I’ve decided to title Renegades: Compendium I as Renegades: Origins. It will include the first five Renegades Novellas as well as four or more short stories. Renegades: Origins comes out 19 April. Among the short stories included is Runner, which I already have up for free, as well as a story from Anubus titled Fool’s Gold, a story from Mike titled Shadow Space Blues, another story from Run titled “Lab Notes” and lastly, a story from Rastar. Here’s a sample from Shadow Space Blues:
“I’m bringing us thirty degrees down, prepare to fire on my mark,” Mike said. He matched action to words as he adjusted the controls at the pilot station. On his sensor repeater he saw the enemy ship exposed to the fire of the five turrets. “Mark!”
A moment later, the five turrets opened up. The light particle pulse guns sent a wave of energy at the enemy ship. The lower angle allowed the ship to fire all five of the turrets at the same target and dropped them below the middle band of the enemy ship’s defense screen. If their main gun were operational, Mike would have swung the bow upwards and fired that instead
“Multiple hits,” Simon said. The somewhat dour former cop seemed bound to keep his voice steady, despite the hour of maneuvers that had required the well-positioned shot. “I’m reading power levels dropping on their defense screen and their reactor signature dropped.” The enemy corvette looked to be a Barracuda class, from its maneuvers and reactor signature. It mounted an external missile rack and two light laser turrets. Mike’s earlier maneuvers had already coaxed the missile launch, which had allowed Eric to pick them off at long range. The two laser turrets were heavier than their own, but also fired slower and took longer to recharge.
Mike nodded, even as he spun their ship around to put the thicker waist band of their defense screen in between their ship and any return fire. The charged plasma would deflect energy weapons and projectiles while the magnetic field shielded them from radiation.
“Any transmission from the enemy ship?” Mike asked.
“Nope,” Crowe said. The communications officer had a bored look on his face. “I’ll tell you if they start talking.”
Mike grimaced, but let Crowe’s insolence slide, for the moment, “Navigation, good work with the maneuvers, get us a course that uses our acceleration, I want to get in behind them and-“
“Missile launch!” Simon’s level tone disappeared. “I have sixteen missiles on the way. Intercept time thirty seconds!”
“What!?” Mike asked. “They already volleyed their external racks!”
“Looks like they kept something in reserve,” Eric said. “Switching fire, Simon, get me a target solution, I’m firing blind!”
Mike shifted the ship into an evasive maneuver and tried to gain some distance even as he watched Eric shift fire. It didn’t look good. The missiles were fast, not Nova Roma quality, but certainly military grade from the Colonial Republic. They were fast and agile, and at such close range, the missiles had every advantage.
***
Hope you enjoy and it’s only a couple weeks before you can buy Renegades: Origins.
Kal Spriggs 