Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Oh dear…” Granny Two-two shook her head sorrowfully. “I’m afraid you ‘ent gonna get it, dearie. Nothing can get into the waste field and get out again alive. See, it’s a super slow time-suck. Even my little quick-loris, as fast as he is, would be stuck like a fly in glue if I tried to send him out. Not that I would.”
She patted one of her many pockets and the little creature popped his head out and chattered for a moment before disappearing back down into the comfort of the worn fabric.
“Then I don’t know what to do…” Penny shook her head. “If only I could call my husband…”
Just then, the metal button she’d been working on getting off her temple finally popped free.
“V’rex?” she sent and was glad to hear her mate come back to her at once.
“Sweetheart! Where are you? I’m fucking worried to death! Did someone hurt you?”
“They tried but I’m okay,” Penny sent back quickly. “But I think we might have a problem. You and Commander Sylvan need to go down the service tunnels and meet me in the Surveillance Room. You need to see this.”
Chapter 117
“Well, I guess there’s not much we can do…” Commander Sylvan frowned at the picture on the monitor. He looked down at Granny Two-two. “You say that sunlight never reaches this spot?”
“Nope, never,” she said stoutly. “For the waste field is in the shadow of the station and nary a ray ever reaches there.”
“Nary a ray! Nary a ray!” shouted her second head.
“Yes, well…” Sylvan looked nonplussed by the second head’s interjection.
“Maybe it’s the Goddess’s will,” Penny offered and blushed when everyone looked at her. “I mean she…she talked to me. I heard her voice,” she said, feeling defensive. “When the Glorious Leader was dragging me along the service corridors and telling me he was going to use me as collateral to get his Compound back, she told me she was sending help.”
“That was me!” Drace exclaimed. “I heard her voice too, telling me that someone needed my help right before I ran into you,” he told Penny.
“I’m in your debt, Brother.” V’rex offered the Havoc a warrior’s clasp with the arm that wasn’t curled protectively around Penny’s shoulders.
“Not at all,” Drace protested, taking the offered arm. “If anything, we’re even. Remember the life-debt I owed you for saving my ass in the jungle on Yown Alpha?”
“The debt is more than paid,” V’rex agreed. “But still, when I think how that lowlife bastard tried to hurt Penelope…”
“The Goddess told me she was sending help and that the Glorious Leader would get exactly what he deserved,” Penny said quickly, since red flames were beginning to dance in V’rex’s pale gold eyes.
“Well, he certainly did.” Sylvan peered again at the monitor. “And you say he’ll be stuck like that forever?” he asked, Granny Two-two. “Frozen in time, as it were, because of the anomaly?”
“Yes, indeed.” She nodded vigorously which caused her second head to shout out a curse. “Time sucks come and go but this one ‘ent moving. It’s been here nigh on seventy cycles and hasn’t moved so much as a micron.”
“Well…then I guess we have no choice but to leave the Eye of Ten’gu here, though I wish we could have brought it back to the Mother Ship and destroyed it.” Sylvan sighed and shook his head.
“It’s safe enough,” Granny Two-two assured him. “Safe in the shadow of the ship—‘ent nothing going to get to it there.”
“I hope you’re right.” Sylvan had been bending over, examining the monitor. “Well, I guess we’d best be getting home.” He looked at Penny and V’rex. “Have the two of you decided if you’re coming with us back to the Mother Ship or not?”
“Oh, well…” Penny began, looking up at her new mate uncertainly.
“We’ll come,” he said. “But we might need to take a wormhole instead of folding space. If…” He cleared his throat and looked significantly at Sylvan. “If you know what I mean.”
“Ah, of course.” Sylvan nodded, and Penny suddenly remembered that pregnant women couldn’t safely fold space. She felt her cheeks heat with a blush. Of course, she didn’t know if she was pregnant or not, but it was probably better not to take a risk.
“We’ll see you at the Mother Ship soon,” V’rex promised. “Though we might take a side route and pass by Rageron on the way.” He smiled at his two uncles, who had accompanied him and Sylvan to the Service Room. “I seem to have a lot of catching up to do.”
Penny felt a warm glow in her heart as she watched her mate connect with his long-lost kin. True, her mission hadn’t exactly gone as planned, but everything had worked out in the end. She was ending her time in the Yown System without the distinction of bringing home the Eye of Ten’gu but with a new mate she would love and cherish forever.