Novel Preview: DOME WARRIORS by J.E. Taylor August 2012 Available in paperback and e-book on Amazon

When Andre Robbins uses his abilities to stop his parents' execution, he fulfills a prophecy that gets him banished to outer space...forever.

Years later, his pod drifts toward a place of refuge - Earth. Now at age seventeen, he wants to put his alien past behind him and just fit in at Dallas High School. He wants to play football and marry Katrina Lawrence, but his father says no to both counts, driving Andre away.

Determined to be together, he and Katrina elope, starting a domino effect that plasters their picture all over the airwaves. When word of his survival reaches his home planet, his well-planned future crumbles and his existence doesn't just threaten those he loves, it may very well trigger Earth's destruction.

Excerpt from DOME WARRIORS

Andre stared at the planet in the window, the Colonel’s conversation and his thoughts all forgotten in the wake of the beauty before him. He blinked wondering when this hallucination would give way to reality. He’d had so many over the last couple years, but this one beat them all. Even the drink, what the man next to him had called water, felt so real. Cool and refreshing going down and hot and acidic coming back up. His eyes dropped to the bottle in his hand and he squeezed it, listening to the crumple of plastic under his fingers.

How can I trust this?

Sighing, he took another sip. Cool liquid slid down his sore throat, coating, calming the burn and causing his stomach to rumble, drawing Colonel Robbins attention away from the controls.

“What types of food do you eat?” Colonel Robbins asked.

Andre stared at the Colonel. This has got to be a dream. Why else would I be able to understand what he’s saying? The irony caught him off guard. The odds of this being real were insane and he knew it, but the dream was so damn tangible, the thought of food caused his saliva glands to kick into gear and he decided to go along with wherever this vision would take him. “Mainly protein,” he answered. “My mother tried to get me to eat vegetation but I don’t really like it.”

Colonel Robbins let out a small laugh. “What about fruit?” he asked and produced a round red sphere out of the food compartment, handing it to Andre.

The sphere weighed a few ounces and he studied it, running his fingers over the smooth surface and rolling the stub of a stem through his fingers, twirling until it broke from the center. A delectable scent drifted from the fruit and he brought it to his nose, inhaling the sweet perfume.

Again he was struck by the vivid sensations of this dream and his gaze drifted to the approaching planet. Andre looked at the fruit in his hand. An apple according to the Colonel’s thoughts and he sank his teeth into the red flesh, relishing the tangy sweetness as juices bled into his mouth with the chunk he bit off, setting his hunger reflex into overdrive.

Here’s the part where I wake up.

But he didn’t. Instead he devoured the apple, down to the small hard nub on the bottom and licked the juice off his fingers. “Can I have another?”

Colonel Robbins nodded and smiled, handing Andre a second apple before returning his attention back to navigating the ship.

Andre stared out the window, splitting his attention between the apple and the approaching planet; still waiting for the dream to end when a new thought dawned on him.

Maybe I’m already dead.