It happened again.
It had happened once already. She was sure. Just as she took the key from her pocket, the door opened by itself.
Or had that been in a dream?
An oddly familiar tension gripped her stomach as she hesitated on the threshold.
Burglars? Poltergeists? Had she forgotten to shut the door when going out?
It was like rethinking the thoughts, standing in a reflection of herself, watching an event that had already happened.
“Is that you dear?” Her mother’s voice. The sudden familiarity banishing the demons of deja-vu. “I let myself in and put the kettle on.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

The further from home we get, the darker our universe becomes. Exploring the universe isn’t all beer and sausages. In Wings of Earth: 8 – Fastest Track, Eric Michael Craig’s epic space opera takes us where no human has been before. 

The Ptolemy hung on the edge of the target zone waiting for the Hermes to emerge from Nth space. It was mostly a formality since the small jump ship was supposed to arrive and spend only a few seconds confirming its location before it jumped back to the Nakamiru on the edge of Zone One.
Unfortunately, the ship was late.
“Where are they?” Captain Drexler asked over the commlink. The ship’s captain knew nothing about the details of the experiment and that made him irritable.
“Calculating an Nth space displacement is exceedingly complex. I am sure they are confirming everything before they make the jump,” the chief scientist said without the slightest twitch of an eye. Dr. Keral Albaan was the head of the telemetry team and almost devoid of personality. To him, everything in the universe was a measurement and a calculation. There was nothing to get excited about when you were waiting on the data to arrive.
The frustration was that if something held up the test, it would take longer for a deep-comm signal to arrive with an update, than it would for the jump ship to emerge and return to complete its mission.
For now, they had nothing to do but sit and watch the chrono.
“Chief, can you check sector-six?” Isaacs asked, cutting in on the commlink. The sensor specialist was young and prone to enthusiastic outbursts that annoyed Albaan, but this time, she sounded more restrained. “I’m picking up a distortion.”
“Is it a system problem?” Paul Kanumba asked, walking across the science lab to look at her screen. The engineer had worked with Albaan on several science missions and tried to keep the other team members from annoying the Chief unless it truly required his attention.
“I don’t think so,” she said, leaning back and letting him scan the system controls. “It wasn’t there a minute ago and I can’t get it to clear up. It’s emitting energy across all bandwidths.”
“No natural phenomenon emits uniform multi-spectrum emissions. It has to be hardware,” Albaan said, without turning.
“I copy that, Chief,” she said defensively. “The emission is biased toward the upper end of the G/I spectrum. Right at the temporospatial threshold. Range is twelve megaklick.”
“Is it the Hermes emerging?” He swung his head a few degrees in her direction.
“If it is, it’s taking its time,” Kanumba said, putting the sensor display up on the main screen. The spike in energy was visible and expanding. “The Tahrat pops out in under a hundredth of a nano-second.”
“And it’s in the wrong place,” Isaacs added.
That certainly doesn’t look like a normal Nth space emergence. Albaan raised an eyebrow several millimeters while he contemplated the possibilities.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Drexler asked from the ConDeck. “Helm is reporting we’re losing our navigational fix.”
“It’s like we’re being pushed sidewise,” the helmsman’s voice carried across the comm.
“Hold position,” Drexler growled. Annoyance edged his tone toward outright frustration.
“Are you detecting anything on your standard sensors?” Albaan asked. He doubted they’d be able to pick anything up, since the standard kit on a science vessel was limited in comparison to his team’s own gear.
“Nothing,” the captain confirmed. “That’s why I’m asking if you have something?”
“Possibly. Check sector-six,” the scientist said, swiveling in his seat to look at Isaacs.
She nodded. It was still there.
“We’re still moving,” the helmsman said.
“Inertial controls say we’re stationary,” the ship’s engineer reported, cutting in on the conversation.
“Sector-six is… wait… what the hell is that?” the captain said. The optical images from the ConDeck appeared on the main screen of the science lab.
A vivid green glow rolled out like a flat disk against the background of space, and the stars seemed to spread out like reflections on the surface of a bubble.
For an instant, it seemed like the fabric of the universe was stretching.
“That might be an Nth Space rupture,” Albaan said quietly. An intrusion event was only a theoretical possibility, and no one had any idea what it would look like.
Or, more importantly, if it would be possible to survive one… if it did happen.

A Bite of… Eric Michael Craig 

If you could be any of the characters in the book who would you wish to be and why?

Wow, this is actually a very tough question. I have worked hard to build an ensemble cast where all my characters are unique and talented in their own way. And then as the author I kick the snot out of them all the time.
I mean, I’d love to be a starship captain, but I don’t want to have Ethan Walker’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life. (I actually had someone essentially put that in a review). The truth is I think giving good characters something really hard to do makes for a good story.
So yeah, I love my characters, but I don’t love the life they have to live to tell the story.

This is quite a major series now, what has been the hardest aspect of writing it?

I am probably right at a million words into the universe now (counting the Shan Takhu Legacy prequel trilogy) and it has been quite the process to keep it organized from a technical standpoint. I am an absolute plotter when it comes to my writing (in that I outline everything in detail). By doing that it lets me keep the story focused and on track.
In a long series though, that involves keeping the beat points in the right place for each episode and keeping the overarching backstory on the right beat placement too. With Book 8, I just passed the middle point on the backstory, where the main characters go from reactive to proactive and I needed to nail that turnover cleanly to drive the story line forward to the major climactic moment that is still several books away.
I actually wrote three complete versions of this story with different focus perspectives before I decided exactly how I wanted to land the characters for the rest of the series. Tossing away close to 200K words was the hardest part of the process.

What is your snack food of choice to keep you going when writing?

Does coffee count as a snack food?
Seriously, I don’t usually eat at my desk, and since I have an office in a separate building from my house, I don’t like to break away and go get a snack. Especially when it is snowing outside.
I do keep a bag of Werther’s Caramel Coffee Hard Candy on my desk (notice the COFFEE theme here?), but mainly it’s to keep my voice working well enough that Dragon will recognize it. I write about a third of each book using dictation software, so I don’t think keeping the vocal cords lubricated is really the same as snacking. It’s more a production tool, I guess.

Eric Michael Craig in his own words:
I’m a caveman trapped in the real world, wrestling with the future.
You might call me a shade tree quantum mechanic. Camping between the particles of an atom, I’ve learned there is infinitely more than what’s contained in its structure. I’ve carved sculptures out of the quantum foam and danced in the whirlwind of the zero point.
To figure out how life and the universe works, I studied electrical engineering, architecture, and physics, but I learned more roaming the edges of science, where all the Mad-Max, crazy-inventor types live (I wouldn’t call myself a crazy inventor type, even though I’ve raced in blind abandon across the empty wastelands of discovery).
So, what does that make me?
I could say I’m just a receptacle for coffee, but it might be the lack of coffee that keeps me moving. (Where the hell did I leave my coffee cup?!?)
You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and his website – or participate in the discussion and fun by following the Wing of Earth Facebook Page and joining his Wings of Earth Facebook Group.

As far as we know, we always were, and the rocks we juggled and threw around came to fill the empty void. For aeons we let them fall where they would, but it came to us that order might be more seemly and we began our self-imposed task.

It was good, and as the little rocks spun round the big fires a beautiful symmetry was formed.

And the things that lived on the rocks grew minds and voices. They cried  into the void.

‘Where did we come from?’

The void ignored them, so they made up their own stories.

©Jane Jago

A brutal fantasy tale of piracy, friendship, romance and revenge on the high seas…

Meanwhile Santa Hosefina had crowded on all sail and was making for the mysterious spot on the map – which just happened to be Hell’s Maw and its adjoining coral atoll – as fast as was possible. Don Esteban stood at the bow with his feet braced against the roll of the ship. His overlong hair streamed around him snapping and slapping in the freshening wind, but he was so focused on meeting Tall Jack that he heard and saw nothing except the beating of his own blood in his ears.
“Faster. Faster,” he cried as the sailors coaxed every ounce of speed from the sleek galleon.
A voice from the crows nest broke into his reverie.
“Ship ahead. Making way very slowly. Looks like she’s lost her rudder. Can’t see who she is yet. But might be our quarry.”
Don Esteban put his powerful telescope to his eye and scanned the horizon. For a moment he saw nothing, but he reined in his rage and looked more carefully. Then he saw the stricken ship and managed to hold still enough to read the nameplate on her bow. It was indeed Midnight Runner limping through the blue water like an old lady in too tight slippers.
“There’s our quarry,” he bawled, “break out the oars.”
Gobshite was in the Runner’s crows nest. He wasn’t the most intelligent of beings, but he was perpetually alert and he had very good eyesight. “Black galleon heeded our way Cap,” he shouted. “Seems like he’s in a bit of a hurry.”
Jack raised a clenched fist. “Hear that boys, we got company coming. Let’s make sure we are in exactly the right spot when she gets here shall we?”
There was a grunt of assent and the speedy little clipper began inching her way along the coral reef that protected the calm waters of the bay known to pirates as the Name of God. Progress was painfully slow as it was necessary to give the impression of being floundering, while retaining precise control of every move the ship made. The teeth of the coral reef were so close to the port side of the ship that Jack was sure he could hear the corals speaking to each other in squeaky little voices.
He turned his head to assess the speed of the approaching galleon. She was coming at the sort of pace that was injudicious even in open water, the intent of her captain was obvious. He meant to strike the Runner amidships and run the smaller ship aground with his superior size. Only he wasn’t going to catch his prey as easily as he thought. Jack’s helmsman started counting out loud.
“Five, four, three, two, one. Hang on for your lives.”
He swung the wheel with all his considerable wiry strength as the men hidden in the rigging adjusted the sails. The Runner swung hard aport and for an instant Jack closed his eyes. But he couldn’t be seen to be such a coward and he forced himself to look as the boiling waters around the reef seemed to part in front of his gallant little ship. Thirty seconds and they were through, bobbing in the calm waters beyond the rocky teeth.
“Out oars.”
Twenty pairs of oars began pulling the ship through the gently shoaling waters towards the white beach.
Behind them there was mayhem aboard the galleon.
“What is the madman doing?” Don Esteban screamed.
“He’s beaching her for repairs.”
“Get after him then.”
“There is a reef señor. We will wreck the ship if we do not have care.”
“Don’t be a coward, man. Follow him through the reef. Where one ship can go another can follow. Fifty thousand pieces of gold if you catch him.”
For a moment prudence warred with greed, but avarice won. “Who marked where he went through?”
A voice floated down from the crows nest. “Three points to starboard.”
The helmsman made a delicate adjustment, but the galleon didn’t abate her breakneck pace.
“Half a point to port.”
In the lagoon, Jack and his crew watched the approaching behemoth with appalled fascination.
She barrelled towards the gap in the reef. For a second it seemed like she would make it through, but then, with a sound almost beyond sound, she jammed herself onto the sharp rocks. As she came to an abrupt halt, her own speed broke her back and her death throes deposited a selection of crew and mercenaries overboard into the killing sea.

Jane Jago

There will be more from Bony Mary and her crew next week…

Like moths to a flame
My thoughts fly
Far from here
To their homing
For I
Am thinking
Of you

Echoes that remain
My heart sighs
Naught is clear
Restless roaming
For I
Am yearning
For you

Tis always the same
My nights go by
With you near
In the gloaming
For I
Am dreaming
of you.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The ambassador strode out of the room, leaving the dealer to grin and rub his hands together. He turned to his workforce.
“Is there any damage?”
“No. I don’t understand what this one is made of. She should have been damaged badly the way he hefted that whip.”
“She’s a special order. No expense spared.”
The foreman shrugged. “And all for the enjoyment of one spotty teenager…”
“Yeah. But remember he’s a teenager who will one day become the most powerful man in the western world.”
The foreman looked puzzled.
“When his grandfather dies, won’t there be an election? I thought that lot over there elected the big guy.”
His boss lifted a bored shoulder.
“Used to, but not any more. It’s hereditary now. Like our king, only with actual power.”
“Oh.”

It took a month, but the deal was eventually done, and when the only scion of the First Family arrived in England to continue his education (in the only country in the world where it was deemed safe for him to live without at least a dozen secret service operatives in attendance), Bella was part of his household.

Five thousand miles away in California, the richest man in the world rolled his wheelchair to a vantage point from where he could both see and hear the ocean. He was painfully thin, and it was obvious to even the most casual observer that he was sick unto death.
He sat lost in a reverie for a long time, unmoving until a graceful and beautiful woman walked out onto the terrace. He turned his head to give her an effortful smile.
“It begins, my darling, our revenge will be devastating.”
She crossed to the railings on silent feet and only the way the bones stood out in her hands as she grasped the wrought iron gave a clue to her internal tension.
“Do you promise me?”
“Oh yes. The family whose arrogance brought about the suicide of our only child will pay in full. Starting with the President, his blustering blowhard of a son, and his grandson.”
She held his gaze for a long moment.
“If we are not betrayed.”
“I have no worry of that. The lines leading back to us have all been severed. Those who built the weapon chose to meet their own deaths, secure in the knowledge that the First Family would feel the pain of loss such as they have inflicted on so many other families.”
“And will you live to see our vengeance, my love?”
He smiled a twisted smile.
“I can but hope…”

Back among the dreaming spires, Earl proved to be the antithesis of his blustering and aggressive father and grandfather. He was a quiet, studious young man whose preferred mode of operation included politeness to everyone. His Oxford home was comfortable and unpretentious, and staffed only with androids. A lot of his fellow students used the house as a sort of an impromptu cafeteria cum clubhouse, and Earl smiled on their excesses without actually joining in.
There was very little the young American wasn’t willing to share, except Bella. Some of the better-off among his fellow students also had sex dolls, which they passed randomly from hand to hand. At first, these young men were inclined to be contemptuous of Earl’s refusal to share his doll. But then a few of them saw her, and as one guy put it: “Hey, if you had a Rolls Royce would you want to share with a guy who had a Chevrolet Spark?”
As time went on Bella became more of a companion and sexual partner than a toy. It began when Earl discovered just how much intelligence lurked under the blonde curls, and began talking about what he was reading as he lay in bed with his head pillowed on her ample breasts. She listened intently, before making a suggestion in her slow southern drawl.
“If you didn’t deactivate me during the day I could read it myself, then I’d know what y’all are talking about.”
“You could indeed. And I think that would be a big help to me.”
Thus it was that Bella remained ‘awake’ at all times. She learned a great deal about English literature, and an even larger amount about the young man who owned her. Being programmed to crave approval, the android toned down the tartiness and started to dress in a much more genteel manner. It took a while for Earl to notice the change, and when he did he wasn’t sure how to react.
So he said nothing, until one afternoon when he returned home to find his bedmate studiously cleaning his walking boots. It seemed odd to him that a doll programmed for sex should be capable of caring for his other needs as well. He coughed, and she jumped.
“Hey” he said gently “isn’t that somebody else’s job?”
She flinched, and looked at him with what would have been fear in her eyes if she had been human. He put that thought to one side and smiled reassuringly.
“It’s okay, honey. I was just asking.”
She ducked her head as if still expecting reproof.
“The valet is supposed to do it, but it don’t do a proper job. Needs direction but nobody don’t have the authority to make it do its work properly.”
Earl looked at her thoughtfully. “You saying I need a housekeeper?”
“I guess. Though I know it ain’t my place to say.”
He picked up one of her muddy little hands in his big, clean ones.
“You want the job?”
“Master will have his joke,” she said woodenly.
“Look at me Bella” his voice was firm and commanding.
She raised her eyes to his face, to see him looking as angry as she had ever known him to be. She shrank under his fulminating gaze and he sighed before speaking quite crossly.
“When have I ever treated you in a way that gives you the idea I am a cruel man?”
“Never. Master.”
He stopped sounding angry.
“Please don’t call me Master. I hate it. My name is Earl. Please use it. And please will you manage my household for me?”
The sincerity in his voice penetrated the circuits of her brain and she essayed a smile.
“I would love to keep house for you, Earl. But how can it be?”
“Easy. I just tell the rest of them to take their orders from you. My mother’s household is run by a droid and it goes like clockwork.”
And that was pretty much how it fell out. By the end of his first year of study Earl depended on Bella for intellectual stimulation, physical gratification, and a comfortable lifestyle.

© jane jago

In the end
There was nothing to say
No words came
Though I stared for a day
Crumpled paper
Kicked towards the bin
A crumpled love
Grown tawdry now and thin
In the end
There was nothing to say
Though my heart soared
As your heart walked away

©Jane Jago

Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

Yes. I know. Unlikely. However, sometimes one needs to make the effort. Men can be very simple beings, treat them kindly and they will do what you require. Hence…

To succeed you really do need to move your mind away from salmon en croute with baby vegetables. And why is this, so I hear you cry? Remove your nose from whatever luridly illustrated cookery book you are currently espousing and consider the creature to whom you are wed.
If, like the Hon. Rodney and most of his chums, your husband is the product of nanny, minor public school, and the armed forces, he has much less refined appetites than he would like to admit to. Chateauneuf-du-Pape is wasted on him: give him own-label red from one of the German supermarkets in a big glass, or a pint of old stumpblaster, and he’s a happy man. Similarly with food. Do not waste your time and effort on some delicate, complicated, small thing on a pretty plate. He. Will. Not. Appreciate. It.
No. The way to his heart is beef stew. With dumplings. Followed by jam roly-poly.
Now you’re stumped aren’t you? Your cordon bleu classes didn’t prepare you for that one.
Very well. In the spirit of female solidarity. I shall divulge.
The stew.
In a very large saucepan place the following. Diced beef (skirt for preference, or rump). Chopped onion. Diced carrot. Three or four potatoes cut small these will cook down and thicken the gravy. Cover with stock (cube stuff is perfectly fine). Do not be tempted to add herbs, spices or seasoning. This thing needs to be bland. Place on the range and bring to a simmer. Cook very gently for at least two hours. After which add more potatoes, peeled and chunked. Add more stock to cover potatoes. Cook gently for as long as it takes to cook potatoes until they are good and soggy.
In the meantime prepare dumplings and roly-poly.
You need 2lb self-raising flour, 1lb shredded suet (from a box, do not be bothering to shred your own). Add two beaten eggs and enough water to make a softish dough. Halve the dough.
Make half into balls about testicle size.
Roll the other half into a rectangle about a nine by six inches. It should be quite thick. Spread thinly with strawberry jam and roll up. Liberally butter a bit of tin foil large enough to enclose and seal your jam roll. Dump the roll on the foil and seal carefully.
When the potatoes in the stew are satisfactorily soggy, bring the pot up to a gentle boil and lob in your dumplings. Lid on and they will be done in about half an hour.
And now to boil the roly-poly. Here is where grandmother’s fish kettle comes in very handy shove about three inches of water in that blasted thing and when it comes to a rolling boil throw in the foil-wrapped delicacy. Do not let the water come off the boil and don’t let it boil dry. Otherwise it can be safely left to its own devices.
Call your spouse to the table and dish him up a large bowl of stew. Once he is outside that carefully get the roly-poly out of the boiling water and unroll it from its foil coffin. Serve a thick slice accompanied by a jug of custard. From a can if you like, although the most brownie points can be accumulated by making very thick custard (no, not the eggy sort, the yellow cornflour sort) and allowing a skin to form.

Normally one would offer an alternative menu, but in this case there is none. All that remains to be done at this point is to either confess to the dent in the Range Rover, or mention the bracelet you have seen in a certain jewellery emporium.
Either way I have provided you with the tools to ensure your ‘lord and master’ is but putty in your hands.

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

The mermaid leaned her elbows on the deck of the dive boat. 

“It’s there all right. That’s not the argument.”

The pirate snarled. “What is the ‘argument’?”

“It’s the guardians.”

“Guardians? Nobody said anything about guardians!”

“Did you think the Queen would play fair with you?”

“No. No more than I played fair with her.” He grinned reminiscently.

The pirate cut the silver chain that bound the mermaid to him and she slipped gratefully into the waves.

Back home, he sold his treasure map for enough money to set him up for life, though he ‘forgot’ to mention the guardians.

©Jane Jago

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

I turned and closed the office door. I spoke softly.
“Okay Mister O’Halleran, what gives?”
A panel behind the desk opened and the big shark himself stepped out. He was a little dusty, but unharmed, and he held a blaster in one big fist. Seeing it was me, and I was alone, he pocketed the weapon. His flat, killer’s eyes regarded me unblinkingly for a second.
“You have just presented me with a problem, Nero.”
“How so?” I leaned one shoulder against a bit of door that wasn’t smeared with rat blood and lifted a brow at the hulking killer.
“I got information that you had taken money to kill me. And that Katie Scarlett was in on the deal.”
“So you decided to disappear?”
“I did. And I heard my little girl screaming. And now you come in here quiet, with your hands empty. And I don’t know what to think.”
I shrugged.
“Try thinking that you’ve been had.”
He regarded me for a long moment.
“Maybe I have. But what to do about it.”
I examined my fingernails for a long minute before giving him my blandest stare.
“Go back in that cubbyhole and await developments. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or find out who set this up.”
“And how do you suggest I go about that?”
“Think for a start. Think about who would benefit if you thought Katie Scarlett had betrayed you.”
O’Halleran stared at me. His eyes were lightless and unreadable. Then he nodded.
“I’ve thought. And now we have to catch the bastard.”
“You narrowed it down to one?”
He shook his big head ruefully.
“Not that simple. Gotta be family. Nobody else benefits. Nearest is my sister and her slimy bastard of a husband. But it don’t quite fit.”
I waited as something came across his countenance, something he didn’t like too much by the looks of him. When he said nothing I pulled my brave together and spoke up.
“Okay, Mister Aitch, what does fit?”
He looked at me with something akin to loathing, but I gave him back stare for stare and in the end he dropped his eyes.
“I got a cousin, his mammy died when he was just a button and my ma and pa brung him up as their own. We was like brothers. He has a son, a smooth handsome son…”
He stopped speaking, and I kept my mouth shut too, knowing that this glimpse of O’Halleran’s humanity was a dangerous thing to have seen. He was quiet for a while, but when he did speak his voice was as coldly unemotional as it always was unless he was talking to Katie Scarlett.
“All right, Nero. You are supposed to be the best. Catch the bastard for me. I’ll pay whatever.”
“I’m working for Katie Scarlett right now.”
His face worked for a moment.
“I suppose you are. So now what?”
“That depends on you. Can you get out of here unseen?”
“I can.”
“Once you are out, where can you get to?”
“My private apartment, upstairs. You will need a key card to get in,”
“Doesn’t Katie Scarlett have one?”
“No. She has her own apartment and I don’t have a key to that.”
I thought he probably did have a key, but deemed it prudent not to voice that thought. He handed me a card and turned to go back through the panel.
“One hour,” I said to his retreating back, and he nodded.
Once the panel had shut gently behind him I opened the office door. I gave Katie Scarlett just the merest suspicion of a wink before coming out and carefully closing up behind me. I looked at the two big droids.
“Nobody goes in there without my say-so. That’s nobody.”
They looked to Katie for approval and she nodded.
The bigger of the two spoke.
“That means not even Miss O’Halleran?”
She nodded again.
“Sam will have his reasons.”
“I do have. For now you need to speak to all the staff Katie Scarlett, assure them that everything is being taken care of.”
“I can do that. And you will be?”
I waved my fingers and she swallowed.
“Hacking, huh?”
“I prefer to call it exploration.”
She managed a wan little smile, and turned away with a deliberate swing of her hips.
“And Katie,” I spoke to her retreating back and she turned to look over her shoulder. “Don’t speak to any family members.”
She showed me her even, white teeth in a taut grin
“I won’t.”

From ‘Sam Nero and the Case of the Dutiful Daughter’ one of the stories in Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago