Today's the day! Book 2 is live on Amazon as an ebook, paperback, and Kindle Unlimited.

Sample 3 of 3 is below.

If you've enjoyed reading the book as it was originally released here and wish to support the release, you can leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Or buy it too, of course :-)

Need more of The Z Team? Book 1 is out now.

Carnen flipped through previews of various spy-genre vids, chuckling to himself at the presented scenarios.

The entertainment industry’s idea of tradecraft was laughably terrible. Opponents clad in spacesuits engaged in vicious hand-to-hand combat on spaceship hulls. Explosive gunfights tore apart hotel lounges. Sleek spaceships were stolen out of orbital dockyards. Multiple partners were seduced during every operation.

Every operative presented as a master at a multitude of skills—sniper, close-quarters combat, martial artist, systems tech, mechanic, diplomat, and cultural anthropologist. Strikingly beautiful, incredibly fit, intellectually superior, sexually provocative, and instinctually blessed.

Shades of truth were present among the tropes. Operatives needed to be high-performing individuals with enough intelligence, physical capability, and street smarts to stay alive.

In Carnen’s experience, the most important quality of successful operatives was one few people outside the business would have guessed. Something that was difficult to teach and couldn’t be equipped.

Patience.

The ability to act when the time was right. When an opportunity arose. A mistake was made.

As simple as it seemed, few had the willpower to wield it successfully in practice.

In Carnen’s case, it meant resisting the urge to apprehend the target as soon as the traitorous Provenance scientist was spotted aboard Sanctum. Instead, his Kosmogenic and Provenance covert ops teams—callsigns Warden and Sentinel—would wait until the defector met with his Acculturation courier to capture them all.

His two members of Warden team—Kemp and Stevson—understood the bigger picture. Kemp was one of Kosmogenic’s Program Director for Project Fidelity, Stevson, a Fleet vet and a shooter like Carnen.

After Auturia’s destruction, interim Imperatrix Rragustus authorized the deployment of Kosmogenic advisory teams with Pree counterparts. A Kosmogenic liaison coordinated the operations and reported directly to the Imperatrix himself. Despite repeated successes, Acculturation continued to put up a formidable fight.

In the op briefing, Warden and Sentinel teams learned of the Kosmogenic and Provenance scientists’ secret program to undermine Acculturation. Kordut was part of Project Fidelity and would now betray them all by delivering the Provenance’s secrets to Acculturation.

Carnen had a personal stake in the outcome. As the party responsible for destroying his previous life, he would take great pleasure in watching the bureaucratic cesspool crumble into oblivion.

Carnen’s PD noted a lone Pree approaching and flagged him. The operatives’s customized PD was packed with illegal surveillance and tracking mods. A pair of discrete cams on Carnen’s clothing compared the older male’s physical traits to those of the defector. It wasn’t a match, but similar enough. He suspected the target would’ve disguised himself.

The lone male passed by the store, but Carnen’s surveillance tech continued to track the Pree.

Carnen watched the suspect’s every move on the stream in his interface. He saw the tension in the Pree’s body. He was afraid.

“Warden Actual to all teams. I have eyes on a suspect matching our target. He’s heading toward the administrative block. I will follow,” the operative informed his teams over their comm. He sent out the suspect’s profile data.

Supervisor Vallus, Sentinel team lead, confirmed the operative’s update.

Carnen waited before following the traitor.

Weaving through the crowd, he spotted the mark. He’d joined a crowd staring at a massive display along the wall. On it, the mask-covered head of a stunning Pree singer appeared. Carnen was no pop-culture fanatic, but even he knew who it was. Lady Starlight, the massively famous singer, gave a statement.

He directed his PD to connect to the audio feed.

“—hate and intolerance run rampant. Never has our society been so divided. We must come together as one people and decide the future of our race—”

“Sellout!” a Pree in the crowd shouted.

“How dare you! She is an icon of our people!” another replied.

“She’s a stooge of the Provenance now! We belong in the Commonwealth!”

Carnen disconnected from the feed. The crowd grew agitated as the majority argued with the fewer Provenance supporters. Carnen didn’t care about their political differences. His eyes were on the suspected defector.

The mark stepped out of the crowd, scanned the corridor, and then continued walking.

Carnen waited a few seconds before following. As he passed the crowd, two participants in the shouting match had to be separated. None of them had any idea that the Commonwealth’s unraveling would begin right beneath their nose while they argued with each other like hormonal adolescents.

The operative walked on, confident his prey was in sight.