Broken Dreamer Read online

  Led by her dreams, she finds her way into the stars where fate conspires to put her exactly where she needs to be, in a hero’s path.

  When her parents died, Lyra was untethered. She left school, followed her dreams, and focused on keeping herself alive. She is not a fan of people and enjoys being alone. After the asteroid hit, she spends sometime surviving and the rest looking for one of the evacuation posts. She finds it and agrees to the caveat that she will be given a job placement that suits her skills.

  Across the stars, she works as a security unit pilot, steering a large, heavy bot around and keeping watch over a rehab hospital for superheroes.

  As a hazing ritual, a few of the guardians sneak out to try and unmask the new security unit, so when confronted with a handsome man landing on her chest, she does what any girl would do. She shoots him in the face and then has to deal with the fallout of stunning the overseer’s only son.

  It isn’t love at first sight, but weeks later, when she is enjoying a day off, they collide under far more romantic circumstances, and their unorthodox courtship continues.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Broken Dreamer

  Copyright © 2020 by Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-989892-60-2

  ©Cover art by Angela Waters

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

  Published by Viola Grace

  Look for me online at violagrace.com.

  Broken Dreamer

  Shattered Stars Book 5

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Lyra couldn’t believe her luck when she crested the hill and saw the makeshift receiving station and the elegant spacecraft sitting in the middle of what had been an empty valley when she had come through the area with her parents ten years earlier. The empty space was now a small village with humans walking around and other beings laughing and talking, with clipboards and small devices.

  She skidded down the hill and walked along the flat basin with puffs of sandy soil rising up where she stepped. She walked toward the evacuation base and followed the directions she had gotten on the radio. She raised her hands when she reached the perimeter and kept them out where they could be seen.

  Lyra waited at the red line, and someone came out to meet her. The woman had bright yellow skin and lime green hair. “Hello, miss. Would you come with me?”

  There was no need for questions; it was simply to leave the Earth. Families arrived as families, and everyone else was processed as singles.

  “Do you have a known skill set?”

  Lyra blinked. “Um, I am good with my hands and quick on my feet.”

  The woman made a note.

  “Wait, is that a marketable skill?”

  The woman chuckled. “Of course. We are bringing you up and educating you to become members of the variety of societies that are out in the stars.”

  “Isn’t this weird?”

  She chuckled. “Everything is weird the first time you do it. Now that I have checked through a few hundred of your people, I can say that you will fit in, should tolerate most of the environments you are sent to, and have minds suitable for rapid information transfer. You learn quickly.”

  “Thanks. What comes next?”

  “You discard your clothing, take a sonic shower, and get into a tunic for transfer to the education station. Your timing is impeccable; we only needed one more to launch.”

  “Oh. Okay. So...”

  The woman took her through the other steps and provided her with a long tunic, that doubled as a medical gown, when Lyra was scrubbed by the blast of sound that she couldn’t hear. “Just a quick med scan, and you will be led to the shuttle.”

  The woman guided her to a tall stand with a set of footprints on it. She stood in place, head high, and several light-up scanners moved up and down her body. It was like being scanned at the grocery store, only more pervy.

  The unit stopped, and everything retracted.

  The yellow woman smiled. “That’s it. Everything else will be registered on the station. They will test your aptitudes and run you through your paces. Congratulations, your new future begins today.”

  Lyra nodded, and another alien attendant came and ushered her into the shuttle. The arrangement wasn’t what she was expecting. Instead of seats, there were stacked cubicles with heads visible.

  “Okay, making the most of fuel. Got it.”

  The attendant showed her to the empty hole where she needed to put herself. Lyra grabbed bars on the sides of the cubby, lifted herself, and slid into the hole, putting her arms at her sides.

  She set her arms in the cradles and felt a prick against her skin. Everything went dark. When she woke, she wouldn’t be on Earth anymore. It was a pity she was going to miss takeoff.

  When Lyra woke, she was in some kind of medical facility. A male of some other species came up to her, and he nodded. “Good recovery time. Your name?”

  “Lyra Lannark.”

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  He frowned and checked the scanner. “Your muscles are highly developed. Are you an athlete?”

  “No. I just do manual labour.” She frowned. “Is there a problem?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “No. No problem. We are going to run some aptitude tests on you, and then, you will be put in a course to prepare you for some of those career options so that when you go for your bond, you will be able to get the best price for your skills.”

  “I don’t understand. Don’t I just get sent somewhere?”

  He shook his head. “No, your skills are listed in a bond auction, your bond is set at a price that covers your training, and that will make those who buy your bond value your skills. It also allows you to earn out in a reasonable amount of time so that you can choose your next position on your own. There are businesses to assist you in finding your next work possibilities if you don’t want to remain on the world you are working on.”

  She nodded. “Right. So, what happens first?”

  “Well, as we have not been talking in an Urther language, you have taken to the implanted language learning that we passed along in the pods.”

  Lyra’s eyes widened. “Well, in that case, what happens next?”

  He grinned and showed sharklike teeth. “That’s the spirit. Testing will begin, and then, we will settle you in a class. It starts now.”

  She nodded and sat up. “It starts now.”

  “Tony, go left. Your stack is too high.” Lyra moved the cargo handler she was strapped into with as much grace as she could manage.

  “You are not the cargo manager, Lyra. Keep your eyes on your own work.”

  She finished using the waldos in the handler to tie down her cargo, and then, she started to hike back to the handler’s charging dock. The rest of her class was still working, and when she heard the screech and squeak, she turned back to the cargo stacks.

  Tony’s stack was wavering, and she sprinted over to him and caught the half-ton of cargo that was hurtling toward his head. She set it to one side, made sure nothing else was endangering the surrounding area, and she stomped back to the charging dock.

  Lyra was shaking. It wasn’t just because of the near-disaster, but it took a lot of energy to move a cargo handler with any kind of speed. She latched into the dock and exited out the back of her unit. She crouched in the hall outside the run-up to her unit
and tried to stop herself from shaking.

  She was there for two minutes when Tony stalked up to her, grabbed her hair, and hauled her to her feet. “What do you think you were doing, bitch? Trying to make me look like an ass?”

  She braced her feet and punched him, feeling some of her hair leave as he fell. She kicked him in the balls and continued hammering at him with her fists. When hands pulled her off, she heard shouting, and a voice murmured, “Calm down or be sedated.”

  She stood still, pinned against one of her trainers.

  “Lyra, are you bleeding?”

  She murmured, “My head.”

  “Strike?”

  “He pulled my hair. I am missing some scalp.” Her heartbeat was thudding and slowing to a normal range. Her head was throbbing. “Sorry for the fighting, Drakus.”

  He chuckled. “No problem. I haven’t seen anyone move that fast in a loader before. How did you do it?”

  “I didn’t want the asshole crushed. It would look bad for the lest of the class.”

  He made an amused sound and said, “Right, we are taking you for medical treatment.”

  She groaned. “Add it to my fee.”

  “It will be added to Tony’s. He is lucky he didn’t do more damage. That would be added as well. You know that you are not allowed to attack each other. Good thing that the entire ship is wired for observation.”

  She nodded and pressed a hand to her scalp. Drakus was charcoal grey with a delightful shock of neon hair crowning his head. It made her smile when she saw him.

  He eased his grip, and she walked next to him. The smell of blood filled the air around her head, and she grimaced.

  “So, any idea why he attacked?”

  “I am a female. Tony has fun ideas about who should be doing what, even out here.”

  “Ah. I was reading up on that after his attempts to sabotage your testing. Is it common?”

  “Common enough. It seems that several men don’t understand that the cargo handlers make for an equal demonstration of strength.”

  “You know that is not precisely true. They work on an assessed percentage of operator strength.”

  They entered medical, and Tony was being scanned with the instructors who had hauled him there. When he saw her, he was outraged. “I didn’t do anything to you, bitch!”

  She started laughing as she was put on a med bed for scans of her injury.

  The medic looked at her in confusion. “Why are you laughing?”

  “He is saying he didn’t do anything.” She sniggered.

  “And?”

  “My hair and a chunk of skin are still in his hand.”

  The medic paused and turned, yelling out in one of the two dozen alien languages. Tony’s hand was pinned, the scalp was removed and brought back to her. The medic grafted the skin back into place after an hour and released Lyra to head for dinner.

  Drakus walked her out, and he said, “I have to look at the footage, but I think we might have a better use for your skills. It is an expensive but desirable occupation.”

  She smiled. “Let me know if I am qualified. Would I have to work with teams?”

  “Only in the broadest sense, you would be in charge of yourself and keeping folks calm.”

  “While using a mech?”

  “Exactly. The people in question might be difficult to deal with, but they are not evil, just in the grips of something fairly intense. Never mind. You go have dinner, and I will speak with you tomorrow after I have asked the other instructors for their opinion.”

  Lyra nodded and went to the dispensing hall where she would sit by herself, eat by herself, and then return to her quarters by herself. At least she could read what she liked and practice new languages that weren’t on the standard rosters. If she had just been given learning, she would have been happy, but she was given learning and strength, shelter, and food. Things had been far worse.

  She could only go up from here.

  Chapter Two

  Lyra stood in front of the panel and waited. She had already been waiting for ten minutes before the three trainers reached some kind of signal and relaxed.

  Drakus chuckled. “I told you. She can remain alert with no aspect of tension for indefinite periods of time. She reacts immediately when necessary and disengages as you saw in the vid.”

  Instructor Vik smiled, her expression amused. “Though, the attack on Tony in the hallway was slightly over what was acceptable considering the situation.”

  Drakus spoke up, “She had sustained a head wound and has worked with him for a period of time. She was aware of what it would take to keep him from attacking again. She does her homework and observes those around her.”

  Tyamul nodded. “Well, Lyra, it comes down to this. If you can get into the machine in the test chamber and walk it to the other side, you pass. That is all you need to be qualified for this position. It is a high bond, but it pays out fast.”

  Lyra cocked her head. “Nothing to do with companion bonds, right?”

  Drakus shook his head. “Take the unit for a walk, and we will discuss it. If the Hmrain start using those bots for sex, that would be mind-blowing.”

  The other trainers snickered, and Lyra went to the door and saw the unit they referred to. It was a glossy black frame, and she crawled into it. She pulled the rear hatch shut, slid her legs into the braces, and did the same for her arms. She leaned her head back into the cradle, and clamps snapped around her skull, letting her see all of the displays that fired up when she flexed her fingers.

  The unit was in a gorilla-style hunch, and when she moved to stand up, she was dragging the arms. She pulled with her shoulders and got the suit upright. The displays showed her axis, alignment, and the percentage of load that her body was taking. She was running it at a full fifty percent. This was going to suck.

  She pushed up with her own legs and took a few tentative steps before she was able to walk to the edge of the space. She heard a voice, “Can you pick up the item at the end and bring it back to the starting point?”

  She shrugged and picked up the crate, carrying it at arm’s length. She pushed with her legs and carried the item to the starting position.

  “Now, Lyra, as fast as you can, run it back to where it started and then return the unit to the charging cradle.”

  She nodded, shifted the cube to her shoulder, sprinted to the end of the chamber, set the item down, and then sprinted back to the charging cradle. She turned, backed in, and returned the unit to the crouching posture.

  “You are cleared to exit.”

  She flicked the release on the control panel, the head clamps pulled her head back before releasing her. Her neck rocked her head forward. She blinked and chuckled. If the unit hadn’t pulled her head back, she would have cracked her forehead.

  She wiggled her way out of the different cuffs and unlocked the latch to exit. She pulled herself out, and then, she dropped to the ground. Her muscles were quivering, and she was weak from exertion. She took a few steps and crouched against the wall. Drakus came to her side and helped her up with one arm around her waist. “You did very well, Lyra. It was an excellent first run. How are you feeling?”

  “Weird. Wobbly. What is that thing?”

  “It is a control unit that some stronger populations use for crowd control or facility security.”

  She chuckled. “So, a security guard with a mech or a peacekeeper.”

  “Right. The reason that the bond is worth so much is that you would have to get a few physiological boosts. Nothing major just increase power yield and speed up recovery time. There would also be combat and de-escalation training. Is that something you would be up for?”

  She cocked her head as he took her back to the main chamber. “Do I get days off? My own place? Can I have hobbies?”

  He chuckled. “We will bring in a negotiator for this particular bond, and if you agree and they agree, you will begin treatment that will continue until you
make planetfall, even after that if you like.”

  “What kind of treatment?”

  “The negotiator will bring a member of the med team with them to check for tolerance. I think you can manage it, but they will know for certain.”

  She chuckled, and he sat her down on a bench in the chamber where they normally took classes. “This is like something that happened in human fiction. We have a lot of tales of heroes being remade on the genetic level.”

  He grinned. “Perhaps those stories had an origin somewhere else.”

  Lyra glanced at him and took the water that he handed her. “Wouldn’t that just be something?”

  She sat there for half an hour, and then, the cargo-loading class was scheduled to begin. She was going to have to haul ass today. She finished the water, got to her feet, and hit the lav. Work never waited.

  After lunch, she was flattened but eating and getting ready for the rest of the afternoon. Drakus arrived at her table. “Lyra, come with me. The negotiator and medic had an opening.”

  She looked up and nodded. “I will just clear my tray.”

  “I already did it. Come on.”

  She pushed herself upright, saw that he had indeed taken her tray, and she looked at him. “Right. Where are we going?”

  “There is a consulting area in medical. We are going there.”

  She nodded and walked with him. “So, why are you being so nice about this?”

  He chuckled. “We get talent-spotting bonuses. If we are correct about your skill level and capabilities, we get a percentage of your bond.”

  Lyra nodded. “Okay, that makes more sense.”

  “Why does it need to make sense?”

  “Oh, I am still getting used to new cultural mores, so I have no idea what flirting looks like up here.”

  He chuckled. “Ah, I understand the confusion. I would gladly be your lover, but you are not going to be on the station long.”