by Julian Miles | Jul 11, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The tennis-court sized office is lit like a summer afternoon. Everything within is red, but each item is a different shade.
“You must tell me who makes those soft ownership collars for you. I’ve only seen that shade of purple once before.”
Rooney turns to meet the six-eyed gaze of Tokok. Courtesies taken care of, the grey and mauve spider-mantis noble unwinds its five-metre body from the undoubtedly painful crouch necessary to be at eye level with a human.
“We call them ties, Tokok. Would you like some?”
He’d got fifty, part of a bulk salvage acquisition.
“Could you get me twenty? Laktik will be in a frightful rage over my staff wearing her bridal colours as ownership apparel.”
“I’ll send thirty. Her rage might damage some.”
“Thoughtful of you. Would a kilo of green rocks be acceptable?”
Rooney keeps his expression neutral. The Doktup come from a gem world: ‘coloured rocks’ like emeralds mean nothing to them.
“Entirely.”
“This trade is completed.”
He sits in the only piece of human-sized furniture in the office.
“I presume you called about something a little more serious than ties, Tokok?”
The monster waves it’s fighting pincers about: an expression of great mirth.
“Dressing ones staff correctly is terribly serious, dear Rooney. But, in this case, your insight is correct… I have received a complaint.”
“How did that happen?”
“The human female,” Tokok checks a nearby screen, “Wendie Smith, identifier NKH22492, insisted the problem be escalated to the highest level. My staff understand humans assigned here are to be treated on par with full-fledged Notaries of Doktup like myself. Each passed the complaint to their senior, who spoke to this Wendie, then passed the complaint to their senior. I wished to talk with you before speaking to her.”
Rooney pulls out a datapad and looks her up, then does a double-take. 27 complaints against retail staff this year? It’s only the 23rd February!
“When will you be calling her?”
“I couldn’t treat her with such disrespect. She is in reception.”
“Tokok, would it be acceptable if I accompanied you, and handled the opening discussion?”
The flesh-eating predator sags back into its chair in relief.
“Thank you, Rooney. She is apparently quite strident.”
Funny how the screams of captives being dismembered doesn’t disturb them, but being shouted at stresses them out.
“One thing, Tokok? Please come down without holographic disguise. I think the situation will be swiftly resolved when Wendie realises she faces a Notary of Doktup.”
“I will accept your guidance.”
Rooney smiles. Doktup look like upright-walking cartoonish locusts with their disguise fields on. Plus, the ones who serve are smaller: they don’t have the dietary advantages of Notaries.
“I’ve been waiting over an hour! The rudeness of these Dock Tops! Call this service? Hah! This really isn’t good enough! These aliens don’t understand when you order a triple-syrup mocha with marshmallows and sprinkles it has to come in a jumbo cup or the froth leaks out! They ruined my skirt! I expect the insect who served me to be – Sweet Barnabus! It’s a monster! Who let it in? Get it away from me! Help! Help!”
The outside door swings wildly in the wake of her exit.
Tokok looks down at me.
“Does a screaming retreat mean the same on your worlds as it does on ours?”
“You can’t chase her home and eat the whole clan.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely. But, it wouldn’t be right to ask any Doktup to engage with one so blatantly defeated. Instruct your staff to forward any further calls to me.”
“Thoughtful of you, again. Many thanks.”
by Julian Miles | Jul 4, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
How were we to know
How far this war would go?
We weren’t ready,
We’re never ready,
To be over.
Bombs rained down without warning. The Keloden landed on the planet the next day, while we huddled in a shattered basement. Clinging to each other, and the things we thought we needed.
“You’re taking the Madran?”
“Benthusian guitars are too rare to lose. I toured the universe with it. The case is armoured, too. Could be useful when running from these trigger-happy giant frogs.”
Gerthe always smiles when he’s pushing through something he’d rather not face. I look over his shoulder and watch the forest burn beyond the city limits. We used to play tag there. I bury my head in his shoulder.
“We’ve only just found each other. This isn’t fair.”
He strokes the back of my head.
“Politicians who perpetuate wars don’t care about the people who live in war zones. Our job is to get out. Then we can get back to making music and life together. Besides, timing has never been our thing, has it?”
I let go, then grin at him. Neighbours since infancy, only admitting we loved each other in our twenties. He’s right.
“Pick up that expensive guitar, rock star. Prepare to run faster than from a mob of adoring fans.”
He chuckles.
“You didn’t see us on Linury: the booking agent didn’t tell us they eat any bands they really don’t like. We only just made it to the ship. Luckily, we’d chartered our own for that gig.”
I look outside. Night has fallen. The croaking invaders are serenading us with incomprehensible tales of what they slaughtered today. We run for it.
Take me back to making love,
Not fearing death from high above
We weren’t ready,
We’re never ready,
To be over.
Nine weeks and three worlds later, we were holed up in a blasted skiff on the far apron of what had been a bustling spaceport. The Keloden hit our capitol world much harder than ours. All the advice we’d got about making it here predated that, because nobody survived to update it.
“What do we do now?”
I look at him and grin. When sane options run out? Do something insane.
“I’ve been watching them. When they gather to croak sing, they never secure their vehicles. Let’s steal one of theirs for a change.”
He looks at me, hope dawning on his face. As if on cue, the nightly croaking chorus starts up.
“Grab everything. We’ll only get one chance.”
We race across the spaceport, desperation driving us to ignore the privations of the last two months.
I choose a medium freight lifter: big engines for hauling give them extra go when empty. Charging up the rear ramp, we run straight through to the control room. Throwing myself into the pilot’s saddle, I let intuition guide me because I can’t read the labels.
The ship comes alive. I hunt for seal and pressurise controls.
Something hits the back of the saddle. There’s shooting!
Gerthe shouts: “Upship!”
I lift off. Seal and pressurisation turns out to be automatic.
Once clear of the planet, I swing about to find the bullet-scored Madran case up against the saddle. Beyond that lies Gerthe, under the Keloden he disarmed and killed after it mortally wounded him.
He’s still in my arms when a Benthusian cruiser rescues me.
If you could only touch my hand,
I know this love would stand
We weren’t ready,
We’re never ready,
To be over.
by Julian Miles | Jun 27, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The room is full. The courtyard is too. They’ve put up holoscreens in the grounds for those who couldn’t get in.
General Perkiss gestures for me to come up front.
“Warriors, I can’t end this memorial. It wouldn’t be right. Major Cyo Surtees will.”
He steps back and bows to me.
I step up to the lectern and look about. So many units. So many species. I know where to start.
“He’d have loved this, and we all know he’d have whinged about the security arrangements rather than admit it.”
That gets a lot of smiles.
“I first met Ambassador Falor Krato when he was only Sergeant Krato. A Captain named Perkiss assigned him to the idiot son of a senator who signed up to do real war.”
I nod to the General, who grins. It was a long time ago.
“That idiot was me. If not for Krato, I’d have been dead within a week.”
There are nods of sympathy. He saved a lot of idiots so they could become soldiers.
“We were on Abingdon Hill. The Vatril were coming down like rain. I was terrified. Then this huge noncom in rusty power armour stomped up and offered me a bottle of scotch. ‘These things you don’t face sober, and you don’t fight them while you can still see straight.’” I grin: “I spent my first battle staggering drunk while killing transdimensional crustacea, thanks to Krato.”
Looking down at the floor, I run through the speech I had prepared. What was I thinking? Krato would heckle me for trying. I look up.
“I had a witty speech prepared. Then his memory sat up and punched me. I’ll be doing him an injustice if I don’t wing it.”
The scattered laughter is good to hear.
“You’ve all got memories of him. If we had time, I’d have liked for each of you to come and tell your favourite. As is, there’s only me up here to finish. So, I’ll share the one that’s stayed with me for ninety years.”
Longevity treatments and military service: a match made in some cold hell. But Krato liked them. The knee injury he took on Rosso got more painful as he got older. The rejuvenations helped.
“It was after the fall of Saliz. The Vatril hives had imploded. Several hours after the battle, I couldn’t find Krato. So I went looking. Took me until nearly dawn, then I heard this screaming. I’ve never heard the like, before or since. I raced down into the gorge behind the capitol hive. That’s where I found him. He was in the middle of a huge circle made of landing flares. In the purple glow, I could see him standing there, a body in his arms.
“I rushed in. He looked at me like I was a stranger, then fell down, but didn’t let the body go. ‘I promised him we’d go together, Cyo. Like we always did. The stupid little bastard got heroic when a Vatril berserker came for us. Swallowed a handful of Edlith and threw himself under the mandibles. Told me I’d be better at soldiering without him. Made me promise.’ His expression was haunted: ‘I still don’t want to do it without him’.
“I talked him down. We buried the body. I walked him back to camp, then got drunk with him. He served eighty-five years to honour that promise. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading back to Saliz. I’m fulfilling the promise I made to him that night. I’m taking him to rest next to Romul Krato, his big brother.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 20, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
She’s down by the landing gear, waiting for the moment when the dockhands retreat before launch. There’s about forty seconds when a determined stowaway can get into the ventral landing leg housing and climb inside the survival shelter built into the back of it.
“Martine.”
My step-sister doesn’t even twitch. She just pivots to face me, staying crouched down. Anybody on the observation decks will only be able to see me.
“Tornaz. Took you a while, this time.”
For nine years we’ve been playing games across the System-8 territories. As adopted son and family enforcer, the task of retrieving the errant daughter of Eeyantar, the would-be royal house of System-8, always falls to me.
“Eleven months, one week, six days,” I check my chrono, “and forty-nine minutes.”
She smiles. A Sangrif dagger appears in her hand.
“This time, Tornaz, I’m not going back. They can live without one heiress.”
Logistically, they could do so with ease. Daughters they have aplenty. But having the prettiest and most popular of them abdicate before she even becomes a princess is not acceptable.
“You’ve got further than ever before, I’ll grant you. But it’s a wild universe from here on out, especially for someone making their way with next to nothing.”
Her smile doesn’t waver.
“I’m intending to get free or die trying. The things I’ve seen. How can I go round pretending System-8 is the wonderful place it claims to be? We’re no better than the rulers of the old warworlds we conquer.”
“So you’d kill me to be free of this?”
She shakes her head.
“I’d rather not. You’ve always been fair. Even so, I’m not going back.”
I unclip the smaller of the two databracers on my left arm and throw it to her. She catches it, then looks from it to me, a puzzled look on her face.
With a shrug, I kneel down.
“Here’s the thing, Martine. When they assigned me to fetch you the first time, they thought I’d fail. It was an easy way to dispose of the ‘hanger-on’. When I came back with you, they weren’t best pleased. Since then, I’ve brought you back eleven times. Every time, they make it plain I should have got my adopted self killed in the line of duty. A duty that’s taken me to the same places you’ve been in, and let me see the same things.”
Taking my Eeyantar databracer off, I pull out a generic one similar to the one I threw her. Putting that on, I throw the ornate family one onto one of the blast plates. The backwash of take-off will vaporise it.
“I was so happy to be adopted by Eeyantar, only to find out the whole thing is a hollow game of politics and larceny. Following you made me see all the things we’re supposed to ignore every day.”
Pointing to our databracers, I grin.
“These are the result of seeing a few things I shouldn’t have. What’s on them isn’t glamourous, but they’re clean identities. Unremarkable people who can journey away from System-8 space without causing a fuss. Each has a few credits on them, too. All local funds, nothing traceable. Enough to keep a cautious person going for a goodly length of time.”
She puts hers on: “We go together?”
“We happen to board at the same time. After that, we’re both free.”
Martine stands up, her Sangrif vanishing back into a concealed scabbard. She smiles: “Can I buy you a drink, stranger?”
“Yes. You from around here?”
She shakes her head.
“Just passing through.”
I grin.
“Me too.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 13, 2022 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The planet Naduskar is a technological wonderland without visible natural surface, be it land or water. At some time in the distant past, an advanced race converted or covered every last piece of open ground.
There’s the mystery: is it nothing but a huge machine sitting upon the remains of the planet, or is it somehow a vast preserve, eternally maintaining an ideal environment for whatever dwells there?
I’m of the opinion they simply didn’t want anything interfering with their grand plan, and engineered accordingly.
“Go for entry.”
That’s Cheimo, over in Golden Hinde IV. He’s the instigator and leader of this venture, and to him the glory of taking the armoured bulk of his brainchild down to make planetfall.
His crew are so enthusiastic, verging on a devotion that makes my teeth ache. If they weren’t so nice, they’d be insufferable.
I reach out and touch Baylia on the shoulder.
“Follow them in as planned, but slow our descent to give them a thousand-kilometre lead.”
Hands flit across the control board, implementing my wishes.
It’s been a long trip from Earth 9. Two ships on a single mission, but of very different purpose. The Golden Hinde IV is designed to bludgeon through the debris rings about Naduskar, and whatever effect causes them. The Challenger XIX will be witness, following in its wake. Eventually it’ll act as space-side support, with the ultimate goal of becoming an orbital base.
My theories about Naduskar led to me being ridiculed, even after I accepted Cheimo’s open dare to join his expedition. Today, I’ll be eyewitness to being proven wrong, or I’ll be vindicated – and a hundred people will die.
“Hestor! You recording?”
“With everything we have, Cheimo. Whatever happens, it’ll be for posterity.”
“Still with the doubts, eh? Look at it! Those rings of debris are from a hitherto unencountered weaponization of Roche limits, I’m sure of it. The dynamic gravity field protecting this ship will obviate it.”
A concept so bizarre I still have trouble believing he won any support. That you can vary the gravitational effect of a celestial body so the tidal forces of that body will tear a chosen target apart isn’t theoretical, it’s fictional. Don’t even get me started on his ‘DGPF – dynamic gravity protection field’.
My postulation is that the creators of Naduskar equipped their world with something we need to observe before we seek to work round it. I said we should send a large, automated vessel instead. Nobody listened.
The Golden Hinde IV enters the outermost ring, impacts from debris sparking across its hull.
Ambu calls out: “Something’s happening. Multiple effects, multiple spectrums.”
I look across: “Their DGPF firing up?”
He shakes his head, then points to the monitor, eyes going wide. I spin to look.
The Golden Hinde IV is gone!
As I think it, debris spurts forth from a single point. Before our very eyes, Naduskar sprouts a new ring.
The replay is astonishing. The Golden Hinde IV collapses in upon itself until only a metre-wide black disc can be seen. That disc flashes white, debris shoots forth, then the disc vanishes.
The AI in our quantum computer considers the event for several minutes – a very long while in QAI subjective time – before advancing an initial hypothesis: a null-point wormhole. Both ends are mapped to the exact same place and moment. It collapses before anything can traverse the internal region: the debris being rejected, syncretised content.
My apologies, Cheimo. Compared to this, manipulating the Roche limits wasn’t such an outré idea, after all.
