Crossways

Description

To combat manipulative megacorporations with telepathic technology, two heroes must rebel, overthrowing the enemy’s oppressive influence in the second book in this exciting sci-fi adventure

Ben Benjamin, psi-tech Navigator, and Cara Carlinni, Telepath, can never go home again. To the Trust and Alphacorp alike, they are wanted criminals. Murder, terrorism, armed insurrection, hijacking, grand theft, and kidnapping are just the top of a long list of charges they’ll face if they’re caught.
 
So they better not get caught.
 
These are the people who defied the megacorporations and saved a colony by selling the platinum mining rights and relocating ten thousand colonists somewhere safe, and they’re not saying where that is.
 
They take refuge on crimelord-run Crossways Station with the remnants of their team of renegade psi-techs and the Solar Wind, their state-of-the-art jump-drive ship. They’ve made a promise to find a missing space ark with thirty thousand settlers aboard. But to do that, Ben and Cara have to confront old enemies.
 
Alphacorp and the Trust: separately they are dangerous, united they are unstoppable. They want to silence Ben and Cara more than they want to upstage each other. If they have to get rid of Crossways in order to do it, they can live with that. In fact, this might be the excuse they’ve been looking for….Praise for the Psi-Tech novels:

“Space opera isn’t dead; instead, delightfully, it has grown up…. A fine example of a novel which has its roots in the subgenre but grows beyond it.” —Jaine Fenn, author of Principles of Angels 

“Bedford mixes romance and intrigue in this promising debut, which opens the Psi-Tech space opera series…. Readers who crave high adventure and tense plots will enjoy this voyage into the future.” —Publishers Weekly

“A nostalgic space opera…. Bedford’s prose is brisk and carries the reader quite sufficiently along.” —Tor.com

“A well-defined and intriguing tale set in the not-too-distant future…. Everything is undeniably creative and colorful, from the technology to foreign planets to the human (and humanoid) characters. Author Bedford’s worldbuilding feels very complete and believable, with excellent descriptions bringing it all to life.” —RT Reviews

“I’m very, very excited to see where this series goes next. The foundation that Bedford has laid has so much potential and promise. This is an author I will watch.” —Bookworm Blues

“The first of a new space opera series that delivers the goods and holds lots of promise of things to come.” —SF SignalJacey Bedford has a string of short story publication credits on both sides of the Atlantic. She lives a thouand feet up on the edge of the Yorkshire Pennines in a two hundred year stone house. She has been a librarian, postmistress, rag-doll maker, and a folk singer in an a cappella trio. She can be found at jaceybedford.co.uk or on Twitter at @JaceyBedford.

Chapter One

WANTED

IT WAS ALL IN THE PLANNING.

Forcing people to go against their nature was almost impossible. The trick was to ascertain their true nature and allow them to indulge it—at the right time and in the right place. That was the art of the true puppet master. One of the problems with being so far from the action, however, was that once you set things in motion, you had to wait. And that was the hardest part.

Gabrius Crowder glared at the deepening purple sky outside his window, high up in the Trust’s administrative headquarters. Arkhad City glowed bright in the distance, artificial light overtaking the natural as Chenon’s fifty-hour day slid into its long dusk. Down in the compound below, tiny figures scurried between warehouses and the immense packing station next to the shuttle port, some on foot, others with float carts. Unobscured by trees or buildings, a kilometer of manicured, pink vegetation rolled to the perimeter, where a glistening curtain of pure power, beautiful but deadly, kept out unwanted visitors.

Crowder turned and gazed at the holographic galaxy hovering in the middle of his ops room. Tiny pinpoints of white light marked the Trust’s colonies while the jump gate hubs blinked rhythmically in green. The platinum-producing planets glowed blue. Not enough of them. Never enough. The jump gate network devoured platinum as fast as the megacorporations could refine it. Platinum, or lack of it, was the curse of the interstellar age.

He reached into the display and touched Olyanda, platinum rich and almost in the bag for the Trust.

Almost.

Soon.

The puppets were in the theater, the show had begun.

US

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