Chapter 44
The sun was going down again, and Lori drummed her fingers on the windowsill as she watched its passage. Although being so high in the mountains allowed them to enjoy a bit more of the day since they did not suffer so strongly from the heat there, she had become too accustomed to her mates’ sleep schedule to change now.
Not that she slept particularly well. She was restless throughout much of the day, and she was losing weight because she struggled to feed herself as her appetite slowly disappeared. Not even when held within the lab had she been separated for so long from the males, and even then, at least she quickly had Kehtal with her, even if they had not been mated yet. She knew it was affecting her. She felt like she was slowly dying from the inside. The only thing that kept her going was her offspring growing within her.
She laid a hand over her belly. She wanted to cry but she had done so much of it that she felt dry and empty. It had been so many days, and her stomach was starting to expand beyond the small bump that she’d had for so long. Her mates would have been delighted to see it. Slengral would have hovered in his proud and silent way, while Daskh, in his excitement, would have been always underfoot which would have alternately delighted and frustrated her. And then there was Kehtal. Of all her mates he was the one who would not have been able to stop caressing her belly. Her lips twitched at the thought. He never got enough of it and was captivated by every change in her body as her pregnancy progressed. And now he was missing it. They all were.
“Do you even realize how pitiful you look right now?” Sara sighed as she set aside the datapad with the scans she had taken of Lori’s growing baby. “You realize that this is not healthy for you—or for your little one.”
Lori gave the medic—a woman she was quickly considering her friend—an apologetic smile. “I know but I just can’t shake the feeling that they are out there looking for me with no way to get to me.” She fidgeted with the corner of the baby blanket that she was sewing—badly. “Because of how everything happened, I know that the trail will be difficult, if not impossible, to pick up on. Your mate did fly me here from the desert, after all. That doesn’t leave much to go on. Especially if it took them some time to escape the Aglatha.”
Sara sighed wearily. “You’ve said so before, and I don’t disagree with you, but Lori, it’s so dangerous to even reveal a hint of what’s going on up here.” She bit her lip. “If—and this is a big if—I get permission to allow to you very briefly contact your mates, you wouldn’t be allowed much time, just enough for them to lock onto the comm’s signal—if they have the ability to do so.” Her lips tightened. “It would be a one-time only deal, and you wouldn’t be allowed to contact Raza.”
Excitement welling up in her, Lori nodded quickly and set her work aside to grasp the other woman’s hands. For once, she didn’t know what to say that would be enough to convey everything she was feeling at that moment. Relief. Gratitude. She wanted to burst into tears. She wanted to giggle and shout out happily. She wanted to demand that Sara hand her comm over immediately so that she could try. She clenched her fingers together so that she wouldn’t automatically reach for it even as her heart pounded a rapid pulse within her chest, demanding that she do anything she had to.
Sara leaned back, her expression thoughtful as she pushed her chair out from the table. She couldn’t quite keep her lips from twitching, however, reluctantly betraying the direction of her thoughts as she stood.
“All right, don’t get too excited,” she admonished with a chuckle. “Let me go talk to my mate and see if I can in to speak to Therxian as he currently leads this nara.”
Biting her lip in an attempt to maintain some sort of composure and not hurry the other woman, Lori nodded. Her eyes never left Sara, however, as the medic headed out the door and stepped onto the path leading out from the small house into the small nara. She craned her head to peer out the window, a bubble of excitement catching within her chest as she watched Sara disappear between two other carefully built nests.
Would he agree? Although he had abandoned the Aglatha, she had no idea of what his feelings were or if he felt any remaining loyalty to his mother and the shinara he was raised within. He might not want to get involved at all, for all she knew.
A burning sensation filled her chest as she worried over the matter until the intense, squeezing pain reminded her to breathe. She exhaled and drew in a gulping breath, filling her lungs with the fresh, clean air. Somehow, she hadn’t even realized that she had begun to hold her breath. It was understandable, however. She was on pins and needles, waiting anxiously for some sight of Sara’s return. If she could have the chance to speak to her mates and let them know where she was and that was alive and well, she would readily agree to everything.
Time moved far too slowly, and Lori was unable to sit still. She got up from her seat and paced in front of the window, itching to just end the wait and go find Sara. Her fingers twisted together as she stared out at the street. The mist was settling lower over the ground as the night cooled and wore on but still, she could not pry herself away. She squinted at the mist and then nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise when Sara’s much smaller form stepped out of the fog with two large Seshanamitesh flanking her at either side, and something metallic with a faint glowing start-up light clasped tightly in her hand.
Lori’s breath stilled as she stared at the device. A comm! They had brought a comm. They were going to let her use it after all! She fairly shook with the enormity of the situation and the gift that they were giving her. She broke into a relieved smile as her friend ducked inside with the comm, but her smile faded at the grave look her friend bent on her as she carried the comm to the table and sat down, setting the comm directly in the center.
Flicking a confused look to the two males who had accompanied the medic, Lori slowly crept forward and dropped into a chair to join her at the table.
“You look like you are preparing for my funeral,” she commented in a bad attempt at a joke, but her friend’s lips just twisted faintly in a grimace that brought the mood down even further. “Is there something I should know? You are not asking to sacrifice my firstborn or anything, right?”
“It’s not that...” Sara began before looking to her mate for help.
Yuneril didn’t have a chance to recover on behalf of his mate, however, because Therxian interceded, his large bulk moving between Lori and the couple so that she was all that he saw.
“Sara explained your request,” he rumbled, “but it is not so easy as letting you have it or denying it. There are very specific conditions that have to be in place for the welfare of everyone, and Sara is worried that it will upset you.”
Lori frowned, slapping a hand protectively over her womb. “I was joking about giving one of my nestling away, so you can take that off the table right now and come up with a different condition.”
He blinked, startled at her outburst but he shook his head with a quiet roll of laughter. “No, not that. Your nestling is entirely safe with you,” he assured her. He hesitated as he considered his words. “I am certain that you are aware that your comms are registered with your individual colonies?”
Lori nodded. “Of course. It is how they are able to keep track of us if someone gets lost or tries to create trouble—they can simply be brought back in.”
He inclined his head, his gavo fluttering. “That is the problem exactly. Sara explained to me that the comm does not send up an activity signal when it is simply passively receiving communications, but it will when it intercepts a link broadcasted between comms.”
“So, what’s the catch?” she asked slowly. “How will I be able to use it?”
The corner of his mouth hitched. “The catch, as you call it, is that there is a very narrow window of time that you can have the comm open before you draw their attention.”
“You will have only minutes to establish a link and get a short message through before you will have to revert immediately to powering on the tracking device while the incoming link channel is deactivated,” Sara explained as Therxian withdrew so that Lori could see the small button on the side of the comm. “Colony Alpha will be much slower to pick up on the tracker, so you have a larger window of hours for your mates to home in on it.”
“And if they don’t make it on time?” Lori whispered.
Sara grimaced. “That is the bad news. The tracker will also be deactivated, and it won’t be coming back on.”
Lori swallowed nervously as an uncomfortable cold settled through her. “You are saying that this is my only shot?”
Sara nodded. “I’m sorry but this is the way it has to be. Just using a comm once will draw attention to its activity status, however short it is. After that, we have to deactivate for no less time than a year. By that time the colony systems will update and will no longer be programmed to actively search for it. This is something programmed into the system so that if there is a death or someone becomes lost and cannot be recovered, the systems aren’t wasting cycles searching endlessly.”
“I see,” Lori whispered, her fingertips skimming the comm before drumming restlessly on the wood of the table. “Is there any way I can try to meet them halfway to make it easier?”
Therxian frowned, his head cocking as he considered her. “You wish to fly out of the mountains with a tracking device on you? Slengral would not be pleased with how closely that could potentially put you in danger.” He sighed and scraped a hand over his gavo. “I can fly down with it,” he muttered. “I am not interested in doing my brother any favors in this matter, but I do not wish to bring you down when your life was nearly lost on the sand before we plucked you from it.”
She wanted to protest that she wanted to be there in person to greet her mates, but she couldn’t deny that Therxian had a point. Sighing, she nodded and Therxian hummed in approval as he turned expectantly to Sara. The medic glanced over at her mate, a tight smile pulling faintly at her lips before she took the comm between her hands and began to turn it on. Lori watched the screen light up, her lips parting as excitement flooded through her veins. The comm was turned toward her and her hands moved of their volition, snatching the comm up and dragging it close. She moved her fingers along the buttons, putting in the uplink channel for Slengral’s comm. She had no idea what state Daskh’s comm was in after his fall as it had not been a concern of hers at the time, and Kehtal often forgot to wear his if Lori didn’t remind him first whenever he was heading out.
If anyone had a comm available, it would be Slengral!
Lights danced over the comm screen as it worked to make the uplink and Lori leaned over it anxiously as it worked for what felt like an eternity without establishing the link. Still, she didn’t turn it off, though she nodded when Sara gestured how much longer she had. She didn’t have to give up yet. She still had time. They still had time. They would answer. They had to. Please answer. Please!
The comm crackled and suddenly the holographic display projected upward as Slengral’s image filled it, his snarl of annoyance fading abruptly into shock as he stared at her with wide eyes.
“Lori?” he rasped. “Is that really you?”
“Lori? Is it her?” male voices rejoined as her other two mates pushed in, looks of awe, shock, and joy shifting over their beautiful faces.
Hashal’s little head bobbed up, blocking the others out as he squinted at her. “Is mother a gorshiga?” he queried, his head swiveling around, presumably to demand an answer from Kehtal.
A sob shook Lori, and she shook her head and laughed through the tears streaming down her face. “No, I’m not a gorshiga... I’m here. I’m alive. We are alive,” she clarified, her hand going to her belly though she knew that her mates would not be able to see it in the current hologram setting.
A squealing trill erupted from Hashal before he was pulled away, drawing a round of soft laughter from the two males occupying the room with her. Lori looked up Sara and her friend grinned at her, tears wetting her own face that she hastily wiped away as she quickly motioned with her fingers.
Lori blinked and nodded quickly before refocusing on the comm. She was running out of time. “Listen, Slengral... can you hear me okay?”
Slengral’s face shifted forward and filled the hologram. “I am here. I hear you ashlava,” he rasped. “What do you need?”
“I don’t have much time, but I need you to listen and trust me, okay?”
“Always,” he replied without hesitation, bringing a smile to her face.
“Right. Good,” she replied happily as she tried to not start giggling again with the sheer giddy relief of the moment. “I need to turn the comm off before anyone tracks it but there will be a tracking signal that will start up for a short time. You will only have a few hours so you will need to travel fast, but it will be coming toward you so that should help some. Find that signal. You remember how I showed you to lock onto the signal when we tested for emergency procedures should I get lost in the Aglatha?”
He inclined his head slowly, his gavo snapping. “But Lori, this is not your comm. It’s uplink signal has not be prepared within my comm by you.”
“It’s okay,” she quickly assured him. “When we disconnect, I will need you to push the two buttons on the left face. The lower one would have allowed you to pull up my link but if you push them both together it goes into an emergency standby and tracks the coordinates of the last comm uplinked with yours. Do that and find me. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” he replied. “We are coming Lori,” he rasped, his holographic image winking out in the next breath as Sara reached over to the box the comm was plugged into and quickly typed in the code that disabled the uplink.
Lori stared at the blank screen in panic. He was gone again. Just that quickly and she lost him all over again without warning. She hadn’t even had a chance to remind her family how much she loved them just in case she never saw them again. What if—
“Lori,” Yuneril hissed, bringing her back to herself.
Fuck, the signal! Nodding quickly, Lori tapped the sequence to activate the comm’s signal. It responded instantly, the tracker lighting up with a pulsing red light illuminating the metal of the comm. With shaking fingers, she handed it over to Therxian, praying with all her might that her mates would be able to locate him quickly and return to her.
“Bring them back, please,” she whispered.
The male inclined his head gravely and looped it around his wrist. “I swear it,” he growled.
Lori nodded, her eyes drifting shut to protest her eyes from the spray of any sand or dust in the air as the males burst from the room with a snap of their enormous wings. Since she had her eyes closed, just maybe she would try praying to this Shangla—mother to mother—to return her males safely to her.