QSFer Victoria Janssen has a new queer space opera out (bi, lesbian, non-binary, poly), A Place of Refuge book 1: Finding Refuge.
They lost the revolution. But then, they found sanctuary—and hope.
After the fascist Federated Colonies crushes their interstellar revolt, freedom fighters Talia and Miki have only each other.
Telepathic warrior Talia Avi lost her home planet, her people, and their psychic communion when the FC invaded, but thanks to Miki Boudreaux, she can glimpse a life beyond defeat. Genius engineer Miki lost Talia once to FC captivity and never plans to lose her again.
Miki will risk her life and her freedom to reunite Talia with the escaped remnants of her people, on a mysterious planet far outside of FC control. But the difficult part will be what comes after…when you’ve always been a guerilla at the sharp end of death, how do you learn to make a life?
Can two freedom fighters find refuge at last?
Warnings: character rescued from prison is very thin from abuse, but does not suffer from anorexia.
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Excerpt
Talia’s dream was raucous with laughter and conversation and vivid color. Miki pulled great rainbows of flowers from a Federated helmet with a single bullet hole through its reflective face mask, and tossed them to Talia, who let them shower to the ground like rain. The flowers sang a pattersong, flapping their counterpoint beats with their petals. Talia offered a plate of freshly-baked boots to all her friends in turn. None of it seemed strange, except how tearfully glad she was to see them all.
Then they vanished, and she was alone.
When Talia opened her eyes on her last morning in her cell, the needled bulb which continually fed suppressant drugs into her veins was gone. She lurched to her feet, grabbing at the slick wall when her weakened legs failed to support her. The door slammed open and two Federated Colonies guards stepped smartly inside, their face masks distorting Talia’s reflection. A third and fourth, also armored, seized her arms and hustled her into the corridor, their gloved fingers painfully squeezing her flesh against her bones.
I’m to be executed at last, she thought vaguely. The miasma of drugs clouded her every thought, as well as the remnants of her Damarae telepathy. She’d been in this prison for a long time. She was sure any information she might once have had about Jon Churchill and his dissenter rebellion was long out of date. She hoped her death would be quick.
At the end of a forced walk long enough to make her pant for breath, a door loomed. Head drooping, she didn’t see it until she was hurled at it. It slid open and she fell through, collapsing onto the cold metal floor of another cell, easily identified by its inexorable white lights and tang of bleach and old blood. She tried to lift herself, but her wrists and elbows collapsed beneath her. Someone grasped her shoulder and helped to turn her over.
She defiantly lifted her gaze, staring with utter disbelief into the pale round face of Miki Boudreaux.
Miki’s brown eyes were huge in her pale face; her long chestnut braid felt so real against Talia’s bare arm. Escaped hairs prickled against the hairs on Talia’s forearm, a detail she did not think she could have imagined. Miki’s hands were shaking and Talia’s face felt numb.
After a time, Miki lifted her up and carried her carefully, awkwardly, to the single bench and sat, uncharacteristically silent, with Talia held close on her lap. The movement felt real, too, not just dizziness. The room didn’t shift or change, as it might in a drug dream. Talia shook, because Miki’s whole body was trembling. After a while Talia noticed that her ribs were throbbing in distinct points where Miki gripped her and, dizzily, she forced her mouth to form words, a skill she hadn’t practiced in far too long. “Miki, you’re hurting me. Too tight.”
“Tallie?” Miki breathed.
The sound of her own name filled an abyss within her that, until that moment, she had been unaware of. Slowly she dared to lift her head. Miki’s warmth was sinking into her chilled skin. She was surrounded by a familiar scent. She had not realized she still remembered Miki’s scent, or that it could comfort her so deeply. She reached up and touched the gold rings linked through the delicate pink-tinged helix of Miki’s left ear. The metal was warm. Miki’s ear was warm, as was her rosy cheek, and the soft, soft underside of her jaw.
Gloved fingers touched Talia’s chin, not Miki’s hand, and she looked up. She was almost unsurprised to see Faigin Balfour, her sardonic face thin and drawn, dramatic wings of eyebrows pinched together. The collar of her dark shirt was fastened tightly up her throat, to hide the Federated interfaces that spanned her melanin-rich skin; her stiff black hair looked freshly cropped, close to the elegant shape of her skull. Her cheekbone was badly bruised. Faigin said, with the very faintest hint of unsteadiness, “You seem to be Talia, as I remember her. But a great deal smaller.”
“You’re thin as a ghost,” Miki explained, near her ear, her gentle voice lilting along Talia’s nerves. Her hands now clasped at the small of Talia’s back. Talia’s face was tucked up beneath her chin. So odd. Talia had always been the fighter, the protector. Talia should be the one holding Miki.
Miki and Faigin both, alive. And, as she opened her numbed psychic senses as best she could, she felt them here. Real. Truly present in the room with her. This feeling wasn’t her long-dormant telepathy, but her sense of their presence was undeniable nonetheless.
“I don’t eat much,” Talia said at last, her voice trembling as well as her muscles. She unfolded her arm and exposed the ashy patch where adhesive usually held needled tubes to her brown skin.
“Talia,” Faigin said. “Tell me something only you would know.”
Faigin’s jaw was tight and her brows contracted, in a way that meant she was suppressing strong emotion. Without having to think, Talia said, “Sunshine.”
Faigin smiled, teeth flashing like lightning. “Enough! Don’t say any more in front of Miki.”
“Fine, just ignore me, fine!” Miki complained, clutching Talia closer and choking back a sob. She kissed Talia’s temple, and pressed her forehead to Talia’s scalp.
Talia asked, “How did you come here?” This small speech exhausted her. She let her head loll on Miki’s shoulder.
Faigin sat down to Miki’s left. “Heroics,” Faigin stated, drily.
Talia rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the pounding that never seemed to stop. “You hate heroics.”
“I never said they were my choice.”
Author Bio
Victoria Janssen [she, her] lives in Philadelphia and writes comforting fiction in a sunny room overrun with houseplants. She loves reading comics and books about World War One. She’s a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
| Author Website | http://victoriajanssen.com/ |
| Author Twitter | https://twitter.com/victoriajanssen |
Thanks for featuring Finding Refuge!