Bubble Burst: A Star Runner Story

By Mark McDonough

A routine trade negotiation goes horribly wrong for the crew of the Star Runner. After a desperate chase, they find themselves in a strange blue sphere with no power, no gravity and no prospects of escape. Will it take abandoning their beloved ship in order to win them their lives? Before she gathered her motley crew, Star Runner had another crew. A crew that loved her just as much as Holas, Zheen, Pete and Ace do. This is their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark McDonough
• Release date: Sep 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310644788

Mark McDonough

Mark McDonough has lived his whole life in Queensland, Australia. After growing up in Ipswich, he lived for a short time in Brisbane while attending University. Work then took him to Far North Queensland for a number of years before he moved to his current home of Toowoomba. For as long as Mark can remember, there have been characters clamouring to have their stories told – everything from the depths of time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth through to the vast reaches of space where only the bravest spaceships dare to fly and everywhere in between. Most were written in secret until, one day, those characters demanded that their tales be spread far and wide. Thus, was born Stargon Books. When he's not sitting with laptop or notebook in hand, he can be found at work, with his family or out on the football field where he not only plays but also referees and Coordinates an entire competition. Ultimately, Mark dreams of the day when he can write full time but until then, as he says, "I'm a wordsmith, it's who I am; if I didn't write, I wouldn't be me".

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BUBBLE BURST

A Story Set in the Star Runner Universe

By Mark McDonough

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Mark McDonough

Current Edition 2019

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to http://www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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BUBBLE BURST

A Story Set in the Star Runner Universe

I.

Report! Captain Darviid Qualtrez barked.

Around him, the flight deck of his star ship, the merchant vessel Star Runner, was deathly quiet.

Report! Captain Qualtrez repeated and he hated having to repeat himself.

Sorry, Captain, but I don’t know what you want me to say, Teemas Darkvey, his chief engineer replied. There’s no power to any system on the flight deck. We have no lights, no gravity, none of the consoles are working. It doesn’t feel as though the environmental systems are working either. The entire ship could be like this.

Captain Qualtrez glared towards the engineering station, positive that his chief engineer was shrugging at him. Darkvey wasn’t his first choice for chief engineer, but he’d been thrust on him by the Ghezenium Security Division and he had yet to find a way to rid himself of the engineer.

Go find out, Captain Qualtrez ordered. Then, switching his gaze to the opposite side where he knew his science officer should be, Mister Kanglar, what happened?

I’m sorry, Captain, it all happened so fast. If I had access to the computer, I could probably tell you, Bylon Kanglar replied.

Best guess? Captain Qualtrez persisted.

A flash of light lit up the room as a torch swept from side to side. Like himself, it seemed that his science officer had managed to anchor himself to his seat. Not so his Chief of Security. She should have been seated beside Mister Kanglar, but instead, only a pair of black boots and a glimpse of her beige uniform pants could be seen floating above her station before the light swept on.

My best guess, Captain, is that what happened to us has something to do with that moon-sized ball of energy that we detected, Mister Kanglar replied.

What can you tell me about it? Captain Qualtrez asked.

Very little, I’m afraid, Mister Kanglar replied. I’d only taken a quick look at the sensor data on it – I was too focussed on trying to find a weakness to the Memrix ship that was shooting at us.

Hmm, I’d still like to know what that was all about,