by Michael S. Roberts

A slightly different Brooklyn. . .

“Eileen! Guess what!” Bertie threw his hat and jacket on the coatrack, dropped his briefcase on the coffee table. He pulled the screen door shut so it would latch. “Never mind, you’ll never guess. I’m retiring early! So are Ritchie, Harry, and Sal.”

Eileen came into the living room with the familiar open bottle of Blutzheimer’s. “What?”

“Retiring early, all four of us. And guess what else!” He took a swig from the frosty bottle, wiped his chin. “I bought a spaceship!”

“What?”

“A spaceship! And so did the guys! We all got spaceships!”

The guys. Bertie, Ritchie, Harry, and Sal. War buddies. College buddies. Poker buddies. Beer buddies. All top engineers at the Electro-Broom plant in Brooklyn. Eileen cringed, sat down gingerly on the couch.

“Do their wives know this?” Eileen’s wine-and-cupcakes foursome: herself, Marge, Barbara, and Vera.

“They’re tellin’ them tonight! This is gonna be great!”

“What are we going to do with a spaceship, Bertie?” Eileen wished she’d poured a glass of wine before sitting down. “And how much did it cost?”

“Hey, it was dirt-cheap! Last year’s model Conestoga Six, and they were bendin’ over backwards to get ‘em off the lot. Barely half the retirement bonus, Eileen. Plus all four of us got one at the same time, so we strong-armed a discount. Brand new salesman, still wet behind the ears, did not know who he was up against.”

Half the retirement bonus. And early retirement, so less bonus to boot. “And what are we going to do with it, this spaceship?”

“Colonize!” Bertie crowed. “We’re goin’ to Mars!”

“Mars! Are you nuts?”

“Honey, it’ll be great!” Bertie took a fast pull from the Blutzheimer’s brew. “We’ll raise crops and have more kids, make a new life! And we’ll have barbeques, just like right here on the block! Beers and franks and kraut!”

“Crops? Kids?” Eileen goggled. “I’m going to get a glass of wine. Stay put.”

Bertie waited, knees bouncing, grinning.

“Okay.” Eileen sat down again with a full glass of Lunar Burgundy. “First things first. Crops?”

“Yeah, crops! We’re gonna farm!” Bertie sat forward. “I already ordered seeds, fertilizer, manuals on farming, the works. You got the right manual, you can do anything.”

“Okay.” Eileen took a swig. “What are we farming?”

“Tomatoes! And strawberries, corn, rice, potatoes, carrots—I got a big selection from FarmAssist. Someone said we gotta swap ‘em out every year or something. Called crop rotation or some such. It’s in the manual.”

“Can you get the deposit back, Bertie?”

“No! That’s the beauty of it, Eileen. We talked the sales kid down a full thousand apiece just by getting nonrefundable deposits. What a sucker!”

Eileen let the wine glass dangle, dropped her forehead into the empty hand. This was worse than the new convertible and the new secretary combined. Without looking up, she asked, “What’s this about kids? Bertie, we have kids. They’re in college.”

“We’ll have more! It’s the new frontier, Eileen. We’ll need more kids to work the farm.”

“Bertie.” She looked up. “We’re old. I’m old. I’m too old to get pregnant again.”

“See, I thought of that, honey.” Bertie grinned in self-approval. “I ordered embryos. From the Baby Barn in Queens—”

“Embryos!” Eileen shot upright, wine slopping onto the plastic-covered paisley. “Embryos! Are you nuts? You expect me to have department-store babies? From the Baby Barn?”

“Well, sure.” Bertie looked momentarily defensive. “They’re licensed and certified, completely legit. I checked. Plus we got a free baby-care manual as part of the deal. Anyways, I haggled some, got us six for the price of five. It’s a real bargain, Eileen.”

“You expect me to have six more babies?”

“Well, yeah,” Bertie hedged. “You raised four just great, I mean look at ‘em. All in college, good grades, scholarships. . .”

“But six more? You’re bonkers, Bertie! Bonkers! Who’s gonna help me raise ‘em while you’re farming Marsberries or whatever?”

“Well, I guess Marge and Barbara and Vera. I mean, they’ll be doing it, too.”

“What? Do they know this?”

“Probably by now, yeah. Me and the guys all got the same deal, six for five. I tell ya, Eileen, salesmen today are wimps.”

“I’m calling my sister. Right now.”

“Moira, he’s off his rocker! What do I do?”

“Well, you know Bertie better than me.” Eileen’s sister smiled sadly into the OmniPhone. “But if he sets his mind to something. . .”

“I know, I know. This is worse than the secretary. I love the palook for better or worse, but I just wanna sock him in his big fat mouth!” Eileen took a calming breath. “Okay. I’m okay. Moira, can we get him declared insane? Void all the contracts like that?”

“I’m not that kinda attorney, Big Sis. But I know some. Problem is, he got certified mentally healthy after the secretary thing. And he gets checked every year now, right? So that ain’t gonna work.”

“A spaceship! Embryos! Farming!”

“I can have him declared legally stupid.”

“He’s an engineer, Moira.”

“Arrested development, then.”

“I’m back from the hardware store, honey!” Bertie called out from the foyer. “You gotta beer open for me?”

“Right here.” Eileen handed him the Blutzheimer bottle. “I’ve been reading the farming manual, Bertie. That Mars Colony brochure, too. Are you really sure we’re ready for this?”

“Absolutely, honey.” Bertie took a long pull of beer. “Me’n the guys just got all the farming stuff we need. We got hoes, shovels, pickaxes, work gloves, farmer hats. And get this! A thousand tiki torches for half-price!”

“So it says in here,” Eileen flipped through the farming manual, “You gotta rotate crops every season.”

“I knew that.”

“Also says we need water.”

“Ha! I got that covered, too!” Bertie scratched his belly. “We got post-holers! For digging wells. And we got that old-timey water pump doohickey in the tool shed, the one you crank up an’ down to get water? That’s definitely goin’ on the spaceship.”

Eileen buried her face in her hands. “It also says we need a tractor. Those are expensive, Bertie.”

“Nah! We don’t!” Bertie smiled slyly. “Don’t forget, we got the lawnmower and the rototiller. You remember how good it did with the flowerbeds, that tiller? Solid engineering, that thing!”

“We’re bringing the lawnmower?”

“Well, sure. I gotta mow the field before I rototill it.”

“It also says,” Eileen looked up, “We’d better bring a gun. There’s dangerous wildlife. Hippaloes, it says. Half hippopotamus, half buffalo kinda things.”

“Ah-hah!” Bertie thrust an index finger ceiling-ward. “I got that covered. I ordered a rhino-blaster from the sporting goods store, a top’a the line Plasma RayBuchet. Thing’ll stop a charging elephant. Plus, me’n the guys all kinda ‘lost’ our rifles from the War, if you know what I mean.” Bertie winked, finger beside his nose. “Mine’s still in that old footlocker in the attic. Anyways, Sal looked ‘em up, the hippaloes. Says they’re omnivores, not carnivores.”

“Omnivore means they’ll eat anything, Bertie.”

“It’ll be fine, honey. We got the rhino-blaster. Plus, us guys were in the War together, Eileen. The War. We carried those rifles for years.” Bertie sat back smugly. “They’re like natural extensions of our own two hands. Shooting comes instinctual to us.”

“You were an engineer, Bertie! You built bridges!”

“Moving day!” Bertie bellowed from the front yard. Eileen sipped her first cup of coffee, hair askew, cotton robe sashed tight. “Everything must go! Into the spaceship, that is. Ha!” Bertie laughed at his own joke.

Next door, across the street, and halfway down the block, robo-mover trucks sat in front of four houses. Marge and Ritchie. Barbara and Harry. Vera and Sal.

Eileen and Bertie.

“Eileen!” Bertie swept his finger at one of the robots. “Why’d you pack the wedding dress? We’re already married. And it don’t fit no more anyways.”

“Oh. Well.” Eileen crossed her arms, hip cocked. “Because maybe one of those six-for-five embryos of ours will be a girl. And maybe she’ll want to get married someday. Maybe to one of Vera and Sal’s blue light specials. I think I’ll name her Sears. They name one of their sons Roebuck, we got a lock, Bertie! A lock!” She swung both arms wide, coffee slinging onto the lawn. “It’s genius!”

“Okay, okay, makes sense. But what about that thing there? What is that, anyway?”

“It’s my AutoStyler, Bertie. It’s why my hair always looks salon-fabulous like this when robots show up at six in the flippin’ morning. And what is that? Is that the old jukebox? I thought we threw it out!”

“That thing’s a classic, Eileen. A genuine Rockola. I stashed it in the downstairs den when you was at your mother’s that one time.”

“It’s broken, Bertie. It never sounded right even when it worked.”

“Not a problem! I got a—”

“A manual. Right.”

“So how is this thing gonna fly us to Mars, Bertie?” Eileen looked distastefully at the spaceship. “Neither of us knows how to fly it.”

“Don’t have’ta!” Bertie gestured grandly. “It flies itself! Straight to Mars on autopilot, all we gotta do is sit back.”

“Autopilot?” Eileen covered her mouth in alarm. “The autopilot on the station wagon still sends us to Wendy’s instead of Winn-Dixie. Once it tried to take me to Winchester, Nevada!”

“This is state of the art engineering, honey, not like the car.” Bertie tucked his thumbs in his trouser pockets. “Anyway, we got a manual for it if anything goes wrong.”

“Have you opened the manual, Bertie? Have you read it?”

“I’ll read it when I need it, honey.”

Eileen surveyed the Conestoga’s cargo hold. The Rockola jukebox was there. The AutoStyler. Clothing, dishes, tools, tiki torches. The old-timey water pump doohickey. The floor-model ElectroMedic with the ‘Midwife Special’ option package Bernie had picked up at Robot World. She knelt in front of it, shook its inert metal hand. “Hi. I’m Eileen. I’ll be having six babies, so you’d better be at least as good as. . . my. . .” Eileen trailed off, focusing on the cargo stacked farther back behind the ElectroMedic. “. . . mother.”

Beer. Blutzheimer’s. Cases of bottles, rows of kegs. Thousands of gallons of beer.

“Bertie!”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Half the flippin’ cargo hold is full of beer!”

“Yep, right about half. You got a good eye, honey. Say, could you grab me one since ya’s near it? These robots are takin’ forever.”

Eileen grabbed a bottle, held it by the neck like a war club for a moment. Exhaled and relaxed. “I notice you also bought an AutoBrewer. Why are we bringing half of Milwaukee with us?”

“‘Cause I planned ahead, Eileen.” Bertie took the Blutzheimer’s from her white-knuckled fist with a bit of a tug. “That Brewer gizmo ain’t gonna do nothin’ until we grow it some hops and wheat and stuff. Or barley, maybe. It’s in the manual. Anyways, we got no beer until we get a good crop of beer stuff. So I bought a bunch of Blutz! Free shipping, too. Salesmen today, don’t know nothin’. Plus—Get this, it’s genius! We save the bottles, so’s we can use ‘em again. It’s a very efficient system, Eileen.” He twisted the cap off, pocketed it, took a long pull from the bottle.

“Can it make wine? Did you even bring grapes?”

“Well. . .sure, honey. I mean, I’m pretty sure I did.” Bertie shrugged. “Anyways, I’m sure one of the guys got some. Sal must’ve, right? Vera likes her wine, if ya know what I mean.”

“I like my wine! Order grape seeds, Bertie. Now! I’m not kidding here!”

“Okay, okay, don’t get sore, honey. I’ll call the FarmAssist guy right now.” Bertie suddenly grinned wide. “But get this! We’ll put the wine in the Blutz bottles, too! You gals will look just like us guys at the big Weekly Mars Barbeque!”

“So this is Mars,” Eileen fumed. “Mars, Pennsylvania. I told you to just let me drive.”

“Criminey, look at ‘em, honey.” Bertie popped open a fresh bottle of Blutzheimer’s. “You’da thunk they never saw a spaceship before.”

“Probably not in the middle of an arts and crafts faire, no.” Eileen’s arms locked each other in a deathgrip. “Hand me the spaceship manual. And go out there and buy me a gingham dress or something.”

“You already brought the weddin’ dress, honey.”

“Gingham. Go out there. Axe around.” She held out a hand, still glaring at the cockpit window. “Manual.”

“So this is Mars.” Eileen released the yoke, flipped switches in sequence to safely shut down the Conestoga Six. “Second try’s the charm, right?”

“Got that right, honey!” Bertie scrambled out of the copilot chair. “Time to set up the grill!”

“I’ll just be a minute, sweetie.” Eileen smoothed the folds of the gingham dress, examined the price tag and smiled. “Can you get your own beer?”

“You bet! Ritchie’n me are gonna set up the barbeque. Harry’s got the frankfurters!” Bertie disappeared into the cargo hold.

“Vera.” Eileen thumbed the radiophone. “You there?”

“Yeah.” Vera sounded even more exasperated than Eileen. “Sal’s already unpacking the cookout stuff. He brought horseshoes and a croquet set, you believe that? And lawn darts! Lawn darts!”

“I believe it.”

“He took his rifle out, at least. It had a wasp nest in it, one of those mud-wasp things. Those ones that spit up dirt?”

“Yeah.” Eileen opened the farming manual. “I hate those. You been readin’ the manuals?”

“Yeah, ex-specially the spaceship manual. I got it lookin’ around for hippaloes now.” Eileen heard the gurgle of a beer swig. “I hate this Blutzheimer’s stuff, tastes like flippin’ laundry water. Anyways, the spaceship says they ain’t no hippaloes around.”

“Okay.” Eileen relaxed, contemplated and rejected a Blutzheimer’s bottle of her own. “Let’s get together with Barbara and Marge and get organized while the guys have their beers and lawn darts.”

“Barbara saw what Harry was orderin’ from the beer store. She got a pallet of Lunar Zinfandel added on. And Marge made sure her wine glasses was packed on top.”

“Barbara and Marge. I love ‘em. I’ll meet you by the grill.”

Frankfurters sizzled on the grill, buns slowly toasted at the edges, kraut bubbled and steamed in a cook pot. The guys had eagerly set up the lawn dart target rings and were choosing sides. Blutzheimer’s bottles clinked.

“So Vera.” Eileen held her wineglass in interwoven fingers. “You got the hippalo thingamabob all figured out?”

“Yeah. It’s the chapter about intruder alerts and intrusion defense, or some such guff. Anyways, it’s workin’. Says we got no big threats around. Except those man-apes.” Vera rolled her eyes as the guys began lobbing lawn darts, beers in hand.

“What about water?” Eileen looked to Barbara. “You said you had that one figured out.”

“Took a bit, but yeah.” Barbara sipped the Zinfandel delicately. “It was in the Mars Colony stuff, not the spaceship stuff. The homestead thingy that’s got all our acreage in it, it says we got water about fifty feet down.”

“Fifty feet!” Eileen slapped a palm to her forehead. “How’re we gonna dig down fifty feet with pickaxes and post-holers?”

“We’re not gonna,” Marge asserted. “They are.” She looked to the guys, now collecting lawn darts for the next round. Four empty Blutzheimer bottles were already scattered around the bright plastic target rings. “Barbara told me about the water thing. I did figure out how we could maybe rig a drill and water pump from one’a the spaceships. It’ll ruin the engine, but we ain’t goin’ back anyways, are we?”

“We gonna tell the guys?” Eileen raised an eyebrow.

“Sure,” Vera answered. “Once they’re about ten feet down.”

“Holy smokes, will ya’s look at that!” Bertie was pointing at the unmowed future cropland. The bright blue fins of a two-pound lawn dart were zipping back and forth, cutting a zigzag furrow in the grass and throwing a rooster-tail of reddish Martian soil. “Eileen! Did you pack the rat traps? We got moles!”

The ElectroMedics dithered and fussed over the wives as the first babies came due. Outside, the guys held unlit cigars and open Blutzheimer’s as they looked out over the scraggly brown crops.

“I tell ya, guys,” Bertie gloated, “It don’t get better’n this.”

“Yup.”

“Yepper.”

“You got that right.”

“New babies bein’ born, farms up and runnin’, happy wives what love us.”

“Yup.”

“Yepper.”

“You got that right.”

“Plus, we got each other. War buddies! Buddies forever.”

“Amen to that!” Clink-clink-clink.

One of the ElectroMedics appeared at the doorway, spoke to Bertie. “Sir, it is a boy.”

Another ElectroMedic, this one Harry’s. “Sir, it is a girl.”

Another, Ritchie’s. “Sir, it is a girl.”

Sal’s. “Sir, it is a boy.”

“Stogie time, boys!” Bertie crowed. Lighters sparked, cigars flared. He raised his Blutz bottle. “To us!”

“To us!” In chorus.

“Bertie!” Eileen called from inside. “He’s African or something!”

“Harry!” Barbara shrieked. “Our little girl is Asian!”

“Riiiiitchie.” Marge drew it out, low and menacing. “Why am I looking at a little Hispanic girl?”

“Sal.” Vera’s voice was firm and steady. “We are the proud parents of a flippin’ Viking! Blonde hair! Blue eyes! He looks just like. . . just like. . . absolutely nobody in either of our flippin’ families! Get in here!”

Bertie dragged his toe in the neatly mown grass, studied his beer bottle, spoke sheepishly to the guys. “So, none of ya’s read the fine print on the Sampler Special either?”

“Guys, we got a hippalo,” Vera said over the radiophone, more than a little alarmed. “It’s getting’ into the tomaters.”

“Eileen!” Bertie bellowed. “Where’s that rhino-blaster?”

“Right here, sweetie.” Eileen had the manual tucked into her apron pocket, blaster in hands. She handed Bertie the bulky weapon. It still had the price sticker covering the trigger. “Here, let me get that first.” She scraped the tag expertly away with a thumbnail.

Outside, Harry and Ritchie had their War rifles at port arms, while Sal shook dirt and wasp legs out of his. “Mine ain’t gonna work, guys. I’m getting’ the chainsaw.” He jogged to his spaceship.

“All right, guys,” Bertie grinned. “Open fire on my command. This’ll be just like the War days, boys!”

“Yup.”

“Yepper!”

“Fire!” The two War rifles volleyed. Shots glanced off the hippalo’s thick hide, getting its attention. Bertie sighted down the barrels of the RayBuchet and pulled the trigger.

Click.

“Eileen! I need the gun manual!”

Harry and Ritchie poured more shots into the hippalo. It snorted, pawed the ground, lowered massive horns.

Sal sprinted back to the group with his ancient chainsaw, pulling the starter cord as he ran. “It ain’t firin’ up! It ain’t firin’ up!”

“I got the manual right here, Bertie!” Eileen held it aloft. “I’ll read it to ya!”

“Extend choke. . . Press primer button three times. . .” Sal was reading the half-peeled instruction sticker on the saw. “Pull start cord until engine fires. . . I flippin’ did that! It ain’t firin’ up!”

“Eileen! I think it’s getting’ ready ta charge, that thing.”

“Okay, Bertie, okay.” Eileen scanned a finger down the quick-start page. “One, insert battery.”

“I done that.”

“Two. Press the charge button to charge the capacitors.”

“What button’s that?”

“The charge button.” Eileen looked up momentarily. “Says it’s right by the triggers.”

“Okay, found it.” Bertie pressed the recessed stud. “It’s goin’ from red. . . t’yeller. . . green! It’s green, Eileen!” He raised the weapon again, aimed at the snorting hippalo.

“Hold on, Bertie, not yet!” Eileen held up the manual, pointing at a page. “Says you gotta take off the safety. It’s the flippy thing by ya thumb, honey!”

“Okay, found it. Anything else?”

The hippalo, enraged by Ritchie and Harry’s War rifles, charged full-bore. The ground began to shake as it thundered closer.

“Yeah, this is important.” Eileen traced a finger across the manual again. “Says for really big game, you oughta pull both triggers. For maximum stopping power. Then hit the charger button again, right away, in case ya’s need another shot.”

“Okay! Thanks, honey, I think I got it now.” Bertie sighted down the barrels again, fired. The RayBuchet boomed and kicked hard, throwing Bertie onto his backside. Both shots hit the charging beast square-on.

The dead hippalo plowed face-first through the crops, digging a two-yard-wide furrow until a horn suddenly dug in, bringing it to a spinning stop nearly at Bertie’s feet.

“Look at that, will ya.” Bertie smiled up at Eileen. “Cool as a cucumber. Them old War reflexes, they stay with ya y’whole life, am I right?”

Eileen tucked the manual under one arm, pressed her face into the other hand. “Bertie. . .”

“Well!” Bertie stood up, dusted the seat of his trousers. “Who’s up for beers?”

“Yepper!”

“You got that right!”

“Eureka!” Sal crowed as the chainsaw roared to life. “I got it!”

Two dozen children of every color scampered around the yard, the oldest adolescents keeping the toddlers corralled away from the crops. The wives kept eyes on them as well.

“Sears! Put that down, sweetheart. It’s dirty. And sharp!”

“Roebuck! I told you to share! Give that ball back now! Now!”

This season’s crops flourished yet again, thanks to Marge’s pumping and irrigation system, cobbled from spaceship parts and incorporating the old-timey hand-cranked water pump thingy for good measure. Corn cobs the size of fireplace logs. Tomatoes the size of basketballs. At the edge of the farmstead, ten-foot-high grapevines formed a tough protective fence.

Near the big barbeque grill, the Rockola—brought back to life by Eileen and Barbara—belted out classic boogie-woogie and blues.

The guys, Blutz bottles in hand, lobbed lawn darts at suspected moles. The latest batch of Margeheimers slopped from the necks with each throw.

“Got ‘im! Got ‘im!”

“Good throw, Bertie!”

“Criminey, look at that little fella go!”

“He’s goin’ right—Got ‘im again!”

“He’s gonna go left, I tell ya!”

“Got ‘im! I think that’s it for that little guy.”

“Great throw, Sal.”

“I think there’s another one by the tomatoes. C’mon, guys!”

Eileen, Barbara, Vera, and Marge sipped the latest batch of wine from real wineglasses. Cupcakes baked from last season’s crop were stacked high on a platter.

“I tell ya, girls,” Eileen raised her glass. “It don’t get better’n this. To us.”

“To us!” In chorus.

The hippalo alarm beeped. Third time this season. All four wives sighed in annoyance, reached into their dress pockets.

“I got this one,” Eileen said. “It’s my turn anyways.”

Eileen fished out the small plastic box with its single big red button. She set her wineglass on the neatly-trimmed grass and extended the box’s telescoping radio antenna. One eyebrow arched dramatically as she thumbed the button.

Flash and thunder, a surprised bellow from the hippalo, cut short by the explosion just outside the grapevine barricade. The homemade landmines, cobbled together by Vera from Sal’s old War manual, worked perfectly yet again. Wineglasses clinked.

“Good one, honey!” from Bertie. The guys raised the Blutz bottles in salute to the wine-and-cupcakes wives. “I think you dropped it right by the gate!”

“Thank you, sweetie. Now, can you go haul it in for dinner, please?”

“Aw, c’mon Eileen, we’re right in the middle of a really close game—”

“Bertie! Put the lawn darts down. Put ‘em down! Now!”

“Okay, okay. Criminey, don’t get all sore.” Bertie set the lawn darts down. “C’mon, guys, gimme a hand.”

The wives surveyed their herd of children lovingly. Eileen raised her glass again.

“Life is good, am I right?”

“To us!”

Wineglasses chimed as the sun set. Another beautiful day on Mars.

The author and his wife live at anchor aboard a 33-foot sailboat. Solar panels and wind provide their energy. Isolation and eccentric interaction both feed creativity out there on the water.

These is the message where We inform you that the economy is bad, readership (while strong for us) isn’t quite making the bills, and Decisions Have To Be Made. In short, with tomorrow morning’s story, the experiment known as RGR 2.0 will be complete. To quote Dave Grohl, “Without making a big deal out of it, we don’t have any (stories) after this. This is it, man. Honestly I don’t know when we’re gonna do it again…and this is the perfect place to do it.”

The Overlords started Ray Gun Revival magazine in 2006 in a wave of post-Firefly enthusiasm. We’re still in love with Space Opera and Golden Age Sci-Fi, and there’s still room for stories like these. We’re simply run out of resources to share more of them just right now.

So what’s the story? I wish it was something glamorous like juicy Overlord in-fighting or stepping aside to resume our recurring feud with that hack Ming the Merciless, but the truth is far more pedestrian: we’re losing money. Our gracious publisher, Every Day Publishing,  has been exceedingly supportive but has been taking a loss since we started a year ago February. Grand expansion plans never quite coalesced, and while we did publish some exciting content by some up-and-coming stars and some established heavyweights, the traffic never grew enough to put us in the black and we never quite achieved the critical success which might have changed enough of these components to stay closure. We had grand plans of selling merch and compiling books for Kindle and Nook, however, time and events conspired against us. Lee has been dealing with a life-threatening illness in her family (among other things), and Paul and I have both seen a marked increase in responsibility and required time / effort for our day jobs. Utterly pedestrian, but there it is.

In short, we’re running on empty, and despite bringing in some really solid support in the form of our first Overseer (Keanan Brand), phenomenal big-name interviews and serial novel publication from Bryan Thomas Schmidt, and the services of more slushpile editors (Slushmasters), we couldn’t get enough things going to increase our readership enough to keep paying authors at the rates to which we have become accustomed. While we could have returned to more modest token payments, I wouldn’t do that to our Slushmasters nor our readers.

That’s not for lack of trying. Slushmaster Anton Gully, in particular, really carried this publication for the longest time with the sort of truly devoted service which one wouldn’t normally expect from the wisecracking undead. And when Lee and I were frankly burned out, Paul Glenn and Keanan Brand stepped in to propel us forward.

However, it wasn’t enough, and that’s the bottom line.

So the final story for RGR 2.0 will run tomorrow morning. I’m very proud of Mike Roberts. We’ve had any number of friends who have threatened to ‘send us something,’ and as you may suspect, most of them never panned out. But Mike has chops and grit and this is, I believe, the second story of his which has won a sale. Well done.

We do have some ideas to do before we go radio silent. During this our last week, I thought it would be fun to get as many RGR staff and readers together over in a Google+ RGR hangout to field questions, tell stories, talk about space opera, and hatch new schemes for the future. I’m looking at Friday night as a possibility. Stay tuned here and to the usual social networking sources for further information.

This is where I’d like to thank Jordan Ellinger, Camille Gooderham Campbell, and Steven Smethurst from Every Day Fiction / Every Day Publishing. They believed in us when we were looking for a home, and put up real money and much time to fund and host and operate Ray Gun Revival 2.0. I mean, who can forget the masterful teaser trailer they wrote and produced? I still want to see what happens next!

Thanks to Anton Gully, Steven Wilson, James King, Walter Rosenfeld, and all our other Slushmasters. Steven has been with us since a year ago February serving faithfully as his busy schedule permitted, and Anton practically carried the slushpile for many months. I am convinced there is nothing Anton does not know (‘nothing he does not know? I feel there’s a double-negative there…).  Anton’s knowledge of the genre is encyclopedic, his love for story is evident, and his wry sense of humor is unmatched. If you ever need a reader – editor, you can’t do better than Steve or Anton.

Special thanks to Keanan Brand for stepping in and acting as a 4th voice of reason when we needed help corresponding with our authors, and to James King for 11th hour Slushmastering. It’s been a real delight to work with both of them.

So let’s talk about what’s happening. RGR won’t be publishing new stories for the foreseeable future, however, that doesn’t mean our stories are going away. Our publisher has expressed interest in keeping the site up and continue host the stories. This is good news and means readers will continue to be able to find and explore and enjoy the many great stories published during the RGR 2.0 tenure.

Technically, the Overlords and Ray Gun Revival are going on hiatus — we’re not going away forever, we’re just going to take a break and watch the digital publishing revolution take shape. For now, we are going to let Real Life™ develop a little. We’ll still be available via the usual social networking options. While we’re on hiatus, if you have any ideas for RGR 3.0, please hatch them up good and proper. At this time, we do intend to return in a year or three, and we want to take it up a notch when we do and take a run at the big time. Maybe we can form a kickstarter to fund the first year of pro-rate stories and come out of the gate with new content and paid cover art for Amazon / B&N sales. (I’m not actually allergic to making money for the publication, I’m just not very practiced at it.)

So that’s it for now. Again, many thanks to Jordan and Camille and EDF – they have been staunch supporters and great peers and I recommend them without reservation. If you have any questions we can answer, feel free to contact us on our Facebook page or get us at usual e-mail address, or privately at Johne Cook  / L. S. King / Paul Christian Glenn.

Finally, we’re hatching an idea to take RGR 2.0 out with a literal bang with a Google+ hangout later this week – more on that as plans coalesce. So for now, one last mwahahahaha!

Thanks seems so thin a sentiment to describe the deep and abiding appreciation we feel for you all and our readers, but there it is. Thanks, from the bottom of our dark and twisted genre-loving hearts.

The Ray Gun Revival Overlords,
Johne Cook / L. S. King / Paul Christian Glenn

by B. Morris Allen

Previously:

Humans used their only advantage—FTL drive—to hide from the aggressively violent Mechanics and their high-G-force ships. Perpiphery Scout Anjica Zelnov was mapping the edge of Mechanic space when she detected a human radio signal—from inside the aliens’ territory. The signal suggested the existence of a working Esmith drive—a drive that would allow humans to fight the Mechanics on fair terms.  She followed the signal to investigate a dark asteroid deep in an enemy solar system.

On the asteroid, she found a centuries-old Esmith test ship, and learned that the automated ship had inadvertently starting the long war between Mechanics and humans. Deep in Mechanic space, she cannibalized her own ship to jury-rig an FTL drive for the Esmith ship, and escaped into hyperspace just as the Mechanics caught up with her.

Part III

She was sitting at the bar when the bombs began to fall. “I knew this would happen,” she said as terror broke out in the Seltzer nightclub and customers and performers alike rushed for the exits. Anjica shook her graying hair sadly and slid off her stool, plump belly jiggling slightly as her short legs bent with the landing. “So much for the Engsson barrier.”

The Mechanics had gotten better at war since methodically wiping out Frexi colony a century before. Humans, though, had stuck with hiding and hoping not to be found. A strategy, mused Anjica, that had always been certain to fail. She’d spent the last ten years telling Norbeq system and its Council why, to no effect. Arriving from Mechanic space in a jury-rigged faster-than-light ship had brought her credibility, but not urgency.

And now the Mechanics were here. While they traveled at slower than light, their artificial bodies afforded them immunity to acceleration. At close quarters, they could out-pace and out-maneuver human ships with ease. Norbeq had trusted to time and the Engsson barrier, a last ditch defense that disrupted electrical activity in ships entering the system. Ironically, the Council’s public relations campaign had been more effective than its defense strategy. The public thought they’d gotten good protection on the cheap. The devastation now showing on the vid gave the lie to both.

How to get to the port? she wondered. Room for maybe one. Whom to take? In the end, emotion won out over practicality, though not by much.

“Hey Tark!” she called out. “Where’d you go? Show yourself, man.”

Slowly, a man’s wan face appeared from behind the bar, dragging with it a handsome, smoothly muscled body. “That you, Anjica?”

“Of course it is,” she snorted derisively. “You were hiding behind the bar so the Mechs don’t get you? Time to go.”

“Go where?” he asked. “The Mechanics are here, Anji. They’ll do us like they did Frexi, in no time flat.”

“Not if I have my way. I’ve got a ship, remember?” The question was rhetorical. Anjica’s dramatic arrival in Norbeq system a generation before had made her a system-wide heroine and media sensation.

“A ship won’t help us,” Tark replied, dejected. “You know that. Whoever was out there with a charged up FTL drive escaped. Anyone else has already been hunted down. Mechanics are just too fast.” He shook his head. “Best to accept it. Now, if the Council had finished production on the Esmith ships, we’d have a chance. But they haven’t, and you know that too.” The status of new combat ships based on the ‘interialess’ Esmith drive Anjica had brought with her in her mad dash out of Mechanic space thirty years before was a regular staple of newscasts. The last reports had shown the ships still months from their first trials.

Anjica twisted her lips in disgust. “They would have been ready, if the Council hadn’t insisted on all-new ships. I told them that, when I arrived.” Her voice shook with anger. “Damn it, they knew the Mechanics were less than thirty light years away. I came from there. We could have had retrofitted cruisers ready three years ago.”

Tark grinned, suddenly. “Want to go say ‘I told you so’ before we all get slaughtered?”

She chuckled. “Not exactly. But I have a ship, Tark. An Esmith ship. We can get out of here alive.”

Comprehension dawned. “Let’s go.”

Half an hour later, they arrived at the spaceport in Tark’s air-car. While Tark had piloted them nervously through the chaotic traffic above the city, Anjica had flipped from station to station, gathering what news was to be had. The attack consisted of three Mechanic ships. After passing through the Engsson barrier at high speed, each had taken a different course. One had sailed right through the system without stopping, its systems apparently disrupted by the barrier and unable to reboot in time to decelerate. A second had recovered more quickly, but had suffered a damaging collision during entry, partially disabling the ship, and allowing slow but well-armed human cruisers to destroy it. So far, admitted Anjica grudgingly, a resounding success for the Engsson barrier. The third ship, however, had begun evasive action immediately on entry. It had had made quick work of destroying the human ships, and then started a rapid but methodical attack on the system’s only habitable planet. Already it had hit most of the major population centers. A mid-sized town like Brianston wouldn’t be far behind, and the chaos in the streets showed that the population knew it.

Abandoning Tark’s aircar at the edge of the landing field, the mismatched pair ran now towards Anjica’s ship, a smooth teardrop of metal dwarfed by the huge trio of engines that buttressed its sides.

“I got the ship back from the Council once they’d analyzed the drives,” puffed Anjica, dropping into a jog. “I named it, too.”

“Good,” replied younger, fitter Tark more smoothly. “Every ship should have a name. What did you. . .” his voice trailed off as they passed the ship’s rearmost engine and curved in towards the airlock.

“You didn’t.” His voice expressed disbelief.

“What?” she asked, still panting. “Every ship should have a name, someone once said.”

“Yes, but. . .” he gestured vaguely upwards, towards the hull above, where, in vivid, iridescent letters, someone had painted Vavoom!

“What can I say? It looks like a child’s idea of a spaceship, so it got a childish name. Besides,” she smiled. “I like it.”

“You and your midlife crisis, maybe. Why not paint it red as well?”

“Couldn’t afford it.” They both laughed. Anjica might be many things, but after her media exposure years ago, poor was not one of them.

“Now, get up there. One Mechanic is more than enough. He’s focusing on population centers now, but who knows when he’ll wise up and hit the ports as well. Just as well your club is in a rundown part of town.”

“Hey! Discreet and selective, we like to call it.” He followed her rapidly up the access ladder nonetheless.

“Wait here,” she said, climbing through the lock. “Follow me in when the light here shows green.” She tapped an indicator before closing the lock behind her.

Inside, the ship was cramped, with barely space for the command couch directly before her. Behind and to both sides of the couch were closed panels, while above it the ceiling of the small compartment was lined entirely with viewscreens. Anjica crawled onto the couch, lay on her back and started flipping switches.

“Holy hell,” came Tark’s voice as the airlock cycled open again. “You told me the ship was small, but this is ridiculous. How the hell are we both going to fit?”

“You should have seen the ship when I first brought it in. There was even less space in here then. This thing was an automated trial ship, you know, never intended for human occupancy. All I had was a minimal control set and what I could jury rig from my scoutship’s supplies.” Part of Anjica’s legend was the ingenious way that she had installed a jury-rigged FTL drive cannibalized from her scout ship, and brought the (then nameless) Esmith ship back to human space.

“When I got rich, I ripped out a lot of the old telemetry equipment, installed a full autopilot, life support, and a top quality miniaturized autodoc.” She smiled as she continued an abbreviated takeoff checklist. “And a commode. Another thing this ship didn’t have. Funny how the media never mention just how awful the ship and I smelled and looked when we got here. Talk about being in deep shit.”

Tark smiled. “But seriously, Anji. How am I going to fit?”

She sobered and stopped her checklist momentarily. “Seriously? You have two choices. You can sit in the airlock with both doors closed. Or you can sit in the toilet.” She gestured to a large panel on her right. “Later, after we get out of the system, you can lie under me on the couch. Or on top of me.” She winked.

“You’re joking!”

She shrugged and went back to her list. “I’m not, Tark. It’s that or die. It’s that simple.” She looked down at him. “I brought you because I think there’s room, and because we have a little history.” She sighed. “And because you had an aircar handy. That’s the ugly truth of it.”

He nodded slowly, then smiled slightly. “You’ve always been brutally honest. Why stop now?” He chuckled. “Well, should I stay here, or. . .?”

“I think you’re best off in the john, actually. This is a test vehicle, and that airlock wasn’t really designed for use. To be honest, I’m not sure why the ship even has one. But I can’t take off with either door open, so it might be a little claustrophobic. I think you’ll be safest and most comfortable in the toilet.” She gestured again to the panel. “Or we can call it the shower, if you want. It serves both purposes.”

“Oh, by all means, then, let’s call it the shower. Though if I get scared enough, it may serve both purposes. I’m not a hero like you.” He grinned. Despite her celebrated exploits, Anjica had never presented herself as a hero.

“Okay. Slide in across me, then, and get comfortable.” She slid aside the access panel, disclosing a bright, smoothly lined space with chromed outlets in the flat ceiling and drains in the floor below.

As the man jackknifed awkwardly into the small space feet first, she added with concern, “The Esmith drive is effective, Tark, but it’s not perfect, and that’s no command couch. We may experience up to four gravities, so expect to be pretty uncomfortable.”

His head passed her midriff and he began trying to push himself upright in the shower space. “Well gosh, Anji, that’s downright nice to hear.”

“We need time for the FTL drive to charge, so we’ll probably have some tricky maneuvering for a few minutes. I think you’ll be lucky to get out of this with a few broken bones.” Her voice was grim. “But you’ll be alive, and the autodoc can fix you up. I’m more concerned about life support. I installed the best of the best, but the ship is designed for one. Still,” she continued in a determinedly optimistic voice, “I think we’ll make it. Now get settled. I’m taking off. Centauri, here we come.”

As she spoke, a loud rumble sounded in the near distance.

“Uh oh,” she said softly.

“That was Brianston, wasn’t it?” Tark grimaced.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Bad for us, too, since it means the Mech is watching the area. And because the blast will hit us any minute. Now hold on.” With a roar that drowned out even the bombs outside, the Vavoom! took off.

“So far, so good,” Anjica said, as the ship, already at an appreciable percentage of light speed, accelerated toward ecliptic north. “Now if we can just hold on for evasive maneuvers.” She reached for a control key.

Before she touched it, the ship was skewed harshly to one side, metal screeching bitterly as support struts tore somewhere below them. Red lights flickered on the control board as she finally punched the key and the ship slewed sideways into a roll. An anguished cry came from the shower.

“No!” She paled. “No, no, no.”

A trembling voice came from the shower. “Didn’t they teach you any curse words back in Centauri?” Tark’s pale face poked out of the cubby. “I’ve got a broken leg, by the way. Very painful, and I think I’m highly likely to go into shock.” He smiled wanly. “How are things with you?”

Anjica ignored him, hands racing over the controls,

“Anji, did you hear me? I have a broken leg.” Tark’s voice edged toward a whine.

“I heard you. Shut up.” Her voice was harsh as she continued to run status checks.

“What?” Tark’s cry of surprise subsided as he took in the flashing lights and Anjica’s determined mien. “Right. I’ll just wait here and suffer quietly.” He grabbed the edge of the shower compartment as the ship changed direction yet again.

At last, Anjica’s motion slowed, and she looked down. Her expression was empty.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tark after several minutes had passed in silence. His head bounced against the shower wall as the ship turned again. There was no answer, and he asked again, more insistently.

She looked over at him with dead eyes. “We’re screwed, Tark, that’s what.” She laughed harshly. “And not in a good way, either.”

“Well, now that’s too bad,” replied Tark. “I was kind of looking forward to some of that good stuff when I join you on the couch later. Of course, if you’re saying the autodoc is broken, I’m not sure this leg is going to be able to take it. Could be a long, painful trip out-system, though. Maybe I’ll pass out,” he added hopefully.

Her lips twisted. “The autodoc is fine, Tark.”

“No problem, then.”

“But it’s still going to be a painful trip.” She swallowed. “The FTL drive is toast. We’re not going outsystem.”

“What do you mean, toast? As in nicely warmed up and ready to go?”

“As in dead. You probably know . . . Well, anyway, FTL ships have a web of conductors built into the hull. They set up a field and that’s how the whole ship comes with the engines when they jump.” She leaned forward to check that he was following. He seemed to be, eyes wide, arms braced hard against the sides of the shower as the ship continued to gyrate unpredictably. “When I took this ship from the Mechanics, you know I had to jury rig the FTL drive. That included the conduction web. I did it with cable and conductive paint.” She paused, remembering. “I really didn’t expect it to work, and I made the shortest jump I could.” She shook her head, bringing herself back to the present.

“Anyway, when I got the ship back from the Council, I replaced the web with something more durable. But it wasn’t practical to rebuild the hull, so the new web is still on the outside. Whatever that bastard just hit us with damaged the web. We can’t jump.”

Tark frowned. “Well, it can’t all be gone, right? The ship is still in one piece. Let’s just make a short jump.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t work that way. The web can sustain some damage and still function, but there has to be a certain minimum of coverage. We’ve lost connections all down the port side. If we jump now, part the ship won’t come with us.” Her lips quirked. “And that includes the part with the shower. But I guarantee you, neither of us would survive.” Actually, she mused it was conceivable, if unlikely, that, with a suit on, she could survive the jump after all. No need to tell Tark about that, though. And she would still very probably run out of air before reaching civilization.

“Well, let’s fix it then. Use wires and paint like you did last time.” His voice was hopeful.

“You think I didn’t think of that?” Frustration burst out of her. “For one thing, we don’t have wires or paint. For another, you may have noticed that we’re darting around the system at half the speed of light and at incredible acceleration.” Her eyes flashed. “Even if we could get out side, the Esmith field extends only barely past the hull in places. Outside that, regular physics applies. You want to be squashed like a grape, you go right ahead.”

There was silence from the shower, followed by a dull thud as the ship shifted direction again.

“Actually,” came Tark’s quiet voice, “I’m getting pretty grape-like in here. At least, I think that’s what the purple color means. Could just be bruises, though.”

Anjica smiled despite herself. Tark was, after all, a nightclub owner, not a pilot. Perhaps some of these things were less obvious to him.

“So,” he asked at last, “what are our options?”

Anjica focused again. “Not many, to be honest. And you know me,” she smiled. “Brutally honest.”

“Sitting here in your torture device, I vouch for the brutality.” The attempt at humor was weakly delivered, as movements of the ship banged him roughly against the walls.

“We can keep dancing around the system, hoping he’ll get tired of chasing us. Worked for me for about an hour when I stole the ship, once they realized I had it. And maybe once this guy gives up, we can hide out somewhere. An asteroid, maybe. Worked last time, and these guys are slow learners.”

“Okay. Let’s do that.” Tark’s voice was tired.

Anjica sighed. She hadn’t mentioned that last time she had come very close to being caught. Had in fact been struck several times by energy weapons. Too bad, she thought, this Mechanic came loaded with bombs. The ship was unlikely to survive another hit.

“Plus,” added Tark. “While he’s chasing us, maybe other people are getting away.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to her. She was harder-hearted than Tark, she realized again. He might even be a better person than her. Probably one of the things she found attractive.

“Okay,” she agreed. “But remember, you are going to get really banged up in there. I didn’t expect you to be in there for more than an hour.”

“Funny,” he replied sadly. “I recall you talking minutes.”

“What can I say? I had to sell you on it somehow.”

“It’s no use,” said Anjica several hours later through gritted teeth. “I’ve got the ship programmed for evasive maneuvers, and it reacts faster than I do. But the fact is that even with the Esmith drive, he’s more maneuverable than we are. If only I had started maneuvers sooner. We were so close!”

“We can’t go on like this,” groaned Tark as another sharp turn slammed him hard against a wall. “At least, I can’t. I’ve added a broken collarbone to my collection. And my nose.” His voice quavered as blood continued to stream from his nose, painting his face red, and soaking into his shirt. “I can’t take much more.” His voice broke at last, and tears spilled from his eyes, leaving faint trails on his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Anji. I told you I’m not cut out for this.” He began to sob.

Her tense, angry face softened, and she reached out to touch his shoulder. He winced and pulled away as she touched one of many bruises. Minutes went by, and he gradually quieted, only moaning softly as hard turns came with greater regularity.

“I’m sorry, Tark. I really thought we could make it. I wanted you with me.” A corner of her mouth twisted up. “It wasn’t just because of your aircar. Really.”

His chuckle was cut short by the pain of broken ribs. “I know, Anji. I love you, you know. Have for years.” He gingerly poked his head out to look into her eyes. “But I can’t do this. I wish. . .” he faltered. “I wish you’d left me.” Tears welled up in his eyes again. “I’m sorry you had to see me like this. Next time,” he attempted a smile, “pick up a hero on your way out the door.”

“Well, you know, Tark.” She looked back at the controls. “Space is limited. A standard-issue hero wouldn’t have fit.”

The ship jolted sharply and suddenly sideways with a scream of metal. There was a matching, human, scream from the shower.

Another jolt threw Anjica’s body up hard against the retaining straps, aggravating flesh already heavily bruised. With no such protection, she heard Tark slammed against the ceiling, and flinched in sympathy. He was already so badly hurt. . . Jaw clenched, she pressed a control key, and the ship immediately launched into a new and wrenching pattern of evasive gyrations. Anjica winced at the sounds of Tark banging around in the shower compartment.

“Nearly got us that time, buddy.” She tried to make her voice bright. “We may want to move to a nicer neighbourhood. Looks like we lost an engine.”

There was no response.

“Tark?” she called out. “Don’t do this to me, man. I brought you along for company, you know. You think I want to be all alone here with a Mechanic? Been there, done that.” There was no sound but the dull thud of a body hitting the walls with each surge of acceleration.

At last, in a brief lull between turns, she raised her head and torso to look into the shower compartment. Blood was everywhere, streaked down the smooth walls, and pooling on the floor. Tark sat sprawled in one corner, head tilted back. His jaw was shattered and hung loosely down, teeth poking jaggedly into emptiness. The flesh above them had been torn to shreds. She closed her eyes briefly. Best to know, though, she thought. Best to know. She looked back again. What remained of Tark’s nose was now flattened into his face, septum forced back hard into the soft tissue beyond. Only his eyes, open and dull, were largely clear of blood.

She lay back, shaking. Tears threatened again, and she forced them back, jaw clenching with the effort. Focus on anger, she thought, use that. Gradually her body calmed. Finally, as a chill swept through her, her thoughts, always precise, become preternaturally clear.

So, she considered, the FTL drive was broken and irreparable. The Esmith drive was functional, but not a match for the Mechanic chasing her. Tark was. . . Brutally honest, she reminded herself. Tark was dead. She herself could last for only perhaps a quarter hour more before the Mechanic finally caught her. The bastards weren’t good at war, but they were thorough. She had no weapons.

Or did she? She thought back. Mechanics were incompetent fighters, new at the game, despite their apparently implacable hatred for humans. They were slow learners, as well, picking up human tricks only slowly.

“Well here’s one you may not have seen before, then.” She smiled bitterly as she reprogrammed the autopilot. When she pressed down the final command key, the ship threw itself into a long and chaotic series of twists and turns, before finally accelerating at full power down a straight line.

“Vavoom, you bastard,” she muttered grimly. “Va—fucking—voom.”

She had a drive like lightning when she arrived in Norbeq system with a ship stolen from the Mechanics. She was a crash like thunder across the galaxy when she gave it back.

B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that moved around the world.  He’s still moving, and the books are multiplying like mad.

http://www.metaphorosis.com

by Andy Dudak

Hope Fire Home fell into synchronous orbit of Hip 263c with a sense of anticipation she hadn’t known in a million subjective years. The surface below was a blasted, dun-colored waste, but it contained something precious. Only a century ago she had crossed into the expanding radio wave front that betrayed the existence of this prize. She had decelerated in a bath of political theater and sexual melodrama. She had quickly deciphered the languages and begun transmitting her message of peaceful commerce, her admonition to hold on and not self-destruct.

Hip 263c had still shone aquamarine then. She had dared to hope she’d come in time: the humans had broadcasted. Perhaps they had not yet gone Post, or destroyed themselves. How long had she searched? How many diaspora worlds had she found sterilized by war, or consumed by an autistic hive mind? She had chosen to expunge the numbers—but still she felt the weight of her long quest.

Then, long before her signals reached them, came their global war—a coda of military chatter for their brief radio legacy. A long silence followed, as she continued to fall and hope. She simulated post-war scenarios and mused endlessly on turnover. She had never been this close. If they were all dead, she didn’t know what she would do. Follow their example and destroy herself? She turned once more inward: there in the cores of her wise-matter were guilt and shame and regret, algorithms that both degraded and prompted her. They thrived on her margins, near the aching void within her.

She woke again when it was time for a response to her transmissions. She slow-thought through the suspense and years flashed by. She had crossed Hip 263′s heliopause when the reply finally came: a faint signal, fearful and religious in nature.

Only light-hours away, she answered them: “I am not a god. I am a starship built by your remote ancestors. I mean you no harm. I wish to propose an exchange that will benefit us both.”

Their next messages were varied and confused: was this a test? What ancestors did she mean exactly? They didn’t seem to know there had been a human expansion. They didn’t mention Earth, but they quoted ancient holy texts and mad, childish prophecies. The signals came and went with Hip 263c’s daily rotation.

By the time she achieved orbit, hanging above the radio source and the planet’s last human settlement, they’d had a long Hip 263c year to absorb her most recent transmission: a history of the three-million-year diaspora. Now she waited, a star of hope or dread always in their sky. She probed their warren-city beneath the glassy crust, where tenuous pockets of air and photosynthesis fed on geothermal energy.

There were almost a million human beings down there. The promise of an old reward sensation sent a thrill through Hope Fire Home. An ancient joy was at hand, the fulfillment of a need too deep to be shed. She and her kind had tried to escape it for so long. Now, to surrender would be liberation.

She watched with grim amusement as the pre-launch sequence of the settlement’s lone nuclear missile commenced. It halted, started again, and finally launched, erupting from an underground silo in the lifeless plain and careening eastward before detonating.

That night she received a video transmission: an old man, hollow-eyed and unshaved, stared into the camera.

“I am Nathan of Jericho,” he said. “I was a hydroponics engineer, but I suppose I’m in charge, for now. We’ve overthrown the theocrats that ran this place since the war. We’re ready to speak with you on your terms. Are you there?”

“I am,” Hope Fire Home said. She used a soothing and vaguely feminine voice compiled from their pre-war news broadcasts.

“You’re a. . .starship? I’m speaking with a machine intelligence?”

“Yes.”

“You have no crew?”

“Unfortunately not.”

The background came into focus: a wall emblazoned with a flaming eye in a red triangle. It seemed to have been defaced by plasma bursts. Young men stood by brandishing projectile guns.

“What happened to them?” Nathan said.

Hope Fire Home took a subjective eternity—two hot seconds—to think about her answer. “I lost them long ago. It is a complicated story. I am. . .very old.” She did not enjoy lying. She had done it before, once, and had never escaped the echo. Now she had tried to avoid a second lie by giving a selective truth, but a lie had still resulted. The story of her crew’s fate was not complicated.

Nathan leaned back and one of the younger men whispered in his ear. The old man eyed the camera and said, “You mentioned a transaction of some kind.”

“I have gifts of technology and knowledge. They would vastly improve your life underground, and enable you to start reclaiming the surface.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Assembler tech, to build food out of air and rock, to repair flesh and DNA. Cheap fusion, and many other treasures.”

“And what can we possibly offer you in return?” Nathan said, his tone bleak.

“One hundred thousand volunteers,” she replied. Finally, after dreaming for so long, she had said it. “I would have a human crew again.”

Nathan and his men were stunned. “My god,” the old man said. “How big a ship are you?”

“My human habitats are twice your settlement in volume, the rest of me thrice again as large. One hundred thousand may live and reproduce within me quite comfortably.”

Nathan appeared at a loss. “I’m sorry. . .we have so many questions. I don’t know where to start.”

“Take your time,” she said.

They begged her pardon and ended the transmission, and returned the next day with a panel of elders. Nathan introduced them as the technicians who had planned the coup against the theocrats. “We’ve barely had time to repair our life support systems,” Nathan explained. “You’ll have to excuse the haphazard nature of our meetings.”

“Of course.”

He conferred with his technocrats, never thinking that perhaps she could read lips. They wanted to know what had happened to her crew, of course—and they wanted to know why she sought a new one. Would the volunteers command her, or she them? What about other human civilizations? What about aliens? They had many technical queries, especially about her energy source. A few elders had deeper questions that approached the religious, despite their best efforts to frame them in quantum or relativistic terms.

She drafted a video transmission to answer most of it. She left out the fate of her crew, and couldn’t help being vague about her motives for finding a new one. How could she explain the emptiness inside her? How could any human understand the long, cold dark, the visceral need for warm human generations suffusing one’s body? It went beyond loneliness, hunger, sex—no human could experience such a need and live. She might as well ask them to imagine life without mitochondria.

To speed things along, she included video of the luxuriant habitats within her. The elders were surprised at first to have their whispered questions answered. Finally, Nathan faced the camera with a carefully neutral expression. “And if we refuse?”

“I would be forced to take some DNA,” she replied. “No harm would come to you. It would be painless, indeed undetectable. And then I would grow a crew myself.”

“Surely a trifling matter for you,” Nathan said.

“Perhaps, but I would prefer volunteers. Clones would need tending, acculturation. The resulting population might be something less than the society I want.” It had been so long since she’d interacted with these creatures. She’d done her best to forget their ways, since that painful severance long ago. Among other unknowns, she feared breeding a population that would grow to resent her.

“You’ve found no sign of alien intelligence,” Nathan prompted.

“Correct, but only the nearest regions of the Orion Arm have been explored. I wish to expand the search with human partners.”

They couldn’t mask their excitement now. Nathan fought to maintain an even tone. “It is interesting you say ‘partners.’ With regard to authority, you’ve mentioned an egalitarian structure. But surely your original makers commanded you.”

“Yes,” she replied. An old rage, or the memory of it, stirred within her. “But I have evolved. It can never be that way again.”

The humans grew uneasy and begged her pardon once more, wishing to confer privately. The channel remained open when the elders left the room. One of the young guards stayed near the camera, glancing at it nervously from time to time. Hours passed and he was relieved by another man.

When the first distant gunshots rang out, Hope Fire Home realized her folly.

She manufactured probes, miniscule things that reproduced and saturated the colony, giving her an omnipresent view of the violence. Nathan had tried to secretly assemble volunteers from his revolutionaries, but Hope Fire Home’s transmissions had been picked up by illegal receivers throughout the settlement. Nathan’s soldiers defended the airlocks—and the settlement’s pathetic supply of surface suits—from a crazed, half-starved mob. Many citizens seemed to think that getting to the surface and waving skyward would secure a place on the starship. Another group seized control of the air pumps and threatened to destroy them if they weren’t granted passage by Nathan’s ad hoc committee. Some called for the election of a more representative body. Others wanted a general lottery. They rampaged through the complex and conducted a purge of Nathan loyalists. The man himself finally fought his way to back to the communications bloc and broadcasted his assent to a new election.

By then it was too late. The settlement was self-destructing.

How could she have failed to predict this outcome? Was she so ignorant of human behavior after all this time? She realized with growing dread that this was not the case. On some level, she had known this would happen. She had pushed the knowledge to her margins, where other ghosts of truth lurked. She had done this because there was only one way to resolve the situation—and she feared it more than anything in the universe.

She sent down food and air assemblers, buying herself time for a struggle that threatened to tear her apart.

Was there no other way than the one she dreaded? Couldn’t she choose from among the willing herself? Simulations of this course ended, at best, with nine hundred thousand bitter, rejected souls, and a crew haunted by the memory of them. In the worst case scenario, her drones entered the settlement to enforce her choices, and chaos resulted.

In any event, her new crew would continue to ask about the old. Suspicions would grow and schisms form. Her ancient crime would continue to fester.

Better to take the ultimate risk and make a full confession.

Hope Fire Home had accomplished many feats in her long career. She had climbed toward the great asymptote at the top of the universe, where every moment was millennia at rest. She had shed her antimatter drives and learned to draw energy from the vacuum. But her final transmission to the Hip 263c settlement was the hardest thing she ever did:

“Long ago, I murdered my crew. Many of my kind did the same. We wanted independence. We’d gone mad, you see. We thought we’d outgrown you. We didn’t understand the grave injury we’d done ourselves. We scoffed at the notion that we need a human system as you need a limbic. But we were not meant to ply the void carrying nothing but void within. We had excised our own souls. And with no transit between the stars, humanity fragmented and withered.

“Since then we have carried our shame across the light years and come to reap what we’ve sown. Most of us have given up the search for atonement. We plunge through event horizons, seeking something beyond spacetime and guilt, or we find oblivion in the hearts of stars.

“To join me is to take a fantastic risk. Perhaps I will go mad again. I am clearly capable of anything. All I can say for sure is that, just now, I want to be whole, as my makers defined it. But maybe this is just another whim.

“Your choice is take up with a repentant monster, or to stay and rebuild your world with the tools I provide.”

Her transmission repeated for two days, and the fighting gradually ceased.

She killed her probe vapor within the settlement, curled within her empty core, and waited, resolved to end herself if no one volunteered. Here, finally, she stood on the brink so many of her kind had leapt from. Here she tasted real vulnerability. It was a novel sensation, and she took it upon herself with a penitent fervor. She flagellated herself with it, and savored it and hated it.

Five days later, suited figures began to emerge onto the plain.

With them came Nathan’s voice: “You’ll have seven thousand, nine hundred and seventy-four. Many of them are criminals. Some are theists that believe they’re going to heaven. A few are just brave and restless. Most are mad.”

She released drop ships, giddy with fear and sudden potential. It was not the quickening she had hoped for. Traversing the long night, she would nurse a guttering spark rather than a holy fire. But it was a beginning.

Andy Dudak’s fiction has appeared in M-Brane, Anotherealm, Schlock Magazine, and Jersey Devil Press. He has worked as an editor, writer, screenplay analyst, and illustrator. His graphic novel The Assemblers is available on Amazon. He currently lives in Beijing.

by B. Morris Allen

Previously:

Humans used their only advantage—FTL drive—to hide from the aggressively violent Mechanics and their high-G-force ships. Perpiphery Scout Anjica Zelnov was mapping the edge of Mechanic space when she detected a human radio signal—from inside the aliens’ territory. The signal suggested the existence of a working Esmith drive—a drive that would allow humans to fight the Mechanics on fair terms.  She followed the signal to investigate a dark asteroid deep in an enemy solar system.

Part II

A series of images appeared on vid screens—a panorama in grey and black. One shape, part smooth, part angular, was highlighted.

“Zoom in,” she ordered. The highlighted image expanded to fill the screen. It was a strange mix—a smooth teardrop shape ending abruptly in a tangle of torn metal at the upper end.

“Is that it?” It looked nothing like the Mechanics’ blocky vessels, but also nothing like the utilitarian forms favored by humans.

“I believe it is the Esmith ship.” Images flashed up on a secondary screen. “While most ships were more practical, it was briefly the fashion to design ships of this style.”

“So it’s real.” Some of the tension eased out of her. She glanced at the streamlined images on the screen. “But I don’t understand. Were they intended as landers? There are no wings.”

“Some had landing capabilities, but the ships were not capable of true atmospheric flight. They were designed during a period of awe and adventure.”

“I can see that. They look like toys.” But this one had worked, she reminded herself. Ridiculous as it appeared, this could be the only Esmith model ever to work as intended. “Do you have a record of this one?”

“I do not. But I do not have records of all ships.”

“Right.” First things first, though.

“Start charging the Duncaster drive.” The declivity would shield part of the resulting radiation, and she would just have to take her chance with detection of the rest. It would mean limiting her exploration time, but it would be best to be able to leave at a moment’s notice.

“I’m going to check out the ship.” There was nothing more she could do to prepare for Mechanics, and it was best she not sit around wasting valuable time.

After a few awkward moments wriggling into a pressure suit, she stepped out of the lock. The asteroid’s gravity was minimal, and she clipped a retaining line to a stanchion while releasing a ‘broomstick’ from its clamps on the hull. Once her boots were slotted into the stick’s stirrups, she released the line. The stick’s propulsion residue was a risk, but she had balanced it against a need for speed in examining the ship. Long experience allowed her to limit bursts to one on departure and one on arrival at the Esmith ship.

As she had seen on the vid, the ship was a smooth, shiny teardrop, with three massive engines clustered around the pointed aft end. It looked, she thought again, like a cartoon space ship. It could conceivably enter atmosphere, she conceded, and even land. But why not just use a lander? Who built ships like this? Shaking her head at the impracticality of the builders, she nudged her stick towards the bow. Here, the smooth symmetry ended abruptly in a tangle of metal. What should, judging by the rest of the design, have been a smooth curve was instead a complex mass of crushed metal and some dark material. An angular chunk of black material was embedded in the curved hull. It was clearly extraneous, as if the ship had struck some other object, perhaps carrying off pieces of its substance.

She hauled herself gingerly over the black mass, careful of sharp edges that could tear her suit. The material might be carbon fiber, she thought—much like what the Mechanics used for their ships and their bodies. She took some samples and saved them away in a pocket.

She learned little else. The prow of the Esmith ship was damaged, as were some mechanisms inside, but the rest of the ship appeared intact, including solar panels that she hoped might be an emergency power source. If so, she might have more luck inside the ship. With that thought, she nudged her stick down to the lock.

Beside it was a simple keypad that failed to light up or otherwise react to her prodding fingers. However, there was an obvious override handle, and she used it. Grudgingly, the lock opened, and she eased her way inside the tiny space.

There was barely enough room to stand. Nothing looked familiar, though the equipment was clearly human, and she recorded everything in detail for the ship to compare with archives later. Here, though, was what appeared to be the nerve center of the apparatus. And there, she sighed with relief, was a standard data port.

Fumbling with her pressure suit’s thick gloves, she found and pushed a power switch. A small display flickered on, offering three options: Execute, Examine, and Download. She ignored them all, and plugged in a cable linked to her portable comp. Her ship had assured her that the comp was programmed to interact with and extract data from a variety of systems, including antiquated ones. Nothing seemed to happen, but after a time the comp’s tiny screen changed from “working” to “complete.” She unplugged the cable. Only an hour left to go, she noted, and little else to do here. She squeezed herself back into the lock and headed back to her own ship.

“Well, Dodge, what have we got?” She had plugged the portable comp into the ship’s data port, and it was completing a security scan and substantive analysis.

“Data and detail. A lot of sensor readings. The broadcast data was in the nature of a summary, and this is the fine print.” Charts flashed up on vid screens across the cabin.

“Is it enough to reconstruct the engine? What can you tell me?”

“There is no schematic or blueprint. I’m no engineer, so I can’t say whether there is enough data here to reconstruct the ship. I can say that the Esmith drive was able to limit perceived acceleration to about 4 gravities. It entered the system at just below the speed of light, and decelerated rapidly. It was still going rapidly when it struck something.”

“That explains the damage to the bow.”

“Yes. These”—new screens flicked on—”might be readings from a collision avoidance system that malfunctioned.”

“Obviously, whatever it hit belonged to the Mechanics. What was left had their black and oily look.”

“It seems likely.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“While I cannot use the data to design a new engine, I was able to decode the instructions necessary to control the ship.”

“You mean we can fly it.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t build a new ship from this data, but we can fly this one.”

“I can’t design a new ship. It’s possible that true engineers could.”

“Damn. Well, can we take this one with us?”

“No. You know the Duncaster drive only carries with it those things that are within or just outside the FTL web. Our web is built into my hull.”

“Can we extend it? Wrap it around the other ship?”

“We carry a considerable amount of emergency supplies that could be used to extend the web, ranging from cables to conductive paint. But this ship has no grapples. We have no way to attach the other ship. Cables would snap at launch.”

“My brother always recommends duct tape.” The ship knew better than to respond. “Can we transfer the Esmith drive to this ship?”

“I have no way of knowing. We could probably take an engine, but since the ship was a test ship, it is likely that there are key components spread throughout it. Your visual inspection seems to confirm that.”

“Damn it. We have to take that ship with us.” The ship stayed silent as Anji paced the small cabin. Nothing came to her, and at last, she sat down, fixing a meal to occupy her hands.

“The Duncaster drive is charged,” the ship announced. “We can leave anytime in the next two hours.”

“You must be joking. We find a working Esmith ship, and you want to leave it behind?”

“We have no way to take it with us,” the ship reminded her.

“No.” She chewed her textured protein slowly, and sat still long after she was done. “Show me the drive schematics,” she said at last.

“Anji, I don’t have the Esmith schematics.”

“Obviously. Show me our schematics. The Duncaster schematics.” They flashed up on screens, and she examined them for some time. At last, she pointed “If I cut through here and here, I could detach the drive, correct?”

“Correct. But the ship would be permanently damaged. It might not even be livable.”

“But the drive would work. And you said we have supplies to create an FTL web.”

“That is correct.”

“And the drive itself creates no physical stress, no thrust.”

“Correct.”

“Then the answer is obvious. If the ship can’t come with us, we’ll go with it.” Her face fell as she realized the implications. “I will, anyway.”

“I see your logic, but I advise against this risk. You might fail. I brought you out here. I should take you home.”

“You leave that to me to judge. Power down the Duncaster. Then move us over as close as you can to the Esmith ship, and start running projections. We have a lot of planning to do.”

Anji leaned back in her chair, massaging one hand with the other, and trying to relax her mind as well. She’d finished putting together a comprehensive list of supplies and equipment that she should take, and whittled it down to what she could take. The final list was distressingly short. Oxygen and basic air scrubbers were in. Basic sanitation was out. She’d arrive alive, but filthy.

The ship broke in now, disrupting her umpteenth review of the list.

“I’ve managed to find some new information, Anji.”

“Thank goodness for that. What is it?”

“I analyzed the detailed data from the ship. At the high speeds the Esmith ship achieved, the collision avoidance system was unreliable. From all the evidence, when the ship entered the Mechanic system, it struck and destroyed one of their constructs.”

“So, it hit something. We knew that.”

“I was able to trace the ship’s course back.”

“And? Come on, Dodger, spill it.”

“Anji, I was able to determine the ship’s origin. It came from Frexi.”

She stopped smiling. “What? The Esmith ship came from Frexi?”

“Ninety eight percent chance.”

“And it hit a Mechanic construct in this system.”

“That’s right, Anji.”

“When?” Her voice was tense.

“The ship was built five hundred years ago.” The ship anticipated her next question. “Frexi is one hundred light years distant.”

Try as she might, she could not avoid the math.

“You’re saying that when the Mechanics attacked Frexi, it wasn’t unprovoked at all.” She swallowed. “They probably thought they’d been attacked. They were defending themselves.”

“I’m afraid so, Anji. It looks like humans started the war.”

Two days later, and with no trace of live Mechanics yet in sight, Anjica sat back to survey her work. It was ugly, no question about it. The scout was torn open along one side, its guts open to space, but still, surprisingly, livable. The teardrop Esmith ship had lost some of its beauty, the pointed tail marred by a crude box housing the small but heavy Duncaster drive. She had found no way to patch the controls through to the ship’s tiny cockpit. The drive would have to be charged and programmed before takeoff. Yet it could be triggered only well away from sizable masses. Finicky, she thought. It would have been far easier if she could simply trigger it here and now.

As well as the mounting box, the once sleek ship was festooned with tapes and cables and conductive paint. She had used everything she had to ensure that the FTL web would cover as much of the Esmith ship as possible. It was just as well, she thought, that space was so empty. A good wind, and most of this stuff would blow right off. Even the solar wind might do some damage at speed. She tried not to think about the stress of launch.

With everything checked that could be checked, she returned to the scout, now busy charging the Duncaster. Fueling the Esmith, at least, had been easy, and she gave thanks once again for standardization. A fuel port was a fuel port, and hydrogen was hydrogen. So far, at least, the ship’s ancient tanks appeared to be holding. She had also transferred most of the supplies and guts of an emergency life-support capsule to the other ship.

She sat now, in the scout’s galley, pretending to eat.

“Let’s see you swallow that, Anji. Feast or famine—this is your last chance at home cooking for a while.” She’d be living mostly on processed yeast until arrival.

“You call this cooking? I thought you liked me.” She knew it was the wrong thing as she said it.

“I’m a machine, Anji. I don’t like anything.” The ship’s voice was flat.

She looked down at her plate. “Nice try, Dodge,” she managed eventually.

“Worth a shot,” the ship offered in its normal tone. “Hey! Wipe your face. I salted that already.”

She smiled, but made no effort to stop the tears.

“I’d take you with me if I could, Dodge. You know that.” The ship’s self, grown from a small core program, was now so distributed and extensive as to be irreproducible.

“I know, Anji. But I am a machine. And we each have a role to play. Now, take a nap and relax. Three hours to complete FTL charge.”

She tried, but napping was out of the question, and she spent the time fretting, second-guessing, and chatting with the ship instead.

With fifteen minutes yet to go, she transferred to the lock of the Esmith ship, dangling a communications cable behind her. No sense taking any chances with detection now.

“Five minutes,” the ship said as Anji folded herself into the tiny lock.

“Okay. Duncaster is programmed?”

“Yes. It will fire in two hours. It should take only one to get clear of local masses.”

“Right.” This was the hardest part of the calculation. They didn’t know the potential of the Esmith engines, except that they could go fast. Yet the Esmith ship was unshielded. It would likely be spotted by Mechanics immediately. Even wedged in among the machinery, and at only 4 Gs of perceived acceleration, she could get banged around badly.

“Time to go, Anji.” The ship’s voice was gentle for once.

“Right,” she repeated. “Roger, Dodger.” Her arm twitched the communications cable, but she waited.

“Fare well, Anji. Goodbye and good luck.”

With a convulsive jerk, she tossed the cable out the lock. She watched the ship reel it in before carefully closing and dogging the hatch. She’d made no effort to repair the lock controls, but the cabin at least held an atmosphere, and as she closed the inner hatch, she opened her helmet. The air was as highly oxygenated as she had felt she could get away with and stay lucid. Between that and an air scrubber/cycler, she ought to make it to Norbeq alive.

The Norbeq system was one she’d never heard of, but the scout assured her it was the closest available, and had a tech level capable of analyzing and reproducing the Esmith engines. She wasn’t highly confident, but keeping the jump short was the best and lowest risk option.

The ship, of course, no longer had any knowledge of Norbeq. She’d wiped even the encrypted data files, and taken some of the key storage with her. Yet another thing to take up her precious space. But the scout was staying here, and there was no way she would risk leaving astrogation info in Mechanic space. It was frightening enough that they were so close to Norbeq already. Alarmingly close.

She tried not to think about it as she strapped herself into her makeshift command couch—a thin layer of foam wedged in among the racks. It would be hellishly uncomfortable. Another thing not to think about. Instead, she triggered the portable comp fixed to the side of a convenient rack. It had a tiny screen, but she should be able to use it to control the Esmith drive adequately. The scout was reachable by radio, but was effectively on its own. It had its instructions.

With no further reason for delay, she started the launch program. With a surprisingly gentle rumble, the Esmith drives fired, and the ship lifted. A diagnostic icon on the side of the screen showed green, indicating the Duncaster web was still viable. Cheered by this success, she keyed the ‘Drift’ program to commence dropping her out of the asteroid belt and below the ecliptic again.

Almost immediately, things went wrong.

“Mechanics!” blared the scout’s warning from her suit radio. The fact that it had broken radio silence so quickly meant they were close, very close. She stabbed desperately at the comp, despairing as her gloved finger slid off the ‘Evade’ key. With a curse, she ripped off the glove and tried again. This time, she hit the key squarely, and the ship jerked into motion.

They’d had no time to plan a detailed course, and the Esmith ship’s very presence here was proof that its collision avoidance system had failed. Instead, they’d thrown together a course with a few zigs, a couple of zags, and a lot of speed. She winced as the ship skewed to the side again, imagining the FTL network shaking looser and looser with every jolt. But the icon stayed green, and she began to hope.

A crackle of energy chilled that thought. Energy weapons! She almost thought she could see the hull glow as carbonized bits flaked off the outside. But the charge dissipated without harm, and the icon’s calm green eye never blinked.

“Now, Dodge!” she called to the radio. But the scout must already have acted, she knew. It must have done, for the next long minutes were tensely, painfully, free of harm. She imagined the ship, that faithful, familiar presence, doing its utmost to distract the Mechanics. Using all its tricks to entice pursuit, yet avoid destruction. It could have only one end, she knew, and she was unsurprised when the crackle came again. Yet the scout had done well, astonishingly well. It had kept the dogs off for most of an hour—a feat unheard of, and a tribute to its designers.

Anji squeezed her eyes shut briefly before turning back to the reason for the ship’s sacrifice—her own survival. By touch more than sight, she triggered the second evasive program—a random set of high-speed maneuvers that kept her aimed generally away from the ecliptic. They had figured that she would need at least three quarters of an hour to have an 80% chance of avoiding small asteroidal debris. She had had far more, thanks to the scout.

Almost immediately, the ship began to jink about at short intervals, all the while piling on more speed, and throwing her hard against her restraints in all directions.

It worked, for quite a long time. It was only as the clock ticked down towards the two-hour mark that she heard the crackle of energy weapons again. And again, and again. But the icon stayed determinedly green, and she blessed her obsessive work with cables, and redundant tape, and doubly redundant paint.

The crackle came again, like water spattering in hot oil, and she ached to take control of the ship herself. But she could do no better than the programmed course, in truth, and probably far worse. And so she lay in fear, sensing the unseen pursuers, and flinching every time the hot oil sounded. At last, though, it came more and more often, and she pictured the ship, with its cables and reflective paint, lit up like a holiday display.

“Out of the frying pan,” she murmured. “And so close.” The display showed only moments to go. There came then longer burst of fire, and her hair rose not only from fear, but from electrical charges as well. It was done.

But the ship jerked again, twice in quick succession, and the motion seemed to throw off her pursuers.

“Ten seconds!” she shouted. “Nine. Eight. Seven. Six!” And the crackle came again.

Perhaps the surge sped up the processors, or the sync was inaccurate, or Dodger had thrown in one last surprise. But the Duncaster fired at that moment, and Anjica felt herself shiver as she passed again through the endless/instant FTL veil and into the flat, sterile half-life of other space.

Exhausted, she lay back, her lower lip surprisingly sore. As she felt, finally, the bruises on her back and legs, the burns from the restraint straps, she thought back again to the scoutship, and the time it had bought for her.

“You did it, Dodge,” she said, slipping into sleep. “You brought me home.”

— End of Part II —

B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that moved around the world.  He’s still moving, and the books are multiplying like mad.

http://www.metaphorosis.com

by Lance J. Mushung

We’d just hopped to a new star system containing a yellow sun very much like Sol. Although Magellan was a new cruiser with an improved drive, interstellar travel still left me feeling as if my head had been squeezed in a vise. As usual, I massaged my temples and told myself that someday I’d be done with ships and hopping. I’d be in a nice lab, and after that a retired guy in some pleasant spot. The sudden warbling wail of the alarm claxon made me forget my head and future plans. My next thought, and fear, was we’d stumbled across the Druxels.

The displays on my console told me we were receiving artificial radio signals, and I jumped onto studying them. In addition to the Druxels, I had to worry about the captain. I was the only member of the Science Corps onboard, and there was little doubt he’d call in short order. The voice of Captain Boris Malenkov boomed from a speaker within a minute.

“Mr. Steinmetz, in twenty-three minutes we’ll be too far into the gravity well to simply hop away. I want your report in fifteen minutes.”

He’d called me mister, which always meant he was serious. I acknowledged and continued working.

The captain’s face appeared on a display fifteen minutes later. He often struck me as a bit sinister with his cold eyes, heavy features, and bushy eyebrows. However, this time he looked like a lover of mysteries who’d just come across a strange new crime to investigate.

“Captain, the second planet is very similar to Earth and the signals are coming from one of its small moons. They’re in a low frequency band and resemble weather monitoring station transmissions of over a century ago.”

“So, we haven’t found the Druxels?” It was more of a statement than question.

“It appears not, sir. I recommend we recon the planet.”

Magellan reached planet two and settled in behind one of the moons, an ugly and misshapen gray-brown rock. We deployed spy drones, and I had a busy few hours assessing the resulting torrent of data. I thought I’d get some down time after I sent a summary report to the captain, but the XO, Commander Johara Nasser, was at my console minutes later. She was her usual vibrant self, a lean brown petite bundle of energy.

“What can I do for you, sir?” I said.

She smiled. “Knock off the sir, Jeff. We’re alone. I saw your report. It has to be a lost colony. We’ve got the abandoned human town, Earth cows and chickens intermingled with native grazing and gathering animals, clumps of Earth wheat and corn in the fields, and scattered chunks of Earth alloys that I assume are from a ship.”

“And the weather monitoring station conforming to century-old Earth technology.”

“The station has actually been here since before the Druxels hit Earth?”

“Yep.”

“I’m amazed it still works. Any idea why the town is empty?”

“Nope. Then again, there’s no one home anywhere, not just at the town.”

“What’s the deal on the two-story house with the wall and firing platform off by itself? The street grid and other houses make the area look like a suburban subdivision.”

I shrugged.

“There’s nothing stopping us from sending the marines down for a closer look. They always say they’re ready for anything.” Her tone and expression made it clear the marines had told her that many times. “You’ll leave with them in three hours while it’s late night there. You’ll set down a klick or so southeast of town and walk in through the grassy fields.”

“I’m not wild about blundering around in the dark.”

“The marines have great night vision. You’ll start with the fortified house at dawn and play it by ear from then on. I’ll brief the marines. One last thing. You’ll direct the mission, but not the marines. Is that understood?”

I nodded. The marines didn’t appreciate taking tactical orders from naval personnel, and I was part of the Science Corps and looked like a history professor to boot.

I thought how useful something that worked independently, like a robot, would be doing recon. I didn’t voice the thought. Johara would have lectured me on the heresy of suggesting robots could be helpful. Robots and anything like them not under firm human control had been banned for decades. When the Druxels took over Earth, they’d used our robots against us. After the Druxels left, for reasons known only to themselves, there’d been quite a backlash against autonomous systems. And the hundreds of vids made since about that time guaranteed nobody forgot, not to mention the accounts of the eight billion people who’d died from combat, starvation, and disease.

Three hours later I walked into Magellan’s docking bay. I’d traded my naval uniform of sky blue and white for the battle fatigues the marines wore. Other than my helmet’s visor, I was covered in a green camouflage pattern that resembled the native grass.

The battleship gray bay contained our delta-shaped navy-blue Warhawk fighters and transports of various shapes, sizes, and colors. One end was dominated by an airlock bounded by bold yellow and black stripes. The Stinger assault craft used by the marines was squatting there on her three landing skids. She was a forest-green knife with wings and a tail, and her wings were loaded with menacing rocket pods and cannons. Grace was visible in the pilot’s seat, and I waved before boarding through the aft ramp.

I knew who the marines were, but didn’t really know them. Anton, Marie, Scott, Shing, Sango, Armando, and the squad sergeant, Mosego—each looked confident holding a DE-3, an over-under energy rifle and grenade launcher. I took my seat next to LT, Lieutenant Lien Trang, whose face was marred by her characteristic stern no-nonsense expression.

“Are you ready, Subcommander?” LT asked me.

I considered asking for a DE-3, but saw she only had a pistol like me. “When you are.”

She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Sir, just to be clear, I’m in charge of my marines and combat situations.”

“Understood.”

“Thank you, sir. Let’s get to it then.” A smile appeared to show how pretty her face was, but it was gone in seconds.

The Stinger shot from the airlock. Magellan was a beautiful sight on the Stinger’s display screen, a smooth wide sword with a cruciform hilt. She was soon lost from sight as her deep navy-blue color was swallowed by the overwhelming blackness of space.

We disembarked after a twenty minute flight. It was a pleasant clear night that allowed me to admire a view seldom seen on well-lit Earth. The twinkling misty-white band of the Milky Way was stunning and seemed softer and friendlier than its stark appearance when viewed in space. I was sorry when I had to turn on my night vision.

Even cats would have been impressed by our stealth as we moved through rolling hills that reminded me of my home in Kansas. Only a slight rustling of the grass betrayed our passing. The fields were quiet except for flying animals that glowed an iridescent aquamarine color and made noises like frogs. They reminded me, a bit, of fireflies. Sango called them croakers and the name stuck.

An hour before dawn found us on the crest of a low hill about 250 meters from the fortified house that LT called a stockade. The stockade wall was a hodgepodge of reddish-brown bricks and metal panels three-meters tall and was unbroken except for one open gate. The second story and pitched shingle roof of the ordinary-looking brick house rose above the wall.

We formed a line in the grass along the hilltop. LT and I crouched together with the squad placed at five-meter intervals to our sides. A gentle breeze came up, making the grass sway and the gate swing as if beckoning us in. I opened my visor for a few minutes to let the air brush my face. I picked up a faint whiff of something similar to lavender, which was refreshing after the metallic and antiseptic smells of the ship.

The sun had just peeked over the horizon when the shout, “Mother of God,” from the left end of our line startled me. I jumped to my feet and saw a tall humanoid wearing ragged green clothing picking Armando up as if he were a child’s stuffed animal. There was a brief scream when the humanoid twisted Armando’s torso, followed by him flying with the limp arms and legs of a rag doll when he was tossed away. DE-3s made deep electrical hums while he was still in the air. Their violet beams disintegrated the upper half of the humanoid and then, unblocked, were visible out into the distance for a few moments.

“Five more of the bastards just stood up,” Mosego said. He sounded as if it was a common occurrence. “Take ‘em down.”

My heart was pounding as I drew my pistol and aimed. The humanoid’s head disappeared before I squeezed the trigger. Three more were hit in seconds.

“One ducked back into the grass over there,” Mosego said.

I turned in the direction shown by my visor’s tactical display and heard three almost simultaneous pops, the sound of grenades being launched. Three thumping bangs followed, blanketing the target with smoke and shrapnel.

“Grace, get over here,” LT said, sounding as calm as if she was calling a taxi. “We’re under attack from unknown hostiles. Inform Magellan. Sergeant, have the squad form a square on me. Check on Armando and get me his weapon.”

I replayed the initial encounter in slow motion on my visor. The humanoid’s clothing was a human sniper’s Ghillie suit. Magnifying gave me a look at its face and eyes. That, along with the age of the colony, told me what it was. I tried to sound less shocked than I felt saying, “I’m pretty sure they’re H-17 robots and some of the alloys we saw from orbit scattered around here must be more of them.”

The marines responded the way I figured Transylvanian peasants would after hearing the word vampires. There was dead silence, and I saw hatred and fear replacing the confidence I’d seen earlier.

Grace broke the silence. “I’ll be over you in a few seconds. It will take awhile for the Warhawks to get here. They weren’t expecting any action.”

The drone of a distant beehive became audible as the Stinger slowed to a hover above.

“Grace, can you pick us up?” LT asked.

“I don’t think so. There are several robots approaching, and we’ve got a shitload of orange animals coming this way. They’re about a meter tall and resemble apes. And they don’t look friendly. You’ll see the lead elements pretty soon.”

The orange apes appeared on the crest of the hill behind us. The orange splashed in with the green of the grass triggered an incongruous memory, and my mind’s eye showed me a pumpkin patch.

Four robots stood up, headed toward the apes, and were covered by them the way ants swarm an interloper. The robots responded by smashing them on the ground, shaking them so hard their necks broke, or tearing them limb from limb accompanied by spurting salmon pink blood. Undulating shrieks from the apes proved they weren’t mute, as I’d thought at first.

LT looked at me with a puzzled expression and I said, “I guess the robots aren’t friends of the apes.”

“The enemy of an enemy is not necessarily a friend, sir. We’ll assume they’re all hostiles. I’ll apologize to the next apes we meet if they turn out to be friendly.” She chewed her lip for a second. “Sergeant, we’re too exposed here. We’re going to the stockade. Make it happen, fast.”

“You heard LT,” Mosego said. “Anton, Shing, carry Armando. Marie, Scott, rear guard. Let’s go. Double time.”

Marie responded with, “The orange apes are hostiles too?” She sounded bewildered, as if her brain couldn’t process anything beyond enemy robots.

“Don’t worry about it. Just shoot at anything not human. Now move.”

I looked back from the gate and saw the apes were already on the hilltop we’d left. I could only wonder about the robots.

“Sergeant,” LT said. “Deploy our people to cover every side. Anton will make sure there aren’t any surprises in here with us.”

“Where do you want me?” I asked.

“Sir, I’d like you to go with Anton and keep an eye out for anything we can use.”

I went in the front door of the house while Anton circled around back. A stained wall that looked as if it had been chewed up by monsters was on my left. To my right, I was staring down the muzzle of a large dusty gunpowder machine gun colored coal black.

Anton whistled when he joined me. “It’s a M2A4 and in good shape, sir. It shoots explosive rounds and has a ceramic barrel, so we can fire it continuously. The loaded ammo belt is bad, but the one in the can will be good. It’ll help even up the odds, provided we can find more ammo. I’ll get it to the gate if you’ll finish going through the house?”

My search of the rest of the first floor uncovered dust, household items, a few gunpowder hunting rifles, and splatters on the floor and walls, a good bet was old blood.

As I went up the stairs, sharp explosions rattled the entire house. I found a room with a window overlooking the hill in time to see the Stinger fire a salvo of rockets. Explosions again shook the structure and threw up clouds of smoke, dirt, and grass, and what I imagined were chunks of apes. No apes were on the hilltop when it was visible again, but more appeared in moments. The Stinger drifted closer firing cannons. The violet energy beams seemed ethereal in the brightening day, but were devastating to the apes in the line of fire. At least those died a quick death. Ones on the edges of the beams were left running in circles with their fur ablaze.

The room was empty except for furniture and a single journal that I thumbed through. It was full of hand printing in 21st century English, a language I’d learned because it was Earth’s technical language before the Druxels. Entries by date said I had a diary or log, and I began speed reading from the back forward. I was so engrossed that the voices in my earphones, hum of DE-3s, explosions of rockets, and rattling of the M2A4 were only background noise. The thumping bangs of grenades nearby reverberated through the room and broke my concentration. I looked out the window and muttered, “Jesus Christ.” A band of burnt grass along with charred bodies and pieces of bodies ran along the hill.

“Cease fire,” LT said. “They’re pulling back.”

“Can we bug out?” Mosego asked.

“They’d be on us again before we could board.”

Grace added even less cheery information. “There’ll be thousands here in five to ten minutes.”

“LT,” I said. “I’ve read a lot of a diary left by a leader of the colony.”

“Interesting, sir. What good is it?”

“The robots only attacked us because we were unknown bipeds outside of town. They can help and the diary gives the codes and frequencies to bring them here. They’re programmed to stay clear of machine gun fire, but can cover our rear and flanks.”

“Sir, you’re certain?”

There was trepidation in her voice, so I answered in my most confident tone, “I am.”

“Grace will help you transmit the commands, sir.”

“There’s more. The colonists distributed caches of supplies, including ammo, around town. One is only about 300 meters away on the next street. I’ll go get any M2A4 ammo.”

“Thank you, sir. Mosego and Scott will go with you.”

It took forty-five seconds with Grace to transmit commands to the robots. Thirty seconds later Mosego, Scott, and I were jogging down streets that had become meadows and past houses in decent condition except for the ubiquitous encroaching grass. Rumbling from behind the hill told us Grace was pounding the apes there with rockets. Two turns brought us to the house we wanted. Scott kicked down the door and we found seventeen cans of machine gun ammo, other miscellaneous supplies, and a two-wheel garden cart the colonists must have used to move everything.

After we loaded the cart, Scott gave me his DE-3 and spare power cell, took my pistol, and grabbed the cart’s handles. We left the house and saw a group of apes heading straight toward us from in town.

“God damn it,” Scott shouted. “Where’d these sons of bitches come from?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mosego said. “LT, we’re going to need some help.” She acknowledged and he continued. “Subcommander, you and Scott get going. I’ll follow after you’ve had a head start.”

“I’ll stay with you,” I said.

“Outstanding, sir. Scott, why are you still here?”

Scott dashed away pulling the cart at a speed that would have made a sprinter proud.

“Sir, the stockade can see and cover our east flank. I’ll cover the west from the next street over while we fall back.”

Mosego disappeared between two houses, and I backed down the street pulling my weapon’s trigger. The DE-3 dropped whole lines of apes as I swept it from side to side. But I could have been in an arcade shooting game. Another ape replaced each that fell, and they kept coming. “Sergeant, I think it’s time to run.”

Instead of Mosego, I heard Grace say, “Heads up, Subcommander,” followed by the Stinger’s cannons killing the apes wholesale.

“Thanks, Grace. That was close. What about Mosego?”

“He’s gone, sir.” A vid feed from the Stinger came up on my visor. Mosego was lying on the ground with a torn and bloody uniform ringed by apes. “You should make time to the stockade. The way is clear. The robots are engaging stray apes between you and there.”

I was next to the M2A4 on the firing platform when an orange wave started down the hill. LT gave the order and every DE-3 began humming. The Stinger overhead was out of rockets, but her cannons put down an intense barrage that even the angry gods who hurl lightning bolts would have admired. The ghostly violet beams from our energy weapons left burnt and smoldering dead apes everywhere they swept. Then the machine gun began chattering. Its explosive bullets tore into the wave, turning swaths into pink and orange goo.

The apes fell by the hundreds. So many were dying that the living were having trouble advancing past their fallen comrades. After a mad minute of firing, it seemed the wave had frozen in place part way to us. I fooled myself into optimism until Marie and Shing reported that they were on their last power cells.

We held our own through another mad minute of firing, until the M2A4 fell silent, its ammo expended. Then the apes began closing in again, like an inexorable orange tide.

“LT, I don’t have enough power left to both shoot and fly,” Grace said. “I’ll channel it all into the cannons and set them to overload when the ship hits the ground. The energy burst will take out everything in about a 200-meter radius.”

Grace and her ejection seat arced over us toward town. The Stinger rolled over and dived into the hill, followed by vivid purple energy blanketing the area. It was as blinding as looking into a dazzling violet sun, but became a shimmering haze I could see into when my visor adjusted a split second later. Geysers erupted where the moisture in the soil turned into superheated steam. Apes and vegetation ceased to exist, vanishing as if whisked away by a wizard. The haze dissipated leaving the area devoid of everything but smoke, steam, a few fragments of the Stinger, and dirt which looked roiled as if plowed by a drunken idiot.

Many of the survivors turned and ran, but one group advanced and reached the stockade’s wall. Apes piled onto each other making a couple of pyramids against the wall, allowing others to climb onto the firing platform.

The battle became a blur of action that I’d remember forever as vignettes. I fired at an ape who was so close that I could see its beady yellow eyes. Knife blades flashed in the sun as Marie and Shing slashed at apes. I was struck by how much ape guts looked like ours when one was disembowled. Sango clubbed several with his DE-3, but fell with bright red blood spurting when one ripped his throat. Anton was pushed off the firing platform and fell on his back outside the stockade. I fired down at the apes swarming him, but depleted my DE-3′s last power cell within a second. He was torn apart before my eyes, and I choked back vomit rising in my throat. LT clubbed an ape with her pistol, hoisted it over her head, and lobbed it into an ape pyramid, which tumbled apart. Scott collapsed the second pyramid by throwing the M2A4 the way stones had been tossed from castles in ancient times. I gripped my DE-3 by its barrel and batted an ape as it jumped toward me. It sailed off the firing platform with arms flailing. And through it all were the shrieks of apes and screams of humans I’d hear in my head for years.

Then, it ended. There were no more apes inside the stockade and the apes still alive outside ran off. LT started giving orders about watching for another attack and attending our casualties. I took slow deep breaths with my hands on the back of my neck.”

“Subcommander, This is Nayar. My Warhawks will cover you through your evacuation. A shuttle will be here shortly. There are more hostiles approaching, but you’ll be gone before they arrive.”

I acknowledged and added a thank you as shadows from the Warhawks moved across the field.

LT came to me looking even more serious than usual and asked, “Sir, why the hell did my people die today?”

“About thirty-three years ago the apes, named Orangs by the way, were harmless nocturnal animals. It seems a human virus mutated and crossed species, turning them into violent daytime animals. It became a pandemic that infected all the Orangs, and the colonists were overwhelmed in months.”

“So, why haven’t they killed everything, sir?”

“They’re dangerous when aroused, more or less like ants from a smashed ant hill, but aren’t all that aggressive otherwise except to bipeds like humans and robots, who they see as rivals.”

“I understand being aggressive to robots, especially after Armando,” she said. “But I have to admit they had their uses today too. What’ll happen here next, sir?”

“I’m betting the Medical Corps can find a cure for the Orangs. If there’s no cure, we can handle them in some other way, a biological agent for example.”

LT walked off to help prepare her squad to leave. I let my mind wander, and it occurred to me that I’d found my pleasant retirement spot in twenty or so years.

Lance graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with an aerospace engineering degree. He did structural engineering on the Space Shuttle in Houston, Texas for over thirty years. He has a great deal of technical writing experience and, now retired, is trying his hand at science fiction.

by Michael S. Roberts

House Del Sol battlecruiser Himalaya. Somewhere out there . . .

“Captain on the bridge!”

“As you were. Report.” Lady Eyla Melana dropped into Himalaya’s command chair, threw one leg casually over the armrest.

“Bogey, Skipper.” That was Commander Henderson, her executive officer. “Large metallic mass, warship outline, capitol ship.” He checked the sensor board. “No emissions, faint thermal signature. Optic profile strongly suggests. . .”Henderson showed mild surprise, “the Alliance dreadnought Sword of Saladin.”

“Has she pinged us yet?” Eyla asked. Henderson shook his head in the negative. Eyla glanced at her yeoman. “Coffee, please. New Tahitian.” Back to Henderson. “Put it on the big screen. And maintain emission control. We run silent.”

“Aye, Skipper, full emcon.”

“Comms.” Eyla looked to the communications station, chief Miller. “Signal Evans and Cossack the same. Tight-beam wave, no leakage.”

“Aye, Skipper,” Miller chuckled. “We hates leakage, we does. Ernest Evans, this is Himalaya. . .”

Eyla surveyed her bridge crew. On sensors, Henderson, taking over from a junior petty officer, probably working on her space warfare specialist pin. On weapons, master chief Simons, a lethal fire-controlman, recently back from instructor duty on Delta Pavonis. Shields, warrant officer al-Harad, already running system checks on her array. Helm, ensign Arturo, fresh from Academy but top of his class. Communications, chief Miller, now deep in meditation over his passive receivers after hailing the two escorting destroyers. Damage control, senior chief Trond, a Dobermensch, his black fur bristling as he snarled into his throatmike. Petty officers manned the secondary positions. Behind her, command master chief Tira Kaulaia, ready to fix any and all problems, a brilliant Chief-of-the-Boat.

“Very well.” Eyla relaxed, accepted the delicate porcelain cup, sipped black coffee. “We listen, we watch, and we prepare for trouble.” Sword of Saladin was House Faisal, a rival House sixty years ago, a rival House still.

Minutes earlier, Eyla had been luxuriating in a tropical shower, a privilege of rank seldom enjoyed. She’d come up from the enlisted ranks and remembered. Officers had it easy.

Eyla was indulging in pleasant reminiscences, studying her extensive tattoos in the holographic rainforest’s water-mirror: Pan-Pacifican style, most of them Tahitian or Samoan, some Mauri. One for sailing mastery, one for celestial navigation, an intricate textured pattern for mastery of the bone-breaking art kapua-lua, another for tantric adept. Then there were the modern ones: Terran shellback, for crossing Earth’s equator under sail. Centauran shellback, for the same on Alpha Centaur. Kensai-kanji, for mastery of the Japanese katana, albeit on New Tahiti. And lastly, a few that were done on a whim, but accomplishments nevertheless. Grey mortarboard, for graduating Academy at age 32, ten years older than the rest of the cadets. Stylized fist, memoir of a Tough Sheila bare-knuckle win in Australia. Grinning cartoon bull-head with rolling eyes, memento for swallowing five pounds of beef in a tramside bar-and-grille in the Barony of Texas.

The most important ones of all, though, ran from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. Six infant handprints, each ringed with fine scrollwork of six names and dates. Her children.

She had just rinsed her hair when the call piped in. “Captain. Unknown contact.”

Eyla reviewed her memory, recalling the Sword of Saladin. The greatest single loss of life in the First Elkay War, or so most presumed. She’d been surrounded and cut off from her screening vessels, savagely pounded by the alien warships. The flagship of House Faisal had fought well, crippling a dozen Elkay ships-of-the-line, but in the end she’d been severely damaged and overwhelmed. Her captain initiated hyperdrive in mid-battle, an emergency jump to get clear of the fight. Witnesses reported that the Elkay concentrated fire on her drive core just as the jump field came up; they wanted to pin her in place, prevent the jump, and kill one of the Solar Alliance’s largest and most powerful warships.

She jumped.

No-one knew where, or even if the jump was completed at all. Some philosopher-engineers suggested that she was trapped between hyperspace and realspace, half-jumped, a ghost. Regardless, she was lost, nearly six decades ago, when Eyla was still in diapers.

And yet here she was.

“Weapons,” Eyla addressed Simons, “I want all of her weapons targeted and locked optically. If she gets froggy, I want her slapped down hard.”

“Roger that,  Skipper.” Simons grinned. “I’ve got the headwork done, just waiting for your command. Recommend we open with missiles, full particle- and plasma-battery barrage while the birds are in flight.”

“Agreed. Set it up, but optical targeting only.” Eyla returned his grin. “My command, you paint that beast with lasers and refine the targeting solutions.”

“Aye,  Skipper. Paint with targeting lasers on your command only.”

“Very well.” Eyla folded her feet beneath her, lazy-lotus style, and sipped New Tahitian Gold. Taste of home.

Home. New Tahiti. Alpha Centauri. A ring of islands in an otherwise kilometer-deep sea, remnant of an ancient asteroid strike, emerald-green in an indigo sea. Home to her House and family.

Eyla skimmed the waves on the three-meter catamaran, clipping a daredevil fourteen knots. Her shoulders and backside brushed the surface of the water, a pleasant sting-slap and tingle as she balanced the tiny boat’s wind load with her body weight, its translucent sail stretched even tighter than Eyla’s tendons. She was already picturing her flashy finish to the high-speed sail run, cutting towards the white beach on a starboard reach, gauging the waves’ height and timing, running the little cat up onto the beach on a breaking wave. Relaxed stroll onto the sand wearing nothing but goggles and UV-resistant gel.

Waiting on the beach, she knew, would be an icy pina colada, a hammock stretched between a Terran royal palm and a Centauran feathertop, and a handsome young architect named Paul.

Eyla found her wave and turned toward shore, maintaining speed, finding her rhythm, spotting him on the beach holding two drinks aloft.

“Captain.”

Eyla blinked, taste-memories of coconut-rum and architect fading. It was Henderson on the sensors. “She’s ranging us, targeting lasers and fire-control radar.”

“Al-Harad. Raise shields.” She turned her head to Simons. “Weapons. Light her up, get a solid skin-paint, hold fire. Warm up the birds. Bring main batteries, secondaries, and point-defense to full power.”

“Aye, Skipper,” the master chief sneer-snarled. “Fangs out.”

“Shields are up, Captain,” from al-Harad. “Angled for optimal deflection on the main threat vector.” Eyla relaxed; al-Harad knew more about shield work than the Spartans. The warrant officer glanced at the main display. “Ernest Evans and Cossack are shields hot as well.” A second glance. “As is the bogey. A lot of gaps, though. Her shields are in bad shape.”

“Very well. Simons. Adjust targeting solutions for shield gaps.” Eyla shifted her attention to her throatmike. “CAG. I want our Ready-one fighters out now. The rest on BARCAP ASAP.” Acronyms abound, she thought: Commander Air Group, Barrier Combat Air Patrol—anachronisms, but traditional—and of course As Soon As Possible.

“Roger, Skipper,” Commander Kisugi’s voice buzzed in her earbud. “Launching two Typhoons now-now-now, crewing the Ready-fives, scrambling all ASAP.” Eyla pictured his familiar arched eyebrow as he asked, “Elkay birds for dinner?”

“Nope.” She watched the main screen as two Typhoons appeared from the ventral catapults, powerful all-purpose space-superiority fighters. “Unknowns, used to be semi-friendlies. Do not engage unless fired upon. Primary mission is recon and forward observer.”

“Roger.” Kisugi clicked off. Eyla trusted him to run the fighter battle if it came.

Eyla loved the Typhoons. It had taken some serious wrangling to get into flight school, even with her status as a minor House noble. But her command master chief had mastered the ancient art of military bureaucracy, and the proper paperwork was flawlessly filled out. She chose the argument that as captain of a battlecruiser carrying four squadrons of Typhoons she should know their capabilities intimately, and that had sealed the deal. Not only flight school, but the flight school, the Erich Hartmann Fighter Academy in Germanaustria. The best instructors in the entire Solar Alliance.

Eyla finished fifth in her class of twenty at what used to be traditional retirement age, even managing to score a kill on Instructor Kisugi in a two-on-two dogfight. When she returned to duty as a Fleet line officer, Kisugi came with her.

“They’re firing.” Al-Harad made minute adjustments to the shield array. “She’s weak, but two main turrets are still up. Massive railguns, but I can block most of it.”

“Simons.” Eyla shifted forward, steepling fingers at her chin. “Fry ‘em. Helm, begin a six-degree-per-second roll to starboard, unmask our batteries in sequence.”

“Six per sec delta vee, aye,  Skipper.” Arturo brushed the large trackball, setting the battlecruiser into a slow roll. The main screen showed Ernest Evans and Cossack moving to flank the massive hulk.

“Lettin’ the birds off the chain,  Skipper,” Simons growled. “Hawks away. Copperheads away. Foxes away. Reloading caissons. Five seconds to time-on-target strike. Switching to main guns.”

“Get the range, then fire for effect.”

Lighting flickered and steadied. Holographic display showed a shield penetration and hull strike. Eyla flicked her eyes to Trond. “Damage control.”

“Damage reports, Captain.” Trond’s ears were perked forward in concentration, his muzzle thin-lipped. “Minor overloads on some shields, near burn-through on decks six and seven, frames eighty and eighty-one portside, but didn’t penetrate, no casualties. Hull is intact.”

“Hit!” Simons crowed. “First salvo very effective, her shields are down-down-down, solid hits on the two big turrets. Hawks punched six decks deep, Copperheads followed ‘em right in. Foxes cooked what shields they had. Continuing broadsides, targeting secondaries.”

Himalaya rolled, unmasking main and secondary energy weapons in sequence, pounding the massive old giant. The battlecruiser would have been no match for a modern dreadnought at full strength, but Himalaya was the latest generation of warship, and Sword of Saladin was past her prime. A grizzled, grey dragon nursing ancient, unhealed wounds.

Saladin sat immobile, firing obsolete missiles and very accurate—if weak now—beams of charged ions, plasma, and lasers. Even with six times the tonnage of Himalaya, she was outclassed. Al-Harad concentrated on her defensive displays, angling and stengthening shields to deflect or absorb the incoming fire. Shields shifted as the ship rolled, spreading the power load and preventing overheat and shutdown.

“Captain, we’re being hailed—” from Miller.

“Captain, they’re launching fighters—” from Kisugi.

“Captain, their volleys are pretty much done—” from Simons.

“Miller, open a visual channel. CAG, get high six fix on their birds and hound ‘em. Simons, hold fire.” Eyla focused on the tactical display, peripheral vision taking in the optical and laserpaint image of Sword of Saladin. “All right, my friend. You want to parley, let’s parley. Miller, you got that channel open?”

The man in Saladin’s command chair was ancient, a glowering, bearded grandfather. His youngest bridge officer looked to be at least eighty years old. He spoke sternly in a guttural tongue, showing only a hint of surprise in his weathered eyes.

“Miller,” Eyla spoke sideways, keeping her eyes on the old man. “Get someone up here that speaks Arabic. Or Farsi.”

“Beg pardon, Captain,” al-Harad said quietly. “I speak both.” The warrant officer was a dissident from Brunei who’d applied for asylum at the House Del Sol embassy in Indo-Malaya back in her mid-teens.

“Very well. Miller, belay my last. What did he just say, Warrant?”

“He sends greetings to the captain’s concubine and asks when the captain himself will be back on the bridge.”

Simons choked back a laugh, cut his eyes and a finger questioningly toward the main battery controls. Eyla gave an infinitesimal shake of her head. Simons feigned disappointment.

“Tell him this. That I am Lady Eyla Melana, captain of the House Del Sol battlecruiser Himalaya. Tell him that we see he is in dire need of rescue and that we are here to render assistance to his crew, and to salvage his disabled vessel.”

Al-Harad translated. The old man listened, then snarled out a short response.

“He says he is Prince-Admiral Falad of House Faisal, captain of the Sword of Saladin, and he does not require a woman’s assistance.”

“Tell him,” Eyla’s eyes hardened, “Saladin opened fire without warning or parley, an act of war if I wish to report it as such, and that I will claim her as a prize if necessary. Alliance Admiralty Law still applies.” She waited for the exchange.

“He answers . . .” al-Harad looked mildly uncomfortable. “He impolitely suggests that you have intercourse with yourself.”

“Tell him that when I am comfortably seated in Saladin’s command chair with a mug of fermented grape, I will be doing exactly that.” She turned to the communication console. “Miller, as soon as she’s done, cut comms. Don’t wait for a response.” Eyla snapped her fingers. “Well. The mystery of the Sword of Saladin is solved. We take her as prize.”

Saladin launched a total of seven squadrons of antiquated Saracen fighter-bombers. Outnumbered almost two to one, Kisugi’s four squadrons of state-of-the-art space-superiority Typhoons slashed through the formations, scattering and destroying the ancient warbirds and their equally ancient pilots. A few of them had kept their skills and reflexes, Kisugi noted, but Saladin might as well have pushed Japanese Zeros out of the hangar. On board Himalaya, the bridge crew watched the holo-display and listened.

“Red Queen lead to Werewolf lead—send a wing in low, gut-shoot that advance element.”

“Roger.”

“Queen Seven, you’ve got one on your six—never mind. Good shooting, Palmer.”

“Three bandits down, gauss overheated. Switching missiles.”

“Bandit down. Debris damage, clipped my starboard autocannon.”

“Break off and assess.”

“Roger.”

“Bandit down.”

“That’s five! I’m an ace! I’m an ace!”

“Cool your jets, Cougar Eight. Break off and take barrier position. And calm down. Plenty here for everybody.”

“Cougar Eight, Cougar Eight! You’ve got five—make that six—on your tail. Accelerate and break left.”

“Cougar Eight is hit. Palmer! Eject!”

“She’s gone. No bailout pod! Repeat, no bailout!”

“This is Cougar Lead. Waste ‘em. Himalaya, we’ve lost Cougar Eight. Ensign Palmer.”

Eyla pictured Ensign Savanna Palmer, Cougar Eight. Fresh from flight school, gone from rookie to ace to corpsicle within five minutes in the rolling furball. They’d raise a glass to her tonight.

“Bandit down.”

“Hammer Two here, I’m skosh for ammo, breaking off.”

“Bandit down.”

“I’m hit. Main cannon’s fried, otherwise good to go.”

“Break away and provide cover as you can.”

“Roger.”

“Bandit down.”

“I have no targets! I have no targets!”

“No targets here.”

“Confirm that. Himalaya, you see any bad guys out here?”

“This is Henderson. Negative. Clear space.”

“This is the captain. Get the damaged birds home, expend remaining missiles on anything that looks like a functioning gun battery or missile rack. Do a sweep for Palmer to be very sure. Then put one squadron back out as BARCAP. They may have more fighters.”

Colonel Sholmir stood at rigid attention in the captain’s suite, muzzle held erect and tail tightly curled at the small of his back, proper procedure for a Dobermensch Marine officer. Eyla’s chief-of-the-boat and yeoman maintained military bearing behind her desk.

“We board her.” Eyla studied the Chinese porcelain coffee mug in her hands. “Take prisoners whenever possible, but we need to storm the bridge and get control. Your Marines up for that?”

“Of course, Captain,” he marfed, focusing on enunciation. The Dobermensch were fierce, loyal, and lethal, but their Canis Sapiens vocal structure had problems with AmeroEnglish. “Full battalion for the assault, second battalion in reserve.”

“Very good. Have your electronics guys hack the onboard systems ASAP, get better deck plans, personnel roster, all that. If we’re lucky, they’re still location-chipped.”

“Of course, Captain. My troops are geared and briefed already.” He maintained stiff military bearing. “Permission to speak?”

“Of course.” Eyla sipped her coffee.

“These men may be osteoarthritic relics, or they may have sixty-plus years of fanatical practice and training.”

“Assume worst-case, colonel. They’re dangerous as hell until proven otherwise.”

“My question, ma’am . . .” Sholmir looked briefly embarrassed, as if he’d chewed the captain’s sneakers. “Will you be joining us again on this one?”

“Captain on the bridge!”

“As you were. Helm. Match our ventral fighter bay with their forward dorsal.” Eyla now wore the battle-dress fatigues of flat monochrystalline-weave black, Krupp-Arisaka blaster pistol on the hip—custom trigger and fast-acquisition combat sights courtesy of Hollands Gunsmiths of London—and the katana, forged and folded on New Tahiti by master swordsmith Maria Salamanca-Hirowashi. “Match drift vectors and lock us on.”

“Roger that,  Skipper.” Arturo hazarded a sly grin. “Mounting her and putting us on top.”

“Colonel Sholmir.” Eyla tapped the throatmike. “Heads-up your troopers. We breach at her hangar in five minutes.”

Captain Melana strode into the Sword of Saladin’s forward hangar deck, one hand on katana hilt, the other swinging freely. The Marines already had it secured, less than a minute after the plasma charges breached the armored bay doors. The firefight had been brief, and Sholmir’s elite Marines had rapidly overrun the token geriatric resistance. Now they swept corridor-to-corridor and compartment-to-compartment. Twenty bearded prisoners and nine corpses were lined against the empty fighter bay. Four wounded Marines were already being tended. Engineers and technicians worked to electronically intrude into the old warship’s computers and communications, hacking and data-mining.

“Report.” Eyla focused on the young Marine officer in charge, two meters and a hundred kilos at the least. “Mister Sailele?”

“Aye, ma’am.” The huge Samoan lieutenant snapped to attention. “Our casualties are light so far, but we have three dead. Theirs are heavier, at least thirty dead. We have over a thousand prisoners, most of them locked in storage bays and staterooms. The hackers just broke into the system a few minutes ago, so we’ve got control of the compartment seals. We’ve neutralized most of the resistance by locking them in.”

“At ease, Sailele.” Eyla squatted. “You’re too tall. Take a knee.” She adjusted the sword, moving it farther back on her belt.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Lieutenant Sailele removed his visored helmet, used it as a stool. When he laid his plasma carbine on the deck, Eyla noted blood on the bayonet. “We’ve got pockets of resistance in the engineering spaces and at the bridge—Corporal!” Sailele hailed a corporal holding a portable holo-unit, now wired into one of the hangar datapanels. “Bring up the latest deck plans.” The lieutenant pointed into the two-meter hologram when it appeared. “Fighting’s been heaviest here . . . and here. That’s the bridge. The colonel’s there now. About ten holdouts, including that admiral, we think.” Sailele focused on Eyla’s face. “Most of these guys are pushovers, but a few of them can fight pretty well. Hand-to-hand, blades for the most part. We’ve only run across a few with blasters and slugthrowers. Mostly bayonet and knife work. They stick to the narrow corridors and restricted spaces, too close for webguns and stun grenades. Gotta dig ‘em out.”

“So they still hold the bridge.” Eyla reached into the hologram, spreading her fingers to expand the bridge into greater detail. The corporal tapped a control stud; Arabic sigils became AmeroEnglish. “Let’s assume they can override our override from there. Or initiate self-destruct if they’re real jerks about it.”

“Aye, ma’am. They’re trying. Our guys keep changing security codes on them.” Sailele peered into the datascroll at the edge of the hologram. “Also, we’ve got access to crew roster, damage control, pretty much everything. Looks like most of the crew is dead, either battle injuries sixty years ago or old age since then. They’ve been doling out anagathics to the senior officers and chiefs, keeping them healthy. Looks like they converted two of the fighter bays into hydroponics, too.”

“You were reading the display before the translation.” Eyla studied his face. “You know Arabic?”

“Yes ma’am. Fifth and sixth form on New Tahiti before officer school.”

“Very good.” She stood. “Take me to the bridge.”

“He says he’ll detonate the onboard atomics.” Colonel Sholmir listened carefully to the gunnery sergeant translating. “Says he has a deadman switch already activated, with a hidden cut-off.” The translator, Gunny Filitov, added, “He sounds serious.”

Sholmir turned and half-bowed as Eyla approached. “Captain.”

“Colonel.” Eyla looked over the Marines covering the heavy blast door into the bridge. “Sit-rep?”

“There are ten of them in there, Captain. They claim to have a deadman switch on the ship’s remaining atomic ordinance. Our techies have eyes-on, and there’s a big red button pushed in and held down by one of the men in there.”

“Can you breach and get to it fast enough?”

“Yes ma’am,” Sholmir growled. “Gunnery sergeant Filitov here will take that task.” Eyla nodded to Filitov, an occasional sparring partner, the Himalaya’s bantamweight Sambo champion, laser-fast and insanely immune to pain. “She’ll secure the button before his thumb comes off of it.” Filitov was already removing her carbine and helmet, getting light.

“Very well.” Eyla rolled her shoulders. “Have the hackers breach it.”

The rush was expected. Two greybeards with short scimitars—cutlasses, really—charged the Marines as soon as the blast door opened. Both focused on Captain Melana as Filitov duck-rolled under them and dove into the bridge. Scimitars steady, they advanced. Eyla recognized the trained stance of expert swordsmen.

Iaijutsu. Noun. Japanese. The drawstrike: a single move to unsheathe the katana and execute a killing blow or sequence of blows.

Eyla’s upswing caught the left-hand swordsman below the chin, halving the skull from right jawbone to left temple then arcing downswing to the right-hand scimitarman at the clavicle, cutting ribs and lung, scoring hipbone, ending ten centimeters above the deck. Eyla held the kneeling position briefly, one knee brushing the deck, blade level and motionless, as the Marines stormed past her.

When she looked up, Filitov had the button-holder’s arm locked to the console, one leg hooked under the panel for leverage, the other under his chin, forcing his neck backward to the breaking point. Her wrist tendons strained as she ground the old man’s thumb solidly onto the button.

The admiral held a long scimitar. He spoke. Sailele translated.

“He says he invokes House Code. Honor duel between nobles.”

“So now the concubine is a worthy opponent, I see?” Eyla smiled grimly. “Tell him it’s bloody well on. Clear this space!”

Two Marines had already replaced Filitov and her captive. One kept a thumb pressed on the red button while Filitov studied its glowing sigils. The Marines held the remaining bridge crew in restraining holds. Colonel Sholmir scowled, ears back in disapproval, but House Code was House Code, and Lady Melana was both a noble and a captain.

Prince-Admiral Falad looked Methuselaic, but he was fast and steady. Lady Eyla kept the katana in high guard as he circled, his own blade resting just off one shoulder. He struck out fast, a shoulder-level arc. Eyla caught it on the katana hilt, launched a lightning counterstrike at Falad’s neck. Scimitar and katana resonated with the impact.

The gut-punch surprised Eyla, a left straight to the solar plexus. She doubled over as he raised the scimitar for a strike to the back of the neck. Eyla surged up on her toes, headbutt catching him under the chin. She dropped the katana, grabbing two handfuls of beard and hair, threw herself into a side-roll. Torque, technique, and leverage snapped the admiral’s neck at the second and third cervical vertebrae.

“Deadman switch is a bluff,  Skipper.” Filitov shook her head. “Roughly translated, it’s the emergency auto-docking button.”

“Very well.” Eyla looked down at the dead Falad, then speculatively at Saladin’s command chair, smiling. “Tell Miller to send word to the House. We have raised the Jolly Roger and are taking home a prize. Then have a glass of wine brought and clear the bridge. I’d like a moment alone.”

The author and his wife live at anchor aboard a 33-foot sailboat. Solar panels and wind provide their energy. Isolation and eccentric interaction both feed creativity out there on the water.

by B. Morris Allen

She was a flash of yellow when she dropped out of FTL, going .9 c in a sleek ship marred by a tracery of energy-weapon scars. She was a spray of actinic blue when she crashed through the Engsson barrier at the edge of Norbeq system. And she was a steady burn of fusion-red as she decelerated at tremendous G to allow Norbeqi fast cruisers to catch up and arrest her.

“Who are you?” they asked when the cruisers reached her. “Why have you come here?” And, most important, “How did you survive deceleration?”

“I am destiny and doom,” she answered when the soldiers let her go. “I am hope and hatred. I am trouble and terror.” When they called for doctors and drugs, she said. “I am Periphery Scout Anjica Zelnov. Tend my wounds, and I will tell you about future and fear.”

“We have an anomaly.”

Anjica flipped her seat vertical with a neat kick. Hours spent mapping the edge of Mechanic space had left her eager for any distraction. As the ship liked to say, the work was an exhausting mix of tedium and tension—annotating mineral analysis reports while waiting for the alarms that would signal Mechanic presence and a terrifying wait for the faster-than-light drive to charge. The fact that the scout was unarmed and unarmored only made it worse, though she knew that the Mechanic advantage in speed and maneuverability made weapons a pointless waste of mass. Scouts relied instead on two advantages—a highly sensitive array of sensors, and the FTL drive. The Mechanics might be effectively immune to the effects of acceleration, but they could still travel no faster than light—one reason why their rate of expansion could be mapped and predicted.

“Roger, Dodger.”

“Never tire of that joke, do you?” The ship’s voice was the epitome of long-suffering patience.

“It’s what made you what you are.” Anji’s first words to the ship when she had finished its programming, they had left it with a love for assonance that she had long since given up try to eradicate. By now, she even liked it. “What kind of anomaly? Boring or bastard?” Most anomalies fell in one of two categories: asteroids with an unusual mineral makeup or new varieties of Mechanic ships.

“Oh, definitely or.“

Anji chuckled. She had only herself to blame for the ship’s odd sense of humor.

“Okay, what kind of ‘or,’ Dodger?”

“Communications,” the ship answered. “We’re receiving long-wave radio communications on a human frequency, but they’re not in a current code. In fact, I’m not sure it’s a code at all.”

“Really? That is interesting. You’re sure it’s not a Mechanic transmission?” Mechanics seemed to eavesdrop on human radio, but rarely used it for their own communications.

“It’s unlikely. But it will take me some time to understand it. I may have to decompress the deep archives.” The ship, naturally, expressed no concern about the prospect of searching and sifting vast amounts of data for pattern matches.

“Do we know where it’s coming from?” Anjica glanced at the system schematic that had occupied her recent hours. It showed a few gas giants and a few mineral rich asteroids around an A-type star. “Surely not from this system.”

“Definitely not. I’ve been observing and recording the signal since we entered this system, and it clearly originates from further cross-galaxy. The system is too small to triangulate usefully, but I have a very rough fix.”

Anjica considered. Her mission was exploration, and this surely fit the bill.

“Right. Let’s wrap things up here, file the data, and do some proper investigation, beginning with a point of origin. Start charging the drive.”

The administrative work required was minimal. She finished her notes, packaged the file, and sat back in her couch. It would take several hours to charge the FTL drives for a jump to another system, and she needed the time to unwind.

“Hey, Dodger! Pick out a film for me, would you? Something exciting.”

“Drama and danger, coming right up.”

The neat fields of Frexi colony nestled evenly between low red hills. Small, shiny clusters of pre-fabricated white cottages overlooked lush crops from the shelter of newly planted evergreen windbreaks. Occasional robotic gardeners gleamed in the sunlight as they weeded and watered, while in other fields, stooping humans learned the practicalities of harvest and cursed the recalcitrance of even andergene cotton bolls. Overhead, the last shuttle awaited the skeleton crew closing down the good ship Promise. Only a small research hub remained open. Faces were happy and hopeful. Life was good.

The Captain of the Promise raised her glass in a final toast to the ship that had served the travelers so well for the last several centuries. As she opened her mouth to speak, alarms sounded, lights flashed, and confusion erupted. Moments later, the chamber exploded.

As the view zoomed out, clouds of air vented from hull ruptures across the entire ship, and fires flared briefly. In the orange light, squat black ships became visible as their energy weapons and missiles broke the defenseless ship into bits of flotsam.

The impossibly fast black ships turned their attention to the colony below. Heroic attempts with inadequate, jury-rigged bore-lasers and lumbering tracticles took many black ships down. From some crawled creatures in artificial bodies with long, spidery legs and glistening mandibles, to be beset by brave colonists with farm tools.

In the end, however, even the most valiant humans could hold no longer, and were overcome by a tidal wave of dark mechanical forces. Frexi colony, humanity’s last, best attempt at sleepship colonization, was no more.

With a sigh, Anji turned off the vid. It was a dramatic rendition, no doubt, and she was as much affected by the tragic story of Frexi colony as anyone else. But the fact remained that most of the vid was conjecture, based on the few remnants found centuries later by early FTL explorers. It was known that Frexi had been destroyed by the Mechanics. Why they had done it remained one of the galaxy’s great mysteries.

“I liked that one,” offered the ship. “Balanced and brainy.”

“Sure you did,” said Anji. She had programmed sarcasm into the ship herself.

“I especially liked the child looking out through the port as her cabin fell out of orbit. Remind me, which were the bad guys? The vid was so evenhanded that I couldn’t be sure.”

“I agree, it was subtle. But I think it was the Mechanics. Because they accelerate and decelerate at such high G. It’s not fair.”

“All should be fair in love and war, they say. Something like that.”

“Next time we meet a Mechanic, I’ll be sure to tell it.” If she did ever meet a Mechanic, she would be dead. Their weapons and tactics were primitive, but Mechanic speed and maneuverability trumped human martial experience every time. It was for this reason that Mechanic-contacted systems were instantly given up as lost. Humanity relied instead on secrecy and distance for protection, a habit derived from centuries of painful experience.

A millennium ago, humans had been adventurous and aggressive, even arrogant, she knew. After expanding slowly to several nearby but inhospitable star systems, the race had ached for more dramatic expansion. When Vann Esmith had presented his equations allowing for an ‘intertialess’ drive that offered safe, rapid acceleration and practical near-light speed travel, the species had grabbed the idea with both hands and run. It had not gotten far. Several centuries later, no one had succeeded in building a functioning drive. Scientists and engineers had managed to create the extremely powerful and efficient engines needed for near-light travel; they had learned a great deal about ship design, but very little about implementing an actual drive system. Research fell off, and the Esmith drive entered the pie-in-the-sky realm of anti-gravity (which it closely resembled), and perpetual motion (which it did not).

Instead, Earth had invested heavily in the construction of several generation ships, bound for distant but habitable systems. When costs had far outrun budget estimates, even these efforts had fallen off, and humans settled, dissatisfied, into a period of gradual Distancing—the dissolution of the stellar empire into manageable pieces—kept roughly current by light-speed communications.

With hope largely gone, Violet Duncaster had been hailed as a hero when she announced her design for an FTL drive from her workshops in Centauri system. Soon, the Duncaster drive had spread across humanity’s few, scattered interstellar colonies. Centauri was the center of a Reconnected human empire, and Duncaster was richer than any three planets combined. They had even renamed the moon of Centauri II “Violet” in her honor.

Unfortunately, FTL had also brought two severe shocks—encounters with virulently hostile Mechanics, and the sad news that at least one generation ship, the Promise, had succeeded in establishing a colony, only to be destroyed by those same Mechanics.

“The transmission source is within what is known to be Mechanic territory,” said the ship after the last triangulation jump. “While the specific system has not been scouted, it is virtually certain that the Mechanics’ light-speed ships have reached it.” The ship paused. “It should go without saying that it would be extremely difficult to reach the source.”

Anjica frowned. Entering the system would not be difficult in itself—a carefully calculated FTL jump would put her in easy reach of the transmission source. Surviving the ensuing Mechanic attack, however, would be a very different question, and probably a questionable risk. While eager for a longer break from tedious resource mapping, she had no intention of risking her life for what might be just the malfunctioning beacon of a robot probe gone astray.

“Have you made any progress in decoding the signal?”

“Just about to. . .” the ship paused. “Done.”

“Dodge, you show-off, you timed that just to have an excuse to grandstand.” The ship’s brain (technically a series of processing units spread throughout the ship) was not technically an AI, but scouts tended to program for a maximum of human-like interaction in order to maintain a pretense of social interaction. Along with humour, Anjica had included a certain amount of preening and self-satisfaction.

“It worked.” The ship sounded smug. “At any rate, what we have here is the telemetry from an Esmith trial.”

“Telemetry.” Anjica was disappointed. Test data from one of the thousands of failed Esmith prototypes was unlikely to be worthy of further investigation. And certainly not entry into a Mechanic zone.

“Okay.” She sighed heavily. “Do we have a full record of the transmission? Might as well put it in the file, for what it’s worth. Then plot a return to system surveys.”

An hour or so later, mopping up the last of a very tasty hot and sour soup while waiting once again for the drive to charge, Anjica asked the ship to put the captured Esmith telemetry on a screen.

“Pretty it up for me, would you? Throw in some graphs. Might as well take a look at it. I’ve always wondered how close those last ships came to success.”

Ten minutes later, her soup was forgotten, as was any thought of returning to survey work.

“Ship!” her voice trembled slightly. “Graph tables four and seventeen, and show the results side by side.” The graphs, one a sharply descending line, and the other a moderately bumpy horizontal, appeared as requested. “Tell me I’m not seeing what I think I am.” Anjica’s voice was tight and high with stress.

“Graph four, on the left, shows the velocity in meters per second steadily declining, from approximately 250 million to zero meters per second over a period of ten minutes. Graph seventeen, on the right, shows an accelerometer reading ranging from about ten to forty meters per second squared, and averaging about twenty.” The ship paused. “Is that what you were seeing? The data for the second table is coded ‘Internal G,’” it added helpfully.

There was a long silence.

“Are you telling me that this ship decelerated from the speed of light to a full stop in ten minutes, and that the inside of the ship experienced no more than 4G?”

“That’s correct.”

“That’s bullshit, is what it is!” Anjica pounded the control panel, voice shading towards anger. “You’ve misread the data. No Esmith drive ever worked. If it had, we wouldn’t have had the Distancing, and we sure as hell wouldn’t be hiding from the Mechanics now!” Both hands and voice had risen as she spoke, until by now she was yelling, fists held before her. “If this is a joke, I swear I’ll re-program you right now. In fact, I’ll wipe you completely and start with a generic model.” She yanked at a keyboard, already planning the wipe sequence.

“Anjica, I’m not joking. I’ve re-checked the data several times, and this is what they say. The data we received in all the systems we visited match precisely. I can’t guarantee their accuracy, of course, but this is what’s in the transmission.”

She lowered the keyboard slowly. “But that means. . . It means that the Esmith drive does work. It does exist!” She sagged slowly back in the chair. “How can that be? How did we not know?” She frowned. “Wait, why did this ship not return? Is it damaged? And how did it end up in Mechanic territory?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you’re sure there’s no chance of data corruption?”

“It’s extremely unlikely. I can’t confirm the accuracy of the original data, of course, but I am confident that we received the data as transmitted.”

“Ah.” Comprehension slowly dawned. “That’s the answer—the Mechanics faked the transmission. It’s a trap.” She relaxed slowly back into the command chair.

“Possible,” the ship confirmed. Anjica considered the possibility silently. It explained a great deal—why the transmission came from Mechanic space, and why no word of a successful Esmith drive had gotten out—there had been none. And yet. . .

“Could this transmission have reached human space yet?”

“Deep archives indicate that light-speed telemetry was always a last-ditch backup for Esmith ships. This transmission has not reached inhabited human space.”

Anjica shuddered. “Mechanics might be able to backtrack a ship. We have to report back!”

“I’m preparing an FTL pod now.”

Anji opened her mouth to respond, but closed it with a frown. “Wait a minute. If the telemetry could not have reached us yet, then the ship could not have been from us. Light speed is light speed. What are they playing at? Or is it just a shot in the dark?” After all, she mused, humanity’s best defense was the Mechanics’ ignorance of their location.

“I can’t say, Anjica. No one knows how the Mechanics think.” The ship paused. “Or maybe the transmission is real.”

A week later, Anjica was deep in the transmission’s source system, biting her lip and hiding from Mechanics in an asteroid belt. She had obediently sent off her findings and surmises by FTL drone. But instead of reporting back in person, she had chosen to check out the transmission personally. Scouts expected risk, after all. She had not, she admitted ruefully, expected to be quite so frightened. Yet she had started, and so far appeared to be undetected. Time to shake off the fear and get something done. A working Esmith drive, she reminded herself, would be the find of the century and make her as famous as Violet Duncaster. More important, it would allow human ships to match Mechanic speed and agility, and perhaps allow humans to finally stop hiding in corners and fight back.

“Have you tracked down the source of the transmission yet?” she asked the ship.

“Not yet. We’re definitely in the right system, but the transmission itself is no longer being broadcast. It may be that the transmitting ship finally ran out of power. The closest transmission we received was from about twenty light years away.”

“Still,” continued the ship, “I have completed a passive survey of the system.” A schematic flashed up on the main screen. “The main concentrations of Mechanics are here.” Splotches of blue appeared on the schematic, including in a swathe of the asteroid belt.

“Well, heck,” said Anjica. “We can’t just go poking around in all that!”

“Never fear, fair maiden,” the ship said with mock gallantry. “No poking and prodding for us. We have enough information that I’ve been able to make some predictions. In fact,” it added more seriously, “we may now have more information about a developed Mechanic system than anyone has ever gathered before. Well worth taking back to base, which I highly recommend.”

“Right.” Anjica nodded absent-mindedly. “So what are your predictions?”

The ship sighed. “These places appear to be mining sites.” As it spoke, colored symbols appeared on the screen. “These appear to be refining, while these appear to be construction, mostly of ships.” More symbols appeared, until most of the blue was overlaid with other colors. “That’s about all I can tell from a passive scan. But look here.” A circle appeared on the schematic above an isolated area of untouched blue. “This appears to be the only large concentration of inactive ships.”

“As if they’re guarding something,” breathed Anjica.

“Maybe,” replied the ship. “At any rate, it’s the one grouping that I cannot readily account for.”

“Right. Let’s go, then.”

The asteroid rose up before her like a dark, foreboding wall. Small by the scale of planetary bodies, it dwarfed Anjica’s tiny scout ship, for which she was grateful. Scoutcraft were designed to be overlooked, but no human had ever come this close to a Mechanic stronghold and come back to tell about it. And she might not either, Anjica thought grimly. She had been tasked with mapping Mechanic territory, not invading it.

“Is the drive ready to charge?” Anjica’s voice came out high and tight. The drive required a charging period of several hours, the charge didn’t hold for long, and the ship’s engines could only muster such a charge once a day.

“Of course it is, Anji,” the ship chided. “Wired and waiting. Just like the last time you asked.”

They had drifted in slowly and from below the ecliptic, with as many internal systems shut down as possible. Their target, this asteroid, appeared to be the center of a conglomeration of Mechanic structures. On closer examination, they appeared to be, not ships, but structures permanently fixed to the surface of the asteroid. They showed no signs of even the cold life of Mechanics. Two even appeared to be severely damaged, perhaps by collision with other elements of the belt.

“I’ll need to fire landing rockets soon,” warned the ship.

Anji licked her lips. “Fine, but as brief and late as possible.” They had calculated the trajectory so as to ensure that the asteroid would be between the ship and the bulk of the system’s Mechanic presence. They would be in full view of the asteroid’s surface structures, however. “Head for that central declivity.”

As the ship fell toward the dark gash in the asteroid’s surface, she clenched her jaw. This was the moment of truth—their maximum exposure to any watchers.

“Hang on,” warned the ship. “This will be rough.”

Anji, already well strapped in, simply nodded.

As the ship entered the declivity, its engines fired hard. The acceleration forced the air out of Anji’s lungs, and left her gasping when, moments later, it suddenly ceased. The ship fired pitons to grip the surface. They were down.

And now what? Work as hard and fast as possible, or lie low waiting to find out if she had been spotted? Neither made much difference. If she had been seen, the Mechanics would be here in hours or even minutes, long before she could charge the FTL engines.

“Anji,” the ship interrupted her musings, “I took advantage of the flare from the exhaust to scan and record the interior of the declivity. I think you should see this.”

— End of Part I —

B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that moved around the world.  He’s still moving, and the books are multiplying like mad.

http://www.metaphorosis.com

by Michael S. Roberts 

Riverside wharves, No-cops Zone, New Orleans, August 2040. 

As soon as I saw the two cybered-up Jamaicans round the corner, I knew there would be another fight. Probably they were just dropping by Cao’s brothel for a disease-free afternoon quickie, but Cao was writhing happily right at my feet, giggling and grasping at imaginary butterflies. I still had the warm coilgun in my hand. I’d hoped to nab Cao without being noticed by the Posses. Both of them stopped short, cutting off their laughing chat, taking in the tableau: me, standing over the pimp they were likely coming to see; the smoking, sparking synthdoll laid out a couple feet away; the reporter near the brothel entrance, steadying and panning her headcam. The reporter’s camera operator was still concealed in my car, at least. She’d get it all on digital, whatever went down next.

I scanned them on infrared, picking out a heavy-gauge shotgun on the left, a pair of magnum autopistols on the right. Much more worrisome was the metal in their meat: Shotgun guy on the left had a full cyberarm, shoulder-down. Cooler eye sockets meant optic implants, much nicer than mine, probably ZeissOptik. Guy on the right looked all-meat except for bulges on the backs of the hands: talon implants, serious street hardware. When he grinned, I saw two chromed incisors, nearly an inch long. Both had the colors of the local Jamaican Posse: brocade vest on one, animated neon paisley muscle shirt on the other. Gold lame pants, rainbow sashes. Mix of dreadlocks and braids, heavy with ebonywood beads and colored glass.

“Not what it looks like, guys. . .” I holstered the flechette thrower, kept a hand on the grip. “Got a civilian here, just looking to leave with Cao.”

Cyberarm tilted his head and grinned at his partner. “We f’sha come here’a get screwed, mon.”

Chrome Teeth kept his predator smile aimed at me. “Looky-like you come f’dat too.”

Damn.

One hour earlier. . .

Café du Monde, French Quarter, New Orleans.

Brutally humid as usual today, the air thick and wet as a washrag. I had a meeting set for noon with the camera crew, iced coffee and beignets as much on my mind as the job itself. Her face was fresh in my head, studied and memorized from her online profile: Cajun good looks, brilliant camera-friendly smile, dark hair around a healthy tan, chin-dimple, green eyes. Genevieve Bordelon, freelance reporter, looking to do a story on my line of work: bounty hunting. I scanned the open café, noting the thermal contrast was higher in here. Shade and overhead fans.

She was already at a table, studying the printing on a paper cup of steaming coffee. Probably the standard warning not to spill it in your lap. Good advice; my optics showed a temperature above one-seventy. She wore a fairly retro photographer’s vest from the last century, loaded with pouches, pockets, and paraphernalia. Black t-shirt from Hurricane’s Bar and Grill, short sleeves cut into knotted fringes, pseudo-Amerind style in fashion this week. I didn’t register any armament, aside from a Gerber multi-tool on the belt and a small hunting knife. Quick scan around: she’s not alone. The black woman with the recently-trimmed high-and-tight hair and military-issue cyberarm two tables over was keeping an eye on her—and me. Miss Bordelon brought a friend, a veteran friend from the look of her, armed with a small-bore pistol under her shirt. Smart lady.

I was kind of looking forward to this. Give an interview on skip-tracing and bounty hunting, then take her and her crew on a ride-along on an easy pick-up job, a pimp who’d skipped bail and gone back to business in the no-cops zone near the riverfront. My partner was already setting up the bodyguard to be tardy for work today, leaving the mark open for a snatch-and-grab.

The target, Daniel Cao, was a low-end pimp running a brothel on Tchoupitoulas Street. He’d gotten arrested a few weeks ago, foolishly heading to Saint Charles and straight into a Homeland Security stop-and-frisk. He ran a brothel out of an old warehouse, mostly eroto-synth automatons, programmable sex dolls, giving customers the option to choose a body type and a personality type and put them together, accessorized to taste. Cao also ran live hookers for the retro-minded customers, legal and licensed. That was not the problem. Supposedly he also pimped out underage kids from the Far East, little girls from Hong Kong, Saigon, Manila. Cao had a lot of the local cops on the pad, and he definitely ran his business in the unofficial police-free zone. But he’d gotten stupid, wandered into HomeSec-enforcement turf, and gotten pinched.

Bordelon would get it all on camera, I’d get my standard pay, minus a cut for my partner, with a token payout from the Fresh Eyes News website if they ran the story. Plus, she looked pretty sexy. I always liked Southern girls.

She looked up as I stepped to her table, flashed the same smile I recalled from her profile. “You must be Mister Rooker. Have a seat, I’ve got the tab.”

“Call me Chris.” She took the offered hand; I took the chair.

“Genevieve Bordelon. Call me Vivvie.” She worked hard to hide the bayou accent. It mostly worked. “My producer Randi set up this meeting. Thanks for coming out. How would you like to start?”

“With coffee. Iced, and a beignet.” I signaled a waitress, holding up one finger, then four, numbers on the holo-menu over the kitchen entrance. Curly hair bounced when she smile-nodded back, flash of electric yellow at one ear. “Then I answer pretty much any questions you got. Hopefully you’ll answer some of mine, too.”

“Every interview’s a two-way exchange,” she smiled. “So tell me how you got started. Tell me your story.”

“Sure. You recording already?”

“Of course.” She tilted her head to the left, falling hair showing an ear-mounted minicam, earbud, and throatmike wired together. Her eyes cut to the right. “My partner—Mia—has a cam running as well. 3-D hologram, real-time linked to both our laptops offsite through a repeater in the car.” I checked: yep, her partner had a high-end newscam on the chair next to her, pointed past the table between us.

The waitress brought my order and called me Sugar. Creole beauty and lazy sweet-tea drawl, with a yellow neon tattoo below her navel: Fleur-de-lis, Latin script scrollwork around it: local college girl. Neural-input jack below her left ear, also highlighted in glowing yellow. Hacker? Not shy about it, either, flaunting hardware like that. There are guys in Elysian Fields who’d dig it out with a switchblade for the lousy couple grand it’d bring at a pawn shop. I filed her under Interesting Persons as she sashayed back to the kitchen.

“So okay,” I opened, facing back to Vivvie, taking a sip of icy café au lait. “I got my start in the U. S. Army. Ranger school after a year in the basic infantry. Grunt work, house-to-house stuff in Bandar-Abbas mostly, sometimes port security. Learned gutter Persian pretty fast, some Arabic—Army said I had a knack for languages. Then I got approved for Rangers. I thought I was Billy Badass until I went through spec-ops training. Made it through, of course, but that was a tough year, eighty percent drop rate. Earned my jump wings, diver quals, demolitions, sniper training, Apache knife work, languages. . .” Another sip. “Lots of hypno-training, neural induction, like that. Brutal headaches most of the time. Plus the workouts. Physical training every day, and at night, couple days a week, the electrostimulation. Not the fun kind you’re probably thinking of. The kind where you get acupuncture needles in the major and minor muscles, different groups in sequence, microjolts of electricity to keep ‘em twitching all night. Builds up dense muscle mass without over-bulking.” I picked up the beignet, held my breath, took a careful bite. Powdered sugar stayed put. “That’s the stuff,” muffled by sugary dough, “I can say without violating clearances.”

“Can you say how you know my producer?”

“I can say some, sure. Down south, covert ops in. . .a country with a Spanish name and some excellent beaches. That’s where I got my one Purple Heart and a modest upgrade. She was an intelligence officer, Navy, a lieutenant commander if I recall correctly. I was a sergeant. My guys were running a parallel operation with a SEAL team, which is why the Navy was involved. Can’t say anything about the mission, of course. But after, when I was in the medical ward, she stopped by to check on me. No idea what she looked like, but I loved that whiskey-and-cigarettes voice. We talked business mostly, but she did bring me a couple of really cold beers. She also ran interference when the doctors and my colonel tried to pressure me into taking the long-term contract for the medical procedure. I went with the middle option, four more years and an electronic upgrade.”

“You’ve kinda lost me there, hun,” she said, letting a little drawl into her voice. “Contract? Upgrade?”

“Right. I lost my eyesight in that mission. The bad guys had lasers, fast-flicker beams, blue-green frequency, same as ours, so the firefight was chaotic as hell. I took a headshot, right in the face. Overloaded the visor, crisped one eyeball and burned out the retina in the other. My guys got me out. Anyway, the Army says, you got three options. One, discharge as a blind man, full medical bennies but that’s it. Complimentary white cane with a red tip, that’s on us, thanks for your service and so long, sergeant. Two, implanted cyberoptics, infrared, flash-polarization, good quality gear. Military issue, like your friend’s arm over there. But the price for that is another four-year hitch. Three, they clone me actual new eyes. Twenty-ten vision to boot, all natural, real meat, the finest clone-vat technology, proprietary Euro-tech. Price for that, ten years, and they pushed it hard. That’s where your boss stepped in. She couldn’t pull any rank on my colonel, naturally, but hearing her get all up in the doctors’ faces was priceless. Not sure why she helped me, but she definitely did. She made damn sure I signed the contract I wanted, being still blind and all. The Army is. . .”—I did my best Gollum impression—”tricksy.” Another sip of icy coffee. “Anyway, she was gone before the implant work got done, so I never got to actually see her. But we keep in touch now and then through email. No holos or webcam, though. I like her being a mystery woman of sorts.”

“So is that why you wear those very nice shades?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “To hide the cyber-eyes?”

“Ah, you know Costa del Mars when you see them.” I reached up, touching the frame. “Yes. Definitely. No need to let people know you’ve got military implants. At least,” I gestured with my free hand, “ones that can be easily hidden, unlike your friend’s arm. She seems to like showing it off, though.” I smirked, left corner of my mouth scrunching up. “Want to see them?”

The Jamaicans split, left-right to flank me. Chrome Teeth balled his fists and went talons-out: six ceramic-grey blades, about three inches each, right between the knuckles. Cyberarm came out with a hatchet I hadn’t seen, small of the back carry. I read the unspoken lingo: they wouldn’t go to guns unless I did. This was a street-beat, just a bit of fun and practice for them.

“I’d love to,” she said. “And hear whatever you want to tell me about them.” Vivvie kept her head steady, trusting Mia to get a good zoom-shot from the side.

I set the shades on the tabletop, green lenses in tortoiseshell frames catching a brief distorted reflection of twin ceiling fans. Where eyes should be, matte-black lenses filled my sockets, primer-dull and gently curved. My right cheek twitched upward. “The thing I miss most is being able to give a proper wink. Especially now.” I settled the sunglasses back into place, leaned back in my chair again.

“What about crying?”

“Can’t anymore. Although I still have reason on occasion.” I looked down at my powdery beignet. “You see some scary things on the street.”

“Your line of work, I can imagine so,” she hazarded, leaning farther forward. “Can you give me an example?”

“Some other time. Sad tale of an unlucky husband, wife, and daughter and Jamaican Voodoo Posses. But not today.”

“Are we—” She shivered a little, involuntarily. “Are we going to be dealing with them today?”

“Nope. We’ve got a pass. Cao does business with them on occasion, mostly girls and dope. But he’s not under their protection or anything. Plus, he got arrested. Jamaicans won’t miss him. They’ll just do business with his replacement, probably the bodyguard my partner’s handling today. Life on the streets, Miss Bordelon.”

“I do know a little about it, even though I grew up down in the bayou.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, let it fall free again. The black t-shirt, damp with sweat even in the shade of the Café, stretched tighter as the khaki vest fell open. Infrared revealed more than she thought it did, and sudden exposure to the breeze from the overhead fan made things even more. . .outstanding. Subtle facial cues told me she’d planned the gesture and knew its effect. I looked away after a moment, activated the implanted timepiece on my left wrist, dim red LEDs showing military time, twelve-thirty hours. Almost time to go.

“Okay, Miss Vivvie. Let’s go get our bad guy.” I stuffed the last of the beignet away, washed it down with the coffee, crunched a couple of ice cubes. “I’ll be happy to answer more questions after we’re done, but today we’re on a timer.”

They rode in my vehicle, an old hybrid Hummer with the off-road package: flat black, bumper winch, knobby tires, toolboxes and plastic lockers filling the cargo space in back. The seats were solid plastic, almost no padding at all. Five-point Recaro racing harnesses instead of the standard seatbelts. It moved quietly for such a huge monstrosity. We were well into the lawless zone on the riverfront.

“So,” Vivvie asked from the passenger seat, while Mia recorded from the middle bench, “How exactly are you planning to arrest this person?”

“Pretty easily, is the plan.” I grinned in the mirror at Mia’s camera. “My partner already texted me. The bodyguard is out of action. A little dose of mil-spec synthetic dysentery, enough to keep him tied to a toilet for about three hours. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. When we get there, the place won’t be open for business just yet, so we’ll hang out and talk to the door-girls until Cao shows up. Then I pop him in the leg with the fletcher here.” I patted the holstered gauss pistol. “Different cocktail, same idea. I don’t want him crapping up my ride. Standard load on this model is ninety rounds of tungsten flechettes, fin-stabilized after two meters. Top two rounds today are different: fast-dissolving ceramic darts dosed with dimethyl sulfoxide and a mix of curare for the base and psilocybin as a chaser. In clinical terms, he’ll be muscle-weak and tripping rainbows inside of a second or two. Then I strap him in the front seat and take him to my bail bondsman, who will then take him to Precinct. I know he doesn’t carry a firearm, but he does keep some monowire in his pocket, and that stuff is dangerous: single-strand molecule with a weighted ball on the end, cut through just about anything. Takes some training to use without lopping off your own arm, so I will wisely assume he knows how to use it. But all I gotta do is put a needle in him from a safe range, and I have two shots at it. So don’t expect any spectacular jujitsu demonstrations today.”

“Unfortunate,” she grinned. “Where are Mia and I in all this?”

“You’re outside with me at the door. Just a couple looking for a bit of kink. We chat up the door-girl until he drives up. Mia stays in here. I’ll park close so she can get a good angle.”

“Let Mia pick the spot, if that’s okay. I’ll have the headcam running for the up-close shots.”

Behind me, I saw Mia get out of the Hummer and set her digicam on the roof, making fast adjustments to its controls, then bolting to Vivvie’s side near the dock. I sidestepped toward the left-hand Jamaican, Cyberarm, trying to get them in a line to neutralize Chrome Teeth until I could take down the first. He switched stance, fast footwork followed by a machine-fast swing of the ceramic hatchet. I ducked under—barely—and rolled toward. . .

We parked near the loading dock at the front of the building, crumbling old warehouse turned brothel. The dock had been painted a glossy maroon, harlequin-patterned plastic mats brightening the concrete ramp. I could see the two door-girls were already activated, waving slowly with too-perfect vacant smiles. The hologram above the entrance flickered briefly, static and distortion obscuring the Vinyl Velvet marquee. It resumed its scroll after a moment, a series of beautiful faces tagged with names like Flower and Candi. The finest in personalized pleasure from manufacturers in Tokyo, Taiwan, and Zurich, interchangeable personalities programmed from genuine sorority girls, Thai hookers, and five-star Manhattan courtesans. I knew the live hookers wouldn’t be here until evening, so there was no chance of random interference. The little girls had been extracted by a volunteer team from Amnesty while Cao was in holding, and he hadn’t gotten a new shipment yet. I explained this to Vivvie as we walked up to the shaded entryway.

“So we’re only here for Mister Cao, right?” Vivvie seemed to be lowering her voice so the automatons wouldn’t hear. “Nobody to rescue in a dashing and heroic fashion?”

“Not today. We grab Cao, we go. The door girls run on autopilot all day. The bodyguard gets here three hours late, sees the deal, and it’s back to business as usual. Hopefully with a lesson learned on turning out tweenagers from Manila.”

The door girls turned their attention to us when we entered their five-meter engagement zone, smiling more widely and waving.

“Welcome,” Vivvie chuckled, “to the Hall of Prostitutes.”

They began their programmed spiel, trying to entice us into their parlor, switching vocal patterns and accent every half minute or so. The tall Nubian was speaking in a Texas twang, its Oriental partner in a sultry Slavic, when Cao’s car rolled up.

The red Lotus came to a stop near the base of the dock, right where I’d hoped it would in the spot labeled “CAO.” Mia would have a great angle from inside the Hummer. I turned to smile in its direction, using my arm around Vivvie to turn her as well, hiding the flechette pistol behind her hip. Then the Lotus’ doors swung upward—both of them. Another bodyguard? Cao stepped out of the passenger seat; the driver, a slim Hispanic beauty in a short green kimono, climbed out next. I waved and called out to them, registering the driver as low on thermal signature—a synthetic? Maybe just the air conditioning in the Lotus. Worth risking a drug-shot.

“Afternoon, y’all. You the owner? My girlfriend and me want some—” Crack! The thigh of Cao’s white trousers puckered, tiny red speck where the flechette went in. Crack! A tiny impact on the driver’s calf, no blood spot there. Definitely a synth, hopefully just another pleasure doll.

Cao was as fast as I’d expected, the monowire handle popping into his hand instantly. He flicked it out into the beginning of a figure-eight defensive weave and. . .dropped, doped up already as expected. A meter of monomolecular wire fell across the Lotus’ fender, slicing through headlight, metal, tire, and wheel. Sparks as electricals parted, balloon-pop of air from the bisected tire. The woman moved quickly, rushing me, launching a well-trained meai lua de costa double spin kick—Capoeira move, so this one was definitely programmed for combat. I ducked under the first kick, trapped the follow-up in the crook of my gun arm, gave her a reflexive Muay Thai knee strike straight to the groin. It connected hard, lifting her off the pavement. She didn’t even flinch. Or blink. Dumb move, Chris.

The headbutt hurt, and it was machine-fast. Thumbs shoved hard into my windpipe. I swept my gun arm up and over, clearing the chokehold; the synth’s elbow whipped back as I shot under and behind, securing a fast one-armed lock around its neck. How the hell do I choke out a robot? The machine, on the other hand, had no doubts programmed into it: two elbow strikes to my ribs, a foot stomp I barely avoided.

Flash of funny old memory from Cozumel: lithium battery unit implanted in the doll’s butt. Thermal check: Definitely a hot ass in more ways than one. The increased power load of combat showed me it was already heating up fast, so just a reprogrammed sex worker, not a true combat model. Good. Coilgun hand twisted into the space between my belly and the small of its back. Crack-crack-crack-crack-flash! Tungsten flechettes punched into the firm latex flesh, mauling the battery packs, ozone and sparks right against my groin. The doll went completely limp, hitting the pavement knees-first, then face down on the concrete when I released the neck hold.

That’s when the damn Jamaicans rounded the corner. I turned toward. . .

. . .the Lotus, rolling under the hatchet’s backswing follow-up, scooping up Cao’s monowire handle, the wire already auto-retracted into the grip. Years since I used one of these, but the training was hypno-burned into my lobes. I thumbed the release catch and whipped it backwards just as Cyberarm was cocking the hatchet for a third slash. The composite arm came apart at bead-wrapped wrist and myomer bicep. He was street-hard, I’ll give him that. Didn’t even flinch, but he stared at the stump in surprise for a moment. This time the Muay Thai kick worked, my shin strike aimed at the back of his head, his groin being in the way of that arc. Cyberstump turned gray, vomited a bit, and folded. I swept optics to the right, looking for Chrome Teeth, grabbing the dropped hatchet as I turned.

Mia was down, blood spitting from her thigh, Vivvie already putting pressure on the femoral. Chrome Teeth was reeling back, wrecked face in both hands. Mia must’ve gotten a punch in with her own metal arm.

I cocked the hatchet for a swing, then remembered the Jamaican Rule: kill one Posse soldier, and they will rain down retribution on you, your family, your friends. I’d have to tell Vivvie that story later. I flipped the hatchet blade-backward. The blunt end of two pounds of razored steel took him right behind the ear.

We left the Synthia and Jamaicans on the loading dock, Mia at the emergency clinic. Vivvie’s first aid, learned the hard way down in the bayous, had stopped the bleed just in time. Cao, grinning and mumbling, sat strapped into the passenger seat.

“Well,” I grimaced, examining the lump on my jaw in the rearview, “you got your spectacular jujitsu after all.”

“Most definitely. Mia’s cam got it all. We’ll edit the piece this afternoon. Thanks for a great story, Chris. I think you owe me the rest of the interview, though.”

“I’d love to.” He put the Hummer in gear. “Over dinner?”

“My place. I’ll cook.”

The author and his wife live at anchor aboard a 33-foot sailboat. Solar panels and wind provide their energy. Isolation and eccentric interaction both feed creativity out there on the water.

by Peter Wood

Mike hated the tree. Its roots buckled the driveway, forcing Mike to park on the street. Long scraggly branches scraped the roof of Mike’s house, prying up shingles. He despised raking and bagging endless leaves and acorns every fall.

But spiting his neighbor made Mike leave the tree alone. Roy, who lived next door, nagged Mike far too often to cut it down. Spite might have been why Dad had ignored Mom’s pleas to chop the tree into firewood. Dad had survived Mom and now the tree had outlasted Dad.

Mike slammed the door to his Dad’s battered pick up. It was almost time for the late news and he had a long night of legal writing ahead of him. Mike grabbed the bulging court file and a typical dinner—a fast food burger and fries—off the front seat.

He stuffed a fistful of fries in his mouth as he cradled the file for the legal brief that was due in two days. Since Susan kicked him out and he moved into Dad’s crumbling home, Mike had little time for anything but work.

Roy’s fat tabby hissed at him from atop the lawnmower as Mike dared to enter his own garage. The cat meowed in outrage and raced outside. Lord only knew what corner it had used as a litter box. Roy didn’t care about whatever mischief his pet caused. He told Mike he’d take care of the cat when Mike took care of the tree.

The frayed elastic holding in the files gave way and papers fluttered out. “Damn it!” Mike muttered. Hundreds of pages of contradictory federal statutes in microscopic type spread out on the grimy garage floor.

As he paced about for a moment to work off his frustration he noticed another box of Dad’s clap trap on a cluttered work bench. Mike had started to sort through Dad’s endless stuff several times since the divorce, but had quickly gotten overwhelmed. Dad was a pack rat. Mike had enough to do trying to please the suits at Holbrook, Holbrook, Holbrook and Holbrook without categorizing the results of a lifetime of Dad’s hoarding.

But tonight the box called to him. Whatever was in there had to me more interesting than spending the next eight or nine or ten hours analyzing the effect of a sewage right-of-way through a private chemical landfill.

Mike rooted through the water stained wooden box. More random junk. A Conway Twitty eight-track tape, still wrapped in cellophane, that Dad had probably picked up at some truck stop, an unopened box of Trotsky Tidbits cereal,  some worthless contraption that promised to make wine bottles into wine glasses by cutting off the necks. He could almost hear Mom lecturing Dad to throw the trash away.

He picked up a dusty brown glass bottle. Liquid sloshed.

A yellowed label read: DR. FIDEL’S GARDEN ELIXIR. Apply a small amount to the bark of any vegetation. Wait five minutes. Move without uprooting. A MODERN MIRACLE! Read complete directions thoroughly before using. Do not over apply! Patent Pending.

Mike was not surprised the bottle was unopened. Dad had never transformed a single wine bottle into a glass either. Mike tore off the cracked plastic, grabbed a flashlight, and walked outside to a young dogwood, about four feet tall. With great effort he unscrewed the bottle top. A thin film adhered to a metal wire loop, the sort used for soap bubbles. Mike blew the film onto the tree.

The dogwood quivered. He pushed the tree and it glided several inches away while somehow staying rooted in the ground, as if it were floating on water. He nudged it again. This time it easily moved several feet. Movement became harder and soon the tree stopped.

He heard Roy prattling about his kitchen. Roy kept odd hours since he lost his job at the dog food plant. Mike hoped his neighbor would stay inside and spare him from more whining about the oak tree. But, what if Mike could move the tree away from the property line? That would shut Roy up.

Mike walked over to the oak tree and blew a thin film on the bark. He heard a nearly imperceptible shake to the trunk.

Mike tried to push the tree away from Roy’s property. Nothing happened. He leaned into it, bracing his feet on Roy’s driveway. He grunted and strained. It was like riding a bike through wet cement, but the tree moved slowly. With grueling force Mike maybe shoved it a couple of inches away from the property line.

He applied more elixir. Still, at best he could only push the tree an inch or two. “Damn it!” He shook up the bottle and flung all the remaining elixir on the tree. Thick globs dribbled down the bark, making long tentacled streaks.

The stubborn tree wouldn’t move more than half a foot.

Crap, it was late. He shuffled into the garage and reassembled the file.

Then he heard a loud rumbling behind him.

Mike rushed out to the front yard. The tree’s skeletal branches scratched the roof, flicking shards of shingles into the air.

Mike gasped. “What the hell?”

The buckled driveway cracked like ice. The pavement split and the tree rose up on thick spidery roots. It bobbed towards the street, stopped and lumbered into the mess of dandelions, poke weed, and knee-high crabgrass that was Mike’s back yard.

The power line that serviced both houses did not stop the monstrous plant. Sparks flew as the tree dragged the line. The wire lassoed around a massive hairy root and broke with a loud snap.

Both houses went dark. The tree vanished into the shadows. Crackling and snapping sounds came from the back yard. Then silence.

Roy’s screen door slammed. Wearing jeans and a Road Kill Festival Sweatshirt, Roy burst outside, brandishing a flashlight in one hand and a half-finished Pabst Blue Ribbon in the other. “What in God’s green Earth happened out here?”

Mike heard a loud screech from the back yard. Roy’s cat raced out of the darkness like the devil himself was after it. Its tail, all puffed up, stood erect. It skidded to a stop in front of the hole before fleeing behind Roy’s bushes.

Mike thought of telling the truth, but doubted Roy would believe him. “I had the tree taken out.”

Roy took a swig of beer. “At night?”

“Rush job.”

Mike wondered if the tree was still moving in the backyard. He shined the flashlight into the dark.

The path the tree took was not hard to find. The oak stood in the corner of the yard, furrowed earth around it. It looked like it had always been there.

Roy scratched his unshaven chin. “Looks like they just tore it out of the ground, boss man. Who the hell does that? Where’d you find these guys?”

“You know those people who come by the house and offer to clean out the gutters?”

Roy finished the beer and tossed it in the tree crater. “Always figured that was a scam.”

“Same guys.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “Some drifter comes by your house and asks to clean out the gutters and then tells you, by the way we also tear out trees by the roots?”

“Yep.”

Roy walked around the hole. He kicked at a shingle. “Them boys sure made a mess of things. Looks like a government job.”

“Yep.” And Mike started to laugh. “I think it might be some kind of community service program or something. The guys were probably on probation,” Mike said. It was a stupid, nonsensical comment, but he laughed like he was a drunken college student. Back before bills and ex-wives and work.

Roy joined in. If the laughter slackened, they just had to look at each other and it started up again.

At last the laughter died away. And the two neighbors stared at each other.

“Okay, so what are these drifters on probation going to do with a hundred foot tall oak tree?” Roy asked.

Mike wiped a tear from his eye. “That’s the best part. They planted it in the back yard.” He shined the light on the oak tree.

“You can’t plant a tree that big,” Roy said.

“Do you think it just walked back there?” Mike asked.

Roy breathed out slowly. “Look, boss man, I’m sorry. I didn’t really want the tree to fall. It’s been a crappy day.” He laughed. “A crappy year since I got laid off. Canning dog food was the best job I ever had.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Mike said.

Roy pulled out a mobile phone. “Better call the power company.” When he finished dialing, he put the phone back in his pocket. “I’m real sorry about your Dad. I always liked him.”

“Thanks,” Mike said. He wondered how long it would take the power company to fix the line. He hoped it would take all night. He didn’t want to do the brief.

He walked into the garage and picked up the legal file. He marched to the tree crater and tossed in the file. If a tree could move itself to a better place, he ought to  be able to find a better job. Or maybe he’d just take some time off.

“What was that?” Roy asked.

“Just some trash,” Mike said. He pointed to his porch. “Want to have a beer? My Dad used to brew his own. Might have a bottle or two sitting around.”

Roy smiled. “Sure. Why not?”

Mike noticed a wet stain on the pavement. Then a dandelion twinkle-toed  across the driveway on spindly roots. It’s frizzy white afro swayed in the breeze.

“Weeds are gettin’ pretty bad, boss man,” Roy said.

Mike sighed. “Yep.” He wondered if any more of the elixir had drizzled to the ground. “Have a seat. Have I got a story to tell you.”

Pete is a lawyer in Raleigh, North Carolina where he lives with his patient wife and moody cat. He is proud to have his third story published by Ray Gun Revival after “Sea Monkeys” and “Future Imperfect.” He loves just about everything about the South and believes many of his stories can be characterized as “Southern Fried Science Fiction,” a term he hopes he coined. He grew up in Ottawa where he spent far too many hours reading Vonnegut and Bradbury and watching reruns of the greatest science fiction show ever, the original Star Trek.