IceFlight by Casey Lea

Author:Casey Lea
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: love story, telepathy, science fiction romance, alien romance, alien contact, slave romance, space opera romance, sci fi trilogy, sci fi slave

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Free flicked both an eyelid and a thought at his console display to enlarge the hologram hanging before him. It was a view of the shrinking passage point behind them, their entrance to this remote system. It should have been invisible by now, an unremarkable area of space, as dark as its surroundings, but it wasn’t. It flickered before Free’s eyes, sparking ominously, despite their clean passage.

Over an hour had passed since they entered through it, but it still showed flashes of activity. The intermittent bursts would have gone unnoticed by most leaders as a normal part of using any passage. Nearly all ships triggered random activations after exiting. Not my ship, Freefall thought grimly. Not for such time.

He tipped a frond toward his nav senior and sensed her uneasiness. She was concerned by the continued firing of the passage and he shared her uncertainty. She was the best pilot in the Royal Fleet and a perfect judge of how much exotic matter was needed to open a passage. It was unlike her to use any excess, much less enough to keep a passage intermittently activating for almost an hour.

Still, Free mused, it’s a new ship and some slip is reasonable. He sighed softly and checked his scans, but the system was still empty of other ships and there was no sign of any hull breach or exotic matter leak from the Grace. There was no reason for his alarm and he irritably ran a finger under his braided collar. He relaxed at once, making an effort to sit back at his ease for the benefit of his crew. His mind held to its usual façade of confidence when he changed his display to show him the crew still working outside the ship.

There were five of them, a hand of engineers readying a trap for any passing pirates. They floated before his eyes, now distant from the Grace while they rigged a string of empty transport shells, preparing the bait that would slowly circle this system. They seemed to be taking longer than usual and Free watched impatiently as they drifted around the final pod that still needed to be coupled. He took a slow, deep breath, but it failed to calm him. The menace of the kres court still felt too close, despite the dozen passages now separating him from Kresynt.

The system’s nearer passage point flashed again and instantly claimed Free’s attention. Despite banishing its visual to a small segment of space above his left hand, he found it impossible to ignore. His concern returned with unexpected urgency and that taste of fear pushed him to make a decision. He silently ordered a strike team to stand ready.

His Senior’s head rose sharply across the nest when Gull’s com relayed news of the order. He frowned at his Leader, but Free was deliberately oblivious while he passed instructions to the responding Strike-senior.

A new hologram appeared in the air before Free, a visual of the strike team now deploying. They shot from an exit pore in the Grace’s hull and coasted to a halt not far from the ship.

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