Spotlight & Guest Post: Enchanted Forests (Enchanted Anthologies, book 2)

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EBOOK -Enchanted Forest - Charity

Enchanted Forests
Enchanted Anthologies, a series of fantasy charity anthologies (book 2)
Fantasy (YA appropriate content)

Authors:
Astrid V.J.
Alice Ivinya
Jennifer Kropf
Lyndsey Hall
N.D.T. Casale
Donna White
Xander Cross
Elena Shelest
Sky Sommers
Ben Lang

Blurb:
If you go down to the woods today…
You’d better not go alone…

Discover the secret world between the trees where fairies, unicorns and even monsters dwell. Take a stroll through enchanted woods and dance with pixies and dryads by the light of the stars. Escape Baba Yaga and fall in love with a prince in disguise. Taste the fruit at the goblin market and be whisked away on a magical adventure.
Among ancient trees, find beauty, danger and adventure in these enchanting short stories by award-winning, best-selling, and up-and-coming fantasy authors.

Enchanted Forests is fully illustrated by the talented Elena Shelest.

All profits from this anthology will be donated to Rainforest Foundation who support indigenous and traditional peoples of the world’s rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights.

Goodreads / Universal buy link


Guest Post: 4 Fun Facts About the Anthology

1. In 2020 we came together when Alice Ivinya put together Enchanted Waters, a charity anthology raising monies for Ocean, a charity working to protect our oceans and keep fishing sustainable. After publishing Enchanted Waters in 2021, we’d enjoyed working together so much and had many other charities we wanted to support, so we decided to turn this into a series of anthologies, inviting some new authors to join us. In 2022 we release Enchanted Forests, and are already starting work on Enchanted Flames, die to release in June 2023.

2. The most fun about working on this project has been the group effort. Mostly, writing is such an individual activity, but for these anthologies we’ve really learned to work together. We all beta read each others’ stories and provide feedback. And everyone on the team has offered some amazing skills.

3. Elena Shelest isn’t just a talented writer of historical fiction with a touch of magical realism, she’s an incredible illustrator as well. Both Enchanted Waters and Enchanted Forests feature beautiful artworks by this most incredible woman!

4. This anthology really brings a range of different styles, and each story encompasses a unique approach to forests. From the dystopian future in Xander Cross’s Pingguo and the Dead Forest, through the magical mangroves of Ben Lang’s The Lucky Tortoise, on to the nineteenth century vibe of Lyndsey Hall’s fae portal fantasy, and Alice Ivinya’s magical dwarvish forest adventure in Gems of Fae and Foolery, there is a little something for everyone here.


About An Author:

Astrid with bird

Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author, Astrid V.J. was born in South Africa. She is a trained social anthropologist and certified transformational life coach. She currently resides in Sweden with her husband and their two children. In early childhood, she showed an interest in reading and languages–interests which her family encouraged. Astrid started writing her first novel at age 12 and now writes fantasy in a variety of genres, exploring her passion for cultures and languages. When she isn’t writing, Astrid likes to read, take walks in nature, play silly games with her children, do embroidery, and play music.

Astrid writes transformation fiction: incorporating transformation principles in novels, rather than writing another self-help book. She loves exploring the human capacity for transformation and potential to achieve success in the face of adversity. Astrid is interested in minority group questions, considerations on social standards of beauty and the negative consequences these have, and would like to make the fantasy genre accessible to people of non-white, non-Christian backgrounds. Astrid feels the fantasy genre has become too restrictive with limited representations of race, ethnicity and culture. She seeks to explore other paths on this writing journey, incorporating her background in anthropology and psychology to create engaging experiences, which also provide food for thought on the diverse topics she finds most important. These include: racism, minority rights, cultural diversity, culture change, intolerance, humanity’s environmental impact, the representation of people on the autism spectrum among the general populace, the human capacity for transformation, and much more.

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Spotlight & Excerpt: The Last Son Of Venus + Giveaway

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Book Title: The Last Son Of Venus 

Author and Publisher: Dion Marc 

Release Date: January 29, 2022 

Genre: MM Dark Urban Fantasy  

Tropes: Fated Mates, Size difference, Alpha Top 

Themes: Trust yourself, don’t follow anything blindly, magic, gods, good vs evil  

Length: 87 000 words/330 paperback and 340 hardcover 

Heat Rating: 4 flames

It’s the first book in a planned series and ends on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

 

Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited

Amazon US  |  Amazon UK 

Paperback or Hardcover also available from

B&N  |  Angus Robertson

 

Darkness hungers for the child of love. 

 

Blurb  

Alone and in London for the first time, Alex Anderson is being hunted by the darkness as the fates have seen fit to turn his dream holiday into his worst nightmare before he even steps foot out of the airport. 

An archaic evil hungers for him and will stop at nothing to possess the  twenty-two-year-old and the coveted secrets that have been hidden from Alex his whole life. 

All that stands in their way is a two-and-half-thousand-year-old spartan  Commander named Nikos and his fellow guardian sidekick Jin; a pink haired descendant of the goddess Hekate. 

Nikos will move heaven and hell to protect Alex even if that means protecting him from himself. 

When boy meets man sparks fly and an instant bond is felt, a connection that feels as old as the fabric of time. But Alex must first learn to trust Nikos and Jin while fighting his anxieties that have controlled his life if he has any  hope of surviving what’s to come. 

The Last Son Of Venus is the first in the fast-paced LGBT fantasy romance series of the same name featuring queer male characters, high fantasy creatures, magic and the true gods of old. The Last Son of Venus will take  you on a long multi-series journey to a well-deserved HEA. So come and join Alex and Nikos and see what the Fates have in store. 

 

 

Excerpt 

Bitter wind violated my exposed flesh, sending a deep chill to the very core of my bones.  Mother had warned me that London was cold, but I thought she meant cold like Melbourne in  winter, not winter in Antarctica. If it wasn’t for the fact that my jumpers were all packed down at  the very bottom, I would have stopped and added an extra layer of protection. But I was cold  and feeling far too lazy to reorder my bag, so I went without. Yes, I was an idiot. 

As per the map’s instructions, I turned right onto Gillingham Street. It was becoming really 

hard to focus on the map because the streets were barely lit. I cursed myself inwardly that I  didn’t just buy a portable phone charger, but I would be sure to rectify my error first thing  tomorrow. My goodness, this would be a lot smoother if I was using my phone’s Google Maps.  Anyway, what was done was done. 

For a Saturday, there was very little nightlife, which I thought was odd considering what I knew  about Londoners and drinking, although I have to say my knowledge on the subject was like  ninety-five percent based on Geordie Shore reruns. But still, there was not a soul on the street. 

I could feel my anxiety grow; it wasn’t helped by the fact that some random man told me  someone was trying to kill me—though he wasn’t some random man, was he? He knew my  name. I felt a shiver run up my arms; I didn’t think I could feel any colder. Maybe I should have  stayed and heard him out before running away…again, if I had, maybe he had a portable phone  charger. 

Looking back down at the map, I estimated I had maybe another six-minute walk ahead,  although I wished I had just paid for the stupid cab fare, but I really couldn’t justify the cost for,  what, maybe four hundred metres. I walked further every day on my morning run. 

The light flickered in the lamppost above. How strange. It flickered again, but this time, it didn’t  light back up. I was plunged into darkness as the rest of the streetlights also extinguished. 

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP 

My anxiety started to peak, and my instincts told me to get out of there fast. All of a sudden, I  felt eyes on me. Shit shit shit. My pace quickened into a slight jog, my bag swinging heavy  behind me. 

Why did it feel like the approaching darkness was watching me? I looked up to the sky where  once a moon sat giving light to the sky, but now it was gone, shrouded by darkness. I started to  shake  uncontrollably; I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or my anxiety. Both seemed to be at war for  dominance over my body and mind. 

A sound emerged through the darkness, muttered voices. I started to run, every fibre of my  body telling me to do so. My flight response was fully active, I flew down the street, but the  voices seemed to be gaining on me. They were now close enough to hear what it was they were  chanting. “Consumptura est lux tenebris.” They repeated it over and over. 

I crossed the street in mere seconds, but was stopped from going further by a gate of iron. I  turned to go around, but to the left of me, I found that the men were closing in on me. Looking  to the right, they were doing the same yet only metres away. 

Fuck fuck fuck, my only option was to jump the fence. It wasn’t very tall, so I knew I could make  short work of it. I put my hands on the spikes and pushed down, lifting my body. I swung my  legs up and jumped down. The hem of my shirt got caught on a spike, lifting my shirt up,  trapping my arms. “FUUUUCK!” I yelled, trying to fumble myself free. I was shaking so violently,  I could barely unhook it, the process taking minutes rather than seconds. 

It came loose just as the men closed in. It was then that I realised my duffle bag’s strap must  have also gotten caught on the spike as it lay broken just on the other side of the fence, but I  could clearly see the men’s robes of red now. I hadn’t the time to retrieve it. I’d have to let it go  and hope I found it later after I had made it to a police officer. 

Even the darkness seemed to draw dimmer. How was that possible? Turning, I started to run,  pushing past plants and shrubs, pulling my shirt back down as I ran. 

Their chant suddenly changed, I could now hear their voices ringing in my head as if they were  whispering right into my ears. “Arbores et plantae saxa animari, prohibere eum.” Their chant  had changed. It felt as if the trees were drawing closer, which couldn’t be so. 

Something grabbed my foot. I let out a scream as I fell to the ground hard. What was that? I  looked around, but all I could see was grass. I must have tripped over a root or something,  though I couldn’t see one. Getting back on my feet, my left ankle felt swollen, and as I put  pressure on it, I let out a loud scream. I hoped against hope that it was just twisted and not  broken. I tried to run, but the pain was just too great. 

CRASH. The gate lifted from the ground and flew into a tree. The robed men continued to follow  me. FUCK.

“HELP! Someone, anyone, help me!” I shouted. 

One of the men raised his hand at me, and my voice faltered. I tried to let out a scream, but my  voice was gone. What in the name of Ursula the sea witch was this? All I could do was try  limping away. 

Roots lifted from the ground before my very eyes, spraying moss into the air, leaving the earth a  maze of traps, clearly designed to stop my escape. What was I to do? I tried to hop over them,  the pain forcing tears to fall from my eyes. But the pain didn’t stop me. I continued to push  myself, for my life clearly depended on it. 

“Corrumpam vineam eius,” shouted one of the robed men. Instantly, vines fell from the trees  and launched themselves at me. I ducked and missed the first one, but the rest found their  target, instantly forcing me to the ground, wrapping around me like dangerous pythons. 

The roots curled up, pulling me to face the robed men, forcing me to watch as they approached.  The men were dressed in robes of red. I could just make out a crucifix scar on one of the men’s  outstretched arms. Wrapped around their hands were what looked to be rosary beads, but  something looked wrong. It seemed like the beads dug into their hands, drawing out a dark  fluid. 

The wind changed, and the smell of metallic ooze hit my sinuses, causing my nose to curl. That  answered the question of what the fluid was: it was blood. I struggled with everything left in my  body, but it was no use, the vines just grew tighter and tighter, almost to the point of breaking  bone. 

 “Help me,” I prayed inwardly. “Someone, please.” 

A man in the centre stepped forward chanting with the others, “Accipere auferat divina virtute.”  Something jabbed into me sharp like a needle, causing unimaginable pain to flow through me. I  screamed and screamed, but no sound escaped me. Whatever it was it felt like it was crawling  through my veins. 

He continued forward towards me, chanting. Only a few feet away, I could now clearly make out  his face that was hidden by a hood. He looked to be in his mid-fifties with a full white beard,  long hooked nose, and beady black eyes. He kneeled beside me and raised his outstretched  hand over my face. I tried to close my eyes, but they were forced open. The man squeezed his  palm into the rosary beads, which I could now see were made of jagged barbed wire that cut  into his flesh. As the man squeezed, blood fell like water droplets over my face. On impact with  my flesh, it sizzled like acid; it smelled like it too. I was truly dead. My only thought was on my parents, hoping they would be able to get past my death. My vision started to fade to black.  This was the end of me. My eyes finally closed. I had no strength anymore. Maybe death  wouldn’t be so bad? And with that thought, it all went silent. 

BANG! 

The earth reverberated. There was loud running, yelling, and what sounded like sandbags  hitting a wall, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see. They felt like they were welded shut. 

“You must continue the chant!” shouted a voice that felt like spiders crying in my ears. 

The chanting started again. “Accipere auferat—” But was cut off mid-sentence as what sounded  like thunder struck the earth. I needed to run, move, get up, break the bonds holding me. My  brain told me this, but it was as if I was buried alive. 

Something dropped beside me. It radiated warmth. I wanted to lean into it. I tried to but failed. I  wanted it closer. “Please come closer,” I begged the universe, and by some grace, it did. I felt a hand on my cheek; it was warm to the touch. Who was this? What was this? Again, I tried to  open my eyes but failed. I started to panic again. This couldn’t be the end. My mind started to  race. Mentally, I was thrashing back and forth, wishing my body to do the same. This feeling of  disconnection was the scariest thing I had ever felt. 

“By Zeus, Alex, gods fucking dammit, your lips are blue,” growled a familiar voice. Was it the  Adonis? It sounded like him, and for some unexplainable reason, I hoped it was him. I could feel  his hands on me. Everywhere he touched, I felt warmth. 

“Jin, we’re going to need a recovery charm,” he yelled at an unknown person. 

“Babes, I am fucking busy if you didn’t realise, you know, holding off the Priests of Bellum  Sacrum,” bit back an unknown, effeminate voice. 

“Fuck it all to Hades, you couldn’t have just come with me at the train station.” The Adonis’s  voice turned gravelly. But I couldn’t follow him at the train station because he was a stranger. I  didn’t know him; therefore, I couldn’t trust him. But was he here now to save me? So maybe  that meant I could trust him? 

“Fuck it, we’ll have to swap,” called the Adonis back to the person he called Jin, I assumed. 

No, don’t leave me! He can not leave me. Don’t take the warmth away. I’m so very cold. As if he  could hear me, he assured, “Don’t worry, Alex, I’ll be back.” Then he was gone. The coldness set  back in, his warmth only a haunting memory.

Thunder struck the earth again; there were more screams of pain and terror. The smell of  metallic ooze grew almost too strong to possibly bear. A thud beside me. Was it the Adonis? It  couldn’t be because this person didn’t radiate warmth like he had. Was he friend or foe? 

“Queen, don’t even stress, okay, I’m here to help you, boo.” It was that voice again; it was  distinctly fem, but like fem male, not a fem female. I assumed it was Jin, but I really wished I  could open my eyes and stop all the guesswork. 

 “Álysoi kaí desmá nýn spázete.” I felt warmth all over my body. Suddenly, I felt weightless like I  was flying in the air. The darkness began to fade as a white light came towards me. I tried to  meet it halfway. 

Light burst into my reality as my eyes flew open, temporarily blinding me as my eyes readjusted.  A man who couldn’t be any older than myself stood over me, his hair fairy-floss pink, kept neat  and short on the side with a front fringe that covered the tops of his brows. 

“Is he awake yet?” yelled the Adonis from somewhere just out of my field of view. “Yes, fuck, give me a second, Miss Bossy Tiger,” snapped the pink-haired man. He turned and spoke to me, trying for a soothing voice, but came off very condescending. 

“Hi, Alex, my name is Jin. I’m going to need you to stand up. Can you do that for me, dolls?” But  wasn’t I tied to the ground by vines? 

“Jin, get him the fuck up now. We need to move!” said the Adonis, running back into view. “I’m  trying,” he responded. 

“Then try harder.” 

Before I could process what was happening, one of the robed figures instantly appeared 

behind the Adonis, bloodied dagger outstretched ready to strike, going for the killing blow.  “NOOOOOOOO!” I screamed, sending out a blast of energy that felt like it came from my 

very soul. I couldn’t let the Adonis die. 

Gusts of power forced the robed man into the air, flying back with a loud crunching sound 

into a tree. The dagger burst into smoke. It took me a moment to realise what it was I had done.  My body retracted inwardly, instantly forming a ball. What had I just done? I started to rock 

back and forth, tears falling from my eyes.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP 

I was a freak, and I may have just killed someone. I needed my mother to tell me it would be  okay, but she wasn’t there, so I didn’t know what to do. I needed to know I didn’t just kill  someone. “Shhhh, calm down, it will all be okay,” said Jin softly. 

But it wasn’t going to be okay; nothing was. It would never be okay again. “Right, fuck this. Get the fuck up now, idiot, before you get us all killed,” growled the Adonis. 

I just looked at him, like was he kidding? Like really, was he kidding? The rudeness. I was 

going through something. Instantly, my anxiety and grief turned to anger like a light switch. I  was standing up, pointing my finger at him. “Who the hell do you think you are? Do not EVER  talk to me like that again, do you understand?” 

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly; the barest whisper of a smile ghosted his face.  “That got you up, now didn’t it?” 

 

 

About the Author  

Scottish Australian author Dion Marc lives and breathes queer art. Whether he is painting, writing, sewing or dancing naked in the moonlight he does it with pride. He is a practising  Hellenistic polytheist who believes in healing the world one hug at a time and that drinking tea without a biscuit is a horrendous crime. 

Dion has spent over eleven years working full time in film and television as a Makeup Artist, Hairdresser, Wig Maker and Costume Designer. For the last year Dion has been working on the award-winning theatrical shows Hamilton, Moulin Rouge and more recently full-time on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a hair and makeup artist. 

Author Links

Blog/Website  |  Facebook Group  |  Instagram

 


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Book Blitz & Excerpt: Port Anywhere + Giveaway

Port Anywhere Banner Revised

Port Anywhere by J.S. Frankel

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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