Thought I'd share a brief excerpt from Ghost Star. In this scene, our hero Galen discovers his mortal enemy, Lord Mohk, has a little problem with his spacecraft...
GHOST STAR Excerpt
Ghost Star (Ghost Star Adventures Book 1)
by Roger Eschbacher
**
Galen squinted at the massive vessel before them. A strange sparkling stream trailed behind it. “That’s weird.”
“What is?” said Eria, glancing up from her weapons display. “Oh, that is weird. Some kind of gas?”
“The vessel is venting fuel from one of its rear engines,” said Lancer Bartrice.
“Why would they do that?” said Galen.
“It is my guess the engine was damaged during the encounter with the gas giant that crushed its sister ship,” said Lancer Bartrice.
Galen shook his head. “They tripped all the way here with a fuel leak? That’s insane!”
“That’s Mohk,” said Eria.
“Magnifying.” Lancer Bartrice zoomed in on the Lingering Death’s gigantic rear engine array. An assortment of repair craft and bots hovered around a sizable rupture in the vessel’s stern. A steady torrent of sparkling fuel poured out of the crack in the ship’s skin. The small army of bots clinging to the Lingering Death’s exterior were attempting a repair with a large armor plate. “They’re trying to fix it,” said Galen, hope rising in his chest. “Using a mag plate.”
“So?” said Eria.
“No vacuum welding, see? No flame.”
“Ohhhh!”
Lancer Bartrice shuddered violently when a missile exploded behind them.
“Snat!” said Eria, bringing up the munitions inventory on her vidscreen. Toward the bottom of the mostly empty list was a single nuke-level explosive device. “Oh, yes. That will do nicely. Get me over there.”
Galen zeroed in on the fuel-venting engine. He brought Lancer Bartrice closer, and the portside batteries of the damaged ship dutifully opened fire. Galen dodged it the best he could, but the defensive fire repeatedly came close to taking out the nimble Lancer Bartrice altogether. The exploding ordnance buffeted them around like a hover kite.
“Something tells me they don’t want to play,” murmured Eria.
Galen grunted. I wonder why?
A direct hit from an Imp boltfire battery temporarily blinded Galen, ghosting his vision with a bright flash that almost knocked Lancer Bartrice out of commission. Every electronic system on the ship briefly flashed off, and the engine cycled down before, thankfully, everything came back online again.
“We can’t take any more hits,” said Lancer Bartrice, who sounded groggy.
“I hear you,” said Galen. “We’re almost there.”
He guided Lancer Bartrice under the massive battle cruiser, hugging the vessel’s hull. The arcs mirrored his flight path and kept up their relentless assault from behind.
Galen pulled up hard, following the curve of the hull as it transitioned from keel to broadside. “Ready, Eria?”
“You have no idea how ready I am.”
Galen broke free of the Lingering Death’s hull and did a barrel roll directly over the venting fuel. “Now!” shouted Galen.
Eria calmly slid her finger over the weapons vidscreen, and a small egglike package, no bigger than a bandyball, shot out from one of the gun ports and made a graceful, tumbling arc toward the Lingering Death.
“Enjoy, my Lord Mohk,” said Eria.
Galen banked violently and leaned on the throttle, knowing he had only a few brief moments to put as much distance as possible between them and the biggest time bomb in the Rex Cloud.
A horrific flash filled the cockpit, and then, for Galen, there was nothing at all.
**
You can purchase Ghost Star HERE (Amazon Affiliate Link). Thanks!
#YA #scifi #novel #spaceopera #action #adventure #aliens #military #kindlepress
