Red Velvet – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas: 

“Tevis, have you located Newell?” 

“He’s out.”

“Who let him out?”

“No one.  He’s part of Ops and has the overrides. But with our EVs in maintenance, he’s out there on foot–”

The pound of the colony commander’s fist on the table startled her; she had always thought of him as cool and calculated.

“What’s he doing out there? He knows we’re into the 220s of the year.”

“He sent a message he was going to see if he can get the beacon back online.”

“Get him on comm for me,” he growled through the clench of his jaw.

Tevis had anticipated this and pushed forward the PTT button on the console.

“CQ CQ calling CQ.  This is A1DUP, Alpha-One-Delta-Uniform-Papa.”  There was a faint hiss and crackle coming from the console speaker on her desk.  She turned the volume up.

“Call again.” he said more calmly this time.

Tevis could see the vexing of muscles along his jawline and repeated the call signs.  A second or two passed which seemed like an eternity.

“N2EEC N2EEC, this is AD2DB, Alpha-Delta-Two-Delta-Baker.”  Relieved, Tevis let out a breath between her pursed lips.

The commander reached down and grabbed the call mic from the stand as Tevis pushed forward the PTT button.

“Newell, let’s not make this a rag chew.  What the fuck-up are you doing out there?”

Tevis released the PTT button.

“Trying to get the aerial back online, sir,” Newell said between breaths, “before the KapCo supply shuttle cruises past us for the second time.  If we miss this window, sir, it will be another five days of rations.”

Tevis and the commander could hear Newell’s labored breaths as he trod through the soft sand with a heavy toolkit all of which was taking its toll on him.

“You know we’re in the 220s and what time of day it is.  You had your orientation on the mites … you don’t want to be out there when they get to the surface–”

He snapped his fingers for Tevis to give him the conditions out there.  “I am ordering you back here, immediately, Newell.”

Tevis brought up the ENV panel and swiveled it toward him.  The temperature was up, and the frozen CO2 had already begun to evaporate. It was too late. He tilted his finger for Tevis to push forward the PTT button once again.

“They’re out on the surface, aren’t they, Newell?”

“Yes they are, sir,” he responded, “but I’m double sealed. They aren’t getting in.” The legs and chest of his EMU suit bulged with swollen red clots that were crawling upwards toward his helmet.

Author’s Note:

I started on a triad of shorts, where the idea came from my studies in Ecology, specifically, from The Economy Of Nature by Robert Ricklefs on Species Adaptation.

According to Ricklefs, all species adaptation is driven by their encounter with a variety of environmental factors deriving from one of three sources: 1) Exposure to the Physical and Chemical; 2) Exposure to predators, parasites, and prey; 3) And finally, exposure to individuals of the same species.

The first of my shorts addresses the Physical & Chemical aspects of adaptation as is titled, Red Velvet.  My story is based on the 1962 research of biologists Lloyd Tevis and Irwin Newell of their observations of the Giant Red Velvet Mite of the Mojave Desert.  The mites have quite an interesting life cycle, where they migrate to the surface once a year to eat, mate, and for their larvae to find a host.   The story takes place on the exoplanet, J147b, where a new arrival (Newell), is trying to impress his female mentor (Tevis) and gets stranded during the yearly migration of red velvet mites to the surface.  If you have any Arachnophobia tendencies, you may want to stop reading, here.  This short may not be for you…. it will make your skin crawl…

As a writer, the part that excites me is the etymology and origin of taxonomy. The genus and species of the Giant Red Velvet Mite (Dinothrombium pandorae) is the perfect alien for my story.  Dino, is derived from the Greek word, deinos, meaning terrible and Thrombos, a lump or clot.  This particular species is named after Pandora who was sent by Zeus to bring evil to the human race as a counterbalance of Prometheus, disobeying Zeus, who gave the gift of fire to the human race.

Regrets But One – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

End of Days Series – Part Four 

“What word of what I just said didn’t you understand?” Deedle said mocking him as she pulled the handgun from her shoulder bag.

“Deedle…. hold on…. put the gun down,” he pleaded rolling back in his chair with nowhere to go.

With a flick of her thumb, the laser-powered scope turned on, and she raised the red dot until it settled between his eyes.

“Don’t do this, Deedle.  I thought you were coming over here to make amends? It was a long time ago. We’re friends now, right? We’ve done business together.  This is crazy… We’re both going to die in a few hours anyway.  I’m sorry…. don’t do this…”

“I’m not going to give you that luxury… you prick….  You don’t deserve to go out with the rest of humanity.” She took aim.

“WAIT!  Just wait! I didn’t have a choice–”

“NO! I DIDN’T HAVE A CHOICE!” She shouted cutting him off as the red dot bounced along his forehead.  She promised herself she wouldn’t lose control of her emotions over this scumbag and needed to prove to him she was no longer the young impressionable nitwit she had been in those days, new to the jewelry trade and too trusting of shitbags the likes of Donald.

Seeing him here, now, brought back thirty years of anger and sleepless nights of reenacted dreams when he claimed to have lost a piece she had loaned him; it had been her most precious piece, a vintage VCA coral and diamond leaf motif brooch worth a little more than eighty-seven grand…. a fortune to her at the time.

“Tell me, Donald…. and if I sense any bullshit… I swear I’ll blow your fucking head off!” It felt good for her to say that out loud having rehearsed this line over and over in her head during her walk along Fifth Avenue to Donald’s office.

An hour earlier, she and everyone on the planet had received a series of public service emergency alerts that a catastrophic solar flare, ten times the diameter of Earth, was heading toward them and there was no chance of survival.  The Internet had become choked with posts of people making amends and being with those they loved.  There was nothing anyone could do.  Instead of rushing home to Dov, she had sat in her office thinking of any regrets she may have had in her life.  There was one.

“What did you do with that piece I loaned you, Donald?”

He looked at her, feigning confusion.

“Donald!  Answer me!” She shouted and dropped her leg back and took straight aim.

“I sold it!” He blurted out.  “I’m sorry, but I needed the money… “

“To whom?” She demanded.

He was stuttering, looking for an answer that wasn’t there. “No-no one you know… please… put the gun away… we can talk about this.”

“You’re lying to me,” she said calmly.  “You always flick the end of your nose when you lie… just like you did right now.” She took aim down the barrel.

“OK, OK, OK… I gave it to Anna Skylovski… Don’t shoot…” he whimpered.

“You were always such a pussy, Donald. I should have known you’d give it to that slut… I hope the blowjob was worth this bullet in your head,” she said closing one eye just before pulling the trigger and for Donald to thrust his hands in front of his face and turn slightly.  The sound was much quieter than she imagined, a single pop.  She looked up to see a hole in his palm and the tip of his nose missing.

“FUCK ME!” Donald screamed out as the blood began to gush.  He pulled his bloody hand down and held it, growling through clenched teeth and the bubble of his voice though the tip of his shredded nose.  Beyond him the bullet had exited the picture window, leaving a spider web in the glass.

“Damn! My aim sucks,” she said more to herself than for Donald’s sake.  “Dov insisted I get a gun to protect myself.  He even took me clay shooting, and those fucking orange pigeons went sailing forth unhindered by my bullets… I would have shot you in the balls, Donald, but I now realize you never had any.”  She laughed and raised the gun once more but jumped when the sirens outside screamed out, distracting her long enough for Donald to grab the paperweight from his desk and hurl it, striking her in the forehead and knocking her onto the floor.

She was lying there, still holding the gun when Donald launched over the desk onto her, his good hand pinning the gun to the carpet.

“You stupid bitch,” he screamed inches from her face.  She felt the warmth of his bloodied forearm on her throat as the drip from his nose landed her cheek.  He began to press down.

Her free hand was clutched to the brooch that had come loose from the fall, the long gold pin held in her fingers.  She jabbed him in the temple and felt the pin bend when it hit bone.

He roared out and rolled over onto his back, and Deedle staggered up onto her Jimmy Choos, the gun still hot in her hands.  She wiped her cheek, straightened her suit and brushed the flip of her hair to the side while the sirens outside continued at a deafening pitch.  The end was coming.

Donald pushed himself up against the front of his desk, defeated.  “Get it over with. Do it.  Do me the favor of not having to see your fucking face as my last image. DO IT!

Deedle raised the gun and held it steady, the red dot settling between his eyes.  She was breathing heavily, and her head ached.  She looked into his eyes that were filled with hatred, and she began to laugh.  She was laughing so hard it drew Donald in as he closed his eyes and laughed achingly with her.

She wanted to pull the trigger, but the reservoir of revenge felt half full, and she didn’t want this to end, on his terms, so she lowered the gun and pulled the trigger and miraculously hit his knee.  A black dot appeared on his pant leg, and he screamed out once more, a primordial guttural, “FUCK YOU” through threads of red spittle tethered from his bloodied lips.

The reservoir had drained, and she raised the gun, held her breath, and pulled the trigger.  Another pop and beyond the sights of the barrel a black dot appeared on his forehead as if that was all that bullets did was to create black dots.  A crimson ribbon began to drip between his eyes and along his nose where it bowed like a strand of silk onto his chest.

“No, Donald… Fuck You,” she said under her breath and lobbed the gun into his lap.

She was smiling to herself in the mirrored walls of the elevator, primping and wiping his blood from her face and throat until the courtesy ping of the elevator notified her she had reached the lobby.   The doors opened, and she stepped out onto the worn marble floors with the echo of her heels the only sounds she heard as she walked toward the revolving doors that opened to the street.

Everything seemed so surreal; it was a beautiful day with not a soul in sight.  Everyone who was, were where he or she needed to be.  Deedle walked Fifth Avenue toward her Upper East Side apartment, not drawn in by the windows of Christian Louboutin or lured through the open doors of St. Patrick’s by the sobering choir of voices within.  She walked past Bergdorf’s without admiring the window displays and was amazed not to see crowds gathered around the Apple Store.  Why couldn’t it always be like this?  She thought to herself as she headed along the park with the dogwoods in bloom and over the wall in the fields beyond, horses with tiaras were grazing on the chartreuse of grass — their handsome cab owners having set them free.  She couldn’t remember the last time she walked home from work and took note of all the shops and cafes she had never been to or had known to exist.

With the crosstown walk behind her, she stopped to admire the tower of her apartment building and the duplex apartment at the top, a symbol of her success.  She thought back to the countless dinner parties out on the terrace, her love of the kitchen and cooking, the smells of fresh biscotti on the oven sheets with Dov always stealing one before they cooled.  She had some great times there, and those thoughts filled her with happiness.

It felt odd opening her own door to the lobby, where Kevin was not there to greet her with his infectious smile, eager to carry her packages no matter how small.  She entered the to its emptiness, where the elevator door at the far end of the lobby was openly awaiting her, an NYC rarity.  She rode up in silence to the penthouse floor and stepping out, the door to her apartment opened before she could remove her key.  Standing in the doorway was Dov in his tuxedo holding two glasses of champagne.

Noticing the bruise on her forehead and smear of blood on her cheek, throat, and blouse, he asked nonchalantly, “Tough day at the Batcave, Batgirl?”

“You should see the other guy…” she huffed and dropped her bag to the floor as she reached for her glass and kissed him hard on the lips.  “Come on Batman…. we’ve got some messing around to do before the world ends. Hopefully, this solar flare thing is not fake news, or I will have some serious explaining to do in the morning….”

Main Photo Credit: David Nadas
Background Image:  “[2005] 5th Avenue at Night” by Diego Torres Silvestre is licensed under CC-BY 2.0. The image that was resized, and cropped to fit required size.

Cover – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

I come from a lineage of great surfers dating back to the 21st century on Earth. My name is MoonDoggie, the name one of my French ancestors gave to her first born son.  I’m told this name cannot be repeated for ten generations. So that’s me.

I was no one special until a botTOG named Hurn caught a clip of me free falling down the face of Phaedra 18-C. It was on a dare, and I was attempting a slide-in backside on a hotMELT.  But things didn’t go as planned.  I separated from the hotMELT and everything, including me, did a slomo vertical 360 then managed to come back together as if I had planned it that way.   Hurn’s clip made me famous as far away as Sagittarius-Carina, and I was splashed onto the cover of sineWAVE.  Now I can’t hit a break where someone or something doesn’t yell out, “Hey MoonDoggie! I dare you….” And that’s when the shit happens. And it’s weird shit.

The baggage that comes with notoriety has been mounting, so much so that my traveling buds are few and I don’t blame them, it’s a circus of bots chasing me, hoping to land the next cover and galactic stream.  They’re like the razor scarabs you find at Noah’s Cove on Xeries; don’t open your mouth or they will find their way in and punch out your chest. My late friend, Oyen, found that out the hard way.  These days I travel solo.

But here I am on Cyan-B and so far so good, not a person or bot in sight. I have used the last remaining koins earned from that clip in sineWAVE to get me here, bouncing my way through a couple of tokamak gateways, then knowing a dude who knew a dude running calibrations on a necker cube who got me the last jump all the way back to the Orion Spur. The dude had also provided me some bogus metaProfiles to use as chaff, throwing the bots toward Scutum-Centorus. I’m the last one laughing, Cyan-B is just a few ly from where I started.

There’s a feeling only surfers get when coming across a virgin break and here I am staring out at one. Twig’s forecast was spot on, and as far as I know, it’s a first for anyone ever being here. I found out why this place was never surfed after I landed. Turns out there’s a large amplitude dark matter wave just outside Joule, the binary star system I’m in. I now realize my chance of getting through that and not having been ripped to pieces was… well like… one in a million.  I must be down to five lives now. Getting out might drop me to four.

I have never surfed in water; I mean Earth-like water, H2O with a salinity of 33 ppm. But this is why I have dragged an oldie from Earth, a 5.8 FocusFlex, quad-fin, DaveySky V2. This stick was handed down through the generations and hasn’t been used since it was custom carved for the first MoonDoggie. There are very specific instructions in the kit for when and how to use it. This place ticks off all the boxes: 1) White powdery sands, check; 2) Turquoise water, check; 3) Suns overhead without a cloud in the sky (ok, the kit mentions just one sun), check; 4) Surface water and air temperature holding at or above 80F, check; 5) Shoulder to head high right point-break leading into a sandy cove, check; 6) And finally, a light offshore breeze teasing out the crests and keeping the surface glassy, check.  I’m using it.

As I ran down the beach with the leash around my ankle, a crazy relic of the past, I was tripping with every step; how and why they used these things remains a mystery.  I mean, isn’t that why magPads were invented?  When I reached the water, I shouted out at the top of my lungs, “I’m Stoked!” Whatever that means, but apparently it was a phrase my ancestors had used before hitting the waves. I’m glad no one was around to hear that, but who cares.  The only person here is me.  It felt weird that my skin was in contact with the water, and the board shorts that came with the kit looked and felt ridiculous on me. I had followed all the instructions, all the way down to using the sex wax of the deck and wondering why it was called sex wax.

‘Seek out and have fun with Nature.’ were the last words in the kit.  So who is this Nature, I wonder?

I had just performed my first successful duck-dive with my arms straight down while gripping the rails as the barrel rolled over me. Then, pushing my knee onto the tail of the board, it curved upwards, just like the instructions indicated.  But when I surfaced, I felt the heat of rotors raking over my back as a yell from about startled me.

“Hey, wormhole!  Watch it!”

Hovering above me was a girl on a slat wearing full skins.  I could tell from the tilt of her head that behind her skins she was giving me a look.  Then she throttled up, spraying me in the eyes before heading out toward the point break.

Shit! Where did she come from?

By the time I got out to there, my arms were spent, and the girl had already caught the first two sets. So much for virgin break.  I was anxious to catch a wave but waited patiently just like the kit had instructed me to do. I was to ‘chill’ here for a time, letting the first couple of sets roll beneath me, a gift to Nature. This Nature was starting to piss me off.

Never having ridden an oldie before, it was difficult to gauge just how much effort this process was going to take me to catch a wave.   The biggest hurdle I was facing was perspective.  I was not comfortable being so near the surface, let alone in the water. How could anyone see what was coming? The kit instructed me to look for a dark blue line on the horizon, indicating an outside set was coming in. Seriously? But there it was, a dark blue line appearing on the outside to my right. So I kept paddling until I could see the set rolling in.  I’ll be damned… It was a huge set.  Now I was instructed to sit up on the board–a bit wobbly– and rotate toward the beach.  As the wave neared, I was to grab the tip of the board, lean back and push it down under me, then let it pop back up and forward, giving a nice boost into the wave. Slick. That actually worked, and I wonder if I could do the same on my hotMELT? I kept my back arched, like the kit instructed, cupped my hands and stroked alternately until momentum took over.

Dude, that was awesome, and I knew the rest would be easy as I stood up and dropped….. in…. on the girl with the slat, knocking her off into the water, the leash around my ankle yanking us under as the ceiling came crashing down hard on the board. We were in a tangle, but I managed to reach down and grab her by the waist then followed the leash to the surface.  Ah…. that’s where the leash comes in. Smart. She was coughing hard and sucking in air as the next wave repeated its fury, then once again by the third wave of the set in case we hadn’t received enough punishment from the first two. When I came up, she was floating face down but still within reach.  I rolled her up and onto my board, enough so I could peel back her skins and breath into her. Finally, she spits up into my mouth, and I could hear her suck in some air and cough up more water, but by then we were near enough to shore for me to stand. I lifted her over my shoulder, the leash dragging my board onto the beach where I dropped down to my knees and rolled her out onto the sand.  I made sure she was still breathing before I collapsed onto my back.  My hair was matted over my eyes, and my eyes were caked with sand.  I had sand in places I didn’t know sand could get to.  But the worse was hearing sand crunching in my teeth, sending chills down my spine. If that wasn’t bad enough, that’s when the punches started.

“YOU PLASMA SCUM!” she screamed. “ARE YOU MISSING SOME BITS?”

She was looking out over the cove for her slat.  WHERE IS IT?  WHERE’S MY SLAT?”

I didn’t have time to answer the first question before more punches followed, punches that I could hardly see coming. If it wasn’t for her state of weakness, it could have been a lot worse, but I managed to grab hold of her wrists and keep her still until she straddled me and drove her knee up into my groin. These board shorts are for shit. Fortunately, the pain was so intense my forehead shot up into her temple, and that was the last thing I could remember.

We came to around at the same time. She was rubbing the side of her head with her hair and face plastered with sand.  I sat up with my arms propped up in back of me.

“Are you, Nature, by any chance?” I asked.

She gave me a sideways look.  “No you warp…” she replied. “Are you, Stoked?”

Photo Credits:

Featured Image of Surfer by Mark Hurn

Background:  “Waves” by Neil Ward is licensed under CC-BY 2.0. The image that was resized, cropped and made darker.

View From My Kitchen – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

End of Days Series – Part Three

They said it would come, that it would start with a sunset of such unbelievable beauty it would bring tears to your eyes. They were right.

It was quiet. Eerily quiet. No bird chirps or the whine of motorboats speeding across the lake. No one in their back yards, no joyous shrieks of children chasing fireflies, no smell of fire-pits and no sound of car tires rolling down the crushed stone roads, eager to get to their weekend camps. Everyone was down in their last minute shelters with not enough supplies to outlast what was about to unfold.

My children, grandchildren, friends, and neighbors begged me to come with them into the town’s shelter. But why miss the last sunset one would ever see. Where was there to go? Nowhere. It would take ten thousand years just for the fires to burn out, and the only reason they would extinguish would be due to the absence of oxygen left on Earth.

I know it might seem selfish — that I should spend the last of days surrounded by family and friends — but I just wanted to spend it in my kitchen, overlooking the lake where I can see the memories of my grandchildren out on the dock, their silhouettes with fishing poles matching the paintings in my home. So here I stand, a glass of Chardonnay in hand and raising it to the sky, thankful I was given this sliver of time to see and experience this magnificent world and hoping my next journey will be as spectacular. Cheers.

Photo Credits:
Background – “Sunset” by theshutterbug is licensed under CC-BY 2.0. The image that was resized and cropped.
Featured Image: Photograph by Ann Swanson, used by permission.

Under Eden – Sci-Fi Short Story by David Nadas

End of Days Series – Part Two

Shite, that was close. From the impact, the sky had lit up so bright we could clearly see down the street with its neatly parked cars, perfectly aligned like the teeth of a zipper. But no one was out and no lights came on in any of the homes; our neighbors had all moved to the underground.

When we go, we want to taste the air and see the sun going down and not have the taste of someone else’s exhale lingering in our mouths or staring up at a filament, waiting for it to extinguish and be left alone in darkness with only our fear leaning in.  The underground was not for us, but I suppose for those who have chosen to stay below, there is something to be said for not knowing or seeing the end coming.

For us above, we enjoy free rein of the big box stores and the design outlets to get all the lumber, tools, and furniture needed to build a roof deck on our flat … something I had always wanted to do for my family but never had the funds to do it.  It’s bittersweet under these circumstances, but our roof deck rocks.  We have a full working tiki-bar and a well-stocked drinks cupboard up here with unobstructed views of the sunsets.  And the sunsets have been magnificent lately, even knowing the colors are fed by the ash of every living thing that was incinerated from an impact.

We have allowed our fifteen-year-old daughter, Louise, to drink alcohol along with us, enjoying these last days together as a family.  Tonight’s concoction of a drink is a Comet-Kaze, but instead of Triple Sec, we used Orange Curaçao — stuff we could never afford but is now readily available at the off-license … free of charge of course.  Honestly, I hope the end comes soon because we are running out of clever drink names. My youngest, Alec, is a space nut.  When we had a family vote to stay above or go under, he was the most vocal of staying above; he wanted to see what was coming.  For the record, it was unanimous, we all wanted to stay above.  A weird lot we are.

Ever since the announcement that Earth would pass directly into a catastrophic asteroid storm, spelling out the end for us all,  Alec has been glued to his kit of computers and monitors lined up on the dining table. Seated upon his newly acquired oversized luxury office chair with his feet dangling, he has been tracking everything coming in; it’s like having the ESA in our sitting room.  Alec informed us that the impact we just saw was an eight on the Torino Scale with a low MT potential… whatever that means. He said if it had been a nine we would have been okay, but we would have had to remain inside for a while, but if it had been a 10, well, that would have been a bit of a damp squib.

Louise has been on a mission every day now, looking for pet stores to liberate or following the barking or meowing of dogs and cats left abandoned in their homes. When we find them,  we open the doors, cages and pet food.  We even take the freshwater fish to a freshwater canal or pond and take the saltwater fish to the sea, but we need to check in with Alec before going there in case an 8 or 9 hits off the coast creating a tsunami.

My wife, Jenny, has been a rock through all this.  Me, well, when you have loved someone for eighteen years, every day as much as the first, someone you would instinctively put your life before theirs … well … I can’t think about that right now.  It’s been a long day.  We’re off to bed.

We were awakened by the alarms from Alec’s monitoring alerts, Jenny and I still in a tangle with the lingering scent of our lovemaking around us.   We knew the drill.  If this was going to be the one to take us out, we wanted to be together through to the end.  Jenny would gather up Louise, as I headed down the steps to the sitting room to find Alec inches away from the monitors, the screen data reflecting off his specs as he nibbled away on a biscuit from Marks & Sparks.  Now that we were directly in the path of the storm, Alec has been sleeping here on the couch under a litany of graphs and hand drawn eclipses of near misses and impacts, looking for the one that will do us in.  He never had a passion for sport or music and had always been a bit of a loner with his technical books and sci-fi pulp fiction, but this makes him happy, happier than I have ever seen him.  So be it.  The kit he put together came from the Apple Store and smaller bits and PC shops down the block.  I’m not sure of what his kit does, but he seems to know of inbounds before anyone in his circle of plusers does.  Lucky us.

“Alec.  What does your crystal ball show?” I said coming up behind him, making sure to slide my slippers on the floorboards so as not to startle him.

“Daddy, you should see this one. It’s big.  A 10 with a high MT.” he said not turning away from the screens.

I stooped over his shoulder, trying to see what he was seeing, but all I could make out was a ball of multicolored elastics knowing somewhere beneath it all was Earth.

“Hmmmm….” was the most meaningful response I could come up with.

“This is the one,” he said without the slightest doubt and proud that his forecasts have always proved to be spot on.

I palmed the mop of his hair, thankful he got the hair gene from his mum. “Let’s get up on the roof then.”  And I helped him into his pullover hoodie with the phrase, Waiting For The 10, written in front.

“I’m very proud of you, Alec,”  I said reaching down to zip him up,  tucking the hoodie around his ears to keep out the chill.  When we got to the roof, Jenny had the mushroom heaters going and hot tea for me in hand.   We sat close together on the outdoor furniture, our overly fluffy slippers up on the ottomans while passing the tin of peanut butter shortbreads, from Luigi Zuck.  This was our routine; no one should have to go out without the finest shortbreads at hand.

“See it!” Alec said jumping up and almost losing his glasses.

It started as a white dash in the night, elongating and brightening as it raced toward us.

“It’s traveling at 24.360 Kilometers per second,” Alec said.  He moved to the edge of the deck, leaning over with his hands on the rail, then looked back at us with a child’s innocence.

I reached over and pat Jenny on the knee.  “He’s right about this one.”  And stood up to join my son at the railing, my arm draped around his tiny shoulders, pulling him tight.  I was proud of him, and he knew it. Jenny led Louise to the railing, standing beside me as I reached for her hand and felt the wedding ring I had slipped onto her finger eighteen years ago.  We looked up at the dash in the sky, its cobalt blue tail under a gown of white forming a cone.  It was beautiful, I had to admit, like a slow moving shuttlecock entering the atmosphere.  Then from the tip of the cone, the object projected outward, a second stage, plunging into the lower atmosphere and growing brighter, affording us a clear look down the entire block of flats as if it were daybreak.

“Shades down everyone.” And I helped Alec with his before my own.  It was bright, even through the welding goggles we were wearing. I knew Jenny was looking over at me and I turned to see her smile beneath the dark lenses.

“Don’t think you’re getting your back scratched, tonight,” she said as a statement of relief.

I laughed. “It’s been wonderful, Jen.” and I leaned in for a kiss, her head tilting to the side, her lips slightly parted and I knew her love for me, and I for her would never dim.  As we kissed, we drew in Alec and Louise.  There is something to be said for the human spirit, something that feels it will never extinguish, even where it can’t exist.

Photo Credit: Mark Lynch

Author’s Note: I just finished reading the novel Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey. In the book, a comment was made that during an attack you were essentially cargo if you were not tasked with ship defense. During a battle you were as useful as a can of beans. That line inspired this sci-fi story that takes place on the battleship Lancaster. I hope you enjoy it.

Crash Couch

by Kyle Pollard

In combat I am cargo. I can barely move a muscle as my body is pressed deep into the gel of the acceleration couch that holds me like an angel of mercy as the tiny light which is my ship, my family, my home, darts across the inky blackness of space. We are small and insignificant. Space is immense, and our drive plume is but one flicker among many trillions of points of light.

I am now like my cousins the food packages, the stored potable water, and the soy-based pastes stowed in the galley. When we flip and burn we push our bodies to the limit of endurance. When we burn hard to reach an elliptical orbit, I am inert. I am a piece of luggage strapped to a couch. We are maneuvering to cross the orbital path of a fleet of enemy ships attacking a colony outpost. After we accomplish our objective, I will no longer be cargo as I am a member of the medical staff. For now, my life is in the hands of the commander, the weapons teams, and the pilot.

My neck stings from the injection of the juice that keeps my heart pumping blood to the brain. The couch cradles me, and the drugs keep me alive, and faith sustains us all. I could watch the attack on my wall screen if I wanted, but I normally don’t. Too stressful. This sustained burn is scheduled to last 4 hours, and it takes all my concentration not to pass out. I close my eyes, concentrate on my breathing, and use the downtime to rummage through my life. I like this better than traveling near light speed as we are all unconscious and sealed in cryo-pods, the ship AIs running the show.

When I joined the Navy, I left behind my wife and kids. Not at first mind you, but the long deployments and the effects of time dilation took its toll on the relationship. We were both nineteen when we tied the knot in a small ceremony on a beach at Port Aransas, Mustang Island in Texas down the gravity well on Earth. Had the Rift Wars not broke out I was scheduled to take shore leave in 1 or 2 years earth time. When I finally did make it back to home port, my wife was ninety-two years old, and our boy had died at the age of eight from an accident. I visited her at the elderly care facility, held her hand, and we talked into the night. It was impossible for her to look into my eyes without crying. In the morning she feebly pushed herself into a sitting position and slowly got off the bed. We hugged for what felt like hours before she kissed me, looked into my eyes, and told me not to return. I never did.

I can hear the ship’s fusion drives and feel the intense vibrations of the pulsing engines vibrating through everything. Nothing like the reassuring hum the fusion reactor makes when we are traveling at one Earth Gravity. I try to focus. Take my mind off the situation. Try to forget that the only thing between my fragile human shell and space is a hull composed of exotic metals and polycrystalline lattice components. Goldfish in a sealed bowl filled with air hurtling through an unforgiving void. That’s us. That’s my life now. After that first trip home the ship’s crew bonded like never before as we were all touched in one way or another by the experience. Some relationships did not crumble as did mine. Actually, it’s a moot point because regardless if you did the human thing and swore to your loved ones that you would be back. That you would hold them again in your arms. That age was irrelevant. That love would conquer all obstacles. We all knew that wasn’t true. The families left behind and the crewmembers on the Lancaster all knew it was the final goodbye. If we did make it back again everyone we knew would have long passed and life as we know it may no longer exist. My wife was practical. Let me leave with a clear conscious. She told me to forget her. To never think about her again. I think about her every day.

On this ship we are family. You would think that living in such close quarters; you would begin to loathe each other’s company. That never happened with us. Together we have fought many battles in the sky and on land. I have been wounded four times and have patched up just about every member of the crew from stab wounds, laser burns, venereal disease, to regenerating entire hands. So far I have only lost one member of the Lancaster. Her name was Valla. My second wife. She was killed four years to the day after our one and only shore leave on Earth. She died the day after we married. We were in close order battle, and a fragment from an enemy primary defense cannon (PDC) pierced the hull and her environment suit. I will never forget the look of fear in her white face, the ice crystals frozen to her eyelids, and the blueness of her lips. I have decided never to marry again.

We must be getting close. The gimbals on my crash couch swivel to keep my body in the correct position as our PDCs fire at incoming missiles. The ship rocks from the cannon fire as thrusters maintain course. I should open my eyes and look at the tactical map, but I do not. We are still two hours away from our objective so these must have been long range shots, easily deflected by our defenses. They were probably just hoping for a lucky hit as all it takes is a tiny fragment to make it to the fusion reactor to destroy the ship. I feel blood pooling in my leg and attempt to move it for some relief.

I breathe in through my mouth, and out through my nose. The breathing brings back a certain level of calmness to my thoughts. I am now sitting at a table with my first wife at a restaurant in Mexico. Our boy Jacob is three year’s old. It’s a fancy place and my wife, and I are a little nervous that Jacob will start making a fuss. People seated around us are from all parts of the universe. Many paid a hefty penny to vacation near the crystal blue waters of the Carribean. Jacob sees a good sized blue and a white luxury yacht moored near the dockside restaurant. He says “Big Boat. Big Boat.” Then, of course, he says this about thirty times getting progressively louder. I can see people shifting nervously in their chairs. Ties adjusted. Napkins repositioned in laps. The waiter hastily delivers a massive chocolate sundae and saves the day. Jacob’s attention shifted, the dinner peacefully continued for all. I remember the sunlight on my wife’s red hair and the blue sun dress she wore that day.

The duty bell chimes one hour left on the burn. Then warning claxons start blasting. The ship jerks violently as the nav-com adjusts to avoid incoming projectiles. I open my eyes now to look at the tactical screen above my head. It didn’t look good. We are all trained to understand the tactical display and the arcs didn’t look good at all. Just then I hear the unmistakable rumbling sound of the main railgun charging, and then the loud thundering boom the projectile makes as it leaves the nose of the ship. Again it fires. And again. We have slowed to 4 Gs. I never noticed that we were now in our braking burn. Must be close to the target. We will only be near the enemy formations orbital path for a fraction of a second. My guess is that we will maintain the 4 Gs and try to take out a few ships as we speed through the enemy formation. I see six enemy drive plumes identified on tactical. Hot burners on intercepting arcs.

I close my eyes again. The ship rocks from another round of PDC fire. My couch shakes from what my senses tell me was a powerful impact. My eyes open wide. No more walls. No tactical display mounted above my head. Nothing. I am now outside the ship, in the vacuum of space and spinning out of control. Jets begin firing from my environmental suit. It takes ten minutes plus change for the attitude adjusters to correct my spin and slow my speed. When my vision clears I look around and see nothing but stars. I can’t help but wonder if anyone else made it out, but I guess it doesn’t matter. No chance any ships will risk slowing down in this hot zone to pick us up. At least not now.

I am alone once again with my thoughts. Environmental says I have two hours of oxygen left and no juice left in my thrusters. My left leg hurts for a second, but the suit gives me a shot of pain killers and the hurt fades away. I want to close my eyes again, but a stunning far off nebulae catches my eye. No words can describe its beauty. No longer cargo I am now a star floating free in the Universe. I hold onto my memories as that is all I have left now. I use the holographic projector on my suit to project a life-size image of my son Jacob. He reaches out his hand, and I take it. Together we watch the oxygen indicator count down to zero. I take one last gulp of air before it runs out. Jacob grabs my head with his tiny hands and peers into my helmet and says “It’s ok dad. Mom’s waiting.”

“Crash Couch” copyright © 2017 by Kyle Pollard