Smugglers
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Anna nearly dies, along with all her family, at age four from the deadly Cacao virus. But she survives, thanks to a poisonous red-headed krait. The medical community is excited since there is no known cure for the virus, but Anna and her snake, Red, have a symbiotic relationshipâcontainment, not cure. If she is ever separated from Red, she will die.
Anna struggles through foster homes. As her krait becomes known and valuable throughout the three star empires as one of only a handful of such snakes, she fights off attempts to kill her and snatch Red. She even comes to wonder if her brilliance in school and eventually at deciphering code is somehow connected to her constant companion.
When the Naval Intelligence Agency, the NIA, recruits her, her adventures grow beyond fending off thieves and killers to tracking down interstellar smugglers as part of an elite team, but the smuggling cartel are quick to fight back. In the midst of space battles and well-placed assassins, Anna is convinced that Redâs presence may make the difference in survival or death, not just for her but her entire NIA team.
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Clem Daems is a native of Chicago and a graduate of the University of Arizona. He served twenty-two years in the US Air Force and has worked as a software engineer, course developer, and adjunct professor teaching mathematics and computer science. He began his first novel at age seventy, several years after his retirement. His first novel, coauthored with Jeanne Tomlin, was a 2010 Eppie finalist in Fiction/Fantasy. Daems is an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and lives in Tucson, Arizona, with his wife.
Gabrielle de Cuir is a Grammy-nominated and Audie Award-winning producer whose narration credits include the voice of Valentine in Orson Scott Cardâs Ender novels, Ursula K. Le Guinâs The Tombs of Atuan, and Natalie Angierâs Woman, for which she was awarded AudioFile magazineâs Golden Earphones Award. She lives in Los Angeles where she also directs theatre and presently has several projects in various stages of development for film.
