War and Mystery Beyond the Stars ➱ Outpassage a Science Fiction Novel by Janet Morris & Chris Morris Book tour with Guest post and Giveaway
War and Mystery Beyond the Stars
Outpassage
by Janet Morris & Chris Morris
Genre: Science Fiction
WAR AND MYSTERY BEYOND THE STARS
Sgt. "Det"
Cox has just spent three years under psych observation on Earth; now
that he's out-system, he isn't about to tell anyone he's seeing
aliens again. Paige Barnett has lost everything, even her name,
because she knows too much about the rebellion spreading through the
Earth-Space mining colonies.
Together Cox and
Barnett stumble upon the mystery at the revolution's heart and learn
why the rebels are willing to die for it.
Is their discovery
humanity's worst threat or greatest gift? The authorities are willing
to destroy whole planets to keep the revolution's secret from
reaching Earth... What's to stop them from destroying two
people
"The Morrises' blend of fast-paced narrative
and meticulous research into near-space technology makes a novel you
can't put down."
-- C.J. Cherryh
"Action
sequences that would make any writer proud. OUTPASSAGE is a wonderful
book."
--David Drake
"OUTPASSAGE might just
be the perfect science fiction novel."
-- Jack Williamson
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The sky was thin and the color of dirty motor oil, except where it exploded above
their heads. Concussion was delayed in the thin air but the smell of roasting
Rangers got to you right away, even through your air filters. The terraformers
hadn’t done much of a job on this classified ball of rock before the
corporation workforce moved in, the shit hit the fan, and a request for
military assistance followed.
The request wasn’t denied, exactly, but it was
rerouted to InterSpace Tasking Corporation’s security division, who sent out a
deniable reconnaissance team — thirteen US Rangers sheep-dipped for hazardous
duty under the command of Colonel “Mad Jack” Reynolds.
It was Reynolds whose charred flesh was
sending up the stink that made Cox gag as he dove for cover. Long recon meant
long odds, long distances, and long hitches, but nobody ever wanted to think it
meant dying a long way from home.
Overhead, even through his flash-and-blast
suppressing helmet, Cox could see the enemy coming in for another strafing run.
Nobody ever thought the enemy was going to come at you with airpower, either,
because there wasn’t supposed to be any hostile force out here that had airpower.
In Cox’s ear, Locke was screaming over the
comm set: “… suggest you form up for extraction, sir, at the beacon.”
Cox huddled under an overhang of silicate, his
rifle cradled against his chest and his knees pulled up, shifted enough to turn
his head. “Reynolds?” he said into his comm-mic, just to be sure.
But there was no way the barbecued officer
lying beside him, charred limbs askew, was going to answer. The airpower came
over and Cox covered his head: his helmet’s recon pack had sent plenty of
pictures already; he didn’t need to risk his life for one more shot of somebody
shooting at him.
He needed to risk his life to get to the
extraction point, and that was about all he could handle. “Hey Locke,” he
yelled into his mic because the airpower was strafing what was left of
Reynolds: “Reynolds is past it. I’m here by my lonesome.” Rock exploded near
him. Reflexively, he ducked his head in the shelter of his arms, eyes closed,
and said as clearly and calmly as he could, “But I’m real ready for an order to
get the fuck out of here.”
“Then give it,” came Locke’s voice, laconic
over the static and hard to hear because the sniper aircraft was coming back
for another pass. “You’re the only friendly voice I’m hearing.”
“Falling back,” Cox heard his own voice say,
and his body followed suit. He knew he was calling the roll as he got to his
knees, then his feet, crouched under the overhang, listening hard for even a
groan or a grunt in response.
But nobody came back to him over his
comm-link. Thirteen guys, and of the twelve on his comm-link, Cox couldn’t
raise a single one but Locke. He was poised, his thighs cramping, as he waited
for what felt like the right moment to sprint across the scree, a mapping
display already enabled on his faceplate that gave routing overlays to his
target — the extraction site.
But through the electronics, he could see
Reynolds. Behind the colored grid with its pulsing points and alphanumeric
displays, Reynolds seemed to be moving.
Sliding along the ground, almost. Cox didn’t
want to leave anybody behind that had a breath of life ….
He scuttled toward Reynolds, his pack scraping
the ceiling of the overhang — scrambled close enough to see that not only
Reynolds’ left arm and leg, but the left side of his skull, was burned away.
“Shit.” The shock of it propelled the Ranger
out from cover, along the suggested track on his visor-display, as fast as he’d
ever moved in his life.
But in the confines of his helmet, he knew
what he’d seen: something moving; Reynolds moving. And he knew he was running
from that vision as much as from anything else here.
Because there wasn’t anything else here. There
wasn’t anything but some deep-space double-cross having to do with mining
rights and racial hatreds spread across the stars.
It was the gang bosses against the cheap
labor, was what it was. There wasn’t any alien life here, despite the security
classification level of the planet designated X-31A, due to artifactual
evidence. There wasn’t any alien life anywhere, not above the vegetable level —
a century in space had proved that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Everything that seemed artifactual had,
eventually, turned out to be natural, not intelligence-made. There wasn’t any
reason for these IST honchos to be afraid of the boondocks on X-31A but the way
they treated the contract laborers they’d trucked in here.
If Cox said different, he’d be in psych
evaluation for the rest of his life — if he got off this shitball to have one.
It hadn’t been anything, not anything, that
he’d seen out of the corner of his eye. It sure as hell hadn’t been a white,
human-looking, delicate hand pulling Reynolds toward a wall of solid rock —
coming out of a wall of solid rock.
It hadn’t. His lungs were burning despite the
augmented oxygen-rich mix his recon pack was feeding him as he sprinted; he was
sweating like a pig — sweating worse than his cooling system could handle. And,
overhead, he heard a subtle change in volume that wouldn’t be subtle for long:
the pursuit aircraft, laying down rivers of flame as it did a one-eighty, had
sighted him. It was coming back.
With the bogey on his tail and nobody to
answer to, Cox hit his jet-assist. It was a one-time-only, emergency move, but
there was no way he could outrun that aircraft, not on foot.
The wrench at his shoulders was immediate, the
grab in his crotch comforting. And then he was airborne himself, skimming
across the ground toward the extraction point where Locke’s bird was already a
dark speck lowering out of the filthy clouds.
Need to touch down before the transport does;
got to watch his wash; wind-shear could crash him. You weren’t supposed to do
this — it was against every rule in the book to jet toward an extraction point:
gave heat-tracking to the enemy; gave random bad luck more of a chance to
scratch you from the game-card.
He could still see the charred half of
Reynolds’ face, the eye like a lamb’s eye that had popped up in his soup once
during a Saudi tour. He saw it so clearly that when the enemy screamed
overhead, ignoring him and going after Locke in the pickup craft, it didn’t
bother him any.
Not even when Locke’s VTOL exploded in a gout
of dirty orange flame, because he could still see Reynolds inching along the
rock like he was alive, that hand clamped on him.
And then he couldn’t see anything, not for a
long time, because something shorted his helmet’s system and the ground hit
him, hard, in the face.
What
is something unique/quirky about you?
Together we breed Morgan horses. We
consult with Morgan breeders to help them choose crosses to their stock to
achieve a desired result.
We are also musicians; Janet plays bass
guitar, Chris sings and plays guitar. We have an album on MCA records. Look for
Christopher Crosby Morris on Soundcloud or N1M.com
Can you, for those who don't know you already, tell something
about yourself and how you became an author?
Janet wrote her
first novel, High Couch of Silistra in 1975; a friend sent
it to an agent who chose to represent her; she had already written the second
book in the Silistra Quartet and her agent told her not to disclose that
until they finalized the contract for the first one. When the publisher learned
of the others, Bantam Books bought the succeeding three. When the fourth book
was published, the series already had four million copies in print. Suddenly Janet
was a novelist specializing in environmental, gender, historical and political
subjects. In the process, Chris started as her editor and ultimately a
co-writer. Since then, she and Chris have co-authored many books.
Who
is your hero and why?
Heraclitus
of Ephesus, a pre-socratic philosopher, whose Cosmic Fragments
foreshadow our knowledge of reality and how to perceive it. Among his precepts
is the statement that change alone is unchanging. We’ve worked Heraclitus’
fragments in here and there throughout our books.
Which
of your novels can you imagine being made into a movie?
All of them.
We write cinematically, our books are vivid adventures we undertake without
knowing the destination. I, the
Sun, The Sacred Band, and Outpassage are
particularly suited to film. The Threshold Series is a feast of
opportunities for today’s special effects creators.
What
inspired you, to write Outpassage?
Outpassage
— Many wonder if
somehow salvation lies in the stars. In Outpassage pawns of
industry are kidnapped to work on a distant mining colony. Waking from their
long space voyage, they quickly discover strange properties in the surrounding straits
of rock being mined for rare minerals needed for advanced tech production on
Earth. Mysteriously, some miners die in questionable circumstances and reappear,
coming to life and causing rebellion among their fellow contract laborers. Is
this the result of natural conditions or supernatural forces? Outpassage takes
you there to see for yourself.
Who
designed your book covers?
The cover of
Outpassage was created for Perseid Press by Vincent DiFate.
Advice
to writers?
As for
advice to writers, here is all we know: write the story you want to read. Start
at the beginning, go to the end, and stop. Seriously. From start to finish you
must inhabit the construct in a manner that makes the reader choose to continue;
if we as writers can’t feel what it’s like being there, our readers can’t
either. Close your eyes, look at your feet where they are standing on the
story’s ground; tell us what you see. Tell us what you hear. Ask at the end of
each paragraph ‘what happens next?’. If you lose touch with it wait until
you’re back inside it. Tell the story that comes to you, and from you, to us.
Best selling author Janet Morris began writing in 1976 and has since published more than 30 novels, many co-authored with her husband Chris Morris or others. Most of her fiction work has been in the fantasy and science fiction genres, although she has also written historical and other novels. Morris has written, contributed to, or edited several book-length works of non-fiction, as well as papers and articles on nonlethal weapons, developmental military technology and other defense and national security topics.
Christopher Crosby Morris (born 1946) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction, as well as a lyricist, musical composer, and singer-songwriter. He is married to author Janet Morris. He is a defense policy and strategy analyst and a principal in M2 Technologies, Inc. He writes primarily as Chris Morris, but occasionally uses pseudonyms.
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I enjoyed the guest post. The blurb sounds really good.
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