The Epherium Chronicles: Embrace
Read The Epherium Chronicles: Embrace Online
Authors: T.D. Wilson
The Epherium Chronicles:
Embrace
By T.D. Wilson
Book one of The Epherium
Chronicles
Hope.
Captain James Hood of the
Earth Defense Forces remembers what it felt like. Twenty-five years ago, it
surged through him as a young boy watching the colony ships launched by
mega-corporation Epherium rocket away. He, like so many others, dreamed of
following in the colonists’ footsteps. He wanted to help settle a new world—to
be something greater.
Then came the war...
Hope.
During years of vicious
conflict with an insectoid alien race, it was nearly lost. Though Earth has
slowly rebuilt in the six years since the war, overcrowding and an unstable sun
have made life increasingly inhospitable. When mysterious signals from the
nearly forgotten colony ships are received, Hood is ordered to embark on a
dangerous reconnaissance mission. Could humanity’s future sit among the
stars?
Hope.
Hood needs it now more than
ever. As secrets about the original colonists are revealed and the Epherium
Corporation’s dark agenda is exposed, new adversaries threaten the mission,
proving more dangerous to Earth than their already formidable foes...
82,000 words
Dear Reader,
I know many of you have been waiting for the next installment of
New York Times
bestselling author Marie Force’s thrilling romantic suspense series.
Fatal Jeopardy
is finally here, and Nick and Sam are as good as ever!
But that’s not all the great storytelling we have in store for you with the March releases. This month, we introduce debut author Matt Sheehan and a book that had the Carina Press acquisitions team in hysterics. Be sure to check out
Helmut Saves the World
, in which there’s magic, fistfights and one-liners with the best, most handsome and, of course, humble detective Helmut Haase and his apathetic sidekick Shamus O’Sheagan.
If you’ve been longing for a great historical romance, we’ve got two this month. Juliana Ross finishes up her erotic Improper trilogy. In
Improper Proposals
, a lonely young widow learns to live—and love—again as she and her ambitious publisher, the most captivating man she has ever met, work on a forbidden guide to sexual pleasure. It’s
An Heir of Uncertainty
by Alyssa Everett and it’s also the answer to Colonel Win Vaughan’s prayers when he learns he’s the heir to the newly deceased Earl of Radbourne—but the beginning of a deadly mystery when he arrives to claim his inheritance, only to discover that the earl’s lovely widow is carrying a child who could displace him.
If you’re looking for something hot, with an unusual hero, Solace Ames releases erotic romance
The Submission Gift
this month. A young husband offers his wife an unusual gift—to fulfill a fantasy she’d always set aside. But what starts out as a onetime session becomes something precious shared between three—one of them a male escort. Solace Ames brings something new to this story and if you love erotic romance, you’ll want to check this out.
Also in the hot category is
Up in Knots
by Gillian Archer. Still bruised over the death of her boyfriend two years ago, Kyla Grant is determined to get back into the kinky dating scene, and bad-boy top Sawyer is just the man to help her. Joining Gillian, Juliana and Solace in the erotic romance category, Nico Rosso’s
Slam Dance with the Devil
, from his Demon Rock series, brings entertainment to a new level. Wild rock star Kent Gaol’s dark past goes back even further than private investigator Nona Harris could’ve imagined, and one night onstage surprises them both by slamming her into his supernatural world.
March shapes up to be a good one for erotic romances because Emily Ryan-Davis brings us the follow-up to
Ménage on 34th Street
, which she coauthored with Elise Logan. In this next installment,
Dial M for Ménage
, it’s a new year and a new way of life for Katrina Holland, who started 2014 by waking up with two men in her bed. Now, she, Owen and Hunter struggle to define, and redefine, their relationships with one another after the first rush of newness fades.
Paranormal romance author Lorenda Christensen follows up her funny, entertaining
Never Deal with Dragons
with the next in the series,
Dancing with Dragons.
If Carol Jenski knows anything, it’s fashion—and it’s in fashion to consort with dragons, even though they’ve coexisted with humans since WWIII. Still, she would never have agreed to take part in a plot against them. Now a dragon lord has called for her head, her boyfriend is MIA and she’s been abandoned in a foreign country.
Stacy Gail’s paranormal romance miniseries, The Earth Angels, comes to an exciting conclusion in
Dangerous Angel
, where the heroes and heroines from all the previous books combine their efforts to avert a demonic apocalypse. In Kathleen Collins’s
Death’s Daughter
, Realm Walker Juliana Norris hunts a serial killer targeting Altered children while an enemy from her past closes in.
This month we have two titles in the science-fiction genre. First, join the adventure
At Star’s End
! A galactic treasure hunter and an astro-archaeologist race across the galaxy in pursuit of the last remaining fragment of da Vinci’s
Mona Lisa
in this space opera romance from Anna Hackett.
And we’re pleased to welcome T.D. Wilson with his debut,
The Epherium Chronicles:
Embrace.
Set in the mid-twenty-second century,
Embrace
is the first book of an exciting new space opera series where Earth’s newest warship, the
Armstrong
, must make contact with fledgling colonies in nearby solar systems amid the threat of an alien attack.
If you’re ready for a cozy mystery to keep you guessing as to whodunit, look no further than Julie Anne Lindsey’s latest release. Most islanders celebrate the reprieve of summer tourism with cider, mums and cocoa, but sharks, birders and a possible serial killer seem intent on ruining autumn for Patience when
Murder Comes Ashore.
Anne Marie Becker returns with another suspenseful installment in her romantic suspense series. In
Dark Deeds
, SSAM security expert Becca Haney is hiding a past that could hurt her ex-lover, NYPD detective Diego Sandoval—but the true threat comes from a “fan” whose conscience urges him to kill.
Coming next month: contemporary romance
Taken with You
from
New York Times
bestselling author Shannon Stacey. Also, sports week and six irresistible sports romances!
Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
Dedication
To my family.
Blessings couldn’t come in better forms.
I love you.
Acknowledgments
Writing is a difficult and sometimes daunting task. For me, finding the time to write was often the most difficult. With a busy full time job and a very active family, spare time, if there is such a thing, was always at a premium. Needless to say, this project of mine is more than three years in the making. I want to thank all my beta readers, especially Scott, Sam, Jeff, Keith, Joe and Shannon. Feedback is very important. Without it, a story can be fractured and meaningless. Also, I wanted to thank my editor, Bryon Quertermous, for all his help molding this story into something that will really keep readers engaged. Lastly, I want to thank Angela James and all the wonderful folks at Carina Press for giving me this opportunity.
Prologue
The Pluto Incident: Our First Contact
Pluto Acceleration Gate
Monday
,
July 21
Earth Year 2138
The maintenance ship,
Gerard
, slipped through the last of the powerful acceleration gates still in Earth’s system and began its approach for the Pluto Planetary Station. The
Gerard
was a standard Miko class maintenance vessel with a long cylinder-like hull, which could be easily expanded for additional cargo cells. Configured as she was with the maximum of three cargo cells, the
Gerard
spanned nearly one hundred meters in length and could haul nearly six thousand metric tons of cargo.
The commanding officer of the
Gerard
, Specialist First Class Tom Restal, was in the primary maintenance hold finalizing the inventory for their current mission. A stable, but non-exemplary career in the Earth Exploration Forces maintenance wing over the last fifteen years had landed him a successful command with a well-trained crew. The Marines of the EEF put their lives on the line to keep the peace and defend the people against a variety of threats, but if massive malfunctions occurred out in the black, thousands could die and never see it coming. Maintenance missions were his team’s bread and butter, and no ship had a better record than the
Gerard
.
* * *
As the ship cleared the acceleration gate, Restal felt the inertial compensators kick in for the velocity change and adjusted his footing to compensate. The systems worked well, but there was still a residual shift that reminded him of the sudden starts and stops of the high speed maglev trams back on Earth.
Restal turned from his work and looked out the large viewport closest to him. He stared at the large ringed gate just hanging in space as it shrank from view. The acceleration gates, like the one the
Gerard
had just passed through, had been created to reduce ship burdens on fuel and reduce any need for cryo-sleep chambers for long flights.
One of the new maintenance trainees, a petite, young, blonde girl named Kristin, entered the hold from the Command Cabin, walked up beside Restal and looked around him to gaze at the gate. “Sir, I was told you were on the crew that installed that gate. I’ve read a lot about them and understand how they function, but I’ve never worked on one. Back at the academy, we only performed some maintenance sims and even then it was pretty routine stuff.”
Restal looked over at Kristin and smiled. “You’ll get your chance, Cadet,” he said. “Even though the Pluto gate was only brought officially online a few years ago, it was constructed and test flights were being run on her long before that.” He walked back over to the rack of equipment and handed his inventory list to Kristin. “You’re right, though. I had the opportunity of a lifetime working on a team for six weeks assembling that big monster out there. Most of that time I spent on that project was all EVA with just me, my suit and my tools.”
The cadet seemed almost skeptical of her CO. “That long in EVA?” Kristin questioned. “Isn’t that a bit much? Our instructors told us that prolonged...”
Restal cut her off. “Cadet, one of the reasons you’re out here is to learn from experience and not books, sims and instructors who can’t navigate a maintenance pod to perform simple welding work.” He chuckled as he looked back on it. “Trust me, after the first few days, disorientation fades and the body adjusts.”
Restal looked down at the cadet whose head barely cleared his shoulder. “Now, as for the gates, they’re an engineering marvel. Old exploratory craft used hard burn fuels and even low thrust ion engines to move about the solar system before these beauties were built. Less fuel and shorter travel times accelerated our colonization of the rest of the system nearly tenfold. Of course, it took the Epherium engineers years to develop an inertial compensator capable of handling the acceleration change. Until then, we had to send unmanned transports to move equipment and sleeper ships for personnel. Our bodies can adjust to slow change, but the G-forces created by the changes of the gates were way too powerful.”
After stretching his arms over his head, Restal performed a staged yawn, grinned, then continued, “I did the sleeper ship run to Europa once from Venus station. It took me two weeks to get over the side effects of the process. Swore I’d never do it again. A month later the first tests on the compensators started and it was smooth sailing after that.”
Kristin walked back to the viewport and stared at the now miniscule gate and vast blanket of space and stars that consumed it. “Sorry, sir, I just have so many questions.”
Restal patted the cadet’s shoulder gently with his hand. “Listen, kid, I was a lot like you when I first joined the EEF. Believe it or not, I wanted to be a drop ship pilot. But, that kind of piloting took a level of skill that I couldn’t master, so I left all that fancy flying for the Marines. I was always good at fixing things, so I requested a transfer to the maintenance wing after graduation. It’s a good gig out here and I got no regrets.”
Kristin continued to stare out the viewport and her early skepticism seemed to fade as she nodded in understanding.
The Command Cabin door opened and Rick Kindel, the
Gerard’s
navigator called to the pair, “Skipper, we’re beginning our approach. Pluto station is still not responding. It looks like we may have a complete communication tower failure at the site.”
“Thanks, Rick,” Restal answered. Turning back to Kristin, he gestured her back toward the Command Cabin. “Being with the maintenance wing is an important part of the EEF. We’ve helped to deploy and maintain all sorts of technology across this system. Who knows, you may want to look at the Venus station for terraforming work or come out here to maintain this site for astronomical survey. My old classmate, Max Turner, works here and I’m sure he can show you around. It’s sites like this that have discovered hundreds of new galaxies and obtained surveys of potentially habitable systems nearby.”
“Like the ones the Epherium Corporation sent colony ships to?” she asked.
“Exactly,” he replied. “With a shortage of habitable areas in this system, new worlds that are more like Earth could be a real relief.”
Restal and Kristin entered the Command Cabin and strapped themselves into their seats as the
Gerard
made its descent to the station on the surface of Pluto. The
Gerard’s
pilot, a tall Guatemalan named Hector Linqua, guided the ship with ease along the predetermined glide path for approaching the station. “Thirty kilometers and closing, Skipper,” he stated with a slight rasp in his voice. His cold of the previous week had passed, but drainage had caused him to lose his voice for nearly two days. It came back to a level that he could finally talk and was cleared by EEF medical to fly. “We should have visual in a second,” he added.
The
Gerard’s
primary viewport in the Command Cabin was equipped with a multi-function heads up display or HUD, which included several camera visuals from various angles used for landing approaches and acquiring maintenance targets. Restal typed a few commands on his console, and the HUD visuals changed to display the Pluto Station, or what was left of it.
“Holy Mother!” exclaimed Kindel. He tried to rise out of seat, but his seat restraints held him down. The Pluto Station contained three domed structures for crew, the astronomical observatory and a hydroponics bay. Each of the domes was about four hundred meters in diameter and spanned to a height of nearly thirty. The end of the station closest to the approach of the
Gerard
included the landing site and docking bay, while the communication arrays were located on the far end. Except they weren’t there. The primary array appeared to be broken off at the base, and its secondary short range backup was in tatters on the ground. A huge hole could be seen in the dome of the hydroponics bay, the closest to the communications arrays, and the crew couldn’t see any active lights coming from the station’s exterior.
“Damage could be from a meteor strike,” Kindel stated, still trying to keep his composure. “Let me get the scanners working and see if we can get a better assessment.” He unfastened his restraints, left his seat, and moved to the sensors station of the cabin to start working. Hector adjusted the
Gerard’s
heading and brought the ship in closer, angling the
Gerard
into a slight oval pattern over the station, perfect for a complete sensor sweep of the area.
The rest of the crew looked stunned. Restal looked around the cabin and stared hard at the cadets. “Alright, everyone. We all know that space can be a dangerous place. Some of us have friends down there, but we are going to do this by the numbers.” He looked back to his navigator. “Rick, got anything?”
“Unknown, Skipper,” Kindel replied with a slightly frustrated tone. He typed another sequence on his terminal and the result was the same. “Whatever happened must have caused a radiation leak or something because the scanners can’t analyze any of the damage. Our cameras are working, but visuals are getting worse as we get closer. If it’s a meteor, I don’t see any trace of it outside the domes.”
“Okay, contact EEF Command and inform them we have a potential meteor strike on Pluto Station, and we may need medical teams on site. Our unit is capable of performing a ground assessment with our radiation gear. Any support ships should hold at a safe distance until we give the go ahead for their teams to move in.”
“Roger, Skipper,” Kindel said as he activated the
Gerard’s
communication array.
“Okay, team. I know this is not what we planned for, but it’s our job. Hector and Rick will stay with the ship when we land. The rest of us will suit up and search the station for survivors.”
Restal looked at Kristin and her classmate, a young man named Jonathan. “I’m sorry kids, but I need you to grow up a little faster than you planned.” He turned back to the sensors station. “Rick, can you get access to their main computer from the docking ring connection?”
“I should be able to get access, as long as the hard lines aren’t severed.”
“Get on it when we land,” Restal ordered. “Hector, set us down.”
Hector set the
Gerard
down on to the Pluto station landing platform. When the docking ramp latched into place, lights activated along its railings, and the crew noticed interior lights flicker to life inside the station’s crew quarters dome. If there was at least power on part of the station, perhaps some of its inhabitants were still alive.
Restal led the twelve members of his crew intended for the station search to the maintenance bay and opened the container holding the radiation EVA suits. Above the container was a large monitor that now displayed the Pluto station composite layout.
Stepping to his left, Restal grabbed a remote off of the side of the monitor that controlled the display and began briefing his teams on the layout and primary functions of the different areas of the station.
Confident his people were up to speed, Restal placed the remote back on the monitor and began to pull suits out of the container and distributed them among the crew. “Okay. Let’s get suited up and prepare to move out. If you detect any life signs or the source of that radiation, call out. The radiation may interfere with comms, so don’t panic. Just work your way back the way you came until you get communication restored. Kindel will monitor our bios and suit integrity from the
Gerard
. Are there any questions?”
The crew shook their heads and began to put on their protective suits. Restal finished putting on his suit and tested his comms with the crew. Everyone responded for a clean comms check, and Restal moved to the
Gerard’s
docking hatch. “We do this search by teams of two. Kristin, you’re with me.”
The crew of the
Gerard
opened the access hatch from the docking array and followed the tunnel to the dome that housed the station crew. “Okay, everyone, take your time and do a thorough search. Kindel, do you copy?”
“Here, Skipper. I’ve started to access the station computer system. Current status shows no power in the hydroponics or survey domes. Your area still has power, but no atmosphere, though. The gravity generators are intact and functional, but I only see levels of about zero point two in the other domes. If you go in there, make sure your magnetic boots are active. I’ll access the station’s logs and see I can find out what happened.”
“Keep on it,” Restal replied. “Team, you heard the man, EVA suits stay on. Whatever happened here cost the station its atmospheric integrity. We need to find sealed rooms and rooms that would hold EVA suits. Survivors may be close by. Move out.”
Kristin and Restal moved through the crew dome first floor hallway to the tunnel hatch that led to the astronomical survey dome. There was no sign of any bodies, but with power still functioning in the crew cabins and hallway lighting, the odds were good that the teams would find someone alive.
Restal looked through the hatchway viewport. The survey dome was supposed to contain a huge telescope and lots of equipment for survey and communication to satellites outside the solar system, but the entire dome was dark. He tried the controls for the dome’s exterior door, but nothing happened. The panel had power, but Restal was sure the door was powered from inside the dome. Restal opened his tool bag and removed a screwdriver. After loosening the screws on the door’s control plate, he popped the plate off and set it to his left. Kristin shined her utility light into the panel, and Restal quickly found the manual lever for the door. The lever activated a piston that, after several pulls, pushed the door open to allow Restal and Kristin access to the small tunnel to the next dome.
“Kristin, watch your step in here. With no gravity and loss of atmosphere, lots of equipment could have been tossed around,” Restal said as he stood from the panel. “Keep an eye out for any damaged systems. If we get power back, we don’t need a spark show.” Kristin nodded and followed Restal into the tunnel.