The Singer (Ashok's Song)

Ashok’s Song is first and foremost a love story. For Ash, 23, a newly licensed structural engineer and the narrator of the story, it’s love at first sight on a hot afternoon in Treer’s Saloon. For Cade, a musician with two decades of experience and a lot of secrets, it might take a little longer. Even when Cade confesses his love, there are things he keeps to himself.

Together, they leave the desert planet Gobi for an idyllic life by the Western Sea on Hendeon, where Cade sings at a picturesque inn, and Ash learns to garden. They never anticipate being swept up in an interplanetary crisis that pits the Coalition of the Far Worlds against the Sackers, a lawless band of criminals. A Sacker raid on the inn brings violence and tragedy, complicated by the blunders of a corrupt planetary government. Sentiment on Hendeon turns against humans. Worse, the attack inadvertently reveals a long-concealed secret that Cade has never shared with anyone. Ash can’t accept the shocking information. Cade can’t change the past.

With their lives in danger, they must leave Hendeon, together or separately. Compromise seems impossible.
But it is, first and foremost, a love story.