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    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6: The Empty Quarter
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6: The Empty Quarter
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6: The Empty Quarter
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6: The Empty Quarter

    By Philip Bosshardt

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The UN Secretary-General is explosively disassembled in a Singapore hospital. He’s replaced by something else, an angel. The same happens to the Russian President. And the British Prime Minister. Worse, UN BioShield is detecting an unexplainable surge of illegal nanobotic activity in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, a surge that may be behind not only a global pandemic of angels replacing normal people, but also affecting the Earth’s climate as well.
    Faced with growing evidence that the cartel Red Harmony is behind this, Johnny Winger and his quantum troopers are given a mission to recon an archeological site in the Empty Quarter, one of the bleakest places on Earth. What they find there is one of the strangest devices they’ve ever encountered. It’s a Sphere, seemingly a gateway to a ‘transit corridor’ to an alien race and it seems that Red Harmony may be in control of the thing. Given orders to prevent the cartel from gaining access to alien technology, Winger and his troopers end up transported to one of the weirdest ‘places’ they’ve ever encountered...a world of bots that may be a simulation of the home world of a long-dead alien people.
    In this bizarre world, Winger and his team must battle not only Red Harmony agents and forces beyond their understanding but also themselves and their own fears and dreads. Only the past memories of an ancient family heritage from one trooper offers the atomgrabbers any hope of escape.
    Sixth episode in the Quantum Troopers Return serial.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhilip Bosshardt
    Release dateJul 10, 2020
    ISBN9780463590713
    Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6: The Empty Quarter
    Author

    Philip Bosshardt

    Philip Bosshardt is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He works for a large company that makes products everyone uses...just check out the drinks aisle at your grocery store. He’s been happily married for over 20 years. He’s also a Georgia Tech graduate in Industrial Engineering. He loves water sports in any form and swims 3-4 miles a week in anything resembling water. He and his wife have no children. They do, however, have one terribly spoiled Keeshond dog named Kelsey.For details on his series Tales of the Quantum Corps, visit his blog at qcorpstimes.blogspot.com or his website at http://philbosshardt.wix.com/philip-bosshardt.

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      Book preview

      Quantum Troopers Return Episode 6 - Philip Bosshardt

      Quantum Troopers Return

      Episode 6: The Empty Quarter

      Published by Philip Bosshardt at Smashwords

      Copyright 2020 Philip Bosshardt

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      A few words about this series….

      Quantum Troopers Return is a series of 25,000-30,000-word episodes detailing the adventures of Johnny Winger and his experiences as a quantum trooper with the United Nations Quantum Corps. This series continues the original serial stories of Quantum Troopers, Episodes 1-22 (formerly Nanotroopers).

      Each episode will be about 40-60 pages, approximately 30,000 words in length.

      A new episode will be available and uploaded every 4 weeks.

      There will be 10 episodes. The story will be completely serialized in about 12 months.

      Each episode is a stand-alone story but will advance the greater theme and plot of the story arc.

      The main plotline: U.N. Quantum Corps must defeat the criminal cartel Red Harmony’s efforts to use their nanorobotic ANAD systems for the cartel’s own nefarious and illegal purposes.

      Uploads will be made to www.smashwords.com on approximately the schedule below:

      Episode # (*) Title Approximate Upload Date

      1 (23) ‘Fab Lords’ 2-7-20

      2 (24) "Free Fall’ 3-6-20

      3 (25) Forbidden City 4-3-20

      4 (26) Deep Encounter 5-8-20

      5 (27) HAVOC 6-12-20

      6 (28) The Empty Quarter 7-10-20

      7 (29) The Hellas Paradox 8-14-20

      8 (30) Twist Pirates 9-11-20

      9 (31) The Better Angels 10-9-20

      10 (32) The Ship of Theseus 11-13-20

      (Note *: Episode numbers start with Episode 1 in this new series but the continuation of episode numbers from Quantum Troopers is also provided)

      Chapter 1: Angels Among Us

      Queensgate Hospital

      Singapore

      September 12, 2065 Earth Universal Time (EUT)

      2330 hours (local)

      Major Batu was uneasy with all the arrangements but there really wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. The Secretary-General was sick and had been taken to a nearby hospital that evening, cutting short the address he had been about to make to the Lions of Commerce Association on his new vision for the upcoming General Assembly session. He had a fever and it was rising. The physician detail that always accompanied the S-G prescribed some pills and sent him off to Queensgate, with orders to go to bed and get some rest. More pills and fluids were taken. Dr. Li, lead physician of the detail, had just told Batu he wanted to do a medbot insert the next day, to investigate the malady.

      That’s when Batu started having heartburn.

      Jaime Aquino, the S-G, was okay with the idea of an insert, even though he’d be incapacitated for several hours. As head of the S-G’s security detail, Major Batu had little choice but to reluctantly agree. The insert was planned for early tomorrow morning. Aquino had dismissed Batu and turned in for the night.

      Batu went downstairs to the security command post that had been set up in a first floor waiting room. He chain-smoked. He chugged gallons of coffee and tea. He watched street traffic through the window, mindlessly counting pedestrians, vehicles, rikshas and made up stories about the working girls inhabiting every corner. Sleep was the last thing on his mind.

      He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up.

      Upstairs in the S-G’s suite, Jaime Aquino couldn’t sleep either.

      As he lay awake tossing about in his bed, he noticed a faint light outside the window. The suite was on the fifth floor of the Queensgate, a special suite reserved for heads of state, dignitaries and celebrities. Aquino watched the light for a few minutes. It was diffuse, almost blue-white in color. And it was getting brighter.

      He got up to investigate.

      As he approached the window, he knew right away what the light was. Already he could hear the keening buzz of nanobotic conflict; the bots of the security barrier were already engaging something outside the window. Aquino inched closer.

      Almost immediately, the light flared into blinding brilliance and a sharp hiss could be heard. Aquino staggered back and lost his balance, falling heavily to the floor, completely blinded by the light flooding in. A wave of heat washed over him as he scrambled away from the window. Then as he squinted at the battle now joined outside the windowpane, the buzz reached a shrill peak and cool air began drifting in. The window vanished in a flash and Aquino quickly found himself enveloped in a cloud of bots.

      He flailed, tried screaming but found the pressure of the cloud was too great. He was being smothered, suffocated, fighting and kicking and scratching and clawing there was no air and slowly, but surely the tunnel yawned wide and he tumbled headlong down the black corridor at breakneck speed, spinning spinning spinning until at the end….

      There was nothing and he lost consciousness.

      The flickering cloud descended over the prostrate body of the S-G, fully engulfing him in a small supernova of incandescent brilliance.

      Half an hour later, the ball of light began to dim and, in a few minutes, the light died off and the cloud dispersed. The body of Jaime Aquino, Secretary-General of the United Nations, had vanished…seemingly consumed by the cloud.

      The room was dark and only the tattered, smoking shreds of curtains remained, flapping in a gentle early morning breeze wafting up from the harbor two kilometers away.

      Major Batu had drifted off to a fitful sleep but startled himself awake, nearly falling to the floor of the command post. A nearby door clicked shut and Batu found himself staring up through bleary eyes at a lieutenant from the security detail, pecking out something on a nearby keypad.

      What time is it, Yang?

      The lieutenant saw that Batu was awake. Almost four a.m., sir. You asked me to wake you at this hour. I was about to—

      Batu waved him away. Never mind. He shook his head to clear the last vestiges of a bad dream. Maybe he had imagined that insistent buzzing sound. I’d better go hunt down Dr. Li. He wanted to get the S-G prepped early for the insert. Fix me some of that tea.

      He scanned the board quickly, noting that the security barrier around Aquino’s suite was fluctuating in intensity. Have you dropped the barrier, Lieutenant? The integrity signal’s blinking.

      No, sir…I just noticed that myself.

      Instantly, Batu was fully awake. Take Jurong and Bukrit and get up there. Make sure the barrier’s intact. I’ll find Dr. Li and get him started. I don’t like it. This place has too many gaps.

      They found the suite seemingly undisturbed. When Batu showed up moments later, with Dr. Li and several nurses, Jaime Aquino was asleep, under light covers in bed. Li bent over and gently awakened the SG.

      Aquino yawned and stretched and meekly submitted to a quick exam by the doctor and his nurses. Batu scanned the room. The window was open and the curtains were flapping in a stiff morning breeze but otherwise he could detect nothing out of sort. A fine ash lined the floor around the foot of the bed. Batu stooped to finger it, putting it experimentally to his nose. Probably blew in from the harbor or the Esplanade, he figured. Some container ship cranking up its diesels. Still, it ought to be checked out.

      Li was fussing over his patient. "He’ll need

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