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Gears of Troy Copyright © 2019 by Daniel Pierce
Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by Daniel Pierce
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.
Daniel Pierce
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Gears of Troy
Book 1 in the Gears of Troy Series
Daniel Pierce
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
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About the Author
1
I looked down at the line in my hands and it hit me for the first time since my surgery. My hands. They were mine. Again. If I looked closely, the skin was denser than my old hands, but in every other way, they were mine, with a few changes.
And they were strong. Stronger than ever before, and even now, less than two months after my surgery, my new hands could pull a line with the strength of five men, turning the sail on my thirty-eight-foot sloop without effort. The Moonshadow nosed easily to starboard, where the sun lit up the shore of Lake Superior in early fall glory. I narrowed my blue eyes against the angled sun of early October, making a note to wear sunglasses. If I remembered. All thoughts were on my hands just then, so the glasses—and many other things—could wait.
I had a year to learn how to use my hands again, with weekly visits to the naval doctors who put me back together after my accident. When I woke, I knew it had been bad because they kept using my first name—Troy—and not calling me Weston. As a weapons officer and a lieutenant, I was used to uneasy respect, not the careful use of my name as doctors tried to keep me from losing my shit when everyone else was, to some degree, losing their shit because my hands were cut off. Crushed, really, but then the doctors came to me and asked me if I wanted to be whole again.
But like all deals, there was a catch.
The new hands were organo-metallic hybrids, seamlessly installed on my body and connected through fiber technology that allowed them to become as much a part of me as my originals had been. They would never age, or bleed, or rust, or fail in any way, and if they did . . . well, there were no guarantees in my condition as the first human to have robotic elements as a major part of his body. At six feet two inches, I’d weighed exactly two hundred pounds every year in the navy, but my new hands were heavier, and I tipped the hospital scales at two-oh-five. My hands were dense; their power not wholly known. I rubbed them over my scalp, wondering if I could grow my black hair out now that I was partially free, even toying with the idea of a beard, like a proper sailor.
Gulls wheeled overhead, a constant stream of piteous cries floating down from them as they followed my sailboat, splitting the blue water I’d known since I was a kid. I grew up sailing Lake Superior, and the navy made a rare decision to let me recover and implement my new hands by doing the one thing that would work them harder than any battery of tests. I would sail, and I would use them, and then, after a year, I would become the subject of intense testing until the navy decided I was fit for duty, if that day ever came.
For right now, I turned my face up to the sun and let it play over my closed eyelids, marveling at the effect being on the water had on my mind. The Moonshadow was stocked to the gills with provisions; I was going to hit as much coast as I could before returning to base to be prodded like a lab rat. Until the witches’ winds of November came blowing, I planned on sailing, fishing, and hunting my way along the coastline, trying to forget the pain and violation of so many surgeries, as well as the horrible day of the accident itself.
Something peppered my skin and I opened my eyes, stunned to see a growing squall in the east. It was a small storm, low and fat on the horizon, but the cloud tops began boiling like an angry kettle and it soon began to push its way into the sunlight, casting a smudge of green and then black across my path.
“Where are you going in that kind of hurry?” I asked the storm, moving to add sail and head into a bay. There would be ample shelter closer to shore, and I had no desire to get my guts beaten out for no reason.
The storm had other ideas. In twenty-eight years on the water, I’d seen a lot of odd things, but the clouds before me began moving across the water, the curling lip of the closest formation an oily, sinuous mass that looked far too thick to be water vapor. What had been on the horizon was now 500 meters away, then 200, and then in a black flash of wild tendrils, the storm leapt forward and took the Moonshadow before I could even open my mouth to shout at the sky. A wave broke over me, frigid and hard, the water thicker than it should have been and glowing from within. I grasped at a cleat, washed nearly over but the power in my new hands saved me as my boat rolled thirty degrees in the onslaught. Pulling hard, I slid over the deck, now under a foot of dark water that seemed alive. I wanted to laugh, knowing my hands would never let go, then a line broke free, trailing a thick knot that whistled through the air to strike my temple with the force of a jackhammer.
The sky went black, and I fell, the deck rushing to greet me without mercy.
2
My eyes fluttered in the pain of direct sunlight, and a groan escaped my lips into the heated air. I lifted a hand to explore the side of my head, finding no blood but a hard lump from the rope that sent me to the deck. I was lucky to be on deck, and not sixty meters down with lungs full of water.
“Wait. Hot?” I asked myself and the world in general. “Hot?” I repeated, because the last time I’d felt heat like that had been three months ago. At the peak of summer.
I opened my eyes. Under me was the familiar deck of the Moonshadow, intact and free of water. In fact, it was completely dry. So was I. The sun was directly overhead, a punishing orb of white that pushed down on me with a physical weight. There were gulls in the air above, their cries familiar and comforting in a scene that left me uneasy.
I levered myself up to peer out over the water and blinked. Then I blinked again, but the scene didn’t change. If anything, it grew in clarity. I was surrounded by deep blue water, and on my lips was the distinct taste of salt.
“What in the ever-loving fuck have I done?”
There was no answer except the gulls, who began to dive on a frantic school of baitfish a hundred meters off the port side. Beyond them lay a smudge of brown coast, dry and rugged, the features unlike anything in Michigan. Or Ohio. Or any American state, for that matter. I climbed to my feet, swaying, and the rolling sea filled my nose with a scent that was familiar and terrifying. I could not be in the ocean, but I was. I couldn’t be off a desert, but I was.
“Hallo the boat!” came a cry from behind me. I whirled to face the speaker, clutching at my head as the world began to spin and my stomach heaved. I made a note not to do that again, then leaned on the railing with the care of a hungover bachelor to see who the hell was yelling into what was clearly a bad dream.
“I—what?” was all I managed, and even that was, in retrospect, pretty damned good given the sight.
The most exquisite woman I’d ever seen in my life floated on a shattered hull, the spars jutting upward like ribs of a prehistoric beast. She held one of the spars in her hand, legs rocking easily with the wave motion as the wreck began to visibly sink before my eyes. She was tall, with black hair and eyes of intense green, her oval face like a carving of perfection. Long legs and arms were bronzed by the sun, and she wore a simple white tunic, belted and drawn up to reveal even more of her athletic frame. The tunic was split along each leg and at the chest, hinting at curves that were softer than the muscles she used to hold onto the remains of a ship design I had only seen in books as a kid. It was—or had been, a barge, and it was going down in a hurry. She must have come through the same storm, but my questions could wait because even as I stared at the beautiful woman, a shrieking groan emanated from the water, and the spars shuddered, easing lower into the blue waves.
“Line coming,” I said without thinking, grabbing at an obedient coil of rope nearby. My deck was a shambles, but it didn’t look like I’d lost much overboard. I threw the line with practiced ease, and she caught it in the same manner, diving in the water without hesitation before I could make the line fast. When I whipped the line around a cleat, she began to haul herself out of the water without any help on my part. Her arms worked like a machine as she scaled the hull and leaped to my deck, landing nimbly on her bare feet.
Her smile was incandescent, full lips pulled back to reveal even white teeth that shone in the sun. With her black hair wet and away from her face, I could see she was in her twenties, perfect, and confident enough to climb aboard a boat without asking questions. She had a pair of wicked knives at her belt, the blades made of a metal that looked dimpled in the glare overhead. Shaking her hair out, she lifted a hand, her smile never faltering.
I did my best not to stare, failing miserably as the weight of her presence became obvious. This was—she was something special, not just any woman, and I hadn’t gone through a regular storm.
With a swift motion, she stepped to me, taking my face in her hands and kissing me on the mouth, a slow, deliberate kiss filled with thanks and joy at being saved. “You are here to take me to the city?”
Her accent was lilting, the words musical and free. I began to stammer, then shook myself lightly. It may have been the concussion, but I doubted it. The taste of her lips lingered, even through the salt.
“I’m sorry, the city? Wait—before you answer that, who are you? I’m Troy Weston,” I said with some formality, though our kiss made my words feel stale.
Her laugh was a shock, full and rich, only ending when she realized I hadn’t been joking. “Oh, you tell the truth?” Embarrassment crossed her features, then she reached out to take my hands. “I apologize. I—I thought you jested. Because of who I am. And, of course where I am going. I assumed you came to save me from the storm, when the royal barge broke apart.”
“Royal barge?” I repeated, feeling her hands in mine. The fingers were long, elegant, cool. “Not to be rude, but . . . what’s your name?”
She drew herself up but held my hands, as if unwilling to let go. “I am Helen, and you will take me to Ilium, also known as Troy.”
3
“Your ship is beautiful.” She caressed the polished rail of the starboard side, marveling at it as if she had never seen fiberglass before. “Where is it from?”
“The States.” I looked her over. Really, I hadn’t stopped looking her over since she climbed aboard. On the outside she seemed so dainty and fragile, but something about her demeanor told me otherwise. There was a confidence about her, a proudness even, which hinted at something else. I could not put my finger on it quite yet, but I didn’t think it was the simple-minded fearlessness born of naivety.
“Where are these States?” She tilted her head to the side, her green doll-eyes confused, curious. “I have never heard of them, these States.”
Her question was a low blow. For a moment I’d forgotten we weren’t in Lake Superior. Beautiful women had a way of making me forget things, but then I inhaled another whiff of sea air and felt the sweat on my forehead. Oh my god, I thought and took my eyes off her for a moment to look for anything familiar.
“You really haven’t heard of the United States of America?” My voice was louder than I meant for it to be; my eyes wider, too.
“I am sorry, but no, I have not.”
I took a few breaths. The last thing I wanted to do was look panicked. This woman, Helen, wanted me, Troy, to take her to a place also called Troy. I couldn’t fathom it. I definitely wasn’t ready to buy whatever she was selling, but I figured I’d play along for the time being. “I’ll explain The States later. How about you tell me a little more about where we are. You said you need to get to Troy, the place. You mean as in Greece?”
She shook her head, seeming offended. “No, Troy is not Greece,” she spat as if the word “Greece” tasted rancid. “You really are not from around here, are you? Troy is at war with Greece, and I am at its center.” She punctuated the claim with a devilish grin.
It all checked out so far. Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships. The Trojan war, and a giant wooden horse that came into the picture at some point. Of course, I had heard of all that back in high school. I had always been a fan of mythology growing up, but history wasn’t really my forte, so a lot of the specifics were lost to me. Honestly, I was never really sure what parts of those stories were supposed to be true or not.
She was giving me this unusual look, like she was eating me with her eyes, hardly taking time to blink. When she did, her lids closed slower than I would have expected, almost like one of those robotic baby dolls little girls love so much. I was flattered to have all this attention from this gorgeous woman, but I needed answers more than anything at the moment. I still played along, pretending I believed she was who she claimed. When in Rome, I thought.
“Ah, okay,” I said. “I think I actually do know about your situation.”
“It is good that you know.” If she grinned any brighter, I would have needed to shield my eyes. “You know about the war then?”
“Yes. You were kidnapped from . . . Sparta, is that right?”
“So you do know who I am. Yes, I was taken from Sparta, but it was my decision to leave with my lover at the time.” She turned to face the horizon, but one eye was still on me, which I don’t think she meant for me to notice. She continued with that musical voice, “Some would think it wrong of me, since I was already betrothed to King Menelaus, but all is fair in the name of love, would you not agree, Troy Weston?” She moved closer until her chest brushed against mine, her eyes consuming me with the same barely-blinking stare. I caught the faintest hint of cinnamon drawing me in, making me want more, want to taste it. It took all of my willpower to see or think of anything but her.
“Is this how you behave with all the strange sailors you meet?”
Her only answer was a bemused smirk followed by another slow blink before returning to look out over the sea. “It is true that I used to call Sparta my home, but I have fallen in love with the peo
ple of Troy. I consider it my home now, and them, my people. I wish to return to put an end to this senseless war, but I have worries . . .”
“What do you mean? Are you afraid of the Greeks?”
“Not so much, no. I—I . . .” She paused for a moment. I couldn’t tell if she was fighting back tears or just thinking of how to word what she wanted to say. Maybe it was a little of both. “I am afraid the Trojans may not see me the way I see them. I fear they will reject me, but I am hopeful that they will think of me as better than the Helen from before.” The fact that there was more than one Helen sent an alarm bell ringing, and I knew my situation was not only strange, but about to get stranger. My concept of history was—well, if there was more than one Helen, than I had no baseline, but then again, I was in salt water. Thousands of nautical miles form Lake Michigan.
With an odd, elegant woman who didn’t quite fit in my world, nor I in hers.
She rested her arm on the rail and slowly turned to face me, almost mechanically so. In that moment, I thought I heard a faint ticking sound, kind of like an artificial heart, but I was sure it wasn’t the ship.
Gears of Troy: A Scifi Fantasy Harem Page 1