by Susan Hayes
No Limit
Susan Hayes
Contents
About The Book
Prologue
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
Epilogue
An introduction to Nova Force
More Sci-Fi Romance from Susan Hayes
About the Author
About The Book
Three hearts. Two worlds. No limits.
Tyran Varosa and Braxon Torr are on a mission. Find an inhabitable planet. Start a new colony. Escape the archaic rules and traditions of the Vardarian homeworld. They never expected to find their mate along the way, and they never imagined she’d be a diminutive human female with pink hair and a warrior’s spirit.
Phaedra Kari has been called a lot of things in her life: trouble, cyber-jockey, lunatic, hacker, but never someone’s mate - not until an alien prince and his best friend arrive at the Drift. She’s got plans of her own, and they don’t include mating anyone, not even a pair of gorgeous aliens whose every touch tempts her to say yes.
When corporate backstabbing progresses to real-life murder, these three will need to come together to ensure the survival of their plans, their friends, and each other.
No Limit
SUSAN HAYES
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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.
Copyright © 2018 Susan Hayes
Full House (Book #5 of the Drift Series)
First E-book Publication: May 2018
Cover Design: Melody Simmons ~ ebookindiecovers.com
Editor: Dayna Hart
Published by: Black Scroll Publications
ISBN: 978-1-988446-13-4
Dedication
For my Mum and Dad, for supporting me no matter where my dreams lead. And for my dear friend Karen, who set me on this path so many years ago.
Prologue
Out on the edge of civilized space is a rag-tag collection of space stations and platforms known as the Drift. It’s a haven for the hunted, the lost, and those seeking second chances. The people who live there hail from every species, class, and corner of the galaxy, but they all have one thing in common: they don’t belong anywhere else.
There’s nothing beyond the Drift but wild space and an asteroid belt full of ore-rich rocks. The asteroids are mined by hundreds of vessels and their hard-working crews. When the ships deliver their haul to be processed, those crews hit the infamous bars, casinos, and pleasure houses that are the Drift’s primary source of income…and only source of entertainment.
It’s a world of its own. One where corporations rule, the laws are flexible, and everything is for sale, for the right price.
* * *
Welcome to the Drift.
Chapter One
Braxon Torr was floating in zero gravity several feet above his favorite chair as he reviewed the latest data from the long-range scans on a wall monitor. The observation lounge was one of the few rooms on the ship big enough to allow him to stretch his wings, which made it his current favorite place to work.
His attention was drawn away by the sound of the only other being onboard stomping up to the door to the lounge, each boot fall landing in time to a litany of decidedly unprincelike curses. Being away from court had been good for Tyran, even if the boredom was slowly driving them both a little insane.
“Braxon! How many times do I need to tell you to quit switching the qarfing gravity orientation in the corridors? I just slammed my head on the ceiling again.”
“Sorry. I forgot to switch it back after I was done.”
“Done what? Why did you need to be walking on the ceiling? And why are you floating? Something wrong with the furniture?” Tyr stood in the doorway and gestured to the unused chair below Braxon. He was sufficiently annoyed that his skin was a brilliant shade of silver. For anyone else, that would have been a warning to step carefully, but Braxon had been the prince’s anrik—his blood-bound companion and protector—since Tyr was ten years old. He knew he had nothing to fear.
“There’s nothing wrong with the furniture. I was just looking for a change in perspective.” The only thing wrong with the furniture was that he’d seen it every day for more than three months. In that time, Braxon had explored every inch of the ship. There wasn’t a chair, bed, or room he hadn’t spent time in. When he had agreed to Tyr’s suggestion that they escape the Vardarian Imperial Court and go on this scouting mission, it had sounded exciting. Finding a new world to colonize would be an adventure. Only, they had yet to find a single inhabitable world, and instead of adventure, they faced a daily grind of dull routine.
“As for what I was doing that required me to flip the gravity, I was repairing a power conduit. It was easier to swap gravity than find a ladder.”
“Next time, change it back. There’s nothing fun about stepping into a corridor only to discover up and down have been reversed.” Tyr rubbed the top of his head, making his short black hair stand up in unruly spikes.
“It depends on your point of view. To me? That’s funny. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“In that case....” Tyr gestured with one hand, and Braxon dropped out of the air like a stone.
He landed in a sprawled heap of wings and limbs across the chair he’d been floating over. “Bakaffa. That was uncalled for.”
Tyran snorted with laughter. “I thought it was funny. Must have been my point of view.”
Braxon flicked two of his fingers up in an obscene gesture before retracting his wings and arranging himself more comfortably in his chair. “Point taken. Next time I’ll put it back.”
“Thank you.” Tyr entered the lounge. “Did you find anything of interest on the scans?” Tyr claimed a seat near one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that gave a breathtaking view of the galaxy outside.
They were currently light-years from any star system, surrounded by the velvet blackness of deep space. The stars gleamed like distant gems, and in orbit around one of them had to be the planet they were searching for. If they found it, they could escape the demands of the imperial court and the Vardarian empress, Tyran’s twin sister, Neha.
“Maybe.” Braxon visualized the data he wanted and the nanites within his body linked to the ship’s computer. A hologram of the area where scans had shown something out of the ordinary appeared in the air in front of him a second later.
“What am I looking at?”
“A map,” Braxon retorted.
“I can see that. What’s so special about this area of this map?”
Braxon reached up and manipulated the image, expanding it and then zeroing in on a sector. “The scans are picking up some kind of signal from this area. It could be more cosmic noise or a natural phenomenon, but the computer projects a sixty percent likelihood it’s not naturally occurring.”
Tyr leaned forward, his hands on his knees as he stared at the display. “Sixty percent?”
“It could be another pulsar or a star nursery, but it's the strongest lead we�
�ve had in weeks. If there’s intelligent life over there, I vote we go find them. I’m dying for a conversation with someone I haven’t known for most of my life. You already know all my best stories.”
“Agreed. I caught myself having a long, in-depth conversation with one of the servo-droids this morning. Let’s go see what’s making all that noise. Where there’s life, there have to be life-supporting planets.”
“That’s the theory.” Braxon took another look at his friend and frowned. Tyr’s sleeveless vest had a ring of gemstones affixed to the collar, and the flowing fabric was dyed green and black, the traditional colors of the Varosa royal family. There was something more bothering Tyr than just a bump on the head. “I know that look. And that outfit. You’ve spoken with your sister, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “Neha wants me to stop this ‘frivolous pursuit’ and return home."
“You’ve been at her side her entire life. She doesn’t understand why you’re not there now, giving her your counsel and support.”
Tyran shook his head, and the light in his blue eyes dimmed for a moment. “Neha relies on the counsel of others too much. She rules by committee, which is no way to run an empire. So long as I am at court, she’ll never come into her own.”
“And the longer she listens to those vipa she calls her counselors, the harder it will be to wrest control away from them,” Braxon added. Tyran’s twin sister might be the eldest by a matter of minutes, but she had always relied on her brother’s support and advice. Now she had ascended to the Imperial throne, she still continued to look to Tyr, and it was causing unrest and confusion at court. Treasonous whispers had circulated more than once suggesting Tyran would make a better ruler.
“It’s time for me to step away. Neither of us would be happy spending the rest of our lives at court, and if I am not there, no one can try to put me on a throne I do not want.”
“She still doesn’t suspect what we’re trying to do?”
“No, but we’re running out of time.”
“Did she order you to return?”
“Not yet. But she will soon.”
If they returned without finding what they were looking for, they would never get another chance. Declaring a diaspora and leading a group of colonists to a new home would allow them both to live free. For Tyran, it meant escaping a life of court intrigue and the expectations that came with his rank. For Braxon, it meant being away from those who would judge him for his ancestry.
He wasn’t a pure-blooded Vardarian. Anywhere else in the empire, that was the norm. Their species had scattered across the stars centuries ago, finding new worlds to inhabit, new alliances to forge, and occasionally finding races genetically compatible with them. But Braxon lived on the Vardarian homeworld, where everyone was judged by their lineage.
Tyr got to his feet and walked over to the hologram. He touched the location with one finger, and a set of coordinates appeared. A moment later, the ship’s main engines powered up.
“We’re going right now?” Braxon asked.
“Why not? This might be our last chance. We’ll make the journey in three or four jumps. That should give us time to stop and assess as we get closer.”
“And if the computer’s right and there’s someone out there?”
“If they’re friendly, we start first contact protocols. If they’re not…”
Braxon grinned. “If they’re not, then you steer, and I’ll shoot.”
The Vardarian empire was relatively peaceful, but that didn’t mean they were pacifists. Their ship, the Santar, was a royal cruiser equipped with enough firepower to protect itself and its occupants. By approaching in a series of jumps they’d have time to gather information and begin the process of translating any new languages into Vardarian. If this weren’t another false reading, they’d be ready by the time they arrived at their destination.
Please, don’t be another false lead.
Phaedra stared into her cocktail glass and tried to banish her bad mood. This wasn’t the day for reflection and regret. Today was the best day of her best friend’s life, and she should be celebrating with Alyson and the others. They had so many reasons to celebrate. The corporations were finally being held accountable for their past choices. Arrests had been made, and more would be coming. The remaining cyborgs had been freed, and the station where they were being experimented on had been shut down. The good guys were winning.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling their winning streak wouldn’t last. There were still too many unknowns. Too many nameless players with stakes in a secret game Phaedra and the others were only just started to figure out. Vic and Ward, the two cyborg assassins once known as the Reaper, were still working to retrieve their memories of who had taken them, and where they’d been held. They were still here on Astek station, but they didn’t socialize with anyone other than their batch brothers, Jaeger and Toro. The corporations were still destroying lives, and it haunted her that she couldn’t do more.
As happy as she was for Alyson and her three new husbands, her head was still full of dark memories she simply couldn’t shake.
She had left the Drift full of hope and determination to save the cyborgs still held prisoner. Save. The word made her laugh, now. Freeing the cyborgs they had found had been relatively easy. The Reamus research station was already abandoned by the time the IAF ships had arrived. Someone had tipped them off, and the bastards running that hellish place had vanished, taking all their data and most of the evidence with them. The only thing they had left behind were their test subjects – the cyborgs Phaedra had come to save. Only, it wasn’t as simple as showing up and declaring them free. Saving them…she didn’t know how to do that, and no one else seemed to have any ideas, either. So here she was, brooding instead of dancing and celebrating her friend’s wedding day, her only companions a steady supply of drinks provided by the Nova Club staff. Since she currently lived in the residential area above the club, they knew her preferences well.
The bar had been transformed for the reception, full of flowers and the flickering light of a hundred or more holographic candles. Even the fight cage had been decked out in garlands of flowers. That had to be Zura’s idea. If anyone else had tried to put so much as a ribbon on those bars, the owners, Kit, Luke, and Cynder would have torn it right back down. Zura’s pregnancy was advanced enough she was showing, now, her small frame expanding to accommodate the twins she carried. Her husbands, Kit and Luke, didn’t let her out of their sight. Not that Phaedra could blame them.
Zura’s babies were unique in all the galaxy because she was the first non-cyborg to ever carry medi-bots. Her children would be the first to be born with nanites running through their bloodstream, repairing any damage and keeping the children healthy for the rest of what might be very long lives. They represented change coming to the human race. A change the corporations had tried to prevent through any means necessary.
Her musings were interrupted by an upbeat male voice. “I’m going to ask you a really stupid question right now, but I swear it’s not a pick-up line. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Phaedra turned and was about to offer up an acidic comment, but one look at the man standing there with a drink in his hand and smile on his face made her stop. He was cute, with dark skin, a mischievous grin, and hazel eyes that did seem familiar. Okay, she did know him, but from where?
“Uh. Maybe?” She eyed his dress uniform, noting the silver, five-pointed star that marked him as a member of Nova Force. The only IAF soldiers she knew on sight had been part of the mission she’d returned from three days ago, and there hadn’t been any Nova Force officers onboard.
He caught the direction of her gaze and chuckled. “I think we crossed paths before I joined up. My name’s Eric Erben.”
The name sounded familiar, but she still couldn’t place him, and she didn’t feel like sorting through her onboard data stores to figure out who he was.
“Sometimes I went by Magi. In those circles, you were known
as Phreak, right?”
“Magi? Holy fraxx, I didn’t recognize you! What the hell are you doing in the IAF? The last time we crossed paths we were…” She trailed off before saying anything incriminating. She and Eric were cyber-jockeys, their bodies and brains wired with tech that allowed them to interface with computers on a level no other being could match.
“We were doing what we do best.” He winked and claimed the seat next to her.
“Looks like you changed sides, though.” She pointed to his uniform.
“Not long after I saw you last, I screwed up and got caught. I was given two choices: sign up or go to prison with a total ban on access to all technology.” He shuddered. “Can you imagine?”
“That’s a fate worse than death,” she agreed.
“What about you? This isn’t your usual crowd, or your usual look, either.” His gaze dropped to the sapphire blue bridesmaid gown the brides, Alyson and Lieksa had cajoled her into wearing for the occasion. It was backless, strapless, and she’d only agreed to wear it once the brides gave in to her request to wear her favorite pair of boots with it. She’d buffed them to a high shine, and they were a whole lot more comfortable than high heels.
“One of the brides is my best friend. I wouldn’t miss her big day.”
Eric’s eyes widened. “Which one?”
“Alyson. The one who just married the galaxy’s sexiest triplets, lucky girl.”
