Sneak-Peek: No Man's Land! (Patreon)

Hi all! Sneak-Peek time on the upcoming Tanner novel!

I meant to share an update and some book material with you earlier in the month, but I was close to a milestone... so close that I just kept going, and then, like... it was a week later. So I just kept working.

Here's the update: the rough draft is DONE! I hit "the end" about a week ago, and then of course I decided it needed one more chapter, but whatever.

Also I still need to write a prologue. Might rewrite the epilogue. But the rough is effectively DONE, and I'm now 34% through my first revision pass. NO MAN'S LAND currently stands at 162k words—which is bound to shrink as I revise, and then grow a little bit with the prologue, and then inevitably shrink a bit more once my editor gets hold of it.

But the biggest portion of the work is DONE, and my cover art by Julie Dillon is also finished and in hand! So unless my editor comes back to me with, "Hey, um... this whole book sucks," that means the next Tanner novel is COMING SOON!

Want a sneak-peek scene? Something thematic?

This will make more sense if you've read the other sneak-peek posts for this book, and/or if you go back a single sneak-peek post to the rough for the cover art. To summarize, Tanner has been roped into an expedition with some Union Fleet special forces types, and the dangers revealed in Last Man Out keep getting deeper.

Softly-glowing moss covered the tunnel walls until the right-hand side opened up at hip level like a long balcony. Tanner remembered the drop-offs and views of vast caverns beneath Minos as Dai crept ahead, staying low to hide behind the lip. The passage ran another long stretch before bending left and downward again.

Dai halted the rest of the team with a hand gesture and tapped his rifle. Rather than poking his head over the lip, Dai let the rifle camera do the work. He could have tied everyone into the camera feed through the team link, too, but he beckoned the team forward instead.

The size and shape of the chamber first made Tanner think of a darkened stadium, though the center was dominated by a pair of towering hexagonal structures. Violet moss coated most surfaces from the floor to the top of the structures. The large underground facility on Minos was similar, but with many smaller, spherical tanks made of transparent material.

Gaps in the moss caught Tanner’s eye. Growth never came to full coverage in the passageways, but the spaces seemed natural at a passing glance. Here, they saw broad open spaces at the foot of the two big structures and several other points between. Tanner adjusted his helmet optics and zoomed in to find bits of broken metal and rubble in the floor between the structures.

“Malone?” whispered Vinson. Tanner shook his head.

“Not reading much new on scanners,” said Haavik. “This place is dead.”

“Chemical tanks? They need water, too, don’t they?” said Dean.

“I think you’re right, but there’s debris on the floor. Something happened here,” said Tanner.

Tiered walkways ringed the chamber. Alicia pointed them out in a tracing motion back the way they came. “Looks connected, but they wouldn’t build a whole ring just to get from there to here, right? It’s gotta break off into other passageways. Might lead to answers.”

“Yeah, alright. Move out,” said Vinson.

Obyke switched off with Dai on point. The passageway curved tighter and dropped at a steeper angle than before. The team came across the branching passages Alicia expected, some behind closed doors of Minoan metal and others left open when they were carved. Each turn-off demanded vigilance, but soon the passage emptied out onto the floor of the big chamber with the two large hexagonal tanks.

Tanner ran the sniffer unit and risked the flashlight of his weapon. Nothing reacted to the light or his presence; the sniffer came back with the much the same mix of air, but warned of other “unpleasant” chemicals. Near the center of the chamber, he found an obelisk hidden from his earlier vantage point, rising to chest-level and cratered at the top as if it burst from within. Ridges like pipes ran to both big structures, all covered in moss.

At a gap of moss on the tank, Tanner caught a depth to the gleam of his flashlight and slow traces of motion. “This is transparent,” he said, stepping closer. Tiny particles reflected his light in an aimless drift. “It’s full of liquid.”

“Looks like something broke a long time ago.” Obyke lit up the obelisk and circled it for a wraparound view. “Like a malfunction that never got fixed, or—oh.” A scrape under her foot stopped her in her tracks. “There’s debris under the moss.”

“And nasty stuff in the areas the moss doesn’t cover,” said Haavik. “Like a chemical spill.”

“Okay, but what’s in the tanks?” asked Alicia.

Tanner knelt at the base of one tank to brush aside some of the moss. It yielded easily, revealing more murky liquid and random particles… and, once his optics corrected, a slender animal skull resting against the corner. “Holy shit. This held marine life. It’s like a fish tank.”

“Then maybe the stand there held a monitor, or recycling controls?” said Haavik.

“That would explain why we haven’t met more resistance. If everything here is dead, maybe this deck isn’t worth defending,” said Dai.

“Yeah,” said Tanner, “but it also points to the function of this whole rock. The moss creates standard Minoan air. The tanks hold water and marine life. This thing is dangerous and it has defenses, but I don’t think it’s a warship. I think it’s a preserve. They were in a genocidal, planet-wrecking war they ultimately lost. This place is their insurance policy.”