The Iron Hammer Boxed Series Set releases in two weeks’ time. That means it’s time for the first chapter. As the first book in the series is Galactic Thunder, I’m giving you the first chapter from that novel.
Excerpt
EXCERPT FROM Galactic Thunder
COPYRIGHT © CAMERON COOPER 2023
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
—1—
Dalton was late.
In the nearly fifty years I’d known him, I could easily count a dozen times he’d failed to show up at the appointed hour. What was a few minutes here or there between friends? But three hours was pushing my limits.
I stayed under the twenty-five-meter high, age-withered oak I’d staked out, even though I wanted to collect Vara, stalk back to my shitty little spacer quarters and find the second half of the printed scotch bottle stashed at the back of the kitchenette shelf.
I was pissed at Dalton and pissed at myself, too. Why was I still here?
The shady oak I was under soared over the far corner of the family reserve in one of the residential suburbs of Melenia City station. The suburb dome was one of the oldest in the city. I could remember, from long ago, having to arm myself to traverse it safely. Since the Shutdown, the city had made efforts to reclaim the dome for the families it had been built for. Beefing up security. Extra monitoring and speedy emergency responses. And this reserve had been de-trashed, sterilized and the soil rebuilt.
Families had trickled back to the dome warily, until there were enough of them to make dubious business inconvenient, forcing the gangs and criminal organizations, the homeless and desperate to move elsewhere.
I didn’t have a family. I lived here because it was cheap and because of this park, which Vara loved. She had made a dozen nose-in-hand friends here, who would obediently scratch her head and ears when they saw her. I could see her down by the river now, her bushy multi-colored tail up as she pushed her nose into the soft, dark brown loam by the edge of the slowly cycling green water.
The daylights were hot, but the broad canopy of the oak made my wait shady and pleasant. I could even smell the peppery, green scent of the still, silent leaves overhead, baking in the light.
The residents scattered across the open grassed area and clumped beneath the other ancient, gnarled shade trees had probably assumed I was doing what they were. But I was not here to enjoy myself. Except, in a way, that was exactly why I was here.
Not for the first time, I shifted on my ass, fully prepared to get up off the blue plaid blanket I sat upon, call Vara back to me, shove my pad into my jacket pocket and go home. I aborted the movement, though.
I was second guessing myself, which wasn’t normal for me. I didn’t enjoy the sensation. Yes, I had sat here for three hours, my ass was numb, and I was getting hungry. I longed for a drink and the silence of my cramped apartment.
On the other hand, what was three hours when someone was travelling across the known worlds to get here?
I wasn’t entirely sure where Dalton was coming from, but it would be on the far reaches of known space because that was where he made his living, supplying complete settlement kits to new ball-bound colonies.
The kits came with a mini dome for less than Terran-standard worlds. What made Dalton’s kits so popular, though, were the shelters that came with them. They weren’t standard grown houses and sheds which melted after a couple of years’ exposure to the elements. They started out that way, but they were embedded with metal-extruding bacteria which fed upon the bio-skin of the structure, replacing it with a permanent metal coating in less than a year.
Dalton lived where his clients were. He had been born on a ball and tended to head back there. I’m not sure even he was aware of the habit.
Thanks to the new style wildcatters spreading across the galaxy, there were new colonies popping up every month, it seemed like. We no longer had to wait decades for a sub-light family barge to find planets suitable for settlement.
And for every new colony, a settlement kit was needed. Dalton was doing well for himself.
So he would be coming from somewhere cold and unfriendly to humans, where he would have been supervising the deployment of his tech on a new world. In other words, a long way from here. A three-hour delay was nothing.
Only it was everything to me because…well, because it had been twenty-seven years since the Shutdown.
Dalton hadn’t pointed out the elapsed time when he’d called to set up the date. I had said nothing, too. Yet the entire two-minute conversation had been studded with that fact, every word weighed down with implications.
“It’s been a while,” he’d said. Even in the holographic representation of him, standing in the meter-wide aisle of my quarters, he’d looked good. Tanned face, square jaw, rich brown hair springing thickly from his head. He wore a well-trimmed beard these days. He wore it well. He said the healthy appearance came from hard work and fresh air. Not that I would ever find out. Not about the efficacy of fresh air, at any rate. “I thought I’d visit for a bit,” he added.
My heart thudded. “When?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Next week?”
“You’re always welcome. You know that.”
“As long as I don’t ask to see your place. I remember.” He dropped his hand. “I’ll get my usual room at the hilton on the upper passenger concourse.” Melenia was big enough that it had a dozen specialized docking areas, including a luxury one for passengers, a level up from the cheap seat ticket holders.
“How long do you think you’ll be staying, this time?” I made it sound casual, but it was a hard-fought battle.
His gaze met mine. “I don’t know for sure.”
That was not his usual answer. My heart picked up the pace even more. “We can sort that out when you get here.” Still light. Still unconcerned, but I could feel sweat prickling under my arms.
His smile was small, but it was warm.
I made myself not reach out for the counter next to my hip, to prop myself up. Hope flared. “How’s Fiori and Mace?” Prompting him to talk about them might nudge him into telling me what I most wanted to hear.
He shook his head. “I’ll explain when I get there. Cheaper.” Calls from temporary beacons were expensive.
I reached for the counter, this time. I made it look as casual as my expression, while it was really to keep my knees from giving out and to hide that my hand was trembling. “Next Thursday, then.”
“Noon. I’ll find you under your oak tree.” Dalton paused. Did his green eyes sparkle? It was hard to tell. Not only were temporary beacons expensive to use for interstellar calls, they didn’t have the bandwidth for high resolution communications.
I decided that the twinkle wasn’t just my imagination and had to work to keep the silly, happy grin off my face. “Noon, Thursday,” I repeated.
Dalton’s smile grew warmer and broader as he disconnected. He had guessed exactly what I was thinking. He knew me too well, damn him.
The spark of hope bloomed into a maelstrom of anticipation as the five standard days between his call and his arrival crawled past at glacial speed.
And now noon, Thursday, had long gone and I was still sitting here, prevaricating myself to a standstill.
Maybe he had changed his mind. Or something had came up with his latest project. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d not been able to get away, after all. But he’d always let me know ahead of our meet-up, on those occasions. Besides, the last no-show had been a decade ago. He had far greater control over his booming business and his personal life now.
I looked up as I heard Vara’s happy yip. She was vocal, for a wolf.
She charged up the slope from the river, her jaws open in her version of a smile. She was not heading for me. Rather, she was angling up the slope, heading for the section of the reserve where the big sliding doors gave access from the dome’s public concourse.
I sat up, the numbness in my rear forgotten, as I spotted a golden explosion of thick fur, tail, nose and ears race toward Vara, bristling with pleasure.
It was Darb, Dalton’s parawolf.
My breath caught. I kept my gaze on the two parawolves as they rubbed faces and sniffed at each other, then licked their welcomes, while everyone nearby watched them with indulgent expressions.
The last time I had seen Darb in the flesh had been when he was a pup. He was fully grown now, just like Vara.
I tore my gaze away from the pair and back to the public doors, scanning the people entering the reserve, looking for a tall man with brown hair.
There he was.
My heart picked up its already unsteady pace.
Then I saw the white-blonde woman beside him, with a sunburnt nose and long legs.
Fiori.
I sank back upon the plaid blanket, my confusion swirling in my gut, making me feel nauseous. All during this long, drawn out week, not had I once anticipated he might bring her with him. He never had, before.
Dalton picked out my tree with his gaze. It was easy to find. It was the biggest and oldest oak on the reserve. It stood out.
He saw me under the tree, but he didn’t smile. He touched Fiori’s arm and pointed to the oak.
She focused upon the tree. Her expression was pinched. When she spotted me, she didn’t scowl.
Something was wrong.
I got to my feet and headed toward them. Halfway there, I gave the soft whistle that Vara knew not to argue with. She trotted toward me, bringing Darb with her.
We all met in the middle, which was directly beneath the hot lights, and therefore thin of grass and short on people.
Vara and Darb settled beside us, both panting happily.
I cut to the chase. “What’s happened?”
Dalton opened his mouth to speak, swallowed, then tried again. This close, he looked wretched.
“Mace is missing,” Fiori said simply. The pinched look I’d noticed from afar was the product of a deep furrow between her brows. She looked like someone had sucker-punched her in the gut.
“Missing?” I repeated blankly. Only, in my heart, I knew. Dalton’s expression, Fiori’s battered look, told the story they could not.
“The ship he was on has gone dark.” Dalton’s voice was strained. “Three days now.”
Their beacon could have gone down. Or they were on the wrong side of a flaring star. A dozen other reasons why a ship might go silent ran through my mind. But none of them would cause a ship to stay silent for three days.
Now I knew why Dalton was late, and why he looked the way he did. If something bad had happened, Mace would be the second son lost to him and he’d never properly got over the loss of the first.
All eight novels of the Iron Hammer space opera series and a bonus short story.
Danny Adela, once known as the Imperial Hammer, now called the Iron Hammer, fights for survival of the Carinad worlds.
The underdog Carinad forces face an enemy who knows nothing but war, whose culture is built upon the glory of battle. As the Slavers fall upon the vulnerable Carinad worlds, Danny and her allies work to find a way out of the no-win scenario they face…
The Iron Hammer series:
1.0: Galactic Thunder
2.0: Stellar Storm
3.0: Planetary Parlay
4.0: Waxing War
5.0: Ruled Out
6.0: Stranger Stars
7.0: Federal Force
8.0: Redline Rebels
8.5: Iron Hammer Boxed Set
Space Opera Science Fiction Novel
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The Iron Hammer Boxed Set is currently available for pre-order on Stories Rule Press (my bookstore). At the moment it is exclusive to SRP, and won’t be released on the retail stores until mid October.
You can buy the set at discount a couple of ways:
1) If you’ve never bought a book from SRP, you can find a 10% off discount coupon code on the front page of the site.
2) If you’re a repeat customer (hello! And thank you!), then you can use your reward points to earn a discount on the title.
Pre-order from Stories Rule Press
Enjoy!
