MARINE II
A Very Different Roman
By Tanya Allan
Copyright2016 Tanya J. Allan
The author asserts her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All Rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Any adaptation of the whole or part of the material for broadcast by radio, TV, or for stage plays or film, is the right of the author unless negotiated through legal contract. Any commercial use by anyone other than the author is strictly prohibited.
This work is fictitious, and any similarities to any persons, alive or dead, are purely coincidental. Mention is made of persons in public life only for the purposes of realism and for that reason alone. Certain licence is taken in respect of medical procedures, terms and conditions, and the author does not claim to be the fount of all knowledge.
The author accepts the right of the individual to hold his/her (or whatever) own political, religious and social views, and there is no intention to deliberately offend anyone.
The Author
With enormous experience of life, the author brings to life some of the nastier sides of the human condition, with many of the better attributes. Having started writing as a teenager, but never publishing anything until the half century loomed, Tanya successfully brought together elements of the real world, her dreams, fantasies and failed aspirations to breathe life into three-dimensional characters and situations that warrant further attention. Known for producing happy endings (for the most part), but also keen to see true justice is seen to be done, which unfortunately doesn’t happen as often as it should in real life.
Now concentrating on writing, the author enjoys foreign travel, family, faith and furry friends.
Books by Tanya Allan
Her AMAZON.COM PAGE: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004VTB5OQ
A Chance would be a Fine Thing (Knox Journals Book 1)
A Wedding and Two Wars (Knox Journal Book 2)
A Fairy's Tale
A Girl can but Dream
Amber Alert
A Tale of Two T’s*
Behind The Enemy - Book 1
Beginning's End – Book 2
The Candy Cane Club – Book 1
Dead End – Book 2
Dragons & Stuff!
Emma*
Entirely Blank
Every Little Girl's Dream #
Rise to the Challenge
Extra Special Agent
Fast Forward with a Twist
Flight or Fight
Fortune's Soldier
Gruesome Tuesday*
In Plain Sight*
In The Shadows
It Couldn't Happen, Could it?
Killing Me Slowly*
Marine I: Agent of Time*
Marine 2: A very Different Roman
Marine 3: Island of Dreams
Modern Masquerade
Monique*#
Monique (L’edition francais)
Queen of Hearts*
Ring the Change
Shit Happens - so do Miracles*
Skin*
Tango Golf: Cop with A Difference
The Badger’s Girl
The Hard Way*
The Offer
The Other Side of Dreams
There's No Such Thing as a Super Hero
The Summer Job & Other Stories
The Torc (Book 1 – The Emerging)
To Fight For a Dream*
Twisted Dreams*
TWOC - A Comedy of Errors
Weird Wednesday*
When Fortune Smiles - Book 1
Changed Fortune – Book 2
When I Count to Three #
Whispers in the Mind* - Book 1
Whispers in the Soul* - Book 2
*Paperbacks can be found here: http://www.feedaread.com/profiles/368/
# = Published on KOBO.COM
My heartfelt thanks go to Tom Peashey for editing my work, the commas (or lack of them) must drive him mad; and to Jenny Ellis for her wonderful design of the cover of this book.
Author’s Note
Welcome to Book 2 in the MARINE series. For those who may not have read the first one; then may I respectfully suggest that you do. If you don’t feel you can wait, perhaps it would be right for me to introduce the veteran Sgt. Ed Ryan to you.
In Book 1, we first met Ed as he left the US Navy Hospital with the results of his serious knee injury. After many years active service, his knee replacement, although suitable for every-day walking about, was no longer considered up to the purpose for the kind of activity that an active US Marine would expect from it. Given leave by his Colonel to consider his future (he turned down a training role) he heads south to meet an old friend and ex-marine with a boat for a short task off the coast of Florida. This, he felt would give him time and space to consider what he could do with his life. He never got there. After a surreal meeting in a diner as he drove south, he finds himself recruited by a mysterious man called Michael. He joins an equally mysterious organisation that appears to be some form of Law Enforcement Agency patrolling the channels of time itself. It is impossible, he was told, to send a human either backwards or forwards in time, so the agency utilises proxy humans, generated by the advanced technology at their disposal. They are fully human, genetically based on the original, but generated and improved to exist in the target time-frame only. The agent simply transfers their personality and memories through to the proxy and work it as if it was their own body. However, such is the technology that the agent can select and assume a body of either gender, improving size, strength and skills accordingly. He takes his first job, as a gutsy young woman in the early nineteenth century, initially in England around the time of the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but latterly in the United States. Why a woman? You ask. Quietly and without saying anything to anyone, Ed Ryan had successfully fought an inner battle all his life, for just beneath the surface was the inner conviction that he should have been born female. It was never to be, so as he grew to be a very large and masculine male, he simply accepted his lot and focussed on being the best Marine he could be. Here was his chance to release she who was within -Jane Chauncey was born. To say she surprised everyone would be an understatement. After successfully thwarting those who would seek to assassinate their way to alter the stream of time, she settles down to live a full and amazingly productive life. All good things come to an end, and so as Jane passed into dust, so Ed had to return to the present(?). Having had a taste of how the other half lives, even in an era where women were almost second-class citizens, on his second assignment, Ed travels even further back, to a time where most women were little more than slaves! For this time the threat is against the stability that the Roman Empire gave to the world, specifically at the end of the first century AD – the rise of the Emperor Trajan.
PROLOGUE
The sentry on the wall was wet, cold and miserable. Lucius had wrapped his damp cloak around him, easing his helmet to try to prevent the rivulets of rainwater from going straight down his neck. The leather banding inside the helmet was chaffing his head, so his close-cropped hair was worn to almost baldness in places. In winter he, as would all legionaries, wore a woollen hat inside his helmet, but it wasn’t winter, despite the weather. There were at least a hundred places he’d rather be than this particular, godforsaken part of the empire.