Hearts and Swords: Four Original Stories of Celta

by Robin D. Owens

  Setting both hands on his chest, she pushed him back. “You’re coping magnificently in everything except relating to your wife.”

  He winced. Stepped back, glanced aside. “I know.”

  “Then don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Step back and glance aside. Kelse, haven’t we been through enough together that you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you!”

  “Really? When did you think you always had to be the strong one? Don’t you get to be weak?”

  He blinked, and she realized he’d never even considered the concept of leaning on her. He’d been in charge when they’d met, the leader of the NJNY psi underground. There had been plenty of physical danger and risk, but he knew how to cope with that—with everything in his environment.

  Oh, she might have thrown him off balance in the beginning. But the man had psi-quick reflexes and had recovered rapidly. She hadn’t been the first woman to fall in love with him. She’d only been the lucky one whom he had loved.

  She’d always felt loved. She blinked away tears. “Let me put it this way, lover.” She’d called him that in their first days, when they’d still been learning each other. She’d been too smug, thinking she’d known him. Who could ever know anyone? “Do you think I’m strong?”

  “Hell, yes!” Now he stepped forward, placed his hands on her shoulders, and she liked the way they curved around. She’d never take his touch for granted again.

  “Then why don’t you let me help you, Kelse? Why don’t you let me in and lean on me?”

  “If I let go, I might break.”

  “And I’ll be here to pick up the pieces. Let me help, darling.”

  Great shudders wracked his body. She drew him over to the bed and pulled him down. He lay stiff.

  “We’re all going to die,” he said.

  She stopped a gasp, swallowed.

  “We’ll crash,” he said in a monotone. “We’ll run out of fuel. No hope for us then. Terrible things will happen. People will go mad, will kill. Until someone takes mercy on us and gasses us.”

  Breathing through the thrumming fear in her temples, she forced her tone to be light. “Always considering the worst-case scenario.”

  “That’s what I do.”

  She couldn’t give in to the fear prickling along her skin. Shove it away. They would live! She insisted on hope, and with it, she could give it to him. For now. She poked him. “Relax. That’s an order from your wife.” She waited as he released the tension in his body, muscle by muscle, and rolled toward her.

  She looked him in the face. “You aren’t alone in this fear. But it makes it bearable if we share it and go on, together. I love you, Kelse, and I know you will give your last drop of strength to save me and the crew. That’s enough.”

  “It can’t be enough.” His voice sounded raw.

  “Yes, it is. You’ve spoken a lot about believing, and you have to do that, too.” She drew in a breath. “I know that you mostly believe, but now you must believe with all you’ve got that all will go well.”

  “What if it doesn’t? What if you die, horribly?”

  “Thank you for that comment. We’ll die together. Didn’t we say so when we decided to marry?”

  “Yes. But we lived with death every day, then,” he said.

  She moved closer, wrapped herself around him. Tucked herself against his fast-beating heart and spoke the truth. “We always live with death every day, even during peacetime. But you’ve never learned that, have you? I could fall and hit my head on a rock and that’s it. So could you.”

  She heard a couple of puffing breaths from him. “You’re more likely to, more clumsy than I am.”

  “Getting back to my regular Kelse.”

  “I’m not ever going to be the same after this,” he said.

  “Who could be?” she asked.

  “I’ve changed.”

  “I have, too,” she said. “I’ve found out that space is beautiful. That when we land, I will love that planet more than anything but you and our children and our people. I’ve learned to be stronger.” She poked him.

  “I’ve learned to be . . . stronger in a different way.”

  “Yes. We both have.”

  He sighed, rocked her. “We could burn up in the atmosphere, crash against a mountain, hit the planet and explode. I could die before you.”

  That was a real blow to her heart. She accepted the fear, moved through it. “I don’t think I’d live long after that, Kelse. But if things go terribly wrong, we will cope. We will do the best we can to fix them.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all we can do, all that anyone is allowed to expect of us.”

  He stretched, adjusting again to changes in his life. “If you say so.”

  “I do.” She kissed his jaw, felt his body respond. For now, they could love. “We are tough and determined.”

  “Yes.” He hauled her over him, up to kiss him again.

  “And we never give up,” she said.

  “No.”

  Then they were too busy to speak.

  A couple of hours later, Kelse stroked her body, over the curve of her hip. The loving after sex.

  “Why don’t we wake up our Pilot?” Kelse asked. His smile was one of those that showed he was giving her a treat. He was right.

  “Yes. And Bella Larson will be Awake by morning. The crew will welcome her.”

  So they showered and dressed and walked openly to the cryonics bay, hand in hand. The people they passed nodded or smiled, and that was good.

  But the alarm woke them at midnight with Ship saying, “Captain Ambroz is requesting a conference.”

  “Bad news?” Kelse asked.

  There was a hissing noise, then the Ship said, “I did not want to wake you since you had mended your marital difficulties.”

  Kelse frowned.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Randolph Ash, Chloe Hernandez, and the cat Peaches request entrance,” Ship said.

  Swearing, Kelse rolled from bed, taking Fern with him. He set her on her feet and grabbed his clothes. Chloe’s voice came over the intercom.

  “We’re waiting out here.”

  “We’re dressing in here,” Fern responded.

  Despite the loving, Kelse had had nightmares. He wanted another shower. One with Fern. He wasn’t going to get it.

  Fern had dressed, made the bed and arranged chairs by the console, and made the wall ready for the projection of the other Captains. She didn’t move with her usual briskness.

  Kelse checked on their bond and found dread running through her. He kissed her. “We believe.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, but he knew he was the strong one now.

  Then Chloe and Randolph were in and sitting. Peaches wandered the room, and the screen showed Julianna Ambroz’s immobile expression, Captain Hoku’s impassive face.

  “The planetary labs have crashed,” Julianna announced quietly. “As lab one moved close to lab two, it tried to dock with it.” The muscles of her face worked. “A default that all of us had forgotten about. The docking was unsuccessful and the orbits deteriorated. The labs fell. As they moved into the planet’s atmosphere, the trajectory was too steep and too fast. They crashed.” She grimaced. “Left quite a crater, too. We won’t be getting any more information on the planet before we land. No planetside verification that the world will be good for us.”

  Fourteen

  There was silence at Julianna’s announcement. Kelse slipped his arm around Fern. Her body was quivering. Not enough to show, but he felt it.

  His own fear kept him stiff.

  At least Julianna didn’t do the I told you sos.

  Hoku took a long, audible breath. His slanted eyebrows rose over melancholy eyes. “We are already committed.”

  Fern’s fingers twined in Kelse’s. As always, he appeared impassive, but his grip was hard.

  They’d gambled and lost.

  “We can’t turn back.
We don’t have enough fuel,” Chloe said.

  Fern lifted her chin. “We’ll have to proceed on the preliminary results. That’s all we can do.”

  Randolph gritted his teeth. “We don’t have fuel to do anything else.”

  Peaches sauntered over. Gloom, gloom, gloom. You are humans with big brains. Use them.

  Kelse laughed, but blood had drained from his head. “We’ve gambled. I don’t admit that we’ve lost.”

  He wouldn’t admit that they’d lost until they breathed their last breath.

  “The preliminary results that we based our decision on to divert to planet six of the white star remain good. We can hope,” Fern said.

  “And pray,” Hoku said.

  The hours crawled for Fern over the next days. She felt a failure. But she forced herself to be as positive as Kelse, serving as examples for their people.

  Neither of them slept well.

  Kelse had begun to exercise the crew, section by section, as if they would need to be Colonists. Ship was giving classes in construction, farming, and several other subjects. It, too, seemed optimistic.

  People continued to watch the planet as they came closer. Many played Our Mission.

  Both Julianna Ambroz and Netra Sunaya Hoku had launched their own probes, particularly in the area where they were planning to land. One of Ambroz’s crashed. The information received continued to be equivocal.

  The Pilots in all three ships and Nuada’s Sword itself practiced and coordinated approaches, orbital speeds, data—spoke in a language no one else understood.

  Then, instead of the hours crawling, the minutes did. Fern thought she’d go mad, holding on to sanity by a thread. If they failed, a lot would be due to her. That was a burden.

  Finally, as if the last grain of sand plinked from the top of an invisible hourglass to the bottom, it was time to land.

  The nose bridge was no longer cut off from the rest of the Ship.

  Kelse and Fern were in the main bridge that had also been unsealed. Both bridges were crewed, and the silver-gilt-haired Pilot, Bella Larson, sat in the command chair.

  They all knew that the Ship itself would be integral to the landing process.

  “Now leaving orbit,” Bella said.

  “Affirmative,” said the Ship. “We are in good position to land on the peninsula We chose.”

  The Ship wanted to set down on some cliffs close to an ocean. Kelse and Fern exchanged glances. He was not the one making the decision to use the explosive device if it appeared they’d all burn on the way down. Nor would he release any fatal gas if the planet was revealed to be unsafe.

  He was not the kind of man who could do that, and they’d both realized it.

  Larson held those triggers.

  The planet enlarged before them, filling their screens with continents tinged a slight green, blue seas, the swirl of clouds in weather patterns.

  “It’s beautiful,” Julianna said. All the Captains were audio linked. “A seeded planet of the Foremothers, like Earth was.”

  “Which means it might be compatible with Earth life,” former Captain Umar said.

  “That’s the hope,” Kelse said.

  “Strap in and pray,” Bella said. “We’ll be down in under a half hour.” Her mouth quirked. “Half a septhour.”

  “Septhour?”

  “Planet’s rotation makes sense to have seventy-minute hours,” she said. “See that crater? That’s where the labs crashed. We’ll be landing a little to the south.” She grinned. “And here we go!”

  Gravs pressed against Fern, flattening her breasts, pulling her skin back on her face. Blackness threatened. She clamped her fingers around Kelse’s. I LOVE YOU!

  It took too long for Fern to wake. Others had, and were unhooking their harnesses. Kelse flung his off, stumbled to kneel in front of Fern to work her harness.

  There were shouts. Screams of gladness and glee. Bella Larson was dancing, hips wiggling, arms pumping. “One crack, otherwise, perfect, perfect, perfect landing,” she sang.

  Kelse knew Lugh’s Spear’s hadn’t gone as well. Hoku had lost people.

  Julianna Ambroz, on another continent, hadn’t.

  It would be unbearable if Kelse had lost Fern.

  But her chest rose and fell, she moaned, stirred. And love and gratitude weakened him so he fell on his butt at her feet. His eyes stung.

  Peaches hopped over and licked his face. FamMan not awake yet, either. You did good, Kelse. Fern did good. Not as good as Cats would have, but good. He trotted away and Kelse just shook his stunned head.

  “The planet outside . . . Celta . . . is fully acceptable for Earth-human life,” Ship announced. “Atmospheric pressure has been equalized.

  Opening all landing bay doors.”

  “Wait!” Kelse ordered.

  But it was too late.

  Bella was there, boosting Kelse to his feet, freeing a conscious Fern from her restraints.

  Kelse pulled his wife into his arms and kissed her. Her body was vital against his, their bond pulsed with joy. Hope flooded him and he tasted it in her mouth. Their hearts beat together and they held tight, tasting life.

  There was a cough, another. A third. Then a loud cat yowl. Come ON! I want out! Peaches insisted.

  Randolph said, “Kelse and Fern must go first.”

  Yes, that was Kelse’s duty, take the first steps onto a new planet, see if it was all right. He broke the kiss, kept his arm around Fern’s waist.

  Her lips were red, her violet eyes bright and shiny. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” he responded, blinked fast.

  LET’S GO! yelled Peaches mentally.

  His fingers met Fern’s and their hands closed around each other. As he and Fern passed Bella, she bowed. Chloe did, too, and Randolph, holding Peaches.

  The bridge doors opened and there were people in the hall, looking scared, holding belongings. They, too, rippled in bows as Kelse and Fern passed. Ship highlighted floor panels to the landing bay, though the crew had practiced disembarking.

  Leaving the Ship after centuries of travel. Soon the rest of the sleepers, those who funded the journey and experts, would be Awakened. Soon the DNA banks would be opened and plants and animals would be introduced to this new land.

  Soon.

  But now he and Fern were before the last door to outside.

  It, too, parted, and they stared at white-yellow sunshine angling into the huge bay.

  They walked through the chamber and down the ramp to a large meadow of a green they’d never known, with summer flowers they’d never seen. On they went until his breath simply stopped.

  He looked at her, unable to bear the loss of her touch even for an instant. He drew her into his arms. “We did it.” His voice was shaky and he didn’t care. “We are home. I love you.”

  “We are home, and I love you,” Fern said.

  He grabbed her and kissed her, and strange fragrances came to mix with her scent, and she was against him and life was fabulous.

  Cheers filled the air.

  Heart Story

  To Brenna Lyons

  Note: Arbusca/Blush appears in Heart Dance and here is her story, as requested.

  DRUIDA CITY, PLANET CELTA

  406 Years After Earth Colonization

  Spring

  In twenty minutes she would be meeting her HeartMate, her fated love, for the first time. If Dri Paris was punctual. If he was early, he could walk through that door any moment now.

  Arbusca Willow counted breaths to calm her excitement, slow her heart rate.

  Twenty-five years since the links had been forged between herself and her HeartMate. She’d known that he had gone south, all the way to a different continent.

  The bond between them had become threadlike. She’d suppressed it—if not the yearning for her HeartMate—so long.

  In several hopeful moments over the last year, she’d given the bond gentle tugs. Last month he had contacted her. She’d felt him when he’d arrived in t
he city a few days ago.

  Putting her hands in her opposite sleeves, she paced the private room in the social club. Everything must be perfect. He’d set the time. She’d arranged the location. This club catered to the highest of the household staffs of the most powerful nobles, which meant relatives of those lords and ladies. Arbusca herself was a housekeeper.

  The FamCat yowled and sent a mental comment, You are not listening to me.

  No, Arbusca hadn’t been. The FamCat wasn’t her Familiar, wasn’t even her son’s Fam. The cat was her daughter-in-law’s, and the Fam had an agenda: Get Arbusca out of Willow Residence because she was too strict.

  The old woman is dead. Finally, the cat said telepathically.

  That got Arbusca’s attention. Yes, her mother was dead more than a year.

  Good riddance. Fairyfoot sniffed.

  She stared at the cat. “Fairyfoot, you didn’t know my mother.”

  Saw her long enough to know she was a mean GreatLady. Had all of you under her paw. Fairyfoot licked her own forepaw. That’s true?

  “Yes.”

  Tried to live forever. Lied. Killed. The cat snapped down her paw as if on a bug, looked at Arbusca slyly. Maybe even killed your husband, years ago.

  Arbusca didn’t think so. Her mother, GreatLady D’Willow, descendant of a FirstFamily Colonist, rich in psi magic, wealth, and power, had only intimidated Arbusca’s long-late husband to death. As the lady had intimidated everyone until Arbusca’s son had claimed the title.

  She held up her hands. “That’s past.”

  You deserve your own life and HeartMate, Fairyfoot said virtuously, repeating the oft-said phrase of Arbusca’s son and daughter-in-law.

  That was true, too. Arbusca longed for her HeartMate, and was nervous about meeting him. They hadn’t connected in twenty-five years. Even then, they’d never met, but linked during hot, sexual dreams when their psi magic had been freed during vision quests.

  “Tell me again why I brought you with me to this meeting?” Arbusca asked.