by Susan Kelley
Glory howled with laughter. Roz stood in front of her, letting her tiny feet hit him in the chest every time she swung forward. He fell backward with comic clumsiness each time she touched him. Callie wondered if it was the first time Roz had played at anything.
Callie would tell Joe tonight that they must leave the beacon. She had to return to Giroux, but she intended to give him some conditions. She would order him if she had to though she had no idea if that would work. The marines must leave with the women. She couldn’t live the rest of her life knowing they were here and alone.
* * * *
Joe noticed Callie’s anxiety as they finished up the evening meal. Perhaps she would want to share her problems with him tonight. A residual warmth lingered from the previous night. Could two people actually be closer when talking than when joined in the sexual act?
“My queen,” Yalo said, using the formal title the women seldom used to address Callie. “We have a request to put forth.”
“More of an idea we wanted to discuss.” Riba looked around at the other women as if seeking their support.
The marines looked to Joe, the tension in the room now obvious. How long until he began to understand females? His men fared little better than him. He didn’t like what he saw in their eyes. Confusion, he understood, but he didn’t like the other emotion. Fear.
“What is it?” Callie sounded puzzled also, and that eased Joe’s mind a bit.
“It appears we’ll be here a while,” Yalo said.
Riba nodded. “We’ve build homes and started new lives.”
“We have a chance to build our society, but we’re missing some things.” Grace pulled Glory close to her side. “We think it’s time to stop living like this is temporary.”
“You’re right, of course.” Callie glanced at Joe. “You realize we must leave if the opportunity presents itself.”
“In the meantime, we need to go on as if this is all we’ll have.” Grace’s voice took on a stubborn tone. “We want to have marriage ceremonies.”
Webb broke into a big grin, but he ducked his head to hide it. The other marines looked as stunned as Joe felt.
“Marriage,” Callie repeated, not with any surprise.
“Despite our circumstances,” Riba said, “we need to follow the moral codes of our culture. The Spirit Father wouldn’t want us to live as we have been without his blessing.”
“Who is this Spirit Father?” Kam asked.
Webb answered, still wearing a smug grim. “I believe Unon, the God you know of, is the same as their Spirit Father. Many worlds have different names for the one God.”
“This is not a decision for me alone to make,” Callie said. “Have any of you asked your housemates if they agreed with you?”
Faces heated all around as the women gave negative shakes of their heads.
Callie raised an eyebrow. “May I suggest that we all retire for the night and discuss this with the involved parties? In the morning we can rejoin and perhaps the doctor can conduct a ceremony for those who wish it.”
“Sir?” Vin asked.
Joe’s mind raced. Did words spoken by the doctor change anything? His men would be doing nothing different. He thought of the fear he’d seen in his men’s eyes. He understood what caused it because he felt it himself. Binding words might ease that unacceptable emotion. “Each man should make up his own mind.”
The others filed out in silence until only Joe and Callie remained. They cleared the table, working together as if they’d done it hundreds of times.
Callie turned to him as she put away the last bowl. “Well, Joe, with no family name, if we get married will you take my last name as your own?”
* * * *
Callie loved it when her questions left Joe speechless. Despite the lethality of his profession, he was such an innocent at times. Sometimes Callie thought he’d been the virgin five nights ago instead of her.
“You want to do this?”
“We’re the chiefs of our little tribe here, and it’s important we present a united leadership to our people.”
Joe walked away, turning off lamps and adjusting the heat on the single radiator to a lower temperature.
Callie recalled how she’d once thought him very rude. Now she found she appreciated the way he didn’t speak before giving his answer careful thought. How many politicians and government leaders had she met over the years that seemed to put little consideration into their words? How many wars might have started in such a way?
“Words spoken by the doctor would mean nothing in your world.” Joe left one lamp on, but most of the room sank into shadow.
Callie couldn’t see his expression, but it would have told her little anyway. “This is my world.”
“For a while.”
“Perhaps forever,” Callie whispered.
Joe glided to her with a glint in his eyes she’d never seen before. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to be known by my number?”
He reached out and stroked her cheek. “It’s a good number with various odd and even digits.” He freed her hair from the loose coil she wore it in during the day.
“Joe?” Callie’s thoughts scattered as wildly as her hair did as if fell across her shoulders.
“Callie.” He drew her name out, exaggerating the natural draw of his speech.
“Were you making a joke?”
He didn’t answer. His mouth covered hers with a very serious kiss.
* * * *
Joe watched the woman who would be his wife in a few moments. Every day they spent together seemed to lighten the burden he carried.
Vin and Yalo spoke the vows Webb had written. The others had already made promises to the God of their choosing. A few of the women shed tears, that strange happy weeping that Joe couldn’t quite understand.
“Our turn,” Callie said, taking Joe’s hand with both of hers. Her intelligent brown eyes held some of those soft emotions he’d come to recognize and hope for.
Webb grinned and for once, Joe didn’t mind that the doctor found him amusing. Not today. “Queen Callie Adell, will you bind this man to you as your husband before the Spirit Father?”
“I will.” Callie’s voice sounded strong and sure.
“Do you, Joe, Captain of the Interplanetary Recon Marines, promise to bind yourself to this woman as long as she will have you?”
The distant whistle froze the words in Joe’s mouth. The other marines didn’t shout or act surprised. They’d planned for this.
Joe spared Callie only one quick glance. He wasn’t sure if he saw fear or hope in her eyes as a nearer warning flare whistled skyward.
The men picked up the weapons they’d set aside but still within reach. Joe and Vin ran toward the forward positions. They were the best marksmen and hand to hand fighters. Kam was last defense and would herd the women and children into the doctor’s building. Roz and Mak would take on any who got past Vin and Joe. If the visitors were pirates.
Joe wasn’t sure rescuers were a better choice. All he was certain of was a burning desire to confront whoever dared interrupt his marriage.
They reached their position as the first single rider hover cycle topped the slope. Three more followed. A larger, slower craft lagged behind, carrying another dozen men.
Each rider carried numerous laser weapons and plasma powered guns. A simple insignia marked their crafts, a yellow sun cut through with a red slash.
“Rector Freeman,” Vin spat.
Joe took careful aim at the fuel cells of the larger craft with his laser rifle. He couldn’t afford to miss with their low ammo supplies. The pirates approaching the oasis were some of the nastiest to ravage the shipping routes. He let loose his first round. “Kill them all.”
* * * *
Callie wanted to cover her ears, but she didn’t want the others to see how frightened she was. Little Glory cried and clung to her mother. Tiny Sally wailed, adding to the bedlam of noise.
“Can you see anything, Webb?” Yalo peered ou
t of one of the narrow firing slits in the front wall while the doctor looked out the other one.
“Joe and Vin are giving them hell on the hill. I see at least one pirate down and something big is burning on the other side of the slope.”
“How many are there?” Callie clasped her hands together to stop their trembling.
“I can’t tell, but I see a number moving around and two more on those little flying vehicles.” Webb gave a short shout of hurrah. “They got another flyer!”
Callie pushed Webb away and took his spot at the narrow slot. Black smoke rolled in sluggish clouds from the battle. She couldn’t see the marines anywhere. The last flyer started down the slope.
Roz popped up from behind a stone wall they’d built only days ago and fired at the rider. The man toppled from his craft which then careened into a tree before stopping. Loud booms drew Callie’s attention back to Joe’s position.
“That’s the explosives we made,” Yalo explained.
How could the marines hold them off with such old fashioned weapons? Brilliant lasers traced paths in and out of the smoke. The attackers certainly had modern weapons at their disposal.
“I can’t see Joe,” Callie cried as a larger explosion shook the barracks. She couldn’t draw a full breath into her tight chest.
Webb patted her shoulder. “Relax, Callie.”
She threw his hand off, snarling at him. “Why aren’t we out there helping them instead of hiding like frightened game hens?”
“They know what they’re doing,” Webb said with irritating calm. “These pirates are used to fighting freight crews and civilian transports. They don’t have a chance against recon marines.”
Shouts of men now could be heard in between explosions with a few screams mixed in. She couldn’t make out words but none of the voices sounded familiar.
“Move away from there.” Riba held Sally in one arm and used her other hand to tug on Callie’s arm. “It’s best not to watch.”
Callie let herself be lead away. She sat with the others, no one speaking except for Grace offering quiet comfort to Glory. The battle sounds lessened, the booms and rattle of weapon fire becoming sporadic.
“I think it’s over,” Webb said.
Callie hurried toward the door, but the doctor stepped in the way.
“Don’t go out until we get the all clear.”
She pushed by him just as the door opened.
Roz entered and looked around, his gaze lingering for a moment on Grace and Glory. “Stay in here. Kam and I will be right outside.”
“Is everybody all right?” Callie asked before the marine could back out.
“No casualties on our side,” Roz answered and then closed the door in her face.
“They’re probably making sure they got them all,” Webb said.
Callie fought down her temper. Her emotions had swung in so many different directions in the last few hours her head ached. First she’d been filled with heady anticipation for her marriage, no matter how unofficial the ceremony. Then her mixed feelings of dread and hope when the first flare went up. Did she want to be rescued? And now for the last hours, fear for Joe and the others as they battled the pirates caused a throbbing across her entire skull.
“Roz said he’s fine,” Riba said from beside Callie.
“Who?”
“Joe, of course. Don’t worry about him.”
Webb peered out through the narrow slot again. “She’s right, Callie. This is what they do. There are no better fighters in all the known worlds.”
Callie could accept that fact in her mind, but she worried anyway. It was her fault, her decision to leave the beacon sounding. They would turn it off after today.
“Do you see them, Webb?” Yalo asked.
Webb frowned and looked over his shoulder at them. “Joe, Mak and Vin are riding those flying crafts and leaving.”
* * * *
They’d managed to get two of the hover scooters back up and running. Joe assumed the pirate’s main ship waited for its scouts back at the crash site. Even low tech scanners would have picked up the life signs of Camp Haven from that distance.
Joe wanted to attack before they sent more fighters or worse, before they brought the main ship to investigate. It was a waste of fuel to fly a space cruiser in the heavy atmosphere along the surface of the planet, but who knew what these space bandits might do?
Joe rode on one scooter, Vin and Mak on the other. They all carried as many weapons as they could.
They hugged the dunes, ducking behind them when possible and hoping to avoid scanners if they could. Mak had deactivated the tracking devices that would give away the scooters’ location.
Joe ordered the vehicles abandoned well out of sight of the crash area, and they continued on foot. They crawled up to the top of the last drift of sand separating them from their target. Joe used his long range viewer as he looked over the edge.
The pirate cruiser sat squarely between the other two ships. It was a battle cruiser, an older model than the marines had had, but it would do.
“How are we going to destroy that with the weapons we have, Joe?” Vin asked.
“We’re not going to destroy.” Joe studied the ship, noting no exterior guards. Arrogant on a hostile planet. “We’re going to capture it and use it to fly out of here.”
* * * *
Kam checked on them once, and Roz poked his head in the door twice. But the wait stretched into interminable hours.
Callie paced until Riba insisted she sit and eat the meal the women had prepared. Callie tried, but she couldn’t force a bite past her lips.
The hot time came and went. The children napped while the others used the time to prepare sweet batters to use in breads and rolls. Callie stared out the narrow openings or paced.
Twilight hung over the land as they prepared another meal. Roz and Kam refused to join them just as they had at mid day. The only bed in the building was Webb’s narrow cot. Glory and Sally fell asleep on it shortly after the meal. The adults sat around the table in grim silence, sipping the purple berry tea that Acacia had brewed.
“They should have been back. Something has happened.” Callie could no longer keep her worries silent.
“We can’t know that.” But Yalo’s brow was crinkled with her concern.
“They’re probably sitting tight somewhere waiting for the light to return,” Webb said, though even his cheer sounded strained.
“They don’t have their survival gear with them.” Callie shivered with the image of Joe freezing in the desert.
“They know how to survive,” Webb insisted. “I told you, this is what they do. All this building, scavenging for food, taming the boarks, those are all peripheral skills. These men you’ve allied yourselves with are hunters, predators, and killers. These pirates are blundering amateurs compared to your guardians.”
Callie couldn’t think of the man she shared her body with as a killer. The gentle hands that stroked and awakened her body to hot desires couldn’t be the instruments of death that Webb described. Even if her mind told her the doctor spoke the truth, her heart denied it.
Grace seemed to feel the same. “Roz isn’t like that. He’s so gentle with Glory.”
“Kam has more patience with my baby than I do.” Riba spoke with an unusual belligerence.
Webb laughed quietly with an eerie lack of amusement. “Ladies, do you forget what you thought of them only a few weeks ago? They’re the same men now as they were then.”
Silence greeted the doctor’s reminder. Callie saw the other women flush with the same embarrassment heating her face. “We were guilty of stereotyping and basing our opinions on preconceived notions. I think we’ve move past all that.”
Webb poured himself more tea. “Some things you were right about, you know. These guys will never be quite like everyone else. Even if you took them home with you and made them into farmers, they wouldn’t be like other men. Their training is too deep, their experiences too traumatic, and the
ir childhoods too harsh and cruel for them to ever be what we think of as normal.”
“I’ve gotten so used to them, I forget who they are at times,” Riba admitted.
“I never forget,” Yalo said. “I remember every day and every hour that we wouldn’t be alive without them.”
Callie couldn’t forget who they were either, though she still couldn’t align the image of Joe as a killer with her lover. How could she forget they were marines when her decision weighed on her? And the beacon had brought danger just as Joe had warned her it might.
Some of the women dozed with their heads on the table. Callie remained awake most of the time, fear keeping exhaustion at bay.
The gray light of dawn slipped through the firing slits when Callie heard male voices outside. She jumped to her feet as the door opened.
Joe stepped over the threshold. Blood covered his upper body.
* * * *
Joe wasn’t very good at identifying emotions, but he thought the one on Callie’s face was horror. He looked down at his chest, the direction of her wide-eyed stare, and saw all the blood coloring his shirt. He retreated outside, pulled the garment over his head and tossed it to the ground.
When he went inside, Callie stepped close enough to put her hand on his bare chest. She lifted one of his hands. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Joe freed his hand and stepped back so her hand dropped from his chest. He needed a bath and didn’t want the filth on his body to touch her.
“No?” Callie’s face changed. She glared at him and poked his chest with her finger.
It felt like she’d drawn some blood with her fingernail. He couldn’t look away from her burning eyes.
“No?” Callie asked again, her voice rising. “Where in Hades have you been? We’ve been sitting here an entire day worrying about you. What took so long?”
Joe sorted through her questions, trying to decide which to answer and how much detail to share with her. He opted for delivering news instead. “We captured their ship.”
Callie frowned, not the reaction Joe had expected.
“You did?” Webb and Yalo asked at the same time.
