Dragon's Gambit

Title:	Dragon's Gambit
Cover Artist:	Don Semora
Genre:	Christian, Scifi, Survival, Adventure
Series:	The Offworld Chronicles
Publication Date:	February 2018
Media Types:	Print (paperback) and Ebook
ISBN:	978-1370129478 (ebook) 978-1940155456 (print)
Preceded By:	The Race
Followed By:	Gold Rush

Dragon's Gambit is book 2 in the Christian Survival Adventure series, The Offworld Chronicles and continues the story of Simon, his team, and their travels, adventures and experiences through the territory of the Four Kingdoms, the Westlands, and onward to Kestrel Weyr in the company of the courageous, yet reserved Maggy as the team pushes onward towards the finish line.

Synopsis

The story begins with two men in a restaurant in the little town of Havlet who sit down for a quick discussion and essentially trade notes and discuss in summary much of what's already happened in book one, and reveal some of the underlying, and previously unknown events going on in the background that the main characters and the reader are unaware of. The story then picks up with Simon and his team as they're continuing to sail up the river on their way to Subton, the home base of the Calypso. Clifford pulls in with his ship, disembarks Simon's team, then heads back out to continue scouting for salvage and floundered ships. As Simon's team hits the docks, a demon spots them and quickly reports this to General Amaroth's office. Meanwhile, Simon's team heads out of Subton into the surrounding woods in an effort to find the trail again and get back on their journey again. However, being in Unity territory, they must do it with the utmost stealth. The team eventually stops for the night, and posts watches in case Unity comes around at some point.

It's during the second watch, when Trevor is holding guard duty, that Yurg awakes and decides to go for a meal. While he's out he stumbles onto a Unity patrol which he tricks into revealing themselves, thus alerting the rest of his team. Yurg soon returns and reports what he's found. The news frightens the others. Realizing the danger they're in, Alex pulls the group back to a nearby hill that's reasonably defensible. It's not long before Unity reaches them, after which a brief but intense firefight breaks out with the Unity troops at a disadvantage, being blinded by a flare tossed at them by Simon's team. Being at a disadvantage, the Unity soldiers are decimated, with only a few escaping. Afterwards, Simon's team strip the bodies, trade up their Sheffield rifles, of which they've spent nearly all of their ammo for, and take whatever they can that's of value before fleeing back to Subton where they're surprised to encounter Clifford, who they thought had returned to his job of salvage. Meanwhile Amaroth, having received the news, makes his way out to the area where his men engaged Simon's team, and lost badly.

After just a few minutes of observation he correctly deduces what really went down, and correctly suggests that Simon's team will instead head up the river this time as the land route going forward is cut off to them. Meanwhile, Simon and team have been given a river boat by Clifford and are now headed up the river and further west along the trail. However, due to all the excitement of the last several days, everyone is exhausted and eventually all of them fall asleep, except Simon, who's driving the boat. But the exhaustion eventually gets the better of even him. So he pulls off the river into a side channel and up to a tree where he ties off and then goes to sleep, just missing being spotted by Unity Army patrols moving up and down the river in search of them, having been deployed on Amaroth's orders. Realizing that Simon and Team might escape detection, Sheobaal finds a nearby patrol boat, possesses its commander, and then sends them up the side channel where Simon's boat is parked. However, Fallon is aware of this plot and hides Simon's boat until the danger is passed. Later on, once Simon wakes from his nap, he pulls out of the channel and back onto the main river. They then successfully make their way past the Unity forces searching for them over the next two days and eventually end up reaching Drak Mardin towards sundown just as the boat's fuel supply is reaching exhaustion, pulling into a dock just as the engine dies from fuel starvation.

The team then disembarks and begins studying the city, but are unfortunate enough to have entered at the worst time, as Zek's dragon's begin their attack on the city with the intention of driving out its residents, as requested by their masters. In the midst of the confusion, Simon is snatched out of the city by Zek and taken a safe distance away to talk. Thinking their friend is now dead, or soon will be, Alex and the others rush through the city, amidst the dragon attack in search of safety and shelter. Some miles away Zek sets Simon down on the ground unharmed, kindles a fire, and the two have a long talk. In the midst of this, Fallon contacts him and they discuss Simon, causing Zek to suddenly realize that, while he had saved Simon, he'd left his team behind, not realizing they were the ones his grandson had asked him to protect. Frustrated, Fallon goes off in search of the rest of the team in hopes of saving them, despite the odds against him. Back in Drak Mardin, Alex and the others have successfully fled the city, while unfortunately suffering severe injuries in the process, and escaped to a nearby hill for safety. Down below them in the city, Amaroth and his men arrive and begin searching for Simon's team, much to Alex's dismay. Seeking to flee to safety, they quickly descend down the backside of the hill, but their forward progress is hindered by their considerable injuries.

Realizing that, if he doesn't do something, they're all dead, Alex leaves the team in Trevor's hands and heads back to the city to buy them some time. Meanwhile, the dragons of the previous night, who had attacked Drak Mardin, are gathered in a nearby valley tending to each other's wounds and discussing the previous night's raid. During this time, while Simon is waiting for their chance to return to the city, word comes that Amaroth has been spotted nearby. This gets the attention of all the dragons, as they have a deep seated hatred for Amaroth, just as much as he has for them. The dragons then take flight with the intention of exacting much deserved revenge upon him. Back at Drak Mardin, Alex, using his years of combat experience, engages the Unity forces single handed and fairs well against them for some time as Trevor and Birash send Yurg away with Aria for her safety while they go back and set booby traps to slow down the Unity troops. Up on the hill overlooking the city, Alex fights bravely against impossible odds, but eventually runs out of ammo. Forced to retreat, he is gunned down as he escapes and collapses, after which he is surrounded by soldiers who wait until Amaroth arrives. The old general sees his arch nemesis laying on the ground dying, gloats a little, and then finishes off Alex before sending his men against the last four members of the team.

Not realizing that Alex is down, Trevor and Birash rush to catch up to Yurg and Aria only to find that Yurg has collapsed from his injuries, and can go no further, and Aria is not doing well herself. About this time, the angel Caleb appears and assures them that they will be safe, and to trust God. He then leaves. Moments later they are surrounded by Unity troops. Amaroth soon joins them, gloats over the team briefly, and then prepares his men to execute them. However, before he can, Fallon appears and surrounds the entire team with his force field, protecting them from a powerful hail of Unity gunfire. This leaves Amaroth enraged and he orders his men to keep shooting, no matter what. As they do, Fallon struggles to keep his shields up as they are slowly running out of power and will soon fail. However, before they do, Zek and his dragons arrive and begin to decimate Amaroth's troops, wipe them out down to the last man. Zek himself, as the others are finishing off the Unity soldiers, lands next to Simon's team and surrounds them with his own shield, taking over for the now exhausted Fallon. He then turns his attention to Amaroth, whom he hits in the chest with an exploding fireball that launches the general into the air and through the trees.

Once Amaroth and his men have been dealt with, Zek sends his dragons in search of Alex while he busies himself healing Simon's injured team. However, shortly after this, Sheobaal appears and attacks Simon in a fit of rage, angry that his plans to exterminate him and his team had once again been thwarted. Zek tries to stop him, but is sent flying into the distance, along with Fallon. Sheobaal then returns to choking Simon to death, but is interrupted when Caleb reappears and demands that the demon unhand him. The demon at first refuses, but upon realizing he's outnumbered he obeys, then leaves. Fallon soon returns and takes over for Caleb. It's not long after this that Zek returns as well, relieving Fallon and allowing him to return to the weyr to recharge. Zek and Simon's team talk briefly about recent events, and then come to the horrifying discovery that Alex has died. They bury him and then spend the rest of the day mourning. The rest of the dragons soon begin leaving one by one, forced to depart on other missions and assignments, until only Zek remains. Soon he has to leave too, but promises to send another protector to them to help them in their journey. It's not long before Magendra Tallenon appears in the camp and introduces herself.

She then takes up guard duty as Simon's team continues to grieve. As they do this, the Unity Army finds out about the defeat of Amaroth and his men and send more troops to find and destroy Simon's team in revenge. They soon catch up to Simon's team and shadow them at a distance, afraid of Maggy, as they fear dragons, and even having to battle just her alone would be a very difficult challenge for them to overcome. So they keep their distance and merely follow Simon's team as they wait for reinforcements. Eventually two tanks roll out of the woods and confront the team. The team is able to defeat them and moves on, heading towards the border of Unity territory. As they walk, Maggy and Aria share with each other, including some of the things Maggy likes, as well as details of her family. The team soon reach the border and approach the gate through the wall protecting the border. They have a brief, but terse conversation with the guards before they're finally permitted through, quickly leaving Unity territory and entering the outer border of the Westlands.