Smuggler Ship
The Sky Full of Stars Prequel
Lindsay Buroker
Lindsay Buroker
Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Epilogue
Copyright © 2017 by Lindsay Buroker
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my editor, Shelley Holloway, my cover designer, Tom Edwards, and to all of you for checking out the Sky Full of Stars series.
1
While puttering around in engineering, Erick Ostberg eyed the job offer on the holodisplay floating over his netdisc.
His name was at the top in big bold letters. He hadn’t even had to interview. One of his friends from the university had sent it over as a sure thing. His starting salary, working for a firm that designed Alliance military spaceships, would be more than twice what he was making as the chief engineer—the only engineer—for the clunky old freighter, the Star Nomad. He would get to live in a huge city on Arkadius where he would have access to all the amenities that a metropolis of millions of people claimed. Thousands of restaurants. Thousands—or at least dozens—of girls that would love to date a sexy and well-paid engineer. And most importantly, he could go to the annual in-person get-togethers with his Striker Odyssey guild mates.
“What are you still doing here?” Erick muttered. He ought to be packing already.
“A good question,” came a low male voice from the hatchway.
Erick jumped, thumbing his netdisc off as he whirled to face Leonidas.
The big fifty-year-old cyborg, co-owner of the Star Nomad and former elite imperial soldier, hadn’t lost any of his brawn or intensity in the ten years since the empire had fallen and he’d married the ship’s captain, Alisa Marchenko. Even though Erick had been on the freighter for all except four of those ten years and studying Starseer tactics under Alisa’s father, Stanislav, he still had a tendency to flinch when Leonidas walked in. Erick could see into his mind and knew better, but he always had the feeling that Leonidas was judging him—and wishing the ship’s old engineer, Mica Coppervein, hadn’t left the Nomad and gone on to better things. As Erick was debating doing.
“Is there a problem?” Leonidas nodded toward the gauges on the wall of equipment behind Erick. “You’ve got the day off while we wait for the client to come pick up their cargo. I thought you would be gone already.”
“Just looking at a few last things.”
“That could be your undoing.”
“Er, sir?”
Had he seen the holodisplay? Erick was fairly certain he had enhanced eyesight along with all his other enhancements.
“Jelena wants to drag you off on… Well, I’ll let her tell you.”
“On an adventure?”
Whenever Erick went somewhere with Jelena, the captain’s daughter and someone he’d come to think of as a little sister, she managed to get them into adventures. Often into trouble. Troublesome adventures.
“That goes without saying, doesn’t it?” Rare humor glinted in Leonidas’s eyes, and Erick relaxed an iota.
Leonidas had heard him muttering to himself, but he must not have seen the holodisplay. Unlike Jelena, he wasn’t a Starseer, so he wouldn’t sense Erick’s emotions or know about the job offer—or how tempted Erick was to take it.
“I think so, sir.”
Erick took a breath as he debated whether to say more, to bring up the job offer. Would Leonidas be offended if he left? Had Erick truly decided that he wanted to leave?
The job was tempting, but it would be difficult to walk away from people who had become as much a family to him as his mother and father and brothers back on Demeter. And he was still learning from Stanislav. But he could spend a lifetime refining his Starseer talents, and he wasn’t even sure… What would he actually do with them out in the real world? Oh, it was handy to be able to telepathically speak to people, to read the minds of mundanes, and to use telekinesis to mentally deliver a can of FizzBurst to his cabin without getting up, but all through school, he’d had to hide his skills, since the rest of the system feared Starseers. If he got a regular job, he would probably have to go on hiding them. If he stayed here, he could be himself. But what kind of career was this for him? He’d been fixing engines since he was a kid. He wouldn’t have had to spend four years in advanced schooling if this was all he was going to do with his life.
Leonidas looked over his shoulder. “Jelena is on her way now. Are you all right? You look like you ate a stale ration bar.”
Erick smoothed his face and nodded. “Fine, sir.” He would go off for his day of leave before deciding one way or another. “And I think all ration bars are stale to start with.”
“Possibly so. Send Alisa a list of parts before you take off, will you? We’ve been working on the books so we can see how much we can spend on a new acquisition, and we need to get that finalized shortly.”
“New acquisition?”
“You’ll see.” That amused glint entered his eyes again as he walked out of engineering.
While Leonidas said a few words to Jelena in the cargo hold, Erick puzzled over what acquisition they might be considering that required financial calculations. Well, they were in command, not he, so he wouldn’t worry about it. After all, he might not be here much longer.
He pulled out his netdisc to send a copy of the maintenance and repair needs to the captain.
“Hi, Erick.” Jelena poked her head through the hatchway. “Is it safe to come in? You’re not naked, right?”
“Of course I’m not naked.”
“You’ve been naked in engineering before.”
“That was for medical purposes. And it was only
