by Julian Miles | Jul 3, 2012 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I’ve always come second. Not through lack of talent or effort, but because I sympathised. If someone wanted it more than me, I’d let them have it. It started at home before I knew the word compromise. By the end of college I knew it well, had even lost my virginity because someone wanted it so much. There were several similar mistakes before I learned the difference between compromise and pushover.
My parents wanted Gareth, my brother, to join the Space Force. At the time, it was one per family for that elite, so despite better qualifications, I joined the Navy. Eleven years later Gareth was lumps orbiting Jupiter and I was a Captain and a veteran combat pilot with sidelines in command and mixed-environment tactics. My compromising made me a good negotiator but a poor leader.
The Chadda-ho are a typical race of colonising humanoids. Earth was a preferred acquisition, being nicely built up. Unfortunately mankind were still in residence. Their colonisation effort so resembled the pilgrims and the Amerind that we knew what was coming and objected violently. What we didn’t know we reverse engineered and enhanced. We beat them into a bloody stalemate.
The Eflubians ruled the Chadda-ho. So when the war stalled, the pink amoebas from Hell waded in and mankind got a thrashing. A lot of our military died while we learned to fight back. I found myself in a place where compromise cost lives, so I stopped compromising and started leading. Other officers didn’t learn as quick. They died and very soon I found myself to be second in command of Earth’s forces.
Fighting like humans yet described as devils, tigers, terrorists or fools depending on which newsfeed you read, we fought while politicians flailed and people died.
Last night the Diplomat-Commander called me in for a reprimand because my ragged army was doing too well and spoiling negotiations. I knew we were days from new weaponry as my boys and girls had taken the tech and paid in blood. We would have them. But the accountants had decided we should sue for peace. I got another reprimand when I used the word ‘grovel’.
We were fighting for our planet and the Amerind outcome showed us the cost of failure. So I looked that earnest officer in the eye and told him something my grandfather told me: “A long time ago, we let a regime survive after all but defeating them.”
I pointed out and up at the Eflubian motherships, hanging in the night sky like bloody teardrops the size of Bristol: “They won’t make the mistake of stopping in Kuwait.”
He looked at me and shook his head. His voice was patronisingly gentle: “Deputy Commander Trent. You have to accept that compromise is not defeat.”
I saw the look in his eyes and I knew I had looked like that in the past. He hadn’t learned. So I stepped forward and slid eight inches of Sheffield steel under his ribs and up into his heart. As he collapsed, I looked at his aides and said: “No, it’s worse. Defeat is being beaten. Compromise is beating yourself. I will not give this ground.”
The aides looked at me, at their squads. Then back at me. They came rigidly to attention and saluted with their men mere moments behind. The one on the left barked out: “Officer down, suspected heart failure. What are your orders, ma’am?”
“We fight. We don’t stop. We win. Move out!”
by submission | Jun 30, 2012 | Story |
Author : Cheryl A. Warner
I have two minutes to live.
That’s a short time to sort out the sum of your life, but it will have to do. Up here, the only currency is air, and I’ve already run out.
They start calling you a “short-termer” when you reach the two-week mark. Both the guards and the other prisoners eye that red badge on your suit and give you a wide berth. We’re all up here to die, but when you only have a handful of days left, there’s danger in your eyes.
I didn’t take advantage. I didn’t yank anyone off the rail or try to cut through someone’s air line. I’ve already delivered all my evil to the world. I used it to cut down two women, beautiful, innocent things, then never wanted to hurt anything again.
I still get to die for it.
All that’s left of my vision are a few bright spots. I can feel my body shaking like it’s attached to a jackhammer.
I dreamed about floating off the rail a million times, hoped for it even. They only send the worst criminals up to the rail, those that are scheduled to die anyway. Murderers, all of us. Those of us that behave are granted shorter sentences. They call it justice. Only two years on the rail and I finally get to leave this place.
I’ve watched guys go through this, one every few weeks. It’s not pretty. I figure I’m probably blue by now.
I can still imagine the rail out there, just a thin silver line, the guys tethered to it like legs on a caterpillar. One day, they’ll finish it and there will be trains to the moon. If I had any air in my lungs, I would laugh. After two years, it still seems like the fantasy of some millionaire who read too many science fiction novels.
I know I should probably feel cold, but instead I just feel numb. They took my clothes before kicking me out into space. They need the suit for the next guy they ship up to the rail. Can’t waste it on a dead guy. I don’t mind. It’s the first time in two years that I don’t have plastic an inch from my face.
I imagine there are hundreds of us out here, floating along blue and bloated. A graveyard of earth’s vermin. Dumping us in space is an easy way to kill the infestation.
One day, maybe aliens will find us out here in the void. They’re going to think humans are ugly. They’ll be right.
Something is happening with my heart now. I don’t think it’s beating.
My two minutes must be up.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Rosa jumped, spilling her latte as the man dropped heavily into the seat across from her, long hair mussed, his face a shadow in the halo cast by the late afternoon sun at his back.
“Lovely place this, yes?” His accent almost familiar.
“The café? Yes, it’s nice, but I was…” He cut her off abruptly.
“No, no, I mean yes, the establishment is fine, but the world, the world is a lovely one.” He paused, pulling on his long chin with the spider-like fingers of one pale hand. “Reminds me a bit of another, the name of which escapes me.”
“Another world? Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested…” Again he spoke over her.
“Of course you’re interested, who isn’t really?” He spread his hands flat on the table and cocked his head to one side. “How’d you fancy a trip to another planet. Don’t worry, I’ve done this dozens of times.”
Rosa smiled placatingly, “My mother always told me never to accept rides from strangers.”
He grinned. “Jhesehetza, stranger than some, but no stranger than most,” he kept his head turned, a strange visage half in sun, half in shadow, “you can call me Jhes.” She couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ok, ok, so I’d love a trip to another planet,” she cradled her coffee in both hands and sipped, “as you say, who wouldn’t?”
“Wonderful, wonderful.”
He pinched his fingers in the space above the center of their table, then drew out a spinning universe of lines, stars and planets a shoulder’s width wide. Rosa gaped. Spinning the model in the air with his hands, and sliding it from side to side he paused at a flashing point in space that Rosa recognized as Earth orbiting around its sun. He reached into the model and touched Earth, dragging a line with his finger as he retracted his hand, then began shuffling the model again all the while keeping his one finger raised in the air with a blinking line snaking away into the model.
Jhes licked a free finger and held it up in the air for a moment. “Eighty twenty, nitrogen oxygen or thereabouts.” He kept spinning the model, suddenly stopping and jerking it back. “There we go, right there.”
Jhes reached across the table and grabbed Rosa’s arm, then stabbed his upheld finger into the model again, dragging the line to the dot he’d located. There was a blinding flash of light, and a moment later Rosa felt Jhes let go of her. It took a moment to realize she’d closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the cafe had disappeared. The table, two chairs, she and the strange man sat in the middle of a meadow, long blue grass undulating in wave-like ripples around them as a deep red sun dipped below the horizon far off in the distance.
Rosa opened and closed her mouth several times soundlessly, then realizing her coffee was still clutched in her hands, put it down and stood up slowly, turning to look at the strangeness that surrounded her on all sides.
“Beautiful, isn’t it. We should walk somewhere, see if there’s anyone about.” Jhes seemed entirely at ease, though his excitement was palpable.
“We, how…” she stammered, “I can’t stay here, long at least, I’ll need to go home and…” Once more, her sentence was waved away.
“Only forward, never back. There’s not enough fuel left there for a second jump.”
“Fuel,” Rosa followed him around the table and into the grass as he struck off, “what kind of fuel?”
“Core fuel, there’s only enough mass in any planet’s core for a single jump, once it’s used up, well, nothing. Not like we can pull the planet up to the depot and fill ‘er up now, can we.” He dragged his long pale finger tips through the grasstops as he walked, as though wading through a lake.
“Core mass, you mean you use that up for travel?” Rosa stopped, realization sinking in as the sun dipped finally below the horizon, leaving her in almost complete blackness.
“Hm, yes, well, seen them once and all that.” In the darkness Jhes began to fluoresce, and Rosa couldn’t help but wonder where that energy was coming from.
by Stephen R. Smith | Jun 22, 2012 | Story |
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer
The walkway stretched along either side of the manufacturing line beneath it, expanded metal flooring paired with railings of aircraft cable under tension.
Beneath them, nestled snug inside a transparent tube, a spherical rig trundled along, like a massive version of the gyro tops the Major had played with as a child, only this one swinging four coffin shaped pods in a mechanical ballet inside its numerous orbiting rings. The mechanics were mesmerizing; each pod rotating along its long axis inside rings rotating around both short vertical and horizontal axis simultaneously. Each of the four identical units inside the giant sphere were themselves in constant motion while the sphere rolled and corkscrewed its way along the tube. He’d never seen anything so elaborate before in his life.
“Rotomolding,” the voice jerking him out of his reverie, “we find it helps their tissue development during the rapid growth phase, and results in a more uniform distribution of the core buffer polymer and outer skin.”
The Major hurried to catch up to his guide as another unit rumbled by beneath him.
“Mr. Pierson,” the Major began.
“Please, Major Keage, call me Claude.” He smiled as he turned to face the Major and slipped his hands into the kangaroo pocket of his coverall.
“Claude,” the Major began again, “how do these units differ from the units we deployed in Haituk, or Baytang? Those were basic shake and bake soldiers, you were turning them out almost as fast as the Payonese were cutting them down.”
Claude winced at the Major’s apparent lack of tact, removing his glasses to squint at them critically before replying.
“These units are true multiphase construction. Cast and baked chassis, draped and grafted muscular system over a fully integrated circulatory system, multiple redundant systems for command and control, a complex low level reflex system and a highly developed and preloaded reasoning and dataprocessing unit. Each has a…” he paused, searching for the correct word, “personality loaded in, then they are insulated, armoured to spec and skinned before they get kitted out and warehoused.” He’d slowly been continuing along the line, pausing at a doorway which he opened and motioned the Major through. “Please,” he said simply.
The Major stepped past him into a dimly lit but clearly vast warehouse, the door they exited through leading to a raised mezzanine overlooking the space. Claude attended a console in the middle of the platform and slowly the lighting throughout increased in intensity.
Major Keage whistled despite himself. As far as he could see, the floor was lined with row upon row of uniformed soldiers, tightly packed and still.
Claude gestured to the mass of troops standing below. “Each unit is catalogued and retrievable by name and serial number, or specialty.”
Keage turned, his face a quizzical knot. “Name? You give these things names?”
Claude smiled. “Of course we do, for example, there’s probably a Jerimiah Keage out there.” As he typed, he noted the expression on the Major’s face. “Given the numbers, one would imagine.”
Having entered the name, an overhead rig lit up and, navigating the gridlines on the ceiling with remarkable speed, shot out into the warehouse and snatched a lone figure out from a sea of indistinguishable uniforms and hauled it back to deposit it on the mezzanine facing Claude.
Claude stepped back as the Major walked between them staring at his own face on the immobile soldier in front of him.
“What the hell’s the meaning of this?” he barked, turning on Claude.
“Major Keage, meet Major Keage. Say goodnight Major.” Claude backed further away.
Behind the Major, the unit came to life. “Goodnight Major” was all it said before landing a swift blow to the base of the Major’s skull, dropping him like a rock to the floor.
Claude and the new Major walked back through to the manufacturing line as the overhead rig retrieved the limp body from the floor, disappearing with him into the gradually dimming lights of the warehouse.
by Clint Wilson | Jun 14, 2012 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
We had endured the slum for generations now. I came from a long line of survivors. Here behind the tattered patchwork fence of our family compound we had fought off countless invaders. But we wouldn’t have to worry about such things anymore. It was almost time.
And the moment couldn’t arrive any sooner as government food drops had been recently cut back even further. Folks were getting desperate.
When father had originally set up shop all those years ago here next to the maglev track with all of its noise and vibration people had thought him crazy. But there had been a method to his madness.
Everyone finally gathered in the courtyard… relatives and close friends, the people I had known all my life. We held hands as father recited a quick ceremonial prayer. I looked over as labor bots rolled the rusty hanger doors aside. It was the first time they had been open in decades. Father turned to the dozens of people in his extended family and shouted, “All aboard!”
The sun shone on the nose of the space freighter with its dusty cockpit windows. It was clearly aimed at the massive steel ramp erected next to the maglev track. It all seemed so unlikely. How could this possibly work?
I for my part held no doubt though, because I was the gunner. I had been practicing all my life. I could lasso a bird at half a kilometer with one eye closed. This would be easy for me.
The industrial transport engine block was already loaded into the starboard zip launch. I took careful aim at the maglev track and pulled the dual triggers. There was a dusty recoil and the thousand-kilo hunk of scrap sailed upward to its apex, and thumped down perfectly onto the huge track high above. Less than a minute later we heard the train.
There was no doubt that the automated system would follow protocol. Sure enough we watched the distant vehicle slow to a halt. We could not perceive the train’s custodial bots as they disembarked to retrieve the engine block. But we watched the shape grow in the sky as the hunk of metal careened back toward the compound. It made a good-sized crater as it crashed to the ground near our main gate.
“She’s on the move boy, get ready!” shouted father’s voice into my earpiece. I did not hesitate or falter, moving over to the portside zip launch seat. Two kilometers of coiled carbon rope attached to a Targathian grappling hook awaited my command.
I had to concentrate as all around me the derelict freighter’s long unused engines roared to life. Through the scope I saw the glimmer of the quickly debarking sonic train, and launched my projectile. There were long and painful seconds before the grappling hook burrowed itself deeply into its target. Then we all cringed and waited.
There was a whip, whip, whip, as the last of the coils unfurled, then a mighty twang as the nearly indestructible rope became taut.
We all felt it in our guts as the ship lurched forward with a metallic scream. In a second we were racing up the long ramp, hot sparks accompanying our progress, and then in another instant we were airborne.
My last official duty of the launch was to make sure that once we passed the speeding train far below I detached the carbon rope. I executed this flawlessly. Soon after I would be able to relax for a spell, and dream of a wonderful new home on a far away world.
