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“I miss you too, Son.” Luam dispensed the remaining beverage over his son’s grave. “I miss how you’d stomp around our home in those big boots you insisted you’d grow into.” He paused. “That never did happen.”
His bottom lip trembled.
Roshini’s heart ached for her friend.
“I miss, Son, how you’d tell me I had too many solar cycles.” Luam’s tone was gruff. “I didn’t understand the problems in this new world. Yet I did. Somewhat.” His lips twisted. “I miss how you’d linger by the door, pretending you didn’t want a hug from me, yet we both knew that you did.”
Roshini swept her fingertips over her wet cheeks.
“I’ll hug you soon.” Luam planted the beverage container in the sand beside their markers. “We’ll be a family again. You can stomp to your heart’s content. Your mom and I will shake our heads but, inside our souls, we’ll be smiling. There’ll be no more loneliness, no more sorrow, no more pain.” He turned to Roshini. “And we can enjoy our peace knowing our kind has a clever, brave, caring being, plus her cyborg mate and the guidance of the Fates, to protect them.”
“Luam, I don’t know if I can—” Her voice broke.
“The Fates believe you can make a difference.” Her friend squeezed her shoulder. “I believe you can make a difference. Your cyborg will ensure you survive. You focus on this planet rotation’s tasks. You have the explosives to distribute, and beings to rally, and a mate to calm before you charm that Invader who has access to the leaders’ quarters.” Luam’s lips quirked. “Your cyborg won’t like that male touching you, I’m guessing.”
Drift had said he processed the need for her to flirt with and touch the Invader contact. But saying he’d be fine with it and actually being fine with it were two different things.
“I doubt he’ll enjoy that part of the Plan,” she admitted. Her cyborg was a possessive being.
“He’s your mate.” Luam’s eyes twinkled. “He won’t like that at all. That Invader will be the first to die, and his death won’t be caused by the explosives.”
Roshini wouldn’t grieve the Invader’s death. The male had killed hundreds of Cancris directly and many more thousands indirectly.
But she didn’t want the Plan to be placed in jeopardy.
“If the Invader has to be killed before the explosives are detonated, my cyborg will ensure his death is discreet.” She said that both to her friend and to Drift.
He was listening to their conversation. She knew that.
“I’m glad that Invader won’t live to see the sunrise.” Luam had been open about his hatred for the male. Her friend was protective of her also.
“I’m glad for that also.” She summoned a smile. “Is the team as ready as they can be to take the next step?” She changed the subject slightly. “The distribution is in less than a shift.
“They’re ready.” Her friend’s gaze met hers. “Every member of the team feels similarly to how I do about their roles in our Plan. They want their pain to stop, and they’re proud that their last moments will make the lifespans of others better. They feel fortunate to have been chosen.”
They felt fortunate to die and to have their deaths mean something.
Roshini tilted her head upward, capturing the tears welling in her eyes.
They were like her cyborg’s friend, Blunt. Her team wanted control over the ending of their lifespans.
And she had given them that. They could’ve turned down their offered roles. They chose to make the sacrifice.
“They will see their loved ones soon.” All of the males had lost beings. “When you see your mate and your son, my friend, tell them I love them. And know that I love you. I?—”
Emotion severed her words again.
So Roshini hugged Luam instead of chattering. And she knew he understood what she was trying to say. As her friend always understood her.
She also knew what she had to do.
Her friend deserved to rejoin his mate and his family with no additional guilt. There would be no more tears spilled in his presence and no more talk of missing him or wishing he’d be spared.
Luam had made his choice. She would honor it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Less than a shift later, Drift hid behind a small storage structure situated near the loading entrance at Bubs’s Place. He watched as his small human female used a lifter to remove a much-larger-than-her vat from the back of a weathered land transport.
