by Julian Miles | Apr 22, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Yngtranzian Harvester incoming! Genghis Class – it’s huge!” Janice sounds terrified, but she’s new. She’ll get over it.
Many pre-spacers compared the depths of space to the seas of Earth. Truly prophetic words. A wise man once said: “The ocean is the only café where the food fights back.” Fortunately, in an environment renowned for big-eats-little dynamics, humans were a decent size. Unfortunately, in space we’re only just medium sized and nothing out here thinks we’re cute and worth protecting.
The ‘blip’ on the screen is about the size of the Isle of Wight. It’s filled with six-metre tall tripeds with wide mouths full of sharp teeth. They have a cookery book dedicated to making a whole range of delicious meals, for any time of day or night, out of human. Including several recipes where we go into the hot and/or sharp part of the process conscious. Apparently you can judge the succulence of human flesh by certain tones in the screams emitted by the owner.
“Alright, it’s big, but it’s not bigger than a Dobberil Grinder. Set up a pair of point-three light triple-stage boosters; add countermeasures packages Alpha Cream Nine and Pete Echo Four. Slap a teraton warhead on the second one. Fire control to me.”
The Dobberil are like whales in size, and that they like their food small. Minced, to be precise. They drive whole herds of people out of cover into open ground using sonics, then a Grinder class vessel swoops in, mulches them up – along with a decimetre of whatever they were cowering on – and serves the whole mess fresh with a splash of peroxide.
The Harvester comes straight in, ignoring the defensive batteries on the Moon and on Moon Two, the defence station that orbits opposite the Moon. But we’re on patrol today, back at last from persuading the Slavyesh that humans are not for drinking. We had to knock the society back to their stone age to do it, but they will think twice before squeezing one of our colonies for their morning juice again.
The fire control comes online and I wait. Yngtranzians are fussy. They’ll want to line up before entering atmosphere, and that’s when I can clip them.
Two, one… “Fire one!”
The missile leaves me, accelerates like nothing on Earth, leaves a rainbow contrail in high atmosphere and slams into the Harvester at a several hundred Mach. The Harvester pitches and yaws out of orbit, station-keeping drives and stabiliser fields spitting. By my head, trajectory calculations are coming in faster than they are correcting their yawing vessel.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. They have passed the orbit of both Moons. Time.
“Fire two!”
The night goes bright just as the concussion of launch fades. The first missile was slowed by atmosphere, its control systems keeping it from going to relativistic speeds. The second had no such limitations. No-one on this ship saw it go and nothing on the Yngtranzian saw it coming. For a few seconds, we have a third, supernally bright moon. I’m glad sound doesn’t travel in space. That would have been loud.
“Northern Hemi Control, this is Orca One. Please alert Russia for debriteors and add an Yngtranzian Genghis to our kill tally.”
“We hear that, Orca One. Orca Two has risen from Mars Base and will relieve you in twenty-seven hours.”
That’s the good news. A kill means we get a couple of days shore leave.
Slowly but surely, the predators of this ocean called space are learning that the tiddlers from Sol Three are vicious and have really big teeth.
by Julian Miles | Apr 10, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Where are you?”
“Same continent.”
“That’s a relief. I was so worried when the news said you’d been cornered in Rio.”
So was I. It was only after fleeing I found it had only been media hype, not a snatch team.
“Doctor Flowers says we need another sample.”
A chill ran down my spine. She said ‘doctor’, not ‘professor’. That meant she was under observation, duress, or both.
“Tell him I’ll contact him tomorrow afternoon.”
“Will you have time to visit?”
Not good. That was a ‘do not come near this town’ warning.
“I’ll see what I can do. Love you, Tara.”
“Love you to. Bye.”
I called MI6 as soon as she hung up. I identified myself with the agreed code for day and date, then got them to send an armed MI5 rescue team to our home. The home I had never seen.
Four years ago I had been stood at the altar, Tara’s hand in mine, when something blew the vicar’s head apart. The slaughter at my wedding was the culmination of two years of international frenzy over my unique ‘condition’. I fled from the venue alone, over the bodies of the small army that had been allocated to defend me.
I worked at the New Calder Hall reactor. I was there the day that its ‘revolutionary innovation in reactor cooling’ failed, bequeathing Britain with Chernobyl-on-Cumbria.
Tara was my specialist during treatment. To everyone’s surprise, I showed no ill effects whatsoever. Tara received several awards for the work she did that led to the identification of ‘blue cells’. She says that her engagement ring is the only one she treasures.
My body had been exposed to quantities of radiation almost guaranteed to cause cancer. Whether my mutated white cells were a freak result or a pre-existing condition will never be known. But the results are clear: people who get a shot of my ‘blue cells’ have their cancerous cells destroyed. No-one has yet managed to replicate blue cell serum. I am the golden goose that bleeds the cure for cancer.
Tara and I decided to make blue cell serum available to the world on a critical need basis. An anonymous billionaire provided funding, as well as starting a research project to artificially produce blue cell serum. It was in its early stages when the first attack occurred. Someone had decided that the value of controlling the only source of the blue cells was worth murdering Tara’s colleagues wholesale.
A year later, the body count had risen to a point where I called a stop to the procession of body guards and safe houses. Our wedding was the last event to be heavily guarded, as the protocols for me becoming a fugitive had been agreed. The wedding showed just how far they would go.
As to who ‘they’ are, it seems that it is a consortium of powerful and greedy people. They want to market the serum made from my blood. It would become something available only to the wealthiest, with a black market for placebos worth even more.
Tara and I will not have that, and we are supported by people at all levels and seemingly everywhere. I cannot count the times that I have evaded a snatch team solely because a stranger intervened.
One day, I will exchange vows with Tara. One day, I will walk into our home. One day, when the researchers at the fortified and hidden laboratory work out how to refine blue cell serum.
Until then, I run.
by Julian Miles | Apr 2, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The bridge is quiet. Non-essential systems are shut down as avoiding detection by this world’s dominant species is essential. Two figures stand by a darkened control panel that has a single node illuminated; the white glow of the ring about the simple switch casting their features in sharp relief broken by impenetrable shadows.
“Are you sure that the ecological impact has been properly assessed?” The smaller of the two seems nervous.
“Yes. It may seem drastic, but like some forests need burning to improve, the predictive work gave this the best chance of success.” The confidence of the taller one is underpinned with sadness.
“Really? What about the humans?”
“Their technology is the root of the problem. It has advanced so far that they can ignore any imperatives delivered by their biosphere’s ecosystem, and still continue down the wrong path.”
The smaller one nods: “There has never been a fauna reintroduction like this. Its progress will be keenly monitored.”
The taller one chuckles: “They can monitor as much as they like. Can you imagine what a revocation would be like?”
The smaller one pauses, then bursts out laughing: “It would inflict catastrophic damage.”
“Precisely. This is a single-action intervention. The Concillium Galactus has stated that we do this and then observe, no matter what happens.”
“Even if they overcome our cargo?” The smaller one is aghast.
“Yes. Humans are dangerous. If they counter this intervention, they’re on their own. Interdicted as well, I would expect.” The tall one looks up at the viewports as the heat-haze of atmospheric entry clears.
“So this is the last chance for this biosphere.” The smaller one whispers.
“Would you care to-?” The tall one gestures to the smaller one, indicating the switch.
The smaller one nods: “I mentored them. I taught them. It is only fair that I release them.” He rests a digit on the switch.
With a heavy sigh, the tall one steps back and folds his appendages in front of him.
The small one raises a limb: “By order of the Concillium Galactus, now starts the final phase of Fauna Reintroduction Project Nine-Four-Four-Zero.” He firmly presses the switch into its lower position. Their vessel shakes as over half its weight exits via the vast hatches opened by the pressing of the switch.
The taller one leans his fore-crest against the largest of the viewports: “Humans, meet Draco Cruentus; the species that ended the dinosaurs. If not for the asteroid shower a few decades after they finished them off, your technology would still be focussed on making better caves. Let us see how you fare now that we have given nature a balance to your selfishness.”
by Julian Miles | Mar 27, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There used to be a saying: “how long is a piece of string?” It meant that you didn’t know how long something would take. I never understood it. A piece of string has to be a specific length, because someone made it. So my reply was usually: “ask whoever made the string.” It didn’t make me popular. But it did give me that nickname.
I always had a thing for durations. Of course, to work out a duration, you needed mathematics. A lot of mathematics. Sometimes you had to come up with the mathematics that described each process involved. Turned out that I had a unique talent. I applied mathematics to things that they only thought that mathematics could be applied to. For them, it was like magic. For me, it was simply a process of envisioning the smaller processes, then the similar processes, then getting the numbers to do their ‘thing’: In my head, numbers would move about and settle themselves where they needed to be. Whole formulae in some cases. It was easy, but only for me.
When duration calculations got a little dry, I went into probable outcome prediction; the ‘tarot’ end of mathematics. My talent stretched to cover that too.
So when the world took a turn for the worse, the government engaged my services to do projections based on current situation plus various strategies they proposed. When my projections showed the narrowing prospects of victory, their proposals took a turn into dog-in-a-manger territory and from there down into last-man-standing.
My projections from the last seven options they presented to me ranged from bad, through grim, down to the extinction of life on earth. All with better than ninety-five percent certainty. They fired me. Sent me home with warnings of instant death if I spoke a word about their plans.
I said nothing. But my neighbours saw me move to high ground, one with a freshwater well and cave system. They saw me welcoming friends from all over the place. My neighbours were a solid community. They looked to their own and if one of their high-fliers thought that consolidation and fortification was needed, they would join in that work without question.
So when my former employers chose the penultimate option at the extinction end of the scale, we were ready. Well, we were somewhere that allowed us to watch the endless winter roll in. Ready would be the wrong word for listening to the transmissions that told of the slow death of over ninety percent of humanity.
It is day five hundred and ninety-three since the winter started. I’ve just finished new projections for my little colony. If we start eating each other, we can make it to day seven hundred and eleven. Otherwise it’s day six hundred and forty-one.
Looks like I’ll be asking for volunteers to make the foraging trek again. With less than a twenty-eight percent chance of returning. Because if they return, the prediction is that they will have found something that allows us to survive past a thousand days.
It’s out there somewhere. Five expeditions. Each time the chance of return drops by around eight percent. But the reward prediction remains unchanged.
Out there is our salvation, and all my mathematics can do is replace prayer in giving my people hope.
by Julian Miles | Mar 13, 2014 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Have you ever heard bagpipes played properly?
No, not some five-dee render job. I mean by half a dozen three-hundred pound ballbreakers wearing armoured skirts and gravtac boots under their blades and slugthrowers. It’s terrifying. Makes your blood rise and your soul sing, then you realise that they’re not calling you, they’re skirling your end. Because behind those six madmen are a hundred more with less clothing and more weapons. And blue tattoos. Some of the bigger ones light up. You can see the knotworks writhe on the berserker’s arms as he brings a shockhammer down, blowing your mates arms off by driving his head down into his hips with one hit.
Why am I here to tell the story? Because that shockhammer blow covered me in my mates blood and guts. So I fell over and pretended to be dead.
Why am I back at the front? Because those berserkers have rolled the lines back so far, so fast that where I ran too is now the front line. Yeah, I know that stinks, but it’s the truth.
What am I going to do? As soon as the pipes start, I’m going to walk forward and stand there. As the pipers come over the hill, I’m going to throw my weapons away and sit down.
You? You do what you want. I’m just telling you so you don’t follow me forward and make them think I’m doing some heroic last charge crap.
After I sit down? I’m going to stay there until some blood- and tattoo- covered berserker offers me a smoke, a whisky and a chance to spend the rest of the war as a rock crusher on some planet where there isn’t enough atmosphere for bagpipes to make my soul cry.
