“If you need the Aesir or Captain Gregory in one piece for your investigation, it’d be a good idea to get here in the next couple days – stop.” The Lieutenant read Sloan’s telegram. “Gregory needs to be publicly strung up. His ship needs to be destroyed. We need to make an example of him – stop. …
“It’s so good to see you’re okay!” Max had a tray across his lap. He’d been eating breakfast, book in hand, but he set the book aside when Kol entered the suite. “Major Rinlee called to let me know you’d been discharged, but it’s another thing to see you.” “It’s good to be okay.” Kol tried to …
“I still have enemies, Enoa.” As always, Sucora stood at her desk in the hidden room beneath the shop, recorded years before her death. “I hope you’ve never been forced to face that.” Enoa sat on her bed, film projector beside her. She hadn’t bothered to set up the screen. The projector could send the …
Kol woke up, all at once. He jolted awake, but he couldn’t reconcile his memories with his location or with the IV trailing from his arm. He pushed himself onto his elbows. He was in an infirmary room, small and private, with only one bed and associated monitors. “Look, the mighty Shaper lives!” Brielle sat …
“How is Pacey?” Max asked. He and Duncan sat in the small common living area to the suite of rooms Kol had been assigned for his stay at the Highland Outreach Compound. A chessboard was set up between them. “He’ll need significant physical therapy.” Kol shut the suite door and joined Duncan on the couch. …
The race to win the Dreamside Road began with seven murders. The League of Earth’s Nations’ IHSA operatives had long hunted for that stolen trove of paranormal artifacts and top-secret knowledge. They’d searched from the moment the ‘treasure’ was liberated from governmental control, decades before the race began. Knowledgeable fortune-seekers and adventurers sought the relics …
The IHSA had built their automatons to fix themselves when compatible parts were detected. After they’d been stolen by the Thunderworks terror operation, this programming remained in effect. Kol watched the two remaining Striders search the field of craters looking for replacement arms and connecting ligatures. There was a large selection. All of the automaton …
Enoa sipped at her coffee. She and Jaleel sat outside the Aesir in folding chairs. Orson was recording a threatening message for the Liberty Corps, so they’d gone outside rather than sit in silence. They waited in the overgrown parking lot to the Halfpoint Lodge. Its stucco was covered in a tracery of cracks and …
“And the bathroom also has an emergency eye wash.” Orson flew the Aesir through the lower cloud cover, guiding their flight by the ship’s scopes and his visor’s HUD. They’d been traveling three hours. They left the cold Great Lakes far behind them. Miles below, the terrain changed from grasslands to an arid flat expanse. …
The Solar Saver Crawler left two days later, taking with it the full caravan of followers and over two hundred new Collective employees. Commodore Augustin, Adelyn Castillo, the four Moritas, and the assembled Wuyar Archers, along with Jaleel’s parents and younger sisters, gathered on the crawler transport’s rear walkway, bidding farewell to a son and …
