I'm typing away like a mad monkey on my next book, so instead of my usual post, I thought I'd do something a little different and share an excerpt from Full House, which releases March 20th.
Full House is a novella in the Drift series - full of cyborgs, secrets, and sex (of course.)
Opportunity
doesn’t always knock. Sometimes, it crash
lands.
A
veteran of the Resource Wars, Raze is a cyborg with a simple plan. He wants to
be left alone, forever.
Planetary scout Sevda Rem is lightyears from
civilization when her ship is damaged, forcing an emergency landing on an
unoccupied planet. At least, it was supposed to be unoccupied…
He’s trespassing on a corporate-owned planet. She’s
duty bound to report him. The deck is stacked
against them, but if they play their cards right, they might discover that
together they hold a winning hand.
****
Raze felt the change in the weather
coming before he even looked up. The breeze died,
and the valley went quiet as the animals braced for what they knew was coming.
The late spring weather was mild and pleasant most of the time, but not today.
One of the first lessons he’d learned about his adopted homeworld: when the valley went quiet, it was time to take cover.
The ax slammed down on the last of the
wood, neatly splitting it. Only then did he straighten, rolling his shoulders
as he looked up at the sky. It was still a cloudless stretch of deep blue, but
he knew that wouldn’t last long. Somewhere beyond the valley, a grandmother of a storm was brewing, and when it crossed
the mountains, it would bring a deluge of rain and howling winds.
He gathered up the wood and carried it
to the shed, stacking it with the rest of the morning’s work. By the time he’d
hung up the ax and secured the shed
against the coming storm, the air was growing oppressive, and he was feeling restless. Storms always made
him edgy. The wind and rain didn’t bother him, but the crashing thunder and
flashes of lightning that usually accompanied them reminded him of the past.
Ten years of combat had left him with scars that would never heal and memories
he couldn’t let go.
From beyond the barn, a chorus of bleating started up. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one feeling restless. “I’m
coming. I’m coming. You’ll be undercover
long before the storm arrives, you woolly-faced fools.”
The small herd of grazers he’d
domesticated were all pressed up against the gate when he reached it, but it
wasn’t the storm that had them spooked. A new slash of white stood out against
the blue sky. A contrail. He hadn’t seen one of those since he’d been here,
which was the whole point of moving to an
unoccupied planet. He didn’t want company.
A glint of silver caught his attention.
There was definitely a ship up there, and judging by the angle of the contrail
and its current altitude, it was coming in for a landing in his valley. Fraxxing wonderful. He kept watch until
he was certain, his mood as stormy as the thunderheads that crested the
mountains and darkened the sky as the unwanted vessel made an unsteady descent.
By the time it touched down in the center of a clearing, near the river, it was
clear that either the pilot was intoxicated, or the ship was badly damaged.
Either way, they were in for an unpleasant afternoon. They’d parked on the
valley’s floodplain. Once the storm hit, it would send a torrent of rainwater
pouring down the mountainsides in a deluge. Flooding was the reason he lived
part way up the mountainside instead of down on the valley floor.
“I hope they can swim,” he muttered
before turning his attention to the animals pressing against the gate. Now that
the strange thing in the sky was gone, they were calmer, but that wouldn’t last
long. He’d worry about the newcomer once he made sure his livestock were secured inside the barn.
The moment the gate opened the entire
herd tried to push through at once, swarming around his legs in a woolly,
bleating wave as they made straight for the barn. Not one of them wanted to be
left behind, which was a clear warning
that the storm was almost here. They had been wild animals only a few years ago,
but now they were domesticated enough to want to stay out of the rain and
weather.
He followed the animals at a more sedate
pace, and by the time he got to the barn doors,
they were settling in. The chickens were already roosting, and it only took him
a few minutes to double check their feed and water supplies before closing them
in for the duration of the storm.
With all the animals secured, he did a
quick walk around the homestead to ensure that the greenhouses, outbuildings, and equipment were all secure and
battened down. He was only feet from the front door of his home when the rain
started to fall in thick, heavy drops. A gust of wind sent the rain flying
sideways, and he broke into a jog.
He should have gone straight inside,
closed the door, and stayed there until the storm ended, but something made him
hesitate.
“They’re not your problem,” he reminded
himself, but that didn’t stop him from turning around. He could see the whole
valley from his plateau, which was one of the reasons he’d picked this spot to
build. With the small cliff behind him and a clear view of anything coming up
the mountain, it was a safe, easily-defended location. Not that he had to
defend it from much. The occasional carnivore came by to investigate his
livestock, but that was it. It was a place of peaceful solitude, until today.
Movement down in the clearing confirmed
he wasn’t alone any longer. Even his cybernetically enhanced eyesight wasn’t
enough to pick out how many might be down there, so he reached inside the door
and snagged his binoculars from the shelf. He trained the lens on the ship
first. The black and green insignia on the side marked the ship as part of the
Torex Mining corporation’s fleet. Probably sniffing around to see if there was
anything in the ground worth tearing apart the planet for.
The ship had to be a scout class. It was
too small to be anything else. Minimal weaponry, sleek design, large engines
and not much else. It was built for speed, not war. He moved on to the crewman
currently examining the outside of the craft. It was getting hard to see
through the heavy rain, but he could make out a few details. It was a female,
humanoid, and quite tall. She had short, black hair and a curvy figure that not
even her shapeless jacket could hide completely. Those curves affected him in a
way that reminded Raze he hadn’t been with a woman in years. It was a streak he
had every intention of continuing. He wasn’t fit company for anyone, and he
never would be.
His hand brushed over the scars that
marked the left side of his face and added streaks of pure white to his hair.
He’d gotten them right here in this valley, in a battle that had cost him
everything. The landscape had healed since then. Time and the elements had
erased the damage or covered it over with greenery, but in his memory, he could see it all the way it had been. Broken, bloodstained, and raw.
A gust of wind howled past the cabin
with enough force to make the walls tremble, and
the already pounding rain increased until he couldn’t see the ship or the woman
any longer. If she didn’t get back inside her ship soon, she was going to be in
trouble. He set the binoculars back on their shelf, started to close the door, and
stopped. It didn’t feel right to leave her out there, on her own and unaware of
what was headed her way.
He grunted in frustration at the sudden
return of his conscience. He hadn’t even been sure he had one anymore, but
there it was, nagging at him to go out into the rain and make sure his
unwelcome visitor didn’t get herself killed. As he tugged on his rain gear, he tried to tell himself it was purely logical.
If the Torex scout died, they’d send more ships to find out what happened to
her. It was easier to save one and send her on her way than deal with the half
dozen that would come looking later.
He was still trying to convince himself
when he set out into the storm with a pack full of gear. He was buffeted by winds and hammered by the constant
deluge of rain pouring out of the bruise-black clouds. He was drenched before
he’d gone twenty feet from the cabin.
Whoever was down there, she already owed
him, and they hadn’t even met yet.
Full House releases March 20th, but you can Preorder your copy today.
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