Disobedience

  DISOBEDIENCE

  Also by Kaitlyn Andersen

  Reliance

  DISOBEDIENCE

  Book Two of the Reliance Trilogy

  Heliosphere Books®

  Copyright © 2021 by Kaitlyn Andersen

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information please contact permissions@endpaperspress.com or write Endpapers Press, 4653 Carmel Mountain Rd, Suite 308 PMB 212, San Diego, CA 92130-6650. Visit our website at www.endpaperspress.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Andersen, Kaitlyn, 1986- author.

  Title: Disobedience / Kaitlyn Andersen.

  Description: San Diego : Heliosphere Books, [2021] | Series: The Reliance trilogy ; book 2 | Summary: “Finn No Last Name has fled her crewmates aboard Independence, after discovering that she’d been betrayed by the person she trusted most. Now on her own, she searches for other hybrids like her, with powers she can only imagine. That search brings her to Enyo, a Sirian warrior who has been a captive of the Reliance for years. Finally free, she is more than eager to join Finn on her mission to locate and free more hybrids. But that search brings her back to Independence, whether she likes it or not. And back to Conrad whom she is starting to realize has feelings for her she can’t quite fathom. And to Iliana, her long-lost sister, whose breach of trust left Finn feeling even more alone than she had when she thought Iliana dead. With Enyo and AJ in tow, Finn goes on a mission to locate and free other hybrids, only to find herself caught up in the twisted games held in the Dome, the Reliance’s coliseum. What had been an undercover operation has now become a true battle between life and death, in front of an audience of thousands”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020057216 (print) | LCCN 2020057217 (ebook) | ISBN 9781937868741 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781937868826 (epub) | ISBN 9781937868833 (kindle edition)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3601.N436 D57 2021 (print) | LCC PS3601.N436 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057216

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020057217

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937868-74-1 (trade paperback)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937868-82-6 (EPUB)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937868-83-3 (Kindle)

  Cover design by chrisodesign.com

  Sky image by Neida Karate via Unsplash; Man image by Dallas Wade via Unsplash; City image by 3000a via Shutterstock; Planets image by Algol via Shutterstock

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, corporations, or other entities, is entirely coincidental.

  Heliosphere Books are published by Endpapers Press,

  a division of Author Coach, LLC.

  Heliosphere Books is a registered trademark of Author Coach, LLC.

  For Jack, the slayer of all my dragons.

  ONE

  Finn No Last Name stepped out of the shadowed alcove shielding her from view. With her red velvet cape covering her dark auburn waves, elbow-length gloves, and copper-colored, high-collared silk shirt, she blended seamlessly with the other citizens of the Reliance.

  The population on Arcturus nearly exceeded 4.7 billion. In their midst, she floated by like a drop of water in a vast sea. After spending endless cycles too terrified to return to the Inner Rings, Finn now found it more than a little exhilarating to discover how utterly invisible she was.

  She wondered what Grim would say if he could see her now.

  Grim, who had raised her from feral child with no memories to competent thief. The giant Khaleerian who had served as her mentor and closest ally for countless cycles was a complete stranger to her now.

  Not just a stranger . . . the Luminary.

  Only a month ago, he’d sent her on a farce of a mission to retrieve a stolen Khaleerian locket. All too eager to please him, Finn had left behind the Mud Pit—the only home she’d ever known—to pursue an upper-caste courtesan.

  An upper-caste courtesan who had turned out to be Finn’s long-lost older sister, Iliana.

  An older sister she hadn’t been too keen to see again.

  With that jolt of a reminder of her past, Finn’s memories had come flooding back and, in a matter of days, she’d wound up changing the course of her very existence.

  What I wouldn’t give for a time machine, she mused darkly.

  Her pursuit of Iliana had led her to Captain Shane Montgomery and Independence, a ship full to bursting with alien/human half-breeds, each one sporting their own unique set of special abilities.

  The blended, as Shane Montgomery called them, were considered persona non grata by the Reliance and their Arcturian forefathers, who had spent the better part of the last century peddling negative propaganda and hunting the half-breeds to the point of extinction.

  Naturally, Finn was more than a little surprised to find a ship full of them.

  The blended.

  Finn grimaced at Shane’s flowery word for the persecuted race. She supposed it was better than half-breed, but she couldn’t bring herself to use it with any real frequency. She preferred a more scientific approach . . . hybrids.

  In a matter of days, Shane and his hybrid crew had flipped Finn’s world on its head. One of the many lies they had told during her brief stay on Independence came undone when she realized the job they were pulling for a Farthers middleman, the Toad, was really just their cover for stealing a list of the hybrids being held in Reliance captivity.

  Worst of all, they had committed this theft for their almighty leader—the enigmatic Luminary—whose identity they had sworn to protect.

  But the crew hadn’t been finished turning Finn’s life upside down. Not only was the Reliance holding groups of hybrids captive—rather than executing them as their propaganda would have the worlds believe—Finn and her sister, Iliana, were also hybrids themselves.

  Thanks to their alien mother, both women could steal the memories of others with a mere touch.

  When the mysterious Luminary and orchestrator of chaos had turned out to be none other than Grim, Finn had swallowed about as much betrayal as she could take, stealing an escape pod and leaving Independence and its crew of liars in the dust.

  As Finn made her way past sweeping glass skyscrapers and countless holojectors flashing images of smiling socialites and streets lined in gold, her eyes remained focused on the planet’s two tallest towers and the giant Arcturian eye nestled between their peaks.

  The headquarters for Arcturus’s hand-selected, cream-of-the-crop council was nearly impenetrable. Trying to break through its security to rescue the hybrid inside would be considered a suicide mission by even the most capable of thieves.

  A heaviness settled in Finn’s chest, sadness spreading from its center.

  Two hybrids were imprisoned on Arcturus: One in James Jessup’s sprawling countryside manor, the other within the heavily guarded confines of the Council Headquarters’ domed building.

  Finn would only make it off this planet with one.

  It wasn’t so much that she feared death. The strange sense of resolve she’d found on the Mud Pit’s streets after fleeing Independence so many weeks ago made such worries seem inconsequential.

  However, the cold fact remained, Finn couldn’t help anyone if she was dead.

  Now, the time had come to face the hard truth she’d been avoiding. The truth she�
�d known the moment she realized one of the captive hybrids was imprisoned within those impassable walls.

  I can still save one.

  She repeated the sentence over and over in her mind, rubbing away the ache just below her sternum as she continued down the busy street, all the while taking care to avoid eye contact with the upper-caste passersby as she went.

  More heavily guarded than any other Inner Rings planet, Arcturus was populated by the most important, influential members of the Reliance upper caste and Finn planned to steal a hybrid right out from under their haughty noses.

  Maybe her newfound detachment wasn’t purpose.

  Maybe it was insanity.

  When she’d found James Jessup, the puritanical leader of the Union of the Planets’ largest house of Arcturian worship, her first day on planet, it had only taken one look for all thoughts of indecision to flee her mind.

  She had watched him for days as he’d casually strolled between the four Houses of Arcturian Disciples wearing his unassuming burgundy robes, surrounded by half a dozen Reliance soldiers serving as his personal guard. A golden ring with a ruby centerpiece and a tattoo of an eye marking the center of his forehead were his only adornments.

  People stopped him on the streets everywhere he went to request blessings and prayers on their behalf. He always obliged, his carefully masked features the picture of tranquility. Some of the more dramatic members of the upper castes cried freely when his ringed hand rested atop their heads and his eyes closed in prayers of benediction.

  His humble demeanor only made Finn loathe him more, because she knew something the rest of them didn’t: Jessup held a hybrid captive somewhere on planet.

  A hybrid she intended to find. She would not leave Arcturus until she had robbed him of his prized possession.

  It would have been easy to lose him in the ever-changing tide of red and gold, as the upper crust of the Reliance hustled and bustled between glass-plated skyscrapers. She’d noticed from her trips to Inner Rings planets that the Arcturians and their Reliance followers had an overzealous admiration of the ancient Romans of Earth. Finn had spent enough time pouring over Grim’s contraband books to recognize the obvious homage in everything from mosaics and fountains to the purely aesthetic aqueducts feeding water to the synthetic gardens.

  The way the upper-caste citizens carelessly meandered through their sprawling metropolis, spending the gold the lower castes broke their backs for, nearly penetrated Finn’s wall of calculated dispassion.

  She kept to the shadows, never letting Jessup stray too far from her line of sight. Each day, when the three suns of Arcturus rose, she followed and she watched, learning his routes and routines.

  The longer she followed, the more she witnessed.

  Each day Arcturus’s masses held countless public feasts and extravagant buffets with enough food to feed the entirety of the Outer Rings making up the Farthers for a whole cycle. Each meal was heralded first by a prayer to the Gods, then to the Arcturians. Small statues of their alien forefathers—complete with golden skin and ruby red eyes—adorned each table. As it turned out, the upper castes prayed to the Gods and the forefathers in equal measure.

  Seeing their sickening idolization of the golden prigs up close and with such brutal relentlessness had threatened to tip Finn over the edge.

  On the Mud Pit, she’d worried that a life of peace stood out of her reach because of all that her time on Shane Montgomery’s ship had revealed. Now, she knew it without a doubt: Finn would never be able to block out the images of the things she’d seen here.

  No matter how hard she tried.

  A body slammed into her . . . hard, distracting her from her thoughts, and she caught herself before the force sent her to the ground. Strong hands grasped Finn’s gloved arms above the elbows, steadying her.

  She glanced up at the senior-ranking officer from Jessup’s Reliance guard, his barrel chest bursting the seams of his deep red jacket.

  She pretended to blush, slipping a hand into the pocket of her burgundy trousers.

  He barely gave Finn’s bashful act a cursory glance, before letting her go and moving away with a stern, “Pardon me, madam.”

  “I am terribly sorry, Major.”

  With a curt nod at her apology, he moved off to join the other guards surrounding James Jessup as he made his way through the crowds of the admiring masses. Finn trailed them at a safe distance, pretending to be one of his marveling followers.

  On and on he walked, the crowds thinning the farther away from the city center he went. Gradually, she separated herself, ducking into the shadows and pausing around corners. Soon, the guards reached a sleek, convertible golden pod with the top rolled back, a thick glass dome protecting the opening, and affixed to four outdated rubber wheels, giving it the appearance of an oversized Roman chariot.

  This particular transport stretched long enough to fit ten men inside comfortably. The soldiers hastily ushered Jessup in.

  Once they’d gotten their precious cargo settled, the major called out an order to the six synthetic horses attached to the strange chariot-pod hybrid by an assortment of rainbow-colored wires.

  The pod was more than capable of operating on its own, but Finn had learned that Jessup—like so many other members of the Reliance—leaned toward the flamboyantly unnecessary when it came to their methods of travel. Red eyes flickered open and iron hooves began to shift as their inner mechanics whirred to life.

  Trailing behind the giant beasts as they sped off into the distance, Finn jogged at a brisk pace. Together, they traversed five kilometers of rocky terrain, the steady rhythm keeping Finn at a healthy distance. After the fourth kilometer, she finally began to feel winded, but urged her tired legs to keep stride, knowing they would soon reach their destination.

  Moments later, the chariot stopped. Finn slowed her steps, breaking through a grouping of synthetic cherry trees just in time to watch the horses pass through massive iron gates. Moving with silent steps past rows and rows of blooming hedges, her eyes tracked Jessup as his guards led him past the towering stone walls surrounding his four-story manor.

  Everything looked calm . . . as it had the last two times she’d followed him home.

  Finn reached into the pocket of her trousers and fingered the ID chip she’d swiped from the major.

  Tonight, Jessup would regret his callous arrogance.

  TWO

  As darkness fell, Finn remained crouched behind the same bush, sizing up every inch of Jessup’s forbidding manor. The manufactured, sickly-sweet scent of synthetic blossoms filled her nostrils and she struggled not to sneeze at the effect. The moons were distant tonight and darkness shadowed the property, making Jessup’s pristine home stand out amidst the obscurity.

  Several thick, white pillars supported the building’s massive structure.

  Perfect for masking her approach.

  Finn slid the cloak from her shoulders and folded it up tightly, tucking it into one of the zippered compartments on her belt. She tightened the auburn ponytail at the top of her crown. Clutching the ID chip in a gloved palm, she hunched down low and ran for the gates, jumping, weaving, and zigzagging as she went.

  Thanks to her previous visits to observe the manor and its security, she had managed to make it there without tripping any of the motion sensor spheres strategically floating within the foliage of nearby trees.

  The chip glided easily into the security console attached to the gates, flashing green before she heard the groan of iron as they opened wide. She stepped inside but remained on the outer perimeter of the property, as close to the stone walls as her body would allow.

  Two guards patrolled Jessup’s gardens on the south side of the estate, their voices carrying to her as they joked with one another.

  Letting the shadows hide her, Finn waited for them to pass, then resumed her routine of dodging, weaving, and bobbing as she avoided more motion sensors spread throughout the grounds.

  Under a veil of passing clouds that dimm
ed the light of Arcturus’s three moons, she sprinted the final six meters to the servants’ entrance around the side of the house, using the chip to once again gain entry.

  Quiet greeted her inside.

  The shadow of a servant passed by the kitchens and Finn ducked behind the cover of a glittering gold-dusted countertop to watch the woman pass.

  The servant’s uniform of burgundy pants and copper top perfectly matched Finn’s, making the need to hide a moot one. She’d learned from the last few days of surveying Jessup’s manor that he had an abundance of servants attending to his every need. The fact that they were all required to wear the same monotonous (by Arcturian standards, anyway) garb, day in and day out, only made Finn’s infiltration that much easier.

  The manor’s layout flashed in her mind like a virtual map—a trick she’d only recently learned to attribute to her hybrid genetics.

  Through direct contact, Finn had the power to see and share the memories of others, imprint maps and layouts, and a host of other things she’d yet to learn. The extent of her abilities remained a mystery. She knew they came from her mother, but she’d decided it was better to ignore thoughts related to her mother, her hybrid status, and how she’d found out about it. Those thoughts only led to more painful ones, ones that involved Finn’s sister . . . and other people she was better off forgetting.

  Following her instincts, and with images of the layout flashing behind her lids, Finn made her way down a narrow hallway to the cellar. The red door that greeted her screamed restricted access, just as she’d expected.

  She pulled the stolen ID chip out once again and took a breath, then ran it over the scanner just above the door’s handle. The light above the small box flashed green and the lock clicked.

  Finn paused. It just figured she’d end up with a half-Sirian for her first rescue attempt. In her limited experience with the race—which included a recent run-in at a Reliance ball—she knew Sirians to be vicious, aggressive, and more like feral canines than reasoning, logical adults. It was the reason they made such perfect soldiers for the Reliance Guard.