Have you entered the BestSelling Reads Spring Fling Science-Fiction & Fantasy Giveaway yet? You could win this collection of sci-fi short stories (plus 9 other books on a new e-reader)
By Elyse Salpeter
“Pierce, hustle it up! We’re leaving.”
I launched myself at the table, grabbed the mug and gulped down the contents. Of course I moved too fast and some of it missed my lips. Half the tea dribbled down my chin and onto my shirt. A shot of fear went through me.
“Now, Pierce!”
Swallowing hard, I propelled myself towards the portal and hoped for the best, jumping inside with just seconds to spare. Brilliant shades of blue and gold exploded around me. I sucked up as much of the liquid from my shirt as I could and prayed that it was enough.
With a violent thump, I landed flat on the ground, my face pressed into the dirt and wet grass in my mouth. Once I spit it out and the stars stopped ricocheting in my brain, I raised my head.
Five chastising faces stared down at me.
“Serves you right.” Commander Auraura Letrall kicked me in my shin. “You’re lucky you even made it. You could have been stuck like Dimitris.” She glared at me, stalked towards the console and closed the porthole. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
I stood and brushed myself off, ignoring the snickers of the others.
Tripp elbowed me. “You just continue to push it, don’t you?
”I grinned, the ever present jokester. “I like living on the edge.”
He eyeballed me. “Just so you realize the edge could leave you hanging in a world you might not want to land in one day. Like one with no air?”
Leave it to Tripp to take the fun out of everything.
It was the year 2452 and I was part of an elite police force whose job was to find and prosecute civilians who flipped to parallel universes to create chaos. Ever since a great man named Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity and the possibility that time travel was conceivably possible, scientists like Hawking and those after him had been trying to test that theory into reality. Well, they succeeded, in part. Time travel wasn’t possible, but imagine their surprise that instead of hanging out with dinosaurs in the past, we had the ability to flip to an alternate universe in our same time period that actually HAD dinosaurs! Of course, in that universe not too many criminals found fortune negotiating with a bunch of oversized lizards.
Lifting my sleeve, I flicked open my watch display until it expanded to the size of my palm. The computer screen flipped up and one-handed I typed in the coordinates.
“What have you got, Pierce?” I thought I heard exasperation in the Commander’s voice.
Not that I blamed her. I was a thorn in her side from the moment I came into her command, and while nepotism helped me get the job, nothing my grandfather did would help me keep it if I wasn’t good at what I did. Still, I knew the Commander didn’t respect me. I had only been on her team for a few weeks and during that time I had gotten into two bar fights, which weren’t my fault, was late to two missions, which again wasn’t my fault, and missed one convict by mere seconds. Again, not entirely my fault. Dimitris was my partner and the idiot drank the wrong bottle he kept in his backpack. Leave it to a tired dad of a newborn to mix up breast milk and tea. Now we could only hope he flipped someplace where he could survive until we stumbled upon him.
About Titantium Flow
Why pick only one sci-fi genre when you can have them all in this collection of exciting science fiction stories!
TITANIUM FLOW: It was supposed to be a simple mission. Mine the titanium on a deserted planet and return it to earth. No one knew they wouldn’t be alone.
In A BAD DAY AT SCHOOL, find out what was in that jar that little Roger brought to school and why it terrified everyone.
In THE GARDEN, discover why a loving husband has walled up a section of his garden in the back of his property. And why he refuses to let anyone go near it.
And in THE FLIP, you learn how very important it is to drink all your tea… because if you don’t, you might simply disappear.
This collection will scratch all the sub-genre itches, from hard science, to speculative fiction, to sweet romance. Discover a new favorite sci-fi genre today!
Enter the Spring Fling Science-Fiction and Fantasy Giveaway to win Titanium Flow on a new Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, along with 9 more great science-fiction and fantasy titles.
