Well, I'm on the Cornish coast again and the SUP is out of winter storage and getting good use. The next few weeks have quite a few sessions lined up training aspirant mountain leaders in ropework and navigation and refreshing current rock climbing instructors. Plus I'll be leading a few caving expeditions
All this activity will be perfect to let the current draft of Fraternity mull over in the back of my mind. This latest novel in the Two Democracies: Revolution series sees Legion Libertus approaching full strength and the new Commonwealth gaining support to take on the established order.

Sorry, couldn't resist that! Perhaps you could read one of these on your NERD?

The conflict has brewed for generations, until it has become too big to handle.
Cory and his association finally return to Asto on the invitation of his father-in-law, for his official induction ceremony into the Domiri clan. They are housed in a magnificent villa overlooking a valley, away from the hustle of cities or the military base.
But why can't they stay with their host? Is it for security? Is it because their host fears upsetting his household?
With Thayu heavily pregnant, Cory has no appetite for adventures. But something is brewing, and listening bugs, a nightly attack and invasion are all part of the deal.
Wouldn't it be nice if for once Asto's elite was upfront about the nature of the problem?

Across the six-planet expanse of the Gaia system, the Earthlike Gretia struggles to stabilize in the wake of an interplanetary war. Amid an uneasy alliance to maintain economies, resources, and populations, Aden Robertson reemerges. After devoting twelve years of his life to the reviled losing side, with the blood of half a million casualties on his hands, Aden is looking for a way to move on. He’s not the only one.
A naval officer has borne witness to inconceivable attacks on a salvaged fleet. A sergeant with the occupation forces is treading increasingly hostile ground. And a young woman, thrust into responsibility as vice president of her family’s raw materials empire, faces a threat she never anticipated.
Now, on the cusp of an explosive and wide-reaching insurrection, Aden plunges once again into the brutal life he longed to forget. He’s been on the wrong side of war before. But this time, the new enemy has yet to reveal themselves ... or their dangerous endgame.

Welcome to the Kwa system, where the light of three suns falls upon twenty worlds, and psychopathic gangsters fight for power and wealth.
Where ex-smuggler Will is just trying to make a living - until someone pushes him too far.
Where everything and everyone can be bought and sold ... until now.

Ky is one of the youngest and most skilled alien hunters Skywatchers has ever recruited. Lethal and focused, nothing can distract her from riding the world of the vermin who murdered her brother.
When she’s assigned a new recruit, Reece, she assumes he’ll be just like the others. All she needs to do is tolerate his existence until he’s paired with another hunter. Just another job. But it’s a little hard when he’s as stealthy as a drunk elephant.
When he screws up their first assignment, the Skywatchers Commander insists they both be taken out of the field. He wants Ky to learn to work in a team. Maybe make a friend. That’s not so easy when everyone she’s ever cared about is dead.

They said chaperoning orphans was easy.
Sgt Kori Eldersun believed it, too. Until the ship engines failed. Until the pirates came knocking. Kori didn’t start the journey dressed for combat. All he has are his wits. That and nine young orphans who are counting on him to keep them safe.
He is determined not to let the children down.
Unfortunately, it’s one against dozens. Kori matches wits and fists with the pirates as he battles for a way to keep the children from harm. But is it enough? Even Kori has begun to wonder.

Thrust into a civil war on the other side of the Galaxy, Alliance Marine Spartan and his fleet face a threat like no other. While a brutal conflict rages through the region, another dark and terrible threat emerges in the form of an armada led by a gigantic dreadnought called STARFIRE, a ship so great that it dwarfs an entire battlefleet and leaves a string of devastated planets in its wake. With the galaxy in turmoil, and enemies on all sides, Spartan and his ragtag band of heroes must pick a side or fall like so many others before them.
As STARFIRE approaches, entire planets begin their evacuation. But this is Spartan, and he never backs down from a fight. When others see danger and flee, he sees opportunity, and he has a plan that that is as outlandish as it is impossible.

The human soldiers stranded on the planet Paradise have been recruited into an Alien Legion, to do the dirty jobs that the high-tech species won't do. Their first mission is to kick the enemy off a backwater planet no one cares about. It's a simple assignment, except everyone has a hidden agenda, and the planet could become a deathtrap.

An alien invasion. A home-world destroyed. Can an embattled captain survive a daring fight to save the remnant of his colony?
Privateer Liam Hoffen can’t wait to reunite with his family. But after he emerges from a 20-year stasis, he’s shocked to discover a hostile enemy has razed his home and exiled his people. With his foes dependent on a gas-mining platform to keep their ships fueled, Liam’s last-ditch hope is to cut off the vicious aliens with the help of a brother he never knew he had...
Armed only with ancient combat-damaged clunkers, he and his stubborn sibling must lead a dangerous assault on the enemy’s critical resources. Grossly outnumbered and far from reinforcements, Liam fears he’ll have to put everything on the line to defend the people he loves from annihilation.
Can Liam stop the powerful adversary from killing his family and taking over the system?

She was a Marine, but an RPG took her career, her arms, and nearly her life.
Now she’s been reborn as part of the secret TECH Ops program, but Sheila Hewson is no phoenix rising from the ashes.
Call her Raptor.
They are TECH Ops, a secret project blending human beings and high technology into modern-day super soldiers with incredible power. But after a terrorist attack leaves most of the dozen operatives dead, Raptor and her Delta Team have to find out who’s responsible. But their mysterious enemy is relentless, trying again and again to discredit and destroy every aspect of the TECH Ops program. If they can’t get to the bottom of these attacks, TECH Ops will be over, and Raptor and the entire team will be shut down. For good.

Aldrea, the feisty daughter of a Quenterian scientist, agrees to accompany her parents on a routine mission with mixed emotions. It was better than another resort vacation, but lacks the adventure and excitement she craves. So when her father is taken prisoner by a deranged Radical agent on a deserted planet, Aldrea doesn't think twice--she goes after them.
But time is running out. With the greatest discovery in Quenterian history in the balance, Aldrea must rescue herself first before the prize they seek kills them all.

Superhuman terror incidents are on the rise, riots are breaking out everywhere like a plague spreading across the face of the world, and the unknown enemy still stalks the world. However, Pierson and Hale are determined to bring down the monster that has caused this turmoil, no matter what it takes. With violence exploding on all sides, when given a clear shot at the source of the chaos, they determine to take their chance.
Hale will throw every bit of power he has at the very source that granted him with his strength, backed by a world thrown into chaos looking for someone, anyone, to blame.

Love, betrayal, and revenge ... in space. Edmund Dante is a promising young officer in the Company, but when his loyalty to his ship's captain endangers the future of the rest of the crew, his betrayal is inevitable. Now, years later, Edmund and his unusual bio-ship - The Monte Cristo - are out for revenge. But will Edmund be able to go through with it when he realizes what it will cost?

Banished from his planet of Cern, imprisoned in the carrier form of a donkey, Harry gets swept up by an interstellar livestock trading vessel—the SS Bray. His only companions? The other donkeys and livestock.
Pirate captain Cass and her crew of misfits are desperate for a score. So, when they encounter and board the cargo herding vessel registered as the SS Bray, she’s less than sure of how they might cash in on a hold full of farm animals (including a naive talking donkey!). Lucky for them, there’s a prize donkey contest with a game-changing purse ... and they just happen to have a hold full of potential contestants.
Meanwhile, the ghosts of Cass’s past are determined to find her. A Federation Navy deserter, her hijacking of the cargo ship sets off alarm bells with the top brass, who are quick to pursue this new lead. Giving them the slip might be easy, were it not for a double-crossing informant...
Can Captain Cass and her gang of pirates evade the Federation and cash in on their cargo? Can Harry the donkey-riding symbiont find a new home with the space pirates, or better yet, become a prize donkey and gain the adoration of an entire planet?