Jeffery H. Haskell's Blog, page 2

The Joy of a Great Story

Great stories do something to you. They pull you in and add you to their world. Last night we saw Mission Impossible: Fallout, and like or hate Tom Cruise, that movie was amazing.

Over the years I have seen COUNTLESS ticking clocks in movies and read them in books. The hero cutting the wire with one second left to go is beyond cliche. Yet, somehow, they made it exciting beyond measure. Made you feel it.

I love this about movies and books. There are moments when you're watching and reading them where you want to stand up and shout. This happened to me while watching MI:F. On a side note, Henry Cavill is a certified badass.

I had this moment in Justice League when Superman said, "I believe in Truth," and again when Thor came to Wakanda during Infinity War.

It's one of those things that I try to do as a storyteller. Give the audience moments they can cheer about.

Bottom line, go see Mission Impossible.

Other news!
I'm hard at work on two projects right now, Arsenal 6 and my new series/spin-off superhero. I don't have a name or title I'm ready to share yet, but I can promise you it will be EPIC.

Arsenal 6 should be out late Aug early Sept if all goes well. When I know more, you'll no more. The new series I'm shooting to launch around October.

As always, if you want to ask me questions or stay more up-to-date, join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jefferyhhaskell

Thanks for reading and being AWESOME!!

UNBREAKABLE

Arsenal V, or as we like to call it, Unbreakable Arsenal (that may be my favorite title yet) is off to the proofreaders!

I'm excited. So far she's in at 55k words which put her more than Unstoppable and slightly less than the first Arsenal.

You can pre-order it now, or wait for June 19th and pick it up at Amazon.com!

"Well Jeff, now that you wrote another Arsenal book, what's next?"

Thank you, that is a great question. Last year one of the authors I follow did a challenge called, 12 Weeks to a trilogy. I think I'm going to give that a try. Start from scratch, a whole new book series and world (not sure on specifics just yet).

Don't worry though. I'll be done with this in August and back on Arsenal duty by the end of September. There will be AT LEAST two more Arsenal books this year. I looove Amelia, Kate, and co. They are a hoot to write and like family. I won't be leaving them any time soon.

Don't forget, Intruder is out now (everywhere) and Unbreakable Arsenal is out on June 19th.

Love you, people, truly. You make it all possible!

Avengers Infinity War (Holycrap!)

Hello! What a year so far.

It's been all over the place. I'm very thankful to have you all as readers. I'm also thankful I can write stories people seem to like! I'm hard at work on Arsenal 5 (title pending). As soon as I have it up I will let everyone know.

I am in between mail service providers at the moment so if you don't hear from me for a month, don't panic.

I've got a good roadmap of how I want this year to go and by extension the next three Full Metal Superhero books. They won't be the only thing I write this year, though.

I'm still planning on expounding on the "Butcher of Orcin" from Beyond the Black (welcome everyone from there). As well as my Naval military sci-fi I've worked on in bits and pieces since December.

Avengers: Infinity War... I am going to do an in-depth review of it on Facebook if you want to read it there. But wow... holy crud. What a movie.

If you want to chat, look me up on Facebook or email me!

jeffery.haskell@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/jefferyhhask...

Thank you all for following me!

Updates and fun times

Beyond the Black has been a huge success and I want to welcome all the new subscribers from the set!

Welcome! Here are some handy links for you.

I love talking about sci-fi and superheroes on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/jefferyhhask...

You can see a list of all my books on Amazon or follow me there if you prefer:

https://www.amazon.com/Jeffery-H.-Has...

If getting email isn't your thing (and I don't want you to groan every time you see my name) just opt-out at the bottom of this list. I usually do a blog post every month and one newsletter a month as well. That's a grand total of 2 emails from me a month. I do release a lot of books, but I always include them in my newsletter email. I do sneak peaks on my blog.

Having said that, let's get down' to business. The Full Metal Superhero is alive and well (see the above links if you haven't read the books) and will be coming your way soon-ish. As usual, once I am halfway done I'll put up a pre-order. I don't have a timetable on that at the moment, just to say Amelia Lockheart will return.

I posted on Facebook about the similarities between the next book and the old TV show "Quantum Leap". Watch intro on Youtube if you've never seen it. It really is accidental. Part of the problem of having watched and read just about everything out there for Sci-fi is it is all in my noggin.

I'll be releasing the box set for Volume One next month, so those that want to just buy the whole series at once can hang on and do that. As soon as my cover designer has a free second she'll get me a cover and we can do the pre-order. It will be in April, I don't know when yet.

My small press military sci-fi, Intruder comes out in May and that is available for preorder right now. For right now, just on Amazon and Kobo. Itunes and B&N are dragging their feet.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BL2KP7Z
https://www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/intr...

For those of you who liked the "Butcher of Orcin" I will be writing more with Hiro and Mata, it is just a matter of when. Originally it was going to be a joint project between me and another writer, but she dropped out.

Some other big news... I'm going to a writers conference in November in the great city of Las Vegas! If you live down there and would like some signed books, there will be a day for fans to stop by. I'd love to meet you.

That is all for now. Thank you so much for signing up to my email list and using your precious time and money to read my work. Again, if you're not interested in the email, please opt-out, I won't take it personally ;) However, I hope you do stay for the ride, it's a lot of fun!

All the best,
-Jeffery

Alien Arsenal pre-order live! Sneak peak inside!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07956YXPK

The road to Alien Arsenal hasn't been a bed of roses, but it has been awesome. I've enjoyed writing this book more than anyone I've done previously. There is something really exciting about getting to this point in the character where who they are is well formed. Amelia is who she is going to be, and while she will course correct now and again, we know how she thinks and feels at this point. She's a real person to me now and I'm a little sad coming to the end of this arc. However, there is a bright and strange new future in store for her! To wet your whistle here is the first chapter (Rough Draft mind you) of Alien Arsenal, out Feb. 28th! Pre-order it now to make sure it is in your Kindle at 10 pm Pacific time on Feb 27th!


CHAPTER 1

(Insert apropos quote here).

The light fades and I can see again. I blink several times to clear the afterimages and give my heart a second to stop doing its level best to blast out of my chest. The creature before me looks nothing like Matahal. Where he had a flat face and oversized limbs, this alien could pass for a human. Albeit, one with an impossibly thin waist and narrower body in general. She’s beautiful in a ‘work-of-art’ sense. I assume she’s a she since despite her otherworldliness she clearly has breasts and hips… her eyes are too large for her head and they shine with an inner light like the sun during an eclipse. She’s dressed in a white one piece skin tight tunic with a yellow starburst over her right breast that runs down to her feet. The tunic stretches from her neck and wraps around her whole body, feet included, like a glove. Long golden hair flows down her back and it complements her light brown skin.
She says something I don’t quite catch. My heart is still hammering away and my adrenaline is making every little detail stand out. Her eyes go wide and she lifts her hands up in a too human gesture. She makes sounds no human could ever hope to copy. A mixture of bells and chimes and somehow… light?
“I don’t understand you,” I tell her.
Not that I think she will understand me but maybe she’ll realize I’m trying to communicate with her. She gestures toward me in a ‘come here’ motion with her hands.
I don’t even know if she understands human gestures, that could mean anything but I try to make her understand by pointing at my legs and shaking my head back and forth.
She cocks her head to the side, eyes narrowing. Okay, she doesn’t understand. At least she has an excuse, being alien and all.
“My legs don’t work,” I explain. Lifting up one, I drop it back to the deck and then do the same to the other. It isn’t like they look like healthy human legs. Even with my physical therapy and the induced exercise my armor gives me, they are still far smaller than proportional. Of course, an alien might not realize that. My demonstration seems to have explained it to her though.
She walks toward me, hands out, palms up and slides her arms under me. I wince for a second, fear coming back to me as she lifts me up off the ground with no more effort than Luke would have exerted.
Oh God. Luke! He’s got to be freaking out right about now. I wish there was a way to contact him. She says something to me that I still don’t understand but I take the hint. I put one arm around her shoulder to stabilize myself as she carries me out of the cell… room… I’m not sure yet.
We’re on a spaceship, I can tell that much. The air is dry and cold, the deck is flat but the walls curve in. If I had to guess, it is a small ship. I’m not sure how aliens would classify vehicles, but maybe a scout ship of some kind? The metal in front of us just flows and forms a doorway into the cockpit. I need to study that. Flowing metal? That means molecular instability in a structurally dense material. Rearranging molecules with nanites maybe? Or electrical frequency? I almost miss the room she carries me into I’m so busy examining the door as it flows closed behind us.
I turn my head back forward and the view of Earth takes my breath away. We’re in high orbit and I can see almost the entire planet from the view screen. The moon hangs in the distance on its speedy journey around my home.
She motions with her head and a chair forms out of the deck for me to sit in. She places me gently in the new chair, it slides around under me as it conforms to my shape. I giggle from the tickling the dull metal gives me as it strives to fit perfectly. My head is spinning at the possibilities. I could have armor that flowed around me like a liquid. It would be much lighter, or maybe a second skin under the armor?
She sits down opposite me in her own chair and leans toward me. Her eyes glow fiercely in the dim cockpit casting an orange hew on everything. The light of her eyes warms my skin where it touches me. The light grows even brighter and I try to close my eyes but I can’t. Panic grips me for a second and I start thinking she’s going to eat me or something and then the light vanishes.
The alien’s skin flows like the metal, her body reshaping and when it finishes… she’s still a work of art, beautiful golden hair, sun kissed skin, and eyes so blue I could mistake them for colored LED’s. She looks more than a little like me, or an idealized version of me. Small, pert, thin, but with features a lot like my own. For a heartbeat, she’s naked, perfect as a painting and anatomically correct before her uniform returns to cover her now shapely body.
“Hi,” I say with a smile and a wave.
Her mouth opens but her perfectly formed lips just flap up and down for a second. She clears her throat and opens them again…
I take a deep breath and breath out as I speak in an exaggerated manner. “Hello. My name is Amelia.”
She breathes in deeply through her nose, “H—hello… M—my name is… Aaaah-meeeel-yuuuuh,” she says with a smile. Her voice even sounds a little like me.
“Very good. But that’s my name,” I point at my chest. “What is your name.” I point at hers. She mimics my movements for a moment. I’m still marveling at how she changed her shape. Matahal had done something similar but I’d assumed he’d used tech to do it, not that he’d been an actual shape changer.
“Ahhhh-gaaaaah-steeeeen-aaaaa.” She says as if the sounds are foreign to her. She’s a quick learner. Maybe it has something to do with taking our shape? I know the sounds she made before were nothing like human speech. Or at least very little like it. There was sound but also light, and I’d really like to know how she pulled that trick off.
I rolled her sounds around in my mind for a second before I tried repeating them back to her. “Augustina?”
She nods emphatically a smile spreading on her lips. “Augusteeeena.” She says again, frowning. “Augustina!” She smiles. “Augustina.”
“Okay,” I chuckle, “Augustina.”
She nods. “Augustina Looo-seee-aaaaa-nnnn-aaaa.”
I think about it for a second. “I’m Amelia Lockheart and you are, Augustina Luciana?” She nods again, smiling even bigger than before.
“Augustina Luciana Maaaa-xiiim-maaaa.” She says again then pointing at me.
“Augustina Luciana Maxima?”
She nods.
“Okay, well we’re getting somewhere but at this rate, it could take a while. Can you understand me at all?” She nods a little, her smile slipping somewhat. “That’s what I thought. Okay, I guess this is going to take a while.”
“Take a while…” she says almost perfectly.
And it does. We spend I don’t know how long but the fact that I hadn’t eaten since I left for Texas earlier this morning starts to become an issue about the time she puts whole sentences together. She learns exceptionally fast. I just can’t go through every possible word or sentence and their meaning with her. I don’t know how big my vocabulary is but teaching English to an alien isn’t one of my skills.
“Augustina? Can you turn off the…” She has ECM of some kind but I’m not sure what her people call it… I take a swing, “Shields? My friends could find me then and we could do this a lot quicker.”
“Sheeee-iiiiilds.” She plays with the word for a moment.
“Yes, the thing around your ship hiding you.” I assume it’s hiding her otherwise Kate would be here in a New York minute and I’d already be home watching Star Trek and having a make-up make-out with Luke!
She shakes her head, pointing to the screen. I shrug. “I don’t understand.”
A control panel flows into existence in front of her and she carefully hunt and pecks commands like she only just learned to fly this thing. The screen flickers and the moon is much larger now. She points again.
“Uh, you can’t turn off the shields because of the moon?”
She brightens for a second then deflates. Her head moves around in different directions like she’s trying to figure out the right gesture to tell me something.
“Wait… something behind the moon?” I ask. I try and mime circling the moon. I must have done a good enough job because she nods enthusiastically.
“Beee-hiiii-nnnnn-ddddd.” Her speech patterns are somewhat painful to endure. Not painful, just really dang annoying.
“Show me.”
She presses a button which immediately sounds and an alarm and she frantically presses another then another until it shuts off.
“Do you know how to fly this thing?”
She looks at me sideways as if she were evaluating my words. “Fuuu-liiiie.”
I shake my head, “Never mind. Just show me.”
She presses the right button this time and the ship starts to move out of orbit. I open my mouth to object when it swings wide to come back around the dark side of the moon. My mouth stays open in shock.
There are dozens of craft behind the moon. I can easily make out the drones. Pointing at one I start to ask her a question but the screen surprises me when it automatically zooms where I point. A glance at her says she’s as surprised as me. I move the screen around, there are seven more drones, two larger ships that look more like cigars than what I imagine advanced starships look like. Dozens of smaller craft, maybe screening elements? And a few boxy ships that could be transports. No wonder NASA didn’t see them coming. They’re already here. If so then, what are they waiting for?
“You can’t turn off the shields because they will see you?”
“Yes.” She seems as surprised by her perfect pronunciation as I am.
“And I take it you’re not with them,” I look to her. She shakes her head, frowning.
“Th’un.” She points at the screen. “Lux.” She points at herself.
I glance once more at the fleet. “I’m going to need a bigger suit,” I say with a sigh. “Augustina.” I turn to her, “I need to go home. My people need me.”
“My people need you,” she replies.
“No. I mean, my people need…” Oh. I get it. “What do you mean your people need me?”
She turns back to the panel, hunting for the right buttons before she pushes one, then another. A screen pops up with my picture. Well, Arsenals picture then underneath it is an image of me. I don’t recognize the language but the file is obviously a negative review. The words are in red and there is a bright red symbol over me.
“Warrant,” she says. Then she shakes her head and tries again, “Death-warrant.” She smiles.
“That isn’t something you smile about. Did the Th’un make this?” I gesture toward the screen.
“Yes. Supreme Commander signed your death warrant. Spies gave me information. I come to get you to save my people.”
A death warrant huh? I guess I’m doing something right. “I can’t leave my world defenseless to go help yours. I have to save my people first. Can you help me do that?”
“Help me,” she says. I sigh.
“Augustina, I can’t help you. I need to stop them,” I point at the enemy fleet in orbit behind the moon. There are days when I miss my biggest problems being White Rhino and Vixen.
“Help you. Stop them. Help me?” I think I know what she’s saying.
“Yes, I’ll help you once I’ve stopped them. Okay?”
“Oooo-kaaaay,” she smiles as she says the word. I guess it is kind of fun to say.
“I need to go home, though. I can’t do anything without my armor or my friends.”
“I can’t go home,” she says.
“No, I need to go to my home… oh. I’m sorry, I just realized what you mean.”
“Okay.”
“Can you take me to my home? I have friends and my weapons. We can stop them. Then we will all go to your home and stop them there. Deal?”
“Du-eeel,” she says. I hold my hand out to her out of instinct. She holds hers out but doesn’t touch mine. I grasp her fingers and squeeze lightly.
“Deal.”

Inescapable is coming in NINE DAYS!

I'm going to be totally honest with you. You're awesome. Seriously. Without you all (my readers) I'd be nowhere. Thank you for buying, borrowing, stealing, whatever you do to read Full Metal Superhero, thank you! With nine days left to the third book I thought you might like an ADVANCED preview... just a little something to get you talking and excited. You ready? The formatting will be a little iffy. But you're smart enough to ignore it.

Amelia is stubborn, eccentric, and absolutely the best friend I’ve ever had. You ask why I risked everything to save her? Because no matter the risk, that woman is a treasure to mankind and I would be as guilty as the people who took her if I hadn’t tried. I miss her every day. Every day.

—Excerpt from Studio 50’s interview with Kate Petrenelli AKA Domino, founding member of The Protectors.

My hands won’t move. I’m telling them to, but they won’t budge. Just sit there, white knuckling the wheels on my chair while I stare at the black and white tile floor. If I take my hands off the wheels they’ll shake and I don’t want anyone to see me freaking out. Well, anyone other than Kate, who patiently waits for me while I have my panic attack.
“Amelia, it’s going to be okay. Really. Dr. Grace is one of the best. She assures me your parents are making good progress. Remember, they asked to see you.”
I nod. She makes perfect sense in the way she always does. Breathe Amelia, just breathe. It’s one of the lessons taught while I learned to come to grips with my paraplegia. Panic attacks do me no favors. Despite my decent shape and the exercise I do get, there are inherent dangers in being paralyzed and I work extra hard to avoid the pitfalls of paraplegia.
“Kate… what if they don’t remember who I am?” I look to her for help. Kate Petrenelli could’ve modeled for a living if she wanted to, hell with her powers she could do anything, and she chose to fight crime. She’s finally ditched her disguise and now wears her straight black hair just past her shoulders. Her green eyes stare at me behind the very fashionable glasses I had custom-made for her. They let her ‘talk’ to Epic whenever she needs to. The rest of her outfit is as tasteful and well-put together as I could expect. Stylish white blouse, a cardigan throw, and a flowing skirt that dropped down to her ankles and a pair of four-inch heels I would love to wear.
I had a dark blue turtleneck and jeans, though, with the temperature outside below 40 degrees, I opted for a thick wool blanket over my legs. The only thing out of the ordinary is my very bulky hi-tech-looking wheelchair. Of course, it isn’t a wheelchair, it’s my Mark III armor. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time redesigning the wheel, it ended up being more of a Mark 2.5, but with enough changes, I decided to go with the III designator.
“Amelia, this isn’t about them miraculously fully recovering. It’s a process. One you are holding back because you don’t want to see them.” She holds up her hand to forestall my complaint. “Believe me, I understand how painful it is. But you are holding it back. They need to see you, they need to try and reforge those neural pathways.”
I nod; I hate it when she’s right.
“Can you push? I don’t think I can keep my hands from shaking.”
With a grin, she steps behind me. Despite its appearance, the suit is actually quite light. Even if it wasn’t, Kate would put an Olympic weightlifter to shame.
“Have you decided where you want to go for your birthday? Where I come from, twenty-one is a big deal.”
I shake my head. “I don’t celebrate birthdays.” The only one I remember is my 6th, the one we had just before we left for California. I don’t need a yearly reminder of what I’ve lost. I have it daily.
“That’s too bad because we are celebrating.”
I don’t respond, I don’t want to force the issue right now. I’ll just weasel out of it when the time comes. I hear her giggle and realize she can probably feel exactly what I’m thinking.
We move in silence as she pushes me through the first floor. Like most hospitals, and I have visited my fair share, the smell of antiseptic is heavy in the air. Doctors and nurses scurry about here and there. She pushes me over to the elevator banks and we wait as the light blinks at us.
“Any word from Carlos?” she asks.
I shake my head, “Only that he received an offer to learn guitar from some famous person in Spain. His family said he packed up and left overnight about three days after the incident. Nothing since. I’ve emailed him a couple of times but no joy.”
“He’s 20, in Spain and he plays guitar… use your imagination as to why he could be… occupied.”
“Why Katherine Petrenelli, are you jealous?”
I turn to see her face and sure enough there is a hint of red on her cheeks.
“Not jealous, per se, just… I get overly used to being the most popular girl in the room. It can be… disconcerting when I’m ignored.” She waves her hand in the air dismissively, “Oh, I know I should be thankful but part of me… well part of me likes the attention,” she said with a sigh. “The bad part of me.”
“Well, I’m sure he’s having a good time and thinking about you every minute. You or Monica, I’m not sure which.”
Kate smiles and pushes me into the elevator. The building stretched up thirty floors and my parents were close to the top for security reasons. Once in, we fish out our ID and show it to the camera. The elevator had an ECM suite to rival my own, I should know, I designed it for them. No one trying to access the 29th floor could do so using mind control, I made sure.
We ride up in silence. I really didn’t want to stay away but the part of me that was still a scared little girl curled up in my mind and cringed at the thought of losing her parents… again.
Kate’s reassuring hand squeezes my shoulder. The warmth of her feelings flows through our link and the edge of my panic vanishes.
I can do this.
The doors open into a sterile room with metallic ink painted on the walls. A lonesome stainless steel tray with two necklaces sit alone in the middle of the otherwise empty white room. We place them over our necks and a white LED flashes on, letting the staff know the ECM was active and working.
Kate could still use her powers to some degree, pheromone and touch, but she couldn’t read anyone’s emotions or influence them without touch. She pauses for a second, stumbling to the side and holding her head as if a huge headache had just cold cocked her.
Wheeling over, I lean down to look up at her, “You okay?”
“Okay… I,” she looks around, eyes unfocused as if she can’t quite see her surroundings. “Good lord, Amelia… can you make me one of these?” She holds up the necklace. The ones Mars Corp made for the hospital ran on a rechargeable battery; they were good for two hours, tops.
“Of course, I should have thought about that. Yeah, and I can make it look like however you want and,” I lower my voice to a hush, “Power it with something a tad more energetic.”
She nods emphatically. “Please. I’d forgotten what it was like to be alone in my own head.”
I grin, I love doing things for her and this would certainly take the cake. “Okay, let’s go in.”
The doors open and the security guards behind it, also wearing the amulets, check our ID one more time. Kate pushes me down the sterile hallway, past a desk and several rooms. The feel was that of a hotel more than a hospital here, which made sense considering how long-term some of the patients were.
“Any thoughts about the Presidents offer to form a team?” She asks as we follow the orderly.
“Epic and I ran the numbers and we’re just not sure. We both think it’s a good idea but the two biggest obstacles are finding people we can trust and… well, me.”
“You?” I could hear the surprise in her voice.
“They want me to lead it; they won’t trust anyone else to take charge. I’m no leader Kate, you know this.”
She clears her throat, “Amelia Lockheart I know no such thing! You moved into the Diamondbacks and practically took over in a day. You’re a natural born leader.”
No, I wasn’t but there was no arguing with her. Making suggestions to the Diamondbacks was one thing, being the full-on leader of a superhero team was something else entirely. I wanted to do it, but I also maybe thought I should solve this solo. After all, Pythia said I caused the destruction of mankind. What if this is how I do it? What if creating a team and then failing at leading them caused us to fail at some crucial moment and then we all died?
I shake my head, this is a trap. A trap I’ve been caught in for months. Ever since I sent Ericsson off into space. Every move I make could bring us closer to extinction. Not moving could bring us closer. I hunch my shoulders and rub my face, my chest tight with the fear of it all and from meeting my parents. I needed a second.
I signal for Kate to stop.
“No,” she says.
“What do you mean, no? I can transform this chair and—”
“Amelia, breathe and listen. You’re meeting your parents, put the rest of the stuff out of your mind for one second and just enjoy this.”
Either she hit me with her ‘calm down’ whammy or her words just made sense, either way, I calm down.
“Okay, let’s do this thing.”
The orderly gestures for us to continue, smiling at Kate with the largest grin possible. He also has his gut sucked in. It’s a good thing I’m not the envious type. Even with her active powers dampened, she’s still the hottest woman in the room.
The cafeteria lay beyond the double doors, a large spacious room with massive bay windows facing west to let in as much of the natural light as possible. They also came with a magnificent view of Puget Sound. The hospital crowded a hill west of Woodland Park Zoo with at least a few hundred feet of elevation, giving us a fantastic view of the entire Sound.
“I could eat lunch here every day! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much water in one place,” I say.
“It rains a lot here,” Kate says dismissively.
“Kate, so good to see you,” Doctor Grace says as she approaches. The doctor has a svelte figure, dark features, and even darker hair. If I had to guess I’d say she hailed from India, or her parents did. I tried to guess her age, but I’m terrible at it and she didn’t look much older than me.
“Dr. Grace—”
“Rashi, please.”
“Rashi,” Kate continues. “Are they ready?”
I didn’t want to look past her; didn’t want to see them. Fourteen years I spent looking for them and now I’m terrified of how they will look at me. I wipe my sweaty hands on the blanket in the hopes that they will stop.
“They are, and eager, if not excited to see your friend. This way,” she said, turning.
There they were.
My fear vanishes for a heartbeat. Mom and Dad, sitting at a table, laughing over a shared joke. His hair is shorter than when I saw him last. Mom’s longer. Her hair is as black as my own and when I see her face it’s like looking into a mirror. I’ve let my own hair grow out in the last few months to just below my shoulders.
They’re laughing and I so badly want to join them.
“Go on,” Kate says, gesturing toward them, “I need to confer with the good doctor.”
With a deep breath for strength, I push forward. Dad stops as he sees me, gently tapping Mom’s hand. She turns and her dark brown eyes widen at the sight of me.
I move the next ten feet in silence before coming to a rest at the table. They have some food, a burger and fries in front of my dad and a salad for Mom. They must’ve just finished eating since about half the food is left on the plate.
“Hi,” I say.
They both smile, glancing at each other then me; I can tell they don’t know what to say, neither do I.
“Hi, yourself. You’re Amelia, right?” Dad says.
I shake my head, biting my lips in a supreme effort to hold back tears.
“We’ve heard only a few things about you, Dr. Grace feels it’s important we get to know you, she thinks it will help us re-establish our memories,” Mom says. “Can you tell us about yourself? I know this is hard for you,” she glances at Dad, “Us too. We thought…”
He takes her hand, “We thought we were doing good work for so long and then— well you know,” he says with a shrug. “We want to remember you, we really do. We always wanted a child but we thought we couldn’t have one.” They both glance down when he speaks. As hard as it is for me, it has to be just as hard for them.
I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t formulate any words for a moment. What do I tell them? About the accident? About living with her brother? I decide to go with that.
“Well, after the accident I went to live with your brother, he took care of me. I was only six so I didn’t really understand what was going on. I guess there was something of a ‘reverse’ custody fight.”
Mom’s smile falters and I can tell she doesn’t remember anything. A quick glance at Dad says the same thing. They’re hollow behind their eyes. No memories of me or their life.
I grab my wheels to turn around when a crack of thunder shakes the windows. A dark shadow spreads out over the bay and engulfs the hospital.
“Amelia?” Kate asks from behind me. I push over to the window.
“Some kind of atmospheric disruption?”
The clouds over the bay thin, lighting up as a massive heat source barrels through them. A meteorite splits the sky in a massive fireball before crashing into the bay with a massive explosion. A wall of water a hundred feet high forms in an instant as the shockwave spreads out. Someone screams behind me.
I roll myself backward, “Epic, initiate!” I barely have time to speak before the shockwave is on us. The chair jerks into place, ejecting the wheels and standing me up at the same time. The armor reconfigures, sliding around to engulf me. The helmet flips over in parts before the kinetic emitters lock the whole thing in place. The suit hisses with pressurization when the shockwave hits the windows, blowing them out with a bang. Glass shards explode inward, sending thousands of razor-sharp daggers forth to shred my parents and everyone else in the room.

I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek! Pre order now and read the full thing on December 30th!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077XLFT8K/

Really Stupid Numbers

I have a friend I consult with on the science behind Arsenal. I’ve said before not all of it is real, but I try to keep it grounded. One of the weapons I’m considering for Inescapable is a mass driver. I’ll save the codename of the weapon for when you read the book. Suffice to say if you’re a fan of 80’s cartoons you will get it.
I pulled a number out of my hat for what I wanted and then ran those numbers by him. His reply follows. He has a good sense of humor and I laughed while reading his post.

Enjoy,
-Jeffery

"No, really... these are dumb numbers, they don't even make sense from a human perspective.

OK, 24oz (.68 kg) of tungsten is a sphere .78 inches (20mm) across. Heavy, but not too big.

To keep it simple, the slug accelerates from rest (0 meters per second) to .03c (8,993,773.74 meters per second) in the space of 1 meter.

This is where it gets seriously stupid. Accelerating 24oz of anything to .03c requires 13,758,820,589,375 (13 trillion) joules of energy, assuming zero loss.

This is 416,934 times more power than the current US Navy railgun uses (33 million joules). So, say there's some loss of energy, and her railgun is five hundred thousand times more powerful than the current real-world gun.

The slug spends 111 nanoseconds on the rails, that's 111 billionths of a second.

Tungsten has a heat of vaporization of 774 kJ/mol, and 24oz of tungsten is 3.7mol.
3.7mol x 774,000 joules = 2,863,800 joules required to vaporize the slug... That's a bit less than 3 million joules... we just pumped 13 trillion joules into that slug. This is four and third million times more energy than is required.

Even if the conversion of electrical energy to kinetic energy is 99.999994% efficient, that slug is still a tight ovoid of tungsten plasma traveling at .03c

It's also glowing white-hot and much brighter than the sun.

The sound it produces is beyond my capacity to calculate... but here are a couple useful approximations of the impact it has.

The ISS in orbit has a bit less mass/energy than the tungsten slug/plasma ball... imagine what that would sound like if it passed you on the freeway.

The Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima has about four times the total energy of the tungsten slug/plasma ball... so, it's like 1/4 as loud as whatever those poor shadow people would have heard if their eardrums hadn't been vaporized before they had a chance to respond to the sound?

A normal person standing 100 feet away would be smashed into a fine paste by the sound of the slug passing.

The fine paste would be cooked to fine carbon powder by the heat radiating off the slug/plasma ball

The air itself cannot get out of the way fast enough, and the atomic nuclei fuse as the slug/plasma ball smashes into them. This slows down the shot just a bit, but also creates about as much heat/light/radiation as the slug itself... but with the added 'benefit' of hard radiation (a gamma/alpha particle 'flash' about equal to sunbathing in an x-ray booth... so the drifting carbon powder is now irradiated.

All of those things would happen in the five-thousandth of a second it took the plasma ball to travel a mile beyond the muzzle of her railgun.

In case you need to know, her ZPFM has to produce 123,953,338,640,000,000,000 watts to accomplish this feat... This is one-third of the total energy produced by the Sun in that same 111 nanosecond time frame.

Stupid, stupid numbers. There's no capacitor or conductive material on earth that could withstand the energy flux. A perfect super-conductive electrical transport system would burn out after one shot.

When the slug/plasma ball leaves the barrel of the railgun, the rails and most of the rest of the gun comes with it as a cloud of slightly cooler plasma wafting along in its wake.

Oh yeah... the radiant flare of heat pouring off the slug/plasma ball will also vaporize her suit... so she needs a very high SPF sunblock.

I won't even go into what happens when all that energy hits an immovable object.

Ain't physics grand?

Arsenal MKIII and other things.

Greetings, true believers! It brings me no end of joy to say that line! I wanted to touch bases with everyone and let you know what is going on with my future. That is a big word. It amazes me how utterly fast things can change. I have a future-woot.

Here we go. I am hard at work on Arsenal MKIII (Title Pending). I hit 16k words this morning and I am hoping to be closer to 30 by Saturday, November 25th. If I am and I like the direction I will put it up for pre-order with a December launch.

I’ve also decided I needed one more book! Yes, that is right. There will be a fourth Arsenal (I may have already told you this so forgive my excitement). After that, we will see where it goes. I love the characters and the world and would be thrilled to keep visiting it (assuming it isn't blown to smithereens). Of course, that entirely depends on you fine folks. Share my books with your friends, spread the glorious word!

This is where you’re saying, “Hey Jeffery, if you’re not planning on a book after MKIV, what are you planning?”

I’m so glad you asked! I really want to write a novella about Carlos. However, that may not end up working. I also need to write a novella to finish my ‘Against All Odds’ series in the fabulous Lindsay Buroker world of Fallen Empire. They don’t sell a ton, but I hate to leave a story unfinished.

What about after that? A terrific little small press in the land down under (Australia) has purchased the rights to a military sci-fi I wrote called, ‘Intruder’. The launch date isn’t firm so as it gets closer I will keep you all in the loop.

Then what? Sheesh what am I, the Keeper of Forever? Okay, I do have a ‘then what’. I have a very good friend who wants to write sci-fi and is a well-established urban fantasy writer. She’s just intimidated by the ‘sci’ part of the ‘fi’. We are collaborating on a series to (hopefully) release next fall which should be pleasing to fans of Firefly and Shadowrun. That’s right, Shadowrun.

And after that?

Okay, now we're at the end of my roadmap. Please bear in mind, any of this could change at any time. I have a million and one ideas for books and I start new novels weekly. Currently what I do when I’m writing one book and I come up with an idea for another book is… open a new doc, write like a madman for two hours, then get back to work.

I have a lot of those ‘madman’ docs. There is a lot to look forward to this coming year, for all of us. Thank you for taking me on this journey, I couldn’t have done it without you. Please feel free to email me or visit me on Facebook. I’m on a lot and I love to talk about my work, superheroes, and sci-fi in general.

All the best,
-Jeffery

The Science behind Arsenal

Believe it or not (and based on some reviews I've had - not) there is actual science behind a lot of what Arsenal does.

Like most sci-fi though, there are a few items that are only theoretical that make the whole thing possible.

For me, science-fiction is about imagining the impossible and then trying to figure out how to get there. In the first book Arsenal had one huge limitation, power. That was overcome with her Zero Point Field Modul. I'm not the first person to come up with Zero-Point energy. ZED-PM's were used to awesome effect in Stargate SG-1 and her spinoffs. The quantum mechanics behind it is all very theoretical, but awesome all the same.

The next limitation was Epic communicating with the suit. If he were jammed or an EMP blanketed the area she wouldn't be able to operate the suit well. I solved this in Unstoppable with the advent of 'computronium'. Something that is much closer to reality than the ZPFM.

The last bit of theoretical science is her EMdrive. Theoretical only in the sense that we don't know how it works, we just know it does. Really, Google it, the dang thing breaks the laws of physics.

For the most part, everything else in her suit is real. IP cannons, particle beams, her sword, even the way the suit is made, all of it exists I just amped it to the nth degree.

With one exception, of course. The kinetic manipulators are pure fiction. I wish such a tech existed but it doesn't. Anything she uses based on the manipulators is made up. However, it isn't science-fact, it is SCIENCE-FICTION!!!!

I love talking about this stuff, feel free to drop me a line here, or on Facebook (as some of you know I am on Facebook entirely too much). Also, if you have any cool tech ideas for her Mark II, let me know!

Arsenal and Unstoppable Arsenal are available now on Amazon.com for sale and in Kindle Unlimited.

Unstoppable Arsenal is up for pre-order!

Mark your calendar, true believers. October 24th is the day. Pre-order now on Amazon dot com!


Unstoppable Arsenal