Love Thy Galactic Enemy

By Edward Hoornaert

Abandoned to the enemy’s tender mercy

Minta, the naive secretary for a spy team that spread a man-made plague, leaves the planet too late -- the team abandons her on the enemy’s space station. She’s forced to fend for herself until she can make contact with an elusive spy, Watcher, who has a starship. To avoid arrest, she nurses a plague victim -- a gentle, whimsical man who spouts Lewis Carroll. But to know this enemy is to love him . . .

When Finn Shanwing falls ill, he doesn’t intend to hide that he’s actually an high-ranking cyborg warrior. Neither does he intend to fall in love with the secretive nurse who saves his life . . . but by the time he reveals to Minta she saved an enemy commando, it’s too late for his heart. Or hers. Also too late to escape the wrath of Watcher -- half-human, half-machine, and both halves obsessed with her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Hoornaert
• Release date: Sep 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463269626

Edward Hoornaert

Edward Hoornaert is not only a science fiction and romance writer, he's also a certifiable Harlequin Hero, having inspired NYT best-selling author Vicki Lewis Thompson to write Mr. Valentine, which was dedicated to him. From this comes his online alter ego, "Mr. Valentine."These days, Hoornaert mostly writes science fiction—either sf romances, or sf with elements of romance. After living at 26 different addresses in his first 27 years, the rolling stone slowed in the Canadian Rockies and finally came to rest in Tucson, Arizona. Amongst other things, he has been a teacher, technical writer, and symphonic oboist. He married his high school sweetheart a week after graduation and is still in love ... which is probably why he can write romance.

Book preview

Love Thy Galactic Enemy

Repelling the Invasion book 4

Edward Hoornaert

http://eahoornaert.com/

Copyright September 2019 by Edward Hoornaert

All rights reserved

This novel is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places and incidents are either

the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

Edited by Katrina Fair

ISBN: 9780463269626

Dedication

In memoriam Ruth Constantine Peterson, a friend of Judi’s and mine from high school days. Her voice will be a lovely addition to the heavenly choirs.

Praise for Love thy Galactic Enemy

"Mystery, mizzets and mayhem populate this lighthearted tale of

interstellar espionage and romantic intrigue."

—Linnea Sinclair

author of the Dock Five Universe series

"Ed Hoornaert is a marvelous writer: a terrific, engrossing

storyteller and a consummate stylist."

—Robert J. Sawyer,

Hugo and Nebula author of Quantum Night

A breath of fresh air!

— Pamela Keyes, author of The Jumbee

"What a fun story! Excellent world-building, compelling

chemistry in the two main couples, and good use

of the Enemies to Lovers romance trope.

A great read for sci-fi and fantasy fans."

—Celia Breslin, author of the

Tranquilli Bloodline vampire series

1 – The Miserable Mizzet

The woman currently calling herself Lou wanted to gawk, but she didn’t dare slow her footsteps. Dawdling in this fast-moving crowd would draw attention. Attention meant peril.

Back home, space stations were cramped, dingy cargo-transfer depots, painted institutional grey and smelling of industrial-strength cleaners. Farflung Station, though, was a city waltzing through The Black. This downtown business corridor was wide, graceful, and ornamented with murals and artwork. The high ceiling held sculptures incorporating everyday objects like circuit cubes, hyperspace coils, and airlock valves. Colored lights turned the sculptures into an overhead fairyland that sent ever-changing hues scurrying over her creamy white blouse in time to a jaunty tune.

These people had turned Farflung into a place of beauty she could fall in love with—except for one thing. They were her enemies. Minor details…

Back home, space station corridors were blessedly safe and orderly. People walked this direction on the right, the other direction on the left, and no one bumped or got hurt. But here…

Confusion. Chaos. Anarchy.

Danger.

She cringed when a man with green hair, gold beard, and a fierce frown zigged into her path. Had he guessed where she was from? Would he hurt her because she was born on the wrong side of this nasty, undeclared war? Had he guessed she carried secrets?

At the last second, he zagged past without touching.

With each step, Lou feared someone—maybe the harried woman singing to her crying daughter, or the trio of tough-looking spacers in ship’s uniform—would cry out that her clothes were foreign, or her earrings, or her shoes, though she’d bought everything in this star’s system.

Even if no one did, she couldn’t slither away from the itchy crawly feeling that someone was about to look at her with cloak-and-dagger x-ray vision and see not her naked body, which wouldn’t bother her—though it would, yeah—but her naked soul instead and they’d shriek in rage and if she were lucky they’d call the cops but if she’d abandoned Luck when she fled here from the planet they’d shoot her in the back of the head, and then—

She had to get away from here. Many light years away.

But how, how, how? She was trapped, a mouse scrambling through the perfect mousetrap—a space station.

First her own people, coworkers and supposed friends, instigated riots and plague near the mouse’s hole so she had to flee up here, hoping one of her people would take her home. They hadn’t, though, not yet, and the mouse had no money to pay the starliners, which raised rates because of high demand from refugees. So she stayed put for days and days, spending her dwindling cash on food and housing until finally—

She gulped down a breath. Regardless of how frightened she felt, how hopeless, she put one foot in front of the other and trudged down the corridor. Sometimes it seemed that slogging along, no matter what, was her only skill in life.

Moving just her eyes, she looked at a tiny circle high on the corridor wall. A surveillance camera. Reminded of her day’s one moment of success, she smiled.

A space station technician named Bahadur had bought her dinner, hoping for sex, and despite her upbringing, she’d been tempted. Not because he was attractive or charming. He was okay-looking rather than handsome, not fat though he needed to lose weight, bashful rather than a smooth operator. Just an ordinary guy, really, at a dark moment when ordinary was panty-lubing fantastic.

Then he started bitching about murderous Proximanians and bragging what he’d do if he got his hands around a Proxie’s neck, so she walked away, one foot in front of the other.

But she’d gotten something from him beyond the meal, a bag of leftovers, and a brief lessening of loneliness. She’d gotten useful information, and the tiny success felt good. With smiles and a little prompting, he’d bragged about his job and described in detail the surveillance equipment used here.

The cameras were less obvious and ubiquitous than back home, but Farflung’s professional thugs were watching her nonetheless.

Driven by poverty, she’d moved this afternoon to a flophouse an entrepreneur had converted from a warehouse closet, hoping to cash in on the influx of refugees from the riots and revolution down on the planet. She’d had no roommate when she went to dinner. Hopefully she still didn’t, or if she did, the roomie was taciturn. And female, of course.

Maybe she should’ve accepted Bahadur’s offer. If she pleased him sexually, he might’ve let her move in with him. That’d be like prostitution, though—no, it would be prostitution—and she hadn’t sunk that low.

Maybe by tomorrow, though. Next week for sure.

Her warehouse room was a couple miles from here, so she had to go down five levels and halfway around the station’s circumference. How many surveillance cameras between here and there? How many potential enemies?

Up ahead, a knot of guyos lingered outside an electronic sex shop. Their voices bristled with youthful bravado. They surrounded one of their party, shorter and slenderer, and pushed him.

He stood his ground. Leave me alone, cyborg.

At this—the ultimate insult, cyborg—a scandalized hush fell over the group.

Look who’s talking, his antagonist shouted. You’re no better than a plarking Proxie.

Shuddering, Lou stopped walking toward them. A fist flew. When the so-called Proxie fell, his so-called friends kicked and stomped.

Proxie! Proxie!

Each word, each blow, made Lou wince. Fighting tears, she turned blindly into the nearest intersection and ran, not looking back. After a couple minutes, when her lungs screamed for air and she could no longer hear the hatred, she slowed. Then looked around. Unlike the business corridor, this one was narrow and unadorned. Where did it lead?

She could ask, but her skin crawled at the thought. Here in Civ Space, though not on her home world, Earth’s ancient races had long since melded into a generalized light brown. Someone might recognize her slightly darker, reddish coloring as Proximanian, blame her for the deaths down on Totterly Peninsula, and cry Proxie, Proxie! while kicking and beating her.

When she stopped panicking enough to see rather than imagine, she realized she needn’t worry about her skin. There was no one in the corridor to see it.

Except you, she said to a skinny baby mizzet clinging to the wall at knee height.

Were the enemy’s pets also enemies? Spies, maybe?

No, of course not…though it was possible. How did the old saying go? Anything’s fair in love and war.

After glancing around—the corridor was still empty—she bent down to pet the creature. It was one of the domesticated breeds, not a pest but a pet bred for the beauty of its eyes and feathery fur. Its coloring was standard caramel-and-mustard, but instead of a graceful tail, it had only a thumbnail-length stump. It was the skinniest mizzet she’d ever seen, weighing not even a kilogram, and the fur on its right leg was torn off in clumps. It had been on the losing side of a fight. Sort of like her.

It leaned into her hand as though as lonely as she was. She had no time or money for a pet, whether cat, dog, mizzet, or skoot. Animals couldn’t help her get passage off this mousetrap, so she should leave the miserable creature here.

But it felt so soothing not to be alone, if only for a minute. How long had it been since she felt in sync with any creature, even something as insignificant as a mizzet?

Sorra. She put the beast on the floor. A pet would make her easier for strangers to approach her. Back home, walking with a pet was a good way to meet people. People here were dangerous, so… Verra sorra, kiddo. I know what it feels like to be abandoned and alone, but you’re not worth becoming a prisoner of war. Mooch off of someone with something to spare.

She set off. Unlike the gently curving corridor she’d just left, this one was straight; instead of following the station’s doughnut-shaped torus, it cut toward the doughnut hole. Ahead was an intersection. With luck, she’d find another arcing corridor leading the right direction. She glanced back, but the mizzet was gone. Just as well.

She stumbled over something. To keep from falling, she lurched to the left—

—right into the arms of a man.

He’d just emerged from an unmarked door. She would’ve fallen if not for his strong embrace, which was close to a full-body hug that kindled an utterly inappropriate feminine response. She didn’t look at his face. Too busy taking in the name on the broad chest of his hunter-green uniform.

P. Dukelsky Chief of Farflung Space Station Security.

A cop? The head cop?

Plark!

Her heart raced out of control as she evaluated him. Not as a man—his better-than-Bahadur body didn’t matter—but as an opponent. He was six-foot-four, fit, and a cop. Probably armed, too. She had zero chance of escaping him.

Her evaluation took less than a second. Acting disoriented, which required little thespian skill, she let P. Dukelsky help her regain her footing. His grip was strong, masculine.

Are you all right ma’am?

After a moment stretched thin by fear, she nodded. Her awareness shrank to the heat of his hands on her biceps and the narrow, inaccessible corridor behind him, which she feared she might never get to tread.

The two of them stayed like that for a second, though it felt longer. Then, as though suddenly waking up, he looked at his hands—pale, like the fruit of a scooda tree—against the dark of her arm. He let go. I’m very sorry ma’am. Please forgive me.

He was a polite cop, but still a cop. She kept her head down and nodded.

You need to train your mizzet to+ walk beside you, not twining between your legs, Miss… His voice trailed away, leaving her an opening to supply her name.

Lou didn’t want to, because he was a cop, but she had to, because he was a cop. Which name to use, though?

Loustreeva, sir. That was the given name on the ticket she’d used on the shuttle up from planet Crassin. She prayed he wouldn’t ask for a last name. Anxiety had bleached it from her mind.

Since looking at authority figures was considered polite in this neck of the galaxy, she raised her head. Then wished she hadn’t. By all the constellations, he was a heartthrob. Intelligent grey eyes; square jaw; shoulders, pecs, and abs sculpted by exercise. Just because he’d been born in the wrong sector of the galaxy didn’t mean he couldn’t remind her she was female.

Everybody calls me Duke, he said. We Flingers aren’t formal, so forget the ‘sir.’ Unless, of course, I have to arrest you.

He spoke in a teasing, almost flirtatious voice, but the words clanged on her nerves like a tocsin. For a moment, she couldn’t answer. The mizzet rubbed her shin as though prompting her to speak.

It’s not mine, she managed. Uh, the mizzet.

You’re carrying food. He pointed to the leftovers bag in her hand—tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, and maybe dinner. No wonder he loves you. Try to be more careful, Ms Streeva.

Oh…he thought her name was Lou Streeva, not Loustreeva. Good. Any morsel of cop confusion was a minor victory, another reason to keep placing one foot in front of the other. Yes, sir.

"Not sir. Duke." He smiled, and it was a gloriously masculine smile. If Bahadur had smiled like this she might be in his quarters now, doing the mattress waltz in two-four time, allegro furioso e crescendo molto.

But he hadn’t, she wasn’t, and she never would. Not with an enemy cop. Uh, Duke, then.

He looked at her too closely. She dropped her gaze. She hoped, prayed, yearned, that he wasn’t flirting with her.

I’m married— he said.

Oh God. He thought she was flirting with him? She was going to die. And soon. If not from embarrassment, from a needler shredding her brain. Or a bullet. Whatever weapon these people used for summary justice on spies.

Not that she was a spy. Not quite.

—and my wife is the Assistant Station Manager. She’s heading a program to help refugees. Here’s her card.

As she took the small rectangle, her fingers touched his with a zap of awareness. His eyes widened. Did he feel it too? After a telltale pause, she yanked the rectangle away. It was cardboard. How quaint. For some reason—not the cardboard—tears filled her eyes.

Thank you, Duke.

She watched as he headed down the corridor she’d just come up. He walked with a slight limp. Wounded in a heroic battle?

Have you gone insane? Stop that, woman!

A sudden memory squelched her strange lust. The Proximanian-financed invasion of this space station last year had been stymied almost single-handedly by a ferocious defender named Dukelsky. This man was the enemy.

She really, really, really needed to get off this station.

The mizzet rose on its hind legs and bobbed its head while watching her. After a few bobs, she chuckled.

Oh, you don’t have to tell me, she said to it. Whispered, actually, because if one nosy person had popped out of nowhere, so might another. I looked clumsy and ridiculous tripping into a cop’s arms, the absolutely last place I wanted to be.

The chuckle swelled into a laugh. And me trying not to draw attention.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to compose her features, but only laughed harder. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound. She had to look away from the animal’s antics before she could stop laughing.

She scooped up the mizzet. I am stupid, she whispered to it, and then sighed. "I’m abandoned behind enemy lines, clueless, and almost penniless. I can’t afford to laugh at myself, at least not in public. Or to be horny. I am never horny. Just ask my last boyfriend."

The creature responded with a high-pitched hum of delight and a burst of color in its kaleidoscope eyes.

Don’t try to sweet talk me. Sorra, but we are now officially parting ways. She put it down, letting it jump the last two feet.

Go away. I mean it. Stifling another laugh, she glared at the animal.

As dumb creatures went, mizzets were very dumb—but empathetic to human emotions. Surely this one sensed it wasn’t welcome. Although its tiny legs were capable of short bursts of speed, they were usually slow. She walked fast to leave it behind.

She looked back once. It was galumphing along as well as it could, but falling behind. Ahead were elevators she could take down to her level. If she could get onto one before the mizzet arrived she’d be free of the tiny nuisance.

But the elevator was slow to arrive, as though siding with the mizzet, and when she got on, so did the plucky little beast. Admitting surrender, she picked it up and cradled it against her cheek. Ridiculous me. I can’t outrun even a mizzet. I’m doomed, doomed.

It stretched a three-toed paw toward her food bag.

Okay, okay, you can have some food. Not until we get to the room, though, and eat sparingly. This bag has to last us a long time.

She’d said us, not me. Without realizing how it had happened, she seemed to have adopted a pet. Or more likely, the other way around. As she rode the elevator, she stroked the rat-like bundle of feathery fur.

On reaching her room, she put down the mizzet while she unlocked the door with her thumb print. Holding her breath, she opened the door. Then she hesitated. The room was dark. If someone were sleeping in the lower bunk—or worse, her upper bunk—what should she do?

The mizzet had no such qualms. It dashed inside as though returning home. Would it have sensed if someone was inside? They didn’t have a reputation as watchdogs, but still…

Anyone here? she whispered.

There was no response. Too exhausted by endless tension to wait, she turned on the light and leaned in her head. The tiny room was empty. She let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

A bunk bed with thin mattresses filled a third of the bare metal floor space, but she was tired enough it looked sumptuous. A doorless wardrobe, nearly empty with her single change of clothing, stood against the opposite wall. At the end of the room were a portable toilet and washstand, walled off by a threadbare grey curtain too short for real privacy. The only light came from a weak glow-panel recessed into the ceiling. Such was the luxury afforded to the Farflung equivalent of a flophouse—luxury she could afford for only three more nights, assuming she lost her appetite. If her secret contact didn’t show up soon, she’d have to come up with a plan of her own to get back to Proxima.

Yeah, like what? Hike naked through The Black?

Fear and unfamiliarity clogged her thoughts. She was a personal secretary, not a daring secret agent. Laughter had soothed her dread for a few minutes, but only getting home would soothe it permanently.

Mizzets were messy eaters, so she fed it a corner of tomorrow’s lunch on the lower bunk, where she didn’t plan to sleep. Then she knelt on the harsh metal floor, rested her chin on her hands, and watched it gobble. You must be desperate to latch onto me. Desperate or brainless.

As though recognizing her words, the mizzet looked up from the sandwich.

Is that your name? Brainless? It should be.

She couldn’t bear the thought of spending another night in clothes damp from nervous sweat, so she undressed down to her underpants, then folded her outer clothes and put them in a pathologically neat pile on a ledge at the foot of the top bunk. Ignoring the ladder, she hopped onto the mattress. She slipped under the covers and forced herself to relax.

The mizzet climbed the wall to join her, making a tiny popping sound every time a suction pad came loose. When it snuggled its fur against her breasts, she put her arm around it. Looks like it’s just you and me, Brainless.

* * * *

When Security Chief Duke Dukelsky got back to his office, he jotted a note to himself to scan Lou Streeva’s record.

But after a moment’s thought, he deleted the note. His curiosity was personal, not professional. She appealed to him as a woman. That hadn’t happened since he got married, and the momentary flash of attraction made him feel unfaithful.

Seeking a distraction, he called his second-in-command, Devi Hartono, into his office to report on the developing situation on planet Crassin. The death toll had passed ten thousand, and Security down there figured the disease and rebellion on the Totterly Peninsula were the work of Proximanian agents.

Maybe, Duke said.

Devi raised her dark, bushy eyebrows but didn’t contradict him.

Blaming the Proxies was almost a reflex after last year’s failed invasion of Farflung Station. It was the easy answer and it might be right. But it might not be. In any case, Totterly’s social order wouldn’t have collapsed into insurrection and looting if the government wasn’t corrupt, unfair, and inefficient.

Whatever the cause, refugees flooded up to Farflung Station, which was the only place for off-planet businessmen and travelers to catch starships heading home; only a few pitiful, experimental hybrids could manage both space and atmo. Six days ago, he’d personally escorted a bevy of Proxie businessmen to their starliner—not as a courtesy, but because he didn’t trust them. Some of them, maybe all, were provocateurs. If Proxies had really caused the chaos in Totterly, it was likely those Proxies. But he’d had no evidence to hold them longer than he already had.

…straining our resources to the limit, Devi was saying. We’ll be busting at the seams for weeks until enough starliners dock, and we may have to coerce reasonable prices from them. Some of the refugees escaped with only the clothes on their backs. No matter how much help we give them, they’re liable to get fractious—and we don’t want a repeat of Totterly.

Duke thought of the card he’d handed to the exotic beauty with dark hair an hour ago. From her lost, anxious eyes, she must be one of the off-planet refugees. He could picture her causing trouble. She already had, by making him face an uncomfortable realization—marrying one of the galaxy’s most amazing women wouldn’t keep him from finding other women desirable. He hadn’t expected that. Didn’t like it.

When Devi left after explaining the emergency relief plans to help the crush of refugees, Duke succumbed to his baser instincts and entered a computer search for Ms Streeva. Not to go see her, of course, but so he could better avoid her.

But there was no one named Streeva listed among the refugees. He tried alternate spellings. Streava. Streva. Striva. Nothing.

She wasn’t a sexpot or a stunning beauty. Attractive enough, of course, but if she were gorgeous, he wouldn’t have been so intrigued. Marrying Sandrina had confirmed he was drawn to slender women clothed in an aura of mystery, with faces proclaiming intelligence, character, and an unusual life.

Ms Streeva met his stringent requirements. In spades.

Failing to find her in the records meant nothing. People from a dozen star systems passed through Farflung, and many of their names had unexpected spellings. For these reasons, Security’s computers had algorithms for finding people, so he set parameters for a low priority, overnight search of all possible variants of Streeva.

He gathered his things and headed out of his office for the night, trying to forget the brief, soft collision that had shaken him.

* * * *

Later—it felt like the middle of the night—light and noise woke Lou up.

The door was opening.

A blade of light speared across the far wall. After a pause, as though the light was reconnoitering, the sliver widened to admit an invading army of photons.

Lou struggled toward alertness, but exhaustion fogged her mind. She blinked as a shadow joined the photons. A man’s shadow. Tall. Broad shoulders. And when the shadow moved, it limped.

The cop, Dukelsky, was coming for her.

She was cornered, stupid with sleep, almost nude, and without options except surrender or fight. He was trained and tough—but maybe blind in the dark.

He didn’t turn on the light. Good. He staggered as though drunk. Better…even if it meant he intended rape rather than arrest. If she fought, maybe she had a chance.

The black shadow came close enough. Could she really do this? Try to hurt another human being? And succeed?

Oh God…had she waited too long?

Now or never. Do it!

She leaped feet-first off the top bunk, praying for a knockout blow before he even knew where she was.

2 – The Miserable Roommate

Lou picked herself off the floor and looked back. She’d done it. Knocked out the intruder even though she’d hit him only a glancing blow. Success!

The unconscious man sprawled on the floor wasn’t the head cop. That was good news.

He was still breathing.