by Julian Miles | Sep 13, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m running down a corridor lined with tall computers. There’s a government goon hot on my tail. What scares me most is his non-stop shouting about “can’t fire on the slippery bastard because hitting a system will ruin my shot at promotion”.
The phone chirps. It’s a strange sound, like no ringtone I’ve ever heard. Certainly nothing I chose. I tap my earpiece and wait for the hissing to subside. Her voice is calm.
“How are you doing?”
“Coming to the end of a hall lined with computers. I’m being chased.”
“Go through the door, then smash the security panel.”
“Speaking of that security panel…”
“02411.”
I punch the code. The door opens. A bullet from behind spins me through it. Screaming in pain, I bounce off the wall opposite and stagger back to slam my elbow into the panel on this side. The door slides shut, cutting off the view of the goon sprinting my way from the crouch he took to shoot me. I hear him hit the door. Hear him shoot the door.
“Can you continue?”
“Yes. He only shot me in the bulletproof vest.”
Listen to me, all fired up on near-hysteria and CCE.
“Sounds like that Chemical Combat Enhancement is working.”
“So let’s get going before it runs out.”
She told me where to find it, how to use it, even warned me about taking too much.
“Don’t worry. It’s only a short way now.”
I run down the corridor, then go through a blast door and hurry down a long staircase.
“There’s a guard at the bottom. They’ll be wary. Have the amber card in your hand ready to show them.”
“Halt! Identify yourself.”
The guard is partway up the stairs.
I raise a hand.
“I’m getting ID from my back pocket.”
It seems to take ages to get the card out. The guard visibly relaxes, then salutes and steps to one side so I can pass. I nod as I rush past. Very soon now, he’s going to be told the truth, and his gun is a lot bigger than the one the goon in the corridor has.
“The amber card goes in the slot on the door.”
It opens to reveal another corridor, then closes behind me. I pass several doors on my way to the one at the end, a faded green door that leads into a place that looks like a dirty workshop. Over in a corner is a cage containing a woman in a stained lab coat.
“Say nothing. I’m here to get you out.”
She looks puzzled, and relieved. I use a club hammer to smash the padlock off the door.
Time to get more guidance.
“What now?”
“Lever up the manhole cover in the centre of the room, then the one under the big tool trolley. Help her into that one, close it, then put the trolley back. You take the other one. Leave the lid off.”
“I’m a decoy?”
“Yes. You’ll be safe. They’ll fixate on finding her.”
The voice hasn’t let me down for a year. Helped me make a new identity, and enough to live comfortably forever.
After exiting the maze of sewers, I yield to curiosity.
“Before I throw this phone into the incinerator across the road as instructed, please satisfy my curiosity.”
“She’ll be my mother. She told me about the mystery man who helped her escape certain death. Then one of the prototypes she built connected me to a phone destroyed years before I was born.”
Huh?
“After you told me when you were, I realised what I had to do.”
by Julian Miles | Sep 6, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Sir Kenneth Greyling’s eyebrows rise as a uniformed youth rushes into the members’ lounge, looks about frantically, then heads his way.
“Michael, I do believe this one’s for you.”
Major Mike Greyling looks up from his apple pie, catches his father’s gaze, and flicks a glance over his shoulder.
He put his fork down.
“Give me strength.”
The Lance Corporal comes to attention and salutes.
“Sir Greyling, excuse me for the intrusion. Major Greyling, Captain Rudd sends his apologies, but you’re needed at Control immediately.”
“At ease. So, you drew the short straw, they all laughed, then Captain Rudd gave you directions to find me, along with that demand. By any chance did he mention something after that? Maybe a colour, possibly a number?”
The Lance Corporal jumps a little.
“Yessir. Sorry sir. Gold Zero, sir.”
Mike’s right eyebrow twitches.
“Excuse me, father. It seems this interruption is warranted.”
Kenneth grins at the pair of them.
“I look forward to lurid headlines tomorrow.”
Mike looks longingly at his unfinished dessert, then accompanies the Lance Corporal from the room at the double.
Kenneth shakes his head, then raises his hand.
“Elliot? I’ll have a neat three fingers of Nolet’s to finish, and page my driver, would you?”
Mike barges into the control room to find it packed.
“Captain Rudd! You auditioning an audience or did I miss a memo?”
Heads turn. Uniformed bystanders pale. People start leaving.
The thickset Captain elbows his way through the thinning throng.
“Didn’t Lance Corporal Letting bring you up to speed?”
“Wound so tight he could barely speak. I dropped him by the path to the barracks and told him to get himself some food before coming back here.”
Rudd shakes his head.
“They’re sending us kids.”
“Focus, Captain.”
“We had a problem with the Ambassador.”
The six-hundred-kilo leader of the Phalastakn delegation. Imposing, yet disgustingly cheerful.
“What happened?”
Rudd mutters something under his breath. Mike snaps his fingers.
“Out with it.”
“A breach.”
Mike leans back against a desk. He looks about.
“Everybody else, out! From the top, Captain, and do keep it concise.”
“Five activists from ‘Alien Lie’, led by Emric Allen himself, managed to get into the compound and confront the delegation. He challenged them to prove they weren’t actors or puppets. There was a heated exchange that culminated in the Ambassador offering to eat Emric to prove he wasn’t any sort of fake. He insinuated that Emric’s brain would emerge intact as it was too dense to digest.”
Mike keeps his smile under control, then the possibilities hit.
“Please tell me Emric didn’t call his bluff?”
Rudd pales.
“Safe to say the surviving activists are now convinced the Phalastakn are real aliens. However, the backlash is mind-boggling. There are government departments I’ve never heard of ringing up, demanding access, answers, you know the drill.”
Mike does. After action comes reaction – from everybody who wasn’t there. Many of whom are incapable of fully understanding the dynamics of the original situation.
“Okay, Captain. I’m presuming the survivors are in a state. Provide first aid, ensure trauma referrals are made, then release them. Detention will only increase speculation. Extend the exclusion zone around the compound to a mile. Declare it a diplomatic enclave – gives us more control. But, before the new plans are broadcast, I want whoever let the activists in found. Get them fired or dishonourably discharged, pronto. No point in making a circus of it.”
Rudd salutes and starts to turn away. Mike snaps his fingers again.
“Nearly forgot. Ask the biologists if Phalastakn can suffer from indigestion, would you?”
by Julian Miles | Aug 23, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
As natural satellites go, it’s different.
“Amy, that doesn’t look like a moon.”
“No, it’s an asteroid that’s been captured in passing. I think.”
Uh-huh. I punch ‘auto-evade’ and ‘auto-countermeasures’. My eyes are drawn back to that ugly chunk of battered rock. Something nags at me.
“Did I hear you cueing automated defences?”
“I’d rather be over-cautious and harangued by you than under-prepared and dead.”
She blows a raspberry.
“Can’t fault that, much as I want to.”
“Well, while you’re trying to find a way to blame me, give me some other possibilities.”
We continue to swing in-system at a gentle pace, supposedly slow enough to not trigger any leftover autonomous war machines.
“Well, if it’s not a capture, their moon has been subject to some violent times in the past. It looks like someone launched a mountain peak – or tried to carve it into one.”
“I see what you mean.”
Actually, she has a point.
“Amy, hypothetically, if we take that as assault damage, what would you say happened?”
There are advantages to having a pilot who happens to be a war historian.
She chuckles.
“Playing to my weaknesses, eh? That sort of damage indicates going for something under the surface. Something substantial. My guess would be an orbital defence fortress, taken out as an opening action.”
I bring up the most recent sensor sweeps.
“How do you explain the lack of bombardment damage to the systemward face? Plus a debris field that’s only half as dense to system side?”
There’s a surprised noise, then silence. I wait.
“Rupel, we’re going to be famous.”
“Why do you say that, Amy?”
“The damage was done from planetside. They aimed at their own moon and opened up with everything they had.”
I’m still missing something.
“A bombardment this big would have made it into military records.”
“Unless no-one was left.”
Sweet Gaia! Everybody learns the sentences from the First Book of The Conflict.
“‘They fired everything they had, uncaring of cost, to strike down the insidious force that had settled so close. There was no way they could win against what approached, but they would take revenge for the innocents lost.’”
“That’s it, Rupel. This is Earth!”
Could it be?
“Convince me.”
“They spent ten years turning the Moon into an assault base. They worked via clandestine channels, taking advantage of the political state on Earth to get humans to build it. Every human involved was convinced it was a secret base for their own side’s use.
“The Roekuld advance force waited until their fleets came into detection range. In the midst of the chaos caused by the detection of over a hundred thousand warships, the base opened fire. Nuclear warheads rained down in the wake of the craton shakers that rendered most of Earth’s defences ineffective. Thankfully, the vessel they’d arrived in only allowed the Roekuld to bring six of those nightmare devices with them.
“Our surviving command concluded surrender would be futile. They also knew what forces they had couldn’t defeat the massed warships. So they issued the famous ‘Earth is Invaded’ communique to every receiver in the Terran Empire, told all in-system ships to flee, then chose a symbolic end: to kill those who had killed so many innocents without warning.”
The first battle of the Roekuld Conflict was a staggering, horrific defeat. As the near-extinction raged, we lost so much – even our homeworld. It was fifty years before we rose again, then turned their home planet to dust. Twenty years later, we’re still struggling with the aftermath.
Maybe this rediscovery can help us heal a little more.
by Julian Miles | Aug 16, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Is all she asks. Four bloody words. I stand there like an idiot. Meanwhile, buildings burn and people run about screaming. Alarms, sirens and explosions blend into a constant din. The news said it was a ‘massive layered drone swarm attack’. Whatever that is, it’s turned my life into an apocalypse movie.
I stare blankly at Esther. Giorgio, on the other hand, is ready.
“We need to get to high ground so we can see what’s going on.”
Smooth-talking bastard. I hate him.
She looks at Giorgio.
“I know what’s going on. I’m trying to survive it.”
He looks confused.
“Okay, then. Supplies. What first?”
That kicks him into gear.
“Weapons! Tools or kitchen knives.”
That gives me an idea.
“We should head for Steve’s. His place is above the kitchen shop a couple of streets down.”
Giorgio waves his hands.
“No, my dude, no. Can’t rely on anyone except ourselves. Can’t guarantee what people are planning.”
‘My dude’? Really?
Esther slaps the back of his head.
“It’s a start. If this Steve’s in, we might get lucky. If not, it’s still a place where one of us is known. Less risk of confrontation if he comes home to find we broke in.”
She looks at me.
“We run to Steve’s. You lead.”
Sounds simple enough. I never really thought about running through a disaster. I mean, who does? I manage about a bus length before some woman slams into me, knocks me down, then punches a stiletto heel through my hand as she scrambles up and runs off.
I scream. Esther wads tissues either side of the wound, then uses her hair thingy to keep them in place.
“We need to get a better dressing on that. Let’s go.”
Giorgio gets to the next junction ahead of us. A wheel comes in at chest height. He turns to face it, arms up. By the time we get there, he’s down, face ripped apart where the trials bike went over him.
Esther spits in the direction of the departing rider.
“With spikes on? Cocksucker.”
I look down at my smooth-talking bastard dead best friend. Fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck th-
Esther slaps me.
“Tears later. Run now.”
Her stare could melt metal. I run.
Steve’s door is open. Sounds of a fight upstairs. She pushes me in, swings the door closed, then bolts it and puts the chains on. After that, she squeezes past and takes the stairs two at a time, dagger in hand. Where did that come from?
I’m halfway up the stairs when there’s a scream. I enter the lounge to find her helping Steve onto his settee. The room’s wrecked. I can see three sprawled bodies.
Steve waves to me.
“So this is the hottie you’ve been pining over, Andrei?”
Okay, floor. Swallow me now.
He grins.
“Always best to tell the hitter up front, so she can allow for it.”
She crouches by him.
“What happened?”
“Went out for more water. Got some, came back to find three tossers taking advantage. Was doing okay until one of them knifed me.”
“Bad?”
He nods.
“Past saving.”
Sticking his hand in a pocket, he pulls out a set of keys and gives them to her.
“Place is yours. You can shelter here. Dump the bodies, including mine, down the road. Got supplies for a week if you’re careful. Things should have settled by then. Be nice to Andrei. He’s a great guy when he’s not overthi-”
No dramatic pause.
Just gone.
She closes his eyes with a trembling hand.
“Now it’s time for tears.”
True.
by Julian Miles | Aug 9, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He’s banging on my helm with some ornate looking rod. The noise is incredible. Echoes of echoes. Being found is usually welcome after so long doing math problems in my head, but this is a bit much.
“Hey! I can see you! Stop hitting this and talk to me!”
He backs off fast, screaming something in a strange language.
Another figure enters my narrow view. Okay, if the man-thing with the rod is some sort of functionary, I’m going to guess this is the authority. I recognise that innate confidence of movement from back when the project started. No mistaking it: lady-thing is a chieftess of some kind.
She examines the helm, then extends a hand with a whispered command. A spindly arm reaches in and deposits a cloth on her palm. She reaches forward and wipes the crud off my faceplate, recoils a little, then peers at me. I smile.
“Hello. My name is Damien, and I’d really like it if you could get me out of here.”
Her eyes narrow. She looks off to one side and beckons. A wizened old man-thing shuffles into view. He clambers up next to her, listens to her rapid commands, then leans close.
“Zumpel asks: are you a lebett waiting to tear us all to pieces upon your release?”
That’s a thick accent. Am I a what?
“I’d not admit it if I were. Therefore, saying I’m not is no guarantee.”
There’s another swift exchange of what I’d guess are conflicting opinions.
“Zumpel says she understands your problem. She thinks it best to reseal this edifice and leave you to your sacred watch.”
Again?
“Look, could you ask her Zumpelness if she wouldn’t mind just destroying this edifice, because I’m sick of leaders passing the problem to the next civilisation. I’ve been in here too long.”
“Zumpel asks: what did you do to be sealed away?”
“I volunteered.”
“I do not understand that word.”
“My leaders asked for someone brave enough to try out something new. I said I was. It did not do what they expected, so they hid their mistake. Eventually an earthquake revealed a part of it. Soon after that, the first encounter like this one happened. There have been ten since.”
The exchange of words is longer.
“What will happen if you are released?”
“I might be unharmed. I might turn to dust. I don’t know. Those who made this didn’t know. That’s why they hid it.”
The official reason given – along with a formal apology – was ‘due to the possibility of deleterious chronophasic energy interactions’. I’ve stopped mentioning that. It never translates well.
“What do the letters D-I-S-I-N-T-E-R form?”
“A word that means ‘to dig up or bring to light’. Why?”
“There is a handle set into the back of your strange armour. It has that word engraved into it.”
Nobody ever mentioned that!
“Then I beg you to pull that handle.”
An argument starts, and goes on for a long time. It moves out of my field of view.
There’s a flash. I find myself lying naked on a cavern floor, looking up at the fading glow about the unit. Completely self-contained experimental armoured stealth gear that never worked as intended. The side effects were partial immobility, and immunity to the passage of time. They were too scared to risk turning it off to free me, nor could they risk destroying it. So they buried me alive, forever.
I’m free!
The wizened face comes into view from one side, Zumpel from the other.
“Welcome.”
I take stock: weak, but mobile. Hungry, too.
“Thank you.”
