Blue Galaxy

  Blue Galaxy

  By Diane Dooley

  Falling in love is easy; staying alive long enough to enjoy it just might be impossible.

  Javan Rhodes, the hard-drinking, disreputable captain of space freighter The Kypris, took a mission to save himself from hitting the bottom of the food chain. Transporting Sola, a beautiful young aristocrat, from Earth to an unknown destination on the outer rim of the colonies is lucrative, but also highly illegal.

  As tough as it is to evade both the law and the lawless, the hardest part of the job is not falling in love with his irresistible cargo. Just as he decides that he will never be able to hand her over to the warlord she must marry, he discovers that Sola has been playing a very dangerous game—one that could not only cost them their lives, but could also affect the balance of power in an increasingly dangerous universe.

  22,000 words

  May 2011

  Dear Reader,

  I’ve always loved May, because it heralds the beginning of one of my favorite seasons—beach season! I’m fortunate to live close to the Atlantic Ocean, so every year in May, I start dreaming about the sound of waves on the sand, dolphins swimming off the coast, and me, lying in a comfortable beach chair, with a frosty beverage in one hand and my eReader in the other. Part of the fun is, of course, planning what I’m going to load onto the eReader for my beach adventures.

  This month of Carina Press releases has provided me with plenty of reading material for my upcoming beach days—not that I’ll be able to wait that long to read them (I do get sneak peek copies in advance, after all). So, with everything from fantasy, to mystery, to contemporary, historical and paranormal romance, it doesn’t matter what I’m in the mood for, Carina Press has something to help me while away the time until I can make my beach dreams a reality.

  I’m especially happy to introduce new novelists Maureen Miller, and her romantic suspense, Endless Night, and Diane Dooley with Blue Galaxy, a science fiction romance that’s out of this world (sorry, I couldn’t resist going for the corny joke). Of course, we also have several return authors as well, with sequels you want to be sure not to miss, including Tangled Past by Leah Braemel, South of Salem from Janni Nell, Portrait of Seduction by Carrie Lofty, Maria Zannini’s Apocalypse Rising and Three Wishes from Jenny Schwartz.

  These books are only a sampling of the tremendous lineup we have for May, so I hope you’ll be sure to take a look at all of the releases, as well as taking advantage of the weekly sales offered on the Carina Press website. And whatever you choose to read, may it help take you one step closer to your own summer getaway!

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to generalinquiries@carinapress.com. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  For Michael, husband and best friend.

  Acknowledgments

  Michael Dooley: first reader, final reader and glorious geek;

  Claire Gillian: beta reader extraordinaire and all-around wonderful human being;

  Kym Hinton: editor and teacher of how to thrash an unruly manuscript into obedience;

  I thank you all.

  Contents

  Copyright

  Begin Reading

  About the Author

  Captain Javan Rhodes sat on an empty packing crate while rusty dockbots loaded case after case of Cypriot brandy, water and nutripacks into the hold of the space freighter Kypris. It was going to be a long journey.

  The Piraeus Spaceport was throbbing with the usual space trash and earth scum, while outside the electric fence the surviving people of Athens worried about their next meal. Javan smiled, perfectly at ease as he sipped from a flask of brandy. He would soon leave the hunger and the dusty stench of Piraeus behind in his trusty old ship, which had just undergone the most thorough repair and tune-up of its thirty years of service. Things were looking up. He’d even managed to have top-of-the-line firepower installed.

  Finally. After all those desperate years of transporting cheap goods to the outer reaches, Javan had gotten the break he’d always hoped would come. The biggest payload of his career, no questions asked, discretion assured, and he was on his way to pulling his life back together. He would be able to afford a future—for the first time in a long time.

  He took another bottle of brandy from a crate and filled his flask. Best not to think of how much trouble he could get into if this job went wrong. He was being paid a ridiculous sum to transport an unnamed passenger to an unnamed destination—half the credits up front, the rest on delivery. He was probably committing the most illegal act of his career. And he didn’t give a damn. He needed this—or he might as well go for a long, fatal swim in the Aegean. Death by drowning would be preferable to the ever-present threat of slow starvation on Earth.

  Javan sipped slowly while an unfamiliar human dockworker approached. He tucked the flask into his pocket and casually palmed his flick knife. He took off his leather flight jacket and waited.

  “Captain Rhodes?”

  He nodded.

  “Olympia says hi.” The man pulled out a knife. “Olympia says bye.”

  Javan lunged, forcing his blade deep into the man’s throat. The knife dropped, and the man slumped to the ground, where he gurgled and writhed before dying. After a quick look around, Javan dragged the corpse to the empty packing crate and shoved it inside before replacing the lid. His would-be assassin had been slow, stupid and malnourished. Olympia was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

  With his ship in good repair and some credits in his pocket, he dared to dream of taking care of Olympia once and for all. She’d put a price on his head long ago, and she was never going to give up on her revenge. Javan sighed as he rinsed the blood off his hands at a nearby spigot. If not for this job, it would have been wise for him to let the assassin succeed.

  He put his jacket back on and lifted the flask to his mouth. As a group of Blues approached Stratos, the ugliest, meanest and most corrupt dock captain in Europe, Javan paused. Stratos gestured in his direction, then went back to the lunch his long-suffering wife had brought him under armed guard. Stratos must have been bought and paid for to let the Blues through without all the usual security checks. Javan tucked away the flask as the Blues approached, carelessly running into the dockbots who loaded cargo onto nearby ships, as though the bots should stop working and make way for them. Typical. The aristocrats expected obedience and servility of anyone below their caste, but that wasn’t how things worked on Piraeus. Unlike Hong Kong or Brasilia, where the common people rushed to do their bidding, Piraeus was for freight and trash, not the stinking rich.

  Javan shuffled in the dry dust, covering a smattering of blood he’d missed.

  The group finally navigated around the bots and cargo pallets and stopped in front of him. He noted the ultraviolet of the protective devices beneath their pale blue cloaks, though the light was barely visible under the harsh Greek sun. He offered his hand to the nearest Blue. The group regarded his hand but did not turn off their protection—except one. A slight figure stepped to the front and placed a hand in his.

  “Captain Rhodes?” she said in a low voice, giving him a firm handshake.

  He nodded, distracted by her soft golden skin.

  “My name is Sola. I am your cargo.” She pulled the blue hood away from her face, revealing sparkling brown eyes, and stared with such fierce intensity that it shook him.

  She smiled.

  And Captain
Javan Rhodes, gazing on what had to be the most exquisite face in the entire universe, felt his heart twist as he fell instantly, irrevocably and most definitely in love.

  Her hand lingered in his, just as the warm smile lingered on her mouth. He dropped it reluctantly and turned toward his ship, leading the woman and her entourage up the ramp and into the hold. He shook his head ruefully at his ridiculous reaction to the woman. Mistaking electric attraction for love—he’d done that once before, and that experience should have cured him for good. He showed them to the guest quarters, quashing the sudden urge to offer her his more spacious and homey cabin. Hers had a bunk with a storage locker underneath, a pressure shower stall, a basic desk screwed to the bulkhead and a puter. Sterile and basic.

  Her cabin was so small that the entourage had difficulty squeezing inside.

  “Goodbye, Sola,” one said, giving her a fierce cheek-to-cheek embrace.

  “Safe voyage, my friend,” another said, squeezing her hand and weeping.

  The striking solemnity and finality of the farewells made something click in Javan’s head: she was a space bride, on her way to form an alliance with a powerful family on the other side of the galaxy. But why wasn’t she taking her clique with her, as was usually the arrangement? It was most unusual to be sent out alone.

  A surge of sympathy overcame him. Legally she was entitled to refuse the match, but no Blue would. Familial duty was paramount to their kind. That and their desire to twine themselves into the power structures of the far-flung planets. It was a sensible policy, within reason. It kept the planets related, stemming latent hostilities. And with all the ruling families connected by marriage and blood, Earth was kept in relative peace. Even his marriage had been…

  Javan made an impatient gesture. There was no point in dwelling on the past and this was none of his business. These wealthy, well-fed people glowed with health in comparison to the starving children of Athens. They weren’t worth his concern.

  The final Blue bid the woman farewell with a single word. “Duty.”

  She nodded and smiled bravely at her compatriots as they filed out of the cabin, the last man stopping in front Javan.

  “Your final instructions, Captain,” he said brusquely, avoiding eye contact. “The remainder of your fee will be paid upon final delivery, as agreed.”

  Rhodes accepted the silver datasphere, resisting the urge to ask why she wasn’t being shipped out in style with an entourage, per tradition and protocol. He was being paid a ridiculous number of credits to ask no questions, so he stayed silent and slipped the sphere into his pocket.

  The Blues disembarked without a backward glance. Javan turned to his passenger. “Lady Sola—”

  “Just Sola, Captain.”

  Like a bashful teenager, he blushed. “Then you must call me Javan.”

  “Javan. We’ve a long journey ahead. Let’s be friends for the duration.” Tears sparkled in her deep brown eyes as she turned to enter her cabin.

  He touched her lightly on the arm and again experienced an electric tingle. He dropped his hand. “It’ll be a few hours till launch. I just have to get some cargo loaded. I managed to buy what is likely Earth’s last shipment of Cypriot brandy. Please make yourself comfortable until we’re ready to go. You have the run of the ship, for what it’s worth. It’s small, but—”

  “Thank you, Javan. I look forward to exploring the ship, but for now…some time alone, I think.” She closed the door.

  Javan stared at cold metal. Yes, it was going to be a long journey, but it just might turn out to be an interesting one.

  Within a few hours Javan had bribed Stratos for an earlier launch, run the diagnostics and was satisfied that for the first time in a long time, the puter had failed to find anything wrong with the ship. He had personally loaded the crate containing his would-be assassin’s corpse so he could vent it somewhere near the asteroid belt. Sola answered his knock on her door looking fresh-faced and calm.

  “Time to launch,” he announced. She had changed out of her robes into a gossamer jumpsuit that clung to her delicious curves. He swallowed hard, turned and led her to the cockpit. Automatically he reached for the flask of brandy but changed his mind and shoved his drinking hand into his pocket instead. Best not to make her nervous by forcing her to see the captain drinking.

  The cockpit was clean and compact, with three control chairs banked by computers and a wide viewscan. Even in the Kypris’s worst state of disrepair he had kept her sleek and shiny, her systems as efficient as no credits, but lots of hands-on experience allowed.

  He led Sola to one of the control chairs. “We have to strap in pretty tight for launch and for jumping because of the speed we’ll travel at.”

  She fiddled with the lap and shoulder harnesses. “Can you help me with these?”

  He obliged, tightening the soft leather straps across her lap, chest and shoulders. He brushed against the gossamer silk encasing her warm flesh and shuddered. She leaned her head back against the headrest, and he demonstrated how to manipulate the restraints. She was simply delectable, a flash of bright silken color amid the bright white of the cockpit and black leather of the command chair. Getting so hot and bothered over safety routines was a novel experience. He switched the viewscan into launch mode, and the blue of the sky drenched the cockpit.

  “Ever launched before?” he asked.

  “Once. Years ago. The old-fashioned way.”

  “Rocket launch? But civilians—”

  She grinned. “Extremely rich civilians. The trip was a gift from my father on my sixteenth birthday. I’d told him I wanted to be a space explorer. My family always teased me about it.”

  “Weren’t you terrified? Rocket launch is extremely dangerous.”

  “I most certainly was, but in the best possible way. It was the fulfillment of a dream. And when I finally got into space, it was worth it. I’ve wanted to get back up ever since, though I’d hoped it would be under better circumstances. I’ve always wanted to see what lies beyond Lunar. I guess I’m finally getting the chance.”

  Javan double-checked that she was firmly strapped in. The restraints kept her snug to the chair, with only her arms and legs at liberty to move. “Slingshot launch is different. It’s faster, wilder, quieter and incredibly intense. You’ve never moved with such momentum before. You’ll wonder where your stomach went. You might worry you’ve left your brain behind. But if you actually managed to enjoy a rocket launch, then you’re gonna love this. You’ll do just fine.” He sat in the chair next to her, strapped in and tapped on the keyboard. A loud boom sounded throughout the ship.

  “That’s the apparatus attaching. You’ll feel us being lifted and pointed in launch direction.” The front of the ship moved upward, until they lay at a forty-five-degree angle, their feet dangling above the floor.

  “Tighten the straps again,” he said, doing the same. He entered a few strokes on the keyboard, double-checking launch status. Everything was operating perfectly. “I’m pressurizing the cabin. Not much—just enough to take the edge off.” He turned to give her an encouraging smile and found her staring at the blue Aegean sky. “You’ll hear a boom. It’s a—”

  “—controlled nuclear implosion. I’m ready to slingshot, Captain!”

  The girl had spirit. She might have some spacer blood mixed in with the Blue. He tapped the keyboard, and after a ten-second countdown, they were hurled into the wide blue yonder. Their bodies were thrust deep into their chairs, their skin tight over their clenched teeth and their stomachs left far behind as the ship burst into the darkening sky. Slightly queasy, Javan wished he’d taken a slug of brandy after all.

  He forced his head to the side to check on Sola. Her fists were clenched on the armrests, but there were no other obvious signs of distress. Her mouth slightly open and her eyes closed, she emitted a moan of pleasure. A jolt of electricity ran through every one of his nerve endings as he wondered if she’d look like this flat on her back in his bunk, with his hands removing the silk
from her body. Unable to drag his eyes away from her, he slid his hand over the keyboard until he found the right key, years of practice allowing him to find the correct key by touch.

  The cabin fully pressurized as the ship roared out of the upper atmosphere and into the blue-black space beyond. Their feet returned to the floor as the ship reverted to one hundred and eighty degrees.

  Sola laughed wildly. “That was wonderful! I’ve never experienced anything like it How lucky you are to have your own ship. If I had one, I would launch every day.”

  He laughed too. “Then you wouldn’t have it for very long. Launch is hard on a ship. Each one has a limited capacity for them, and the Kypris—” he thumped on his armrest affectionately, “—is very old.” Her eyes widened, and he hastened to reassure her. “You don’t need to worry. She’s in great shape. I just had a excellent payday, and she’s had the best servicing of her life.” Too late, he realized what he’d said, as she turned away to loosen the restraints.

  “I’m glad you’re being well paid, though I’m surprised my uncle even spent that much on me.”

  “Your uncle?”

  She didn’t reply but stepped out of the restraints and moved around the cockpit, running her hands over the instruments. “How long will this journey take?”

  “Approximately three months—in fits and starts. We can’t jump to FTL when we’re in the solar systems. The risk of hitting asteroids or space junk makes it too dangerous, so it’s the travel within the systems that takes the longest.”

  “And it’s just you? No other crew?” Her gaze still wandered over the hardware.

  “I can’t afford crew. The puter does most of the work. I’m needed for launch and landing, for docking and undocking at space stations, to enter and change navigation or jump coordinates and for troubleshooting if something goes wrong. One person can do all that on a ship this small.”