Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)
Page 33
But just when it seemed like they might, the ship around them exploded.
If one had been floating in just the right location outside of Syrruk space, one would have seen an old-model cargo-class ship come hurtling out of faster-than-light with a cough of golden color and spin wildly end over end as the drive imploded. It was a chain reaction to the drive engaging at the moment the supply of starstuff ran dry, and the vessel was pulled violently back into normal space, where the rules of light and physics applied.
One also would have seen fractures shatter the old vessel. White wisps of atmosphere hissed through the cracks, and chunks of metal, wiring, and personal belongings began to spread out in a debris cloud.
One would have been very concerned for those poor air-breathing souls who were inside.
Very concerned indeed.
Slink brought Petrick up to the command deck, Plodda at his side. Neither had said a word to Petrick the entire time, nor had he felt remotely inclined to make conversation with the slimy man or the behemoth of a woman. And she was a woman. Petrick had heard her called General Plodda. Slink had left his hand possessively on Petrick’s shoulder from the moment that he’d let himself fall to the ground at his feet.
The message that Petrick had sent to the Authority, the message he hadn’t been sure had gone through on the Red Robert’s dilapidated communications equipment, had apparently been received and his conditions accepted.
They’d left his friends alone.
The capital ship had arrived to snatch him up even faster than he’d calculated. The Authority seemed, if nothing else, to be efficient. One had to be, he supposed, when you were keeping the entirety of human civilization under your boot heel.
“A ship pursues,” a voice called out from one of the dozens of posts on the command deck. “Shall we apprehend?”
The voice was addressing Slink, who turned to the appropriate display screen. It snapped on, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Petrick fought the urge to burst into tears. It was the Red Robert. All of this would be in vain were they to catch up, or if the capital ship slowed to meet them.
“Slow to—” Slink began in a raspy, grating voice.
“No!” Petrick shouted. “Leave them alone. That was the deal.”
Slink looked down at Petrick with cold eyes. Petrick knew he didn’t care.
Slink was about to speak again to order the capture of Petrick’s loved ones anyway, the deal be damned, when another voice spoke out from behind them. It was a voice Petrick knew immediately, and it carried an authority with it that Slink’s voice never could.
“The boy is right,” it said. “That was the deal.”
Slink released his hand from Petrick’s shoulder.
“Let the ship go, and continue on our course,” the voice said.
Petrick turned, slowly, both an undeniable excitement and uncontrollable dread filling up his chest and his throat. He laid eyes upon the tall, broad man who stood before him.
“Dad,” Petrick said.
“Hello, Petrick,” answered Fenton of Indacar, Master Purveyor of the Authority.
STARSTUFF WILL RETURN!
www.iraheinichen.com
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you.
Yes, you right here reading this note, hanging so precariously at the end of a story on a cliff. You not only picked this book out of the overwhelming avalanche of reading options, but you finished it and now you’re reading this!
Clearly, this is not the end of Petrick’s story, or Clarke’s, or SuzyBarryHaberBaltaEtc’s. As you read these words, the second book in this trilogy has been written and is deep in the editing process. There is so much more adventure to come! Questions shall be answered! Who is Fenton? Is he evil? Is the crew of the Red Robert okay? DOES THE SOURCE EXIST?
This is my first book, my novel debut. It’s certainly not the first story I’ve ever told, but it is the first that I've published. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Foremost, Starstuff was always meant to be a grand adventure, the kind I'd read in books or watched on the screen and always dreamed of when looking up at the stars. Starstuff is also about family and how, since there are so many definitions of that word, we must each decide what family means to us. That’s a topic near and dear to my heart as someone who comes from a family that was/is far from traditional, just like our heroes.
I took a roundabout way to becoming a writer, to say the least. When I was Petrick’s age, I wanted to be a train engineer. Before that, it was a truck driver. Such practical, quintessentially-boy dreams, right? But then I fell in love with reading. It started with the Hardy Boys; I read every single one of them, all 58 of the originals, plus several dozen of the later books.
When I was a teenager, covered in acne and emotions, I wanted to write tales of love and space so the girls in my classes would fall in love with me (a dubious strategy, let me tell you). I voraciously read Tolkien and Clarke, Star Trek and Star Wars.
In college, I studied theater and was introduced to the classical masters such as Chekhov and Billy Shakes. After college, I was an actor, screenwriter, director, and dabbled in music as a DJ and the head of an indie recording label (which is still going!).
Now . . . I’ve come home. Apart from, perhaps, sitting around the campfire and telling scary stories, books are the purest form of “story” in existence. They are perfect in the sense that they are complete in and of themselves. All they need to come to life is you, the reader. That is to say, we’re talking about you and me, and how glad I am that you’re here bringing my story to life with your imagination.
I want to get to know you! We live in a time of unparalleled connectivity, and I want to connect with you! I swears!
Please, if you enjoyed this book, click here to give it a rating on Amazon. I can’t emphasize enough what your words of encouragement will mean to me, and although I’ll be finishing this trilogy regardless, it maaaaay just push me to write it a little bit faster. Especially if it’s an OUTSTANDING review :)
Want to know exactly when the next book is coming out, get exclusive sneak peaks (like actual chapters and such), and have the chance every single month to win a signed paperback? I do all of that with my special group of readers:
Click here to join the VIP Readers list
I’m also on Facebook and journal on my website iraheinichen.com every single day. Drop by any time!
Lastly…and this is for you for reading all this way…I have a super secret special giveaway! If you email me at authorira@gmail.com with the subject line “STARSTUFF SECRET GIVEAWAY” and provide me with the password “Clarke for President,” you just might get your hands on a sneak peek of the next book in this trilogy. See you there!
-Ira Heinichen, October 2017
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my wife who has read this book several times over, thank you to my mom, dad, brothers Seth, Scott, and Russell (I miss you every day), to Cooper and Coco for being my shadows, to Brian Millett, Nikolai From, Kerry Kleiman, Dayna Stephens, Steven Rowley, Craig Schaefer and Chris Fox, to all my beta readers, to my editor, my proofreader, Tom Edwards, everyone in the 20Books group, my advanced review team, all my English and Theater teachers over the years who opened my eyes to the wonders of storytelling and literature, and finally to anyone who ever reads this or any other book I write. From the depths of my heart, I love you all.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Coming Soon!
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments