Another short excerpt from The Orphan Ship

   Jake took out his medical scanner.  “We can’t keep her, Lorina.  Taking in a child isn’t like adopting a stray cat, you know.  We can’t just leave her a bowl of water and a litter box while we go off to work.”

   “Don’t you think I know that?” 

   Jake paused, noting the edge to her tone. “I know you mean well, but we really can’t keep her. There’s a shelter for juveniles near my hospital.  We should take her there.”  He frowned at the readings on the scanner.  “She’s dangerously malnourished, and she’s got intestinal parasites, infected sores --”
   “She’s just a little girl, Jake.  She needs someone to take care of her.  Children shouldn’t have to live like feral animals.  What if she was Catherine?  Would you leave your own niece on the streets?”

   “Don’t you think I know how you feel?” Jake argued. “I see 30 homeless kids at the clinic every night.  Don’t you think I want to do something besides patch them up and send them back to the streets?  I know they need someone to take care of them, but Erik told me most people don’t want to adopt street kids, -- they want babies, preferably newborns.”

   “That’s just wrong, -- when there are so many in need.”

   “I know it is, and I’m sorry, -- but there’s nothing we can do about it, given our small living space and limited budget.”

An excerpt from The Orphan Ship to whet your appetite

  In a few minutes, Danae came to the Port District Employment Center.  She walked in and glanced around; the spartan office was unoccupied.  The place was fully automated, guarded by a single silent android tending the eight terminals.
  Danae stepped over to the nearest terminal and pressed her right thumb to the ID lock.  The screen immediately displayed her DNA record, verifying who she was and confirming that, as a ship’s captain, she had a level-two clearance.  In other words, she could take résumés home to peruse at her leisure.
  "Employees sought?" inquired the terminal in a nasal Boston accent.
  "Med-tech, engineer, navigator, and steward," Danae replied.  Just saying the words brought a lump to her throat.  She swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.
  Her answers appeared on the screen. "Experience requirements?"
  Danae frowned.  She knew what the job market was like nowadays: abysmal. "I’m willing to consider entry-level, but would prefer at least 5,000 hours of shipboard experience."
  Names began to fill the screen.  "Please show me experience levels and criminal records for the engineers."
  The screen complied.  Danae easily narrowed the list to three candidates – none with criminal backgrounds.  She was able to pare down the navigator list to five candidates.  There were eleven potential stewards, but no medics.  That’s odd.  She asked for the list of med-techs again, and the screen gave her just one name, with ‘license revoked’ next to it.
  Wonderful, I can’t even lift off without a medic on board.  Bankruptcy was looking like a real possibility.  "I want to take these résumés back to my ship," she told the terminal.
  Now came the expensive part.  An amount appeared on the screen.  Because she was trying to hire four people, it was steep.  "Please insert credit flash."
  Danae felt like reaching for her gun and blasting the computer into a silent smoking crater, but she reluctantly drew her left hand out of her pocket.  She slid the edge of her thumbnail/credit flash through the scanner groove, and picked up the compact HD that appeared in the slot next to the screen.  "Nice doing business with you," she grumbled.

The Orphan Ship

Stranded 225 million kilometers from home on Mars Station, cousins Jake O’Brien and Lorina Murphy are drawn into a fledgling effort to help the hundreds of abandoned street children who call the station home. Jake becomes a medical apprentice in an outreach clinic, while Lorina volunteers at a juvenile shelter. They soon discover that their efforts may be in vain because something much more serious than poverty plagues Mars Station.

Also stranded on Mars Station, ship’s captain Danae Shepherd faces the difficult task of hiring replacement crew after an alien virus claims the lives of four in her employ, including her husband.  She stumbles upon the same problem that has Jake and Lorina stumped: why are homeless children disappearing without a trace?