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  Simple Things

  Published by Jan Stryvant

  Copyright 2019 Jan Stryvant

  Copyright Jan Stryvant 2019

  Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/) No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story, and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction; I made it up.

  License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Jan Stryvant Books:

  The Valens Legacy:

  Black Friday Book 1

  Perfect Strangers Book 2

  Over Our Heads Book 3

  Head Down Book 4

  When It Falls Book 5

  Stand On It Book 6

  Vegas Rules Book 7

  Desperate Measures Book 8

  Secret Treaties Book 9

  It Ain't Easy Book 10

  Red Skies Book 11

  Demon Days Book 12

  Simple Things Book 13

  Shadow

  Table of Contents

  Don't Slide

  For an Angel

  Bravado

  Smile Like You Mean It

  Mistreated

  Anonymous Melody (Traveling Music)

  Fallout

  Watching and Waiting

  The Morning After

  Nobody Asked Me...

  The Daily Grind

  Cascade

  Stewart's Nice Evening Out

  Morning in America

  Watching and Waiting

  Friday

  North

  No Quarter

  Homeward Bound

  Afterword

  Don't Slide

  The president looked around the oval office as everyone sat down. "Ladies, gentlemen." He then turned and focused on Carl. "Give it to us straight, Carl. Did we lose our Mr. Valens?"

  Carl nodded. "I'm afraid so, Mr. President."

  General Baker swore, "Damn, I'd just gotten used to dealing with him, too. How'd he die?"

  "We're not quite sure that he is dead. His wives are all claiming he's still alive."

  "How can that be?" the president asked. "What happened?"

  "They were getting overrun, so he went through the portal and set off some sort of explosion, which killed everything and stopped any more demons from stepping through. I think it was more of that 'godly wrath' the lions can sometimes do. According to Tisha, he's now trapped on the other side until he can find a way out."

  "So even if he's not dead, he's as good as," General Baker said with a shake of his head. "Who's in charge now?"

  "Roxy Valens, his first wife, is in charge until another lion gets there."

  "Another lion?" the president said.

  Carl nodded again. "They're all agreed it could be months until Sean can find his way back, and they need someone to fill in until he returns."

  "What's your assessment of the situation?"

  "Well, right now not much has changed from our perspective. We're still dealing with the same people; those who dealt directly with Sean are now dealing with one of his wives or one of his generals. Best I can figure it out, their average soldier is a bit shocked he's gone, but also impressed he took one for the team rather than save his own ass and let them get slaughtered."

  "So they think he's dead?"

  "I'm not sure; the one lioness I have access to says he's not dead, at least not yet."

  The president nodded. "So what do you think his chances are of coming back?"

  "Honestly, no one knows anything about what it's like on the other side of one of those gateways. Chad, the leader of Sean's armies, sent a team through a few hours ago and only about half of them made it back."

  "What did they find?"

  "I don't know, they've been keeping it quiet. I only found out he sent a team through because Tom over at the NSA had a tap on one of their imagining streams. Things are still pretty confused over there, Sir. Sean was the heart and soul of their operation, and he always led from the front. Even if a new lion steps up, it's not likely he's going to be held in the same regard as Sean."

  The president nodded. "I have to agree." He turned to General Baker. "I want you to send those artillery, armor, and infantry divisions to Reno now."

  "Mr. President, we're still being held up by the Posse Comitatus act! I've got a federal judge standing in my way."

  "I'm declaring a national emergency; this is an invasion, and I want those troops mobilized."

  "What about their claim the demons will just take over the minds of any of our soldiers because they're human?" the director of Homeland security asked.

  "Artillery isn't line of sight, and we're hoping those in armor won't be affected," General Baker told her. "Mr. President, I'd like to send in an air support wing. I’d think a bombing run or two would hurt them."

  The president nodded. "Good idea, Jim. Also put the word out, officially, any lycans in the military need to come forward. It's time for them to serve their country."

  "You think there are lycans in the military?" asked Josh, the president's chief of staff, looking a little surprised.

  "Maybe, maybe not. But if there are, we need them."

  "I'll see to it, Mr. President," General Baker said with a nod.

  "Great. Justice Clayton, I need you to shut down that judge on the whole Posse Comitatus thing. We're being invaded, and the last thing I need is people standing in the way of our country's defense."

  "I don't know if I can do that, Mr. President, there are legal issues involved."

  "If you don't do it, I'm going to send you and the rest of the justices to Reno so you can get a first-hand view of what's going on there," the president said, leaning forward in his chair. "This isn't a game, Clayton, and it isn't politics. This is the safety of our citizens. We don't have time for a six-month legal debate."

  "Tom," the president turned to the NSA head, "send Justice Clayton here all of the intercepts and pictures you've got on this fighting so he can see we're not making any of this up."

  "Yes, Sir!"

  "Great, make sure we've got copies here as well. Josh?"

  "Yes, Mr. President?"

  "I want a meeting set up with the majority and minority leaders from the House and the Senate. I think we're going to need to get some sort of formal declaration here before the lid blows off on all of this. We need to prepare a brief for Congress."

  "I'll get right on it."

  "Anything else?" the president asked, looking around the room.

  Everyone shook their heads.

  "Let's get to it. I want progress reports by the end of the day."

  #

  Chad sighed and walked to the front of the table. Roxy, Daelyn, and Cali were there. So were Roxy's father Bill, Claudia, Maitland, Sean's mother Louise, Oak, Hunter, Lieutenant Jack Kennedy, and the new lion, Adam. Chad wasn't all that impressed by Adam—the guy was a noob when it came to war and fighting—but Roxy appeared to have him well in hand. He sat at the other end of the table, with Roxy on his right and Daelyn on his lef
t, and Chad had the distinct impression he was getting kicked in the shins every time he dared to open his mouth.

  "Okay, yesterday at 22:12 we had a small gate open. Within fifteen minutes of it opening, one of my quick response teams was dropped in front of the gate and penetrated through to the other side. They were there for two whole minutes before the enemy became aware of them and engaged them.

  "Seven of them survived long enough to get out of the gateway. Five of those were able to flee the area before they were killed." Chad looked around the room. "Here's what we got.

  "First of all, it's dark on the other side, like twilight dark, the sun appears to be black, and the predominant colors are black and gray. The only other colors they saw at all were on the things they were carrying with them, and those were very muted. Reds and greens look mostly gray as well.

  "Second, there were a lot of demons, djevels that is, gathering on the other side and preparing to come through."

  "How were they gathering?" Adam asked and then flinched ever so slightly as Roxy scowled.

  "I'm not sure I understand the question," Chad said. Oh, he understood it; he just enjoyed watching Adam getting kicked.

  "Were they coming there and forming up, drawn by the new gateway? Or where they already there camped out? Gathering from where?"

  Chad nodded; it was a valid question. "They observed a large camp, probably a couple hundred djevels. But they also noted more were starting to show up as they were attacked. Particularly the higher-level ones were among those showing up."

  "So they have a reasonable idea of where the gates are going to open and have people waiting for them." Adam made it a statement, not a conjecture.

  Chad smiled as he saw him flinch slightly.

  "I'm not sure; it's only one datum point. We'll see what the next team returns with. But after discussing it with Maitland before this meeting, we think that may be the case.

  "The next thing they noticed is they were still able to shift to their beast forms, but not to their human forms."

  "Do they know what stopped them?" Roxy asked.

  "No. But their collars still worked fine; the magical items they had all seemed to work, however most of the tech items they were carrying ceased functioning while they were there. So we don't have any pictures or recordings."

  "Any idea why?"

  "We think the laws of physics are different there. The black sun and the lighting would seem to confirm it."

  "They can't be too different," Daelyn said, speaking up. "They were all still alive and able to function, after all."

  "True," Chad agreed. "But perhaps going through the gate alters you so you'll stay alive? Again, this was only our first time through, so we really don't know."

  "Why didn't they retreat sooner when they saw the overwhelming odds?" Hunter asked.

  Chad shook his head. "As the team leader was killed, I don't know the answer to that one. Needless to say, the other team leaders all got a lecture this afternoon before I came here. Oh, we did learn one other interesting thing."

  "What?" Adam, Roxy, and Daelyn asked at the same time.

  "Hand grenades work. The anti-personal ones we finally got worked incredibly well there, as well as here during the battle."

  "Really?" Roxy asked. "Any idea why?"

  Jack Kennedy raised his hand and spoke up. "The Mark 67 grenade has a steel case around the explosive charge to provide fragments like shrapnel when it detonates."

  "Where'd you learn that?" Adam asked, then twitched a little as Roxy kicked him.

  Jack smiled and pointed at the tan beret lying on the table in front of him. "Ranger school."

  "Well, that explains the badges on the uniform," Bill said, sotto voce. "I was wondering about them."

  "How'd you end up in the Pentagon?" Chad asked.

  "Umm, me and a captain had a little 'discussion' and, well, command decided to put me someplace else for a while."

  "Did this discussion end up with somebody in the hospital?"

  "Oh, that was the flight of stairs he fell down afterwards."

  "I'm surprised you weren't court martialed."

  "The captain was a stand-up guy; he was actually the one who told them about the stairs."

  "Hey, if you know about grenades, do you know anything about ammunition?" Roxy interrupted.

  "Some, especially after being around the supply nerds for the last four months."

  "What's in an AP round?"

  "Armor piercing?"

  Roxy nodded.

  "It's usually some kind of penetrator wrapped in an outer shell, usually copper. The outer shell engages the rifling in the barrel, and the penetrator is what goes through the armor on impact."

  "What's the penetrator made of?"

  "Something hard, tungsten is common."

  "Well that would explain why they aren't affecting the djevels," Daelyn grumbled.

  "Has it always been tungsten?" Roxy asked.

  "No, they've used other things like steel in the past. Why do you ask?" Jack said.

  "Those M2 machinegun systems we got from Sawyer, the old ammunition they came with was actually doing damage to the djevels, where the new stuff doesn't."

  "M2s? Hmm, I'm not sure, but I know someone who would know. Can I use that?" Jack asked, pointing at the speakerphone.

  Roxy and Adam both nodded.

  Jack turned the phone on and quickly dialed a number.

  "Frank's Fun Factory, who do you want to kill today?"

  "Frank, it's Lieutenant Kennedy, and you're on speakerphone. I got a question about the M2 machinegun."

  "Those antiques? They haven't been used since Vietnam!"

  "Yeah, I know. What ammo did those shoot?"

  "7.62 by 51. They started off with the M59, but that didn't work out."

  "Oh? Why not?"

  "They were using iron cores, wasn't penetrating armor worth a damn. They tried mild steel cores, which didn't work all that well either, but it was better than the iron."

  "We got any in stores? Anywhere?"

  They all heard Frank snort. "We cleared it all out and gave it to the civilians at least thirty years ago. What do you want that crap for?"

  "Special ops, can't tell you more than that. Thanks, Frank!" Jack hit the button and ended the call.

  "Holy shit," Chad muttered. "If we can get our hands on that, we can dump the swords and go back to rifles and machineguns."

  "But you just heard him, they're all out," Adam said with a sigh.

  "You can always make more," Bill pointed out.

  "I think I need to call the general and let him know about this," Jack said.

  "Do that," Roxy agreed. "Now would be a very good time."

  Jack nodded, then got up and left the room.

  "I just thought of something," Bill said, looking around the room. "A few years ago, the government got all bent out of shape about a load of 5.56 ammo the civilians were buying, so they tried to ban it."

  "I think I recall something about that," Chad nodded.

  "Why'd they do that?" Maitland asked.

  "Because it was steel-jacketed ammo, and they were trying to claim it was armor piercing, even though it wasn't."

  "Wait, there's steel ammo out there? That's way better than what we've been using!"

  "And because they tried to ban it, everyone started hoarding it," Bill said with a smile. "I think we should get our hands on a bunch of it and see how well it works. At least until we can get some iron core ammunition."

  "You know," Daelyn said, "I can talk to my friend Garth and my uncle Samis. I'd think iron bullets shouldn't be too hard to make."

  "It'll sure beat those flamethrowers," Chad agreed. They'd tried using them, and they lasted for about sixty seconds before they ran out of fuel. After that, the djevels got wise to them and started targeting them with a spell that caused them to explode, turning them into a liability. They hadn't been used since.

  "I think you should call Sawyer," Claudia said. "Whenever anybody
starts hoarding stuff, he gets his hands on a bunch as an investment."

  "I'll call him," Chad said. "If I can arm my next scouting team with some rifles, we can find out whether they'll work on the other side or not."

  "Why wouldn't they?" Daelyn asked. "They're simple mechanical devices."

  "Better to find out if primers and gunpowder work there before we make any assumptions."

  "Good point."

  "Okay," Adam spoke up. "Is there anything else we need to discuss this morning?"

  No one spoke up.

  "Then let's adjourn so we can all look into this ammunition. We'll meet again tomorrow and see where we are."

  For an Angel

  Sean pulled a chair over and sat there, looking at 'The Brown One' as her eyes opened. She looked around a moment, and then locked on him, and growled.

  "Can we please just talk?" Sean sighed.

  "You're going to ruin everything! I told you to leave!" she said, glaring at him.

  "Yeah, well. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell a lioness is doing here of all places!" Sean said, looking back at her.

  She started to rise up out of bed with murder in her eyes, so Sean leaned over quickly, put his hand on her armored chest, and pushed her back down with a grunt.

  "Listen, 'Brown One', I'm bigger than you, stronger than you, I'm actually a lot better at unarmed fighting than I am with a sword, and I can still cheat. So unless you want to wake up naked and hog-tied, I suggest you talk!"

  "Estrella," she snarled at him. "My name's Estrella."

  "Sean," he said with a smile, "pleased to meet you."

  "Why did you come here? How'd you even get here?" she growled at him.

  "I came through a gateway during combat. We were losing, and my army was about to be overrun. So I did something desperate, and amazingly, I survived."

  Estrella paused a moment as she considered his words.

  "So the gateways now lead back to Earth?"

  "Duh," Sean said and rolled his eyes. "Where else would they go?"

  "There are over a hundred different worlds they can go to," she snarled at him. "Don't take airs with me!"