Chapter Six

When Everything is Blue

Favel arrived after the sun dipped behind the ocean line. He leaped up into his stemmed chair and put two tentacles together as if he were steepling his fingers. “All right. You were kidnapped, but you handled your captors so well that you have been returned home without a scratch on you and it’s still business as usual. You live beyond my expectations continually.”

Jenna tugged on her earring in agitation. She was coming to realize that the Octavians couldn’t always protect her from her own people. It wasn’t their job. Besides, she could hardly be an efficient diplomat if her own people wanted to kill her.

She inwardly groaned. She was in a tough position. Even if Favel couldn’t always protect her, he was still her ally.

Jenna scratched behind her ear and took his compliment with a grain of salt. “Yeah, there is that, but we have to talk about the security breach. Ryatt and Conrad have confirmed that it was someone on the orbital security team who opened a window for the AAMC hackers. They’ve replaced them and they’ve been talking to them about the possibility of a rat on board, but they’re acting like it had nothing to do with them. I want you to talk to Temptic about it directly. I know he doesn’t have an official position up there, but surely he can push some weight around.”

Favel bobbed his head. “He surely can. With that out of the way, how is your staff holding up? I was under the impression that they weren’t doing a good enough job caring for you and when you went missing, my suspicions seemed to be verified.”

“It wasn’t their fault. A Shushfief held Smoothie down while the AAMC guys gassed me. It was so subtle, I didn’t even hear them until I had a gun in my face.”

Favel sat up. “I’m not blaming your staff if that’s what you’re worried about. There’s no point in blaming people when the outcome wasn’t terrible. You tamed the wild Fallcet and brought him here on a leash. You’re looking much better, but it was obviously not him who worked out the kinks in your shoulders. Good work, Ryatt?” Favel probably didn’t mean to phrase that as a question, but it came out as one.

When Sardius heard his fake name, he entered the room almost on cue. He had obviously been listening outside the door.

Favel leaned back in his goblet and stared at the boneman who was now standing at attention behind Jenna.

“Yep, keep on rubbing her shoulders and we’ll get along fine. I’d do it myself, except humans taste so weird,” Favel said, looking at the suckers on his tentacles.

Sardius had never once rubbed her shoulders.

Pushing on, Jenna wasted no further time and told Favel her plan to protect the program rather than act as a diplomat herself. Which brought her number of immediately required recruits up to four instead of three.

The blue Octavian was stunned. He slumped in his goblet. “Well, this is a shock. I agree that this is absolutely what needs to happen, but I was loath to admit it myself or ask you to do it. Your greatness spins the world around.”

“Thank you,” she said, putting out a hand to touch the lip of his goblet chair like she was placing a hand on his arm had he been a human. “But how does this change things between us? Do you still want to marry me?”

“I do. Honestly, my people will approve of your sacrifice very much. But if you give up your palace to another diplomat, where will you live?”

Jenna reminded him of the fact that Excelyn and Philip could share a palace, the money she and Vash had uncovered in her bedroom, and the house she had on Octavia Five.

When she mentioned her grandfather’s house on Octavia Five, Favel perked up. “I can’t let you go there! Octavia Five is a vacation spot for Adamis who miss land. It isn’t at the center of things at all. I’ll arrange for you to have a house here. I can’t let my eighth wife live in a guest house on Octavia Five! It’s unheard of.”

“I do admit that staying here would be easier,” Jenna agreed. “We can use all the palace space we can get if I crown as many diplomats as I imagine so I’ll accept your offer. Would it be at all possible for us to choose a place together rather than you choosing it without me?” Jenna had no idea how Octavians managed such things and she wanted to have a little input.

He tossed a tentacle-like he was flicking his wrist. “Leave it to me,” he said, vetoing her suggestion that she be consulted on the design. “I’ll build you something from scratch. Don’t get your hopes up though. It will be similar to what you have now. I’m not going to ask you to live in vastly different circumstances from the other diplomats. It will be a floating palace. I’ll have it built underwater and pushed to the surface when it’s ready. I have a few months, don’t I? Before all your scheming comes to fruition and there’s a line of eight people with crowns on their heads?”

“I think so. I promised Fallcet that I’d speed the selection of the three AAMC diplomats I’ve promised to crown. On another note, Armen and Lucy will be arriving tomorrow. I’ve given them the Salt Palace for the time that they spend here, just because I don’t want them near anyone. Lucy is very excited because she’s coming to deliver my cat, Charm, to me. Once they arrive, she won’t be their responsibility anymore.”

“Ah, your cat? Out of pure interest, have you warmed up to Moonbeam at all? Josh was telling me that he wants to get pictures of the two of us with her. If Charm is coming, perhaps she can also be part of the pictures?”

Jenna took a deep breath in. She couldn’t tell Favel that she had not warmed up to Moonbeam at all and that the very site of the furlee made her want to drop-kick it into the ocean. It wasn’t that creepy. It wasn’t even that different from a cat. Its eyes weren’t horrible to look at, but Jenna couldn’t warm up at all. It was as if something in her very DNA told her to be afraid, told her to be on edge, and she couldn’t reprogram herself.

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Jenna sidestepped the question. “I’m very curious to see how Charm reacts to Moonbeam. She’s getting kicked out of Lucy and Armen’s for bad behavior. She’s practically scratched a hole in my cousin. I hope she doesn’t kill Moonbeam on sight.” Even though the odds were very much in Moonbeam’s favor just because of how many more paws she had, Jenna had seen Charm inflict serious damage on people, dogs, and other cats. It had even been suggested to Jenna when she was back on Earth that Charm was too dangerous and ought to be put down. Jenna ignored them since her cat had never put a single scratch on her. All the same, she hoped Charm and Moonbeam scrapped too much to make living together a possibility.

She crossed her fingers.

“Moonbeam is a gentle creature,” Favel said reflectively. “Ryatt, please watch over their meeting and make sure neither of them is hurt.”

Sardius nodded, not a tenth as bloodthirsty as Jenna.

Suddenly the thought occurred to her that maybe she wasn’t the right sort of person to even own a pet. “Favel, in the future, please do not give me any more pets.”

He nodded his mantle. “I agree. I have been considering taking Moonbeam back before we take any pictures at all. Maybe the last thing we need is for everyone in the universe to take an interest in your pets. We’ll see how it goes with Charm tomorrow.”

A lull in the conversation appeared.

Favel lifted himself up briefly out of the sloshing water of his goblet. “It’s getting late and I should really go. Take good care of my fiance, Ryatt. I’ll bid you both a good night.”

Jenna waved a quiet goodbye to Favel as he exited through the ocean exit. The door had just shut when Ixy sounded in Jenna’s ear.

“I heard a rumor that you were going to turn me over to work for forking Fallcet. Is that true, Jenna?” she whined painfully.

“I’m going to need you to not make that sound again,” Jenna insisted, having the hardest time not pulling the pearl earpiece out. “You’re going to crush my eardrum. So far, I have no intention of assigning Fallcet a PA at all. Look, there’s another reason I invited Lucy and Armen here. Apparently, no one took Armen’s earpiece and he’s been running around with a free personal assistant ever since I expelled him. I have to get that earpiece back from him.”

“Does that mean you’re going to give that PA to Fallcet?” Ixy asked, sounding relieved before Jenna had answered her question.

“I’m not giving Fallcet a PA at all, nor am I giving one to any of the AAMC diplomats we crown. I’m going to give the earpiece I get from Armen to Philip.”

“What about me and Conrad?” Ixy whined again.

“I don’t have any plans to change those personnel assignments,” Jenna said, matching Ixy’s whine.

“Okay. What are you going to do with Lucy here? Are they just popping by to drop off Charm and give you the earpiece?” Ixy asked sharply. “I can’t imagine you entertaining them. Are you going to take them to the docks? Shuttle them around underwater to see the coral? Feed them juice through a fluit? Ha! You’d hate doing that. Lucy is like you, except more annoying!”

Jenna wasn’t particularly interested in whether or not Ixy was respectful regarding Lucy, so she shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, I don’t think she crashes spaceships either.”

Ixy chuckled airily. “I’m convinced Ivy and I could take down the new AAMC fleet. Just put Ivy and I in a bar with a few of their pilots and we’d crash their ships into the unpiloted ones. We’d cause so much damage--”

“They’d put you in jail,” Jenna finished for her.

“Sure, but then if you and Ryatt sprung us, we could disguise ourselves and go do it again and again and again. Or you could get your old pal Sardius out of hiding to help us. Has he told you how many jails he’s escaped from? He’s a legend!” She sang the last words.

“Sign off, Ixy,” Jenna said, sternly shutting her PA down.

Jenna waited for the click before strolling toward the bedroom with Sardius a step behind her.

“Well, I may not be Sardius,” he lied, “but I know a few things about escaping from a prison.” He sounded like the rogue who always got his way. He kicked the bedroom door shut and stepped smoothly toward Jenna. “The first thing you have to do when you’re escaping from a prison is figure out where the soft spot is. Is it the jailer? Is it the material the jail is made of? Where is it soft?” His hands were all over her as if he were experimenting with where the softest place on her could be. In the next second, he was tickling her in her most sensitive place, right above her knee.

Jenna shrieked in shock. Had he really touched her like that?

“Is it here?” he asked playfully as he moved his hand up to pinch the ribs at her waist.

Jenna rushed her hands to the spot to protect herself.

He continued speaking like he had never touched her and put his hands behind his back. “The second thing is that you have to want it badly. You have to want it like you’ve never wanted anything before.”

“Are you ticklish?” she demanded.

“No,” he said with a click of his tongue. “Touch me anywhere. I won’t flinch.”

So Jenna grabbed his side and just like he said, he didn’t budge. She grabbed at all the sensitive parts she knew, but touching him was nothing like touching a man from Earth.

“Fine, you’re not sensitive anywhere,” she said, striding away from him toward her closet.

“Well, that’s not true.”

She turned back and met his muddy gaze at the doorframe. “Are you going to tell me or make me guess?”

He rubbed a spot on his chest. “My heart is in the same place as yours.”

Jenna stared at him, his hand, his chest, and the invisible thread that connected people in love. “We’re not going to win this. Is that why you’re acting like this? To give me one nice memory before everything goes down in flames?”

He rubbed his fingers together. “Not at all. I have lost a few battles, but I have won a war. I’m not worried. Just take a few deep breaths and I’ll give you that shoulder rub Favel said I ought to give you. I just can’t keep my hands off you completely. It’s against my nature.”

“So, just a little shoulder rub and that’s it?” she asked suspiciously, but she couldn’t stop herself from being hopeful that he had more in mind.

He yawned painfully. “It’ll be my energy drink before I spend the night interrogating the old members of the orbital security team.”

Jenna nodded. He had to find the leak like a hole in a boat or they would all sink.

No more falling asleep next to him. It was a real shame Ixy wasn’t more trustworthy, or he could have done the interrogations during the day.

Jenna sat between Sardius’ knees and tried to enjoy his hands moving over her muscles.

It would have been more relaxing if he hadn’t kept chuckling, “Your body is so soft. You’re like dandelion fluff."