The Emperor: demented, paranoid, all powerful. The Sorcerer: obsessed with destroying the monster. The Woman: the fly in the ointment?

Jeseque Debrone, newly graduated avionics engineer, is eager to make the most of her unexpected post in the Imperial Defence Forces, a position she recognises as the ideal launching pad for her subversive career. Ironically, her transmission of classified information to the rebels in the north results in her inclusion in a top-secret mission. But Jeseque doesn’t buy the official line, that she and her crewmates are aboard an interstellar spacecraft, embarking upon a 30-lightyear journey to a sister planet. She believes that the heavily armed craft is in fact a secret weapons platform, with its sights set on the troublesome tribes in the north. The presence of secretive magicians and their unfathomable technologies only serves to increase her mistrust.

Destlar, the Eternal Emperor and the focus of Jeseque’s hatred, is demented, paranoid and all-powerful. Though he is ignorant of the fact, physical death for him is but a step to omnipotent carnage and chaos. How does one go about destroying such a monster? One magician believes he has the answer, and the interstellar voyage is the culmination of his centuries-long machinations. Jeseque unwittingly steps in the path of the sorcerer’s hurtling train, and almost derails it.

A native of County Leitrim, Ireland, James Rogers lives in New York and is a high school math teacher at the United Nations International School. He studied Electronics Engineering at University of Ulster in Belfast and Computer Science at New York University. While studying in Belfast, he discovered the great science fiction writers, Clarke, Asimov and Bradbury. A further discovery, that Clarke was an electronics engineer, encouraged him to write. He has been writing since, with his fiction varying in genre, from general fiction to crime, horror, paranormal, fantasy and science fiction. His short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, including The First Line, The Galway Review and Inscape.