Free Ascent by Viola Grace

Lili Ann Baker has been enjoying her time as a cargo captain. She spends huge swathes of time alone getting world building materials to where they are needed and the appreciative recipients give her the feedback that she needs. When she delivers the final harvest containment to Geko 7, the party that erupts is wild and she is invited by the grateful population to enjoy the fruits of their first harvest.
    Admittedly, Lili Ann has more wine than she can account for and the next morning she wakes up in bed with a man who does not meet the specs of the colonists. She assumes he is a pilot, like her, and sneaks away in the early dawn hours.
    Her ascent is denied by a hungover ground control and she has to wait on the tarmac until the local government can sort things out. Imagine her surprise when her bedmate is leaning against the side of her vehicle, the mind of the Geko 7 swirling in his eyes.
    Yavoy has been waiting for decades to find a woman of his own and despite her rather relaxed language, Lili Ann has something that completes him, an enthusiasm for life.

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    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    Ascent
    Copyright © 2012 Viola Grace
    ISBN: 978-1-77111-160-7
    Cover art by Martine Jardin
    All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
    Published by eXtasy Books
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    Ascent
    A Terran Times Tale
    By
    Viola Grace

    Chapter One
    Lili Ann Baker watched the jump transport flicker and disappear in the distance. With no worries about disrupting their engines, she powered up her ship and began to make her way through the Geko system.
    Lili Ann’s payload was a harvest-storage system that would contain and preserve enough food for seven thousand residents. With their harvest season just wrapping up, getting the timing right was urgent.
    She had three days of slogging through the Geko system ahead, so she played music, had endless rounds of tea and meditated while the ship was on automatic.
    Geko 7 was her ultimate destination and once her ship was emptied, she would return to the pickup point and wait for the cargo jumper to return to get her and bring her back to the depot.
    For now, it was a long and silent glide through the star system to the seventh planet and its brand new colony.
    It was time to break out the deck of cards.
    “This is the transport vessel H’dar requesting confirmation from the Geko 7 colony.”
    There was a pause and a crackle of the com system. “This is the Geko 7 colony. What is your business here?”
    “I am hauling your harvest storage systems from the Dalliafien Nebula. I am ready to drop them anytime you are.” She smiled and waited.
    A stream of data to allow her to clear the atmosphere surged into the nav computer.
    “Welcome to Geko 7, Transport Pilot Baker. We have been looking forward to your arrival. The harvest commences in fifty-three hours.” The voice on the other end of the com had definite relief in its tone.
    “I have the coordinates and the codes for the planetary shielding. Expect me in seven