Hellflower Trilogy Series

Somebody had nailed Moke Rahone to his Desk. . . . Moke Rahone'd been human, and someone had butchered him open. It was dainty-like. Real bodysnatcher work, done with something sharp—something that didn't burn like a pocket laser or chew up the meat like a vibro. And there was one other thing. It was sticking up out of Rahone's insides and it hadn't been part of his original manifest. It might tell me who killed him, and who might be interested in taking over the cargo I had for him. I pulled off my glove and yanked out the optional extra somebody'd left with Brother Rahone. What I got for my trouble was long and thin, pointed at one end and with feathers at the other. It was mostly red, but where it was dry it was a kind of blue animal bone with carving on it. I'd seen bone like that before. Hellflower work! I'd just shut the door on the inner room behind me when the outer door opened. The hellflower standing there wasn't Tiggy, but he looked real pleased to see me anyway. "Ea, higna," the hellflower said. Then he went for his heat. . . .

TWO SHIPS SAT ON THE FIELD  They was 'leggers and pirates equipped with the standard box of tricks. Tractors to lock them on to a ship or free-floating cargo, guns that could angle to protect a ship on the ground. And a nasty sense of civic duty.  They was going to hold us on the heavy-side and hammer us to death.  They hoped.  I gave Ghost Dance all the go-devils in the inventory, to where I was sure something was going to cut loose and blow. She started pulling away, and the view-screens went fade-to-black as the darktraders on the field gunned their engines to hold her. I opened a wide channel. Both ships would hear it.  "This is Ghost Dance. We've got fifteen plates of goforth and nothing to lose. You boys want to be serious nonfiction you just hang on; I guarantee to wrap you around the first lamppost in angeltown.''  No answer. Just the howl of an open circuit. Dance was starting to shake.  "I mean it. When you forged your First Tickets, anybody tell you what happens you Jump too deep in a gravity well?"  Silence.  "Want to find out?"

Archangel Blues is the senses-shattering conclusion to the award-winning Hellflower Trilogy. In our latest exciting installment, Captain Butterflies-are-Free Peace Sincere, her underage homicidal sidekick Baijon Stardust, and the not-quite stowaway and part-time spy Berathia Notevan, flee the deep-space station called Toystore instants before it is destroyed. With her ship's navicomp blanked, Butterfly's only choice is to rely on Archive--the copy of an Old Fed Library that is currently eating her brain--for the good numbers to fly Ghost Dance to safety. Archive's idea of a safe space is the Capitol of the Old Federation, and things go downhill from there, because on jump later, Buttefly and Ziggy find themselves in Thronespace, listening to the Prince-Elect of the Phoenix Empire making them an offer they can't refuse.