SFFS: A Snippet From "Reciprocity"

Greetings, everyone! It's good to be back for another week of Science Fiction Fantasy Saturday. This week, we're heading into the WIP vault, where I recent finished the first draft of a new Aston West short story, "Reciprocity." I expect that this story, once it goes through a few rounds of editing, will be slated for my next Triple-Shot. I've included a cover for the second of my (currently) three Triple-Shot collections below, but you can also check all of them (and more) out on my Collections page. And now, here's a snippet from "Reciprocity" for you to read and enjoy:

 

 

The wind whipped through my hair as I sped along. Ordinarily, I’d have much preferred to be in an actual vehicle instead of this hover-quad, but this was the only thing they were renting at the space dock. And I certainly wasn’t paying the exorbitant fees they were asking to be driven around in a stretch limousines.

Given the sleek, polished vessels I’d landed by earlier, I figured I was the only one who’d had such an aversion. 

This wasn’t one of my regular stops, and had I not been here for a specific purpose, I would have kept on flying for the next spaceport. But unbeknownst to all of the prim and proper visitors to this planet, my four holds were filled to the brim with illegal weapons. At least all of those people would take small comfort in the fact that while they were all no doubt traveling west to a small beach resort town, I was headed in the opposite direction.

I did have to admit, riding this contraption did bring back old feelings of exhilaration I hadn’t felt since my time flying jets for the Gryphon Defense Force. That said, there was a limit to how much danger I’d subject myself to, explaining why I’d chosen a vehicle with four field generators surrounding the elongated body of the cycle versus the model with only two, one forward and one aft.

I rotated the handle and the propulsion unit under my rear pulsed faster in response, jetting me toward a few handfuls of buildings in the distance, kicking up a trail of dirty dust in my wake.

And of course, as always, if you like what you see, pick up a copy of all of my other short story collections through the links above.