Raiders: The Secret War by Simon Haynes

Release date: May 20, 2019

Subgenre: Space opera, Military science fiction

About Raiders: The Secret War: 

 

Everyone has been scarred by the war, and Sam Willet is no exception.Sam is convinced she has what it takes to become a fighter pilot... to hunt down and destroy the enemy in deep space.

Instead she's assigned to Tactical Operations training. It's vital work, but it's still a desk job, far from the front line.

Then, terrible news: Sam's older brother is killed in combat.

Sam is given leave to attend his memorial service, but she's barely boarded the transport when the enemy launches a surprise attack, striking far behind friendly lines to take the entire sector.

Desperately short of pilots, the transport's captain asks Sam to step up.

Now, at last, she has the chance to prove herself.

But will that chance end in death... or glory?

 

The Secret War: Raiders is a complete, standalone novel. It does not end on a cliffhanger.

 

Excerpt:

 

Sam was in a state of shock as the lift carried her down to the lower levels. Her brother Lim had been her guiding light for as long as she could remember. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be!
The lift opened on a lower deck, where the sleeping quarters were. Sam took the familiar passage in a daze, barely able to process the sudden turn of events. The war claimed fresh victims daily, she knew that well enough. But not her brother! When she joined the navy she intended to follow in his footsteps, hoping to become an elite fighter pilot and perhaps one day command a squadron of her own. Instead, her psych profile led her to TacOps. At first she'd been bitterly disappointed, especially since fighter pilots saw TacOps as a cushy posting. Lim and his friends joked about the 'back room boffins' all the time... when they weren't cursing them.
Eventually Sam had come to accept her role in the war, but she'd always held out hope that one day she'd be able to transfer to fighter ops. All recruits got to fly trainers, and during flight lessons she'd tried to shine so brightly that the instructors would be forced to recommend their star pupil transfer to fighters. Unfortunately, she was far better at tactics than piloting. In that, the psych profile had been spot on.
These thoughts and more raced through Sam's mind as she made her way to the dorm. Above all was the realisation that she'd never fly in a combat wing with her brother.
Sam didn't meet anyone else on her way to shared quarters, and she was grateful for that. She didn't feel like explaining, she didn't want to be treated with pity, and she knew the first kindly word or expression of sympathy would have her bursting into tears.
Sam stumbled into the sleeping quarters, barely noticing where she was going. Luckily her bunk wasn't far from the door, and she propped the mattress up to get at her things. She packed her kit automatically, stuffing in everything she thought she'd need over the next couple of days. When she was done she lowered the mattress, and then she laid down and buried her face in the pillow.
Only then did the tears finally come.

 

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About Simon Haynes:

Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock series, the Hal Junior series, and the upcoming Harriet Walsh series, as well as several dozen short stories. He is also the programmer and designer behind Spacejock Software, and is responsible for popular programs like yWriter and yBook.

 

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The Apple-Tree Throne by Premee Mohamed

Release date: August 14, 2018

Subgenre: Ghost story

About The Apple-Tree Throne:

 

It is the turn of the century in an England that never was. Bright new aqua-plants are generating electricity for the streetlights; news can be easily had on the radio-viz; and in Gundisalvus' Land, the war is over and the soldiers are beginning to trickle home. Amongst these is Lt. Benjamin Braddock, survivor of the massacre that ended the war, and begrudgingly ready to return to a world that, well, doesn't seem to need him any more than it did in peacetime. His friends have homes and families to return to, while he's got nothing but his discharge papers and a couple of unwanted medals. Oh, and one new thing: the furious ghost of his commanding officer.

Fortunately, since the officer's family is so vehemently adamant that Braddock join their rich and carefree fold, he doesn't have much time to fret about being haunted. But the secrets of the war are about to catch up to them all.

 

Excerpt:

 

It's autumn, the time for ghost stories. Not the innocent skies and washed-out roads of spring; not the stifling heat of summer, nor less the dead of winter when sounds carry for miles. Autumn is when adventures begin, when the air is crisp and the paths are dry and the leaves whisper and the scent of smoke on the downs travels like a secret. It must be autumn, when everyone is held in abeyance between their home and their destination, when every trip is a journey.

I wake to tapping at the glass and spend a moment reckoning it: dash, dash, dash, dot. Dash, dash, dash, dot.

Two nines. Get out.

Shan't. I roll out of bed and see the Major-General, still quite dead, as dead as the last time I saw him, hovering above the sill. The new electric street-lights, soft and golden in the fog, illuminate the gaping wound in his throat. Meeting my gaze with a look of hatred, he reaches out once more and strikes the glass of the window. Nine, nine.

I pull the curtains shut, muffling his outrage till I can drop off again. Perhaps he is still angry about the funeral.

***

"Major-General Theodore Wickersley was a good man," I begin, but this statement is so contradictory to what is actually transpiring at his funeral that I trail off in embarrassment. In the silence, Wickersley's mother emits one loud sob, sending crows yelping from the fawn sea of oaks behind us. Surely for her sake, if nothing else, I must continue.

Before I lose my nerve I describe his rapid rise through the ranks, his fairness as a leader, his loyalty as a soldier. I praise his brilliant military mind — stuttering into silence as another of Wickersley's Irregulars gestures frantically at me to cut it out. I express my deep condolences to the Greater Republic of Britannia as well as his family, friends, and fellow soldiers. As I do so, several of my fellow soldiers simply leave, slipping past the rows of family with murmured excuses, as if a quiet slap to the face might be any less painful than a loud one.

I am the only one who has agreed to speak. It is over swiftly, and the spade-man walks bold as brass through the assembled mourners, who part Red Sea-fashion to avoid his dirty shovel. He nods briskly at me, as one professional to another, and begins to fill in the grave. Wickersley's mother handed me a pink rose when I met them at the gates, which I had meant to toss upon the coffin, but the work is proceeding so swiftly that I feel it would be an intrusion.

In minutes it is done, and he switches to another tool with a flat, oblong head to tamp down the fluffed-up black dirt. Finally, the sliced squares of sod are replaced. They will catch again, put down roots long before winter comes. Funny that cemeteries always end up on the best farmland. Or is it the other way around? All those bodies turning the thin soil rich and black over hundreds of years. That old story they tell to scare children, about what happens to those who eat hazelnuts from a cemetery.

 

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About Premee Mohamed:

Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and spec fic writer based in Canada. Her short fiction has been published by Automata Review, Mythic Delirium, Pseudopod, Nightmare Magazine, and many others. Her debut novel, 'Beneath the Rising,' is slated for publication by Solaris Books in 2020.  

 

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