by Dietmar Wehr
Earth, EAF Headquarters:
Mirakova told her computer to close down the video channel now that her conversation with Representative Foxworthy was over. He had been a lot more civil ever since the Alliance had grudgingly agreed to re-instate humans as full, voting members after the disaster at Omega2. She had to give Foxworthy his credit. An asshole he definitely was, but he had played his cards masterfully. Not only did humans get to vote in the Council again, but they also got the Council to agree that the EAF would NOT be subordinate to the Council’s existing military chain of command. Instead, the EAF would have the flexibility to operate separately if it chose to, and if it engaged in combined operations with Alliance forces, a human officer would be in sole command. That was the good news. The not so good news, which she had not told him, was that decoded Tyrell transmissions from Omega2 had revealed the fact that one of N’kanu’s carriers had been captured, though thankfully not any of the crew, and apparently efforts to download data from the computers aboard that carrier had failed. The Alliance had lucked out on that one. She shuddered to think of the havoc that could ensue if the Tyrell had figured out which star systems the Alliance was composed from. God, if the Tyrell knew that humans were part of the Alliance in some way, they might not wait until their pre-determined attack date, which was now less than eight years away. That still seemed like a long time, but a lot could happen in eight years. She snorted. Hell, a lot WOULD happen in the next eight years. If the Tyrell were still around in eight years time, then the whole Alliance project would have failed. They couldn’t afford to wait that long. The Tyrell had to be stopped in their tracks and damn soon! If she had to bet on how the Tyrell would be defeated, she would put her money on Eagleton’s stinger concept. The projections had been clear. With the same amount of resources as were needed to build one corvette, the EAF could build a whole squadron of stingers, and once the mass production line got going, they could do that in a lot less time too. The new designs for the larger carriers were already being redesigned to accommodate stingers. Mirakova could hardly wait, and she knew that Cate Harrow and Gort Eagleton would be impatient to see those ships operational too. But the stingers were still a ways away from having even one squadron operational, and the EAF was still in the middle of replacing its losses. This lull in the war would end eventually, and then the EAF, in conjunction with the Alliance forces, would take the initiative away from the Tyrell.
As she left HQ later that day and stepped out into the open, she heard thunder in the distance. There was a storm coming, and she noticed that particular smell that was always present before a thunderstorm. She felt the refreshing breeze on her face and smiled. This war was like a thunderstorm too. The Tyrell had started a thunder in the heavens with their desire for battle. Yeah, we heard your thunder. Pretty soon you’ll be hearing ours! With a laugh, she stepped over and into the limo that was waiting to take her home.
To be continued in book 2 of the Thunder in the Heavens series (tentative book title ‘The Thunder of Conquest’)
Author’s Comments:
I hope you enjoyed this first book in the new military SF series. If you did, I would ask you to take a couple of minutes to post a review. Reviews really do help and are appreciated. You can post a review by going to this book’s amazon page (here) and scrolling down to the reviews section where you’ll find the ‘Write a customer review’ button. The next book in the series will likely be published in early September. If you haven’t already joined my mailing list, I urge you to do so in order to be kept up to date on news about upcoming books, special offers, etc. If you join my mailing list (click here), you’ll receive a confirmation email plus a welcome email (that is sometimes slow in coming) which contains links to download a free copy of my book The Retro War which is my gift to you.
Long Live Space Opera!
Table of Contents
Other books by the author (all these books except the complete series books are also available as audiobooks):
The Cast of Main Characters:
Prologue:
Chapter One:
Chapter Two:
Chapter Three:
Chapter Four:
Chapter Five:
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven:
Chapter Eight:
Chapter Nine:
Chapter Ten:
Chapter Eleven:
Chapter Twelve:
Chapter Thirteen:
Chapter Fourteen:
Chapter Fifteen:
Chapter Sixteen:
Chapter Seventeen:
Chapter Eighteen: