We're less than a month out from the release of Stranded, the first book in the new Starship of the Ancients series. This novel will kick off a whole new story universe, and I'm so excited to share it with you!
When Evan's colony ship explodes in orbit, he and fellow colonist Anya race for survival in the dangerous wilds—until they realize they aren’t alone on the planet. When evidence points to an ancient alien starship hidden somewhere on the world, can they survive the hostile planet long enough to uncover the truth?
Below, you can read the first two chapters of the book. The full novel will be available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited on February 7, 2025.
1
Atmosphere streaked by outside the viewport as Evan’s landing pod plummeted toward Aethos’ surface. Red warnings flashed across the front control screen, casting an eerie glow inside the cramped space.
What the hell went wrong? He scanned over the readouts, desperate for a clue.
The screen showed other pods in the vicinity, also in uncontrolled descents. Something must have happened to communications with the main colony ship.
Straining against his harness, he reached out to the comm unit with the intent of calling for help. With his hand only centimeters shy of the controls, the pod violently lurched, sending his arm flailing to the side. The concussive force on the hull indicated that the pod had collided with something midair, though there was no sign of what it may have been.
Another jolt rocked the craft, followed by a piece of flaming debris streaking by the viewport.
What the…? Evan stared with horror at the flight map. The orbital location where the colony ship had been just minutes before was now a blank space on the readout. With a sickening twist of his stomach, he realized the pieces of debris impacting the pod were the remains of the once magnificent vessel.
Rather than becoming a new home, the planet might instead be their tomb.
As the reality of his plight set in, he started to chuckle. Aethos was supposed to be his escape, a chance to start over. Even though joining the colony expedition hadn’t been his choice, at least it had offered an opportunity to rebuild a life of his own design. The fact that all would go up in flames due to a botched landing had enough poetic irony that he had to laugh.
Proximity warnings lit up the main control screen, strobing in angry red. Alarms blared.
At least it will be quick, Evan told himself. Given the torturous death he’d escaped back on Constella, this was a mercy. He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, ready to accept his fate.
The landing pod bucked unexpectedly. Its spinning slowed.
“Emergency stabilizers activated,” the computer’s friendly female voice announced. “Warning, guidance system offline.”
The altitude countdown was racing toward zero. Evan braced for impact.
The pod collided with the ground, jostling him against his restraints. His cushioned seat absorbed most of the impact, but the harness dug into his shoulders and waist. A shower of dirt smeared across the viewport. Though it blocked his visibility outside, dirt meant he was on the ground in one piece.
Everything was still and quiet compared to the rattling from moments before. The warnings vanished from the screen, replaced with a readout showing an exterior atmosphere analysis, errors where there should have been a map, and an indicator that power reserves were at thirty-two percent. Make that thirty-one and dropping rapidly.
Maybe this won’t be a quick death, after all. He had no illusions that surviving the crash unharmed meant he was out of danger. If the colony ship had been destroyed, the struggle to survive had just begun.
He released his harness, causing a new set of controls to appear on the front panel. All right, let’s see what we’re dealing with.
Evan checked the readouts displaying the detailed exterior environmental scan data. The air was a breathable oxygen-nitrogen mixture with no identified pathogens. Temperature was within temperate range. All in all, the place was as livable as the expedition commanders had said it would be.
He next checked the communications system. There were errors across the board, indicating that the antenna had probably been damaged in one of the impacts.
The rest of the pod’s controls were useless at this stage, so Evan powered down the craft to conserve its remaining power. Anxious to check for other survivors, he released the hatch lock. It opened with a hiss.
Evan grabbed a handhold and dragged himself out. He squinted in the sudden light outdoors, bringing one hand up to shield his eyes.
A warm breeze carried the scent of burnt metal, mixed with the aroma of damp soil and grass that reminded Evan of his youth—strange scents after spending most of his life in space. Other pods were scattered around the field where he’d landed. Small fires smoldered near several of the landing sites, casting a smokey haze across the landscape. Bits of wreckage were interspersed with the craft; it was unclear at first glance if the remains belonged to pods or the colony ship. Several of the pods appeared to be shattered, having had the misfortune of crashing down onto rock rather than the soft field. Evan thanked the stars for his safe landing site on grass.
Other people had started to emerge from their pods. Their expressions were full of fear—eyes darting and brows knitted as they took in the wreckage. Many of their faces had become streaked with dark smudges as they dug through burning scrap to check for survivors.
A woman screamed somewhere behind Evan, followed by indistinct shouts from several other men and women.
Evan dove back into the pod to grab his travel pack from a storage bin. He quickly slung it over his shoulder before running in the direction of the shouts.
Coming around the back side of his pod, he saw a man trapped under a piece of wreckage. Based on the awful angle of his leg and the blood pooling on the ground, he wasn’t going to make it through the night without serious medical attention. Three people were trying to lift a fallen metal beam off him, groaning and swearing more than making genuine progress.
“Stop!” Evan shouted, running up. “The pressure is keeping him from bleeding out faster. We need a treatment plan before getting him out.”
The trapped man was barely conscious, but his eyes widened with concern at the statement, followed by a pained grimace.
Evan didn’t want to be the one to say it, but the man was most likely a goner no matter what they did. If a full medical facility were close at hand, he may well survive. But here, with no surgeon evident and an apparent lack of supplies, he’d bleed out or succumb to infection.
“He’s right, we need to slow that bleeding!” a young woman said, elbowing her way to the patient. Her dark hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail, mussed bangs framing her pretty face. Her movements had the confidence of someone who was experienced responding to trauma, though her petite frame made her look young and innocent at first glance. “I need something to use as a tourniquet.”
One of the assisting men unclasped his belt and handed it to her. She deftly wrapped it around the patient’s thigh and tightened it. The trapped man cried out in pain as the belt cinched tight.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” the woman told him.
Evan noted that she hadn’t said “you’re going to be okay” or any of the other platitudes a doctor often said to their patient. She had promised that he wouldn’t die while trapped under the wreckage. It was a fair statement, and Evan immediately respected her for it.
“Hey, what’s your name?” the woman asked, looking up at him from where she was crouched next to the patient.
“Evan.”
“All right, Evan. I’m Anya.” She wiped the back of one hand across her forehead, smearing the soot sticking to her perspiration. “I could use some help here.”
“Sure.” He knelt down next to her. While no stranger to blood, he didn’t like it. At least Anya seemed to be taking it well. “Are you a doctor?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Just field medic training. I didn’t see anyone else jumping in, so…”
He nodded. “I’ve had a little myself.”
“Good. So, you know what we have to do.” She met his gaze, silently communicating that she understood there was nothing they could do for the injured man aside from make him more comfortable.
“I do.”
“The rest of you, give us a hand,” Anya instructed, motioning to the three people who’d been trying to assist. “Find a pry bar.”
The man who’d offered up his belt located a length of round metal that may have once been a railing. “Will this work?”
“Good enough. Wedge it under this beam and raise it on my mark,” Anya told him.
The man stuck the lever in place, and the other helpers got in position to assist with the lift.
For his part, Evan crouched down by the trapped man’s shoulders, ready to drag him out as soon as the metal wreckage was elevated.
Anya positioned herself by his wounded leg, prepared to stem the bleeding. “All right, everyone ready? Three… two… one!”
The helpers pried up the piece of debris. With a firm tug, Evan pulled the man away from the wreckage. Anya moved with him, immediately applying pressure to the mangled leg with a balled-up shirt. As soon as they were clear, the others lowered the gnarled metal back to the ground.
“There, we’ve got you.” Anya kept both hands firmly pressed against the man’s leg, blood seeping out around the cloth.
Mercifully, the man lost consciousness, though he still trembled from the shock of the ordeal.
“I wish we had a med bay,” Anya murmured.
Evan stood up. “There are a lot of things that would be nice to have right now.” Knowing there was nothing else he could do, he stepped away from the injured man and wiped off his hands on the grass. “Have you seen any of the mission commanders among the survivors?”
“No. I don’t recognize anyone here.”
A countdown had started, and there wasn’t time to waste. They needed to take inventory of their limited resources and come up with a plan. The colonists were never meant to survive on the planet with only what was contained in the escape pods. The colony ship had all their supplies, and that had been destroyed. Now, it was a matter of how they were all going to die, and how quickly.
In an attempt to keep his thoughts from going into a doom spiral, Evan took his first good look at the surroundings. The crash site appeared to be halfway down the slope leading to a massive basin. In the distance, rolling hills transitioned into towering mountains. Below, at the base of the valley, a lush jungle spread for kilometers. Between the crash site and jungle, the landscape alternated between trees and open fields. There was clear ground in the immediate vicinity to the crash site, so at least they’d have eyes on potential approaching threats from three sides. The forest to the west was the one blind spot. However, the trees offered potential shelter and building supplies, so it was a worthwhile tradeoff.
“You know how to stay cool in a crisis,” Anya said behind him.
He turned back to face her. “So do you.”
“I don’t know about that.” With the injured man still unconscious, she stood up and adjusted her ponytail. “I just do what needs to be done.”
“That’s all it takes.”
She studied him with inquisitive, copper-colored eyes. “Were you military?”
He simply nodded, not wanting to delve into a more complicated explanation at the moment. “You?”
She laughed. “Not even close. I’m actually a biologist.”
“A biologist who moonlights as a medic?”
“A xenobiologist who’s scouted enough rough terrain on alien worlds to know how to field dress injuries.”
“Ah.”
Anya placed her hands on her hips and gazed up at the sky. “What do you think happened?”
“Clearly, there was an explosion, but that happened after the ‘abandon ship’ order had already been given. Your guess is as good as mine about what prompted the emergency evac. And then something messed with the pods’ guidance systems.” Evan doubted that everyone had made it off the ship to escape pods, but he kept that part to himself.
Anya glanced around to confirm that no one was within earshot. “Can I level with you?”
“Sure, why not?”
She took a step closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I helped select the colony site, and,” she looked around meaningfully, “this hillside isn’t it.”
“How screwed are we?”
She looked him over again from head to toe. “With a military background, you know how to… handle yourself. Is that an accurate assessment?”
“I’ve been around, yeah.”
Anya nodded solemnly. “Well, shit’s going to be real around here come nightfall. We need a plan. Now.”
“What brand of shit are we dealing with?”
“The kind that eats you before you know you’re being hunted.”
He stared at her. “That wasn’t in the colony brochure.”
“Because it was a non-issue for the specified site. We spotted some… creatures during the preliminary survey. They’re only down in the lowlands, and we were supposed to be up on the plateau.” She pointed uphill. Unfortunately, there was a sheer cliff face between their present location and level ground above.
“So, there are only happy bunnies up there, but instead we’re stuck down here with the monsters?”
“Something like that. I know we’re only several kilometers from the target site, but the elevation difference is significant. I can’t tell you exactly what the predator is, but it’s big and vicious. Took out a Ranger-R like it was a plaything.”
From what Evan had heard, Ranger-Rs were a version of the automated scout units used by the military, enhanced with additional sensors. Fast, armored, and perfect for difficult terrain. By all accounts, they were supposed to be near-indestructible.
Evan sucked on his teeth. “And we’re in this creature’s hunting grounds?”
“If we’re lucky, we landed up high enough. The Ranger-R went missing down in the jungle in a valley somewhere around here. But I don’t exactly have a nice chart of its territory, and the crash definitely made enough noise to draw attention.”
“Well, sounds like we need to get to higher ground as soon as possible.”
Anya looked over at the colonists, many of them injured. “A lot of these people won’t be able to travel.”
“I hate to break it to you, but we’re going to have to make difficult decisions here. If you say the plateau is the place to be, then every able-bodied person should get up there as fast as possible—maximize chances for survival. Everyone else can dig in here for now.”
“No, we have to stick together if we’re going to get through this.”
Evan evaluated the people rummaging through the wreckage. They had survived the crash, but most of them didn’t look like they’d make it a week on the planet, let alone long-term. He’d learned a long time ago that it was a terrible idea to go down with a failing ship; there was nothing noble about that. Yet, as much as logic told him to walk away and fend for himself, the reality was that trying to go it alone on an alien planet wasn’t likely to end well. Extra hands—even if they belonged to an inexperienced person—were a helpful resource. Perhaps, working together, they could stand a better chance.
Reluctantly, he sighed and nodded. “Okay.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
“You know the tenets of survival. Secure shelter, find water, find food.”
“And establish communication to call for help,” she added.
“Immediate physical safety is the priority. That means establishing a base camp.”
“We can use the debris to fill in the gaps between the pods and the boulders to make a perimeter fence. Staying here is temporary, but it will give us time to triage the injured. We’ll need to conduct a survey of the area and figure out precisely where we are.”
Evan judged the route up to the plateau. Though the cliff was nearly vertical, the rock had plenty of texture to make it climbable. “We need to scope out the plateau in case other pods landed up there. That higher ground will also give a better vantage on potential resources in the area.”
“Agreed. I’m also hoping our military escort is en route.”
Evan didn’t have the heart to tell her what he’d seen through the viewport while his pod was ejecting. It was only a glimpse, so he wasn’t certain, but it had looked like the military cruiser had sustained damage from an attack. If that was the case, crash-landing on the planet was only the start of their problems. “Best to assume we’re on our own for now.”
She nodded grimly. “Us against the world, right?”
“That’s right. Let’s go tell the others our plan.”
2
Evan had low expectations for the colonists, but they still managed to disappoint.
“But won’t they send help when we don’t check in?” someone called out after Anya finished explaining her plan to turn the wreckage into a perimeter fence.
“Any help is potentially months away,” Anya explained, circling back to the question for the third time. “Think about how long it took us to get here—it’s no faster for them. We planned on making this place home, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Who put you in charge, anyway?” a man called out.
Anya stood her ground. “The official mission commanders are either dead or landed elsewhere. I was on the team that established the colonization profile for this planet. That means of those of us here, I know more about it than anyone else. If you’d rather have someone in charge who can’t tell you what plants will kill you and what won’t, go for it.”
The protestor fell silent and no one else raised an objection.
“Good,” Anya continued. “Now, it’s mid-morning, so the good news is that we have most of the day to get organized. We need to go through all the pods to pull out emergency rations, med kits, and anything else that may be useful. Let’s delegate team leads for each task.”
After a needlessly contentious discussion, four delegates were selected by the group of forty-seven survivors. One was responsible for overseeing the collection and inventory of food. Another was assigned to collect and catalogue other useful materials, such as medical supplies and personal items scavenged from the wreckage. A third was tasked with securing the perimeter of the crash site. The remaining delegate would tend to the injured and coordinate shelter.
While the delegates worked out the members of their team, Anya pulled Evan aside.
“Up for a hike?” she asked.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“Peter over there,” she nodded toward a dark-skinned, middle-aged man, “seems to have leadership experience and can keep an eye on things here. I figure the two of us are best equipped to get up to high ground and see what we’re up against.”
“Works for me.”
Evan went through the preliminary collection of supplies to grab an empty bag, which he filled with a couple of water bottles, two packs of emergency rations, and some scrap cables that could be used as rope in a pinch. As prepared as they were going to get under the circumstances, Evan and Anya headed up the hill.
The hike started out easily enough, with a shallow incline and knee-high grass. It’d been years since Evan had spent any meaningful amount of time on a planet. Though the gravity simulated on ships was close to that of this world, everything from the strange scents in the air to the sensation of sun on his back reminded him that he was a spacefarer, not a colonist. He was never supposed to be here, and now it may be the last place he’d ever see.
“We got lucky, all things considered,” Anya said, breaking the silence.
“How so?”
“Aside from being alive, we didn’t land in the middle of a forest. Getting impaled by a branch would be a nasty way to go. We also could have lost a lot more pods on those rocks.”
“True.”
“Where did you serve? Any planetary assignments?”
“Not really.”
She glanced over at him. “You know, talking about yourself isn’t a crime.”
“It could be in my world.”
Anya raised an eyebrow. “And what world was that?”
He chuckled. “I see what you did there.”
“Us scientist types ask a lot of questions. Can’t help it.”
Evan had spent so many years hiding his true self that evasion was his default. It’d take time to learn another way. “I spent some time working a job where asking questions was a quick way to get yourself killed.”
“What were you doing?”
“Probably best if I don’t talk about it.”
She nodded slowly. “So, military and then… had plans to start over on a new colony to reinvent yourself?”
Evan let out a long breath. “A lot happened in between. But coming here was never part of my plans. How that disaster precipitated is a story for another time.”
“We have plenty now.”
“I’ll need a drink or two in me before diving into that mess.”
“Fine. Suit yourself.”
“What about you?” he asked. “How’d you find yourself running surveys for new settlements?”
She laughed. “Funny, about that—I wasn’t supposed to be here, either.”
“No kidding?”
“What are the odds, right?” She threw her arms wide. “Guess I was too good at my job and they decided they needed a specialist for the boots-on-the-ground colonization work. That’s what I get for actually traveling rather than strictly being a desk jockey like most of my co-workers.”
“But hey, never would have gotten that field medic experience.”
She turned solemn. “That guy’s not going to make it through the night.”
“Better than suffering. I’m most concerned about the two people with broken legs. Not fatal, but also unable to travel.”
“Especially not this route.” Anya looked ahead.
The terrain was becoming steeper. Expansive meadow grasses were now transitioning to patches of rock as they neared the cliffs.
Their conversation died out as the travel got more strenuous. The combination of a steeper angle and less stable ground made Evan work for each step. A fall here would mean a long tumble down the hillside, so he was deliberate with his footing.
The further up they went, the more treacherous the gravelly terrain became. The incline was soon steep enough that he needed to use his hands to pull himself up. Only a few meters ahead, the cliff face towered above.
Anya scowled at the rock wall. “This is a lot bigger than it looked in the distance.”
Evan looked behind them at the crash site of the surviving colonists. They could return to the group, but hope would fade the moment others realized they were trapped and there was no hope. They had to make it up the wall to the plateau. If they didn’t, they may as well give up on any future right now.
Wordlessly, Evan’s eyes met Anya’s, and she nodded with understanding. They’d have to climb, no matter the risk.
“I’ll go first,” Anya stated.
“Are you sure? I can scout ahead,” Evan offered.
“I’m lighter. Better if I’m up top.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Firstly, he may have a chance of catching her if she fell, but the same wouldn’t work in reverse. And secondly, if he wasn’t able to catch her, at least there’d be less chance of her knocking him off the wall on her way down.
With that in mind, he gave her a two-body-length lead before beginning his climb. Despite the grand scale of the rock wall, it had plenty of cracks and ledges to make it easy to find secure hand- and footholds. The initial seven meters were a relatively easy climb, but then Anya reached a more sheer section.
As she climbed up, several chunks of stone she’d used as grip points broke free. Evan pressed himself against the rockface to avoid being struck as they fell.
“Sorry!” she called down to him. “It’s brittle through here.” She climbed up another two meters. “Getting better again. There’s a big ledge up here.” With a few more moves, she pulled herself over the lip.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yeah, this is a big enough spot for both of us to rest.”
Now, he just had to get up there. The newly broken sections would make his climb more difficult.
“I’m on my way,” Evan said to encourage himself forward. He was up high enough now that his head swam when he looked down, so getting to a secure resting place sounded delightful.
He carefully found hand and foot holds to work toward the ledge. Nearly to the destination, he stretched up, his fingers barely brushing the stone ledge. The only way to grab it fully was to jump. He made the leap. As his feet pressed down with more force for the move, the rock underfoot gave way.
There was just enough spring from the jump to propel him upward, and he hooked the ledge. Desperate now, he clung on and managed to swing up his other arm to get a better hold. He hauled himself up, using his feet where he could get traction on the wall.
Once over the lip, he took a moment to catch his breath. I really need to get in better shape.
Anya stood at the back of the natural platform, looking down at him with hands on her hips. “What took you so long?” she asked jokingly.
“You busted out all the good handholds, thank you.”
Her smug demeanor faded. “Oh. Sorry about that.”
He took another deep breath and got to his feet. “All good. But we’re going to need to find a different route down.”
“I think it might actually be possible to go through the forest.” She pointed to the trees running along the far side of the crash site.
From the ground, it had looked like the forest terminated at the same rockface they were now scaling. However, from the higher vantage point, it was now clear that a band of trees continued all the way up to the plateau, and the ground was more gradually sloped heading up to that level.
“Good eye,” Evan told Anya. “We might even be able to get injured people up that way. We can scope it out on the way back.”
Anya smiled. “We may have a chance yet. Come on, we’re almost to the top.” She took hold of the rock behind her and continued the ascent.
Unlike the section they’d just traversed, the next portion was distinctly sloped, so it was closer to crawling than climbing. In short order, they’d ascended the final fifty meters and were coming up on level ground.
The plateau wasn’t nearly as flat as Evan had anticipated. Though there was a sizeable wide open and level area, there were also additional hills. A ridge ran perpendicular to the valley where they’d crashed, and its base was about a kilometer from their present location.
“We should get up there,” Evan said. “If we can see over the other side, we’ll have a much better idea about what we’re dealing with.”
“Agreed.”
They took a brisk pace up the hill, eager to reach the crest and see what was on the other side.
Near the top, Evan got his first unobstructed view of their surroundings. Below, the landing pods were scattered around the hillside. However, they weren’t confined to the meadow where Evan’s had touched down. Some were scattered even further down the hill, and others beyond the trees. The white pods stood out as bright dots against the green landscape, but he couldn’t make out the smaller forms of people from that distance.
“All right, so we might have more numbers than we thought,” Anya said.
“We can send messengers to them if they haven’t already connected with our group by the time we’re back.”
He finished hiking the remaining distance to the crest of the ridge. Getting his first look at the other side, his heart sank. A column of smoke was rising in the distance—far too large to be from landing pods. It could only be one thing.
Anya also caught sight of the smoke. “What’s that?”
“Our military escort.”
<End of preview>
— — —
Stranded will release on February 7, 2025
Grab your copy on Amazon!
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