Diane Burton: #WeWriWa ~ THE PILOT: Wanna Party?

Each weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors share an 8 - 10 sentence snippet. Be sure to visit the other authors. You can find them here.

Thanks to everyone who visited last week.

I'm sharing snippets from The Pilot: An Outer Rim Novel. It's the 1st book in a series featuring strong women on the frontier of space. When Celara's ship is hailed by one claiming to be Coalition Security, she gives them the slip in an asteroid field. In this snippet, she's landed at Vesteron Colony to deliver her cargo and sees a mechanic bent over an engine. The last sentence was: As she stared at his butt, all she could think was oh, mama.

Please excuse the creative punctuation, necessary to keep this within the guidelines. It's also edited a little from the original.

Celara hoped he was human and the rest of him lived up to the preview—better yet, she hoped he was in a party mood. After escaping from the pirates, she wanted to howl . . . and someone to howl with.

“Hey, big boy,” she called to the mechanic, “Wanna party?”

“Yo, d’Enfaden,” a pilot hollered, “How come you never ask me to party?”

“You space jocks will party all night then stick me with the bill,” she shot back before approaching the mechanic, “You there, working on the Agilean—that is one fine ship.”

When he turned around, she sucked in a breath, Oh, yeah, a primal part of her sat up and took notice. His backside, gorgeous as it was, didn’t compare to the rest of him—the broad shoulders and muscles of a laborer plus the black hair, square jaw and blade-straight nose of Bricaldian aristocracy—what a delicious combination.

He tossed aside the rag on which he’d wiped his hands, then he raised his arms to slip them into the work uniform, and she noticed a fading red scar near the bottom of his ribcage. Knife fight . . . he was lucky the wound hadn’t been deeper or higher.

There's no place like home, and he stole hers.

Life on the frontier of space is hard enough so when pirates stole Celara d'Enfaden's cargo, she vowed not to be tricked again.

Determined to make an example out of indie pilots who disobey orders, Coalition Administrator Trevarr Jovano impounds Celara’s starship and cargo. If he backs down, he’ll lose respect. If she can’t deliver her cargo, she’ll default on her loan and lose her only home—her ship.

More important than her ship, though, is her brother. To rescue him from a galactic gangster, she’ll even work with Jovano who is bent on avenging his wife’s murder.