Authors

The Fleet designed the new SC-Class ships with an impenetrable bridge. The most protected spot on the ship. Right in the center. 

So, when Lieutenant Balázs Jicha realizes the bridge of the Izlovchi now opens to space, he fights to remember what happened. And what to do next. 

 Jicha always follows his hunches. Now, he must rely on those hunches to help him save his ship. 

“Hunches,” part of my Diving Universe, is free on this website for one week only. The story is also available as an ebook on all the various sites. (Yes, someday, I’ll put it in a collection.) If you want to get updates on my Diving Universe, sign up for the newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/gqxk-D

Enjoy!

 

 Hunches  Kristine Kathryn Rusch 

 

Balázs Jicha stood in the wreckage of the bridge of the Izlovchi. The environmental suit he’d donned—too early, Lieutenant, Captain Treseter said when she saw him—was looser than he liked, making it feel as if his skin was sloughing off. His eyes ached from the smoke still swirling around the bridge—even though he hadn’t been in the smoke at all. 

He’d been the only bridge crew member in an environmental suit who had been close enough to a console so that he could hang on when something small and fiery burst into the bridge itself. 

That something small and fiery had carved a large opening through the hull and three levels between that hull and the bridge, opening the bridge to space. The whoosh of atmosphere leaving the bridge had been sudden and startling, partly because it wasn’t supposed to happen, not with the new SC-Class design. 

No part of the bridge was even near an exterior wall of the ship. The bridge was in the exact heart of the Izlovchi, and as such should’ve been untouchable. 

The ship didn’t even have a proper response to the attack on the bridge. The nanobits were supposed to repair critical systems first, so they prioritized the hull breach, which was huge, and one of the corridors that led to the medical wing. The nanobits didn’t even seem to be aware (if such things could be aware) that the bridge had been attacked. 

No, the bridge had been destroyed. 

He watched it happen in real time, gloved hands gripping the console, the small fiery thing still glowing, as if it was waiting for the oxygen to return. The small fiery thing seemed to be gloating, its redness pulsing, taunting him. 

He had watched it zoom inside, then burrow into the floor, not too far from his boots. The boots that had their gravity turned on, so that he wouldn’t get pulled out of the bridge with the atmosphere, like so many others had. 

But he had risked getting hit by that small fiery thing, and somehow, it had missed him. 

When it settled, and the destruction was over, and it seemed like no more small fiery things were going to follow this one, he found himself on the other side of his console, as far as he could get from the demolished section of the floor. 

The bridge looked nothing like it had an hour before. Consoles and equipment gone, edges of that gigantic opening crisped, a few crew members wrapped around console bases, but not wearing environmental suits. 

And without the suits, they hadn’t had a chance. 

He thought others had put on the suits, but there were holes in his memory, and right now, he was the only one moving. 

The oxygen hadn’t returned yet, but the gravity had, which meant the full environmental system would kick in soon, and he would have to do something about that weapon, but he didn’t know what. 

He had a hunch—and he wasn’t sure why he had that hunch (maybe he was just being paranoid)—that the small fiery weapon thing wanted him to use fire prevention equipment on it. His hunch told him any conventional fire prevention solution would make the problem worse. 

And he had no idea why he had that hunch, what he had seen or heard or deduced from all the materials he’d been studying for his first contact with the culture that refused to identify itself on Luluenema, the planet they’d been planning to orbit when—this—hit them. 

He wasn’t thinking clearly. Or rather, as clearly as he should have been. Somehow—somewhen—he had let go of the console. He didn’t remember doing it. Just remembered clinging as the escaping atmosphere tried to pull him with it into space. 

The captain was gone, along with the first officer and—god, half the bridge crew. Three other bridge crew had been obliterated when the small fiery thing had busted its way inside. They’d been standing in its path, and they hadn’t burst into flame as much as burst into a reddish glow, and then evaporated. 

He had seen it all, almost in slow motion. 

Grabbing the environmental suit—that was his last real memory. 

The captain had said— 

*** 

“Hull breach, Cargo Bay One.” Captain Treseter sounded surprised. She was looking at a floating holoscreen as she stood in the exact center of the bridge, what she called the “well” of the bridge, because it was lower than any other point on the bridge. 

This bridge was a bowl, and she used it, often setting up screens in a circle around her, making her seem like she was shielded from her bridge crew. 

“I thought the shields were up,” First Officer Aydin said as her fingers moved on her screen. She was clearly checking the shields. 

“They are,” Jicha said. He’d checked when he arrived on the bridge. Maintaining basic shields was one of his duties as the lowest ranking officer on the bridge. 

“Toggle them to full strength,” the captain said, most likely to him. And because it was most likely, he opened the shield information on his console, only to see that someone else had already maximized the shields, probably First Officer Aydin. 

That didn’t make him feel safer. The shields had been strong enough that no conventional weapon would have gotten through them. 

“Who is firing on us?” The current navigator on duty, Gunna Ota, was leaning forward. She was only a yard or so from Captain Treseter and could probably see the floating screens. “We hadn’t picked up any ships nearby.” 

“I’m getting flashes of things,” said Lieutenant Srigly. “I would say that I’m seeing fireflies, but that’s not possible. We’re not planetbound.” 

Jicha knew what fireflies were, although he doubted that the others did. Jicha’s father had been a land-based engineer with Sector Base J-2, and Jicha spent a lot of time outside. They’d lived near a swamp, which had all kinds of insects, including something the locals called fireflies, because their tiny bellies would glow at twilight. 

That comment sent a shiver through him. No one else on the bridge seemed nervous. 

“Captain,” he said, “if these weapons can penetrate the hull even with the shields—” 

“The hole in Cargo Bay One is already repaired, Lieutenant,” Treseter said. Her tone was condescending. His cheeks heated. She had been babying him since he had been posted on the Izlovchi. 

His previous assignment had been on a much smaller ship, and he’d been a lowly ensign then. His work with other cultures, and his skills with languages, had gotten him promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade, and with that promotion had come this assignment—an SC-Class vessel that needed someone unafraid of first-contact situations, particularly when the SC-Class vessel was clearing the way for a DV-Class convoy exploring planets for possible sector bases. 

He was good at first contact because he read body language. He understood subtleties. He knew how humans reacted to other humans, even if they weren’t from the same culture. 

But he was bad at interactions with others on the ships he’d served on because he had no idea how to translate those hunches into something Fleet officers saw as actionable. 

Fleet officers wanted logic and rules and A-to-B-to-C reasoning that would make everyone else see the same possibilities. He still hadn’t learned how to do that. 

His previous captain had tried to explain that aspect of Jicha to Treseter, and she had claimed she understood, but in the three months Jicha had been on board, he had learned that she hadn’t. 

We don’t need that vague stuff, Lieutenant, she would say to him, and that tone, the one she most often used to shut him down, was the one she had just used about Cargo Bay One. 

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he said, “but something is off.” 

First Officer Aydin shot him a warning look. She professed to understand his hunches, and even promised to train him how to communicate them better, but so far, she had lacked the time. 

“I agree,” Lieutenant Srigly said. “Those flashes of light have me worried. The sensors aren’t picking up anything, but the way the lights appear make it seem to me like we’re surrounded.” 

“I don’t like that word ‘seem,’” Captain Treseter said. “I’d prefer something more concrete.” 

Jicha blinked, frowned. His own memories felt like flashes of light sometimes, particularly when he was putting pieces together. 

“I found something in my research about the space around Luluenema,” he said. “Something about ships getting swarmed by light.” 

“Are we being swarmed, Lieutenant Srigly?” Captain Treseter asked, with just a touch of mockery in her tone. 

“If those lights were actual bugs, then I’d say yes, Captain,” Lieutenant Srigly said. 

The captain nodded, clearly surprised by that response. “The swarms, Lieutenant Jicha. Were they harmful?” 

“The ships reporting them got destroyed, Captain,” Jicha said. That much he did remember. He wasn’t going to tell her, though, that the information he’d been working off of was centuries old. 

“All right,” Captain Treseter said. “Then we need to take all the precautions we can. See what you can find in the records, Lieutenant Jicha. Anything that will give us a clue as to what we’re facing.” 

“Yes, sir,” he said, and then turned. The supplies closet was just behind his station. He pulled the nearest environmental suit out, one that looked like it would fit him. 

She had said all precautions. Or had he misunderstood? No one else was grabbing environmental suits. 

“Too early, Lieutenant,” Captain Treseter said. “But put it on anyway. We all will need to suit up, since we’ve already had a hull breach. Aydin, send an announcement through the ship. Suiting up—” 

*** 

—and then his memory skipped and broke. Somehow he was in the environmental suit, and two others who had been coming for their suits had turned into red glowing bits of themselves, and he imagined he could smell burning flesh and smoke, even though there was no oxygen, not anymore, not even when the small fiery thing hit, and he was clinging to the console, the hole punched through three layers of the ship and the hull letting space gleam beyond. 

He saw fireflies, he was sure of it, out there in the bluish-blackness of space. Little twinkling lights, almost like they were mocking him, mocking all of them, and in his head, one of those lights had become the small fiery thing that burned its way through the ship. 

The small fiery thing was still glowing, and one of the other members of the bridge crew—he couldn’t tell who, one of five who had grabbed environmental suits after he had (he remembered that now; how come he couldn’t remember more?), was reaching for fire suppression equipment. 

Jicha shook his head, then waved a hand, holding them off. Instead, he leaned against the nearest console, surprisingly dizzy, even though his suit registered perfect oxygen levels and the gravity on his boots kept him stabilized, long before the actual gravity had returned. 

He tried to ignore the weird sensations—the smoke, the burning flesh, the aching eyes, his sore knees from too much gravity (God, he felt like he weighed three times his usual weight)—and concentrate. He called up a control panel, saw the environmental system blinking as it slowly rebooted, one piece at a time, and slid his gloved forefinger across the screen, finding a containment unit. 

He nearly pulled his finger away. It took all of his strength to keep his finger there, but he managed. And then he guided the containment unit to the small fiery thing, which was just a small glowing thing, and it looked harmless until he contained it, and then he saw all kinds of bits—mechanical bits—he hadn’t seen before. 

It was giving off energy that the containment unit had under control, at least for the moment. 

His headache eased—and he hadn’t even realized that he had a headache until it went away. The smell of burning flesh was gone, not even leaving an after-smell in his nose—but his eyes still ached, and his cheeks were wet, and he was shaking, but the dizziness was gone. 

Two other members of the bridge crew pushed themselves upwards, their environmental suits gray with some kind of dust or damaged nanobits or something. Both crew members looked at him, but he couldn’t see their faces. He imagined they were surprised. 

Or maybe their headaches had eased too. Maybe without the energy coming off the small fiery thing, the crew members could move around. 

He needed to get the small fiery thing off the bridge, and off the ship. He wasn’t sure how to do that. He wasn’t sure how to do anything. 

He looked over at the hole in the bridge again, and finally, what he saw registered. He could see all the way through the ship to bluish-blackness of space beyond. Little floating lights, those firefly lights, still winked. 

He blinked, trying to make the image go away—and it wouldn’t. Those lights—he could see the lights. 

He could see outside the ship. 

He looked at the control panel, forcing himself to concentrate. Concentrating was easier than it had been. 

The shields were still up around most of the ship, but not on this side, where the hole was. They were gone near Cargo Bay One too. 

But worse, the nanobits weren’t repairing the second hole in the hull. They also left the hole in Cargo Bay One only half repaired. 

The nanobits had stopped doing their job. 

He’d never heard of that. 

But even without them, the environmental systems were restoring themselves, which meant that something had contained the area around the bridge. 

He called up information about the bridge itself, saw that a containment field had dropped around the bridge about the point the gravity reasserted itself. The containment field was a secondary system, one designed to activate when the shields no longer worked. 

So, the shields weren’t working on this side of the ship, and neither were the nanobits. 

He leaned on the console, his chest aching, almost as if he wasn’t getting air. He made himself concentrate on breathing. The air inside his suit tasted of metal and sweat—probably his own sweat. Flop sweat, from being terrified. 

First things first, he had to get the small fiery thing off the bridge, but he wasn’t sure how to do it. 

Then he blinked, thought, realized his priorities were wrong. 

The Izlovchi was badly damaged. She was a lead ship, and three other ships would arrive soon, helping prepare the way for the convoy which was going to arrive a day or two from now. 

He couldn’t remember the details. The details hadn’t been about him. The first contact had, and he had gotten lost in that. The meeting, it was scheduled for ten hours from now, and on Luluenema’s moon, not even on the planet itself. 

Which was important. He needed to focus, not sure why that was important. Someone had said—he had said they clearly didn’t want the strangers anywhere near Luluenema, and he wasn’t sure why that was, he had planned on figuring that out, he wasn’t sure how he could figure that out, and— 

He yanked his busy mind back to the moment at hand. 

The incoming Fleet vessels. He needed to send them a message first. 

Beware the firefly lights? Something like that, only expressed in a better way. 

He looked at the console again. No distress signal had gone out. All Fleet vessels were built with automated distress signals. When a hull breached, and the bridge hadn’t responded within five minutes, a distress signal went to the nearest ships, and that hadn’t happened here. 

He couldn’t investigate that part, not yet. He needed to send a message first. 

He sent the distress signal, and opened the automated controls. They had been shut down at the moment of the original hull breach, the one in Cargo Bay One. 

Which meant that something had invaded the Izlovchi’s systems. He felt awkward suddenly, wishing he hadn’t even activated the distress signal. Then he reminded himself: the other ships would see the signal, not bring it into their systems. 

But sending them a message—that was more complicated. He didn’t want to open any straight line of communication to the other ships, because he was afraid that whatever had invaded the Izlovchi’s systems might travel through some communications links. 

He clutched the console and made himself breathe. He couldn’t get whatever it was out of the system—he didn’t have that kind of skill. His engineering abilities were miniscule, barely good enough to put him on the officer track. 

But…engineering. He opened a different section of the console, got different readings, saw that the engineering department was untouched. As was the medical bay, and so many other sections of the ship. 

Untouched meant that they would be able to solve problems. 

He wasn’t on his own. 

He opened a communications link to Engineering. He identified himself, and then—the link cut out. 

He re-established it, saw that they were trying to respond, but seemingly unable to. 

Which meant they knew the problems existed; they just didn’t know what the problems were. 

Communicating with them, though, wasn’t going to be dangerous. Not to them, not to him. 

He just had to figure out how. 

He glanced at that hole again, space glinting out there—or maybe the fireflies, the light. Surely Engineering would notice that the nanobits weren’t functioning right. 

But no one had come to the bridge yet. No one had come to see if anyone was alive here, or injured or in need of rescue. 

Did they think everyone was dead? 

He opened yet another screen on his console, saw the environmental system still trying to reboot, and nothing else. He couldn’t see any locations of crew personnel. That system was never supposed to fail, and it had. 

Or maybe the Izlovchi was going through cascading failures. 

He let out a breath, rubbed a hand over his face, then winced. It felt weird to rub a gloved hand over his hooded helmet, and it made him realize how deeply embedded that nervous gesture was. 

A few of the other crew members, all in environmental suits, had wobbled to their feet. 

“Can you hear me?” he asked. 

One of them nodded. The other two didn’t move. The one who nodded reached up and touched the side of their hood, indicating that the others should turn on their comm systems. 

Hands went up, moved, then down again, and he repeated, “Can you hear me?” 

“Yes.” 

He didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t mean anything. He hadn’t yet worked with everyone on the bridge crew—or at least enough to feel comfortable guessing who was who. 

“I don’t think shipwide comms are working,” he said. “We need a medical team, and someone has to go to engineering.” 

He explained his belief that something was in the system, something that was overriding the systems, preventing the nanobits from recreating the hull, preventing communications internally, and maybe infecting other systems. 

He told the three crew members his fear of communicating with other ships, worry that they would get infected too. 

“I have a personal communication device,” said the only other person who had been speaking to him. He wished he knew who they were. He couldn’t tell from their voice. It could be anyone with a mid-range voice, and no local accent at all. “I can send a message to the Yoi.” 

The Yoi was a family ship. It traveled with the Fleet. 

Jicha almost told them not to contact the Yoi. It didn’t dare get infected. But if it did, it was with the bulk of the Fleet, and someone—somewhere—would be able to stop whatever destruction got started. 

Besides, the systems being attacked were shipwide, not human systems. 

And then he remembered the headache, that ghostly smell of smoke and burned wires, and he wondered. 

It was either contact the Yoi through a personal device, one that, in theory, had been encased in an environmental suit just like the four of them had, or endanger other ships. 

“Do it,” Jicha said. 

Then he pointed at the person standing to the right. “You, go down to Engineering. Let them know we’re alive up here. Tell them what’s going on, and don’t let them contact anyone using the Izlovchi’s systems. And you—” He pointed at the third person. “Get to the medical bay. Have them send someone here.” 

“What will you do?” the third person asked. His voice was deeper, almost rumbly. 

Jicha knew his name, but couldn’t access it. Maybe he was wrong; maybe something had infected the humans too. 

“I’m getting this thing off our ship,” he said, sweeping his hand down toward the container. “If it’s the last thing I do.” 

*** 

They didn’t argue with him. No one did. 

Instead, they followed his orders, as if he outranked them, which he probably did not. Two of the three left the bridge right away, and the third stood stock still for the longest time, most likely communicating on that personal communications device. 

Jicha didn’t have time for communications or anything else. He had waited too long. That was a hunch, a feeling of impending doom. If he didn’t take care of that container, that something small and fiery, then the entire ship was going to be destroyed. 

The headache was back, behind his eyes, and into his nose. His sinuses? He wasn’t sure. He ran a diagnostic on the environmental suit, and the suit cleared itself. 

He didn’t trust the clearing. He didn’t trust anything, except maybe himself. And he barely trusted himself. 

He felt fuzzy. 

He peered at the container, the small fiery thing no longer glowing inside. The container’s walls didn’t look as clear as they had before. Were they occluded? Scratched? Scarring up? Was there moisture inside making the walls cloudy? 

He couldn’t tell. 

But he had to get the thing out of the ship. 

He hadn’t turned off the gravity in his boots. He wasn’t going to. He was going to take the thing off the bridge, away from that small protective barrier, and into the hole that the thing had made. 

He was going to carry the small fiery thing. He couldn’t think of any other way to transport it—especially if it infected systems. 

He had to figure that his system was already infected, so he would assume the least amount of risk carrying it out. 

And if the environmental suit failed, oh, well. He’d had a good life. He hadn’t become the captain of any ship, let alone a DV-Class vessel, which had been his dream, but he had done his best. He had known good people, and had had solid relationships. 

He was proud of himself for getting as far as he had. He hadn’t found a mate yet, wasn’t sure he ever would, and didn’t have children, also wasn’t sure he wanted those either. He’d missed a lot of chances. He would miss even more, if he didn’t come through this. 

He didn’t expect to survive it. 

But he had to hope to survive. He understood how very important attitude was. 

He pivoted, which was hard with the double-gravity, and opened the closet behind him. The environmental suits hung in a straight line, taunting him. They should have been on the captain, on the first officer, on the rest of the bridge crew, not stored in some closet. If that had happened, the others would have survived, even though they’d been sucked out of the ship. 

But they hadn’t. 

He blinked, his eyes still burning. He reached into the closet and removed one of the protective jackets that the anacapa specialists sometimes wore. He had never worn one. When he’d had his anacapa drive training, he’d had to go without—all trainees did, to see if they could handle the massive amount of energy spewing from the drives. 

And then his brain cleared for just a moment. He hadn’t checked the anacapa drive. He hadn’t opened the container to see if the drive was safe. 

Which—some small voice in his brain reminded him—was not procedure. He didn’t dare do that. The anacapa drive was the most protected part of any Fleet ship, and he didn’t dare expose that drive to whatever was going on. 

He could handle anacapa drives—he wouldn’t be on the officer track if he couldn’t—but he didn’t know much about them. Engineering would be here soon; they could deal with the drives. 

He had to get the container off the ship. 

Dizziness swept over him, and that moment of clarity fled. He was definitely feeling the effects of something. He couldn’t remember what he had been doing. 

He looked at the closet, saw the suits, remembered, grabbed the protective jacket and put it on. It was snug over the loose environmental suit, making the environmental suit’s sleeves bunch just a bit. It almost felt like he had installed two bands across his arms. 

He adjusted the environmental suit as best he could, sealed the jacket, and pressed the release on the wrists so that his hands were encased in matching protective gloves. Maybe he should have raised the jacket’s hood, but that meant he would be wearing two environmental hoods, which would definitely have an impact on his vision, on him. 

He couldn’t do that. 

He pivoted again, thought for a moment about shutting off the gravity in his boots, decided against it, then thought about shutting off the gravity in the environmental system. He almost did that, and then remembered: there were a couple of people down who were wearing environmental suits. He didn’t want to lose them when he struck down that container field protecting that hole into the bridge. 

He swallowed. His mouth tasted faintly of metal, and he wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe the oxygen in his suit was compromised. Maybe he was. He wasn’t sure. 

He just needed to get the damn thing off the ship. 

He took two heavy steps toward the container. And he was right: the walls of the container looked brittle and white and scratched, as if something was trying to get out. 

Maybe he had less time than he thought. Maybe he should envelop it in another container. Maybe— 

Maybe he should make a decision. 

And before he even finished with that irritated thought, he bent at the waist and wrapped his arms around the container. 

He expected to feel a vibration through his entire body, so hard and powerful that it would make his teeth ache. That was what had happened when he had picked up his first anacapa drive. 

Instead, his headache got a bit worse. His eyes ached even more, and that smell of scorched and burnt wires grew stronger. The container felt warm against his body—and that was through the protective jacket and his environmental suit, which was built to withstand space itself. 

The hole the thing had made in the floor was deeper than he expected, and it looked hot on the edges, glowing red just like the thing had before he had contained it. 

He staggered toward the big gaping hole, toward the openness of space, one part of his brain telling him to shut off the gravity in his boots, another part warning about the environmental system, and still a third part reminding him that he could go through the barrier with his suit and jacket on—that they were designed to work with the frequency of the barrier so that he could slip through if need be. 

He concentrated on that thought. It seemed like the logical thought, or maybe it was a hunch breaking through, or maybe he knew something that he didn’t consciously know (which was a hunch anyway, wasn’t it?). He saw movement out of the corner of his eye—someone on the ground, waving a hand, and he felt a stab of fear. 

If he broke the barrier and it stayed broken, they would get sucked into space. 

If he let this small fiery thing remain on the bridge where it had been slowly breaking its way out of the container, then that person might die anyway. 

Probably would die anyway. 

And didn’t he remember that the way the suit/jacket worked was that he would slip through the barrier—the barrier wouldn’t dissipate at all? 

He hoped his memory was right, because if it wasn’t, he was dooming everyone. 

He finally reached the first hole. Beyond it, he saw hole after hole, each one getting bigger, until the biggest wasn’t really a hole at all, but an opening into space. That entire section of the hull was just gone, and what had once been ordered and neat corridors and rooms and decks were masses of broken walls and floors and furniture mixed with personal possessions floating and spindly cords and stems of consoles and bits of chairs hanging off barely intact parts of the ship. 

His body was getting warm, and sweat poured down his arms. His legs ached from trying to walk with extra gravity on in his boots. 

The first hole led to a scattered bit of corridor—he recognized that—and thick walls that were now open to space, through the second hole. 

It would be a relief to go through that first hole, to have only the gravity in his boots hold him in place. Or so he was telling himself, because he needed something to make himself go through it. 

Otherwise his brain would stop him, make him hope that the engineers would get here and find whatever it was that was causing the small fiery thing to make him so very hot. The inside of his arms were too warm now. The sweat had pooled under his chin. He was hot and tired, and he just wanted to stop. 

God. He couldn’t even trust his own brain. 

He stepped through that barrier, one foot and then the other. His boots clamped down on what remained of a room—a room he couldn’t quite identify—and there he stood, on the other side of that barrier, feeling lighter. 

Much lighter. 

If he shut off the gravity in his boots, he would float away, with this thing cradled in his arm. 

The chill of space should have had some kind of effect on the exterior of his suit—that burning he felt, it should have eased, right? But it didn’t. 

He swallowed, the sweat making him feel soggy, and peered at the destruction before him. 

It looked worse now that he was actually in it. Ripped bits of walls hung loosely beside his face, cords belonging to something floated upwards. A pair of pants hung beside him, buoyed by the lack of gravity, but unable to move unless he shoved the pants away. 

The floor he stood on wasn’t that sturdy. It had gaping holes as well, but there was always something he could use to cross those holes—a bit of wall or a column that looked solid enough. 

He climbed across the debris, his legs feeling ever so much better, but the burning across his torso growing worse. 

Clearly whatever was causing that fiery feeling hadn’t broken through his environmental suit, or he would know it—he would be getting cold, not hot—or maybe the container he had put around the small and fiery thing was actually protecting him too. 

He didn’t give that too much thought, because if he thought about the how of what he was doing, he wouldn’t keep doing it. It all seemed too impossible, terrifying, and hopeless. 

Maybe he should just shut off the gravity in his boots, grab something solid, and push himself forward so that he reached the edge of the ship quicker. 

But if he did that, and couldn’t control what direction he was going in, then he wouldn’t be able to clamp onto anything. The hole was bigger at the opening—the size, he could see now, of a small ship. 

That hole in the hull looked bigger than it had earlier. It should have gotten smaller as the nanobits repaired the opening, but it actually looked like the opposite was happening—that the nanobits, or something like them, was slowly eating away at the edge of the ship. 

He wondered if that was happening at Cargo Bay One, if the engineers and the others still in the environmentally sound parts of the ship had figured out how to fight this thing, or what it all was. 

He couldn’t. He just knew he had to get rid of the cause. 

He thought he saw more flickers in the bluish-blackness of the space ahead. Fireflies. Watching? Gloating? Getting ready to attack again? 

He didn’t know. And he wasn’t certain if what he saw was what Lieutenant Srigly had seen. Srigly. Had he come for a suit? Was he still alive? 

Jicha couldn’t remember seeing him coming for a suit, but Jicha couldn’t remember much. His brain was busy with this, with stepping around the broken pieces of floor. 

Maybe he should just drop the container now. His hands were beginning to burn through the gloves. It would be so easy to let go. 

But he didn’t, and if he dropped the container now, it would go through layers of ship material. 

He shook his head. That wasn’t so. The container wasn’t heavy, not here. He was no longer in any kind of gravity. 

And yet…he couldn’t let go. What if he shoved the container away from himself, and the push made it veer slightly off course? What if it caught in the broken bits of the ship, and did something like heat its way through or infect more of the ship or kill more people? 

He couldn’t do that. 

He had to get this damn thing off the ship. Far from the ship. If only he had actual gravity. If only he could fling the stupid thing and guarantee that it would fall away from the ship. 

He would need another container, and he didn’t have that. He had no way to get that. 

He could use his own body, and his boots, launch himself off the edge of the ship, still clutching the container, but that seemed wrong somehow, and not just because he would most likely die in that scenario, but also because it wouldn’t work. 

He didn’t know why he believed it wouldn’t work, but he did. 

He picked his way to the edge of an opening, saw paths and conduits from several decks below, all open to space. The opening was too wide for him to step across, but he was close enough to one of the walls (or what looked like a wall; maybe it had been a pocket door) to touch. 

He lifted his right boot and placed it on the wall, then lifted his left and did the same. He walked across the side, focusing on the gigantic opening into space that he was heading toward, knowing he would make it. 

He could follow this wall to get most of the way there. It wasn’t direct—he had initially been picking his way through the very center of the damage, and now he was at the side of it—but it would do. 

As he walked, his perspective shifted, and it seemed like the wall was a floor. He loved that about being in space. He loved the lack of gravity, the lack of up and down. He loved so much about being here. 

Space was what his life was about. Exploring it. Studying it. Seeing the outer reaches of it. 

He had done that, and if he died— 

He forced the thought away. He was not going to die today. He wasn’t going to let himself die, no matter what happened. 

He reached the edge of the wall-floor. It broke away evenly, not raggedly like so much of the rest of this damage. He was right; something was chewing away at the ship—or had gotten the nanobits to chew away at the ship. 

But he didn’t know enough about nanobits to know if they did that, chewed away, worked in reverse, or whatever, and he didn’t want to think about it. 

His chest seemed to have attached itself to his spine now, and he felt like he was melting. The insides of his boots were wet, his feet damp, his skin everywhere a big puddle of sweat. 

He was tired—almost too tired to keep going—but that couldn’t be true. Adrenalin should have kept him moving. 

Unless he was in shock. 

He didn’t feel like he was in shock. But wasn’t that part of being in shock—you felt just fine. Only he didn’t. He wasn’t. He was burning up, in the coldest part of the universe, and his brain wasn’t working the way he wanted it to. 

Ahead, the flickers of lights—the fireflies—seemed farther away. Maybe he was just seeing the reflection of the shields through his hood. 

Then he remembered: the shield wasn’t working here. 

Nothing was, except him. 

He picked his way up toward what would have been the ceiling had he been on the bridge. Right now, it looked like another wall, and it was solid. It didn’t have a ragged or an even edge. It looked like it was intact. 

He got to the edge and stood there for a moment, rooted by his boots, and not feeling as vulnerable as he usually did when he was outside the ship by himself. Maybe because those holes leading back into the ship gave him a sense of safety, even when he wasn’t safe at all. 

The fireflies almost looked like distant stars. Except they were winking, as if he was seeing them through atmosphere, and they were evenly spaced around the ship. Beyond them, he could see a white-and-blue planet, and farther, an actual star—a diamond-sized pinpoint of light. A bit of white spread below him, almost like a wisp of a cloud, even though it wasn’t a cloud, but probably an asteroid belt, and just beyond that, more planets—browner, redder, bluer—depending on how he looked at them. 

Not a bad view for a man to have before he died. 

He smiled then. This was what made him lucky—that he had gotten to see things like this and he had gotten to live landbound and he had gotten to make a choice. 

He was making a choice now, to stand here— 

And crap, he had forgotten what he was trying to do. Either something had hurt him earlier or this thing was having an impact on his mind. Or something else, something more. 

Concentrating was hard. Remembering why he was here was hard. Because he did feel an odd euphoria…that was probably a reaction to all the pain in his torso, arms and hands. 

If he stood here much longer, he wouldn’t be able to shove the container away from himself. He would probably remain rooted to this spot, dead, until the wall dissipated or someone found him. 

He made himself take a deep breath, straightened his back and looked beyond the fireflies. 

That movement didn’t feel like his own, though. His breath sucked in—a hunch, maybe his last one. 

The damn fireflies. 

He slid his hands along the sides of the container and pressed his palms against it. Then he mustered all the strength that he had, and visualized what he was about to do—something his father had taught him long ago. 

His muscles bunched (burning), his jaw clenched (aching), and he raised the container to chest level. 

Then he shoved it away from himself as hard as he could, sending it tumbling toward the fireflies. 

He had expected them to continue in their circular pattern, but they didn’t. The container tumbled into them, and they scattered as if the container had hurt them. 

Then they reassembled away from it. They formed a long flat rectangular plane, and then zoomed away, curling upwards from his position as they did so, as if fleeing the container. 

It continued to tumble, getting smaller and less visible with each passing second. 

It was only at the very last minute that he realized it had become completely white, and maybe even brittle. When it hit something—if it ever did—it might shatter with a single soft touch. 

He shuddered. 

He hurt, everywhere. 

He looked down at his environmental suit, saw the outlines of the container against his chest and arms, and was uncertain if that was because he had held it so close or if it had done any damage. 

Part of him didn’t care. Part of him wanted to push off the edge of the ship and follow the container, tumbling through space, seeing the universe until he couldn’t see anymore. 

But that was crazy. So much of what he had been thinking had been crazy. 

He needed to get back, somehow. 

He turned, saw the damage, wondered if he was damaged too, if parts of him were receding the way that the edges of the ship were receding, if he was turning white the way the container had. 

He couldn’t think about that right now. 

He followed his own trail back, as best he could remember it. 

The interior of the ship didn’t look welcoming anymore. It looked dark and damaged and abandoned—or it would have, if there weren’t lights from the decks above and below him. 

Only the center, the path to the bridge, was destroyed, like some gigantic creature had taken a bite out of it all. 

He picked and stepped, and finally, somehow, reached the barrier to the bridge, and saw people inside, moving, in environmental suits with gurneys and medical handhelds and standing near consoles, looking like they had a purpose, all of them. 

He crouched, not sure if he should go back in, not sure if he would hurt them. 

Someone looked up, saw him, beckoned. 

He shook his head. “I might contaminate you,” he said, but he wasn’t sure they could hear him. No one responded. They beckoned again, and he shook his head again, and then two taller people in environmental suits got close. 

“I’ll contaminate you,” he repeated, and they didn’t seem to care, because they reached through the barrier, and grabbed him, pulling, dislodging his boots or maybe shutting them off. 

He tumbled inward, into real gravity, and actual light, and faces he thought he recognized through the clear part of their environmental hoods, and more and more people crowded around him, mouths moving, and he couldn’t hear them and hands pulled him deeper onto the ruined bridge, near some console or a chair, maybe. 

He was shaking his head, wanting them to send him back, because he would probably hurt all of them, and then something broke through. 

“…aware of the danger,” a woman’s voice said. “We’ll decontaminate and get you medical attention. We’ll figure this out.” 

Figure it out. Okay then. He wasn’t sure if he spoke or if he just thought that, but what he realized was the problems were no longer just his. 

“You saved us, you know?” she was saying. “You figured out what it was doing just in time, and by getting rid of it, you bought us time to solve this. We’re going to limp to a nearby base, and get you medical attention—quarantined…” 

She kept talking but he couldn’t focus on it any longer. He closed his eyes, his body aching—no, maybe burning—and his senses a little off. He didn’t feel like himself. He wasn’t a man who did heroic things, and they were using words like “saved,” as if he had done something heroic. 

He was tired now and safe—or as safe as he could be in a damaged ship, limping to a base somewhere. Someone else would worry about what happened. 

“…seem to work as a unit. We’re tracking those lights that you found,” she was saying. Did she ever stop talking? Maybe if she stopped, he would correct her, and say that Srigly found the lights not him, fireflies, that seemed to work as a unit, but if they did, why hadn’t they all attacked? Or was that thing—that small fiery thing—the first volley, and no other ship had ever figured out that you had to get rid of the damn thing to get rid of them. 

He would have to think about it. Or let someone else think about it. They all seemed clearer than he was. They would figure out what happened, who attacked, and why. Maybe the ship had gotten too close or—maybe he should have trusted what he learned. Maybe the people on Luluenema didn’t want any contact with anyone. 

That was likely, given what happened. They got the Izlovchi close, and then attacked it with these strange weapons. It would be a great way to protect the planet, seeming to cooperate and then not cooperating at all. 

He would tell someone that. Later. When speculation and investigation met into some semblance of the truth. 

Until then, he would rest. He would close his eyes and think about other things. 

He had a hunch he would be fine. 

He had a hunch they would all be fine. 

No matter what happened next. 

 

Hunches 

Copyright ©  Kristine Kathryn Rusch 

Published by WMG Publishing 

Cover and layout copyright © WMG Publishing 

Cover design by WMG Publishing 

Cover art copyright © Philcold 

 

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. 

Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

 

The reason ist probably that they made a Christmas break too

Witness my meta commentary on the usual success of author insertion.

Meta-shmeta, that’s just pandering.

Also, kinda gross. Do you know where that cat butt has been?

Ewwwww!

Not engaging. Happy place, happy place, happy place.

I hope everyone made it through the worst of the cold. We’ll have lots of good news and releases this coming week to help lift spirits!

First bit of happy: against all odds, Subterranean Press has softened its policy before the might of the Horde and is republishing the Innkeeper Chronicles, Volume One.

UPDATE: This has SOLD OUT now, in less than 24 hours!

This is not something that usually happens, once the stock is exhausted the books are never reissued. But it is something that happens to us. Because Horde power, that’s why!

This is the preorder link and it will go live tomorrow, January 26, at 12:00 PM EST.

To clarify: the link is not broken. It doesn’t lead to anything yet, because it’s not yet 12 pm on January 26. I know your ways hehe!

Subterranean’s reissue is the omnibus of the first 3 novels in the Innkeeper Chronicles series (so Clean Sweep, Sweep in Peace and One Fell Sweep) and it’s a BIG boy.

Over 760 pages of hardback goodness, signed by Ilona and Gordon, with a full colour wrap-around dust jacket, plus the familiar and beloved illustrations by Doris Mantair in both full-colour and black& white inside. The books are already with the printers and should ship out in a couple of months if all goes well.

Secondly, Ilona and Gordon hosted Jessie Mihalik yesterday to celebrate the release of her new romantasy, Silver & Blood, which will drop on Tuesday and is available from all major retailers, in epub, paperback and audio format (and gorgina hardback in the UK. Honestly, we’ve been rocking it lately over here with the pretty editions, yay us.)

We spited the cold and talked about the price of magic, the author–reader contract, what’s new in the Hidden Legacy world and most of all about Jessie’s new Avon-published duology, which is a Beauty and the Beast retelling with a smitten male protagonist, immersive world, and all the hot and dark twists for us to discover!

As promised, you can watch the Zoom recording below or catch it on YouTube via the Mod account.

PS: Edgar de Bruijn, if you’re reading this, the B.A. Bookish Boutique are trying to contact you about your Ilona Andrews merch order, please check your emails.

The post Silver & Blood, Zooms and Innkeeper: The Reprintening first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

 Hey so, got it back earlier than expected and here we go!

 

 About:

   Admiral Shelby Logan has had a lot of challenges in her life since growing up on Anvil Station. Her initial naval career as chief engineer and then XO on Firefly, her time on Prometheus, leading the expedition to the Tau sector, trying to make contact and rebuild the Federation, fighting pirates, fighting the pirate plagues, and then the xenophobic Tauren Confederation. Now she is in for another challenge like she had never experienced before.

   The Tauren Confederation has fractured and a civil war has been put down. But thousands of Federation personnel were taken hostage by xenophobic fanatics hell bent on making a last stand. Shelby is light years away; forced to watch and send what forces she can in the vain hope of saving them and the man she has started a relationship with…

   And on the northern frontier of the sector, an ancient nightmare alliance has spread like a cancer to the neighboring sector and threatens all of civilization…

Amazon: Occupation 

B&N:  Occupation

So much stuff. Okay, let’s see if I can get some of this in here without collapsing.

Winter Storm

We are expecting a massive winter storm. As I am writing this, the outside world is soaked. Standing water lingers on the street and in the driveway. It is the first major rainfall we had this winter season. We need it desperately, because we are in full drought.

Tonight, and especially tomorrow afternoon, all of this will freeze. Ice will coat the ground and build up and down the electric cables, the temperature will drop, and Texas grid, which is made of tissue paper, will likely collapse again. We are already having multiple pole fires and outages.

We expect to lose power. If this happens, we may have to reschedule the Price of Magic Zoom and the release of Beast Business. We have a bit of an emergency with the copy editor, but we found someone else, so we are back on track. If the grid holds, we should release on the 27th. If the grid fails, it maybe more like Friday instead of Tuesday.

The novella is finished and has been through the first round of edits, so it’s not the matter of “it’s not done,” it’s the matter of “it’s not clean.” We need to do a copy edit and a proofread. Mod R has my number, and if we are powerless, she will update you.

Beast Business Release Party with This Kingdom Preview Q&A

We will be doing a second zoom to celebrate the release of Beast Business, probably next weekend – the registration link will be posted on the blog next week. We have been given permission to answer your questions regarding the content of the free preview of This Kingdom during the Q&A, but we will not be revealing any spoilers.

Gordon has promised to stick to that policy. (We are wise to your ways.)

Imagine Books: This Kingdom

This Kingdom is attractive and charming, and it now has several special editions. One of these is by Imagine Books, and I’m here to tell you more about it.

DISCLAIMER: We cannot answer any specific questions, because we did not commission this edition and have nothing to do with the order fulfillment. This was done through Tor, and we are breaking this down to avoid any confusion.

What is it?

It is a box containing the Tor Hardcover with teal edges and some extras.

The book:

The extras:

• Signed bookplate sticker – we sign it and they attach to the book.
• Redesigned front dust jacket with foiling: @jescole.art
• Reverse dust jacket: @davidev.art
• Page overlays: @avoccatt_art
• Bookmark with character art

Add-on option:
Additional page overlay — $11.99

Okay, I didn’t know what page overlay was, so I had to look it up. It is a semi-transparent full page illustration that is almost like a very large bookmark. It fits over the page, so if you wanted to mark your favorite place or a scene in the book, you would slide it in. So imagine a removable illustration. Google came up with this awesome Instagram post about it, so if you want to see the pictures of what it might look like, go here.

(Also, page overlays, super cool, and we will be doing this in the future.)

To reiterate: this is a Tor hardcover with extra stuffs.

The price: This book will be priced at $42.99 plus tax plus shipping (this price does not include the add-on overlay).

The preorder date: the preorder will drop on Imagine Books Shop website on February 28th at 11:00 AM PST. Yes, we will remind you on the blog when it goes live.

The shipping date: This special edition is estimated to ship in JUNE. So, the regular release date for the Tor Hardcover is March 31, but this edition will NOT ship on that date. It will ship later. Here is what Imagine Book Shop says about it:

Why does a preorder take longer to ship, and how does this relate to special editions?
Great question! Our special editions feature custom artwork that is exclusive to Imagine Books Shop—that’s what makes them special. The artwork is designed, illustrated, and then sent to be manufactured. The longer wait time is
because the art (in this case, dust jackets and overlays) must be produced and shipped to us before we can ship the customized books to you.

We are currently estimating that this book will ship in June. Ship dates are estimates. We always do our best to get your order to you on time, but unforeseen circumstances or delays may occur. If there is a delay, we will always keep you updated.

We asked some additional questions. All answers are provided by Imagine Books.

Tell us about you?

“Hey everyone! I work for Imagine Books Shop, and we are thrilled to announce that we are collaborating with Macmillan and Ilona Andrews to bring you special editions of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me!

As huge fans of Ilona Andrews, we couldn’t be more excited and honored to share these
editions with you. I got early access to this book and absolutely loved it. This is truly an amazing story that is near and dear to my heart. Reading this one was a special experience.”

Do I need a subscription to buy this book?
“No! This order is open to the public. No subscription is required to purchase these editions.”

Where can I buy this Imagine Books Shop edition of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me?
“Our website is the only place this particular edition of this book will be available.
Here is the link to our website: Imagine Books Shop.”

Do you ship internationally, and what are your rates?
“Yes, we ship internationally. Shipping rates vary by location.”

What is a preorder, and how does this affect shipping?

“A preorder means you place an order for a book that will not ship right away. Our estimated shipping timeframe is June. Our preorder goes live on February 28th.

“Members of our Facebook group get early access to reveals and early access to sales by half an hour. We can’t wait to show you what’s coming! Here is the link to join:
Imagine Books Shop Facebook Group Link.”

Why does a preorder take longer to ship, and how does this relate to special editions?
“Great question! Our special editions feature custom artwork that is exclusive to Imagine Books Shop—that’s what makes them special. The artwork is designed, illustrated, and then sent to be manufactured. The longer wait time is because the art (in this case, dust jackets and overlays) must be produced and shipped to us before we can ship the customized books to you.

“We are currently estimating that this book will ship in June. Ship dates are estimates. We always do our best to get your order to you on time, but unforeseen circumstances or delays may occur. If there is a delay, we will always keep you updated.”

Are these editions limited?
“Yes. Once the initial stock sells out, the preorder will close, and there is no guarantee that we will restock these editions. We typically do not offer reprints.”

What is a page overlay?
“A page overlay is a vellum sheet that depicts a scene from the book. In simple terms, it is an art print (on thinner paper) designed to be inserted into a book to bring your favorite scenes to life.”

There you have it. For all additional inquiries, please contact Imagine Book Shop. If you ask us, Mod R will just paste the link back to you.

The post This Kingdom Comes to Imagine Books and Other Fun Stuff first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

In reply to Alicia.

I second this.

I’m so glad to hear that things aren’t as stressful this time around! I’m happy for you.

I’m pleased to hear that Book#5 is proceeding well despite the silence surrounding the Edits for Book#4. Are you planning to ‘prod’ the publishers to find out why things are taking longer?
As you said, now that you are familiar with the process the Edits (usually) aren’t as major as when you started writing. It sounds as if your new writing methodology is paying dividends!

You haven’t said anything about Sales figures recently and I’m assuming that they are still good both for the new IoM series and for Alex Verus series too?!

Robert McCammon will be one of the speakers at the 2026 Impact Book Festival in Fultondale, AL. The event takes place on Saturday, April 18, 2026. He’s scheduled to speak at 1 PM CT. More information can also be found on the website for Alabama Writers’ Forum.

The final “old” list! I finally got here. I had books stacked all over the condo, magazines falling off tables, because I got so far behind. September’s list is the final one to catch up on, and after that, I’m current. If you’d like to see the most recent list (December’s), click here.

In the final week of August, I started my one-per-semester class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which meant I had time to read short stories at my (middle of the afternoon) lunch. I caught up on reading the best-ofs. Honestly, I don’t remember a lot of the stories in the 2024 Penzler mystery volume. I think I skipped quite a few due to kid/pet danger. I remember being frustrated that writers and editors seem to believe that good stories put innocents in danger for suspense. (Sigh. And yes, I’m a hypocrite, because I do the same thing sometimes.)

The other news for September? I finished my McManus binge.

I did have a pile of magazines here, but I ended up blogging on my Patreon page about a lot of the articles that interested me, so I decided not to repeat them here…in the interest of finishing!

So much of what I have here I can’t say much about because I might spoil the stories for you. So just pick them up. Here’s what I recommend from my September reading.

September, 2025

Daw, Stephen, “A Force For Good,” Billboard, June 21, 2025. The cover story for one of the June Billboards is an interview with Cynthia Erivo. She’s an amazing woman with a great head on her shoulders. She has a lot to saw about being a queer Black woman in this modern world, about being an artist, and more. Read this.

Floyd, John M., “The Last Day at The Jackrabbit,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Good titles get you into a story and remind you of what you just read. “The Last Day at The Jackrabbit” is a good title for a marvelous story, filled with surprises. I won’t say much more, so that the story can surprise you. But it’s worth reading.

Gilbertson, Nils, “Lovely and Useless Things,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. There are a couple of stories set in the past in this volume. One is so far off on its history that I found it almost laughable. This is not that story. This one is a rather perfect presentation of a time and a crime gone by. 

McManus, Karen M., The Cousins, Delacorte Press, 2020. This is one of McManus’s books that end on a “gotcha!” which I blogged about in August’s list. The ending kinda works, but kinda doesn’t. I don’t know if I’d pick up more of her books if I had read this one first. Having read a bunch of the others, though, this was candy for me. Family secrets, an island, lots of hidden mysteries. Lots and lots of fun, but don’t start here.

McManus, Karen M., You’ll Be The Death of Me, Delacorte Press, 2021. And this is one of those “gotcha!” endings that works. We don’t need anything more. But what’s here, a story of close friends who walk into the scene of a murder, is wonderful. One of my favorite of the books I binged this fall.

Methos, Victor, “Kill Night,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Very creepy, very well done story. Another one, filled with surprises that I will not spoil for you. Read it.

Padura, Leonardo, “A Family Matter,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. Story translated by Francis Riddle. Amazing short story that creates an entire world. Extremely well done…and again, I’ll spoil it if I say more.

Reed, Annie, “Dead Names,” The Mysterious Bookshop Presents Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, Mysterious Press, 2024. I’m the original editor on Annie Reed’s “Dead Names,” so I’m a bit biased. Annie has really hit her stride as a writer these past few years, and I’m extremely pleased that the story got picked up for the best of the year. The story deserves it, as does Annie.

 

Well, this posted early. Because I’m an airhead. So I’m just going to add to it as the rest of the month goes on. Whoops!

I took 8 days of my leisure reading time to watch Season Five of Stranger Things, and now I regret it. The show’s always been a tough watch for me–children in danger—but I got hooked in the first season and I stayed with it.

SPOILER!

They whiffed the ending. The validation went on too long and became boring. Yes, the Duffer Brothers can write cliffhangers, but they have no idea how to wrap anything up in a satisfying manner, so they gave us at least five endings, most of which were not satisfying at all. (I tell my students: don’t time jump at the end. Don’t give us how they grew up. Let us imagine that. Make us realize they’ll be all right. And if there’s a surprise, well then, set us up for it.) This show was set up for the “it’s all a long D&D campaign ending” which I’m glad they didn’t do, but everyone went back to normal too easily. I spent two days thinking about it, and in the end, decided that they didn’t stick the landing, and I’m not happy. I still think it was a good and ambitious show, but I feel like I wasted time better spent doing something else this year.

That something else is reading, and I was happy to get back to it.

The first book I finished in January was a rather dull romance novel that I’d been reading slowly just before bed. This was by design; I need sleep and staying up for “one more chapter” was, at that point, counterproductive. But as I looked at the book the morning I finished it to decide if I wanted to recommend it, I decided against it. Characters were great, but wow, nothing really memorable except a penguin wood carving that served as a McMuffin. 

The second book I finished, which I blogged about a bit on my Patreon page in another context, was written by a British author for British readers. He assumed they knew a lot about World War I in great detail, and I’ll wager they did. Me, I’m struggling along, going…Did Lloyd George succeed Asquith as Prime Minister? When? and I thought Gallipoli came later in the war. I recognize the book’s structure. It’s a shocking (to some) and small (ish) story set against a horrible backdrop. If it had been a novel about the American Civil War, it would have worked for me, since I knew the details of the backdrop. As it was, it was an interesting read with no ending at all (but apparently shocking to the British reviewers). So I’m not recommending it, although I considered it. British readers, you might want to follow the link to see which book I’m vague-booking about.

Anyway, these are the things I liked in January.

 

January 2026

Belanger, Steve, “The Producer Who Hoodwinked Half of Hollywood,” The Hollywood Reporter, October 22, 2025. After Dean and I discovered that a once-trusted employee embezzled from us for years, I find myself quite attune to stories like this one. Most people believe that embezzlement is simple: someone takes cash from your bank account. Dean and I were always very careful with our accounts. We were embezzled through a quirk in the payroll system that allowed extra money to taken as non-taxable income in a paycheck. No getting into the bank accounts at all.

This particular case in this article focuses on embezzlement and fraud committed by a well respected producer. His method was equally sideways to the one above. From the article:

Ozer was accused of embezzling more than $200,000 from the production budget. He did this, the indictment said, by creating phony invoices from dummy companies and forging his accountant’s signature on backup documentation. Because Ozer had emailed some of these falsified documents, it was considered a federal crime under the Interstate Wire Fraud Statute.

Because this guy took a plea deal (a sweet one at that), he’s already in jail, even though his crimes were discovered only a few years ago. I can tell you that other cases (like ours) move very slowly. And recovery is hard. Most people don’t recover financially when they’ve been victimized like this. Dean and I are slowly coming out of it, but it’s been 2 years since we discovered exactly what was happening. (And there were other issues as well. [heavy sigh])

Cerná, Pavlína, “Are You Still A Runner If You Cannot Run?” Runner’s World, Fall, 2025. Great short essay on the doubts runners (and heck, writers too) have if they’re unable to do the thing that defines them. Cerná injured her leg and couldn’t run for a while, and got all tangled in her head. I know how that feels, because it happened to me in March. Timely and well written. (And oh, I love her “To be a man” comment.) (NOTE: I can’t spell her name properly because my Word Press program won’t allow me to put the proper first letter on it, so I had to default to a “c.”

Conklin, Melanie, “Chasing The Story with David Maraniss,” On Wisconsin, Summer 2025. I had no idea that legendary reporter David Maraniss failed to graduate from the University of Wisconsin. His high school sweetheart got pregnant. He married her and got a job at the local paper. (He’s ten years older than me, but I can attest to the fact that in Madison through the 1980s, you could get a job in the news based on writing ability alone.) He went on to an amazing career, chronicled here. (And yes, he’s still married to his high school sweetheart.) Great reading about a great reporter. There are too few of them these days…or rather, there aren’t enough outlets for them anymore.

Goodman, Carol, The Bones of the Story, William Morrow, 2025. The blurb calls this a locked room mystery, and I guess it’s that, but not really. I had a realization as I was reading along that I didn’t believe any of this, and then I chuckled. I’m known as an sf/f writer. Everything is unbelievable. But a group of people being murdered for old things…well, yeah, no. This is a cozy and cozy usually aren’t my thing, but with all the stuff going on in the world, I’m not having much success reading romance as my relaxation reading. So I went to this. I knew whodunnit and why right away, but the characters are marvelous and the story is compelling, so I kept reading. This is also (for those wondering) a good example of Dark Academia.

Goodman, Carol, Writers and Liars, William Morrow, 2025. Ignore the totally stupid log line (“They’ll Kill For Inspiration”) which has nothing to do with the book at all. This is a riff on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, which is like catnip for writers. (I wrote one too, in the Spade/Paladin universe, Ten Little Fen, which we’re going to rebrand as soon as I get the time.) These writers are having a reunion on a Greek island and everything goes wrong from the start. The island itself, with its labyrinth is so completely cool that I want to see it someday. (It does not exist.) It makes the book, however, which is almost too cozy for me. (Cozies often have people acting in unbelievable ways for the sake of the mystery. And yeah, here too. But I don’t mind that much.) A fun and quick read.

McDonough, Michael, “Grandpa Jellybean and The Power of Perseverance,” Runner’s World, Fall 2025. A beautifully written essay about being a lifelong athlete and the people you inspire. Read about someone remarkable here. (And the writing is good too!)

Miller, Shannon,“Pro Bono Pros,” Las Vegas Weekly, October 23-29, 2025. I’m sure there are people like this all over the country, working with limited resources and fighting the good fight. But Shannon Miller at Last Vegas Weekly brought the struggle alive, so I’m sharing it with you folks.

Robbins, Dean, “Farewell to Paul’s Book Shop,” On Wisconsin, Summer 2025. Don’t hate me, Madisonians, but I hated Paul’s Book Shop. It was disorganized, smelled of mildew, and the staff bordered on rude. And yet when I saw this piece, that this State Street staple closed after sixty-some years, I felt a moment of sadness. It’s pretty amazing that a bookstore could be around that long, and with a single owner. Things change, sadly…

Robbins, Dean, “The Scholar and The Superstar,” On Wisconsin, Summer 2025. I’ve been reading about Bad Bunny’s tour now for a year in places like Billboard and various economic journals. His tour generated millions for Puerto Rico. He’s one of the biggest stars in the world, and he’s doing all kinds of cool things. But I didn’t realize until I read this that he asked UW professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo to collaborate on a Puerto Rican history project tied to the album and the tour. Read this. It’s soooo cool.

Rodriguez, Gabriela, “Street Royalty,” Las Vegas Weekly, October 23-29, 2025. The value of reading as widely as possible from many different sources. I knew that there was a car show in Las Vegas in October, but I didn’t realize it was for lowriders…and I didn’t realize that lowriders are an art form all their own. This article focuses on the history, the community, the art, and the people behind it all. There’s even a podcast recommendation if you want to learn more after reading the article. I love finding pockets of culture I knew nothing about. I learned when I started writing the Smokey Dalton books thirty years ago that you can’t depend on the white corporate media to report things correctly. Back then, my research was showing me who the Black Panthers really were as opposed to what the media said when I was a little kid. This lowrider culture is another example just like that. Read this.

Schmitt, Preston, “Quantum Leaps in Education,” On Wisconsin, Summer 2025. I found this article so inspiring that I wrote an entire Patreon post about it. In short, this piece put the AI debate into context for me. AI isn’t going away, and the arts are dealing with theft on a grand scale. (For the record: I’m part of the Anthropic settlement. Yes, my works were stolen.) But AI is part of our future. Whether it will be a Segway or a smart phone remains to be seen, but it’s there. So see what a major university is doing about it.

Steinhoff, Jessica, “The Supermom Myth,” On Wisconsin, Summer 2025. A few years ago, Jessica Calarco went viral with this statement: “Other countries have social safety nets; the U.S. has women.” It seems like something random people might say on social media, but she brought the receipts. She has made a study of what women are doing that is stretching them much too thin. Steinhof explores Calarco’s research, her book, and her solutions in this interesting piece.

Zeitchik, Steven, “Emotional Support Cinema,” The Hollywood Reporter, November 5, 2025. I can’t find an online link (even a paywalled link) to this article anywhere online, yet it’s in my copy of the magazine. So I put it here for you to find. He’s talking about the ways that the current suggested crop of nominees this award season (and nothing had yet been nominated when he wrote this) reflect the nervousness of our times. Worth reading, if you can find it.

Today we bring you two more stories of writers realizing they wanted to be writers.

Alyssa Day

The moment everything changed for me was when I volunteered to pick up an editor (Kate Seaver, then at a small indie publisher, now at Penguin Random House) from the airport for a writers’ conference. We chatted on the drive to the hotel, and I told her about a novel I had in mind. I was working all the time, and I had two small children, so I’d been dithering about writing it. Did anybody really want to hear my stories? (I’d already published a nonfiction book about being a military family during wartime, but I’d wanted to be a fiction author since I was a little girl reading Nancy Drew.) I didn’t even have a title for the novel yet. I just called it Tuna Fish Girl, because the heroine liked tuna sandwiches. (Yes, I know. Awful!)

But I told her about it, and she laughed so hard and said, “If you can write like you can tell a story, that’s going to be a wonderful book.” After that conference, she kept in touch with me, and kept saying, “Send me Tuna Fish Girl!”

So, finally, I did. My agent sent the editor my proposal (a synopsis and 50 pages) on a Friday, and I had an offer to buy it Monday morning. They wanted to launch their new chick-lit line with my book! We even went to auction with other publishers wanting to buy it. (No, everything in publishing does NOT go this well. Think: roller coaster.) I was so ready to quit being a lawyer and try writing full time, so I jumped at Kate’s offer. 

I’ve never changed my mind about being an author, even during the tough years. It’s hard sometimes, making this job work, since I have chronic bouts of clinical depression, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love creating worlds and inviting readers into them, and I will never get over the wonder of writing.

Alyssa’s Featured Release

NOBODY’S QUEST

(June 2, 2026; adult romantasy)

Prophecy insists that nobody will defeat the goddess of war.

Meet Nobody.

For a hundred years, Altarra has burned. The goddess of war, Morrigan, has conquered kingdom after kingdom, leaving only ruin in her wake. Every prophecy says the same thing―nobody can defeat her.⁣
⁣
And after a century of failure, someone finally takes that literally.⁣
⁣
When the goddess Artemisen chooses Soli Graymind―a nobody from the lowest caste who suffers from chronic depression―to lead one last desperate quest, the world laughs. But Soli won’t be alone. She’s joined by five others just as broken, just as lost:⁣
A thief with no Guild.⁣
A noble with no wealth.⁣
A sorcerer with no hope.⁣
A warrior with no morals.⁣
And a prince with no kingdom―the one man she can’t stop thinking about, even when hope itself is dying.⁣
⁣
Together, they are Altarra’s last chance.⁣
⁣
Because maybe being a “nobody” is more powerful than anyone imagines―including themselves.⁣

LEARN MORE Stephanie Burgis

The first time I realized that becoming a writer was an actual possibility – that real people wrote all the books that I loved, and wrote those books as their actual grown-up JOB (whoa!!!) – I was seven years old, and the discovery BLEW MY MIND. I still remember turning to my mom that day, as we drove out on an errand, to share my epiphany: 

“I’ve found something I love even more than reading: writing. I’m going to be a WRITER!”

Of course, because my mom is a smart and practical woman, she responded instinctively, before she could stop herself, “Oh, God. Really?”

As a mom now myself, let me tell you: I get it. What loving and practical mother would want their kid to pin their hopes onto such a scary-sounding, unreliable-paycheck of a career? My family didn’t know any novel writers. We knew vets and math professors and civil servants and other people who made their living with steady, reliable salaries. Good, safe jobs. (Or at least, so they all seemed at the time. All of my friends in academia are laughing hollowly at this point.)

By the time I was an adult, I knew just how unlikely it was that I would ever really be able to become a professional author. But that just made me all the more determined to put my whole heart into becoming the best that I could be, applying for competitive writing workshops, searching out reliable critique groups, and researching publishing even as I majored in different subjects in college and made firm plans for dayjobs to pay my rent.

I sold my first trilogy of novels when I was 31, 17 years ago. Since then, I’ve published a surprising number of books in more than one genre, and I’ve even won a few awards – but even now, every time I sell a new series to a traditional publisher or get a good review for one of my self-published books, I still find myself thinking with tentative hope, “Wow. This really might work out after all!” 

I don’t ever take this career for granted…but I’m incredibly grateful for it every single day.

Stephanie’s Featured Release

WOOING THE WITCH QUEEN

Queen Saskia is the wicked sorceress everyone fears. After successfully wrestling the throne from her evil uncle, she only wants one thing: to keep her people safe from the empire next door. For that, she needs to spend more time in her laboratory experimenting with her spells. She definitely doesn’t have time to bring order to her chaotic library of magic.

When a mysterious dark wizard arrives at her castle, Saskia hires him as her new librarian on the spot. “Fabian” is sweet and a little nerdy, and his requests seem a little strange – what in the name of Divine Elva is a fountain pen? – but he’s getting the job done. And if he writes her flirtatious poetry and his innocent touch makes her skin singe, well…

Little does Saskia know that the “wizard” she’s falling for is actually an Imperial archduke in disguise, with no magical training whatsoever. On the run, with perilous secrets on his trail and a fast growing yearning for the wicked sorceress, he’s in danger from her enemies and her newfound allies, too. When his identity is finally revealed, will their love save or doom each other?

LEARN MORE

The post The Moment Everything Changed: Part 3 first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

loving the books! cant wait for november

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Chapter 5

 

New Tau Metropolis, Tau sector

 

Shelby felt like the pieces were beginning to fall into place, but they could easily come apart at any moment.

Obadiah had his yard dogs humming with the rebuild project. Admiral Irons’ idea to draw in the support of the worlds around the naval base had proven enormously helpful. The representatives and senators had gone to bat on the hill in support of the base… naturally of course since they saw it as an opportunity for their businesses and trade to thrive.

That had sold the project on the hill despite opposition from Bek.

They had also pushed for the base to the north. That was an ongoing project she knew. She hated that the communication lines were so fragmented there at the moment. Hopefully Cynthia was okay. She wouldn’t feel comfortable until there was an ansible in place and Rick was up there.

She was still on the fence about bringing the Taurens in. On the one hand, they may need all hands on deck. But on the other… they’d been shooting at each other not so long ago, and the Taurens had a loyalty issue still with their aborted civil war.

“Penny for your thoughts ma’am?” Boni, her AI asked whimsically.

“Just… thinking that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And some things make for strange bed fellows,” Shelby replied.

Boni smiled on her HUD.

“How are we with the troops?”

“Another saying for you, a body in motion…?” Boni replied. “So far so good. They are marching to the sound of the guns, which is the important thing at the moment.”

“Are there guns sounding off on T-15?” Shelby asked.

“A recent artillery strike on refugee vehicles. No other shots fired at the moment. They are contained.”

“I doubt that,” Shelby murmured. “Somehow, I doubt that very much.”

<<(O)>>

Purple Nights

 

Secretary of State Moira Sema was cautiously pleased with the long hours of work with her Tauren counterpart and their respective staffs on the new treaty. The new agreement with the Taurens was for mutual defense against the Xeno-Necron alliance to the north.

The Confederation was still getting their house in order but Admiral Irons and the Tauren President’s broadcast about the threat had ended a lot of insurrection overnight. No one wanted to rock the boat. In fact, many personnel who had resigned in protest over the surrender or had refused to fight their own people were asking to be let back in.

She shook her head. That was not her problem of course. The Taurens had to figure it out on their own. Clearly trust would be a long term issue. What was her problem was to make it all work somehow. Give them a framework to shape protocol to keep everyone in line and on their best behavior.

They were about to test the waters with the agreement for Ninth Fleet to transit through Confederation space. Transiting through Confederation space would cut the transit time to the north by months. It also would allow the fleet to show the flag, which would hopefully put any further thoughts of rebellion to rest in the restive territory.

Picking up some Confederation ships to ally with them would be nice. They were still working on that. They did agree to have guides to escort the fleet, however the navy was concerned about the Tauren ships being able to keep up.

From what her people were reporting, the Taurens had similar concerns.

<<(O)>>

Minox IV

 

“So… what gives skipper?” Sergeant Bolt asked with a frown as he came up to the lieutenant. He flick his long ears at his boss.

“We’ve been reassigned,” the lieutenant said. She looked a little nonplussed but then interested.

The Serval blinked. “Okay…?” he drawled.

The LT eyed him. “You heard about the mess in T-15?”

The Neocat nodded. His long ears flicked again and then went back as the implications sunk in. It was going to mean a long transit in stasis as a popsicle and then possible combat.

“They are giving an ollie ollie in free call to all troops in the area. So, we’re going.”

Bolt blinked. “So, the contact and inspection mission?”

“On hold. Clearly the Taurens here are behaving themselves. We’ve recruited some of their alien population to do the job for us.”

Bolt nodded. They had established that much. There had been some strides in integrating the various species too. Not great ones, but some strides.

“We move out in two hours, so get your people squared away and to the LZ. Oh, and we’re not going alone.”

“Ma’am?”

“We’re taking a couple squads of Taurens with us.”

The Serval blinked in surprise at that news and then his eyes narrowed.

“It is going to get crowded in Marine country, at least until we get into stasis. I want everyone on their best behavior. We need to be one big happy family.”

“Aye aye ma’am,” the cat said with a wary nod. This is going to be… interesting, he thought with a slight shake of his head as she dismissed him.

<<(O)>>

President Scar Chin studied the reports and then sat back and rubbed his brow. It was a lot to take in.

His peripheral vision caught movement. He turned and noted a distant ship was moving under power. He puzzled over it and why it was triggering something in his mind before he realized it was most likely the Feds.

The Fed cruiser was moving their Marines out to T-15 as quickly as possible. They were even taking a squad of Taurens with them.

He wished them luck. They were definitely going to need it.

<<(O)>>

Sergeant Bolt nodded to his troops.  They'd left one fire team behind to man the embassy, such as it was. Hopefully, the brass would send in additional people soon.

The serval's eyes moved to the Taurens. He flicked his long ears. They seemed uncomfortable, but it wasn't because of the enclosed space. None had been on a Federation ship, and they had been shooting at each other not so long ago.

There were two squads of them. Some were young, only two were older. Only one was a noncom. He had yet to get together with the bull. He hoped that they'd get along; he didn't need a pissing match.

He glanced at the Marines across from the Taurens. Come to think of it, some of his people weren't too comfortable with them on board either.

"Okay, listen up. We've got a ride to the combat zone. We're going to spend it in stasis. We're going to go into stasis in two days."

The troops looked concerned.

"I'm taking that time to get aquainted. We need to get up to speed on each other and tech. I know it isn't enough. I've asked the captain to wake us one week out from our destination so we squeeze in any additional training. Any questions?"

A few people looked ready to say something but he rolled right over them. Most likely they were protests.

"Good. Remember, one big happy family at the moment. I don't know what our assignments are when we get there but I want us working smoothly when we do. That way we can hit the ground running. Right?"

That last word came out as a command growl. Instinctively, the troops all stiffened and nodded.

"Good," he said with a slight ear flick of amusement. "Kit check-in ten then inspection, then we get to the nitty gritty on the range to zero in and get aquainted. Then we'll break into fire teams to hit the dojo and simulation time. One third on, one third racked out, one third doing our usual duties and rotate. I'm going to see the XO on that. You've got until I'm done to get squared away. Help each other," he said.

He knew there was going to be resentment and even an instinctive desire to let the Taurens hang, also competition. Well, he would deal with each as it came up. He could handle competition. A little healthy competition was good.

"Get on it, people," he growled as he about-faced and left the compartment.

<<(O)>>

"Sergeant Bolt?" the Tauren who came up behind Bolt said.

"Yes … ah ...?" he frowned. He'd instinctively tried to ping the Tauren with his implants but hadn't gotten a response.

"Sergeant Gros. My people are having trouble accessing some facilities."

"I'm noticing that and the why now. I'm sorry we haven't gotten together for a pow wow before," the serval said.

The Tauren nodded. "We were thrown together. I was a corporal up until a few hours ago."

"Well, that solves the question of who ranks who."

"Oh, you do, Sergeant."

"Nice that we've got the pecking order established, the smaller being stated. He felt a bit ludicrious next to the bigger alien. "Do you have a counterpart in the other squad?"

"Sergeant Toa. He's also new. You'll find that we are … green."

"How green?" the serval asked as he crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

"As in most of us are straight out of boot?" the Tauren replied.

"Oh, lovely," the serval replied. "Well, at least you haven't picked up any bad habits," he said.

The Tauren nodded. "Toa and I were top of our class. I just finished advanced training and they, well, dumped us in this mission."

"I see. Well, the good news is that we've got time to sort things out."

"Yeah, like access to things? Even the head is locked. It is called a head, right?"

"Yes," the serval said. His mental evaluation of the Tauren went up a point. "Okay, we need to get you ID tags or get your tags integrated with ours." He saw the Tauren's ears droop and then perk up. "Do you have tags?"

"No. We have basic ID tags but not internal like you do."

"Ah. Well, good news is, they are easy. Just go to medical, they program the ID, it is a big pill or two, swallow, and in the morning you wake up with a basic ID and HUD."

"No pain?"

"Nope. It gives us a link to you so the AI knows who you are and will let you into areas of the ship you are authorized to be in. And it IDs you on the battlefield to us and to each other."

The Tauren nodded. "Good to know."

"If you have advanced implants, it gets better. But let's go see what the brass has in mind for you."

"Ah … yeah."

"I know, don't poke the bear or in this case the brass. In this case, it is a decision above our pay grade so we gotta," the serval said with an ear flick. "Let me take the lead."

"Ah, yes, Sergeant." The Tauren nodded.

Bolt nodded and motioned for the Tauren to follow him.

<<(O)>>

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Chapter 4

 

TauR14G6-15 Blue Waters and Gentle Mist

 

Captain Hierl nodded and signed off on the latest report. So far so good, though they had problems.

Wasn’t it always the case she thought and then grimaced.

She had a single platoon of troops on each planet. They’d set up a very wide perimeter and were slowly beginning to tighten it. The navy was beginning to make headway with identifying where Sedu and Shrapnel had gone to ground.

Ninth Fleet was supposedly going to leave in the next six weeks. When it happened, she was going to be on her own for a while. They were going to leave half of the Marines with her and two squadrons of cruisers. They were going to head out to catch up with Ninth Fleet as fresh ships came in to replace them over time.

She had half of the Marines from Ninth Fleet but too many duties for all of them. Six hundred Marines didn’t amount to a lot. Sure, she had half of the drop shuttles from Ninth Fleet but that again was an issue.

She had two squads of powered armor. Again, split between the two planets. They were in reserve at the moment. She had a single squad of Recon troops on the planet. She had hopes that they could identify the HQ of General Sedu and Colonel Shrapnel so they could knock them out. So far the answer was a wait and see.

The problem was that the rest of her troops were infantry and most were green. They were outfitted for security and for boarding actions, not for planetary invasion. The navy had given her some support, but she needed a lot more than what Ninth Fleet had provided before their departure.

Recently they had started to deploy drones to scout and monitor the perimeter. That took a squad of troops to monitor the feeds of twenty-four drones. They were broken into three personnel per shift and two shifts per planet.

She was going to have to cut another squad loose to support them soon. When she did that, they could theoretically each watch over eight drone feeds. That would allow her to double up on her drones.

The industry thing was an issue though. The brass had promised her all the industrial support that she wanted. For the moment, she had raw material and not much else.

The Feds had dispatched an engineering team from the cruisers to look into the Tauren side of that equation.

While she did that, a couple of naval spooks and the one Marine ensign who had minored in intelligence gathering were trying to process the mountains of data from the commercial satellites, communication logs, and so on. The ship AI were lending their support but it was a lot of data to process. Lieutenant Adel was the lead AI.

Supposedly, the Tauren Admiral Ree was inbound. When he arrived, she would theoretically hand over some of the duties to him and his troops and then could focus more on the ground problem.

It couldn’t come soon enough.

<<(O)>>

Ensign Tish was assigned to work with the Tauren industry on the stations and in the star system to build what the jarheads needed for the eventual invasion.

Up until they’d been given the go-ahead, the naval engineers had been working strictly in house from the replicators in Ninth Fleet. Now that Ninth Fleet was gone, they had only the two squadrons of cruisers to draw on initially.

Captain Hierl and the joint army-navy-marine task force that was in the process of building up wanted more than what the ship’s replicators could handle.

This was therefore the only fix short of getting someone to ship in what they needed, which wasn’t possible in the time frame that they had.

She made the rounds, met some people, and inspected their hardware. She was not impressed. Their nanites were poorly designed, and there were few in the replicators. Their computer support was pathetic. Their CAD and tooling paths were horrible. In short, they needed a lot of work.

She got them on producing generic material for the moment while she shot an urgent request outlining the problem and her possible solution to the brass.

She wasn’t surprised when the chief shot her an email back that it’d have to go further up the chain and to wait.

What she was proposing probably broke a lot of rules and would make some people gnash their teeth, wring their hands, and probably pretend they had them around her neck at the time. Well, so be it. If they wanted her to get the job done, than they needed to damn well give her the tools to get it done.

They could use the shells and support tech but the Tauren industrial replicators needed a turnkey upgrade to get them up to Federation military standards. It would be hard to do and once done they couldn’t easily undo it without a full flush and reboot.

While the powers that be debated what they wanted, she drew up a list of what needed to be done. When she did get the authorization, she wanted to hit the ground running.

<<(O)>>

The Federation ships took note of the arrival of the Tauren warships from the south. They and their crews were a welcome sight and were greeted.

Admiral Ree was pleased by the greeting and a bit amused by it. He immediately announced that he was there to take custody of the star system. Captain Z’n’ll didn’t even quibble; he immediately began the transfer of authority, much to the admiral’s relief.

He found out as he entered the star system and his people communicated with the newly-operational ansible station that the brass had been coordinating the handover through the ansible. That amused him.

Admiral Lobo, his officers, and senior enlisted were to remain in joint custody. They were still working out how to handle that trial.

His people would have to take over many of the duties in the star system while working with the Feds. They also had to interview all of the former rebels. He wasn’t looking forward to that task but it had to be done. They needed people that they could trust to get things back to normal.

<<(O)>>

Admiral Hunter smiled as he shook hands with Admiral Ree. The Tauren was a bit reserved but that was fine.

"Thank you for coming," Admiral Hunter stated.

"Thank you for taking back our star system," the Tauren replied, putting slight emphasis on the posessive pronoun.

"As soon as you can get your people on board, the better we'll feel, Admiral," Rick said with a nod.

Admiral Ree nodded back. "Let's look into that, shall we?"

"Yes, lets," Admiral Hunter stated.

<<(O)>>

Luna talked to her brother at the usual time. She had five minutes instead of two; she appreciated that.

He told her a tissue of lies about the farm and harvest season wrapping up.

She mentioned the arrival of Admiral Ree. “I don’t know if you saw it on the news, but he’s here and taking over.”

“Ah. I had heard something. I think it was on last night's news or on the net. Huh. Ree, huh?”

“Yeah, the Feds are handing over everything to him.”

“And here people thought that they were here to stay,” he scoffed.

“No way,” she shook her head and then realized he couldn’t see her. “They have a deal with the Confederation. They just want their people.”

“Ah.” He paused for a few seconds. “Huh. Well, they sure don’t act like it.”

“Really?” she asked in disbelief. They are handing everything back over to the Confederation. Their fleet has left.”

“Yeah, but didn’t they leave a bunch of ships in orbit? And take over the stations?”

“And the yard and the ships, yeah. And they stuffed everyone in transit stations until the Confederation got here. Now they are handing everything off to Admiral’s Ree’s herd.”

“Huh.”

“Bro, you haven’t heard about any illegal acts, right?” she reminded him.

“Well, we’re in the back of beyond. We’d probably be the last to know.”

“Oh. True.”

“And they control the media.”

“No, actually they’ve been hands-off there. They just don’t tell them everything that is going on.”

“Huh.” He didn’t quite sound like he believed her.

“Believe it, bro. They have gone out of their way to not antagonize anyone. I’ve met a few of the aliens; I never thought they’d be just normal people.”

“Huh.”

“I mean, not all uppity and judgy.”

“Huh.”

“You say that a lot. That is your default. Oh wait, no, the default is duhh …,” she mocked.

“Funny, sis. You are so lucky you aren’t in arm’s reach at the moment,” he mock growled.

She couldn’t help herself, she giggled. It came out naturally.

He snorted.

“So, when do we expect the carpet baggers to arrive?” he asked.

“Carpet what’s?” she asked in confusion as her brows knit.

“A term I heard in the pub.”

“What does it even mean?”

“I’m not sure. Something about Feds moving in to take over our businesses and then government.”

“Bro, I just told you that they aren’t doing that,” she said patiently. “They’ve got some navy people here on the station and a bunch of those Marine types. I think there are like, six or seven hundred all told of the ones in camo, but don’t quote me on that. Hardly what you’d send as an invasion force, right?”

“True,” he said thoughtfully.

She felt a thrill of fear but took the plunge. “At the moment, there is I think a hundred or so on each planet. I could be wrong.”

“We haven’t seen any,” he said doubtfully.

“Well, it is a big planet,” she responded with a characteristic exasperated response. She felt a little nettled over that reply. He was drawing attention to something she had rehearsed to give to him casually.

“True.”

“And you are on the farm, bro,” she teased she said as she felt more natural about the responses she was giving.

“Also true.”

“So, what are they doing?”

“Waiting for more of the Confederation to show up at a guess. I haven’t heard anything.”

“Well, mom always said you went up there to make friends. Maybe you should.”

“I’m still getting used to seeing aliens every day,” she temporized. “I’m not all chummy and all that. I’m supposed to work with a few starting next week.”

“Well, make friends. You’ve got some right? Girlfriends I mean. Boy friends are not allowed. sis,” he growled.

She chuckled and smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased.

“Me, mom, dad, and the whole herd,” he growled.

“Well, it’s for me to know and you not to find out,” she said wickedly.

“You’ve got to come down for a holiday sometime, sis. Mom will guilt trip you into it, wait and see. And when you do …," his voice turned mock menacing, "I’ll get it out of you.”

She grinned. “As if. I’m faster and smarter than you. You are just a big farm clod. Big and yeah, strong, but I can run circles around you.”

“You’d be surprised,” he growled back.

“Funny.” she saw the countdown switch to red. “My timer is about up. Stay safe. Don’t drink and drive,” she scolded.

“Yes, mom,” he mocked.

She made a kissing sound and then cut the circuit.

After the conversation, she sat back thoughtfully. Friends? Okay, she could look into that …

<<(O)>>

In reply to Bill.

Like Fated should of been offered for that price

Its a pity I can not purchase it over here on the otherside of the planet its such a cracker of a deal

I managed to finished IoM #3 Can not wait for book 4 to come out
Keep up the great work

Happy Monday! Today we are bringing you the sign up form for a Zoom Chat with us and Jessie Mihalik.

Jessie’s new book, SILVER & BLOOD, is coming out on January 27, 2026. I really loved it, and now we get to talk to her about worldbuilding and the price magic exacts for its miraculous power.

The Zoom chat is scheduled for 4:00 pm, on Saturday 24th. We will record and upload the recording to YouTube and to the blog. Registrations is capped at 500 so spots will go fast.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Please comment with your questions for this panel or send them to Mod R through email.

About SILVER AND BLOOD

On a deadly mission to kill the mythical beast that has been haunting her woods, a desperate mage finds her fate intertwined with the handsome, powerful man who saves her in this dark and sexy romantasy—perfect for readers of Jennifer L. Armentrout, Callie Hart, and Holly Black.

There’s something in the woods…

When a vicious beast begins attacking her fellow villagers, Riela reluctantly agrees to enter the forbidden forest and kill the monster as she’s the only mage available—or so she thought.

Untrained and barely armed, Riela is quickly overwhelmed when one beast turns into two. She fears her death is at hand until the unexpected arrival of a scarred, strikingly handsome man with gleaming moonlit magic changes her fate—and provides a rare opportunity to learn more about her own fickle power.

After being rescued and healed from the beast’s poison, Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. She soon learns Garrick is both more powerful and far deadlier than a mere mortal mage—but thanks to a century-long curse, his powers are weakening.

Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the treacherous woods, the spark of attraction between Riela and Garrick slowly ignites into fiery desire. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets and lies connecting Riela’s past to Garrick’s, the tenuous threads of trust between them start to fray.

Because Riela’s life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything Garrick has lost.

Also, while you wait, Jessie has a free story available on her site. It’s unrelated but no less fun.

The post The Price of Magic Zoom with Jessie Mihalik first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.