A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1

Firesetter

Book 1

A Thread of Time

By

J. Naomi Ay

Published by
Ayzenberg, Inc

Copyright 2015-2016
Ayzenberg, Inc
.

070216

Cover Design by Amy
Jambor

Cover art [email protected]
& [email protected]

Also by

J. Naomi Ay

Firesetter series

A Thread of Time
(Book 1)

Amyr’s Command
(Book 2)

Three Kings (Book
3)

Exceeding
Expectations (Book 4)

The Two Moons of Rehnor
series

The Boy who Lit up
the Sky (Book 1)

My Enemy's Son
(Book 2)

Of Blood and
Angels (Book 3)

Firestone Rings
(Book 4)

The Days of the
Golden Moons (Book 5)

Golden's Quest
(Book 6)

Metamorphosis
(Book 7)

The Choice (Book
8)

Treasure Hunt
(Book 9)

Space Chase (Book
10)

Imperial
Masquerade (Book 11)

Rivalry (Book 12)

Thirteen (Book 13)

Betrayal (Book 14)

Fairy Tales (Book
15)

Gone for a Spin
(Book 16)

Table
of Contents

Chapter
1 – Lance

Chapter
2 – Jan

Chapter
3 – Ailana

Chapter
4 – Lance

Chapter
5 – Jan

Chapter
6 – Pellen

Chapter
7 – Ailana

Chapter
8 – Jan

Chapter
9 – Ailana

Chapter
10 – Lance

Chapter
11 – Pellen

Chapter
12 – Ailana

Chapter
13 – Dov

Chapter
14 – Rekah

Chapter
15 – Lance

Chapter
16 – Rekah

Chapter
17 – Jan

Chapter
18 – Ailana

Chapter
19 – Sandy

Chapter
20 – Ailana

Chapter
21 – Dov

Chapter
22 – Ailana

Chapter
23 – Dov

Chapter
24 – Ailana

Chapter
25 – Lance

Chapter 1

Lance

I
joined the Allied SpaceForce for one
reason and one reason alone, I was flat broke and I needed money.  After
hocking everything I owned at the local pawnshop, or selling it on Craigslist,
I was down to forty-three dollars and thirty-seven cents, in addition to the
ancient Euro my father had left me as an inheritance. 

“What the heck is this?” I had mumbled,
holding the single coin in my palm, while at the same time, the lawyer was
informing my brother, Hank that he was bequeathed everything else in my father's
estate. 

Granted, Dad was no billionaire.  His
estate was pretty simple, a modest house in a not-so-great town, in the center
of the continent, affectionately referred to as
The Armpit
.  Still, it
was worth something, and undoubtedly, more than this useless coin.  I mean, a
Euro?  Europe hadn't existed for several centuries!

“Ha!” Hank had laughed in his annoying
nasally voice, gloating over his victory in this final round of the sibling
game.  Yep.  Dad loved him best, and that was now proven without a doubt.  I
was the loser when it came to paternal affection. 

“Congratulations,” the lawyer said to
Hank, but not to me. 

Hank nodded regally, savoring his win. 
Had the lawyer not been there, my brother would have left with a minimum of a
bloody nose and a maximum of a five month stay in traction. 

“I'll just have you sign off on the
deed.”  The lawyer presented the documents to Hank as I rose from my seat,
flipping my precious antique Euro coin between my fingers.  “Good luck, Lance. 
Hank, let me take you out to lunch.”  The lawyer scumbag barely glanced in my
direction, as I let myself out. 

“Good riddance.”

I didn’t really blame him.  He knew this
cow was dry.  He'd milk no costly legal fees from me and therefore, I didn't
merit even a handshake.

Stepping out into the street, after
leaving the dark and overly air conditioned building, I was momentarily blinded
by the sudden burst of sunlight.  I thought the crosswalk light was in my
favor.  I thought there were no vehicles on the street and the heat that was
washing over me was merely the sun, while that roaring sound was a bus on the
next corner.  I thought wrong on all four counts.  The next thing I knew, I was
bouncing off the hood of something, only to end up beneath its wheels.  Fortunately,
by this point, I wasn’t awake.

Three days later, I was, and less than
delighted to discover I was in traction, the sort that I had wished upon Hank. 
Karma could sure be a bitch.

When my brother came to visit me in the
hospital, sitting by my bedside and describing in great detail the renovations
he was going to make to Dad's house, if I could have, I would have reached up
and smacked him.  Alternately, I would have yanked his tongue from his mouth,
or removed his eyeballs from their sockets with my fingernails.  As I couldn't
lift a finger, and was far too drugged to even spit in his direction, I lay
there prone, subjected to yet another round of fraternal gloating. 

Six months passed until my back was more
or less healed and I was released from the hospital, a new, but not improved
man.  I was also totally broke, so much in debt that four lifetimes of
delivering pizzas, my previous occupation, wouldn't yield enough to ever make
me a free man. 

Briefly, I considered stepping into the
street again and encouraging another vehicle to roll over me, this time
finishing the job completely.  That was the only way I could foresee escaping
the hospital's payment plan, which as I departed, was detailed on an invoice
that would follow me for the next forty years. 

Instead, I headed to a local pub where I
spent the next day and night drowning my sorrows in beer, drinking up what
little remained of my money.  It was stupid, of course.  I should have put it
toward the hospital's first installment.  Somehow, and at some point, I managed
to stagger home to my flat, where fortunately, the landlord had taken pity upon
me during my absence. 

Gloria didn't evict me, or toss my things
in the street during my convalescence.  This could have been entirely due to
the fact that no one else was willing to rent that dive.  It also could have
been because she liked me.  Poor Gloria was on the wrong side of forty, nearly
twenty years my senior and throughout her life, had a habit of selecting the
wrong kind of guy.  This included me.

I regretted what happened.  I became a
whore.  While I scrambled to pay the hospital bill by selling my stuff and
raising money in any way I could, I kept Gloria entertained in exchange for the
rent. 

Every month, on the first, it went like
this.  Gloria would knock on my door, usually bright and early, undoubtedly,
waking me from a sound and contented sleep that was much nicer than my
reality.  Groggily, I’d stumble from the sofa, swing the door wide open to
admit her and feign surprise at her arrival during this ungodly hour.

“The rent, Lance,” she'd say frostily,
holding out a hand, the other knuckled into her side, a foot tapping out an
impatient rhythm.  “I can't let you go another month without paying.”

“Rent,” I'd mutter sleepily, running a
hand across my night's beard.  “Oh.  Gloria.  Yeah, the thing is---”

“What?”

“I'm a little short again this month.” 
I’d pat my hands against my hips as if checking inside the nonexistent pockets
of my marginally clean and slightly torn boxer shorts. 

“Mhm,” she'd mutter, her eyes drawn to my
hands, where inevitably she'd find a prime example of morning wood.  “Oh.  Is
that for me?”

“It's all I've got right now,” I'd say,
which was followed by the old couch being cleared of my ratty blanket and the
even older sleeper mattress beneath extended to its full size. 

Then, I did what I did best, because at
twenty-four, I was a loser at every other round in this game of life.  Gloria
left happy, and my lack of rent was forestalled for another month.

Eventually, Gloria tired of this game, or
maybe, she preferred to play it instead with the guy in the apartment across
the hall.  At any rate, she gave me an ultimatum.  At the end of the month, pay
up or get out.

“You got anything else?” the pawnbroker
asked, as I stared at the measly number written on my ticket. 

“Hey, that ring is worth more than that!”
I insisted.  “It was my mother's.  She left it to me to give to my future
wife.”

“I'm doing you a favor then,” the guy
replied.  “You give a girl this piece of crap cubic zirconia and she's liable
to throw it back at you and walk out of your wedding.”

“It's not a fake.”

“Listen to me, son.  I've seen a lot of
rings in my day, and that one's about as real as my tooth.”  He proceeded to
reach into his mouth and pull out a shiny, white incisor.  “Look's nice, eh? 
Indestructible, too.  Better than the real thing, but my wife doesn't wear it
on her finger.  So, you got anything else for me to look at?”

I would have liked to offer him my fist,
but I didn't.  Since Gloria dumped me, this guy was about the only friend I
had.  Putting my hands in my pockets to restrain them, I pretended to consider
the paltry offer on my mother's ring.  I was going to take it.  I had no choice. 
I was down to my last nickel, or rather, the forty-three dollars and
thirty-seven cents which were already promised to the hospital. 

“Just this,” I said, finding that stupid
Euro coin in my pocket.  “Maybe this is a collector's item?”

“Let me see.”  The guy dropped his loop
over his eye and turned the coin this way and that way.  He murmured something,
while trying to read it.  “I don't know what in the hell this says.  It's a
piece of crap.  Not worth a nickel.”  He tossed it back, whereupon it rolled
the distance of the counter, before falling flat.

Heads.  Some dude in a crown looked off
across the horizon at the ancient toasters and television sets with orange
price tags hanging from them.

“It's an ancient Euro.”

“No, it's not.  What language does that
look like to you?”

“I don't know.  Greek?  Russian? 
Portuguese?”

The pawnbroker shook his head and glanced
at the door.  Another customer had come in, or more likely, another victim of
the decrepit economy came to hock whatever he had in order to eat.  “Are you
taking my offer on the ring, or no?”

“I guess so,” I said, studying my not-Euro
coin again.  “You sure this isn't worth anything?”

“Not to me.”

“That's worth a fair amount in the old
Empire,” the new customer interrupted.  “Although, it'll cost you a heck of a
lot more to travel the ten lightyears to get there.”

“Where?” 

I turned to look at my neighbor, only to
discover he was wearing a SpaceForce uniform and carrying an old iPad from the
twenty-first century. 

“I found this in a rummage sale on Darius
II.  Is it worth anything, Pops?”  He set it on the counter for the old man,
and then, held out his hand to take a look at my coin.  “Yep, this is an old
Imperial dollar.  It’s definitely worth something to collectors around the
galaxy.  It dates back to the reign of the Great Emperor.  That’s who this guy
is on the front.  You wouldn’t want to sell it to me, would you?”

“I will buy it first,” the pawnbroker
interjected.

“No way.”  I snatched it back from the
spandex-clad spaceman.  “You can buy his iPad, Pops.  You missed your chance
with me.”

Grabbing my mom's cubic zirconia wedding
ring off the counter as well, I left the pawnshop with a new spring in my
step.  I was determined to take my coin to a place where its value would be
appreciated.  Worth something could mean several thousand and several thousand
would easily pay off the hospital bill.  This coin would give me a chance to
restart my life debt-free.  On the other hand, if I had to take the coin across
the galaxy, why would I bother coming back?

Unfortunately, the fare on a spaceplane to
the nearest port where the coin could be exchanged, cost more than I would have
gained selling the ring and the clothing off my back, as well as the old sofa,
and the toaster in my flat.  The only way to get myself from here to there was
to get on a ship that didn't cost me anything. 

“The dude's spandex uniform wasn't all
that ugly,” I told myself, walking into the SpaceForce recruiting office down
the street.  “And, I'd get three squares a day, a hot shower, and a clean bed
without any aging landladies in it.”  That didn’t sound a whole lot different
than prison, but at that point, I didn’t care.

An hour later, I walked out, officially a
recruit with a contract in hand, and an induction physical scheduled for the
following day.