Chapter 15
JAY
“Jaxus,” Braxton beckons, and I put away Hex’s bag, then go to him in the flight deck with my head down. “I’ve called for you three times now.”
“Sorry, Commander. I was distracted. But I am decent now.”
He takes one look at me as he rises from his chair, then exhales sharply through his nose, and I know I’m in trouble. Is he pissed I couldn’t find a shirt to go with the shorts?
But trouble isn’t what I get. His face is stern, eyes cold, but Braxton touches me so gently, strong arms wrapping around my larger hybrid frame before he strokes my blue back.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, unable to fight the tears any longer as I bury my face in his chest. “I was selfish—and now I might have messed everything up, with us and the Earth and your kind.”
“You are young, and in love, little—” Braxton pauses and laughs into my hair. “I can’t call you little human anymore, and you also seem too grown now to be called little one.”
I sniff and shrug one shoulder. “You could call me little hybrid.”
“I like that, and I love you, Jaxus.” His hold tightens and it just makes me cry more. “That’s why I need to tell you—when we reach our destination—you have to hide in the escape pod and not come out until you hear me leave the ship. Understood?”
“Understood, Commander.”
He pulls back a little and looks down at me with a softer expression. “I don’t want to let you go, but I have to—to fly the ship. Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat, but I cling to him anyway.
He sits in his chair and brings me down with him. “Would you like to sit in my lap?”
“Yes, please.”
“You know, you could be carrying our first little hybrid nestling right now,” Braxton says as he flies with one hand on the control wheel. There’s a bit of the excitement in his voice that I’ve been waiting to hear since the change overtook me.
“I hope I am.” Even if Hex and Xan reject me as a hybrid there’s no going back now.
I could never be complete without them, but maybe my love for my child will mend at least half of the hole their absence would leave in my heart.
“And I hope, if I am, that it comes out looking like all of my Giver mates somehow.”
One side of Braxton’s mouth curls up as the glow of various monitors casts light across his warm expression. I gaze up at it, comforted by the handsome alien just being his sexy self, not taking my gaze off him until—in the corner of my eye—I see a red planet in the distance.
“Commander, why are you—”
“It’s not what you’re thinking,” he says, as if I can’t see that we’re about to land on Mars.
“You can’t take me anywhere near Earth scientists. We can’t trust them to keep a secret like me.”
“That’s why you’ll stay out of sight—and will only interact with some very close scientist friends of mine, if they’ll agree to take you in.
As long as only those who we trust see your new form, this is the best place for you to be while the captain and I figure out what to do with you. And that could take some time.
“And at some point, everyone on the Derecko is going to wonder where you are. Word of your absence might reach another NV ship, and we don’t know if they’ll accept the excuse we’ll come up with to explain your absence.
Then they might try to track you—but even if the Council gets involved and agrees to let them use the strongest tech we have to find you—the cloaking that is done on this planet will keep you hidden. ”
“So you’re basically saying this is a really smart or really dumb decision, depending on how much you can trust strangers I’ve never met, who are on this planet with people we probably can’t trust?”
“I’m glad you’re up to speed now,” he mutters, as his hands move over the controls, making adjustments for our approach. “Now go hide in the escape pod.”
I let out an exasperated huff before I rise from his lap and hurry to the escape pod, throwing open the heavy metal door and making clunking and clanking sounds as I climb inside and strap myself into the upward facing pod.
The ship shudders, right after I close the door, with the strain of atmospheric entry. Every shudder is magnified within the cramped pod, rattling my teeth until the ship hits land with a final jolt.
“Jesus, Commander, you call that a landing?” Hex has never brought a ship down that rough.
“Quiet!” Braxton shouts. “Someone’s coming.”
“Already?”
“They were expecting us. Well—me.”
The airlock hisses open and I hear footsteps and voices.
Voices speaking English—and one of them is Numbers, giving one of his typical greetings.
“Welcome, Commander Braxton of the planet Eppo.”
“Yes, welcome,” some guy says. “We are grateful for your assistance, Commander. Will you come have a drink with us before you get to work?”
“Happily,” Braxton says, and then I hear the airlock close.
The smell of wet dirt and damp wood hits me when I climb out of the escape pod, making me want to open the door and look out at the terrain those smells are coming from. But I must stay hidden.
“Welcome, Jaxus Cross, of the planet Earth, born James Cross,” Numbers says, as I jump at his voice, floating in the room like it belongs to a ghost. “Your name was changed on the Derecko seven thousand, three hundred, and five days ago to match with the Giver NV custom of having names with ‘X,’ ‘K,’ ‘Z,’ or ‘P’ sounds in their pronunciation. All names on Eppo have one of these sounds, but you are not a Non-human Visitor to the Solar System. You are the only human I’ve met whose information is stored with NV data. ”
So this isn’t MY Numbers—not the one the Derecko uses—because this AI is meeting me for the first time. Shit. My Numbers wouldn’t rat me out. It goes along with whatever Captain Henrix wants, but I have no idea if this one operates that way.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me. How did you know I was here?”
“When ships land in this dome, I sync with their operating system so I can communicate with their passengers. That’s one of the many functions I serve on this planet, along with all the data I sort through for humans and NVs.”
“But you’re NV tech.” Humans weren’t supposed to use NV tech to keep track of things like their data.
“That is correct, Jaxus. That is how I knew who you were. You have NV nanoparticles in your body that are tagged with your data-code.”
“That’s impossible. The humans don’t let the NVs put any tech in me. It’s forbidden.”
“That would mean someone broke the rules,” Number says with a neutral tone. “Captain Henrix has programmed me to recognize that breaking rules is not always a bad thing, especially when they’re broken for the greater good.”
So this Numbers is also loyal to the captain? “Right now, I’m breaking some rules for Hex, so you can’t tell anyone I’m here or access any cameras to look at me. Deal?”
“We have a deal, Jaxus. I’m not here to report any rule breaking, only to help.”
“You mentioned a dome. How does that work?”
“In it, you can live on this planet just like you would on Earth. Grow your own food, breathe the air, and stay in good health. We are in one of this planet’s many experimental domes, where scientists do their research.
NV cloaking tech conceals what happens in each dome to ensure that this research remains highly classified. ”
“Pretty cool, Numbers. Thank you for the explanation.”
“You are most welcome, Jaxus. Though we have not met before, I have heard a lot about you from Captain Henrix. Residents of this dome—the Otto Dome—ask a lot of questions about your development, and sometimes he answers those questions. But he also talks about how clever you are, and how funny you can be, and reminds them that you are not a science project. You are someone he loves very much.”
“Not enough to ever show me this amazing place,” I grumble. “Or to even take me on a recon mission so I could get a mini vacation like him, away from the Derecko.”
“Captain Henrix visits here, and his reconnaissance missions, are important work,” Numbers says defensively.
“They are not ‘vacations.’ He has gone to the far reaches of the Solar System to launch nanosatellites, collect data, identify potential landing sites, and test equipment in the upper atmosphere of different planets. All the work he has done out there—and here—has been done with your future in mind, Jaxus. It is your species that he wants to keep safe and help advance.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “I’ve heard that all before—but what I’ve never heard is the truth, Numbers.
I thought this place was just used to run scientific tests that aren’t safe to do on Earth or something like that, but there’s clearly something bigger going on here that he hasn’t shared with me or others on the Derecko.
Don’t think I haven’t picked up on that. ”
The AI remains defensive. “Your captain only keeps secrets to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“You’ll have to ask him. His ship just entered the atmosphere.”
“The fuck it did!” I am so not ready for him to see me yet.
“There’s no need for language like that, Jaxus.”
“Shut up, Numbers, and show me what’s happening outside.”