Jennifer Wells - Beyond the Stars - At Galaxy's Edge

Wes ducked back behind cover, or rather whatever force was controlling his body did. Bullets thudded into the Marbok corpse, then a loud thump as a plasma bolt shot into the thing. The scent of cooked flesh made his eyes water, but Wes’ body didn’t seem to care. It leapt from cover, rolling to the right. Several shots cracked, all going wide. Then Wes was up again, sprinting forward.

He leapt into the air, kicking off the corpse of a downed Marbok. That gave him the high ground, not just pulling him from the line of fire, but giving him the perfect perspective to rain death on his opponents. He drifted like a kite, sailing slowly over them. The Marbok moved in slow motion, their gravelly voices barking elongated orders. Wes gunned them down without mercy, firing a rapid stream of pulses with impossible accuracy. The Marbok toppled to the deck like toys that had run out of power.

All except for Gantok.

“Wait a minute, kid,” the Marbok said, dropping his axe to the deck. “We can‌—‌”

Wes’s arm shot up, the pistol aligning with the Marbok’s face. It fired before he could even register what was happening. Gantok’s headless body tumbled to the deck. He stared numbly, shocked by the entire event.

“Huh,” the captain said, raising an eyebrow as she stared at the pile of bodies. She rose slowly from cover, walking cautiously in his direction. Tysha actually smiled. “What the nebulas did I just see?”

“Honestly? I have no idea,” Wes said, eyeing his pistols with wonder. “These things are amazing. Clearly they’re more than just guns.”

“Clearly. They’re made from virilium, what the Elderi called starmetal.” Sadie approached cautiously. She stared at one of the pistols, fascinated. “Can I see one?”

“Sure.” Wes offered the weapon to her.

“Ow,” she snapped, dropping it to the deck the moment her fingers closed around it. “It shocked me.”

“This may be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” Tantor said, looming behind Wes. It was just as terrifying as it had been in the ship, pistols or not. The big man smiled. “I’m betting the weapons are keyed to the kid somehow. We all saw what happened to the amulet. I think our archeologist took the Elderi course on becoming a certified badass.”

Before Wes could respond the pistols grew hot in his hands, then they began to vibrate. There was a bright flash and they simply disappeared. He could feel them inside his body somehow. “Well that’s certainly handy.”

“Yeah, wonderful. Disappearing guns,” Tysha said, all business again. “Here’s the thing. If nobody can touch them, then we can’t sell them. How much are those books worth? Please say a lot, because we don’t quite have enough fuel to make it to the closest station.”

Wes clamped his mouth shut for a moment. Those books were priceless. Beyond priceless. Even if they were copies of existing works, they’d still be immensely valuable. But if they were undiscovered titles? Houses might kill to posses them.

“Not terribly valuable I’m afraid,” Wes said, giving an exaggerated sigh.

“At least we’re alive,” Sadie said, grinning.

“Yeah, but we are, once again, walking away with nothing,” Tysha said, a glower descending. Tantor matched the expression.

“I’m not sure about that, Captain,” Wes said, nudging her in the shoulder. He pointed at the Marbok vessel. “How do you feel about upgrading your ship?”

Tysha met his gaze, and smiled. “I have a feeling your life is about to get a whole lot more interesting.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Wes said, smiling back. “Shall we?”

What inspired you to become an author?

I did it to impress a girl. We’re getting married so I think it worked. ;)

What’s a typical writing day like?

My writing is usually done by 11 a.m., and I tend to write in 20 minute sprints until I hit my 5,000 word goal.

Who is your favorite author?

Robert Jordan, because he inspired me to want to create my own worlds, then pissed me off enough to actually do it.

Where do you get your ideas?

I find that putting myself in solitude generates all sorts of great questions, and answering them leads to stories. What if there was an advanced culture that we know nothing about? What if aliens landed tomorrow?

You sure have a cool last name.

Yet somehow people still misspell it.

If you need to reach me I can be found at chris@chrisfoxwrites.com. I’d love to hear from you!

By day, I am an iPhone developer architecting the app used to scope Stephen Colbert’s ear. By night, I am Batman. Okay... maybe not. One can dream though, right?

I’ve been writing since I was six years old, and started inflicting my work on others at age 18. By age 24 people stopped running away when I approached them with a new story, and shortly thereafter I published my first one in the Rifter.

Wait‌—‌you’re still reading?

Ok, the facts I’m supposed to list in a bio. As of this writing I’m 38 years old and live just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the beautiful town of Mill Valley. If you’re unsure how to find it, just follow the smell of self-entitlement. Once you see the teens driving Teslas you’ll know you’re in the right place.

I live in a tiny studio that I can cross in (literally) five steps and don’t own an oven. But you know what? It’s worth it. I love developing iPhone apps and if you want to work in San Francisco you accept that rent for a tiny place costs more than most people’s mortgage.

If you and about 2 million other people start buying my books I promise to move out of Marin to a house in the redwoods up in Guerneville. No pressure. Wait, that’s a lie. Pressure.

CAPTAIN JAREYN BROOK swiped through the notes scribbled on her palm-sized personal screen as she walked. “All right, JP, let’s take this from the top‌—‌should I say ‘mistakes were made and therefore the ship is not recoverable,’ or ‘the ship is not recoverable because mistakes were made’?”

“Neither.” Her dark-blue-skinned Archavian companion shook his elongated head. “’Mistake’ is a subjective term‌—‌one person’s mistake is another person’s tragic inevitability. Once you step into that committee chamber, you are that second person.”

“Got it.” Brook smiled, not least because JP had not responded to her use of his nickname. She had thought herself quite clever when she discovered that the initials of her political liaison officer spelled out the abbreviation for “Justice of the Peace,” a position which JP’s exhaustive knowledge of Meltian Republic law undoubtedly qualified him for. “So, how long is it going to take them to set us up with a replacement for the Kindred Spirit ?”

JP had assured her that this was a routine process‌—‌talk to some committee here on Meltia, get their rubber stamp, and walk away with a shiny new starship‌—‌but every minute this process took was time that her crew was sitting around in some hotel in the Erian solar system instead of traversing the galaxy, saving lives like the Interstellar Emergency Service was supposed to do.

JP looked up at her, spreading his arms in a gesture of uncertainty‌—‌though average height for his species, he stood almost half a meter shorter than her. “Not as long as it took to retrieve the Spirit after you got it impounded on Walletarde.”