The pandemonium is cut by a single, piercing bang. Franklin Kline thuds to the floor. Eta Porter is the only Senator close enough to save Kline's life, but she conceals ambitions of her own.
After discovering a malfunction in Tempest's fuel system, the Tempest 9 plan a repair EVA. Raleigh Toon once headed up the construction of Luna 2, but today, she is the leading option to go out into space and fix the problem.
The scheming of Maksim Antakov comes to light. Among other things, his plan hinges upon the charisma of Franklin Kline. But Franklin struggles to trust in himself or in any plot relying on his influence.
"Space is the cure to careless savagery, to stagnant two-party politics, to the fear that condemns visionary science to the dusty shelves of oblivion." So says Franklin Kline on the day he is meant to die.
Titan Tempest's lifeline to Earth is severed. The Tempest 9 are wracked by uncertainty and mistrust. Has the chaos remained turfside, or is Tempest caught in the storm?
Eta has saved Kline from assassination in Parliament, but the Precept purge has only just begun. The longer she remains in Beijing, the less likely she is to survive. If Eta can stow away on a t-train and locate an old ally, she might be able to do just that.
Mere weeks from Saturn, Tempest will certainly miss the mark without a successful trajectory burn. However, a safe burn requires a diagnosis of Tempest’s fuel system woes. It's now or never for Raleigh’s spacewalk—-it's up to her to fix the problem.
Eta has delivered Kline from danger again. But the sleepy town of Borzya has awakened a bustling quagmire. At the center of the bedlam is The Rusty Russian--the very place she hoped to find respite.
The mood in the refuge pod is excruciatingly dire. The unthinkable has happened. Who's to blame? There's no time for inquiry--there's work to be done if there's any hope of saving the rest of the Tempest 9.
In the humid back room of The Rusty Russian, all eyes fall on a GTN special report. It is the first comprehensive report of the state of astral affairs since the Precept purge. What role did Eta Porter play, and where is she now?
33 min
About Moonskin
From the publisher's feed
"Space is the cure to careless savagery, to stagnant two-party politics, to the fear that condemns visionary science to the dusty shelves of oblivion."
Franklin Kline stands poised to unite humanity as he extends our astral empire to Saturn. But a coup d'état 300 years in the making ignites the turf, and a firestorm of unrest sweeps through the solar system. Astronauts marooned en route to Titan watch helplessly as a tyrannical tycoon seizes the throne of humanity. Wounded and shaken, Kline's survival depends on Eta Porter, but she conceals ambitions of her own.
Few turfside dreamers dare to challenge this regime. But spacefaring humans—humans not of Earth—resist.
Moonskin is the story of a forsaken planet, one man who will stop at nothing to escape it, and two moonborn rogues who can never go home again. For additional information, visit spaceisthecure.com. Moonskin is also available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.