Multiverse 6 Book 80 has published!

 Yup, Book 80! EIGHTY!!! Wow. I still remember when I wrote my first 2 books and told people I had 3 more planned and they were tripping out. Now, 80 in, with 4 more completed and in the hands of the betas... mind blowing.

Anyway, as I said, Multiverse 6 dropped.

About: 5 science fiction short stories, 1 in the PRI/Bootstrap universe, 1 in the Roo collective, and 2 in the Wandering Engineer/Federation universe. And one of those introduces Ember!

 

 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH1LG2WZ

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1144013744?ean=2940186005858&hConversionEventId=AQEAAZQF2gAmdjYwMDAwMDE4YS00YjQ0LTVkYWYtYzI5Ny01MDQzNGI1YzQyMTDaACRkMDJkNDc5Yi00YjZmLTRiNWItMDAwMC0wMjFlZjNhMGJjYzfaACRhNGM2N2QzZi0yM2U3LTRhNjUtOGUxMS05M2FkOWQ4MWVlMzKOr3aNPERQLmxO87zTAtPtemS7iTDuh7T0xAEi-nJsMQ

MV 6 Snippet 5

 Last one.

This one I saved for last. It is in the Engineering Universe and well, introduces someone new to the mix.

A New Addition to the Family

Antigua, Capital of the Federation

 

The air car was a 911 sports model, red with a black interior. It was about twenty years old and drew the eyes of everyone around it. The pilot, Daryl Strucker was a kid fresh out of high school and training to be an air mechanic. He had been told to take the air car out for a spin about two kilometers out and then back.

He had taken it out and monitored the computer hooked up to the air car computer. When nothing showed up in the diagnostics, he decided to open it up and have a little fun. Obviously, the owner thought the knocking sound was something important but it was probably jitters Or something that had been sucked into the intake and then blown out.

He was thrown back into his seat as the jet turbines spooled up to their maximum power. He let out a gasp of thrill and hung on for dear life.

What he failed to appreciate was the sudden kick as a fitting let go and one engine on the passenger side went offline. The computer didn’t compensate in time and the sudden loss in lift made the airframe roll.

Inverted he scrambled to right the craft but he was less than two hundred meters off the ground, far too low to be pulling stunts like a full afterburner run. The air car had lost lift and the inverted frame actually changed its aerodynamics to send it hurtling into the ground.

Right into the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Daryl managed to scream and yank back on the stick in an attempt to correct.

It was the wrong move. The air car skipped off the pavement on the road, through a fence and then right through the living room window at 2294 Palm Olive Drive.

The crash and hydrogen fire killed the pilot and the family who had just gone down for a nap.

Firefighters arrived on the scene within minutes. A pump truck managed to stay aloft and dump it’s foam onto the fire before it was forced to land and switch to the fire hydrant and straight water.

The foam had done its job though, smothering the fire and depriving it of oxygen. The rest was beaten down by the drenching of water.

Rescue personnel had suited up and busted into the home. They were appalled to see half melted toys and a couple of plastic highchairs. They went room to room and found the body of the mother cat under a blanket. There were no signs of life initially.

When they heard a mew, they turned back and looked. Hands pulled the body aside to find three kittens: two male, one female. The female was alive and scared.

The kitten was carried out to an ambulance. They put her on oxygen as the police officer and supervisor taped off the area and dealt with the media and neighbors. A full investigation would begin right away.

A sad looking social worker arrived. She had read the file on the ride in and found the kitten with the paramedic. “That was fast,” the paramedic said.

“I’m about to go on vacation,” she said. “I was actually on my way home when I got the call. The boss said someone else will follow up.”

“Oh.”

“So, this is Ember?” the woman said as she examined the terrified kitten. The kitten hunched up in a defensive ball.

“Ember? That’s … ironic?” the paramedic said.

“Why?” the woman asked. “What’s wrong with the name Ember?”

The paramedic pointed a free hand back to the house.

The social worker looked past the fire truck to the still smoldering house. “Oh,” she said simply.

===#===

MV 6 Snippet 4

 Sitrep: So, I finished the cover to the Roo Collective:

That book is a collection of the 3 stories with the ending of the saga. It is currently a one off, though I toyed with ideas to expand it. Who knows what the future might hold? After all, Bootstrap Colony and PRI were both supposed to be 1 offs...

Anyway, on to the snippet!

The following is in the aforementioned PRI/Bootstrap universe. It actually takes place during the last PRI book.

A Pirate's Life

Captain Ahmad used the spyglass to check the rigging of the prey ship carefully in order to gauge their intentions and course of travel. Not much had changed from his last inspection.

The ship was Caliopean. It was slow; his ship was lighter and faster.

His lips curved in a smile at that. They’d eat well tonight, he thought. If the other managed to try to avoid him, perhaps in the night or in the early morning. The longer they made him wait, the more they’d suffer later.

His professional eye turned to his black sails. They were taut. The winds were right; he would overhaul the prey soon enough.

He put the spyglass carefully away in the well-oiled, leather-lined wooden case. He closed the lid and latched it shut.

~~~\^/~~~

 

Off the coast of Argos

 

Ginger Lewis wasn't quite bored with her assignment with the Coast Guard. She had served as the instructor for the two pilots and had certified them qualified to fly the bird. She was just on hand to enjoy some stick time since one of the pilots had overindulged the evening before.

Below, the endless sea was there, sparkling occasionally in the sun. The further out from the coast they went the less traffic they saw. She did pick up on the current; you could tell the difference by the color change in the water. There was also a section that had to be some sort of thermal break, though she wasn't certain.

They hadn't brought any science geeks who studied the seas. That was probably a good thing considering some of the things she'd seen. Like the alien Plesiosaurs that had been using their long necks to grab pterosaurs out of the air or seals off the beach or whatever was in the depths that snacked on them.

She hoped fervently that the bird she was in never went in for a water landing.

The bird was a modified DC-3 variant colored in white and red markings. It had sensors all over it to get information about the weather. There were extra antenna and radios in order to send signals out. They could also boost signals from ships. A long line from their rudder to an antenna behind the cockpit windows was a large antenna.

The bird also had gear to drop to ships in distress and of course protection against lightening. Its ice and cold weather gear was crude though, so they knew that they were going to be restricted on the amount of flying they did in the winter and in inclement weather.

Ginger was taking notes. She had a lot of recommendations for the Coast Guard and their next budget submission. They were due a budget at least equal to this year's thanks to the lobbying of the sea communities. She knew another bird was planned, but there were people who wanted a heavy lift long-range chopper.

She had her doubts about that coming through so she was hoping they'd settle on making improvements to what they had and expanding with lighthouses and buoys and such.

“Ship,” a voice said over the VOX, making her blink. She oriented on the voice. “Clipper,” the voice said. It was the cargo master.

“Which side?” she demanded as she keyed her mike.

“Ah, left, I mean  …”

“Got it,” she said as she banked slightly and picked up the shape of a clipper. “Two ships,” she corrected. One ship was smaller and chasing the first. It had black sails.

She spiraled the bird around them in an orbit as they picked out details.

“The point ship is flying the colors of the Grand Duchy of Caliope,” her copilot said after some study with the binoculars.

“Document it?” she asked.

He grimaced but then fumbled the crude camera Max had sent along to try to zoom in and get a shot of the ship for their records.

“I think the trailer is a pirate,” the cargo master Ducky said. She called him Ducky because he had a name that started with a D and he was cute when he blushed.

“It's not one of ours, and it's not from Medicini,” the copilot said. He started to bumble around noisily. Ginger took her eyes off the ships to see her copilot digging out a small book from the small drawer between their seats. It was on the back of the throttle controls.

He flipped through it and then looked through the binoculars and then at the book. He checked a few things.

“Get some pics,” Ginger reminded him.

He grimaced but did so.

“Not Medicini. It's not Duluth either. I don't know who they are.”

“They aren't friendly,” the cargo master said. “Both ships have all of their sails out, even a couple of extra from the look of things. But the black ship is steadily gaining ground. The sailors on the Caliopean ship don't look happy.”

“Crap. Take the bird,” Ginger said.

Her copilot took his yoke. “I have the bird,” he said shaking it. She felt the shake and let go. She reached over and took the book and binoculars off his lap and used them to study the ships.

“Nope, not happy. Are they waving at us?” she asked.

“I guess so,” Ducky replied.

She tried to fumble the binoculars in front of the camera to add an extra lens to them but it came out blurry. She grimaced and gave up on that idea.

“What do we do?”

“We don't have a weapon on this tub other than the flare guns,” Ducky complained.

“If we'd set her up as a gunship, then our range would have been a quarter what it is,” Ginger stated.

“Okay, so, what do we do?” Ducky asked. “Sit and watch?”

She thought about it and then smirked. “I don't think so.” She put the binoculars and other items in the drawer and then took the controls. “My bird.”

“Your bird,” the copilot echoed formally.

“Ducky, strap in. We're going to have a little fun,” Ginger said.

“I know that voice,” Ducky said dubiously. Ginger giggled as she tipped the plane in a hard bank and lost altitude as she spiraled down.

“You are insane!” her copilot said, gripping the oh-shit bar and side of his seat as she dipped down and buzzed the pirate ship. Ginger snorted.

She banked away and then did it again a moment later, this time going a little lower.

“Keep an eye on the altimeter and the fuel,” She ordered.

“Two hundred meters, fifty-five,” he stated instantly.

She buzzed the ship again from a different angle, even lower and the wind from their travel hit the sails and threw the ship off course and nearly capsized her.

The Caliopean ship got away as the pirate pulled their sails in and drifted rocking.

“You're welcome,” Ginger said, waving to the Caliopean ship as they waved up to her.

She turned to look at her copilot. “Well! That was fun!”

He gaped at her and then chuckled.

The aircraft spiraled away and then she remembered to report the incident over the radio.

~~~\^/~~~

Captain Ahmad was frightened by the encounter but also furious. He glared in the direction of the departing flying thing. He had just barely managed to reef his sails in order to keep from capsizing. He got his ship back under way and then went below to his cabin to draw and write what he had seen while it was still fresh.

The crew kept a low profile for some time afterward, not willing to set him off and feel the lash of his tongue or his quirt.

~~~\^/~~~

MV6 Snippet 3

 Sitrep: So, I have a naughty rambunctious hellion on my hands. She is getting into stuff she isn't supposed to, loves to destroy paper products, toilet papered my bedroom this morning (again), and also ripped my nose open trying to jump me while I was walking down the hall. (she can really leap!) 

She was trying to tackle us this morning. (We're over 6 foot kitty, not gonna happen!) I got her back by scarring her so she wanted revenge. She ran across the living room as I was going down the hall, leapt over the couch and was I guess aiming for my shoulder but I turned and she got my nose and chest instead. Lucky me.

So, yeah, we have our hands full. She just turned 6 months. I'm shuddering to think of what she is going to be like at Christmas! If you hear me whimper it's probably because she knocked the tree over one too many times. sigh. 

I finished the Roo book so I'm waist deep in the cover art for it.

Anyway, on to the snippet!

The Stray

Premise: This is the first story (there is a second in MV 7) of a new side group that may or may not play a role in Expanding Horizon. (whenever I get around to writing it!)

Endor XXIII, Beta Sector

 

Chief Petty Officer Joe Thompson finished shutting the systems down in the shuttle and then checked on the others as he climbed out of the pilot seat. Ben had already abandoned the copilot seat to get busy with overwatch. He had to squeeze past PO Sia Clarkson as she finished gearing up. She had been helping him with shutting the bird down and setting up the satellite relay. They only had a few more minutes in the window before they needed to be on the move.

PO Randy Guetta had already wrestled the camouflage net out of the bird through the rear hatch. Joe grabbed his bag and gear and checked his weapons before holstering his pistol and putting his vest on. He finished gearing up silently, checked with a bounce to be sure nothing jingled and then went out to lend a hand.

The tigress was already outside helping Randy pull lines to get the camouflage nets over the bird. The bird had a smart skin to help camouflage it but it wasn’t enough. The nets helped to break up the shape. The engines and landing spot were cooling; in another hour it would be down to ambient.

Well, not quite. The nets helped to bring the reflective heat from the bird down a bit too but it wasn’t quite perfect.

He was tempted to burn the time to add some tree limbs and brush over the bird but held off. They needed to get going. They had a tight window to get to the port.

The more he thought about it the more he thought the mission was a fool’s errand. They were supposed to do a snoop and poop, just get to the outskirts of the port and then snoop around. Try to access any data remotely, plant some bugs, gather intel, and then back to the ship if they didn’t pick up anything of value intelligence wise.

He had already nixed Randy’s idea of hitting the bars. Endor had only the one space port and the forest moon wasn’t heavily populated. No doubt the locals knew each other. The pirate cruiser about to make port in orbit may or may not be a known regular customer.

Either way their boss First Lieutenant Jordan Peal had nixed going into the port and being seen. This was just a basic recon, nothing more.

Their team had been assigned to look for a way to get into pirate ports as well as monitor their space traffic. He had a single fire team with him; the rest of the squad were on their Meridian class Prowler running the ship with their AI and the boss.

Jordan was ambitious; she hoped to be the one to get her hands on a complete Horathian navigational database from a ship. That was their ultimate goal, to find the pirate’s “El Dorado” and cut off the head, their so called “Pirate Empress.”

So far, no such luck though. Which was why they’d been dispatched to the border of Sigma Sector and Beta to try looking for clues in that direction.

What they had found was that the pirates had been fleeing in that direction. Sigma, Beta, and Alpha sectors were wastelands. The Xeno war had gutted the three sectors worse than any other. That meant stops like this one, on a habitable moon, was highly prized. There were few places a ship could go to get provisions and fuel.

Technically they had pushed their orders. The LT thought of it as using his initiative to try to find the damn base and put an end to them once and for all. The team backed the play but they were a long way away from support.

He wordlessly shouldered his rifle with the sling and then grabbed a line that Randy tossed over the nose of the bird. He walked the line back to a tree and tied a rock to the end. He whirled it a few times and then tossed it over a branch and then the rock dropped down. He untied the rock and then yanked on the rope. The net was pulled over the bird and his end was in the air above to help give the shame more of a natural texture.

It was something that SEALs trained for, to be out on their own running missions in enemy territory. But it was still a new experience for some people. If a pirate ship came around, they could only run. If the team was on the moon, they’d have to go to ground and hide until the prowler could come back for them.

There was a pirate ship coming he reminded himself. That was why they’d pushed the mission. The LT wanted them to get in and then out. But it was turning out to be easier said than done.

Obviously, they couldn’t land their shuttle at the port without being noticed. That meant they’d had to come down like a meteor and land in a clearing in the otherwise dense forest a hundred kilometers out from the spaceport.

He tied the line off and then looked around. The trees were massive, towering-like skyscrapers. They were covered with moss. The ground had ferns and overgrowth.

There were stands of various tree species. The big boys were truly massive though, over ten meters in diameter at the base. The moon’s light gravity allowed the trees to grow big and tall. Obviously, no one had been interested in doing any wood cutting for some time.

Either that or they just lacked the tools to do the job, he thought absently as he unslung his rifle and nodded to Randy.

The other human nodded back and examined the area. The tigress triggered the hatch to close and continued to work on covering the tire tracks from their landing.

Joe had put the bird down in the clearing but he’d then gotten the bird under as much cover near the edge of the clearing as possible. That way it wouldn’t stick out. He’d managed to get the shuttle’s nose almost completely under cover.

The Tigress hand signed a question about moving out. He held up a fist to wait and then scanned the area as he got his bearings. There was no need to report in; he’d already done that upon landing with a burst transmission.

His implants allowed him to identify magnetic north as well as the direction of the spaceport and the nearest town. There was a trail road connecting the two. They would have to travel on the trail for some point in order to pick up speed and stay on mission.

Randy scanned for PO Ben Sully in futility before ruefully giving up. The chief could have told him it would have been a wasted effort. Ben was damn good at hiding.

The team had read the ansible dispatches many times from across the sector before they’d gone on the hunt in the jump line up into Beta sector. They knew they were years out of date though. The last reports were that an old SEAL team had been found in Pi sector and that Admiral Horatio Logan had taken command of that sector. He was building a Stargate there and another was under construction in Sigma and a third in Tau. Supposedly there were matching gates under construction in some secret site in Rho to connect them all.

Second Fleet was still puttering around in the core of Sigma Sector, locking it down and trying to run the damn pirate battle moon’s location down. Admiral Montgomery was their nominal boss in ONI for the sector. He’d dispatched them on a long-term mission. For all they knew, they might have found it by now and they were on a fool’s errand.

Then again, the enemy had taken a lot of precautions to protect the location of that base. So, it might still be hiding somewhere.

This then was on them. Everyone else was making their mark on the growing Federation and the return to civilization in the galaxy. This was on them then.

He hand signed to the team and pointed. Randy grunted as the tigress took point. Randy took rear guard since he was the biggest and had the most gear. The chief took the center spot and they moved out.

Ben would catch up and cover them from the flank as he usually did.

As they moved, their gear began to adapt and change to the colors of the forest around them. Their implants began to alter their personal smells to blend in. Occasionally one of them would pick a piece of moss or fern and add it to their gear in passing.

===#===

MV 6 Snippet 2

 Sitrep: So, Goodlifeguide got back to me. They will hopefully get the manuscript back to me in 7-10 days. So expect it to drop sometime the week of the 21-26. 

Guardianship:

Preface: Guardianship is an odd what if story. No it doesn't have anything to do with the Boostrap universe.

Polar Bear Encounters took a full bus out to the best place to find the most bears in the shortest amount of time.

The best place turned out to be the town dump just outside of town and downwind of it. It was dangerous for people to bring trash there. The bears roamed the area more and more since the ice had melted. They were in search of an easy meal.

The tourists traveled in a tall bus with giant monster tires. The monster truck allowed them to pick through the spring mud and keep the majestic predators at a safe viewing distance.

They pulled up near midmorning and watched the bears tear into the dump. The guide threw out rancid meat for the animals to eat in order to attract them for better viewing.

Cameras flashed as people took pictures. Some gasped as the bears stood on their hind legs and leaned against the side of the bus to try to get at the humans.

There were nervous chuckles as the guide and driver assured them that they were perfectly safe. “Just don’t do anything stupid, people. Keep calm, treat it like a memorable moment. Take your photos while you can but don’t reach out of the vehicle.”

“Keep your hands inside the vehicle or you’ll lose them?” one tourist quipped.

“Something very much like that, yes. Though they might hang on and haul you out in one piece,” the driver said dryly.

Suddenly the animals were just gone.

“Where did they go?” one woman asked.

“I know they can blend into the snow but  …,” her husband said as he looked around. It was late spring and most of the snow was gone. “What happened? Did we scare them off?”

The driver looked to the guide. Both looked confused. The guide took his ballcap off and scratched his scalp. “You know, that’s a damn good question.”

===#===

Tanya Baker, a junior zookeeper in the primate care facility, was nursing baby Nasha in a rocker. The orangutan baby had been abandoned by her first-time mother Tisha.

The small eyes and tufts of red fur were endearing. It had taken a lot of time to get the baby on a schedule. She was finally putting on weight. They had an orangutan doll for her to cling to when she was sleeping. But first she had to get the little tyke down. Nasha was fighting that impulse though and so Tanya was resigned to being stuck with her for a longer period than before.

At least she was nursing and not hyper and wanting to play. That would come in time when the baby was older and less clingy.

She wanted to rig a sling to carry the infant around with her but she had to clean the cages next. That would mean a lot of moving and bending, something that wasn’t good to do with a four-kilogram baby hanging from her front.

She wanted to close her eyes but held off. She’d been teased by some of the other staff about it already once. Pretending to sleep on the job sometimes got the infants to sleep but not always. Usually the full belly and the motion of the rocker would lull them into a nap.

Just as if on cue Nasha yawned and released the nipple. She wiped her mouth on Tanya’s shirt and then her eyelids drooped.

Tanya gave her a smile behind her mask. They were wearing masks to prevent any contamination to the apes. She saw the baby’s eyelids droop further and felt her cross her mental fingers that this time it would take.

Just then there was a gasp down the hall. She looked up and then heard a cry of alarm. Then Nasha was gone.

She looked down in shock as the weight was just gone from her arms.

“What just happened?” she demanded, voice rising in alarm.

“What? What happened?” Doctor Khalid Shaen asked as he came into the room. “Where is Nasha?”

Tanya’s eyes were wide. “She was in my arms and then she wasn’t!” she said bewildered as other staff came and reported that the other primates had disappeared.

Radio calls went out to the head of the department and to security.

===#===

Doctor Sean Jamba hugged his coat to his body as he watched the inevitable. It was chilly, the whales had led the Japanese vessel on a chase. The environmentalists in the nearby boats had been forced off the chase to refuel. That would be tough in the rough seas.

Obviously, the hunters were taking advantage of the lack of defenders to strike. He watched a deckhand uncover a harpoon on the catwalk attached to the bow of the ship. He loaded it and began to aim.

He saw the harpoon go out and then just drop into the ocean. He thought it odd, but then he saw the whale breach. He imagined screams. He knew those monitoring the hydrophones were probably cringing.

But then there were no more spouts of breath. He frowned and then thought the animals had dived. He leaned over and checked the fish finder.

The deck hand on the nearby ship looked confused as well. A winch reeled in the harpoon line. It was slack so it came up fast. Everyone was surprised to see it come up empty.

“Where did they go?” the captain asked. “I mean, they didn’t dive, they just disappeared! We saw cavitation on the sensors and then nothing.”

“Really?” the doctor asked in confusion.

The captain nodded.

The doctor came into the ship’s bridge to see the recording for himself.

===#===

Dolphins that had been rounded up in a cove off the coast of Taji Japan suddenly disappeared as if in a wave just as the sun crested the horizon in a brilliant dawn spectacle. The hunters who had been waiting for the police to chase off the film crew of environmentalists were angry. Initially they thought sabotage but a check of the nets found no holes in it.

Boat teams went out again to round up another pod but no dolphins were found in the area.

===#===