TAKEN: Journey to a New Home (10 page)

  “Expecting trouble, Boss,” Nyman asked after the lift had closed.

  “Possibly, the Katowie government wasn’t thrilled that we left the way we did. Gval received the message from the Council overnight that the Katowie had filed a formal complaint while he was at the con. He managed to assure the Council that the Trusky was weaving tales. The humans weren’t sick and we’d be happy to have a representative check them if they’d like. The Council told him that was fine but the Katowie government wanted us to know that this absolves them of liability. Gval told them that we would accept those terms. He also paid the fine we incurred by jumping to hyper speed inside the star system,” he smiled as Nyman laughed and gave him a thumbs up. “But a bigger issue is if that Trusky figures out that Vax pushed him,” Dezek said with his usual smile. “He might just decide it’s worth it to hire a raider.”

  “Bring it,” Nyman snorted.

***

  The lift opened and Rev took a deep breath. He stepped out and his physical senses followed his mental which were already locked on to Ashaa. He still needed to explain to Dezek that like his little brother with Rose; his own link had not dissolved after he healed Ashaa. He wondered if it was because their mother was human also and therefore he and Vax had some human DNA. That was something he would have to discuss with Vax. He also knew his mother would be over the moons that two of her sons had finally found mates. He just wondered how she’d feel about Ashaa. He didn’t envy the two middle brothers when his mother found out that both her oldest and youngest were mated. She would turn up the pressure on those two to unbearable. He smiled at that thought considering how much of a pain his little brothers sometimes had been. He also worried some about what the Fathers would say but he had several months before he would need to deal with his mother or the Fathers since they were completing the supply run as originally planned. So for now he would concentrate on Ashaa, what she needed and their relationship. He found them sitting at the tables on one of the patches of minawl weed that Moz insisted on growing. It appeared Moz had found recruits willing to sort seeds for him.

  “Ashaa, can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  She stood and left the group. He took her hand and she let him.
That’s a good sign
he thought as they walked.

  “I owe you an apology. It should be your choice as to what you’re called and if you’re okay with your name then I will be too.”

  She pulled him to a stop and smiled up at him. “It didn’t take you as long as I thought to come around.”

“Someone verbally knocked me upside the head and it clicked.” He smiled at her. “The jerk light went on in my head and alerted me to my problem.”

  She laughed and let him pull her close. They stood that way for a while then he put her away from him. “I have to go back to the bridge but I didn’t want it to wait. I know sometimes I can be archaic and stubborn but I also know how to admit I wrong. Will you eat with me tonight?”

  “I will,” she agreed. He looked at her for moment and then placed a gentle kiss on her lips and started back for the lift.

“You know your sensitive side is showing, right?” she teased him. He paused and his head dropped. Then he stood tall and turned to stalk back to her. He dragged into his arms and scorched her with a ruthless demanding kiss.

  “Sensitive side my ass,” he muttered as he turned and went to the lift. He could still hear her laughter as the door closed.

***

  Back on the bridge, Rev went back to his station with a smile on his face and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The big man’s temper could cow the best of them. Shortly after however, he started swearing in multiple languages and everyone went back on alert. Before Dezek could ask, Rev growled, “We have a fire on Eighteen. It’s in the lounge.”

  “Are there any life signs in there?” Dezek moved to beside him.

  “No, but Blanca just left the room,” Rev relayed.

  “Damn, I knew she was trouble,” Axon said hotly.

  “Lock it down and start the suppression system,” he issued the order even as Rev was already completing the actions. “Fazon, you have the con. Rev with me.”

“Better him than me,” muttered Axon from his station.

“Agreed,” came Fazon’s reply. “Agreed.”

  Sienna stopped what she was saying as Rose’s head cocked slightly to the side and Rose frowned. She had figured out that Rose was listening to the ‘talking’ going on around her between the males when she zoned out in this manner. The speed at which Rose’s mind was acclimating to this ability shouldn’t have surprised her. Rose had always been sharp and smart.
Sienna noticed Ashaa had the same look as Rose and wondered if it was because Ashaa shared DNA with the males or if it had something to do with Rev the giant. Rose’s eyes went wide and she gasped interrupting Sienna’s musings.

  “Dezek needs you back on Eighteen. Blanca set fire to the lounge,” Rose relayed with shocked look. Everyone else gasped while Sienna, Rose and Ashaa dashed for the lift. When the lift doors open they found Dezek in the passage with Blanca sitting at his feet, her hands in a restraint of some sort. Several other men including Rev were removing furniture and other items from the quarters Blanca had been assigned. The floor in the room was littered with broken items.

  “What’s going on?” Sienna asked as she reached his side.

  “Blanca set fire to the crate of clothing in the lounge then she was attempting to start another fire in her quarters when we arrived.” Dezek’s face was grim and furious. “So we are removing most of the items from her quarters. She will keep the bed with minimal coverings. She will also only be allowed two outfits. If she chooses to behave as a criminal, I will treat her as such.”

  “Blanca, what were you thinking? People could have been hurt.
You
could’ve been hurt.” Sienna admonished her.

  “I want to go home. I’ll keep burning things until they take me home. You can stay with these monsters if you want but I’m not going to!” she shouted at Sienna. “This is your fault, you stupid bitch! I hate you and your stupid freak with mismatched eyes and your stupid green monsters,” she screamed the venomous words at Sienna and Rose. Then she started trying to kick them.

  “Enough,” Dezek bellowed and everyone froze. “You are about ten seconds from winding up sitting in the brig with nothing. Do you understand?” he threatened Blanca. “Do you?”

  “Yes!” she spat the word at him.

  Axon came out of the room. “I’ve locked all the consoles. The only one active is the cleaning unit in the lavatory. This means someone will need to bring her meals but better that than another fire. We’ve removed as much as we can. I don’t think there’s anything left she can use to start trouble with but the room is still a mess.”

  “It’s fine. She can clean it up or not,” Dezek said firmly. “Please see what you can do about the lounge.”

  Axon and the rest of the men moved from where they had collected in the passage and started for the lounge. Dezek reached down and pulled Blanca to her feet.

  “On your feet, I’m not carrying your spoilt little ass.” He steered her back into the destroyed room and removed the restraints. “Someone will bring you a meal at the dinner hour,” he told her. He exited the room and the door closed on the curses she was heaping on him. “Computer, lock quarters Eighteen five and only open with authorization.” He looked at Sienna who appeared extremely stressed once more. “She’s wrong. This is
not
your fault. She’s a spoilt girl who will learn or else. Let’s go to your quarters and have you do a voice print and I’ll authorize the computer to allow you to access the room. I’ll get Fazon to do one with Wendy also. I think she can handle Blanca but I don’t want either of you in that room alone with that girl. Always in pairs, promise me?” He looked so concerned Sienna couldn’t deny him the request.

  “Promise: no one goes in with Blanca alone.”

  “Good. I’m sorry but we will be stuck bringing her food for the remainder of the trip. She apparently managed to get the dispenser to put out something hot enough that it started the silks in the crate to smolder and eventually they burst into flames and she spread them around in there. She was attempting the same feat in her quarters when we arrived. She’s damn lucky she made it out of the lounge before the suppression kicked in. The little fool could have died from oxygen deprivation if she’d gotten trapped in there.”

  “Dezek, I’m so sorry. I knew she was angry but I didn’t know she’d do something like this,” Sienna said sadly.

   “Again, it is not your fault, neither the abduction nor the fire. I would love to have five minutes with her father, the mayor, though,” he told her caressing her cheek with comforting hand. 

  “Ashaa and I will go back and let everyone know what happened. I’ll also tell Wendy to expect Fazon. Do you want us to come back up and see if we can help in the lounge?” Rose asked him.

  “What were you doing when I interrupted?”

  “We were sorting seeds for Moz. He said they have to be gone through by hand once they’ve been machine sorted so we don’t wind up with weeds in the Hydro Deck.”

  “Horrible task but he’s right. Machine sorters still miss as much five percent and in a Hydro setting that’s too many. No,” he said shaking his head. “Let Axon and his team deal with it for the moment. I’ll let him know you offered the help if they need it after they clear out the bulk of the burned items and see how much damage was done.”

Rose and Ashaa headed for the lift. Dezek and Sienna went to her quarters. Her silent tears started after the door closed and she tried to hide from him. He didn’t let her. Instead he took her to the small sofa in the room, pulled her down on his lap and wrapped her in his arms without a word. He sat gently rubbing her back. After a while she looked up at him.

  “I haven’t cried this much since my grandfather died four years ago. You must think I’m a big baby.”

  “No, I think you’ve been caught in a highly stressful situation that you saw no way out. I think you take so much responsibility on your shoulders that it threatens to crush you sometimes. I think you try so hard to control your emotions that they strangle you inside sometimes,” he told her gently. “But I don’t think you’re weak. You just care too much for your own good sometimes.” He let her collect herself while they sat together for a while.

  “This isn’t getting anything done, is it?” she finally broke the silence.

  “No but it certainly is making me feel better.”

  “How?” she asked puzzled.

  “Because it is completely impossible for me to be furious about anything while you sit in my lap. Believe me all sorts of things go through me but fury isn’t one of them,” he told her with his devilish smile lighting up his face. She laughed.

***

  Rose and Ashaa entered in the Hydro Deck and went to where they had left the others working. Worried faces waited with expectation.

  “The lounge is a loss but no one was hurt. Blanca set fire to the clothing in the crate, spread it around and then tried to do the same in her quarters. So for now she’s being confined to her quarters and Dezek had nearly everything removed from it. He also had Axon disabled most of the consoles in her room so we will be responsible for feeding her,” Rose explained. The group sat very still stunned into silence by this news.

  Wendy was the first to break the silence. “That little brat needs a spanking!”

  “I’ll agree with you on that,” Rose told her with a cheeky smile. “Maybe we can start a lottery to see who gets the honor.” This brought laughter from everyone. “Fazon is going to help you with a voice print into the computer so you’ll be able disengage the lock along with Sienna. But Dezek doesn’t want either of you in there alone with her. He made Sienna promise him and I want the same from you. If she would start a fire in the confines of space ship there is no telling what she would do given the chance,” Rose told her seriously. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “All right you slackers,” Moz winked at them, “it’s time to get back to work. Sort seeds, women!” Everyone groaned and then laughed when Taylor threw an empty box at him. “Seriously, ladies, thanks for the help, this usually takes me more than a week to do by myself and you’ve made short work of it.”

  “So just out of curiousity,” Tabitha said, “what do you do with the seeds we sorted out since it’s possible they’re weeds?”

  “I scan each one individually and use the botantical files from the computer to scan for a DNA match to see if I can identify it or at least its origin. Sometimes, I get really lucky and I find a gem in all the weeds. How do you think I got a Ponderosa Lemon tree and Egyptian cotton plants from Earth?” he said with his typical grin.

  They continued to sort while carrying on a lively conversation about favorite food plants and how many Earth plants were actually growing on the Hydro Deck and on Lar-kevel itself. They were nearly complete with the seed project when Fazon appeared and sought out Wendy.

  “I need to borrow Wendy if I can,” he said.

  “Sure, the ladies have already saved me hours of work. We’re almost done so, Wendy, I release you from your servitude,” Moz told her with a big grin. Moz was a joker for certain. It surprised them all that Taylor linked herself with him. She usually was the peacemaker and chaos tamer for the group from the deli and Moz seemed like he might be the starting point of chaos with his sense of humor.

  “Thanks. Wendy?”

  “I’ll see you guys in a little while,” Wendy waved as she left with Fazon.

  The lift doors closed and Wendy asked, “How bad is the lounge?”

  “Most of it was cosmetic. She set fire to clothing in the crate and then spread it around. The seat coverings and carpet took the brunt of the fire but even they weren’t too bad. Most materials on the ship are very flame resistant. They’re chosen for that purpose,” he responded with a grim frown.

  “What about water damage?”

  “We don’t use water to put out fires in space. Takes too long and makes too much of a mess. We use gas to displace the oxygen in the area and it smothers the fire,” he explained as the lift ascended. They exited on Eighteen and went to her quarters at 18-10.

  “I want you to promise me you won’t go in by yourself when you take Blanca her meals,” he said in serious tone with a grim face, “I don’t trust her at all.”

  “I already promised Rose that I wouldn’t go in alone, so yes I promise,” she said with a smile. He helped her record the voice print into the computer and explained how to use it. After finishing the task, they went to the lounge to examine the damage. Axon was in the room and recovering several of the seats with a fabric that didn’t quite match and it appeared he and the others had already replaced the carpet. Axon was definitely an efficiency expert Fazon thought. He looked up as they came in.

  “I know the color isn’t great for the chairs but it will at least make the room usable,” he said to them, “and it’s only for a short while. I’ll look for something better when we reach Saneera in a few weeks.”

  “I don’t know,” Wendy said with smile, “Hideous mustard yellow makes the blues look even better.”

  “Can we do anything to help?” Fazon wanted to know.

  “Thanks but I’m almost done here. If you want to help me move crates to get to one of the other crates of clothes that would speed up the process. Everything just got shoved in when we left Katowia in such a big hurry. It’s a mess right now,” Axon said.

  Fazon sighed, “Yeah, let me drop Wendy off in Hydro and I’ll meet you there in fifteen after I check in with Dezek.” They started for the lift.

  “We could help with that if you’d rather do something else,” Wendy volunteered.

  “Thanks,” he grinned at her, “but some of the crates we’ll be moving can weigh much as a ton in your references.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that might break a nail or two so you’re definitely on your own there,” she smiled. Fazon decided he liked her quirky sense of humor and fast wit. She had a great smile and voluptuous curves that made a man want to drool like a suba beast. He was looking forward to getting to know her much, much better. Once the lift opened Wendy stepped out, “I’ll see you later?”

  “You can count on it,” he said with a suggestive smile and he experienced a thrill when she returned it and then sashayed away.
Damn, am I ever looking forward to getting to know her better
he thought.

  As Wendy approached the group, she realized they had indeed finished the seed project and were in the process of planning a dinner. Sienna had rejoined the group while she had been gone and the seeds were gone. In their place piles of what looked like fresh herbs were spread over the table.

  “How bad was it?” Tabitha asked.

  “Well, Axon had the carpet replaced when we got there and was working on the chairs. The carpet didn’t change color but some of the chairs are now an ugly mustard yellow. But the room is usable again and he apologizes for the color,” she laughed. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Good, we’re planning on handling dinner in the communal hall tomorrow. Once a week they eat as a community with only a small crew on the bridge. We’ve tasted the fresh herbs grown here and have decided to get a little practice in tonight. How are your cooking skills?” Sienna asked.

  “I can burn the boiling water for you,” Wendy said with a grin.

  “Okay, that puts you on the serving and dish washing crews,” Samantha laughed as she wrote on a tablet with a stylus.

  “Axon also said he was going to find another crate of clothing for us,” Wendy informed them.