Afterword
Thank you for joining Dek, Sno and CaSandra on their high-stakes mission.
If you enjoyed the adventure in Juggernaut, I invite you to experience the epic struggle with the Alliance in the award-winning novel, Inherit the Stars, also named a Best Book of 2015 by LibraryJournal.com.
And discover more adventures in the Inherited Stars Universe in StarDog and Farewell Andromeda.
Also watch for two companion stories—SpyDog and Courting Disaster—to be released as expanded books soon.
About the Author
Laurie A. Green is an award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling author and a science fiction romance enthusiast who founded the SFR Brigade community of writers.
After a twenty-year career working with the military, her space adventure romances are often infused with themes of honor and duty. She’s always wanted a vacation home on Mars or Titan, but for now she’s living happily ever after with her spouse, their pet menagerie and her spoiled little “StarDogs” on a ranch in beautiful New Mexico.
To find out more visit her website
Galactic Search and Rescue
1
Perlarossa Orbital Space Station • GDAT 3242.333
The giant brown-and-tan weasel sank his sharp teeth into the charred corner of a piece of freight padding.
Subcaptain Taloszjaril “Taz” Correa touched the earwire on the side of her face. “Rylando? Is it okay if Lerox bites the burned bits?”
“Yeah, he’s ace, as long as he doesn’t eat them,” responded Subcaptain Rylando Delroinn, in her earwire. Otherwise, Taz couldn’t have heard him over the pulsing whine of the skimmer engine. “I asked him to investigate the damage. It’s good practice for him to figure out how recently the burn happened.”
Technically, Lerox was a pet designer’s idea of what a pre-flight, long-extinct prehistoric weasel called an “ekakeran” might have looked like. That was how the zero-ethics pet-trade industry got around legions of laws against genetically altering cornerstone species like badgers, tayras, or stoats. Lerox stood knee-high, and when he wasn’t exploring anything or nibbling everything, he was sliding into a human lap to demand a belly rub. He lived on the other side of the universe from shy and retiring.
Taz envied Rylando’s easy camaraderie with all his animals. His minder talent allowed him to sense their thoughts, direct their actions, and see and hear through their senses. The unit commander insultingly called them pet-trade rejects, but Taz knew better. They were a working team. Very non-regulation, but better than most of the human teams in their dysfunctional Galactic Search and Rescue unit. Galactic law dictated that the Citizen Protection Service had to operate GSAR, but apparently, the law didn't say how well.
Taz stepped up into the ship-loader’s skeletal assist frame and connected to its interface. She oriented the holo display as she cataloged the damage. Silver Team’s storeroom looked like a tornado had touched down in it. In a way, it had.
Someone—she’d bet on that slug, Franecki, from Red Team—had carelessly left the storeroom’s blast-proof doors wide open during the hasty launch from the space station.
Five of the six Galactic Search and Rescue unit’s teams were responding to a mass disaster on Uttara Phalguni, one of the seven planets their underfunded, understaffed first-responder unit was now assigned to cover. Luckily, it was only one interstellar transit day away by military frigate. A major landing accident had torn up half of the only operational spaceport and set the other half on fire. To make matters worse, the disaster trapped and injured thousands of people during that planet’s peak travel season.
GSAR’s hand-me-down shuttles were held together with bootleg-printed parts and retrofitted salvage. A leaky system drive on one of them had acted like a giant wind-driven flame thrower, setting everything on fire and tumbling into Silver Team’s unprotected storeroom.
The engine noise stopped. Rylando climbed down from the skimmer’s control pod with easy, fluid grace. His GSAR yellow and black uniform complemented his tawny brown skin and short, thick brown hair.
“Any damage?” Taz righted a battered and blackened three-hundred-kilo crate that blocked the wide bay doors. With luck, the contents survived the heat.
“More dents, but the systems say the hull and engines are green go.” He wiped his hands on his pants. “Good thing our airsled was already on Hatya’s shuttle, or it’d be a slag heap.”
Taz nodded. “I’m glad I moved the animal autodoc to the repair bay yesterday. Considering we have to trade like we’re on a frontier planet just to get chems for it, GSAR would never spring for a replacement.”
One of the cats, probably Diemos, leapt to the skimmer’s flat canopy and sat, supervising humans and animals alike. She and her brother Phobos were as tall and long-legged as Lerox, but considerably lighter and thinner. With Siamese markings, silky fur, and stumpy tails, they had regal grace in spades. Feline lovers melted when the friendly cats asked to be worshipped… er, petted. They were very likely confiscated from a pet-trade dealer or smuggler. She’d carefully avoided asking Rylando about their species, or where he got them or the rest of his team. She didn’t want to force him to lie to her.
With the assist frame taking care of the mass, lifting and carrying the heavy crate out of the storage room was a matter of angle and balance. And making sure no four-legged team members were in her path. Shen, the tan brindle-coated shepherd-retriever mix with energy to burn, sometimes believed humans needed, well, shepherding.
The two-story launch bay was in shambles. Everything that hadn’t been nailed down looked like it tried to climb the back wall to get away from the flames. It stank worse than their storeroom. Good thing she’d eaten, or her stomach would be turning knots. Unfortunately, since Silver Team was currently undeployable with only two rescuers and a pilot, they’d likely get stuck with the lion’s share of the cleanup.
Taz made a command decision to start a new stack in front of the unused neighboring storage bay. She used her telekinetic talent to brush aside a couple of bent equipment stands before slowly lowering the crate.
That talent was why she’d been moved from a regular military mech-maintenance unit to the Citizen Protection Service sixteen years ago. A handy talent in rescue situations, and in cleaning up messes. Not so handy when former military colleagues had learned she was a minder. They instantly started treating her like she was a secret jack-crew spy who’d stolen the squad’s party fund.
It hadn’t mattered to them that she hadn’t known about her talent either. None of the mandatory tests she’d had when growing up or joining the military had even hinted that she might be a minder. No family history, either. However, considering how badly they’d reacted when she told them, none of them would have admitted being a minder if they were.
Saving herself and two teammates from a runaway grav sled earned her a gold-star commendation and an immediate one-way transfer to the Citizen Protection Service’s Minder Corps. Still military, but with more mission areas and different rules.