K’nat Trap Paperback Now Available

As you may have noticed by now, you can actually order the K’nat Trap paperback before the ebook launches on the 18th of July. But if you’d rather wait for the ebook, that’s fine too, just get your pre-0rder in so it will appear on your Kindle when is releases. If you’re like me you will forget about purchasing it and then bingo, there it is in your reader and you’ll be able to dig right in on it.

Remember, K’nat Trap takes place in the second trilogy of the Star Saga, right after Starstrikers. So if you haven’t read Starstrikers yet, now would be a great time to knock that one out and then you’ll be ready to tackle K’nat Trap.

In other random news… It looks like Amazon has updated the covers for two more of my novellas, Devon’s Blade and Corvette, to include the “A Star Saga Story” subtitle. So now it’s more clear to the casual reader that they are part of the series. Each of the novella’s come in between the numbered novels of the series.

Corvette is book one of it’s own mini series withing the Star Saga, set before the Great War with Voton. But I’ll make that more clear as the next Corvette launches in late summer.

Happy reading!

Devon’s Blade Recognized Again

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Library Journal’s 2016 Indie Ebook Awards have awarded Devon’s Blade with an Honorable Mention for Science Fiction. You can read what they said about it here. This little novella is my most awarded book, but I still can’t seem to get many customer reviews for it on Amazon. It doesn’t matter how awesome your book is, if you don’t have reviews, you can’t advertise and you don’t get sales. Please, if you’ve read this book, leave a review for it.

Shadow Fighter Showdown

My latest scratch built starfighter model is the K’nat fighter or as they call it in STARSTRIKERS – the Shadow fighter. While I’m building my model from plastic and Renshape, my son is building his model in Blender. He’s much faster than I am. It’s going to be a race to see who’s fighter will make it to the cover of K’nat Trap, my next novella.

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At this point, he’s winning.

The Rising Cover

We’re coming down the stretch for the release of The Rising, Book 2 of the Star Saga. Here is the cover as it stands today. What can we tweak to make it even better? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

One thing I’d like to tweak is related to a sense of speed. Perhaps a motion blur to the green starfighter. The explosion has some sharp angles near the leading edge of the wing that jar my eye. The only other thing I have is perhaps some navigation lights on the starfighters.
The Rising Cover 1-30-16

Mock-Up Models

Sometimes I have an idea for a starfighter model but it’s not completely fleshed out on paper and I don’t know if the actual design will work. Or I may be working from a twenty year old semi-orthographic drawing, as was the case for the K’nat fighter.

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If you really start looking at this drawing you realize that it’s not even remotely accurate enough to actually build this fighter. So either I re-draw it or I make it and start changing things as I go. Sometimes the later route will let you find new aspects to the design that you can’t see with a drawing. Like a 3D artist with the ability to rotate his art around and look at it, building the model in posterboard let’s me see it from all angles.

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This is what I came up with using posterboard. It looks a bit like a sparrow to me. Very bird-like anyway. There are some things I like about it and some things I don’t. I will mess around with it more before finalizing the design.

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Here is the mock-up under it’s predecessor, the Terrox fighter. They are similar in size and even in some design cues. This is on purpose. Ships should look like they have evolved, same as airplanes from the same manufacturer.

 

Release Day for Devon’s Blade

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My first novella, is now available on Kindle. It’s a short read, maybe take you a couple of hours. It’s a good introduction to Devon Ardel, my all purpose Sci-Fi hero who happens to be a bad-ass in a starfighter. You know what women pilots call a fighter’s cockpit? A box office.

If you like stories about fighter pilots who fly starfighters instead of jets, you’ll love this one. It’s a classic war story about a veteran squadron commander who’s sent to a remote unit to help turn it around. There’s lots of combat, lots of character development and you might learn something about the fighter pilot culture. I had a blast writing it and those who have read it seem to like it too.

If you have read this novella, let me know what you thought of it. There are two more planned starfighter-type novellas and I’m writing the second one right now. As always, any reviews you can leave or mentions you can make about the book on your social media sights will go a long way in helping the book take off.

Thanks for being a reader!

 

 

Naming Ceremony From Devon’s Blade

CHAPTER 7

Call sign naming ceremonies go way, way back. They can get pretty out of hand if left unsupervised. I gathered the flight leads in my office and lectured them on what I would allow and what I would not. Drinking till drunk, encouraged. Becoming a belligerent drunk, discouraged. Group consensus in naming, encouraged. Inappropriate names, discouraged. Leaving the hooch to wander drunkenly across the base and disturbing the peace, discouraged. Keeping the party confined and not requiring security personnel to settle disputes, encouraged. I finished by holding them personally responsible for anything that happens during the festivities. If anyone winds up in the brig or hurt, they won’t be flying anytime soon and their personnel records will reflect. I felt like the biggest bitch of the universe, but I knew they understood where I was coming from.
There were three pilots in need of a call sign and they had begun their bribery period early in the week. Newbie pilots to a flying squadron typically didn’t keep their old call signs but instead would be given a new one by their leads or myself. Your call sign usually came from some incident, either good or bad that happened to you in your first several weeks with the squadron. Pilots wore their acquired call signs on their flight suits instead of their real names. Everyone called them by the call sign and never by their names. If you came with your prior call sign on your uniform, that was considered bad form and you would be ridiculed for it. Not many pilots made that mistake especially if they saw someone else in the unit do it. Nobody wants the humiliation.
You could petition to keep your former call sign, but most opted to get a new one, especially if their old one was bad. Bribes were the traditional way to keep your old call sign and to make sure you got a good new one. Usually bribes were in the form of alcohol or food that was rationed, like chocolate or anything that tasted better than what the chow hut served. Personally, I preferred booze. However, if the food item was interesting enough, I could be swayed by it.
So far I’d received plenty of beer offerings and at least one good whiskey bottle. This was most promising. The savvy pilot would purchase enough bribery materials to ship with him to a new base. Most forgot about it and wound up scrambling to make offers with what was at hand, already behind the curve.
Naming parties were the highlight of your social calendar no matter where you were serving. The more remote the assignment, the crazier they got. Considering where I was, I fully anticipated security police intervention, puking, broken furniture and probably a few unintended sexual encounters. It was pretty much expected, if not condoned. But if I didn’t spell out what I expected in terms of behavior, things would easily escalate past even these.
Pilots started filling the hootch shack a few hours after dark. It was another balmy night in paradise and few of them wore unmodified flight suits. Sweaty skin and alcohol was not a good mix, especially amongst horny young pilots. I wondered how many of them would be hooking up with people they might not have looked sideways at when sober.
The newbies all lined up at a table near the bar where they could be seen by everyone. Myself and the leads sat across from them with our bounty laid out before us on the table. There were plenty of pitchers of tap beer and a few wrapped food items. Sweetness even had a racy calendar filled with hunky soldiers. All the women had already examined it and determined the best months of the year. It would likely get passed around long after the year ended.
Choke got a nice bottle of cream liquor from Selene. He was pretty protective of it. The best I had was my whiskey bottle and a slab of fine dark chocolate. I’ve done better, but this was pretty good for the middle of nowhere.
The ceremony began with a few rounds of singing traditional fighter pilot songs. Some of them had some obscene sexual references. The bartenders struggled to keep the libations flowing as the singing slowly became more unintelligible. I took center stage and ordered the three FNG’s (Freaking, New, Guys) front and center.
Henry, Katya and Kelli reluctantly came forward and stood at attention. Henry was the youngest so we did him first.
“Okay, this court of naming is now in session and the judge will now hear potential names from the crowd for Lieutenant Shaun Henry,” I said, waving for suggestions.
“Angelic!”
“Lubber!”
“Babyface!” That one drew a round of good natured laughs for being an accurate description of Henry’s youthful face. I could see the look of abject horror on his face and laughed.
One of the women in back hollered, “Hank!”
I turned to face Henry and pretended to look him up and down. He hadn’t done anything particularly stupid since I had arrived. His flying was competent if a bit uninspired and he always had a good deal of enthusiasm for his missions. Failing to come up with anything derogatory, I decided to cut him some slack and went with Hank, a play on his name.
The crowd both cheered and booed as Hank bowed to me and tried not to grin. He was no doubt sweating this out, hoping he didn’t get an embarrassing name. Choke had some patches ready and hastily wrote Hank on one and handed it to me. I proceeded to show it off to the crowd and then slapped it onto his chest. “From hence forth until such time as he leaves our fine company, this pilot’s name is Hank.”
More cheering and a raising of drink in salute. I moved on to Kelli, an orange haired young woman with bright green eyes. The bridge of her nose was covered in freckles the rest of her face smooth and creamy.
“Do I have any suggestions for Lieutenant Ameil Kelli?”
A round of cat calls emanated from the male pilots followed by occasionally rude comments which I immediately called a halt to. There was the usual cries that I’m no fun and we’re not in the world out here. I let them slide.
“Firebird!”
“Flame!”
“Ranga!”
Someone said something that I didn’t catch and I asked him to repeat it. He stood up, wavered back and forth a bit and was steadied by his mates. “Firecrotch!” he blurted out.
After the snickers and laughs took over again, I shook my head and looked back at poor Kelli. Obviously she had the attentions of many of her male colleagues. Once again, I couldn’t find anything she had done particularly offensive. Her flying was a bit over zealous at times, often overshooting her targets or leading her shots. Nothing so bad as to warrant a name. I liked her attitude so far. She was ambitious and aggressive.
I turned around and shouted for calm before continuing. The crowd settled down.
“Lieutenant Kelli does indeed have red hair and to the uninitiated, that would seem to be her defining characteristic. I say she should stand up and own it. From this day forward until she parts our company, she shall be known as Flame.”
The crowd cheered and raised their glasses to the new call sign.
I took the patch from Choke, who had written the name in red and turned to face Kelli. She had fire in her green eyes as she waited for me to slap it on.
“Flame on!” I said, and slapped the patch into place. She stepped forward with a forced smile and took a bow. When she stepped back I could tell she was going to make the best of that name. Something told me she was going to own it like nobody’s business.
“Last, but by no means least, is Lieutenant Katya,” I said, turning to face the drunken crowd again.
“Let me have ‘em people.”
The names started pouring in with great enthusiasm. Katya was well liked by nearly all the pilots.
“Getter!”
“One Shot!”
“Splash!”
That one was extremely popular, and drew the largest applause. Naturally when you sink your bird and survive, it would demand such a name. I was just about to agree to Splash when Choke raised his hand. The crowd hushed as he slowly stood up.
“Katya has already been named by our illustrious blue enemy. I’ve heard their comm chatter and every time she enters a fray, the blueskins call her Karvuk. I had to have that translated. It means White Bitch.”
A few cheers of Karvuk erupted.
I nodded to Choke who sat down and picked up his pen to write on her blank patch. I repeated the name and got a thunderous applause in return. Turning to Katya I could see the shocked look on her face. Very few Alliance pilots earned a name from their enemy. It was a sign of respect and honor that opposing pilots had deemed her worthy enough of a derisive name.
“From this day forward, Lieutenant Katya is now known as Karvuk, the White Bitch. Congratulations!”
I took the patch from Choke and slapped it firmly in place on her flight suit. Karvuk took a bow and the crowd cheered three times, once per pilot.
I held up my hand to quiet the crowd before the music came back on and the party started in earnest.
“We have one last pilot to name. She didn’t make it to the ceremony. Lieutenant Lacy Petra, died defending the base on the day I arrived,” I said.
The crowd hushed out of respect for their fallen comrade.
“From this day forward, Lieutenant Petra will be known as Phoenix. The pilot who rose from the ashes.”
Drinks were raised in silence. Choke handed me the name tag and I handed it to the bartender to place on his wall next to the dozen or so other fallen pilots.
“Three cheers for Phoenix for her bravery under fire and her ultimate sacrifice for her fellow pilots.”
There were three cheers for Phoenix and then the crowd started chanting FNG slowly at first and then gradually it got louder and louder. The three new guys all started to fidget and each of them wore concerned looks as they watched a few veteran pilots come up on stage with necklaces made from local flowers and shells. A necklace was placed on each FNG while behind them, more props were set up for the initiation ceremony.
Hank, Flame and Karvuk were then lined up before a bowl of what looked like very large crustaceans. It was tradition for newly named pilots to have to eat something that normally would not be considered edible as part of their initiation. In this case, it was the indigenous mollusks found in the waters just offshore. They were the main staple for those giant sea birds I had seen earlier. Kellers had powerful beaks with which to open the giant shells. It took a skilled cook with a sharp knife to hack them open. In this case, three were spread out open before the FNGs.
Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were to suck the meat out of the mollusk and eat it before they were allowed to wash it down with a beer. Normally this would not be such a horrible task, especially if the mollusks were from Selene or just about any other Alliance planet with oceans. But the mollusks on Kew were huge and could not be chewed by human teeth alone. Rubbery and hard, they could only be swallowed whole and barely at that. It was quite the suitable chore to get one down.
Hank went first, slurping the meat of the mollusk into his mouth with ease he started to choke a bit realizing what he had gotten inside his mouth. Choke had explained that the mollusks were salty and bitter when uncooked and the juices inside them were equally as foul.
Hank’s first attempt was aborted and he spit out the giant slab of wet meat. The crowd booed and then egged him on for a second try. He spit out the excess juices and steeled himself to try again. On his second attempt he managed to swallow the meat whole. It looked like for a second or two he would hurl it back out and into the crowd, but instead he washed it down with a glass of beer fed to him by Choke. If you’re thinking this was how Choke got his callsign, forget it. I already asked and he said no.
Next up was Flame. She attacked the slippery meat with a vengeance not seen by anyone in attendance. She downed the huge glob of meat in one try and then smiled like the cat who ate the canary. The crowd went wild with lurid chants and cheers. Flame backed away and let the next victim have the spotlight.
Karvuk stared at the mollusk before her and wrinkled her nose at the horrible smell of it. There was no backing out of the challenge. Flame had set the bar high and now she must swallow or face a possible renaming ceremony. Karvuk glanced ruefully at me and then attacked the slippery meat. It took her two tries to get it in her mouth but she didn’t let it linger there for long. She pulled back her head and forced the slimy glob down her throat. The crowd withheld their cheers until she had swallowed and then they all erupted in jubilant praise for her valiant effort.
Choke jumped up on stage and held up his hands to quiet the crowd.
“Even though you are in command, you are still a Freaking New Girl, Commander,” he taunted as a lei was slipped over my neck and a new plate of mollusk was brought out for me. I shook my head and the crowd booed and jeered me into partaking in the ritual. Crap. I had to do it or risk losing the respect of my squadron.
They tied my hands back and positioned my face over the giant half shell. It smelled like seawater and urine. I almost puked all over it. I turned my head to inhale a bit of fresh air and then opened my mouth to suck in the slippery, rancid meat. As it passed over my tongue I realized it was not as foul as it smelled. It was very similar to any other raw crustacean. However, it was still an incredibly large hunk of rubber to swallow.
I looked around and saw all the FNG’s looking at me and cheering for me to swallow. Choke was sitting across from me a smug look on his face. That bastard. I tilted my head back and choked it down with a hard swallow. Somebody handed me a beer and I guzzled it down as fast as I could. The air was filled with cheering and song as I raised my empty glass.
Following the initiation ceremony the newly named pilots mixed back into the crowd and the celebration kicked into overdrive. Food arrived and a few hearty individuals dug in. I stayed away, preferring to open my chocolate to wash down the slimy taste of the mollusk. I shared some with Choke and Sweetness.
Later that night Choke, Karvuk and I found ourselves laying out on the sand bar that overlooked the beach. We were all looking up at the star filled alien sky and trying to name the stars. Choke was insistent that the brightest yellow star he could see was Selene’s sun, but both Karvuk and I argued that we were too far away for it to be that bright. I guessed it was a star in Votainion held space and Karvuk thought it was one of the nearby Alliance systems.
“I think you’re homesick Choke. That star’s just another empty system in the Outer Rim,” I said.
“Thanks for bursting my bubble Commander,” he said. Then he rolled over and looked at me all serious. His blue eyes were dark in the dim starlight.
“Say, what’s your callsign anyway?”
I shook my head and continued looking up at the flickering stars.
“Rocket One is too generic. It’s more of an honorific. What did you use before you were a squadron commander?” he asked.
“I used to lead a bunch or Rangers on Ocherva before I joined the Fleet. We called ourselves Devon’s Devils. I used Devil One for a long time.”
Choke raised a finger at me. “Hey, you were a Ranger?”
I smiled and looked over at Karvuk who was either resting her eyes or sleeping, I couldn’t tell which. “He’s not too bright, is he?”
She shrugged and said, “Nope. But he’s not bad in the sack.”
I looked back at Choke and he raised his brows at me all suggestive-like. I shook my head and pushed his face. He fell over on his back and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
Karvuk picked up her head and motioned to Choke. “His name is a reference to the size of his joystick. Everybody that’s tried it has choked on it.”
I looked back at Choke as he tried to stand up in the thick sand.
“Where you going buddy?” Karvuk asked.
“For a swim,” Choke said, unzipping his flight suit and stumbling for the shoreline.
I looked back at Karvuk she was watching him strip as he wobbled away.
“You better make sure he doesn’t drown,” I said.
She looked back at me and smiled as she got up and started pulling her sleeveless flight suit off. I watched them both stumble naked into the waves and then decided to leave them alone. I got up and plodded through the sand back to the hooch shack.
The pilots had mostly left and the bartender and a few kitchen staff were clearing out the broken plates and glass from a boisterous party. I thanked the bartender and the staff for their patience and started back to my shack. It was way past midnight and I was feeling drunker than I had been since joining the Fleet. My drinking had been curtailed in space to the point where it took far less alcohol for me to get smashed than it ever had before. That was probably for the best. The older I got the less inclined I was to get wasted like the younger pilots did.

A Sneak Peek at Devon’s Blade

21702169809_5ea0ca8b92_z  Pre-order it from Amazon now. Launch date is Halloween.

http://www.amazon.com/Devons-Blade-Ken-McConnell-ebook/dp/B015Y01CO8

 

The morning mission was not intended to be a revenge killing, but I knew that’s what was on everyone’s mind, especially Katya’s. I let her lead to test her ability to control herself. If she went solo trying to get the Red Ace, it would be her last flight. I was reasonably sure she would stick to the mission plan. I kept the mission simple and instructed everyone to keep their eyes open and look for any weakness they could find in the new enemy fighters.
As for tactics, I told them to fly like they do when they go against each other in training. Assume the new fighter handles similar to their own fighters only better. The new fighter appeared to have a tighter turn radius and was faster, they needed to compensate for that fact when they tangled with them.
I could see in their eyes that they were scared again. As much as everyone was out for blood, they also looked as if I were sending them off to slaughter. Any of them could close their canopies for the final time. I wanted to go with them but I couldn’t risk my own life and leave the unit leaderless.
My preflight speech was more of a pep rally than instructional. I needed to make sure they didn’t come apart up there at the first taste of combat. They had to maintain the fierceness that had made them so good these past few months. As I watched them gather their gear and head to the flight line, I wondered how many would come back. I hadn’t even considered that before now. Dammit.
Karvuk and Sweetness would be the leads, with Condor and Double as their wingmen. I hesitated to send up Sweetness again so soon, but she was our most experienced pilot against the new fighters. I felt they had a better chance with her along. She seemed up to the task and even eager to get back in the fray. That was a hopeful sign.
All the off duty pilots gathered in Ops to listen to the mission on the comms. I stayed in my office until they reached the enemy airbase, occupying myself with trying to figure out new tactics. Nothing was coming to me.
I checked my messages hoping for guidance from Fleet. There was only a message received notice, no official response. I contacted the base Comm Squadron and asked if there were any issues receiving messages from Fleet. They assured me that the communications lanes were open. Dammit.
A knock at my door was Hank.
“Ma’am, they’re almost to their target now.”
I nodded and got up to join everyone in the main room.
The fighter telemetry was displayed on the main viewer as blue icons representing the Alpha Flight. There were no red icons on the map, but that wasn’t unusual and was mainly due to our poor scanner data of the planet.
They buzzed the airbase low, searching for parked enemy aircraft and only found a dozen or so KiV-3’s parked in their revetments. A second pass brought ground to air fire from the base defenses and made their attack more difficult. Karvuk and Condor circled higher up, waiting to be pounced on by fighters on patrol. But they encountered nobody. After several passes and at least six fighters confirmed destroyed on the ground they formed up and headed for home.
“Control, Alpha Lead. No joy on the new fighters,” Katya’s voice sounded defeated.
“Copy, Alpha Lead.”
I went to the paper map that was pinned to another wall and ran my fingers over the island chain where they had just been. There were no other bases within reach to house the new fighters. Where the hell had they come from?
I opened up my sweep to a few more hundred klicks and found another, smaller atoll. The islands were uninhabited and barely above sea level. I moved to the main screen and pushed around menus until I opened the latest images we had of the atoll. There were about seven smaller islands and two larger ones. I zeroed in on the larger ones. One of them had what looked like a natural cave entrance that was large enough to store fighters.
I grabbed the mic. “Alpha Lead, this is Rocket One. Change course heading 270. I want you to do a pass on the Ring Atoll. Copy?”
There was a pause as she no doubt was searching her navicomputer for the coordinates.
“Alpha Lead, Rocket One. Wilco.”
Seconds later they were all on course for the atoll, climbing to combat altitude. Everyone sat on the edge of their seats or stood leaning into the comm system to listen. Minutes ticked by as we waited for Karvuk to report in what they saw. As the icons got closer to the atoll the comm lines crackled.
“Holy shit, we kicked the hornet’s nest!”
“Tally ho!” said Sweetness.
New icons emerged as the combat computer was updated with current telemetry from the Swifts. Three, then six and finally nine enemy fighters poured out of the cave from the main island. It seemingly took them mere seconds to gain altitude and meet Alpha Flight. Alpha were outnumbered and they had lost the element of surprise.
“Alpha Lead, break off and disengage. Copy?” I said into the mic.
A burst of static was the only reply. Followed by excited chatter from Condor, Double and Karvuk. It sounded like they were able to gang up on the first wave of fighters and were close to splashing one. Seconds ticked by again. An eternity.
Finally. “I got one! Splash one of those bastards,” Condor said.
A cheer broke out from the other pilots and was quickly quieted when more chatter crackled over the speaker.
“Double, break right and come up. I’ve got your six,” Karvuk said.
“Negative Lead, I’m losing pressure and speed.”
“Double pull up and stall it, I got him.”
One of the blue icons winked off, followed by another red icon. Nobody cheered that time.
“Sweetness, I can’t get around him. Where are you?” said Double.
“Other side, back at you.”
Another red icon winked off.
“This is Lead, break off. Repeat, disengage. We’re out numbered up here.”
“Copy Lead,” said Sweetness.
“On your wing Lead,” said Condor.
“Control this is Alpha Lead. State twenty to splash. Lost Double.”
“Alpha Lead, Control. Enemy status?”
“They are breaking off too. Looks like they’re heading back to the main base,” Karvuk said. You could hear the defeat in her voice, or was it disappointment?
I walked over to the status board and crossed off Double’s name. Then I went back to my room. The other pilots spoke in hushed tones about losing Double. I couldn’t face them right now.

Votainion Terrox Starfighter

The primary Votainion starfighter in the Starstrikers Era is the Terrox. This twin engine, twin canon design is fast and deadly. A direct ancestor of the Twin Tube design from the early war years, the Terrox is a war tested tried and true design well loved by those who fly it.

This is the only decent drawing I have of it. I expect to build this in 1/32 scale at some point for the book covers in the middle trilogy of the Star Saga. The final design will no doubt look slightly different.

This old drawing shows the three main lines of Votainion starfighter designs. The KIV line eventually dies and the Terrox and Reemer lines carry on into the second trilogy. I’ll have to update this graphic when I finalize on the Terrox. The Reemer is final, though I have not built it in plastic 1/32 scale. There are always more ideas for models than time allows me to build. You can see the KIV line dies out after a great run in the first trilogy.

KIV-3 Photo Shoot

This past weekend my brother Byron was in town with is digital camera. We took many pics of the models I constructed for the next Star Saga book cover. Below are some of our untouched pics. We shot them during the late afternoon catching the golden light of the Magic Hour. A black bed sheet was held by myself behind the models so that later Byron could pull them out with Photoshop.

This is the original cover sketch we were trying for. I decided not to bend the wing over on the large model, so that we can use it again in a later cover shoot. We can probably do that damage in Photoshop if need be.

Above is the main KIV-3 model in all its green and yellow glory. Byron will put it on a space background and add lots of expody bits to ensure that it looks torn to shreds.

This is the Vickers fighter flown by the hero, Devon Ardel. It is 1/48 scale and the angle is designed to show it pulling away from the bigger KIV fighter in a victory roll. Byron will add glowing engine and motion blur in Photoshop.

This is another enemy starfighter, a KIV-1 that our heroine is going after next. It is also turning away from camera. Byron will again add a glowing engine and perhaps give it some motion blur.

These are just three images of many dozens we took of the models. He will flip through them all and select the best angles for use in the final cover art. When I get the first design thumbnails from Byron I’ll show you how they are coming together to make an exciting space battle scene.