Girl's Gotta Eat

by Chris A. Jackson

Homestead is a ruined world. The entire population wouldn’t fill an Imperial cruiser’s low berths. They barely survive by mining the ruins for old technology. Salvagers don’t live long, falling prey to dangerous mutated fauna, grit storms, or just plain starving to death. You learn to survive, or Homestead kills you. Pac is a survivor, and she works alone, salvaging what she can, trading it for food, and often going hungry.

Then off-world strangers offer her a job. They need a guide into the wastes, someone to show them where she found a high-tech artifact. They offer enough to keep her eating for a year, but her father said never to trust strangers. Pac judges the payoff worth the risk, and finds her father’s lessons well-founded. Homestead is a deadly world, and shiny high-tech gear will fetch a fine price. After all, a girl’s gotta eat.

50 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

From the sea to the stars, Chris A. Jackson’s stories take you to the far reaches of the imagination. Raised on the back deck of a fishing boat and trained as a marine biologist, he became sidetracked by a career in biomedical research, but regained his heart and soul in 2009 when he and his wife Anne left the dock aboard the 45-foot sailboat Mr Mac to cruise the Caribbean and write fulltime.
With his nautical background, writing sea stories seemed inevitable for Chris. His acclaimed Scimitar Seas nautical fantasies won three consecutive Gold Medals in the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards. His Pathfinders Tales from Paizo Publishing combine high-seas combat and romance set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Not to be outdone, Privateer Press released Blood & Iron, a swashbuckling novella set in the Iron Kingdoms.
Chris’ repertoire also includes the award-winning and Kindle best-selling Weapon of Flesh Series, the contemporary urban fantasy Dragon Dreams, as well as additional fantasy novels, the humorous sci fi Cheese Runners trilogy of novellas, and numerous short stories.
To learn more, please visit jaxbooks.com.

Reviews

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written character piece and action-adventure that offers a fun one-off stop for Traveller adventure and also does a great job of highlighting the differences between galactic travellers and planetbound locals, an important trope for Traveller gaming.

[Urgewyrm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A low tech Traveller story? Oh hell yes.

A great story of doublecrossing, backstabbing and overall survival.