Free Blue Galaxy by By Diane Dooley Page B

me!”
    “I had it set to stun. You’ll just have a little headache.”
    It felt like his head had been crushed with a boulder. “A little headache?” He tried to make sure his head was still attached, but his limbs were heavy, his head out of reach. “Dammit, why have you tied me up?”
    “It’s just until we find a safe planet to settle you on. I was thinking an agricultural planet might suit. Somewhere sleepy, where nothing ever happens and there’s plenty to eat. I had a feeling you’d resist, so I restrained you.”
    “Damn right I’ll resist. I’m a spacer! Have been since I was fifteen years old. There’s no way I’m going to allow you to dump me in some dead corner of the galaxy while you take off into God knows what danger with my child inside you.”
    “I knew you’d be this way. That’s why I’m not giving you any choice.” She sat next to him. “What do you mean you’ve been a spacer since you were fifteen? You didn’t join the military until you were eighteen.”
    He rested his throbbing head on her lap. “Oh, finally something you don’t know about me, huh?”
    She stroked his hair, running cool fingers over his burning forehead.
    “I was one of the test pilots for the slingshot launch system,” Javan mumbled.
    “When you were fifteen?”
    “They rounded up a bunch of street kids who wouldn’t be missed if something happened to them.”
    “Like what?”
    “What do you mean like what? Do you know how many people died getting the quirks in the slingshot launch worked out? Not a very pleasant death either: getting ripped apart by G-force, brain imploding, burned alive trying to break atmo.”
    Her fingers were soothing, almost letting him forget the terror of those launches.
    “There was nothing in your file about this. According to your official record, you joined the military at eighteen after scoring off the charts on the entrance exam.”
    “My father died at sea when I was nine. My mother and I were starving, so we went to Athens. She found work in one of the munitions factories. One day she went to work, and I never saw her again. I survived by begging and stealing. Six years later I woke up in a military prison. The very next day I was strapped into an autoship and launched.” Sola’s fingers kept working, drawing out words he’d never spoken before. “After three years I’d learned so much about the launch process that they allowed me to test. I rose through the ranks. There were a lot of opportunities for that during the war. I made captain just in time for the Battle of Lunar Base.”
    “Decorated for valor, then allied with one of the most powerful Blue families via marriage to Morna McKenzie. It was glorious accomplishment for the son of a fisherman, Javan.” She dropped her fingers to his abdomen. “But then…your downfall. You were thrown out of the military. That’s where your file ends. And then fifteen years of smuggling and drinking? What happened, Javan?”
    He sighed. “I’d been saving my military pay for years. Morna took everything except for a small private account. I bought the Kypris at auction. There’s nothing else to tell.”
    “There must be more to it than that.” She unbuttoned his shirt. “Tell me the rest. Please.”
    It was the whispered please that convinced him to tell her everything. It would be such a relief. “Do you know what I did at the Battle of Lunar Base?”
    “You delivered the first decisive victory in the war against the rebels. You saved Earth from getting nuked. You saved us all.”
    “It wasn’t quite like that.”
    She propped her head on her hand. “Tell me.”
    He dragged his gaze away from hers. “About two dozen major cities were allied to the rebels, but Lunar Base was their headquarters. Their leaders were there. I knew it wasn’t enough to just have dogfights with their fighter ships. I gave the order to bomb the base.”
    She kissed his cheek gently.
    “When we entered the base, there’d been so