Syn-En: Plague World: The Founders War Begins (19 page)

Skirts billowing around her, Davena sank to the bench next to Nell. “I suppose. I’ve never looked at it that way before.”

The Syn-En glided silently across the metal deck. The two medics removed their medical pouches and stowed them in the overhead bins before tapping the lit button on the screen near the opening. The ramp ground closed.

Nell blew her bangs out of her eyes. Guilt banded her chest. Maybe she’d overdone it just a bit, but dammit that smug superiority grated. She patted Davena’s hand. “Sorry I was so harsh. I just want you to see that we’re not that different.”

Medic Queens stopped in front of her, holding two silver pouches. “I’ve been told chocolate makes everything better.”

Davena straightened. “Chocolate?”

“Chocolate. It’s better than fermites for everything that doesn’t kill you.” Nell took one pouch and worked a straw into the opening then handed it to Davena.

Queens already fixed a straw in the second chocolate shake. “We lift off in one minute.”

Nell snatched the shake from his hands. “Circle the pillar as you rise. I want to see the writing on it.”

Queens shifted. “The admiral’s orders were quite specific.”

“He wants to see the records.” Nell pointed in the direction of pillar. “That’s the records.”

Davena licked the white straw and frowned. “That is not our records. They are on the walls of our village.”

Wrinkling her nose, she lowered the pouch to her lap.

Nell mentally smacked herself. Of course, the woman wouldn’t have seen a straw before. “Wrap your lips around the straw, then suck gently. The chocolatey goodness will travel up the straw and into your mouth. Like this.” She hooked the straw with her tongue and pulled. Cool chocolate flooded her mouth. Her tastebuds rejoiced. She sagged against her seat. The only thing better than chocolate was...

Me?
Her husband’s voice caressed her mind, but a dark undercurrent lingered.
Miss me?

Always. The screams...

Two casualties
. Lightning bolts crackled through their mental connection.
I’m rerouting the shuttle to pick us up. Break open your chocolate stash, Nell Stafford, these biologics need it.

Understood.
Nell nodded. The chocolate morphed into ash on her tongue.

Queens headed up the stairs toward the crew compartments and the stored rations. The nacelles hummed. The ship tilted and they were airborne.

Closing her eyes, Davena moaned. Her pouch deflated with each draw on its contents. “Oh. Oh my! Chocolate.”

Nell balanced her pouch on her knee. She hated to spoil the other woman’s enjoyment, but she had to be prepared for the loss. Her husband, bless him, wasn’t one for sugar-coating news to soften the blow.

Davena released the straw. A soft whistle sounded as air refilled the pouch. “What is it?”

“I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”

The oracle blinked. “I don’t understand.”

Nell tasted an assortment of words before settling on a handful. “Doc couldn’t save two of your people.”

“Did they...” Davena drew in a deep breath. “Did they die violently?”

“I think so.” From the tone of Bei’s voice, Nell surmised their deaths had been very violent.

Davena drew her legs close to her chest and chewed on her straw. “May the Meek spare us in the upcoming judgment. May the fires of purification pass our doors, may the clouds of poison drift over our homes, and may the wasting disease plague our enemies.”

An amen perched on the tip of Nell’s tongue. But was she protected by the prayer or relegated to cursed enemy?

Bei doubled-timed it up the ramp into the shuttle. Towering pines protected the biologics from any threat on the ridge line. Not that he believed the Scraptors were close by. The slaughter of two innocents had been a short interlude on an important mission.

A mission Bei planned to intercept.

Rolling his shoulders, he scanned the rectangular crew compartment for his wife.

“I’m fine. Truly.” Nell smiled at him.

It did not reach her eyes and a half-full chocolate shake pouch lay forgotten in her lap. Nell’s devotion to consuming chocolate was second only to her love for him. Obviously, her encounter with the pillar had affected her. His circuits had shorted at the sight of her hands buried in the black obelisk. It had taken everything in him, not to order the pillar blown up to free her. “We’ll talk.”

Sighing, she sucked on her chocolate pouch.

Maybe things weren’t as bad as he imagined. Maybe a pig would walk up that ramp. He turned to check.

Biologics slogged up the metal incline. Fear pinched the edges of their features. They condensed in a tight knot of arms and legs, drawing comfort from one another.

Bei mentally assigned them a personal medic and ordered initial trauma counseling. Watching your friends’ sail over a waterfall in pieces was bound to leave a mark. He directed the blue, white, and green shirts to the left bench. The red and yellow-shirted biologics filled the bench where Nell and Davena sat.

The oracle surveyed her people before her attention skipped outside the shuttle.

Apollie’s gold vambraces hummed with latent power. She turned her back to the shuttle’s interior and scanned the wheat fields.

Doc’s boots scuffed the metal ramp as he boarded. He adjusted his hold on the unconscious woman in his arms, met Davena’s eyes, and glanced away.

Dropping her empty pouch on the bench seat, Davena rushed toward him. The air around her hands began to twinkle. “Is she badly injured?”

Doc twisted at the waist, keeping his patient out of reach. “I’ve sedated her. She did not take the deaths of her friends well.”

Davena clenched her hands. Fermites buzzed like riled bees. “Sleep is the best thing for her, then.”

Bei pinged his Chief Medical Officer. Pissed off atomic pests would hinder their mission.
Canteen in five, Doc.

Aye, Admiral.
Doc stared at the small space left on the bench. “I will take her upstairs to one of the cabins to rest.”

Davena licked her lips before holding out her arms. “I can comfort her while she sleeps.”

Doc’s mouth compressed into a slit but he transferred the sleeping woman to the oracle.

“I watched Ginnie when she was just a toddler. She and Cembric’s curiosity would get them into the most dreadful trouble.” Davena’s eyes sparkled. “Cembric and Analy did not return.”

Sniffling filled the compartment. Tears left diamond trails down some biologics’ cheeks. Grief soured the air—the scent of failure.

Bei hated to fail. He would not fail these biologics again.

Nell swallowed a mouthful of shake. Brown bubbles erupted from the straw when she released it. “Time to get to work.”

“Once we’re airborne.” Bei widened his stance and braced a hand against the overhead bin, blocking her in. “Finish your drink.”

Eyes narrowed, she complied.

The humming of the nacelles increased in pitch.

Apollie backed up the ramp as it closed. Stroking the jewels in her vambraces, she powered down her weapons. “No sign of the enemy.”

Bei nodded. He would send a
Starflight
to track the Scraptors later. For now, he had to make sure the natives were protected. And that could prove prickly, given their disdain for violence.

Without permission, the fermites would fubar his tech.

He couldn’t allow that, not when the mission was about to go critical. The ship wobbled in the air currents.

Biologics gasped and clung to their seats.

Davena stumbled backward.

Doc slid an arm around her back, steadying her. “It’s just the ship lifting off. You’re safe, and we’ll be at your village in no time.”

After helping the oracle to her seat, Doc yanked his arm away and stormed toward the ladder in the forward section. “Everyone, your time in the sun has left you a little dehydrated. I’m prescribing drinks all around.”

Bei eased his free hand against Nell’s palm. His sensors detected elevated levels of dopamine and adrenaline. He had no doubt the medical program in her cerebral interface had recorded fractured heartbeats.

“I am fine.” Squeezing his hand, Nell rose to her feet. The pouch had been rolled from bottom to top as she squeezed out every drop of chocolate. “Now, let’s go upstairs. I always dreamed of playing stewardess.”

They stood inches apart. Bei inhaled deeply. Sunshine, chocolate, and pleasure at their touch composed her perfume. He etched her essence on his memory banks before stepping back. “I am glad to make your dreams come true.”

“And you do.” Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his.

Softness and strength, intimacy in a public setting, life over death, and she was Bei’s. Only Bei’s.

Apollie tapped her raptor claw on the metal deck. “I’d like to help with the drinks.”

Nell eased away. For a moment, her eyes remained closed then she opened them. “I’d appreciate your help, Apollie.”

Bei skimmed his hand down Nell’s back before stopping just above her bottom. “Queens is already mixing the shakes.”

In the forward section, Doc paused on the ladder. He grunted. Metal thumped metal, then he lowered a steel ration case. “Order’s up.”

“I’ll get it.” Nell hustled forward and eased the box from Doc’s hands. “You can let go, now.”

The pyramidal tops of a dozen and a half shake pouches filled the inside in three even rows. She swung the container around, placing it between herself and Apollie.

Doc disappeared up the ladder. His tread knocked the stairs in measured increments.

Bei patted his wife’s bottom as he passed. “I’ll be back in five.”

Picking up a pouch, she waggled it at him. “Want me to save you one?”

“I’ll have some of yours.” Bei didn’t have the stomach or need for more than a sip, but Nell might need an excuse to have another session of chocolate therapy.

Apollie laced the tops of the pouches through her three fingers and secured them with her two bracketing thumbs. “Everyone. There is a tradition on Earth, where Humans come from, to drink a toast in remembrance of those who have perished.”

At the aft end of the compartment near the ramp, Davena finished tracing symbols on the unconscious woman’s forehead. “I thought we were to drink chocolate.”

Bei set his hand on the ladder.

“A toast is the words that are spoken. Any beverage can be drunk to wash down the words and keep them close to our hearts.” Nell’s smile broadened. Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “In this instance it is a chocolate shake.”

His wife was resilient.

Walking down the starboard side, Apollie passed out the pouches in her hands. “Chocolate is so beloved by Humans that it is grown on every planet where they dwell.”

Nell paused. “Really?”

Bei climbed the rungs two at a time.

“Yes.” Apollie finished distributing her handfuls, she saved the last pouch for herself. “It is an effective reward for proper behavior, plus has the added bonus of focusing the worker’s attention and increasing output.”

Bei retreated a rung. How would his wife react to such maligning of her favorite food group?

Nell shook her head and handed Davena the second-to-last serving in the box. “You are not going to get my shake with such slander.”

Apollie sucked down half her drink. “It was worth a try.”

He should have known. His wife would ignore the ring of truth. Bei did not have that luxury. His favorite Chief Medical Officer was acting like a temperamental biologic. Clearing the opening, Bei stalked up the short flight of switchback stairs to the crew quarters on Deck Two.

Doors remained closed along the length of the corridor. Yellow biohazard tape fluttered from one. His Human volunteers had broken quarantine again. Given their panic last time, Doc might have had to sedate them, too.

A thud on his right drew Bei to the galley.

The kitchen’s pocket door remained wedged in the slit in the bulkhead. On the floor on his left, empty water bottles filled one case. Another, half-full with dehydrated vanilla shakes, sat beside it. A steel-topped countertop and cabinet formed an L-shape on the remaining walls.

With his back to Bei, Doc gripped the countertop and tapped his head against the top cabinet door.

Bei cancelled their access to the WA and classified their impending exchange as ‘eyes only’. Some things deserved to remain private. “So which is it?”

Not that he hadn’t already guessed the answer. Doc needed to see the new string of code.

“Which is what?”

Leaning against the door jamb, Bei crossed his arms. This upgrade would require a lot of rebooting before it took. “Are you too attracted to Davena, or do you think she’s a horse-faced bottom dweller?”

Doc straightened. Muscle bunched along his back, pulled his shoulders up tight. “The fact that anyone with working optics can see she’s beautiful has nothing to do with it.”

“So you find her attractive, but don’t want to flirt with her and potentially save her life because she’s a biologic. And a weird one, at that.” Bei schooled his features. The trap was baited.

“You’re such an ass.” Whipping around, Doc faced Bei. The black hair on his head and his goatee quivered with indignation. “I don’t see why Nell Stafford wants to endure a lifetime with you.”

“Every Syn-En has a goal to bed a biologic. It’s the ultimate forbidden fantasy.” At least, it had been on Earth, but a lifetime of habit didn’t end in sixteen months of freedom.

“Fuck you.” Doc clawed open his forearm compartment. White packets, sealed syringes, and a suturing kit rained onto the deck. “My private life isn’t your concern, Admiral.”

Bei shrugged. Rank only mattered to non-Syn-Ens. He and Doc had grown up together, endured their conversion together, and shared the terror of their first mission together. They would get through this together. Bei just needed a different tactic. “Getting these biologics to attach to us, to believe in us, and to leave with us is my concern. The easiest way to achieve those goals is to convert the leader.”

Doc plucked out the wads of used gauze and antibiotic and chucked them in the biohazard bin under the sink.