Athena Lee Chronicles 0: The Lost Pilot (7 page)

I made stopping motions with my hands. "Please, let me finish. As I said, the other ships have not appeared. They may have gotten lost, been sabotaged, or had different orders than mine. I don't know. Earth Gov sent me here to found a colony and use it to send materials back to Earth." I had their attention now and it did not look good.

"The coordinates that we used and the information that our orders contained were not the same ones. The numbers matched up, but not the systems or the star charts. This colony is not supposed to be on a planet. We are supposed to be in orbit mining the asteroid field. This system does not have one of those. So we are off-grid when it comes to Earth. Don't worry, this will not be a dictatorship. I have no intention of ruling as a king, or even ruling at all. This is your planet, not mine. But some really hard decisions remain."

The councilors had wide eyes now. I was the enemy and I was giving them the planet. They had no idea what to do.

"First the bad news. The ride down to the planet is excessively trying on the human body. Remember the first trip down? Humans in both the old and very young age range are at extreme risk. That leaves us with some hard choices. This ship. Do we keep it in orbit to provide the colony with support and communications? Or do we land it. The humans that are at risk can stay on board if it stays in space. If it lands, they may die. While the ship has power to last for many years the shuttles, do not. They have a finite number of trips they can make before running out of fuel. We had planned to make our own fuel from materials mined in the asteroid belt which we don't have."

Finally one of the councilors spoke to me. I was beginning to think they'd forgotten how.

"What are you and the other ship's Officers going to do?"

I smiled at them. "That is an excellent question. There was a scout ship included in the cargo hold. It can transport ten. All of the command staff and most of engineering have chosen to leave with me. The rest including the security team is staying to help you. We have may have lost or injured brothers out there somewhere. We wish to find them. You are safe from Earth, for now. Use your safety wisely." I stood up from the table. "Let the command staff know what to do with the ship." I turned away and left the room.

It would behard for them to see that I was not the monster that they made me out to be. The command staff and I had one last night on board the ship. The new colonists had chosen to cut all ties with Earth and have us ground the ship. They could use it to jump start the industry on the planet and build that much faster. We were leaving. According to the star charts, the nearest colony was two jumps away. If they were accurate it was only a 'short' hop of two years. We still had plenty of supplies and had told an untruth to the colonial council, Earth did know where they were. They alway did.

To be truthful we wanted to be as far away as we could be when the Program and the Illuminati came in search of us.

We had plenty of time to run as far away as we could.

This ends Sam 0256's story for now. We first met Sam in book 3 of the Athena Lee Chronicles. Ghost ships of Terra. He had befriended Athena Lee, the series main character. Sam is important because his story is the story of what happened on Earth. And Earth is the focus of the next major story arc in Athena Lee's adventures. Look for book 7 of Athena's adventures soon. She will be visiting Mars.

I started writing in February of this year (2016). My good friend Michael Anderle kept pushing me to put words on paper. So I did. The Forgotten Engineer was my first try at writing fiction. I have written some non-fiction for both the Witches Voice and for the Magical Almanac. But that was not fiction. I will be the first to admit that my early writing had a few misspellings and typo's. An English major I am not. In fact, that was one subject that I did not excel in during college. I have a BFA in Telecommunications along with a Culinary degree. I'm an old Radio guy that like to cook. I now am working with an editor and several Beta readers.

Please check out my
other books in the Athena Lee series
and
visit my Blog
for Wilson Wednesdays every Wednesday for a free Short story.

Prequel: The Lost Pilot

1.
The Forgotten Engineer

2.
Engineering Murder

3.
Ghost Ships of Terra

4.
Revolutionary

5.
Insurrection

6.
Imperial Subversion

7. TBD - Due in June 2016

8. TBD - Due in June 2016

9. TBD - Due in July 2016

10. TBD

Wilson's War

And lots more to come!

I had a special character in this story. Xandrie. Xandrie is based on a real person, that of author Xandrie Kovak, she is a fellow author and has asked other authors to kill her! In books, of course. So far several others have killed her too. Check out the
OMG they Killed Xandrie
website for more info on this and maybe find a good book or two to check out.

Last but not least the reviews.

I get lots of reviews, some good, some bad, some funny ones too. Here are some of the best ones.

4.0 out of 5 stars Paul has gotten so much better with his writing and this is just his first ...

ByAmazon Customer on May 5, 2016

Format: Kindle Edition

Paul has gotten so much better with his writing and this is just his first series. The Athena Chronicles are a great serial type space opera yarn. Don't expect hard science or political commentary. Just expect a great story, a writer settling into his stride and some great action.

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read

ByTD Webbon May 2, 2016

Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

I just spent the entire night reading all five books ,can't wait for the next. I just couldn't put them down wanted to know that came next. The characters are great, Wilson is so eighties lol awesome. Yeah there are some typos oh nobody is perfect and they didn't take anything away from the story.

5.0 out of 5 stars This series gets better every time a book is added.

ByN. Kingon April 30, 2016

Format: Kindle Edition

The author has done a fantastic job. Once you start reading it is impossible to stop until the end. I' am looking forward to the next book .

4.0 out of 5 stars Would make a great Televison show

ByJames Mockon April 28, 2016

Format: Kindle Edition

I love the idea of the main hero being an Engineer. The books are short but they come out very quickly. I really must say that the description of Athena wading into a crippled ship and saving it (earlier book so not much of a spoiler) was really well done, at least for me. Bravo.

I look forward to the next installment. Same Athena time, same Athena channel.

Copyright (c) 2016 T S Paul

This book is a work of fiction, All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Cover designed by Michael T. Anderle

Digital Artwork by Scott Richards

Check out his Fantastic art here!

Editing by Diane Velasquez. Dorene Johnson, and David Brims

Formating and writing done with Scrivener

Special thanks to Michael and to my wife Heather who keeps me grounded and to Merlin the Cat, we are his minions.