The Mercenary's Dawn (Renegades Book 1)

by L P Peace

‘It’s a shame this place is going to be strip-mined by the Protectorate,’ Fallan said, appearing at Mikel’s side. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘What colour is it? All I see is red.’

  ‘There’s red. And purple and blue.’

  ‘We’re almost at the asteroid,’ Herik called to them. ‘I’m about to manoeuvre the ship, get ready to lock the tractor and we’ll pull it into the hold.’

  ‘Ready,’ Mikel said, dismissing the feed of the planet and replacing it with the prize. The asteroid was several meters in diameter and almost entirely made from Amot. It wasn’t even enough to build one ship, but Amot was rare enough that just about anyone they approached would be happy to deal under the table for it.

  ‘What have we got in the hold?’ Mikel asked, realising he hadn’t thought about it. They were between jobs, but he knew there were a couple of small crates in there.

  ‘The Golgra shipment the Tensa vrok stiffed us for,’ Herik answered.

  ‘Vrokking durv should have paid us on time,’ Mikel said as he purged the hold and opened the doors. Perhaps the Golgra would remain in the hold, maybe it wouldn’t. He didn’t really care.

  ‘Activating tractor,’ Mikel murmured, loud enough for his crew to hear. On the viewscreen, a slight glow appeared around the asteroid and it slowly changed direction, picking up speed until it was steadily heading towards the hold. Mikel switched the feed and they saw the image of the asteroid entering the spacious hold. The Golgra survived. ‘Shutting the doors.’

  ‘VROK!’ Herik’s tone was so out of character, it took a moment to realise it was the Setean who’d spoken.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ship just jumped in.’ Herik tapped the console in front of him and threw a new feed up on the viewscreen.

  Mikel pinged the ship, a moment later it’s credentials scrolled on his screen. ‘That’s a slave ship. Bentari, the Votyi.’

  ‘What the vrok is it doing here?’ Mikel turned and saw Fallan, his huge eyes open wide. He was holding onto one of the handholds suspended from the ceiling.

  ‘Herik, scan the planet.’ Mikel watched as Herik did a basic scan.

  ‘There are over a hundred and forty humanoid life signs down there.’

  ‘They’re going to cull them,’ Fallan gasped.

  ‘We need to get the vrok out of here before they decide to cull us as well.’

  The ship's tail fin hit the Sarah and sent it in a spin. Behind him, Mikel heard Fallan fall and land heavily on the floor.

  ‘Vrok,’ he groaned.

  ‘Hold on, Herik, get us out of here.’

  ‘I can’t. That hit knocked out our FTL. We’ll need to land to make repairs.’

  Mikel looked at the red planet in front of them. The same red world the slave ship was moving towards.

  ‘Vrok!’

  Sarah became aware of the alarms at the same time as she became aware of Ann’s wailing. She shot out of bed and crossed the small hall into Ann’s room. Ann was lying on the floor, curled into a ball with her hands over her head.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.’ Sarah crossed the space to the young woman and carefully put her hands on her. ‘It’s okay. I’m here Ann. We need to get up. We need to get some shoes on you and get out.’

  The alarms meant only one thing. There was an unexpected, unknown ship heading in to land, which meant their small colony of ex-slaves were in trouble.

  ‘Come on precious girl. I have you.’ Sarah tried to coax Ann up, but she wouldn’t move. ‘Okay. Let me get your shoes.’

  Ann ran to the small wardrobe and pulled out a pair of shoes. She knelt back down and slowly slipped the shoes on Ann’s bare feet. ‘It’s okay, my girl. Sarah’s here.’

  Sarah heard the sound of the front door to the small cabin open.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Valerie. In Ann’s room.’

  Valerie appeared in the doorway. She saw Ann huddled on the floor and Sarah saw pain cross her best-friends face. A moment later, it was gone. ‘Now Ann. None of this. We have to put your shoes on and go for a walk in the woods. Ya hear me?’

  Sarah felt Ann go stiff under her touch. Ann was like a child. Made that way by the alien scum who fed her a drug to make sex with her more pleasurable for himself. Unfortunately, the Kuldesa had the added effect of damaging the human brain permanently. Ann couldn’t be more than twenty-three or twenty-four, but he’d stolen her whole life for his own selfish desires. This was why their small colony was hidden. This was why the present incursion was such a danger.

  Valerie crossed the space and helped Sarah pull Ann off the floor. They set her on the bed and Valerie took a position in front of her. ‘None of this nonsense now.’ Her voice was firm but kind. ‘We have to go now, Ann. Okay?’

  Ann’s grey eyes searched for Sarah, who smiled and nodded encouragingly. Ann didn’t really understand what they were saying. Her understanding of language was limited. She mostly responded to tone and facial expressions. Calming somewhat at Sarah’s fake calm, she allowed Valerie to put her in a jumper, while Sarah threw on a cardigan.

  ‘Right, let’s get out of here.’ Valerie helped Ann off the bed.

  Sarah looked into her best friend's black eyes. ‘I don’t understand the point. They’ll be able to find us with sensors.’

  ‘Hiding isn’t about them not finding us,’ Valerie said, helping Ann to the door. ‘It’s about giving Pete and the other males time to use the traps, to divide them, kill them. The longer they’re in the forest searching for us, the more time our people have to take them out.’

  Sarah opened the front door to her purple log cabin. Once off the porch, she came around Ann’s other side and the women supported her as they stepped onto the dirt road surrounding the small village green. To her right were fields and the tree line which led to the landing pad the colony used. There were usually three ships there—a small planet runner. A small cargo ship and Invictus, the ship belonging to Alethia, the colony’s human leader and her little brother Dairon, a half-Kuyon. But Alethia and Dairon had gone to make a supply run and meet up with Makios to buy slaves they could bring back to the colony. Ex-slaves made up the entire population of the planet Tessa.

  To the left was the small village of Aida. Sarah’s house was next to the field, sitting at the far end of the green. Holding onto Ann, they walked across the green, which on Tessa was actually red and headed to the single road that made up the rest of the village. Because they had to care for Ann, they were among the last, though there were stragglers, as well as Cebra, the Teyas female standing at the top of the road, making sure everyone got out.

  ‘You’re slow,’ Cebra called as they headed out of the village and towards the tree line. Sarah threw an annoyed look at the tall Teyas. Cebra’s bright blue pupils were highly reflective in the dark. Her pale purple skin was framed by short brown hair.

  ‘I’ve told you before. The alarm scares Ann, it makes it harder to dress her. If you want us to be quicker, then help.’

  Cebra returned Sarah’s annoyed look with one of her own. ‘We’ve offered to move you to this end of the village. You turn us down.’

  ‘That cabin has been my home for nine years. I am not moving.’

  ‘Not the time,’ Valerie said as the trees swallowed them.

  Valerie and Sarah stopped walking for a moment to allow their eyes to adjust. There was a well-cleared path ahead of them. As they stepped forward, Cebra and Voldanin, a pale skinned Ualhan male with black eyes and long white hair, dragged matted brush into the path to disguise it.

  They hurried their steps, familiar with the path which was regularly cleared to keep it safe to traverse in the dark. Between them, Ann began whimpering.

  ‘Oh Ann, it’s okay my love. We’re going to be at the tunnels soon and then we’ll get you to sleep okay?’

  ‘I’m going to sing to you,’ Valerie promised. On Earth, before she was taken, Valerie was a professional singer and model. Sarah recognised her as soon as she arrived at the colony
two years previously. Though she rarely sang anymore, having been forced to sing for a string of owners before Makios bought her, she sang for Ann to soothe her often.

  ‘Now that’s a treat, isn’t it Ann?’

  They continued talking as they walked. Eventually, enough of the path was covered and with a wave, Cebra and Voldanin disappeared to rendezvous with their group. Guerrilla warfare would be enacted in this wood tonight. With a bit of luck, the slavers wouldn’t see it coming.

  They hit the halfway mark and were heading towards a clearing when Valerie drew them to a halt.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ It took Sarah a few moments, but she heard talking. An unfamiliar voice was saying something, he sounded confrontational.

  ‘Can you tell what they’re saying?’

  ‘Keep Ann here, I’ll be back in a moment.’

  ‘Sarah? What are you doing?’

  Sarah held a hand up to quiet Valerie and walked into the trees. When she was twenty feet in, she rounded one of the large trees and got her first peek into the dimly lit clearingclearing.

  Several of the colonists were stood in the clearing, their hands up. A Setean was standing by a severely damaged ship, pointing a weapon at the crowd.

  ‘We’ll pay you.’ Veldan was an Mvari engineer for the colony. He was standing forward of everyone else. ‘If you’re not here to enslave us, we’ll pay you in regular Amot to help our people defeat the slavers.

  ‘We have Amot,’ the Setean pointed to a large rock sitting in their cargo bay. ‘We’re taking one of your ships, that Amot and getting out of here. Your troubles are your own.’

  Sarah scoffed. It was just like a Setean to say something like that.

  ‘You have weapons, so do we. We have traps in the forest set for the slavers and a lot of people are out there working to stop them.’

  ‘Then you don’t need us.’

  Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. She knew that voice, but it couldn’t be him. Mikel was dead.

  ‘And you might want to look at leaving this planet. I don’t think the Protectorate will appreciate you selling their Amot once we tell them about this system.’

  Carried forward without thinking, Sarah made her way through the forest, towards that voice that sounded too much like the male she’d loved and lost.

  ‘What’s that?’ The Setean raised a gun and pointed it in Sarah’s direction.

  Galma, another Ualhan member of the colony turned, her black eyes seeing Sarah in the dark. A panicked look entered her eyes.

  ‘Please don’t fire. It’s one of our people. She won’t hurt you.’

  Sarah stopped walking. The gun was still pointed at her. Her whole body went cold and a sweat broke out over her back. She felt her pulse in her throat speed up.

  There was movement in the clearing. Cobalt hair and red lensed goggles appeared from behind the crowd.

  His sage skin held more lines but didn’t hers. It was almost a decade since they’d last seen each other by the Tessan calendar. His hair was shorter. He used to wear it long in defiance of his dishonourable discharge, now it was cut short and he wore it styled. He’d grown bigger. As he crossed his arms, his muscles bulged across his expansive chest. His goggles were on and he was standing in the light, so Sarah was positive he couldn’t see her. Bataarin eyes were all pupils, so most light hurt his eyes.

  ‘Come out of the woods and Herik won’t shoot you.’

  Sarah forced her feet to move.

  His face dropped when she stepped out into the light.

  ‘God Mikel, wouldn’t it be awful if your man there shot me before you saw me? How terrible would that be, after all these years?’

  He stared at her for several moments. When he finally stepped forward, she did too. When she broke into a run, he matched her speed and when their arms found each other, he lifted her into his holding her close to him.

  ‘Mikel, what the vrok?’ It was the Setean. Sarah could see him over Mikel’s shoulder, there was a confused, almost angry look on his face.

  ‘My Sarah, is that really you?’

  ‘Sarah, what’s going on?’ Galma asked. Sarah barely heard her.

  ‘Ah, I see.’ The Setean turned away. ‘Fallan, empty the weapons locker, we’re staying.’

  ‘Is Chloe with you?’

  ‘You’re helping us now?’ Veldan asked.

  ‘She is with my parent’s, on Bataar.’ His voice was breathy. ‘My Sarah. I can’t believe I finally found you.’

  ‘Captain found his mate, which means we’re helping.’

  ‘Oh my god, Mikel.’ Sarah drew away from him. He set off walking towards the tree line. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want to look at you with my own eyes.’

  When they were in the treeline, Mikel ripped off the goggles. Sarah smiled, feeling the familiar butterflies erupt in her stomach. Mikel returned her smile with one of his own.

  ‘There you are, my beautiful mate.’

  Author Note

  It’s a bizarre experience to be coming to the end of the beginning of this journey. Today is the 28th of May. I’ve just sent The Mercenary’s Dawn – Draft 6 (Ha! More like draft 16) off to my editor and now have to wait more than a week to get the notes back (actually got them back three days before they were due because Lindsay’s awesome!). I sent it early because I was ‘tinkering’ and that’s always a bad idea!

  To you, the reader, thanks so much for taking a chance on my book. I really hope you enjoyed it and are excited for more (There’s more. Lots and lots more). I can’t tell you what a nerve wracking journey this has been. You’re reading this in my future, so right now I imagine future me (who I’m always so hard on when it comes to editing ‘Why do it now, future me can do it.’ sigh, past me is such an asshole!) is sitting in a gooey puddle of nerves eating Ben and Jerry’s and trying to figure out if there’s an escape plan.

  You may have noticed I seeded a few future books in here. I have a confession to make, except for Makios, it’s going to be a while before the rest of the males in this book are seen. Renegades is a five book series. It acts to introduce my universe and set into motion events that will be examined as I expand the universe through future series. I have a timeline of when things will happen and so each heroes story will come in its due time. I hope you’ll come along with me for the journey, it’s gonna be long, crazy and filled with emotion and HEA’s.

  Through this journey I’ve had some help, advice and long-suffering people. The two longest serving members of my craziness are my husband Jonathan Peace and my best friend. My husband and I will be celebrating our third wedding anniversary on the 30th of May and ten years together on the 6th of June, so a busy week ahead. Longer serving than him is my best-friend Andrea Moss who is my brain twin, spirit animal, provider of wine and listener of long complaining rants about nonsense. I love these two people more than life.

  Next is Jennifer Ponzini, my critique partner. We haven’t known each other long but have been kinda creeped out by how many things we have in common as we’ve both traversed this writing journey. She’s working on her own series and I can’t wait for you all to read it.

  Next are my Beta readers; Andrea Zamora, Kitty Smart and Whitney Gonitzke. Your feedback was amazing and only helped me be better. I now have a folder especially for favourite feedback and all three of you went straight in there. Thanks so much and I hope you’ll all be able to sign up again for the next book.

  To my future ARC’s, thank you so much whomever you are.

  Around three weeks ago I sent several chapters from my book to Amanda Perkins. Your feedback was brutal and painful and it improved the book. I’d gotten into some bad habits during my screenwriting years, such as short, punchy sentences that have no place in prose writing. I’d gotten out of the habit by the time I was halfway through the book but had made no attempt to fix it in the beginning. Your feedback was the reality check I needed to get my act together. Thank you.

  Then there is Sam Muraski who designed the
cover during what has to be one of the most challenging times in history. Yet she somehow always had time to answer my inane badgering.

  Lindsay at Ly Publishing edited the book and did an amazing job (Any mistakes herein are mine alone, probably one of the edits I chose not to accept). When going through her edits I was struck by what an exceptional job she did and how she got my story, the context and my voice.

  Last but not least, at the beginning of the year I came across Hayley Benitez in the Romance With Aliens That Look Like Aliens group (Note: If you’re not a member of the Facebook page, I highly recommend you join up) she was getting ready to release her first story in an anthology. I PM’d her and suggested we support each other during the beginning of our journeys. Thanks to her I found my editor and got loads of advice on how to traverse the more professional parts of this journey. I will always be grateful to her for helping me. Hayley and her cousin Amanda Crawford co-write under the name Octavia Kore. Check out her books Queen of Twilight and Ecstasy From The Deep.

  Going forward, Makios’s story is due out at the end of August and, having already written it, this is my favourite so far. I can’t wait for you to meet Makios’s ‘little human’.

  If you want to know what happened on Tessa while Alethia was away, sign up to my newsletter either by clicking this link, or, if you’re reading the print book, by visiting www.lucypeace.com and filling out the mailchimp form. I’m not a spammer, too busy writing, but you will get fortnightly newsletters keeping you up to date. This will also include random bonus shorts. A whole bunch of new Tessan’s were made on Teralis, including females. Occasionally, I’ll include a link to a short story, novelette or novella which tells the story of how some of the males you met in this book met their mates. It’s not going to be as regular as my books, but the stories are in my head and they’re simply too short, or not connected enough to the overriding arc to turn into a full-length novel. However, if you’d prefer not to sign up, I will also be releasing them on KU and to buy at the same time.

  If I’ve managed to keep your attention for this long, well done; you have a longer attention span than I do! I just want to thank you again for reading my book. Whether you loved it or loathed it, I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to review it. Self-published authors live and die by how many reviews we get, well, not literally, but they’re so important to our visibility by other readers. You can find my book on Amazon, all countries; and Goodreads.