One More Good Trade

By J Alan Erwine

Your name is Anthony Jones. You’re a Human free Trader. Your ship is called The Longest Night, and you have two crewmates, Tora-no, a four-armed Althani Soldier and Creeoona, a Tulmath Cyber Wizard. Three adventures lie open to you, which one will you pick, and what will happen along the way? You get to decide what happens in this story, as you pick your way through various plot twists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nomadic Delirium Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005865801

J Alan Erwine

J Erwine was born Oct. 15, 1969 in Akron, Ohio. Early in his life he was exposed to science, and specifically astronomy. From there on, J's passion turned to science fiction, a passion that's never died. Due to family issues, J eventually found himself in Denver, Colorado, where he still lives (well, right outside now.) From the time he could put subject and predicate together on paper, J has been writing stories. None of those early stories exist anymore (thankfully), but that passion for writing has never waned. After several years of rejection, the story Trek for Life was eventually sold to ProMart Writing Lab editor James Baker. It wasn't Asimov's, but it was a start. Since that time J has sold more than forty short stories to various small press publishers. In addition ProMart also published a short story collection of J's entitled Lowering One's Self Before Fate, and other stories, which is still available. ProMart also published a novel from J entitled The Opium of the People, which sold a few copies before going out of print. The relevance of the novel after the events of September 11th caused J to self-publish the novel, as he felt the story had a lot to say in the new reality we now find ourselves living in. Now, this same book has been re-released by Nomadic Delirium Press. Eventually J would become an editor with ProMart. Then, after the untimely death of ProMart editor James Baker, J would move on to ProMart's successor Sam's Dot Publishing. J also spends most of his time working as a freelance writer and editor. J's novel was voted a top ten finisher in the 2003 annual Preditors & Editors contest, and his short story The Galton Principle won a ProMart contest for best story over 5,000 words. In addition, a number of his stories have been voted "best of" in various issue of The Martian Wave and The Fifth DI… and have been included in Wondrous Web Worlds Vols. 2, 3, 4, and 6. In 2009, the Ephemeris Role Playing Game was released. J is the co-creator of this game, and has written numerous supplements for the game. J has now sold three novels and four short story collections, all of which are still available from various sources, including Smashwords. J currently lives with his amazing wife, three wonderful children, three cats, and a very quiet turtle.

Book preview

ONE MORE GOOD TRADE

By J Alan Erwine

Learn more about the Ephemeris RPG at http://www.nomadicdeliriumpress.com/ephemeris.htm

Published by Nomadic Delirium Press at Smashwords

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

Copyright 2021 Nomadic Delirium Press

http://www.nomadicdeliriumpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, broadcast, etc.

Nomadic Delirium Press

Aurora, Colorado

Your name is Anthony Jones. You’re a Human free trader based out of a space station orbiting the planet Niven, which orbits the small red dwarf star known as Luyten’s Star, which is 12.4 light years away from the Human homeworld of Earth. You’ve never been to Earth, and you have no real interest in ever visiting because the planet is choked with people, and you can only put up with Humans for so long.

Your ship is called The Longest Night, and you’ve been the captain of the ship for more than six years now. The ship has seen its share of problems and it now looks like it has been patched together with parts from a variety of ships, which it actually has. Although it might not look very nice, you’ve made several modifications to the ship, which make it faster than most trader vessels in both regular space and in hyperspace.

Over your years in space, you’ve grown less and less fond of Humans, but you have formed some strong bonds with some of the alien species, two of whom currently make up your crew. Your co-pilot and basic strong man is named Tora-no, a four-armed Althani Soldier that left the military a long time ago because he wanted to see more of the galaxy. He basically looks like a raptor dinosaur, standing about 5 feet 6 inches, half a foot shorter than you are.

Your other crew mate is Creeoona, a Tulmath Cyber Wizard. Creeoona looks a bit like an Earth snail, although it stands 5 feet tall, and is about four feet long. You refer to Creeoona as it because the Tulmath actually have three genders, and you’ve never actually asked what its gender is because three genders just confuses you.

At the moment, your ship has left the space station. Tora-no is in the co-pilot seat, while Creeoona is below deck, sleeping off a hangover. You don’t currently have a cargo, but you know there are three different places you could go to pick up a cargo. You can go to the Human system of Tau Ceti, or you could go to the Althani system of Delta Pavonis, or you could go to the Melanathee system of QW Puppis.

Visit Tau Ceti

Visit Delta Pavonis

Visit QW Puppis

*

You’ve chosen to visit Tau Ceti, despite the fact that you’ll have to deal with Humans. Hopefully it will be a very short visit to station Beta, which is in a geocentric orbit around the planet. You’re going to be picking up some processed ore to deliver to an Althani merchant in their