The Ninth Circle (10 page)

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Authors: R. M. Meluch

BOOK: The Ninth Circle
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Rob Roy Buchanan hesitated. The lawyer might be able to speak plainly, but he wasn’t doing it now. Something wasn’t right. There was definitely something wrong here besides pregnancy. Ranza tensed up.
“Flight Leader,” Rob Roy began.
Uh-oh
.
He called her Flight Leader. Not Ranza.
He’d gone formal on her.
Not good. Not good. Not good
.
“If this embryo leaves your body alive by artificial means and the father is a Roman citizen, then Rome legally can—and absolutely will—take immediate custody.”
“It’s not Roman!” Ranza said. Afraid she shouted.
Rob Roy’s voice stayed calm, even a little apologetic. “Yes, it is. And Rome has the right to claim it under peacetime interstellar law.”
“Then declare war!” Ranza cried. And this man was supposed to be smart.
“I’m sorry, Flight Leader.”
“This kid is mine!”
“Right now it is,” Rob Roy agreed. “As long as it stays in your body, you have legal control—even to terminate it—”
“No!”
“That choice is entirely your own. But once the embryo is in the incubator, you’ve given Rome another citizen.”
Ranza looked from the Medical Officer to the Legal Officer, helpless. Each wore the same pained sympathetic expression.
“No,” she said. Went on the offensive. “What makes yous so sure I did a Roman?”
“Romans always shoot live rounds,” said Rob Roy.
“He told me he was Italian.”
Mo Shah said, “The male contributor to this embryo is not being in the League DNA database. That is meaning Roman.”
“Could be alien,” Ranza suggested. Bet they didn’t think of that, did they? “Ha. So there.”
Rob Roy gave a faint smile.
Mo said, “That is not being physically possible. There is being no such thing as ‘alien DNA.’”
“Then where do little aliens come from?” Ranza said. Got him there.
But Mo went on, “Aliens are having their own chemistry and their own genomes. ‘DNA’ is being that specific genome unique to life originating on planet Earth.”
“Sure. Fine,” Ranza said quickly. She didn’t have time for this. She had to get to her post. “I’ll adopt it out.”
“Transfer the embryo?” Rob Roy asked.
“Yeah. I can give it up. My mom’ll prefer that anyway.”
“You may,” Rob Roy said. Sounded awful iffy. “But it has to be to a Roman woman.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Ranza said.
Rob Roy never lost patience. “Legally, it does.”
“I can do it in secret! I won’t tell yous about it.”
“Flight Leader, these conceptions are never accidental—”
“Hey! I didn’t know—”
“—on their part,” Rob Roy clarified. “It’s always intentional on the Roman end. They will be monitoring you—”
Ranza looked around as if there were Romans in the exam compartment.
“They will know if an incubator leaves this ship,” Rob Roy said.
Ever since its declaration of independence from the United States in AD 2290, the Roman Empire had been in constant need of population. Even before the catastrophic losses during the Hive years, Rome needed citizens. These days the bulk of Roman citizenry were still mass-produced. Mom and Dad often never met. Eggs and sperm met in vitro and were born from incubators. And there were also outright clones. Cloning was reserved for the brightest, the strongest, and the most beautiful. Beautiful, because Romans openly acknowledged their love of physical beauty. They claimed the bias was genetic.
Not to let their breed stagnate, Rome brought in fresh blood any way she could.
At war’s end there had been two million Roman citizens stranded on Earth. A lot of those Romans were still there—collecting fresh genes for the Roman pool the old-fashioned way before they found their way home.
Ranza had been one of their targets.
Rob Roy told her, “There are only three ways to go from here.”
“Uh,” said Ranza, trying to think. “Can you hit me with those choices again?”
“You can abort it.”
“No.”
“You can give it up to Rome.”
“No.”
“You can carry it to term.”
“You mean have the baby.”
“Yes.”
“An American baby?”
“Yes.”
“For me to keep?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll do that.” And to Mo, “So is this a boy or a girl? I ain’t calling it ‘it’ if I’m carrying this kid the full tour.”
“It is being—” Mo started, stopped. “You are being sure?”
Once you knew the sex, it was hard to turn back.
“Yeah,” said Ranza. “Hit me.”
“You are carrying a boy.”
“Boy,” she murmured. The hefty Fleet Marine lifted her brows. “My mom’s gonna kill me.”
“You’ve made your decision?” Rob Roy asked.
“Yeah. Gotta.” Ranza shrugged her big shoulders and slid off the table to get dressed and collect her things. “See yous guys in nine.”
Months, she meant.
7
 
K
ERRY BLUE. TRYING to get her locker to shut.
Each Marine was given a locker into which to stuff all his or her stuff. The locker was built into the Marine’s berth, and it was just large enough to hold subatomic particles.
If your locker don’t shut, whatever is hanging out gets spaced.
Kerry yelled through the thin partition to the men’s side of the forecastle for backup. “Can I get some meat in here!”
She had lots of volunteers. Big guys trooped in to muscle her locker closed. Would have been easier if Kerry knew how to fold stuff, but she didn’t. Kerry smushed. She only ever passed inspection because her mates helped her out.
The guys helping her weren’t much for folding either. But they got her locker closed. Bent the door in the process. The locker door had a distinct outward bow, but it was shut.
The Yurg. Tall, hulking blond guy. Flew as Baker One. The Yurg noticed the empty sleep pod here on the girl side of the forecastle. The empty berth was Ranza Espinoza’s.
“Hey.” The Yurg gave a back-knuckle rap on the empty rack. Asked Kerry, “Is your Flight Leader AWOL?”
“Nah, he’s here,” Kerry said.
“
He
?” Last time Yurg looked Ranza Espinoza was still a she.
“Cain’s in charge,” Kerry said.
Dak Shepard, Alpha Two, pulled his head back. “Cain’s Flight Leader?
Cain?
How’d that happen?”
“Ranza’s in a civilian way,” Kerry Blue said.
Cain was just walking in the hatchway. Yurg turned to Cain with a big grin and deep chuckle. “Cain! You dog!”
Cain yelped. “It wasn’t me!”
“Who did that to her!” Dak cried.
“A very brave man,” said the Yurg solemnly.
Cain’s glance fell on the bent locker door in Kerry’s rack. As Alpha’s new Flight Leader Cain said, “Kerry, ballast something.”
“It’s shut!” Kerry cried.
“Your gear don’t fit the dimensions, and I ain’t bending the rules for you.”
Not the little rules anyway. Just the really big ones.
“Fine,” Kerry snapped. She popped the locker open. The contents exhaled and slowly tumbled out. Kerry pulled out a pair of jeans and handed them sourly to Cain.
“Oh, no! Not the jeans!” Gunner Stokes of Baker Team cried.
Kerry Blue’s jeans were form fitting, threadbare across the ass. They showed off Kerry Blue very nicely.
“Can I have them?” Gunner said.
Cain scowled. “What you gonna do with them? Sleep with them?”
As if it were obvious, Gunner said, “Well,
yeah
.”
Cain threw the jeans at Gunner’s face.
Gunner sounded blissful from under the denim. “Thank you.” He pulled the jeans off his face. “Hey, Kerry. Any time you want to borrow these you know where to find them.”
“I remember where you live,” Kerry told him.
“
Do
ya?” said Gunner, a lament. Been a long time since Kerry Blue been around.
 
Space Battleship MERRIMACK SBB 63
 
 
 
Colonel TR Steele stood before his Marines assembled in the cargo hold. It was the only place on board where two companies of Marines could fit.
The Old Man stood six foot even. Wore his white-blond hair buzzed short. His skin was white when he wasn’t crawfish red from bellowing like a drill sergeant. Looked younger than forty years, but that was because he’d needed a few rounds of repair work after the war.
The medics as well as the intelligence officers had taken a hard look at Steele after his time in Roman custody. Steele had some unscheduled body work done on Palatine. That made everyone, especially TR Steele, hugely nervous. The IOs had run him through a nanosieve before allowing him to return to duty.

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