The Dogs of God

by Chris Kennedy

  Called “fantastic” and “a great speaker,” he has coached hundreds of beginning authors and budding novelists on how to self-publish their stories at a variety of conferences, conventions and writing guild presentations. He is the author of the award-winning #1 bestseller, “Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores,” as well as the leadership training book, “Leadership from the Darkside.”

  Chris lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife, and is the holder of a doctorate in educational leadership and master’s degrees in both business and public administration. Follow Chris on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ckpublishing/.

  * * * * *

  The following is an

  Excerpt from Book One of The Fallen World:

  This Fallen World

  ___________________

  Christopher Woods

  Available Now from Blood Moon Press

  eBook, Paperback, and Audio

  Excerpt from “This Fallen World:”

  He placed a coin in front of me. I looked at it in surprise. It was a solid gold coin from the Old World. Probably worth ten thousand scripts now.

  “This is a down payment,” Hale said. “You find her, you get another. Return her to me unharmed, you get three.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you, Agent,” he said softly.

  I nodded.

  He passed me a folder, and I opened it to see a picture of a pretty young red-haired woman. She appeared to be late teens or early twenties and that could be bad. This fallen world is hard on young beautiful people.

  Warlords could swoop in with their troops and steal people at will. They were Warlords because the held the weapons or tech that gave them control over those around them.

  There had been incidents for years. I had a great disdain for the term, Warlord. They were the ones who had found some advantage and abused it, for the most part.

  There were a few good men, such as Wilderman, who held the reigns of fourteen city blocks. He provided protection to those who lived in his domain. He taxed his people but he also provided true protection.

  Miles to the East, there was Joanna Kathrop. She held sixteen blocks and ruled with an iron fist. She had found a cache of weapons and provisions in her area several decades back. Her cadre of loyal soldiers backed her and she established her rule of that area.

  There were others, both good and bad. The majority of them were bad. They ran single and double blocks. The Warlord that controlled the area where the Strike Zone was located wasn’t the worst, but he was far from the best.

  I turned the page and found the sector that Hale and his daughter had lived.

  “You were under Yamato?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “he took down the Bishop a decade ago.”

  “Yamato’s always been fair,” I said. “Did you take this to him?”

  “He couldn’t help me,” he said. “She was traveling across the city.”

  “What the hell was she doin’ travelin’?” I asked. “Was she in a caravan?”

  The Caravans were the only semi-safe way to travel the city. You paid for your ticket, and the Caravans paid their tax to run through the Zones.

  “She was going to the new College, set up by Kathrop, in a small Caravan run by a man named Drekk. He claims she never showed up for the last leg of the trip.”

  “Drekk,” I spat the word out. “I’ve heard of Drekk. If you want to travel anywhere, you have to use the Accredited Caravans. You can’t use people like Drekk.”

  His face fell. “We didn’t know about this until it was too late. We aren’t rich people, Mister Kade.”

  I looked down at the coin still in my hand, and looked back to him with one eyebrow raised.

  “The life savings of both my family and the family of Seran Yoto, her fiancée.”

  “Poor would not be what I would call this, Hale,” I said. “There are people right in this room who won’t see this much wealth in ten lifetimes. You dwell inside the Scraper. You have running water and electricity. Don’t ever try to pass yourself off as the poor. It’s insulting.”

  He nodded.

  “Who set up the Caravan?”

  “I set it up through a man in the Scraper. His name is Denton. He owns a supply store on the bottom floor.”

  “Ok,” I said. “That’s where I’ll need to start. I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

  “But the Caravans don’t run at night.”

  “Some people, it’s safer to leave alone, Hale. When you get back to the Scraper, tomorrow, I’ll have some answers for you.”

  “How will you cross three zones tonight?”

  “I’ll walk, Hale,” I said. “Corporate Agents can take care of themselves.”

  “You haven’t been an Agent for twenty years.”

  “You’re right, there.” I said, “I’m something else, now. I’ll see you tomorrow night at your Scraper.”

  I stood and walked away from the booth. Jared was beside the bar, talking to several suits.

  “Yo, Jared,” I said. “I’m on a job for a few days. Ya can fill the table if ya need to.”

  “Be careful, Matt,” he said. “Last time Jenny took a week to get you patched up.”

  “I’ll try, buddy.”

  I had a feeling about this one. Things looked bad for Maddy Hale. Drekk wasn’t known to be trustworthy.

  Life can be dangerous in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Get “This Fallen World” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KHLG54J.

  Find out more about Christopher Woods and “This Fallen World” at:

  https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/christopher-woods/.

  * * * * *

  The following is an

  Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy:

  Salvage Title

  ___________________

  Kevin Steverson

  Now Available from Theogony Books

  eBook, Audio, and Paperback

  Excerpt from “Salvage Title:”

  A steady beeping brought Harmon back to the present. Clip’s program had succeeded in unlocking the container. “Right on!” Clip exclaimed. He was always using expressions hundreds or more years out of style. “Let’s see what we have; I hope this one isn’t empty, too.” Last month they’d come across a smaller vault, but it had been empty.

  Harmon stepped up and wedged his hands into the small opening the door had made when it disengaged the locks. There wasn’t enough power in the small cells Clip used to open it any further. He put his weight into it, and the door opened enough for them to get inside. Before they went in, Harmon placed a piece of pipe in the doorway so it couldn’t close and lock on them, baking them alive before anyone realized they were missing.

  Daylight shone in through the doorway, and they both froze in place; the weapons vault was full. In it were two racks of rifles, stacked on top of each other. One held twenty magnetic kinetic rifles, and the other held some type of laser rifle. There was a rack of pistols of various types. There were three cases of flechette grenades and one of thermite. There were cases of ammunition and power clips for the rifles and pistols, and all the weapons looked to be in good shape, even if they were of a strange design and clearly not made in this system. Harmon couldn’t tell what system they had been made in, but he could tell what they were.

  There were three upright containers on one side and three more against the back wall that looked like lockers. Five of the containers were not locked, so Clip opened them. The first three each held two sets of light battle armor that looked like it was designed for a humanoid race with four arms. The helmets looked like the ones Harmon had worn at the academy, but they were a little long in the face. The next container held a heavy battle suit—one that could be sealed against vacuum. It was also designed for a being with four arms. All the armor showed signs of wear, with scuffed helmets. The fifth container held
shelves with three sizes of power cells on them. The largest power cells—four of them—were big enough to run a mech.

  Harmon tried to force the handle open on the last container, thinking it may have gotten stuck over time, but it was locked and all he did was hurt his hand. The vault seemed like it had been closed for years.

  Clip laughed and said, “That won’t work. It’s not age or metal fatigue keeping the door closed. Look at this stuff. It may be old, but it has been sealed in for years. It’s all in great shape.”

  “Well, work some of your tech magic then, ‘Puter Boy,” Harmon said, shaking out his hand.

  Clip pulled out a small laser pen and went to work on the container. It took another ten minutes, but finally he was through to the locking mechanism. It didn’t take long after that to get it open.

  Inside, there were two items—an eight-inch cube on a shelf that looked like a hard drive or a computer and the large power cell it was connected to. Harmon reached for it, but Clip grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t! Let me check it before you move it. It’s hooked up to that power cell for a reason. I want to know why.”

  Harmon shrugged. “Okay, but I don’t see any lights; it has probably been dead for years.”

  Clip took a sensor reader out of his kit, one of the many tools he had improved. He checked the cell and the device. There was a faint amount of power running to it that barely registered on his screen. There were several ports on the back along with the slot where the power cell was hooked in. He checked to make sure the connections were tight, he then carried the two devices to the hovercraft.

  Clip then called Rinto’s personal comm from the communicator in the hovercraft. When Rinto answered, Clip looked at Harmon and winked. “Hey boss, we found some stuff worth a hovercraft full of credit…probably two. Can we have it?” he asked.

  * * * * *

  Get “Salvage Title” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H8Q3HBV.

  Find out more about Kevin Steverson and “Salvage Title” at: https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/kevin-steverson/.

  * * * * *

  The following is an

  Excerpt from Book One of The Progenitors’ War:

  A Gulf in Time

  ___________________

  Chris Kennedy

  Now Available from Theogony Books

  eBook, Paperback, and (soon) Audio

  Excerpt from “A Gulf in Time:”

  “Thank you for calling us,” the figure on the front view screen said, his pupil-less eyes glowing bright yellow beneath his eight-inch horns. Generally humanoid, the creature was blood red and had a mouthful of pointed teeth that were visible when he smiled. Giant bat wings alternately spread and folded behind him; his pointed tail could be seen flicking back and forth when the wings were folded. “We accept your offer to be our slaves for now and all eternity.”

  “Get us out of here, helm!” Captain Sheppard ordered. “Flank speed to the stargate!”

  “Sorry, sir, my console is dead,” the helmsman replied.

  “Can you jump us to the Jinn Universe?”

  “No, sir, that’s dead too.”

  “Engineer, do we have our shields?”

  “No, sir, they’re down, and my console’s dead, too.”

  “OSO? DSO? Status?”

  “My console’s dead,” the Offensive Systems Officer replied.

  “Mine, too,” the Defensive Systems Officer noted.

  The figure on the view screen laughed. “I do so love the way new minions scamper about, trying to avoid the unavoidable.”

  “There’s been a mistake,” Captain Sheppard said. “We didn’t intend to call you or become your minions.”

  “It does not matter whether you intended to or not,” the creature said. “You passed the test and are obviously strong enough to function as our messengers.”

  “What do you mean, ‘to function as your messengers?’”

  “It is past time for this galaxy’s harvest. You will go to all the civilizations and prepare them for the cull.”

  “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. What is this ‘cull?’”

  “We require your life force in order to survive. Each civilization will be required to provide 98.2% of its life force. The remaining 1.8% will be used to reseed their planets.”

  “And you expect us to take this message to all the civilized planets in this galaxy?”

  “That is correct. Why else would we have left the stargates for you to use to travel between the stars?”

  “What if a civilization doesn’t want to participate in this cull?”

  “Then they will be obliterated. Most will choose to save 1.8% of their population, rather than none, especially once you make an example or two of the civilizations who refuse.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “Then your society will be the first example.”

  “I can’t make this kind of decision,” Captain Sheppard said, stalling. “I’ll have to discuss it with my superiors.”

  “Unacceptable. You must give me an answer now. Kneel before us or perish; those are your choices.”

  “I can’t,” Captain Sheppard said, his voice full of anguish.

  “Who called us by completing the quest?” the creature asked. “That person must decide.”

  “I pushed the button,” Lieutenant Commander Hobbs replied, “but I can’t commit my race to this any more than Captain Sheppard can.”

  “That is all right,” the creature said. “Sometimes it is best to have an example from the start.” He looked off screen. “Destroy them.”

  “Captain Sheppard, there are energy weapons warming up on the other ship,” Steropes said.

  “DSO, now would be a good time for those shields…” Captain Sheppard said.

  “I’m sorry, sir; my console is still dead.”

  “They’re firing!” Steropes called.

  The enemy ship fired, but the Vella Gulf’s shields snapped on, absorbing the volley.

  “Nice job, DSO!” Captain Sheppard exclaimed.

  “I didn’t do it, sir!” the DSO cried. “They just came on.”

  “Well, if you didn’t do it, who did?” Captain Sheppard asked.

  “I don’t know!” the DSO exclaimed. “All I know is we can’t take another volley like that, sir; the first round completely maxed out our shields. One more, and they’re going to fail!”

  “I…activated…the shields,” Solomon, the ship’s artificial intelligence, said. The voice of the AI sounded strained. “Am fighting…intruder…” the AI’s voice fluctuated between male and female. “Losing…system…integrity…krelbet gelched.”

  “Krelbet gelched?” the DSO asked.

  “It means ‘systems failing’ in the language of the Eldive,” Steropes said.

  “The enemy is firing again,” the DSO said. “We’re hit! Shields are down.”

  “I’ve got hits down the length of the ship,” the duty engineer said. “We’re open to space in several places. We can’t take another round like that!”

  “That was just the little that came through after the shields fell,” the DSO said. “We’re doomed if—missiles inbound! I’ve got over 100 missiles inbound, and I can’t do anything to stop them!” He switched to the public address system. “Numerous missiles inbound! All hands brace for shock! Five seconds! Three…two…one…”

  * * * * *

  Get “A Gulf in Time” now at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0829FLV92.

  Find out more about Chris Kennedy and “A Gulf in Time” at:

  https://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/chris-kennedy/.

  * * * * *

 

 

 
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