INTERSTELLAR SERVICE &
DISCIPLINE:
LOST STAR
Morgan Hawke
www.loose-id.com
Warning
This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
Interstellar Service & Discipline: Lost Star
Morgan Hawke
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Loose Id LLC
870 Market St, Suite 1201
San Francisco CA 94102-2907
www.loose-id.com
Copyright © March 2009 by Morgan Hawke
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ISBN 978-1-59632-615-6
Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader
Printed in the United States of America
Editor: Jana J. Hanson
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Publisher’s Note
Although the author defines all of the Skeldhi words used in this story, we have included a detailed list of Skeldhi words in an appendix at the end of the book.
— Loowis
Chapter One
“Look, you rusting pile of antique junk! I’m trying to save your ass here! Let me in!”
Aubrey grabbed his throat, gasping for breath, and choked. The air on the freighter’s subengineering deck was thick and foul with smoke from melted metal and fused wiring. “Morris! Are you listening to me?” He slammed his bruised fist against the control console, nearly knocking over the small light he’d rigged. Most of the lights had gone out in the first hit from the marauders. He didn’t want to think about how close they had come to losing all life support too.
“I hear you, tech-engineer.” The ship’s tired and masculine mind-voice shimmered with a touch of annoyance across the wire jacked into the back of Aubrey’s skull. “You do not have clearance for access. You are not the nav-pilot.”
Aubrey fought to calm his beating heart, not that his heart was listening. “Morris, your nav-pilot is dead. He’s dead with everyone else that was on your bridge during that first volley. If you don’t let me in, we’ll be boarded, and you’ll be torn apart for scrap!”
“I am already…scrap.” Crushing depression and electronic interference colored the electronic mind-voice.
“I know you’re old, Fate, damn you! But you’re not dead yet!” Aubrey scrubbed a hand through what little hair he had left, nearly dislodging the jack in the back of his skull.
Damned military-issue buzz cut freaking itched. He leaned over the panel. “Morris, please! Let me in! There isn’t anybody else with an array to talk to you, and I’m not fucking ready to die!” His breath hitched. Fate, he hadn’t even reached the legal age to drink. He closed his stinging eyes and took a deep breath. “And neither are the rest of the men on this ship. If you want to die, then fine, die! But let me save the ones who want to live first!”
Anger flickered deep in the ship’s sentience.
Aubrey held his breath. Apparently, his comment about letting the crew die had pissed the ship off. That was good, very good. There was still a chance. If he could get 2
Morgan Hawke
access to the ship’s controls, he could use the freighter’s fully functional pulse cannons to clear a hole and try for a jump. If the ship didn’t kill him with a power burst instead.
Information slammed into his skull to become sight, sound, taste, smell…and pain, hideous, wrenching pain. Aubrey gasped and dropped to his knees. The ship was in agony. There were gaping holes all over the hull. Wounds that bled air, water, and bodies… Bodies of people he knew.
Sheer stubborn will and deep terror forced him back up onto his feet. He ignored the itch of tears streaking down his smoke-smeared face and threw every code he had into the ship’s controls, grabbing for anything that still worked.
He found everybody still breathing and began opening doors, making safe passages for the crew to get deeper into the ship where he could do something about maintaining life support.
At the same time, he activated the pulse cannons and aimed them at the corsair closing in on the starboard side. He knew that at this close range, he was going to damage the freighter more, but he could not afford to let the marauders board. They were only a small freighter with no military personnel capable of defending them, none still alive anyway. Once the marauders got in, the game was over. They were utterly defenseless.
Aubrey smiled grimly and opened fire.
The pulse cannons burned a surgically precise hole right through the attacking ship’s engineering core. The sensors delivered a low casualty rating from the other ship, but all maneuver controls were off-line.
The attacking ship veered off course, diving right under them.
Aubrey shouted in triumph. “That’s right, you stupid-assed shit-heels! The body manning these cannons actually knows what to fucking hit!” Abruptly, he lost clear sight of the second corsair. The ship’s sensors were going out on the keel. They were in deep trouble if he didn’t get them back in view.
Information trickled in from the remaining corsair. It was a sentience-to-sentience communication. It was meant to be hidden from the nav-pilot.
Aubrey smiled grimly. If he’d had a piloting array he would have missed it, but he didn’t. He had a programming array. His ability to interpret the ship’s complete interior and exterior data was somewhat limited, nothing compared to the
