Tom Olbert
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Tom Olbert lives in Cambridge, MA. His sci-fi and horror
fiction has appeared in Lillicat Publisher’s Visions
series and in Mocha Memoirs Press anthologies In The
Bloodstream and An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Tom’s full-length science
fiction novel Dissent: Book I in The Nexus is now
available from Phase5 Publishing.
BLOG: http://tomolbert.blogspot.com
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/twm216
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/thomas.olbert.5
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New Title(s) from Tom Olbert
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In a dark future, the orbiting Mars Platforms
are an independent space nation and open trading port where
every vice known to man is legally practiced.
Sabine DeGuerra is a professional concubine with a long list of
wealthy clients. A master of dance, mathematics and martial arts
as well as sex, Sabine makes a comfortable living, though
haunted by the dark nightmares of her secret past and the
dangers of her present.
Sabine’s life changes dramatically when Mirabelle, a young
orphan girl fleeing torture and death in a tyrannical Mars
colony, seeks her help. Sabine risks her own life to get
Mirabelle and herself off the platforms and out of Mars space.
Surrounded by the cold, black vacuum of space, death lurks
around every corner of the platforms at the hands of the Guard,
the merciless security guild. Sabine has only her courage and
cunning against overwhelming and deadly odds…
Excerpt
Word Count: 15323
Buy at: Smashwords (all formats) ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Amazon
Price: $3.99 |
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| Excerpts |
Star Dancer |
Chapter 1
Sabine spun in a soundless black vacuum, her blood racing in
zero gravity as her tether line was severed a hundred miles
above the surface of Mars.
Her heart pounded, her breath fogging the glass of her oxygen
helmet. She hurtled past the spheres and docking tubes of the
space Platforms, against the burning orange curve of the planet
below. She saw the sparkle of the sun rising over the horizon,
glittering silver across the polar ice caps. The stars twinkled
mockingly in the black void above, cold and distant. “Come, lost
little lamb…” the voice of that sick bastard came scratching
through her earphones. She looked up, the rocket line he’d fired
at her twisting, glittering in the weak sunlight, a silver
strand. The freezing vapor of his rocket gun dissipated in a
glimmer of frost, his free hand beckoning mockingly. She could
almost see his cold eyes as she fell away from him. As she had
in that moment, he’d sliced through her tether line with a vibro
knife.
She saw the game, childish as it was. He wanted her to reach
desperately, pleadingly for the line. He wanted to hold her life
in his hands. To hear her beg, humbled. “Fuck you, you little
prick,” she said defiantly as she seized the grapple-like head
of the line, fighting to keep the edge of anger out of her
voice, even as her heart slammed her chest.
“You think this is a game, bitch?” his gravelly voice spluttered
out through clenched teeth. “No one’s coming out to get you.
Your life is mine, you hear me?”
She heard his frustration in the quaver of his voice. She
managed a smile, even thru the fear, which was already becoming
a rush. Good, she thought. Keep him angry, keep him off balance.
“C’mere, bitch,” he growled as he activated the pulley in the
rocket gun. She saw the distance closing between them as the
line was reeled in. He pulled the vibro knife from his belt
pack, activated the blade and swept it threateningly back and
forth, like a sickle.
“You are boring me, you limp little freak,” she taunted him, all
the while calculating the angle of her trajectory relative to
the upsweeping agro sphere at the end of the revolving tube at
the nearest Platform’s middle section. The timing had to be
perfect. You can do this, she assured herself. Why not? She’d
made a lucrative career by calculating the physical intricacies
of sex in Zero-G. And her teachers in the finest schools from
Luna to Venus had complimented her on her extraordinary
mathematical aptitude. Numbers she could embrace; one more thing
to take precious space away from feeling. Her thoughts raced
even as another part of her mind calculated. The angle of
trajectory against the speed of the rotation, the rate the line
was retracting, the center of mass, the length of the tether at
the right moment… Her breath accelerated as she tinkered with
the electrical system in her suit, swearing under her breath as
her gloved fingers clumsily struggled with two live contacts.
Sweat beaded on her forehead as the last remaining seconds
ticked off. Now.
She opened the valve on her suit’s recycling system and sparked
the two contacts together, igniting the escaping flammable gas
before it could freeze. The make-shift jet flared in the icy
vacuum, knocking her aside. As she swung downward, the bastard
at the opposite end of the tether of course swung upward, his
counterweight giving her just enough kick to intercept the
agro-sphere as it swung up. She fought to keep her breathing
steady as she twisted the valve closed. She unhooked the grapple
head from the tether line, falling free, the superstructure of
the agro-sphere hurtling up beneath her. She glimpsed the still
boughs of fruit trees in the soft-white glow of hydroponic
lighting as she somersaulted and braced for impact. She groaned,
her thighs aching as she flexed her legs on impact. Her bones
rattled, her body battered against the interior of the suit as
she swung the grapple head over her shoulder and snagged one of
the support struts running along the glassy curve of the
agro-sphere. She panted, the tendons in her arm straining as she
pulled herself forward against the inertia, grabbing the strut
with her free hand.
“I’ll kill you, bitch…” His voice grated through her earphones.
She looked up and there he was, coming straight toward her,
firing his jet pack with one hand, swinging the vibro knife with
the other. The sun was behind her, glinting off the glass in his
faceplate, now fogging with his rapid breath. She heard him
chuckling as he drew close. “Here is a candle to light you to
bed… here comes the chopper…” She waited, calculating the
precise moment, then hurled the grapple at him. The heavy metal
rod spun, end-over-end, straight toward his faceplate. He raised
his arm to shield himself, groaning as the grapple collided with
his helmet. She kicked off and rammed straight into him.
Swinging onto his back, she ripped the air hose from the valve
at his helmet. He had just enough time to scream as his air
shrieked away, freezing into vapor that congealed on their
suits.
“And here comes the chopper to chop off your head,” she taunted
him as his eyes bugged out of their sockets, his face bloating
in vacuum. She smiled as his face exploded in a mass of red goo
inside his helmet. His momentum carried him straight against the
agro-sphere. Behind him, she used his body as a cushion, feeling
the soft thump of the impact. She plucked the vibro knife out of
his dead fingers, switched it off and slipped it into her belt
pack. Nice souvenir, she thought with a smile as she unfastened
his jet pack and climbed into it. She trembled only slightly as
she strapped in and jetted toward the nearest airlock. The
numbness worked its way out of her body as the warm rush of
blood resumed. Working out the residual tension with a long,
deep breath, she reflected on the wisdom of the first rule of
her profession.
Always make them pay in advance.
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