Star Chasers Read online

  Table of Contents

  Frozen EmberByViola Grace

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Author’s Note

  About Viola Grace

  The Lion’s StowawayByGabriella Bradley & Taryn Jameson

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About Taryn Jameson and Gabriella Bradley

  White StarByBelinda McBride

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  About Belinda McBride

  XanaduByAstrid Cooper

  Xanadu

  About Astrid Cooper

  Polarium; a huge fictional star visible to all planets and featured in all four stories in our Star Chasers anthology. Polarium’s purpose differs depending on where the story is set but has a huge influence over the lives and loves of the characters involved. Treat yourself, stowaway with us and transport yourself to the stars with some of eXtasy Books’ top authors.

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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.

  Star Chasers

  Copyright © 2018 Viola Grace, Taryn Jameson, Gabriella Bradley, Belinda McBride, Astrid Cooper

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-2156-4

  Cover art by Angela Waters

  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 Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

  Look for us online at:

  www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com

  Star Chasers

  By

  Viola Grace, Taryn Jameson, Gabriella Bradley, Belinda McBride, Astrid Cooper

  Frozen Ember

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Ember Velar looked around and waited as calmly as she could. Mimicking the wall behind her was a strange request, but she did it.

  The Ontex recruiter stared at her and blinked slowly. “You were not exaggerating. You really do mimic your surroundings.”

  She smiled. “It works with people, too, but that can get disturbing.”

  “I see. Well, the first shipment of Volunteers has already left, but if you want to be on the next shuttle, you have a place, Ms. Velar.”

  Ember wasn’t sure she had heard him. “The next shuttle? When does that one leave?”

  “Six days. You have two days to make up your mind.”

  Ember shook her head. “I have made up my mind. I am going. I just need to write a letter, and I have to figure out how to have it delivered in two decades.”

  Recruiter Norz inclined its head. “We can make sure of that.”

  She blinked. “You can?”

  “Of course. It is a little enough thing for the Alliance to do considering what you are about to surrender in the name of your world’s honour and potential.”

  Ember nodded. “Right. I will have the letter for you on the day I leave. I am not leaving until I know it is in your hands.”

  “I accept that. I will be at the shuttle and confirm your request.”

  “Thank you. This is a hard letter to write, and I want it to get to her if she goes looking.”

  “May I ask who it is for?”

  Ember looked at Norz calmly. “My daughter. She was taken from me two years ago, and I am not allowed contact.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Her father’s family had money to make her go away. I didn’t have any means to fight them. So, I am doing what I can and making a new home for us in the stars. If she gets this and we get our champions, she can join me if she likes. There will be a place for her, wherever I go.”

  Norz nodded. “I will be there to take on the letter. It will get to your child the moment she turns eighteen.”

  “Thank you. Now I just have to go home and write it.”

  Norz tapped her lightly on the arm in comfort, and Ember’s body identified something in the contact. Norz had a human soul. Ember could feel it. The rest of the body, that was up for debate. It didn’t matter. That recruiter was her ticket to being able to live her life in the stars and to have a message sent to her daughter when there was no one around to threaten.

  If her daughter wanted contact, the Alliance would get a message to Ember. She was sure of it. She had to be. There was no other option.

  The day she left the Earth, she handed Norz the fat envelope with every hope and dream she had for her daughter. It was a hard day, but the hardest had been the day she went to the nursery and found out that her baby wasn’t there.

  Her asshole ex-boyfriend had gotten his congresswoman mother in on the situation and the conscious decision to hide the pregnancy after it had already happened. A lovely couple had adopted the child the moment that Ember had been declared unfit by the congresswoman’s golfing buddy. The family court judge. Her baby had been removed out of state within hours.

  She kept the focus for the letter to be that she did not give up, she merely decided to wait and see if her child had any of her characteristics. If she came looking, Ember would be waiting.

  Two years of legal battles had exhausted her finances, her social contacts, and her friends, so this was the only move she had left. The breakdown that she had had before she came to this decision had been short, powerful, and left her with the knowledge that her daughter was safe, healthy, and she would grow up. When she was eighteen, she would get the letter, and she would know that Ember didn’t give up on her. Ember just chose to wait instead of fighting a losing battle. No child needed that much anger and acrimony in her life.

  As she left the Earth behind, she put her emotions, anger, frustration, and pain into a small part of her soul. They might be useful in the future, but right now, they were making her cry.

  Ember turned from side to side and checked out her reflection in the mirror. She looked like she was starring in a sci-fi flick.

  “Right. I am actually living one.”

  She twisted to check out her butt in the skin-tight fabric. “Well, it isn’t a mom bod. That is for sure.”

  Her hips were curvier after having her daughter, and her breasts were bigger. Ember had scraped her dark hair into a ponytail, and it was high on the back of her head. It swung when she moved.

  She looked into her eyes and tried to see anything extraordinary in her gaze. There was nothing. The hazel was the same colour on the warship tha
t it had been on Earth.

  Aliens. She had already seen more than the Ontex and his bodyguards. She had seen dozens of species, all in the same uniform of the warship.

  There were aliens who looked like they had feline genes, scales, all the colours of the rainbow, and maybe a few that she had never imagined. She was here to blend in as her job and assignment. She had quite the task on her hands.

  Ember suddenly laughed. “I am an alien.”

  Any planet she landed on, she would be an alien. It was a heady thought. She was going from walking around and being lost in the crowd, to standing out because she wasn’t just like everyone else. She was going to be alien wherever she went. She had to get used to the idea.

  The chime rang, and she snapped out of her preoccupation. It was time to meet for lunch. She pressed her hands over her belly in the reinforced suit. She had no idea how she was going to fit any food in with the suit on.

  She stepped out of her room and followed the directions she had been given to the dining room. A few other humans from her class met up with her in the hallway, and they all went to engage in some of the most basic education in what was safe for them to eat.

  Ember laughed and chatted with some of the other women and men, but she kept her eyes on the basics of what she was allowed to consume, and which species had toxic components in their daily meals. It was her first class, and she was eager to learn more as they cruised through the stars.

  Chapter Two

  Instructor Mfalla smiled brightly. Her mouth was on her forehead, so it took getting used to. “This is your reflex stasis capsule. You don’t test well for full sensory deprivation, so your implants are now rigged to feel a toned-down version of what the capsule is engaged in, and you will be able to remain aware of what is going on around you. It is experimental, so you are going to be the first long-run trial of the technology. It is set to send data bursts, so we can keep track of its performance.”

  Ember looked into the capsule that was going to house her for the next six months while she travelled. She was only scheduled to wake up once every three months while the pod did its maintenance. It was going to do everything for her while it slowed her biological processes down to barely discernable.

  “I have never heard of pre-emptive therapy before.”

  “It is called training, Ember.” Mfalla sighed. “You have been in training.”

  Ember crouched to examine the controls. “I know. I also know I can rewire this thing in my sleep. Well, maybe not then.”

  Mfalla stamped a hoof and shook her head. “Enough. You won’t be on the outside for more than a few minutes tomorrow. Get in and see how it feels.”

  Ember was suspicious, but her instructor would never do anything to hurt her. She had had plenty of opportunity.

  “So, the port suit works just like the simulator?”

  “Yes. It is loaded with saline so nothing will happen. Well, you might get bloaty.” Mfalla smiled.

  Ember chuckled and climbed into the low capsule. It was three feet wide and seven feet long inside, with a gel bed that could be activated once she was plugged in.

  She got the worst connection over with. The suit was highly invasive in the crotch region, but it would have to be, or she would have a toxin issue.

  She hissed as it activated and then went on to set the plugs in either thigh and her fingers trembled as she inserted the whisper-thin needle into the port at the back of her skull. When that was done, she used the jacks in her suit’s sleeves and lay back, pressing the switch that swelled the gel around her. She was locked in place.

  Mfalla had been smiling, but now her lips pulled flat. “Excellent. Another one that immobilized themselves. Enjoy the pickup.”

  Ember wanted to scream, but a cool flood ran through her. She got cold, she got sleepy, and then everything went dark.

  * * * *

  Mfalla murmured into her coded com. “Preparing to jettison trash.”

  “Standing by. Time of expiry?”

  “Seventy-two hours.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Mfalla looked at the pod behind the force screen. The moment that she pushed the button, another payment would be sent to her family. It was too bad. She liked Ember.

  She hit the button, and the pod fell into the void.

  * * * *

  Ember’s dreams frosted over. She was holding her baby and running down a hall coated with ice and snow, and it was getting colder with every step.

  She finally found a doorway and tried to get through it, but the metal of the frame warped around her and held tight.

  * * * *

  “Are you sure that this case isn’t empty?” One of the collection agents looked into the pod.

  “She is in there. Mfalla would never dare to betray us. Look again.”

  He looked again, and there against the blue gel was a faintly blue creature, lying motionless in deep slumber. “Are we sure she is Terran?”

  “Definite.”

  He whistled softly. “She is talented. This is going to be the haul of a lifetime.”

  “You are joking.”

  “I am not. She is some kind of chameleon.”

  His companion clapped him on the shoulder. “What we have here, is a scavenger’s treasure. Take care of the pod systems. We want a good price for her when we get to the trader outpost.”

  The collection agent swiftly connected the pod to the ship’s systems and let it share their life support. There was a long journey ahead of them. She had to stay fresh.

  * * * *

  Ember felt the connection to something much larger than herself, and she used the sensors along the capsule to gain access to the information systems of the ship that she was on.

  Her first month in space and she was already a cliché.

  First, she was able to pick up on energy signatures, traces of oxygen and carbon filters, and then she stumbled into the database. Alien species, logs of pickups, finances, everything was exposed to her. She started reading, keeping her presence as small as she could, and worked out that she was on board a vessel piloted by folk who made their living by stealing and selling others.

  Fuck.

  They had flagged her capsule and were looking forward to selling her at a trading center. Double fuck.

  She hung out in the information station and learned everything she could about the people who had her, the ship she was on, and how long they had been travelling. When she had learned everything she could from their systems, she started over with special attention to crew files.

  She felt the ship docking, hands on the capsule, and everything went silent.

  Three months later, she woke during the pod’s scheduled maintenance and she used her link to test where she was and what condition the pod was in.

  She was pinned between layers of other stasis pods on a bulk slaver ship. That was all the information that she could access. Great. Her first day free of the grasp of the pod and she was stuck.

  The air was still circulating in her pod, the cryo-fluid was moving slowly in her veins, and she was immobile. She had made it off her planet and into space, and she was stuck in a can.

  She would be dead before her daughter ever got the letter.

  Ember relaxed into the gel and controlled her breathing. She sent the sensory connection out through the pod and broke through the firewall of the ship. She wanted to know where she was and what she was doing.

  She pulled the data that she needed and uploaded it into the small storage buffer that they had created in her brain. She could go through that data at her leisure and learn a bit more about what they planned to do with her.

  She counted the times that the pod woke her so it could do its maintenance. Fifteen times she had woken, trapped in a stack of pods. They were storing her until they had a proper buyer, and in the meantime, they had left all Alliance space and were moving off into uncharted territories where she and those with her would fetch the best price.

  The details on her file wer
e shocking. She had been sold three times and handed on from what appeared to be a wholesaler and into the boutique retail market.

  The next time she woke, she was alone in the hold. The other pods were gone. There was no pressure on the sides of her pod, but it was humming along happily. The levels of supplies must have been restocked because it was showing that she could last in the pod for another twenty years.

  She really did not want to be in the pod for another twenty years.

  The direction of the ship was toward a huge star. The designation was Polarium, and the area was surrounded by dangerous stellar phenomenon. The payday for delivering her was more money than she could imagine, but she had no idea why someone untrained like her was generating such a large price tag.

  The pod was giving her feedback. Ember kept her eyes closed as the wrappings of ice spun around her. She was in space again. She was floating and in space again.

  As the pod rotated, she saw the wreckage of the ship that had housed her, huge chunks of the hull had been removed, and there was nothing left to support life.

  Ember watched the stars spin past as her pod rotated and felt the encompassing light of the huge star nearest to her. She hadn’t gotten the latest directional update, so she had no idea where she was.

  The pod woke her twice more as she was in an intense orbit around the star. Radiation exposure was a possible setup, but she couldn’t do anything.

  She watched a star come toward her and smiled at the fancy spectacle. It looked for all the world like a star was moving around debris and coming toward her pod.

  Ember couldn’t move and didn’t know how much of this was a hallucination, but the star coming toward her had a person in it. The pod twisted away, and she lost sight of the oncoming blaze. At least she wouldn’t have to watch her death coming toward her.