Page 11 of Black Star

Chapter One

Lights from the entryway to hangar thirty-five flooded the vast, open “visitor” area of Graves Station, deserted in the wake of the strict curfew. Every footfall, every whisper was magnified in the severe silence. Phoebe Lightheart shivered in her hiding place in the deep shadows of one of the many ventilation ducts, an iron grate the only barrier between freedom and continued life as a slave to every man on the station.

She had sat in the place for many days and nights, working loose the iron screws in order to be ready for the slightest chance of escape. Phoebe was risking her life on the hope she could sneak aboard a ship and leave this accursed place forever. If she were caught, her death would not be swift. Even now, she had reached the point of no return. She had been gone for too long. Even one day was too long. There was no doubt she had already been missed. It would still take several days for the Hand to search the lower decks. In their arrogance, they would assume she was simply hiding to avoid her “chores.” It would take time for them to realize she had betrayed their holy community and was attempting escape.

No one escaped from the Hand of God. No one.

Phoebe intended to be the first.

When the legendary ship Black Star had docked there the day before, Phoebe’s heart had soared. This was her chance. Her only chance. If this didn’t work, she doubted she’d live long enough to wait for another ship to dock in this remote area of the station. She had only been able to smuggle out a couple days’ worth of food -- which was long gone -- and she couldn’t go back. Trying this in a more populated area was as out of the question as going back to the Hand.

No one had been in or out of this hangar for hours now. It was time to move. Silently, she pushed open the heavy grate centimeter by centimeter. Crawling carefully from her hiding place, Phoebe stayed close to the bulkheads and shadows, making her moves slow and patient. She hadn’t come all this way, waited all this time, only to be discovered because of impatience.

The gangplank was down, but that was likely to be guarded from the inside. She circled the ship until she found what she was looking for. The solid waste outlet. During flight, the small hatch was locked tight, but when the ship landed, the change in air pressure released it for easy garbage disposal by the station’s personnel.

And it was the perfect inlet for her.

The chute was small, and it was a very tight fit, but she managed to crawl inside. The smell of rotten food and stinking trash was strong, but not unfamiliar. While the men of the Hand enjoyed all the clean comforts of the station, women who hadn’t been chosen as wives or house maids were often forced to live in places that smelled similar. The farther down in the station one lived, the stronger the stench. Compared to a whole community’s waste, this was only a mild odor.

Once she reached the main garbage hold, it was just a matter of being quiet and choosing carefully. Pausing to catch her breath and muster her failing strength, she looked carefully at each hatch door. She chose one of the smaller hatches, as those should lead to a less populated area of the ship. An exhausting ten-minute crawl later, she reached another small hatch. This time, when she opened it, the smell of clean, fresh air assaulted her almost as much as the stench of garbage would have someone else. Her nose tingled with the sensation, and she had the almost uncontrollable urge to sneeze.

After days of being in almost total darkness, the dim lights of the corridor hurt her eyes. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do, but she knew she needed to find a seldom-used closet or vacant crew quarters and find a place to hide. With any luck, she wouldn’t get caught, or if she were they would be so far away from Graves Station they wouldn’t insist on taking her back.

The thought no sooner crossed her mind than she heard two sets of heavy footfalls coming nearer. Her heart slammed in her chest as she looked around. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. Every door she’d tried since she exited the trash chute had been locked. Looking frantically, she spotted a nook in the wall with two steps leading down to a closed door panel. It was probably locked, too, but with the dim lighting, if she crouched as low as she could on the landing in front of the door, they might not see her.

Quickly darting across the corridor, she made the two steps and huddled as tightly against the wall as she could, trying to keep her body in the shadows as much as possible. They were getting closer. She could hear them talking. She was sure they’d be able to hear her heart thudding. Her breath came in rapid gasps as fear assailed her. She felt like a rat caught in a trap.

Just as the men were about to round the corner, the door behind her slid open silently. Phoebe jumped, startled at first, but she’d never been one to question good fortune when it came her way. She ducked inside, and the door slid shut behind her.

The spacious cabin filled with a soft, dim light as soon as the door closed. She just stood there a few moments, letting her eyes adjust and waiting to see if the men had noticed her. If so, she expected they’d follow. They had been so close, there was no way she’d have time to hide even if she’d seen a good place right off.

She didn’t. The room was so Spartan, she was sure no one occupied it. Only a desk and a large bed graced the interior. Phoebe let out a sigh of relief. If she were careful, maybe she wouldn’t be noticed.

First, she looked around for some kind of food replicator. She had heard some of the Imperial ships had them, though it was rumored the Coalition preferred actual cooking to synthetic nourishment. She was terribly hungry and a trek to find food outside her new haven would have to wait until she figured out the ship’s schedules. The last thing she wanted was to get caught in a morning rush.

Nothing. There was nothing she could eat. Disappointment hit her harder than she expected. She was hungrier than she could ever remember being. It had taken every ounce of energy she had left to get this far. Many more days without food and she wouldn’t be able to walk across the room, much less sneak around an unfamiliar ship.

At the moment, however, there wasn’t much she could do about it. She needed sleep almost as badly as she needed food, and the bed on the far end of the chamber, next to a blackened window panel, looked particularly inviting. She knew she shouldn’t sleep there, out in the open. She knew it was dangerous. But she wanted so much to sleep in a real bed and not a cold floor padded with only one of the two blankets each woman was allowed. It was a temptation she simply couldn’t resist.

Decision made, she crawled into the middle of the bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she took one deep breath, sighed happily, and fell promptly asleep.

* * *

“Lights.” A husky, male voice barked out the order. Phoebe sat straight up in the bed and realized, too late, her mistake. She had fallen asleep. Now she was well and truly caught. She had no idea how long she’d been out, but she was fairly certain her escape had just been cut short.

“Well, well. A stowaway.” His nose twitched. “From the smell of you, I’d say I need to look into putting security at the solid waste outlet hatch.”

“I’m sorry to ruffle your delicate sensibilities, but it was the only way inside.” Phoebe had never backed down from anyone. It was the reason she’d spent so much time in the bowels of the station instead of being snatched up as a man’s wife or concubine, or even a maid. She tended to speak her mind. Still, this time she cringed inwardly. This wasn’t the time to piss off this particular man.

His only response was a raised eyebrow. “Indeed. And now what? You expect free passage to wherever you see fit?”

“I don’t suppose you’d let that happen, would you?”

“Not if I want anything to get done. Everyone on the Black Star has to earn his keep. If you want to stay here, you’ll have to do the same.”

There was no inflection in the man’s gravelly voice, but the steel in his gray eyes told her exactly how serious he was. If she didn’t do what he told her, he’d likely space her.

“B-but no one knows I’m here.” Phoebe stammered her response. A sense of dread was slowly but surely closing in on her. She hated being on the defensive, but she didn’t really have a way to combat him. She was a stowaway aboard his ship. If he chose to make her pay his passage, there wasn’t much she could do about it. Her only hope was to get him to agree to something she could live with.

“Just how long do you think that will last? How will you get food? If I bring rations back to you, everyone is going to wonder why I get double, and why I bring it back to my quarters. They’ll soon figure it out.” He crossed his arms over the massive expanse of his chest. “Hiding you isn’t an option. You want passage? You’ll have to work for it.”

Briefly, Phoebe thought about bolting for the door, but this wasn’t a small man. He stood there, feet slightly apart. As spacious as the room was, he dominated it. She might be able to get around him, but she was willing to bet she’d not get far.

Phoebe crossed her legs and sat up a little straighter. “I don’t have many skills, I’ll warn you. But I’m smart, and I’m willing to learn.”

For the longest time, the man simply looked at her as if sizing her up. Phoebe had to stick her hands underneath her to keep from fidgeting. His gaze was too intense. He saw too much.

Finally, he spoke. “Later. If I’m going to have to put up with you for any length of time, I’ll have to be able to stand being around you.” He pointed to a room on the far side of his quarters. “Shower’s in there. Have you ever used an ultrasonic shower?”

Phoebe hated looking like she wasn’t wise to the universe around her, but if she said yes, she’d used one, he’d undoubtedly leave her to it by herself. “I’m afraid not. Just show me how to operate it, and I’ll manage on my own.”

Again, he raised an eyebrow, as if the whole thing was amusing to him, but he didn’t say anything. He stepped ahead of her and into the small bathing chamber. Entering a combination of numbers on a keypad outside a booth that looked barely big enough for one person, he handed her two small, spongy disc-shaped objects.

“Put these in your ears.”

“What are they for?” Phoebe looked curiously at the things. They were pliable, but rather stiff, as if they wanted to hold their shape no matter what form they were squeezed into.

“The ultra high frequency of the shower will damage your hearing if you don’t protect your ears.”

Her gaze snapped to his. “Then why not just use water? I don’t want to get in that thing.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. In the small room, Phoebe got a stark visual on exactly how big he was, and how tiny she was in comparison. He wore a black formfitting uniform that should have looked silly. But on this man, it outlined every powerful curve of his body. The muscles in his arms, legs, chest and chiseled abdomen stood out underneath the material as if a master sculptor had carved them. Phoebe had to force herself to look at his face. That wasn’t any better, though. He wasn’t pretty or handsome as some men were, but his features held a wealth of wisdom and promises of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Judging by the way his nose twitched, he also didn’t want to be near her much longer. That was acutely embarrassing, because she could have stood there and looked at him all day.

“No. I don’t suppose I do.” She fiddled with the earplugs in her hand. “So, I stick these in my ears. Then what?”

“Then you get in and let the ultrasonics do the rest.”

Phoebe stuffed the spongy things in her ears and gasped when they expanded. She immediately started to dig in her ears, trying to get them out. It felt like they were going to burst through her inner ear into her brain.

The man’s strong hands grabbed her wrists. He mouthed the word “no,” but she couldn’t hear anything. He held her gaze captive, looking intently at her, watching. Waiting.

In a few seconds, the sensations in her ears eased, but all sound was gone. The only thing she could hear was the sound of her own heart beating wildly, and air moving through her sinus passages as she sucked in breath after breath. She made an effort to slow her breathing, knowing that hyperventilating would only cause her to pass out.

He nodded his head and moved his hands from her wrists to her shoulders, squeezing them reassuringly, then let go of her. When he inserted two of the same discs into his own ears, she realized he meant to shower with her. Immediately, her breathing and heart rate shot up again. She shook her head and pushed at him, trying to shove him out the door so she could do this on her own. The last thing she wanted to do was to undress in front of this perfect specimen of a man.

He gripped her shoulders again and shook her slightly. Phoebe was beginning to panic now. What if he intended for her to earn her keep with her body? She fought madly now. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear anything. She pushed him into the wall, and knocked over a few small bottles and a cup from the tiny vanity stand, but no sound reached her. The whole thing was so surreal, she would have laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified.

Phoebe fought like a mad woman, kicking and clawing. He managed to spin her around and wrap one arm above her breasts, and the other just under her chin. Without even flinching, she bit him, all the while digging at her ears, trying to free them of the shit she’d put in them. She whipped around to face him and one well-placed kick caught him in the knee, and he grimaced. She hoped he yelped in pain, but she didn’t hear it. Apparently, that was all he was going to take.

The man backhanded Phoebe. Hard. Her head spun and she would have sunk to the floor if he hadn’t caught her. Eyes blazing, obviously angry, his look said she was in big trouble. She wanted to fight him, but she couldn’t get her legs underneath her. She still reeled from the blow he’d delivered.

He pulled her into his hard body and maneuvered them into the impossibly tiny stall. Her back was pressed against one wall and she was sure he was in a similar position. Phoebe watched as he pressed a few buttons to her left before reaching above them and sticking two eye shields over her eyes, then his own. She could still see, but it was like looking through dark glasses. He pressed another combination of buttons, and very bright light flooded her vision. Even with the shields, it made her wince.

Phoebe’s skin tingled and her scalp itched. She happened to catch a glimpse of her hair where it hung down her arm. No longer was it a tangled, stinking mass. It was long, silvery white, and soft as down against her shoulders. The shock and amazement combined with the recent blow to her head made her head spin, and her knees buckled. The man’s strong arms tightened around her, and she gratefully, passively, let him hold her. Her head fell against the hard muscles of his chest. His musky, masculine scent filled her nostrils. She blamed the sudden lightheaded feeling on the blow he’d given her, but she suspected it was her damned woman’s hormones making her drunk. She didn’t believe everything the Hand of God taught, but maybe they were right about this one thing. Maybe women were weak when it came to sex. She should hate this man, or at the very least be terrified of him. After all, he held her life in his hands.

Instead, at this very moment, she wished with all her heart her first impression of this scenario had played out. She wanted to be naked with him. OK, so mostly she just wanted him naked. She wanted to feel his skin against her cheek. Would it be smooth, or roughened with hair? The scent of him would be much stronger, of that she was sure. What would he taste like? Would he groan if she reached out with her tongue and laved the pebbled nipple even now stabbing the material of his uniform?

She shivered. When his arms tightened around her, she looked up at him. Gentle compassion shone in his eyes, but there was something else there as well. When Phoebe shifted her position, trying to stand more fully on her own, she realized what that “something else” was.

Lust. Need.

She tried not to cling to him, but the evidence of that lust and need poked her soundly in the belly. Her legs turned to mush yet again and she balled her hands into fists to keep from clutching his broad shoulders and caressing those bulky muscles.

Seconds later, the light faded and he guided her out of the stall. Taking an instrument from the vanity, he raised it to her ear. Phoebe didn’t protest, but let him do what he would. He removed first one earplug, then the other, before removing his own.

“Now,” he crossed his arms over that chest again, “do you think you can make it back to the main room without trying to kill me?”