“Boss, this feels off. Anti-climactic,” Slate said.
“I agree, but since they didn’t seem too interested in most of this stuff, I’m glad to take it.” I looked at the shelf, seeing the portal webs still sitting there untouched. I didn’t have my Relocator from Kareem any longer, since I’d traded it to Sergo. I considered taking both ends of the portal, but there was something in the way Pol spoke about the mysterious device that had me intrigued.
“Ready to go?” Rulo asked from the doorway.
Pol looked back at the room wistfully. “Don’t tell anyone about this place,” he begged.
“We have what we want. Yope will be pleased. No need to bother him with the details of where it actually came from,” Rulo said.
The elevator door opened, and everyone piled in. With the cart, there wasn’t enough room for all of us. I grabbed Slate’s arm and held him back.
“We’ll take the next one,” I said and stepped back as the door closed and they lifted.
“What’s this all about?” Slate asked.
“There’s something inside here that we may need. Pol’s so dead-set on getting it. I bet Regnig will be able to tell us what this Fontem guy was really all about.” I ran to the shelf, grabbing the portal device, and noticed a second one behind it. I grabbed that too and detached the two pieces, setting one down on the ground and activating it at the far end of the room, near the now-inactive viewscreen. It hummed as the barrier glowed and hit the walls and ceiling. When it covered the space, it vanished, hiding from the world. “Now we can come back, secretly.”
Slate looked impressed. “Glad I thought of it,” he joked, and we ran back to the lift just as the doors slid open. Rulo stood inside, hands on the rifle. She looked past us, eyeing the room suspiciously.
“Come in. We’re done here,” she said, and we obeyed. When she turned, I slipped the second piece of the portal into my pocket.
FIFTEEN
Half a day later, we were finally aboard Starbound with our target, Polvertan, in our possession. My fatigued legs plodded across the hangar floor, leaving the Keppe to deal with their new guest. The far door opened, and I saw the silhouette of a human. It was my human, Mary, and with renewed energy, I jogged over to her and Jules. The baby was wriggling in Mary’s arms, and I reached out and took her after setting my pack down.
“Dean, can you promise this is the last time you’ll run off for a while?” Mary asked, her voice serious.
I hugged her one-handed and kissed her on the lips, fully aware of what I must smell like. “I’m all yours.”
“Good. Now how about a shower?” she said, finally cracking a smile.
An hour later, we sat in our quarters. Jules lay on her back in the middle of the bed, eyes closed, drool softly falling from her mouth.
I told Mary about the room, and being so far away on a hidden ship. It was hard for me to believe as I told the story.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just a fake image on the viewscreen?” she asked.
“It could have been, but I don’t think so.” But if this guy went to all this trouble to hide something in that room, he might have added a fake viewscreen, showing stars and space out the window that weren’t really there. “Either way, I got some cool stuff. We’ll have to see what Regnig thinks…”
“Dean.” Mary cut me off. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean? If there’s…”
“If there’s what, Dean? If there’s what?” Her voice grew in volume, and I knew I’d messed up.
“I’m sorry. Forget about it,” I said.
“We said we were going to try to be normal. A normal family. Remember those three months on Sterona? Every day, we talked about going home. Spending time in our house, letting Maggie lick our baby’s face so they could grow up best friends. Letting us bond together again as husband and wife, not as partners in a space journey. I need us to be normal, Dean. I can’t do it anymore. I’ve been through too much. We’ve been through too much.” Tears fell down her cheeks, and I knew what to say.
“You’re right. I get so caught up, it’s hard to turn off sometimes. We’ll put it behind us, and live our life for ourselves. Let’s get home.” I stretched my hand across the bedding and found hers, squeezing it lightly in my grip. I sat there trying to convince myself that I could be happy without all the drama and conflict. I even half believed it.
“Thank you,” she said, and we both lay down, Jules sleeping soundly between us. “It’s time for us to be a family.”
____________
The next couple of weeks went by without incident, at least for us. I stopped going to any meetings and did my best to relax. Sitting in on bridge meetings about Starbound-related matters was the last thing I needed to be doing, so Mary and I spent the time together with our baby.
We often ate meals with Slate, Nick, Leslie, Magnus, Terrance, and Suma, though we also integrated with the crew a lot. The Keppe were a strong people, but fun to be around. While they could be serious and fearsome when needed, most of them had a playful energy, Hectal most of all. He and Slate used the strange workout gear almost every day, and after I tried to join them once, I decided I’d stick with walks up and down the immense ship’s halls.
Mary and I would push Jules around in the stroller-like apparatus we were given. We found the Keppe weren’t so different from us. It was refreshing to be around them, but the feeling of being homesick never left my gut the whole trip.
I’d been running around the universe searching for Mary, and she’d been with the Iskios during that time. Add in the time spent on Sterona, and the period searching for the Theos before that, and we’d been away for almost six months. That was a long time to be away. When we arrived at Keppe, I was so anxious to head straight for the portal that I could hardly contain myself.
“Dean, we have to do the right thing,” Magnus said, setting his meaty hands on my shoulders. Jules lay sleeping in the stroller beside me.
“I know. What? Do we go to the surface and kiss some alien’s ring or something?” I asked jokingly.
“Be serious, Dean. These guys answered my call. You don’t know how lucky you are,” he said, and he was right.
“Sorry, Mag. We know you did everything you could to get us back, and just in the nick of time.” I’d woken up from a few restless sleeps drenched in sweat, wondering if my arms were shackled to the wall, a Kraski with a scar standing in front of me. “Thanks for always being there.”
“Since the moment I saw you and Carey walking down that dirt road in South America, I knew I had to put you under my wing. Natalia probably would’ve left you behind.” He guffawed at his own joke, and I joined him.
Mary entered the hangar with Suma and joined us. “What are you two talking about?”
“How I always need rescuing, and how Magnus has made it his personal mission to get me out of trouble,” I said.
“I know the feeling. We all need someone to save us, right, boys?” she asked.
Suma bent over and pulled Jules’ blanket up. “Everyone ready to get to the surface? I hear it’s hot down there.”
“Jules won’t need that blanket long,” Magnus said as the rest of the entourage entered the hangar.
Slate was with Hectal, Rulo hanging just behind them. Admiral Yope joined us and grimaced when he saw me. I didn’t know if he had something against me personally, or if it was more of a “humans in general” thing.
Pol was beside him, his head still hanging low. I’d spoken to him a couple times, trying to decipher what he’d been looking for in that cache of technology, but he wouldn’t budge. He kept saying he’d go back and make it right. I didn’t press him on it.
Once Leslie and Terrance came in with Nick, we were ready to go. We got into a large transport vessel, three times the size of the one we’d lowered to the small planet a couple weeks ago. The viewscreen was huge, and I watched with interest as we headed out of Starbound and toward their world. It was interesting, with dark red sand tone
s, and far less water than Earth, or even New Spero. The star was yellow, at least twice as large in the sky as the sun we’d grown up with.
“No wonder it’s hot,” Slate said. “I’m already sweating.”
We lowered through the atmosphere and zoomed down, then across some grassy plains. The fields were dry, brown stalks of unknown vegetation. It wasn’t long before we arrived at a city among the desert. Tall blue glass buildings rose from the ground; white streets snaked across the city, many above ground: a series of overpasses. I watched with interest as hovering trains flew by, our transport vessel flying up and above one as it raced toward us. I could see the heat haze emanating from everything outside and hoped the air-conditioning was working at our destination.
“What do you think?” Rulo asked Slate behind me.
“I think it looks pretty cool. Magnus, maybe we should see about getting some of those trains. Would be a lot easier for the colonies to maneuver around Terran locations,” Slate suggested.
Magnus nodded. “That’s a great idea. I’ll mention it. We could bring one piece-by-piece through the portal stones, if needed.”
I hadn’t shared my new portal barriers with anyone but Mary. It would get too many questions, and I had a feeling I was going to need them eventually.
Slate was one hundred percent right. As New Spero expanded with the incoming Earth population, things were being built, but it was still tight. We needed to expand to more Terran sites and grow our existing ones. While some locations specialized in manufacturing, we still didn’t have great interstates set up for transporting goods or people.
I was curious to hear what plans were in the works for logistics like this. I was so far removed from the colony, and I wanted to integrate myself into my home more when I was back. Mary had suggested I apply for mayor of one of the sites, but I didn’t see myself as a behind-the-desk kind of guy any longer. When I’d told her I was too young for the gig, she’d laughed at me, saying I was forty and had already lived a lifetime.
“I’ll make sure you meet anyone necessary,” Yope said. “I think we’ll have a long relationship now, and the Keppe look forward to trading and learning from one another.” He turned from his front seat and looked me straight in the eyes when he spoke. There was something about the tone of his voice that made me uneasy.
I still didn’t know what the trade-off had been to get their help. Magnus said I’d know in due time. I looked at Jules and hoped it wasn’t some sort of Rumpelstiltskin deal. She started to cry, waking up in an unfamiliar setting, and I picked her up, feeling her warm body against my chest as I cuddled her close. I kissed the top of her little head and smelled it in the process. She was mine. It was hard to believe, but I loved her with every ounce of my body. A baby. Amidst all the chaos of our lives, somehow Mary and I had created something so perfect.
“Thank you, Admiral,” Magnus said, breaking the silence. I realized I should have answered him, but I was lost in my own contemplation.
The ship carried on, down to the far end of the sprawling city. There were a lot of high buildings, but also miles of housing units, not unlike our suburbs. At the end was a large rounded building with a landing pad half a mile from it. That was our destination. We passed through an energy field before nearing the ground.
“Welcome to Oliter, everyone,” Yope said, standing as the transport ship touched down lightly. The Keppe pilot had done this a million times before, judging by the soft touch he displayed.
The doors opened, and the heat instantly enveloped us. It was like the time I’d flown with some friends to Phoenix in the summer, but twice as bad. For a second, I struggled to find my breath, and I noticed the other humans, and even the hybrids, with the same look across their faces as me.
“Come,” Rulo said, waving us out of the vessel and onto the white landing pad. A few other ships hovered on the hard surface nearby, some resembling the Keppe ships we were getting accustomed to, others looking completely bizarre.
A bus hovered toward us, and soon we were piling into it, the room-temperature air inside feeling like a cooler compared to the heat outside. In a matter of minutes, we were stopping at the front entrance of the rounded building. It was a rusty orange color, nearly matching the sand around us. Ornate windows sat in the structure every few yards, and I counted them vertically, seeing there were twelve stories to the building.
It reminded me of the White House in a way, only in stature, not design. It was clear this was where the leaders of Keppe resided. A shield domed over the area, its blue energy visible if you looked closely. Dozens of large Keppe guards were close by, and I noticed a few on the roof, as well as some walking the perimeter of the building.
“Expecting someone?” I asked, and Yope looked back at me.
“Wait until you see inside. And believe me, what you think we have for security out here, multiply that by ten.” Yope smiled, and I peered around, wondering where they could be. Cloaked?
We exited the bus one at a time and let Yope and the others lead us into the building, up a short flight of stairs, before entering the wide double doors into a grand foyer. Everything was white inside, and it looked to be made from a smooth stone substance, something like marble or quartz. The floor, the walls, some pillars, all the same design. No art or ornaments adorned the walls.
It was cooler inside, but the Keppe clearly didn’t like to run too cold. Their bodies were used to the heat, so they didn’t need to shock them. I guessed our seventy degrees Fahrenheit would be like a winter day to them.
We went by a handful of tall black-armor-skinned Keppe, each with vests on and guns strapped to their waists. They were imposing, each nearly as big as Hectal, the women even bigger than Rulo. They each tapped their right shoulders with their left palms as their admiral walked past them, and when we’d passed through the room, he turned and returned the salute.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t this. We were ushered into a room at the end of a wide-open hall. A few Keppe walked around, these not carrying weapons. They wore more formal outfits, instead of the vests and functional military-type gear like the ones with us. The men had cream-colored shirts on, their bulk still evident under the thin fabric. They each wore pants reminiscent of capris, coming below the knee but only halfway down their shins. The women adorned themselves with similar garb, but they wore brown.
I’d seen more color on board the ship, but here, they stuck with uniforms, or at least a dress code. “I don’t want to work here,” Mary whispered in my ear, and I laughed out loud, clamping a hand over my mouth.
A few Keppe looked toward me and I put a serious face on, looking around as if to seek the culprit. The doors shut behind us, and I noticed not all of us had entered the room. Rulo, Kimtra, and Hectal had stayed out in the hall, their services no longer needed for the time being.
“My lord, we have brought young Polvertan back safely,” Admiral Yope said, and I glanced to the end of the room, where a Keppe spun around in a hover chair. He was behind a simple wooden desk, the top resting on four thin pillars made from the white marble seen everywhere. A tablet sat there, and he was tapping on it idly, not even bothering to look up at us.
He was a dark gray man, older, but still very imposing with his thick armored skin. “Very well.” He finally regarded us, and his bright orange snake-like eyes caused me to step backwards.
“Mr. and Mrs. Parker, and the others, meet Lord Eren Crul, our supreme leader, bless his family name. They have ruled our people since the first dawn of memory.” Yope said the words, standing proudly.
“And these are the humans we spent so much energy to retrieve?” Crul asked. He seemed to have a bad taste in his mouth as he spoke.
“These are,” Yope answered.
“They don’t look that valuable,” Crul said. The lord stood up now, crossing the tight space to stand before Mary and me. Slate and Suma flanked us, and Crul looked at the Shimmali girl with interest for a moment before locking eyes with Mary. “They
are small. Soft.”
Jules took that moment to start crying from her stroller behind us, and Crul’s eyes widened.
“Sorry,” I said, picking Jules up. I bobbed up and down with her, and soon she was giggling. She often woke up afraid, as if she’d been having a bad nightmare. I wondered if this was residual effects of being in the womb while her mother was under the Iskios’ control.
“You have good friends,” Crul said.
“We know that, Lord Eren Crul,” Mary said firmly. “We humans don’t leave friends behind.”
“Is that true?” Crul asked. “I’ve done some digging, and I’ve heard a lot about your race in the past couple months. If I were you, I’d consider this Kraski attack a blessing to you.”
“And why is that?” I asked quietly, still looking at Jules smiling toward me.
“Because you were on the brink of self-destruction. Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to bring a people together.” Crul said this like he had experience on the subject. “I suspect your world wouldn’t have lasted long, the way you were going.”
I couldn’t deny it. He was probably right. “That may be so, but losing half our population in the process doesn’t seem like a win.”
“Could have been worse. Oh yes, with the Kraski, it could have been worse. Dean Parker. The name being whispered in a lot of corners of the universe. The human who not only stopped the Kraski invasion, but killed the lot of them. You also ended the Deltra’s betrayal. That one surprised me, because the Deltra always seemed unusually cunning. Some of the best inventors I’d ever met.”
I thought of Kareem, and how good of a friend he’d become. “They only did what they thought they had to do to free themselves. I can’t fault them.”
Crul nodded, still content to discuss the topic. “And the Bhlat? I hear you bargained with the Empress herself. Quite the surprise. I’ve never been able to meet with her, yet you managed to be in a struggle with them and come out on top.”
The Survivors: Books 1-6 Page 117
