Space Junque (11 page)

"Magda said it was no big deal." Jake's eyes twinkled. "But I'm sure they gave her a full load of opiates."

"We'll have to grow poppies in Corcovado."

"You're for Corcovado?"

"Not me." Char wrinkled her nose. "Asherah. She called the fertile females her chalices. She told me I would bring nine chalices to Corcovado from the stars."

"Durga and the others? They're just little girls."

"The 'aldos were talking about building a safe haven for fertile females, remember? If it's as clean as they say, it could be Asherah wants those girls and more like them to live there in safekeeping."

Jake looked at his abdomen as if imagining what pregnancy would be like. "Praise the gods for the y chromosome."

"Look at that." Char's heart jumped. Lights! A massive grid of unbroken, orderly, dazzling electric light came up on the horizon. "Is it Garrick?"

"We'd better get to work." Jake went to the console where Mike usually worked. While he removed the e-drive, Char found the ISS shades and put them in her pocket.

In the next minutes the dark outline of the Garrick Sea rolled up on the horizon. It wasn't fair. The corporation that had contributed the most to the environmental cataclysm had escaped its consequences.

"That was easy." Jake zipped the e-drive into his flight pants. "Let's go."

They collected food that was harvest ready and a hundred pounds of seed. The fogging system was state-of-the art. Char ripped out several modules to add to the haul. Durga had the idea to look for the infirmary with the compad. They found a cache of saline solution and antibiotics and a cabinet full of protein packs.

Within half an hour, they'd loaded about five percent of the annex's produce, the agronomist's protein packs, the seed, and five hundred gallons of water. Plenty to sustain them in orbit until they found safe harbor.

As they neared the docking bay Durga ran ahead to see the matriarch. She came back immediately. "It's gone, it's gone! The little space ship."

"There." Jake pointed at the air above the
 
Space Junque
.

Mike had the orbit runner up inside the docking bay. He flew it behind the
 
Junque
, and they all ran around to watch him put it down neatly in the hold. Because of the Tesla power source, there was no heat or exhaust.

Mike popped the canopy and jumped out. "You never know. We might need a runabout. The photovoltaic net can power this little ship too."

They rolled the plats into the hold and secured the supplies in storage bins.

"You should ride with me like before." Jake's face turned red the minute he said it. "I don't mean like before. I mean would you please ride in the cockpit and tell me more about what this goddess wants."

Char wanted to say she wouldn't at all mind riding with him like before.

"I forgot the compad." Durga ran past them out to the control room. As she retrieved the compad, her head jerked around. She peered down the open corridor then dashed back to the docking bay. "They're coming! The bad people are coming!"

As Durga reached Char's side, two men in space suits entered the docking bay. Their helmets hung from their belts and they carried guns. Char put her arms around Durga.

"Look what we have here," said the shorter guy. A sunflower patch was stuck off-center on the chest of his space suit. Must be stolen. "The
 
Space Junque
, complete with Imperial links, I do believe. Supplies already loaded, I take it. Very accommodating."

"There's only two of you and twenty of us," Jake said. A lie, but who cared?

"You and nineteen girls?" The big DOG laughed. Then he was on the ground, his body jerking in agonized spasms.

"A girl can aim as well as the next fellow." Rani had come around the back side of the
 
Junque
 
with Jake's stunner. She kept it aimed on the little DOG and moved between him and Durga.

Without warning, the little DOG shot Rani and she fell to the floor with a sickening cry. The sound of movement came from the corridor, and the DOG smirked. "There's twenty more of us, mate. Twenty
 
men
." He seemed to think better of his brag. "Mostly men."

"I'm only one man." Mike came down the cargo ramp with another stunner. "But I can take you out before your twenty get here."

The DOG held steady, but he didn't fire.

Rani groaned.

"Here's the choice," Jake said. "We can all die or we can all live. My friends and I were just leaving. You can have the whole place to yourselves."

"We already have the whole place, and we'll have your ship too." The DOG's smirk turned to a grimace, and it was his turn to fall down.

While gloating over being such a manly man, he forgot to keep his eye on the little girl. Durga had fired Rani's stunner.

Jake and Char helped Rani to her feet. Her eyes looked like they were on fire, but Char couldn't see any wound.

"Let me take her." Mike hoisted Rani over his shoulders. She was a foot taller and heavy with muscle mass, but his enhancements were for performance as well as cosmetic. "Get us out of here, Jake. This is just a graze."

Rani's barely suppressed whimper sounded worse than screams of pain.

Durga picked up the weapons without being told and followed Mike up the ramp. It was a mistake to see her as a child. She had the heart of a warrior.

"Let's go, Jake." Char was already at the galley lift. She hit the button to close the loading ramp as Jake jumped on beside her. Waist high into the galley, she heard yelling in the cargo bay.

The instant the
 
Junque
 
had airlock, Jake opened the docking bay doors. The shuttle was evacuated into space with everything that wasn't anchored down.

The DOGs were sucked out too, and Char wasn't sorry.

The
Space Junque
drifted with the DOGs' bodies and unsecured rubble that had spilled out of the annex like scattered toys. Jake called up life support and the artificial gravity, but he didn't touch navigation.

"Don't we need to get out of here?" Char asked.

 
"Let's wait until Mike does some scanning on the subnet before we make any noise."

 
Mike
. The mention of the name resurrected the wall between them.

 
Jake avoided eye contact. "I'd like to know how things lie before going any further."

How things lie.
He could be talking about Char and Mike as much as orbital hazards. How obtuse she had been. Jake needed to know how things were
before going any further
.

Char had never been aggressive in love. She'd expected love to find her, choose her. Mike had come to her with love -- with desire, anyway. But she didn't want Mike.

She and Brandon fell in with each other in school and found it easier to stay together than not. Had he lived and the world not imploded, they'd be married by now. Happy enough. No idea of anything missing.

She had loved Brandon, if not with any great passion. She'd been surprised how much his death hurt. After losing Sky so quickly afterward, Char had hidden away in her apartment and become a kind of ghost herself.

Now she was coming back to life, and the whole world was dying. She wanted Jake, and there wasn't time to wait for him to figure things out.

With the AG on, he released his harness and left his chair. At the cabin door he hesitated, and the sign above the galley lift caught the corner of Char's eye:
Mind the Gap.
That's exactly what she had to do, mind the rift that Mike had created between her and Jake.

She followed Jake to the door and put her hand on his arm. He didn't say anything. He just looked at her with a mixture of pain and desire -- or was she reading her own emotions in the mirror of his eyes?

"I kissed Mike,” she said. She couldn't deny it, and Mike would probably tell Jake anyway.

Jake didn't look surprised. He sighed and held her gaze. "Well, that makes me feel bad."

"I'm glad it makes you feel bad." There was no way to explain it. "It was an accident."

"I'm glad it was an accident." There. The beginning of a smile.

"Yeah." Now she was babbling. "It was."

He faced her squarely and put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm going to kiss you now. It won't be an accident."

His voice was warm and his eyes were kind, and he was real. So what if it was the end of the old world and there was only a minuscule chance of a new world to come. As long as she could stand in this galley with Jake's arms around her and his lips on hers, none of it mattered.

She wanted nothing. She had everything.

Jake was some long-missing part of her that had been restored. This wasn't a bad time to fall in love. It was the best time. Love was more necessary than ever. To make life bearable. To have hope without feeling ridiculous.

She could live in Corcovado. She could live anywhere as long as Jake was in her life.

"I need to check on Rani." Jake let her go. "But once I've got my
Junque
in order, I want to show you the captain's quarters."

His stupid joke sent a tingle of anticipation through her. How strange and unexpected to feel so happy.

Jake almost ran into Mike standing at the door. It had been ajar, but Mike seemed to have just arrived. He showed them a drive in the palm of his hand. "I copied the subnet protocols from the runner to install in
the
Junque's
com system
."

"Great minds think alike." There was a hint of triumph in Jake's comment. Men could be so territorial, but it was kind of nice when you
wanted
them to feel that way. "Let's know what's out there before we make ourselves too obvious."

"I'll install it now and search after we eat." Mike stepped through into the cockpit. "The old lady suggested we all sit down together for a meal, and now Durga is insisting on it. That one is a natural leader." He didn't hide his admiration. "An irresistible force."

That sounded good; Char couldn't remember when she last ate. Dessert in the captain's quarters sounded even better.

--o0o--

"Corcovado is desecrated ground." Rani popped a few more blackberries into her mouth. "When I left, I made a vow never to return." She pointed to her chest. "A vow to myself."

They were all sitting around the table in the dining room. Char had forgotten the
Junque
was a commercial shuttle that offered meal service. They'd prepared the food -- fruit salad, vegetable salad, and protein packs -- in the modest but well-outfitted kitchen.

Mike sat at one end of the table. He'd just reintroduced the idea of going to Corcovado.

At the other end of the table the matriarch said, "Then we must consecrate the ground. We will rededicate it to a higher purpose and drive out the demons that haunt you."

Rani's eyes widened. Now that Char was used to those irises, she thought they were beautiful and intriguing. She'd noticed they changed color slightly when Rani felt strong emotions. The phenomenon was barely noticeable -- except when Rani got mad and they seemed to light on fire. Char had only seen that once, and it was pretty scary.

"You think I'm afraid?" Rani said. "No. I am appalled. The 'aldos destroy whatever joy could be in the world. Your girls won't change them. But they will change the girls."

Durga scoffed. "What are two men when the world is full of monsters?"

The other girls all brightened and looked at each other like they were bursting with a secret. Chita said, "Durga killed a monster once."

From the satisfied expression on Durga's face, Char believed it.

"A giant bird came when we were on a picnic. Durga stuck it with a knife."

"Girls, don't tell stories." The matriarch sighed as if she'd stopped the telling of this tale a hundred times. "There is no such thing as giant birds."

"She cut out its heart," Chita added.

Durga didn't correct the matriarch, but she didn't stop the girls talking either.

"It was exgusting." The youngest girl, Maribel, grinned and wrinkled her nose. The others laughed and said
eww
and made noises in keeping with their gleeful approval of the "exgusting" deed.

"All I meant --" Durga stood up. "-- was that monsters are everywhere. If they try to kill you, you kill them first."

Rani's irises flickered and she seemed to consider. "You are a warrior worthy of your name, Durga. If I am to be grounded, if I must leave
the
Space Junque
, then I make a new commitment. I will be your protector always."