by Julian Miles | Oct 2, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The woman on screen is stern of countenance, yet there’s mischief glinting in her eyes. It makes her even more beautiful.
“Who is she?”
“Melpomene Drenaly.”
“Why I am seeing the face of an inhabitant of the planet,” he pauses to query his headware, “Bresingamen?”
“Johan Marks.”
“This is her?”
“Yes.”
The black-suited man all refer to as ‘Alef’ gazes about the room. A room so secure even the air entering it has been vetted down to a molecular level.
“So, we’ve been watching her in the hope he drops by. I presume something has gone wrong?”
Heads nod.
Alef barks: “I’d rather be informed that mournfully agreed with! My telepathy is negligible, as is my patience.”
At the far end of the table, a figure in dockworker’s overalls raises a hand.
“Twelve years ago, Johan Marks decided the ‘blackened planet’ approach to resistance was unacceptable to anyone with a conscience. He went rogue.
Various departments pursued him. The only successes were in destroying his remaining family through over-zealous actions. In a moment of clarity, Miss Drenaly was deemed off-limits as she was the only bait remaining. After losing five operatives in the next few months, senior Ranks were convinced it was only a matter of time before Johan lost the battle to rescue his girlfriend.
Five years after that, losses had risen to eighty-five. Being assigned to ‘snare guard’ on Miss Drenaly was considered a death sentence. The entire organisation purged itself of unwanted and inefficient elements. Amongst the upper Ranks, it was tacitly accepted that some losses would be good agents falling foul of vindictive politics.
In the last six years, a further thirty-four operatives have been lost. In real terms, no progress has been made toward apprehending Mister Marks since the initial pursuit.”
Alef steeples his fingers: “Commendable brevity and honesty in a report that should have ended the careers of every Rank 18 and better in this room. Including me. But, instead, we are gathered. Does anyone want to venture a guess as to the reasons for our continuance?”
A woman in a grey robe raises a finger. Alef nods.
“Something dire has occurred. Dire enough that our services are more essential than our punishment.”
Alef smiles. Several attendees pale.
“Correct. Skipping the embarrassing silence that would occur if I asked for someone to postulate, let me answer directly: Earth no longer has an Outer Territories. As of seventeen hundred hours yesterday, they declared themselves the sovereign state of ‘Newbelt’, then promptly allied with the Farbelt nations. They were warmly welcomed. Mutual defence treaties were in place before midnight.”
Looks of confusion are exchanged.
Alef sighs: “He only killed the incompetents. The rest, he recruited. We’ve been outmanoeuvred because operatives we trained engineered it. As of this morning, he’s Johan Marks, Head of Covert Operations, Newbelt. And, I have to say, he’s got a formidable and loyal team under his command.”
From somewhere on the right, a quiet voice rises: “We should terminate the Drenaly woman immediately.”
The overalled figure doesn’t even raise a hand: “I don’t think we want to provoke him any further. Besides, I’d bet she went last night.”
Alef smiles: “Only a bet, Ethan?”
There’s a laughing reply: “Yes. Johan always keeps the details of covert actions to himself. Being over here, I’m an unacceptable risk.”
Alef raises his voice over the outbreak of shouting: “Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Newbelt Ambassador Ethan Marks.”
Ethan raises an eyebrow in mute query.
Alef relents: “Yes, she’s gone.”
Ethan grins: “New game?”
Alef nods.
by Julian Miles | Sep 25, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
From orbit, this island must look like charred toast floating in a soup of boiled seafood. They’ve rained fire upon us for hours. Not sure what we did, but, as Lailoken always said “It isn’t about what you’ve done, it’s what they think you’ve done, or what they think you’re going to do.”
Another wave of fury crashes across my back. I don’t know why they bother. The rocks won’t burn unless they turn up the heat a lot.
There’s nothing visible left to burn –
Except me.
Ah-ha.
Well, that took an embarrassingly long time to realise. So, Lailoken and just about everything else I’ve ever known have been incinerated during an attempt to annihilate me. An entire civilisation and the land it inhabited laid waste because folk always judge by what they would do. And, given sway over me, them up there would rampage. Therefore, they thought themselves to be in danger, because they didn’t believe that anyone could possibly mean what was said about peace with something like me available.
Callow men and distrust; petty minds never breed noble motives. The goad for the recent unrest becomes clear. Finally, I understand what you said about true prescience being like ‘hindsight in advance’, Lailoken.
But, we are as our natures dictate. In the end, our veneers fall away. For them, cowardice, greed, and tyranny are natural states. I am left with a choice. Do I do as I am capable, as my ‘nature’ should mandate, or as I prefer?
Mgixyn shouts up at me, her voice filled with fear: “Dynas, how will we escape? You can’t carry us all and the fires they throw will slay us even if they don’t hit us.”
She makes a point that contains my answer: I cannot save the children while the bombardment continues. Therefore, the bombardment must end. To stop the bombardment, I will have to break a few things. Thus, preference and capability will meet.
So be it. As the fiery hail abates once again, I twist my neck, bringing my head level with the cave entrance, so all can see me. Although those amidst the clutter at the back will only see a silhouette.
“Stay here. I’m going to ask them to stop.”
They nod and hunker down.
I leap. With a crack that echoes off the far mountains, my wings expand and I rise, shedding debris as I go. By the time I blast through the LEO debris layer, my hide is scoured clean. Levelling out as I clip MEO, I ‘breathe fire’- using a focussed in-system portal between my open maw and a solar flare event. That lets me spray a lot of blazing coronal cloud about. Things get bright as stuff either blows up, melts down or gets blasted to ashes. I can hear their distress calls, but, really, they started this slinging-hot-stuff-around lark. Hardly my fault if I’m better at it than they are. That’s just evolution. Works for hypernatural war machines as well as monkeys.
After re-entry, I descend in a leisurely glide, letting the extremes of my foray dissipate while picking out landmarks for our trip to the coast.
I land in a gust of ash, my claws settling back into the ruts they left.
Wide eyes look up at me. Clamouring voices rise.
“Have they stopped?”
“Is it safe?”
I nod. Their eager preparations are a joy. Sheltered here, they missed seeing the horrors. They will survive.
Under my scorched wings, they will thrive.
And that’s as good an oath as any.
by Julian Miles | Sep 18, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’m standing a little too close for his bodyguard’s liking, but it’s crowded in here and I have to be sure. I stumble a little and Ileo himself reaches a hand to help. I take his arm and smile. He doesn’t recognise me.
“Thank you.”
“Least I could do.” He’s flirting with his eyes – about all he can get away with. Far too many functionaries about. I see his bodyguard move in.
“Looks like you’re taken.”
He glances sideways at his approaching minder: “Unfortunately, for tonight, it’s something we both must bear. Maybe another time?”
I smile as I step back into the crowd: “Definitely.”
He smiles. I’m gone.
Jonas is his waiter and Elle is his escort. She only got out of bed because serving Ileo pays so much. Jonas rose – from the same bed – because I pay his wages. I watch them exchanging passionate glances whenever Jonas passes the table. That’s unfortunate.
Ileo leaves at oh-three-hundred with Elle on his arm. Jonas changes hurriedly and rushes to meet me.
“Will she be safe?”
I smile as I look up from my phone: “Yes.”
His sigh of relief halts as I taser him with the ‘phone’. Catching his body, I step back into the alley, lean him against a dumpster and stab him several times. Just another mugging gone wrong.
As he slides down, I answer the question in his eyes: “She lives because you’re gone.”
I step out the opposite end of the alley, check my tracking and see that Elle has been dropped off – not that it matters if she wasn’t, but I prefer to be honest when answering someone’s final question.
“This is Hive. This is Hive. Please confirm delegate.”
Right on time.
“Delegate is marked, Hive. Go code is XY671020.”
My touch contained two ingredients in fingertip pads. Jonas’s serving cloth had the activating ingredient, while Elle’s dress and underwear were soaked with tracer elements that would only bond with a microadhesive base made of the first three parts.
Far away on a cypress-covered hill, Ileo steps from his armoured limousine and the stealth drone that’s been orbiting since nightfall locks on. Eight antipersonnel grenades rain down and Ileo goes to meet his maker along with his bodyguard and driver, killed with munitions from a nearby country that most will believe held a grudge.
We came up with how to get away with drone operations over ‘friendly’ soil while at college. I did the time in the military necessary to acquire the obscure skills and contacts we needed.
We formed Hillsdon and Vemas, a.k.a. ‘HiVe’. An international company founded in secret, grounded in anonymity, and based on neutral ground. We provide ‘deniable lethal oversight with global reach’. These days, for an increasing number of people and organisations, HiVe is the ace up their sleeves, and they will pay handsomely to retain – and defend – it.
Our notoriety led to Ileo Vemas starting to doubt our moral standing. Arguments escalated into separation. I changed my face within a month of leaving, then killed those who did the work. It’s taken two years to exploit the protocols of our invisible hierarchy to action his assassination.
My de facto takeover will be a side effect. I did this to wipe away that look on his face. The one he got when he realised I simply couldn’t understand his objections to killing for money. I had to. Just had to. I can’t be as bad as that look suggested, can I?
by Julian Miles | Sep 11, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Two.”
A long time ago, there was a war. A really big, planet-smashing war. Sometime during that conflict, they had a knock-down, drag-out battle nearby. It spanned a couple of systems and went on for many years. When they stopped fighting, there was so much scrap wargear floating about they ‘tidied up’ by somehow corralling it all into orbit about Currachus and stacking wreckage so deep on its twin moons they apparently had to make a third moon to calm the tides.
“One.”
Our scant records continue, saying they didn’t even land. Just stole the sky. ‘Currachus’ means ‘A million eyes in the night’. Our ancestors named our home after the glory of the night skies. Old tales tell of the wondrous sight of the yellow moon ‘Neorthas’ following the green moon, ‘Climia’, against that million-eyed backdrop.
Those skies are gone. My skies are shades of grey with ‘eyes’ that spark briefly as chunks of wreckage grind together. Sunlight is a diffuse, dim illumination broken by beams of brilliant light as reflective fragments align, allowing spears of pure sunlight to reach the ground.
“Loose!”
With a roar of chains and the crash of counterweights, the steel-shod tree trunk starts to move along the ancient slipway. Right on the horizon, I can see the sheets of sparks from where the haul chains crash across the skid plates that protect the canyon edge.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
I peer at Adrianna. She’s got the faraway look she gets when her imagination overtakes her clever.
“It’s certainly the loudest thing I’ve ever encountered.”
She punches me in the shoulder. I grin. She punches me again.
“You’re an idiot. Our forebears built this to let us escape.”
“They built this in the crazed hope that someone would get lucky before this world finished dying.”
“We’ve brought down so much. Some of it we understand.”
That’s the problem. I look to the ground as I reply: “Yet optimists like you insist that eventually we’ll knock an intact starcraft out of orbit and it’ll survive the drop and we’ll be able to use it. We don’t fully understand the principles of what we’re doing anymore! My father certainly doesn’t, yet he’s Overseer of the Winches. We’re becoming primitives with an annual religious ritual that culminates in hurling a metal-clad tree into orbit to bring down the metal we use to clad the next tree. It’s ludicrous!”
She hooks a finger under my chin, lifting my eyes to meet hers, then shakes her head.
“What would you have us do? Things are getting worse. Every year there are fewer crops, weaker livestock, less children surviving. I’m not supporting a gamble, I’m supporting a desperate purpose that gives our folk the will to live. No, it’s not entirely sane. But, it’s all we have.”
Well, now. There’s a viewpoint I hadn’t considered. One that, sadly, makes sense.
Far away, a dark arrow hurtles into the sky as the final thousand drag weights plummet into the canyon with an impact that shakes the ground where we stand.
I stand up, take her hand, and meet her gaze: “Maybe, this time, we’ll get lucky.”
She stares at me, as if probing my change of opinion, then smiles: “Maybe. If not, I’ve got an idea for how we can do this twice a year, but I need someone who works on the haul to check it before I present it to the elders.”
I gently squeeze her fingers: “Time for you to meet my father’s mechanics.”
by Julian Miles | Sep 4, 2017 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The dim glow of combat lighting is broken by a single white spotlight, which goes out as our new officer scrambles through the side hatch, barely slowing from a flat sprint. I don’t blame him. There’s several varieties of lethal flying about outside.
“Good morning. I will be your tank today. As we are now ready to depart, please ensure all genitals and other munitions are stowed safely.”
The officer rolls over and – her! – eyes are a breathtaking shade of sky blue.
“Good morning, tank. My chesticles are secure, thank you for the reminder. Do I just call you ‘tank’ or do you have a callsign you use when a superior officer is bollocking you?”
There’s a strained silence, broken by the ‘thud’ of the side hatch closing.
“Callsign ‘Gentry’, ma’am.”
She smiles and, just like that, I’m in love.
“Thank you for not mentioning anything involving upright positions, Gentry.”
The piercing eyes look about: “Sound off!”
The crew don’t miss a beat.
“Private Blachent. Loader, ma’am. Callsign ‘Greaser’.”
“Gunnery Sergeant Jones, ma’am. Callsign ‘Jupiter’.”
“Communications Officer Williams, ma’am. Callsign ‘Cleric’.”
“Private Raddle. Driver, ma’am. Callsign ‘Whiz’.”
“Corporal Neun. Driver, ma’am. Callsign ‘Dodge’.”
My turn: “Lieutenant Hallam, ma’am. Callsign ‘Comet’.
The new ruler of our chariot – and love of my life – keeps talking as she swings herself under, round, and up into the command saddle, without a trace of effort showing in her voice: “Captain Lallie Bann. Callsign ‘Spooky’.”
She wiggles herself comfortable: “You call me Spooky at all times, except in the presence of brass. Now, everything says you’re a top tank. So, if you would be kind enough to tell me the truth about Captain O’Donnell, we can get back to being a neighbourhood threat.”
I look about. Everyone’s looking at me. So, I gaze into those awesome eyes and lay it on like a smooth bastard.
“Mitch O’Donnell chose his own callsign. ‘Captain Kong’ is what we had to call him. Failure to do so was punished with a day spent scouring Gentry’s drainage channels. During combat, the Captain was usually involved in something important elsewhere – not that the roster showed that. When he did ride with us, we became a ‘hyena’: picking off damaged units from the outskirts of the engagement.
The last time he rode with us, a drone mine took out one of Gentry’s drives. With the front withdrawing, we were left on hostile ground to fix a massive piece of tank which would then need all of us to hold while Gentry realigned it. We were vigorously discussing Captain O’Donnell’s reluctance to get his kit dirty during realignment when some opposition wandered by and started using us for target practice. To our surprise, Captain O’Donnell volunteered to hold them off while we jury-rigged the alignment. Unfortunately, he sustained fatal wounds during the brave intervention that saved us all.”
She looks at me, the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth: “I see. So, the accounts of a beleaguered crew fighting both enemy patrols and their own hysterical captain, repelling the former and subduing the latter, all whilst performing an ingenious ad-hoc fix to their tank, are erroneous?”
“Totally, ma’am.” Her eyes narrow. “Totally, Spooky. If we’d subdued him, he wouldn’t have ended up under our wheels, now would he?”
She smiles: “I’d bet that sharply creased uniform gave Gentry the extra traction it needed.”
Gentry interjects: “Captain Kong would have been honoured to know his remains served a purpose.”
Spooky bursts out laughing: “I doubt it, but, it’s more than he deserved. Enough. Move out!”
