Chris Hechtl's Blog, page 26

Drop Commando Jethro Goes to War 6 is publishing now!

For centuries the Cadre were the elite ground forces of the Federation. They were a blending of organic and machine, the cream of the military. They were sent in where the chances of survival for an ordinary mortal were slim to none.When Admiral Irons began to rebuild the Federation and it's military he found some who were descendants of the Cadre in his ranks. Jethro McClintock was the premier example of that and he set the example for others in the Space Marines to follow. When Admiral Irons set his sights on recreating the Cadre, Jethro was first in line.For years Jethro has been fighting the good fight, liberating worlds from the Horathian Pirates while also having a family. Now is when Horath is cornered and the military is set to invade.The Cadre will lead the way and show the pirates what it truly means to be a Drop Commando.
As usual I'll post the links when they go live. Enjoy!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08711N2VH

B&N:

Jethro 6 Snippet 6

Sitrep: I received the manuscript back from Rea last night. She said it kept her on her toes the entire time. That is 5 for 5 with everyone saying pretty much the same thing! :D
I added the rest of the material and shot it off to Goodlifeguide.com for final formatting this morning.

So, we should be seeing it published later this week.

Still fighting sinus headaches. The weather and stuff are messing with me.

On to the snippet!


Kathy's World
Shanti McClintock finished her rounds and returned her vehicle to the trooper parking structure. She still preferred the ground car over an air car but she could see how having an air car was an advantage in response time. Could they make a car that did both? Did they have them? She made a mental note to look into it as she waited for her ride home. "Getting ready?" Deputy Danielle asked. She rolled her green eyes. "I'm not even packed. I get to do that tonight," she said with a weary shake of her head. "When is your flight?" "Tomorrow at nine," she admitted. He nodded. "Nervous?" The Neosnow leopard nodded. "I've been on orbital hops before but this is an entirely different kettle of fish. We're going to be trapped in the shuttle for who knows how long before we get to the ship, then trapped in the ship." "You keep seeing yourself as trapped. You realize you are prejudicing yourself? Building up anxiety? It might not be that bad." She shook her head as he made a right turn and flicked her ears. "Maybe a little," she admitted after a moment. "Or maybe a lot. Maybe you should have traveled coach in stasis?" She shivered. "I don't like the idea of going asleep and never knowing if you are going to wake up again or when," she admitted. He nodded. "Point. But it is better than going stir-crazy on the ship." "I'm more worried about the kittens," she admitted. "They haven't traveled either, not like this." "Ah," he said as he pulled down the road her house was on. Spring had sprung, and the area was beautiful despite it being nightfall. It was all tastefully lit, something she liked too. Solar lights were coming around on the planet to light walk ways and other spaces. As a Neo, she had excellent night vision however and didn't care for them in most cases. Now they made the homes look homey. She chuffed. "What?" "I'm already getting homesick, and I haven't even left yet," she admitted. "You'll do fine. You've got plenty to read?" "Yeah. I downloaded an entire romance series. The blazing hot trials of Myoshi Kyoto," she said with a female grin. He squirmed. "You women and those gaudy romance novels," he mock grumbled with a shake of his head. "At least we men keep our porn out of sight most of the time." "It's not porn!" "Excuse me? Have we met? Besides, my mate read that series already." "Don't you dare tell me how it goes!" "I'm not going to. Fine, be that way." They continued down the stretch of road. When he neared her driveway, he slowed up. "I will say …" She growled at him, ears back. "That I read a few passages and they put some of the guy porn to shame," he said as they pulled up to the side of her drive. She glowered at him, but he merely flicked his ears and grinned. "Thanks for the ride," she mock huffed as she pulled the handle and got out. "Sure thing, boss. Got everything?" he said with a smile in his voice. "Yeah. Get out of here before I find another reason to put you on grave," she growled, slamming the door harder than it needed to be. She even pretended to give the truck a kick as he took off. She shook her head and turned to see the porch light come on and the door open with a familiar small form in silhouette within. \<|>^<|>/ Lil Red felt torn as she hugged Shanti and then stepped aside to let the Neoleopard come into the house. Shanti had her gear from work in duffel; she'd even cleaned her locker out at work. Red took charge of the dirty laundry. It was a tough haul though, massing nearly her own body weight. "It's not heavy just bulky," she grumbled as usual. White clattered in the kitchen so she managed the load herself. She grimaced as she dealt with the dirty smelly laundry. It was a good temporary distraction though, and kept her busy until White declared dinner was ready. \<|>^<|>/

Jethro 6 Snippet 5

Sitrep: So, I'm up to story 9 in the SpecOps book. Slowly getting there, just this story and the Cadre one to go. I'm fighting on going sinus headaches however.

For those of you who keep up with the short story anthologies, you should recognize this...

Chapter 3
Antigua
Jethro couldn't help but grin as he stretched. It was Oh dark something on Christmas day on Antigua. Bast had woke him up with a special Christmas present. "Are we really doing this?" he asked, eyes wide before a yawn escaped him "This gift is more for you than them in many ways," Captain Sprite stated. "I know ma'am. Thank you. I just can't thank you enough for putting this together," he said. "I'm still in wonder at the how," he said. "Bandwidth. The image will be small. You'll have a limited frame rate. Consider this an experiment," Enki stated. She didn't mention that Admiral Irons and others sometimes used the ability to attend events in other star systems. Usually the captain managed the bot and it was mostly a facade. Jethro stretched again and rolled his neck. "Nervous?" Captain Sprite asked. "A bit. I think I need to pee again." "Too late," Captain Sprite said maliciously. "You'll have to hold it until we're done." "Sadist," Jethro laughed. Bast nodded, smiling and flicking her ears in humor. "Remember chief, we have limited bandwidth. I'll do what I can," Enki stated. "Thank you for doing it at all." "No problem chief. Consider it a Christmas gift to you and your family. Keep it short." "Roger that." "And chief?" "Ma'am?" "Merry Christmas," she said as an icon blinked. "Oops! They've put the chip in, here we go!" she said as Jethro came to attention. He saw an image of the living room appear. It was tiny, but Bast took it and used her files to create a virtual walk around of it for him on his HUD. Icons appeared placing the various people in the room based on the visual image. "Hey," he said dumbly, waving his hand. One of White's kittens waved back at him. "It's just a hologram dear," White said. He smiled slightly and knelt. "Well hello, you must be one of White's brood..." \<|>^<|>/

Jethro 6 snippet 4

Okay, sitrep, I'm 60% done SpecOps. I had to do a rewrite of the current story, which threw me off. I'm hopefully back on track.

On to the snippet!


Chapter 2

Jethro checked in with his old friend, Warrant 1 Ox in the vast Armory, or Toybox as some called it. Ox was a Tauren, at one point the seemingly last of his species in Pyrax. All of that had of course changed when he met other Taurens in Antigua some time ago. Unlike Jethro, Ox had remained in the Marines as their premier suit armorer for some time. He had eventually found his way over to Antigua and when the Cadre had started up he'd been tapped to work on finding a way to copy Jethro's suit to make more of them. That had been a problem for a long time; Jethro's inherited suit was a recon suit, designed to cloak and spy on the enemy. Worse, it was designed for a Neocat. They'd had to adapt it to the various suit needs for the assorted species, and then the various missions they would be tasked to perform. They'd hit upon the idea of using Jethro's suit as an engine. By removing parts and then having Bast replace them, they'd built up a stockpile of components. Letanga had been one of the first to get a new suit since he was a leopard and cousin to Jethro. His A.I. had zeroed the nanites within the components and then adapted the suit to his size and needs. From there they had built on their success to build suits for the others. Along the way they'd learned to adapt the design and eventually alter it to create a heavy weapon suit and a basic shooter suit. They all shared engineering DNA with Jethro's first suit however. It had taken a bit of time experimentation, but Ox had been up to the task and in his glory. He had worked out command suits, different heavy weapon mixes, and then further ways to modify the suits. Colonel Lyon had eventually entered him into the rolls of the Cadre. He'd gone through the training and implant upgrades, accepting an A.I. Minotaur as his partner. He was constantly tinkering and innovating though, even when he'd been in recovery he'd been dreaming up new suits. His own suit was a marvel of engineering, designed as the first engineering suit. Admiral Irons and others had pointed out that the old Cadre hadn't had so many specialists, but Ox had pointed out that was then and this was now. The Admiral had been amused and had let things go from there. He had a point though, creating so many specialist suits had created a few problems, for instance ammunition cross over and unbalanced power demands. Mars and Minotaur had worked with Ox to streamline such concerns however. Every user had their own input over time. Sometimes their A.I. could manage minor tweaks. Ox was usually brought in for a big mod. Recently they had frozen any further development on new designs in favor of refining what they had. Ox had grumbled but had agreed. He'd finally admitted he'd had enough on his plate for some time to come. He wasn't the only armorer of the Cadre anymore though; he had an understudy, Warrant Officer Jim 'Jimbo' Henrick. The human warrant had become a legend in the Marine vehicle community before getting bored with it and moving on to suits. He'd finally found his way through the Reapers to the Cadre and was soaking it all up like a sponge. Jethro looked at a heavy weapon suit; this one had plasma guns on the forearms. Another suit had angel wings; the wings were attached to a rocket pack and had small rockets on the fin like wings. He winced though. "I've worked out the bugs," Ox insisted. "I'll take your word for it," he said dryly, remembering his own misadventure with Ox's earlier design. "I have." "Okay, gotcha," he said with a nod. He looked over to the Iron Spider mod, where arms were attached to the back. The Iron Spider had smaller arms but had 3 or 4 of them that could flank the torso or go over the shoulders. The War Machine design was his favorite, one or two guns were mounted on arms over the shoulders. Those suits were particularly popular with the few Veraxin and T'clock in their ranks. "How are we on timeline?" he asked. "All green. All suits are up and running, all tested. We'll be ready to ship out when we get the final word," Ox stated as he studied a circuit. Jethro nodded and flicked his ears slightly. He always loved touring the engineering spaces. It was like Christmas, the closest to Santa's workshop they had. From the look of it Ox was working on one of the droids. No, he corrected himself as he noted the circuit being carefully inserted by Waldos into a flying drone. A recon drone. "I haven't been able to miniaturize the cloaking ability of your suit for these babies. Smart skin is the best I can come up with. But signal traffic can localize them for the enemy as well as the suit if you aren't careful," Ox warned. Jethro nodded. That was the downside of the droids and drones, they sent and received information that the enemy could pick up and track. It was all encrypted so he had no fear of the enemy hacking into the data stream but he still worried that someone would figure out how to pinpoint them. "Any progress with the lasers?" "Hit or miss. Literally," Ox replied. "Ah," Jethro said with a nod. Every suit had 6 drones. Most had a balance, 3 rolling drones and 3 flying ones. The flying ones were saucers about the size of a dinner plate. The rolling ones were about the size of a baseball. A few were even smaller, though there was a limit on how small they could get before they had trouble with getting around. The flying drones helped to expand their sight on the battlefield. They could be addictive. Properly handled they could be landed somewhere to conserve their power and switched to observation mode. "I've got the pterosaur and bird drones running again. Minor glitch," Ox said. "Well, Minotaur figured it out," he admitted. "Good to know," Jethro said. The bird and pterosaur designs were ISR units. They were designed to go high and linger over a battlefield while looking like native wildlife. "Have you considered a condor skin?" "Yes. Minotaur looked into birds on Horath. We need more research there," Ox reported absently. "If you'll excuse me, this is delicate work," he said by way of dismissal. "Don't let me stop you," Jethro said quietly as he took himself off to other haunts. \<|>^<|>/ Letanga worked on blind sniping using remote drone feeds. It was an advanced sniper technique, one of the hardest to perfect. "It's harder than it looks," he muttered as his A.I. Satet fed him the angles. He squeezed the trigger and grimaced, ears flat when he missed. "High and to the right," Satet stated, acting as his spotter. "Come down a degree and shift to the left a hair," she said. "See what I mean?" he growled. "I'd rather do this on a moon or in space," he said, making the adjustments. "Practice makes perfect," Tikaani stated. "Better to practice now than under fire." "Right," Letanga said, lining up the shot once more. \<|>^<|>/

Jethro 6 Snippet 3

Still in chapter 1:


Colonel Josh Lyon tried to be patient as he listened without saying anything as the newly elected governor raged at him over the drop test. She was quite testy, and he could understand it in theory. "Ma'am, we didinform all parties. We secured the site; it is a military reservation site. We've done exercises like this one before," he said patiently once she'd stopped to inhale. Mars as well as the junior officers had informed all authorities since it was considered RMT, Realistic Military Training that included explosions, booms and other things that would normally alarm the public. Apparently the local sheriff's office hadn't paid attention or the left hand and right hand hadn't connected. He'd thought Sheriff Uday would have known better. Mars was still looking into whether she was new or just wanted a platform to complain to the media. "I don't care! I'm done! We've been getting calls all damn night! This is the last time you do this sort of shit on my frackin' planet!" The Colonel scowled. "Ma'am..." "And I don't care if you call your boss or whoever!" she snarled. "Wait, who is your boss? You are a colonel, I should be saying this to a general right?" "At the moment ma'am I'm the head of both the Cadre and the Special Operations community." "So, who is your boss?" she demanded. "That would be Admiral Irons. He personally signed off on this test. Your government gave us carte blanche to hold military exercises on military owned or leased land. This was one such exercise. It was a Realistic Military Training Exercise and we informed the Sheriff and all parties." Silently the colonel's A.I. Mars gave him a heads up of the test. Everything had worked out nicely; only 10 percent of the drop had drifted off target. They'd all still landed within the 3 kilometer drop zone however. Not bad for generation 4 pods. He decided to not bother with pushing for the gen 5 model at the moment. The ones they had were safe enough. "Admiral Irons?" the woman finally asked. "Yes ma'am. I report directly to him." "You... there is no general?" "Not at this time ma'am. I work in parallel with General Forth and General 1010111 but they have their own duties with their own commands. SpecOps is all me," he said, trying hard not to smile. "Well, I don't give a damn! I've never had this sort of situation before, and I don't intend to have it happen again!" "Very well ma'am. I'll inform the admiral. We'll have to make other arrangements." "And don't threaten me with pulling your people! I don't care and you know that's an empty threat!" she snarled. "I wouldn't dream of threatening you ma'am. I will ask that you give me the request to not hold drop tests on the planet though. The admiral will want it." "I'll get it to you within the hour," she said and then hung up on him. He snorted and shook his head. "Fun," he sighed. "Why'd I take this job again?" "Because someone had to," Mars replied. "Oh, yeah, that," the colonel replied with a sigh. "Personally? I'd much rather be out with the troops at this moment rather than dealing with... crap like that," he growled. Mars nodded. \<|>^<|>/ Ensign Sahib 'Lordy' Kapish saw the drop come in and began to open up. There were Marine units in the area, SAM units who had been brought in for the exercise. Delta platoon had to get through them, land, and then they had a random timed window before Charlie platoon engaged them. He had been surprised by how accurate the KEW strike had been. Of course it had been a clear night and the squids had done it several times before at this point. He couldn't help but wonder what strings Feathersnake had pulled to get them to be a tad more accurate for him though. It might be petty, but then again, so was Feathersnake. He didn't envy Jethro for having to put up with his sorry ass. He shied away from wondering if he'd been that bad all of less than six months prior. Feathersnake had yet to earn his spurs or a nickname. Credits were on Feather duster, duster, or dusty. The ensign was trying to put his finger on the scales though, which just meant those interested in naming him were going to be rather particularly vicious about the final name. A name was a badge of honor, something to be endured after a big screw up or some attribute you had, not something you chose for yourself. The Cadre had exploded in ranks since the first 2 classes. Now they had a new class of candidates every 3 months. They were up to 50 candidates every quarter, but the recruits had to pass muster. It was a very hard act to follow, especially with Jethro leading the way. The best were crossover personnel from the Raiders and Recon Marines like Jethro, but they were few and far between. So were those of the blood, but one or two would occasionally pop up on Mars radar for recruitment. The Army's Delta and powered armor units were starting to send their own people in, much to their chagrin at losing them. The Cadre was up to 400 strong, arranged in 5 platoons. Captain Sinclair led Alpha platoon. The last platoon was known as Echo, which was made up of support personnel, trainers, and the rawest of the recruits. He didn't envy any of them. They were going to have to sit on the sidelines while the rest of the Cadre got to invade Horath sometime in the not so distant future. \<|>^<|>/ Jethro listened as Ensign Feathersnake began to bark orders even before the last pod had landed. He was amused, keeping quiet as he listened to the officer lay out what he wanted. As top kick it was his job to implement the here and now orders while the officer focused on what was to come. Feathersnake wasn't having any of it; he set the perimeter and even began queuing up targets for the individual squads to focus on. He didn't wait for Charlie Company to come to them though, something Jethro heartily approved of. He didn't linger on the drop site, once he had his bearings and the mission outline he gave the execute order and they moved out. For Jethro it was an interesting experience. He cloaked and followed his droids as they moved out along the left flank, watching the rest of the Cadre keep up. The unit had changed a great deal since the early days. Robots had been added to their ranks. As he watched a Cadre suit stopped and took out a snooping drone as it crested the horizon. The suit was tagged with Crash's icon. He flicked his ears and moved on. None of the suits jumped or exposed themselves. They all knew the drill, keep an eye out for firing lane traps and for any cover. Also traps. Charlie Company wanted to come out on top and Delta had a lot to prove. The suits were powered by fusion still, not antimatter as their forbearers had. Even though the federation was coming into a surplus of antimatter fuel the powers that be had no intention of switching back. Antimatter was nice but it was limited in supply and hard to supply in the field. Fusion power allowed the suits to scavenge for fuel in the field if necessary. It did mean they ran low on fuel faster, and their power budget was a third of the antimatter but the tradeoff was considered worth it at the time. They didn't want to get caught out of power ever again. \<|>^<|>/ Letanga set up an oversight hide and began to scan the area. It didn't take him long to find the first targets and begin to relay them to his droid and then from there to the squad. He focused on his sector first, clearing it to the horizon and then he went back to scan it again, this time for hides for enemy spotters and snipers. \<|>^<|>/

Jethro 6 Snippet 2

Still in Chapter 1...

\<|>^<|>/ Letanga felt the inertial dampeners kick slightly as the petals of his retard gear opened. The pod spun crazily before the gears engaged and it stopped. "I hate that part," he muttered as the pod drifted. "Straighten up and fly right!" a familiar voice growled. He noted two pods drifting near each other. They were about 100 meters apart but Jethro was right to call them out. "Maintain separation protocols," Jethro growled, making the Neo Leopard check his own air space around him. The closest pod was Ox, he was slightly behind and above the sniper though, about 300 meters out so they were all good. It still paid to keep an eye peeled though. A bit of turbulent air from a passing pod could ruin two Cadre member's day entirely too easily. \<|>^<|>/ Rachel Miller saw the streaks in the sky and gasped. She and her friends were out hiking the Echelon trail since it was such a beautiful clear night. You really had to go out, away from the town and away from the light pollution to really enjoy things these days. Even the sky had it though, with the stations and ships all over the sky. Still, some places had better views than others. "Did a station explode?" Apu demanded. "I don't know. I think we need to call it in," she said, getting her cell phone out and making a call. \<|>^<|>/ Rachel was surprised when there was a flash of light and then the plain over 10 kilometers away exploded in fountains of debris. She yelped and then started to get hysterical on the phone with the sheriff's office, insisting that something had crashed. Other hikers got their phones out and began to record the event and or call the media or family. \<|>^<|>/ Ensign Feathersnake grinned as the simulated KEW strike was complete. Right on target, pretty close to the bull's eye. He'd have to see the recordings to be sure. If they got it right it meant they'd done a better job than Ensign Kapish had, which would give him the bragging rights. Not bad he thought with an unseen grin. He wasn't thrilled with the ten percent casualties from the simulated SAMS though. It was going to play merry hell with his planning, opening up dangerous holes in his ranks. He decided to take everyone in hand and started to kick out drones and gather sensor data with his A.I. \<|>^<|>/ "What the hell?" Sheriff Uday demanded as calls began to come in. Some were saying a station had blown up, another was insisting it was some sort of invasion that the military had missed. She looked out the window from her office near the center of town and saw a faint glow on the horizon. "Okay, so, whatever they are seeing it's real," she said as her deputies around her rose to their feet to look as well. "We best be dealing with it," she said as she turned and began to issue orders. One of the first things was to call the government in for backup. Whatever was going on they were going to need planetary LEO help soon enough, especially when the media got wind of it and turned the town into a 3 ring circus. \<|>^<|>/

Jethro 6 Drop Commando Snippet 1

Sitrep:
Okay, I've been a bit lax, wound up in family affairs and writing the next book SpecOps. The 3 remaining betas got J6 back to me earlier this week and I sent it off to Rea.

So, we should be seeing it back sometime next week and I goofed on not posting the cover and snippets.
In my defense the cover was finished a few days ago. Chris 'Mechmaster' Smith by UK buddy got on me about the dropship I made. (I actually made 3) It wasn't that great and he said he'd make me a better one.
Boy did he! So, that is what you see below:
Nice huh? The markings are borrowed from my Shield Liger. (yeah, I'm lazy)

Anyway, on to the snippet!


Chapter 1 Antigua
Warrant Officer Jethro McClintock watched the time tick down as Bast went through his drop pod's last minute pre-flight checks. She was doing them so fast that he just saw a scroll of data flowing on his internal HUD. The black Neopanther knew better than to even think about stretching or having an itch. He was trapped in the confines of the drop pod with padding and inertial dampeners all around him. The drop was to be his last test before the upcoming mission. Antigua was quite beautiful below him. He could see it as if his feet and the pod were not there thanks to the camera feed to his augmented vision. "Can we get on with this?" Corporal Darr "Hare' Phillips demanded. Jethro snorted as there was the sound of a collection of groans over the platoon net. "What? What'd I miss?" Hare demanded. "You won the lotto pool," Staff Sergeant Ethyl 'Calle' Caillier growled, clearly amused at the situation. "I did what?" "Betting on who would complain first," Calle replied dryly, clearly disgusted. "What?!?" Hare demanded. "Easy money," Corporal Qu 'Quark' Higgins said over the net with a loud derisive snort. "First round of beers are on you and those who bet on Crash," he said. "I'll check my little black book later," the Neochimp said. "Hey, wait a minute; I didn't even know this shit was going on!" Hare growled. "Tough luck for you buddy," Quark replied as a few of the other Cadre members snickered at Hare's discomfort. Hare had a stuttery voice and had nearly earned the nickname Yellow. He did whatever was asked of him but not without a lot of complaining and bitching in a fearful voice about certain dangerous tasks. "Can it," Ensign Feathersnake snapped over the net. "Clear the net," he growled as the countdown entered the last minute. "Checks are green or I'll have someone's ass," he growled. That wasn't technically how to do the check. Jethro checked behind the Ensign anyway. "All clear," he said since he was the platoon's acting top kick. "It'd better be," the ensign said. "I don't need or want another abort," he growled. Bast silently fed him an up to date weather report as well as air traffic in the designated exercise area. This was the platoon's first drop on an actual planet; all others had been performed on one of Antigua's moons. This was their final qualification drop. He could have served as grading officer, by now he could do a drop asleep, but the Colonel had asked him to hand hold the noob ensign until he was sure the ensign could handle the job. Easier said than done, Jethro thought as everything checked out. Feathersnake was an arrogant pain in the ass who thought he knew everything. He constantly tried to flex his muscles and still had problems with having so many warrants in 'his' platoon. The young man had never commanded a unit before. Technically the slot should have gone to at least a jig or full lieutenant. Unfortunately, the Cadre was a bit shy on officers. Most people didn't understand that the Cadre were operators. They drew their people from all of the branches of the military, primarily though from the Marines and lately, Army. The Ensign had come up through the academy before taking the SEAL course on Agnosta two years ago. He'd graduated, gone through the special weapons training courses before he'd been tapped to join the Cadre. All without ever hearing a shot fired in anger. That didn't build confidence in certain people. But he'd come highly recommended. Jethro wasn't fully up to speed on all of the details, but he'd heard a little scuttlebutt courtesy of his cousin Warrant Letanga that there had been some pressure from the SpecOps community to open up a slot for 'qualified naval personnel'. The Cadre was critically short on officers, so somehow he'd been selected. Someone had made the case that the Cadre had 'too many Indians and not enough chiefs'. Which was bullshit. There were plenty of warrant officers in the Cadre. Just about every Cadre member could have taken a warrant. It would have been a tad confusing, but they could work it out. "Ten seconds," Bast reminded him, getting him refocused on the here and now. He instinctively tried to flick his ears but his helmet wouldn't allow it. Bast, living in his implants saw the nerve impulses and smiled anyway. Bast, or Bastet as her full name was, was a smart A.I. that was one part software and one part hardware of an extraordinary nature. Jethro was a descendant of an original Cadre member. As such he had certain abilities he'd thought were natural or at least, engineered like the rest of his species. That hadn't been the complete story. Bast, or, at least a version of her had slept in artificial DNA packets in his body, and the body of his ancestors. She had been passed on like a hidden sleeping legacy, forgotten until Jethro had recovered his ancestor's armor and the corps had restored it. Admiral Irons had helped to waken her fully. Jethro had watched Bast grow from a kitten to an adult, playing host and father all in one. They were bonded, and in combat fought as one on a level only another Cadre member could fully understand and appreciate. Jethro was one of the 'blood', one of the members of the Cadre like his cousin Letanga who had the gene packets and abilities. They had formed the core, the 'Cadre within the Cadre' that had established, or, as some called it, re-established the Cadre. "Four, three, two, one... punch it!" a tech said over the net. He felt a slight kick and then the inertial dampeners in his suit and in the pod kicked in. Then the ride got interesting as he plummeted to the planet. So far they had lost only 1 drop pod in an exercise. The fatality had well and truly sucked. It was just one of those things though; no one could have predicted a damn flock of geese would get in the way at that moment. He flexed his hands slightly and watched the view as it began to heat up. He looked up and around and then remembered his duties and checked on the rest of the platoon. He had just enough time to note everyone was okay and on target before the plasma field surrounded his pod and he encountered LOS, Loss Of Signal. Two minutes might be an eternity in such a situation but he just kept an eye on the stats and the plasma field. They couldn't see anything as the pod re-entered the planet's atmosphere. It would have been nice to have been launched from Roy Boehm or one of their other dedicated transports but the ships were in the yard getting last minute updates. The pod launch had come from a military station and they hadn't had the kick of an actual drop, something he'd pointed out but had been overruled about. \<|>^<|>/

Pirate Empress is publishing ...NOW!

Okay, as I said in the previous post, Goodlifeguide got back to me sooner than expected and I got the manuscript in this morning. I just finished uploading it to Amazon and B&N. Hopefully there will be no problems, B&N was hinky.

Oh, also, I lowered the price on 11 other titles. So, if you fell behind, now is your chance to get caught up. I'll be going through and lowering other prices later in March. (I think, I may forget)

  Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons and his Reborn Federation had been fighting the pirate empire for over a decade. The battles have sea-sawed back and forth across the sector but the Federation has finally beaten the enemy back to their home star system.  Catherine Ramichov has seen the battles and has taken over in a bloody coup, ruthlessly culling her own family to take control of the empire. She has a firm idea of what to do and knows what is at stake is nothing less than the survival of her empire.   Admiral Irons and the military may think they have them beaten, but she is just getting started as Horath's first... Pirate Empress!
As usual, I'll post the links when they go live.  Edit: And we are live!

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085B9YRLC

Pirate Empress Snippet 5

So, I got the manuscript back from Goodlifeguide.com earlier this morning. I'll toddle on over to begin publishing it in a moment.

Here is the last snippet...


Catherine called a cabinet meeting nine weeks after the first cyberattack and her coup, one week after the latest attack. New people and old were still settling in; she watched from a window as they arrived. Many were not happy about the additional security and obviously nervous about being in her midst after the coup. Well, that was too bad. The meeting had to be a physical one in the palace; they couldn't trust their own communications, encrypted or not. Catherine was polite and even smiled as they settled into the wardroom. She listened to the reports from each minister gravely. It amounted to a lot of hand-wringing about a lot of damage. They were nowhere near restoring order. What they had was a thin venire and a few holdouts barely holding on. There were a few bright spots, like the fact that several stations still survived. And cyber security was finally taking their duties seriously. The Admiralty had initiated a plan to blunt the next attack which was still five weeks out. “Most of the military hardware was only lightly touched. What we have left has been cleaned. Anything critical was already isolated and air gapped against intrusion,” Vice Admiral Rupert Bradley stated. The vice admiral was a temporary addition to the cabinet since they lacked a minister of industry. She had pressed him into service as a temporary fill-in, forcing him to divide his time between trying to salvage his original command, BuShips, and trying to salvage and restore the entire civilian industry at the same time. Obviously from the slack look on his face and deep drawn eyes he hadn't gotten much sleep as of late. She was sure despite her makeup she had a similar look. At the moment, she could care less about looks as she did results. “Air gapped?” Catherine asked, sitting back and crossing her ankles under the desk as she played straight man. “We were working on a program to air gap our hardware to cut it off from any network. Our most sensitive hardware in secret facilities was already like that; some bases run on their own network without being connected to external communications at all. Some have multiple networks all independent of each other. Data is moved through portals like encrypted flash drives only after being carefully vetted. It is the only way to protect it from our own hackers,” the admiral explained. Catherine nodded. “When the Federation began using cyberattacks, field units and vessels most distant went to air gap protocols. Those range from bases to forts and ships. Unfortunately, some were infected with delay action attacks,” the admiral explained, showing them a diagram of the cyberattack as it filtered through the various commands. Catherine nodded curtly. No one wanted to mention the extensive damage to the shipyards. Logistics was still trying to rebuild their databases, mostly by doing inventory all over again. Some of the stations had been abandoned. Some had lost attitude control and were tumbling, shedding their contents. At least one was in a slow and agonizing path to burning up in the atmosphere. If it was allowed to happen, the mega tons of material would rain down and destroy quite a lot below. That which didn't burn up on reentry of course. Unfortunately, there were few tugs available to alter the course of the station. It was just one problem among all too many at the moment. “The problem is the lack of communication seriously hampers our units. Only audio commands can be sent, no data. The threat of spoofing added to the confusion and delay in action. All internal Wi-Fi has been disabled, which hampers internal communications as well. But that is why their second cyberattack was blunted.” Catherine nodded again. The Federation prowlers had recently struck again on the eight-week  anniversary of the first cyberattack, just as promised. Since then a lot of prowlers had been observed jumping away to H001, most likely to report back to their chain of command and resupply. It can be assumed that they'd return. Of that she was bleakly certain about. She cleared her throat. “Audio commands I know. I remember doing that when Cyrano had us run drills against a possible Xeno opponent. Sharing data was a pain in the ass,” she said, face working in disgust. Mentioning Cyrano brought no flash of anger anymore. She had no time for such things. She could have used his steady hand and the staff he'd built but they were dead and gone thanks to her father. She fought down a flash of anger at his stupidity and regret over her own inaction. She'd been forced to hold off on her plans, accepting the executions as pawns being sacrificed. She was pretty sure she'd have to do that again in the future. “Agreed. But it was the only way to protect our ships from infiltration through their communications. Sometimes data could be sent over encrypted bursts or direct line of sight. But it was hard to trust it.” the admiral shook his head. “Even audio isn't fool proof.” Catherine looked up with a frown. Admiral Cartwright and others grimaced and nodded in support of their fellow admiral. “The enemy can get samples of our voices and use them to sow disorder in our ranks,” Admiral Rico stated. “In fact, they already have.” “If they have the encryption keys to react in real time. And if our people are foolish enough to accept an omni broadcast,” Catherine said frostily. “A prowler on the right heading could pull it off in theory. Which is why we're adding code words to our encrypted communications,” Admiral Cartwright stated. “We have to hand deliver code sheets and new encryption keys to each command, which is in itself a slow process. We have been working on our own A.I. and cyber defenses, ironically using what we picked up from the Feds.” “Ah.” “But, it turns out that some of that was a trap,” Elvira said as she looked up from her tablet. “It was?” Catherine blinked and then frowned as she turned to her partner. Elvira had remained silent for the majority of the proceedings up until that point. She hadn't wanted to be there but Catherine had insisted. “I thought it was to teach people modern technology?” “If you learn the concepts, you are more or less fine, but there are hidden Trojans in the files. In our haste to utilize the tech, our people took shortcuts too. The copy and paste method has its advantages. But it left back doors in the programs, and the enemy exploited it,” Elvira explained, passing a tablet to Admiral Bradley. A section of code was highlighted. The admiral took it with a frown, read the data, and began to scowl. “Damn. She's right,” he said grudgingly. The countess took a look over his shoulder and then sighed and gave a rueful shake of her head. “Right under our noses,” she murmured. “Tricky. Tricky bastards,” Cass Suzzette, the minister of agriculture, ventured boldly as the group muttered. “Yes, my sentiments exactly. They knew we'd use it. We've dealt with Xeno traps before. And other cyberattacks have been encountered over the centuries. You'd think we'd learn from them, at least learn better methods than air gapping our systems,” Elvira said with a shake of her head. “Usually in the field, the best method is to shut down communications, reboot, and disable or destroy the infected hardware.” Catherine grimaced at that news. She nodded though. There were plenty of horror stories of greed getting in the way of common sense to the detriment of salvage teams. And there were no doubt dozens, perhaps hundreds of stories out there of it killing the team and never getting back to them. The problem was the money from salvage was too lucrative to pass it up. No risk, no reward. Besides, when an A.I. normally realized it was being salvaged, security protocols would call for it to wipe itself or self-destruct. This was different. This was a deliberate crippling take of unprecedented scale. All carefully and maliciously planned. “I'm not big on software so I can only see the big picture. I admit, I'm probably guilty of the copy and paste error myself,” Elvira said with a shake of her head. “But I agree, cutting down our communication networks will help to some degree. Cleaning all software, possibly down to resetting to factory default from firmware, will do a lot to mitigate any hidden viruses waiting to strike.” “It already has. The civilians are doing the same. Network transfer is a problem. They've switched to just hard lines but we only have so many to begin with. It is cutting into our efficiency. Wi-Fi is out as is satellite communication. But it is the only way to be sure the data is clean,” Countess Newberry stated. “The flip side is that the networks being down means that hooligans who are behind some of the more dangerous civil unrest are cut off from their supporters. But it means we can't actively track them either.” A few people nodded. “The good news is changing our encryption and methods of data transfer have hampered the Fed's intelligence activities. I believe that's a case of seeing a silver lining on a barn burned to nearly ashes, but it means that anything we plan from here on out will hopefully be secret,” the countess ended. Catherine winced at the qualifier. “There are no guarantees. We're still running into delayed logic bombs and viruses that try to upload data they gathered. Our cyber people believe we aren't infected by an actual A.I., but they can't guarantee that,” Admiral Bradley stated flatly. “An A.I.? In our systems?” the countess asked. “In the hardware. A software download is possible. It would need to be a large system. We're pulling people in that have some experience with such things.” “Rogue A.I., that's all we need,” Admiral Rico muttered. “I have my doubts that there is one. That's a lot of data to transfer. Then again, they had plenty of time to send information to our networks before they launched their cyberattack,” Elvira stated flatly. “We are still running across back doors and viruses. Breaking the networks down has severely hampered their ability to attack us in the same fashion in the future.” “We need to continue on that path then. Once burned thrice shy.” “That is a defensive measure. We still can't find the prowlers and hit them back,” Admiral Cartwright growled, glancing at Elvira. She had made some suggestions, which had worked to some degree, but it wasn't enough. It had trapped the prowler's recon drones and tracked their buoys, even caught one or two ships, but there were still more. Or will be when they come back he thought darkly. “True,” Catherine said with a nod. “Let's take a break for an hour and then we'll reconvene,” she offered. She could tell that offer was gladly accepted. She also noted that the countess wanted to tell her something. She nodded to a side door. The countess nodded slightly back. Catherine paused to check in with her people to get an updated SITREP and then went to see what the countess had to say privately. =#=#=#=

Pirate Empress Snippet 4

So, I pooped myself out from scrubbing this morning, we've got company coming and staying for the funeral next week. Fun.
Anyway, I was checking my mail this morning and found an email from Rea, PE is in! So, I'm going to settle in, go through her edits, finish adding the TOC and stuff, then send it off to Goodlifeguide.

Oh, she got a kick out of it like everyone else.... grin.

On to the snippet!

Chapter 3


Doctor Nutell looked up to the flickering lights with a frown. Things were bad, he knew it, but he didn't know just how bad it was. He'd insisted all communications be cut when they had heard about the cyber-attack. That had protected them from the worst of the ravages of the attack but the information vacuum had been a problem.
Recently Major Eichmann had come around. The base was a black site, offline to the main network and therefore protected. Despite his entries the staff had managed to get some audio and video screens working. They had contradicted the intelligence officer's assertion that all was well.
Which hadn't helped with morale.
Half of the support staff had upped and quit. Some had deserted in the middle of the night, fearful of retaliation. He'd done his best to quell the panic. It was a daily process to sooth the staff. They knew that any panic would get to their subjects and that was a problem.
He checked on Doctor Milgram. The eugenics and brainwashing psychologist was one of the best in the business. Rumors of the fall of the department of Purity and Enlightenment had him on edge though. Not that the doctor was unprofessional enough to let it shade his work. He was gently guiding Mara as she in turn taught a class of the latest subjects.
Mara was a find but they had realized that Selkies were the real treasure. The blue skinned woman was the closest to human they had but she lacked the full innate gift that the other water dwellers had in piloting and navigation. That was why they had recently shifted focus off of her production and onto the selkie production line.
But, only after they'd made some tweaks to make the selkie less... abnormal and more human.
Most of the merfolk and picean production lines were run out since the recent shift. The last classes were in the simulators now. He'd thought that the piceans would have bred more like fish, with eggs and such but that hadn't been the case.
He frowned as he played with his lower lip.
His biggest problem was supplies. They were not immune to the problems outside. They had enough supplies for several more weeks before things got dire. He hoped the powers that be sorted out their troubles soon enough. He had a lot more work to do and it was very promising indeed.
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Mara kept herself from glancing at Doctor Milgram for support as she gently guided her class in piloting. They were really too young to do the job, but the doctors insisted that they could learn. And they were, but the kids resisted to some degree, they just didn't have the focus of older trainees. And some of the staff had recently come down harshly on them when they failed to be attentive.
She knew something was wrong, but no one was saying anything, least of all to someone like her.
She was no longer being drugged; a lot of the clouds had lifted. She'd remembered bits and pieces of her history, including the fact that Sydney and Anita had come with her from somewhere else.
They were some of the last; all of the menfolk had been reassigned to other duties. She had overheard Doctor Milgram as he had firmly told Sydney to mind her own business when she'd inquired about them. That was unlike the doctor too.
“Okay class, we're going to start the next sim. I want you to focus, swim as if your lives depended on it, because they very well could someday...”
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Doctor Milgram frowned pensively as he watched the class. He had done the tours of the various crèche. He didn't like that some of the staff had left. You didn't do that with patients. Some like Jane had hung in there though. When he'd asked her she'd just shrugged it off.
He didn't have anywhere else to go. He'd heard the rumors of the coup and Purity and Enlightenment getting gutted. He was hoping his time with Doctor Nutell would make him indispensable in his current occupation. Something told him that the doctor wouldn't hesitate to throw him to the wolves to save his own skin though.
Really, there was no place to run. Where would he go? What would he do? Wherever he went eventually II would find him. It didn't matter. For the moment, only the work did.
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Irma Algresi ran a hand through her tousled hair and then waved to frustrated clerk. “If it's gone just set it aside. We need to focus on what we can reconstruct,” she insisted.
The clerk sighed and then nodded, setting the folders aside.
She'd never understood why the Inspector General's office had insisted on paper backups of some documents. They'd been redundant and as a cost saving feature she'd pitched stopping the practice. She was now glad she'd been overruled. At the time she'd thought cynically that it had been because as an Assistant Deputy IG accountant she'd stepped on someone's toes. Probably the printer or someone who was making money warehousing all of the documents.
Now she was glad. To a degree.
By going back through the documents they'd been able to reconstruct some of the deleted files. Clean computers had been provided by the IT department, not as many as she'd requested, but a couple. She had a pair of techs working to rebuild their accounting files. It was a daunting task.
The weird thing was that one or two other government departments were calling on them for the data. Apparently, IG's insistence on a paper trail was the only way they could rebuild the records in some cases. She had every record double checked.
She was one of the few department heads to stay at her post. Really, it wasn't like she had anywhere to go. Her flat? When she went home she only saw bad news on the few channels still working. Rioting was happening everywhere. It was scary. At least her work had armed guards who had no intention of letting the chaos and self-immolation touch their offices. She'd taken to camping out in her office on the battered couch whenever the reports of the rioting said they were near.
She hoped someone did something soon. For the moment all she could do was focus on her little world and try to bring order to chaos.
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