Renegades, page 13
She looked up at him and blushed again. “Before you might find me attractive. I know what I look like now, but I’ve already seen small signs of improvement, and…”
Reggie stepped up to her and took her in his arms, kissing her on the mouth. It was mostly awkward, as neither of them had experience being intimate, but neither pulled away. The kiss finally broke, but the hug did not, and he whispered into her ear.
“There is much more to attraction than appearance. But I find you beautiful, if that helps.”
She clamped her arms around his neck and started sobbing. He kissed her ear and led her back to the couch. They sat next to each other, still in each other’s arms, and resumed kissing. She took his left hand from her waist and dragged it up to her chest, so his palm covered her nipple.
“Reggie? Do you want me like this?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? Because if you change your mind, I think it would kill me.”
“Yes.”
Petra stood and started unbuttoning her shirt.
“Wait!” Reggie said, and stood himself. “Wait right here, just like this. Just give me one minute.” He raced around his apartment, turning off the lights. Finally, in the dark, Petra could hear a series of beeps, a hissing sound, and then the room exploded with firelight. Reggie had started the gas fireplace to create a more romantic mood. He ran back to her and sat eagerly on the couch.
“Okay, continue.”
Petra fidgeted for a moment. “Now I’m nervous.”
Reggie stood again, removed all of his own clothing and sat back down. “Now you don’t have to be nervous.”
She laughed and slowly undressed in front of him. When she finished, he took her hands. It was mostly dark in the room, but he could tell from her breathing that she was crying again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked and kissed the back of her hands.
“I don’t know what to do. I want to make you happy, but I don’t know how.”
Without releasing her hands, Reggie laid down and then gently pulled her down on top of him. They kissed again, and then he whispered to her. “We have all night. There’s no pressure. Let’s just enjoy each other.”
“I never imagined there could be such a wonderful man.”
“I hope I can live up to that, because that’s what you deserve.”
“Please, help me make you happy.”
8
Each time Becca’s eyes slipped shut from the influence of alcohol and general fatigue from the length of the day, Ander consumed her with his eyes. They sat in the starlight room after dinner and had started a second bottle of apple wine. Her long blonde hair spilled over her shoulders, and her perfect face kept rocking back and up toward the ceiling as her seductive eyes slipped closed. He would not take advantage of her in this state. It was much too soon. He simply wanted her to be comfortable disarming herself when in his company, as she had just done. His plan was working perfectly. Step by step, inch by inch, he was slowly dragging her into his sphere of influ…
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
Ander had been staring at her breasts, but he looked up to see her sharp-eyed and glaring at him.
“What? No. I’m sorry?”
“Alcohol? Spicy food, so I would drink more? A pretty, young girl, all alone in your apartment with you? I’ll ask again, do you think I’m stupid?”
Ander was shocked. She had tricked him. It had been a long time since he was not in control of a volatile situation. He found it exciting.
“No, no. It’s not like that at all.”
Becca stood and walked toward the armchair he was sitting in, walked to within an inch of him. She leaned over him and jabbed her index finger into his sternum. She’s the only creature in all the worlds that could do that and not have her finger snapped off and a blade buried in her eye, he thought.
“I am not stupid. I am not a silly little girl you can turn into your plaything,” she said. She removed her fingertip and stood up straight, taking a step back. “But if your interest is in courting me, I will allow it. You will have to try much harder, though. I will not be the dumb blonde on your arm. I will not be your trophy. You will treat me with more respect than anyone on this machine treats you with.”
Ander could not understand how he had landed in his current position. It was like she had been reading his mind during every step of his plan.
“What… How?” he could not find a delicate way of asking her how she had figured him out so completely.
“I knew before you finished your speech the day we landed. You thought you could disguise your gawking because of the crowd, but I knew what you were doing. I was watching you do it.”
“You are so beautiful,” he said. He did not make a conscious decision to say the words, but he heard them come out of his mouth. She has me in the palm of her hand.
“Yes, that’s fine. I already told you what you’d have to do to win me, Ander. I’m leaving now.”
With that, Becca turned and walked out of the starlight room and through the kitchen, pausing only to pick up the clutch she had brought with her before going out to the foyer. Ander heard the door open and then shut. She was gone, and he was wracked with more nerves than he had felt since he was a child.
He stepped into the kitchen and took a rocks glass and the bottle of Finnic whisky off the shelf above the table. He sat, thought, and drank. Having been so completely found out, he thought there were a few options. He could try to break her, which could work, but could also end with his own toes sticking up… a result he would never have thought possible before that evening. He could eliminate her, but the very thought made him angry, and he cast it aside. He wanted her. The last option was to do her bidding. He believed she would not want grand gestures but meaningful ones. They would each need to have real value. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have to kill her. She’s much too dangerous.
Chapter 7
Recognition
1
Once the young man had been helped up and dusted off, they exchanged a proper greeting and Len and Garrett walked toward the door, which had a bright red warning label:
DANGER – INBOUND AGGREGATE
It was loud on the other side of the door. Garrett did not have to open it to know that. The floor itself was vibrating.
“Do you want to see the first step in our building process?” Len asked.
“I would love to, but I think I might go deaf.”
Len laughed and beckoned Garrett to follow him to another door off to the side. He pulled it open, and they walked into a small room with hundreds of red and white flight suits identical to the one the young man who had received them was wearing.
“We can’t go out there without wearing one of these. They let you breathe, and they will also protect you from projectiles.”
“Projectiles?” Garrett looked more amazed than concerned.
“Yes, you will get hit. It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘how many times.’ It’s inevitable with the nature of the work they do in this facility, but don’t worry, the suit will protect you.”
Len pulled on his suit, then selected one for Garrett. While Garrett struggled to get into his, the Commander retrieved two helmets from the shelf on the back wall. He placed them on the ground between them and helped the former envoy finish with his gloves. Picking the helmets back up, he held one out to Garrett.
“This is not a pressure situation. There is plenty of atmosphere in there, but the helmet will protect your head and also filter out the dust in the air so you can breathe. There is also a radio so we can hear each other.” The Commander put his own helmet on, flipped a rocker switch where his right ear would have been, and then pointed at Garrett.
Garrett copied the moves Len had made and gave the Commander a thumbs up when he activated the switch and felt the breeze on his face. Len then made adjustments to both of their helmets, and suddenly Garrett could hear him breathing.
“Can you hear me, Garrett?”
“Yes.”
“Great, follow me.” Len walked back to the door labeled “Danger” and pushed it open. A cloud of dust spilled onto the dock as both men rushed through the opening.
Once they were in the larger operating area, Len pointed to an enormous red column that rose straight up. It appeared to be made of metal, as it had the telltale hammered finish look of a malleable material, albeit one that had taken a beating from millions of impacts throughout the years.
“That’s one of the inbound chutes for the raw aggregate that comes from the mining rigs. They load containers, then tugs go out into the system, drag them back here, dump them, and bring them back.”
Garrett looked at the chute and realized he could see it vibrating as the rock, metal, and ice crashed down through it. At the base of the column was another machine covered in red, blinking lights, so big it could have been a building and clearly the source of most of the noise, dust, and projectiles. Garrett pointed at it.
“Is that a mill?”
“Yes, exactly right.”
Garrett saw the reflection of a flashing amber light on the Commander’s helmet and turned to find a machine the size of a compact car moving toward them slowly. It appeared to be vacuuming up the dust and stone that had accumulated on the floor. He took a few steps back, tugging on the Commander’s elbow as he did. The machine passed in front of them without incident.
“Let’s wait here for a moment. I want you to see something. Actually, hear something,” Len said, with a big grin on his face. He pointed at the column and the mill. The vibrations had stopped, and the mill was getting quieter. After a few minutes, the mill started to lose speed and further quieted itself as it shut down. When it stopped entirely, the red flashing lights stopped and illuminated a solid blue.
Len looked at Garrett. “Listen,” he said, holding up the index finger of his right hand.
Garrett listened, and after a moment, a high-pitched popping sound filled his helmet, followed soon after by the voice of what he interpreted to be a young girl, maybe a young woman.
“Receiving bay 19, Solids receiving cylinder, Link 89. Composite load from container XG-182459, located from mining rig 1208, planet four of the beta-Wraith system.” Garrett listened to the voice closely, wanting it to be his daughter but knowing it was not possible. The voice would have been recorded when Hope was a much older woman, and Garrett knew what his daughter sounded like. It was not the voice he was listening to.
“Load composition: Silicate, 47%. Carbon, 21%. Water ice, 13%. Iron, 6%. Trace materials, 13%. A full list of the load composition has been uploaded to the daily manifest.”
The voice had reached the end of its message, and Garrett looked at Len, who shrugged.
“Nothing too interesting. Sometimes the rigs will hit a vein of precious metal, and sometimes there is enough of it in the load to make the list.”
“She said the system is called beta-Wraith? Is that the name of the star?” Garrett asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there an alpha-Wraith?”
“There was. That was the last system we visited. There are thirteen total in the series.”
“You took the star, too?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t always that way. The rectifiers are new, brand new when compared to the history of Orris.”
“I have to say, Commander, that is a topic that I am very interested in.”
Len laughed. “I suppose that doesn’t surprise me. Well, if you have more questions, you should save them for the brains behind the machines, Reggie. You’ll meet him at the banquet we’re having tomorrow night for you. You’ll meet a lot of people. I’ll make sure you two get a chance to chat.”
“A guy named Reggie invented a machine that can eat stars?”
“Dr. Regland Clairbaugh, yes, but he goes by Reggie. He loves talking about his inventions. You’re smart. You might even be able to understand what he’s talking about.”
2
Jemma woke up in the afternoon, as usual, since she had worked overnights for her entire career at Orris Command. She noticed the blinking light on her desk terminal as she walked through her small living room, but she was far more interested in getting coffee than listening to the ramblings of her mother or sister. She prepared her coffee the same way she had since she started drinking it at sixteen and walked back into her living room.
Before turning on her entertainment center, which she planned to watch for three straight days, she noticed her mood was much better than she had expected it to be. She sipped her coffee and even risked thinking about Phillip, but still, no crippling depression. It has to be Chuck. It has to be as simple as having something to do that doesn’t revolve around work and Phillip. She could not understand what else could have eased her depression so quickly.
The blinking light on her terminal would not quit. It endlessly poked at her peripheral vision. She decided to get it over with so she could consume her programming uninterrupted.
Once the message was queued up, she gasped when she saw the face of Lynn Testafore.
“Good morning, Jemma, it’s Lynn, the Commander’s assistant. I think you and I have met a few times, but you work overnights… and I just realized that you’re probably sleeping. I’m so sorry for the call, especially if it woke you. I’ll be quick. The Commander is hosting a banquet for Envoy Rhodes tomorrow night, and he would like all those who participated in his retrieval to attend. I guess that makes you first on the list, since you initiated the retrieval. I attached the official invitation to the message. I really hope you can make it, and if there is anything I can do for you, please don’t hesitate to call. Thanks Jemma!”
Sit at a banquet next to Phillip on my day off? No, thank you, she thought. She opened the invitation attachment and selected “decline.”
3
“I’m hoping I’m only up there for a few days, but I’d really rather you came with me. Don’t you want to come?” Canda asked.
Dex, her husband, nodded. “Yes, I would love to go with you, but there is no way I can get the time off. Especially not on such short notice.”
“Even if you explain why we’re going? You don’t think he’ll give you two days off?”
“That’s the biggest part of the problem. Just because we’re getting a free ride up to the front doesn’t guarantee they’ll get me back in time.”
“They will. You’ll be back here the day after tomorrow.”
Dex sighed. “I’ll ask. I’ll tell him what’s going on, and I’ll ask. If he says ‘no,’ I’m not going to press the matter. They’ve already been great to us, and I don’t want to ruin our relationship.”
“I agree completely. I just want you to try. I’d much rather travel all that distance with you than by myself,” Canda said and hugged him.
“Okay, let me go, and I’ll call him at home. It’s early enough, so I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“He doesn’t happen to be Telraen, does he?”
Dex shook his head and walked into their den to make the call. Canda returned to washing up from dinner. Nia had already given her the rest of the week off to help Garrett learn about his family’s fate, but she was uneasy about doing it alone. She did not just want someone to travel with; she wanted a teammate to help her with the task. She could not think of anyone better suited for it than Dex. He was Telraen, so he already loved Garrett Rhodes. He was also a communications genius, and he was the love of her life.
At that moment, she felt two arms wrap around her middle from behind and got a large kiss on the back of the head.
“Well, you were right. I got the time off. He just made me promise to get Garrett to visit the facility.”
Canda laughed. “That’s not going to happen!”
“I know, that’s what I told him, and he told me to try. So, I said, ‘okay,’ and that was it.”
4
Garrett stood in the foyer of his new apartment staring through the large kitchen and the starlight room, out the window, and into the blackness of space. Unlike the heavy majority of Orris residents, this was not new to him. He had viewed starry skies from six different planets, six different transports, and finally now from the grand machine itself.
Len had brought him to his new residence and then taken his leave, as he had a lot of work to catch up on. He assured Garrett that the apartment was fully stocked with food, clothing, and toiletries in anticipation of his arrival.
He walked through the apartment, noting the locations of the bathrooms as he went. There were four. The apartment was large enough to house ten people, let alone a single man. When he stepped down into the starlight room, he paused in awe. Orris did not look exactly like the model Lauren had shown him on the night of their first date, but it was just as big as he had imagined. The image brought an old sadness to the surface. Most of his torment since Houston had been reserved for his daughter, but Lauren was all he could think about when looking out the massive windows of the starlight room. Their first date cycled through his mind repeatedly, and he could see all the parts of it as though it had happened days before, instead of ages.
