“So...you’re my brother...and you want to fight with the ESS...” she said, still trying to understand it all.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m your brother. And I want to help you topple an empire.”
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading the Earth Space Service Boxed Set which includes the first three books in the ESS Space Marines series. These stories cover the start of the Arkana War and the next set of stories will cover some of the epic struggles in this conflict between two races who are tied together by DNA but share very different ideals.
I really hope you enjoyed the stories. If you could leave a review for me, that would be awesome because it helps me tell others about my books.
At the end of the book, there is a preview of the next book in the ESS Space Marines series, Nebula. In this book Andy and her squad face off with the Arkana again and wind up stranded in a Nebula and are faced with a potentially fatal race against time. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
Get Nebula here: amazon.com/dp/B076N8YBRB
I have also included a preview of Mimic and the Space Engineer which is the first book in the Space Shifter Chronicles. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.
Get Mimic and the Space Engineer here: amazon.com/dp/B075FKW915/
If you want to be the first to hear about new releases and special offers, be sure to sign up for our Science Fiction Newsletter. We have several fun things planned that will only be available to newsletter subscribers and can’t wait to share those with you too. To start with, you will get a free short story from the Niakrim War series. It tells the story of Cyrus Jones, one of the main characters in the series, and how he came to be part cyborg. All the information is on the next page.
Thanks again. I hope you like what I’ve written!
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PREVIEW: NEBULA
EVERYTHING WAS HAZY.
Andrea ‘Andy’ Dolan stood in the center of a far-reaching fog, unable to see anything beyond the grey mist. A sense of unease settled deep into her as she turned in a slow circle, searching for something, anything. But there was nothing, just fog. She was utterly alone.
Despite the way her skin tingled with nervousness, she remained calm.
Andy cautiously lifted her hand and moved it through the mist, slowly, testing what it felt like. It didn’t feel unusual. Her hand passed through air, feeling just a touch of cool dampness.
Silence. There was also silence.
Andy lowered her hand and turned her head one way and the other, trying to pick out any sound but there was nothing but deafening silence. She had always thought the term sounded impossible, until she had actually experienced true silence. It was like her body and brain tried to fill in the gaps, forming a sort of white noise, a hum. It was deafening in its way.
There was a sense of sterility to the haze. No sight or sound or smell. Nothing suggested that the mist itself was dangerous, since she had been breathing it for several minutes and was still alive.
She took a slow, deep breath and decided that the only way out of the fog was through it.
With one last look around, she took a cautious step forward. When nothing happened, she took another step forward. After a few cautious steps, the fog began to lighten up.
Andy continued forward at the same careful pace until finally, shapes began to emerge in the distance. She paused and studied the shapes, but there was no detail, or even a hint at what they were. The size suggested they were part of the landscape, or buildings.
She started moving forward again, and the shapes began to take on definition and color.
The last of the mist thinned and revealed a city that spanned a large valley, as well as buildings built up into the mountainside. There was a mix of buildings ranging from sterile, straight line buildings to ancient constructions with elaborate designs and bright colors.
Everything appeared to be made of stone, a mix of white, light gray, and deep azure blue.
Andy could see lines running along the side of the mountain, cutting straight or weaving around buildings and she knew that they were roadways. Everything was still and quiet. The uneasy feeling grew alongside a sense of...being haunted.
Among the discomfort, there was a thread of another emotion that was difficult to pick out. She stared at the city and worked at it, trying to pluck loose the errant thread.
Longing.
There was something about the city that drew her in. It felt like it was calling to her, even though she knew she had never seen it before.
Andy stared at the sprawling city and wondered where it was; she wondered if it was a real place somewhere in the universe, or just something in her imagination. She knew as the moments passed that this was a dream. She almost always knew when she was having dreams, and ones like this were getting more frequent.
She could sense that this city had something to do with her father’s people. Was this an Arkana city? No one had ever seen one, aside from the Arkana, or even knew where they were.
Was this real, or was it just her imagination creating what she thought it might be like?
Finding a white stone-paved road, she put her feet on it and realized that they were bare. She frowned at that, but couldn’t do much about it so she kept walking. Andy needed to know what the inside of the city looked like.
When she reached the first buildings and started to enter the city proper, a figure appeared on the road ahead of her. This one was not another building, all of which were now bright and clearly defined, but that of a person. It was a vague humanoid shape that gave her the sense of belonging to a man.
She had seen this figure in her dreams before.
‘He’ walked toward her and she stopped, but did not retreat. She stared at the featureless figure and waited for him.
As he drew nearer, she saw a shimmer—that was the only way she could describe it—showing in various areas of the shape. With each one, she almost caught a glance of a person within it. The faintest sign of facial features, but never enough to get an idea of what that face actually looked like.
“You’re here,” the figure said without a mouth.
“I am,” she replied plainly.
All was silent for several moments as pale, misty figures began to pass her on both sides. They also had the sense of being people, and yet there were no forms or faces to them as they went about their hazy business through the city.
“Why don’t you leave us alone?” she asked brazenly. It was her dream, after all, so it wasn’t like she had to practice diplomacy. Unless the Arkana could break into her dreams, but even then...
“You’re in our way.”
A shimmer and a flicker, a hint of a pair of crystal blue eyes and white skin.
“The ESS is in your way, or I am?”
A shimmer and a flicker, a hint of a pair of lips curved in an almost sinister smile. The figure, despite lacking all consistent features, managed to radiate arrogance. It was like an aura that lingered around the shape of the being and insidiously sunk into everything around him and her. She surprised a shudder.
“Both,” he replied.
Andy scoffed quietly. “I will stand in your way until they put me in a tube and shoot me into space.”
The figure seemed to tilt its head, quizzical and amused. “Why do you resist? You cannot stop us now that we are coming. We are the best of you, and you are now the least of you. There is nothing you can do that we cannot also do, and do better. It’s only a matter of time before you are overcome. You cannot stop us.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said.
Then, she slapped herself hard across the face.
Read the rest of the story here:
amazon.com
/dp/B076N8YBRB
PREVIEW: MIMIC AND THE SPACE ENGINEER
I STARED at the little creature intently, noting its movements and habits. As soon as I had arrived in my room, it had scurried off my shoulder and under my standard-issue cot. And then into my shoes. And then out of my shoes and into my own personal scrap bin. I had never thought that I would have to alien-proof my quarters, but I was beginning to think it might be necessary.
“Higgens!” Dang it, I had still forgotten to turn my comm down. It was obnoxiously loud in my tiny space and my new guest let out a squeal of panic. “Gonzales has some expired blaster cores that need to be disposed of. We just found the case that was lost on the load up. Some idiot labeled it as stims! Can you believe that?”
“Have them meet me at the lift on their floor. I’ll make sure to have the proper containment unit.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll deliver the message. Be there in ten.”
At first, it had been strange to me that I only corresponded with the head of crew, Francis Giomatti. Now, I was grateful for it. The thought of having all twenty members of the crew bothering me with every little thing that went wrong—and probably wasn’t even in my job description—made my stomach twist.
“Alright, so, I gotta go, but I’ll be right back in less than half an ho—” I trailed off as I realized I couldn’t see my new alien friend anywhere. “Um, hello? Little fella?” I walked toward my worktable, looking everywhere for the obsidian guy.
Worry started to prick at me but that quickly disappeared when I realized something had changed on my desk.
“Since when do I have two water bottles?” I murmured to myself, reaching for one.
Only that same water bottle exploded into a dark goop in my hand, then it solidified into the alien.
I screamed again—I really needed to stop doing that before I blew a vocal cord—but this time, I managed not to throw my friend into a wall. “D-d-did you just…?”
The thing wiggled, sticking two of its spikes up like little waving arms and turning a gradient of grey and deep blue.
“Y-you can shapeshift?” I said breathlessly, my mind thoroughly rocked. “You’re like uh…uh, mimic!”
It trilled, then crawled up my hand once more to sit on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, lad, but you’ve got to stay here.”
I went to pick him up, but he scurried into my open collar and curled up along the neckline of my work tank underneath. “You know what, that’ll work. If you can hear me, just stay in there.”
It trilled again and I grabbed my power source containment case then headed out. I had to admit, my heart had never pounded so hard on my way to a simple energy-disposal pickup, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want my crewmates to know that I had picked up a bit of a straggler. I knew the regulations well enough, and that would mean the spacing of an unknown danger. I didn’t want my new sidekick to be hurtled out into the void of space when we were just getting to know each other.
There was also that thing about it being a species I had never heard of and just learning that it could shapeshift. Which I was pretty sure was impossible.
The lift doors opened and my heart spiked when I saw Gonzales standing there, half a dozen blaster coils in her hands. She was an impossibly tall woman, and had these dark eyes that just seemed to look through everything. From what little I knew, she was a mix of Mexican and Polynesian, which apparently explained her impressive height of six-foot-six. Granted, I knew almost nothing about Earth culture, considering I had been born on a colony and lived on ships and stations my entire life.
“Oh, hello there!” she said, professionally pleasant.
“Hi! I hear you have some cores for me?”
“Indeed, I do!” she said, beaming and handing them over. I went about putting them into the case, only to feel my little hitchhiker pull against my shirt. Quickly, I pressed it flat with my hand and let out a pathetic cough to cover the noise.
“You okay there?”
“Fine! Everything is fine!” I chirped, hastily finishing up with the cores and holding the case flat to my chest. “I’ll make sure these are taken care of!”
With that, I turned right on my heel and rushed back into the elevator. My mimic friend was going crazy, tickling at my collar and trying to crawl directly out of the front of my shirt.
“Relax, buddy. We just gotta get to my room.”
It didn’t listen. Granted, it probably didn’t understand me. It wasn’t like everyone in space automatically spoke English. By the time I reached my room, I was a bit of a mess, and I set the container down and finally freed the mimic from within my shirt.
“Geez, little dude, what is your problem?”
It practically erupted from me and ran over to the case, which it jumped up and down on several times.
“What? You want to see the cores? I guess if you’re that enthusiastic about it.” Leave it to me to travel all of space to find some sort of strange, shapeshifting alien who was some sort of blaster core aficionado. With a shrug, I opened up the slotted, anti-rad case.
Everything seemed to happen at once. The mimic jumped down it, spreading itself flat in a matter of seconds. It glowed vibrantly for a moment, before suddenly expanding into a bubbling, boiling heap.
Once more I found myself leaping back in horror. Had I just killed my friend? What if it was the last of its species? Was I a murderer?!
I didn’t get a direct answer, but the bubbling stopped, and my friend reassembled itself, chirping quite happily.
….and about a foot bigger than it was before.
“Oh my…” I murmured, once again finding myself in utter shock by this strange creature. “You just…” I took a breath. “You just ate my blaster cores!”
It chirped again, grey and light pink rippling through its body. It had just gone from palm-sized to small dog in seconds, but it seemed nonplussed by the transition.
“Well, I guess that’s one way to dispose of them safely.”
I sat down on my cot, the whole day catching up to me. In just a few hours I had made a new friend that just so happened to be an unidentified species, found out it could shapeshift, and devoured things that had nuclear energy in them which would then result in a rapid growth spurt.
The mimic… Actually, that wasn’t a half-bad name for it. Mimic.
Anyway, Mimic didn’t seem to pick up on my anxiety and nestled up to my side, trilling with a spacy, fragmented sound that reminded me so much of a cat’s purr. And I couldn’t help but think if our first day was this hectic, that day two was going to be one heck of a wringer.
Read the rest of the story here:
amazon.com/dp/B075FKW915/
Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Zenith
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Daikon
I. Daikon
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
II. Star Chaser
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Arkana
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Cha
pter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Thank You
Free Story
Preview: Nebula
Preview: Mimic and the Space Engineer
Earth Space Service Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3 (ESS Space Marines Omnibus) Page 23