Jay shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Fine, I’m too tired to argue with you. You can come with me, but you have to teleport us there.”
“Mate, that would be unwise. I would not like for my cub to grow up without knowing his sire and I would be most displeased with you if you died before showing me more of this tickling that you are always threatening me with,” Eesa said.
“You have a better way, I suppose,” Amelia said.
Eesa bared her sharp teeth at Amelia and said, “Yes, first wife I do. I shall transport Jay and Trina in one of the extended starfighters. They are equipped with the spatial jump drive and the subspace dimensional drive. If PSI is being interrupted it also has more conventional fusion propulsion engines.”
Amelia nodded and said, “Good thinking fur-bag. But I am coming with you.”
“Me too,” Jessie said.
Eesa shook her off. “There is only room for four in the ship, maybe five if we squish. If we are unable to bring back the ship that Meikiyo took then we may need to bring them back with me. These two humans are all that I can bring besides my mate.”
Jay tuned out the brief argument that followed. Each of his wives and many of his fuses wanted to go, but Eesa was right, no matter how coldly she delivered the truth. Amelia, Trina, and he would be going with her. There was a part of him that wanted to bring Huong.
He reached out to her with his mind, “Huong, I wish that I could bring you along. It would feel appropriate to have you and Amelia at my side as we are fighting with Meikiyo to free Higen, but you know as well as I do that in battle, Trina is a better choice.”
“I do know, husband. I wish that I could go but I would rather have you come back in one piece and Trina is better able to ensure that. Just know that I want to have a long life with you after this,” Huong replied.
“I wouldn’t dream of anything else.”
After that they gathered any gear they might possibly need, Jay put Huong in charge while he was gone and assigned Jessie to liaison with the Tamoori to see what could be done to save those that had survived the damage to the leviathan. He noticed Eesa staring at him as he gave that order, but she didn’t say anything. Her gratitude was obvious in the fusion, yet the words didn’t pass her lips. It was just another reminder to him that he had a lot to learn about his newest wife.
Mia placed new fully charged PSI crystals into the ship and Ava went over the instructions for the spatial jump drive with Amelia and Trina even though they both knew how to make one run. Finally, he said his goodbyes. Many tearful hugs were had, and he was kissed passionately enough times to chaff the lips of a normal man.
The love of his wives and fuses along with the faith that Team Jay had in him was a good reminder of how much he had in his life. There was so much that he could lose, but it was also an anchor securing him to this life. He wasn’t ready to give up.
When the back of the craft closed and they all sat on the two benches in back, Jay said, “Time to bring our family home.”
Even Eesa growled in approval.
Chapter 33- Battlefield of the Mind
The ship jumped to orbit around planet #1, the A’snkarnt home world. Well, the home world of a now dead race. Jay scanned the surface and found one A’snkarnt. One who he knew and owed a debt of pain to.
He also sensed Meikiyo with D’varn. Jay could scarcely believe that his fire goddess could be on the same planet with the traitorous worm without ending him. There must be something more going on. Then he detected another life form.
It was his son, but bizarre. The body was grown but the mind was not. It was odd, with thought patterns that didn’t match up and when he tried to reach out telepathically to his son, all he got was a strange form of static.
Jay was interrupted though as the remaining Forlorn ships that had stayed in orbit began to fire on them. Without even thinking about it, Jay through up a PSI construct to reinforce their shields and then said, “Eesa, please clean up the mess. I need to borrow Amelia and Trina for a minute. When I bring them back to you, they will be tired.”
Then he reached out his mind and communicated his need. Jay knew that with only a thousand ships here, he could eventually destroy them all without resorting to the drastic measures that he had before, but he could feel the distress from Meikiyo down on the planet's surface even if he couldn’t seem to communicate directly with her. This was no time for half measures.
Both Amelia and Trina consented to a full fusion with him. They were still tired from using the technique earlier in the day, but Jay had refused to use this earlier and was still fresh enough to do it now. The three of them blended together. Jay’s massive form waivered. For a moment he had blond hair, then in another instant he had Trina’s beautiful caramel skin.
Then his form solidified, and he felt his power quadrupled by the power of this union. Jay or whatever the appropriate name for this merged being was teleported out into the void of space and streaked amongst the
