Combat Frame XSeed: SS Cover Reveal

Book 2 in my brand new Combat Frame XSeed: S series is in development. You’ve seen the cover. Now here’s a foretaste of what the new book will be all about:

SPACE IS A GRAVEYARD

They
came to destroy us. Now they’re humanity’s only hope.

The
Guardian Angels race home to confront a traitor. Instead, disaster
forces them into a savage battle with an invincible enemy bent on
Earth’s annihilation.

Can
Jehu Red lead his team to victory over a power even greater than
their XSeeds? Or will humanity burn on the funeral pyre of history?

If
you like Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Mobile Suit
Gundam, you’ll love this continuation of  the hit Combat Frame XSeed saga!

Hungry for more? Here’s an appetizer:

Avignon
Royal Asteroid, CY 98

A
string of decisions, each seemingly reasonable at the time, had once
again left Heather standing waist-deep in a warm pool holding a bunch
of worms in one hand and a platypus in the other.

“Playtime’s
over,” former Coalition Secretary-General Maritza Eckhart said from
behind her, despite the fact that she was dead. “We’ve got a job
for you.”

Heather’s
strawberry blond hair swept the water’s surface as she turned. Damp
strands clung to the slate gray wetsuit that left her fair forearms
and lower legs bare. The blue-tiled room lay empty behind her.
Embarrassment heated her cheeks. “Oh, right. There are speakers
here but no Witness gallery.”

“Nice
reflexes,” said Mitzi’s disembodied voice. “Now get out of the
pool. The Saeculum legate’s waiting for you in the hangar.”

Heather
looked below the swell of her breasts to the sleek, billed mammal
wiggling in her hand. “But I’m feeding the platypus,” she
objected.

“You
can stop. He’s getting a bit plump.”

“That’s
exactly why I can’t stop.”

A
pause ensued, broken only by the splashing of tiny flippers, as the
snapping bill gobbled up the worms in Heather’s hand.

Mitzi
loosed an earsplitting yell. The sting of a heel spur stabbed into
Heather’s wrist. Her hand jerked open, and the culprit paddled
away.

“007!”
she chided the platypus as he dived out of sight. “Joke’s on him.
I built up an immunity.”

“Good
for you,” said Mitzi. “Now get a move on!”

“Right,”
Heather said as she sloshed out of the pool. “Time to go to work.”

Heather
left wet footprints down the red-carpeted hallway to her suite of
rooms. She hurried through a bedchamber featuring entirely pink
décor—with the exception of a bed, which she didn’t have
anyway—and into the adjacent bathroom.

Peeling
off her wetsuit and showering the algae smell out of her hair
provided just the pick-me-up she needed. Heather wrapped a plush
white towel around her fit body, returned to her bedroom, and stood
before the pink-framed Hollywood mirror. “Time to put on my face.”

Her
dressing table’s top left drawer held a box of ruby hair dye. She
squeezed the sharp-scented contents into her waist-length mane and
worked in the nanite-laden gel. Within seconds, the treatment colored
each strand a vibrant light red.

Heather
stared in satisfaction at her altered reflection, but the dark
circles under her green eyes gave her a moment’s pause. She pressed
a finger to her cheek below the orbit of her right eye and pulled
down.

“I
look like the aftermath of a Three Stooges skit. Maybe I should start
sleeping again …” The glossy black handheld on the pink tabletop
emitted a squeak, alerting her to a new message from Mitzi. “…
After this job.”

Heather
picked up the phone and skimmed the message urging her to hurry as
she glided to her walk-in closet. She set the device facedown on the
dresser, revealing a red Z inside a general prohibition sign on the
back, and opened the middle drawer. The foam lining contained a matte
black MP5A2 with a fixed stock and a curved thirty-round magazine.

She
smiled, pulled open the top drawer, and took out a vacuum-sealed
bundle of black fabric. Heather was about to close the drawer when
she thought better of it and grabbed another black bundle first.

Breaking
the seal released a scent like the little packs of round pellets
included in shoeboxes. Heather drew out a suit of smooth material
both tougher and suppler than her wetsuit. Composed of two carbyne
polymer layers with a nanite matrix sandwiched between, the third
generation actuator slid on like a glove.

Slipping
into her actuator suit felt to Heather like putting her skin back on.
Which implied that being naked was like having her skin flayed off.
Which in turn meant that wearing her actuator was analogous to being
naked. “Can’t very well meet a man of the cloth like that, now
can I?”

Heather
faced the rack behind her and slid various blouses, sweaters, gowns,
and mascot costumes aside until she found an item resembling a
one-piece swimsuit but heavier. Though thinner and more flexible than
most body armor, the additional layer offered enough protection to
stop a 9mm round—compensation for the base layer’s reduced
durability. She donned the armor and hit the chest switch that
adjusted its five-point harness to a snug fit.

She
stuffed the handheld into her armor’s right shoulder pouch, stuck
the MP5 plus an extra mag to a nano-adhesive patch on her back, and
tucked the spare actuator under her left arm. Facing the full-length
mirror, Heather checked her ensemble down to the PAX insignia and the
F-cell patch—a red circled Z, now bisected with a deep diagonal
gash—on opposite sides of her chest.

The
two pink silk ribbons draped over the mirror’s side caught
Heather’s eye. A strange sorrow bubbled up from deep inside. Her
hands moved as if by rote, taking the smooth ribbons with
near-reverence and tying them into her ruby hair.

Another
squeak from the phone broke her trance and sent her rushing from the
room. A short ride in a walnut-paneled lift painted with gold
filigree brought Heather to a lofty cavern dug from the asteroid base
Avignon—redoubt of the exiled King of Nouvelle France.

The
lift doors rolled open, letting in a deep generator hum. A combat
frame loomed between her and the arched hangar door a hundred meters
away. The CF’s three-tiered golden helm, tabard-like armor, and
white cloak stood out against the darkness of space. It carried a
tall lance surmounted by a prismatic cross.

“That
must be the legate’s CF. Pretty on the nose, but points for
originality.”

“It
was inspired by Pope Leo’s encounter with Attila the Hun,” a
legato voice said in French from Heather’s right, “so I must
decline your praise.”

A
middle-aged man with a head of graying brown stubble stood on the
polished stone deck three meters from the lift door. His brown
pilgrim’s robe failed to hide his muscular frame.

Heather
exited the lift and took two paces toward him. “Pardon me for
keeping you waiting,” she replied naturally in the same tongue.
“Father …”

“Brother,”
the legate corrected her. “Brother Jonah Isidore Benito.” His
weathered brow knotted. “You are Miss DeLorraine?”

“So
I’m told.”

“Forgive
me. I did not expect someone like you.”

Amusement
tugged at a corner of Heather’s lip. “Showing up unexpected is
one of my natural talents. Do you have a problem that calls for it?”

Brother
Jonah clasped his hands behind his back and paced back and forth.
“His Majesty graciously hid my order from the Coalition. We
developed many skills and technologies to aid us in hiding. Now,
those same aids lead us to conclude that our time of reemergence
draws near.”

Heather
scratched her head with a gloved hand. “You want help with your
comeback? I guess I could do some stealth marketing.”

The
legate planted himself before her. “The Witnesses talk of a new
cycle beginning. Great and terrible events are about to repeat.
Ancient roles are taken up by new actors in need of guidance—some
of them known to you.”

Heather
looked to the hangar’s left wall. There, her queen’s missile
tube-pocked +Seed
Castellan stood on its tank tread legs. “The Witnesses talk a lot.
As for those pilots on the SP, they couldn’t take a hint. Are you
sure involving me more will help?”

“The
self-styled Angels are bound for Earth to confront the Diras. Their
captain is well-meaning but lacks knowledge. And they have already
encountered another Type III Sentinel.

Heather
hugged herself with nanite-enhanced strength to contain a pang of
regret. “That’s my point. If I hadn’t intervened, Brooks might
still be alive.”

Sympathy
softened Brother Jonah’s face. “You do yourself an injustice
taking blame for his sins. His courtship with death preceded you, and
was consummated by his will alone.”

Heather
sighed. “What if I say no?”

“Your
successors race toward a battle that was never meant to occur. Their
conflict with the Diras draws them into a Game for which they are
unready. Only you can prepare them to run Arthur’s gauntlet.”

“Arthur,”
Heather cursed through clenched teeth. She held back the howling void
that had eaten her memory and hungered for her mind by digging her
carbyne-sheathed nails into her palms.

“He
set these events in motion long ago,” said Brother Jonah. “If
this cycle is left to unfold on its own, it may be the last.”

Heather
relaxed her body with a sharp exhale. “Does Arthur’s little
suck-up Ziebig have a role in this cycle?”

“By
his free choice,” Brother Jonah pronounced.

“What
if I defenestrate him from an O’Neill cylinder?”

“The
Lord only knows, but often our inner dispositions aid us in
discerning His will.”

Heather
strode past the legate and his cross-bearing combat frame to a jet
black CF crouching on the central launch catapult. A pair of EM
launchers loaded with barrel-shaped remotes adorned its broad back.

The
nanite net suffusing Heather’s actuator signaled the black CF as
she approached. A cylindrical lift descended from its abdomen to the
deck amid an astringent mist. She stepped inside and took a black
helmet with a skull-emblazoned visor from a rack to her left.

“You’re
right,” she called back to Jonah. “Time to stop hiding. I’ll go
first.”

Get ready for a wild ride. Here’s your jumping-on point: