by Julian Miles | Aug 11, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Two words. Nothing else.
He turns the envelope over, then puts it down and picks up the ornate Kaldotarnib honour blade and turns that over before sliding it from the scabbard. He makes a few passes in the air, finishing with a swift double strike move. Closing his eyes, he touches the hilt to his forehead, then sheathes it.
A priceless artefact from a bitter war that still rages, accompanied by a mystery message.
He puts the blade down and picks up the envelope. When it first arrived, he’d joked with the courier about including a letter opener. That would be tantamount to sacrilege. He pulls his dagger and slices the top edge of the envelope off, then peers inside.
Tipping the single sheet onto the table, he rotates it with point of the dagger until the words become legible.
Hello, you shovel-jawed bastard, it’s Nat.
These days I’m Flag Sergeant Reece of the 51st Highlanders, but I sometimes wake wondering why you or one of your gang haven’t tipped me onto the floor.
Then I realise college days are nine years past. Well, in my timeline anyway. Not sure what the time difference from FTL transit has done on your side. One of my techs reckons it’ll be nearer thirty years for you.
Wondering why I sent you a letter? Just read it once. You owe me that much, fucker.
Don’t know what they’re telling you on the home worlds, but we are actually winning most of the time. Just my bad luck to be here for one of the times we won’t.
The Kaldotarnib are as ferocious as you’ve no doubt been told. They’re also weirdly honour-bound. Which is how you got this letter, and a beautiful blade along with it. You see, we’re stuck on Agral 3. The locals switched sides a week ago. We’ve been scrambling to get our non-combatants offworld ever since. Despite moments of glory, we’ve been massacred.
I’m huddled in a wrecked building with the last of my own. We’re all writing. There’s no way eighteen of us can stall the advance. If they keep going, the civilians crammed into the spaceport will be slaughtered.
So we’ve challenged the Kaldotarnib to an honour tournament. By their codes, those certain to be defeated can redeem their honour by facing a succession of combatants, providing they kill at least one of them.
They’ve stopped their advance while eighteen of us die in ritual single combat with Kaldotarnib bladekin. If we manage to slay one or more, the honour blade of our first kill is granted to our family, along with the last letter. If we don’t, the letter is burned along with the corpse. More importantly, us fighting one at a time will give the transports time to lift and FTL out.
It’s so fucking sad that you’re the only person I have to send this to. I left because of the bullying. Couldn’t even come back when my parents died.
I raged against you for so long. Oddly, it made me tougher. Made me kick the crap out of the bullies I came across. Nobody should have to go through what you put me through.
But –
Those kickings revealed the bullies had problems of their own. That made me think. Eventually, it made me let my rage go. Made me want to ask what fucked you up so badly.
So here it is –
Have you escaped your demons, Jon?
I hope you have. I really do.
Take care of yourself,
Nat.
Jon wipes away tears, then whispers into the silence.
“Bastard… Sorry.”
by Julian Miles | Aug 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Mum always said ice mining is a stupid idea. Whenever she said that, Dad just shrugged and went back to watching videos about playing the markets to get rich.
I’m not sure if it was her crazy enthusiasms for anything that might get us ‘a better life’ or his stubborn insistence everything would be great ‘this time next year’ that drove me to leave as soon as I could.
“Jamal.”
Laetengrand is an ice planet in the Qwang-Chi Archaeological Zone. A very long time ago, back before it froze over – they’re still arguing about how that happened – it was at the heart of the Qwang-Chi Empire. Long story short: it froze over really fast. Under a millennia or two of ice there’s a huge chunk of a civilization several centuries advanced from ours. While we’ve yet to reach any cities down there, we’ve found a few exotic flying vehicles and crystalline veins of a substance someone named ‘klectothene’.
“Jamal!”
We presume it used to be a fuel of some kind. The storage ruptured and it leaked. A strange process induced by cold, pressure, and time has resulted in the veins which yield purple crystals that can power spaceships. Our radiant core drives were traded from the Lenkormians. Attempts to reverse engineer them have been unsuccessful. However, putting a chunk of klectothene in place of the core – the part we couldn’t replicate – results in a drive twenty percent more powerful that lasts twice as long.
“JAMAL!”
I wake. I’m up against the right bulkhead, which is now the floor.
“Here. What happened?”
“Terfor set a thermic charge to collapse the tunnel.”
“This close to The Scar?”
We’re meant to be a pioneer culture: friendly rivalry but pulling together when it matters. Outright greed means some of us fall short of the pioneering spirit.
“Exactly. He set it to trigger on movement. Luckily you had that drone skitter running ahead of your digger, which set it off early. Terfor was still in the section that cracked off.”
That sort of iceshift can’t have been good for- oh no.
“How much went in, and how far am I under?”
“The Scar is gone. The biggest ice crevasse on Laetengrand has become a thirty-kilometre-long dip in the snowscape that’s still settling in places.”
“How far?”
There’s a ‘do we tell him or not?’ period of silence.
“Over three kilometres.”
Deeper than any have gone and survived. Deeper…
“Am I over land or sea?”
Ice sheets cover the whole planet, including a couple of sizeable oceans. Way back before they discovered klectothene, they used another crevasse to drop a space battleship down into the depths to act as an underwater base. The method sounds crazy but works because the old dreadnoughts were built to withstand solaric weapons. Being underwater, the only threat is faster corrosion.
“Sea side.”
“Call Dreadnought Base. Find out where their submersibles are. There’s no point in me going swimming if all I’m going to do is consign myself to a watery grave.”
Another long silence.
A deafening ‘ping’ sounds throughout my rig.
“Did you hear that?”
“It rattled my teeth.”
“Hey, Bacarude. That hit you got is Jamal. Patching you in.”
“Hi, Jamal. You’re only eight metres from open water. Lucky for you we came to see what the collapse shook loose.”
“Prepare to catch a sinking digger.”
“Ready.”
I scramble over and activate the side cutters. There are grinding noises, everything shakes, then there’s a lurch, followed by silence.
Something clangs against my hull.
“Gotcha. Next stop: Dreadnought Base.”
I’m not dying today. Excellent.
“Thank you!”
by Julian Miles | Jul 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Go left. Left! Between the trees.”
“Rule nineteen: do not follow a road.”
“Not the gap on the right. The gap on the left. Left!”
Tersi rests a hand on my shoulder and cuts into my comms.
“Check definition: road. Query application of rule. Go left.”
“Revision: indicated route is not in contravention.”
I watch the view shift until rows of trunks are hurtling past on either side. Muting the line, I pat their hand.
“I don’t know how you do it. Every day I hate the asshat who mandated A.I. for frontline ops.”
“I’m immune. Spend four years seconded from tactical to A.I. training and command clarification becomes second nature.”
“Must make it easier.”
They pat me on the head.
“Well, dealing with the A.I. is.”
“Set myself up for that.”
“True. Right, the swarm are approaching the first marker. What’s on the menu?”
I check my defensive breakdown.
“We’ve got Taranis engaging the top cover, so we’re up against gatling cannon, rapid-fire missile batteries, and net casters. Plus the usual hawks.”
They slap my head.
“Wired trees!”
“Altitude plus twenty.”
I see the view rise. The makeshift wall of cable-strung branches passes below.
“Mission default.”
The view drops again. My display lights with red and blue markers.
“Red Flight engage. Blue flight engage. Green flight engage.”
Tersi crouches down by me.
“Green flight already?”
“They’re looking to drive us down to the gatlings. Standard tactic is to accelerate under the hawks and missiles.”
“So green flight are a pre-emptive response. When the gatlings pop their hatches…”
“They’ll be ready.”
“What are you payload wings?”
“Yellow flight: double stack of Darts. Standard 20-kilo HE. One in four is split-load with incendiary. One in ten has special ordnance instead.”
“Which we’re not mentioning. Out of curiosity, though: razors or pellets?”
“Duriken.”
“They went ahead with those? All hell will break loose when warfare monitors find out.”
“There’s a Red Wolf flight in a holding pattern, ready for clear up.”
“How exactly do you ‘clear up’ depleted uranium using flyers?”
“Seeding strike on their munitions piles.”
“So it’s not our depleted uranium mines they’ll find. The enemy was planning a war crime. Lucky we stalled it, etcetera. Good headlines, pats on the back all round.”
“You got the whole thing in one. I had to explain it some.”
“Which is why you run them and not the other way round.”
I check the statuses.
“We’re through. Took down eight out of ten of theirs, lost half of ours. You want to add the rest to the delivery or loop them back?”
“That doubles the strike size. Add them.”
“All flights go yellow.”
An extra hundred lights turn yellow. I watch views shift as they join the strike formations.
“Looking good.”
All the views go dazzlingly bright, then blink out.
Tersi leans forward.
“Surely that’s too soon.”
They’re not wrong. I bring up the Red Wolf station scans: a collage built from views when each is pointing the right way.
Flames. A sea of flames. I call for statuses. Nothing.
Tersi flicks her comms to ‘all’.
“This is Home Flight. Op Abort. If you’ve got anything, bring it back.”
They glance at me.
“I’d heard about a low flying drone response based on a banned World War One weapon. A Livens Flame Projector. It was banned for being too horrific. Fired a hundred-metre cone of napalm.”
I watch the flames.
“Mounted in towers, two hundred metre range, pitched towards the right altitude. No humans to incinerate.”
I glance at Tersi.
“The atrocities restart here.”
She frowns.
“True. No way they’ll hold back.”
by Julian Miles | Jul 21, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s another explosion outside. People are running about, screaming and shouting incoherently.
Nevaten finishes his meal and watches as he wipes his lips. Takes a while, his face being more lupine than human. He’s one of the Beaston, a bodmod cult, but he’s been a friend for longer.
He tips his head towards the chaos outside.
“Do they not know this place is good refuge?”
I grin.
“They might, but the denizens of this city aren’t usually calm enough to make the phase shift. Right now? Not a chance.”
Nevaten chuckles.
“So at this moment, paying clients are unlikely.”
I’m about to agree when a someone tumbles through the door, landing in an untidy heap between our table and the payment counter.
I peer under the table to see who the visitor is.
“Good evening, Tessy.”
She wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, holds it, then exhales slowly before replying.
“I’ll never get used to a neogod running a cafe, but good evening, Anbariu.”
“Please. I’m a long way from being techno-divine, thankfully. Besides, isn’t there a rule preventing such from mixing with their faithful?”
Tessy nods.
“It’s part of the mystique. Plus being a protection thing.”
Nevaten nods.
“They always cite the death of Musk, but the martyrdom of Ganton is a better example.”
Tessy sits up and stares at him.
“You know, you might be right.”
I push my stool back.
“What can the Dread Cafe provide, madam?”
She stands and indicates her clothes, which are close to having more scorched holes than anything else.
“A coffee to go and fresh kit, please.”
“Have it drink in while you’re choosing.”
I turn and shout to Shebannia.
“Is the garment dump safe to rummage in?”
When the charity warehouse next door closed down, I bought it. It’s amazing what you can hide and ship in charity bags.
A cheerful reply comes as she enters the cafe proper.
“Nothing questionable lying about. The clothes stacks aren’t dangerously high, either.” She looks Tessy up and down: “Girl, you need to back up another ten metres before you set off incendiaries.”
She howls with laughter.
“Not me. I set the first one. The rest are vehicles and the like, except for the big one. That was a short igniting a fuel tank. Would’ve killed me if there hadn’t been a window to get blown through.”
Shebannia leans in.
“How many floors up?”
Tessy shrugs.
“Just three. Used everything in my pulse shotgun to offset the landing. Blew the coils, but saved my arse.”
Nevaten raises a black-clawed hand.
“If I might presume, to what end did you set the first bomb?”
Tessy shrugs.
“Police states and neogods have the nasty habit of collecting data on people. Democracies too, if they’re headed that way. Over there was a government data centre. One of them – they’ve got others. Anyway, I just let off something to cover the progress of the erasure routine I let loose. With a bit of luck, it’ll infect those other datacentres before they realise.”
Nevaten nods.
“The secondary explosion could play into your favour. Maybe they will switch things to other data centres because this one is a trifle immolated.”
Tessy bursts out laughing again.
“‘A trifle immolated’? That’s classic. But yes, a failover might help. I’ll find out tomorrow, if I don’t get nabbed first.”
Shebannia smiles.
“Why? The surveillance around here is down again. You’ve been here all day.”
Nevaten grins.
“Spent the evening discussing the foibles of neogods.”
Tessy nods.
“And the ways they should fall from grace.”
Another explosion outside. Sort of appropriate, really.
by Julian Miles | Jul 14, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Water drums upon my helmet, makes a low hissing as it streams over the audio pickups, and fills the air with splashing sounds as it cascades from my armour to fall inside and outside my impromptu shelter.
There’s a rhythm to this. It’s complex, but my sis used to be a drummer. I can pick it out – or trick myself into the comfortable illusion. Either is good: my breathing has slowed and heartbeat is steady.
Refuge this isn’t. It’s a hide. Beyond the deadening provided by the water, I can still hear comrades and strangers dying while our armoured offensive burns amidst the ruins of what used to be a capitol city.
Am I going to venture out? Only if the water stops. I think I glimpsed a fire blanket on a wall further down the hallway: should have thought to grab it. In my defence, I was moving as fast as possible in near-mindless terror at the time.
General Astaren said it better than I ever could:
“The rumours you’ve heard about the Ressen using giant flying creatures are nothing but- Jezuz fucking Christ! A dragon!”
His transmission crackled and stopped a few seconds later; seconds we spent listening to several hundred soldiers suffering fiery deaths.
While we stared at each other in a mix of disbelief and panic, what came for them crossed the intervening kilometre and hit us. The minutes after that arrival will disfigure my dreams forever.
The water trails off to a trickle that thuds down on my left shoulder.
“Fuck my life.”
I chose it, but still. The posters had promised a short, glorious war followed by victory parades and eternal partying. So far, the only accurate words from that description have been ‘short’ and ‘war’.
These things look like dragons: four legs, two wings, long tail, long neck, wide head. Their scales are mirror-bright and impervious to everything we’ve thrown at them. Their ‘firebreathing’ seems to be some form of plasma. Whatever the science involved, the effect is bright and devastating.
Their flying is as far from clumsy as nobody expects from two-hundred-metre-long reptiles. They can manage bursts of Mach 2, can hover briefly, and combine the two abilities in dazzling displays that remind me of the gravity well antics my grandfather used to do for a living at the family fairground.
“Bingo One? That you, Greg?”
The f-!
“Bingo Med? Charlie, you made it?”
“Most of me. Lost an arm, but the MedOp backpack I always complained about turned out to be quicker than death. I feel great, but tomorrow’s going to be no fun.”
“I like your optimism. Where are you?”
“Huddled in a shower in flat 218. You?”
I chuckle.
“You remembered that old joke too? I’m in same, somewhere on the third floor. Did your water just stop?”
“A few minutes ago. I’m thinking we need to move.”
An idea occurs: I run a quick allies scan.
“Just got scanned. Tell me it was you.”
“Yup. You’re right below me.”
I point my ‘urban entry facilitator’ at the floor and fire the last round, then tumble through the hole.
Charlie gives me a thumbs up.
“Tidy landing. Shall we get down to fucking off?”
After pulling her to her feet, I take a moment to run an extra tensioner round her torso to secure the MedOp pack against her ruined upper right side.
“I didn’t even feel that.”
“Another pain for tomorrow.”
“Down to the sewers and go left?”
“Good plan.”
She thumps my chestplate.
“Let’s move.”
Hope those scaly fuckers can’t dig as well as they can fly.
