Echo Book 2

2. Hyperspace

I relax by the pool in my bikini.

Tre takes the chair beside me. "This is a nice vacation."

"Yea, the last couple of weeks have been hell. It's nice to lie here."

"Can we get some injections to study them?"

"Of course. But don't try to take them."

"I know."

"And a lot of people will die if you introduce them to your planet. It's a risk. People usually take them after their children are grown."

"They give up the ability to have children with them, right?"

"Yes. That's why they wait until after the kids."

"You are giving me tingles, woman."

I peek at him. "I thought that was a very weird thing to say to me, Tre."

Nadine giggles. "Sorry, he's so sexy sitting here in shorts."

"I want tingles too." I glance around. "He's not even here." I plop back down.

"See if Tim can give you tingles. He's here."

"No. That's so different."

Tre nods. "It takes some time to get used to the idea. But he's not going anywhere, and that bond is going to turn on when you come of age. You might want to get to know him first."

"No. People here... We get married, have a baby or two. Become grandparents some day. Grow old together. There's no variety in that plan. I've never heard of anything else."

Nadine smiles. "You're not going to grow old. You're going to live for a very long time. Thousands of years. The plan is already different for you. What does Malax think about you having more than 1 mate?"

I shrug my shoulders. I'm done talking. They can't make me believe it, and I'm going to marry Malax.

I feel tingles and smile. "You're home."

"I'm home, baby. Did you have a nice day?"

"I did. I laid here."

"Everything is going well. We're going to earth with them for a few days. They want to..."

I jump straight up. "I'LL PACK."

"I thought she would argue." I hear them laugh as I run inside.

I put some of everything I own in my bags. Then I send them to the front steps. Eriska is there with everything she owns. Then Rye shows up and we sit on the steps.

"THEY'RE OUT HERE."

I smile at Marcus. "We're ready."

"Load all this stuff and take it to their ship."

"Yes, sir."

We stare as the side of the shuttle turns into a ramp and the brains carry Eriska's car into it."

"I guess we're taking my car."

"Yep. We should take a helicopter too."

Rye shakes his head. "We have the shuttles. They'll be fine."

"Good point."

Dipak rubs his eyes. "We're taking shuttles over to Zircon. Braxtin made us each a suppra to keep. They put a lab on our ship. It is docked at the Phade space pad. So, once we get done at Zircon, Nadine, Thora, Nik, Mason, Marcus, Johen, and Tye will be going to Phade and taking our ship home. Me and Tre will ride with Malax. We can show them how some things work."

"Are we going to the space pad now?"

"No. Braxtin has to make sure the optical feet hook together or something weird. Then you are putting our suppra's on our ship and taking it. Don't leave without them."

"That was nice of him to make them for us."

"No it wasn't. We had to pay an ass load of money. The man does not care that we are kings. Then we had to pay more for the lab."

"Daddy does not give discounts easily."

Malax nods. "Or ever. He doesn't understand the concept."

"Tim, you are taking your ship. Which I am not paying for a lab to be put in. But your suppra will be on the Kinnik ship. In their lab."

"Oh that's right, we stole daddy's lab. I guess that works."

"How many people can connect in?"

"4."

"That's enough."

"He replaced the lab in his house. We can steal it again if you want more."

"Let's get another 1. Go do that."

"Yes, sir."

"You should have looted her dads house too, Dipak."

"I really should have. Let's go."

We get to Zircon and daddy gives them each a suppra. Now they can look like themselves. Then he gives each of us another 1. I jump up and down. Now we each have 1 for the ship. Daddy makes sure everything works, and we get them loaded up. Then we go to our ship.

Me and Eriska drag chairs to the window in the command room. We stare out the window as Tre and Dipak teach Malax and Rye how to drive.

"Right now, we are traveling through your solar system. This is normal speed for the ship. Your solar system has 24 planets. We could go by all of them in a couple of hours."

"It's fast."

"It's nothing compared to hyperspace." Everything outside the windows turns to light trails. "This is hyperspace. We are moving exceptionally fast." We stop and we're outside our galaxy. "This is your galaxy. Your planet is in there. Your solar system is in there somewhere. Along with thousands of other solar systems and planets. We are from a different galaxy. In that direction."

I fall off my chair. All I can see are galaxies in every direction. "This is more than I ever dreamed of."

Tre smiles. "As you decide to take more planets, you can stay in your own galaxy and get them to submit. Or you could make them as far apart as you want. Have planets in different galaxies."

"I wanted to show you from here, so you can understand. But we're going home now. We'll be there in about 14 hours."

"I can't wait." My ass finds its way into the seat again.

My ass must find its way to bed at some point because that's where I wake up. I nearly kill Malax trying to get to the window.

I take a shower with him. Then I pick my outfit on the tablet. The closet spits it out, and I go in search of food.

I don't have to go far, there's a box on the wall. Malax hands me a menu. "Tell the ship what you want to eat. It can make anything on the menu."

"Scrambled eggs and toast with strawberries. And some milk."

The box dings and I get my food out. "I have concerns."

"Yea, there is an entire level of animals. They're taken care of. I checked it. You can check it later."

I bite a strawberry. "Level for produce too?"

"Yep."

"Interesting."

He grabs breakfast out of the box and sits with me at the table. "Very."

"What do you think of the multiple mates... thing?"

"I don't know, baby. At first, I wasn't speaking because I didn't want to offend Nadine or her mates."

"Same. I'm still half afraid to say anything. It's weird though."

"It's different. But they seem happy. All of them."

"Yea, they really do. She loves them. They love her. It's just not how we do things. Maybe we're weird."

"I don't think so. They said it's rare. Most people have 1 soulmate. She got 8 for some reason."

"Do you think we're soulmates?"

"I do. I feel so much for you. I can even feel our bond. That's something I could never do as a human. I can't wait for you to feel it. They're going to verify it with a test when we get there. But you're mine. I'm marrying you and spending my life with you. I have no doubt you're mine."

"You're mine too. All of this changes so much. All of our plans have to be different now."

"Not all. We can take as much time as we need. You can have 5 years for school. I can concentrate on Cru N. Then we can see other planets. Or we can see other planets now and let everything else wait. We get to decide. It's not all different."

Some chimes sound, then an announcement plays. "Arriving in 20 minutes. Please report to the command area."

I stand up and freeze.

"What, baby? You ok?"

"What if I have 8 soulmates?"

His eyebrows shoot up. "Let's do 1 thing at a time. We'll start by going to the command area."