Venus Rising Read online

  VENUS RISING

  AN EPIC SCI-FI ROMANCE

  Seven Steps

  Contents

  Connect With Me

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Part II

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Part III

  Night of the Broken Moon

  Part IV

  The Squid And The Whale

  Part V

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Thank You For Reading!

  Connect With Me

  Copyright ©2018 by Seven Steps

  All rights reserved by the author.

  Venus Rising is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is wholly coincidental.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, by information storage and retrieval or photocopied, without permission in writing from Seven Steps.

  Proudly Published in the United States of America

  Created with Vellum

  Connect With Me

  Website: WWW.SEVENSTEPSAUTHOR.COM

  EMAIL: [email protected]

  Part 1

  1

  Outer Ring, Habitat Alpha

  Planet Venus

  7009

  On unsteady feet, sixteen-year-old Nadira Marie gripped the side of the iced over, metal vat. She raised a clear bottle to her lips and took a deep drink of blue wine.

  Above, the orange and black Venian atmosphere swirled and coiled, clearly visible through the transparent dome. The clear, metal walls of the Habitat were hundreds of feet thick, built to withstand the pressure, heat, and general fury of the planet’s atmosphere.

  Around her was the reservoir. The vats agitated and churned as they pumped water through underground tunnels and into the homes of the women and men in Habitat Alpha. Ahead, firelight bounced off the vat’s scrubbed surface.

  Nadira took another swig of wine, the liquid sloshing in the bottle as she stumbled forward. “May our mothers be well, and may we never become them!”

  Kiln, her Prime Servant, laced an arm around her waist, his massive biceps squeezing her close to him.

  “Steady, Naddie.” With gentle hands, he plucked the bottle from her fingers, ensured that she was steady on her feet, and freed her from his grip. Six and a half foot tall, and blond, he held the bottle out of her reach.

  “I think you’ve had enough,” he said, his nineteen year old voice deep and clear.

  “Do you?” She reached up on tiptoe, clutched the back of his neck, and drew him to her awaiting mouth, covering his lips in a brief, drunken, wet kiss.

  One side of his mouth broke into a lopsided grin, and he set to kissing her back, dropping his arms to wrap them around her. Seizing the moment, she snatched the bottle from his distracted hand and held it over her head in triumph.

  “You are too easy,” she slurred, taking another sip before falling on her backside.

  Kiln let out a frustrated breath, reached down, and set her back on her feet, “Naddie, I think we should go home.”

  “No. I want to see my friends.”

  “Alright, but just for a few minutes. After that, I’m taking you home and straight to bed.”

  “So you’re my Mistress now?” Nadira teased.

  “No, but if an Enforcer finds us out here, it’ll be our third infraction, and I’ve made it a point not to die this week.”

  Two hovercrafts turned their noses to the walls of the dome. In unison, they shot forward. Their reflections grew as they got closer to the wall. Then, at the last possible second, they pulled up, followed the wall upward, touched the ceiling, and looped back around to do it again.

  Ahead, three girls and a dark haired boy sat around
a crackling fire. Their voices echoed through the reservoir.

  “…and then she said: ‘Kiera, if you can’t respect my home, I’ll have no choice but to send you to Habitat Omega’.” Kiera, a dirty blonde, shrieked to be heard over the sounds of the crackling fire and the gurgling vats. “Let’s see how disrespectful you are when they’re shaving your head and making you an Enforcer.”

  Kiln guided Nadira to the colorful blankets that were strewn on the dusty ground around the fire. Once she was settled, he planted himself next to her.

  Shar-jon’s blonde hair was almost white against the flames. “Do you think she was serious?”

  “She made the comm,” Kiera said. “I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”

  Shar-jon wrapped her arms around Kiera’s shoulders and sniffled.

  “You can’t go,” she said, her voice heavy with threatening tears. “You’re not cut out to be a baldy.”

  “Tell that to my mother,” Kiera said. “But don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Tomorrow, after nightfall, when everyone’s asleep, I’m running to Mahala. Me and Satch will be free.” She took the hand of a raven haired, freckled, blue-eyed boy who sat next to her.

  “Mahala?” Bragnia, a soft-spoken redhead, gasped. The daughter of a retired High Priestess of the Temple of Venus, Bragnia was new to the Outer Ring. “The free slave place? Kiera, you can’t. What if the Enforcers find you?”

  “Then we’ll die together. Either way, I’ll never be an Enforcer and my mother won’t control me anymore.”

  “Do you remember Empress Star’s daughter?” Shar-jon asked. “They say she ran away to Mahala, too.”

  “That’s not what I heard.” Kiera put a hand on Shar-jon’s knee. “I heard that she refused to apply to Beta Council, and her mother went nuts and killed her.”

  Shar-jon wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “That’s crazy. Mothers from Beta aren’t like that.”

  “All mothers are the same,” Kiera said. “But, on the off chance that I’m wrong and Star did run away, I’ll say hello when I see her in Mahala.”

  “No one is going to Mahala,” Nadira slurred. “You don’t even know where it is.”

  “Satch does,” Kiera said. “He’s been there before.”

  The group took in a collective gasp, and Kiera's Prime Servant’s pale skin gained color as all eyes turned to him.

  “You’ve been to Mahala?” Kiln asked.

  Satch cleared his throat. “Well, not there, but close. Kiera’s mother sent me to work in Habitat Beta for a few months to pay off a debt. In the forest, near the wall of the Habitat, we would sometimes hear singing, and smell smoke. None of us were brave enough to sneak out and investigate, but we knew that something was out there.”

  “This is insane!” Bragnia threw up her hands. “You can’t turn rogue and run away to Mahala.”

  “Better than being an Enforcer,” Kiera replied.

  “You're throwing your life away.”

  “What life? The life that my mother wants me to have? No. I won’t be her puppet.” She drank from a brown bottle and leaned against Satch’s shoulder. “Think about it. We’ll be free. Free from their stupid slave laws, free from the petty rules of High Council, free from my dumb mother.”

  “And free from their ancient ideas,” Nadira said. “Don’t feed on the lies your mother tells you. Life isn’t just about who’s getting the High Council seat this year, or who has the most control over their minions. How we’re living, what we’re doing … it’s a prison.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Bragnia asked. “We’re women. It’s not in our nature to be brutal.”

  “How else would you describe a society that buys and sells men from all over the universe, takes them away from their families, wipes their memories, presses them into slavery, beats them, and, when they’re done with them, kills them?”

  “I’d call it progressive. After all, men were doing it to women long before we did it to them. Look at Mars. They keep women locked up in camps and impregnate them in public. It’s disgusting. We are only passing along the practice to those that invented the concept.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Nadira asked.

  “Everyone believes that,” Bragnia answered.

  Shar-jon threw a bottle, missing Bragnia’s foot by a few inches. “I thought I was inviting you here. Not your mother.”

  “May our mothers be well!” Kiera called.

  “And may we never become them!” Nadira answered, completing the group’s mantra.

  “I’m not my mother!” Bragnia pulled her knees into her chest. “I’m just level headed.”

  “More like brain washed,” Satch spat.

  Bragnia ignored him. “Kiera, please don’t run away. There has to be something you can do.” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe my mother can talk to your mother; you know, get her to change her mind? My mother used to be a High Priestess in the Temple. She can be very persuasive.”

  “Yes. That’s an excellent idea,” Kiera mocked. “Please tell your mother about our little talk, and perhaps, if the Mother Goddess wills it, instead of turning me into an Enforcer, they can execute me instead.”

  “I was just trying to help.”

  “Yeah. You were trying to help me. Help me right into the grave.”

  “Whoa. Everyone calm down!” Nadira raised her hands, tried to stand, swayed, and fell down again.

  Shar-jon’s twin slaves rejoined the group. They were indistinguishable from each other, both possessing barrel chest and powerful builds. They would have looked like any other man, if not for their green skin, long canines, and amber colored eyes. They sat, on either side of Shar-jon, the one on the left passing a bottle to the one on the right. The left one waited until his brother drank his fill, then reached his hand out for the bottle and took a long drink.

  Nadira watched them, an idea slipping into her consciousness. “We will settle this with a hovercraft race.”

  “A hovercraft race?” Bragnia asked. “That’s ridiculous and unsafe. You know, I would have expected more from an ambassador’s daughter.”

  “I’d expect a mother to say that.” Kiera rolled her eyes. “It sounds about right coming from you.”

  “Empresses, please! If Bragnia beats Kiera to vat twelve, then Kiera stays and calls Bragnia’s mother for help.”

  “And if I win?” Kiera asked.

  “Then Kiera does what she wants, and Bragnia has to bring her Prime Servant with her the next time we meet.”

  “Why would I bring him?” Bragnia asked.

  “For the same reason anyone brings their slaves here.” Nadira turned to Kiln and kissed him slowly to the oohs and aahs of her audience.

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Have you tried it?” Nadira asked. “Come on, Bragnia. What’s Kiera’s future worth to you? One little race? One little kiss?”

  “Don’t bother.” Kiera flicked her wrist. “She’s afraid, and her slave is disgusting. I wouldn’t want to kiss him either.”

  “Nadira, is this about the junior High Council seat?” Bragnia whispered. “It’s down to just me and you, isn’t it? Are you trying to sabotage me so that you can take the seat for yourself?”

  “You can have the junior High Council seat. I never wanted it in the first place. My mother did.”

  “I’m sure.” Bragnia sounded incredulous.

  “First off,” Kiera said, “Nadira will never serve on High Council because she has a brain and can think for herself.”

  “Yes!” Nadira cried.

  “And second,” Kiera continued, “don’t change the subject. I’ll take you up on that race. I’ll have you know that I am unbeaten in a hovercraft.”

  “You’ve never raced in a hovercraft,” Satch said.

  “Not now, Satch,” Kiera retorted. “So, Bragnia. What do you say? Race for my life?”

  Bragnia squeezed her lips t
ogether, her already red face turning crimson.