by Kacey Ezell
Hunter—the Depik word for themselves.
Khatash—the Depik home planet.
Khava—a predatory fishlike aquatic species native to Khatash.
Kit—a male kitten.
Kita—a female kitten.
Malik—a species of tree native to Khatash. The fruit is poisonous.
Malluma Songo—a psychotropic, highly addictive drug derived from a Khatash plant of the same name.
Molly—an infertile Hunter (or rarely, Sigiled being) who raises a clan’s kittens. A combination nanny, tutor, nurse, and coach.
Quintessence—the non-baryonic energy that Hunters and other species native to Khatash have evolved to use alongside electromagnetic pulses in their neuroanatomy.
Rizel—a species of tree native to Khatash. The leaves are poisonous.
Sigil—the mark of a Depik clan, indicating ownership by/membership in that clan.
Distances on Khatash
(approximate)
Khatash—Metric
1 tailtip = 0.25 centimeters
1 span = 5 tailtips or 1.25 cm
1 bodylength = 0.5 meters
1 bound = 10 meters or 20 bodylengths
1 sprint = 10 bounds or 100 meters or 200 bodylengths
1 tensprint = 1km
1 half-range = 80 km
1 range = 160 kilometers
Metric—Khatash
1 cm = 4 tailtips
1 meter = 2 bodylengths
1 km = 1 tensprint or 10 sprints or 100 bounds
Time on Khatash
The Depik calendar is based on factors of 9. The Khatashi day is based on the planetary rotation, which lasts roughly 27 Earth hours. Due to their largely crepuscular/nocturnal nature, Depik divide that day into 3 equal periods called Mrurs, which roughly translates to “Prowls.”
3 Mrurs = 1 night
9 nights = 1 ninenight
1 month = 3 ninenights = 27 nights
1 season = 3 months = 9 ninenights = 81 nights
1 year = 3 seasons = 9 months = 27 ninenights = 243 nights
The Khatashi year lasts 3 seasons, and is therefore quite a bit shorter than our own Earth year. For that reason, and their relative life spans, Humans seem particularly long-lived to the Depik.
About the Authors
Kacey Ezell
Kacey Ezell was born in South Dakota in 1977. Her parents joined the US Air Force in 1984, and she grew up around the world on various military bases. When she was seven, her mother gave her a copy of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragondrums, and shortly thereafter, Kacey decided that she wanted to be a dragonrider when she grew up. In 1999, she followed her parents into the “family business” and graduated from the United States Air Force Academy before going to pilot training. As dragons were in short supply at the time, she reasoned that flying aircraft was the next best thing. She earned her wings in 2001, and has over 2500 hours in the UH-1N and Mi-17 helicopters.
From the time she was a small child, Kacey made up stories to tell to her friends and family. In 2009, while deployed to Iraq, she wrote the military-themed supernatural story “Light,” which was accepted for publication in the Baen Books anthology Citizens. She was asked to consult on John Ringo’s 2015 novel Strands of Sorrow, and wrote the cover story for the Black Tide Rising anthology set in Ringo’s zombie apocalypse universe. That story, “Not in Vain,” was selected for inclusion in the “Year’s Best Military SF and Adventure Fiction” anthology produced by Baen Books.
Kacey writes science fiction, fantasy, horror, noir, romance…she writes fiction. She lives with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.
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Marisa Wolf
Marisa Wolf was born in New England, and raised on Boston sports teams, Star Wars, Star Trek, and the longest books in the library (usually fantasy). Over the years she majored in English in part to get credits for reading (this...only partly worked), taught middle school, was headbutted by an alligator, built a career in education, earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and finally decided to finish all those half-started stories in her head.
She currently lives in Texas with three absurd rescue dogs, one deeply understanding husband, and more books than seems sensible.
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Connect with Kacey Ezell Online
Website: www.kaceyezell.net
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kacey-Ezell/e/B0195040QU/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKaceyEzell/
Twitter: @Sevillalost
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Connect with Marisa Wolf Online
Website: https://www.marisawolf.net/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Marisa-Wolf/e/B077K8V2J5/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marisawolfauthor/
Twitter: @marisa_comeaux
Instagram: @bookdogs
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The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of The Psyche of War:
Minds of Men
___________________
Kacey Ezell
Available Now from Theogony Books
eBook, Paperback, and (soon) Audio
Excerpt from “Minds of Men:”
“Look sharp, everyone,” Carl said after a while. Evelyn couldn’t have said whether they’d been droning for minutes or hours in the cold, dense white of the cloud cover. “We should be overhead the French coast in about thirty seconds.”
The men all reacted to this announcement with varying degrees of excitement and terror. Sean got up from his seat and came back to her, holding an awkward looking arrangement of fabric and straps.
Put this on, he thought to her. It’s your flak jacket. And your parachute is just there, he said, pointing. If the captain gives the order to bail out, you go, clip this piece into your ‘chute, and jump out the biggest hole you can find. Do you understand? You do, don’t you. This psychic thing certainly makes explaining things easier, he finished with a grin.
Evelyn gave him what she hoped was a brave smile and took the flak jacket from him. It was deceptively heavy, and she struggled a bit with getting it on. Sean gave her a smile and a thumbs up, and then headed back to his station.
The other men were checking in and charging their weapons. A short time later, Evelyn saw through Rico’s eyes as the tail gunner watched their fighter escort waggle their wings at the formation and depart. They didn’t have the long-range fuel capability to continue all the way to the target.
Someday, that long-range fighter escort we were promised will materialize, Carl thought. His mind felt determinedly positive, like he was trying to be strong for the crew and not let them see his fear. That, of course, was an impossibility, but the crew took it well. After all, they were afraid, too. Especially as the formation had begun its descent to the attack altitude of 20,000 feet. Evelyn became gradually aware of the way the men’s collective tension ratcheted up with every hundred feet of descent. They were entering enemy fighter territory.
Yeah, and someday Veronica Lake will…ah. Never mind. Sorry, Evie. That was Les. Evelyn could feel the waist gunner’s not-quite-repentant grin. She had to suppress a grin of her own, but Les’ irreverence was the perfect tension breaker.
Boys will be boys, she sent, projecting a sense of tolerance. But real men keep their private lives private. She added this last with a bit of smug superiority and felt the rest of the crew’s appreciative flare of humor at her jab. Even Les laughed, shaking his head. A warmth that had nothing to do with her electric suit enfolded Evelyn, and she started to feel like, maybe, she just might become part of the crew yet.
Fighters! Twelve o’clock high!
The call came from Alice. If she craned her neck to look around Sean’s body, Evelyn could just see the terrifying rain of tracer fire coming from the dark, diving silhouette of an enemy fighter. She let the call echo down her own channels and felt her men respond, turning their own weapons to cover Teacher’s Pet’s flanks. Adrenaline surges spiked through all of them, causing Evelyn’s heart to race in
turn. She took a deep breath and reached out to tie her crew in closer to the Forts around them.
She looked through Sean’s eyes as he fired from the top turret, tracking his line of bullets just in front of the attacking aircraft. His mind was oddly calm and terribly focused…as, indeed, they all were. Even young Lieutenant Bob was zeroed in on his task of keeping a tight position and making it that much harder to penetrate the deadly crossing fire of the Flying Fortress.
Fighters! Three o’clock low!
That was Logan in the ball turret. Evelyn felt him as he spun his turret around and began to fire the twin Browning AN/M2 .50 caliber machine guns at the sinister dark shapes rising up to meet them with fire.
Got ‘em, Bobby Fritsche replied, from his position in the right waist. He, too, opened up with his own .50 caliber machine gun, tracking the barrel forward of the nose of the fighter formation, in order to “lead” their flight and not shoot behind them.
Evelyn blinked, then hastily relayed the call to the other girls in the formation net. She felt their acknowledgement, though it was almost an absentminded thing as each of the girls were focusing mostly on the communication between the men in their individual crews.
Got you, you Kraut sonofabitch! Logan exulted. Evelyn looked through his eyes and couldn’t help but feel a twist of pity for the pilot of the German fighter as he spiraled toward the ground, one wing completely gone. She carefully kept that emotion from Logan, however, as he was concentrating on trying to take out the other three fighters who’d been in the initial attacking wedge. One fell victim to Bobby’s relentless fire as he threw out a curtain of lead that couldn’t be avoided.
Two back to you, tail, Bobby said, his mind carrying an even calm, devoid of Logan’s adrenaline-fueled exultation.
Yup, Rico Martinez answered as he visually acquired the two remaining targets and opened fire. He was aided by fire from the aircraft flying off their right wing, the Nagging Natasha. She fired from her left waist and tail, and the two remaining fighters faltered and tumbled through the resulting crossfire. Evelyn watched through Rico’s eyes as the ugly black smoke trailed the wreckage down.
Fighters! Twelve high!
Fighters! Two high!
The calls were simultaneous, coming from Sean in his top turret and Les on the left side. Evelyn took a deep breath and did her best to split her attention between the two of them, keeping the net strong and open. Sean and Les opened fire, their respective weapons adding a cacophony of pops to the ever-present thrum of the engines.
Flak! That was Carl, up front. Evelyn felt him take hold of the controls, helping the lieutenant to maintain his position in the formation as the Nazi anti-aircraft guns began to send up 20mm shells that blossomed into dark clouds that pocked the sky. One exploded right in front of Pretty Cass’ nose. Evelyn felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as the aircraft heaved first up and then down. She held on grimly and passed on the wordless knowledge the pilots had no choice but to fly through the debris and shrapnel that resulted.
In the meantime, the gunners continued their rapid fire response to the enemy fighters’ attempt to break up the formation. Evelyn took that knowledge—that the Luftwaffe was trying to isolate one of the Forts, make her vulnerable—and passed it along the looser formation net.
Shit! They got Liberty Belle! Logan called out then, from his view in the ball turret. Evelyn looked through his angry eyes, feeling his sudden spike of despair as they watched the crippled Fort fall back, two of her four engines smoking. Instantly, the enemy fighters swarmed like so many insects, and Evelyn watched as the aircraft yawed over and began to spin down and out of control.
A few agonizing heartbeats later, first one, then three more parachutes fluttered open far below. Evelyn felt Logan’s bitter knowledge that there had been six other men on board that aircraft. Liberty Belle was one of the few birds flying without a psychic on board, and Evelyn suppressed a small, wicked feeling of relief that she hadn’t just lost one of her friends.
Fighters! Twelve o’clock level!
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Get “Minds of Men” now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0778SPKQV.
Find out more about Kacey Ezell and “Minds of Men” at:
https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kacey-ezell/
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The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of the Revelations Cycle:
Cartwright’s Cavaliers
___________________
Mark Wandrey
Available Now from Seventh Seal Press
eBook, Paperback and Audio
Excerpt from “Cartwright’s Cavaliers:”
The last two operational tanks were trapped on their chosen path. Faced with destroyed vehicles front and back, they cut sideways to the edge of the dry river bed they’d been moving along and found several large boulders to maneuver around that allowed them to present a hull-down defensive position. Their troopers rallied on that position. It was starting to look like they’d dig in when Phoenix 1 screamed over and strafed them with dual streams of railgun rounds. A split second later, Phoenix 2 followed on a parallel path. Jim was just cheering the air attack when he saw it. The sixth damned tank, and it was a heavy.
“I got that last tank,” Jim said over the command net.
“Observe and stand by,” Murdock said.
“We’ll have these in hand shortly,” Buddha agreed, his transmission interspersed with the thudding of his CASPer firing its magnetic accelerator cannon. “We can be there in a few minutes.”
Jim examined his battlespace. The tank was massive. It had to be one of the fusion-powered beasts he’d read about. Which meant shields and energy weapons. It was heading down the same gap the APC had taken, so it was heading right towards the APC and Second Squad, and fast.
“Shit,” he said.
“Jim,” Hargrave said, “we’re in position. What are you doing?”
“Leading,” Jim said as he jumped out from the rock wall.
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Get “Cartwright’s Cavaliers” now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRZKM95.
Find out more about Mark Wandrey and “Cartwright’s Cavaliers” at:
https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-wandrey/
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