The Choice (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 8) Read online

  "Where are you going?" He looked up as I squeezed past his legs.

  "To the lav," I replied and pointed at the doors.

  Vern stood up and followed me to the back of the plane. We were alone, and the cabin lights were dim. The attendants were all forward serving food to those who were still awake.

  "What are you doing?" I asked, as Vern pushed his way inside the tiny room and took my face in his hands. He kissed me hard upon the lips.

  "We may die tomorrow," he whispered. "So let us live now and love as free people."

  I did as he asked, and it meant nothing to me for I was a slave with no heart, and Vern was the General, my new master.

  Our flight was uneventful, and I slept most of the way. Just above Cascadia, the woman with the boy from the spaceport hurried into the lav even as the attendants called for all to sit.

  "We're about to begin our descent to the planet," a voice announced over the intercom system. "Everyone must be seated with your belt fastened securely."

  The woman paid no mind and quickly shut the door and locked themselves inside. When they reappeared a few moments later, the boy was looking pale and faint.

  "Is he sick?" the attendant asked.

  The woman nodded her head and shoved the boy forward with a hand on his back. I watched them move to the center of the plane. There, the mother stopped and turned back to me though her eyes were focused on Vern. She smiled, but the smile didn't extend past her lips. It was a smile of one touched by Evil and made to do its bidding. Now I saw in her hand, a small device that was tethered to the child's waist.

  "Vern," I gasped and shook his arm. "Look!"

  It was too late. A great noise sounded, and the world around me went dark.

  Chapter 10

  Shika

  "Hey Jim," I said as the dude appeared on the overhead screen. I had my gun aimed at the target fifty meters in front but shifted it to Jimmy's holographic face.

  "Why are you shooting me, bro?" he cried raising his arms as I set a bullet right in between his eyes. I put one through each of his cheek bones too.

  "Because you're interrupting me," I replied, having decimated his image. "Come here, Hannah. It's your turn."

  "No." Hannah frowned and waved her hands. "I don't want to."

  "Come on," I insisted and pulled her forward. "Here's the mark." I handed her the Glock, a gift from my mom, and showed her how to position her feet.

  "Steven," she protested wrestling out of my arms. "You know I hate doing this kind of thing." She threw up her hands and made that angry pouty face that used to strike me as really cute but now just pissed me off.

  "Guys!" Jim called, his image once again forming into a whole picture. "This is fun, but I kinda need to talk to you, Baby Prince." I blasted him again, this time taking out his entire nose. "Wha…?"

  "That's what you get for calling me Baby Prince. What do you want anyway?" I shot off the remaining rounds in my clip and then holstered the gun. It was time to practice with my light sword. "You want to try this, honey?" I offered the sword to Hannah.

  "No! I'm going back to work." She sniffed loudly and headed out of the range presumably back down to sickbay even though she wasn't on duty.

  I watched her go, admiring the view of her butt. Mentally, I recalled my own duty schedule, calculating if we had any off-hours at the same time tonight. I'd been on nights, and she'd been on days for several weeks which left us both about ten minutes in between shifts for quality newlywed time. I could chase after her now. I had about five minutes before my next shift started, and five minutes would be enough. The light sword buzzed in my hand. Which would I rather do?

  "Yo! Shik!" Jimmy yelled once again intruding on my thoughts. "I need to talk to you, man. Did you forget I was here?"

  Kari-fa. I was down to four minutes. I swung the light sword at Jimmy cutting off his virtual head. "So what do you want, Jim? I hope this isn't a social call. You're beginning to bother me."

  "As much as I love and respect Your Imperial Imminence Dude, you're beginning to bug me too. Stop decimating my virtual image and just listen for a minute."

  "What?" I shut off the light sword and holstered it. "I've got three minutes to get up to the bridge. Speak quickly."

  "Shelly wants you to have your mom call her. Is that quick enough?"

  "Hey, I'm not my mom's secretary."

  "Just passing on the message, bro. That's all I promised to do. So how's married life?"

  "Cool," I said and shut Jimmy off before he started telling me about all the babes he was seeing this week.

  Glancing at my watch, which showed two minutes to zero hour, I left the range and headed down the hall to the catch the lift. Two babe lieutenants passed by, the red head smiling coyly, the darker girl narrowing her eyes as I winked back. It occurred to me the dark one was a Sickbay nurse and Hannah's friend. My wink and smile would not go unreported.

  I didn't mind being married though. It certainly had its benefits. I didn't miss babes clamoring after me at all because they still did. I wasn't sure what exactly I was missing these days, but something just didn't feel right. It definitely wasn't Hannah. She was awesome except for a few tiny issues. She didn't like shooting or fighting. She hated football. She was scared to death of my dad, which wasn't a huge deal since everybody else in the galaxy was too. She totally didn't click with my mom, but that wasn't a huge deal either since most of the people in the galaxy didn't either. What exactly was wrong then? The lift pinged to announce its arrival and the doors swished open to reveal Sam standing there.

  "Your Royal Highness." Sam smiled and dramatically bent in a bow.

  "Shut the fuck up, Sam," I replied stepping inside and hitting the button for the bridge.

  "Sure Stevie," he giggled and pulled a wallet out of his back pocket. "I've got some new pictures of Carolie. Want to see?"

  "Cute," I mumbled and glanced at the pics of Sam and Joanne's little girl.

  I had absolutely no desire for one of those. No way. Not me. I was not going to get in a lift and pull out my wallet to show off naked baby butts or mashed carrots smeared over toothless gums. To her credit, Hannah had only mentioned it once the entire time we'd been married. After I told her no, she shut up about it.

  I didn't have to say much beyond ‘no’ either. All it took was, "Imagine being the grandchild of Senya and Katie. Would you wish that on anyone?"

  Hannah had visibly shivered and then never mentioned it again. Sometimes, Hannah could be very smart.

  "So what's the plan, Stevie?" Sam put away his wallet and looked up at me waiting for some kind of direction.

  "No plan, Sammy," I replied. "Just heading up to do my shift and keep out of trouble." Sam nodded as if that was a really thoughtful thing to say. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm heading down to the bay. There's a commercial spaceplane out there that's not responding to calls. I'm supposed to go take a look at it, see who it belongs to. Do you want to come?"

  I considered my schedule. I was supposed to sit Navigation for the next ten hours, but, on the other hand, I needed some flight hours before my license expired. I'd been lazy on this contract, not keeping up with my pilot skills and new training. In fact, I'd been getting lazier with every contract.

  Once everyone realized who I was, it didn't matter how hard I worked anymore. When I was still Golden, I worked my ass off every day. Now that I was de Kudisha again, getting my ass out of bed took all my effort.

  "Yeah, yeah, I do," I replied. "But I need to drive. That okay with you?"

  "Sure Stevie." Sam shrugged again. There was no way he would say no to me. "You took the new systems' simulator training, right?"

  "Actually, I didn't yet, but that's okay. I can figure it out. It can't be that different than the old systems."

  Sam looked at me from the corner of his eye. His face turned dark green.

  "It's a little," he mumbled. "I should probably sit first chair until you get the hang of it. I can show you the main differenc
es, but you'll still need to do that sim test real soon. You don't mind, do you, if I drive?"

  "Well, yeah, I do mind. I can do it. You go get the scout prepped while I tell the boss I'll be late for work." Sam looked up at me probably judging if he should say more. I took out my cell and pretended to read a text. "Hmm." I shook my head dramatically. "The old man wants to ask my advice on something. I'll meet you down in the bay in less than five."

  The lift door swished open, and I was about to step out, figuring I'd stroll the rest of the way to the bridge, but instead a woman joined us.

  I decided to stay aboard. She was about Sammy's size, with thick and shiny brown hair that hung down her back as if it was all glued together in one piece. When she moved it swished to one side and then it swished the other way like a wave. I almost reached out to touch it just to see what it felt like.

  She was wearing a Tae Kwon Do uniform with a black belt wrapped around her waist, and her feet were bare except for pink nail polish on the toes. She was a little sweaty but didn't smell bad. In fact, I liked the smell of a sweaty woman especially when it was right after sex.

  "Hi," she said to Sam and then turning, she saw me. Her dark eyebrows rose, and her almond shaped eyes opened wide.

  "Oh, Sir," she said standing there obviously flustered, unsure if she should salute or kneel. Her uniform was gaping a bit in the front. I imagined if she knelt I'd get quite a nice view. Maybe I needed some martial arts practice too. I could use a new sparring partner, especially one that looked like that. "I'll take the next lift," she said backing out. "Sorry. I didn't mean to intrude."

  "No worries," I smiled broadly, "come on aboard."

  She shook her head quickly and let the door swish shut. Sam eyed me with narrow eyes.

  "What are you staring at?" He shook his green head, his spiky hair not moving a millimeter, no matter how hard he tossed it about.

  "Nothing, Sir." He lifted his chin and turned back to face the door as it opened on the bridge.

  "So I'll see you in a few minutes?" I tried to be friendly. Sam was practically my best friend. No sense in having him angry at me especially for no reason.

  "I'll get the scout plane ready, Sir," he mumbled.

  I made my way over to the Navigation Console and sat down in my chair, running my hands over the scanner to log in. It told me, I was two minutes late tonight. This was good. I was improving.

  "de Kudisha," Marik's voice growled from across the bridge.

  "Korelesk," I growled back.

  "You're late again."

  "And, so I am," I shrugged, “but, I'm an earlier late."

  Marik made an unintelligible sound. He couldn't dock me or give me demerits anymore.

  "Hey, Marik, I've got to do some flight training. I'm going to go check out that unidentified plane with Sam."

  I turned to look at my cousin, who was sitting Command from the central console of the bridge. He had one leg crossed over another and he too had his cell out, scanning through pictures of his wife and kids.

  "Are you asking or telling me, Princeling?" he replied smiling at the image of Angelica riding a pony.

  "Which ever you prefer. Get someone else to sit Nav on this shift." I ordered a log of all contact with the Unidentified and Disabled and had it sent to my cell before I signed off.

  "Report to my cabin when you return, Your Imperial Ass."

  Marik snapped his cell shut and glared at me, trying to save face in front of all the other bridge officers. As second in command of the Queen of Rozari, Marik's already overinflated ego had blasted into the outer banks of the Milky Way.

  I loved to take him down a notch or two occasionally, just because I could.

  "Sure Marik," I replied and gave him a fake salute from the lift. "Don't deal until I get there." I thought that was funny, but Marik only glared more.

  My cousin's cabin was only two decks below the bridge and large enough for his whole family. I was offered a cabin on that deck, but Hannah had refused to take it.

  "We don't deserve special privileges," she insisted. "We'll get the cabin assignment appropriate for our ranks."

  "I out rank everybody," I told her, but she wouldn't have it. Instead, we shared two closet sized rooms with a tiny private head and shower on Deck 14, while Earl Korelesk rated a palatial royal suite.

  I headed down to the docking bay and found Sam doing the final walk around on our plane, the Puffin. He had a frown on his face and was scratching at the top of his spiky head, a clear indication that he was bothered by something. I assumed it wasn't me. We had been friends for several years now. Usually, when I kidded around with him or pulled rank, he got over it really quickly.

  "We're dripping hydro fluid," he said pointing at the aft, beneath the rudder where an oily fluid was spilling in droplets on the floor.

  "So let's take another one," I said, glancing around at the seven other planes parked on this floor alone. "We've got a few extras."

  "I asked, but they're already assigned. Do you think this will be a problem?" Sam pointed at the tiny puddle. "It's actually not all that much. Maybe, we should wait for maintenance to come take a look?"

  "Nah. We've lost what? Half a litre? That's not going to be enough to cause a problem. We lose more than that anytime we land on a planet due to atmospheric friction. We'll be fine. Let's just get going."

  "Ok," Sam replied hesitantly. "You're the boss, Stevie."

  Chapter 11

  Tuman

  My niece, Katie, the Empress of Rehnor was sitting at a large desk in an enormous office that was lined with windows that looked out at the sea. It was a masculine room with heavy dark wood paneling and an immense stone hearth with a fire burning brightly. I guessed this to be my nephew's office, though I had never been invited into this exclusive province and had no basis for making this judgement.

  "You're correct," my brother said beside me. "This is HIM's office. Her's is one floor down and much brighter and airier. It's painted yellow and filled with flowers and has lots of pretty knick knacks."

  "Why is she sitting here then?" I whispered back, though he had assured me that we were invisible to both sight and sound. Clearly we were for I walked around freely, at one point standing next to my niece and peering over her shoulder while she took no notice of my presence.

  "I'd like a cup of tea," the heavy set red-headed woman announced and rising from her perch on a sofa by the fire, she crossed the room and poured herself a cup from the pot by the door. "Would you like some, Madame?"

  "No," Katie mumbled sifting through some documents. She wore a pair of reading glasses that kept slipping down to the end of her nose, until she took them off, and angrily tossed them across the desk.

  "Tea?" The red head, Duchess Luci Korelesk asked again while carrying a cup over to the great desk. She set it down on top of some papers.

  "Luci! That's some parliamentary bill or some such thing that you are creating a water stain on. Don't put stuff down on the desk until you are sure of what you are destroying."

  "Well, let's see what it is then." Luci removed the cup and picked up the parchment. "Now then, the newly stained document is a royal decree to…to…" She peered closer. "Create a commission for the Luminerian Fire Fighters Society to…to…I can't make out that word."

  "Would you like to borrow my glasses?"

  "No, I'll make it out. I think it says something about Fire Fighters on Lumineria."

  "Yeah, we got that part. What is that commission supposed to do?"

  "That I can't say." Duchess Korelesk set the paper back down. "Do you want to create this commission or not?"

  "No. All commissions and non-essential business are on hold until His Imperial Everythingness returns. Unless it's a bloody emergency, it's going to be tabled."

  "That's what I thought. May I put your teacup back down on the paper then?"

  "Sure," Katie replied and tossed the rest of the parchments aside. She picked up the cup and leaned back in the leather chair. Blowing a st
ream of air into the cup, she sipped at it delicately. "I can't do this." She put the cup back down. Bolting from her seat, she began to pace the room. She rubbed her temples and pulled at her mass of blonde curls with frustration.

  "Do what?"

  "This. All of this!" Katie waved her hand at the expanse of the room. "How the hell am I supposed to run all of this?" She pointed at the wall where a mural of all of the Empire's stars and star systems were proudly displayed. "I can barely keep track of what day it is, let alone all bills and writs, legislations and decrees."

  "Well, perhaps you're not supposed to be running anything. You are merely babysitting, as it were. Let's just sit down and enjoy our tea. Surely Lord Eberly or Garing will tell you if something noteworthy happens which requires your attention. If not, this afternoon, we can go visit the new children's wing at the hospital in Turko as we had planned."

  "Alright," Katie muttered. "We should try to keep up both schedules as much as possible. I just wish he would have given me a clue how long he was planning to be gone." She retrieved her tea cup and proceeded to sit on the sofa. "We were going to two hospitals today, weren't we? Turko and Kildoo, right?"

  "Yes. Now, I've asked Lady Kelli to prepare your green gown with your emerald collection jewelry. For the dinner meeting with the governor, we'll have…"

  "Fine, fine, whatever," Katie interrupted. "I suppose anything is better than sitting around here trying to sift through these mountains of paperwork."

  "Much better," Luci agreed. "Shall I order us some cake or sandwiches to go with our tea? I think, we need something more substantial if we're going to be working all afternoon."

  "Whatever."

  While Luci was ringing the catering department and Katie was staring morosely at the fire, I turned to my brother and whispered again.

  "What exactly are we doing here?"