Bightmares

Chapter Five

They spent their first several days on Mars unloading cargo meant for the Martian base and loading the supplies they needed for their mission. Emi stayed out of the way and watched the three men work. This side of them, all business and focused on their jobs, fell in sharp contrast to their playful, loving, silly sides. She had no doubt if their lives were ever in danger, it would be these personalities, not her playful lovers, fighting to save them.

Aaron, drenched with sweat, stopped to pull off his shirt and draped it over a packing crate.

Emi let out a wolf whistle from her perch.

Ford and Caph laughed and immediately stripped theirs as well.

“Well?” they parroted.

Despite laughing, she managed to let two more wolf whistles fly.

Through the cargo gangway, she heard noises in the complex as the docking crews secured another large ship into its berth. Upon their arrival, only two other large ships, both medium-heavies smaller than the Tamora Bight, had been docked, in addition to several smaller passenger transports. The Tamora Bight was a type called a full heavy, a large, deep space cargo freighter now retrofitted for exploration duties. Curious, Emi walked down the cargo gangway into the main docking area and watched as the docking crews finished securing the newly-arrived vessel. When the cargo doors and main gangway opened a few minutes later, her breath caught in her throat when Captain Rob Elloy of the Kendall Kant walked out to confer with the dockmaster.

She ducked inside their gangway and pressed her body against the wall, her heart pounding.

“You okay?”

Emi nearly screamed when Aaron touched her shoulder. She hadn’t heard or sensed him coming, her nerves stretched to breaking.

He frowned at her response, then looked out the gangway. With a smile, he pulled her to him. “Remember,” he whispered, “Graymard pulled them from the sim immediately after you rejected them as a crew. The rest of that stuff that happened with them, it didn’t really happen. It was just programmed in as part of the sim.”

She closed her eyes and tried to relax, memories of the sexy exhibitionist show she’d put on with Caph and Ford to get revenge on Rob Elloy and his crew still fresh in her mind, even though it happened only in the sim. Not only had her wild and racy striptease never happened, nor her orgasmic screams broadcasted to the entire dry dock via intercom, neither had Elloy’s nasty comments about her men that prompted it. “So what you’re saying is I need to not hate them.”

Aaron’s deep, rumbling chuckle resonated through her body. “No, don’t hate them. Yeah, me and the twins have had run-ins with Rob and his guys. Nothing major. Normal bullshit. They’re good at their job even if we don’t always see eye to eye with them.” He caught her chin and tipped her face to his. “Remember, you’re our wife. We love you. We don’t give a shit what they or anyone else thinks of us. We never have. Don’t go trying to defend our honor for us.”

“Is that an order, Captain?”

He arched his eyebrows at her. “If you want to take it as one, Doctor, it certainly is.”

She let out a breath as she relaxed against him. “I’ll act professional.”

He rubbed her back as she nestled in his arms. “That’s all I ask.”

The men took a break to eat when Emi fixed them sandwiches and brought them down to the cargo hold. That’s when Captain Elloy appeared in their cargo gangway entrance.

Aaron spotted him first. “Hi, Rob.”

“Permission to come aboard?” he nervously asked.

Aaron, not as big on formalities as the former ISNC officer, waved him in. “To what do we owe the honor?”

He glanced at Emi before returning his focus to Aaron. “Just wanted to say hi. Didn’t get a chance to wish you all good luck before you left Earth.”

Ford couldn’t hold back. “Thought you were supposed to be a four-pack. They send you guys out alone?” Even though Ford’s tone sounded deceptively light, Emi didn’t miss the deep vein of irritation running through him.

“No, we’re paired. Our med officer had to take care of some things on Earth before joining us. She’s arriving in three days. She asked me to pass a message to Dr. Hypatia.”

That set all four on edge. “What?” she asked, startled. “What are you talking about?”

“Actually, it’s a message from all of us. Thanking you.”

She didn’t sense sarcasm from him and held her hand up to stay the acerbic retort she knew Caph itched to dish out. “Thanking me?”

Elloy actually blushed as a hint of a smile crept across his hard features. “Dr. Stevens said she’s looking forward to catching up with you.”

“Dr. Stevens?” Emi squealed with joy. “Donna signed up for the DSMC?”

Elloy actually grinned, something Emi never imagined the experienced military man could do. “She said you suggested she look into signing up. She did, the day after you guys lifted.”

Emi jumped off the cargo crate she was sitting on and threw her arms around Elloy in a hug. “Congratulations!” While Emi knew she wasn’t a good match for the personality-challenged grunts, as she’d dubbed them, she’d offhandedly mentioned to her best friend she should sign up for the DSMC, with the Kendall Kant’s crew in mind.

Elloy awkwardly returned Emi’s hug before stepping back and clearing his throat. Emi had turned the former military men down due to their rigid view of following “regulations,” and their less than enthusiastic response to her rounded figure.

The men of the Tamora Bight, by contrast, more than appreciated her, inside and out.

“So how did they race through your training so fast?” Aaron asked.

Emi caught a whiff of Elloy’s emotions, like he’d been chastised. “Extenuating circumstances. They needed us up and running. What she doesn’t know, she’s learning on the way here. We can teach her other stuff once we’re underway.”

Aaron stepped forward and offered his hand. They shook. “Congratulations, Rob. So what’s next for you guys?”

“Actually, we just got our orders a little bit ago. Change in plans. We’re following you to the first stop for support, that’s why the rush. Didn’t they tell you?”

“I haven’t received final orders yet. We’re supposed to get them soon.”

Elloy returned to business mode. “We have to jump to the Acetal sol-sys. It’s in the Perseus Arm. The DSMC received an emergency message from the Aroykin settling colony there that they’re having a medical crisis.”

Caph frowned. “Perseus? Isn’t that ISNC responsibility?”

“Normally,” Elloy confirmed. “They don’t have any other available ships besides the three of us that can make the jump like we can with the supplies and possibly perform a full colony evac if needed. And it is a DSMC-established colony.”

“Wait,” Aaron interrupted. “Three ships?”

“You, us, and the Braynow Gaston.”

Emi silently groaned. Figured. That was the other crew she’d turned down. The other end of the spectrum from the grunts, the Braynow Gaston’s crew were geeks. Handsome and nice, but not her cup of tea. “They got paired?” she asked.

“No. They’ll return to Earth immediately following this assignment. This is an emergency and considered a priority. There are three hundred colonists. The DSMC wanted to make sure they could be evac’d if necessary, and we have the three biggest ships that can do it.”

“What, exactly, is the nature of the medical emergency?” Emi asked.

“We don’t know. The transmission cut out. All I know is when the BG gets here, we leave. Donna…I mean, Dr. Stevens, is hitching a ride with them.”

Emi grinned. “Sounds like someone’s not quite following regulations when it comes to addressing crew,” she teased. That had been a point of contention when she first met the Kendall Kant crew, their rigid formality.

He blushed again. Knowing Donna, she had quickly gotten under the men’s skin in a way Emi couldn’t have. “I want to apologize to you, by the way,” Elloy said.

Well, that shocked the hell out of her. “What?”

“We acted a lot harsher than we realized or intended. We were,” he coughed, “turned down four more times before Dr. Stevens applied for the program. Dr. Graymard broke protocol and showed me playbacks of our aborted sim sessions before we had our pairing session with Dr. Stevens.” He blushed again, leaving Emi to wonder if this was a sim. “He told me we, in his exact words, acted like ‘fucking assholes’. That if we didn’t loosen up a little, we’d end up partnered with our right hands.”

Ford laughed so hard he fell back on the crate he was sitting on. “Holy crap, I think I’m dreaming. Rob Elloy admitted he fucked up!”

Aaron smirked. “Well, then I guess the twins and I also owe you and your guys a thank you.”

Elloy nodded. Emi tried to sense the other captain’s feelings again. She focused on his brown eyes, a different shade than Aaron’s. Although now Emi knew Graymard had stacked the deck in her men’s favor by introducing her to two crews totally off the charts in how incompatible they were with her, she also knew Elloy and his crew were good men and dedicated to their duties and mission.

And they were, apparently, now also deeply dedicated to Emi’s best friend.

Their orders arrived an hour later. Emi and the twins gathered on the bridge behind Aaron at the command console as they read over his shoulder. They would leave as soon as the Braynow Gaston had time to refuel, conduct maintenance, and load their supplies. Priority mission. If the settlers needed to be evacuated, they would be brought to the DSMC’s complex on Ganymede. The population of Jupiter’s moon, smaller than the Martian bases, was comprised mostly of ISNC and DSMC employees.

Aaron reached up and patted Emi’s hand. “We’ll go to the UP complex tomorrow. There’s regular transports all day.”

She nervously cuddled between her men that night. Long after they’d fallen asleep, she lay awake in Ford’s arms, her mind racing. She should be beyond this, especially after the men’s reassurances that Kelsey’s family would welcome her.

Come Martian dawn, she’d barely slept. The men acted unusually quiet throughout breakfast and during their walk through the docking sector to where they would catch a transport to another complex.

Ford carried a small thermal bag over his shoulder, but she didn’t ask the contents and he didn’t volunteer them. She sensed from all three of them it was something they normally did when on Mars, part of their ritual, part of their healing.

Two hours later, they stepped out of the transport into the UP complex. This part reminded her of the sim. She saw signs for the tram station where she and Ford had traveled to the agri-complex. As they walked toward a different tram station, Aaron’s thumb gently stroked her hand, his nervous gesture. One she hadn’t felt…well, since their sim time.

She sent her mind out and felt some of his old sadness, tempered in part by his current love for her.

They debarked from the tram at a memorial complex, a large dome encompassing several thousand acres of parkland. It was also a cemetery. A discrete and tastefully decorated booth at the entrance provided small locator beacons no larger than a thumb drive. Ford took the lead here and pressed a button to activate a display screen. Then he scrolled through a list of names and pressed another button before inserting the beacon into a small slot below the screen. The beacon briefly glowed blue, and then a low beep indicated the process was complete. He withdrew it and turned toward the path.

As they followed, Ford in the lead, Caph laced his fingers through Emi’s free hand. Aaron still held her other.

Caph leaned in and murmured, “They change the park all the time. Plus the plants grow, so it makes it look different.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything as they followed Ford down the winding path. Very peaceful, it reminded her of Earth in many ways, down to the sounds of birds, the breeze, and softly bubbling water.

A flurry of wings exploded in a tree next to them, startling her. Two cardinals took off from their perch on the branch of an oak tree and flew away.

Okay, so the bird songs weren’t piped in.

After fifteen minutes the beacon glowed in Ford’s hand. They spotted a corresponding glow twenty yards off the path, in a gently sloping area that overlooked a small pond.

Ford slipped the beacon into his pocket. They followed him to the source of the glow, which disappeared as they approached. As they gathered around where it had been, Emi spotted a small, clear crystal geode nestled in the grass. The source, no doubt.

Now that she paid attention, she noticed several of the crystal geodes scattered around. Unless you were right on top of one, they were nearly impossible to see from a distance.

Aaron slipped his arm around her shoulders as Ford unzipped the bag and broke out a thermal carafe and four small cups. He poured the servings. “Mint tea,” he explained, handing Emi one.

“Her favorite,” Caph whispered. When she looked, his green eyes glistened, tears rolling down his cheeks. Emi reached over and patted his large thigh. He laced his fingers through hers again and squeezed.

His big size housed an even larger heart. More fragile than her other two men in many ways, Caph’s physique incongruously concealed his gentle and sensitive soul.

The men held up their cups in a toast. Emi did the same.

Ford spoke first, his blue eyes full of sadness despite the happy memory he spoke of. “That first morning after we all got together,” he softly said, “when you called us ‘your boys.’ I knew I loved you then, Kels. I fucking miss the hell out of you, girl.” He took a sip of his tea and looked at Caph.

Caph looked down. Emi’s heart broke over the pain she felt keening through him. “That night in the bar when that woman hit on me and you threatened to kick her ass if she didn’t leave me the hell alone. You called me your husband even though we weren’t really married.” He took a sip of his tea.

Emi looked at Aaron. His brown eyes had darkened in his pain. As they closed, he whispered, “You told me thank you for loving you and told me how much you loved me and Ford and Caph before I lost you.” His hand trembled slightly as he took a sip.

Then he squeezed Emi’s hand, and all the men looked at her expectantly.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” Ford softly encouraged. “It’s okay. Feel free to say anything.”

She wasn’t sure what to say. After a moment of consideration, she said, “Thank you for loving them and showing them how good they could be together. I promise I’ll love them as much as you did and take good care of them.” She took a sip.

They all held their cups up again. Aaron’s voice sounded rough. “Crew first,” he said.

They all repeated it, then finished their tea. Without speaking again, Ford collected their cups. He carefully poured what little remained in the carafe onto the grass around the crystal geode. Then he kissed the tip of his hand and touched his fingers to the geode. Caph, then Aaron, repeated the gesture before they stood and walked to the entrance without speaking.

Ford returned the beacon to the booth. Outside the dome’s entrance, the men took turns tightly hugging Emi.

“Thank you, babe,” Ford said. “That was great.”

Caph concurred. “She would have liked you,” he said as he hugged her.

Aaron held her for a long moment as she felt him trying to pull his emotions back into their highly protected place in his soul. “Thank you for loving us, Em,” he whispered in her ear. “I can’t begin to tell you how much.”

She offered him a smile. “Hey, I’m the lucky one.” She hooked her arms through Caph and Aaron’s as they followed Ford back to the tram depot.

They didn’t return to the main depot. They took another series of trams to the far side of the base, where the residential area was located. Markkus and Delaney D’ambroise still worked for the terraforming division of the DSMC. Emi felt herself trying to contain her nerves as they approached their housing pod. Ironic, because the men had relaxed and even looked forward to seeing the D’ambroises again, their usual playful banter returning as their moods lightened.

Ford pressed the doorbell. A moment later the door slid open. Emi felt another wave of sadness, this time her own. This woman was about the age her own grandmothers would have been, had they still been alive. Kelsey had received her hazel eyes from her mother. Emi also suspected the soft, natural grey color had once been the same dark blonde of her daughter’s hair.

Delaney D’ambroise’s face lit up when she spotted the men. “My boys!” The short, slim woman immediately engulfed Ford, who stood closest to the door, in a huge hug.

Emi felt nothing but joy from the woman.

“Caph!” She laughed as he picked her up when he hugged her.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

After he set her on her feet, she patted him on the arm and turned to Aaron, who also got a hug. Then she offered Emi a smile. “You must be Emilia.”

“Please, call me Emi.”

Delaney also had a hug for her. “Would you please call me Mom? The boys do.”

Times like this, Emi loved her empathic skills. Her own nervousness finally slipped away as she felt the woman’s genuinely warm reception. “Thank you, Mom. I’d like that.”

“Well, come on in! Mark is in the kitchen.” She led them inside. Emi glanced around at the small but tidy and warmly decorated space. Earth tones for sure, autumn colors of orange, gold, and red interspersed with bright greens and light blues reminiscent of spring and early summer days. Over the main vid screen in their living room, a large picture hung on the wall. It was the same picture Ford had shown her the afternoon in the sim when he told her their “crew story,” Kels in the front, the three men standing behind her, taken in happier days.

There were other pictures of their daughter with any combination of the men and alone in her childhood.

Their only child.

Markkus stood as tall and beefy as his wife was short and willowy. Black hair liberally sprinkled with grey, wrinkles creased the corners of his grey eyes.

Whatever he had cooking smelled fantastic.

“Ribs,” Delaney offered, noticing Emi’s reaction.

Caph broke into a wide, beaming grin. “Damn, Mom! You remembered!”

“Gotta feed our big guy right,” Markkus teased.

Emi found it easy to call the couple Mom and Dad. The conversation flowed, catching up at first, current events on both sides, the couple getting to know Emi, and everyone relaxing. As dinner progressed at a leisurely pace, they started talking about Kels in better days, happy memories that had the men laughing, her parents smiling, and Emi feeling like part of the family, being brought into the fold as they shared those things.

The men offered to help Markkus clean up the kitchen. “I don’t do dishes,” Delaney teased. “I hate cooking, always did. Hate cleaning up even more. I do all the other stuff he hates to do. I think it’s a fair trade,” she said with a laugh.

When the women sat alone in the living room, Delaney leaned over and patted Emi on the knee. “You’re good for them. They haven’t been this happy in…” Her face clouded. “A long time. Since then.”

Then Emi realized something she’d missed earlier. “You’re an empath, too, aren’t you?”

Delaney smiled. “Yep. A trained class one. I worried about those boys. Especially Aaron there at the start. We almost lost him.” She sat back and picked at her fingernails. “I worried about Caph, that if they lost Aaron, Ford would have to have him medicated and put in restraints. I don’t know how Ford didn’t lose his mind. Bless his heart, his plate was full. I always worried if he had time to grieve properly because he was so busy with the others.”

Emi glanced into the kitchen. The men laughed, smiled, and joked with Markkus. “He’s a lot stronger than he looks. They all are.”

“Last time we saw them was when they picked up the Tamora Bight.” She looked sad and shook her head. “Poor Aaron. No matter how much we all tried to reassure him, he couldn’t forgive himself for losing Kels, even that many years later.” She took a deep breath, then smiled. “I can’t tell you how glad I am they met you. In many ways, the old Aaron is back. I can sense it. And he’s really, truly happy again, in a way the twins couldn’t heal him.”

Emi looked into the kitchen again when she heard Aaron’s deep, rumbling laugh.

“That’s a good sound,” Delaney said. “I wondered if we’d ever hear it again. For the longest time, I never thought we would.”

“It’s a very good sound,” Emi agreed.