Farseek_Lietenant's Mate

by T. J. Quinn

  As I laid her on the treatment cot, she sucked in a short, sharp breath and continued to breathe in short gasps until she could draw in a full breath. It seemed like the nanites were working. I receded my helmet so she would see my face if she opened her eyes, but she didn’t.

  “Why isn’t she waking up? I injected the nanites as soon as I reached her,” I said to the AI.

  “It will take more time,” said the masculine voice in a soothing tone. “Scanning… Repairs are progressing properly. Return to consciousness should occur in approximately two hours. Right lung, upper quadrant was severely damaged. Subject also received a concussion in fall after lung damaged. Full recovery expected. Do not worry.”

  “Not possible,” I muttered, but his answers calmed my fears some.

  Meanwhile, chatter over the com indicated that our Dreads were fully engaged with the battlecruiser. Dreadnaught Seven sustained heavy damage, but also inflicted heavy damage to the Sargan battlecruiser. It limped away to the far side of Teglian Station to repairs. That meant they would probably be sending more troops to subdue us and take back control of the Kurellis. Admiral Degatu ordered them to break free of the docking clamps and head out.

  Apparently, the code had been changed remotely from the battlecruiser. I wondered how they knew to do that and what brought them to Teglian station. We had been very careful to avoid places where we could have been recognized for our part in the war. Further investigation by the AI hackers revealed that the Sargans had sent the battlecruiser to escort the colonial ship we now called Kurellis. That means they would send more troops to stop us from taking their ship and getting our Dreadnaught out of their docking bay.

  “Lieutenant,” Commander Maktu’s voice came on the com. “No time for you to get back to Dread One. Just stay on Kurellis with your mate. Is she going to make it?”

  “Yes, sir. The AI medic confirms the nanites are working and she is recovering.”

  “That’s good news, my friend. Harper will be glad to hear it as well,” the Commander added. “We will meet at the rendezvous in nine days.”

  “Understood sir,” I responded. The last was code meaning we would meet in four days. We would lay low by one of the moons of a gas giant in the Sedak system for nine days and get everybody back to the ships where they belonged.

  When the clamps continued to fail to release the Kurellis, the pilots closed the hatch and used the engine power to break free. I didn’t see it, but someone told me later that we tore a pretty big hole in that docking arm and a couple dozen Sargans got sucked out into space.

  Once we left the system, I found a set of clothes that would fit in stores and shed my battle armor, stowing it in the cabin Scarlet’s friend Nora had found for us. Then she came back to sickbay with me to check on Scarlet. Nora was satisfied that Scarlet was stable, so she went back to her job bringing the slaves to sickbay to have their mind control implants neutralized. It would probably take weeks to get them all done, so they saw no reason to postpone starting the process.

  When Nora had left, I found a stool and sat by the treatment cot just watching my beautiful mate breathe. I picked up her left hand in both of mine and held it, silently trying to send her some of my strength, willing her to survive. The seconds between each breath passed ever so slowly. I felt like I’d sat there for days when she finally woke---almost to the minute two hours later just like the AI medic said.

  I could hardly breath when I finally saw those gorgeous green eyes flutter open. Maybe I wasn’t sure what I saw was real---maybe a hallucination because I wanted to see the light in those eyes so badly. Then my throat was so tight I could hardly get a word out.

  I turned her hand over and kissed her palm, and she sighed and whispered, “Pyrr. I’m sorry, I screwed up. I was worried about the Uatu. I should have taken them out first before they shot me.”

  “Hey, it happens---but don’t let it happen again. I never want to be that scared again.” I growled. I still felt like my insides were all twisted up. Then it hit me. I’d never loved anyone the way I loved Scarlet because she was/is my solmatu. It was a blessing and a curse because I could hardly contemplate facing life without her---to never make a family with her or get that ruda for her so she won’t miss her dog so much.

  “I am so sorry, darling. I know how I would feel if it had been you,” she murmured as she read the look on my face. It was so much easier to be stoic about things before I found her.

  “I’ll be okay, now,” I told her and leaned over and kissed her lips lightly. I couldn’t worry there would be a next time. I could only savor my time with her now, knowing it was finite. Dwelling on what could or might happen would cripple us both. We just couldn’t live like that.

  Scarlet was released from sickbay the next day, fully recovered. We were not scheduled to return to duty for another day. We helped compile a census of the thirty-three hundred Uatu Farseekans we rescued from the station. We found my former acquaintance after the removal of his implant, and he recognized me from the neighborhood where we grew up. Like most of the others we rescued, he remembered little of his time as a slave on the station.

  A few crew members found a relative or an acquaintance among the rescues from the station, but not as many as they wished. Most of us were resigned to the fact we would probably never find what had happened to our families. So far, we had only accounted for seventy thousand. Some of them were spread thinly among a dozen systems.

  After what happened to Scarlet, I was starting to think about going back to Farseek to settle and help with the rebuilding. Ten years fighting for the Consortium, my family was gone and all our holdings laid to waste. Now I’d found my solmatu, Scarlet. Back on Farseek, we could start our own family. If we stayed with the Brigade, one or both of us might never make it back to Farseek.

  We had time to think about it. Our next mission was going to be Julconi, the prison planet. We only had a partial census for our people transported there, but there is still hope we might yet find some of our kin. Remaining on Farseek once we finally returned would not be my decision alone. Scarlet has a part in that decision as well.

  Although I knew in my mind, it was my fear of what might happen to either or both of us. It was not fear of death, but fear that we might never make a family together. I most feared living the rest of my life without her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Scarlet

  “Pyrr, you don’t really want to stay back on Farseek while your company continues on the mission,” I said. “You were traumatized seeing me shot down. Believe me, it hurt like hell, and I don’t care to do that again. But, can we really stay on Farseek while so many of your people are enslaved?”

  “No, probably not,” he admitted. “But, this is not the kind of life I want for us. Who knows how many years this could take? Don’t you want us to make our own family?”

  “More than anything,” I told him. “I want to have children with you and watch them grow up together. Why don’t we stay stick with your company for a while and see what progress we make?”

  The AI team from Dread One had uncovered several large groups of Farseekans in a cluster of systems on a circuitous route that would take us back to Farseek. Harper had told us Degatu and Maktu intended to fill the Kurellis as we made our way back to Farseek. It only made sense. Depending what we found along the way, they might only have resources for one pass.

  So far, we had taken the Sargus Empire by surprise, it wouldn’t take long for them to find out who we were. We would need most of the Dreads for backup on Julconi. It would also take a lot of shuttle trips to get thirty-three hundred people off the planet, and those were just the Farseekans.

  During the four days it took to get to the Sedak system, we kept busy taking the former slaves to sickbay to have their implants removed. The AI team couldn’t find a way to disable the implants before we pulled out of Teglia station. They had to disconnect from the station’s AI system when we left it to keep the Sargans from backtracking into our systems. O
nce disconnected they lost control of the implants, and once we left the station, they no longer had control either.

  The Uatu were left in a stupor as if they were drugged. They could follow verbal commands and answer direct questions, but couldn’t quite function normally. However, with the removal of the implants, and an injection of nanites, they returned to normal within several hours. Within a day enough of the Farseekans had recovered to help bring others to have their implants removed. We even discovered a couple of trained medics among our rescues capable of performing the procedures to help. Even though the AI medic was highly efficient, he could only treat about six patients an hour.

  The AI droid’s advantage was that it didn’t get tired and would work round the clock for several days without recharging. I was fascinated by how versatile it was. It really didn’t look all that human nor did it have legs. It also had four to six arms some of which retracted when not needed. Considering all the people were collecting, I was glad we had found some human medics among them. Even with three medics, we still only had about half the implants removed from our rescues.

  It was heartwarming as they responded and found loved ones and friends among the groups from Teglia station. Most had few memories of their internment at Teglier Station, but some remembered the destruction on Farseek and being captured or seeing their loved ones killed. Those traumas would be addressed with therapies as we continued our journey that would eventually take us to Farseek.

  The move to the Sedak system left the Sargans behind at least for the time being. Dreadnaught Seven was able to procure what they needed for repairs without the Sargans finding them, so they were able to make the rendezvous a day or so after we did.

  While we maintained a large orbit around the gas giant, the two dreads on recon at Julconi reported back. They had been down on the planet to assess the situation there. The inmates who numbered in the millions pretty much ruled the planet outside the walled community where the slaves were held until they could be transported to the slave markets on other worlds.

  The place was a fortress and had a full detachment of three hundred militaries guarding it. That worried me, but it didn’t worry the warriors. They wouldn’t be approaching from land, they would be approaching from the sky in the dead of night just like the mining colony with enough dreads in the sky for reinforcements.

  Chatter over communications they’d intercepted seemed to indicate the Sargan’s had lost our trail. But the Farseek mercenaries didn’t let down their guard.

  Four days after we arrived at Sedak, Pyrr and I shuttled back to Dread One with Harper, Nora, and her mate Sahvin. It felt like going home. I guess I started to think of it like that when I mated with Pyrr and moved in with him. It was like being back in the military in some ways, but strangely not as scary as driving through stretches where we could be hit with roadside bombs at any time.

  We were freaking in space lightyears from Earth traveling on a mercenary dreadnaught, and I was happy to be back! We had a nice reunion with our friends at second meal in the mess hall, and I realized I was right where I belonged. I would always miss Billy, but I decided that a dog as good and smart as he was had to have found a new home. Maybe I would never see him again, but I had come to realize that my life had turned out for the better, so maybe Billy’s had too.

  PYRR

  Just after second meal, Commander Maktu commed me that he and Harper were hosting a little celebration in the main conference room for third meal. While our ground force was fighting the Sargan warriors at the docking bays, some of our other Dreads forces were liberating anything and everything, we might possibly use from spare parts and torpedoes to luxury food and drink. They also liberated goods we could trade or sell to finance our mission.

  The first hour there were just eight of us, Harper’s friends and their mates. The official celebration that included everyone would start later with drinks and finger foods.

  Our celebration was more personal. It seemed clear that this was something the commander was doing for Harper to celebrate with her friends. Scarlet said they would have called it a dinner party.

  It had been half an Earth year since they had been taken from their world by slavers. Then the commander walked in like a superhero from one of Scarlet’s stories and took them away from all that. Each of them had a whirlwind courtship and were now mated to aliens whom they all loved beyond their wildest dreams.

  We had not only changed their lives for the better, but they changed ours as well. Just like our mates, we had lost everything we had ever known. Our world was destroyed by treachery, and they were stolen from theirs by the same ones who stole our people. I can only think that fate brought us together to make us see there is still good in the universe.

  The Farseek Mercenaries were more than capable of taking revenge against the Sargus Empire for what they did to our world. Every one of our dreadnaughts had weapons that could lay waste to whole planets just as the Sargans had done ours. That might yet be our course after we retrieve as many or our people as possible.

  It had been clear to us from the beginning that expending our resources by destroying Sargan worlds in revenge would do nothing to free our people from slavery. The better course would be to free our people. That’s the course we have chosen.

  While we were chatting over our meal and drinks, Harper offered a suggestion that made us all stop and think.

  “What if, instead of trying to destroy the Sargan Empire from without, sow the seeds to destroy it from within,” Harper said.

  “How would you do that?” Commander Maktu asked clearly interested.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe start a revolution? Give them a dream of something better that they’ve probably never had---freedom.”

  “That’s a nice idea, but we’re warriors, not revolutionaries,” Maktu said.

  “Aren’t you?” Nora said. “This quest we’re now on is a bit rebellious don’t you think? You told the Consortium to go fly and withdrew.”

  “On Earth, we have countries that sound a lot like the Sargus Empire. Not everyone in them wants to live under their rule where it means they have no individual freedoms,” Scarlet said. “From the time we were kids, we were told that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was our right---that it was worth fighting for. Isn’t that what you all are doing in the name of the Farseek people?”

  “In all the worlds they rule, there must be people who don’t agree with their control,” Harper said. “For a start, maybe just tell them your story or make a story about oppressed beings rising up to fight for their freedom. We have some stories we could tell.”

  “Sure, we could do it in our spare time then you could have the AI team sneak it into their systems,” Scarlet said.

  “I know the stories of your Revolution and Civil War,” Sahvin the Narovian. “They were inspiring.”

  At that point, the Commander’s com beeped, and he tapped the device in his ear. “Yes, we’ve finished the meal. Now is as good a time as any.”

  Scarlet and I had our backs to the entrance of the conference room. Maktu gave me a slight nod as the door opened and closed. Sahvin had found something unexpected in his travels around Tegliar Station. I had only learned of it just before our gathering, and the commander had sworn me to secrecy.

  No one really paid attention as the door opened and closed. Droid carts had come and gone with each course of our meal from the mess hall. Harper and Maktu were facing that direction, and her reaction let me know it was that secret I had kept from Scarlet. Harper sucked in an excited gasp, and her eyes widened and lit with pleasure. I swiveled my chair and turned to look. It was a little white-furred animal with big brown eyes and a pink sash or something tied around its neck.

  “Scarlet, look at that,” I told her and I couldn’t hold back a smile.

  She turned her chair, and gasped, “Oh my God, oh God!”

  “Not God,” Harper said, “Dog, Scarlet. It’s a D-O-G. Your dog.”

  T
ears filled her eyes, and she started to cry, as she got up and went to the forlorn little creature and squatted down to pick it up. “You sweet little baby, where in the galaxy did you come from?”

  She picked the little dog up and rubbed her cheek against the top of its head. It immediately started licking the tears from her cheeks. Scarlet was laughing and crying at the same time. I loved to see her so surprised and happy with this funny looking little animal that Sahvin had found in an exotic pet shop at a vendors’ lane at a remote docking arm of the station. There had been six of the creatures, two adults, and four babies. He and Nora had collected them all and smuggled them onto the Kurellis.

  While Scarlet was helping get people to sickbay, Sahvin took me to see what they had found. The little female that Scarlet was cooing over seemed to pick me, so I figured that was the one for her. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to get one for Scarlet. I had Harper to thank for talking the commander into letting us have it.

  It just broke my heart for her when she would wake up from the dream about being ripped away from her dog, Billy. This little one wouldn’t replace him, but it might ease the pain of loss.

  We were all looking at her when she turned around and faced us beaming with the little dog in her arms. “You all knew, didn’t you?”

  I glanced around, and everyone was nodding. It was the main reason we set up this little gathering before the rest of the crew came in. I got up, went to Scarlet, and put my arms around her and the baby dog---puppy. She reached up to put her arm around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth. “I sure love you, warrior man!” she whispered.

  So I kissed her again and whispered into her ear, “Wait until I get you back to our cabin…”

  “Ooooh,” she gasped, “I guess this means I’m really going to get it!”

  “It does,” I assured her. “And so am I.”