Chronicles of Velrath: The Fall and The Fire

No one planned for this. The shuttle went dark on approach, every system was dead at once, and the squad dropped out of the sky like target dummies. Thirty-two hit the water. Most survived the impact. Some survived the swim to shore. Not everyone survived the planet’s first mood swing. Even their high tech polymer suits are trying to suffocate them.This world is wrong in ways the training sims never covered. The swamp feels aware. Creatures don’t behave like animals so much as old, patient ideas with teeth. And in the middle of a fight for survival, when a thing that just looks wrong tries to tear the squad apart, a yellow alien woman steps out of the trees and saves them… then disappears before anyone can ask why.Velrath makes it clear it has no interest in playing by human rules.The story is told through five narrators, each with their own lens on the nightmare:Sgt. Grace Carlysle is the kind of Marine every other Marine secretly wants to be when they grow up. She’s the soldier’s soldier. Nothing rattles her. Nothing gets past her. If Slater has a right hand, it’s Grace, and everyone knows it.Pvt. Rae Kolten. She’s eighteen, red-haired, and absolutely not built with an internal filter. If Rae thinks it, Rae says it, usually at the exact wrong moment and usually loud enough for God to hear. But here’s the thing. She’s a good Marine. A really good one. Her instincts are sharp, her heart’s in the right place, and when everything goes sideways, Rae is the first one to move toward the danger instead of away from it.Capt. Leah Kilpatrick wears her rank like a shield, keeps herself polished and distant, and never lets anyone forget who’s in charge. However, behind her back the rumors swirl. It’s known she slept her way into command. When the real danger hits, no one follows her. Not one Marine looks to her for the call.Cpl. Sydney Venn is the medic every squad prays for. Pragmatic, unshakably dedicated, and respected in that quiet way where even the loudest Marines shut up when she starts talking. What she didn’t train for is a swamp full of predators, a planet that hates them, and a situation where she’s expected to keep Marines alive with nothing but willpower.Lt. Daron Slater is the kind of leader stories pretend to be about, except he’s real, and he’s standing in the mud with everyone else. Where other people see chaos, Slater sees pattern. Where they see disaster, he sees a bump in the road. And when celebrated war hero Col. Kalen Drennor goes down, every single set of eyes turns to Slater even though Kilpatrick is technically next in line.They’ll follow him into hell.Mostly because hell already found them, and he’s the only one who keeps walking like it’s just terrain to cross.This is an adult sci-fi erotica tale. It’s a slice of life, if your life involves alien women, walking horrors, and a mysterious, almost living planet. Read more