Peter Nealen's Blog, page 2

Something in the Dark Chapter 2

I wasn’t sure at first whether the older man who came through the door was the sheriff or one of his deputies. He was probably in his late fifties, balding, and with a bit of a gut, though I wouldn’t have called him fat. He was wearing a uniform jacket over his dark brown shirt, pulled aside to show the star on his chest and hiked up to keep his sidearm clear.

He walked past my table as I leaned back, clearing my access to my own sidearm, just in case. I wasn’t eager to get in a gunfight with the local law, but I’d seen enough in little towns where the heebie-jeebies put my hackles up to know that I couldn’t necessarily count on things to stay sane. I didn’t know what was going on here, but the fact that the diner’s staff had apparently called the sheriff over some stranger who just wanted to eat given the relatively early hour didn’t bode well at all.

I was taking care not to stare at the sheriff or the waitress as she came to the counter and spoke softly to him, pointing toward my table, of course. The sheriff—his presence and demeanor was making me suspect that he was the sheriff and not just a deputy, though I still couldn’t be entirely sure—turned to look at me, then patted the waitress’s hand and started toward my table.

I looked up at him as he approached. I’d already put my hands on the table, though I knew I could get to my 1911 fast even so. I just didn’t want to start something if I could talk my way out of it.

Right then, I was really wishing that I’d just stayed in the truck and kept on rolling. Something told me that I’d stopped here in Leutenburg for a reason, though.

He stopped just beyond the corner of the table, his thumbs in his belt, one hand noticeably closer to his sidearm, and eyed me. The nametag on his jacket read “Deace.” “You were asked to leave, Mister.”

I looked up at him, then nodded toward the other clientele, most of whom were turned away, pointedly ignoring our little byplay. “They weren’t. It’s not even seven o’clock yet, and the sign out front says this place is open until nine.” I watched him without blinking. “I haven’t done anything, haven’t threatened or harassed anyone. I just want to eat a meal in peace.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. Was it anger? Or fear? I couldn’t tell. He glanced over his shoulder, shifting his weight, clearly uncomfortable. My eyes narrowed slightly as I watched him, my hands still on the table. There was something very, very wrong here.

His eyes returned to me, studying me a little more closely, and then they stopped. I didn’t look down to see what he was looking at, but from what I could tell, he was staring at the silver crucifix on its leather thong around my neck.

I’d never try to hide it, though I did occasionally tuck it away inside my shirt when I needed to move. Most people just thought it was jewelry, or a sign of my faith.

It definitely was the latter, but it was also my badge of office, in a way.

Sheriff Deace’s eyes were fixed on that crucifix for a long moment, before they moved up to me. His expression was still unreadable, but something had changed. I just didn’t know whether it was for the better or worse.

“You’re going to have to come with me.” His hand had shifted closer to his sidearm.

Definitely worse.

“What have I done, Sheriff?” A part of me couldn’t just go along with this. Part of that was sheer survival instinct, which the Marine Corps had honed and then years as a Witch Hunter had stropped to a fine edge. I knew that if I went into a jail in a town that had something from the other side in control, I might not make it out.

That was always a possibility, but it was one you tried to stave off as long as possible. Life is a gift, and while we shouldn’t be overly attached to this world, we don’t get to throw the gift away, either.

“Are you resisting arrest?”

There it was. I could go along or get into a gunfight with the local law in a diner. That wasn’t really an option.

Hopefully this hadn’t already gone so far south that I wouldn’t get a phone call. At least somebody should know what was going on.

Keeping my hands above the table and spread wide, I slid out of my chair and got up. I was taller than the sheriff, though he probably outweighed me by a good thirty pounds. I could probably still put him on the ground, but I really didn’t want to.

He stepped back, though he didn’t put hands on me, which was a little weird, given what was going on, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. I preceded him out the door, still careful to keep my hands in view, waiting for things to get rough outside.

But all he did was open the back door of his SUV. “Get in.”

I did so, surprised that he hadn’t searched me. I still had my pistol on my belt, not to mention the flask of holy water in my back pocket. What is going on here?

He didn’t say a word as he got in the front seat, and I wasn’t going to break the silence until I could figure out more of what was going on. The sense of impending doom that had hung over me since I’d slowed down in Leutenburg hadn’t lessened at all.

I just wasn’t sure how involved the sheriff was.

Leutenburg not being a large town, it didn’t take long to get to the county jail. Still without speaking, Sheriff Deace parked the vehicle, got out, and let me out of the back. He pointed toward the door, still in silence, and I walked through, still being careful not to move too fast or let my hand get too close to my .45.

The office inside was small and pretty typical of a rural county sheriff’s office. The venetian blinds were half drawn in the windows along two walls, and instead of industrial cubicles, the office was divvied up by actual wood dividers, with clear plastic windows. There were some plants on shelves and a couple of the four desks, though no one else was in there at the moment.

I had been expecting to get ushered down the hall to the jail, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but I stepped out of the doorway as Sheriff Deace followed me inside.

“Have a seat.” The sheriff pointed toward a chair in front of a desk with “Sheriff Deace” on the little placard in front. “I didn’t get your name, but we needed to get out of the diner.”

I frowned, but did as he said, while he stepped around the desk and sat down. “Jed Horn.”

Deace folded his hands and leaned on his elbows. “Well, Mr. Horn, I apologize for the drama, but I assure you that there’s a reason for it.”

This could get interesting. “I should hope so.” Ordinarily, I might be a little more circumspect, but I was tired, hungry, and had just been through a pseudo arrest for no particular reason.

He had the good grace to look somewhat abashed. “I was just going to try to get you out of town. Or, if you put up a fuss, yeah, I was going to throw you in the clink until morning, but…” He held up a hand as my face clouded. “It was for your own protection. You might not buy that right off the bat, but just hear me out.”

Then he pointed to the crucifix around my neck. “Then I saw that.”

I just raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t going to say a thing until I had more information.

“Now, I know it might just be an ordinary cross, but here’s the thing. Back when I was a youngster, when we were having the same troubles we are now, a fella came through wearing that same crucifix.” He nodded when my eyebrow went up a little higher. “Oh, yeah. I’m certain that it’s the same one. I’ve seen the photos. We’ve got a few in the files here.

“The point is, this gent was able to help out where no one else could. I’m hoping that maybe that ain’t just a piece of jewelry, and you’re like him.”

Well, this was getting interesting.

“Did he carry a gun?”

“Several, actually.” Deace leaned back in his seat with a creak, apparently satisfied enough to relax. I still hadn’t been searched, which lent some credence to this not being a trap. “Among other things. Including a hip flask full of holy water.”

I sighed. Well, that was a pretty good indicator that another member of the Order had come through here. Still moving carefully, I reached back and pulled my own flask out of my pocket and set it on the desk.

You’d think I’d just produced the Holy Grail. The confirmation that I was, indeed, a member of the Order of the Silver Cross made him slump with a deep sigh of relief.

“What kind of trouble do you think I can help with, Sheriff?” I still wasn’t all that happy about how this had gone down, but sometimes there’s only so much you can do.

He sobered, leaning forward over the desk again. “So, with anyone else, I’d expect you to think this sounds crazy. But from what I read in the notes from the last time, I hope that you’ll hear me out.”

I just held my peace. We’d definitely gotten off to the wrong start, but when I swallowed my anger at the way I’d been treated, I had to suspect that some of the bad feeling I’d had when I’d first rolled into town might be explained in the next few minutes.

“So, this town goes back to the 1890s. Founded in 1893, as a matter of fact. And this problem, judging by the town wisdom and records going back to the first newspaper, which was started in 1894, goes right back to the beginning.

“Sam Witwer was the first victim. Sam was the town drunk, so nobody missed him at first. Only when he started to be found around town, in pieces, did anyone really start to take notice. Still, they figured that Sam had finally drunk himself to death, and the coyotes were picking him apart.

“Then it happened again. Only Mary Tannen wasn’t a drunk. And her parts and pieces started showing up in almost the exact same places where Sam’s limbs had been deposited.”

My eyes were narrowing as I listened. This could be any number of things—including ordinary crime—but if he was talking about things that had happened in the 1890s, then I was already starting to think that it was up my alley.

Oh, joy.

See, what the Order does is fight back when the Otherworld and the Abyss try to cheat. The demons of the Abyss will sometimes try to terrify their targets into corruption by force. The Otherworld does the same thing, though for somewhat different reasons. That’s not the way the rules work, and that’s why we step in, with iron, silver, lead, steel, prayer, and holy water when that happens. We sometimes get some pretty high-level assistance, if you catch my meaning, but we are the front line when things get physical.

“Two more died before they caught the culprit. Matthew Harmon was caught with about half of what was left of Olivia Reitmeier’s body. He was covered in blood, dragged in front of the justice of the peace, tried, found guilty in about half an hour, and hanged.

“The really freaky part of the newspaper story was that Harmon didn’t even try to deny any of it, and he laughed on the way to the tree where they strung him up.”

Deace’s eyes had drifted to somewhere far away while he’d talked. From the sounds of things, this had been over a century ago, but for some reason the story was deeply affecting him.

Given what he’d said about “current troubles…”

“That was in 1894. About 1912, it happened again. Almost blow for blow. Four victims that time, before Simon Arendt was caught. Once again, he was tried, didn’t even try to deny it, laughed all the way to the gallows.”

The sheriff looked haunted as he waved his hand at the stack of papers on his desk. Now that I noticed, I saw that some of them appeared to be very old. “So it’s gone. Over and over, for over a hundred years. Every ten to fifteen years, it starts again. And it started again six weeks ago.”

I frowned as I thought it over. There were some missing pieces here. “You said one of my order came through here.”

He nodded, pulling out a much newer, but still yellowed notebook. “It was the last time. He seemed to think that this was the work of a cult, one that had been around since the town was founded, if not before. He found a ceremonial…something, out in the hills to the north of here and destroyed it. Said he thought they had been trying to summon something, but with the ceremonial site destroyed, they should move on somewhere else. The perp was caught the next day, and the usual song and dance went down. This being the modern day, there wasn’t a quick trial or sentencing, but the perp was found dead in his cell after a week. Looked like he’d been beaten to death. There were some questions about how that had happened, but it was essentially over after that.”

I thought it over. “But now it’s started again?”

He nodded. “Three victims so far. I’m guessing that whatever the other guy did, he didn’t put enough of a damper on the cult’s activities. Or he really miscalculated.”

Without knowing who it was, I couldn’t comment on his professionalism, but I’d seen the latter before. That’s actually a common risk in this business. Neither the Otherworld nor the Abyss are particularly aboveboard or honest, and half the job is trying to figure out just what is going on. And you can always be wrong, because the beings we deal with are far more cunning than any ordinary man.

“I’d guess that he miscalculated.” I was still thinking through what he’d told me, and some of the picture was coming together. I’d have to do some looking around, get on the hunt, but I could make some guesses. My eyes narrowed as I thought it over. “The pattern is too long-lived to just be a cult. And the perp always laughing on the way to the hanging tree…” My frown deepened. “No, I think that if there was a summoning involved, it happened a long time ago. This isn’t a ritual. It’s a predator.”

He’d blanched as I’d spoken. I suppose it’s a lot worse to hear that there’s some sort of supernatural predator prowling around your jurisdiction, rather than a cult of serial killers. “That’s my theory, anyway. I’d have to investigate to tell for sure.” My gaze sharpened as I shifted all my attention to him. “Can I do that without running afoul of the locals?”

He had the good grace to look abashed. “Look, I’m sorry for how this started out. But you’ve got to understand. All the victims lately have been out-of-towners, people passing through or visiting. That was why Mable tried to get you out before dark, and why she called me. She wasn’t trying to be hostile. She might not have handled it all that well, but she didn’t want to see your body parts show up scattered around the town tomorrow.”

I had to nod. Had to accept it, as bitter as I might still have been. My profession might call me to a higher moral level—being in a state of sin makes you vulnerable to some of the things we fight—but I’m still a former Marine with a short temper. It makes things tough, sometimes.

Standing up, I stretched. “Well, then, I guess I’ll find a place to bed down and start looking around.” I raised an eyebrow as he stood up on the other side of the desk. “Though I’d really like a meal first.”

Deace sighed and pulled his jacket off his chair. “Come on. I’ll buy.”

 

Something in the Dark comes out on Kindle and in Paperback on October 8.

The post Something in the Dark Chapter 2 appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Something in the Dark Chapter 1

While I couldn’t put my finger on it when I drove into town, there was something about Leutenburg that was just a little off.

Now, granted, when you’ve spent as much time as I have in this profession, you start to realize that every place is a little off.  Evil likes to burrow in like a tick, whenever it’s given an opening.  And human nature being what it is, somebody’s always going to open that door.  Demons are legalistic, and once they’re given a foothold, they’ll cling to it by right like the miserliest miser who ever went to sleep holding onto bags of cash.

That metaphor got away from me a little, but you get the idea.  The point is, no matter how bucolic and peaceful a place looks on the surface, somewhere there’s a dark side to it.  Nature of the world as it is.

Of course, the Otherworld is every bit as tenacious in the legalistic department, even if they aren’t usually quite as bad as the demons.

I paused at the first of the three stop lights on Main Street, thankful for the momentary red light so that I could take stock. Try to figure out what I’d sensed. I’d gotten hunches before. When you’ve been on the spooky side of the tracks for long enough, you learn to listen to those hunches. What’s going on isn’t necessarily always obvious to the naked eye.

And I’d been on the spooky side of the tracks for a long time.

I scanned the street again, looking for whatever might have struck me as Otherworldly. Fr. O’Neill had once called the Otherworld the world that’s just out of sight, but every once in a while, you could catch a glimpse, especially when the Otherworlders are being cocky or sloppy.

Or when they’re hunting you.

I was just passing through, heading home to Eryn after investigating what might have been a cult, but had turned out to be nothing more than some dumb kids playing with fire. Eryn hadn’t come with me because she was due with our first kid in about four more months. I hadn’t heard about anything happening in Leutenberg that required the expertise of a Witch Hunter. In fact, I don’t think I had even heard of the town before about half an hour ago, when I saw the sign on the highway.

So, what had I stumbled on?

Nothing caught my attention. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t going to be obvious on the surface. It never was.

You might ask how I’d picked up on it, if it was so hidden. I don’t know. Maybe my guardian angel gave me a nudge. He does that sometimes. Sometimes he’s more subtle than others.

Yes, he’s quite real. I’ve actually met him. He doesn’t show up very often, but when he does, it’s usually a good sign that things have gone very sideways. He wasn’t showing up right then, but that didn’t mean things weren’t about to get weird.

Main Street was only two lanes wide, lined with parked cars and trucks. The buildings along either side were mostly old, brick, two-story shopfronts from the late 1800s, early 1900s. Several more modern buildings, including what looked like a four-story condo, stood behind, closer to the hills along the west side of town, but most of the city looked like it hadn’t changed much since the ‘80s. I was pretty well off the beaten track. Ray’s ranch, where Eryn and I had made our home, was pretty well out in the boonies, so that was going to happen.

There were about a dozen streetlights every few yards along the sidewalks; the old, sculpted kind with the spherical lampshades. They were already lit, as the sun was going down and the clouds were getting thicker in the north. Several of the storefronts, especially the diner down the street, still glowed, but given what time it was, I was surprised to see how many were already turning the lights out.

The light turned green, and I eased my truck back into motion, rolling down Main Street toward the low motel at the far end of downtown. I didn’t move very quickly, just easily cruising down the street in the lack of traffic, taking the opportunity to watch the locals and the rest of the town.

I was getting looks. They were hard to read, in no small part because it was getting dark. But I got the distinct impression that I was being watched with a combination of nervousness and… pity?

That didn’t bode well.

Still, I wasn’t worried about the locals. Maybe I was getting cocky in my old age, or maybe I’d just seen too much from the darker side of the veil. Sure, ordinary people could still be a threat, but I wasn’t getting the cult zombie feeling that I’d seen before, either. There was something wrong here, but I didn’t think the locals were necessarily behind it.

They knew about it, but they weren’t going to mob me for it. At least, I didn’t think so.

From a viewpoint of pure self-preservation, I probably should have kept rolling. Gotten out of town and gotten back to my family. There was no reason I could see to stay, and the heebie-jeebies were usually a warning, not an invitation.

But I’d been on the road for a long time already, and I was hungry. At the very least, I needed to stop, stretch my legs, and get some chow. So, I pulled my truck into the parking lot of the little diner just past the last stoplight, parked, checked that my old 1911 was covered by my jacket, and got out.

It was getting late, and the diner was probably going to close soon. Instinctively, I checked the place out as I walked toward the door, scanning the interior through the big picture windows. There were still about half a dozen people inside, seated at widely separated tables. None of them were watching the door, though every head turned as I walked in.

While I could have sworn that a few of those looks held the same combination of suspicion and pity that I’d seen on main street, after a moment they all turned away, except for the waitress, who seemed awfully nervous as she came up to my table.

Now, I’ve never been what might be considered harmless looking. I’m tall and raw boned, with deep set eyes and a beak of a nose that’s been broken a couple times and that I’ve never much liked, myself. I don’t necessarily get a haircut or a shave all that often, or even eat with the kind of regularity that keeps me filled out. So, I wasn’t that surprised that she was nervous, despite the ring on my left hand.

“We’re gonna be closing up soon, mister.” She didn’t quite look straight at me while she spoke, tapping the pen in her hand against her order pad.

I had to raise an eyebrow at that, while I leaned forward on the table. “Seems a little early to be closing. Does this town really roll the sidewalks up at sunset, or something?”

She still looked nervous, glancing over her shoulder toward the back of the restaurant, and still avoiding looking me in the eye. “It’s just not very busy around here, so we close up early.”

There was definitely something wrong here, and I followed her gaze toward the back, though all I could see was the door leading into the kitchen. I shifted my eyes toward the other clientele, but while I caught a couple of furtive looks, quickly turned away as they saw me looking at them, there was nothing that presented an immediate threat.

None of the other folks there in the diner seemed to be in a hurry to finish up. The lights were all still on. The sense of disquiet I’d felt since rolling into town intensified a couple notches.

“I’m mighty hungry, so I promise I won’t dawdle over my food.” I was hesitant to come right out and ask her what was wrong. My protective streak made me want to, but I hadn’t survived as long as I had walking through the shadowy parts of the world without a healthy dose of caution when I couldn’t see all the cards. The Otherworld is sneaky, and the demons of the Abyss are worse. “Sure you can’t stay open for an extra thirty minutes? It’s not that late.”

She looked over her shoulder again, taking half a step back toward the kitchen. I was watching the shadows. It was entirely possible that I was barking up the wrong tree. There might still be something wrong, but it might just be the regular, homegrown crime sort of wrong. There were small towns like this one that were run like mafia front companies. They were usually somewhere down in the Southwest, but every once in a while, you might find one up here in the mountain states, my usual stomping grounds.

I couldn’t be sure, though, so I watched to see if the shadows moved.

“I’ll go ask.” It sounded like a temporizing measure, but I couldn’t really object. She was the waitress, after all. She didn’t run the place.

She disappeared into the back, and kept my eyes and my ears open, all without making it obvious that I was keeping tabs on the other diners. They were all studiously ignoring me. Either they had other ways of watching, or they were really trying to mind their own business.

A few minutes later, as the sheriff’s SUV pulled up outside, I figured it was probably the latter.

 

Jed Horn returns in Something in the Dark, available October 8.

The post Something in the Dark Chapter 1 appeared first on AMERICAN PRAETORIANS.

Cascade Effect

The Flames of War Spread

Even as the clash on distant, desolate Zhogalgan winds down, the spark it has ignited now threatens to set entire star systems aflame.

Now Corvanite Lieutenant Ulric Bannon leads his special tasks phalanx on a deep reconnaissance on an alien world to discover Zolarian plans… while elsewhere, on an airless moon, Zolarian First Sergeant Cul Draven faces savage war against a Corvanite client-state that has launched an offensive in the wake of the Zhogalgan confrontation.

Corvan and Zolah. Two great powers hurtling toward war…

… but the real enemy may be the mysterious alien operatives manipulating the conflict from the shadows.

***

Prologue

Space seemed to twist, and with a burst of bright blue Cherenkov radiation, a blunt cylinder appeared in the Gamma Corvi 822 system.

Cone-shaped drive nozzles at the aft end flared white, pushing the starship toward the distant world that the humans called Zhogalgan at just over one otuchan gravity.

The light of that burst of Cherenkov radiation would reach the planet and the human starships that now dominated its orbitals within sixteen of the humans’ minutes. The starship would reach it much later than that, though at its current acceleration, it would be traveling at a velocity almost too high to engage.

The ship wasn’t there to fight. It was there to observe. What happened after that would depend on what the otuchans aboard saw.

***

There was no way to conceal the drive plume. A massive trail of plasma and radiation, despite the fact that it was pointed away from the planet, it was a flare in the dark. Even so, it was a relatively small spark in the vastness of space. If the Corvanite and newly arrived allied Mytunese starships in orbit over Zhogalgan hadn’t been alert to any opening of the wormhole, they probably would have been hard-pressed to detect the oncoming starship for some time.

Aboard command starships, Corvanite and Mytunese officers conferred. There was no identification being transmitted by the oncoming starship, so all they could monitor were its radiation and neutrino signatures. They were somewhat consistent with observed otuchan diaspora starships, but as no two of those vessels were ever exactly the same, it was hard to say what was happening.

Days passed. The unknown starship continued its acceleration, passing the turnover point where it would have to cut thrust, flip over, and commence deceleration, if it intended to enter Zhogalgan orbit. It continued to gain velocity, while still arrowing toward a near pass by Zhogalgan.

For most of the last Zhogalganite year, the orbitals had been relatively uncontested, depressingly regular incidents with the starships of the Eurasian Concordium and their allies notwithstanding. Most of the starships in orbit were engaged in direct support of the newly formed Zhogalganite Army and the Corvanite ground forces aiding and training them.

On the command deck of the Adamant, Captain Silas Mahan watched the holo tank, the images of his other task group commanders floating in a halo around the plot. Dozens of icons indicated starships as well as units on the planet’s surface, trajectories traced by gossamer lines of light around the sphere of the planet and its moons.

“Thoughts, gentlemen?” He had his own ideas, but he wanted to hear what his subordinates thought. While matters on and around Zhogalgan had stabilized somewhat since the Zolarians had pulled out in shame, the continued presence and belligerence of the Eurasian forces kept the entire situation delicate.

“While I would say that a single ship can’t present too much of a threat, especially on its current trajectory, its kinetic energy is only increasing, and it is still far enough out for a vector change that could make it a considerable threat.” Captain Rankin was one of the older starship captains, commanding the blunt-nosed second-generation cruiser Avenger.

“Still no response to comms hails?” Captain Coré asked from the Demolisher.

“None.” Of all the Corvanite commanders in the system, Captain Daell was the one most likely to have tried talking first, though his hail would still have had the iron fist of the Thunderbird’s weapons behind it. “Though, if they are someone new, they might not be operating on the same frequencies.”

Coré frowned. “What makes you think that they’re new? All signs point to the ship being diaspora otuchan.”

“It does, at least from a distance,” Daell replied. “However, there is an inconsistency to be considered here. Since when do diaspora otuchans care about anyone outside their particular phratry? Their entire philosophy revolves around evolution through struggle. If the Zhogalgan otuchans cannot survive on their own, they don’t deserve to. A potential intervention by other otuchans—the homeworld otuchans hate the diaspora more than any humans or aliens in this part of the galaxy—would be a change so drastic that it would catch every intel analyst for a thousand light years flat-footed.”

Mahan snorted. “Given some of the reports from this very system over the last Zhogalganite year, that would not be out of the ordinary.”

The reports of not only ghost ship sightings, but even an actual engagement by Corvanite ground forces with aliens from one of those fabled ghost ships, had been classified, but each of the starship captains had seen them.

Captain Sobhan of the Reckoning hadn’t said a word yet, but now, as his holo crossed its arms, he spoke. “The unknown ship’s identity is a matter of curiosity, not true import. If there is talking to be done, it will be done by Consul Abraham. If there is fighting to be done, that will be our job.”

“Well said, Captain.” Daell didn’t seem offended by the implied rebuke, since he had been the first to hail the oncoming starship. “So far, its vector is inconsistent with an attempt to enter orbit. It might attempt a high-velocity attack pass, but on its current trajectory, it will pass by just outside the Lagrange points.”

“We have approximately twenty hours before it is within directed energy weapon range.” As Captain Coré spoke, a golden sphere appeared in the plot around Zhogalgan, indicating the range at which any of the starships currently in orbit would be able to engage using lasers or particle beams. The lasers stayed coherent farther than the particle beams, but at the velocities involved, the difference in range would be somewhat negligible.

Mahan looked around at his fellow captains. “Maintain watch and go to Alert Condition One as soon as it comes within DEW range?”

He got nods all around. “Very well, gentlemen. Death comes.”

“Let us go and meet it.”

***

The blunt, cylindrical starship continued its plunge toward Zhogalgan, cutting its drive well after it was traveling at such a velocity that the planet’s gravity was only going to divert it a relatively small amount. The line in the plot bent toward the distant gas giant Sukalyk. Mahan thought he was starting to see what the plan was. A gravity boost around Sukalyk would propel the otuchan craft back toward the wormhole emergence point after conducting a high-velocity pass by Zhogalgan.

This was looking more and more like a reconnaissance mission rather than an attack. He still called the ship to Alert Condition One as soon as the unidentified starship passed the edge of that golden sphere in the plot.

Eyes both organic and mechanical watched as the otuchan ship—there was now no doubt about its origin, as it was within visual range—hurtled toward rendezvous.

***

While active targeting systems lit up the oncoming starship, the otuchans aboard gave no sign they even noticed. Powerful telescopes were trained on the ships in orbit as well as the surface below, doing what they could to penetrate the thin clouds without using active measures that might trigger a response from the myriad weapons systems currently locked onto the ship.

Those optics were far more advanced than anything the humans would expect to be equipped aboard an otuchan diaspora starship. The computers processing their imagery corrected for weather and movement, constructing a detailed set of images that were carefully observed and cataloged by cold, unblinking reptilian eyes.

The Corvanites might have considered identification of the starship’s origin academic, but the otuchans aboard the ship had different priorities. They noted the origin of every human on and above the planet, even as their ship flashed past at well above escape velocity, careful to give the humans no excuse to open fire on it.

The pass took only hours, and then the starship was plunging into the dark again, toward the distant blue glint of Sukalyk. The Corvanite and Mytunese ships in orbit over Zhogalgan continued to watch, ordered to hold fire and maintain their orbits, while the Eurasian and Shangxi cruisers held to their own orbits, if only to avoid granting the Corvanites and Mytunese in orbit any advantage. It was a cold war in the skies above Zhogalgan, but it was still a war.

The otuchan starship rotated to point its drive cones out toward deep space, the sun-hot plasma jetting out once more to adjust the starship’s vector, the projected line of its trajectory quickly curving around Sukalyk and back toward the wormhole.

Captain Mahan would have reason to wish that he’d opened fire on that ship.

 

Cascade Effect is available now on Kindle and in Paperback

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Demoralization vs. Patriotism on Stream

Going to be a bit of a different stream tonight. We’ve been talking amongst ourselves for a while about this problem, about a form of revisionist history and a Plato’s Cave of media and social media that has reduced our society to a vaguely connected pack of self-centered individualists who no longer believe in much of anything, and so are being duped by just about everything. We’re going to discuss it tonight, in about as much depth as we can get in an hour and a half, two hours.

There might be some follow-ons. We’ll see.

Yes, I do have a release out this month, and I’ve talked live with Nick Cole and Walt Robillard on X about it. It will get some time tonight, but not the main focus.

Come and join us. (Going to try for X again tonight, but we’ll see how it works out.)

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Spheres of Influence

Some of you might have seen a little short story that I put out through Wargate Nova a few weeks ago.

Well, the main story has now begun.

A “Peacekeeping” Mission That Might Be Anything But

Lieutenant Bannon and his phalanx of Corvanite warriors have already seen some of the worst that the irregular war between the reptilian otuchans and the human latecomers can offer.

Or so they think.

First Sergeant Draven, trying to hold his company of Zolarian citizen soldiers together, has been on the desolate planet of Zhogalgan longer than Bannon. He’s seen even more.

Yet while they are both there as peacekeepers, they are not there to help each other.

Spheres of influence and empires clash, on a dry, harsh world that might become the flashpoint in an interstellar war!

So begins a new military science fiction series, in a universe that I hope to explore at great length in the years to come.

Get Spheres of Influence, Book 1 of Edge of Imperium, on ebook or paperback.

Audio is coming on August 27. Check out a preview here:

This series is the first in a universe that I’ve been working on for a long time, even before the original Task Force Desperate and the American Praetorians series. I hope you’ll join me on this trip into a galaxy at war.

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Galaxy’s Edge Fan Expo AAR

It has been a while. It’s been a busy summer, and the blog has suffered, plus we had to skip the stream last month. We’re back now, though, and Walt Robillard, the Wargate Books Trunk Monkey (his actual job title) joins us to talk about the Galaxy’s Edge Fan Expo, which went down in Oak Harbor, WA, last weekend, as well as books, science fiction, fantasy, dogs, knives, martial arts, interesting violence in interesting places, and anything else that might come up. (Walt’s also the author of the sixth Order of the Centurion novel, Callsign Valkyrie, as well as the Forgotten Ruin spinoff Underspire.)

Come join us. We’ll be on YouTube, Rumble, and X/Twitter again.

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Galaxy’s Edge Season Three Chat

The Emperors, Nick Cole and Jason Anspach, join us this month to chat about Galaxy’s Edge Season Three. GE changed a lot when it launched in 2017 with Legionnaire, and it’s not often a series can go this long with such a fanatically dedicated reader base. Nick and Jason have also been both friends and publishers of mine, lending advice, support, bringing me in to contribute to the Order of the Centurion series, and publishing The Lost (plus a couple more upcoming series).

Come and join us.

We’ll also be on my Twitter/X account: https://x.com/AmericanPraeto2

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Guns, Mags, and Words – David Reeder Joins the Stream

This month we’re joined by the founder of Breach Bang Clear and one of the first to really help get the word out about the American Praetorians series, back when your host was just getting started. Writer, SPOTREPS contributor, and web guru David Reeder.

Dave was one of the first enthusiasts about the American Praetorians series, after I sent him a copy of Task Force Desperate in the hopes that Breach Bang Clear would review it. In fact, he put the review on Military.com’s Kit Up, which got the book some visibility it would not otherwise have had. He is also a SPOTREPs contributor, having written two pieces for that anthology.

We’re doing the stream slightly differently tonight, streaming on YouTube, Rumble, and Twitter/X.

Come and join us.

The Twitter stream will be on my profile: @AmericanPraeto2

 

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Legacy of Terror

A Military Junta Turns to Piracy

And the Blackhearts Get Called In for a Rescue

But There Are Other Threats Just Out of Sight…

When the repressive military government of the tiny country of Costa de las Joyas seizes a US-flagged cargo ship, a response is inevitable. However, given the small nation’s proximity to Venezuela and Colombia, the US government has decided that a subtle approach is called for.

Brannigan’s Blackhearts are called in, but not to retake the ship.

Regime change is the mission, but it will be regime change by proxy. The Blackhearts are hired to break out an imprisoned dissident, to act as a rallying point for the country’s rebels.

However, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend…

As the picture becomes clearer, the Blackhearts must decide between the lesser of two evils.

Or neither.

 

Book 13 of the Brannigan’s Blackhearts series is live today, in Kindle and Paperback.

Get it now.

 

And, if you haven’t dipped into the series yet, you can start with the first book, Fury in the Gulf.

 

Or, the standalone novel that was eventually folded into the continuity, Kill Yuan.

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Legacy of Terror Chapter 3

“Contact left!”

Carlo Santelli’s bellow was cut off a moment later by a crackle of gunfire that echoed off the forested hills, as the lead element turned and poured bullets into the targets arranged along the hillside.

After the first burst, Joe Flanagan, lean and black bearded, rose, turned, and dashed for the opposite hill, sprinting almost exactly three seconds before he turned, dropped to the prone, and picked up the fire again.

The rest of the element, consisting of Kevin Curtis, John Wade, Tom Burgess, and Ignatius Kirk, followed somewhat more raggedly. In Curtis’s and Wade’s case, they’d simply held and kept up the fire a little bit longer, while Kirk was moving a little slower these days. The retired Special Forces soldier had been through the wars, and while he’d mostly recovered from wounds taken on an earlier job with the Blackhearts, he still didn’t have quite the speed or the endurance of his younger days.

Tom Burgess, his salt-and-pepper ponytail waving behind him, was almost right behind Flanagan.

Outside of the kill zone, the second element, with Miguel Gomez taking charge, had immediately taken cover and then started to maneuver around to the flank. Vincent Bianco, as massive as ever, moved the shortest distance, though it wasn’t because he was slow. While they only had rifles at the moment, he and Curtis were usually the team’s machinegunners, and so Bianco was simply setting up a base of fire.

As Bianco opened up, his bullets tearing through the targets, Doc Puller, Hank Brannigan, and Dan Tackett fell in behind Gomez, finding cover and getting down before adding their own bullets to his, as the lead element fell back toward the trees.

Santelli, short, stout, and balding, watched from the tower over the range until he was satisfied. “End-Ex!” He had to roar louder than usual to be heard over the gunfire, but the shooting died down after a moment.

Flanagan and Wade were picking themselves up. Wade looked around the range with his icy stare, evaluating how they’d performed.

This entire little kinetic get-together had been Wade’s idea, after all. It had been a little while since the Blackhearts had been out on a job, and the big, intense former Ranger had decided that they needed to knock some rust off. Santelli suspected that Wade had mainly been bored, especially with running this range—it had once belonged to a fallen Blackheart named Don Hart, who had left it to the team when he’d been killed in action—and had just wanted to do something more high-speed than teaching basic pistol and carbine classes to civilians.

Knowing Wade’s temper, Santelli often wondered just how well some of those classes really went.

He could already hear Curtis bitching. “I know some of us have belt-feds. Why didn’t we bring a couple of them out? Completely destroys the training value.”

“Ammo costs money, Kevin, and I wasn’t going to pay for your machinegun budget out of my pocket.” Wade didn’t look at the short, fireplug of a man as he spoke.

Of course, Curtis being Curtis, that only got him more spun up. “This was your idea, John. I thought that, since you put so much value on a training exercise, that you’d at least make the extra effort.”

Wade did start to turn to glare at him then, only to pivot back toward Flanagan as the quiet man started to chuckle. “What?”

Flanagan just shook his head. “I just think it’s funny that somebody else has to put up with him for a change.”

Curtis looked at his old friend with an exaggerated pout. “That is hurtful, Joseph. How boring would your life be without me? ‘Put up with him,’ indeed.”

“It would involve fewer fistfights with gangbangers at midnight in Vegas, that’s for sure.” Flanagan let his rifle hang on its sling, brushing dried grass off his gear and his trousers. “Not sure that would be a bad thing.”

“Pfft.” Curtis turned toward the shelter where the ammunition was staged. “Never thought you’d turn into an old woman, Joe.”

“Well, I never thought you’d grow up, Kev, and it looks like I was right.”

Curtis just sputtered, as Wade pushed past him, unable to keep a faint grin off his face.

Santelli mirrored that grin as he climbed down from the tower. It was good to have the band back together again.

Doc Puller stepped up beside Kirk, who looked like he might be limping slightly as they all got back to the overhang. “You okay, Kirk?” There was a slight hesitation before he said it, which was somewhat understandable, given Puller’s history. The Blackhearts had recruited him out of necessity and a little desperation, but Flanagan had found him drunk and despondent after being fired from an ambulance job. He’d been on tenterhooks ever since, trying desperately to prove himself and fit in. Unfortunately, it tended to just make things awkward.

Fortunately, Kirk just waved him off. “Just stiff. I’m getting old. This shit is still fun, but damn, I ain’t moving as well as I used to.”

The team gathered around, empty magazines coming out to get refilled, while Santelli looked over his notes. He really didn’t have much. They might have come together to knock the rust off their skillsets, but they’d all been in the profession long enough that there wasn’t actually that much rust to knock off.

That didn’t mean there was no need to train, nor was there no room for improvement.

His debrief points would have to wait, however. As he looked up from the notebook, he heard the rumble of a pickup pulling into the parking lot on the other side of the tire barrier that separated the range itself from the rest of the property. He thought he knew who it was; there weren’t usually many visitors to the old Hart farm who weren’t previously scheduled.

“Keep topping off mags.” He started toward the gate. “I’ll be right back.”

The gate itself creaked open before he could reach it, and Brannigan loomed in the entryway. “Who all’s here?”

“Everybody.” Santelli fell in beside the colonel as they moved toward the shelter.

An eyebrow went up. “Everybody?” Brannigan’s eyes went toward the group gathered around the wire spool tables, jamming mags. Specifically to the brown-haired man who still kept to himself a little, though he had integrated with the rest of the team seamlessly during the drills they’d been running for the last two days.

“Tackett made his decision. Seems that getting a taste of the action again finally got to him.”

Brannigan nodded. Dan Tackett had contacted the Blackhearts a while back, looking for help to get one of his old comrades from a job with Mitchell Price—former SEAL and PMC magnate—against a group of Chinese pirates near the Straits of Malacca. He’d been hesitant to get back into the game. Santelli still didn’t know all the details of what had happened in the Anambas Islands, but it had clearly left some deep scars.

Still, Tackett had insisted that he be called if a job involving the Humanity Front—which had kidnapped his friends and Price, as well—came up. The Prague job had, indeed involved the Front, a shadowy terrorist organization hiding behind the façade of the biggest and most respected humanitarian NGO on the planet.

Now, it seemed, Tackett had decided to throw in with the Blackhearts all the way.

“Good. He’s an asset, and I’m glad to have him along.” Brannigan nodded as they came up to the pair of cable spools that the mercs were using as ammo tables.

“So, we’ve got a job?” Hank had seen his father coming and moved around to meet them. He’d missed the Prague job, and he was eager to get back in the action.

“We’ve got a job.” Brannigan set the packet of papers under his arm on the table as Burgess and Gomez moved some of the ammo cans out of the way. “There are some reservations, though.”

“What else is new?” Wade snorted, shoving his last magazine back into his battle belt and folding his arms. “We live in Sketchy World.”

Brannigan laid out the events of the meeting with Senator Braxton and opened the file folder to bring out the collection of photos and dossiers. Leaning on the edge of the spool, he looked around at the now-familiar faces. “There’s a lot that’s not here. A lot. I’ll be honest; I hadn’t even heard of this flyspeck of a country until yesterday. This packet includes almost nothing on Costa de las Joyas itself. There’s some—mostly reports of the military junta’s brutality—but not much that’s going to help us plan.”

“A military junta in South America is a brutal dictatorship?” Bianco put his hand on his chest. “Color me shocked.”

Brannigan ignored the interjection. “We have a list of the six generals who are a part of the junta, but aside from names and a couple of very pixelated photos, we don’t have much more than that. Supposedly the junta came to power back in the eighties, shortly after Costa de las Joyas achieved its independence, and they killed the package’s father. Other than that, there’s nothing.”

He glared down at the dossier for a moment before turning his eyes back up to his boys. “I don’t like that. We’re in the dark, and it looks like Braxton and whoever else is working with him on this wants it to stay that way.

“We don’t have a hard and fast timeline on this, but there is definitely going to be pressure if we dawdle too long. However, travel arrangements will take some time, and I want us all to do some digging during that time. There has to be something out there about this little country and its military government. Furthermore, there should be something about Hierro and this reform movement.” He looked pointedly at Bianco, who winced slightly. “Yeah, Vinnie, I’m afraid you’re getting tapped for this one.” He smiled evilly. “You’re good at putting the pieces together. Put that to use in some intel collection.”

Bianco still looked pained. “Worldbuilding for a role playing game is different from doing an actual area study, particularly remotely, Colonel. I can make most of that stuff up.”

“I know. You’re still the team intel guy.” Bianco looked a little crestfallen, but he knew better than to argue. “Now, right at the moment, logistics are limited to getting into the country. We have a contact over the border in Colombia who is supposed to be able to get us weapons, ammo, and gear.” When he looked around at the reactions, he nodded. “Yeah, I’m a little sketched out about that, myself, since it seems that this guy is a local, not an American. Unfortunately, unless we can work out a way to smuggle what we need into the country, we may be stuck there.” He turned to Santelli. “Carlo, I’ll leave it up to you to do your magic with transportation.” Another glance around the team. “Who’s going to volunteer for advance recon?”

 

Legacy of Terror comes out on Kindle and in Paperback on March 29.

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