Victoria A. Jeffrey's authorly doings. . .

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Sample Chapters! (Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy)

Okay here's the sample chapter from my latest book I'm writing, Mission: Blackguard Conspiracy! it starts with a huge bang! Hope you like it! If you want more sample chapters, join the mailing list! This is chapter one, by the way.  Also, Schisms is now perma-free! if you've already read it tell someone who might be interested!


Enjoy!

1

The momentum I'd gained from my jetpack caused me to careen into the wall and I began sliding toward the open airlock but I myself caught upon one of the ship's rear support columns and frantically swung myself around and with a thump I hit the floor snatching up the broken pipe as he bore down on me again. He grabbed my arm and swung me up towards the ceiling. I hit the ceiling with a hard crack as he grabbed my legs to slam me down against the floor or the wall. I swung the pipe and bashed him on the shoulder but his strength in his rage was fantastic! It seemed to have no effect on him but I hit him again, this time across his helmet. I felt myself slammed against the ground and saw stars on the edges of my vision. Adrenaline now was the only thing that kept me going – that, and growing rage. And I too had gotten more fit and stronger in my labors as a U-net agent.
I rolled across the ground and was up again but had dropped my weapon and couldn't get to my pistol. He laughed, his mouth full of bloody phlegm and saliva from his glands but besides that he was unharmed and coming at me like a hawk after prey.
“You've been a pain in my ass for too long, Astor! It ends here!” He screamed, bloody spittle flying form his mouth and bubbling on his faceplate. He pulled out a blade and I kicked his arm sending it clattering to the floor behind him.
“Only in your ass? I haven't been trying hard enough!” I lunged forward, smashing into him and we both went down toppling over the storage boxes. With superior strength he got the best of me and I soon found myself pinned under him, struggling as he laughed. His face was so badly mangled that I no longer recognized him, the human engineered skin and alien flesh and appendages fused together in a monstrous unity. He straddled me with his powerful legs, grabbed my helmet and began bashing it against the floor trying to crack it open. The powerful sucking sound of the air emptying from the craft was becoming louder and I felt the powerful force of motion as the air pressure chamber doors finally rose open completely and we both slid toward the opened air chute of the craft. I could see the pistol only a few feet away from me again. Tantalizingly close.
If only I had listened to Magnum!
Outside was the eternity of black space, my soon graveyard if I didn't turn this around. I yelled and pushed against him trying to lift him off me. If I didn't do something quick I would be dead matter floating in space. And then I saw my chance. I grabbed his jetpack strap and pushed the forward blast button sending him careening into the opposite wall. I held on to the jetpack strip and swung him around again as he screamed in rage. I forwarded his momentum by pushing the lift off and drive buttons again and then as he tried to yank the strip from me. He managed to do that as I swung him further toward the open hatch trying to throw him out. Finally yanking it free he flew back down from the ceiling and charged after me, knife in hand. By then I had dropped to the floor and grabbed the pistol. I fired right before he was able to descend upon me and a stream of violet laser fire crackled from the pistol burning a large hole in his chest. He screamed, more in anguish and defeat than pain and I fired again this time the laser fire severing one of his arms. I watched as both he, his arm and all the effluvia and fluids spewing from his body toppled end over end out the air chamber and then floated out the hatch into cold space.
“Yeah,” I said, sighing heavily and bending down to one knee. “I guess it does end here.” Finally, my nemesis was defeated.
I felt myself being pulled along the floor and realized that my own leg was tangled in the long jetpack strip. I tried to anchor myself looking for anything to hold on to but there was nothing in the bay but a few storage boxes which were now just out of my reach. I accidentally dropped the pistol, sending it scuttling toward the open hatch in my struggle to free myself. The force was becoming too strong for me to walk against it. I fell and slid helplessly along the floor as the body floated further out into space. I struggled in vain to untangle myself and shake it off. It was no use. I struggled, crawling back across the floor, each movement becoming ever more difficult as the force of the air and the dead weight of the body was too great. I grappled against the smooth floor desperately, then turned back to see myself sliding near the pistol I grabbed hold of it again and shot at the strip, finally severing the cord. I slid down the floor and managed to hold on to a bar against the wall of the air lock. Sliding my arm toward the emergency controls, the force of the winds forced my head down against the cold metal surface of the wall. I positioned myself awkwardly, sideways against the wall and reached the control panel, pulled the lever and the doors came down and secured the ship. I could finally feel the air around me slowly return to normal pressure as the air lock secured itself completely shut.
I fell to the ground and simply remained there for a few moments. He was now gone, truly forever, never to hunt me or my family again. All I had to do now was wait for someone to come and respond to my distress signal from the ship. When my energy returned I eventually went the cockpit and sat down, taking off my helmet. I turned the lights off and sat back, staring at the wonders of space. There was a change in me. I was no longer afraid. Tulos had said as much would happen one day. And he's said to celebrate it and savor it. But then may be I was too dumb to be afraid. After all who in their right mind would have followed an alien spy all the way to another planet in the first place but someone who was too dumb to be afraid? I laughed.
I think we had won. And I felt that I could finally breathe, that whatever trials would come for the human family, and there would be many, that the future was once again bright. . .

. . .and then I woke up. Again, my dreams were becoming more real, as if I could smell, touch and experience the pain in them. And they were becoming more prescient. Which was making me question my own sanity. This wasn't helping things with my wife who normally took everything in stride. There had been a sudden change in her towards me and she was now calling everything I did into question, even my sleeping patterns! Once again, I was a hero in my dreams, saving the world only for that dream to dissipate and my poor ego to deflate when I woke up to reality.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Progress

I'm in the second editing stage of Blackguard Conspiracy right now and it's been very tough. I've just finished writing a book under a pen name and went straight back into writing Blackguard and I was really feeling the burnout. Things are getting better on that front. I'm enjoying this phase of the editing process but it was rough going for a few months getting that first draft out.

Sometimes it's good to take a break. over work is never a good thing. Anyway, I've got another other Worlds podcast episode coming out later this month so stay tuned. I'm hoping to get Blackguard out by the end of this month but I'm not sure how that will work! we'll see!