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    Spicy Space Operas: Five Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways
    Spicy Space Operas: Five Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways
    Spicy Space Operas: Five Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Spicy Space Operas: Five Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways

    By C. C. Blake

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    About this ebook

    Five stories from a tarnished future . . .
    Acclaimed writer C. C. Blake turns his talent for spinning gut-wrenching suspense to a cosmic scale.
    In these five visions of the far future, mankind has expanded into the universe, but he has brought all his worst baggage along with him.
    Space Nazis, cruel kidnappers, corrupt officials, power mad privateers, evil extortionists, positronic pretties, curvaceous killers, and the ever-present need for revenge populate these interplanetary adventures. High violence and sexy surprises await Blake's eager readers in these entertaining escapes and escapades.
    Author C. C. Blake has penned some of the most memorable and vibrant stories found in the neo-pulp space opera magazine Androids 2. These are the stories that made him the most lauded writer in that publisher's magazines, honoring him with Best Story of the Year award. This collection features several of his best starfaring works, including The Positronic Pretty, Burn Job and the Artificial Honey, Trapped in the Star Sultan's Labyrinth of Doom, To Honor Her Father, and Leslie Parker and the Intergalactic Girl Show.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTwice Told Tales II
    Release dateMar 11, 2014
    ISBN9781311898180
    Spicy Space Operas: Five Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways
    Author

    C. C. Blake

    C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

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      Book preview

      Spicy Space Operas - C. C. Blake

      Spicy Space Operas

      Pulpy Romps Across the Spaceways

      By: C. C. Blake

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

      Fiction © 2012 and 2014 by C. C. Blake

      Cover Design © 2014 by Twice Told Tales, with cover art by Alexaldo | Dreamstime.com

      The following stories first appeared in slightly different versions in the following markets:

      The Positronic Pretty first appeared in slightly different form as Rick Cave and the Positronic Pretty in Androids 2 magazine.

      Burn Job and the Artificial Honey appeared in slightly different form on the Androids 2 website.

      Smashwords Edition

      Published by Twice Told Tales

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

      If you have any questions, please contact the publisher at daniel.robichaud@gmail.com.

      Table of Contents

      The Positronic Pretty

      Burn Job and the Artificial Honey

      Trapped In the Star Sultan's Labyrinth of Doom

      To Honor Her Father

      Laurie Parker and the Intergalactic Girl Show

      Further Reading

      About the Author

      The Positronic Pretty

      The spaceport authority gave me a wicked smile, showing off the stumps of his yellow teeth. Through a thick, New-Slav accent, he said, Captain Rick, sir, records indicate you need to pay for customs tax and stickers.

      Revealing that I already paid last week would accomplish nothing. When in Pioterburg, do as the New-Slavs. I handed over half the spoils of my latest job, three hundred smackers.

      He checked me off as an upstanding citizen, meaning it would be another two weeks before they hit me up, again.

      I needed the cash to leave planet for good. Hell, I needed quite a few things but didn’t expect much. Pioter’s World promises a lot, but seldom comes through.

      I dropped a third of my remaining petty cash at a couple of the local watering holes. They were dirty places where tourists showed up with their vacation dollars, expecting a brush with danger, but not so awful that a man would have his gizzards cut over a couple of smackers. Now that I had a space tug and a business, I avoided those kinds of places.

      Fuel expenses had gotten pretty bad since the ORPHEN world embargos. Still, I was a free trader in a galaxy of wage-slaves, and that was enough for me. Except, I wasn’t free, was I? Nope, I needed the same smackers everyone did.

      I was all too happy, when I finally got a nibble.

      McCormick was an expat from the StarBar Hub, looking to book two seats off Pioter’s World to some little hick planet on the rim, no questions asked. He was maybe fifty standard years old. He kept his gray hair and moustache trimmed. His clothes were the sort a rich man might don to go slumming.

      The other passenger was lovely. Her dark hair was so long a man could get lost in it. Her beautiful body featured curves in all the right places. She was maybe in her twenties. Her eyes were a lovely shade of blue, which looked violet under some lights.

      McCormick said, Can you help me, Mister Cave?

      It’ll cost you.

      He gave me a tight-lipped grin. Can we leave tonight?

      Why the rush? I asked but then held up my hands. No questions, that’s right.

      His grin grew a little more relaxed.

      I named a figure large enough to set myself up as a Pioterburg slum baron, and he said, Done, Mr. Cave, without batting an eye.

      Call me Captain, I said, I’ll need half up front to fill the tanks. He nodded anxiously and started to reach for his pocket. I grabbed his arm. Now, now, buddy, I said, keeping my voice soft and conversational, No need to flash your smackers, here. This is a clean enough joint, but the folks on this rock are all a little desperate.

      We were in Svetlana’s Place, a gin joint and whore’s palace. Sveti kept the girls upstairs, and circulated portfolios of her dolls to each of the tables. The eager buyers paid and then went on hour long dates. Most of the patrons kept their eyes trained on the flesh menus. A few stayed aware of their surroundings. Grifters.

      Let’s step outside, I said to McCormick.

      We made it halfway to the doors, when a pair of hired muscle shoved their way in from the street.

      The girl said, Trouble has found us, Doctor. Her voice was sweet as good music.

      One of the guys pulled a pistol. I dove onto the girl, pulling her out of the line of fire.

      A gunshot cracked. McCormick dropped to the floor, gasping and holding his chest. The wound was a bad one, but he could still move.

      Fetch! the gunman ordered. His buddy came for us like a trained hound.

      Get her . . . Away . . . McCormick wheezed.

      The girl’s skin was warm under me and scented with a subtle richness that gave her the aroma of an exotic fruit. She looked into my face. I realized, in that moment, I did not want to let these jerks manhandle her. She was too delicate.

      The hound was nearly on us.

      I glanced around. Spotted a pitcher of Everclear on one nearby table, and a lit sparkler martini on another.

      I jumped up, grabbed the pitcher and then threw the contents on the guy-dog. He screamed and clawed at his eyes. I shoved him face-first into the sparkler martini. The liquor ignited with a whoosh.

      The gunman fired. My left shoulder caught the slug. Then the Hound started running around like a shrieking moron. The gunman didn't take another shot.

      The distraction got us out the back door, into the labyrinthine alleys and streets of Pioterburg.

      Two blocks away, we stopped because of our wounds. Inspecting McCormick, the girl said, Serious, and started performing emergency medicine operations. In moments, the bleeding stopped, and he was on recovery's rough road.

      Through the process, he showed no pain, merely stared into her face as though she was a saint from the New-Slav Orthodox made flesh.

      Then, she treated my wound. While her graceful fingers worked, her heart shaped face displayed a nearly transcendent calm, and her scent was

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