StarSet (The Warrior Prince's Claim - BBW Science Fiction Romance) Read online

  Star Set(c) LX 2014 as Calista Skye

  All rights reserved

  CalistaSkye.com

  Shala cannot wait to get off of Telera One the second it docks and recolonizes the people of the original Telera. Gruff, ornery, and generally suspicious of outsiders, they haven't made her time easy as an officer of the allied forces. So, when their prince is forced to defend himself and nearly murder an intruder, and the captain delays reports of it, she's understandably confused. Especially when despite the no-fraternization rule of the allied forces, she's invited to one of the Telerans' most sacred spirit-revering ceremonies as his esteemed “plus one.”

  Can she really keep denying how hot the room gets when he enters it, or the not-uncomfortably invasive way he looks at her? And when he goes all in for the claim, will she accept an uncertain future as a princess, in the middle of a burgeoning blood feud with the father of the intruder he bloodied?

  It seems like a sure dance with the devil; so why is she making her way toward the dance floor...

  A BBW Science Fiction Romance (with a steamy and irresistible HEA)

  note: This alien warrior romance is sprinkled with a bit of 'All Hallows' in the form of the Teleran event: Eiowa. Happy Hallow's readers!

  Star Set: The Warrior Prince's Claim

  (BBW Science Fiction Romance)

  1

  Telera one.

  The last bastion of a planetless people who rather dislike the technology of their floating city. If we're being honest. Pretty ungrateful, if you asked Shala. She was entirely over the cultural cluster-fuck that had come to be Telera one, and she couldn't wait until they docked planetside on their shiny, newish orb for rehabitation. Telerans were a highly suspicious, dogmatic, often vitriolic people, and Shala promised herself she was taking a long vacay after she finished up with this post.

  Maybe she'd take a nice trip to Tenta. Given the new outpost installed with the permission of King Sesh, there was still a slot available for second officer. Hell, she'd sign on as a tour guide if it meant she didn't have to see another Teleran frown for at least a decade.

  Shala's brow quirked, the blue gleam of the data screens illuminating her face with each reporting blip popping up in her scans. Three more bloody fights below deck. That's what you got with a group of warriors, zealots, and jum addicts who all mostly disagreed with one another's logic.

  Drawing a calming breath, she drew a sip of Kafka from the Mooning shell Jake brought over from Sector 9. Technically, it was against the rules to have it aboard the ship, but she doubted any alien bacteria had come over with it that would truly be a risk.

  She was flouting those rules, quite willfully, thank you.

  The Captain paid far too much attention to detail, and she'd long decided to ignore him when he got started on his rants about cleanliness and ship security.

  “Officer Kane, we have an incident on Level 8. Bring your weapon,” Captain Von's voice cut in through the intercom.

  “Daily living on Telera One,” she chimed to herself with a hefty dose of sarcasm infusing her tone.

  Rising up from the data panels, she retrieved her thruster and shoved it into her thigh harness. Whatever was going on was unlikely to warrant anything but a few rounds of wave blasts to calm whichever brute had consumed too much Brew Wine and decided to throw his weight around.

  It was all so predictable, she might just cry.

  She was seriously considering starting a betting pool.

  Might as well raise some extra credits for that trip to Tenta.

  She was getting that vacay if it killed her.

  2

  Well... she hadn't expected this.

  “They're sending out AIs. Pretty obvious they're scouting us.”

  Jake folded his arms over his chest nervously, looking down at the pool of nano blood leaking into the cracks of the gleaming, metal decks. The thing had been terminated before Shala arrived, but it wasn't certain that there weren't more of these unnaturals lurking and laying in wait for a chance to attack.

  “Yeah, they probably are,” Shala sighed. “Have you called the cleaners?”

  “They're on their way up with a guard.”

  Smart of him to think of that. Once they left the cleaners to do their thing, someone would need to linger in close proximity to keep an eye on the floor. If the acquisitioners who'd sent this one were close, it was likely they were planning to make a run for the ship, and well, that just wasn't good for anyone. There'd been a time when acquisitioners handled things head on, but they were smart... adaptive. Learning what little bio-engineering they could, they'd begun to make their own soldiers. The humans they refashioned were saved for the bidding wars their low-market customers clamored over.

  Shala's lip curled at the thought.

  The whole business of it was disgusting. The galaxy needed to be rid of their ilk already.

  Lowering to a crouch, she inspected the thing, running the bio-scanner over its dismantled body with a serious set to her jaw. Clean. Sadly pretty, too. Relieved to find the thing hadn't been sent over with bio-contaminants, she rifled its pockets, retrieving little but the nutripackets they relied on to run.

  “Yeah. Nothing to see here. I'll write up the report. Who took it down?”

  “One of the Telerans. He's coming out of the medical bay. Probably in processing now. Took a good slash to the stomach. That thing's got razor sharp nails.”

  Shala frowned.

  “Lovely.”

  Taking a last glance around the thing, she couldn't help but be impressed that a Teleran took it down singlehandedly. And by handed, that also meant weaponless in this instance. There were no taser burns. Nothing that even indicated a blade had disturbed the AI's body.

  Brow rising, Shala's focus stopped just at the AI's cheek. It was already discolored. Like it was made of organic material.

  “Can you... have some tissue sent over to Tana?”

  “Sure, why?”

  A frown touched her lips.

  “Let's make sure this one was actually an AI. If they're sending their human-remakes in now, we've got a whole kettle of regulations to wrangle with.”

  Jake shook his head with disgust.

  He was still extremely sensitive to death, a new recruit, as it were. This was his first mission, in fact. Shala remembered when she was that easily shaken. Life in the stars had seemed ridiculously dark then, with perils lurking at every corner. So many species to keep track of, all of them with their own quirks, features, and defenses (or offense in too many cases before the allied territories were implemented).

  It was quite a lot to process, and not something that was typically done quickly.

  “Take a load off, Jake. The best way to get this sort of thing out of your head is in the promenade. First drink's on me.”

  He was a moment turning his head, but then his big, brown eyes found hers, and she saw him relax just enough that she felt alright leaving him alone until she could get the interview with the Teleran over with. He'd be fine. Just a little green around the edges. Something that would easily be fixed with time.

  “Meet you there in 60 ticks?”

  She gave him an encouraging grin.

  “Yeah. Yeah. Meet you there.”

  Shala's smile deepened, and she stepped back then, not wanting or needing to look at the AI's body again. A shiver passed through her when she considered that it might not be an AI at all, but a remade human controlled and fully reprogrammed by the worst fiends in the galaxy.

  Jake wasn't the only one who needed a drink. She was going to the promenade tonigh
t as much for herself as she was for him.

  3

  “Tarik Kraeg?”

  The data sheet cast a blue streak of light across Shala's cheeks as she lifted it, and she pursed her lips when she set it down in front of her. Lowering to a seat across from him, she gave the Teleran warrior a good long look. He was unusually pretty for one of the gruffer types, but Shala wasn't one to distract herself.

  On with the business at hand.

  “Alamna,” she offered in greeting, noting the already uncooperative body language in his pristine build.

  He grunted.

  It was something.

  “This is just a formality. I won't keep you from your... whatever you had planned on getting into tonight. Just need a few details about the dead AI on Level 8.”

  Another shiver passed through her saying the word AI. Until she heard back from the medical bay, it was a placeholder for whatever the girl thing might actually be.

  Cricking a brow, the Teleran looked her over, his eyes like night intense, but unreadable. For a displaced people, they weren't exactly grateful to be aboard. But then, the allied forces weren't truly offering them a choice. The directive to preserve life often meant ruffling cultural feathers when there was a perceived need.

  Shala could understand both sides of it. It was surely uncomfortable for everyone involved. The Telerans made it known just how displeased they were with being force fed ship regulations; even something as simple as a debriefing like this was a kind of affront to their closed-off culture.

  He'd cooperate, but she'd have to ask the right questions to get what she needed out of him. He certainly wouldn't be forthcoming about the slightest thing.

  “So... The AI. When did you realize there was an intruder on the ship?”

  The warrior looked her over, clenching the strong set of his jaw before drawing a sigh. It was obvious he was having the same difficulty sitting across the table from a half-human, half-Kalion officer who represented the containment of his people.

  Telerans didn't take shit like that lightly.

  It meant things, of course.

  “When he took a false step on the deck panels behind me.”

  Not bad. A one sentence answer was certainly better than a word or sentence fragment. She'd half-expected him to answer her with something like “an hour ago.” It was nice to not have to pull teeth.

  Brightening some, Shala moved on, forcing her mind to distance itself from the distracting scent of wood and sea. Even away from their planet, Telerans smelled of their home, like they themselves were made of trees and water.

  “Is that when your injury occurred?”

  The warrior grit his teeth.

  “Yes.”

  Shala's fingers flit over the data sheet.

  “At which time, you incapacitated the AI?”

  “Did you not see the evidence of that?”

  Grinning, Shala pushed down the reactive part of her that would have matched his sarcasm.

  “Yes, but we need to verify what we saw when a first-person account is available.”

  Sighing, the Teleran settled back in his chair, looking her square in the eye when the door burst open behind her.

  “Please accept our humblest apologies, Prince Tarik. Officer Kane wasn't made aware of your identity.”

  Mena.

  Captain Von's boot-licking assistant.

  Great.

  Prince Tarik looked from Mena to Shala and rose, clearing his throat before turning his eyes to Shala again.

  “To answer your last question, yes.”

  Shala flushed despite herself. Gracious of him, considering his standing. She'd no idea he was the son of the Warrior King Therin. His father was a frigging idol of legend. Even Shala had read about him in the galactic news. She wasn't the type to get starstruck, but shit. She'd not expected to get this close to Teleran royalty. They had their own level on the ship, and it was heavily guarded.

  The only time they were typically seen was in worst case war-scenarios.

  “Timini.”

  It meant thank you. Using his tongue to convey her gratitude was Shala's way of letting him know she'd meant no disrespect, that she actually hadn't known who he was. Maybe that was in itself a careless thing. But his own name hadn't risen to the heights of his father's just yet.

  Even still he would be King one day.

  “Amsem,” he replied, sweeping past her then without a look back.

  It was probably the last time she'd lay eyes to him before the ship landed planetside on the newish orb they'd soon call their home while their planet healed from the ginormous flood that had made it completely uninhabitable for any but the fish.

  Mena gave her the look before she turned to go, following behind the prince with the flurried air of damage control she was charged to oversee. Shala was sure she'd be hearing from the Captain soon, even though she'd had no true idea who Tarik Kraeg was before the twit blew into the debriefing unit.

  Eh, par for the course.

  Rather than think too hard on it, she'd prefer to go get that drink now.

  4

  Shala's eyes swept down the dipping, teal-carpeted ramps of the promenade. It was filled with the usual characters, half-Kalion's like herself, Norens, one-eyed Fegs, and the occasional Teleran. It had been awhile since she'd come there, but its giant screens offering a view into the depths of the Holo sea were certainly a comfort when she did.

  Jake had already sent an alert that he wouldn't be coming; truthfully she'd kind of expected it. She needed the break herself, and he probably had his own way of defragging from horrific experiences. This way was hers, in cases like tonight.

  Shala Kane made every drop of sweat she offered Telera one worth the effort, so when she came here, she did it without guilt. Promenade visits came along when she needed desperately to relax. It was practically a ritual for her now whenever there was an attack, termination, or death to be wrangled with.

  When the latter involved a staffer, or an innocent, she'd typically spend a number of days there. Not so much for the drinks, though the bubbling, yellow Keska was unparalleled in flavor and effect, but more for the sense of inclusion into the common experience it afforded her.

  Truth was, Shala was distanced from the people she crossed paths with more than she liked. Coming up, she'd been very active in the community, but the volunteer positions she'd taken were the sort that didn't require commoners to draw up a measure of fear for her.

  As an officer, there was a certain respect she was charged to instill, and that meant sometimes disrupting small, harmless gatherings that went against the rules of any given ship, so the people never strayed too far from the lines that were drawn for them.

  In the case of Telera one, she wasn't only an officer, she was an outsider.

  There was a part of her that wanted to remedy that in some small way if that was possible. Teleran culture wasn't her favorite culture, not that she'd been immersed in it to know every one of its nuances, but people were people. It would be nice to get to know some of the people on a person-to-person level. The promenade, it seemed, was the only place on board for that sort of thing.

  When Telerans wandered in there, their minds were on drink, and the problems or celebrations that drove them there. A little harmless chit-chat, even with an officer, didn't seem so bad two or three drinks in.

  Shala didn't do it to gather information as some officers did; she was more sincere than that. And today, she wouldn't have wanted to even discuss the AI... or whatever it was that was felled on the 8th Level with anyone. She wanted the whole matter out of her mind until everything was verified, and it was time to get back to work on her reporting of the incident.

  Thinking on it would only dredge up the wrong sorts of feelings and put her on a possibly risky, preemptive guard against what could be more attacks. It seemed inevitable that the acquisitioners had sent their... agent aboard. Unless... Unless, the target was the prince all along.

  It certainly made se
nse.

  Stop it, Shala.

  Right.

  She was here to drink and be merry. She intended to do just that.

  Settling back in the sliding chair siding the visi-panels, she stared into the inky space of the holographic sea, starting a little when her thoughts turned to the prince, the intensity of his eyes, and the strong cut of his musculature.

  They were inappropriate thoughts to be sure, but gods he was marvelous, wasn't he? And not nearly as rude as one might assume he would be for a Teleran. Even given the green light to

  leave her interview, he'd offered her what she'd wanted. It wasn't enough for a robust report, but she'd be able to enter each section of the data into the main drive, now.

  Drawing a sip of her bubbling Keska, she smiled to herself. It was silly to be daydreaming about how hot an alien prince was when he probably saw her as little more than a nuisance. It wouldn't ever work with a Teleran, anyways. Too many rules and customs for Shala's taste.

  She'd never been a strict traditionalist. Never wanted to be.

  Eyes roaming the promenade for a distraction from the wrong sorts of thoughts, Shala inhaled the remaining slosh of her drink. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten good and drunk, lost control, and awoke with a roaring hangover fitting an allied officer.

  She deserved that, didn't she?

  Even needed it, maybe.

  Sighing, Shala soon tired of the usuals on the promenade. None of the liver characters were here tonight. Maybe news of the attack had reached them, and they'd decided to duck their heads in case there was trouble. One acquisitioner attack typically always signaled more. As adaptive as they were, some of their... traits remained predictable.

  The only reason Shala wasn't obsessing over the potential dangers to come was because she knew better. Recoiling in fear or becoming hyper-defensive would throw off her advantage when the red-eyed bastards did actually return. It wouldn't pay to attempt a prediction as to what they had in mind.