Extermination on Pike Prime is Now Available

For the ageless, the battlefield is the only place where time matters. 

In a world without the march of years, the toll of bells is heard only on the battlefield. Our hero, a young soldier at the beginning of his government term of service, finds himself thrust into the forefront of a war where death lurks at every corner. With every battle fought and bullet dodged he tries to keep mortality from coming back in fashion. In this lethal game of survival, will he find a way to keep death at bay, or will the battlefield claim its due?

In this first installment of the Service Term series, author Nicholas Taylor examines a world where humans have stopped aging, and war has become far less perilous, with the lives and minds of soldiers at the forefront of society. What might a future and war look like when machines do the fighting and dying, and not humans? 

You can get your copy of Extermination on Pike Prime here: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords.

Prologue 

ECTO-3967814HB, affectionately known as Molly by her human crew, was observing a star – a red dwarf, to be exact. The star was as ordinary and unremarkable as any other red dwarf, but Molly didn't care. After all, she was a science station, and while her crew imparted personality traits onto her, she, of course, had none, as she didn't have a personality... because she was a science station.

The two crew members were actively discussing a book they had both been reading while they waited for Molly to complete her analysis of some data on the red dwarf.

Molly was analyzing a variety of data from her extensive suite of equipment. Some of the equipment noted a flash of light, indicating a ship jumping into the area – something that was not on the schedule for today. Other equipment noted the presence of a new gravity source in the same area. Molly scanned the vicinity, confirming the presence of a ship.

Molly checked for a transponder. There was none. She checked for low data AltComms pings from the ship. There was none. The ship was not from humans. Molly scanned the vessel in an attempt to identify if the ship was from a friendly race, a hostile race, or perhaps an altogether new race.

The search returned, informing Molly that the ship was from a known race – the Erie, to be precise. They were hostile. Molly did all of this work in milliseconds, of course, with the humans completely unaware.

Molly notified the human crew that a hostile ship was in the vicinity. The humans were surprised and began to grow worried. Molly noted that the ship had changed directions and was headed their way. Simultaneously, Molly's sensors detected a group of missiles the Erie ship had launched.

This triggered two things to happen. One was that Molly sounded an alarm for the crew to get to their ships and make an emergency jump out of the area. The other was to ping the Human Federation Defense Forces to notify them that she was being fired upon.

The humans panicked, scrambling to their ships. As they did, Molly tracked the incoming missiles. She showed two minutes to impact. The humans were in their ships, and Molly began the undocking procedure for the ships.

The missiles were now one minute out. At this time, Molly was pinged that a Human Federation Defense Force ship would be jumping into the area.

The crew members undocked their ships, pulling away.

Thirty seconds from impact, the human ships made an emergency jump out of the system to safety. Moments later, Molly was struck by three Erie missiles that were way too overpowered for the task. Molly exploded into bits and pieces, chunks of her flying in all directions to forever litter the red dwarf system.

Molly went offline.