Grace Goodwin - The Commanders' Mate

The Commanders’ Mate: Copyright © 2019 by Grace Goodwin

Interstellar Brides® is a registered trademark

of KSA Publishing Consultants Inc.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, digital or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any type of data storage and retrieval system without express, written permission from the author.

Published by KSA Publishers

Goodwin, Grace

The Commanders’ Mate, Book 15

Cover design copyright 2020 by Grace Goodwin

Images/Photo Credit: Deposit Photos: sdecoret, Romariolen

Publisher’s Note:

This book was written for an adult audience. The book may contain explicit sexual content. Sexual activities included in this book are strictly fantasies intended for adults and any activities or risks taken by fictional characters within the story are neither endorsed nor encouraged by the author or publisher.

Get A Free Book! Get A Free Book! Join my mailing list to be the first to know of new releases, free books, special prices and other author giveaways. http://freescifiromance.com

Find YOUR Interstellar Match! Find YOUR Interstellar Match! YOUR mate is out there. Take the test today and discover your perfect match. Are you ready for a sexy alien mate (or two)? VOLUNTEER NOW! interstellarbridesprogram.com

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

A special THANK YOU to my readers...

Find YOUR Interstellar Match!

Do you love audiobooks?

Let’s Talk!

Get A Free Book!

Also by Grace Goodwin

About Grace

http://freescifiromance.com

YOUR mate is out there. Take the test today and discover your perfect match. Are you ready for a sexy alien mate (or two)?

VOLUNTEER NOW!

interstellarbridesprogram.com

Commander Karter, Battleship Varsten, Sector 438

“You shouldn’t be here, Commander. I can take care of this.” My second in command, Vice Commander Bard, walked next to me, shoulder to shoulder, as he had for over a decade. We were both battleship-born Prillon warriors, and I counted on him to speak the truth when I didn’t want to hear it.

Bard spoke the truth now. Being in this wreck of a battleship was not the wisest course of action I could have taken. Yet, I had no choice. I had to see the level of destruction for myself. Commander Varsten was an excellent strategist, a seasoned warrior, and he was missing. I could not quite believe that half of his battle fleet had been destroyed in a matter of hours. Battlegroup Varsten had been decimated.

“The comm would not have done it justice.” Some things needed to be witnessed.

Bard stepped over a pool of scorched blood on the floor, a frown on his usually blank face. “No, it would not.”

When the comms came in from the survivors, I had not believed them, could not believe that nearly an entire battlegroup had been wiped out so quickly.

Yet, here we stood in the scarred remains of a ship that had once housed nearly two thousand warriors, mates and children. Outside, three of Varsten’s support vessels had been obliterated, not much more than fragments left spinning in the deep black of space. The battleship itself now drifted toward the nearest planet, weak engines not quite able to resist the relentless pull of gravity with the main power source destroyed. The metal corridors creaked and moaned beneath our boots as we pulled the foul scent of charred ship and death into our lungs through our helmets.

The devastation was vast. This section had a hull breach and our helmets, with supplemental oxygen, were required, as there was no air to breathe. Only half of the large vessel was still intact, and what was left was empty. A handful of dead were all that remained. Thank fuck we’d not come across a single murdered woman or innocent child in our search. It seemed the warriors who called this ship home had managed to get their families off the vessel but how that was even possible remained a mystery. Fuck, this entire situation had endless questions yet to be answered.

We walked the corridors of Commander Varsten’s battleship. Not my ship. Not my people. Not my sector of space. But they were all mine now. The dead lining these corridors and floating in the cold emptiness of space just outside the ship were my people. This barely-functioning craft was now under my control.

They were mine. With their commander missing, the survivors who’d lived through the direct attack on this ship, as well as those in the battlegroup who’d been sent to safety, were my responsibility. And there were a shocking number of Varsten’s people packed into the remaining cargo and support ships hiding on the other side of the nearest planet’s star. It was as if Varsten had known the attack was coming and ordered all his people and half of his fleet out of danger right before the Hive could strike.

But that made no sense. Why would he evacuate non-essential personnel and knowingly move an elite class battleship into a trap? Why sacrifice a battleship and multiple support crafts? Leave Sector 438 open to Hive occupation? This area of space was neighbor to mine. Varsten and I had spoken often over comms, discussed strategy and Hive activity. He had been a patient male with two decades more battle experience than I. A wise commander. He wouldn’t have done anything without reason. Finding out what had happened here was my first priority.

As was hunting and destroying the Hive attack fleet that had caused such destruction. I’d been transported here from Battleship Karter, along with an entire squadron of medical, military and support personnel, after receiving the distress call from those sent to safety. But they had not called during the Hive attack, but after it was over.

Hours after. We still had no explanation for that.

Seven hours, to be exact. We’d received a comm call from those who had been hiding on the other vessels. Unfortunately, there were no high-ranking officers among them. No one seemed to know what had pushed Commander Varsten to make such radical and inexplicable decisions.

Nothing made sense. Nothing.

“Where is the command crew?” I asked.

“We don’t know.” Our boots echoed with each stride as he answered me. “Those who are left of Varsten’s battlegroup remain on the other side of the star. The star’s radioactive field is interfering with our short-range comms and they are refusing to activate their quantum comm links.”