Juanita ambled into the rec room, trying to tamp down the big, satisfied grin that wanted to sprawl across her face. She spotted Tala and Angela playing a game at a table with Indigo and Katie. Tala must not have been recruited for doctor duty, or maybe she’d already gone to help the injured Star Guardians and had returned. Juanita had been preoccupied with Orion for quite a few hours.

Her grin slipped out. She just couldn’t tamp it down.

As she reached the table, a voice sounded over the speakers.

“This is Captain Sagitta. One minute to gate jump.” After a pause, he added, “Buckle yourselves into a chair or lie down on the deck.”

Juanita suspected that latter sentence had been added for the benefit of her group, since the Star Guardians, and presumably Orion, too, would be familiar with those wormhole jumps.

Remembering the last one, she moved quickly to the table and sat down. Elsewhere in the room, women got off gym equipment and stopped playing games, most choosing to lie on the deck.

Angela opened her mouth to say something, but the jump came then, and Juanita’s awareness disappeared into purple confetti. A few dream-like minutes seemed to pass, and she woke with her head on the table, staring at a floating board game that looked like a mix between chess and checkers. She wondered if there was such a thing as 3D chess in the computer’s database.

A hand shook her shoulder, and she sat up.

“Are you all right, Juanita?” Angela asked.

Across the table, Tala also looked at her with concern.

“Of course,” Juanita said, a little confused. They had all gone through the same wormhole jump, all presumably losing consciousness for a short time. Everybody else in the room was stirring, nobody appearing wounded or overly dazed.

“You’ve been gone forever.” Angela opened her hand to reveal a tin of tablets that reminded Juanita of Altoids.

She realized they must be the electrolyte pills they’d gone hunting for hours ago. Or maybe that was a day or more ago now? How long had she been in the marsh and then with Orion in his cabin?

At the thought of Orion, her big, goofy smile returned.

“Oh, I get it,” Angela said, a faint smile curving her own mouth. “You’re not glowing from the gate jump.”

Tala frowned, perhaps less perceptive when it came to sexual matters. “The power returned to the ship hours and hours ago. All of the Star Guardians came back, as did our door guard. I assisted a robot and a precocious artificial intelligence in sickbay, then returned here. We took off long ago.” She waved toward the holographic display that still showed the view ahead of the fire falcon, a view that now included two suns and a giant gas planet passing to the left. “But nobody knew where you were. We were worried.”

“You were?” Juanita asked. “I’m touched.”

Tala’s frown deepened. “Were you injured? Was someone bothering you?”

“I think she liked the bothering,” Angela said with a wink.

“Yes, very much so.”

Finally, enlightenment entered Tala’s eyes, but her frown did not lessen. “We were worrying about you, and you were having sex?” She looked at her wristwatch, one with hands and far less fancy than the Star Guardians’ logostecs. Had she changed it to ship’s time, or was she simply using it to mark the passage of time? “For almost eighteen hours?”

“Well, there was some dozing in there.”

Juanita blushed. She hadn’t realized she and Orion had been cleaning each other for that long. There hadn’t been all that much dozing in there. They’d both had the sense that Sagitta could come down at any moment and put a stop to it, forbidding them to see each other again until they reached their final destination. Or ever.

“And we had to talk to the captain at one point too. I was out there and a part of the mission. Did you know? There was a debriefing.”

That seemed as good a way as any to explain the five-minute conversation between Orion and Sage. And if Angela and Tala thought it had been more like five hours, that was fine too.

“You were a part of the mission?” Angela asked. “Are you going to tell us about it?”

“Absolutely. Oh, are you feeling better now? You seem perkier.”

“The tablets helped, and my caffeine withdrawal symptoms are lessening, I think. I can’t wait to get home though. It sounds like we’re still going to their planet to talk to their government first.” Angela made a face. “Did you hear anything new while you were out there? We’re all worried they’re going to decide they can’t let us go back home because they want to keep their existence secret from the people of Earth.”

“I… know we’re still heading to their home world first.” Juanita remembered Sage’s promise that they were on their way back and would go through more wormhole jumps. “But the captain said he would be pleased to take us home personally. As long as his government okays it.”

“And what if they don’t?” Angela exchanged worried looks with Tala and the two other women. Several others were listening in, too, also sharing concerned looks with each other.

“Then I guess we’ll have quite an adventure finding a way home.” Juanita smiled. She decided not to mention that she wanted to stay out here, at least for a while. She would prefer to go home long enough to tell her parents that she was all right. And she wanted to help the others return home. Even though the idea perplexed her, she could see why exploring the galaxy wouldn’t appeal to everyone.

“Wonderful,” Tala muttered, not sounding enthused.

The door opened, and Treyjon ambled inside with another man, a hulking, bald, tattooed guy that reminded Juanita of the wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson. Treyjon carried what looked like a dead animal on a string. The innards may have been taken out, and no horrible stench accompanied the entrance of the thing, but it was definitely unappealing.

He whistled and swung it as he came in. Without explanation, he strolled around the room, occasionally touching the dangling tail to the deck.

“Ladies, don’t be alarmed if a large svenkar wanders in here,” he said as women peered curiously at him. “She’s so busy training that she won’t even think of eating you.”

“Eating us?” someone blurted.

Apparently, more of the women had been given ear translators while Juanita had been off exploring.

“And I’ll be here to ensure that doesn’t happen. I’ve got a shock collar on her that I’ll use if necessary.” Treyjon waved the remote and headed for a far corner of the rec room. He stuffed the dead animal in a cupboard, then walked back to the door.

A moment later, it slid aside again, and a hulking creature rushed in, snarling and slavering, leaving droplets of drool on the deck. With dark, leathery skin, it looked like a cross between a mastiff and a hairless panther. More than one woman squawked and jumped onto a table. As if that would help if the huge beast decided to chase somebody. But it kept its snout to the deck and followed its nose along the route Treyjon had taken.

He nodded to himself as the creature sniffed noisily and ignored the women.

“Oh, I get it,” Angela said. “Like teaching a bird dog to follow a trail.” She smiled over at Treyjon, who touched the remote to his forehead in a semblance of a salute.

“Ladies, ladies,” the bald man said, ambling toward the tables. “Can I interest you in any of the lucky charms I’ve crafted from the finest dryaogony wood you can find in the galaxy?” He unfurled what appeared to be velvet with wooden figurines held in place by straps. “I’m a master carver and a shaman with great power.”

“Great power?” Treyjon said, watching his creature—a svenkar, he’d called it—make its way toward the cabinet. “You push buttons for a living.”

“Thus allowing me time to carve these figurines and imbue them with great power. Do any of you need luck this week? The skirlon is known to bring good fortune.” The big man opened his hand and gestured to draw attention to a carving vaguely resembling a porpoise. He looked like someone who should be pulping bad guys for a living—and maybe good guys too—not an artist or a shaman. Whatever a shaman looked like. “As is this fellow here. Or perhaps you want to attract a handsome man to you? I recommend the verillian stud in that case. Any of these fine charms can be placed on a necklace, ladies. Do you have anything of value you’d be interested in trading?”

“Not at this time,” Tala murmured.

Angela, watching the svenkar instead of this spiel, clapped when it put a meaty paw on the cabinet hiding the furry thing.

“I’ll try again later,” the big carver said. “You never know when you might get the urge to attract a handsome man.”

Tala snorted.

Angela quirked an eyebrow and looked at Treyjon again.

As he led the svenkar out of the room, after giving it a treat and a pat, Orion walked in.

Juanita grinned and jumped to her feet so quickly that she tripped on her chair and almost fell down.

“I believe she’s smitten,” Angela said.

“Or drunk,” Tala said.

“It’s possible. Who knows what she was doing in all the hours she was gone?”

Ignoring them, Juanita flung her arms around Orion and kissed him. It hadn’t been that long since they’d been parted, but she found she wanted nothing more than to go off with him again. Maybe Angela was right. Maybe she was smitten. Or in love.

Orion rumbled with approval, wrapping an arm around her back. “And here I didn’t think I’d get that kind of reaction until after I gave you your gift.”

“Gift?” Juanita looked down at his pants.

“That’s not it.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Not this time.”

He pulled something out of a back pocket, a black box the size of her palm. “Where’s your little computer?”

“My phone?” Juanita dug it out of her own pocket. “Here, but the battery finally died. I’m out of luck until I can get home and charge it.”

“Not so.” Orion made a big show of turning it over, setting it on the table, and pressing the black box to the back of it.

A familiar doink sounded, the noise her phone made when it was connected to electricity.

“You found a way to charge it,” she said, gripping his forearm, beyond delighted. Now she could record her entire journey and every planet they stopped on. Her YouTube followers would be so excited.

“I asked Hierax to make me something. All I had to do was promise to spend the next week scrubbing things for him in engineering.”

“Oh, thank you.” Juanita kissed him again. “Maybe I can help you scrub.”

“I certainly hope so. I know how much cleaning excites you. Almost as much as trees do.”

“Trees?” Tala arched her eyebrows.

“I never would have guessed that Juanita has weird kinks,” Angela said.

Orion smiled at the ladies, then led Juanita away before she could decide if she wanted to respond to the comment. Judging by the twinkle in Orion’s eye, they were going to start cleaning right away.

Thanks for checking out Orion and Juanita’s story. The adventure continues in Book 2, Treyjon, when Angela finds out just how the mighty tracker trains those svenkars (hint: steaks may be involved).

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