Throwaway Mate

By Ellen Cross

Aiden is the black sheep of his family. Of course, always being covered in grease hasn’t helped, but put anything mechanically broken into his hands and he can fix it. His cold-hearted parents have lived off his talent for years, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. They sell Aiden to slavers and plan to use the funds to buy themselves a life of high social standing within the city. Dumped on a refuse recycling planet along with other enslaved women and children, Aiden uses his talent to transform an ancient wreck of a cargo transport into their escape plan. His plan would have gone off without a hitch, if he hadn’t been shot in the escape. Bleeding, dying, Aiden locks himself into the cockpit of the ship the second help arrives and aids their landing, knowing that unlike the other slaves who have eager families to return to, he has no one. It’s just better if he fades away from this existence.

Jaylon lost all hope of love years ago, when his intended killed herself on the morning of their wedding, rather than face him over her betrayal. Now, as a medic, he has no time to think of what could have been, until a hunk of metal posing as a ship literally falls from the sky. When Jaylon breaks down the cockpit door to the sight of a pale, skinny, yet breathtaking man, bleeding out on the floor, he has to wonder if fate has sent him a second chance at a future, or if it is just reopening an old wound and pouring salt onto it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: May 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781487403164

Book preview

One man’s trash is another man’s destiny.

Aiden is the black sheep of his family. Of course, always being covered in grease hasn’t helped, but put anything mechanically broken into his hands and he can fix it. His cold-hearted parents have lived off his talent for years, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. They sell Aiden to slavers and plan to use the funds to buy themselves a life of high social standing within the city. Dumped on a refuse recycling planet along with other enslaved women and children, Aiden uses his talent to transform an ancient wreck of a cargo transport into their escape plan. His plan would have gone off without a hitch, if he hadn’t been shot in the escape. Bleeding, dying, Aiden locks himself into the cockpit of the ship the second help arrives and aids their landing, knowing that unlike the other slaves who have eager families to return to, he has no one. It’s just better if he fades away from this existence.

Jaylon lost all hope of love years ago, when his intended killed herself on the morning of their wedding, rather than face him over her betrayal. Now, as a medic, he has no time to think of what could have been, until a hunk of metal posing as a ship literally falls from the sky. When Jaylon breaks down the cockpit door to the sight of a pale, skinny, yet breathtaking man, bleeding out on the floor, he has to wonder if fate has sent him a second chance at a future, or if it is just reopening an old wound and pouring salt onto it.

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Throwaway Mate

Copyright © 2015 Ellen Cross

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0316-4

Cover art by Latrisha Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Smashwords Edition

Throwaway Mate

By

Ellen Cross

Dedication

For my children. May you always look to the stars.

Chapter One

The shuttle Necromicon shuddered violently as Aiden pushed its remaining functional engines as hard as he dared. The high pitch whine of protest that emanated from beneath his feet as the patched up motors struggled to increase power didn’t fill him with a whole lot of confidence in their integrity though. The main hull shields were down to seven percent capacity, and four of the thrusters had burnt out, leaving only two to get the decrepit hulking beast through Brylon’s fast approaching atmospheric barrier.

Aiden wouldn’t even dare to make a guess at the survival odds of making it through without burning up on re-entry, but he had to try. His cargo was far too precious not to give it his all to make sure that everyone on board arrived as safely as he could get them, given their dire situation.

Thirty-six children and four women huddled together in the cargo bay, cushioned as best as they could amongst whatever soft materials they had managed to salvage from throughout the neglected and long since abandoned ship.

While the Necromicon wasn’t his, he had claimed it after discovering its ancient body whilst sifting through the mountains of rubbish that covered R526, one of the recycling satellite moons that orbited around Fervon.

To outsiders, the Fervonian base of operations looked to be a completely legitimate and legally run by-the-book business. It consisted of a scrap metal processing plant, and a refuse recycling centre. What the visitors and authorities didn’t see however, were the black-market slave trade deals that went on behind the scenes.

Consisting mostly of children with a few women thrown in to keep them under control, the abductees had all been stolen from the poorer families on the most remote planets in the sector. They were then sent to work on the recycling salvage crews. Unable to fund the search to find their lost children, the families were left with no other recourse than to grieve their loss.

As young as four, the children and women were shuttled to whichever of the twelve moons orbiting Fervon the slavers were working on at the time. Once dropped off, the salvage crews were left for days at a time to work with only a bare contingent of guards to watch.

Small, and surviving on little, the children were made sift through the acres of rubbish that covered the moon’s surfaces. Passing ships and fleets would deploy their waste remotely as directed by the recycling centre, never having to land to empty their vessels. With little contact to the outside world, who would suspect that riddled amongst the mountains of trash and filth, were children?

Pushed to work eighteen-hour days, and given only six to rest in whatever clear space they could find, was the daily reality for these small lost souls. Some had been missing so long that they no longer even remembered what their parents looked like.

Aiden