Fighting the Stars

by Jessica Killabrew

  Fighting the Stars

  Book 3 Leaving Triad Series

  By

  KD Jones

  Jessica Killabrew

  Copyright 2016 KD Jones Publishing

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1:

  Chapter 2:

  Chapter 3:

  Chapter 4:

  Chapter 5:

  Chapter 6:

  Chapter 7:

  Chapter 8:

  Chapter 9:

  Chapter 10:

  Chapter 11:

  Chapter 12:

  Chapter 13:

  Chapter 14:

  Chapter 15:

  Chapter 16:

  Chapter 17:

  Chapter 18:

  Chapter 19:

  Chapter 20:

  About the Authors

  BLURB

  Captain Rena is not about to let a male take over her ship. Especially the cocky, womanizing Captain Turk, who also happens to be her ex-lover. He is the one male with the power to destroy her. Will she be able to continue to resist him?

  Captain Turk is living the life. He has his own ship and any woman on board would be glad to be his. Unfortunately the one woman he desires the most hates him. She has good reason to. So when an opportunity arises that allows him to work closely with her, he takes full advantage of it.

  Can he convince her to give him a second chance? Danger surrounds them. Rena and Turk will need to resolve their feelings for one another while they are finding the stars.

  Prologue

  The Triad Galaxies, which consisted of three nearby star systems, were facing a crisis. The inhabitants living on the few planets within the Triad Galaxies were afraid that their worlds would end. Their central star, their sun, was expanding in mass exponentially. This expansion caused the water supply of all planets in the three star systems to dry up. The temperatures had become almost unbearable. Their sun continued to swallow up everything in its path, threatening to destroy life on the existing planets. Something drastic had to be done.

  A galactic evacuation was called for, and the race was on for all those who still inhabited the older planets to leave the area. The Terrans were in a panic; they didn't have enough ships to get all of their people off the planet. Those with government ties or the extremely wealthy were given the highly sought-after spots on board evacuating ships. Several alien species, once known throughout the galaxy as space pirates, seized the opportunity to benefit financially from the disaster.

  At one time, humanoids had banned all alien life from Terra, but their only hope of survival was to rely on the aliens who had nearly made them extinct.

  A hundred years ago, Terrans had met their first alien species. It wasn’t a pleasant encounter. The aliens they met were a warlike faction who wanted to enslave the Terrans and use them as laborers. Many women and children were also given over to the sex-slave trade.

  A second alien nation came to the human’s rescue, but the damage had been done. Hatred and prejudice ran deep on both sides. Now, with the Terrans’ home world about to die, they were forced to once again rely on the aliens. Both aliens and Terrans needed to overcome their hatred of one another and learn to live together peaceably if they had any hope to survive after leaving Triad.

  To protect those evacuating from abuse, the Safe Passage Act was passed. All the captains of the ships used for evacuation had to sign the agreement and would be held liable for any damages or violation of this act.

  Chapter 1

  “I don’t have time to babysit her! I have a ship and a business to run!” Rena said with irritation, staring at her mother’s image on the videophone.

  “Are you saying that you’re too busy to help your sister and nephew?” her mother asked.

  “Tena’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.” She knew she sounded like a bitch. Had she really become so cold inside that she couldn’t feel sorry for her only sister?

  “Rena Marie Sorenson, I raised you better than that!”

  She was in trouble now; her mother used her full name. Normally, she just went by Captain Rena or just Rena to her friends. She didn’t have a lot of friends—her job didn’t allow a lot of time for that. At least, that’s what she told herself.

  Rena was a loner. She didn’t used to be like that but after having the two people she trusted most in the world betray her and break her heart, she hadn’t trusted anyone enough to get close to her. She pushed everyone away. Now her mother was expecting her to save one of the people who had broken her heart—her sister.

  Tena, her little sister, used to be her best friend. Somehow, they had grown apart as they reached adulthood, and her sister began to resent Rena, even though Rena had tried repeatedly to support her. Tena had betrayed her in the worst way and now, years later, her mother was forcing her and her sister to travel together. How could she turn down her mother or turn her back on her sister when Tena needed her the most?

  “Will you help your sister and nephew for my sake?”

  She sighed. “Fine. Let her know I’ll make a special stop to get her but she needs to be ready to board when I get there. I’m not going to jeopardize anything while she takes her time. She needs to have her shit together.”

  “Language, Rena!”

  “I’m a grown woman. I can say whatever I want.”

  “Not to your mother! You need to show respect!”

  She closed her eyes and took deep breaths. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”

  “You sound stressed. Is your job getting to you?”

  “It can be stressful sometimes, but being able to command my own ship is very rewarding.”

  “If you ever get tired of flying around from place to place, you could come back home. Martha Low’s son just got divorced and moved back in with his mother.”

  “I’m not interested in dating anyone and I love what I do.” Her communicator was beeping on the table. She reached down and read the text. There was a problem with one of the passengers. “Mom, I’ve got to go handle a situation.”

  “Okay, I’ll let your sister know you’re coming. I love you, Rena.”

  “Love you, too.” She ended the videophone call. She stood up and headed out of her quarters.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Rena.” Several of her newest crew members nodded as she passed them. She stopped to ask them a few questions.

  “How are you liking being on board?”

  “It’s great,” responded on individual. “But I was wondering…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, we worked a double shift two days in a row. Shouldn’t we have a day off after that?”

  “Yes of course. I’ll correct the shift log.”

  Rena was shocked. This wasn’t the first complaint she had heard about regarding shift hours. Every time a complaint came in, she would check the sign-in logs on the computer, but the crew members’ shifts looked normal. All shifts were signed off by Lieutenant Jaken or Lieutenant Nade. Lately, she had begun to question their loyalty to her. She wasn’t sure what she would do about them, but she had worked too hard to let them mess things up for her.

  She loved being the captain of her own ship. Even in these modern times, few women held such powerful positions. She had worked hard for years to be able to buy the small galactic coaster ship. Usually, her ship was used to trade goods between planets.

  When the Triad nations announced evacuation plans because of the worsening
conditions of their sun and needed more ships to help remove people in the area, she quickly volunteered. It took no time at all to convert her ship to a passenger one. The only problems she encountered were the passengers themselves.

  She could hear male voices arguing in the corridor. She rounded the corner and found a balding male holding a leather suitcase and yelling at one of her crew members. Other passengers and crew members were watching the fiasco. She stepped forward to try to calm the situation.

  “What’s going on here?”

  The bald male, a Terran, turned toward her. “I paid good money to be put in a VIP suite. This is a pitiful excuse for living quarters!”

  She pulled out her communicator, which acted as a small handheld computer. “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Leopold Purty.”

  She looked up his information in the ship’s database. “Mr. Purty, you were assigned standard quarters. This is a standard.”

  “This is unacceptable. I cannot travel in conditions like this. I have plenty of money — I even brought some of my gold. I want an upgrade!”

  Captain Rena calmly stared at the irritating male. “I do not care if you have all the gold in the universe. This is the only room available to you.”

  “Fine. I am issuing a complaint with the captain of this bucket of steel.”

  “I am the captain," she asserted.

  “I’ll go over your head then!” The male stormed into his room and shut the door.

  Rena walked away without looking where she was going, as she tried to keep her temper under control. As she rounded the corner, she bumped into someone.

  “Easy," a male voice said as arms reached out to help Rena regain her balance.

  “Sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going." She took a step back and checked out the male before her. He was tall, probably about six feet six inches. He was slim, but well-built. He had curly blond hair and handsome blue eyes. He was Terran.

  “I’m Jesse Collins." He reached out to shake her hand.

  Rena smiled at him as she grasped his hand. She liked that his hands weren’t soft. Nothing turned her off more than a male that was more feminine than she was.

  “Captain Rena.” She thought about the name Jesse and wondered why it sounded vaguely familiar. Jesse …. Jesse … oh. “You’re the escort?”

  He laughed. “Liaison actually, yes.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Liaisons do accompany their clients to events and dinners, but there is no relationship beyond a professional one. Escorts do the same thing, but sometimes provide sexual services. My boss prefers to use the term liaison to keep her employees’ reputations separated from the usual escorts.”

  “So you get paid for dating your clients, but you just don’t have sex with them?”

  “We don’t have dates. That’s actually against our contract. We escort our clients to dinners and events. Sometimes our clients are so focused on their jobs they don’t have time to find a partner who would normally go with them.”

  She snorted. “I can relate to that.”

  “We also have found that by lending our services to the different species, we can do a bit of culture training on both sides. You say you’re too busy to have a personal life?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you should consider being one of my clients,” he offered as he began to openly check her out.

  Rena couldn’t believe the Jesse’s audacity. It was also a bit of a turn-on when he clearly liked what he saw. It was also naughty, considering he told her that as a liaison he had to keep it professional. She liked confident males. She hadn’t planned to use the services of the liaison, but he had her thinking twice about it.

  “Maybe.”

  Another voice interrupted the two of them. “You better keep your distance little Terran. That female will chew you up and spit you out.”

  Rena braced herself. She had hoped to avoid this, but it was bound to happen eventually. She knew she would have to come face to face with the one male in all of the universe whom she hated with a passion. She turned around and gave a tight smile.

  “Captain Turk. Can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you again.” Damn him for looking so—hot. He was six feet eight inches of sexy man with long black hair and deep brown eyes. The eyes were unusual for a Quadruped. Usually they had green eyes. He always hinted that he was a mixed breed but didn’t know anything other than his Quadruped heritage. Quadrupeds were big, hairier than other breeds. Turk used to have long hair but he had it short now. He was the male that kept her up at night.

  “You know this day has been a long time coming.”

  “It came too soon.”

  He growled. “Not soon enough to my liking. Rena, we need to talk.”

  ******

  Turk couldn’t believe he was finally standing face to face with the only female he had ever loved, the only female who had brought him to his knees and broken his heart. He followed her to her personal commander’s quarters. He watched as her crew greeted her warmly and with respect. Some of the males would watch her a little longer as she went by. That made him clench his fist.

  It had been years since their break up and he knew she had been with other males, just like he had been with other females during that time. It didn’t matter. When it came to Rena, he was possessive and probably always would be.

  She had gone out of her way to put distance between them and to hurt him as much as possible. He knew every time she had flirted with the few friends he had because they would tell him. None of them took her up on her invitations, but she had known they wouldn’t. She just wanted them to tell him about it. This last time with Drako didn’t surprise him, but it still hurt. Something needed to be resolved between them, once and for all.

  He followed her into her private office and closed the door behind him.

  “Why are you here?”

  “Drako told you he was sending someone to investigate the complaints. I volunteered to come.”

  She shook her head like she was trying to deny what he was telling her. “You don’t work for the Galactic Peace Patrol.”

  “Drako swore me in and filed the paperwork with the GPP so that I could act as a temporary Galactic Patrol Officer.”

  “Why would you leave your ship to be a GPO? Being a captain was always your biggest dream.”

  “You know why.” He narrowed his eyes at her until she turned away.

  “You’re taking advantage of my situation to come here and get closure.”

  “Don’t you think we both need closure?”

  “Look, what happened between us was a long time ago. I’m over it and I’ve moved on.”

  “Then why did you hit on Drako?”

  “Because he’s a sexy man.”

  “He’s the absolute last male who would ever sleep with you and you know that. You did it to get my attention.”

  The fact that she didn’t deny it was all the answer he needed. “Why didn’t you answer my phone calls?”

  She glared over at him. “You slept with my sister. There was nothing you could have done or said to fix that.”

  “Rena—” He stopped abruptly when someone knocked on her door.

  “Come in,” Rena called.

  A male opened the door and came in. He checked Turk out with suspicious eyes. “Who is this guy?”

  Rena glared at the male. “Excuse me, Lieutenant Jaken, you don’t have the right to come in here and question me in that manner.”

  Jaken turned bright red. “Sorry, Captain.”

  Turk reached out a hand to the cocky male. “I’m Turk. I’m training to become Captain Rena’s second in command.”

  Jaken glared at him, then turned furious eyes on Rena. “I thought that I was to train as your second?”

  “I...thought it would be good to have some fresh blood.”

  “What the hell? You can’t do that!”

  Rena raised her eyebrow at him. “I can do any damn thing I want. I’m th
e captain of this ship.”

  Turk watched the other male, ready in case he tried to strike out at Rena. No way would he let any male lay hands on her. The other male clenched and unclenched his fists.

  “My apologies for my outburst. I was taken by surprise. I’ll go have Nade work out a training schedule for…”

  “Turk.”

  “...for Turk.”

  “Thank you, Jaken.” Rena and Turk remained silent as they watched the other male leave.

  Turk turned to face her. “What exactly happened to your previous second in command?”

  “There was an accident in the engine room.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes, but Randall is in critical condition. He was transferred to one of the large medical freight ships so that the surgeons could keep watch over him.”

  “Don’t you think that was a little too coincidental to all the other problems and complaints that have been filed against you?” He had read up on the case once he agreed to come.

  He knew Rena. She had studied extremely hard to gain her galactic pilot’s license. It was her dream to one day own her own galactic ship. For these charges to be brought against her made no sense. He couldn’t take back what had happened all those years ago between him and Rena’s sister, but he could do everything he could to help her now. He just needed her to give him the chance.

  “I guess we have no choice in the matter. Drako sent you so I’ll have to deal with having you here.”

  That was certainly upbeat of her. “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

  “Whatever. You’d better hurry. If Jaken is already pissed about you taking something from him, he’ll take it out on you even worse if you’re late. He hates tardiness.”

  “I’ll handle Jaken.”

  “I want an update on your investigation.”

  “I’ll update you after talking to Drako.”

  “Fine.” She picked up a keyboard and began typing, thereby dismissing him altogether. He realized he had to leave, but, eventually, they were going to have to sit down and air out their personal issues. That should be fun, he thought sarcastically.