Sword Empire

by Robert Leader

  Kananda was hanging sideways in his harness, his weight on top of the limp body of Jayna who had been knocked unconscious again. In front of him, Zela was slumped forward in her harness, but groaning softly as she touched tentative fingertips to her bleeding face and temples. Kananda pulled himself away from Jayna and struggled out of his shoulder and waist straps. He had seen two of the Gheddan pursuit ships explode into fireballs and so he knew instinctively what could happen to their own crashed ship at any moment. His fingers tore at his buckles, almost in panic, and then he was free.

  One cabin door was below him, flat against the slope of the sand. The other was buckled and refused to open. Kananda wriggled himself down to brace his shoulders against the rear seat and then kicked powerfully at the door with both feet. It took several massive double kicks, using all his strength, before the cabin door finally yielded with a tearing screech and burst upward.

  Zela was dazed and only half conscious, but she had managed to unfasten her straps and turn herself toward him. Kananda got both hands under her armpits and heaved her up over her seat and half way through the open door. She struggled then, resisting his efforts to push her all the way through.

  “Jayna,” she said weakly.

  “I will bring Jayna,” he said hoarsely. “Go.”

  Zela realized that she did not have the strength to help him, nodded, and then allowed him to push her free. She fell out onto the soft sand and slid helplessly for a few yards, choking on the gritty dust that rose up to clog her mouth and nostrils.

  Kananda turned to unfasten Jayna’s straps, then hauled her up and pushed her in turn out through the door. He climbed after the two women, found a grip on Jayna again, and dragged her clear of the wreckage. Zela crawled along beside him and they struggled along the valley floor between the dunes. Finally they stopped at a safe distance and leaned against each other, gasping for breath. After a few more moments, Jayna groaned and opened her eyes, which meant that at least they were all alive.

  But for how long, Kananda wondered. They had survived, but they had no food, and no water. They also had no way of knowing whether or not any of the three ships they had just defeated had found the time to radio back to their base and report their position.

  Their situation was desperate. They had no choice but to try and walk out of the desert. They could only hope to reach the swamps or the northern tree line before they starved to death, died of thirst, or were caught by the next wave of Gheddan pursuit.

  About the Author

  Robert Leader has been a merchant seaman, a retained fire-fighter and a tireless traveller. Twice he has undertaken the overland trip to India and the Far East and has crossed Africa from Tunis to Capetown by Land Rover. He has also found time to run his own business and take a degree in philosophy, social anthropology and politics at the University of East Anglia.

  Under other pen names he has published thriller and adventure novels exploring the worlds of crime, terrorism and espionage. Robert Leader lives in Bury St Edmunds in England and regularly publishes photo feature magazine articles on the heritage, places and events of his home counties of East Anglia.

  To learn more about Robert Leader, send an email to robertcharlesrleader@talktalk.net

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  The Sword Lord

  A planet faces destruction. An ancient Indian kingdom is doomed to the same fate. The solution to both troubles lies in the Law of the Sword.

  The Sword Lord

  © 2007 Robert Leader

  They came from Dooma, the fifth planet in the solar system. A planet destined to destroy itself in the holocaust war.

  They came in separate expeditions, each one seeking refuge on the third planet, the only other inhabitable body.

  They came in the dawn of time, when the Earth was young, to discover an ancient India, where the kingdom of Karakhor fought its own deathly struggle with the massed forces of Maghalla and their allies of sub-human tribes.

  So begins a love story: for Kananda, the First Prince of Karakhor and Zela, his golden-haired goddess from the stars—and for his sister, Maryam, the rebellious princess fated to love and be loved by Raven, blue-skinned Sword Lord of Ghedda.

  Warning, this title contains the following: violence, rape.

  Enjoy this excerpt from The Sword Lord:

  Zela was facing the wrong direction as the tiger leaped out into the glade fifty yards ahead of her. As it landed, it opened its throat to let out a great roar of rage.

  Zela pivoted on her heel, half turning and catching her boot in a tangle of grass. She fell sideways on her right hip and elbow, her eyes wide in horror at what she saw. The huge red-and-white striped beast was twice the length of a man and almost as high at the shoulders. A fearsome sabre tooth curved down from each side of the snarling jaws that already dripped with blood. The eyes burned and the cat roared again, and then launched itself toward her in a running charge.

  Having landed on her right elbow, it was impossible for Zela to aim the lazer weapon in her hand, but she fired it anyway. The bolt of white light missed the bounding fury of fang, fur and claw, but struck a tree close to the animal’s path. The tree was felled as though by a clean axe-blow and simultaneously burst into flames. The cat turned, startled and screaming, to bound back in the direction from which it had come.

  The forest parted with another mighty crash of breaking trees and branches and the war elephant lumbered into view with Kananda still clinging precariously to its neck with his knees. The Hindu prince had exchanged his lightweight throwing javelin for a heavier hunting spear, which was poised in his hand. But events were moving too fast for him and springing too many surprises. He saw a brief glimpse of the golden-haired woman in the silver suit, and then tiger and elephant met in a gigantic clash of hurtling tusk and tooth and claw. For the first time, Kananda realized that he had been chasing a sabre-tooth, twice as large as any ordinary tiger, and as dangerous as one of the wrathful gods themselves.

  The gods were with the tiger. As it leaped upon the elephant, it missed impaling itself upon the tusks and the war spike and crashed against the side of the elephant’s head. One great paw raked the elephant’s eye, blinding it instantly on the one side. One razor-edged claw from the other front paw laid open Kananda’s thigh and the young prince was knocked backwards. As he fell, he thrust with his spear and wounded the tiger’s shoulder.

  Hurled from his mount, Kananda landed on his back and shoulders, his fall mercifully broken by a clump of bushes. He was bleeding and bruised but quickly struggled to his feet. The sabre tooth still clung to the head of the roaring elephant, snarling as it slashed with fang and claws. Half blind and mad with pain, the elephant backed up, dragging its tormentor with it. Kananda steadied himself and with his spear braced in both hands, he ran forward to plunge its blade into the tiger’s side.

  The great cat wheeled, screaming now with pain of its own, leaving the elephant to attack the challenging man. Kananda withdrew his spear with a wrench, knowing that if the shaft was snapped off he would be defenceless. He wielded the weapon in desperate fury to fend of the flailing claws and the monstrous jaws.

  Zela was on her feet now and running forward, her composure partially recovered and her hand steady. But the man blocked a clear line of fire. She had to wait as man and beast fought with awful ferocity, and then the whirling conflict presented her with a chance. She fired and her second bolt hit the tiger in the side, the energy-charged beam burning its way deep into the huge body and scorching the red-and-white fur. The tiger howled but was still not finished. Kananda was flung aside and the sabre tooth turned again to charge at the woman.

  Zela held her ground and fired her third bolt. Three was the most these small hand-held weapons could discharge without losing lethal power and the third beam lanced full into the spitting jaws. Still, its charge carried the beast forward and Zela went down beneath it. The great cat was dying but there was enough strength left in it to make a
final kill. The sabre-toothed jaws loomed over her within inches of closing on the soft golden throat. Then Kanada made his final charge and his spear penetrated the cat’s neck. The thrust was deep and the monster arched backward in its death agony. Kananda pushed with all his strength and the cat fell sideways, its fall pulling the bloodied spear from his hands.

  The man and woman from different planets gazed at each other in bewilderment and wonder. Beside them, the muscles and limbs of their mutual enemy still writhed in lingering death spasms, and after a moment Kananda reached for the woman’s arms and tugged her clear. Then a great dizziness came over him, his head reeled, his body swayed, and he collapsed beside her.

  Where can a perpetual outsider find a home when he doesn’t “belong” anywhere? Welcome to the Magitech Lounge.

  Tales from the Magitech Lounge

  © 2007 Saje Williams

  There’s no place like it on Earth. Or anywhere in the Confederacy of Human Worlds, for that matter. It’s a place where the terminally weird gather to find companionship, friendship, and redemption. Here, magic meets high technology and humanity looks at itself in the mirror of infinite possibilities. Located on a side-street not far from the legendary Haight Street in San Francisco, the Magitech Lounge is a place of wonder for normals and preternaturals alike.

  Jack’s an ordinary enough fellow, a former time-traveler with a unique perspective on life. He didn’t set out to make his lounge a place of refuge for the paranormal, but that’s what it’s become. A place where rogue immortals might wander in and the person in the mirror might not be just a reflection.

  Welcome to the Magitech Lounge, where being a freak isn’t only accepted, but expected.

  “Tales from the Magitech Lounge,” the newest novel from the keyboard of futuristic urban fantasy author Saje Williams, is the first book in his new Infinity: Empire series.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Tales from the Magitech Lounge:

  Call me Jack. Most people do.

  I started out as a time traveler, but I had to give it up. Not only is it illegal, but it’s dangerous to the continuum. One cannot go around creating new universes willy-nilly, and that’s the most probable result of time travel.

  I became a time traveler completely by accident, stumbling across what I assumed to be a unique device while exploring some ancient ruins in South America. The device had apparently been left there by another time traveler, whom, I’m sure, wasn’t thrilled when I accidentally hijacked it.

  Unlike many such devices, this particular gadget, which looked a lot like a small pyramid crafted out of blue glass, could cross both time and space with equal efficiency. It dumped me in the American West in the year 1884.

  That was the first of many stops and it’s possible I’ll share them with you at a later date. But this particular story is not so much about my travels as it is about how my travels ended, and how I ended up where I am today.

  The year is 2260. The place, San Francisco, California, in the former United States. The exact locale is on Haight Street, less than three blocks from the legendary Golden Gate Park.

  I’m probably lucky to be alive, considering that no one told me that time travel was illegal until I ran into a group who took it upon themselves to police the activity. I’d skipped back to a time just around the second year BC in an attempt to meet Jesus Christ.

  Apparently that’s not an uncommon thing for time travelers to do, so this aforementioned agency keeps a monitor in place to watch for our arrival. I was snatched off the dusty road within minutes of setting out to find the guy.

  Two people seemed to pop out of nowhere, each grasping one of my arms, and frog-marched me into an alley between two mud huts. One, a remarkably tall fellow (he must’ve been seven feet if he was an inch), shoved me against a wall as the other, a short, elfin-faced woman, went through my pockets and frisked me in a so professional a manner that I didn’t even consider making a lewd comment about it. That should tell you how freaked out I was.

  “He’s clean,” she said finally, glancing up at her companion. “Where’s your time machine?” she asked me.

  Shocked to my core, I saw no option but to answer honestly. I’d been running around in the thing for nearly a year by this time and hadn’t ever run across anyone like these two. I had the feeling that if I jerked them around, I’d live to regret it.

  “You take care of him, I’ll go get the machine,” the woman told her partner.

  The big guy nodded.

  “What’s all this about?” I asked him as the woman dashed away.

  “It’s about you being in big trouble,” he told me soberly. “Time travel is illegal, dangerous, and really, really stupid.”

  “Okay,” I said. “When was it made illegal?”

  This took him by surprise and he gave me an odd look. I noticed then that the whites of his eyes were literally silver in color, the iris an extremely pale green. I couldn’t quite tell, but there was something weird about the pupil as well.

  He never did answer me, but I found out on my own later. Time travel was made illegal in 2236, years before I ever found my time machine. I’d been breaking the law the whole time and had no idea.

  Yeah, I know. Ignorance is no excuse. I have discovered, however, that stupidity makes a great excuse. Sometimes.

  As it turned out, he was a lycanthrope. A were-tiger, to be exact. He and the elfin woman, who was indeed an elf, were agents of an agency called Hex which had taken over monitoring time travel from another agency known as TAU.

  None of this was known to me at the time, nor would it have mattered. I’d rarely been as scared as I was at this precise moment. Not even when I’d been hunted by a posse in the old west for a train robbery I hadn’t had anything to do with. All I needed to do then was make it back to my machine and escape—which was apparently no longer an option.

  I wasn’t sure what the punishment would be for unauthorized time travel, or who’d decide my fate.

  As it turned out, I had very little to worry about. Hex’s first mission was to eliminate the time machine and return me to my own time. Rather than facing punishment, I discovered that my adventures had impressed someone important, namely the legendary Jasmine Tashae.

  Now keep in mind that the people of my time know about other universes, and are at least aware of rumors surrounding the interworld agencies. Not much, I’ll admit. And most of us don’t spend time thinking about it. The “monsters” that appeared just before the Cen War back in the early part of the twenty-first had pretty much been acclimated into our society. Vampires, lycanthropes, mages, and the various kinds of “supers” had become part of the landscape. Jasmine Tashae—known by most only as “Jaz”, or, alternately, “The Lady of Blades”,—had been a major player in that war. Her name was in the history books along with such luminaries as Deryk Shea, Nemesis Breed, and the vampire Raven.

  After the Cen War, most of the old national boundaries dissolved, or new unions were formed. This precluded the eventual formation of a single world government, but not before the most intractable were assisted off the planet. They went on to colonize other star systems. Some had wanted to escape through the worldgates into other universes, but the newly formed interworld agencies didn’t want malcontents from Earth Prime flooding the metaverse. They made it abundantly clear they were willing to back up that preference with force, if need be. So with the help of Deryk Shea, now the richest man on Earth, a fleet of colony ships was constructed and launched into space, aiming for potential homelands spread out amongst the stars.

  I’ll admit it. Earth is a strange place these days. But it’s still my home. I didn’t flee through time to escape this world, but to discover new ones. And discover them I did.

  My rather unique method of self-education caught the interest of the near-mythical Jaz, and she approached me with an astounding offer. In the place the interworld agencies call home, on Starhaven, there exists a watering hole called the Magitech Lounge, known as a refuge for all m
anner of sentient beings.

  As Jaz told me, Earth could use a place like that. Even with all the preternaturals, parahumans and metahumans here, it’s still a melting pot that hasn’t been stirred real well. Normal folk are fascinated by the strange and unusual, but they’re also still afraid of it and no amount of book learning will change that. They needed something a little more…immediate.

  I took her offer. It wasn’t as though I had anything better to do.

  Earth’s Magitech Lounge is in an old converted warehouse half a block off Haight Street in San Francisco, above which we set aside a few rooms for rent and my own living quarters and office.

  San Francisco, as you can imagine, has become quite the Mecca for the preternatural and paranormal. Not as much as Tacoma, which is where it all began, but San Fran always did have an open-door policy for society’s misfits.

  An assassin can't afford a conscience. It's bad for business.

  The Assassin Journals: Hunter

  © 2007 S.L. Partington

  Ex-soldier turned assassin Gage Brassan is having a very bad year. First, an unwelcome attack of conscience has him switching targets at the last moment, which doesn't sit too well with the criminal organization that hired him. Then an old girlfriend’s betrayal and a trip to prison stir up memories of his military past and a promise left unfulfilled.

  Tortured by his haunted past and hunted by the organization he betrayed, Gage seeks the truth behind the execution of the elite military patrol he once commanded. With the help of Jak, a Rigian street kid, and Joanna, the sister of an old army buddy, Gage follows the blood trail from the war-torn Androsian system to the highest echelons of the Galactic Security Force to the corrupt halls of the Rigian People’s Palace.

  On the run, unsure whom he can trust, he struggles with a growing attraction to Joanna while trying to protect his estranged father from the personal fallout of a life gone wrong.