Table of Contents
Title page
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Book Description
Other Books by Elle Casey
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Next in the Drifters' Alliance series
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About the Author
Other Books by Elle Casey
Drifters’ Alliance
Book 1
ELLE CASEY
Being an independent author, I depend entirely on you, the reader, to get the word out about my books. If you liked this book, won’t you please leave a review online and recommend it to a friend? The more you spread the word, the more books I can write, and nothing would please me more than to put a new book in your hands every single month!
BOOK DESCRIPTION
One hand of cards and it's all over but the crying...
Cass Kennedy finally gets what she's been dreaming of for the past ten years: a drifter ship to call her own. All the sim time and battle training is going to pay off in spades as she sets her course for the future. She'll be living on her own terms, not those of her father's.
But drifting through deep space with a crew of nutty strangers on the DS Anarchy carries a lot more surprises than she bargained for. Nobody told her that her ship is falling apart, that dead chickens are something you really want to hang on to, and that the OSG has big plans for the universe that don't necessarily jibe with her plans for herself.
Jump onboard with Cass and her crew as she charts a course toward an alliance that will either make her or break her as Captain of the DS Anarchy.
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OTHER BOOKS BY ELLE CASEY
SCIENCE FICTION
Drifters’ Alliance (ongoing series)
Winner Takes All (short story prequel to Drifters’ Alliance,
Dark Beyond the Stars Anthology)
CONTEMPORARY URBAN FANTASY
War of the Fae (10-book series)
*Book 1, The Changelings, is a free ebook at most retailers*
Ten Things You Should Know About Dragons
(short story, The Dragon Chronicles)
My Vampire Summer
Aces High
DYSTOPIAN
Apocalypsis (4-book series)
ROMANCE
By Degrees
Rebel Wheels (3-book series)
Just One Night (romantic serial)
Just One Week (romantic serial)
Love in New York (3-book series)
Shine Not Burn (2-book series), also available as an Audiobook
Bourbon Street Boys (3-book series), also available as an Audiobook
Desperate Measures
Mismatched
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
All the Glory: How Jason Bradley Went from Hero to Zero in Ten Seconds Flat
Don’t Make Me Beautiful
Wrecked (2-book series),
Book 1 also available as an Audiobook
PARANORMAL
Duality (2-book series)
Dreampath (short story, The Telepath Chronicles)
Monkey Business (short story, Blood Iris 2012: A Dark Fantasy Anthology )
Pocket Full of Sunshine (short story & screenplay)
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 2015 Elle Casey, all rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without author permission.
The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this ebook only at author-authorized online outlets that serve your country. If you’re viewing this book without having paid for it, you are pirating this creative work.
PIRACY = STEALING
Elle Casey thanks you deeply for your understanding and support.
DEDICATION
For Noelle,
boldly going where none have gone before and kicking butt the entire way.
Chapter One
EVERYTHING I’VE WORKED FOR, DREAMED about, studied, and planned…everything I’ve suffered and sacrificed and paid for with tears and strife. Everything, has come to this — a single moment in an underground bar in Centurion 4, the farthest Dark Settlement Station in the Triangulan Galaxy. I’m sitting at a table covered in scars and nicks, its surface stained with the droplets of ten thousand ales and liquors and the occasional splatter of blood. Across from me is the man who has what I want. What I need. And I’m not leaving here without it.
My nostrils quiver as the odors coming from the bar and the people surrounding us intrude on my thoughts. Man, this place stinks like a goatherd’s biodome. I know this from personal experience. Being a grounded drifter at sixteen means when someone has a job that pays credits and includes the occasional meal, you say ‘Yes, please’, even if it means shoveling goat shit into disposal units all day long.
Sitting across from me is the only man stupid or cocky enough to ante up his drifter ship in a single hand of givit — a smuggler, chancer, and sometimes dirty, rotten thief, otherwise known as Langlade, commander of the Kinsblade fleet. Not bad-looking with that wavy dark hair of his, but not so great either. His nose has been broken about five times too many for him to ever be called handsome, and he’s a little too old for my taste, pushing forty-odd Old-Earth years if he’s a day.
In the middle of the table is the pot, and the better givit hand takes all: one hand, one winner, that’s it. Langlade’s anted up the ownership papers to his number three drifter ship, and I’ve contributed the only thing I have left of any value: a promissory note offering up my virginity. In a place like this, anyone would be hard pressed to determine which was the more valuable treasure. I’m biased of course, having guarded my precious innocence for a full nineteen years now, but even I’m not sure. I’ve wanted to captain my own DS for as long as I can remember, and I’m so damn close to that goal right now, I can already taste the vapors running through her lines.
Langlade’s lazy voice cuts into my thoughts. “So, what’s it going to be, Cass, girl of unknown origin, smart enough to play a fair hand, but stupid enough to bet against me? You going to pick a card and call it a night or what?” The cocky bastard looks to his left and right as he rests his elbow on the table, a boastful smile lighting up his dirty, scarred face as he puts on a show for the many onlookers that surround the table. “And when I say ‘call it a night’, I mean ‘get in my bunk’, of course.”
 
; He turns his attention back to me, his accent growing thicker as he notices my hand resting on the knife I keep next to me at the table. “Better save your energy. You’re going to need it, Lass.”
Bile fills my throat. Bunk in with him? Not in this lifetime. I’d rather stab him in the heart and be hung for the crime. I didn’t say no a thousand times over to a bunch of really cute guys just to lose my woman’s shield to a dog like him.
Raucous laughter flows over my head, but I barely hear it. I’ve been pretending to care what they think, pretending to be sweating this game, all the while concentrating like an A-Level bore drill navigator. I’m watching for Langlade’s tell, the sign that will clue me in to his givit. I know he has one worth taking; he’s way too happy right now for me to believe he has nothing in that hand of his. I’m just not sure whether my prize is the card his gaze keeps flicking to or the one his eye avoids.
When his pinky finally moves, twitching over the card he’s taking pains not to see, I know. I suddenly know with every instinct in my body screaming, Givit! It’s there! Take it from him, now!
When the dealer taps the table on my side, signaling my turn to choose a card from Langlade’s hand, I reach over and pluck the card second from the left, without hesitation— or so it seems to the crowd. But of course I hesitated. It might only have been a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for me to wonder at his question: would I walk away from the table tonight with a DS, a drifter ship to call my own, or would I walk away doomed to a life of selling my body and soul to survive? Because after this game, those are the only two possible outcomes left to me. I’ve spent every single foodcredit I’ve ever managed to save to get to this table tonight.
I turn the card over as it reaches my hand and a smile twitches at the corner of my mouth. My heart is almost exploding with relief and the adrenaline that comes from such a win. It’s all over but the crying and blood-letting now; there’s no way he can beat me, and there’s no way he can refuse to hand over the ship. There are too many witnesses, several of whom he does business with who wouldn’t allow a guy to live who doesn’t pay off his debts owed fair and square.
Tucking the king of hearts in with six other winning cards, I wink at Langlade. “Save your own energy, you ugly sonofabitch, because I’ll be sleeping in your bunk alone tonight.”
“You sure about that?” He lays his cards out, letting each one flick on the table individually so everyone can add them up as they fall.
My heart pounds in my chest so hard it almost feels like it’s trying to escape. Then the tally comes together in my head, and I can breathe once again. Close but not close enough, thank all that the universe holds.
I place my cards on the table all together, leaving off the dramatic flair displayed by my opponent, and then lean back in my chair with a go-fall-in-a-black-hole smile beaming out from my hot, dusty face. The entire group of scruffs and thieves around us swears and shouts in surprise when they see my hand and realize how thoroughly I’ve whipped his sorry ass.
“That’s a full blockade,” I say, winking at the loser across the table. “Aces high.”
Chapter Two
I WALK UP THE RAMP to the drifter ship, trying to keep my awe and excitement in check. It wouldn’t be cool or smart to reveal my rank amateur status or to gloat over my givit win. Not now. Not when I still need to convince a few of its crew to stay on at least long enough to train their replacements.
Never having actually captained a ship of my own puts me at a terrible disadvantage to every other DS owner in the universe. Sure, I’ve spent hours and hours in a simulator and read every piece of material available on the fleet, but still … just thinking about the fact that I’m now officially the youngest person to ever own and pilot a ship of this type is enough to make my stomach feel like it’s full of eels.
Who’s going to stay and fly with me? Who’s that stupid or crazy? Hopefully, at least a handful of people who know what the hell they’re doing. I just have to somehow convince them to work for an amateur who has no money to pay their wages. Ha! Easy! No problem! It crosses my mind that I might have to give up my virginity anyway to keep the crew happy, even though I’ve won the ship and I’m literally walking up her entry ramp to take possession. I wonder if they have a special container for vomit onboard. I think I’m going to need it.
Most captains have years of experience under their belts before they get to a DS, first on micro transports, light cargo ships, and other of the various smaller craft that share space in the many Triangulum galaxy systems available for travel. But not me. Sure, I’ve flown two-seaters and a couple fighter rigs, and I’ve spent a total of a week flying a DS virtually —in bits and pieces whenever I could either pay for the sim time or con someone into letting me use one for free— but mainly I’ve spent the last three years moving from settlement to settlement as a passenger, catching rides on whatever ships I could. I was never on the flightdeck, always remaining in the hold with everyone else trying to get from one planetary system to the next for the cheapest fare available… or for no fare at all.
I learned early on how to hop rides as an un-manifested stowaway. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, even if it means sleeping with the dogs or goats or sometimes even the garbage. But not anymore. Not now. No more goats for this girl. From this day forward, I’ll be riding on the flightdeck, sitting in the big chair, steering my ship and my future in whatever direction I see fit.
Ugh, the eels are back and they’re tying themselves into knots. I rest my hand on my stomach, willing those beasts to calm the hell down.
My tour guide is two paces ahead of me, but his stench is right there under my nose. I don’t think this guy’s had a single wash in the last five years. His clothing may have started out with color to it, but now his flightsuit is the gray that comes from a build-up of grime I cannot allow myself to think about or I’ll never learn where the damn flightdeck is on this thing. I breathe through my mouth as much as possible, but the disturbing thought that I might actually be tasting his stench makes me hold my breath enough to feel lightheaded.
“You ever fly one of these?” he asks, slowing his pace.
I match my steps to his, not at all looking forward to getting that body odor of his any closer. It’ll stick in my hair, and then I’ll be tempted to cut it all off again. It’s taken me three years to get it just past my shoulders where it is now.
“Sure.” I shrug as he looks back, acting like it’s no big deal to pilot a ship over fifty meters in diameter —fifty point four eight actually, I looked it up— and capable of sustaining speeds faster than anything even close to its size. And she’s all mine, hell yeah!
“Cuz it ain’t no walk in the park, you know. Not when the docks at all the major hubs are at eighty meters and the minors are even less than that.”
I swallow past the new lump in my throat. “Just give me the tour,” I say, trying to sound confident and tough. Weakness is a liability, especially out here in the badlands, and I’ve spent a lot of time cultivating my take-no-BS reputation. It would not serve me well to lose it now.
“Sure, no problem,” he says. “I’m just sayin’.”
“How about instead of doubting my ability to captain my ship, you tell me what you do on her?” If he says he’s the cook, I’m firing him as soon as this tour is over. I can only imagine what ends up in the food with him in the galley.
He looks over his shoulder, his eyebrow going up. “You mean what I used to do on her?”
“Whatever.” I shrug, forcing myself not to wilt at his lack of interest in remaining. If I can’t even get Mister Stink-Like-Goatshit to stay, what hope do I have of keeping the rest of them? And here I thought I’d be deciding whether he stayed or went. Reality check: Berp, wrong answer.
“I used to be the pilot,” my guide says.
I hesitate as we enter the main cargo hold from the airlock ramp. Mister Stinkfest piloted this ship? “But I thought Langlade…”
My tour guide
snorts. “Yeah, yeah, I know; you thought Langlade piloted the ship, but you’d be wrong about that.” The guy lowers his voice and winks at me. “He couldn’t pilot his way out of the Venturion Canyon.”
I try not to smile, but it’s impossible. If Langlade heard this guy say that he couldn’t maneuver a DS in a canyon three kilometers wide and known as the perfect practice ground for teaching children how to pilot personal ground craft, my guide would probably be missing a finger for the insult. Maybe more than one.
Langlade has such a wild reputation in the settlements, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction. My own story of winning this ship away from him will definitely go down in history as one of those myths too crazy to be believed. Did it really happen? Did he really lose his ship to a nineteen year old girl in a single hand of givit? Betting his ship against her innocence? Some people will believe it; Langlade is just that kind of guy.
Now that I know he sucks at piloting a DS, though, I’m curious about some of the other rumors swirling around his reputation. “I heard he once evaded capture through the exhaust tunnels over at the Transad Volcano system.”
“Myth. Ain’t nobody that crazy, not even him.”
“That he slept with the daughter of Andromeda System’s high commander?”
The guy smiles, as if a happy memory just sailed through his mind. “Ahhh, now that one is true. I remember hightailing it out of there in my skivvies.” He looks at me and loses his smile, frowning in disappointment. “No more of that’ll be going on now, I guess.”