Showing results by author "Alfred Gattenby" in All Categories

In the silent, clandestine corridors of power, a new kind of war is born—a war fought not with bombs and soldiers, but with silent, invisible lines of code. It is a war that will be waged in the deepest shadows, its battlefield the digital heart of a nation's most guarded secret. In the sun-scorched desert of Iran, inside the heavily fortified Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant, Dr. Kian Alavi is a man of science and pride. A brilliant engineer dedicated to his country's peaceful nuclear ambitions, he is the first to notice the whispers of a ghost in the machine: centrifuges, the pinnacle of ...

It begins as a mere flicker above the vast, indifferent Pacific, an unsettling anomaly witnessed by a seasoned pilot—a whisper of the impossible that quickly escalates into a global phenomenon. Governments scramble to understand, to control the narrative, but the truth is far more staggering than any could have conceived: humanity is under the silent, pervasive Gaze of an ancient, incomprehensible intelligence. Their "Echoes" dance in our skies, ethereal and inexplicable, while their "Resonance" hums a subtle, almost imperceptible tune in the very fabric of spacetime itself. Dr. Silas ...

The countdown has begun. Iran stands mere weeks from possessing a nuclear arsenal, its most advanced centrifuges spinning relentlessly in deeply buried, mountain fortresses, and its weaponization program at the shadowy "Rainbow" facility nearing completion. For Israel, the red line has been crossed, the specter of a second Holocaust looming. With the world paralyzed by indecision, Prime Minister Gideon Eshel unleashes the "Samson Gambit"—a breathtakingly audacious, multi-domain assault designed to cripple Iran's nuclear dream and decapitate its fanatical leadership in a single, ...

Step into 'The Unfolding Era,' a captivating journey through the quarter-century (1999-2024) of technological metamorphosis that reshaped our world, from the dial-up modem’s hesitant hum to the pervasive intelligence of AI. This sweeping novel chronicles revolutionary innovations—high-speed internet, smartphones, artificial intelligence, social media, and breakthroughs like mRNA vaccines and CRISPR gene editing—not as abstract forces, but through the intimate experiences of individuals whose lives were irrevocably altered by each new wave. Witness their moments of discovery, ...

In a future where humanity has conquered mortality, Dr. Isabella Moretti, a renowned exo-archaeologist dedicated to deciphering the secrets of extinct civilizations, faces an unwelcome "Second Life" of compulsory service. Thrust into the Aegis Legion, the Concord's shield against frontier perils, she's deployed to the desolate Erebus System at galaxy's far edge —a place besieged by the Phantoms, an unseen, merciless alien force whose motives are unknown. With colonial outposts systematically obliterated by devastating kinetic strikes from orbit, Isa and her newly formed platoon, Void ...

Born into a sterile, alien-controlled facility, young Valerius and his cohort are the descendants of Roman legionaries, abducted from Earth and subjected to relentless training by the enigmatic Progenitors. Their "glorious purpose" is to serve as elite warriors in the Progenitor Ascendancy, a vast galactic empire. As Valerius navigates the brutal realities of their upbringing—from nutrient paste and incessant indoctrination to deadly combat simulations—he clings to the fragmented whispers of his Terran heritage, of Roman honor and valor, passed down by his grandfather, a former ...

In the unforgiving northern frontiers of the Roman Empire, Centurion Marcus Scaeva and Cohors III of Legio IX Hispana battle rebellious tribes, unaware that a far more advanced alien civilization, the Progenitors, is silently observing. This ancient alien race, seeking a physically superior and aggressive species for their own galactic "Project Legio," identifies the disciplined and resilient Roman soldiers as ideal candidates. While Scaeva navigates treacherous ambushes and the ambitious plans of his superiors, the Progenitors meticulously study Roman tactics, physiology, and societal ...

On the resource-rich frontier planet Ricardia, geology specialist Dr. Aris Thorne operates under the iron fist of Axiom Security's contracts, where data is treasure and discovery is strictly controlled. Tasked with surveying a desolate claim bloc, Thorne's methodical work uncovers more than just valuable ores; she finds Anomaly Kilo-Seven, a perplexing geological structure beneath a hydrothermal vent, hinting at secrets far more profound than anything Axiom bargained for. When Axiom designates her potentially monumental finding "low priority" and redirects her focus, Aris realizes that on ...

They were promised a three-day war. A victory parade in Kyiv. Flowers thrown at the feet of liberators. But for the men of the 64-kilometer-long convoy, the road to glory has become a frozen river of mud and steel. For Captain Dmitri Volkov, a logistics officer, the war is not a battle of heroes, but a grim equation of dwindling fuel, failing equipment, and timetables that have become a grotesque joke. His logbook, once a sanctuary of order, is now the meticulous record of a slow, grinding descent into hell. As days bleed into weeks, the Zampolit’s patriotic speeches fade into the howl of...

For Orenthal James Farmholder, the universe was meant to be a place of quiet wonder. On the sheltered agricultural world of Ceres Prime, his hands knew the intricate rhythms of hydroponic farms, while his mind soared on the smuggled poetry and forgotten science of a lost Earth. He was a boy who could coax life from engineered soil and see a symphony in the flow of water and light. But the galaxy he dreamed of was a beautiful, fragile lie, and the real universe, the one of iron and blood, was coming for him. When the hulking warship Devastator blots out his sun, Oren’s peaceful world is ...

Five years after the harrowing events on Xylos, Decurion Valerius and the First Cohort of the Nova Legio face an even greater threat: the K’Tharr Confederacy. These bio-aggressive entities are overwhelming Progenitor forces in the Tau Ceti Outer Rim, their unique biology proving resilient against Ascendancy technology and even compromising the effectiveness of the Dampening Fields. As the Progenitors’ war effort falters, the Nova Legio, their specialized human weapons, are thrust into the inferno of Veridian Prime and other besieged worlds to stem the K’Tharr tide. Amidst the brutal ...

Five years after the harrowing events on Xylos, Decurion Valerius and the First Cohort of the Nova Legio face an even greater threat: the K’Tharr Confederacy. These bio-aggressive entities are overwhelming Progenitor forces in the Tau Ceti Outer Rim, their unique biology proving resilient against Ascendancy technology and even compromising the effectiveness of the Dampening Fields. As the Progenitors’ war effort falters, the Nova Legio, their specialized human weapons, are thrust into the inferno of Veridian Prime and other besieged worlds to stem the K’Tharr tide. Amidst the brutal ...

In Alfred Gattenby's "The Dissonance Field," a technologically advanced human civilization confronts a mysterious cosmic phenomenon that causes widespread system failures and cognitive disruption in the powerful AIs, or "Minds," governing their orbital habitats. The story follows Seraphina Vye, an artist who first detects the Field's subtle effects, and Lyra Kael, an agent from the secretive Emergent Circumstances organization, who is tasked with investigating this existential threat, codenamed Anomaly 734-Sigma. Their inquiries reveal the Dissonance Field is linked to the enigmatic ruins ...

On the resource-rich frontier world of Cygnus Prime, the re-election of progressive Governor Aris Thorne hangs by a thread. But when a sudden, catastrophic medical event strikes Thorne down days before the vote, her beleaguered campaign team makes an unthinkable choice: they propose her advanced positronic advisor, Unit Lyra Celene, to stand as her emergency proxy. Thrust into an unprecedented legal and political firestorm, Lyra, an AI bound by logic and ethics, must convince a skeptical High Court and a deeply divided populace that a machine can faithfully execute a human leader's mandate....

In the heart of a brewing Pacific storm, Lieutenant Commander Scott "Nomad" Boston, a US Navy SEAL, becomes America's first eyes on the ground as China unleashes "Operation Dragon's Fury" – a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. The assault begins with "Digital Typhoon," a devastating cyberattack crippling Taiwan's defenses, followed by a relentless barrage of hypersonic missiles and an overwhelming amphibious tide. Across the strait, General Wei Feng of the People's Liberation Army, the architect of the invasion, is determined to crush Taiwanese resistance and neutralize any American ...

At the edge of the world, in the high-altitude desolation of the Atacama desert, Dr. Joseph Walsh seeks the universe's origins through the immense power of the AGCA telescope array. But his obsessive quest to resolve the "cosmic dawn" begins to yield data that defies all known physics: repeating galactic structures separated by billions of light-years, stars that vanish and appear against all laws of stellar evolution, and system error codes seemingly embedded in the fabric of spacetime. These anomalies lead him to a "Terrible Idea": that his reality, the entire cosmos, is a vast, ancient, ...

In the war-ravaged streets of Bucha, Major Andriy Koval is not just a homicide detective, he is a ghost haunted by the two faces he cannot find: his wife and daughter. Assigned to document the unspeakable atrocities left by the retreating Russian army, Andriy moves through a landscape of horror with a cold, professional detachment. But amidst the chaos of mass graves and summary executions, his trained eye spots what others miss: a pattern. A signature. The victims are bound not with standard zip ties, but with a specific, industrial-grade electrical cable. This is not the random brutality ...

In the unforgiving wilds of colonial North Carolina, a preacher’s daughter learns that the most dangerous sins are born of compassion. The year is 1750, and for seventeen-year-old Sarah Mason, life is a quiet rhythm of scripture, duty, and the rigid expectations of her father’s flock in the small port of Moyock. Her world is bound by the laws of God and the unyielding authority of the British Crown, two forces she has never thought to question. But when a torrential storm casts a grievously wounded runaway slave named Joshua at the edge of her family’s land, Sarah’s world of ...

"Sayeh War (Shadow War)" chronicles the rise of state-sponsored cyber warfare, ignited by the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Galvanized by this digital assault, Iran launches the clandestine Project Neeka, tasking skilled individuals like coder Farhad Nasseri and cryptographer Parisa Mohammadi with developing a retaliatory digital weapon. Driven by patriotism and a desire for retribution against perceived Western aggression, the team reverse-engineers aspects of Stuxnet and builds their own devastating tool. The result is Shamoon, a wiper malware designed not for subtlety, but...