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Synopsis

Lieutenant Addison Hunt is proud to serve the Confederation even if he still feels like he’s on the outside looking in. Addison was illegally genetically modified as a child, leaving him burdened with a sense of shame. Emotionally isolated from his fellow crewmen and recovering from injuries from his last job, Addison is happy to have light duty transporting an esteemed diplomat to a peace conference.

Deveral is one of the Sacred Kin, possessing a psychic ability that his people consider a spark of the divine. Like all the Sacred Kin, he’s led a sheltered life as a temple priest, but his heightened empathic ability makes him the perfect diplomat. Nervous to leave his home, he’s curious about his new companion, Lieutenant Hunt.

Not everyone wants the diplomatic mission to succeed, and a rebel faction poses a real threat to Addison and Deveral. Finding themselves cast adrift on a “lost” colony, they’ll have to fight to stay alive.

Excerpt

Modified and Sacred Jana Denardo © 2019 All Rights Reserved Chapter One Fyria promised peace, hanging like a blue-green, white-smudged jewel in the starship Turing’s view screen. Addison wondered if Fyria’s peace would be one more broken promise. Living a life stuffed full of fractured vows, he remained leery of new pledges. He’d never been in this little pocket of the galaxy and knew the bare minimum about the Fyrians. Captain Valdis Sigmundsson swiveled her chair around to eye him. The fine lines around her eyes and lips always set him at ease. He knew this face well, though he knew the visage best on Admiral Hilde Sigmundsson, Valdis’s identical twin. Hilde had saved him all those years ago and sponsored him through the academy. He’d do anything for the twins and had been honored to serve with Valdis. Valdis and Hilde had made him honorary family, and off duty, he called them his aunts. If there was anyone he loved unconditionally, it was the sisters. “Are you ready for a mission more boring than your usual?” Valdis’s platinum-hued eyes danced. Addison schooled emotion from his face. He liked to appear neutral and unflappable on duty, a contrast to his captain. Controlling his emotions proved difficult for him, too acerbic in temperament. His shoulder thrummed with pain, reminding him how his last mission had been too exciting. He was luckier than most when it came to that assignment. “An uncomplicated escort mission would be a nice change of pace. Besides—” He grinned impertinently at his captain, breaking his own self-edict of being emotionally controlled. “—how often will I get to talk to a living god?” Valdis snorted, garnering the attention of her navigators. “Deveral is not exactly a living god. He’s Sacred Kin,” she reminded him, though he could be trusted to read the dossier. “The Fyrians believe their Sacred Kin hold a flicker of God’s power. That said, do be on your best behavior, Lieutenant. I’d hate for you to cause an intergalactic mission to go belly up if you act like your usual sarcastic self.” Addison offered her a flat smile, recognizing the subtle reprimand hidden in those humorous words. He’d spent too many hard years outside the military. He hadn’t been broken to their respectful ways, not entirely. His spotty past was why he fought to improve his on-duty demeanor. “I’ll behave.” Addison hoped this living god would do the same. He had no time for entitled assholes, whom he loathed outright. He might not be the right person for the job of babysitting an ambassador, especially one who’d been treated as a god his whole life, but Addison brushed away the negativity. He was a professional. This would be a simple job easing him back into active duty after Telsama. Uncomplicated was just what he needed. His shoulder twinged at the thought of Telsama. He was lucky to still be standing here. The ship’s surgeon had worked hard to put him back together again, and his strange body hadn’t made it any easier. Illegal anatomical modification meant very few records had been kept on all the things done to him as a child. Luckily, Dr. Wroe had done multiple workups on him the moment Captain Sigmundsson brought him on board, so she knew all his strangeness intimately. Setting the dark thoughts aside, he entered his small, but private quarters. Sigmundsson had arranged these accommodations, even though most Coalition officers of Addison’s rank had roommates. If anyone had known the captain was involved in the situation, he’d have faced taunts of favoritism, but jeers would have been worth it. Roommates would have questions if they caught sight of his few visual modifications. Most of his mods were internal, but those that could be seen were highlighted in glowing lights in his imagination. Sighing, he considered what he needed to pack in his rucksack. It would be a short trip on a shuttle. All the appropriate away-mission weaponry was a must. Any options centered on what to bring for the day or two he’d have to spend at the station hosting the talks once he dropped off his holiness. He would have been far more comfortable just turning around and heading back for the Turing, but protocol demanded he wait and make sure the Sacred Kin remained safe. Addison flopped on his bed, staring up at the gunmetal gray ceiling. He had no idea how to handle someone like this Sacred Kin Deveral fellow. He’d never been anyone’s first choice for ambassadorial duties, so Addison couldn’t guess why Aunt Valdis had tasked him with the job. He’d been cleared for full duty, so he didn’t need this light assignment. Did she think he wanted to step up the ladder and round out his résumé? No, she knew he’d not be allowed to advance. His modifications had been forgiven as they weren’t of his doing, but they were still a noose to any chance of becoming a captain someday. Rubbing his eyes, Addison tried not to feel bitter about the situation. He would do his best to go as far as he could. “I’m going nowhere if I don’t get myself prepared,” he muttered. Addison rolled to his feet and parked himself at his workstation. He needed to know more about the Fyrians in order to deal with Deveral properly. This Sacred Kin business was new to him. He’d grown up without a hint of religion. After his rescue, religion remained something he only had a passing acquaintance with. The idea that an entire race could believe certain members of their kind actually possessed a sliver of the divine struck him as bizarre. What would that entail? How arrogant would someone like a Sacred Kin be if they were praised and all but worshipped daily? Would he have to grease up the guy’s ego to get it in the shuttle? Addison delved into Fyrian history and culture. He had immersed himself so deeply into his studies the doorbell chiming nearly sent him out of his skin. “Door open,” he told the computer. He rubbed his aching eyes again, feeling as if someone had poked them. He never did well with a lot of light, and the computer screen counted as too bright. Doctor Yukiko Hayashi stood in his doorway. Addison smiled slightly and waved her in. “What’s up?” “I heard you have a diplomatic mission and thought you might need a little of this.” She waggled the Cala whiskey bottle she held, sloshing the blue liquid about. He made an appreciative noise, pushing back from the workstation as he nodded toward the little breakfast nook in his studio. “Do you know what I love about you, Yukiko?” “I can read your mind?” Yukiko tossed her long hair over her shoulder before she sat at the tiny table. “That’s it.” Addison fetched two glasses and sat next to her. “Do you know anything about the Fyrians?” “Not much other than they’ve been in the news a lot lately.” She poured the whiskey. Unlike so many others, the drink had a sweet scent, almost like blackberries. The fruity taste was one of the reasons he liked the whiskey. His modified system could handle a lot of alcohol, but he preferred it sweet. “How so? I’ve been out of it.” He didn’t have to tell her. She had assisted Dr. Wroe’s lifesaving efforts on him after his last mission had gone horribly awry. “They found a group of them that branched off the main planet so long ago they faded into myth. Isn’t that what your mission is?” Addison sipped the high alcohol content whiskey. “I’ve been looking up what the hell a Sacred Kin is.” “Did you find anything interesting?” Yukiko shot her whiskey faster than he did. She poured herself another. “They’re an interesting people. You’d find them fascinating. They have chromatophores in their skin and can change their coloring as camouflage.” Addison remembered the videos he’d seen of them and tried to explain. “During their evolution, there was a particularly nasty predator involved. The prey-predator relationship is what scientists think drove that piece of genetic neatness. I mean, it sucks to be prey, and obviously, their situation was worse than primitive humans had with a saber-toothed tiger, but their skin color thing is pretty.” “You’re right; that would be fascinating. Now I’m sad I’m not on this mission with you.” “I’d gladly let you take my place. I’m not good at this stuff. I don’t talk to people.” “You’re talking to me.” “Only because I had to talk to you for so many months when I came onboard. I got used to you.” “Newsflash, Addy, that’s how it works. You talk, the other person talks back. You don’t actually have social anxiety, per se.” Yukiko scowled. “You don’t, do you? I’ve never seen any signs in you.” He shook his head. “No, conversation doesn’t make me anxious but…” He let air escape him. Talking about this never got easier. “I don’t know the rules.” “I’m aware, just as I’m aware that, despite being schooled, you never picked up on those sorts of social cues, nor do you recognize your worth.” Addison forced himself to meet her gaze but couldn’t keep eye contact. “My schooling was with private tutors.” She knew that of course, and his statement wasn’t the whole truth. He’d attended the academy after a few years of immersive education thanks to Hilde and Valdis. His determined aunts never let him quit on himself. It would have been easier to just implant the education, but it was an imperfect, illegal process that had high chances of basically lobotomizing a person. Most illegal mods like him, worker drones who counted for less than the equipment they manned, had gone through implantation. He’d worked with those lobotomized mods, or at least the ones still able to function. Some were violent, forced into wearing a “shock collar,” technically a neuroimplant and nothing the mod could have somehow removed. Addison hadn’t been collared, because implantation wasn’t needed for his work, and he’d been taken and modded at such a young age, he never knew there was life beyond his job and dorm room. Implanting might be dangerous and illegal, but tethering was neither. Tethering, while slower, meant being literally wired into another person’s brain, and utterly unpleasant. There were reasons tethering was used only in extreme cases such as his. He didn’t so much have a mentor as he had someone willing to use their brain to train his. There had been an insane amount of catching up to do. He’d managed it but barely, or so it felt some days. That wasn’t the literal truth; he’d progressed further than he’d imagined and owed it all to his aunts. Yukiko said nothing to his fallacious statement, just raised an eyebrow. Finally, she said, “Do you know anything personal about this man you’re escorting?” He shook his head, grateful for the change of subject. “Not really, only that I’m to transport him to the conference. I guess they don’t think it’s necessary for me to know much about him since I’m merely the pilot and bodyguard.” “You could always find your answers by asking him.” “I’m not sure I can. That’s why I wanted to learn more about the Sacred Kin. It appears I can speak to him, but you know how some races are. They have a huge amount of rules and protocols. The Fyrians don’t seem to, but their Kin are special. They’re said to have special abilities other Fyrians don’t.” “How so?” Yukiko quirked up her eyebrows. “Records aren’t clear on that. I’m not sure if it’s a secret, or if the Fyrians don’t give it a second thought and assume everyone else knows. I’m sure if I dig around longer, I could find out more, but I probably should go make sure the shuttle is fully stocked, especially if I’m going to be stuck in that tiny thing for days with a stranger.” “Maybe I should give you something to mellow out that personality of yours.” Yukiko shot him an “I’m so innocent” look. He rolled his eyes. “Why are you my friend?” “Because I can put up with your dourness.” She stood and dug in her pocket for something. “Computer, Dr. Hayashi, going off duty,” she said loudly for the benefit of the ship’s computer. “I thought you already were.” “No, just checking on my favorite patient. Try not to get yourself taken apart this time. I’m getting tired of playing with the meat puzzles you make out of yourself.” He huffed at her. “Never my plan to get hurt, but I am part of the ship’s tactical and security crew.” “With a stunted sense of self preservation.” He couldn’t argue. Drones like him were replaceable meat sacks to the corporations dirty enough to use them. Making friends and keeping himself alive were still relatively new concepts for him. “Maybe.” “And if I was on duty, I couldn’t do this.” She bent over and tossed her arms around him, giving him a powerful hug. She held something odd in her hand, but he ignored it as he leaned into the embrace. Hugging he’d gotten used to. His aunts were huggers, and he found he liked the comfort of being in someone’s arms. He reached up and embraced her in kind. When Yukiko let him go, she handed him a small brocaded silk pouch. “For you. Keep it on your person.” He stared at the pouch and then tried to open it. Yukiko snatched it from his hand. “Never open the pouch. It drains the power.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Inside the pouch is an omamori, a Shinto protective charm. I made the omamori for you. This one is a yaku-yoke for the avoidance of evil. They used to be issued by shrines. It’s more commercial these days, of course. Has been for centuries.” Yukiko shrugged. “I guess they’re remnants from a time long ago, but an omamori still means something to a lot of people.” “Do you believe in this sort of thing?” Addison waggled the charm. “Are you Shinto?” She stared at him for a moment. “You’ve never been interested in religion before, but I guess I am the one who brought it up. Yes, I do believe.” Addison stood and put the charm in his rucksack. “I have no beliefs at all. I suppose I don’t have to tell you that. You know how I was raised before the captain took me in. I can’t say she’s particularly religious either, but thinking about the Sacred Kin has me wondering about how faith works.” “I’m not sure you can approach it logically, Addy.” He shrugged. “I have no other means in which to do it. For me, religion is an academic exercise. I don’t have enough time to really study the Fyrian religion, so I guess I’ll have to keep my mouth shut about that topic for most of the trip unless he brings it up. I could listen. I’m pretty good at that.” “Sounds like a plan. All right, I’ll leave you to finish prepping for the trip. Hope it’s nice and boring and you come back safe.” “Thanks.” He hoped it would at least be more boring than Telsama.



Modified and Sacred
Jana Denardo © 2019
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
Fyria promised peace, hanging like a blue-green, white-smudged jewel in the starship Turing’s view screen. Addison wondered if Fyria’s peace would be one more broken promise. Living a life stuffed full of fractured vows, he remained leery of new pledges. He’d never been in this little pocket of the galaxy and knew the bare minimum about the Fyrians.

Captain Valdis Sigmundsson swiveled her chair around to eye him. The fine lines around her eyes and lips always set him at ease. He knew this face well, though he knew the visage best on Admiral Hilde Sigmundsson, Valdis’s identical twin. Hilde had saved him all those years ago and sponsored him through the academy. He’d do anything for the twins and had been honored to serve with Valdis. Valdis and Hilde had made him honorary family, and off duty, he called them his aunts. If there was anyone he loved unconditionally, it was the sisters.

“Are you ready for a mission more boring than your usual?” Valdis’s platinum-hued eyes danced.

Addison schooled emotion from his face. He liked to appear neutral and unflappable on duty, a contrast to his captain. Controlling his emotions proved difficult for him, too acerbic in temperament. His shoulder thrummed with pain, reminding him how his last mission had been too exciting. He was luckier than most when it came to that assignment.

“An uncomplicated escort mission would be a nice change of pace. Besides—” He grinned impertinently at his captain, breaking his own self-edict of being emotionally controlled. “—how often will I get to talk to a living god?”

Valdis snorted, garnering the attention of her navigators. “Deveral is not exactly a living god. He’s Sacred Kin,” she reminded him, though he could be trusted to read the dossier. “The Fyrians believe their Sacred Kin hold a flicker of God’s power. That said, do be on your best behavior, Lieutenant. I’d hate for you to cause an intergalactic mission to go belly up if you act like your usual sarcastic self.”

Addison offered her a flat smile, recognizing the subtle reprimand hidden in those humorous words. He’d spent too many hard years outside the military. He hadn’t been broken to their respectful ways, not entirely. His spotty past was why he fought to improve his on-duty demeanor. “I’ll behave.”

Addison hoped this living god would do the same. He had no time for entitled assholes, whom he loathed outright. He might not be the right person for the job of babysitting an ambassador, especially one who’d been treated as a god his whole life, but Addison brushed away the negativity. He was a professional. This would be a simple job easing him back into active duty after Telsama. Uncomplicated was just what he needed.

His shoulder twinged at the thought of Telsama. He was lucky to still be standing here. The ship’s surgeon had worked hard to put him back together again, and his strange body hadn’t made it any easier. Illegal anatomical modification meant very few records had been kept on all the things done to him as a child. Luckily, Dr. Wroe had done multiple workups on him the moment Captain Sigmundsson brought him on board, so she knew all his strangeness intimately.

Setting the dark thoughts aside, he entered his small, but private quarters. Sigmundsson had arranged these accommodations, even though most Coalition officers of Addison’s rank had roommates. If anyone had known the captain was involved in the situation, he’d have faced taunts of favoritism, but jeers would have been worth it. Roommates would have questions if they caught sight of his few visual modifications. Most of his mods were internal, but those that could be seen were highlighted in glowing lights in his imagination. Sighing, he considered what he needed to pack in his rucksack.

It would be a short trip on a shuttle. All the appropriate away-mission weaponry was a must. Any options centered on what to bring for the day or two he’d have to spend at the station hosting the talks once he dropped off his holiness. He would have been far more comfortable just turning around and heading back for the Turing, but protocol demanded he wait and make sure the Sacred Kin remained safe.

Addison flopped on his bed, staring up at the gunmetal gray ceiling. He had no idea how to handle someone like this Sacred Kin Deveral fellow. He’d never been anyone’s first choice for ambassadorial duties, so Addison couldn’t guess why Aunt Valdis had tasked him with the job. He’d been cleared for full duty, so he didn’t need this light assignment. Did she think he wanted to step up the ladder and round out his résumé? No, she knew he’d not be allowed to advance. His modifications had been forgiven as they weren’t of his doing, but they were still a noose to any chance of becoming a captain someday.

Rubbing his eyes, Addison tried not to feel bitter about the situation. He would do his best to go as far as he could.

“I’m going nowhere if I don’t get myself prepared,” he muttered.

Addison rolled to his feet and parked himself at his workstation. He needed to know more about the Fyrians in order to deal with Deveral properly. This Sacred Kin business was new to him. He’d grown up without a hint of religion. After his rescue, religion remained something he only had a passing acquaintance with. The idea that an entire race could believe certain members of their kind actually possessed a sliver of the divine struck him as bizarre. What would that entail? How arrogant would someone like a Sacred Kin be if they were praised and all but worshipped daily? Would he have to grease up the guy’s ego to get it in the shuttle?

Addison delved into Fyrian history and culture. He had immersed himself so deeply into his studies the doorbell chiming nearly sent him out of his skin. “Door open,” he told the computer. He rubbed his aching eyes again, feeling as if someone had poked them. He never did well with a lot of light, and the computer screen counted as too bright.

Doctor Yukiko Hayashi stood in his doorway. Addison smiled slightly and waved her in. “What’s up?”

“I heard you have a diplomatic mission and thought you might need a little of this.” She waggled the Cala whiskey bottle she held, sloshing the blue liquid about.

He made an appreciative noise, pushing back from the workstation as he nodded toward the little breakfast nook in his studio. “Do you know what I love about you, Yukiko?”

“I can read your mind?” Yukiko tossed her long hair over her shoulder before she sat at the tiny table.

“That’s it.” Addison fetched two glasses and sat next to her. “Do you know anything about the Fyrians?”

“Not much other than they’ve been in the news a lot lately.” She poured the whiskey. Unlike so many others, the drink had a sweet scent, almost like blackberries. The fruity taste was one of the reasons he liked the whiskey. His modified system could handle a lot of alcohol, but he preferred it sweet.

“How so? I’ve been out of it.” He didn’t have to tell her. She had assisted Dr. Wroe’s lifesaving efforts on him after his last mission had gone horribly awry.

“They found a group of them that branched off the main planet so long ago they faded into myth. Isn’t that what your mission is?”

Addison sipped the high alcohol content whiskey. “I’ve been looking up what the hell a Sacred Kin is.”

“Did you find anything interesting?” Yukiko shot her whiskey faster than he did. She poured herself another.

“They’re an interesting people. You’d find them fascinating. They have chromatophores in their skin and can change their coloring as camouflage.” Addison remembered the videos he’d seen of them and tried to explain. “During their evolution, there was a particularly nasty predator involved. The prey-predator relationship is what scientists think drove that piece of genetic neatness. I mean, it sucks to be prey, and obviously, their situation was worse than primitive humans had with a saber-toothed tiger, but their skin color thing is pretty.”

“You’re right; that would be fascinating. Now I’m sad I’m not on this mission with you.”

“I’d gladly let you take my place. I’m not good at this stuff. I don’t talk to people.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“Only because I had to talk to you for so many months when I came onboard. I got used to you.”

“Newsflash, Addy, that’s how it works. You talk, the other person talks back. You don’t actually have social anxiety, per se.” Yukiko scowled. “You don’t, do you? I’ve never seen any signs in you.”

He shook his head. “No, conversation doesn’t make me anxious but…” He let air escape him. Talking about this never got easier. “I don’t know the rules.”

“I’m aware, just as I’m aware that, despite being schooled, you never picked up on those sorts of social cues, nor do you recognize your worth.”

Addison forced himself to meet her gaze but couldn’t keep eye contact. “My schooling was with private tutors.”

She knew that of course, and his statement wasn’t the whole truth. He’d attended the academy after a few years of immersive education thanks to Hilde and Valdis. His determined aunts never let him quit on himself. It would have been easier to just implant the education, but it was an imperfect, illegal process that had high chances of basically lobotomizing a person. Most illegal mods like him, worker drones who counted for less than the equipment they manned, had gone through implantation. He’d worked with those lobotomized mods, or at least the ones still able to function. Some were violent, forced into wearing a “shock collar,” technically a neuroimplant and nothing the mod could have somehow removed. Addison hadn’t been collared, because implantation wasn’t needed for his work, and he’d been taken and modded at such a young age, he never knew there was life beyond his job and dorm room.

Implanting might be dangerous and illegal, but tethering was neither. Tethering, while slower, meant being literally wired into another person’s brain, and utterly unpleasant. There were reasons tethering was used only in extreme cases such as his. He didn’t so much have a mentor as he had someone willing to use their brain to train his. There had been an insane amount of catching up to do. He’d managed it but barely, or so it felt some days. That wasn’t the literal truth; he’d progressed further than he’d imagined and owed it all to his aunts.

Yukiko said nothing to his fallacious statement, just raised an eyebrow. Finally, she said, “Do you know anything personal about this man you’re escorting?”

He shook his head, grateful for the change of subject. “Not really, only that I’m to transport him to the conference. I guess they don’t think it’s necessary for me to know much about him since I’m merely the pilot and bodyguard.”

“You could always find your answers by asking him.”

“I’m not sure I can. That’s why I wanted to learn more about the Sacred Kin. It appears I can speak to him, but you know how some races are. They have a huge amount of rules and protocols. The Fyrians don’t seem to, but their Kin are special. They’re said to have special abilities other Fyrians don’t.”

“How so?” Yukiko quirked up her eyebrows.

“Records aren’t clear on that. I’m not sure if it’s a secret, or if the Fyrians don’t give it a second thought and assume everyone else knows. I’m sure if I dig around longer, I could find out more, but I probably should go make sure the shuttle is fully stocked, especially if I’m going to be stuck in that tiny thing for days with a stranger.”

“Maybe I should give you something to mellow out that personality of yours.” Yukiko shot him an “I’m so innocent” look.

He rolled his eyes. “Why are you my friend?”

“Because I can put up with your dourness.” She stood and dug in her pocket for something. “Computer, Dr. Hayashi, going off duty,” she said loudly for the benefit of the ship’s computer.

“I thought you already were.”

“No, just checking on my favorite patient. Try not to get yourself taken apart this time. I’m getting tired of playing with the meat puzzles you make out of yourself.”

He huffed at her. “Never my plan to get hurt, but I am part of the ship’s tactical and security crew.”

“With a stunted sense of self preservation.”

He couldn’t argue. Drones like him were replaceable meat sacks to the corporations dirty enough to use them. Making friends and keeping himself alive were still relatively new concepts for him. “Maybe.”

“And if I was on duty, I couldn’t do this.” She bent over and tossed her arms around him, giving him a powerful hug. She held something odd in her hand, but he ignored it as he leaned into the embrace. Hugging he’d gotten used to. His aunts were huggers, and he found he liked the comfort of being in someone’s arms. He reached up and embraced her in kind.

When Yukiko let him go, she handed him a small brocaded silk pouch. “For you. Keep it on your person.”

He stared at the pouch and then tried to open it. Yukiko snatched it from his hand.

“Never open the pouch. It drains the power.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Inside the pouch is an omamori, a Shinto protective charm. I made the omamori for you. This one is a yaku-yoke for the avoidance of evil. They used to be issued by shrines. It’s more commercial these days, of course. Has been for centuries.” Yukiko shrugged. “I guess they’re remnants from a time long ago, but an omamori still means something to a lot of people.”

“Do you believe in this sort of thing?” Addison waggled the charm. “Are you Shinto?”

She stared at him for a moment. “You’ve never been interested in religion before, but I guess I am the one who brought it up. Yes, I do believe.”

Addison stood and put the charm in his rucksack. “I have no beliefs at all. I suppose I don’t have to tell you that. You know how I was raised before the captain took me in. I can’t say she’s particularly religious either, but thinking about the Sacred Kin has me wondering about how faith works.”

“I’m not sure you can approach it logically, Addy.”

He shrugged. “I have no other means in which to do it. For me, religion is an academic exercise. I don’t have enough time to really study the Fyrian religion, so I guess I’ll have to keep my mouth shut about that topic for most of the trip unless he brings it up. I could listen. I’m pretty good at that.”

“Sounds like a plan. All right, I’ll leave you to finish prepping for the trip. Hope it’s nice and boring and you come back safe.”

“Thanks.”

He hoped it would at least be more boring than Telsama.

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Meet the Author

Jana is Queen of the Geeks (her students voted her in), and her home and office are shrines to any number of comic book and manga heroes along with SF shows and movies too numerous to count. It’s no coincidence that the love of all things geeky has made its way into many of her stories. To this day, she’s disappointed she hasn’t found a wardrobe to another realm, a superhero to take her flying among the clouds, or a roguish starship captain to run off to the stars with her.

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Synopsis

Who says phone games are only for kids? Sometimes they give just the respite you need from a hectic life. At least, that’s the way Ann feels about Ani-min Move, an AR mobile game full of cartoon animals caught with nets. Legendary raids have just launched, and Ann arrives at a nearby park to find it full of people of all ages playing the game, including Rachael, a kind, attractive single mom. And sweet! Rachael is more than willing to teach Ann the proper way to spin her nets to snag the raid boss.

Back in reality, Ann has a lot on her plate: a full workload as a project manager, finding the energy to walk her dog, Franny, and now trying to figure out if Rachael is queer. And how does Ann converse with Rachael about her six-year-old son when she doesn’t know a thing about parenting?

Ann is lost as to how to proceed until Rachael takes the guesswork out of the equation by 
proclaiming she’s bi—right when Ann gets a massive work assignment that consumes way too much of her time. Life/work balance was never Ann’s forte, but between caring for her sweetheart dog and figuring out how to navigate a relationship with a single parent, Ann’s determined to make it work, especially before Rachael gets cold feet and leaves Ann playing by herself.

So, collect those ultra-nets, Ann. Can you catch her?

Excerpt

Gotta Catch Her
Kelly Haworth © 2019
All Rights Reserved

Why did Ani-min Move have to launch new features on a weekday? The last thing I wanted to do when I got home from the office was immediately drag my ass back outdoors.

“I’m tired, Franny,” I said, putting my feet onto the coffee table, relieved to have them out of the little heels that were the curse of business casual. Frances cocked her head at me, her fluffy ears going askew. “But it looks like they’re launching legendary raids, and I am not missing that.”

After starting the update to my Ani-min Move app, I put down my phone while the update installed. Franny lowered her head to her paws and whined.

“I know, I know. A walk would be better than the apartment’s dog yard.”

Who knew eight hours at a desk would be so exhausting? But doing the same thing every day really grated on a person. Make sure this client has their order placed correctly. Keep that project running on time. Figure out why supplies are delayed. So much communication, so much organization, so much waiting.

I ran my fingers through my brunette hair, scratching my scalp and enjoying the ten seconds of silence.

At least, until Franny barked.

“Okay, honey. Let me get out of these slacks.”

I pushed myself to my feet and strode across the living room, wincing at the tumbleweeds of golden retriever fur under the kitchen table. This is why I’m single, I berated myself. Not that there’d be anyone datable over to see it, especially with my reluctance to use dating apps. And Sacramento was a big city, but dating was intimidating enough for me to hesitate in visiting downtown’s gay clubs. Besides, what would I wear?

I stripped out of my slacks and blouse, tossing them into the pile slowly accumulating on one side of my bedroom, and pulled on my comfy stretch pants and a bright pink tank top.

Oh, it was so tempting to collapse onto my side of the bed—avoiding the piles of fur where Franny slept on her side—and browse the internet or read until I fell asleep.

But that was one of the many reasons why I had Frances. Personal accountability. She got me out of the house every day, kept me walking and breathing fresh air.

“Okay girl, where’s your leash?”

The scramble of nails on the fake hardwood floors echoed down the hall as Franny dashed into the kitchen where she likely took position expectantly beneath the row of hooks for her leashes. I pushed feet into worn tennis shoes and picked up my phone. The update was complete, and I reopened my app, tapping past the screen welcoming me and advertising the new raids. The legendary cat Felesana would show up at local parks for me to battle with my friends! Yes, I got it. Show me where the closest one is. I brought up the augmented reality map, my character standing in the middle of the block my apartment complex resided on, and I tabbed over to the nearby raid window.

Franny let out a whine to remind me I hadn’t put on her leash yet, so I obliged her and giggled as her excitement ramped up from an eight to a twenty, all wagging tail and lolling tongue and shivering with eagerness.

“Honey, I’m so glad it’s this easy to make you happy.”

Heaven knew how hard it was to make people happy. “Where’s the product I ordered”—“Annabel, your surveys have come back less than perfect”—”I’m sorry, I can’t date a lesbian who used to date men”--

Yeah. I loved Franny. Dogs were woman’s best friend too. Not just man’s.

I grabbed my phone and my keys and gave Frances a pat.

“Looks like one of these big kitties is at the park three blocks away. Let’s go do our first legendary raid, girl.”

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Meet the Author

Kelly Haworth grew up in San Francisco and has been reading science fiction and fantasy classics since she was a kid. She has way too active an imagination, thus she channels it into writing. Kelly is nonbinary and pansexual and loves to write LGBTQIA characters into her work. In fact, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to write a non-queer couple again. Kelly has degrees in both genetics and psychology and works as a project manager at a genetics lab. When not working or writing, she can be found wrangling her two kids, painting, or curled up on the couch with a good TV show or book.

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Synopsis

Raze halts his midnight joy ride to give chase to twinkling lights that appear in the road before him and then lead him deep into a forest, where he falls into another world. There, magic is real, wishes are granted, and no one is considered odd or out of place.

Raze has never fit in anywhere in his own world and uses his angry attitude to keep others at bay and mask his anxieties and fears in this new place. A dangerous combination in Loas, where rudeness is frowned upon and foul language can land him in a dungeon.

Rurin, an inhabitant of Loas, tries to teach Raze about their world, its magic and its residents, but he faces Raze’s stubborn resistance at every turn. Bitter about his past, pessimistic about his future, Raze sees what could be, but he struggles to accept it. In the meantime, his encounters with the Fae range from hostile sarcasm to potential danger. While he attempts to keep the promises he’s made to Rurin and follow the rules laid out for him, Raze grows more and more curious about the place where he’s landed. It’s too bad he keeps making poor choices.

As the connection between them grows, Rurin works to keep Raze from being banished, but Raze may be cast out of the Loas before he has the opportunity to discover the true reason he was led there in the first place.
Where Song Replaces Silence
Layla Dorine © 2019
All Rights Reserved

Heavy, the steady thud, thud, thud of the base rocked the back windows, and poured from the open driver’s side where the scent of rain flowed freely, mist lightly splashing on Raze’s face. “Four Rusted Horses” blared from a radio cranked so high the rain-covered glass vibrated with the force of the speakers’ efforts.

Thud, thud, thud, “forbidden…” Raze growled along, more snarl than song. Thud, thud, thud, “heaven…” Every word committed to memory. Thud, thud, thud, “useless…” Despite the slickness of the road, he drove with just two fingers, his free hand tapping out a beat on the shifter. Thud, thud, thud, “hell…” Glowing red numbers on the dash flipped from 2:59 to 3:00, the witching hour, the night so dark the headlights struggled to pierce the dim and fog.

The old Charger’s purr was a gospel choir of spark plugs and gears. His steel and chrome baby was the only thing in life Raze worked hard to care for. Some might even say he worshipped her power and speed, stroked her like a lover, and spent more than one night curled against the supple leather of her seats. He called her Rhea, after Saturn’s second largest moon. As a kid, he’d had a collection of beautiful photos of the ringed planet.

For most, this might have been motivation to aim high, study astrophysics or astronomy, anything that might put them closer to the cosmos. Not Raze. If he was behind the wheel, space and time were irrelevant; the world shrank, melted, and faded away. The song reached its crescendo, and he drummed along, eyes half closed as he pressed harder on the gas, felt the wind snarl and tug at his hair—sharp, like cold teeth. Tensing, he belted out the final verse, barely keeping Rhea on the road.

Exhilaration warred with exhaustion, the miles piling up for hours. A quick glance at the dash showed the gas tank was drifting below a fourth, dangerous territory when he had no clue where to find the nearest station. Common sense said he should have stopped at the last place he saw, but the rebel flags in the window made him wary. He’d always had a tough time understanding how people could hate someone so absolutely over something as simple as the color of their skin.

His own varied, based on how much time he spent in the sun. Most days, his skin glowed like the beach at sunrise, the sand shimmering a glowing golden hue. In the summer, though, his skin grew three shades darker, and if he wasn’t careful, a crop of freckles would appear splattered across his nose. He hated them as much as he hated the odd, three-toned hues of his hair, and how, no matter how many times he dyed the messy mane, he could never quite get his locks to turn out one color.

The long strands needed another treatment, the rich reds were like blood and rubies, or at least, that’s how a multitude of people had described the color over the years. A few, being kind, had likened the shade to fall leaves or a sunset, but kindness hadn’t been a common occurrence growing up. His so-called oddities had always made others uncomfortable. Funny, but ever since he’d learned the meaning of normal the idea had freaked the hell outta him. One of the many reasons he was still drifting.

Shit!

Slamming on the brakes, he jerked the wheel, sending Rhea spinning through the dancing green-gold figure appearing out of nowhere, swathed in a halo of lights. Somehow, despite the rows of waving trees, he got Rhea stopped without clipping one. His throat hurt, and his chest was pounding, lungs heaving as he sucked in air. Breathing and trying to relax the death grip on the wheel at the same time was a struggle. His fingers ached. Stiff and cramping, they refused to cooperate, no matter how hard he focused. Shaking, he collapsed against the wheel, the weight of his body sounding the horn, the echo a forlorn cry above the howling wind.

Shit shit shit shit shit

The only word he could formulate, shit, a mantra, running through his brain. There hadn’t been a thud. He hadn’t felt one, hadn’t heard one, meaning he’d missed them, right?

He didn’t want to look, but he knew he had to. Maybe they’d tripped, fallen, dived out of the way, rolled. They could be hurt, but not as bad as if he’d struck them with nearly two tons of metal. Swallowing, he told himself to man up, jerked his fingers free of their grip on the wheel, and sucked in a deep breath as he fumbled in the darkness for his phone. Three bars. Good, he could get them help if they needed it.

He fumbled with the door, got it open on the second try, and practically fell getting out, his body rebelling with every movement. For a moment, he stood in darkness, disoriented as he tried to figure out which direction he’d been coming from. When he spotted the twinkling green lights over the road, he blinked and stumble staggered toward the glowing apparition, watching the fragments of gold swirl and take shape, hovering, the form human, but not.

The fuck?

About fifty feet away, he could hear laughter, a mocking, teasing jangle of bell-like notes.

“You missed me, you missed me.”

Huh?

Squinting, he struggled to assess the situation, even as the words continued.

“Now you gotta kiss me.”

Oh, hell no. Either he was hallucinating, or he’d smacked his head on something. Either way, he was gonna wake up in a few minutes to darkness, a whining engine, and a pounding headache even the best painkillers wouldn’t cure.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he pressed his fingertips against his temples, counting to ten, but the laughter and singsong words continued.

“You think this is funny!” he roared, hands dropping to his sides, fingers curling into fists. He took a step forward and then another. “You could have gotten me killed; you could have fucked up my car; how fuckin’ stupid do you have to be, playing games out here in the middle of nowhere! Do you get off on fucking with people, huh? I swear to god, if there is a fuckin’ piston outta place in Rhea, you’re gonna pay to have her fixed.”

The laughter grew, even as he stalked the light. Only when he was within grasping range did it turn and flee toward the forest, glancing back every now and again to taunt him more.

“You can run, run, run, but when you’re done, you will never catch me.”

“Oh, you better believe Imma catch you, and when I do, Imma beat the sparkle offa you!” he screamed, crashing through the underbrush after it. It occurred to him, as he slipped and floundered, like as not, he was chasing swamp gas or some fucked-up idea of a joke involving holograms and projectors. They were probably sitting in a tree laughing at his stupidity. Didn’t stop him from continuing to give chase.

Tripping, he landed facedown in prickly brambles.

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

Yowling, he carefully tried to detangle himself while the laughter continued to grate on his nerves.

“Clumsy, aren’t we? My, my, my, that’s a very fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“Me? You’re the one who led me into this crap.”

“If you’d been faster, or smarter, perhaps you’d have used your wings, instead of stumbling around like a blind Alp-luachra searching for its next joint.”

“Wish I was sitting somewhere warm and dry smokin’ a joint right about now,” he grumbled beneath his breath, even as the sparkling flake of glittery light continued to cackle, twinkling like a firefly with every high-pitched note.

“Ah, but your wishes matter little to me. I lack the ability to grant them, and even if I could, I wouldn’t, until we’ve finished our game, though you are a poor, poor chaser. Perhaps you would be a better seeker. Shall I hide and see if you can find me?”

“Please don’t; actually, no, wait; please do. Yeah, that’s brilliant. You go hide, and I’ll come find you…in a century or two.”

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Meet the Author

Layla Dorine lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.

 Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found

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Synopsis

Set in a near-future environment, mega-corporations have taken over the most habitable of planets, creating domed utopias for their devoted employees. Everyone else has been shunted off to a multitude of mostly habitable planets and moons where they scrape by as farmers and tradesfolk, miners and merchants, bounty hunters and scavengers.

James Marks and his crew of scav trash operate their ship, SIO, on a mission to obtain a mysterious piece of new tech. It changes everything and leaves him stranded somewhere he doesn’t recognize with a cute, if not a bit annoying, tech scientist. James doesn’t know, when he first meets Michael, but his life is about to change in a very surprising way.

Excerpt

SIO
C.A. Blocke © 2019
All Rights Reserved

One: The Job
“You’re really going in alone?” Edge asked, leaning heavily against the console as James plugged in the coordinates. “I thought you promised Lyra you weren’t doing jobs alone anymore after that last big fuckup.”

James rolled his eyes and sighed. “What Lyra don’t know won’t hurt her. You and your sister are wanted on every planet in Corporate Space, and I’m not about to lose the only good pilot we’ve got by taking Corin along for the ride. Besides, I’m fluent in bullshit. I’ll be fine.”

Edge laughed and drew his oversized ElectroPistol before shoving it toward James’s chest. “You’re gonna need this. They set up scanners every few kilometers to catch travelers with old-school bullets.”

“You know I’ve got one.” James smirked, opening his dark-brown duster to show off his special design. “And mine’s overclocked.”

“Show-off.”

Edge and his sister, Razor, had been on the ship’s crew since day one, and far too many crew members had been lost one way or another since. To be fair, James knew Edge had a point. The duster was a bit of a showpiece, but even in Corporate Space, they could appreciate fine leatherwork.

Quietly, Razor added, “Careful where you’re scanning with that eye, boss. Peach detection is sensitive to all TechEyes.”

James blinked several times, self-conscious at the reminder of his less-than-human status. After fifteen years on the outer ring, he was starting to feel less man than machine. An eye, a leg, and a full neural interface later, who really could say he wasn’t? “Yes, mother.” James sighed, offering another fond roll of the eyes. “Believe me, I’m in and out. The last place I want to hang out is a Peach Corp research and development office.”

“Eye on the prize.” Edge nodded, clapping a meaty hand on James’s back. “Corin’ll leave the engines running for ya.”

Getting in wasn’t hard; a flash of the badge the client had provided and a few sideways glances at James’s generally unkempt appearance, and he was walking the halls toward the mark’s office. Thankfully, R&D didn’t have half the security protocol most Corporate offices had, and as far as they cared, the dark-haired man in a duster and pressed shirt was Mr. Marquis Benton, in the flesh. However, the short middle manager staring him down didn’t exactly seem convinced.

“So, Mr. Benton, is it?” he asked, stroking his fingers through professionally cropped blond hair before taking off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “And you are here for?”

“I was told the communique was sent days ago,” James bluffed, crossing his arms and giving the manager, Michael, a critical look. “The Rose prototype. It’s being called up for Corporate preview.”

“Well, as much as I’d love to have one less piece of useless technology to deal with, it’s not ready. I never received this…communique…you’re talking about.” Michael’s brow furrowed as he slipped his glasses back on; the frustration apparent on his face was adorable at the very least.

“Fine. Fine.” James leaned in, glancing over the man’s badge to grab a name, only to feel his TechEye activate to read it through the soft fold of his worn blazer. “It’s all right, Michael. I’ll deal with your supervisor.”

“I am the supervisor at this facility.” Michael frowned, shaking his head. “And if that crappy old TechEye wasn’t such a piece of outdated shit running firmware from ten years ago, you would have been able to pull up my personnel file and would know that.”

It wasn’t quite the same as being caught red-handed, and security wasn’t swarming the office yet, so there was that much hope. “Hey, you know how crappy the pay is for runners. I haven’t exactly been able to keep up on the latest and greatest.” James shrugged, and then stepped closer, ready to make a move, if justified. “Besides, I don’t like all that clutter in my HUD. All I need is to get this prototype to my boss.” It was a fair enough statement; the heads-up display on the older chip software was much less cluttered with information of various levels of situational importance. In the long run, it made it difficult to parse the large amount of information that wasn’t actually in front of his eyes but tended to render him at least distracted when it came up.

Michael stood, one hand on his black leather belt and the other casually planted against his desk. “The new heads-up display is actually quite streamlined by comparison, especially if you have the visual upgrade.” He shifted on his feet and, after a moment’s pause, dropped his gaze down to the litter of papers and scraps on his desk. “Look, okay… I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but contrary to popular belief, just because I’m in R&D, I’m not a fucking idiot. The Rose is classified, and you’ve done absolutely nothing to make me believe you should even be here.”

James had been in worse situations, which really said quite a lot about his chosen profession. He put on his best smile and leaned across Michael’s desk, drawing eyes back up to him. “I’ll level with you, Michael. There was no communique, okay? I know I’m sort of jumping the gun here, but bringing back the Rose and blowing the bigwigs’ minds with it pretty much guarantees a promotion that…uh…well, I need. And I know you’ve got zero reason to believe a word I’m saying, but I can definitely put in a good word for the new head of R&D.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed behind his thin spectacles, and James felt his heart rate raise enough to hear the blood pounding in his ears. Lying was no big thing, but pulling shit in a Peach facility was a damn bold move for someone not looking to end up in a prison colony for the rest of their short, crappy life. Finally, Michael said, “Head of R&D? You have that kind of power? I thought you said you were a runner.”

“A runner for someone with more power than both of us combined. With the right offering, I could do quite a lot”—James whispered, licking his lower lip for dramatic effect, if not sheer nerves—“with a little help from a certain smart and handsome developer.”

A long moment passed, and James realized exactly how that statement had come off. Fortunately, Michael seemed to buy it, and James wasn’t really lying—for everything his bookish appearance gave off, Michael was handsome in a sort of cute tech-nerd kind of way. Michael sighed and shook his head, drawing back. “You’ve got a silver tongue, Marquis. And, I guess I’m just sick of looking at the stupid thing,” he muttered under his breath, heading toward the door James had come in. “I have to get it from the lab; they’re working on it today.”

“Of course, of course.” James feigned a laugh while following him back into the corridor and through the honeycomb of hallways and nondescript rooms toward the lab.

Michael scanned his card and then turned back to face him. “Wait here.”

There was a delicate dance—James couldn’t wait too long out in the open without being checked by security, who would likely figure out his papers were fake, within a few seconds, but he also had to offer Michael the benefit of the doubt, lest his true intention be made even clearer. He nodded and casually folded his arms over his chest, gently patting the pistol concealed within his coat. Beyond the door, he couldn’t see much more than several bodies in white suits with blank faces moving quietly around, and then he was alone in the corridor.

Ten minutes and one close call with security passed, and James couldn’t stop himself from attempting to listen at the door, to no avail. Daring the chance of getting caught, he fumbled out the jack in his coat pocket, connecting it to the keypad first and then directly to the port behind his left ear. Hacking was dangerous in the best possible circumstances. Getting caught was almost a certainty, but the cybernetic jack made it a little simpler to do something as innocuous as jimmying a lock—hell, James had practically grown up forcing locks with or without technological assistance. Unfortunately, Razor wasn’t wrong about Peach Corp being on top of outside tech in their systems. The lock gave, after only a few moments of forcing the code, the door opened, and the first thing James saw after pulling the jack free at both ends in one yank was security coming right for him.

“What are you doing in here?” Michael shouted as James rushed into the room, slamming the door behind him. A steel case was open on a large table, a small purple rose made of circuits and glass seated in a holding point fixed inside the case.

“Okay, so here’s the thing…” James stammered, letting the words come as his most useful form of self-preservation. “There are at least three guys with ElectroPistols on the other side of that door, and I really need to leave with this prototype, so if you could close that case, I’ll be heading out now.”

“It’s not ready!” Michael answered, lifting the safety goggles from around his glasses and tossing them on the floor with an angry sigh. “Do you even know anything about the Rose? You have got to be the most ignorant—”

James cut him off for lack of time more than anything, snapping the case closed. “I may have to use you as a human shield…no worries; ElectroPistols don’t hurt nearly as bad as the real thing.” He was well aware it sounded bad, but to the best of his knowledge, as long as the person being shot didn’t have too many cybernetic parts, the blasts weren’t usually deadly. James grabbed Michael’s elbow, thankful he was a little lighter and a good deal shorter than most.

They made it two steps to the door, and when James touched the latch, a loud popping noise was accompanied by a rush of heat, and everything went black.

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Meet the Author

C.A. Blocke is a thirty-something writer who’s been captivated by the magic of how people relate to each other for as long as she can remember. Far more than overarching drawn-out plots, she prefers to focus heavily on relationships in various situations that feel like real life—even when at its most surreal. Real Life, she feels, is messy and complicated, and that shines through in her fiction where the road to a happy ending frequently isn’t just a straight line. A long-time reader and writer of fluffy character-driven pieces, her style tends to highlight small slices of life that come together to form a whole picture of the plot.

She is a gender nonconforming, demisexual-identified female who feels most comfortable writing unconventional relationships involving non-heterosexual couplings. Sexual identity often colors her works and features heavily in finding the comfortable place where identities can collide with minimal friction. She enjoys exploring different takes on ‘acceptable’ sexuality and blurring the lines between what is expected and what really happens.

A small-town Arizona native, the Southwest and its rural communities fascinate her—particularly the rigid-identity politics and the ramifications of breaking the social norm. Of course, that’s not to say that she doesn’t also enjoy writing about urban life and the various challenges present in the big city. While most at home writing contemporary romance with a warm little erotica twist, she’s very prone to following her muse down the dark alleys and open valleys it drags her through—making it nearly impossible to know just what genre will take her interest next.

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Synopsis

In the far reaches of the Kyleri Empire, young Captain Mahnoor travels around the system to escape the cultural pressures to marry. But his infatuation with a handsome imperial pilot leads him into a galactic war.

On Jiwani, Viscamon is attempting to consolidate his power, by blaming the Ingvar for the royal massacre and calling armies from across the Empire to track down the missing prince, and achieve his dream of destroying the Galactic Balance. However, Antari knows the truth about Osvai and must find the courage to stand up to the prince’s enemies, and his own, no matter the risk.

Meanwhile on Aldegar, Daeron is being held prisoner by the few remaining Ingvar forces and must find a way to break free to rescue his mother and the crew of the Daring Huntress once again, as well as the missing Prince Osvai, before the Kyleri come to take back what’s theirs.

Sallah, no longer the last Tevian, returns to Aldegar with no choice but to enlist the help of the man she hates and the woman she once loved to see her son again.

As the Galactic Balance tips ever more towards chaos, time is running out to save Ales from the destructive forces he has unleashed.

Excerpt

Destructive Forces
Harry F. Rey © 2019
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
“Don’t let him get away!” Sallah screamed at the top of her lungs through the chaos of the fiery corridor. Two Ingvar soldiers had her by either arm. They’d dragged her out of the Trades Council plenum-turned-battle zone against her will. Her life was of paramount value to the Ingvar star-state, but she couldn’t care less about that now. Not while this Turo was getting away.

His words, spoken only minutes ago, haunted her mind. I have your son, he’d said, with a swirling sneer. Then everything exploded. Sallah had lost sight of General Morvas and Councilor Nexia in the shooting. Ingvar soldiers had also jumped on them, but the smoke and noise of weapons fire made trying to get back to the ship impossible. Yet it was the last thing Sallah wanted to do—the insurrection in the heart of the Trades Council be damned.

“Get off me.” She struggled against their armor-plated bodies, but they did not relent. Sallah’s feet kept slipping against the smooth marble floor; she couldn’t find a grip. Yelling and the ricochet of weapons banged around the air from every direction, stinging smoke encroaching on their position. Sallah yanked her head around to a din of shots being fired, and the two soldiers pulled her back from the brink of the great hallway where volleys of laser shot fired backward and forward into unknown, unseen sets of troops.

“Get back.” One of the soldiers said and knocked her head back against the wall, trying to avoid edging around the corner into the wide trench of ongoing warfare the great hallway had become. Sallah remembered the way. They had to get across to the other side, through the firing range.

A far-off explosion shook the walls of the building, seeming to strike at the core of the planet itself. The firing ceased, but silence did not return. Instead, the screeching sounds of warplanes entering the Targulian atmosphere filled the once-gilded walkway. Down beyond their position, toward the end of the great hallway, Sallah saw figures moving through the smoke. The shapes could be Turo, or even Ales. The only thing clear was her need to get to them.

Her Ingvar captors looked distracted, scanning the now eerily silent hallway through black visor helmets. One had his hand pointed backward in a halfhearted attempt to keep her still. She edged away from the wall, then glanced into the great hallway. It had the air of some ancient temple; high ceilings reaching up to a glass-domed roof to the hazy orange Targulian air. The heart of the Outer Verge, now consumed in inter-factional war, the Union against the Trades Council, while a foreign power circled the planet like some great mountain vulture. And here she was, the former last Tevian alive. She couldn’t let her life end this way. Not while her son might be right around the corner—hurt, or in danger. Sallah gritted her teeth and launched herself against one of the soldiers. With a swift kick, she booted him in the side, and he tumbled away from her into the space of no man’s land, his footing lost to the smooth-edged floor.

“What are you doing?” the other one cried out through his visor. But it was too late. A volley of weapons fire began again from both sides, riddling the Ingvar soldier’s body from the left and right. Puffs of vaporized blood and brain floated into the air as his lifeless body collapsed in a haze of reddish death.

The living soldier floated in front of her, as if suspended in time, now unsure if she was friend or foe. She wanted to leap toward him, grab the sidearm from his belt, flip, and blast him in the back. The sinews of her body, the echoes of Sallah’s yearning for her son she’d thought lost along with the rest of her home-world, ached for the ability to push him aside and sprint to her destiny. Yet something exploded against her back. It felt as if the walls themselves had collapsed onto her as the polished marble rushed up to meet her face. But she stopped. There was no impact. Something, no, someone grabbed her, saved her from being smashed to the ground.

“I have her,” a metallic voice said through the helmet. Sallah caught the edge of her reflection in the onyx visor. The whites of her eyes enraged and bloodshot against skin the color of a dark and stormy night.

“Let’s go,” said another.

The sound of many more boots smacking against the ground joined with the fire of weapons. Someone held her back, as a stream of Ingvar soldiers rushed from behind, firing their weapons to either side of the great hallway, building a wall of cover fire to cross to the other side. A black-gloved arm pulled her back by the chest, and she struggled to no avail.

“This way, general,” a voice said behind her. “Increase fire, don’t hold back,” it yelled to the soldiers holding the line the breadth of the hallway to the narrower corridor across the other side. General Morvas staggered past, helped by two soldiers. His soft, gray hair and distinguished features were dripping in blood from an open wound across his skull, his robes torn and wrapped around an arm as a makeshift bandage. The volley of fire from the soldiers turned into a crescendo of noise and smoke. Most likely no one was firing back from either side, but they kept the rate up as the half-crouched general crossed the hallway like a child being rescued from a fire.

Councilor Nexia came along next, her frail elderly body slung over the back of a soldier as if she were won as a prize of war.

“Sallah,” the Trades Council leader cried out. “Come with us, now. The Union are starting a war.”

Sallah pushed against her captor’s arm with all her power. “No! I must find Turo. I must—”

“We have him. He’s on the ship.” Nexia said. The soldier carrying her didn’t stop running. “Get her back to the fleet,” Nexia yelled over the rage of battle toward Sallah’s captor. She was a prize they couldn’t lose.

Powerful armored hands grabbed her from behind, squeezing her sides so hard she felt the pain through the adrenaline rush. There was no way to break free. Turo, Ales—she had to find them. Sallah struggled against her captor, legs flying back in a wild storm of trying to find any weak point in the armor and land a kick to skin.

“Let me go.”

He’d had enough. He didn’t think twice. Like Nexia in front of her, the soldier hoisted her body across his shoulder and ran after the others, darting through the protective enclosure. It was terrifying. The world had turned upside down. All she could see was the smoke from the far end of the great hallway rising up to the glass convex ceiling, here and there blocking out the hazy orange above. Yet through the glass, she saw the flashes of war and the trails of missiles and strike ships painting their destructive pattern. The Ingvar invasion had begun.

The bouncing became rhythmic, and she lost all sense of thinking beyond the next few minutes. Get to the ship, get to Turo. She’d beat that man to a pulp to find out where her son was. She’d swear to the Ingvar to never conduct another experiment again if they did not help her track down Ales. She’d gouge the secrets of galinium and STAR drives from her brain and cast them into the black void of nothingness unless the entirety of the fleet of the Ingvar Empire cast every ion toward finding her son. She’d rip apart the Outer Verge to find…

“Hurl her inside. That’s it.”

Sallah was flung upward, then caught by firm hands and dragged into the confines of a compact shuttle. Nexia and Morvas were stretched out alongside her, being tended to by soldiers with their visors up. The women and men in Ingvar uniform and their faces consumed in the rapid swirl of action. They had no time to think, only do.

“That’s all; time to go,” a voice said. She turned her head to the left through a sharp edge of pain to the two pilots in the narrow cockpit. One was gesturing to get the soldiers out of the shuttle.

“Wait,” Sallah screamed. “I need my son. I need Turo.” She pulled herself to her feet, ready to boot everyone else out of the shuttle and fly around the city-world herself to find him.

“No time,” the pilot yelled back, looking ready to meet her fists. “I’m taking you back to the fleet now. Strap in.”

Out of options, Sallah briefly contemplated jumping on one of the soldiers currently assisting the bruised-looking Nexia and Morvas into their shuttle seats against the narrow walls. Something caught her eye at the back of the shuttle, a soldier she now realized had been standing over someone. He moved out of the way, ready to exit the ship, and then she saw him, strapped in against his will and hands frozen in electromagnetic cuffs.

“You piece of flank,” Sallah yelled at Turo in the crowded confines of the ship. The rest of the soldiers ducked outside to the increasingly loud sounds of weapons fire.

“Strap in!” The pilot yelled from behind her as the shuttle door snapped closed.

“I’ll fucking kill you right now unless you tell me where my son is.” Turo’s green eyes looked up at her, his face smoky and bloodied from the fight, but his eyes alive, and a thin, narrow smile across his lips. The look of a man who, even in defeat, would prefer to watch everything he’d worked for go up in noxious flames than surrender. She launched her fist straight down into his stomach, the straps holding him back keeping him from bending over in reaction to the blow as the ship rumbled into action.

He spat out a gob of phlegm and blood onto the polished floor and returned only a smile. She cocked another fist.

“Sallah, stop,” Morvas called from behind, as the ship jerked up from the ground. She grabbed a metal bar above her head as the shuttle rumbled into the hazy sky. The sight through the windows dissolved her anger into terrified wonder. Targuline had descended into full-on war. Fighters dipped and dived behind the great trunks of Shards; missiles from space streaked across the orange sky as billows of black smoke infected the world.

Sallah turned her attention back to Turo. She held on above as the shuttle bounced around the atmosphere, worried it would drop from the sky at any moment—or perhaps be torn in two from heavy weapons fire. Neither was acceptable. She slammed her free hand into Turo’s throat, squeezing the sinews hard.

“Where is my son?”

Spluttered nothings fell from his mouth. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to be choked. As he raised a cuffed arm, where his wrist-tech sat, she released him from her deathly grip.

“I have him,” he coughed. “Tracked, here.”

Sallah twisted the arm with the wrist-tech, causing him to writhe in pain. Arms were not designed to twist in such a way, but she took comfort in his obvious agony.

“Find him.” Her eyes flashed with the power of a supernova. One primed for explosion

“Locate Ales,” he said into the device. The screen built a rudimentary map of the area with a clear green dot showing him less than fifty kilometers away. “Look, he’s still close by.” Sallah tried to make sense of the map, but the shaking shuttle and the moving blocks of images on the wrist-tech made it almost impossible to follow. She kept her eye solely on the distance counter, which steadily ticked upward as the shuttle flew up into the atmosphere toward the void of space.

“He’s on a ship, look.” Turo twisted his wrist-tech farther around, with an edge of humanity in his voice, which took her by surprise. The view of the outside moved around Morvas and Nexia from the hazy, orange battle-scarred sky to the cool blackness of space. Shards poked through the stratosphere, but the normally bustling routes in and out of the planet and its space stations were frozen by the invasion.

She stared past Nexia at the Ingvar fleet assembled in battle formation. She’d flown with them from Aldegar in the odd position she held as both a prisoner and most-valued individual, across their emerging empire. She knew this was every ship the Ingvar had. Battle Cruisers and troop transports, command vessels and fighter carriers; an entire fleet constructed from the scraps of the Crejan occupation force the young star-state liberated themselves from.

They had gambled their empire on this force, throwing everything they had against the Outer Verge, the only power in the galaxy weaker than themselves, in order to seize the STAR drive and power into the unknown universe beyond. Now, with their fifty-ship fleet amassed around the Targulian atmosphere and the Verge descending into civil war, they needed to get their hands on the raw galinium mined in the far edge of the Outer Verge.

Sallah reminded herself she didn’t care for whom she provided the prototypes of the STAR drives or which empire seized on her research. The Union, the Seven Suns, the Ingvar—she cared not for any of them. She had cared only for herself and the chance it may give her to rebuild the world she had lost. Sallah’s hands clasped her stomach as if it was about to explode.

“What’s that?” Nexia called out behind her, pointing to the window and the Ingvar fleet beyond. A single ship with a strange greenish glow around it was racing up from the orange haze toward the mass of ships. Sallah had only ever considered that glow in the theory of her work. It can’t be.

“It’s Ales,” Turo said, shifting his wrist-tech toward her line of sight stuck on the window, staring at the fleet the shuttle jiggered toward. Her throat flicked closed, a lifetime’s worth of tears held back by nothing but a single hope that soon she may be reunited with the son she’d thought lost.

“Tell them to bring him in,” she screamed at the pilot. He looked back with a gasp of worry. Morvas quickly nodded his approval.

“Fleet command, there’s an unidentified small vessel headed right to you from the planet. It’s friendly. Repeat, friendly. High-value cargo,” the pilot said into the comms.

Sallah left Turo in his strapped-down position and pressed her face against the clear window. His ship was getting closer to the fleet, like a single drop edging ever closer to a waiting beast. But the greenish glow around him grew ever bolder. She pressed her hand against the glass as Morvas, and then Nexia, unclipped from their seats and joined her.

“What is it?” Morvas demanded. “Is that a weapon? Is this an attack?”

She couldn’t even whisper a No. Sallah felt as if her mind had been severed from her body. It may as well float in the empty void of nothing. Her mind, her soul, unable to comprehend the things she was seeing. Who had built such a thing? Everything had been theoretical, only experiments. How could her research, her life’s work, sever her son from her once again?

The glow became stronger and ever brighter as the STAR drive ignited its galinium core. The space around his ship warped and swirled in a cloud of green as the horizon point broke free from the ship’s engine, the greenish bubble growing wide enough to encompass the entire Ingvar fleet.

“No. It’s too much. It’s too powerful.” The beat of her heart burst into her skull as the horizon point from Ales’ ship reached its zenith.

“What?” Morvas demanded. “What is? Tell me now.”

The flash forced Nexia and Morvas to turn away. But Sallah did not. Her eyes burned and ached for the briefest moment, but then the darkness returned. The black, blank darkness of space above the hazy orange orb. Now empty except for a long, glowing white streak of nothing where Ales and the entire Ingvar fleet had just been. Whoever had created that STAR drive had grossly miscalculated the proportions of weaponized galinium required.

“Sallah, he’s gone,” Turo said in quiet shock, a note of fear in his voice Sallah would never have thought a man such as he would have.

“Where’s my fleet?” Morvas shrieked. “For infinity’s sake, where is my fleet?”

Sallah said nothing. Her eyes focused on her own reflection as she watched a single tear drip down her cheek. It was too painful to look at the empty space where her son and all the ships of the Ingvar empire had been, now lost in some unknown galaxy.

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Meet the Author

Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch with influences ranging from Alan Hollinghurst to Isaac Asimov to George R.R. Martin. He loves all things sci-fi and supernatural, and always with a gay twist. Harry is originally from the UK but lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his husband.

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Synopsis

Sisters Kisare and Belili uproot an ancient box in their owner’s orchard and find a miracle inside: a fifth godfruit in a society that knows only four. It is punishable by death for non-nobles to eat godfruit, so the sisters hide the discovery and plot to escape servitude for good. With the power represented in the box, they could live as nobles themselves.

But Kisare finds her new freedom more difficult than she imagined, and Belili has many secrets she strives to keep hidden. With the help of a people slowly losing their culture and technology to the powerful nobles, the sisters lead an infiltration of the highest levels of noble society.

While Kisare finds she cares for the captured leader of the people helping them, Belili comes to love her noble suitor’s guard—a fierce woman with a similar past to her own. In the end, the fifth godfruit may bring harmony to the world, but the sisters’ only hope of succeeding lies in deciphering ancient mythologies surrounding the gods’ original plan for their people.

Excerpt

Fruits of the Gods
William C. Tracy © 2019
All Rights Reserved

The gods made mortals as their servants but freed them when they became troublesome to keep. When, against all odds, the mortals prospered on their own, the gods thought to bribe them with gifts to gain their worship.

It was the mistress’s third miscarriage. Kisare knelt beside Bel, both sisters digging the hole to accept the little bundle. The solitary malus tree above them would take the grim fertilizer for its magical harvest.

She could feel the master’s eyes on her back, and Shuma’s, the guard captain. The mistress in her litter, two guards, and three slaves holding torches filled out their party. The flickering glow guttered over the little hole.

The ground resisted Kisare’s chipped spade, and her breath misted as she dug. Moonlight shone on her and Bel through new leaves of the malus tree, standing alone between rows of grapevines. She brushed back long hair, bleached somewhere between silver and white, taking only a second to eye the bundle at the mistress’s feet. The noble blood the child would add to the malus’s harvest did nothing to offset Aricaba-Ata’s frustration. The master doted on his new young wife.

Bel’s spade landed with a hollow thunk. Curious, Kisare dug next to her sister. Something was buried here. She could see no detail in the dark but knew better than to alert their master. It might be valuable. Kisare saw Bel’s eyes locked on the dark corner of the grave. Her spade stabbed underneath, prying the thing up.

Kisare knocked her sister’s arm away, then dug at the opposite end of the hole. Bel took the hint and, frowning, plunged her spade in with too much force. It bounced off a rock, throwing dirt in Kisare’s face. She spit out grit tasting of iron and fertilizer.

Aricaba-Ata, next to his grieving wife, pointed one finger. Torchlight highlighted the parted lock of red in his white-blond hair. Shuma stepped forward at the gesture. The freeman guard captain was a natural blond, no streaks of magical color in his tight curls. Nor was his hair bleached, as Kisare’s and Bel’s was.

“What was that sound? What did you hit?” Shuma towered above them, the biggest man Kisare had ever seen, rumored to be the disowned son of a neighboring noble.

“It was nothing,” Kisare answered, thinking furiously.

“It was something, blond,” he answered, unlimbering the whip at his side.

Kisare’s back tensed, her shirt scratching against the raised scars. She had to answer. Mortal hands had buried something here. What could she get from offering up the prize? Not as much as keeping the knowledge from the master.

Bel was watching her face, spade poised. “It was a wood—”

“Root,” Kisare finished for her. She pointed at her last mistake, rather than the treasure. It would give meaning to her hesitation.

“See,” she said. “I nicked a root.” It was visible as a glistening wet spot in the moonlight.

The master came forward and peered into the small hole. It wouldn’t harm the tree in the long run, but it was still a slave’s error.

Kisare kept the scream in as the whip drew a line of fire across her back.

“Keep digging,” Aricaba-Ata said. “Do not injure my tree further. It is worth far more than your life, blond. I do not need added trouble.” He stepped back to his wife in her litter, his face blending into shadow.

Kisare put her head down and dug, her back burning. Cold air washed down her spine through a rent in her thin shirt, stark against the hot wetness. Bel followed, digging deliberately. Kisare shifted to a more comfortable position, hoping to keep her shirt from touching the bleeding wound. She didn’t wish her sister to feel the whip but wondered if Aricaba-Ata would have punished Bel the same way. Her sister’s gift for pruning godfruit trees excused her from all but the worst transgressions. Almost all. Kisare glanced down to Bel’s incomplete left hand, resting by the grave.

They finished the hole well enough to please the master, keeping away from where the object was buried. They placed the small bundle by the guard’s torchlight and filled in the dirt. Kisare took a moment to breathe—not long enough to bring Shuma’s whip down, but enough to pull a ragged shawl around her shoulders. She sucked in a breath as it brushed her wounded back. Bel could look at it later. Kisare shivered into the shawl, sweat from digging chilling her. The malus tree was past harvest, and the season was on the cusp of spring. It was the in-between time when even citrons were scarce, and everyone scrimped on godfruit.

Bel helped her to her feet, and Kisare and her sister placed the name-rail in the fence around the tree, under the master’s watchful eye. There were five other name-rails already inscribed, two from the previous miscarriages, and one from Aricaba-Ata’s first wife, Tiamai. The fever had taken her three years ago. Stumps of long-dead malus trees stood nearby, breaking rows of leafless grapevines with their own rotting name-rails. The grapes—normal fruit—were sold to market or made into wine.

“Girl,” Aricaba-Ata directed her, “clean the birthing room before you sleep.” He put an arm around his trembling wife in her litter and kissed her forehead. “Take her back,” he directed the three slaves holding the litter. The other guard left with them, leaving a torch with Shuma.

Aricaba-Ata came forward, taking a slightly wrinkled malus slice from his tunic. Kisare watched, slowly cleaning the dirt from her and Bel’s spades, making time. Aricaba-Ata pushed one red lock—magic gifted from the four gods of the seasons—behind his ear, as he popped the malus in his mouth. Kisare saw the shudder that took his body as he bit down, traces of lightning coursing down his arms, illuminating the darkness. She drank in the display.

Aricaba-Ata stepped close to the new-cut naming rail and lifted his right forefinger. Orange light bloomed in the night; a single pillar of flame. He drew a line of fire across the rail, charring in the name given his stillborn son: Aricaba-Tir. By the time he finished marking the rail, Kisare could see his jaw moving in the few last flickers of lightning as he tried to draw the last bit of juice from the godfruit’s flesh. This far up in the mountains, away from the capital city of Karduniash, and near the ring of devastation the nobles called the Blasted Lands, her master would waste none of the magical juice.

Kisare spun at her sister’s cough, but not fast enough. She had forgotten to clean the spade while watching.

Aricaba-Ata’s backhanded swipe caught her across the face and she fell to the ground, her head bouncing. “Be on your way, girl,” he huffed.

Kisare put a finger to her split lip and made the mistake of raising her eyes. This time the blow laid her flat out, darkening her vision.

She scrambled to her knees, slightly dizzy, but kept her gaze down. She probed a loose tooth with her tongue. What had he said? His blow had knocked the sense from her.

“I’ll—I’ll clean the birthing room now, by your leave, master.” Bel’s hand gripped her sleeve, supporting. Aricaba-Ata’s cold eyes were still on her, she knew.

“You can take Tashi’s place filling the latrines tomorrow before your other duties, to remind you not to get ideas above your place.”

She bolted, Bel close behind. The blood in her mouth and on her back were worth the secret buried under the malus tree.

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Meet the Author

William C. Tracy is a North Carolina native and a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. He has a master’s in mechanical engineering, and has both designed and operated heavy construction machinery. He has also trained in Wado-Ryu karate since 2003, and runs his own dojo. He is an avid video and board gamer, a reader, and of course, a writer. In his spare time, he wrangles three cats. He and his wife enjoy putting their pets in cute little costumes and making them cosplay for the annual Christmas card.

He is the author of the Dissolutionverse, about a series of homeworlds connected by music-based magic instead of space flight.

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