Daniel breathed heavily as he stared down his opponent, eyes probing for weak points.

  He found nothing. Daniel’s golden-haired commander looked back at him with a smug smile, holding a long black rapier in a perfectly balanced stance. Lieutenant Korta was quick to taunt: “What’s the matter, Sergeant? Too cowardly to live up to your new rank?”

  Any enlisted soldier of Epsilon class or above was automatically promoted to Sergeant once the paperwork made its way through the system. Daniel had gotten the official notification three days ago. He’d give up the rank in a heartbeat if it allowed him to clobber that stupid smile off the CO’s face.

  Ignoring the taunt, Daniel took another breath and went on the offensive. He struck out with a flurry of light jabs, which were deftly blocked in a rapid-fire exchange. Daniel then abruptly halted the attack and dipped low, swinging the haft of his spear in a wide arc. Surprised, Lieutenant Korta quickly jumped to dodge the attack, but Daniel just smiled: “Gotcha.”

  Aborting the sweep mid swing, Daniel stabbed upward with the haft of his spear instead. Korta brought the guard of the rapier between the shaft and his body, but the force of Daniel’s stab was enough to give the shocked Delta class more airtime, sending him rocketing horizontally backward. Daniel chased Korta down, bringing the spearhead up to stab the man as he fell back to the earth. Face warped in anger, Korta brought his sword down in a chopping motion meant to deflect the attack. Daniel pulled back at the last second, watching as the man’s hasty swing went wide. He capitalized on the opening, swinging the spearhead right at Korta’s body.

  Korta wasn’t Delta class for nothing, however. He immediately aborted his swing and twisted out of the way. Daniel’s spearhead only clipped the man’s shoulder, failing even to draw blood from his hardened skin. Worst of all, the commander’s feet had touched the ground again. Korta turned the twisting motion into a spinning roundhouse kick right at Daniel’s chest. The enlisted man barely had the time to get the haft of his spear up to block before the blow made contact, launching Daniel backward in a tumble. When his momentum slowed, he managed to jump back to his feet with a wince. Daniel’s ribs ached, and he saw that the metal haft of the practice weapon had been bent beyond recognition. If that had made direct contact, his ribs would have shattered.

  Looking back at his CO with a raised eyebrow, Daniel said: “I thought this was supposed to be a spar, not a battle to the death! You nearly crushed my lungs!”

  Admittedly, Daniel had been using his full strength as well, but he couldn’t match a Delta class unless he went all out, especially if he couldn’t use any of his Capacities. The gulf between Delta and Epsilon was larger than the one between Epsilon and Zeta. Things would be different if the CO were near the bottom of Delta, but he was Mid-grade Delta while Daniel was barely High-grade Epsilon. Even fighting with everything he had, Daniel would struggle to seriously injure the CO. Meanwhile, Korta could have killed him. If Daniel had taken the kick directly and didn’t have Titanic Might to help bolster his defense, the Lieutenant would’ve turned him to paste.

  To Daniel’s annoyance, Lieutenant Korta looked totally uncontrite, flicking an errant hair off his forehead and saying: “The weak have no place on this OP. If you had died, it would have been your own fault.”

  Daniel was breathing heavily again, this time not out of exhaustion. For once, he was losing his temper, boiling hot rage running wild through his system. He opened his mouth in a wide snarl, but a large hand clapped down firmly on his shoulder before he could speak. Startled, Daniel looked up to see Arnold Martel staring down at him quietly with dark, serious eyes. The man towered over the already-tall Daniel, eclipsing two meters in height. His coal-dark skin and rough features made him look very similar to Pioneer Commander Oran Brekinar, though his last name didn’t come from any of the Brekinar subsidiaries. The big man stared down at Daniel and gave him a solemn shake of the head.

  This gesture immediately relaxed him, and Daniel closed his mouth before nodding back. He’d gotten to know the other men a bit more over the past few weeks and developed a good rapport with some of them. Arnold, in particular, was a solid presence and a reliable fellow. He didn’t express himself often, but it was wise to take him seriously when he did. Arnold stepped forward, taking Daniel’s place and summoning a massive warhammer.

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  As Daniel walked to sit with the spectators, he reflected on everything that had happened so far. Training with their obnoxious CO had been torture. The man’s grating superiority complex, combined with his actual superiority, had proven humiliating and infuriating. But it had gotten him used to fighting higher-class opponents, and, more importantly, human opponents. They had learned to take on other humans in training, but their emphasis had always been on fighting bestial enemies. Considering the nature of their new mission, it had been valuable experience.

  Sparring with the Lieutenant and the other men had helped Daniel smooth out the rough edges in his technique and fully get used to all the rapid improvements he’d made recently. The only fly in the ointment here was the fact that their mission would be on an Ocean planet. Things would be pretty different in underwater combat. Fortunately, they had covered that in basic training. That would have to be enough.

  Daniel pushed these musings aside and focused on the match before him. Arnold was one of the most skilled of them all, wielding his hammer with a grace and dexterity that Daniel would have thought impossible with such a large weapon. He swung with steady, economical movements, wide enough to generate significant force but always narrow enough to have the weapon ready to block any counters. As his frame suggested, Arnold was physically powerful, but Daniel had beaten him in their arm-wrestling matches. Titanic Might had done a lot to make that happen, but there was more to it than that. Arnold Martel consistently relied more on canny technique than pure brawn in his fights, something that was always impressive to watch. He was clearly more skilled than Korta, allowing him to drag out the fight for quite a while, until-

  BOOM!

  The CO landed a decisive hit, sending Arnold back into the wall. In the end, brute strength won out. The men hastily went over to check on the fallen warrior. He’d been hit right in the chest, and unlike Daniel, Arnold had been forced to take the kick head-on. However, Daniel had noticed a flash of purple light at the last moment, right at the point of impact. Up close, he saw a matrix of purple hexagons covering Arnold’s skin right where he’d been kicked. As he watched, they dissipated into motes of amethyst light, revealing a perfectly undamaged chest. The large man got up, totally unruffled, only to be chewed out by Korta: “Master Sergeant Martel, what did I say about using Psionic Capacities?”

  Anybody with eyes could see that the Capacity was purely defensive. It had done nothing besides preventing Arnold from taking serious damage. As he watched, Daniel silently clenched his fist, heavy breathing returning. He could probably catch Korta off guard with a well-placed Destroyer’s Strike. He couldn’t kill him. Killing his CO would get Daniel court martialed. Not to mention the fact that murder was wrong. But a good kick in the pants might make Korta think twice before pushing them around…

  Daniel may have been internally struggling with his violent urges, but Arnold made no outward sign of anger at this rebuke at all. He simply saluted, deep voice non-confrontational in its response: “Apologies, sir. Won’t happen again.”

  Before Korta could say anything else, they all suddenly received a notification: “Alert: Mission Start in 24 Hours. Begin Final Preparations.”

  Everyone’s faces turned grim. They had finished their packing and prep work long ago, but there was still a minor scuffle as the men moved to quadruple-check they were fully prepared. Once that was done, Korta had the grace to give them leave for the remaining hours. Some passed the time reading, playing cards, or even sleeping. Daniel was too full of nervous energy to sit still, so he convinced some of the others to do some slow-motion sparring with him. They went through the motions almost meditatively, passing the hours in an active and pleasant silence: “Alert: Mission Start in 3 Hours. Please Report to the Launch Hanger.”

  Wordlessly, the men dropped their fighting stances and did as the notification said. They joined the sea of people pouring out from the dorms and practice rooms, all heading to the same place. Waypoints were used to ensure everyone gathered with their squad mates at the designated spots within the hangar, the Pioneers lining up in parade formation. Everything was so well organized that Daniel had more than two hours of standing around to do after he reached his position. He took a bit of time to look around.

  This crew of Pioneers was roughly one-tenth the size of his first expedition, numbering only 2,000. There would be other ships coming from different parts of the Empire, but the smaller number indirectly emphasized how elite this group really was. They were being tasked with searching an enormous quantity of ocean, all while fighting off Republican forces, yet there were so few of them. This was either a suicide mission, or he wasn’t with the amateurs anymore.

  “Could be both,” Daniel dryly thought to himself. He stopped peering around and faced forward, waiting for the signal to move.

  Things played out rather differently on this mission than they had on the last one. The drop ship hovered in one set place, directly above one large island. All 2,000 of its Pioneers were dropped in a rapid-fire storm of pods. The gunmetal grey cylinders screamed down toward white sands and tropical forests, all surrounded by the endless blue of the mighty ocean. The moment their pods landed, the Pioneers fell in with their squad leader and sprinted to the beaches. The squad leaders exhorted the men at the tops of their voices as they ran: “GO GO GO GO!”

  “Let’s get’em, boys!”

  With these voices ringing in his ears and the wind whipping through his hair, Daniel relished a thrill of enthusiasm as he dove headfirst into the cool cerulean waters of Planet E2555.

  NUCLEUS

  THE DUST OF MOON

  ?? A Space Opera Where Sexuality Meets Cosmic Drama

  ?? In 2295, humanity has expanded across the Solar System, but ancient terrors have awakened with them.

  Four destinies collide:

  - Lorna Weiss, a psionic operative with the Terra Alliance;

  - Zhi-Xin Wu, a programmer fleeing the Imperium's grip;

  - Jabari Adomako, an ambitious Scarab pilot from the Emerald Directorate;

  - and Dilinur Altai, a conflicted Conjurer serving Imperial masters.

  As these rivals, potential allies—and sometimes lovers—cross paths, they discover the Moondust Crystal, an artifact with the power to control mutated monsters known as Radi-Mons.

  Rich with diverse cultures ??????, complex relationships ????, and spicy cosmic romance ???? that'll blow your mind (among other things).

  New chapters released on Tuesdays and Fridays.

  Volumes 1 & 2 complete, 200K words ready for reading.

  3 more volumes in the works.