Chapter Ten

Toni hurried to her sister's office. The governor's assistant Todd wasn't at his desk, which had the distinct appearance of no one having manned it for at least a day. The door to Stacy's office was open, and she walked in.

Instead of her sister sitting at her desk, Toni was confronted by the unpleasant sight of the former lieutenant governor, who was also Stacy's opponent in the impending election.

It wasn't that Ken Bryant was unattractive. Behind the clear germ-filtering mask he wore, he was a handsome, trim man in his forties, his few graying strands offering a distinguished hint to his sandy hair. Toni found his past unsavory, particularly his close association to the former Holy Leader Browning Copeland. Close enough that when Copeland had desired Bryant's teenage wife, Bryant had divorced her so the pedophiliac head of church and state could claim her.

Toni wasn't the type to stand on diplomacy when it came to such trash. "What are you doing here? Where's the governor?"

"I told her to stay on Alpha Space Station this morning. Why are you running around? Haven't you heard the latest health alerts?" His cultured tone, offered politely, grated on her. "We have a major uptick in flu cases, to the point of an epidemic. I'm putting the planet under strict quarantine."

"You?" A new lieutenant governor hadn't been appointed thanks to the nearness of the election, but the acting speaker of the General Assembly had been working as Stacy's second since Bryant's ouster.

"No one possessing my level of experience is available. Stacy and the General Assembly asked me to govern in her absence, so here I am." He didn't precisely glower, but his stare was of the distinctive don't-fuck-with-me flavor.

Before Toni could respond, her com went off. Checking the frequency, she was relieved to identify it as Stacy's. "Hey. Bryant's squatting in your office."

"Good. It's where he's supposed to be. We have a state of emergency."

"I'm just becoming aware. I went to the clinic, and they're busting at the seams from the hospitals' overflow of flu patients." The dread that had come over her at the medical facility deepened.

"I've been informed. It isn't flu. Listen, Toni, I know how certain situations have been presented, so right away, I'm telling you it's okay to trust Ken Bryant."

Toni's gaze flicked to him. He stared back, his expression having softened to blandness. "Sure I can, along with all teenage girls and freedom lovers everywhere."

"There's a back story you aren't aware of. He's on our side, but you must keep it quiet. I'll fill you in later since Ken has his hands full keeping the government running."

Toni blinked. She'd heard Bryant's argument, which was he'd married his too-young bride at her father's request in an attempt to keep her out of Copeland's bed. He'd further claimed he'd been compelled at the risk of his life to give her up in the end. It was true?

Stacy was talking, and Toni forced herself to pay attention. "What's important is you do whatever you must to stay healthy. The death toll from this epidemic is rising steadily."

"You said it isn't the flu?"

"Doctors and researchers don't know what we're dealing with, but it's bad. It's hit Mercy and New Bethlehem as well…all three Earth-exclusive sites at damned near the same instant. There's also a pandemic happening on Kalquor, but it's entirely different. Non-infectious to the humans living there."

Earthers and Kalquorians were falling ill at the same time? It couldn't be a coincidence. Toni thought of the overwhelmed clinic, and her mouth went dry. "Is it the Darks?"

"We think so. They destroyed the Bi'isils and perhaps got hold of their biological experiments. The Kalquorians were certain there was a secret lab that escaped the inspection teams' searches."

"The Bi'isils loved their weaponized bacteria and viruses," Bryant muttered.

There was another planet populated by a large human contingent. Toni and Stacy's mother lived on a colony occupied jointly by Earthers and Kalquorians. "What about Haven?"

"So far, no cases have been reported of either of the illnesses. Haven has enacted stringent controls on incoming visitors, shipments, and would-be immigrants. They're also watching and listening for anyone who might be ridden by the enemy." The relief in the elder sister's voice was evident. Their mother was safe, at least for the time being.

It allowed Toni to relax a little. "We have those orphans coming."

Bryant took up the subject. "I've been on the com with Haven's governors. Once they're free of Galactic Council space, the orphans will be diverted there, as long as Haven doesn't fall prey to either virus. If it does, the Open Arms Orphanage refugees will be lodged on Alpha Space Station until it's safe for them to land here."

"I guess I might be out of a job," Toni remarked.

Stacy chuckled. "It'll be waiting for you. Even if the orphans don't end up on Earth, you'll have your hands full once the dust settles. For now, take your butt home and sit tight. Food and necessities will be delivered. Ken's seen to registering you for emergency supplies."

"You can com me if anything comes up you need help with," Bryant added.

"Thanks." Toni eyed her sister's surprising ally. Could he be trusted? She supposed she had no choice but to do so.

* * * *

Toni had been home two hours and was already restless. She'd switched on the news vids and found the flu was the only story being covered. It took twenty minutes to hear the latest, then the newscasters began repeating themselves. She wasn't much for passively watching dramas or comedies even when she wasn't so keyed up by worry, so it wasn't long before she switched the entertainment system off.

She commed her mother on Haven. Rosa was all right but worried about her daughters. "Can't you go to the space station? I'd feel better if you were away from there."

"I'm staying home, away from everyone else's cooties," Toni reassured her. She didn't mention she'd been in the clinic, surrounded by the sick. She had confidence the sanitizing system she'd passed through twice would have caught and eradicated any bug ahead of its ability to infect her. She hadn't been near the ill patients for long, so she had to be okay.

Having set her mother's mind at rest after a nice conversation, Toni cast for something to do. She'd never been a homebody, always eager to leave the house and be physically active. She paced the rooms, feeling the anxiety of inaction.

She went to the kitchen and briefly considered baking cookies or an extravagant meal. It would keep her busy for a little while, but it meant eating a ton of food. She tended to put on weight easily. I could freeze most of whatever I cook. Then I'll bring the leftovers to Stacy to share with her harem when this nonsense is finished.

No. The temptation of good food would overcome her in the end. Toni sighed and left the kitchen.

She wandered the ground floor, hoping to find some activity to occupy her. Then she went upstairs. "I can't even clean. It's done," she announced to the bedroom once she'd poked around the second floor. She noted the echoing quality of her lonely voice and shivered.

Talking to herself…bad idea.

She thought of the stand of woods behind the house. There was an activity she could get into. She could go for a hike. She'd been meaning to, but some task had always popped up to keep her from doing so. Even prior to Stacy springing the education assignment on her, Toni had had plenty to do. The woods continued to wait for her to explore.

Eager to escape the already confining home, she swapped the nice suit she'd worn to meet with the clinic's administrator for a tank top, flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking boots. She bounced down the stairs. As she reached the bottom, her com buzzed for attention.

"Oh no, you don't. Nature beckons, and I'm answering it, not you," she told it even as she checked the frequency. Her mind changed in an instant. Nature could wait. She answered, bringing the vid image of Clan Imon up in front of her. "Hey, space travelers."

Imon, Feru, and Wovir chuckled at her bright greeting. Imon answered for the trio. "Hello, Toni. You look well, I'm glad to see. Are you well?"

"Tons better than a lot of my fellow Earthers."

Feru's smile dimmed. "We've learned there's an epidemic on the human habitations. We were concerned about you."

"I'm quarantined at home, as of this morning. Nothing like starting a new job and going on leave before a week's passed."

"Sounds like my kind of work," Imon joked. "What happens to those orphans who were supposed to be on their way? I've heard the GC threatened their Kalquorian staff."

Toni brought them up to date, and they shared what little they knew, which was nothing she wasn't aware of. "I hope they can figure out how to get the whole bunch to safety."

"Same here. You know, there's a new virus loose on Kalquor too."

"Quite the coincidence, two new illnesses hitting both our worlds."

"It can't be a coincidence," Wovir said, his expression dark. "If you ask me, the Darks are engaging in biological warfare."

"Which is what we're thinking here." She did her best to quash the fear rising in her chest. "Are you guys able to visit family while there on Kalquor?"

"Just some of mine," Feru said. "Fortunately, my parent clan and one of my brothers' clans live in an isolated area, where the virus hasn't reached. No one who tests positive for the sickness is allowed in their district. Since everybody on our transport has tested uninfected, our clan is permitted admittance."

"We're under strict orders not to leave the district, except to return to our ship once we test negative again," Imon added. "Rigorous protocols are in place to keep us as healthy as possible."

"Good." Toni smiled at them, remembering the too-short night they'd shared. "I like you guys. I wouldn't mind you hanging around this side of the mortal coil for a while longer."

They laughed with her. "Make sure you keep yourself safe," Wovir insisted. "We're looking forward to the next opportunity we can meet up."

"Same on my end." Was she ever.

* * * *

Alpha Space Station

Charity strolled the promenade in the company of her aunt and uncle after dinner. She did her best to keep from ogling the Kalquorians in her vicinity in her relatives' presence, but it was difficult. Though the vast majority of their hosts were old despite their slower-than-human aging…the youngest she'd met so far was forty-three, for heaven's sake…the men still made for delicious eye candy.

"I just wish there were more shops catering to women here," Aunt Ruth sighed. "I mean, you'd think there'd be something, right? Kalquorian clans have been eager to court human females since they learned of us. There are thousands of women on the planet below, so there should be a ton of options for these men to buy gifts for potential girlfriends."

"There are some nice knives in that store," Charity pointed out on the window vid they passed. She eyed a particularly large specimen featuring a finely carved grip and a blade as long as her forearm. "What woman wouldn't want her sweetheart to gift her a machete to terrorize her friends and co-workers? Make a note of it to whisper in the ears of my hordes of suitors."

"Maybe you'd attract at least one interested man if you were a bit less snarky," Aunt Ruth breezily replied.

" Ouch , Aunty. You apparently don't need a knife to gut a girl." Charity glanced at her in admiration. "You could start an advice column, but half your readers would probably commit suicide."

"Is that what happens to your beaus? Or do they hear a single word from you and run off to live another day?"

Uncle George snickered at their teasing, but he wisely avoided commenting. He had a wicked sense of humor of his own, but he was adamant he wasn't fast enough to trade barbs with the two women. He preferred to play the audience to their act.

"We'd have plenty of shopping options if Earth wasn't a plague ward right now," Charity sighed. Though she had the pleasure of man-watching and flirting to her heart's content, poor Aunt Ruth was terribly bored being stuck on the space station.

"Maybe we should go on to Haven. We have no idea when Hope and her clan will return." The elder woman wore a distinctly mopey expression. Charity's sympathy for her plight doubled.

Then stop being selfish and find something fun for her to do while she's imprisoned here.

Though Charity had become quite familiar with the promenade due to her frequent and often clandestine visits, she glanced around in search of a diversion for the old dear. What did Kalquorians offer a woman in her fifties for fun and excitement?

The black door leading to the pleasure club made her grin. As hilarious as it might be to see Aunt Ruth's expression if Charity could concoct a ruse to have her witness Kalquorians doing the dirty for all to view, it would be a joke too far. Charity herself hadn't dared to set foot in the station's pleasure club. A young, single woman in a room full of aroused Kalquorian men who were eager to play sex games she'd heard were rather rough? Nope, nope, nope, nope, all day long.

Aunt Ruth had already made several trips to the household supply store. There was a theater, but its next show wasn't for three months…Charity had seen the call for auditions a few days ago. There'd been a lemanthev concert the night before, but she prized her eardrums too much to have dared it.

Custom battle armor. Entertainment systems. The handcrafted wooden decorations and gifts in one shop had possibilities. Charity was about to draw Ruth's attention to the tiny store when she stopped in her tracks.

Her focus zeroed in on a Unicorn. Not the legendary horse-like creature of old Earth fables, but an alien formally known as a Gyma. The single horn sprouting from a Gyma's forehead had prompted the nickname bestowed on it by Charity's fellow human classmates at the university. Gymas were also sometimes referred to as Rhinos since their horns appeared more akin to that particular animal's.

There was a Gyma professor at Charity's school who taught astronomical spatial analysis. His exams were so tough, Earther students who managed to pass them often cracked jokes about ‘slaying the Unicorn.'

Outside of the horns on the Gymas' shaggy furred heads, they bore a simian aspect. Their arms were incredibly long, reaching to the calves of their bowed legs. One of Charity's girlfriends, who had missed the five-foot-tall mark by an inch and a half, often gazed up at objects she couldn't reach on tall shelves and sighed, "I don't care if they do look like a cross between gibbons and rhinos. I need a Unicorn boyfriend, stat."

This particular Gyma/Unicorn/Rhino on the promenade had snagged Charity's attention not because non-Kalquorians, though present on the station, were rare. She hadn't noticed him because the fellow reminded her of the hard-assed professor either. Her gaze had passed over him at least half a dozen times as she'd sought a diversion her aunt might enjoy, but it only now registered he'd been staring at her the whole while.

Her brow lifted, and she paused to plant her hands on her hips as she returned the scrutiny. Take a picture, freak. It'll last longer.

The Gyma hunched and quickly shuffled off. It disappeared among the many Kalquorians roaming the promenade.

"Charity?" Uncle George touched her elbow. "Is something wrong?"

"Just some weirdo paying me too much attention." As she said it, it occurred to her that Unicorns weren't typically physically attracted to Earthers. They tended to find the lack of fur repulsive.

Still, the Gyma had given her the same gross feeling from the scrutiny she'd gotten from the crewmen on the renegade Earther cruiser she, Hope, and their father had been stuck on until Clan Piras had rescued them five years prior. When puberty had struck Charity, it had come on fast. It was as if she'd gone to bed a child one night and woken a fully developed woman. From stick figure to lush curves…and she'd been noticed, especially by Holy Shithead Browning Copeland.

The Unicorn had looked at her with not precisely the same sort of lust, but Charity had detected a species of wanting.

"You're being watched?" Her protective instincts aroused, Aunt Ruth gazed in the same direction as Charity, where she'd last seen the alien.

"It was a Gyma. Maybe he was surprised to see an Earther on the station."

"We should report it."

Charity patted her aunt's shoulder. "Why make a fuss? It took off when I gave it the patented Charity Nath glare. My laser stare probably singed its fur."

"If someone identifies you as a Nath—"

"We're surrounded by Kalquorians." Charity waved her arms to indicate the large number of dark, muscled bodies moving around them. "Who's going to mess with me on their station?"

"We'll report the incident to Nobek Selt anyway. We can't take chances," Uncle George said. The affable gent had turned steely in determination.

Charity sighed, but warmth filled her in the wake of her guardians' protectiveness. She was loved.

* * * *

Open Arms Orphanage

"I remind you, Admiral Ydru, the vast majority of our population are children. Your own regulations prohibit the presence of weapons at Open Arms Orphanage," Cheryl said in the even tone she fought so hard for.

The Encan on her vid com bared sharp teeth and spoke in his doubled voice. "The children have nothing to fear from us as long as the Kalquorians you harbor come quietly. Because we suspect they won't, we will indeed bring weapons to subdue them. It's up to you to keep the young out of our way."

"As I said, you won't find any Kalquorians here at the facility. They slipped away a few days ago when they heard you were coming. They're probably in the woods."

"Then we'll search there. After we thoroughly investigate your orphanage and determine you aren't hiding them on the premises. Ydru out."

The former nun drew a deep breath. "They're coming. God help us all."

* * * *

"Don't provoke them," Cheryl reminded the Soames siblings as she conducted Ydru and his assortment of blaster-wielding crewmembers to the gym where the children and human staff had gathered. Glowering, Marci and Darci stood before the children, who were seated on the basketball court's floor in neat rows, the smallest in the middle. The sisters' expressions were full of threat as they and several of the staff stood between the Galactic Council fleet crew and their charges.

"Everyone stay where you are!" Ydru shouted despite the orphanage's inhabitants remaining in place.

A couple of the younger children began to cry. "It's a werewolf," somebody whimpered.

More like a rabid mutt. Those unfortunately were real. Deadly too.

"There's no need to scream at the children," Cheryl quietly rebuked as the dozen members of the crew swarmed the area, hunting for their quarry. "You see they're already frightened."

Ydru snarled and joined the search.

"All clear," a blue-skinned Rekir wearing the rank of commander called following a few minutes of checking the adjoining offices and locker rooms.

Ydru waved his blaster at Cheryl, making no effort to pretend he wasn't pointing it at her. "Stay with us. If the Kalquorians attack, you can be in the line of fire."

Marci made a sound similar to a Kalquorian growl. Cheryl shot her a look. "Keep the children quiet here."

She accompanied them throughout the facility. It was vast, having once accommodated thousands of people, and the investigation went on for a couple of hours. Despite the Galactic Council team's heat signature scanners revealing no one was anywhere but the gym, Ydru insisted they physically inspect every inch of the orphanage. As they found no sign of their quarry, frustration caused the invaders to break many personal belongings of the adults and children.

There was no hope of appealing to any of them. The whole of Ydru's landing party spoke in Dark-doubled voices.

Their last stop was the basement. There, a Beonid ensign shouted from a far corner. "Admiral! My scans are bouncing off this wall. It could be anti-detection shields concealing a hidden room."

"What's in there?" Ydru's blaster centered on Cheryl's chest, death in his triumphant gaze.

"It's where we store our root vegetables after harvest. Your so-called shield is stelnium mixed-alloy metal, which maintains the cool temperatures needed for our food."

"How convenient it also blocks scanners."

"The door is locked." The Beonid had found the small access.

"Do you expect your vegetables to escape?" Ydru sneered.

Cheryl met his gaze levelly. "If you've ever been around children, you know they go everywhere when playing games. We don't want the door left open accidentally and spoiling the food. Nor do we want a child somehow getting trapped in what can be an extremely cold environment. The door is kept locked for those reasons."

"I'm sure. Open it."

Cheryl swallowed. She had no choice but to obey. She went to the voice recognition panel. "Open root storage."

The door hissed open. Shouting and pointing their weapons, the GC team swept in the space. Ydru followed, shoving Cheryl ahead of him.

The floor and shelves were heaped with bags full of carrots, potatoes, turnips, and the other products the orphanage had grown. They were tipped in the team's frenzied search, and vegetables scattered over the ground.

They found none of the Kalquorian staff.

"Where are they?" Ydru shrieked, ropes of saliva spraying from his muzzle. He did look rabid then, and Cheryl instinctively took a step back. He grabbed her by the upper arm, hauled her close, and shook her. "Where are they, you Separate bitch?"

"I told you!" She screamed in fury rather than the pain of his brutal grip. "They left! They aren't here!"

"No sign of the Kalquorians," the Rekir commander griped, his four spindly arms waving in agitation. "They must have gone to those woods after all."

"It'll take forever to search them out," the Beonid added. "Is it worth the effort?"

They no longer spoke to Ydru with the deference of a commanding officer. They stood there as equals, frowning at each other.

"We have these human females. We can at least take care of them," Ydru muttered, his amber eyes glaring at Cheryl in loathing.

"What do you mean, take care of us?" She tried to yank free, but the Encan's grip was implacable.

"You know who we are. You hear our telepathy, along with our mounts' physical voices. Did you think the All could be fooled by your pretense of ignorance?" He aimed his blaster between her eyes. "We'll hold everyone hostage…but we'll leave you as an example for your missing Kalquorian friends to find."