Sneak Peek—Stories from The Expanding Universe Anthology #4: ‘The Burden of Honor’ by Kevin McLaughlin

-

There are 20 short stories in the latest volume of Craig Martelle’s The Expanding Universe anthologies. Today, with his permission, we are taking a sneak peek at the start of Kevin McLaughlin’s story, ‘The Burden of Honor’. Here’s how it begins:
----------------------------------------------------------------

Sir Drake returns home to rally his people against an ancient enemy. But threats far closer threaten to turn his mission to ashes before he can even begin.

The HMS Armistice broke out into normal space in a blaze of light. For a brief moment it was like a second sun flashed into being, then the light was gone. Transition from warp completed, the ship arced toward the nearby planet at high velocity.

Sir David Drake stood at the ship’s helm, staring at the world below as it grew in the ship’s front window. It all looked green and blue from up here, but the place he was going wasn’t either of those colors. No, he was headed for the center of a massive grey spot on the surface, looking from space like a cancerous bulge on the face of the world.

That was Lusitania, the capital city of both the world Lyonesse and the entire Star Kingdom. It was the seat of Her Majesty’s power, the center around which the rest of their cluster of stars spun. A hundred naval vessels hung in orbit over the world, varying in size from corvettes like his own ship to massive dreadnoughts with world-killing weapons.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Would you like to read more? 

TheExpanding Universe #4 is now available on Amazon. You can also find Volume 1, The Expanding Universe: An Exploration of Science Fiction Genre, Volume 2, The Expanding Universe: Exploring the Science Fiction Genre, and Volume 3, The Expanding Universe 3: Space Opera, Military SciFi, Space Adventure, & Alien Contact! on Amazon in paperback.



Location: Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Australian Insects: An Unknown Caterpillar eating Grevillea flower buds

-
Image
So, this little guy nearly bought it when I caught it eating the still-forming buds on my Robyn grevillea, but then I thought I might like to see which particular butterfly was responsible, so I took some pictures and decided to keep an eye on it, so I knew when it pupated. The first shot - caterpillar happily nibbling on flower buds:  Yup - definitely nibbling: And here's another view. Note the little yellow lumps near its back end. Same day, but it was one of those cloudy days with variegated light. And it kept nibbling for quite some time: Stretching out to get the more tasty tidbits, and using its hind feet to keep a firm grip on the branch. Eventually it looped back on itself... ...and headed into denser foliage. It didn't always move in a straight line... How come caterpillars have more feet than butterflies? Eventually, it got into some much thicker growth (well, for a young grevillea, anyway), meaning it was somewhat prot...
Read more

NEW RELEASE: AUTUMNAL THREAT

-
Image
An alien autumn. An unseen predator. Deadly burrowers and an oncoming winter. And bugs big enough to ride. Joaquin only wants to warn his daughter of a new danger. To keep her safe. To make her understand her mother isn’t coming back, while keeping her alive. But what if he’s wrong? What if Mariam really did survive? What if, when everything looks like it’s going wrong, it’s really going right? Autumnal Threat is Joaquin's story. It is a father's story...and the story of a husband who misses his wife, and wants to keep his daughter safe from a new threat on their frontier world. It's a story of hope, and not giving up, and of family, as well as an exploration of what an alien eco-system might look like. It was a lot of fun to write. You can find links to this newly released, stand-alone, science-fiction short story on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/mgyopK or read an earlier version in A Collection of Lost Ships and Colonies .  
Read more

Free Read: Forest Connections

-
Today, I managed to settle down and write a response to the latest flash fiction challenge on Chuck Wendig's Terribleminds blog - The Dead Body . There were only two rules: the word limit was 1,000, and the story had to open with a dead body. This is what came out: Forest Connections The body swayed in the trees rocked by storm winds and illuminated by lightning. It was naked, except for the green, leather gloves it wore on both hands—the hands from which it was suspended from the tree. It might have been an attractive body, if there hadn’t been a gaping wound where its stomach should be. Perhaps… but Garamond wasn’t looking at the body, didn’t notice the slender hips or sculpted chest, the beauty of fine-chiselled cheek bones or luxurious fall of hair. Garamond fought his breakfast back into place, swallowed bile, forced his focus to the other trees in the grove, the ground onto which he’d nearly stepped. If it hadn’t been for the crow flying out of the chest cavity...
Read more