Working Title “Seven Oars” Ch. 1

I don’t think I’ve posted anything from my current work in progress, Rix Universe Book 3. I call it Seven Oars but the title may change. It’s Rosamma’s story, and I am kind of aware that at first blush, Rosamma doesn’t check out as a typical romance heroine. Then again, who does? Spoiler alert: Her love interest is also unconventional. 🙂

I am sitting here writing my blog with a “Simmering Spices” candle lit, with pretty fall decorations all around me. It’s still hot but fall is definitely in the air. And it’s so sunny and peaceful here in the West, as opposed to my beautiful Florida Panhandle that’s about to be washed and blown off the map by hurricane Helene. I don’t have family in the region anymore, but plenty of friends. Prayers to all who are sheltering in place! Watch out for those trees and stock up on water. It’s going to get serious in a few hours.

To while the time away, here’s the first chapter of Seven Oars. This story starts right before Sky Song ends. It helps if you read the other books for some context, but it isn’t necessary and can be read as a standalone.

Their quick evening meal was finished. 
One by one, the women dropped used paper plates into a bag Fawn held open. Rosamma carefully put hers in the bag, too. It was Fawn’s turn to take out the trash. 
Rosamma followed her with her eyes as the girl left the cabin to dispose of the bag, humming a song. Fawn was the most approachable of the group, with a hearty, ready laugh. She was the kind of person who never met a stranger in her life. 
Feeling awkward and decidedly un-Fawn-like, Rosamma settled on her cot and picked up a book, pulling her soft shawl tight around her shoulders for comfort rather than warmth. She wanted to finish the book before they left Meeus. Ren said they couldn't take a lot of things with them.
Things. The women in Rosamma’s party worried about leaving things behind. They talked about them and lamented their loss to one another, shaking their heads and wiping an occasional tear. One woman, Anske, owned a house, and she liked to talk about it. She described in detail the meticulous arrangements she’d made for the upkeep of the house in her absence. She repeated them over and over again, as if to reassure herself that everything would be alright. Of all of them, only Anske planned to return to Meeus.
Rosamma’s heart gave a treacherous squeeze. This beautiful planet, Meeus, was their home. It wasn’t a bad one! And if it was, Rosamma couldn't tell, because there was nothing she could compare it to. She liked her home and had never sought a different life.
But Ren had.
Instead of reading, Rosamma stared into space. Her fingers went to play with the end of her long thin braid, a childish habit she’d never been able to break. 
The other women quietly went about their evening rituals. There had been fifteen at the start, but only eight remained committed. It was easy to change one’s mind when things didn’t go according to the plan. She wished she could say, like those who had dropped out, that the uncertainty had become too great and she was no longer comfortable taking the risk. 
But she couldn’t say that. She was a firm part of this would-be passenger group waiting to board a spaceship that would take them from Meeus to a livable asteroid called Priss. 
Unable to concentrate on her book, Rosamma cast her eyes about the large room criss-crossed with camp beds. Uneasiness washed over her anew. The women waited on pins and needles for Ren’s new alien friend Lyle to take them away from here. This was all they wanted. 
But Lyle, their pilot, was so sick…
Fawn’s hearty laughter sounded from outside the door.
“What part of being quiet doesn’t she understand?” Alyesha’s deep, low voice said from the shadowed corner where her bed sat. It was the most private and, therefore, the most coveted corner. When they’d first arrived at this place, several women had engaged in a subtle jostling to claim it, and Alyesha had won. Alyesha often won.
Old Gro grumbled something that sounded like dimwit, never straightening from her hunch as she played a game on a small screen.
“Fawn is so energetic. It’s hard for young people to stay cooped up for a long time,” Mara said in her typical Mara-the-peacemaker way. 
The door opened to let Fawn in, hair windblown, a big smile on her face.
“Rosamma!” she hollered. “Your brother’s here.”
“Don’t shout,” Alyesha snapped. 
Making a mockery of Alyesha’s words, a long hoot of a siren announced a spaceship's departure. The throaty revving of powerful engines rattled the windows, becoming louder and turning into a roar. It continued for a good five minutes until the ship took off. Then the sound faded away quickly, replaced by the silence that seemed especially deep after this assault on their eardrums. 
“Yeah. Don’t shout,” Anske said into the silence, parroting Alyesha’s words with sarcasm.
Alyesha flopped onto her camp mattress. “You know what I mean! When they are not flying.”
The ships took off from the nearby spaceship depot multiple times per day. Most were quieter, but once in a while, a beast like that would wake them in the middle of the night. When that happened, Rosamma couldn’t help but imagine herself going into space surrounded by all this mighty power that was at the same time… fragile.
“He told us to stay quiet,” Alyesha pointed at Ren who poked his head in the door.
“I did tell you that,” Ren confirmed. “Voices carry. It’s supposed to be an uninhabited zone.”
The women were camped out in an empty building that used to be a convention room of an old training camp. The camp had long been closed, and the area around it designated as a buffer zone between the densely populated Shadush city-continent and its spaceship depot. 
They squatted in this neglected, musty building because Ren wanted them to be as close to the spaceship depot as possible without actually being inside its heavily guarded perimeter. Within the perimeter, there was a small ship Lyle was going to commandeer with Ren’s help. When the time came for them to go, seconds would count.
Ren came all the way inside, a tall man, on the lean side no matter how much he ate. The sight of him was so familiar and dear to Rosamma. He was as much a part of her as she was a part of him.
He came alone.
“Where’s Paloma?” Rosamma asked after Ren’s girlfriend, co-conspirator, and often the driving force behind wild ideas such as this, to space-immigrate from Meeus illegally.
“Home. She’s still working out the kinks in the security breach. No room for mistakes and all that.”
“God forbid,” mumbled Gro.
All the women had tuned in and were listening to Ren’s every word.
“Don’t worry,” he grinned, addressing the room at large. “Paloma doesn’t make mistakes. My baby’s good like that.”
Someone chuckled, and Rosamma also smiled, but inside she felt a little perturbed. She loved Paloma. She was happy for Ren. She only wished Paloma wasn’t the imaginative and intrepid hacker who poked her nose into business that could end very badly for her and Ren. Even the most meticulously laid-out plans could go awry. 
“How are you doing, Rose?” Ren sat next to her on the spindly foldable bed that wobbled precariously. Their hands found each other and linked up.
“Not bad at all. Ready and set to become a space tourist.”
He smiled her own smile back at her. 
Except for their smile and similar light-colored eyes, they looked nothing like a brother and sister, much less twins. 
Ren was a normal-looking human male. 
And she was a freak. A half-formed version of a human. Or an unfinished Tana-Tana alien. She was both and neither, like she had been caught in the middle of some unfortunate full-moon transition between the two races. That was on the outside.
On the inside, their situations were reversed. She, Rosamma, had all the physicality and characteristics of an average human woman, whereas Ren tended strongly toward the Tana-Tana alien nature. He even moved like a Tana-Tana when he wanted, fast and stealthy, specter-like.
Their linked hands warmed up and created a small bubble of energy felt only by the two of them. 
“How is Lyle?” Rosamma asked. She kept her voice very low so that the rest of the room couldn’t hear her.
“Not as well as we want him to be.” 
Ren didn’t say anything more, and that only meant there was no good news. Their capable Rix pilot, Lyle, was dying. 
Rosamma’s heart broke for him. Despite his checkered piratical past, Lyle was such a good man. Alien. A really solid one. He loved and was loved in return. He didn’t deserve to die now.
“Do you think I can…”
“No. You can’t, Rose. He needs more than your energy.”
Rosamma lowered her eyes to their clasped hands. 
“What is going to happen to all of… this?” she whispered. As far as she knew, Ren and Paloma didn’t have another friendly space pilot with Lyle’s particular expertise in stealing ships who would fly them away and do it for free.
When Ren responded, he chose his words with care. “We shall wait for him to recover. Cricket has faith, and so should we.”
Rosamma nodded. It must be brutal for Cricket, Lyle’s love, to watch her entire world crash and burn, and feel her very heart being ripped out of her chest because her mate was dying. If Lyle did die, nothing but a string of bleak gray days without joy would stretch before Cricket for the rest of her life.
Suddenly, Rosamma’s own loneliness had an upside. She was safe from the pain of a debilitating heartbreak. One couldn’t lose what one didn’t have, could they?
After they finished their energy exchange and unlinked their hands, Ren hung around for a short while and talked to the women, explaining the need to prolong their waiting game. They accepted the message with outward calm, but it was easy to sense everyone’s disappointment.
“We’ve been waiting for three weeks,” Alyesha spoke after Ren left. “And he wants to wait longer?” She looked directly at Rosamma, as if trying to pry a different answer out of her when Ren wouldn’t say what they wanted.
“He said another week,” Rosamma said quietly. It could be two weeks. It could be forever. 
Gro lay down and put her hands under her head, a toothpick stuck in her mouth. “Fine by me. Let’s wait another week.” Her feet in worn-out shoes were wiggling.
Alyesha tossed her long hair and her dark eyes flashed. “Not everyone has time to lose, Gro.” 
Other women were intimidated by the opinionated Alyesha because she steamrolled over everyone else with such ease.
Not Gro. “What’s your rush, girl?”
Alyesha was younger than Gro, but she wasn’t young. Her impeccable, possibly genetically enhanced appearance projected timelessness that could put her anywhere between thirty and fifty-five. Whatever her real age, she didn’t care for being called a “girl.” 
She gave Gro a killing look, but instead of arguing, smiled tightly. “Someone’s very eager for me to finally come to Priss.”
Gro scoffed. “If they’re so eager for you, they can wait another week. I don’t see what the problem is.”
Before an argument could ensue, Eze pulled out a snack and ripped the packaging noisily. 
Eze was a Sakka alien, the only non-human in their party. Rosamma didn’t know what Eze was doing on human Meeus or how long she’d lived here or why she could’t leave through legal channels. Just like she knew nothing about any of the others. None of them had shared their stories. What Alyesha had just revealed about someone waiting for her on the asteroid was the most Rosamma had ever learned about her.
Mara worried her lip. “Do you think we won’t be able to go, after all?”
“We’ll find a way.” Anske’s blue, slightly protruding eyes, blazed with determination, saving Rosamma from hedging and spouting platitudes. “I can’t fail. I have a higher purpose!”
That made Gro raise her head and Eze stop chewing. 
“The delay is a holy test,” Anske continued, unaware of the heightened attention from the Gro and Eze quarters. “We should all use this time to reflect on our life and seek repentance.” 
Mara’s daughter Daphne darted across the room and hid at her mother’s side. Daphne was a younger version of the pretty, round-faced Mara only very skinny and pale. In her late teens, she acted like a much younger child and had a vocabulary of a five year-old. 
“I’ll be damned.” Gro half-rose from her bed and stared at Anske. “You’re a fucking missionary!”
“Gro!” Mara slapped her hands over Daphne’s ears to prevent her from hearing the profanity.
Alyesha laughed.
Fawn divided a wide look between Anske and Gro. “Bro! A missionary. For real?”
Anske blinked, realizing she’d become the center of attention. “So what if I am? People on that asteroid have no roots. They need spiritual healing, and someone has to deliver it. By appealing to other people’s faltering morals, we build our own character. Don’t you agree, Fawn?”
Anske’s direct appeal to her morality and character took Fawn aback. She looked around wildly. “Oh, I don’t know, Anske. I just want to get away from here, to see the world. Maybe to find a man.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger.
“No luck with men at home?” Alyesha curled her lip at Fawn while giving the younger woman’s nice, plump figure a thorough once-over.
Fawn was not unaware of Alyesha’s superior attitude, but she wasn’t upset by it. “Not that. I’m from Pepper Pass. Nothing but corn fields and cow pastures. All the men are farmers - so boring.”
“Boring!” Sassa, a young but tired-looking, small-statued woman who was as quiet as a mouse, said under her breath. “A good problem to have, boring men.”
Eze, the Sakka, set aside her unfinished snack. “Well,” she addressed Fawn, “you definitely won’t find cow manure or corn husks on Priss.”
“I’m ready for an adventure.”
“You’ll get an adventure,” Eze promised. “Just be careful what you wish for.”
Fawn's eyes sparkled with excitement. “I wish to find interesting men.” 
“Sure. Only they’re no human men, love.”
Sassa burrowed deeper into her little cot. 
Another spaceship took off from the nearby spaceship depot, howling like a disturbed demon and rattling the windows.
Using the noise as an excuse to end the discussion that had suddenly turned personal, the women returned to their narrow camp beds. Once again, they had closed off, united in their determination to keep their distance. 
Long after all the noise had ceased and the darkness fallen, Rosamma stayed awake on her bed, wrapped in a shawl. The women were so different from each other. So different from her. Temporarily, their life paths had joined together, and their futures lay ahead, dark and swirling ominously with the unknown. 
Treacherous thoughts about staying meandered in Rosamma’s head. She and Ren were forever linked together by their half-breed nature and the need to exchange energy to survive. If only they could exist apart from each other…
Once they took off, Rosamma was going to lose every familiar sight and smell, every little comfort that surrounded her on Meeus.
The terraformed Priss was a miserable place, lawless and rough, a kind of a last frontier. It had thin recycled air and poorly purified imported water, both rationed out for the residents. And most residents weren’t even human. 
Funny that Rosamma should worry about aliens, herself a mixed-race. Yet the prospect of living among them scared her. She was so very human - by half of her blood, but also by virtue of her upbringing. Humans and their culture was all Rosamma had ever known. It was familiar. It was home. 
Breaking away from it all was terrifying. 
Tears leaked out of her eyes. She curled into a fetal position on the cot as she covertly blotted them with her shawl. 
Do I have to go?
She was so afraid to fly into space. Afraid of so many things. Timid and frail, she was the worst ever character for an adventure. 
But if she stayed behind, Ren would stay, too. And Rosamma couldn’t refuse her brother a fighting chance for a better life with the woman he loved. 
It was hard to live other people’s dreams.