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The Confluence: The New Dawn Book 6
Preview
Saskia checked the charge on the weapons in Oriana’s armory. They had six new pulse rifles, two finger-mounted stunners, and a shock-dart. Saskia kept at least one stunner on her person at all times, but she still didn’t have a plan to overcome the two crime bosses in her passenger bay.
“Twenty-five minutes,” Captain Danny Matthews said, floating past her as he propelled himself toward the bridge. His preferred weapons were knife and pulse rifle, but he wasn’t carrying either. “Do you think we can win this?”
“I think we can get ourselves killed,” Saskia replied with only a hint of sarcasm.
“So I should cancel the mutiny?” Danny asked, the forced joke making their dire situation worse.
“It’s not mutiny if you’re already captain. We should have jettisoned them before we left Aquia,” Saskia grumbled, adding a shock-dart to her thigh holster. Tray wasn’t usually armed either, and she knew she could trust him to handle the less lethal weapon.
Danny shook his head. “Sikorsky and Coro are too strong there.”
“They’re not the only ones getting weaker,” Saskia pointed out. Four days in micro-gravity was enough to render them all helpless on landing.
“They’re going to be hit with the same gravity as the rest of us. There’s a good chance we’ll adapt first and have the advantage,” Danny said. “Is Hawk downstairs already?”
“Engine room,” Saskia said. “He’ll sit in a chair for landing if that chair is on the bridge.”
Danny made a face. He didn’t like her leaving Hawk alone with the engine, but Saskia didn’t see the danger. Hawk was a human-spirit hybrid, and he’d already proven he could fly the ship with the power of his mind. He was in his early twenties—not much older than Saskia had been when the Revolution started on Terrana.
“I told him to keep his feet on the ground,” Saskia shrugged, leaving the captain to stew and gliding down to the lower deck. She paused when she heard Tray’s voice emanating from the passenger lounge. She could tell he was arguing with the bosses, because he was using his swank voice. She’d always known he was an aristocrat, but she’d never felt the difference in their economic classes until she saw him with the crime bosses.
“You’re not going to convince a bunch of peaceful Panoptica to come out of hiding and fight your battles for you,” Damien Coro ranted, referring to the rumored colony of hybrids on Terrana. He and Sikorsky been arguing the point since the day they cornered Danny and forced this journey to Terrana.
“I’ll have you fighting on the front line once you realize the kind of man Deivon Parker is,” Sikorsky said, his voice a low, powerful rumble.
Saskia floated into the doorway, and Tray met her eye, his confident nod assuring her that he did not need her intervention. Yet. All three men were dressed formally, and their business suits looked bloated in the micro-gravity.
“Yes, I’ve always been afraid of the spiritual kind who think meditation is the key to achieving Confluence,” Coro sneered. They were half way to Terrana before Sikorsky even mentioned the threat of Confluence. There wasn’t an exact translation for the word in Lanvarian, but the notion was that hybrid powers flowed from a ritualistic channeling of spirit energy, as opposed to innate ability like Hawk seemed to have. Sikorsky was drunk that night, and Coro had been mocking him ever since.
“Parker’s not spiritual,” Tray snickered. He measured his tone, careful not to deride his ex-father-in-law. “Even if he were, Confluence is no more dangerous than any other mental exercise masquerading as spiritualism. If people could meditate their way to hybrid power, there would be hybrids everywhere.”
“Consider that Parker’s connection to that realm is different than the average meditator. By your own testimony, he is in league with an Elysian creature that teleported a homicidal Guard onto your ship,” Sikorsky said. Saskia knew he could teleport, but he hadn’t used the ability since they left Quin.
“Amanda, what have you been telling him?” Tray snapped, shooting a ceiling-ward glare. Amanda floated overhead, her glazed, green eyes following Sikorsky.
“Galen opened the door right there,” Amanda said, pointing to the middle of the room.
Read The Confluence: The New Dawn Book 6
The Qinali Virus
An ancient warning. A new threat.
Amber’s astral projection ability is rare…
… and it’s everything the Council of Highmere has been waiting for.
Trained in astronomy, Amber is bored by her tedious, Council-appointed job. When her mind wanders, so does her astral body, and always to the same place – a meteor-flattened crater in a forest with an ancient metal sign poking up through the dirt.
The sign warns of Sudden Death.
Decades ago, a silent, but deadly virus had decimated the population of the planet, and left in its wake the seeming utopia Amber’s people enjoyed. But with the warning, Amber starts to question her world like never before. Her quest to unbury the past makes her a threat to the Council.
And they will use her family against her.
Can Amber uncover the truth behind the ancient warning sign before the Council enacts their plan?
You’ll love this sci-fi thriller, because you can’t protect your family if you don’t know what’s out there.
Get it now!
Also by Valerie J. Mikles
The New Dawn Series Novels
#1 The Disappeared
#2 Sequestered
#3 Trade Circle
#4 Hybrid
#5 The Gray Market
#6 The Confluence
#7 Premonition (coming soon)
Standalone Novel
The Qinali Virus
Short Stories
(free to newsletter subscribers)
Second Chances: A Reason to Walk
Second Chances: The Lost Ingredient
Invasive Species
About the Author
Valerie J. Mikles is a PhD astronomer who defected from academia to pursue her dream of being an out of work actor in L.A. She is active in community theater as an actor, choreographer, costumer, and stage manager. She frequents sci-fi conventions as a science/author guest and a fan/cosplayer. She currently lives in Maryland with her three cats and works on weather satellites for NOAA.
The Gray Market: A Space Opera Adventure Series (The New Dawn Book 5) Page 37