Smooth Jazz

Book Seven of the Celestial Serenade

Available on Kindle (and Kindle Unlimited) and in Paperback!

Two civilizations forge uncertain paths to the future.
One legend inspires them.

Kantis has been compromised, and the humans have fallen under attack – resulting in the disappearance of one of their own. Their alliance hovers on the verge of collapse as their new enemy closes his sinister net and the mistakes of the past come home to roost.

The only hope for the human-Caltaran alliance now lies with their hated enemy, the Ruvalli, who flee before the terror of the weapon they unleashed. But old biases are hard to kill – and the Caltarans have fought the Ruvalli for nearly 10,000 years.

While Anten and Salis rush to tame the tempers of the Council, and Liam attempts to keep the military united, Gaia races to save the shade of a once-innocent, long-forgotten boy who used to worship the ground Kantis walked on.

The ultimate fate of the Earth hangs in the balance as the Caltarans wrestle with the long elusive concept of peace. But it is individual relationships that might determine the outcome.

The moment of truth…
“All right Zylockman, you’re all set. Three seconds to shield deactivation.”

Instead of breathing a sigh of relief, Rynick held his breath. He didn’t have to count the seconds; his console beeped them for him.

Three…

You don’t have to do this.

Two…

As soon as you hit the button it’s too late.

One.

He jabbed the button.

Somewhere deep inside the software governing his ship’s system, binary ones and zeroes rearranged into a new configuration. His engines sputtered, coughed and went dead. His nav computer silently re-directed to a new location.

Rynick tapped the cool metal of the console beside several buttons to make it seem like he was frantically trying to make his ship move.

“What’s going on over there, Zylockman?” the voice of the Dragonman demanded, sharp as a whip and cold as ice.

“I don’t know,” he insisted, breathless. “I seem to have stalled.”

“Did your pre-flight checks reveal any issues with your engines?”

He could almost feel the orbital cannons shifting to lock onto his position. “No!” he squeaked. He thought maybe it was a good thing. If he had been calm, they would have known something was wrong. “Just give me a moment to bring everything back online. I think it’s coming up now… Here we go!”

The moment of truth.

Rynick smacked the button that would activate his faster-than-light-speed drive harder than he ever had. If luck was with him, the stars would rush past in a whir and he would leave Earth, the Dragonmen and their destructive cannons far behind.

But nothing happened.