Excerpt From "A Whisper in Space

This is posted with permission from the author, David C. Drizzit, who hopes you enjoy the excerpt.  For more info on this book, visit http://whisperinspace.blogspot.com/.  To purshase a copy, click here for Amazon.com.

The Captain said as he rose from his chair.  He quickly descended from the ship’s small command deck, and jogged down the main corridor towards the engine room.  He could hear the passengers singing folk songs in the dining hall.  “Taro!”  Miles called out in front of him.

A head appeared from the engine bay.  Taro’s long dark hair was matted and ruffled, and lipstick smears lined his face.  Several items of clothing lay strew around the floor of the engine bay.  “Captain, we ain’t crashing.  Can’t it wait a few minutes?”  Behind him was the muffled sound of a woman giggling.

“Taro, you aren’t getting too friendly with one of our passengers again, are you?”  The Captain huffed.  He had already scolded Taro far too many times about getting involved with the passengers, although it was starting to seem like an effort in futility.

“Captain, it wasn’t my fault.  I was in here working on the boosters when she started coming on to me.”  Taro put on his helpless face, playing as if he was a total victim of the situation as he stepped out from behind the engine, wearing nothing but his boxer-briefs.

“Yeah, it must be rough being you.”  Miles joked, the sarcasm was heavy in his voice.  The ship’s main engine was a large mess of coils and hoses that filled most of the room.  The captain saw a wisp of dark hair in between a few of those coils and realized his mechanic had bitten off more then he could chew this time.  “That isn’t Ah Lam, daughter of our very rich and very protective passenger Sir Christian Levesque, is it?”

“She’s old enough to make her own decisions” Taro protested boldly.  Technically, he was right, she was nineteen, and even though Taro had ten years on her, she was old enough to be her own keeper.  He was merely enjoying her company.  He thought she had an amazing body, except for the fact that she was a bit on the flat-chested side.  Moreover, she had a large appetite for sex, which he really enjoyed.

“And her father is old enough and tough enough to beat both you and I into a large pile of engine grease.” The captain fired back sharply.  He had given the rich Baron his word that neither he nor anyone on his crew would in any way get involved with his very impressionable daughter.  He needed to put some fear into Taro, who had always been far too eager to get involved with the passengers.  “Is that what you want? Because he’s probably willing to do it, if he gets even an inkling of belief that a member of the crew has violated his daughter in any way.”

“Like I said, Captain, she came on to me.”

“I don’t think that will ease his tensions at all, but we’ll deal with that latter.  Right now, I have a bigger problem.  Due to a slight navigational problem, you and your new friend may be together on this ship a little longer than you initially anticipated.”  Miles sounded a little comical as he said this, wanting Taro to think he found that idea humorous.

Taro’s eyes grew big as gold coins.  While Taro enjoyed being friendly with passengers, he also enjoyed the freedom that came with knowing they would depart after a few days.  “I told you we needed a new damper valve.  Is that what broke?”

“No, but we are stuck here, at least for the moment.”

“How bad off are we?”

“That depends.  Either we find some way to navigate, or you buy the young lady an engagement ring and start making nice to her father.”  The Captain knew he now had Taro’s full attention.  “Look, the coordinates I bought off that sleazebag were completely wrong, and we’re lost in the middle of the black right now.  Do you have any brilliant ideas on how we find our way?”

Taro shrugged his shoulders.  He had never been good at math, and had certainly never studied inter-stellar navigation.

For a review of this book, click here for the article at Bookstove.com.  To purshase a copy, click here for Amazon.com.