Astray

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

During their latest operation at what was once the border between Poland and Belarus, Charlie Team is ambushed by something unexpected. After dealing with the threat, the six operators are left with questions and no clear answer. Baffled but still focused on the mission, they carry on towards their target.

They soon arrive where the enemy compound should be, but find nothing. Only trees as far as the eye can see.

Out in the distance, to their east, they see a mountain range where there should be none.

Sensing something afoul, they backtrack, but the river they arrived from is nowhere to be found. Ceasing radio silence, the only reply they receive is static.

As they detour towards what is supposed to be a town in friendly territory, they come across an extremely unusual and upsetting scene, which will mark the beginning of their journey back home.

Meanwhile, something dark has begun to whisper into the mind of each member of the team.

I hope you will findASTRAYentertaining and that you will enjoy reading it.

Please, consider leaving a review, a comment, or rating the story. I appreciate constructive criticism, as it helps me understand where to improve.

I am not a military expert, but I try to do my due diligence so I can know what I am writing about. However, if you notice a glaring mistake, please comment about it.

The pace is on the slower side, as is my writing speed. I do not like to rush things, so expect one chapter per month at most.

Chapter lengthvaries according to what I need the chapter to depict. Usually, it isbetween 3000 and 6000 words.

The cover art was made with AI and a good dose of Photoshop. I’ll have a professional draw a cover once I finish the book and have the money to invest.

I postAstrayonly on RoyalRoad. If you find it somewhere else, it's been taken without my permission.

WARNING: This story contains strong themes and language that some readers may find upsetting. I try to portray warfare and traumatizing content with as much realism as possible without falling into self-indulgency. There are crude and dark moments depicted in this story, but you will not find gratuitous gore nor violence for simple shock value.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2024
Author: Shaka

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 240
Views: 34,691

Chapters(27 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(3)

0_42Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
If you've read works like Aim Down Sights, Digital Marine or Out of Space, this is another gem in the making for military otakus, solid world building, an isekai without "cheat skills" granted by a god, excellent approach to sensitive topics with characters with real background and personality, I review with the first four chapters hoping that it can receive the visibility that an isekai story deserves without the "Mary Sue and Gary Stu" that usually accompany the terrible stories that include isekai fantasy.
kev62Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Though to begin with i found it a bit slow i kept reading and it has starting to become a favorite read as i start to understand the makeup of the story of being lost and alone in a different world and trying to learn what is happening to them and not running around like a demented causing mayhem like some idiotic hero want a be everything is thought through be for acting a very nice change.
DarmeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Great story plot for people who enjoy the modern military dunking on medieval fantasy era civilizations. good characterizations and writing.
I had a good time because the characters felt very realistic and there was somewhat amusing banter but the banter did going on a bit too long. The parts I really liked were the perspective shifts to the native characters and they explained what happened in their perspective and gives alot of world building. There is quite small time gap jumps between scenes usually a couple days. The more action and horror scenes were pretty well written and were my favorite parts.
I personally didn't like how slow the pacing is overall due to the fact that there are too many main characters who are all about equal importance and perspective often shifts. Much of the story focuses on the banter between characters so you get a feeling for the characters. Some might find this a positive but for me there was just too many characters to follow which makes the verbose dialogue hard to follow and keep my attention. This issue is exasperated for me as the characters also have a language barrier and the author even includes different languages including the alien language of the native characters. A ton of those words are italicized but basically become white noise to me which really breaks up my reading which makes me wants to rush through alot of the dialogue. I was losing track of who was who.
I still much enjoyed the read and its a story plot setting I like.