PRI Snippet 3

 Sitrep:

Last one. I got the manuscript back yesterday afternoon so I will be publishing it later this morning!

 

 

Chapter 3

A page rushing into the room alerted Diedra and Eugene that something was amiss. The young girl bobbed a nod. "If it pleases your majesties, there is a radio call from a craft in the air." she pointed straight up.

"Trouble?" Eugene asked. The storm system that had been over New Willinham had found them.

"That is for you to judge. Please," the girl said beaconing to them.

"Another crash? I thought Max grounded the aircraft," Diedra said as she got up and followed them.

"Ah, tisn't an aircraft from here your majesty," the girl reported.

"A pirate aircraft? Able to radio so far inland?"

"No. Not from this world," the young girl said.

The adults glanced at each other in surprise and then stepped up the pace.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Diedra and Eugene cleared their schedules and were on hand to meet the Bootstrap visitors. Glowing Memes hovered overhead.

"Guess we should have checked the weather first," Jacklyn Smith quipped as she got out of the bird. The rain was making hissing sounds as it hit the hot shuttle. There were heat waves radiating off of it.

When she got to the base of the stairs she smiled in gratitude to a young man who held an umbrella over her head. "Thanks," she said.

"Let's get out of the rain," Eugene said as he waved to the trucks.

"Yeah, since I'm not a duck that's probably a good idea. Oh, I do have some cargo to unload."

"Gotcha. Do you want to stay and oversee that or...?"

Jacklynn shook her head and waved for her copilot to look and then pointed to the engineers and techs with forklifts. She got a thumbs up in reply.

Once in the truck they sighed in relief.

"So...?" Eugene asked.

"I'm not delaying I promise. Just getting my legs," Jacklynn said. "Good news bad news routine I'm afraid."

He blinked and then his eyes narrowed in speculation.

"You know that we had to get permissions for the craft right?"

He grimaced but nodded.

"Mitch got the permission from Lockheed because they thought he was nuts and he was offering money. But now they are sticky. And there are government permissions too," she warned.

Eugene sighed. "Figures."

He had run a multi-billion dollar company. He knew beaurcacy was not fun to navigate.

"We thought about the A400M Atlas but it too is tied up in red tape. And it takes twice as long to build. Better craft except for a few things."

"Ah?"

"Twice the range and altitude, twice the weight lifting ability, but... well, anyway, it is a nonstarter too."

"Damn," Eugene grimaced.

"Then there is the tail," Jacklynn said. She shook her head. "It is chicken little there," she warned.

Eugene frowned. "Tail?"

"The asteroid was stopped from hitting earth but it had a massive trail of debris. A tail like a comet," she stated.

Eugene stiffened.

She nodded, cold sober. "They think that most of it will burn up in the atmosphere. They are wrong."

Diedra sensed Eugene's distress. She put a hand on his arm.

"Nothing that can be done?" Eugene asked.

Jacklynn shook her head. "It will be bad. Oh, Earth will survive but..." she made a hopeless gesture.

"When?"

"In two months. We are launching another shuttle around that time. If it gets too bad we'll focus on you folks for the time being."

"You can't..." He frowned and shook his head angrily. "Sorry. Stupid to think a shuttle with what, a hundred ton capacity could bring in enough to help people. Drop in the bucket."

"Oh we will try," Jacklynn said. He blinked. "We'd appreciate help too." He nodded. "There is an old saying. To paraphrase, an old man was walking along a beach after a bad storm. He saw a child picking up and tossing starfish and animals back into the sea."

"The old man looked at he child and asked why, it wouldn't make any difference."

The child replied that it would make a difference for that one, as he tossed a starfish back into the sea."

Eugene nodded. Don't get overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster that you give up, help those that you can help. "Makes sense," he murmured.

"The Memes won't let us build you weapons so... we came up with a compromise," Jacklynn said as they headed to the hangar.

"And that is?" Diedra asked mildly as they pulled into a hangar.

"We provide you with the engines, avionics, and critical parts you can't make yourself. I brought along enough for one bird actually," the pilot stated.

Eugene blinked.

Jacklynn smirked. "There was nothing said about resale. Besides, we've gone through the design and reworked it a couple of times. The engines are almost totally different than the Rolls Royce originals."

"Ah."

"The same for the frame design. We used an organic structural engineering CAD program to redesign a lot of the parts. The thing is stronger, faster, lighter, and better."

Eugene nodded thoughtfully. "Good to know."

Jacklynn handed over a flash chip.

He smiled and pocketed it.

"To answer some of your other requests, we also brought some of our medical technology and the latest in advances on Bootstrap and on Earth."

Eugene smiled. Diedra did as well.

"The Memes won't let us bring people to our world but we can bring a medical team here to train your people and help with some sticky cases," Jacklynn stated. "Besides, from what I understand transporting them would be dicy. I don't want to loose a patient."

Eugene nodded. That made sense given that the shuttle took off like a jet and probably hit a few G's on the way up and down.

"How is Mitch?" Diedra asked.

Jacklynn's face fell. She looked down at her hands for a moment. "He'll never be the same as he was. He's quiet. But he's there. He can talk a little. I think we hover over him too much. I'm pretty sure he chafes but knows it is for his own good."

Eugene nodded. The poisoning that had happened to Mitch Chambers had acted like a stroke. He had limited speech ability. The memes had saved him but he had been changed.

Jacklynn dashed a tear. Sorry, I just hate to see a great guy brought low like that."

"No need to apologize. "We feel the same way," Diedra said as she rested her hand on her husband's. He smiled and used his thumb to stroke her hand gently.

Jacklynn saw the move and smiled.

"So, to recap, we can't get birds or the design from Earth but we can get you parts we redesigned and made. And we can help with other things. Sorry..."

"It is a step in the right direction," Eugene said. He glanced at his wife. She nodded.

"I was hoping you'd say that. We can bring over one shuttle a month to six weeks with a load," Jacklynn stated. "Sorry, but I want to keep at least 4 engines on hand in reserve for our fleet. We have a production line going though."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Eugene stated as they got out of the truck. "That makes perfect sense."

"Thanks."

"Anything else we can do?"

"Well, we need intel. I know the memes won't help but can you deploy satellites? For... communication, weather, and terrain mapping?" Eugene asked ingeneously.

Jacklynn looked up to the rainy sky outside to a Meme and then back to him. "I think we can arrange that," she said with a cheeky grin.

He smiled back.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

PRI 5 Snippet 2

 

Chapter 2

 

Charlie walked down the streets to see some of the families of the other gaijin out and about. She waved to some familiar faces.

Their small community was in a gated part of the city. They had guards to keep trouble at bay. It was a nice home and she liked how it was. The kids were having fun playing and she smiled as she went to the small park.

She was surprised to see Caroline there. The woman was having a discussion with her cousins Rich and Eleanor who were dressed in their Sunday best. They finally broke up and left. The chemist sat under the tree in the shade and began reading her book. She planned to go in later in the day, she was just feeling like she needed a bit of time off for the moment to recharge.

Caroline wandered over and sat down. She watched her kids playing with nerf guns.

"Thanks for those," she said. "Though it is... violent?" she said wrinkling her nose.

"A bit. A part of our nature. Competitive," Charlie said as she looked up briefly from her book. The kids were using the playground as an obstacle course. "Is that what that discussion was about?"

Caroline grimaced. "That and well... religion and faith."

"Ah?" Charlie grimaced. She wasn't much into faith. She occasionally attended the mormon church on holidays but otherwise had better things to do with her time.

"This place... it isn't at all like we thought it would be," Caroline said with a sniff.

Charlie realized she wasn't going to get much reading done and adjusted her bookmark. She could give the other woman the cold shoulder but decided to take the plunge. "How so? Didn't your brother warn you about the medieval side?"

"Yeah. That's what we were counting on."

"We? Oh... wait, all of you?"

"Well..." she shrugged. "Shaggy and It came for the opportunity to start over. I guess we all did. But when we heard it was medieval, we thought it would be... more... religious?"

"Ah," Charlie said as she switched to sitting Indian style. "Most of their ancestors predate medieval times. Some go back a long way. Others are sprinkled in from different time periods."

Caroline nodded. "Gaijin."

"Right. Outsiders from various points on Earth. Valued for their fresh genetic material and new perspective. Especially technology."

Caroline frowned. "We noticed the complete lack of... christianity," she said.

Charlie nodded. "Most of these folks took root before that. The Romans came over before Christianity was a thing." Caroline blinked in surprise. "They did adopt some of the tech and roles over time though, or their own equivalents."

"The lords and monarchy?"

Charlie nodded. "Right. Swords, mounts, that sort of thing. A lot of what we use to describe something and equate to medieval evolved here or was adopted by their ancestors at some point."

"But not religion?"

"Their ancestors brought their own. At one point there were a dozen or so religions," Charlie stated to her. She waved a hand.

The woman blinked.

"Different languages, beliefs... it is a wonder that they didn't kill each other. But they didn't. Well, mostly."

"Why?"

"Because at some point they realized that survival was more important."

Caroline blinked and then her eyes narrowed.

"Think about it. Is it worth sacrificing a goat to what was most likely an uncaring god or gods plural who had sent you to an alien world or have that goat for food during the long winter? It is hard to justify throwing food away in a sacrifice and see long faces of your children starving later."

She winced.

Secondly, why build a temple when you need a roof over your own head? A roof over the heads of your livestock? Just trying to eek out a living here is rough."

Caroline grimaced. She hadn't been out to the farms but she had heard stories.

"Third, from what we pieced together there were few if any ministers or priests or whatever that came over. Many were just simple people. Peasants, farmers, a Roman unit, merchants, and of course fisherman. They were the working people."

"Oh."

Caroline took on a thoughtful look. "That... makes a sort of sense."

Charlie nodded. She had a feeling that the conversation had been rigged by Rich and Eleanor. She didn't say so though.

"So, somewhere along the way they all agreed to just do their own thing. Some do. I understand a few still have ancient figures or altars in some of the oldest homes. But all agreed to leave everyone alone. There are temples for public worship, but they are small and more for public celebrations than anything else. They blended in many concepts along the way, though Greek Roman still has top billing."

Caroline blinked. "I think it was probably the first freedom of religion expression made." The chemist shrugged. "I wish all people and governments were like that. You do you, I'll do me, and leave it be," she said firmly, emphasizing the latter.

Caroline looked quiet but then shrugged.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

PRI 5 Knowledge is Power Snippet 1

 Sitrep: So, I'm watching videos on self-publishing on Youtube... mainly about other companies like IngramSpark. 

Anyway, I got into Hailuo AI again and did some short videos of the covers. Oh, and I finished Upsilon Front 2 Pyrrhic Victory, its cover, and even the AI video for it.

I'll upload the video for KIP sometime hopefully this week.

On to the snippet!

Chapter 1

 

Imperium Capital

 

Eugene and Diedra came in to the morning briefing. At the top of the list was the confirmation of the plane crash in Duluth. Eugene sighed. "Damn."

"I know. Four people?"

"Five including the pilot."

Diedra shook her head. "Do they know the cause?"

"Several factors," Eugene said as he scanned the report. He knew overweight would be a major contributing factor right off the top. The crash brought back all sorts of bad memories for him.

"Max is not going to be happy," Diedra stated. "Ginger either."

"Yeah," Eugene agreed.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Max heard the news when he came in to the office. He had planned to get into the C-130 design again but instead he found himself fuming as he read the news. When he heard that the craft had been overloaded his temper reached new heights.

He immediately ordered the air fleet to be grounded to check for issues. The techs at the airport called back within the hour a bit chagrined, they had found some cracks in the oldest aircraft which justified the grounding.

He ordered everything to be checked with dye and a UV or black light. They had already changed out the engines before, now they checked both the spars and engines. Some engines had been replaced over time when cracks formed and caused leaks or failures, now they were finding many older engines with cracks in their blocks. Granted hairline cracks, but cracks that would eventually open up over time.

Metallurgy was clearly still an issue, Max realized. He sent an emial to talk to Wanda about it.

"Check our existing inventory again. Go through every engine block and spar before you ship it. I want to know if anything is getting past quality control."

Ctesibus nodded. Cecily did as well.

"What about the spars and overloading?"

"That can be cumulative. They start small from overloading. That can be because of weight or because of heavy winds. Either way we need to talk to Ginger and her pilots about the problem," he stated. "Get on the replacements now. We'll clear out our inventory in no time I bet. But get on that now and I'll deal with the fall out."

The others nodded and took off.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Julius went over another proposal to modify 2 PBY's since they couldn't figure the Hercules out. One would serve as a tanker, the other as a reciever and the actual air lift craft. The tanker, maybe more than 1 would go out and refuel in the ocean by a ship. Then it would deploy in the path of the air lift craft with the paratrooper commando team.

They would have to refuel in the air, something that they hadn't tried yet. Then they would have to fly over the pirate continent, do the mission on high out of reach,  and then come back.

Dropping the commandos at night? He was leery about that. They had no intel on terrain, no intel on the ground. There was no means to resupply, communicate, or extract. The team at best would be 8 soldiers against thousands.

No, that plan was a nonstarter. They needed better options.

He was trying to pick at the problem when he got word about the conflict off the coast and then the crash and Duluth... followed by the grounding by Max.

"Shit," he muttered, copying Sergeant Waters. "It never rains but it pours sometimes," he said, using the gaijin's saying.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

The reaction to the grounding came swift. Eugene and Diedra left the command center and the beleagured radio operators to find out what was going on with Max.

They found him with his staff in his office. He was clearly not happy.

Diedra frowned. "Hey Max, what is going on? We need those craft..."

"Crashed on the ground?" Max demanded as he shot Eugene a sour look. The other engineers winced.

"Not quite what I had in mind..."

"Then let me do my job," Max snarled. He sounded seriously pissed.

Eugene's eyes widened and he put his hands up. Diedra blinked. It wasn't often that they saw the engineer angry.

"Look Max, I'm sorry I'm coming off...."

"Whiny," Max growled. "I don't care. One crash is one too many."

Eugene nodded. Max was right about that. "Which we attributed to overloading, pilot error, and high winds."

"Yeah, and that's on the pilots. But the overloading cracks the wing spars. Do that often enough and bad things happen. I'd rather not have a wing suddenly crumple or fall off in flight."

Eugene winced.

"We're doing dye checks on spars, all structural supports, and the engines. Period. Fucking. Dot," Max said pointedly. "And a check of the hardware. I just found out that some idiots were reusing bolts."

Diedra blinked. "I thought that was fine?"

"No. Some bolts yes, but not all. Some are torqued to a specific spec and they are one use," Max explained.

The queen frowned in confusion.

"The bolts stretch in the holes. If you try to reuse them they won't fit right and they can snap under load," Ctesibus explained. "If you over torque them they can snap too."

The queen nodded.

Max knew she was just nodding along so he searched his desk and came up with 2 bolts. "Same bolt," he said. He held them up.

Eugene took them and examined them."First is stock. They both came like that straight out of the factory. The second is used," Max explained.

Eugene showed Diedra the length difference. She suddenly nodded in understanding.

"The good news is that they can take the old bolts and recycle them," Eugene stated.

"Yes," Ctesibus stated with a nod. "But we still have to have new bolts on hand to replace them."

"The other issue is cracks as I said. Which is a pain, which is why we only checked during the ninety day mandatory down time. But even that wasn't getting done right!" Max said as he threw his hands up in the air.

"To be fair, if they tore the engine and plane completely apart it would be down for several hafta and we'd have to send replacement bolts and parts," Ctesibus warned.

"Don't care," Max growled. He turned to his visitors. "We use a UV dye. You paint it on, then wipe it off. Then you hit it with a UV light. It sticks in the cracks and they florecese and show up."

"Eugene nodded. Diedra blinked.

"That is how we do quality control in the factories and in long term maintenance. But some people don't want to do it right. They hit areas where they can without doing a tear down, or skip areas that are hard to get at."

"Which leads to areas that are being missed," Eugene interpreted with a sigh. "Okay Max, you win."

"Thank you."

Eugene started to open his mouth. "Don't ask how long," Max growled as he held up an index finger. "Because I don't know."

Eugene closed his mouth and nodded.

"We're starting with the oldest birds. I'm ordering a mandatory engine tear down and check. Just be glad we haven't gotten into turbo props or jet engines yet."

Eugene winced but then nodded again.

Once they were outside Diedra looked at Eugene. "I know that the last two are harder, he's told that to us often enough in meetings. And I saw the models. But what else is wrong with them?"

"They have stronger thrust and can do more so pilots tend to abuse them more. Which means that they can wear faster. If the pilot does any high G, that is high gravity turns, it can put extra stress on a frame."

She nodded as her errant imagination envisioned an aircraft coming apart in the air. Damn the gaijin movies! "I think I'll stay on the ground for a while," she said with a slight shudder.

Eugene snorted and tucked her under one arm as they headed for their truck. "Me too," he said as he rubbed her shoulder.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Eugene and Diedra got back to the castle in time to recieve word back about the encounter with Ginger off the coast.

"The hits keep coming," Eugene muttered. "The time stamp is off," Eugene said as he looked at the message. He looked at the aides in the room. "Someone want to explain?"

"We recieved word but it was garbled. We wanted confirmation and details," Julius reported from the doorway.

Eugene and Diedra turned to him. He bowed and came into the room. "My apologies your highness," he said to the queen. "I was on hand to recieve the message and asked for the details as you left to visit with Max."

Diedra nodded. "No harm then. I take it all parties are okay?"

"Yes ma'am."

She scanned the document and her face went from impassive to angry. Eugene could tell because of some of the color. "They can't be serious! Give up the seas?"

"Yes ma'am. An empty threat. They have to know that we have the technical advantage."

"First they force down one of our aircraft, then hold it hostage, then raid our ally, then threaten our coasts, now this?"

"That's the thing with bullies," Eugene said thoughtfully. The others turned to him. "They will keep pushing to see what they can get away with. We haven't pushed back other than the strike on their ship earlier. They may not even know we did that."

Diedra frowned. "So, what do we do?"

"We find a way to make it clear that we are not going to be bullied. Then we find a way to get our people back. The problem is, timing and how," Eugene stated.

Julius nodded in grim agreement.

---+--+-{0}-+--+---

Infection has published!

 Book 99! I just got the emails back from Amazon and B&N confirming it is live.

Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons and his New Federation have been tested before but not like this. Pirates? Beaten and running on all fronts. Taurens? They surrendered and are now working as allies. Tauren insurrectionists? Beaten again, hostages freed.

But a new/old nightmare has come out of the shadows. Two horrors have combined into a terrifying new threat. An alliance made in the depths of darkness has spread across two neighboring sectors and is now working its way into the Federation. The Federation must fight off this Infection before it is too late to stop it…

 

Amazon: Infection

 

B&N: Infection