Teaser Tuesday … and what a teaser! #ssrgtt

Hi there. This is a little snippet from Morgan’s Return, the sequel to Morgan’s Choice. You don’t have to have read Morgan’s Choice to enjoy Morgan’s Return, but I think readers would agree it helps.

In this little scene, Morgan is creating a distraction and is having a hard time not distracting herself.

Morgan made sure the virtual Ravindra faced Cruickshank. Then she had him unfasten the collar so it parted, showing his Adam’s apple. Now the next button, slipping the golden disk through the material with long, strong fingers. Now the next. And the next, until the coat hung open. He slid the arm off one shoulder, then the other, and let the coat drop to the floor, where it disappeared from the display. Now his skin-tight white undershirt, that clung to every muscle, defining his pecs and his abs. He pulled the material out of his belt slowly, a slight smile on his lips. She remembered when he’d done this, just for her. Stop it, Morgan. Keep your mind on the job. He lifted the material in his fists, dragged the shirt up his torso, revealing skin like polished mahogany. Then over the swelling pectorals, up over his head, until he could flick the shirt away. The golden lines of the tattoo on his right shoulder gleamed.

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Teaser Tuesday – a piece from Morgan’s Choice #sfrgtt

Hi. It’s Teaser Tuesday again. Here’s a snippet from one of my earliest books, Morgan’s Choice. This is the first 230 words, where you’ll meet the main character, be introduced to the problem, and see the setting.

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Steam rose from Jones’ food pack, filling Curlew’s tiny common room with the aroma of beef stew. “That’s one month down.” He took the container out of the warmer and brought it the two steps to the table.

Morgan glanced up at him, still chewing, as he sank down on the bench opposite. She swallowed her own food. “Yeah.”

One month’s worth of the existing food supply gone. Another month, maybe a little longer if they rationed even further and then perhaps they’d be fishing Tariq’s body out of the cargo hold, wondering if a bit of cannibalism might be in order. The thought made her gag but at least it was an option. Running out of air—that was something else altogether.

She speared some more synthetic plast-food from her own food pack and lifted it to her mouth.

A staccato bleeping shattered the silence.

She flung her fork on the table, leapt through the forward hatch into the bridge and dropped into the captain’s chair, her heart pounding with a mixture of excitement and tension, hope and apprehension. She flicked off the wide-range scanner’s alarm and reached into the computer system with her mind to adjust the sensors to maximum magnification. Something had just come out of shift-space close enough to trigger the warning. Maybe she’d got it all wrong and Curlew was still in Coalition space. Because otherwise…

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Butcher meets the berzhan #sfrgtt

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Hi and thanks for coming. This is a snippet from Crisis at Validor, in which Brett Butcher meets the planet’s fabled berzhani for the first time. They are not unlike the creature in the picture – although that one’s a statue.

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The chamber glowed with soft light emanating from jewels set into carvings on the walls, the eyes of berzhani. They covered the surface, a mass of interweaving creatures with multi-colored backs. Butcher had trouble suppressing the shiver. He hadn’t see a live animal at all, so far. It was time he pulled himself together and stopped behaving like a child.

Lurmask stopped. “This is Berzhan Khun, the cavern of the dragon.” Xeszno and Lena stood beside him, while the khiphra approached the far wall, all her tentacles waving rhythmically.

Movement. Butcher stiffened.

The base of the wall seemed to shift and transform, taking on a different pattern, drawing back from the rock. A column rose up in front of the high priestess. A column with glowing red eyes.

Butcher’ legs turned to jelly. The breath caught in his throat. Fuck. Oh, fuck. The bloody thing was huge, as thick as his own body and he couldn’t see the end of its tail. The great tapered head hung above the khiphra like a portent of doom.

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Newly-promoted Captain Brett Butcher is about to achieve his life-long ambition to command a battle cruiser. But before he takes up his new posting, he goes home on leave, hoping to perhaps catch a glimpse of his first love, the unattainable Lady Tarlyn.

When the queen is assassinated in a terrorist attack, Tarlyn’s life is thrown into turmoil when she, too, becomes a target. The last person she expects to rescue her is her childhood sweetheart, Brett Butcher.

As Validor’s Ptorix and human populations face off over a group of islands neither owns, the calls for war grow louder. Torn between duty and ambition, Butcher and Tarlyn struggle to prevent an inter-species conflict, while the ember of love that has smouldered for so long bursts into flame.

But with planetary peace at stake, both will be forced to choose; love or duty.

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Teaser Tuesday – The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy #sfrgtt

This week I’m going to post a snippet from one of my earliest books, The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy. The book’s free pretty much everywhere.

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The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy

The galaxy teeters on the brink of inter-species war

Accused of an atrocity, ex-Admiral Chaka Saahren goes undercover to clear his name. Systems Engineer Allysha Marten, takes one last job to rid her of debts and her cheating husband. On Tisyphor, deadly secrets about the past explode, as Allysha and the undercover agent scramble to prevent the coming holocaust. When the ex-Admiral’s identity is revealed, she must come to terms with her feelings for a man she holds responsible for the death of innocent civilians, including her father. In a race against time, Saahren must convince Allysha to set aside her conflicted emotions and trust a man she barely knows to help him prevent the coming conflagration.

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In this scene, Allysha and Saahren are together in a secret garden, where they’ve found a commonly grown fruit tree. The question is – how to get at the fruit.

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She eyed the fruit hanging well over her head and his. “How do we get them down?”

“I’ll help you get into the tree and I’ll catch the fruit when you throw it down.”

He made a stirrup with his hands. “Here. I’ll hoist you up to that first branch.”

Balancing herself with her fingers resting lightly on his shoulders, she put her foot into his hands and pushed down. She slipped sideways. “I don’t think this is going to work.” She leant into him and started to giggle.

The scent of her invaded his nostrils; her breast pushed against his chest and set his pulse racing. Fruit. Think about fruit. He dropped his hands and straightened up. “I think you’d better turn around.”

“Okay. How’s that?” She stood next to him on one foot, one hand on his shoulder as he made a stirrup again, her foot grasped between his hands. She shoved down, trying to use his hands as a step but she ended up staggering against him, giggling helplessly. “That’s not going to work, either.”

He sighed and knelt down next to her, leaning forward a little to hide his erection. “Sit on my shoulders.”

She hesitated. “Are you sure? It won’t be a strain for you?”

“There’s not much of you. It won’t be a strain.” And at least he wouldn’t be in such intimate contact with her.

She swung a leg around his neck and settled herself down, hooking her knees under his arms. He stood, muscles bunching under the weight. “Okay?”

“Yes. You?”

“Fine.” He wished he was. He could smell her, female and alluring, his hands on her smooth skin, her parted legs around his neck. “Climb into the tree.” Please.

She grasped the branch and scrambled onto it, lifting herself with a foot on his shoulder. She turned around awkwardly and sat on the branch looking down at him.

“Go for the deep orange ones. Throw them down to me.” He raised his hands, ready to catch.

She reached up, wrenched the nearest off and tossed it to him. The over-ripe fruit splattered as it hit his hands.

“That’s one we won’t be eating.” He shook the sticky fragments away. “Do it gently or you’ll have to suck the fruit off my fingers.”

She chuckled. “Interesting thought.”

Far too interesting. He imagined her lips around his finger, her tongue… Concentrate, Saahren.

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Another snippet from “Kuralon Rescue”

Siena and Jirra have made it into space in a battered little freighter called Kali’s Gift. Siena has finally admitted her grand plan is to rescue her fiance, Anton. But Jirra systematically picks holes in the girl’s bare-bones plan. Then this happens.

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Siena gulped down a large mouthful of wine before she spoke again. “Jirra, come with me, please.” She was begging, her eyes pleading. “I’m no soldier. You’ve just shown me I don’t know it all. I’ll admit I was hoping you’d come. You’d understand, surely. I love Anton. I want to marry him and have children. He’s going to die in that awful place. Please?”

Tears glistened in Siena’s eyes. Jirra felt her pain, so much the same as her own, a black hole of hopelessness. What would she, Jirra, do in the same situation, if it was Prasad in some hell hole? “Doesn’t he have family?” she asked at last.

“There’s nothing they can do. They’d be under surveillance. That’s if they’re still alive.” Bitterness colored Siena’s words.

“Siena, that bounty hunter –”

“Will follow you wherever you go. But now the trail’s muddied, yes? He won’t even know you’re going to Crossmar, let alone Kuralon. And if I have to find another ship or another pilot, they wouldn’t know me, they probably wouldn’t help me.”

With her elbow on the table, Jirra rested her chin on her fist. Her heart said do it, but her brain pleaded for sanity. She’d be walking into an unknown situation without a real plan. Suicidal came to mind. Then again, what did she really have to live for? She couldn’t have Prasad and she didn’t want anybody else. She didn’t believe in gods and religion, but she did believe that sometimes serendipity shows up and shoves you in an unexpected direction. It had happened to her when she’d accepted the chance to learn from an alien. Her few friends had distanced themselves, but she’d ended up on the trip of a lifetime, a historic trip across the galaxy to search for the Manesai’s ancestral home. The little voice in her mind sang its siren song. Follow your heart. You never know where that might lead you. Her decision must have been transmitted in her facial expression because Siena smiled before Jirra said a word.

Laughing, Siena leaped up from the table, ran around to where Jirra sat, pulled her out of her seat and hugged her so tightly she gasped. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

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And they’re off! (Or are they?) SFR Brigade presents…

Subject to change without notice

Here’s another snippet from ‘Kooralong Rescue’ (the current work in progress).  Jirra has agreed to take Siena off to Kooralong. They’ve reached the space station, Jirra has checked the ship, and now it’s time to leave. Just as Kali’s Gift is about to head out…

 

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the controller said. “We’ve just received an impounding notice from the planet. You can’t leave until the issue is settled in court.”

“Oh, mala,” Jirra murmured as she closed down the comms link. “This will be the bounty hunter, trying to delay me.”

“He’ll be delaying me, too.” Siena’s nostrils flared. “Can’t we just leave anyway?”

Jirra’s heart rate slowed. “Yes. The umbilicals and bridge are already retracted. Just the tethers to go. But we’ll get into trouble. That’s illegal.”

“They have no right to delay me. Let’s go.” Siena glowered, her eyes glittering.

Jirra shoved her hand down on the control to start departure. The harnesses rose from the seat backs and settled over their shoulders as Siena added, “I’ll contact mother later to get her to talk to those idiots. Lien indeed.”

The bow thrusters fired. Jirra kept her eyes on the screen as Kali’s Gift slipped backwards, gathering speed. Figures appeared, two security guards running toward the bridge, followed more slowly by another figure. Jirra’s heart hammered. Was that Jutt? Impossible to tell at this distance. A loud bang jangled her nerves.

Siena jolted within her harness, staring at Jirra with wide eyes. “What was that?”

“The tethers.” Jirra pointed at the screen where two cables writhed in the empty docking bay.

 

So they’re off! I wonder what happens next? Be sure to check for more snippets at the SFR Brigade.