Ghost Star: The Excerpt

 

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

 

TORN ROOTS: A Hawaiian Storm Mystery by Scott Bury

Chapter 10:
Person of interest

Thursday, 12:00 p.m.

Sam felt furious with himself. He stomped his feet with every step as he walked home. Why did I tell them all that? I practically drew them a map to where Rowan is, and they did not believe that she’s innocent. Not that big goon, Dekker, anyway.

The heat was too intense to let him stay furious. He slowed his pace as he reached the point where Ha’u’o Road branched off the Hana Highway, 

“There was no other way,” he said aloud to a small brown bird with a white circle around each eye, perched on a branch just over his head. It cocked its head and chirped, as if answering him. 

“I had to give Rowan an alibi, which meant I had to say she was with me all night.”

The bird chirped again and flew off the branch, flitting ahead of Sam along the edge of the road.

“Big help you are,” Sam said.

Sam rented the last house on the dead-end street, a tiny bungalow made of what looked like scrap wood. As he passed the last koa tree that blocked the view of the house from the end of the road, he saw an unfamiliar, new truck in his neighbor’s driveway.

The shiny new, black Ford SUV, fully loaded with running boards and an extended cab, was out of place. What was especially strange were the tinted windows, almost as black as the paint on the body.

Sam continued up the driveway as if he were going into his neighbor’s house, then cut across the lawn where bushes blocked the view from his own house. He pushed branches away until he could see his house. It was quiet.

He crept around the bushes silently toward the back of his house, and his breath caught in his throat when he saw his back door standing open. Did I leave it like that when I ran out yesterday? he wondered.

That was when he heard the first crash. 

It came from inside his house. Another crash followed and the walls seemed to shake. When he heard glass shatter, he ran around the bushes hiding him and across the small yard to his house, taking the three steps to the porch in one stride. 

He halted beside the big bookcase when he saw Rowan and Dekker sparring. 

Dekker held his fists in front of him, legs apart in a boxer’s stance. Rowan was in taekwondo ready pose: knees bent, shoulder facing her enemy. Her long hair streamed around her like a bridal veil as she again spun, kicking high at Dekker’s collared neck.

Dekker dodged, stepped and jabbed at Rowan. She ducked, did a shoulder roll out of reach, and Dekker’s enormous fist hit the wall, shaking the little house again.

Torn Roots

Vanessa Storm thought her first week on the job as an FBI Special Agent in beautiful Hawaii would be about settling in. But she’s immediately sent to Hana on Maui's rain-soaked shore to find a kidnapped woman. 

Throw in arson, strident environmentalists bent on stirring up strife between local rights activists and foreign property developers, a chill local police lieutenant, a taciturn geologist, and top it all off with a rogue, unpredictable Homeland Security agent. 

The case becomes a labyrinth twisting through the jungles on Maui’s volcano. Vanessa knows this case will explode into an international incident and lives will be lost if she doesn’t find answers fast.

** 

“TORN ROOTS is wonderfully rich with plot and setting, but it was Mr. Bury's command of the story's pacing that impressed me most.”—Eden Baylee, author of Stranger at Sunset

“I made the mistake of picking up this book and could not stop reading.”—Frederick Lee Brooke, author of Doing Max Vinyl

“Made me feel like I was there in person!”—Sue Devers

“I have never been to Hawaii but reading the detailed descriptions of its beauty in this book has made me feel like I've actually been there.”—Joy A. Lorton

Available now for pre-order at a special low price on Amazon.

About the author

Scott Bury

Scott Bury is the author of 13 books who can’t stay in one genre. His first published novel was thehistorical magic realism novel, The Bones of the Earth. Then he wrote a spoof in the form of an erotic romance, and then a biographical trilogy, The Eastern Front series. He wrote five mysteries and three thrillers over the next three years, and is now working on a sequel to his first novel.

His favourite authors range from Raymond Chandler to Samuel R. Delany to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mark Helprin and J.R.R. Tolkien.

He loves to cross genre boundaries in his books.

Born in Winnipeg, he lived in Thunder Bay and Toronto, Ontario. He now lives in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

In addition to writing, he loves traveling with his beautiful wife, hangin’ with his mighty sons, downhill and cross-country skiing, swimming, whitewater canoeing, hiking, music, food and travel. He muses occasionally about learning how to cook.

You can find more about Scott and his work on his website, Scott.Bury.Author. Connect with him through Twitter @ScottTheWriter, LinkedIn or Facebook at Scott.Bury.Author.