I’m really excited to say that Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2 anthology is releasing next
Tuesday, the 10th. I thought for today’s backlist feature, I’d
share an excerpt from the story I wrote for Pets
In Space 1, in 2016, which is now available in my ebook Star Cruise A Novella: Stowaway: With Star
Cruise Rescue and Golden Token Short Stories. Yeah, I know, totally unwieldy
title…but pretty cover, right? (From Fiona Jayde.)
Here’s
the story for Star Cruise: Stowaway:
Cargo Master Owen Embersson is shocked
when the Nebula Zephyr’s ship’s cat
and her alien sidekick, Midorri, alert him to the presence of a stowaway. He
has no idea of the dangerous complications to come nor does he anticipate
falling hard for the woman whose life he now holds in his hands. Life aboard
the Nebula Zephyr has just become
more interesting – and deadly.
Here’s
today’s excerpt:
This was the time of day he enjoyed most, when all
his crew had gone off duty and the Nebula
Zephyr’s top cargo deck was quiet. Sure, more work remained tomorrow to get
the cargo squared away properly and ready for the next stop, but there was no
rush, being several weeks out. Cargo Master Owen Embersson surveyed his desk in
the tiny office on Deck 18. Time to leave the place to the ship’s AI, go have
his dinner in his cabin and then resume work on the scale model of a long-vanished
temple he was building. This one was incredibly intricate, and he’d charge the
customer triple the usual price.
Stepping onto the echoing deck, he called for Moby. She
spent most of her evenings hunting vermin lurking among the monstrous crates
and containers, but she usually passed the first part of the evening in his
cabin, eating the incredibly expensive cat food he had the ship’s AI keep in
stock. Not much else to spend his salary on. “Come on, cat, I want my dinner
even if you don’t,” he said to the elegant vision in white fur who trotted from
the murky recesses of the deck. How she stayed clean when she spent her days
prowling the cargo deck, he’d never know.
Purring, she came to his steel-tipped work shoes but
evaded his effort to pick her up, moving just out of range the way felines did,
as if cats could teleport. Moby scampered toward the towering stacks of cargo
then turned. Seeing he’d failed to chase her, she sat, tail twitching, head
tilted, eyeing him.
“What‘s the matter with you? I’m not in the mood to
throw cat toys and retrieve them right now.” Embersson headed toward the
gravlift. Moby regarded the entire ship as her territory and could find his
cabin for her dinner when she was hungry.
In the next minute, he nearly tripped as she rubbed his
ankles, nipping at one in passing. Swearing, he caught himself with a hand to
the bulkhead. “What in the seven hells is wrong with you tonight? Giving me a
concussion won’t get you fed.”
Moby yowled at him and ran toward the stacked cargo
again.
Figuring she wanted to show him a recent kill, which
he’d then have to dispose of, he followed.
Moby moved faster now that she’d gotten him with the
program.
 |
| By Artist Nyssa Juneau |
He followed her around the corner of the pallet the
ship had taken on earlier in the day and found Midorri, the Zephyr’s other pet, crouched beside a
free trader container. “What mischief have the two of you gotten into now?” he
asked Moby. Midorri came aboard the Zephyr
originally as the pampered pet of a princess, but after the whole outbreak
incident, Sector authorities refused to let the lady disembark on Sector Hub
with the undocumented animal, so the ship had kept the odd green fluffball. Dr.
Shane was her official owner of record, but the entire crew liked the slightly
clumsy but always amusing creature.
Midorri sneezed, as she was often wont to do,
allergic to humans perhaps, and flicked her plush prehensile tail before
lowering her head and extending her long green tongue to lap at something on the
deck.
“Freaking flares, do not tell me we’ve got leaking
cargo. Damn free traders and their beat-up equipment.” He hoped Moby hadn’t
sampled whatever Midorri was drinking. The alien animal could probably handle
anything up to and including nuclear fuel, who knew, but Moby was definitely a
terrestrial cat, with a more delicate stomach. He tried to shoo Midorri away
from the slowly growing puddle of green goo, dripping from a dented corner of
the container. Musta gotten banged when the shuttle crew offloaded the final
pallet too fast and had to straighten everything in a rush. Funny, he’d never have picked this box—well
constructed, made from high-quality materials—to be a problem. “I better see
what’s in there,” he said to the interested animals.
Moby yowled, startling him as her voice echoed, and
Midorri emitted a high-pitched chirping that grated on his ears like a physical
assault.
Spurred on by the animals’ distress, which confirmed
his own suspicion he faced a genuine problem, Embersson used his cargo master
key, which was supposed to open any container on his ship. Nothing happened.
Swearing, he tried again. “This free trader’s never shipping anything with us
again, idiot forgot to set the damn code for my access. Maeve, can you open this?”
“Of course,” the ship’s AI said. “I haven’t
forgotten all my military skills just because I run a cruise ship nowadays.”
“Wait a second.” He stepped aside, encouraging the
animals to do so as well. He imagined a gush of whatever was leaking when Maeve
did her hacking thing and overrode the container controls.
Midorri tried to climb over his boot to return to
the growing puddle.
A loud click echoed in the cargo bay and the seams
on the crate glowed yellow, unsealing in a smooth progression along the rim.
Sure enough a deluge of liquid followed, but Embersson froze for a moment as he
saw what had been inside the crate. Then he was on his knees beside the now-open
container, heedless of the green cryo fluid soaking his pants, as he tried to
extricate the woman who’d been illegally stored inside.
About
Embrace the Romance: Pets In Space 2,
for which I’ve written my first ever rock star romance!:
The pets
are back! Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space 2, featuring twelve of today’s
leading Science Fiction Romance authors brings you a dozen original stories
written just for you! Join in the fun, from the Dragon Lords of Valdier to a
trip aboard award-winning author, Veronica Scott’s Nebula Zephyr to journeying back to Luda where Grim is King, for
stories that will take you out of this world! Join New York Times, USA TODAY,
and Award-winning authors S.E. Smith, M.K. Eidem, Susan Grant, Michelle Howard,
Cara Bristol, Veronica Scott, Pauline Baird Jones, Laurie A. Green, Sabine
Priestley, Jessica E. Subject, Carol Van Natta, and Alexis Glynn Latner as they
share stories and help out Hero-Dogs.org, a charity that supports our veterans!
10% of the first month’s profits go to
Hero-Dogs.org http://www.hero-dogs.org/. Hero Dogs raises and
trains service dogs and places them free of charge with US Veterans to improve
quality of life and restore independence.
Buy Links:
