Nine
Tollin went home to bed, and I went back to the party on the station.
I needed an arrow to find Serena, who was with Metunga and his AI, and Tamsin. The two big cats were being very protective about the two girls. I’d been wondering about that. Metunga had been very expressive when Serena had been affected badly by the fungus. But I didn’t yet know if his protectiveness was just for her, or if it was for the whole team, but she was the most vulnerable at the moment.
As soon as I walked up to her, the cats melted away, almost as if they’d been doing guard duty while I wasn’t there, but now didn’t need to.
One thing I’d noticed was we were not attracting any specific attention, given as we were literally the new species on the block. Even the cats and Lufaflufs were not getting any real glances out of the ordinary, and certainly no alarm at how big cats were on their hind feet. Neither did they attract attention while eating, with claws and teeth on display. Mind you, they were not the largest creature around, and nor were the Lufaflufs or wyvern the smallest. What it did suggest was that even though we were so far from home, we were not unknown here.
It was a strange sort of party, but also very familiar. Each species had its own sort of music, and this included, much to my surprise, the plants. And yes, the plants did dance. In fact, almost all the species living on the station had their own variation of dancing, and they also had their own versions of getting drunk as well.
Drunk dancing plants. The galaxy was indeed a strange and wonderful place.
We returned to the gig we’d taken over to the station, and Leanne took us back to Judge. Once back on board, she took it back to the station to wait for some of the pilots still over there. Only the three assault frigates had actually docked, and the rest of us had used our gigs. Surprisingly, not all the pilots had wanted to go, but then again, not all of them were capable of going, having not only had too much to drink, but having chosen not to have medical monitors sober them up.
I wasn’t going to be surprised if Eagle Wing had some requests to transfer to the Claymore Task Force, where they were not in the habit of assaulting stations in combat suits, at least as far as I’d heard. Actually, I was interested to see what Eagle’s reaction to it was going to be. He’d envisioned pilots needing to be marines before anyone else, but now he’d experienced it, the possibility existed it had changed his mind. However, I’d not seen him at all during the evening.
Serena followed me into my suite, and after a short period of bed sport, and a longer joint shower, we both slept soundly through the remainder of the night. I didn’t ask if she’d decided to move in with me now, figuring her actions in the days ahead would tell me. Cowards way of finding out I guess, but if she hadn’t actually decided anything yet, I didn’t want to trigger it in case it had the opposite effect. We’d need to talk sometime though.
She kept up with me on the running track the next morning for the first five laps, and then fell behind as I stepped up my own pace. Only about a dozen of the pilots ran, which I can’t say I was surprised about, and Eagle wasn’t one of them. After I lapped Serena the first time, she stopped running at the end of that lap, as she wasn’t there next time I went past where I expected her to be. I didn’t see her again until breakfast.
We both went straight to the bridge after eating, where Leanne confirmed everyone was back on board, and Tamsin confirmed this was true for all the ships. With one exception. Eagle wasn’t here at all, and it turned out he’d gone back to Haven at the same time those of us who’d gone to the station had left for it. He was apparently still there.
After a short conversation with the red flowered Trixone on the station, which included comments about how great the party had been, and that we’d be back at the same time our diplomatic ship arrived, we jumped for the planet Arthur and Rogue had been protecting.
In orbit, we found one of the small four dock stations the Imperium used as first contact stations just to provide basic rift access for diplomats and troops. They were easy enough to move these days, as they had their own jump drive and station AI. What I didn’t understand was why the rifts down to the planet hadn't been done yet.
“You’re to go down alone,” said Serena suddenly, grinning.
“How do you…” I started, and then stopped as her grin widened.
Obviously she’d had a seeing just as we arrived.
“We should dock first,” she added. “The others can access the station through us.”
“So we’ll need a rift from the living room to our airlock then?”
“Please.”
“Fine. Leanne, dock us, if you please.” I tuned back to Serena. “Where am I supposed to go on the planet?”
“I know that,” said Tamsin, popping up a screen which had an image of water a short walk away. “That’s where the Imperator visited. The locals there will tell you where to put the rifts.” I gave her an enquiring look. “Jane sent it to me.”
Which explained that. If the Imperator had been there, so had Jane. The image was all I needed. I nodded to the three of them, rose, and walked back to the living room, where I put in another rift door, and labeled it as the main airlock.
With the sound of locking clamps engaging in the distance, I connected to the local sun, and simply moved myself to that spot where the image had been taken.
Ten
“Welcome,” said a voice.
I turned to find a horse standing close by. While we had no horses back home, our space neighbors did have them, and all kids on my homeworld knew about them and hoped to ride one someday. This usually lasted until they either went off-world and did ride one, or they grew up. I can’t say I’d ever felt the urge to ride one myself. But I’d seen them in vids often enough.
This one was rather odd, in having a long horn with a sharp looking point on the end, right in the middle of its forehead.
“Thank you,” I responded, already turning towards a flapping noise.
My mouth fell open for a moment. There was another horse coming towards us, and this one had wings instead of a horn. It landed a short way away, and walked calmly over to us, folding its wings in the exact same way birds did.
“Greetings,” it said.
“Greetings to you as well.”
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said horn.
“Me specifically? Or someone in general?”
“You,” said wings. “Bud, nephew of Thorn.”
“Thorn came here?”
“He did. A long time ago now, and before both of our times. But the meeting was remembered, and prepared for.”
“I had no idea he’d been this far away from home.”
“Few did. He came several times, and brought an oracle here once as well. Talking of which, why haven’t you brought your mate with you?”
Mate? Oh, Serena. How did they know?
“She told me to come down alone.”
“Was she grinning when she said it?” asked horn.
“Yes.”
Both of them laughed.
“Then you better bring her down here before she feels let down, or thinks her vision was wrong.”
I concentrated for a moment, and Serena appeared next to me. She was still grinning.