Haven started laughing harder. “No. Is he trying to sounding awesome?”
Vytln chuckled, weirdly happy that she’d picked up on his brother’s attempt at looking and sounding harder than he was. It was the sort of name an adolescent would pick as an attempt to prove their masculinity and toughness.
“He’s not subtle or creative,” he said.
“Well, his awesome and fearsome lava ship is following us,” Alred said. “Not directly. They’re not literally behind us right now. But they’re trailing close enough behind that, if they do a subspace swing, they could be on us within a matter of marks. Whenever we swing, they track where we’re emerging and swing just close enough to follow.”
“That’s easy enough to beat,” Sway said. “Once we drop off this delivery, I’ll do a large swing. When they swing after us, I’ll swing us again so that by the time they come out, we’ll already be gone. That will buy a little time as they try to track us.”
“How are they tracking us at all?” Garnet asked, leaning forward, curious. “Like, how are they finding us in the wider universe like this?”
“It’s not that difficult,” Sway shrugged. “As part of our deal with Captain Ikvar, we keep him abreast of our location and deals. A lot of delivery companies will voluntarily submit that information anyway. It’s a good idea for preventing pirates. If they know you’re being tracked, they’ll be more cautious in choosing to attack. We’re just being made to do it. And since it appears Kldyn has contacts in the peacekeepers, whoever is providing him information is probably updating him with whatever we tell them. With a general area, all they have to do is manually track wherever we said we would be and they can find us. If I double jump, that makes it harder for them and gives usleeway time. It’s not a permanent solution, but it will keep us ahead.”
“I’ll help Sway and Alred,” Vytln spoke up. “I don’t want to be involved, but I know Kldyn well. I know how he thinks. I’ll be able to help in staying away from him.”
Tanin nodded once. “Good. If there’s nothing else, let’s get to work.”
At that, everyone began standing and moving on. Vytln remained sitting, waiting as Haven stood first and stretched. He watched her. Content in just seeing her move. Her belly was flat. And it would be for a while, despite his wylp in her womb. Unlike Garnet, who was already considerably rounded, and Grace, who had a small bump to her belly, it would be a long time until he could see the proof of his youngling in her.
But just knowing it was there heated his blood. He took her by the hip and pulled her in close, having her stand between his legs so he could hold onto her waist.
She smiled at him, holding onto his arms. “We should being back to work.”
“We will,” he said, but he didn’t move yet, though the others were all filing out to go about their tasks and chores. “How are you feeling?”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. One of her hands went to her belly and she pressed. There was nothing to grab or feel yet, but the look on her face as she contemplated their youngling wasn’t as panicked as it had been before. She didn’t look particularly happy yet, but the look in her eyes was one of acceptance.
“Five years is being a long time,” she said.
“Two years.”
“Same thing,” she laughed. “I’m being okay. I will being okay. Goldie is taking good caring of me too. She’s learning a lot about young lvtls. Between you and her, we’ll being okay.”
Vytln made a face.
Haven cocked her head. “What is it?”
“I… don’t know much about younglings,” he admitted. “I was never around them. I don’t know how to take care of them. I don’t know what they need. I know some basic things, I’m not completely ignorant. But I don’t know anything more than that.”
Haven chuckled. “I don’t knowing anything about younglings either. Yours or mine. I never spending time with human younglings either. But we having five years to learn.”
“Two,” he grinned. “But yes. And I know how much you like to learn.”
“Do you wanting to coming with me to my next scan?” She asked, her face brightening. Telling him that, although she was asking if he wanted to come, she was telling him thatshewanted him to come. It was clearly written on her face.
And though he never really cared about the idea of younglings before, he found himself agreeing eagerly. He wanted to be there. He had a lot of questions for Goldie. He wanted to know what he and Haven should be expecting. He wanted to see their youngling, though he knew, at this point, they wouldn’t be more than a formless group of cells.
“Take me with you,” he said, not asking at all. Because he wanted nothing more than to be there.
Chapter 36
Haven
Goldie was really impressive. Haven admired her dedication to her craft, and how much work she had to be putting into learning healing. Especially being self-taught. She had no one to ask questions, no one to guide her. She was doing this all on her own. And set with the task of learning about lvtl pregnancies and embryos, she’d gone all out with the research.
As Haven was subjected to her next written language imprint and body scan, Goldie was telling her and Vytln everything she had learned. And though it was all related to his species, it all looked like new information to him.
He was standing beside the medscanner bed, outside of the rings. He could hold her hand if he wanted and the rings wouldn’t kick up a fuss, just so long as he didn’t interfere with their job. But he wasn’t right now. He was instead listening to Goldie with a look of concentration she usually only saw when he was working on a particularly stubborn piece of machinery.
