Out of Bight, Out of Mind

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Recovering the remainder of her memories was an agonizingly emotional process, but one Emi refused to shy away from. With the combination of the sim sessions, guided meditation tricks, and a lot of crying on the shoulders of Donna and her men, Emi quickly struggled her way through it to the amazement of Graymard and his staff.

And since having met other F’ahrkays without feeling the same darkness she had before, she realized more than ever how spot-on her empathic senses had been about Kayehalau and his intentions.

Her men swore to never challenge her again on that point.

They wouldn’t dare. Not after what happened.

The ISNC and DSMC also instituted new regulations that trained empaths could overrule the assignment of a crew member to a ship of less than ten permanent crew members without other cause. More than ten members, the captain and medical officer, if the med officer wasn’t the empath, also had to sign off on the refusal.

Five months after returning to New Phoenix and three months following the night of Emi’s breakthrough in the sim, what few holes remained in her memories amounted to little more than the smallest of moth-made wounds in the largest of tapestries.

In other words, she could live with it.

With her skills completely intact, and her knowledge of the Bight’s systems as strong as ever, Graymard cleared her to resume her duties. She asked for, and was granted, an extra week to take care of a few Earth-based errands.

Emi and her men, along with Donna and her men, and Yanna and Pabo, had a quiet celebratory dinner at the same expensive hillside resort with the great view that Emi and her men had stayed at before leaving on their first mission.

Before they started eating, Aaron held his champagne glass up in a toast. Emi looked into his sweet, brown eyes and enjoyed the flow of love from him as well as Caph and Ford.

The happiness that they were once again a whole family.

“Life is short,” he said, his voice choking up a little. “Too damn short. So to family. And to friends who are every bit as good as family,” he said with a nod toward the K-2 crew. “And to never, ever giving up hope. Crew first.”

They all repeated it. “Crew first.”

He leaned in and kissed her after they drank to the toast. Nuzzling his forehead against hers, she felt more than just love flowing from him at that moment.

He was as horny as she was. For that matter, so were Caph and Ford.

They made it through dinner without ripping their clothes off in front of Donna and her men. But from emotions Emi felt from that foursome, they wouldn’t be dawdling long at the dinner table either.

When Emi and her men returned to the room, she started ripping her clothes off as soon as she stepped through the door. She enjoyed the identical looks of pleased shock her men wore as she bounced, naked, onto the center of the bed.

“Come and get me.”

They swarmed her, eager tongues and fingers and the feeling of their passion filling her senses like a drug. One thing she would always be thankful for, she realized that either her empath senses were now far stronger than they ever had been before, or she’d become more skilled at using them. But it was hotter than hell feeling how badly her men wanted her.

Caph somehow managed to shuck his pants and underwear first, even though he still wore his shirt. His cock easily slid home into her well-lubricated pussy as Aaron and Ford still struggled to get naked.

“Hey,” Aaron playfully complained. “That’s no fair. He’s still got his shirt on.”

She held on for the wild ride as Caph slammed his cock into her, each thrust driving her up the bed until he finally came.

She clung to him, breathless and even more horny than before.

“You all right, babe?”

She loved that he’d finally put aside his timidity regarding her. He knew she wasn’t going to break. “No. I didn’t come.”

“Aww. Sorry. Here, let me make it better.”

She let out a squeal of laughter as he threw her legs over his shoulder and went to town. Her squeals soon turned to moans of pleasure as Aaron and Ford each latched onto a nipple and began sucking.

And when she came, she thought the top of her head would come off.

Caph sat up, a pleased look on his face. Then Aaron shoved him over, making him fall onto his side. “Move it. Horny captain coming through.”

“And coming,” Emi joked.

By the time they finished fucking each other exhausted an hour later, Emi was ready to fall asleep. Sated, happy, and even better, tendrils of her husbands’ love for her still flowing through her, she drifted off into a happy, dreamless sleep.

Two days later, Emi and her men took an air transport to Montana, where they rented a car and drove. The quiet hillside overlooked the valley where the city of Bozeman lay below. Emi didn’t need to stop at the office to know where to go. Her feet knew the way.

From memory.

The men hovered behind her in silence, following her through the rows of grave markers until she stopped in the shade of a silver maple tree. A small, engraved granite marker with two notations side by side, with different birthdates…

And the same date of death.

Dr. Jasper Hypatia, and Dr. Melinda Ellingham Hypatia — Beloved parents.

Emi dropped to her knees in front of the markers and set the small vase of daisies and marigolds in a notch on the bottom of the marker. She kissed her fingers and first touched her mother’s name, then her father’s.

The men stood alert, but respecting her need to do this despite them wanting to hover and comfort her.

“It was raining the day of the funeral,” she softly said after several minutes of nothing but the sounds of birds and the wind to break the quiet. “The headmistress of the school brought me. She was really nice. Mrs. Attwater.” Emi ran her hands up and down her arms against the crisp chill in the air. “She let me stay as long as I wanted. She didn’t try to rush me to leave when it finished. A lot of people showed up. They were well known in their field.”

She sniffled, the memories flowing faster, harder, the dam completely gone. “I sat here in a rain poncho while Mrs. A stood under the tree with an umbrella. I didn’t want to use the umbrella she brought for me. Several of their colleagues offered to let me come stay with them, but I told them no thanks.

“When it was late and I was ready to go, Mrs. Attwater drove me down into Bozeman so I could see the house one more time.” She laughed. “I remember when we first moved there when I was little, I wanted to paint it pink. Mom and Dad told me we couldn’t do that, but they let me paint my bedroom pink.”

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back so the breeze could dry the tears on her cheeks. “I loved it here when I was a kid. It was a great place to grow up.” She let out a sad sigh. “You know, I really miss my garden.”

Aaron stepped forward and gently rested a hand on her shoulder. “We can move here, if you want, babe. Get a house and a garden. Whatever you want.”

She smiled without opening her eyes and patted his hand. “I meant the hydro lab. I want to go back to the Bight now and get on with our lives.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Okay.”

“Go ahead to the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She waited until she sensed rather than heard the men walk away. Then she removed a small bronze vial from her coat pocket. Choking back tears, she used her fingers to pull back a small section of sod at the base of the marker, until she reached bare dirt. There, she dug a small indentation in the dirt.

Carefully, she twisted the top off the vial and gently tapped the ashes into the small depression she’d made. Then she covered it, put the sod back in place, and pressed her fingers over it. “Take good care of Grandma and Grandpa,” she whispered. “Tell them I love them.”