I gotta question: If a writer uses a pen name, is it her pseudonym’s birthday, too?

It’s the first day of the month, so I do have a new Hot Flash, but I also have a guest writer posting here. She’s been here before, under one name or another, and she’s here today on her birthday!

Babs Mountjoy, aka Lyndi Alexander! Tell us about your new book, one of you.

Giving it up—then losing it all

Captain Temms Rogers, the main protagonist of HORIZON SHIFT, is a man who’s sacrificed a lot. A career officer in the Confederation, the sector’s ruling alliance, he’s dedicated his life to his work, leaving an ex-wife, his children and a lot of other broken promises in his wake. As a result, he’s a highly-trusted man, one who gets the opportunity to try out some new alien technology on his bridge, his lover Ramona the science officer in charge.

He’s also a very unhappy man.

The Confederation has recently changed policy from inviting worlds to join them into coercing worlds to join them. When one small planet, Persios, decides not to join, the Confederation plans an attack to “convince” them or take them over. And this, Temms just can’t live with.

He and several other fleet captains rebel against this wrong course of action and turn on their own comrades in an effort to stop the attack. They seem to have succeeded, but the battle grows fierce, and Temms is forced to take extreme measures to save his crew, not all of whom are mutineers. He orders Ramona to activate the alien tech, not sure exactly what it will do, but left without a choice.

EXCERPT:

The scope’s light reflected sickly green on Ramona’s face. The alien technology was untested, an archaeological find Rogers’ ship had been assigned to study. Ramona believed it might be a weapon. The rough translation of the relic’s hieroglyphics indicated the makers prescribed use of the device ‘when in a desperate situation.’ If there was anything more desperate, he couldn’t guess what it might have been.

Rogers prayed it was something against which the Talon and the rest of the fleet had no defense, or they were all dead.

Dark-skinned helm officer Kai Windthorp helped Ramona program the device with taut determination. The rest of the bridge crew returned to their workstations, their voices a buzz in the background, more immediately concerned with saving their lives than politics.

“We need the miracle, Rae. Make it happen!” Rogers threw himself into his chair with a grunt as he hit the hard cushion. “Everyone strap in!” From his seat, set in the middle of the back wall of the bridge, he checked each of the other stations. His officers grabbed belts and secured themselves, ready for anything.

Her eyes studied him, fear echoing in their depths. But she’d followed his orders. She trusted him. They all did. “Weapon activated, Captain, and aimed toward the fleet.”

He took a deep breath. “Now!” With a silent prayer, Rogers clenched his fist and waited to see what would happen.

To his surprise, there was no explosion. Nothing left the ship. A ray of red light seemed to flutter in black space ahead of them for a few moments, then coalesced into a cloudy opening – a wormhole.

“May the stars preserve us,” Ramona murmured.

Rogers was almost hypnotized by the sight on the screen, as they all were. The ship took a devastating hit, jolting them all back to reality. Ramona’s console exploded in a shower of sparks and she went down. Power faded, returned.

He stifled his first instinct to jump to Rae’s side. No time for the tragedy right in front of him. He’d have plenty of heartbreak on his shoulders today. Blocking the image of his fallen lover from his mind, he barked orders.

“Helm! Kai, take us in! Now!” He didn’t know where it went, but it had to be better than what they faced:  the Confederation fleet poised for a death blow.

“Aye, aye, sir!” Windthorp, face bleeding from flying debris, stumbled into his seat and hit his board. The ship flew ahead into the red-neon-toned opening as one last powerful volley from the Talon seemed to knock them forward.

Jal Burko’s enraged voice chased them over the comm system.

“Don’t think this is the last you’ll hear of this, Rogers! You’ve killed too many good men and women with this stunt. I’ll hunt you down and kill you like the traitorous Gonoran snake you are!” The cloudy violet, red and maroon interior of the wormhole pulsed on the screen for a few seconds, then everything went black.

***

When he wakes up, his ship is broken, much of his crew dead and he has one imperative: save the ones who are left and keep flying, before Burko finds him.

The clock ticking, Rogers enlists an assortment of people to help him rebuild and repair his ship, many of them misfits who deserve a second chance, each with a special talent to share: a runaway bride, a 17-year old navigation whiz sold into slavery, a cocky xenophobic engineer, a pair of genetically engineered lizard-humans. He even finds a friend aboard he never expected.

A chance meeting with an economic power called the Consortium brings Rogers powerful friends, and the key to putting the clues of this alien technology together. But the appearance of a strange autistic boy, abandoned in the Doubtful’s cargo bay, becomes the catalyst that may save the ship and its crew from Burko’s single-minded hatred when all else fails.

Find out more at: http://lyndialexander.wordpress.com/the-horizon-crossover-series/    and http://www.dragonflypubs.com/dfp/horizonshift.html
PAPERBACK LINKS:
| $14.99 Amazon.com
| Amazon.UK
| Barnes & Noble
| $14.99 Createspace   Get 15% off paperbacks at Createspace: B3PY6HNE

EPUB EBOOK LINKS:
| $5.99 Apple iTunes [link defunct]
| $5.99 B&N Nook
| $5.99 Smashwords

KINDLE EBOOK LINKS:
| $5.99 Amazon.com
| Amazon.UK

PDF EBOOK LINKS:
| $5.99 Lulu NEW

Thanks, gal! It’s always a pleasure to have you as a guest. As Shakespeare’s Romeo said, “A friend by any other name would be as sweet.” Or something like that.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Why do we like stories of unlikely friendships and of misfits succeeding?

MA