BooksChatter: ☀☄ Reyet Trap: Torch World [2]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for Reyet Trap, a Young Adult Sci-Fi by Dee Garretson (3 April 2018, Month9Books, LLC, 286 pages).

This is the second book in the Torch World series.

Don't miss our interview with author Dee Garretson coming later this afternoon.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and the Kindle Cloud Reader Preview below.

Author Dee Garretson will be awarding a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a digital copy of Reyet Trap to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

|| Synopsis || Teaser: KCR Preview || The Series || Author Q&A || About the Author || Giveaway & Tour Stops ||

Synopsis

No planet. No hope.

Quinn Neen and his friends have survived the uprising and the ruthless Fosaanian leader’s attempt to kill them, but the galaxy is still hurtling toward war. With just a few days before Quinn starts his mandatory military training, he plans to spend the time with Mira, the Fosaanian girl he’s in love with. When a mysterious message forces them on a journey to an isolated planet named Reyet, Quinn’s plans quickly change.

A coup on Reyet throws everything into chaos, leaving Quinn and Mira evading enemies they know, and some they don’t, including the planet itself. Now, time is running out for Earth, Fosaan, and Reyet, and there may be no place left in the galaxy that’s safe.

Teaser: Excerpt

Chapter One

There’s a saying on Earth that deep space is as cold as the kiss of a girl who has just quit you, a cold that obliterates you into bits of frozen dust and shattered memories
      In other words, brutal. The first time I’d been in deep space, I couldn’t stop putting my hand on the wall of the ship and imagining the cold just centimeters away. Aboard the Everest, with Mira sitting next to me in the dark, I pushed the thought of the cold away and instead pictured us together on some beautiful beach. Or swimming together in a warm ocean and watching her move through the water with that incredible grace of hers. Since the room temperature controls weren’t working well, it was easy to envision
      The downtime room we were in was actually as hot as a tropical planet. I didn’t know what was causing the temperature fluctuations all over the ship, but I’d thought Mira would like the warmth in this one. It would remind her of Fosaan, or at least the Fosaan she knew before the uprising and the raid on the Earther space station
      “Quinn, how long are we going to sit here?” she asked
      Even though I couldn’t see her in the dark, I could smell the spicy lemony scent of the beads she’d taken to wearing since we’d come aboard. I felt her hair touch my arm as she scooted closer to me. I tried to concentrate on what I was doing instead of thinking about how her hair felt when I twisted my fingers in the long silvery white curls. “Not much longer,” I said. “I have to get the setting of the scene just right.” We didn’t have much time left together and I wanted it to be perfect
      I had ordered the room into absolute darkness, wanting to see Mira’s face when I turned on the surroundgram of the capital of the old United States. I hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to adjust the setting without any light
      “Night time,” my parrot Mags announced, starting to warble her version of a lullaby from her perch on top of a shelf. “Little bird sleep, beautiful bird sleep, beautiful Mags.”
“It’s not night time, Mags. Just dark,” I said. Mags didn’t listen, continuing her song and adding in an occasional snoring noise. My father had taught her that
      “You could use the flash marks on your shirt, you know,” Mira said. “That would give you enough light to see.”
I didn’t want to admit I hadn’t thought of that. “There’s no challenge in that. I’ve almost got it.”
“Oh, right, the challenge,” she teased. “Earthers like challenges, or so everyone tells me. As long as nothing involves real danger.”
We’d had this debate before. Fosaanians valued fearlessness and strength far more than most other cultures in the galaxy, and Mira was as fearless as they came. “And Fosaanians like courting death for no good reason,” I said. “Earthers aren’t the ones who play a children’s game that involves killing poisonous lizard creatures with tiny knives. I’d say that makes us smart.”
“The knives aren’t so tiny,” she protested
      I could have argued the point, but instead I turned on the scene and ordered the lights up
      Mira gasped. I had set it so it seemed as if we were sitting on a platform high above the tiny city spread all around us. I had hoped she would like it. She had a fascination with architecture and buildings, because she had grown up in a small village with only the most basic of structures. Fosaan’s cities had been destroyed or abandoned after a supervolcano exploded and even three hundred years later, the descendants of the few remaining survivors hadn’t managed to rebuild much of anything. They were still focused on subsisting, or at least had been until the Earthers showed up to buy the iridium they needed for the development of a new generation of hyper intelligent robots
      “I can’t believe it,” Mira said. “There are so many buildings all in one place. What’s that one over there? The one with all the sides?”
“It’s a concert hall. They reconfigure the interior for whatever size they need, depending on the audience and the type of instruments and the effect they are trying to create. It’s fantastic when the audience sits in the middle and hundreds of musicians surround you.”
She sighed. “I don’t even know if Fosaan had concert halls, or real musicians.”
I knew it was painful for Mira to think about all her people had lost. “Even if they didn’t have concert halls, some could be built in the future,” I said, “And music can be taught.”
“Maybe.” Pointing at a different section, she asked, “Why are all those tiny buildings grouped together in that park?”
“They’re historic sites. Monuments and museums. Some of the government buildings are still used as offices, others are museums.”
She looked at it for a long time. I watched her taking it all in until she said, “It’s such a beautiful city. I hope it can stay that way.”
I didn’t like hearing that wistful note in her voice. I hadn’t intended to bring her mood down. I should have realized she wouldn’t want to see a thriving city on Earth when Fosaan had none. “It is a beautiful city, but here’s something even better.” I changed the scene setter to one of my new favorites, an image of the waterfalls on Daekin and us floating on a platform in a pool surrounded by small waterfalls. Vines hung from the holographic cliffs, birds called to each other, and the scent of fragrant plants wafted around us. Someday I’d live on a place like Daekin, where there was real air and living things everywhere
      Mags whistled her appreciation and Mira said, “Lovely,” as she reached her hand out like she was going to dangle it in the image of the water. I touched another mark on the setter and fish appeared, leaping all around us. Mira laughed. I liked the sound of that. She hadn’t laughed much at all on Fosaan. We had been too busy trying to stay alive. Between Ansun, her tyrant of an uncle who had tried to kill us, and the raid on the space station, there hadn’t been anything for any of us to laugh about
      “I’d like to go to this place,” she said. “It might even be as beautiful as Fosaan. We could explore.”
“We will,” I said
      She looked away and when she turned back, her smile seemed a little forced. “All we need now is some food,” she said. “Too bad there is no little machine that makes food, real food, not just pictures.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked, pulling her close to me. I wasn’t thinking about food, but I knew she probably was. “We can go to one of the mess halls if you are.” Since the Everest was one of the largest ships in Earth’s Combined Forces fleet, it offered a lot of choices
      “Do you realize how many times a day you ask me if I’m hungry?” She touched my mouth with her fingertips and smiled. I was glad she could be amused at the mention of food, instead of being angry. I felt terrible knowing Mira had gone so many years without enough to eat. Her life had been so different from mine. Growing up on Earth, I’d spent my time wanting to be other places, thinking if I left, I wouldn’t care if I never came back. Mira thought of Fosaan as part of herself. I was only just beginning to realize she’d always be linked to it no matter how far away she went
      Her smile faded. “I wish I knew if Cadia was getting enough to eat. It’s so much worse now that I don’t even know where she had been taken. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Your grandfather will see that your sister gets enough to eat,” I said. The words were just a platitude, but I said them anyway. We both knew Emerick might be dead. Cadia and Emerick were part of the group of Fosaanians who had disappeared before the Everest arrived. When a search team had gone down onto the planet, their village had been abandoned
      A voice came from behind the image of the cliff, spoiling the mood. “Quinn, you know what they say. People who use scene setters too much aren’t good at following rules and they tend to be loners with bad attitudes.”
I swore at the interruption. “Decker, you weren’t invited and you are giving me a bad attitude right now.” Decker was usually the last person I wanted to see. I wanted to be alone with Mira before we had to face what was to come. Once we left the Everest, I didn’t know when I’d see her again
      Decker came through the hologram, his jaw jutting out before him like a square battering ram. “Dogboy! Dogboy!” Mags squawked when she saw him. Mags had never liked Decker, and ‘dog’ was her word for anything or anyone she didn’t like. I was tempted to call him Dogboy too, but I didn’t want any more replacement teeth from a punch in the mouth. Decker’s fists sometimes moved faster than the circuits in his brain and though I was only slightly shorter than him, he had a lot more bulk than me. His punches hurt. I was already worried I’d need a replacement eye after the electric shock I’d gotten on Fosaan. I didn’t want any more artificial body parts if I could avoid it
      “What about me and Saunder?” my friend Lainie asked as she burst through one of the images of the waterfalls with her brother. “Can we be invited?” she asked, dancing around pretending the water was gushing over her. The long black ponytail she wore on top of her head did a dance of its own. I smiled. Lainie always sparked with enough life and energy for three normal people
      I switched off the scene setter and we were back on the downtime room, full of boring but functional military grade furniture. “You two can stay.” I jerked my head toward the door. “Decker can go.”
“Hey, I thought you two were getting along so much better,” Saunder said, grinning. “When are you two going to realize you can actually be friends? You are more alike than you know.”
I was nothing like Decker, but I didn’t bother to respond. Neither did he
      “Saunder, have you always been such a peacemaker?” Mira asked. “It’s a rare quality, at least among Fosaanians.”
“That’s my brother.” Lainie answered for her twin as she often did. “It’s a rare quality among Earthers too. Saunder is a peacemaker, friendmaker, and all around calming presence. He can even make babies stop crying and fierce creatures turn tame. Right, Mags? You love Saunder, don’t you?”
“Saunder loves Mags,” the bird replied
      Saunder laughed. “Saunder does love Mags. Everybody loves Mags. Everybody except Decker.”
“Hey,” Decker protested. “Blame the bird, not me. I never did anything to it. And I’m getting along with Quinn just fine,” Decker said as he walked around the room inspecting the furniture like he was checking to see if it was up to code. “He’s the one with the problem.”
I didn’t want to argue. Saunder had been after me to try to ignore the more obnoxious aspects of Decker ever since we’d managed to work together while we were trying to survive on Fosaan. I had succeeded for a while, but Decker had reverted back to his rigid follow-the-rules personality soon after we came aboard
      “Lainie, how do you put up with him?” I asked. Decker may have been the complicated person Lainie claimed he was, though I rarely saw any side of him but straight up out-of-control ego
      Lainie flopped down in a chair. “He’s just giving you a hard time. You should be used to it after all this time. Why is it so hot in here? It’s freezing in other parts of the ship.”
“It’s been hot in here for the last few days,” I said. “Something is wrong with the temperature control. That’s why no one has been using this room.”
The room went dark again. “Quinn, quit fooling around,” Decker snapped. “Turn the lights back on.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said, holding up my hands before I realized they couldn’t see them. “I’m just sitting here.”
“Not good,” Saunder said. “For a ship that’s supposed to be one of the best in the galaxy, there are a lot of basic problems. The temperature has been fluctuating in section S too.”
The lights flickered and then came back on full strength
      “Someone is going to be in major trouble.” Lainie drew her finger across her throat. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to explain to Quinn’s grandfather why there are so many problems. Admiral Neen will have them ejected out an airlock.”
“He’d certainly want to,” I said. My grandfather didn’t tolerate mistakes or sloppiness, especially not on a ship under his command
      “We’re a long way from any military repair base,” Decker said. “I hope they can fix the problem themselves. Quinn, do you know what we’re still doing out here? Did you grandfather tell you anything?”
“I’d be the last to know.” I’d wondered why we were still orbiting Fosaan too, but hadn’t been able to find out any information
      Lainie got up and began to pace around, her fingers doing a twitchy thing they did when she was thinking about figuring out system flaws. “I’d like to see the maintenance scans they are running. I think they are missing something, because it shouldn’t be taking so long to find the problem. If my father were still here, I bet he’d be able to pinpoint the problem.” She smiled. “I could probably get into the system without anyone noticing and check it out myself.”
All of us yelled “No!” at the same time
      “Lainie, this is not a good place to practice your carving skills,” Saunder said. “I don’t want my sister arrested for espionage.”
“Yes, when are you going to realize that sneaking into systems is going to get you into trouble?” Decker said. “Carvers can serve long prison systems.”
“No,” Lainie said. “Carvers don’t get caught. The ones who do are no longer carvers. They’re just ordinary hackers. But I’ll be good. Oh, I almost forgot.” She pulled a message square and handed it to Mira. “Some ensign found me and asked if I’d give this to you.”
Mira frowned. “I don’t know who would be sending me a message.”
“Maybe you have a secret admirer,” Decker said. “Some competition for Quinn.”
I decided to ignore that. Before Mira could open the seal on the message, my grandfather’s assistant walked in. Lieutenant Giller looked a little like a doll because her eyes were very large for her small face, but that was only on first glance. She was tough and more than a little frightening in her intensity. I swear those light blue eyes sometimes turned white with anger if anyone upset my grandfather’s world. He couldn’t manage without her
      “Quinn, Admiral Neen wants to see you,” she said. “Immediately. He’s in his office.” The lights flickered again. A siren blared for an instant and then cut off
      “Do you know what that’s all about?” I said as I got up
      She frowned. “Probably a maintenance drill, though someone forgot to put it on the schedule. Are you coming? Your grandfather wanted to see you a half hour ago and he’s getting impatient.”
“I didn’t get any message about meeting him.”
“The ship communications system isn’t working quite right.” She tapped the armband she wore. “Not even some of the gabbers.”
I didn’t bother to point out that wasn’t my fault I didn’t get the message. I suspected my grandfather’s irritation wouldn’t take that into account. People were supposed to know his mind
      “Will one of you take Mags back to my quarters?” I asked. “I can’t take her to the bridge.” Mira didn’t look up. She was reading her message. I wanted very badly to know what was in it but couldn’t think of a way to ask
      “I’ll take the bird,” Saunder said. “Mags, want to go for a ride?” He held out his arm and she swooped down to it
      As the lieutenant and I left the room, I heard Mags say, “Mags beautiful bird,” and Saunder agreeing. If only the rest of us could be so sure of ourselves
      The lieutenant didn’t speak again. I suppose her lack of unnecessary talk added to the reasons my grandfather liked her so much. He didn’t believe in idle chatter. The silence did make for a long awkward walk to the bridge. The Everest was enormous and the downtime room about as far away from my grandfather’s office as possible. When we finally got to the entrance of the bridge, the guard nodded us in
      We passed through the main section relatively unnoticed. I no longer got as many strange looks as I had when we’d come aboard after the space station disaster. The first few days I’d attracted too much attention because everyone knew I was Admiral Neen’s grandson. And if they didn’t know what I looked like, they’d all recognized me from my eyepatch that covered up my damaged eye
      My grandfather’s office sat atop the main bridge, up a ramp that curved around the rear wall. The lieutenant opened the security screen but didn’t go up with me. As I went in, I felt the familiar tightening of my jaw that happened every time I met with my grandfather. He sat behind his desk seemingly staring at nothing. I knew that meant he was pondering something serious. People said I looked exactly like him when he was young, not something that thrilled me. He had a long angled face which matched mine, and dark eyes, though I hoped mine never glistened like his when he was in a rage.

Reyet Trap
Available NOW!

The Series: Torch World

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Station Fosaan [1]

Scientists and their families stationed on the remote planet of Fosaan were promised a tropical vacation-like experience. But Fosaan, devastated from an apocalyptic event nearly 300 years ago, is full of lethal predators and dangerous terrain.

Earthers are forbidden to go beyond the safety zone of their settlement and must not engage the remaining reclusive Fosaanians, native to the planet. 16-year-old Quinn Neen is about to do both of those things.

During an unsanctioned exploration of the planet, Quinn discovers a beautiful Fosaanian girl named Mira stealing food from his family's living unit. But before he can convince her to show him around, scientists are taken captive, leaving Quinn and the other young Earthers at the mercy of space raiders.

Quinn must go from renegade to leader and convince Mira to become an ally in a fight against an enemy whose very existence threatens their lives and the future of Earthers stuck on Fosaan and at home.

[Published 21 March 2017, 286 pages]

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About the Author

Dee Garretson writes for many different age groups, from chapter books to middle grade to young adult to adult fiction. She lives in Ohio with her family, and in true writer fashion, has cat companions who oversee her daily word count. When she’s not writing, she loves to travel, watch old movies, and attempt various kinds of drawing, painting and other artistic pursuits.

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