Never a Dragon: Dragon’s Daughter Book 1

Make change from inside the system? Is it really possible? Suppressing your powers and doing work for others seems more like slavery than alliance.

Somewhere north of Kugaaruk, Nunavut. Canada. 

It was no mystery why the dragons had ceded the land below Hester Diamantine to the dwarves. This was a barren, icy place, especially in January. What few trees grew there were all windswept, scraggly pines that looked like they’d rather be incinerated by dragon flame than grow another year in the cold.

Every single body of water—and there were many of them on this peninsula that looked like it would prefer to be dragged into the frigid ocean—was frozen solid with ice. They had left the town of Kugaaruk behind them an hour before. The dwarves there hadn’t wanted to tell Cesar Tormentus where they were hiding the rogue mages, but they had told him all the same. 

“I have something,” Rubonus said. He was the youngest of the three dragons on this mission to capture a group of renegade mages, although he was still far older than the last member of their group, a mage by the name of Lara Cooper who was bonded to Hester. He made up for his lack of experience with enthusiasm and had not hesitated to show the dwarves that even though their skin was impervious to dragon flame, their homes and businesses were not. 

“If it’s another fucking fish shack, I don’t want to hear about it,” Tormentus said. 

They had already leveled three fishing shacks, only to find—what else?—people fishing inside. 

“I appreciate that, sir,” Lara said to Tormentus.

“It’s not your job to approve, Mage Cooper.” He said the word “mage” like it was a slur. To him, it was. “It’s your job to obey the dragon you are bonded too.”

“What do you see, Rubonus?” Hester asked. She knew Lara could use her magic to keep herself warm while she rode on her back, but there were limits to her powers, especially since she wore a dampening cuff on her wrist that rendered them more impotent than they might have been. The dragon didn’t want to flatten any more fishing shacks, but she didn’t want to be out there until Lara froze to death either. She liked the little mage. 

“I hate to bust your horns, Tormentus, but it is another fishing shack.” 

“I’m waiting for the part where you tell me why I should care,” their leader snarled. 

“This one doesn’t have any lights on,” he replied. In his eagerness, he made Hester think of a fox hunting a vole. Honestly, that was an apt comparison. The idea of a modern mage killing a dragon was about as preposterous as the idea of a vole killing a fox. To be sure, both happened.

A fox might choke on a vole or get rabies from one, and groups of mages had been known to get lucky and hurt dragons—but not with even odds and not during a retrieval. Tormentus called this a hunt, but that was not what it was. This was a mage retrieval, plain and simple. Hester was his lieutenant, and part of that meant reminding him of such discrepancies. 

“Then how do we know there are people there at all?” Their leader did not sound amused. 

“I can sense magic signatures,” Lara whispered to Hester. She relayed the information to Tormentus. It usually went better that way. 

“How many?” he asked Cooper. He knew full well that it took a mage to sniff out a mage, exactly like it took a dragon to sniff out a dragon. 

“Uh…they’re trying to suppress their powers so I can’t sense them but—”

“Tell me how fucking many of these traitorous mages there are,” he growled. 

“I sensed five, sir, but it’s now only four,” Lara responded and tried to keep her voice strong over the wind. 

“That has to be them, sir.” Rubonus flapped his wings and flew a little lower to point his nose at a fishing shack in the middle of the lake. 

“Rubonus, grab a tree trunk and try to drop it on the building. You need to practice your accuracy and even if you miss, it’ll shatter the ice and drown the cowards.”

“Sir, if I may,” Hester interjected before Rubonus swooped to retrieve his missile. She didn’t wait for Tormentus to respond because she didn’t want to wait until spring. “We haven’t made contact with these mages since they left the United States and entered dwarf land. Protocol states that we need to give them a chance to explain themselves and take a cuff.”

“They made their choice when they ran,” he said. 

“If they weren’t running from the duties of their American citizenship, they wouldn’t be suppressing their powers,” Rubonus pointed out as casually as if he commented that it was cold out rather than trying to deny a group of citizens their right to cooperation. 

“Still, sir, if Cooper and I can get them to wear the cuffs, that would be four more mages for our department. Reports show that two of them are at least third-level mages. As a commander, you get a commission based on their placement—correct, sir?”

“It’s hardly commission but yes, you’ve made your point, Diamantine. You have five minutes to see if you and the mage can get them to put the cuffs on. After that, we burn that shack and melt the ice beneath their feet.”

She nodded, ignored the fact that he insisted on using her formal dragon name, and flew out over the lake. Experience was a powerful reminder that Tormentus was already counting time. She spread her wings to slow her flight to a gentle glide as she approached the structure. It was tiny and made of rickety boards and a corrugated tin roof. A few fishing poles leaned up against the outside of it. But Lara was right. There were people inside.

Hester could smell smoke from a hastily extinguished fire. She pumped her wings twice and blew snow drifts away from the fishing shack and out across the frozen lake. Beneath the snow was the crystalline blue sheen of the ice. It reflected the moon above them as if both the sky and the lake watched what would transpire there that day. 

Seconds before she landed, Lara leapt from her back with a magic-augmented gust of wind to slow her fall. Before the dragon touched down on the ice, she shifted into her human form. Her momentum was such that when her feet landed, cracks spread from her impact. Still, the ice seemed solid enough. She took a few steps forward and the surface didn’t crack further. 

“We know you’re in there,” Hester called into the night. In response, the clouds, heavy and gray, moved in to block the moon. 

“We don’t mean you any harm. We merely need you to come home to your country and serve your fellow people. You all have gifts. We want to help you use them.”

She received no response except from the clouds, which began to drop big fat flakes of snow on the scene. Hester stood in silence for a moment. The falling snow swallowed all sound. She could hear nothing from inside the shed and nothing from outside except the sound of wind moving over the wings of the two dragons who circled overhead. 

“One of them stopped suppressing their magic,” Lara whispered through the snow. 

“That was a stupid thing to do,” she muttered, knowing the mages inside couldn’t hear her. She stepped forward and knocked on the brittle, wooden door. Even if she didn’t have a well of dragon strength to call on, she had a feeling she could have knocked the door off its hinges if she wished to do so. 

She was about to do exactly that when a light blazed inside the dilapidated building. Orange light glowed around the poorly framed door and the wood exploded outward in the wake of a massive fireball. Hester, no stranger to fighting fire, raised her arms to block her face, but the heat and pressure of the blast were too much. She was hurled from her feet, thrown back, and cracked the ice with her shoulder, but thankfully didn’t fall through. 

One of her hands screamed in pain when she tried to push to her feet. The fireball had done far more damage than she had expected. Her dragon healing powers seemed to have trouble mending the wound. 

“And you! You’re a fucking traitor to your people!” the mage who had thrown the fireball yelled at Lara. Hester knew it was the same mage because his hands were wreathed in flame. This was most likely the leader of the little squad they were tracking. The reports had been wrong. He was more advanced than third-level. The flames on his hands danced and made his sweat-streaked brow glisten and his eyes look even crazier than they would have in the hidden moonlight of the growing snowstorm. 

“Mages who don’t work with the dragons are killed!” Lara shouted and used a spinning disk of air to deflect a blast of fire, then another. “Help me change the system from the inside.”

“Says the slave. You’re worse than a slave. You’re a slave who hunts men brave enough to be free.” The other mage launched a blast of fire and she flinched and allowed the attack through her disc of air to knock her off her feet. 

“You don’t deserve her pity,” Hester said, done with playing nice and ready to take this mage by force for what he had done to Lara. 

She readied herself for a retaliatory attack but never had the chance. 

Tormentus and Rubonus swooped in from opposite sides and completed a damn near perfect ring of fire maneuver. Each dragon exhaled narrow blasts of flame at the ice surrounding the fisherman’s shack. The ice—as thick as it was—was no match for dragon fire, and by the time the two dragons completed their loop, the surface beneath Hester’s feet was no longer solid but an ice float. 

“I’d rather die free than live as a slave!” the mage shouted at the two dragons and hurled balls of fire into the night that they dodged easily. 

“And what about your allies? Do they wish to die on their feet or live for decades?” Hester shouted at the man and tried to draw his attention. 

“She’s trying to use her aura powers on you, Jason. Don’t fall for it!” A female mage emerged from the shack and rocked on the now tilting and shifting piece of ice. The snow whipped behind her and revealed her magical ability to control the wind. 

“Lara,” Hester said. 

“On it.” The mage grunted. She pushed to her feet in time to throw a blast of wind at the newcomer. She was far more practiced and funneled her gust into a tight cylinder that drilled toward her opponent’s chest, but the raw power of the unbound mage exceeded what power she had available to her while she wore the magical dampening bracelet.  The rookie mage and the magic master’s powers collided, created a swirling dervish of snow and sleet that zig-zagged between the two dueling women, and threw sleet and frigid lake water everywhere else. 

The dragon had no doubt that if Lara were unbound, she would have been able to defeat the mage easily but of course, no mage could go about unbound. That was why these had tried to escape. 

“You have no right to your power!” the fire mage yelled at Hester. “You’re not a predator but a parasite.” Another blast of fire followed and she dodged it. He could heat his attacks hot enough to burn a dragon, which was no easy task. Her right hand still hadn’t healed and it didn’t feel like it would. 

But he was only human and she was a dragon who had trained for centuries in combat. She moved forward and stepped around his assaults with practiced ease. It took the mage a great deal of effort to throw the superheated fireballs, so every one of them was easy to anticipate—or easy for someone with dragon reflexes anyway. 

She settled into a rhythm—step, step, dodge, step, step, step, crouch. Step. Step back. In moments, she had covered the distance between them. She thrust her left hand into his chest and the mage catapulted away. Her intention had been for him to collide with the shack, but she had misjudged. Instead, he tumbled across the snow-covered surface of the lake. 

Hester glanced briefly at the shed. Why hadn’t the other two mages come out? It was surely obvious by now that the two who currently fought wouldn’t win. What were they waiting for?”

A scream jerked her head away from the shed, her opponent, and back to Lara. She turned in time to see a great wave of water rise from the lake and pound into her to sweep her feet out from under her. 

It seemed the mage she had been fighting could control more than a single element. This was unusual in a rogue mage but not unheard of. While the woman’s control of water might be rudimentary, it was still a threat, especially with the cold. 

But it was fire that proved to be the decisive element in this battle. The mage Jason blasted Lara with flame. At first, the dragon thought he had missed but the ice melted and cracked beneath her and in seconds, her mage fell into the icy water. 

“Lara!” Hester screamed and scrambled after her. She had to get her out. The mages could wait. Humans were squishy little things. If Lara got too cold, she would die. Her rescue took priority for now. She reached her and extended a hand but was too late. The water had already iced over. 

The dragon straightened and turned toward the mage with the wind powers. Had she frozen the surface of the water to kill Lara? But no…she now ran back toward the fisherman’s shack and pointed at the sky—or more specifically, the dark shapes of two approaching dragons—and screamed. 

Then, Hester understood. In the doorway of the shed stood a third mage, an old man. He had refrozen the lake and killed Lara. 

“Murderer!” she shouted and ran toward him as the two dragons swooped overhead. 

They flew in a tight formation so when they exhaled flames, it was as if a single inferno engulfed the rickety structure. 

Surprisingly, it didn’t burn. 

In the flames, Hester saw the fourth mage silhouetted, a young man who wrapped the entire hovel in some kind of shielding energy. His power was stronger than anything she had ever seen in a mage. To stop Tormentus was a feat in itself, but to stop him and Rubonus was beyond comprehension. 

It was almost a pity that he didn’t fully understand the power of the dragons he now faced. The flames didn’t burn the shed but they did melt the ice all around it. In one moment, three mages stood in their shed and tried to defend it. In a split-second, they were on a tiny island of ice made top-heavy by the shed on it. It tipped into the frozen lake and spilled the three defenders into the water. 

The old man had the wherewithal to attempt to freeze the water so he could climb out, but Tormentus’s third strike came much sooner than his second had. He incinerated the old man and the shed in one blast. 

The only mage left was Jason, the fire mage who had turned a simple retrieval into a goddamn slaughter. 

His attention wasn’t on Hester, though. It was on the pine tree falling from the sky directly toward him. 

She knew that many mages could use their powers to move objects but Jason didn’t seem to be one of them. Rather than redirect the falling tree, he blasted it with fire. All he achieved was to transform it into a burning trunk that impaled him and thrust him into the frigid lake to end the fight. 

Hester wasted no time. She doubled back to where Lara had fallen under the ice. “Lara! Lara, dammit, you’re better than this!” she screamed at the icy surface. This far from the dragon’s twin inferno, the lake was still frozen from the old man’s magic as if it had never been broken at all. “Lara!” she shouted. 

“That mage complained about the cold of the wind. She’s as good as dead,” Tormentus boomed from the sky. 

“She could have made a pocket of air to breathe. She might still be alive.”

“It’s doubtful,” the leader grunted. “We’re heading south. Mission accomplished.”

“Mission accomplished!” Rubonus echoed. 

“I can’t leave her down there,” she shouted at the two dragons. She had lost control of her aura and knew they could both taste her grief for the dead mage—no, dying. She could still be saved. The young woman had to be saved. 

In return, Tormentus let Hester feel his aura plainly. Disdain was what he felt, disdain for her and achievement for the mission. He counted it a success even though Lara was dead. 

“The plane in Kugaaruk will leave at dawn. If you miss it, you’ll have to fly to Boston,” The leader didn’t even bother to slow as he banked in a wide circle to return from whence they came. “While you’re at it, make sure there are no other survivors.”

“I’m sorry about your mage!” Rubonus said. “She was a cute one. If they give me a good one, you can have first choice if you want it, yeah?”

With that almost insulting response to her grief, they were gone. 

Hester turned to the lake and tried not to let despair over Lara’s death overwhelm her. It was incredibly hard to not blast a hole in the ice and try to dive for the mage’s body, but she was no swimmer. Some dragons were but she wasn’t one of them. If she broke the ice, she wouldn’t be able to peer through it. Instead, she searched for her friend’s body—that was what Lara was, a friend. She didn’t think of the woman as her mage but she did think of her as her friend. 

And she had let her die. 

_______________

Alright I’m hooked! This is exactly the dragon adventure story I didn’t know I was looking for! How did such powerful creatures find themselves in a place that stifles their abilities. Come back in a few days to read the second Snippet, and in the mean time pre-order Never a Dragon: Dragon’s Daughter Book 1 on Kindle Unlimited. Drop Date is November 15th.

Unfaithful Covenant: Opus X Book 10

Nothing like a natural wonder to remind you what’s important. Is it even possible to relax in Erik and Jia’s line of work?

Spreading out into the galaxy and the terraforming that came next were impressive accomplishments. 

In just over two centuries, humans had conquered the air and the stars. If it weren’t for the Local Neighborhood races, there would be nothing to stop the species from sweeping across the entire galaxy, defying all those who doubted they would prosper. 

That was before one considered the advances in medicine and genetics. Although terrifying yaoguai reflected the dark side of biological science, de-aging treatments and medicine had pushed back the specter of death. 

No one lived forever, but humans were finally living to their true potential.

These feats were the products of humanity’s primary advantage over other animals on Earth. Humans were neither the strongest nor the fastest animal. 

They didn’t have the sharpest teeth, nor could they hold their breath the longest. Their minds set them apart from anything that might prey on them and led them to the inventions and tools that assured humanity need never again fear extinction because of a threat to a single planet.

FTL travel via either the HTPs with their Navigator head start or the jump drive displayed humanity’s technology prowess and assured the species’ continuity. However, as Erik stood on the rocky outcropping, staring at hundreds of meters of water cascading over the lip of the massive gorge, he didn’t care about technological achievements. Nature was power in its most primal form, and that was on display. 

A man had to respect that.

Victoria Falls was over a kilometer wide, but Erik was unsure of whether to think of it as one waterfall or a set of close waterfalls. In either event, it ignited more than a smidgen of humility before nature in him. His awe at the impressive display kept him quiet and contemplative. How long had water flowed from the falls into the river below? How long would it continue?

Jia stood beside him, smiling at the waterfall at the edge of an outcropping. The Zambezi River churned below like a hungry god waiting for sacrifices.

“It’s beautiful. I’m glad you talked me into coming to see it in person. It wouldn’t be the same in a simulation.”

Her dark hair fluttered in the breeze. It was a perfect sight: a beautiful woman in front of gorgeous scenery. Erik could get used to this. 

Was this a small preview of his future?

“It’s pretty nice,” Erik replied, “and I figured we should take the chance before Alina makes us jump into Zitark territory to steal a blessed piece of meat from them or something.”

Jia laughed. “I don’t think they have blessed meat, but I’ll admit I’m not an expert on alien religions.”

“Wait, are you admitting Jia Lin doesn’t know something?”

“There are a lot of things I don’t know.”

“I’ll alert the news reporters.” 

Erik’s left arm itched. He might be fully healed and his replacement installed, but his brain hadn’t gotten used to it yet. The doctors had promised him it was temporary. They could tweak the hardware, but there was only so much they could do to his brain. 

He shook out the arm and chuckled, gesturing along the length of Victoria Falls. “I wonder if we could fly a flitter through that? Might be fun.”

“I don’t think the locals would appreciate it.” Jia glanced his way, appreciating the joke.

It’d been a while since they’d taken anything approaching a vacation. Playing in nano-AR and VR could be relaxing, but it wasn’t the same thing as putting thousands of kilometers between them and the Argo. 

They’d brought along the MX 60 with the standard gear in its storage compartments, but that wasn’t because they anticipated trouble. It would have been too much work to empty it. 

Besides, it never hurt to have extra gear on hand in case they bumped into a killer cyborg in a spider-bot body, an insane Leem-human hybrid, or a monstrous yaoguai. 

At Erik’s request, Emma was leaving them alone so they could appreciate the grandeur of nature without her running commentary. He almost found that more relaxing than not having to worry about a firefight with the Core’s minions.

“I wonder…” Jia crouched, her eyes narrowing. “I’m pondering its defensive capabilities.”

“Huh?” Erik’s brows lifted as he tried to figure out where she was looking. “Defensive capabilities of what?”

Jia gestured at the waterfall. “Using that as a defensive position. The sheer volume of water heading down has to help. If you could pop us between the water cascades and fire…” She tapped a finger on her lips. “Maybe stay behind the denser portions.”

“I honestly don’t know.” Erik thought for a moment. “I’ve never fought someone from behind a waterfall, let alone one that big. Somehow I doubt it’ll be a problem.”

Jia stood and dusted off her pant legs. “You’re probably right. Just curious, like you and the flitter.”

“It wasn’t like…” Erik looked away. “Now that I think about it, I imagine if we were being chased, we could try to use the falls against other flitters. You could crash them if you did it right, or get them down to the river for easy shooting.”

Jia gestured around at the nearby trees and slowly turned. “This isn’t the greatest tactical environment. They’ve got a lot of trees, but they’re not very dense.” She pointed at a thick copse that would require an impressive jump or a flitter to get to. “That’s decent—good coverage of most of the area. Sniping, maybe?”

“Thermals would make the trees useless. You’d get picked off easily.” Erik scratched his eyelid, trying to visualize what a good close-air support craft like a Dragon might do to the area. “But a big-ass Elite wouldn’t do well there.”

Jia groaned and rubbed her temples. “What are we doing?”

“Looking at a waterfall, I thought.”

“No.” Jia folded her arms. “Don’t you see?”

Erik inclined his head toward the water. “Kind of hard to miss. It’s huge.”

“No.” Jia walked over to him, took his hands, and looked up his eyes. “You and me.”

“What about you and me?” Erik asked, confused by the quick change in the direction of the conversation.

“We’re here at a beautiful natural wonder, and we’re both thinking about how to fight the Core in this location.” Jia let go of his hands and stepped away, waving a hand at the water. “We’ve got no reason to think they’ll ambush here. We even traveled using fake identities.”

Erik didn’t smirk. It wasn’t all that long ago that Jia balked at breaking laws or regulations, but now she had no problem asking Emma for help should they desire to travel without leaving a trail. It made sense during missions, but this was vacation.

“I’m not seeing the problem,” Erik replied with a shrug. “It doesn’t hurt to think about it.”

“Doesn’t it?” Jia tromped over to a tree and leaned her back against it. “I see my friends less and less these days. We didn’t go to many sphere ball games last season. We spend most of our time training.”

“Yeah, I suppose. The new season’s starting soon. We can hit more games this season if that’s what this is about.”

“No.” Jia sighed. “Yes, I’d like to go to more games, but that’s not what this is about. It goes deeper than that. It’s about you and me.”

“What about you and me?” Erik frowned. If there was an alarm for relationships, it’d be screaming right about now. His mind raced, trying to spot the hole so he wouldn’t step in it. “Is this about making me go to that freaky restaurant?”

Jia offered him a quizzical look. “No, nothing like that. I’m just saying, patterns become habits, and habits are hard to break. I’m thinking once this is all over, we’re going to need to deprogram ourselves. Learn how to be something other than…what was it he called us? That’s right, the Last Soldier and the Warrior Princess.”

Erik grinned. “I kind of like those names, though it was cool being the Obsidian Detective and Lady Justice.”

“This isn’t about nicknames.” Jia pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes shut. “Erik, we’re too alike. We both throw ourselves into our work. Before, it didn’t consume me because my lazy captain wouldn’t let it, but now…” She opened her eyes and gave Erik a concerned look. “We’re people, too.”

“Jia, you’re letting this work you up.” Erik walked over to the tree and patted the trunk before leaning against it. “We’re at war with the Core. Of course we’re going to spend most of our time on duty or thinking about combat or training. That’s what war means.”

“Is that how it’s always been for you?” she asked. “From what you’ve told me, you were on when it was time to fight and relaxed when you weren’t.”

“Sure.” Erik stuck his hands behind his head and rested his skull against them. “But during wars, there was a lot less relaxation. That didn’t mean I didn’t take time off now and again, but I never forgot what it meant to be a soldier and that mindset sticks. You’re right, though. It’s different now.”

“Different?” Jia asked, a touch of fear in her voice.

“Yeah. It was easier to shut off, but I think that’s because we’re not part of an Army. We’re not even part of the Intelligence Directorate. We know they’re doing things, and they have people helping us—sometimes a lot of people—but it comes off like we’re trying to handle all this ourselves. I think that’s what’s programming us, if you want to call it that.”

“Are you worried about what happens after it’s all over?”

Erik shook his head as he stared at the mesmerizing tons of water flowing in front of him. He was grateful for the audio filter Emma had suggested before their arrival. Sometimes a man wanted to appreciate nature without it roaring at him the entire time.

“Once we take out the Core, I’ll have my revenge and the UTC will be safer,” he replied. “Will it be safe from everyone and everything? Nah. Of course not, but I don’t think it’s my responsibility to worry about the rest. If those bastards hadn’t been involved in killing my unit, I might have retired and been content to live in some frontier colony watching months-delayed sphere ball recordings from Earth.”

“It’s weird for me to even think about now.” Jia stepped away from the tree and back toward the edge of the cliff. “I want to see a lot more of the UTC, and not just when we need to show up to blow up people.”

“Then I’ll have to make sure we have a good ship. We’re going to miss the jump drive when it’s gone, but it won’t be so bad if we’re not rushing to some system looking for trouble.”

Jia didn’t speak for a good half-minute. 

As she continued looking down at the water, a small smile grew on her lips, and the tension on her face and her neck slowly eased. When she broke her silence, her voice was low.

“I’m worrying too much.”

“You always do,” Erik replied.

Jia glanced at him. “Well, if we’re both able to think that far ahead, we won’t have a lot of trouble adapting to the future. I like the idea of flying through the galaxy with you.”

“Until we run into a Leem with a death wish.” Erik grinned.

She shook her head. “Even your Lady isn’t that much of a bitch.”

“Do you honestly believe that after everything we’ve been through?” Erik offered her a healthy grin.

Jia barked a loud laugh, before she doubled over, mirth was spilling out of her like it’d been desperate to escape. Tears welled in her eyes, and she straightened and wiped them, her huge smile aimed at her favorite part of him.

His heart.

The clouds were gone from her face. “Good thing we did that anti-Leem training then.”

_______

Classic Erik and Jia. Feels like hanging with old friends in this Snippet. To be fair you never know when you might need to have a tactical plan for fighting in a waterfall. I know that you are already on your way to pre-order Unfaithful Covenant: Opus X Book 10. Don’t worry you won’t have to wait long to see what happens next because November 13th it’s all yours!

Unfaithful Covenant: Opus X Book 10

They say a rebellion is coming… some rebellion, neighborhood kids and vandals. Is this kind of talk only wishful thinking? Find out in this first Snippet of Opus X Book 10.

September 3, 2230, Gliese 581, New Samarkand, Sogdia

The slightly misshapen Army hovertruck cruised through the narrow and mostly empty streets with a light hum. 

Despite all the complaints from locals when the curfew was issued, almost nobody challenged it. In the last week, the only curfew violators the soldiers had caught were stupid kids doing it on a dare. 

A stern warning was enough to correct them. Some local teens might shout insurrectionist slogans, but they weren’t any different from bored kids anywhere else in the galaxy.

People’s respect for the curfew made for easy, if boring, control. When boredom set in, thinking followed, and it was the thinking that often led to trouble. Such was the case for Corporal Chris Donnelly as he stared out of the front passenger seat of the truck.

There weren’t enough streetlights in Sogdia. He’d always felt that way. It was sinister at night, with too many pockets of darkness where stupid teens could hide and cause trouble.

He wasn’t afraid of the dark. No one lasted long in the Army with a basic and primal fear like that. No, what he felt was annoyance tinged with a different sort of fear.

Chris didn’t care for domes. Claustrophobia wasn’t a problem for him, so that wasn’t it. He’d spent a good chunk of his modest Army career in tight quarters aboard military transports, but there was something about being on a planet or moon and having to remain underneath an artificial dome that reached into the lizard part of his brain and screamed “unnatural.” 

Maybe the Purists should say something about terraforming.

Sometimes he wondered why humans bothered. He’d yet to step foot on a planet half as beautiful as Earth, and it would take centuries for the terraforming to make this planet remotely approach the less pleasant parts of the human’s homeworld.

The partially transparent dome above gave him a good view of the red-tinged sky. The system’s star, Gliese 581, was massive in the sky, a constant reminder they weren’t on Earth or even in the Solar System. 

The expansive dome was a reminder, one of the many connected structures on the surface of the planet that formed the capital city of Sogdia. Densely-packed squat buildings stretched out to the edges of the domes. No one built up on this world, only out until they quick-fashioned a new dome. 

Unnatural. 

That was what it all came down to. It was easy to ignore when he was on a ship, harder on a planet.

Chris glared at a nearby closed shop, his rifle clutched in his hand. This wasn’t where he was supposed to be, not twenty light-years from home, wandering around some asinine dome and accomplishing a great amount of nothing. Annoyance fed his discomfort in a vicious loop. 

Too bad there was every indication he’d be sticking around for a while for ridiculous reasons.

He snorted, drawing the attention of the driver, Corporal Kruenig.

The other corporal gestured to the half-dozen data windows open in front of Chris. All contained visual feeds from low-flying drones.

“Don’t be staring out the window,” Kruenig jerked his thumb towards those data windows. “You’re supposed to be watching the feeds and looking for trouble.”

“What, more kids making rude gestures?” Chris scoffed. “I was an asshole when I was their age too.”

“I’m talking about real trouble,” Kruenig replied. “But kids shouldn’t be on the streets at this hour anyway. It’s not safe.”

“Why are we even here?” Chris replied. He gestured around. “What’s the point?”

Kruenig eyed him like he’d lost his mind. “We’re here because we were ordered to patrol this neighborhood. Just like the night before and the night before that, and the last whole damned week, Donnelly. We’re here because there is a curfew in place.”

“That’s…not what I mean.” Chris glanced at the data windows, then out the window again as they approached a narrow alley and peered down it. Then he spoke up again, continuing his train of thought. “I mean, why are we even on damned New Samarkand doing patrols instead of somewhere we could be doing something useful?”

The answer was so basic, Chris wondered if it was tattooed on his left eyelid. “Last time I checked, part of the Army’s mission was to stop rebellions. We’re supposed to protect humanity from all enemies, human and inhuman.” Kruenig frowned. He leaned forward and sniffed near Chris. “Did you get into that brandy already, Donnelly? You sound drunk.”

Chris jerked away from him. “I’m sober, Kruenig. Don’t you think you would have noticed before this if I wasn’t?”

The driver shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me. What’s with all the questions? You’re acting like you got hit on the head and woke up to the news of a rebellion.”

“There’s no insurrection here.” Chris narrowed his eyes at someone frowning at him through a window one level above the street. “It’s just a bunch of assholes with too much time on their hands.”

“The government thinks one’s coming.” 

“Based on what? Ghosts make up a lot of shit so they can sound important. That’s all this is.” Chris grunted in disapproval. “Some ID bastard trying to justify why their budget shouldn’t be cut.

Kruenig slowed the hovertruck to a crawl and stopped in front of an alley. He inclined his head toward it. “If there’s no rebellion, what’s that?”

He opened the door and jumped out of the truck before pulling his slung rifle off his shoulder. Chris followed. Even from a distance, he knew what they were in for—more signs that some of the locals didn’t want them here. 

Chris marched through the alley and approached the far wall capping it.

A large brightly colored mural covered the expanse, a stylized cartoonish representation of demonic-looking humanoid dog-men with exaggerated muzzles and open mouths filled with long, sharp teeth. Dark saliva dripped from their slavering mouths. The dog men wore UTC Army uniforms and were depicted stomping on cherub-like children complete with golden wings. The cherubs covered their heads in a feeble attempt to defend themselves. A mushroom cloud blossomed in the distance.

The building design, the multicolor bracelets, and the star in the image made it clear where and what it was depicting, but if that wasn’t enough, large blue letters spelled out the message.

End the oppression of New Samarkand! Go home, UTC dogs!

“Oppression,” Kruenig read with a snort. “Without UTC funding and backing, this colony wouldn’t exist. Now that they have the cities set up and the terraforming going on, they suddenly decide they’re oppressed.” He gestured with his rifle toward the mural and looked over his shoulder. “This is why we’re here. Because some idiots don’t know their colonization history.”

“It’s just graffiti. Stupid and rather childish graffiti at that. Besides, at least in this one, they aren’t making us look like space raptors.”

“You’d rather they make us look like weird killer dog soldiers?” Kruenig asked.

Chris shrugged. “They’re just blowing off steam. I’m more impressed that they got this up overnight without us noticing.”

“Don’t be. They have preprogrammed painting drones.” Kruenig scanned the mural. “It’s not like that takes bravery.” He glanced at his partner. “Didn’t you pay any attention during the briefing this morning?”

Chris shrugged. “I might have spaced out for a couple of minutes. I can’t help it if the commander can’t talk without putting me to sleep. We should just have put him on a loudspeaker for the whole city; he would bore everyone into submission. If the worst thing we have to worry about is rude paintings, I think the UTC will survive.”

Kruenig snickered. “The insurrectionists have gotten wise to using only paint for this kind of thing. Otherwise, it’s too easy to trace them in the system and arrest them. These murals,” he waved at the wall, “are signs of more trouble, not less.”

“Insurrectionists?” Chris eyed the mural like he was judging it for concept and implementation.
“I bet it’s nothing more than bored, stupid kids. You’re acting like we’re going to end up getting shelled any second. You need to pull the rifle out of your ass, Kruenig.”

“What about what happened with the 355th?” Kruenig looked smug. “They got ambushed. You want to be ambushed?”

“They got pies thrown at them.” Chris chuckled. “This is what you’re worried about? Graffiti and pies? Is that what you thought you’d be fighting when you joined the Army?”

“That’s how it starts.” The other corporal stood right in front of the mural. “It’s probably only five percent of the population, rich assholes who want to set themselves up as kings. I heard that was what it was like on Diogenes’ Hope, a few bastards leading a bunch of people into a war they didn’t want.”

“I don’t know.” Chris knelt and tapped the wall, tracing a line in the drawing with his finger. “It makes sense, you know.”

Kruenig glared at him and muttered something in German Chris didn’t understand, but he was sure it wasn’t nice.

“How does it make sense? You’re in the Army, and you’re supporting insurrectionists?”

Chris shook his head. “Understanding something isn’t the same thing as supporting it.” He stared at the mural. “The reality is they send criminals out to colonies, so it only makes sense that sometimes you have trouble. I’ve always thought transportation was dumb. Just make more prison stations and stick ‘em there.”

“You’re the one who said we don’t need to be here.”

“Yeah, because cops and militia can handle criminals. They don’t need Army regulars.” Chris patted his rifle. “They don’t need infantry patrolling the streets or martial law.”

“Maybe. But the militia here is all but non-existent, and it’s infested with sympathizers anyway.” Kruenig stepped away from the wall and tapped his PNIU a couple of times before declaring, “Direct command, mark coordinates. Insurrectionist propaganda detected, schedule for cleaning.”

“Graffiti sympathizers?” Chris asked, incredulity in his voice.

“It’s not graffiti,” Kruenig insisted. “It’s proof this place is ready to blow. It’s a warning. What did you think, they just send soldiers to random planets because some junior bureaucrat gets a hard-on for a promotion? After that shit on Diogenes’ Hope, I bet every hick frontier colony has decided they love all the UTC money and tech but don’t like being told what to do. If you don’t like it here, get used to having to deal with crap way farther out.”

Chris tilted his head, admiring the artistry of one of the dog soldiers. “This isn’t a frontier planet.”

“How the hell is this not a frontier planet?” Kruenig laughed. “Does this look like a core world to you?”

“It’s kind of in-between, I think.” Chris shrugged. “It’s too far out to be a core world, but it’s too old and not far enough away to be a frontier colony. I think of frontier colonies as places with a handful of domes and a low population. This might not be Earth or Chiron, but they’re doing all right.”

Kruenig glared at him. “I thought you hated it here. You bitch about it every night. First sergeant even chewed you out for complaining too much! Suddenly, you’re defending their colonial honor?”

“I bitch because we shouldn’t be here.” Chris grunted. “If the Army needs troops everywhere someone complains about the government, we should have billions of soldiers back on Earth kicking people’s heads in. I never thought I’d have to deal with this when I joined the Army.”

Kruenig pulled his combat knife out of its sheath and walked toward the wall. “Huh? This is exactly what I figured I’d have to deal with. What the hell did you think you would do in the Army? Build domes? Or are you one of those guys who thought he was going to bring himself home a space raptor tooth?”

Chris looked away, not wanting to admit he had joined because he’d thought a war with the Zitarks was coming. 

The damned lizards hadn’t had the balls to attack the UTC back then. He’d dreamed about standing in front of domes, bravely defending civilians from rapacious reptilian hordes, not hanging out staring at graffiti. 

He might as well never have joined up.

“You’re missing my point,” Chris replied. “It’d be different if it was like Diogenes’ Hope. That was an actual rebellion backed by dangerous people, not someplace with a bunch of wannabes painting murals at night.” He inclined his head toward the wall. “Some people don’t want us here but aren’t going to do anything much, which means we don’t need to be here. If they would just shut up and stop causing trouble, we could leave and go somewhere with real problems. I’m willing to bet you right here and right now this rebellion will never escalate. We’ll rot here for a year until everyone finds something else to obsess over, and we’ll have nothing but stupid stories about murals to share, while other guys are off earning the Medal of Valor and Sacrifice for single-handedly stopping a Leem invasion. Mark my words.”

“I don’t know which is more ridiculous.” Kruenig slung his rifle over his shoulder and lifted the knife. “The idea that the Leems are going to invade, or that one ground pounder’s going to single-handedly stop them.” He drew his blade across the wall slowly, scratching a rough line through the center of the mural. “If we weren’t here, they’d shoot people left and right. I guarantee it. That’s the whole point—armed deterrence. Peacekeeping. First, it’s pies, then it’s sabotage, and then it’s missiles during patrol.”

“I’d rather be somewhere people liked us or hated us enough to shoot at us. At least then we’d get some action.” 

Kruenig continued his artistic enhancements. After he finished, the mural was still clearly understandable, but there was a new message in large, rough letters in the center.

UTC FOREVER.

“You’re going to be in trouble when they show up to get rid of the mural,” Chris commented.

Kruenig shook his head. “Nah, they’ll erase that too. For now, it gives us a couple of hours of propaganda. I’ll take that over your ridiculous alien firefight dream. If I can get through this whole deployment without shooting at anyone or getting shot at, I’ll be plenty satisfied.”

“I don’t know—”

A loud hiss preceded a massive explosion. Their hovertruck flew into the sky in a fireball, like a phoenix being reborn into a flitter. The burning wreckage pelted the street, earning dumbfounded stares from the two soldiers. 

Chris was too surprised to be scared.

“If we’d been in there…” Kruenig swallowed and tapped his PNIU. “This is Patrol Lima 2-3-2. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. Our vehicle has been destroyed, most likely by missile attack. Requesting reinforcements at our current coordinates.”

Chris flipped the safety off his weapon, his heart pounding. The deadly reality of danger on this planet had made it past his disdain. 

His stomach clenched as he assessed their position. The wall with the mural made the alley a dead end, surrounded by buildings on three sides, with no obvious way to climb out. Their only other exit took them toward a burning flitter and rebels with missiles.

“It’s a trap,” he muttered.

______________

Well that escalated quickly! Check back in a few days to see what happens next and what this means for Jia and Erik. Or if you have been waiting for this next book in the series and are already committed to reading Unfaithful Covenant: Opus X Book 10 , then head over the Amazon and Pre-order it NOW!!  November 14th, coming to a Kindle near you.

An Assassin’s Accord: McFadden and Banks Book 1

The past is in the past right, time to move on to new ventures,  Unless…

It wasn’t a long shower. Taylor had spent enough time in the military to learn the improperly named ‘Navy Shower,’ which had taught him that cleaning himself thoroughly didn’t need to involve soaking in hot water until he turned into a prune.

Besides, after the night that he’d had, a cold shower seemed like the right option and he was shivering slightly when he stepped out to dry himself.

The trembling had abated by the time he pulled clean clothes on, and as he headed down to the shop, he realized he had forgotten to bolt the door the night before when he went to bed. Or maybe Bungees had found a way to open it. Despite his official qualification being that of a mechanic, the man had learned enough on the ground to have forgotten more about mechanical engineering than Taylor would ever learn. One didn’t always need the degree to gain the practical knowledge the hard way. Besides that, finding a way around a bolted door didn’t seem like it would be that difficult for him.

Bobby was already busy with one of the suits that had been sent from the Zoo for them to work on, but there was no sign of Tanya, Elisa, or Vickie in the shop yet. He still wasn’t sure which of them would work there fulltime but they had discussed it and he didn’t think it would change. Niki and Vickie would be with him—that was a no brainer—and Tanya intended to work with Bobby due to their involvement, hence the long-ass name they had thought of to replace McFaddens Mechs. Although he hadn’t had a final answer from Elisa yet, she had indicated her preference to remain in the shop and avoid his type of adventures. Besides, she was good at what she did and everyone knew it.

“Doughnuts are in the break room,” the mechanic announced without looking up from his work. “You might need to make more coffee, though. I didn’t know you would be here today and only brought some for myself.”

“Where’s Tanya?”

“She’s having breakfast with a friend…I think. She did say she would be a little late today.”

Taylor nodded, descended the last couple of steps, and turned left into the little nook he had repurposed into a break room. It held a small electrical stove, a fridge, a sink, and a dishwasher, all crammed into a location that was about thirty square feet overall.

Which wasn’t that small, especially for a break room, but it certainly didn’t seem big when everyone wanted coffee at the same time. Maybe him spending less time there was for the best. Bobby would undoubtedly do a great job running the business since the guy had practically done it since the beginning.

The coffee machine worked fine and it wasn’t long before he poured a probably unhealthy amount of sugar into a mug of black coffee. He took a bite out of a chocolate-glazed doughnut as he stirred the beverage.

Damned if it wasn’t a good cup of coffee. Taylor moved to the shop and studied the suits that had been set up on their stands, ready to be worked on. They were in varying conditions of repair but all displayed the traditional signs that they had gone through the usual mill of destruction that was the Zoo.

He leaned closer to one that looked like it had its leg chewed off and winced. “What the hell do you think did that?”

Bobby looked up from his work for a second and narrowed his eyes. “Who knows? If I had to guess, I’d say it looks like a couple of those locusts had a go at it, but the pilot would need to be more or less stationary for them to do that much damage. Is there anything on the shoulder or the helmet that would indicate that something else attacked him while they targeted his legs?”

Taylor looked up and sure enough, he could see bite marks in the helmet and indentations where it looked like maybe a panther had tried to bite through the helmet. It had no doubt held him down, which allowed the locusts to do a number on the legs.

“Do you think he made it out?” he asked and studied the suit again with a grim expression.

“Probably. There isn’t much reason to go in and save a suit with a dead pilot inside. Whether he survived in the hospital or whether he kept his leg…that’s a different story. It looks thoroughly mangled from my point of view. It does seem a little heartless to get his suit repaired for someone else to use, but it’s not exactly the most heart-warming of tourist locations.”

Taylor nodded but didn’t want to say any more. He remembered more of the dream than he liked, and the memories of his time in the Zoo had begun to resurface. 

Thankfully, his attention was drawn to his phone, which vibrated to inform him that someone else was taking control of the security system. There was only one person who did that before they even appeared.

“Vickie just arrived?” Bobby asked and refocused his attention on the suit in front of him.

“Yeah. She snagged the security controls without so much as a hello.”

“She’ll do that. You have to say hello after she’s inside.”

The doors to the garage began to swing open, and a Tesla pulled in as soon as they were wide enough to allow her inside. It was a nice car and once upon a time, Taylor might have wondered how a college student would be able to afford a vehicle like that, but he was well aware that she was now a great deal wealthier than most college students.

And only some of the money was illegal.

She climbed out of the car, stretched with a loud yawn, and leaned against it for a few seconds. The three-inch platform boots she preferred made her appear taller than her five-foot-six frame, although there wasn’t much to be done for the lean build behind it. She had adopted a goth chic style with a vengeance, which meant black jeans with a dozen or so rips everywhere, a black shirt with a couple of obscenities written on it, and topped with her short hair and half a dozen piercings.

“Morning, Tay-Tay.” She waved, still leaning against the car. “Morning, Bungees. Please tell me that’s coffee I smell.”

“What else would it be?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t know. Bobby has been buying those coffee-flavored doughnuts lately.” She held a finger with a fingernail painted black up before the man could voice a complaint. “Don’t worry, they’re amazing, but they’re not coffee.”

“Well, it is coffee,” Taylor answered and gestured for her to join him. 

The hacker grinned and jogged to him—an impressive feat in the platform boots—and wrapped him in a hug.

“Fucking hell, you’re a great hugger, you know that?” she asked and looked at him. “It’s like being hugged by an oversized, red-headed bear.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go get yourself some coffee. Maybe that’ll help with your comparisons.”

She poured herself a mug of coffee and added more sugar than he had before she snatched a doughnut and rejoined the two men in the shop. “So, what do you think you’ll do today?”

Taylor looked around and realized she was talking to him. “Well, I thought I’d help out at the shop a little. It’s been a while, what with me setting the other place up.”

“Oh, right. I thought we would look for work since you’re now the co-owner of a merc team, along with Niki and myself. Getting that off the ground might be a good place to start, no?”

“It’s not like we’re in any kind of hurry. You’ll be paid anyway, and we’re still setting it up so we might as well make sure everything else is running smoothly. Bobby got a new delivery yesterday, so I thought I’d lend a hand with that. In fact, you might as well earn that paycheck you’re getting anyway and lend us a hand yourself.”

Vickie groaned. “You know, I had a feeling you would pull that card out of the deck. I had, like…fifteen second thoughts when I was driving over here but no, I had to come and see how you guys are doing.”

He grinned and motioned for her to take a seat on the bench next to Bobby. The mechanic had begun to take the suit apart and put pieces on the bench, which allowed his two teammates to start cleaning them before they placed them on a cloth-covered section where they could easily be reassembled when the time came.

“I have to admit, I’ll miss working here,” she admitted after they were a few minutes into the work. “She’s no modern marvel of architecture, but we have been through some tough times.”

“You know you’re welcome to come by and visit any time you please, right?” Bobby asked.

“I know, but it won’t be the same. The team’s splitting up and we’ll be off doing different things. It feels like the end of an era, you know?”

“Are you sure you’re okay with that?” Taylor asked. He kept his gaze fixed on the delicate piece of machinery he was cleaning of all the dust that had collected in the tiny nooks and crannies.

Vickie shrugged. “Sure, and we’re all moving forward and onward, but you can’t blame me for being a little nostalgic, knowing that the good old times are moving along.”

“Okay, fair enough. But if you feel so nostalgic, why the hell did you throw shade on this place?”

“What? You’ve admitted it’s an eyesore. Multiple times.”

“Sure, but I can say it lovingly. You merely make it sound hurtful.”

“Speaking of eyesore, can we talk about the name you were working with?” Bobby asked with most of his head already inside the suit he was taking apart.

“Again, that’s hurtful.”

“But accurate,” she cut in and focused on the mechanic. “Have you guys thought about a name yet? The last I heard, you had some long-ass name that would take Elisa a week to say for every phone call. Will you simply name it Zhang and Novak Mechs? Because the lack of alliteration is appreciated but it’s still not a very…creative name.”

“It’s probably best to remove my name from it completely,” Taylor conceded. “I’m still well-known in the circle of the clients, and I don’t want them to be misled into thinking I’ll be here full-time. Besides, Bobby’s better known as a suit mechanic, so having his name on the company would do wonders for sales.”

“Actually, Tanya and I talked about it over dinner the other night, and the whole last name in the company name felt a little too corporate and Wall Street.” Bobby paused in his work to wipe sweat from his forehead. “She came up with ‘Mech Advantage.’ I think that has a nice ring to it.”

“It’s certainly better than McFadden’s Mechs,” Vickie pointed out. “Although again, that’s setting the bar fairly low right there.”

She paused to look at Taylor for a few seconds until he turned his attention away from his work.

“What?”

“It’s not as fun to tease you when you don’t react.”

“I know.”

“Ugh, every party needs a pooper.”

“I’ll try to ignore the fact that you said that. But yeah, I’ll admit that’s a good name, and with Elisa pushing it, it’ll stick like…ummm…”

“Moss to a log!” the hacker suggested. “No, like shit to a shovel!”

“I had intended to go with glue, but sure…one of those. But I think the bigger question is if you’ll be able to work full-time with your cousin.”

Even Bobby looked up from his work with a curious expression to hear Vickie’s answer to that.

She looked around, shrugged, and didn’t commit to an answer for a few long seconds. 

Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “Okay, Niki is the one who kept me out of the Zoo and…got me out of other problems, so I owe her a ton.”

“I’m still not sure what kind of trouble you got yourself into that it required Niki to step in.”

“And you never will. The point is, I think we’ve both grown up a great deal since then. Although I have to say, I’ve felt like her parent lately. The two of you aren’t what I’d call mature when it comes to relationships.”

“That—” Taylor paused and nodded. “Okay, that’s a good point.”

“So yeah, with everything we’ve been through, I think we would work well together. And if worse comes to worst, I don’t think we’ll be working, like, in the same room together much, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Another fair point.”

He stopped working and put the piece he was cleaning gently on the bench before he retrieved his vibrating phone.

The number was blocked, which usually meant a certain AI wanted to have a word. The software Vickie installed on his phone didn’t allow for any other numbers to be blocked.

“Desk, is that you?” he asked as he accepted the call.

“Taylor, it is nice to speak to you again,” the AI answered. 

The fact that she had been created by none other than Vickie’s mentor and Niki’s sister Jennie meant she was a cutting-edge piece of technology that made it easy for him to forget that he talked to a sophisticated piece of software and not an actual human.

Which meant he wasn’t sure how meaningful the AI’s greeting was. Well, he knew she was an AI, but it was difficult to bring that to mind while talking to her.

“Is everything all right?” Desk asked.

“I…yeah, sure. I was a little lost in thought. How can I help you?”

“Only by accepting the message that Niki asked me to pass on to you. She said that her business in Washington might take a few more days. The DOD has asked her to finalize certain admin issues that have arisen with ending her contract and the establishment of the new task force. In the meantime, she is interested to find how work on the new base of operations is going.”

Taylor scowled. He did understand that Niki hadn’t had a real home since she had worked for the FBI. Even so, the property he had picked up for bananas still needed a fair amount of work. He wanted it to be ready when she got back but there were no guarantees.

As it turned out, the reason why the previous owner needed to liquidate his assets was because he had been dealing with the IRS, who had conducted a very invasive search of his assets. Walls had holes in them, toilets had been ripped out of the floor, and the whole building was one hell of a mess.

It wasn’t quite as bad the strip mall had been when Taylor acquired it, but there was still a significant challenge ahead of him.

“I…I won’t make any promises, but I hope that with a little help from Bobby’s amazing construction network, it’ll be livable by the time she gets back.”

“Fantastic,” Desk replied. “I’ll tell her the news. Is there anything else that you’d like me to say to her?”

“Uh, tell her that…well, I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”

“Will do. Have a nice day!”

The line cut off and he realized that both Vickie and Bobby were staring at him.

“What?”

“You two are adorable.” She grinned and nudged him in the arm with her fist.

“That was Desk.”

“I know, but the message you sent to Niki…it’s adorable.”

The mechanic shook his head and returned to work.

“Adorable is right. Speaking of which, are you letting your hair grow? I thought you were rocking the whole GI Jane look but now, you can almost start braiding it.”

She touched the hair that fell almost halfway down her neck. “That’s a pathetic deflection but…sure, why not? I won’t let it grow too long—that’s a headache to take care of, as you well know—but I’m done with the old look. Besides, having it too long would suck in the suits, right?”

“Well, since you’ll be technical support for most of the missions we go on, I doubt you’ll be in the suits too much. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be ready, but from what I remember, most of the women in the Zoo had varying lengths of hair. Those who had it longer had it tied up in buns and braids and shit and it fit in the suit well enough. I’m only saying you shouldn’t knock it before you try it, you know?”

Vickie shrugged. “I can always cut it if I don’t enjoy it.”

“Besides, shouldn’t you spend most of your time in school? Getting that degree and shit?”

The hacker shook her head. “No, not really. I…well, it’s on break now, and I don’t think I want to go back, you know?”

Taylor narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. “No, I don’t know. What’s with the change of heart?”

“I don’t think I need it, is all. What do I need a college degree for anyway?”

“Because Niki will kill you if you drop out now. Seriously. She’ll put the bullets in you by hand.”

“It’s not like…I don’t have a healthy fear of what my cousin can do. But what exactly will a college degree say about my credentials? Alongside all the other credentials too?”

“Getting a college degree shows—”

“Shows that I can see something out to the end. You told me, I know. But I’m already proving it by sticking it out here with you guys, right? I’ll get more work done if I’m focused only on the job, and when we’re finished or business is slow, I can get back to it. The credits will carry over and I’ll pick up right where we left off.”

He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Okay, fine. But you have to tell Niki. And you won’t get that trust I set up for you until you graduate. The rules still stand.”

“Of course. I won’t need that money for a while. I’m set up as it is.”

“I know but I want to keep the incentive there. You know I’m concerned about your future, right?”

Vickie rolled her eyes. “I know, Dad. Shit, what the hell will you talk to me about next? The birds and the bees? Because you should know that I watched that movie…Porkies, I think the name is, the other night.”

“Don’t be shitty. I’m only looking out for you. And…Porkies? That movie’s older than you are. Twice as old as you are. Hell, it’s from before my time.”

“I’m merely trying to understand the older generations and I’ve decided that films from the time work as a perfect time capsule.”

Taylor narrowed his eyes but simply shrugged. He didn’t want to get into a movie argument, not with her. She was a walking encyclopedia of pop culture present and past, and she would tear him apart.

“Fine. Whatev—”

His phone vibrated again. He looked at the screen and his squint turned into a scowl when he saw the name displayed.

“What the hell is Rod Marino calling you for?” Vickie asked and wore a glare that mirrored his. 

“Let’s find out.” He shook his head and pressed the button to accept the call. “This is McFadden.”

____

It already feels like we are part of the crew hanging out with old friends, and hey, I could really go for a doughnut at this point. If you are like me and can hardly wait to see who Rod Marino is and why he is being met with glares, then go pre-order An Assassin’s Accord on Kindle Unlimited. The good news is you won’t have to wait long because An Assassin’s Accord will be dropping on November 3rd.