Jack nudged Torent. “You still think they will make you an officer?”
Torent held out a hand and pulled Jack off the deck. “You still think you’re too smart for the Marines?”
Jack fell silent as the officer came up to him. He struggled to stay on his feet as he saluted. Torent held him steady as the officer pinned a Fleet Marine stripe on his chest. He’d never wanted to be a soldier, but now he knew the only way out was either in a bodybag or by beating the Chitins. Next time he met them, he would be ready.
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading Recruit, the first book in the Jack Forge, Fleet Marine series. I am so excited you took the chance to read it and I really hope you liked it. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.
If you want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers, be sure to sign up our Science Fiction Newsletter. We have several fun things planned that will only be available to newsletter subscribers and can’t wait to share those with you too. To start with, you will get a free short story from the Niakrim War series. It tells the story of Cyrus Jones, one of the main characters in the series, and how he came to be part cyborg. All the information is on the next page.
I have also included a preview of Discovery which is the first book in the Niakrim War series. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
Get Discovery here: amazon.com/dp/B071NJBNH4
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Preview: Discovery
Space is so boring!
This was certainly not what Violet had expected space travel to be like. She had dreamed of this since the first time she looked up at the stars in the sky, but none of those dreams had included endless days of nothingness. The only excitement she had experienced during the first days of the journey was when an occasional piece of space debris penetrated the warp field forcing the pilot to take evasive action. Even those potentially deadly encounters were brushed aside, as if they were no more bothersome than a fly buzzing around the room, by the Krim Sprinter's legendary pilot, Cyrus Jones, who was as much machine as man.
The captain had assured her that the Krim Sprinter was the fastest ship in the fleet, which made it the fastest ship in the known universe, when he reluctantly brought her on board the week before. The problem with space travel was the incomprehensible distances between planets. Even at three hundred times the speed of light, the travel time to Proxima was listed as seven days. The captain had assured her that they would be there in five. When she asked what they would do on the Proxima outpost for two days while they waited for the rest of the crew to arrive, Captain Mitch Cooper had just smiled and walked away.
After four days of watching countless specks of light stream past in a blur, Violet wished her childhood dream had involved something less monotonous...like being an accountant. She was wondering if it was possible to actually die of boredom when the ship violently lurched, throwing her from her chair. She froze in the air momentarily as the warp drive was forcibly shut down, dropping the ship back into real time, before being slammed into the navigation console. Everything went black.
When she came to, the ship’s bridge was in total chaos. Warning sirens were going off. Red lights were flashing. Captain Cooper was rushing from station to station, assessing damage and muttering to himself. She had a pretty good idea of what he was saying.
"What the hell just happened, Cyrus?"
"We were hit by a photon torpedo, Captain," he answered calmly as he stared at the seemingly empty space in front of the ship.
"That's impossible!"
"Yet here we are."
Captain Cooper looked ready to explode. Instead, he took a calming breath as he ran both hands through his grey hair. "Did you drop us out of warp before we tore the ship apart?"
"Of course," Cyrus replied without taking his eyes off the still empty space in front of the ship. "Belzaire's not gonna be happy, though. There's no telling how much of the warp system we tore up shutting it down that quickly."
Violet had pulled herself to her feet and was using the navigation console to steady herself. "So what just happened?"
"Somehow, we were hit by a photon torpedo while traveling at warp three," the captain muttered.
"How is that possible?"
"It's not."
The captain raised his hand to head off further questions. "We'll talk later. Can you find your way to engineering?"
"I think so."
"Get down there and help Belzaire. There's bound to be damage of some sort."
She was leaving the bridge when Cyrus quietly said, "There's something out there, Captain."
"Where?"
"Right in front of us."
"What is it?"
"I don't know," Cyrus answered. "I can't see it."
"If you can't see anything, how the hell do know something's there?"
Cyrus just shrugged.
The captain pointed at Violet. "Get to engineering. Tell Belzaire to get that warp drive back online."
"I'll do what I can."
The last thing Violet heard as she headed to engineering with a renewed sense of urgency was Captain Cooper telling Cyrus to put everything they had into the shields. All their lives might depend on it.
As Violet rushed into the warp room, she was confronted with a scene straight out of her nightmares. Glowing green warp fluid squirted everywhere. Steam leaks sprouted like geysers. Blinking red and yellow beacons were the only discernible source of light. When a huge man with deep red skin and jet black hair rounded the corner screaming curses, she thought, just for a moment, that she had been transported to Hell and was facing the devil himself.
"What are you doing here?" the large, angry man growled through gritted teeth.
"I...I...I'm here to help," she managed. "Captain said to help you get the warp system back online."
"Oh," he said with a sudden smile. "Glad to have you. I'm Belzaire. Come with me. We've got a lot of work to do."
Belzaire turned and walked straight into the chaos, not even bothering to avoid the steam blasts or leaking warp fluid. Violet followed tentatively, doing her best to avoid both. When she caught up to him, he was in the process of sliding a very heavy looking cabinet to the side, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.
"What's in there?"
"Warp fluid," he replied nonchalantly.
Before Violet could ask why the warp fluid was stored behind a hidden trapdoor, Belzaire pulled the door open to reveal a deep chamber with hundreds of clear cylinders full of glowing green fluid. There was easily ten times the legal limit of warp fluid in there.
Belzaire answered her unasked question with a mischievous smile and started pulling out cylinders. "We lost almost two hundred liters before I got the system shut down," he said. "I'll fix the leaks while you refill the system."
"Two hundred liters is more than a ship this size needs for the entire system," Violet sputtered, finally coming to terms with what she was seeing. "Not to mention twice the legal limit of reserves allowed on a ship like this."
"I've made some modifications," was all he said while he continued to pull out more cylinders of the precious liquid.
When he had retrieved twenty-five cylinders, Belzaire stood up and looked at Violet, who was staring at him with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what was going on. "Now, look," he said firmly. "If the captain sent you down here to help, something is seriously wrong. We need to get this ship back up and running. You deserve an explanation, but now is not the time."