Rose Sunstone: Junkyard Dog Series, #7

By Charley Marsh

Once a galaxy cop who believed in the black and white of the law, now a private citizen who sees shades of gray, Rita King finds herself on a mission that straddles the line.

 

As the Junkyard Dog carries Rita and her crew to the only known source for a powerful crystal known as the Rose Sunstone, she wonders if the end justifies the means. Possession of the crystal means imprisonment without parole. Should Rita risk everything–including the freedom of her crew—for a friend? They soon learn that not only galaxy law protects the rare crystal.

 

Join Rita and the crew of the Junkyard Dog as they tackle a deadly task in the tale of the Rose Sunstone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timberdoodle Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945856280

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 came out of the Time-eze drug-induced sleep mode and lay in her bunk, unmoving, while she willed her mind to wake up and catch up with recent events.

The Junkyard Dog was on its way to an obscure planet called Myam. Or more likely, they had arrived and that’s why she was awake.

It was the why of the journey that had given her fitful dreams. She had never heard of Myam before finding the small message disc that Slade had hidden in her bunk.

And when had Slade found the opportunity to do that she wondered? It had to be while they were both on ZetiTau. She knew why he had hidden the disc rather than hand it to her directly. He was giving her a choice.

Rita sighed. Life was never simple.

So far it had been a rough year, starting when someone, or someones, had tried to get her killed several months earlier. People Rita had worked with and trusted. One of the things she had loved about being a Major in the Red Barons, the enforcers for the Office of Galactic Safety and Police in the Milky Way galaxy—was that someone always had your back.

That trust, that knowing that she could depend on her team of pilots, had been the most important aspect of her career. After a lonely childhood, mostly ignored by her archaeologist father after her mother had drowned, Rita had finally felt as if she belonged somewhere. The Barons had been her family.

Now she traveled the galaxy in what was essentially a stolen ship, the same ship a coworker had sabotaged to bring about Rita’s death. She still had no idea who wanted her dead, but she wasn’t ready to return to the Red Baron’s Mars base to find out. Not yet anyway.

Besides, according to a renegade Red Baron she had met on Fagan II, her coworkers had already held a funeral for her. Empty casket of course. They couldn’t very well produce a body when she was still living, could they?

On that thought Rita smiled and gracefully leaped from her gel bunk. She stretched her lithe, six-two frame and bent to lay her palms flat on the deck of the Junkyard Dog.

It felt good to be alive.

She took a few minutes before she woke the others to run through a series of stretches and martial art movements that kept her strong and supple, then donned one of her new midnight blue skinsuits.

Made from spider silk, the suit shimmered in the low cabin lights. It was luxurious and beautiful, a gift from the grateful Shia Marie, known galaxy-wide as the Spider Woman of Kwaku.

Rita appreciated the gift for more than its beauty. The skinsuit was nearly indestructible and protected its wearer from anything short of a fusion bomb.

Shia Marie had also gifted her shipmates Yani and Lexa with new skinsuits, a gift of incalculable value. The suits were produced in limited numbers and were hard to come by. The waiting list for them was years long.

Rita activated the ships nav screen and checked the Dog’s position. The warp drive literally warped time and space to enable travelers to cross vast distances with little actual loss of time.

While she had never experienced a screw-up in the process, when Rita awoke she always expected to find herself somewhere other than where she was headed. The accuracy of the bending of the time/space fabric never ceased to amaze her.

The screen told her they had arrived at their destination. It was time to check on the others.

Rita walked over to the starboard wall and depressed a hidden latch. A section of the wooden wall slid open, revealing the three bodies of her newly formed crew. She smiled when she saw them tangled together in one bunk.

Wakey, wakey, my friends, she said in a soft voice. The Time-eze, a drug that diminished the ill effects of warp travel, was carefully dosed to last the full trip and no longer. Her three shipmates opened their eyes immediately. Two smiled at Rita.

Are we there? asked Lexa, a diminutive blue female Weegan who was hairless and possessed extraordinarily long fingers and toes. Lexa was the ship’s new engineer and diagnostician, officially titled Systems Officer. At the moment her amber eyes sparkled with glee at the thought of exploring a new place.

Yes. We’re here. How do you feel? Rita was still experimenting with dosage amounts of the Time-eze for the tiny Weegan. Lexa barely came to Rita’s waist and was slight of build. The danger of over or under-dosing was very real and could be dangerous for Lexa.

Lexa grinned, a wide smile that exposed bony plates instead of teeth. Great! I feel great. And hungry!

Rita returned Lexa’s smile. You’re always hungry, she said.

Lexa nudged the young woman on the other side of the bunk. Yani, wake up. We’re here and I’m hungry.

You’re always hungry, Yani mumbled. She rolled over, opened her emerald green eyes, and smiled. As it happens, so am I. What will it be?

Chop—

NO! Rita and Yani both said. Lexa had a tendency to find a new food she liked and then demand it for every meal, until the others thought they would die from boredom. For the last month nearly every meal had consisted of vegetable chopsooey, a riff on an Old Earth favorite.

Lexa pouted a minute but her natural good nature was irrepressible. Okay then, let’s have pancakes. Jomanja pancakes.

Deal, Yani said, crawling over her bunk mates. She stood and stretched her lean body. Her red skinsuit gleamed against her ebony skin. Her long black braid hung to her waist.

She twisted the braid up onto her head and secured it with one of the colorful scarfs she always seemed to have on her, then headed to the Redi-Meal to get them some food.

By this time the last member of Rita’s crew sat on the bunk and yawned, his long pink tongue curling inside his mouth.

Come on, Darwin, Yani’s cooking. Lexa waited for the shadow-creature to jump to the deck before closing the bunk enclosure.

Darwin had actually been the first to join Rita on board the Dog when the