Avery Cates: The Machines of War

Book excerpt: Contains four previously published novellas: "The Black Wave," "The Last Mile," "The Ghost Fleet," and "The Salted Earth." Having fled Castelvecchio and the Archangel's forces, Avery Cates and crew have only one move left: To somehow locate and gain access to the Cochtopa facility. Buried under the mountains, that installation was a desperate apocalypse bunker set up in the final days of The System. All the data, equipment, and bullets Cates needs to destroy the Angels is there. So is any possibility of rebooting the human race before it's too late. Getting there won't be easy, and will reacquaint Cates with some people he'd rather not meet again. Across oceans, continents, and mountains, Cates watches his merry band of desperate world-savers shrink as he re-learns an old lesson from his Gunner days: The killing always falls to him.