Page 1 of Captured
Chapter One
Juliet
The taste of copper leaks on my tongue and I sigh with frustration. I’ve been chewing the inside of my cheek. Again.
“This is bullshit,” I exclaim, slamming both hands on the large, flat disk in front of me. It doesn’t help. Of course it doesn’t help.
My career is in free-fall and I’m stuck in the asshole of the galaxy, patrolling an area where I have as much chance of seeing actual combat as I have of seeing an asteroid belt made of puppies and kittens.
And all that because I can’t keep my mouth shut.
“Fuck!” Another curse bounces in the confines of my fighter’s cockpit. This time, I don’t hit the control wheel.
Boredom invades my brain as I patrol the emptiness, and my thoughts circulate once again to the events leading up to the disaster I find myself in. My eyes wander to the picture hanging at the corner of the large, dome-shaped window between my body and the sterile, endless void of space. Four people stare back at me, waving for the camera. Their laughter echoes in my head, although I haven’t heard it in more than twenty years.
My mother would have known what to say to Laura. She always knew what to say to everyone. But I didn’t inherit her way with people, that quality she had of making things better, smoothing the edges and building bridges where there had been only rocky ground before.
No, I inherited my father’s sense of humor, caustic and cruel, along with his manners. And his pigheadedness.
Maybe I should just call my sister. Tell her I didn’t mean all those things I said about her husband and his job. Tell her I lied, that I was just jealous of her happiness, like she accused me of.
It would be the first time I’d lied to her, but maybe it would work. I’m not past begging, either.
Yes. That’s what I’ll do. And if her cheating, lying bastard of a husband comes at me again, then I’ll destroy him for good. I’ll tell his superior what he did, show them the footage I took, and to hell with everything.
I’m about to hit the communication button to record my message for Laura when the ship’s alarm blares to life with all the deafening destruction it’s capable of. I curse, the sound of my voice muffled by the high-pitched howl. I slam my hand on the silencer, my mind racing, my focus laser-sharp. The instruments on my control board are going crazy, the magnetic disturbance one I can’t identify.
“What the fuck?”
Then a cold hand slithers up my spine like fingers of death traveling along my back up to my nape. I know what this kind of magnetic disturbance means.
Drakians. It means Drakians.
But I’m in Sector Eleven of the Human Alliance, a corner of the Galaxy so remote, so uninhabited that it hardly deserves to be patrolled at all. What would Drakians be doing this far from their territory?
I don’t stay around to ask. Grabbing the wheel, I take control of my fighter, disabling the automatic alarms that obscure my screens. I’m not supposed to as it also disables the automatic distress signal, but I don’t care.
This is my chance. If I can take down a Drakian ship, then I have a chance at saving my career. A chance at knocking my sister’s husband off his pedestal and into the mud where he belongs.
I scan the liquid blackness of space, most of my equipment useless with all the magnetic disturbance the Drakian ship generates. The string of numbers giving me the information I need go up and down, never settling for more than a half second.
Shit, it must be a huge one to create so strong a field.
Then, just as I finish my revolution around my position, I spot it.
“Holy mother of all that is fuckness.”
This isn’t just any Drakian ship. This is a royal cruiser, one of the Drakian’s most advanced ships.
“I got you, you filthy reptile.” I mutter my curse as I turn off all auxiliary power, keeping only my weapons and the pilot’s cockpit supplied with energy. This is my best chance at remaining undetected until I shoot him from the sky like a fat turkey. A savage grin splits my face as my hands dance over the controls, readying my most powerful missile.
I will have only one shot at this bastard. If I miss, then he’s got more than enough juice to obliterate me into particle dust.
“Wish me luck, Dad.” I blow my customary kiss to my father’s picture. “This one is for you.”
My equipment beeps and the sound is the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. My grin stretches even wider, and I’m glad I can’t see myself. I must look like a monster. I don’t care.
Then I fire. My missile shoots out of the ship without a sound, so small and innocuous-looking in the void. It travels fast and I immediately know I aimed true.
