I nod. "That's excellent." They might lose out on a shy woman who doesn't know how to take their bluntness, but I'd rather not take the chance that they unwittingly harass someone simply because they don't know how to flirt or read signals. Straik's told me that while most of them have been his crew for a while, to a one, they're not good around women. Either they were too drugged up or were kept separate, so all females hold a fascination for them. They've never flirted with me, but I'm pretty sure that's because Straik has made his intentions clear from the get-go, even if he didn't realize it. The moment he found me, he had me chained in his bed. After that, the crew knew I was his.
The memory makes me smile. Maybe tonight I'll cuff Straik to the bed and have my naughty way with him. I like that idea.
We board the ship, Zaemen still talking about the blonde he met at the general store. The moment I step off the ramp and into the cool, familiar halls of the Darkened Eye, I relax. I'm home. I take a deep breath, appreciating the ship's scent—slightly metallic—and the air coming from the filters—also slightly metallic. Maybe I'm too used to ships now. Risda III is absolutely beautiful in a Little House on the Prairie sort of way (wow, what a random memory fragment) and the air is fresh and sweet, but I find my mood lifts the moment I'm breathing the recycled air on the ship and I can touch the smooth metal walls. I close my eyes and lean against the wall, just relaxing and letting some of my sadness and anxiety wash away.
I'm home. Even if this home isn't the one I share with Jade and Alice and Helen anymore, it's still my home. Once this is all done, if we can't get together in person, we'll have long comm calls and gossip about nothing at all. Here, I have my sister Ruthie. I have the crew, who need a guiding hand if they want to find mates. I have my wonderful, loving, somewhat moody marshmallow of a husband. And I have a baby on the way. As long as I can keep all those things, I'm content. Like Jade said, the silence between our ships is temporary. Once this is done and the slavers brought to justice, things will be different. Heck, maybe we'll all go back to Jirri and hang out on the beaches for a month, just us girls. I'll make sure Ruthie knows she's invited, too. She expressed some unease about remaining at Lord va'Rin's expensive estate and returned to stay with the crew. As she put it, we share a face, but not the same stakes in the fight. She wasn't on the Star with us. She doesn't know everything we went through. She isn't married to Straik and his mother didn't try to kill her. She's still involved, but involved only slightly more than the crew.
I totally get her uncertainty. She doesn't want to step on my toes, but at the same time, she needs to realize that when I say I miss my family, the “family” part also includes her, just as it includes Straik. And if the way she and Kazex keep going, it'll involve him soon enough.
Smiling to myself, I finally push off the wall and open my eyes.
Zaemen stands a short distance away, holding a bucket out to me.
I glance down at it, trying to hide my amusement. "What's that for?"
"You leaned against the wall and closed your eyes for so long I was worried you were going to erupt again." He gestures that I should take the bucket. "The crew has been stashing these along the ship so someone is always prepared if you are sick."
"That's sweet." I think. I take the bucket and hug it to my chest. "I was just thinking how nice it was to be home."
Zaemen's return smile is brilliant.
While final preparations are made for the Darkened Eye—now the Scarlet Gaze, fresh with a bright red pinstripe on the hull to go with the new name—I send a quick comm to Milly va'Rin via my data pad. "You were an absolutely lovely hostess and thank you so much for having us, Milly. I'm sorry to run out on you without saying my goodbyes, but my stomach was upset and for some reason, the recycled air seems to help with the nausea. I hope you don't mind. Please let the children know we'll bring them back a gift when we return. All my love, and Straik's love, too, Ruth."
It's a teensy white lie, but there is a grain of truth—my stomach is better now that I'm back on the ship. I just feel a little guilty for running away when Milly was just the nicest. I promise myself that we'll have a longer visit once we return, because something tells me this won't be the last time we visit Risda III. Straik has spent a lot of time with his uncle, and while they're still wary around one another, I can tell there's respect. Maybe at some point, it'll even be a real family connection.