It's 2037. I'm Mike Williams, but you can call me 'Magnet'. Everyone else does. It's short for 'Chick Magnet', which is good old-fashioned military humour at its finest. At age fifteen, my face picked a fight with the propeller of my family's boat, on a shoal near Broome, off Western Australia. It was an accident, but, needless to say, the propeller won. Twelve years later, I was a not-so-ruggedly-handsome fighter pilot assigned to the TFR Sydney. Not the Captain, or flight leader, or anything similarly exciting. Nobody special, just one mostly-unmemorable pilot among the many nameless, faceless masses. I'm Magnet. This is the beginning of my story. A 5500 word story in the Lacuna universe, set during the events of Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi but suitable to read as a stand-alone story. Parts of the Lacuna universe: Magnet Imperfect Faith The Lacuna series: Lacuna: Demons of the Void Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi (New Release!) Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion (Coming December, 2012!)

Pro tip: Never volunteer for anything. That's the first thing they told me in flight school. It's 2037. I'm Mike Williams, but you can call me 'Magnet', and I'm a fighter pilot on the TFR Sydney. Our flight leader, Iron, has a mission: Volunteer only. It's the usual gig. High risk, lots of unknowns, an opportunity to make history or die trying. Hopefully the former, but sometimes it's a little of column A, a little of column B, you know? The mission's going a to place no Human's been, hoping to earn ourselves some desperately needed allies. Pretty simple on paper. Fly out to a rendezvous at a distant world, pick up an alien and take him to his blushing bride. Although, come to think of it, I don't know if psychotic waist-high reptilians can blush. A 13,700-word story in the Lacuna universe, set after the events of Magnet but suitable for reading as a stand-alone story.

My name is Mike "Magnet" Williams. I'm a lot of things: fighter pilot. Ugly bastard. Lord of all I survey. I fly the F-88 Wasp, although recently I've been doing a stint as a gunner in the Broadsword gunship Piggyback. I was back on Earth on an important mission after a long time in space. Real important. But now Fleet Command have another special mission for me. Apparently I'm a glutton for punishment. See, there's a Toralii freighter, somewhere deep in space, and it's vulnerable. Someone got the bright idea to steal it. Guess all their best people were unavailable, since they picked me and the crew of the Piggyback. Since, you know, we did so well at the last mission. We're going way out of my comfort zone for this one. I'm happiest when I'm in a cockpit, but this is something else. Something important. If we succeed, we're doing to be doing something special, living out on the edge, hitting the Toralii where it hurts. We're taking the fight to them, and we're taking something they use to fight. If we fail, nobody will ever find our bodies. 17,200-word story in the Lacuna universe, set after the events of Magnet and Magnet: Special Mission but suitable for reading as a stand-alone story. Parts of the Lacuna universe: Magnet Magnet: Special Mission Magnet: Marauder (new release!) Imperfect Faith The Lacuna series: Lacuna Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (coming soon!)

My name is Mike "Magnet" Williams. I've come a long way. These days I have my own ship, the Rubens. We stole it from the Toralii Alliance. For the last year the Rubens has been tasked with 'counter-logistical privateering' against the Toralii Alliance, attacking their military supply network. We hit them hard, we get out, we do it all over again. Modern day buccaneers given total autonomy. We're alone, without another Human within a thousand light years. If only that were true. Somewhere out in the black, around a remote moon covered in ice that's kilometres thick, we found something. Something that was not supposed to be there. Something we were not supposed to find. Scarecrow. I can take a lot of pressure. Fighter pilots are supposed to be able to do that. Whatever the universe throws at me, I can handle it. So far I've faced aliens, friendly and otherwise, and I've seen things that so very few Humans have. I've dealt with it all. But not this. Not my own conscience. 15,700-word story in the Lacuna universe, set after the events of Magnet: Marauder and Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity, but suitable for reading as a stand-alone story. Parts of the Lacuna universe: \- Magnet \- Magnet: Special Mission \- Magnet: Marauder \- Magnet: Scarecrow (new release!) \- Imperfect \- Faith The Lacuna series: \- Lacuna \- Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi \- Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion \- Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (new release!) \- Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity (coming soon!)