by Hayes, Susan
3013: STOWAWAY
3013: THE SERIES
By: Susan Hayes
3013: STOWAWAY
Sonja Grekov has spent her life in a gilded cage, trapped by her wealthy family’s expectations and the scroll tattoo on her face that declares her to be one of the coveted fertile women on Earth. No longer willing to be a pawn to further her parents’ ambition, she finally finds the courage to break free before she can be claimed in a loveless match. She is determined to set her own path, but never expected where it would take her...
Trevar Storm and Deacon Wilde are Alliance Elites, but there’s nothing elite about their current assignment. They crew one of the oldest freighters in the fleet, ferrying goods across Alliance controlled space with just each other for company. With a reputation for trouble and no chance at promotion, the two men are planning for the day they can go into business for themselves and leave their military lives behind.
A straightforward supply run turns into a life changing event when the two elites discover a treasure hidden in their cargo bay. Keeping their sexy stowaway may bring the full wrath of the Alliance down on their heads, but Trevar and Deacon won’t let her go without a fight. Will their journey end in heartache, or can three misfit hearts find love in the darkness between the stars?
An Erotic Romance Novel.
3013: STOWAWAY by Susan Hayes
Copyright © 2014 Susan Hayes
Kindle Edition
First E-book Publication: July 2014
Cover design by Sloan Winters
Editing by L. Watanabe
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. It is fiction so facts and events may not be accurate except to the current world the book takes place in.
Books in the 3013 Series: (in order published)
3013: MATED – Laurie Roma
3013: RENEGADE – Susan Hayes
3013: CLAIMED – Laurie Roma
3013: STOWAWAY – Susan Hayes
DEDICATION
To my readers, for falling in love with my characters and wanting their stories to continue.
To my parents, for believing in me.
To Karen, for unwavering friendship, support and a decade’s worth of laughter.
And to Laurie, defender of dreams and a wonderful friend.
Thank you.
***
PROLOGUE
The year is 3013.
Earth barely survived the Alien Wars that have ravaged the planet, and an unknown virus had nearly wiped out the entire population. On the brink of extinction, humans struggle to rebuild their civilization, although nothing would ever bring back what once was.
Enforcing martial law, a new age of mankind is born, where warriors rule and women are the ultimate prize. Only the elite earn breeding rights and are granted leave to claim a woman in pairs. Men dream of the day that they will be able to claim a woman to love, but for those chosen being claimed means the end of their freedom and a beginning to a lifelong bond with two strangers. The warriors may have the choice, but the battle for their woman's heart has only begun…
***
CHAPTER ONE
Sonja Grekov bolted across the stretch of empty tarmac, desperately trying to ignore the stabbing pain in her feet and the stitch in her side. The shuttle landing field was eerily quiet this time of night, the floodlights twisting the shadows into threatening shapes that made her feel like she was running across an open stage, dodging spotlights as she went. The darkness was her only ally against discovery. If they caught her this time, she’d never get another opportunity.
This was it.
Voices rang out from the far side of the field, every distorted syllable thick with frustration and fury. Yep, they’d figured out she was missing. It hadn’t been easy to distract her four bodyguards, but she’d managed it with the help of her gift. The trouble was, her precognitive abilities were limited to the short term. The genetic enhancements given to the elite soldiers and fertile women made them stronger, faster, and capable of accelerated healing. In some recipients, the enhancements produced rarer and far more interesting abilities, like Sonja’s gift for seeing into the future, which made her a Class-B Precog. She’d seen far enough ahead to manipulate and elude her escorts, but now she was free of them, she had no idea what to do next. All Sonja knew for certain was that she wasn’t going back home. She didn’t need to be a precog to know that future. Her parents had laid it out for her very clearly.
Sonja’s mother had contacted her only a few hours ago to let her know that negotiations for her claiming were now concluded. Of course, her parents hadn’t bothered to tell her that they were even in negotiations. While she had been enjoying a few days of relative freedom in Fort Saken, celebrating her brother Nikolai’s bonding ceremony, her parents had been busy finalizing the details of her life. That was nothing new for Sonja.
To the rest of the world, Sonja Grekov was the pampered daughter of Petr Grekov, Janice Burrows-Grekov, and Carl Burrows. Together they owned and ran G-Mex Robotics, one of the largest corporations on Earth. The truth was that Sonja’s life was not her own, and never had been. She was nothing more than a pawn to be used to further her parents’ unbridled ambition and greed. For years Sonja had accepted her role as family chattel, but not anymore. Alayna, her brother’s chosen, had shown her that there were other choices she could make. Not safe choices, but anything was better than what waited for her back home. She’d thought she had more time to arrange things and plan her escape, but that wasn’t how it had turned out.
Her parents had selected a pair of elites from high ranking families, rich in both money and power. The men were also old enough to be her fathers. She’d met them both before, at quite a few of her parents’ many social functions. Neither man held any attraction for her. They were cold, arrogant, and disinterested in anything except gaining more wealth or extending their influence. Sonja wanted more out of life than to be transferred from one gilded cage to another. The laws of the Alliance stated that as a fertile female, she didn’t have the right to refuse a legitimate claim, and the men were a properly registered pair. She knew it was splitting hairs, but since the men had not actually told her they were going to claim her, she’d decided that it didn’t count. But if she wanted to stay free, she couldn’t return home. So here she was, fleeing into the night with a sketchy plan and no time to come up with a better one.
She found a temporary hiding space beneath the outstretched wing of some sort of transport and huddled deep in the shadows as she activated the display of her wrist unit. Any second someone would see the glow of her readouts and come to investigate, but she had to risk it. With trembling fingers Sonja entered in a series of commands and then paused, her hand over the last key. If she confirmed the last order, there would be no going back.
“Stars help me,” she breathed and sent the command. Within seconds every credit she owned was stripped from her personal accounts and transferred to an anonymous account with an off world bank. She had no doubt that would trigger an alert to her family. They had to be watching her finances, they monitored everything she did. They watched her brothers too, as much as they could, given the fact that all three of them were Alliance officers. Any minute now, her mother and fathers would know what she’d done.
With a sigh she stripped the wrist unit from her arm and tried to quell the sense of unease that rose up at the mere idea of being without the small device. It wa
s almost a part of her, interwoven with every aspect of her life, but she had to leave it behind. The damned thing was programmed to act as a beacon, ensuring that her parents and bodyguards could always find her.
They called it a safety feature. She called it an electronic leash.
Sonja took several valuable seconds to close her eyes and clear her mind, reaching for the elusive threads of probabilities. She tested several of them in quick succession, looking for the best outcome she could find. The longer she had to explore her limited views of the future, the more concrete the outcome would be, but there was no time for anything more than a cursory peek. The first chain of events that didn’t lead to her immediate capture was the one she took.
Kicking off her dress shoes, she bolted out of her hiding place at a flat run, her midnight-blue party dress flaring around her legs with every step. She veered hard to the left, hurling the wrist unit away. It went sailing off into the darkness, and she spun around and ran in the other direction. It wouldn’t buy her much time, but every second counted.
The voices behind her were getting louder, and she put on another burst of speed, running headlong toward the far end of the field where she could see the lights of several shuttles. The tarmac was rough, tearing at the soles of her feet with every step she took, but better bruised and bloody than falling and twisting an ankle while trying to run in her shoes.
The next time I run away from home, I’ll remember to bring suitable footwear.
When she got closer to her goal, Sonja could see that two of the vessels were being loaded, while the third one was being unloaded. Droids were doing the heavy lifting, scuttling back and forth between the ships and a series of lev-sleds. Three tired looking workers were leaning up against the largest sled, talking amongst themselves as they kept a casual eye on their automated workforce. Of course, the droids were G-Mex, made in one of her family’s many factories. Even out here in the badlands, where the scars of the Alien Wars were still raw, her family’s influence was strong. It was the story of her life.
Faced with one final choice, Sonja couldn’t do more than a quick gut check, letting her intuition guide her. Her only goal was to put some distance between her and the thugs her parents paid to keep her safe... and firmly under their control.
Her instincts screamed for her to head for the shuttle on the right, so that was the direction she went in, circling wide and keeping out of the light as much as she could. The night wind blew up, howling across the tarmac with enough force to send her long, dark, hair streaming across her face. Her mouth and nose were filled with the acrid fumes of rocket fuel.
Shivering with cold, barefoot, Sonja finally stopped running and began a careful approach to the shuttle her talent told her offered the greatest chance at a successful escape. She swept her hair out of her face, clearing her vision so that she could track the comings and goings of the droids.
Loaded lev-sleds were drawn up the ramp every two minutes or so, and she managed to fall in beside one, using the bulky cartons to hide from the men trading insults and jokes as they waited on their robotic workforce to finish. Once inside the crammed cargo bay, Sonja scrambled out of the way and into the assorted crates and packages that made up the shuttle’s inventory. Judging by the stacks of cargo already inside, they’d be finished loading soon, which meant she had very little time.
Where to hide…
One cranny seemed as good as the next, so she picked one at random. She banged her shin on the sharp metal edge of a container as she crawled over it, gave a muffled yelp of pain, and then wiggled herself down into a small space between two crates that were both bigger than she was. She had just managed to get settled out of sight when one of the droids stacked another pile of smaller items over top of her hiding place, sealing her in.
Shit.
With only a thin slice of light illuminating her newly made prison, Sonja did her best to make herself comfortable, tugging her dress down over her bare legs and tucking her purse behind her head as a makeshift pillow. With nothing else to do, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the bulkhead. Whatever her destination was, it had to be better than what waited for her back at home.
Silence fell, the lights dimmed to near darkness, and in the first moment of peace she’d had since that morning, Sonja closed her eyes and tried to relax. She let her mind drift, once again casting her awareness down lines of probability and possibility. Everything she could see reassured her that she would not be caught by her bodyguards, at least not tonight. Strangely though, all the threads led to the same blank wall, and no matter how long she focused, she couldn’t see past it. Whatever was coming, it had to be beyond her limited abilities. At least by the time it came, she would have had a chance to recover from her headlong flight away from her family’s private shuttle, her overzealous guards, and the headache that always came when she tried to use her gift too often in a short period of time.
When the shuttle’s engines fired up, she felt it as a deep rumble that worked its way into the marrow of her bones. This was it. Take off. Escape. She’d really done it. Her sister-in-law, Alayna, had once suggested that if Sonja wanted to change her fate, she’d have to do something reckless. Sitting awkwardly on the cold, hard floor of the shuttle’s cargo bay, headed stars only knew where, Sonja was certain Alayna would be proud of her.
****
Trevar Storm adjusted the mic and cleared his throat before making contact with the base’s flight control tower. He knew it wasn’t necessary. The onboard computer had already filed their flight plan, cargo and destination with the control tower’s AI twenty minutes ago. That never stopped him from making the final clearance in person, human being to human being. Besides, he and his engineer would be spending the next few weeks alone on their ship, with no one else to talk to but each other. Trevar was going to take every chance he could get to chat with anyone who would give him the time of day.
“Tower, this is Lieutenant Trevar Storm on Alliance Shuttle Sierra Whiskey One requesting orbital launch clearance.”
“Affirmative Shuttle Sierra Whiskey One, you are cleared.” There was a pause, and then the controller’s voice softened to an informal tone. “Thunder, is that you piloting that ancient relic?”
Not many people called him Thunder anymore, but there were still a few in the universe who couldn’t shake the habit. It always brought back memories of another life, one he didn’t like to think about. This time though, it also brought recognition. Trevar “Thunder” Storm grinned to himself as he answered. “Could be. If this is who I think it is, then you still owe me thirty credits you cheap bastard.”
“Son of a bitch, that is you! Where have you been hiding yourself?”
“That’s classified information, Johnson. Maybe next time I’m in the area I’ll drop by and tell you what I can. What the hell are you doing dirt side, anyway? Last time we saw you, you were on X12.”
“We? Shit. Tell me you’re not still dragging poor Deke around the galaxy with you?”
“Who else in the cosmos would put up with his cranky ass?” Deacon Wilde deadpanned from the co-pilot’s chair, and then ducked as Trevar’s hand swung up behind him, narrowly missing the back of his head.
Johnson chuckled. “Classified, huh? Next time you two are back this way, look me up. I’m a bonded man now. No more glory days in the big black for me. I’ll buy you both a drink while I’m explaining to you why I technically won that bet and don’t owe you shit, Thunder.”
“You’re on. Say hello to that worthless bastard you picked as a bonding partner, will you? Along with my condolences on the two of you getting stuck bonded and planet bound. Shuttle Sierra Whiskey One, over and out.”
Trevar removed the headset and hung it back on its peg before looking over at Deke. The red haired engineer was frowning and muttering as he called up screen after screen of data.
“What’s bugging you?” Trevar asked, though he could already guess. After all their years working together, he’d gotten to kn
ow his engineer pretty damned well. Something wasn’t adding up, and there was nothing Deke hated more than incomplete data. It ruffled all his feathers and made him grumpier than hell.
Deke scowled at the readouts as he answered without looking up. “According to the sensors, we’re overloaded. I swear those idiots on the ground crew need to start paying more attention to what the droids are doing and quit gossiping like old ladies. There’s something back there that isn’t on the manifest.”
“How much are we over?” Trevar asked, knowing that he was a good enough pilot to coax the shuttle to escape velocity no matter how overburdened they were. He knew Deke wasn’t worried about that either. It was just that the younger man was hardwired with a need for order.
“Not a lot. Less than a hundred and fifty pounds.”
“We’re only going to the orbital platform, so fuel isn’t going to be an issue. I’ll dial down the inertial dampers and divert the power to the engines. Can you slap a containment field over the cargo bay? That should stop anything from shaking loose on the trip.”
Deke’s hazel eyes narrowed and he scrubbed a hand over his close-cropped red beard, his frustration evident. “We should go back there and identify our mystery inventory before we take off, but you’re not going to do that, are you?”
Trevar chuckled at his partner’s disgruntled tone. “Hell no, I’m not going back there to look, and neither are you. We’re already behind schedule. Bad enough that someone added this stop to our tour of the ass end of nowhere. It would’ve been nice if someone had told us the entire fucking base was off celebrating their leaders’ bonding ceremony today, we could have skipped this stop instead of sitting here for hours.” Trevar turned to grin at his engineer. “Besides, anything not on the manifest is fair game. So let’s hope that whatever it is, we can eat it, drink it or make a profit on it, because as far as I’m concerned, it belongs to us now.
