Series: The Team Huntress Flights #1
Publication date: September 15th, 2024
Synopsis:
Running on caffeine and spite with nothing left to prove.
Maryn Alessi retired from mercenary service after her last assignment went horribly sideways and settled down on a quiet planet with the love of her life. Unexpectedly widowed, Maryn must fulfill a promise to return her mate's ashes to her home planet for funeral rites, but a brutal civil war has destabilized space travel.
Former Artemis Corps sisters-in-arms and their sassy ship, the Golden Girl, are up to the task counting on luck and their rather sketchy cargo business to get Maryn passage through the contested star lanes. But when the crew of the Girl rescue survivors of a ruthless war crime, Maryn and her ride-or-die friends must take up their old profession to save the lives of innocents from a genocidal dictator.
WHISKEY AND WARFARE is the first of The Team Huntress Flights.
Available at:
Excerpt
"Zill? You mean the rat-faced son of a bitch who bothered you at the funeral?" Jac was furious by the time Maryn was able to finish the story between hitched breaths and cold, fortifying gulps of rain globe wine. The dark curls making an escape from Jac's neat bun trembled with indignation. "I'll kill him for you."
The tangy bite of alcohol soothed some of the scratchy feeling the outburst left in Maryn's throat. Her tears had almost stopped, but the wound in her soul, no longer buried under shock and the mechanics of planning a memorial, sang with the hot-wire pain of an exposed nerve.
"It's my own damned fault I never negotiated a tenured contract after all this time." She rubbed her forehead against an ache that threatened to become a migraine, another reason she hated crying. "I assumed Andelek would live more than another century and I'd be long gone before it ever became an issue. I guess Globney did, too."
"Kissing the ass of people like Malachi Zill and his family. Corporate bastards." Scylla made a throaty noise of disgust, her muscular arms folded over her chest as she stood in the doorway. She'd changed from the suit into her customary shorts and a tank top, the colorful tattoo art collected on many worlds over her sixty-odd years bright against her arms and calves in the warm afternoon sunlight. A light breeze from the open portal ruffled her violet-tipped hair. "At least he gave you an extended leave, the condescending prick."
Maryn snuffled into a tissue. "Sorry. The crying is getting old. I can't seem to control it."
"I hear you," Scylla commiserated, her eyes on the blue slope of the mountains outside, her spacers' accent growing thicker. "Fucking waterworks all da time. It sucks."
"Goddamned hormones," Jac proclaimed with heartfelt condemnation. "I cried for three hours last week over a dead bird I found in the cargo hold." She regarded Col with an arched eyebrow. "What happens to your species as you age? I don't see you looking any different than the last time we got together."
"You can't tell?" Col stroked her furry cheeks. "I have more hair on my face."
"Don't we all?" Maryn gave a shaky laugh. "I look like I just hit puberty. I think my moustache is glorious."
"I have also developed lower breasts," the Boshi said, revealing her catlike teeth in a silent snarl of disgust.
"Mine are heading south too." Jac cupped her tits, staring at them in contemplation.
"No. Lower breasts." Col motioned to mid-abdomen beneath her tunic when it became clear they did not follow. "My second set."
All three humans stared at her with varying degrees of curiosity. "What are they for?" Scylla asked.
"In my society I would be expected to help nurse the litters of my children. If I had any." Col's furry ears flapped as she shuddered. "Mewling, damp little things. Why anyone would want them is a mystery."
Frequently under the influence of caffeinated beverages, she also writes as Elisabeth Hamill for young adult readers in fantasy with the award-winning Songmaker series.
She lives with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.
Visit her website and her blog.
.png)
