Strangers in Flight — excerpt 7

As thoughts like this raced through her mind, heavy footsteps sounded outside on the grated floor. A man entered her cell, this one different from all the others. He was tall and balding, with sunken eyes and a hooked nose. The fabric of his second skin was crisp and white, and his expression was cold and impassive, his mouth downturned in a frown that seemed like a permanent fixture.

The strong men stood by the hatch, clearly deferring to him as some sort of leader or administrator. He ducked through the hatchway as he entered, but once he was in, he regarded her coolly with eyes that seemed to penetrate right through her.

“Hello?” she said, struggling to sound confident. “My name is Reva. Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

He said nothing, but walked around her, taking in everything from her toes to the top of her head. At first, she thought he was admiring her tattoos, but from the glint in his eyes she wasn’t quite so sure.

“I asked, what do you want with me? Why are you treating me like this?”

He spoke a single word, calling for silence. Even though she didn’t understand the language he spoke in, the meaning was clear from his tone. She took a deep breath and stood awkwardly as he finished circling her.

Without warning, he reached out and pinched her breast. She gasped in surprise and knocked his hand away.

“Hey! What the hell are you—”

Stars flashed across her vision as he slapped her cheek with the back of his hand. The force of the blow nearly sent her to the floor, and the pain stretched across the whole side of her face. She rubbed her cheek as her shock turned to fear.

The man reached out and felt her again. She tensed and tried weakly to push him away, but he took her firmly by the wrist, squeezing just hard enough to make it clear that struggling against him was a very bad idea.

Stop! Please, stop!

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Excerpt 1
Excerpt 2
Excerpt 3
Excerpt 4
Excerpt 5
Excerpt 6

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Strangers in Flight

Strangers in Flight

$9.99eBook: $2.99

When Reva went into cryosleep, she wasn't prepared to be the sole survivor of a people that history never remembered. Isaac wants to help her, but he carries a secret that may decide the outcome of the war. Little does he know, the Imperials aren't the only ones hunting him.

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By Joe Vasicek

Joe Vasicek is the author of more than twenty science fiction books, including the Star Wanderers and Sons of the Starfarers series. As a young man, he studied Arabic and traveled across the Middle East and the Caucasus. He claims Utah as his home.

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