Contents
Dedication
Back Cover
Also By
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Author's Note
Author's Bio
Copyright
To Becca Syme.
Thank you for being a great friend and awesome coach.
For everything there is a season…
Once the star student of her training class, Captain Liz Laika is now an outcast, a casualty of family scandal. Now stuck in the worst post in the Fleet, she should keep her head down. But when a Cerulean passenger is found decapitated, and Liz is framed for the murder, she has no choice but to fight for her life. No easy feat when she's facing kidnapping, ship-eating whales, horse-sized spiders and corrupt fleet officers with personal vendettas. And in the middle of the intergalactic murder drama, her ex-fiancé reappears. Captain Liz needs to clear her name--and fast.
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CHAPTER ONE
“Undocking, Liz,” my navigation officer said.
The engines revved up, and we slowly backed away from our fueling bay. I should reprimand Raph. Protocol dictated that he request verbal confirmation from me before undocking, and he definitely should have used my title and family name, but I let it go.
There was a time in my life when I would have been horrified by breaking the rules, but that was a long time ago. And what had the rules ever done for me? I let out a sigh when Raph shot me a smirk and set in the navigation coordinates without my approval.
He was a few standardized years younger than I was, but because of his hard-partying lifestyle, he sometimes looked a decade older. He was a rebel, stubborn, and enjoyed getting under my skin.
He was also the reason we were refilling and back on route instead of docked until morning. The secondary team who took over in our off hours was only allowed to continue in the direction we set at the end of shift. They would have docked us until the new shift started at oh nine hundred hours. But when Raph felt the deceleration, he had come to my room to wake me and set a new course.
His action would have us arriving eight hours ahead of schedule and earn the entire crew another delivery bonus.
In the two years since I had taken the helm, we had done this refill seventy times. Despite being the largest ship in the fleet, ours had the smallest fuel supply. Apparently, one of my predecessors had reconfigured our fuel setup to fit more cargo.
I stared out at the Nighthorse galaxy through the thick window that dominated the front wall of the navigation room. The fueling station was at a crossroads where exploration ships headed out. The unexplored galaxy was why I had been training for twenty years. I was supposed to captain a ship that took scientists out to investigate it, perhaps to be the first human to set foot on the next planet to terraform, possibly even, despite all reports so far, to encounter new life.
I sighed and wondered for the millionth time if I was still young enough to quit the fleet to be a trophy wife back on Earth, but I knew I didn’t have the temperament to stroke anyone’s ego. I was a ship’s captain through and through. Delivering mail, supplies, and occasional humans or aliens between two planets wasn’t the worst assignment in the entire galaxy. There had to be something worse. I didn’t know of anything, but it just had to exist.
The engines ground and clicked as they attempted to move the massive ship to traveling speed. It sounded like someone had thrown an entire silverware set into a massive garbage disposal. The first time I had heard it, I insisted on returning to dock and having the ship checked. The mechanic said there was nothing technically wrong with the ship. It had been decommissioned a few decades earlier and recommissioned just for me.
Lucky me.
I had put in a ticket for upgrades, and it was returned four minutes later—from the fleet president to me, personally. Denied. It was clear in that moment that even though they had given me a ship, they had no desire to give me help. That was the first and last time I had communicated with the administration. I would never give them the pleasure of denying a request ever again.
The first few weeks had been bumpy, especially with Raph. He had been defiant and basically looking to pick a fight with me, which didn’t make sense since he was one report from a dishonorable discharge.
After weeks of grinding my teeth and being professional, I had dragged him into my office. I had been ready to chew him out, but I didn’t have enough energy. All my frustration came out in the form of an ultimatum. If he wanted to stay, he had to be professional and get a better attitude while on duty, plus he could never do anything to endanger the ship or anyone on board. That was it. That was all I asked. The choice to stay or leave was his.
He did not kiss my feet in gratitude, but he did stop picking fights. From the gossip I overheard when picking up my meals in the mess hall, he was extremely well-liked by the crew, and he was more focused during work hours. I didn’t know how
he did it, but our trip, which had been scheduled for twelve days, became ten days. So I let the protocol breaks slide, and I looked the other way when he broke the rules, as long as his transgressions didn’t hurt anyone. I would have been a terrible parent.
And when I had answered my door earlier in a set of pink flannel pajamas covered in rainbow unicorns, my hair disheveled and my body drenched in a thin layer of sweat from constant nightmares, he had ignored my appearance. In return, I had ignored his tequila breath. But when I suggested we grab some coffee to help us wake up, he’d listened to me and taken the cue to take a sober-up shot, a nauseating but effective way to counteract alcohol or anything else he had in his system.
My ship was a collection of poor repairs and misfit crew members. But it ran. And we often received delivery bonuses because of the extra cargo space and the speed of the old box of bolts. That made the crew happy. Happy crew, happy life. I might as well earn as much as I could before retirement in forty years. Then maybe I could lie on a beach and forget I was a could-have-been.
A small explorer vessel, an MCXT100, came into view, and my stomach twisted with jealousy. They were the newest class of ships designed for the Nighthorse galaxy exploration. I had read that training was done and the first batch would be sent out this month. That was why I didn’t keep up on fleet news. It was a knife in the gut.
A pinging noise filled the room.
“Liz, they’re calling. What could they want?” Raph turned to me with a raised eyebrow.
I ran a hand through my fuzzy brown hair, trying to get it all faced in the same direction. “Put them through.”
An image popped up on one side of the window, a woman my age with silky black hair pulled back into a slick bun, modest but attractive makeup, and a perfectly pressed uniform. She quickly fell into a speech. “Greetings! This is Captain Jane Luke of the MCXT100 The Destiny. Oh my gosh, is that Goldie?”
Horror then nausea rose in my throat. I corrected her. “Captain Elizabeth Laika.”
“Silly me. Of course you won’t go by Goldie. You aren’t the Golden child anymore. And you certainly don’t want to be called Lying Liz.” Jane attempted to look concerned, but her eyes flashed with glee. “Why are you still in your pajamas? Are you okay?”
Of all the captains of all the starships in the universe, it had to be her. I swallowed down my nausea and took a deep, calming breath. “We are on reverse hours.” I clenched my hands into fists with a rage I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anymore.
Delight that she didn’t even attempt to contain crossed her face. “Oh, that’s right. You’re doing those little delivery runs. Just thankful for a job, am I right? Well, we are heading—”
“Captain Luke,” I said abruptly. “According to protocol 14.5.678b and e, you need to state your reason for communication. Otherwise, I will be forced to end transmission.” She had always struggled to remember the codes. I felt petty for rubbing it in, but I couldn’t help myself.
A sour look crossed her face, and the crew member behind her smirked. Apparently, she was still annoying people.
“I request that since your craft has been undocked for five minutes, you start moving. We needed to be refuel.” In her frustration, her accent slipped, and her conjugation went awry. Universal Language was the fleet-required communication form. Her mastery of it had been suspect in college, and apparently, she hadn’t put in the time to improve.
“We are moving.”
Genuine confusion crossed her face. “You’re not moving. Maybe drifting a bit. Do you need one of our navigators to help your Claran navigator?”
Raph grumbled under his breath. “I could navigate circles around anyone in this whole—”
I spoke over him, secure in the knowledge that the comm was calibrated not to pick up on his mutterings. “We are a class-fifteen vessel. This is how quickly it accelerates. When we are free, you will be able to fuel. May your journey be safe.”
I ended the communication, watching carefully that the light went from green to red to indicate the line was closed. “Sure would be a shame if Captain Jane was eaten by giant space bugs.”
Raph snorted. “Why, Cap, I believe that was unbecoming of a high-ranking officer, but it was well deserved. But it would break my heart to see a beautiful ship like that hurt.”
I struggled to look away from the ship. With her smooth planes and curved lines, she was truly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I could only grunt in agreement.
“Why is she so pissed at you? You sleep with her husband?”
“We were in flight school together.”
He rubbed his chin. “She looks really familiar.”
I debated how to answer. I could pretend not to know, but then he would look it up himself, and I would look like a coward. “She was one of the key witnesses at my trial. Let’s finish up and get out of here.”
He nodded. “If you want, I could just bump into them a little.”
I chuckled at the idea but shook my head. I double-checked and confirmed our bearings while the engines got us up to speed and slowly moved us from the docking station toward our delivery point. Once we slipped into intraspace, the rest of the trip should be pretty standard, and in five days, we would deliver our cargo and five passengers before starting the return trip.
When the door opened, I didn’t turn, but Chloe’s heavy breathing made me look up. I noticed her already pale complexion was ashy white, and there were green blotches all over her outfit.
“A passenger is dead!”
CHAPTER TWO
Chloe looked between us for guidance, but Raph and I were both stunned into silence. I was trying to remember the latest passenger list. We usually had a few humanoids or aliens that were willing to take the slow ship to their destination in exchange for rock-bottom prices.
In addition to Chloe’s duties preparing the food for the crew and passengers, she also acted as a nurse, a fact I suddenly remembered. “Were they sick? Was it an accident?”
“I don’t know.” She wrung her hands as her eyes darted around the room. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.
I wondered if medical assistance could save them. “Show me where they are. Raph, finish up here.”
Chloe turned and darted out into the hallway, taking the corner like a hyperbike on an obstacle course. I fell into step behind her only to discover Raph at my side.
I tried to tell him to go back and follow my orders, but one syllable in, I knew I didn’t have the cardiovascular fitness to run flat out and talk. The ship was large, and the passenger rooms were quite a distance away from us. There were transport pods, but like everything else on the ship, they were old and unreliable. During our first trip, the cleaning staff had become trapped in one and couldn’t be removed until we docked. It wasn’t surprising that they disembarked and ran away screaming.
Instead of attempting to give a command while huffing and puffing, I balled up my fists and pushed hard to get ahead of him, my fuzzy bunny slippers slapping on the floor of the corridor. The floor beneath us bounced slightly, and there was a creaking with each stride that was amplified and echoed in the hallway.
Raph’s long limbs, natural athletic build, and extracurricular activities meant he easily matched my speed. The three of us fell into an easy rhythm, and it suddenly felt good to stretch my legs. A few heads poked out into the hallway then disappeared, which was good because any attempt to identify them would have led to tangled legs and feet.
For a ship this size, the crew was very small, only around two dozen, and of those, most cycled in and out every few months as they either retired, changed jobs, or moved on to better ships. Our ship was a short-term stop on others’ journeys of life. In fact, Raph and Chloe were two of the three crew members that had been with me since I had taken control of the ship.
Chloe slowed a little, the gills beneath her ears heaving and flapping to grab any extra oxygen from the air. Her pale complexion was turning pinky orange from the exertio
n.
On her home planet, humans had adapted to live half their life underwater, catching fish in the cold deep. She didn’t handle the heat all that well, and the rich diet on board had curved out her figure significantly. As she ran, she grunted and heaved loudly, which thankfully covered up my own wheezing.
Raph’s dark complexion was indicative of his origin on the incredibly bright planet of Clara, and combined with his expressive eyes and easy smile, he was the epitome of conventionally handsome. The females on the ship enthusiastically agreed.
His height and long limbs and fingers were perfect for the complex movements required to pilot a high-end ship with its extensive control panel. It was a shame that since our ship moved slower than a terrestrial snail, he was seldom able to apply his skills to the fullest.
The fleet had the official stance that humans had left Earth thousands of years ago and populated other planets then used science to rapidly evolve. But that viewpoint was not held by everyone. Many planets had created their own origin stories, and who was I to judge? Whatever had happened, it’d been a long time ago, and contact had only been made again within the past few centuries. On Earth, a lot of our official records had been destroyed, along with some of the science required to travel the stars, in a dozen or so unfortunate world wars that set Earth technology back over and over again.
All that was history. We were on the verge of a new age of discovery. At least some people were. I was just trying to keep my heart from exploding as I trotted down three flights of stairs, but I would rather die than admit I wanted to slow down.
Raph earned my eternal hatred as we hit the bottom flight. “This is great. You both should come jogging with me more often.”
I turned to say something to him, even if it killed me, when the nose of my right bunny slipper caught on something, and I was flung to the floor at great speed. Even with slightly less than Earth’s gravity, I hit the floor of the hallway hard enough to rattle my teeth, and the stitch in my side burned with a tearing sensation that made me grit my teeth as I faced the floor.
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