by Sahara Kelly
As the ship’s cook, John O’Shaughnessy knows everything that goes on aboard the warship. And something is definitely up with his Frankie. If she thinks he’s going to let her carry out this crazy plan of hers alone, that stubborn woman has another think coming.
Frankie thinks she’s gotten away clean…until her instincts tell her she’s not alone on her mission. Still, it’s a shock to find her peace-loving John standing there with eyes that spell murder. Now is a hell of a time to discover they’re more than friends. But there’s no turning back…
Warning: Space invaders were seriously harmed in the making of this story.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Metal Reign:
Everything happened fast.
One second, about a dozen alien ships were flying a couple thousand meters ahead and the next second, a hit sent the reefer barreling to portside. The impact rocked both Frankie and him back against their seats. Only the harnesses saved them from being projected across the bridge like the rest of everything not anchored or strapped down with thick cargo netting. Clacks, clangs and rattles drowned what Frankie yelled. Alarms wailed, lights flickered, died for an agonizing second then switched back on.
John’s instinct surprised him. Instead of trying to stay the ship, he extended an arm to grip Frankie by the back of her coveralls. Just in case. He’d never known a protective nature hid under his cynical crust. Great timing…
As the reefer gathered speed in its gut-flattening spiral, John braced his feet wide apart on the consoles. Gs built up. Space flew sideways in the tacscreens. Stars became white lines. Interspersed with these lines, a green blur—Earth. Fighting against nausea, John forced himself to focus on the altimeter. Too low. Too damn low.
“Take…the nav,” he growled. “I’ll…take…propulsion.”
Both wrestled the effects of gravity, which tried to keep them glued to their backrests, as they struggled to control the ship’s spiral. Frankie quickly punched in coordinates while John gripped the engines control and pushed them as forward as they could go. The only way out of a spiral was down hard and fast. With any luck, they’d gain enough momentum to break out of the corkscrew, skim along Earth’s atmosphere then bounce off into space. But then again, luck was a bitch these days.
“Hang on,” John warned a split second before the attitude jets responded to his commands. By his side, Frankie held on to the console corners.
Turning, turning. Slower. Another turn that stretched out told John their maneuver may just work. Alarms finally clicked off when the reefer pointed downward and entered into a dive just as scary as the spiral. Except that now they were in control. Somewhat.
“Tell me when it’s five degrees,” John said through his teeth.
Frankie nodded. Sweat coated her face and made limp ribbons of her usually curly hair.
Silence was only broken by their panting as they each fought with their assigned console.
“Five degrees!”
John gunned it.
The reefer shot forward and up, at thirty-five degrees to starboard, higher still, until they’d made a complete U-turn that sucked every iota of power out of his poor ship. When the moon appeared in the tacscreens, John spared a hand to pump his fist. Had to let out the testosterone somehow.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she muttered. “They hit us and didn’t even come back for a look.”
“We just don’t matter to them. Would you come back to look at a bug you just squashed?”
“Still, for Pete’s sake.” She combed a hand in her sweaty hair. “Man, that was close.”
“I’ll go check for damages. That hit can’t have left just a scratch.” He unclipped his harness, worked his stiff legs and neck. Without his brain’s consent—his brain had pretty much taken an extended vacation…wasn’t he on a suicide mission?—John bent over and placed a loud kiss on her forehead. “We make quite the team, Commander Beaumont. Want to recruit me? I promise I won’t spoil your other recruits’ young, impressionable minds.”
Her beaming smile made everything all right. Her betrayal, her lies. Nothing mattered anymore. Affection swelled his heart, and pride his head. This woman, strong and capable and hot as the coals of hell, made him feel as if he could take on the world. Which in a sense he was about to do.
He left her in command of his reefer while he climbed down below into the detachable section of his refrigerated ship. Used to transport produce and other perishables, his reefer had never been meant to withstand the hit it’d just taken. Not without serious damage. They were lucky not to have been sucked out into space.
All along the passageways, metal plating had buckled, rivets popped off and steam whistled out of bent pipes. Not good. Near the airlock, e-suits hung on hooks and resembled a row of hanged men. Those environment suits may come in handy if the ship had suffered hull damage. At least until they connected to the pipeline. Afterward, well, it wouldn’t matter much, would it?
John breathed a sigh of relief as he inspected the seal between the main portion of the ship and the separate cargo area. It seemed intact. But as he stepped through the hatch to survey the damage to their precious cargo, he couldn’t abort the long string of curses. He didn’t know much about explosives, but the way the charge had shifted on its rails in the hold, with yellow wires pulled out of connectors and plastic coils all crumpled up against the glowing blue core… That just could not be good.
“Shit.”
The comms panel still worked so he switched it on. “Hey, Frankie. You know how to build that thing, right? Because right now, it looks like something the cat spat out. Except in metal and plastic.”
Her voice crackled but he got the last bit. “…goddamnsonovabitch.”
“Indeed.”
“I’m coming down.”
John felt the ship decelerate to automatic pilot. A minute later Frankie barged into the cargo hold like a Valkyrie down the hills. His nape tingled with arousal. He forced his mind to clear.
Not the time, O’Shaughnessy.
“Argh, no, no, no.” She rushed to the sad-looking bit of Imber destruction smashed against the side of the cargo hold and muttered for a good minute as she inspected her patient. In the end, she straightened, fists on hips—sending his testosterone fever into the danger zone—and blew air through pursed lips. “I think we’ll be good. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Is this like ‘it’s-not-as-bad-as-it-looks-just-a-sucking-chest-wound-Ma’am’?”
Her snort of laughter unreasonably stroked his ego. “No. I can fix this. We’ll reroute some power to the charge, hook it up to the ship directly. It’ll work.” She nodded, muttered to herself some more. “I can fix this,” she repeated.
“Well, get to it then because we can’t take another hit like this.” It was one thing to die in the name of humanity and all that, it was an entirely different thing to just get blown into bits by a passing Imber ship. Not as, well, fulfilling.
Before he left her to work while he checked the rest of the reefer for damage—something told him he’d find much, much more—John stopped inside the hatch leading to the main part of the ship. Frankie was crouched underneath the electrical panel and muttering through her teeth as she yanked on knotted wires. He tamped down the regret. He wasn’t doing this only for her. Well, mostly for her. But along the way, he’d begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was better than doing nothing at all. He’d never tell her that, of course, in case she started to think of him as a romantic. John O’Shaughnessy had a rep to keep. Catholic Irishmen weren’t a flower-in-the-hair, bright-eyed bunch. Or he liked to believe. But then again, to his widowed father’s horror, his eldest child and only son of four children had become a cook. His little sisters all teased John about his choice of career, especially since he was a trained machinist like their da. Oh well, to each their own path.
They better dedicate a whole city to her name, complete with wide boulevards, airy gardens and gurgling fountains. Frankieville. Frankburg. Francine-sur-Mer.
Ha.
When she let out a long string of curses, John smiled and turned away to hide what he knew was in his eyes.
The Facilitator
Sahara Kelly
Reality is a corkscrew and humanity is the wine.
In one carefully compartmentalized section of her life, Martine TwoSeven likes stylish, sexy clothing and a meal that doesn’t come out of a mech vendor. In the other, she’s a Facilitator. She takes pride in her gift for helping souls pass with no pain, no sorrow, no fear, only pleasure. Whatever that pleasure may be.
A week after a particularly difficult case that feels “off” and goes terribly wrong, the dreams begin. Dreams inhabited by a mysterious man whose searing touch seems more real than it should. And who knows more than he should. Things that don’t add up.
When a new Facilitator arrives at Eternal Tranquility, Johann Seven steps straight out of her dreams, a solid presence in her bed—and her heart. First, he awakens her long-dormant passions. Then he reveals the unthinkable truth behind her life and her job—and her world shatters.
Before she can pick up the pieces, Martine receives her next assignment—to “facilitate” Johann. She has no choice but to obey, but when their neural pathways connect, she knows only one thing. If anyone’s going down today, it won’t be the man she loves.
Warning: Contains advanced concepts about human nature, life, death, sex and reality. Sometimes more than one at a time. Read at your own risk and keep one foot on the floor at all times.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Facilitator
Copyright © 2011 by Sahara Kelly
ISBN: 978-1-60928-386-5
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Kanaxa
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First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2011
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