Rebel's Quest

On a world torn by war, two women discover a love that defies boundaries, challenges allegiances, and that just might mean the survival—or destruction—of all they hold dear.

Roshan O’Landha, a Gantharian resistance fighter, works hard to maintain her cover as a wealthy businesswoman as war on occupied Gantharat seems imminent.

When the Onotharian forces strike an overwhelming blow to the resistance, Roshan sends a plea for help to Kellen O’Dal, Protector of the Realm. In the meantime, Roshan is forced to work closely with Andreia M’Aldovar, a woman she once cared for who now holds a pivotal position in the Onotharian interim government. Andreia also guards a secret, one that if known could cost her life at the hands of either the Onotharians or the resistance. As the two women struggle to prevent annihilation, Roshan is given the only order she may not be able to obey, not even to save Gantharat—assassinate Andreia M’Aldovar.

Book 2 in The Supreme Constellation Series

Rebel's Quest

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Course of Action

Coffee Sonata

Sheridan’s Fate

September Canvas

Fierce Overture

The Supreme Constellations Series:

Protector of the Realm

Rebel’s Quest

Warrior’s Valor

Rebel's Quest

Supreme Constellations Book Two

© 2007 By Gun Brooke. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-382-2

This Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, New York 12185

First Edition: February 2007

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

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Shelley Thrasher and J. Barre Greystone

Production Design: J. Barre Greystone

Cover Image: Tobias Brenner (http://www.tobiasbrenner.de/)

Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

I had the help of my great beta reading team, to begin with: Pol, USA, helped me understand the concept of war and supplied tactical advice. Lisa, Sweden, gave me lots of eyeopening comments and contributed to the logical outcome of my plotline. Georgi, Scotland, commented and helped with language and character development. Ruth, Scotland, grammar, style, logical gaps—she found most of them! Jay, Canada, read and commented on plotline and character development. Sami, South Africa, also read and commented on plotline and characterization.

Of course, there are more people who helped, cared, and showed their pride in my efforts; Mom, Lotta, Elon, Malin, Henrik, and one individual who also did his best to prevent me from focusing and physically got between me and the laptop – Jarmo the Wonder-Dog!

Radclyffe, my publisher, who believes in me and continues to take a chance on a Swedish writer. Dr. Shelley Thrasher, my editor and friend, who makes the editing process fun and educational. You are the best! Tobias Brenner, artist, and Sheri, graphic artist – your work is amazing and you make the cover look so great. J. Barre Greystone, copy editor, thank you for the Argus eyes and hard work. Connie Ward, publicist, always enthusiastic and ready to help. Lori A, who creates the BSB newsletters and the “baseball cards” of the books for promotion – you’re a wiz! All the people associated with BSB, who work tirelessly at promoting and reviewing the books, and also, my readers, without whom I’d work in a vacuum. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to each and every one of you.

To all those who selflessly serve, protect, and fight for the protection and safe-keeping of others. To my family and friends that inspire me and help me persevere— nobody ever accomplishes anything in their life alone.

Sand blasted Roshan O’Landha’s face and crept into every crevice, every wrinkle. Squeezing her eyes closed behind her night-vision visor, she tried to soothe the stabbing pain the bright light from an unexpected explosion caused. It reverberated throughout the chain of mountains around her, booming until her ears rang.

“Get down and stay down!” Roshan yelled into her communicator and prayed her team was all right. She pressed a different button with her thumb, using her call sign. “Paladin to base camp. What’s your status?”

Jubinor’s unmistakable voice, intermixed with loud coughing, emerged through the static. “We’ve got fighters down and I’m missing one, Paladin. Trying to get an update now.”

“I copy. Standing by.” Roshan tore off her visor and moved behind a pile of debris as she squinted through the whirling sand. She wheezed, then tried to clear her throat when she inhaled fine dust.

Suddenly she heard an all-too-familiar sound and rapidly flipped a switch on her communicator. Her voice insistent, she manually overrode any conversations going on at the moment. “All frequencies! We’ve got incoming! Take cover!”

Roshan jerked her chin strap tighter and rolled to her right into a shallow trench she knew should be there. She landed with a thud in the apparently not-so-shallow ditch, and the air gushed from her lungs on impact. Roshan was on her back and couldn’t take her eyes off the missiles as they approached, deceptively looking like pretty falling stars.

“Damn it!” she whispered as she watched the missiles rain on their positions. She tore at her radio and switched to another channel. “Paladin to base camp. We need ARA now! What the hell are you people doing back there?”

“This is base, Paladin. Counterfire has commenced.” The young man responsible for the Automatic Response Artillery sounded urgent. “They fired missiles from Ganath, undetectable by sensors. We had no way of knowing where to—”

“Well, they’re here now, so—” The ground shook and tossed the communicator from Roshan’s hand. She clawed through the whirling debris for it but couldn’t find it. Trying to open her eyes, she quickly closed them again when the sand battered them.

Explosions, on the ground and above her, hurt her eardrums. Roshan rolled into a position that provided better protection and covered her body as she let the shielding vest take most of the onslaught of debris. As the trash and the continued explosions pounded at her, all she could think about were the other members of her team. They were trapped at coordinates due south of hers, which meant they were farther away from this barrage of missiles and plasma-nodes now blasting into the ground.

They have to be all right. There’s no other option.
Roshan repeated her mantra continuously. Debris hit her helmet with a nauseatingly cracking sound, and she moved her neck carefully, relieved to find that the noise hadn’t come from any broken vertebrae.

As another missile hit nearby, the ground shook, and Roshan felt the heat as a ball of fire expanded from the plasma charge. “Damn Onotharians! Damn them all!” The hatred in her voice didn’t scare her. She had lived with this hate for so long, nourished it until it had become second nature, as it had for so many of her generation. It was better to fight back than to surrender.
Giving them hell is what we live for.
Payback.

Finally Roshan managed to pull her visor down to cover part of her face. She was tired. Twelve days in the field on emergency rations and recycled fluids, combined with sporadic fighting, had taken their toll. Roshan rose onto her knees and scanned the area. She couldn’t use the infrared as long as explosions filled the sky, since it could blind her permanently. Dragging herself forward she felt with her hands to make sure she was following the trench. The luminescent compass strapped to her left arm above her chronometer wasn’t working because of the charges’ magnetism.

Roshan thought she heard something through the noise and stopped crawling. Pulling out a scanner, she set it to monitor her closest surroundings but found no sign of life. She paused and her blood ran cold. No sign of life? As far as she could determine, two of her team members should be within reach. At least her most junior team member, whom she always made sure stayed close during missions.

Roshan huddled over the scanner cradled in her lap as she rebooted it. When it went online again, it showed the same. No life signs. She wanted to toss the offending piece of technology as far as she could, but she forced herself to pocket it and resumed crawling due south.

A zinging sound from the night sky made her look up involuntarily and spot a distinct light traveling at an unimaginable speed. Not sure what kind of weapon this was, Roshan again threw herself headlong into the ditch. “
H’rea deasav’h
!” She didn’t even have time to warn anyone over the comm link.

Deep, resonant thunder permeated the ground and air and rumbled toward her.
Twelve days in hell. Twenty-five years of my life. For this.
Roshan closed her eyes and grew more certain she might not survive.
A trap. A damn ambush instead of the breakthrough we expected.
Roshan braced herself for the impact of the detonation.
What’s left, anyway? I’ve lost so many. Parents, friends, comrades…and, all those years ago, her.
A short moment before the shock wave hit, everything went white and erased the image of beautiful amber eyes. After that, all she knew was complete darkness.

“I’m not using that thing.” Roshan scoffed at the thin metal cane in Doc’s hand. “Isn’t it enough that my unexplained three-week absence will raise a bunch of questions? If my Onotharian contacts see me with a cane, after their successful ambush against the resistance, they’re bound to be suspicious.”

“But your ankle hasn’t quite healed,” Doc objected. “If you’re not careful, you may walk with a permanent limp.”

Roshan gestured impatiently toward her friend and comrade-in-arms. “Doc, listen to me. I have to get back to the capital. I can’t limp, and I certainly can’t use a cane. I have to appear as if I’ve just come back to Ganath from the Desamea asteroid belt. The Onotharians know I have my stockpile up there. My foreman created a disaster that needed my personal attention before the mission…and for all he knows I may have been captured, or worse.”