The Great Insurrection Book 1: Warlord Born

Every time Alistar opens his eyes his situation gets worse. What happens next is unimaginable.

Alistair opened his eyes slowly, blinking multiple times but not really thinking. His brain was dragging from the double dose of morphoids. All he really knew was that he was awake.

He moved his head to the right, taking in his surroundings, and then slowly brought it to the left. A man was sitting on a metal bench. He had a red beard that extended a few inches from his face. His head was bald and his body thick. He had hands that looked like they might be able to bend metal. The eyes that stared back at Alistair were bright red, which sent a chill over Alistair’s entire body.

It was an almost iridescent red, something that shouldn’t be possible but clearly was. It was outlawed across the entire solar system. Alistair had only seen someone of this kind once, but the man had been Clipped and unable to hurt anyone.

Alistair opened his mouth; his tongue felt heavy and sticky. “You’re a mutant?”

The man raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond. Alistair blinked again, then figuring the mutant wasn’t going to say anything, looked down at his lower body. Everything was covered with another blanket, a different-colored one than when he’d been wheeled through Immigration.

He didn’t hurt anymore. It dawned on him that he’d had another dose of drugs, or maybe more than one.

He turned his head back to the mutant. “Where are we? How long have I been under?”

The red-eyed man rubbed his beard gruffly, looking angry. “You’re who they say you are, huh?” he asked, tucking his bottom lip under the top and nodding in very slight movements. “You’re Odin, the first god. And now you can’t even stand up.”

Alistair wanted to say something, to respond in some quick-witted way—which was never his forte—but his mind was in such a haze. The only things he could think to say were the questions he’d just asked. “Where are we? How long have I been under?”

The thickly muscled man stood up. “We’re on a ship that’s heading to a world of ice. You’ve been under two days, and we’re still orbiting Earth. Your little escape has made quite a stir. The Imperial Ascendant actually called for the complete cessation of travel.”

Alexander de Finita. It was the first coherent thought not about his whereabouts that Alistair had formed. He thought the name again: Alexander de Finita. “He stopped travel?”

The big man’s back was to Alistair now, but he nodded. “It seems your death was more important than anyone thought. Certainly more than I thought. Maybe the AllMother knew, or maybe She simply wanted to pay the debt. I don’t know.” He turned around, his red eyes bright. If anyone boarded this ship and saw those eyes, he’d be put down immediately. Not Clipped, but killed. Even the mutant Alistair had once seen, she’d had her head turned into powder with a close-range MechPulse while wearing the Clip.

The mutant put his hands on his hips. “My name is Theos. My red eyes probably tell you that I have no family, nothing so grand as Finita.” He whispered the word in mock awe. “But as a Titan, you also have no family name as prestigious. And now, you no longer even have the title of Titan. Odin is dead. Your family name, Kane, is dead.” He took a step toward the gurney. “My eyes are red and you call me mutant, but where we’re going, you have a choice to make. You will either become like me, a mutant, or fall apart before you ever have a chance to see the ice world.”

Alistair closed his eyes tight. He couldn’t fully grasp what was being asked. Him, a Pure Born…they wanted to turn him into a mutant? The lineage of Kane may not be anything as prestigious as Finita or Barasam, but he was being asked to throw it all away. Everything, for…

“What…” He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, trying to get full use of his tongue. “What are you talking about?”

The big man chuckled, though there was no joy in it. “We’re going into the fifth dimension with this jump. Your body, as is, won’t be able to survive that, but there’s no way we’re risking traveling in the third or even the fourth. The only way you’ll survive what’s coming is if you become like me.”

The ice world.

Pluto.

Alistair lay back on the gurney. Tears floated over his eyes, though he willed them to not overflow to his cheeks. How was this possible? How had he gotten here? A week ago, he’d been at home with Luna, awaiting another assignment, but not worried about anything. He’d sat on their porch, sipping whiskey, her at his side. Their lawn had been green, and their dog had been lounging in the grass.

The ice world. Pluto.

All because months ago he’d heard something he shouldn’t. He’d done something he shouldn’t.

Theos walked over to the gurney. Alistair didn’t look at him but kept his eyes on the ceiling above. The tears still hadn’t fallen.

“You’ll get no sympathy from me, Titan. What the AllMother does is beyond my mind. She operates in ways that none of us can understand because she sees the future. I trust her ability to steer us to the future that is necessary, so I do my part, but you…” He shook his head, clearly disgusted at what and who he was looking at. “You are perhaps one of the worst creatures I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

He turned away from the gurney and walked to the door. He raised his hand to a chip reader, and the door opened by sliding into the wall. “We’re making the jump in three standard days. I’ll need every second of those three days to even have a chance of keeping you alive. I’ll be back in a standard hour. Have your decision ready.”

Alistair again shut his eyes hard.

The mutant spoke once more. “The drugs I’ve been giving you will wear off soon. The AllMother doesn’t want you making this choice drugged up. Deal with the pain, Titan, and decide once more if you want to die or keep going forward.”

When he stepped out of the room, the door whooshed closed, locking Alistair in alone.

***

The mutant hadn’t lied. The pain was back, and Alistair did everything he mentally could to moderate it. His training in pain management was extensive, and when the door opened, Alistair’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was a tight twenty reps per minute.

Even so, sweat dripped from his forehead, and his fingers were curling on the metal beneath him, wanting to grab anything.

The door closed behind the mutant, but Alistair didn’t open his eyes or turn his head. He couldn’t, not if he wanted to keep the pain at bay. The moment he relented, it would flood him like the ocean’s tides.

“Have you made your choice, Titan?”

The mutant had been right. He did want to make this choice with a clear head, or as clear as he could get. If he went this route, he was forfeiting the Commonwealth’s Contract. He was casting away everything he’d been brought up to believe. Everything his parents taught him as a little boy and everything he and Luna had planned on teaching their children.

Alistair had five more years left with the Titans, then he’d planned on having children of his own.

And he was going to throw it all away. For what? That was the question he’d asked himself in the last hour. Why would he do it? Had he no honor? No sense of duty? Perhaps the Commonwealth had decided he should die, but how many times had he been the enforcer of such a decision?

“Titan,” the mutant said, “you know I’m modified. I can tell you’re alive, despite your low breathing rate. What’s it going to be? There isn’t time for games.”

Alistair wasn’t sure of his answer. Even after an hour, he hadn’t been able to get behind it fully, but the thing that kept coming back to him was simple. If he died here, he would never see Luna again. He didn’t care how small the chance was that he might get back to her; it was still a chance, and death took it away.

With closed eyes and pain racking his body, he whispered, “Modify me.”

So it would be.

_______________

This third and final snippet has only made the wait for this book more difficult. What good can come of this decision Alistar has to make. If nothing else to see his love again. Who is the Allmother? Is she the worst of the worst or is there more to her story than we know? Find out all this and more by pre-ordering The Great Insurrection Book 1: Warlord Born. Available for all readers on February 16th, 2021.

Opus X Book 12: Crucible of Truth

It turns out that even if you are immortal, you can still be blown up.

May 11, 2231, Wolf 359, Aboard the Fleet Destroyer UTS Kano

Commander Shen’s gaze flicked between the half-dozen data windows floating in front of him. Numbers ticked down as the destroyer hurtled through space toward the contact on the far edge of the sensor window. 

They’d picked up a weak distress call. That hadn’t concerned him much, but what little they could pick up on the long-range comm should have made no sense. 

They were far from the frontier, but the UTC had gone mad.

“I…under…attack…” the message repeated. He’d ordered the comm station to relay it directly to him and his first officer, Lieutenant Commander Albriz. 

The tall woman sat in her chair, focused on different systems windows, including power and weapons. No one was expecting a battle when the Kano had been assigned to Wolf 359 a few months prior, but with chaos sweeping Earth after the attempt on the Prime Minister’s life, no one was surprised that they might face one. 

“Clear up that signal,” Albriz barked. “Sensors, confirm secondary readings. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

The sensor operator continued tapping his controls while he shouted his report. “Transponder codes indicate that it’s the Beidou, a Class II yacht registered to Julia Caldo.”

“Julia Caldo? As in, that Julia Caldo?”

“She’s got all sorts of special privileges in the database.”

Albriz sucked in a breath. “What else? Any hostile contacts?”

“Unclear, ma’am. According to her listed flight plan, the Beidou should be part of a flotilla. If these readings are right, we’re picking up a lot of debris but only a single ship.”

“Enough debris to make up the other ships?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Albriz looked at the commander. “Sir, there could be terrorist fighters hiding in that debris. The escort vessels might have taken the mothership with them.”

“Please!” screamed a woman’s voice over the crackling comm. “This is Julia Caldo. Everyone else is dead. I’m in a panic room, and I don’t know how long it will hold. Anyone who is out there. I’ll pay you anything. Please save me.”

Albriz gave Commander Shen a pleading look. He could understand her frustration. This wasn’t the frontier. People shouldn’t be picked off like sheep by rabid wolves.

He gave her a firm nod. “Call it. I’d rather overreact than get surprised.”

“All hands, General Quarters,” Albriz shouted. “Prepare for battle stations. Assault infantry squads, prepare for forced boarding action. Alpha squadron, prepare to sortie. Possible enemy fighter contacts and armed terrorists expected. At least one civilian survivor is confirmed.”

The lights on the bridge dimmed slightly, and holographic red warning panels appeared at the stations. 

“New contacts!” shouted the sensor operator. “Three small craft, moving in fast from the debris field. No active transponders. Their profiles don’t match any ships recorded in the Beidou flotilla’s flight plan.”

Albriz consulted a data window. “We’ve got several minutes until we enter maximum effective range and sixty seconds before our fighters can launch.”

Commander Shen scoffed. “Those idiots are either the bravest men in the galaxy or the dumbest if they think they can take on a destroyer with three fighters.”

“Please…” Julia whimpered over the comm, her voice distant and distorted by static. “I don’t understand who these people are. They kept ranting about their cause. I don’t understand. They didn’t have to kill everybody. If it was me they wanted, why not just take me?”

That confirmed it—terrorists, not pirates. Terrorists made more sense. The idea of pirates hitting a system like Wolf 359 seemed absurd, but it wasn’t all that many years ago there had been an insurrection there, so he couldn’t ignore the possibility. 

Different people held different opinions about what constituted the core worlds and the frontier. A lot of people thought of the latter as the place where trouble happened, but trouble followed people, and where more people lived, there was more trouble. A massive terrorist force had infiltrated the largest city on Earth and nearly killed the Prime Minister. That was all the proof anyone needed that nowhere was safe.

True safety was an illusion. That was why the police, the Army, and the Fleet existed. The wolves circled in the distance, salivating and ready to pounce, and the shepherds needed to be ready. There might be nowhere safe, but dead terrorists couldn’t hurt people.

“Communications, prepare for transmission to the small craft,” Commander Shen ordered.

“Aye, sir,” the operator responded. “Transmission ready.”

“This is Commander Shen of the UTS Kano to the three unknown ships currently on an intercept course. We have received a distress signal from the Beidou. You are not registered as part of their flotilla and are not sending recognizable transponder signals. You will immediately halt, depower, and prepare to be taken into custody. Refusal to abide by these orders will be considered hostile action, and you will be fired upon.” He waited a few seconds before looking at the comms officer, who shook his head. “Sensors, any escape pods?”

“No, sir.” The sensor operator’s voice quaked. “None detected.”

There were a lot of people fresh out of training among the crew this tour. Many of them had never seen combat or anything more significant than helping out with an evacuation when a ship lost power, but a man or woman couldn’t serve in the Fleet without expecting to see some death. He pitied them, but right now they needed to concentrate on the problem in front of them. Their training would carry them through.

“Alpha Squadron ready to launch,” Albriz announced.

“Launch fighters,” Commander Shen ordered.

“Launching fighters, sir.”

Shen narrowed his eyes as four triangles with ID tags broke away from the Kano on the sensor display. A destroyer might be the smallest Fleet ship capable of carrying fighters and had small squadrons, but they were state of the art and flown by the best-trained pilots in the UTC. Whatever ragtag terrorist trash was flying the three approaching ships wouldn’t be able to handle them. 

The idiots had let themselves get drunk on victory. Now it was time for a painful hangover.

“We need to get to that yacht,” Commander Shen commented. “Comms, have we lost the Beidou?” 

The comms operator frowned. “We’ve still got signal, but nothing’s coming through, sir.”

“Squadron intercept in one minute,” Albriz reported. 

“Still no response from approaching ships,” the comms operator noted.

“Those vultures had their chance to beg for mercy,” Commander Shen replied coldly. He nodded at Albriz. “Full engagement. We don’t have time to play with the bastards.”

“Alpha squadron, full engagement,” Albriz ordered. “Weapons free. I repeat, weapons free.”

The squadron broke into pairs of fighters and released two volleys of missiles in quick succession while moving to flank the enemy ships. The enemy fighters tried to charge right through. If they had defensive countermeasures, they didn’t use them. 

The Fleet missiles converged on the fighters and exploded. A cloud of tiny contacts replaced the three unknown contacts, the debris of ships blown to pieces. 

It barely qualified as a fight. It was closer to pest extermination.

“Establish a patrol perimeter, Alpha Squadron,” Albriz barked, a satisfied look on her face. “Helm, slow us up. We don’t want to blow right past the yacht.”

Despite the hard counter-burn that rattled the ship and strained the grav emitters, the destroyer zoomed past the engagement site and continued toward the Beidou. The forward camera feeds visually confirmed the remains of several ships forming a ghostly cloud of debris. 

The Beidou had several hull breeches, including in the bridge, and spun end over end with no obvious sign of attitude control. That could have been from dead crew, damage to the ship, or both. 

“We’re going to have to have our squad board from a cargo shuttle,” the commander concluded. “We don’t have time to try and straighten that out while people might be bleeding out onboard. And Caldo confirmed armed terrorists aboard.”

Albriz began to relay the order when a loud male voice came through from the Beidou.

“It is now the time of chaos. The time of rebirth. Our organization might perish today, but we have taken a powerful woman and her servants with us. You call us terrorists, but we are freedom fighters who will liberate humanity.”

Commander Shen growled. “Now, you listen here—”

Explosions ripped through the Beidou and blew the ship apart. Pieces hurled in every direction, slamming into the remaining pieces of other destroyed ships. A chain reaction had half the debris cloud expanding aggressively.

“Avoid the cloud, Helm,” Commander Shen ordered, glaring at the camera feed and the sensor display. He glanced at the sensor operation, who shook his head.

“No indication of escape pods, sir.”

“No emergency signals, no signals at all,” the comms operator offered quietly.

Commander Shen cupped his chin. “Understood. Stand down General Quarters, but keep Alpha Squadron sweeping. Maybe they’ll see something we can’t.”

The commander stared at the tumbling debris, his mind soaking in the implications. He didn’t care much about politics, but given what was going on, that wasn’t a luxury he could afford. Julia Caldo was a famous, wealthy woman, and she’d just been murdered by terrorists in what was arguably a core system. Once the news got out, it’d add to the fear spreading across the UTC. 

“Damn.” He shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Caldo. We tried.”

__________

The whole chapter I’m shouting “don’t help her”, then bam, what a twist! Opus X Book 12: Crucible of Truth is available for pre-order now, and the whole book will be available on February 5th, 2021.