The Gray Market: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 5) Read online

  The Gray Market

  The New Dawn: Book 5

  Valerie J. Mikles

  Contents

  The story so far

  The Crew

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  FREE SHORT STORY!

  The Confluence: The New Dawn Book 6

  The Qinali Virus

  Also by Valerie J. Mikles

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 Valerie Mikles

  All rights reserved

  Dedicated to anyone who has felt dehumanized by the actions of another.

  The story so far

  #1 The Disappeared – Oriana’s crew became the target of the Terranan Guard after a former Disappeared, Amanda Gray, escaped her Elysian prison and resurfaced. The mythological non-corporeal Elysians come screaming to the physical world as disgraced Guard, Diana Solvere, leverages their power to pursue Amanda across the expanse of outer space. In the fight for their lives, Oriana loses their pilot, Corey, and the ship crashes far from home.

  #2 Sequestered – Sky and Hawk join the crew when Oriana makes a mad escape from Rocan, a dying city in desperate need of Oriana’s resources, both technological and … human. In exchange for Hawk’s help, Captain Danny Matthews promises he will help search for medicine to save Hawk’s people.

  #3 Trade Circle – While exploring the ruins of an ancient city, Danny and Saskia fall victim to a disease called Havara Pytr, the Jaws of the Ancestors. Sky reaches out to the nomadic tribes in the area and invites a heap of new trouble when her spirit-carrier nature is revealed. Although Oriana’s crew is offered the medicine, the demanded price of Sky’s life is too high, and they rush to save her.

  #4 Hybrid – Oriana arrives at the technologically advanced city of Boone only to find a ghost town. The sole survivors of the destruction are two human-spirit hybrids, Kerris and Liza. Realizing that Hawk is a hybrid as well, Liza becomes convinced Hawk can teach her how to undo the destruction of Boone. When a nearby tribe realizes that Liza may be able to resurrect their lost family members, they convince her to try, but trigger a second destructive event. As the city falls to ruin, Tray is mortally wounded. Drained of fuel, Oriana is relying on Hawk’s hybrid ability to fly them home and save Tray’s life!

  The Crew

  Danny Matthews – After his stepfather rejected him, he moved to Terrana, only to be caught in a Revolution. After the Revolution, he became part of a Citizens’ Channel, transporting refugees from Terrana to Aquia. He became captain of Oriana after reuniting with his estranged brother, Tray.

  Tray Matthews – He comes from wealth, but grew up not knowing he had a brother. After a falling out with his father and a messy divorce, he went seeking family and has been clinging to his brother ever since. Tray recently found out that he has a son, and he hasn’t told his brother yet, because he’s afraid of disturbing the status quo.

  Saskia Serevi – A former Terranan Guard, Saskia joined Oriana’s crew “three captains ago” after a paralyzing injury drove her from service. She takes the mantle of the stoic warrior, but also nominal mechanic and medic. She and Tray have a budding relationship.

  Amanda Gray – A former Disappeared, she has a strong connection to the spirit realm. At some point in her captivity, she developed schizophrenia, and it has gone untreated for so long that she often has difficulty parsing her spirit-world insights from her delusions.

  Douglas “Hawk” Hwan – Hawk only recently learned that his aptitude for machines comes from a hybrid nature. It is a power he is only beginning to control. He used his power to destroy Boone and keep the hybrid-detecting technology from falling into enemy hands. He feels guilty for accidentally shooting Tray.

  Sky – A spirit-carrier, she has no ability to communicate with the Seer that possesses her. She lives her life as a traveler because she fears if she stays in one place too long, Spirit will find a way to kill her and jump into a new host. Although over a hundred years old, Spirit keeps Sky looking young. Sky denies any existence of the other realm to most, because she has learned not to trust anyone with the secret.

  1

  Just outside of Pierce, and all along the covered roads connecting the Quin cities, wind turbines stood tall, spinning steadily, taking advantage of the weather system created by the five densely packed Dome structures, and the sprawl of smaller ones built in the gaps between them. From his bedroom window, Alex Swift could see one of the windmills, spinning steadfastly day in and day out. Sometimes, the only thing that kept him going was that windmill, spinning on, reminding him that the world kept turning, and he had to find a way to join it again. Today was one of those days where getting out of bed was just too hard, and Alex had spent the morning staring out the window, watching the turbine spin.

  The door burst open and Alex dove off the side of the bed. His years of dangerous living inciting a fight or flight response, he felt for the weapon he kept under his nightstand.

  “What in Zive’s name is this?” his wife Jennifer demanded, waving a Virclutch over her head. Her dyed-blond hair fell messily from a French twist, and her copper cheeks burned red with rage at what she’d read.

  “Ugh,” Alex groaned, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.

  “You’re still in bed?” she accused. The past five years of their thirty-year marriage had been marred with separations and tense reunions. Coming home injured this last time had forced a truce while she saw him through rehab. He scooted around the edge of the bed, mentally drained by the stiffness in his right leg and the frustration the injury invoked. Three months ago, the Terranan Guard burned him with shock-darts, thinking he was harboring a fugitive, and he’d never fully recovered. He didn’t have feeling in the two little toes, but he was out of the exoskeleton and on a good day, he could run the length of Pierce.

  “You came to the bedroom looking for me. Where’d you expect me to be?” he groused. Sifting a shirt from the mess of laundry on the floor, he gave it a whiff, making sure it was clean enough to pull on. Alex was 6’2”, and well-muscled, but with his shoulders covered with burn scars and his chest covered with gray hairs, his vanity dictated the cover-up. He debated shaving off the gray beard that had grown in over the weekend, or at least dying it to match his black-dyed hair, but when he was hungry and depressed, his vanity only spurred him so far.

  “Out the door and headed to Kemah,” she said, giving him a hand up and dropping him on the edge of the bed, tossing the Virc
lutch into his lap. “You could have told me your ship, your beloved Cadence, your sole source of income was being decommissioned!”

  Alex shut the Virclutch off, not wanting to read the news of his ship’s disgrace. He hobbled past her, heading down the stairs. No one had foreseen the ripple effect the loss of Oriana would have on the space trade. Oriana was the fifth ship to burn up in the atmosphere in so many weeks, and after that, the Aquian government forbade travel to Terrana. The embargo crippled the industry and the government started sending small crafts up to clear space debris, just to give people jobs. There was a lot of trash to clear, but no money in the clearing. Taxes went up, so that more resources could be diverted to fuel to run the ships. Giant water-haulers like the Cadence cost too much to fuel, and the risk of damage was greater than the promise of work. Alex had been in denial since his shipmate, Nattie, had told him, but now it was public news.

  A tear rolled down his cheek as he limped down the stairs, but it had only a little to do with the pain in his knee or the decommissioning of the Cadence. He’d lost a family with Oriana. He and Jennifer had rooms in the house already set up for Danny and Amanda. Both rooms had been sealed since the crash.

  “That ship is the only thing keeping you off the welfare line,” Jennifer reminded him, tromping down the stairs after him. “Some scrapper is going to grab it at auction for a handful of marks!”

  The bottom of the stairs opened up into the main room. Only a narrow bar and a pair of stools separated the kitchen from the living room. All of the furniture had been pushed to the corners to make space for Alex’s exercise equipment. Twice a week, his physical therapist would come by and make thoughtful “hmms” and “ohs” as Alex went through the training circuit. It took all of Alex’s willpower not to beat the man senseless, and afterward, Alex would press weights until he couldn’t move his arms anymore. More than once, Jennifer had found him pinned to the bench, and she’d started coming home from work early on PT days to rescue him.

  “Or are you thinking of scrapping it yourself?” Jennifer asked, her tone softening to one of pity.

  “We haven’t had a job in six weeks. I’m already a dole,” Alex said, frustration rising at the sight of the exercise equipment. It was so easy for her to expel rage with physical exertion, and he was trapped by his own body.

  “No. No, you have not been collecting handouts!” she sputtered. “You’re smarter than that.”

  Scooping a handful of dried protein and oats, Alex sat at the bar looking into the kitchen. The only windows on this level were behind him, facing the street, and when he looked out those windows, he saw people bustling about their lives, oblivious to his prison.

  “Alex, do you know what happens to doles?” she said, spinning his stool around, her eyes filled with fear. “Last night, I treated man—a dole. Someone set him on fire. If we have to leave this house to survive on my income, we will, but you cannot go to the welfare lines. Not now.”

  Alex slouched against the bar, gimped leg extended, chewing half-heartedly on his breakfast. The generic, tasteless food had come as part of his welfare package, doled out to gimps who were unable to work. “It’s not forever. I’m getting better. I’ll find work soon,” Alex promised.

  With almost two miles of sprawl, Clover was considered a major dome marking the northern border of the Quin settlement. There were hundreds of poor people packed into these streets, most of whom labored at the orchards all day, and spent their money on drugs and sex in the evening. They had few luxuries and they spent their loose cash on whatever trinkets promised instant gratification.

  Roland Ketlin was in the business of gratification, at least on the drugs side. In school, he’d been good at chemistry, but he’d been sucked into the family business too quickly to become an academic.

  Right now, he was more focused on the woman sucking on his lips. Kristy was in the business of gratification as well, and he was lucky she fancied him, because there was no way he could afford her. He squeezed her soft flesh between his fingers. The warped wood of the rocking chair dug into his ribs, reminding him that they were on her porch, not in her bed.

  “Smoke,” she croaked, coughing over his shoulder.

  “It’s just the Blaze,” Roland said, wiping the sticky powder from his face. “Working on a new twist to the recipe.”

  Kristy shifted off his lap and adjusted her top, turned off by the disruption. “You spend any more time cooking, and you won’t have brain cells left to invent recipes. I gotta keep a clear head tonight.”

  She’d gotten sucked into the Ketlin family accidentally when her little sister Trina got pregnant by one of the cousins.

  “You’re working ?” Roland asked, touching her legs, bringing his hands to rest on her hips.

  “I didn’t dress this way for you,” she teased, pressing her body to his face teasingly. Though her clothes looked accident prone, they didn’t come off without her consent. “I am saving to buy you something special. Can’t say what.”

  He knew what. She’d let it slip one night when she was too exhausted for lovemaking. She wanted to get her sister and her niece out of Clover, and she couldn’t decide whether to get a boat or a boutique in one of the outer domes.

  “Kristy Hakely!” Lois Ketlin hollered, storming across the street, startling them both. Most people called her Granny Lois, even though she’d never had kids of her own. She was Roland’s great aunt, and he’d thought the world of her when he first started cooking Zen. She’d never once walked the dole lines, knew how to cook every psychoactive substance in the book, and wasn’t afraid to do karaoke even though her singing voice was crap.

  Roland hopped to his feet and fanned the front of his shirt, eyes down. It didn’t matter that he was pushing forty. When Lois hollered, he still felt like a teenager.

  “You’ll be on the dole line in no time if you waste your best hours on this lump,” Lois criticized, her wrinkled face getting wrinklier when she saw Roland on the porch.

  “You don’t get a say in how I live my life, Lois,” Kristy said sharply. “Gotta have something worth coming home to.”

  Grabbing the front of Roland’s shirt, she planted her plum-painted lips on his, pressing her tongue so deep he nearly choked on it.

  “Stay clean for breakfast,” she whispered, sashaying off the porch, heading for the center of town where the wealthy men went to pick up a night of entertainment. She was always telling him to stay clean; she had it in her head that she could rescue him from this life.

  Roland watched her go, mesmerized by her motions. Then he heard the flick of a lighter and felt a hot pipe pressing against his arm. It was Lois’ cruel way of getting his attention, but the morning of cooking Blaze left him with enough of a residual high to dull the pain.

  “Why’d you have to holler like that?” Roland snapped, snatching the pipe and burning Lois back. The old lady didn’t even flinch.

  “She lives on my street. She’s gonna know who’s in charge,” Lois said, running her finger over her spotted lips.

  “We’re neighbors. We’re not servants,” Roland argued.

  Across the street, his Ketlin cousins sat on the porch, puffing Zen and watching their kids play street hockey. All down the block, families leaked out onto the stoops, chatting with neighbors about bargain shoes, dole lines, and which harvesters were hiring.

  “You’re sitting on her porch like a dole. Don’t expect her to support you,” Lois warned.

  “I’ve been here all of ten minutes,” Roland complained, rubbing his bloated belly. Blaze made him both hungry and horny, and ten minutes with Kristy only slaked the latter lust. “I got a new twist on Blaze. Jellies it up; it’ll go great on donuts. I have three cookers testing the recipe. Unless you got paying work for me, go holler at someone else.”

  He stalked past her, hurrying to his porch, praying she didn’t follow. His house was next door to hers, and only a thin railing separated his sanctuary from hers.

  Unfortunately, his porch had been
invaded by a different intruder—his niece. Kit was a pre-teen engineering genius. She sat on the railing, getting a little too cozy with one of Lois’ peddlers.

  “Kit! Don’t you talk to her!” Roland barked, picking up his pace. He didn’t want her getting stuck in the family business, too.

  “I know. I know. Go home, Kit,” she grumbled, sliding off the railing, picking up her pink jacket. She trotted down the steps, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her back onto the porch. He didn’t want her finding some other place to meet up with the peddler.

  Cynthea Ketlin, known in the family as Cyn, had nearly escaped the business. A year ago, she’d gotten a nursing degree, but then Lois hatched the idea to buy Clover’s biggest pharmaceutical company.

  “Lois said I could use whomever I needed,” Cyn said, shoving her hands into the pockets of her russet coat, looking contrite and terrified.

  “You don’t need a kid to deliver your drugs,” Roland growled.

  Kit jerked her elbow free and rubbed the skin. “I asked to go, Uncle Roland. I wanted to see how the swanks live up top Vimbai hill.”