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 authors! (Also welcome to the Sunday Snippet visitors!)

I’m excerpting Hostage To The Stars, which was released in June. Edited from published version. This is the last excerpt (the book is available, the author said with a smile) as next week I need to move on to snippets from Star Cruise: Stowaway, my story in the upcoming Pets In Space anthology, out October 11th.

I thought I should end by giving you the first meeting between Johnny and the woman he’s determined to rescue. (And yes, the much reviled Captain Scortun and the military shuttle are long gone but Johnny has a plan – of course! The challenges of escaping the planet together and in one piece fill the rest of the book LOL.) He’s found Sara at the warlord’s small spaceport, awaiting delivery to the Shemdylann who are alien pirates and slavers. She’s been held captive close to two months.

The interior of the dimly lit building was mostly taken up with a large holding cell, currently caging only one occupant. Staring at him wide eyed, a gaunt woman in ragged clothing was rising from the floor, bracing herself on the wall. Chains at her ankles clinked as she moved.

He held one finger to his lips and moved to the door of the cell, blasting it open with a single low intensity pulse from his blaster, “Sara Bridges?”

Hands to her mouth, eyes wide, she gave him a jerky nod.

“I’m here to get you out, Ms. Bridges, Sectors Special Forces.”

He thought she might collapse but instead she straightened her spine with an effort. Moistening her cracked lips with her tongue, she stared at him, tears in her eyes, but said nothing until he removed the chains with care.

“We’re going out the back, into the hills – can you walk?”

Swallowing hard, closing her eyes, Sara whispered, “Yes.”

The story:

He rescued her from space pirates … but can he keep them both safe from the far greater evil stalking a deserted planet?

Space travel without Kidnap & Ransom insurance? Not a good idea. University instructor and researcher Sara Bridges can’t afford it, so when pirates board her cruise liner, she’s taken captive along with the mistress of a wealthy man, and brought to a deserted planet. When a military extraction team sent to rescue the mistress refuses to take Sara too, she’s left to the mercies of a retired Special Forces soldier, along as consultant.

Reluctantly reactivated and coerced into signing up for the rescue operation to the planet Farduccir where he once was deployed,  Sgt. Johnny Danver just wants to get the job done. But when the team leader leaves one captured woman behind, he breaks away to rescue her himself.

As Johnny and Sara traverse the barren landscape, heading for an abandoned base where they hope to call Sectors Command for help, they find villages destroyed by battle and stripped of all inhabitants. A lone survivor tells a horrific tale of the Sectors’ alien enemy, the Mawreg, returning after being pushed out …

Searching for evidence to give the military, Johnny is captured. He regains consciousness in a Mawreg cage–with Sara next to him. Death is preferable to what the aliens will do to them… And even if they do escape their captors, can they alert the military in time to prevent another invasion of the Sectors?

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