Book Blitz & Excerpt: Port Anywhere + Giveaway

Port Anywhere by J.S. Frankel

General Release Date: 28th June 2022

Word Count: 67,877
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 256

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
FUTURISTIC
FUTURISTIC AND SCIENCE FICTION
SCIENCE FICTION
SWEET ROMANCE
YOUNG ADULT

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Book Description

A restaurant in space, a waystation for all those who need a meal. When one of the guests turns out to be forbidden cargo, everything changes.

Rick Granger, seventeen, is the sole human occupant of Port Anywhere, a floating restaurant in space. His parents are dead, and he is aided by an alien called Nerfer—a pink alien that looks a lot like Spam. They journey throughout the galaxy, making a precarious living by offering meals in exchange for whatever their alien guests can pay.

As well, Port Anywhere, while powered by ion engines, has one unusual feature. It can suddenly jump from place to place, although Rick doesn’t know why. It simply happens.

His mundane existence changes when a warlike group of aliens led by a man named Kulida ask Rick to guard a possession of theirs. Upon further examination, Rick finds out that the cargo is a young alien woman named Merlynni from a planet called Kagekia, who carries a secret inside her—a mini galaxy.

The tiny galaxy was placed inside Merlynni by her father, a genius scientist, in order to hide it from hostile forces. As Port Anywhere continues its journey, Rick finds himself falling for Merlynni, and he will not give her up. When Port Anywhere shifts to various galaxies with various aliens in pursuit, they manage to escape time and again, but there comes a time for the inevitable showdown, and Rick has to use all his wits in order to save Merlynni and solve the riddle of the power she carries inside her.

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence and murder.

Excerpt

Randorran Galaxy. Sometime around noon. Earth Year, 2134

“Is that griddle clean, yet?”

Nerfer’s call emanated from the storage room, a question that went past impatience but stopped just shy of outright anger. Deep and harsh, his voice sounded like it belonged to a giant, but he stood on the short side of one-hundred-sixty centimeters. His actual height was contentious at best, as he was essentially pink jelly encased in a clear plastic containment suit. But the commanding tone was unmistakable.

In days gone by, people would have called him Spam-In-A-Can. Perhaps calling him ‘crushed fruit in a suit’ would have been more appropriate. But after thinking about it…no. It wouldn’t have worked.

With a sigh, knowing he wouldn’t believe me, I answered, “Yes, it’s clean. So are all the other tables. Come see for yourself.” I doubted he’d take my word for it. Nerfer was notoriously difficult to please.

“I will. Give me a second.”

He could have a second—or ten. My journey to spotlessness on the bridge continued. The bridge itself took up a third of the total space, with a captain’s chair and a console in front of the main viewing window, an interstellar communicator, which sat on the console to the left of the captain’s chair, and helm controls to the right.

Behind the helm was the other two-thirds of the bridge. That was the restaurant. The glass that made up our main window to the stars was spotless, and it offered an incomparable view of the heavens.

If the view was incredible, so was the restaurant, in its own way. My late father had designed it after looking at countless vid-photos of diners from the mid-twenty-first century. For some reason, he’d had a fascination with that era.

Our restaurant had plush leather booths—ten in all—a counter with eight stools and a syntha-fridge that could synthesize any kind of food, but only in its raw form. I still had to cook it. We also had a combo grill-fryer where the food got prepared by me, Rick Granger, co-captain of Port Anywhere, our ship’s name.

This place was where I belonged, where my focus was. As the co-captain of this ship, I had a duty to guide our ship among the stars as well as to be on guard for anything that might threaten the safety of—

“Coming out,” Nerfer said, interrupting my dreams of a full captaincy.

The door to the storage room opened. It housed numerous old food crates and doubled as his sleeping quarters. He came toward me, his semi-solid body undulating in his containment suit as he moved along. From what he’d told me, he was a member of the Gliddod race. His people came from a distant galaxy, one so far away that no one really knew where it was.

He’d shown up here six months ago in a spacecraft that had fallen apart after he’d docked with ours, and he’d asked my father for a job. My father, being the decent person he had been, had given him the position of running this restaurant while he went off to attend to the daily mechanics of operating this ship. Oh, and he’d also made him co-captain.

Did that piss me off? There was an old saying—‘Did a one-legged duck walk in circles?’ In a private moment, I’d asked my father, “Dad, why’d you hire this guy? You don’t know where he’s been or if anyone’s chasing him or what. Weren’t you training me to be the captain and the head cook?”

“When it’s time, you’ll be both,” he’d answered.

Thanks for your confidence in me, Dad.

After a while, though, I had to admit that our new pink crewperson had proved to be an excellent cook, and after my father’s death from Bridorran Fever, Nerfer had also ended up being a more than capable captain. It still bothered me at times, though, being relegated to the ‘also-ran’ position.

In a quick, economical motion, Nerfer moved around to check each table. Finally, he finished his inspection with a grunt that sounded like a bubble popping underwater. “Good job, kid.”

Finally, a compliment. A pseudopod shot out from his suit—the suit was porous in a sense, and it allowed him to do that—and he pointed to a table. “Number six has a spot on it. We got Janoorians comin’ in soon, and they hate dirt.”

Compliment given, compliment withdrawn—and with that, he went back to the storage room. Fine, I’d clean the table—again. We had only ten, but he’d spotted a tiny imperfection one-fifth as large as my pinky fingernail on one of them. In days past, people had called it being anal. These days, people called it attention to detail.

Our vessel, an Earth-class freighter, had been converted from a freighter-slash-exploration vessel to an exploration-vessel-slash-interstellar restaurant. So, when we entered a new galaxy and if some alien life forms contacted us, once they found out we weren’t armed, they’d either drop in for a meal or tell us to keep moving.

Usually, they partook of a meal with us, we chatted, then they departed after paying us whatever they could. You could call it a precarious living, because we never knew who’d come our way. My parents had always believed in randomness, and my existence here was as random as it got.

We called our ship Port Anywhere, mainly because we went everywhere, to every galaxy and beyond. We had self-sustaining ion-conversion engines, and the great thing was that they left no radioactive residue upon the stars, unlike other ships. Recycling was cool. ‘Go green,’ the old saying went. We were in space, so, ‘go non-radioactive’.

Our journey had started two years before, just after I’d turned fifteen. We’d lifted off on a bright, sunny day in June from a flight field located near Salt Lake Flats, Utah. A sudden surge, the G-forces had pulled me back, and soon, we’d been in space.

After that, our voyage to wherever continued unimpeded. The ship didn’t have a wormhole device, not exactly. Unlike other, newer ships, it couldn’t go very fast, but it had a recyclable fuel supply, it was safe and from that point on, I’d learned almost everything there was to learn about spaceships and fixing them.

My parents were first-rate engineers as well as designers, and they’d willingly taught me everything I needed to know about the ship, save the engines. “They’re self-sustaining,” my father had once said. “All you have to do is keep the place clean.”

Of course, I learned about other things, such as basic repairs to the hull, space walking, electrical wiring and more, but, by and large, my parents handled things.

The first six months had been cool. Outside of my cleaning and service duties, charting the stars and training against battle droids had taken up most of my time. On occasion, we’d touch down on distant worlds, but like desert nomads, we were always on the move, except we moved among the stars and not sand, although the grains of the universe were always there.

On the surface, everything was wonderful—up until my mother had died from cancer a year ago, just after I’d turned sixteen. Modern science could cure a lot of things, but it still hadn’t gotten around to curing that.

The picture in my cabin showed a tall woman with long, flowing brown hair, a pretty face and a pleasant smile. My father had also been tall, around a hundred and eighty-two centimeters, with an aquiline nose, short brown hair and brown eyes, traits which I’d inherited, although I wasn’t quite that tall—yet.

In all honesty, I’d never thought much my looks. After all, there were no girls here to date, and the closest I ever got to female companionship of my age was watching old holo-vids. Decades back, they’d been called movies.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” my father had said to me after her funeral. He’d encased her in a metal coffin, we’d said our goodbyes then he’d pressed the button that ejected her into space. “She was a good person.”

Yes, she had been, and from that point on, he’d rarely spoken of her. Grief was a powerful thing. Still, we’d soldiered on, and our lives had continued among the stars…

“Rick, you wiping those tables down again?”

Nerfer had poked his head out of the storage room to ask me that question. I gave him the standard answer. “Yes, captain.”

His standard grunt came my way. “Fine.”

He moved to the captain’s chair while I finished doing the tables and gave the grill another touch-up job as well.

We’d been in the Randorran Galaxy for three days. It was the home to Janoorians, Melattans and Sillosians, among others. They were traders, they got along with each other, but they didn’t keep company very often. Something about a guild operating here…

“Rick!”

Nerfer’s voice—loud and stern—made me jump. I’d been spacing out—literally—and while it made me laugh silently, it also confirmed that I had to pay attention more. A good captain paid attention to everything. “What?”

“Check the computer. Company should be coming soon.”

Sure enough, the interstellar com-link device crackled to life. “This is Vadda, of the Janoorian people. We have a reservation. Your Captain Nerfer agreed to this.”

Captain Nerfer. Captain. What about me? However, I had to act professional. “Acknowledged. Co-captain Rick Granger speaking. How many in your party?”

“Three. We requested that you prepare one of our planet’s delicacies. We will bring the raw form of it. Can you make it to our satisfaction?”

If there was one thing I could do, it was cook. I checked our onboard computer’s database. They’d asked for tenlos, a plant of sorts.

“I’ll do my best, sir. Sending coordinates for docking procedures.”

“Acknowledged.”

The com-link fell silent. Nerfer swiveled around with a grunt. “Was that Vadda?”

“Yeah. They’re bringing tenlos aboard. That’s what they want for lunch.”

He nodded. His version of a nod was to bob back and forth, his semi-solid body making a swishing, squishy sound. “Good. You’d better let me handle it first, though. I know about tenlos. It’s alive.”

Nerfer had to be kidding. “Alive?”

Bob-bob. “Yep. You have to kill it first. After that, fast fry it with oil, then slice and dice it. Trust me. I been around,” he said in his usual not-quite-correct way.

Aw, whatever, already! I went to the airlock and waited. Vadda and his friends would be coming soon, and…there! Their ship, a small vessel maybe twenty meters in length, was inching its way over to the landing dock.

Seconds later, a tiny thump accompanied by a vibration indicated a successful docking procedure. I punched the airlock intercom. “When you’re ready, please enter the airlock for decontamination procedures.”

“Acknowledged,” a deep voice said.

The door on their side slid open and three blobs squiggled their way in. One of them carried a sack slung around its neck—or was that its waist? I couldn’t tell. The sack was wriggling. Nerfer would have to be right. Anyway, I started the decontamination procedure. Ten seconds later, a beep signaled that everything was clear.

Once the door opened, three black semi-solid puddles of ink roughly fifty centimeters in height and around sixty centimeters in circumference faced me. A low thrum of a voice spoke from the middle puddle-blob. “I am Vadda. You are the one we spoke with before?”

I nodded. Ordinarily, communicating with an alien species—weren’t we all?—would have been difficult. However, my father had designed a universal translator that operated on interpreting sounds and breaking them down into something understandable. The device was tiny, roughly the size of a pinhead. It was implanted behind my left ear.

“Uh, yes, sir. My name is Captain Rick Granger. I’ll be preparing your meal. This way, please.”

I gestured for them to follow me to the dining hall. They didn’t walk, just squidged along, sort of like a snail moving at a faster pace but leaving no slimy trail behind. Inside the restaurant, I waved my arms at the seats. “Any booth is okay.”

Vadda and one of his crew immediately went to the closest table to our position. The third member of the party, the one that carried a sack, went to the grill area where Nerfer was waiting. The sack was writhing furiously, and the puddle said in a high-pitched voice, “Be careful. The tenlos must be killed first by crushing its root.”

“Got it,” Nerfer said.

Two pseudopods shot out of him and took the bag. He opened it, and immediately, a gray plant around a meter long leaped out and hit the ceiling—literally. It hung there, waving numerous spindly branches around and screeching an unearthly sound.

Well, if I were about to be roasted or grilled, I’d scream, too. “C’mere,” Nerfer said, and his pseudopods quickly grabbed the plant and crushed its root. It gave one final shrill cry then let go.

“You’re on, kid,” Nerfer said as he tossed it on the griddle that already had a coating of oil on it. “Start ’er up!”

Showtime, and I went to the griddle to take out a knife and a spatula and start cooking the mess. A horrible odor came from it, and why couldn’t alien plants or meat smell decent like bacon and eggs…or grilled cheese? Rhetorical—they couldn’t.

While I suffered through a stink that was a combination of wood alcohol and crap, the Janoorians went wild over the odor, undulating their squishy bodies this way and that. “Ah, the young man is a master chef,” one of them said. “He knows our tastes!”

They could have their tastes and keep them. Once it was done, it resembled fried rocks. I divided the portions just so, slid them onto plates then served our guests. Did they use utensils?

No, they simply bent over the mess and ingested it…noisily. Once they’d finished, Vadda leaned back. “A fine meal! The tenlos is a foul plant on our world. It attacks our people from time to time, so please, do not feel bad for killing it.”

I didn’t feel bad for cooking it up. I would have felt bad, though, if I’d had to eat it. Vadda then got up and pointed to the door. “We are sorry not to spend more time here, but we must be on our way. We are delivering cargo to another sector in the galaxy.”

“Not a problem,” I said, attempting to keep my stomach’s contents inside.

His friends also rose, getting ready to leave. Vadda slid a pseudopod inside his body, took out a red jewel and handed it over. “Take this as payment, please. Should you visit this sector of space again, we will most certainly partake of a meal with you.”

Oh, please don’t.

But I said nothing and led them to the airlock. While I waited for it to pressurize, I asked him about the jewel.

“It is called energa,” he said.

Energa? “What does it do, exactly?”

“It has the property of reflection and is considered valuable on our world. Please use it as you see fit.”

Reflection? Maybe it was a mirror. It was shiny, anyway, and I bowed, out of respect. “Thank you.”

They departed, and once they were free of the ship, I checked out the jewel. It sparkled, but that was about it. Out of curiosity, I walked into a storage room nearby, found a small hand-laser and did my best to slice off a tiny piece. The beam simply deflected away and burned a hole in the door. “Oh, so that’s what it does.”

Interesting…and a call that came over the ship’s intercom interrupted my thoughts. “Prepare to shift. Prepare to shift.”

Why now? The computer never gave a reason, although the sensors detected another vessel approximately four thousand kilometers away, its purpose, unknown. No communication came from it, so…

“Shift occurring. Shift occurring.”

With all haste, I ran to the restaurant where Nerfer was in the process of putting all the dishes and cutlery away. “Get ready,” he said. “Shift’s in forty-five seconds.”

“Right.”

I parked my butt in a booth, wrapping my legs around the table support. The shift was simply the interspatial move of this restaurant-vessel from one quadrant of space to another. I had no idea why it happened, and neither did Nerfer. It simply did. After my father had died, the shifts had begun.

And when we shifted, talk about massive! The energy of the movement flung us far and wide, and if I weren’t sitting down, I’d end up on my back or head at the far point of any room I was in.

Good thing we had our interstellar computer. It held all the information on the various galaxies we’d visited thus far. Our ship had no weapons, but it had powerful sensors that could map out any planet’s dimensions and details almost instantaneously, and while it couldn’t tell us about the inhabitants’ culture, it gave the basics on what to expect. It could also translate any language instantly.

Still, face-to-face communication had to be done, and in my almost two years on this interstellar barge—a flying brick that was one-hundred-twenty meters in length by seventy-five meters in width—I’d seen sludge, rock-people, lizards and other life forms that were too difficult to describe. I’d spoken with them all, and it was interesting to learn their ways. But I still missed Earth.

Nerfer’s race—so he said—could learn languages much faster than humans could, within a couple of hours. Very useful for him…

“One,” the computer said, bringing me back to reality.

Then it came, that great heave from here to wherever. I kept my head down on the table and waited it out. “Hey, Nerfer, how are you doing?”

“Still in one piece.”

When we stopped shaking, I asked the computer for more information.

“We are currently in the Madlia Galaxy,” it said in its tinny voice. “Scanning. We are orbiting a planet known as Rattan One.”

“Display information on the planet.”

Whir…click. “Displayed.”

A hologram popped up with the pertinent information. The planet was similar in size to Earth, with approximately fifty percent of its surface covered by water. Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, suitable for breathing. Rich vegetation.

As for the people, they were around two meters in height, slender yet muscular, with oversized hands and feet. Hairy all over, they resembled the cavemen on Earth that I’d studied when I had been younger. Two mouths, one on top of the other. Tiny ears. A slit for a nose. Gray-skinned. In a word, ugly. I wondered if they were warlike and if our entrance into space would provoke them…

“Unidentified vessel, respond.”

The crackling of the interstellar com-link and the voice—deep, raspy, and unfriendly—made me jump. “This is Port Anywhere,” I answered.

“What is the nature of your vessel and your visit?”

“We’re a, uh, a restaurant ship. My name’s Rick Granger, and I’m in charge of—”

“You are in orbit around our planet. We have the right to inspect any alien spacecraft or repel it if we wish.”

Jerk. If I’d had a space cannon, I would have decimated that slime, but we had nothing to defend ourselves with. “Understood,” I answered, striving to enhance my inner calm. “I’ll send the coordinates for our docking site.”

“Does your ship not have a landing bay?”

It did, but it had only enough room for one of our ships, a reconnaissance vessel. “We do, but it’s probably too small to accommodate one of your ships.”

Silence…then, “Very well. Send your coordinates.”

The voice cut out, and I dutifully sent the coordinates to our—ahem—hosts. Nerfer was hard to read, mainly because he didn’t often form expressions. He invariably relied on his voice to make his thoughts and intentions known, but now, his mushiness formed itself into a frown and his voice was full of grave misgivings.

“Rattanians don’t take no for an answer. Deal fairly with them and they’ll be nice, but if you cross them in a deal, then you won’t be worth vellora spit.”

In space, vellora were akin to maggots, the lowest of the low. “I’ll be careful.”

He bobbed back and forth. “Good. Did they tell you what they wanted to eat?”

“No, they only wanted to look around.” That was what bothered me.

Nerfer grunted. “Fine, they can look around, for all I care.”

Yeah, that reminded me. “How do you know everyone, Nerfer? You never told me, and you’ve been in charge here for six months.”

His frown deepened. “My world no longer exists,” he said after a time. “A plague hit us. It broke down our cellular matrixes.”

“Which means…what?”

“It means we dissolved into organic ooze. There is no treatment, no cure.”

Geez, no wonder he was impatient and angry much of the time. Even though I hadn’t seen Earth since I’d been just past fifteen, at least I had a home. He didn’t. Nerfer continued in a voice devoid of self-pity.

“I got out, just in time. After that, I became a courier. I delivered goods and sometimes arms to other worlds. Had my own ship, did well, but then I pissed off a warlord and he blew my ship out. I managed to make it here, and…”

The com-link crackled. “Alien vessel, this is Commander Kulida, leader of the Rattanian space forces. We are nearing your space dock.”

Nerfer shut down his bio, formed a finger and punched the intercom-link button. “Understood. Our representative will meet you at the airlock. You are welcome here.”

He clicked off, and had he had eyes, he probably would have rolled them. Instead, he only muttered, “Welcome like hell. I don’t like this one bit. Kid, you be careful.”

Kid, it was always ‘kid’. I’d turned seventeen about a month before, and he still thought of me as an infant. It was enough to make me scream in frustration.

A few seconds later, a dull thud signaled that Kulida’s ship had docked with ours. I ran to the airlock and punched in the command for the airlock doors on the visitor’s side to open. Three tall beings wearing gray containment suits entered. Two of them carried a large metal crate. They looked around the eight-by-eight-meter room with interest.

There wasn’t much there, only the walls and some shodokutan lights which used concentrated light to destroy any possible pathogens from alien races. I pressed the button to start the decontamination process. Their world may have been similar to Earth, but pathogens were pathogens.

“Activating decontamination procedures, Captain Kulida,” I said. “Just a few seconds.”

“Acknowledged,” he responded.

After ten seconds, the process finished, and the readout showed no pathogens. I opened the door to my side, and three massive men stepped out. “Thank you for allowing us aboard your vessel,” said the person who didn’t have his hands on the crate.

He took off his helmet to reveal a gray skull of a head with deep-set black eyes and a visage so gaunt that it appeared that he was suffering from malnutrition. Perhaps everyone on his world looked like that.

With a sniff, he examined the ceiling of the hallway then turned his gaze upon me, as though he were viewing a particularly ugly species of insect. “I am Commander Kulida. I come bearing cargo. We need to talk.”

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About the Authors

J.S. Frankel

J.S. Frankel was born in Toronto, Canada, a good number of years ago and managed to scrape through the University of Toronto with a BA in English Literature. In 1988 he moved to Japan and started teaching ESL to anyone who would listen to him. In 1997, he married the charming Akiko Koike and their union produced two sons, Kai and Ray. J.S. Frankel makes his home in Osaka where he teaches English by day and writes by night until the wee hours of the morning.

You can check out his blog and follow J.S. on Facebook and Twitter.

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April 26, 2022September 18, 2022

Book Blitz & Excerpt: Snap Me Up + Giveaway

Snap Me Up, by Landra Graf

Book 1 in the Full Throttle Cyborgs series

General Release Date: 26th April 2022

Word Count: 62,153
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 254

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
EROTIC ROMANCE
FANTASY
FUTURISTIC AND SCIENCE FICTION
ROMANCE
SCIENCE FICTION

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Book Description

For this mechanic, anything is fair game.

Snapper Rodriguez never met a woman or a racer he didn’t like, until Gina Morales shows up. She’s butting her head under every hood, moving his tools and plain annoying. He’d rather fall down a mine shaft and lose his other limb than put up with her any longer.

Gina Morales is still trying to figure out what it means to be human, and as the first AI with a body in existence, she’s eager to find her maker. A racing garage like Full Throttle seems like a great place to start, though the head mechanic is an ass and she can’t help but get involved when their latest racing engine fails.

When Snapper and Gina are forced to work together to create a new engine and steal parts from competing racing gangs, the thrill of the job and the close quarters bring unwanted attraction. Too bad Snapper still wants her gone and will do anything to make that happen, even promise her tastes of human connection that she’s never experienced before. As things heat up, the threat to Gina’s synthetic heart grows, along with her confusion. They’ll have to decide if love is worth the risk or if this is a finish line they can’t cross.

Reader advisory: This book contains references to theft, cyborgs, and the major injury of a minor character.

Excerpt

Wrench to the left to loosen. Wrench to the right to tighten. Gina Morales found the process interesting, like everything else human.

Who came up with the idea to tighten clockwise or loosen counterclockwise? Who came up with a clock?

Of course, she could answer these questions with her big AI brain, though completing the actions, experiencing them, meant far more than simply knowing.

A loud winding noise started at the opposite end of the bay and Gina didn’t even bother to look. No, she’d tried to tell that idiot Snapper the engine wouldn’t work, but he, like most male humans, believed he knew more than a woman did.

All right, that may be unfair. He believes he knows more than me. Stubborn through and through.

A small explosive blast erupted at the opposite end of the bay, the air wafting the scents of combustion and melting metal. Then the fire exhaust compression tanks hissed. This brought a different smell. Gina sniffed and got a good hint of ozone, crisp and clean, before the fans kicked in to clear out any possible toxic chemical reactions.

“Fuck!” Snapper’s exclamation brought a smile to her face.

Since the first day Gina had stepped into the Full Throttle mechanics bay, Snapper had acted suspicious and rude. Though she half admired his cautious nature, it got a little old when he questioned every move she made.

Sure, she was lying to his face, but that was for her safety and security. No one could know she was the first-ever synthetic. Her AI brain had once been the primary software component of a ship named after her, but she’d evolved, and six months prior had discovered a madman from Earth’s moon had worked with someone on Mars to create synthetic bodies. It was her chance to exceed her parameters and prove her worth to her creator.

Though becoming human had opened a whole new universe for her.

It’s all new.

Snapper swore again and threw something. Gina set her wrench down and leaned up, squaring her shoulders as she approached him.

“It wouldn’t have done that if you—”

“Don’t say it, Gina.” Snapper brought his hand up and massaged his temples, rubbing black slick all over his tan skin.

The dirt marring his face bothered her. The lack of attention to cleanliness—she itched to take care of it. Problem-solving was a natural reaction to her root programming, as it had been for more than twelve years.

“You have—”

He whirled around to face her, blue eyes blazing. “Are you finished with the engine tune-up on that hauler?”

A shit job he’d given her for daring to make a suggestion the last time. As an AI, she should have learned her lesson, and she had, but being human meant trying again. At least, Sampson had always told her that.

“I’m almost done. Just tightening the last few bolts.”

“Then maybe stick to it and let me worry about the engine.”

She took a deep breath. “I would be happy to, though you should know that if you added an extra row of plugs, it would be able to distribute the load more evenly.”

“You’re a racing engineer now, are you? Your skills were slip drives and trolling motors when you showed up. Best stick to haulers, drifters and ships, and leave the racers to us.”

Gina clenched her jaw. “Snapper—”

“Gina, how about you finish your assignment and let me deal with ’ol grumpy ass here.” The voice beside her belonged to Drag, the newly appointed leader of Frog Lick and the Full Throttle gang. This town and the gang had once belonged to the Smiths, but they were long gone now, moved on or arrested. What was left was a blend of Smiths, others from another gang called Macintosh and some stragglers from non-affiliated gangs who had earned a place with Full Throttle.

Drag had been the one to give her a chance, while his buddy Snapper wanted to give her a hard time. Where Drag was all blond hair, straight-cut and slicked-back, with a solid build and trimmed goatee, Snapper was dark, curly hair and untamed beard. Like a wild man fitting into the uncivilized stereotypes often used to describe Mars men on the Upper Planets.

“Aye, aye, cap…er, boss.” She caught herself but didn’t miss how Drag’s blond eyebrow raised a fraction.

Instead of doubling down with more words that might give herself away, or cause more questions, she pivoted on her foot and went right back to the hauler. Her wrench waited for her, and she grabbed it, though her curiosity couldn’t be helped. She’d always been more of a listener anyway, from her years possessing an inanimate object.

“I don’t like her, Drag.”

She wrenched with a little more force than planned, and the damn bolt squeaked. Her grip eased up as the conversation continued.

“You could at least hear her out. She might have a good idea or two.”

Gina liked Drag. Liked him a lot. He was logical, smart, thoughtful, and he was constantly attempting to improve the gang-town, in more ways than others did. Starting with equality for women and men… Prior to Drag taking over as gang leader, women weren’t allowed to work in the mechanics bay or any areas of ship building and mining.

Snapper growled. “Maybe, but I don’t have time for ideas right now. We needed this racer ready to start testing. We’re pushing it as things are. Now, I got nothing.”

“You got a body, just not an engine. It’s all right, we have time and you go back to the drawing board. We’ll get thoughts from others at the town meeting tonight. Many heads are better than one.”

Funny how Gina had tried to tell Snapper the same thing a couple of days ago and he’d shot her down. Drag, on the other hand, was able to get through. At least, Snapper’s weary sigh implied most of his fight was gone.

“Fine, I’ll be at the meeting, though I was hoping to skip it.”

“No,” Drag replied. “I need you there. You and Rune are my right hands. We need to show a united front, more than ever.”

Gina tightened the last bolt in place and slammed the engine cover down, doing her best to give the impression that she wasn’t hanging on every word…except the pair had gone silent. She glanced over and saw Snapper’s pensive expression. Those fingers were back to massaging engine grease into his skin.

She rubbed her own fingertips together. The presence of grease there made her stomach turn a bit. Dirt, grime—she’d been a ship, knew the feel of such things, yet even now she ached to clean her hands.

“They turned us down, didn’t they?”

Snapper’s question was met by Drag’s nod of agreement. Not good at all.

She gathered her tools and dropped them in the box against the wall. Another quick look—Drag and Snapper were now talking to their driver, Hemi. She took that moment to slip away to the sink and contemplate her next move.

The water and soap were a mash of odd sensations that she’d never gotten used to, though less overwhelming than the baths with the full immersion into the liquid. She’d almost frozen in fear the first time she’d cleaned herself, her experience limited to the ion showers on the ships. No water, no waste. Though here, everything was recycled, filtered and re-used.

Soapy suds were swept clean by droplets of liquid—the same liquid that powered humanity. Seventy percent of their bodies was composed of this life-giving nectar.

Gina dried her hands on a towel then took another peek around the corner—with Drag and Snapper sidetracked, she could log her progress on the hauler in the computer and potentially access the other files. It wouldn’t take long, and this was her best chance, while the system was unlocked and available.

She hadn’t dared let the machine log her as getting in after hours or attempting to erase the evidence. In other circumstances, a little light hacking might work, but one never knew when a tech might discover her digital fingerprints and cause her trouble.

Snapper’s attitude toward her increased her desire to take the risk. She was tired of waiting, taking it slow, per Sampson’s suggestion. Hell, Sampson didn’t even know she wanted to find her maker.

Maybe Sampson didn’t fix my morality and ethics subroutines from when I was hacked eight years ago.

She logged the information then let her fingers fly. Her eyes scanned everything as fast as she could. Access to the Smiths’ old files, the visitors, the mechanics, the software developers and ship builders… The name imprinted on her mind, Torrent, never appeared anywhere.

Clicking out of the last file took her back to the main screen.

“I see you watching him. Best not to get any ideas.” Snapper’s deep timbre washed over her, a low rumble like when she’d be caught in the edge of a current floating through space and trying to get her bearings.

She froze. “What do you mean?”

“You watching Drag, getting that admiring look in your eyes like he invented Marsanium or something.”

Turning slowly, Gina found little to no space between them. Two steps max, but they were eye-to-eye. The big difference between her and most of the other women in Frog Lick—they had to look up to him. Maybe she did intimidate him. Sampson had suggested as much on their last holo-call.

“He didn’t invent Marsanium. The discovery was made by Jangles McKinney in 2292.”

Snapper shook his head and muttered under his breath, “You’re just a little walking encyclopedia and I know that, Gina. It was a comparison.”

“A figurative method of speech? I’m afraid I don’t see the reference clearly as I don’t admire the invention of Marsanium, though I do admire Drag. He is a good leader.” Hopefully, complimenting his best friend would deflect him away from noticing her inability to react to his figurative language. Fatch.

Snapper shook his head. “What are you working on here?”

“Just updating the maintenance records on the hauler and listing the parts and supplies I used.” She crossed her arms behind her back and stood up as straight as possible, prepared to handle whatever attitude he responded with. She suspected more vitriol.

“A lot of open files to be logging basic information,” he replied with a frown.

“I forgot where things were.”

Snapper stepped closer. “Then allow me to show you again, though maybe you should spend less time reading books and memorizing facts about my planet and focus more on your job?”

Gina stood her ground. “I found everything, and I’ll do better. See you at the meeting?”

She could smell his sweat, mixed with a citrusy flavor that reminded her of the lime grove on the planet Eden. Sharp and bitter, much like him. Scents were another gift humans took for granted. She enjoyed the smell of new things, along with trying to determine which ones appealed to her.

This close she could also glimpse the hairs on his chin, as curly and wild as the ones on his head. Though they weren’t all the same color—dark brown, ginger, even a couple of gray strands graced his face. Her exploration of his features meandered on to the Grecian nose, a near Romanesque style like the old books of Earth displayed. Bluest eyes with a smattering of wrinkles around the edges…and the indention between his brows that grew more pronounced every time he was frustrated.

“Gina, why are you looking at me like that?”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the towel there. Every mechanic kept one, though she didn’t sweat like the others and rarely had a use for it. Now she reached up and rubbed the grease away from his temples, one by one.

He took in a sharp breath, almost a hiss. There a was creak and groan of metal at her side as he clenched his cyborg fist tightly. Another difference… He, like Drag and a couple of the others, was enhanced with cybernetic parts. While she possessed more strength than the average human, there was a good chance Snapper could give back as good as she gave. Another thing we have in common, but I can’t tell him that.

She froze, and slowly pulled her arm back. “There. Clean.”

Her fingers still tingled from the limited contact with his skin. So much sensation, three thousand touch receptors in a fingertip. How do you humans not go into overload from a fleeting touch?

Snapper growled, that indentation between his brows back again. “Next time, Gina, ask for permission before you touch someone.”

She dropped the cloth at his feet. “Excuse me?”

“Leave Drag alone too. He doesn’t need you trying to moon after him.”

“What does that mean? I don’t moon after anything. You’re implying a moon can move outside of its orbit?” She cocked her head to the side as he took a step back.

“And pick up that cloth.”

He walked off without answering her question, on top of treating her like some Mars adolescent or a cleaning robot. She wasn’t a damn robot anymore, and high time she showed him, too.

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About the Author

Landra Graf

Landra Graf consumes at least one book a day, and has always been a sucker for stories where true love conquers all. She believes in the power of the written word, and the joy such words can bring. In between spending time with her family and having book adventures, she writes romance with the goal of giving everyone, fictional or not, their own happily ever after.

You can visit Landra’s website here, find her Amazon author page here and follow her on Pinterest here.

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August 10, 2021August 9, 2021

Book Blitz & Excerpt: Held for the Stud + Giveaway

Held for the Stud, by Vonna Harper

General Release Date: 10th August 2021

Word Count: 42,592
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 180

GENRES:

BONDAGE AND BDSM
EROTIC ROMANCE
FUTURISTIC

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Book Description

A man determined to have his way. A woman in need of taming. The battle begins.

One look at the big, half-wild stallion and Asha vows to ride him. One look at the beautiful stranger sneaking toward his newly acquired stud and Banner vows to teach her that he’s in control.

Banner is a soldier, a man who has experienced little beyond weapons and war, but he and the men he’s responsible for need more than conflict. Otherwise they’ll lose what’s left of their humanity. He turns abandoned ranch land into an escape and offers it to battle-weary fighters.

Nothing will stand in his way, especially not the slight, determined woman who insists that only she can handle Koko. He won’t allow her to risk her life. When she disobeys, he disciplines her. Repeatedly.

Asha loathes the man who brought her, naked, to her knees, but her body isn’t listening.

Reader advisory: This book includes references to sexual harrassment, PTSD and war injury. There are elements of corporal punishment and dubious/ambiguous consent.

Excerpt

What I wouldn’t give to ride him.

His energy and power everywhere, me becoming part of him. Heat, endless heat. Wild all the way to his core. His body in absolute control. No fear or doubt. Potent.

Even with her heart’s jagged pace warning she might be having a stroke, Asha continued to stare at the prime example of maleness. She’d seen unwavering confidence before. Hell, she was pretty damn confident herself. But this…

Not wanting to miss a moment of this rare experience, she willed herself not to blink. The object of her admiration was far enough away that she doubted the stallion was aware of her, but even if he locked his dark eyes on her, she’d go on staring open-mouthed at him. She had no choice.

You don’t have to chase after them, she silently told the stud. Females will always do whatever they think it takes to convince you to breed with them. You can be selective. You assess and most times reject because you know there’ll always be another. Only the best will do.

Sweat pooled at the base of her throat while another kind of moisture soaked her panties’ crotch. From first glance she’d known she couldn’t be objective about him, but she hadn’t realized her reaction would be so primal.

She’d caress that sleek dark flesh, run her fingers through long, coarse hair, climb onto his back and ride him until there was nothing left of both of them.

As if reading her thoughts, the stallion stared at her, a front hoof furiously attacking the ground. He wasn’t quite coal black, but close, with a tail that swept the ground and a rich, thick mane. Do it, he seemed to say. Take the chance.

“You’re tempting me.”

He whinnied, the sound sharp. His muscles repeatedly knotted as he continued his attack.

“There’s a mare in heat somewhere, isn’t there? You sense her. Maybe you smell her.”

Barely aware of what she was doing, Asha jammed her hands in her jeans’ back pockets. The gesture tightened the fabric against her crotch and brought her attention back to herself. “Is that it? You’re primed for breeding? You can’t think of anything else. Hot blood runs through you all the time, keeping you keyed-up. You’d service an entire herd if they let you.”

Head high and thick neck arched, the stallion pranced closer. There was a wooden fence between them, but even if it hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have shied away.

“You don’t intimidate me. That’s because it’s possible I know more about how you’ll behave than you do. I respect you, but you need to do the same.”

The animal stopped and again beat at the ground. He shook his head, eyes showing more white now.

“You want to run, don’t you? Gallop without this corral hemming you in. Work off some of that energy. Believe me, I get it.”

Head now cocked to the side, the stallion seemed to be considering her proclamation. She took him to be a little over sixteen hands high and probably thirteen hundred pounds, the majority of it muscle. The way his coat shone, people who didn’t know horses would assume he got a lot of grooming, but his hooves were ragged, his mane and tail tangled.

“I’m guessing your coloring has a lot to do with why you were picked for stud service. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on. That’s why you aren’t out with the herd.”

Frowning, she fingered the lock on the corral door. She’d been looking for him since she’d ventured onto the mysterious place known as Escape, her attention initially drawn to whistles and thuds. Thanks to her career, she’d concluded she was listening to an agitated or aroused horse. The sounds and air of energy had drawn her magnet-like to this remote section of the acreage.

“It probably doesn’t matter to you, but I’ve been listening to you for a while, feeling you in my muscles and bones, letting you command me.”

Command. Yes, that was what it had been. Like a starving woman with the scent of something on a barbeque filling her senses, she’d made the decision to let instinct have its way with her. She had no business being here, but who would run her off? At what she understood was over a hundred acres, chances were she was the only human on most of them. It hadn’t been called Escape for long. A lot of mystery surrounded who owned it. She figured farmers or ranchers acquired the land which was dotted with a couple of barns and a sprawling older house.

Not that she should give a damn.

Command.

Pushing her hair out of her eyes—someday, maybe, she’d figure out how to contain the auburn mass that reached the middle of her back—she gripped the top board and gave the stud her full attention. She wanted him, to own and ride him, to love him and earn his respect. She’d slip a rope around his muscled neck and guide him to a tree stump or boulder. Using his mane for leverage, she’d half haul and half boost herself onto him. She’d settle her crotch on his broad back and tighten her thighs against testosterone-filled muscles. She’d weave fingers made strong from a lifetime of physical labor into his mane, lean forward and whisper in his alert ears.

“Run for me. Race the wind. Gather your legs under you and take us over the fence. Free both of us. Gallop until your lungs heave and I’m hoarse from screaming my delight.”

Her breath snagged, her cheeks burned and her muscles bunched in reaction to what she was certain the stallion was capable of. Her already charged pussy got into the act, muscles clamping down. Her nipples hardened and she gave up trying to close her mouth.

As if reading her thoughts, the stallion pranced even closer. He was all sexual energy, every inch of him leaving no doubt that he’d been created to excel at one task. She’d seen more stallions than most people, but there was something outstanding about this creature.

“You’re making me crazy.”

She should ask herself if she really wanted to confide in the stallion, but right now it was too much effort. She started to drop to her knees in preparation for wriggling under the fence when a shiver of sensation along her spine stopped her. Was someone watching? Assessing and judging her? She looked left, right, behind her and as far into the distance as she could. She didn’t see anything worthy of alarm but she’d been in enough precarious situations that she knew better than to dismiss what her nerves were trying to tell her.

To hell with it! Touching the stallion was more important.

Breathing quickly, she wriggled under the fence. As she straightened, the stallion pranced back.

“You can’t be afraid of me. I know it isn’t that. You just have trouble containing all that energy. God, but you’re magnificent. Devil and angel in one package.”

Talking took too much effort so she concentrated on wiping dirt off her jeans. Thinking she probably wouldn’t see anyone today, she hadn’t bothered with a bra, but then she rarely wore one. She was a C-cup, which meant people would notice, but bras weren’t worth the expense when being true to herself meant so much. Her untethered breasts and hard-as-hell nipples were clearly visible under the wear-softened cotton T-shirt.

If she were one for introspection this would be when she’d question why she’d decided to spend her day off exploring Escape. However, between being more than a little worn down from the long hike and her reaction to the stallion, she wasn’t sure she knew what she was thinking.

“Do you know what the phrase sex appeal means?” she asked the stallion. “What a woman is trying to get a man to understand when she tells him she’s turned on? Going by my less-than-extensive experience, I’m not an expert when it comes to putting out the right vibes.”

She clamped down on a chuckle. Her suspicion that some man might have his eye on her right now had twisted her thinking a bit. So she wasn’t as experienced regarding the opposite sex as she’d like people to believe. That was her business and had nothing to do with the moment. If a man was watching, he could come to his own conclusion. It wasn’t as if she had to have anything to do with him.

She again slid her hands into her back pockets. Fabric tightened.

“I don’t know if I’m going to sleep tonight. I’m also not sure I care. Damn, but you’re beautiful. One of a kind.” She paused as a surge of something hot ran through her. “Right now, I’d give anything to be a mare.”

As if agreeing with her, the big, black, glistening creature stretched out a densely muscled neck. Holding her breath, she dragged her right hand out of her pocket and extended it toward him. Warm, moist air caressed her fingers and sent a fresh frisson of excitement into her.

“Will you let me ride you? I didn’t bring a bridle or saddle, but I’ve ridden bareback more times than otherwise. As for a bridle…”

The thought of pushing a metal bar between those white teeth made her shudder. She didn’t want to command him in any way. As long as she was astride him, he’d be in control. She’d trust him not to throw her, to know she preferred a canter over a trot and a gallop over everything else. Together they’d run like the proverbial wind and win every race.

The stud drew her fingers into his mouth. She embraced the moment.

“I know you. I think in some regard I always have.”

Tears she didn’t know she had in her burned. Blinking repeatedly, she struggled not to let them loose. When they continued to threaten, she withdrew her damp hand and stroked his neck where muscles and veins pulsed. Maybe she could go from standing flat-footed to being astride him on will alone. She tightened a hand around the rough mane and crouched in preparation for springing. Nothing else mattered. In one or two seconds she’d—

“Don’t even think it!”

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About the Author

Vonna Harper

What prompts a mild-mannered mostly law abiding woman to write erotica and erotic romance, a lot revolving around BDSM and capture/bondage? Is it the complex issue of taking or giving up control?

Vonna Harper doesn’t know and she has given up trying to find the answer. It’s enough that many readers are drawn to what some call the dark side. All she asks is that readers understand she writes fiction–a brand of fiction she finds fascinating.

Vonna has lost count of the number of books, novellas, and short stories she’s written. What she has no doubt of, it’s a hell of a ride.

You can follow Vonna on Facebook.

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