She and Angus had decided over breakfast to visit Brianna before broaching the castle wedding subject with Nate. Apparently permission to visit her had been granted because shortly after they asked Toorg to take them there, Darcone magically appeared. Toorg smiled and waved after handing them off.

They followed Darcone down more metal hallways than it seemed possible for the airship to have and still be able to float with the birds. At the bottom, there was a big area with several smaller rooms equipped with bars meant for keeping people in them. A lone prisoner sat on a bunk in one. She had an arm propped on one knee and was staring at the wall.

She slowly turned her head when they approached.

“Look. It’s another alien miracle. Back from the dead again?” Brianna asked.

Darcone stepped up to the bars and put his face into one of the spaces between them. “Arrrrgggghhhh…” he growled.

They watched in fascination as Brianna MacNamara fluidly rose from her bunk and walked to the bars. She leaned into the same space, inches away from a snarling Darcone.

“Bring that growling shit in here and see what happens,” Brianna ordered.

Then to their continued amazement, she screamed in his face, launched herself at the bars, and growled back at him, hissing so fiercely that Darcone instinctively backed away from her.

Then he screamed at her again… or at least he growled with lots of feeling. The glaring between them could have leveled a fecking city.

Erin’s gaze went back and forth between the pair. She leaned over without removing her gaze from them. “What just happened?” she asked.

Angus leaned towards her to speak. “I think our girl just told Darcone to feck off in his own language. I can’t be completely sure. But I’ve learned there is a large variation of growling among aliens.”

“Hmm…” Erin said, keeping the sound of her musing low. “Theirs must be a love like ours. Nice to know my instincts were right about the two of them.”

Angus chuckling over her joke brought both Brianna and Darcone’s gazes to the two of them.

Erin cleared her throat. “Darcone, will ya leave us to visit with Brianna for a bit? Don’t worry. We’ll keep our distance from the bars.”

“Arrgghh… no,” Darcone said roughly. He pointed at the bars. “She. No brain.”

“I can see why it seems like that to ya, but Brianna’s just being a typical MacNamara. Please,” Erin replied gently. “This is a family matter. We need to speak with her alone.”

Instead of answering, she saw Darcone turn back to the girl. “Do no harm,” he ordered, pointing a finger at Brianna. He marched off when Brianna lifted a middle finger and smiled evilly.

Erin waited until she heard Darcone’s footsteps grow faint.

“Are you clones of my parents?” Brianna asked.

“No,” Angus answered. “But we’re not yer original parents either. I’ll not lie to ya about it.”

Brianna snorted. “No shit. Lying wouldn’t work anyway. Dad would have already been yelling. Mom would have been wringing her hands. Then they both would have started lecturing, passing the lecture baton between them. You two are just staring at me with the same shock everyone else does.”

She went back to her cot and sat. “What exactly are you then, if you’re not clones? You look like they did when they were younger. Mom has a picture at the castle that could pass for the two of you.”

Erin shrugged. “What we are… well, that’s hard to explain.”

Angus snorted. “Not really, but we can’t give ya details, but the short version is that we’re yer fecking ancestors,” he interjected, walking closer to the cell. “Girl, why do they have ya in a cage?”

“Girl? You obviously haven’t been here long. I bet I’m older than you.”

“Ya are, but not by much. Angus is sixty-seven. Nate told me you were eighty. Ya look twenty,” Erin said.

Brianna turned her head away. “You can thank my clever sister for how young I look. The first time she helped fix Mom and Dad, I let her fix me too. I didn’t know it was going to quadruple my freaking life span. I’ve looked like a perpetual teenager for over fifty years.”

“Ya didn’t answer my question, lass. Are ya going to tell us why ya are locked in a cage?” Angus asked.

“Ask Nate. He seems to have all the real answers. You know, I was heartbroken when he and my sister broke up, but I can see why Sheena left him now. The Admiral walks around with the Guardian rule book shoved up his proper ass.”

“Sheena? Who’s Sheena?” Angus asked.

“Feck me. I forgot to tell ya, Angus,” Erin said, patting his arm. “Sheena is Brianna’s older sister.” She turned to Brianna. “But I didn’t know Sheena was one of Nate’s wives. He left that part out.”

“She was his first, and supposed to be his one and only, like that happens in real life. I think Mom and Dad were the last real couple who ever fell in love on this forsaken planet. Nate broke my sister’s heart and broke her in the process. Sheena never got over it.”

“If ya are eighty, then how old is yer sister?” Angus asked.

“She’s forty years older, only she still looks…” Brianna glanced at them. “She looks your age. She and Nate were both in medical school when they met.”

Erin nodded. “I remember Nate saying Sheena was a doctor… a… feck, I can’t remember the term. Some sort of scientist too, right?”

“Yes. Sheena is a bio-molecular geneticist,” Brianna supplied. “Which is a fancy way of saying she fucks with a person’s DNA until she can make them become anything she wants them to be. Last I heard, she was working on giving New Earth soldiers superpowers in case we have to fight aliens again.”

Erin and Angus looked at each other and shrugged.

Brianna laughed at their confusion. “You don’t understand any of this shit, do you?”

“We understand some things,” Erin said.

“And are completely confused about the rest,” Angus supplied.

Erin held her new kinswoman’s mistrusting gaze. “I guess the honest answer is no. We don’t understand much, but we’re surviving.”

Brianna hung her head and laughed. “You sound just like them. Nate force you into impersonating them?”

“You mean strong-armed us into stepping into their shoes? Let’s just say it was something like that and he can tell the rest himself,” Angus said.

Brianna huffed. “Nate tried to tell me they hadn’t died even though I knew better. Carleton has a secret way to get in touch with both me and Sheena. I was with Mom when she… left. She told me to go along with what Nate and the Guardians said. She said to tell Sheena to do the same. She just didn’t tell me why it was important. Now I’m guessing she was trying to tell me to go along with you two.”

“Ya know, there’s a fecking lot of lying required to live here in Universe 1,” Angus said sadly, finding a nearby chair to sink into. “And we’re still doing it to ya, but only a little, I promise. Once we know ya better, we might tell ya all we know, Brianna.”

“Speak for yerself,” Erin exclaimed. “I have my woman secrets and I’m keeping them.”

“Come on. You sound too much like them. You have to be fucking clones,” Brianna declared. “Sheena said Dad’s multiple rejuvenations had corrupted his DNA and made it unsuitable for cloning. I bet they dug around in the DNA vaults and pulled out one of Dad’s ancestors. They started banking that stuff just before the alien virus got to all the people. Both Dad’s biological grandfathers died of the virus. Storing DNA was the only way those left could make sure all life on New Earth went on.”

“That strange explanation might explain this version of Angus,” Erin teased, inclining her head toward a glaring Angus. “How do ya explain me?”

Brianna shrugged. “They didn’t want the cloned Angus to be alone, so they cloned Mom and took a chance of it working out in her case. But what I don’t get is your accents. No one has ever talked that way on Old Earth or New Earth… at least not in well over a millennia. I studied Linguistics in college, so I know this shit. I speak sixteen alien languages as well as the twelve New Earth languages still spoken on our planet.”

Angus slapped his knee with his hand. “So not only was Angus 1 educated, he made sure his offspring was too. I bet he was a fine father.”

Brianna crossed her arms. “Don’t get so excited there, Pops. Sheena and I were adopted.”

Angus snorted. “Feck that. Ya are a MacNamara. I’d bet my right nut on it.”

“Nut?” Brianna wrinkled her face.

“Angus is referring to his man jewels,” Erin explained.

“Jewels?” Brianna asked, chuckling at the nonsensical term.

“Fecking balls, woman. I’d bet it on my MacNamara testicles,” Angus declared. He waved a hand to his crotch and then pointed at her. “And if ya strip the fecking metal off yer face, I bet ya would look as much like me as any of my seven do.”

Brianna laughed, then she laughed some more. “We had to be adopted because Sheena and I were born of surrogates. Mom couldn’t carry us at her advanced age.”

“What?” Angus asked.

Erin laughed. “I’ve got this one. I saw an article about it on Toorg’s tablet. She means fecking handmaidens. Angus slept with other women to get his girls.”

But Brianna was shaking her head. “It was more like Dad made a deposit in a test tube. My father would never have had sex with anyone but my mother. He honestly, and in every way, adored her. Isn’t that how it is with you two?”

Erin shook her head. “We’re a bit different case. Angus was married before and has seven children. I never married. He and I are getting along now, but that’s a fairly recent situation.”

“But a positive one,” Angus argued.

“Mostly a positive one,” Erin allowed.

Surprising them both, Brianna giggled full out. “I don’t know how they gave you two all those memories you have, but you’re very convincing.”

She stood, studied them, and then turned away. Moments later they heard her sniffling.

“Brianna, are you alright, lass?” Angus asked.

Metal jingled as she nodded. “I’m fine. You remind me of how much I miss them. They were amazing people. Sheena and I didn’t get to keep them long.”

“And I bet they loved ya with everything they had. Now why are ya behind bars instead of roaming free?” Angus asked. “Does yer sister know ya are in prison?”

Brianna looked around. “Yeah, I guess being rescued is a prison from a certain point of view. I was someplace I shouldn’t have been and saw something I shouldn’t have seen. I got shot with a bionetics dart. Now I’m marked for termination by one of the most powerful crime groups on New Earth. I don’t know what the mark looks like or where it is on my physical body, but I know some assassin is trying to use it to track me down. They already killed four out of six of us. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Can’t ya go hide in the castle until they stop looking?” Angus asked. “It’s so fecking big, a whole family could disappear in it for years.”

Brianna snorted. She grabbed the bars and partially climbed them, letting her lower half drop to stretch her limbs. It was hard to be confined and it had happened to her far too often.

“I can’t go to the castle ever again. It’s likely being watched and I would never risk getting Carleton and Elsa killed. As much as I hate it, boffing some alien and having his babies for the rest of my unfortunately extended life is my only recourse. Nate told me I’d be off-planet for sure before any assassin ever found me. I’m lucky the Guardian’s latest Admiral didn’t just pass me off to the first one that came along after I asked to be let in.”

Angus huffed as he stood again. “Why hasn’t Nate called yer sister to come see ya if things are so dire? Ya need yer family’s support at a time like this. This is a big fecking life change to face alone.”

Brianna dropped to the floor again. She thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“Not a good idea. Sheena would have to deal with Nate again. I’d rather not put her through that. He hasn’t changed. Last time I saw her, she hadn’t either. I’ve caused my family enough trouble in my eighty years. She’ll get the letter I sent to Carleton to mail to her. Other than that, I’m in this alone.”

Erin crossed her arms. “No—ya are not. Angus and I are tasked with making yer perfect match. So ya have us to help ya.”

Brianna laughed. “Great. You pick someone. One alien dick is as good as another to me. I don’t care. It’s not like I’m going to love the dude.”

“Fine. I choose Darcone for ya then,” Erin said.

“Come on now. Surely, you can’t hate me already,” Brianna answered, standing and fisting both hands on her trim hips. “Darcone’s an ass. And that growling shit he does is so not sexy. He needs to learn some manners.”

“So? Teach him some,” Erin challenged.

Angus rubbed his bearded chin. “We were told Darcone was the only one who could handle ya. Nate insisted Darcone come with us today.”

Brianna hung her head and laughed. “Nate tell you why?”

“I’m beginning to think Nate doesn’t tell us anything important,” Angus said, grinning under his hand. “But yer leap on the bars and Darcone nearly going through them to get to ya filled in the interesting bits Nate left out of yer story.”

Brianna ran a hand over her hair and sent her ear jewelry dancing like wind chimes. “I was trained to fight them. It was Dad’s idea—a way to harness my natural troublemaking tendencies—but I was surprisingly good at it. I have a talent for languages. I have a talent for restraining people. Darcone’s planet takes exception to women being trained to be warriors. I scare him because I’ve learned his weaknesses. His warrior abilities are considered infallible by his people.”

Erin smiled. “I know he’s scary and the other aliens are scared of him. I figured it was because of the way he looks. Is Darcone as infallible as he thinks he is?”

Brianna giggled. “At fighting—yes. But he’s shy around females… all females. That’s why his family insists he stays here. He’s been around since I was a child. I used to have a terrible crush on him. Dad and Mom would have killed me if they’d known. Mostly I admired him because he’s as lethal as a fighter gets. What you heard earlier, that was me tormenting him with the mating growl of a female on his planet. I learned it when I was a teenager. I used to sneak up behind him and do it. It was a disappointment to me that he never retaliated.”

Angus rolled his eyes. “That’s a mean stick to poke a man like him with when he’s living without female companionship.”

“Which he’s probably done for the whole two hundred plus years he’s been here,” Brianna agreed. “The alien ale helps a lot with that. It contains an universal alien dick tamer, also compliments of my clever scientist sister.”

“What?” Angus and Erin said together.

“Let me guess… you’ve been drinking it,” Brianna said, grinning at their shock.

Angus nodded numbly and glanced guiltily at Erin. “That makes that first night between us even more surprising. Or it doesn’t work on humans.”

Erin snorted and slapped Angus’s arm. “More like it worked the opposite on ya. It was Guinness that gave ya the courage nine years ago. Hearing yer cock beat the odds on alien ale doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Brianna giggled. “You’re like Mom and Dad only with no filters. Sheena will be appalled. She’s not like me.”

Erin let her chin fall to her chest as she released a frustrated breath. “I’m sorry if we’re embarrassing ya, Brianna. Humiliation finds everyone attached to my version of Angus.”

“Why am I to blame for yer blushing? Ya are the one who’s always going on about my cock. Now ya are doing it in front of fecking family,” Angus declared, lifting a hand to Brianna.

“Family. Are we family?” Brianna asked aloud, pacing her cell with arms crossed. “I suppose if you adhere to the High Science theory that familial DNA, even in small quantities, contributes to some amount of similar mitochondria replicating from related form to form, then I suppose we are family… of a sort.”

“Are you saying ya could be our child?” Erin asked, trying to follow her conversation.

Brianna snickered. “More like you could be mine. I am older than both of you, after all.”

Angus snorted. “If ya look like a fecking youth and act like a fecking youth… ya are a fecking youth, girl.”

“I’m a fecking youth?” Brianna mocked. Then she laughed. “Actually… I think I like that description.”

Erin laughed at the girl’s wicked grin. “Is there any reason ya have to stay in this fecking cage?”

“Guess not if I let Nate put a restraint collar on me and assign me keepers.”

“Is the collar painful?” Angus asked.

“No,” Brianna said. “Just embarrassing. Most aliens on this ship know who I am… and what I am.”

“Wear it so ya can spend more time with us. No MacNamara ever died of embarrassment. In fact, I’ve yet to meet one who gave a good damn about causing any,” Erin promised.

Angus snorted. “I hear what ya are implying in that statement, O’Shea.”

“Bet ya don’t know my mind as well as ya think ya do.” Erin smiled widely at Brianna. “We’ll talk Nate into assigning the aliens in yer folder as yer keepers. They can take turns while ya take the time ya need to decide on the lesser of alien evils. We’ll get Darcone to make sure they don’t try to coerce ya or take advantage.”

Brianna ran a hand over her face. “That’s rather brilliant. And I’m not afraid of them. What the hell? I guess I’m in for one last lark before I end up an alien baby machine.”