Joe Ledger: Unstoppable

INSTINCT (A GHOST STORY) BY BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT AND G. P. CHARLES

A nuclear bomb.

My master and I had just fought our way past armed thugs into the bowels of the Aghajari Oil Refinery near Tehran, Iran, and now this. Hidden in a cavern carved out deep underground. Walls chiseled out of stone, lined with stacked wooden crates, surrounded us on all sides. The chamber itself was massive. Water dripped from the ceiling high above and pooled around broken rock and clay, and at least two dozen human corpses. The air smelled of mold, moss, sweat, dust, oil… and death. So much death. I shivered involuntarily, unnerved. And my master gave me a concerned look.

I was trained for all kinds of situations. Especially dead bodies. I should not have been afraid. But I was. I couldn’t help it. The fear in the air crushed around me like a human embrace.

“Easy, boy,” he said. “It’s okay, Ghost… it’ll all be okay.”

My master shone his light around the cavern, turning back, and found a dozen sets of clothes, folded neatly atop a nearby crate. “Oh shit,” he muttered. He dropped his balaclava and began winding through the stacks, examining the crates, illuminating them with his flashlight as he went. Then he froze. And I sensed his tension rising. Heard his heart pound faster.

I moved cautiously up beside him to peer at what he was seeing: a real, live nuclear bomb.

As my master would say: What the fuck were we doing here?

Even in danger, my master’s a smart-ass.

With one sniff, I could tell my master found it just as unsettling as I did, despite our expectations. I sensed he wanted to run, but instead we both just stared at it.

Joe Ledger, that’s my master. Kind of a badass to most people. Of course, I can hold my own, too. In fact, he may get most of the credit, but I like to think he couldn’t do it without me. Ghost, that’s my name, and with a name like that, I suppose a lower profile is only natural. That, plus the fact I walk on four legs and am a lot shorter.

We’d come here for this. That had been the assignment. Terrorists threatening to set off multiple nukes — our job was to find them. That didn’t make it any more pleasant realizing you actually had and were standing right next to it, a few feet away. It lay in the center of the cavern floor with thick, snakelike power cords coiling off from it toward a nearby wall.

It didn’t help that the whole place had the overwhelming odor of rot and death, either. Rotting meat was just part of it. My nose crinkled as I digested this. There was one more smell, too — adrenaline, hot breaths, warm blood — fear.

My master tapped his ear — no doubt hoping for the signal he needed to communicate with the team. His shoulders sank again, and I knew it wasn’t working. He stood there for the longest time, examining the bomb. It was at least twice my height and several times longer and wider than me. There was no ticking sound, but I didn’t know if that was good or bad, and from the way my master looked at it, I could tell he wasn’t quite sure, either.

“Okay,” he said, and moved around it, going for a closer look, his flashlight’s beam leading the way.

With a clink, he removed his tool kit from his pack, unrolled it, then took a screwdriver in one hand and the flashlight in the other and went to work. My master is smart and he knows lots of stuff, but I had to fight the urge to shrink back as I thought, I hope he knows what he’s doing.

I sniffed again, listening to the air around us as my master removed a metal shield. Sweat poured down his face to sting his eyes and he winced before taking a metal plate and several screws and setting them gently aside. I locked my eyes on his face, watching for any signs as he examined the interior of the bomb. What was it? I wished he’d tell me, but instead he took the screwdriver and began unfastening something else I couldn’t see.

As his hand came away again, the plate he pulled back was the same metal but smaller. He was seeing something. And I sensed him relax, even as tension left his body and his eyebrows raised in question. “What the fuck?” he muttered.

Still no ticking. Even the scent of his adrenaline faded a bit. Was that good or bad? I wagged my tail, hoping he’d tell me.

“Ghost, old buddy,” he said as he continued staring at the bomb, “I think we got lucky.”

Then my ears popped up at a soft scuffing behind me and we both spun around. A growl rose in my throat as the smells of fear and death grew stronger again.

There were two of them. One a major my master had fought earlier, who’d lost his teeth. The other in orange coveralls of refinery staff. The major smiled, showing fangs, his real teeth. Long fangs. Red Knights!

Though both were armed, neither they nor my master had drawn their weapons. But their eyes glowed at us: red, haunting.

My body started shaking and I let out a whimper as my bladder let go. I had no control. Now the urge to run was almost overwhelming, but I couldn’t move.

The two men’s smiles widened.

And I was torn between the shame at my own fear and immobility, sensing the disappointment of my master. He was counting on me and yet I couldn’t do a thing. A thousand blips of memories, of things Joe and I had been through, flooded my mind, taking over all my thoughts. Desperate for something to ground the world around me, I focused on one, the earliest. The day I met my master.

He was broken, I could sense it. Not physically — though he bore the evidence of that as well. Damaged in a way I couldn’t see. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him. He reminded me of the Man, the ex-Marine who caged my mum and me and my siblings in filth. Whose voice was as harsh and cruel as the wire we slept on each night. The Man and this Joe Ledger had the same hair color, the same… hardness… to their eyes. From experience, I knew that hardness changed only when it came with pain. My pain. My mum’s pain. The pups around us who I could smell and hear but never saw. If I was too eager for my food, a steel-toed boot would thump into my ribs. And those eyes glinted like glass.

I couldn’t possibly be safe here.

I narrowed my gaze on Joe and lowered my ears.

My trainer, Zan Rosin, smiled at Joe. “He’s a very nice dog,” she said. “He’s exceptionally smart and has already passed through standard and advanced training in search and rescue, bomb detection, bark and hold, high-speed disarm, cover and concealment…” Her words trickled down and stopped.

Joe scowled at me. He didn’t like me much, either. Fine. I’d put an end to this and go back with the woman who’d spent so much time teaching me. The woman who’d rescued me and taught me kindness. I curled my lip and bared my teeth.

I tried to pull myself out of the cycling memories, back into the cavern of rot and death. But the fear… I was back in that horrible puppy mill again, terrified to poke even my nose out of my cage when Zan rescued me, certain the pain would come again. That maybe this time, like my youngest littermate, I wouldn’t survive it.

Memories cycled again. Another took over, an echoing laugh that was warm, friendly, and accompanied belly rubs. Rudy. Rudy was always safe.

“How long’s it going to be, Joe, before you acknowledge the pain instead of trying to drown it? Grace is gone, and I miss her, too, but she’d roll over in her grave if she could see you right now,” Rudy said, his usually kind voice harsher than what I’d become accustomed to.

Joe instantly turned cold, his words sharp and intense, though not a shout. “Fuck you.”

“Nothing changes no matter how often you say that. I get the message — I’ll let you wallow. You do that damn well.” He snatched his keys off the table and stalked to the door.

Joe made no move to get up. Confused, I glanced between the closed front door and my master. I’d only known him a couple of weeks, but I’d not seen him this way. As if Rudy’s words stole something from him.

Joe lifted his beer bottle at me and cracked a sardonic smile. “Cold, hard honesty.” He took a long slug, frowned at the bottle, then set it aside and stared out the window.

Something was different. I didn’t know what, but I sensed it in my bones. And I was Joe’s companion now, so I did what seemed right. I rested my nose on his thigh. His hand fell on my head, fingers barely shifting through my hair.

“He’s right, you know,” he murmured quietly. “I am wallowing. Because nothing’s the same without her. You’d have liked her, Ghost.” He shook his head. “You’d have loved her.” His fingers gripped tighter — not painfully — and then relaxed completely.

“I’m going to bed. You coming?” He pushed out of the chair.

I wagged my tail hesitantly. My dog bed was evidence of my new freedom — no kennel at night. Run of the house. Soft bed to curl up on while I guarded him and the house. Only Joe had never invited me. I followed as I ought to. Something had definitely changed.

The following morning Rudy interrupted our training session — something completely out of the ordinary. “Joe, they found him,” he said urgently.

Joe froze in place. He radiated an intensity I only ever felt when Rudy brought up his lost mate. In moments, we were running, meeting with the man Joe called Church, and what seemed even seconds later, boarding a giant winged bird, heading someplace called Amsterdam. I asked no questions. It was my duty. I was working… and I sensed Joe was, too.

We met another man — one I’d end up never forgetting — after the long air ride. Spurlock, Joe called him. During the taxi ride to what would be our destination, they talked about Joe’s mate, Grace. Joe didn’t like what Spurlock said. And strangely, I found myself not liking him for upsetting Joe. We hadn’t been together long, but I liked him. He treated me like a friend. A partner in all he did.

“Well,” Spurlock said, “at least we have the bastard cornered. Time for a little bit of payback.”

Silence filled the car. Outside the windows, the island rolled by, green and pretty. I watched Joe, though. His energy was all over the place. I didn’t know how to communicate with him, not in the way he talked with me, at least. I didn’t have words. But I did have a voice.

I whined, telling him I understood.

Joe reached back and ran a hand over my head.

I’ve got this. I’m right here, I wanted to say. But he’d never understand my limited language. I couldn’t rumple his fur, but I could lick his fingers. And so I did.

“Fetch dog,” someone said as my eyes focused again. The two knights kept staring at me. The major laughed and sneered as he touched his chest and drew a line with his fingers above his eyes. What did that mean? Some sort of crazy human ritual?

“If you kill that piece-of-shit dog, we will make it easy for you,” said the other knight, the one in the maintenance uniform, smiling.

And I shrank back involuntarily, afraid, even as my master’s eyes went from fear to fury.

“Here’s an idea,” my master said, and instantly threw a screwdriver at the maintenance knight with his left hand while drawing his pistol with his right. The shiny, well-oiled black metal glinted in the low light.

The knight in overalls caught the screwdriver.

Then a red dot opened in his forehead as my master fired the pistol right at the knight’s nose and he flew back. Blood and brains splattered out the back of his head as his neck snapped with a crack and he landed hard against a stony wall, sinking into a heap on the floor.

The major didn’t even react. Instead, like a blur he rushed my master and me. I barked and lunged as my master fired again, but then stopped myself. I was trained not to jump in when my master was shooting.

The bullet hit the major sideways, passing through his elbow and sinking into his hip. He seemed to lose footing then, falling to the side and screaming.

“Hit!” my master ordered.

I was on the major like lightning, as fast as I could, tearing at his flesh, as the Red Knight’s screams rose in pitch and desperation. I smelled garlic and gunpowder mixed with his warm, dead blood as it soaked into my fur, and I tore out his throat, then ripped his arm to shreds as he tried to deflect me. Nothing entered my mind but kill. End him as fast as I could.

And it was over quickly.

As my master turned, contemplating his next move, I caught the scent of more death, more Red Knights — they were coming closer. I growled and barked in warning, staring down the hallway in the direction of the scent.

My master turned and spun his gun up as we saw movement in the shadows. Thirty or forty this time — indistinct forms in the darkness, so many forms.

One of them stepped forward as the others parted. His skin was white as snow, his eyes redder than blood, and he seemed taller and more muscular than the rest. Over his black clothes, a necklace with a silver teardrop glinted through the shadows.

My master aimed his gun at him, but then there were footsteps behind and around us. I turned quickly, taking in the targets. More knights. We were surrounded.

“White dog…,” they whispered, and it spread through their numbers. “White dog!” Then they all touched their chests and drew lines over their eyes. Were they afraid of me? It was hard to sense it over my own terror.

The leader half turned and growled, silencing them, then turned back to my master. “I know who you are. You are Captain Ledger.” His voice was icy as winter wind, and I shivered hearing it.

“Oh shit,” my master mumbled beside me, shifting with uncertainty.

“You are a traitor to your own people,” the lead knight continued, “and an enemy of mine.”

Damn right. Kill you all.

But instead my master said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The lead knight smiled. “Our friend told us.” His teeth shone. They were sharp, sharper than mine, menacing. My heart thumped harder as I felt the fear again.

“He said that you conspired with Rasouli and the Red Order to keep us in chains,” the leader continued.

My master’s face didn’t change as he replied, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, pal. I’m here to keep this bomb from going boom. When I’m done with that, we can sit down with a latte and talk about it.”

I sniffed the air, listening for Echo Team, but got no hint of them. We were still alone. Trapped.

“Do you know who we are?” the lead knight taunted as the others moved in, surrounding us.

I whimpered beside my master, shivering. We were in trouble. I trusted my master, but what could he possibly do? We’d waited too long. We should have run at the first sign of them.

“At a guess?” my master replied. “Grigor, chief bloodsucker of the Upierczi.”

The leader only nodded with approval, his face frozen in that terrifying smile. He told my master it would be an honor to die by his hand, as if the Red Knight knew it with certainty. I didn’t doubt him at the moment, but my master just stared.

“That’s actually not on my day planner,” he said.

The lead knight’s eyes cut left and right as the others moved closer. “Bring him to me!” he ordered.

“Ghost — hit!” my master yelled.

But I couldn’t move. I was trembling too much, drool dripping from my mouth. I wanted to respond. I always obeyed my master, but then my bladder released again and warm fluid ran down my legs onto the floor.

The knights stared at us a moment, then burst out laughing.

“Oh shit,” my master breathed again.

I looked to him, ashamed, but then the nearest Red Knight was on me, kicking my side. Pain swelled and filled my entire body as I rose into the air and flew against the side of the metal case that held the bomb. I yelped as I slid down, my feet scrambling for purchase, then landed in a heap, whimpering and wincing from the pain.

The knights laughed and laughed, red eyes staring at my master.

He pivoted suddenly and shot the knight who’d kicked me. The bullet sliced clean through him and into a companion behind him, slicing into his thigh. Both emitted high-pitched screams as they fell, smiles disappearing from the others’ faces. And then my master let loose with his pistol, firing again and again. My mind clouded over with pain as I tried to recover, calm myself, rise and go to his aid.

What was wrong with me? I’d give my life for him, and I had no doubt he would for me. My master needed me. Right now. If I could just catch my breath.

Instead, my thoughts wandered again to when I’d been hurt before. Before Zan found me. At the puppy mill. I hated Red Knights as much as I feared them. I hated anyone who would abuse the innocent.…

The sun beat down — Arizona in the throes of midsummer. Joe and I had been working since dawn, out in this miserable weather, closing in on the last link in a chain of domestic terror strikes. I’d learned over the short time we’d worked together it was impossible to follow the names. There were too many, and in some cases, there was only one threat known by multiple names. Names didn’t matter anyway. Just the “solution,” as the humans around me often called it.

We carefully navigated around a thick tree line that bordered a sprawling estate: several small adobe cottages spread out around a large, central manor, all with red tile roofs baking in the heat. We’d run out of shade soon and be back in that miserable sunshine. Joe looked as worn out as I was. Sweat trickled down his temples and his shirt was plastered to his back. Air-conditioning would be our reward, if this guy hadn’t ditched us again.

Joe pushed aside a branch on a small sapling and ducked under. I followed on his heels, ears pricked to catch any hint of voices or other unnatural sounds. Like, maybe, the click of a gun’s hammer. Only I heard nothing. Nothing at all. Which only made me more uneasy. Silence was never a good thing, I’d come to discover. It usually preceded total chaos, or, as Joe liked to say, all hell breaking loose.

Before us stood an imposing iron fence. A few feet to Joe’s left, an old gate hung cockeyed on its hinges, evidently unused for some time. A gate only those who knew to look for would ever find amid these thick trees. Forgotten, maybe, though I doubted it. That would be too easy.

A breeze stirred, rustling the overhead leaves. I put my nose to the sky, aching for just a bit of relief, a tickle of the fur, anything to cool the heat.

Then I smelled it.

A scent I’d thought never to encounter again. A stink of cruelty and evil that went beyond torture. Beyond even death. Feces. Urine.

And dog.

Not the kind of dog that prowled the ground, a vigilant sentry to all within. Not the kind of dog I’d become — a warrior and protector that could kill a man in seconds flat for the right reason.

Multiple dogs. Washed in misery.

My puppyhood slammed into my memories, and I couldn’t stop a growl. Joe glanced down at me, his face full of concern. I spared him only a glance, then stared at that rusty gate. I didn’t want to go in there; I knew what we’d find. Would Joe care? Or would the human threat be more important?

He approached cautiously. I lagged behind. We’d become good friends. I liked him a great deal. I didn’t want all that to change… and I knew, somehow, that what happened when we breached this fence would alter us forever.

Joe scowled, motioning me forward. I had no choice in this. Duty demanded I obey. I took a step closer, and caught a faint, nearby whine.

Joe must have heard it, too. His head snapped up, his focus beyond the gate, where the backside of a long garage-type adobe building sprawled across the brown lawn. Small windows tucked against the eaves, interspersed with metal vents. I sniffed. Those vents funneled the stench.

Something distracted him, and he pressed a finger to his ear. Then his shoulders slumped. “Copy that. Damn it.” He turned to me, his frown deep and dark. “He got the drop on us again, buddy. Looks like we came out here for nothing. Team’s reporting the main house is empty and there’s no sign of activity on the grounds.”

He pressed his finger to his ear once more, listening to the voice in the tiny device as dread welled inside me.

“Roger. We’ll regroup for morning.” He turned his back to me.

No! He wasn’t going to walk away. He couldn’t. He’d heard that whine, I was certain of it. My lip curled, disgust rising before I could control it.

“Hold position, Tevares. I’ve got something here I want to check out.”

Check out? I blinked.

Joe strode through the gate, his stride long and confident, though I knew he kept a watchful eye on his surroundings. He walked straight for that building.

He wasn’t… I darted forward with a sharp yelp and bounded to his heels. He dropped a hand to the nape of my neck and ran his fingers through my hair. Another whine came from within the building.

We turned the corner, and Joe stopped in his tracks. Not much of ordinary life startled him, and given what we encountered daily, I understood why. I’d never seen him freeze as if fear possessed him, as he did now. Only fear wasn’t the emotion rolling off him. I couldn’t put a name to it, and looked from him to the open lawn.

Heavy-duty wire panels formed a circular ring in the middle of the yard. The grass around it had been stamped to hard-packed dirt. Blood spatters stained the ground inside the large cage, fresh crimson with a pungent scent. On the other side, against a small, gray shack, two motionless canine bodies lay in the scant shade. No scent of decay drifted from them. Only a few flies gathered on their mottled, bloodied fur.

What had they done here? This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. My muscles tensed as apprehension and anger brewed inside me.

Joe’s gaze cut to the long building at our left. He drew in a long, audible breath and started for the door. Glancing between him and that ring, I followed, uncertain what I should do. What I should prepare for.

He pushed the door open. The stench rushed out. “Stay here,” he commanded as he pointed at the ground by the door.

I sat. Joe ducked his head into the shadows.

“Damn it!”

Anger drove him forward, and he burst inside as if he were hot on the trail once again. Any minute I half expected him to draw his gun and fire. But the only bullets that exploded were his exclamations of profanity that tripled in volume. As they grew, concern overtook me. I couldn’t sit here and wait for something to happen to him.

So I charged inside.

I skidded to a halt on the concrete floor, nose to nose with a six-foot-tall, narrow kennel. In the far corner lay a dog. She lacked the strength to lift her head, and a large, festering wound covered her right shoulder.

I knew wounds like that. I made wounds like that.

Her eyes met mine, full of sorrow and lost hope. I looked away, helpless for the first time since I’d been a puppy. I sought Joe, and found him five kennels down, jimmying the lock on another cage. It popped with another of his exclamations, and he flung the door open, tearing at his shirt even as he surged inside.

I trotted cautiously closer. A warning growl from the cage to my immediate right gave me momentary pause, but as I looked, I found a dark black dog locked safely behind bars. Convinced there was no immediate threat, I followed Joe inside the kennel. He knelt beside a fawn-and-white dog and wrapped his shirt around its neck. It let out a soulful whine — the same whine we’d heard outside.

“It’s okay, girl,” Joe murmured. “You’re going to be okay.”

The dog rolled its gaze to him, but didn’t otherwise move. This poor female dog was harmless now. Too wounded to hurt me, or Joe. I reassured him in the only way I could. I dropped my nose to his.

Joe pressed his earpiece again. “Tevares, get your ass down here. I’ve got a fresh dogfight — we must have interrupted them. Call Animal Control. There’s twenty dogs in here. Some healthy, some in terrible condition.”

I stood close enough to Joe that I could hear the voice crackle in response. “Copy. Already on it. I must have the winners over here. Found four chained to barrels covered in blood but otherwise healthy.”

“Yeah,” Joe muttered. “I’ve found the bait.”

I glanced at the dog before us, then slowly around us. Bait. I didn’t need human intelligence to understand the role these dogs played.

“Back, Ghost,” Joe murmured.

Dutifully, I backed off ten steps. Joe stepped over the dog, moving behind it, then carefully slid his hands beneath. When she offered no sign of protest, he eased her into his arms. Another whine slid free. Blood seeped beneath his makeshift bandage to stain the patch of white fur around her throat.

As he stood, three men tromped into the building.

“Joe, that dog could turn on you,” one of them cautioned.

Joe shook his head. “Don’t really care. She’s not going to make it if we wait for help. Lock this place down. Get these dogs out of here. Find the cats. Or rabbits. Or whatever else they’re using for training bait. I’m taking this girl to the closest vet. Call me if you run into any problems.”

As Joe started for the sun-baked outdoors, I stared after him, caught momentarily by surprise. He hadn’t turned away. Man. Dog. Cats. Rabbits. He cared.

And I was part of his world. He was part of mine. I had never thought to respect a human this much. In that moment, he wasn’t just Joe, he wasn’t just my partner. He was my master, and I would willingly give my life for him. I bounded after, more proud than I’d ever been.

My master’s screams jarred me from the memory.

The smell of rot and death surrounded me again as I heard laughter, cackling knight laughter, and my eyes focused. My master was pinned inside a pile of splintered crates, jagged edges cutting into his flesh, his clothing torn. Blood seeped from various wounds, and I spotted his knife lying out of reach on the cavern floor, his pistol clasped limply in one pinned hand as he struggled to free himself.

And the knights were sneering, laughing, their snow-white leader leaning over him with a look of triumph. I sensed it then: a predator preparing for the kill. My master needed me. Strength surged as blood and adrenaline poured through my body. My legs stiffed, a growl rising inside me.

I’ve got this. I’m right here! my mind shouted even as I pushed to my feet and launched myself at the pale, undead leader. My growl became a howling, primal declaration for all the world that they were hurting my master and I was going to hurt them, make them pay for it with all I had.

I leaped into the air and struck the lead knight like a bolt from the sky, turning his laughter into a terrified shriek as I tore at him again and I bore him back into the darkness with all I had. My howling mixed with his shrieking into a mournful serenade that only energized me further. My master had screamed, so this one would scream worse.

The knight slapped and punched at me, hands and feet flailing in vain attempts to dislodge me from atop him. My teeth sank into flesh and ripped chunks free — a finger — I shook my head, sending it flying in a trail of blood. Then another.

He screamed for his companions, begging for help, pure desperation.

I ripped at him again, tearing flesh from his arm, spitting it out, and going for more. The fear that had consumed me had been replaced by fury and focused determination. You. Don’t. Hurt. My master.

The knights around us moved then, rushing to assist him, and my master’s hand clamped around his pistol as he cocked it and aimed, then thunder exploded around us.

A whole line of Red Knights closest to my master shuddered and fell in heaps. Others spun, eyes seeking the threat, and then many of them died, too, bullets ripping into their faces, chests, arms, limbs.

More shrieks joined those of my target as I continued tearing at him.

My master joined the firing as a deep, leathery droning sound filled my ears — fuzzy at first, then becoming clearer: “Echo! Echo! Echo!”

And I smelled the scent now: Khalid, Lydia, Bunny, Top, Violin — our team had arrived. I knew then we could do it. We would kill them all. Destroy them as they’d tried to destroy us. I howled in welcome, then went back to tearing at my victim. Any dwindling trace of fear was gone now, replaced by hunger, instinct, an unquestioned focus on killing every target in reach.

Then our team joined the fight, filling the cavern with echoing bullets, the smell of sweat, powder, adrenaline, and knights’ blood. More dead. More dying. Rotted dead flesh. Bodies. I looked over to see my master pulling free of the crate, shooting back, fighting alongside me.

I was right where I belonged.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo Award — nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases of 2011. His short stories have appeared in magazines, in anthologies, and online and include entries in The X-Files, Predator, Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International, and Decipher’s WARS, among others. As book editor for Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta’s WordFire Press, he has edited books by such luminaries as Alan Dean Foster, Tracy Hickman, Frank Herbert, Mike Resnick, Jean Rabe, and more. He was also the first editor on Andy Weir’s bestseller The Martian. His anthologies as editor include Shattered Shields with co-editor Jennifer Brozek, Mission: Tomorrow, Galactic Games, and Little Green Men — Attack! and Monster Hunter Files with Larry Correia (all for Baen); Infinite Stars and Predator: If It Bleeds (for Titan Books); Beyond the Sun, and Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age. Find him on Twitter @BryanThomasS or via his website at www.bryanthomasschmidt.net.

After years of working in fantasy game design and Web development, G. P. Charles traded in computer programming for fiction writing and escaped the nightmare of missing semicolons and infinite loops. Now, instead of daydreaming about throwing the computer out the window, G.P. finds every day an exciting adventure. When not writing, downtime is spent at home on the farm, raising horses, chickens, and two boys who are too intelligent for their own good but a constant source of joy. To learn more, check out www.gpcharles.com.