Tarasch Read online

  To love another is worth the risk of burning out one’s mind.

  Captain Nick Steele is young to be in command of a starship, and his Astrogator, Cai, is fresh from the Guild Halls himself, which is not how things are supposed to be done. It’s bad enough that they’re both wet behind the ears, but Nick quickly discovers that he’s irresistibly drawn to Cai like a moth to a flame, with the same relative risks the moth faces. Cai proves the stronger man when he tells Nick in no uncertain terms that he can’t risk burning out Nick’s mind for the sake of some physical pleasure. As their ship spirals into the dark heart of Tarasch, will Nick ever overcome Cai’s objections to their mutual attraction?

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Tarasch

  Copyright © 2014 A.C. Ellas

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0094-1

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc

  Look for us online at:

  www.eXtasybooks.com or

  Tarasch

  Astrogator Book 2

  By

  A.C. Ellas

  Chapter One: Shore Leave

  Nicholas Steele quickly went through the shutdown checklist for his flitter. He secured the controls and slid out of the vehicle. For a moment, he just stood there looking at the house that, so unexpectedly, had become a home for him. The ivy had covered more of the whitewashed walls, and the blue trim needed to be repainted again, but the house looked much as it had the last time he’d seen it, right before his first posting on the Scarlet Dragon. Three years objective time, he thought. Has it really been three years?

  “Nick!” called Gilly’s familiar voice. “You’re finally here!” The voice was soon followed by the woman who’d adopted him, and she swept him into a tight embrace before stepping back and looking him over with a critical eye. “You look tired.”

  “The inquiry was a long affair,” Nick admitted.

  She touched his new captain’s pin. “Congratulations on this. Evie’ll be home in an hour, we’ll have dinner.”

  “I’ve only a couple of days R and R before I have to report back.”

  “Which ship?”

  “Laughing Owl. New Gator, just out of the Guild Hall.”

  “New Gator and new captain?” Gilly shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll manage, but don’t they frown on that sort of thing?”

  “Usually, but the psych people think Cai and I will be a good fit.” Nick shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  Gilly nodded then looked about as if just noticing that they were still standing in her tree-shaded yard. “Let’s go inside. We can talk while I fix dinner.”

  Nick followed her in, casting a glance at his herb and vegetable garden. Someone had kept it up while he was away, and he was pleased to see the healthy growth. “Who’s been doing the gardening?”

  “Evie has,” was the surprising reply. Gilly flashed a grin over her shoulder. “Turns out, you aren’t the only Steele with a green thumb. It just took you being gone to motivate her into taking over.”

  “Somehow, I’m not surprised.” He’d always had faith in his little sister. Evie just needed space, time and love to blossom. He would be forever grateful to Gilly for taking them in, two abused children, after their father’s timely, if belated, demise. She had given them the foundation they’d desperately needed in order to grow. “How’ve you been, Mom?”

  “Oh, about the same as always. Haven’t had any cases like yours since, well, yours. And thank the powers that be for that.” Gilly set out a snack tray of vegetables and dip.

  “I wasn’t asking about work,” Nick told her as he helped himself to some carrots.

  She shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing new there, either. I’m a trifle older but still healthy.”

  “Good. Keep it that way.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  They both laughed and spent the rest of the hour catching up while they demolished the tray of vegetables.

  When Evie was due to arrive, Nick stepped back outside, leaving Gilly to putter around in the kitchen at her insistence. He took a closer look at the vegetable patch. It was clear of weeds, well watered and vigorously growing. He plucked a sprig of mint to chew on without even a pang of guilt. Mint was a weed that would happily take over the entire area if it wasn’t kept in check.

  He straightened up, brushed soil from his hands and turned at the sound of approaching steps, quite loud to his augmented ears, barely perceptible otherwise.

  Evie came into view a few moments later. She saw him a moment after that, for her face lit up and she broke into a run straight for him.

  “Nicky!”

  He caught her easily and swung her about. “Evie, good to see you. How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been fine, unlike you, gallivanting all over the universe and not writing. I mean, really, would it kill you to input a message once in a blue moon?” Evie tossed her long, black hair back and sniffed at him.

  “Evie, I did write.” Nick set her on her feet and relieved her of her bag. “But relativity still holds…three years I’ve been gone, yes?”

  “That’s right. Three years and no messages.”

  “It’s only been ten months for me.”

  “Oh,” said Evie after a moment. “I didn’t think about the time dilation.” Her gaze shifted to his collar and the rank insignia. “Mom told me you’d made captain. Congrats, bro.”

  “Thanks, sis. I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”

  “Better not.”

  “So, you’re in university? What’s your major?” They walked toward the front door together.

  “Eco studies. You’re the one who got me interested. I’m specializing in the human-created species.”

  “How are my unicorns?” Nick had missed his mountains and the small blessing of wild unicorns he’d spent so many hours observing as a youngster.

  “They’re doing really well. The new stallion’s a strong one and almost all the recent foals have survived, doubling their numbers.” Evie frowned for a moment then added, “But there are signs that there’s a dragon in the region now. It might start preying on the blessing. We’ll see.”

  “A dragon?” Nick stopped with his hand on the doorknob and tried not to bounce with excitement. “I’ve always wanted to see one.”

  “Okay, want to go dragon hunting tomorrow?”

  “It’s a date.” Nick grinned at her as he held the door open. “Speaking of dates, have you had any?”

  “Maybe. One or two. There’s this guy I met...we’ll see.” Evie flashed him an impish smile and promptly turned the tables. “What about you? Any cute guys in your life yet?”

  “Not yet,” Nick was forced to admit. “But, then, I haven’t exactly been looking.”

  “Oh, Nicky,” and Evie looked genuinely upset. “They say command is lonely for a reason, you know.”
r />   “I’m sure I’ll find someone. They also say that everyone has someone out there. It’s just finding that person that’s the trick.” Even as he reassured his sister, he thought back to his days in the academy, and the visit to Guild Hall where he’d first met Cai. The Astrogator’s very blue eyes still haunted his dreams.

  * * * *

  The young Astrogator was accustomed to privacy but not to solitude. Mental space, he understood, even desired. But this…this was something else. The Laughing Owl was a kilometer-long, hollow arrow that, by rights, should be full of life and noise—humanity. Not this silence so profound it had become a tangible thing with a life of its own. Cai wandered echoing corridors full of the stillness and the silence, wondering how the tiles, all coated with a substance that reduced sound, could echo at all.

  He ran sensitive fingertips over the crosshatched texture of the wall panels, a soft ssssss barely perceptible as more than a vibration felt rather than heard. The corridor walls were a soothing grey-green. Cai had no idea how that color had been arrived at as being the color to be used in public areas of his ship, but he found he didn’t mind the color. It was restful. A trifle dull but better than pure grey would have been and far better than the impression stark white would have given.

  The coated flooring was a swirly admixture of dark grey, darker grey, charcoal and pure black. It worked just fine with the walls. The ceilings were replicas of the floors, excepting the light panels emitting a rich white-gold light that was as close as an artificial source could come to sunlight. There was a quality to the light that Cai enjoyed, a warmth that was all perceptual since he knew the temperature inside the double hull of his ship was a stable twenty-one-point-one degrees Celsius. Space was cold.

  Cai could feel the temperature differentials on his outer hull—approaching two hundred degrees on the side facing the sun and negative one hundred on the side in shadow. He compensated, of course, using a network of special fluid-filled tubes just under his outer hull to circulate and spread that heat. Currently, he was accepting the free energy the sun provided, using it to power his systems. The mighty fusion reactors that normally powered him were idling, emitting only just enough power to keep the singularity contained.

  All that would soon change. Within a matter of hours, the first members of his crew would arrive. Three hundred people, Cai reminded himself of the standard crew complement for a ship of his class. He reached the bridge and paused, looking at it with fresh eyes, wondering what his new captain would think. The holotank took up most of the center of the room. Arrayed in a circle around it were the stations and jump couches for the bridge crew. It was only called the bridge due to old naval tradition. The official designation for the room was Operations Control Center.

  The captain’s setup was only slightly larger and more elaborate than the others, for the captain had oversight and override ability for every system in the ship that wasn’t under Cai’s direct control. The bridge was functional rather than pretty, and the walls were a slate blue, remarkable only because they weren’t green. The texture of these walls also varied, no longer crosshatch squares but crisscross diamonds. The empty silence of the bridge struck Cai as similar to the echoing emptiness of a wiped, de-synapsed brain before reprogramming and imprinting.

  Did they do that to me? Is that why I can’t remember anything before the Guild? That thought was more than slightly unnerving, so Cai moved on quickly. There were some things it wasn’t safe for even an Astrogator to ask about, and that was one of them. He reached the off-duty lounge, as empty and still as the rest of his ship. The off-duty is currently off-duty, he thought, unable to resist the joke.

  It was a nice place for a facility that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a bar, a restaurant or a dance hall. There was even a stage for a live band to perform on. Static screens currently displayed a matte black absence, but once powered could display any image on file or the live feed from Cai’s sensors. Cai wondered what the place would be like once the crew was comfortable.

  With a sigh, he turned back to his chambers. There was nothing to see but emptiness and nothing to hear but silence. His crew couldn’t arrive soon enough to suit him.

  Chapter Two: Reporting for Duty

  Three days later, Nick said goodbye to his mom and sister and flew his flitter back to Orbit Control. From there, he took the regularly scheduled shuttle up to Space Corps Command where his new command awaited. He couldn’t decide if he was more nervous or excited. On the one hand, he was young for the rank, and being a ship’s captain wasn’t easy. On the other hand, Cai. That by itself was both exhilarating and terrifying. What if Cai didn’t feel about him what he felt about Cai? He’d only met Cai once, while they were both in training. He knew that the mental fantasy he’d built of Cai might not be anything close to the reality.

  These thoughts occupied his mind all the way up to the orbiting space station. He disembarked from the shuttle, flashed his ID link to the station network and was immediately granted full access to the net as a captain. It took only a moment to learn where Laughing Owl was berthed. There were only two frigates in port and one full cruiser. The frigates were at one end of the station and the cruiser at the other in an attempt to keep the station balanced. Nick was mildly surprised that they’d let the cruiser dock directly to the station. Usually, they had the larger ships stand off from the station in independent orbits and use shuttles to carry supplies and personnel to and fro.

  Not that it’s any of my business, he told himself as he walked briskly down the concourse, a small duffel swinging from his hand. Most of his belongings should already be aboard the Laughing Owl; he carried only what he’d needed for the last few days. He carried the duffel in his left hand so that he could answer the salutes he received with his right. As he walked, he tried to mentally review the files he’d been given on his new crew. It took a lot of people to run even a small ship like the Laughing Owl. He had three hundred names and faces to put together, and he knew, as captain, he couldn’t afford to not recognize one of his men.

  Personnel files occupied him most of the way across the station when he abruptly found himself before one the viewscreens set to an outside view. Both frigates were visible, a nearly identical pair of arrows, one to either side of the docking extension. The body of the ship was a long cylinder, which tapered to a point at the bow and flared outward at the stern to support the three forward-pointed spars. Nick knew that if he traced imaginary lines from the points of the spars into the ship, he’d find the singularity at their intersection, pinned by the magnetic field generated by the fusion engines nestled in the thick arms of the spars.

  His was the one on the left. The ship’s registration was emblazoned on the side, the only marking on the smooth, matte-grey finish. Nick stood there for several minutes just looking at his ship. Even though the frigate was identical to the other, and in design, identical to all Space Corps ships—but for scale—he somehow thought this one was different.

  He laughed at his whimsy and turned resolutely away from the entrancing view. He strode down the long tunnel of the docking tube a moment later. Eventually, inevitably, he found himself standing at the end of the tunnel facing the closed airlock of the Laughing Owl.

  * * * *

  Cai watched, with a great deal of interest, his new captain approach. It was indeed the handsome cadet he recalled, now fully grown into a fine figure of a man. Steele’s black hair was spacer short, making his blue-grey eyes stand out even more. The man had good bones, he was solidly built and his tailored, formfitting uniform displayed the fact that he was supremely fit, too.

  Cai had to resist an urge to drool. It wasn’t proper. He was an Astrogator. No matter how handsome his captain was, there could never be anything between them. It wasn’t forbidden because it didn’t need to be. Cai was well aware of what he was, what the risks were, what he could potentially do to a lover without even meaning to. He was a powerful telepath, and in the throes of love, he would n
ot be able to shield his mind from that of his lover’s. At best, he’d read his partner to the earliest memory and least thought. At worst, he’d fry his partner’s brain, leaving a mindless husk in his arms. No, it wasn’t worth the risk, but oh, he could dream.

  He craved the company of others, even the formal interactions of an Astrogator and his crew he’d been trained in took on a certain appeal after being alone for so long. So as the captain strode down the docking tunnel toward him, he closed his airlock to make the man contact him. He wanted to hear Steele’s voice requesting permission to board.

  * * * *

  Nick stopped before the closed airlock door and turned to the ID scanner on the wall beside it. After pressing his hand to the scanner and allowing the computer to scan his retina, the light above the lock turned green, indicating that it was safe to open. However, Nick didn’t immediately open the hatch. He picked up the handset next to the scanner and asked the AI to connect him to the Astrogator.

  “This is Laughing Owl. Identify yourself.” Cai’s voice was pleasant, on the higher end of the register, but not so high as to be squeaky or annoying. Nor did he have a nasal tone, for which Nick was grateful. Nasally speakers tended to get on his nerves.

  The Astrogator had chosen the formal approach, referring to himself by the name of his ship, which was quite proper since the Astrogator was the ship in every way that mattered. Nick cleared his throat. “Laughing Owl, I am Nicholas Steele, Captain, United Space Corps, reporting for duty. Do I have permission to board?”

  “Permission granted.” The airlock abruptly, and silently, irised open. The air pressure in the lock had already been equalized to the station’s, for there was no hissing rush of air in either direction. “Welcome aboard, Captain Steele.”