Solar Storm Read online

  Dedication

  To friends present and absent. The journey would not have been the same without you. Thank you.

  Chapter One

  “What the fuck?”

  Nerys yelped in surprise as a smaller craft appeared out of the mist ahead, cutting her off just as she emerged onto the main current of the Icarian solar road. As she flicked the bow lights on, she whispered a prayer they were still operational. Or if they weren’t, then at least traffic control didn’t see they were out. To her relief they worked, highlighting the small craft in front of her in their beam.

  “I hope they fucking blind you! It’s people like you who cause accidents! Fricking idiot.”

  She carried on cursing—even though she knew there was no way the other pilot could hear her—and trimmed her sails to avoid a collision. The swell rose and slapped against the side of the ship, bringing with it the burnt-copper smell of the solar road. Drawing a deep breath, she pitted her weight against the wheel to haul the helm around.

  He’d cut her off, so the impact would be his fault and his insurance payout if she did hit him. But it wasn’t just the money she was worried about… She couldn’t afford to have the Grey Lady out of commission.

  This month was as lean as the six before it, if not leaner. She’d had to cinch her belt in a couple of notches to ensure her pants didn’t end up around her ankles. Knowing her luck, the damn things would head for the deck right at the same moment she passed another ship and she’d flash her ass to a liner full of passengers. So when she’d managed to land a job running cargo for the Staten group last week, she’d grabbed it with both hands. She needed this job more than she’d admit to anyone. Even herself.

  “Frickin’ asshole.”

  The smaller yacht dwindled down to a small dot in front of her with speed that made her green with envy. The pilot was no doubt some idiot with more money than sense, if those gossamer-thin sails were any indication. Nerys sighed and looked at her sails overhead. They were an older type, and thicker, designed for heavy haulage. Satisfaction filled her. The feather-light sails of that little yacht wouldn’t be able to pull half the cargo these babies could. Still, the sleek beauty and speed of the flyer made her long for something she couldn’t have. Not anymore.

  Biting her lower lip, she trimmed and tacked, bringing the Lady into the best alignment to catch both the current under the hull and the thermals in the sails. A lifetime ago, she’d have been able to buy such a sexy little flyer just for personal pleasure. That had been before she’d discovered the depths her father was prepared to sink to maintain his lifestyle. Now, even though she had to work hard for her money, at least it was honest money—not gained by conning some poor shmuck out of everything he had.

  Her lips compressed into a thin line and she flicked her hair back off her face. As usual, it had escaped from the clip at the nape of her neck, irritating the hell out of her. She needed it cut—badly—but like most things even the cost of a haircut had to be weighed against buying new couplings or rigging. And parts for the Lady always won that particular battle.

  A bleep to her left caught her attention. Locking off the helm with a practiced movement, she strode across the deck to the main computer console. She shouldn’t be unhooked from the safety belt whilst the ship was in motion, but she didn’t have an option. She’d had to let her crew go months ago. Crews liked being paid and fed, and she couldn’t afford either.

  It made no difference. She knew the Lady inside and out, and the day she couldn’t fly her solo was the day they packed her into her coffin and shot her into the heart of the nearest star.

  Reaching the console, she hooked her foot into the stirrup and flicked on the screen. Her slender fingers danced over the keyboard as she accessed the main computer, hitting the E key repeatedly when it refused to engage. A second later, the screen filled with endless E’s—a dull reprimand from the console that she’d held a key down too long.

  “Fucking hell! Every fricking time.” Sighing, she deleted the multitude of extras with violent stabs of her forefinger. She should get that sorted out. Eventually. Yet another thing on a list already a solar mile long.

  The screen filled with the latest system stats, navigation readouts and communiqués. She checked the first, glanced at the second and ignored the third. It was all junk. Mainly adverts for pleasure boosters or genital enhancement. The only messages she wanted were about new jobs and the computer would alert her as soon as something important came in. Anything else could wait until she had time.

  “Shit. Half a micron off,” she muttered as she studied the reports. On most solar roads, half a micron was nothing. The bigger ships could lose that in normal drift between navigation points, but on Icaria, half a micron could put a ship at risk. Deadly stoppers and lethal side-shear waited in the wings to drag the unwary off the road and into the darkness of space, like a pack of wolves. Solar sails couldn’t function in normal space, and outside the power of the roads, the maneuvering engines were no more use than a sonic hairdryer. Ships that fell off the road became wrecks—or worse—were sucked into the nearest star.

  Leaving the console unlocked, she crossed back to the helm. The ship rocked in the swell, deck moving under her feet. Without thinking, she adapted her gait into the particular rolling walk that marked a solar-sailor the galaxy over.

  Muttering about irresponsible idiots—like the owner of the sexy little flyer and the swell of his ship causing problems—she altered her heading. She was lucky she’d caught the drift early. It meant she could make the corrections with the sails rather than the engines and save fuel. Given the horrendous cost of filling the Lady’s dual tanks, saving fuel was always a good thing.

  The Lady creaked as she came about, a sound reminiscent of the old-style sailing ships Nerys had seen on New Terra as a child. She’d wanted to go on one, but passage on one of the ships—transported from Old Terra before it became a barren wasteland—was too expensive. Even her father, the wealthy Cordon McQuaid, hadn’t been able to bribe a couple of tickets out of anyone. Either that or the owner just hadn’t liked her father’s arrogance. Both were possible. It was just a pity his family had to pay for that arrogance.

  “Oh, you have to be kidding me. Justice is so, so sweet!”

  Nerys grinned broadly as the Grey Lady reached the top of a rise, revealing the star-scape laid out in all its glorious detail below her. Just ahead, at the bottom of the incline, was the sleek yacht that had cut her off earlier. Caught in one of the side-shears Icaria loved to throw at the over-confident, it was being dragged relentlessly from the road and into the blackness beyond.

  She hovered on the brink of the rise for a second, the bulk of the Lady casting a shadow on the rolling swell before the ship crashed down. Golden vapor splashed up around her hull to curl lovingly against the shield-strengthened glass of the upper decks.

  “Just had to push it, didn’t you?”

  She clicked her tongue against her teeth in disapproval. She should have known this guy would get into trouble. He was flashy, arrogant and entirely too cocky to be allowed on Icaria…hell, any road, without lead reins.

  “Well, look at where it got you now. Pretty little sails’ll never get you out of that, will they?”

  Her expert eye skimmed over the shear he was caught in as she pulled alongside. A Class Two without undertow. It was nothing the Lady couldn’t pull out of with her heavy-duty tri-sails, but fancy-pants flyer over there didn’t have a chance with those dinky little quads. His sails were designed for speed, not heavy work, and certainly not for dragging a ship out of the shit.

  “This is the Grey Lady to…” She paused and tilted her head to read the name written on the hull. Artemis? She huffed in surprise. Unusual name for a ship. Sounded Old Terran.

/>   “This is the Grey Lady to the Artemis. Looks like you need a bit of a hand there.”

  The response was immediate. A male voice filled the airwaves, issuing from the speakers by the helm’s controls.

  “Yeah, you could say that. I was beginning to think that hunk of junk ship you got there would never make it here in time.”

  Deep and rough, like barbed wire over steel, the voice triggered every feminine reaction she had and froze her to the deck-plating at the same time.

  She knew that voice. It was one she’d prayed she’d never hear again. Her ex-husband, Kelwin Sayeed. The rat who had been so drunk on their wedding day that he’d propositioned at least three of the ushers and tried to kiss her aunt. And that was before she’d found out what he’d been up to the night before.

  “Hey, you still there? Could do with a hand before the shear crushes me.”

  “Oh, keep your fricking panties on,” she shot back, wincing at the squeak that had replaced her normal voice. She resisted the urge to clear her throat and try again. At least sounding like that there was less chance of him recognizing her. He was just as bad as her father, but in a totally different way. Her father had only been interested in his offspring when it suited him, whereas Kelwin had been extremely attentive to everything with a pulse. His behavior on the holo-vid her father had obtained… She shuddered. She’d had a lucky escape.

  The last thing she needed was him realizing who she was now. Not after her fall from grace. Everyone she’d known from her previous life had wanted to do nothing more than gloat and gossip. A McQuaid daughter brought low and working for a living? It was a drama worthy of the holo-soaps, and that was before society at large knew the whole story. What would they say if they knew the truth…that her father had planned to strip a war-hero of his retirement money—a veritable fortune given the settlement an enhanced soldier received as recompense for the surgery they underwent.

  She put the whole tangled mess from her mind with the ease of long practice. All she had to do was haul Sayeed back onto the road and leave him to do his own thing. She didn’t need to invite him aboard for tea and a heart-to-heart.

  “Panties? Honey, who says I’m wearing any?”

  Typical Kelwin. She ignored the heat filling her cheeks as she maneuvered the Lady into place and cast the ropes. Self-propelled, they wrapped around the smaller craft in a snug embrace.

  “Cute. I guess it’s less washing for your mother.” Her finger hovered over the retract button. “You’re gonna need to drop those fancy quads, sailor-boy. Unless you want to lose them as I come about.”

  “Sweetheart, you get me out of this and I’ll drop anything you like.”

  She shook her head but couldn’t stop the slight quirk of her lips. He’d always been a charming bastard. “Save it for the ladies back at the station. You’re not my type.”

  “Oh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Honey, give me an hour and I can be anyone’s type.”

  There was no mistaking the sudden interest in his voice. She cursed under her breath as the quads began to fold down. Despite herself, she was impressed. Real smooth action. She’d never seen that configuration before, so they were either top of the line or a custom job.

  Nerys snorted. “Yeah right, Slick. Perhaps I’m not into guys. Might want to hold onto something—shear can pull like a bitch. Wouldn’t want you to bust your pretty face.”

  Making sure the fancy little sails were nice and neat in their cradles, she punched the retract button. Motors whirred in a metallic symphony as the ropes pulled the smaller craft tight against the Lady’s side. She tapped her fingers on the helm impatiently as the Artemis was reeled in.

  There was a long pause. So long she was about to break radio silence to make sure he was okay. It would be just her luck for him to fall and crack his skull—then she’d have to nurse him.

  “So…” His voice was light, but she could hear the intent behind it. “How do you know what I look like?”

  “You’re sailing a racer. Only pretty-boys and sad old men going through a midlife crisis bother with death traps like these. Since you haven’t pissed me off yet, I was assuming the former out of courtesy.”

  Kelwin ignored the unsettling feeling of his ship moving under someone else’s power and concentrated on the voice on the comm-link. He’d noticed the bigger ship when he’d nipped around it earlier. One of the older style cargo ships, the sails were patched and mended. So much so that he was surprised its owner, much less any captain worth his salt, would risk it on Icaria.

  That puzzle disappeared under the enigma of the woman who hailed him. She had a voice that sounded like she smoked twenty a day and gargled razorblades. Low and husky, it did things to his body that should be illegal. Women were his specialty…women and dealing bloody death on the battlefield. With a distinct lack of battlefields, what was a retired war-commander to do but while away his time and retirement money between the thighs of the fairer sex?

  A sudden image of a woman filled his mind. Young with her blonde hair piled high on her head. She’d looked at him shyly from beneath her wedding veil as they’d taken their vows. The trust in her eyes had rocked him to his soul. Still did, when he dragged that particular memory out of storage.

  Shaking himself free of his thoughts, he concentrated on his rescuer’s voice.

  “Pretty boy, huh? I’d describe myself as dashingly handsome. At least, that’s what I see in the mirror each morning.”

  But shaking himself free of the past wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. The memories kept coming in an unstoppable stream. The marriage had lasted hours—not even a day before his bride had fled—so why did it still bother him all these years later?

  A red light and alarm to his left cut off all thoughts of his ill-fated marriage.

  “You must have a special mirror then. What was that?”

  Her voice was sharp, some of the roughness eased out, which left it hauntingly familiar. Kel didn’t have time to dwell on that feeling; his attention diverted as the control panel in front of him lit up like a plasma display at a Xanthrian pleasure festival.

  “Errr, more like what isn’t it? Fucking hell, the whole thing’s gone berserk. I’ve got warning lights for rigging, thrusters, life support…fuck, even waste control. This boat’s a single tripper—it doesn’t have waste control systems.”

  Her reply was calm and steady. “Sounds like you have relay problems. Just cut the user interface and go to manual. I need you to align yourself for linking so I can drag you out.”

  “Uhm…how do I do that?” Kel gritted his teeth as the admission was forced from him. He’d never flown manual, only with a user controllable interface. He’d always meant to learn and now his lack of knowledge had bitten him in the ass. So much for being prepared… No wonder he’d never been in the Space Scouts.

  The silence over the comm had enough weight for a couple of solar systems. If ever a pause was pregnant, this one was not only pregnant with twins, it had a passel of other brats in tow as well. Kel winced, anticipating a tirade of abuse at even daring to set foot—or wing—on a solar road without either being born on one or having spent twenty-plus years soaking up the charged particles. Hell, half the experienced solar sailors wouldn’t give a newbie the time of day until his flesh had started to color from exposure. The woman he was talking to sounded young, but the experience in her voice belied that. No doubt she was some crabby, wizened old woman with skin like leather. She certainly had the attitude.

  “Are you telling me that you can’t sail without your computer? What kind of you? Icaria is idiot are dangerous—the sun storms on the second pass throw computers out of whack nine times out of ten. What the hell did you plan to do if that happened? The pass doesn’t stop just so you can fuck about getting your comp back online.”

  He closed his eyes, nodding at everything she said. There was no point denying it. He’d assessed the data regarding the second pass and considered it an acceptable risk.r />
  “Hey, at least I’m only taking risks with my own life,” he shot back. The fact that she was right didn’t mean he had to put up with the attitude; his provoked temper flared as he looked up at the bulk of the ship above him. The three sails rose majestically, glinting in the glow of the road. But even the ethereal, almost magical appearance couldn’t hide the state of disrepair they were in. “You’re pushing it running the road with sails like that and putting your entire crew at risk.”

  “They’re happy with the risks.” Her voice was emotionless when she replied, no hint of the fire or attitude in it. Although he couldn’t figure out why, Kel mourned the loss of her heat and spirit.

  “Okay…listen to me,” she said with a hint of forced patience. “I’m going to talk you through taking your interface down.”

  Chapter Two

  “It’s fucked. Won’t come back online. Just keeps telling me ‘sub-routine alpha-three-seven-nine not available. Please reinstall,’” Kelwin growled in frustration an hour later.

  Punching keys on the main console at random, he harbored the hope that something would work and the user interface would magically reappear. Or even the clunky-but-usable master interface. He hated that interface—it reminded him too much of his days aboard a battle cruiser, brought back the dreams of blood and death he’d tried to avoid since—but he could use it at least. What he couldn’t do was fly the Artemis without a computer.

  “Yeah. It’s fucked. What model is it? The TK-9000? No, too old for a custom bird like that…JM100?” Her voice was still calm, but there was an edge of frustration in it to match his.

  Kel sighed. She was going to totally flip out. He could see it coming. Every time he revealed a little more about the nature of the Artemis, she gave him silent disappointment or a caustic comment. But he sensed her mood darkening as it became apparent just how much of a noob he was at this. Why her opinion mattered, he didn’t know—but it did.