Charade

Just a ride for Manny Kaellen.

When freight captain Sylvie "Nova" Khanni agrees to haul a single passenger through the dark lanes beyond Alpha Centauri, she knows the job reeks of trouble. The man in her hold-Manny Kaellen, wanted across five sectors-is worth more dead than alive. But when her oldest ally, freight broker Sean Bass, begs her to help the fugitive, Sylvie takes the deal anyway. Loyalty has a price, and she's about to pay it.

Aboard the aging freighter Charade, Sylvie assembles her best crew: a veteran pilot with too many ghosts, an engineer who can hold a reactor together with wire and willpower, and a security chief who never speaks about the war he fought. Together, they launch into a run that will test every ounce of their courage and trust.

Pursued by corporate gunships, hunted by bounty teams, and haunted by sabotage from within, Sylvie races across hostile sectors where law and conscience don't reach. Each evasive jump deepens the mystery-who is Manny really, and what secret could make entire corporations risk open war to capture him?

When the truth surfaces, loyalty turns lethal. The Charade's crew must choose between survival and the kind of justice that gets you erased from every registry in known space.

Blending tense, character-driven science fiction with the moral gravity of a psychological thriller, Charade is a story of debt, danger, and the cost of keeping your word when the stars themselves seem to conspire against you.

Lee Anne Wonnacott Weltsch is a dog lover, writer, and author of Western fiction and science fiction novels as well as business books.

With several years of writing short stories, poetry, and novellas, Lee Anne has a unique story-telling technique on how people get into bad situations.

Lee Anne has a master's degree from the University of Phoenix. Her travels have taken her to the nooks and crannies of Mexico and Europe to broaden her historical knowledge.

Now retired from the professional recruiting business, Lee Anne lives and works out of her home within eyesight of Mt. Hood in Portland, Oregon. She lives quietly with her husband, Gil.