Page 38 of Etched in Stone
“Shame.”
“It means that I…”
He didn’t finish that thought out loud. Something deep within him was torn. He had a duty, and if the war still raged after a thousand years, he was sworn to defend his people to the end. Or to stay here and live out his days with Jesse.
So many of his fellow Khargals had chosen that option. They’d closed the hope of ever being rescued and gone on to live their lives. He had waited and waited. Finally he was being rewarded for that faith, except now, he had Jesse.
He could take her with him, into space, into a potential war zone. Once he was aboard, he could use his skills and the new techniques he’d developed to barter a new position. Ray could take the pair of them away.
Or he could ignore the call, stay here with Jesse and spend the rest of his life on the run from the Rose Syndicate. If he’d learned one thing throughout the years, it was that no matter what form it took, there was always some group trying to take away what was his.
“What does it mean?” Jesse prompted. She approached and leaned against him. He loved the weight and heat of her body against him.
“It means I won’t have to find that fedora and get it out of mothballs.”
“Oh, I still think you need to find that fedora.”
Jesse actually bit him on the back of his shoulder and he let out a growl of pleasure. She squeaked and ran. Shortly, they were playing a game of hide and seek that she desperately wanted to lose.
An hour later, Ray was back on task. Ray translated the coordinates and found the spot. “I have
the coordinates. It looks like there's good news and bad news.”
“Hit me.”
“It's definitely isolated. Out in the middle of Canada.”
“Is that the good news or the bad news?”
“The good. The bad is it's on the other side of Canada. It's a 3000 mile trip from here.”
“Road Trip?”
“No. I'll talk to Giles and see if I can get a chartered flight.”
“Canadian wilderness,” Jesse said, looking at the dot on the map. “That should be simple. If you have to go.”
“Jesse.”
“No, I get it. You’re the oddball out. The fish out of water. Hell, people here have tried to kill you. It only makes sense that you’d want to go back home.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to stay. I have a duty. I’m a soldier at heart, and I made a commitment to my people.”
“I think a thousand years marooned on an alien planet counts as fulfilling your commitment.” Jesse stood up and walked out onto the garden patio. The air was slightly chilly for her sensitive skin. He wanted to wrap her and keep her safe for a millenium.
“There are no guarantees, but I might be able to take you with me,” he offered.
“What?”
“If you were my mate, they couldn’t reasonably request that I separate from you. I don’t know what the conditions will be like, and Duras is not a hospitable location for a human. But there are other resource ships, there must still be, and life on them could be quite pleasant.”
Ray stumbled over his words as she turned around, her eyes wide.
“You mean you want me to come up to your spaceship? Leave everything I know behind and take a chance on an alien world?”
“It was just a suggestion. You don’t have to. I mean I’ll have plenty of money for you to live wherever you like. You could go someplace tropical. South America? The Caribbean?”
“Stop. Stop right there. I’ve been stressing out about you disappearing off the face of the Earth and now you say that I can come with you? How long have you been considering this?”
