Kratman Snippets
Days of Burning, Days of Wrath – What has gone before
The First Snippet of this book will also be posted today. Days of Burning, Days of Wrath - What has gone before Days of Burning, Days of Wrath Thomas P. Kratman For: Leo F. Casey, English Teacher Par Excellence, Boston Latin School (My errors are mine, not his.) What has gone before: Long ago, long before the appearance of man, there came to Earth the aliens known to us only as the "Noahs." About them, as a species, nothing is known, least of all what they called themselves. Their existence is surmised by the project they left...
Days of Burning, Days of Wrath – Snippet 01
Note, I've posted a "What Has Gone On Before" for this book today. Days of Burning, Days of Wrath - Snippet 01 Chapter One "Die hard, Fifty-seventh, die hard!" --Lieutenant Colonel William Inglis, Battle of Albuera, 1811 Cristobal Province, Balboa But for the blasted skeletons of dead trees, the landscape resembled something of a moonscape. Fully half of the visible ground, and quite possibly more than that, was composed of craters, themselves now filling with poisoned water, seeping from traumatized soil. Repeated concussion from...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 38
This book should be available now, so this is the last snippet. A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 38 Tauran Defense Agency Headquarters, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova Campbell and Turenge decided to lead their report for Janier with a litany of the anomalies, these ranging from more than double the required numbers of barrels for mortars and towed artillery, to unaccounted for long range multiple rocket launcher systems, to acrylic probably intended for Meg Class submarines but well in excess to needs for the number believed to have been...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 37
A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 37 CHAPTER THIRTEEN "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." --Virgil, the Aeneid Tauran Defense Agency Headquarters, Lumière, Gaul, Terra Nova One entry in the spreadsheets and reports given her by Vladimir puzzled Jan Campbell deeply. What, she wondered, is an SPM-7b? It's a fairly recent purchase. It doesn't have a motor. It has no caliber. It seems to use a kind of fuel cell. It comes in a . . . hmmm . . . She took the file with her as she left her office. Captain Turenge, deep in her own number crunching,...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 36
A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 36 Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, Puerto Lindo, Balboa Schools were in many ways ideal for military headquarters. They had auditoria, classrooms for offices and billeting, mess facilities, sometimes medical facilities, internal communications, parade grounds for helicopter landing and pickup zones, storage areas, etc. A military school like this one, though, far exceeded the normal school standard for military utility by adding arms rooms, ammunition storage bunkers, heavy vehicle maintenance...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 35
A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 35 Escuela Maria, Madre de Dios, San Jaba, Santa Josefina When you engage in an atrocity against mostly innocent parties, thought Legate Villalobos, it's at least a minor balm to your conscience when your victims are cultural foreigners. As if to punctuate the thought, there came a brief and ragged rattle of musketry, followed by the mass screams of what sounded like women and children. As if on cue, because it was on cue, a San Jaban man, hands tied behind him, was led out between the blue- and...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 34
A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 34 CHAPTER TWELVE "There comes a point during the course of the war when the people, especially those in the comparative safety of the towns, have to be informed in no uncertain terms who is going to be the master." --Sir Robert G. K. Thompson, No Exit From Vietnam Intelligence Office, UEPF Spirit of Peace, in Orbit over Terra Nova The map showed on a screen darkened to indicate that it was night time below. Even then, there were glowing marks, red and white, blue and green and yellow, to indicate activity...
A Pillar Of Fire By Night – Snippet 33
A Pillar Of Fire By Night - Snippet 33 "What's the load on this one, Vera?" Sergeant (retired) Pavlov asked of Sergeant Dzhugashvili. He spoke Russian, which Vera had learned in the home from her parents, even though she considered Spanish her first language. "Five-minute bomb," she answered, simply. "I love those," he said. "We all do. They don't hurt anybody . . . well . . . hardly anybody, but they hurt the enemy, bad." "What's the target for today?" "More like the target for this week," she answered. "We don't really have that many...