Enjoy this taste of a book edited by The Written Word and then published in 2018
By Roger Eschbacher
Galen rounded the corner and heard the sound of broken glass crunching under his boots. He looked down. A small number of broken bottles of ship’s brew sparkled in the emergency lighting. The brew’s pungent aroma filled his nostrils and set off memory bombs of every celebration he’d attended on the ship. Just beyond lay the motionless form of Hex, the Ghost Star’s maintenance bot, secured to the floor with Imperium magstraps. Galen cautiously knelt next to the ship’s robot. What happened to you? He carefully examined the bot’s shell and limbs. No rifer holes or scorch marks to be found. Then he noticed the open hatch. “Oh.”
Galen released the magstraps and found Hex’s power-connect by touch. He reinserted it and pulled out his hand as the bot powered up and shot to its default hover height.
“. . . panel, Regor?” continued Hex.
Hex stopped for a moment. Galen could hear quiet clicking inside the bot and knew it was preparing to run diagnostics. Seconds later, Hex exploded into a frenzy of self-checks. The loud clicks and noises continued on for a full thirty seconds, and if Hex hadn’t been a robot, Galen could have been convinced the bot was having an anxiety attack. Finally, the clicking slowed.
“Hello, Hex. It’s me.”
“Hello, Galen. Yes, I confirm your identity. Other than yourself, there appears to be no crew onboard The Ghost Star. The ship itself is offline and I cannot access any of the onboard systems. There is also a thirty-six-hour gap in my consciousness, which was preceded by the ship’s engineer reaching inside my carapace. What did I miss?”
“Regor turned you off and deactivated Bartrice. He also stunned me.”
“For what purpose?”
“Betrayal. He allowed the Nell Imperium to capture and board the ship.”
“I do not detect an Imperium presence onboard The Ghost Star,” said Hex.
“Do an exterior scan.”
A few more clicks and whirs filled the air for a second or two. “Ah yes, we are tethered to an Imperium battle cruiser, Moon-class. I presume the rest of the crew has been taken aboard their vessel?”
“Trem has. The rest of the crew is dead. Even the captain.”
“I see,” said Hex after a long pause. “You have my sincerest sympathies, Galen Bray. Nolo Bray was a man of rare qualities. An exceptional bio-form.”
“Thank you, Hex.”
“Why are you not in custody? Why was Trem spared? Are you cold?”
“At first I was concealed in Regor’s bunk room and then I hid in a smuggling vaults. I think Regor hid me, but I don’t know why. I also don’t know why Trem was spared and yes, I am extremely cold,” replied Galen.
“Follow me, Galen Bray.”
Moments later, Galen and Hex were in the Ghost Star’s command pod, the part of the ship that Nolo piloted from—used to pilot from. Galen glanced out a side viewplate at one of the most spectacular views anywhere. Having recently finished a lucrative smuggle of medicinal roots to a remote manufacturing colony, Nolo, as was his habit, had parked the Ghost Star near a real-life ghost star or black hole. Named “Mael,” it radiated a fatal beauty. A blacker-than-black orb of unimaginably dense matter, Mael had more the appearance of a hole than a ball. A hole punched in the fabric of space that greedily sucked in anything, including light itself, which entered its impossible-to-escape gravity field. Most sane people avoided ghost stars the same way they avoided a deadly beast, which is probably why the ship was given its name. Nolo often said this “feature” was what made Mael the perfect hideout. That may be true, thought Galen. But how come I never see other smugglers hiding out here?
About Ghost Star
He’d battle an empire to save his family!
When his father and crewmates are attacked and killed by a ruthless alien commander, young Galen Bray becomes the new captain of the Ghost Star, a notorious smuggling vessel. Barely escaping capture, Galen sets out to rescue the only other survivor of the vicious attack, his sister Trem. Along the way, he discovers a mysterious people thought wiped out long ago, his family’s surprising origins, and a destiny he never imagined . . .
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About the author
Roger Eschbacher lives in Los Angeles with his awesome family, a hilarious Border Terrier, and a grumpy Russian tortoise.
In addition to writing fantasy and sci-fi adventure novels, he writes TV animation for Warner Bros., Netflix, Cartoon Network, Hasbro Studios and more.
Roger’s YA space opera Ghost Star is a winner of the Kindle Scout competition and received a publishing contract from Amazon’s Kindle Press imprint.
Ghost Star and other books by Roger are listed on this page. Please buy lots and lots of them. 😊
Ways to learn more about Roger and his writing include: