Parallax (Starblind #2), page 1
This book 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 events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Parallax Copyright © 2017 by D.T. Dyllin
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All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author is unlawful piracy and the theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Cover Art by Lindsay Tiry of LT Arts
Tik Tok Press & D.T. Dyllin Logos by
Jordan P. Fremgen of Eye Of The River Media Design
Book design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing
Edited by Melissa Ringsted of There for You Editing
ISBN-13: 978-1-941126-88-2
ISBN-10: 1-941126-88-X
For more information visit: www.dtdyllin.com.
CONTENTS
Introduction
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About D.T. Dyllin
Once upon a time, humans thought they were alone in the Universe.
They were wrong.
Hundreds of thousands of species existed that weren’t indigenous to Earth. So many, it was thought that no one would ever discover or catalogue every species and sub-genre out there in the big, wide open.
Humans also used to think they were at the top of the food chain.
They were wrong about that, too.
Sexual, racial, religious discrimination … it all stopped mattering once humans realized they were the only ones who saw the difference. A human was a human, no matter their creed, and the rest of the Universe didn’t have such a high opinion of the natives of Earth.
Long story short …
Humans had been long overdue for an awakening, and they’d been scrambling to survive ever since they got one.
In hopes to compete with alien races that were superior physically and mentally, humans began to splice their genes to create hybrids. New humans were born, and the rules changed yet again.
Battles waged and large casualties were amassed, including the loss of entire planets. So an alliance was formed, simply known as the Unified Galactic Federation of Stars, or UGFS. It would govern all so chaos would no longer reign supreme.
Of course, that’s when things really got complicated …
Official UGFS classifications:
Species Class 4: Unknown species, unknown abilities.
Species Class 3: Registered species, offensive abilities.
Species Class 2: Registered species, defensive or benign abilities.
Species Class 1: Registered species, no abilities defensive or offensive.
Galvraron: (Class 1) Genius species. Highest IQ among any discovered species. Blue tinged skin. Humanoid.
Mazatimz: (Class 2) Species of healers. Lavender hair and eyes. Humanoid.
Metzas: Bonded pair of Mazatimzs. Combined skills vary.
Guaviva: (Class 2) Species who can speak to machines. Child-like in appearance. Black eyes. Humanoid.
Talsen: (Class 3) Species of warrior-like men. Humanoid.
Denard: (Class 4) Not much known. Thought to be Humanoid.
Gartian: (Class 1) Creators of Gartian grade alloy, the strongest alloy known to any species. Humanoid, although appearance unknown since infection of G-Pox.
Spliced Humans or Hu-mutts: (Classes 1 -3) Humans created on New Earth. Human DNA mixed with alien species, resulting in varied classifications and abilities.
The light glinted off the scalpel, my eyes riveted as it swooped down to hover over my abdomen. Sweat trickled down my temples, a grunt of protest escaping my bound mouth. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.
Pain sliced through my stomach as the tiny blade did, trapping a scream in my chest. My body jerked upward on the table, bowing at an awkward angle in a bid to escape the agony forced upon it. I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to know what was coming next, because there was always more. Even when I passed out, there was always more.
I jolted awake, gasping for air. Another nightmare. But it’d been different than the others. It hadn’t been me strapped to that table, but him. Even while trapped within the dreamscape I’d known the body I’d gazed down at wasn’t mine—it was his. Someone so familiar to me I would recognize—
No. I shook my head, not wanting to think about him, the loss too great to bear, time having dulled none of my anguish.
“Tamzeaaa!” Jane’s slurred voice wafted through my locked door. Her steel-toed boots kicked against the barrier between us, repeatedly, with aggression.
Ah-ha. So that’s what woke me. Groaning, I rolled over and stuffed my face into my pillow. “What now?”
Jane, my superior as captain and owner of The Pittsburgh, the ship I served as healer on, had been hitting the Firejuice hard since her phoenix mate, Ash, had been out on a dangerous mission without her. Ash had let her know beforehand that their mental connection would be rendered temporarily useless, which translated to late night drunken visits from Jane of the paranoid kind.
At first I thought it was cute, the ‘rough around the edges’ spliced human going all gooey because she’d been blindsided by her intense love for Ash, but that was before she refused to let me get a good night’s sleep.
Having recently discovered her human DNA had been combined with a phoenix’s, Jane floundered when it came to knowing what to expect from herself emotionally and physically, especially now that she was bonded with a full-blooded phoenix. Understandable. But exhausting for everyone involved, especially me.
“Tamzea, please! There’s something wrong with Ash’s mate mark! I need you to check it! I think … I think Ash is in trouble! Please.” A loud thump preceded a guttural sob.
My heart clenched. Even after almost a week of Jane’s late night visits, and me being borderline delirious, it was in my nature to soothe—to heal in any way possible. I could never ignore a plea, even a drunken, paranoid one, such as Jane’s. The worry she felt was real, and therefore I had no choice but to help her. It was the curse of my kind, the curse of being born a Mazatimz. Funny how I used to think of it as a gift.
Staggering from bed, I lurched for the control panel, squinting my bleary eyes as I punched in the code to unlock my door. As soon as it slid open, Jane crawled forward on all fours, her bare back exposed in the dim lighting.
My eyes widened. “Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”
Jane collapsed on her stomach at my feet, her nails scraping along the metal floor as her fingers curled, sending a shiver up my spine. “I was trying to see Ash’s mark. I was trying … and something’s wrong.” She twisted her head around to peer up at me, her eyes out of focus, and her long, dark hair partially obscuring her face. “Just look at it, please.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. I’ll check it out.”
Dropping into a crouch, I gathered enough energy to probe Jane for any signs of trauma. If something was actually bad enough to manifest physically in her mate mark, I would be able to sense it.
After a moment, I rolled my eyes. Just as I had expected, there was nothing amiss. The iridescent design covering her back from the nape of her neck to her tailbone was just as it always was, along with her internal energy fields.
“Well, what is it? You’re awfully quiet back there. Just get it over with and tell me what’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you or your mark.” At least physically. Pulling myself to my feet, I grimaced as a wave of vertigo hit me. “Now, will you please go sleep it off so I can get some rest, too?”
Jane curled into a ball on the floor, covering her head with her arms. “I can’t lose him. I hate it. I hate loving someone like this. It’s exactly why I never wanted … well, I never wanted anything beyond a good fuck with him. Or anyone. Look how pathetic I am now. But I can’t … I can’t lose him. I’d never be able to go on.”
Anger coursed through me, heating my blood. I snatched Jane by the shoulder, wrenching her to the side so I could make eye contact. Her gaze wobbled back and forth in an attempt to focus. “You’d go on. You’d go on because that’s what you did before Ash, and that’s what you’d do after. Loving him so much it hurts, and worrying about him doesn’t make you pathetic, but saying you wouldn’t be able to go on definitely does.” I let her go, sudden worry that I’d hurt her replacing my anger. I rubbed my temples. “Now, please, Jane, I need so
She lumbered to her feet, her eyes narrowed, flames dancing behind her irises. “What would you know? Huh? You’ve never—”
“Out!” I yelled. “Out now!”
Blinking rapidly, as if trying to process my sudden outburst, Jane finally took the hint and swayed in the direction of the door. “Fine. I’ll go. I think I still have a half a bottle of Firejuice …”
I shut and locked the door behind her, heaving a sigh of relief. I loved Jane like a sister, but her human half’s dramatics could be trying at times. I really don’t know how pureblood humans survived as long as they did.
Flopping back onto my bed, I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
“Where are we going? Where are they taking us?” I pressed my nose into Eron’s neck just below his ear, inhaling. His spicy scent was my only comfort at the moment; that and the way his strong body surrounded mine.
“I don’t know.” His breath tickled the side of my face, causing goose bumps to erupt.
“I’m scared.”
“We’ll be fine as long as we’re together. As long as we have each other, we can survive anything, I promise.”
I moved my face down to his chest, pressing my cheek into sculpted muscle. He was fitted in nothing but a silver pair of skintight shorts, allowing me to feel the warmth of his bare skin on mine. I was wearing not much more; silver shorts and a matching band of material that wrapped around my breasts.
I tipped my head back, gazing at the chiseled face I knew almost as well as my own. Long, lavender hair framed a square jawline with high cheekbones. His lips were wide and full, almost feminine, and yet nothing else about him was. He wasn’t traditionally handsome, considered too rugged among my people, who generally preferred gentler looking men. But to me he was nothing short of perfection.
Eron and I had been practically inseparable since birth, born hours apart. Rare among our kind, we were Metzas, two souls whose healing magic complemented each other’s perfectly. Together we could do things that most Mazatimzs could only dream of, and we’d fallen in love, which was rarer still.
“Why hasn’t anyone come for us yet?”
Eron’s grip tightened around me, his heartbeat thrumming erratically beneath my ear. “I don’t think they know we’ve been taken. I don’t think—”
“That’s enough,” a raspy female voice spat moments before I was yanked from Eron’s grasp.
Panicked, I swung wildly, my elbow connecting with something solid, not bothering to see who or what it was, pain shooting up my arm. I only had one thought: Get back to Eron.
“Tamzy!” Eron reached for me just as a large humanoid dressed all in black grabbed him around his waist from behind.
“Eron!” I thrashed, bit, kicked … but no matter how hard I fought, I couldn’t escape from my captor.
Eron’s eyes darkened with fear as he was dragged in the opposite direction as me. “No,” he bellowed, “you can’t separate us! You don’t understand!” He managed to get free for an instant, a singular moment in time, racing for me as I continued to struggle, my eyes locked with his.
He staggered, arching at an odd angle, before hitting the metal ground with a painful sounding thud where he lay utterly still. The humanoid ambled forward, retrieving a thin cylinder from Eron’s back, and then hefted him up and over his shoulder. Eron hung limply as if dead, although I knew he wasn’t.
Gasping for air, I found none. My vision danced with black spots, which I attempted to blink away. A high keening sound filled the air. Eron …
Jerking straight up in bed, I yanked my damp sheets away from my body. My living quarters wavered behind the twin shields of dancing water in my eyes. I blinked rapidly, trying to stave off the tears. Twice in one night. What’s going on? It’s as if my brain is determined to force me to think of him.
What I’d told Jane was true. If you lose someone you love, you go on, but you never move on, the difference only discernable to those who’ve experienced such loss. Every passing moment is a struggle to keep going, knowing that a part of you will remain empty for the rest of your life. I’d lost Eron. He’d been ripped from my life, but never my heart. What Jane and the rest of the crew on The Pittsburgh didn’t know was that I was on the run, too—from my past, a thing that was inescapable.
I rubbed my open palm over my chest in an attempt to soothe the dull ache. I could heal so many things, even within my own body, but I could never fix what was wrong with me. A broken heart was irreparable even for a skilled Mazatimz such as myself.
The dim lights in my room flashed to red, The Pittsburgh lurching sharply, sending me tumbling from my bed. The ship’s alarm blared, Zula’s muffled voice coming over the intercom yelling something I couldn’t quite decipher.
My stomach dropped into my feet as I struggled to pull my boots on. I didn’t deal well with intense situations other than the medical kind, and ever since Jane had gotten herself mixed up with the Denards, we’d been careening from one frightening encounter to another.
Hurrying into the corridor, I made my way to the control room hoping to find out what was going on.
“Zula! What’s with the alarm … and everything?” I waved my hands around, motioning to the flashing red lights.
“Some kind of pod, escape I think, rammed into us, throwing us off balance.” Zula gritted her teeth, furiously punching buttons on the ship’s main computer consul. “Masha took care of the slight malfunction, which was nothing more than the impact setting us into a spin, and now I’m attempting to ensnare the culprit in our tractor beam.”
Relief flooded me. Masha, our engineer, was a skilled Guaviva, and if she claimed to have our ship under control then I had no doubts. Despite that fact, I chuckled nervously. “Good thing The Pittsburgh is fitted with Gartian grade alloy now or—”
“Someone crashed into my ship?” Jane swaggered into the control room, her face flushed with anger. “You get ‘em yet, Zula?”
“About to,” Zula mumbled, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder.
Jane flopped down in the captain’s chair, taking a robust swig from a bottle of Firejuice. I leaned over and snatched it from her.
“Hey!” she protested, making an attempt to get it back, her reaction time impaired and entirely too slow.
“No, Jane. You’ve had enough. And don’t you want to be able to stand up on your own when we nab whoever crashed into us?”
She slumped down in her seat, mumbling something I took as agreement.
Zula slapped her hand against the monitor in triumph. “Got it!”
“Great job, Smurfette!” Jane lumbered to her feet, swaying noticeably.
Zula shot Jane a death glare, speaking through gritted teeth. “I told you not to refer to me by archaic Earth words or terms. Just because I have blue tinged skin and blonde hair—”
Jane cracked her knuckles, and grinned. “Now let’s go see who had the nerve to take me and mine on in a dinky little pod ship.”
Delivering Zula a wan smile, I trailed after Jane, knowing Zula wouldn’t be far behind us.
“Those two are the ones who crashed into us?” Jane swiped a hand down her face, leaning against the secondary door to the airlock. “I must have drunk more Firejuice than I thought. They look like kids …“ She turned to face me, grimacing. “And they look like Mazatimzs.”
Zula lifted up onto her tiptoes, peering out the small window into the airlock herself. “Yes, the humanoid appearance combined with lavender hair and eyes does point to them being Mazatimz children. And they seem to be alone.”
A fine tremor ran up my spine, temporarily freezing me in place. Mazatimz children, alone and in some kind of escape pod? Unless something had happened to their parents or guardians, there was no way they’d be left on their own. There had to be some kind of mistake. But you and Eron weren’t the first, or probably the last, kidnapped for your abilities. Mazatimzs relied on tight security, and if breached … well, my kind did not excel at fighting. It simply wasn’t in our nature.
