Renee (and the Space Raiders)

By Alastair Mayer

Starship pilot Jason Curtis just wanted to find a beach for a little rest and relaxation. Then he met Renee . . .

"‘Starfire, this is Kakuloa control. Are you declaring an emergency?’
Air hissed out of a bullet hole in my cockpit, yellow and red warning lights lit up my control panel, the fuel system leaked, my heat shielding was probably damaged, and my spacesuit was on the wrong side of a door to an airless compartment. Was I declaring an emergency?"

This short novel is a sequel to the story "Into the Fire".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alastair Mayer
• Release date: Jan 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458105301

Alastair Mayer

Alastair Mayer was born in London, England and raised in Canada. He now makes his home in Colorado. He is an experienced pilot and scuba diver and a former contributing editor at Byte Magazine. Alastair is a member of SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America), and his stories have appeared in Analog magazine and several anthologies.

Book preview

Renee and the Space Raiders

(A Jason Curtis Adventure)

by Alastair Mayer

Copyright © 2010, Alastair Mayer. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles by Alastair Mayer at Smashwords.com

Visit the author’s web site at www.alastairmayer.com.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Author’s Introduction

Renee and the Space Raiders

Afterword

Author’s Introduction to Renee

When I first heard about the potential Eta Carinae hypernova, I knew I wanted to put it in a story. It was while I was listening to some old music, the Left Banke’s song Walk Away Renee, that the ending came to me. The opening scene I had already, following naturally from Jason Curtis's character and the end of his earlier adventure.

Author Lois McMaster Bujold says she thinks of the worst thing that could happen to her characters, and then does it to them. I did the same with Jason. It was so much fun the story grew to novelette length, and I spent a couple of hours with pencil and paper making sure Jason could really survive . . . but only just. (Hard-SF writers do the math.)

The title was originally just Renee; I added and the Space Raiders to give readers a better idea of what to expect.

This story takes place shortly after the events of Into the Fire, but you don't have to have read that first (but fair warning, there are potential spoilers in this one). Let's just say that it shows Jason Curtis to be almost as good a pilot as he thinks he is. I say almost because he still has that impulsive streak—although that is sometimes a necessary thing.

There are a lot of tales yet to be told about the Eta Carinae expedition, and not just about Renee.

RENEE

and the Space Raiders

"Starfire, this is Kakuloa control. Are you declaring an emergency?"

Air hissed out of a bullet hole in my cockpit, yellow and red warning lights lit up my control panel, the fuel system leaked, my heat shielding was probably damaged, and my spacesuit was on the wrong side of a door to an airless compartment. Was I declaring an emergency? People can ask some damn fool questions.

* * *

The guard at the station’s departure gate had checked my ID and done a single take. Jason Curtis? He’d looked at me like he recognized me, or the name. Terrific.

That’s me.

"Aren’t you the guy they hauled out of the Starfire a couple of weeks ago, half frozen to death? Something about a broken climate control?"

Sigh. Yep, that was me. The climate control hadn’t been broken; I’d overridden it. It’s a long story, you can probably find it online. I really didn’t want to tell the story yet again, the details were embarrassing. Had to do with a close approach to a star.

Really? That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?

Any more iron and I’d be haemochromatic. Look, I’d love to chat—like hell I would—but there are people behind me. Well, only two, but that legitimized the plural. Are we done here?

Oh, sorry, sure. Go on through.

I made my way through to the docking area where my ship, yes, the Starfire was