Weekend Writing Warriors- Hair-Brained Schemes

January 18, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to another round of Weekend Writing Warriors– the hop where awesome, fearless writers take on the world of their imaginations, eight lines at a time. I’m going to keep going with my Space Opera in-progress, From Mars, With Love for a few more weeks. Last week Eli decided being a sex slave (or any kind of slave, for that matter) wasn’t on his bucket list, so he desperately started thinking on how to escape the transfer shuttle. One of his fellow abductees in an altered human called a Moon Unit in Earth slang.

***

The Moon Unit glared at Eli with an almost imperceptible shake of her head and looked away. Did she know what he was thinking? One could never be sure with Altereds how empathic or telepathic they might be.

Moon Units were the oldest of the Altereds, their mutations dating back to the earliest colonization of Earth’s Moon, when budgets and technology were strained. The Lunar Laborers were engineered to fit into compact tunnels, their skin smooth and plasticized to protect them from harsh environmental conditions. They evolved to be strong, dense and flexible, taking advantage of the scant gravity while not being susceptible to bone loss. Despite her apparent hostility Eli tried to take a seat beside her on the long metal bench that lined the shuttle but a dumb-bot guard grabbed him roughly by the shoulder, shoved him into a seat and drew down a locking bar as if they were going for a ride on a roller coaster.

Everybody got locked down the same way and Eli had more time to fume and plot then he would’ve liked – hair-brained schemes suffered from overthinking.

***

Hot guys with pew-pew guns, a glimpse of silver bikini in the background- is it any wonder my imagination is so warped? (Chekov was my favorite).

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from a published work or perhaps their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or use the address: http://www.wewriwa.com

Weekend Writing Warriors~ Moon Unit

January 11, 2015 by Alexis Duran

Hello and welcome to another round of Weekend Writing Warriors. I’m continuing with my Space Opera in progress, From Mars, With Love. It’s such a kick to write, all fiction should be this much fun. Last week poor Eli was separated from his pal Rilke after they’d both gotten nabbed by slavers. Eli’s not taking the unfortunate career change well.

***

Anger rose in Eli’s throat like bile. Too bad it was way too late to complain to his congressman about the crass slaving violations of the sweepers. A feeling of deep-seated rebellion swelled in his bones. He set his jaw and considered escape. Escaping in deep space was useless so if he were going to do something, he’d have to do it fast. He examined his fellow future sex slaves for likely compatriots in a reckless and doomed attempt to scuttle the shuttle. An obsidian-skinned Moon Unit by his side looked too fast to be true and he thought she’d make an excellent recruit for any plot. He stared at her until eye contact was made.

Anyone else have a crush on Buck Rogers/Gil Gerard back in the day?

***

If you’re cruising for bigger bites of fiction or you’re suffering from a post-Christmas funk, I’ve posted two holiday stories on this blog; The Wrong Elf Flash Version and The Longest Night featuring Axel and Liam from To Catch A Threeve. Enjoy!

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ From Mars, With Love

January 4, 2015 by Alexis Duran

New year, new story. Well, new to Weekend Writing Warriors, anyway. This crazy, free-wheeling Space Opera is next on my To Finish and Submit list. The snippet is from Chapter Two, after Eli and his pal Rilke have been most inconveniently snatched by slave sweepers while scavenging in Old York.

***

From Mars, With Love

Eli maintained his cool through the whole abducted, locked in a giant dustbin, hurled into space thing until the sex swappers arrived on the scene and he got yanked out of line. Watching Rilke dissolve into a puddle of tears broke Eli’s heart, which wasn’t an easy thing to do after the life he’d led. For the first time his survival instincts failed him and he made a futile attempt to wriggle out of a slaver’s metal grasp, if only to say a proper good-bye. This earned him a sharp jab with some sort of stun gun and he made the rest of the trip to the transfer shuttle in a numbed-out, wobbly state.

By the time the doors of the holding pen hissed shut behind them, he’d regained his right mind and returned his thoughts to practical matters, because getting sold into an unlicensed spaceport sex market was just about the unhealthiest thing that could befall a person. He figured his luck was spent and he’d better start getting resourceful fast. Without his other half, the super smart half-Martian Rilke, he’d be flying on one wing and knew it. Through a narrow viewing portal he watched the huge sweeper recede into the distance and his mood blackened.

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Because I can, that’s why.

***

If you’re cruising for bigger bites of fiction, I’ve posted two holiday stories on this blog; The Wrong Elf Flash Version and The Longest Night featuring Axel and Liam from To Catch A Threeve. Enjoy!

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Starry Nights- SFR Brigade Summer Hop

June 21, 2014 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to the SFR Brigade Starry Night Blog Hop! For my part I’ve decided to share an excerpt from my WIP, an erotic space opera. I hope you enjoy reading it and have fun continuing on the hop.

From Mars, With Love

The man in black put his hand on Eli’s shoulder and pushed him forward. “Shall we transport, or do you like it here?”

Eli shrugged the hand off, or tried to. The man squeezed tighter. Eli glared at him, yanked free and moved through the shuttle bay to a newly blowtorched hole where the marines had latched one of their mobile boarding tunnels. He took the chance to look out the wide portals. Camouflaged the color of night, the marine ship was nearly invisible. He could tell it was huge, about ten times the size of the cruiser. Battleship class. He couldn’t identify the subclass. Something new and secret. Maybe that’s why the man in black was there.

Eli’s gaze drifted beyond the void created by the ship. He froze in place. An audible gasp escaped as his mouth dropped open. He couldn’t help it. Earth hung in the abyss of space, a bluish dot approaching the point where it would become just another star.

He’d resented being called a groundling, but that’s what he was. He’d never left earth, barely ever left the surface and had only seen the stars in cheap lounge holos and vids at the library. Very rarely, when the northeastern winds picked up, he’d spotted a few distant lights in the sky beyond the gleam of the domes and towers of the city. That hadn’t stopped him from dreaming of being a pilot. In fact, the distant allure of those lights had encouraged his fantasies of adventures, far above the trash heaps of home.

This was no dream. The diamond specks of distant suns filled the swoop of space. He’d never believed there were so many. All thoughts dropped away as his reality finally hit him. No ground beneath his feet, only unfathomable distance. He expected the man in black to push him again. Instead he stood behind him. Eli could feel the heat radiating off him, a palpable contrast to the stunning emptiness all around them.

“First time off planet?” the man asked.

Eli snorted derisively. “Hardly.” But he still didn’t move. Not until propelled forward by a hand on his back. The touch was gentle this time. Somewhere in the back of his brain, Eli noted this. He’d think about it when he came down off the high of the stars.

***

My Giveaway:

Because my recently released novel, Touch of Salar, is fantasy, not science fiction, I decided to giveaway a $10.00 gift certificate to my publisher, Loose Id, so that you, dear reader, could select a steamy SF novel or whatever genre of steamy you like. After the hop ends on the 25th I’ll choose a winner by drawing a random name from everyone who comments on this post. Thanks for stopping by!

SFR Contest:

Click here to enter the Grand Prize Drawing!

Continue the Hop!

Hubble Deep Space – enhanced photo from NASA

SFR Brigade Presents- The Adventure Begins

May 9, 2014 by Alexis Duran

Hello! This is my first foray on the Science Fiction Romance Brigade website. SFR Brigade Presents is a weekly opportunity to share excerpts from published work or works in progress that fall under the wide sky dome of SF Romance. One of my current WIPS, From Mars, With Love, fits right in. If you’d like to check out the other fun and fabulous fiction being presented, click here.

Enjoy!

From Mars, With Love

No one believes me when I say I knew Eli Karmazin back when he was plain old Eli, but it’s true.

I’d always thought that Eli led a charmed life until the day we both got caught up in the slave sweeper. Eli’s swift feet and lucky avoidance of bad shit failed him that day, and I can’t say I’m sorry. Don’t get me wrong. We’s friends, Eli and I. I wasn’t sorry about him getting swept ‘cause I like having company in my misery and his company was better than most. And he had that luck, which faltered but didn’t fail him entirely. So I stuck to him like glue and hoped the sweepers would consider us a two-for-one deal and not pry us apart. They didn’t much care, we all being op-digs and self-propelled and oxy-huffers and so into the bin we went without so much as a hideeho and off we go, to Mars or maybe the lunar station or well, who really knew shit back then in the bin. Not me.

But I gets ahead of myself, as usual ‘cause I never told how me and Eli met, we unlikely friends, earthside.

From Mars, With Love is an erotic space opera. Eli and Rilke, two down-and-out earthers get picked up by a slave sweeper and find themselves on the way to Mars. When the slavers discover that Eli is in possession of a much-desired alien artifact, their adventures become even more dangerous.