Chapter One
The Prince of Ocean Spray
Cleo was not having a good day. She was having the worst day she’d had since she left Ceres, and that was really saying something since every single day on the dwarf planet was basically a prison sentence.
Her life on Ceres had been unspeakably challenging. It hadn’t been her fault that two exiled Venecian teenagers were lonely and clumsy. It hadn’t been her fault that no one had noticed her mother was pregnant and failed to terminate the pregnancy. It hadn’t been her fault that she had been dumped in an orphanage as a baby because her parents had no idea how to care for a child and had no resources. It hadn’t been her fault that she had been born on Ceres and essentially born into slavery. There was nothing to do on Ceres but work. And now that Cleo was an adult, it hadn’t been her fault that she was the victim of a hopeless one-sided romance with a ruthless man named Harvey Trainer. It hadn’t been her fault, so she had agreed to continue helping him mine, but on Europa instead of Ceres.
At least, leaving with Harvey didn’t feel like it was her fault. She felt like she was choosing something on her own for the first time.
Of course, that was a lie. Slavery worked best when the slaves agreed to it.
Cleo had found out a little too late that Harvey did not have a proper mining permit and was mining illegally by the Sigon Flexus formation on Europa. Ice from Europa was posh, while Ice from the asteroid belt was only better than dying. They had to be careful not to be caught as they removed ice chunks that would be sold on the black market. There were scads of little space stations that wanted posh Europian ice at a slightly lower price.
That was how Cleo ended up alone in a broken ice chipper with dwindling power supplies, zero communication links, and the Europian authorities probably on their way.
Realizing that her suit would work as well outside the chipper as it did inside, she got out and started walking.
It was fine. There were caves, cracks, and dents in the ice. She just needed to find a place to hide until the police had come and gone. Then Harvey would realize she was missing and send someone to come get her. That was all. She could do it. She’d done much scarier things on the outer rim of Ceres, hanging in broken equipment alone in outer space. Being on a planet instead of floating in space, where the wrong move could leave you falling through open space for thousands of years after you died, was super easy.
At least, that was what she thought at first.
The sky above her was the familiar black, but with a breathtaking view of Jupiter over her head. Jupiter was more magnificent than anything. She could look at it all day. They said that if you were on Io, you were close enough to the gas giant to see Jovian storms. Europa was further out, so she couldn’t see the movement of the clouds, but she could see the marks of the storms and the new eye that had burst open in a bright red smear across the surface, just above where the old eye was diminishing.
She was so captivated by the whole thing that she didn’t pay proper attention to where she was going.
It was quite a surprise to her when she fell through the ice into the ocean.
Her suit kept her warm and gave her oxygen. It was a suit meant for outer space. She wore it back when she lived on Ceres. It was practically a second skin to her. Except, it was heavy. Weight didn’t mean anything on Ceres, and on Europa, it didn’t mean much either, until you were falling through the ice and into the water.
She was dead.
She was one hundred percent dead.
Honestly, it was a relief, she thought as she frantically tried to beat her arms and legs, the way she had seen people do when they were drowning in movies, but she had never swum, and she suspected that even if she did, she still wouldn’t have been able to swing her arms and legs strongly enough to save herself. It was Harvey’s fault for not getting the crew new suits with floatation devices in them. Cheapskate.
Cleo tried to send out a message. Just one little message to Harvey to let him know what happened to her. She tried to do it through the transmission equipment in the forearm of her suit, but it didn’t work. It was broken.
Cleo cursed.
Then she breathed heavily, fogging up her faceplate.
Seriously, dying was a relief, she thought as the fog cleared to show her the bluish water around her. If she died in the oceans of Europa, she didn’t have to worry about Harvey, who didn’t love her and never would. She didn’t have to worry about where she would live or how she would take care of herself. It was a relief.
Until she was caught.
Cleo had never seen a sea cow before. She knew they lived under the ice in the oceans on Europa. She didn’t know that there were any nearby, or that any of them were that large. The sea cow that caught her in its fin was enormous, easily the size of a helocarrier.
It was terrifying.
It was also slow. The way the cow moved was strange, and Cleo realized before they reached the surface that the sea cow was not alive. It was an undersea vehicle like a submarine, and it had a pilot inside who was trying hard to save her. It would have been so much easier if the thing had a windshield or if Cleo knew where the cameras were pointed. As it was, it looked like a sea cow until she was right up in its face for a solid ten minutes.
When they arrived at the surface, the thing pushed her with its nose until she was on the ice.
Cleo panted hard against the regular breathing required of her oxygen mask. She was struggling to get enough breath, but the atmosphere on Europa wasn’t strong enough for her to pull off her headgear and breathe properly. Instead, she just wheezed and fogged up her visor.
When she had finally cleared it, the sea cow had changed its mannerisms entirely and docked next to the ice flow. A previously invisible door appeared, and a megaphone shouted to her in a mechanical voice, “Please enter at the door.”
Cleo hesitated, but only for a moment. She did not know where she was since the equipment at her wrist was malfunctioning. She could not see her vehicle. She didn’t know how long it would take for help to find her. She was alone, and she was very lucky she hadn’t died. She was stranded and she needed help. She did as the voice suggested and entered the side of the sea cow. She didn’t see much inside, just an antechamber, before the door snapped shut behind her.
The electrical lights overhead flickered. She was in the antechamber intended to keep the division between the outside world of Europa and the livable inside world of the vehicle separate. She waited while the room was flooded with air to see if anyone would greet her. No voice message came, and a moment later, the sea cow submarine began the submersion process. They were going down.
With that in mind, Cleo realized there was nothing she could do but go in and greet whoever had rescued her. She started by removing her headgear, but was reluctant to strip much more than her gloves.
Prior to that moment, she had been living with Harvey, a man she wanted to captivate with her charms. With that in mind, her clothes had all been chosen with the sole purpose of pleasing him. They weren’t exactly what you wore when you went to a meet and greet with a rescue crew… If that was who she was meeting. Cleo wasn’t sure. Surely, she was aboard some kind of scientific research vessel. At least, that was what she thought.
However, once she cut the power to her suit for the purposes of saving energy, she felt it immediately lose heat. She had to take it off entirely, or it would rob her of her body heat in no time.
Soon, Cleo was feeling very vulnerable in a short, silky nightdress. It was black with red rose buds on it. It was ridiculous. She felt ridiculous. Even without a mirror, she knew she didn’t look nice. No one looked nice when they’d just come out of a spacesuit that pinched their body and crushed their hair. Plus, she wasn’t wearing panties. Her suit had been glued to her butt so she could use it like a bathroom. Her suit had sacks of waste hidden within the folds in the thighs. She hadn’t been wearing bottoms. She was yucky all over.
The door to the pilot’s room opened a hair’s breadth, and Cleo opened it. “Please excuse the intrusion,” she said as she went inside.
It was dark in the wide space that surrounded her and warm like a hug after the chill of the antechamber. Inside, the space was set up like a tiny home. There was a kitchen, a bed, a tiny bathroom off to the side, and the captain’s chair that was very much like the setup on a small solarship.
There was only one person aboard. It was the captain in the chair, facing the monitors that showed views and readings of the ocean surrounding them. He didn’t swivel his chair around. Instead, he faced forward and typed on a monitor that spoke to her in the same voice that invited her inside.
“Are you okay?” the voice asked.
She could see his hands typing. He wore thin black gloves with the tips of the fingers cut out. The headrest hid his face from view, but his arms were bare, and the exquisite lines of his shoulders and biceps were on display.
“I’m fine,” she said, feeling awkward since he hadn’t turned around and she was talking to a machine. “Thank you for rescuing me. Were you just passing and you saw me?”
“Yes,” the machine said in place of the man. “If you’re alright, you need to join up with your team. Where can I take you to meet up with them?”
“Uh…” Cleo did not know how to answer that question. She knew where Harvey’s site was, but it was an illegal hideout. She decided after a few seconds of contemplation that she did not want this scientist taking her there and having the coordinates logged. “You could take me to Castalia. I can meet up with my friends there.”
There was hesitation before the typing resumed. “Is there somewhere less densely populated that I could take you? A ranching station or an underwater hotel?” he suggested.
Cleo did not like either of those options.
The first one, a ranching station, was a place where sea cows were bred and released into the wild. In an old-fashioned western, his offer would have meant that he had found her in the middle of nowhere, and he was willing to take her to the first house. It wasn’t very useful if the first house was somewhere the police had been contacted about her abandoned mining equipment. The guy reports that he found her in the middle of nowhere in the same basic location. Then everyone puts two and two together, and she gets arrested for mining without a permit on Europa. Charming.
The second option, for him to take her to an underwater hotel, was kinder and less likely to cause her trouble because it explained her being in the area by saying she was a tourist. However, Cleo did not have the money for a place like that. She was broke. She was from Ceres. All her money was eaten up… literally. She made money working on Ceres, but the money she earned just went to making her life on Ceres more comfortable. It stopped her from having to eat the mealy dinner trays they served miners on the surface of Ceres. Since she had come to Europa, Harvey hadn’t paid her anything yet. The only thing she had of any value was the environmental suit she’d left in the antechamber, and without the floatation device, it wasn’t even the right kind of environmental suit for Europa.
She needed to work out a better deal with the scientist.
“I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Cleo,” she said brightly. “And I’m so happy to meet you. What’s your name?”
The typing came slowly as the man in the captain’s chair thought over his next move. “Your voice changed,” he commented in the dull, automated voice. “Why did your voice change?”
“I’m just so excited to meet you. I haven’t been on Europa long and I haven’t met very many people,” she said, pushing warmth into her voice. “I thought we could be friends. What’s your name?”
The hands were still on the keyboard. “I don’t like telling people my name,” the automated voice said in the same tone it said everything.
“Why not?” she continued brightly.
“My name scares them,” the automated voice said.
That confession actually did scare Cleo. Maybe she was wrong in assuming she was aboard a science vessel. Maybe the giant sea cow was used for smuggling. Smuggling drugs? Smuggling humans? She breathed heavily and looked around the dim room for evidence of what went on there.
The most obvious feature was the bed. It looked plump and comfortable, as much as a mattress adorned in only a fitted sheet could look. The foam was holding up well. The walls near it were bare, so there were no chains or hooks. Good signs all around. She ruled out that the vessel was used for smuggling people, but smuggling was not off the table. If there were compartments used for smuggling goods, they would not be obvious.
“What do you do on this ship?” Cleo asked out loud, hoping he would just tell her.
“I’m here to be alone,” he typed deliberately.
“Alone?” she said, taking a step forward to see his monitors a little more clearly. “I’ve been alone a lot: alone in my spacesuit, alone in my quarters, alone at dinner, alone to take pills, alone to breathe through tubes, alone in cryochambers, and look at me now. Here I am… All alone with you.”
She grabbed the back of his chair and swiveled him around so she could see his face.
She said one word. Just one word.
“Damn.”
He looked back at her with eyes so blue, they made sapphires jealous. He had a beard that was wildly out of control, but that was the only detractor. Perfect eyes, perfect eyebrows, perfect nose, perfect cheekbones, followed by perfect everything else. Actually, Cleo had never seen a more beautiful person in her entire life: not in person, not in movies, not on billboards, and not even fake people who were digitally designed illustrations meant to make a woman insane.
Her breath caught.
He covered his mouth with his hand. His hand was perfect too through the liquid gloves.
Then he said something with his own mouth. “Do you need a pair of panties? Because if so, I don’t have any.”
Cleo burst out laughing. She had forgotten that she was wearing a silky black rosebud nightgown. Yet, he, whoever he was, was also wearing something very similar. He was wearing black satin pajama bottoms and a black tank top with a turtleneck that swallowed all of his neck and most of his chin. As stated, he had a beard, but Cleo couldn’t see all of it as he immediately pulled his turtleneck up to his nose. That was strange for her. She’d hardly ever seen a man with a beard. Most men who were reliant on space suits did not grow facial hair. It took up unnecessary real estate inside the headgear of their suits. They were more comfortable clean-shaven, but that was hardly the strangest thing about being in a sea cow submarine.
Cleo swallowed and tried not to let anything alarm her. She did not want to offend him, partly because she was on his ship and partly because he was so good-looking that it was breathtaking.
“If you can lend me anything to wear on the bottom, I’ll gladly take it,” she said, quieting her laughter.
He looked at her funny. “You must be joking. This is not the kind of vessel where I carry anything not meant for my exclusive use. I don’t even have clean clothes myself. How can I share anything with you?”
“You’re out of clean clothes?” Cleo stared at him, aghast.
“Yes. But you’re just as irresponsible as I am. You don’t have a spare pair of bottoms in the pocket of your environmental suit? You should.”
He was right. Yes, she should have had a spare pair in the pocket of her suit. They even designed the suit with a pocket just for that.
She crossed her arms haughtily and commented, “You’re talking a lot. Don’t you use the text-to-speech function on your computer so that you don’t have to talk to people?”
“Yes,” he agreed readily. “But I didn’t know who I’d picked up until it was too late not to help you. When I saw you get out of your suit in the antechamber, I didn’t know what I was going to do with you.” He fiddled with his instruments. “I haven’t seen a woman in a neat little black nightie in some time.”
She looked around at the cozy, but also neglected, pilot’s room of the sea cow ship. “Like you’d know what to do with a woman if you got one.”
He covered his face with his hand again and mouthed something under his breath.
“What was that?” she asked saucily.
He did it again.
“What was that?” she tried again, but leaning over him so that the neckline of her nightgown gaped.
He looked away. “I think I do have some pajama pants you can wear.”
