Sugar & Spice (Spaceport 7)

Sugar and Spice (Spaceport)

Second Edition
Tuesday Morrigan
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2019 Tuesday Morrigan

Sugar Lawson stared at the gigantic screen in front of her, and read off the information as the artificially intelligent brain of her spaceship known as Kyoto spoke the words.

"Interactive video mail with attachments is currently arriving from Monoke 'Agent Talons' McCarty. Please state whether you desire to accept, and if accepted please acknowledge acceptance."

"Please scan video mail."

"Video mail scanned. It is virus free and does not contain any tracking device."

"Better not," Sugar grumbled as she stood and grabbed a bottle of water from her captain's fridge. "Mail accepted," she said over her shoulder before taking a big gulp from the canister. She was in a surly mood. Had been since her last case. Almost reluctantly, Sugar marched back to the console and took her seat.

"Open mail." She was really hoping her agent had sent her something more solid than her last case which had turned out to be nothing more than a shallow attempt at revenge. And Sugar didn't do revenge. She was known as Justifier for a reason.

In a lawless galaxy she doled out justice.

For a price.

The middle-aged woman who'd tried to hire the Justifier hadn't understood the difference between revenge and justice. Luckily, Sugar always did a thorough investigation before deciding if a crime had been committed and what price the perpetrator would have to pay.

She'd been angry and frustrated when she'd discovered that the case was nothing more than an angry ex-wife trying to get back at her husband for leaving her for a younger woman.

After turning down the case, there was no reason for her to go planet hopping. She'd parked her ship at Adana, the only spaceport she liked. Almost a month later, she still had no assignment and nowhere to go.

She was not like most people. She couldn't just sit back and enjoy the down time between cases. Hell, she wasn't even really a person so to speak. She'd been genetically engineered to be her maker's perfect wife. Bold, beautiful, and highly intelligent. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't considered that a woman who was smart enough to have deep conversations with a classified genius might actually want to be something more than a high-class homemaker.

After one too many evenings that bored the hell out of her, Sugar had purchased a ticket onto a shuttle ship. She hadn't planned on the ship being jacked and the occupants being sold into slavery.

The man who had commanded the jacking had known exactly who and what she was the moment he spotted her. He had kept her bound and drugged, knowing that if he didn't fully incapacitate her she would get free and break his neck. For over a year and a half she had been his sex slave. That was because it had taken her eighteen months to spot his first and last mistake.

Sugar had broken free from Radja's hold, only to find herself at the mercy of another man. Armando Valentope ended up being her savior. A bounty hunter, he taught her all that she needed to know about protecting herself and those less fortunate than her.

Using the very skills he had taught her, she had gone back, two years after her escape, to find Radja. Her initial goal had only been to kill him, but then she'd discovered he was still forcing people into slavery. In the end, she'd not only broken his neck, she'd set hundreds of enchained individuals free. After that night, Armando had given her the name Justifier.

And Justifier needed a job.

She was even starting to irritate the hell out of her best friends. Sugar had been cooped up in her ship too long. She leaned forward and rubbed the area behind the two overgrown dogs' heads, trying to silently apologize for her recent behavior.

Iskar, the bigger of the two, growled low in appreciation. We understand it has been hard, but sometimes…

The warm, fast grin flashed across her face. Yeah, I know. Sometimes Sugar had been a downright bitch.

Jolie moved a little closer. Sugar's smile reappeared. Jolie might have been the smaller of the two waist-high dogs, but she was the more ferocious one. Only when she was around Sugar did she let out her softer side.

Like someone I know, Jolie purred in her surprisingly soft voice. Sugar would never admit it, not even under the threat of a thousand deaths, but she loved the sound of Jolie's telepathic voice. It was both warm and sultry.

Like her, they were genetic experiments. Their creator was a different man than hers. One of her first cases involved a research facility doing illegal testing. Sugar closed the institute and set free the tortured humanoids and animals. Iskar and Jolie had been a pair of puppies with enhanced abilities. She'd taken one look at them and known she couldn't leave them to their fates. Thankfully the two dogs decided to stay with her.

Well, well, well. This one looks interesting.