Damaged Space

By Barbara Lund

When Luis talks Officer Cordova and her partner James into helping him investigate an illicit drug ring, their hottest lead may end up too hot to handle...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Lund
• Release date: Apr 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781944127107

Barbara Lund

Award-winning speculative fiction author Barbara Lund has several indie-published novels, dozens of short stories, and has been traditionally published in Daily Science Fiction and L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume 37 (November 2021).She won the Writers of the Future Golden Pen (2021), along with a First Place, three Silver Honorable Mentions, and two Honorable Mentions. She won the 24th Annual Critters Best Magical Realism Short Story.She's always working on new novels and short stories.Add a husband, two kids, and a martial arts obsession, and she keeps pretty busy.

Book preview

DAMAGED SPACE

PLATFORM EIGHT #3

Barbara Lund

Copyright © 2016 Barbara Lund

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced

or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission

of the publisher except for brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2016

ISBN: 1-944127-10-0

ISBN-13: 978-1-944127-10-7

www.barbaralund.com

*

For Jones, McCarthy, Terrill, Hauer, Franco, Smith, and Salmon.

James was staring at me again.

Nebula-blue eyes, hair like a golden sun, a body built more for space mining—all wiry and muscles—than for sitting in a room full of monitors trying to anticipate trouble on Platform Eight. An easy smile. And he worshiped me.

In the month since I’d cut my hair, I’d caught him staring more than once. Not a you’re-a-freak gawk, but a let’s-go-get-drinks gaze that made me blush from my station-issue security boots to my six-centimeter-long dark brown hair. Good thing my skin tone hid most of the heat rising under my skin.

I really wanted to go get a drink with him and see where it led.

But the last time hadn’t worked out so well.

Amy—

I braced myself. Here it came. He was finally going to say something that would necessitate my asking for a transfer. Damn him. Why couldn’t he just…

Breep, breep. Breep—

Saved by an incoming call, thank God. Section Five Security, this is Officer Cordova.

James tried to catch my eye. Amy—

His voice blended with my previous partner’s. Amy—

Not now, I muttered at my current partner, then looked at the holo-cam and spoke to Luis. Go ahead.

James scowled at the monitors. "You have drinks with him after work all the time."

Whipping my head around to