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He smoothed his uniform and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “The computers will be returned to their rightful owners, Trist. End of discussion. I thank you for your assistance in the matter. Good day.”

Humming the old ditty that was stuck in his head, Kào fought the unsettling sensation of more than one pair of disapproving red eyes following him as he walked off the bridge.

The afternoon staff meeting with the flight attendants had just broken up when Christopher galloped up to Jordan, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Darth Vader’s here!”

Her gaze swung to where the child pointed, and her heart did a flip. Hands clasped behind his back with that soldierly stiffness that endeared him to her, Kào stood in the hatch, observing the bustle of Town Square. Aloof, self-assured, he looked every inch the cold military man he once was. But Jordan knew that on the inside, he was anything but chilly and detached.

All in one movement, she hopped off her floating chair and shoved her feet into her shoes. “He’s early,” she said to the others sitting with her. It wasn’t easy to keep her pleasure at Kào’s unexpected appearance from showing on her face as she gathered her handheld and to-do lists. She could hear the flight attendants’ murmurs behind her as she hurried across Town Square. Tough. Let them speculate.
The way she saw it, in a life gone suddenly dark there was one bright spot. And he’d just shown up at the front door.

Kào spied her hurrying toward him and lifted his hand in the Alliance greeting. For a fraction of a second, his gaze dipped to her mouth, sending a frisson of desire racing through her belly.

“Greetings, Kào,” she said, a little too breathlessly.

Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes sparkled, though, and he looked . . . well, he looked great. Happier. The thought that she had something to do with his transformation over the past few weeks warmed her even more. “I have an appointment that will keep me from meeting you at our usual time,” he informed her. “I came now, so I could return these.”

He disappeared into the corridor, returning with a three-foot-long black pole in one hand and the handlebar of a floating pallet loaded with electronics in the other. He looked like a cross between Santa Claus and a futuristic shepherd as he pulled the cart into the room.

Jordan immediately turned around and called out, “The computers are here!” A cheer went up. All the laptops, CD players, cell phones, and electric shavers had been confiscated the day they’d arrived. She’d assumed it was for security reasons. Now it looked as if they were getting them back.

Near the top of the pile was a scratched and battered, aqua-blue Walkman with a heart-shaped
Black Beauty
sticker on its face. Jordan winced. Just when she thought she had it all under control, one of the shards of her shattered life would slice across her heart. But she put on her “official” face and expressed her gratitude. “Thank you for returning our things.” Her appreciation was echoed by many of the others. Kào acknowledged the thanks with a pleased nod.

Ben and Natalie pulled the pallet farther into the common
area, and the passengers surged toward them.

“Stand back,” Natalie ordered in her no-nonsense flight-attendant voice.

“Set them on the floor,” Jordan instructed the woman. “And supervise who takes what. Log each transaction, too, in case we have a dispute later.”

Kào took the pole he’d brought with him and stood it on the floor. “This is the power stick. If your items don’t work for lack of power, touch them here.” From the pallet, he chose a mini DVD player and brushed it across the pole’s smooth matte-black surface. One stroke and the batteries were recharged. Applause and cries of astonishment rang out. One by one, people brought their electronics to the power stick, reverently, like worshipers laying offerings at an altar. Cheers accompanied each success. It was an impressive piece of tech, answering Jordan’s question as to how they were going to charge appliances, since it was doubtful the
Savior
operated on electricity as they knew it.

Kào was scoring big points with everyone, she thought. Unlike her, the others didn’t know him. Most remained wary, and she couldn’t blame them. But this gesture of goodwill would go a long way toward gaining their trust.

Ben couldn’t pass out electronics fast enough. If Kào was Santa, then Ben Kathwari was his industrious elf. He even smiled at Kào for the first time. “This is good, real good,” he told Kào as he helped a woman sort through the pile. “Thanks.”

Kào appeared quite pleased.

“This baby’s mine,” the woman Ben had helped said as she found her laptop. “My kids are stored in here.” Her lips trembled. “My husband, too. God bless that digital camera he made us buy.” She touched the laptop to the power stick. With sharp anticipation, she hurried to a floating chair and opened the case.

Jordan smiled. It was a real boost, seeing Ben and the
others animated after so much ashen-faced gloom.

Then an anguished cry silenced the happy chatter. It was the woman. “There’s nothing here! The hard drive was wiped clean!”

“Mine, too,” someone else yelled.

Jordan’s heart sank. There was a problem with the computers.

“You bastards! You goddamn bastards!” Ben cried.

Kào whipped his arms up in a protective block as Ben plowed into him, throwing them both to the floor.

“Ben! Kào! Hey—break it up.” But the two men were too preoccupied to hear her. “Garrett, Rich! Over here—
now
!”

The men pushed their way through the cheering, jeering crowd. Jordan wrung her hands and began to pace in short, jerky steps. She couldn’t believe it. Ben and Kào were brawling to the whoops of what sounded like half the population of New Earth. This was exciting to them? This was
fun
? Were the people letting off steam, or were they honestly happy about one of them taking down a ship’s officer?

Kào was an expert in hand-to-hand combat—that was obvious. In seconds, he’d used his body with the unemotional efficiency of a top-notch weapon, immobilizing Ben with deadly grace. Flipping Ben beneath him, he pinned him with an armlock to keep the purser from throwing any more punches.

Garrett the Marine grabbed Kào, and Rich Stein, one of her other male flight attendants, took hold of Ben, and they jerked the men apart.

Pulled to his feet, Kào stood with his boots planted wide. His heaving chest was the only sign that the fight had taken anything out of him. His hands were held behind his back by Garrett, but he didn’t resist. Ben, to Jordan’s dismay, seethed, straining against Rich’s hold.

“Return the translator,” Jordan ordered. Kào’s handheld computer had skittered across the room. It would be his
only way of discerning what was said, since everyone had reverted to English. One of the passengers retrieved it and handed it to Kào. “Now let him go,” Jordan told Garrett. It wasn’t Kào she was worried about, it was Ben.

Jordan turned toward the purser. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Ben gasped, “He destroyed our laptops!”

Kào’s voice was cool, unemotional. “It was a mistake. It wasn’t done intentionally.”

Jordan translated for Ben. The purser’s brown eyes blazed with hatred. “Bullshit! His lips curled back, and he spat. A glob of saliva splattered on the floor near Kào’s boots.

Jordan stormed over to Ben. He was shaking from head to toe. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” she said under her breath, “but one more move like that and I’ll lock you in the brig.” Brig? They didn’t have a brig. But today’s events indicated that they’d eventually have to make one.

But to her appalled shock, Ben shouted past her to Kào. “To you we’re animals in a zoo. Have some fun with the monkeys. Get us all worked up over a banana and then take them away. Those laptops were ruined and you knew it—”

“Mr. Kathwari!” Jordan shouted. “Enough.” She glared at him until he finally capitulated, sullenly and reluctantly.

“Believe me when I say that I did not know the condition of your computers.” Kào enunciated slowly, allowing the few who had studied Key to follow along if they didn’t have their translators. “We needed data to build a language database for you,” he explained. “Unfortunately, the data-collection process must have erased the hard drives. But we have functional translators now, yes?” He raised his handheld. “And many of your languages from Earth are now stored permanently in the galactic database, never to be forgotten. Your world, in this way, will live forever. I hope
you’ll see that your sacrifice was for the greater good.” He glanced at the sobbing woman who had lost the photos of her family. “But know that I truly regret the loss of your personal data. I can collect the affected electronics and see if there is anything that can be recovered.”

After Jordan showed Ben the translation, he spat out, “Data? It wasn’t data. It was their
lives
. Family and friends. Pictures. E-mails.” His voice cracked. “It was all they had left.” Jordan’s heart twisted as Ben’s eyes filled with the tears he’d fought. “And now it’s gone,” he whispered. “Damn you. Damn all of you.”

Ben broke down. Awkwardly she slipped her arms over the purser’s quivering shoulders. She was grateful that the expectation of imminent death had finally left Ben’s eyes, replaced by garden-variety resentment, which was a lot less awkward to deal with. Not because soothing Ben had reminded her of trying to cheer Craig when he’d drunk too much and felt depressed, but because she envied the purser his ability to cry. Since the day she’d arrived here, her own grief had throbbed inside her, trapped like a river behind a dam. She longed to release it.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, rubbing Ben’s back. “It’s going to be okay.”

Natalie, bless her heart, took over. “Have you heard about my famous neck massages?” she crooned as she steered Ben away. “I bet you could use one. . . .”

As the two crew members ambled off, Pastor Earl walked up to Jordan. “Grief seeks focus,” he confided, an explanation that obviously meant something to him as a counselor and a man of God.

“If grief seeks focus, then Ben’s begs redirection. He blames Kào for everything, and that’s wrong.” On the other hand, his outburst on behalf of the passengers had knocked him out of his zombie state. Maybe now he’d resume his duties as her right-hand man. She was glad he could cry,
but he needed to pitch in and accept his share of the responsibility that had been thrust upon them. She was tired of doing it alone.

Jordan searched for Kào and glimpsed him standing outside the hatch, arms folded over his chest. There was no mistaking his we-need-to-talk look. Her stomach twisted. After he left here, what would he tell his crew? That the Earth survivors had traded stun guns for fists? What if he brought armed guards along the next time he came to visit? Ben might have blown it for all of them.

Several other flight attendants hovered around her, plus a gaggle of worried-looking passengers, waiting for her to say or do something, she guessed. Jordan glowered at them, wondering who’d cheered for Ben. Only her own stubborn professionalism kept her from asking those responsible to step forward.
Courage is doing the right thing even though you are scared
.

Or angry.

It gave her the strength to ignore the fact that many of them had acted like children. Instead, she’d use the fistfight to drive home something that had been on her mind.

“I’m embarrassed,” she told the group. “Kào’s been nothing less than professional from the very beginning. I wish I could say the same for my crew. He didn’t have to give us back our electronics. He’s on our side, damn it. Why don’t you see that?”

Some people coughed. A few nodded, murmuring their support.

“This incident proves we have a language and culture barrier. We can’t rely on our fists to communicate any more than we can those translators. We need to become fluent in Key before we get to wherever they’re dropping us off. Or we’re going to make mistakes there, too. Maybe fatal ones.”

Gasps and grumbles. “How?” she asked for them. “No more dillydallying. We’re going to try language immersion,
and that means periods where no English is allowed. Maybe not today, or even tomorrow, but as soon as my crew and I work out the details. And expect a similar emphasis on galactic politics and history, too.” She gentled her tone. “I know we’re still hurting. But ignorance isn’t bliss, folks. It’s dangerous.”

Chin jutting high, she grabbed her translator and ducked out the hatch before they could bury her in complaints and requests. She half expected someone to chase after her to complain again about the showers or the beds—or the prospect of longer hours in school—but no one did. Maybe she was finally getting the hang of this leadership thing. Feeling a certain affinity with Napoleon, or maybe Stalin, she stopped in front of Kào. “I’m sorry. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

His mouth curved. “No.”

“This shouldn’t have happened. I—”

“The fault is mine,” he cut in. “I should have prepared your people for the possibility that their computers might no longer work, instead of letting them find out for themselves, with hopes held high.” He grimaced. “As I was warned they might, more or less.” He sighed tiredly.

So did she. “Ben’s usually not like that. Ever since it happened . . . Earth . . . he’s been very quiet, very depressed. Maybe this was what he needed, losing his temper, getting his anger off his chest.” Her voice softened. “He hasn’t been there for me. Maybe he will be now.”

“I hope that will be the case,” Kào said.

Awkward silence followed. He didn’t seem to want to leave.

If she was honest with herself, she didn’t want him to go. She thought of him all the time. Even when she slept, he was there, in her dreams . . . dreams of Colorado that engaged all her senses, leaving her bereft and sharpening her sense of loss when she woke from them. She’d never have
that life: the horses and the ranch; Boo, and the man who loved them both. But something about Kào soothed her, made her feel as if everything was going to be okay.

She sighed. “I’d invite you in, but—”