Jaded Read online

  An imperium judge is assigned her new executioner, and she finds that though she can read his mind, he can still surprise her.

  Jayd has been a judge since the moment she entered the imperium. After her training, she was assigned to travel from world to world, hearing capital cases and watching over the sentences from fines to executions. Her companions include a sentient ship named Harry and whatever executioner is assigned to her. The executioners never last long.

  Truanic is her newest executioner and not only is he the man for the job, he is also the man for her. She just has to make the first move.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Jaded

  Copyright © 2013 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-77111-764-7

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books

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  Jaded

  A Terran Times Tale

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Jayd Gonzalez was back on Earth. She looked down at the shopping in her bags and knew that it was that day, all over again.

  The cars pulled up outside the Volunteer Centre and the crowd gathered. She kept her original path and headed past the crowds in line to see the aliens coming in to populate the outlet.

  Protestors with signs and nonsensical slogans shouted as the cars disgorged their occupants.

  Jayd couldn’t help herself—she drew even with the crowd when the first shot was fired. She dropped her bags and ran forward, pushing through the onlookers to help while they stared at what had happened.

  The alien was on the ground, his guards were holding back the crowd and magenta blood was seeping from his shoulder.

  Jayd ran to his side and pressed down on his wound.

  His huge head had large black eyes and a surprisingly friendly expression for a man who had been shot. His silvery skin was cool under her hands. “You are assisting me?”

  “You need help, and I just took a first aide course last week. I have no idea where your heart is, but blood is supposed to be inside your body and that is a universal rule.” She chuckled and he smiled up at her.

  Something poked her in the back, hard. She heard, “You are a traitor to your own species, bitch!”

  She shrugged and kept applying pressure until things got hazy.

  “You have been wounded as well.”

  “Have I?” A glance down showed a spreading red stain on the front of her shirt. She coughed and blood emerged.

  A blink of time later and she was on the ground with the alien applying first aide to her. Her breath hissed out through the holes in her lung as he held her wound closed as best as he was able. His blood seeped down his arm and mingled with hers. Sirens sounded and medics with strange jumpsuits came out, hauling her new friend away.

  An ambulance fought its way through the crowd and medics grabbed her, put her on a gurney and bustled her away. Jayd was brought into emergency, but when the doctors tore open her shirt, they stepped back and refused to touch her.

  She coughed and flailed around until they tied her to the bed. They wrapped her bullet holes, and her breathing eased. A tube was shoved into her side to drain her lung, and her breathing felt far less wet.

  Dora came in, and Jayd cried as her sister rushed to hold her hand. No one had comforted her, none had wanted to stay in the room with her. Whatever was visible when they cut her shirt off had freaked them all out.

  “They aren’t going to do surgery. There is something happening to you that has to do with that guy you saved. Why did you rush in?”

  She chuckled. “Because I always do. No one should be a target because of what they are.”

  The seizures began three hours later, and each one left her more exhausted than the last.

  Dora held her hand during every spasm and kept the doctors informed of the violence of each one. No one wanted to touch her, so the medical staff stayed away when they weren’t coming in to take samples.

  Each minute that passed, her body grew weaker, her system was in an uproar, and no one would tell her why. Dora stayed at her side every moment, and by the worried look in her eyes, she was going to stay until the end.

  Two strangers opened the door, and her friend from the street walked toward her with a computer tablet in his hand. “Hello again, Jayd Gonzalez.”

  “Hey. You are looking better.” Her voice was a croak.

  “And you are changing. You will not last the night with your people’s medicine, and I cannot offer you our medics. Not yet.”

  Dora gasped, “Why not?”

  “The treaty does not begin until the personnel is exchanged. That is when most of our medical technology will be available. I do, however, have a solution.”

  Jayd croaked again. “What?”

  “I would like to offer you a place in the Volunteer program. I have seen that you fall outside our normal guidelines, but an exception has been made. If you sign up as a Volunteer and agree to leave your home, we can save your life.”

  She licked her lips. “What is happening to me?”

  “Our blood doesn’t mix. My species is very set in their ways and so are their genes. Those genes are running through your body and trying to provide you with the same skin structure as I possess. When I tried to close your wound as you did mine, I bled into you a little.”

  She nodded weakly. “Right.”

  “Well, my blood is killing you. If you want to live, you have to sign. According to your people, this is the only way it will work.” He extended the tablet.

  Dora released her right hand and whispered, “Sign it.”

  Jayd looked into her sister’s dark brown eyes in the sea of red. She had cried the entire time that Jayd had been in the hospital. Her gaze was begging Jayd now.

  With a shaking hand, she used her finger to sign the bottom of the contract and pressed her thumb in where directed.

  The moment that she completed her agreement, the two men snapped some tubes into poles and a net of energy ran between them. The silvery man released her tethers and lifted her from the bed, slipping her onto the makeshift gurney.

  As one of the men released her from the IV drip and monitors, the other propped open the door.

  “Can Dora come with me?”

  The silver man looked surprised. “If she wishes. She can stay with you right up until the moment you have to leave, but if she is seen to be entering one of our facilities, her life may be in danger until your population settles into acceptance.”

  Dora blinked. “I will stay with her.”

  “No, you won’t. You are going to go home, and I will get in touch with you the moment that I am feeling better.” Jayd kept her voice as severe as she could.

  Dora smiled weakly and nodded. “Make sure you stay safe.”

>   “I will have someone contact you as soon as I can.”

  Her silver friend smiled, showing sharp teeth. “Someone will contact you every day. I will place the order in myself.”

  Dora nodded, came around and pressed a kiss to Jayd’s forehead.

  They didn’t need to say anything else. The alien group walked out with her and slipped her into one of their flying transports.

  Jayd lay still and watched and waited while one of the men, who had come to escort the silver alien, moved a device across her wound.

  “It is healing more rapidly than you normally would have, but we will accelerate the knitting of your tissue.” He spoke with a thick accent, but his nearly human features were comforting.

  “Whatever you like. I am in your hands.”

  He smiled and reached for another item, pressing it lightly to the wound. Cold and heat alternated for the ten-minute flight to their highly defended facility near the currently under-construction spaceport.

  She could see through the windows in the side of the transport and her hands clutched the side of the gurney out of reflex. As they landed, a medical team was waiting and she was bustled into a facility whose walls were covered in a strange metal.

  Her other wound was sealed and once she was in one piece, they slipped her into a medical robe with her bloody jeans and underwear discarded.

  The only thing human in the room was now her. The smiling attendant from the hospital stayed at her side and explained what each procedure would do. “Ambassador Winvin is an Ontex. His species transfers from male to female every now and then, and he just finished a transfer, so his body was still hopping with those same transformative cells. Those are the ones that arrive when an Ontex is wounded and they are what entered your system.”

  “Winvin?”

  “Yes, the Ontex ambassador was there to celebrate the official grand opening of this Volunteer Centre.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Tenenlor. I am a Tival. We are a servant race to the Alliance. We don’t have any fancy talents or even potential to develop them. That is left to races like yours.”

  “Like mine?”

  Whatever they gave her had eased the pain and was clearing her mind.

  “Humans, Terrans, Earthers, whatever you end up calling yourselves, you have the potential to reach beyond your current bodies, your psychic limits and your physical restrictions. You can literally choose to be anything you want.”

  She smiled and lay back a moment before the seizures began again. Her mind reached out for a moment before everything went dark.

  Lightning fired all around her as they restarted her heart. Pain screamed through her and her mind opened up, looking for help while her jaw was locked by agony.

  Her thoughts touched everyone around her, and she was able to relax on the exam bed. Tenenlor was not worried about her arrest. He had handled many in the past. She was in good hands.

  * * * *

  Jayd sat up in the confines of her small room and scowled at the sweat on her body. She sighed and headed for her lav to grab a shower. Knowing you were in a dream was almost as bad as having lived it the first time.

  Her alarm was going off when she exited the lav, and she said. “I am awake.”

  It went silent, but her com was flashing and a quick check showed five messages. She might be between partners, but it seemed that she was just as popular as ever. Yay.

  Chapter Two

  With her suit on and her hair off her face, exposing her favourite feature, she wrinkled her nose at the strange dichotomy of her pearl-silver skin and Hispanic features. No matter what the Ontex genes took, they couldn’t remove her heritage. Even her now-silver hair still had its natural wave.

  She was still Jayd, no matter what her freaky biology was doing.

  She touched the outline of the waning moon on her forehead as she always did before leaving for her day. It was the last place that Dora had touched her, and that light kiss had kept a tiny patch of skin human. It was the centre point for the moon and the mark twisted around it. Being in Nyal space and a genetic accident meant she wasn’t fully human but that one small part of her was, and she was going to hang onto it.

  Jayd listened to the messages and made notes on the briefings she was supposed to attend. True seers were scarce. Sitting in judgement on capital cases was just part of the fun of her position.

  She was waiting for her executioner to join her, which was something she never thought she would consider to be a normal working environment.

  For now, she needed breakfast.

  Jayd took in a calming breath before she opened the door to the rest of the outpost. Inside her quarters, she could feel the others near her as if she were listening to a round of bongos three doors down. The noise was audible but it could be ignored. Out of her shielded quarters, she was a walking raw nerve who was having a good-hair day.

  With her credit chit in hand, she cruised through the food court and picked a few foods that she was confident would not cause her any trouble later in the day. She generally stuck to things in the deep-fried starch range. That included legumes. Her mother would have been so proud.

  She took her tray to one of the myriad sculptures that dotted the eating space and took her favourite perch on the endless stone loops. They got her above the standard head level and gave her a fractionally more peaceful meal.

  Jayd looked around absently as she ate the deep-fried dumplings filled with a combination of meat and sweet. Climbing was something that had come with the alteration, and she wasn’t upset by the change to her habits at all.

  The occupants of the food court were planning their days, watching attractive members of the crowd pass by. It wasn’t fun to listen to the thoughts of a crowd, but she remembered days when it had been.

  She finished her meal and breathed in and out, calibrating her senses to the mood of the crowd. It was an exercise that her instructors had drilled into her whenever she went out. The importance of setting her senses to the ambient mood meant that she would be able to pick up on any changes. It was a vital practice for a judge and jury.

  A block of nothing was approaching her. She recognised the sensation immediately; there was an executioner getting closer and he was trying very hard not to startle her.

  Sighing at her cessation of privacy, she slipped off the sculpture and stood in the stone tangle. “I assume you are looking for me?”

  He was a Nyal mix of some variety; the red eyes gave him away. His skin was tanned with a dark purple sheen to it. His surprise at her appearance was the window she needed and she immediately rifled through his mind and memories without him feeling a thing.

  Truanic Heff li Norquip. It was quite the name, but it rather suited the strong set of his shoulders tapering to a narrow vee at his waist.

  “Madam, I have been sent to retrieve you. There are warrants requiring your signature.”

  She nodded, and he offered her his arm. It was not protocol, but she took it anyway, surprising him.

  He muttered to her as they walked through the crowds. “You were not what I was expecting, madam.”

  “Funny, you were the general idea of what I was expecting. I guess some of us are just better at this than others.”

  He stiffened slightly as they moved around a fountain. “You know what I am?”

  “Of course. You should have been briefed on what I am, so it should come as no surprise. Are you going to be my second while I travel? I tend to burn through your kind rather frequently.” She felt it only fair to add the warning.

  “I am aware of your history with those in my position. I was warned extensively about your ruthless pursuit of duty. Oddly enough, I signed up anyway.”

  She laughed. “You seemed surprised by my appearance.”

  “I have never seen one of your position on top of a sculpture before, let alone climbing around on it like a minsk.”

  The comparison to a small fluffy tr
ee spider was a little creepy but flattering. Minsk were adorable.

  “The climbing came later in life. I was never a climber until the Alliance came to town.”

  He looked down at her with surprise. “You really are an Alliance-born species then?”

  She laughed. “That is something to be asked when we have more privacy than a courtyard can offer.”

  They stood together on the travelling walk and he balanced her as they reached the courthouse where she had temporary offices.

  Her assigned receptionist leaped to his feet as they passed the threshold of her office.

  “Judge Dex, I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

  She did a quick sweep of his mind and found only that he wanted to go for lunch with his boyfriend. “It is fine, Morring. Go about your day as if I am not here. I merely came in to do some signing. This is…never mind.”

  Her companion’s lips quirked. He had not given her his name, so she was pretending that she didn’t know it. It was only polite.

  Inside her inner office, she closed the door behind them and did a quick sweep for bugs.

  He took the seat on the guest side of her desk and once she was sure that it was secure, she leaned back in her chair. “So, do you know what you are getting into?”

  “I have been an executioner before but rarely with a judge as prestigious as yourself.”

  She snorted and gave him a narrow-eyed look. “As I stated, I have been through a few of your kind. They don’t last.”

  “Few judges travel as much as you do. The amount of capital cases that you try is astonishing. You simply wore them out. I am made of stronger stuff.” His lips twitched. “My name is Ex-Hess. I am sure you have already determined my true name if your files are anything to go by.”

  “I might have come across it. Do you know why I need you?”

  “You need an executioner because the justice of the imperium must be swift.”