Page 26 of Shavin's Mate
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SAHVIN
“Hey, Sahvin, wait up,” Pyrr called as I left the docking bay.
I stopped and turned to see him jogging toward me.
“Where you headed?”
“I was just going up to deck C to get Nora, so we can be ready when the shuttle is ready to take us back to Dread One,” I said.
“That’s been canceled. Two Sargan battlecruisers blinked in, and the Dreads are holding them off while we get the last of the shuttles aboard,” he explained, “Then we are blinking out and heading toward Farseek.”
“They are leaving us behind?” I wondered.
Pyrr shook his head. “It’s only temporarily---because of the Sargan battlecruisers. It’s too dangerous for us to wait for the Dreads to take care of them, risking all the people we just rescued,” he said. “We’re going to meet theKurellison its way back from Farseek and transfer to it.”
“Ah, I see. Will we then meet the dreads at the next rescue target?”
“Exactly. And we are in luck, we will have private accommodations on deck A. They make our quarters on Dread One look like luxury suites, but you get a private bed. Forget about sex in the shower though---hardly enough room to turn around.”
“Those Pican’s are small compared to Farseek humanoids,” I said.
“I think they must have fixed the air filtration system. The air seems better than when we got here,” Pyrr said. “Come on, I’ll walk with you. Scarlet and Nora are on the same deck.”
“Sure.” We started walking. “I’m glad we will not be separated this time. It could be weeks before we catch up with the dreads.”
“It will be at least three. Command didn’t want to risk these people in a skirmish with the battlecruisers. We’ve got Admiral Degatu’s only grandchildren aboard, not to mention Commander Maktu’s mother and sister.”
“I would not want to risk our mates either,” I added.
“There’s not much we could do to help on Dread One because that’s a whole different kind of fighting than what we’re trained for,” he said.
When we got to the mess hall on Deck C where the women were registering the people we’d rescued from Nadoo, the four of them were alone there reviewing their reports and talking.
Nora looked up as we walked in and smiled at me with that sparkle in her eyes that made me want to pull her into a secret room someplace and have my way with her. We had been sharing a barrack with the other couples for the last few days. None of us had any real privacy except for tarps that we had hung between the bunks. The beds were so narrow that we could not even sleep together with her in my arms.
I was happy to tell her we would have our own quarters. But I also had to tell her about the dreads and the battlecruisers.
“Are they going to be all right?” she asked.
“They took some serious damage, but they can still make FTL,” I told her. “Now that we’ve blinked out, they will too. They were only staying long enough so we could get away.”
“Good,” she said. “So, we’re going to be here for three weeks?”
“I’m afraid so, sweet one, but we have our own quarters on Deck A.”
“Well, we’re done here. Why don’t we go check them out before third meal?” she suggested with a smile that told me we were thinking the same thing. “Did you hear? We took in a total of 5200 people including the thousand that were already here.”
“That’s great,” I told her. “Pyrr said we will probably be able to complete our mission with theKurellis.There are right around ten thousand more people they have accounted for.”
“It’s really sad. The rest are feared lost or spread so thin that it will take years to find them,” she said.
“The Alliance would never have let that happen,” I told her.
“I’m sure you heard they believe treachery was involved.”
“I did, but so far it hasn’t been proved, nor do they know who was involved,” Nora said. “Commander Maktu hoped to learn something from Evzen Guryon, but he didn’t give a hint---just paid the reward and thanked him.”
