SCOUTS: Cinder & Ash

By P.H. Campbell

How do you move nearly a billion people from nearly a hundred different planets in the shortest amount of time without waiting in line to acquire the means to do it?Hire the best "fixers" in the galaxy... then hold on for the ride.Set in the United Galactic Worlds universe of the SCOUTS, Cinder & Ash follows the adventures of two "fixers", partners with an unlikely past working for the Shade. From the edge of civilized space to the heart of the UGW, using little more than their wits, an open credit account, Net access and proscribed, forty seven hundred year old technology from the dawn of Human interplanetary exploration, the two find themselves tasked with a challenge so huge, the very future of the Shade is at stake.Their task? Deliver a Seeder to the Shade within nine standard months.A moon-sized ship capable of taking a billion beings to a raw planet and establishing a high-tech civilization all by itself, Seeders are hideously expensive, exceptionally coveted and often the source of shenanigans ranging from simple scams to armed confrontations with fleets of warships from different systems fighting over the right to get one. After paying up front for one of them, planetary systems wait years for theirs to be ready. The data regarding their construction and acquisition is a heavily and closely guarded secret. Only those who have laid out the credits know about their Seeders. No one else is allowed to find out anything about them - ever. With the galaxy ready for colonization again after a hundred years of war, and populations spiking, the pressure for every over-crowded planet to get one is climbing toward the breaking point.The Shade has the credits to buy a Seeder, but not the time to wait for it to be built if they are to preserve their unique, and often chaotic, way of life. To deliver on their bargain, Cinder and Ash must commit the greatest feat of queue jumping ever accomplished in the history of the galaxy.Their fee? One hundred billion credits, plus expenses and fulfilling any request that doesn't involve murder - no questions asked. The Shade is desperate enough to agree.To complicate matters even further, and unbeknown to the Shade, Cinder has secrets and issues that could result in failure. Worse, Ash has secrets that can't be revealed, and a virtually insolvable problem the dealing of which is the only remaining crime in the galaxy that merits a mandatory death sentence. Not that the two are squeamish about performing a myriad of proscribed, illegal activities, of course. They are Shade, after all. And Cinder and Ash have a sterling reputation for innovation and improvisation regardless of the legalities that always delivers better than what they promised to deliver. Innovation and improvisation that once famously involved the surgical use of a flamethrower to get the job done better than expected.But when one problem leads to another, and another, and another, just staying ahead of them without getting caught or killed or dying in the process will be challenging enough, let alone delivering on their deal with the Shade and collecting their payment in return. Some of the problems will only impact them. Some might bring ruin to the known galaxy. And none of those problems have anything to do with getting the Seeder.While the struggles to bring in the bargain they made as agreed upon consumes the two Fixers, little does anyone even remotely suspect that answering the seemingly innocuous question put to the Shade by a certain Scoutship Pilot named Lyle Dufour in return for an open-ended favor from him will be pivotal in whether the outcome succeeds, or ends in bloody civil war for the entire galaxy.The question? Why do Methonians hate AI's so much?Suggested background reading: SCOUTS: The Beginning and SCOUTS: On Leave

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1520678746
• ISBN13: 9781520678740
• Release Date: January 2016
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 347 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"