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.

The Great Insurrection Book 1: Warlord Born

My how the mighty have fallen. One of the most legendary warriors of all time, reduced to accepting help from the enemy.

“Odin” existed during certain times, those when death sprang from the Titan’s hands like water from a fountain. The rest of the time, he was Alistair Kane. After his fall, he was no one. He existed in a world that no one else could see, one of intense pain and nothing else. No knowledge of where or who he was. No knowledge of the past and no hope for the future. There was simply pain.

He didn't know how long he was in that place, but toward the end, he started to hear voices.

Alistair couldn't make out what they said. His mind couldn't piece together what any of it meant. He only knew that it was different from the pain.

Next, he saw a jumble of light, blue and purple, some white. Words, noises, lights.

Until he woke up.

***

He felt the sting of the slap before he knew what was happening.

“Wake up,” a gruff voice commanded. “Wake up.”

Smack. Flesh on flesh, the mark of the slap red across his face.

Alistair blinked, once, twice, and then peered into the world. The lights were bright on his eyes, and he kept them narrowed. People stood on both his left and right, but their faces were blurred by Dimmers. They looked pixelated and dark.

“Who are you?” Alistair said, though his throat was on fire and he didn't know how clear his words had come out.

The man on the left responded, “Your guardian angels.”

Alistair groaned. No citizen in the Commonwealth would talk about such an ancient concept. He had thought life could get no worse, with Control issuing his death sentence. Now he had somehow been kidnapped by Subversives. How many of them had he killed? How many had he Clipped who were now in cryo? He couldn't count the number if he had untold lifetimes.

Alistair knew what came next: torture. Perhaps years of it, until he had told them everything he knew about Control and the Commonwealth. Until he had made things up that had never existed and never could, but he would say them anyway just to make the torture stop. Alistair had seen Subversive victims before, or at least what was left of them.

“Kill me,” he whispered.

The man on the left nodded. “Would if I could, Bub, but it's out of my hands.”

The man on the right waved a needle in front of Alistair's face. “We need you to wake up, so I'm going to give you a stim. You ever had a stim before?”

Alistair groaned again, turning his head against the pillow. He didn't know what the man was saying and didn't care. His legs, his chest—everything was on fire as if someone had doused him in gasoline before tossing a match on him.

“Going to feel like someone put a mechheart in your chest,” the man said as he continued waving the needle in front of Alistair's face. “You may want to try and attack us, thinking you can get out of here.” He looked at the bottom of the bed Alistair lay on. “Your legs don't work no more. They're fragged, and your lungs are only pumping because of this.” He tapped a machine to Alistair's right, something he hadn't noticed.

The man on the left spoke up. “So don't try anything, Bub. If we wanted you dead, you would be, comprende?”

Alistair said nothing, still not understanding what was happening around him. The needle glistened in the light as it rose into the air. The man holding it spoke once more. “We're hitting your heart with it because we need you wide awake. You won't feel a thing, though, so don't worry.”

Alistair barely had time to register what the man was saying before the needle plunged into his chest. If he'd thought he was in pain before, he'd been wrong. Very wrong.

Fire lit across his chest plate as the needle cut through bone, then punctured his heart. The man pressed the button on the side of the syringe, and the stimulant rushed into Alistair. His eyes sprang wide, his mouth opening into a scream that didn't come out. He realized he had no air in his lungs. He couldn't breathe. He sat up, pain breaking out across his lower body, hands grasping at the air.

The man on the left leaned over and swatted him hard on the back.

His lungs opened, and air rushed into them. Relief washed over Alistair. He fell back in the gurney-like chair. The pain in his chest was still there but fading. His eyes focused on his surroundings, years of training taking over without any effort. A light overhead, the rest of the room dark. A single door to his right. Man on his left wore no armor, but there was some kind of small plasma weapon holstered on his hip.

Alistair tried turning around to see the man behind him.

“Don't strain yourself, Bub.” The man walked around to the front of the chair, turning off the Dimmer over his head. “I'm not hiding from you, and I don't care if you see my face. You can't trade information with anyone on Earth any longer. Go ahead and tell Control you know who I am. It won't save your life.”

Alistair understood now, the stim working on his brain as well as his body. He said nothing, knowing these people were Subversives. There'd be no help here. He tried sitting up again, but the man on the right slammed him back down. “Nuh-uh, Bub. Right where you are is where you shall stay. Now listen to me, and listen closely. Him and me?” He pointed between him and the other guy. “We're the only two things that are keeping you alive right now. Personally, I think this is the worst decision I've ever seen, but I don't got much say in it.”

He took a step back and pointed at the door. “Out there is a ship waiting on you. Its only goal is to get you off this planet and out to the furthest reaches of the solar system. As close to safety as you're going to find, now that your life is forfeit. But, Bub, we don't force anyone to do anything. I won't put you on that ship if you don't want to go, so you have to decide if you want to stay on this rock or go to another. You stay here, you'll never see my face again. You'll never see his face again.” He nodded at his partner. “We'll wheel you out of here, and then you're on your own. Comprende?”

Alistair was taking every word in, understanding it all after the stim. He glanced at the door, wishing he could get up, but he'd seen his legs, which were mangled and completely unusable.

Luna, he thought. If he left, she was lost to him forever.

The man on the left snapped his fingers in front of Alistair's face. “Listen up, Bub. Time is short. Like, real short. Your former friends are searching for you. They aren't gonna stop any more than they stop when they hunt me and mine down. You go to the ship or you…” He looked down at the wreckage of Alistair's body. “See how far you can run on the things you used to call legs.”

Alistair laid his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. How had he gotten here? How was this his life?

The thought that made up his mind was a simple one: If I stay, I'm dead. No Luna. If I leave, maybe there's a chance I see her again.

It was the silliest of thoughts, one that ignored a galactic empire, a thousand years of law, and the fact that he was now a broken man. Yet the thought possessed him like a virus, rapidly taking over his mind and decision-making capability. Without opening his eyes, he said, “I'll go.”

There were a few moments of silence, which caused Alistair to open his eyes. The two men were staring at each other, and Alistair realized that neither of them had thought he would agree. “What is this all about? Why are you helping me?”

The man on the right stepped away from the chair and behind Alistair. When he came back into view, he was holding a gray blanket. “The reason you're in this mess, Odin of the Titan Legion, is because you saved some of ours. The AllMother knows you did, and it means she owes you a debt. The AllMother pays her debts, no matter the cost. Apparently, even if it means saving a cockroach monster like yourself. Don't mistake either of us here. We don't like you. I'd kill you now if I could, but that's not my decision to make.” He took a step closer and lifted the blanket. “This is what's going to happen. I'm throwing this over you, and we're walking out of this building. You're not to move because you're a corpse, and we're transferring you. We've got the paperwork in order, so unless you rise from the dead, this shouldn't be a problem.”

The one on the left, the man not holding the blanket, leaned close to Alistair's face. “If you do decide to rise, thinking you can somehow save your skin by turning us in, I'm going to slit your throat faster than you and your pretty Whip can possibly imagine.”

At the mention of his Whip, Alistair's hand automatically moved to his side, where it was always kept. 

“Don't worry, Titan,” the man whispered. “We've got it. The AllMother said to keep it for you. Now lay the fuck down, so I don't have to look at you anymore.”

Whatever they were doing for Alistair, it wasn't out of love. Their faces held nothing but hate and disgust; they would murder him if they were allowed. Alistair laid his head back down on the chair, and the man on the right pressed a button, allowing the top portion to recline backward.

They draped the gray blanket over him, then the gurney started to move.

***

Alistair listened with ears that had been trained to detect the slightest danger. He heard every turn of the wheels below him, as well as the footfalls of the men pushing him. He listened for words and other noises, anything that might give him a clue as to where he was. He didn't have any idea how being a corpse was going to get him on an interstellar flight. Off-world body transfers did happen when all of someone's relatives had left Earth, but now? During a manhunt?

The man had lied to Alistair about one thing. They hadn’t just given him a stim, at least not the normal kind. His brain was alert, but his body felt numb, so some kind of speedball was in effect. Alistair could only hope they'd gotten the dosage correct.

The gurney came to a stop. Alistair's breathing was as slow as he could make it. This was something Titans trained for, and he was the best at it, with virtually complete control over his bodily functions. All the same, corpses didn't breathe, and if anyone looked at the wrong moment, there wouldn’t be a whole lot he could do.

The man who’d called him “Bub” spoke first. “Off-world, Mars.”

“Approval orders?” The voice was stern, no-nonsense, and Control wouldn't have it any other way. Interstellar travel was constantly used by Subversives, and they often used interdimensional travel. They all had to start here in the third dimension. Thus, Control made sure only the most detailed-oriented Commonwealth servants were placed in positions to monitor it.

“Here,” the man who'd held the syringe said. Alistair knew he was handing over a DataTrack. It would have all the necessary approvals and orders to get them through—or it wouldn't, and all hell would break loose.

Seconds passed, and Alistair could feel the drugs' effects starting to wane. He wasn't worried about brain fog or anything of that nature, but rather, the pain in his legs. He remembered, or at least thought he did, them saying something about his lungs, that they weren't working anymore either. He didn't know about that, but he knew they had to quickly get him somewhere with solitude.

Even his mastery of his body wasn't going to be able to shove this kind of pain away.

He tried to think of his wife, to focus on her face, on her laugh. He tried to think of the way she smiled when she was teasing him, the little curvature of her lip as it pulled up. The way her eyes sparkled when she knew her wit was quicker, and he wouldn't be able to tease back fast enough to matter.

“Is there a problem?”

The question pulled Alistair from his thoughts. He thought Bub had asked it, but he wasn't sure.

“Problem?” the immigration agent responded, his voice sounding like he wasn't used to being challenged, but he was up to it all the same.

“Yeah, Bub, problem. I come and go through Immigration at least three times a year, sometimes more if I'm not going interplanetary. I've never seen anyone take this long over a simple body transfer, and from what I hear on the holosphere, there's a war zone downtown. So yeah, is there a problem? I need to get this body on ice before it starts smelling.”

The pain was growing, and Alistair's need for oxygen was increasing.

“If there's a problem,” the immigration agent said, “it sounds like it's your problem. You'll wait until I'm ready to let you go.”

Alistair's ability to think was fading, his body's need for morphoids and oxygen surpassing anything else.

“Let me see the body.” The immigration agent stood up.

One of the men sighed. “You've got to be kidding me.”

Alistair's heart rate didn't increase, nor did his breathing, but he didn't know how he was going to fake looking dead. Pallor, skin suppleness, and a dozen other things separated a dead body from a live person, none of which Alistair could manipulate.

Someone grabbed the corner of the blanket, and lifted. Alistair knew his naked body was visible to all. He kept his eyes closed, his breath held inside his chest, hoping against all odds that somehow he wouldn't be recognized. That somehow his damned face wasn’t plastered on every holowall in the city.

One of Alistair's men asked, “He look dead enough for ya?”

“Cover ‘im up,” the immigration agent instructed. “You're cleared.”

The blanket flipped back over Alistair's body and the gurney started moving again. The shot they gave him must have done something to his outer body as well as his inner, but he couldn’t consider that right now. Alistair waited for a few minutes, then whispered, “Need stim.”

“What you need,” someone answered from above, “is to not say another word. We're not out of the woods yet.”

Alistair's hand bore down on the metal beneath him to keep from screaming as the wreckage of his legs demanded to be heard.

More long minutes passed, then Alistair felt cold air wash over his body. The gurney stopped moving, the blanket was removed, and before he knew what was happening, someone new was stabbing a needle in his arm. Alistair gritted his teeth for a second and felt the soothing morphoid flood his system.

He looked up at a new man, who had a thick beard. “Thank you.”

The beard looked at the two men who had wheeled him here. “The AllMother has lost her damned mind.”

Alistair tried to keep his eyes open, but he couldn't. Really, that wasn't so bad because unconsciousness had become preferable to sleep.

_____

These men definitely have a point, if Odin had indeed killed as many of their comrades as he says, then why are they helping him at all. The AllMother must have something very interesting planned. The Great Insurrection Book 1: Warlord Born is available for pre-order now, and will be loaded to all devices on February 16, 2021. I know it's difficult to wait, but keep an eye out because another snippet is coming your way.