A Reluctant Sovereign is done – Next?

I should have a cover soon. I have one choice already. I probably will do a non-series book next. It’s getting harder to extend the April-Family Law series.
I have a couple books already started. I’ll post openings to see what interests you fans. Here is the first:

The trail was uphill. Not steep enough to call it a climb, but enough to force a conservative pace. The woods were dark with the dense closed canopy of old growth. The trail was not groomed or heavily used and had markers only at junctions. A couple times he’d had to look carefully to make sure he wasn’t branching off on a game trail or a clean wash by mistake. The air was cool but humid and thick with the rich odors of a forest floor piled deep with decaying debris. The logs of fallen trees were hidden under deep green caps of moss and low areas were thick with ferns.

That was fine, Robert had seen enough of bare rocky dirt and clay dust in the last six years to last him a lifetime. There were places he favored in New Mexico and Arizona. Someday he’d get back to them. But right now, he didn’t want anything that resembled the plains of Afghanistan.

His tread was too silent for bear country, but walking quietly was a difficult habit to break. He slipped back into a silent stalk if he didn’t think about it constantly, so he had a bell affixed to his walking staff. He wouldn’t mind seeing a bear, if it wasn’t up close and personal. If a bear or he made a really bad error, he had a Ruger Alaskan in .480 Ruger tucked in a clip holster inside his jeans. He wasn’t sure there was such a thing as enough gun for brown bear, but that was as much as he was willing to carry along all day. There was a single speed loader in his left pocket, full of hot hand loads crimped extra deep to hold the bullets in against the savage recoil, but he had no illusions he’d ever get all five rounds off at a charging brownie.

His pack was nothing after the full load-out he’d gotten used to in the service. He had a light bag and a shelter that wasn’t really a full tent, just a tube for the bag and an over flap and bug screen held off his head by one skinny pole. He was going to overnight once near the summit of this trail and descend about twelve kilometers tomorrow to a parking lot. There would be cell phone service there and the canoe livery in town had agreed to provide him an informal taxi service.

The way narrowed as the trail found a steeper grade between a tall bluff to the left and a drop off easing in from the right. The rocky bluff gradually dropped and became a steep slope of ferns. There was no switchback visible cutting across it so he must be very close to where the trail turned left onto the plateau. The plateau itself rose away to the east, but with a much gentler grade across the top than the trail. He’d camp at the far edge tonight before descending tomorrow.

When the slope to his left was only about ten meters high he came to a partial clearing with a jumbles of boulders and a few fallen trees. The climb was steep enough he decided to take a break. The trail curved sharply to the left ahead, no doubt breaking out on the top, and he’d like his break here where it was shady still. He found a natural seat among the boulders and left his pack on leaning back against it with his feet up on another rock. He reached back awkwardly and fetched his water bottle off the side of his pack and sipped. The wind in the trees could be heard this near the top. He could even see it stir the ferns at the top of the slope, but not feel it.

He listened carefully now that he wasn’t moving but there was no sound of small forest creatures. Once he thought he caught something calling aloud but it was too faint and though he strained to hear it didn’t repeat. He replaced the water and roused himself to finish his climb, easing off the rocks and stretching. He’d gone no more than two steps before the outcry clearly repeated from up-slope, but it seemed a voice, no animal.

He looked up again as a dark figure hurled over the edge, dark and hard to distinguish any details as it tumbled down slope crushing a groove through the perfect carpet of ferns. He watched mouth open in wonder as it rolled loosely into the clearing and fetched up against a log with a thump that made him grimace. It was a woman dressed in dark tight clothing and normal enough except for a certain frail fairy grace. She had the limp sprawl of the unconscious.

A curse pulled his eyes back to the slope again as a larger figure in digi-cam hurled off the top of the rise with even less control than the woman. His trajectory didn’t dump him into the concealing ferns until about half way down the slope and he made much more noise rolling to a stop that missed the log against which the woman had fetched up. The man had a standard issue M4 and hadn’t lost it because it was hung on a harness across his chest. He was visibly rattled and struggled to get to a sitting position although one leg was bent under him awkwardly. He looked wild eyed and tried to bring the rifle to bear on Bob, failing when he fell back on his side and jammed the muzzle in the dirt.

“Easy fella,” Bob pleaded, showing him his palms. “I’m not part of your operation, whatever it is. I’m just a hiker.” The man ignored that and although obviously hurt was determined to bring the rifle up while lying on his left side. The fellow was laying a good three meters away and seeing the wavering muzzle come up again he had no choice but to draw on him. The Ruger only had a two-and-a-half-inch barrel so the flare of unburned powder threw a flame a quarter of the distance to the man. The blast of a full hot load was deafening. He hit right center of mass, but the way the man was thrown back and was still moving told him he had on armor. He probably had a hard breast plate to stop something this heavy.

To his left the woman’s face appeared over the log shocked with eyes wide and tiny mouth a circle. It distracted him for a moment but the soldier who had been flat on his back was digging a heel in pushing himself away from Bob, to get the leg folded under him straightened out, and was up on one elbow already. His grip on the rifle and intense stare at Bob said he hadn’t given up.

Bob took careful aim right up his crotch where there would be no armor and a straight avenue up his torso to vital organs. The muzzle blast was even worse when he was anticipating it and the recoil punishing. The woman looked back and forth between him and the soldier confused.

The crack of a bullet passing in front of his face was so close the shock-wave slapped him. He turned to see another trooper standing on the top of the bluff correcting his aim when a flare of white light burst on the man’s chest and send him tumbling down the same path of crushed ferns marking the slope now. That was weird but he had no time to question it.

The woman looked over her shoulder at him with a euphoric crazed expression and raised two fingers, not in a V but together – keeping score. He returned her regard and solemnly held up one finger and then moved his hand over in a little hop to repeat it, one and one he meant to say. She seemed to find that amusing. There was a scuff and a bruise rising from her eye to her ear. The black gun in her hand was impossibly small but she made no effort to point it at him, which was an improvement on the soldier’s attitude.

“I don’t appreciate being sucked into whatever is going on,” he told the woman. “I didn’t want to shoot this stupid son of a bitch, but he wasn’t going to give up.” He stopped and stripped the body of magazines and unclipped the M4 and made sure the muzzle was clear of dirt. If there were more of them coming, he’s need more than a short-barreled pistol. There were two fragmentation grenades in the man’s vest, he hesitated thinking of the legal consequences, and then jammed them in his own pockets. They hardly mattered on top of shooting a man.

“Are there more coming?” he asked the woman. She had got up if a bit wobbly and was watching him strip the man of weapons and ammo with obvious curiosity.

“I don’t know. Very likely. As you said, they don’t give up easily. I didn’t want to shoot anybody either,” she assured him. “Or I wouldn’t have ran. Why are you taking these things?” she asked of his looting.

“If I have to have to fight with more of these fellows, I need something more than a pistol. This is an excellent weapon and I’ve trained with it,” he indicated the M4. Finding a small radio smashed it under his heel in case it had a tracer in it.

“Why is that all you are carrying then?” she asked reasonably.

“I didn’t plan on fighting anyone,” he said a bit irritated. “I didn’t even expect to see anyone out here. I was looking forward to the solitude, but that is shot to hell and gone for sure! I had the pistol in case I ran into a Grizzly.”

“What is a Grizzly?” she asked with perfect innocence.

That stopped him dead. He looked up at her unbelieving. “If you don’t know what a Grizzly is you have no business out in these woods. A Grizzly is a bear. A carnivore that stands half again as tall as me and weighs as much as fourteen hundred pounds.” He demonstrated what he meant baring his teeth and pulling both hands up with fingers curled into claws. “They can run three or four times as fast as you can and would regard you as a refreshing little appetizer. Would you like to meet one?”

“I’m starting to think no,” she allowed. “I’m not clear on pounds – how many pounds are you?” she asked giving him an appraising look.

“Well, that’s a really personal question, but since we are close enough to be killing folks together, I’m a hundred and eighty-five pounds bare assed naked of an average morning.”

“Seven times your mass?” she asked incredulous.

“Yeah, for a big one. Maybe you’ll luck out and run into a skinny one.”

She looked around the woods with new eyes. She was smart enough to be scared. He liked smart in a woman. She also had her hand back on the little bulge in a pocket that must be her gun. Smart again.

“I’m going to get the other guy’s mags too. You figure to take off on your own or are you looking to partner with me to get out of here?”

“Partner is together?” she asked dubious. “Forever or for a time?” She asked.

“I had in mind until we are clear of this mess. You want to negotiate later we can, but I’d like to be gone from here before a couple hundred of these guy’s close friends show up,” he said nodding at the corpses.

The second soldier he went to strip was burned. He’d never seen a wound like that before. It looked like the man’s chest just exploded. Like he imagined a lightning strike might look. The man had no unit patches or rank insignia, no flag or name tag either. That scared him all over again.

“You want the other rifle? He asked as he stuffed the second soldier’s magazines in his ruck. “You just have a pistol too,” he pointed out.

There was a sudden roar of rotor blades and whining turbines and a huge helicopter passed across the small patch of open sky at the top of the much abused slope, barely clearing the trees. There was a flurry of leaves and twigs from the canopy and he could follow its sound as it slowed and came back around in a circle to hover up over the edge of the plateau. It was a dark dull gray and there were no marking on it. He knew looking into the tunnel of trees by eyeball they were hidden in deep shadow, but he also knew the crew had thermal sensors and could see them glowing like neon on their screens.

He chambered a round intending to go down shooting, but he had no illusions he’d prevail seeing the barrel of a cannon pivot towards them on the helicopters snout. He was looking for an intake duct to send a burst down, hoping to ruin a turbine.

The woman raised her gun faster than him, twisting a knob hard clockwise where the hammer should be. When she squeezed off a shot a mirror appeared in the air around her muzzle. A big round mirror near a meter across. He could see her face perfectly reflected in the back of it, lips a thin line of concentration.

Beyond the mirror an eye dazzling white hot line impaled the helicopter and extended unimpeded into the sky. The vegetation rolled back from the displaced air of that beam like a tank cannons muzzle blast. It made his pistol sound like a .22. The concussion slapped him so hard it hurt.

He watched as in slow motion the rotor blades spun off in various directions. The cabin split in two and was pushed to each side by an expanding fireball. The whole tail section seemed to hang there like it was deciding whether to follow, and slowly rolled over and fell somewhere up on the plateau. They stood together while heavy chunks of machinery fell with thuds, one huge rotor blade going past overhead with a whoosh, followed by shards of burning plastic and twisted shreds of smoking sheet metal raining down all around them, nothing crushing them miraculously. His vision had a dark purple line seared in it like the mother of all flash blobs.

“I apologize for insulting your cute little pistol.” he said very formally and gave her a little bow. They both stood and laughed in manic relief at death so closely avoided. He didn’t offer her the rifle again

“I will partner for a time,” she allowed. “Lead on if you will.”