Page 47 of Cheating Fate

“A bit of both?” she said tauntingly.

“For real?” I asked, crestfallen.

Uncle Ghan could be a real stickler for rules. While I believed the General would cut me some slack, his First Officer was pretty adamant about never allowing people to think anyone got preferential treatment. According to the rules, I should indeed be jailed for a bit.

She nodded again with a shit-eating grin.

“You are getting some sightseeing, and then you will be incarcerated, but not in an actual cell. You are under house arrest.”

“House arrest?” I asked, confused.

“Mm-hmm. You’re coming to our home and will stay in the guest suite until you’re fully recovered,” Zhara replied smugly.

My jaw dropped. “Your parents are letting me stay at your house?!”

“Yep! Shocking right? But in truth, not at all. I made it clear that no one else but me would continue healing you. So if you were held at the base, I would want to stay there as well. And my father would prefer having us in range,” she explained with an amused expression.

I chuckled. “I can totally see that.”

“Also, he got royally chewed up by your parents, your Grappa Krygor, and Aunt Mercy for allowing their baby to get hurt right after he arrived,” she quipped teasingly.

A loud groan escaped me as I closed my eyes with a pained expression and pressed the back of my head against the headrest. Obviously, they would have been informed in extensive detail of what had befallen me. The ancestors knew I would never hear the end of it.

“Fuck me! So now they’re demanding that he babysits me?” I grumbled.

“Obviously! Your mother even talked about canceling her series of sold-out concerts so that she could come play nursemaid for you,” Zhara added with a snicker.

“Oh, hell no! Please tell me she didn’t do that?!” I exclaimed. “She’s going to smother me in layers upon layers of freaking bubble wrap! Once my mother goes into Mama Bear mode, it’s game over!”

Zhara laughed.

“If she’s anything like my mother, then I absolutely know what you mean. These women are hopeless!” she said, as we flew over the breathtaking landscape of Veredia. “But relax. Both my dad and yours talked her off a ledge.”

“Thank the Ancestors!” I said with a shudder.

“That said, you are suspended without pay,” she added with a commiserating look.

I huffed and shrugged. “Money isn’t an issue. I’ll survive just fine. Worst case, I’ll try to convince a certain gray-skinned Veredian to become my sugar mama.”

She laughed and took the scenic route to her parents’ estate so that she could show me the beauties of the planet that had become the new Veredia after the death of her people’s original homeworld.

Very few people got the privilege of traipsing around any area other than the spaceport, military grounds, and official gathering and meeting areas for visiting diplomats and merchants. The Veredians were still extremely protective of their privacy and territory. After the fallout of the solar flare that killed all their males, the females spent three generations being hunted and enslaved.

From their unlikely rebirth, they had become one of the most powerful militaries in the known galaxy. While I understood their reluctance to open themselves to other worlds, it pleased me that—as their population steadily grew with more and more males born each year—they also gradually lowered their walls.

Veredia was breathtaking. With their amazing psionic powers, they had built the type of architecture that most species wouldn’t even think of attempting due to the technical challenges it would entail. But their kinetics—like Lenora—could reshape any inert object at will, allowing them to give buildings the most extraordinary architecture. Specialized kinetics also joined the party, mainly the biokinetics who altered the plants to make them grow along some surfaces of the buildings so that they would blend almost seamlessly with their environment.

Obviously, some buildings had a more traditional architecture, but everything still had a unique flavor with a major focus on Environmental Protection and sustainability that made the entire planet feel like a giant garden.

It surprised me to learn that, upon leaving Xelix Prime to settle on the new Veredia, her parents decided to recreate an almost identical replica of their old home. Granted, it had been a superb three-story mansion. However, they extended it to include two additional bedrooms so that each of the four children could have their own, on top of two guest rooms, and a guest suite.

The latter possessed two bedrooms—one of which was normally used as an office—a living room, a full kitchen with a dining area, and two bathrooms. They had decided to build a literal separate apartment to better receive guests such as Aunt Mercy and Uncle Ravik with their children whenever they made the long journey from Braxia to the Western Quadrant.

Outside, they had built a revamped version of the massive natural pond swimming pool from their previous estate, including its connecting jacuzzi heated by thermal stones. They had also planted a small ryspak orchard—although small was a relative term—to provide them with a daily fresh supply of the fruit that was central to the Xelixian diet.

Back on Xelix Prime, the General’s family had built their fortune producing the sweet fruit. The orchard on his homeland continued to operate, managed by a local administrator on their behalf, sustaining the family’s wealth and prosperity. However, they hadn’t rebuilt a military compound on their property. Instead, they had erected a cozy little house a short distance from the main residence for their housekeeper and groundskeeper to live in.

Jhola and her husband Sivh had been with the Praghan family since before Khel and Lhor’s birth. With their own son having died young, they had shifted their parental affection towards the two Geminates and followed them to Veredia when they decided to move.