Promethea Invicta

By Monalisa Foster

No longer part of the United States, in 2071 the Sovereign Republic of Texas remains bound by the Outer Space Treaty it inherited.

Theia Rhodos stands ready to free humanity from the shackles that keep lunar resources out of her reach. Done taking "no" for an answer, she acts boldly, ready to sacrifice everything.

Only the gods of scarcity, woe and lament stand in her way.

Everything in life has a cost. And a price.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Monalisa Foster
• Release date: Dec 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393886099

Monalisa Foster

Monalisa won life’s lottery when she escaped communism and became an unhyphenated American citizen. Her works tend to explore themes of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility. Despite her degree in physics, she’s worked in several fields including engineering and medicine. She and her husband are living their happily ever after in Texas. Her primary genre is science fiction--from hard sci-fi to alternate history to space opera. She has also written some contemporary fiction, as well as dystopian and military sci-fi. She describes her work as science fiction with heart, because life is too short without at least a bit of romance in it. 

Book preview

Promethea Invicta

Also by Monalisa Foster

Stand-alone works in the Ravages of Honor universe:

Novels

Ravages of Honor

Novellas

Enemy Beloved

Featherlight

Dominion (upcoming)

Short Story

Bonds of Duty and Love

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—Short Fiction—

The Greatest Crime (upcoming)

The Heretic

Catching the Dark

Bellona’s Gift

Cooper

Equality

Dolus Magnus: The Great Hoax

Collective Responsibility

—Non-fiction—

Rejection 101: A Writer’s Guide

Promethea Invicta

Monalisa Foster

Polite Society Enterprises LLC

Copyright © 2018 by Monalisa Foster

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All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Afterword

Newsletter Signup

About the Author

Ravages of Honor

Enemy Beloved: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Featherlight: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Dominion: A Ravages of Honor Novella

Bonds of Duty and Love: A Ravages of Honor Short Story

Catching the Dark

The Heretic

Cooper

Bellona’s Gift

If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.

— Hyman Rickover, Father of the Nuclear Navy

Chapter 1

October 22, 2071

Midland, Sovereign Republic of Texas

Lunar gray they called it.

Theia had to admit, the manufacturer had done a marvelous job matching the name to the briefcase's color. Just like Mare Tranquillitatis, the attaché case's impervious carbon-fiber shell had a slight bluish tint, especially when it caught the sunlight just right.

She'd refused to let her bodyguard cum limo driver stow the briefcase in the back. Clancy had bristled at being denied the opportunity for chivalry, but acquiesced, nodding with reluctance.

Twelve years he'd been with her. The former Texas Ranger's plentiful rust hair was frosted with gray. Overtaken by lines and wrinkles, his once prominent freckles no longer stood out. He still moved with lethal grace, even if that bulge on his hip didn't blend in as well as it had thirty-or-so pounds ago.

Both limo and bodyguard were key to surviving the parade that her life had become.

One lesson she had learned, at great personal cost, was that outrunning a lynch mob wasn't about speed, strength, or the willingness to do the right thing at all costs. It was about the ability to make it look like you were a majorette leading a parade, rather than a victim desperately fleeing mob rule.

And she'd gotten good at it. Too good. Because she'd had no choice. Because making her father's legacy of unlimited energy a reality had become her life. It was not a life or legacy she'd wanted. It had cost her too much.

She'd taken it on willingly enough. Out of grief. Out of duty. Out of vengeance.

Time heals all wounds. She'd believed that once. Believed it with all her heart because she'd needed it to be true. But it wasn't. Every time she defeated one regulation, one bureaucrat's interference, one politician's well-intentioned but misguided need to get in her way, another—or several—sprouted in their place.

Waste of the worst kind, the endless lobbying and lawsuits, had chained her, drained her soul and eaten out her substance. They had left her feeling like an empty husk that somehow refused to die, condemned to wake each day and try anew.

Perhaps today was the day. The day she slipped those chains, off herself and everyone else encumbered by them.

Somewhere along what used to be called US-87, about halfway between the Chief Justice's office in Brady and the greater Midland metroplex, she'd slid the attaché case off her lap so it could rest atop the plush leather seat beside her.

But she'd not let go of it. A silly, useless gesture. It's not like it, or the treasures within, could disappear.

She released the attaché's smooth handle and reached across to the mini-bar to pour herself a glass of milk. Grade A raw, unhomogenized, and illegal everywhere but the SRT, it had a buttery hue. Smooth wholesomeness washed down her throat. It had a particularly soothing flavor, satisfying a long-held craving and bringing an unintended smile to her face.

Such a troublesome substance. Who would've ever thought that raw milk would spark a showdown between Texas and DC, or come to symbolize defiance of a calcified, overbearing bureaucracy determined to rule every aspect of life?

The limo slowed with that whisper-quiet menace unique to armored cars and the barest nudge of inertia. Through the heavily tinted glass she peered down the road leading to headquarters.

A dozen or so sign-waving, fist-shaking antis were protesting in front of the red- and orange-striped wedge-barricades bracing the main gate.

Just beyond, about a story high, an obsidian monolith reached for the sky. Welcome to Spaceport SRT was laser-etched into its glossy surface.

The antis banged away at drums under their No Nukes banners while men and women in pixelated tiger-stripe uniforms and tactical gear watched through helmet visors. Their breaths puffed small clouds in front of stoic, unsmiling faces.

The No Nukes banners didn't bother Theia as much as the hand-lettered sign held aloft by the only guy who looked like he'd had a shower this month. Her gaze locked on the Remember Travis County sign and the hawkish man underneath, hoping he could feel the full brunt of her glare and everything behind it.

It was he, and those like him, who should remember the act of international cowardice that had turned Travis County into a glass crater, and the provocative weaknesses of the so-called elites that had been responsible. Instead he was here, spewing his hate at her because she was the safer target. Because he knew that if he waved that sign in the face of those actually responsible, he'd die a painful death.

No tears came, however.

Not any more.

Not for either of her parents or the millions who'd