Rose
McKenzie may be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful
ally--a fellow prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial
intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her
in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.
Captain
Dav Jallan doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost
legendary Class 5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem
is, all its crew are dead, all except for one strange, new alien being.
She
calls herself Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about her
story is adding up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the four
planets, are in jeopardy. The Class 5's owners, the Tecran, look set to start a
war to get it back and Dav suspects Rose isn't the only alien being who
survived what happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is
playing its own games.
In
this race for the truth, he's going to have to go against his leaders and trust
the dark horse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
Her
jump surprised them as much as their jump surprised her, she guessed, from the
way they reacted to the sight of her suddenly crouched on the roof of her
little spaceship.
With
a hand signal and a barked command, the big guy whoʼd been standing in the
middle, the one sheʼd exchanged a look with earlier, had them all letting the
cords on their fancy automatic grappling hooks winch them back to the top
again, weapons trained on the gryak. He stayed behind, though, eyes never
leaving the gryak, and walked carefully to her ship.
He
was going to climb up to her.
The
gryak had stopped when sheʼd jumped, and gone very watchful when the soldiers
had dropped into its cave, but now it prowled up and down in front of her
craft, confused and distressed.
The
black helmet and then the enormous shoulders of the Grih whoʼd stayed below
with her rose up, her rescuer easily pulling himself onto the roof with her.
They
stared at each other again, not that Rose could see much of his face through
the helmet, and she mentally called up the Grih sheʼd learned over the last
eight weeks.
“Iʼm
Rose McKenzie. Pleased to meet you.” Grih informal greetings required her to
touch her nose to his left cheek, and he to hers, but they were on more of a
formal footing, she was guessing, and his helmet was in the way anyway, so she
extended her hands palms facing each other, waiting for him to either cover
hers or let her cover his. She couldnʼt remember who should do what, right at
that minute.
There
was a moment of silence, and then the thin, gray-tinted glass on his helmet
retracted, and she looked directly into startled pale blue eyes with a dark
outer-rim of navy blue. “You speak Grih.”
“Iʼve
been studying it.” She looked at him, and tears pricked her eyes.
Sazo
had said the Grih were as close to being like her as it got in this part of the
universe. But sheʼd thought heʼd been talking in general terms. Bi-pedal, with
two eyes, a nose and a mouth. That was the most sheʼd hoped for.
She
even thought it didnʼt matter. She would be happy to be alive, and wouldnʼt
care if she looked completely different to the people who would hopefully take
her in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Michelle was born in London,
grew up in South Africa and currently lives in Australia with her husband and
two children.
When she’s not writing, or
driving her kids from activity to activity, you can find her blogging at
Magical Musings, or online at Twitter, at Google+ and Facebook.
BUY Links:
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