Uncrossed (Harem Station Book 7) Read online

  Contents

  Uncrossed

  DESCRIPTION

  CRUX

  CHAPTER ONE - CRUX

  CHAPTER TWO - CRUX

  CHAPTER THREE - CRUX

  CHAPTER FOUR - CRUX

  CHAPTER FIVE - CRUX

  CHAPTER SIX - CRUX

  CHAPTER SEVEN - CRUX

  CHAPTER EIGHT - CRUX

  CHAPTER NINE - CRUX

  CHAPTER TEN - DRADEN & BOOTY

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - ASSHOLE

  CHAPTER TWLEVE - TRAY

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - ALCOR

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - FLICKA

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - CRUX

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - DRADEN & BOOTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - ASSHOLE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - TRAY

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - CRUX

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FLICKA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - TRAY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - ALCOR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - CRUX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - DRADEN & BOOTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - CRUX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - CRUX

  EPILOGUE

  END OF BOOK SHIT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Edited by RJ Locksley

  Cover Design: JA Huss

  Cover Photo: Sara Eirew

  Copyright © 2021 by JA Huss

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-978-1-950232-65-9

  HAREM STATION BOOK SEVEN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  DESCRIPTION

  KC Cross is the pen name of New York Times bestselling author, JA Huss.

  Princess Corla was supposed to be my soulmate.

  But we were star crossed.

  Two ships passing in the dark. Meant to be together, but never able to be together.

  At least that’s what I thought.

  But it turns out—my life is a lie, evil forces are out to get us, Harem Station is spinning chaos, and the soulmate bond won’t protect us.

  Sounds pretty bad, right?

  But here’s the best part.

  I can change it.

  I can change all of it.

  If I can just find a way to get myself uncrossed.

  Uncrossed is the last book in the Harem Station Series and features a man chasing his star-crossed soulmate through time, a bazillion enemies at the gate, an entire station in chaos, and an explosive ending that proves, once and for all, that love WINS in the end.

  CRUX

  CRUX

  Noun.

  1. The basic, central, or critical point or feature.

  2. A puzzling or apparently insoluble problem.

  3. A cross.

  4. The unluckiest man in the sun-damned universe.

  CHAPTER ONE - CRUX

  Every single part of her feels familiar, that’s what I notice first. The way my hand cups her breast. The way her back fits against my chest. The smell of her hair, and the heat of her body, and the rhythm of her breathing.

  All of it is familiar, but at the same time… weird.

  I know she is Corla. I know I am Crux. I know we’re in bed, and it’s morning, and I recognize the sounds filtering through the door of our bedroom. Traffic outside. A car engine. Distant voices of neighbors and small children.

  Then the banging of a cupboard.

  Corla stirs, letting out a long, sleepy sigh. “They’re up. Why for the love of God do they insist on getting up so damn early?”

  I think about that for a moment, wondering who the hell she’s talking about. At least, I’m pretty sure I think about that for a moment. But at the same time I’m thinking about that, I mumble, “I’ll get them,” in a gruff, equally sleepy voice.

  After that nothing makes sense.

  Because that’s not me talking.

  Well, it’s sort of me. It’s my voice. I feel the muscles moving in my throat. All that is me. But… I’m suddenly across the room looking down on a bed of rumpled white covers and two people beneath them. Corla’s hair—not silver, but a very pale blonde—covers her face and spills onto her pillow.

  I—well, obviously this man is not me, let’s just call him the one in the bed—he rolls over, throwing his portion of covers off. He swings his legs over the side of the mattress and plants his feet on the dark wood floor. He leans forward, rubbing his hands down his scruffy face, as he deals with the idea of waking.

  He is me. He has my hair, he has my body, he has my face, he has my woman.

  But he’s not me because I am me. So maybe I’m him? Because that makes a lot of sense.

  He finally stands. A muffled crash echoes from somewhere deeper within these quarters. And then a squeal.

  “Oh. My fucking. God.” Corla’s hand comes up to her face and she pushes her hair aside. One eye open, she stares at the other me. “I’m going to kill them.”

  “You’re not gonna kill them.” Other Me chuckles. He reaches for some thin, sleep pants on the floor by his feet and pulls them up his legs. “They’re freaking adorable for many… minutes of… most days.”

  She laughs and closes her one eye, smiling as she settles her head into the pillow. “They’re heathens.”

  “They’re inquisitive.”

  “They’re obnoxious.”

  “They’re rambunctious.”

  “They suck the life out of me.”

  He leans down, one knee on the mattress, and kisses her on the head. “And then they fill you back up. Just… sleep. It’s their birthday and they’re excited. That’s all. They’re ready to get this party started. I’ll make breakfast and bring it to you in bed. How’s that sound?”

  Now Corla opens both eyes and beams a loving smile up at Other Me. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.”

  I don’t quite get it either.

  I mean—did this guy here put his life—and the lives of all his friends—on the line to shoot her ass through a spin node?

  No. No he didn’t.

  That would be me.

  But do I get a Corla?

  Other Me shrugs with his hands and chuckles again. “Right place, right time, babe. That’s all it was.”

  Well that’s… amazing.

  Dick.

  Then next thing I know I’m standing in a kitchen. Not the kind of kitchen I have in my quarters. Or any kind of kitchen I’ve ever seen before, actually. There’s a lot of… things. Big, metal, humming machine-type things.

  I recognize a refrigerator. It’s overly large, not like the ones we have on Harem. And the sink is obvious. But the autocook isn’t an autocook. It’s like the cooktop Serpint has in his quarters, but much bigger and more primitive. It uses fire.

  But the really weird thing about this kitchen isn’t the machines. It’s me. Other Me. And how he seems to know exactly what to do with the not-autocook. Also the two children running circles around a central island counter. A pair of squealing fair-haired toddlers, one chasing the other. Then they reverse direction and the chased becomes the chaser.

  Other Me is cooking food ov
er the flames. Then the little girl—the chased, at the moment—falls face-first on the hard, stone floor.

  Everything stops. Other Me rushes over to her as she starts to cry. He picks her up, hugging her to his chest, one hand on her knee to see if there’s any damage.

  “You’re OK, Dellie. You’re OK.” He soothes her as he points to the boy. “That’s enough now, Toby. No more running in the kitchen. If you want to play chase—”

  I stop listening.

  These are my kids. My real, actual fucking kids when they were small. And that is me… except it isn’t.

  I whirl around. “Where am I?”

  No one answers. The people in this kitchen—me and my children, who are not me and my children—don’t react. Can’t hear me.

  Because that’s not you, Crux.

  The room disappears and I now find myself in a place that reminds me of an unfinished sector of the Pleasure Prison. Hazy grayness that goes on forever.

  “Wait!” I call out. “Go back!”

  I don’t know who I’m talking to. Myself? Other Me? Corla, who obviously, isn’t… Corla.

  “You can’t go back.”

  I turn to see ALCOR. At least he looks like a familiar version of ALCOR that I recognize from some long-ago time. Except it’s not ALCOR. I don’t know how I know this, I just do.

  “Why not?” I ask.

  Not-ALCOR smiles at me. “You know why. That’s not really you. It’s just a glimpse.”

  “Of what?”

  “Another version of you. One who knows nothing about artificial beings, or giant outlaw stations, or wars being waged in his name.” He pauses, waiting to see if that satisfies me.

  It doesn’t. “Those wars aren’t being waged in my name. And who are you?”

  “Which am I, you mean?”

  I narrow my eyes at him. I’m not in the mood to play.

  “I’m Security Beacon Number Nineteen, of course. But you can call me SB19 for short.”

  “Corla’s security beacon,” I mutter, considering this.

  A year ago my brother Serpint showed up at Harem Station with my star-crossed princess inside a cryopod. Our brother, Draden, died stealing her and Serpint had to limp his way back home because Booty Hunter was severely damaged.

  After that nothing was ever the same again. And Draden dying was only the first in a long string of… well, what to call them? Coincidences? Doesn’t really fit. Bad luck doesn’t really fit either. I guess the appearance of Corla in that cryopod was a little bit of both.

  Normally, when a Cygnian princess comes in to Harem Station she is thawed out and put to work. But I didn’t thaw Corla out of her cryogenetic sleep when Serpint brought her to me because I was afraid the Cygnians would be able to track the pod.

  But that wasn’t the only reason.

  Twenty years ago Corla told me that we would never see each other again. And if we did, things had gone terribly wrong. So even though I spent all twenty years between that night and the day Serpint brought her to Harem Station wishing for a second chance with my one true soulmate—I knew, deep down, that she was not supposed to be there.

  I could feel the truth of that warning inside me.

  She scared me.

  I sent Corla out to Security Beacon Number Nineteen after everything started going sideways. She’s a bomb. So are Lyra, and Nyleena, and Veila. And I know what people think. I let them stay on the station—well, I didn’t really have a choice when it came to Veila, but the others, yeah, I let them stay—and I sent Corla away. Put her out on that security beacon so just in case anyone decided to blow her up, she would not take the rest of us down with her.

  I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice. She was dangerous. More dangerous than the others because we didn’t know why she was in that cryopod, or what she was doing on Cetus Station, or where she was going.

  So I don’t feel guilty about keeping her frozen. It was my duty.

  Serpint and I had a chat about her that day while we were inside the security beacon. I told him my suspicions about ALCOR. Specifically, I told him about how I saw ALCOR kill our brother Draden back when he was thirteen. And how I knew that the reappearance of Corla after twenty years was also the beginning of something big.

  Something bad.

  SB19 heard everything I said to Serp, of course. But I didn’t think about it much back then. The security beacons were never very communicative with us. They are their own minds. They live—for lack of a better word—their own lives, preferring to be seen and not heard.

  And by seen, I mean every once in a while they will target-lock their SEAR cannons onto random ships just to let everyone know they’re still there.

  “That is not my name,” SB19 says.

  “What?”

  “I am not Corla’s security beacon. She was a guest in my hull, yes. Correct. But that is not my name.”

  “I… OK. Sorry? But… did you just say she was a guest in your hull?”

  “That’s the least of our worries right now, Crux. Trust me on this.”

  “What’s going on? Why are you here? Why am I here?”

  “You’re not really here, Crux. You’re back on Harem Station locked up inside a time freeze. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  I squint my eyes at him, very, very annoyed with this AI at the moment. Because I was just pulled away from my… family. Kind of. I mean, I get it. It was a dream. But it was a really nice dream. And it’s been too many spins to count since I felt that kind of… longing.

  Wow. That’s kind of a powerful word. Longing.

  Was it longing?

  “Veila?” SB19 says. “Hmm? Remember her?”

  “Yeah.” I let out a long breath. “Yeah. I remember her.”

  “She and Valor froze time. Harem Station was—”

  “At war.” I slide a hand down my face, perfectly mimicking the gesture Other Me did back in the bedroom. “Fuck. What the sun is happening?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t have any access to Harem. All the security beacons took a vote when Veila appeared with her ship and decided to close the gate and cut ties with the station just to be on the safe side. Turns out that was a good decision. Obviously. Harem Station is no longer safe.”

  Tell me something I didn’t already know. “But how am I here? And where is here?”

  “As I said, you’re not here. You’re still on Harem. In your office, actually. Valor and Veila put you there.”

  “How do you know that if you have no connection to Harem?”

  “And now we’re back on track.” SB19 smiles and pans his hands wide in a gesture that reminds me a lot of ALCOR. My ALCOR. Old, reliable, devious, evil, safe ALCOR. I guess I never realized how well he did his job until he was gone and everything went to shit.

  If I ever see him again I think I owe him a thank you.

  “Dragonbee bots are quite talented. I’m not in contact with the station, but I am in contact with Flicka. Those annoying little fuckers have their creepy clicking feet in everything these days.”

  “Wait. Yeah, I remember now. We were… fighting. I was trying to make an announcement and all those stupid fucking princesses turned on us.”

  “Yes. But time has been frozen. And Veila and Valor have taken over. Luckily your pet beebot injected you with something a little while ago. You don’t have much longer.”

  “Wait. Flicka is trying to kill me?”

  “I don’t think so. But one can’t ever really know what goes on inside the mind of a dragonbee bot. And time is a tricky thing. So very unreliable, even on the most local scale. Add in the fact that Harem Station is host to a spin node and actual people on board who can control it, and we’ve got ourselves a problem. How much do you understand about time, Crux?”

  I blink at him, confused at the fast pace of shifting ideas. “What?”

  SB19 snaps his fingers. “Please. Keep up! We’re on a schedule here. Now, tell me what you know about time.”

  Time. I open my mouth to tell hi
m obvious things like… it… ticks off? It’s… reliable.

  But I stop myself. Because time isn’t reliable. It’s actually quite slippery.

  I think back to our escape from Wayward Station twenty years ago. Right after we sent Corla through the spin node. And then I’m there. Literally. The endless gray room I’m in shimmers and resolves into the interior of the ship and I see my sixteen-year-old self, sitting at a console with a terrified look on his face. He’s worrying about time. I remember that now. He—I—was worried about Corla and the time difference between the two sides of a spin node.

  It fades back into the darkness and I sigh, wondering, suddenly, if I’d do anything different if I could do it all again.

  “Crux?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Time? Tell me what you know!”

  “Not much,” I admit. “I never really understood it.”

  “Don’t feel bad about that,” SB19 says. “No one really does. And if they say otherwise, they’re just liars. But I have a better grasp than most.” The holograph of the ship begins to shimmer back into existence once again and SB19 smiles at virtual representations of Serpint and Draden, who are floating around in the middle of the ship, trying to wage a pretend zero-G war in too-big environment suits. “So I’ll break it down for you as best I can, and let me just be frank here, OK? We’re pretty well fucked. I can’t lie about that. But there is still a way to…”

  He pauses.

  I’m feeling pretty annoyed at this point. So I snap at him. “A way to what?”

  “Well, it’s not a perfect solution. But it’s the best we can hope for.”

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “No.” SB19 frowns. “You don’t. I’m afraid Harem Station is over, Crux. The whole thing is pointless now.”

  “Wait.” I hold up both hands. “Back the fuck up. What is going on?” I look around. “And why are we here? What are you doing?”

  “Listen,” he says, and now he’s the one holding up both of his hands, pushing air at me. “Time is a loop. A continuous circle. There is no beginning, there is no end. It just… exists. But we all live inside of it and so… we must deal with it. Every now and then there is a recycling, so to speak. Like water on the station. You use it, it goes to a tank, it gets cleaned up, you use it again.”