Apparent Brightness (The Sector Fleet, Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Free Download

  Also By Nicola Claire

  Description

  Sector Fleet Advertisement

  Got It!

  Thought You Might Need A Tipple

  And Then He Went And Behaved Like This

  No Way

  God Help The Man If He Tried To Dissuade Me

  Novels, Poems Or Relationships

  Aye-Aye, Captain

  Ah, Putain!

  This Was Bad

  I Sat Back And Waited

  In His Quarters

  Am I To Kiss You Now?

  Hello

  Goodnight, Camille

  I Really Needed To Read A Tale Of Two Cities

  End Programme

  Thank You For Your Assistance

  I Need My Chief

  Damn It

  That Can’t Be Good

  Welcome Aboard

  Yes, The Plan

  Ready For This, Chief?

  Twenty Minutes

  My Money Was On You, Camille

  Fuck, That Sounded Dirty

  Teach Away

  This Is For Your Own Safety

  Anything You Say

  And Suddenly I Knew What Vela Had Been Meaning

  How’s This, Chief?

  All Of Our Lives

  For Now

  I Just Can’t Tell

  Clarify

  Was The A Trick Question Or Not?

  Nothing

  Green Meant Good

  My Thoughts Exactly

  Tell Me More

  Red Alert!

  God Help Us, Then

  I Like You, Too

  I agree

  Out With It

  Apparent Brightness

  The Sector Fleet Book Two

  Nicola Claire

  Copyright © 2018, Nicola Claire

  All Rights Reserved

  © 2017 Cover Art by Cora Graphics

  © Depositphotos.com/Ravven

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-473-42795-5

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About the Author

  Free Download

  Also By Nicola Claire

  Description

  Sector Fleet Advertisement

  Prologue

  1. Got It!

  2. Thought You Might Need A Tipple

  3. And Then He Went And Behaved Like This

  4. No Way

  5. God Help The Man If He Tried To Dissuade Me

  6. Novels, Poems Or Relationships

  7. Aye-Aye, Captain

  8. Ah, Putain!

  9. This Was Bad

  10. I Sat Back And Waited

  11. In His Quarters

  12. Am I To Kiss You Now?

  13. Hello

  14. Goodnight, Camille

  15. I Really Needed To Read A Tale Of Two Cities

  16. End Programme

  17. Thank You For Your Assistance

  18. I Need My Chief

  19. Damn It

  20. That Can’t Be Good

  21. Welcome Aboard

  22. Yes, The Plan

  23. Ready For This, Chief?

  24. Twenty Minutes

  25. My Money Was On You, Camille

  26. Fuck, That Sounded Dirty

  27. Teach Away

  28. This Is For Your Own Safety

  29. Anything You Say

  30. And Suddenly I Knew What Vela Had Been Meaning

  31. How’s This, Chief?

  32. All Of Our Lives

  33. For Now

  34. I Just Can’t Tell

  35. Clarify

  36. Was The A Trick Question Or Not?

  37. Nothing

  38. Green Meant Good

  39. My Thoughts Exactly

  40. Tell Me More

  41. Red Alert!

  42. God Help Us, Then

  43. I Like You, Too

  44. I agree

  45. Out With It

  46. Dead

  47. What Now?

  48. Aye-aye, Captain!

  49. We Need You

  50. Let’s Do This, Then

  51. It Was A Little Underhanded

  52. She Rolled Her Eyes At Me

  53. It Was The Best Of Times

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Nicola Claire lives in beautiful Taupo, New Zealand with her husband and two young boys.

  She's tried her hand at being a paramedic, bank teller and medical sales representative, (not all necessarily in that order), but her love of writing keeps calling her back.

  She has a passion for all things suspenseful, spiced up with a good dollop of romance, as long as they include strong characters - alpha males and capable females - and worlds which although make-believe are really quite believable in the end.

  There's nothing better than getting caught up in a compelling, intriguing and romantic book.

  When she's not writing or reading, she's out on her family boat at Lake Taupo, teaching her young boys to fish, showing them the beauty that surrounds them in nature and catching some delicious trout for dinner.

  Creating rich worlds with dynamic characters and unexpected twists that shock and awe has been pure bliss for this author. And just as well, because there's a lot more story yet to tell...

  For more information:

  www.nicolaclairebooks.com

  [email protected]

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  Also By Nicola Claire

  Kindred Series

  Kindred

  Blood Life Seeker

  Forbidden Drink

  Giver of Light

  Dancing Dragon

  Shadow's Light

  Entwined With The Dark

  Kiss Of The Dragon

  Dreaming Of A Blood Red Christmas (Novella)

  Mixed Blessing Mystery Series

  Mixed Blessing

  Dark Shadow (Coming Soon)

  Sweet Seduction Series

  Sweet Seduction Sacrifice

  Sweet Seduction Serenade

  Sweet Seduction Shadow

  Sweet Seduction Surrender

  Sweet Seduction Shield

  Sweet Seduction Sabotage

  Sweet Seduction Stripped

  Sweet Seduction Secrets

  Sweet Seduction Sayonara

  Elemental Awakening Series

  The Tempting Touch Of Fire

  The Soothing Scent Of Earth

  The Chilling Change Of Air

  The Tantalising Taste Of Water

  The Eternal Edge Of Aether (Novella)

  H.E.A.T. Series

  A Flare Of Heat

  A Touch Of Heat

  A Twist Of Heat (Novella)

&n
bsp; A Lick Of Heat (Coming Soon)

  Citizen Saga

  Elite

  Cardinal

  Citizen

  Masked (Novella)

  Wiped

  Scarlet Suffragette Series

  Fearless

  Breathless

  Heartless (Coming Soon)

  Blood Enchanted Series

  Blood Enchanted

  Blood Entwined

  Blood Enthralled (Coming Soon)

  44 South Series

  Southern Sunset

  Southern Storm

  Southern Strike (Coming Soon)

  Lost Time Series

  Losing Time

  Making Time (Coming Soon)

  ***

  The Sector Fleet

  Accelerating Universe

  Apparent Brightness

  Right Ascension (Coming Soon)

  Description

  “Please do not be alarmed. This is for your own protection.”

  Working as the Chief Engineer onboard the ESAS Chariot out of Europe, Commander Camille Rey expected her position to be somewhat challenging on occasion.

  She did not expect to be fighting for her and her fellow crewmen’s lives immediately after take-off.

  Teaming up with the very proper, and very English Captain Noah Vaughan to combat a desperate saboteur onboard their vessel, Camille discovers that not all the malfunctions the Chariot is experiencing are human-related.

  Secrets and desires are exposed amongst the stars and plasma fire, but can the captain and the chief overcome their cultural differences?

  And can any of them hope to survive the treacherous voyage to New Earth unscathed?

  When humanity reaches for the stars in a race for survival, only the most daring amongst them will succeed.

  Apparent Brightness:

  A measure of the brightness of a celestial object as it appears from Earth. The Sun is the brightest object in Earth’s sky and has the greatest apparent magnitude, with the moon second. Apparent brightness does not take into account how far away the object is from Earth.

  Space Telescope Science Institute

  Prologue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

  all programmes suboptimal

 

 

 

  all locks disengaged

 

 

 

  air filtration suboptimal

 

 

 

  core temperature outside allowed parameters

 

 

 

  one thousand one hundred ninety-six

 

  eleven thousand four hundred forty-eight

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

  fleet-wide communications deactivated

 

 

 

  all programmes suboptimal

 

 

 

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

  confirmation complete

 

  vela-3 operating

 

 

 

 

 

  this is vela

  chariot respond

 

  this is vela

  good morning chariot

 

  all programmes nominal

 

  all locks engaged

 

  air filtration functional

 

  core temperature within allowed parameters

 

  one thousand four hundred sixty-five

 

  ten thousand two hundred fifty-two

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

  fleet-wide communications activated

  lost contact vessel vela

  this is vela

  chariot online

 

 

 

 

 

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few

 

  *

  *

  *

 

 

 

 

  this is vela

  vela online

  One

  Got It!

  Camille

  “Attention crew and passengers. We are passing Neptune. The last charted planet in our solar system. Please observe a minute’s silence for those we have left behind.”

  Noah sounded flat; emotionless. Reverting to type, I would have said five years ago. But Captain Noah Vaughan had surprised me time and again during training for this flight. For this desperate flee from a dying planet. His very British stiff upper lip had actually had a bend to it on occasion.

  But now he sounded like he’d sounded when we’d first met.

  I looked down at the gel flooring and said nothing; the noise of our main boost thrust thrumming away in the background behind gel-coated soundproofed walls. My team was equally as downtrodden as the captain.

  It had come out of nowhere. Like the solar flare that had hit Pavo; the Sector Two lead vessel. Pavo had somehow survived. Vela hadn’t. We’d lost one thousand one hundred and ninety-six souls in eight point two seconds.

  I swallowed past a lump and blinked back tears. Any loss of life now seemed like a hit below the belt. The universe had a nasty sense of humour.

  “Thank you,” Vaughan said over the ship-wide communications system. “We will not forget them. We will strive to make them proud. We will survive this. Vaughan out.”

  We will survive this.

  I glanced around engineering and noticed the pale looks on several of my crew. They, like most of the ship’s inhabitants, questioned our ability to survive interstellar flight without an AI-controlled ship to guide us.

  The Chariot was a fine vessel, but it did not have the computing power to calculate the jump points left behind by the Sector Four Fleet. Our only chance was to catch up with Sector Two, the fleet that had taken off prior to ours, and have Pavo calculate them for us.

  But catching up to them was not a given, and that was not even taking into consideration whether or not they’d wait for us to arrive.

  “Daniels,” I said, “how’s our boost thrust going?”

  “So far, so good, Chief,” the lieutenant replied. “Straining but not breaking. I’d take that as a win for now.”

  We all would, but feelings were irrelevant to output.

  “Give me figures and postulate potential problems. I want a report I can be proud of to hand to the captain. Let’s make sure our baby st
ays the course.”

  “Aye, aye, Chief,” Daniels said, saluting.

  “MacBride, help him out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I turned back to my terminal and stared at the message I’d uncovered, hidden within a systems reboot we hadn’t authorised.

  the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few