Upper Burma, 1947: The hills are awash with bandits and drug smugglers. Just to the north, Mao’s communists are washing over China in a red wave, and revolutionary insurgencies are popping up in Vietnam, Laos, and throughout the Burmese hills. Tek Mescal—a forty-year-old, penniless sky-trader with a diesel-stained past—has just had her ship blown out of the sky by ruthless headhunters. Stranded in the dense jungle and fleeing laser-wielding ruffians, she and her ragtag crew find themselves “rescued” by a local militia and escorted to the most unlikely of safe havens: a royal wedding.

The “bride” is an old friend to Tek’s—Olive Yang, the twenty-year-old “Two-Gun Mulan” of Kokang, a shorn-haired, cross-dressing duchess with a cybernetic arm and a penchant for booze, gambling, and womanizing. Olive is being forced into a dynastic marriage to secure the Yang family’s legacy. While the guest list features a dangerous cocktail of KMT spies, OSS spooks, and Burmese naval admirals, Olive is more interested in drinking their weight in moonshine and chasing the prettiest secretaries in the room.

For Tek, the wedding is a desperate chance to secure an export permit and rebuild her life from the ashes. But with her past crimes catching up to her and the communist threat looming over the border, Tek must navigate the treacherous waters of feudal politics and global espionage.

In a world where laser-daggers meet traditional diplomacy, and where the line between hero and bandit is blurred, Tek and Olive must decide if they are willing to play the roles society has written for them—or if they’ll burn the palace down to write their own.

​

Taming the Laser Leopard is an Olive Yang novella. A prequel to the 2025 release Tiger Blues, readers can enjoy this book as a complete standalone.