Salt water dripped from sodden hammocks—intermittent patters percussing throughout the dropship against the steady hiss of misters coating the Caribbean Reef Octopus Paratroopers with cool saline. CROP-15 closed his eyes in contentment, swaying as his berth dangled in the metal fuselage. As central brain, he appreciated the effort these land-dwellers had put
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I landed face down in the dirt. Again. I spat dirt and scowled. “Would you stop that?”
Raddick shook his silvery mane. “To ride in the Sky War, young Myron, you must learn to ride.”
I wiped blood from my palm. “But you’re trying to throw me.”
“In a barrage of blaster fire,
Malther is lucky I have a family to avenge. Otherwise, I’d have left his squad long ago.
He leers at me through the drizzling rain. I meet his gaze with a stony stare. Malther may wear a sergeant’s stripes, but the notches in my gun barrel speak louder than any rank. I’m more than a match for you.
Jessmina had faced tough crowds before, but a squadron of war-torn soldiers? That just felt unfair. She loitered at the bar, though—unfortunately—drinking on the job wasn’t allowed.
She sighed glumly at her situation. Outside, gray gloom and swirling snow. Inside, a table full of scowling warriors with rifles strapped across their backs.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else you need, princess?” The maid hovered over Katriel.
Katriel snuggled deeper under her quilts, leaving only her head visible. “No, I’m fine.” Now shoo.
“As you say, princess.”
When the overbearing maid finally closed the door behind her, Katriel tossed off the blankets and snatched a pair
The drop freighter loses its savage grapple with gravity for a moment. Everything inside the vessel rises and falls from the interruption. Like those old music machines with the plastic wheels. Discs. Records. They’d collect dust, and songs would skip.
“Ya know…” starts Sergeant Cava, battle rifle resting against his chest. “
Green was her favorite color. Linzi used to call it the color of life. She was such an unusual child; she’d even begged to have the house shutters painted in Island Palm.
Now when I see green, it just reminds me of her death.
I sit next to the rain-splattered window, catching
Aster leaned into the cold stone sill and gazed out the window. The night sky was brushed with the haze of winter clouds, shrouding the stars to a ghostly hue and cloaking the evening star. No moon swam behind them. In the pale light, Aster could see the orchard
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Jaq Orleans no longer had a home to go back to. The war was over, the graves dug and covered, the medals all hung. After six years of fighting against the evil trying to invade their nation, his people had won. They’d finally won.
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The hero of the Hoard War was a coward. The legions of ash-stained soldiers who watched her in awe, whispered of her great feats, and saluted her every step just didn’t know it. They looked at her and saw a hero come to save them and extinguish the dark. They didn’t see
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The monstrous leviathan rises from the depths, swimming across the bay toward Super Awesome City. I grin. At last, the battle where I prove myself has come. Every shortsighted inventor who dismissed my ideas, every teacher who gave me detention for starting food fights in class—they will all look upon me as their savior.
“Load the pineapults!” I bark.
“Another raid has been reported, Your Majesty. We lost the Orion.”
I nodded, narrowing my eyes and bracing my feet against the floor’s slight rocking motion. Hopefully I looked as calm as I needed to.
“Sunken or captured?”
“Captured, sire.”
“Thank you, general. Dismissed.”
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