by Viola Grace
She would do anything to survive, including getting herself damaged and off the companion list. A Hmrain finds her in an unlikely place for an unlikely partnership.
Athena made it to a pickup point, past the physical, and up to the education station. Her training was difficult, but when she found out she was a likely candidate for companionship to a Hmrain, she took drastic action.
Being disfigured was the one situation that the station would accept to lower her classification and position her in the bulk-purchase category. Her bond would be purchased as part of a group acquisition, and she would be able to earn out her price on some alien world before she swept out to travel the stars, working as she went.
With her goal in mind, she put herself in the path of the most toxic creature on the station, and she ticked it off. The resulting scar across her face did the job. She was out.
It was just her luck that when she was on her new planet, she was very good at her job. Her team comes to the attention of the Hmrain overseer, and her planning has come to naught.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Damaged Control
Copyright © 2020 by Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-989892-57-2
©Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. With the exception of review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the express permission of the publisher.
Published by Viola Grace
Look for me online at violagrace.com.
Damaged Control
Shattered Stars Book 4
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
Athena looked up at the medic, and she spoke from the heart. “Downgrade me.”
“With a bit of recovery time, we can get you whole and fetching a higher bond price at the auction.” The medic frowned.
“That will take weeks, and there is an agricultural purchase coming up. I can’t qualify for administrative as is, so I want to go in with the unskilled labour.” She ignored the throbbing in her face.
“You owe quite a bit for your education.”
“And I will owe more for the transport and room and board. But, I will be able to work right away instead of a lengthy and expensive recovery. I have worth as a low-level manager if you authorize the downgrade due to the K’liir toxin in my blood.”
The medic scowled. “You should not have gotten in the way of the claws.”
“Taya is far prettier than I am. I don’t mind the claw marks. They add character.”
“And without extreme treatment, they will not fully heal. You obviously know that, or you wouldn’t be using them as an excuse. It is a shame. You could do so much good as an administrator. The work would be easier, and you could attract an excellent mate.”
“I am not afraid of hard work. I like it. I want to be on a new world and forget the loss and destruction. I want to not think if that makes any sense. The placement officers were so excited by my scores that they didn’t want to listen.”
The medic scowled. “At least try to look pale and confused when they come in to check my report.”
“Thank you. You are saving my sanity.”
The medic patted her arm, and Athena Fox relaxed into the med bed. She had noted that a sound Taya made enraged the K’liir in their first few days of class. With the auction in a few days, it had been easy to put them in the alien’s path and let Taya’s laugh do its magic. She had been hoping for a body shot, but the raking of claws down her face from forehead to chin had come by surprise. The facial markings had a better effect, and with the venom in the claws, it was unlikely that she was going to recover from them without a lot of scarring. She didn’t lose her eye, and that was a blessing, but she now had racing stripes running down her face.
The fatigue in her system was something she would have to get used to. She was going to have low-grade blood poisoning for the rest of her life. It was worth it for the chance to buy herself out of bond several star systems away. A low-level manager was able to gain performance bonuses. It was a filing that the administrators didn’t qualify for. Since she was sure that she would be able to make any quota laid out, she was going to have three years of bond. Then, she would be able to save up for travel in the stars or buy herself a place in the colonies on any number of worlds. Earth was toast. The asteroid had taken out a chunk and destabilized the rest. In less than two decades, there wouldn’t be any chance at sustaining life.
Like many humans, her family was gone. They weren’t with her when the earthquakes hit, and there was no sign of them in the aftermath. She had clawed through the rubble with both hands, and there was nothing left. If they got out, she wasn’t going to find them, so she had accepted their deaths and moved on.
Now, after fighting to survive, she was on the education station, lying in a med bed and trying to think invalid thoughts. If this worked, she would be on her way to freedom on a world with fresh drinking water and sunlight in a matter of months.
She was crossing her fingers that she looked as crappy as she felt.
Three weeks after her downgrade, she woke in another medical facility, and they were busy trying to stabilize her. The sombre staff moved around her with injectors, probes, and she was on a drip. She looked at them, wiggled her fingers and toes to make sure that everything was fine, and asked, “So, what is the problem?”
Four medical professionals turned and stared at her. One of them said, “You should not be awake. You have an infection that we are trying to flush, but it seems bonded to you.”
“Oh. That. It should be in my file. K’liir scratch. I just have to work on keeping myself healthy.”
One of the medics scowled. “They bought you while damaged?”
“My competency scores make up for the defect.”
They flicked to her work qualifications and glanced back at her in understanding.
“So, can I get to work? Time to start earning back my bond.”
She moved to sit up, and she was weak but not immobile.
One of them sighed and said, “You will need to come in once a month for monitoring. That is going to cost a week’s wages per visit.”
She winced. “Because it is a pre-existing condition.”
“Correct.”
“Well, then, as this is costing me money, compare me to my pre-transport baseline and authorize me for work.”
They blinked, and one smiled. “This visit is covered for assignment to the forager and colony teams on Hyrnan. We are going to do a full entry exam at the overseer’s expense. We are here to get you into operational action. Our goal is to do what we can.”
Athena nodded and thought about Hyrnan—newly restructured world, open spaces, open sky. Earthish but still in the tolerance phase. The fruits, nuts, grains, water, and minerals were all being tested for possibilities. She smiled. “Do what you have to do, and then, I get to work.”
The medical team got to work.
Two days after her waking in medical, she was wearing coveralls and standing in a group of mixed species for a morning briefing. They were assigned bunkhouses, dining halls, and would show up in the warehouse every dawn and dusk for briefings.
Athena looked around, and there were only a handful of human faces. Everyone else was a mix of species. She chuckled to herself. Here, she was the alien.
They were called up and assigned into foraging teams. Their goal was to take out a skimmer and catalogue and acquire as many samples as they could without direct risk or harm to themsel
ves—any injuries caused while foraging were covered by the overseer’s medical team.
She went to meet her team, and after they all settled on nicknames that they could all pronounce, they headed into their skimmer to the coordinates on their assignment.
Athena was going to be the navigator; Tohba had piloting skills. The others were acting as spotters for any of the items on the list. They were after grains, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
Tohba glanced at her. “Theena, this is your first world?”
She nodded, checked the location markers, and then smiled. “It is.”
“You seem very calm.”
“The past is gone. There is only the future. This is my future, so it is up to me to explore it.”
He chuckled. “Sound reasoning.”
His soft grey skin had a nap to it, and his huge amber eyes were wide and staring at the world as it flew past. He was like a huge, muscley koala to her gaze, down to the fluffy tufts on the tips of his ears.
“What are you seeing when you look at me?” He glanced at her.
She answered honestly. “A small tree climber with your colouration, but your eyes are much bigger.”
He chuckled. “You look like a pet rodent I used to have.”
She grinned.
“He smiled, just like that.”
The other two chuckled. They were Skeelo. Green and lithe like mammals made of moving grasslands. They reminded her of mantises with warm bodies.
She spoke to Tohba, and he adjusted the course.
One of the Skeelo asked, “Hey, Urther. Why are you suddenly in the mix? Disease?”
She glanced at them. “Asteroid. Not being able to breathe was getting uncomfortable.”
They looked surprised. “The odds against that are astronomical.”
She snorted. “Exactly. I guess the moon was off duty that day.”
Tber and Hivr chuckled.
She looked at the team she was assigned to. “So, what brings you guys here?”
Tohba shrugged. “Disease ran through our population. They offered a vaccine in exchange for colonists. My wife is waiting for transport here.”
Tber and Hivr shrugged. “We have always worked for the Overseer Etska. He’s fair, and we get to travel. His particular field of interest is reclaiming and repurposing abandoned or deserted worlds. He gets them back into a functional position, and the teams are sent in to start the greening process. This place has been in the works for four hundred years.”
“Do any of you have kids?”
Tohba raised his hand, and the other two shrugged.
“The females raise them. We just get them started.”
She blinked—right, different strokes for different societies.
Tohba smiled. “Their gender-matched children will come to them when they are ten or so. What they are not saying is that they are both just adults and have not fathered anything yet.”
The green guys grinned. “It was more fun to not say that.” Hivr chuckled.
Athena pointed to the clearing in the zone they had been assigned. “That’s the landing site identified, but can we land on that rocky platform?”
“I can set us down. Why there?”
“I don’t want to take the chance of crushing something important.”
He chuckled, and they moved to the tiny plateau. The skimmer was set down, and they got their collection kits. Tohba said, “Back for lunch in three hours.”
It wasn’t a question, so Athena set her alarm for two hours and forty-five minutes and headed out to examine as much as she could, making notes and even tasting a few of the grains before recording flavour and flour-level impressions based on the bite. Then, she spit them out.
She took scans, images, and detailed recordings as well as samples. The morning flew by, and she had to return to the skimmer twice for new collection packs.
Lunch was a nice break, and afterward, everyone grabbed fresh specimen packs and headed out again.
In the afternoon, she concentrated on flowers and trees. She took samples of bark, sap, and floral specimens as she travelled. When her watched chimed to return her to the skimmer, she was tired, but it wasn’t too bad. All in all, it was a good first day as a forager.
She navigated back to the base, and the collection packs were taken for analysis. If they had found anything good, it would be recorded, and the bonuses would start. Tonight, she was just happy to be heading to her new bunkhouse.
Athena verified the bunkhouse number and opened the door. She paused at the sight of all the guys half-dressed. “Seriously? We even sleep in the same place?”
Tohba chuckled. “You want the top or bottom bunk?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Top, please.”
“It is yours. Our clothing packs are in the dispenser.”
Tber grinned. “We even have our own shower and waste facility. That must be a nod to you. The other bunkhouses have a community shower and facilities.”
She smiled and used one of the two cubicles in the waste facility before washing her hands and returning to the main room.
“Well, I am heading to the dining hall for a meal, then I am going to crash.”
The guys were all fully clothed in seconds. Tohba chuckled. “Well, Theena, it seems like these luxuries have been afforded to your team. We are going to stick close.”
Their little team headed to the dining hall, and they got their meals. The guys smirked happily when they saw the extra rations on their plates, and she sighed and walked to a table.
They all got together and were through the meal and entering their bunkhouse when Tohba asked, “Okay, Theena. What is the deal? Why are you getting extras?”
She kicked off her shoes and crawled up onto her bunk. “I suffered an injury during my education and was downgraded at my own request rather than adding years onto my bond.”
Tber looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Downgraded from what? Manager?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Administration companion grade. Fortunately, no one looks at you if you wear a facial scar. I also have K’liir venom in me, so it tires me out. The repair for that would have taken weeks and added a decade to my bond.”
Tohba stared at her with fascination and horror. “You are a classified companion?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. I am a candidate with potential. I, fortunately, did not meet with any Hmrain so was never confirmed as compatible or not. The educators were guessing that I was.”
She looked at the three surprised faces. “So, I am asking you not to out me. If the samples we collected today are as good as we thought, the bonuses are going to start rolling in. Are we good?”
Hivr nodded slowly. “If the bonuses are administered when today’s collection is assessed, I will agree. So will Tber.”
Tohba looked at her and cocked his head. “If it will get my wife here faster, I am in.”
She sighed in relief. “Right, so can I tell you what to look for tomorrow?”
They looked at each other and nodded, and she began a lecture on desirable materials for a new colony.
The next day they received their base pay times four. The guys were on her side.
Chapter Two
Team Vel became the premier foraging team at the first colony of Hyrnan. Athena should have figured that this would get the attention of the administrators and overseer. Still, she really didn’t think that he would have scheduled a visit to this tiny, starting colony.
Tohba was excited. “I can’t believe it. We are being invited to a private dinner with the overseer.”
She gave him a serious look. “Good. I am going to plan a treatment for that night.”
Tber and Hivr looked up from their chess game. Hivr nodded. “Oh, right.”
Tber asked, “What? Why isn’t she going to come?”
Tohba filled him in. “Theena doesn’t want to become an expensive sex toy.”
Athena blushed and traced her scars
. Her grey buddy stood next to the bunk, and he asked, “How close are you to a paid bond?”
She smiled. “About a month. I would have been done already, but someone ordered a food dispenser.”
Hivr shrugged. “It saves time and increases your caloric intake. You are stronger now.”
Athena laughed. “That is true. I am still on track.”
“What will you do then?” Tohba asked calmly.
“Make sure that you have a good home for you and your wife, make sure that the boys can find a nice young lady to knock up, and then, I am going to look at my options.”
The boys were seventy years and barely adults by their species conventions. They had been working for the overseer for decades when Hyrnan had become an option.
“When are you going to make the med appointment?”
She picked up her tablet. “Now.” The tablet had cost her two weeks of pay, but it was base pay, and the bonuses made up for any small luxuries.
She went to request a med appointment during the overseer’s visit. She blinked. “Can they deny a medical appointment?”
Hivr shrugged. “The med staff enjoys meeting the overseer as well. They often lock out non-essential appointments.”
Athena mumbled and said, “There must be something that I can do to get me out of the base.”
She flicked through available tasks to grab, and most activities had been suspended for the grand visit. After six months, she knew the most easily accessible places to get money, but there was nothing.
“Aha!” She found one.
Tohba chuckled. “What did you find, and where are we going?”
“Not we, just me. This is a rider mission into the lava fields. There is a sensor that has been missed on retrieval, and I can head out and grab it tomorrow while you are meeting and greeting the overseer.”
Tber frowned. “That is a dangerous spot. Didn’t we get mineral samples there once?”
