Title: Returning Heroes
Series: The Galactic Captains, Book Six
Author: Harry F. Rey
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 01/11/2022
Pairing: Male/Male, Male/Male Menage
Length: 83100
Genre: SciFi, LGBTQIA+, action,adventure, aliens, dark, MM romance, #ownvoices, royalty, sci-fi, futuristic, space, folklore, gods, intercultural, interspecies, war of worlds
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Description
Captain Ales has returned to the galaxy, forever changed as the powers have prepared for war. He’ll accept help from anyone if it leads to the mysterious Turo from whose cage Ales must free himself if he ever wants to return to the Red Moon.
Meanwhile Daeron has been offered the deal of a lifetime by the ruler of the Seven Suns. Marry Osvai, the Kyleri prince, and become heir to the richest star-state in the galaxy while raising an army to restore the prince to his rightful place as Emperor of the Million Suns.
But Viscamon’s grip on Jiwani has only tightened as the nobles imprisoned in the Royal Baths still refuse to bow to the immortal’s cataclysmic theology of destroying the Galactic Balance. It seems the only way for Imperial Guard Captain Antari to avoid a massacre is outright treachery.
While dynasties play galactic politics, the Outer Verge is being torn apart. From a prison cell, Mahnoor watches The Rip destroying Targuline, until the Kyleri rebels offer him the chance to save himself by flying into the heart of danger. He might even become Jansen’s most unlikely hero.
Heroes and villains run riot around the galaxy, unleashing destructive forces and sliding the great powers toward a war from which no one will be safe.
Returning Heroes
Harry F. Rey © 2022
All Rights Reserved
Mahnoor watched space swirl through the dirty porthole window of his cell, lying flat on the cold, hard bench. The stars were his only source of light—and comfort—reminding him of so many nights alone on Jandar, waiting for the violet electrical storms to pass by and the quiet, peaceful array of stars to appear.
The stars looked different here at the Outer Verge than those in his home system of Eichot. Of course they did; he was at the other end of the galaxy, thirty kiloparsecs and multiple slipstreams away, but still a prisoner. It could have been weeks since he’d left this cell in the bowels of the Emperor Shabi—the Kyleri frigate leading the rogue fleet fresh from destroying the Aldegar megacollider. Endless hours had come and gone since his arrest by Egedi, a member of the empire’s secret police—the Omniscients—who’d seized control of the fleet to try to stem the flow of Viscamon’s chaos-inducing agenda.
It could have been weeks; Mahnoor had no idea. Rations were delivered by drone every eight hours and included coffee once in every three times. He assumed that meant morning. But things worked differently out here in deep space—far from home, far from civilization, and most of all, far from hope. He missed the mirage of his gilded cage, which had once extended to cover Eichot Prima and Minor, and the moons and trade posts of the system he’d spent his life in.
He missed the tastes of home like the touch of a man in the dark, in the back of the Black Hole Bar, shielded from the rest of life. But what was life in the cell of a ship so many kiloparsecs from home? There was no longer anyone to hide his shame from. Shame that he missed his matriarch stirring pots of okra porridge, his father’s discussions of the latest prints from the horticultural press, and the electric purple sky of Jandar, always storming the horizon of the farthest moon in the vast Empire of a Million Suns. Mahnoor never would have imagined that, most of all, he’d miss the damp red grass, the simple mud and wood huts of his clan’s enclosure, but especially the thunderous voice of Asuma, yelling at her son and her husbands to come and eat.
Mahnoor turned on his side on the hard surface, away from the flickering lights of passing stars. He rested his head on his arm, a vain attempt to soften the vibrations that hummed through his skull if pressed against the sharp steel bench. Into the darkness beyond the bars he stared, waiting for his vision to blur and the familiar shapes of home to appear on a blank, dream-ready canvas. His subconscious avoided replaying the series of mistakes which led him here: Gila’s warning words, Errol’s boisterous howls, Clonis’s electric touch. Even his friend Tamnan, back on Jandar’s spaceport, barely featured in his prison dreams. Mahnoor only thought of simple pleasures: running through damp fields, diving into streams, climbing out of caves in the darkness of night and staring up in wonderment at the broad strokes of infinite stars; swirling nebulas; blinking lights of passing ships; burning suns. The bright, yellow sun. He covered his eyes, even though the brilliant light was only a dream. A shadow blocked the light, and the stinging in his eyes subsided, but only for a moment. He turned to face the wall, shifting the pain of lying down from one shoulder to the other, and he hoped unconsciousness would smother him again, like diving into the dark waters of the rock pools. One of his fathers was calling him. It could be Uzcan, or maybe Ifram. But one was calling his name: Mahnoor. Mahnoor.
“Mahnoor, get up.” The voice was hard and angry. And real. Mahnoor sat bolt upright, blinking in the sharp light. The empty cell, the bare room, metal walls, and a body. A man. Tall, bulky, Kyleri.
“Egedi,” Mahnoor said, squinting. “What’re you doing—”
“Come to check Lord Arkari’s little spy is still alive.” The Omniscient and self-proclaimed captain of the fleet patrolled the cell, projecting all his meanness inside. But Mahnoor could smell the undertones of fear too. Perhaps that’s why Egedi had been so quick to bundle Mahnoor into a cell the first chance he got. In fact, it had been his very first act as captain after seizing command of the fleet. That Mahnoor technically owed his allegiance to the system Lord Arkari instead of the Emperor—even if that post still lay vacant in the bloody memory of the supposed Ingvarian assassination—was surely a meaningless piece of legal trivia this far from Kyleri space. It was the secret shame of their first meeting that Egedi feared, Mahnoor was sure. The Kyleri squeezing his cock in the space station urinal until Tamnan had called Mahnoor away over the speaker. “Please, I already sucked him off days ago,” Tamnan had said about Egedi, batting away Mahnoor’s concerns about an Omniscient hanging around the space port. “He’s harmless.”
“Are you lost?” Mahnoor said, feeling entitled to his attitude after so long in captivity. He yawned and scratched himself. “Did you bring my coffee?” Egedi continued to pace, keeping a distance from the cell bars and refusing to look at him. “Or did you come here to beg to suck my—”
“Quiet!” Egedi roared, then immediately dropped his voice and glanced over his shoulder. The door remained closed, but the thought of someone bursting through clearly worried Egedi. He dropped a low gaze to the cold hard floor; Mahnoor recognized the shame. Even being an Omniscient, it was hard not to be crushed by the weight of shattered dreams. Mahnoor had dreamed all his life to be an imperial pilot—only to be arrested and imprisoned. Perhaps Egedi, too, had spent all his life wishing to one day lead a grand fleet, a glorious rebellion, and now was suffocating under the pressure of zero gravity. The only sound was the hum of the frigate…and Egedi sucking in shallow breaths.
“I…” Egedi began to say, eyes staring at the floor. “I need your help.” Mahnoor could’ve laughed but thought better of it. Getting out of this cell took precedence over pride. “I command a fleet full of pilots…but none of them wants to fly.”
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Harry F. Rey is an author and lover of gay themed stories with a powerful punch with influences ranging from Alan Hollinghurst to Isaac Asimov to George R.R. Martin. He loves all things sci-fi and supernatural, and always with a gay twist. Harry is originally from the UK but lives in Jerusalem, Israel with his husband.
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