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Dreaming of the Stars

Page 4

by Cora Buhlert


  Arthur Madden, miner’s son from Askvig IV turned Rebel leader turned most wanted man in the universe. He has dedicated his life to fighting the Empire and putting an end to injustice and inequality. However, in order to achieve that goal, he needs allies, including some who seem to represent everything he fights against.

  Alanna Greyskull, former commander in the Imperial Navy. Court-martialled for refusing to scorch a planet full of unarmed civilians, she escaped the firing squad and wound up joining the Great Galactic Rebellion, because there was nowhere else she could go. Ever since then she has been trying to bring some semblance of organisation to the chaotic rabble that makes up the Rebellion, while plotting to make the Empire pay for what was done to her.

  When these three meet in a nameless restaurant on the planet Wei Xiu II, lives are changed and history is made and the universe will never be the same…

  Mercy Mission

  Holly di Marco used to think that joining the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire was a good career move. However, she is beginning to doubt her judgment, for her rebel comrades treat her as nothing but a lowly mercenary, never to be entrusted with anything important.

  During a rescue mission to the planet of Caswallon, Holly is given the boring duty to guard some service tunnels, while her fellow rebels get to have all the fun once again. However, this dull job turns out to be a lot more exciting than expected when Holly runs into a traumatised young man and saves him from an Imperial death squad.

  The man Holly rescued turns out to be Ethan, Lord Summerton, only survivor of an aristocratic family with rebel sympathies. Saving his life brings Holly to the attention of the elected leaders of the rebellion. It also changes her own life irrevocably, for as they used to say on Old Earth, saving someone’s life means being responsible for him for the rest of your own.

  Seedlings

  Once Ethan Summerton was the heir to a lordship, and a whole planet besides. But all that was taken from him, when his father decided to side with the Galactic Rebellion against the Fifth Human Empire and was murdered for his troubles along with the entire Summerton family, leaving Ethan the only survivor.

  Now, cooped up with more than two thousand other Rebels in the eternal night of the planet Pyrs, Ethan Summerton is reduced to tending the rebel base’s greenhouse. Not that he minds — Ethan has never been a snob and besides, he’s always liked gardening. Besides, it gives him the chance to impress his new best friend Holly with the crops he’s growing.

  A hardened mercenary, Holly di Marco doesn’t have much use for gardens and greenhouses and strange leafy things. But they matter to Ethan and since Holly is supposed to take care of him, she tries to feign interest as well.

  But then one day, an incident involving a lost little girl, chickens and batavia lettuce shows her what Ethan Summerton is truly made of.

  History Lesson

  The nights are long on the rebel world of Pyrs, most of the man and women hiding out there have demons that haunt them and everybody deals with those demons in their very own way.

  For Holly di Marco and Ethan Summerton, once a mercenary and an outlawed aristocrat respectively and now two of the more than two thousand rebel fighters on Pyrs, the best way of staving of the nightmares is arguing about politics, eating sweets and getting drunk, very drunk.

  But one long night of arguing about politics reveals some unexpected truths about the history of the Fifth Human Empire… and also about Holly and Ethan.

  Debts To Pay

  Once Carlotta Valdez was a mercenary, working for the highest bidder. No job was too dirty or too dangerous as long as she got paid.

  But then Carlotta had a change of heart. She joined the Rebellion against the Galactic Empire and met rebel leader Arthur Madden, perhaps the only man in the universe she genuinely admires.

  However, the past has a nasty habit of catching up with you when you least expect it. And so, while on a mission for the Rebellion, Carlotta runs into Darius Gilroy, crime lord, all around scumball and her former boss. Gilroy had a job for Carlotta and he won’t take no for an answer. And to emphasise his point, he threatens to turn her over to the Empire, if she doesn’t accept.

  So Carlotta finds herself en route to the rimworld of Rothea III to take out a druglord who has been encroaching on Gilroy's territory. The druglord certainly won’t be missed, but how can Carlotta reconcile an assassination job with her newfound rebel convictions? And how can she get Gilroy off her back, lest he threaten her and her comrades again?

  Partners in Crime

  The Premier Imperial Bank of Houshou is the financial institute of choice for the rich and the crooked of the Fifth Human Empire. The bank boosts a two thousand year history of excellent but discreet service and its vaults and computers are thought to be impenetrable.

  However, the Premier Imperial Bank of Houshou has not counted on Ethan Summerton and Holly di Marco, ex-aristocrat and ex-mercenary respectively, finding a way to breach its impenetrable security system and redirect the ill-gotten gains stored at the bank to the coffers of the Galactic Rebellion.

  On the other hand, Holly and Ethan, whose murdered family was among the select clientele of the bank, have not counted on the Premier Imperial Bank of Houshou’s rather eccentric idea of good customer service.

  Bug-eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love Them

  Six short science fiction stories that subvert the tropes and clichés of the golden age and caricature the gender dynamics of classic science fiction.

  In these pages, you’ll travel from suburban America to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. You’ll visit New Pluto City and Garrett’s World. You’ll encounter the terrors of the Brazilian jungle and the horrors of American suburbia. You’ll meet phantom lovers and alien she-devils, devious man-eaters, unseen underwater monsters and the tentacled menace of the fearsome Eee’chuk-chi’up. You’ll encounter dashing space heroes who don’t get the girl and bug-eyed monsters that do. And you’ll meet intergalactic heroines who know exactly what they want from a lover.

  Children of the Stone Gods

  This is a collection of seven tales on the borderline of science fiction and fantasy. Seven stories of lost worlds, where carcasses of crashed spaceships litter the landscape and science and technology have long turned into myth and legend.

  Enter a world of sacrifices and stone gods, where people live in the hulls of the great space arks that brought their ancestors to this planet, where four-armed assassins ply their trade and wandering priests warn of great cataclysms, where gods lie sleeping inside mountains and strange lights shine in the sky by night.

  The Hybrids

  Gordon Havers thought that he was the last man on Earth — after a virus killed off everybody else. So he lived on much as he had before the pandemic that wiped out humanity, eeking out a living as a trapper in the Canadian Rockies.

  But one day, there is a knock on the door of Gordon’s log cabin. And when he opens the door, he finds an attractive young woman on his doorstep to his infinite surprise. So perhaps Gordon isn’t the last living human being after all? And maybe there is still a future for the human race.

  There’s only one problem. Joanna Creed isn’t human…

  Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime

  Kai and Maisie are about the celebrate their first Valentine’s Day on the planet Iago Prime. However, the holiday traditions they established back on Earth such as celebrating Valentine’s Day with a picnic on the beach are impossible to maintain in the hostile environment of their new home. But in spite of the many limitations imposed by living on Iago Prime, Kai pulls out all the stops to give Maisie an unforgettable Valentine’s Day.

  Whaler

  The premature explosion of a rocket harpoon fatally damages the spaceship Starbuck III, a whaling vessel dedicated to hunting the giant space whales Balaenoptera Tregannae. But was the explosion an accident or sabotage?

  One of the few survivors is Billy Baddoff, crewman second class. Only the luck of a low cabin number saved h
im from certain death in the vacuum of space.

  Hunting space whales is highly controversial, even though the giant beasts show no signs of intelligence and endanger human space colonies with their relentless appetite for rocks. But though he considers the creatures dangerous pests, Billy had no political motive for signing on aboard the Starbuck III. He only needed a job. Though having his ship blown up underneath him may just harden Billy’s views, provided he makes it off the rapidly failing vessel first…

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  Other Books by Cora Buhlert

  In English

  1. Series

  Shattered Empire

  Conspirators

  Mercy Mission

  Seedlings

  History Lesson

  Debts to Pay

  Partners in Crime

  In Love and War

  Dreaming of the Stars

  The Unity Incident

  Courting Trouble

  Bullet Holes

  Dead World

  The Silencer

  Countdown to Death

  Flying Bombs

  The Spiked Death

  Elevator of Doom

  The Great Fraud

  Mean Streets and Dead Alleys

  Fact or Fiction

  St. Nicholas of Hell’s Kitchen

  The Helen Shepherd Mysteries

  The Cork and the Bottle

  Overdose

  Bank Job

  Open Season

  A Bullet for Father Christmas

  Paris Green

  Dead Drop

  Egg Hunt

  Mightier than the Sword

  Kitchen Witch

  Chamber Play

  The Day The Saucers Came

  Acacia Crescent

  Lovers’ Lane

  Double Feature

  Zane Smith and Shoushan Kariyan

  The Dark Lily

  The Other Side of the Curtain

  Hallowind Cove

  The Revenant of Wrecker’s Dock

  The Cursed Arm of Driftwood Beach

  Alfred and Bertha’s Marvellous Twenty-First Century Life

  The Four and a Half Minute Boiled Egg

  The Faulty Television Receiver

  The Tinsel-Free Christmas Tree

  The Three Quarters Eaten Dessert

  2. Standalones

  A History of the New Ice Age

  After the End — Stories of Life After the Apocalypse

  Albrecht, the Nightmare

  Boardwalk Baby

  Bug-Eyed Monsters and the Women Who Love Them

  Cartoony Justice

  Children of the Stone Gods

  Christmas Eve at the Purple Owl Café

  Christmas Gifts

  Christmas Shopping with a Broken Heart

  Courier Duty

  Demolition

  Dream Job

  Family Car

  Flights of Madness

  Four Minute Warning

  Hanging Day

  Hangman’s Wages

  ”He has come back to me…”

  He never brings me Flowers…

  Heartache

  Honeypot

  Hostage to Passion

  Insomnia

  Kiss of Ice

  Letters from the Dark Side

  Liquid Muse

  Loot

  Love in the Times of the Macrobiotic Müsli

  Murder in the Family

  Muse and Crisis

  New York City’s Finest

  Old Mommark’s Tale

  Operation Rubber Ducky

  Our Lady of the Burning Heart

  Outlaw Love

  Payback Time

  Pissed

  Rites of Passage

  Seeing Red

  Seraglio

  Southern Monsters

  Spiked Tea

  The Apocalypse Protocol

  The Butcher of Spain

  The Death of the American Dream

  The Hidden Castle

  The Hybrids

  The Iron Border

  The Kiss of the Executioner’s Blade

  The Sheriff of Deadshot Creek

  Thirty Years to Life

  Under the Knout

  Valentine’s Day on Iago Prime

  Whaler

  In German

  Auf der anderen Seite

  Der Kuss des Richtschwertes

  Die Liebe in den Zeiten des Frischkornmüslis

  Familienkutsche

  Gesetzlose Liebe

  Heiligabend im Café zum Lila Kakadu

  Honigtopf

  Kurierdienst

  Last-Minute-Geschenke

  Reiche Beute

  Unter dem Galgen

  Unter der Knute

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