Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7

  Lost Valyr

  Project Enterprise 7

  Pauline Baird Jones

  About Lost Valyr

  She’s a scientist in the wrong galaxy. He’s an alien in the wrong century. Can their love reset a terrifying future?

  * * *

  Dr. Rachel Grant knows her way around the Garradian tech on the Kikk Outpost. But the technology she encounters in an alien medical lab stumps even her brilliant mind. With a little help from her scheming parrot sidekick, she manages to push the right buttons and transport them to an uncharted planet…where they find a recently defrosted alien, who heats up Rachel.

  * * *

  Valyr wasn’t going to warm up to the bright-eyed scientist anytime soon…not after she pried centuries of cryosleep from his cold fingers. But waking up in the wrong century is nothing compared to the robots targeting his still-frozen team. And their situation only gets worse when he discovers the spiderweb of destruction trailing in the robots’ wake. With their backs against the wall, Valyr is blown away by Rachel’s determined passion in the face of impossible odds… but they’ll need more than a chemical reaction to survive what is headed their way.

  * * *

  Lost Valyr is the seventh standalone book in the explosive Project Enterprise sci-fi romance series. If you like heart-pounding chemistry, ragtag bands of misfits, and action-packed space battles, then you’ll love Pauline Baird Jones’ rollicking romance.

  * * *

  Buy Lost Valyr to defrost a fast-paced interstellar love story today!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Also by Pauline Baird Jones

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Dr. Rachel Grant, carrying her breakfast tray towards a cluster of stone tables and benches, paused to look around. It had been raining the past few days, but the sun was back—even if it was shining from the “wrong” direction. She’d been here a couple of months now, but sometimes the alienness, the subtle dissonance still caught her off guard. She lifted her attention to the ghostly green shadow that was the planet of Kikk and off to its right the blue rim of the Kikk’s other moon, both looming too close for comfort. Ahead of her, the appearance of this moon was something like a venerable Ivy college. Stone buildings, tall trees, grassy spaces cut by patterned walkways.

  By mid-day, it would be modestly teeming with Project Enterprise personnel, but this early she was particularly aware of the silence. For whatever reason, this technology protected island on Kikk’s second moon had no birds or other wildlife. There were insects, but they tended to be nocturnal, and when they were active, their hum was slightly off-pitch.

  And if she looked too close at the green things, she could see they were “wrong” as well. Earth had so much variety, it had been something of a shock to realize that such other variation was possible. The colors, the shape of trunk and leaves and petals, the exotic scent of the green things drifting lazily on the breeze, all were constant reminders she walked in alien space. It was a bit ironic that the Doolittle or the Patton felt more like home than being dirt side here.

  Rachel knew that humans had a great capacity to adjust, that she was adapting. She’d been here long enough to recognize the various scents and sights, to know which were soil and plant and which came from the trees reacting to the change in temperature after the chilly night. The sun, she could admit, still bothered her. Or rather, the way it entered the atmosphere. The refraction of its light, messed with her head. As far as she knew, she was one of very few bothered by this, but that might be because they lumped it all together into “this feels weird.”

  It required a certain level of mental…toughness…to be here, to stay here. Rachel was still not sure she had it, though leaving Earth had not been as hard for her as it had been for some. While she didn’t call it an escape, there had been a falling away, a sense of leaving memories stored with the belongings she couldn’t bring with her.

  She gave a slight sigh, and a small shake, and resumed her progress. Because, of course, memories couldn’t be left behind. They did not sit easily on shelves and liked to appear in moments of vulnerability to trip one up. So she stepped carefully between the tables, then set her breakfast tray on the stone table. Before sitting, she shifted the fruit and seed crackers onto a napkin for Sir Rupert. She added the cup of water she’d filled for him, slipped off her backpack, then took her seat on the bench next to him, the chill from the stone penetrating her official Project Enterprise trousers.

  The parrot fluttered his wings, gave her a croaked “thank you,” then hopped up onto the table top to attend to his food.

  Rachel considered him for a few seconds pondering—not for the first time—the advantages of beaks and claws for eating, which somehow always led to her wondering how she’d ended up working with a sentient parrot or Psitticoid. He wasn’t from Earth. He just looked like an Earth parrot except in the subtle ways that he didn’t.

  This was not what she’d signed up for.

  Oh, she knew that traveling to a distant galaxy would involve alien contact, or at least observations of other people having alien contact. Her designated job description, however, was not about first or second contact, and she’d liked it that way. Life—and her IQ—had left her conflicted in her interactions with others, something she’d had to deal with on a journey through space on a large, but tightly packed, ship. She felt she was dealing, and then—hands down—the scariest person on Kikk had focused her killer gaze on Rachel.

  She’d seriously almost wet her pants. Worse, she had a feeling that Doctor Clementyne knew it, knew Rachel’s reaction right down to the increase in pulse rate. Her gaze had been a dispassionate drill that left Rachel feeling as if Doc knew more about her than she did. And now that she knew Doc better? Yeah, she probably did know more about Rachel than Rachel did.

  So, when someone like Doc asked her to take a parrot under her wing—ironic word choice?—she’d just blinked and nodded. And asked no questions. Not that there were a lot of people to ask about the parrot. Most of the outpost’s occupants thought he was a pet though Doc had called him visiting dignitary and her brother Robert had referred to him as an ambassador.

  It was curious that both the Doc and the parrot believed that Rachel’s efforts to locate cryo-research would, at some point, overlap with what Sir Rupert needed. At the time, she’d nodded as if she understood—since her throat had closed with fear from the certainty that Doc could kill her with a look if she wanted to.

  How hard, she’d thought, would it be to work with a parrot?

  Well, that part turned out to not be hard at all. That a parrot reminded her of her dad was strange, since her dad had been an auto mechanic and not even slightly parrot-like. No, the hard part for Rachel was the side effects of helping Sir Rupert. Somehow or other, she’d found herself on the fringe of his circle of human friends—a circle which included the very scary Doc. She had mentally dubbed them the spooky love bunch because, in addition to being varying levels of scary, the couples in that bunch were so in love it was like being in a Hallmark movie.

/>   She might have some Hallmark movies in her personal items and enjoyed watching them, but she did not want to be in one, particularly as the dysfunctional friend character. As near as she could tell, the only thing she had in common with any of them was the parrot, which kind of made her eye twitch when she thought about it. So she tried not to.

  This morning, after a period of rain and clouds that had rendered the outpost slightly less alien by draping it in murk, the sun was back. However, most of the scary love bunch were not. Usually, they beat her to breakfast if they were around. They weren’t the only ones missing from the usual early morning breakfast bunch.

  There had been some kind of alert earlier. She wasn’t supposed to know about it, but she didn’t like surprises, so she’d set up her own early warning system. Since she couldn’t get back to sleep, she’d poked around the data as much as she dared, but the information lockdown was unusually tight.

  Her foot nudged her backpack as she shifted on the hard seat. She had things in her quarters, but she kept the important stuff in her backpack, which was always with her. This was an outpost in another galaxy that had come under attack at least once that she knew about. She didn’t want to have to stop and think if things went south—or its other galaxy directional equivalent.

  She figured those of Sir Rupert’s spooky peeps who weren’t involved in the alert analysis process would appear and she was correct. It did surprise her to see Doc Clementyne in the food line behind her sister-in-law, the steampunk inclined Emily. Watching them now, it was a bit like a Disney princess hanging with the Terminator, no that wasn’t right. Yeah, the Doc could totally be the Terminator, but Emily wasn’t a fluffy princess.

  From her booted feet to the ragged jeans and leather corset, and at the top, her multi-colored hair, she occupied her space with an obliviousness that Rachel might have envied a little. It’s not that Emily didn’t care about people. She did, but she didn’t care what they thought of her. Today, thanks to a long white inventor’s coat, Emily looked like a mad scientist, the kind who helped the heroes, not the bad guys.

  Colonel Carey and his wife Olivia were among the missing. It was possible the very romantic pair had “overslept,” but Carey was the CAG—commander to the Doolittle’s air group. Rachel might not know the details of the alert, but this was outer space. Most alerts originated “out there.”

  Rachel noted that Doc’s husband Helfron Giddioni was also missing this morning, another clue that the alert was space-based. He was the lead Gadi representative on the outpost, so of course, if there were an official huddle happening, he’d be in it. The only puzzle was why Doc wasn’t there, too, but—maybe she didn’t have to be in the huddle to be in the know. She was that scary.

  Sergeant Major Briggs, the dude in charge of all things flying craft related, was MIA and so was his significant other, Madison. Rachel had played an uncredited part—thank goodness since it had pissed him off—in getting Briggs some downtime to recuperate from an injury that had become infected. He’d cut the vacation short for reasons she wasn’t told. She did wonder how Briggs had managed to find a date on a top-secret outpost in another galaxy while recuperating on a secluded beach on the other side of the island. And somehow also got permission for Madison—and her parrot—to stay.

  Because that was the one thing Rachel knew without being told. Madison and the parrot were a team. She’d spent a good part of her life people watching, and even if this team was only half people, the pair still gave off team vibes. It was interesting that it was Robert Clementyne who had officially sponsored Sir Rupert—or had brought the pet here, depending on who you asked.

  Rachel had a feeling that all of the spooky love bunch had stories to tell and Rachel loved a good story, particularly one with a romance, but if the stories were there in the outpost’s databases, they were buried deeper than Rachel could go. And that was saying something because Rachel knew how to make computers give up their secrets.

  The spooky love bunch was mystery-squared, and romance Pi-ed. Rachel couldn’t decide if it was kind of cute that they were all so drippingly in love, or if it made her want to throw up. She might be jealous of their happiness. Okay, not might. She was jealous, but she could be grown up about it. Particularly around Doc who might be able to read minds. At times, while trying to navigate the human minefield that was the spooky love bunch, Rachel considered asking them to reassign Sir Rupert, but how did one break up with a parrot who was a favorite of some of the most dangerous people on the outpost? So yeah, breaking up didn’t seem like it was a good option.

  And she would miss him. There, she’d admitted it. And there were benefits from hanging with the parrot. The big one—and also a weird one—he knew things about this outpost and the people who’d lived here. It made them a good team since he needed her opposable thumbs to manipulate the consoles. The beak and claws did have their downside.

  “Are you feeling well today, Dr. Frank?” Sir Rupert asked, looking up from his breakfast.

  It was…interesting…how piercing a bird’s gaze could be. “Nice to see the sun after all the rain.”

  Even if it was an alien sun. His beady gaze stayed fixed on her face.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” She was or would be when she was out of reach of Doc’s killer gaze. They were alone for the moment, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Doc and Emily heading their way. “How are you?”

  She was the Queen of Deflection.

  “I am well,” he said.

  Was there a hint of amusement in his voice? It was hard to tell with that croaking undertone.

  “I have been considering what take we might try next,” he went on.

  They’d given up pretending that Rachel was lead on their research after the first week working together.

  “There is a smaller, secondary transport access.”

  Rachel straightened a bit. It was true they’d found a lot of information, but not much that was related to Rachel’s primary interest or, apparently, the bird. “Really?”

  “I had…forgotten about it but remembered last night. It can be accessed through a small office, or security station, at the back of the main level in the hospital facility’s main floor. Where you hold the clinics in the afternoons.”

  Rachel mentally scanned that area. There was a small office back there. She’d thought about using it for her office but had decided it was too accessible to other team members. She liked to be out of sight and out of mind when she was working—except when she took her turn at clinic, of course. Okay, even then, but it wasn’t possible.

  Rachel wanted to jump up and check it out right then, but it looked too much like running as Doc and Emily came up to their table. Because she felt like a deer in the headlights didn’t mean she needed to act like it.

  They set down their trays and sat on the bench opposite Rachel and dug in while Rachel discreetly studied the new arrivals, wishing she could ask. Most answers to questions were super classified. And sometimes the questions were, too. Even asking where the ladies was could get you in trouble if you asked it in the wrong place. She caught Doc giving her the stink eye and considered making a trip to the unclassified ladies right now.

  As usual, it was Emily who broke the silence. “That’s a bold move, Rach.”

  She was also the only person in the universe who shortened Rachel’s name or used her first name.

  Rachel thought about pretending she understood but had a feeling it was too late for that. She’d already blinked twice. Dead giveaway. “Excuse me?”

  “Your shirt. You got a death wish?”

  She grinned, and Rachel had to grin back.

  “Who brings a red shirt to another galaxy?” Doc asked, her face warming with real amusement.

  Wow. It was almost worth the red shirt to see that.

  “Not my brightest moment,” Rachel admitted. So this was what it felt like to be inside their circle.

  “I wear red always,” Sir Rupert pointed out.

  “An
d how is that working for you?” Doc asked, giving him an “insider knowledge” look.

  “I am not dead,” he said, waving a claw at her in a vaguely minatory way.

  Oddly, the discussion devolved into a whether one had to don a red shirt to become a target. Rachel was still grinning when Sir Rupert signaled he had had enough.

  “Are you ready, Dr. Frank?”

  “Yes, of course.” It was the first time that wasn’t entirely true. But she was always ready to help out the resident parrot dignitary, which she hoped Doc noticed. And she was eager to check out that secondary access. She gathered up the breakfast debris, loaded it on the tray and handed it off, then collected her backpack and her bird. Her parting words were less stiff than usual. Neither of them had anything to say until they were crossing the square and isolated from being overheard.

  “They have detected a series of ghost contacts in Victor Quadrant,” he said as if she’d asked.

  “Really?” She mentally flipped through the outpost star charts. “That’s former Dusan territory, isn’t it?”

  “So I have heard,” the parrot agreed.

  It felt like that the location mattered, though she was not sure why. Pirates of various types had started slipping in from that direction since someone had realized the Dusan were gone and spread the word.

  “Ghost contacts?” She frowned. Would have been interesting to see that. Too bad she was out of the loop.

  “The contacts are more like echoes, shadows, making it difficult to identify. But there does seem to be a pattern to the sightings.”