The Dead Sun (Star Force Series) (38 page)

“Found it!” I called down, pulling a dusty basinet from the attic.

Jasmine was at the bottom of the ladder. “You don’t have to worry about it. He can sleep in his car seat. See? He’s out already.”

“Nah, let the kid stretch out flat.”

We cleaned it and set it up, and it gave me a little pang to see her put Cody to bed in that basket. It was white and had a few scorch marks on it from the Nano ships—my place had partly burned down when they’d first invaded—but it was serviceable.

“All my kids slept in that thing,” I said. “All three of them now.”

For some reason, seeing a new baby in the house brought back a flood of memories. Even the hot smell of the little guy seemed familiar. I had to swallow a few times and went downstairs to get a beer. When I came back up, I was surprised to see Jasmine rolling the basinet out of Jake’s room and into mine.

“Um,” I said, looking confused. “I know you want him to get acquainted with me and all that, but he’s going to need feeding in the night you know…”

She shook her head and laughed at me. “Don’t play the idiot. What do you want me to do? Beg?”

“Um…no.”

I honestly didn’t figure it out until she stood next to my bed and began undressing. At last, daylight shone into my dusty brain.

“Oh,” I said. “You’re sleeping in here, too.”

“We all are,” she said, coming close to me. “Is that okay with you?”

“Yes,” I heard myself saying.

“I never want to leave your bed again, Kyle.”

I had her in my arms. She was partly undressed, and her body felt very good up against mine. I hadn’t had any other girlfriends since she’d left me, and after all our talk during the day, I’d figured out she hadn’t met anyone, either.

“Well then,” I said, “we’ll have to get married.”

It just came out of my mouth. I hadn’t planned it or anything. Maybe my brain didn’t always work right, but I’m a guy who goes by his gut instincts. I felt now was the time, and the move was the right one.

Jasmine smiled. “I thought you were never going to ask.”

That was it. No getting down on one knee. No ring. No parental permission—we were both over thirty, after all, and we already had a kid. We were suddenly engaged, just like that.

I reflected later as we lay in the hot room together, that ours had never been a traditional relationship. We hadn’t had time for all that. Maybe now we would.

That night I hardly slept. It wasn’t just the kid’s fault, either.

I kept staring out the windows at the stars. There wasn’t much in the way of urban glare outside. The population of California, like the rest of the planet, had been cut in half. The cities were quieter, more subdued.

The people hadn’t all died, and there was a massive migration going on, but the countryside was still dark and empty.

I watched the stars out my window, knowing that’s where so many had gone. Those balloon-ships I’d built had carried away the first wave of a hundred million or so. After that, they’d come back for more. People were writing and calling home to tell relatives to join them on fresh worlds without radiation poisoning, burning seas and the like. Old Earth was emptying out and becoming quieter.

I watched the lights in the warm summer sky. The stars were bigger and brighter than they’d ever been in my memory.

I couldn’t help but wonder what else was out there. There were a billion stars in our galaxy and a billion galaxies beyond ours. We’d only scratched the tip of the iceberg.

Before dawn, as Jasmine awoke for yet another feeding—that kid was always hungry—I told myself that I probably had years before anything else came out of the skies at us. After all, we’d not been bothered for a long time before the Nanos first showed up.

Sure, the Ancients might come looking for the Earthman who’d dared to build his own little ring. But that might take another thousand years or more to happen. With any luck, I wouldn’t be around then to worry about it.

The End

From the Author:
Thanks Reader! I hope you enjoyed
THE DEAD SUN
. The First Saga of the
Star Force Series
is complete with this volume, but if you’d like to see more stories in this universe, please put up some stars and a review to support the series.

-BVL

More Books by B. V. Larson:

STAR FORCE SERIES

(in chronological order)

Army of One
(Novella published in
Planetary Assault
)

Battle Station

Empire

Annihilation