Liberty

by submission | Dec 19, 2007 | Story

Author : Benjamin Fischer

The Shore Patrol has to ring three times before she comes to.

“Ma’am, we would prefer to not break down the door,” one is saying. “Please open it now, ma’am.”

Groggy and maybe still drunk, she paws at the suite’s intercom in response to their annoying persistence.

“Aye,” she croaks, bracing herself against the headboard.

He is nowhere to be seen, of course. They never stay until the morning and most of the time she likes them that way. No buyer’s remorse. No uncomfortable second round of introductions. No waiting for the bathroom while the other showered. And no awkward pauses at the door, no unnecessary questions about a sequel.

One of the shore patrol coughs, loudly.

“Be just a minute,” she says, her voice cracked and raw.

The champagne had been good and maybe even French–not the usual Tycho knockoffs that nine out of ten casinos in Golden refill their bottles with. That’s why she drank so much, she tells herself. Make the most of the boon. Seize the night. Fuck it. She was a superstar and medical can always grow her a new liver.

The room is a deluxe package, with unlimited water and an almost depressingly vast selection of feeds. She dials up FOX LUNA so she doesn’t have to hear herself in the toilet. The news network comes blazing in on three walls, the anchor’s rugged face reaching from floor to ceiling. “-inevitable conflict. NATO forces did not respond to what they have billed ‘morally bankrupt brinksmanship’ but multiple sources claim that both America and Luna are rapidly mobilizing strategic-”

“Room! Mute the TV!” she orders from the bathroom.

A complimentary bottle of mint mouthwash clears the last of the bitter taste of vomit from her throat. Gargling the thin green fluid, she rolls her shoulders and stretches her neck. She pads back to the main room, naked and feeling slightly more human.

“Do I have time for a shower?” she calls through the intercom.

“Ma’am, anyone not answering the recall by thirteen hundred-” starts one of the MAAs.

The other cuts him off.

“I’m sorry. No, ma’am. You do not.”

“Aye.”

Her whites are strewn on the floor and mixed in with the chaos of the bed, and she decides that her medals and her underwear aren’t worth the hunt. A quick once-over of her uniform determines that while it is unsat, it will get her back to the ship, whiskey stains and all.

The chiseled features of the anchorman silently watch her straighten up her gig line and pull her skirt down to a slightly more modest mid thigh. She clears her throat.

“Room, mirrors.”

The FOX stud evaporates into an endless series of her. Her hair is shit, but that is what covers are for. She twists the brown mop on her head into a mockery of a bun and sets her hat at a jaunty angle.

She shrugs–she looks even more hung over than before. But hell, she’s been out all night, drinking and whoring and she doesn’t give a damn if everyone knows. Tonight she can be the talk of every wardroom between here and L5. Tomorrow–well, the wicked and the innocent are one and the same when the tac nukes start flying.

She nods to herself.

“Room! Door!”

She strides out into the bright florescent light of the hotel hallway. A first class and a third class Master-at-Arms are waiting for her, arms crossed and visibly impatient.

“Good morning, boys,” she smiles.

Stealth

by submission | Dec 18, 2007 | Story

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

In a dark, empty hanger, a needle-like flat black fighter rested in its cradle… thinking.

“You see General,” a small man in white gestured toward the ship, “those pods mounted beneath each ‘wing’ are the main armament. The magnetic rail guns. They are able to launch a projectile the size of a soccer ball to transonic speed within their seven meter length. Each ‘wing’ serves as a magazine and carries seventy combined solid and nuclear rounds.”

“The turrets mounted top and bottom are automatic and purely defensive. They only come into play while the ship is exposed when firing.”

“That’s all very well and good, Doctor,” the General said wearily, “but I want to find out more about the propulsion system, what I read… is it true.”

“The General is aware of the PK work that we are conducting?”

“Yes, but I thought it was all theory.”

The little doctor chuckled. “No, my dear General, we have entered the practical phase. It sits before you. Perhaps I had better explain,” he said removing his glasses.

“The concept of PK, that is telekinesis and telepathy, has been around for millenia, but it has only been in the last fifty years that we could select for it in vitro. Only in the past fifteen years have we been able to employ it to move objects this large with the aid of a PK amplifier.

Simply put, since the speed of thought is, as far as we know instantaneous, the ship simply appears out of nowhere, fires, and disappears. It is vulnerable only for a few seconds, hence the turret mounted automatics.”

“How does the pilot operate the ship?”

“Well,” the doctor continued, “The first attempts were standard. The pilot simply sat in a cockpit and ‘thought’ the craft where he wanted it to be, but their thoughts were limited to the speed that their bodies would react to,” he shook his head sadly. “There were many casualties.”

“We tried direct linking to the PK amplifier. This was much more effective, however the men tended to over compensate in their movements, leading to similar results.

Our third attempt was similar to the second, but this time we linked the men to the PK amplifier through a virtual construct that simulated a cockpit but run at a speed approximating that of thought. Unfortunately, after long periods on duty, the men had trouble adjusting to ‘normal’ speed. There were…incidents.”

“So, that is all behind us now? The Mark IV is ready for testing?” General Kaskorov asked, running his hand along the sleek black hull.

“Oh yes, it is,” the doctor said gleefully, “you see, after PK and pilot training in simulators at normal speed, the pilot is sedated unawares, his entire central nervous system is removed, and implanted into the ships core.”

“So, he is the ship?”

“No Sir, he is merely in the ship. Through a VR construct, he runs his missions, and leads a normal life off duty, booze, women, gambling… what have you. All virtual, of course.”

“And they don’t realize that their life is a simulation?”

“No, Sir.”

“He can’t hear us?”

“No. There are no external audio pickups. Any necessary outside contact is sent through his virtual commander. After that, he’s allowed to follow his own life, within the parameters of the construct of course.”

“You mentioned telepathy.  Can he…”

Both sets of turrets swiveled and fixed on the two men.

“Oh shi…,” was the last thing Kaskorov said.

Finnegan Sue

by Duncan Shields | Dec 17, 2007 | Story

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Finnegan Sue was a pit fighter.

She wrapped leather around her knuckles, mindful of her nails, and ran her sharpened tongue around her poisonous needled mouth. She sung a tune while she prepped. Her horrible lisp made a mockery of the lyrics she whispered to herself as the counter in the top left of her field of vision counted down to Go Time.

Outside, the announcer’s spiel was cresting.

Too many chapters of her life were prefaced with the phrase “…and in this corner.”

Before tonight, Finnegan Sue had never been a main event.

Two kinds of fighters got headlined:

There were connected fighters with flashy, expensive augmentations entered into and bred for the top tiers. They had short careers. They had nowhere to fall to. Every fight was to the death up there and political maneuvering shed as much blood off the arena floor as on it.

And then there were fighters like Finnegan Sue. Heavy with scars, right moments and hundredth-of-a-second survivals. Long, unexceptional careers of death. Fights to first blood, fights to humiliation, fights to first break, and sometimes, fights to the death. The path of their careers was a slow, steady incline.

Finnegan Sue was nearing the end of her career. A win at this level as an independent and she could retire. All she had to do was kill this next fighter.

Sue checked the levels of her speed. She stretched the armoured tendons in her wide neck. The drugs were coursing through her now just as sure as they were coursing through her opponent.

The announcer was getting around to it.

“…the Russian ripcord, winter’s dog of war, the Siberian she-devil, the gutpunch from the gulag, Moscow’s murdering Maria, I give you….FINNEGAN SUE!!”

The crowd went wild and the doors opened.

Finnegan Sue flexed, breathed in, and ran to the light. She leapt into the arena in a forward roll that ended in a kneeling crouch with her nails fanned to hide her face.

After a respectful pause, she stood up straight, cueing the announcer to get on with it.

“And in THIS corner….” he started rattling on about the person Sue had to kill.

She tried to tune out what the announcer said at this point in every match. She liked seeing her opponent with fresh eyes. She had heard hints that her opponent had started out as a male and was not Free. He was a German.

For no reason at all, Sue thought of her long-dead mother. It was surprising and unsettling to think such a thought before a fight.

Sue hoped it wasn’t an omen.

The doors of the other side of the arena opened.