by Susan Hayes
Table of Contents
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
No Limit
Sneak Peak at No Limit
More Sci-Fi Romance from Susan Hayes
About the Author
Full House
Susan Hayes
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
No Limit
Sneak Peak at No Limit
More Sci-Fi Romance from Susan Hayes
About the Author
About The Book
Opportunity doesn’t always knock. Sometimes, it crash lands.
A veteran of the Resource Wars, Raze is a cyborg with a simple plan. He wants to be left alone, forever.
Planetary scout Sevda Rem is lightyears from civilization when her ship is damaged, forcing an emergency landing on an unoccupied planet. At least, it was supposed to be unoccupied…
He’s trespassing on a corporate-owned planet. She’s duty bound to report him. The deck is stacked against them, but if they play their cards right, they might discover that together they hold a winning hand.
Full House
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 © 2017 Susan Hayes
Full House (Book #4.5 of the Drift Series)
First E-book Publication: March 2018
Cover Design: Melody Simmons ~ ebookindiecovers.com
Editor: Dayna Hart
Published by: Black Scroll Publications
ISBN: 978-1-988446-24-0
For my parents for supporting my dreams even when they don’t understand what drives me.
For my tribe, the ones who have my back and are always there with support, advice, and occasional a kick in the ass.
For my readers, because they are amazing. Thank you for reading my stories and joining me on this mad, wonderful adventure.
1
Raze felt the change in the weather coming before he even looked up. The breeze died, and the valley went quiet as the animals braced for what they knew was coming. The late spring weather was mild and pleasant most of the time, but not today. One of the first lessons he’d learned about his adopted homeworld: when the valley went quiet, it was time to take cover.
The ax slammed down on the last of the wood, neatly splitting it. Only then did he straighten, rolling his shoulders as he looked up at the sky. It was still a cloudless stretch of deep blue, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. Somewhere beyond the valley, a grandmother of a storm was brewing, and when it crossed the mountains, it would bring a deluge of rain and howling winds.
He gathered up the wood and carried it to the shed, stacking it with the rest of the morning’s work. By the time he’d hung up the ax and secured the shed against the coming storm, the air was growing oppressive, and he was feeling restless. Storms always made him edgy. The wind and rain didn’t bother him, but the crashing thunder and flashes of lightning that usually accompanied them reminded him of the past. Ten years of combat had left him with scars that would never heal and memories he couldn’t let go.
From beyond the barn, a chorus of bleating started up. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one feeling restless. “I’m coming. I’m coming. You’ll be undercover long before the storm arrives, you woolly-faced fools.”
The small herd of grazers he’d domesticated were all pressed up against the gate when he reached it, but it wasn’t the storm that had them spooked. A new slash of white stood out against the blue sky. A contrail. He hadn’t seen one of those since he’d been here, which was the whole point of moving to an unoccupied planet. He didn’t want company.
A glint of silver caught his attention. There was definitely a ship up there, and judging by the angle of the contrail and its current altitude, it was coming in for a landing in his valley. Fraxxing wonderful. He kept watch until he was certain, his mood as stormy as the thunderheads that crested the mountains and darkened the sky as the unwanted vessel made an unsteady descent. By the time it touched down in the center of a clearing, near the river, it was clear that either the pilot was intoxicated, or the ship was badly damaged. Either way, they were in for an unpleasant afternoon. They’d parked on the valley’s floodplain. Once the storm hit, it would send a torrent of rainwater pouring down the mountainsides in a deluge. Flooding was the reason he lived part way up the mountainside instead of down on the valley floor.
“I hope they can swim,” he muttered before turning his attention to the animals pressing against the gate. Now that the strange thing in the sky was gone, they were calmer, but that wouldn’t last long. He’d worry about the newcomer once he made sure his livestock were secured inside the barn.
The moment the gate opened the entire herd tried to push through at once, swarming around his legs in a woolly, bleating wave as they made straight for the barn. Not one of them wanted to be left behind, which was a clear warning that the storm was almost here. They had been wild animals only a few years ago, but now they were domesticated enough to want to stay out of the rain and weather.
He followed the animals at a more sedate pace, and by the time he got to the barn doors, they were settling in. The chickens were already roosting, and it only took him a few minutes to double check their feed and water supplies before closing them in for the duration of the storm.
With all the animals secured, he did a quick walk around the homestead to ensure that the greenhouses, outbuildings, and equipment were all secure and battened down. He was only feet from the front door of his home when the rain started to fall in thick, heavy drops. A gust of wind sent the rain flying sideways, and he broke into a jog.
He should have gone straight inside, closed the door, and stayed there until the storm ended, but something made him hesitate.
“They’re not your problem,” he reminded himself, but that didn’t stop him from turning around. He could see the whole valley from his plateau, which was one of the reasons he’d picked this spot to build. With the small cliff behind him and a clear view of anything coming up the mountain, it was a safe, easily-defended location. Not that he had to defend it from much. The occasional carnivore came by to investigate his livestock, but that was it. It was a place of peaceful solitude, until today.
Movement down in the clearing confirmed he wasn’t alone any longer. Even his cybernetically enhanced eyesight wasn’t enough to pick out how many might be down there, so he reached inside the door and snagged his binoculars from the shelf. He trained the lens on the ship first. The black and green insignia on the side marked the ship as part of the Torex Mining corporation’s fleet. Probably sniffing around to see if there was anything in the ground worth tearing apart the planet for.
The ship had to be a scout class. It was too small to be anything else. Minimal weaponry, sleek design, large engines and not much else. It was built for speed, not war. He moved on to the crewman currently examining the outside of the craft. It was getting hard to see through the heavy rain, but he could make out a f
ew details. It was a female, humanoid, and quite tall. She had short, black hair and a curvy figure that not even her shapeless jacket could hide completely. Those curves affected him in a way that reminded Raze he hadn’t been with a woman in years. It was a streak he had every intention of continuing. He wasn’t fit company for anyone, and he never would be.
His hand brushed over the scars that marked the left side of his face and added streaks of pure white to his hair. He’d gotten them right here in this valley, in a battle that had cost him everything. The landscape had healed since then. Time and the elements had erased the damage or covered it over with greenery, but in his memory, he could see it all the way it had been. Broken, bloodstained, and raw.
A gust of wind howled past the cabin with enough force to make the walls tremble, and the already pounding rain increased until he couldn’t see the ship or the woman any longer. If she didn’t get back inside her ship soon, she was going to be in trouble. He set the binoculars back on their shelf, started to close the door, and stopped. It didn’t feel right to leave her out there, on her own and unaware of what was headed her way.
He grunted in frustration at the sudden return of his conscience. He hadn’t even been sure he had one anymore, but there it was, nagging at him to go out into the rain and make sure his unwelcome visitor didn’t get herself killed. As he tugged on his rain gear, he tried to tell himself it was purely logical. If the Torex scout died, they’d send more ships to find out what happened to her. It was easier to save one and send her on her way than deal with the half dozen that would come looking later.
He was still trying to convince himself when he set out into the storm with a pack full of gear. He was buffeted by winds and hammered by the constant deluge of rain pouring out of the bruise-black clouds. He was drenched before he’d gone twenty feet from the cabin.
Whoever was down there, she already owed him, and they hadn’t even met yet.
Sevda was having a lousy day, and it was getting worse by the second. The meteors that had struck her ship while she was in orbit might have been micro, but the damage they had done was huge. The hull was more or less intact, but one of the wings was shredded, and her ship’s onboard computer still hadn’t tracked down the cause of the power drains plaguing the ship.
It was amazing she had managed to maneuver the ship at all considering the damage she’d taken. Landing it safely had taken all her skill, and during the descent, she’d been thankful this planet was uninhabited. If she pancaked the ship on the surface at least there wouldn’t be anyone around to witness her inglorious demise.
It would take Eddi and her team of maintenance bots several days to handle all the repairs if everything went smoothly. She looked around at the driving rain and already soggy ground. So far, things were not going smoothly at all.
She tapped the comm unit clipped to her jacket. “Eddi, run atmospheric scans and figure out how long this weather will last, will you?” The acronym of the ships AI was unpronounceable, so she had dubbed her Eddi after one of the workers on her parent’s farm.
“Affirmative, Pilot Rem. Running now.” There was a brief pause, then Eddi spoke again. “Initial assessment is that this weather will continue for at least several hours, possibly more. To get a better forecast, I would have to send one of my probes into the atmosphere. Current readings are limited by the mountains surrounding us.”
“Don’t waste your probes. They’ll never make it to altitude. Not in this weather.” She pulled up the hood of her jacket and sighed. This was supposed to have been nothing more than an orbital fly-by. Three days to scan the planet, send in her report, and move on. Landing hadn’t been on the agenda, and every day they were here would make it tougher to collect her early-completion bonus. If she got that bonus, she’d have enough to pay off the last of her debts. She’d be free, but only if things didn’t stop going wrong.
Frustrated and still feeling the aftereffects of her adrenaline-fueled descent, she decided to blow off some steam before returning inside. “Eddi, I’m going to do a quick recon before I come in. I’m already soaking wet, I might as well check out the area and stretch my legs while I’m out here. Have you started on repairs?”
“Maintenance bots have been deployed, and I am currently running diagnostics on all key systems. I would not suggest leaving the immediate area. My scans indicate a seventy percent chance of localized flooding in the near future, and the atmospheric disturbance caused by the storm may disrupt communications.”
“You don’t get to quote odds to me right now. You’re the one who calculated that there was only a three percent chance of debris in our orbit and that it was safe to drop the shields to perform our scans.” She pointed to the damaged section of the ship, aware that the computer program would be watching. “Does that look like three percent? From where I’m standing, it looks more like one hundred.”
“As you have pointed out to me on numerous occasions, I am an imperfect program,” Eddi retorted.
“I swear, you’re getting to be more human every day. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” Sev muttered as she walked away from the ship and its quirky AI.
Despite her grumbling, it was nice to be outside of the ship. She was on a three-month assignment, which meant no time off and only a few brief returns to civilized space to stop at fully automated resupply stations.
This was the first time she had walked on a planet in close to two months. The gravity was a little stronger than she was used to, but otherwise, it was a standard Goldilocks planet. Not too hot, not too cold, atmosphere and environment perfect for sustaining life.
She decided to go down to the river she had spotted during descent. It was only a brief walk, and if Eddi was right about potential flooding, she should probably check it out. If the water started rising, she might have to move the ship. “I’m headed to the river, Eddi. Let me know if anything changes here.”
She found a narrow game trail and followed it, pausing now and then to unsnag her rain gear from a branch of the scrubby bushes and shrubs that lined the path. The wind was gusting hard enough to be a hindrance, too, and she was about to give up and turn back when the path finally widened and the bushes gave way to grass and open ground.
“Finally.” She tapped her comms. “Eddi, can you read me? I’m down by the river, and I’m not seeing any signs of flooding here.”
“Trans—cutting—recommend—retur—.” Eddi’s transmission was nothing but fragments followed by static.
Sevda tucked the comm device back under her jacket and snorted softly. “Well, she was right about the comms, but not the flooding. Imperfect program, indeed.”
The river was only twenty feet away, the crystal-clear water tumbling over the rocks in a soothing rush that was almost musical. There had been a creek near the farm where she was raised, and that same sound had lulled her to sleep every evening until the night of the fire. After that, there was no more farm, no creek, no family, and no lullabies of any kind.
She closed her eyes and indulged herself in a rare moment of recollection. Sunny days and hard work, laughter around the kitchen table, the warmth of the livestock barn in winter. Colonizing a new world wasn’t an easy life, but it had been a good one.
When she had enough money saved up to clear the last of her debts, it was a life she hoped to return to. She had worked most of her life toward making that dream a reality. Pushing herself from goal to goal until she could finally reclaim her life from Torex.
At first, the change in the river’s song was too subtle for her to notice. It wasn’t until the volume shifted from a steady rush to more of a roar that she became aware of it and opened her eyes. Fraxx. In the brief time she had been lost in thought, everything had changed. The formerly crystalline water was now muddy with silt and full of debris. Foliage and small branches sailed past, vanishing into the boiling cauldron of water. The outcroppings of rocks that had made such sweet music were covered now, and the water was rising with every passing second.
“Looks like she was right about the flooding, too. When I get back to the ship, I’m going to owe that pile of circuits an apology.” Sevda turned and headed back the way she came. At least, she thought it was the right way. The bushes all looked the same through the driving rain, and the weather had already erased any trace of her footprints. She lowered her head against the wind and kept going. The wind had been pushing at her back on the way down, so if she walked directly into it, that had to mean she was going the right way.
She made it back to the scrub, but the river seemed to be following her. The water swirled around her boots, threatening her footing and slowing her even more. The increase in gravity that had seemed so minor before was far more evident now. It made slogging through the water even slower.
Panic reared its ugly head, and she tried her comms again. Nothing but static. Not that Eddi could do anything to help her, but it would have been nice to hear a friendly voice, even if it was a computer’s.
A bolt of lightning arced across the sky, followed by a crack of thunder so loud she actually felt the shockwave roll through her. She stumbled, her foot caught on something beneath the muddy surface, and the next thing she knew she was face down in the water. Unseen rocks bit into her flesh and she yelped, sucking in a lungful of water. Her body convulsed into a fit of coughing to clear her lungs, and it was all she could do to get her face above the surface. Bruised, cold, and struggling to take a proper breath, she was carried away by the rising flood before she knew what was happening.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that. Sevda could see what was coming, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Every rock she hit, every wave that knocked her down into the cold, dark water, she got to experience it all in agonizing detail.
