Runaways: The Labors of Darius Linard, #3

By Leah R Cutter

Darius bides his time, filling out his slave contract.

 

Until a strange chance throws him far away.

 

Clear across the galaxy.

 

To parts that the Allied Worlds deny even exist.

 

Alien parts.

 

Be sure to read all the labors of Darius Linard:

The Claim Jumper

Wild One

Runaways

Homecoming

Hero

• Language: English
• Publisher: Knotted Road Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201463724

Book preview

Runaways

RUNAWAYS

THE LABORS OF DARIUS LINARD: VOLUME 3

LEAH R CUTTER

CONTENTS

Runaways

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About the Author

Also by Leah R Cutter

About Knotted Road Press

RUNAWAYS

DARIUS WAS NO CLOSER TO his revenge after a year of working as a pilot for Captain Alana and Pineapple Express Transport. He sometimes still felt like a slave, though strictly speaking, he wasn’t: he was closer to paying off his indenture than he would have thought possible. The last job had put quite a dent in the amount he owed the captain when she’d stolen his asteroid claim, his ship Orion, and his life. It would still be years before he was free, but that was better than the decades he’d originally thought it would take.

Though Captain Alana was an absolute ass who laughed at Darius more often than not (and gods, he hated that laugh), he’d also stopped calling her high bitch captain for the most part, except when she deserved it. He’d studied her too closely, watching her every chance he got, for him to be comfortable denigrating her. She was absolutely brilliant.

Since stopping one of the other crew members from stealing from Captain Alana, Darius had found himself moving up in the world, as it were. He still wouldn’t consider himself part of the inner circle of the spaceship Xinsheng, but he was only a couple of rings from there.

Like tonight. Darius had been seated at one of the small round tables in the cleaned up cargo bay. Not at the absolute back of the room, not at the front, either, with the captain and her closest mates, but somewhere in the middle. He’d stuffed himself on crab puffs, ginger-lemon fish fillets, and pasta in a smoky red sauce that was so yummy he’d wanted to lick the plate clean. He’d even eaten some green beans, which had been surprisingly good, as they’d been grilled with bacon. Now, everyone sat back and talked, drinking tea, coffee, or port, with delicate lavender-sugar cookies that melted on Darius’ tongue and disappeared far too quickly.

Though Darius was now well on his way to being twenty years old, he occasionally felt he was still growing because of how hungry he got. However, he was no longer needing to buy new pants every other month since he’d out grown them, and his T-shirts lasted longer as well.

He kept his unruly black hair shorn short, so he never had to worry about it when he put on a helmet. He knew he looked more like his dad now than before, with a proud Greek nose, wide-set dark eyes, a broad mouth, and white skin with a brown tint to it. If he was ever on a planet under the right light spectrum, he’d probably turn a lot darker.

His five dinner companions (assigned by little cards at each plate) all worked in different capacities: engineering (he kept the engines of Xinsheng tuned), ship repair (she worked on all the various other spaceships and flitters they carried), cargo (and he didn’t stop complaining the entire time about how much work it took to clean out a space like this for a party), communications (or something like that, he wasn’t too specific about what exactly he did) and logistics (it took a lot of organizing to keep such a big ship afloat, keep the crew fed, and fuel all the machines).

Darius found he liked being included in more of the crew activities. The excuse for tonight’s party was the birthday of the second in command, a towering black man who Darius had met only twice. At least two hundred of the crew were here, maybe ten percent of the total compliment on Xinsheng. Darius had seen many of the same people at the various events he’d attended. He was starting to get to know the other members of the crew. He wasn’t sure if he could call any of them friends, but he could at least be friendly with them. And it was a good break sometimes from all the hard studying he did to hang out in rec-room five and play a card game, or maybe some pool.

It surprised Darius to learn that some of the members had started out in the same position he’d been in, then had hired on with the captain after they’d finished their contracts.

He swore that would never happen to him. He was still trying to figure out how to get his revenge on Captain Alana. Though maybe not the rest of the crew, anymore.

Nothing had been done to hide the plain, gray-painted wall of the cargo bay, though at the front of the room, above the long buffet table, someone had gone to the effort of creating a long banner with Happy Birthday Kwasi! printed on it. Laughter and raucous conversations echoed off the high ceiling.

A small stage had been put up in the front corner of the room. It turned out that eight members of the crew had formed a band in their spare time. They played with an odd combination of three violins, two guitars, two flutes, and with one banjo.

The first time Darius had been invited to one of these events, he’d been surprised to be given a seat at a table instead of being made to serve the others. He’d never met most of the waitstaff, and they seemed to change from event to event.

Had they given Captain Alana some reason to be angry with them? At least Darius had had skills when he’d been captured by her. Were these the bottom of the ladder in