Galactic Search and Rescue: A Scifi Space Opera with Adventure, Romance, and Pets: A Central Galactic Concordance Novella Read online

  Galactic Search and Rescue

  A Central Galactic Concordance Novella

  Carol Van Natta

  Galactic Search and Rescue (A Central Galactic Concordance Novella)

  Copyright © 2021 by Carol Van Natta

  Published by Chavanch Press

  All rights reserved.

  Except for use in any review, this literary work may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic or photographic, in whole or in part, without express written permission of the author. All characters, places, and events in this book are the pure invention of the author; they are fictitious and have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is strictly coincidental.

  Cover design by Amanda Kelsey at Razzle Dazzle Design

  Illustration by Adrian DKC

  Contents

  Also by Carol Van Natta

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Thank you to my brave and honest beta readers and typo hunters; to professional editor Shelley Holloway; talented illustrator Adrian DKC; and talented cover designer Amanda Kelsey.

  * * * * *

  Praise for GALACTIC SEARCH AND RESCUE and the Central Galactic Concordance Series

  “A great science fiction story with plenty of pets as well as a romantic side plot line.”

  ~ Lola Verroen, Lola’s Book Reviews

  "Space opera packed with diverse characters, intricate world-building, and plenty of intrigue."

  ~ Anna Hackett, USA TODAY Bestselling Author of the Hell Squad series

  Also by Carol Van Natta

  Central Galactic Concordance Space Opera Series

  Last Ship Off Polaris-G (Novella)

  Overload Flux (Book 1)

  Minder Rising (Book 2)

  Zero Flux (Novella)

  Pico’s Crush (Book 3)

  Pet Trade (Novella)

  Jumper’s Hope (Book 4)

  Cats of War (Novella)

  Galactic Search and Rescue (Novella)

  Spark Transform (Book 5)

  Central Galactic Concordance Collection Books 1-3

  .

  Paranormal Romance

  Shifter Mate Magic (Ice Age Shifters #1)

  Shift of Destiny (Ice Age Shifters #2)

  Heart of a Dire Wolf (Ice Age Shifters #3)

  Dire Wolf Wanted (Ice Age Shifters #4)

  Shifter’s Storm (Ice Age Shifters #5)

  Ice Age Shifters Collection Books 1-4

  In Graves Below (Magic, NM)

  Retro Science Fiction Comedy

  Hooray for Holopticon

  When an earthquake shakes up a nearby world, can two star-crossed rescuers save an entire community… and each other?

  Experienced rescuer Subcaptain Taz Correa hides her wounded heart. A telekinetic tech-whiz recently transferred to the worst Galactic Search and Rescue unit in the galaxy, she’d hoped after her string of epically bad breakups she’d have a fresh start. But when she can’t fight her feelings for her new teammate, she’s terrified her secret affection will show and cost both their careers.

  Subcaptain Rylando Dalroinn’s telepathic connection to animals used to be everything. But he has no idea how to admit his growing attraction to Taz, especially as it’s completely against the rules. And when they’re sent as a team of two to help a devastated town, he knows he can’t afford to let his heart’s desire distract him from their dangerous mission.

  As Taz works with Rylando and his unusual squad of trained animal helpers to free a desperate group of citizens, she puts her life on the line to protect her partner’s beloved creatures. But when Rylando realizes the people he’s rescuing are more than just innocent victims, he’ll have to throw out the rulebook to save them both.

  Can love—and a clever crew of animals—guide the couple out of the rubble and into a future together?

  Galactic Search and Rescue is a standalone novella in Carol Van Natta’s multi-award-winning Central Galactic Concordance space opera, adventure, and romance series. Its events take place after Jumper’s Hope, but is separate from the main story arc. A shorter version of Galactic Search and Rescue originally appeared in the limited-edition Pets in Space 5 anthology for charity.

  1

  Perlarossa Orbital Space Station • GDAT 3242.333

  Subcaptain Taloszjaril “Taz” Correa stood, hands on her hips, surveying the storeroom. Nothing distinguished it from hundreds of others on the Perlarossa space station, except for Silver Team’s name over its open doorway. And the farkin’ disaster inside.

  Swirling dust tickled her nose, and a burned chemical stench seemed to coat her tongue. She resisted the impulse to wipe the sweat from her face with the hem of what had been her cleanest undershirt. The sticky stains would probably give her a rash.

  The only orderly thing was the room’s exposed structural framework shaped sort of like a giant animal kennel. Precisely spaced holes marched up the verticals that curved upward on all sides. Dangling twists of metal gave mute evidence of the equipment that used to be hanging neatly from hooks. The jumbles of crates and uneven mountains of cables, gantries, chairs, and unidentifiable charred crap looked like the aftermath of a tornado.

  That was what hasty shuttle launches did to carefully maintained storerooms when some asshole carelessly left the room’s blast-proof doors wide open. Leaving her and the rest of Silver Team to clean up the mess.

  Would it kill the universe—just once—to let her get an entire downtime shift’s worth of sleep?

  The sudden grating whine of a badly tuned skimmer engine assaulted her ears for a millisecond until her ear protection implants kicked in. To her right, the four-person, canopied air skimmer took up about a quarter of the room. More, now that it was half buried under a mound of debris.

  In the far left corner, a giant brown-and-tan weasel sank his sharp teeth into the blackened corner of a piece of freight padding. The skimmer’s whine didn’t faze him at all.

  Taz touched the earwire on the side of her face. “Rylando? Is it okay if Lerox bites the burned bits?”

  “Yeah, he’s ace, as long as he doesn’t eat them,” said Subcaptain Rylando Delroinn, in her earwire. “I asked him to investigate the damage. It’s good practice for him to figure out how recently the burn happened.”

  Taz couldn’t help but smile as the fearless beast wrestled with the two-meter-square padding like a puppy with a chewtoy. Technically, Lerox was a pet designer’s idea of what a pre-flight, long-extinct prehistoric weasel called an “ekakeran” might have looked like. That was how the zero-ethics pet-trade industry got around legions of laws against genetically altering cornerstone species like badgers, tayras, or wolverines. Lerox’s shoulders stood just above her knee. When he wasn’t exploring or nibbling everything, he was sliding into a human lap to demand a belly rub. He lived on the other side of the universe from shy and stealthy.

  Taz envied Rylando’s easy camaraderie with all his animals. He trained them in rescue tasks, but his minder talent allowed him to sense their thoughts, guide their actions, and see and hear through their superior sens
es. The unit commander insultingly called them pet-trade rejects, but Taz knew better. They were a working team. Very non-regulation, but better than most of the human teams in their bottom-of-the-barrel Galactic Search and Rescue unit. Central Galactic Concordance Foundation law dictated that the Citizen Protection Service had to operate GSAR, but the law didn't say how well.

  Turning to the corner behind her that had escaped the worst of the tornado, she stepped up into the ship-loader’s skeletal assist frame and connected to its interface. Bands wrapped around her calves, thighs, torso, and arms to secure her in place. The dented and scratched frame looked like cobbled-together bird cages salvaged from a scrap heap, but she’d tinkered with the tech so it operated smoothly and quietly.

  She oriented the holo display as she cataloged the damage. After the cleanup, she planned to check the security vids. If she won the bet with herself that the careless asshole had been Franecki from Red Team, she’d reward herself with an extra thirty minutes of sleep. Lazy Franecki often raided Silver Team’s working supplies. It’d be a cold night in the black void before she’d fix any more of Red Team’s tech.

  Five of the six Galactic Search and Rescue unit’s teams were responding to a mass disaster on Uttara Phalgurni, one of the seven colonized planets their underfunded, understaffed first-responder unit was now assigned to cover. A catastrophic landing accident had torn up half of the only operational spaceport and set the other half on fire. To make matters worse, the disaster trapped thousands of injured people during that planet’s peak travel season. Lucky for the citizens, their planet was only one interstellar transit day away from the GSAR unit’s home station, so they got help fast.

  Meanwhile, she and Rylando had to deal with the disaster at home base. GSAR’s hand-me-down shuttles were held together with bootleg-printed parts and retrofitted salvage. A leaky system drive on one of them had acted like a giant wind-driven flame thrower, setting everything in the launch bay on fire and tumbling into the unprotected storeroom.

  The engine noise stopped. Rylando climbed out of the skimmer’s control pod with the lithe, fluid grace of a swimmer. His GSAR yellow and red uniform complemented his tawny brown skin and short, thick brown hair. If he had any civilian downtime clothes, she’d never seen them.

  “How’s our transpo?” Taz righted a dented and blackened three-hundred-kilo crate that blocked the wide bay doors. With luck, the unknown contents survived the heat.

  “The systems say the controls and engines are green go.” He wiped his hands on his pants. “Good thing our airsled was still on Hatya’s shuttle, or it would have toppled onto the skimmer.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Then if they deployed us, we’d have to borrow glider boards from the local youth.”

  Taz snorted. “Thank the universe the animal autodoc is still in the repair bay. GSAR would never spring for a replacement.”

  One of the two nearly identical cats, probably Deimos, leapt to the skimmer’s flat canopy and sat, supervising humans and animals alike. She and her brother Phobos were as tall and long-legged as Lerox, but lighter and thinner. With Siamese markings, silky fur, and stumpy tails, they had regal grace in abundance. Feline lovers melted when the friendly cats asked to be worshipped… er, petted. They were likely confiscated from a pet-trade dealer or smuggler. She’d deliberately avoided asking Rylando where he got any of his team. She didn’t want to force him to lie to her.

  With the assist frame taking care of the mass, lifting and carrying the heavy crate out of the storage room was a matter of angle and balance. And making sure no four-legged team members were in her path. Shen, the tan brindle-coated shepherd-retriever mix with energy to burn, sometimes believed humans needed, well, shepherding.

  The two-story launch bay was an even worse disaster area than the storeroom. Everything that hadn’t been fastened down looked like it tried to climb the back wall to get away from the heat. It reeked of burned chemicals. Good thing she’d eaten hours ago, or her stomach would be twisting itself in knots.

  Unfortunately, since Silver Team was currently undeployable with only two rescuers and one assigned pilot, they’d likely get tasked with cleaning up the launch bay, too.

  Taz made a command decision to start a new stack in front of the neighboring unmarked storage bay. She used her telekinetic talent to brush aside a couple of badly bent equipment stands before easing the crate down.

  That talent was why she’d been moved from a regular military mech-maintenance unit to the Citizen Protection Service sixteen years ago. A handy talent in rescue situations, and in cleaning up messes. Not so handy when former military colleagues had learned she was a minder. They’d instantly treated her like she was a secret jack-crew spy who’d stolen the squad’s party slush fund.

  It hadn’t mattered that she hadn’t known about her talent either. None of the mandatory tests she’d been given when growing up or joining the military had even hinted that she might be a minder. No family history, either. Or none that they’d admit. They’d been horrified when she told them and quickly disavowed her existence.

  Saving herself and two teammates from a runaway grav sled earned her an iridium-star commendation and pay bonus, followed by an immediate one-way transfer to the Citizen Protection Service’s Minder Corps. Still military, but with many more mission areas and very different rules.

  Her regular military experience with big equipment and her new talent made her a suitable candidate for the CPS’s Galactic Search and Rescue division. She’d jumped at the chance. Helping people was why she’d joined the military in the first place.

  At least the CPS valued her minder talent and taught her to use it. Of course, they’d also insisted she needed addictive enhancement drugs to make it reliable. That, she soon discovered, was the same story they gave all minders in the telepathic and telekinetic categories. The higher the level of talent, the more powerful the drugs they needed. She wasn’t the only transferee who’d quickly decided that was a mech-load of manure.

  To start with, drugs weren’t required for everyone in the Minder Corps, just the so-called heavy talents like telepathy and telekinesis. Filers with perfect memories, and forecasters who could spot patterns in a sea of data and predict the future, were exempt. So were animal-affinity minders like Rylando.

  He’d said he’d known he was a minder before the first round of testing at age twelve, so it hadn’t been a shock. By joining the CPS GSAR division right after his age-seventeen test, he’d gotten nova-class veterinary-medic training for free and a well-paying career working with animals. On the other hand, he’d had to put up with people calling him subhuman and worse all his life. That had to have tanked.

  Stop thinking about the sexy man you can’t have, she told herself, and get back to work.

  After she cleared three more heavy crates, she filled a flat cart with smaller items. Rylando helped, and so did the two dogs. Energetic Shen identified candidates for the pile, and Moyo, the larger and stronger dog, helped pull and carry them.

  Moyo wasn’t like any other hellhound Taz had ever met. The pet trade originally created them as terrifying fantasy-style guard dogs for the wealthy. The military liked them so well they confiscated the patent and bred them to seek, track, and kill.

  As to Moyo, while most hellhounds were star-void black, she looked like she’d been in a glow-paint fight. Plus, she loved everyone, two- or four-footed. Rylando said it made her too trusting. He kept her away from the other teams and their working dogs. She suspected there’d been trouble in the past.

  That wariness extended to Taz. Which kind of hurt, if she was honest. Granted, she was the noob, with only one hundred fifty-two days in the unit. He’d only recently begun letting her look after some of his animals while he was away. Maybe in time, he’d realize she would never, ever hurt an animal or take advantage of Moyo’s good nature. If she stayed long enough to prove it to him.

  With a flurry of wings, a small but very long-legged brown owl landed on the left shoulder of her assist frame.
She froze in mid-lift so as not to frighten the bird. “Hello, Mariposa.”

  The owl ignored her in favor of staring intently at the far corner of the storeroom, beyond where Lerox had been wrestling with the padding.

  She followed its gaze. “Rylando, did you put the insect habitat in the far-left cabinet like usual?”

  The cabinet’s doors had gone missing, and the contents of the shelves were heaped in front of it.

  He turned to look. “Frelling hell.” Exasperation sharpened his tone. “That’s two weeks’ worth of treats scurrying their way into everything.”

  Insects were a vital part of successful terraforming throughout the galaxy. They were also unstoppable stowaways in the human diaspora, even on military space stations. However, GSAR Unit Leader Bhayrip would use it as a new excuse to again pressure Rylando to decommission the non-standard animals that dined on insects. It irked the captain that CPS regulations protected animal-affinity minders from being ordered to get rid of their animals without extraordinary cause.

  “Could Lerox help Mariposa find them?” She pointed to the big weasel, who was now trying to get his mouth around the arm of a fallen chair.

  Rylando laughed. “I’ll admit that Lerox will eat practically anything, alive or dead, but he draws the line at beetles and grasshoppers. Once we’re done here, I’ll lower the lights and see if Otak will help.”

  Otak was another non-standard rescue animal. According to Rylando, the giant pouched rat was a genius. Humans had bred thousands of generations of them to detect scents in the nano-parts-per-billion range. Each family line specialized in one particular scent, such as explosives or plant pests. Frontier planet settlers swore they were more reliable than the most sophisticated detection tech. And a lot cheaper, too, considering the outrageous markups that settlement companies charged for everything.