by Dan Koboldt
The panel whistled about ten seconds later. Incoming video chat.
Well, this ought to be interesting.
“You’ve got a call,” Kiara said.
Here it came, the old dressing down from the top brass. Logan didn’t give two shits about what some suit had to tell him. In fact, he was more curious than concerned. Let’s have a look at who’s calling the shots.
He gave her a see-if-I-care look, and grabbed the panel. He had to shield it from the glare of the sun on the water. And when he did that, the last thing he expected to see was his wife’s face. “Sharon?”
“Hi, baby!” She smiled with those perfect white teeth.
His heart fluttered the way it always had when he saw her. He smiled back. “Hey, baby, how are you?” He glanced up at Kiara. What the hell is she playing at? A dread began to creep up inside of him.
“Ooh, we are great,” Sharon said. “If I’d known how lovely the island was, I’d have made you bring me here sooner.”
“What island?” His stomach went cold. “Are you at the facility?”
“Since last week. I can’t believe CASE Global flew us down here.”
“Neither can I.” He looked up at Kiara, who was staring out at the ocean. She can’t even look at me. “Are the girls with you?”
“School won’t start for three weeks. They’re having a ball.”
“Aw, good. Listen, I have to get back to it.” He forced a smile. “Don’t have too much fun until I get back.”
“No promises.” She blew him a kiss. “See you soon.”
The screen went blank, and he fought the urge to chuck the whole tablet into the water. “What the hell is this?”
“I thought that having your family close by would help you remember your priorities. Sharon’s always wanted to see the island, hasn’t she?”
And I wanted her a thousand miles away from it. “You had no right to bring them there.”
“Consider it a perk. They’re being treated as honored guests.”
They weren’t guests. They were hostages. The company had him by his soft spot, and Kiara knew that all too well. “How could you, Lieutenant?” This was brutally cold, even for her. “How many other CASE Global employees got this little perk?”
“There was a drawing for it, and only two winners.”
He connected the dots, and couldn’t believe how cold the picture was. “Me and Mendez.”
“Yes. The whole Mendez clan. All thirty-five members.”
The saddest part was that Logan should have seen it coming. I’m such a fool. Mendez returned from the bow wearing a grim expression.
“So, about those orders,” Kiara said. “Are you still refusing them?”
Logan met her gaze, and didn’t hide the fury from his eyes. He’d have gone for her right then, except she had her hand near the pneumatic pistol. And the company would still have his family. New threats assorted themselves in his head. Mendez caught Logan’s eye, looked at Kiara, then back. Gave a tiny nod. He had Logan’s back, whatever happened. Good.
Logan put his solder’s face back on. The face of cool professionalism. He let out a long breath. “Guess I’m not.”
But you’d better watch your back, Lieutenant.
Chapter 42
Overboard
“The key to a good cover is mastery of the little details.”
—R. Holt, “Recommendations for Gateway Protocols”
Veena fought to keep her head above the surface, but the flexsteel armor weighed her down. She’d already given up her sword to the inky depths of Valteron City’s bay. For a moment, she thought Kiara might turn the trade cog to rescue her, but the Valteroni ships descended with alarming swiftness. Almost as if they’d been crewed and ready to sail the moment their team infiltrated the admiral’s complex.
So the rest of her team fled before the approaching ships, leaving Veena to fend for herself.
Now one of those Valteroni ships cast a long shadow as it loomed over her. Her arms and legs felt like lead by the time the basketball-sized cork float splashed down beside her. She grabbed on to it with both hands. It was either that, or drown.
They dragged her to the hull of the ship, and then hauled her up the side. Her arms shook with exertion. Just before she reached the top, they gave out. She’d have fallen, were it not for the arms that caught her cloak and lifted her bodily over the rail. She collapsed in a heap on the deck, coughing up seawater until she gagged. A pair of boots appeared before her. Black leather, steel tip. An officer.
“You must be Veena,” he said.
“Yes.” She coughed again, took his offered hand, and stood.
The man was middle-aged, with a short beard and ruddy cheeks. He wore the crisp white uniform and triangular hat of a Valteroni ship’s captain. “I am Captain Mansfield, of the Valteroni fleet.”
“Well, Captain.” She straightened and looked at him with as much calm as she could muster. “You certainly took your time.”
Chapter 43
Revelations
“Distraction is the magician’s best friend, as long as we’re not the ones distracted.”
—Art of Illusion, January 5
The Felaran snow was knee-deep, and Quinn’s mule wasn’t having it.
“Come on . . . please?” Quinn asked.
The animal wouldn’t budge. Goddamn Tioni smart mules. He couldn’t believe Jillaine wanted these over horses, but she’d insisted. Since she managed most of their transportation, he really couldn’t argue. Without her, he’d never have found a lonely island two hundred leagues south of the Enclave, or leap-frogged half of the content to land in northern Felara. He hated relying on her for it, but he didn’t dare try the teleportation thing on his own. Even if the warm little ball of magic inside wanted him to.
Jillaine rode up beside him. “What’s the problem?”
“My mule won’t go.”
“Did you ask him nicely?” she whispered.
“Of course,” he groused.
She raised her voice. “Is that really a mule? I thought it was a courser, or a warhorse.”
The mule’s ears pricked up at this ridiculous praise.
“Surely a little snow wouldn’t stop so strong an animal,” Jillaine cooed.
The mule shook itself and plodded forward. They pressed on for another hour before Quinn started recognizing the landmarks. The gateway cave was about a quarter mile up the pass, but hidden from view by a snowcapped hill. And right outside it, the massive antenna that had tracked his movements for the past few weeks.
“It should be just over this ridge,” Quinn said.
The snow was drift-deep here and powdery. The mules pushed up the last couple of steps with a bit more encouragement. The dark mouth of a cave came into view. And beside it, a dark pillar of stone that looked far more natural than it really was.
It has to look like an accident. Maybe a giant tumbling boulder from farther up the mountain. The magic within him promised that anything was possible. “Why don’t we—” Quinn started began, but cut off when he saw movement. Two steps later, the rest of the shallow vale entered his vision. His jaw dropped. Siege equipment occupied most of the open space—wide mangonels, rolling catapults, and long-armed trebuchets. Dozens of figures crawled among them. Orderly ranks of soldiers filled the rest of the open space. There had to be over a hundred, and they were well-armed.
“Stop, please,” he whispered to the mules.
“Who are they?” Jillaine asked. “Felarans?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” But he didn’t think so.
Truth was, most of the equipment was pointed away from the cave, so if the people in the vale were laying siege to the gateway, they were doing a poor job of it. Quinn fumbled in an inside pocket for his field glasses. He focused on the trebuchets first, then the engineers working them. Then he cut over to some of the soldiers. And it started to dawn on him . . .
They were armored, but not with clunky Alissian plate. The suppleness to it, and
the freedom of movement, came from a material not of this world. Flexsteel.
I’ll be damned. He shook his head. “It’s begun already. And no one thought to tell me.”
She met his eyes, and he saw the uncertainty there. “What’s begun?”
“We have to go.” He patted his mule’s neck. “Turn around and take us out of here. Please.”
Jillaine caught his arm. “What’s begun?”
He glanced back at the cave entrance, and then met her eyes. “The invasion of your world.”
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading my book! I had a lot of fun writing the sequel to The Rogue Retrieval, and hope that you found it just as entertaining. If you did, I hope you’ll keep an eye out for the third book, tentatively entitled The World Awakening, which should be out in 2018. If you’d like a reminder, please join my mailing list here:
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If you enjoyed my book, I hope you’ll consider leaving a review on your blog, your favorite bookstore, or social media. Even a short review helps other readers find my book and decide if it’s something they’d like. For a quick primer on how to write a book review, visit this page on my author website:
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Thanks for placing a bet on my book. It means a lot.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to so many people for helping this book become a reality. To my wife, Christina, and our little ones (Audrey, Elliott, and Samuel), whose unflappable support allows me to keep writing. To my editor, David Pomerico, for his sharp editorial eye and continued support. To my copy editors, Christine Langone and Beth Attwood. To Caroline Perny and the team at Harper Voyager, for helping my books reach a wider audience. To my agent, Paul Stevens, for his constant support and career guidance. To my critique partners, Dannie Morin and Mike Mammay, for ferreting out my writing weaknesses.
I would never have come this far without the support of the writing community. Special thanks to my friends in The Clubhouse, Codex Writers, the Pitch Wars community, and Impulse Authors Unite.
Last but not least, I’m grateful to my readers for taking another trip through the gateway to Alissia. I hope it was everything you wanted, and more.
About the Author
DAN KOBOLDT is a genetics researcher and fantasy/science-fiction author. He has coauthored more than sixty publications in Nature, Human Mutation, Genome Research, The New England Journal of Medicine, Cell, and other scientific journals. Dan is also an avid hunter and outdoorsman. Every fall, he disappears into the woods to pursue whitetail deer with bow and arrow. He lives with his wife and children in Ohio, where the deer take their revenge by eating the flowers in his backyard.
You can find him online at http://dankoboldt.com and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DanKoboldt.
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Also by Dan Koboldt
Gateways to Alissia
The Rogue Retrieval
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the island deception. Copyright © 2017 by Daniel C. Koboldt. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Map by Dan Koboldt
Digital Edition APRIL 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-265908-8
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-265909-5
Harper Voyager, the Harper Voyager logo, and Harper Voyager Impulse are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers.
HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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