Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

“Naw,” Morgan told him. “This is just family…made a bit messier by bodyguards.”

Yet another tall blonde woman entered through the front lobby, with a short and heavyset dark-haired woman in tow. Two Duchy of Terra Militia security officers accompanied Victoria and Shelly Antonova as they entered.

Rin allowed Morgan to drag him over to the other half of their polycule, standing slightly to one side as Morgan and Victoria kissed. They were delighted to see each other, which certainly helped smooth over his momentary confusion.

He’d accepted the polygamous relationship long before, but it was still strange to be there with his girlfriend’s girlfriend—and said girlfriend’s wife.

He offered a hand to Shelly Antonova.

“Rin Dunst,” he introduced himself. “Imperial Institute of Archaeology.”

“Shelly Antonova,” the other woman replied. “I’ve read a couple of your papers, Dr. Dunst. Adjacent to my area of expertise but still valuable.”

“Oh?” he asked. “You’re an academic?”

“Xenopsychologist,” Mrs. Antonova told him. “I work with the integration of multispecies populations, like the Laian Exiles in the Australian Outback. Some of your archaeological work on historic and prehistoric multispecies sites has been fascinatingly useful.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a clearly coordinated attack, as Morgan wrapped an arm around Rin and Victoria wrapped an arm around Shelly—with the two of them keeping an arm around each other as well.

“I’m not honestly sure why I’m here,” Shelly Antonova admitted quietly. “This isn’t quite…”

“Because you are family,” Morgan told her. “And Mom insisted. We’re celebrating Christmas and family. Everyone needs to be here.”

“Five kids and what, eight partners?” Rin asked.

“Yeah, Carol has two boyfriends, and Alexis has a matching boy-girl set of Marines,” Morgan concluded with a grin. “So, we bring everyone together and we have Christmas.”

“Seems appropriate,” Rin told them all with a chuckle as Morgan directed them toward the elevator. “Christmas is a good time to celebrate peace, isn’t it?”

Author’s Note

And that makes nine.

Nine novels of the Duchy of Terra, pretty much exactly half-and-half Annette and Morgan, all things considered. (Or, I don’t know, forty-five, forty-five, ten, with the ten being everybody else?)

And nine makes a wrap. There are always stories and possibilities inherent in every setting, and I’ll never say never, but this is the end of the Bonds’ stories in this universe.

I’m glad you stuck with me and Annette and Morgan all this way!

If you’re looking for more books of a similar ilk, with aliens and politics and starships, I humbly suggest checking out the Peacekeepers of Sol series that I started in 2019. Three books are out already, and more are coming.

You can find my full catalog at www.glynnstewart.com, where I’m confident that if you’ve made it this far, you’ll find more work you can enjoy!

Happy reading!

—Glynn Stewart

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Preview: Raven’s Peace by Glynn Stewart

Enjoyed Eyes of Tomorrow and the Duchy of Terra series? Try the post-war gunship diplomacy space opera Raven’s Peace!

Ten thousand stars, once chained, taste freedom

An eternal empire, once undefeated, falls to pieces

An alliance, once united, now lacks a common foe

War was hard enough. Peace may be impossible

For seventeen years, Colonel Henry Wong and the United Planets Space Force have fought the Kenmiri Empire. They drove the alien overlords back from humanity’s borders into their own stars and found allies among the Kenmiri’s slaves and subjects.

Now the war is over. A great Gathering has been called of the allies who fought the war, but they only ever shared a common enemy. With the Kenmiri in retreat, a thousand new agendas are revealed.

The United Planets Alliance wants peace above all else. Their allies want everything from new homes to new empires – and all too many of them are prepared to do anything to achieve their goals!

Chapter One

The battlecruiser shook around him and Henry Wong recognized the dream. It was a familiar nightmare now, which helped rob it of the strength it had had months before.

“We have a grav-shield blowthrough,” a seemingly faceless noncom reported across the warship’s bridge. “That dreadnought hit us dead-on.”

“We’re going to get shot to pieces!” That figure had a face. Commander Kveta Vela wasn’t that pale and sunken-eyed in reality, though. The dream warped Henry’s old navigator into a figure of nightmare.

It fit there.

“The shield will hold,” Henry heard himself bark. With a moment of practiced effort, he separated himself from the dream-him.

He’d learned he couldn’t stop the dream, but months of therapy allowed him to disconnect from it.

The man in the center of the bridge of the battlecruiser Panther was less warped than the officers and crew around him. Tall and narrow-shouldered, Colonel Henry Wong was a beanpole of a man with short-cropped black hair, dark skin and his father’s dark Chinese eyes.

The dream didn’t distort him much as his old ship dove through the maelstrom. The figure of dream-Henry was focusing on the set of massive screens giving the bridge a view of the world around the United Planets Space Force battlecruiser.

Henry himself didn’t need to look. The arrangement of forces in the Set-Sixteen System was burned into his brain, even asleep. His perception was still pinned to his dream self’s, though, and he was dragged to it.

Set-Sixteen was a Kenmiri provincial capital, deep on the far side of the Empire from the United Planets. The Kenmiri hadn’t been expecting an attack and their defense fleet was weaker than it should have been. That fleet was still five full dreadnought battle groups and the UPSF’s Vesheron allies were getting hammered.

Panther’s grav-shields and weapons could turn the tide of that fight—but that wasn’t their mission, and the birdlike starship plunged through the Kenmiri lines.

“There,” Henry’s avatar said sharply. “That ship. Broos, confirm.”

Commander Broos Van Agteren wasn’t a normal part of Panther’s crew. He was from United Planets Intelligence, their handler for Operation Golden Lancelot.

In person, he was a squat and dark-haired man with a ready smile and a brilliant glint to