Broken Moon Series Digital Box Set

by F. T. Lukens

  Asher crossed his arms. “None.”

  VanMeerten sneered. “I’ll keep that in mind, Captain.”

  “See that you do, General.”

  VanMeerten leveled her gaze at Ren. “I hope this was worth it. I hope you got what you wanted.”

  Ren smiled. He had Asher at his side and Rowan and the crew at his back and his brother returned to him. Warmth and joy suffused him and nudged aside the fear and panic which had resided in his middle since the outset of his adventure.

  “I did.”

  She nodded. “Have a good life, star host. I hope to never see you again.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  Rowan snapped her fingers and turned on her heel, ending the meeting. The rest of them followed. Ren cast one last look over his shoulder, then turned away, squared his shoulders, and put the Corps firmly behind him.

  Asher followed suit. “It’s done,” he said, voice pitched low as they crossed the threshold out of the Corps offices. He blew out a breath, and his body relaxed. “It’s done,” he said again.

  “It is,” Ren agreed, taking Asher’s hand, lacing their fingers. “And now we have credits, a pardon, and an honorable discharge to celebrate.”

  Asher smiled brightly; the worry that had creased his brow eased away. “That we do.”

  Ren laughed and, as they passed a viewing alcove, he paused in front of it, allowing the others to walk ahead, leaving him and Asher alone. Ren looked out at the darkness of space and the bright pinpricks of light stretching across the cluster. He pulled Asher close and kissed him, fervent and happy and free. Asher laughed into his mouth, and they kissed again and clung to each other. Filled with joy and relief, they celebrated in the darkened alcove with the stars their only witnesses.

  Epilogue

  In the last six months, Ren had perfected the intricate dance of moving about on the drift during the rush times. He no longer bumped into anyone or allowed them to bump into him—Darby had laughed loud and long the first time Ren’s credit chip had been stolen, but then spent a day teaching him how to be on the lookout for “people like her.” He knew his way without getting lost or needing to bleed into the systems and find a map to his and Asher’s home. He’d settled in here, in his environment and in his skin, and only had the occasional hiccup.

  Ren slid between a couple arguing and ducked into the lit storefront for the best mechanic and tech support on the entire floor, maybe even the entire drift—him. Asher looked up from a vid screen where he argued with Rowan.

  “Is that Ren?” Rowan’s voice came over the screen. “Ask him. He’ll settle it.”

  “I’m not asking Ren.” Asher pouted. He tapped the toe of his boot and put his hands on his hips. “I’m right.”

  “You’re not!” Lucas’s voice sing-songed from off-screen. “Ask him. He’s a duster after all.”

  Rowan raised an eyebrow.

  Asher pinched the bridge of his nose. Ren furrowed his brow, stepped behind the counter, and nudged into the frame. His arm was flush against Asher’s.

  “What do you need to ask?”

  Rowan tapped her mouth with her fingertips. “The tomato—fruit or vegetable? We picked a few up when we dropped off the cargo on Erden—Sorcha says hi by the way—and Penelope is on this kick about all of us consuming better nutrients, especially since she and Lucas have settled on this baby idea and…” Rowan trailed off. “You look unimpressed.”

  Ren laughed. “Are you serious? This is what you’re arguing about?” He walked away, waving over his shoulder. “Tell Ollie I’ll have those power sources ready for him next time you’re docked.”

  “They’re a vegetable,” Rowan said in a fierce aside.

  “Fruit,” Asher said, arms crossed. “And you’re a cog. I have to go.”

  “Fine. We’ll be docking at your drift in a few days to pick up our next load. We’ll discuss this more then.”

  “Fine.” Asher switched off the screen.

  Their place was merely a counter where Asher coordinated shipments for the Star Stream and Ren took orders for repairs. Their back room had a place for Ren to tinker and a set of steps to an upper level which housed their shared apartment. Asher kept his Phoenix Corps uniform in the closet, behind everything, and Ren kept a few trinkets—a shell from the beach by the lake and Liam’s comic book—on the table by the bed. It wasn’t much—a place to eat and sleep and the old couch from the ship with the spring that dug into Ren’s back just so, but it was home.

  “Hey,” Asher said, following Ren into the back, “how’d it go?”

  Ren sat in his chair, picked up a relay that had seen better days, and passed it back and forth between his hands. “Better. I like her, I think. Much more than the last one who didn’t even believe people like me existed. She gave me some calming exercises that I hadn’t tried before, and we talked.”

  “About?”

  Ren shrugged. “Panic attacks. Nightmares. Millicent.”

  After the confrontation on the drift, Millicent disappeared. Liam tried to reach her once in a dream, with Ren present, but he couldn’t find her. They didn’t know what that meant, but guilt plagued Ren over the outcome of her defeat and capture. It was the way Darby had said, if the Corps wanted someone gone, they were gone.

  He cleared his throat. “She’d like to meet my support system next time.”

  “Yeah?”

  Ren nodded. “Yeah.” And if Asher liked her, maybe he’d start seeing someone too, but one step at a time.

  “Okay. I’m glad.” Asher’s mouth ticked up in a smile. “Sorcha says hi in case you didn’t hear.”

  “Did Rowan say anything else? Did she see Liam?”

  Asher walked all the way into the room and leaned against the wall. He was casual and well-rested and gorgeous. He’d let his hair grow and he’d taken to going on runs in the early morning hours while Ren stayed under the covers. “Sorcha is still leading all the villages. She has some new official title—I didn’t really hear what it was—and Jakob works at her side. She saw Liam, said he helped unload the cargo. He looked good. Happy.”

  “Good.”

  When Vos returned to Erden, Sorcha was waiting for him, and he was arrested within minutes of his ship touching down, as was Abiathar. His army was given a choice, and to date, most of them have either left Erden or assimilated into the villages.

  “The wedding is still on. We’re expected, you know.”

  Ren tensed. “I know.”

  “You wouldn’t miss Jakob’s wedding, would you?”

  Ren snorted.

  “And it would be good for you to see Liam for yourself.”

  “I talk to Liam once a week, you know that.” Liam’s ability to visit in Ren’s dreams had come in handy more than once, and Ren cherished the relationship they’ve developed. He hasn’t been this close to his brother since they were small, before Ren’s aspirations to leave the planet drove a wedge between them. “You’re often there.”

  “Seeing him in dreams is different from seeing him in person.”

  “I know.” Ren had a few hang-ups about going back to Erden: bad memories and bad feelings. Liam had gone home after their week-long stay on the resort drift and tugged Darby along with him. Darby didn’t stay—too much dirt—and soon was back in the stars floating in and out of their lives as she pleased—sometimes assisting Rowan, sometimes helping Ren and Asher, but always looking for her next thrill. After she’d find it, she’d return to the family that had accepted her, either the Star Stream or to the drift and the small room she rented on the same floor as their shop. “I’ll think about it. Let’s see what the new therapist says. It’s not for a few more months, right?”

  Asher nodded. “Surprisingly adult of you.”

  That startled a laugh out of Ren and Asher’s smile grew into a real one. “You were the one who was arguing with his s
ister about tomatoes. I don’t want to hear anything about maturity from you.”

  Asher chuckled. “Point taken.” He uncrossed his arms and nodded toward the mess on Ren’s work desk. “By the way, you have a few new jobs. A ship that just docked is having trouble with its air recycler, and a restaurant needs something repaired in the kitchen.”

  “Is that your subtle way of telling me to get to work?”

  Asher rolled his eyes. “That’s my subtle way of reminding you that you’re doing well here. Your business is steady. You have a caring and handsome boyfriend and a family of oddballs who love you. I know how your thoughts get after appointments sometimes, and you need reminders.”

  Ren smiled softly. “You have a handsome and caring boyfriend, too, you know. And he is very happy about where he is and how everything turned out.”

  “He better be,” Asher said, abandoning all pretense and stalking across the small distance between them. He tilted Ren’s face up and kissed him softly.

  Ren pressed his smile to Asher’s lips. Yes, he still had nightmares and panic attacks. Asher’s shoulder ached on bad days. They fought about silly things and serious things, but always made an effort to make up. Their place was cramped, and their shower didn’t always work, and there were days it was difficult for Ren to get out of bed and days when Asher stared at the uniform in the back of their closet.

  But this—right here—Asher and him living together on a drift with their family safe and happy on ships and planets—that’s what Ren always wanted.

  And he finally had it.

  Everything else was stardust.

  About the Author

  F.T. Lukens is an award-winning author of Young Adult fiction who got her start by placing second out of ten thousand entries in a fan-community writing contest. A sci-fi enthusiast, F.T. is a longtime member of her college’s science-fiction club. She holds degrees in Psychology and English Literature and has a love of cheesy television shows, superhero movies, and writing. F.T. lives in North Carolina with her husband, three kids, and three cats.

  Her novel, The Rules and Regulations of Mediating Myths & Magic, won many awards, including the 2017 Foreword INDIES Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction and the 2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award for Best Teen Fiction.

  Broken Moon Extras

  Darby

  Darby never had a place to settle. She didn’t stick in any one environment for too long, choosing instead to drift from situation to situation, never wearing out a welcome, and never risking becoming mired in someone else’s conflicts. She never became accustomed to the gravity of a drift or a planet, or, to use a duster’s term, she didn’t put down roots. Darby was a cosmic speck wandering around the system as a free particle until her inevitable disintegration. That was her plan. That was her life. That was what had kept her sharp, free, and alive for as long as she’d been. She’d accepted that at a young age.

  But when she happened to bump into a few other specks of space dust then suddenly her life changed. She’d clumped together with those other wandering bits and had coalesced into a star. She never imagined how stealing onto a ship and encountering a mythical being, a Phoenix Corps soldier, and a crew that took kidnapping to the nth degree would change everything so completely, could change her so completely. But it had. She did. And to her utter surprise, she didn’t mind it. Not much.

  Tugging on the lapels of her jacket, Darby wove through the traffic of her home drift. Home drift. What a weird thought. What a novel concept. A home. She’d rented a room a few doors down from the best mechanic and tech support on the entire drift, her friend, Ren. His partner, Asher, coordinated and ran the drift side of business for the Star Stream and her crew. She helped them when they needed her specific brand of skills and, when they didn’t, she ran her own side jobs. Nothing in competition with Rowan of course, and nothing that would draw attention such as explosions, but not everything was completely legal either. Old habits were hard to break. Information gathering and manipulation were marketable skills, and she was good at it, so she might as well use it to make a pile of credits.

  “Hey, you!”

  Darby’s gaze sliced to her left. She’d had her hat, one knitted by Pen, tugged low over her ears; a few strands of her black and purple hair peeked out. She wore the collar of her jacket flipped up.

  She narrowed her eyes. She recognized the speaker, a guy she used to run with called Jer, but she didn’t react to the summons other than to slow her brisk pace and arch an eyebrow.

  “Darby? Is that you?”

  Edging out of the current of people on the walkway, Darby eased to Jer’s side. There was always a shiver of fear at being recognized, as if all the things she’d done were catching up with her in the quirk of a guy’s mouth, but there was always a promise of some adventure, too, the thrill of a new job.

  “Yeah, it’s me. How are you doing, Jer?”

  “Good. Haven’t seen you in a while.” Jer stood taller than her, as most people did. He angled his body toward her, kept his hands in his pockets, and didn’t offer a handshake or a hug, which Darby appreciated.

  She wasn’t a fan of hugs. She didn’t mind them from Ollie and she tolerated it when Lucas draped a friendly arm over her shoulder while regaling her with epic stories from the crew’s adventurous past, but that was her new life. Jer was her past life and he was as prickly and ill-at-ease as she was.

  “Doing well. In town for a blip.” He jerked his head toward the docking bay. “On a crew for now.”

  She nodded. “On the up and up?”

  “Mostly. You?”

  “Mostly.”

  “Yeah,” he ducked his head and rubbed a gloved hand over his spiky hair. “I actually heard a rumor about you.”

  Darby’s eyebrows ticked up in surprise. She’d made a habit of flying below the radar so for her name to be brought up was disconcerting. “Yeah?”

  “Heard you’re running with Rowan Morgan’s crew.”

  Darby licked her lips. “Sometimes.”

  “They’re wild. Chatter is they were mixed up in something big with the Corps and with that technopath that was running loose and destroying drifts. I heard they went toe to toe with the Corps and won, and that’s after they escaped Perilous Space. Is that…” he trailed off and dropped his voice. “Is that all true?”

  Over a year had passed, and Ren’s shenanigans were still talked about as the hot gossip. Whispers traveled fast, and, the more they were told, the more outrageous they became. But the more they were spoken, the more they were taken as truth. Whispers turned to legends. Darby hoped the legends would become myths soon, because myths, regardless of truth, were distant fantasies, while legends were dangerous.

  She scoffed. “Are you serious? You believe that dirt?”

  He blinked. “Not all of it. But enough people are saying it.”

  “If enough people told you moon rocks were cheese, would you eat them?”

  Jer rolled his eyes. “No.”

  “Then don’t believe malfunctions were technopaths. The Corps is coggin’ evil, don’t disbelieve that, and Rowan’s crew is impetuous to a fault, but they’re not myths. They’re only people who do their best.”

  Jer raised his hands. “Never heard you so defensive of anyone.”

  Oops. She’d accidentally shown too much. Shrugging, she checked drift time on the overhead boards. She had to get a move on or she was going to be late. “Nah. I just don’t want to get on Rowan Morgan’s bad list.”

  “Yeah?”

  Darby nodded. “Yeah. She’s fairly ruthless, especially when it comes to anything that threatens her crew.”

  Jer’s forehead crinkled. He bit his lip. Ugh. She’d forgotten how cute he was, though red-haired dusters who could walk in dreams tended to be her type these days, even if the feelings weren’t reciprocated.

  “Do you think you could put in a good word for
me?” His gaze darted to the side. “I wouldn’t mind being on a crew like that.”

  Darby was rarely caught off-guard, but Jer’s sudden wistful expression breaking through his customary aloofness struck a chord. It was like looking at a past version of herself, a vision from the few months before she’d met Ren over the com system of the ship, when she stubbornly clung to her loneliness like a forcefield, blocking out anything that could be considered an entanglement.

  Darby pursed her lips. “When I see her again, I’ll see if she needs someone with your particular skills.”

  Jer smiled, his cheeks dimpling. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. No funny business though. She’d blast you without a thought.”

  “Cross my heart,” Jer said, crossing his fingers over his chest, then holding them up. “On my honor.”

  “Yeah, don’t swear on what you don’t have, but here, give me your com number.”

  They exchanged contact information. Darby walked away, unsure whether she would pass on his information to Rowan, since she hadn’t seen Jer in quite a while and what she remembered was hardly glowing recommendation material. But everyone deserved second chances, right?

  She took the lift down, glad it wasn’t as crowded as the walkways, and stepped off on the floor nearest the space docks. As she approached the mechanic shop, the line waiting for service snaked from the counter around the corner.

  Oh, great. She wasn’t the only one who was going to be late.

  She sidled onto the end of the line behind two spacers. Craning her neck, she could see most people holding slips in their hands. Okay, pickups. They were much faster than repair orders.

  “I can’t believe this guy has so much business. There are five other mechs on this drift, but this place always has a line.”

  Darby’s ears pricked up at the conversation in front of her. She angled her body nonchalantly to hear while keeping an eye out.

  “He’s cheap,” the other spacer said. “And he’s fast.”