S. E. Sasaki - Bud by the Grace of God: Book Two of the Grace Lord Series

Bud by the Grace of God:

Book Two of the Grace Lord Series

by

S.E. Sasaki

Oddoc Books

Erin, Canada

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Copyright 2016 by S.E. Sasaki

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or localities is entirely coincidental.

Editor: Robert Runt, PhD

For more information about the author and publisher, visit www.sesasaki.com

Published by:

Oddoc Books,

P.O. Box 580,

Erin, Ontario, Canada

N0B 1T0

ISBN 978-0-9947905-0-7

In Memory of Mitsuru Sasaki

1924 ~ 2009

How deeply you are missed.

An enormous thank you goes to my wonderful husband, David Alan Sherrington, who is my invaluable, indispensable, and indefatigable advance reader, to whom I am greatly indebted, for making many vital suggestions during the writing of this book. Bud by the Grace of God would not be in the shape it is in, without his insightful comments and enthusiasm. My children, as always, thank you for being you and inspiring me every day to chase my dreams!

A grateful thank you to Ed Greenwoodwriter, gamer, best-selling creator of The Forgotten Realmsfor advance reading Bud by the Grace of God and lending his support and comments. Your enthusiasm, Ed, has meant the world to me.

Thank you to Robert Runt, editor and whip extraordinaire, who cajoled, ranted, insulted, and praised this work into a much better novel than it originally was. I am in your debt, Robert.

Again, a huge thank you to my real life heroes, the people who work in the Surgery Department of Guelph General Hospital in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. A more dedicated, self-sacrificing, kind, (and humorous) group of people, I will never find. I love you all. You work tirelessly, every day, to save lives. I feel honoured and privileged to work alongside you.

He was seething with rage. He could not remember a moment, a second, an instant, since he had been entrapped by that insufferable android, SAMM-E 777, and that vacuous surgical fellow, Dr. Grace Lord, that he did not writhe internally with coruscating fury. The disgrace of being apprehendedthe great Dr. Jeffrey Charlton Nestorlike a common criminal and accused of attempted murder was unbearable. Furthermore, the asinine medical space station AIArtificial Idiothaving the audacity to lock him up in jail (albeit for only a very short period of time), burned in his memory like acid.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not expunge the memory of this outrage from his thoughts. The only way he could envision eradicating this inexcusable indignity from his mind was to exterminate all responsible for his humiliation and to erase all record of its occurrence. The knowledge that the fools who had had the effrontery, the impudence, the gall, to discredit him still lived, made him see blood. That they had not only pressed charges against him for attempted murdera complete fabricationbut had also had his medical license revoked, was unforgivable.

Intolerable.

He would make them all pay. No one humiliated Dr. Jeffrey Charlton Nestor and got away with it.

No one!

Doctor Jeffrey Nestor stepped over the dead bodies of the two Security women who had helped him escape from the brig of the Nelson Mandela. They had placed his cryopod amongst empty ones being loaded onto an outgoing Conglomerate vessel and had then boarded the same vessel. They had secretly come to the cargo bay, where the empty cryopods were stored, to release him from his cryopod during the flight.

When they had located his pod via beacon, they had pulled the cryopod out into the open and freed him from it, bringing him fine new clothes to don. He had asked the women if they had inactivated the surveillance cameras in the cargo bay. They had replied in the affirmative. Had they secured the doors to the bay? Again, they had nodded. Jeffrey Nestor had then spoken a commandpreviously implanted in their mindsthat induced a trance-like state in both women. In the low-g, they had both collapsed slowly to the cargo bay floor.

He had then forcefully yet dispassionately twisted both of their necks, until their vertebrae had ground and crunched. He stripped the clothing off of both women and shoved his hands into the larger womans work gloves. Then he quickly placed each of their bodies in an empty cryopod, closing and locking the lids. Someone at the space vessels destination was going to have a big surprise, when they opened these pods.

Jeffrey Nestor could not recall either of the womens names, but it did not matter. They were dead now and that was the important thing. Another loose end tied up.

The boots worn by the taller of the two women were an excellent fit. He scanned the cargo bay for the disposal chute. Locating it, he pressed the button to activate the atomizer and then threw all the belongings of both women down the chute. He decided to keep the work gloves. He also kept the taller womans identification pass. He did not worry about the disruptors, placed by his accomplices onto the surveillance cameras. The crew of this space vessel would never be able to trace those disruptors to him.

Jeffrey Nestor suspected that the ships security team might, very soon, be searching for him. Chances were, the captain of this ship had already been notified by the Nelson Mandela that Jeffrey Nestor had escaped from prison and could be stowing away on board. Having worked on these space cruisers when he was a student, Jeffrey was very familiar with their layout. He knew how easily the wall panels in the cargo bay could be removed and replaced, and how a thin, fit person could easily conceal themselves in the space behind them. Cables, ducts, and pipes ran behind those panels, but Jeffrey could squeeze himself between them and then replace the wall panel, hiding until the cargo bay had been completely searched. If they happened to find the dead women, the search crew would never expect the murderer to stay hidden in the walls of the cargo bay, where the bodies were found. It was the perfect hiding place.

He would stay in the space transport until they reached their destination. When they started off-loading the cryopods, he would wait until all the cargo bay was unloaded and then he would disembark. He knew just where he had to go. He knew exactly whom he needed to see. There were black market sources he needed to contact, to acquire some very important itemsillegal technology that was banned on any vessel with an AIand then he would be set.

In the meantime, he would count each day he had to suffer with his memories of humiliation and he would make that bitch Grace Lord suffer ten-fold. He would never forgive her for making him have to skulk around and hide in such a degrading fashion. Vengeance could not come quickly enough, last long enough, or be severe enough, but it would last a lifetime for Grace Lord.