Liberation

Personal Log, Stardate 89030.10

Today is the last day of my ninety day Reintegration Program at Starfleet Medical. This is the longest I’ve spent on Earth in one stretch since my Academy days. I’m not sure it’s enough time to make the choice Starfleet requires from me.

Striking a Bargain

All three of the figures in front of me were openly carrying pistols and concealing faces under helmets. I was hopelessly outgunned so my sidearm stayed in its holster but I kept my helmet on. The Emperor had been a far-off figure few actually saw. Anyone dealing with the Empire saw a helmeted trooper at some point so for most people the helmet in its many forms was the face of the Empire.

Last Flight of the Samson

Edward Baxter had been in second grade when the first men walked on the moon. He could still remember watching blurry black and white TV images of Grissom and Chaffee on that Thanksgiving Day in 1968. Baxter knew then and there that he wanted to be an astronaut.

Exit Exam

Killian woke up naked next to the entrance hatch of the maze. He knew the hatch would be sealed but tried to open it anyway. You never know until you try, he thought. Maybe one time it will be unlocked.
The walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor that marked the beginning of the maze were covered with the same silver metallic material that lined his cell. Harsh white light glared from slits along the ceiling.
The layout of the maze was different every time he was sent there. This time the corridor went straight for about sixty yards then turned left. He rounded the corner and collided with the alien coming from another branch of corridor.

3 AM Demons

Nick usually didn't have any trouble falling asleep.  He went to bed every night at eleven, even on the weekends, and was usually fast asleep within minutes.  The trouble started when he woke up in middle of the night and tried to get back to sleep.  After a quick trip to the bathroom he would lie down on his bed and the demons would visit.  He had several demons and they took turns tormenting him.

150 Seconds

This would be my 14^th death.  I studied the drone imagery of the target site one last time before Becker took the tablet from me. 

“We have to do it now,” he said to the rest of the people in the room.  In his dark suit Becker looked out of place among the medical staff in their pale blue scrubs as they strapped me down to the table.  He looked nervous as he spoke into his encrypted phone.  If something went wrong his career was through.  I would be dead too but that wasn't his main concern. 

A heavyset nurse swabbed my arm.  Her expression stayed neutral as she injected me with the drug mixture that would stop my heart.   She was the only one who had ever done the injections and I couldn't help wondering how she ended up with the task. 

I concentrated the target site in the seconds before I lost consciousness.

When I could see again I was looking down at my body on the table.  It was still weird to be outside of it like this.  But I didn’t have time to dawdle.  The medical staff was already getting the defibrillator and other items ready to bring resuscitate my body two and a half minutes after my heart had stopped.  I visualized the target site and then I was there. 

It was an enclosed compound on the outskirts of a city.  Tarpaulins covered the courtyard and blocked observation from outside.  I zoomed down to street level and passed through the compound’s outer walls.  Guards openly carrying automatic weapons walked around the covered courtyard and among the half dozen expensive vehicles parked there.  The guards couldn’t see me of course.  I checked license plate numbers.  So far everything looked good but I needed to see more.  I guessed I had about a minute left.

I drifted past a guard at the entrance to the main building.  He jerked and quickly looked around.  Some people can sense my presence when I’m out of body.  I’ve mentioned it in my mission reports and the eggheads of the Delphi Project are stymied trying to explain the phenomenon. 

All the targets gathered in a large room on the ground floor.  Time is running out and I quickly went through the rest of the building.  I had just finished going through the living areas upstairs when everything went black.

The shock of resuscitation was the worst part.  I was completely disoriented at first.  Becker’s voice cut through my mental fog.  He pushed aside one of the doctors and leaned in close to me.

“Are we good to go?” he asked again.

My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton but I managed to croak out two words.  “Targets confirmed.”

Becker stepped away from the table and spoke into his encrypted phone.  “Missile strike has a green light.  Do it now.”

150 Seconds was inspired by this post on io9.

The Land In Between

It was the fifth year of the Great War.  There had been rumors the Americans would enter the war a couple of years ago but they stubbornly maintained their neutrality instead.  The spring and summer offensives of 1918 left us and the Germans in about the same positions we had started the year.

Contingency Plan 327

            “The meteor is approximately twelve kilometers in length,’ said Krensky, the colony’s chief scientist.  “We have twenty-nine days until impact.”

Death is Served - Part 2

     Katya and the other servers gave statements to the uniformed policeman then again to the homicide detectives who showed up a few minutes later.  She noticed Thorne took aside the detective in charge, Lieutenant Drumm.  The two men spoke in whispered tones and shot glances at Katya.  The women were then taken to a police station for further questioning. 

Death is Served - Part 1

It's been a while since I've written and even longer since I've written about the Hidden Ones.  To refresh you memory on who Katya is read this first.  You can also read this but you don't need to read it first. 

     It was very inconvenient that a man Katya wanted to kill was murdered.  Inconvenient because she wouldn’t have a chance to interrogate him or search his place for information about his Hunter friends.  And inconvenient because she ended up being a suspect in his murder.

The Long War - Part 6

Memories

     I lay awake in bed sorting through the new memories running through my head.  I knew that the persona I had now was fictitious but it was easier to think of the Peter Rudko in those memories as someone else. 

The Long War - Part 5

Flanagan Revealed

 Olga listened in astonishment as I described my encounter with the alien.  “So it pushed a button and sent you back here?”

     “That’s what it looked like.  But I’m not sure if I was there by design or by accident.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I wonder if I woke up in the other place because of the pain or maybe because I was dying.”

     “I don’t follow.”

     “Maybe the machinery or whatever that keeps us here doesn’t handle pain well.  Maybe pain interferes with how the interface processes signals from the brain.”

     “Interface?  Processing signals?  What are you talking about?”

     “Those words just came to me.  Maybe the other me knows those terms and the memory broke through.”

     “That’s a lot of maybes, darling.”

     “True, but it’s the best theory I can come up with.”

     “You aren’t thinking of doing something foolish to test your theory, are you?”

     “Of course not.”  I think Olga knew I was lying but she let it go for the time being.

The Long War - Part 4

The Village

     The regiment was assigned to a different sector of the front line.  My detachment was given a small slice of the regimental sector that only needed one platoon to man it at a time.  This gave me more time to prepare the men for the upcoming offensive.

The Long War - Part 3

 The Scent of a Woman

The Long War - Part 2

Here is the next part of the story I started last week with "Dawn Attack"
Note: there is a graphic bit of violence at the end.

Dawn Attack

     At first I thought the glitches were my mind playing tricks on me.  They were always little things.  Maybe one morning I would wake up in the bunker knowing I needed to clean my rifle but finding it clean when I checked.  I would just think I really had cleaned it the night before and forgotten.  That sort of thing could be easily chalked up to lack of sleep or stress.  I did not think much of things like that until I met Flanagan. 

Photograph

This is a slightly expanded version of something I wrote for a creative challenge on io9. 

Horace looked at the faded photograph from his childhood.  Two boys flanked an android.  The three were bound by friendship and standing together against the world.  But Jasper was dead now.   He had died back in the AI War, victim of the drone bomb attack on San Diego.  Only Horace and TED433L were still around.  And now Horace was dying.

Animal Spirit

     Gretchen had inherited the hunting cabin after her father’s death.  Her friends often asked her why she kept the place.  She only used the place a few times a year and refused to rent it out.  Gretchen would just smile and say it was her bond with her dead father.  Which was true in a way.  Her father had introduced her to the animal spirit.  The spirit was in the cabin.  Sometimes it would call for her but otherwise it did not want to be disturbed.  

In the Land of the Others

He had been walking for days across the wastelands of Ichor. He paused on the crest of a ridge and surveyed the scene in front of him. His destination was still over the horizon. The land before him was dark and crisscrossed with several streams of lava. He looked for a path that would keep him clear of the towering spires of the Others. Angry clouds filled the sky and obscured the sun, his only method of navigation.

The Master had told him to follow the sun. In the mornings his shadow pointed the way to go. In the afternoons he walked towards the setting sun. At night he found hiding places to sleep in. The Master had tried to explain star formations to him once but he did not understand. Besides, it was dangerous to travel in the open at night. That was when the Others came out.

He did not know what was in the package the Master had told him to deliver. It did not matter. He did what the Master told him to do.

There was about an hour of daylight left. He considered his choices. He could find a spot now to spend the night. There were almost certainly caves in the side of the ridge he was on. Or he could keep going and be that much closer to his destination. But it would be harder to find suitable hide spots down on the plain. He kept going. He could not abide the idea of wasting daylight.

An hour later he was following the edge of a lava stream as the sun set. He had found no good spots to spend the night and was getting desperate. He could see the light of fires in the spires. The Others would be roaming soon. The lights of a spire were ahead of him in the distance. He decided to keep going that way until he found a place to rest. He plodded forward, fear overcoming his weariness.

He heard noise behind him and spun around. There were four Others behind him. They drew swords and moved to circle him. He shifted his walking staff and assumed a fighting pose. He charged before any of them could get behind him. He struck one with a solid blow to the head and saw him crumple to the ground. But the odds were against him and he was quickly hacked to death.

The three survivors stood around their fallen opponent. One of them spoke. "What's an orc doing so far in human lands?"

"I don't know. Let's get Herric's body and get back to the spire."

The Ganesha Campaign

This is part of a larger space opera story I've been working on for a while. 

     Jezzie went over to the shelf and examined the holoprint.  It showed Liam and two other people in Alliance Army uniforms.  One of them was a young pretty woman.  The other was Logan.  From Liam’s apparent age the print was about twenty years old.  But Logan only looked a few years younger than the man she had met earlier that day.