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M.J. Markgraf

M.J. Markgraf

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M.J. Markgraf posts

Corebound Chapter 27

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Corebound Chapter 26

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Announcement

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good January, and for those in the colder areas, I hope you managed to stay warm.

Now for the real news. Corebound will be back on Feb 9th! I'll see you then.

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BSE Book 2 is now available on Amazon and Audible!

When the frontier burns, there’s nowhere left to hide.

On the remote world of Eden’s End, Alexander has carved out a fragile refuge: a workshop turned enterprise, a home for thousands, and a place to raise the daughter he never expected to have. But peace never lasts.

The pirate attack that nearly destroyed them has not gone unnoticed. The Sol Treaty Organization has begun to take an interest, and so has Katalynn Char, the ruthless warlord who rules the region.

Worse sti...

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Announcement!

With chapter 25 of Corebound up, I'll now be taking the rest of the month off to work on prepping for the story launch on RR. Patreon payments will resume on Feb 1st, but new chapters of Corebound might be a week or two behind. That being said, once I do start posting again, you'll be getting 3 chapters a day for the first week back.

I hope you're all enjoying the new story, and I will see you soon.

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Corebound Chapter 25

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BSE updated for $5 tier

Sorry, I forgot once again. To make sure I don't forget again, and to apologize, I've unlocked the remaining BSE chapters for the tier. Enjoy!

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Corebound Chapter 24

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Corebound Chapter 23

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Corebound Chapter 22

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Corebound Chapter 21

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Corebound Chapter 20

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Corebound Chapter 19

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Billing is paused until February 1st

Happy New Year, everyone! As a reminder, I will be pausing billing until Feb 1st.

What does this mean? It means you won't be charged at the next renewal of your membership. You will be charged again if you leave and rejoin, however. I also believe you will still get charged if you change tiers. I can't control that.

Chapters of Corebound will still be released until I reach chapter 25, then the story will pause until February. Blue Star Enterprise chapters will continue to unlock...

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Corebound Chapter 18

Hallik’s ship appeared in space near the planet and began its covert scans. They knew where the eiraxin vessel had landed thanks to the tracker, but he wanted to ensure no surprises were waiting for his crew.

“All clear,” Joris said. “Should I take us down?”

Hallik glanced at his arm readout to make sure all of his team had checked in. They were green across the board.

“Do it, but keep their ship targeted. If it so much as tries to power up, shoot it down.”

...

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Corebound Chapter 17

Jacob really wanted to explore the station and see the other aliens, but he was also in a bit of a hurry. Thankfully, Sha’la had saved him a bunch of time by buying all the power cores and handling the purchase of his other items. She had also been mostly honest.

He wouldn’t have even realized she had lied to him a few times if he had not been monitoring her vitals with his sensors. Her heart rate spiked when she first tested the power cores, and again a few times after. So even tho...

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Upcoming schedule

With the conclusion of BSE, I'll be taking the Christmas week off, and I hope to return with 3 chapters a week of Corebound until I hit the 25 Chapter cap for Patreon. Once there, I'll be working hard on simply writing so I can prep for RR Launch in early February.

This will mean no chapters for most of January, so I will be pausing payment for January.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a good new year!

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BSE Chapter 6-49: Epilogue

SYSTEM: SOL

DATE: 2406

Benning grunted in annoyance. His trip to Sol had been delayed because he was denied access to the new gate network, and he didn’t have a pass to travel through the new provincial corridor, as it was being called. The corridor was an area of space that ran directly through the center of STO space. Anyone with half a brain could see it was a deliberate attempt to divide the STO, but there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The STO Navy was c...

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BSE Chapter 6-48

LOCATION: GANOS

SYSTEM: ROSS 128

DATE: 2405

Alexander and his small escort fleet arrived in Ross 128. Even though the war was finally over and had been for months, the system was far less busy than the last time he had been there. The loss of the hypergate must have hit them particularly hard. That would make negotiations with the planetary governor much easier.

It didn’t take long for people to notice their arrival. The first to reach out was Anthony Baru. “Mr. Ka...

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Corebound Chapter 16

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BSE Chapter 6-47

LOCATION: OMNI HEADQUARTERS

SYSTEM: TAU CETI

DATE: 2404

Benning pored over the reports from Project Freefall. So far, things were going well with the ark launch. He had debated recalling the ship after the STO leadership declared an end to the Second Shican War, but he held off. They weren’t exactly known for their foresight when it involved the aliens.

He was glad he had, because OMNI agents had learned that the Shican were indeed returning. There was still no clear...

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Corebound Chapter 15

Jacob couldn’t believe he was flying an actual spaceship. How cool was that? It was every bit as exciting as he had hoped, even though the majority of his trip was done through FTL with the phase coils.

There was one thing he hadn’t taken into account, and that was artificial gravity. The lack was something he noticed as soon as he jumped away from the station. He assumed all ships created by the Concord would have such technology, but apparently that wasn’t the case. It could jus...

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BSE Chapter 6-46

As it turned out, there wasn’t much to discuss. Kynel agreed to have his remaining people wear the cybernetic disabler. Not that he had much of a choice, considering the other option was death, but Alexander still expected some pushback from the Shican Grand Commander, but he turned out to be a rather pragmatic individual.

Over the next few hours, Shican cyborgs left the ship one at a time to receive the devices. Most weren’t all that cooperative. After dealing with the rather apath...

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BSE Chapter 6-45

LOCATION: XIN PRIME

DATE: 2404

Thesska coughed, spitting up amniotic fluid from the cloning tank. He growled in annoyance and sat upright on the cold metal table. The last thing he remembered was preparing to strike the human’s planet, where he suspected the majority of their recent technological innovations stemmed from. Obviously, if he were here, things didn’t go as planned.

It seemed he was right to create a memory backup. The thought of a fresh clone of himself taki...

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Corebound Chapter 14

Jacob wobbled slightly as he walked around the ship in his new body. To say he had created a masterpiece would be a gross overstatement. The thing was barely capable of bipedal movement, let alone smooth movement, but he was more than satisfied considering he threw parts together to make it work.

The sensor dome would need some work; it was too large to fit inside a space helmet, but that was easy to adjust. He would just remove all the sensors and tack them onto the central pole.

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BSE Chapter 6-44

Alexander’s rounds cracked through the thin air, but the cyborg twisted aside to avoid the attack in a feat of astounding acrobatics. The cyborg behind the gymnast wasn’t nearly as lucky. The round tore through it and kept going. Despite the miss, Alexander didn’t stop firing. His gun tracked the cyborg as it wove around his fire like it was prescient, all the while getting closer to their position.

Then his weapon clicked. He was out of ammo, and by the reduced sounds of gunfire,...

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Corebound Chapter 13

Jacob popped out of the drone at the station and back into his virtual space. The transition was a bit rough since he had spent far more time than usual inside the machine. A short wall appeared, and he braced himself against it to steady himself.

This wasn’t his first time experiencing the effects of prolonged connection to the drones. It was why he had implemented the use of units to track time in the first place. Thinking back on it, singing the lyrics of songs, he only vaguely rec...

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BSE Chapter 6-43

I added a few hundred words to the end of the last chapter. Mostly to flesh out what happens between the Union fleet's arrival and what happens in this chapter.

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When Alexander got the alert that the enemy had been spotted, Eden’s End had been put into lockdown, and everyone hurried to their designated shelters.

He figured they would have time, but the enemy jumped in behind ...

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BSE Chapter 6-42

LOCATION: INTERSTELLAR SPACE

DATE: 2404

Thesska wanted to strangle someone, preferably his brother, for how poorly he botched the deployment of the armada, but his brother was already dead. Had that buffoon put someone in command who was capable enough to hold the armada together until he finished his hunt, they wouldn’t be in the situation they were in.

It was galling to have to flee from the humans, but he knew he had made the right choice when the comms of the angry com...

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Corebound Chapter 12

“There are insufficient materials available to make repairs to your vessel, Captain.”

Jacob was struck dumb by the AI’s response. “What? Did they remove those materials when they decommissioned this place?”

“Negative, Captain. The materials were left behind when the workers departed.”

“Then what happened to them?”

“Most of the materials were exhausted to upkeep the station.”

That explained why the station looked to be in such pristine condit...

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