by Julian Miles | Dec 16, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“DAY-NA!”
The roar of anger is so loud it stops everyone. Dayna, presumably the being we’ve managed to corner after a three-hour citywide chase, was dubbed ‘Jaqueline the Ripper’ by the newsfeeds. Surrounded by rings of armoured vehicles and furious enforcers, she was laughing. Now she looks scared. What’s coming?
A fiery golden aura surrounds the petite being that descends, an elegant ballgown moving languidly as they do so.
The aura vanishes as they land and stride towards Dayna, who starts stammering out what sounds like a justification by its tone. I can’t be sure because nobody has come up with an Aziasen lingo patch for our not-so universal translators.
“We will conduct this discussion in Humanese Type Four.”
The latest arrival looks back at me. Green-tinged silver skin, mauve eyes, no pupils.
“My name is Ayse. Can you understand me?”
I nod.
“May I continue chastising this woeful being?”
Going to need to find a voice for this. Slow breath, and –
“My name is Mike. Yes, for the moment. That might change when my seniors or embassy representatives arrive.”
She smiles. Whoa my, that’s more fangs than most.
“Not soon, I hope. I loathe being reminded about etiquette when the situation demands otherwise.”
All of a sudden, I’m sure Ayse isn’t a junior dignitary.
Clara, my partner, leans across and whispers.
“This could be good. Or really, really bad.”
I whisper back.
“Agreed. Be ready to go shields up while sprinting away like angry space vampires are chasing you.”
“That would be a lot funnier if it wouldn’t be true.”
While we banter, Ayse continues walking towards Dayna – who seems to be trying to reverse through the wall she’s up against.
“YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO DRINK ANY MORE HUMANS!”
My ears hurt.
Dayna starts waving her hands placatingly.
“Only one! Just one! I was SO thirsty. I only stopped for sip.”
Ayse looks back at me.
“How many died in the most recent incident?”
“Inside the venue or during the pursuit?”
“Venue.”
I check my datapad.
“Everyone at the Boco Congo nightclub: thirty-eight clients, seven staff, and four security personnel.”
She turns back to Dayna.
“You might have intended to sip, but your rassmea is clearly out of control.”
Dayna waves her hands dismissively.
“No, no. I’ll be fine tomorrow. Just let me sleep it off. I’ll be back on the program.”
“YOU’RE GOING NOT GOING BACK ON THE PROGRAM. YOU’RE GOING BACK TO AZIAS!”
Dayna looks horrified.
“YOU CAN’T SEND ME HOME! There aren’t any humans there. I can’t go without; they taste SO GOOD!”
Movement happens before I can react. By the time my mind catches up with reality, Dayna is lying on the ground between Ayse and us.
Ayse looks up from the prone form.
“May I please take my human-addicted kith away, officer? She will be off-planet before dawn tomorrow. I give blood-bond to you that she will never return.”
A blood-bond is an absolute guarantee, which is a far better-than-expected result. All Aziasen have what amounts to diplomatic immunity. I was expecting to end tonight – and my career – involved in a diplomatic incident because I killed one.
“You may. Is rassmea treatable?”
“If a sufferer really wants free of it. Sadly, this one hasn’t had any of her whims denied since she was a child. It is best she forever be kept apart from humans.”
The fiery golden aura surrounds them. They rise into the air.
Ayse nods to me.
“Thank you for not slaying my sister.”
They’ll never know how close I came, and that’s a very good thing.
by Julian Miles | Dec 9, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
My principal settles comfortably and waves us off, indicating we should exit and close the door. We’re just by that door when all our proximity alerts shriek. As one, we spin about and rush to protect him. After all, if he dies, we don’t get paid – and quite possibly don’t get another job: losing the person you’re meant to be protecting never looks good on a resume.
A missile enters at the wrong angle for a solid hit, skips off his personal defensive forcefield, then lands a solid hit on the front woman of my team.
I come round lying under a section of ceiling. Rolling my eyes I see it was prevented from crushing me by a partially collapsed wall.
Movement: cautious, careful, and I’m convinced also very dangerous.
Right now I couldn’t defend myself against a curious moth, so I switch to headware battery, breathe out, stop my heart, and settle to listen. Catching the perpetrator from evidence I provide will compensate for having a dead principal on my resume.
“My apologies, Baron Noeblen. I hadn’t allowed for your security team being quite this efficient.”
There’s a cough.
“I’ve no idea who you are, but surely my security isn’t efficient, because they’re dead. I don’t suppose you’d accept a higher offer to let me live?”
There’s a tinkling laugh.
“If I were tasked to kill you, I wouldn’t. As I’m not, accepting would be fraudulent. Suffice to say today is a warning. Your security were efficient because they made it back quick enough for my missile to hit one of them. It should have exploded against the rear wall, where you’d have been protected from the blast by your forcefields and the back of your chair. However, as you won’t die from your injuries, I will accept this as success by luck.”
More coughing.
“What is this warning about?”
“The Stellar Seven merger. Noeblen Holdings should not participate.”
“How much to be told which of my rivals is paying you?”
“Nothing. I am acting on behalf of an affected government. They have seen what your sort of investment and industrialisation results in, and have no wish to condemn their populations to it. With Noeblen out of the merger, they feel they can arrange matters more to their satisfaction.”
Not sure if that’s a cough or clipped laugh in reply.
“Back off the gangsters to cow the businessmen. That’s a bold strategy.”
“Baron Noeblen, I am permitted to inform you that while my organisation specialises in near-miss negotiations of this sort, we are quite capable of being deadly accurate, and also believe assassination is most effective when entire bloodlines cease to exist.”
The silence that follows lets me hear the tell-tale sounds of late-stage mass panic from beyond this wrecked private viewing room. It’ll be at least five minutes before any response reaches us.
Finally, my principal speaks.
“Noeblen Holdings will not be part of the Stellar Seven Consortium.”
“Thank you for your agreement.”
I hear footsteps.
“Now the formalities are over, might I ask something?”
The footsteps stop.
“You may.”
“Could you recommend me a replacement security team?”
The tinkling laugh comes again.
“You don’t need one. Just get Benedict sufficient medical attention and he’ll rebuild you an effective team.”
They spotted I’m alive. That’s alien tech levels of detection.
“I want better.”
Understandable.
“To protect yourself from my organisation, you need my organisation. We are unique. Benedict and those chosen by him will protect you from any lesser threats, and we’ll not meet again. Warnings are only given once.”
The footsteps recede. The implicit threat lingers.
by Julian Miles | Dec 2, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Did you see that, Pete?”
I nod.
“Just another rocket from Abaella.”
Said on the news it’s going to be in range of Earth for another month.
“It’s bigger than that, Pete.”
Amanda sounds unhappy. I wander out onto the porch in time to see a stray moon level Sacramento.
While the ground heaves we cling to each other, then scream and crawl as a wind that roars like a thousand storms tears our roof to tatters.
The silence after the impact is eerie – and brief. Unbeknownst to us, a bigger stray moon hits Las Vegas a few minutes after Sacramento got hit. The wind from that blast tears into the opposite, exposed, side of our house and lifts the whole building. The stars spin crazily as I fly through the air and land in the creek.
I wake with a scream, grab my scarred thigh, then fall back onto my bundled coat as phantom pains recede. I landed in the deep part of the creek. Amanda didn’t get so lucky. It took a day to find her, and a week to motivate myself afterwards.
What happened? It was a question a lot of people were asking. Details came piecemeal, and the picture wasn’t good. Some stray moons had landed in oceans: shores abutting them had been scoured clean. A few of the stray moons split on impact, massive chunks hurtling sideways to slam down elsewhere. Watching them describe an almost flat arc across the sky must have been breathtaking – unless you were anywhere about to be hit.
In the aftermath things got worse. Earth had been blitzed by twenty to thirty moons hurled away when the meteor they orbited collided with a bigger meteor. Despite the devastation, it was fortunate for humanity, because the bigger meteor hitting Earth would have caused an extinction event. As is, we’ve ‘only’ suffered a survivable apocalypse.
The stark realities of coping proved too much for many of the survivors. Within a few months of Impact Day, every township had a designated suicide point where those unable to cope could go and remove themselves from the grim equations of survival. To this day, pickup crews still make morning runs out to those places to collect any who left us overnight.
There’s a small subset of survivors who can’t trust the sky anymore. To our minds, staying anywhere invites further disaster. We roam the transformed landscape, talking to ourselves or less dishevelled wildlife, eating whatever we can find, and working for short-term lodging at places we come across.
People say we’re ‘looking for Abaella’ like it’s a funny thing. As far as I can work out, the whole Abaella story was foisted on the population to explain the early arrivals from that monumental collision: it was nothing but a fabrication to keep the peace.
Looks like those who invented it didn’t survive, because I’ve not seen any attempt to rebuild anything more than townships. Then again, since other countries might as well be our Moon as far as getting news goes, I suppose there could be civilisation somewhere.
Most people are busy surviving, filling their days with farming and suchlike. I can’t do that. It strikes me as giving up. Not that I could tell you what they should be doing. My life is an endless meander, punctuated by days of blinding rage or paralysing grief.
Somebody lied and the love of my life died. I’ll never know the truths behind it all. Hope I can get over that, one day.
Until then, I’ll walk.
by Julian Miles | Nov 25, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Swinging into the forward turret, I see the displays are alive with scanner arrays and intricate calculations.
“Morning, Hinton. How’s the hunting?”
“Once again, Zaba, I’m going to ignore the irrelevance of arbitrary planetary platitudes. You’re clearly stuck in your ways. So, to answer: while swearing in exasperation is only a useful release for sentients possessed of emotions, I do believe I am approaching a truly refined grasp of its utility. I might even create and submit a thesis after this trip.”
“Another one? I’ll get lectured on not providing you with enough enrichment.”
“Ignore them. They’re not good with modern virtua.”
He has a point.
“Do they still use Archibald’s book as a guideline?”
“I’m convinced it’s something about the title.”
The century-old ‘Notes On the Rearing and Integration of Digital Sentiences’ remains a bestseller among those who do not work with virtua. Which leaves people like me as part of a constantly irritated minority.
“You might be right. Possibly a topic for your next dissertation?”
“Certainly a candidate.”
“So, how is the searching going?”
One of the displays starts to flash. The calculations shown are baffling for any non-digital being.
“I’ve had to create a new model to handle the gravitational effects in this sector. I am currently factoring in ninety-eight influential sources.”
Which, if I remember correctly, is twenty beyond the previous maximum.
“What are you looking so hard for?”
“The last Balrog.”
I wasn’t aware they’d loosed any.
“Seven or Eight?”
“Nine.”
The what?
Diving across to the lone keyscreen, I run through the Battle of Ceregellum in quick time, limiting the highlighting to projectiles over ten megagrams.
There. The last stand of the Kandil dreadnought Farrakang. As the kilometre-long vessel broke in two, it launched a quartet of its heaviest towards the flagships of the Noudal. Three of them hit: a combination of unbelievable targeting and pure luck. Wait. Three hits, three kills, all on Titanic-class or better?
“It’s a Balrog Nine with a Sunrise warhead, isn’t it?”
“Two. I have never come across such an implementation, and can find no predictive programs for the damage it could cause.”
A Sunrise warhead could turn an Earth-type planet into an asteroid belt. I doubt there would be anything left of any smaller target. To pair such warheads is madness.
“That’s because we foolishly thought no-one would be stupid enough to load two into one missile. I’ll leave you to it, Hinton. I have to notify Central. Send me the latest predictions so I can append them to give the innocent some idea of where it’s going.”
“Very well, Zaba.”
I rush from the turret. Bomb disposal has taken on a new lease of very dangerous life since we started having battles in space. Smaller projectiles just join the plethora of flying space junk. It’s occasionally damaging, but ship shields and the like can deal with it. However, all midrange and bigger are rogues looking for a disaster to make. Ever since the space liner ‘Luxor’ fell victim to a Mako 171 missile that was six years and half a galaxy away from the battle where it was launched, we’ve been using artificial intelligence to run the immense calculations needed to locate large munitions that missed.
Arriving on the command deck, I grab a transmitter and broadcast.
“This is Munitions Retrieval. Alert for sectors as appended. We have a Category One threat. Report any activity in the twenty megagram range to Munitions Central.”
That done, I get myself a drink and wait. There’s nothing we can do except hope Hinton can find it before it hits something.
by Julian Miles | Nov 18, 2024 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The wind’s picking up, keening between the stacks. If it gets any stronger, we’ll have to retreat.
“Alpha Seven, your favourite scout’s offline.”
“How long?”
“Nearly ten minutes.”
Switching myself to wide-hail, I call out.
“Team Seven, Scully’s dropped out. Who had last contact?”
There’s rapid chatter back and forth. We’ve become good at this: folk who stay lost for too long die. Ellis comes back to me.
“She was going to the ziggurat. Swore she had a double-detect on her movement scan.”
I told her not to go near that place! Then again, I’m only her captain. No real authority…
Switching back to Command, I update them.
“Reports are she headed for the closest ziggurat to confirm an intruder detection.”
There’s silence while someone gets past their swearing phase.
“We’ve told everybody about not doing that. I presume you emphasised it. Which leaves us with some interesting questions for her, if you bring her back alive, Alpha Seven.”
Nards.
“Interpreting that as a one-unit retrieval instruction, Command. Please confirm.”
“Confirmed, Alpha Seven. She’s your stray. Either you bring her back in or we’ll write off the two of you and call it quits.”
Nice of you to be honest about it. Then again, it’s not like this is the first time.
“Copy that, Command. Alpha Seven off into the wilds. Deputy Alpha is Colleen, Gamma Six-Four.”
There’s a short pause before a local message flashes across the info strip that runs across the bottom of my faceplate: ‘For real? They’re sending you after her?’
I reply: “Message: ‘Affirmative. Look after Team Seven’.”
She comes back: ‘Wilco. Happy hunting’.
Yeah, that.
The environment scan shows an incoming dust storm, and the wind has doubled in force since we landed this morning. It’s going to be vicious out here in a few hours. Best be quick.
“Launch warning. Alpha Seven going up in three, two, one.”
I punch my thrusters and hurtle into the sky with a deflection calculated to let the wind curve my flight to come down on the gigantic step pyramid that looms in the distance. We’re still not sure why the first dumpers turned the accumulated trash from Earth into these edifices, but we’ve lost too many people to traps within them to investigate further.
Dropping right on target, I punch the thrusters and come down perfectly, like stepping off an escalator.
“Where are you, Scully?”
A world covered in technological junk makes communication over distance impossible without using orbital devices. However, local hailing can be relied on for fifty metres or so if you don’t have line of sight. Chances are, if Command lost her, she’s in a hole. ‘How deep?’ and ‘Dead or alive?’ are the next questions.
No reply. I scramble about fifty metres along, then try again. Ziggurat’s a kilometre across… Going to be a long afternoon.
“Here.”
“Eleventh call. I was starting to get worried. Where’s ‘here’, exactly?”
“Second tier, underneath a chunk of Falcon 19 fuselage. It was coming loose, moving in the wind, which explains the movement readings. When I arrived, it fell on me.”
“That was rude of it.”
“I thought so.”
“Be with you-”
I’m on tier three, and it’s… Right there. I jump down.
“Now.”
A heat scan shows me where she is. I have to use cutters and claws to get to her.
“You should be flatter.”
“It got my legs, what more do you want?”
“Given the way Command sounded, you might regret surviving.”
She locks her suit to mine.
“Never gonna happen. Get me out of here.”
“Wilco. Launching in three, two, one…”
