by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 27, 2019 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Fū-jiin sat cross-legged on a mat before a low table, on which rested a bonsai tree nearly half a meter across its canopy, and nearly a quarter of that tall. He rotated the tree barely a degree at a time on its mag-lev base, pausing at each mark to study, and very rarely to make a cut, collecting the tiny fragments on a white handkerchief at his side.
The tree was as old as Fū-jiin himself, and both bore centuries of scar tissue, energy wounds the tree was exfoliating over time in his patient care, thickened stripes of shiny flesh that seemed to bind his own self together like twine.
Outside he could sense booted feet sinking into the sand, closing the distance to his low, windswept home from a hundred meters out, where landing crafts were being pulled out of the water and onto the shore.
They couldn’t fly on this side of the globe, these intruders into his peace, not without risking orbital death from the watchers above, and they couldn’t see through the atmospheric haze that made this such a calm place to retire.
They must have been crisscrossing the ocean of this planet for years to find him this time.
He sighed.
He folded the kerchief with apparent care and placed it and his pruning scissors into a drawer in the table beneath the tree, then folded his hands in his lap and waited.
It may have been an hour or three before they entered, he could sense their probes, hear the digital chatter of their comms encryption. They were admirably cautious.
The breach itself was surprisingly peaceful. The unit commander simply walked through the open archway into the living quarters followed by four troopers in powered armor with weapons of an unwieldy length slung on pivot mounts from their chests, held at the ready two-handed, energy charges crackling with the anticipation of violence.
“Chao, isn’t it? Commander Chao?” Fū-jiin broke the silence first, “you’re a very long way from home.”
Commander Chao struggled to maintain his composure as he surveyed the room. It was the very model of minimalism. Fū-jiin clearly had access to intel that they had somehow managed to miss on what he had thought was particularly thorough recon.
“You’re a very difficult man to find,” Chao replied, “we’ve wasted nearly two years on this planet alone searching for you, and this is not our first nor the only deployment.” He chuckled, “It would seem that it will finally be our last.”
“Yes,” Fū-jiin smiled, the expression taking its time to fully manifest across his face.
“I am a hard man to find, and I regret that I couldn’t have been harder,” he paused, “for your sake, though you’ll find this a peaceful place to end your commission.”
Chao had, for years, resented being tasked with searching for this ghost, and now found his feelings conflicted. The stories of the hell Fū-jiin had brought to conflicts across the galaxy made him seem almost god-like, a force of immense tactical skill and violence, and yet here he was, a sad old man in a stone hut on a sandy beach in the middle of nowhere, gardening.
“You all make the same mistakes, do you know that?” Fū-jiin spoke, slowly rocking forward from crossed legs to his knees, hands spread wide on the table.
The soldiers flexed, weapons maintaining their lock. Chao waved them down.
“You show no respect for time. The sand you walked outside on was once polished glass, before wind, and rain, and time reduced that formidable expanse to dust. What has your journey reduced you to?”
He slowly extended his legs, rising to his feet with his hands still palms down on the table, bent at the waist and not bothering to look up as he spoke.
“You make poor assumptions; you see no weapons and assume safety, no technology and assume ignorance, no army and assume tactical superiority.”
“You drastically underestimate the fury of serenity.”
Fū-jiin flexed, and for everything within several kilometers, time slowed to a near stop.
The ball of energy that formed around him radiated outward in a wave, consuming everything it touched in a raging cyclone of raw, unfettered fury, ripping flesh, weapons, and craft down to their base atoms, then painted the beach with them, leaving its surface a smoldering, multicolored mosaic of freshly baked glass.
Fū-jiin exhaled, and slowly lowered himself to sit cross-legged again on the floor.
He felt the searing pain of fresh wounds where his outburst had cracked open his flesh, the smell of their cautery ripe in his nostrils.
Before him the bonsai was mostly unharmed, just a few patches this time smoldering gently where he’d been unable to control his discharge.
“My apologies, old friend,” he spoke out loud, retrieving his scissors and the white handkerchief from the drawer before ever so slowly resuming his turning of the tree on its base.
Outside the wind and the waves gently cooled the beach.
There was work to be done, and nothing but time in which to do it.
by submission | Jun 26, 2019 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
Michael had been hunting this last psychic for the Company for the past seven years. All the others were dead, and while dispatching the powerful, and arrogant psychics was dangerous, it was easy to find them. They usually wound up as warlords on nearby planets, as mysterious billionaire gamblers, or rapidly rising stars of academic institutions, corporations, and the odd government elite. They all followed the same profile: little or no history and then they are powerful or famous. Occasionally, a target Michael tracked was not psychic at all- just some poor bastard who had a charmed life full of lucky breaks. Michael killed them anyway. No one should be that charmed or lucky. Best not to take any chances.
This last target was an exceptionally slippery character. Twice Michael had been in the same town, on the same planet. Twice he had missed the target by mere minutes. The file on this target did not say much other than “Non weapons-grade abilities. Limited range and influence.” There was a blurry photo of the target and some hand-scribbled notes. The most intriguing, one short sentence “more dangerous than we realized.” Michael shook his head. No, just good at running.
Michael sighed contentedly. It would all be over tonight. Michael would dispatch the last psychic left on the books. No more threats from psychics, even if they were Company made ones.
Michael was out of range. He had to get close, make this job look like death during a robbery as there was nothing remotely dicey with this one. No rivals, no slighted lovers, jealous friends, no hateful neighbors. No chance to arrange the usual frame job that kept the Company’s hands clean.
The target turned down the alley. Michael smiled. He was taking the short cut tonight. A lucky break. Michael swung wide as he rounded the corner and picked up his pace. Based on the target’s average walking speed, Michael would intercept him in five steps.
Instead, the target had sped up and turned to face him. Michael smiled. Too easy.
The target held his hands wide to show he wasn’t armed. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. All I want to do is be left alone. I’ve tried to make you forget about me, but it hasn’t worked. What’s it going to take to make you stop?”
Michael sighed “Stop? I’ll never stop. You make me forget I eventually remember. You cloud my vision, it clears up. I’ve read your file. You’ve got nothing left.”
The target nodded. “Then do what you have to do.” The target turned his back to Michael.
Michael took out his Company transponder and pressed ‘erase’. He then ground it under his heel. From the sheath secreted between his shoulder blades, Michael withdrew his ceramic knife and in one quick motion slashed both of his own femoral arteries. Michael fell to his knees.
The target sighed. “There was no other way?”
Michael was getting light-headed. “No, this was the only way.”
“Sorry.” The target said.
“No problem.” Michael cheerfully replied, laying down.
As the target walked away, Michael suddenly realized just how dangerous a man of limited influence could be.
by Hari Navarro | Jun 25, 2019 | Story |
Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer
No all-powerful deity would ever admit to this wretched rock being of its hand. What God would lay claim to its deformities and corruptions. To its cancers, to the ripe budding evil that blooms within our cells and the tumours we’ve named: Persecution, Rape and War.
No, sorry, there is no benevolent father. No light riven thing to listen as we bleat and whimper about just how unfair is our lot. There is no God. But there is something next.
I know this, for I have seen it.
They’re called operations but this sortie was anything but. Bullets make for such lousy surgeons. I can’t even remember what it was called. Operation Dismembered Carcass, perhaps.
So, anyway, I held in my hands the pathway to peace. Now melted down and forged into a very, very large gun. Really it was huge and well, anyway, my… my unit it rounds onto Omar Mukhtar Street and I see her, gently whipping keffiyeh slung at her neck. She approaches and before I’ve time to raise my very, very large weapon there is a click…
Paper… Rock… Improvised Incendiary Device…
I look into the eyes of the invader. He is a good man. I look at his weapon as it stirs and I know he is just like me. He wants to be somewhere else… No, no he doesn’t, he wants to be here, only back safe in his house with his family. My eternal home… but where is it?
Where, when the land is now ash?
He… we… vaporize into a wet thud of pulverized viscera and my essence it mixes with his. And as our ruined and gutted husks slap down upon the street as dirtied clothes cast to the floor…
…we… taste each other in the sticky pink mist… and as it settles… it outlines a form.
We see it. We see the moaning white phosphorus pits of its eyes and its scream is a Qassam that falls in the night. It is manifest obstinate wet oily hate and it looks right through us… it looks right through us and it… smiles.
by Julian Miles | Jun 24, 2019 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
My orbit is not done. I cannot accept this. A few hours drifting have forced me to admit my stupidity. All the times I cleared up after him, excusing his selfishness as something special, like he shouldn’t have to act decently toward other people.
“Damn you, Neil. Damn you. May perfect stars shine over your unmarked grave.”
His voice is faint: “Danny, that’s no way to say goodbye. This find will let me live the life I’ve been kept from. I’ll never forget what you’ve given me, this wonderful gift of wealth and happiness. I might even see if I can support Myra through her grieving. She never understood why you left her.”
“I left her for you! You needed bailing out of jail on Rustel! I walked away from her and mortgaged everything so I could spend a year at high burn to go and save you. A year! You promised you’d speak to her for me. You told me you were sure she’d come round. Then you told me she’d moved on. Now you’re telling me she’ll grieve? You lying, self-obsessed bastard.”
The laughter over the communicator is getting fainter. He must be nearly out of range.
“Please. That’s charismatic lying bastard. After all, I got to console her over you taking off to follow me all over the galaxy. She was so hurt that you’d sent me to make your excuses.”
I try to let the anger out, but it’s too big for my mouth.
Neil continues: “I can’t help it if your lack of good looks and self-esteem made you latch onto me. I did you a favour. Remember all the good times we shared?”
“You mean all the times I found you’d slipped away with the prizes and then had to save you from the lies you told to get those prizes in the first place? Up yours. I might not be the best-looking man in the cantina, but at least I have some decency.”
“Which is why you end up watching porn while I get served, wind up penniless while I make a mint. How many times have I showed up to pull you out of hock?”
“About as many times as you left me to carry the can and only came back when you needed my spaceship to escape the towers of lies you could no longer support.”
There’s a pause, then a chuckle.
“You’re right. But my version plays better. A little philanthropy always makes me look good.”
He knew!
A series of staccato noises come from the speaker, followed by the whistle of venting atmosphere.
“Danny! There are holes in the cabin! What do I do?”
I can’t help myself: “Don’t panic. You’re in your suit. Just reach to the left, grab my spare helmet and put it on.”
“Why am I in my suit? I’m inside a spaceship.”
A familiar voice cuts in: “Because you’re playing it safe while in a dense asteroid belt, you idiot.”
Neil and I chorus: “Myra?”
“Your chances of an accident increase when you’re looting alien tombs for the memorial gems they make out of their dead. Those odds turn to a dead cert when I find you trying to abandon my idiot of a lover by stealing his ship. You’re vermin and I’m done being reasonable.”
His last words are not kind. Myra ignores him.
“Danny? After we dump the body, salvage your ship, and put the jewels back, we’re going to have a long talk.”
I’m a fool with woman trouble, and am very happy to be alive for it.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 23, 2019 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
“Manhattan?” the man asks, pulling out the chair across from her before pausing, “May I?” as an apparent afterthought. He sits down without waiting for an answer and waves towards the waiter. “Two more of these”, gesturing to her drink on the table between them.
Nadia’s momentarily speechless. Her expected date had just stood her up via text message, and she was planning on drinking this one off on her own.
“You look a little down,” he takes off his white woven fedora and flicks the brim absently before setting it on the chair beside him.
There was something about his expression that was captivating, his eyes alight, and she struggled to find something to say at this abrupt and unwelcome intrusion.
“Yes, unwelcome, my apologies for being presumptuous.”
She startled, had he just…
“Do you want me to leave?” He leaned back slightly, reaching for his hat.”
“No,” she finally found her voice, “I didn’t catch your name.”
He smiled, bright perfectly proportioned teeth gleaming in stark contrast to his tan.
The waiter slipped their drinks onto the table, then retreated to the bar without a word.
“Nathan,” he was speaking again, “I’m in… acquisitions, and you, my dear Nadia deserve much better than to be dismissed in an email.”
“Text message,” she corrected him, “but how could you…?”
“Text message, telex, carrier pigeon, what’s the difference? These men promise you the moon and the stars, but when push comes to shove, they deliver nothing.” That smile again. “Am I wrong?”
Nadia shook her head ‘no’, then drained her glass and exchanged it for the fresh one from the table.
“To failed relations, and chance encounters.” He raised his glass towards her, and she met it with her own reflexively.
“You all promise the stars, that’s for damn sure,” her eyebrows knitted in a deep frown.
“What if I promised you the moon and the stars and actually delivered, would that be enough for you to take a chance on someone like me?”
“I don’t even know you, and I’ve had enough empty promises to last me a lifetime.”
“But if I followed through on that promise, would you join me for a time?” There was that light in his eyes again.
“I suppose I’d have to if you could, but you won’t. Men never do.”
She’d no sooner spoken the words than he stretched his arms out wide, tugging out his jacket sleeves, and pointed up into the sky.
“That moon right there?”
She looked, the moon a pale white circle in the blue of the sky.
He held her gaze, and reaching up, pinched the pale white circle of the moon between his thumb and first finger with his left hand, produced a small glass jar from a jacket pocket with his right, and plucked the moon out of the sky, dropped it in the jar and snapped a lid on in a smooth, practiced motion.
She gaped. The sky was now featureless blue. Whatever he’d distracted her with was clearly some magician’s sleight of hand. The jar he held before her contained a very convincing replica of the moon in miniature.
“Very clever, but that’s not exactly giving me the moon and the stars now, is it?” She sipped her drink, something seemed wrong about this.
“Tough crowd, ” he smiled. “One star then to start, then we really will have to get going.”
He pocketed the moon and produced another identical jar, then reached straight above their heads, pinched the fiery orb of the sun from the sky and slipped it into the jar, closing the lid again in one smooth motion.
Everything around them was suddenly dark, save for the blaze of light emanating from the jar in his hand.
She dropped her drink.
“Now, a deal is a deal,” he said, reaching across the table and taking her hand, “it’s going to get pretty ugly around here in a minute.”
He slipped the jar with the sun inside into another pocket, plunging them into absolute darkness. He gripped her hand tightly, and in the distance, she thought she could hear herself screaming, just one familiar voice in a cacophony of confusion, then a moment later, silence.
They stood together on a beach of polished glass, purple waves shushing the shoreline next to them, the sky a shimmering haze, the patio, the people, the noise, all gone.
“What…”, she started, “where…?” The question left only partially asked.
“Gotcha!” he smiled, letting go of her hand and taking a step back. “As I said, I’m in acquisitions; moons, stars, the occasional starlet.”
“Did you really take those things? I don’t understand, without the sun…” she didn’t finish the thought.
“Yes, there will be a horrible mess, but it was inevitable, I just got the pieces I wanted while they were still available and in good condition.”
She stood once again speechless.
Nathan produced another glass jar from an inside jacket pocket, and before Nadia could protest he plucked her off the beach and dropped her inside, closing the lid and pocketing his prize.
“Now,” he said to the empty beach, “I could use a drink.”
by submission | Jun 22, 2019 | Story |
Author: Andrew Dunn
Some would call it a sin, that one man would blindly follow another without question. If it’s a sin like they say, christen it loyalty and all of us that followed Rory Holloman vagabonds sailing far beyond virtue’s bounds.
Rory captained the Scarlett. She was small, but a fantastic ship in her own right. In Scarlett’s early years – they called her the Bedford back then – she ferried loads high up into the hills, going as far as thinning mountain air would let her. Rory saw something in her and saved that hard-working lady from the drudgery of cargo runs on charter. Rory reimagined Bedford as an airship primed for adventure, christened her Scarlett, and made rounds looking for wayward aeronauts like us. Under Rory’s helm, we crisscrossed the skies in search of it all.
We found it too. Rory piloted Scarlett on strange zephyrs that took us to the place of giants. We huddled low on our side of the gunwales while the beasts swatted at us as though we were a gnat. Then we waited inside a fat cumulus, camouflaged in mist until Rory gave the order to strike. Scarlett dove fast and low so that we could pluck a button off one of the blokes’ shirts. That button was cast from pure enchantment and earned us a poor man’s fortune when we tied up
alongside home wharf. Word of our exploit invited every eccentric soul with generous pockets to hire out Scarlett for expeditions each more exotic than the last – every deckhand and coaler on the skyfront envied us as much as they wanted to sail with us.
A scrawny hand called Cooper got the chance. Rory hired the boy off the captain of an airship stripped down to her frame for overhaul. “He’s loyal. Quick in the head and on his feet too.” Cooper’s captain beamed. Rory took those words on faith – Rory had to, the smallest of mistakes suffered at an ill-timed moment aloft could be the end of us all, especially where we were going.
Rory told us over too much mead at an hour too small and distant from first light what our next run would be. Avorna Tor. The Avorna Tor loomed far in the north, its peak pierced the clouds. The mountain’s sides were nearly vertical toward the top; their surface glassy and lacking textures that would afford human hands purchase. Climbers perished trying to reach the top in quests to see if there really was an aperture that led into a dragon’s den. Scarlett would fly to the top of Avorna Tor, where no man had been before.
“It’s weird, Rory hiring Cooper on?” I said to coaler Brice as the two of us staggered back to the Scarlett. “We’ll need to drop a lot of weight to make altitude.” It was true. I’d been thinking through calculations for the Avorna Tor run since Rory told us we were going.
“What do you mean?” Brice chuckled.
“Cooper,” I lowered my voice, “he must weigh 150 pounds.”
“Cooper’s essential,” Brice replied.
“How so?” I wondered, my mind awash in mead and the mathematics of flight.
“Think about it,” Brice explained, “if there’s a dragon up there in Avorna Tor, we’ll need something to coax it out of its den, right?”
“Bait?” I asked.
“Let’s just hope Cooper’s more loyal than he is quick in his head and feet,” Brice replied.
