Excerpt from Love in the Starry Deep

 Here's an excerpt from my Far Stars Series Prequel!

COMING SOON

Wil is an engineer who decided to flee Germany rather than make deadly bombs for the Third Reich. Many years later, in remote Canada, he builds a rocket to a plan he had to hide from the German military. 

He will fulfill his dream of seeing the stars from space.

He knows it is a one-way trip. Yet his fanciful grandmama envisioned living in the stars...

EXCERPT

He was sad for the animals. The kittens somehow managed to play and amuse him in zero gravity. Mitzi would allow him to harness her to the bench, where she could bat at the kittens and float a bit herself. She was not at all fond of it, but she would let him hold her close and pet her, emitting a harsh purr.

He figured a few more days, maybe four, on the air. He was glad that the animals hadn’t suffered for lack of food and water. It perhaps had been wrong to bring them, but it was still better than freezing to death in a Canadian winter.

Perhaps Grandmother has a little cottage in heaven, with a nice garden. 

He called out his data on his radio daily. Did anyone on Earth hear him? Or anyone, anywhere?

“Wilhelm Heinz, from the village Lindenbad, east of Augsburg, here. Launched my rocket from central Saskchatewan, Canada, North America. This will be my last message as my oxygen is almost gone. Here are my coordinates.”

“I made my powerful rocket shoot for the stars, not to destroy a city of innocents for mad men in the Third Reich. There are notes in my cabin. Farewell, my friends. Leb wohl.”

***

Wil woke to an excruciating headache accompanied by neck and shoulder pain. Sharp. He couldn’t open his eyes. Dying is an awful business.

He was cold, but could feel something warm all around. Gradually, his shivering slowed to a stop. 

Warm… there should be nothing warm.

A kitten meowed, loud and clear. That would be Rot the largest orange striped kitten, such a loud fellow.

The meow was drowned out by voices. Not speaking English or Canadian French. Not Deutsch. A Native language? He had not learned any of those yet.

Oh. I can’t be back in Saskatchewan. There was no way for this ship to return to Earth.

He was finally able to pry his eyelids apart, just a slit. Bright lights, white walls. People with blue skin, dressed alike. Blue skin? They wore plain, odd uniforms.

Painfully, he turned his head to see the kittens, who were noisy. They were in a large cage with Mitzi, who slept, but he could see her belly rising and falling with breaths. There was a bowl of water in the cage, and the rags from their little cubby on the ship were in there, too. Rot was hanging from the wire. Two siblings nuzzled Mitzi, who woke, blinking.

Next to the cats was a cage with Bette and Ilsa, with greenery on the floor. Their feed sack sat next to it. They were pecking for feed and seemed content. Such good hens.

Blue people crowded around him, staring at glass rectangles and chattering. One reached over and placed a cold pack of slick material on his aching forehead. He then noticed a tube in his nose and tubes in his arms.

Blue space people rescued him. It was too hard to think about, logically. He was so tired. Made no sense. Star people.