United America: 2014 excerpt
Since I have been told that cover art is only a couple of weeks away, in the interim I'll post some excerpts:

Chapter 3: Turning and Turning
Page 46

Cruising along in his F-16, one of the few that still worked, Desmond
recognized Cannon Creek Lake, Virginia, from the briefing map, and
began his descent. His co-pilot Ron, prepared the missiles for release. At
2,500 feet, the bottom of their downward run, Ron piped up, “Got the
control tower at Middlesboro locked in to laser sights,” and pushed the
button.
Desmond immediately pulled back on the yoke, climbing. “YESSS!
A direct hit! Another blow struck for the People!” crowed Ron, as the
fire they had lit grew small and far below.
A mile up, and Desmond asked matter-of-factly, “Want to make
another pass, inflict some extra damage?”
Ron scratched his chin in mock deliberation and said, “Mmm, I guess
so. The explosion wasn’t quite big enough for a munitions pile. They
might have moved it. Let’s make some toothpicks, shall we?”
Desmond never liked working with hippies. Ron was at least a
competent hippy, but still got on his nerves. Passion in battle to him
seemed obscene, taking joy in destruction. He was no longer the boy
drug pusher of Brownsville. He had a job to do now, to stop the flyoverfascists
from starving the old people and massacring the brothers, and he
planned to do it, get it done, and go home to his real work, earning a
degree and amounting to something for his family. Consequently, the
gung-ho enthusiasm of Ron and his ilk irritated him. Nonetheless, he did
his job with mechanical efficiency, circling and coming down low again
for another pass.
Ron drew a bead on a large hangar, set off in a remote area of the
airport, and pushed the button. They pulled up as the big fireball erupted,
growing so huge, for a terrible moment Desmond worried it would reach
into the sky, snatch their pathetic toy of a fighter jet, and devour it like
a piece of popcorn.
But the plane gained altitude, and Desmond regained perspective, as
the explosion they had caused became the flash of a firefly in the distance
below, insignificant to the crystal-clear stars and the moon so close to
Desmond and Ron. Feeling himself out of danger, Desmond reveled in
the joy of flight, luxuriously arching up to the heavens like a tiger
stretching and sharpening his claws. The first time he flew, a recruit fresh
out of boot camp who made the grade for pilot school at the UA Air
BEN MAXWELL
Force, he was terrified, sure he’d crash. But after fifteen successful
missions, he had grown to love his time in the air, whenever he wasn’t
embroiled in combat with no time to think or feel anything, only act.
The radar flashed an incoming missile warning. “A swarm, two klicks
and closing at seven o’clock,” Ron droned from the back seat.
Desmond waited. This was not the first time he had had one on his tail.
He waited for the distance to narrow.
“One klick and closing, still at seven o’clock,” Ron droned in his nasal
monotone. “Half klick,” and Desmond accelerated. “Three hundred
meters at nine o’clock,” Ron recited, trying hard to keep calm as the blips
on his screen became visible to the naked eye and turned into three rods
of fire, closing fast.
Desmond rolled her over for a deep dive, straight at the ground, and
the inhuman tormentors dipped down, too, though the abrupt maneuver
threw them momentarily to twelve o’clock. Mother Earth came up fast.
The dollhouses and trees below grew larger, became real. From two
hundred meters up, Desmond could see the lights in the farmhouse beneath
them. Pleading “Forgive me,” he pulled back hard on the yoke. Mere
meters from the roof, the jet reversed directions and headed straight up.
The Virginia farmhouse exploded far behind and below, and its
occupants became no more.
“YAAAHAAA! WE DID IT! WE DID IT! WE’RE ALIVE!!!!!!”
shouted Ron. Desmond was about to snap “Shut the fuck up” at Ron
when it hit. Right after the world stopped shaking like a kitten in the jaws
of a pit bull, Desmond looked out the windshield and noticed that half his
left wing was gone, and trees instead of stars filled his forward field of
vision. The forest had turned into a giant, demented top, spinning wildly
as it jumped up to greet him.