Title: Siege Weapons
Series: The Galactic Captains, Book One
Author: Harry F. Rey
Publisher: NineStar Press, LLC
Release Date: September 24, 2018
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 41300
Genre: Science Fiction, sci-fi, futuristic, war, space, multiple partners, BDSM
Synopsis
Captain Ales is a lonely smuggler at the
galaxy’s Outer Verge, and the last of his people. He’s been trying to move on
from a life of drugs and meaningless sex, but finding love in this forgotten
corner of the galaxy is difficult.
When he’s sent on a mysterious smuggling
mission to a world under siege, he’s enticed by promises of the domination he
craves. But soon Ales finds himself entwined in a galactic power struggle that
could cost him everything.
Excerpt
Siege Weapons
Harry F. Rey © 2018
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Alone at the space station bar, I
checked the screen on my wrist-tech for the hundredth time. The smooth silvery
material as thin and flexible as a flower petal contoured perfectly to my bumps
and scars. The device came alive, but still no message from him.
He wasn’t late anymore; he wasn’t
coming. I sighed and pushed away the plate of imported meat I’d picked through
for the last three hours. I didn’t know why I’d even wasted the money on it.
When I’d arrived at Baldomar, this crummy little flank-yard station orbiting a
dead star, I’d been horny, not hungry. As the hours went by, my anticipation
had turned to anxiety, then nervousness, and finally, a dejected state of
knowing I’d been right all along. He never was going to come, and I was stuck
footing the bill for an expensive dinner I didn’t want and a shitty room I
wouldn’t sleep in. Plus, I was at least eight hours away from where I needed to
be.
The bar curved around the station’s
front edge, the long window displaying a view of a black starless nothing. It
was busy, but I happened to be the only homosapien here. Finding someone else
to keep me occupied in this array of tentacles and translucent eyeballs was out
of the question. Call me a racist, but I was only into humans. Besides, I
doubted there would be any humans at all out here, let alone male ones
interested in me. This was heterosapien space. They didn’t like that term, but
with hundreds of thousands of sentient, space-faring, nonhuman species in the
galaxy, there was no way anyone could remember, let alone pronounce most of
their native names. So since forever they’d been lumped together as
heterosapiens, hetero meaning different, as opposed to us homosapiens.
The dark expanse of the Outer Verge was
the most isolated and sparsely populated place in the galaxy. But to be sure, I
checked my wrist again. No messages. Again, I conducted a pointless scan of who
might be around. As the wrist-tech searched for any homosapien male who’d
registered at least a passing interest in the same sex, alerts flashed and
danced around the screen. The more annoying ones swerved around the screen to
the back of my wrist before I could swipe them away.
Free ship repairs with a room booking on
Rastel Station. I saved that; my own one-person transport ship was older than
me and held together with little more than hope.
Mineral ore prices continue to plummet.
That would hurt those bastards over at Galactic Shipping Co., my ex-employer.
Trades Council rules against Jansen in
galinium mining dispute. Jansen was a planet at the edge of the Verge, beyond
the slipstream, and a place I couldn’t even pretend to be interested in.
There are no users matching your
requirements on this station.
Same as five minutes ago. I dragged my
fingers across the screen and expanded the search.
There are no users matching your
requirements in this system.
Shit; not one dick in the whole damn
system. I sighed again, harder, waving my wrist at the infra-ceptor for another
drink of something strong and orange that burned my throat. I turned on my
stool away from the crowd of ever-rowdier heteros. I’d entertained their
squealing for hours and was beyond sick of it.
“Eat enough of that stuff and you’ll
lose your hot body, mister.”
I immediately recognized the fake,
sickly sweet voice of an AI. Rent a bot for one night and they’ll follow you
around forever.
“Heard that line before,” I said without
even turning.
“Well, with an ass like that you can
have anything you want. Feel like buying me a drink, mister?”
It slid itself across the bar to get
right in my face, flexing fake muscles under a poly casing and fluttering cheap
plastic eyelashes over its visual receptors. It disguised itself as a hot young
blond guy, pecs poking through a black mesh shirt, thick legs encased in tight
shorts showing off a butt big enough to dock a ship in. All this happened to be
pretty much my type—well, my conventional type at least. The other things I
liked could only be provided by a select few, with Ukko being the only one in the
whole damn Outer Verge I knew of right now.
“It’ll fry your circuits. Now buzz off
before I shove an EMP up your ass.”
Its elbow lifted off the bar with a
faint electronic snap and it slinked away. The bot scanned the rest of the
place, no doubt after some leaky data to go code itself into the next
unsuspecting soul’s metallic fantasy. Although there’s fat chance with this
crowd of heteros. I didn’t even want to imagine what sick sexual thoughts went
through their minds.
With a beep, a new message displayed on
my wrist. Finally.
Hey Ales, couldn’t make it, had to jump.
Something came up, you know how it is. I should be on Targuline next week;
maybe we can get a room there instead? See you. Ukko
I waved for another drink and slammed my
fist on the bar. Why did I believe him? We’d met once, totally random, in a
system I couldn’t remember. We’d fucked in his ship, a security patrol vessel.
It’d been everything I’d fantasized about, and the best thing to happen to me
in a long, long time. I could get what I needed in any pleasure palace in any
major world or even a decent-sized station. But, like renting a bot, it only
gave the illusion of gratification. Ukko had given me what I wanted, what I
craved.
We’d met, chatted. He’d made me laugh,
bought me a drink. His job made it more exciting, more dangerous. We’ve got to
use your ship, not mine, I’d told him, as he might’ve arrested me if he’d seen
what I had stored in my hold. Of course, I hadn’t been joking. Ukko worked in
security, or what passed for it here in the Outer Verge; the loose band of a
few hundred self-ruled systems occupying the spiral “arm” that juts out from
the rest of the galaxy. We were too insignificant and too isolated to attract
the machinations of galactic power. Out here, we operated under our own rules.
Prospering meant being the smartest,
quickest, or strongest, and I was none of those. Across the vast distances of
the Outer Verge, to venture beyond the atmosphere of your own world was to
wrestle with smugglers, gangs, and astronomical phenomenon that wasn’t found in
any training manual or weather forecast.
The danger also gave rise to
opportunity; no tolls, no tariffs, no taxes. Only Ukko flying around collecting
bribe money in between his busy schedule of fucking everyone who wasn’t me,
apparently.
I downed my drink, not caring about its
cost anymore. As soon as my boss got his tentacles on me, I’d be in major shit.
Enough time and fuel had been wasted to end up nowhere near the last delivery
or the depot, so there was no reason for me not to get drunk.
All because what seemed to me a solid
promise wasn’t even a second thought to Ukko. I meant nothing to him. Was
nothing to him. And the worst part was I couldn’t even blame him. It was my
fault, trying to turn a sly encounter into a lasting relationship. I considered
my response. Sending a snarky message or even showing him what he’d missed, but
what would be the point? Stuck somewhere between unrequited and unfulfilled,
Ukko was the story of my love life over and over again. Never fulfilling enough
to gain any real satisfaction, but never unrequited enough to be able to let it
go.
My scalp suddenly itched, probably from
this cup of orange engine fuel, which on second thought maybe wasn’t fit for
homo consumption. My fingers dug through thick black curls, cursing the fact I
kept any hair at all. The thought of shaving it all off frightened me. Perhaps
the fear that someone from my distant past wouldn’t recognize me if I did. I
shook my head at how ridiculous that was, and I caught the itch. Finally came
the soothing sensation of nail on skin.
Where was he, my rescuer? The one who
would fight through life with me, make the pain of past dissipate to mere
atoms.
Out of the din of unfamiliar languages
came a shriek at the other end of the bar. Followed by the sound of a wet and
heavy thing hitting the floor. I tried to ignore it. Normally I’d love to watch
a good hetero fight. Or even join in. But I couldn’t enjoy the spectacle in
this depressed state.
I cracked my neck, the closest thing to
satisfaction I’d get now, and it shot through me like a syringe full of Kri.
Maybe there would be some of the bright blue drug on the station. I brought my
wrist halfway up, thinking about searching for a vial, and ordered another
drink by accident from the infra-ceptor. On second thought, Kri on my own was
no fun. Without an orgy to go to, all that nano-induced energy went to waste.
The bar-bot refilled my glass, and I knocked back the extra drink. I tried to
stand. Drunk again. This time, I pushed myself against the bar and made it all
the way up.
Shit. Guess I’d be using the room after
all.
I stumbled along to the exit, almost
holding it together. It was so much easier to fly drunk than walk. I glanced
over to check out the fight’s aftermath. A gaggle of blobby and tentacled
heteros were huddled around whichever one had gotten injured. I couldn’t figure
out if it had lost a vital appendage, but it seemed like they were trying to
scoop a blob off the floor and reattach it. Seriously, what was the big deal
with losing one glutinous blob if your entire body was literally glutinous
blobs? I didn’t know if they were crying or laughing. Damn heterosapiens.
Something beeped, another message. In
the hazy moment before my eyes adjusted, a spark twitched in my trousers.
Perhaps this trip wouldn’t go to waste.
Ales – get your scrawny black ass back
to the depot nows. I gots a jobs for you.
Javer still hadn’t learned plurals. My
boss, the dumb-fuck tentacle dick. How did he even know my skin was black if
his globby-ass species had sniffers for eyes? There were certain places his
type couldn’t even set a blob in, let alone order around a homo. Us skin bags
might dominate most of the galaxy, but out here was cold, hard equality. Part
of me so wanted to hit back at Javer. I reminded myself I’d come to the Outer
Verge to get far away from that sort of oppression, any sort of oppression.
Plus, I wasn’t exactly captain of the week. The last job dropped my punctuality
rating to less than 50 percent, well below the firing threshold.
The truth was I didn’t want to go back.
I was done, beyond done. I couldn’t take another yelling from him, or another
job basically smuggling contraband. Javer didn’t even pretend the planetary
import licenses had anything to do with the cargo anymore. He didn’t care about
the moments of terror I faced while bribing or blagging my way through another
delivery. The free-trading worlds of the Verge were his opportunity to sell
anything and everything that would bring a profit.
A sudden stab of pain hit my lower back,
the muscle memory of my last delivery gone wrong; twenty-four hours chained to
a wall in a customs prison on Kerjan. All for what? Another planet; another lonely
bar, another fruitless search for satisfaction at the lost edge of sentience.
Another message.
Get backs nows.
The elevator took me to the right
corridor, and my hands ran along either side of the fluorescent-lit wall,
steadying myself while avoiding condensation drips from the ceiling. I tried to
figure out how long I might reasonably expect to live if I ever decided to fuck
it and run.
The room had a chill, the kind you only
get in deep space. I stumbled, still couldn’t figure out how to get the lights
on. Ukko wouldn’t have been impressed anyway. Probably a good thing he’d never
showed after all. The promise of sex was usually better than the real thing,
I’d come to learn. I pushed off my boots and, seconds before collapsing,
carried out my nightly ritual.
“I believe in the continuity of
existence, in the eternity of our people. That the glory of our past will never
be forgotten and the greatness of our future will always be remembered. Oh
victorious one, conqueror of the universe, restore us, your faithful army. Oh
merciful one, mother of all, deliver us from exile. May your people grow strong
and numerous, as in the days before. May we sweep across the stars, and may
tomorrow herald the coming of your dominion over all worlds.”
I fell onto the bed, my mind full with
the heavy despair of many years and the memory of many deaths, and I was the
only one left alive in the galaxy who knew these words.
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Meet the Author
Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch with influences ranging from Alan Hollinghurst to Isaac Asimov to George R.R. Martin. He loves all things sci-fi and supernatural, and always with a gay twist. Harry is originally from the UK but lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his husband.
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