Intermission
Here it is April already! I know many of you are awaiting patiently the huge climax to this epic tale. I said it would be done in April and I am still shooting for that goal. I may need all of April to accomplish it though. I want to ensure that this will be the best finale you've ever read in a Sci-Fi series. Heck, I hope its the best wrap-up you've ever read in any series!
Ying-Tai, Dex, Otis, and the other ragtags are taking a short intermission while I write this blog. They are also patiently awaiting the final act to wrap up their story. Each cast member is preparing mentally, spiritually, and especially physically to play their part in the next act. It will tax even their resolve. I have really put them through hell and back.
So, to tide all you avid readers over until the book is available, here is an excerpt from Part I of Sandrats of Azaa.
Ying-Tai didn’t like the idea but there was only one thing to do. She ducked beneath one of Otis’ massive arms, ran back down the narrow alley until she found some dark gray clothing hanging on a line stretched between two windows fifteen feet above the ground. After a modest jump she’d acquired some new duds. She threw the gray robe around her shoulders and pulled the hood over her head. She squeezed by Otis again and stopped at the edge of the building. Ying-Tai peered around the corner, assessing her quarry. There were four soldiers, three of them men and one a woman.
She turned her head and whispered, “Otis, stay here. I’ll be back in a second.”
“Okay, I stay here.”
Ying-Tai turned the corner and adopted a limping shuffle. She paused at a waste bin several feet down the street and rummaged inside as if she were looking for some priceless treasure.
“Hai, you!” One of the troopers was on her like a dog on a bone. “Have you seen any strangers?” the soldier barked. Ying-Tai mumbled something unintelligible, ignoring the man and resumed digging through the garbage. The trooper advanced, grabbed her right arm, and twisted her around. “I’m talking to you!” The other three soldiers strode forward, one brandishing a long knife. He held it ready if the garbage-digger proved to be trouble.
She mumbled a few more words, waiting until two more soldiers drew closer.
“When Imperial soldiers ask questions, slum-scum better respond more quickly!” the trooper said, grabbing her around the throat.
Ying-Tai’s cyber hand shot out of the folds of her sleeve, seizing the soldier’s bare knife blade. In a movement the eye could not follow she thrust it through the trooper’s neck and then into his companion’s chest before the other two soldiers knew what happened.
Still ten feet away, the female soldier exclaimed, “Wha— !” Before the two bodies hit the ground the soldier raised her pistol and charged. Ying-Tai yanked the knife from the soldier’s chest, dashed forward, and slashed. The female trooper was relieved of her gun, along with her hand. The gun clattered to the walk as the woman looked at the bleeding stump, screaming in pain and horror. She took off running wildly down the alley. The other trooper, slightly wiser than his fellows fell back, yammering on a comm link. Ying-Tai flicked her wrist and the blade buried itself in his chest. He dropped to the dirty street without another sound.
“Corporal, repeat last …” the man’s comm link squawked with a female voice on the other end.
Ying-Tai picked up the rifle and dashed back into the narrow alley, taking one of Otis’ hands. “Okay, this way.” She dragged him back out to the street and glanced both ways.
“I say again… please repeat last,” the woman’s voice on the link asked and waited for a response before repeating the request, “… repeat last.”