So I'm uploading my first short story to Amazon on friday (assuming I finish editing in time, but I only have a few pages left so it should be fine). It's come quite a long way with plot and wording and hopefully speelingand grammar.
I'm not allowed to post it up here in it's entirety as I'm going to let Amazon call it a Kindle exclusive so I get slightly more for it, btu I am going to put up a sample. It's the same sample I put up before but edited and re-written to be a part of our future not Galledar's.
I hope to put it up on Kindle for about £0.99/$1.50 It's about 100 kindle pages (at default font size) should be awesome. Anyone who reas this I urge you to be awesome and buy it.
Anyway, here's the sample:
“The elf known as Draegon waits as he listens to the
hacked com-frequency of the enemy security personnel. He kneels atop the
building and listens for the right moment, when the enemy says the words ‘all
clear’. Aiming down the scope of his rifle, a smirk slides across his features;
he hears it. The enemy indicates to him that they’re vulnerable, that they’re
relaxed and he pulls the trigger, sending the sniper rifle’s bullet soaring
straight down at the target. It hits him right between the-” Dylan narrated.
“Wait,” Wren said. Raising a hand to his elven role
playing friend. “Roll a dee-ten on whichever’s higher; Dex or Luck.”
“What? Come on, it’s a gun, not a sword. It doesn’t
take skill to use, it’s got targeting systems,” Dylan argued, waving a hand at
his elf hit-man character sheet as it floated above the holo-projector.
Wren raised an eyebrow. “This is set in the
twentieth century, or the technological equivalent of Earth’s twentieth
century. They didn’t have targeting systems for rifles back then. Just like
they didn’t have laser pistols or commercial space travel. Your character looks
down the scope - which really isn’t anything more than a zoom lens – and fires
when he thinks that the bullet will hit the target.”
“Ugh…” Dylan groaned. “Fine.” He pressed a finger to
the dice menu on his holo-display and dragged down to the ten sided die. He
released and a short animation of a rolled die appeared, landing on a one. “Aw
crap. Eight on Luck”
“Ok, you fire the gun and it misses the Orc
president, hitting the elven president next to him….” Wren reached for his own
holo-display and rolled a dee-six. It came up as a two. “In the arm.”
“Dammit,” Dylan cursed again.
“At least you didn’t kill him,” Magnus, the youngest
of their group, consoled him as he sat forward to get a good look at the pieces
on the table. “Okay,” he said, looking up at Wren behind his Quest Master
divider. “I look around and see if there are any security bots-”
“No security bots, not invented,” the fourth member
of their group, Charlie, reminded his friend.
“Right.” Magnus nodded, looking around the table’s
figures. “Sorry.”
“Didn’t we already cut off their coms anyway? How
would they call in backup?” Charlie asked.
“There could be things already in the area.” Magnus
shrugged. “We only cut long range communication, their personal coms- er-
‘Walkie-talkies’ still work.”
Charlie shrugged, admitting his ignorance. “Try
helicopters,” he offered in recompense. He turned to Wren. “Am I saying that
right?”
“Yeah.” Wren agreed. “You want to look for
helicopters?” He asked Magnus. The youngster nodded. “Ok, roll a dee-ten on
perception.”
Magnus rolled his holo-dice and it came up as a
nine. He looked up at his Dwarf investigator’s character sheet and read out his
perception total. “Sixteen,” he said.
“Ok, cool. You don’t see any helicopters, they’re
not allowed in the area because they were considered a security hazed, what
with the Orc and Elven presidents appearing at the same time. You do, however,
see a security sniper on the opposite building.”
“Why didn’t we see him before?” Dylan asked,
frowning.
“You didn’t look.” Wren shrugged. “He’s looking
around for the shooter and turning to look in your direction.”
“I use a cloaking spell to cover all three of us,”
Charlie said quickly, reaching for his dee-ten. “Rolling against intelligence…”
he looked up for confirmation that it was ok. Wren nodded and Charlie let the
dee-ten roll. “Five,” he announced, scrolling through his human wizard’s
character sheet. “Plus my seven; twelve.”
“Okay, the shield goes up over you, but it doesn’t
extend to the others,” Wren described.
“If we stand behind him what happens?” Dylan asked.
“They see through him and see you,” Wren responded.
Dylan frowned and looked down at the map.
“Is the sniper’s building higher than ours?” Magnus
asked. “How far away is he?”
Wren smiled. “Marginally higher and pretty far.”
“Okay, I lay down by the lip of the building, where
he can’t see me.” Dylan said.
“Me as well,” Magnus added.
“Ok, roll against either; Dex, Int, Perception or
Luck.”
“Dee-ten?” Dylan asked. Wren nodded. The two of them
rolled dee-tens and both came up as ten. They rolled again. Dylan got sixteen
overall and Magnus got eighteen. “That’s twenty-three on luck.”
“Twenty-five on perception,” Magnus responded.
“Both of you manage to hide from the sniper and he
passes over the three of you.”
“Now I’m going to take my sniper rifle and fire on
him. The sniper.” Charlie decided, pointing at the piece on the table. He
reached up and rolled a dee-ten against his dexterity. It came up as a nine.
“Sixteen.” He said, looking up at Wren expectantly.
Wren grins. “You shoot him.” Wren rolled a dee-six, it
came up as a one. “In the head. Roll luck.”
Charlie complied, getting another nine. “Thirteen.”
“And not a soul knew where the shot came from.” Wren
narrated.
“Awesome,” Magnus exclaimed.
A ringing sounded on Wren’s holo. He frowned at it,
time was up. He pressed it off. “Well I guess that’s all for this week. Meet
back here same time next week?”
The ringing sounded again, this time it sounded
higher, less like a ring more like a siren. He frowned at it again and pressed
the off button, but it wouldn’t turn off. He started shaking and he realised
that Magnus was holding his shoulders. The table was gone, Magnus was in its
place, shaking him. “Wren, snap out of it,” he said.
Wren frowned at the youngster and watched as he
rapidly aged. He blinked and the room was gone. Young Magnus was gone. Young
Wren was gone. He was aboard Thor-class
Imperial War ship ‘Relentless’,
Magnus was thirty-one, he was thirty-three and they were under attack.
“Sir, you’re alive. Good,” Magnus said, stepping
back as Wren blinked.
He took in a few deep breaths and focussed on
Magnus’ knife sharp features. He was light skinned with wrinkles around his
eyes. His jet black hair had a dusting of grey collecting at the temples, cut
short and cropped to navy regulations.
Magnus’ eyes were a soft green that seemed to
comfort those who looked into them, despite the serious expression that was
plastered across his face at all times.
The Executive Officer looked remarkably different to
his friend. Wren’s hair was mostly grey with patches of rusty red marring his
otherwise silver mane. His hair had started going grey when he’d gained his
Admiralty at twenty-six, more than likely a mark of stress, though there was
every chance it could have simply been genetics. Wren’s hard grey eyes matched
his hair so well that he was surprised whenever he saw pictures of himself with
locks of a different colour.
Wren ran his hand through his hair to check for any
blood, but the short crop remained dry. Hopefully no concussion. He checked the
rest of his strong features, finding a cut on his eyebrow and chin that would
likely become scars. If he’d been allowed to grow a beard he might have had a
problem with the wounds but he’d be clean shaven until he retired, so why
worry?
He let out a long breath and forced himself back to
his feet, getting his bearings. The circuits in his command seat had blown and
he’d been sent flying across the once pristine command deck floor, marring it
with blood from the wounds on his face and a large gash on his back. Blood
dripped down Wrens face while Magnus by comparison seemed unharmed.
The X.O. - Wren’s oldest living friend - gripped his
shoulders and looked worriedly into his eyes. “Admiral, are you good to go? Admiral,
can you tell me your name?”
“Wren Lian-Cheng. Admiral Wren Lian-Cheng” Wren
recalled, nodding. “High Lord of the Mau-Winsor Imperium. Second Earl of Andal.
I don’t have a concussion. Report! What’s our status?”
“Sir,” Magnus responded, saluting and turning to
face the holo-displays. “Three pirate war ships including the supposedly
destroyed Imperial Hunter-Class destroyer, Jeopardy,”
Wren’s eyes widened and he looked up at the screens. How the hell did they get
a hold of Charlie’s ship? It’d been eight years since Charlie and his crew had
been blown out of the sky… and yet there it was; the ship they had been flying
in when it had happened. It still had the scars on its hull from their final
engagement.
“Six cruisers and five carriers remain; they have a
hundred and fifty fighters. Their assault has taken us down to only a handful
of fighters-”
“Sixty, sir,” a junior officer called from his post.
The man stood in front of his console, chair knocked away from him in the
assault.
“Sixty fighters remain,” Magnus continued. “We’ve
lost the Indomitable and the Victory and the only carrier that remains is The Quartz.”
“How the hell did they amass such a force?” Wren
cursed, looking up at the holo-displays. He watched as fighters exploded and
the last carrier came under heavy assault. “Dammit, we can’t win this.”
“Sir?”
“Sound the retreat,” Wren sighed, shaking his head.
“Sir, the carrier only holds thirty fighters and we
have-” Magnus’ eye flicked to the holo-displays. “Fifty seven still out there.”
“Tell the others to clamp onto the outside of our
hull,” Wren ordered. “It won’t be a fun journey for them but they’ll survive.”
“Yes sir,” Magnus agreed, motioning to a junior
officer.
“Set co-ordinates T.Z. via New Beijing,” Wren
ordered, watching allied ships explode on the holo displays in eerie silence as
the fighters disengaged and desperately tried to latch onto Wren’s ship.
“We’re returning to the core sir?” Magnus asked.
Wren nodded. “On the off chance that this isn’t a
fluke and the pirates have become more organised; the Emperor needs to know.”
His eye twitched as he watched a group of fighters
commence a strafing run across the side of his ship shredding several of his defenceless
fighters to pieces. It wasn’t a good plan. It wasn’t a smart plan. It wasn’t an
honourable plan. It was pure survival. “Ready, sir,” Magnus said.
“Make the jump.”
“Sir.” Magnus nodded to a junior officer and the
ship shuddered. The holo-displays showed The
Quartz zip out of existence, Relentless following a painstaking
moment later. A couple of fighters that hadn’t clamped on properly ripped from
the hull and were instantly disintegrated by the kinetic energy caused by the
ships high velocity.
He cursed and closed his eyes, turning away. “Full
casualty report,” he said, placing his hands on his hips.
“We don’t have it, sir,” Magnus apologised. “We
won’t have it until The Quartz
tallies their dead.”
Wren nodded. “An estimate then?”
Magnus took a long slow breath to steady himself
against the information; his eyes scanned across the ominously glowing display
and he read aloud, “Full crew of The
Indomitable, one-thousand-two-hundred men. Full crew of The Victory, one-thousand-two-hundred
men. Full crew of The Obsidian, The Hematite, The Amethyst and The Jasper,
Two-thousand-six-hundred-and-Fifty-Six men. One-hundred-and-seven one man
fighters. An estimated twenty-five percent death rate aboard The Quartz, though we’ll have to wait
for their report for specific information.”
“And on Relentless?”
Wren asked, already cursing himself for his failure.
“Lower three decks have hull breach, we had an
explosion in the med bay and the primary cannon’s engineering room. Reports are
still coming in, but I’d estimate that we lost three-hundred men,” Magnus
responded.
Wren cursed. Magnus’s estimations were usually
accurate. He had truly, colossally failed. An estimated
five-thousand-six-hundred-and-seventy-five out of seven-thousand-and-seventy
lives lost. More than an eighty percent death rate. He hadn’t had such a crushing
defeat since his simulated battles against Charlie at the academy.
“Estimated time to arrival at New Beijing?” Wren
asked.
“Two hours,” Magnus responded.
“Very well” Wren nodded, rubbing his tired, blood
shot eyes. “Send the holo recording of the battle to my cabin, make sure the
spaced levels are sealed, get the fires out and contact me when we have an
exact casualty rate.”
“Very well, sir,” Magnus nodded.
“X.O. Magnus, you
have command,” Wren said before turning and walking off of the bridge.
Hopefully you enjoyed that and you will buy the kindle short story to find out how and why the book is called Exile and what happens with jeopardy.
Cheers
Awesome-Video
- James
