"A New Life"

 Excerpt 1:

“Someone’s trying to kill me,” Milla whispered.

Adrienne stifled a yawn. What else did Milla expect? Someone was always trying to kill aristocrats. The wealthy were constant targets for every homeless revolutionary, every landless criminal. And there were plenty of these, because on the island-dotted ocean planet of Averit, land was a scarce commodity.

And if aristocrats weren’t being cided by someone on a lower social level, their peers were out to get them for business reasons. Adrienne tried to keep her tone polite as she asked her new employer, “Any idea who?”

Excerpt 2:

Stooping, the assassin pulled a vibro-blade from his boot top.

Adrienne pushed up her long skirt and drew the dagger strapped to her thigh. As the assassin ran toward Tas, she thrust herself into his path. An adrenaline rush flooded her body, that sweet-sick high that came to her, always, when the real action began.

Suddenly full of confidence in her own powers, she was serene in her ability to take this man. He aimed a careless blow at her, probably misjudging her as a foolhardy aristocrat.

She made first blood, cutting his arm with her dagger. She’d aimed for the chest but he dodged away. His eyes narrowed--now he knew he had a real opponent.

His blade slashed her right shoulder. She gritted her teeth and tried to welcome the pain, channeling it to heighten her anger.

Her sharpened senses were aware of the whole room--Namid choking, his face turning blue--Ysa trying to get up and falling back--the determined look on Tas’s face as he moved toward the assassin’s fallen weapon, his artificial leg dragging.

© 2006 Mary Ann Chulick

Back to Author's Page