Orbital Decay Read online

  They had found two large SUV’s sitting inside the maintenance department. The metal structure of the building had acted as a Faraday cage, protecting the fragile electronics from the effects of the pulse.

  “Figure we’ve only got another thirty klicks to the unit,” Abe said, ignoring Ben’s gratitude. “Sixty, as the crow wanders…”

  Ben looked down at the pavement, hitching his thumbs into his pistol belt. “Yeah well, you saw what happened back there,” he replied after a moment’s reflection. “Folks are desperate, especially now that the pulse has killed the power grids.” He looked up to meet the pilot’s gaze. “Closer we get to big towns, the worse it gets.”

  “The longer we wander, the more time folks have to put up barricades,” Abe offered.

  Ben shook his head. “No way in hell are we gonna drive through Belton.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open door as he moved in closer, his voice becoming an intense whisper. “We stick to the plan and come around the south to pick up the one-seventy-eight. We’ll follow that into town. I don’t want to risk getting us killed over a military shuttle that might have been knocked out of service by that pulse.”

  Abe stared back for a few seconds, then looked away. “They would have known about it,” he muttered. “They would have shut down and waited it out. That unit was still there when we started walking,” he said, looking back at Ben, “but they might pack up and move on at any minute. We need to get our asses in gear.”

  Ben nodded. “I’d rather miss catching them than run one of those barricades again,” he replied, reaching out to rest a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “I’d rather see us stranded and alive than dead trying to reach a shuttle that may already be gone.”

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  From the Author

  I know it’s an odd move, taking a tangent like this with a science fiction series, but I realized that Jan’s discovery in The Dark Defiance was going to open Pandora’s Box. If a species, virtually indistinguishable from humans, had an incredibly long lifespan, it’s a safe bet that folks would want to find out how it works and whether it could be adapted to our own bodies.

  It’s also a safe bet that someone would make a complete mess of it.

  So now humanity has its prize and they’re paying the price for it. Where does this leave the story? Well, for one thing, there’s still a war going on in the Dactari Republic and our forces are effectively cut off from Earth. Even if they could safely walk the planet’s surface, they still won’t be seeing re-supply or fresh recruits from home world for a very long time.

  There’s an old quote attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero: “The sinews of war are infinite money” and it will become painfully obvious in the next full installment of the Black Ships series. The Human/Midgaard alliance will find themselves with no supply chain and no supporting economy. Weapons break down, ships are lost to combat, or accidents and, unless fleet command can find a way to maintain their forces, all will be lost.

  As if that were'nt enough – the alliance won’t be going up against clones this time. They’re facing the Dactari internal security forces who’ve been waging a low-intensity conflict against separatists for more than a thousand years. Those guys know a thing or two about asymmetrical conflict.

  And we will be learning some hard lessons in the very near future.

  So here’s the plan: the next full length Black Ships story will come out some time in January of 2013 (if we’re all still here) and a side series of novellas will grow from the Orbital Decay line, detailing events on Earth as Ben and his small group try to rebuild.

  If you enjoyed the story, please feel free to leave a short review. If you would like to contact me, the bottom link will reach my inbox. I try to answer every email as quickly as possible, except for the ones that tell me there’s an urgent problem with my (insert random bank that I’ve never dealt with) account.

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  Blog: http://agclaymore.blogspot.com/

  Email: [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Last Chance

  The Road to Hell

  Indicators

  No Return

  The Face of Death

  Descent

  Thin Hope

  A Pat on the Head

  The Roaches Always Survive

  From the Author