Full Court Press plus snippet 1!

   So, I am sticky, dealing with the humidity and sudden wind and rain from the hurricane turned tropical storm. I'm happy, I love rain. It beats the bloody 100+ we've had going for 2 weeks!

Ugh.

  Anyway, I just shot Shelby 7 off to Goodlifeguide. I sorta sat on it after Rea sent it to me a week or 2 ago. I've been wrapped up with getting into Bootstrap 3. I just finished the first act of that and shot it off to Paul to proofread. :)

So, here is the cover to Shelby 7:

There is a video on Youtube too FYI. I think:

   Just something fun I threw together. I doubt I'll do anything for FOW or BSC 3 at this time. (It is too hot to render anyway)

Speaking of FOW, or Fortunes of War:

There is that cover for future reference.

Now, on to the snippet!

Chapter 1

 

New Tau Metropolis

 

Commodore Brad Gomez stared at the plot as the exercise terminated. He didn't like the responses. The damn scenario was scary.

They had always known that if the enemy avoided the fixed defenses they would be in for a world of hurt. Their fleets couldn't go toe to toe easily. They did on occasion get the job done, but it was costly.

The enemy's actions were trending in that direction too. His lips pursed in a thin line. The Taurens were anything but stupid. They were bypassing the fixed defenses like the book dictated. It just drove home the point that you couldn't put all your trust in fixed defenses or in the stupidity of your enemy. Underestimate them at your own peril he thought as a long-ago academy instructor had said.

The battles moving forward were going to be more fluid. Rill obviously wasn't interested in playing tag. He was also alarmingly moving fast, far faster than they'd predicted. He had advanced across the west in what had to be blistering speed for the Taurens.

What had changed? The enemy knew that Broken Tooth had been sandbagged and delayed for some time. Was that it? A concern over his failures and a desire to rectify their timetable? They might be afraid of a response fleet arriving from the Federation, but he wasn't certain that was it. Or, it wasn't the only reason.

He had to wonder if they had other concerns. Like the events going on next door.

His eyes drifted to the sector plot. They found the capital near the bottom center and then drifted slightly up and to the right to Tortuga's icon.

Well, Rill should be stalled or stopped in 63 once he ran into TF 3.5 and the Fourth Fleet regulars there. He frowned and made another note to check on the status of the paperwork. The Admiralty was considering turning the detached Third Fleet task forces over to Fourth Fleet permanently. It would be nice to get that transfer tidied up … though it would make for some interesting budget and chain-of-command discussions in the future.

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Commander Otto Valkova received the email from Commodore Gomez and scanned it. He was technically intercepting it for his boss as her chief of staff. The vice admiral was taking a rare day off, and he wanted her to enjoy it as much as possible. Interruptions like the latest results from the strategic exercises could wait a day he judged.

He scanned them and nodded. He snorted at the recommendations that came from the hotwash. Commodore Gomez wanted more ships—no surprise there. No commander was ever satisfied with what they had; they were greedy and always wanted more. The trick was to find the right balance between perfect and good enough he knew.

He checked the status of the sim and nodded. Fifty percent losses, acceptable, but it was just a sim. He knew deep down that it was appalling to see that carnage in real life, but he also knew it was a sim—just a computer game. They had managed to stop Broken Tooth with less after all.

He frowned and then shook his head. He was curious as to how the other department heads would react to the missive. Probably dismiss it since they couldn't push their departments any more than they already were at this point.

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He wrapped his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides and her hands under her chin. That strength was humbling, crushing any nagging resistance she had harbored. Slowly he began to kiss up and down the right side of her neck. Her eyes closed as she felt her body begin to respond to his advances.

His hands were like living things though, gently beginning to undress her and do naughty things as they stroked and caressed ever lower …

Shelby paused the book and fanned herself with the tablet. She felt unseasonably warm and she knew why. She felt the flush in her cheeks and elsewhere. It had been a while since she'd felt that flush. It reminded her that some parts of her were still very human.

She snorted softly to herself as the fanning slowed and came to a halt. She was what, 60 percent human? Give or take a percentage point. She wasn't nearly as bad as Admiral Irons was with replacement limbs and his entire internal organs replaced with artificial ones.

She always wondered if that was one thing that was inhibiting her. That or just being a flag officer. It wasn't like she could just go to a dating site and sign up, even now. Discrete ones … she shivered; the heat forgotten. No, she could least afford the embarrassment some of the tabloids would drum up.

Rachel Trejo over at Knox News might understand her desire to connect to another person but she had to report to her boss. Pete still had a hair across his ass over the whole April O'Neill affair.

Her lips pursed and then her mouth opened. She looked around the room and then stared at the virtual window. It was normally set to space, but at the moment, it was showing a screen saver of a beach.

Well, who could have done that I wonder? she thought in bemusement as her eyes searched her HUD. She had to look at a shadow area to see the full HUD. Her HUD was at minimum settings since she was off duty.

Her toes flexed. She was in her silk jammies, feeling a bit relaxed. She didn't see her partner's icon initially. When she did narrow her eyes and find it she snorted.

Boni's avatar was a 2D comical one. It was asleep, eyes closed, leaning up against the trash can on her HUD. Tiny Z's floated from her mouth above her head. Her tiny hands were resting in her lap.

She snorted to herself and then rolled over away from the image on the wall. After a moment, she rolled back to watch the waves crash and the palm trees sway. Okay, it sort of fit the book. The E-book was one of those ancient trashy romance novels she'd picked up for the trip out to Tau. It had grabbed her attention because it was a forbidden fruit sort of story. The story of a wet navy officer in the early twenty-first century who met a Marine noncom and fell for him. They'd started out innocently but then continued when they'd found out the truth.

She knew she would never do something like that but the naughty sneak-around part had hooked her. And okay, well, the book was rated as a scorcher on the romantic heat meter. She believed that part of it readily enough.

Her eyes fell to the tablet and then her fingertip hit the play button, and she began to read once more.

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