Dreams of Earth

About the Book

Jennifer Starlight is awakened by a loud bang as a meteor rips through her quarters. At age ten, she’s known a life of danger since birth, including the death of her space mining parents. Now she’s growing up on the mining ship San Pedro, located in the Asteroid Belt in 2088. Her lifelong dream is to somehow get to Earth, a place she knows only through books and videos.

But it’s not all danger. There’s school, and her friend Amy. And for play they have some miniature androids, called mickies. They use them for innocent mischief, but the play turns serious when a pair of more advanced androids, called andies, become psychotic. These replicate themselves into many others and try to take over the ship. Jennifer's role is pivotal in the struggle to retake the ship, when she engages in a laser duel with the androids.

At age 16, Jennifer reaches Earth at last, crash-landing in an escape pod in the New Mexico desert. Alone, she almost dies from a snakebite, but is saved by Toch'ula, a Native American medicine woman. She stays with Toch'ula for several months and is taught healing arts as well as an ability to manipulate objects using her "energy field," a form of telekinesis. These skills will be of life-saving importance to Jennifer in her later return to space. This happens with her entry into the Armstrong Space Academy and her  return to deep space and a reunion with Amy.

About the Author

A former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Mr. Jones later worked as an engineer for NASA on the Apollo Project, where he helped train the first two groups of astronauts. He then participated in the development of the Lunar Module Mission Simulator. After leaving NASA he worked on various satellite projects until he took early retirement in 1992. Still an active pilot, he flies high-performance sailplanes in the mountain ranges of Southern California. He has published numerous short stories and articles in periodicals such as the Galactic Citizen, Air Force Times, Pacific Flyer, and SAIL magazine.