QSFer Arshad Ahsanuddin has a two queer sci fi books out in his Interscission series: Mercury & Ascension.
Death comes for us all.
But sometimes it comes early, because it’s sent.
Everything seems to be going great in Christopher’s world. Newly married and promoted, he’s even hammered out the dents in his relationship with his brother Marley.
Then a death in the family shakes the foundations of his world. When the word comes down that it was murder, then only the best forensic investigator of the Chiron Defense Force will do to assist the Travellers in finding the culprit. And that happens to be Marley.
When the investigation begins to lead to one of their own, however, the question changes: was it murder, or treason?
History is a Lie. One final battle will decide whether Humanity will survive to tell the tale.
Welcome, to the End of Days.
Jacob Atkins was eighteen years old when he lost his best friend, Mark. Since then, he’s tried to move on with his life, building a career in the Hourglass Corps. Then an unexpected convergence of events threatens to expose the Hourglass, and destroy everything they have tried to accomplish.
Martin Atkins thought he was perfectly happy as a relatively unremarkable Captain in the Confederation Marines, until a terse message landed in his inbox from a man he thought was the love of his life. Now, all the secrets his family has inherited are at risk, not only from humanity, but from an insidious threat that he has only glimpsed until now.
Calvin Teague has been Michelle Atkins’s obsession since the Janus Incident. But the fugitive traitor is much more than he appears, and at long last, all the misshapen puzzle pieces fall into place as the mystery of his role is finally unravelled, leaving her with no option but to wage a desperate war against the most implacable and terrifying enemy humanity has ever faced:
Its children.
Mercury: Amazon | Universal Link
Ascension: Amazon | Universal Link
Mercury Excerpt
Prologue: I Will Fear No Evil March 2157
Hourglass Headquarters. Four years after the Janus Incident
The poison had been subtle. She hadn’t realized what was happening to her until much too late. But she might have just enough time to secure their legacy against whomever it was that had decided to take her out of the picture.
Sophia Wu completed the final connection and waited until the ac- tivation lights blinked green. All was in readiness.
Laboriously, she got to her feet and half stumbled into the chair. She closed the VR headset around her head and initiated total fusion. In a moment, the advanced heuristics synced up to her brainwave patterns.
She became the Hub: could feel every aspect of the station, knew where every one of its inhabitants were, and knew what they were working on.
With this level of access, it was simple enough to identify the spy. If she’d had more time, she could have waited long enough to catch him in the act, but that was a luxury she didn’t have. At best, she could deny him what he sought and hope the others would find enough evidence to convince themselves of his guilt. There was nothing else she could do in what little time she had available.
She deactivated the VR pickups and rose to her feet, noting the tremble to her movements. Quickly, she typed a series of commands into the workstation control pad, and the VR access chair shimmered and disappeared from view.
She smiled. Without direct access, the data could now only be ac- cessed from Shamballa, and the spy could go to Hell and back before he received any help from that quarter. The data was safe.
Her knees gave out, and she fell to the floor. My duty is complete. Honor is satisfied.
A voice sounded in her mind, surrounding her. Indeed, it is. Come, sister. It is past time we welcomed you home.
Her lips quirked upward as she died, falling backward into the arms of the being who held her up and who walked beside her into Shamballa.
Author Bio
Arshad Ahsanuddin is a practicing hematopathologist, a physician specializing in the diagnosis of diseases of blood, bone marrow, and lymph nodes using laboratory data and microscopic evaluation of tissue biopsies. He is also the author of The Pact Arcanum Saga science fiction vampire series. Yes, he’s a blood doctor who wrote a series of vampire novels. The irony isn’t lost on him. If you enjoyed this story, or if you have questions about The Interscission Project, check out his website at http://pactarcanum.com and leave him some feedback.
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