Travis Starnes

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 26 (Final)

Camp Banwīhraz, Central Germania

Medb walked quickly toward the door to the walled prison building from her carriage. She had too much dignity to run, but the rain that had started the previous night had intensified, and was coming down in thick sheets.

She was happy to be out of it, inside the brick building that was used as administration, barracks, and interrogation rooms for the large prison camp. After her first week here she'd given up...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 25

Greece

Ky moved through the muddy forward trench that still had not dried in spite of the lack of rain for the past week and the relatively warm temperatures. The dampness was affecting everything, from the men’s morale to the construction of the very trench itself.

The planking laid down to provide stable footing had rotted away in places, creating treacherous spots that could be dangerous to men running through the trench in the heat of combat.

He made a...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 24

Alexandria, Egypt

Valdar watched Alexandria grow in size as his fleet approached the city, holding onto the short ceiling of the heavily armored riverboat that wasn't meant to operate in open seas, even one as calm as the middle sea.

The trip here from Britannia had been harrowing. Worse, he'd started with eight ironclads, but one had been lost to the waves just before they'd crossed from Oceanus into the Middle Sea. Thankfully, it had been one of the ships refitt...

The Barons' War - Chapter 4

Frozen Sea, Near the Silent Isles

William didn’t know if he’d ever been this cold. Even through thick gloves, he could barely feel his fingers, and ice crystals had formed on his eyebrows. The Frozen Sea lived up to its name, great sheets of ice floated like pale islands upon the dark waters, some larger than his ship.

William braced himself against the railing as the ship lurched again, water sloshing over his boots. Every time the hull crashed against a wave...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 23

Greece

Mud caked their boots in thick, sucking globs as Ky and Modius made their way down the secondary trench. Recent rainfall combined with thousands of men moving through the narrow passages had turned sections of the defensive network into a quagmire and the wooden boards put down to ease the situation just buried themselves in a few days.

Modius looked slightly ill as they pushed through the throng of men moving around. Ky was glad for the control sophus an n...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 22

Greece

Gundomar pressed against the muddy trench wall as another shell screamed overhead. Thirty yards behind their position, it detonated, hurling dirt and metal fragments in all directions. It was as though Nastrond, the shore of corpses, had been brought from the underworld into this place. They had endured eighteen or maybe even twenty hours under constant fire. He’d lost count by this point as minute after minute, shells exploded around them, shaking the ground a...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 21

Factorium

“Empress,” Hortensius said to Lucilla, and she and her guards were ushered around into the firing range. “Your timing is perfect. We’ve just completed our final checks.”

She could smell the harsh scent of spent powder, suggesting he’d already been testing the weapon this morning, which was good. The news from the front had not been good lately, and they needed this weapon out of testing and into the hands of the men as quickly as possible. 2025-03-13 14:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post

The Barons' War - Chapter 3

Sidorian Army Camp, Outside Rendallia City

Isolde crossed the muddy ground between the tents, her ladies-in-waiting and the handful of guards Pembroke required to be with her trailing in her wake. Although the sun had already gone down, the camp had not stopped working, and she could still hear the clangs from the smithy as she passed and smell the woodsmoke from the tent set up to prepare food for the soldiers.

She spotted what she was looking for as she passed a...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 20

Camp Banwīhraz, Central Germania

Medb settled onto the rough wooden bench in the watchtower just as the sun started to make its way over the horizon. She’d been watching these people for weeks now and she found she’d gotten the most useful information in the morning, before the sun was all the way up and the temperatures started to really rise. It was when they were the busiest, which meant she got to see more interactions between prisoners, w...

Out of Control - Chapter 9

For the next several weeks I became a ghost. Not literally, though after what happened in that physics lab, who knew what was possible, but at least socially. Classes, meals, sleep, and the bare minimum of Alpha Sig events kept my pledge status technically active. Otherwise, I vanished.

I never heard anything from the Dr. Wells guy or anyone else from my email, although who knew if that address was still even good or not.

The more I realized I was on my own with this and the more ...

The Barons' War - Chapter 2

Bleakwater Straight

The weight of Marrow’s Bane felt strange in William’s hands. For as long as it was, the full length of a longsword, it wasn’t as heavy as he would have expected it to be. Not as light as Eskild’s curved sword, but still, lighter than what he’d been training with his whole life.

And the weight change was still throwing him off.

“Higher guard, Your Highness,” Sir Drummond called from where he stood at the ship’s rail. “Kee...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 19

Eastern Germania

Ky frowned as he read over the latest reports from the observation balloons. While he had been pleased that they finally had good weather for the balloons to operate continuously for the past two weeks, and the news they had been getting back was not what Ky would have wanted.

It hadn’t stood out at first, because they were being slow and cautious about it, but it seemed clear now that the enemy was reducing the size of their force all along the...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 18

Devnum

For the third time in a short few months, Lucilla made her way into the Imperial Forum in hopes of finally getting the conscription laws through and the men in training. She couldn’t help but still be angry at most of these men, who’d cost valuable time they did not have.

As it was, with training, it would be winter before most of these men made it onto the battlefield. Until then, the stakes on the front would get even worse, and goals like retaking th...

The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 11

Other than the journal, which gave context for what was happening in the tower when the Calaphium fell, there wasn’t much else in the living area to give them information on the Blackstar. They headed back to the central corridor and followed the footsteps to a large, spiral staircase in the center of the tower.

“The knights went straight up. They ignored everything back there,” Rowan said, kneeling to study the floor and pointing past the stairs to another corridor continuing bey...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 17

Medb was happy to finally get off the train. With the exception of two short boat rides, she had been on one for the past five days, traveling up from Kalb to the coast of Gaul and then from Londinium up to Devnum.

While it was a miracle they could travel so fast, since a trip like that would have taken a month or two at best in the old days, it wasn't particularly pleasant either.

Of course, she could have taken a boat, which would have taken maybe a day less, but she had wanted ...

The Barons' War (Shattered Lands #3) - Chapter 1

Drayford, Dunwic’s Reach, Kingsheart

It took several minutes for the banging at the door, firm as it was, to push through into William’s consciousness. The days following the Battle of Twyver where William, Aldric, and Garris, along with the eastern Kingsheart barons, had secured the town and freed Rivermark of Edmund’s forces had been a whirlwind of audiences and councils as the rebels figured out their next moves.

William hated to think of himself like tha...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 16

Southern Wistla River

Leodgar walked along the iron top deck of the Isarna, enjoying a few minutes of calm night air. These iron ships were a miracle and he’d shown dozens of times over the last eight months just how powerful they were, but being inside of one was a little like being inside of a closed furnace.

They were cramped, hot, and everything inside of it felt like it was covered in a layer of coal dust from the constantly burning boilers powering the ent...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 15

Lucilla set aside another report detailing Egyptian raids on Britannian merchant vessels. They were getting bolder by the day. Kalb had started to send out patrols to slow some of the bleeding, but most of the experienced captains were with Valdar, and until he arrived, the bulk of their warships were escorting convoys to the front in Italia and up into Greece to help supply the lines being built out there.

She knew he was hurrying, but the bleeding needed to stop if they were going to ...

The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 10

Osric pushed against the massive doors, straining hard to get them to move enough to let them in. The entire thing strained against its ancient hinges. It occurred to Osric that if the baron’s men did hack at the door to get it open and passed through it into the tower, how did the door close?

It seemed unlikely they pulled it closed as they left, so what did it?

As the entrance yielded, a gust of stale air rushed past them, carrying the scent of decay and mold. A harsh, moist s...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 14

Port Caralos

The sickly-sweet stench of sweat disease permeated the makeshift hospital wing. It was overwhelming. He made this trip every day, even with the quarantine in place, because he had it.

It was no different than standing on the main deck in the heat of combat, with shells smashing all around him, directing the battle. Danger took a second place to duty.

The ward, a hastily erected structure of wood and canvas, was crammed with cots. Row after row o...

The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 9

The night was an uneasy one. Even with someone on guard, no one slept well. The crazy old man wasn’t the problem; he curled up and slept the sleep of someone completely unbothered by his surroundings. The rest had to listen to the noises outside the cave.

It was like the night before they entered, but worse, because any noise could be a sign that the creatures out there followed them into the cave. That their safe haven for the night wasn’t safe after all.

And yet, none came. ...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 13

Devnum

Lucilla walked with purpose, her head up and her face set like stone, as she crossed the courtyard and started up the steps toward the Imperial Forum. Ministers and others with business inside the palace complex moved out of their way when they saw her, and not simply out of deference.

She ignored them. She was there with a mission and the flood of telegraph messages routed through the port of Kalb had made it all the more imperative.

Not that there w...

The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 8

Osric breathed a sigh of relief as he and his companions finally moved out of sight of the teeming mass of moths. They might not be able to cross whatever invisible line had stopped them, but the very sight of them unnerved him, along with the scraping clicking sound they made with their awful-looking maws.

As they ventured deeper into a small collection of mountains, it was impossible not to notice the stark contrast to their previous surroundings. The jagged, blackened peaks with thei...

The Plains of Pluto - Chapter 12

Factorium

Hortensius hurried onto the shooting range they had set up behind one of the factories on the west side of town. He’d scheduled this test two days ago, but a sudden emergency with the ship test platform had required him to run to Devnum quickly.

How foolish he’d been when he’d thought the telegraph lines going up meant less back and forth travel for him. Yes, it was partially his fault, as he liked to keep his hands in all of the projects and the new ship design ma...

The Blackstar Legacy - Chapter 7

The night spent in the shadow of the Claws had been an uneasy one, and Osric wasn’t sure anyone got enough rest. It was made worse by sounds, ranging from howls to strange clicking, that went on throughout the night.

At least it made it easy for everyone to be up and get an early start. They were already going to have to spend one night in and one night coming back out. Osric wanted to avoid having to add to that, so after putting the horses in the temporary corral Rowan set up, they ...

Cover Reveal: The Plains of Pluto

Question for the future

What other genres would you be interested in seeing. I almost certainly won't start anything new for at least a year (cause I have enough ongoing stuff right now), but I have ideas for a bunch of different stuff kind of nudging me, that I want to explore. I'd also like to hear something I don't list that you're interested in.

Some I'm currently thinking about are (I have specific ideas about each of these already, but they're very nebulous at the moment):

Military Sci-Fi (Space sh...

Out of Control - Chapter 7

Note: Not sure how I missed posting this. Sorry about that.

It was the sunlight hitting just across my eyes that woke me up. For a second, I tried to figure out where I was. My head felt heavy, although not from a hangover. It took a second for my brain to join the rest of me awake and catch up. I remembered last night at the party, meeting Sophia, dancing, talking for hours.

And what happened after.

A sudden gasp beside me made me turn. Sophia sat up straig...

Out of Control - Chapter 8

I shut the door behind me and leaned against it. It was still afternoon and the dorm was mostly quiet. Some kids were moving in, but classes started Monday, so most were here already. I guess this being their first week at school, they didn’t want to spend it cooped up in their dorm room, and were out exploring the campus or going out to Beal’s street, which was apparently the go-to place for bars and coffee places.

Thankfully, Alex wasn’t here either. If anything, he was at the l...

Second Down - Chapter 40

The next week flew by and before I knew it, it was Christmas morning and I was waking up to the sound of muffled voices downstairs. I loved Christmas and was excited, although a lot of that was tempered by how things had been around the house since Thanksgiving.

Mom and dad had started talking to each other again, but everything had been tense. The worst part was, there was nothing I could do about it. Except for that first night when dad had slept in the guest room, they hadn’t been ...