by Julian Miles | Jun 8, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Two figures stand on the observation deck of the patrol ship ‘Camelot’. The taller of the two points at an object silhouetted against the planet.
“That has got to be the ugliest spaceship I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s not a spaceship,” replies the shorter of the two, tail flicking in irritation.
“One end is blunt, the other end is sharp, and it’s got fins that slope backwards toward the blunt end. What is it, then? Orbital art?”
“It’s a sunbomb.”
“A planetary defence antique powerful enough to appear as a star in the sky, eh? Impressive.”
“No, it’s for use on a sun.”
“I’ve seen a starburster. That would fit inside one of the drive tubes.”
“Not designed to explode. Designed to age.”
“Do what?”
“The writings upon it speak of many interference effects – including several we’re not familiar with – along with a schedule of causes that we have yet to fully understand. There is also a time manipulation component of baffling complexity.”
“You said it was a bomb.”
“‘Sunbomb’ is easier to grasp than ‘alien chronosolar accelerator’.”
“They wrote instructions on the outside?”
“In big characters.”
“Why?”
“Think of it as a huge signal flare.”
“Signalling what?”
“To attract their attention.”
“Who?”
“They call themselves Barsiliumonalf – it’s as close as we can get with any language on Earth. An ancient star-faring race, arrogant and powerful. Some of their phrasing indicates they regard everything as theirs if they want it: stars, planets, beings, it makes no difference.”
“Why make this?”
“Laziness. They got bored of looking for intelligent races, so they scattered a few of these about. Any race smart enough to figure out how to set one off, and mad enough to do so, might be worth talking to.”
“Could we set it off?”
“Detailed translation is going to take a while, but I’m confident we could be in a position to do it within a decade.”
“While you do that, our superiors will decide which sun we can lose. Better get started on creating better defences.”
“Defences? They left star-warping time-distortion devices lying about like litter. How can you possibly hope to defend against the technology they have now?”
“Oh, I’m not preparing for the inevitable and brief shooting war. I’m talking about places to hide in, and observe from.”
The shorter one swings to face the taller: “What?”
“No matter what we recommend, many factions will be sure we’re exaggerating and will go looking for a fight. Which, as you pointed out, is almost certain to go very badly for anyone opposed to the Barsi-whatchamacallits. I’m going to make sure the sensible are protected until the stupid have been swatted.”
“Better still, let’s forget about this device.”
“Too late. It’s been found. Eventually, someone’s going to use it. All we can do is prepare. Which includes making sure nobody drags it off for use on a sun orbited by anywhere nice.”
“You have a low opinion of the tendencies of your fellow humans, monkeyboy.”
“Like draconians don’t like igniting stuff for fun, scaly?”
“Touché.”
by Julian Miles | Jun 1, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Wish I’d been braver. I knock.
Nineteen.
Kim opens her door.
Eighteen.
“Pete? Are you crying?”
Seventeen.
“I’ve always loved you.”
Sixteen.
“I love you, too.”
Fifteen.
Now she’s crying.
Fourteen.
Wish we had longer.
Thirteen.
I raise my phone: “Seen the news?”
Twelve.
“Can’t cope with it.”
Eleven.
She doesn’t know!
Ten.
“It’s started.”
Nine.
Her eyes go wide.
Eight.
“Really?”
Seven.
I nod.
Six.
“You came here?”
Five.
I nod.
Four.
“Why?”
Three.
“To see you.”
Two.
“Kiss me.”
One.
Her hands on my face.
Zero.
Our lips –
by Julian Miles | May 25, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
We were battling the Roekuld, part of humanity’s last stand against an overwhelming foe. We fought for hours. I wonder how it ended?
Our heavily armoured assault cruiser, Thunderer, got well and truly stuck in. We reaped the rewards: cut through their fighters, blew up their cruisers, mauled their warships, and only took light damage for our trouble.
Just when we were feeling pretty good about the ‘last-ditch attempt’ thing, a Roekuld dreadnought – think it was the ‘Windgrace’ – battleskipped itself in on our flank and complimented us on our efforts by sticking a full broadside in from barely five hundred metres out.
Ever read the analyses of what a ‘hundred percent strike’ from a Roekuld dreadnought can do? It’s ludicrous. Waves of firepower preceded by specific countermeasures, with a few effects that shouldn’t be possible – or used by sane beings – thrown in to make things memorable.
With all the electronics misbehaving, being one of the ‘hotwired’ enhanced cadre became no fun. We flew the fighter drones that defended the Thunderer, so I was attached to the ship, and outside the ship, in unique ways. Those ways got corrupted, then one of those ‘impossible’ effects hit and my world went grey. Completely grey. I could feel it: like slow-flowing oil and sand. It sang me a song I’ll misremember forever. Then sparks. Big fat ones. Then black.
When I woke, I thought I’d been blinded. Couldn’t feel heartbeat or breathing. My body was obviously badly broken. Just trying to move resulted in falling. I was aware of my fall, knew when I stopped falling, but there was no sense of impact. I lay there for a long while, recalibrating like I’d been taught to do after every new bit of me went in. My whole body was messed up, so I treated it all like a new prosthetic. Apparently, I had no toes to try and wiggle. It took me ages to realise that bending the little finger on my right hand had become the same as flexing my right leg, while my left leg matched my right index finger. From there, after a period of screaming denial, I explored my new state.
Of all the extras and replacement bits in me, my right hand was the most recent addition. Hosting onboard memory and processors, able to make me faster by augmenting the needs communicated by my brain. It had a ‘fat’ connection, taking intent as well as mechanics, and felt very strange. I’d still been getting used to it. During the broadside I’d found that deep connection helped to stabilise against the disorientation the rest of the cadre were experiencing. Whatever that grey moment was, it took things further.
I am my right hand, without a body. Not even a wrist. Apart from touch, my senses are irrelevant. The fall had been this prosthetic hand slipping off the top of my console – where I’d braced myself when the broadside effects started to bite – onto the keyboard.
I’m still on that keyboard: wandering about like a five-legged spider. Perched on the four digits that correlate to arms and legs, using the middle finger – which correlates to my head/neck – to type. Counting key positions by touch to find the right character takes so much effort.
Can’t remember much more than what’s here. Not even my name.
Is this reversible? I suspect not. I also think there’s a dead ship about me. That’s why I’m saving and sending this via every channel – if I’m accessing them correctly– hoping someone scans the data before I get salvaged to death.
by Julian Miles | May 18, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I used to lie awake, listening to the wind blowing through the old telegraph wires that criss-crossed our street. That eerie, ephemeral howling could wake me from the deepest sleep. On nights when the rain turned fine, I would wait for the irregular beat of heavy drops falling from the low points of each wire onto surfaces below. I remember once seeing a fox leap high into the air, struck by one of those fat, silver beads. I always wondered about that, until one night I too got hit. That drop seemed colder than the mizzle about me, shocking me with both temperature and impact: heavier than rain, yet of it.
“Come back, Frederick.”
Michaela’s always paired with me because she can sense when my concentration wavers.
I twitch. One of those full-body ones.
“One-point landing.”
She chuckles: “Felt like all points from here. Only brought you back because I want to daydream for a while.”
“Don’t you mean night dream? It is night, after all.”
“Technically it’s morning. Letting your mind wander while awake is daydreaming. The dreams humans have while sleeping are night dreams. That’s the difference, according to my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother is a wise woman, judging by how often you quote her.”
“Mother was too noshboor to be the witch I needed, so granny stepped up.”
“Okay, that’s getting too close to making one of us the character the audience mourns in this war movie.”
“Gotcha. Jog me if something moves.”
“Likely to be the sun coming up at this rate.”
“That works for me.”
She shoves her hip against my thigh, gets comfortable and zones out. She’s not asleep. It’s some trance state. The Taleon do it instead of sleeping. I find it comforting as her body starts to gently vibrate against me. Which, in truth, is why they teamed the alien liaison with me: she doesn’t give me the creeps.
I scan the area from our vantage point. With a little shock, I realise I’m near my grandparents old place. Looking down at the dusty street below, I imagine I can see a ghost of younger me making my way there from school, then stop myself because I’m the one on watch.
Whispering quietly into the night, I smile at the deceptive calm about us.
“Home again, home again, jiggidy jig.”
Which, probably, is what the Cashdar said when the first of their ships returned to Earth after 12,000 years spent roaming the galaxy, looking for new dominions to conquer and fresh provinces to establish. They were shocked to find us primates ruling the roost, and approximate technological equals in everything except space travel. They took proper umbrage over it. Admittedly, some of our politicians involved in the farcical negotiations didn’t help the situation. End result was the pug-nosed lizardmen decided to exterminate all humans.
Within a year of hostilities commencing, we were contacted by the survivors of the slaughter on Taleo. Turns out that deciding to exterminate the sentients of any place they want is the Cashdar way.
Those survivors brought experience and a little advanced technology. Since then, we’ve been holding ground instead of ceding it.
Stupidly, the Taleon are regarded with mistrust. People find their tendency to change colour when experiencing emotional surges disturbing. The fact that humans can lie without changing colour, which causes the Taleon all sorts of problems, is ignored.
So here we are fighting for Earth against those who used to call it home. We’re being helped by aliens who’d like a place to call home.
I’m dreading what happens after we win.
by Julian Miles | May 11, 2020 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Massive wings beat the ground as it tears chunks from Devon’s body, the blue glow of its eyes turned purple by smeared blood. We’re all using laryngophone comms so as not to attract it’s attention.
“That’s not my vulture.”
I glance toward Cat.
“Not anymore. Used to be. You can see faded roundels on the tail feathers.”
She nods: “A Calliapteran Model Four. Based on the Cinerous Vulture.”
“Calliapteran? Isn’t that the company who did those mad-dog hyenas?”
“Mad cat, you mean. That would be their Model Two. Seventy kilos of tailored nightmare built from the Spotted Hyena. If the rumours are true, the different strains of Calliapteran faunatech can work together. Imagine that flying horror with ground support.”
Miguel whispers from where he’s watching our six.
“Not funny you should mention that. I’ve got a trio of heat signatures, warm like faunatech, a quarter-click south. They’re problem-sized and coming this way.”
Cat rolls closer to me: “That’s not good. A lone Model Two could do for the lot of us.”
“What are they hunting out here? The front line’s in France. This is Spain.”
“This isn’t Spain. This is the Basque AC.” Miguel points south, “Spain’s over there.”
Cat makes a happy noise and snaps her fingers. Then she stands up and vaults over the edge of our comfy crater.
“Where the bloody hell are you going, Sergeant?”
“Had an idea, Cap. Worst case, you lot can bug out while they eat me. Model Twos always pack an appetite along with their nasty.”
Sam and Col slide into the crater.
“The fuck she goin’?”
Col punches Sam’s shoulder: “Use all the words, big man.”
“What I meant to ask was ‘where is Sergeant Catalin off to now?’”
I grin: “Fucked if I know.”
Miguel sounds astonished: “She’s standing right in front of that threesome and they’re sitting there like it’s some sort of obedience class. Not eating her, for sure. Her mic’s off but I think she’s talking to them.”
Command privilege: I open up a listening line on Cat’s comms. Sure enough, she’s talking, but it’s no language I’ve ever heard. A rare moment of genius drops in and I run a query on her family. It pays off: Cat’s mum was born in the Basque AC.
I waive her muted mode: “So, when did mumsie arrive in the Kingdom?”
“The year before they had to take ‘United’ off the front. She’s been in Scotia ever since dad died.”
Major-General Duncan Catalin is the most recent posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross. He’s the reason the Calais Crater doesn’t have a twin in Kent.
“These are some sort of territorial guardians, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They thought we were sent by factions who still consider the Declaration of Arnaga to be a betrayal. Seems there’s room for a lot of backstabbing while the war rages across Europe. Someone at Calliapteran made an offer. This reassigned faunatech is operated by a Basque subsidiary of Calliapteran. They’re not combatants: they’re testing ‘long-term autonomous patrol protocols and dynamic response scenarios’.”
Sounds a lot like hi-tech gun running with a coat of shiny bullshit to me.
“The hyenas told you that?”
“No, the nice people at the other end of their C&C comms did. They also offered a passably sincere apology and free passage out of the area.”
Arse-kicking revenge aside, surviving to whinge about not getting arse-kicking revenge – and how bloody dangerous the opposition was – is always a winner.
“Get them to stop the birdie eating Devon. We need to bag what’s left of him and get gone.”
“On it, Cap.”
