A Plain Jane Book One Read Online Free Page A

live outside. He had a
very rustic-style house from almost 300 years ago out in the
country. It was an old, but well-preserved, log cabin, and it had
something that nobody seemed to talk about any more: charm. When
Lucas had been growing up with his grandfather, he’d learned the
importance of charm. The future could bring you every technological
advantage that you could imagine – it could bring you convenience
beyond your wildest dreams, it could open up your abilities and
your mind to frontiers that humans had once thought impossible –
but it couldn't give you charm. Waking up in the morning to see the
sunrise from an old log cabin in an old-style bed had a hell of a
lot of charm. Lucas had been nearly everywhere you could go in this
Galaxy and he had never found charm like that anywhere else. So
though it set him apart from his friends and colleagues, he lived
outside the city. He knew he was probably the only one who did so
in the entire Galactic Force. When he’d been going through his
studies, his friends had labeled him a Luddite and a technophobe,
but he wasn't. He simply had different priorities.
    It would definitely be
something he would miss on the mission, as he was well aware it was
scheduled to take several months. Scheduled, that was. If they
really did find whatever mysterious race was out there,
then . . . god, he had no idea. He just hoped it
wouldn’t come to war.
    Lucas realized he was
walking in a daze, and was on automatic pilot as he half jogged
across the Galactic Force grounds towards the nearest transport
hub. There was a report on recent archaeological activity close to
the rim that he hoped would give him valuable insight on what was
out there. He had every intention of ignoring Alex's advice and
forgoing sleep for study. And there was a lot to study. Hell, these
days he was reading anything that had any relation to that area of
space, even if it was just a comet count, or some boring and dry
assessment on the mineralogical survey of nearby moons and
planets.
    Lucas walked along paying
just the bare minimum attention to his body and surroundings so
that he didn't fall over or trip into a bush. In fact, he was in
such a daze that it took a while to realize there was a strange hum
in the air. This close to the transport hub there was always a low
vibration to be heard. Yet the hum he was detecting was a higher,
discordant pitch. When he finally looked up, eyebrows pressed down
in confusion, he saw something else.
    That was when he
ran.
     
    Jane
    It happened too fast for
her to react. One minute she was walking towards the transport hub,
the next something had flown at her from out of the shadows,
pressing into her shoulders and pushing her to the ground in a
snap. She didn't scream; the thing was on top of her chest and
pressing down on her lungs in an instant, and she just didn't have
the breath.
    The thing, whatever it
was, pulled back its lips and let out a sharp and intense hiss. Out
of the corner of Jane's eye she saw something like a tail with a
very sharp and pointed end whip around from the side. It came
around with such a frightful speed, and in a single instant Jane
saw light from the nearby transport hub glinting off it.
    Then it shot towards her.
As it did, her mind, far from filling with fear, filled with a
heavy, charged energy.
    There was a buzzing in her
head, a buzzing that vibrated through her whole skull.
    It didn't matter though;
the tail was milliseconds from stabbing right through
her.
    Before it could strike,
something slammed into the side of whatever creature was on top of
her, and she heard a considerable grunt as it was pulled to the
side.
    Shaking, blinking wildly,
her breath now coming in short and sharp bursts, she stumbled to
her feet, and as she did the buzzing in her mind started to abate,
finally leveling out and disappearing behind the wall of fear that
now pressed in on her from every side. She could see a security
officer in full armor, she could discern