The Choosing (The Pruxnae Book 1) (24 page)

“The beginnings
of one.” She flipped her hands over and gripped his. Her fingertips dug into
his skin and her lower lip trembled. “Thank you for not turning him away.”

“It wasn’t my
place.” Just as it hadn’t been Ryn’s place to turn Ziri away from Enel during
the Choosing. “The
Yarinska
is almost ready to go. We can probably make
the first jump later tonight, after the evening meal.”

“The sooner the
better. I’m ready to be home.”

Something dark
twisted through him. She was home, here on the
Yarinska
, in Hrelum with
him and the family he’d found there. Would she ever think of them that way or
would she always yearn to return to her life on Tersi? “Have your parents
contacted you yet?”

She shook her
head and her eyelids fluttered shut. “I even sent a personal message to the
premier, but so far, nothing. I keep hoping, though.”

“Don’t give up,
Ziri.”

“I won’t. I
can’t
.
This is my family, Ryn, my home.” She sniffed and opened her eyes, and a tear
streaked down her pale cheek. “Why did the Sweepers attack Tersi? We’re a
peaceful people, Ryn, at war with nobody, content to stay home and mind our own
business. What did we do to deserve a Sweeper raid?”

Ryn pulled her
into his lap and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “The Sweepers
have no logic or reason, Ziri. Trying to understand why they do anything is
futile. That they attacked a planet worries me, though. They haven’t been that
bold in a very long time.”

She nestled her
head into the crook of his neck. “When you were a little boy. What was that,
about twenty Standards ago?”

“About that.
They’ve been fairly quiet since then, but now, they’re nesting near jump points
and attacking peaceful planets for no apparent reason.”

“There’s more.”
She scooted around on his lap and opened the viewscreen. A map of the galaxy
popped up and zoomed in on four adjacent quadrants. A string of red dots glowed
onto the map, clustered into a rough arc. “I’ve had the secondary AI working on
gathering data from the Net and mapping it. In the past few weeks, Sweepers
have attacked umlek of planets and outposts. It doesn’t seem like a coordinated
effort, not that I can tell, anyway, but there’s a definite pattern.”

“I wonder what
it means,” he murmured.

“No idea. I’ll
give this to the premier when we reach Tersi, let the politicians and military
sort it out, if they haven’t already started working on it.”

“A sound plan.”
Ryn scooted her off his lap. “I thought I’d clean up before we lift off. Join
me?”

“You’re trying
to distract me.” A slow, coy smile curved her mouth upward. “I think it’s
working.”

“I hope so,
beauty.”

He led her to
their quarters and stripped them both down. They wedged into the tiny shower
cubicle together, and Ryn did everything he could to keep the smile on Ziri’s mouth
for a long, long time.

Time dragged a
little slower each shipboard day, no matter what tasks Ziri occupied herself
with. As soon as the engines were fully charged, she and Ryn jumped the
Yarinska
closer to Tersi. After, Ryn retreated to his duties as the ship’s captain and
Ziri tracked down supplies for the return journey, when they’d probably be
carrying an unknown number of passengers. They needed cots and blankets, more
food, extra water filters in case the temperamental system broke down in
mid-flight and had to be repaired again. A whole host of details had to be
taken care of. The list grew daily.

Uppermost on
that list was contacting her parents and the families of the others taken at
the same time she was. Ziri had no luck, and from the messages zipping in and
out of her inbox, neither did the other men and women captured mere days before
Sweepers attacked Tersi. Maybe communications were still down or maybe the
system was so overloaded it couldn’t function properly.

Either way, Ziri
worried, over her parents’ fate, over the state Tersi would be in when they
arrived. She watched the news vids daily, searching for clues as to the state
of her home world’s recovery efforts. The one thing she never, ever did was
check the lists of the dead and missing. She’d have to face it eventually, have
to learn if anybody she loved had died in the attack, but not yet. Not until
she knew how her parents were.

The one good thing
in her life was Ryn. Every night when they fell into bed, he curled around her,
making slow, sweet love to her, holding her through the nightmares that
inevitably woke her. He never asked what they were about. Somehow, he
understood she was reliving the Sweepers’ attack on the
Yarinska
. She
never told him the memory always morphed in the end, that instead of watching
him collapse after saving her, she watched him die, over and over and over
again, his beautiful body broken, his life snuffed out under the Sweeper’s
cruel, metal tentacles.

After, he’d hold
her as she cried. It shamed her to cling to him the way she did, as if she
couldn’t stand on her own, couldn’t handle the dark shadows lurking inside her
mind and the fear that she’d lose him again. The worry condensed into a knot in
her stomach. He’d only released inside her once more since that first time.
What if he never did again? What if he couldn’t stomach the thought of living
with her until the end of their days? What if he never loved her the way she
was beginning to love him?

The night before
they were due to jump into Tersi’s system, Ziri took the computer Ryn had given
her as a Choosing-day present and huddled alone on the bridge in the co-pilot’s
chair. She reviewed her lists, studied the images of fellow candidates’
Tersi-side families, went over her calculations for supplies, and fretted. Her
parents still hadn’t contacted her. Even the premier was silent, and he had a
handful of secretaries handling correspondence and other administrative chores.

The hatch to the
bridge swished open and soft footsteps padded across the metal floor. Tyelu
flopped into the pilot’s chair, and Ziri winced. She’d done her level best to
avoid Ryn’s sister on the flight out, had managed to do so without being completely
rude. Tyelu had been oddly silent the entire voyage, though, and hadn’t needled
Ziri once. She lent a hand when it was needed, but otherwise kept to herself,
much to Ziri’s relief.

Now, Tyelu
pushed the toe of one booted foot into the metal floor and swiveled the chair
back and forth on its base, her bright blue gaze glued to the bridge’s main
control panel. “I bet you’ll be happy to be home.”

“I’ll be happy
to see my family again.” Ziri set her computer down and eyed Tyelu’s morose
expression. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the other woman was sulking.
“Thank you for coming along to help.”

One of Tyelu’s
shoulders bunched upward, then dropped. “I was bored. Seemed better to go
off-world than stay at home and…”

Tyelu’s lips
pressed into a thin line, cutting off her words.

“Stay home and
what?” Ziri asked.

“Nothing.” Tyelu
slouched lower in the chair. “Is it true that Tersi women outnumber Tersi men
two to one?”

“More like five
to three. Why?”

“It’s still open
for raiding.”

Ziri slumped
into her own chair. “I thought that was a one-time thing.”

“We have a year
and a day once the initial raid is over. I just thought…” Tyelu sucked her
lower lip into her mouth and frowned. “It worked out well for you and Ryn and
the other candidates.”

“You said I was
too soft. What makes you think other Tersii won’t be, too?”

“You hardened up
ok.”

“But why Tersi,
Tyelu? You could have your pick of men on Abyw…” Ziri’s voice trailed off as
the words of the many men who’d courted her drifted through her mind. Nearly all
of them had used Tyelu’s stubborn prickliness as a bargaining chip to sway Ziri
to their side, in spite of the other woman’s beauty, in spite of her lineage.
Nobody wanted to tangle with the hard-hearted woman, not even, it seemed, to
gain a wife. “Oh.”

Tyelu’s frown
softened and her expression melted into misery. “I wondered if maybe you could
help me find somebody.”

Ziri huffed out
a laugh. “You want me, a woman you despise, to help you pick out a candidate?”

“I don’t despise
you, exactly.” Tyelu’s gaze dropped to her knees and she ran a finger up and
down the outer seam of her homespun pants. “Ryn was miserable without you.”

“You
deliberately tried to keep us apart,” Ziri said flatly. “You stood in my way at
the Choosing, and even before that, you threatened me and warned me off. What
makes you think I’ll help you now?”

Tyelu’s pale
blonde eyebrows snapped down over her blue eyes. She stood abruptly and pivoted
on her heel, marching across the bridge. “You’re right. It was stupid of me to
ask.”

But it wasn’t
Tyelu’s temper that caught Ziri’s eye. It was the loneliness etched into
hunched shoulders and trembling fingers. Loneliness was an emotion Ziri knew
well, and she couldn’t stand to see it in another person, not even Ryn’s
callous sister. “Wait, Tyelu. Maybe I can help.”

Tyelu paused and
half-turned toward Ziri. “Forget it, Ziri. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

She slipped
through the door, brushing past Ryn on her way out. Ryn stared after his
sister, his beautiful mouth curved into a frown. “Did you and Tyelu get into
another fight?”

Ziri shook her
head. “She wanted me to help her find a candidate on Tersi.”

Ryn twisted
toward Ziri. “Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“She was
crying.”

Something
terribly close to pity wormed its way through Ziri’s heart, but that couldn’t
be right. Of all the people deserving her sympathy, Tyelu was the last person
Ziri could think of that would need it. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She always
is, isn’t she?”

“Mostly,” Ryn
murmured. He perched on the edge of the pilot’s chair and rubbed his hands over
Ziri’s thighs, warming her through the tough work pants she’d borrowed from
him. “We’ll be planet-side by this time tomorrow. Any luck with your parents?”

“They haven’t
responded to any of my messages. I think maybe the Net is overloaded here or
not working right or the communications satellites are down.” She pressed the
heels of her hands into her closed eyes. She was so tired, so worried, so
utterly useless to her family when she was light years away. Tears clogged her
throat, straining her voice. “What if I never see them again? What if
something’s happened and I don’t even get a chance to say goodbye or tell them
I love them?”

He coaxed her
into his lap and held her tight, the way he always did, as if just by holding
her, he could make everything better. He was almost right. Ziri nestled her
face in the crook of his neck. Her problems didn’t magically disappear when she
was with Ryn, but somehow, he made them easier to bear.

“We’ll find
them, Ziri, even if we have to chase a nest of Sweepers across the galaxy. This
I swear.”

And she believed
him. He’d rescued her from Sweepers, hadn’t he? Imagining him helping her do
the same for her parents wasn’t such a stretch.

“Let’s go to
bed, beauty. Tomorrow, we’ll be so busy, we may not have time for sleep.”

She nodded, and
still, even knowing she needed rest, she couldn’t bring herself to let him go.
“Thank you for bringing me back.”

“I promised I
would.” He cupped her jaw and strummed his thumb over her cheek. “Before I even
knew who you were, I promised myself I’d bring you back here, that I’d never
let another person miss their family the way I do mine. To bed now, Ziri.
You’ll feel better in the morning.”

He scooted her
off his lap and led her to their quarters, and they held each other through the
long, shipboard night.

* * *

They jumped into
Tersi’s system early the next shipboard morning and settled into orbit around
Tersi in mid-afternoon local time. Ryn relayed a message to Tersi’s planetary
defense force, letting them know the
Yarinska
was there on business, and
was invited to land in a port outside the capital city. He asked for a redirect
to the port closest to Ziri’s home, and was surprised at how quickly an
affirmative was relayed back.

He tracked Ziri
down in their quarters. She was sitting on the edge of the bed dressed as a
Pruxnæ, her homespun, woolen trousers tucked into knee-high boots. A
short-sleeved tunic bared her arms from shoulder to wrist and a thin jacket lay
on the bed beside her underneath an airy scarf.

She glanced up
and smiled wanly. “Almost ready.”

He knelt in
front of her between her feet and cupped her pale face in his hands. It hurt so
much to look at her, to touch her skin, for his heart to wobble and race every
time he was around her, knowing she’d probably choose to stay on Tersi. He
could fight for her, force her to leave with him, but should he if she really
didn’t want to go?

“We’ve been
given permission to land near the coordinates where I found you,” he said.

“Arden Hollow.”
Her eyelids closed over a bleak hopelessness he’d never seen in her before.
“It’s going to be ok, isn’t it, Ryn?”

He wished with
all his heart that he could say yes, it would. Instead, he kissed her gently,
savoring the sweet taste of her mouth while he still could. “Let me get dressed,
and then I thought you might like to take charge of landing the ship.”

She nodded.
“Thank you for bringing me back. I know you didn’t have to.”

“I promised,
Ziri.”

He shucked the
coveralls he normally wore on board the
Yarinska
and redressed in skin-tight
underclothing. Ziri helped him with his armor, her hands trembling, her mouth
not quite firm. On the way back to the bridge, he knocked on Tyelu’s door and
let her know they’d be landing soon, and asked her to relay the message to
Enel.

Ziri handled the
landing well, hesitating only once or twice over the whens and hows of the
procedure. As soon as the ship powered down, they headed toward the cargo bay.
Tyelu and Enel were waiting there, both covered from head to toe in Pruxnæ
fashion, only their eyes and hands visible under their clothing.

Ryn lowered the
cargo hatch. When it was halfway down, he sighed and lifted his hands in the
air. An umlek of security personnel were ranged in a half circle around that
section of the
Yarinska
, weapons pointed into the open hatch.

Ziri stepped
even with Ryn, yanked her scarf down, exposing her face, and said in Pruxnæ,
“What’s going on?”

“Ziri Mokuru?” a
man on the right asked.

“Who wants to
know?”

Ryn rolled his
eyes behind his helmet and bit back a grin. There was his Ziri.

The man replied
in a short string of what Ryn assumed was one of Tersii’s languages.

Ziri glanced
sideways at Ryn. “I forgot for a minute where we were.”

“It’s ok,
beauty. See if you can figure out why they’re trying to detain us.”

She nodded and
spoke with the man. Halfway through the conversation, her hand shot out and
gripped Ryn’s armor plated arm. Not long after, the weapons were lowered and
the man Ziri had been speaking with stepped forward and waved Ryn, Ziri, Tyelu,
and Enel out of the
Yarinska
.

Ziri tucked her
hand into Ryn’s and leaned close as they walked down the ramp. “They got my
name off the
Yarinska
’s registry and told my parents I was on board.
That’s what all the fuss was about. They know you’re Pruxnæ and thought you’d
kidnapped me and were holding me hostage.”

He pressed his
lips together. That’s exactly what he’d done. If she’d told the security officers
that, she could’ve gotten rid of him for good. “Your parents are here?”

“On their way.”
Her fingers dug into Ryn’s hand through his glove. “They’re ok, Ryn. They’re
really ok.”