January | 2014 | Veronica Scott

(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

I’ve always liked the Chinese Zodiac, probably because I was born in a Year of the Dragon and I’m very proud of that, thank you very much! (I’m also a Libra…and in the Ancient Egyptian zodiac, depending which version you prefer, I’m either subject to Horus the Falcon or Bastet the Cat. I know which one my two household felines would vote for!).

So this is the Year of the Horse and people born in such a year are generally gifted, cunning (inagoodway I’m sure), hot-blooded, hard workers, excellent with money but will give up everything for love. Depending on which time of the year a person is born, they also have sub-characteristics related to Fire, Earth, Water, Metal or Wood. You may also have an inner animal, a “true” animal and a secret animal. I don’t pretend to understand all the ramifications after merely doing a few Google searches but I do find the concepts intriguing. And actually, the Chinese year doesn’t align with the calendar we live under here in the United States, so technically we’re still in the Year of the Snake until February.

Just scratching the surface of fortunetelling based on the many elements in the Chinese Zodiac was fascinating. I could see myself losing quite a few hours of New Year’s Day trying to figure out what this Year of the Green Wooden Horse might bring a Dragon person such as myself but um, no. I have a novel I’m trying very hard to finish and I can cast my own fortune that if I don’t finish the book over my holiday vacation and get the manuscript to my editor, you lovely Readers won’t be reading my story any time soon!

I was pretty satisfied with 2013 – got three new books either published or self published: Escape from Zulaire, Warrior of the Nile (Carina Press) and Dancer of the Nile. Received two awards for a book from 2012, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, which was very encouraging and I was thrilled and grateful. Working with a phenomenal actor, Micheal Riffle, I got the audiobook of Wreck issued this year. Michael and I and Mary Fegreus, a talented actress, plan to issue the audiobook of Escape in 2014.

I learned a lot in 2013 about publishing and self publishing, met many wonderful Readers, Reviewers and fellow Authors, and continued to hone my craft…managed to read some excellent books by other people during the year too, like Nalini Singh’s “Archangel’s Consort” and Jeffe Kennedy’s “Ruby” and Laura Kaye’s Anemoi Series, just to name a few….the day job was busy, including a major audit at the very end of 2013….some day I hope to write full time but as yet, it’s only a dream. Good to have dreams! Good to be able to pay the bills too though…

For 2014 I plan to get four books published, plus issuing the Escape audiobook…that will mean I have to be very disciplined about writing in the evenings and on the weekends…which means less time on twitter (my favorite social media destination). I’m going to keep blogging here and at Word Whores on Saturdays, Here Be Magic once a quarter and Paranormal Romantics the 13th of every month. I love doing the weekly excerpt hops for Weekend Writing Warriors and Science Fiction Romance Brigade – such a cool way to sample other people’s books and WIPs and hopefully let people try my writing in return!

I’ve got two major conferences and one smaller one tentatively pencilled in to attend…

And of course there has to be time for playing withe the cats and doing LEGOs with my grandson!

Best wishes to you for a very peaceful, happy New Year, whatever sign of whichever zodiac you may have been born under!