The Cowboy Who Strolled Into Town (43 page)

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URSA-Minor

BWWM SPACE WAR Pregnancy Romance

By: Riley Moreno

In a draped white robe of the resting, Everette sat beside the red swamps of Talgoraan and watched the plumes of acrid blue smoke bellow above the small castle she sat outside of. The winning of the war was almost over and she could feel the tension leaving her shoulders. The tightness in her chest was lifting and there was lightness to the way she carried herself. The belching of the blue smoke was pushed away from her by the same wind that whipped her hair.

Everette had put away her life for children with Jeremiah. Before the twins she had led her galaxy sector as chancellor. She had commanded fifteen asteroid fleets and just as many bioships.

Tiny crystals of old world alchemy would occasionally catch in her black curly hair and they absorbed immediately in a shiny burst, releasing their nutrients into her hair. She brushed some of them off of her black skin absentmindedly as she thought about possible ends to the war.

Jeremiah approached her and set his hand on her ebony shoulder. With his other hand he touched his katana saber, which was slung to his side underneath draped red robes of the fighting. The white sheath she had been wearing over her hair tumbled from her head and wrapped around the hilt he was holding.

Patiently, she turned to him and tied a strong, swift knot around his hilt. He held the katana saber up to her respectfully and she stepped back to watch the wind catch the woven white fabric slashing across the sky from the stoic black hilt.

"Do you need it anymore, Jeremiah?" she asked him.

He pressed the saber on and watched it eject outwards, the inky black of the saber swallowed the color around it. He watched for only a moment and detached his eyes from it, looking to the rocks around him.

When she married him they became the winning couple, capable of keeping his identity secret while she was knowledgeable about his secret missions. The Navy Seals operated throughout the galaxy and his four man squad had been one of the best. Now most of them were on leave or reassigned to the reserves like Jeremiah.

He turned from her and swung the katana saber down into the rocks so that only the hilt stood from the rocks.

"Now I don't have to decide if I need it."

"Oh, Jeremiah," Everette sighed. "I want you."

"I want you to be happy, Everette."

She shook out her hair and he walked to her to hold her around the waist.

"Thank you for helping me with this war," he said.

"I only hope I help," she said before they both moved faces to lock lips with one another.

"What's next for you?"

"I need to fight Magnus, Eve."

She took her face away from his and asked, "Can I help you with that?"

He knew she was a strong diplomat and wanted her there to give him confidence, but was afraid of the backlash he would get for bringing her.

"I'll bring you to the bioship if we need your help, how about that?"

"I only want to do what you feel comfortable with."

"I feel comfortable knowing you're safe from Magnus."

Everette looked away, unsettled. "I remember what you told me he did a few days ago. I think about it, still, with awful thoughts surrounding it. He is not a good man, but everybody treats him with such respect."

Jeremiah shook his head out, "He holds his finger to all of the triggers.

"I want you to do your mission and do it well. If you need help, bring me.

He grabbed her wrist and she turned back into him. "I love you," he said, before kissing her nose, then cheeks.

"I love you, too," she said with a long smile following it.

Eighteen planet-holding galaxies were under duress from the overlords that had instilled themselves as the functioning governments that they had initially destroyed. The four-man fire squad Jeremiah was on was far from the red swamps of his home on Talgoraan.

They found themselves in a bioship, working through space on the energy of thousands of tiny spores that made up the living, breathing ship. The bioships were regenerative and could be manned by a small team, but had endless hangars and cargo stalls.

Jeremiah kept three different fighter jets as well as a drill jet for the times when they would break open other battleships. He got into it often, imagining the feeling of opening up the metal scaffolding and ruining the internal systems. His fighter jets had seen action but today none of them had to be used, so he passed the hangar entrance and instead sat down in the kitchen next to Sarai and Shippo.

Shippo told him, "We're comparing the differences between shifting now and shifting then."

"Oh?" Jeremeiah said, interested.

"You notice any differences?" Sarai asked.

Jeremiah chuckled, "In what?"

"Changing into a- what are you, again?" Shippo joked.

Jermeiah said, "I haven't changed in so long I don't even know anymore."

"Oh, really?" Sarai asked.

Shippo looked away, "I'm constantly changing. I'm a freaking fox on a forest planet. I'm good."

Jeremiah tried to change the course of the conversation, "I think I change faster. I feel stronger than ever when I change."

Shippo was a werefox and Sarai was a werebear. They had control over when they changed into each of those animals and some people said they had the characteristics of those animals. They were shifters, not quite human but Earth beings, definitely.

They knew they were other-humanly, but it wasn't their ability to change into animals that made them the ultimate navy seals, it was the bond that connected them. They were able to fight like they were meant to, in an animalistic and beastly way.

"Jorgen," Jeremiah said to his old friend. "How are you?"

Jorgen put down his water and looked at Jeremiah. Jorgen was blonde and moody with a penitent for yelling instead of talking. He was a good leader, though, and had seen them through many missions. In boot camp it was said that he was the scrawniest to begin with, but once he went through training he bulked up and become a super soldier. He spawned from a Nordic-like planet that had a plethora of dragon-born glider people. He had stories to tell about those days.

Today, he merely looked at Jeremiah and said, "I have food allergies."

"To what foods?"

Jorgen said, "Most things, mainly the breadstuffs and sugars. Meat is fine."

Sarai yelled, "Bulk up!"

Shippo chimed in, "Protein for days, Jorgen."

"Yeah," Saira said. "It's no problem having too much of a good thing."

Jorgen nodded, "Eating a lot of meat, definitely doing that."

"That's our werewolf!" Jeremiah said as he slapped Jorgen on the back and went to the cooling den for some food. He had to wash his hands four times before eating, it was just a habit of his, and he started in on his food as he realized Shippo and Sarai had convinced Jorgen to change into a wolf.

He panted but sat upright, was the full size of a man, but was the shape of a wolf. He banged his paw on the table and panted again. When Sarai put his water in front of Jorgen, Jorgen tried to grab at the water with his paws and when he had a grip on it, attempted to bring the cup towards his lips. It spilled on him and Jeremiah. Jorgen immediately transformed back into a human while Jeremiah yelled.

"You got your water all over me!"

Jorgen said, "I am sorry, Jeremiah."

"Okay, okay. Be sorry, but my food's still wet and that's on you!"

Jorgen put up his hands and tried to grab the food. Jeremiah got up and moved himself away.

Sarai said, "Jorgen, what the heck, man?"

Jorgen said, "Don't be so upset. It's nothing."

Jeremiah threw the pan away.

"When are we going?" he asked.

The four-man squad was ready together and geared up together in the locker rooms of their hangar. Each of them would be manning one of their fighter jets, except for Shippo. They docked on to a larger spore of the bioship which, once released, would fly to the nearest craft and attach itself, as long as the craft was going under 1,000 astronomical units per second.

Jeremiah's universe sector was Earth-centric, meaning the majority of technologies and cultures derived from earth. That was why it had been decided that an astronomical unit, the distance from the earth to the sun, would be the constant used for measuring small measures of space within galaxies. Jets and cruisers could function within galaxies and could therefor use astronomical units, but bioships were much faster and used the lanes of the dynamic black matter passes. The bioships couldn't use internal propulsion but would travel thousands of astronomical units a second on the black matter passes. The squad

They hitched on to a star cruiser bound for Magnus and lay in its shadow. The diplomatic party onboard didn't notice them and they detached just seconds before Magnus' hangar door opened for them. His bioship was the largest in the sector and dominated the nearby galaxies so much that their relative black holes were drawn into it.

The diplomatic party that exited the ship were there to settle negotiations with Magnus and took his full attention. He twisted his hand and the members of his party turned with him to talk with the exiting members.

Jeremiah and his fire squad watched and then released their gravity binders that kept their jets bound to the bioship. They all floated in free space and watched as Shippo piloted the drill jet.

The drill jet was large and cumbersome. Slow and incapable of anything but pulling apart segments of armor on jets, cruisers, and bioships. It had an overhanging drill that, when Shippo released it, would crank down and bore into the fleshy, tender mass underneath.

He piloted the drill jet away from the eyes of the main dispatchers of the hangar and went far below the ship. There he re-enacted the gravity binder and began the slow process of peeling away enough of a panel of the bioship to allow ease of access into the inner canals of the ship.

On their coms Jorgen asked, "Shippo, send over the blueprints for us to look at where we're going while you finish the job."

"Right away," Shippo replied.

Jeremiah studied the prints and realized it wasn't memorizing the layout that he was worried about; he was still worried that he wasn't strong enough to turn into a werelion. The process was draining, but only when he was weak. Since the war had come to a close he didn't worry about working out and making sure he could shift easily. He hadn't even done it once in between finding out he had this mission and now.

It was all because of the war crimes everyone realized Magnus was committing. The war was going fine, the allied galaxies were forcing Magnus to retreat his troops, but what everyone didn't know was that Magnus didn't want to be fighting a war, he was getting rid of planets and those that lived on them after using them for experiments and labor. That was the reason they had to get these documents. They had to get rid of the data and the reason behind Magnus torturous experiments.

Angered, he pounded the dash of his jet.

"Everything okay?" Sarai asked.

"Jeremiah?" Jorgen said with a questioning edge to his tone.

"I'm fine, something spilled."

Jorgen grunted into the com and then yelled, "We got fighters on the left."

"Shippo, are you done?" Jeremiah asked with petulance in his voice.

Shippo grunted and continued his work, then said, "Not enough so that we could get our jets in and seal it up.

Jorgen yelled as he began shooting his blasters. “We have to regroup.

"I'll ready my electric torpedoes," Saira said as he backed off with his jet.

"I've got your back," Jeremiah said to Jorgen as they sped forward together. Both of them halted together after a unit's pace and crossed paths, changing position and distracting their prey.

"Ready!" Sarai said as he blasted out the first four.

Jorgen and Jeremiah moved their ships to get out of the assault torpedoes' way and then moved their ships back towards one another after they saw four fighters destroyed.

Reinforcements were quickly on top of them as they tried to double back. Jorgen and Jeremiah moved their jets in unison to move away from each other and become hard to hit targets. Then, they shot together and created an onslaught of bullets on their enemies. They then moved around to the front and aimed at the group of fighters that had quickly approached from the rear.

Jorgen and Jeremiah assaulted those before Jorgen asked, "Shippo, are you detached enough from the bioship to jump some units?"

"We're jumping units?" Shippo asked. "I can do five astronomical units before this thing starts falling apart."

Jorgen grunted and Jeremiah said, "Well we have ten astronomical units to go."

Jorgen yelled, "We have to regroup."

Jeremiah said, "Shippo, get off the bioship and bind to me."

Shippo was amazed, "Nobody does that anymore. One of us could go flying."

"Just do it, Shippo."

"Jermiah, are you sure?"

Jeremiah nodded then told them, "We have to do it. Only for the five. The remaining five you do on your own, alright?" he asked Shippo after the drill jet had clamped onto his fighter jet.