DARK HORSE
by Michelle Diener
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Rose McKenzie may
be far from Earth with no way back, but she's made a powerful ally--a fellow
prisoner with whom she's formed a strong bond. Sazo's an artificial
intelligence. He's saved her from captivity and torture, but he's also put her
in the middle of a conflict, leaving Rose with her loyalties divided.
Captain Dav Jallan
doesn't know why he and his crew have stumbled across an almost legendary Class
5 battleship, but he's not going to complain. The only problem is, all its crew
are dead, all except for one strange, new alien being.
She calls herself
Rose. She seems small and harmless, but less and less about her story is adding
up, and Dav has a bad feeling his crew, and maybe even the four planets, are in
jeopardy. The Class 5's owners, the Tecran, look set to start a war to get it
back and Dav suspects Rose isn't the only alien being who survived what
happened on the Class 5. And whatever else is out there is playing its own
games.
In this race for
the truth, he's going to have to go against his leaders and trust the dark
horse.
Book Links:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
Her jump
surprised them as much as their jump surprised her, she guessed, from the way
they reacted to the sight of her suddenly crouched on the roof of her little
spaceship.
With a
hand signal and a barked command, the big guy whoʼd been standing in the middle,
the one sheʼd exchanged a look with earlier, had them all
letting the cords on their fancy automatic grappling hooks winch them back to
the top again, weapons trained on the gryak. He stayed behind, though, eyes
never leaving the gryak, and walked carefully to her ship.
He was
going to climb up to her.
The gryak
had stopped when sheʼd jumped, and gone very watchful when the soldiers
had dropped into its cave, but now it prowled up and down in front of her
craft, confused and distressed.
The black
helmet and then the enormous shoulders of the Grih whoʼd stayed below with her rose up,
her rescuer easily pulling himself onto the roof with her.
They
stared at each other again, not that Rose could see much of his face through
the helmet, and she mentally called up the Grih sheʼd learned over the last eight
weeks.
“Iʼm Rose McKenzie.
Pleased to meet you.” Grih informal greetings required her to touch her nose to
his left cheek, and he to hers, but they were on more of a formal footing, she
was guessing, and his helmet was in the way anyway, so she extended her hands
palms facing each other, waiting for him to either cover hers or let her cover
his. She couldnʼt remember who should do what, right at that
minute.
There was
a moment of silence, and then the thin, gray-tinted glass on his helmet
retracted, and she looked directly into startled pale blue eyes with a dark
outer-rim of navy blue. “You speak Grih.”
“Iʼve been
studying it.” She looked at him, and tears
pricked her eyes.
Sazo had
said the Grih were as close to being like her as it got in this part of the
universe. But sheʼd thought heʼd been talking in general terms.
Bi-pedal, with two eyes, a nose and a mouth. That was the most sheʼd hoped
for.
She even
thought it didnʼt matter. She would be happy to be alive, and
wouldnʼt care if she looked completely different to the
people who would hopefully take her in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio:
Michelle Diener writes historical fiction, fantasy
and science fiction. Having worked in publishing and IT, she’s now very happy
crafting new worlds and interesting characters and wondering which part of the
world she can travel to next.
Michelle was born in London, grew up in South
Africa and currently lives in Australia with her husband and two children.
When she’s not writing, or driving her kids from
activity to activity, you can find her blogging at Magical Musings, or online
at Twitter, at Google+ and Facebook.
Author Links
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