“Mom, I told you and told you, nothing can escape a black hole.” He clung to her for one sweet moment, then tugged away. “Okay, I don’t want to miss theDeepWanderwith my own eyes.” He ran to the observation port, the window framing only blackness at the moment, ignoring the interactive touchscreen. Her little owl had always been more interested in what he could see for himself, not what other people told him.
Not what other people had tried to make of him: a prop, a justification, a weapon used against her. In fact, the only reason the IDA’s Big Sky outpost had allowed a single mom with a minor child to leave Earth was because of the harm caused by his own extended family.
Worries flooding back, she watched him regaling June with space facts. The other would-be bride had become a good friend on the journey, and not just because she seemed to have no end of interest in space facts. June claimed to be in a perfect place to become an alien mail order bride because she was from a tiny rural Nebraska town and knew most of the songs inSeven Brides for Seven Brothersby heart. Her optimism for this new start to all their lives had calmed some of Adeline’s fears.
For a while.
Why was it all flooding backnow, when there was no way to escape?
Becausethere was no way to escape. Because being safe on the IDA transport with the other women had been like a mini vacation from her anxiety, and now that was over.
Except that wasn’t entirely true; the IDA had said they could come home anytime they liked. As if any of them had homes. Why would they have become alien mail order brides if they had homes of their own?
“Hey, don’t be mad at them. June was dying to know that space smells like burnt toast, and she’s so lucky Ollie was right there to tell her.”
“Sorry.” Adeline smoothed her expression into a smile at Kinsley. “I’m not mad at Ollie or June. Or anyone.” At least no one onboard. “I was just…” What?
“Say no more.” Kinsley smiled back. “I get it. You don’t have to go on.”
But she did have to go on; they all did. Go on the alien ship, go on with their lives, go on with mates from another species. “Are you as excited as June and Ollie?”
Kinsley’s smile widened. “Of course. Who wouldn’t be excited to find themselves a dozen galaxies away from Earth and about to fall into the many, many arms of a horny alien to be their dates to some sort of cosmic blue-collar ball?”
“The orcs have tusks, not horns,” Adeline murmured. Okay, maybe Ollie came by his lecturing honestly. “And two extra arms isn’tthatmany.” If a creature with that strange silhouette had stalked through her nightmares once or twice, its skin shimmering sometimes blue, sometimes bronze like a beetle… Well, she’d had worse nights.
As for the rest of it, the ball was the least of her worries. She’d had to attend plenty of intimidating social events when she was still a child herself, and worse while she was previously married, and she’d never had the faintest promise of someone willing to pull her out if things got tough.
But she wasn’t quite sure what to make of Kinsley’s rhetorical question. Although the woman had been friendly enough since they’d all first met in Sunset Falls, Montana, at the Big Sky IDA outpost, she didn’t share much personally. By her peekaboo accent, Adeline guessed she was from New England somewhere, but when June had asked, Kinsley had only said, “All of that is behind us now.”
Which was true enough. Unless they turned around.
“I see it! I see it!” Ollie’s piping voice rang off the common room walls, instantly silencing the quiet conversations among the rest of the seven women. “It’s theDeepWander. We’re here!”
Adeline exchanged wide-eyed glances with the others: Anne, Maria, Mary Louise, and Carmen, who had all become close companions by proximity and potential, if not yet lifelong friends. They’d be the only humans among the orcs.
They all rushed to the viewport next to Ollie and June.
She’d seen plenty of spaceships, of course—she wouldn’t have been a good mother to Ollie if she hadn’t—everything from Star Wars to NASA. Once she learned that aliens were real and alien mail order brides were real, she’d seen pictures of real spaceships, then finally the IDA transport in real life. But this… This looked alien.
While theDeepWanderhad all the sleek, high-tech lines she’d come to expect from science fiction and function, there were also strange angles, dark spears bristling in all directions. The spines glinted darkly in the lights of the transport, like one of the crystal-growing kits that Ollie had requested last Christmas—their last Christmas on Earth.
Her heart stuttered. Not at the sight of the alien strangeness, but at the memory of that last horrible holiday, hiding in a motel, that crystal set the only thing she’d been able to afford besides a Happy Meal.
Determination seized her. Their next Christmas would be good, dammit. Whatever happened next, she would make a happy life for her son.
She straightened, glancing around at the other women. “Shall we go to the hatch to welcome our new maybe mates?”
They glanced at each other, as if making sure they were all ready.
June nodded first. “Let’s do this.” With a smile that trembled only a little, she solemnly bumped her knuckles against Ollie’s when he held up his fisted hand, and they both flared their fingers wide, like little stars against the glittering shadows of theDeepWanderdominating the view behind them.
All together, they marched down to the transport loading dock while the ships aligned and stood in a loose fan just beyond the hatch. They were all dressed in outfits she hadn’t seen before on this journey; she imagined they’d all saved their best for this moment. Would the orcs have done the same? Were the aliens equally nervous? But they were the ones who’d initiated this exchange. Did that give them all the power?
A faint pneumatic hiss sounded like mocking laughter as the expanding corridor bridged the distance between the two ships until a gentle metallic clang resounded through the hull, not quite a jolt. A cheerful chime announced the sealed connection.
The hatch opened to a lighted hallway, and cool air drifted over them. The breeze tugged gently at the cowled neck of her nice but not too nice, first-date-appropriate, single mom floral blouse—that she’d decided to pair with her best butt-fitting, high-waisted jeans and “holy fuck what have I done I’m fleeing through an alien spaceship with my child on my hip” cross-trainers.
“It does smell like burnt toast,” June whispered.