Point of Origin

By Ioana Visan

Suffering from neural degeneration, Thea is fading away in an asylum with no hope of ever leaving it.

When Captain Law offers her an opportunity to board his ship in return for her help, the astrophysicist is faced with having to learn to trust them or end up in another asylum with slim chance for recovery. And then her secret will be lost.

With a contract that they are desperate to obtain and a rogue asteroid in enemy territory, Captain Law and his crew must keep Thea free from harm, but a missing crew member and a band of misfits thwart their efforts and send them on a mission no one was prepared for.

Can Thea and Captain Law learn to work together for one goal or will long-held secrets and mistrust shake their resolve and destroy their efforts?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ioana Visan
• Release date: Sep 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370462483

Ioana Visan

Award-winning writer Ioana Visan has always dreamed about reaching the stars, but since she can't, she writes about it.After fighting the apocalypse aftermath in "Human Instincts", she played with shapeshifters in “Blue Moon Café Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks”, she dealt with vampires in “The Impaler Legacy” series, and then she designed prosthetics in “Broken People” before tackling longer works like a fantasy trilogy and a science fiction series.Aside from publishing short stories in various Romanian magazines and anthologies, she published a Romanian short story collection “Efectul de nautil” and the Romanian edition of “Human Instincts”.She received the Encouragement Award from The European Science Fiction Society at Eurocon 2013.For more information, please visit http://www.ioanavisan.tk

Book preview

Point of Origin

Law and Crucible Saga 2

IOANA VISAN

Copyright © 2016 Ioana Visan

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Point of Origin

Law and Crucible Saga #2

Copyright © 2016 Ioana Visan

All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Gil Geolingo

https://www.fiverr.com/glass84

Typography by TheBookLady

https://www.fiverr.com/thebooklady

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First eBook Edition: December 2015

Suffering from neural degeneration, Thea is fading away in an asylum with no hope of ever leaving it.

When Captain Law offers her an opportunity to board his ship in return for her help, the astrophysicist is faced with having to learn to trust them or end up in another asylum with slim chance for recovery. And then her secret will be lost.

With a contract that they are desperate to obtain and a rogue asteroid in enemy territory, Captain Law and his crew must keep Thea free from harm, but a missing crew member and a band of misfits thwart their efforts and send them on a mission no one was prepared for.

Can Thea and Captain Law learn to work together for one goal or will long-held secrets and mistrust shake their resolve and destroy their efforts?

Table of Contents

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Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Ioana Visan

1

The nurse helped Thea settle in bed for the night. The sheets scratched her skin like sand paper and the saggy mattress did no favors to her spine, but at least she could breathe easier. Sitting up in this gravity took all the strength she had left, sometimes up to the point of making it hard to think. With most distractions gone and her mind left to wander, it was worse in some ways.

She thought about the dead end her life had become, how close she’d come to solving one of the biggest mystery in the known universe, and how naïve she’d been thinking people would have liked to know the truth. Mostly she resented not knowing if she was right. She’d tried solving the equation in her head during the many sleepless nights, but without writing down the steps, she lost track of the calculations after a couple of hours. And she couldn’t write any of it down or talk to anyone. It was too dangerous.

Thea sighed and shifted in bed, wincing when one of the bedsores split on her back. She was fed up with feeling weak, and she hated feeling sorry for herself. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do other than wait. She’d sent the coded message in hopes someone would pick it up and track her down. Six months had passed since they had extracted her from the emergency shuttle, found her body damaged and brought her to the asylum. If it took much longer, she’d be past the recovery point. Everything would be lost. It would be such a shame as she was still young and should have had a full life ahead of her.

If only she could sleep. But if she did, the nightmare would come, the same nightmare she’d had for the past six months. It started with her on board the ship and her colleagues dying. In reality, things had happened at a much slower speed, she’d left before she saw it happen, but they always seemed to skip paces in her dreams, making the deaths more horrifying. Then came the crawling on the endless corridors, struggling to find a way out while her limbs became weaker and weaker. The solution was a no brainer. The ship was compromised and she needed to leave it if she wanted to have the slightest chance of survival. Finding the emergency shuttle and figuring out how to use it had nearly killed her, but slipping into the stasis capsule while not knowing when someone would come for her, if they ever did, had been worse.

Still, against all odds, she had made it this far. How much longer?

Dawn caught Thea staring at the ceiling. There was nothing else to see outside the window other than the gray sky. Little by little, the asylum came to life. She had made it through another night. She should have been relieved, but the various aches made it difficult to care.

And then the nurse came into her room with the dreaded announcement:

You have a visitor.

2

Law ignored the benches and chairs that bordered the asylum yard. All that concrete failed to feel welcoming. Not a spot of green in sight. No wonder the patients didn’t get any better. He could barely breathe in the tight confinement of the high fences, and he was healthy as far as he knew.

A male nurse pushed a wheelchair out through the terrace door. He set the wheelchair by the table and put on the brakes. Here you go, sweetheart. The fresh air will do you good. He looked up at Law. Don’t get mad at her if she doesn’t answer. She’s nearly catatonic.

This will be fine, thank you, Law said, his voice cold and dismissive. She deserved better treatment. Anyone deserved better treatment than that.

The male nurse retreated, leaving him alone with the patient. He’d asked for privacy and he got it. The terrace door remained open though, and the shadows in the hallway told him someone was watching.

The woman in the wheelchair didn’t move. With her elbows propped on the armrests, all her focus seemed to go into keeping herself upright. Her records claimed she was a few years younger than him, but with the dark shadows under her eyes and the gaunt cheeks, it was hard to tell. Black hair fell limply down both sides of her face, probably pretty when washed and styled as it still held some waves where it settled on her chest.

"I’m Captain