There, at the near edge of the crowd, stood Jackson. He wore jeans and a button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up against the warm spring day. His grin shone brighter than the sunshine as he held his sign higher in the air.
Welcome Home Bastian
It was exactly what I had envisioned, years and tears and trips through space and experiences as a speed bump for a Jeep ago. So was the kiss, after I’d run full-tilt across the tarmac to sweep him up into an embrace.
See that guy in the picture? The devilishly handsome one ignoring the bent posterboard sign, who looks like he might explode with joy as he kisses his husband? That guystillhasno ideaabout the adventure he’s embarking on. But oh, is he happy to go along for the ride.
That guy is me. Sebastian Galen Sadler. The man with the accidental husband.
34EPILOGUE
And that’s it.That’s my story. I’m here to tell you that Mail Call Mates works. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a bumpy road sometimes, but the result isso worththe rough patches.
I may have ended up with an accidental husband, but our love is no accident at all. We choose each other every day. That’s the secret to a happy marriage. Waking up and saying, “He is the love of my life, and I pick him as my ride or die.”
After I ran down the ramp and kissed my husband within an inch of his life, I pulled up long enough to notice that his family had come along. Brenda, Randall, and Cheyenne all held signs of their own. Brenda and Randall, or as I call them now, Mom and Dad, held up posterboard creations that read,Welcome Home Son. Cheyenne held up aWelcome Home Brothersign. Sheridan, she assured me, would have held up an identical sign if she had been on planet.
Laramie was nowhere to be seen. I found out later, over the now-traditional barbecue supper, that Randall and Brenda had sat him down for a harsh Come to Jesus talk not long after Jackson had returned to Earth. They confronted him with the proof of his actions taken from his phone (I’d told Jackson how to access it). They spoke to him about lies, about betrayal, and about the true meaning of family.
The discussion had not gone well. No one had spoken to Laramie for six months. His parents vowed that if he returned with an apology and a plan to repair what he had done, they would forgive him. Jackson, however, said with sad resolve that he never could. Laramie was dead to him now and always would be. His father said to give it time.
I was willing to give it time. Jackson had until the heat death of the universe to forgive his brother. After that point, we’d need to talk about how we should forgive family.
Speaking of forgiving family.
My father tried on his best impression of a braying jackass in the face of my brother’s rebellion. He stripped Johann of his place and authority in Van Horn Biologics and returned to running the company by himself. In response, my mother stopped choosing to love my father, and as she said, itwasa choice. A bad choice, but a choice nonetheless.
That prenuptial agreement got a workout. Turns out, my mother had signed it knowing it had clauses that would probably render it null if challenged in court. A measure of protection for herself, against the day when my father might become intolerable.
It didn’t end well for my father. It did end well for my mother and brother. Those are their stories to tell, though. I won’t steal their thunder. Once a month, they meet us out at the ranch for a big, family supper. My brother on a horse is a special brand of hilarity.
Together, we learned not just what family was, but what familyshould be.My life is so full, and will be even moreso when our daughter is born. Her name will be Johanna Cheyenne, after the siblings who helped me save my husband’s life.
No. We did not use Kelson Genetics. XY may be A-OK, but so are companies without jingles that turn into earworms. Those commercials can eat a bowl of dicks.
* * *
There’s one last loose end to tie up.
The Army promoted Jackson to a training and command position when he’d recovered enough to accept it. While he taught new soldiers how to survive on Mars, I contacted Doctor Flannigan’s old friend about a modified residency. I had just received my license and the shiny new “MD” styling for my name when I received an invitation for another goddamned adventure.
Five years after the Red Planet almost claimed his life, Jackson returned to Mars – and I went with him. The joint American military forces, together with select European allies, had held their ground at what I continued to call Important Installation in Valles Marineris, but could never win it entirely free. Our opposition refused to give up on their attempts to either take or destroy the place, very much like a stubborn dog with a juicy bone.
The time had come to end that fight. Five years of preparation, planning, and training had led to this mission. They were perpetually short on experienced medics who had done stints in Martian conditions.
I demurred. They offered me Captain’s bars. I gave them the side-eye until they agreed I was a major deal, and should thusly be a Major instead. How could I refuse? It meant I would outrank my husband, and no one right in their skull could pass up an opportunity like that.
While I paced enough laps around the medical bay at Foxtrot Base to walk me a twentieth of the distance back to Earth (or what felt like it), an attack force advanced on Important Installation with the intention of ending the fight for good. Opposition troops, tipped off by an unknown leak, dug in and refused to surrender.
That battle raged for four days. I no longer had time to pace, because wounded returned to Foxtrot in waves that damn near overwhelmed us. We lost so many good people, but we saved so many more.
A final push, led by Captains Jackson Sadler and Claire Leitner of the Boudiccans, together with the units they commanded, broke the opposition’s resistance at last. They were the true heroes of the battle that not only claimed the installation, but drove the opposition into a short siege at their own closest fortification. The United States and their allies could never have reclaimed the installation without them.
That victory would not have happened without Trigeneris. The miracle drug from Van Horn Biologics saved the soldiers, the installation, and something far greater than both. Without my marriage to Jackson Sadler, without his wounds and my determination to get him the drug he needed, there would have been no Trigeneris on Mars at all. Van Horn Biologics would have kept it locked up, not on the market for another six years at least.
Claire Leitner would have died. Jackson Sadler would have died. There would have been no final push, no siege, no temporary cease fire and treaty to stay away from that installation after the flechettes stopped flying.
What was that installation? I’ll bet you can guess. Hermits in the reaches of Kathmandu have probably heard the news by now.
The first true human habitat on Mars. One with farming. Water production. A prototype atmospheric generator that might someday reform how we create livable biomes on the deadly Red Planet. They’d had a self-sustaining community ofcivilian volunteersexisting and farming inside that base, doing science and carving out humanity’s first home away from Earth.
We have done enough damage to Earth that the future of the human race has become uncertain. As a species, we need to reach beyond our homeworld if we want to survive or even thrive. Important Installation, announced not long after that victory as Mars Habitat Second Eden, is the best hope for humanity’s first steps into life among the stars.
* * *