Chase You To The Sun Read Free Page A

never going to admit this to anyone, not even to her best friend, but she’d had some pretty intense dreams about Bruce last night. His face had haunted her dreams, his mocking, gray eyes staring at her, a faint grin around his lips as he dangled an eye patch in front of her face and whispered: “Not what you expected, Lana?” In the dream, he’d been lusting after her, and it had terrified her and turned her on at the same time. She didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her – it had to be nerves about her mission to Nuuk.
    “Alen seems like a great guy,” Lana told Tori. “I don’t think his past is that important. Have your parents met him yet, though?”
    Tori grinned. “My mom has. And she adores him, believe it or not.”
    “Wow! That’s pretty amazing.” Lana knew how difficult Mrs. Weiss could be at times – she’d had the dubious honor of being Tori’s one and only ‘approved friend’ through high school. Sadly, they hadn’t seen much of each other at the time, since Tori lived on Mars and Lana had still been on Ganymede. “How did that happen?”
    Her friend smiled. “He smooth-talked my mom in German all day long.”
    They chatted some more about Tori’s new lover until Alen returned with a large grin on his face. “We’re all set,” he declared. “We’re flying out in one of the ships in the DSD One fleet. I convinced one of their pilots to drop us off on Earth before heading for Venus to pick up some military personnel.”
    “Pulled some strings, did you?” Tori playfully kissed him on the cheek.
    “It helps if you’re the Head of Security on the neighboring station.”
    Alen took them to the other side of the hallway to the launch bay where the military ships were docked. A jolly-looking guy with a black mustache was waiting for them at Airlock Twenty. “Welcome on board,” he said. “Don’t forget to tip the driver.”
    Lana chuckled. She stepped forward to check in first, waving her ID card in front of the scanner next to the entrance. The fake passport she was using was linked to a secure channel informing her dad where she’d checked in. That way, he could always keep track of her. Otherwise, checking in was usually just a formality – nobody really looked at the name and other info on the screen attached to the scanner unless an error message popped up.
    As expected, the scanner gave her the green light, announcing that ‘Lana Petrova’ was boarding, and Svetlana entered the small ship, pushing open a few doors on the left side. Since the vessel wasn’t built to transport civilians, there were only three rooms containing narrow bunk beds, but she didn’t mind – flying out to Earth before everyone else was the best thing that could have happened today.
    “So, are you and Captain Blanco bunking together?” Tori giggled as she boarded the spaceship next. “Or are there enough rooms for all of us to enjoy some privacy?”
    Lana raised an eyebrow. “There are three rooms. I think Captain Blanco is cool, but not that cool, thank you very much.”
    Once the ship had left Desida One, they each picked a room and then sat down at the small table near the biggest porthole in the ship’s belly to have some coffee. Captain Blanco had disappeared into the cockpit. Outside, Jupiter quickly slid out of view.
    “So, who are Ava and Nicolas Carter?” Lana inquired curiously. “Those names don’t really sound Croatian.”
    “They’re not,” Alen replied. “Nicolas was my first boss after I came out of prison. He recommended me to Commander Kelso of Desida Two because he discovered I could do a lot more than just gardening.”
    “You were a gardener?”
    “A groundskeeper. I also befriended his wife before I left for my new job. Ava is a lovely girl.”
    “I can’t wait to meet them,” Tori enthused. “They’re a bit like Uncle Gustav, you know. Helping commoners and teaching them how to farm, that kind of thing. Actually, Nicolas used to belong to one of the