We’re getting closer to our release date, so here’s an all-new excerpt from my upcoming science fiction space travel novel with Falstaff Books, The Starlight Contingency #1! If you haven’t already read the opening chapter in the first excerpt, go here first, and then catch up.

The Starlight Contingency is Titan AE meets Nikita!

Orphaned siblings Scarlett and Duke Nam have had it rough. Cast aside by society, they’ve managed to stay afloat by being thieves on the streets of Alexandria, Virginia. Things plunge straight to Hell when a heist goes wrong and they’re on the run from the cops, but after they stumble into a nearby home to escape, something seemingly impossible happens – the house transforms into a spaceship and leaves the Earth’s orbit.

Scarlett and Duke awaken to find that they are now prisoners about the Titan International Spaceship. The Earth has been destroyed by the Bergleute des Todes, aka The Miners of Death. Scarlett and Duke are given the chance to become soldiers to fight the aliens who destroyed their world.

The only thing left for them is the hardest thing of all: Survival.

Release date: October 29th, 2024

Pre-order now on Falstaff Books!

SCARLETT

I woke up on the floor. It was colder than ice, colder than the Arctic Circle, colder than a penguin’s ass. Thankfully, my wrists and ankles were no longer in handcuffs, but my head was splitting. Nausea rolled through me in a sickening wave. It took a few minutes for it to pass and that was when I opened my eyes.

The room was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, were all blindingly white. I closed my eyes again and pushed up on my hands as slowly as possible. My arms felt like they were gonna fold under me at any second. The room was only about ten feet across, from what I could tell with my blurry vision.

I sat up and my back hit something solid. I glanced behind me to see a plain green cot, a white pillow, and a blue blanket. And when I turned my head to the left, I saw a man in black leaning against the metal bars on the far wall.

I scrambled backward on my hands and knees. The man shook his head and spoke with a smoky voice.

“Don’t get up too fast. You’ll—”

I stood up, walked two steps, and vomited in the corner of the room. My entire body shook, and the headache got worse. It felt like my brain was vibrating inside my skull.

“Told you so.”

I wiped my mouth clean and glared at him. “Who the fuck are you?”

My vision cleared somewhat, and I could see him properly. He was white, late twenties, tall, gray eyes, brown hair, goatee, wearing an expensive black suit, tie, and dress shoes. His hands were in his pockets as he watched me.

“Travis Hallstead,” he said. “Not that I owe you anything.”

“You owe me an explanation,” I sneered, trying once more to stand up. This time, I didn’t puke and my legs held.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “So do you.”

I snorted. “Don’t tell me. You’re gonna ask me about the Star Wars Contingency.”

“It’s the Starlight Contingency,” Travis corrected. “And yeah, I was.”

“I’ll tell you like I told the last guy. I don’t know what the fuck that is and I don’t care. Where is my brother? Where are we?”

He shook his head, smirking. “You’re a hard ass, I’ll give you that. But that’s not gonna get you what you want. If you play ball, maybe you won’t spend the rest of your life rotting in this cell and all the charm and anger in the world won’t get you out.”

I walked closer, my mouth set in a firm line. He pushed off from the wall, staring me down without an ounce of fear.

“I’m gonna ask you one last time, Mr. Travis Hallstead. Where…is…my…brother?” I enunciated each word with a venomous tone.

“That’s the least of your worries right now, trust me.”

“Wrong answer.” I threw a punch at him.

He ducked and grabbed my wrist, throwing me against the wall behind him. “You really don’t wanna do this, little girl.”

“Fuck you!” I threw another punch, two more, but he dodged them, stepping back so that they went right past his nose. I switched to low jabs, trying to hit him in the stomach, but he blocked them each time with liquid-fast reflexes. This man was trained, and well. There was no way I could beat him with my fighting skills. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t gonna try.

I faked a haymaker that made him sidestep, and the back of his legs hit the cot, giving me a couple seconds to move. I shoved him and he fell back onto the cot. I grabbed his tie and yanked him up so that he dangled there awkwardly, raising my right fist.

“Tell me where my brother is or I’ll pound that goatee right off your pretty face,” I growled.

To my surprise, he offered me a slick grin and then punched me in the right kidney, making me let go of the tie. I fell forward onto his lap, and he grabbed my arms, crossing them over my chest so that I couldn’t move.

“You done?” Travis asked in an infuriatingly calm voice.

I struggled, but his grip was like iron. I couldn’t move backward out of his lap or to the side, which made me even angrier. “Not by a long shot.”

“Well, as much as I’ve enjoyed playing with you,” he replied in a sharp, sarcastic tone, “you need more time to cool off and think about your priorities.”

“Oh, I’ve got those straight. Kick your ass, get out of this cell, get my brother, and get the hell out of here.”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it. There is no ‘out of here.’ Like it or not, this place is all you have left now. It’s what we all have left.”

“What are you talking about?”

His dark eyes searched mine for a long moment and then a look of interest spilled through them. He tilted his head a bit, frowning. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“How many times have I said that already? I don’t know what happened before we blacked out. We were in the Rosewoods’ mansion and then everything started shaking and then we passed out. That’s all I know. Nothing else.”

His hands loosened on my wrists. “Why were you in their mansion?”

“We…” I bit my bottom lip, choosing my words carefully. “…were on the run. We needed a place to hide and that’s where we hid. They weren’t our targets—they were just convenient. Nothing more.”

His grip tightened to the bruising point. “You’re lying again.”

“I’m not lying,” I snapped. “What do you want me to say? The Rosewoods aren’t dead, right? If we had been sent to kill them, then we would have known about their freaky steel doors and magic house vibrator and crazy grandma—”

His eyes widened. “You spoke to Evelyn Rosewood?”

“Briefly. She was just babbling. I figured she was senile.”

“What did she babble about?”

“Something about us being chosen, that there was someone waiting in the darkness.”

Another look went through his eyes—not fear, but maybe a cousin of the feeling mixed with genuine surprise. Before I could ask him about it, he spoke again. “Last thing—what’s your name?”

I eyed him. “Who wants to know?”

His fingers finally went slack around my arms and a ghost of a smile returned to his lips.

“Me.”

I stared at him. I couldn’t really lose anything by answering him. I was already in a prison. Things couldn’t get much worse than that, by my account.

“Scarlett. With two t’s.”

He glanced at the two streaks of bright red hair at my temple. “Changed your name to fit your hairstyle?”

I smiled. “No, but I get that a lot. It’s after my birthmark.”

His eyes immediately started searching for a blemish on my skin. “Birthmark? Where?”

My smile stretched. “Not on a first date, Mr. Hallstead. Though I think we’re about halfway there anyway.”

He then noticed I had been sitting in his lap this entire time and let me up. I flopped against the cot as he stood, letting the humor drain out of me. “I answered your questions, now answer mine.”

Travis dusted off his suit and adjusted his tie, then regarded me with a serious look.

“Your brother is being detained and questioned in this facility as well. It’s unlikely that the two of you will see each other again any time soon.”

His words scared me to my very core. I took a deep breath to calm myself. “Who are you? CIA? FBI? NSA? Division?”

“It doesn’t matter. The point is that if your brother corroborates your story, you might have options, but as of now, you’re to remain a prisoner.”

“For how long?”

He said nothing, only rapping his knuckles against the metal door to his right. A guard dressed in black body armor walked over and unlocked the jail cell, letting him out. He left.

I pulled my legs up to my chest, blanketed in total silence.

“…where do I pee?”

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE STARLIGHT CONTINGENCY

You can get it in ebook or paperback on Falstaff or Amazon!

Excerpt #3 is also now available to read for free! Add the book to your Goodreads shelf in the meantime! Stay tuned for more excerpts and other author-related things from Kyoko M!

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