Page 22 of A Mate for Vasek (Tallean Mercenaries #11)

Dawn

Man, did it feel good to be clean and in actual clothes again!

After their visit with the tepins, they’d gone past the medical bay, and Cami had asked if she wanted to take a quick shower before meeting up with Roxy again.

“She wouldn’t mind at all,” Cami had assured her. “I’ll just let her know we’re here.”

The detour had been a wonderful idea. The New Horizon had a cleansing unit in the medical bay, and Dawn hadn’t realized how dirty she was until she saw the water draining away. She felt so much better, and smelled better too.

And she didn’t even need to get back into dirty clothes after.

Cami had put the clothes Vasek had lent her in the clothes decontaminator and had a fresh set that actually fit her ready.

Dawn was now dressed in a soft, stretchy top with the New Horizon’s logo on the chest, and a pair of sweatpants in a soft but durable alien fabric.

“I owe you big time, Cami.”

“Nah, it’s on Ul…Uzzar. It’s technically a part of the uniform. We go through them quickly, especially the tops. Delaney and Roxy are in the mess hall. Let’s go find them.”

There it was again. Cami just called her Delaney. Dawn was sure it had been Lana during the intros. Oh well, maybe Lana was a nickname.

Food sounded perfect. She was ravenous.

As she walked to the ship’s mess hall, Dawn couldn’t kick the feeling that something was really off, like if she closed her eyes for too long, reality would disappear.

Everything felt too good to be true, which meant it wasn’t.

What were these people hiding? She felt horrible about feeling like this too, because these women had been nothing but nice to her.

A giant pom-pom running at full speed at her jogged her out of her thoughts. The creature was cute until it opened its mouth. Holy chompers, Batman!

Cami dashed in front of Dawn and caught the toothy furball in her arms. But it continued to snarl and snap its teeth in Dawn’s direction, like a chihuahua on Red Bull.

“Sorry!” Roxy exclaimed, running toward them. “I didn’t know Nibbles was going to react that way.”

“I think we need to get him used to strangers now that he’s getting a little bigger. He’s getting a little possessive over us,” Cami said.

“A little?” Dawn’s question came out on this side of incredulous.

“Okay, more than a little. He needs training before we end up with a situation.”

The way Cami said the word “situation” made it seem like she thought the little pom-pom would swallow someone whole. It was probably still a baby, but how big could it get?

Roxy handed Dawn a bundle of polymer-coated wire. “Here, hand that to him. Wires are his secret kryptonite.”

Dawn eyed the bundle warily before carefully offering it to the toothed pom-pom, keeping her hand as far away from the toothy maw as possible. Nibbles yanked it from her hand then, chewing happily on the wire.

“Okay, I think you might be right, Cami,” Roxy said. “I think we need to get him a trainer.”

“There’s the dragus breeder at Reka 5. We can drop by next time and see if they have any recommendations,” Lana said.

Dawn gawked at the feast laid out in front of her. Everything was mildly familiar but not totally recognizable as any Earth dish. “We weren’t sure what you wanted, so we got the food replicator to make a bunch of stuff. We can all share.”

They did, and as they ate, they talked. Nibbles ate with them, devouring the raw, unplucked tepins whole until he was so stuffed that he couldn’t even lift his head.

Thus incapacitated, Dawn finally ventured to pet the creature on the head.

It was just as soft as it looked. It was crazy that such a cute and fluffy thing could be so bloodthirsty.

It wasn’t long before the topic of Earth came up.

“Yeah, you really don’t want to go back to Earth,” Roxy said.

“I know, you probably think it’s something the Talleans tell us so we don’t run off. But I’m telling you, I’ve seen the footage when I was still back in the inner planets,” Cami said. “Earth is a mess. The Dominion has control of most of the big cities, and the rest are owned by the SOG.”

“The what?” Dawn had never heard of them.

“Soldiers of God,” Cami clarified. “It’s Earth’s reaction to the Dominion and its Goddess.”

“A resistance?”

“Kinda.” Cami made a face.

“Then why are we here? We need to go back and help!”

The women all looked at her like she was crazy. What the actual fuck? She wasn’t the crazy one—they were, for settling for a life out here.

“I’m not sure they’ll accept your help even if you could make it back to Earth,” Cami said. “Which is highly doubtful anyway. If there’s one crew that could make the trip and survive, you’re looking at it. And trust me, we aren’t going.”

Dawn scowled. What was so special about this crew anyway? Sure, they were half human, but that didn’t make them any more suited to get to Earth.

“Trust me, Dawn. You don’t want to try to get back to Earth,” Roxy said again.

“So what, you want me to be like you guys? Find some Tallean man and pretend to be happy?”

Roxy put her hands on her hips. “Hey, that’s not fair! You don’t know anything about me. I fought tooth and nail to get to Kean’s compound. Then I had to be literally the best on the entire planet to get noticed and hired for this job.”

Lana put a calming hand on Roxy. “It’s okay. She’s just upset. We all went through this.”

“Anyway, you don’t want to help the Soldiers of God,” Cami continued.

“I wouldn’t exactly call them the good guys in the fight.

They’ll probably use you to pump out a bunch of future soldiers.

That is if they don’t deem you already tainted and stone you to death.

Earth decided to fight fire with fire. The Dominion went in with their Goddess bullshit, and Earth thought, hey, we can one-up that.

Imagine if all the most fanatical religious nuts got together and decided to write one singular holy text to rule them all.

Trust me, it’s much better out here now.

“Last I heard, there’s a small faction of the Dominion Army that defected and joined up with a bunch of humans who weren’t so gung-ho about the new religion. And even they are trying to find a way to get out and set up base as far from Earth and the Dominion as possible.”

Dawn was shaking her head now. Sure, Dawn had heard bits and pieces here and there. And every time she’d tell herself that whoever was saying it was mistaken, maybe they were lying, or maybe they were lied to. But Cami was so honest. And that was the worst part, because Dawn believed her.

“I’m sorry, Dawn. I know it’s hard to accept, and I don’t expect you to believe everything I’m saying, but please, consider anything else instead of returning to Earth. Kean’s place is really nice if you like nature. And there’s always Reka 5.”

Suddenly, Dawn lost her appetite. She also lost her cool. “I’m so fucking sick of hearing about Kean’s compound and Reka 5. If you want those to be your home, fine! But don’t drag me into it. Those aren’t my home. Earth is home. I want to go home!”

It was only after her outburst that she realized that they were no longer alone.

Dex, Berus, and an older human man whose name she didn’t remember were at their table.

Great, more people to witness her being completely irrational.

Now she felt like a grade-A turd. These people had been nothing but nice to her.

Dex, bless him, pretended not to hear her outburst and instead snatched what passed for a chicken tender, or was that a tepin tender, off her plate. “Are you gonna eat this?”

Then, before he could get it to his mouth, Nibbles woke and lunged at the tepin strip so fast it was a blur. Dex almost lost a finger.

“Dang it!”

“That’ll teach ya to dangle your meat in front of the ladies,” said the older man, cracking up. Then the three men hurried over to the replicators for their own dinners.

Dawn noticed the moment Vasek’s eyes were on her. She looked up to see him and the captain walking in. The moment their eyes met, Vasek looked away.

“Vasek is nice,” Cami said. “He helped Berus and me when we were in New Rhea. I’m glad we were able to return the favor. Are you staying with him after?”

It took Dawn a moment to realize that the question was aimed at her. Cami was trying to gloss over her outburst and make things less awkward.

“I… I don’t know. I accidentally ended up with Vasek, and he promised to bring me to Kean’s compound. He never asked, so I don’t think so.”

Which was how she’d wanted it in the first place. With her freedom, she’d be able to find a way back to Earth. The thought of Earth had her feeling guilty.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” Dawn said. “I just…”

“It’s okay. We’ve all been through it. Some react worse than others.”

Dawn sniffed. “You mean more delusional?”

“We have people on Reka 5 who still think Earth is viable,” Lana said.

She’d been quite silent for a while now.

“They aren’t dangerous when they are alone.

But when they get together, it usually spells trouble.

I don’t know you well, Dawn, but please don’t cause trouble for people I care about.

Most people at Reka 5 are happy there. Same with Kean’s place. ”

Dawn nodded, understanding her. This was as close to a warning as she was going to get from the captain’s wife. Don’t cause shit. Got it.

She didn’t want to be trouble for any of them either. They’d been nothing but kind to her, and they’d come to Vasek’s rescue.

She glanced over at Vasek, who immediately looked away.

Cami cleared her throat. “So… do you want to stay with Vasek?” Cami asked. “Because that’s a look if I ever saw one. And he got super jealous of Dex earlier.”

“He was pretty adamant that he wasn’t interested in keeping me around. It was one of the first things he told me. I mean, if he asked me to, I would. But…” She shrugged.

“Well, I think he’s going to ask you. You just wait.”