Read Dalton, Tymber - Bightmares [Deep Space Mission Corps 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) for Free Online Page B

felt good to want to laugh like that.
    It felt good to want to live again.
    He finally drifted back to sleep. That night, at least, he didn’t have anything but good dreams.

Chapter Four

    Emi sat in her chair in front of the bridge console as she nervously listened to the three men go through a final pre-flight checklist after their umbilicals and the gangways were retracted. After twenty minutes, Aaron hit the com link button.
    “Dockmaster, this is the Tamora Bight . We’re ready to depart.”
    “Roger, Captain. The pilot tug will lock on shortly.”
    Caph winked at her. “This is it, babe. The real thing.”
    She stared at the front vid screens, where Earth slowly rotated beneath them. A Cat 2 hurricane churned in the Gulf of Mexico, clearly visible in the waning light. She felt detached from it, as if she hadn’t spent her entire life on that rock. It held memories, her parents’ ashes, and nothing more. Well, her best friend Donna lived there, but Emi had to live her own life. They would keep in touch through messages and video, that one connection not enough to keep Emi on Earth.
    Not when she had three men who loved her.
    “This is it,” she softly echoed.
    Caph frowned. “You okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Then why the long face?”
    “Is it bad that there’s nothing left for me there? What does it say about me?”
    “Home isn’t a place, babe,” Ford chimed in. “Not any one place, at least. It’s a state of mind.”
    Aaron pulled himself out of his command chair. He walked to stand behind her and massage her shoulders. “ We’re home,” he softly said. “The four of us together. These two guys, and now you.”
    “Fuckin’ A,” the twins parroted, then scowled at each other.
    Emi smiled. “Please don’t change. I like it when you do that.”
    Aaron released her shoulders after a final squeeze. “I warned you, Em. Give it twenty years, you’ll change your mind.”

    * * * *

    The journey to Mars would take longer in real life than it did in the simulator because they needed more systems testing. If they were in a hurry they could jump and make it there in less than a week. This trip was their official shakedown cruise, so they had to take their time and thoroughly test all their systems. Breaking down at the far end of the galaxy wasn’t a pleasant option. At the end of their eight-week journey, the red planet came into focus on their front vid screens.
    The view sucked the breath out of Emi’s lungs. “Wow!” she softly breathed, stunned, amazed.
    Mars.
    Busy with her duties on the ship and trying to learn about the systems, she had temporarily lost sight of the fact that they would drop to the surface and moor at a Martian base.
    When she turned to Aaron, he winked. “Seems like we welcomed you to Mars in a pretty hot way in the sim.”
    Ford laughed. “Oh, hell yeah!”
    Caph grinned. “That’s one of the things I wouldn’t mind re-enacting in real life.”

    * * * *

    Night had fallen by the time they completed their drop to the Martian surface. The hover lifts moved them into the protective hangar, the ground crew connected their gangways, airlocks, and utility umbilicals, and then the dockmaster declared them securely docked and free to debark. The red planet’s moons, Phobos and Deimos, were both visible in the nearly cloudless sky. From their place in the hangar, Emi could look through the front view ports and stare at the night sky as well as the ruddy dirt visible outside the complex in the pools of light cast by the external lighting. Situated in the Oxia Pauls quadrangle, the DaVinci 2 base was located in Chryse Planitia, or CP for short.
    Ford and Caph left the bridge to take care of routine systems checks and docking chores. Emi stood at the front view ports and started at what little was visible of the Martian landscape.
    An odd feeling of déjà vu swept over her when Aaron stepped forward and slipped his arms around her waist. He feathered his lips across the back of