Lord Horizon

1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-940014-78-4
Verlag: Wise Ink Creative Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 320 Seiten

Caeli Crys isn't living-she's surviving. On the run after the genocide of her empathic people, she witnesses a spaceship crash near her hidden camp. When she feels the injured pilot suffering from miles away, she can't help but risk discovery to save his life. Commander Derek Markham awakens stranded on an uncharted planet. His copilot is dead, his ship is in ruins, and he's only alive because a beautiful young woman is healing him with her mind. As Derek recovers, Caeli shares the horror of her past and her fear for the future. When Derek's command ship, Horizon, sends rescue, Derek convinces Caeli to leave with him. But his world is as treacherous as hers-full of spies, interplanetary terrorist plots, and political intrigue. Soon, the Horizon team is racing to defend an outlying planet from a deadly enemy, and Caeli's unique skills may just give them the edge they need to save it.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lord, Tabitha

Leseproben

Derek

She was gone when he woke up. From the amount of light filtering into the cave, Derek assumed it was late afternoon. More clearheaded than he had been since the crash, he actually felt considerably better than the last time he was conscious. The excruciating pain that accompanied his every movement had dulled. His entire body still ached, but it was nothing compared to the blinding agony he experienced the last time he opened his eyes.

This seemed impossible. Maybe he’d actually been asleep for days? That was the only explanation he could think of for how quickly he seemed to be healing. Whatever the case, he better, he was starving, and annoyingly, he had to pee.

The contraption on his left leg would make standing up on his own challenging. He understood that he most likely had a femur fracture, that this was very bad, and that it had hurt like hell. The sharp, searing pain in this leg was what first jolted him back to consciousness after the crash.

Derek remembered his own confusion and disorientation in those first moments. He knew he was in bad shape as soon as he opened his eyes, but his head had been cloudy and he didn’t know where he was or how he got there.

And there was the girl. She had touched him and he instantly felt calmer. He remembered thinking maybe he was dead, and maybe it wasn’t so bad. But his version of the afterlife did not include a broken leg, a splitting headache, and chest pain.

He sat up and shrugged off the blanket that covered him. Then, leaning toward what he now thought of as his side, he tried to put weight on his uninjured leg and use his right arm to push himself up. He managed to get to his feet, holding on to the cave wall for support. With an uncomfortable hopping, shuffling motion, he staggered out of the cave and around the corner to relieve himself.

The effort left him sweating, exhausted, and lightheaded. , he swore. He was probably going to fall and break his other leg on the way back inside. As he lurched around the corner, the young woman walked back into the camp clearing. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw him standing, and she hurried over to help him. Instead of guiding him back into the cave, though, she led him to an outdoor hammock near the fire pit. She helped him onto it and then went back inside to retrieve his blanket.

He watched her efficiently start a fire, fill the pot with water, and begin to chop vegetables. he wondered, looking around the site. If so, she was doing a good job of it.

He was more than curious about her. Her knowledge of healing had saved his life, and he had some odd sense that he knew her better than should be possible. Despite how awful he felt, he found himself staring at her.

She looked up from her tasks and saw that he was watching her. She gave him a small smile, and he grinned back, pointing at the cooking pot. She nodded her head, tossed all the roots and vegetables in, and gave it a stir.

Her quiet attention to these domestic activities comforted him in a way he couldn’t easily explain. He knew he needed her to take care of him, and he was surprisingly at ease with this. Maybe it was because the effort to stay alive after the crash had been so exhausting, and he was just spent. But there was something about her that allowed him to be vulnerable. He dozed in the swaying hammock.

Traces of memory from the crash jolted him out of his short nap. She was already next to him, touching his shoulder and soothing him with her soft voice. He took a deep breath and felt his body relax. When his stomach growled a few seconds later, she raised her eyebrows at him, looking amused. Collecting two bowls, she scooped out a large portion of the hot soup into each and set them on a flattened log to cool. His mouth watered.

Positioning herself on his right side, she placed his arm over her shoulders and helped him first to sit, then to step onto the ground. She guided him over to a tree and sat him down with his back supported by the trunk.

His splinted leg was straight out in front of him, and his left arm was stuck in a sling. His head hurt, but not as much as before, and his chest ached, but he could breathe comfortably. , he thought. But the dark purple bruises all over his body told a very different story.

As he looked down at his impressively colorful skin, it occurred to him that he was in his underwear. He had a sudden image of her undressing him, and thought needed to stop. When he looked up, as if reading his mind, she blushed and went to get his blanket from the hammock.

With only one hand, he couldn’t maneuver the bowl very well and he couldn’t use the crudely sharpened sticks to jab at the chunks of vegetables. She must have been hungry, but she sat next to him and helped him eat first. The meal was warm and filling, and he was sorry to see his bowl emptied. She got up, scooped another helping, set it aside to cool again, and then started on hers.

When they were both finished, she piled the bowls and sticks together near the cooking pot and sat on her knees facing him. Her expression was somber as she looked into his eyes. She said something that he couldn’t understand, then pulled a medallion on a chain out from underneath her shirt and placed it in his hand.

Derek grasped the medallion, leaned his head back against the tree, and squeezed his eyes shut, trying and failing to keep the sudden, devastating pain at bay. His chest tightened, and he felt the sting of hot tears threaten. She touched his arm then discreetly gathered the dishes and disappeared into the woods.

Of course Tommy was dead. He had known this all along, but now the proof in his hand made the reality of it sharp and terrible. This was not how it was supposed to be. A hint of anger surfaced next to his grief. He did not lose people under his command on routine missions.

As he replayed the crash in his mind, he couldn’t think of a way to change the outcome, but that didn’t matter. He was responsible, and he would carry the weight of that with him for a long time.
 

***

 
When the unidentified ship came out of nowhere and fired on them, they were caught completely off guard. Derek’s ship, , shuddered violently and pitched hard to port.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Tommy shouted, and a string of curses followed as he tried to correct their course.

“Get the weapons online,” Derek ordered, taking the helm. The little ship carried a powerful complement of weapons, and Derek was eager to put them to good use.

“We’re set!” Tommy yelled over the blaring alarms.

“I’ve got a lock!” Derek shouted back and fired. He squinted as a bright flash of light filled the cockpit and the other ship exploded into large metal chunks.

“Nice shot,” Tommy offered.

Derek grinned at him and wiped the sweat from his forehead, relieved.

But his satisfaction was short-lived. The port side engine was failing, and the life support alarms were among the chorus of those wailing through the cockpit. They were never going make it back to , their command ship, in this shape.

Derek knew one of the planets in the nearby system was habitable from the spectrum data they’d taken earlier in the day, and he thought they might have a better chance of making it there.

They’d been on a three-day trip to this relatively unmapped sector of space. Their job was to grab a little data about the system and then drop small, nearly undetectable sensor markers at strategic points in the region.

“I’m heading back to the planet,” he said to Tommy and made the necessary course corrections. “And shut down the damn alarms.”

Their earlier lighthearted mood quickly turned into one of brisk efficiency. Derek focused on flying while Tommy tried to repair as much of the ship as he could before they would have to try and land it.

Derek’s first order of business was to get the ship on course to the planet, but the second was to send out a communication to . No other ships should have been in this region, and had not registered the ship on any of its sensors until it was right on top of them.

This second fact concerned Derek the most. utilized the best stealth tech in the galaxy, and wouldn’t have been able to come within firing distance of another ship completely undetected.

This was information needed to know—that and the fact that two of her pilots might soon be stranded on a strange, remote planet. He sent the transmissions while Tommy’s colorful language filled the cockpit.

“Status report?” Derek asked Tommy.

“Life support will hold,” Tommy answered. He paused then continued, “The engine’s fried, though, and the stabilizers are shot. I did my best, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

Derek knew from Tommy’s tone that the ship was just too badly damaged. It would be a near-impossible landing with almost no control.

As the planet went from a small speck in the distance to a large blue-and-green ball, they both became quiet.

“It’s been an honor, Commander,” Tommy said. The words were formal and traditional, but no less heartfelt. It’s what they knew.

Derek swallowed hard and nodded at the younger man. “Engage the heat shields. Let’s do this.”

The ship shook violently when it entered the planet’s atmosphere. Derek struggled to maintain control. They were losing altitude way too fast. His heart pounded as he fought to hold...