gaian consortium 03 - the gaia gambit

• Copyright
  
• 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
  
• If You Enjoyed This Book…
  
• Also by Christine Pope
  
• About the Author
  

THE GAIA GAMBIT

A NOVEL OF THE GAIAN CONSORTIUM

CHRISTINE POPE

DARK VALENTINE PRESS    

CONTENTS

Copyright

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

If You Enjoyed This Book…

Also by Christine Pope

About the Author

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE GAIA GAMBIT

Copyright © 2013 by Christine Pope

Published by Dark Valentine Press

Cover design and ebook formatting by
Indie Author Services

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Dark Valentine Press.

Please contact the author through the form on her website at
www.christinepope.com
if you experience any formatting or readability issues with this book.

Created with
Vellum

CHAPTER ONE

“Have you ever had a human woman, Captain?”

Rast sen Drenthan turned toward his commanding officer and tried not to frown. “No, Excellency.”

What might have been a smile twisted the edges of Admiral sen Trannick’s scarred mouth. “You should. They’re delicious.”

Rast didn’t reply at first, but instead glanced past the admiral’s bulky shoulder at the pale yellow sun of the Chlorae system. Three planets, but only one mattered. Chlorae II, site of the richest deposits of millenite yet discovered. Millenite, vital for the subspace propulsion systems of starships the galaxy over, whether Gaian, Stacian, or Eridani.

Too bad the Gaians had been the first to find it.

Odd that sen Trannick would mention human women, considering it was one particular specimen who had been a pebble in his boot for some time now. Captain Lira Jannholm, commander of the
Valiant
. Officially, the cruiser was listed as being assigned to the Gaian Exploration Commission, and not the Defense Fleet, but Rast knew better. The cruiser had settled in almost as soon as the initial GEC team reported its findings to the government back on Gaia. The
Valiant
’s stated mission was to provide support personnel to the scientific team, but all the parties involved knew it was really there to make sure that no interlopers attempted to interfere with the Gaians’ claim.

“Perhaps on my next leave,” Rast told the older man, his tone deliberately casual. It wouldn’t do to offend the admiral, but Rast wondered exactly what his commanding officer had intended by asking such a personal question.

“Perhaps sooner,” sen Trannick replied, and this time there was no mistaking the smile that lifted his distorted lips. Those scars had been earned during the siege of Arlinais, when he had stayed to pilot his own ship through the maelstrom and take out the Gaian flagship, thus banishing the troublesome humans from that sector once and for all.

Rast did not answer, but a prickle of unease began to work its way from under the heavy
trinials
of knotted hair that fell down his back. As suited a captain, the dreadlocks were banded in copper and gold, and suddenly felt heavier than he could ever recall.

“This Captain Jannholm,” the Admiral went on. “What do you know of her?”

Probably far less than you
, Rast thought, but he only said carefully, “She is young for her rank, but tenacious. She knows we are bound by the treaty, and so maintains her patrols but refrains from engaging our forces. Her orders are strict, I imagine.”

“They are.”

“I beg your indulgence, Admiral, but I’m not sure what you expect from me in this situation. Any attack on the
Valiant
would surely lead to retaliation, both by the Gaian Defense Fleet and the Council’s security forces.”

The admiral’s grin widened. “Not an attack, sen Drenthan — a wager.”

Stacians were notorious the galaxy over for their love of a wager, and the admiral was a particularly ferocious gambler. Rast had never quite understood his people’s predilection for finding a reason to gamble on everything from the number of chicks in a
cheris
’ clutch to the number of days in a woman’s pregnancy, but he knew better than to reveal such an un-Stacian attitude. No, he had limited himself to the sorts of harmless wagers that kept him in the game but could cause no real trouble. He had the feeling, however, that what the admiral was about to propose was far from harmless.

“Are we wagering on what it would take to get the good captain to abandon her defense of the millenite?”

“Oh, I know better than to bet on that. She is, as you say, tenacious. But I also know you’re an ambitious one — and no harm in that. You would do very well in command of a system fleet, and not stuck out here in the hinterlands playing
treltha
and
minsk
with the Gaians.” The smile returned, even as sen Trannick continued, “Offer to withdraw if Captain Jannholm will spend one night with you.”

Had the admiral gone mad? It might have been easier if he had, but Rast saw no signs of madness, only a canny gleam in the other man’s copper-colored eyes that seemed to indicate he knew exactly what his subordinate thought of such an outlandish wager.

“Excellency, whatever we might think of the Gaians, Lira Jannholm is the captain of a starship, not some harlot in an Iradian brothel. Surely — ”

“Are you saying you will not do it?”

The edge in the admiral’s voice was obvious, and Rast quickly backpedaled. “No, Excellency, of course not. But — ’’

“Best not to keep Captain Jannholm waiting, sen Drenthan.”

As there was clearly no more to be said, Rast bowed from the waist and then exited the admiral’s chamber, cursing his luck in being given this post in the first place, cursing his commanding officer’s ruling vice, and cursing Captain Jannholm most of all — for if she had been some grizzled veteran, the admiral would never have cooked up this unlikely scheme.

“Message coming in for you, Captain,” said Lieutenant Ramirez from the communications console. His brows drew together. “It’s — it’s from the captain of the Stacian ship.”

Lira Jannholm swiveled in her chair so she could see the comm officer more clearly. “Come again, Lieutenant?”

“Captain sen Drenthan.” Ramirez’s shoulders lifted slightly. “He’s requesting a private channel.”

Stranger and stranger. The Stacians didn’t normally approach their Gaian adversaries with polite requests for private communications. No, generally, they were more inclined to take what potshots they could, if they thought the Eridanis and the Zhore and the other senior members of the Council weren’t paying attention. After all, those small attacks never caused any real damage, although they did tend to make the Gaians more on edge than ever…which was the whole point of the exercise. Still, Lira knew she couldn’t ignore such a request.

“Patch it through to my ready room,” she said, and rose from the conn.

The
Valiant
was certainly not the grandest member of the fleet, and so her ready room was a small chamber barely three meters square. But at least in there she could have a modicum of privacy.

She pushed the button on the comm console, and the image of a Stacian officer flickered into existence in the space above the desktop. As she had never actually met a Stacian in person, she didn’t have much experience trying to differentiate between them. This Captain sen Drenthan seemed a typical enough representative of the species — golden-skinned, eyes dark copper, the masses of his coarse dark hair twisted into ropes that fell down his back. Humanoid, yes, but taller and bulkier than most Gaians, with bony ridges along his cheekbones and brow.