If dead men tell no tales, then Tohva Blayde had nothing to worry about. His mission to figure out what Manitac was hiding inside the haunted nebula had come to an end. Despite all his attempts to send a discreet coded message from the UHS Nimbus back to his Shadow cell, someone in the rank and file had figured out what he was up to. His escape plan worked only long enough for him to get a glimpse of Manitac’s newest operation. It was the last thing he saw before he died.
Of course he was dead, because that was the only explanation for the gorgeous woman kissing him. Her tiny physique clung to his body like clay, her breasts warming his own chest through his flight suit, her sweet lips crushed against his own. There was no way this was real. It couldn’t be.
He’d died and the Guardians had tossed him onto this nightmare world, he was sure of it. Except he didn’t want to stop kissing her. In fact, he wanted so much more. His body responded to this lithe figure pressed against him in the most natural and inappropriate way possible. It wasn’t until he’d realized he’d lifted her off the ground that he knew he’d lost his mind.
“Stop.” He dropped her from his embrace even as his body begged for him to scoop her up in his arms. “What in the name of a blazing star are you doing?”
Though he hadn’t kissed a woman in five years, he hadn’t lost his prowess. The woman—or whatever it is—breathed so hard he could feel the warmth on his nose.
“Communicating.” She paused, swiping back a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “I need you to help me find my sister.”
He heard the words, but his body was still caught up in her kiss. By the Guardians, this is not the time to satisfy my sex-starved body. Even dead men have to maintain some dignity, don’t they? His groin said no, but his broken heart said yes.
He listened to his heart. Now that she’d stepped away from him, he could get a better look at her in the bright light of the dome. This time she looked like a resort hostess, with her cute yellow uniform—the same shade as her hair—hugging her curves just enough to keep him on edge and the skirt just short enough to show him firm legs, but nothing like the sex worker getup she had on before shifting into one of Manitac’s goons.
“You’re not human.” What a dumb thing to say, because everyone knows aliens don’t exist.
“Correct,” she said, her voice both sensuous and seductive.
“Then I must be dead.” He needed confirmation because it was the only logical reason why he was having this conversation.
“Of course not.” She stepped back into his personal space, placing her small hands on his chest, sending jolts of fireworks to all of the wrong places, yanking a groan from him. “I pulled you out of space to protect you. Communication is necessary, and I would prefer to talk to just one human rather than many. The last time a ship filled with humans landed here...”
She hesitated, looking away from him toward the edge of the dome. No, not the edge of the dome—somewhere beyond, in the cold dark of emptiness. Gone was the pert hostess routine, replaced with sadness.
“...it didn’t end well.”
As much as he wanted to keep staring at her, his training demanded he look around to see what else the afterlife had to offer. For the first time, he realized there was a Manitac destroyer tethered at the far side of the dome. The name painted on the bow read Hurricane. Even though he’d lost his faith in Guardians a long time ago, he couldn’t believe they would permit a Manitac destroyer filled with humans with no conscience into the afterlife.
“Who are you? What are you?”
“This is my home.” Her hand left his chest to gesture to the blackness outside of the dome. “This star birthed me into existence.”
What pure rattus droppings. “You work for Manitac.”
“No, of course not. I’m not human.”
Do I believe her or not? Despite the sincerity of her voice, the ridiculousness of this situation kept his skepticism in place.
“How many of you are on board that ship?” He nodded toward the Hurricane because he didn’t want to place his hands anywhere near her even as the echo of her body pressed against his made them itch to reach for her again.
“None.” Her eyes turned down, looking at the surface of a planet that shouldn’t exist.
None could only mean they were all dead. His desire cooled, because if there was one thing that turned his stomach, it was senseless killing. “What happened to them?”
“I regret what I did.” Her brow furrowed as her lavender eyes began to tear up. “It was an accident, I promise you that. They were hurting me, and when I tried to stop them...please understand, I didn’t know the drill would destroy the other dome. They...died.”
“All of them?” He had to be sure.
“Yes.”
She sounded so mournful though, he could almost believe this was real. Without thinking, he reached out, aiming to hug her tight until the pain in her voice disappeared, but at the last moment he got himself under control and patted one of her shoulders instead. Her shoulders felt real, just like her kiss. Maybe I’m not dead after all?
“I understand. Killing should never be the answer, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Manitac’s private navy hurts people, and you had to defend yourself. As long as they didn’t get a chance to dispatch a message and alert anyone of your presence, we should be okay until the cruiser chasing me finds us. Speaking of which, where are we?”
“My home.”
Which was about as helpful as an engine fuel leak. “Yes, but in relation to the Unity Homeport, where are we?”
“Oh, well, let me explain.” Her brow became smooth once again, and her winsome smile returned. “According to the documentation I read on board the Hurricane, you are at coordinates 3927.5429. The star charts call it the Golden Nebula, while some humans call this sector the haunted nebula.”
Those were the coordinates he’d been aiming for when he stole one of the Nimbus’s single-pilot fighters to use as a getaway ship. It would have worked, except he hadn’t managed to acquire the passcode for the slipstream gateway. With no way of opening the gate, he had to find another option before the Nimbus’s security squad captured him. The way he had figured it, if he flew into the haunted nebula, he might be able to kill two aves with a single rock. He could hide his much smaller ship inside an asteroid field and hope that he could track the Nimbus to whatever it was that that Manitac was hiding here. If he could figure out what Manitac was hiding, he could send an emergency tight-beam transmission to his Shadow cell. That was probably what he did until his emergency oxygen ran out and he died alone inside a nebula where no one would ever find his body. That had to be what happened, because looking outside the dome he couldn’t see anything—no technology or mining equipment or homesteads. What does Manitac want with a barren planet?
Well, barren except for a drop-dead gorgeous sex goddess of an imaginary alien.
“Would you mind if I took a look inside the Hurricane?”
She motioned him ahead of her. “I need to know if you can fly it. I need to leave this planet and head for the Unity Homeport.”
“Fly it? You mean by myself?” Sure, why not? If I really have lost my mind, what better way to spend the afterlife than explaining to an imaginary alien how human technology worked. There were a few gadgets he’d like to introduce her to...once he got to know her better.
“Well,” she continued. “I could help. I’ve read all of the repair manuals and used the flight training holos. I know how it works and how to fix things if they go wrong. It’s just that I’ve never flown one before. It would be helpful to have an experienced pilot with me. I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again.”
I don’t want to hurt anyone...
Tohva’s heart squeezed as the pain from all the decisions he’d made in the last five years swept over him. Bad or good, his decisions had hurt others, and it almost killed him to admit that to himself.
He let the agony wash over him, then fade back into the emotional prison where he kept it hidden. If this imaginary alien had memorized the nonexistent tech manuals and flight instructions, she was light-years ahead of him. Flying a one-person fighter was one thing. Flying a destroyer…a single person could fly it in an emergency once it was out of the atmosphere, maybe, but launching it alone? He wasn’t so sure his imagination extended that far.
At least the ramp to the landing bay still worked. Inside he counted enough single-pilot fighters for three squadrons, the typical complement for a ship of this size. The alien said nothing as he walked around the fighters toward eight sets of the decontamination tubes stacked on top of another. Every ship needed one for each crew member, and his first instinct screamed to step into one himself. Stranded on a strange planet meant an automatic four-level decon to prevent any sort of native nasties from contaminating the rest of the ship.
Except dead men don’t need decon, do they? Besides, why would the Guardians care one way or the other about contamination? They obviously didn’t care if he had sex after he died. Why else would they supply him with someone who looked like her to keep him company? Which proved the Guardians didn’t care, because there was only one person he wanted to spend eternity with and it wasn’t an alien, fake, gorgeous, or otherwise.
Once on the bridge, he bypassed the empty duty stations and made his way into the captain’s office. He pushed aside what looked like a dead weidercant bush to sit at the desk. The alien pulled up a guest chair to sit next to him, not saying a word, but watching him as if he were the most important person in her world.
“What’s your name?” If she was going to “communicate” with him again, he should at least know what to call her.
“Oh,” she hesitated. “Why don’t you call me Ioanna?”
Ha. Caught her in the act. Ioanna was a human name, so maybe instead of being dead, Manitac had captured him and this was one of their interrogation techniques. “Is that your real name?”
“No, my real name is—”
Beauty washed over him. Waves of peace flowed and touched his core. He’d landed here filled with rage and longing and panic. In just the few minutes she sang, all of his harsh emotions dispelled from his heart, leaving him with nothing to fill it except her song.
“But,” she continued as if she hadn’t just rocked his equilibrium, “the person who used this form called herself Ioanna, so I think I should too.”
“All right.” How weak and thin his own voice sounded after that display. “Why don’t I call you Io for short?”
She nodded as if his remark brightened her day. “Okay, for short. Io. I like it.”
With the echo of her real name still haunting him, he pulled up the captain’s logs and checked the date on the most recent entry. The date stamp indicated twenty years, three months, and six days ago. Pulling a stylus out of a drawer, Tohva flipped to the next entry.
It didn’t work. Each time he tried to swipe to the current date, the system rejected his request. He opened the file so he could see the icons for each individual record all at once.
“I don’t understand this. How could the last log entry have a date stamp from over twenty years ago?” He glanced at Io, who sat there watching him. “How old are you?”
With her head tilted to the side, her lavender eyes wide, and her hair spilling over her shoulders, the part of him he thought had cooled during his tour of the Hurricane jumped back into action.
“Two quadrillion, eight hundred and fifty-three trillion, five hundred two billion, eight hundred thirty-nine million, one hundred twenty-eight thousand, four hundred and fifty-three years, four months, two weeks, six days, twelve hours, and fifty-three minutes. I calculated this using the time frame of this ship.”
Oh stars, did his head hurt. “That’s not possible. Nothing is that old. The universe isn’t that old.”
Her face twisted in offense to his words. “It’s true. Your scientists have miscalculated the age of the universe. I have lived in the core of this star long before any of my sisters woke up.”
“By the Guardians, you are a Guardian.” He twisted the captain’s seat so he could look at her face-to-face.
Her smile faltered. “I...made a mistake by singing to your ancestors. What you call Guardians in your literature is true, but the stories you tell about us are not. Your ancestors used my voice to explain the nature of things, which caused much strife, but I’m not what they worshiped.”
“Right.” He’d stopped believing in Guardians, so they tossed one into his lap because that was how twisted his fate was. If what Io said was true—and he really wasn’t dead—and Manitac got their hands on this missing younger sister of hers... “We need to get you off this world and somewhere safe.”
“I agree about leaving my home, but what do you mean by somewhere safe? Isn’t this ship safe?”
How could he explain wealth acquisition to a Guardian? “If Manitac hurt you by drilling, it was because there’s something valuable beneath the surface of this planet. Whatever it is, we need to identify it and make sure Manitac doesn’t get any of it.”
“I understand.” With a flick of her hand, she pushed her thick, blonde hair back over her shoulders so it bounced while she nodded. It wasn’t the only thing that bounced. “I read the logs and watched all of the holos on board this ship. I do not like the way this Manitac treats other humans.”
A tight ball of anxiety he hadn’t even known was in his gut loosened. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Humans should treat each other better, but many don’t. I promise, I will not treat you the way Manitac did.”
The alien—no, the Guardian frowned. “I know what promises are, but they are often broken. How will you keep this promise?”
How indeed? “All I can offer is to do my best to not let you down. Do you know what’s below the surface? Can you tell me what it was Manitac was mining?”
“Yes, this.”
A large shiny rock appeared in her hand.
“How did you do that?” For the first time since he met her, he leaned away so as not to get as caught up in her magic as he was with her body.
“I don’t understand.”
“Your hand was empty, now you’re holding a rock.”
“Yes. It’s a part of me. I pulled it toward me.” Without further prompting, she shoved the rock into his hands, allowing his thumb to brush her fingers. How soft they felt for someone who could probably crush him.
“This is my planet,” she said. “But I don’t possess it the way Manitac would. It feeds me, cradles me, and keeps me safe when I sleep. I’m connected to my world, so I could pull the small bit they tore away from me.”
He brushed away some of the dust from the craggy surface, spinning the rock around so he could see every facet. He was no geologist, but he’d once bought an engagement ring. He’d done his research, looking at all sorts of gems, tracing their origin back to the laboratories that made them to ensure they weren’t shipped from any Manitac facility.
He’d loved Mayla Dunne, but he’d die before he would have let her wear a ring branded with Manitac’s bloody history. Natural diamonds were still preferred over lab-grown ones—at least for engagement rings. He knew what raw diamonds looked like, and this rock had all of the markings of the largest diamond he’d ever seen.
He looked at Io, then at the open record. “May I keep this for now? I need to check something.”
“Yes, you may have it.”
At least his flight suit had a pocket where he could shove the rock while he continued to read the logs. “I don’t believe it.”
“What don’t you believe?”
How would he explain an information overload-induced migraine? “I’m looking down a double-barreled cannon. Your planet is a black dwarf star made of diamonds. Manitac can grow diamonds in laboratories, but a planet made of diamonds is a curiosity that will fuel Manitac’s cash flow for centuries. Everyone with a few credits in their pocket is going to want a black dwarf diamond. Even a minuscule rock will create bragging rights in certain circles. With this,” he held up the rock to the light, “Manitac could become unstoppable.”
“You’re saying they will try to drill my planet again. They will take apart my planet until there’s nothing left.”
The squeak in her voice broke him. He’d lost everything to Manitac. His loss, though, was a quick, sharp pain followed by hope that the Shadows would help him get it all back some day. Io, on the other hand, would have to endure physical pain as Manitac’s drills carved holes until there was nothing left. “Yes, that’s exactly what they will do. That’s not the worst of it though.”
“How can it get worse?” Io stood, her hands fluttering as if she didn’t know what to do with them.
He reached for her but missed as she started to pace the floor, a human reaction. Maybe she’d learned more from the holos than even she knew?
“I’m sorry, Io, but carving up your home isn’t the problem here. The problem is this dome protecting us. The Shadows, an organization I’m a part of that stands up to Manitac, could drive Manitac away from here as long as Manitac uses their current shield technology. But if Manitac has invented a shield that can withstand the gravity of a black dwarf star and starts retrofitting all of its fleet with it—there’s no weapon in the Shadows’s arsenal that can penetrate this type of shielding.”
Io spun in his direction, confusion marring her beauty. “I destroyed one of the domes with the drill.”
“Yeah, but the drill was also made with diamond grit. The Shadows don’t have access to a laboratory to create diamonds.”
Io stared at him before turning to face the door. His own words overwhelmed him. Manitac knew this place was here. They would come back and get not only the diamonds, but the shield technology as well. Was this the end? Would the Shadows fall to the behemoth that was Manitac? Would he, like Mayla, and so many thousands of others become mindless puppets once Manitac caught up to him?
“I don’t know who these Shadows are, but I will not require their assistance. I will find my younger sister and return her to her star. Once my sister is tucked back into the core, the star will return to its normal life cycle. Then I will stop Manitac from drilling myself.”
Her arms crossed over her chest, her determination reinforcing the weakest part of him—his promise to help the Shadows stop Manitac, even through violence. “I wish I could believe that, but I doubt even the power of a Guardian is enough to stop a company as widespread as Manitac. Not without shedding the blood of billions of innocent people. And what do you mean, restore your sister’s star to its normal life cycle?”
“Without a Guardian in the core of each star, the star dies faster. The star orbited by the Unity Homeport will run out of hydrogen within two weeks. By my calculations, it will go nova in three, destroying all of the habited planets orbiting it and creating a new nebula.”
“That’s not possible.” If he had a wit’s end, he just reached it. How much more could go wrong in such a short period of time? “Someone would have noticed by now. I cannot believe some astronomer hasn’t figured out that the sun—Unity’s star—is dying.”
Io shrugged her slim shoulders. “I doubt your astronomers have noticed the changes in the core yet. It will be at least two weeks for the neutrinos to reach the corona where they would be observed. My youngest sister must return to her star. This is imperative before all else, even before stopping Manitac from drilling right here.”
How much longer do I have to pretend to play this game? I’d always figured death would release me from reality and let me sleep in peace forever, but if this is my new reality, dead or not, I have to do what I can to save Unity.
For all of his hatred of everything Manitac had done to imprison, enslave, and mind-wipe anyone who crossed its path, Tohva could no more put aside his compassion for all of Unity’s citizens or imagine the Andromeda Galaxy with without the Unity Homeport than he could believe Io was a Guardian. “The Unity Homeport has twelve planets, twenty-six moons, and seventeen space stations, all of them populated.”
“According to the census records I found, there’s almost fourteen trillion people inhabiting that area.”
Stars alive, what the hell can we do to stop this? “I’ll repeat myself: Even a Guardian cannot stop Manitac, and Manitac owns Unity.”
Rising her chin, Io’s face hardened as she placed her hands on her hips. “Watch me.”
Copyright © 2022 by Debra Jess
Heroes of Andromeda #3
An alien goddess who shapeshifted into the form of a porn star teams up with a defunct freedom fighter to save the solar system. Tohva Blayde faked his own death five years ago when he joined the Shadows, a group of galactic freedom fighters. Now he figures he must have died for real, because that's the only explanation for finding himself on a dead planet kissing his favorite actress. Ioanna Ryder is an alien-goddess and everything she knows about humanity she learned from watching the erotic movies she found on a spaceship that crashed into her homeworld. Desperate to find her missing sister, Io shapeshifts into the image of a famous actress hoping to convince a human pilot to help her. Whether he's really dead or not, Tohva agrees to travel into the heart of enemy territory to rescue Io's sister. Along the way, their newly discovered passion for one another grows. But Io really is an alien-goddess and will live forever. Tohva will not. Even if they succeed and save both sister and solar system, will their differences destroy their only chance for love?
Romance Science Fiction [City Owl Press, On Sale: August 16, 2022, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781648981111 / eISBN: 9781648981104]
A Connecticut Yankee transplanted to Central Florida, Debra Jess writes science fiction, romance, urban fantasy, and superheroes. She began writing in 2006, combining her love of fairy tales and Star Wars to craft original stories of ordinary people in extraordinary adventures and fantastical creatures in out-of-this world escapades. Her manuscripts have won the Golden Pen Award (Paranormal category) and the Golden Palm award (Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy category).
Debra is a graduate of Viable Paradise and is a member of Codex. She’s also a member of the Romance Writers of America and RWA’s Fantasy, Futuristic, & Paranormal chapter, the First Coast Romance Writers and she’s the Vice President of the Volusia County Romance Writers.
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