After a lot of work and effort book three Cause of Death is now available for preorder at the discounted price of $2.99! After launch on 3/30 the price will revert to $4.99. This is a fast paced more action-oriented tale than Monster of the Dark and The Rogue Wolf. I hope you enjoy it! First chapter included below:
Chapter 1
Another Day in the Office
Here, surrounded by nothing, the cold penetrated all. Time stood still until there was just this singular moment. Only a glance at the clock in front of her told otherwise. The dark, lonely nothingness warped and clouded everywhere else she looked. This was her life for longer than she could remember. Her only company, the only thing that let her know she still existed, were the small pinpoints of light all around her—and, of course, Red.
“I’m telling you, Winter, they’re not going to show.”
Winter smiled as she flexed her fingers and rubbed them together. Their starfighter was a nice, dim hunk of metal floating freely in space. Almost every system, major or minor, had been shut down to lower their signature on any passive sensor scan. Unfortunately, that also included the life support systems. The air was getting mighty stale, but what was more of a bother was the temperature. An ice cube would have felt warm in her hand.
“Perhaps,” she remarked casually. “Doubt it, though.”
“They aren’t that stupid. We can’t get them again, same tactics, same place.”
She smiled for a second time. “As I said, perhaps. We’ll know in…one minute,” she added, glancing at the clock. “Frankly, they better. I don’t want to be out here flying picket and freezing my ass off for nothing.”
“Bet?”
Winter thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “Unless you got a heater stuffed in your flight suit, there is nothing you can give me that I want.” The fighter pilot let out an annoyed huff. “I’m pretty sure my eyelashes have icicles now.”
Red laughed, which made Winter purse her lips, but she said nothing else. He was seated behind her, and she could only imagine his face.
“Traveler One-One, Cerberus, thirty seconds, comms check,” spoke a soft voice on their fighter’s communicator.
So it’s Leena this time, Winter thought. The Griffin’s operations officer, Ensign Leena Swanson, always had a calm, soft voice no matter the situation. Her words just had way of knifing through maelstroms to soothe racing pulses. Most in the squadron had come to appreciate it.
“Cerberus, Traveler One-One, four by five,” Red responded. “Anyway, they’re not going to show,” he teased, turning his attention back to Winter.
“Well, when you work by algorithms and efficiency, it does make you predicable. You call it stupid, but it’s smart in a way.”
“Uh huh.” She well knew her backseater was rolling his eyes. She grinned as she thought of the expression she saw far too often. “We’re too far away anyway. It will be hard to pick them up at half a light year,” he continued.
“Ten seconds,” Leena remarked.
Winter glanced at the clock before she spoke. “I think you’ll appreciate the separation if they do show. Baby and TR escaped with about half their Screamer,” she remarked, referring to their Banshee starfighter by the name most pilots called it.
Half a Screamer was a bit of an exaggeration. She’d heard the phrase, ‘A wing and a prayer,’ but even merciful angels would have ejected from that ship. It was barely worth saving as scrap.
Red must have been considering what she said, as he didn’t respond immediately. “No doubt about that,” he eventually muttered.
Winter barely heard him. She was fully focused on the clock now. All things considered, and despite the monumental waste of time it would be, she’d rather freeze here for nothing than suffer some other less pleasant alternatives. Five, four, three, she counted down in her head as she stared at the clock. The expected time till intercept came and then went, but there was nothing. Her gaze went to where the Eternal fleet would be dispelling their Ghost Drives. She had no hope of ever seeing anything with the naked eye at the expected range, but the reflex couldn’t be helped.
“Good thing I didn’t bet.”
“No shit,” Red responded. “Cerberus, Traveler One-One, negative contact. I say again, negative contact.”
“Traveler One-One, copy negative contact, cleared RTB,” Leena said back.
Winter sighed softly as she flexed her fingers once more. At least she’d be able to get warm soon. “All right, let’s get out of here. Plot a course. I’ll start powering systems.”
There was no response from Red; not at first. “Winter!”
“What?” she asked, annoyed that he was practically screaming at her.
“Winter! Winter!” he said, his voice so rushed that it was cracking.
“What? What is it?”
“Multiple contacts all around us. Closest contact is just eight light seconds away!”
She turned on her helmet-mounted display and looked rapidly in every direction. The enemy didn’t drop out of light speed half a light year away as expected but right on top of them.
“Do they detect us?”
“Not that I can tell,” Red answered.
“Phone it in.”
He nodded, though she’d never be able to see it. “Cerberus, Traveler One-One, enemy contact, datalink established, confirm,” he said hurriedly.
“Easy, Red.” She spoke softly, though admittedly her breath came short. “We’ve still got a job to do. Focus on that.” But she couldn’t fault him for his nerves.
She was the Hustlers’ CO, a veteran from the beginning of the first Terran-Sorten War from the very first battle. There were few pilots who weren’t either retired or dead who could say they’d seen more combat than Winter had, but now even her hands were tingling, and it had nothing to do with the cold.
The two of them waited for several more seconds, but Leena gave no response. Winter swallowed hard. “Are we being jammed?” she asked. If so, that wrinkle would ruin the entire plan.
Red opened his mouth to speak and then cursed softly. Winter raised a confused eyebrow as she turned her head toward him. He continued muttering to himself.
“No,” he finally said. “It’s just… Damn it, I’ll leave that on.”
“Red?”
“Cerberus, Traveler One-One, enemy contact, datalink established, confirm,” he repeated, ignoring her. At least his words were crisp and professional this time.
She considered what just happened and felt a wry smirk come to her freezing lips when the only possible explanation dawned on her. He had forgotten to hit the transmit button.
“Traveler One-One, Cerberus, confirm,” came Leena’s steady, calm reply. “Wow, great tracks. Hold position. All Hammers inbound, enjoy the fireworks. Twenty-two seconds.”
Well, there’s a reason for the great tracks, Winter thought, but neither she nor Red said anything. She could hear his breath quicken. It made her realize that hers also worked to keep up with her thudding chest. Her mouth was dry, and she swallowed hard.
Just then, there were small pinpoints of lights all around them. They were brighter than the stars and had an odd bluish-white ethereal glow. They grew ever brighter as the missiles streaked to their targets. In time, long thin beams of light streaked out to meet them from where she knew the Eternal fleet was. Everywhere she looked, all around them, the light show grew and grew in intensity until it came to its inevitable climatic end. The first explosion turned their fighter’s cockpit canopy almost completely opaque. She still had to squint her eyes. On and on the explosions came until she felt like she was in the center of the sun.
“Winter, they’ve begun active scanning. Several smaller contacts inbound…fighters.”
“They’ve made us. All systems on, let’s get out of here,” she said quickly but without stress. She could almost feel the abrasive certainty of the noose tightening around their necks, but hysterics never helped.
There was, however, a voice that could be calmer than hers no matter the situation. “Traveler One-One, please hold position for battle damage assessment,” Leena said, seemingly unaware of the enormity of the request.
“BDA?” Red shouted in disbelief. “Are they fucking crazy?”
“Traveler One-One, Cerberus, I didn’t copy your last. Say again,” Leena said.
Red muttered curses under his breath again while Winter smirked once more. When he forgot to transmit, he must have turned on his VOX to avoid making the same mistake. Politeness aside, Leena had heard him five by five.
“They really want to get us killed this time,” Red continued, but only after double-checking that it was a private conversation.
“No more than any other day,” Winter said with a shrug. “Time till intercept?”
“Fifteen seconds.”
“Time till full power?”
“Full power…now. But we won’t have weapons for about a minute.”
Winter groaned loudly. At least the cockpit was getting warmer. In any case, not only were they flying alone, but also, other than their six laser cannons, they were unarmed. Nine times out of ten, it was better to be lighter for a quick escape. The tenth time? Well, those usually made great stories at the bar, if you survived to tell the tale.
“Cerberus is outbound at this time. Rendezvous at alpha three. Good luck.”
Red muttered more curses under his breath; Winter ignored him. Now was a perfect time for the Griffin to get away. The carnage of the attack, which was rapidly dissipating, disrupted long range sensors, allowing a brief window for the starship to power her Ghost Drive without being tracked by whatever was left of the Eternal fleet.
The more immediate, however, came to the fore. Their pursing fighters opened fire. The energy rushed toward them like an impossibly fast missile, but at this range, maneuver was still an effective defense. Her IF/A-1000F Banshee was operated with a fly-by-thought flight control system. In an instant, they were burning on an evasive course that sped them to safety—at least for the next second or so.
“Still want to take that bet?” she teased.
“Fuck you, Winter,” Red snapped. “They’re firing again.”
She took a deep breath and, a fraction of a second later, they reversed their vector. The violence of the turn would have crushed her into putty and turn her sleek starfighter into a pile of disheveled junk, but the inertial inhibitor trimmed the force out to no more than an annoying weight on her chest.
Winter took the briefest of instants to glance at her sensor display and was quick to see the Eternals closing on them in an ever-tightening net. The machines weren’t capable of vengeance, as far as she knew. Perhaps a lone starfighter wasn’t even worth the trouble. But algorithms and efficiency were quite predicable. When you encounter the enemy, you kill them.
“Get us a hole, a weak spot, anything. We don’t have much time!” she shouted.
Then she threw the fighter in an erratic weave while Red cursed continuously behind her. Several shots now burned uncomfortably close. She worked the problem herself, glancing everywhere with her helmet display, but there was no immediately apparent solution.
“I think I got it. Two fighters slightly apart from the main group,” he said.
“Where?”
“Designated Master One and Two.”
Winter glanced at the relevant pair and accelerated her fighter toward them at full power. The Banshee’s twin matter-antimatter annihilation engines spooled to their second stage, and it was like an explosion. Her vision grayed as the inertial inhibitor struggled to keep up with all the acceleration forces. White-hot plasma belched behind the fighter for hundreds of miles. Their opposition fired at them, and her counter with a small change in vector almost blacked the two of them out.
“Winter, shoot list is up,” he said. But nothing happened. It was only maybe a half-second or so, but it seemed like an hour. One of the enemy’s shots even burned their shields down to a critical level. “What’s the matter? Shoot ‘em!”
“We don’t have lasers yet.”
“Shoot ‘em!” Red yelled again, before he heard her response.
“We don’t have lasers yet!” she repeated, yelling over him. “Give me a missile lock.”
“Winter, we don’t have missiles either,” he pointed out.
“They don’t know that.”
Her words made his hands fly over his console. Backseaters made due without a fly-by-thought system. The response was immediate when it was done. “They’re turning cold.”
“Charging Ghost Drive,” she announced as she put the fighter through another series of violent vector changes.
All throughout, an ethereal light built all around them. Their acceleration slowed from engine power feeding the system. At the last moment, Winter pointed the fighter on its proper course. Then, all at once, there was nothing. No fighters and not even any stars—nothing other than black all around them. Winter breathed easy.
“You did record all that for their precious BDA, right?” she asked after a sigh. Red said nothing. “Right?”
“Aw… Shit, I’m sorry. With everything going on, I forgot.” Winter leaned forward and then turned, trying her best to see him. He smiled at her. “I got it all, don’t worry.”
“Fuck you, Red,” Winter said as she turned to face forward again.
“Hope it makes them happy, Fleet officers.”
“Either way, the result’s the same,” she replied.
“What’s that?”
“We do it again tomorrow.”