planets. It seemed harmless to all, especially when you considered the ship her grandfather piloted. A decommissioned Earth Guard Warbird. The battle-class cruiser didn’t have much going for her in the beginning except sheer size.
Basically gutted when she’d been taken out of service, Shar’ia recalled her family painstakingly putting the battle cruiser back together with armaments bartered for on the black market. Impressive was the word most often used to describe the ship once the retrofit was complete.
In all the early missions, the ship only had to fire a single warning shot, hear the captain of their target surrender, and gather the booty. Those good times didn’t last long. The vacation planets began employing heavily-armed interstellar cruisers and bounty hunters to patrol their borders. Smuggling was the second choice. The cargo holds could carry ten times what most traffickers could. With the addition of holographic walls, the cache was always well hidden behind empty cargo-containers or, on rare occasions when her father actually contracted a legit job, stacks of water purifiers or spare parts for a space station.
And you, in your ultimate wisdom, allowed the ship to be captured. Honestly, she felt guiltier about the loss of the ship than she did anything else. It was a good thing that both her grandfather and father were dead, because if they hadn’t been, they never would have forgiven her. Should have dumped the cargo and let InterGal clean up the space debris.
She gritted her teeth as another warrior came into view. Like all Navorains, he carried himself with an air of being better than every other species in the known universe. If she had been in a better situation, she’d admit he was a handsome man. His broad shoulders were absolutely huggable. Striking, sterling-silver eyes, strong featured with a full, kissable mouth caught hold of her attention. Nice. Very, very nice. The scowl he wore on his face she could do without.
Her gaze steered to another warrior who was striding toward her. Holy Mother of Atlas. The warrior was too gorgeous for words. Noticing he was larger than his contemporary, she licked her suddenly dry lips when he inspected her from the top of her head to the tips of her boots, and then his hard stare reversed course until he glared her dead in the eye. Heat blossomed in her belly. A delicious warmth she couldn’t deny spread downward until her pussy ached for some attention.
“We’ll assume custody of the prisoner,” the newcomer said to her legal proxy, but he never took his steely gaze off her face. “You are excused, Counselor, unless you intend to fly with us to Lazarus Seven. It is most inhospitable this time of the year. Of that I can assure you.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” Shar’ia started but stopped herself short. What the hell is going on? It wasn’t so much the change in destination she was questioning but the rampant desire flying through her system. The simple act of breathing had her nipples tightening to hard buds. The ache in her femininity turned to a damnable throb.
“Supreme Commander Fis Cand, I must protest.” An audible gulp sounded from her legal proxy. “On behalf of my client and as duly appointed defender of her interstellar rights, she is innocent until proven guilty. That is not a new concept to the Navorains.”
“The Navorain Counsel of Kings has decided not to pursue the formality of a long trial. That is contingent on Ms. Shar’ia returning the statue of Cand to its rightful home on Lazarus Seven.”
“But…but…you said…” The proxy didn’t continue when the other warrior took a threatening step forward. “You said the planet…inhospitable.”
Shar’ia swallowed against the knot of trepidation forming in her throat. “I’ll exercise my rights to a hearing before my peers.” She nodded to tell the two warriors she meant what she said. Ten years on a penal planet versus death from the elements in a wasteland? It was
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