AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PROLOGUE
Beyond the edge of civilized space is a newly colonized planet. It’s a haven for the homeless, the hopeful, and those dreaming of freedom.
The beings who live here might be different species from vastly different worlds - but they all have one thing in common. Whoever they are, and wherever they came from, Haven is now their home.
The land is uncharted. The dangers are unknown. It’s a world full of possibilities – for those willing to risk everything.
Welcome to Haven Colony.
1
Rin stood by the door inside her habi-pod and waited. When the signal came, she wouldn’t have long to make her escape unseen. That knowledge had her nerves on edge and her body keyed up with tension.
A sudden sense of urgency filled her mind, accompanied by a mental projection of the camp. No one was in sight.
“Thanks, Hera,” she sent the thought to her companion, and then she was on the move.
She dashed through the door and darted around the corner of her pod without being seen. Once she was out of sight, she resettled her backpack and forced herself to slow down to a brisk walk before emerging into view again. Running would only attract attention, and attention was the last thing she needed. The goal was to get out of camp without being noticed. If Lieutenant Douglas caught her sneaking out against his standing orders…
She didn’t dwell on what would happen if the asshole officer found out what she was up to. Did the military even realize what a jerk they’d put in charge of their precious project?
Don’t let him get to you. He’s a bully, and bullies aren’t worth your time. Her mother had given her that advice long ago when she’d been young and naïve enough to think that dealing with bullies was only something kids had to face.
The camp wasn’t large, but for some reason the handful of temporary structures had been placed far apart. The lieutenant said the open areas were part of camp’s defenses. She hadn’t bothered to point out that they were less than five kilometers away from the colony of Haven. The only thing they’d had to defend themselves from so far was an invasion of rodents the locals called squeakers.
The only reason they were outside the city limits at all was because the Interstellar Armed Forces were afraid their soldiers would fall under the sway of alien pheromones. Rin snorted. Like a female of any species would want to be mated to the males assigned to this project.
Not that the aliens got any say about it. The Vardarian mating bond was triggered by chemistry, not choice. You got who you got, and that was the end of it.
She knew the risks when she signed on to this project. If she wound up mated to a pair of Vardarian males, she’d likely lose her job and the lieutenant would step up as project leader. Douglas had already made it clear that the moment he was in charge, he’d terminate the entire experiment and leave. In his opinion this entire mission was a waste of time and resources. At least, that’s what he declared once they were safely on their way and out of earshot of anyone who outranked him. The jerk.
Rin walked with a steady, purposeful stride toward the building they’d designated as the mews. Inside were five of the six subjects they were here to study. The sixth was perched on the roof of the building, acting as Rin’s lookout.
To reach the mews, she had to pass uncomfortably close to the large building the soldiers had claimed as their barracks and mess. She’d timed things so that Douglas and his off-duty men should be having lunch inside. She rarely ate with them, so no one would expect her to show up.
She made it past the open door of the barracks without being seen, but she heard what they were saying. The topic was women. Again.
“I hear the Vardarian females are all randy as hell. It’s not fraxxing fair that we’re not even allowed in the colony.” Sutherland had complained about the rules every day since they’d arrived.
“No way I’d hit that. They’ve got scales! Fucking one of them would be like doing it with a snake,” Tao said.
“There are human women in town, too,” Sutherland argued. “And bars. And restaurants! Instead we’re stuck out here with nothing to do but drill, train, and use the rats for target practice.”
Rin had tried to stop that barbaric practice, but Douglas had waved off her concerns and told her the men needed something to do. Plus, the pests were making a mess of the camp, their equipment, and their food supply. He’d only made two concessions. The first was to ban target practice while the psy-hawks were out of their cages. They were far too valuable to risk injuring. The other was to clear away the dead rats littering the camp. She had no idea where they’d put the bodies, but at least they weren’t underfoot anymore.
She made it to the side of the building, but the conversation from inside was still audible thanks to the open vents high on the walls.
“The women in town are all alien-lovers and freaks,” Douglas said, his tone venomous. “Why else would they volunteer to come to this planet? No human men are around, just aliens and freakish cyborgs.”
“You’re forgetting about that kid, Cameron. He’s human,” Tao said.
Douglas made a derisive noise. “And he’s living with two aliens. Like I said, they’re all alien-loving freaks.”
Rin was tempted to storm inside and give them all a piece of her mind. They were closed-minded, vicious jerks whose personalities were mainly composed of things that ended in the letters i-s-t. Racist. Speciesist. Sexist. The only reason she held her tongue was for the sake of the project.
Any conflicts with the soldiers had to go through the chain of command, and the top of the chain here was the biggest asshole of them all. If she said anything to Lieutenant Douglas, he’d make trouble for her, and only her. He’d handpicked his own men for this assignment, which meant they were like-minded and loyal to him.
The only satisfaction she’d had so far was seeing their faces when they’d been informed where they were headed. Douglas had pushed for the tests to be done on one of the corporate-run pleasure planets that were often created near large military bases. Instead, they’d been sent here. Liberty was a relatively undeveloped world with only a single colony. She could observe her subjects in a natural setting while still having the opportunity to introduce them to other sentient species to see if they would choose to create a psychic bond with one of them.
