Alexander stood at the back of the bridge as Mingyu limped the still-crippled ship back to the refueling station. The reactor had come out of the attack miraculously unscathed. Power cables had to be rerouted through the corridors to return power to the rest of the ship, but that had been easy. T...
2024-08-21 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostA yellow light flashed on Alexander’s belt and he started wrapping up the work he was doing outside the ship. He knew things were going too well. Three days had gone by without so much as an alert from the other four. At least it wasn’t a red light.
He thought it might have been a fluke...
2024-08-20 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostNot one to sit by while others did the hard work, John joined in on the digging. By the time the sun was setting, they had covered an area of about a hundred feet to the east of town with randomly sized holes and pit traps. The torn-up nature of the area from the fighting had certainly made it ea...
2024-08-19 12:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Alex had told her she would be staying with Sarah for a month, Yulia was more apprehensive than happy. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her friends, she did. She was just worried about being away from Alex for so long.
Yulia had tried to convince him to let her come along, but he wou...
2024-08-19 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostSorry about the late chapter, got wrapped up with other stuff this week.
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Once they were far enough away, the three of them paused to take in the damage they had done. John would like to say ...
2024-08-16 23:31:19 +0000 UTC View Post“You sure you’re up for this?” Alexander asked the older woman.
Eva gave him a dirty look. “Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I’m senile. I’ve probably forgotten more about ship systems than you even know.”
Alexander held his hands up in a placating gesture. “It w...
2024-08-16 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post“As you can see from the model, this shows the optimal output for any specific configuration,” Lund pointed to the twisting hologram.
True to her word, the woman had returned a few days later with enough math to make Alexander’s head spin. It wasn’t until she converted it into the q...
2024-08-15 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter Damien left, Dr. Lund turned back toward Alexander. “That man doesn’t have much of a sense of humor does he?”
“I don’t believe so, no. So you were an activist at one time?” he asked, curious about the respected scientist's history.
She sighed. “More like I was a st...
2024-08-14 12:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post“Uh, Boss, I’m gonna need some help with these new arrivals,” the security man he sent down radioed in.
“I’ll be there shortly,” Damien grunted in reply. Before he left the security room, he grabbed one of the stun sticks. He thought about grabbing a pulse rifle from the rack bu...
2024-08-13 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostJohn jerked the ostrich to the left as an explosion of dirt appeared on his previous heading.
After their first attack, the three had repositioned to the next farm, but the mercenaries hadn’t taken the bait. They simply waited and gathered their forces with the intent to move forward as o...
2024-08-12 12:00:26 +0000 UTC View Post“Fight checks, ok,” Branston said over the radio.
It had been a few weeks since Alexander had met the man, and his speech had improved quite a bit since then. His ‘fight checks’ were the startup flight checks for the first converted shuttle.
Everything had been stripped out of...
2024-08-12 12:00:16 +0000 UTC View PostBy the time the whole unwanted visitor issue resolved itself, Alexander realized it was getting late. Not wanting to disappoint his daughter, he headed home to spend time with Yulia.
“Alex!” the girl greeted him excitedly, “Look what I made in class today!”
“Ooh! Wh...
2024-08-09 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Episilon’s Dawn jumped into the system known as Y6X-3H2, coasting at a relatively sedate pace of .1c. They were here to surveil the system, so there was no hurry. The trajectory they were on would take them just outside the orbit of the most distant satellite of the planet formerly known as...
2024-08-08 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostAlexander exited the facility and headed toward one of the shuttles. All of the intact ones had been moved to one landing pad, the closest one to his workshop. As he walked across the pad, he could hear the sounds of work in the distance. A large crew of workers were cutting up the scrap from the...
2024-08-07 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostLOCATION: EDEN’S END
SYSTEM: Y6X-3H2
DATE: 2399
“Alex, what color is the sky supposed to be?”
“Hmm?” Alexander paused his work to look over at Yulia who was sitting at a little table he made for her in his shop. “Why do you ask?”
“When I told S...
2024-08-06 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostA third pirate ship jumped into the system. Much like the previous two who had arrived a few hours earlier, it was venting atmosphere, but to a lesser degree.
The Epsilon’s Dawn watched all this through its passive scanners, the same as it had when the fifteen-strong pirate fleet had been...
2024-08-05 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostJohn hurried over to his ostrich but waited a minute for the chaos outside to die down and the mercenaries to split off after his two acquaintances. Once the sound of shouting got softer, he made his move.
As he tore out of the barn, he saw that not all of the men on foot had abandoned the ...
2024-08-02 23:51:16 +0000 UTC View PostIn the end, the implied threat was enough to make the man spill the beans. It disgusted Alexander that someone could be so cold and callous enough to sell someone out for what amounted to less money than it cost Alexander to rent his small shop space on Petrov station for a year, and a promise fr...
2024-08-02 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostYou'll notice this chapter numbering is off. After reading comments, both on here and RR, I decided to add in a Yulia chapter after chapter 40 to show how she is adjusting to life on Eden's End. On RR, this will just be chapter 41, but I didn't feel like going back and renumbering 20 chapters on ...
2024-08-01 22:24:48 +0000 UTC View PostAlexander had been notified of the arrival of the new ship. Due to their uplink to the satellites being offline, it wasn’t clear who they were until they started firing on the pirates in orbit. If it wasn’t for the facility's sensors, which were designed to monitor the local star, they may no...
2024-08-01 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe Talon was pushing as fast as possible back to Eden’s End. They had been halfway to Varlen when Matthews was woken up by a high-priority ship comm. He would have preferred a hostile attack to the actual issue they had woken him up for.
One of the techs responsible for reviewing Qcomm m...
2024-07-31 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostWhat's this? A new chapter on Tuesday! That's right. In celebration of completing Book 1, I will be posting 5 chapters this week. Enjoy!
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Arkonis ground his teeth in annoyance from inside ...
2024-07-30 12:00:15 +0000 UTC View Post“Alex!” Yulia shouted as she ran into his workshop in a panic.
He wasn’t there though. The place was as quiet as everywhere else. She had been heading home from classes when the lights went out. Then the voice on the speaker said there was a pirate attack. She knew she should have hea...
2024-07-29 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostJohn turned to look behind him as he heard wood creaking. Seline was hurrying over while crouched.
“You got a better angle on the walker.” She held out the gun she named Bertha. “Aim for the leg joint. If you hit it right, the thing will go down. And even if you don’t it’s going t...
2024-07-29 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostI heard your feedback and reworked the chapter a bit. The guns still get knocked offline, but now they manage to do something before that happens. As a bonus, the chapter is now almost 700 words longer. Give it another read and let me know if you like the changes better than the original.
2024-07-26 23:42:31 +0000 UTC View Post“It’ll be dark enough in a few more hours. Last time to change your mind.” John stepped up beside Sheriff Blackwood who was watching the forest from the roof of the saloon.
The man just snorted. “You’re as mad as our resident artificer if you think that’s happening.”
Joh...
2024-07-26 12:00:13 +0000 UTC View PostThe small two-man ship floated silently in the system, its passive sensors watching and waiting. Their little vessel stank after having to play scout for two weeks. It probably didn’t help that the individuals inside weren’t the most hygienic at the best of times. It wouldn’t improve anytim...
2024-07-26 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostI've seen a few people bring this up so figured I would ask. Would you rather have a Mon-Wed-Fri release or Mon-Tue-Wed?
2024-07-24 12:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post“It's that day already?” Alexander asked Matthews over the video conference.
“We have a few days yet. But we are going to begin pulling our people back to the ship. I just thought you could use the heads up.”
“Thanks for the notice. I wish you could stay longer, but I unders...
2024-07-24 12:00:14 +0000 UTC View PostThe next week went by rather quickly for Alexander. The station was starting to take shape with his new robotic drones being run through their initial tests.
He did have to make some design iterations and launch those replacement parts into orbit, but overall they were working out well. The...
2024-07-22 12:00:19 +0000 UTC View Post