Encounter

by S.F. Swem, Belinda Haag (Editor)

ERS Cassiopeia is a glorious silver enigma, and Cassie is the ship’s exceptional artificial intelligence, thanks to the talents of a late doctor who inserted her personality and ‘soul’ into the ship’s core mainframe after a tragic accident.During a routine rescue mission, the Cassiopeia is interrupted with orders to meet a message probe for new instructions. The message leads them to a military ship that rudely boards Cassie’s ship with special forces, then they have the nerve to use a special AI override command to take control!The primary mission of their ‘guests’ is to retrieve data stored at a classified research facility and if possible, rescue the personnel. Their secondary mission is to learn what an alien race called the Plaxzones is doing there, with the ultimate intent of capturing a Plaxzone, alive or dead.What they find at the facility is unexpected – a small group of Plaxzone scientists who only want to preserve their secret data from their own military forces!Cassie hates having a new weapon system onboard, thanks to a passenger they pick up on Martis, and Cassie resists using it even if it means disaster. Will she be able to fight off the Plaxzone fleet and escape?

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 7, 2021

About the author

Steve was born in South Dakota and raised in upstate New York loved reading when he was younger and would read most anything he got my hands on. Steve still reads whenever he get the chance. Though, once into a book not much else gets done.
Both he and his wife were in the Air Force when they met. Steve introduced his wife, D.A. Swem to the DragonRiders of Pern and their courtship began with many reading sessions. It worked for them. Now they collaborate on writing books.