Fear for Hire

By Elliott Trevor

Set in the future, it tells the story of Anna Fear the daughter of a freighter Captain and his wife who are tragically killed by pirates when Anna is in her teens. She is taken into captivity and forced into a life as a sex worker and plaything of one of the two brothers that run the gang. Her life is a never-ending round of despair until she meets Gaspard Fournier, a small-time arms dealer who sees more in the young lady than an easy lay. They become friends and eventually Gaspard buys Anna out of slavery and she moves in with him on her own terms.

 

In time she realises her dream of owning her own freighter and plying her trade just like her parents. She also learns the skills needed to look after herself in a hostile world and Gaspard teaches her how to appreciate fine food, art and literature. Then, a twist of fate delivers the opportunity for the revenge that she craves and forges a friendship with one of the richest women in the galaxy.

 

The novel –'Fear For Hire' tells the story of how Anna becomes Anastasia and describes the many adventures she pursues as a badass freighter Captain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elliott Trevor
• Release date: Aug 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781386299455

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The canteen at the Gaea ‘O’ main space port fell expectantly silent when a huge bear of a man whistled and shouted, Wow that’s the best arse I’ve seen this side of Mars Central.

The arse in question belonged to an elegant young lady in a snug fitting flight suit who went by the name of Anastasia Fear. She stood a little under two metres tall, a legacy from her Scandinavian father with shoulder length jet black hair inherited from her Asian mother. In fact, Anna had inherited all the best bits from both parents. Today her hair was bright red and should have perhaps served as a warning to others. Those who knew her would never have uttered such a crude comment, but this guy was new to the planet and was about to learn a painful lesson.

To most people she was known as Anna. Only an inner circle of friends got to call her Anastasia and then only when she was elegantly dressed, displaying her natural hair colour and not in her working flight suit.

She had been walking towards the vending machine when she heard the whistle and remarks but continued without reacting. As she stood in from of the machine making her selection of refreshments, the guy walked up behind her and pressed his body against her pinning her against the machine. He whispered something to her and stuck his tongue, which was bifurcated like a snake, into her ear.

Those present held their breath knowing this was not a sensible move. In one fluid movement Anna turned to face the guy and pushed him back a step. Unfortunately, he took this as an opportunity to press even closer. Somehow, she found room to deliver a short sharp punch to his solar plexus. He let out a gasp and staggered back, Anna stepped sideways and swept his feet from under him. He landed heavily and before he could react, she stepped in and pressed the sole of her foot on his testicles adjusting the weight to assure his full attention.

Another gasp escaped his lips and Anna leaned forward increasing the pressure and told the fool. I don’t remember inviting you into my personal space nor seeking any critical observation of my butt. You are lucky that I am in a good mood today otherwise you would be carrying your balls back to your ship in a bag. Don’t bother to get up I’m taking my lunch to the zoo where the animals have better manners.

Anna stepped back and paused for a second in case the guy reacted to her warning, but he stayed put so she collected her lunch from the vending machine, turned on her heels and walked out of the canteen. Not for the first time many male eyes glanced at that recently complimented arse but then realised the risk they were running and returned their attention to their lunch. A collective sigh of relief could be heard as the room returned to its normal background murmur of conversations.

As the guy shakily got to his feet, two space port security men sitting at an adjacent table commented, You must be new around here. For your information that was Anastasia Fear, and she is aptly named and unless you want to become a eunuch, you don’t mess with her. You were very lucky today. We suggest you stay well away from Anna while you are here unless you fancy a change in anatomy.

CHAPTER 2

Anna Fear was born in 2300 AD on Earth to John Fear, freight Captain and his engineer wife Molly. The ravages of climate change and pollution had turned the once green planet into an open sore incapable of supporting the population. Famine was widespread, and the elite guarded their food and privilege with violence. The Fear family chose to leave and join the burgeoning intergalactic migration to life compatible planets and ones that could be engineered to support human life.  As the expanding network of colonies grew out of the invention and distribution of interstellar jump gates, a need for supplies offered a good living to freight ships like that operated by the Fears.  The Fear family spent almost all their time in space rarely spending more than a few days on an inhabited planet. There were no other crew members just father, wife and daughter. John and Molly could turn their hands to most tasks with the help of a motley crew of repair robots to do the routine maintenance.

Anna was schooled by an Auto Teach unit from a prepaid tuition programme designed for colonies without the benefit of conventional schools and teachers. Although she found general education boring, she developed an insatiable interest in space flight and general freighter maintenance reflecting the influence of her parents. Fortunately, along the way she gained a good understanding of maths, physics and electronics as by-products of her more specialist interests.

As she entered her teens, she already navigated courses across the system, understood data logs and helped instruct repair bots on tasks around the freighter. Then shortly after her fifteenth birthday disaster struck in the form of a brutal attack by space pirates resulting in the traumatic death of her parents and the hijack of the freighter. Her good looks and trim figure saved her from certain death but resulted in her being forced into slavery as a sex worker on the pirate’s home planet Gaea Oikus, the second largest moon of the Earth-like planet Gaea Verdi located on the edge of the Bodes Galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation. Gaea Oikus (‘O’) a small relatively barren planet had become an important cargo hub where freighters refuelled and a staging place for goods destined for further afield. Like most cargo hubs it had a thriving red-light district, and this is where they held Anna captive.

After her kidnap there followed a year of brutal captivity and abuse to which she often felt there was no escape. However, a visitor to the brothel where she was forced to work, changed all that. A man of French descent probably in his late fifties, called Gaspard Fournier occasionally visited Gaia Oikus to do business with the pirates and was persuaded to sample the delights of their brothel. He was a good-looking man, with a full head of salt and pepper hair that gave him a distinguished appearance. He stood around two metres with a solid relatively trim body. No one feature of his face would mark him out as handsome, but he had wonderful eyes that could melt a woman’s heart and a kind, warm personality that put everyone at ease.

By pure chance Anna found that she was entertaining Gaspard and soon realised that he was not like the usual clientele. He was gentle and considerate and seemed genuinely embarrassed to find himself as a customer in the brothel. He developed a close affection for Anna Fear and after his first visit made a habit of visiting her whenever he was on the moon but did not ask for sex but sat and talked to her exchanging stories of their lives. He was a small-time arms dealer located on Gaia Verdi, with a growing customer base across the planets in the region. Anna had already travelled many of the routes and visited the destinations where Gaspard’s customer operated. As they talked, he became fascinated by Anna’s enthusiasm for her rather unusual life with her parents. She would often mention that if she was free of this sordid brothel, she could deliver his merchandise.  Their relationship became more like father and daughter than lovers and he would bring her digital books on the Golden ages of art on Earth. He would also describe how he spent much of his profits on amassing his own digital gallery of classical French and Italian art. His other great love was cooking although he often struggled to obtain supplies of real ingredients in an age where most colonies survived on reprocessed algae.

About six months after they first met, he visited Anna and told her he had negotiated to buy her freedom with a combination of cash and weapons. At first, she feared he would own her and simply swap one prison for another, but Gaspard was a true gentleman, and to his credit never used her rescue as a lever for sexual favours.

They left Gaea Oikus and returned to Gaspard’s home planet Gaea Verdi – a green planet five day’s travel from the pirate’s base. Although Gaspard and Anna lived more like father and daughter, she would often share his bed but only when she chose to visit him. Over time he continued his introduction to the classical arts and to cooking. They shared virtual reality tours of the old Louvre in Paris, recordings of ballet and theatre which he had acquired at great expense from museums on Earth. Two years later, on her seventeenth birthday, Gaspard prepared a fabulous meal and opened a bottle of Macon Villages – a real bottle of this classic red wine that was once an everyday drink in France but since the rigours of climate change that destroyed most vineyards, was now an almost obscene indulgence. After eating they danced together at a VR reconstruction of Rendezvous Danse by the Seine, an historic, open-air venue where Parisians enjoyed informal ballroom dancing.

As Gaspard held Anna in his arms, he complemented her on her dancing, her appearance and elegance and laughed at how a rough street urchin with dirty nails had become a beautiful, refined woman. Anna, he joked, "You should change your name to Anastasia as befits the caterpillar transformed into a beautiful butterfly.

Anna thought no more about it until she woke in the early hours of the morning and got up to get a drink of water. As she sat on the balcony of Gaspard’s apartment she mulled over his remark. Anastasia Fear – wow she really liked the sound of that name. It was sophisticated yet did not abandon her humble roots. Over breakfast she announced that hence forth she will to be known as Anastasia Fear then added, Well when I am amongst friends. It’s a bit of a mouthful for radio comms and docking clearance.

CHAPTER 3

Although Anna continued to learn and became involved in more aspects of Gaspard’s business, she remained loyal to her original ambition of owning and piloting a freighter just like her parents. It was also a practical way to repay Gaspard for his kindness. She spent every spare minute studying and physically training her body. She eschewed the gene splicing or biomechanical enhancements that were very popular and affordable in the outer ring planets. The technology had been brought here by the large space corporations and made available to ensure a ready supply of enhanced employees with the capabilities to endure in the harsh environment of the developing worlds. Instead Anastasia honed her body and mind through hard work and continual practice.

Gaspard’s line of work brought her into contact with a wide circle of people some of whom were ex-military and extremely tough. She took every opportunity to get them to teach her about weapons both personal and ship-bound and instruct her in various forms of unarmed combat, knife and stick fighting,

Eventually Anna had accumulated enough savings to buy an old ship which Gaspard had acquired in lieu of an unpaid debt. He wanted her to have it as a gift, but she insisted on buying it, albeit at a peppercorn price. Although old and badly in need of a refit it was capable of extended space flight thanks to a troupe of repair bots working continuously to keep it functioning. Originally a compact ‘P’ Class military transport cruiser the vessel had been decommissioned and sold for scrap but fell into the hands of another small-time arms dealer who occasionally bought goods from Gaspard. It still had some out of date but effective weapons systems, functioning navigational hardware and life support. Anastasia quickly learnt how to fly the craft which she named JoMo after her parents and was soon making short space hops around the nearby planets delivering goods for Gaspard.

Then a remarkable coincidence changed her life.

The legendary space scientist and engineer called Jaspen Jade entered her life. More formally known as Professor Jaspen Jade-Fossitt she never used the second half of her surname and rarely used the term Professor although she remained part-time lecturer in event horizon physics and faster than light travel at numerous research establishments. As the inventor of the most successful space gate technology she had become immensely wealthy and was able pick on what projects she would work. The commercial introduction of her gate technology had transformed FTL travel by creating a network of jump gates which had opened intergalactic travel and exploration to businesses across the galaxies. Jade had a teenage daughter called Hope who was grown in an artificial womb clinic without the need for a father. She was the perfect blue-eyed blond almost a reflection of her mother which was not surprising as she was virtually a clone. Despite the unusual biological link Jade loved her daughter more than life itself and when Hope was kidnapped, and all conventional law enforcement attempts had failed to find her, Jaspen Jade booked advertisements on all the available planet communications and entertainment networks appealing for help.

The first to contact her were the kidnappers who demanded a crazy price but one that Jade was prepared to pay to save her daughter. The images and video they sent with their demand showed her daughter was being abused both physically and mentally. She agreed to pay the ransom without hesitation but did not get her daughter back just a sneering reply saying that Hope was staying with them and would become the gang leader’s woman. Jade published the reply in the off chance someone might recognise the pirates although they had concealed their faces.

The second person to contact Jaspen Jade was Anastasia. By a sick quirk of fate, the kidnappers were the same group who had killed her parents, stolen their ship and forced her into sexual slavery. Anna said she did not want a reward for her efforts just promised she would find and rescue Jade’s daughter and settle her own form of justice on the perpetrators.

It took just three weeks to locate the kidnappers who were still based in the same crime ridden parts of Gaea Oikus as they had been when they held Anna hostage. They were splashing around their newfound wealth and boasting of their prize hostage. Anna kept her intentions from Gaspard who would have insisted on providing a back-up force, but she wanted, no needed to do this alone.

Anastasia flew the JoMo to their planet and landed in the nearest space dock. Then broke into their property via a roof light using ancient ninja stealth techniques augmented with state-of-the-art security disruptors. She wore the very latest flexi-body armour -a present from Gaspard and carried a Smudge 50 laser pistol with the maxpax power pack for maximum range and stopping power, a Kalashni Maglev projectile rifle and a custom built stun cosh that combined a Taser probe with a heavily weighted body ideal for breaking bones. 

Using a gecko anchor unit with integral climbing rope she descended to the floor, released the anchor, rewound the rope and slipped the unit into her backpack. Moving silently and cautiously through the corridors she came across a kitchen area with one gang member exploring the contents of a refrigerator. Before he could react, she closed the distance between them and plunged a stiletto between his ribs and into his heart. He died without uttering a sound. After lowering him to the floor she continued her search and found Hope Jade heavily tranquilised and bruised from recent beatings. It took a while to make Hope understand that her mother had sent Anastasia to rescue her, and that she needed to get up and try to walk off the effects of the drug so she would be ready when Anastasia returned. After getting a nod of understanding from the teenager, she continued her search determined to find the gangsters and exercise her own form of justice.

As she