Running With Bulls: A Zodiac Forces Short Story

By Tami Veldura

Dany is a Taurus soldier stationed above Titian, Saturn’s largest moon. Normally a hub of trade and tourism, the space station has shut down for the upcoming meteor shower, but Dany and her crew are on call for the next twelve hours, ready and able to respond to any station emergency.

Rhino Four is an ice-mining platform established at the edge of Saturn’s outer rings and thanks to the meteor shower, it’s about to crash. Emergency alerts throw the Taurus into action. Their mission: get aboard the out of control platform, rescue fifteen doomed souls, and get out again before the meteor shower destroys them all.

But a meteor shower couldn’t have knocked the platform out of orbit. And something much larger is responsible for this gaping hole in the side of the complex. Whatever happened here, Dany and her team don’t have much time to save the civilians and get out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tami Veldura
• Release date: Jan 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781941319505

Tami Veldura

Tami Veldura is an enby/aro/ace author of queer fiction. They have published short stories in anthologies Fresh Starts, Hauntings, Love Among The Thorns, Love Is Like A Box Of Chocolates, the magazine Galaxy’s Edge, and they are a contributing member of the scifi magazine Boundary Shock Quarterly. They publish new work every month, crossing every genre, but always featuring queer characters and found families.As S.T. Lynn, they write uplifting, sweet, and tropey fantasy fiction, featuring women front and center. Including fairy tales, elves, magic, and happy endings for young adults and young-at-heart.

Book preview

Running With Bulls

By Tami Veldura

Chapter One

Dany had just inhaled a complementary processed breakfast and was brushing her teeth when the station’s AI chimed gently over the intercom. She paused to listen.

Attention, Ark Station citizens, station shutdown in advance of the Grigg meteor shower will now begin. For your safety, please make your way to the inner ring.

Dany brushed faster. While the rest of the station got a day off, she and her fellow Taurus bulls were on call. There was always some idiot who wanted to see the meteor shower from outside the station, and it was up to Dany and her crew to ride in for the rescue. And they would, because a bull always did what was necessary.

Nevermind there was nothing to see out here in space. The shower was probably something spectacular down on Titan, but up here there was no atmosphere for the ice and dust to burn up in, which made it just a rain of ice and dust.

Under Dany’s feet, the station floor began to vibrate as the outer ring—where her tiny room was located—closed all of its viewing windows. Her basketball-sized porthole was full of Titan’s roiling clouds one second, then a metal iris on the outside snapped shut the next.

She rinsed, spat, and snatched her helmet off the hook on her way out. Her door hissed shut, then blinked green as she locked it with her thumbprint.

This section of the station was already deserted. Anyone with money enough for a room with a view in the outer ring had left the Ark in the last week, shuttling down to Kronos on Titan for the duration of the shower. That also meant the spine elevators were busy at the inner ring, servicing the Ark’s three million people who all suddenly realized they needed to stock up on milk and bread.

So Dany jogged spinward on the outer ring through the weirdly empty thoroughfare. Shops and tours normally lit for visitors were all gated and dark. The dock entrance was closed and a single Taurus soldier stood on guard at the gate. Dany lifted her helmet in greeting as she ran by and the soldier nodded back. She wasn’t sure who was on deck this turn and the Taurus uniforms were all identical on purpose. They took individuality away so the team could work as a single unit. It worked, for the most part, though Silvian was so tall it was always easy to pick her out of the crowd.

The shower was only supposed to last a few hours and the Ark AI had predicted no more than seven minor impacts. No threat of major