Playing By The Rules

By J. Hepburn

Life aboard a luxury yacht, travelling deep inside safe space, isn't supposed to be exciting, and it's one of the main reasons Tori works on board as a beautician and cocktail waitress. Her growing friendship with Annick, another beautician, is a pleasant bonus.

Then the ship is attacked by pirates, the very last thing she needs, but it soon becomes apparent that if they stand any chance of surviving she will have to dredge up the past she's tried so hard to leave behind.

But even Tori's unique history can't help her sort out what to do when she's caught between the friend she's falling in love with and the pirate captain she's seducing...

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Hepburn
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463803561

J. Hepburn

J. Hepburn is a speculative fiction writer from Queensland, Australia. They live with their girlfriend, two cats, the ghosts of four giant grey shaggy hounds that take up a lot of space, and innumerable visiting magpies, kookaburras, parrots and carpet pythons.

Book preview

Playing by

the Rules

J. Hepburn

Life aboard a luxury yacht, travelling deep inside safe space, isn't supposed to be exciting, and it's one of the main reasons Tori works on board as a beautician and cocktail waitress. Her growing friendship with Annick, another beautician, is a pleasant bonus.

Then the ship is attacked by pirates, the very last thing she needs, but it soon becomes apparent that if they stand any chance of surviving she will have to dredge up the past she's tried so hard to leave behind.

But even Tori's unique history can't help her sort out what to do when she's caught between the friend she's falling in love with and the pirate captain she's seducing…

Playing by the Rules

By J. Hepburn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Leta Hutchins

Cover designed by Aisha Akeju

This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

Second Edition August 2019

First edition published by Less Than Three Press, LLC

Copyright © 2019 by J. Hepburn

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To my partner Tam,

who insisted upon giving me the self-esteem to take writing as seriously as I wanted to.

Playing by the Rules

There are no portals in crew quarters, so every night, Tori dreamed of space instead. It was always the same dream. She floated among the stars, far from any sun or planet, so only emptiness witnessed her nakedness. Spinning slowly, her skin tingling from cosmic radiation, but feeling no trace of cold, she and she alone saw starlight reflected off her breasts and legs.

A small comet curled towards her, a snowball spinning as lazily as she. She reached out towards it, already knowing how it would feel when it smacked into her palm.

BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP.

Tori was moving before she realised she was awake.

BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP.

Years of training had her already well into emergency procedures. Years of self-discipline kept her mouth shut over an exclamation that would have earned her a disciplinary citation.

BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP.

Check for gravity. Hit harness release. Pull on skullcap over sleep-tangled red bob.

BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP. BWARP.

Settle earpieces in ears. Position boom over cheek. Pull on emergency goggles, connect, wait for diagnostics to run.

Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp.

Her ears rang as the alarm tone dropped from ear-splitting to mere persistence.

Release rest of harness. Check for presence of room-mate. No, and she shouldn't be there anyway, as they were working staggered shifts. Check current clothing. She was already in uniform sports bra and shorts, both navy blue, both clean when she went to bed, both apparently still clean and odourless. Always go to bed in clothing you can, in an emergency, operate in.

Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp.

Resist urge to scream at alarm. That's not in the emergency procedures, but it would be unprofessional. Pull on jumpsuit before boots. Fasten waist. Seal chest seam. Fasten neck. Connect to skullcap. Add gloves, connect to suit. Check diagnostics in goggles. The jumpsuit looked like her daily uniform pant suit, with the addition of a much larger name and logo of the yacht—Philomela—on the left breast, but it could keep her alive in temperatures below freezing. With the addition of a helmet, it could keep her alive and functioning in a vacuum. Only the skullcap and goggles looked out of place. Even her uniform shoes were ankle boots that sealed to the suit, with soles sophisticated enough to stick to spacecraft skin in the absence of gravity.

Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp. Bwarp.

Back against wall, press button, wait for oxygen tanks to connect, check diagnostics in goggles. Take rebreather, insert in nostrils, connect mouthpiece to front of jumpsuit, check diagnostics in goggles.

The alarm in her cabin stopped. The door slid open at a speed carefully calculated to be fast, but without running an unacceptably high risk of injury.

She took one stride for the door. The gravity failed.

Her leap for the ceiling turned into a balletic twist. She stepped off the ceiling, twisting again on the way down, so when she caught the door frame, she was face-down to the floor. Self-discipline suppressed the urge to swear at her goggles for telling her, a second after the fact, about the gravity.

The other message was UNKNOWN SYSTEMS FAILURE. She had to bite her tongue at that. Known problems could be fixed. Unknown problems killed you.

Other crewmen were emerging from their cabins. Either side of her, stewards were propelling themselves towards the passenger area. Further down the corridor, engineers were leaping in the other direction, towards the engines.

Tori ducked out after a steward—Lane, nice boy—kicking strongly off the door frame towards the opposite wall. She followed him on his zigzag path as they accelerated from wall to wall.

They were the first to reach the bulkhead door into the passenger area. They exchanged a glance. Tori's goggles showed her no problems with any part of the yacht. Lane hit the door release.

Please remain calm, stay in your cabins, and follow all directions from members of the crew. The situation is under control. This is not a drill.

It was ship night-time. All ten of the yacht's passengers had retired early, before Tori went off shift.

Please remain calm, stay in your cabins, and follow all directions from members of the crew. The situation is under control. This is not a drill.

Tori's room-mate, Annick, was gently, but implacably, shepherding an old lady towards passenger quarters. Her uniform was professional and neat, but seemed horribly vulnerable next to the emergency equipment Tori was wearing. Annick was smiling and cheerful, but too busy to control her mahogany-brown plait as it unravelled, its band lost somewhere behind her.

Tori smoothly tagged her.

My colleague Tori here will help you back to your room, Mrs Bracewell. Annick spoke with professional cheerfulness, as though nothing at all was out of the ordinary.

When Tori took the Mrs Bracewell's arm gently, Annick launched herself towards crew quarters and her emergency equipment.

What's going on? Why can't you tell me? Are we going to be safe? I demand to speak to the Captain!

This way, Mrs Bracewell, it's over here. This way. Is your husband in your room? I'm sure he will have obeyed directions and stayed there. Captain Fulton will let everyone know in due course. Tori had to pitch her voice above the repeating message. She wasn't going to mind that, so long as the message was still only at level one.

Tori let complaints flow past her while shepherding Mrs Bracewell through the doorway to passengers' quarters, then along the corridor towards her suite. She seemed to be the only late-night wanderer.

Gravity is about to return. Please prepare for gravity. Gravity is about to return.

Tori smoothly swung Mrs Bracewell's feet towards the floor.

The gravity generators, programmed with care by people eager to avoid any lawsuit, came in slowly, gradually ramping up towards a relaxing, dreamy 0.8G. Tori hit the deck walking, holding Mrs Bracewell securely until she, too, was moving her feet properly again.

Tori's goggles showed a clean diagnostic scan from the suite. She unlocked the door, returned Mrs Bracewell to her angrily worried husband, gave them her best, most professional smile, locked the door securely, and then ran like hell towards the nearest assembly point.

She had managed to not react at all when, her hand still on Mrs Bracewell's arm, her goggles had started relaying the message Hostile force detected.

All crew are given training in weapons use and basic combat. Tori had to find a weapon.

Less than halfway to the assembly point, the message changed to BOARDED. BOARDED.

She stopped so fast that her boots skidded on the yacht's carpet. Her goggles flashed at her until she acknowledged. ALL PORT-SIDE AIRLOCKS BREACHED. ARMED FORCES ABOARD.

This was the port side. Her training—and annual refreshers—had not taught her to repel armed invaders unarmed.

An engineering officer holding a side-arm waved her urgently into the nearest cross-ship passage, his eyes fixed down the corridor. A steward—Marcos, a former Marine, so therefore a senior security officer—nodded at Tori as she sprinted past. Behind her, she heard the muted thunk of the corridor's air-tight door closing fast.

Two more crew armed with rifles were guarding the other end of the passageway.

A small cluster of crew, half looking scared stiff, waited at the assembly point. A low-ranking officer held up his hands, palms out, as Tori approached. The guns cabinet was empty. She cursed inside her head. Her goggles had not told her to report to a different assembly point. Her goggles had gone entirely silent.

All armed crew to stand guard at access points. All unarmed crew are to retreat to stations to await further instructions. Go!

The nearest crew station was next to the cross-ship passageway. She was nearly there, leading three colleagues, when the sealed passageway door smoothly opened. The two crew on guard glanced through in surprise. They had a second to react with greater surprise before both dropped, convulsing as they landed.

Tori leaped for the crew station. She had a blurred impression of a black, alien shape before her nervous system short-circuited.

*~*~*

Tori woke up hurting everywhere. The brief moment of relief when she recognised the after-effects of a stunner were quickly swamped by the spikes of agony from the after-effects of a stunner. She gritted her teeth until her brain remembered how to talk to all her nerve endings, then carefully turned her head.

She was lying on a hard surface, with a pillow under her head. That was a good sign.

The first thing she saw was an armoured figure holding a carbine, which was not.

She was surrounded by crewmates. At a quick glance, it seemed to be everyone not needed to maintain vital functions, which would mean a little over forty. Many were horizontal. Some of those were still unconscious, but most of them were groaning. They were in the dining room, with its one long table and eleven chairs. Tori was lying on the dining table. Other unconscious crewmembers had been placed on the dining table, side tables, or the carpeted floor. Most who were conscious were sitting in huddled groups on the floor.

Standing by each exit were armoured figures. They were wearing what looked like Marine armour: fully-sealed, fully-articulated, multi-environment, self-contained survival suits. Each one was matte black, with barely-visible scars of combat. Their multiple plates