The Long Road to Gaia

Read The Long Road to Gaia Storyline:

Jon Hunter has made it home. But a lot of things have happened to him over the last year. Some of them made no sense at all to those with him, but they accepted the really weird as if it was part of him. Jon himself didn’t understand a lot of it, but accepted he wasn’t allowed to know yet. But what really happened, and why?
For 600 odd years, Hunter's have traveled space. Where did it all start? What were the events which shaped the galaxy Jon Hunter finds himself in? And what of the previous Jon Hunter's, mentioned in prophesy?
Thirteen doesn't like humans. The last thing he wants is to be assigned a mission to babysit them. Given a choice, he'd happily let them blow themselves up, after he saved all the cats first. Exactly how humans could ever have anything to do with galaxy wide consequences is completely beyond his ability to understand. When asked to perform an intervention, there was always freewill to choose not to. But in this case, does he really have a choice?
For Thirteen, walking with humans for 650 years, is definitely a long road to Gaia.
This is an interlude novel between parts one and two of The Hunter Legacy, from the point of view of a new character joining the series.
The Hunter Legacy series:
Part One:
1. Hero at Large
2. Hunted Hero Hunting
3. Send in the Hero
4. Make or Break the Hero
5. Hail the Hero
End of Part 1

Burnside's Killer (An Interlude Novella between Parts 1 & 2)

Part Two:
7. Hire a Hero
Jane's Christmas (A short story)
8. Hero to the Rescue
9. Hero at the Gates
End of Part 2
10 The Long Road to Gaia (A Interlude Novel between Parts 2 & 3)
Part Three
11. Home is where the Hero is. Forthcoming.
**From the Author
The Long Road to Gaia is novel length, based on the short story 1969 I wrote last year. 1969 was about 5,000 words, while Gaia is 48,500 words in length. 1969 forms the first 4 chapters, following a Prologue of 4 chapters. After 1969, the story covers the next 650 years.
When I started writing the short story 1969, it was at a time when I had some significant health issues impacting my ability to write. So I thought writing a series of short stories might make it easier to at least get some writing done. My intention was to release them as a series of short stories, one every few weeks. Alas, this didn't happen.
I also found Space Opera readers to not be too interested in short stories. I'm not sure why this surprised me, since I'm a Space Opera reader,and I've never really been into short stories myself, unless released as anovel length book. Call it a learning experience.
1969 introduces a new character to the Hunter Legacy universe, and it was always my intention to have him join the main series around part three.
Having just completed part two's trilogy, I've found myself with two problems. Between parts one and two, I wrote an 'interlude' novella, partly because I was still having trouble writing, and a novella length was all I could manage at the time. Having done it once, I needed to write a new one for between parts two and three, to keep the series balanced. At the same time, I still needed to bring in the new character.
Hence, it seemed like the best idea was to write the short stories starting with 1969, and release it as the second 'interlude' book. In fact, it went a good deal further than originally intended, revealing a lot more about what was really going on behind the scenes.
The cover was originally intended for the 2nd story release, and was ready for it, but never used. And being red, my favourite colour, I decide it not let it go to waste.
For those who have read 1969, here is the rest of the story which was never written before now, plus some extras which make this a much more interesting story than I intended telling to start with.