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Friday, October 7, 2016

Guest Author Liza O'Connor Shares an Excerpt From SCAVENGER's MISSION SciFi Romance

Veronica Scott sez: I met Liza in the Science Fiction Romance Brigade a few years ago! Take it away, Liza=>


There’s a Problem with the East Coast Training Facilities
Alisha joins the West Coast SkyRyders, but unfortunately her captain comes from the East Coast facility. It turns out all three of the East Coast Captains who came to the west coast are seriously psychotic. Like most captains, they call new cadets ‘dogs’ and make then do all the chores, even though the regs clearly state the house chores should be distributed fairly. There’s also a reg that forbids the use of derogatory terms such as ‘dogs’ but if you point that out, you’ll probably end up with your head in a dirty toilet.  But that’s just typical torment that all cadets must endure—makes ‘em strong! (Yeah, right.)
Unfortunately, the three captains from the East Coast must have been trained by a sadist, for there is nothing they won’t do to a cadet. And if their colonel objects because an abnormally high quantity of cadets die under their care, the captain will contact the general and complain his colonel is coddling the men and interfering with the captain’s ability to improve his squad. That always pisses General Powell off. He doesn’t believe in coddling the squads.
One of the East Coast Captains tormented a cadet until he couldn’t take it anymore. Only instead of offing himself, the cadet offed the captain. So now there are only two demented captains on the West Coast. Unfortunately, one is determined that Alisha’s first day as a cadet will be her last. Her captain, DC, has tried but failed to kill her twice now. He is in too deep to ever let her live now.
Read the excerpt below to see what happens…

Scavenger’s Mission
By Liza O’Connor

Blurb
Meet Alisha: A young woman who refuses to live the life her parents want.
In a single month, Alisha Kane has gone from a wealthy debutante to street girl to scavenger.  While testing her new flying skills in the Cully Canyon, Alisha incurs a near-death crash landing. She’s “rescued” by a colonel of the SkyRyders and her life changes forever.
Meet Logan: A SkyRyder colonel in charge of a sleepy fort with little to do other than arrest the occasional scavenger.
For the first time in his life, Logan’s attracted to a young woman, only she’s probably a scavenger and he’ll have to arrest her.  But first he offers her a shower and food while he checks on his crew. His videographer has captured her extraordinary flight through the Cully and her flying is astounding!
He forgoes arresting her and puts his career at risk by asking MAC to assess her skills and integrity as a potential SkyRyder. If he can get Alisha into the SkyRyders, it will be his greatest contribution to the Corps.
Meet MAC: The Artificial Intelligence that runs the SkyRyders Corps.
Upon seeing her arrival, MAC upgrades Alisha’s test. Her flying skills are not just excellent; they exceed what was previously thought possible. MAC classifies her as its top asset and soon she proves her value. 
But…the SkyRyders remain a male dominated Corps where Alisha’s sense of right and wrong often clashes with her superiors. How long can a rebellious young woman survive in a regimented Corps?

Excerpt
Alisha’s best chance of survival was to become invisible to anyone on the ridge or flying above. Using her hands, she scraped a small indentation in the sand at the base of the wind turbine and lay down. Within just a few minutes, a fine layer of sand covered her blue suit. Soon she would disappear altogether.
The only problem with lying in a desert, buried in hot sand, with an injured knee throbbing from pain, was that time wouldn’t move. Minutes turned to hours.
She had almost convinced herself that her watch had broken and DC must have given up by now when she sensed the proximity of a wind-catcher. How she heard it over the drumming of the turbines she had no idea, but a second later, its shadow crossed over her.
Thank God she hadn’t moved and caused the sand to shift off her suit. The close call gave her incentive to remain buried, no matter how slowly time moved or how much her leg hurt.
Alisha breathed a sigh of relief when the entire squad flew over her and headed east toward the compound. She still waited another twenty minutes before she pushed herself out of the sand and tried to stand up. The pain literally knocked the breath from her lungs. How the hell can anything hurt this bad? Shouldn’t my body go into shock and stop hurting?
She crawled to the base of the turbine and used it as a backrest. Taking a swallow of water, Alisha realized she only had a quarter of a pint left. She had no food, little water, and no gun to fend off coyotes and mountain lions. If the colonel didn’t rescue her before dark, he’d probably be taking bad news to her grandfather.

LINK
The SkyRyder’s Series, Book 1
Scavenger’s Mission

About the Author
Liza O’Connor lives in Denville, NJ with her dog Jess. They hike in fabulous woods every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow. Having an adventurous nature, she learned to fly small Cessnas in NJ, hang-glide in New Zealand, kayak in Pennsylvania, ski in New York, scuba dive with great white sharks in Australia, dig up dinosaur bones in Montana, sky dive in Indiana, and raft a class four river in Tasmania. She’s an avid gardener, amateur photographer, and dabbler in watercolors and graphic arts. Yet through her entire life, her first love has and always will be writing novels.
SCIENCE FICTION
Sci-Fi Soap Opera with humor, romance, and science

Sci-Fi/Romance

The SkyRyders Series
Sci-Fi Romance
Scavenger Falters-coming 2017
Scavenger Vanishes-coming 2017


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