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    Fade Away and Radiate
    Fade Away and Radiate
    Fade Away and Radiate
    Ebook45 pages43 minutes

    Fade Away and Radiate

    By Michele Lang

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    About this ebook

    No safe place...

    Acclaimed terraformer Anika Bowman runs from her husband's killers to a remote, uninhabited planet. But then Captain Billy Murphy, the last man to see her husband alive, crash lands on her faraway haven and destroys her illusions of safety.

    Captain Billy Murphy knows who killed her husband. He wants to save Anika if he can, but first she has to let go of the past...

    This story first appeared in the Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance, and is paired with a bonus story, "The Triumph of Arachne," which was first published in the June 2013 issue of Penumbra Magazine.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFive Tigers Publishing
    Release dateMay 26, 2013
    ISBN9781301749331
    Fade Away and Radiate
    Author

    Michele Lang

    MICHELE LANG is the author of the historical urban fantasy Lady Lazarus trilogy. Like her protagonist Magda, Lang is of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry. She and her family lives on Long Island.

    Read more from Michele Lang

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      Book preview

      Fade Away and Radiate - Michele Lang

      Fade Away and Radiate

      By Michele Lang

      Copyright 2013 Michele Lang

      Artwork by Dara England

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please lend or purchase and additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Fade Away and Radiate first appeared in the Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance (Running Press, Robinson UK 2013). Please check out the other stories in the collection!

      The only woman on an uninhabitable planet listened to the wail of the nightwind, alone in a research hut in the dead of the night. She studied her data outputs, and tried like hell not to think of Roberto. Because thinking of Roberto got her thinking about why she’d come to this desolate place. And thinking of her self-exile made her think of the man she was running away from…

      There was a knock on the door.

      It was the moment she had imagined a million times with dread, and yet now that it had come, she wasn’t ready. With a gasp, Anika Bowman jumped from her chair, but before she could make any further moves, the door to her field lab swung open.

      She glanced across the hut, to where her blaster lay hidden under her flat foam pillow. Her fingers itched to grab it, but it was too late now. Anika had bet her life on the simple fact that she was too far away from the rest of humanity to be murdered. If she survived the next few minutes, she would never make such a stupid mistake again.

      Anika forced herself to look at the hulking figure filling up her doorway. Far away, outside the geodome in which she’d built the hut, the nightwind howled, hungry, unrequited. The haunting sound still pierced her heart.

      It’s me, a muffled voice said, crackling over the spacesuit’s interface.

      For a single, agonizing moment, she imagined it was Roberto, come back to her across infinity. That behind that mirrored helmet, Roberto was speaking to her now, that somehow he’d come back to her as he’d once promised.

      A miracle. But, no.

      Roberto was dead, just another casualty of the Glass Desert war. Roberto hadn’t come back to her in a box, or an urn, or even on a memory stick or a download with a farewell message. He’d just gotten vaporized, as if he’d never existed in the first place.

      Whoever this warrior was, hidden in his spacesuit, it wasn’t her husband. Roberto was never coming back. She was sure of it.

      Big square hands encased in spacegloves reached up to remove the domed, mirrored helmet. She took a half-step back, her heart pounding so hard in her chest it shook her with every beat.

      Anika saw the man’s face. She staggered backwards in her shock. Roberto would have blown her away less.

      Billy Murphy, it’s you, she managed to gasp. Never thought I’d see your face again.

      Captain Billy Murphy grinned and looked her up and down in a single glance.

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