Page 8 of Commander's Mate
I thought---hoped she would choose me. I didn’t imagine her response when I kissed her, but I still felt uncertain. It could have been the heat of the moment because I was the one that led them out of there. Suddenly I had to get back to Harper, I had to know. The possibility of rejection was daunting to consider---to never have a mate or a family of my own. How could I let her go?
I needn’t have worried. The moment I entered the conference room I knew she was looking at me. It took only seconds to pick her out of the group and for us to lock eyes with each other. She got up from her chair and came to stand in front of me and gave me a shy smile. I couldn’t resist caressing her cheek with my fingers. Mine! I thought. Something in her eyes seemed to confirm that. So why was she playing at resisting then looking at me like that? Maybe that’s how they did things on the dirt planet. We would have to talk about this soon, but I just smiled back at her.
But I couldn’t hold it knowing the news I was there to deliver. She seemed to sense that before I spoke. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”
“What?” She frowned.
“I should tell everyone at once,” I said.
“Everyone, listen up. Commander Maktu has something to say us, and it’s not good.”
They all stopped murmuring among themselves and focused on me. “We regret that we cannot determine the location of the planet d—Earth with the information we have. It’s possible, even likely that it isn’t in this galaxy. Harper told me it orbits a yellow dwarf near the rim, but the rim is vast and we don’t have the resources to search.”
“What are you saying?” asked Zoe Addison.
“He’s saying we can’t go home. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. They don’t know where Earth is, and we can’t go back and ask catfish face how to get there.” Harper replied before I could speak.
Another time I might have been irritated, but I was glad not to say those words, especially when Zoe’s eyes filled with tears and the other Earth women began to weep as well. Even worse, my Harper became tearful as well. I wanted to hold her but she crossed her arms across her chest and seemed to close herself off from me.
“I bet that makes you happy, soul mate,” she sniffed, and now she seemed angry at me. She certainly had much more to learn about me if she thought I would use subterfuge to keep her from returning to her home---force maybe but not a lie.
I just looked at her. It hurt to see her so upset, and I felt a little relieved that she couldn’t go back to her planet---a little guilty, too. She had to realize this wasn’t my doing. I moved closer and gently rested my hands on her shoulders. She looked up at me the anger was gone but her eyes were full of tears and started to spill over and run down her cheeks.
“Harper, I’m sorry. This isn’t my doing even though I want you to stay. At some point we may find someone who knows of your Earth. I’ve told all of you this so you won’t have false hopes and to encourage you and the other women from Earth to make a new start with us.”
With that she started to cry in earnest, so I put my arms around her, pulled her against me and just let her cry. I could tell already that she wasn’t a whiner and complainer. She was probably feeling a bit like I did when I went back to Farseek saw the devastation to my family home. Everything that had made it my home was gone. My world was broken, and I felt broken every time I thought about it. So I knew no way to take away Harper’s pain, I could only try to comfort her as she mourned her loss.
