by JustinSloan | Oct 20, 2017 | Snippets
UNEDITED
When it was just Bethany Anne, Michael, Valerie, and Robin, Bethany Anne stepped closer and took each of the ladies in an embrace. She pulled back, eyeing them, and smiled, a bit of her earlier humor in her eyes lost and concern replacing it. “You two have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?”
Valerie glanced around at the ship, wondering where it had been and what it had seen, and turned back to Bethany Anne, “None.”
Robin shook her head.
“Fair enough,” Bethany Anne nodded and started pacing back and forth as she spoke. “The future is going to be treacherous, but beautiful. Mind-blowingly full of activity, and yet, you’ll have moments where you wonder what you’re doing with your life and how you got here.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, your heart will ache as you miss your friends here on Earth. I can promise you that as I still ache a couple of times a year as I think of friends who died almost two centuries ago.” (more…)
by JustinSloan | Oct 18, 2017 | Snippets
The first time Samantha had seen the world end, it had terrified her.
Of course, that vision had been long ago. Over three years, if her estimation was correct. Since then, the vision had come to her in nightmares and flashes in her mind, and each time it seemed more blurred, more… unsure.
The vision was always the same—an alien armada unlike anything the world had ever seen. Not the invasion that had already taken over the world and held it in a state of martial law. No, this invasion would put their current overlords to shame. The Syndicate would fight and, in the end, be crushed.
It didn’t help that others called her crazy.
It also didn’t help that she was certain she would have a hand in saving the world, because that meant it could only end badly. Either she would be proven right, and an alien invasion greater than any they had ever known would destroy their world, or she would fulfill her destiny, but her so-called friends would go on thinking she was insane.
The latter would do, she decided as she stared out of her foxhole, waiting for the Syndicate drone to fly by. They always did at this time of day—a patrol, one of many set up to ensure everyone was in by curfew. If the drone was lucky, it would find members of the resistance, the Last Remaining Resistance, or LRR, as its members liked to refer to it. (more…)
by JustinSloan | Oct 8, 2017 | Snippets
UNEDITED – SPOILER WARNING (Be sure you’ve read Reclaiming Honor 1-8 first)
Valerie and Robin emerged from the transport ship, following closely behind Michael as he led them into the ArchAngel II, the large ship they had seen from the ground when Michael had picked them up.
It was still almost unbelievable that she had left her friends behind, all but Robin.
The woman at her side, barely a woman at all, if you counted her actual age instead of looking at her through the lens of all she had done.
Now it was the two of them leaving the comfort of their homes behind to go off and join Michael in the fight for humanity’s survival from a different angle—from space.
Only, as Michael had just explained to them, they had signed up for more than anything than they could have fathomed before his explanation. (more…)
by JustinSloan | Oct 4, 2017 | Snippets
UNEDITED
New York
Valerie took her first step into HQ in what felt like years, but really it hadn’t been more than a couple of months or so. How odd it felt, knowing that this building had once been home to her enemies. She had led a siege against Commander Strake and his Enforcers, then hunted him and the CEOs behind him down. The building had become her home after that, but now felt like such a strange, foreign place.
This sensation confirmed something she had been thinking about for a while now—that she didn’t belong here. But where did she belong? In space?
With a glance at the skies, she wondered what sort of battles were going on in space right now. Was it possible something could go wrong and it would all be over without her even getting a chance to fight?
Considering the fact that it was Bethany Ann up there fighting for their survival, she was hopeful. (more…)
by JustinSloan | Oct 3, 2017 | Snippets
UNEDITED
Cammie glanced around the desert landscape and the town known as El Diablo. It was pressed up against a small hill with dead trees at the top that resembled devil horns, which looked especially ominous silhouetted against the night.
The first thing she had done was come to New York looking for Valerie. When she learned that Sandra had been in touch with her and that Valerie was heading for New York, her first instinct had been to stay there and wait. But the more she heard about the situation, the upcoming predicament, the more she realized that they had to get ahead of this war situation.
So here she was, with Sergeant Garcia and Royland. They had told the others that anyone who wanted to return to the island up north could take off that day. The rest would stay in New York to help fight.
Nobody had left. (more…)
by JustinSloan | Oct 2, 2017 | Snippets
UNEDITED
Valerie had never realized that being alone with her thoughts would be so cathartic, but sailing across the Atlantic by herself certainly provided that opportunity. After her coms device went on the fritz halfway across, she was left staring out at the darkness to the west. She just wished the airship would hurry the hell up so she could get to New York before war broke out.
A part of her still believed there would be a way to mitigate this fire that her friends had started, but the rest of her thought that a final war to end it all wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Pull out all the rats and cut off their heads, so that they and the disease they had brought upon the lands would be gone once and for all.
That wasn’t all she thought about, though, as she sailed. She thought about how she had almost returned to the military compound where she was raised, how she could have very easily touched down in Old Paris and visited her old haunts, searching out clues to her life before she was turned into a vampire. Now that those thoughts were in the past, she realized what a trap such actions would have been. Could she ever have escaped? Even if she had physically departed, she was certain she wouldn’t have left mentally.
It was time to accept that she was a new person, that she had moved on. (more…)
When it was just Bethany Anne, Michael, Valerie, and Robin, Bethany Anne stepped closer and took each of the ladies in an embrace. She pulled back, eyeing them, and smiled, a bit of her earlier humor in her eyes lost and concern replacing it. “You two have no idea what you’re getting into, do you?”