Pets in Space: Cats, Dogs, and Other Worldly Creatures

by S. E. Smith

  “I thought you’d want an update on what we discovered,” he said. The information wouldn’t improve her opinion of him.

  “Have a seat.” She gestured to a bunk and then sat opposite him.

  “We found the bodies of twenty New Utopians—including the liaison—and four crew members besides Lieutenant Commander Brack.”

  “Good galaxy!” She clapped a hand over her mouth.

  “And, we captured and destroyed four Tyranians.”

  “Four?” she gasped. “Are you—are you sure you got them all?”

  “Yes. Every individual’s identity has been confirmed.”

  “How did they get on board? We were scanned!”

  “I believe when the Crimson Hawk arrived on Verde Omega and the aliens retreated, they abandoned a few comrades who ultimately killed Lieutenant Commander Brack and three colonists and assumed their forms. With one of them posing as my second-in-command, they were able to walk on. If a bio scan occurred at all, it was rigged.”

  Once aboard, the aliens had gone on a killing spree, assuming identities as needed. “We learned how they shift,” he said. “Humans have a liver enzyme which gives the aliens the ability to take their form. Eating the liver enables them to shift. That’s why they’d disemboweled some victims.”

  Her face froze with horror. “Althea had been disemboweled. You’re saying she was an alien when she came to my cabin?”

  He nodded.

  She pressed a hand to her throat.

  “We got them all.” He wanted to hold her, reassure her she would never be threatened again.

  “How can you be sure? We thought we were safe before! Can the bio scanners detect a shifted Tyranian? How certain are you of the accuracy?”

  “The scanners are about ninety percent, depending on how much of the enzyme the alien ingested. It’s the enzyme that turns out a false positive.”

  She waved her arms. “Ninety percent isn’t good enough!”

  He pointed at Sparky. “He’s 100 percent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s one reason why we kept him so long. We discovered your K9-500 bot is dead-on accurate in determining human from alien. He found a Tyranian our scanners had missed. So we ran him by every single person on board. I don’t know who programmed him—”

  “My father,” Miranda said. “He was a geneticist as well as an AI engineer. Sparky was actually a prototype he wanted to manufacture.”

  “We would like to further study his coding, and adopt it for our bio scanners.”

  “If it will help, of course! But we’re leaving tomorrow. We’re arriving at the space station, right?”

  Dante nodded. “The other New Utopians will be disembarking. I would like you to remain on board. I can offer you a civilian position as an archivist on the Crimson Hawk.”

  “So you can study Sparky?”

  “That’s not the only reason.” He glanced at his boots before lifting his gaze to hers. He inhaled. “I had hoped the feeling between us was still mutual, and you’d stay—to spend time with me.”

  “You mean you still care? I waited and waited. And when you didn’t come, I thought you’d started to regret…”

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to see you so much, but duty intervened. And when we discovered the bio scanners weren’t completely accurate, we had to run the whole process over again with Sparky—and thank goodness we did—then—”

  “Yes! I’ll stay!” Miranda flung herself into his arms, and they toppled over onto the bunk.

  He kissed her with all the longing he’d had to suppress in the past week. When he released her, she was breathless. He couldn’t stop grinning. He brushed the hair from her face and stared into her eyes.

  “I didn’t think permanent non-military personnel were allowed on warships,” she said.

  “We have civilian contractors on board, and exceptions are sometimes made for others if there’s a significant need.”

  “Like with Sparky.”

  “Like with Sparky. You to need to be aware what you’re getting into. We could be in space for months between furloughs and space-station stops. Duty will demand my time—”

  “Dante?”

  He arched his eyebrows.

  “I want to stay.” She thumped his chest. “Stop wasting time and kiss me.”

  Heat flared within him, and his heart swelled as if it would burst. He claimed her mouth in a long, deep kiss. He didn’t know what the future would hold, but with Miranda at his side, he couldn’t wait to find out.

  USA Today bestselling author Cara Bristol has been the no. 1 best seller in science fiction romance, bdsm erotica, and holiday fiction on Amazon. She’s the author of two science fiction romance series featuring tough alpha heroes: the Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance cyborg series and the Breeder science fiction romance series, which emphasize character-driven stories written with a touch of humor and sizzling chemistry between the hero and heroine. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband. She has had many pets including dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, tortoises, and fish. To find out more about her books, subscribe to her newsletter.

  Picking a pet for Pets in Space…

  I knew Spark of Attraction would be a cyborg romance. What I couldn’t decide was what kind of pet to feature. My natural inclination was to go with a cat. But since the story is a science fiction romance, I wondered if it should be a robot cat. Or was that still too conventional? Should I create entirely new alien pet? Argh! I didn’t know what to pick! My husband suggested a dog (he’s more of a dog person than a cat person). I wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, until the idea of a robot dog named “Sparky” came to me. To me, Sparky conjures bundles of spunky cuteness. Even a cyborg can’t help but love a little robotic dog named Sparky.

  Acknowledgments

  I have so many people to thank for their contributions to this story. First, a big thank you to Veronica Scott who invited me to participate in the Pets in Space anthology, and who coordinated and organized the project with Pauline Baird Jones. Beta readers Lisa Medley, Jessica Subject, and Vivien Jackson provided very helpful feedback. William Harrison of Wham Bam Editing put the final polish on the manuscript. Athena Grayson and Courtney Biggs Rutherford helped me come up with the name Dante Stone. My husband nudged me to write about a dog (as opposed to the pet I originally was considering). Lastly, I’d like to recognize “Kirk,” a little dog I encountered a while back who served as the inspiration for Sparky. Thank you, all!

  Also by Cara Bristol

  Cy-Ops Sci-Fi Romance

  Stranded with the Cyborg (1)

  Mated with the Cyborg (2)

  Captured by the Cyborg (3)

  Trapped With the Cyborg (4)

  Married to the Cyborg (Extra - FREE)

  About Cara Bristol

  USA Today bestselling author Cara Bristol has been the no. 1 best seller in science fiction romance, bdsm erotica, and holiday fiction on Amazon. She’s the author of two science fiction romance series featuring tough alpha heroes: the Cy-Ops Sci-fi Romance cyborg series and the Breeder science fiction romance series, which emphasize character-driven stories written with a touch of humor and sizzling chemistry between the hero and heroine. Cara lives in Missouri with her own alpha hero, her husband. She has had many pets including dogs, cats, rabbits, ducks, tortoises, and fish. To find out more about her books, subscribe to her newsletter: http://eepurl.com/9aRJj

  Learn more about Cara…

  @CaraBristol

  Cara-Bristol-Romance-178661122147994

  www.carabristol.com

  Star Cruise: Stowaway by Veronica Scott

  About Star Cruise: Stowaway

  Cargo Master Owen Embersson is shocked when the Nebula Zephyr’s ship’s cat and her alien sidekick, Midorri, alert him to the presence of a stowaway. He has no idea of the dangerous complications to come – nor does he anticipate falling hard for the woman whose life he now holds in his hands. Life aboard the Nebula Zephyr has just become more intere
sting – and deadly.

  One

  This was the time of day he enjoyed most, when all his crew had gone off duty and the Nebula Zephyr’s top cargo deck was quiet. Sure, more work remained tomorrow to get the cargo squared away properly and ready for the next stop, but there was no rush, being several weeks out. Cargo Master Owen Embersson surveyed his desk in the tiny office on Deck 18. Time to leave the place to the ship’s AI, go have his dinner in his cabin and then resume work on the scale model of a long-vanished temple he was building. This one was incredibly intricate, and he’d charge the customer triple the usual price.

  Stepping onto the echoing deck, he called for Moby. She spent most of her evenings hunting vermin lurking among the monstrous crates and containers, but she usually passed the first part of the evening in his cabin, eating the incredibly expensive cat food he had the ship’s AI keep in stock. Not much else to spend his salary on. “Come on, cat, I want my dinner even if you don’t,” he said to the elegant vision in white fur who trotted from the murky recesses of the deck. How she stayed clean when she spent her days prowling the cargo deck, he’d never know.

  Purring, she came to his steel-tipped work shoes but evaded his effort to pick her up, moving just out of range the way felines did, as if cats could teleport. Moby scampered toward the towering stacks of cargo then turned. Seeing he’d failed to chase her, she sat, tail twitching, head tilted, eyeing him.

  “What’s the matter with you? I’m not in the mood to throw cat toys and retrieve them right now.” Embersson headed toward the gravlift. Moby regarded the entire ship as her territory and could find his cabin for her dinner when she was hungry.

  In the next minute, he nearly tripped as she rubbed his ankles, nipping at one in passing. Swearing, he caught himself with a hand to the bulkhead. “What in the seven hells is wrong with you tonight? Giving me a concussion won’t get you fed.”

  Moby yowled at him and ran toward the stacked cargo again.

  Figuring she wanted to show him a recent kill, which he’d then have to dispose of, he followed.

  Moby moved faster now that she’d gotten him with the program.

  He followed her around the corner of the pallet the ship had taken on earlier in the day and found Midorri, the Zephyr’s other pet, crouched beside a free trader container. “What mischief have the two of you gotten into now?” he asked Moby. Midorri came aboard the Zephyr originally as the pampered pet of a princess, but after the whole outbreak incident, Sector authorities refused to let the lady disembark on Sector Hub with the undocumented animal, so the ship had kept the odd green fluffball. Dr. Shane was her official owner of record, but the entire crew liked the slightly clumsy but always amusing creature.

  Midorri sneezed, as she was often wont to do, allergic to humans perhaps, and flicked her plush prehensile tail before lowering her head and extending her long green tongue to lap at something on the deck.

  “Freaking flares, do not tell me we’ve got leaking cargo. Damn free traders and their beat-up equipment.” He hoped Moby hadn’t sampled whatever Midorri was drinking. The alien animal could probably handle anything up to and including nuclear fuel, who knew, but Moby was definitely a terrestrial cat, with a more delicate stomach. He tried to shoo Midorri away from the slowly growing puddle of green goo, dripping from a dented corner of the container. Musta gotten banged when the shuttle crew offloaded the final pallet too fast and had to straighten everything in a rush. Funny, he’d never have picked this box—well constructed, made from high-quality materials—to be a problem. “I better see what’s in there,” he said to the interested animals.

  Moby yowled, startling him as her voice echoed, and Midorri emitted a high-pitched chirping that grated on his ears like a physical assault.

  Spurred on by the animals’ distress, which confirmed his own suspicion he faced a genuine problem, Embersson used his cargo master key, which was supposed to open any container on his ship. Nothing happened. Swearing, he tried again. “This free trader’s never shipping anything with us again, idiot forgot to set the damn code for my access. Maeve, can you open this?”

  “Of course,” the ship’s AI said. “I haven’t forgotten all my military skills just because I run a cruise ship nowadays.”

  “Wait a second.” He stepped aside, encouraging the animals to do so as well. He imagined a gush of whatever was leaking when Maeve did her hacking thing and overrode the container controls.

  Midorri tried to climb over his boot to return to the growing puddle.

  A loud click echoed in the cargo bay and the seams on the crate glowed yellow, unsealing in a smooth progression along the rim. Sure enough a deluge of liquid followed, but Embersson froze for a moment as he saw what had been inside the crate. Then he was on his knees beside the now-open container, heedless of the green cryo fluid soaking his pants, as he tried to extricate the woman who’d been illegally stored inside. She was tightly curled in the midst of the cryo tubes, and he swore again as he realized chains bound her ankles.

  Carefully he disentangled her from the nonfunctioning equipment. She opened her eyes for a moment, staring straight at him with beautiful green and gold eyes before convulsing, knocking Embersson off balance. He broke the fall for both of them, holding her securely.

  Midorri scrabbled across his body, gently poking the woman with her head, making mewling sounds.

  Shoving the beast away with his elbow as he got to his feet, he observed the woman wasn’t breathing. “Tell Dr. Shane I need her down here now, with a crash cart,” he yelled to the AI as he laid the stowaway on the deck and checked for a clear airway. Ear to her chest, he detected no heartbeat. “And get Jake too. We’ve got a real mess on our hands.” Not knowing what else to try, he placed his hands on her chest and performed old-fashioned CPR. The deck’s rudimentary first aid kit held nothing for restarting a heart.

  “I’ll alert the captain as well,” Maeve said on the private link she maintained with all senior officers, including him.

  “Fine, good idea.” He puffed breath into the woman’s mouth and resumed compressions. “Come on, come on, breathe for me, lady. Where the hell is Dr. Shane?”

  “She’ll be arriving in one minute,” Maeve said, ever calm. “The patient is an unknown type of sentient, not previously recorded in the Sectors, by the way.”

  Embersson continued his efforts—counting, compressing, breathing—hoping he wasn’t breaking the woman’s delicate ribs with his efforts. “Helpful as always, Maeve.”

  “Your sarcasm is unnecessary, Cargo Master.”

  He heard the cargo deck gravlift door cycle open. “Over here,” he yelled, “Behind the first set of pallets.”

  Emily Shane, Ship’s Physician, sprinted toward him, an antigrav medcart and litter in her wake. Jake Dilon, Security Chief, ran right behind her. Taking a quick look, the doctor grabbed a couple of injects. “Bad cryo cooler fluid?” Grabbing a portable scanner from the cart, she focused on the woman’s chest area and assessed the physiology. “Lungs, heart, the basics.”

  “Maeve says an unknown race.”

  “Figures. Humanoid enough. Move aside, and I’ll restart the heart, clear the lungs now.” Emily used all three injects and then attached a probe. “Can you gentlemen transfer her to the litter?”

  Owen took the stowaway’s shoulders, and Jake took her legs. Fingering the shackles on the patient’s ankles, he asked, “What have we got here?”

  “Not an ordinary stowaway situation, that’s for sure. We can remove those cuffs, but check out the collar. I didn’t like the looks of it, not ordinary jewelry, I’m thinking.”

  Frowning, the ship’s Security Chief bent over the woman’s neck. “Emily, be careful – this is an explosive device.”

  “I’ll watch it. Presumably whoever put it there didn’t want her dead, more of a deterrent.” Dr. Shane didn’t pause for an instant, administering treatment. Owen knew she’d seen more things on the front lines of the Sectors’ war with the alien Mawreg and their allies than
most people experienced in their entire lives. “You gentlemen can go talk a few feet away and take the animals – you’re all in my way.”

  Vicente, the nurse who’d been a military medic, rushed onto the cargo deck and jumped right in on assisting Emily.

  Owen held onto Midorri, balancing on his shoulder with her ringed tail looped around his neck. “Grab Moby for me, would you, Jake?” He edged toward the door, reluctant to leave the unconscious woman’s side. The single glance he’d had from her on the cargo deck hit him like a knife, as if he was her only hope and she was drowning.

  He heard a choking gasp, and the patient coughed, retching up more cryo fluid. Instinctively he stepped forward to help, he had no idea how, but Vicente blocked his path.

  Jake took his elbow. “A good sign, but we need to let them work – the professionals have got her now. Come over here and tell me what happened.”

  He let himself be drawn away but glanced over his shoulder to find the mystery woman staring at him as she sank back on the litter. “Is she out of danger?”

  “Probably, can’t be sure. We’re moving her to sickbay now so I can get her hooked into monitors, start the proper therapy for cryo problems. Her heart is showing a tendency toward fibrillation which concerns me.” Emily frowned as she checked her readouts. “I want these shackles off her.”

  “I’ll have two of my men meet you at sickbay, and Clint can take care of the cuffs for you,” Jake said. “But you’ll have to keep her in restraints until we know more.” He raised a hand as the doctor opened her mouth to protest the order. “We can’t simply assume she’s an innocent victim – I’ve got the safety of the ship and everyone aboard to consider. So until we know more, we’ll keep her immobilized in a more humane fashion than chains. Can you activate the privacy screen while you’re transporting her? It’s late at night, thank goodness, but you may run into passengers in the A Deck corridor. I want as little attention on this incident as possible.”