Here’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…A fun way to sample new books and find new writers!

We’re onto a new story of mine, a WIP that still needs a lot of work. Mark, an ex-Special Forces soldier in the Sectors, has been hired by the Outlier Empress to rescue a kidnap victim who’s been taken to the border planet Freemarket, where anything goes and the authorities are usually hands off. Kind of like Las Vegas…he’s broken into the house of  Barent Kliin, the kidnapper, persuaded Alessandra to go with him and fled in a stolen car, pursued by the bad guys and the planetary police. They collided with a cargo hauler…Mark knocked the driver out and assisted Alessandra from their wrecked vehicle, after which the couple flee into the crowded marketplace but are now trapped…until a strange little being showed up, offering to help…having no choice, Mark and Sandy flee with the creature and fall into a tent. The owner of the tent is an extremely mysterious being, who just prevented him from shooting at their pursuers.

In a heartbeat, the woman in lavender stood where she’d started, on the threshold of the other room. “Accept what is, and move on, our time is short.”

            “Mark!“ Sandy’s voice quavered on a note of pure terror as she grabbed his arm to turn him.

            Barent Kliin himself stood in the alley, glaring around at the merchandise displays.

            Mark took one step toward the exit. Barent would make a valuable hostage, just what they needed to buy their way out of the dead end trap the marketplace had become.

            “Leave and you can never return to this spot,” said their mysterious hostess, “This chance comes but once to a Traveler such as yourself.”