Viola grace sector gua.., p.1
Viola Grace - Sector Guard 06 - Imperial Guard, page 1
ealing with the family who refused to let her bury her father is difficult, but DIsabi keeps her grounded as she fights for the survival of her estranged family.
In the mean time, Isaro, Isabi's sister, is with them using her appearance altering skills to forward the work of the Sector Guard. When she meets the Captain of the bodyguard to the Moreski royal family, she falls head over heels over his tail.
Alomar has worked for the royals since he was a kitten, but when he catches Isaro's scent, his loyalties are split. Does he protect the only family he has ever known, or chase the lovely Selna into a dark corner and prove that he wants her just the way she is.
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Imperial Guard
Copyright © 2010 Viola Grace
ISBN: 978-1-55487-486-6
Cover art by Martine Jardin
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 Devine Destinies
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Imperial Guard
Sector Guard Six
By
Viola Grace
Chapter One
ala, I asked you and Isabi here because we have recently had a request
“Mfor your presence on an assignment. We haven’t go tten a call like this
before and I wanted to run it past you.” Commander was sitting at the head of the table and he didn’t look happy. The normally relaxed Azon was tense, pensive.
“What is it?” Mala took her husband’s hand and held it tightly. If something had happened to her mother, she would be inconsolable.
“You, or more precisely, Fixer, have been asked to assist with a project on the Moreski home world.”
“What is the project?” Isabi was instantly suspicious. The Moreski were not known for their acceptance of outside assistance.
“They wouldn’t say, but I will recommend that you take Isaro with you.”
Mala looked at the Commander in surprise, but Isabi was more verbal, “That’s not going to happen. She is just recovering from her abduction. I am not going to haul her into an unknown situation.”
“Then it has changed from a recommendation to an order. I can’t miss this opportunity to have her meet her match. They can court as long as they like, but Isaro’s match is on the Moreski home world in the Imperial household. One of the bodyguards, but my matchmaking sense can’t reach any further than that.”
Isabi’s mouth opened and closed in shock. “But she is not a member of the Guard!”
“She can be as soon as she gets her talent under control. This exercise may be the thing that she needs to force that control.” Hyder rubbed his forehead and looked back at the readout on the screen. “Piggyback the Sector One with the new ship that you refitted, Mala. That will give you some privacy as well as giving plenty of options to you for a return trip.”
“Why will we need two ships?”
Hyder looked tired. His talent of foresight was wearing on him. “If it happens, you will know. Now, go and collect your sister and have her outfitted with a suitable ship suit. Also, prep some suits similar to Mala’s. That will give you the option to have her mimic you if necessary.”
This was the most information that the Commander had ever spilled to them before. The very idea that the Moreski merely wanted Mala’s technical skills was ridiculous. With her distinct dark-rainbow hair visible on every assignment she had had since she joined the Sector Guard, the mark of Moreski royal blood was undeniable. Her mask kept her face from being identified, but anyone who knew her mother, knew exactly who she was.
Evia Deeha was a proud parent who loved both her daughter and her choice of a husband. Not every mother wanted her child to marry an ex-Master Companion, but Evia had taken it as a sign that her daughter was very desirable.
A chip off the old block so to speak.
They had managed to stop on Cadith on their way back from an assignment and she was quite taken with her new son-in-law.
When the Commander barked, “Go!” Isabi nodded and took Mala out the door before she could dig into Hyder’s mood. She meant well, but sometimes she was too damn nosey for her own good.
They passed Helen in the hall and Isabi stopped her, “Hyder is having a bit of a rough day. Could you two spend some time together, it seems to calm him?”
The Terran pilot flipped her hair over her shoulders, exposing her piloting ports. “I will try, but the moron has to stop sending me off world. Man, I will be happy when the new jump ships are ready. Being a chauffeur is taking its toll.”
She rolled her shoulders to relieve tension and Isabi could sympathize. They were all run ragged. The Citadel promised to bring in new recruits, but their new outpost was not ready for inhabitants yet. They seemed to be the likeliest source of paranormal abilities, but the Sector Guard was always on the lookout for new talents.
Once the planets were on board with the Guard for essential matters, the calls never stopped coming. Fury and the Beast were on natural disasters, Morph and Thinker were assisting the inhabitants of worlds with toxic environments, with Thinker living in special quarters and recording observations. Seer and Order had the joyous life of crowd control and assisting evacuations while their newest recruit, Star Breaker, was still trying to get her memory back while engaging in the delicate dance that was courtship by the avatar of their planet, Kale.
Commander had administrative duties and Pilot was busy shuttling personnel on and off the planet.
Isabi felt lucky that he and Mala rarely had to leave Morganti in their guise as Fixer and Shade. Her twisted talent for creating materials out of other—
unrelated—materials was best used on stranded, broken ships and at home creating new machines, like their newest reflex ship.
Now, he had the unpleasant duty to tell his little sister that she was accompanying them to one of the most dangerous planets in the Alliance. The Moreski royals were above the law and dealing with them directly was a hazard that he didn’t want to experience, let alone drag his wife and sister into, but they wanted Mala and he needed to find out why.
* * * *
“Seriously? I am coming with you?” Isaro couldn’t believe it. She had been abused, kidnapped and prepared for sale on the open market in the last year alone. She was to be sold because of her odd talent to mimic a male’s ideal female. To have a chance to use a talent that she was just now getting a handle on was a blissful opportunity.
With Mala and Helen’s help, she was able to imitate them with almost perfect accuracy. The slight difference in height was almost imperceptible.
Of course, Isabi knew which one she was, but only five percent of races used their sense of smell to locate a mate. The Moreski were not such a race.
“Yes, Isaro, you are coming with us. Prepare to use your talents when Mala and I need to investigate what the Moreski are up to.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look stern.
It didn’t work. Isaro knew her brother’s moods and he was intrigued by the chance to run around a planet with his chosen mate.
“What will she wear to keep from being seen? She has some pretty amazing hair.”
“True, but she will not be the only Moreski there. That said, she has created a spectrum neutralizer that works on her hair until she washes it. It turns her hair translucent.”
Isaro whistled. Her sister-in-law was surprisingly cool for a woman of no discernable breeding. Isabi and she were the product of years of stringent genetic control. She could only imagine how cute the kids of her brother and sister-in-law would be. Hopefully, they took after her race. She didn’t know how she would feel about little pink ones with rainbow hair.
“Isaro, are you paying attention? We have to get going. Mala is prepping your uniforms.”
“Excellent! I get my own uniforms. How neat is that?”
“Wait until you see them, Mala may have remembered you calling her Pinky the last time we all had dinner.”
Isaro shrugged and put down the data pad she had been reading. It contained a detailed history of the Terran Champions who had risen to the peak of their fields and then found mates of differing races. Some parts of the history were very risque—the Terran who was thrown to a rutting Azon in the middle of his mating cycle was particularly interesting to her mind.
One so rarely saw the Azon out of control that you could forget that they had rampant sex drives like everyone else.
Isaro smiled, grabbed a few essentials and followed her brother to the hangar where Fixer had her work
Mala had several uniforms laid out and was altering them for her sister-in-law. Two were colour matched to Mala’s own silver and black, a counterpoint to Isabi’s unrelieved black. The other three suits were a deep violet with black and gold trim. “Those are lovely.”
Mala snorted. “You won’t think so when it is the only thing you have to wear for a month. We don’t appear out of uniform off Morganti. When you leave the planet, you are acting as one of the Sector Guard. Now, go and get into one of your suits. I need to make final alterations before we leave and food is rationed.”
“And you eat everything that isn’t nailed down?”
“Exactly. Isabi has been a good sport about keeping me supplied with snacks while working, but even that only lasts so long before I need to gorge to replace what I lost.”
Isaro nodded, familiar with the effects of Mala’s consumption. She knew, if her sister-in-law did not, that the effects of her talent were of greatest concern to her brother. If Mala were to get pregnant and drained her system, it might turn on the baby. He hadn’t shared his concern with his wife, but Isaro had dragged it out of him. She would keep his secret.
A few sharp tugs on the fabric created a smooth suit with a distinctive pattern of trim. Each of the suits that Mala had created was distinctive, the patterns of piping rolling across the surface in a hypnotic wave. Isaro didn’t need any extra panels or expansion vents, so she merely turned from side to side while watching herself in the mirror, admiring the fit. The purple was a lovely compliment to her black, velvet skin, the gold sparked against its match in her eyes and the shiny black echoing her long, silky hair. She loved it.
“Yeah. Got it right in the first try. Now, with a sealed helmet and appropriate boots, the suit is designed to keep you up and running, even for a few minutes in space. The Masuo boots are perfect for this sort of thing and several helmets are stored in the compartment of the shuttles.”
“I know, sister. Quit fussing.” She stepped toward the suits and packed them with the suits to mimic Fixer’s on the bottom. “Ready. Where is Isabi?”
“Right here. I just had to enlist Carella’s help with stacking the shuttles. She will assist us on lift off and escort us to the jump ship that has been summoned for our assignment. It will wait for us in Moreski space, never more than six hours away in case it goes as badly as we anticipate.”
They were walking to the shuttles and Isaro raised one eyebrow. They were really stacked. Two shuttles, the larger on the bottom and the smaller on top. The interesting thing was the wrap that bound them together.
“You made a wrap for them?”
Fixer straightened her collar, all business. “Yes, it was necessary to ease the entry and exit of atmospheres. One touch from either shuttle shatters it.”
“Yet, it is sturdy enough to hold up to flight?”
“Indeed. It will keep us together until we let it go. At that moment, we will hit the switch and it will become flecks of ash.”
Mala was fixing her mask to her headpiece, but leaving it up for the moment.
Isaro was fascinated. She had never seen Fixer in work mode before. The woman who giggled up at her big brother seemed to be another person. Part of her was chilled to the bone and another portion had a small thrill of respect for the perpetually cheerful woman that she didn’t have before.
Isabi had tried to tell her about Mala’s other side. That she was a vibrant and intent part of the Sector Guard team had been hard to believe…until now. The ditzy tinkerer had become a calculating creature that Isaro didn’t know and this woman would not take kindly to being called Pinky.
Chapter Two
tar Breaker escorted them to the jump ship and powered herself back home Safter a sombre salut
e. Careena was learning more about her previous life everyday, but her time with Kale-Gant was precious. She did her duty and returned to Morganti with all speed. Kale’s courtship of her in traditional Berhar fashion was rapidly drawing to a close.
Isaro hoped that they were back in time for the wedding.
Fixer was walking her through the controls of the smaller shuttle, making sure that she knew what to do and how to do it. “This ship is programmed to return to the jump ship. All you have to do is hit the release and this switch and you are on your way. Got it?”
“I have it.” She held her hand over the release and then the travel switch.
“Right?”
“Right. Now get ready to jump. We need to strap in.” Fixer flipped her mask into place and returned to the larger shuttle.
Isaro was on her own.
She flipped the com open between the two shuttles. “Shade? Are you there?”
“I am. Have you chosen your name yet?” He sounded different as well. Her affable brother was gone, leaving Shade in his place.
“Mimic, I think. It suits my talent more than anything else.”
“Excellent choice, Mimic. Glad to have you on the team whether I am ready or not.”
There was the sign of her brother. “Glad to be here, but am I going to be alone for the rest of the journey?”
“Well, after the jump, Fixer and I usually enjoy some privacy, so if you need anything, sing out. Otherwise, we will speak when we are orbiting Moreski Prime.”
Isaro laughed. “Acknowledged. Talk to you in a few hours.”
“Jumping in three, two, one…”
The disorientation was brief while she occupied two places in space at the same time for a miniscule fraction of a second and then it was over. It never got any better.
Shivering alone in the shuttle, she explored and then thought about how she had managed to get on the same team as Shade. Her family had sold her, as they had him, into servitude with the Companions, but she had been intercepted on the way.
It was on that raider ship that her life had taken a turn. Aside from the abuse at the hands of captors who were enthralled with her being able to take the form of their ideal female, she had met Dehlia who had put the pirates in their place.
That silly Terran woman had taken her under her wing and provided her with undergarments that ensured no male could touch her with unwholesome lust.
The few pirates who tried ended up in the infirmary, missing their lunch.
Rampant nausea was not conducive to rape and Isaro had been able to resume a fairly normal life after they escaped and she was returned to Isabi.
The Sector Guard had come to reclaim all of the exotics that had been captured by the pirates and returned all of them home, except her. There was nothing for her at home—they had sold her into her trade, but even the Companion training centre agreed that she was no longer suitable as a Companion. The repeated assaults that she had survived had created a few relationship issues that the base psychologist had had a field day with. Her therapy had helped, but the looks that some of the men on base gave her still set her on edge.
Fixer had told her that it was Commander who assigned her to this trip, that she might meet her match in the Moreski Imperial household. The thought of finding a mate, let alone having him touch her, conflicted Isaro. She wanted a man, a family and a life helping others like her brother had.
Sex was not even a small part of that plan. Using someone to relieve your personal urges disturbed her, possibly because she had always been on the receiving end of those urges.
It was two hours to Moreski Prime. She needed to get her head out of her own life and into the game. She was Mimic and she had a job to do.
* * * *
“You think she is okay up there?” Fixer jerked her head at the ceiling as if she could see her sister-in-law through the metal.
They were curled together on the open couch in the common area, the light sweat of their exertions still on their bodies. She loved this time, this tiny bit of privacy that she had with her husband. It was the only quiet time that they really had, the one moment to join body and soul without the call of duty interfering.
