November 16, 2361 AIA

Unnamed Vessel

Ciro was with Jane when she finally managed to keep her eyes open.

He was sitting on the deck, next to the edge of her bed. His hand occasionally wandered down to his injured leg, but he was trying to distract himself from the pain by working on one of his tablets. The first he knew she was conscious was when she muttered his name. He put the tablet aside and scooted as close as possible to the bed.

“Hey.” He was grinning.

“Ciro,” she grumbled in a rough voice, “you’re alive?”

“I am. So are you, in case you’re wondering.”

Jane groaned. “I know I’m alive. Death would never feel this bad. Why does my arm hurt so much?”

She held her arm above her face and stared at the track of needle marks leading up to her elbow.

“He did this to me, didn’t he?” she said.

“Uh…some—most of them, really.”

“Most of them?”

“We had to do a blood test, and you have to remember, Alix doesn’t normally use a syringe when she wants someone to bleed.”

“A blood test.” Jane let her arm fall over her eyes. “Did you learn anything interesting?”

“Lynx told us everything we wanted to hear—you were Jane Bonumomnes and you were going to live.” Ciro moved so he was by her shoulder. “Come on, we have to get you sitting up.”

When Jane was leaning against the bulkhead, he handed her the water Reyer had left nearby.

“You need to drink this,” he said.

“Where are we?”

“We’re on our new ship. Alix and I are voting to name her Colibri, but Adan’s still in a snit about losing the Golondrina.”

“A new ship?”

Ciro tapped the bottle in her hand. “You need to drink.”

“What happened to the Golondrina?” Jane fumbled to open it, then took a sip.

“We had to leave her behind, but we couldn’t let the Supremacy have access to her.”

“How did that happen?” Jane noted Ciro’s hesitation and felt her stomach sink. “It was for me, wasn’t it? You rescued me. You—you lost your ship—”

“Whoa, whoa. Hey, no. Don’t worry about it. I mean, take a look around you! Once Adan’s done grieving, even he’ll admit this is a serious upgrade.”

There was a subdued snort of laughter from Jane. “You think he’d be grateful for a ship with a bed or two.” She leaned her head back on the bulkhead. “God knows I am.”

“Yeah. Well. You’re welcome.”

“Oh? So you’re taking credit for it, Wonder Boy?”

“I certainly am.”

He told her a slightly exaggerated story of his hunt for the ideal ship and breaking into the military compound in order to steal it. Jane seemed to enjoy his description of the bots tearing apart the ships, so he lingered over it. Then he mentioned commandeering one of the bots to help him.

“Fortunately, Lynx’s backup was on one of the two tablets I saved,” Ciro said.

“Wait. How can you only have two tablets? How does Ciro Vas even survive with only two tablets?” Before Ciro could think of a smart reply, Jane put a hand over her mouth. “You had to leave everything behind. Your leg…”

Ciro watched her, his mouth bent down with concern. She had been pale enough before the blood drained from her face.

“I think you need some food,” he said.

Getting up was difficult for him, so Jane had plenty of time to reach out and grab his arm.

“Is everyone okay?” she demanded.

Ciro put his hand over hers. “Everyone’s alive.”

“Alive? I don’t like that word.”

“It’s better than the word dead.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“That’s not funny, Wonder Boy!”

Ciro laughed as he shushed her. His attempts to calm her down were less than effective.

“Don’t you shush me! You tell me what happened! Now!” She pushed his hand away from where he’d laid it on her shoulder. “And stop petting me! You’re my goddamn puppy.”

“You’re beautiful when you’re angry.”

“I’m going to be gorgeous in a second!”

“All right! All right.” His smile faded. “We ran into some problems when we came to rescue you. Alix is in pain, and she’s limping almost as bad as I am, but she says she’ll be fine. Adan got his face messed up, but Alix says he’s still handsome, and that’s all he cares about—”

“How’d he get his face messed up?”

Ciro could see her growing more tense in the second he wasted trying to think of how to say it. He could wait a year and still not find a gentle way to explain.

“He was beaten. Sipos tortured him.”

Jane pressed her eyes shut. Two tears still managed to leak out. “I’m so sorry.”

Ciro sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around her. “Everyone’s going to heal up fine. We’re just glad you’re alive.”

The doctor pulled two handfuls of his shirt into her small fists.

He whispered, “I was so worried about you.”

“It was awful, Ciro,” she mumbled. “I was so scared.”

He put his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her forehead several times before he looked in her eyes. “May I kiss you now?”

“That’s not fair.”

“How is it not fair?”

“You know I can’t really say no right after you gave up everything and risked your life to save me!”

“Ah, ha!” He grinned. “So you’re saying yes?”

There was a brief hesitation. “Ugh. Fine!”

Ciro leaned in and gently pressed his lips to hers.

When they parted, she said, “For a little boy, you’re better at that than I thought you would be.”

“No, I’m terrible at it. I need more practice.” He kissed her again.

At last he pulled away. Rather than his normal grin, there was a contented smile. He winked at her and let his hands drop.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Probably. But you’re not crying anymore.”

“You know it’ll never work between us.”

“I’m a member of the Uprising. I never give up on a lost cause.”

“You don’t think the war is a lost cause—you’re dumb enough to think you’ll win!”

“Exactly.”

Jane rolled her eyes.

“Anyway,” he said, “I don’t see why things wouldn’t work out between us.”

“I’m over a decade older than you. I’m mean. You insist on being a part of a—are you even listening to me?!”

“Not really. I like watching your face.”

“Ciro!”

“Sorry, Jane. Unless one of those reasons are, ‘I’m indifferent to your existence,’ ‘I’m in love with someone else,’ or ‘I’m already married,’ then I have to admit, I don’t think I’ll care very much. And that last one only works if I can’t convince you to get a divorce.”

“Indifferent?”

“You’ve already said you hated me, but I still got to kiss you—”

“I do hate you, you idiot!” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down into another kiss. “Don’t ever die on me again.”

Ciro’s face fell. He looked away. “Sorry, Dr. Jane. No promises.”

There was a heavy moment where neither spoke. Then Jane and Ciro reached out to hold each other.

“See,” she said over his shoulder, “this is why I hate war.”

“This isn’t the war. This is something else. This is you and us verses a secret, but we’re not going to let anything happen to you.” Ciro turned enough to kiss the side of her head. “We’re going to protect you, Jane, but please—for the love of god—you have to let us.”

Ciro used the edge of the bulkhead to pull himself up, then reached down to Jane. “Come on. Let’s get you some food.”

She let him help her to her feet. When she was standing, she swiped a hand over her shirt, as if that might remove some of the wrinkles and blood. “Is there anything I can change into?”

“Sorry, Doctor, we have a shower but no clothes. Don’t worry, you’ll fit right in. We’re all disgusting.”

They went out into the hall.

When Tate heard the hatch to Jane’s room open, he rose from his bench to meet them. Alix was at the console in the main cabin, mic in hand. When she saw them enter, her smile eased some of the lines of tension from her face. Vas left Reyer’s side and walked over.

“Doctor, how are you?” the captain asked in a hushed voice.

“Hungry.”

Vas glanced at Tate, who immediately left the gathering.

“Is everything all right?” Jane asked.

“Ah.” Adan made a face. “The answer to that question is various levels of no—”

Alix said into the microphone, “Say it one more time, Grandpa. The signal is bad.”

Vas motioned to invite Jane to sit down at the table in the center of the cabin.

“Dammit, baby-girl!” Falk’s voice was barely audible and sometimes impossible to hear over his own echo when the receiver tried to reread the faint pattern. “Tune into the Supremacy news. You’re closer to them anyway!”

“Understood. You’ll hear from us in twelve hours.” Reyer turned to the group. “Ciro?”

Ciro limped over, took a seat in front of the machine, and put on the headphones.

As he worked, Alix stood back. “Jane, how are you?”

“I’ll be all right.”

Reyer felt a laugh of relief shake her chest. “Good.”

Tate came up to the doctor’s side and handed her a self-heating water bottle and package of food.

Vas went over to his brother. “We’re receiving only?”

“Receiving only, Captain. I know what I’m doing.” Ciro yanked the headphones down to his neck and opened the ship-wide speakers.

Jane was about to ask a question, but Tate held up a hand to stop her.

An unknown voice with an unplaceable accent was speaking.

“—body of Senator Devi Kumar, lead representative for P5, was found on the senator’s private shuttle. A protected witness, whose identity is being kept confidential, gave a statement indicating that a small group of people, possibly members of the Uprising, were waiting to ambush the senator when she landed on P5’s main land mass, Vale.”

Reyer sat down on the nearby bench.

“This happened only hours after both the senator’s private residence and her vacation home were invaded. Several senators have already issued statements condemning the assassination as an unprovoked war crime.”

The voice switched over to someone else. “They want us to believe that they’re a legitimate military body representing the interests of an organization that respects the rule of law—”

“Turn it off,” Vas growled.

“—but they’re not! This is even more evidence that the Rising—”

“Turn it off!”

Ciro cut the channel.

The silence was a long one.

Vas held a com to his mouth. “Bob?”

A mechanical voice came through the small device: “Yes, Captain?”

“Drop us into velox and continue on to our destination.”

“Understood, Captain.”

The crew all gathered at the table. Jane was the first to speak.

“You named it Bob?”

Muffled laughter made its way around the group.

“We’re glad to have you back, Jane,” Alix said.

“If only because you agree it was a damn silly name,” Adan added.

As the somber mood returned, Jane’s smile faded. “Captain, what happens now?”

Vas took a deep breath. “Well, I have to go back to Home Base. There’s some music I have to face. But before that—” He raised his eyes. “Dr. Jane, we have to do something to keep you safe.”