Page 5 of Shadows Approach
Earth II
Stacy Nichols did her best to disembark from her shuttle in a dignified fashion, fighting the urge to bounce down the stairs.Come on, woman, you’re a thirty-eight-year-old governor, tasked with the start of a new planet. Decorum, please.
Between excitement and a rush of fear, she felt like a giddy child. She faced the unknown and the unbelievable. It took everything she had to keep from leaping to the floor of the spaceport.
Security Head Kuran awaited her, his half-smile hinting perhaps he recognized her rush of adrenaline. Or maybe it was just the natural lift of his lips, which always made him appear amused. The majority of Kalquor’s warrior breed didn’t look so friendly, in Stacy’s experience. Kuran had admitted would-be enemies found his pleasant features confusing, especially when he decided the time had come to kick ass.
Stacy wasn’t confused when it came to Nobek Kuran, a handsome man who sported a seemingly permanent five o’clock shadow on his rugged features. She was all too aware of a spark of attraction when in his presence.
He bowed at her approach. “Welcome to Earth Two, Governor Nichols.”
“Thanks, Kuran. I take it this the official welcome, since I’ve visited on nearly a dozen occasions already.”
His purple eyes, which seemed locked in a squint, twinkled at her. “This is your welcome home greeting. Arriving to take the reins for an indeterminable time period demands a special reception.”
“I suppose it does.” She let the grin wanting to burst forth do so. Kuran answered in kind. “Speaking of receptions?”
“Dignitaries await you at the Government Hall.” His real smile answered her.
Her pulse sped up. His wavy hair, as black as hers, fell past his shoulders in a flood. The gray uniform of a Kalquorian Fleet contract worker hugged his body in a positively sinful manner.
Chill out. This is Earth, not Haven. There are those who wouldn’t be enthralled by your infatuation for a Kalquorian.
To underscore the issue to herself, she lowered the voltage of her joy and asked, “Has Kenneth Bryant arrived?”
“An hour ago.” Kuran’s tone went from warm to careful in an instant. “The lieutenant governor is waiting for you to arrive before he makes his appearance before the guests.”
Stacy managed to avoid rolling her eyes. “Excellent. Shall we join the party?”
He swept an arm to indicate the path through the space port to its exit. “Your shuttle awaits, Governor.”
They strode side by side, Kuran’s usual long steps slowed to keep him from outdistancing her. He was more than a foot taller than her five-foot-five height, tall even for a Kalquorian. The swelling muscles made him a veritable giant.
Despite him accommodating her, she had to maintain a quick pace. Fortunately, Stacy preferred flats to heels, crisp blouses and comfortable trousers to dresses. Haven, the Earther-Kalquorian colony she’d lived on for the past six years, was, for the most part, a farming community. As lieutenant governor there, she’d regularly visited constituents. One dressed for plowed fields and cow patties if she were smart.
She beamed at the industry around her. Earth was still in preparation, aiming to be up and running in a few weeks, but the spaceport had been bustling for nearly two years. At the start, supplies and crews to establish the infrastructure of shuttle traffic lanes, public transportation, hospitals, and society’s basic needs had been the majority of shipments. Now businesses, services, entertainments, and schools were readying to open. Supplies for an inhabited planet were pouring in. Cargo ships from every known world jockeyed for space, their crews and dockmasters shouting directions to each other.
Earth had been reborn and was on the brink of opening its proverbial doors. The excitement was electric.
Especially when she looked at Kuran.
Chapter Two
With every passing mile they flew, Stacy’s nervousness and exhilaration mounted. Outside the shuttle Kuran piloted, Earth II was a sparkling jewel. From the metal-and-glass buildings of its first city, lying outside the spaceport, to the lush wooded areas beyond, to the seashore where the largest of the planet’s ocean lapped, it was as beautiful as Haven. Soon it would be teeming with Earthers, whom had been displaced a decade prior from their dying home planet.
“What do you think of it?” she asked her companion.
He shrugged. “Considering this was a lifeless rock less than five years ago, it’s impressive. Terraforming an entire planet is difficult, from what I’ve been told. The engineers outdid themselves when they cooked up your second Earth.”
“They invented groundbreaking processes to make it happen quickly. Barely a century ago, it would have taken fifty years to do this, and there was no guarantee it would take. This became reality in a mere five years, if you count surveying potential planets and narrowing the candidates down to the right one. Once they started establishing the atmosphere, it became viable within two years. All that was left then was putting our native flora and fauna in place.” She gazed in awe at the distant mountains, verdant with trees and foliage. The seeds had come from the original Earth, as had the animals, birds, and fish, which now proliferated on its namesake.
“Too bad you’re spoiling it by erecting all those buildings. You couldn’t just use the natural landscape the way we do on Kalquor? Natural is so much better.”
“Says the man living on a space station.”
“Says the man who gets to be planet-side for most of my waking hours. If I were cooped up on that orbiting nightmare day in and day out, I’d probably blow it up.” He assumed a fierce expression to back up his claim.
Stacy chuckled. Kuran had been in and out of the Kalquorian fleet, depending on the manpower needed, in recent wars. He might prefer to live on a planet, but he coped fine shut up in a ship or space station.