Slave Space

By Barbara Lund

Officer Cordova has finally found a little rest, a bit of happiness, and some peace of mind on Platform Eight, but time has never truly been on her side. When an old evil returns to Amy’s platform, she will have to fight ghosts both present and past to finally be free of her greatest foe, and this time the cost will be greater than ever before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Lund
• Release date: Jan 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781944127152

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

SLAVE SPACE

PLATFORM EIGHT #6

Barbara Lund

Copyright © 2017 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, 2017

ISBN: 1-944127-15-1

ISBN-13: 978-1-944127-15-2

www.barbaralund.com

For those I love -

I’m so glad I’m not a main character in my own books,

Because we really do have all the time in the world.

Looking at James lying across my bed—wow!—I couldn’t believe I’d waited so long. He’d taken the time to soothe all the twitches I had left over from my last lover—the one that started with Ru and ended with rape—and the last few weeks had been the happiest of my life. I’d even sent holo messages to my parents and my sister about him, a true sign of how far in love I had fallen.

Haven’t told him yet.

Even the plain tan station-issued paint in my sleep bay had changed. Not much—just touches of cobalt blue here and there to remind me of his eyes: a blanket on the bed, a couple of matching anti-grav chairs in the common room.

He should have looked silly, draped across my simple bed—large enough for two, but you wouldn’t know it the way he had taken the whole thing—with one foot dangling out from under the blanket. Instead he looked… well, let’s just say I was seriously considering getting back into bed. James, I said. He didn’t move, so I raked the bottom of his foot with my super-short nails. How could a naked foot be sexy? Breakfast in or out?

He muttered into his own bicep.

Out? I teased. Okay, but you’ll have to get dressed—

One large hand snaked out from under the blanket and gripped my wrist in a move that would have had me flinching away from him not so long ago. In, he said, stroking my palm with his thumb. Why ruin a perfectly good day off with clothes?

Teasing, I tugged against his hand. "If you want in food, you’ll have to let me go assemble it."

Finally his nebula-blue eyes opened and he smiled. Or… He pulled me closer. "We can