Page 37 of Joven's Bride
Chapter Twenty
Although Joven still worried that Carly went outside alone, he no longer burdened her with it. He set up security cameras that he could access through their AI. He knew the raptor incident was highly unusual, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Carly’s safety. She was okay with it, mainly because it made him stop hovering. She still carried her com whenever she left the house as she promised.
Two days before the dinner party, Carly visited with the mates of the new team members. They gathered at the home of Deja and Wekler Pak. Deja introduced Carly to the other wives: Alcia Zelsi, Vres Makoi, Gemma Flinna, and Hezza Maan. They were still settling in their new homes when Joven brought Carly to Glasica.
Alcia was a story animator, Deja was an AI specialist, Hezzi was a medic on a Defense Force ship, Vres was an exo-botanist, and Gemma was a clothing designer.
As the Captain’s wife, Carly had commed them a rotation set ago to have a get-acquainted meet. Since Deja’s mate was scheduled to be in space, she offered to hostess the gathering because her children were young and she didn’t like to leave them alone with the child care android any more than she had to.
With the arrival of the second space team, their little hamlet grew from six adults to eighteen. Joven was the only one who farmed in addition to his job as head of Glasica system space patrol. There was still plenty of lands left to the west of them so more settlers could join their community in the future.
Carly had come from a community where everyone knew their neighbors. She wanted to make their settlement that kind of neighborhood. It was a sprawling neighborhood with the homes spaced widely apart with a single packed dirt road running between the two rows of five multi-domed houses. The road ran east to west and ended at the last set of homes to the west.
Carly’s and Joven’s home was set alone at the east end. From there the road curved south to their headquarters which was also a multi-domed building. The double landing pad for the star jumpers was just east of the building. It would have been a long walk for Carly, so she took the run-about wheeler to Deja’s home.
She was a little nervous about the meeting. She wasn’t sure if the other women would be friendly or unaccepting of her. She was the Captain’s mate and from a backwater planet that people called ‘dirt’ when she was on the ship to Glasica. She needn’t have worried. They knew about her ordeal with the pirates and were both concerned and curious. The five women were not acquainted before they came to Glasica, so they hadn’t much time to form a click before they met Carly.
The women were all gathered around Deja’s long oval dining room table when she arrived. Deja introduced her to the other four women who were all human but with variations in color not seen on Earth. Hezza Maan was distinctly pink with platinum hair. Vres Mekos had light blue skin with blue-black hair. The rest including Carly were all various shades common on Earth. All of them were attractive.
“You look like you have completely recovered from your encounter with the raptor,” Hezza said as Carly took a seat at the table across from her.
“Yes, the nanites took care of everything.” Carly gave her a warm smile. “I just wish they hadn’t taken that adorable little dragon away. He was way too young to be out of the nest, and I think he liked me.”
“I’ve seen pictures. They are very cute,” said Vres, “but the Indigenous Wildlife Preservation Bureau is very strict about protecting their right to live in the wild.”
Carly sighed. “I know, and I agree with that. It’s just that when I held him in my arms, he was almost like a little puppy, like he knew he was safe.”
“Puppy?” Vres asked.
“A dog, they are domestic pets back on Earth,” Carly explained. “I had one when I was a kid. I haven’t had any pets since. Pets weren’t allowed in the places I lived after I left home and lived on my own.”
“I hear they haveeklanshere,” Deja said. “My boys want one, and we are thinking about it.”
“The holograms I have seen, they look more like a little cat than a dog,” Carly said.
“Well, dragons don’t look much like dogs,” said Hezza. “One of the women from Narova on our ship showed me a picture of her dog. It had black fur and a stubby tail.”
“Where did they get a dog on Narova?” Carly asked.
“They’ve imported them from Earth for a couple hundred sun orbits,” Hezza responded.
“Yes, I learned recently the Alliance has had agents on Earth over 400 sun orbits---we call them years.”
“When my mate was offered this job, and I knew we would be settling here, I found a research project for evaluating indigenous plant life and the effects of agriculture. Maybe you could work with the “dragon preserve” caring for rescued dragons to be released back into the wild.”
“I wonder if they would let me. I was just a science teacher back home. I suppose I could learn about rehabilitating dragons.”
“The Preserve just might train you if you were to volunteer.” Gemma spoke for the first time. “We are so close to their boundary, it’s likely that little dragon is not the last one we might find.”
“That’s a great idea! If I go up there, I could see how the baby dragon is doing. I will look them up and com them when I get home,” Carly said with a big smile.
The conversation dwindled for a couple minutes as Deja’s domestic droid served lunch and fresh drinks to everyone.
“Well, Hezzi,” Carly said when the droid finished. “Joven told me that you are also mated to a feline. Even though I knew what would happen as soon as we touched it was still quite a shock. Joven didn’t even want to stop at theStar Travelerlong enough to get my things. All I had were the clothes on my back when we left Se’Nar.”
“Oh, well,” Hezzi said chuckling, “You probably didn’t need any for the first seven or nine rotations.”
“You got that right,” Carly laughed. “At least we had a couple months to get to know each other before we met in person.”
“We didn’t,” Hezzi said. “We met for the first time on the Defense Force ship we were both assigned on. I wasn’t even registered with the matchmaking services. Nik and I met in the gym on the ship the first rotation of our mandatory physical training. I’m from Narova, so I knew what was happening. Neither one of us took it well at first. We got over it a couple days into it.”
“That’s one helluva surprise. Skye Carter Knight told me about the Captain of the passenger freighter that brought her to Glasica. He was on a mission to retrieve some women kidnapped by slavers, and one of them was hismeomee. They didn’t think it funny at the time, but Skye said they both laughed about it when they told it.”
“Did you ever get your belongings from the passenger freighter?” Deja asked.
“They were finally delivered yesterday. We ordered some new clothes in the meantime, so I didn’t have to keep wearing Jovan’s jumpsuits,” she said.
