Happy Holidays!

 Happy Holidays everyone!

Regeneration

 Sitrep:

Fortunes of War still has problems so I went with the launch of Bootstrap Colony 3 Regeneration.

  A bit of bitter irony, Regeneration has a lot of medical science in it. Something my late friend Julie could have used. We received word this morning that she passed away this morning after her fourth (or fifth or sixth) bout with cancer. She was a fun woman, an avid science fiction reader and fan. I'll miss her laugh and talking with her about this Weber or McCaffrey book or that author or movie or whatever. And I will miss her raiding my library to get caught up. :)

Rest in Peace Julie.

 

 

Less than a year has passed since the fateful events of the autumn conference. Some people have recovered from their injuries, some may never recover. Colonel Dunn and one of his conspirators were exiled but others escaped justice and fled. Now it is up to a determined group of people to see that they get justice.

Cassie O'Connell has been hell bent on justice for her losses since she woke. Her body was maimed in the terrible crime. Once she has a taste of vengeance and justice can she put it behind her and rise to a new challenge? Can she push science to the limit and beyond in order to heal more than herself?

Mitch Chambers and the rest of the community do what they can to support her but they are being pulled in many other directions as well. As the human communities continue to pull together new challenges and old await!

 

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPB7LZPH

B&N:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/regeneration-chris-hechtl/1142807740?ean=2940185649503

BSC 3 Snippet 2

 I have but a moment...

Still in chapter 1:

Tropical Village

 

Tariq Powell moved with the others as they harvested the wheat. She paused to wipe sweat from her brow. This was their third harvest, the last before summer ended. They needed the wheat if they were to survive the winter.

The problem was that they had to harvest by hand. Her right hand flexed around the sickle. She looked to the field and sighed; they still had a half acre to go before they needed to quit for the night. Another two days of work if the weather held and they’d be done.

She looked back to the bundles behind her. She had stood them up in cones for the next person in line to come and pick them up. They only had so many hands so they were ranging well ahead of the pickup team.

She grimaced bitterly. Had the bastard white man helped them as he’d done earlier, things would have been different. She shook her head. So, they’d shorted him! So what! He’d had plenty; yet, he’d insisted on indebting them! Like they were slaves!

She didn’t blame the late Trinika for what she’d done. What was done was done. The bastards hadn’t forgiven them though, which had hurt. It had hurt worse when that purple fruit had come into their hands.

She shook her head as she wiped at her face with a handkerchief. It was old and worn, but she had no replacements. And that she could lay at the bastard white man too. He had blacklisted them for not paying him back and other communities had done the same for fear of his reprisals.

Well, she’d tried to pay him back for his indifference to their plight when the plant had killed her son and others. It had failed though. Her lower lip quivered. She didn’t regret her part in it. So, the rest of the world hated them and despised them? Ignored them? So be it. She was from the Caribbean; she was used to being ignored and mistreated.

She sniffed. Sure, they had played nice to the tourists that came with their money. Purely because they came with their money. But that was all for show. She shook her head and turned as the wind picked up. The heavy stalks of the wheat moved. She needed to get busy before she lost them.

Her left hand reached up to touch the sun and then put her fingers under it as if to measure its distance to the ground.

The good news was that since they had far fewer mouths to feed they’d planted less. But it still needed to be brought in, threshed, and then ground. All by hand. She grimaced at the thought of the promised equipment el Jefe, the colonel had promised. Now that was just ashes, another broken white man promise.

She heard a rustle and turned in the direction of the rows of crops that led to the distant tree line. She knew that they had been told not to plant so close to the trees because their shade would make the plants grow less. Well, they’d been right but her people had needed the room.

Now though … her hand tightened on her sickle, wondering what it was. She opened her mouth to yell something, usually a loud noise was enough to drive something off and get the attention of the guards. But then something sweet covered her mouth and nose as hard things pinned her arms. She inhaled to shriek but that was a mistake. The smell made her body instantly relax against her will.

She slumped, and her hand let the sickle slip from her nerveless fingers as she crumpled.

Hard hands made certain she was out with an injection before bundling her up and taking her off into the rows of wheat and then into the tree line beyond.

Behind them footprints of raptors were left behind to confuse those that would search for her long enough for them to get away.

----=^=^=@

New Falkland Island

 

“Package 1 acquired,” a voice said over the encrypted radio channel. Encryption wasn’t really required; they had a direct satellite link.

“Roger that,” Akira replied. He’d taken over the radio as Cassie had other concerns at the moment. He switched frequencies. “Package 1 acquired. You are a go Blue Team.”

Two clicks acknowledged him. He nodded, made a notation and then sent the go order to the Hercules.

----=^=^=@

Bootstrap Colony 3 Regenesis Snippet

 Sitrep: So, a number of factors have delayed the launch of Fortunes of War. Honestly, it's out of my hands. I am trying to get it sorted now. That is just 1 frustrating thing among many others going on. Sigh.

But, in the meantime, Goodlifeguide did send BSC3 Regenesis back early. I checked, the manuscript is hopefully bug free. I can switch gears and launch that. I had planned for it to be published this month anyway, so, let's roll.

One snippet (maybe two) and then we'll look into the launch tomorrow afternoon or so.

Chapter 1

 

Base

 

Jolie Havana monitored the video feeds from the drones. Pete was supposed to spell her for his shift soon, but she was pretty intent on the feed. She glanced at the screen on the side.

Each time a person looked up, she made a screen grab. She then zoomed in, drew a box around the face and then dumped it into their database.

They had a growing database of people in the Tropical Village and Dunn’s Fortress for comparison purposes. But the two that they wanted were hard to track. The AI within the computer compared the images to others to compile the database. It also applied facial recognition profiles and searched for two specific women, one in each village. The computer beeped, and she turned expecting a false hit.

She looked and a smile blossomed at the image of the Jamaican woman. The match came from the series of images from her visits to the Base. A 3D model had been constructed, and the computer had verified the dimensions within 4 percent of error.

“Gotcha,” she murmured.  “Well hello, Tariq,” she said maliciously as she turned and tapped at the computer. Within a moment, the image and location had been uploaded to the satellite and then to the Falklands. From there others would take things to their natural conclusion.

Hopefully she thought as she picked up a cup of tea and sipped it gently as she cradled the mug.

----=^=^=@

New Falkland Island

 

“So, she is alive,” Cassie O'Connell said coldly as she stared at the file Jolie had just transmitted. “I thought so. So much for the Tropics punishing her,” she said with an arctic chill in her voice.

“We already knew that when they refused to confirm her death,” a familiar voice said over her shoulder. She looked over to Klinger and then away.

Half of the military people were in on this dual operation or Op as they called it. It had taken all summer to organize it. That had given Cassie time to recover from her surgery.

She didn’t blame her mother for what had to have been done in order to save her life. No, she blamed others like the woman that was currently on her tablet screen—her and another.

They, Colonel Dunn, and Bob Newart had conspired to kill Mitch Chambers, the leader of the Base, as well as infest other people to cover their tracks. It was a heinous crime. She, her late fiancé Vance, and two teenage friends, Tish and Jayden, had inadvertently wandered into the line of fire. Vance, Tish, and Jayden had paid the price.

Mitch had gotten off lightly. He had only taken a sip of the alien concoction while the teens had taken turns guzzling it. Cassie’s fetus and many of her internal organs had been riddled by the parasites and eaten alive. Her mother had performed a brutal savage cut and burn surgery to save her life.

She had lost a lot and was horribly maimed. At the moment, the only reason alive was what kept her going, a desire for justice and revenge. She couldn’t get her love or her child or her body back. But she could and would make sure those who had committed the crimes would pay for it.

“For this to work, we’ve got to hit them within twelve hours of each other,” Gunny Usher stated.

She turned and nodded to him. Gunny Usher was one of the leaders of Crash Town in the southeast. He and Gunny Hodges of the Mountain Village were some of the Marines in the team.

“I’m taking the bitch. We’ll hit her during the harvest. With luck we’ll pull out before they notice she’s gone.”

“Right,” Klinger said with a nod. “We’ve got a truck ready.”

“Yeah. Is the chief ready for his part?”

“Yes. Gunny Hodges is ready too,” Akira Tanaka stated with a nod.

The chief and gunny had placed themselves well outside Dunn’s fortress with two support team members. They were monitoring the drone feed and the coming and goings from the fortress to map it thoroughly. They had already scouted a way in, though it was going to be tough weighed down with their gear.

Tougher still was the part where they had to get in undetected without killing anyone. Getting out was tricky. The primary plan seemed insane but was easier than trying to extract overland.

“The plan?” Cassie asked.

Akira looked to Gunny Usher, but the gunny nodded and let Cassie take the lead.

“A go. Both of them.”

A part of their delay had been rigging the Hercules to play its part and to get the airfields set up. At the moment, only three airfields on the planet could support the L-100 Hercules, one of which was right there. Warrant Brown and Jacklynn were slated to pilot the bird for the mission.

Once the modifications to the bird had been finished, they’d done a series of rehearsals to make sure the tech functioned as planned. Only an idiot believed it worked first thing like in the movies, so they’d planned for a bit of slack and even a backup extraction.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be necessary. Where they were going, it was considered deep Injun territory. The enemy would no doubt roust like a hornet’s nest and come after them. The last thing anyone needed was to be driving in the bush with predators at night while people with guns were chasing them.

“No surprise that Doctor Pierre didn’t mention she was alive, just changed the subject,” Akira said with a sniff. Cassie nodded as her hating eyes bore into the woman’s image. They’d meet in person … hopefully soon.

“Let’s do this,” she said simply.

----=^=^=@