Our search for interesting characters
continues with Vayen, the protagonist from Jean Davis’s science fiction / space
opera “Trust”.
Here’s a teaser from the book:
At
long last, the war that has torn the worlds of the Narvan apart, is over.
Anastassia Kazan has brought about the end to the fighting between Vayen
Ta’set’s homeworld of Artor and their rival, Jal. When she offers Vayen a
job on her team of bodyguards, he leaps at the opportunity. He’ll do anything
to keep Artor on the path to recovery.
Protecting
the paranoid and mercurial woman who’s deals and threats are keeping everyone
in line is a tough and thankless task. One drunken night with Anastassia makes
Vayen seriously doubt why he got the job and if he should keep it. But no one
else on the team is willing to earn Anastassia’s disfavor by calling her out on
her reckless choices. Reckless will get her killed and send the Narvan back
into chaos.
Not
everyone is happy with Anastassia’s changes on his homeworld and beyond. She’s
also on less than friendly terms with her deadly ex-partner. Then Vayen
discovers that Anastassia is only middle management. The Council she works for
has ambitious plans for the Narvan’s military forces.
How
much is Vayen willing to sacrifice to keep the Narvan at peace?
Tell us a little about yourself:
My name is Vayen Ta’set. I grew up on Artor, but when I
was a kid my homeworld went to war with Jal, a neighboring planet in our
system. My parents served together, but were killed when I was twelve. My older
brother sort of raised me after that, but he was a soldier too, and gone most
of the time. Social services kept an eye on me, but I was too busy with
training to be just like Chesser to notice the empty house much. Then the war
took him too. Just when it was my turn to do something worthwhile, the damned
thing ended, robbing me without the future I'd trained for. Thankfully Anastassia
showed up with the job offer of my dreams. Or maybe nightmares. It was
life-changing for sure.
Who came first, you or the author?
Without the author, I wouldn’t exist, so I guess she
did? However, we’ve known each other a very long time, well over thirty years.
I had a different name then and my story was short and simple. We grew a lot
together. I developed a personality. She’ll probably tell you it’s a difficult
one. I also seem to have a drinking problem. I blame her. She made my life a
living hell, and I’m pretty sure she was grinning manically through some of
those dark moments. Bearing that in mind, I don’t regret all the revisions
of my character that I put her through.
She still holds a big grudge over my first major temper
tantrum when I demanded to be the POV character instead of Anastassia. I made
her rewrite the entire novel. Again. I’m not above making her life hell too.
What’s your greatest strength? And of
course, we want to know the opposite, your greatest weakness.
Strength...well, I would say it’s that
I’m a talented multitasker. I never stop thinking, always doing two or twelve
things at once. If you ask Anastassia, she’d call it my weakness. Apparently I
need to relax more and be in the moment or something? I don’t know. There’s so
much to do, so many opportunities out there, and only so much time before my
body demands a few hours of sleep.
My greatest weakness? Anastassia.
She’s my boss, my partner, and I’d do pretty much anything to keep her alive so
my homeworld remains at peace. Sure there are contracts for her head and
her ex-partner is out to kill her, but some days it seems like she goes out of
her way to make my job hard. To top things off, the High Council is supposed to
be on our side, but they’re not at all above using her well-being against me to
get their way.
Tell us something about your background that may or may
not be revealed in the book?
I can cook, not that I do it often, but it does come in handy on occasion. My mother taught me when I was a kid, before she and my father went off to serve in the war. You should have seen Anastassia’s face the first time I made her dinner. It’s one of the few fond memories I focus on when she’s trying my near nonexistent patience.
I can cook, not that I do it often, but it does come in handy on occasion. My mother taught me when I was a kid, before she and my father went off to serve in the war. You should have seen Anastassia’s face the first time I made her dinner. It’s one of the few fond memories I focus on when she’s trying my near nonexistent patience.
Are you the type of person who always seeks
out the company of others?
Not at all. People are usually either after
me for favors or laying down threats, assuming they don’t skip right to trying
to kill me. Working alongside Anastassia has a put a hefty price on my head.
My favorite place is my office at Cragtek, where I can
work, uninterrupted for hours or all day if I’m fortunate. (By the way, fortune
and I are not on the best of terms.) I mean, I do work with people,
hundreds of them. Well, technically, they work for me, but I do that through my
link, so remotely, unless they need some motivation by intimidation. Then I’m
all for a brief personal appearance.
What do you do to relax after a day’s work?
Drink. Though it’s more to try to forget
what I had to do at work that day, than to relax. Unless you count passing out
relaxing. And you might. I won’t judge.
Who’s your best friend and what influence have they had on your life?
Since going to work for Anastassia, my free time is mostly relegated to spending time with my follow bodyguards. Since the relationship between Jey and I tends more toward trading insults and threats, I spend my off shifts with Merkief, a fellow Artorian. His family wasn’t impacted by the Jalvian war like mine and he had a pretty normal life before coming to work with us. He’s quick with a joke and does his best to keep the peace between Jey and I. He makes an amicable drinking partner when the day requires it. Most of them do.
Who’s your best friend and what influence have they had on your life?
Since going to work for Anastassia, my free time is mostly relegated to spending time with my follow bodyguards. Since the relationship between Jey and I tends more toward trading insults and threats, I spend my off shifts with Merkief, a fellow Artorian. His family wasn’t impacted by the Jalvian war like mine and he had a pretty normal life before coming to work with us. He’s quick with a joke and does his best to keep the peace between Jey and I. He makes an amicable drinking partner when the day requires it. Most of them do.
We don’t talk a lot, but it’s nice to have
someone around who knows home and our way of doing things. He gets me.
Sometimes too much. Like when he guessed where to find me and gave Anastassia
the info to hunt me down. Not at all cool. But he has also saved my ass a time
or two, so I let that go.
I guess I’d have to say that he does get me
to relax now and then. Commiserating about our job and talking about home has a
way of doing that. He’s also made working with Jey somewhat tolerable.
What has been the most romantic thing you’ve ever done or instigated?
I don’t know if I’d call it romantic. Maybe. But after that dinner I mentioned earlier, the one that about made Anastassia choke on her wine when she realized what I was doing, I gave her a gift. Not my ‘Gift’. It wasn’t like I was proposing a joining. I made it quite clear that wasn’t my intention. It was just that she’d been quite supportive of me when I’d been in a very unpleasant situation with the High Council, and I wanted to do something nice to repay her.
What has been the most romantic thing you’ve ever done or instigated?
I don’t know if I’d call it romantic. Maybe. But after that dinner I mentioned earlier, the one that about made Anastassia choke on her wine when she realized what I was doing, I gave her a gift. Not my ‘Gift’. It wasn’t like I was proposing a joining. I made it quite clear that wasn’t my intention. It was just that she’d been quite supportive of me when I’d been in a very unpleasant situation with the High Council, and I wanted to do something nice to repay her.
She’d lost the neckband, the joining gift my
brother had given her years before, to a pair of thugs. I’d seen how much she’d
mourned losing the one reminder of the future they might have had together. So
I used my own one time use chit to make a second one, an exact duplicate, for
her. Let’s just say there may have been tears involved, but she hates
acknowledging emotions like that so if you want more details, you'll have to
read the book.
An excerpt from the story:
“Could you kill someone if I asked you to?”
asked Anastassia Kazan as she thrummed her fingers on the plain hotel room
table between us.
The woman who sat across from me was harder
than the one I’d last seen at my brother’s memorial service eight years before.
The green eyes and braid were the same, but she now wore a full-length armored
coat and no few weapons, if I judged the lumps beneath it correctly.
“You mean, if they attacked you?”
When she’d contacted me out of the blue to
interview for a bodyguard position, I’d jumped at the opportunity. She’d had a
hand in ending the war that had plagued my homeworld and I owed her a for that.
All of Artor did. However, her question sounded more like she was looking for
someone eager to commit murder at her whim.
“If anyone attacks me, yes of course, but
also if I give the order. Without questions,” she said.
My gut reaction was to say no, but having
read the brief she’d sent with the invitation, I realized that anyone who had
managed to work her way into the position of advisor to the entire Narvan
System under some confidential organization, had likely made quite a few
enemies and questionable arrangements along the way.
This wasn’t the sedate head of security job
I’d managed to work myself into. Working for Anastassia was going to have legal
risks and moral compromises.
She sat back, opening the top latch of her
black armored coat to reveal the neckline of a plain grey shirt beneath. There
was no sign of the neckband she’d once worn. Her intent gaze seemed to note my
every movement down to the length of each breath.
When the war with Jal had ended, my military
future ended with it. Too many experienced people stood between me and making a
decent living in that arena. I’d taken the best job I could get, but the pay
was minimal and the opportunity for advancement slim.
My brother had trusted her, and undoubtedly,
he’d followed similar compromising orders issued during the war. I wouldn’t
have been any different had that opportunity still been open to me. Besides,
the compensation offer she’d proposed had enough zeros to make me ignore my
gut.
“Yes, I can do that,” I said, forcing myself
to mean it.
“Then I suppose you’re hired.” She sighed
and looked a fraction more relaxed. “You’ll start immediately.”
“But I-”
“Don’t worry about your current job. I’ll
take care of favorably closing out your employment record.”
I leaned forward, realizing that if I didn’t
speak up now, she’d roll right over me. Anastassia was clearly used to being in
command.
“I have a home and someone waiting for me. I
traveled halfway around Artor for this meeting, but I can’t just drop
everything right this instant.”
She held up a hand. “We’ll deal with all
that. First though, I need to make a connection with you.”
I nodded, opening my mind to hers so we could
create a natural connection for telepathic communication. The light-skinned
face of a Jalvian man with long, white hair and a determined gleam in his eyes
popped into my head.
“If you see this man, kill him,” she said.
Killing a Jalvian without question wasn’t
much of a compromise. I’d been waiting for an opportunity to do that for years.
“Second order of business...” Anastassia
reached into one of the many pockets of her coat, this one at her hip. She
produced a gun and slid it across the table. “Once Kess finds out you work for
me, he’ll want to kill you too.”
Great. From bodyguard to target all in a
matter of minutes.
About the author:
Jean Davis lives in West Michigan with her musical
husband, two nerdy kids, and two attention-craving terriers. When not ruining
fictional lives from the comfort of her writing chair, she can be found
devouring books and sushi, enjoying the offerings of local breweries, weeding
her flower garden, or picking up hundreds of
sticks while attempting to avoid the abundant snake population who also shares
her yard.
Links to her sites
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