by T. J. Quinn
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EXCERPTS FROM ASGAR:DROGON GENERAL
EXCERPTS FROM PSION MATES
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Farseek
Commanders Mate
Farseek Mercenary Series
Clarissa Lake
GTQ LLC
Orlando, Florida
Copyright © 2017 by Clarissa Lake
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
GTQ LLC
PO Box 540375
Orlando, FL 32854
www.thesios.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Farssek: Commander’s Mate/Clarissa Lake -- 1st ed.
ISBN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EXCERPTS FROM ASGAR:DROGON GENERAL
EXCERPTS FROM PSION MATES
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CHAPTER ONE
ZARED
We won the war but lost everything we ever loved. We stood fast for the Consortium. Some of us even laid down our lives for them while they left our home world undefended. As I stand looking at the ruins of what was my family’s home, I scream in rage, but there is no one to hear my pain and utter disgust.
Farseek Brigade should have been here defending our homes and families instead of light years away defending the Consortium stronghold. Those with the most power and wealth still have all they hold dear, while we have nothing left to fight for.
As I stand looking at the desolate landscape, I am not ashamed of the two tears that slide down my face. Mother, Father, brothers, and sisters all gone and those high and mighty Consortium executives never let us know. They let us come back and find our world in ruin and our people gone.
Were they killed or taken? There was no way to know. The thing I did know was that slavery was rampant in the Sargus Empire. They bought and sold sentient beings as if they were meat animals. Their whole economy depended on slave labor, where the Consortium relied on robots and artificial intelligence. They relied on the warriors of Farseek Brigade and other like us for defense.
Had we been here when those Sargans attacked, we could have protected them with our elite ground force and our star fighters. From the carnage in front of me, I surmise that many of our people were killed---maybe most of them. I can only guess that the Sargans would have taken the rest as slaves to any of hundreds of different worlds.
Someone somewhere knows something, and I will find them.
The com in my ear buzzed. I touched my ear to hear Lieutenant Pyrr Avantu’s voice. “Commander, I’m getting reports of children being found living in the wreckage. So far about a dozen.”
“Do any of them know what happened to the others?”
“Those not killed were herded into shuttles and taken away,” said Lt. Avantu. “So some of our people were taken alive after the attack, but the children don’t know more than that.”
“Did anyone find any adults?”
“A few elders,” Avantu replied.
“They should come with us when we leave. I doubt they would survive the winter here alone,” I told him. “I’ll clear it with Admiral Degatu. At least we know they were not all killed. Finding them is not going to be easy. I think our best bet is to go after the slave trader’s in Sargus Territory. I will speak to the admiral and get back to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Avantu said. “We will keep looking for survivors.”
My heart was not as heavy after I talked to Avantu. I let myself entertain a small hope that some of my clan might have survived. I’m sure others in our division felt as I did after they saw the destruction of our world. From that day forward, I would no longer honor my pledge of service to the Consortium. My only allegiance would be given to the Farseek Brigades, and to the Uatu people.
I didn’t have to wait long for Admiral Degatu to descend to the ground of our world. In our defense force, there are two lines of command. I am Commander General of the ground forces, and Admiral Degatu commands our Starship fleet. Our combined forces make up the Farseek Division of the Sovereign Transtellar Consortium Defense Force. Our division is known for its prowess on the ground and in space. That’s why they sent us to the front.
They had to know our home world was completely vulnerable, but they were more worried about themselves than the families of the warriors defending them. They deliberately blocked our communications about the attacks on Farseek so we wouldn’t desert them. And it would have been our right, per our contract. Farseek came first.
We weren’t the only force defending the heart of the Consortium against the Sargus attack. Some of our ships could have gone to aid Farseek. To me, that nullifies any obligation we have to the Consortium. They are nothing but a bunch of wealthy tycoons and politicians who maintain and run the Consortium for their own gain. To them, we are just an expendable subclass of inferior beings whose clans are unimportant to them.
Since we were so insignificant that they left our home world defenseless. I saw no reason to continue to defend them. Now I just had to convince Degatu.
Admiral Degatu arrived about an hour later just outside of our village. He had seen the imagery of the devastation in the holovids, but it just didn’t quite capture the horrific scope of the destruction.
Degatu was a native Farseekian of the Uato people as I am. Our race comes in a variety of skin tones from light to dark blue-gray, reddish brown to pale beige to almost white. I am a light blue-gray, and Degatu is medium reddish brown. We do not favor any color over another as the colors are only skin deep. Most of the males of our race are tall and well muscled and of varying body thickness. Warrior training keeps us fit unlike the echelon of the Consortium. Females may not be as tall and muscular, but those who are unmated train as warriors as well. Most can hold their own in battle where we all wear special protective body suits.
While the females may not be quite as st
rong on their own, the body armor augmentations are equalizing their strength. It is also good for morale to have females among us. Our customs allow for sharing sex with unmated females as long as we do not give them our seed. That is only for our fated mate; it’s how we claim them.
I already know my fated mate is not in our division. My hope of finding her now is fading with all our people dead or taken. That could be part of why I feel so angered by this all. But I am also angered for all of my comrades who fought so bravely and came home as I did to find all of my clan is gone.
“They did this Garvan! They kept the news of the attacks from us when they knew we had the right to come defend our people,” I murmured in a grim, quiet tone. “So far they’re about a dozen survivors, who say the Sargans rounded up the survivors and took them away.”
“And you want to go after them,” he stated.
“Don’t you?”
“I do. There is hardly a man or woman in our division who hasn’t lost someone in this attack. We have to be smart about this,” he said. “We can’t go into Empire territory as Defenders of the Consortium. Once we nullify our contract with them, we are on our own. They won’t finance us for it.”
“Even if we pool our resources, it might not be enough to get the job done,” I said, as I followed his train of thought. “We will need backers.”
“Exactly my thought, so I took the liberty of letting certain governors of the Consortium know what we must do. I was told that Governor Evzen Guryon’s daughter Kyanna was taken by Ursagans from the Sargan Empire with a group of women from Plotain Pleasure station. The word is they are taking them to Ursaga slave auctions.”
“You think Guryon will back us?” I started to see a plan forming.
“He will. He may be a pompous dick, but he loves his daughter, and he will pay whatever it takes to get her back,” Pyrr said.
“We could find some of our own people there, too.” I nodded. “I guess that means we’re now the Farseek Mercenary Division.”
Garvan nodded grimly. It also meant we we--re on our own.
CHAPTER TWO
Harper
I was taking out the garbage that evening in early May just as the sunset was painting the clouds in the western sky in golden hues. I paused for a moment to admire it before I tied off the bag and went back to get the recycling bin off the back porch. Cherry Street was three blocks and a quick left off Main Street, and we often got traffic stopping and asking directions for other nearby streets. It was pretty easy to miss the turns if you didn’t pay attention.
So, when someone pulled up in a new looking Chevy, I wasn’t concerned. I can’t say what exactly happened. One minute was reciting the directions he asked for and pointing, then nothing.
I woke up strapped to put down bunk with a helluva headache. I could barely move my head, but from my peripheral vision I glimpsed two stacks of cots attached to the opposite side of the room. They were all full. Some of the others were moaning as though they felt as bad as I did. I figured I had been drugged but I didn’t know by whom or why. The fact that I was strapped to a bed and felt like I had a drug hangover was not a good sign.
It happen while I was giving those guy directions, but I couldn’t remember what. Someone had kidnapped me and stuck me in a room with a bunch of other women. I figured it was human traffickers as soon as I saw the others, but I sure wasn’t thinking of alien slavers. I assumed they were human, human traffickers. Then this big ugly guy, and I use the term loosely, with a face like an orange catfish, kind of slimy looking, came in and started doing a bed check.
The creature walked on two legs and had two arms that looked like seal flippers with fingers and a thumb. He wore a beige tunic with a belt that had something holstered at his hip. “I am the keeper,” he said in a gurgling voice. “You have been captured to serve the Sargus Empire. You have all been inspected and injected with micro translators so you can understand me and you will understand your new Masters. You will listen and obey or you will be punished. You will now be released within this chamber. Escape is not possible. We are in deep space traveling within a space ship so even if you could escape this chamber, there is no place to go. When I leave this chamber, the straps will release and you may move about the chamber.”
At the end of his little speech, he turned abruptly and left through the sliding door. The straps holding on the bunk released and reeled into the side rail like a car seatbelt. I just laid there stunned. I was going to be a slave. How could this be happening? I was too stunned to even cry. Kidnapped by alien slavers.
I slowly sat up and realized my baggy t-shirt and yoga shorts were gone. I was wearing a shapeless loose dress of thin material that went to my knees and nothing else. As I looked around the room, there were about twenty of us, all wearing the same shapeless shift. I guessed it was probably one of those one size fits all.
Seeing all the women appeared to be between twenty and forty and average to very attractive, I suspected we were headed for sexual slavery. Even if I was wrong, slavery was slavery---one being owning another. My life was no longer my own.
It looked like there was a window at the end of the room. I climbed down the ladder from my bunk and padded barefoot over to the rectangular view port. I didn’t see stars, but a conglomeration of color waves that could easily have been special effects designed to make us think we were in space. But catfish guy certainly looked real enough.
I stood by the window for a few minutes trying to reason things out. Then I turned and looked around the room. Not all the other women looked exactly human. A couple of them were purple with teal colored hair and large eyes with pink pupils. They had a single row of ridges that extended from their hairlines in the center of their forehead to the middle of their noses, and pointed elfin ears. They were exotically beautiful with high pitched childlike voices. One of them said her father was governor of some Consortium world and he would pay a high reward to whoever rescued her.
I could tell they weren’t talking American English, but I could still understand what they said. As I got closer, I studied them carefully to see if they looked like they were wearing makeup or prosthetics to make them look as alien as they appeared. They were genuine.
The two of them looked at me suspiciously. I imagined I seemed as strange to them as they did to me. I smiled hopefully and said, “Hi, I’m Harper Avery from Earth. I don’t mean stare, but I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you before. May I ask where you’re from.”
“I am Kyanna Guryon from Halor of the Transtellar Consortium. My father is governor of our world and this is my friend Sowia Garvo we were going to meet my betrothed for a holiday on Plotain Pleasure Station when we were taken. They will all pay for this.” She said quietly. Her fiancé had arrived at the Plotain Pleasure Station just after it had been raided by the Sargan slavers.
“We were well within Consortium space when we were taken,” Sowia added. “They have already broken the treaty by entering our space. That means the war isn’t over.”
“So you think we’ll be rescued?”
“My father will stop at nothing to get me back from these monsters. If you are fortunate we will all be rescued together. Slavery is illegal in the Consortium. We have the technology, we don’t need slaves,” Kyanna murmured vehemently.
When they saw me talking to the aliens, some of the other women came to join us. Scarlet Andrews, Zoe Addison, Nora Reed were from towns not far from where I lived in the middle of Ohio. Scarlet had been walking her dog when someone in a nondescript SUV stopped and asked for directions.
Zoe had gone out to get mail out of her rural mailbox when they picked her off the street, and Nora was jogging in the park a few blocks from her house. The common thread was that we were all from small towns where people were friendly and didn’t expect to be snatched off the street in daylight.
We were easy pickings for them. I hoped Kyanna was right and we would be rescued. If not, I hoped at least for a kind owner. Mostly I tried not to thin
k about it and just wished I would wake up and this would all have been a dream. In my wilder fantasies I hoped for a big hot alien warrior to rescue me and tell me I’m his soul mate and we are meant to be together. The way my luck was running, he would probably look like catfish guy instead.
Time passed slowly in that large room with one bathroom and a small dining table where we sat to eat the food cakes they gave us to eat twice a day with a fruity drink in squeeze pouches. The cakes were kind of a cross between meatloaf and pound cake that came in packages. They gave us the same stuff to eat every meal in a couple assorted flavors in both the cakes and the drinks.
Mostly, we talked among ourselves about our lives wherever we were from. About half of us were from Earth and the other were from various other worlds in this Consortium that Kyanna told us about. They were all female and basically humanoid mammals. They told us about other alien species like catfish man who was a warm blooded amphibian born in water like tadpoles then turned into a walking land creature that could also breathe underwater. His sub species spend most of their time out of the water.
Despite Kyanna’s assurances that her father the governor of Halor would send rescue, the longer we were locked up there together the harder it became to believe we would be rescued from becoming slaves. Even Kyanna began to despair when we landed on Ursaga the world known for their massive slave trade.
We were in the room lined and tagged like cattle ready for auction when the raiders came to the auction house. The security guards were no match for the armored military types that over ran the facility. At first, I thought they were robots but these were men inside a special armor.
That became apparent when one of them came to where we were huddled in a corner trying to keep from getting caught in the middle. As he stopped in front of us, the helmet that covered his head entirely like Iron Man, opened and receded into his armor. I’m sure my mouth dropped open as I stared at him. In the wake of this mayhem my first thought was he’s gorgeous.
