Excerpt:

Svensson accelerated towards Terra Nova. Like an ant nest that had been turned over, the Enemy fleet boiled with activity, ships heading in all directions. The aliens must have realized that he was making a break for the planet, as squadrons of fighters were launched, maneuvering to screen the gaps between the spacecraft carriers and battle cruisers besieging the planet.

The Thermosian smiled broadly, as the Eagle Eye headed for the largest gap, where the greatest number of Enemy fighters had collected. Even as he approached their numbers surged: thirty, forty, fifty! Svensson had pre-programmed his course into the navigation computer. It was out of his hands now, as ordinary, human reactions were too slow to permit him to make last minute changes. The personal computer in his skull was working overtime, preparing him for what lay ahead. He watched the Enemy vessels streaking towards him on interception courses, paths their navigation computers would be certain intersected that of the Eagle Eye. His own course projection, however, told a different story.

A countdown began on a small data screen in the top, left corner of his vision, ticking off the seconds until he (and the Enemy) was in atomic disrupter range. 6...5...4... Svensson took a deep breath, steadying himself. 3...2...1... He exhaled again in anticipation of the next phase of his plan.

On the count of '0,' as planned, the Eagle Eye sharply shifted course, racing across the leading edge of the cloud of alien fighters, defense shield set at maximum on the side that faced the Enemy vessels.

Svensson was compressed by partially dispersed, inertial forces, then jolted as the Eagle Eye rocked under the impact of atomic disrupter fire. Nightmarish hallucinations pervaded his mind, and he screamed in absolute, paralyzing fear. He had anticipated a psionic attack, however, and had made certain he was incapable of doing anything to alter or ruin his plan at this late stage. His personal computer mercifully blacked him out, and this saved him from going insane under the mental assault.

The Eagle Eye, still acting on his programming, fled the Enemy fighters and angled towards a battle cruiser! Svensson,s original plan had been a drive at a spacecraft carrier, but he had decided not to push his luck that far. Yet even this variant of the plan was likely to fail, for an Enemy battle cruiser--a smooth, matt-gray, defense shielded sphere more than a hundred meters in diameter--had at least ten atomic disrupters, not to mention a battery of missiles. His principal objective for attempting the feat revolved around eluding the fighter fleet; but he was also conscious of an element of sheer, astonishing audacity.

Jinking from side to side and rotating along its central axis, the Eagle Eye rocketed at the battle cruiser, choosing the course of least resistance. Some disrupter beams sprayed past, though many produced glittering trails of golden stars on the shield of Svensson's spacecraft. Sensor-equipped missiles leapt into flight, hot on the scent of the human vessel, and the Eagle Eye loosed a swarm of miniature, decoy probes--each one diverging from his current course and releasing convincing emissions at levels consistent with an Eagle Eye--to lure the missiles astray...

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Author BIO: Born in 1970, Tom Williams lives in Perth, Western Australia with one wife (called Monique) and one cat (called Motley). Tom would love to be a full-time writer. He has been writing ever since he can remember, his first science-fiction piece completed at the age of eight (it detailed his voyage to the rings of Saturn in a rocket built from an old car wreck). "Terra Nova" is his first, published novel, but he does have several, short story credits.

When not writing, Tom will indulge in one of the following interests: cricket (probably only relevant to people from British Commonwealth countries); guitar (he's not quite Hendrix); or horse racing (he used to own shares in a couple of slow animals).

Presently, Tom is working himself up to producing the dreaded, second novel.