Graveyard Shift: In Love and War, #4
By Cora Buhlert
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About this ebook
While docked at the civilian space station Unity for repairs, the Republic of United Planets battlecruiser Great Endeavour undertakes a trial flight with an inexperienced bridge crew. Disaster strikes and the Great Endeavour crashes into Unity's shopping concourse, killing more than three hundred people.
A tragic accident, but in times of war, the public is not willing to accept tragic accidents. And so the Republic's government sends its best troubleshooter, Colonel Brian Mayhew of the Republican Special Commando Forces to initiate a cover-up.
This is a prequel novelette of 15500 words or approx. 48 print pages in the In Love and War series, but may be read as a standalone.
Cora Buhlert
Cora Buhlert was born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently working towards her PhD. Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. When she is not writing, she works as a translator and teacher.
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Titles in the series (18)
Dreaming of the Stars: In Love and War, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvacuation Order: In Love and War, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProof Through the Night: In Love and War, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Oxford Triangle: In Love and War, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGraveyard Shift: In Love and War, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBaptism of Fire: In Love and War, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCourting Trouble: In Love and War, #8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFreedom's Horizon: In Love and War, #7 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNeutral Ground: In Love and War, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollision Course: In Love and War, #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead World: In Love and War, #11 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBullet Holes: In Love and War, #9 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDouble-Cross: In Love and War, #12 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBallroom Blitz: In Love and War, #10 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHunter and Hunted: In Love and War, #13 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMementos and Memories: In Love and War, #15 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHonourable Enemies: In Love and War, #16 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Taste of Home: In Love and War, #14 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
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Graveyard Shift - Cora Buhlert
In Love and War
pinstripeFor eighty-eight years, the galaxy has been torn apart by the endless war between the Republic of United Planets and the Empire of Worlds.
Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov are soldiers on opposing sides of that war. They meet, fall in love and decide to go on the run together.
Pursued by both the Empire and the Republic, they struggle to stay alive and free and prove that their love is stronger than the war…
pinstripeI. The Concourse
pinstripeHigh in orbit above the border world of Legrelle, spun the space station Unity, one of the biggest civilian space stations in this sector of the Republic of United Planets.
Among the people who strolled along the main concourse of Unity was Tabitha Tyrone, tall, statuesque, dark-skinned, her hair braided into neat cornrows. She had just turned thirty-eight and served aboard the deep space freighter Freedom’s Horizon, in theory as first mate and in practice as Girl Friday, who handled everything nobody else could be bothered to do, in this case handing in paperwork at the civilian docking office.
Tabitha was pleased that the rather eccentric route of the Freedom’s Horizon had finally taken her to a place that was at least halfway civilised. But then, as the wife of the Captain of the Freedom’s Horizon she had more than a little influence upon the freighter’s ports of call. And in this case, Tabitha had simply told her husband that she needed to do some shopping and get her hair done and then she’d asked him to find a likely place. And in this case, that likely place had turned out to be Unity Station.
It was Tabitha’s first visit to Unity and she had to admit that she was impressed. The station was a spacious multi-ring structure with multiple levels of docking facilities, its own repair yard and a concourse to rival a suburban shopping mall on a Republican core world. All in all, Unity was the most civilised place Tabitha had encountered since she and her husband Elijah had decided to buy a freighter and leave the core worlds behind for the wilderness that was the galactic rim.
Elijah had never regretted leaving the core worlds. At least, Tabitha didn’t think he did, considering how he kept talking about how true freedom was only to be found out here on the galactic rim. Tabitha generally agreed with her husband that the galactic rim was freer, safer, a better place to raise their kids, far from the madness of the war that had engulfed most of the galaxy. But sometimes she still missed the ease of being able to go to a mall and get everything she could possibly want in one single convenient place. She also missed hair salons and day spas and fashion boutiques that actually carried current styles rather than those from two years ago and restaurants that served every kind of cuisine imaginable.
The great concourse of Unity had all this or at least a reasonably good approximation. There were shops carrying all the big galactic brands and restaurants offering the cuisines of all the main core worlds. There were sidewalk cafés and conversation pits and children’s play areas and planters containing real, bona-fide flowers and even small trees.
Tabitha shot a sideways glance at her son Carter. He walked with his eyes wide and his mouth gaping open, as if the great concourse of Unity Station was the most amazing place he’d ever seen. And who knew, to him it possibly was? After all, Carter had been very young when she and Elijah left Nuruba, only four. The two little ones, Tasha and Spencer, hadn’t even been born yet. Carter probably didn’t remember much of Nuruba either, didn’t remember how Tabitha had taken him to the neighbourhood playground or the mall as a toddler. Children forgot so quickly. The good things as well as the bad.
Carter suddenly stopped, rubbernecking at two officers of the Republican Navy in full dress uniform.
Mom, why are there so many soldiers here? Is the war near here?
The war was never far in the Republic these days, even out here on the galactic rim. Case in point, the giant screens dotted all around the concourse kept showing the latest news from the front, in this case footage from the battle of Zatar. Tabitha tried and to her shame failed to recall where precisely Zatar was. Had to be an Imperial world, that’s why the name didn’t ring a bell.
But with so much to see that was new to him, Carter hadn’t paid any attention to the news screens. So Tabitha decided not to burst his bubble and shook her head. "No, dear, the soldiers are only here, because there is a battlecruiser, the Great Endeavour, docked at Unity. We saw it coming in, remember?"
Carter nodded. Like his younger siblings, he’d had his nose pressed to the viewport during docking, marvelling at the size of the station and the gigantic battleship docked at the military part of the station.
And if you look through the observation port…
Tabitha pointed at the giant arched windows that covered the entire front of the concourse. …then you can see the battlecruiser again, docked right below us.
Carter immediately ran over to the observation windows to take a closer look at the Great Endeavour, for battlecruisers were incredibly exciting unless you had the misfortune of having served