TDU Recruits: TDU Series, #9

By Jyn West

You just finished hearing from Kyle and Sami Edwards as they shared their story of how they were drawn to join the TDU and took that leap of faith to move thousands of miles from home. Join us next in TDU Recruits the 9th book in the TDU Series for how their recruiting looked from the TDU side of the events that brought them together. It starts with a review but then expands on where the TDU is going from here.

Change is coming. Roles are changing and old enemies, who have been hiding, are active again. Come join us in new adventures with the TDU. Catch up with old friends and welcome new ones into the fold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jyn West
• Release date: Oct 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393018803

Book preview

Copyright Page

Copyright ©2019 Jyn West All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the Author. You must not circulate the book in any format. Thank you for respecting the rights of the Author. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Dedication & Acknowledgements

Thank you to my family and friends who continue to encourage me and hold me accountable. For believing that I could do this and succeed. I could not have done it without you. Your patience and love carried me through the rough spots, and you rejoiced with me as hurdles were cleared. Thanks to Mom and Dad who were even willing to read outside their normal genre to support me, you are the best.

A special thanks to all my beta readers and their willingness to take me on as a new author and to share your views while the work was in progress. For helping me identify slang terms that not all regions would interpret the same. LOL Thanks for seeing it through. Georgianna Jonson and Dee B. you guys are the best interactive sounding boards ever. I am honored to have had you with me through the process. Justin, thanks so much for the books you were able to read for me before your move. Maureen and Gloria I hope you are enjoying the beginning of the series as much as you did the later books you read for me.

My family, friends and beta readers have heard this disclaimer many times but here it is for all you new readers too.

This series is a work of fiction. If details about locations are accurate, I may have passed through or I may have gotten lucky with my description. No need to correct perceived errors in the description, this is fiction. Some facts or observations are woven through the stories but for the majority of the series, this is fiction. *laugh* I hope you enjoy the books. I hope they do inspire you to explore places you have not been, but please don’t try to find places described except just for fun, because its fiction. May the wanderlust take you to places unknown by road or by reading. Encourage our youth to learn the joy and fun of reading, a vacation for our mind that can last minutes or hours as time allows. Thanks for checking us out. The TDU Series currently has 12 books with a 13th in progress and each will be released as it goes through final editing and touchups.

About: TDU - The Series

Tactical (strategic, planned, psychological, calculated, intentional)

Development (expansion, progress, advancement, training, education)

Unit (entity, division, group, company, organization)

The number of paranormal entities in the world are increasing and intermarrying with humans. Those humans and their friends and families are now aware of them and word is spreading. Who will help with peacekeeping and law enforcement as knowledge of their existence spreads. Who will help train local law enforcement agencies how to deal with these groups, who have until now been self-policed. With the increased numbers and expansion beyond the voluntary group boundaries of the past, an integrated human and paranormal force will be needed for the future. The Tactical Development Unit (TDU) is that force.

You just finished hearing from Kyle and Sami Edwards as they shared their story of how they were drawn to join the TDU and took that leap of faith to move thousands of miles from home. Join us next in TDU Recruits the 9th book in the TDU Series for how their recruiting looked from the TDU side of the events that brought them together. It starts with a review but then expands on where the TDU is going from here. Change is coming. Roles are changing and old enemies, who have been hiding, are active again. Come join us in new adventures with the TDU. Catch up with old friends and welcome new ones into the fold.

Table of Contents

Contents

Copyright Page

Dedication & Acknowledgements

About: TDU - The Series

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 – TDU Growing Strong

Chapter 2 - Breathe

Chapter 3 – Not a Sword

Chapter 4 - Reunions

Chapter 5 - Search

Chapter 6 – Recovery Countdown

Chapter 7 - Debriefing

Chapter 8 - Anomaly

Chapter 9 - Results

Chapter 10 – Forest Followup

Chapter 11 - Undercover

Chapter 12 - Changes

Chapter 13 - Weddings

About the Author

Prologue

Thirty years ago, THE power couple, of San Francisco, gave birth to a baby girl. They saw nothing special or unique about the child. She had dark blonde hair, brown eyes and a sweet disposition. Her parents were on their way up in the world, both leading international companies, and a child had never been in their 5 year plan. Or 10 year, or 15 year plan either, truth be told. Her grandparents were thrilled with her birth and visited her weekly, since they lived only 45 minutes north of her home. A group of nannies were procured to care for her around the clock and a permanent daily appointment was entered in both of her parent’s calendars to check on her needs with the nanny staff. She lacked nothing materially and thanks to her devoted nannies, she was well loved and cared for. The lovely little girl was walking, talking and learning several languages, right on her parents proposed schedule. Each nanny was bilingual in English plus another language, so she learned English, Italian, and French from birth. At three years of age she was learning to recognize sight words and reading early readers.

At four, she started talking about an imaginary friend she called Shaman. Her nannies reported hearing her speak in additional languages that they didn’t recognize. She would tell them Shaman said about anything they questioned of her. Her grandparents reported to her parents that she was speaking other languages to strangers in grocery stores and at the park when they would take her for the weekend and when asked who taught her that language she always replied, Shaman teaches me. Her parents decided that she needed more parental involvement in her life so that her imaginary friend would go away. Their careers were accelerating and expanding around the globe and she needed a more competent caregiver than the hired nannies. They sent her to live with her grandparents at their vineyard and signed over guardianship to them.

Though she missed her nannies, she loved her grandparents and had been spending weekends with them for nearly a year by then. Her imaginary friend never left her, but she learned to stop speaking of him in their presence so they would not be upset with her. Not long after her parents sent her to the grandparents, they were traveling overseas for business and their plane went down in a storm. There were no survivors. They had provided well for her in their wills. Her grandparents were made the trustees, who would manage her wealth, until she reached adulthood as defined by the state of California.

The little girl continued to grow, her hair changed from blonde to strawberry blonde and her brown eyes began to change and take on an appearance of heterochromia, where two colors are noted in the iris. Her insistence that she had a Shaman teaching her, continued to worry her grandparents, they feared she would be reported by teachers as having psychiatric problems. So a tutor was brought in to home school her, beginning at age five.

Her affinity for languages expanded yearly by several languages each year. Any foreign visitors to the winery were immediately drawn to her on hearing her converse in their native tongue. Though her grandparents tried to ignore her special abilities, they called on her often to interpret for them with visitors and field workers. Her playmates were the children of itinerant farm workers who could not speak English, she communicated with them fluently in their own languages. She excelled in her school work and demonstrated a thirst for knowledge unparalleled. She exceeded even the accomplishments of her parents, from their youth.

As the girl approached puberty and started to develop into a young woman, her appearance began to change again. She was taller than either of her grandparents, her eye color with the heterochromia became more distinct. Her hair became dark brown, nearly black with highlights in blonde, red, auburn, copper and silver. She attended a dog show near the winery and one of the dogs was said to have brindle coloring. She laughed and told her grandmother that the beautiful dark brindle colored dog matched her new hair color. They had never seen anyone with hair coloring like hers that was not artificially colored.

Her grandfather was having health issues and he decided that they should be teaching her how to manage a business since she would be heir to four companies between her parent’s legacy and her grandparents. She progressed quickly and helped in the winery as she learned. She was years ahead of her age scholastically but they felt she needed to learn how to interact with people her own age and so they enrolled her in public school for Junior and Senior High school. Her grandfather passed away while she was in Junior High. Her grandmother worried what would happen to her granddaughter if she were to become ill as her husband had. When the girl started High School, she started two small companies of her own to earn her own spending money and her grandmother helped her set them up and they arranged for trustees at each of her parents and grandparents companies to assist her if anything happened to the grandmother. They petitioned the state, when she turned 16, to make her an emancipated minor, so that she would be able to remain living at the winery while completing her education and beyond if she desired to. Her grandmother passed away less than a year later.

That little girl was me. My name was Jeri Janae Miller, I was orphaned at four and again twelve years later at age sixteen. I was a junior in high school and had two businesses of my own. Training animals and as a language interpreter. When my grandmother passed, I inherited four companies and a trustee with each of them to help manage the companies until I was of age to take over without their help, although I cannot imagine doing so.

I began attending board meetings and let the trustees know that they could not cast a ballot on my behalf without clearing it with me first. I took notes on the meetings, read every company notice sent and questioned them thoroughly before approving a ballot. They were resistant at first, but my grandparents had taught me well and the questions I asked were valid ones, so they learned quickly that I would make good decisions. If they disagreed, they knew that I would listen thoughtfully to their arguments before making a final decision.

At eighteen, I graduated from high school and had completed an associate degree through the local community college concurrently. I used the funds from my two part time businesses to pay for the college tuition, books, clothes and other needs without touching any of the trust accounts. There was a bank account set up for household expenses and I took care of paying those from it and kept the accounting for it. The trustees dreaded the first tax season only to be pleasantly surprised at the level of my understanding and training.

I received scholarships to several Universities in the US and abroad but settled on Northern Arizona University, ranked 50 in the world. I was there from age 18 to 24 and left with 3 degrees. Bachelors, Masters and PhD. Of those six years, one year was spent in the Middle East, working on an archeological dig as an interpreter. I also had a side job while there for a Sheikh training his animals and their caretakers/guards. The training included camels, horses and dogs along with the humans who managed them.

My Shaman was with me from age 4 to 24, teaching me languages, how to learn and how to transform into other creatures, big and small. He taught me in what he called dream walks. No one ever believed me that he existed, but they also could not explain the wealth of knowledge I had become proficient at without formal training that they knew of. I often wondered if he were real or spirit, but he would never answer that question.

Just before my college graduation, I interviewed with several lettered agencies for employment after graduation. The UN, FBI, CIA and several private international companies. I narrowed it down to the FBI and CIA and had interviews scheduled for after graduation. My only regret to that point in my life is that neither my parents nor my grandparents lived to see my accomplishments. On graduation day as I left the stage and was exiting the parade grounds, there was a man I recognized waiting to greet me. It was my Shaman. He was a real person and he had come to see me graduate and take me on a vision quest to see where the Gods and Goddesses would have me go next. Shaman was barely 40, if that, and had been teaching me for 20 years. He said I was his first and greatest student. I felt like he was the one who truly had raised me in those years.

I learned in the vision quest that I was to be a gatherer of souls destined to lead shifter/guardians, who had strayed, back to their calling. This gathering and their calling to lead would potentially save the world from evil as old as time. There were 12 to be gathered and others would be drawn to me to aid in my finding them and keeping them safe until they could be trained for their role.

I was to be given a new Shaman to increase my training in other areas and help watch over me during the gathering. I had been seeing him in a dream for weeks but was not told exactly where I would find him. I was given additional abilities to master including mindreading and telepathy. On returning from the vision quest, I prepared to leave for the east coast, to interview with the two agencies. The first with the FBI was impressive but I did not find the Shaman I was seeking. I continued on to the CIA interview, knowing the God’s would lead me to where I needed to be as long as I walked in faith. While at the CIA, between evaluations, I decided to practice my new abilities with mindreading and telepathy in the cafeteria during lunch.

I overheard the voice from my dream of the new Shaman but could not find him before the voice faded. The next day I determined to seek the same, sure it was him and that he was here. I found him just as he was leaving the room and his last thought was of a new recruit he was about to evaluate for their fitness levels. I realized that recruit evaluation was the one I was scheduled for. On arriving for my evaluation, I greeted him telepathically. He questioned if he had really just heard that in his mind and I repeated the greeting aloud and confirmed he had heard it. He performed the four hour evaluation and we spent another hour discussing the dreams we had shared for the past few weeks. In sharing our histories he agreed that he was to be my next Shaman, whether the agency hired me or not.

My new Shaman took to telepathic communication like he was born to it and I was going to be hired by the agency. Not before they revealed that they had me followed for several weeks before the interview though, and had pictures, audio and video of me transforming into other creatures forms. My initial thought was worry that they would confine me to a lab, for experimentation. They also picked up on my telepathic abilities with Shaman Robert and hired me anyway. As the God’s promised, those who would help were being drawn to me and the fulfillment of the prophecy had begun.

The adventures were immediate and the revelation of the first found one also introduced me to my twin soul, Zachary, destined to be my physical and emotional protector in the gathering. As more were gathered, the agency realized that the world was changing. Creatures not known previously, existed among us, and they recognized the challenges that law enforcement would face in the future. They determined to prepare for it now and created a new unit to lead the way after the gathering was complete. Enter the Special Operations Tactical Development Unit (TDU). Those who aided in the gathering would continue on in the TDU thereafter.

The twelve were gathered and trained. I gained an eternal mate and a son. The TDU expanded and developed in preparation for the future. Across the country, two young humans with extraordinary abilities are shown to me in a vision. They were to be a part of our team in the near future. We finally met them in person, two years before they would graduate college and enter our ranks. Robert found his future mate around that same time, and some of the foundling leaders are completing their missions and returning home to reunite with the pack and their families. Some have married along the way and are now in supportive roles for those they have led.

Change is coming. Roles are changing and old enemies, who have been hiding, are active again. Come join us in new adventures with the TDU. Catch up with old friends and welcome new ones into the fold. ~ Jeri Janae Miller Logan

The starting timeline overlaps the prior books about the Edwards.

Chapter 1 – TDU Growing Strong

Graduation Day, University of Wyoming

Jeri

Six years ago, our fledgling TDU team was watching the UW graduation streaming live into our conference room. It was Agent Justice Cloud graduating back then, from the Criminal Justice program, and he had only met Agent Lassiter and saw me, Dr. Jeri Logan, briefly, at a career fair weeks before walking across this same stage. So much has changed since then. We have added nine more team members bringing our current total to twenty. Zachary and I welcomed our son Xander into our family, he is five years old now and excited to be starting kindergarten soon.

We will be welcoming two more special people to our TDU team from this graduating class. A married couple, Kyle and Sami Edwards, were drawn to us two years ago, courtesy of the God’s and Alpha Gardner, a lion shifter and professor of theirs. They interned with our team last summer and there was no question that they were destined for the TDU. All 20 members of our team and a number of their mates are here today to share this event, like we wanted to for Justice when he graduated. They are also graduating from the Criminal Justice program with honors like Justice did.

They both have family members here and since we arrived early, we garnered prime seating for our team and their family members. None of them knew we were coming. Their families were so grateful for the support we were providing, they cannot wait to see their faces when we all cheer them on. We are all working very hard to block them right now, so they don’t hear us on the team link. (A special gift from the God’s, works like a pack link, much more sensitive and clearer than telepathy.) We know from Kyle and Sami that a few of their family members have embraced telepathic communication with them and they are trying really hard not to ruin the surprise. *grin*

The Edwards’ are an ancient 22 years old each but with a skill set beyond those years. Sami is a Sibylline Warrior; Kyle is her Tempest Shield Sentinel. Don’t let the titles fool you, they are both loving and fierce. They share learned skills in mixed martial arts, firearms, defensive driving and assorted computer skills. They have abilities they share as well such as telepathy, mind reading and their mate bond. Sami has the additional abilities of sibyl/seer, psychometrics, levitation, telekinesis, dream walking, paranormal sight and the ability to share what she sees with others. Kyle has the additional abilities of being able to join Sami in dream walks, tempest control of the elements, creates shields and force fields, and can create weapons from the elements both in the real world and the dream world. Kyle can perform levitation and telekinesis also, but he utilizes his tempest abilities to do so with wind usually.

Agent Anders has been working with them in dream walks for the last two years. He is helping them to master their abilities and improve their overall physical endurance and strength. Sami and I have also been working together by dream walks helping each other to improve abilities that we have in common with only slight differences in the way we use them. They have also been working on a contract basis for local and national law enforcement agencies while in school. We can’t wait to have them on our staff full time.

The crowds entering the grounds for the graduation are down to a trickle and there is standing room only remaining. We can see the graduates lining up to enter the field and take their seats for the ceremony. The president of the graduating class takes the podium and invites those attending to stand for the processional that will bring their graduating family members on the field.

We can all tell the moment that Sami and Kyle spot their family and the TDU team surrounding them when the processional stops abruptly for about a count of three and their eyes widen and then their smiles as