Process, Part 1 (CROSS//Process)

CROSS//Process, Part 1 Hildred M. Billings Copyright CROSS//Process Part 1 Copyright: Hildred M. Billings Published: January 9th, 2023 Publisher: Barachou Press This is a work of fiction. Any and all similarities to any characters, settings, or situations are purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format. Series Order MAIN SERIES REBIRTH REVENGE REGRESS REPENT RELEASE PREQUELS PROCESS PROPHET Contents PROLOGUE 1. Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 Get PART 2 Free Stories! FB Group PROLOGUE E ros, Federation Year 4519 Joy stole her first sip of wine, standing in the back of her mother’s solar as the party continued before a ten-year-old’s captivated eyes. She’d never had wine before, but she knew that all of the workers in her mother’s brothel drank it every night either alone or with customers. The wine supplied was a sweet red from the planet Merralyn in the same system as the pleasure moon Eros. Customers complimented its fragrance while the workers used it to cajole more money from wallets. The face Joy made afterward told the servant next to her all she needed to know. “Feel better now, girl? Drink it all up so you can get as drunk as the rest of them.” Joy didn’t want more after that sip. She still tasted the sweet, rich fruit on her tongue, and the sugar nearly burned from its potency. She turned the glass around so nobody could see her lip prints in the shadows of the room. “Who drinks this?” she hissed. “Us. Them. Everyone.” Everyone. The workers, her madam mother, the battered cooks, aged servants, and their customers: traders, pirates, soldiers, lower lords, even lower officials, the kind who often traveled through the stars and made time to stop off at one of the more infamous moons on the outskirts of the Federation’s borders. Even mercenaries. A laugh from her mother and her guests rang out from the table before Joy. Madame Illena did not often hold private parties under her roof, especially since it called for a number of her workers to serve drinks instead of sex for less coin, but for this group, Illena always made a special exception. They were all women, svelte and muscular as was their trade’s calling. Some of them had skin as pale as pearls, some the shade of honey, and others as dark as the sky beyond the brothel’s doors. One woman wore a hook through her nose and a plug in her ear, another dyed her hair the color of the wine in her hands, and one was as plain as the day she was born. A few spoke with dialects and accents so thick that it took them multiple tries to be understood—even fewer possessed a demeanor and vocabulary that marked them as once belonging to families of means. But they all wore tight black leggings, flimsy brown boots that still thunked with every crossing leg, black sweaters or shirts, fine silver mail, and a weapon on their hips—a saber or a gun, or occasionally both. On their lapels hung a simple golden “II,” marking the number of the tribe that created them. Their leader sat in the honored seat next to Madame Illena, her mail the most striking of all in its silver splendor. She had a wash of black hair that tumbled from the top of her head and spilled across her lanky shoulders and chest. The only thing not lithe or small about Chief Ayna Aiya of Cerilyn’s Second Tribe was the broad, slick smirk that covered her face. “More wine?” Illena asked the woman next to her. “I know you enjoy it so much.” Ayna flicked a swath of hair out of her eyes and leaned into her seat. “What good am I in a brothel if I am not drunk?” Illena clapped twice to summon her daughter with the pitcher of wine. Joy approached from behind, careful not to spill any of the red balanced on her serving platter, and stood between her mother and the chief. Even with them seated and slouched, Joy still barely stood shoulder-high. “Be quick about it,” Illena spat through pouting lips. Joy took the chief’s glass first and tilted the end of the pitcher into it until the wine poured to a respectable level. She turned to her mother’s glass and poured again under Illena’s scrutiny. When she was finished her mother said, “Now be out of sight before you cause trouble.” Joy attempted to step back into the shadows where her mother believed she belonged. However, the curt voice of the chief stopped her. “Wait, girl,” Ayna pleaded, “I want to look at you.” Joy put the pitcher down on the table and turned toward Ayna again, her nostrils infused with alcohol and sweat. “Is this one yours?” the chief asked as she curled her bony fingers around Joy’s chin. “She has your look on her.” Illena shrugged. “I birthed her. I don’t claim much beyond that.” “You don’t have to, since she has you written all over her. Dare I say… she looks like some little julah girls I’ve seen out and about.” Joy tipped her chin out of Ayna’s grasp and looked to her mother for permission to leave, but the madam was busy drinking her wine and paying no heed to anyone else at the table. Madame Illena was no real staggering beauty in her middle age, but in her prime she earned enough money to leave her old brothel and start her own. Her selling points were her subdued olive skin, thick black hair that was as smooth as fine silk, and a deep-set pair of amber eyes that batted behind long eyelashes. All