(The link is here to find this week’s excerpts from novels or WIP written by other Science Fiction Romance Brigade group members. A fun way to sample new books!)

Here’s the next excerpt from  WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM, which I was really pleased to see on the Rabid Readers Reads Best Of List for 2013 this week.

The small party of survivors has discovered some really bad things about events surrounding the wreck. They’ve been to the Hold to collect Nick’s blasters and an important piece of gear which he just used to try calling for a rescue ship. The technology is only issued to members of the Sectors Special Forces (which he happens to be) for specific missions. He managed to contact two ships close enough to attempt a rescue. One was a mysterious freighter. Now he’s debriefing his motley companions.

“So what are you saying, Nick? You don’t trust this freighter captain?” Uncurling like a cat, Mara stood up, lending Nick a hand as he slowly rose to his feet, swaying a bit.

“It is known the Sectors intelligence community operates under many commercial guises,” Khevan said. “Perhaps this ship you spoke with is one of those? It would be our good fortune. We are owed some good fortune on this voyage.”

“Could be. Whatever. Her captain says he’ll be here in –” Nick checked his chrono again. “Eleven hours and fifty minutes, Terra Standard Time, good enough for me.”

“You think the Nebula Dream will hold up long enough?” Mara asked.

“Yeah, what if it runs into some other piece of space junk?” Twilka said. “Or something else crashes into us?”

Got no answer for that one, lady. Nick unholstered his blaster, aiming it at the fastlink transmitter.

Mara recoiled a few steps. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t transmit again for forty-eight hours under field conditions. We’ll either have been rescued by then or we’ll be dead, one way or the other – lack of air, the Dream’s engines go nova, something. I can’t take a chance on this falling into the wrong hands.” The surprised expressions of his adult companions annoyed him. Why did he have to keep reminding them of the most imposing threat to their continued existence? Civilians! 

Here’s the story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.  All his vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

This Best Selling and Award Winning Science Fiction Adventure is Available from  Smashwords ,  Amazon  Barnes & Noble  All Romance eBooks and iTunes  Also available from Amazon as trade paperback here