The Depredides Dance: C.M.'s Singles, #6

By C.M. Simpson

A science-fiction short story, incorporating:

 

An endangered disappearance attempt.

A botched comms hack.

A ruthless communications company.

And a hunt already in play.

I was in more trouble than I could poke a stick at—and that was before I poked the Depredides interweb. Now? Now, I'm hoping my hunters can get to me in time to save my life…and that they're so inclined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M. Simpson
• Release date: Mar 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224932412

C.M. Simpson

I spent the first twenty years of my life living in different parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory. My father was a teacher who liked to travel, so he took teaching appointments in all kinds of places. I don’t think I stayed in one place for more than four years at a stretch. I wrote stories for most of that time, drawing on the different landscapes we encountered and giving a hyper-active imagination somewhere to run. Seeing so many different places gave me a lot of food for thought as I stepped into the world of adulthood and took my first full-time job, and I never stopped writing and exploring the worlds in my head. So far, I have written four collections of short stories and poetry, and a number of novels, with many more to come. I hope you have enjoyed this part of my journey.

Book preview

The Depredides Dance

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C.M.’s Singles #6

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C.M. Simpson

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An endangered disappearance attempt.

A botched comms hack.

A ruthless communications company.

And a hunt already in play.

I was in more trouble than I could poke a stick at—and that was before I poked the Depredides interweb. Now? Now, I’m hoping my hunters can get to me in time to save my life...and that they’re so inclined.

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License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book 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 recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright Page

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The Depredides Dance

Third Edition

C.M. Simpson

Copyright © March 13, 2024 C.M. Simpson

Cover Art—Planets © Alexaldo at Dreamstime

Cover Design © November 24, 2023, C.M. Simpson

All rights reserved.

Author Forward

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Back in 2021, I finished Mack ‘n’ Me: Origins with Cutter hitching a ride with a courier ship she found at the end of a long, hard run. Trying to escape the situation she’d found herself in, she paid to be taken to the distant planet of Depredides, where she had hoped to disappear from both Odyssey and Mack’s radars.

This story is about how that turned out.

The Depredides Dance was started the day after I finished Origins, February 15, 2018. It picks up where that novel leaves off, and took me three days to write because I couldn’t work out where it was going, and it wouldn’t stick to the plot I thought it should.

In the end, I just had to relax and let it come out the way it wanted. I finished this story on February 18, 2018, and released it as a stand-alone short story.

I removed it from publication in 2020, and rereleased it, on July 8, 2022, as part of Tales from Mack ‘n’ Me, the eighth volume of C.M.’s Collections, which focuses on the stories that accompany and gave rise to the six-volume Mack ‘n’ Me ‘n’ Odyssey series.

Now, with a second series in the planning stage for Mack and Cutter, it was interesting to read back over the story as I edited it for this, its final release. Cutter has come a long way from where she started.

As have we all.

I hope your journey has been smooth, or, at the very least, kinder than it could have