Stargazing Underground

By Clover Down

They should have never met.

They have nothing in common.

But when they’re trapped in an underground prison on a no-tech planet together, Verona and Iris bond in ways they could never have imagined.

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Iris Eleusine is a Stargazer. He’s traveled the known universe and experienced just about everything worth experiencing. He should have known better than to take a job from a group of synthetics to go to the only anti-tech planet in the galaxy. He should have known there would be a catch.

The catch was Verona. She’s the quiet killer sent with him. The one that got him arrested and thrown into the worst prison he could imagine—without stars or any promise of release. But that won’t stop him from trying. Iris was born looking at the stars and he isn’t going to die underground, even if that means teaming up with the person who got him locked away in the first place.

Tags: strangers to everything, codependency, prison, survival romance, explicit sex, explicit language, violence, murder, hanging, scars, threat of violence, attempted sexual assault, near death experiences, learning to trust, emphasis on consent

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clover Down
• Release date: Oct 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9789198695380

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

CHAPTER ONE

Alarms sounded over screams and explosions, all echoing up through the air ducts to chase them. He crawled behind her, into the dark and away from everything. When she couldn’t crawl anymore, he dragged her.

His muscles screamed, raw pain warring with the dull agony of exhaustion.

He got them all the way to the end of the narrow duct, farther than they’d ever made it before, where starlight pierced the darkness. He twisted around and kicked until his back hit the cold metal wall. Tipping his head up, Iris stared. Tears gathered against his vision when he saw the sky out that long rectangular shaft. The air was colder, cleaner, and his breath shivered from his lungs with pained longing. Almost there.

Go, Verona whispered. I’ll follow.

She said it but her limbs didn’t move. Her muscles didn’t even flex with the thought of moving.

Her arm was broken. He had seen it clearly before they made their escape. Neither of them had been in any condition for it, but it was their last chance, their last hope—their last move.

If it was just her arm that was broken, he wouldn’t doubt her ability to climb out of there. If anyone could do it, Verona could. But it wasn’t just a broken arm.

Iris gathered her in his lap, her back to his chest so that maybe she would smell the air too. Her blood oozed across his naked abdomen and soaked into his pants.

Leave, she urged, as though he’d said all the things he’d been thinking. I would have left you.

Tears spilled over his lashes and a grim smile tugged at the gashes in his lips. Liar. If you’d left me from the start this wouldn’t have happened. If you’d left me... He choked on the last hour of his life. It was too much. They’d been circling their own deaths for months, clawing to survive, fighting together against everyone else in that pit, but the last hour had been the worst of it all.

Go, she said again, voice thinning, but with the persistent nudge of a friend urging him onto a shuttle to leave home and see the galaxy. Like he was making a big deal out of nothing and would laugh later at how he almost didn’t go. But there wasn’t going to be a later. Not for him and not for them.

It won’t change, she said matter-of-factly, but it made swallowing hard because he knew what she was really saying—after months in that place with her, he knew everything about her. She didn’t use many words, but he heard her now. He heard her in her movements and her stillness, and right now, broken and bleeding out in his arms, she was promising to love him the same even if he left her there to die.

And she meant it. He knew she did. She would think no less of him, and it would not tarnish her understanding of his feelings for her. She would not hurt if he left her now. She would understand.

Iris Eleusine tipped his head back and stared at the sky far above, stars blinking back mercilessly. I can’t. He was so tired. When had he last slept? Last eaten? One hand throbbed, crushed, and one side of his face was swelling up under split flesh. He was filthy, caked in blood, sweat, and worse.

Verona gave a tired grunt. You can make it, she said.

He could make it. He could finally escape and at the very least, die on the ground under the naked sky. He could, but he curled his arms around her. His hands pressed over the gashes in her side, determined to hold her together for as long as possible. I won’t. He was capable of escaping, of crawling out of that place. But who would he be if he did? And what was the point if she wasn’t with him?

CHAPTER TWO

- 4 MONTHS EARLIER -

I am not working with her! Iris Eleusine crossed his arms, hoping the gesture would express his conviction. He fought the urge to jab a finger in the woman’s direction, mildly worried she might cut it off if he did.

Mehdi laughed, swiveling around to face them in his captain’s chair. He turned his back on the stars outside the curved windows of the deck to do so. Mehdi was what Iris would call, aggressively synthetic but only to himself, in his own thoughts, where no one could hear him. Mehdi had probably killed people for less offensive turns of phrase.

Whatever sort of android he had been before the Synthetic Wars, he was his own creation now and left no room for anyone to forget it. His eyes were luminous moons on the black backdrop of his sclera. He lounged in his seat, body long and lean. His form had been designed to look like muscle and draw envy, but a person would have to be a narcissist of the highest order to imagine he was human for even a second. And a second was all they might have before noticing the glowing seams around his dark wrists and up his arms, over his shoulders. Those lines cut through circles of blue light on the right side of his throat and then up his cheek.

Iris had seen what Mehdi could do in that particular skin. Already built tall, those seams could split and expand. He could grow taller than any human could reach without serious modification but still maintain all the perfect synthetic grace and strength as before.

Mehdi grinned, flashing silver-ipped fangs. "You promised me three jobs, Stargazer." Iris had seen Mehdi use those teeth. No one had freed Mehdi in the Wars. Mehdi had freed himself in a body made for pleasing humans, a body made to bruise and bleed for their amusement—so it was poetic that when he shed that skin, he put his soul into bodies made for hurting others.

But the Wars were over and all Mehdi and his little family of synthetics were interested in now were jobs with paydays that could buy them more upgrades. They had their plans and, for whatever reason, they needed a thief. Iris had not questioned it since thieving was his specialty and Mehdi had always done fine by him in the past. But none of that explained the very human assassin in the room with them.

I did the last two jobs myself, Iris began.

No, Mehdi cut in. You did them with June for backup.

Iris fought back the impulse to roll his eyes. He didn’t want to lose one if Mehdi saw. June had done nothing to help on his previous jobs. He’d just waited at the drop ship. Then I’ll take June.

Can’t.

Fine. Send Khan—

The artifact is on Lo-Shen.

Iris snapped his mouth shut.

Mehdi glared. Why do you think I’d drag a couple of biologics this far out of Solar Court space with us?

Iris raised his brows in mock offense. Because I am a great thief and delightful company?

You’re a human, Mehdi said, as though it countered his points indisputably. But I tolerate you because you get results, and your skills save me time and effort. This time you don’t even have to steal it. I just need you to go to that rotting mass of synthphobic trash, pretend to be the broker, and buy the item for my client. And that one, he pointed in Verona’s direction but didn’t take his eyes off of Iris. Is going with you.

Iris glanced at her. She didn’t seem the least bit interested in the conversation. In fact, he wasn’t sure she was even listening. Light rings glinted in her dark eyes, signaling activity in her optic implant. She could be watching, or reading, or doing just about anything. She wore a hoodie and jacket that hid the lean muscle of her narrow body and the scars that littered just about every stretch of skin he had laid eyes on. Was it a point of pride for hired thugs and assassins to keep mementos of violence when it was so easy to heal without scarring? Maybe that deep scar in her chin and the twist at the bridge of her nose were supposed to intimidate him?

Her choppy, brown hair stuck out of the hood on one side, the other hooked behind a mangled ear missing a chunk.

Verona looked like something chewed up and spit out by the galaxy and he wondered, not for the first time, if it was all an aesthetic design. The synthetics had their war skins and this killer had scars that screamed testament to her lack of self-preservation.

Iris had seen her lurking about the ship plenty, but no one had introduced her. Despite being the only two humans on board, they’d never even spoken. He only knew her name because he’d heard June say it.

Was it odd to see a human on the Jackdaw? Extremely.

Was he going to question Mehdi about his business on his ship? No. No, he was not.

But now it had become Iris’s business. Why is she going with me? I don’t even know her. Iris did not work with people he did not know in such dire and unpleasant circumstances. Ideally, he would never even step foot on Lo-Shen. He wasn’t sure any Stargazer ever had before. Stargazers wandered from their communes plenty, but they enjoyed places of beauty or debauchery—not archaic tech on a planet governed by fear.

She’s protection. If anyone asks, just say she’s your guard.

Iris looked at Verona again, raising his eyebrow as if to point out the obvious before turning to Mehdi again. Iris was by no means a large man. He had even been called petite by a burly guy in a bar on a mining settlement once. But he was still taller and broader than his supposed guard.

Mehdi did not seem to understand his lifted brow. He waited for Iris’s acceptance.

She doesn’t exactly look like a guard.

Mehdi grinned and it was so off-putting that Iris almost took a step back. Would you like to test your strength against hers?

Iris frowned. I don’t like this.

I don’t care. Mehdi was still smiling.

You should have told me the job was going to be on Lo-Shen, Iris added, trying to think of a better reason to turn it down. He had agreed to three jobs.

You did not ask, Mehdi reminded.

It’s common curtesy not to surprise anyone with an out-world... Anything inside Solar Court or Eaton Space would have been fair game, but Lo-Shen? No, he had never imagined that the Jackdaws would have business on Lo-Shen.

If you want to break contract, Mehdi began, voice turning to silk when he took to threatening.

Iris shot him a glare. Breaking contract would mean giving up his payment for the first two jobs. If he was dealing with just about anyone else in the galaxy, he could simply steal what he was owed and make a run for it. But no one got away from the Jackdaws and no one stole from Mehdi.

Fine. Last job. And I mean it, this is the last time I do a job for you, Iris said, hand coming up and finger out to point. As soon it did, as soon as the moons in Mehdi’s eyes snapped to the digit pointing in his direction, Iris jerked it back. He balled both hands into fists and straightened. Last one, he said again and turned, marching off the deck and hoping it didn’t look like he was running.

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Verona watched the Stargazer go. He was an odd person.

Bring him back alive, Mehdi said. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Verona didn’t have to look at him to know it. She never looked at him when he might be looking back, but she could hear the edge of a frown in his voice. He played a role for that human, like he did for almost all humans. All but her. There was no reason to perform for her—no reason to frighten or impress. She would do what he told her to do because he owned her.

Mehdi had not been a bad owner even though she was pretty sure he regretted buying her. At the time, more than seven cycles ago, Verona had been worried about what a group of synthetics after the Wars had in store for her. She had been looking for a way to run those first days, suspecting that they meant to punish her for the crimes of others.

Mehdi had certainly bought her as a sort of revenge. At least, that was the best she could figure. He had been owned by humans before the Wars and, on impulse, he’d bought a human to own after. It had been a mistake; one she was certain he regretted. What could she possibly do for them that they could not do better themselves? She mostly ran deliveries and drop-offs. The hardest part of her life with the Jackdaws had been finding food. They didn’t eat organic material and at first hadn’t thought to stock anything. She’d taken to stealing meal bars and drinks every chance she got. The Jackdaws could go long stretches between contact with settlements and other ships, so she made sure to ration out what she found.

At least there was water on the ship with a nozzle in the cargo bay for cleaning. Without that, she probably would have died that first cycle.

Khan had been the one that eventually realized they hadn’t been feeding her. Since then, there had been a vending machine stocked with food in the cargo bay.

They never talked about it though.

She still stole food wherever she could to keep a small stockpile in case they forgot to refill the vending machine. Time didn’t work the same for synthetics. They’d forgotten about her on their ship for nearly a full cycle once. She was lucky they hadn’t shut off life support.

It would be safer if you didn’t send him, Verona pointed out. She had to say it, and in her experience, Mehdi didn’t strike her down for common sense. Mehdi didn’t strike her down