Lifemates. Tales of Wild Space, #1

Wild Space-a far-flung sector of space in the distant future-has many tales to tell, fraught with adventure, romance, and tragedy. Ni'Linya is an indentured Felyan pleasure girl and the only friend of Cole, a human assassin for the Second Imperium, with whom she shares her bed and to whom he pours out his world-weary heart. In "The Hunter and the Tiger, " one fateful mission to a hostile planet brings revelations and changes to the star-crossed couple, both tragic and blessed.
Desperate for the considerable pay offered by a shady android, Isibar, a freelance spy for the Planetary Alliance and space pirate, takes on an assignment that no one has been brave (or crazy) enough to accept: infiltrating the reclusive world of Icona. In "Combat Pay Blues, " he finds himself in the heart of the despotic, expansionist Second Imperium, hoping to dredge up their deepest, darkest secrets and ensure the safety of the free human worlds.
Isibar soon learns that this job comes with far more hitches than he ever bargained for and reveals far more sinister goings-on than he ever could have imagined. Zynj used to be the shining capital planet of all human worlds until the fragile First Imperium fractured. Now it is a burnt, polluted husk where humans live in underground cities and scrape the surface for raw materials to sell off-world.
On this planet of provincial attitudes, Jules Galway, a lonely scrap hauler, reunites with Sar'Vana Van, a Felyan friend from his childhood, who has returned with her people for routine maintenance on the colony's life support systems. In "Her Hand in Mine, " the two happily rekindle their relationship right where it left off ten long years ago, only to discover that in spite of the purist ways of Jules's society, their feelings have grown beyond the puppy love of their youth.
On a world that chafes under the fact that they live by alien charity, Jules and Sar'Vana are exposed to internal and external perils they never thought would find them.