Aine stopped chewing his food and stared at him. “Will you give it back?”
He held up his hand. “I promise.”
Aine considered the request, then let Lorcan reach over and take the knapsack. Lorcan decided to wait to look until the child was in the shower.
Mal returned a few moments later. “We need to get you cleaned up, kiddo.”
Lorcan studied the way Mal looked at the child. He knew his lover’s only regret was that because of their career they couldn’t adopt a child of their own. Perhaps Fate had stepped in.
“Mal, how long would it take you to clear room in your old bunk for our new friend?” They used his old quarters, which opened onto Lorcan’s private stateroom, for storage since he bunked with his captain every night.
Mal grinned. “Not long at all. I can make room while he’s taking a bath. Can you take a bath by yourself?”
Aine sat up straight. “I’m a big boy. I can do it myself. I don’t need help.”
Lorcan smiled at the indignant tone of his response. “Good. Then if you’re done eating, Mal will take you to the head and we’ll wait out here for you.”
Mal led the child into the head, showed him how to use the facilities, then stepped out and pulled the door almost completely shut behind him. “Yell if you need help.”
“I don’t need help! I’m a big boy!”
The two men laughed. Mal returned to the table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh.” His face turned sad. “We’ll have to give him up at the next stop, won’t we?”
“I wanted to talk to you about that. We could adopt him.”
“What if he has family?”
“What if he doesn’t? He said they were all alone. If he’s on here for five years, he’s legally adoptable. We sign him on as a cabin boy. Junior yeoman, bonded crew.”
“As long as the Confederation wonks don’t know he’s here and make you kick him off. Child labor laws, you know.”
“He’s an orphan. He’s also technically a stowaway and a refugee. Complicated matter. You really think some asshole will challenge me on this and face months of paperwork? They’ll make a special exception. It’s easier on them in the long run. Besides that, who’s going to lodge a complaint in the first place?”
Mal nodded toward the knapsack. “What’s in the bag?”
“I’m going to look. Answer me first.”
Mal studied him. “Are you serious? Adopt him?”
“Why not? If he doesn’t have any family.”
Mal went quiet. They heard the boy climb into the sonic shower. “Do you think it will work?”
Lorcan nodded.
Mal’s face broke into a beaming grin. “Holy Hades, you’re serious! You’re really serious!”
“Duh.” He opened the flap on the knapsack. “Want to give me an answer?”
Mal leaned in and pressed a deep kiss to his partner’s lips. “Yes, of course. Absolutely.”
“It’s extra duties for you. Keeping him safe and schooling him and stuff. I’ll help out where I can, of course, but you of all people know what my day is usually like.”
“I don’t care!” He threw his arms around Lorcan. “Thank you!”
He patted Mal on the arm. “You’re welcome. Now go fix him a place to sleep.”
The yeoman disappeared into the other cabin while Lorcan fished through the bag. The stuffed bear lay on top. He set it on the table with a sad smile. He removed and set aside the plasma cartridges. He’d have Mal take them to the armory locker. A sonic knife. Then he frowned as his fingers touched something soft and silky.
He pulled out a small braided plait of hair about the same color of Aine’s hair.
Staring at it and envisioning the child’s recent choppy cut, his heart hit the floor. “Mal,” he called.
The yeoman entered the room, his smile dying on his face. “What’s that?”
Lorcan laid it on the table and rummaged deeper in the knapsack. In the bottom he found the picture and vid cards and activated them, browsing. Mom, dad, older brother—Aggie, probably—and a little brown-haired girl.
Then he located the identity and custody documents for the child.
Aine Padron. Almost four, according to her date of birth. Her older brother, Agnath. No other relatives. The emergency custody order prepared only weeks earlier gave Agnath full custody and declared him a legislative adult for the purposes of caring for his baby sister in case their parents died.
Mal read the cards over Lorcan’s shoulder and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Holy gods, he was only sixteen. Damn. We can’t let her go regardless. There’s no place safe anywhere in this sector for a young orphan girl. Too many black marketeers.”
“It also means when she’s older she’ll have to go to a boarding school. We can only hide her true gender for so long.”
“Why did she say she was a boy?”
Lorcan sadly stared at the picture card showing the family in happier times. One showed Aggie holding his baby sister and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Aggie was wise beyond his years, poor kid. He coached her well.”
* * * *
When Aine returned to the table after her bath. The old T-shirt Mal gave her to wear hung almost to her ankles, even though he’d cut it shorter. At Lorcan’s urging, she climbed back into her chair. When she spotted her cherished teddy bear on the table she grabbed it and pulled it into her lap.
The men sat flanking her. Lorcan kept his voice low and calm. “Little One, we know you’re not a boy. I found your custody and identity cards.”
Her face twisted again, pained. Lorcan thought they’d finally witness her inevitable breakdown. Still, she didn’t let herself go.
“Yes I am! I am a boy. Boys don’t cry. Boys are strong! Aggie said so!”
Mal tried. “Honey, it’s okay. We know why you had to pretend. We have an idea.”
She studied the two men. “What?”
Mal smiled. “You keep pretending you’re a boy. Only the captain and I will know the truth. I’ll keep your hair cut short for you, and you can stay here with us and be our…be our son.”
“But,” Lorcan interjected, “you need to pretend you’re a boy. That’s very important. It’s for your safety. At least until you’re older.”
She eagerly nodded. “I can do that.”
“You’d be living here on the ship, all the time, with us. Is that okay?”
For the first time, the child actually smiled. “I can stay on the ship? I don’t have to go to a planet?”
“That’s right.”
She nodded.
Lorcan turned and tapped information into his private terminal, then spun it around to her. “One day, many years from now when you’re much older, you will have to go to school. I will pay for it. Until you’re grown up, you can stay with us. We’ll be your fathers. You have to listen to us and act the way we tell you so you stay safe.”
“Okay. Then the bad men won’t hurt me like they hurt everyone else?”
“That’s right.” He reached for her right hand and pressed her thumb to the reader pad on the console. It registered her thumbprint. “This says you now belong to me, as part of my crew. You’re what’s called bonded crew, like Mal. You’re now known as Aine Padron Lorcan, Junior Yeoman. In a couple of years we can officially adopt you and make you our daughter…son.”
“I can stay with you for a long time?”
“Forever. I swear it.”
* * * *
Later, Captain Lorcan called his crew together on the bridge. Mal stayed behind in their quarters and watched over the sleeping girl.
“We’ve had an unexpected addition to our crew roster. An orphaned boy. A merc killed his brother. He hid on one of the cargo palettes when we loaded.
“I expect all of you to look after Aine as if he’s your own child.” He eyed the men. Half of them short-listers, some had children or grandchildren. The rest were long-termers or lifers whose only home was a ship. He’d worked with all of them long enough to
know they had integrity and honor and would heed his words to the letter.
“Any harm comes to that child, the man who does it or who is responsible for allowing it will be blasted out an airlock. Try me if you think I’m kidding.”
* * * *
Mal jumped when Aine snuck up behind him and threw her arms around his waist. Almost nine years old and she’d been counting down the days until she was officially named Lorcan. Tall and willowy for her age, she hadn’t yet developed any rounded curves that would betray the truth to outsiders. Judging from the pictures of her mother she took after her, slim and almost boyish in build. That would work to her advantage if the trend continued.
Tomorrow was the big day. With the exception of a few space station visits in safe territory to get her medical check-ups and vaccinations, she’d never set foot off the freighter since her arrival. As lifers replaced their short-listers, they let more of the crew in on the secret. Lorcan and Mal felt confident their men would die to protect Aine as if she was their own daughter, or at the very least a beloved niece.
Brilliant, she’d already completed high school level studies and knew more about most of the ship’s systems than many Confederation academy cadets upon graduation. Mal started her on collegiate level studies the month before.
“What are you up to?” Mal asked her.
“Bilden was quizzing me on the jump engine.”
“How did you do?”
She frowned. “I missed two of his questions. I need to study harder. I shouldn’t have missed any. He usually gives me harder questions.”
“Don’t wear yourself out.” He handed her a carrot from the batch he was chopping for their dinner. She took it and sat next to him, munching as she watched him.
“Da, does it bother you you’re never in charge?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. It wasn’t unusual for her to come up with left-field questions, but this one sounded odder than most. He put down the knife and gave her his undivided attention. “What do you mean, Little One?”
She shrugged. “You’ll never be a captain, like Father. Does it bother you?”
“I serve the captain. I wouldn’t trade my job for anything. I have a very important job, because someone has to take care of him. Where did this question come from?”
“I overheard Bing and Winter talking about Bing’s promotion. That’s all.”
“Overheard? Young lady, I specifically ordered you to stay out of the ventilation ducts.”
“I was tracing wires.”
“You were eavesdropping.”
“Not until they started talking.”
He sighed as she mischievously smiled. “All right. Again I ask, what prompts the question?”
“I just wondered.”
He studied her. “Service is a high calling. What I do is service to one man, the captain. By doing that, in a way I serve the whole ship because the captain can do his job and keep us all safe. I take care of him, he takes care of the ship and me in the process. And you, too. I don’t mean just as part of our jobs. I love him, you know that.”
“Is that normal?”
Please, Hades, not the birds and bees talk!
“No, many captains are not partnered with their yeomans, if that’s what you’re asking. We just happened to fall in love. It worked for us.”
Apparently satisfied with that answer, she snagged another carrot to snack on. “So it’s okay to not want to be a captain?”
“Absolutely. Not everyone can or should be a captain. My talents are best utilized by taking care of the captain so he can do his duties without being distracted. Regardless of what your job is, if you do it well and to the best of your abilities and with full effort, there is absolutely no shame. Whether you’re a captain or a yeoman or a sanitation engineer or navigator. It doesn’t matter. There is a reason that the Confederation’s slogan is Service Before Self. It doesn’t just mean military service.”
Lorcan walked in and she flung herself at him, wanting her usual hug. He smiled and spun her around. “There’s our Little One. Are you badgering poor Da with your questions?”
Mal went back to chopping carrots. “Not too many. Today, at least.”
“Good girl.” He set her back on her feet. Not long, and she’d be too big to do that. He sat at the table and patted his lap. “Come here. I have something for you.”
She climbed into his lap. He produced a small jewelry box. “Tomorrow is your big day, when you officially become rostered as full crew and legally become our daughter. I wanted to give this to you tonight.”
She opened it, squealing with delight when she saw the small holographic charm embedded in a golden rune signifying his captain’s crest. It hung from a delicate-looking chain.
He took it from the box and draped it around her neck. “Unbreakable chain, but always keep this on. Never remove it. It signifies you’re oath-bound to me until released. It will help keep you safe.”
“Thank you, Father!” She hugged him. Then, one of the rare times the men ever witnessed it, she cried. She raced over to Mal and threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Da!”
He laughed. “Don’t thank me, thank him. He’s our captain.” He knelt and pulled his matching necklace out from under his collar and held it up to hers. It was an exact twin, except for the more delicate chain on hers. “It’s a great honor to be oath-bound to a captain and to wear his rune. Never forget that. Very few people ever get to do that.”
“Service Before Self,” she solemnly repeated.
He nodded. “That’s right, Little One. Service Before Self.”
Chapter Three
“No! You can’t make me go! I won’t!” Fourteen, and Aine was throwing a fine temper tantrum. She rarely acted contrary, usually more obedient and disciplined than the most experienced crewman. Breaking the news to her, however, had pushed her over the edge.
Lorcan kept his voice calm. “You have to attend a school before the Confederation Academy will accept you, Little One. We talked about this. It’s only two years, just a formality, and then you’ll go to the Academy.”
“You promised me! You promised me I’d stay with you!” While taller in height and still slim, it was hard to insist, even with her unruly, short hair and lack of make-up, that she was a boy. Her beautiful face and slight curves betrayed her.
“I have to enroll you or you’ll be too old. Then how will I get you into the Academy? Don’t you want to be a captain? You said that’s what you want to do, and if you do, you have to go to the Academy.”
She’d been planet-side a total of ten times since joining them. Each time she hated it. She much preferred the security of a ship, the ability to flee if trouble presented itself. She’d already seen more near misses in space than many experienced servicemen.
She handled each of those instances with a calm rarely seen in experienced officers. Certainly a thousand times calmer than she now acted.
Lorcan looked to Mal for assistance. He had a different touch with her. Mal took over. “Listen, sweetheart, we’re retiring soon, you know that. Then we’ll move planet-side and be nearby. We can come see you every day. I promise.”
Sobbing, she crumpled to her knees. “Please, Da, please don’t leave me!” Not once in the time since she joined them had she ever been away from them off-ship. The only weakness she ever showed, her fear of being abandoned, left behind.
Alone.
The men went to her, kneeling beside her, their arms around her. Lorcan held her to his chest and rocked her. “You have to do this. Service Before Self. Never forget that. You will make us so proud, Little One, my Fierce Radiance.”
It became Lorcan’s special nickname for her once he researched and found that Aine meant “radiant,” and he already knew his last name meant “fierce.”
It fit her. As brightly as her intelligence and personality burned, she was fiercely radiant.
Now she was distraught, inconsolable.
Mal took her from Lorcan. “You are very brave. Y
ou can serve your captain by following his orders. He needs you to learn all you can, to make him proud. Aggie would be very proud of you, too. So would your mother and father. I know they would even though I never met them.”
Eventually her sobs quieted to sniffles. “Okay,” she whispered.
* * * *
Lorcan didn’t release her hand. Not that he could if he tried, Mal thought, from her death grip on both of them. The head dean of the private school noticed. The old bat didn’t frown, but from her disapproving demeanor she apparently thought Aine’s clinginess inappropriate.
“I’m sure you will be very happy here, Aine,” she tried to assure the girl. “All our students are a little nervous when they first arrive.”
Mal’s fingers felt numb in Aine’s hand as she clamped down on him.
“I’m not your other students.” She spoke softly, barely louder than a whisper.
Mal knew her deceptive tone masked the true depths of her stress and anxiety. She usually possessed nerves of steel, but ever since Lorcan broke the news to her six months earlier, she’d withdrawn into a hard shell Mal feared he might never penetrate. She rarely smiled or laughed anymore, even though there were no more bouts of tears. She resigned herself to following orders and serving her captain, but she damn sure didn’t like what he wanted her to do.
Mal gave the dean credit for trying.
“I’m sorry, Aine, I didn’t mean to sound flippant. I am familiar with your past and understand this is very difficult for you.”
“Thank you.”
They’d put off the good-byes long enough. Lorcan pulled her to him for a long, strong embrace. “Do me proud, Little One. My Fierce Radiance.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you, daughter.”
She kissed him back. “I love you too, Father.”
He stepped back and snapped her a crisp salute. It brought the faintest of smiles to her face. She came to attention and returned it with precision. “Make me proud, Yeoman Lorcan,” he said.
“Yes, Captain.”