Chapter 19

Fox

It's all hands on deck to fix the engine.

"Now?" I ask Axl, my finger hovering over the terminal commands.

"Soon," he replies.

"You said that three minutes ago."

"Someone damaged the engine," Axl replies.

"It must have been a desperate man," I say.

Axl looks over at me and gives me a nod. "Now."

I push the ignition and watch the computer screen. "Not quite there," I say, powering down the engine again.

Axl goes back into the heart of the engine, and I can hear him and Lev talking. Lev's no engineer, but he's good at following directions. The engineer from the Ge comes back and joins them.

"Now," the engineer says, and I try again.

"We have almost full power," I report.

The three men reappear, and the engineer from the Ge tells me, "This is as good as it's going to get for now. You really pushed her as far as she could go."

"And she got us there on time," I say. "Good work."

"I have deposited the other items you requested in your quarters," the engineer tells me.

"Thank you."

Then the engineer hands me a tablet. "From Sem."

It's encrypted for my eyes only, and it only takes me a second to realize what it is.

"We will see you back on Alliance Force. May the goddesses guide your path."

The engineer bows and leaves. Lev walks with him to see him off the Des .

Axl looks at the tablet. "What's that?"

"My mother requested that Helga take an IQ test before giving me the UCs to cover her cost at Gala."

"What are you going to do?"

I look down at the tablet that's not switched on. "I'm going to try to get the UCs from somewhere else. I don't want to give her this. And not because I don't think she would pass, it's just so demeaning. Helga is human, that doesn't make her stupid."

"No, but…"

"I know, I know," I say so that Axl won't mention her being a waitress again. It doesn't matter to me what her profession is.

"But what if she can't carry out the duties your wife needs to do? The High Priestess might replace you both then. Have you talked to Helga about any of this?"

"I just rescued the woman from a slave auction and she found out I don't have red hair and cream-colored skin. No, we haven't talked about any of this. Not in the sterile interview room anyway."

"You need to get her a translator," Axl says.

"I can't betray Sem like that."

"What does he have to do with it?"

I tell Axl about what happened when he first brought Ivy to Alliance Force.

He sharply inhales. "Well now it's your turn. I'm surprised you wanted this engine fixed. It sounds like you need to marry Helga before you return to base, otherwise you'll have to erase her memory and send her back to Earth."

"But I can't legally marry her until I clear my debt with the High Priestess. And I don't even know if it's possible because I haven't asked Helga to marry me. She might say no."

Axl puts a hand on my shoulder. "I may not approve of her profession for you, but it's clear to everyone she's your other half. She'll marry you if you ask. But you need to give her an embedded translator first."

"Friend, I'm not as devious as you. I had a handheld translator brought over because that's legal."

"Nooo… Fox! How unsexy is that? You'll never convince her of anything with a computerized voice using the wrong intonations. You might as well be in the interview room."

"I know, but it's also crossed my mind to erase this all from her memory and leave it as it was the last time I saw her."

"But you saved her. What's more romantic than that? That's not something you'd want her to forget or to get muddled up in her mind if her memories were ever returned to her. I think you should aim to marry her before we reach the base." Axl pauses, then adds, "You need to make an excuse for one of the junior doctors to give her a translator."

"You don't think I've considered that? I can't think of a good excuse."

"Your mind is mush from the bliss of love." Axl taps the tablet in my hands. "Say she needs it for this."

"But she doesn't."

"Who's to say until the test is opened up?"

"But I don't want her to take this. She might hate me for it."

"I think she'd hate you more if you erased her memories and returned her to Earth," Axl says and starts walking. I fall in step with him. We're, of course, heading toward the medical center.

When we enter, I say to the younger of the two doctors, "Helga needs a translator. I have a test from the Empire she must take."

The doctor hesitates, clearly trying to decide whether or not he will agree. I know he suspects I'm bending the rules, and he's new to Alliance Force so he doesn't quite know what to do. My chief medical officer would do this without question. Finally, he replies, "Only if she agrees. I won't force it on her, Commander."

His decision is within his power as a doctor. He doesn't always have to follow my orders when it pertains to health, but still, his answer surprises me. "Have you seen Helga today? Is she ill?" She was fine this morning , I reassure myself. Wouldn't she contact me if she were feeling unwell? Then I remember, none of the ship's commands would work for her if she's not speaking Alliance. And I didn't tell her. I begin to worry.

"I have seen her. She's not ill, but menstruating. I helped her. However, she was quite skeptical of our medical technology. And Anna wasn't doing much to calm her. I didn't use influence on her."

"Goddesses Anna and her Earthly ideas," Axl comments.

"Anna is doing the best she can to make sense of our culture and the halfway house we're creating on the base," I say, defending the human anthropologist. I know it's difficult for everyone to accept what Anna sees from an outsider's point of view, and I've asked her to keep some of her more extreme views to herself. However, I also know Helga. She would've asked all the right questions to get Anna talking about everything. "I'll talk to Helga, and we'll come back."

The doctor makes a hand gesture that means I am at your disposal, and then Axl and I head toward my quarters. I leave Axl outside the door. "I want to do this alone."

"Good luck without a translator."

I shake my head. "I have the hand held one in there." I enter my quarters and look for Helga, but she's not here. I can't help but notice there's some blood on the bed and I feel sorry for her. I hope she wasn't in too much discomfort when she woke up.

I leave and Axl is still outside my door. "She's not here."

"No doubt she's with Anna being told crazy things about our culture."

"Stop it now. You just don't like hearing it from a human's perspective. Anna is invaluable to us."

"I'm not saying she's not. She's the strongest woman we have, and I like her. I just disagree with the way she describes the Empire, a place she's never been."

Axl has left himself wide open for what I'm going to say next, "You mean the Empire that tried to murder your wife just for being human and married to you?"

"That was an exceptional case."

"I don't think it was." I hold up the tablet with the IQ test to prove Helga is of average Alliance intelligence. "And you should have heard what the High Priestess said. No offense, but you lived a privileged life as the Empress's favorite for too long."

"Maybe," Axl concedes. "But I don't like Anna getting Georgiana all riled up."

"The Empress locked her in a room and was considering killing her. I don't think it'd take much to get riled up about that memory," I say. We're outside Lev and Anna's door now. I can't hear anything, but I ring the door anyway.

It opens. Lev answers. "Where're Anna and Helga?"

"I don't know."

I go to the nearest ship's console and find the two humans onboard. "They're in the dining hall."

"Now?" Axl asks.

"They're probably talking," Lev supplies. "Swedes like to talk across tables with coffee."

We all walk to the dining hall, and before we can see them, I hear Helga's voice. If I was alone, I would stop outside just to listen for a minute, but as it is, I continue on, reveling in what I hear. "I knew I liked him from the moment I saw him, and I thought it was strange because I normally don't like men with red hair, but his face was fierce and his words charming. How could I resist?"

As we walk in, Helga stops mid-sentence and both women look at us.

I love Helga so much. How can I ask her to take this damn IQ test just to prove to my mother she's smarter than an animal?