Fallen Empire 1: Star Nomad (32 page)

“No, those got left behind unfortunately. I would pay you a legitimate split from carrying cargo and passengers.”

Leonidas clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the starry blackness displayed on the view screen.

“Even though you’re the sole reason my ship and my people were attacked again and again this week,” Alisa said, “I’ve come to realize that you’re more appealing as an ally than as an enemy.”

“Not the sole reason,” he said. “I had nothing to do with the White Dragon ship.”

“That’s true. You’re only mostly the sole reason.” She spread her palm upward. “Are you interested? I could perhaps be talked into taking you wherever you’re heading next for your quest.” Alejandro hadn’t been willing to help him, but
she
would. Maybe that would make a difference to him.

“I’m heading to Perun next.”

“That’s perfect, since
I’m
heading to Perun next.”

He snorted.

“And after you finish your mission there?” she asked. “You’re too young to retire, and clearly if you fly around with us, you’ll get lots of opportunities to flex your muscles and shoot things. On account of my mouth.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

Alisa raised her eyebrows and smiled. She wouldn’t push further, but hoped he would consider it even as she decided it was crazy that she wanted a former commander of the Cyborg Corps to join her crew.

“Do I get to outrank Beck?” Leonidas asked.

Her smile turned into a grin. “Probably. He may get laterally transferred to the position of chef. This bear is amazingly un-disgusting.”

“An accolade like that on the side of his sauce bottles will make him a millionaire.”

“Alas, I doubt he’ll put me in charge of his marketing.”

“I’ll think about it,” Leonidas said.

“Marketing slogans or the job?”

“The job.”

That was more than Alisa had expected.

“Good,” she said.

THE END

Author Questions & Answers

I was going to put together some fancy author notes where I talk about deep and important things, but I’m not really that deep. Or important. I just like to write fun stories. So, I asked some of the folks who got early copies of the manuscript if there was anything they would like to know, figuring other readers might be curious too. These are my answers to their questions:

What made you switch from writing fantasy to science fiction?

First off, there’s not a lot of science in these books (as I’m sure you hardcore science lovers will be quick to point out), and I really think of them as very similar to fantasy. With more space. And fewer dragons. So, it wasn’t a stretch for me.

That said, I’ve been a fan of science fiction for a long time, longer than I’ve known fantasy existed. Oh, I guess I knew the
Smurfs
and
Fraggle Rock
(classics!) were “fantasy,” but I was in high school before I read
The Lord of the Rings,
and middle school before I stumbled across the
Forgotten Realms
and
DragonLance
books. Those were my introduction to secondary worlds with magic, dragons, castles, sword fighting, and the like.

Before that, I watched
Buck Rogers
as a toddler,
Starman
as a kid, and I distinctly remember going to see
Star Trek IV
in the theater with my mom. Thanks to our fancy new contraption called a VCR, I had just about all of the episodes from the original series recorded (with commercials, baby), and I’d watched them over and over. By age eleven or twelve, I believe I’d read every Star Trek novel that was on the market at the time. Somewhere in there, I discovered the original Star Wars trilogy too. And taped them. Yes, with commercials. If you want a blast from the past, go back and watch commercials from your childhood.

I loved the spaceships and the wonder in those early science-fiction adventures, but I loved the characters most of all. Isn’t it amazing how science fiction offers so much potential for exploring our humanity? Sometimes with characters who aren’t even human?

I was generally more into science fiction on television than in novels (unless we’re talking TV-tie-ins), because so many of the SF books I picked up were plot/tech/idea-driven rather than character-driven, and the characters have always been my favorite part. Oh sure, there are plenty of exceptions, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series includes some of my favorite books ever. But for the most part, when I think of my favorite science fiction (the kind of stuff I’d want to emulate when writing my own stories), I think of television, where characters and dialogue are everything.

Even though I didn’t read a ton of science fiction after discovering fantasy (where they had swords! And dragons! And sexy elf rangers!), I continued to watch the TV shows and still considered myself a fan of the genre. I did not care much for that stuffy Captain Jean Luc Picard when I was a kid (I learned to appreciate him later on), but I watched all of the
Next Generation
shows, and then there were
Babylon 5
,
Andromeda
,
Stargate
SG-1
and
Atlantis
,
Firefly
, and
Battlestar Galactica
. They all kept my interest in science fiction alive, and I always knew I’d try my hand at writing it someday.

Why now?

That’s a good question, because I’ve built up a readership of fantasy-loving fans through my Dragon Blood and Emperor’s Edge series (among others). Early in 2016, I distinctly remember telling myself that from a marketing and financial standpoint, I would be smart to write a spinoff trilogy in my Dragon Blood world next. Those books sold well in 2015, and I thought it would be great to satisfy the existing fans with new material and also possibly draw in new readers by offering another entry point into the world.

But…

In the Notes app on my phone, I type in all the story ideas that come to me while I’m busy working on other books. I figure that if I’m still excited about them in a few months, when I have time for new projects, then it’s worth thinking about turning them into novels. I had this one “note” that had blossomed to about 10,000 words, all poked into the phone, one letter at a time, usually while I’m out walking my dogs. It was called Fallen Empire. (Okay, for a long time, it was called SCIFI THING, but eventually, I renamed it Fallen Empire.)

I kept coming back to it and adding notes and snippets of dialogue. Clearly, I was more excited about it than about my other story ideas, so I finally decided to go forward with it. So here you are, several months later, with the first book in your hands.

What inspired this series?

I’ve already talked about some of the shows I’ve enjoyed, so you can probably make some guesses. As much as I loved
Star Trek
, I saw myself writing about a scrappier crew on a scrappier ship and dealing with problems that couldn’t be solved simply by running to the law—or the Federation.
Firefly
was definitely an inspiration. I loved how that show had this dark, gritty universe, but at the same time, had so much humor in the dialogue and character interactions that it rarely felt “grimdark” (a trend that has never excited my laughter-loving soul).

I’d definitely say
Star Wars
was an inspiration too. I must have watched those original three movies a hundred times or more as a kid. Leia was probably my first exposure to a strong heroine who didn’t take any crap from anyone. In almost everything else I was watching at the time, from the
A-team
to
MacGyver
, strong women were scarce.
Star Trek
only had poor Lieutenant Uhura with her three lines per show among the bridge crew!

Lastly, and I think I’ve written about this before in author notes, one of my favorite episodes of the original Trek (after “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “Trouble with Tribbles”) was “Balance of Terror.” In addition to being a good story, it showed the Romulans more as the guys on the other side of the war rather than these caricatured bad guys. By the end of the show, we saw how similar Kirk and the Romulan commander were and that they could have been great friends… if they hadn’t been born on opposing sides of a century-old conflict. That’s a theme that’s always appealed to me as a reader and viewer (
The Fox and the Hound
was my favorite Disney movie as a kid!), and I find it fun to explore as a writer, too, the idea that there aren’t good guys and bad guys so much as there are regular people with beliefs and viewpoints that happen to put them at odds with each other.

Will there be a romance in this series?

Hm, maybe so… :)

Don’t worry, guys and gals who are not into romance. There will be way more explosions than there will be kisses. Unless you like kisses. In which case there will be plenty!

Will we find out why Leonidas was squatting in that junkyard?

Yup!

A few hints to what he was up to in the months leading up to that moment come out in the novels as we continue on, but I’ve also plotted out a prequel novella from his point of view. It’ll explain much (and be an exciting adventure!).

Right now, my plan is to release that this summer to those who are
subscribed to the Fallen Empire newsletter
(Make sure to sign up if you want to get a free copy.)

I may actually keep it an exclusive goodie for subscribers, because, even though it’s a prequel, I think people will appreciate Leonidas’s story more once they’ve read the novels. It’s awfully spoilery, otherwise!

Are Yumi’s medicinals legal throughout the former empire?

Believe it or not, more than one person wanted to know the answer to this question (waves to Heather and Cydni). I haven’t decided, but I suspect the empire did not encourage a lot of recreational experimentation with things that might be dangerous. Or fun.

How many books will be in the series?

I don’t know yet!

I have the first three written, and I’ve committed to writing at least five before assessing how things are going (i.e., if anyone is buying them and liking them!). Before, when I wandered outside of my typical fantasy genre, the results were underwhelming. I decided that if I was going to do it again, I’d write the first three books and release them back-to-back and follow up with a couple of more before giving up. I hope that will give me a good chance at gaining traction in a new genre.

In the past, I’ve planned series where I imagined things going for eight books (at least!), but then they weren’t that popular with readers, which left me trying to figure out how to wrap things up much earlier than I had anticipated. So with this one, I’ve left myself some wiggle room. I can probably end things after five books if it’s starting to look like I had better jump back to fantasy if I want to pay the bills, but I have plenty of ideas and wouldn’t mind writing more books than that.

Perhaps not surprising, since I’ve mentioned television shows as an influence, I see these playing out similarly to a season of TV. They’re fairly short books and definitely designed to be part of a greater story arc. I’m unlikely to do twenty-two episodes (that would be a long book series!), or whatever is typical for a season of television, but I could certainly see doing eight or ten if the interest is there.

So, if you like what you’ve read so far and want more, please tell a friend about them. Or leave a review. Or mention them on Facebook. All of those things help with visibility. Thanks!

In the meantime, I’ve included the first chapter of Book 2,
Honor’s Flight
, here for your perusal. It’s available at Amazon now.

Honor’s Flight

Chapter 1

Alisa Marchenko, captain of the
Star Nomad
, the only Nebula Rambler 880 in the galaxy that hadn’t been scrapped decades earlier, fiddled with the flight stick as the planet Perun grew larger on the view screen. Nothing had happened yet to justify the queasy feeling in her stomach, but anticipation was making her hands sweat.

This had been home once, the planet where she had gone to school and met her husband, but that had been before she had chosen to join the Alliance Army, serving as a fighter pilot to help take down the empire. Perun was all the empire had left of the dozens of planets and moons it had once controlled. Odds were they wouldn’t be happy with her, knowing she had flown for the Alliance. But Alisa had no choice but to land on the planet. Somewhere down there, amid the vast oceans and the populous cities that sprawled across several continents, her daughter waited for her.

A clang sounded behind her, and a tall figure stooped and came through the hatch and into NavCom. Tommy Beck, her security officer, wore his white combat armor, the full body suit and magnetic boots, everything save for the helmet.

“Are you planning to take a walk?” Alisa asked, waving outward to indicate the exterior of the ship.

Beck turned, his nose to the window as he slid the hatch shut, and he didn’t notice her gesture. “Mind if I make some privacy for us, Captain?”

“I don’t know. You’re not really my type, Beck.”

From the way he turned his head and wrinkled his brow, he either didn’t get the joke or hadn’t ever considered her in a sexual manner. She decided not to find the notion of the latter depressing, especially since dating was the last thing on her mind. It had only been five months since she had woken from weeks in a medical regeneration tank to learn that her husband had been killed during an attack on Perun. They had been married for nearly ten years, and she hadn’t expected to ever have to think of dating again.

“Oh?” Beck said. “What’s your type?”

“My husband was a slender scholar rather than a big muscly man. He was smart, quick-witted, and always made me laugh. His jokes never had an edge. They were never designed to make a person hurt.” Her voice lowered, and her gaze shifted toward the dark side of the planet that they were approaching, the clumps of the city lights growing visible. “Not like mine. He was a better person than I am.”