Moonsteed Read online

  Back Cover Copy

  She killed a man who deserved life, and let live a man who deserved death…

  Zeta Verity killed a man who deserved to live, and let a man live who deserved death. Now she has a limited amount of time to stop him and bring justice to Callisto.

  Born to excel but living in the shadow of her auspicious ancestors, Zeta is posted to the newly terraformed Callisto to work with specially bred horses. Killing a spy in possession of stolen data is just another day’s work. She’s not impressed by timid and scholarly Vladimir Bolokhovski, who arrives at the research base with a beautiful stallion he has genetically engineered. But when Zeta's superiors start disappearing and an arrest warrant is issued on her for spying, she discovers the man she killed is not what he appeared.

  Once Verity discovers they're all part of some twisted game, she needs the help of both Vladimir and the dead spy to find and stop the mastermind behind it all.

  Content Warning: Contains horses having sex with horses, humans having sex with humans, and a ménage a trois between a man, a woman, and the ghost in the machine.

  Highlight

  Adrenaline surged, setting up a pounding in her chest and an aching rush through limbs as Verity focused on the spy’s back, the bleed-back through her connection sustaining the horse against its pain a little longer. White ice and black dust raced by, each stride bringing them closer to him.

  Verity sat forward in the saddle and gripped with her knees. “Halt! In the name of the Meritocracy!”

  The man’s long, loose hair obscured his face as he crouched over his horse’s neck, his thighs tensing. Verity realized what he was doing and swerved her own horse aside as the other pivoted and kicked out, its hoofs missing Verity’s horse’s ribs by six inches.

  Verity clutched at the reins with her left hand while her right flailed for balance as the ice rushed under the horse. Its hogged mane offered no purchase.

  “I’m armed!” Verity shouted. “Stop and you won’t be hurt!”

  The man’s shoulders twisted. His hand stretched toward something on his belt, a weapon. Without thinking, Verity reached to her left hip and grabbed the handle of her katana. The man’s head turned at the ring of steel.

  Moonsteed

  9781616502751

  Copyright © 2011, Manda Benson

  Edited by Nerine Dorman

  Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.

  Cover Art by Renee Rocco

  First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: May, 2011

  Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  17 Ludlow Street

  Staten Island, New York 10312

  http://www.lyricalpress.com

  eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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

  Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  Dedication

  For Zarcan

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to Nerine Dorman, Carol Hone and DJ Cockburn.

  Chapter 1

  It’s easy to fall off a horse in three twenty-fifths g. Verity dug knees hard into the saddle as the horse veered and leapt to clear a crater. On the other hand, at least hitting the ground doesn’t hurt so much.

  Gibbous Jupiter cast its ruddy, mucky light over Callisto’s black plain. Three-hundred-foot towers gleamed like obsidian, their blunt edges eroded by eons of sublimation. The lamps on the horse’s breastplate and Verity’s helmet cast a quivering figure-of-eight on the ground ahead. It was difficult to see the other horse and its rider lost in the dark terrain and the oblique shadows of the ice protrusions.

  The research base’s ANT was tracking the spy and informed Verity his horse still ran toward the scarp. She looked over her shoulder at the base on the horizon and the man riding beside and slightly behind her. His name was John Aaron, a dull, ordinary name which suited him. Verity didn’t know him, but she’d noticed him staring at her on several occasions during training sessions. Something about him creeped her out.

  Verity shouted back to him after checking the ground ahead of her horse was free of obstacles. “It looks like we’re in for a hard ride. Whatever happens, we mustn’t shoot him. The voltage to the nervous system will mean the Inquisitor won’t be able to get anything out of him. Ideally we need him alive.”

  Aaron yelled, “Understood!” He sat hunched forward, his weight not in the stirrups properly, and behind the visor, his skin was ashen.

  “Are you all right?”

  He inclined his head to show his eyes, triggering an uneasy sense in Verity, and nodded.

  “Keep close to me.”

  She pressed her heels in and urged the horse faster. Clouds of vapor rushed from its nostrils with each exhalation, sweeping behind and forming ice on Verity’s knees and the armor protecting the animal’s neck. The fleeing horse raced far ahead toward the edge of the scarp. The spy was taking the long way around. Verity knew the region well. This was not the only route.

  “You follow him,” Verity ordered Aaron. “I’m going to see if I can cut him off.”

  She turned the horse toward the base of the scarp. This area was geologically newer than the old, dark plain behind her. An impact soon before the moon had been terraformed had blown a crater in the top of the scarp and forced liquid water up through the surface of the surrounding area, freezing it into jagged ice formations. A pale mountain reached into the sky ahead. Facets of jutting ice glittered from the heights in the russet light. She braced herself again as the horse jumped a crack in the stratum. The lamps illuminated more cracks, some of them wide and sprouting ice spears. The horse cleared them easily. Verity began to calculate the course up through obstacles she could barely discern.

  At her thought-prompt to the horse’s cybernetic armor, razor-sharp crampons extruded from the shoes to grip the stratum. Verity seated herself firmly, digging knees in as she gave the thought-prompt for the horse to jump. The first leap carried them twenty feet up to a ledge above some pointed stalagmites. A few beats of a canter, then the next jump, and the next, and in this way Verity guided the horse toward the summit. The horse moved as one with her, and she felt the ice under its feet and saw the world through its eyes, a wide, panoramic vision strangely devoid of red hues. The horse could feel no fear, for the part of its brain that processed fear had been cauterized. It would never refuse a jump, but it relied on Verity’s leadership and judgment to keep them both safe in doing so.

  Higher now, the crest must be close. Cold, arid air cut into their lungs. Another jump to a narrow track leading up. Spindles of pale ice blocked the way over to the other side and their descent. Verity pushed the horse forward and gave the command to jump, making it tuck its forelegs in close to its breastplate and pull back its head. Ice shattered with a noise like breaking glass, fragments bouncing off the armor and spinning through the air like tiny daggers. As the horse extended its forelegs for the landing, a disembodied pain lanced up from somewhere below and forward o
f where she sat. A splinter of ice must have found its way through the front left shoe’s protection, into the tender frog.

  They landed on a narrow area, momentum still carrying them forward. Verity had to calculate the next jump immediately to a ledge thirty feet down. Upturned icy knives sailed below. Verity fought to suppress the pain, reassuring the horse and supporting it with the strength of her mind. Hoofs down, throwing her forward in the saddle, leaving just enough time to recover before the next jump. There lay the track, a hundred or so feet below, and along it raced another rider. She couldn’t get down there without another jump. She found a place and directed the horse to it. Turning toward their quarry, they made the final leap toward the path that ran along the top of the scarp and the edge of the crater. They landed running, the man on the fleeing horse yards ahead. Adrenaline surged, setting up a pounding in her chest and an aching rush through limbs as Verity focused on the spy’s back, the bleed-back through her connection sustaining the horse against its pain a little longer. White ice and black dust raced by, each stride bringing them closer to him.

  Verity sat forward in the saddle and gripped with her knees. “Halt! In the name of the Meritocracy!”

  The man’s long, loose hair obscured his face as he crouched over his horse’s neck, his thighs tensing. Verity realized what he was doing and swerved her own horse aside as the other pivoted and kicked out, its hoofs missing Verity’s horse’s ribs by six inches.

  Unbalanced by the maneuver, Verity clutched at the reins with her left hand while her right flailed for balance as the ice rushed under the horse. Its hogged mane offered no purchase. She gave the thought-prompt and the horse made a short jump in the direction she leaned, resettling her in the saddle and drawing level with their quarry.

  “I’m armed!” Verity shouted. “Stop and you won’t be hurt!”

  The man’s shoulders twisted. His hand stretched toward something on his belt, a weapon. Without thinking, Verity reached to her left hip and grabbed the handle of her katana. The man’s head turned at the ring of steel. The blade rushed through the air, and Verity caught only a glimpse of the man’s fearful expression before head and shoulders parted company and the face disappeared under a whirl of hair and blood. The horse under the man’s body stumbled, its head falling and its legs giving way under it. It fell on its side to crash into the wall of sharp ice bordering the rim of the crater, and the man’s body flew out of the saddle and disappeared over the edge. The horse screamed.

  Verity pulled on the reins and leaned back, giving her horse the signal to stop as the fallen one lashed out with its feet, fearing its flailing hoofs would foul with her own animal’s legs and bring it down too.

  The horse had come to a stop lying on its side, and it made no attempt to rise. Its head twisted on its neck, ears back, eyes rolled to the whites. It groaned. A terrible broadcast of pain penetrated her senses. Verity kicked her feet out of the stirrups and dismounted. Her katana was too bloodied to be re-sheathed, so she laid it on the ground before approaching.

  Blood spread rapidly across the ground beneath the horse, solidifying before Verity’s eyes. She pulled off her helmet, the skin of her face tightening as sweat froze where its cheek plates had been. She severed her connection to her horse before bending to unlatch the faceplate on the injured one’s armor, revealing the gem-like surface of the neural implant in the center of the forehead. Reaching her other hand to the implant on her own forehead, she tuned herself to the horse’s signal.

  A torrent of pure agony assailed her. She fell on one knee with a sudden intake of breath, and fought to see through the pain to run diagnostics. Right lung: punctured. Ribs: broken. Blood loss... The damage was too severe. She had only one thing left to offer this horse: mercy.

  She pulled the gun from her belt and put her finger to the trigger. Gasping and doubled over from the icy spasms that convulsed through the horse, she got to her feet and pointed the gun at the implant in its head.

  The gun discharged with a snap and the horse’s neck fell limp. Electricity crackled briefly through the cybernetic armor. The horse’s signal went out and the pain stopped. Verity dropped the gun and stood bent forward with her hands on her knees, a horrible, guilty relief overwhelming her. She closed her eyes and her breath came out as a whimpering sob. That fool of a spy. Why had he not stopped when she had warned him? Now both he and the horse--an innocent who had not asked for this--were dead because of his choice. What could it be he had taken that was worth that? She’d have to find his head and take that back. Farron could still retrieve whatever information he needed, provided she hurried.

  “Don’t move.” The voice came from behind her. “Stand up and turn around slowly.”

  Verity opened her eyes. Her hunched-over shadow stood out against a trembling cone of light from a source behind. She looked over her shoulder. John Aaron stood there, her katana in his hand and pointed at her. Frozen blood coated its blade. Beyond him her horse still stood, and his horse a little farther back along the path. She had disconnected from hers when she’d connected to the injured animal. She couldn’t sense it or use it now.

  She remembered all the times she’d noticed him staring at her. He must have been assigned here around the same time as her, although she’d never met him properly before. What was he doing? She couldn’t recall ever having had dealings with him before, only those cold looks from a distance. Could it be something she’d done that had affected John Aaron in some way she’d not realized? Verity knew Sergeant Black didn’t like her, but that was because of what had gone on in the base and when their paths had crossed before she’d been transferred here. With this man, no such history existed.

  She straightened slowly and turned to face him, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’m your sergeant. That’s my sword. Is there a problem?”

  “You’re the problem, that’s what.” His eyes burned with righteous passion behind his visor. “You and those scientists who think they’re gods. I wasn’t alive to stop the four that came before you, but I’ve stopped him.” He gave a brief jerk toward the path behind with his head. “And I can stop you, and after you, I’ll stop however many more it takes. Destiny has decided that your life ends here and now, Zeta.”

  Verity forced saliva into her suddenly dry mouth. It wasn’t something she’d done. It was something she was. How had he found out? She put the question aside for now and thought quickly through what her training had given her. He was some sort of extremist, a denier of science, an idealist. He had not killed her when he had the opportunity, when she stood with her back to him to deal with the horse. Even now, rather than shooting her with his gun, he was possessed with the irony of killing Verity with her own katana. He was an idiot who valued ideas before practicality. He didn’t have the training the Magnolia Order had given her. Words would unnerve him. Tactics could unhinge him.

  “That sword’s main strength is in one’s opponent not seeing it until it’s too late.” Her voice quavered when she spoke. Did he hear her fear?

  Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “Lofty words for one so young.”

  “I am the child of Caleb. I trained in Torrmede. I’m Pilgrennon’s blood and Blake’s direct descendant.” If she could remain calm while intimidating or angering him, it would make things easier for her. An irrational mind does not fight rationally.

  “Jananin Blake was the Antichrist! Lucifer’s daughter! And Torrmede is on another world!” He raised the sword and Verity brought up her arm, blocking the blade with the bracer protecting her forearm as it came down. She twisted toward him, using the motion of her shoulders to launch a punch into his chin, dislodging his helmet and exposing his throat. He reeled back and Verity sensed a tremor through the ground, a shadow over her. His horse reared, hoofs kicking out for her. She grabbed his armor at the collar and spun on her heel, interposing his body between herself and the horse. It swerved too late, and its hoof struck him in the chest with a crack of ribs. Verity hurled him to the ground, landing with her kne
e on his diaphragm. She drew her wakizashi from under her right arm and pressed its edge against his neck. Her thumb dug into the tendons of his wrist as she fumbled at the fastening of his gauntlet until he cried out and dropped the katana.

  She punched him in the jaw so his helmet fell off and she could see his shameful face. Tears welled in his eyes and his skin was a bloodless white. Vapor left his nostrils in short, rapid breaths. Verity put her thumb to the neural shunt in his forehead, disconnecting him from his horse.

  Verity’s knees trembled as she got up from him. She took a deep breath and said, “Iaido means ‘the way of drawing the sword,’ not ‘the way of parading about waving a sword.’ Now put your hands together!”

  “If I don’t succeed here today, someone else will finish the job for me.” John Aaron snarled, but he lifted his hands weakly and clasped them, fingers interlocked. Verity picked up her katana and tried to wipe it on her cloak, but the blood had frozen to the blade. She re-sheathed it, making a mental note that she needed to take it out and clean it before the stain had time to thaw. There was a climbing rope in the gear bag behind her saddle, so she used it to tie Aaron’s hands together.

  Verity picked up her helmet and searched for the spy’s head, sighting it some distance away, hair splayed out on the ground. She ran to it in great leaping strides. The cheek had frozen to the ice and left a graze on the skin when she pulled it up. Already the eyes had become glazed and vacant, lids drooping. He would have lost consciousness probably seconds after his head hit the ice. For how long could a brain be subjected to ischaemia before permanent damage started to occur? She remembered learning something like that in Torrmede. It seemed a long time gone. Verity put the question to the base’s ANT, through its radio mast somewhere behind the ice spire. It retrieved the data from its banks almost immediately: four minutes maximum, assuming optimum reperfusion.