Belle Starr 3: Belly of the Beast

By Katina French

She’s brave, crazy, dangerous… and your best shot at crossing the galaxy alive.

For once, things are going well for space smuggler Shaen Morris and her sentient ship the Belle Starr. Which should have been her first clue that something was about to go very wrong. When an anomaly in the Passage causes all transportation in the galaxy to grind to a sudden halt, she is forced to help out an old adversary - and put an old friend in grave danger.

Shaen could uncover the secret to what created the Passage, and why it drives humans insane. But what will this ancient knowledge cost?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Per Bastet Publications LLC
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942166252

Book preview

French

Belly of the Beast

The Belle Starr Chronicles

Episode 3

Katina French

Belly of the Beast

The Belle Starr Chronicles, Episode 3

Electronic Edition

Copyright © 2017 Katina French

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors and artists.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-942166-25-2

Electronic Edition 2017

I

Drevin suppressed a smile as he surveyed his cards. He'd drawn a sage of ships to complete the royal fleet he'd been working towards, discarding the five of settlers.

He'd taken up gambling after his brief foray into selling stolen goods went coreward thanks to a botched delivery. He took on the occasional mercenary gig, too. Plenty of ways to make a living in the wide expanse of space, if you were smart, aggressive, and less than honest.

Right now, though, most of his entrepreneurial efforts were on hold. He'd been stuck in the Bootlegger Nebula for over a week, along with half the smugglers in the galaxy and their passengers. Nobody knew why the government portals out of the Passage had quit opening, and nobody knew when or if they'd start back up.

No harm in making bank off the boredom in the meantime.

He was laying down his cards when the ale room hatch swung open. A familiar head of spiky white-blond hair poked through, crowned with a beat-up pair of mechanic's goggles.

Not her again.

Drevin gathered his winnings from the hand as the other players swiveled to look, hoping for fresh meat at the tables. One man snorted in recognition. Shaen Morris, pilot of the Belle Starr, had a reputation.

She hadn't changed. Same grubby trench covered a greasy tank top and canvas pants with a half-dozen pockets and pouches. She still wore the same heavy mag-boots.

Still carried the same enormous pistol slung low on her utility belt.

The last time he'd seen her, he'd slipped out, hoping to escape her notice. This time, he wasn't leaving without collecting his winnings. Besides, it wasn't like he could get far. At best, he could shuttle from the Lee Petty to another ship in the Bootlegger's fleet of distilleries.

Hell, she might not even remember him. She was a smuggler, and they were all insane. She flew through the Passage awake, and everybody knew time passed strangely there. From her point of view, it could have been years since Mebarik.

He decided to ignore her and finish the game.

~*~

Shaen Morris had been trapped in the Bootlegger Nebula for nine days, 12 hours and 33 minutes, and she hadn't killed anybody yet.

It might have been due to her recent partial thaw towards humanity after a lifetime of misanthropy. More likely, it was the near-limitless supply of cheap whiskey. It certainly wasn't because she enjoyed staying in one place too long, especially the Nebula.

On one hand, the Bootleggers were self-sufficient. The fleet of reconditioned generation ships still had oxygen and nutrient gardens. Aside from reclamation, they harvested water from a comet some enterprising folks had towed into the vicinity. They also had a hell of a lot of booze, since that was the point of a Bootlegger Nebula in the first place.

But the whole thing reminded Shaen too much of the Asylum ship she'd grown up on -- a floating orphanage, poorhouse, prison and nursing home, all rolled into one miserable place. She'd kept to the Belle, only leaving to visit the public ale rooms to drink, play cards or engage in whatever commerce could be had among the stranded smugglers and their illegal -- and highly irritable -- passengers.

She'd rather be on the Belle now, but she had a meeting with Chenaux Kaki, an old contact who claimed