by M. Pax
This had to be some sort of trick like the shadows. No way did anybody here work for the Fo’wo’s. Besides, there was nothing to tell. “On freakin’ Pardeep? What the hell for? Take a good gander at this place, Dearheart, there’s nothin’ to find.”
The tavern and docking facility suffered from dust and a lack of notice, waiting for its shot at a heyday, echoing Pardeep’s loneliness through the bays and hallways. Craze couldn’t imagine anything of worth anywhere on the moon. If any value existed, someone would have discovered it by now.
“Something’s here of prime importance. Leftover ordnance from the war. Ply me with drink while I tell my story, then I’ll tell you what you want to know. ‘N you can keep the tab.” She nodded at the data and communications device she’d set down on the bar. “It’s a nice one.”
Craze took down a bin from the rack over his head. It was filled with thin rectangles. “Keep your stinkin’ tab. I got nicer models ‘n the last thing I need is another one.”
“Fine.” She picked up the slim bit of technology. “My information is still valuable. The Fo’wo’s have something here worth a lot of chips. More chips than dis tavern is worth.”
Fortune always interested him, but with reservations from her. “Why in all the Backworlds should I trust the likes of you?”
A shadow bobbed in his peripheral vision. Craze wheeled about to face it, but it appeared the lights and the Water-breather’s words messed with him. Nothing out of the ordinary moved. Still, he didn’t like her, wanted her gone.
“You don’t have very many options here, barkeep of Pardeep. They going to march off dat ride, make you find what they want, then leave you all in a lake of your own blood. Then they’ll move the Lepper ‘n Pardeep will disappear.”
“Bull—”
Cold slapped across his back like a reprimand. The gust burst in through the door, rattling the stale air and tired shadows. A scraggly little thing came in with the wind, the next puff threatening to whisk her off through the Lepper to Elstwhere.
An enormous coat hid half of Meelo’s face and covered her down past her toes. Craze knew it to be Meelo by her size and the bulky, one-of-a-kind outerwear which gave a whole different meaning to deep pockets.
All bundled up, Craze knew she’d prefer to never face the world. When she had first arrived on Pardeep Station, it had taken almost six months to get her to say a word and meet his gaze, and back then she worked and lived in his tavern.
Her mangled little hands kept to themselves, tucked inside her sleeves, and her lower face stayed concealed always by the high collar. He figured her mouth and chin might be mangled, too, but it didn’t stop him from feeling soft about her.
He waved her forward. “Bring anythin’ for me?”
The girl shuffled from foot to foot when she could move no closer to Craze, the bar being in the way. Calloused hands pulled several vegetables out of her coat. “R-rootbaggers up. Now weather’s changed.” It was almost a monologue from Meelo.
Craze checked over the dirt-encrusted short hair sticking out in all directions and the watery blue eyes to determine whether she did OK or not. She appeared weather-beaten, but no more beaten than that. Ever since he’d agreed to give her work, he’d felt responsible for her. He remembered the doctor who had brought her, a lady he had great respect for and tried to woo. It hadn’t worked out with the doctor lady the way Craze had wanted, but now Meelo occupied those same thoughts. So the loss to him wasn’t acute.
“I’ll roast one up now ‘n save the rest for a stew,” he said. At some point, when Meelo needed something, Craze would talk Pardeep’s trader, Talos, into getting it for her. That was their deal. For now, he set a serving of the freshly roasted ricklits down on the counter. “Did you want hours today?”
“I-if you need me.”
“I’m always glad for help, especially from you. For now there’s just the one customer though.” He jerked his head toward the Water-breather.
“I can see ‘n hear you,” Dearheart said.
Craze winked at Meelo, ignoring the Water-breather. “My charm has no bounds.”
Meelo climbed up on a stool and pulled the bowl in against her chest. She crunched down one, then a handful, making yum noises. Somehow she did so without the coat peeling away from her mouth in the slightest.
Craze set all but one rootbagger in a cache in the floor, then retrieved a large knife from under the bar. Hacking up the vegetable for the roaster, he bounced a wayward curl for Meelo’s notice. She would often giggle when he let his hair move around in outlandish styles. He liked when she laughed. She didn’t even snicker.
He paused and glanced up. With grave concentration, she gobbled down ricklits, too hungry to notice his curls. He frowned, clearing his throat until he caught her notice. “Dearheart here claims she has a story worthy of a crock of somethin’. My brew or the rotgut?”
The Water-breather licked her lips, staring at the taps. “It’s worth ten crocks of your finest mead, ‘n then some.”
“Tell you what, if your story is good enough, Meelo gets the say-so, I’ll give you a crock of my good stuff when you through.” Craze hoped that would get the Water-breather’s designs off his back. Whatever they were, he wanted no part of them. “You agree, Meelo?” He wished he could see her lips. He’d been fantasizing about them the past fifteen months.
Meelo’s weak blue gaze scurried over the Water-breather. “C-Craze brews a nice mead. Must be some story.”
“It is,” the Water-breather said sitting up straighter, her sallow eyes piercing into Craze’s. “I was a settler on Bofeld. There’s only five of us left. I never want to see the other four again. I’d probably kill ‘em. I hate what I am.”
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Free Books
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Other Reads and Fun
A Heartfelt Thank You To...
SNEAK PEEK
The Backworlds Series
The Rifters Series
Other Books
More Reads and Fun
Untethered Realms
The Backworlds Series
Next in Series
The Backworlds Series
In the far future, humanity settles the stars, bioengineering its descendents to survive in a harsh universe. A space opera adventure.
The Backworlds – Book 1
Trouble thrives in the Backworlds, but it’s home. In ebook, print, and audiobook.
Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge – Book 2
Nothing sane travels the starway. Today it brings disaster. In ebook, print, and audiobook.
Boomtown Craze – Book 3
Will it be a grand new age of boom or dust? In ebook and print..
Beyond the Edge – Book 4
Some truths are better left unfound. In ebook and print..
Worlds on Edge — Book 5
Home is worth the fight. In ebook and print..
Precipice — Book 6
Salvation comes at a price.
Free Fall — Book 7 Coming 2016
Hero is another word for d.e.a.d.
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The Rifters Series
A junction between the worlds has opened in Settler, Oregon, a rift from which horrors attack our world. The Rifters defend us.
The Rifters
A junction between the worlds erupts. In ebook and print.
The Initiate — Book 2
You’re never a hero until you are. In ebook and print.
The Reader — Book 3
Friend Aura Foe. Ebook.
The Tracer — Book 4
Coming in 2017
Other Books
The Renaissance of Hetty Locklear
The journey into adulthood is stranger than she expects. In ebook, print, and audiobook.
Semper Audacia
Alone. Leda is the last living member of the brigade, the sole defender of her world. War took everyone she knew, leaving her in the company of memories and ghosts. Or is it madness? The siren blares. The approaching warship isn’t a friendly design, but it answers with a friendly code. Leda must figure out whether the arrival is reinforcements or the final assault. In an aging flyer, she ventures out to meet her world’s fate, the last stand. Ebook.
Also available in the anthology Space Jockey.
The Tumbas
On a dusty red world inside a dome called the Pearl, Rett is selected to be the next tumba master, if she bonds with her herd and the tumbas accept her. Before she can, the tumbas’ feral ancestors crash in through the dome, killing her teacher and her new hatchlings. Rett, the tumbas, and their whole world teeters on ruin. In order to save it, she must embrace a past she barely remembers in her dreams. In ebook and print. Part of Wandering Weeds: Tales of Rabid Vegetation
The Other Side
Part of the anthology, Beyond the Binding. Composers and writers come together in this unique entertainment endeavor to help relief efforts in the Philippines. Embark on an exciting journey “Beyond the Binding” of the imagination with 29 authors from across the globe, in a groundbreaking collaboration where music meets fiction. In ebook and print.
A Flight of Fancy
Part of the anthology, Heroes of Phenomena. A free read. Inspired by Audio Machine’s Whispers of Wonder. In the Grove of the Seed King, Fancy is summoned to court. She’s sent out to make the world better, how can just a mere fancy do something so mighty? Every download results in a donation to the LA Youth Orchestra. Ebook.
Patchworker 2.0
Part of Twisted Earths. Humanity is forced to live in domed centers as foul as the earth we destroyed. Artificial Intelligence holds the remains of society together, and a special team of Patchworkers keep the AI functioning at peak performance. Patchworker Evalyn Shore leads the investigation of a homicidal Artificial Intelligence. The AI is taking over minds, leaving Patchworkers and AI managers as sacks of bio matter ready for the recycling bin. Can she create the patch to repair the AI? Or will it kill her first?
Story Bundles
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