Nomad's Journal

by Craig Martelle

  If he lets me. I wonder what one of those would do to a spaceship? Vacuum has a way of leveling the playing field. All you have to do is make a hole and let space take care of the squishy things inside the ship.

  I can’t wait to go to space! Shit, sorry. Don’t tell Char.

  Where was I? Sylvia. I think she’s going to go her own way. She is a free spirit. Maybe she’ll steal that young man from Portland. Not so young anymore, but the pod doc seems to be back up to speed, although Akio and Yuko aren’t in Japan right now. They are looking for Michael. I expect they’ll find him soon.

  I don’t know if Magnus Tolliver would consider getting boosted or not. I’d support it, if that’s what Sylvia wanted.

  All my children and grandchildren are precious to me. I would do anything for them.

  Except their dishes. Where did we go wrong in that we raised kids who will do anything to save the world, but they’re slobs? How could I raise a slob? I’m not. Char’s not, although she does leave her clothes laying around. I can’t complain about that. The hottest woman on the whole planet is in love with me and is perfectly happy to walk around our home naked.

  Baseball. Ice Water. Cricket.

  I miss Gene. He acted like a goof sometimes, most of the time, but damn, he was such a good guy. We tore him away from his life alone, forced a solitary creature into being a member of the pack. He was always an outsider until Fu came along.

  Fu! She saved him. Thank God she got boosted. And then those kids of theirs. Anastasia is cute as a button, but her strength is in her community of spirit. She and her mother are bringing peace to a violent world. Gene and Bogdan are pacifying all of the Crimea. From the name, one would think that crime would run rampant, but not with Gene and his family there.

  Criminals be warned. Your days are numbered. Here’s to you, my massive Werebear friend! I’d love to clink a glass of beer with you, but you don’t appreciate it like I do. You have a tendency to chug it and then make a face.

  Water for you. I know you don’t want to go to space with us. Hold the fort for when we get back. Do the best you can, and we will see you again.

  Aaron and Yanmei are more open to going. I hope they decide to come. They help bring peace to Char and me. Just like Cory. How did we get blessed with people who are so well grounded?

  And there’s nothing like sparring with a kung fu Weretiger! They got skillz!

  I like that Kurtz guy. He’s solid. Reminds me of Boris. I miss those guys, all of them, but it is the torment of the immortals. Be careful what you ask for, you may get it.

  I don’t want to die! And Mother Earth replies, “Okay, but you’ll have to watch everyone else die instead.”

  I digress again. You can see what’s on my mind. I think Sue, Timmons, Shonna, and Merrit are ready to go. I wonder about Ted. He would love the challenges of interstellar engineering. What would Felicity do trapped on a spaceship?

  That will be an interesting conversation.

  There’s no way I’m asking those two vixens, Annika and Meta. They are plying the bars as the most popular dancers in all San Francisco. I think they’re trying to single-handedly take on the entire male population of San Francisco. I heard Werewolves had voracious appetites, but these two are wild.

  I’m not sure who else to ask to go. Cory and Ramses aren’t sure, but the other kids are. Kim, Kae, Marcie, and Auburn refuse to be left behind. Auburn is in for a shock, I think.

  No beef in space.

  That sucks for me, too, and Char. I hope they have beer. Or at least cookies. How to make space travel suck most heinously—no cookies. Or beer. Or steak. What are we going to eat? Rehydrated food packs? Soylent Green?

  I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ll eat whatever they offer us, because, SPACE!

  I can’t wait.

  Don’t tell Char.

  THIRTEEN

  Joseph & Petricia

  WWDE + 150, San Francisco

  Terry and Char stood on a Treasure Island shore, looking out on the bay. Ships were in various stages of coming and going. The engine droning did not detract from the peace of the scene.

  “Civilization,” Terry said.

  “Humanity has found its purpose again,” Char added.

  “Yes. Beyond survival. That Maslow guy was pretty smart. Once the basic needs are taken care of, people can focus on other things. But there’s still a lot of scratching in the dirt to survive out there.”

  Char shrugged. The beachhead of civilization would expand outward, giving people more and more purpose. Like history had taught them, people would flock to the cities for a taste of the good life, until that good life was shared in the country, then people would emigrate from the congestion and the turmoil of the big city.

  The farms were king, but they were close to the cities. They would be pushed out, farther away, as they had been before. Not yet, but someday.

  Terry and Char held hands, accepting the silence of the moment, drinking in the Earthly air. They weren’t sure when, but they’d soon board a ship, take it to the Annex Gate, and fly to another galaxy. They hoped to meet Bethany Anne, the Empress of the Federation. She would be busy, as empresses tended to be, but TH could always hope. Char was more reserved. She wasn’t sure about meeting the Queen Bitch herself. Char had been the alpha bitch for over a century.

  She was afraid of getting on BA’s wrong side with an errant thought. If Akio was there, he could vouch for her. She remembered her first exchange with the Queen’s Bitch.

  That could have gone better. Terry had done everything except grovel at Akio’s feet.

  She chuckled to herself. Terry looked at her, then returned to watching the small waves slap gently at the shore.

  They both heard the sound of approaching footsteps. They were measured, but light. Terry didn’t need to turn around and look. He’d heard them before. Char sensed the etheric energy within them.

  “Joseph. Petricia. Thanks for joining us,” Terry said. The Forsaken nodded, holding hands and watching the bay.

  “Have you guys gone crabbing recently?” Terry asked, finally turning to face his friends.

  Petricia rolled her eyes.

  “Not yet,” Joseph replied. She cocked her head and looked at him. “We may not.”

  Char coughed to hide her laugh.

  “I never took you for one to …” Terry fought valiantly to find the right word. Three pairs of eyes watched him intently. Char and Petricia’s looks became glares. Joseph started shaking his head. “Dammit! You never really liked crabbing, did you?”

  “I have to admit that I did at first, then I didn’t, then I did again. It was nice being successful at something like that. And it wasn’t just me. Andrew was a natural. His joy at doing it was infectious. You’re right. It wouldn’t be the same going out now.”

  Terry bit his lip, upset with himself for bringing it up. To Joseph, it had been only a few weeks since he last saw Andrew. To TH, it had been sixteen years since the Forsaken had died.

  “We mourned a long time,” Terry started. “For Andrew, for Destiny Chase, for all those we lost. We’re finally in a position to move on. I will tell you this again, but I could not be happier that we finally found you. Alive.”

  “Us, too. I’m all about being alive,” Joseph said, trying to keep it light, but his face darkened with his mood as he thought about his friend Andrew.

  “Enough of this. It’s time to celebrate the next step in our journey. When Bethany Anne returns with her fleet, we’re going to board one of the ships, the FDG, both the tac teams and some of the regular warriors. I would you like you two to come with us to the stars, my friend.”

  Joseph and Petricia looked at each other. She wasn’t sure. Too much had happened in too short a time. Joseph took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and appreciated the moment.

  When he opened his eyes again, he looked calm.

  “The world descends into an age of madness,” he began in a voice free of doubt. “And an age of expansion. Like the wild wes
t of the eighteen hundreds, people race into the great unknown of the new cities, the Wasteland, to find their fortune. Alas, Earth holds no allure for one such as I, trapped between the good and the evil that is mankind.”

  Joseph pulled Petricia close and hugged her tightly. His wide-brimmed hat blocked his face. Terry and Char watched as his tears splashed on the black leather covering Petricia’s shoulder. She sobbed in his arms, briefly, before stepping back, wiping her eyes with a delicate finger, and smiling at her husband.

  She nodded.

  “Sometimes, one must grieve in their own way. I wish I had a beer to share with you, so we could toast appropriately.”

  “As do I. It’s never too early for beer, is it, Joseph?”

  Char shook her head.

  “We want you to come with us. Help us with whatever lies ahead,” Char added.

  “Sounds good,” Petricia said.

  “You heard the woman. Reserve us a window seat on the express train to the stars.”

  Joseph offered his hand. Terry grabbed it and yanked Joseph into a one-armed man-hug.

  “I am ready to go, my man. Right now!” Terry exclaimed.

  “Hang on…” Char started to say before slapping Terry’s shoulder. He laughed, picked her up, and danced on the shore.

  “Where you go, we will follow,” Joseph whispered.

  This is the end of Nomad’s Journal, a collection of short stories from the world of Terry Henry Walton

  Nomad: Gateway to the Universe

  In Bad Company

  They say behind every great man, is a great woman,

  but what if the woman is a Werewolf?

  Craig Martelle, Justin Sloan, & Michael Anderle

  CHAPTER ONE

  A massive ship orbited planet Earth. Of alien and human construction and crewed by humans, aliens and a sentient A.I. The ArchAngel II. Larger than most asteroids, but with a singular purpose.

  To serve humanity.

  One human in particular. Bethany Anne, The Etheric Empress.

  The ambassadorial ship, little more than a luxury shuttle departed the ArchAngel, followed by a squadron of fighters flying cover for the Empress as she and her mate Michael transferred to a Defender-series destroyer.

  They needed the heavy lift that the ship War Axe provided if they were to free the trapped Elites.

  As soon as the shuttle pod entered the landing bay, the destroyer pointed its nose toward the planet and headed into the upper atmosphere. It skipped and bounced as it became a fireball during its steep descent.

  The captain had discussed the best way to inform those below on the planet, there was a new power and half the world saw the harbinger flaming through the sky.

  The War Axe left space and raced through Earth’s sky at a speed in excess of Mach thirty.

  The ship slowed as it approached the island of Japan where Akio waited in a pod, hovering a half mile above a collapsed building that he had protected for the past one hundred and fifty years. Eight stories deep, under a hundred-thousand tons of rubble, six Elite warriors had been awakened from their deep sleep, slowing their aging. They had been buried inadvertently, back when chaos ruled.

  Even their magnificent skills couldn’t stop the madness. And Akio could not save them without risking their lives.

  So, he had waited. With infinite patience Akio, Yuko and Eve protected both their world, and their team. Vampires with a sense of duty and honor, because the Queen, now an Empress, had tasked them to hold the line.

  Keep the world from destroying itself.

  They almost failed.

  But Akio had found help. Former Marine Terry Henry Walton and his Werewolf partner joined forces with the Vampire to drag humanity back to civilization, a one-hundred and fifty year effort.

  That chapter was quickly coming to a close.

  The War Axe descended, slowing as the gravitic engines surged, to control the bulk of the ship. Akio directed the ship to the building and then pulled his pod back. The Defender series ship had the latest in traction beams. Using all the power available to it, the ship latched on to the building and picked it up en masse.

  The rubble of a destroyed building held together by the power of the energy beam. The ship slid sideways and dumped the building into a clear area beyond.

  Akio’s pod, a small and boxy ship to shuttle troops and equipment from planet side to orbit, swooped above the hole in the ground, stopping mid-air, and descending straight down. One hundred feet deep, the pod settled and the rear ramp dropped. Six Vampires stood there, waiting. Akio stepped out, bowing deeply to his fellows.

  “It has been too long,” he told them.

  “Hai!” one of them said with a big smile. They hurried on to the shuttle, anxious, as if a delay would condemn them to be buried anew. Akio instructed Eve, an Entity Intelligence within a body made of a seamless material not of Earth, to land aboard the War Axe.

  The Empress was waiting.

  San Francisco

  Terry Henry Walton, TH to his friends, stood tall and proud. His black Force de Guerre uniform crisp. The Werewolf, Charumati, watched him, her eyes sparkling purple in the morning sun. They were anxious, excited, and afraid. None of them knew what to expect, and they all had different ideas.

  A massive and fantastic vessel approached from the west, just like Akio had told him it would.

  Akio, a Queen’s Bitch, one of the chosen few to do the Empress’ bidding from the time when she was only a queen.

  TH caught Char’s wince out of the corner of his eye. He reached for her hand, to hold it, look adoringly into her sparkling purple eyes, as he often did, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “So many from the UnknownWorld feeding off the power of the etheric,” she replied, wrinkles appearing around her eyes, as she fought against the pain.

  The etheric, an alternate dimension from which the Kurtherians drew power for the nanocytes they created. The nanos that coursed through the blood of all the enhanced and modified – the Were, the boosted, and the Vampires. Especially the Vampires. They were the most different of the enhanced. They were also the first ones to come alive from the specific Kurtherian technology which supported Bethany Anne’s herself.

  Joseph and his wife Petricia stayed close to Terry as he’d asked them to. It was his turn to protect them, payback for all the times they had his back. Joseph and Petricia were known as Forsaken, the Vampires created that left Michael’s family, went on their own. For most, who didn’t know Michael’s strictures, you were by default Forsaken. The Elites, the special warriors were unforgiving on the Forsaken, hunting them down and killing them, as Terry himself had often done. But Joseph and Petricia were different. They refused to drink human blood.

  But Terry Henry and these two Forsaken had fought, side by side. TH considered them his friends and would stand by them, no matter what judgment came. Joseph had joined Char’s pack well over a century earlier. As the Werewolf pack’s alpha, she would vouch for the Forsaken, as she’d vouch for the Weretigers in the pack.

  It wasn’t a normal Werewolf pack, but nothing about TH and Char’s life could have been considered normal.

  The nanocytes coursing through their blood and the blood of their children eliminated any chance of the mundane. The nanos granted long life, repaired injuries, increased speed, and enhanced strength. Made warriors like Terry Henry Walton into super warriors.

  But TH and Char made themselves into something far beyond anything the Kurtherians contemplated. Their joining made them stronger than the sum of their two parts. They made for a lethal combination.

  Bethany Anne and Michael. The universe’s premier beings – one had lived through death itself and the other, Bethany Anne had cast off the Kurtherian yoke from their planet and others, freeing countless humans and aliens.

  Liberty for all.

  For Bethany Anne it was simple: she hated bullies. The Kurtherians had been a race of bullies. When they collided with BA, the very stars eventually shuddered at the impact
.

  The Kurtherians she encountered lost because humanity would not be denied and mankind’s champion refused to lose. The love of her life would be waiting for her, but she had to survive and return to Earth. And now she was back.

  She was back with Michael by her side, and the universe breathed a sigh of relief.

  The destroyer War Axe, descended slowly, regally. They had cleared the transshipment area of the wharf for the ship to land, but had underestimated the vast proportions of such a vessel.

  “This ship is a gnat compared to the ArchAngel,” Terry said excitedly. Char clenched her jaw as she struggled with the energies ebbing and surging from those aboard the ship.

  Terry looked at the assembled group of his friends and family. He nodded toward them.

  Most didn’t notice.

  Marcie winced and gasped. Colonel Marcie Walton, Terry and Char’s daughter-in-law, married to their adopted son Kaeden, a Major in the FDG. Marcie had been gifted nanocytes from her mother, Felicity, one of the enhanced.

  Felicity was nearby, holding the hand of her Werewolf husband, torn between watching the ship and comforting her daughter. She chose the latter, moving close, draping a protective arm over Marcie’s shoulder.

  Felicity and Marcie were both raving beauties, blond hair and blue eyed, lithe. Felicity was a socialite, but Marcie had chosen a different path. She had found her niche. She was a warrior’s warrior, the deadliest of the deadly.

  Terry and Char’s adopted daughter Kimber put a hand on her brother Kae’s arm. The family had always been close. More than a century had passed, but time didn’t matter.

  Family did.

  Kae nodded to his sister. More than family, they were friends, too. And brothers in arms, having fought side by side against the enemies of mankind. It was what their father had instilled in their souls, without pushing them into it. Having the ability to act, they accepted the responsibility. Terry was proud they’d followed his path, but more than that, they followed him as the leader of the FDG, embracing his moral compass as the right way to live.