A Tanjo, Two Knives and Three Cups of Chai Makhani: Tales of the Chai Makhani Trio, #1

By Kate MacLeod

Elyot loathes the massive Commonwealth ships that hover menacingly over his home world of Adghal. He hates the Commonwealth enforcers who harass the populace even more.

But with his mother missing so long she surely must be dead, Elyot keeps his head down and strives to avoid notice.

And he succeeds until the day two strangers appear in the tavern where he waits tables. One dressed in rags with her hands bloodied and bruised, the other in finery beyond the means of the average citizen of Adghal, but both sharing an anxious jumpiness and a fondness for deep hoods to hide their faces.

Then a squad of enforcers troop in. Just looking for an after-shift drink? Or something more sinister? Elyot knows with enforcers, one shifts to the other in the blink of an eye. And that squad sits between everyone in the subterranean tavern and the only way out.

"A Tanjo, Two Knives and Three Cups of Chai Makhani" is the first episode in the ongoing monthly science fiction adventure serial TALES OF THE CHAI MAKHANI TRIO.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ratatoskr Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781951439934

Kate MacLeod

Dr. Kate MacLeod is an innovative inclusive educator, researcher, and author. She began her career as a high school special education teacher in New York City and now works as faculty in the college of education at the University of Maine Farmington and as an education consultant with Inclusive Schooling. She has spent 15 years studying inclusive practices and supporting school leaders and educators to feel prepared and inspired to include all learners.

Book preview

A Tanjo, Two Knives and Three Cups of Chai Makhani

A TANJO, TWO KNIVES AND THREE CUPS OF CHAI MAKHANI

THE TALES OF THE CHAI MAKHANI TRIO: EPISODE 1

KATE MACLEOD

Ratatoskr Press

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CONTENTS

A Tanjo, Two Knives and Three Cups of Chai Makhani

To Be Continued…

Sci-Fi Serial Podcast!

Tales of the Chai Makhani Trio

Complete Series: The Travels of Scout Shannon

New Series: The Ritchie and Fitz Sci-Fi Murder Mysteries

Also from Kate MacLeod

Also from Ratatoskr Press

Free eBook!

About the Author

Also by Kate MacLeod

A TANJO, TWO KNIVES AND THREE CUPS OF CHAI MAKHANI

It's not like Elyot could ever forget they were there, hanging ominously over the entire city, constantly keeping it in the shadow of one ship or another. But every afternoon when he emerged from the nook he called home - just a space where the eaves of one building overlapped the flat roof of another, keeping out most of the rain but none of the wind - the sight of those five ships lording over him and all of his fellow citizens of Adghal struck him anew.

He didn't really understand how they stayed up there. He knew it had something to do with their antigravity drives, but every ship on Adghal required wings and a propulsive engine to stay in the sky. The Commonwealth ships did not. They just dangled silently over the city, no roar of engines or jostling movement as they rode the air currents.

They always looked to him as if they were about to fall.

He didn't grasp the scale, either. They seemed close enough to touch, and the details of protruding sensors and lights and windows were so clear to his eye it was like there was nothing between him and them. And yet he knew they were in the highest levels of the atmosphere. And they were massive, truly massive.

An enforcer had overheard him referring to the