A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [201]
Her hair still wet from the swim, Estarra looked at Peter. “I did not dream that I would never really kiss my new husband until our wedding night.” She took another step to meet him. She seemed to be teasing him.“Shouldn’t you be trying to win my heart at the culmination of a long and romantic courtship?”
He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. Touching her made his heart pound harder, and every nerve in his body seemed to thrill with anticipation. “Our wedding night doesn’t need to be the end of a long courtship, Estarra. Why don’t we consider it just the start?” He raised his eyebrows, showing her a genuine smile now. “After all, I do have all the resources of the Hansa at my disposal to impress you with.”
He kissed her again before he lost his nerve, and Estarra held on to him, responding. The kiss became slower and lingering. At first, he tasted the salt water on her full lips, but soon he tasted only her, and felt her against him…and he wondered why Basil had kept them apart for so long. After a few seconds, gasping, they broke the kiss but still held each other. Estarra chose this moment to giggle.
“Wasn’t that how it’s supposed to be?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know,” Estarra said. “I’m assuming we’ll have a lot more practice.”
“I shall arrange my royal schedule to accommodate our…practice sessions, my Queen,” Peter said, and they kissed again, more easily this time. And much longer.
Only later did she notice that he had made sure to have the comforting presence of a small treeling, one of the young potted saplings she had brought personally from Theroc, placed beside their bed.
Alone together, at last, Peter and Estarra had a wedding night that was doubly intimate—not only because it was the first time they made love, but also because it was the first time they had a chance to truly talk with each other.
104
TASIA TAMBLYN
After Osquivel, the worst of the wounded soldiers and damaged battleships were taken to New Portugal, the nearest Hansa colony with EDF facilities. Tasia off-loaded nineteen of her cruiser’s injured crew members. Twenty-eight soldiers had already been frozen in the Manta’s morgue containers; later, on Earth, every casualty would receive full military honors. A dozen more of her crew members had been lost in the vacuum of space, sucked out through the lower hull breaches.
All the surviving battleships limped home one by one, each at its own speed, after completing necessary emergency repairs. They would undergo major structural work and full inspections once back in the main EDF spacedocks.
Tasia endured a full-spectrum medical exam, and the doctors pronounced her healthy except for a few blisters and burns that had already healed, as far as she was concerned, by the time she got back to the Mars base.
EDF counselors and psychologists interviewed all the survivors, which Tasia thought was a waste of time. With gentle, too-understanding voices, they tried to tell her that her sarcasm would not speed her mental recovery from the trauma she had endured. No one had bothered to offer “counseling” after Ross had been killed or after her father had died on Plumas. No one seemed to care that heroic Robb Brindle had perished for no real purpose.
In all his generosity, General Lanyan gave the returning soldiers a full week of furlough. Tasia had instructions to relax.
Instead, she tracked down Robb’s parents.
Finding them was simple enough using EDF records. Wing Commander Brindle was a military brat, and both of his parents had served full careers as officers. Though they had worked in the private sector for the past fifteen years, both of their commissions had been reactivated during the hydrogue war. For now, they served as instructors, but if the EDF continued to lose officers and ships as quickly as they had at Osquivel, Robb’s parents might find themselves assigned to active combat duty.
Tasia found them at an Antarctic survival base, a training facility on Earth’s South Polar ice cap. Despite the vigorous exercises and drills they