Recon Saga

It's a work in progress - and I'm almost done!

In the interests of my balance, I’m taking a couple of weeks off to hike in the mountains with my hubby, so this will be the final post for three weeks.

I’m taking my novel along for the ride and hope to spend time finishing it. After more than ten years in the making, being this close, in fact writing the final battle scene, is scary and exciting in equal measure.

Okian Legacy is the first in the Recon Saga Trilogy, with the next two novels loosely mapped out, a spinoff series based on one of the featured species, and a couple of prequels to Recon also planned.

The next step is, of course, publishing and that’s the tricky part! My plan has always been to find a publisher rather than self-publish, however, the industry has changed dramatically over the years it’s taken me to complete the first novel.

I’m heading to a locally-run workshop later in October, run by experienced members of the New Zealand Society of Authors - I’m hoping to find out what I need to know to get my baby published and onto the market.

Developing my professional writer website is in the pipeline, with Recon, its characters and worlds, all featured, my Substack writing, and eventually courses based on A Balanced Life.

There’s a lot to be done. I’m also growing produce for us and selling, maintaining, and developing our gardens and property, including a food forest, and eventually setting up boutique accommodation and wedding packages. So, finding balance is an ongoing challenge.

I’ll leave you with a short excerpt from Recon Saga - The Okian Legacy. I hope you enjoy it and I’ll return later in October after some long-overdue R n’ R.

Dana could hear it coming, thrashing through the undergrowth, too close. Its fetid musk reached across the expanse of forest, sending a rage of shivers through her. It was hunting her, using its knowledge of the territory to its advantage.

Legs pumping, she listened as she ran trying to scan for her shipmates in the vain hope they were out there somewhere, looking for her. She heard nothing above the crushing thud of her heart and the reptilian thing baying in pursuit. A giant tree towered above the others in the forest ahead, gnarled vines dangling down to the forest floor like fishing lines set to snare fodder from the depths. Dana risked a glance back, her lungs straining as she wheezed and gasped for breath. ‘I can’t keep this up,’ she thought desperately.

With a leap of faith, she lunged at the vines, thick as a leg, and clung on. Scrambling, skin tearing, she climbed headlong. ‘Shit, can that thing climb?’ It was too late for second thoughts as Dana realized she was trapped if it could. She kept climbing.

Finally, high above the canopy she dared to stop and look around. The forest waved beneath her like a giant sea of kelp, and for a moment she couldn’t hear the reptile hunting her. She could sense it, see it clearly in her mind’s eye, its grotesque head like some savagely warped dog with scales and the deepest viridian, hate-filled eyes. The image of its razor claws, set to slice any prey in its path made her stomach clench in fear and she clung to her leafy haven, considering her options.

‘Where the hell are the others?’ She knew they wouldn’t leave her behind. She’d been fighting a desperate battle for a very long week, first within the confines of the cave system where she fought off the deadly reptiles in mortal combat, outwitting them to earn a few more hours of life. Since her flight within the forest she had been working her way back towards what she hoped was the site of their initial landing but one of the reptiles, a mutated form more vicious than any she’d encountered before, had been slowly stalking her. Today it had upped the stakes and she had been forced into a race to escape.

The crashing of tree limbs below focused her attention. The thing chasing was now close enough to hear its snorting as it romped along, following her blazing trail. ‘If it can climb, I’m done.’ She shuddered violently and peered down, trying to glimpse it as the trees below her perch swayed under its weight. It stopped at the base of her tree and started climbing, slowly heaving its mass up the same vines she had so recently clung to in desperation. She was trapped in her roost.

Trembling, unwelcome tears of rage and terror blinding her, she scrambled higher. It bayed and snarled, climbing slowly and efficiently as Dana thrashed frantically upwards. She considered her options while pushing on, ever upwards, wondering if she could unbalance it and send it tumbling to its death once it reached the thin top branches. It was her only option and she prayed silently for her strength to hold out long enough.

A nauseating stench rose off the beast in waves, stinging her eyes as it climbed closer. Its leathery snout and dripping fangs poked through the branches below her. Her blood was a deafening pulse in her ears as she watched the slow-motion pursuit below. A shadow passed across her face while she swayed in the tree-top, waiting for the thing to reach her. She swung in the upper-most branches praying the shade from above was the one thing she could use to survive this ordeal. Risking a glimpse upwards, an electric jolt of hope surged through her veins as she confirmed the shadow was her airship.

She was frantic, a sitting target waiting while the reptile moved closer. In a heartbeat she blinked, light flashing in her eyes.

“It’s okay. We’ve got you.” Kreeble reached out a small, soft hand to take her arm, guiding her off the floor of the transporter as K’Sia moved forward with a blanket to wrap around her shoulders.

“You’re safe Dana.” Commander Rankin smiled at her from his console. “Cut that one a bit fine by the looks of it.” He motioned to the monitor and Dana could see the reptilian beast swaying in the treetop, limbs bending under the strain of its weight but holding nonetheless.

“That bloody thing may just have got you if we hadn’t arrived when we did.”

Dana shuddered, knowing he was right.

(Recon Saga - The Okian Legacy. Copyright J M Yeoman.)