24. Chapter 24
Mika
“I'm going to miss you,” Iris said.
“Same,” I said. “This has been so much fun.”
The last two weeks had gone by in a flash. It felt like I'd always known Iris, Damascus, and Mia.
“Are you sure you don't want to come with us?” Iris said, cuddling Nadia to her chest. “You'd have your own suite, and we could watch Nadia anytime you wanted some privacy.”
I laughed. “Are you sure you don't want to stay here?” I pointed to the far end of the stump. “You could set up right over there. We could even put up a covered walkway between us so we could visit even when it rains.”
Iris shook her head. “I'm going to be honest, I'm slightly tempted. After growing up on an agricultural planet, I'm getting a little tired of ships and space stations.”
“I understand,” I said, glancing around us at the tall trees and blue sky beyond. “This is different from anywhere I've ever lived before. I think I'm spoiled.”
“I read that Maz should be done in two and half years,” Iris reminded me. “This isn’t permanent."
I gave her an unconcerned smile. “That's true, but then we get to go off and survey another planet. He's already got a contract, and I've seen pictures. This one has a large ocean with blue sand beaches. You can come visit us there too.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Iris said. “You know, maybe we should schedule regular visits to you as vacation.”
“I'd love that,” I said.
Iris hesitated then blurted out her next question. “Do you want us to look for your parents?”
An image of my parents wearing collars flashed through my head. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Iris looked confused, then shook her head. “I don't mean to turn them into pets or anything, but to make sure they're doing well. If they're in any kind of trouble, we could help them.”
I let out a relieved breath. “That would be great. I'll send you a data packet with everything I know.”
She nodded. “It might take a while.”
“It's fine,” I said, then blinked rapidly. “If you find out something bad, I don't want to know.”
Iris moved Nadia to one arm and wrapped me in a strong hug with her free hand. “I understand. I can look into finding other family members too.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling exceptionally grateful. “Maz had offered to find them, but I'd been afraid to leave our little paradise. I also didn't want him to bring them to live with us. I love my parents, but I couldn't inhabit the same station let alone the same ship with them.”
Iris gave me a knowing smile as she pulled away. “We love them, but that doesn’t mean we always like them.”
That made me chuckle.
“Iris?” Damascus stood at the top of the shuttle ramp. “Lori wants to know if we're planning to exchange the fuel rounds at the next station.”
She yelled over her shoulder, “Tell her that Holsum said fuel rounds 010, 054, and 147 need to be replaced, but the rest only need to be rotated.”
Damascus sounded an amused rumble. “I’ll tell her. Or she could just talk to Holsum herself.”
I saw mild panic on Iris’s face before she turned to fully face Damascus. “No! Don’t you dare!”
Turning to me again, she handed Nadia back. “Lori and Holsum are in the constantly fighting stage of falling in love. If they don’t figure it out soon I might need to strand them on an uninhabited planet until they work it out.”
“Go,” I said. “Come back for a visit when you can.”
“We will,” she promised, already rushing up the ramp.
Laughing, I turned and walked the short distance to a small pile of boxes.
Iris and Damascus insisted on leaving a bunch of supplies, including several containers of Mia’s old toys.
I’d worried the little girl would be upset, but Iris assured me Mia didn’t want them anymore.
Mia also made a point to tell me it was important for Nadia to have plenty of things to play with.
I waved at Iris before the shuttle door closed, then watched them rise up into the sky. It would be at least another six months before I saw them again. Nadia would be a year old and probably walking.
It was strange to think of things on a child’s timeline because they grew so fast.
“Say bye-bye, Auntie Iris,” I murmured to Nadia, lifting one of her chubby arms to wave her fist in the air at the departing shuttle.
Damascus and Maz had been quick to say their goodbyes, and then both had gotten to work doing other things.
As Iris and I drew out our parting, Damascus had been busy on the shuttle going through data packs that recently arrived. Maz set to the task of moving all the supplies they’d left us into our ship and putting them away in orderly places.
Once the shuttle was out of sight, I turned to watch Maz load containers onto a cargo bot they’d given us. He seemed tense as he piled boxes on the sturdy piece of tech. I was pretty sure I knew why.
“You’re behind schedule,” I murmured.
He made a rumble of agreement but didn’t stop loading. Nadia burbled and pressed her hand to my face. He looked up and purred at her.
“Hello, Nadia. Are you hungry? Tired?” She waved both hands in the air. “Oh, do you want to work on your motor skills? We could play grab the colorful object. You like that.”
He pulled a long piece of colorful fabric off his belt and dangled it in the air. He carried several lengths of fabric in different colors everywhere with him for Nadia to play with. She grabbed it and put it into her mouth.
“That’s good!” he praised the baby. “This one is blue. Blue.”
I loved that no matter how much work there was to be done or how distracted Maz was, he always had time for Nadia.
I pulled the fabric from her mouth and tugged it free of her grip before handing it back to him. “You should get back to work.”
He froze. “Are you sure?”
“We can move all this stuff later,” I said.
“Yes, that’s true,” he said. “But don’t you need me?”
“I had a lot of fun, but I’m tired,” I said. “I’m not used to interacting with so many people. I’m going to feed Nadia and then see if we can take a nap together.”
He sounded another rumble of agreement. “If you’re sure you don’t need me to help, then I might check the bot station on stump F3959.”
I knew it had sent failure messages the day everyone arrived. We’d been so busy with our guests that Maz never got a chance to go over there and find out why it stopped working.
He tried to problem solve from here, but nothing worked. He was sure a limb had fallen on the docking station. He’d only mentioned it once, but it was clear he was stressed about it. Poor guy didn’t like it when things went off schedule this much.
“Go check,” I urged.
“I’ll be back in three marks at the most,” he said.
“There’s no rush,” I said. “As long as you come back before it gets dark.”
Once he'd come back with the flier covered in so many bugs there were dark patches obscuring the exterior panels. Maz assured me even if the flier was covered in bugs, it wouldn't be a problem.
I wanted to believe him, but the concept of bugs simply flying around still freaked me out. The thought of him hitting that many bugs at night gave me severe anxiety. I’d demanded he never fly at night, and instead of arguing with me, he’d agreed.
“I promise,” he said, sounding a purr. He leaned over, brushed his lips over mine and then on top of Nadia's little head.
Grabbing a bag of tools, he rushed off to the flier. Hopefully when he got back he'd be less stressed.
Mazorium
“That's odd,” I muttered as I righted the bot docking station. There were bots scattered everywhere, but what was most alarming was the way the receiver had broken.
Picking it up, I found that not only had it dislodged from the station, it was smashed beyond repair. The damage didn't make sense.
Taking off my Ident, I brought up the weather data for this area.
There was no evidence of abnormal winds or other forces that would've caused the breakage.
Could there be a type of animal I hadn't found yet?
It had happened before, but it was rare for something large enough to do this to have slipped past my initial surveys.
After righting the docking station and reloading all the bots that were fully functional, I carried the broken receiver to the flier and set it in the back. I had a replacement back at the ship. If I hurried, I'd still be able to fix everything before nightfall.
Climbing into the flier, I started it up and headed back home.
Home.
It was such a strange word to use in connection with my ship. Before it'd always been my ship or mobile dwelling, but Mika and Nadia made it home.
I’d always felt disconnected from the word home. It seemed a meaningless addition to the use of the word domicile, but now it all made sense. A domicile was a place you ate and slept. Home was where you felt the deepest contentment one could ever hope to experience.
I was halfway back when the receiver let out a last blip and transmitted a few data packets.
Curious, I set the flier display to show the last things the bots recorded.
Most of it was leaving and returning notes from the bots.
Then something interesting caught my eye.
There was some odd data about temperature variants not long before the receiver was destroyed.
Then I saw it. A highly localized temperature spike on the same stump as the docking station. The only thing that could cause the temperature to rise that quickly was a shuttle or ship landing. That could only mean one thing.
The bot docking station had been deliberately sabotaged.
The only reason for someone to do that would be to draw me away from Mika. It had happened the day Damascus and Iris arrived.
Another ship showed up on the same day and had been hiding this entire time. It wouldn't be hard, I only had survey satellites pointed at the planet looking at weather patterns, not the kind that looked for intruders. I'd never had to worry about that before.
Now I had something so valuable there had already been one attempted kidnapping. I cursed myself. How could I have been this stupid? Of course someone was here to steal Nadia and Mika, they were precious beyond wealth.
Fear made my heart race as I pushed the flier to its maximum speed. It was dangerous to move through the trees this fast, but all that mattered was getting back.
I passed the last tree in time to find a strange shuttle taking off from our stump. The thing was old, with obvious signs of heavy use and poor maintenance.
My flier didn't have weapons of any kind; my only hope was to block them. I aimed the flier at the shuttle, hoping to hover over them, to make it impossible for them to finish taking off.
They must've noticed my approach because the shuttle suddenly shot up. I pushed the flier to follow, but it wouldn’t be long before I was unable to keep up with them. The flier wasn't built to leave the atmosphere.
I needed to stop them before they got too high.
If only I could—
The bots! I had three flying bot stations set up on the planet, and they'd only destroyed one of them. Using one hand to guide the flier, I used the display interface and launched every bot available to fly. Then I redirected every bot already in the air.
“You will not steal my humans!” I vowed as several bots changed direction from their assigned sections. They were faster than the flier and easily caught up with the shuttle. I watched them gain on the vehicle and realized I needed a plan.
It would be easy to use the bots to destroy the engines, but that could cause them to fall from the sky. There were mechanisms to minimize the impact of a crash on the occupants, but I couldn't be sure Mika and Nadia would survive.
Then it hit me, the lower thruster! It was only used to leave a planet. If I disabled it, they'd be forced to land.
Two more bots had caught up with us, and I sent all three into the thruster.
It was barely opening to launch them into space, and the bots impacted it.
Sparks flew everywhere, and the shuttle jerked before losing altitude.
It was a rapid descent, but not so bad they wouldn't be able to control their landing.
There weren't many places to land, and they had to pick a stump where the tree had broken at a severe angle. They landed in the middle of the trunk, with the front of the shuttle pointed up the incline.
I aimed the flier at a higher spot than them. I was in such a rush to get the flier down I felt something crack on landing. I ignored it and ordered the hatch open.
It separated from the lip slightly but then stopped. Whatever had made the cracking sound must have affected the door.
I looked at the display, hoping to see a quick and easily fixed error, only to be confronted by the image of seven Talins leaving the shuttle and forming a line facing me.
Every single one of them had a projectile weapon usually given only to the military.
This was very bad.