Bourne – Snippet 2
Bourne, The Ascension Myth Book 8
By Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael Anderle
Snippet 2
Unedited
Skóli Uppstigs Academy, Spire, Estaria
Molly Bates strode into the classroom, leaving the door open, and dumped her gear with a thump by the side of the front desk. Her hair was covered in a sheen of plaster and dust, and there was a smudge of dirt across her face.
She was also bleeding through a tear in her atmosuit jacket on one arm. The burns around the tear looked like she’d been tapped with a blaster.
She had made a feeble attempt to tidy herself up before starting the class.
“Afternoon folks,” she said casually as the door slammed behind her. “Sorry I’m late. Got held up.”
A student voice came from the room of faces watching in anticipation. “Something tells me it wasn’t waiting in line in the cafeteria!”
Molly searched for the voice. She couldn’t pick out the speaker immediately, but she allowed half a smile to spread across her face. “You’re right,” she confirmed. “Just had to take out a bunch of terrorists in the Delta quadrant.”
Whispers and chatter rippled through the room. “Sooo cool!”
“Awesome!”
“She so fucking hot.”
The titters subsided as they waited for her next statement.
Molly had managed to peel her jacket sleeve from her injured arm and inspect it. There was blood, and a few drops made it onto the floor. Her skin was also burned around the wound.
“Jacket’s ruined,” she muttered to herself, shrugging it off and plonking it down on the back of her chair before turning her attention back to the class.
“Ok, so today we’re talking about communication strategies in the field,” she said, pulling up the mental file of her teaching notes.
The class hushed. She was all-business now and that meant they needed to be ready to catch everything.
While the others settled in with their notes and holos, a mousey male student sprang dutifully to his feet. He walked over to the wall and pulled out first-aid kit. Then he opened it up and grabbed some cleaning gauze. He quietly walked up to Molly and handed it over as she started her lecture.
Then he returned to his seat.
He was the medical monitor responsible for making sure the kits were fully stocked and functional. It hadn’t been the first time that Molly had shown up injured, and in the interests of ticking a bunch of health and safety boxes and avoiding having to spend pointless time in the school’s med bay, Molly agreed to enact a system when she taught.
The medical monitor was part of that system.
So was the protein shake that Judy, another student, placed on her desk. If Molly didn’t consume it, Judy was under strict instructions, on pain of failing her course, to report it to Paige, who would then administer corrective measures when Molly returned to base.
These were just two of the terms that Molly agreed to during the intervention where the team had sat her down and confronted her of the dangers of trying to juggle the demands of teaching at the university with her day job of saving random worlds all across the quadrants.
As Molly talked, she wiped down the wound. By the time she looked down to inspect it again it was pretty much healed.
Alien nanocytes are all upside, she mused as she tossed the bloody swab into the trash can.
+++
Down the corridor, footsteps tapping lightly but hurriedly were heard.
Professor Giles Kurns awkwardly rounded a corner and practically flew into his own classroom off-balance.
And late.
“Sorry I’m… late,” he said, distracted, accidentally knocking his glasses sideways as he tried to push them back onto his nose. His hair was disheveled and one cheek had a red line across it. His eyes were bleary.
Anyone who saw his dazed state would have been accurate in their assumption that he had just woken up from an awkward desk nap.
He held a bunch of files and old-fashioned papers. Emma Chambers, seated in the front row, leaned forward and noticed some maps of Space. She wondered if that was what they’d be getting to. Or perhaps it was one of the projects that Molly Bates had him working on.
Emma always kept her ear to the ground. She was fascinated by what went on behind the scenes at this Academy and, like many of the students who had places at the new university, had been following Molly Bates on the news for a couple of years now.
She wondered idly whether she could also get in on the project. Maybe Giles was her answer.
Giles noticed her staring and straightening up, he grinned at her and ruffed his hair with his fingers.
Emma rolled her eyes and then quickly averted her gaze.
Maybe not, she corrected herself.
Giles blushed and self-consciously tried to pretend he hadn’t just tried flirting with her. He said “Hi” in the direction of someone else, and when Emma turned she saw that no one else was acknowledging him. He was just being a doofus.
Giles dropped his papers on the desk, one file slipping out and falling on the floor in front of her desk. A bunch of other papers went in the other direction.
The chattering in the class had subsided, and now all eyes were now on the doddery professor.
“Hello class,” he tried again. “Sorry I’m late.”
A male voice chirped up from the back. “Why are you late, sir? Did you sleep in?”
“I… got caught up reindexing the algorithm for the classical Estarian codex,” he explained.
Emma sighed and leaned her head on her hand.
This was going to be a long class.
Redemption – Snippet 8
Redemption, The Boris Chronicles Book 4
By Paul C. Middleton & Michael Anderle
Snippet 8
There was a pause as that sunk into the listeners. Then a shout went out from one of Olaf’s men. The flanking group of enemies was the action that broke Olaf into action. His webbing hit the ground, as did his rifle. He quickly shifted into his bear form. He was moving as he was changing. Shots rang out, but Olaf charged at an angle. He was faster than any known Were. People used to targeting regular bears, leading the target for a normal bear’s speed, had no chance to hit him.
Quickly, he was through their lines. As he broke through, he passed two of the ambushing troops. One of them he smashed into the tree he was hiding behind. The man slid bonelessly down the trunk, unconscious or dead. The other bravely tried to line up a shot while standing directly in front of Olaf. The bear he now was pounded the ambusher into the ground before the bullet could be fired.
There were shouts of consternation. Perhaps the Belarusians had not heard of, believed, or encountered Weres before. But the confusion of a six or seven-hundred-pound animal charging through their lines distracted the best of them. Olaf’s patrol consolidated behind a group of trees that covered them from both the flanking movement and those who had remained in original ambush positions.
Olaf would worry about the damage the transformation had done to his clothes later. His armor was specifically designed to fit his bear form when he changed. It was not as strong as his father’s solid overlapping alloy plate armor, as it was made of the same cloth as the regular forces antiballistic armor. The pants were obliterated by the transformation. He had two spare pairs in his pack back at camp.
A bullet pounded into Olaf’s body armor as he was distracted by his silly concerns. ‘Get moving, make a plan!‘ shouted Danislav’s voice in Olaf’s head.
The order echoed through his mind. Plan, yes. Find the woman who had answered back to him. Take her into his physical control. It was likely she was the leader. If not, she was second or third in command. A hostage that gave him a chance for negotiation
Bullets cracked past him as he moved from concealment to cover and back to concealment again, sniffing the air for the smell of a female human. He could smell two, but only one was close to the location where he had heard the words shouted from.
Moving through the dense underbrush as fast as he could, dodging trees, he circled to a position directly behind her. He slowed, the sound of his continued forward movement covered by the ambushing force crashing through the underbrush to find him. There were occasional cracks of single bullets being fired.
They were no longer passing near him, so Olaf continued forward. When he found the source of the scent, he saw a young woman flanked by an older man and what he could only call a boy. Charging forward he flung the older man into a tree with a mighty backhand from a single paw. Several bullets impacted against his armor, moving down until they were hitting his rear.
The nine-millimeter bullets were more of an annoyance than a serious threat to him. They wouldn’t have threatened an ordinary bear, let alone a nanite enhanced Were of Boris’s line. They did, however, make him angry.
Darkness Rises Audiobook Release!
Darkness Rises, The Rise of Magic Book 6
By CM Raymond, LE Barbant, Michael Anderle
Magic’s biggest secrets are finally revealed.
After weeks of travel aboard the Unlawful, Hannah, and Team BBB make it to their destination on the far corner of the known world.
New Romanov.
The home of the Oracle.
And they arrive not a moment too soon as the evil forces bent on Irth’s destruction launch another attack. Hannah’s new enemy is bigger and badder than anything she’s encountered, and it is going to take all the power of her team—and more—to stop it.
Just an ordinary day in the extraordinary world of The Rise of Magic.
Saved By Valor Audiobook Release!
Saved by Valor, Reclaiming Honor Book VII
By Justin Sloan & Michael Anderle
A dream of peace. A hand of justice. A time for closure.
Valerie has found her way full circle, heading back to Europe, where it all began. New enemies await, calling themselves The Gods, and the journey to put an end to the Atlantic pirate problem means dealing with the local trouble makers as well as these false gods.
For Cammie and Royland, it also means bringing a boy to his home, and ensuring he has a safe place to live.
Meanwhile, Diego and Sgt. Garcia begin their journey to secure their side of America. While victory is close at hand, theirs is a world where cutting off hands seems just as likely as shaking them. Will they be able to convince the locals peace is worth having?
The Darkest Night Audiobook Release!
The Darkest Night, The Second Dark Ages Book 02
By Michael Anderle
Michael returns to fulfill a promise to his love, but the world isn’t the same place.
Michael just wants a little sleep. The last few days have been a bit of a learning overload after coming back 150 years after he was blown apart by a backpack nuke.
The world destroyed itself, there are anti-gravity cars and ships, and his love is in the stars…somewhere.
Plus, there is a vampire trying to make Europe his personal fiefdom. Akio and Yuko are trying to find him, and he has a young female Wechselbalg and male vampire to keep on the straight and narrow.
Michael has his own brand of justice, and this world is now understanding the Patriarch is back.
Nothing will be the same.
Bourne – Snippet 1
Bourne, The Ascension Myth Book 8
By Ell Leigh Clarke & Michael Anderle
Snippet 1
Unedited
AI Lab, Nefertiti Military Research Facility, Ogg
Charles Tergon’s eyes darted from the holoscreen in front of him to a second screen that was streaming code like there was no tomorrow.
Sue came over to look over his shoulder. “Are you sure?”
Charles swallowed hard. “Pretty damn sure,” he confirmed nervously. “Check out what’s happening to the base programming. It’s rewriting itself.”
He pointed at the code on the first screen and they both watched as one line after another changed before their very eyes.
She leaned in, absently pushing an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “You mean… it’s changing? By itself?” she clarified, her eyes tracking back and forth.
He nodded, mesmerized by the code streaming before his very eyes. “It’s self-correcting. The next stage of development, if it crosses it, will see it becoming self-aware.”
Sue’s face was frozen in disbelief. She turned pale. “It’s really happening…” she whispered.
Charles glanced away from the screen to look at her. “It really is,” he said, his eyes locking back onto the process in front of them.
“Shouldn’t we, er… tell someone?” she asked tentatively, the anxiety rising in her voice.
Charles ran a hand across his face. “Not yet,” he sighed, sitting back in his chair. “I mean, we don’t know if it’s really going to work… and that it’ll keep going. It’s very unstable, and I wouldn’t want us to…”
He hesitated, figuring out his reasoning. “I wouldn’t want us to look like morons if it destabilizes.”
Sue had known Charles a long time. She wasn’t convinced by his explanation. “I don’t know. I mean, what if it gets into the EtherTrak?”
“It can’t,” he responded, his jaw setting firm. “It’s 100 percent isolated. Besides,” he said, reaching into a drawer, “it’s going to need a lot more processing power before it can bridge the next stage.”
He pulled out a bottle of Scotch and looked at it.
Sue couldn’t help but feel she was being given the official line. The same line he might end up giving in his court martial hearing when all this blew up like fuckery.
He stared at the bottle. “Been saving this for the last fifteen years, since I graduated,” he told Sue. “My father gave it to me before he croaked.”
Sue noticed the flippant way he had dealt with his father’s death. He treated it so casually, even though she knew it had been a big deal for him. The way he acted about it now, though, just made him sound like a dick. She shook the thought loose from her head. “I think we should report in,” she said a little more firmly.
Charles leaned back in his chair. “Not yet,” he said just as firmly, overruling her. “Ah, but you could be a doll and grab a couple of beakers for us from the next lab? I’m going to see if Rasheed can help us track down some more processing power. It would be a pain in the ass if we have to wait for a new shipment.” He pulled up a comms screen and started connecting a call.
Sue shook her head and headed out the door. She hated the way that dickwad Charles pulled rank on her. This was always his way. And then when the shit hit the fan, which it always did, he ended up leaning on her for advice when things went wrong.
She sighed as she walked down the corridor.
And just when things were finally going right, though, she reminded herself. “Right,” at least as far as their remit was concerned. For the last four years they had been working night and day to create a self-programming code, capable of adapting and learning. And the last two years had been particularly slow going… what with Molly having been discharged and all.
They both knew it.
Even though they never spoke it out loud.
Even though she was in another department, their evenings drinking and chewing the fat with her would often result in their most profound leaps forward in their projects.
Why Molly never joined their department she’d never know. She assumed it had something to do with not liking Charles. But then there was always some dickwad in whatever department you end up in.
Sue bypassed the drug development labs and headed in the direction of the mess halls. No way was she going to be drinking Charles’s scotch from one of their beakers. She knew what some of those experimental drugs had done to people over the years. That shit could turn your hair blond.
Nope, she was going to find some normal glasses that were designed and kept for the purpose of drinking.
And, she decided almost at the same time, if she happened to put her head round the door of Lugdon’s office, then she might let slip what they had just discovered. After all, this revelation in the code was huge. They could single-handedly be responsible for unleashing artificial intelligence onto the world.
There was no way they were ready for this.
No way the military was ready for this.
In fact, she and Charles had seen so many “AI taking over the planet movies” it was kinda cliché.
Almost to be expected.
She just never thought the two of them would be the first ones to succeed in creating one.
FROM MICHAEL >>> WOOOP! Molly’s back!
I can’t wait for you to get your hands on this story, as we make life happen for Molly and the team.
SOMEONE becomes a new Daddy 😉
And he didn’t even see it coming.
Ellie is winging her way across America to arrive in her new home state of Texas (almost 3 times the size of her home country of England…Although I checked and that is 3x the size of the United Kingdom… I really don’t know how that works, frankly. I should ask her.)
Either way, her new home state is ‘big.’ I hope my fellow Texans treat her very well, she deserves it!
Storm Warrior Audiobook Release!
Storm Warrior, Storms of Magic Book 4
By P.T. Hylton & Michael Anderle
The greatest threat to the future comes from the secrets of the past.
Abbey and her friends return home after their long journey west to find Holdgate threatened by both an enemy to the south and a hidden Barskall army to the east.
Lucky for Holdgate, Abbey and the crew of The Foggy Day are more than ready to defend their home.
But there’s an even greater threat to the city… one nobody sees coming.
A man with a mysterious connection to Abbey’s past has arrived, and he wants to see the stormships burn.
He’s about to learn why it’s never a good idea to mess with Abbey’s friends.
Death Defied Release!
Death Defied, Valerie’s Elites Book Two
By Justin Sloan, PT Hylton, Michael Anderle
An evil intelligence bent on galactic domination is about to meet the Justice Enforcer.
When a mysterious AI demands the release of a criminal, it gets something else instead: the wrath of Valerie’s Elites.
Now the team must travel to a remote space station to uncover the secret their enemies want to keep hidden.
Valerie and her team will join with resistance fighters on a secret moonbase to take on mechs, giant robots, and an artificial intelligence that can infest any advanced technology it encounters.
No one said bringing Justice to the stars was going to be easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be fun.
Capture Death Snippet 03 of …
Unedited
CHAPTER TWO
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Lance nodded to Admiral Thomas as he sat down with a cup of something akin to coffee in his hand. Team BMW plus Tina, Jean Dukes with three of her team, and six Yollin specialists in gate technology surrounded a large table.
“Thank you, everyone. I appreciate you being here,” he started. “Use your tablets if you want to know who is who. I’ve hated the ‘Go-around-the-table and introduce yourself’ thing for two hundred years. Technology has improved, so use it.” He turned to the woman sitting four chairs to his left. “Jean?”
Jean Dukes nodded. “It’s going to take us a while to pull that oversized gate out of the Leath system.
“No choice,” Lance replied. “We got it as part of our war reparations and I’m not leaving a back-door like that anywhere. In fact,” he tilted his head toward Admiral Thomas, “I don’t know if I want it here in the Yollin system either. If we can hide that big sumbitch and keep it safe, we need to do that.”
“With what?” Jean asked. “The Meredith Reynolds is the biggest gun we have.”
Lance nodded to Team BMW. “We’re starting large-scale production of the BYPS setup. Let’s plan on using those, plus we need a dead-man switch on the gate. I’d rather blow it up than give someone a straight shot back to Earth.”
Bobcat spoke up. “Can we perhaps not blow it to shit and gone?” He flipped his hand over and back. “I’ve seen the requirements to build another of its type, and while not unique, it would make a banker pucker their butt to have to write another check like that.”
“I’ve seen the cost just to move it,” Lance agreed, “and that is a pittance compared to the actual effort to build one of those behemoths.” He turned to Jean. “Do we have an EI ready for the gate?”
She shrugged. “Archangel says we don’t need a true AI on that fucker, so yes. I’d have preferred to chat with ADAM and TOM on the subject, but I understand that the few comments we get back from them consist of ‘Give them time?’”
Lance nodded. “Yes. Their comments are, ‘She’s safe, she hasn’t found the Seven, and she hasn’t destroyed a planet…yet.’”
“Not exactly the most comforting message,” Admiral Thomas said.
“Yet brief and accurate,” Bobcat tossed in.
“This isn’t a Baba Yaga meeting,” Lance’s eyes narrowed at the humans in the group, “so let’s focus. We need to give our Empress a reason to concentrate on this project herself, so this gate needs to be moved safely, effectively, and quickly.” He looked down at his tablet, his eyes narrowing at a new number.
“Meredith,” he continued, “is this new projected time to move the gate accurate?”
“Yes, General,” the station operations AI replied. “We have done the numbers, and it will take…”
“Decades.” Lance sighed. “Less costly than building, but more than I’d hoped.”
“Not much we can do,” Admiral Thomas said as he looked at his tablet. The rest of the people around the table started doing the same. A couple of the Yollins had their heads together. Arguing over something to do with the update, he figured.
“Okay, as Dan would say if he were here instead of on Leath, ‘Grab some bricks and start slamming some nuts until someone figures out a solution to make this happen a little,” he looked at his tablet once more, “no, a lot faster.’”
The teams worked on options for another thirty minutes before Lance called for a stop. “Get with the main team liaison and work through the communications group. Bart, Jean, Bobcat and team, please stick around.”
It took five minutes for everyone to finish up their last few questions with each other and step out of the meeting room, but soon there were only seven of them.
“Ok.” Lance looked down the right side of the table, which held Bobcat, William, Marcus, and Tina, and then back up the left with Jean and Admiral Thomas. “We need to deal with getting that big-ass circle here faster.”
“It’s not going to be ‘snap your fingers’ fast, Lance.” Admiral Thomas looked him square in the eye. “Can’t fight physics on this.”
“Not worried about a little time, but I’m sure as hell worried about that much time.”
Bobcat scratched his cheek. “I’m sure we can cut it…maybe in half at least. But,” he pointed a finger up, “we need time to mass-produce enough of the BYPSs to surround a planet and seed them in Earth’s system on likely routes. We can’t build them fast enough to leave here in ten years anyway.”
“When we get Bethany Anne back I’ll let her deal with that issue,” Lance replied. “That’s up her alley anyway.”
“Anyone got a system that needs to be cleaned up?” Jean asked. “She seems to like to straighten out systems. I suggest we give her nothing but a ride and drop her off, then we all get to bet on how many months it will take her to sort out the world.”
“I would give her weeks,” Tina popped in.
“Less than two,” Bobcat replied, smiling at Tina, who was thinking about the bet.
“Not so much to clean up in the Empire anymore since the Rangers have been working so hard,” Marcus commented. “I’ve heard that even Tabitha is bitching about being bored.”
Jean leaned forward. “That’s true, I’ve heard the same. I understand Barnabas is actually eager to find a new criminal organization or two.”
Lance tapped on the table. “Focus, people! Tabitha isn’t our problem at the moment.” He sighed. “I’m personally hoping that Bethany Anne will focus on getting to Earth and securing that area. It would be nice if there was a Michael at the end of the trip.” He looked around, a small smile playing on his lips. “Might as well wish for Santa Claus to swing our way, too.”
“Well, if this were a romance story we would get our happily ever after,” Jean told him. “All by the end of the first book.”
“How the hell do you write one book about a love that spans over a hundred years and finish it with a happily ever after?” William asked. Everyone turned to look at him and Jean raised an eyebrow. “Love is ephemeral.” William snapped his fingers. “It’s here one moment, gone the next.” He smiled and waved a hand when he noticed everyone staring at him. “Uh, forget I said anything.”
FROM MICHAEL >>> WOOP! Almost to Christmas day and I’m baller excited (that is a term one of my sons uses…So, I’m being timely with my slang. At least, I think I am. Geez, I could be using it ALL wrong and how embarrassing would that be?)
Anyway. We just dropped Candy Crum’s new book THE DAMNED today so lookout in your email(s) for the link to get it for $0.99 today! (or use this I suppose – books2read.com/thedamned )
I’m about to fly to Vegas before going to Cabo for Christmas … break? Is it a break when you work it? How about a Holiday ‘slow down.’? I’m excited to say we are working, just slower at the moment.
There seems to be a fair amount of not working (by me) right now. I feel a bit guilty by it, but then I saw Jumanji last night (LOVED IT!) and think “Isn’t this why I’m a full time author, so I can go see imaginative stories that help fill my imagination back up?”
I think so!
I read a few books in the last week and a half, and I’m pretty stocked about that. I’ve loved reading SO much in my life and as those fans who are working in the Fans Write for Fans group now know, when you start writing, your time to read goes WAAAAY down.
I’ve spoken with Ell Leigh Clarke recently, and her LATEST (#8) Molly book is about 40,000 words right now, so that book is coming ‘soon.’ So, if you haven’t started HER stories, what better time than Christmas? Try out Awakened here: books2read.com/awakened-aoe
If you like Zombies and that genre, our Age of Madness stories linking the time when Bethany Anne leaves Earth the second Time to the Age of Magic starts with Hayley Lawson’s book in Late January!
I’m going to go ahead and ‘turn off’ now, and allow myself the opportunity to put this up on Facebook.
If you want to grab the Pre-Order copy of Capture Death – $2.99, a $1.00 cheaper but not the same as $0.99 on Christmas day (when that finally gets updated by Amazon) you can have it as SOON as Amazon goes LIVE by clicking here: books2read.com/capture-death
Defending the Lost Audiobook Release!
Defending the Lost, Reclaiming Honor Book VI
By Justin Sloan & Michael Anderle
A time of reckoning has come for the council of Toro, a bandit city about to burst with corruption and injustice.
Valerie refuses to allow her world to rot, and she’s brought friends to help her teach the council a lesson.
As if that weren’t enough, Cammie and Royland have begun to rule the former pirate island.
This involves ensuring there are no nearby threats, so while these two might be perfect for each other, they have business to attend to before they can sit back and bask in their newfound positions of power.
And down south, New York has risen up out of the sewers it once occupied.
It’s a new world, one Sandra and the others might just one day soon be able to enjoy without bloodshed.
Someday… maybe.
Buy on iTunes