Fifteen episodes. One grand space opera.
For thousands of years, humans were isolated from each other by vast gulfs of time and distance. The emergence of the Fey changed everything. Harnessing their power into stardrives collapsed the distance between worlds, ushering in a golden age of commerce and exploration. Some profited honestly. Others took to the stars for the freedom of plunder and infamy.
Few have gained more notoriety than the crew of the Corinthian. When a routine raid wins them a new breed of stardrive, they come to realize this bounty is no gentle Fey — it is the Djinn, an ancient horror whose discovery will determine the fates of gods and empires.
Demon's Bounty is available at Amazon
Author Bios:
Will has previously been published in Nature and, after traveling the world, has been working as an English teacher in Denver, CO.
Colin has been published in Lore, Aphelion, Science Fiction Short Story, Kaleidotrope, Plots with Guns, and eFiction. In addition to his freelance work in the local film industry, he is a civil servant serving the people of Colorado.
Excerpt:
The Corsair's Hellride
"Yellow
Sky?" Rata-tat said.
"Yes, Captain?" The ship's computer
sounded rushed. He never sounded rushed.
"How long
until they overtake us?"
"Two minutes and twenty-four seconds."
"Sigrdrifa,
when can we make another Feydrive jump?"
His pilot was up to
her armpits in the pulsating, metallic tissue of the Feydrive interface. She
looked back at Rata-tat through jade-tinted goggles. "I don't know that we
can take the strain. Mother's nearly in a coma, and the blood vessel in my head
has a fuse that's gotten pretty damn short."
Rata-tat nodded.
They'd made six Feyjumps in the last hour. Those short trips into Feyspace felt
something like a cross between an amusement park ride and particularly vivid
hallucination. He had nearly vomited after the last two jumps and knew that,
whatever he might be feeling, it had to be a thousand times worse for
Sigrdrifa. Passively experiencing a Feyjump was one thing. Sending your mind
into the Feydrive to facilitate the jump, quite another.
"Does not matter,
Captain," said a hirsute, barrel-chested man feverishly punching data into
a holographic star chart.
"Why's that,
Scrum?"
"Every time we
jump, enemy fleets match us. Escape is not being possible. Very skilled
astrogators."
"Of course
they're skilled astrogators, the flagships of the Angerian and Brakhian royal
navies are behind us! Let's try a diplomatic tack. Yellow Sky, open a
channel."
"To whom?"
"Whoever is in
charge of those fleets."
"Right away, Captain."
The viewing panel
lit up in a split-screen display. One side was an older man who looked like
he'd been dragged out of bed, then under a locomotive - not surprising for
someone who had likely been woken in the middle of the night by a hysterical
Chrysanthemum Countess. The other side housed a woman with hair pulled back in
a severe bun.
"Rata-tat
Solarnaut," the man said. "Return the wedding rings, now!"
"For once, I
find myself agreeing with a Brakhian," added the woman. "You have
made a dire mistake, rogue. If you do not return the rings, I will make your
hide a wedding gift to my son and the Princess of Brakhia. No doubt it will
warm them on Angeria's long winter nights."
"Close the
channel," Rata-tat said. The viewing panel changed back to the Auger feeds
of the enemy fleets. "Did you hear that, the Angerian woman is mad! What
are we going to do?"
"You could
return the wedding rings," suggested Breezy.
"Someone who
isn't the engineer, please."
Scrum tugged on his
beard and smiled.
"Captain, I am
having an idea."
"Finally,
someone important speaks. What's happening in that sick mind of yours?"
"We have new
engine, you remember? We steal it from Nekrowizards of Overlorn. It can be
helping us now."
"The Djinn
Drive? We agreed never to use it after the unpleasantness on Overlorn."
The memory was as fresh
as it was nasty. What had passed for solid intel — a gacked-out spacer in a VGW
Hall — told Rata-tat the occultists on Overlorn had discovered a new kind of
Fey creature. Nobody knew what it was or how it had been placed in an engine.
The occultists they captured could provide nothing but old legends and
theosophical nonsense, no small factors in the crew's decision to jettison them
out of the Corinthian's airlock.
Their aroma of sawdust and formaldehyde hadn't helped their chances, either.
Since then, they'd
been stuck with the thing. They had tried to sell it, succeeding only in being
laughed out of every pawnshop, antiquedrome, and scrapyard in six systems. So,
it simply sat next to the Feydrive like a fat, black wart on the Corinthian's backside.
The viewing panel
went white as the bridge shook from a surge of energy.
"What was
that?"
"Extreme long range phase-net, Captain,"
Yellow Sky said. "It fried our
exterior optics. I'll try to bring them back online."
"Captain,"
Sigrdrifa said. "A couple more of those will sever the psychic link
between myself and the Feydrive. We won't be able to jump if that
happens."
Rata-tat ran a hand
down his face. "We've got no choice. Invoke the Djinn Drive, Yellow
Sky."
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