Her Robot Wolf: Gift of Gaia

by Jenny Schwartz

  Her Robot Wolf

  Jenny Schwartz

  Jaya Romanov is an independent starship shaman. She studies the energy flows of the universe and—for a price—will harness them to her employer’s purpose. Wormholes are a whole lot safer to travel when a shaman guides the jump.

  Vulf Trent is a bounty hunter. It was that or join the family business, piracy, and Vulf is too much the lone wolf to tolerate the demands of a large pirate crew. Where his family enjoys the bonds of pack, he prefers the freedom of ranging the universe, alone.

  Seven generations ago, humanity evacuated Earth and the shifter clans’ ability to transform into their animal forms was one of the most terrible losses of that time. Now, the werewolves, werebears and other shifters are trapped in their human bodies and slowly losing the essence of their primal souls. Jaya is determined to heal their torn transformational abilities, but Vulf doesn’t believe her.

  He didn’t kidnap her for her healing abilities.

  Her Robot Wolf is a fabulous adventure in which rare, mystical science replaces magic, pirates are taught to respect lone women, the galaxy is imperiled —and perhaps, rescued—and a fated mate pair contemplate kicking Fate in the teeth. Have fun! Don’t forget to buy Galactic Insurance before leaving Earth!

  Table of 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

  Want More?

  Chapter 1

  Tyger Tyger’s lavender moon rose over the eastern horizon where the dark sky met the restless sea. Silver glittered on the waves that rolled in to kiss the white sand of the tropical beach on which I stood. Above me, the fronds of a coconut palm rustled in a breeze that carried the scent of the ylang-ylang orchids growing in the jungle. A more perfect setting for romance couldn’t be imagined.

  I slapped at a mosquito before it could take a bite out of my arm. Vicious things! I should have worn my starship shaman uniform, except that I was here incognito. The tourist wear of silky t-shirt and too-short shorts felt wrong, and was definitely impractical. I’d chosen it to blend in. Tyger Tyger was a holiday planet.

  The old man in front of me scratched his ear and studied the jungle as if a vampire bat might flap out of it.

  I knew better. He was just avoiding my scowl while he sought for a way to placate me. Once I was calm, then he’d confess whatever scheme he wanted to drag me into.

  If I was a stronger woman, I’d ignore his infrequent demands to talk with me. But Ivan Mishkin represented everything I’d lost—or never known—and for that and other reasons he’d always have my loyalty.

  The old devil knew it, too.

  That didn’t mean I had to make things easy for him. “We could have met somewhere civilized,” I said. “A space bar with air-conditioning and no pests!” I slapped at another mosquito. I’d doused myself in bug spray before setting out from my hotel room on an adjacent island, but either sweat had diluted it or the mosquitoes found me irresistible.

  They didn’t seem to bother Ivan. He wore a torn and sleeveless shirt over ragged shorts and sturdy boots with hairy woolen socks. His gray hair was tied back in a scraggly ponytail and he hadn’t shaved in days. But his brown eyes were as alert as ever and his big nose twitched as if he sniffed for danger.

  “It’s not safe to meet in a city,” Ivan said. “People are after me.”

  “Who?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “People.” It could be anyone from government officials to organized crime with a detour to include cronies he’d double-crossed or women he’d loved and disappointed. Ivan lived a complicated life.

  I reminded myself that I couldn’t let him complicate my life. “Your message said you had to meet me, urgently. I’m here.”

  Ivan avoided my implied question of why he wanted to talk to me in favor of asking his own questions. “How is your research going? Are you any closer to working out how to assist a shift?”

  My hand went to the crystal that hung from a platinum chain around my neck. It had slipped out of the gaping neckline of my t-shirt. Stupid shirt. I stuffed the crystal back out of sight. Usually my uniform hid it. “Never mind my research,” I said to Ivan. “Why am I here?”

  He grinned. “Because you love me?” He guffawed at my expression, bending over to slap his knee. He froze for a fraction of an instant, eyes looking beyond me, down the sweeping curve of the beach. “Delay him.” He grabbed me in a quick, rough hug, then spun me around and sent me stumbling a couple of steps.

  I was taller than him, but he was wiry and tough like tangle grass. As I caught my balance I looked for who’d freaked out Ivan.

  The man was impossible to miss.

  He was over six feet tall, broad shouldered and insanely muscled, something that the skin-tight mesh of his shirt made obvious. Multi-pocketed trousers the same dark gray as the shirt completed his utility suit, along with black boots. He ran with terrifying speed along the beach, almost reaching me before I gathered my startled wits. Behind me I heard the sounds of Ivan crashing through the jungle.

  I stuck out my foot.

  I guess the intimidating stranger hadn’t expected me to do anything. He tripped, rolled, regained his balance, and ran on. I didn’t rate even a vengeful glance. Blaster in hand, knife strapped to his belt and who knew what weapons in his pockets, he remained solely focused on Ivan.

  Then again, during his run toward me, the skimpy nature of my tourist wear would have assured him I wasn’t hiding any weapons.

  He was wrong, but then, I was my own weapon.

  Delay him, Ivan had said. I calculated that it would have to be a fairly significant delay. The man was half a century and more younger than Ivan and moved with brutal efficiency. As he left the beach for the jungle trail, I shaped sha energy to capture him in viscous air.

  For a count of five seconds it held him, giving me time to observe the high flat cheekbones and strong jawline of his face. His short hair was light colored, likely blond, and I’d bet that without the moonlight bleaching color from the world his eyes were blue.

  I should have been watching his hands.

  He reached into a pocket and pulled out a disrupter. The insanely expensive technology squealed in its specifically tuned ultrasonic range, destabilizing my concentration and breaking the ripple disturbance that I’d summoned to hold him.

  I gasped.

  His head snapped around. For a second he assessed me—my gasp likely having told him that the ripple disturbance was my work, not Ivan’s—before he ran after Ivan.

  Too late!

  Rainbow light fading to gold blasted through the jungle, up and over it. “A portal.” Ivan, that sneaky old man, had chosen to meet me here because he had a portal. How long ago had he set it up? And did he have more scattered around the galaxy?

  Portals were unique to every shaman and took a heck of a lot of sha energy to set up, but once in place—and undetectable to anyone but another shaman, and I hadn’t been looking—a portal could be activated with very little sha energy. Each portal was a one-off deal, obliterating with operation, which meant that I couldn’t track Ivan via this one, and nor could anyone else. For him to use the portal, now, meant he seriously wanted to escape the stranger who’d stormed into the jungle after him.

  No wonder Ivan had demanded that I delay the man. Ivan must have known that the stranger was prepared to deal with a shaman. Ivan had needed the distance from the disrupter that I’d won him in order to use the
sha energy necessary to activate the portal.

  I backed away down the beach. I didn’t have a handy portal even if I got out of range of the disrupter. With the disrupter on, it hurt, but I kept reaching for sha energy and burning my spirit against it as the disrupter shook up the energies in the atmosphere. Finally, I reached the limit of the disrupter’s field.

  It was like surfacing after being underwater too long. I inhaled deeply as I touched the sha energy—only to have it burn away as the stranger reappeared on the beach, back in range. “Ow!”

  “You’re a shaman.” He strode forward.

  I could run, but where to? My flimsy t-shirt and shorts wouldn’t survive the jungle and on the flat beach, he’d overtake me. It was surprisingly difficult to stand my ground when I didn’t have access to my usual range of sha energy maneuvers. What I did have was a rather strained and inexplicable faith in Ivan. The old man was tricky, but he wouldn’t leave me in danger. I had to trust that the looming stranger in front of me wouldn’t hurt me.

  “Hi,” I said weakly.

  “How do you know Ivan Mishkin?”

  There were so many answers to that question. I decided to go with the one that he would have already guessed. After all, he’d come here armed with a disrupter. “He’s a shaman.”

  No response from the big man.

  “I’m a shaman.” I slapped at yet another pesky mosquito.

  Waves washed in, retreated, and returned. Palm fronds rustled.

  “That is not an answer.” He finally realized I wasn’t going to add anything to my statement. “What is your name?”

  Uh, no. I was here incognito. I hadn’t gone to all the effort of declining starship shaman voyage contracts, travelling by minor routes, hopping and skipping from planet to station to hub and back again, buying anonymous clothing like this stupid t-shirt and shorts and the flip-flops that were gritty with beach sand, just to confess my name to a scary-looking stranger.

  “Ivan Mishkin has a million solidus bounty on his head, issued by the Emperor of Meitj.”

  My knees went wobbly. “That’s a fortune! What could Ivan have possibly done that the Meitj…they’re traders. Peaceful.”

  The stranger’s mouth twisted.

  It was only for an instant, but it snapped me out of my shock. “You don’t agree? What do you know of the Meitj?”

  “That Ivan attempted to steal something important from them. He was caught, escaped, and the Emperor was enraged enough to put a bounty on his head.”

  “To have him returned alive, right? Not dead.”

  “No, Ivan’s death voids the bounty. The Emperor wants to question him.”

  I sighed with relief. “I wonder what he tried to steal. A million solidus is huge.” The man in front of me could retire on a bounty of that size. A shiver slid down my spine. “There’ll be other bounty hunters after Ivan.”

  “None that count.”

  I stared, dumbfounded by his confident tone and attitude. “For that amount of money—”

  “Bounty hunters are like anyone else. They prefer not to mess with shamans.”

  I folded my arms. “You don’t seem intimidated.” Which was intriguing. He was right. Most people were wary of us.

  The ability to access and manipulate sha energy is an exceedingly rare talent. History tells us that before humanity evacuated Earth the ability was considered a pseudoscience, or even less: a tale told to children. Sha energy itself had a negative reputation. I could kind of understand it. Enough people had told me how creepy the atmosphere felt when I manipulated sha. I had to take their word for it. To me, sha energy feels invigorating and satisfying.

  Being cut off by the disrupter from reaching for sha energy was like having one of my senses muffled. I wasn’t disoriented or powerless, but I was changed.

  “I’ve hunted a rogue shaman in the past. I’ll give you fair warning. The disrupter is not my only weapon against your kind.”

  “My kind.” I tasted the words. They were an insult. A familiar one. A lot of hate was born of fear, and many people feared shamans even as they used our abilities. It was why I always had my pick of starship shaman voyage contracts, but never found a starship on which I felt comfortable enough to stay. I was neither guest nor crew. I was always “other”.

  “I researched Ivan’s background,” the man continued. “Ivan has a reputation for avoiding contact with other shamans. Yet, here you are.”

  Damn. The anomaly of my presence on Tyger Tyger had caught the bounty hunter’s attention. Even without me giving him my name, it wouldn’t take him long to learn my identity. I’d been one of only seven people to graduate from my class at the Star Guild Shaman Academy—and our cohort was considered one of the larger ones. Before he went looking for unregistered shamans like Ivan, the bounty hunter would check the Academy’s records. He’d find me.

  “You’re important to Ivan,” he said.

  Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to claim I was important. But I felt smug and warm that someone would think so.

  “He hugged you.”

  He had. Even on the run, Ivan had taken the time to unexpectedly embrace me. He wasn’t usually what he called “touchy-feely”. It felt nice that he’d…

  My thoughts congealed in cold, reluctant suspicion. The weight of the platinum chain around my neck should have been heavier. I’d been so distracted, then panicked by the loss of contact with sha energy, that I hadn’t noticed the absence of the crystal nestling against my chest. I hooked a finger under the platinum chain, pulling it out of my t-shirt, and studying the broken bail that should have joined my crystal to the chain.

  The crystal itself wasn’t expensive. However, the sha energy I’d stored in it had taken me five years to collect; ever since I’d graduated at twenty one from the Academy.

  Betrayal cut deep. My spirit curled up in shock and bewildered pain. Ivan hadn’t wanted to talk to me. He hadn’t asked after my research because he’d been interested. He’d needed to check that I had the sha crystal on me, then he’d stolen it with ordinary, mundane pickpocketing skills.

  I’d crossed the galaxy to meet with him.

  “What’s wrong?” The stranger took a step forward. He didn’t release the disrupter or take his finger from the trigger of the blaster, but the frustrated frown on his face seemed to morph into one of concern.

  I shook my head. I was a private person and this was a very personal betrayal. I wouldn’t share it with a bounty hunter who’d use it to learn all he could of Ivan and his habits from me.

  Although, what could I actually tell him? I knew so little of Ivan. He’d fed me scraps of information and I’d accepted them, excusing his silence on the grounds that talking of the past could hurt. No matter that I’d ached to learn more.

  “I can’t help you,” I said to the bounty hunter. “You’re wrong. I’m not important to Ivan.”

  He took his finger away from the trigger of the blaster, spun it and stuck it in its holster.

  I felt no relief that I’d convinced him of the truth so easily.

  It was odd how vital Ivan had been to my life. I saw it now, as his betrayal cut me free. Now, there was only the Academy in my life. There was nothing else to give my loyalty to. No one else to love. I’d been anonymously surrendered to the Academy at the age of three. I remembered nothing of my previous life. I’d been a lisping toddler. I’d seen footage of me from then: chubby-faced with big brown eyes, rarely smiling, but my legs had been sturdy and I’d been independent. Even then I’d been reaching for sha energy.

  “He took a portal out of here,” the bounty hunter said. “Any idea where it connected to?”

  I shook my head.

  “You wouldn’t tell me if you did know,” he mused.

  He had a nice voice. I liked the growl in it. Or would like it, if things like that mattered. As it was, I felt tired. Dashing across the galaxy, zipping and skipping to throw off unlikely attention, I hadn’t admitted it to myself at the time, but I’d enjoyed it. Followin
g the Academy’s starship shaman rules all the time kept me safe, but the routine of guiding starships through wormholes was dull.

  The pay-off had been the times when a ship emerged near a pool of sha energy. Such energy storms scared ordinary people, but were treasures to me. I’d siphoned those pools into my sha crystal. I’d had plans for the energy stored in it. Five years’ worth of dedicated searching for sha pools went into that crystal. It could have powered seven portals. As it was…if I thought of my research and what I’d been so near to testing, I might break down and cry.

  I took a deep breath. “Can I go?” I didn’t need the bounty hunter’s permission, but I didn’t want him grabbing me. I wanted confirmation of my freedom as implied by him holstering the blaster. I didn’t expect miracles: he wouldn’t switch off the disrupter till I was out of range of it. Even then, if he was the cynical kind of man he seemed, he might keep it on to protect himself from an attack by me. “I don’t plan to hurt you.”

  The sag of my shoulders had to tell him that I had no fight left in me. Temporarily, I assured myself.

  He nodded. His jaw tightened, bringing a frightening grimness to his expression. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same.”

  His punch was so fast I never saw it coming. But I felt it. The world went black.

  I woke up on a narrow bunk. A blanket covered me, and straps covered the blanket. Instinctively, I reached for sha, and flinched as it burned. Somewhere nearby there was a disrupter in operation.

  Okay. Stay calm. There were things I could do with my ordinary human senses and abilities.

  My jaw didn’t ache and there was no headache, so either I’d been unconscious long enough to sleep off the effects of the bounty hunter’s punch, or he’d taken the trouble to connect me to a medbot. Low lighting showed me my surroundings.

  There was a bunk folded up on the wall above me. Said wall was painted the dull blue standard for starship cargo holds, as was the ceiling. The floor had a non-slip metal finish. On the far wall were two more folded bunks. Otherwise, the space was empty.