He looked at the position they’d assumed. The warriors from the Force de Guerre looked back and forth between the colonel and their fields of fire. No one was mustering at the bottom of the hill preparing to attack.
Terry waved his arm in an exaggerated circle. “Saddle up!” he ordered and the warriors sprang into action.
It took less than five minutes to repack the pods. Terry waited until Mark verified that all hands were on board.
As much as he wanted to, he didn’t double-check.
He asked Char to do that using her Werewolf senses. She confirmed that all were on board. Terry nodded to Akio, the ramps closed, and the pods lifted into the air, gaining speed rapidly and flying northeast over the pole as the quickest route to North Chicago. Aaron breathed a sigh of relief, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
It was a full day before the general brought a contingent of his soldiers up the hill and another week before he entered the mine. When he emerged from the mine, General Tsao smiled and ordered his most trusted advisors to him.
North Chicago
“Is that them already?” Billy asked, pointing skyward. He was laying on the ground, having surrendered to the boundless energy of the children. Felicity sat and watched the four continue to play in the mayor’s park.
They’d had to repair their ball twice, but the latest iteration was going strong.
Margie Rose walked slowly toward them, done with her work for the day. Claire had closed the diner, supervised the cleaning effort, checked the freezers, and sent the group of elders home.
Margie Rose strolled across the open area, making the pods delay their landing. As soon as she passed, they settled in behind her. She sensed something was different, turned and stumbled when she saw that the air vehicles had landed and their ramps were descending.
The Force disembarked, helping their injured. Char and the beautiful people wore clothes either stained with blood or in tatters. And then there was Gene, still comatose on the couch.
Akio bent down and grasped the front of the couch, as he had done before. Terry, Char, and Merrit took the back and they lugged the great Werebear out of the pod and deposited him on the ground. Terry and Char’s children ran and tottered their way to get to Uncle Gene.
Cordelia started to cry when she saw him, but she steeled her small body and reached under his bandages. Nobody could see what happened, but after a minute, the little baby’s eyes rolled back in her head. Char was there to catch her when she fell. She seemed to know instantly that she was in her mother’s arms and settled in for a nap.
Gene stirred, blinked twice, then changed into human form.
“Damn!” Margie rose exclaimed. She’d been standing too close as a very large, very naked man appeared before her.
“Give us kiss,” Gene rumbled, looking at Margie Rose.
“Well, I never!” she said, dismissing Gene with a wave of her hand and one last extended look, before turning and walking away.
“I could eat whole elephant,” Gene mumbled as he settled back onto the couch.
Terry draped an arm across his wife’s shoulders while Kaeden and Kimber hugged his legs.
Adams appeared.
“Good mission?” he asked.
“We survived another one,” Terry replied mirthlessly.
“We need to talk, about a Werewolf called Jonas.” Adams tossed into the mix.
Char looked up, blinked slowly, and shook her head. "That jackass?" she harumphed.
The End of Nomad’s Justice
Terry Henry Walton will return in Nomad Avenged, May 2017
Don’t stop now! Keep turning the pages as both Craig & Michael talk about their thoughts on this book and the overall project called the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles and cover artwork! There’s a picture of something hiding back there that you simply must see.
Author Notes - Craig Martelle
Written March 28, 2017
Thank you for reading to this point. That is incredible – book 6 in the series and you’re still reading. You make this journey of ours worthwhile. Holy Schnitzengrubens! Your reviews and comments are so humbling. I will continue to write stories that I hope will resonate with you great people, especially those who contact me with what they like or what they think needs to be explored at a deeper level.
Please, let me know.
For those who leave reviews, your words and those stars are like gold for an author. They do make a difference in a competitive market, although I like to think that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Michael suggested that we bring all the collaborating authors to Fox, Alaska where the distractions are at a minimum. We’ve gotten a massive amount of snowfall and on top of that, we’ve had some mind numbing cold spells. (Mike - The Hell I Did!)
This book wasn’t on my radar for a couple more months, but the story was there and begging to be told, so I delayed the third book in my Cygnus Space Opera series and let this story write itself.
Now that it is the end of March, I have a ton of stuff to do – I have yet to finish fixing my tractor. Nothing beats the tractor with the four feet wide snow thrower on the front. All I need to do is fix one bad idler wheel and replace the belt. That’s all. Two weeks of diddling with it and still haven’t cracked the nut free. I think a new tool is in order. That idler wheel is in a tight spot and that’s part of the problem. But we have a new neighbor who is an ASE certified mechanic and he offered to help. I’m not too proud, so I’ll catch him on a bad weather day and see if he can save me from myself – the tractor is in our heated garage. I used the tractor to clean his driveway after every snow this past winter (until it went belly up). I expect it’ll take him about twenty seconds to fix it.
I won’t be embarrassed, only thankful.
As spring approaches… Today marks the ten thousandth day this winter with temperatures at -20F or colder. I’m looking forward to spring in a few days when it may warm up to -15F. Holy crap this has been a hard winter. So much snow. So cold. We need to sell more books so we can move to a place in Hawai’i*, at least for the seven months of winter.
And then there’s the massive flooding we’ll get when the four feet of snow melts. That will be really bad. I may have to dig deeper into the drainage ditch to funnel water away because we’ll get sinkholes. I think of them all as secret entrances to Middle Earth. We had one last year that looked like a gateway to Hell. It took quite a bit to backfill to close that gaping maw. If those kinds of holes continue, I’m going to have to get a few cubic yards of dirt and gravel along with a skid steer to fight them off.
I hope my chainsaw starts this year. I have a new Husqvarna. The one time I used it, it was so damn good, that it took me all of ten minutes to do what I needed. Last year, that little prick wouldn’t start. I have high hopes for this year.
Such is my life in the interior of Alaska.
Shout out to Mayra Preble Figueroa who entered the contest to giveaway the first three paperbacks in the THW Chronicles! As an added bonus, I named a character after her in the book. Shhh, don’t tell her – she can read it when she gets to that part in the newest book.
I also gave Corporal Heitz the first name of Max for the old military armorer who contacted me and really, really wanted me to correct the nomenclature on the M2. The M2 fifty-caliber machinegun was originally the Mod 2, I call it the mod deuce, however the colloquial term is Ma Deuce. If you’ve read this far, you’ll see how I addressed that within the book. In the future, we’re just going to call it the fifty cal. Shout out to the weaponeers who want to make sure the book is technically correct, and it needs to be. We do the best we can with what we have and improve from book to book to make sure. There’s no reason to get something easy wrong.
A dear friend of ours had a birthday this year, as we are all wont to do, but this was the special one, so in honor of her forever 39 years, look for Anne to make a little splash.
End Times Alaska is now available via Kindle Unlimited.
My traditional
publisher, Winlock Press is running a new and unique thing, just for me. We were wide, which means that the End Times Alaska series was available everywhere, but they have made these books exclusive to Amazon and in Kindle Select – that’s right! End Times Alaska is now available via Kindle Unlimited. It’s post-apocalyptic survival in the interior of Alaska. There are four books and that one is written in first person. It’s very personal to me** and I hope you like the story – End Times Alaska, exclusive to Amazon!
And finally, the next book that I’ll write is the third book in my Cygnus Space Opera series. This is a favorite of mine and if you like the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, you’ll like Cygnus, because it’s me and the way I tell the story. It has cats who are rather snarky, along with some other intelligent animals helping the humans as the cross space in their efforts to get back to earth.
Cygnus Arrives should be done by the end of April, by which time I’ll return to the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 7, Nomad Avenged.
Please join my Newsletter so you see when Cygnus Arrives is published, and you can pick up the whole series (please?), and then I’m back to Terry & Char. Or you can follow me on Facebook since you’ll get the same opportunity to pick up the book on that first day it’s published.
If you liked this story, you might like some of my other books. You can join my mailing list by dropping by my website www.craigmartelle.com or if you have any comments, shoot me a note at [email protected]. I am always happy to hear from people who’ve read my work. I try to answer every email I receive.
If you liked the story, please write a short review for me on Amazon. I greatly appreciate any kind words, even one or two sentences go a long way. The number of reviews an ebook receives greatly improves how well an ebook does on Amazon.
Amazon – www.amazon.com/author/craigmartelle
Facebook – www.facebook.com/authorcraigmartelle
My web page – www.craigmartelle.com
Twitter – www.twitter.com/rick_banik
Thank you for reading the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles!
* From Mike - This is actually the correct (on Island) way to spell the name… I HAD to check!
** From Mike - Oh yeah, the story was personal enough to Craig that when his character (which is NOT him) did something in the story, Craig’s wife wouldn’t talk to him for DAYS (or was it over a week?)
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Written April 9th, 2017
As ALWAYS I want to say THANK YOU for reading this book, number 6 in the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles.
I have a slight confession to make at we sit here with book number 6 … I was shocked early on (this is maybe December of last year (2016) or January this year) when Awesome Craig (TM) said he had plans to knock ten books out w/ THWC this year.
Why? Oh, not because I didn’t think he COULD do it, but rather that I wasn’t sure if you, the fans, would like our stories set in a Post-Apocalyptic setting.
Boy, was I wrong!
One of my fans (not mentioning any names ** Cough Cough ** July Astronomical Sign - What Sound Does A Lion Make? ** Cough Cough **) has gone on record that she even likes this series ‘maybe’ more than the core TKG series.
(See how nice I was above? I didn’t mention any names. She has said this on Facebook so … you know… I’m good and not heartbroken or anything… sniff…sniff…)
Anyway, I figure the person above is going to say something to me when she reads this, and she WILL read this…;-)
Back on track with my thoughts. Now that the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles have so much love from the fans and we all love the new characters, I have to admit I enjoy something that is going on in these last few books.
I really enjoy Akio popping up in different ways in the series. (This wasn’t something we had originally thought would happen, at least I didn’t.) Akio showing up often is a Craig creation for sure. However, I happen to LOVE how the FDG is going around Earth, ripping bad guys new assholes.
Something else has happened (outside of the book) that causes me to want to throw my Indie Outlaw hat up in the air and shout OORAH! (Not that I’m a Marine, but it seems to fit… I could also yell HOOAH! Or HOOYAH! (is there another one?))
So, the story (as I remember it) was Craig mentioning he received a 1-star bad review titled “Needless Profanity.”
Snicker…Snicker… Chuckle….LAUGHTER!
FUCK YEAH!
While that isn’t the funniest part (and I’m not laughing at the reviewer so much because I get it, profanity isn’t for everyone and we DO want people to know we have NO problem with profanity in our stories.) It is what this Marine author did WITH the review that makes it so damned funny.
He turned it into an ad.
Like, a Facebook ad where he is dropping a good sum of money to tell people he received this 1-star review. Craig is advertising “Needless Profanity,” and it is the most effective ad he has ever put out on Facebook.
I find that funny as hell! That would be something Team BMW would do in a nano-second.
I raise a toast of (root)BEER in Awesome Craig’s direction.
Well done, Marine. Well done indeed.
Thank you for following this series, this author and the Kurtherian Gambit in general. We have MORE coming out with new authors, new directions, more characters and people making sure that those who deserve it, that would hurt others find out there ARE people and beings in this Universe who won’t take that shit sitting down.
No, they will be there, charging right at their asses with katanas, pistols, rifles, armor, spaceships, and a big fricken rock with an ESD beam letting everyone and everything in the Universe who treats others with Injustice know…
“We Are Coming For You.”
Ad Aeterinatem,
Michael Anderle
The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles
A Kurtherian Gambit Series
Book 1 – Nomad Found
Book 2 – Nomad Redeemed
Book 3 - Nomad Unleashed
Book 4 - Nomad Supreme
Book 5 – Nomad’s Fury
Book 6 – Nomad Justice
Book 7 – Nomad Avenged
Book 8 – Nomad Mortis
Book 9 – Nomad’s Force
Book 10 – Nomad’s Galaxy
Free Trader Series
Book 1 – The Free Trader of Warren Deep
Book 2 – The Free Trader of Planet Vii
Book 3 – Adventures on RV Traveler
Book 4 – Battle for the Amazon
Book 5 – Free the North!
Book 6 – Free Trader on the High Seas
Book 7 – Southern Discontent (January 2017)
Book 8 – The Great ‘Cat Rebellion (2017)
Book 9 – Return to the Traveler (2017)
Cygnus Space Opera – Set in the Free Trader Universe
Book 1 – Cygnus Rising
Book 2 – Cygnus Expanding
Book 3 – Cygnus Arrives (2017)
End Times Alaska Series, a Winlock Press publication
Book 1: Endure
Book 2: Run
Book 3: Return
Book 4: Fury
Rick Banik Thrillers
People Raged and the Sky Was on Fire
The Heart Raged (2017)
Paranoid in Paradise (Short Story – 2017)
Short Story Contributions to Anthologies
Wisdom’s Journey (stand alone novella)
Earth Prime Anthology, Volume 1 (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Apocalyptic Space Short Story Collection (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Lunar Resorts Anthology, Volume 2 (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Just One More Fight (stand alone novella)
The Expanding Universe, Volume 1 (edited by Craig Martelle)
The Expanding Universe, Volum
e 2 (edited by Craig Martelle – June 2017)
The Misadventures of Jacob Wild McKilljoy (with Michael-Scott Earle)
The Tide, a multi-author, single story extravaganza
Metamorphosis Alpha, Chronicles from the Warden (with James M. Ward – Summer 2017)
Michael Anderle
Kurtherian Gambit Series Titles Include:
First Arc
Death Becomes Her (01) - Queen Bitch (02) - Love Lost (03) - Bite This (04)
Never Forsaken (05) - Under My Heel (06) Kneel Or Die (07)
Second Arc
We Will Build (08) - It’s Hell To Choose (09) - Release The Dogs of War (10)
Sued For Peace (11) - We Have Contact (12) - My Ride is a Bitch (13)
Don’t Cross This Line (14)
Third Arc (Due 2017)
Never Submit (15) - Never Surrender (16) - Forever Defend (17)
Might Makes Right (18) - Ahead Full (19) - Capture Death (20)
Life Goes On (21)
**New Series**
The Second Dark Ages
The Dark Messiah (01)
The Darkest Night (02) Soon
The Boris Chronicles
* With Paul C. Middleton *
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