by Julian Miles | Aug 23, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The post-incident review was in closed session and after the presiding officer read the first line of the bonded testimony, the session was restricted to herself and Brevet Captain Danyls alone.
“We are in complete privacy, Danyls. Having read your report and the recommendations of those with reputations to protect, I’d like you to take me through the end of the Vigilance’s last mission.”
With a nod, the frowning young woman stared at the blue fluctuations in the anti-snoop field and started to tell all in a calm voice.
*
She dived onto the bridge, heart hammering, smoke searing her lungs. Across all the port viewscreens, the impossible hulk they had hit hung like the gigantic headstone it was about to become. Her eyes were drawn to the video feed from Pinnace One, where Mike was buckling in.
Her hand slammed down on the intercom button. “Mike, what the hell are you doing?”
He looked up at her, guilt-faced “Sorry, Helen. It’s got to be done.”
“You don’t have to do this, Mike. What about us?”
“What I did with you was wrong and I admit my actions are tinged with relief in knowing you’ll never tell.”
Helen lurched back as if struck.
“I’m sorry, kiddo. You were great in the sack but in the end, I’m the irreplaceable asset on the Vigilance.”
“But Mike; Captain –“
“No time or interest in long goodbyes, Danyls. It was a pleasure having you.”
The screen went blank and the ‘clang’ of the departing pinnace shook the Vigilance.
*
Helen brought her eyes down from the blue.
“You have to understand that until his second sentence, I thought he was about to sacrifice himself to save us.”
The presiding officer nodded. “Go on.”
“After that, I suppose I could have interrupted him. Maybe I should have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, ma’am. I let him launch from the occluded side of the Vigilance, straight into the hulk. The reaction to his launch combined with that from the explosion when the pinnace hit the hulk broke us free.”
“After which you stabilised your drift away from the planet while the hulk entered the atmosphere, eventually causing a Category Eight catastrophe when it hit.”
“Yes, ma’am. But it went down without taking the Vigilance with it.”
“Your recommendation?”
“Captain Michael Tiernan should be buried with full honours, a Captain who died saving his ship and crew. The data that he was a philanderer and a coward who didn’t know the way around his own vessel is of no relevance to history or to his family. The result displays the proper command attitude.”
“Agreed. Captain Tiernan will be a feted hero. You, Deputy Danyls, are offered command of the Vigilance Two. Your recommendation proves that you have learned a hard lesson.”
“I accept. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Very well. Captain Helen Danyls, you are dismissed.”
by Julian Miles | Aug 19, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
They say that a man who seeks revenge should dig two graves, one for his target and one for himself. I dug two hundred and seventy-nine.
Into two hundred and thirty-seven of them I put all that remained of the inhabitants of my home town, Padgest. I had to guess which bits belonged to whom toward the end. The two hundred and thirty-eighth is Karen’s.
Filling the next forty has taken me six years. Six years to track down every member of the Twenty-Third Special Operations Commando, who turned my home into an abattoir during the dying days of the ‘Endless’ Empire. They went their separate ways after the war, slipping anonymously back into the newly-freed populations as their training had taught them to do.
The first squad ran an adventure holiday company on Eridanus. My quest for vengeance nearly ended there. Eight-to-one odds, only offset by the fact that they had all gone to seed quickly, partying hard with their customers. I shipped their bodies home in a freight container.
The second squad was ruling the planet of Haberdesh. I had to start a rebellion to get them and only salvaged a suitcase full of remains to bring back.
The third squad had become bounty hunters. I realised that my need to look them in the eyes as they died would get me killed, thus personal vengeance ceded to practicality and I sabotaged their ship. I brought their frozen bodies home strapped to the outside of my hull like sculptures.
The fourth squad came after me. It was inevitable that they would keep in contact with their former comrades and work out that someone had declared open season on them all. I spent eight months in hospital after the month-long running battle with them, wading through the stinking swamps and blighted mires of Kelsige, relying on a native crossbow as the planet’s corrosive atmosphere destroyed their kit and removed their advantages.
The command squad split up while I was in hospital and went to brutal lengths to conceal their tracks, forgetting one thing: a trail of bodies is easier to follow than a trail of transactions.
I found them all and dealt with them one at a time. As I didn’t have their training, I had to improvise: hiring a truck to crush a coffee shop, dropping a skip on a stationary car, using a tourist submersible to sink a yacht, using home-made bombs to cause an avalanche, a rockslide and a bridge collapse.
The former leader of the 23rd SOC retreated to a hunting lodge in the mountains of Tarkerut. He used all his skills to make the place lethally inaccessible. So I used mortar bombs filled with Charo musk to paint the walls and roof. Charo are voracious and look like the furry bastard spawn of lampreys and cockroaches. He tried to stop the infestation I attracted and died very badly, if the screams were anything to go by. I had to wait two months to retrieve his remains.
Today I filled his grave and walked across the blue grass meadow to where Karen’s mound lies next to the only empty grave. I sit on the edge of the open grave and tell her about the last death while I finish my champagne and cyanide. Then I check the deadfall holding the earth back from the grave.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
Next to my girl, forever to keep
Come judgment day or ending times
The guilty have paid for their crimes.”
The darkness washes in as I feel myself topple into my grave.
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by Julian Miles | Aug 14, 2013 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Tell the Charmian that we can see her.”
“She refuses to believe us.”
“Oh, for the love of Turing, she got out before sensor tutoring?”
“Seems to be the case, sir.”
The half-kilometre diameter of the moon Abaddon hangs in near space on the view-screen, with the fins and drive tubes of the Smart Ship Charmian sticking out of the monstrous crater she blew in it. Puppy logic: if she can’t see us, we can’t see her.
I tap my fingers on the command console as my long-serving crew look increasingly nervous, and rightly so. I have better things to do than supervise children. Even if this child has a four hundred and fifty metre pursuit destroyer as a body.
“Get me Commandant Sallast.”
The voice is cheery. “Call me Amanda, Captain Obers. Have you found my prodigal?”
“Commandant Amanda Sallast. I regret to inform you that your project is cancelled. You cannot educate Smart Ships in a nursery environment.”
“But I’ve had such success! They respond so well to being allowed to fly and learn with their siblings.”
“Horseshit, madam. I was on the way to you when I received your distress call. The reason I was nearby is that eight of your protégés refused to engage in combat off Falconer II. When asked the reason why, they stated that the Falmordians were ‘too cute’ to be really hostile. They suggested a game of tag.”
“Oh, isn’t that lovely?”
“Madam, these are warships. While their crews tried to wrestle control from the puerile minds that ran their ships, the ‘cute’ Falmordians vapourised them. There were no survivors. Four hundred and eighty dead, madam. Four hundred and eighty people will not be going home because you got your father to leverage backing for your fluffy spaceship school.”
The voice from the speakers was shaky. “I was only trying to give them a balanced view.”
Daniel Obers muted the call while he punched a bulkhead. Shaking his bloodied fist, he returned to the call. “I actually sympathise with your broad aims. But front-line Intelligent Warships are not the place for them. Now, is the Charmian aware of the capabilities of this vessel?”
“I doubt it.”
“Please commence wind-up of your installation. Fleet units are inbound.”
“What about Charmian? She really is a sweet girl. Just a little highly strung.”
“I’ll coax her out, Commandant.”
“Thank you.”
Daniel looked at his crew and saw his aghast expression mirrored on all present. He switched channels. “Charmian, this is Captain Obers. It’s time to go home.”
The voice from the speakers was petulant, a tone Daniel had never heard from a Smart Ship, or any other artificial intelligence, for that matter.
“I’m never going home. You can’t make me. I’m bigger than you.”
Daniel looked at the ceiling as he muted the call. “Prepare a pair of Lances. Full-spectrum EMP at one hundred percent load. This sentience is irretrievable.”
He opened the channel again. “Last chance, Charmian. Behave or face the consequences.”
“I’m never going home.”
“Too true.” Daniel whispered.
He looked up at the weapons team. “Fire.”
by Julian Miles | Aug 6, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The sun clears the mountains and shines across the sylvan landscape, it’s rays sparkling from the dew on the grasses, bringing out the myriad shades of green on the leaves on the trees, lifting cries from the unseen throats of the hundreds of winged creatures, and stretching a long shadow from the black tetrahedron, a two-dimensional isosceles triangle that points toward Ibripspur, the capital city of the Vardissian Concordance.
As the first rush of cries wanes, there is a bone-jarring ‘thrum’ as the pyramid rises into the air, travels forward one length and slams down with an impact that shakes the countryside into silence. Thirty-four minutes later, it does it again. Behind it, the land is compressed by the incalculable weight of the two-hundred and fifty metre a side edifice. Nothing survives, everything pressed into a memorial rug that lays a metre below the ground’s natural surface.
It has done this without cease for the last four hundred days. The only deviation was when it landed on the military base at Tserges. It spent a day moving sideways, then ahead, then sideways to ensure the entire base was levelled.
We have thrown everything at it. Seven hundred kilometres behind its current position, there is a nuclear desert where a teraton warhead failed to even scratch the matte-black finish whilst ruining what had been the county of Sapur.
It is a terror weapon like nothing we have encountered. We know that on our nearest moon, a pyramid like this one, but smaller, has appeared. We presume that it contains the masters of this horror. They are also imperturbable by teraton nukes.
Yesterday our courier returned from Old Earth with an answer to our desperate queries. I look down at the thin metal sheet, hoping that this twentieth time of reading will yield a detail I missed: the one that will save us.
Guardian Jefflyn.
The researches you requested have proven to be correct. The Great Pyramid is indeed likely to be the remains of one of these devices. An intensive review of all records, research and apocrypha in the light of this revelation has revealed only one fact: Our pyramid was halted by the edifice we call The Sphinx. Indeed, conjecture is that the presence of The Sphinx was necessary to prevent the device’s function until the passage of time rendered it dysfunctional. We also concur with your other hypothesis; the presence of the third pyramid on the Giza Plateau indicates an attempt by the pyramid users to reactivate their weapon. As to why this failed and how the edifices functioned at all are things beyond our current scientific understanding.
Reluctantly, EarthGov agrees that your proposed action is the only viable recourse.
I bow my head, then raise my hand to summon my personal guard and aides. They assemble in a semi-circle behind me. I turn to face them, letting them see the tracks of my tears so they will feel the gravitas of my words.
“Abandon planet.”
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by Julian Miles | Jul 22, 2013 | Story
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“You will release our brethren or we will kill a prisoner every nemet, starting at Rabender.”
I hate hostage takers. After a list of fatal failures longer than you can live to read, they still think that they will be the exceptions.
Jemelli Lurdan flumphs down next to me, our battered copy of Edgebaston’s ‘Religious Cults of the Twenty-Fifth Century’ clutched in two of her turquoise pseudopods. Despite the ban on printing, we have to have this. Computer glitches have cost more lives than bad decisions.
“Nemet: the Faustian base chronological unit. Corresponds to fifty-three minutes eighteen seconds. Rabender: the last devotional ritual of the Faustian day. Starts in one hour forty minutes.”
I turn my head to look over her squat form at Stormcatcher Quill; its feathered Mohican is laid back on its vaguely equine head. The featureless pink eye globes are dull, indicating some very serious calculating in progress.
Every one of my team has a non-combat, non-enforcement speciality that allows us to function when technology is not available. We are Lead Hostage Remediation One for that reason.
“Their religion does not permit deviance. Surrender, negotiation or failure are classed as such.” Vestor Adam has arrived, his yellow robes ragged but somehow appearing more pristine than the finest ambassadorial garb. His face is obscured by a Tragedy mask today; unfailingly appropriate as always.
Time to summate: “LeHRO! Break it down for the Magistrate.”
“Officer Lurdan. The Faustians emanate resolve, commitment and fervour backed by anger. No option.”
“Officer Quill. The Faustians have fortified, trapped and fully shielded the liner, in addition to bringing military arms. Access would have to be by assault. Optimal estimate is sixty-eight percent casualties. No option.”
Vestor removes his mask to reveal the tears running from his reddened eyes. “Officer Adam. Faustian articles of faith forbid any interaction that could lead to peaceful resolution. No option.”
My turn: “Captain Holden. The Faustian behaviour is full-profile for fanatical action. No option.”
The Magistrate hums as it communicates with the Adjudicator for this sector. A chime precedes the verdict: “No option. Proceed.”
I open a channel to the fifth member of the team. “Officer Liddle? Please expedite a ‘No’ option.”
“Yes, Captain Daddy.” Our shocked silence makes her giggle seem louder. Callie-Ann identified me uniquely!
I open a channel to the liner. The Faustian leader is there, eyes gleaming with fervour and looted cognac.
“This is Captain Holden. We have considered your demands.”
His grin reveals pointed teeth. “So you will comply?”
I shake my head and feel tears of rage and guilt well up. “We do not negotiate with hostage takers. Surrender or die.”
He laughs. “Die!”
I look him straight in the eye. “As you wish.”
I see realisation dawn just as the screen goes blank. The shockwave rocks our ship. As the tremors subside, I feel the soft thump as Callie-Ann’s padded cell returns to its insulated bay.
Shields are useless against telekinetics, but telekinetics are always insane. The stronger they are, the madder they are. Callie-Ann is special, having been rescued from kidnappers at the age of four. She hates hostage takers and becomes functional with homicidal tendencies when dealing with them. If only she could do things on a smaller scale.
Today she spoke to me. Tomorrow she’s twelve. By the time she’s twenty we could actually be rescuing people.
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