Pets in Space 6: A Science Fiction Romance Anthology by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pets in Space Books for Chavanch Press
Published: 2021-10-04T18:30:00+00:00

Mira Barnes loved the simple things in life: good drink, good sex, good family. The Sentinel of Gems was her personal paradise, and it managed to provide all three. Most of the time, at least. She grimaced at the thought of her engineers being trapped in the ship’s microgravity core, and at the idea that Baker had been foolish enough to sneak animals—mice of all things—on board without scanning them first.

She apparently had made a grumble of protest, because Hicks—the pilot—walked up behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “They’re going to be fine. You’ll see.”

Barnes gave an unladylike snort even as she suppressed a groan of pleasure as Hicks dug her thumbs into Barnes’s taut muscles. “Not drawing a card for that one, Manami?”

“Don’t have to,” the pilot responded. “They get along perfectly.”

The pilot was seldom without her Starfarer’s Tarot—the source of their ship’s name, among other things—and it was unlike her to not rely on the random draw to guide her choices. Even now, the well-worn cards sat on the corner of the pilot’s station.

Barnes forced out a chuckle. “This ship’s turning into a damn menagerie.”

Hicks dropped a playful kiss on her temple. “You love it, and you know it. It’s not a home without pets, and now we’ve got plenty.”

She wasn’t wrong, Barnes thought. Her security chiefs had their goanna, Darcy, and Medical had a damn cat of all things. But mice… something about the whole thing seemed off. She should check in on them again, just as soon as Hicks was done with this massage.

Her eyes were just starting to drift shut under the pilot’s ministrations when Barnes spotted a flashing light on the comm console, denoting an incoming message. She tapped her fingers across the captain’s console, taking control of the comm circuit and displaying the message.

In front of them, the viewscreen changed from a display of Accipiter’s swirling clouds to an image of what looked like an old-fashioned sitting room. Like something from an Old Earth historical vid. Two men were in the image, though only one of them, the smaller of the two, paid the camera any attention.

“Greetings, Captain Mira Barnes, of the Sentinel of Gems. Don’t bother trying to respond, the delay is too great and, frankly, I’m not interested in your protests.” His face, a pasty white color that reminded Barnes of the grubs she’d find under rotted logs back on her homeworld, split into a sickly approximation of a grin.

“Thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t he?” Hicks said. Her tone was light, but the tension around the other woman’s eyes told Captain Barnes that her pilot was suddenly concerned.

“I am Mister Flint, and along with my colleague Mr. Skynner,” he inclined his head to the other man who was tall and broad enough to stretch the seams of his archaic jacket. When Mr. Skynner smiled at the camera it made Barnes feel physically ill. “We have been hired, it does not matter by whom, to collect something which is in the possession of one of your crew.

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