“This is why we fight to be on Missus Martini’s team, Jeffrey,” White said. “We enjoy the compliments.”
“And somehow,” Jeff said, “people wonder why I still get jealous.”
CHAPTER 96
JEFF PULLED ME A little away from the others. “Baby, I’m agreeing to this because we all know our time is tight. But I’m not happy about it. I don’t want us to have gone through all we have only to orphan our children here. Lizzie shouldn’t lose more parents, nor should she have to become a surrogate mother. Jamie and Charlie shouldn’t lose us. None of the kids should lose their parents, not over this.”
“Jeff, I know you’re worried. But I know in my gut that this solar system is vital for some reason. I can’t come up with that reason—yet. But I know we’ll figure it out. And the moment we do, I can also say that we’ll all be glad we’re here, doing what we’re doing.”
He hugged me tightly. “I’ll trust you on that, baby. Mostly because honesty forces me to admit that you’re rarely wrong in these cases.” He put his finger under my chin and tilted my head up. “Just promise me . . . you’re coming back alive, well, and whole.”
“Only if you promise me the same thing. Because while I have a lot of hotness on my team, I’ve been spoiled and I’m kind of used to being with the hottest, smartest, sexiest, bravest guy, so you’d better be planning to not get hurt or killed, too.”
He gave me a slow smile, then bent and kissed me deeply, though not for too long. Well, long enough for me to be ready to go off and do the dirty deed despite all that we had going on, but considering Jeff was the God of Kissing, it didn’t take much to get me primed and ready.
“I promise,” he said as he ended our kiss. “Because you always give me the best reasons to keep living for.”
We pulled apart and I made sure that Lorraine, Claudia, and Serene all had adrenaline for Jeff, just in case. Claudia and Lorraine were carrying med kits and Serene had an emergency pack on her.
“You don’t have any medics on your team,” Claudia said, sounding worried. “Should you take Tito along after all?”
“Nah. We’ll be good. Our Martian Manhunter has a med kit, and so does Abby. And I have my purse.”
“Well, then nothing to worry about,” Lorraine said, sarcasm knob heading for the higher numbers.
“Geez, you guys. Lighten up. We’re going to get down there, figure out what’s going on, and save the day. In that order.”
Thusly encouraged, or not, we headed for the shuttle bay, Wruck bringing body armor and weapons for Mossy, who was still there.
He and Hacker International were finishing up. “You should be good as long as you don’t hit anything larger than a baseball,” Stryker said. “We have extra patch kits in each shuttle, too.”
“Get a third shuttle ready in the same way in case our backup team needs to come help either planet. In fact, get two shuttles ready, in case that team has to divide and come to both planets.” Hey, I was confident, not insanely optimistic.
“Will do. The cloaking isn’t great, but it’s better than nothing. The shuttles have a way to go reflective, based on Earth military camouflage, so you’ll be hard to spot unless you’re against a backdrop that shows the perspective is off, or similar. You didn’t use it on Nazez, but we strongly suggest you activate it here.”
“Will do.”
“Good. I need your phone for a couple of minutes, though. And take out your earbuds, you’re not going to need them.”
“Why?” Took out my earbuds and handed the phone to him.
Stryker rolled his eyes as he fiddled with the phone and I reluctantly put my earbuds away. “We’ve set up a communications system so that you guys can all be on a super version of Bluetooth and therefore able to talk to us and each other. We’ve done it before, if you remember.”
“Not in space.”
“No, but since Mother can boost all the signals and we’re on our own system, we should be good. We’ve been working on it during any downtime. Everyone else is getting a single earpiece, but we know you, and Big George convinced the rest of us that it would be easier to just make yours work for your phone as well.”
“So I can listen to music and take calls?”
“So you can listen to music and connect to the ship which will then connect you to your team and the other team, as needed. No calls, you’re all going to be using these.” He handed me my phone, two earpieces, and an oval pin made of what looked like pewter. “Attach the pin to your chest. It’s your communicator.”
“Just like in Star Trek?”
“Different design, but yeah. Learn from and imitate the best is our motto.”
“Cannot argue.” Pinned the pin over my heart. “Hope they can’t shoot well.”
“The disk is made from metals from Cradus. We tested—the metal repels bullets.”
“Cool!”
“But not laser shots. So try not to get hit.”
“Thanks for that.” The earpieces were small and inserted into the ear canal. Could still hear just fine, too. “Nothing over the ear?”‘
“Too easily spotted, too easily broken.”
“No cord?”
“None. Welcome to nineteen-ninety-nine.”
“Smartass.” Turned my music back on. Picked up right where we’d left off, on the umpteenth repeat of the Cosmic Thing playlist, currently featuring the Backstreet Boys desperately trying to get me to make the connection about “The Answer to Our Life” and not succeeding at all. “Wow, the sound is great, really clear.”
“We should be set up so that only you hear the music. When no one’s talking, you’ll hear music in both ears. When someone’s communicating, then music in the left, Jerry or whoever you’re talking to in the right. These are the opposite of noise-cancelling, too, so you should be able to hear external sounds as long as you don’t have your music blasting.”
“Choosing not to resent that last statement. What if we need to be silent and the other team doesn’t know? The best way to ruin a mission is to have someone on the other line going ‘yoo-hoo’ or similar.”
Stryker turned around to Ravi. “You owe me twenty bucks. Told you she’d ask how to turn the calls off or mute them.” Ravi grimaced and Stryker turned back to me. “Two ways. First off, you tap your communicator to reach Jerry, then he connects you to who you’re trying to reach. You tap the communicator again to turn it off. If you can’t reach the communicator for some reason, or you need to turn off the earpiece and Jerry’s not able to get to you as fast as you’d like, press your finger against your tragus and hold for a long second.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He rolled his eyes again and touched the part of the ear that was kind of pointy and you could make lay over the ear canal a little.
“Wow. I learn something new every single day. Had no idea that had an official name.”