Between Venus & Mars (The Soul Mate Tree Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  BETWEEN VENUS & MARS

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Table of Contents

  BETWEEN VENUS & MARS

  Acknowledgements

  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

  BETWEEN VENUS & MARS

  The Soul Mate Tree

  S.C. MITCHELL

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  BETWEEN VENUS & MARS

  Copyright©2017

  S.C. MITCHELL

  Cover Design by Wren Taylor

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-68291-296-6

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of my editors Cheryl Yeko and Char Chaffin, and my wonderful critique partner Helen Johannes.

  THE LEGEND OF THE SOUL MATE TREE

  I am old, I am ancient,

  my purpose is clear

  To give those who are needy

  a treasure so dear.

  They who come to my roots,

  touch my bark, stroke my leaves

  Find the soul of their lives

  if they but believe.

  When I call and you listen,

  your prize will be great

  If your heart remains open

  and you don’t hesitate.

  Do you yearn? Be you lonely?

  Is your time yet at hand?

  Reach for me and I’ll give to you.

  I’m yours to command.

  For your trust, for your faith,

  keep my secrets untold

  And I’ll gift you forever,

  to have and to hold.

  Chapter 1

  Zana Starchild banked the rickety TRS-90 quinjet, as a photon torpedo detonated off her port thruster. The explosion rocked the tiny starship, and it was all she could do to hang on.

  “Okay, maybe I should have used the fuckin’ seatbelt.”

  The instrument panel lit up with bright red whatcha-ma-doogers, flashing like the ancient neon sign hanging in front of Paddington’s Pastry Shop.

  She grunted. “That’s probably bad.”

  It would have been really nice to have someone with her who actually knew how to fly this junk-heap, or could at least tell her what the hell those flashing things meant.

  It was kind of hard to check the instruction manual while these shitheads were firing phase cannons and photon torpedoes up her ass.

  Not that she actually had an instruction manual.

  “Shit.”

  Just her luck to find deep-space pirates waiting at this jump point.

  Bastards.

  And these had to be the dumbest pirates in the entire galaxy. Sure, it was a convenient place to surprise travelers, but this jump point didn’t go anywhere anyone wanted to be.

  Well, except her, and that was completely irrelevant to her argument. Even she didn’t really want to go to Old Earth. She just had to.

  A command crackled through the speaker of her ship com. “Surrender your ship, rim rat, and we’ll give you a life pod back home.”

  Maybe I should be civil for a change? You know, so they don’t get all mad and blast me out of the sky?

  Zana jammed the reply button. “Up yours, jack-off.” It just spilled out of her mouth. So much for civility. “You don’t want this piece-of-shit ship anyway. Have you even scanned me?”

  Well, not that bad. She’d only sworn once.

  Convincing them she was worthless was her best option. If she surrendered, they’d probably drop her ass out an airlock and let her float off into space. Fuckers!

  A laugh was followed by a mocking voice. “By the galactic gods, rim rat, how is that ship even flying?”

  Ha!

  “Told you, dumbass. You going to let me go or what?”

  Mmm. Maybe I should have left out the dumbass part. Her father always said her mouth would get her into trouble someday.

  Her gaze darted around the control panel. There had to be weapons onboard somewhere, though it was anyone’s guess if they worked. She’d put up a helluva fight, if she could find the stupid controls.

  By the galactic gods, who was she kidding? She was completely screwed if they didn’t let her go. She barely knew how to fly this ship, let alone fight in it.

  The pirate’s long, drawn out sigh trickled down her spine. “Get the hell out of here, rim rat, and don’t come back.”

  Damn, she really was worthless! Even to the scum of the galaxy. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Warning buzzers echoed in the small flight cabin as Zana brought the craft into alignment with the next jump point and checked the Starships for Dummies guide on her data pad, before punching in the calculations. “And three, two . . . one.”

  She flipped the hyper drive toggle thingy, praying none of the blinking lights or warning buzzers had anything to do with the warp capability of her starship.

  The ringing whine of the hyper-drive engines rumbled through the flight deck, drowning out everything else. Through the viewport, stars elongated as her ship sling-shot past light speed, toward the warp 4 capacity of the craft.

  “Come on, baby. H
old together. This is the last jump.” She had a really bad feeling. Yeah, this was the last hyper-jump to get to Old Earth, but she also had to get back home, and her prospects there weren’t looking good with the extra damage she’d just taken.

  Landing would be iffy, finding livestock was anyone’s guess, and taking back off again could prove really challenging.

  She would never have attempted something this dangerous, had the situation back home not been so dire. The attack, then the theft, left her a choice between this dangerous mission and slow starvation.

  And she was sick of starving.

  Her tribe on Konga 10 needed livestock to replace their stolen herds. Old Earth was the only place her Uncle knew still had real herd animals. Fucking galactic laws be hanged, that was where she had to go. Her family and friends were counting on her. She was their only hope.

  Now, thanks to these pain in the ass pirates, there was a good chance her vessel wouldn’t be able to launch again even if she was lucky enough to land safely.

  The alternative plan to get off the planet held less promise than this fucked-up starship.

  A magic tree?

  She loved her Uncle Onwin, but this story sounded like a pile of dantha shit. I do believe. I do believe.

  He’d said believing in it was important.

  As the starfield cleared, a giant ringed planet filled the viewport. For the moment she was able to ignore the constant blaring of warning claxons ringing through the cabin.

  “Saturn.” Just like in the old holobooks.

  All of the planets in the original Sol system held a certain allure, though few living in the galaxy now had ever seen them through a starship viewport.

  Entering Old Earth’s solar system, let alone landing on the forbidden planet, would break a number of the guidelines the citizens of the Core Worlds called laws.

  Since the big timber-culling incident her uncle had been involved with, the whole system had been put off limits while the galactic courts sorted out all the charges.

  Zana shook her head. Their rules didn’t apply to a rim-world denizen like her anyway. Rim rats didn’t have laws—didn’t need them. Everyone knew that.

  So screw ‘em, and the starship they flew in on. She was here now and would only stay as long as she had to. If nobody was supposed to be here, then nobody would know.

  The planets of the original human system flew by, one by one. She throttled back, slowing the ship in preparation for landing. As the giant, outer planets slipped by, she took a moment to take in the sight. For all Saturn’s charm, and Jupiter’s majesty, they couldn’t hold a candle to the small, water-drenched rock known as Old Earth.

  Her ears rang as the warning sirens continued to blare, the racket filling the cabin. Irritation niggled at the back of her neck.

  Scowling, Zana banged her fist on the ship’s control panel. “Shut up already.” The annoying sound cut off abruptly, though the red lights kept flashing. “I’ll be damned.”

  She wasn’t sure why that’d worked. Hell, there was a lot about this ship she didn’t understand.

  The junkheap was a salvage project, hastily patched together with improvised parts and Mandovian duct tape. And it hadn’t come with an instruction manual. Still, it was all hers . . . sorta. The previous pilot, being dead and all, certainly wasn’t going to ask for it back.

  Moon Chunk Two drifted by Old Earth, obscuring the crater-pock-marked continent of Australia. Chunks One and Three showed up on the ship’s radar, hidden behind the planet.

  Three hundred years ago this had been it. The sum total of humanity existed on this wasted rock. Amazing. A whole galaxy to inhabit, and they wanted to live here?

  Or did they have no choice?

  Her information about Old Earth came from her Uncle Onwin and her few precious hours on his Galaxynet terminal.

  History had never been one of her strong subjects. Okay, school had never exactly been her thing.

  In any case, if her Uncle Onwin hadn’t built and connected his jury-rigged computer six years ago, Zana and most of her planet would have been completely unaware of the rest of the galaxy.

  Because of her closeness to her uncle, Zana had been granted unprecedented access to the computer. While she’d never been much for schooling, discovering and learning with the Galaxynet terminal came easy to her.

  Uncle Onwin was great at weaving history into a story, and Zana had spent hours listening to his wondrous tales. She’d learned Old Earth was a wreck. Acid rains, radiation zones, wandering roo gangs. Of all the worlds, in all the systems of the galaxy, who’d want to live there?

  “Maybe it was nicer three hundred years ago,” she murmured, shaking her head.

  Uncle Onwin’s stories also told of beautiful places. Giant heads carved in stone, ancient pyramids in sandy deserts and dense jungles. One of her favorites was about a land known as Hollywood, where they made magic.

  The starboard engine sputtered, threatened to die, and caused the ship to list.

  “Fuck, this is going to be a hard landing.” Gods damned pirates.

  Risking a possible quick death in space over slow, certain starvation had seemed like the right choice . . . up until now.

  Frowning, Zana buckled her seat belt. The first and last time she’d seen this belt used, it’d been fastened around the corpse she’d dragged out of the ship while claiming the wreckage. “Didn’t do him much good.”

  It didn’t matter. She needed to land, and hoped the ship stayed in one piece during the descent.

  Uncle Onwin warned her to avoid Australia and the southeastern part of the Asian continent. Said it’d been overrun ten years ago with roo gangs. And roos were dangerous, fast-breeding creatures.

  A lot can happen in ten years. Best to avoid Eurasia altogether.

  The west coast of North America had its appeal. She’d seen an old holograph of the Hollywood sign. In the picture, only six of the letters remained standing. Obviously the sign hadn’t been magic. Was there any magic still to be found there?

  A magic city. A magic tree. “Shit, I do not have time for sightseeing.”

  Her scans showed possible grazing land northeast of the old abandoned Los Angeles Spaceport. And some small scraggly trees a bit farther north, not that that was supposed to matter.

  You don’t have to look for it. The tree will find you. You just have to believe.

  Her uncle was so full of crap. Trees did not move. “And I’m not even going to look for the stupid Soul Mate Tree unless I have to.”

  Soul mates. Love. Yuck! Not her deal.

  She was looking for cows, sheep, chickens, and pigs. The Soul Mate Tree presented an alternative way off the planet if she got marooned here.

  She wasn’t here looking for a man.

  Then again, if she did happen to find that guy, that one stunning, gut-wrenching hunk of man who would send her into orbit every time he looked at her . . .

  “Hell, Uncle Onwin isn’t anything to look at.” Though, Aunt Val had been a real fox in her day. He’d said the tree had sent him to her, so maybe . . .

  “I do believe. I do believe.” If she said it enough, maybe she actually would.

  A tree that could teleport you to your true love? Your soul mate? It would be easier to believe in wormholes to other galaxies, or those mind-reading teddy bears the galaxy seemed to be going ape-shit over. Gods, some people would believe anything.

  Still, Uncle Onwin had appeared out of thin air, right in the middle of Zana’s fourteenth birthday party, landing on her Aunt Val’s lap. That she’d seen with her own eyes.

  He’d certainly come from somewhere. And he and Aunt Val had soon fallen head-over-heels in love with each other. Really icky, mushy love. Hugs and kisses all the time, kind of love.

  “Yeah, no. Not what I’m lookin
g for at all.”

  The livestock held more appeal.

  Or did it?

  A studly guy, with big broad shoulders to take out the trash and milk the new cows? That she could easily get onboard with. And if he had a really nice ass, well . . . all the better.

  Smirking, she lowered the landing gear, and three of the four struts extended completely. The fourth made a meager attempt, then halted about halfway open. Retros fired haphazardly, slowing her descent somewhat, though not nearly enough.

  Piece of crap seemed to only know how to crash. Maybe it was cursed or something.

  She clenched her jaw. This is gonna hurt.

  Her thoughts flashed back to the last pilot to occupy this chair, now little more than fertilizer for the forest where he’d crashed. Zana needed to survive even if the ship didn’t.

  Crashing was acceptable, and well within the parameters of the mission she’d accepted. Dying was not.

  She held on tight as the craft rattled and rolled. It entered the atmosphere just slightly faster than the speed suggested in her instruction manual. Would that be good enough?

  Her heart thundered in her chest as a large chunk of important looking equipment detached from the ceiling and crashed to the titanium decking less than a meter away from where she sat. The craft was coming apart at the seams.

  “Shit, looks like I’ll be hunting Mr. Right as soon as I find some livestock.”

  Zana patted the live cell sampler on her belt to make sure it was still there. She needed to find cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep for sure. Anything else would be gravy.

  “Gods, gravy.” I really, really miss gravy.

  Mashed potatoes without gravy . . . hell, without even butter . . . double hell, and now even potatoes were getting scarce.