Operation Starseed

Part 3

is better, has been for a while and now he’s in the cockpit, keeping the carrier on a steady course and waiting. We’re all waiting. I glance at the timestamp again and find that it’s almost a half hour past the three hour mark. They’re late, whoever they are. Behind me I hear the soft hiss of the door as it irises open and I see Vallery’s reflection in the window above me when she enters the deck. I told you so, I think—didn’t I say this signal was nothing more than an old relay? There’s no one out there and all we’re going to find is the wreck of an abandoned ship, the computer stuck in an endless loop, nothing more.

me, and purrs, “You coming up here sometime today, baby?” His voice is low and throaty and it turns me on just hearing it. I want to pull on my headset and lose myself in his words, his image, but I can’t—Vallery’s here. “I miss you.”

He makes me hard, I think, but I’m not telling Vallery that. Hell, from the way she’s grinning at me, I don’t think I need to say anything at all, she’s picked up on that one herself. “I better get going,” I tell her, embarrassed because she knows where I’m going, her eyes say she knows exactly what we’ll probably end up doing, and this isn’t something I really want people to think about, you know? Dylan and me wrapped together and making love and his lips on mine, his hands on me, and… clicking off the vidscreen to the cockpit, I tell her, “I’ll be back.”

that rubs along my thigh, as eager as his lips that cover mine.

now,” he sighs.

mine. “I like it when you call me Jesus,” I murmur, but he kisses me quiet because he’s done playing, he wants me and he’s going to have me and he’s getting no argument from me there.

knew we were getting it on here—”

can wait. I try to push away but Dylan’s stronger than me and he holds me close. “Where do you think you’re going?” His breath is hot and exciting along my skin. “Val—”

I’m interested. “Be right there,” I tell her, and with another kiss, another squeeze and a promise to pick this up later where we left off, Dylan follows me from the cockpit. An incoming signal—I don’t even let myself think about what it might be.

blip blip blip signals an incoming transmission, but they’re waiting for us to arrive before accepting it. All four crew members turn as we enter, and Leena hops from my seat to Vallery’s knee, where she perches, waiting. They’re all waiting. When I sink into my chair, Dylan sits on the armrest and I flash Vallery a tight grin. “Well,” I start, but I can’t think of anything else to say so I turn to the control panel, watch the blinking light on the transmit button. I wait.

You hit the transmit, a voice inside me whispers. You say hello. It’s not that hard, is it?

waiting—for a moment I think he’s not going to speak, for the first time since I’ve known him he doesn’t know what to say, and I place a comforting hand on his knee. He slips his fingers into mine and clears his throat, and it’s his strong, authoritative voice that says, “Semper Fi, standing by.”

Semper Fi, this is S410. Welcome.”

humans and Dylan’s been right all along, this is one of the Starseed colonies and I’m going to kiss him silly tonight, tell him he was right, he’s amazing, they’ll name a star after him for this for sure—but another burst of static grates across the comm-link and then the stranger speaks again. “I repeat, Semper Fi, this is S410. Welcome.”

humans out there!

Semper Fi. We picked up your signal just outside of the Epsilon system and were sent to investigate. We’re in this region on a two year star-map jaunt and… um…” He turns to me for help.

At least lay off the transmit, I think. They don’t need to hear the comments from the peanut gallery.

Captain Teague. Finally getting some respect,” he says, but Leena slaps the back of his head and he ducks out of reach with another laugh. “No union,” he transmits. “You have a name, kid?”

that works out.

need to know.”

worked.”

anything yet, but I can look around at the others and know they’re already believing this, we’re already heroes in their minds, I can read the visions of glory in their eyes. Dylan’s especially, and I want to take him in my arms, turn him around, make him look at me and listen to me and make him realize we can’t be jumping to conclusions right yet, we can’t be celebrating this when we don’t even really know what this is.

us?”

Tonight, I tell myself, and I hope he can read that promise in my eyes. Tonight I’ll hold you, baby, and kiss you and make it all better. I’ll let you be right. “If we’re not landing,” he asks, looking at me like he expects me to be the one to answer him, “then what the hell are we doing out here, anyway?”

talk about this anymore. Where he leans against me, I can feel his body hum with unspent energy. “Didn’t he say that? Ten pregnant women. That’s why they want to make sure we’re not a threat.”

knows what we’re going to do,” Vallery points out. Johnson glances over his shoulder at her and then sighs again, stalks away from my chair and throws himself against the wall by the door, angry. Vallery looks at me as if for confirmation. “This was his idea, wasn’t it? Sending you guys, sending the fighters—he knows we’re going in.”

then call it in.”

now, he doesn’t want to wait until tonight.

my suit. “This one’s yours.”

Semper Fi, over. I repeat—”

Semper Fi,” Conlan says, unaware of Dylan’s teasing. “Request transmission of personnel medical files. I repeat—”

your armament?” he wants to know, his voice bitter and fast. “You have forty-two colonists, where are their med files? What’s the terrain like down there? What’s the condition of your craft? We don’t know s**t about you guys—we need this info before we land—” Dylan grapples with Johnson, trying to pull him back, and Leena wedges herself between the radio tech and the control panel, knocking his hand from the transmit and shoving him away. “Get off me!” Johnson cries, struggling, but Dylan’s stronger than he is and Leena’s scrappy, she manages to avoid his flailing arms and helps Dylan get Johnson behind the seats until he’s up against the door and sputtering in anger. “We need to know what we’re getting into,” he says, trying to extract himself from his crewmates. “We’re flying into this thing blind, can’t you see that? We don’t know—”

must have, and he probably doubts the validity of my apology, he’s wondering where Dylan’s gone off to, he’s wondering what the hell kind of command we have if the radio tech can just interrupt the transmission like that but none of us expected it, I know I sure as hell didn’t. I’m about to apologize again, beg him to believe me if I have to, we can’t come this far and be denied the chance to land and check out this colony, Dixon will kill us if we let this slip by, fire us on the spot, but then Conlan says, “Our DAQ coords are as follows—” and I know it’s going to go right this time, I know we’ll get down there and we’ll land, we’ll be the first to find one of the lost Starseed colonies, and Dylan will finally get his name on a star.

anything to make the time pass. “What kind of committee do you think it might be?”

should let Mike talk to these people.” Her voice is soft, barely audible, like she’s afraid of speaking too loud. “Just to find out what we are getting into here. Maybe—”

should listen to him, but I don’t want to go against Dylan, he’s my lover and captain of this ship, his word is carved in stone as long as we’re in flight, I can’t side against him. “If this is Starseed—”

assume it is, but they’ve never come out and said so, have they?”

not be Starseed,” I tell her. “We just don’t know. It might be another ship out there, lost and stranded and don’t give me that look, it might.”

know this is one of the colony ships.”

Wherever I’m at, I think, because I’m not really sure myself. I’m just making this up as I go along. “So. They’ve been cut off from civilization for the past two decades. If we’re thinking this is a Starseed ship, then we have to assume they have the supplies and terraforming equipment all of the ships left with, which should have been enough to get them started. So they should have a whole system set up by now, don’t you think? A steady food source, a community structure—it should all be in place already.” She nods again. “So why shouldn’t they have a committee of some sort? Maybe it is a government, I don’t know, but I’d be more surprised if they didn’t have some kind of representation, some sort of figurehead, someone calling the shots.” When she doesn’t answer immediately, I add, “You know?”

Now she looks up at me, her eyes wide and scared. “They’re down to what, forty-two? And Conlan made a point to tell us ten women are pregnant, like he was proud of the fact. Like it meant something special. What happened to the other colonists, Neal?” she asks. “If it’s been twenty years, you’d think a hundred people would have multiplied, the colony would have grown, but it didn’t. What happened to the others?”

like me, he didn’t like that we were together and nothing I said seemed to get through that boy. He loved me, he loves me, and that’s the only thing that matters to him some days. He thinks it should be as simple as that. I wish it were.

seen the Terran moon. But Vallery oohs like she knows what he’s talking about and when she looks at me, I nod, too, why not? We’re here, aren’t we? I’m nervous and excited and can’t stop grinning—we’re really here. S410. Leena’s right, we’re going in the annals for this.

Conlan, I think as Vallery opens the channel. “Semper Fi,” she says, her voice bright and pretty. “Navigator Vallery Andrews, standing by.”

us, I hit the transmit and tell him, “Yes, he’s been in contact with us since the comm-link opened.” Data fills the screen in front of me, the files he’s downloading to our DAQ system. “Get Shanley in here to look at this,” I whisper, and with a curt nod, Vallery leaves the nav deck. Into the transmit, I laugh and admit, “You know, we’re all very excited about this.” Less than a half hour now and we’ll be down there, shaking hands with these guys, making history.

Conlan, Jeremy S., the first one reads, and I wonder just how random the selection process was. “That’s what he said,” I tell him, flipping to the next file. Thomas, Marie J. “I have Conlan and a girl, Marie.”

want to keep extensive records on every single person. The tiniest scrape, a toothache, irregular menstruation cycles, it’d all be written down.”

are any others.”

pregnancy,” Leena points out. Crossing the deck, she takes the file from me and scans it quickly. Then she taps the paper and says, “See? Right here, second pregnancy. Not second child.” As she hands the file back, she asks, “What happened to the first one? There’s nothing in this about the first pregnancy, is there?”

censorship? Is this some kind of game for them?”

course they’re going to be cautious.”

he thinks should be of no consequence—he’s the radio tech, not a navigator, but I don’t say that, I know Shanley’s only trying to calm the kid down. Kid, as if he’s not the same age as my lover, but he acts so damn childish sometimes, worse than Dylan in full pouting glory. Glancing over the file, Johnson shrugs, noncommittal. “I’m not even really sure what I’m looking at here,” he admits grudgingly.

happy. “Don’t—”

told you so,” she says again.

We picked up the planetoid on our vidscreens, the text reads, and landed with difficulties resulting from the meteor damage.Early efforts at terraforming proved fruitless, but the ship was inhabitable and the survivors— ”Of what?” I ask out loud. Looking around at the crew, my gaze falls on Shanley, who watches me closely. “The survivors decided to maintain a colony aboard the ship, but the survivors of what?”

survivors, do you?”

was survival.”

me, and he sighs. “We’ll just have to ask them when we get there,” he tells me. “We’re in a delicate situation here, Neal. They don’t trust us as it is. If we press them too far, they may deny us landing clearance altogether.”

are one of the Starseed ships, that’s it, and we suspected that all along. “If they’re defenseless like they keep saying they are, how will they keep us from landing? That doesn’t make any sense.”

wants to go— ”You can’t keep me from this,” he tells us as Vallery configures the landing system. He leans back against the control panel, one foot propped up on my chair by my thigh, his arms folded across his chest. “I earned this. It’s my signal, they spoke to me first, I deserve to go down there.”

Semper Fi. It’s less intimidating.”

really, right?”

want to go down there, check out the land and these colonists and the ship, see what’s kept them planet-bound for the last twenty years, get answers to the plethora of questions tearing through my mind right now. But if she has her heart set on going, I’ll give up my seat. If I have to.

not now.

should go, you know what questions to ask about all this.” With a grin, she elbows Johnson and says, “It’s just you and us girls, boy. Isn’t this going to be fun?”

Semper Fi—he landed his bird in the hangar and didn’t bother going through the decon procedures, not to enter the ship when he’s just going out there again anyway. I lean back against one of the cold, white walls of the airlock, and I can feel the steel bite through the thick jacket I wear over my jumpsuit. I toy with the zipper and then stop myself, I’m not nervous, I’m not. These are humans, just like us. If anything, they’re probably terrified—who knows what they’re expecting? Some of them have never even seen another living creature outside of their tiny little planet, we’re their first contact with anyone else. If anyone should be nervous, it’s them, not us. Not me.

want to do. He’s all about mapping this region, that’s it.”

Semper Fi.