Ivy Birkeland, Transport Station Zenith, Canteen

      Leaning back in the chair I had tucked into the corner of the dark room, I scanned the area for threats. I ignored the large males minding their own business at the bar, although one in particular caught my attention. I wasn’t here for that kind of meeting, but he was a sexy mountain of muscle and I was a red-blooded woman who knew what she liked. The hottie was Atlan sized, he made my usual issue of being too big obsolete.

      The supersized aliens didn’t mind my six-foot frame. In fact I’d had my share of offers over my four years in the Coalition Fleet. The job, though, had always come first. Discharged from service, I now had a different reason for being out here in space. A personal mission to bring a Cerberus asshole by the name of Gerian Eozara to justice.

      A quest for justice that I could not walk away from or deny, not without dishonoring my dead friends, dishonoring their sacrifice. Their memory. Their service.

      Tears threatened and I blinked them away with a fury I rarely allowed myself to feel. Cerberus Legion was responsible for the Quell being sold in my sector of space. Quell was the reason I’d ended up crawling through the mud on Xerima, my friends dead, my body broken. When the Coalition Fleet’s Intelligence Core had announced the bounty to catch the one who was responsible, I’d jumped at the chance to bring Gerian in, dead or alive. But a quick death wasn’t enough for the Quell dealer and his cohorts. Torture would be better for him… and any other Cerberus scum I ran into.

      Forcing myself to forget the past for a few moments, I enjoyed the vision of the big guy’s tight ass and massive shoulders—I might be focused on my mission, but I was female. And his armband was green. Astra green.