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Travis Starnes

Travis Starnes

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 28

We had a game the next day, which usually meant David and I helped Coach Dean get the equipment we’d need either carried over to the field or packed up for a trip to the bus. Today was a home game, which meant a lot of trips to the baseball fiel...

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Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 5

Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti

The flight took just over twelve uncomfortable hours. White Mountain had acquired a Beechcraft King Air that had clearly seen some miles as a cargo plane. Most of the seats had been pulled out of it ...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 27

Chef never made it down for my practice. I knocked on his door when I finished conditioning, dripping in sweat, and he told me to just go home and he’d talk to me later.

I messaged Kat’s disposable phone when I got home letting her know ...

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Update to Fanfare - Chapter 26

If you've read Chapter 26 of Fanfare before today, go back and re-read at least the last third, as there has been a major rewrite of that section completely changing one of the building sub-plots.

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Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 4

Taylor got to his car and pulled out his laptop. He wasn’t a computer person like Whitaker, but he had time to kill and he wanted to do some more research before he got into this. For one, he needed to find out what exactly Packer was doing here...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 26 (Re-Write)

**The last half of this chapter has been completely rewritten to change a subplot as of 11/1/2021**

Considering what happened at the game on Saturday, I wasn’t surprised to get pulled out of first period almost as soon as ...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 25

My anger over the baseball game had turned into self-pity by the time I got to the Blue Ridge to eat a quick lunch and start training. I could recognize that it was happening; but between Kat’s being pulled from school and my getting, at least t...

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Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 3

Haymarket, Virginia

Taylor called the number Claire had given him and never made it past the secretary, who left him on hold for ten minutes after getting Taylor’s name, only to return with a time and place to be the next ...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 24

I wasn’t surprised when I got to school the next day and Mr. Keller intercepted me and asked me to come to his office. I will say it was a different experience knowing what I was being called into his office for and knowing that I wasn’t actua...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 23

I started to think I might have made a mistake pushing Hanna by the end of the week. Although we hadn’t ended up on a new normal since I got my car, most days Kat and Hanna would sit in the stands together and watch my baseball practice and talk...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 22

I couldn’t tell the guys right away, because there was a third person with them when they pulled up. I guessed he was the bass player Seth had been talking about, and I didn’t want to start talking about gigs with someone if he wasn’t going ...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Epilogue

It took hours to round up the survivors and a full day to remove all of the bodies in the streets. Thankfully, there had been little damage outside of the palace, since all of the fighting had been either inside the palace building itself or in th...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 37

Even though the crowd broke for their horses, it was still slow going to the center of town, with the mass of Romans fleeing increasing, packing together tighter and tighter.

“Leave the horses,” Ky said. “We’ll have to go on foot fro...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 36

Ky watched the centurions and Optio, who’d been sent to help work with the Picts, carry more wounded Romans who’d only volunteered to help train them. So far they had been at this all day, and very little progress had been made. For the Picts,...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 35

Instead of staying in the palace, Ky relocated to the Seventh Legion’s camp, since they were the closest to where the Picts were being set up. Before settling down for the night, he made a ride through the Pict camps, to check on the conditions....

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 21

The new song, especially the guitar intro, was still on my mind the next day after baseball practice, and I mostly wanted to just get done with training so I could get back home to work on it. All that focus meant I was a little annoyed when Hanna...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 34

Although he believed Talogren’s word that he would get warriors willing to go south and help defend against the Carthaginian invasion, Ky wasn’t sure he’d actually been successful until the first of those men started to arrive at the border....

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 20

“Have you heard from your lawyer yet?” Kat asked when I met her and Hanna by the stands after baseball practice.

She’d already asked me the same question when we went to school that morning and I didn’t know why she thought I’d som...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 33

“What the hell are you thinking?” Lucilla asked as soon as they began their walk back to the Roman lines.

It had taken them some time to get all of the Romans ready to travel and Ky knew it was going to be a long and very cold night for ...

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Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 2

Taylor stood there, open-mouthed.

“Who is it?” Whitaker called from the other room.

“Come in, I guess,” Taylor said, stepping aside and gesturing for Claire to come inside.

“Thanks,” she said, as he closed the door be...

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Update to The Sword of Jupiter - Chapter 31

If you're following along with the Sword of Jupiter, I just found an error that caused some characters names to change in Chapter 31 (luckily, it was a character that hadn't had a lot of time, so he only appeared in this chapter so far.  he'd...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 32

Ky moved across the frozen terrain at a jog. While he was capable of moving rapidly for a long period of time before tiring, half of his concentration was on the feed from his drone’s thermal camera, showing him natives and animals crawling acro...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 19

I remained on guard around Kat for several days, wondering if there’d be any fallout from my rejection. I’d tried to soften the blow as best I could, but that was one of the major things that triggered her condition, and the last thing I wante...

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Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 1

Somalia, 20 miles east of Berbera

“Scott, do you have that list of the bids,” Cameron Lambert asked, sticking his head over the edge of his cubicle.

“Not yet. We’re supposed to get the final list by this aftern...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 18

I was still flying so high the next day from the gig, that it took me a while to realize Kat hadn’t come by like she said she would. While I wasn’t upset that I got out of studying, Kat had practically made a religion out of punctuality. I tri...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 31

Ky pinged Lucilla again, but she never answered, although that might have been because they were busy and not because she chose to ignore him. Since he’d been up the entire night before, he had to sleep this time, although it was restless, his m...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 17

Eugene met us at the back door when we got to the Wild Cat. I assume he had some kind of camera set up and I do remember his office being pretty close to the back, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

“Charlie, good to see you.”

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 16

I squished my way into school Friday morning. Mom said she could get my clothes clean, but there wasn’t much we could do about my shoes, which were still pretty wet the next morning. We’d washed them with dish detergent, so they didn’t smell...

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The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 30

Ky’s guards said nothing as they accompanied him the rest of the way to his quarters or as they stood watch outside his room. Had Ky not been so distracted himself, he might have noticed the looks that passed between them or realized how public ...

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Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 15

The rest of the day I thought about Rowan’s suggestions, but between training with Chef, practicing with Willie, homework, and working with Hanna to come up with some kind of plan to help Kat.

On the Kat front, we were having no luck. We w...

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