Victoria's Challenge

  “I’m not leaving Cyndy alone.”

  “She won’t be.”

  “That’s what you said before!”

  “Dad, I needed to take Lucas his second meal. He needs to keep his strength up. He’s been injured, by you. We can’t get to safety if he’s not flying!”

  “Stop it, you two.” Cyndy whispers. “Peter take Brett in, he’s never had a hot shower. I’ll be fine with Tori.” Reluctantly, Peter rises.

  “We won’t be long.”

  “There are clean clothes for Brett in the bag. Enjoy your first real shower, Brett.” Victoria gives him an encouraging smile. Once they leave, she turns back to her mom.

  “I’m sorry, mom.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, you need to take care of your man too.” The flash of pain in Tori’s eyes surprises her. “Tori?”

  “How bad does your throat hurt? Truth mom, I can’t help if you hold back.” She changes the subject.

  “It’s raw.” She continues to watch her daughter.

  “The juice irritated it, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay let’s try something else. I’ll only be a second.” Returning, she’s carrying the Carinian equivalent of a popsicle.

  “Try this, the cold should feel good on your throat.” Cyndy takes it and after a few seconds swallows.

  “Yeah that helps, Victoria, about your father….”

  “It’s fine mom. Eat that before it melts.” Picking up the blanket that had fallen during the attack, she puts it across Cyndy’s lap. “Is your head cold?”

  “Hmm. A little.”

  “Will you be okay if I go into my quarters for a sec?” Cyndy nods. Grabbing her green nightgown, she heads back out.

  “Let’s see if I remember how to tie one of these.” She smiles at her mother as she cuts off the straps then down a seam.

  “What are you doing?” Cyndy is aghast.

  “We’re going to make you a head wrap. This is the perfect color, it matches your eyes.” Working the material for several minutes, Victoria’s finally satisfied. “There, that should keep you a little warmer.”

  “Tori that was yours.”

  “And now it’s yours.” Leaning down, she kisses her cheek. “Rest now, mom, you’ll get better faster.” Leaning her head back, Cyndy is asleep.

  How could she think that? Lucas adjusts their course. If he had it his way, she’d never leave his side, but she specializes in burn victims and the best medical facility for that is on Carina.

  He can’t ask her to go on tour with him, treating broken bones and cuts when she should be treating burns victims like Hot Dog. Shit, if she hadn’t been on the Retribution he wouldn’t be flying right now.

  Rechecking guidance, he leans back. The look in her eyes, the pain he’d seen, shit he’d caused that by not coming right out and explaining himself. He isn’t very good at it, he doesn’t do it often but he’d learn to because that look has his guts in a knot. They’d be talking as soon as this shift was over because this is the last time she's ever going to doubt he wants her with him.

  Rising, Victoria lets her father sit down next to Cyndy. Looking at Bret, she smiles. “So how was it?”

  “Strange.” He frowned. "It was hot and there was a lot of it.”

  “Really? Well you’ll get used to it. Come on, let me scan you.”

  “Again?”

  “You want to get better, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Running the scan, she frowns.

  “Brett, are you sure you’re feeling okay?” When he suddenly pales, Victoria grabs the receptacle and Brett by the waist as he leans over vomiting.

  “Brett!” Cyndy tries to rise.

  “I’ve got him mom.”

  "What’s going on?” Peter demands.

  “Radiation sickness.” As Brett finishes emptying his stomach, Victoria eases him to the other couch. Going over to her bag, she pulls out a syringe and quickly gives him a shot.

  “What are you giving him?” Cyndy asks, concerned.

  “Nausea medicine, it should help calm his stomach, here Brett, just sip.” Victoria holds a water bottle to his mouth, when he shakes his head, she sighs. “Just a sip, rinse out your mouth then spit it out.” When he finally does, she eases him back.

  “I’m going to give you a booster and another radiation shot Brett, both will help you get better.”

  “It makes me sick.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I should have kept you on the soup like mom and dad. Your system isn’t ready for the heavier foods yet, but it will be.” She tips his face up to hers. “I promise Brett.”

  “Am I going to get sick again?”

  “You might.” Victoria’s not going to lie to him. “But you still need to eat as much as you can. It’ll make you stronger so you won’t get sick.”

  “Mom…”

  “Come here baby.” Helping him over, Victoria watches as Brett lays his head down in his mother’s lap. He’s pale, clammy, and exhausted, in seconds he’s asleep.

  “You expected this,” Peter says quietly.

  “Yeah, actually took longer than I thought. You’ve all held your food down pretty well.” Victoria meets her father’s look. “He’s probably going to sleep for a while, there’s nothing left in his stomach. We can move him into the other room.”

  “He’s fine here.” Cyndy tells her.

  “Mom, it’s going to be this way for a while. For all of you, now that you’re getting regular food. You need to rest as much as you can. Especially you… you have more dust in your lungs than dad and Brett.” Victoria looks to her father.

  “Cyndy, let’s put him in the bed, we’ll leave the door… hatch open.” Peter says, and the two stare at each other until Cyndy finally nods.

  “I’ll take him.” Lucas says entering the room, leaning down he picks up the exhausted boy.

  “We’ll be back in a minute.” Victoria looks to her parents then follows Lucas, stepping around him, she pulls back the blankets, so he can lay Brett down, and then tucks them tightly around him.

  “Victoria.” When she stands, he pulls her close. “We need to talk. You can’t honestly believe I don’t want you with me.” Tipping up her chin, he sees her exhaustion, her doubts.

  “I can’t… Lucas I can’t…” Her eyes start to fill as she tries to pull away.

  “Shh…. I love you, Victoria Lynn.” Gently he wipes her tears. “With everything I am, I love you but I need you safe and protected, for all those cycles when I couldn’t.”

  “Lucas…”

  “We’ll talk after you've rested, figure it out, but never think I don’t want you with me!” His voice is urgent, his eyes letting her see his soul.

  “I… I know that. I’m sorry, I don’t know why…” She buries her head in his chest.

  “You’re exhausted, it’s the only time you doubt yourself. Come on, you need to rest.” Lucas starts to lead her out of the room.

  “I need to treat mom and dad.”

  “Victoria…”

  “I’ll rest once that’s done.”

  “In our quarters,” Lucas tells her.

  “On the couch,” She argues back.

  “Damn it Victoria!” Lucas’ voice easily carries to the outer area.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter demands rising from the couch.

  “Nothing dad, Brett’s fine.” She knows he’s concerned about him.

  “Victoria’s not, she’s exhausted.” Victoria is Lucas’ concern.

  “Damn it Lucas!” She turns frustrated eyes to his.

  “You’re mine to protect Victoria!” As Lucas’ frustration breaks through an alarm sounds from the cockpit.

  “Go!” Victoria pushes him. “Dad. Sit.” She orders.

  “What’s wrong?” Peter demands.

  “I don’t know, but Lucas will handle it. Get mom’s harness on, I’ll go take care of Brett’s.” Securing Brett to the bed, Victoria hears the engines shutting down. Returning to her parents, she f
inds Lucas walking towards her.

  “What is it?” She asks softly.

  “Long range scans picked up movement.” His eyes are serious. “Massive movement.”

  “The Regulians.” Her eyes are steady as they met his.

  “Yes. We can’t outrun them, not at this distance, we’re going to have to play dead and hope they don’t pick us up.” Lucas looks into the eyes he loves and sees absolute trust.

  “Okay. Anything else you want shut down?”

  “No.”

  “What’s going on?” Peter’s trying to follow the conversation.

  Lucas looks over at Victoria’s father. He’d been a member of a shock troop on Earth, highly trained. Just because for the last nine cycles he’s been out of combat doesn’t mean he won’t understand. He needs to know what they are facing. Lucas leads Victoria over to sit, pulling her close and explains.

  “There is a massive Regulian battle fleet entering the Relinquished Zone. If we continue, they will pick up our warp signature. It’s the way we found Earth nine cycles ago because of theirs.”

  “They won’t see us sitting here?” Peter demands.

  “Hopefully our trail will have dissipated by the time they scan this far, their scanning capabilities aren’t like ours, they should fly right by.”

  “And after?”

  “We’ll follow them. Our signature will blend in with theirs. Once we get close enough to the border, we’ll make a run for it.”

  “You think they’re heading for the border?” Peter’s eyes stare hard into Lucas.

  “It’s a Regulian battle fleet, there’s only one place they would be heading.”

  “How long until they pass?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I shut everything down as soon as I read the scan. I don’t know how fast they’re traveling. I’d guess eight to ten hours, they normally travel at Warp 4, but they can travel faster. Our short range will be able to pick them up undetected, which will let us know.”

  “This ship doesn’t have defense capabilities?” Peter questions.

  “It does, not enough to take on an entire fleet.” Lucas looks down as he feels Victoria go lax against him. Peter watches him pull her closer. Looking to his wife, he sees they are in similar positions.

  “Tell me what happened to my daughter.”

  “What do you remember about that day?”

  “Everything. Cassie bringing you to the cabin, Tori’s fascination with you, not being able to find her after you’d left.”

  “Did you see the first explosion?”

  “We’d just gotten to the shelter.”

  “It hit the meadow. Victoria was trapped in that meadow surrounded by fire.” Lucas’ eyes darken as he remembers.

  “They homed in on your transmission,” Peter accuses.

  “No, they didn’t.” Lucas’ eyes spear Peter. “Hot Dog and I followed them there, they were already tracking.”

  “Tracking? Tracking what?”

  “They attacked Chester first, destroying it before we could intercept. What was in Chester?”

  “Nothing, there was nothing in Chester.”

  Lucas knew there was. He’s had cycles to think about it. “Where was your grandmother put to rest?”

  “What? Grams? What’s she got to do with this?”

  “She was abducted by the Regulians when she was young.”

  “I…” He can tell he’s caught Peter off guard that this isn’t what he expected. “How does that relate to Victoria?”

  “She too was abducted by the Regulians.” Lucas pauses, seeing the pain in Peter’s eyes. “They weren’t looking for her.”

  “What?”

  “They were looking for your grandmother. They implanted a thread in her arm, to find her again.” He sees Peter pale as he looks at his daughter.

  “Yes, she had one too.”

  “Gram’s was buried in Chester.” Peter quietly says.

  “Yes and that’s the first signal they tracked, it’s why they destroyed the town. Once we destroyed their Strikers, the Regulians sent more, carrying nukes.”

  “Why?!” Peter demands. “Why did they do this… to my daughter… to our planet…”

  “To stop the return of the true Queen of the House of Knowledge.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Lucas sighs than quickly looks down as Victoria settles even deeper into his arms. Reaching behind him, he pulls a blanket down to cover her.

  “There’s a great deal you don’t know. I don’t know if you’ll understand it all.”

  “Are you questioning me, boy?” Suddenly the leader of a shock troop is staring at him.

  “Your ability to learn? With a sister like Cassie and a daughter like Victoria? No, but you won’t understand it all, not right away.” He sees Peter stand down.

  “When Victoria was abducted, they were looking for your grandmother, the young girl they’d taken before, fifty cycles earlier. The Regulians aren’t the smartest species, just the most brutal. The thread they implanted in your grandmother was hard to track. When they found it, Victoria in the garden, with the source close, they thought she was your grandmother.”

  “I…”

  “They quickly discovered their mistake. That’s why they put another thread in Victoria, hoping she would lead them to the Lost Queen.”

  “You’re saying they would have found us whether you were there or not.”

  “Yes they would have.”

  “Because of Tori.” Peter watches Lucas’ eyes harden.

  “If you ever say that to her I’ll make you wish we’d left you on Earth.” While his voice is low, there is no doubt of the threat or the promise.

  “Lucas… what’s wrong?” Victoria mummers in her sleep, she felt him tense. Forcing himself to relax, he leans down to kiss her hair.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong, everyone is fine. I promise, sleep baby.” Feeling her nod, Lucas’ eyes turn back to Peter.

  “I wasn’t blaming her, she was a child.”

  “You’ve blamed her before.”

  “I was out of line.”

  “Don’t tell me, tell her, she’s suffered ever since she remembered, blaming herself.”

  “She shouldn’t.”

  “No, but you need to know, if she’d been in that shelter with you, you’d all be dead.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The second bomb, it was nuclear. If Victoria had been with you...”

  “The shelter wouldn’t have survived a direct nuclear hit.”

  “No.”

  “She survived...Cassie survived...because they were with you.”

  “Yes. We got them off the planet. They lost the signal. That’s when the Regulians started bombarding your moon until they were able to cause a large piece to enter the Earth’s atmosphere.”

  “That was the third hit. We felt it but didn’t know what it was.” Peter is silent. “That’s why there was so much devastation.”

  “Yes, when we realized what they were doing, we had to pull our fleet out. There was nothing we could do.”

  “Cassie and Victoria?”

  “Were on the Retribution, safe.

  “What’s this Queen you’re talking about?”

  “Carina is ruled by Kings and Queens, five in total. Over twenty five hundred cycles ago, the heir to the House of Knowledge and a Prince from the House of Protection disappeared. They were life mates but because they were from different Houses, they could never be married. So they left.”

  “What’s that have to do with Victoria!”

  “All royals have a birthmark.” Lucas holds up his forearm to show his.

  “Birthmark…” He sees Peter make the connection.

  “Your grandmother had one, on the inside of her right calf.”

  “Yes… but Victoria doesn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Cassie does.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re telling me, that my sister is the lost
Queen from some distant planet, and that’s why the Regulians attacked Earth.”

  “Simply put, yes, but none of it is simple. Your sister is Queen Cassandra Qwes Zafar of the House of Knowledge. It was the most powerful House on the planet before her reign, it’s more so now under her rule.”

  “Victoria said something about her being married.”

  “Yes, to my father. High Admiral William Zafar.”

  “He has a birthmark? Like yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not like Cassie’s.”

  “No, my father and I are from the House of Protection.”

  “So how can they be married?” Before Lucas can explain, Cyndy starts to cough. Victoria immediately wakes.

  “Easy mom, it's okay. Cough it up.” By the time the attack ends, she’s pale and exhausted.

  “Lay back mom, shhhh… it’s okay.” Victoria wipes her mouth. Getting the syringe, she adjusts it and gives her the injection. As she falls asleep, Victoria looks to her father.

  “How you holding up dad?” The eyes that meet hers are devastated.

  “She’s getting worse,” he whispers.

  “No, she’s not," Victoria instantly denies. "Dad, she’s keeping her food down, that means her body is responding. She’s just struggling with the dust.” Readjusting the syringe, she looks at him. “Time for your booster and meds.” When he nods, she gives him the shots. “What do you need? Some soup?”

  “No.” Peter picks up Cyndy’s hand.

  “Victoria…” Lucas sets two plates down on the table. “You haven’t eaten.” She looks at the sandwich on the plate and sighs. He’s right. She needs to eat, moving to sit next to him she begins to eat.

  “How long was I down?” she asks, looking at Lucas.

  “Barely an hour, you need more sleep.” Nodding she takes another bite. “How’s the leg feeling?”

  “I’m fine.” Victoria just continues to look at him. “Once you’ve eaten, you can check it yourself.”

  “Dad, you need to rest while mom is.” Victoria looks to her father to find him watching them. Slowly he nods then closing his eyes lays his head back. Victoria looks questioningly to Lucas, knowing she’s missed something. Lucas just meets her look.