Once on the Blue Moon

By Kristine Kathryn Rusch

As Collette's parents take her on an outdated "luxury" starliner called the Blue Moon to yet another boarding school, she sees this as just one more crappy turn of events.

But when the guys with guns show up, she knows boarding school pales in comparison to whatever these guys plan to do to her—and to her parents.

So, when the bad guys lock her in her suite, she determines to use every ounce of mischief she can to thwart their mission.

But what can an eleven-year-old do against pirates? Perhaps more than anyone might expect.

"Once on the Blue Moon" was chosen as one of the best military and adventure science fiction stories of 2018.

"Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field."

—SFRevu

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Nov 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393006398

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. She publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.   

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Once on the Blue Moon

Once on the Blue Moon

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, Inc.

Contents

Once on the Blue Moon

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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

About the Author

Once on the Blue Moon

One man cradling one large laser rifle stood in the doorway of the luxury suite. Colette sprawled on the threadbare carpet. Her dad had shoved her behind him when he saw the guy at the door, and she had tripped over the retractable ottoman.

Good job, Dad, she nearly said, because that was her default response when he did something stupid, but she didn’t say it, because her gaze remained on that rifle. And so did her dad’s.

Dad had probably wanted her to run into one of the bedrooms, and that would’ve made sense if the guy at the door with the rifle hadn’t seen her, but he had, and then he had said something softly and beckoned at someone else.

Mom was standing beside the door, actually threading her hands together. Colette felt both a growing fear and a growing irritation. Fear, because she had probably caused this. Day One, she had swiped one of those stupid tablets that the concierge on this level used to keep track of everything on the ship.

The lower levels, without the suites, used holographic screens for the guests, or some lazy person could call up a holographic face to make suggestions.

But here, real people were actually in the passengers’ business, as if the Blue Moon was still one of the most luxurious starliners in the solar system.

It wasn’t luxurious. It had been luxurious, maybe, in the Good Old Days when her grandparents had been kids. Dad said the ship had a mystique, whatever that meant, but Colette had investigated the ship on her own and found the ad that had probably gotten Dad’s attention:

Travel in luxury at one-thousandth the price!

Apparently, if you didn’t care what kind of cargo the ship carried, then you could have a luxury suite on your trip from wherever to wherever. Theirs was from a starbase beyond Saturn to some place called Montreal because that was the last boarding school that could handle someone like her.

All of this had been Mother’s idea, even though all of it had been Colette’s fault.

Another man arrived at the door. He was small, barely taller than Colette, and she hadn’t reached her full growth yet. (Mother had said that she would when puberty hit, which could be Any Minute Now.) The man had glittering black eyes, a leathery face, and thin lips that quirked upward when he saw her.

A kid, he said, as if he was surprised.

Colette almost said, I’m not a kid! and then thought the better of it. Maybe she’d get a pass on stealing that tablet. Children couldn’t be responsible for their actions after all.

I didn’t realize there was a kid on board, the man said, musing. I didn’t think children were allowed on vessels like this.

Yeah, Colette had seen that regulation too, and she knew that her dad had gotten it waived. They needed to get to Earth Yesterday, or so Mother had said. It was never hard for Dad to get things waived.

The family didn’t have money—yet, Mother said—but