Fairer than Snow: The Celestial Fairytales, #3

By K.M. Carroll

Justin Tiberius is a medic on the human salvage vessel Parallax. When the ship recovers an abandoned cryopod, Justin is called upon to revive the person inside: an alien Rox maiden.

 

Mira l'Archon is the most beautiful girl in her clan, and survived assassination by a jealous rival. Terrified to return to the people who tried to kill her, she contents herself with life among the humans ... and her surprise marriage to Justin, who cannot legally protect her any other way.

 

When the woman who tried to murder Mira stands trial, Justin and Mira are called to the Rox fleet as witnesses. Unwittingly they have placed themselves squarely in the sights of a desperate Rox woman ... a woman who will stop at nothing to eliminate anyone more beautiful than herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.M. Carroll
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215717868

Book preview

Chapter 1: Castaway

The gas giant Beta Pictoris hung in space like a blue marble, striped with blue and purple, secure in the midst of its untidy rings. These rings, a disorganized haze of rocks and ice, were known as an accretion disc. Over the ages, the planet’s gravity had destroyed other celestial bodies and gathered them in a cloak about itself. Now these rocks, full of mineral resources, were available to anyone with the courage to brave the disc.

A small human ship, the Parallax, prowled the inner edge of the disc, not daring to venture too deep inside. Often she halted to catch and drag in glimmering pieces of broken ships. She was a salvage vessel, and she was busy.

Medic Justin Tiberius looked up from the console he was manning on the bridge. Captain, I've detected a potential flag at two o’clock.

Captain Elias spun his chair to peer at Justin's screen. What've you got?

Justin pointed at the scanner report. Steel, some plastics. Could be part of a junked Rox ship.

Pretty small, said Elias, but he hesitated. Justin waited, knowing his captain's hunger for Rox tech. They were a salvage operation from the human fleet stationed in the Beta Pictoris system. While they had a peace treaty with the alien race, the humans had no compunction about salvaging Rox tech and learning their technology. At present, the human and Rox fleets were waging a joint campaign to eliminate a threat in a neighboring star system. The salvage ships had been given secret orders to take advantage of the lack of Rox peacekeeping forces and swipe any loose metal they could find.

Dispatch a drone, Elias said at last. A chunk of metal that small shouldn't need a tug. Can you handle it, Doc?

Sure, said Justin with a grin, showing more confidence than he felt. He turned to the controls and attended to plotting the drone's course with the attention he usually gave to surgery.

Justin's hesitant manner stemmed from years of disappointing his father. His father had been a retired fighter pilot and expected his son to follow in his footsteps, piloting ships in space and winning battles. But Justin had spent much of his childhood being ill, and was unable to meet the physical qualifications to enter the Air Force. He'd always wanted to be a doctor, though, so he enlisted as a medic when Earth went to war against the Rox. But his father had never been happy about it, his letters from home always vaguely condescending. It damaged Justin's confidence, even though something in him reached out to others, wanting to like them and be liked. It was what made him a good medic, though he didn't know it.

The peace treaty with the Rox had been a respite from seven years of horror, allowing him to return to treating regular injuries and not Rox-mauled soldiers. He'd been assigned to the Parallax when the salvage order went out, but there were only eight people on the crew, counting himself, and no one was injured or ill. So Captain Elias gave him a console in the cockpit and set him to scanning with the others.

Justin plotted his drone's course, first out to the object, then back. Then he sent out the drone itself, a sleek egg-shape with arms folded inside its shell. Justin watched the camera feed for twenty minutes as it approached the distant object. Many specks of light twinkled outside, all rocks and dust in the accretion disc around the gas giant of Beta Pictoris B. The Parallax had heavy armor, being a repurposed battle cruiser, but even it could not withstand a trip far into the disc. Only the alien Rox knew the secret of navigating the deadly jungle of spinning, careening rocks.

The drone intercepted the object, attached its hooks, then began the journey back. Justin cheered silently. If he brought in this chunk, and it had anything of value, he would receive a percentage of the sale. The rest of the crew had been working together for a year and knew each other well, but Justin was the outsider. Maybe once he captured some scrap they'd see him as more than just a piece of medical equipment. He hadn't been out of the medbay of the Dawn's Horizon since he left Earth, and had no friends outside of the medical staff.

As the drone drew closer with its burden, Justin zoomed in the camera as far as he was able. The scrap was an oblong metal thing, like a ship's cockpit with no wings. Or maybe an escape pod. He caught his lip in his teeth as the sunlight slid across the object. Not an escape pod.

A cryo pod.

He leaned back in his chair. Captain?

Yes, Doc?

Justin pointed at his screen. Elias left his chair and floated across the cockpit to Justin's console. Elias was a powerfully-built Middle Eastern man with dark skin and hair, and he could identify most scrap by its shape alone. Now he leaned over Justin's screen and stared at the object. Very softly, he said, What have we got here, Doc?

Could it be a cryo pod? Justin ventured quietly, afraid of being overheard.

Looks like it, Elias muttered. Why would it be out in the disc? Burial? Or disposing of a plague carrier?

Should I release it, sir? Justin asked.

Elias's eyes flickered in indecision. The pod's occupant may be dangerous, if there was one. On the other hand, humans lacked Rox cryotech, and a functional pod would bring extra bounty from the fleet engineers. Elias drew a breath through his teeth. Dock in bay nine and meet it in full envirosuit. I'll send Stubby with you. If it's dangerous, I don't care how valuable it is, throw it back out into space.

Stanton 'Stubby' Hawthorne accompanied Justin to the last docking bay in the ship's underbelly. They both stopped by the armory to pull on space suits, and double-checked each other's seals before moving on. Stubby was an engineer who had lost two fingers at the second phalanges, and he accepted his nickname with good humor. As they floated down the narrow hallway adjoining the landing bays, he said, Any bets on what's in the pod?

A corpse, said Justin.

Stubby laughed. Just like that? Easiest guess?

Justin smiled behind his helmet's faceplate. What else would be inside a cryo pod? It might have been out there for decades.

Sometimes people store supplies in pods, said Stubby. Or it might be empty. Weird to find one adrift like this. There's no wrecks nearby.

It may have been carried along by orbital forces, said Justin, following Stubby down a ladder. I just hope it's not some alien virus they dumped to get rid of.

Like someone infected by the fungus? Stubby said. That'd be a nightmare to set loose on our ship. That stuff loves oxygen.

A terrible, energy-consuming fungus had been drifting in from a neighboring star system and attacking the inhabited moons of Beta Pictoris. This was the reason the humans and Rox were fighting it together, because it threatened them both. Justin had seen pictures of a corpse ravaged by the fungus and he had no wish for a personal encounter.

They entered docking bay nine with caution. The drone had dragged in the pod, secured it in a cargo clamp, then settled itself in its charging station. Justin patted the drone as they floated by. Good boy.

Stubby flew straight to the cryo pod and began inspecting the outside. It resembled a coffin about ten feet long, with machinery in the top and bottom to maintain the freeze and monitor the life signs of the occupant. A single blue light gleamed from the lower panel.

Stubby tapped it. It's still operating, Doc. Something's inside.

A corpse, Justin said. He eyed the pod with growing misgivings. Why had an active cryo pod been floating in space? Where had it come from? It was Rox tech, but beyond that, he had no idea.

He pulled out his medical scanner, which he always carried in an inner pocket, and began a careful inspection of the pod. If there was fungal infection clinging to the silver metal, he would find it. But the pod was surprisingly clean, not even dusty.

Stubby pulled out his own tablet and referenced a Rox language document. He began piecing together the markings on the control panel while Justin hunted for fungus. As Justin finished his scan, Stubby said, I've got the controls figured out. Whoever's in this thing is in a nice deep freeze. I'm going to start thawing them out.

Is that a good idea? said Justin.

Stubby shrugged. We can't sell the pod for salvage with meat in it. Keep your weapons handy, though, just in case.

Justin didn't have any weapons, but didn't feel the need to point this out. Stubby carried two sidearms and a hot cutter, and had probably used all three in the past year. Justin barely had time to hit the firing range every couple of months. So he waited at a safe distance, floating near the wall with his arms folded.

It took a while to thaw the pod and its contents. Justin had time to leave, report to the captain, grab a snack, and suit back up again. By the time he returned, Stubby was fiddling with the controls, cursing under his breath. You ready for this? he said as