Reni's Trial by Fire (Triads in Blue Book 12) Read online

  Reni’s Trial by Fire

  by

  Alyssa Hope

  Text copyright 2018

  Alyssa Hope

  All Rights Reserved

  Is it necessary to say that any resemblance between aliens (blue or otherwise) and any living people (real or otherwise) is purely coincidental?

  All beings engaged in sexual acts are over the legal age of consent in their own particular universes.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 1.

  Reni crouched down behind a crumbling concrete wall, waiting for the gunfire to ease off. As soon as it did, his team, a mix of humans and Ceruleans, dashed to the next building. They scanned for structural integrity of each building before going to the rooftop and working their way down, looking for any survivors. They cleared each floor, wary of existing damage to walls and floors as well as explosives and snipers.

  It was a slow process, but one necessary to keep themselves safe, as well as make sure they didn’t miss anyone who needed help. When they reached the basement they took deep breaths and set about the business which had brought them there. Room by room, they sorted the dead bodies from the wounded, cutting the victims who were in shackles down from the walls, and calling for transport to the Crusader for the living. The dead would be given decent burials later.

  Old people, women, children - the militants on all sides hadn’t cared who they tortured and killed, and the team members were sick to the stomach by the time they finished each building. They all needed a break from this, but a break for them would mean people dying while they waited for help that didn’t come. They kept going.

  The proud Crusader, the flagship of the Cerulean fleet, had received a request for assistance with evacuations from this city, but the situation had gone badly downhill even in the day it had taken them to get there. Now they were acting as a hospital ship until more suitable resources could be brought into range.

  Physicians and surgeons from three planets were working side by side on the ship, and patients who were stable enough were being transferred to the nearest civilized planet for follow-up. No-one cared what color or species anyone else was, although in surgery there were professional enquiries about which side the heart was on and what kidneys looked like in this species, if they even had them.

  On the ground, there was only pain and blood. One young woman passed Reni an hours-old baby with her last breath, and he promised her soul he would look after the little one. It went up to the Crusader to be with the other babies, to be looked after and loved. He would make sure they all found loving homes, whatever race or color they were. He didn’t make promises lightly. None of their people did.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, on many levels. When Reni had left his command of the smaller, older Envoy to take over the Crusader from Oki, Oki had laughingly assured him that he would enjoy the deployment, and that it would be a wonderful assignment for him. The ship was only two years old and in first class shape, the crew was all experienced and well-trained, and their mission consisted of wandering from planet to planet searching for their Lost Children.

  Instead of the stern military figure he had anticipated accepting command of the ship from, there had been a relaxed and laughing individual with smile lines around his sparkling black eyes. Disembarking with him had been a happy crowd of adults and children – many children – and Captain Oki had spent more time herding the young ones than he had with formalities.

  “There’s something in the water!” he had explained cheerfully, hugging the two who were his beloveds before reaching for a toddler who was making a break for it. The Crusader had just spent several years out among the stars in an ongoing search for Cerulea’s Lost Children, the young ones who had been stolen from their homes as children and who were now scattered throughout the universe. Many of those rescued so far, now adults, had coincidentally, or not, been the beloveds of those on the ship, and completed triads had inevitably led to babies. Other rescues, although not of their own people, had been of orphaned babies and small children, and those had all been adopted into happy mixed families on the ship.

  Reni had watched the many laughing triads unload from the ship, the babies who were in their arms and the numerous young ones who were racing around on this planet’s surface for the first time, and looked forward to a peaceful adventure in the stars. Maybe he would even find his own beloveds?

  He didn’t have very long to sit back and contemplate that potential happiness. Not too long into the journey they had received this frantic call for help. Civil war was destroying much of this isolated planet, and the foreign traders and ambassadors in the neutral city were all at risk. The Ceruleans had reason to believe that several of their own so-called Lost Children were on the planet, so they had already been en route, and this news had only added to the urgency.

  Things had changed rapidly, and not for the better. The potential risk became an all-out slaughter as war and retribution raged across the central town. Most foreigners who didn’t have a way off-planet were killed or captured, indiscriminately.

  The proposed evacuation became a battle to hold destroyed territory while any ships which were within range sent forces to save what lives they could.

  Make-shift modifications allowed the Crusader to function as a hospital ship, and they coped with that, as they would cope with anything that they were asked to do.

  Then it was discovered that the Ceruleans, perhaps because of whatever gifted them with the ability to be telepathic, also had the ability to sense land mines as well as incoming explosives. At least one Cerulean with every team on the ground could help prevent many injuries to other people on the rescue teams, and so they had sent crew-members to the ground.

  Reni would not ask his people to go where he wouldn’t, so here he was taking his shift on the ground, moving cautiously across dangerous territory, marking mines and hidden explosives as he went, and keeping all his senses open to danger.

  The town that was being destroyed had been built a hundred years ago by a colonial power with good, if somewhat naive, intentions. Now all of the many native factions were blowing it up, one building and one street at a time. The Northern people captured and tortured the Southern people, and the Eastern people did the same to the Western. Or maybe it was the other way around. They all looked the same when they were dead, Reni thought.

  And all of the natives captured and tortured any of the off-world intruders they found, in case they had any useful information, or just in blind hatred because they were different. He tried not to think about the fate of any blue people who had already been living there; perhaps they were among the privileged ones evacuated onto smaller ships before the violence began? The Crusader’s people kept their eyes open, and asked everyone they met if they had seen any other blue people.

  It was a dangerous place to be distracted. He pulled the earth human beside him back just before another shell hit, and then they both ran forward.

  “Last one,” the woman gasped, as they flung themselves through the doorway into the relative shelter of the building. Reni looked up in surprise, and realized that it was indeed the last building of the last street.

  “Don’t relax now,” she warned him, and he smiled bitterly.

  “I don’t think I’ll relax for a couple of years, at least.”

  One badly injured man, probably once good-looking, began to struggle and scream when they cut him down from the wall. A medi
c moved in quickly to inject him with a strong dose of pain-killer, and monitored his pulse until the man relaxed into unconsciousness.

  “Don’t take it personally, sir. He’s probably seen a lot of demons lately.”

  Reni didn’t take anything personally anymore. With the final building cleared, he picked up a small child who was too traumatized to speak at all, let alone tell them her name, and transported back to the ship with her.

  With the little one tucked into a nursery off the Captain’s quarters, once occupied by Oki’s large and happy family, he crawled into his own bed. One of the med techs stayed with the little ones, to deal with diapers, nightmares and the need for hugs. He left instructions with his Second Officer to wake him up in case of an emergency, or in a year, whichever came first.

  He was fairly sure that a year hadn’t passed when Sari apologetically nudged him awake.

  ‘Sir? I have been in contact with Oki, and he has a home for the orphans where they can be together. There is a narrow window of opportunity to make that transport tonight. I could take them all and be back before morning.’

  As tired as he was, Reni knew a blessing when it was presented to him. There was no better person than Oki, and no better place for these orphaned ones than in his care on Cerulea. And who knew where the Crusader would be in a week, or even tomorrow.

  ‘The ones who aren’t bonded with crew already – we have five babies and five children?’

  ‘Five and six, sir.’

  ‘You can do this safely?’ That was a silly question. Sari wouldn’t have woken him up if he couldn’t. Reni dragged himself out of bed and helped Sari dress the children, and explained to them that they were going to a peaceful green planet where there was lots of love and always enough to eat. They didn’t believe him, but they would in time.

  Sari had one baby strapped to his chest, and the other four were strapped to the older children, and Reni escorted them to the transport bay.

  ‘May the gods bless your voyage, and may you find love.’

  He was still there an hour later, leaning on the wall, trying to keep his eyes open, when Sari returned.

  ‘All good, sir. You will be pleased to know that it is the triad of Ambassador Una who are taking them all in, all eleven of them. It couldn’t be better for the little ones.’

  Sari guided Reni back through the halls and tucked him into his bed as though he were one of the children. Reni thought it was a pity that he and Sari were not destined for each other. His Second Officer was a good person, and a kind one. He was everything Reni would have wanted in a beloved, but they were not meant for each other, or they would have known.

  He drifted off to sleep again, to dreams of explosions, screaming and bloodshed. And then, inexplicably, smiling blue eyes and a soft voice telling him that it would be alright. He was in a safe and happy place, with strong arms protecting him. It was a good dream.

  Chapter 2.

  This time the teams that went to the ground had shovels and were digging graves. It was the way of their people to take care of the dead properly, and the humans joined in with them to help with the seemingly endless burials and ceremonies. It had to be done.

  When it was finally complete, and his people were safely returned to the Crusader, Reni stood beside the Governor of the destroyed city, looking out over the cemetery. The Governor has returned from his safe haven for this final farewell. Thousands of graves, peoples from a dozen different worlds all come to this final resting place in the sand.

  “It could have worked, it almost worked,” the Governor said sadly. “One small change of circumstance, a flip of the coin landing a different way and we would have brought peace to this barbaric land.”

  Reni took a coin out of his pocket and tossed it on the ground, then turned and walked away without looking at it.

  He just wanted to go home to his peaceful green planet, and not ever try to fix anything else ever again. Even as he thought that, a small oddly spotted puppy poked its head out from behind the remains of a wall and whined at him. He sighed and scooped it up into his arms.

  ‘Fine. You’re the last one I try and save.’

  He was still trying to tuck the puppy into the front of his tunic, perhaps not paying as much attention as he should have because of that, when he was hit in the side by a large heavy object. He went down hard, rolling and trying to protect the puppy as he fell. He flinched, expecting the sound of a blast, but what he got what a verbal blast.

  “Damn fool, walking along not paying attention, you damn near stepped on a mine, you damn fool …”

  Reni thought about that, and then pointed out “You said ‘damn fool’ twice.”

  There was some sputtering, and then the large person rolled him over on his back and shifted so that he was sitting on top of him, pinning him down at the hips and growing increasingly vulgar in his language.

  The man had dark red hair and a shaggy matching beard, and blue eyes that definitely weren’t smiling right now. His lips were full, but not too full, just enough to make Reni want to kiss them. Interesting.

  “The puppy is too young to be hearing that kind of language,” Reni said, which seemed to silence the man, at least temporarily. The puppy stuck its head further out of Reni’s tunic and tried to lick the man’s face.

  “You’re a lunatic. A certified lunatic. You and this damn dog both.”

  “No, actually, I’m Captain Reni of the Crusader, which is currently serving as the hospital ship to this little bit of paradise. The pup doesn’t have a name yet, and I don’t want him named something vulgar. There are children on the ship.”

  Reni took a deep breath and knew that he was right – this large and overly plain-spoken human was one of his beloveds! Of all the things he’d expected on this planet, and the expectations he’d had for a future beloved, the least likely was now sitting on top of him and glaring at him. And he actually didn’t mind. He shifted his hips, just a little bit, for the pleasure of rubbing up against the big man, and got a sharp “Stop that.”

  “Stop what?” He said innocently, and tried to make out the original provenance of the remnants of uniform and tattered insignia that the man wore. He finally gave up on trying to identify the origins of the tattered garments.

  “Are you with someone?” He was thinking of all the various peace-keeping forces which currently had members on the ground.

  The big man looked righteous. “I wouldn’t dream of dating in a war zone. Irresponsible, that’s what it would be.”

  Reni glared until the man conceded defeat.

  “I was with the Governor’s staff, in charge of security and training, like. Then when that fell apart – literally, the whole building fell apart, and the damn Governor ran – I got busy with other things.”

  He got to his feet and pulled Reni up after him. Good strong hands, if a little bit rough, suggesting that the man was no stranger to working for a living. “Watch out for the mine, you fool.”

  Reni looked over at the clearly marked mine and sighed. “I’m the fool who marked it. I was just distracted.”

  “Uhuh. The Crusader, eh? Children? Stay behind me, you’re no good to me blown up.”

  Reni didn’t have any trouble following the big man, who was a fine specimen. Reni was big for a Cerulean, but this human was taller than he was even, and wide in the shoulders. A bit dirty, a bit shaggy, but he’d clean up nicely … Reni brought his mind back to the here and now, and kept his eyes open for mines.

  They took a circuitous route to a small decrepit shed, and the big man checked both ways before slipping into it. The man crouched down by a trap door in the floor and tapped twice. There was a brief pause, then three taps came back from below. The man tapped twice, paused, then twice more. There were three taps, then two, then three back at them. The man repeated that, then swung the door up and laughed down into the small faces grinning up at them.

  “Street kids,” he explained to Reni. “No-one was looking after ‘em, and someone has to. Can
you take them back to this fancy ship of yours so they’re safe?”

  Reni grinned down at them and wiggled his fingers in greeting. “How many?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t count that high.”

  “Let’s get them up here.” The children were lifted up one at a time, most of them huddling behind the big man but peering out in fascination at the strange blue person. The puppy was a good draw, though, and soon had the attention of the braver ones. It rewarded them by wiggling and licking their faces, which drew more of them out from behind the man to say hello.

  ‘Transport? Children and two adults to transport up. And one puppy. Can you get all of us in one move?’

  There was a brief pause while the officer did the calculations, then, ‘Better in two, sir.’

  ‘Fine, the big human and half the children, then me and the other half. On a count of six.’

  “You’re going to my ship now. I don’t want any screaming when you get there, please,” Reni requested.

  The big man looked offended. “These are brave ones, they won’t scream.”

  “I wasn’t talking to the children.”

  The man’s mouth was open to make a presumably scathing retort when he disappeared with half of the group. The remaining children quite obviously didn’t know what to think about that, but then it was their turn and soon they were reunited in the small transport bay of the Crusader.

  “Do you have a name?’ Reni asked the man. ‘Which is to say, something we can call you that’s fit for the ears of the children?”

  The big man sighed. “Donovan.”

  Reni waited, but apparently that was it. Fair enough. His people didn’t use second names either.

  One of the junior transport officers joined them, grinning at the children and relieving Reni of the puppy. It promptly peed down the front of his tunic. He held it up, rubbed noses with it, and said, firmly, “Fine, no ice-cream for you.”