by Julian Miles | Dec 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The lights reflect from the gleaming chrome and glossy Union Jacks on the lines of matt black all-terrain cars. Typical over-indulgence: four-wheel drive is hardly necessary to drive down a thirty-mile, two-lane strip of tarmac.
They sent me down ten days before it all went to hell, not because they thought I was worth saving, but because I was the mechanic. They wanted their fleet of getaway vehicles ready to go.
I had just finished servicing the one-hundred and twentieth car, making sure it’s batteries were charged from the reactor far below, its petrol engine was functioning and its heated leather seats were perfectly aligned. The onboard computer was fully up and running too. I was doing my last check by lying in the fully reclined rear seat and playing solitaire on screen when I felt a tremor. Then eight more.
I jogged down the line of vehicles to the master board. As I hit the ‘prepare’ button, I saw the lights flash on the platform of the evacuation line. Minutes later, as I covered the other duties that a team of eight should have been here to do, a single four-unit train whistled in and came to a standstill. The doors remained closed, each with the hackle-raising red glow of a contamination light above it.
After five minutes, I dared to go up onto the carpet of the platform and investigate. Inside the first carriage the floor was covered in sludge. It soaked the thousand-pound suits and lapped against the briefcases locked to skeletal wrists. The government and their favourites were chunky soup.
The vomiting fit passed and I went along the carriages, looking for any signs of life. I couldn’t have got in, even if I wanted to. The override codes for the doors were above my clearance.
In the last carriage, a single man sat by the window, dried blood under his nose, ears and mouth. He looked at me and shouted, blood flecking the glass.
“Can you get me out?”
I shook my head.
He smiled. “Can’t or won’t?”
I shouted back. “I don’t have the codes.”
He nodded. “Anyone else make it?”
I shook my head again.
“Guess you’re it, then. What section are you with?”
“Secure vehicles, engineering unit four.”
He laughed; more blood on the window. “Typical. A mechanic is the only one we save.”
With one hand, he wrote a sequence of numbers and letters on the glass.
“That’s the access code. Select ‘untrained’ from the menu and the system will run in idiot mode.”
With that, he coughed hard and most of his face came off. I backed away quickly and sprinted to the main board. The code got me a lot of functions that the ‘idiot mode’ helped me with. I sent the train back out into the tunnel, then retracted the rail and closed the steel and cement iris doors. Straight away I fired up a car and headed for the sanctuary.
After six miles the downward slope of the road ended in a tunnel-shaped lake of still, dark water. So I drove back.
I’ve got a hundred and twenty cars, each stocked to keep six people alive for a month. I have access to thousands of books, films, games and music tracks, but it is a closed system with no access to the outside – that was available from the sanctuary; this was just a stopover.
Once a week I play thrash metal really loud for as long as I can stand it. Hopefully someone will hear before I die of old age or go insane.
by Julian Miles | Dec 9, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They never understood how I could be so smart when it came to food. Of course, when I was rushed into hospital and they found Deke, it all came out. He’d started out as one of the things that lives in our guts, but he either evolved or was a mutant or something. ‘Or something’ being the winner of the vote, I was told.
Anyway, he got big and his smarts came from me. Funny, we never talked about him because he had no history apart from suddenly waking up in me. Took him a while to work out what he was and trawl my memories to get real words and pick himself a name.
I’d been having tummy trouble for a couple of days; there I am, sitting on the throne and this voice in my head says. “Hi. I’m Deke. Sorry about the pain, just moving myself out the way.”
Well, I fell off the toilet and just about brought the place down screaming. Thankfully, Dad wasn’t home. All the time, Deke’s talking to me, explaining, calming. In the end, I could either go to the doc’s and get carted off in a long-sleeved T-shirt with buckles up the back, or I could get to know Deke.
So I got to know him-it. Within a few months, I was a lot smarter (two minds are better than one) and my ability to detect stuff in foods was attracting attention. Give Deke a ‘taste’ and he could recognise it in any food I ate.
That was the problem. Some protesting people found out about me and asked for my help. Since Deke and I liked the idea of good food, we helped. A lot of corporations got to look silly and got fined heaps of cash.
The next thing I know, blokes in black suits and doctors in white suits turn up at my Dad’s place, all wearing masks. They said I’d been ‘invaded’ by an ‘organism of unknown origin’. Dad never liked my habit of talking to Deke. So he let them take me away. As the mask came down and the men made reassuring noises, Deke said to me: “I’ll be back.”
After they let me out of the special hospital, I wasn’t so good at stuff. Things didn’t make sense anymore and most food I ate made me hurl. I ended up racking carts at my local supermarket.
Then early one morning, there was banging on my door. Dad went downstairs all fired up, opened the door shouting and then went quiet. So I got up and went downstairs, cricket bat at the ready.
She was standing in the hall; Dad was laying on the floor behind her with a silly look on his face. She looked up at me and smiled. I recognised that smile. I saw it in the mirror every morning.
“Deke? What did you do to Dad?”
“Gave him something to help him understand, Eddie.”
“How did you – what are you doing in – How?”
“Found out something new, Eddie. I can split off little me’s. But I wasn’t happy with the bloke they put me in. This is his daughter. I’m just hitching a ride with Linea in Julie’s body for now.”
“Until when?”
“Until I can come back to you.”
“How?”
“Kiss us, Eddie.”
by Julian Miles | Dec 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
One world. Seven hundred and ninety-two people. Less than a hundred berths on the ship out. It’s a recipe for bloody mayhem and that’s how they want it. Only the most committed make it to upship. We did basic training for five weeks before being shipped out here in long-sleep with burst-feed data tutoring. A thousand left Earth, two hundred and eight either died in transit or emerged hopelessly impaired. We used the latter for warm-up. Even the damaged will fight like banshees to survive.
“Left twenty.”
I look past Alyn. Sure enough, another group is crawling on their bellies through the long grass toward the position we occupy. It’s the only piece of high ground for three kilometres. It allows us to see approaching people by the trenches they make as they flatten the grass on their way in.
“Right ten.”
That’s welcome news: another group incoming. I slide back down into the foxhole we dug when we arrived.
“I need two volunteers to set them on each other.”
Martin raises his hand, as does Rico.
“Go.”
They crawl off down the back of the hill and make their way round to where the groups approach. Nothing disturbs the silence except the constant rustle of wind-blown grass across this savannah. I wriggle back up to the vantage point.
“Rico’s offbeam.”
“Sort it.”
She warbles like a skylark with a cadence that tells Rico what he needs to get back on track.
“No reaction.” Lanna shakes her head in despair.
Incredible. We’re light-years from Earth on a planet devoid of animal life. Yet the cry of a bird produces no alarm. These people don’t deserve to make it. When Martin and Rico reach position, Alyn warbles again. Both men take a fifteen count before making our play.
“There’s another bunch heading for the hill!” Martin injects just the right amount of righteous anger into his voice.
“They’ve spotted us! Take them before they make the high ground!” Rico rolls with Martin’s opening.
Two groups of green and tan clad people rise up, look about and then charge at each other, screaming defiance and less obvious things. Within moments a thirty-man melee swirls below us, crushing the grass as blades and blood catch the light.
“Right thirty.”
I shift position and look down at a position just out of sight of the fighting. It’s a trench but a narrow one. As I watch, a white rag on a stick rises into view. I gesture to Alyn. She warbles for Rico to take a look.
A few minutes later, Rico and a tough-looking girl covered in mud scoot over the edge of our foxhole.
“I’m Neria. Nice set up you have here.”
Rico nods toward the extra gear she carries. Looks like she’s supplied-up from at least six other candidates.
I grin: “Any of the donors going to ask for their kit back?”
Neria looks about as Martin rejoins us. She grins fiercely: “Don’t be so bloody silly.”
I nod and Alyn does the same. Lanna reaches out her hand: “Welcome to the team.”
Our newest recruit raises her chin towards the sounds of ongoing battle: “We going to clear up?”
Martin shakes his head: “The survivors will drag themselves all the way up here. Battered, knackered and sweated out by the time they reach us.”
Neria nods: “Solid plan.”
That does us. Six-man fire teams are the operational standard. From now on, all we have to do is hold our position until the all-clear sounds and we get to ship out as soldiers.
by Julian Miles | Nov 19, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The bricks are antique but the ferropoxy used as mortar is a giveaway, after you scrape the film of cement coloured paint mixed with sand off.
“This is the place. Gird your loins, kids. Jig is on in three, two, one – strike!”
The doors are blackened oak. Their laminate armour cores fail to negate the demolition charges, but the military-grade shrapnel produced costs me three ops.
First wave goes in hard, ignoring my orders. The pit is classic trap-tech and I am surprised I hear no swearing from it until I peer in and see the bloody threads of asymmetrical monofilament. That’s just plain nasty. I’m seven ops down for two metres travel.
“Listen up! We’re seven-nil and not even in the bloody hallway! Sharpen your game or we’re offal. Clear?”
Twelve snappy assents and we’re back on. Bridging the pit with c-tube ladders takes time we don’t have. Forced to double-time, we avoid trip beams, pressure plates and searguns with microns to spare. Crashing through the door into the back room, I hear a metallic twang and drop as I shout a warning. Too late. I roll over and see four ops down with half-metre barbed bolts through them.
As I stand up, the timed charge triggered by the arbalest firing turns the room into a momentary inferno laced with bits of giant crossbow. Fortunately I have my back to the blast and my impact-absorbing backplate gets a workout. Doesn’t help the scorching to my butt or the backs of my thighs, but it’s better than the chest and gut shrapnel wounds sustained by three ops.
I’m face down in a corner and take my time getting up. Four ops left. This place is a death-trap! And with that, it dawns on me. This place is only that. Nobody would stuff their headquarters with this much lethality.
“Abort sortie. Out the way we came.”
Ten minutes of careful retreat later, we find a single sheet of steel blocking the hallway. Assessment reveals its set between runners made from old dockyard crane H-beams.
“Suggestions?”
There are none. The building is alight and our only known exit is gone. The ferropoxy mortar work makes this place a Faraday cage: reinforcements are out.
“Stairway or cellar?”
The ‘up’ vote is unanimous. Less chance of structural unpleasantness.
Fifteen minutes later we’re at the roof hatch; bloody, rattled but still five up. The hatch is wired but defusing primitive detonator traps is my speciality. My legs about the ladder, I check the charge on my sidearm, wave everyone out of potential lines of fire and slam the hatch open with everything I’ve got.
The rumbling below starts as the hatch lands above. I’m looking for the cause when the floor falls away, taking the rest of my team with it into the basement along with the building interior.
I hang there, listening to the now-unsupported roof creak. The rusted ladder sways as I breathe, but at least I have a signal.
“Tiger One, respond.” Urgency in the words.
“Tiger One is down.”
“Mackie. Anyone else?”
“No, ma’am.”
“She said she’d make you pay for her husband’s death.”
“It seems that the Mad Trapper is actually the Mad Trapette.”
“We have your location. The lifter will drop you a line.”
Nineteen crems to attend after skin regen and psych eval. Rebuild the team in a month, up and running two months after that. Shite. She’ll have three months to prepare because she knows I’ll be coming for her. Next time, only one of us walks away.
by Julian Miles | Nov 12, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Brigitte! Slow down!”
I thought I loved Adrian. I really did. I even fooled myself for the first year of our Outer Reaches tour. Then on Certys I had to stop him turning the planet into a game reserve so he could quietly harvest the luxurious pelts of the quasi-feline Pelmuk.
“Brigitte! Run faster, it’s gaining!”
He was a predator who had groomed me into giving him a free ride to the heights of our profession. My trust-fund supported his petty side-projects whilst plagiarising my work got him through university and our early tenures. I was naïve and besotted by the visions of our wonderful future that he spun.
“Brigitte! How far to the ship?”
The tour is ten years with no opt-out. Who would want to? Every planet that has indiginous large fauna is on the itinerary: a xenobiologist’s dream. Except when she’s stuck with a smooth-talking gold-digger who only wants an easy life and gonzo sex on demand. Not that he got much of the latter after Certys.
“Two kilometres.” Replying on the exhale as my years on the treadmill pay off.
The final argument occurred on Tangentia, where the Martonsee’s gold-flecked ivory carapaces sent him into a frenzy of greed. When I vetoed the fraudulent cull order, he told me what he really thought of me in his fury. Afterwards, his apologies rang hollow and his touch revolted me.
“Can’t you shoot it?”
“Would only annoy it.”
The Dangtrazian Sun Ferret is not a product of natural evolution. A long time ago forerunners with life-splicing skills we can only dream of created a polar-bear sized monster. It has a hide that acts like hyper-Kevlar covered in a double coat of refractive fur that fragments energy beams before they impact that hide. That hide wraps a physique that is hailed as the perfection of predator development. The intelligence of a dolphin guides this beast with two hearts and the forerunners coloured their masterpiece in shades of gold. It is beautiful, deadly and can eat anything not tougher than its claws. So far, that’s proven to be two things: spaceship plating and bedrock.
The ‘ferret’ name comes from a scaling error during satellite image analysis. It stuck, despite the first landing team discovering the error and becoming entrée. The sun ferret’s immunity to energy fields was discovered by the second team moments before being the crunchy scientist special. The third team discovered the bullet- and beam-resistance, then were dessert.
We were assisting in establishing a new sensor-web to gather more data on Dangtrazian’s infamous residents when one of them spotted us.
“Use the gun to lead it away while I make a dash for the ship!”
I draw my pistol and slow down. Adrian catches up to me, that smug smile smeared across his sweat-sheened face.
“Me saving us again! I’ll come and pick you up.”
How exactly are you going to find me, you lying bastard? You never bothered to learn how to use the locator array. I smile and he frowns. My eyes must show how I feel.
“Brigitte?”
I shoot him in the calf. A clean through-and-through, no bone damage. As he screams and topples, I holster the gun and sprint for the ship.
“What did you do that f-”
The sentence cuts off with a wet crunch.
An alpha predator in a closed or limited environment will usually fall fast when it is introduced into an open environment that has established alpha predators of its own. Conversely, prey that has learned to flee finds that single skill is always applicable, if applied soon enough.
Good riddance, Adrian.
