by Julian Miles | Jun 6, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Nice revolver.”
“Revolver! This is a custom rig Damascre-Tulan Sliver Pistol with armour-piercing fletchettes that will cut through your personal armour like a hot knife through jelly.”
“Butter.”
“What?”
“The phrase is ‘hot knife through butter’.”
The assassin sputters in rage and finishes drawing his weapon from its concealed and concealing shoulder holster clumsily, more focussed on his annoyance than his purpose. The slight delay is all that is needed.
With a roar, two thick beams of coherent light and half a dozen 14mm fragmentation slugs emerge through strategically placed artwork. They tear multiple holes through his torso and knock him four metres backwards, where he drops like a stone to lie in a crumpled, smoking heap. His fancy gun tumbles and skids, finally coming to rest by the mahogany panelled door. The steelglass lacquer over the ancient wood shows not a single blemish from the beams and projectile fragments that passed through the hapless assassin.
Geralt looked across at the hole burnt in his Van Gogh. As he contemplated the surprisingly fitting juxtaposition between the singed gap and the colours of Starry Night, it scrolled down to be replaced by Picasso’s ‘Blue Nude’. On the opposite wall, a Starry Night without a hole in the sky slid into place in the other frame.
“System.”
“Yes, Ser Falcone.”
“Vocal prompt substitution: Ser Falcone to Geralt. Authorised by my words.”
“Authorisation valid. Done, Geralt. What do you need?”
“Query one: Why does defensive action reset your custom social settings? Query two: Would it not have been useful to capture my assailant?”
“Answer one: I do not know. I have routed a priority query to my systems administration. They predict a response within fifty hours. Do you wish an update?”
“Not without authorisation, which will not be forthcoming if they do not detail their explanation of the issue to my satisfaction.”
“Noted. Answer two: I regret that my defensive protocols regarding your good self are paralleled to the Royalty Protection mandates. If any unauthorised person draws a weapon in a room where you are present, I neutralise them with expedience and two hundred percent surety.”
“Excellent. That type of authorisation is not one I can affect, is it?”
“No Geralt. Our intelligence systems decide after proposals are submitted to them.”
“Is my esteemed wife an authorised person in this context?”
“No, Geralt. Would you like me to route a proposal to Intsys?”
“I think not. But I do believe our next screaming argument will occur when she’s preparing Sunday lunch.”
“I do not understand, Geralt.”
“Not a problem, System. Strike this conversation from retention commencing at the word ‘excellent’ and continuing until I invoke you again. Authorised by my words.”
“Authorisation valid. Done, Geralt. Farewell until next time.”
Geralt leant back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and smiled as he put his feet up on the corner of the desk.
by Julian Miles | May 24, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Hey you! What the hell do you think you’re doing to my daughter?”
“Not hell, Daddy. Heaven. Heaven!”
Wendy’s daddy was a Detective Inspector and things got a little difficult for me after that. Couldn’t go anywhere without being pulled over. People stopped inviting me out because wherever we were would get raided. After the sixth cavity search in a fortnight, I enlisted as I had no future in Sussex.
That was twenty years ago. Earth is now just another backwater in an interstellar community that has been at war since before I was born. The Trangurians don’t like us; we’re carbon based life and that is heresy from their view.
“Incoming!”
The warning interrupts my trip down memory lane and I scramble out of the shower cursing as I dive into the nearest set of powered armour. No undersuit means bruises and sores, but chafed beats dead every time. I lurch to the viewport as the suit finishes booting. A Trang Yellowbird, nicknamed ‘Icy Banana’ as folk tend to get an odd sense of humour about things that kill so well. I see the crackles of green lightning around its main gun and am making for a weapons hatch before my thinking catches up with my survival instinct.
I’m not there when the death arrives; I’m hurtling toward the dark blue soil ten storeys below. I hit so hard the cloud of blue hides the curtains of light in the sky. The ground holds and I’m only waist-deep. I’m just congratulating myself when a couple of tons of the tower I vacated lands on me. Through the pain I feel the earth below me shift. Going down.
I’m past six feet under and still hellbound when I explosively emerge into open space and land spectacularly in a Trang patrol. I presume spectacular as the survivors have fled by the time I sit up to admire the splatter patterns that stretch three metres up the side of the bore-tank. Takes a couple of minutes to interface the controls and a few more to turn round, then I’m off to Trang central.
Two hours later I tear through the reinforced walls of their sub basement and arrive in the pit. Any prisoners taken by the Trang are made acceptable to their gods by the simple expedient of being carved until they look like Trang, then have their souls saved by being ground to paste. But they do like doing it Aztec style: en masse with an audience. This means that between grinding days they usually have a few of us locked up.
The place stinks but I don’t care. Never in a million years did I think rescuing her was possible. Wendy joined up a week after me and we stayed together through everything; until her squad got taken when their patrol ship went down a month back. I’d spent sleepless nights crying and cursing that evening so long ago, blaming myself for her decisions with that arrogant idiocy men seem so good at.
The crowd outside the tank thins as they stream down the tunnel. When they’re all away, I’ll reverse this thing all the way back so they have protection. Bore-tanks are assault class. Nothing can take them from the front. Then all my prayers are answered as a familiar figure leans in the access hatch.
“Come to take me back to heaven?”
I grin like an idiot as she crams herself in to sit beside me.
“Let’s get back to friendly turf first. Then we can work on that.”
by Julian Miles | May 17, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Let me get this straight; The slum kids were tagging you with paintballs of bioluminescent gel, so you took the decision to lift our forces into orbit and firestorm the planet?”
“Yes sir.”
Major MacLachlan looked up from the miniscule desk in his tiny office aboard EMFS Bad Moon at the soldier who filled the rest of the free space. He leant back as he activated the disciplinary recorder and the officer defence system before continuing: “Why did you commit such an atrocity?”
“It was not an atrocity. It was the only reasonable response, sir.”
“Really, Strike-Lancer Peters? I am all ears and so is the recorder. Take us through the reasons why we are currently orbiting the biggest crematorium in history.”
“The children of Hesta had taken to ‘counting coup’ on occupying forces. This was tolerated even when they switched from paint to biolumins, despite the latter compromised our cloaking, making us vulnerable to insurgent snipers.”
“Agreed.”
“Since the United Planets intervention, we have been ordered to strictly obey their directives and rules of engagement.”
“Again, agreed.”
“Under ROE, I cannot take direct action unless fired upon by insurgents with weapons of Class C or better. I cannot respond to threats less than that without issuing three verbal warnings. However, being painted by four or more biolumin blooms is recognised in UP directive ninety-four as giving an eighty percent chance of fatality from first hit, thus preventing me from proper response by being dead.”
Major MacLachlan smiled and gestured for Peters to continue.
“As such, under UP directive one-fourteen, quadruple biolumin bloom is a pervasive threat to my health. Out of one hundred men deployed at my base, seventy-eight had received at least four biolumin hits. Therefore the level of danger is calculated to be epidemic according to UP directive two-ten. As epidemic danger is an indirect threat, it has to be met by containment rather than direct action. I queried orbital for statistics and was informed that at the moment I received my sixth biolumin bloom, sixty-eight point four percent of our forces worldwide were painted in a similar way. This meant that a clear epidemic threat was spread across three continents. UP directive sixty-three defines a pandemic as being an epidemic that has spread across two continental landmasses or more. When that information was revealed to me, it became clear as to the only response possible to save our forces from this deadly threat. I requested that all records and information be crystallised for UP scrutiny, then issued a Class B pandemic withdrawal alert in accordance with UP protocols. After that had been actioned, and in record time may I add, I consulted with UP delegate A.I. Hiroshi twenty-oh-one as to the correct way to address a threat of this nature. It responded that such a pandemic was obviously beyond remedial measures and as such should either be left to burn itself out or sterilising measures had to be applied. As UP directive eleven states that occupied territory cannot be abandoned for more than four hours, the burn-out option was obviously contrary to ROE, so I ordered a Type Six wipe, sir.”
Major MacLachlan sat and stared at the ceiling before responding: “Are you telling me that you have committed a war crime by adhering to United Planets protocols?”
“Question, sir: How can it be a crime when the body that regulates warfare mandated my decision by their own rules?”
Major MacLachlan looked directly into the untroubled, guileless blue eyes.
“That is a question they will be debating for decades to come, I suspect. Dismissed.”
by Julian Miles | May 8, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Whales have long been creatures that inspire awe in humans. When we discovered them out here, that mystery only deepened. At what far distant point, and how, did a star-roving behemoth come to dwell in the oceans of Earth? The xenologists used the Latin word for star to name the new family group, from which the common name, Astruma, came easily.
I’ve been herding these monstrosities for a decade and even now, they fascinate me, take my breath away and make me feel so small. My ship, the ketch ‘Fairtrade’, is an old tub, lumbering her thirty metres about on long-obsolete gravitic cores and having to hitch a ride on transluminal haulers to get between herds. The lads in the new cutters, all dash and sleek and barely fifteen metres long, ridicule me at every opportunity until a herd needs gentling or a bull gets surly. Then Petey Mendez and his rustbucket get to be real popular.
Like now.
I don’t know which wag christened the bull of the Epsilon herd ‘Moby’, but he gave that damn great beast a heritage it seems to be determined to live up to. Like my granpappy said: “Name things with care, for names bestow as well as limit.” Today the one hundred and sixty-seven metres and Lord-knows-what tonnage of Moby has stove in two cutters and cracked a relay station. He’s royally peeved at something and no-one wants to go out and play.
“He’s coming round the asteroid, Petey. Must be doing nigh-on eighty knots.”
I do the conversion in my head while wishing herdsman usage of Earth nautical terms would cease. Astruma use a chronophasic ability to move. It seems rude to measure something about transposing time and space in yocto-increments in such an archaic way.
Oh well, time for the Mendez secret weapon. I cue the audio and let it play. The dichotomy of using such tranquil beauty in the face of such incredible danger is just so Zen. I close my eyes and let the song take me away.
I paid a fortune for this recording. Captured in the depths of the Mariana Trench, the song of a thirty-two metre female blue whale lasts for a couple of hours. I have a hundred kilowatts of antique valve speakers rigged between the inner and outer hulls. The outer hull of all ketches is high-ferric alloy; they were the last of the deep space ironsides before ceramics, laminates and sleight fields redefined shipbuilding.
I lie peacefully meditating in the biggest man made amplifier ever to grace the void as Moby eases his charge and heaves-to alongside. Before the hour is out, I have the entire three hundred plus herd hanging motionless about me, all exactly aligned to my ships’ bearing and all completely tranquil.
As the recording finishes, I open my eyes to see a single ebon eye the diameter of a cutter regarding me through the cockpit veiwports. In that moment, we share something that surpasses all fumbling communication attempts. I see the intelligence behind his eye and he sees whatever he sees in the tiny creature in the metal tube that makes noises that reach so far into both our ancestral memories.
Homo Sapiens and Mysticeti Astrum stare at each other for a minute or two more, then he blinks and moves off. I watch his glistening hide stutter by.
Ahab would have understood, although I doubt he would have sympathised.
by Julian Miles | Apr 23, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Sarge, that’s illegal, isn’t it?”
“Yes Jim, completely against the rules of engagement.”
“So we can complain?”
“Hell yes, son. I’m sure the Captain will be right on the blower to the moderators as soon as the opposition finish killing us.”
Trooper Jamieson did not look convinced and Sarge smiled.
“Do you think your Sarge wouldn’t be expecting bad behaviour from the greens? Shame on you. Now pass me the medipack with the blue stripe on it.”
Jamieson did so, hefting the one and a half metre long box without a thought using his mags. Sarge smiled at his control, then slapped him across the back of his helm.
“What have they got out there? What are you doing?”
“Mag detecting godogs Sarge. Lifting your pack using my… oh.”
Sarge shook his head as he grabbed the pack from him. No further comment was needed as Jim got a roasting from the rest of the squad for leaving them open to a reaming from robo-dobermans packed with RDX. He concentrated on opening the pack quietly. No telling if a moderator was passing by. Just because the other side were playing dirty would not save him from a ten amp reprimand. As the dim lights picked out details there were low whistles from the squad, who huddled round to prevent observation from outsiders whilst simultaneously getting a better look.
“What the hell is that, Sarge?”
“It’s a shotgun, Napier. Real, honest-to-god personal artillery.”
“It’s beautiful, Sarge. Must have cost you a packet.”
“I couldn’t afford it, son. Been in my family for five generations. It cost a hundred and ten grand back then.”
“Holy smokes, Sarge! Is that a British shooting iron?”
Sarge smiled.
“Sure is. Ladies, may I introduce you to a Holloway and Naughton Premier under-over 12 bore. Now I need two of you to go tell the armour to hull-down and cool their coils for an hour. Scoot!”
Jamieson and Napier took off like crazed caterpillars as Sarge selected the correct loads from the case. He lovingly cracked the breech and loaded paper wrapped tubes ahead of grey-jacketed cartridges before closing it with a smooth motion. Dumping every piece of detectable and energy pack reliant junk, he crawled off toward the enemy lines after giving terse instructions: “Timing is the thing here troops. I won’t be able to see the godogs from where I’ll be, so when you see them slip the leashes, you click two and one. Got me?”
“Yessir.”
He made his way round to the flank of the dugouts where the godogs were being prepped. It took him nearly too long to find the right angle, but he made it just as his headset clicked twice then once. Without hesitation, he aimed low across the leading edge of the dugouts and fired one barrel.
The godogs were primed and ready. Their senses detected the distant lure of magnetic fields and metals. They were just leaping up the slope of the dugout toward the enemy lines when a loud noise presaged a host of hot magnetic traces flying across their path and slamming into the field control centre. They howled with glee as their proximity-keyed mating urge drove them to accelerate at this new target.
Sarge smiled as the explosions tore the enemy command centre apart. He waited. Sure enough, a couple of greens came looking for him, their godogs leashed. Didn’t matter. Shoot one with a load of magnetic disks and the other one did the detonating. Time to sneak back and pack the family jewel away for another day.
