Chapter 1

James looked at his Mad to read the message and then looked at Dusty in disbelief.

“Dusty, what have you stirred up now?” he asked.

He wasn’t really surprised by the new orders, not when it came to Dusty. He suspected the innocent-sounding questions that Dusty had asked him the week before were now not so innocent.

He had hoped it was going to be a quiet day, but now he would be spending it packing. After all the excitement caused by Dusty’s cousin Zeke Walker over Christmas, he was ready for a quiet new year. The day, being Thursday, the 2^nd of January 2098.

The message informed him that they were being reassigned and were to be aboard the spaceship Striker-1 by 15:00 hours for further instructions. Their shuttle to the Armstrong Space Station would be leaving at 14:00 hours.

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault! Well, it’s not all my fault anyway. You can blame Queen Lee, Colonel Charles, Sheikh Rashid, and your dad, too. They are the ones who believe the smugglers have changed their operation since we shut them down on Luna two years ago.”

“We are now sure that they are committing piracy of the settlement ships and slavery of the settlers going to Terra. It may have taken them time to get organised, but a lot of ships went missing last year before UNSEC shut down shipments.”

“We think they are the same mob as those guys who were working for General Shatner. They are still trying to clean up that mess. What a gruesome way to die,” Dusty replied and shivered.

“Yes, but only after you kept investigating them,” James shot back.

“Well, how was I to know that the database that Troikas Incorporated let me have access to was going to be such a treasure trove. I know we can’t use a lot of what I get from it in a Court of Law, but it sure helps us ferret out ways to get to these people legally,” Dusty informed him as she started collecting up the breakfast dishes.

James rose to help her, “I still don’t know why Ambassador Watson let you use it, let alone told you about it.”

Dusty shrugged, “He just handed me the Mads and said his daughter-in-law thought I might find it useful like I told you before. You have to admit we have got a lot of use out of it and our Mads.”

“True, we have. The Ambassador having a Queen Wizard for a daughter-in-law sure has its advantages. She is one smoking hot lady,” James replied as he met Dusty in the kitchen and placed his dishes in the sink before starting the water to rinse them.

Dusty gave him a look, and after putting the dishes down on the benchtop, she fronted up to him. She gripped his buns and pulled him close so that she rubbed against the front of his body.

She replied, “What, one redhead not enough for you?”

James groaned softly as she rubbed. In the four years they had been together, he still reacted the same way he had from the first time he had seen Dusty walk into her father’s Police Station in North Queensland back in 2094.

In the way of reply, he said, “You have seen the size of Sean, haven’t you?”

“Yes, and he is so talented,” Dusty replied with a dreamy sigh as she rubbed him again.

James chortled and then kissed her hard for stirring him up. Dusty was more than happy to return the kiss. Since she had given in and gone out with James, she had never regretted it. James had become her anchor, and she loved him more than life itself. He was her voice of reason. His love and unflappable support often humbled her.

James finally reined in his senses and gently pushed her back a little so he could look at her face.

“So, what little plan did you and the Colonel cook up for me to go along with?”

Dusty wasn’t sure James was going to like it, but they couldn’t think of any other way for them to find out more about the new operation unless they got more personally involved.

James had a fear of jumping through space, but since the company that made most of the military starships these days had been bought out by Troikas Incorporated a few years before, the starships were a lot safer.

She hoped he would agree.

Being stationed on Luna had been fun.

So much had happened in the three-plus years they had been there. When the Starship Fortune came back just before Christmas of 2094, it was as if a bomb had been dropped on the Earth. Not only had the crew found a planet that people could go to, they had found two.

The first planet had people on it, and it was controlled by wizards, true, magic-wielding wizards. The people of Earth were in for an even greater shock. The people who lived on Utopia were from the myths and legends of Earth.

They had gone to Utopia from Earth around 300AD via a device called a transportation portal. The people of Utopia resembled pixies, dwarfs, elves, and faeries.

One race, the Burgis, looked not much different to humans, but they tended to be a little shorter than the average human was, and they were inclined to have bronzed to dark complexions and smaller, rounder ears. They weren’t a direct resemblance to any of the Earth races, but they were close enough that it didn’t matter.