“I thought they were trying to kill dragons to harvest pieces for their weapons but now, I don’t think so, not after talking to Constance. It’s more like they’re trying to set the board. They want this war to come, and when it breaks out, they want to have already weakened the dragon side and taken away any players who might fight against them. Apparently, the dragon inside the mansion—Skyjewel—earned her name by eating mages.”
“How do you get Skyjewel from mage-eater?” Keith asked.
“You really, really don’t want to know,” Jim said.
“The technomages—or whatever the group of mages call themselves who work with Constance—know their history, and they know who might be able to sway human perception against them. I don’t think they’ll be easy to fight,” Kristen said. “But it gets worse.”
“Worse than a secret cabal of mages trying to kill dragons who might actually be helpful to people? What the fuck could be worse than that?” Hernandez asked.
“The dragons ran a DNA test on the bullets they’ve used to kill the other dragons. They matched me ninety percent. That’s why I went to jail,” she said.
“Right.” Jim nodded.
“But that doesn’t make sense. If it was my DNA, it should have been a one hundred percent match. Ninety percent is high but it’s not me.”
“What do you mean?” Drew asked.
“I have a girlfriend whose entire family did one of the DNA tests. Her brother and sister were about ninety percent the same,” Hernandez said.
“Exactly.” Kristen nodded. “Which means that the dragon whose body they’re using is my sibling.”
Silence descended in the back of the SWAT van as everyone tried to process what that meant to them.
To Kristen, it meant she wasn’t alone. There might be someone else trapped between two worlds but it also foreshadowed a hard conflict ahead.
She was who she was because of her past during which she’d been raised by humans and had played with humans. Even now, she thought of herself as a human with dragon powers more than she thought of herself as a dragon. Could there be someone else trapped in the middle like her? Would they feel the same way that she did? What if they’d been raised by dragons? What if they’d been raised by mages? There were other, darker ideas of what their life could be like as well. She had seen numerous science fiction movies and didn’t much want to think about a potential sibling suspended in some horrible goo, kept alive so they could be harvested to make weapons. But she couldn’t rule it out either. She simply didn’t know.
This was what plagued her and kept her from following the conversation taking place in the back of the van. Well, that and a probable concussion.
Stonequest arrived before too long and took her statement. She explained everything exactly as it had happened. Drew corroborated the part with Constance—namely the part where a human had shot a dragon with a handgun and almost killed her with a single shot—although Stonequest didn’t look too pleased about it. She didn’t blame him. After all, she had put more hard evidence in his hands that could be used to start an interspecies war the likes of which had never been seen. Before, humans had used pixies and magic. They still had magic, only now, they also had fighter jets, tactical drones, and even nuclear bombs.
“Why Amythist?” he asked her.
“Because you were right. This isn’t a grudge against dragons and it’s not about eliminating a few bad players. They’re after war. And the only person it's personal for is me.”
“Why you?”
“Because they’re making the bullets with the body of my sibling.”
She could tell from Stonequest’s expression that he’d already come to the same conclusion. She hated him for a second—hated how he could be so rock-hard resistant to any real emotions. Briefly, she wondered if he was called Stonequest because of that and not his marble-like appearance when he was in his dragon form. She wouldn’t be surprised.
He assured them that they had the site locked down and were speaking to Amythist. Then, he thanked her for her service and told her he’d call her the next day but to not come for a few days unless she wanted to be chained to a desk. Even dragons needed time to heal.
Kristen didn’t need to be told twice. She had to heal because she knew Constance definitely wouldn’t sit around given her ambitious agenda.
Still, she had the night at least. She motioned to her old human SWAT team to all load up in the van. They—bastards one and all—looked at Drew to confirm the order. He nodded and they obeyed. Kristen loved them all, stupid foolish humans that they were. They’d come all the way out there to help her but still behaved like Drew was in charge. And he really was, which was good. He had more experience than she did and was better at managing people and not…uh, running into things half-cocked, she supposed she could say.
Still, everyone piled into the back of the vehicle and let her take the front seat.
“So, what do we do next?” Drew asked.
“I want to find them—my sibling and the people using them. I’ll free whoever it is they’ve used to make these weapons and stop these mages before they start a war that neither side can win.”
He nodded.
“But first, I could really use a beer.”
Witch of the Federation
If you loved Steel Dragon, you might also enjoy the Federal Histories series, from Michael Anderle. Book one is Witch Of The Federation and it’s available from Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.
The future has amazing technology. Our alien allies have magic. Together, we are building a training system to teach the best of humanity to go to the stars.
But the training is monumentally expensive.
Stephanie Morgana is a genius, she just doesn't know it.
The Artificial Intelligence which runs the Virtual World is charged with testing Stephanie, a task it has never performed before.
The Earth and their allies, may never be the same again.
Will Stephanie pass the test and be moved to the advanced preparatory schools, or will the system miss her? Will the AI be able to judge a human's potential in an area where it has no existing test data to compare?
Available now at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.
Kevin’s Author Notes
November 24, 2019
Wow.
OK, before I say anything else, I was to say thank you, for reading and loving the Steel Dragon story so darned much. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Readers like you are what keeps me at the keyboard writing new stories. The first Steel Dragon book was an enormous success thanks to folks like you sitting down to read and enjoy the world Michael and I created.
I mean, I had a pretty good idea the book would work from the beginning. Michael and I are both decent writers and we both have a lot of experience at this gig, so I went into the project with confidence. But the reception you've offered for our story has far outstripped my expectations.
You rock. I appreciate every comment, every review, every good word folks have left for these books.
Getting these stories done and finished RIGHT has been a challenge. These aren't quick fifty-thousand-word books. (Did I just call fifty-thousand words quick? Yikes!) They're monsters of enormous size. It's a lot of plotting, a ton of writing, and bunches of editing to get each story honed to where it should be. You've made every bit of it more than worthwhile.
Here we are at the end of yet another big chunk of Kristen Hall's tale. Don't worry, though; there's plenty more coming. The world will continue unfolding for Kristen as she delves deeper into the mysteries of what it means to be a dragon, and more, what it means to be a dragon raised by humans. There's still Constance out there with her strange crew, too. What are they after? What's their endgame? A lot of questions remain unanswered, but we'll learn more about these things in the books to come.
It's been ages since I did anything in urban fantasy. Some of my first books were in this genre, but I moved from there to mostly writing science ficti
on for a long time. Skipping back over to UF for Steel Dragon has reignited some of those old fires, though. I've got other UF ideas I'm playing with now. Just had a cool idea for one book that's going to end up wrapped into a future Steel Dragon story, actually, but if there's one thing I don't have a shortage of, it's story ideas! There are so many things a writer can do with UF that we can't do in science fiction, and I'd forgotten how much fun this particular sandbox could be.
For me, learning new things is one of the best parts of this work. If I ever stopped learning with each new book I wrote, I don't think I'd keep doing this. Every time I sit down to write, I want to make something better than I have before, or learn some new bit of the craft or business of writing. I figure if I can keep showing up to the keyboard with an empty cup, the work itself will keep filling it for me. So far this has worked out really well across all my work, and this series is no exception.
Working with other people continues to be an eye-opening experience. I'm one of those writers who's used to doing it all myself. For my solo work I do everything I possibly can. It's possible I might grip the proverbial reins a little TOO tightly, sometimes. But Michael and LMBPN are the absolute inverse of that experience. He has a team of beta readers who rock, editors who do just an amazing job, and cover artists who - well, you don't need to be told. You've seen the covers on these books. They rock! LMBPN is a big collective of creative folks all working together like a well-oiled machine.
Learning to 'play well with others' in the writing game has changed how I operate quite a bit. I mean, I have deadlines now. Real ones, not ones I set myself. If I don't get things done on time I'm not just letting myself down, I'm throwing the whole team into disarray. That's been a powerful learning experience, and I'm grateful for it.
I can't wait to see how this series ends.
Oh, sure, Michael and I have a rough idea what we want to happen, but so much discovery goes on as we write these things that it's not set in stone. I figure we've got two or three more books this size to go after this. That's a lot of story left to go, and Kristen is going to have to do a lot of growing up and into herself if she's going to become the person she'll be at the end. I think she'll prove up to the task, how about you?
Oh, a little tidbit about me: I am a tech geek. I'm typing this on a brand new, bought-it-today Chromebook, the new Pixelbook Go. I've got a MacBook I generally use for my writing, but... The Pixelbook Go was just SO SHINY! I had to check it out. If I don't like it, the computer will go back to Best Buy, but so far I'm really enjoying the typing experience. Chrome is limited, which in many ways makes it perfect for writing. So long as I don't load any games on the thing, and lock myself out of Facebook, this laptop is a serious writing machine of doom! Yeah, I love trying out all of the newest tech toys. I even told Michael about the new 16" MacBook Pro while we were at the 20Books Vegas conference together, last week. Because he's just as into trying out new toys as I am... So of course, he had to have one! It's one of the fun things we share, that love of what tech can do to change the world and our lives.
Thank you again SO MUCH for reading all this! If you've got any questions, shoot them my way at [email protected]. I'm always glad to hear from a reader. It's been awesome to create this work for you, and I look forward to continuing the journey as we explore Kristen's past and what lies ahead in her future!
Michael’s Author Notes
November 25, 2019
Thank you so much for reading our story, and these Author Notes hidden way in the back!
I appreciate Kevin speaking to the fact that he is used to doing everything on his stories. Not that I didn’t know that, but I didn’t KNOW that (which usually means I failed to realize the impact on a person.)
As a writer / publisher, I have worked with many others to produce projects for the last few years. Ever since LMBPN’s fifth book (which was my fifth book), I have had help getting the stories out into the universe, and the hands in the pie grew from there.
Like Kevin, I love to play with technology. Unlike Kevin, every time I have delved into Google products (hardware, not software), I have left unsatisfied.
For most of my professional life, I have worked with software programming and then computers and servers. While the programming side was fun (until I had to deal with pennies on reports), the hardware side frustrated me. Why? There was usually one way to fix the damned hardware, and for me, it meant a puzzle I just couldn’t create a new path around to fix.
With programming, it was my choice what I placed inside the open and close remarks. With hardware, you had to figure out if the physical piece was bad. Were the drivers in the computer bad? Did we have conflicts between the drivers? Did something you installed in your computer mess up some other part that was already in your computer?
In short, it was frustrating. Since my family and I were rarely more than a paycheck ahead (on payday) I had more home-built computers to play with than purchased computers. Over the decades, I’ve grown to dislike frustration with hardware (and eventually software) more and more, leading me to finally test Apple computers in 2009.
I fell in love.
Not that Apple computers are wonderful at everything (the keyboard I am typing on, for example, is a technological marvel but a practical pain in my a$$...or fingers, to be precise. I hate it.)
However, now when I try out substantially different computers (like a Google Chromebook), I am back to learning and feeling frustrated in just a few seconds, and I put it down.
Dammit, that means I am officially old, right? Which means Kevin is a young whippersnapper. You know, that is probably right on the technology front. I wish him well with his Google Chromebook experience, but my sixteen-inch Apple MacBook should be waiting for me when I get back from this trip to California I’m on.
However, when it comes to publishing, Kevin is the old man, and I am the young whippersnapper. Kevin’s family (parents, Mom?) has been in the publishing/printing/bookselling world since he was young, and he grew up around the traditional model. He published his first book about a gazillion years ago.
I mean, eight for indies is a gazillion, right?
Either way, I think he has knowledge going back to the twentieth century, and all I did during that time was purchase books at Half-Price bookstore in Houston, TX.
I’m presently typing these Author Notes in our home near Los Angeles. By this time in February, this house should be sold, and should I type new Author Notes while here in California, they will come from my mom’s or brother’s house or some hotel we are staying in during a visit.
It will be a new era for the Steel Dragon series and one I look forward to chatting with you about.
Like Kevin said, THANK YOU so much for everything you have done to support these stories. We appreciate you reading them, reviewing them, and taking time out of your day to come to our worlds.
Without readers like you, we wouldn’t be blessed to create the stories we do.
Thank you!
Ad Aeternitatem,
Michael Anderle
Books By Kevin McLaughlin
Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)
Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!
Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy
Book 3 - Deep Waters
Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact
Book 5 - Liberty
Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny
Book 7 - Ashes of War
Book 8 - Embers of War
Book 9 - Dust and Iron
Book 10 - Clad in Steel
Book 11 - Brave New Worlds (2019)
Book 12 - Warrior’s Marque (2020)
The Ragnarok Saga (Military SF)
Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!
Book 1 - Accord of Honor
Book 2 - Accord of Mars
Book 3 - Accord of Valor
Book 4 - Ghost Wing
Book 5 - Ghost Squadron
Book 6 - Ghost Fleet (2019)
Valhalla Online Series (A Ragnarok Saga Story)
Book 1 - Valhalla Online
Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim
Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim
Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury
Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)
Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed
Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant
Book 3 - Dead In Winter
Book 4 - Claws That Catch
Book 5 - Darkness Awakes
Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements
By A Whisker (short story)
The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!
Dead Brittania Series:
Dead Brittania (short prequel story)
Book 1 - King of the Dead
Book 2 - Queen of Demons
Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)
Book 1 - Stolen Light
Book 2 - Webs in the Dark
Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight
Other Titles:
Over the Moon (SF romance)
Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)
Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)
The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)
You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)
Books By Michael Anderle
For a complete list of books by Michael Anderle, please visit:
www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/
All LMBPN Audiobooks are Available at Audible.com and iTunes
To see all LMBPN audiobooks, including those written by Michael Anderle please visit:
The Steel Dragon (Steel Dragons Series Book 2) Page 57