dooley said after they reached Kellac. There on the plain below were a number of silver cylinders nestled in the deep grass.
They loaded the fuel cells into the hold and secured them so they wouldn’t bang into each other. Dooley hooked one up, showing Kellac how it was done. Gema looked around the debris but didn’t see anything of value and Lorl paced around the wreckage by herself, not interested in fuel.
After loading the fuel they sat for a cup of cold tea.
“How much fuel is there?” Lorl asked. Dooley had been tapping calculations on his com for a bit while the others discussed whether to camp there or move on to the next site.
“I’ll know here in a minute,” he said. Kellac moved next to him and watched the computations on the com.
“Yes, very good. Fortune found us this time,” Dooley said.
“Is it enough to get us to the relay station if we need to do that?” Lorl took a gulp of tea.
“Yes. There and back. Actually more than enough if we travel with the empty hold. But we might still find enough components to communicate from here.”
Lorl tossed her mug of tea on the ground. Gema frowned. They only had a few mugs.
“Change of plans, then,” Lorl said, placing an arm around Gema. “Don’t come near. I have a surgical laser and can make a big gaping wound on Gema in a moment.”
Gema froze, confused. But Lorl’s hand on her arm was hard, painfully digging into her upper arm. Something was pressed to her neck.
Kellac stood, slowly his eyes huge. “What do you want? Let’s talk about this. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt.”
“No talking. You have your plans, all about the war, fighting the invaders. Getting to your family. I have a plan, too. It’s important. And no one is going to care about my plan but me. So everyone get on the ship and get us into space. I have the coordinates.”
Gema looked at Kellac, deep into his eyes. His eyes were black with shock. Dooley sat unmoving, still holding his mug. She could feel the subtle trembling of Lorl’s arm and knew the woman was all jacked up, she could make a mistake and Gema would never see Kellac again. Not in this world, and there was no evidence the Starhaven existed. Her heart gave an odd thump and she felt dizzy for a moment.
“Right, whatever you say, Lorl. What do you want us to do?” Kellac asked.
“Gema and I are getting on the ship first. You two stay back. I’ll call when we’re settled. You fuel it up. I'll give coordinates after you are strapped down to take off.”
Gema followed Lorl’s orders and climbed into the ship and sat in a back seat near the wall. She no longer felt afraid. She felt tired. Resigned. Something bad was going to happen to her, hadn’t it always been the case? There was no bright future for her. Sooner or later there would be a tragedy. She and Kellac would part. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“Gema, it’ll be fine, we’ll work this out,” Kellac said as he and Dooley strapped in at the controls.
“There’s no bright future for me,” she whispered, simply repeating the thought flowing through her mind. It wasn’t a new idea.
“Gema—”
“—Quiet!” Lorl shoved the laser stick harder into the flesh of Gema’s throat. Then the stick loosened as Lorl ripped at her arm com. “I need you arm com. Open a file.” Gema did so and Lorl quickly input data.
“Dooley.” Lorl tossed the com through the air and Dooley caught it. “The coordinates I want are there. Tell me how long until we arrive.”
Dooley studied the com and then his control panel.
“It’ll take over eight hours.”
Lorl took the stick from Gema but sat next to her, ready to jam it into her throat if anyone moved. She took Gema to the small hygenie once, and gave her a meal pack and a drink. There was very little talk during the trip. Gema dozed off for a while and the men took turns sleeping. Lorl stayed awake the whole time, though her perfect PureGen face developed lines under the eyes.
“We are nearing the coordinates. Now what?” Kellac asked.
“Enlarge the viewer. We are looking for sleep tubes.”
“Sleep tubes.” Dooley said. He turned around to stare at her. “That’s why you were on the lower level. You launched some tubes.”
“The children,” Lorl whispered. “Some of us qualified to have our children aboard as part of our executive package. There was just enough time to get the children entubed and launched and I knew the sequence so I stayed down on the lower level and set it up. I was a tech, not an editor. I worked with the tech system, not the show content. So I was near the transport when they attacked.”
Gema stared at Lorl. She couldn’t imagine the cold hard woman as a mother.
“How many tubes are we picking up?”
“There are three, but I understand how difficult adding three children to the camp would be. I know the ID number of my son’s tube, 3310.”
It took less than an hour to find the tube, and pull it on board into the hold.
“Here.” Lorl handed Gema the laser and went to stand near the wall portal that showed the interior of the bay. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Kellac grabbed Gema around the torso and pulled her from the rear seats to the front seats. He tucked the laser into a small pocket on the leg of his pants. “You’ll stay up front with us.” He turned to look at Lorl. “Is this how it is going to be with you? When you want something, you threaten to kill one of us?”
Chapter Nine
“No!” Lorl’s face turned an unbecoming shade of red. “I—I didn’t think!”
“Where did you get the laser?”
“At the first stop, the wreckage. I found a med unit.”
“You were planning this?”
“No. I just thought it would be smart to be armed. Then we found the fuel and there was enough to get out here.” She shrugged and tears ran down her cheeks. “The idea came to me all at once. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But I could have my child with me. He wouldn’t get lost and die in deep space. There’s only a two-year power supply on those tubes. And with a war—Who would be concerned for a small child in a sleep tube in a remote area?”
Kellac’s stern expression didn’t change but when he spoke his voice was softer. “We have to depend on each other if we plan to survive. You know how remote and alone we are. We have no med staff, no real weapons, few tools. None of us is an expert at wilderness living, and all of us need to work together. We can’t be afraid you’ll use threats of violence to get your way.”
Kellac looked at Gema then at Dooley. “I think I’m speaking for all of us. We’ll give you one more chance. You mess up and you’re on your own. Think about it. We can’t keep someone in our little community who is a threat to our safety.” Kellac’s whole demeanor was stern and Gema thought she saw a glimpse of the military man he’d been.
�
�I agree. We can’t bunk with someone who might harm one of us.” Dooley’s normally cheerful voice sounded sad.
Lorl’s eyes got huge and she glanced at the sleep tube in the hold. “I don’t want to be on my own. I won’t do anything like that again. I swear.”
Dooley pulled down a chair from the side of the wall near Kellac. It was smaller than the chairs in the rear, but she didn’t care to be back there with Lorl. “Why don’t you sit up front with us?” Gema scrambled into it. Kellac returned to his seat and caressed Gema’s knee.
Dooley gave the woman a disapproving look, so unlike his usual good-natured expression. Lorl dropped her eyes and returned to her chair.
“What about the other tubes? Will anyone collect them before two years?” Gema asked.
Dooley and Kellac looked at each other.
“We’ll have to collect them, too. With the Gorvas in this sector they will be long forgotten,” Kellac said.
It took several hours to find and stow the other tubes. They were all tired, especially Dooley who had been at the controls most of the journey.
“The hold isn’t pressurized, we can’t release your child until we’re dirtside,” Dooley said to Lorl.
“I’m not sure we’ll want to release the children. We’ll want to think about it. We’ll be wintering alone in our camp. It might be best to wait.” Kellac said, then yawned hugely. “I suggest we all get some sleep.”
“But what about just my child? Can I wake just my child? I will watch him, no one else will be burdened,” Lorl said.
Dooley looked at the woman and for once his eyes were not hard. “There could be hard times ahead, Lorl. Nothing similar to life on Toph or on the Viewcast ship.”
“I know. But I want him with me. I think it best.”
Dooley, Gema and Kellac exchanged a glance. Kellac shrugged. “Alright. When we get back you can wake him.”
There was a little food on board so they all ate a readypac and drank some water. Instead of sleeping in the small chair, Kellac pulled Gema into his arms and reclined his seat. “We can share. Your seat doesn’t recline and I don’t want you back there with her.”
Dooley powered down the lights and she spread out half on top of Kellac, her face tucked into the crook of his neck. He stroked her back gently and the tension began to slip away. He felt so safe, so solid. She sniffed in his scent and a tear seeped out, then another, dampening his shirt.
“I’ve got you, sweet one. You are fine. Safe. She won’t get a chance to pull another stunt. I’ll be watching now.” Kellac stroked her back in gentle rhythmic sweeps.
“I thought for a while it was over for me,” Gema confessed. “She was shaking, I thought even if she didn’t mean to, she might...”
“I know. I was afraid of that too. But you are safe.” Kellac stroked her hair back, which was coming out of her braid in a tangled mess. “Try to sleep.”
His arms were heavy on her back and one hand smoothed her hair gently. She slipped into a deep sleep.
Gema awoke to the sound of the men’s voices and made her way to the hygenie. Lorl was still asleep, the back of the ship was dark. Kellac and Dooley were doing something at the com. Kellac was wide-awake, fairly quivering with energy. She joined them, wishing they had hot tea.
“We’re running the numbers again,” Kellac explained. “We think there’s enough fuel to get us to the relay station and back to the campsite.”
“Really? Good news.” Her stomach growled. “Except for the food situation.”
“Here.” Dooley handed her a readypac. “We have a few still. And there should be rations at the relay station. The com techs went there in this transport. And I doubt there would be guards. It is such a remote system, what would anyone want with it?”
“Other than us.” Kellac grinned. He looked refreshed and handsome, not like someone who had shared a reclining chair for the night. “How many staff members did the broadcast team keep there?”
“Don’t know,” Dooley said. “But Lorl will know. She was some stratosphere type. Executive administrator of some such.”
A few moments later their computer calculations were finished. Kellac gave a whoop, waking Lorl who nearly fell off her recliner.
“Let’s do it.”
Dooley gave a bark of laughter and got busy on the com.
“What are we doing?” Lorl asked. She looked disoriented. Gema almost felt a little sorry for her.
Dooley paused and then shot the woman a dark glance. “We got lucky. There’s enough fuel to get us to the relay station and back dirtside. So we can still contact someone for aid.”
“I see. That’s good news.”
Dooley turned his back on her but Gema handed her one of the readypacs. Lorl took it without looking at her.
***
The relay station was not at all what Gema expected. For one thing, it was huge. She’d expected a small station, but this was a conglomeration of tubes, spheres and bulky structures. It seemed disjointed, different styles of structure welded together. Dooley found a dock and got their ship safely locked on.
“No hailing from any authority, but the docks are automatic. Weird it is so large. I thought it would be small,” Dooley said as he piloted their ship into a hold.
“Yes,” Kellac said. “I think this was used as a military outpost. Too bad the PureGen worlds neglected it. They could have been warned about the invasion, maybe bought time for defense.”
“This is more than a relay. I think it might have munitions or fuel holds. It must be so large for a reason,” Dooley said. “The production company probably paid to use their facilities. This has been here for a long time.”
“The Viewcast required the best equipment in order to reach all our viewers. The company paid for the equipment upgrade at this old station,” Lorl said softly. It was the first time she’d spoken in hours. “But you are right, it is a downgraded military installation from the past century.”
“Do you know any of the specifics of the communication system?” Kellac asked her.
“No. But I might recognize the technology if it similar to a system we used on the Viewcast ship. I think it is similar because the production company had to upgrade the system here.”
Gema was surprised to see how drawn the woman looked at the moment. Her delicate beauty didn’t hold up to stress and no sleep very well.
Dooley took care of the docking procedure. “All done. We are now on the station’s support system. Our air will refresh, standard system. In a few minutes the lights will brighten signaling we have air and can deboard.”
“We’ll need to find the communication array as fast as possible. Our docking might have alerted someone. I was expecting something small, too. This might have guards.” Kellac said. “Or there might be some outlier ships or beacons. Someone might come check us out.”
“I would rather stay here near my son,” Lorl said. “There are a couple of readipacs left I could eat. Unless you need me.”
“Alright. I want to find the communication array and see what we’re dealing with. We may need you though at some time since you are more familiar with the tech. Dooley, we have a com connection to the ship, right? So we can stay in touch.” Kellac asked. “We don’t know how long we’ll be. I think we will just explore right now. Let’s make a plan to communicate at the top of every hour.”
Dooley took a moment to show Lorl how to work the com, and they left through a door which opened to the station. Gema was glad to be out of Lorl’s presence, the woman still made her nervous.
“She can’t take off with the transport, can she? Wouldn’t that just be great if she took off for somewhere, leaving us here?” Gema asked.
“She can’t.” Dooley said. “I set the security code. Kellac or I can unlock it. The engines won’t start without the code.”
“Plus there’s nowhere except Duseault 9 to travel to,” Kellac added. “Not in the transport.”
They left the hold through a wide door and entered a long dimly l
it hallway made of a dull textured metal. Four cyborgs came around the distant corner, their forearms thick with some type of appliance, which the cyborgs pointed at them. They froze. Weapon carrying cyborgs? Before Gema could react, the cyborgs sprayed a fine mist toward them. Kellac and Dooley dropped like rocks.
Chapter Ten
“Stop!” The cyborgs advanced on her. *Stop* Gema thought at them. They halted and she nearly fell to the floor in relief. *Tell me what you did to them!*
Alien Blood (Diaspora Worlds) Page 10
