Page 14 of Eat My Moon Dust
“Ew, stop staring so hard, you’ll pop a blood vessel,” Tahavir teased.
Reha snapped her head away and scoffed. “I’mnotstaring!”
“Are too.”
“Public comm access requested.”
The transpo’s AI cut through the argument before it could begin, speaking directly into our linguitors. I accepted the request on my holotab and the others followed suit, surprised by the sudden inner ear sound.
“Secure transports do direct linguitor interfacing,” I told them just before Piro’s voice hit our ears.
“Heads up, we’re going to lurch here in about ten bits. Weight distribution will pitch us hard to the left for a few seconds while the transpo calibrates. So keep your eyes straight ahead and hold onto your straps!”
“He’s not kiddin’. Hold on tight,” I reinforced. Immediately, they all sat ramrod straight and clutched their harnesses.
And when the jolt came, my whole brood screamed like they were on an amusement ride. I grinned, loving that sound.
??
“Baan.” Ladh shook my shoulder. “Baaaaaan. Wake up.”
“Wake up! Wake up!” Tahavir sang.
I winced, pressing my tendrils against my ear. “What?” The gravel that tumbled out of my throat was barely discernible, but the spats hauled me to wakefulness regardless. I opened my eyes wide and stretched my neck. “What is it?”
“Piro said we’re out of civilian space,” Reha explained.
“Which means you canfinallytell us where we’re going!”
I groaned as each of my vertebra popped, all the way between both sets of my shoulder blades. I was getting too old to fall asleep in a transpo harness, but was also too old to stay awake.
“Renata,” I grunted, pressing my linguitor.“Comm Piro.”
Beep.
“What’s up,syali?”
“Did you just say Renata?!” Reha gasped. “As intheRenata?!”
“How far are we?” I asked Piro, holding up my hand to keep the spats from screaming.
“Spats woke you up, huh?” Piro laughed. “I kept it quiet as long as I could. We’re about ten minutes out.”
When Bree guided us in with her four-armed coveralls tied around her waist like usual, the spatsdidscream, staring at her through the windows like she was a celebrity. I warned them to behave as Piro lowered the ramp inside the hangar, but the excitement was too much. They bounced down the ramp as if they had one mind like the brood they were, and Aavar waved.
I rolled my eyes as Reha stopped short, jaw slack. She looked back at Piro, then at Aavar, her immature markings glowing pink again.
“Wait, you’reAavar!I can’t believe you’re standing right in front of me!”
The chief pilot put his upper hands on his neckline, lower hands on his hips and waggled his brow. “Better believe it.”
Then Reha glanced up at me with confusion. “Thiscan’tbe real. Right?”
“You’re old baan isn’t as boring as you thought, huh?”
“Huh?”
She wasn’t listening to me at all, having been completely bulldozed by the pain in my ass who was currently showing my sons how to perform a human handshake.
