Drifters' Alliance, Book 2
Read Drifters' Alliance, Book 3 next
Drifters’ Alliance
Book 2
ELLE CASEY
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BOOK DESCRIPTION
Captain Cass and her crew are drifting, waiting on word from the Alliance that they’re ready to meet. But something pops up in her clearpanel that she wasn’t expecting, and people with hidden motives are stirring up more trouble than she can handle alone. It’s going to take a little help from some friends to get her out of this mess. Hopefully, she still has some left who are willing to take a risk on her.
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OTHER BOOKS BY ELLE CASEY
SCIENCE FICTION
Drifters’ Alliance
(ongoing series)
Winner Takes All
(short story prequel to
Drifters’ Alliance
,
Dark Beyond the Stars Anthology)
CONTEMPORARY URBAN FANTASY
War of the Fae
(10-book series)
*Book 1, The Changelings, is a free ebook at most retailers*
Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons
(short story, The Dragon Chronicles)
My Vampire Summer
Aces High
DYSTOPIAN
Apocalypsis
(4-book series)
ROMANCE
By Degrees
Rebel
Wheels
(3-book series)
Just One Night
(romantic serial)
Just One Week
(romantic serial)
Love in New York
(3-book series)
Shine Not Burn
(2-book series), also available as an Audiobook
Bourbon Street Boys
(3-book series), also available as an Audiobook
Desperate Measures
Mismatched
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
All the Glory: How Jason Bradley Went from Hero to Zero in Ten Seconds Flat
Don’t Make Me Beautiful
Wrecked
(2-book series),
Book 1 also available as an Audiobook
PARANORMAL
Duality
(2-book series)
Dreampath
(short story, The Telepath Chronicles)
Monkey Business
(short story, Blood Iris 2012: A Dark Fantasy Anthology )
Pocket Full of Sunshine
(short story & screenplay)
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 2015 Elle Casey, all rights reserved, worldwide.
No part of this ebook may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without author permission.
The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by
purchasing
a copy of this ebook only at author-authorized online outlets that serve your country.
If you’re viewing this book without having paid for it, you are pirating this creative work.
PIRACY = STEALING
Elle Casey thanks you deeply for your understanding and support.
DEDICATION
For Skye.
Often those who’ve dwelled in the Dark are the best guides for finding one’s way out of it.
Chapter One
AFTER OUR MEAL WITH THE crew of the DS Mekanika, Captain Beltz gifted us with another stinking chicken corpse for our schlafhammer — a technology I still wasn’t comfortable handing over to them, so it was a big relief when Beltz didn’t challenge me on that.
Once the poultry and its secret cargo were safely tucked away in one of the DS Anarchy’s cold storage drawers, I said goodbye to Beltz and his crew, saw them through the airlock, and then dismissed my own people so they could get some well-earned rest. I monitored the DS Mekanika from the flightdeck alone until it disappeared from view, before retiring to my own bunk.
Trust, but verify.
That’s what my father always said. I hate that so many of his philosophies are guiding my life right now.
I don’t know how my crew managed to wind down after such an eventful day, but I slept like the dead in a bunk that still smells way too much like its former owner. In my extreme fatigue I was able to block the scent out, but now that I’m mostly awake, it has become impossible. It’s filling my head, or so it seems.
What did he do? Bathe in it?
For a guy who’s spent most of his life flying around in the Dark, it’s funny to me that he prefers a perfume that is reminiscent of the forests found only under very special biodomes rather than the jinky pheromone scents preferred by so many others of his ilk.
Maybe there’s more to Langlade than there appears on the surface. It reminds me of a maxim we learned in OSG training that was designed to keep us alive: a person should never be taken at face value, because they almost never expose their real selves to the world around them. Being that open is dangerous. It’s a lesson I took to heart. Maybe too much.
Thank the universe Baebong and the others understand that rule too and accept the fact that it’s a necessary part of our existence, otherwise I don’t think they would have been able to forgive me for neglecting to mention that I come from a very prominent and not very popular OSG family.
I can’t stop thinking about that picochip that was in my back. Surely my father knew it was there. What was it for if not to locate me? I guess I’ll never know since it’s now frozen solid, somewhere on Xylera.
I stare at the steeloid ceiling above me and contemplate my most immediate future. First step: a vacuum cycle to clean this ship of all its unpleasant odors, including the one in this bunk that reminds me of places I’ll probably never see again. Second step: blood contracts. My crew has proven themselves loyal to a degree, but until we have something official between us, I know I’m going to constantly worry that they’ll disappear at the next station, taking the knowledge of my location and ship identifier with them. I wouldn’t put it past my father to pay someone for information about me, and I wouldn’t put it past anyone on this ship to take that payment. Blind trust is going to take a long time to build between us, but I’m okay with that. That kind of trust, when given too freely, is a great way to get yourself killed out here in the Dark.
I throw my legs over the edge of my bunk and scrub at my face, trying to wake myself up more. Sleep fog is still settled on my brain, refusing to dissipate entirely. “Adelle, you there?” I breathe in deep through my nose, filling my lungs, before hissing the air out as a long whistle.
“Good morning, Captain.”
“Is it?”
The screen by my door lights up, courtesy of my onboard computer, Adelle, and shows me a sun star glowing onto the surface of the planet nearest us, its rays bouncing off and reflecting on the hull of the ship.
“It is,” she says.
“You can shut that off now.” Sunshine in my eyeballs isn’t nearly as effective at waking me up as caffeine. I need to get some of that into my bloodstream soon. Lucky for me, we have tea leaves. I can’t wait to sample the blends they have onboard. “Crew status?”
Adelle turns my screen black again as she responds. “Jeffers is in the galley preparing a meal. Lucinda is in the biogrid. The others are sleeping.”
Seconds after picturing the crew sound asleep in their bunks, dreaming away the stress of the day now behind us, I grin. The evil side of me is wondering how they’d enjoy a wake-up alarm OSG style.
Might as well find out.
After seeing Lucinda go after Jacov with her weak-ass little can of pepper mist, I knew something needed to be done about this crew’s defense mechanisms. Today will be the last day they wake up on my ship as innocents in the game of self-defense. Their training starts
now
.
“Adelle, play
First Call Reveille
over the all-comm please. And crank it up.”
“As you wish, Captain.”
I cannot stop grinning as the clear, crisp sounds of a military-esque brass bugle blast out of the speaker in my bunk, echoing and bouncing around the corridors beyond the door. I only wish I could see the looks on their faces as they realize sleep time is over and today begins their new life with Cass Kennedy at the helm.
Chapter Two
I’M THE FIRST ONE TO the breakfast table, followed shortly by Baebong. His flightsuit looks like he slept in it, and his hair is pressed in on one side and sticking out sideways on the other. It reminds me of another morning we shared together. Our first.