Total pages in book: 175
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 166095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 830(@200wpm)___ 664(@250wpm)___ 554(@300wpm)
What they don’t know? My private life is just as messy. I’ve got a sweet, innocent cloned human woman who wants to be my lover…and a grumpy cyborg paramour who might be jealous that he’s not the center of attention.
The solution?
A triad. Can three very different people love and work together all on the same small spaceship?
We’re about to find out.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
One
DORA
“Home sweet home,” Bethiah announces as we step foot onto the abandoned ship. Her smile is broad, and it’s that pleased look on her face that tells me that this ship is something she is proud of and I absolutely, positively should not cry.
It’s just that…it looks like a ship made entirely of garbage.
Mathiras and Helen had warned me that if I went with Bethiah, her ship wouldn’t be as nice as the Little Sister or the real swanky-looking ship, the Scarlet Gaze. I didn’t get to go on board that one. I just saw it through screens.
This ship is nothing like those. It’s a lot smaller, maybe the size of two RVs put together. The halls are tight, the ceiling much lower to the point that it practically scrapes Bethiah’s capped horns. She doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, but it feels cramped to me. The walls look like a bunch of different types of metals were all hammered and soldered together—this panel is a rusty shade, that one a gray, this other one a pale white with a bunch of alien writing on it. Pipes run along the ceiling overhead, and one drips on my hair. I wipe at my head, and I know from asking that the pipes are water recyclers and air recyclers and a few other things that make the ship functional. Everything looks worn and used, like this ship was constructed from the rejected scraps of an alien junkyard. As I walk down the narrow hall, clutching my small bundle of clothing, I see what looks like a patched hole to the right of me, and that’s alarming. What if the vacuum of deep space sucks us out of a puncture and kills us? It takes nothing.
And there is a weird funky smell. Like machine oil and something burning.
It’s all very overwhelming. I wish Ruthann was here, because then I’d be in this new environment with another clone, another person that’s completely out of their depth, and I wouldn’t feel so alone. As it is, Bethiah strides past me, running her hand along one of the junkyard-looking walls and peers down the hall. “Everything seems to be in working order if the backups are keeping everything nice and climate-controlled.”
“O-oh?” I manage, looking around. “How can you tell?”
“You can’t see your breath, right? There’s no frost over everything. And you’re breathing.” Bethiah grins at me. “That’s how I know.”
“But…you didn’t know if it was working before we came on? Shouldn’t we have helmets?”
“Nah. Spoils the surprise.” She puts a hand on a hip and, ignoring my stunned expression, glances around. “So I’m not big on coddling. Just put your stuff down anywhere.”
What does that have to do with coddling? “Put my stuff down?” I echo, trying not to sound like a complete idiot and probably failing. “Why?”
“Wherever you want to be your room. We’ll figure it all out somehow.” She eyes me for a moment and then gestures behind her. “I need to get things started on the bridge. The moment we fire this bird up, we’re probably going to set off trackers, so we want to stay ahead of the game.”
“Trackers? Game?”
“Game,” she agrees, and a gleeful sort of light enters her eyes. “I’m gonna let you in on a secret, Dora. Everything’s a game. We choose who we want to play with, we establish the rules, and then we start the game.”
Does that mean she wants to play with me? Is that why she invited me? I’m flattered and puzzled at the same time. And…wait. Who else are we playing with?
But Bethiah leaves and I remain in the hall, clutching my few belongings.
I stare around the derelict-seeming ship, trying to put the puzzle pieces together mentally so things make sense. Ever since I woke up from what I thought was a nap, things have been off kilter. I’ve been told that it wasn’t a nap at all, but that I’m a clone, and the horrible people that were keeping me caged were going to sell me. The scattered memories I have are the memories of the original “host” donor, and that I was grown from a piece of the original Dora’s brain, like a starfish growing another starfish from a piece of itself. I want to tell them that they’re wrong, that I’m the real Dora.
But I can’t remember my last name. Or where I come from.
And my companion, Ruthann, had the same “clone markers” in her blood as I do. And she left with two women who looked identical to her in every way.
So it has to be true. I’m a clone, and I’m in outer space (which I sure don’t have memories of).
Bethiah’s been kind to me in her weird way, and so when she offered for me to come with her, I jumped on the chance. I don’t have a lot of things I can rely on, but she’s shown me that I can rely on her. She’s done her best to help me figure myself out, and she hasn’t snapped at my endless questions or my tears.