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Second Snippet Renegades: Out of Time

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Here’s the second snippet for Renegades: Out of Time.   Be sure to read the first snippet!

***

Lord Admiral Valens Balventia sighed as his communications officer notified him of another civilian ship wanting to talk with him.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “I’ve told you, give them the standard evacuation orders.  I’m trying to plan a defense, if you interrupt me again…”

“Sir,” the Lieutenant looked nervous at speaking up, but Valens had worked hard to develop a staff that trusted him.  If he had interrupted him mid-sentence, then clearly he felt it was important enough.  That meant that Valens listened as the younger officer spoke.

“She’s not a normal civilian vessel, my Lord,” Lieutenant Sicarious said quickly.  “The Aurore is a privateer… and she’s behind the Chxor battle line.”

Valens’s eyes went wide at that.  That could be very useful indeed.  “Put him on.”

“Lord Admiral, I am Captain Mike Smith of the Aurore, out of Nova Roma.” the Asian ship’s captain wasn’t wearing a ship’s suit.  Given the current battle conditions, that suggested either a blatant disregard for safety or that he misunderstood the situation gravely.  Neither of which boded well for the conversation.  I hate privateers, Valens thought.  Most of them were little better than opportunistic pirates.  Still, if it was their ships and crews dying against the Chxor instead of Nova Roma Sailors and Marines, then Valens was willing to hold his nose.  “We are currently five thousand kilometers behind the main element of the Chxor battle line.  We’re picking up survivors from one of your vessels.”  He looked off-screen, “The Kestrel, is what my salvage… uh, rescue team has heard from survivors.”

Valens Balventia couldn’t help a scowl at the word “salvage,” yet the fact that the privateer had already picked up survivors was a good thing.  He considered the rest, though, “Wait, Captain, did you say you’re only five thousand kilometers behind the Chxor force?”  That sounded absurd.  How could any ship survive that close to the enemy?  For that matter, how had he managed to get so close?

“Correct, Admiral,” Captain Smith said.  “We also have military-grade sensors, so if you have platforms capable of hitting them, we can provide targeting data.  They’re moving away quickly, though, so we’ll probably lose quality targeting data in the next thirty minutes.”

Valens began to smile.  “Captain, send me your targeting data.  How do we have you, laser, I assume?”

The delay was painful, now.  The data wouldn’t be real-time.  If the privateer had an ansible, it would have been best.  But his ship’s crews could run simulations on the Chxor movements, program those target parameters in…

A few minutes ago, he had seen this as a final defense, a last stand.  With data on the enemy’s ships, he could actually win this.

“Yes, Admiral,” Captain Smith said.  “Though we’re having issues pushing transmissions through their screen and jamming.”

“You’ve one hell of a communications officer to manage,” Valens said.  He moved his estimation of the privateer upwards again.  “We’ll set up a relay, I think we have several platforms in place.  My communications officer will coordinate.”  He nodded at Lieutenant Sicarius and looked at his staff, “Order all fighters to launch.  We have a narrow window and I intend to hit these bastards so hard they feel it back on Karis.”

***

 

“Hold him still, I have not yet stabilized the subject!” Run shouted in his shrill “command voice” as he waved his staple gun around.  The wounded Nova Roman Marine fought hard, despite the injuries that still spurted blood.

Mandy glanced at Miranda.  The pair of them had been assigned to help with the wounded, since they both had some medical skills.  “Do you think we should tell him that the Marine thinks he’s been captured?”

They watched as the two medics assigned to Run finally held the Marine down, even as he started to scream obscenities.

“Nah,” Miranda said as she bandaged the injured Nova Roman on their table.  “Wouldn’t do any good.” She gave the young man a friendly smile, “Marines, right?”

He smiled back at her and Mandy just rolled her eyes.  She didn’t much like the Nova Romans.  Really she didn’t like most people, except for Miranda.  She finished gluing the wound shut on her unconscious patient and moved on to the next.  This woman had been badly burned.  Most of her face and upper torso was a mass of blisters and the smell….

Mandy fought down a memory, of a house in flames and the screams of children.  For a second, it seemed so real to her that she froze.  No, she thought, I’m not there and even if I was, I’m stronger now.

She felt Miranda’s hand on her shoulder and she took a deep, reassuring breath.  “Thanks,” Mandy said.  It was all she had to say.

The two of them went to work on the wounded woman.  Mandy just hoped the Nova Romans had good medical care for their people.

***

 

“Status?” Mike asked as he came back on the bridge, pulling his ship’s suit on and placing his helmet on the rack behind his command chair.

“The Nova Roma forces launched their fighters and their ships are moving into attack positions,” Ariadne said cheerfully.  “Their Lieutenant Sicarious has been very helpful in setting up a relay system.  They seem confident of victory.”

Mike’s eyebrows went up at that.  At best he would have assumed they would stage some kind of fighting retreat.  Malta was key to the Nova Roma defense, but the Chxor numbers were daunting, to say the least.

If they think they can win, he thought, good for them, but I’m not putting my ship and crew at any more risk than necessary.  “Any threats?”

Ariadne brought up a Chxor dreadnought with three cruisers in a loose formation ahead of it.  Mike frowned as he saw it.  It was behind them, trailing a line of debris… and as he watched, it opened fire on a bit of wreckage that Simon had identified.  “Looks like it’s cleaning up behind the main force… and we’re on the path,” Ariadne said.  Her voice held anger and Mike wondered if the fire he saw behind the psychic’s eyes was entirely figurative.

The wreckage it fired on was what had probably been a human destroyer.  The dreadnought chewed the wreckage into a fine cloud of debris, no doubt killing any survivors in the process.  He didn’t know if the Chxor somehow realized they had someone behind them relaying messages or if they simply had a procedure in place to cover behind them.  For that matter, it wouldn’t surprise him if the Chxor ship’s commander simply took it into his head to run target practice.  The Chxor Empire showed little care for human lives, so any of those were likely.

“He’s getting pretty close,” Mike said, even as he reviewed the sensor data.  The damaged ship had engaged the remains of a cruiser before the destroyer.  Both times he’d drawn within five thousand kilometers.

Mike stared at his ship display in thought for a long moment.  The Aurore wasn’t a standard civilian freighter.  She was originally designed as a fast transport ship, and her hull had a sleek, predatory look, with angular hull facings to deflect incoming fire.  The engine pods were in tight against the hull, in a fashion designed to give them greater protection, which only further added to the sleek nature.

Yet she wasn’t a warship.  The ship had no heavy armor and its defense screen was only a single band, projected along the length of the ship.  The Aurore‘s primary weapon was a concealed energy torpedo turret.  The weapon was extremely powerful for a small ship… but it had the downside of extremely short range.

The Chxor dreadnought sweeping along the enemy fleet’s rear would be able to tell that they weren’t a standard freighter.  While Mike didn’t have much confidence in the Chxor’s ability to identify the ship as a threat, he had less confidence about whether or not that ship commander would even pause to think about his orders.

In all likelihood, he’d been ordered to screen the ships to the rear and eliminate any human survivors.  With how he was blasting active radar along with his screening cruisers, it wouldn’t be long before he noticed the Aurore in the shadow of the Kestrel‘s wreck.

With a human officer, Mike might have tried to explain that he was engaged in rescue operations.  Even a military ship might have been spared under those conditions.  But the Chxor wouldn’t care.  Mike didn’t know if the Chxor even picked up their own survivors under normal circumstances, much less in combat.

“What’s the status of the Admiral’s counterattack?” Mike asked.  Mike’s first impulse was to simply order the Aurore to jump to shadow space.  Over the past twenty minutes they had already recovered the majority of survivors from the Kestrel.  Yet they also were supplying the Nova Romans with targeting data.

Simon didn’t need to look at his screen, clearly he was a good pick as the communications and sensors officer.  “He’s launched his fighters, I estimate they’ll launch missiles in three minutes.”

Mike could do the math well enough.  The enemy dreadnought would be in range to pick them up in the next four minutes.  At that point, the data they sent to Admiral Balventia would be crucial.  If they jumped to shadow space, they’d abandon the Admiral’s forces at the most critical time.  The missile flight would need data right up until they went in on final attack mode, in order to bypass the enemy’s directional jamming.  Without that, the attack would almost certainly fail.

Mike stared at the display and went back and forth between the two engagements from the dreadnought.  While the capital ship’s fusion projectors had a potential engagement range of sixteen thousand kilometers and the missiles had a substantially larger engagement window, it seemed that the ship drew far closer than that in both engagements.

It was possible it did so from damage.  Certainly it left a debris and gas trail in its wake, a sure sign that it had received damage earlier in the battle, before the Aurore‘s timely arrival.  There could be any numbers of reasons for that.  Damage to the weapons systems, damage to its power systems, or maybe even with the cruisers providing targeting data, it still needed to approach in order to see its targets.

If it repeated that maneuver, the ship would come within range of the Aurore’s weapons.

I wish I’d shelled out for a pair of fighters and some military-grade munitions, Mike thought absently.  A few ship-killer missiles launched from close range could have damaged and maybe driven off the enemy ship.  The Aurore had external racks for interceptor missiles, but it would be reliant upon carried fighters to launch offensive missiles.

Anubus’s prowler carried two fission warheads, but Mike didn’t know that he trusted them to properly detonate.  For one thing, Pixel still hadn’t had a chance to do more than a cursory inspection of them.  For another, they were Wrethe technology… and the Wrethe weren’t known for their craftsmanship.  Killing people, he thought, yes, betraying and murdering one another and their allies, yes… but building quality ships… not so much.

Besides, replacing those two missiles would be a painful expense.  Less painful than dying under the dreadnought’s guns, but Mike knew that Anubus would demand replacement, probably with a newer, more powerful munition.  And if we don’t replace them, there’s the whole betraying and murdering allies thing to consider, Mike reminded himself.

Then again, better to be alive and in debt than dead.

“Anubus,” Mike said, “go ahead and launch your prowler, we have inbound.”

“I am not going to be a suicide attacker against a Chxor dreadnought,” Anubus growled.

“Of course you aren’t,” Mike said.  “I’d like your missiles to back our main battery.”  He soothed the Wrethe without even thinking about it.  At this point, he knew that Anubus viewed the rest of them as expendable… but the Wrethe also knew they gave him access to human worlds, weapons, and opportunities to enrich himself.  “Besides, think about the value of that dreadnought for salvage,” Mike said.  Doesn’t hurt to lay it on, Mike thought.

Anubus didn’t respond, but Mike decided to take that as agreement.

The cruisers had drawn closer, but Mike focused upon the dreadnought.  The cruisers mounted a minimal armament, designed around intercepting fighters or missiles.  He could take the four of them, especially damaged as they were.  The dreadnought was the threat.  Besides, after they identified a target, they seemed to move on in their search pattern along the fleet’s course.

Here he comes, Mike thought as he saw the dreadnought alter course.  The slow, ponderous ship had lined up a vector that would bring it’s starboard batteries to bear on the wreckage of the Kestrel.  That spiked interest in Mike.  Combined with the dreadnought’s slow acceleration and arthritic maneuvers, the fact that the ship didn’t rotate, but altered it’s overall course suggested it was either low on fuel for its maneuvering thrusters… or that those thrusters were damaged enough that it couldn’t rotate.  Certainly the course was out of its way.

Mike began to smile as he typed in some commands on his console.  “Rastar, get your salvage team aboard immediately.”  Mike didn’t look up as he addressed the navigational officer.  “Mister Nelson, prepare to plot me a maneuver.”

***

 

Ship Commander Chxun updated his fleet commander even as he noted they were drawing close to the latest bit of ship wreckage.

He understood that the Fleet Commander wanted to clear the navigational route of debris and enemy threats for the follow-on occupation force.  He did not feel emotion, so he certainly did not think such efforts were beneath him.  Still, he thought it would have been optimal to have a squadron assigned to this duty, rather than his damaged vessel.  Certainly the remnants of the human defense fleet posed little threat to the Fleet Commander’s forty dreadnoughts.

If Fleet Commander Kxrass had peeled off a dreadnought squadron, then Ship Commander Chxun would have been free to begin repairs of his own vessel.  He could admit that those repairs would take some time.  The multiple missile hits to his port side had crippled his vessel and Chxun felt certain that the ship would need months to be brought back to full operational readiness.

“Time to optimal range?” Ship Commander Chxun asked.

“Thirty seconds, Ship Commander,” his targeting officer said.

Chxun noted that on his log. Fleet Commander Kxrass’s orders had been to clear large debris.  He had not mentioned recovery of personnel, so Kxrass hadn’t bothered to recover any humans, though he had noted the positions and vectors of Chxor survivors, should the Fleet Commander decide to expend the resources for recovery.  The three Chxor and two human vessel debris he’d cleared so far had developed a pattern.  He’d found that if he drew into close range, his weapons batteries produced the most efficient result, reducing any large debris into objects small enough to pose no real navigational hazard.

He had not noted any surviving ships on this path, though that matched his expectations.  Logically any surviving human vessels would have retreated from the system.  The holdouts, in the midst of a futile counterattack, were simply a further sign of the illogical insanity of humanity.

They should have abandoned the planet upon the Fleet Commander’s arrival to the system.  The logical tactic would be to withdraw in the face of a force they could not successfully oppose.

The humans couldn’t win this war, but Chxun knew they would lose it far slower if they didn’t insist upon dying for points of honor or for the sake of civilians who provided no contribution to the war effort.

“Ship Commander,” his sensors officer said. “One of the screening cruisers indicates they have detected a possible radar contact to our port side.”

Chxun considered that.  It seemed unlikely that a ship would be so positioned.  It would have had to either come in behind them at a high enough velocity with low emissions as to be undetected by passive sensors, or it would have needed to be present, yet hidden from the cruiser screen’s radar systems and then somehow now detected.

“Tell them to recalibrate their radar systems and scan again,” Ship Commander Chxun said.  He could have rotated his damaged ship to detect the vessel, but that would have used an alarming quantity of his remaining thruster fuel.  He could explain away the loss of the fuel due to damage, but it would still reflect badly upon his evaluation if he dropped below safety minimums.  Besides, it was highly unlikely that the humans had any kind of warship in position to pose a risk to his dreadnought.  Certainly if they had, they would have used it before now.

“Prepare to engage the debris,” Chxun said.

***

 

Mike smiled coldly as the Chxor dreadnought closed into position.  It had all come down to timing.  As the Chxor cruisers moved past the wreck of the Kestrel, he’d brought the Aurore out on her maneuvering thrusters, a series of slow burns timed to move them away from the Kestrel, keeping in its shadow from the nearest cruiser and just outside of radar range from the enemy dreadnought.  That had consumed almost all of their thruster fuel, but that could be replaced… and they’d only needed to move a bare eight thousand kilometers and then hold relative position.

From the other side, Simon had been able to detect the heavy damage on the dreadnought’s right side.  While it might have passive sensors, certainly its active radar was down.

“Pixel,” Mike said, “Bring up the plant.”  He looked over at Eric, the twitchy weapon’s officer leaned low over his weapons console.  “Eric, engage at will.”

This would be the first time they fired the Aurore‘s weapon outside of a simulation.  They’d already extended the concealed turret from behind the false rear “cargo” hatch.  The three fusion torpedo projectors were slow firing and they used up a quarter of what had been the Aurore‘s cargo holds.

Each of the torpedo projectors created a short-lived, magnetically condensed fusion reaction and then accelerated it in the direction of the target.  They couldn’t maintain the magnetic containment past three thousand kilometers so the weapon’s effectiveness dropped off sharply after that as the plasma released across a broad region of space.

The magnetic torpedoes weren’t terribly accurate, either, and the magnetic containment of defense screens caused a number of issues with that, making the accuracy suffer still greater against intact vessels with full-strength defense screens.  To top things off, the torpedoes didn’t travel fast, a result of the necessity to maintain magnetic containment over such distances.  In short, the torpedoes were slow, inaccurate, and short ranged.

At just under a thousand kilometers away, the damaged dreadnought didn’t have its port defense screens functioning.  In fact, jagged rents showed in the dreadnought’s armor, where earlier hits had already savaged the ship.

The fusion torpedoes crossed the distance in only five seconds.

All three hit a tight grouping directly in amidships on the dreadnought.  The superheated plasma inside the magnetic containment then released inside the enemy ship.  Fire began to blossom all along the ship’s hull, and then the dreadnought simply detonated.  At this range, the bridge ports actually darkened as the Chxor dreadnought vanished in a chain of secondary explosions.

“Target destroyed,” Simon said.

“Oooh,” Ariadne said, “pretty.”

***

You can pick up your copy of Renegades: Out of Time on November 12th!  (Oh, and see below for the awesome cover art!)

cargoshipcover_v03_full

Reading, Science Fiction

First Snippet: Renegades: Out of Time

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Here’s the first snippet for Renegades: Out of Time.

Chapter I

 

The Aurore emerged from shadow space into the heart of a maelstrom.

Captain Mike Noguchi blanched as a thermonuclear detonation flashed in front of the ship, close enough that it filled the bridge with light.  “What the hell is that!?”  Mike demanded.

Simon looked up from the sensors, “Multiple detonations, massive energy releases all around us!  We’re in the middle of a firefight Captain!”  Of the original crew, Simon was the only one to call Mike by his title.  The others mostly just called him Mike.  Then again, Simon was also something of an outsider.

Mike didn’t take longer than a heartbeat to consider things.  “Pixel, cut power to the drives and defense screens, now.”

The thrum of the ship’s drives dropped to silence and the bridge lighting dropped, “I cut the reactor, too,” Pixel said.  “It’ll take us a few minutes to bring it back online, but we’ll be less visible.”

Mike nodded, yet his eyes were for the sensor displays.  The ship had enough standby power to still give them some picture of what was happening.  If worse came to worse, their weapons had a charge on their capacitors for a single salvo each.

They were in the middle of a battle.

“A few billion square kilometers of space and we show up in the middle of a battle,” Mike growled.  He saw Ariadne open her mouth and he pointed a finger at her, “Don’t.  Don’t you dare.”

He knew she wasn’t going to make a sarcastic comment.  It would be out of character for the cheerful woman, even though Mike had trusted their new navigational officer over her psychic navigational skills.  Not that she’d be wrong, if she were to get snarky, he thought.  Though that wasn’t fair to Sharric Nelson.  He had no way to know there’d be a Chxor fleet in their path.

No, she was probably going to say something cheerful and optimistic and Mike didn’t want to have to deal with that right now.  They were in the middle of a battle, he had reason to be grouchy.

The transponders nearest them weren’t Nova Roman.  Simon had noted on the display that he thought they were Chxor.  Mike hoped that his sensors and communications officer was wrong… because there were a lot of enemy transponders.

“Why do we have such a good count on the enemy ships?” Mike asked.  “I thought the Chxor used powerful jamming systems, right?”

Simon nodded, “Yes, Captain, but we’re behind them.  They’re directional jammers, I believe.”  He cleared his throat, “It doesn’t seem as if the Chxor are paying us any attention, Captain.  I think the general detonation of the last wave of missiles hid our arrival.”

“Interesting…” Mike murmured.  Simon had begun to populate what he thought were the ship classes.  Mike saw forty of the Chxor’s Five-class dreadnoughts.  The massive ships mounted heavier guns than he really wanted to think about, with missile tubes and fusion projectors, plus anti-fighter rotary cannons.

“Let’s blast the bastards!” Eric snarled.  The former Centauri Commando’s hands hovered over his weapon’s console and his face wore an eager look.  With his blonde hair and blue eyes, he looked like an eager child in a candy store.  With how twitchy Eric Striker could be, Mike felt tempted to cut power to his weapons officer’s console.

“They have us outgunned by several orders of magnitude,” Mike said shaking his head.  “How about we see if it’ll do any good before we die gloriously?”

The Chxor formation was clearly accelerating away from the Aurore… and just as clearly headed towards the inhabited planet.  That was bad news for a number of reasons.  They had planned on resupply in the Malta system.  It was the last human-held system on their route into Chxor space.

“Any signs of human forces?” Mike asked.  If the fight was over…

“Captain,” Simon said, and brought up a visual scan.  It looked to be the remains of a battleship, possibly one of the Desperado-class battleships.  Mike wasn’t certain, because the front end was simply gone and the rear area was twisted wreckage, still glowing in areas from multiple hits.

“Range?” Mike asked.

“Uh, three hundred kilometers,” Simon said.

“Bring us alongside, tuck us in close,” Mike said to Sharric Nelson, “Just use the maneuvering thrusters.”  The civilian navigation officer’s dark face was set in a tense expression.  Clearly he had hoped for orders to plot a course out of the system.

“Oh, good, we can pick up survivors,” Ariadne said.

Mike looked at his XO.   The tall, beautiful blonde woman’s face showed concern.  Mike decided not to crush her positive thinking by telling her that he just wanted something to hide behind.  Then again, he thought, who knows, there might actually be survivors… and if there aren’t there’s bound to be some valuable salvage.

The Aurore wasn’t a military ship, after all, she was a privateer.

“Simon, you getting anything on communications?”  Mike asked

“Negative, sir,” Simon responded, “too much jamming.”

The Aurore didn’t mount an ansible.  Radio communications wouldn’t penetrate the jamming.  A laser transmission should, though it would be directional so they’d need line of sight to someone…

Mike brought up the course plotted by Sharric and began to fly the vessel himself.  They didn’t have much bridge crew and while they did have a spare helmsman, Mike would rather do it himself.  Besides, the maneuvering thrusters didn’t have much juice.  There was an art to using them for a maneuver like this.

“Sir,” Simon said after a long moment, “I’m picking up a large force near the planet.”  He brought up the icons on the main display.  While part of Mike wished they’d had the money to retrofit to more modern tactical displays –at least for the Captain’s chair– he was glad the ship had a military-grade main display.

Mike studied the force.  It looked to be five or six capital ships, with a host of smaller vessels.  Nothing near an even match for the Chxor armada.  Too bad, he thought, I really don’t want another world falling to the Chxor Empire.  “Transponders?” Mike asked.

“They match Nova Roma,” Simon said.  “This ship,” he highlighted what looked like one of the larger vessels, “is a Helot-class carrier, the Furies Wrath, it should be Lord Admiral Valens Balventia’s ship.”

Mike frowned in thought for a moment.  He didn’t recognize the name.  “Shouldn’t Lord Admiral Roccaberti be the one in command?”

“No sign of his ship, Captain,” Simon said.

They had come up on the wreckage of the battleship and to Mike’s surprise, he saw that distress beacons had begun to appear, drowned out by all the jamming and weapons fire until they came close enough to see them.  Mike brought up the intercom, “Rastar, are you suited up?”

“Yeah, Mike,” Rastar said.  “I got the rest of the boarding party ready to go.”

“Have Run prep his team, too,” Mike said.  The little Chxor acted as the ship’s doctor, not that Mike really trusted him to work on him if he was injured.  But since doctors were in short supply during war time and he’d already proven that he could do field surgery, Mike had kept him on.  Besides, Run understood the Chxor language, which meant that he might be useful to translate.

On that cue, Run spoke up, “I would advise against remaining in the system.  The human defeat is inevitable.  Once they have been destroyed, the Chxor Fleet Commander will sweep for surviving vessels and we will be destroyed.”

“Thanks, I’ll take that under consideration” Mike snarled.  The little bastard’s assurance of defeat made Mike want to lend a hand to his fellow humans.

As always, sarcasm was wasted upon the Chxor.  “Thanks are not necessary, I merely stated the obvious.”

“Rastar, go rescue survivors,” Mike snapped.  He looked at Simon, “Get me a channel with this Admiral Balventia.”

“Sir,” Simon said, “there’s a lot of jamming.  The range is extremely long for the laser transceiver…”

“Get me a comm line,” Mike snapped.  “I don’t care if you need to go out on the hull and wave your hands.  I want to talk with Admiral Balventia, now.”  Simon’s face grew pinched, but he went to work.   “Oh,” Mike looked at Ariadne, “Put the crew at battle stations, I want everyone suited up, just in case.”  In all the excitement, he’d forgotten about the rest of the crew.

He was used to operating a smaller ship, one where the entire crew was less than a dozen people.  At least, that’s how things had been before.  Now, aboard the freighter Aurorae they had a hundred and fifty crew and room for two hundred more, plus passengers.  And since slavers had retrofitted the ship, Mike thought, we have life support for all the cargo holds.

Not that he planned on having the ship full of that many people, but they might find a ship in distress or a high priority passenger trip or something.  Failing that, Mike thought, I’ve run livestock before, it’s nice to have versatility like that.

“Anubus, is your ship ready?” Mike asked

“The October Sky is ready,” Anubus growled.  “Why are we remaining in the system?  The human defense is a lost cause.”  It amused Mike that Anubus mentioned his combat prowler was ready to fight while at the same time suggesting they should flee.  Clearly the disparate parts of their Wrethe were at odds over the situation.

“Plenty of salvage on that wreck,” Mike said.  “Or are you too scared to take a few risks?”  The Wrethe’s silence was answer enough to that question.

“Captain, I have a link to the Admiral’s carrier,” Simon said.

“Put me on,” Mike said.  Hopefully they could do some good.  If not, well, Mike would be willing to pass along any last messages to family or loved ones.  Maybe there’ll be some pay in that…

***

Reading, Science Fiction

Coming Soon: Renegades: Out of Time

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Sutek Press will release Renegades: Out of Time, the third book of The Renegades series, November 12th, 2016.  It’s less than a week away, but I think this is the best Renegades book yet.

The Renegades are running out of time.

Captain Mike Noguchi has led his band of Renegades out of the heart of a interstellar war, forged them together into a privateer crew, and has learned of an ancient alien facility that may hold clues to a conspiracy which  seems bent on his crew’s destruction.

But that facility is on a planet conquered by the Chxor.  The Renegades will need to slip across the battle-lines, infiltrate a conquered world, and find their way inside a facility which has kept its secrets for untold generations.  Along the way they’ll need to fight genetically engineered monsters, a psychotic military commander, and an entire army of Chxor.
Yet even if they manage that, some secrets may be too much for them to handle.  Their enemies have already done terrible things with the knowledge found there… can the Renegades survive secrets from outside of time?
Reading, Writing

Kal’s October 2016 Forecast

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October… my favorite month for a number of reasons.  Not least of which is that I love the fall.  Lots of cool weather that’s perfect for curling up and reading/writing a book.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing.  No, really, it’s about all I do in my free time.  Write and think about writing.  It’s sort of taking over.  The good news there is that I’m putting the finishing touches on Renegades: Out of Time.  The third novel of the Renegades series is just that, a novel.  It’s every bit as manic and crazy as the other ones, but it follows a more traditional writing style.  Why is that, you may ask?  Because for this story, it flows better.  At this point, too, most of my readers should know the characters well enough that they don’t all need their own stories.

Look for Renegades: Out of Time to come out sometime in November.  Which leads me to what I’ve finished outlining and plan to write next: The Temple of Light, the fifth book of the Shadow Space Chronicles.  In this one, we’ll start to dig into what exactly Reese is doing with those alien artifacts he’s been collecting.  We’ll see more about the mysterious Minder, and we’ll start to see why it is the Balor are so set upon human extinction.

It’s going to be fun.  There’s going to be exploding space ships, intrigue, character growths, character deaths, more exploding space ships, and all-in-all, it should be lots of fun.  My goal is to finish it in November which means a publishing date sometime in December or possibly early January depending on feedback from my readers..

My writing goals after that are a bit more complex.  I need to do a third Wolf Rising book, the fourth Eoriel Saga book, and I’m going to also somehow fit in there finishing off a couple other projects that have been setting on the backburners.

Also this month I’ll be headed out to North Carolina.  In addition to visiting my grandfather, I’ll be attending HonorCon, a military SF convention in Raleigh, NC.  It looks like it’ll be a ton of fun, so if you’re in the area and not cleaning up from hurricane damage, then by all means, come visit.  I’ll have copies of all my books and I’d love to sign some for you!

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

Entertainment, Science Fiction

The Shattered Empire Audiobook Available Now

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shattered-empire-audio-cover-sq-v2The Shattered Empire is now available on Amazon and Audible.com and coming soon to iTunes.

This is the second book of the Shadow Space Chronicles, which follows Baron Lucius Giovanni as he sets out to save humanity from the threat of the Chxor Empire

Baron Lucius Giovanni has managed to buy the human race a brief reprieve from the two alien races which seek humanity’s extinction. In the process he has become the leader of a new nation and the commander of a powerful fleet. However, victory comes with consequences. Without an imminent threat, old feuds have sparked back to life and tenuous alliances falter. There are also old enemies who cannot forget that Lucius has what they wanted. He must find a way to hold off scheming rivals, sociopathic psychics, and even former friends. If he can’t do all that and take the fight to humanity’s true enemies, billions may die under alien servitude.

Get your copy from Audible.com or Amazon today!

Reading, Science Fiction

The Sacred Stars is Now Live!

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sacredstars-02The Sacred Stars, Book Four of the Shadow Space Chronicles is now live.  You can pick up a copy at Amazon today!

Alannis Giovanni has followed in her family’s footsteps and joined the United Colonies Fleet.  As a bare Ensign, she’s been assigned to the Fleet’s newest, most powerful cruiser, the Constellation, on it’s maiden voyage: a simple show-the-flag mission that should be good for her to learn what it is to be an officer.

But things are never simple.  At their most distant port, they come across allies in need.  The Ghornath species are in search of their origins and an array of enemies are trying to stop them.  The crew of the Constellation will have to face pirates, aliens, and uncover a ten thousand-year-old secret in order not just to save their allies, but to thwart a threat that might well catch the rest of the Fleet off-guard.
 
These battles will test Alannis, force her to grow and become the officer that her position and blood demand of her… yet the greatest threat may be one she is the least prepared to face.
You can read the snippets for The Sacred Stars here.
Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction

Kal’s September 2016 Forecast

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September is here!  With it, I’m happy to announce that The Sacred Stars, the fourth book of the Shadow Space Chronicles series is also here!  It’ll be available in just two more days.  That’s right, exploding space ships in only two more days.

I’m also happy to announce that the audiobook narration for The Shattered Empire is done.  I’m doing the review now and I hope to have it approved and available for general purchase through Amazon, Audible, and iTunes sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I’ve begun outlining the third Renegades book and as soon as I finish my current work in progress, I’ll dig into it and hopefully that’ll be ready to publish at the end of October.

My current work in progress is an urban fantasy novel which, once I’ve finished it, I’ll be sending to a publisher.  It may be a while before anyone sees it, but it’ll be worth the wait, trust me, it’s tons of fun to write and the responses I’ve had back so far suggest it is even more fun to read.

Lastly, I’m doing a giveaway with this month’s newsletter.  Run’s Coffee Mug and a signed copy of The Sacred Stars.  Sign up by this weekend and you’ll be eligible.

That’s all for now.   Thanks for reading!

Reading, Science Fiction

The Sacred Stars Snippet Three

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Here’s the third snippet for The Sacred Stars.  You can find the first one here and the second here.  The Sacred Stars will be published September 9th, 2016.

 

“Well,” Captain Daniel Beeson said, “what do you think of the new officers?”

His Executive Officer sighed a bit as he sat back in his chair.  “Lieutenant Busch seems pretty solid.  I haven’t had much of a chance to take the measure of any of our new ensigns yet… though I can’t believe we got stuck with Giovanni.”

“What do you mean by that?” Daniel asked.  He’d served under Lucius Giovanni as his flag captain and in several other positions.  He’d actually been excited to see the Emperor’s little sister was going to join their crew, particularly after seeing her graduation scores from Faraday’s Military Academy.

“I’m certain we’ll have some officers who should know better sucking up to her and heaven help us if she’s the type to throw her civilian rank around,” Commander Bowder said.

Daniel gave his XO a look, “Have you seen any sign of that so far?”

“Well… no,” Commander Bowder responded.  “But that’s not to say it hasn’t happened.  I find it more than a little suspicious that she’s got the scores she does without at least some favoritism.  I mean, most officers can’t help but think of her political connections and adjust their behavior.”

Daniel considered his XO for a long moment.  The officer was one of the Dreyfus Fleet personnel, one who had survived Admiral Dreyfus’s attempted coup and who had been cleared of any involvement.

While Admiral Dreyfus and his cabal of officers had organized a coup, the vast majority of the Dreyfus Fleet personnel had been in the dark about the conspiracy.  The mutinous elements had thrown the entire fleet into disarray and left all too many good people dead.  The survivors had fallen into one of three types in Daniel’s experience.  A small majority had simply never recovered from the betrayal.  Most of them had left behind everything they knew in order to be a last defense for humanity.  Admiral Dreyfus’s betrayal had left them so bitter or disillusioned that many had simply left service.

Then there were a small percentage who had emerged with a new outlook.  They’d seen the cost of when ambition and selfishness became the motivation of leaders.  Many of them were some of the most dedicated and most enthusiastic people in uniform that Daniel had served with.   Lieutenant Michele Konetsky and others like her had truly come into their own during the Dreyfus Coup and the time afterward.

The last type were like Bowder.  They had come out of the Dreyfus Coup still with a desire to serve and protect humanity… but they’d had their idealism shaken to its core.  It had left Richard Bowder with cynicism as his defining characteristic.  Daniel Beeson had read Commander Bowder’s personnel file.  Commander Bowder’s captain had been a member of the cabal, but when he’d ordered his crew to fire on loyalist ships, they’d mutinied.  A quarter of Richard Bowder’s fellow officers and crew had sided with their captain in a fight that had left a third of the crew dead.  Commander Bowder had emerged as the senior surviving officer and he’d managed to lock down his ship and then use it to fire in support of other loyalist ships.

In many ways, Daniel understood the other man’s cynicism having lost so much himself.

Daniel Beeson had joined Lucius Giovanni’s crew as something of a lark, to thumb his nose at his father, the commander of Faraday Colony’s Military Defense Forces.  Yet when the Chxor had captured the planet, it meant Daniel was aboard the War Shrike and not on Faraday.  That was literally the reason that of his three brothers, two sisters, mother, father, assorted cousins, uncles and aunts who were all either in the military or closely affiliated, he was the only surviving member of his family.

Daniel had lost everything, but he had not given into despair.  The Baron had been such a symbol of optimism and hope.  Lucius Giovanni had never given up, never even faltered on his mission to liberate first Faraday, then Nova Roma and other worlds along the way.

In the face of that, both working as an officer under him and now as a commander entrusted by Lucius to lead, Daniel simply couldn’t contemplate giving in to cynicism or doubt.  And while he could understand that Commander Bowder had, somewhat, it was certainly something that he was determined to prevent from undermining the morale of the rest of the crew.

Daniel chose his words carefully, keeping Commander Bowder’s past in mind, “I don’t think that the Emperor would tolerate that kind of behavior, Commander.  For that matter, I don’t think that General Proscia would tolerate any favoritism at the Academy.”

His XO grunted noncommittally.  “Well, I certainly won’t treat her any differently and I’ll hammer anyone else who does, for that matter.”

“That’s what I’d expect of you,” Daniel said.   “Now, what do you think about initial personnel assignments?”

“Lieutenant Commander Voronkov already put claim to Ensign Medica,” Commander Bowder said.  The Nova Roma ensign had branch specified for engineering.  While they’d probably rotate him through some of the other departments for broadening, he was on the fast-track for engineering.  Daniel wouldn’t be surprised if the young man eventually transferred to Research and Development.

“Ensign Shan I’d recommend for assisting Lieutenant Cassat at sensors.  She’s a little weak on her sensor scores, but there’s no better way to improve than working at it every day,” Commander Bowder said.  “Lieutenant Busch is already slotted for communications.  I’d say we put Ensign Giovanni there.”

“Comms?”

“She’s from high social status and it’s an area where we can monitor her actual skills before moving her on,” Commander Bowder said.  He shrugged, “If she can’t pull her weight, it’s better to find out sooner rather than later.”

“Seems like something of a waste given her skills,” Daniel said cautiously.  She had the highest rating of all their ensigns for weapons, telemetry, and already had her civilian certifications for navigation.  Still, he was willing to entertain the trial run if it meant his XO felt better about her proficiency.  “What about tactical department?”

“I think Ensign Yamahito,” Commander Bowder said.  “Lieutenant Commander Douglas has Lieutenant Perkins for fire control and Lieutenant Duchan on missile telemetry.   Yamahito has an acceptable rating for his telemetry, but I’d like to give him some real-world experience to go along with that.”

“Okay,” Daniel nodded.  “I can go with that.”  They had a nice long cruise ahead of them to rotate their new officers around with plenty of time to break them all in, so he wasn’t too concerned about finding just the right fit for everyone.  Breaking them in, finding their strengths and weaknesses was the key part… and it wasn’t something that would happen right away.

“Has Lieutenant Thomas signed aboard yet?” Daniel asked.  The Marine Lieutenant would fill out their officer component.  Thomas had requested a late report date, his mother had suffered a fatal accident just two days earlier.

“Not yet,” Commander Bowder said.  “Possibly sometime in the next few days.”

Daniel nodded.  In truth, he wouldn’t be surprised if the Marine didn’t show before they departed.  Daniel had lost his entire family during the Chxor occupation of Faraday, so he understood taking time for family.  The last thing he wanted was for one of his officers to have something like that hanging over his head during the entire cruise.

“Okay,” Daniel said.  “We’ll go with what you’ve suggested, for now.  The latest on our deployment date is still seventy-two hours.  Make certain Lieutenant Monteif has everything squared away as far as extra supplies and spares for the voyage.”  Their quartermaster had been tasked with stocking them up for the long journey to the Hachiman Gu system.  Since it would take them almost three months to get there, plus an indeterminate time there, and another three months on the return voyage, they would be gone at least seven months.

In a newly commissioned, first-of-her-line, ship integrating a number of new technologies, he thought wryly, and we still have civilian engineers aboard.  It would certainly be an interesting cruise.

***

 

Chapter II

 

UCS Constellation, Faraday System

United Colonies

June 22, 2407

 

“Alannis,” Ensign Scott Yamahito called out, “come commiserate with your fellow ensigns.”

Alanis shook her head as she saw him.  He and Ensign Ashtar Shan sat at a table in the officer’s wardroom.  She nodded at Ashtar and then Scott.  “Scott, I thought you were supposed to go to the Champion.”

“I was,” he replied, “I traded with Andrew Terrapin when I heard the Constellation was headed for Shogunate space.”

“Oh?” Alannis asked.

“Yeah, I have some cousins who live back there still, I might be able to meet them, depending on how long we’re there,” Scott said.  “Plus I’d kind of like to see where I come from, you know?”

She remembered then that Scott’s parents had been refugees from the Dai Yamato system, what was now part of the Shogunate.  As far as she knew, Scott hadn’t shown any preference to return, until now.  Beside him, Ashtar Shan rolled her eyes.

Sounds like he’s got another of his wild hares to chase, Alannis thought.  This wouldn’t be the first time that Scott had become incredibly excited about something odd.  In his time at the Faraday Military Academy he’d developed a number of odd hobbies ranging from Close Quarter Combat Competition to detailed historical military vehicle models to a variety of games.

Scott seemed to get interested, build up a serious skill level or proficiency, and then lose interest and move on. It didn’t exactly surprise her that he would have changed assignments just to look into one such interest.

“Well, it’s good to have you here,” Alannis said.  “How are you two settling in?”  She’d already talked with Ashtar since the two of them shared quarters.  The female officer from the Tehran System had been on an accelerated course of instruction at the Faraday Military Academy and they’d actually become good friends and Alannis had come to appreciate the woman’s abilities.

“They put me in the tactical department,” Scott said with his goofy grin.  “I’m in missile telemetry, working with the Interceptor Mark Nineteens and I’m secondary lead with the new Moljnir Mark Ones and the Arrow Mark Twelves.”

“Oh,” Alannis said and forced herself to smile, “that’s great.”

“Where did you end up?” Scott asked.

“She’s assigned to communications,” Ashtar said before Alannis could reply.

“Oh…” Scott’s face fell.  “Geez, wow… uh, why’d they do that?  I mean, I’m a technical type, but I thought you were on a fast-track for tactical.”

“It’s an assignment,” Alannis shrugged.  “It’s not my business and I’m sure they’ll move us around a bit.”  She tried to keep the disappointment she felt out of her voice.  She knew she wasn’t entirely successful from how Scott shook his head.

“That’s just crazy,” Scott said.  “I can’t believe they did that.  What kind of idiot would send you to communications…”

“Ensigns,” a calm voice interrupted.

All three of them looked up to see that Lieutenant Busch stood over their table.  Alannis’s face went pale as she recognized the head of the communication department.  “The Captain and the XO made the assignment determinations.   If you have any constructive criticism, I’m sure they would both like to hear your opinions and draw from the depths of your experience.”

Alannis winced.  This was hardly the way to look good for her new boss.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Scott said.

The Lieutenant ignored him and looked at Alannis.  “Ensign Giovanni, there’s a lot of message traffic to sort through since we’re heading out.  I just finished approvals for the next update packet.  You need to get down to the department and verify those approvals.”

Alannis winced.  She had just finished an eight hour shift already.  Every ship in the Fleet updated their communications packets on the hour and they uploaded and downloaded that information by priority.  Orders came through with the highest priority, personal communications with the lowest.  When they left, the ansible would have only so much bandwidth, especially as they drew further away from Faraday.

While some of those priorities were easy enough, others were a bit more complicated.  Maintenance reports from different departments, systems malfunctions, ammunition and fuel reserves, and dozens of other updates would wait in the queue until there was time.  Prioritizing different data points over others would take both attention to detail and a great deal of time.

And most of what I’ll be doing is double-checking what Lieutenant Busch already did.  “Yes ma’am, I’ll get right on it.”  She looked down at her tray.  She hadn’t eaten anything yet, but she didn’t want to look bad by finishing it.  She stood and gave her friends nods and then hurried out.

She just hoped this wasn’t an omen or something.

***

Reading, Science Fiction

The Sacred Stars Snippet Two

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Here’s the second snippet from The Sacred Stars, coming September 9th, 2016.   You can find the first snippet here.

Chapter I

 

Faraday Colony, Faraday System

United Colonies

June 19, 2407

 

“Woohoo!” Princess Kaylee Giovanni shouted, waving the ball triumphantly over her head, “I win!  You guys can’t get me!”

Alannis grinned as the Crown Princess gave out an undignified squawk as her adopted sister talked her.  A moment later, Alannis’s son Anthony William rushed over to thump down on top of his cousins.  “Get off me!” Kaylee shouted.

“Going to miss this?” Emperor Lucius Giovanni asked of his sister.

Alannis looked over at him and grinned, “Yeah, a bit.”

She looked back at the three children at play and her grin faded as her son looked up.  At only three years old, Anthony William was of equal height to his cousins and had blonde hair and blue eyes much like his father.  He’d grabbed the ball and he ran up to her, “Mommy, I got the ball!” he squealed.

Alannis nodded, “Good work.  Now give it back, play nice.”  She hated how neutral her voice sounded and she saw her son’s shoulders slump.  I’m a terrible mother, she thought, but then again, it wasn’t like I planned on being one.  Reese had been the one with the plan.

As her son ran back to the game, Alannis grabbed for her glass of wine and took a rather larger sip than was really necessary.  “It’ll be good to finally get out there and do my job, you know?”

She didn’t miss how her brother watched her with concerned eyes.  For a moment, she feared he would actually say something about her relationship with her son.  Young Anthony had spent most of his childhood in Lucius’s care.  Alannis had used her duties as a cadet at the Faraday Military Academy as an excuse for why she didn’t spend time with him.  In truth, she didn’t have much free time, but she knew she could have spent more of it than she had with her son.  Yet the moment passed and Alannis let out a slight sigh of relief.  “So,” she said cheerfully, “how much did you have to do with my assignment?”

Lucius snorted, “You think I pulled strings to get you assigned to the Constellation?”  He shook his head, “Tell me, has being my sister made things easier or harder for you at the Academy?”

Alannis winced in reply.  Her instructors had gone out of their way to show no favors to her.  Oftentimes she had felt as if they graded her every assignment with greater stringency.  “Much harder,” she said.

Lucius nodded, “If you’d said anything differently, I would have pulled General Proscia as superintendent.”  He took a sip of his own wine and his gaze went distant, “We’re founding a new nation, which means setting precedents.  If I made certain that General Proscia and his instructors wouldn’t show you any preference, just how likely is it that I pulled strings to get you assigned to our newest, most powerful cruiser?”

Alannis gave a wry grin, “Not very.  Which means I did earn my posting, that’s nice anyway.”

“You earned it,” her brother nodded.  “Which means you get to go gallivanting around human space while I’m stuck here doing statesman stuff.”  He frowned, “Sorry, that came across as more bitter than I’d intended.”

Alannis’s eyebrows went up, “Things exciting in politics?”

“More than I’d like,” Lucius grumbled.  He sighed, “You’ve no doubt heard some of the grandstanding by Senator Penwaithe?”  When Alannis nodded, he continued, “He’s doing his best to drag his feet over new worlds joining, and when they do, he tries to extend their probationary period as long as possible.”

On the one hand, she suspected that Senator Harris Penwaithe did so out of political ambition.  Probationary members of the United Colonies didn’t get a full vote, and newer members had fewer proportionate votes dependent upon the date they had joined the United Colonies.  That gave his voters more power… and it gave him more clout.  On the other hand, the system was designed to prevent dilution of the founding principles of the United Colonies.

Since Captain Garret Penwaithe and Commander Abigail Penwaithe both taught at the Academy, she was a bit more likely to think better of Senator Harris Penwaithe’s intent.  All the same, she’d seen enough politics from inside and outside to know that the Senator from Halcyon wasn’t as pure of heart as he made out.

“Anything I can help with?” Alannis asked with a sunny smile.  After all, she was about to leave on a nice, long, show the flag cruise.  Rumor had it that the Constellation would be far from United Colonies space.

“Actually,” Lucius said, “there is something I want to talk to you about.”  He gave a look over at Staff Sergeant Timorsky.  The Marine gave him a nod in return, a clear sign that the security perimeter, to include a variety of anti-signal jamming equipment, was still intact.

“While I didn’t pull strings for you to be assigned to the Constellation,” Lucius said, “I did decide to capitalize on the situation and adjust the mission since I knew you’d be aboard.”

“Oh,” Alannis said and her smile faded.

“Yes,” Lucius nodded, “the Constellation‘s mission has shifted from a standard patrol to an escort mission.  The first turn-key upgrades for our Shogunate allies are available and we’re sending the Constellation as the escort for the convoy, along with the destroyers Regent and Crossbow.  Since we’ll have some of our civilian engineers aboard the Constellation for a final set of diagnostics, they can also assist with any issues that the Shogunate encounters getting things set up.”

Alannis sighed, “I’ll assume I’m there as Princess Alannis Giovanni rather than newly minted Ensign Alannis Giovanni?”

“No,” Lucius shook his head, “You get to wear both hats.  Congratulations.  Captain Beeson will be our official representative and Mitchel Kondas is our diplomatic envoy.  But the way things work there is they like to take the measure of the dynasty they’re dealing with.  They’re very much traditionalists.”  That was an understatement from what Alannis knew.  The Shogunate contained several colonies founded by Earth’s Japan.  All three of the central, founding colonies harkened back to a more feudal style of governance, each of them paying notional obedience to their Emperor, who had mostly symbolic authority.  They also strongly valued military tradition, which meant her presence as an officer and the Emperor’s sister should carry some weight.

“Okay, do I have any talking points?” Alannis asked with resignation.

“Nothing so pushy,” Lucius grinned.  “Just set a good example, tell some war stories, and generally make friends.  Let Ambassador Kondas handle the rest.”

“Great,” Alannis sighed.  “Anything else I can help you with?”

“That’s plenty for now,” Lucius said.  He nodded over at where Anthony had taken the ball and started running.  “Maybe you should spend some time with your son?  It’ll be a long time before you see him again.”

It was as blunt as he could be without crossing a line and it set Alannis’s back up.  She forced herself to give him a smile.  “He’s having fun, I don’t want to interrupt.”

“You’ve only got so much time before he grows up,” Lucius said, “you don’t want to miss out on this part.”

Alannis closed her eyes.  It wasn’t that she didn’t love her son… it was just that he looked so much like her ex-husband that she felt physically ill when she thought about it.  Bad enough that the bastard had hacked her implant to get her pregnant, he’d also signed on with the pirate Lucretta Mannetti.  After Lucius had captured the renegade Admiral, they’d turned up more information that showed Reese had done some extremely questionable work, often involving human test subjects and alien equipment.

At best, Reese was a criminal who had betrayed her trust.  At worst… well, he had betrayed everything Alannis believed in.  “It’s not easy for me, okay?” Alannis said.  “It’s different for you.  You love Kandergain,” Alannis waved a hand at Kaylee as the girl tackled her son.  Kandergain was some kind of super-psychic and was Kaylee’s mother.  She’d left because she didn’t want to endanger Lucius or her daughter by drawing her enemies down upon them.  “Me… I hate Reese.”

Lucius looked more than a little uncomfortable.  Long before she’d even met Reese he had been Lucius’s friend.  It was through her brother that she and Reese met.  Reese was charming, handsome, intelligent… and he only ever cared about himself, she thought bitterly.

She could see the discomfort on her brothers face and Alannis gave a sigh.  “Alright… when I get back from this assignment, I’ll take some time off, I’ll spend some time with Anthony, okay?  I’d do it now, but I’ve got to report in this afternoon.”  She didn’t mention that she’d asked for an early report time, partially out of excitement to get to her first assignment and partially because it gave her an excuse not to guilt-tripped by her brother.

Besides, she thought, it’s not like I even know how to be a parent.  Her father had led a failed coup against Emperor Romulus II and her mother had committed suicide when she was only a few weeks old.  She and Lucius had been raised by their grandmother.

Alannis could tell that Lucius wasn’t happy with her answer, but he didn’t push her.  There will be time later, she told herself, when Anthony is older, I can explain it all to him.

Somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better.

***

 

Sanctuary Station, Faraday System

United Colonies

June 21, 2407

 

“Sir,” Alannis said, “Ensign Giovanni reporting for duty.”  She gave a crisp salute and then passed over her orders.”

Captain Beeson returned the salute sharply.  Despite the fact that he must have known she’d be reporting, he took the paper copy of her orders and examined them carefully.  “Everything is in order,” he said and passed them back.  “Chief Donnitz will want to in-process you, but I’d like you to tour the ship, first.”  He looked over, “Lieutenant Perkins!”

The tall, gaunt Lieutenant snapped to attention, “Sir?”

“Please give the ensign a tour of the ship,” Captain Beeson said.  He frowned then, “And if you see Lieutenant Commander Bowder, please introduce the XO to our new officer.”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Perkins said.  He jerked his head at Alannis and then headed for the back hatch to the bridge.  Alannis gave a parting salute to the commanding officer and then followed.

“So,” Lieutenant Perkins said, “Find your way to the ship with no problems?”  The Lieutenant seemed familiar for some reason.  He had a twangy accent, most unlike the prim and proper Nova Roman or the core worlds.  He was tall, taller even than her ex-husband, with closely cropped dark brown hair and dark brown eyes to match.

“Yes, sir,” Alannis said.  Sanctuary Station was the Fleet’s new military station in orbit over the gas giant Sanctuary.  Unlike the older Skydock Station in orbit over Faraday, the Department of War had designed  station purely for construction, repair, and docking of military ships.  While some of the docks had been online and functional for over two years, much of the rest of the station still wasn’t operational.

The Constellation’s berth lay at the very first of a long chain of military docks.  Only two other ships shared the space, the Constellation‘s two sister ships, neither of which had been commissioned yet.

Most of the system’s other military traffic was in orbit over Faraday.  In fact, other than the shipments of personnel for the new ships and deliveries of materials and supplies for the shipyard, there wasn’t much of any activity around Sanctuary Station.  I suppose that was some of the idea behind putting it out here, she thought, fewer prying eyes to see military secrets.

She followed Lieutenant Perkins down the corridor.  Everything had a new and shiny feel to it. The markings on the walls were crisp and sharp, the gray paint was clean, and there were no scuff-marks anywhere to be seen.

“So,” Perkins said, “we actually finished our trial cruise and official acceptance two days ago.  Until then we only had two thirds of our personnel complement.  You’re the first of our new officers to arrive, so you’ll get the pick of the Ensign’s quarters.”

He turned down a corridor and then paused.  “This is officer country.  XO and Chief Engineer’s quarters are fore and aft respectively.  Further down the hall you’ve got the shared quarters for lieutenants… and then there at the end there’s the Ensign and Midshipman quarters.”  He hiked a thumb over his shoulder, “Captain’s quarters are back towards the bridge.”

Perkins continued on, “You saw the bridge, we have two engine rooms for our two reactors, forward and aft.  Weapons control is broken down by forward and aft as well.  You know about the new armament?”

Alannis frowned, “I’d heard some, but just rumors.  The manuals aren’t available even in secure systems yet.”

“Well…” Lieutenant Perkins gave a wry grin over his shoulder, “that’s probably because we’re rewriting the manuals just about every day.”  He ducked under a low pipe without looking and then led her down a ladder.  She didn’t know how he managed the tight confines of the ship without injury.  She felt claustrophobic as they took a particularly narrow ladder.  “The reason we’re not taking the drop-lifts, by the way, is they’re offline for calibration,” he said.

“Oh,” Alannis said in reply.  She rather hoped they’d locked down all the access doors to the shafts then, otherwise a crewman would be in for a rather big surprise when they stepped into open air and the gravity system didn’t catch them.

“This is forward weapon control,” Lieutenant Perkins said as they came into the chamber.  It didn’t look like much.  The beam generators were four bulky pieces of equipment with piping and conduits coming off.

“No, no, no, no!” A man shouted.  “You stupid imbecile, this is a piece of equipment that generates and accelerates high energy exotic particles… do you really want to kill us all!?”

Alannis turned and saw a short, balding man in civilian garb waving his hands in the air in front of an enlisted man.  Alannis recognized Rory after a moment, the short, chubby engineer was some kind of expert on alien technology or something.  Her brother had mentioned that he had him working on a variety of projects, apparently this was one.

The Weapons Tech looked like he wanted to do nothing more than escape.  “Uh, sir, I’m just doing maintenance…”

“Just following orders, is it?” Rory demanded.  “Do you think that will excuse you when you destroy not just this entire ship, but the station we’re docked with!?”

Almost on cue, Feliks, Rory’s constant companion, stuck his head out of an open maintenance hatch.  The tall, skinny engineer had a pair of glasses perched on his nose and he had a patient expression, “In all likelihood, what he has done would only destroy the forward end of the vessel.”  His rough Centauri Confederation accent gave his calm, soft-spoken tone more weight.

“Only?  Only!?” Rory demanded.  “I happen to currently be in the forward end of this vessel!  And you didn’t consider the consequences of the reversed polarity on the power junction… did you?”

Feliks cocked his head as he considered that “No.”

He pulled out his datapad even as Rory turned to face Lieutenant Perkins.  “I demand that this man be fired immediately!  He jeopardized the lives of the entire crew and especially the passengers!”

“He means him,” Feliks said helpfully without looking up as he tapped at his datapad.

“I am a nearly irreplaceable engineer with both incredible talent and unrivaled credentials,” Rory said.

“What did Technical Specialist Spurlock do?” Lieutenant Perkins asked in a resigned tone.

“What did he do… what didn’t he do!” Rory waved his hands in the air.  “He could have killed all of us!”

“Rory,” Lieutenant Perkins said in a level voice, “No one on this ship was intentionally trying to kill you.  If you would please explain to me what the issue is, I’ll address it.  If you keep having histrionics, I won’t be able to fix the problem.”

“You can’t just fix this kind of thing,” Rory said.  “He used the wrong torsional wrench on the power conduit bolts, which meant they were too tight.  I’d give it a ninety percent–”

“Hmm, fifty percent at most,” Feliks disagreed, still without looking up.

“…seventy percent chance of those bolts shattering when the main weapon systems fired, which would have caused a power disruption to the the main power junction.  In turn, that would have overridden the particle generator’s regulator and caused it to detonate like a bomb!  He did that on all four of the beam generators!”

“Ah!” Feliks said with satisfaction, “I found an error in your calculations!”

“What?” Rory spun and ripped the datapad out of Feliks’s hands.  “That’s nonsense, there’s no way I made a mistake…”  he trailed off.  “Huh, what do you know.  I guess I was off, by a factor of ten.”

“So it wouldn’t destroy the ship?”  Ensign Perkins asked.

“Oh, no,” Rory waved a hand, “It would have vaporized the entire ship and station.  That’s fascinating, I’m already seeing some implications and possibilities to deliberately build some sort of exotic particle bomb…”

“Yes,” Felix replied, “the issue would be generation and containment due to the rapid decay of the exotic particles…”

Lieutenant Perkins rolled his eyes and then signaled Tech Specialist Spurlock to come over.  “Can you fix the problem?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said.  He looked both painfully young and very nervous.  “I caught the issue and I just tried to get them to calibrate the torsional wrench to the right level, sir.”

“Right,” Lieutenant Perkins said.  “Get it fixed and then get Petty Officer Pine to look it over.”  He rubbed a hand down his face as the Tech Specialist hurried away.  “Why did we get saddled with that pair…” he muttered, just loud enough that Alannis heard.

She didn’t say anything.  The two engineers had begun a heated argument which involved much hand-waving and finger pointing.  Thank God I’m not stuck in engineering with those two, she thought.  She hoped to be assigned to the tactical department or at least the navigational department.  With her scores, she figured either one would be a good fit.

“Well,” Lieutenant Perkins said after a moment, “We’ll just move on, I’ll bring you past forward engineering next…”

***

Snippet Three

Reading, Science Fiction, Writing

The Sacred Stars Coming Soon

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The Sacred Stars, book four of the Shadow Space Chronicles, is coming soon!  You can expect it in early September (probably just after labor day).

You can never go home.

Alannis Giovanni has followed in her family’s footsteps and joined the United Colonies Fleet.  As a bare Ensign, she’s been assigned to the Fleet’s newest, most powerful cruiser, the Constellation, on it’s maiden voyage: a simple show-the-flag mission that should be good for her to learn what it is to be an officer.

But things are never simple.  At their most distant port, they come across allies in need.  The Ghornath species are in search of their origins and an array of enemies are trying to stop them.  The crew of the Constellation will have to face pirates, aliens, and uncover a ten thousand-year-old secret in order not just to save their allies, but to thwart a threat that might well catch the rest of the Fleet off-guard.
 
These battles will test Alannis, force her to grow and become the officer that her position and blood demand of her… yet the greatest threat may be one she is the least prepared to face.