Julia Huni's Blog, page 7

Space Janitor Two

The second book in my Space Janitor series is on Amazon for pre-order. It will go live on September 20! This one takes place on the planet around which SK2 orbits, and the TechnoInst where Triana went to school. We’ll meet some old friends and some fun new characters. And of course, there will be some great food!

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Murder is Messy: Space Janitor One released July 31

Here’s a preview of the first chapter of Murder is Messy, my first Space Janitor Mystery. If you like it, jump on over to Amazon to get the rest! The ebook releases on Tuesday, July 31, 2018.

Chapter One

A telltale flashes on the alert board, bright red against the dim light of the room. I toss the last of my Slami’n’Chēz wrap in the trash and shove a station boot against the desk drawer, scooting my chair across the room. Arriving at the console, I wipe my fingers on my grey station coverall and tap out a command.

“Bot 43H, again,” I mutter. That bot has been a pinhole in my air supply for the last week. It keeps hanging up on Level 72. Diagnostics show nothing, every time, which means I’m going to have to climb into the access and see what’s going on. Probably gum. Those idiot upper-lev women insist on spitting the stuff on the deck; don’t they know it makes them look like dirt-side trash? And it’s impossible for the bots to handle. You’d think after hundreds of years, someone would figure out how to clean up gum, but it still takes a human with a scraper to get the mess off the deck.

This time, the bot is on Level 67, but it still could be gum. Diagnostics show nothing, again, so I fire up the on-bot cam. A fuzzy lump appears on screen. The fuzziness is due to the crap resolution — standard maintenance bot equipment. I stare at the screen and try to sharpen the image. The good news: it’s way too big to be gum.

My stomach cramps suddenly as the Slami’n’Chēz launches an attack on the Tasti-bun I ate for breakfast. I take a deep breath through my nose and force the nausea down. I knew that wrap looked a little dodgy, but it was only two days past its freshness date. Note to self: no more vend-o food.

I pan the camera to the right and barely make it to the trash can before the Tasti-bun surges back out the way it went in — pushing everything else I’ve eaten today ahead of it. After a few minutes of heaving, my stomach settles down to an uncomfortable rumble. I wipe my face on my sleeve, rinse my mouth with a swig from my water bottle, spit in the trash, and do some deep breathing. Another drink and some more deep breathing, then I slowly turn back to the screen where my mind finally comprehends what my stomach instinctively knew: that lump is a very dead body.

» «

After another trip to the trash can, I stumble into the bathroom. Running cold water over my wrists and splashing more on my face seems to help, so I do that for a while. The body isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no rush, right?

By the time my hands are numb, I’m ready to make the report. Back in the Maintenance Control Center, I bring up the in-station comm and tag the Ops Supervisor.

“Ops, al-Rashid-Thompson,” says a familiar voice as my boss, known among the maintenance group as “Rash” although we’d never say that to his face, appears on the screen.

“Maintenance, Moore,” I respond. The required self-identification always seems silly to me: our names are pasted right up there on the screen under the vid, but today the rote exchange is comforting. “Request confidential,” I add.

Surprise crosses Rash’s face, but he leans a little closer to the camera as he taps in the secure call sequence.

“Confidential protocol established,” he says as the purple tell-tale begins flashing on my screen. “What the hell’s up, Triana?”

“I found something, uh….” I swallow hard and then launch into the whole story. I’d swear I can hear heads swivel towards him when he hollers, “Zark!” but with the confidential protocol turned on, I know it’s just my imagination.

“OK, you sit tight,” he says in a low voice. The rest of the Ops Center can’t hear me, but they can hear him. No one’s invented a Cone of Silence, yet. “I’ll notify Security and I’m sure they’ll contact you, soon. Did you record the vid you got from the bot?”

“Of course,” I snap. “It automatically records, and we’re not allowed to turn it off.”

Rash smiles tightly, “I know the rules,” he says. “But I also know you. Make sure you’ve got the vid.”

 

To get the full book, check out Amazon! If you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read for free.

The paperback is also available at Amazon.

If you want more Space Janitor, sign up for my newsletter. Space Janitor Two will be published in late August.

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Going Live in 5 . 4 . 3 . 2 . 1

Space Janitor One: Murder is Messy went live in pre-order status last night!

Publish date is July 31, 2018. It will be available in Kindle Unlimited, but if you don’t have that, order your copy today!

Come back and tell me what you thought.

 

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Dav’s Croissants

Back in the day, I worked for a NATO unit in Germany. Since I was one of only three women employed there (all of us Americans — the NATO countries were way behind in gender equality back then!) the American Spouses’ Club took pity on me and invited me to join in their fun. One summer a group of us went to French Cooking School. We stayed in a chateau in the Loire Valley. Every morning, we’d watch Chef perform a cooking demonstration. Then we’d eat part of what he created for lunch, and spend the afternoon touring the nearby, more famous, chateaux.  After sight-seeing, we’d come back for a multi-course meal involving the rest of the food Chef had created during the demo.

I learned a few things about French cooking. It takes FOREVER. Every dish Chef demonstrated required a multitude of finicky steps. One of the dishes was stuffed sole. The filling for the dish was made from langoustine–basically a salt-water crawfish. To me, they looked like giant buggy shrimp or tiny buggy lobsters. The dish required Chef to steam the langoustine, then mash them, then simmer them, shell and all, for a while, then strain, then reduce… you get the idea. All to produce the thick sauce that was later rolled into the sole. And honestly, I didn’t really like it when we had it for dinner that night!

The other thing I learned was if you’re going to do French cooking, you really need a little man in the kitchen. Chef had a sous chef/pastry chef named David. Pronounced Dah-veed, of course. David was a short, thin, quiet, young man– the exact opposite of boisterous, plump, middle-aged Chef. Dav, as we referred to him amongst ourselves, did all the clean-up. He washed the million pots and pans Chef used each day without a word, whisking them away to the sink in the corner almost before they hit the counter. We all decided that we, too, needed a little man in the kitchen to clean up after us.

Dav also taught us to make croissants. They were to die for. And took forever, of course, because you have to make the dough, knead it, let it rise, and then roll the huge chunk of butter between the layers, folding, turning, and chilling a half-dozen times.

Croissants were the only thing I ever made myself after that cooking course. They weren’t as good as Dav’s, but they were pretty yummy. So, in homage to David, the little man in the kitchen, I gifted Dame Morgan with her own pastry chef, Dav.

 

Chocolate croissant featured image by Beckmann’s Bakery, used under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) 

Croissant cross-section photo by skopp, used under Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

 

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Space Janitor One cover is a reality!

I got the cover for my first Space Janitor book finalized today. SO excited.

What more is there to say?

 

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Where Space Janitor started

I wrote a novel. Like most first novels, it was bad. But I loved the story, and I didn’t want it to stay bad, so I started rewriting it. And that got old, really fast. I mean, I already told the story, it’s hard to get excited about telling it again.

So one day, I was messaging my sister. And she told me she’d read a blog about an author who had made good money writing SF Romance. So, as a joke, I started writing a scene that I called Triana Moore: Space Janitor. Triana was a bot jockey, a code wrangler, a maintenance nerd. She programmed the cleaning robots for a really upscale space station in a galaxy far, far away. One day, Triana’s bot runs into a dead body. Then I wrote another scene, where she meets the shiny investigator.

Really, it was just a joke. I sent the pages to my sister, and she thought they were funny and told me “you have to write this.” I laughed. But Triana wouldn’t leave me alone. She kept sneaking into my brain. So I wrote her. And put the book away.

Then my sister started writing. She writes Space Opera. And she published. And I thought, “I can do that! I shouldn’t leave poor Triana in the hard drive, just collecting e-dust.” So in a few weeks, she’ll make her debut.

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