Found Between Stars

By Clover Down

Atlas escaped Vester, a mining planet turned pirate outpost. He found a better life on a space station, but he never meant to find that life without her. He never meant to leave without Josephine. And despite escaping, he was never able to go far from the planet where he lost her. Six long cycles later and he still can’t forget her—not that he ever really tried.

And then he gets a call that Josephine—his Josephine, the one he saw die—has been found on a pirate spacecraft leaving Vester. She’s alive. Which means he didn’t just leave without her but that he left her alone on one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy.

Now that he has her back, Atlas can’t ignore something still looming over their heads, something more than guilt and the stretch of cycles that separate their joined past and fractured present. If he wants a future with her, he’s going to have to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late.

This story contains—violence, explicit sex, profane language, hurt/comfort, references to sketchy and abusive childhoods, conversations about mental health, trauma, and an emphasis on consent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clover Down
• Release date: Nov 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9789198695359

Clover Down

Clover Down has stories in her heart.She lives in a house with walls, in a place near trees.Her favorite color is in someone else’s eyes and her favorite song is a drum solo inside their chest.If she could have any job in the world, it would either be Space Pirate or Professional Romantic.She has no education in romance other than falling in love. She is, in fact, no one in particular at all, but she does hope that you enjoy some of her stories.

Book preview

FOUND BETWEEN STARS

SMASHWORDS EDITION

CLOVER DOWN

SMASHWORDS EDITION

FOUND BETWEEN STARS

Copyright © 2021 by Clover Down

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Warning. This book contains violence, explicit sex, profane language, hurt/comfort, references to sketchy and abusive childhoods, conversations about mental health, and trauma that may not be suitable for all audiences.

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual events or real persons—living or dead—is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-91-986953-4-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-91-986953-5-9 (e-book)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clover Down has stories in her heart.

She lives in a house with walls, in a place near trees.

Her favorite color is in someone else’s eyes and her favorite song is a drum solo inside their chest.

If she could have any job in the world, it would either be Space Pirate or Professional Romantic.

She has no education in romance other than falling in love. She is, in fact, no one in particular at all, but she does hope that you enjoy some of her stories.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

CHAPTER ONE

The galaxy was full of beautiful planets, colonized moons, and stunning satellites with populations to rival even the largest cities. There was wonder, color, and life bursting between the stars. But not on Vester.

From that bleak mining planet at the edge of Eaton colonized space, Atlas had never seen any of the brilliance of the galaxy. The mines had run dry and all wealth had abandoned the harsh settlement long before his birth. The remains of the cities and outposts were taken over by pirates and turned into bases and ganglands all struggling for survival under one man—Ludo.

There was no escape. Beyond the cities, stretched nothing but gray desert and inky black seas.

Atlas Savac had been nineteen when the Eaton ships came down to the surface in a last-ditch effort to evacuate as many people as they could. Cycles of negotiations with the lords of Vester, gang rulers and space pirates holding control of the planet under Ludo, had led nowhere. But the Eaton representatives could not easily abandon the captive residents of Vester leftover from the mining towns, unable to escape what had fast become a warzone.

Atlas and Josephine had seen the exodus as the way out they’d dreamed of their whole lives—a way off Vester and a chance to go anywhere else, everywhere else.

But the lords of Vester hadn’t been willing to let the youths flee, many of them their own relations. They wanted to keep the numbers or maybe they just didn’t want to let them have a chance at a different life—a life they hadn’t been given themselves. The options on Vester had been slim. Almost everyone eventually worked for the pirates. At least it came with a chance to leave the planet, to break through the endless cloud cover and glimpse the stars beyond.

But Atlas had only ever followed Josephine Nasrin and she would kneel to no pirate.

The Eatons were going to be their way out—their way to the stars.

The day Eaton troops brought ships and tried to offer passage to everyone that wanted off the planet, ended up being the last day Eaton would ever be allowed near the surface of Vester. War broke out in the streets. People fought their own families for a chance to break free. The Eaton guards did everything they could to hold the docks and give the civilians a chance to reach the ships hovering over the sea, but they hadn’t been prepared for the struggle—they had not expected such bitter fury from the decaying settlements. What started as tension turned into a slaughter. The lords of Vester cut down their own children by the end, determined to keep them from escaping by any means.

Atlas wanted to leave as soon as they reached the dock. The Eaton guards were retreating onto the last ship. Time was running out and there would never be another chance. But Josephine wouldn’t leave the rest of their crew behind. Her resolve was no surprise, and he never questioned that tone of hers. He didn’t mind fighting to hold the line on the dock while the last of them ran for safety. They had been fighting their whole lives, what was one more day?

The black ocean churned. A storm rolled in, and rain spilled out over the dock, the waves sloshing up on either side. They allowed themselves to be slowly backed farther from the shore and closer to the last ship. People clustered at the end of the dock behind them, tossing children into the arms of strangers and leaping off the wet metal to that waiting vessel. Josephine yelled at Atlas and Hugo to keep moving. They were leaving today—they weren’t going to be left behind. This was their only chance to get out, and Atlas believed her when she said they would make it because her word had always been law and because she was the only truth he had ever known—the only family, the only love.

The guards on the ship exchanged gunfire with the pirates on the shore. Everyone in between, the poor of Vester, had only blades, fists, and anger. They held off the pirates as best they could, voices and metal against metal all muffled by the storm spraying them in seawater and pelting them with rain.

Atlas reached the end of the dock where it dropped down into angry waves and giant rocks reaching up from the deep. He used to make up stories about those stone formations being the teeth of a long-dead beast. He almost believed it himself in that moment.

Eaton guards leaned off the ramp of the ship to offer their arms to him, shouting for him to jump. He put away his sword and grabbed Hugo, shoving the taller boy first. They caught him and hauled him up.

Josephine! Atlas called over the storm, the voices, and the jets of the ship. He reached for her.

Come on, kid! A guard yelled, stretching halfway over the edge of the ship and trying to grab hold of Atlas’s jacket.

Atlas jerked out of reach before the man could get a grip on him. He wouldn’t leave before Josephine.

She kicked one of the pirates off the dock and turned toward him, running those last steps. The dock was packed with faces he knew and so many more he’d never even noticed until they decided to stop their escape.

Josephine flashed Atlas a smile amid all that mayhem. Her black braids swung around her shoulders, flashing glimpses of the little birds tattooed in flight up the side of her neck. The rain rolled over her dark skin and the lights of the ships glowed in the depths of her gaze. She was the closest to a god he had ever seen.

Atlas reached for her, hands on her waist. He was going to turn and lift her to the guard. He could jump after and trust that someone, anyone, would make sure he made it onto the ship. He was going to—

Her body slammed forward until her chest hit his. Pain ripped through him. His arms curled around her, hugging her tight and feeling the wrongness of it. She was heavy, pressed hard against him. And that pain between them was the ripping of skin and muscle. It never occurred to him that she might have stabbed him, not even for a second.

He looked past her, and his arms curled tighter when he saw his brother there on the dock, grinning. Clayton was at least ten cycles their senior and wore the colors of Ludo. He had no plans of escape. He had only come out today to make sure Atlas wouldn’t.

Atlas swallowed hard, the cutting pain in his chest stretching outward through his sternum. He looked down Josephine’s back just as Clayton pulled the slender sword from her—from them both. Blood rushed out of her, made faster by the ceaseless rain and sloshing ocean waves. She spasmed in Atlas’s arms and Clayton laughed. If he couldn’t be free, neither could they.

There was screaming on the ship behind him, but Atlas couldn’t look. They were never going to make it. The dream was going to die right there, in his arms. They would never get off this planet. They would never see the stars.

Josephine pushed at his chest, forcing her legs to hold her so that she could stand on her own and look up at him. Another wave hit the dock hard, splashing up and over. Droplets of that inky water rained over them, sliding down her cheek and off her jaw. He had learned to read her when they were children stealing to survive and hiding from adults like they were the monsters in a never-ending game. He could read Josephine effortlessly and it hurt to know that she was looking at him for the last time. He didn’t dare look away, studying a face he had memorized long ago.

She forced a smile—the saddest smile he had ever seen. And then she shoved him hard. He fell back, shocked. His heart lurched in his chest. He expected to hit the waves and be sucked under, rolled against the jagged rocks and suffocated in the deep, but instead, his back hit the side of the ship and hands grabbed at his jacket and his arms, lifting him. He reached for her, but he was too far away. Her legs gave out and, without him there to hold her up, her knees hit the dock. She was the last one, the only one, left behind. Blood gushed from her chest, blooming into the wet fabric of her shirt.

The ship pulled away, lifting higher and higher.

Atlas couldn’t stop reaching for her. Someone was screaming—screaming like they were being tortured. Distantly, he realized it was him. He was screaming. He was kicking at everyone holding on to him and trying to get back to the dock—back to the water—back to that horrible planet and his death just so long as it would be with her.

He reached for her, but she just watched him. The distance was too far.

She held his gaze until her smile faded and her expression dimmed, her eyes losing focus.

The last face he saw clearly was his brother’s. Clayton stepped up behind Josephine. He cocked his head back to glare up at Atlas and kicked her in the back, sending her body off the dock and into the crashing waves. She didn’t come back up and soon Atlas was being dragged away from the hatch, the big doors sliding shut to close them in and prepare to leave the planet. Atlas screamed until he lost consciousness.

Even cycles later, far from Vester, he never escaped the sound of those waves crashing against the rocky shores. They followed him off the planet, into his every waking moment, echoing in his soul and rattling against his bones.

CHAPTER TWO

Atlas woke with a start. Six cycles had passed but the day he lost her still haunted him, always there waiting at the edge of his thoughts. He had spent fifteen months being bumped back and forth between a hospital and a psych ward before his friends finally dragged him back into some semblance of life. But he still dreamed of her every night. Sometimes he got good memories or fantasies before that final nightmare reality caught up to his subconscious and he was on that dock again, losing her over and over.

He sat up in bed, touching the scar on his chest. His room was dark but for the glow of stars. His gaze always drifted out the big windows into space, seeking that tiny purple glint of a planet. He could have gone farther from Vester—far enough not to see it. Even on this station, he could have picked an apartment with an internal view or another direction of space, but even after six cycles, Atlas still wasn’t ready to look away from Josephine.

With a curse on his lips, he got out of bed. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. He peeled off his sweat-soaked shirt and tossed it into the hamper on his way to the door. He didn’t bother flipping on the lights, padding through the dark apartment to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard and pulled out the whiskey. It wasn’t like the shit brewed on Vester. Everything out here was regulated and sweet. He swigged the liquor from the bottle. The bright yellow label promised all the nutrition of a balanced meal along with a good buzz.

He got a call, the chime only audible to him. A blue square of light blinked into existence in the corner of his vision. It had taken him, and most of the Vester refugees, a couple cycles to come around to the optic implants. Some never had and were still using actual devices.

Atlas frowned at the name of the caller in the square. Sangmin. How did he always know when Atlas was awake? He took another drink, enjoyed