Changing Fate (Ambassador, Book 3) by Patty Jansen

Release date: January 11, 2015

Subgenre: Science fiction, space opera

About Changing Fate:

Fifty thousand years ago, a meteorite hit the planet Asto, giving its Aghyrian inhabitants mere days of notice. Three ships escaped the Armageddon. Two went to the neighbouring planet. The third, a massive generation ship, refused to take on refugees, and then vanished without a trace.

It’s coming back.

Its initial burst of communication caused the outage of the Exchange, the FTL network for transport and communication, but since then the ship has been silent. It jumps about at random, using wormholes it generates with a drive the likes of which no one has seen before.

Meanwhile at the gamra assembly, people jostle to be in the best positions when it inevitably turns up in inhabited space. What the ship wants or whether there is anyone on board no one knows, but diplomat Cory Wilson knows one thing: when it turns up, he must avoid a conflict at all cost.

If only gamra presented a united viewpoint. If only Asto’s army wasn’t keen to get involved. If only the Aghyrians at gamra didn’t do what they do best: manipulate and play games with everyone. While the ship approaches, the delegates bicker, and the time for negotiating is fast running out. 

This is book three of the Ambassador series, following Seeing Red, which is currently available for only 99 cents, and Raising Hell.

Excerpt:

 

The office had been well and truly trashed. All of Federza’s elegant furniture smashed to bits. They’d even put gouges in the wall. Why?

I stepped over the debris to the desk. In the wall behind it was a cupboard that had contained electronics. The pieces of equipment lay in fragments on the floor, readers and projectors and timers and Trader-related equipment which I didn’t recognise, even a device that looked suspiciously Earth-made—

There was a tiny noise.

I froze and held my breath.

Veyada, next to me, also stopped and grabbed for his gun.

For several long moments, we stared around the room.

Any cupboard doors that Sheydu had not safe-tied stood open. There was no way that anyone hid in there. The door in the opposite wall led to a small kitchen where there was a bed along one wall. The little room had no windows. No one could hide in there either. Not after Sheydu had checked.

Thayu scanned the room with her infrared scanner again. I could see the screen over her shoulder—and then remembered the fight in the foyer in front of Ezhya’s private apartment, where attackers had hidden in the dome.

There was a manhole in the ceiling. It was probably not obvious to people—and software—unfamiliar with Barresh architecture. Thayu used an Asto-made scanner.

I met Veyada’s eyes and looked up.

He noticed the manhole. Fuck, he whispered soundlessly.

Sheydu and Thayu now also looked up.

Veyada sneaked around the room, carefully stepping over debris without making a single sound, keeping his gun pointed at the manhole. Thayu dialled up the sensitivity and scanned the ceiling. A very faint and indistinct lighter-coloured blob showed up. She showed it to Veyada, who aimed his gun and fired at the ceiling. The charge went straight through, and left a bright white trail on Thayu’s scanner. It left a blackened hole in the plaster, but otherwise missed the lighter blob. On purpose, because Veyada wouldn’t miss at this distance.

There was another scuffing noise. Now I could see clearly how the grey blob moved.

Veyada shot again, now hitting the ceiling on the other side of the blob. Bits of ceiling plaster rained down. “If you come out now, we’ll let you live.”

Nothing.

Sheydu dragged the desk under the manhole and found a chair that still had enough legs to stay upright. She climbed on the desk, hauled the chair up, put it on the desk and climbed on. She had to bend her head to stop it from hitting the ceiling.

Thayu motioned me to the door with her gun.

I retreated into the corridor.

 

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About Patty Jansen:

 

Patty lives in Sydney, Australia, and writes both Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has published over 15 novels and has sold short stories to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

Patty was trained as a agricultural scientist, and if you look behind her stories, you will find bits of science sprinkled throughout.

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