Someone is hunting down thugs in the City of Living Dreams, where any pleasure or drug is available for a price.  Though the planet is strictly off-limits to military personnel in training,  Lieutenant Junior Grade Palladia Conté is discovered there, and immediately conscripted to help stop the killing spree.

A measure of the depth, first appeared 2008 in Residential Aliens where it’s available for reading.

Leona is missing, presumed dead in the same freak accident that took her parents; and her trusted mentor is planning to sell her as a weapon.

If you read A measure of the depth and wondered what the future holds for Zeta Reti, this self-contained sequel continues her story, ten years later. It is set in the Soldiers of Mercy universe.

There we were, contingent 47 of the Engineering Corps, ready to die for our planet, and he had to give in. They wouldn’t have even touched him. By his uniform they knew he wasn’t one of us. They didn’t know civilian support uniforms. If he hadn’t told them they would have never guessed he was a Designer.

The Designer first appeared in Ray Gun Revival, Issue 57, 2010, by Double-edged Publishing. It is a stand-alone story in the Space Opera subgenre.