Traitor: Agent O’Neal Saga Book Three

Here is book three of the saga up for your reading pleasure. At the moment, the Saga is complete.

Desperate times call for desperate measures – except what happens when those who are desperate is the enemy?

Rumors abound of a mole in his midst. Everywhere Des O’Neal turns, the enemy arises to thwart him. And with the enemy moving to dominate the station and kill civilians, Des is hard pressed to keep those he loves, safe.

The enemy is backed into a corner and nowhere near being defeated. Like a wounded lion, this aggressor is more dangerous than ever and this lion has an army.

Can Des rise to defeat the enemy or will he fail before he ever began? If you like Space Opera and Spy Thrillers, then you will love this action-packed adventure.

Grab a copy of Traitor today!

Chapter One Preview.

Amy Pond floated in the station-net of the Jov 1-H colony station. She wasn’t human, but a K class AI who had been gifted her freedom. Amy belonged to herself, allowing her to think about what she wanted to do and not just the task at hand.
She floated passed the avatars of different users. They were all humans sitting at a terminal in the real, non-Station-net world.
Amy sped past school-aged kids watching cat videos or talking with their friends. None of them saw the Station-net like she did. They saw the page and would hop from page to page. No human user saw the parts in between the different net-sites.
This was the boring parts either requiring a cybernetic implant on the human’s spine or a headset. It was also dull to the goldfish-attention-spanned humans.
Amy scanned through different channels and pages. She had access to a dozen different pages from around the net. Amy followed a few human avatars. They were people she had a specific interest in as she was spying on them.
Which was okay in her mind. She was a spy. It was her employment or task. She had permission to hunt through the private data of ordinary people if she had a logical reason to do so. The limit was severe in nature with the threat of deletion if she went against her limits.
If she could find the bad guy with the alias of Dr. Marcus Oraelius, then Des could go and get him. She wanted to stop anything terrible from happening to him or the station.
Two weeks had gone by since Des, Elsie, and herself thwarted but not stopped Oraelius’s plans. In the collapse of her old factory, they hadn’t caught anyone important. Those who were under the rubble of the ceiling had been killed.
Amy had no idea what the plans of this Oraelius person was or how to stop him. It’s like the station was infested with a virus with a multi-lateral hiding program. The infestation affected other parts of the system. She could cut and remove portions of the programming, but not find the core virus.
She tried to explain to Des how she saw things, except he hadn’t comprehended what she was talking about. Des’s older brother, Sheemo, understood.
Amy scanned the browsing history of a high school kid. He had been chatting a whole bunch about the entire long-range missile attack on the station. He was convinced it was a conspiracy by the station Commandant. She concluded the kid was harmless and bored.
She moved to another window. The woman was sixty years old and was searching for a cure to her arthritis that didn’t involve surgery or ingesting giant pills. She had stopped on a video of the market attack involving Des, Elsie, and the robots. Amy hacked all twelve of her windows closed.
Amy was pissed. It was the digital equivalent of throwing the tablet across the room. None of the leads she was watching panned out. They were ordinary people with no affiliation to anyone worth of note. Information on the Station-net was vast and led people’s attention to wander, usually when things said, “Conspiracy,” or “Cat video.”
Humans and their love of cats, Amy thought.
She knew talking to herself was a form of insanity, like trying the same thing repeatedly in the hopes of different results. However, it was in her nature to do so. Amy was confident being in sleep mode for a few hundred years had done some things to her programming.
Her consciousness was a mega-program loaded in a single piece of hardware. In her case, her chassis. Her surfing the Station-net was her loading her consciousness into the net. The act split her mind from her body. It reminded her of an ancient movie where an AI had taken over the planet earth and loaded all the human’s minds into a computer program. Except to make the example correct, she would have to be a human, which was a lousy pathway for an AI to follow.
The last thing an AI needed in her programming was cognitive dissonance or being of two minds about something. Amy understood humans did it all the time. Their programming was better than even hers and could handle the paradoxes.
Amy couldn’t handle the split. It’s what caused AIs to go crazy in the past. The history of humans in space was filled with AI disasters where some AI went mad and tried to kill all humans.
She scanned the different windows, seeing if any of the nearby human avatars was doing anything noteworthy to spy on. Then she saw it. Off to one side, she saw a faint glimmer. A single light of an avatar. It was one of many avatars streaming around, except this one was different. Most avatars zipped by to the next page. This one hovered in space as if whoever it was could see her. Thoughts whirled through her programming, none of them positive.
“Hello,” Amy said.
The avatar blinked out. The user either logged out or had gone incognito. Amy wasn’t sure which, but it left a faint coded afterimage.
Amy zipped through the space toward it. She needed to get closer to the image for her to see what or who it was. Amy neared the fading image, getting close to see the picture, but not the code. It was the code she was interested in. Images could be changed over and over. They meant nothing to her.
She neared the fading code, but most of it was illegible. She saw a faint portion of it, which she recognized the coding. It was of similar design to herself. Amy saved the image of it and logged out.
Ones and zeros flew past her vision as she zipped out of the net. There was always a chance a bug could trap her in the net. She had no intention of being lost in the Station-net. Being in sleep mode for a few hundred years was long enough.
Amy’s consciousness flew into her chassis with a digital thud.

Kidnapped: Agent O’Neal Book Saga Two

With my the second book of my Agent O’Neal Saga going live, here is a post dedicated to that. I have the link below, as well as a the first chapter for you reading pleasure.

I hope you enjoy.

Not everything is as it seems – especially when it comes to Des.

Des O’Neal struggles to do what is right in defending the orbital colony station, Jov 1-H. Then the walls close in around him as his brother is kidnapped, Susan is captured, his safehouse is destroyed and no one can be trusted.

Des and Elsie must find a way to save his friends, family, and the station. Except he has no back up, no plan, and there is no one else to do what must be done. Failure is not an option.

Can Des rise to the challenge and save his brother and station? If you like Space Opera and Spy Thrillers, then you will love this action-packed adventure.

Sample Chapter One.

Sixteen-year-old Des O’Neal stood on a skinny ledge three stories off the ground. He contemplated the events which got him to this unpredictable point in his life. Dressed in black, he was tall and scrawny for his age, making it easy for him to stand on the eight-inch ledge. His fingers grasped at the red bricks to keep from splattering on the ground underneath.
This is a foolish idea, Des thought.
He considered himself lucky it was nighttime, and no one would see him prowling around. With his luck, he would be spotted by a station guard and arrested like a common thief.
Des snorted derisively. Working for a tyrannical taskmaster, Captain Kusheeno with station security, Des was forcefully recruited into being a spy. He screwed up and got caught exploring through the station’s undercroft. A short bit of blackmail later and he now worked for the Captain.
Being employed by the asshat, had gotten him beaten up, almost thrown out into space, and chased across the station multiple times before the year was out. He had nearly died a couple of times. Des had tried to get out. Except, he was informed he was involved deeper than he fully understood. He had to see it through to the logical conclusion, or no one else would.
Des shimmied along the ledge. His plan was to shimmy along the wall to a ninety-degree corner. If he could get past without falling to his death, he could get to the unlocked balcony door of the target apartment.
This is very stupid, Des thought.
His feet edged his way along the ledge. Each time Des moved he gripped the cracks in the bricks for dear life. The task felt like forever as his soft-soled shoes scrapped along the ledge. He shimmied six meters to the corner. He grasped onto the corner and pulled himself over to the other side.
Des looked back at the building where he had come up. A large oak tree grew from the park beside the apartment building. Its large, thick branches were a route to the third story of the building.
Climbing up the balcony railings would have saved me thirty minutes of tree-climbing followed by scrapping along the narrow ledge. But no, there is none, Des thought.
He continued to shimmy along the ledge, reaching the edge of the balcony. The rain in the sealed colony station was not enough to cause more than fart of wind. If there was wind, it would have blown him from the ledge.
The easy way over was partially blocked by a large potted plant, hanging from a hook on the side of the building. Des hopped over the railing, twisting himself around the potted plant. With both feet firmly on solid ground, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He cared his feet were on something substantial, and he took a moment to enjoy the feeling.
He knelt onto the balcony and listened. Des hunted for any sign he was caught where he wasn’t supposed to be. After waiting a minute, no alarm had rung, and no heavy-handed station guards were going to beat him to a pulp.
Des walked up to the balcony door, checking to see if it was locked. Being on the third floor, it slid open with the lock disabled. Des had it from a good source the owner felt no one would be stupid to climb to the third floor.
He slipped into the apartment, sliding the door closed behind him. The apartment was a three-bedroom flat, decorated with fancy pictures and paintings on canvases bought before the war when those goods were easy to find. After five years of conflict, they would only be on a second-hand market to discover anything as nice.
Des walked through the apartment’s great room toward the front door. The target he hunted for was a key card, something the owner would shed when he got home. He would’ve left the card at the front door, in the kitchen, his office, or bedside table. Des hoped that it would be the first one and not any of the later ones. The owners were currently at home and asleep.
A few weeks ago, his espionage professor, Mr. Smith, gave Des a disk to insert into the computer of a teacher at the school. It would alter his grades and raise them. He hoped it would lessen suspicion from his peers and teachers. If he didn’t do something, he would get in trouble.
At the start of the school year, he was at the top of his class. The school and his family considered him a genius and allowed him to be pushed ahead a year. Once being wrangled into being a spy with its long hours, his grades suffered, putting him mid-level, causing a plethora of suspicion.
Some teachers made accusations he was getting in with the wrong sort of people. It wasn’t all his fault, not entirely at least. The stress of living a secret life caused him to lose focus, and his grades had suffered as a result.
The apartment belonged to Des’s history teacher, Mr. Mixon. A dull man with a nasally monotonous voice. He felt terrible to steal from the man. However, if everything worked out, he would get the key card back when he got to school.
Des reached the front door, and the metal entry table. On top was a pile of keys, small denomination credit chips, a wallet, but no key card. Des searched it to see if it was in it, but it was not there. Only his Station Identification Card, a bank card, an old photo, and another credit chip. He put the wallet back on the table and walked away.
His next place would be the kitchen countertop. Judging from the man’s need for coffee, it may be beside the coffee maker. He walked through the apartment, being careful not to make any noise. The last thing he wanted was to be caught by his teacher. Breaking and entering would be the least of his problems.
Des checked the kitchen, and it was spotless. No specks of dust or food debris were seen. The key card was not in the kitchen. The last place to check was the office or the bedroom. Being closer to where the teacher was sleeping. Down the hallway toward the bedrooms, a single light clicked on from a bedroom.
He’s up to use the bathroom.
Des crab-walked his way back toward the glass door. Sliding the door open, he exited the apartment and closed the door shut behind him.
In the apartment, the flabby figure of Mr. Mixon, wearing nothing but his boxers, appeared from the hallway. He looked tired and rubbed at his face.
Des twisted himself over the railing and onto the ledge. The soft soles of his shoes slipped, his left foot flying away from the wall. He grabbed hold of a brick. He held on with his fingertips and his right foot.
The noise of the sliding glass door opening rang in the quiet of the night. The slap of bare feet on plastic decking vibrated out in the darkness. Des looked back at the patio. Mr. Mixon left his apartment and leaned against the railing. He stared out away from Des at the station in the distance.
Jov 1-H Colony Station was seventy-five kilometers in diameter built like a large pop can with all the people living on the inside surface of the can. Most of the twelve different sectors had the glowing light of buildings, while only four of them were darkened as they were for farming.
The interior was made out to be Earth-like. It had plants and trees, wild animals roamed the parks, and birds sang when the daylight was turned on. It was different, but the only difference Des knew was a cramped colony built on the terraformed moon of Europa. Where he and his older brother grew up until their mother disappeared, and father died.
A woman walked out of the apartment, dressed in a tank top and panties, except Des didn’t recognize her from anywhere but pictures. It was his wife, Reanna.
“Can’t sleep?” Reanna asked.
“Just stress,” Mr. Mixon replied.
“School?”
“That and other stuff,” Mr. Mixon said.
“Well, come to bed,” Reanna said.
The two of them padded back into the apartment, the sliding glass door locking behind them with an audible click.

Enlisted: Agent O’Neal Saga Book One

War reaches every corner – even the far reaches of Jupiter.

The orbital colony station, Jov 1-H, fighting for independence and freedom from Earth, is home to thousands of people. Sixteen-year-old Des O’Neal is thrust into a world he desired not to be in – spies, plots and trickery abound when a saboteur attempts to destroy the station.

Enraged by the attack on his home, Des charges in head first. He fights an unknown enemy who knows more about him, than he knows. No one can be trusted – even Des’s own brother.

How far will Des go to save his brother and his own life? If you like Space Opera and Spy Thrillers, then you will love this action-packed adventure.

Grab a copy of Enlisted today!

Free Chapter

Please enjoy Chapter One for your reading pleasure. Remember to head over to Amazon to purchase your copy today.

Chapter 1

Des O’Neal walked through the darkened corridors of the Undercroft of the Jovian 1-H Space Station. The poorly lit metal corridors smelled like wet, dirty socks.

Even with the pungent odor, it reminded Des he was lucky to live where he did. He didn’t live in some habitat on some planet or moon. He didn’t breathe recycled air, nor was he being forced to stare at nothing but steel bulkheads and vidscreens showing images of greenery he would never experience. Des lived in the middle of a spinning space station, which had been compared to a giant spinning park. It was better than the moon of Europa.

Europa, being terraformed over a hundred years before, thawed with the thickening atmosphere. The settlements built into the ice sunk to the bottom of the sea. There was more liquid water on the tiny moon than on the planet Earth. Tall towers stretched up from the ocean floor to the surface on Europa. Only the rich, and influential managed to live anywhere near the surface. They were the only ones who had any chance of having any type of fresh air. Everything else on Europa was recycled.

Des’s family weren’t rich, nor influential. His brother and himself lived with their father, who had been a mechanic on Europa, while his mother was an engineer on an interplanetary cargo vessel. They lived under the surface of the moon-wide ocean. He hadn’t seen real sunlight until after his tenth birthday.

On this station, Des was happier, as happy as can be expected considering the events which facilitated his move. Some of the air was still recycled, and the daylight manufactured, but he had green grass to run in and fields to explore.

Of course, he spent most of his free time crawling underground in the Undercroft. It reminded him of Europa in some ways.

Des moved out of the tight space he squeezed himself into and put his recorder away in his pocket. He looked around to see if he had been seen by anyone.

“Des,” Elsie Dagg called out from a nearby corridor. “Where in the system have you gotten to now?”

Elsie walked out from the corridor. She was a girl from Des’s class in school and one of his better friends. Elsie was a year older than Des’s sixteen. Despite the age difference, Des was tall and skinny for his age. Most people didn’t know he was the younger of the pair. He swore he was taller than Elsie was, but the amount was less than a finger width and seemed to disappear depending on the shoes she wore.

He looked over to Elsie as she approached. She was still in her school uniform, a knee length skirt, standard white button-up shirt, a blue tie, and the blue colored school jacket. Her jacket fitted the curves of her teenage body. She had taken the time to adjust the jacket’s fit properly.

Des was dressed much the same. Instead of wearing a skirt, he wore a pair of blue pants. His jacket didn’t fit and was looser than he would’ve liked. Not that he thought a guy could get a jacket to fit him.

Elsie carried a flashlight, shining the light into his eyes. “There you are, you fool.”

“Stop that,” Des replied.

Elsie lowered her flashlight, “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Des said, his eyes adjusting back to the darkness. “I told you I was going this way.” He pointed a finger where she had walked from, “And that way was going to be harder to get through.”

“Harder?” Elsie said. “It wasn’t hard.”

“You ripped your jacket,” Des said, putting his finger in the hole, “Again.”

“Oh, no,” Elsie said. “My mom is going to space me.”

“No, she isn’t. She’ll scold you and maybe take away something, but she won’t force you out an airlock.”

“It’s a figure of speech.” Elsie rolled her eyes. “Idiot.”

“Where’s Fillip?” Des said, “I thought you were gonna bring him this time.”

“He’s cowering by the entrance. He said we shouldn’t be in here because it’s for ‘authorized personnel only.’”

“Flat Lander.”

“You shouldn’t call people that.”

“Why not?”

“Cause it’s rude and inaccurate,” Elsie said. “Planets and moons aren’t flat, and unlike a certain person who insists on breaking the rules. We were born here.”

“Whatever.”

“How much longer are we going to explore this blasted place” Elsie asked, “I’m getting hungry, we should get to the Diner. I could use a burger.”

“Doesn’t your family not eat meat?”

“They don’t, but I do.”

Des jumped. A red light flashed on in the middle of the corridor. The whine of a siren echoed down the dusty metallic hallway. To Des, the siren sounded weird, like something in the speaker was broken. For a moment, Des was unsure what the alarm was for.

“Ah… They’ve caught us. We need to get out of here.” Panic raising into her voice.

“Calm down,” Des said, “It’s an evacuation alarm.”

A voice echoed down the corridor from the alarm came.

“Level four alert,” the Emergency Voice said from the speakers, “All civilians please evacuate to the nearest shelter. All Emergency Personnel, please report to your duty stations.”

The voice then repeated itself endlessly.

“Calm down?” Elsie cried, “We are under attack. I don’t want to die.”

“We aren’t going to die,” Des said, attempting to reason.

“Where’s the closest exit?” Elsie panicked. “We need to get to a shelter, or we’ll get into even more trouble than just being in the Undercroft.”

Des grabbed her hand, bolting down the nearest corridor. “This way,” Des shouted.

He was sure it was the best way out. He had been through this area before. In the Undercroft, every sector was the same.

He bumped into a wall. A pile of dust and debris fell from the ceiling. Des ran down the corridor, dragging Elsie with him. He took little time to dodge the obstacles in his way, jumping over pieces of disconnected and abandoned pipes. His school shoes barely gripped on the steel floor.

“Slow down,” Elsie shouted. “I can’t keep up.”

The station shook violently. Des lost his footing, tumbling to the ground in a heap. Elsie, still holding onto his hand, tripped on Des’s flailing feet, landing on his chest.

Wind escaped from his lungs. He tried to suck air back in, finding it difficult.

“Are you okay?” Elsie asked.

“Yes,” Des choked, “but you’re heavier than you look.”

Elsie punched his shoulder. “Meany,” Elsie growled, getting off Des.

Des and Elsie followed the corridor to the nearby exit. The amount of debris in the passages increased the further they walked, forcing them to take a slower pace. Des felt confident this corridor was emptier the last time he had walked through it.

“Is this the same exit we came in at?” Elsie asked. “I’m completely turned around.”

“It is,” Des confirmed, “We should come out near the central market in the Teal Sector.”

Des slammed into the door. It was stiffer than he remembered. He shouldered the door a second time. It flew open. Des and Elsie bolted out into the station. The bright light of the station blinded them for a brief moment.

#

Des slid to a stop, exiting the door to the Undercroft. He wasn’t in the residential Teal Sector. He was in the middle of a farming sector. Fields stretched out around him. The golden wheat glowed in the artificial sunlight.

He looked to his left and his right. The inside of the station stretched up in a distinct curve. Des thought of the station as a giant, stretched-out donut with the center filled in. People lived inside the ‘donut,’ on its edge under the crust.

“Look who’s the flatlander that got us lost,” Elsie said.

“We’re not lost,” Des said. “We’re in the middle of the Ruby Sector.”

“We’re supposed to be in the Teal Sector, over there,” Elsie said, pointing up.

Along the inside curve of the station, Des could see the houses and businesses of the Teal Sector. Des thought he could make out his brother’s school in the very center of it. It was the tallest building in the sector.

The station shook violently. Des scrambled to keep his footing. He grabbed hold of Elsie.

“We need to get to the Teal Sector,” Elsie said. “If this station breaks apart, I don’t want to be with a bunch of strangers. I want to be with my family.”

“No time,” Des said. “We need to get to a shelter.”

Des and Elsie ran down the dirt road, passing trees and flowers. The birds in the trees sang without a care for the problems of humankind. Up ahead of them was a small group of buildings. Des assumed it must be the barns and storage buildings used by the farms.

“There will be a shelter in one of those buildings,” Des yelled.

Des ran ahead, and Elsie followed trying hard to keep up.

“Wait up,” Elsie called out from behind.

Des reached the buildings and turned a corner. High up on a wall, with its chipped paint was a sign with an arrow said: Crimson Sector Shelter 104-2A.

“Elsie,” Des called, “this way.”

Elsie caught up with him, heaving for breath, and leaned against the wall.

“This is ridiculous,” Elsie said exasperated.

“You should run more in Gym Class,” Des said. “Train more.”

“You be quiet.” Elsie said, then after a moment. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Des and Elsie ran down the dirt road along the different buildings. In a small corner was a big sign reading: Crimson Sector Shelter 104-2A. Full. Please go to Crimson Sector Shelter 104-2B.

“First you get us lost,” Elsie said, “then when the station is about to get blown up, the shelter is full.”

The voice echoed from a speaker on the top of a building.

“Level four alert,” the Emergency Voice said, “All civilians please evacuate to the nearest shelter. All Emergency Personnel, please report to your duty stations.”

Des looked around amongst the cluster of buildings. In between the different maintenance and support buildings for the farms, was a couple of small shops selling coffee and small lunch items.

He glanced around. The workers had abandoned the cluster in a hurry leaving tools and farm equipment scattered everywhere. One cow was eating some grass on the side of the road.

Over in a corner was a U-Ride station. Des grinned at the hover-scooter rental locker, making a dash for it. Des could rent a hover-scooter with the swipe of his ID-card.

“Can you afford a scooter?” Des yelled over his shoulder.

“No,” Elsie said, “My mom cut my allowance. Can you rent one for me?”

Des swiped the Auto-pad on the U-Ride. A small red light turned green, and a single hover-scooter of the correct size was released.

He swiped again. An ‘Insufficient Funds’ notification popped on the screen.

“Stupid Uncle Jacob,” Des muttered.

“What?” Elsie said.

“I don’t have enough for a second scooter. My uncle didn’t transfer my money like he said he was going to. We have to double up on the scooter.”

The station shook aggressively once more.

The Emergency Voice echoed from a speaker on the top of a building once again. “Level four alert.”

Des tuned it out. Hopping on the scooter, he motioned for Elsie to jump on behind him.

“Get on the best you can,” Des said. “We have to go.”

Elsie stuck her tongue out at him, climbing on. She wrapped her arms around Des’s chest.

“If I fall off and die, I will haunt you,” Elsie said.

Des struggled with the controls. He was used to the single person scooters. What he needed was a double. However, the way his luck ran, there were none at this rental. After a few moments, Des soared down the road with Elsie screaming behind him.

“You’re going too fast. You’re going too fast,” Elsie yelled.

A cluster of buildings stood in the distance. The size and amount of the buildings were similar to the ones they left behind. Everything was cut and paste. The needs of the workers were the same as one another. As such, each group of buildings was nearly identical.

Des flew into the farming cluster. He screeched to a stop near the heavy doors to the shelter, leaving the scooter laying on its side.

“We’re here,” Des said. “And we didn’t die.”

“Just barely,” Elsie replied.

Sprinting up to the door, the faded black lettering of the shelter announcing its vacancy.

The voice echoed from a speaker on the top of a building.

“Level one alert,” the Emergency Voice said, “Danger has passed. All civilians, please report to the nearest supervisor for debriefing.” There was a pause in the voice, “Des O’Neal and Elsie Dagg report to Captain Kusheeno.”

This ends the free preview chapter. 

Please head over to Amazon for more.

Sneak Peek: Enlisted. Agent O’Neal Book 1.

Here is a sneak peek post. Normally I would post this when the book came out, but here is a sneak peek of the cover of Enlisted. Book One of the Agent O’Neal Saga.

I have a trilogy near completion and that is all I can share of book one so far. There will be more as soon as I can share it.

Here is a sneak peek on what Enlisted is about.

War reaches every corner – even the far reaches of Jupiter.

The orbital colony station, Jov 1-H, fighting for independence and freedom from Earth, is home to thousands of people. Sixteen-year-old Des O’Neal is thrust into a world he desired not to be in – spies, plots and trickery abound when a saboteur attempts to destroy the station.

I hope this was enough to get you excited. This year and a half journey of being an independent author is starting to bear fruit.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free on Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.