Chapter 105

The family did circulate for a bit longer.

Finally, the guests headed off. The people from Morpheus needed to get back home. They decided to fly their ship, Aida, rather than have Lee blink them. The team wanted to do some training on the way.

They were happy to take Esha, Manny, Kilos, and Nikau with them. Zeke hadn’t missed that the four of them had become close friends. He was sure he had seen Manny holding Esha’s hand but kept his opinions to himself. Personally, he thought Esha was a good match for Manny.

“Zeke, do you have plans for that other small freighter your brother parked next to your ship?” Lee asked him in a quiet moment.

“Not really. I own four bigger freighters that Fatima Merat built for me on Mars. She liked my design, so I got them cheaper. I didn’t get her to build Freya because Bernie has a good reputation for building ships her size.”

“Those ships do my regular runs from Mars out to the Belt and the other space stations. Give it a year, and I’ll have two more ships looking for work once they clean up Earth’s space. I’m sure I can keep them busy.”

“I thought of hiring a crew and using Louisa to transport my runners, but so far, people seem to be happy to go to Mars and get them, or they get my friend, Gail English, to transport them.”

“Well,” Lee started, “we don’t have a lot of freighters, and I don’t need big ones. I do have some warships, and Fortune still runs back and forth, but demand is growing.”

“We are looking at building our own ship-building station to orbit Harmony’s moon, but that got side-tracked when we had to go build Fort Riley on Terra’s moon for UNSEC.”

“If I can buy Louisa from you, it will make it easier to transport my family and yours back home. Plus, it will make a lot of people happy to have her running cargo for us. Plus, we like what you have done to her.”

“Do you have pilots?”

“Yes, I didn’t get your brothers like I planned, but I did hire the two runners-up after Sabrina and Joey. You did good getting the top four candidates for this year. The two I got can wear single-gem items for now. A maiden flight won’t hurt them either.”

Zeke chuckled, “Seriously? Hiring my brothers was why you were on Armstrong Station when you visited me?”

“Yes. Imagine my surprise at finding you instead,” Lee grinned.

Zeke shook his head. “Um, there is one thing though. Louisa is a possessed ship like Freya and considers me her master.”

Zeke them explained about the laws the ship’s agreed to operate under. Lee thought it hilarious that his ships became possessed. She stopped laughing when Zeke casually mentioned that her ship, Fortune, was similarly afflicted.

“I, tell you what. How about, I’ll sign ownership over to Paul. I did promise the boys they would get Bella, but she’s become Dallas’s ship. Paul can lease or sell her to you, and you can negotiate with him. I do plan on designing and building them a special Medi-vac Rescue ship.”

“Ooh, do I get to bid on that design too? I also think you should plan on having three or four operating between Earth and Terra.”

Zeke sighed, “I think I’m going to be very busy for a long time to come.”

Lee chuckled, “Welcome to my world, Zeke. I am relieved that you are looking after Mars and Sol space. Earth is another problem for another day. However, I think you being out here will help them become more acclimatised to the fact wizards are real. Just don’t let them drag you into their politics.”

Zeke could only agree with her.

The bonding ceremony went off without a hitch.

As you can guess, it was held in MH2 on Freya since it had been set up for the funeral. The party was much reduced in numbers compared to Frank’s funeral, but Lee’s people were delighted to be invited.

Zeke did get to meet Sam Smith, Sabrina’s dad. He turned up sometime in the early hours of the morning, station time. Zeke and the boys did do a bit of work on his old freighter. They even installed a scoop and shield on it.

Sam was a proud owner of a Z2 Runner. Zeke put an air shield on the hatch for him since he hadn’t had time to get the airlocks for them built yet. Wayne did have his designs and was working on an assembly plant, but it would take time to get them incorporated into the main design.

The boys did get into trouble for playing shipbuilders after breakfast. Even so, they were still dressed and ready before the rest of the bridal party.

It was during the reception that Sam told them all about the weird shit happening on Mars. The others had been busy and hadn’t paid much attention to the news since they got back to Armstrong Station. Zeke hadn’t even asked Freya about it.

Sam explained that an energy shield appearing over Gale Crater had freaked a lot of people out. Even if they did appreciate that it had stopped the meteorites from smashing up the domes that protected their city.

At first, they weren’t sure they could get ships through it. However, one of the local freighter captains happily drove through it an hour later and landed his ship at the spaceport.

He was blissfully unaware that it could have been a problem. Since no other ships were landing, he turned his comms off and parked in his usual spot. Space Control was not amused, and he got fined for his troubles.

Others soon worked out you could walk through the shield in a suit and drive your buggies and runners in and out of it. The majority, thanks to the media, soon knew it was a magical shield like Queen Lee had put over the town of Futura on Utopia.