Riding on Whispers (the Wolfegang series Book 3) (8 page)

Wow. Some of the things humanity figured out were amazing. I grabbed a cracker and sat back. Wolfe’s manual would help me learn how to inscribe the crystals quicker, but at the moment, I had good food and good coffee. I was rather content, which was a little surprising since I’d been in such a bad mood yesterday. Spending time with Wolfe was becoming almost…pleasant.

“So tell me about your brother. How did he go missing in the first place?”

The shift in topic made me apprehensive, but it was a logical question. We were flying across the galaxy for Kris on a hunch. I couldn’t detect anything else other than genuine curiosity in his tone, but Wolfe’s question still put me on edge. I didn’t like it when he wanted to learn more about my history. I always had to lie, and then later, I’d have to remember exactly what I’d said so I wouldn’t contradict myself.

It was stressful.

I shifted. These were questions I had to answer if I wanted him to keep helping me. “Well, I don’t know exactly,” I started. The more truth to the story, the easier it would be to remember. “We were hanging out at this party, and he got into a fight, which isn’t that unusual. His illness made him an angry person. I stepped in to try and help, but I was knocked out.”

The story was true about my brother getting into a fight. I had gotten knocked out, and it did take me a few days to remember what happened. It just happened about three years before the suspended animation experiment.

Suddenly I had a brilliant explanation. “When I woke up, he was gone. And I couldn’t recall anything.”

Wolfe thought for a second before he spoke. “So, you had no memory at all?”

“No, it took a few days to start coming back, but then it was only in bits and pieces. Most of my past I have back now, although I think my long term memory is messed up because I’ll forget something simple or get confused about when something actually took place,” I explained, twisting a piece of my hair around my finger.

“That seems logical,” Wolfe said. He rubbed his chin in thought. “There are times where I can’t believe what you don’t know, but if there are lapses in your long-term memory, that would explain everything. We could have a doctor examine you, if you like,” Wolfe suggested.

I laughed, not at all amused at the prospect of Wolfe being present for a full medical workup. “I’ve had enough of doctors for the time being, but thank you.”

My explanation seemed to ease a few of the lines on his face, like my slip-ups nagged at him for some time.

“What’s your brother like?” Wolfe asked.

I wondered if he had any idea how personal his questions were, and how they reminded me of the impossibility of finding Kris. It made me feel so completely overwhelmed.

I wasn’t quite sure how to answer his question. “Well,” I began. I tried to paint a picture of my brother, even though I knew it wouldn’t do him justice. “He’s the male version of me. We are practically identical, so we have the same coloring, same eyes, and similar bone structure. Just add testosterone, and you have a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound version of me, with scruff and short hair.”

Wolfe almost balked at the idea. “I can’t quite wrap my mind around that concept,” he said.

I shrugged. “Yeah, it doesn’t really make sense until you see it.”

We sat in silence for a few moments before he said, “He means a lot to you it seems. The two of you were very close.”

I picked at my nails, remembering exactly how close we were. “Yes. He’s the only family I’ve got left, and we’ve always been great friends.” It felt like only a few weeks ago to me.

Kris was all that was left, and I might lose him too, after I’d lost everyone else. My eyes started to burn, and I took a slow deep breath. If I wasn’t careful, I would start crying.

“What about the rest of your family?” Wolfe asked gently.

I looked down at my hands. “They’re all dead.”

There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch on forever. I decided to change the subject before I lost my composure. “So how do you and Celeste know each other? The two of you seem to have a lot of history.”

Wolfe sighed and poured more coffee into our cups. “It’s a very long story.”

I took a sip and shrugged. “Well, I have nowhere else I have to be.” We were stuck on a spaceship for another few weeks before we hit a planet, or even a docking station. There was nowhere else I
could
be.

Wolfe sighed again and rubbed at his hair until the curls stood up in weird ways. “Well, I suppose that’s true.” He took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat. “I haven’t talked about myself in a long time.”

I crossed my arms. “You’re not getting out of it.”

He smiled ruefully. “I deduced as much. Well, I guess I can start with how we met. It was after the war with her people, the Sarmatians. The Federation won the war, and she was working on and off as a mercenary. No one was comfortable hiring the Sarmatians for a long period of time. Their reputation is vicious.” He took another sip of his coffee. “One of her jobs placed her on the same trade station I was at the time. I was about to leave on a mission for the Federation. We happened to be in the same bar, there was a fight, and she was in the thick of it as usual.”

After what I’d seen on Speed, I couldn’t really see the truth in his statement. I tried to hide my skepticism before he noticed.

“I kept her from getting arrested by dragging her out of there before the local law enforcement showed up. We ended up at a different bar, drinking the rest of the night. We became friends. Then three years later, after I was discharged from the military, I started this business. Her weapons expertise was ideal for my line of work. So I hired her on. We’ve been on this ship for almost five years now.”

For some reason Sarmatia, was very familiar to me, and not only because that was Celeste’s species. “You said Sarmatian?” I asked, hoping that if I heard the word again, it would jog my memory.

He seemed confused. “Yes, their markings are very unique. I’m sure you heard a lot about their race during the war.”

I waved my hand in dismissal at his words. It wasn’t really important what I didn’t know right then. “I don’t remember much about it.” That wasn’t what I meant. “I’m not sure how familiar you are with history,” I said. “But wasn’t Sarmatia an ancient region on Earth?”

His face scrunched as he thought. “Hm, doesn’t sound familiar.”

I got up, went over to his desk, and sat down. I waved my hand over his desk, and the computer displayed on the surface. I selected the search engine and typed in Sarmatia.

Wolfe came around to stand behind me and watch. I tapped on the history of Sarmatia, and pulled up the planet’s info and then swiped it to the side for comparison. I refined the search to the region of Sarmatia on planet Earth.

When I saw the results, I sat back and grinned. It made perfect sense. “Are her people based on the female gender more than the male?”

“Extremely so,” Wolfe answered. “Men are considered objects or possessions. They do hard labor and are used for breeding. Only the attractive males live older than childhood.”

“Take a look at this,” I said, pointing to the results. “Sarmatia was an ancient region in Ukraine where the Amazons are said to have lived.”

“Amazons?”

Perplexed, it was my turn to stare. “Do you know any mythology?”

He placed his hands on his desk and leaned over me. “Earth mythology? No, it wasn’t really my area of expertise, and it’s extremely extensive.” He was close enough that I could smell the sandalwood.

I leaned back just enough so that the smell wasn’t distracting and said, “In the time of the Greeks and Romans there was a race of fierce warrior women that lived in a region known as Sarmatia in ancient times. Sound familiar?”

“So, you’re telling me your mythology has connections to these alien races?”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but I know for sure it describes Celeste perfectly, minus the markings. She is very humanoid.”

“I’ll have to read up on this more.” He waved his hand and the computer display dissipated until the surface looked like a normal desk again. Wolfe moved across the room to sit back on the couch. I couldn’t really tell, but he looked almost disconcerted. “It’s something that’s never occurred to me,” he said. “And hasn’t occurred to any other human it seems.”

I stayed in the very comfortable Captain’s chair. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty,” I said with a grin, teasing him with my choice of words. Celeste never would’ve given him a second look if he was average-looking.

He raised a brow at me. “You think I’m pretty?” he asked in a laughing tone.

My mouth fell open in surprise. Was he bantering? “Well…” My cheeks burned. “I meant that
she
thinks you’re pretty.” I cleared my throat, feeling incredibly embarrassed and awkward. It didn’t matter if
I
thought he was attractive. I cleared my throat again and looked anywhere but at him. “Anyway, it’s not just
my
mythology. It’s
our
mythology. You’re human too.”

He grunted as he drank his coffee.

“Does the history and mythology of your race, bother you?” I asked. It didn’t make any sense why he avoided responding to me. “It might even help you with your map.” His ignorance annoyed me. Didn’t they teach Earth’s history anymore?

“It doesn’t bother me; I just don’t understand the details as much as you seem to.” He looked relaxed and comfortable lounging on the couch.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen the captain lounge before.

The view of his office from his desk was different. I looked at what he saw from his perspective every day as captain. It was strange to look at things from that angle.

“Well, didn’t you read when you were younger?” I asked.

He looked at me in a way I couldn’t really decipher. “I’ve been in the military since I was twelve. I don’t know anything else.”

What? Wasn’t that illegal, some perversion of child labor laws? “Twelve years old? How?”

He looked at me, perplexed. “If you want to make the military a career, you can enroll in the academy as soon as you finish the middle grades. They teach you high school and then everything you need to know for combat in the water, land, skies, or space. We train for years for the special combat unit. It’s what makes the Federation so strong.”

I spun the chair around in contemplation. “So how do they justify training young children to fight and kill? What system do they use to even recruit them?”

He still didn’t look phased. “Please be careful with that chair, and your coffee is getting cold. Come sit over here.”

I stopped the spinning and looked at him. I couldn’t quite figure out what he thought of my questions. So I got up and opened the porthole to the view of space before I flopped down beside him.

“So, explain,” I prompted.

He poured more coffee into my cup to warm it up and then began. “Well, they view it as patriotism. There is nothing more honorable than protecting and fighting for what you believe in, for your Galactic Federation, of which Earth is the center point. As a human, nothing is more important than the protection of Earth.”

I stirred more sugar into my coffee and sipped at it. The patriotism sounded a lot more like fanaticism to me.

“I know it may sound like a strange life choice, but it’s something one chooses. We were not forced. Boys, and girls want to join every year, but no one is obligated. They usually have far more applicants than they asked for.” Wolfe took a bite of cheese.

I decided to open up to him, just a little. It couldn’t hurt, right? “My grandfather was in the military. He captained a ship for a very long time.” My fingers traced a pattern in the fabric of the couch as I thought. “He used to bring me things from the different places he traveled to. My grandfather’s war stories about his men and patrols were what I grew up on. Before my brother got sick, I wanted to be a military pilot so badly. I wanted my life to be like
Top Gun
.” I paused and glanced at Wolfe to see if my accidental slip of a pop culture reference confused him. I continued, when I didn’t see a reaction. “But I had to stay around for my twin. He needed me, and I couldn’t be coming and going. What if something happened to him, and I wasn’t there? Never knowing when I left if he would be alive when I came back.”

I shook my head as I remembered how bad things were for Kris. “No, I couldn’t do that. So, I made a living with…alternate means.”

I could relate to a lot of what Wolfe said, but there were a few very foreign and new concepts I couldn’t quite see clearly. It didn’t make sense to me, and to be honest, I didn’t really care if it did.

We stared at each other as he deciphered and processed everything I’d said. I’d been very careful about my word choice.

“Alternate means? So that’s how you know cars and how to drive them so well. That sort of racing is illegal on Earth and many other planets under Federation government.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “What can you do? Some of us aren’t as lucky as others.” I drank the last of my coffee and set the empty cup down before I stood. “Thank you for the help and the coffee, Captain.”

I picked up the crystal manual and walked to the door. I stopped when I realized I still didn’t have the answer to a pretty obvious question. “Captain, I hope you don’t mind, but exactly how old are you?”