Kraken Blues: Junkyard Dog Series, #2

By Charley Marsh

Monsters in the deep?

 

Rita King heads to the planet Harmos–her favorite destination for R & R– to recover from her recent ordeal. Harmos is all about Old Earth blues and jazz clubs, fresh seafood, and best of all, her friend Rose's bath house.

 

When someone attacks Rose during Rita's visit, Rose refuses to talk about it. Her only comment? "They're back."

The next day, Rose disappears.

 

Saving Rose means Rita must dig into her friend's life. Worse, it means Rita must face a deep seated fear, one that has haunted her for most of her life. One that might uncover the secret of the mysterious Kraken and their tie to Harmos.

 

 

 

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charley Marsh
• Release date: Aug 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781945856198

Charley Marsh

In her younger days Charley Marsh’s curiosity drove her to climb mountains, canoe rivers, and explore caves and wilderness areas from Maine to California. She's been shot at, caught in a desert flash flood, and almost drowned off the Maine coast. Once she tobogganed down a 5,000+ foot mountain.  Life is always an adventure if you have the right attitude. Charley never set out to be a storyteller, but looking back on the elaborate lies she made up as a troubled teen she can see that she always had the makings. Now, in the immortal words of Lawrence Block, she happily “makes up lies for fun and profit.” If you would like information regarding Charley’s new releases or simply want to contact Charley visit: https://charleymarshbooks.com/

Book preview

1

Margarita King settled her sleek, bullet-shaped ship into Wayland’s docking bay with smooth assurance. She released a relieved sigh and shut down the engines when the dock’s cradle gently snapped onto the hull of the Junkyard Dog with a soft thud.

She sat for a moment, unmoving, listening to the pings and ticks of cooling metal—the sounds of the ship settling around her. This was something she did every time she shut down the Dog’s engines. A pilot could tell a lot about their ship by the way it shut down.

Did it stutter and lurch? Or sigh and gasp and shudder? Or did the engines quietly, smoothly, cease running?

Margarita prided herself on keeping her ship in top-notch form. She knew the small, fast ship inside and out, had crawled through its guts numerous times, and could dismantle and rebuild every component on it by herself.

Few of the Specialized Pilots took the time or made the effort to learn their ships as thoroughly as she had. It wasn’t that the others were lazy—they just weren’t interested. They only cared about the flying.

Margarita cared about surviving. If she didn’t, she would be dead by now.

She took a moment to examine that ugly truth. At some point she knew she would have to return to Mars Base and find the people who had sabotaged her ship and then sent her out to die.

But not today. Today she was about to visit one of her favorite cities on one of her favorite planets. The place she always came to lick her wounds and recharge her soul.

She released the belt that held her to her pilot’s chair, stood and stretched. Her backbone cracked with loud pops in the now silent cabin. The body-molding, gel seat was as comfortable as a seat could possibly be, but after long hours of immobility even it became uncomfortable.

With her arms stretched over her head, she touched the ceiling of her cabin. At six foot, two inches tall, she could look most men straight in the eye. A dainty miss she was not.

She groaned and folded her upper body down until her head touched her knees, then stood again and shook the kinks out of her arms and hands.

Are we here?

A triangular shaped face and ears, like that of an Old Earth large cat—a tiger, or a lion perhaps, popped up over the edge of an open waist-high drawer, a makeshift berth for her new cabin mate.

We sure are. Check it out, Darwin. Have you ever seen an ocean before?

Margarita’s companion, a telepathic shadow-creature she had rescued on planet B4629 and named Darwin because of his bizarre looks, hopped out of his drawer and raced over to her.

She examined his movement critically for any lingering sign of the broken leg she had set and was pleased to see none. He looked like a normal, frisky youngster.

Darwin’s chunky dog body had two tails—one short and curly, one long and feline. Coupled with his cat face he made an odd-looking creature—a creature that made her smile.

She scooped him up in her arms, smoothing his gray, wiry fur, and carried him to the ship’s clear nosecone. Darwin’s amber eyes were bright with curiosity and his long tail flicked and curled over her arm.

The city of Wayland, backed by the rose-purple peaks of the Maxima Mountains, stretched before them along the crescent-shaped shore of the Columbia Ocean. The turquoise blue ocean sparkled with reflected shards of sunlight. Fishing boats of all sizes plied its waters, some heading out, others docking to unload their catch of the day.

The planet Harmos had two moons, so the vast ocean, which covered ninety percent of the planet, had several daily tides, and Wayland’s citizens fished around the clock, depending on which guild they belonged to—either the Day Fishing Guild, or the Night Fishing Guild.

Different species were active at night than during the day in the ocean; larger, more dangerous species: species that were considered delicacies, were in great demand, and commanded astronomical prices.

The Night Fishing Guilders justified much higher prices for their catches because of the great demand and the extra dangers they faced. It wasn’t uncommon for a night fisherman to go out and never return. Survivors told tales of monsters rising from the deep and capsizing even large fishing vessels.

In spite of this, openings in the Night Fishing Guild were fiercely fought over.

None of that mattered to Margarita. She liked to eat fish, but had never been out on a boat. She found the ocean beautiful and loved the city built of ivory-stone that lined its shore. Rose-purple mountains, ivory city, blue ocean—Wayland was a feast for her eyes after long weeks spent in the dull black and gray of space.

Besides the fishing industry, Wayland was also a popular stop-over spot for weary travelers in need of fresh food, sunken hot-tubs, and live music. Margarita intended to partake of all three.

I think a hot bath at Rose’s is in order first, Darwin. Then fresh fish at Twilda’s Fish Food. You’ll like that I know. Twilda does a mean spiced fish.

Margarita’s mouth watered just thinking about Twilda’s. She turned away from the window and hurried back to her bunk through the neatly put-together ship.

The design of the Junkyard Dog’s interior had been based on the ancient sailing ships of Old Earth. Not an inch of space was wasted. Numerous cabinets and drawers fit together as exactly and tightly as a fingernail to a fingertip.

She pulled her spare bodysuit from the narrow closet at the foot of her bunk. Specially knit from gossamer fine spider-silk threads that were stronger than steel, the suits had protected her from harm on more than one occasion. She would have Rose clean both of them while she bathed.

She held the spare suit to her nose, sniffed and grimaced. It had been too long between cleanings.

Other than Margarita, only Rose was allowed to handle her bodysuits. The suits had cost her several year’s wages apiece, and were highly coveted by other pilots. They weighed next to nothing, but protected her body from the elements and any weapons attack. She never left the safety of her ship unless dressed in one.

Placing the spare mud-brown suit in her backbag, she set the ship’s alarm and paid the dock master for one week’s worth of berth.

The alarm would electrocute anyone who tried to break into the Dog while she was away. An extreme measure perhaps, but Margarita believed in protecting what was hers.

Without a ship she would be stranded. Just another landlubber—a fate worse than death for a woman who had spent the first fifteen years of her life dreaming of piloting a ship, followed by seven grueling years of studying and testing before she had been handed the controls.

She had been ecstatic when she graduated top of her class and signed on with the Mars Base Red Barons—an elite group of deep space pilots who enforced galaxy law—but the last nine years had been as grueling as her training years. Maybe even worse.

The competition among the Barons was fierce and often ugly. She stayed on top because she never let up with her studies and training.

None of that mattered now. Since the sabotage of her ship she no longer belonged to the Red Barons. She had repaired her ship, renaming it the Junkyard Dog to reflect her new attitude, and had started a new chapter in her life as an independent pilot.

Just what this chapter in her life would bring she didn’t know. Hopefully it would be less harrowing than her time in the trobium mine.

Right now, Darwin, I need a bath and some of that rest and recreation I told you about. Let’s go.

2

Darwin trembled with excitement, his head swiveling side to side as he tried to see everything they passed on their way to Rose’s. Margarita kept her arm wrapped tight enough around his body to keep him from jumping, but not so tight that he complained.

She had been astounded to learn firsthand that the cuddly little shadow-creature morphed into a scary-mean, deadly fighter when angered.

Darwin had saved her life once, and she felt reasonably confident that he would never attack her. Still, she was careful to be gentle with him. One did not poke a gatorsnake with a stick if one wanted to live—a lesson every child learned early on.

Rose’s Bath House lay on the mountain side of the city, partway up the foothills and away from the bustle of the waterfront, close to the hot springs that erupted from the volcanic Maxima Mountains.

Rose’s great-grandfather had constructed the bath house on top of one such spring many decades before, when Wayland was still a tiny frontier town. When they died, Rose took over the business.

As the town had grown up around Rose, bigger and fancier bath houses with specialty spas had been built closer to the town center, but Margarita still preferred the old-fashioned simplicity of Rose’s place.

She worked her way along the crescent-shaped bay, inhaling the unique, briny smell of a saltwater sea. She loved it all: the salty air, the fresh, and sometimes not-so-fresh, smell of fish, the stink of baitfish, the pungent odors of water-logged timber, paint and tar—and a hundred other odors found only on the edge of a working waterfront.

Men and women—the Fishing Guilds made no distinction and awarded membership to anyone who could meet their stringent entrance exams and high fees—shouted back and forth as they loaded and