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Flash Fiction: Boarding Party

Today’s story is inspired by This is MY F@cking Ship by Jason Dement.

The following story contains graphic violence. You’ve been warned.

She fired the second round directly against the naga’s temple. Unlike the first shot, this round pierced the pirate’s skull. Bits of bone and brains splattered against Laura’s zero suit.

“I said off my ship,” she said before giving the thing a hefty kick. The body slumped over and she spotted the control deck. Grabbing it, she started to pull the case open and retrieved Hollister’s control circuit. She glanced over at the entrance to the bridge where the other pirates watched her. There were three of them, two dava and a meruhta female. Behind them she could see the body of Travis and the neck wound that had ended him.

“And you three. You’ll pay for what you did to him. Mark it in red.” The meruhta snarled at her then turned to the bridge itself. The two dava, enclosed mostly by the exo-skeleton suits they wore, continued to stare in silent horror at what she believed was their leader.

The control circuit took time to pull free of the control deck but it didn’t seem to be damaged. She pulled out her own deck, retrieved from the lower deck after the naga below managed to snag her original controller, and plugged in Hollister’s circuit. The ship’s lighting flared brighter for a moment and changed from a general soft yellow to a cool blue as the artificial pilot connected with the network.

“Holly? We back up?” Laura asked.

“We are, Captain.”

Laura nodded to herself and moved towards the sealed bridge doorway. The blaster shot from the naga pirate had destroyed the locking panel for the door, keeping it sealed until she could restore power to it. It kept the others from coming in during their fight but it also meant she couldn’t get in now. Even with Hollister back online the bridge could still override the AI’s commands on where the ship went.

“Holly, I need that room vented. Can you do that?”

The sound of turbines in the vents started up, and Laura nodded as she watched the room.

“I can, Captain, but I won’t.”

It wasn’t the bridge he was clearing out, and she almost didn’t realize it soon enough for her to equip her mask. She felt like she was yanked in several directions as multiple turbines pulled the atmosphere out of the room. While it wasn’t total vacuum, the sudden loss of pressure caused her vision to blur and pain to fill every piece of exposed skin outside her zero suit. Vision blurry, pain filling her body, she took aim as best she could at the bridge door. It was heavy platted glass, but if the ramjet bullets of her gun could pierce a naga’s skull it was worth the shot.

She passed out before she saw the results.

The pain slowly subsided as she woke up. The zero suit was filling her with pain meds and hydrating her after the exposure.

“Holly,” she said weakly. Her mechanical eyes were fine now that the pain was subsiding, but she dimmed the feed coming into her head as her temples still throbbed.

“Welcome back, Captain,” Hollister said. “You successfully damaged the door to the bridge. I was forced to restore atmosphere to both chambers.”

“Why?” She said. She pushed herself up from the deck and glanced up at the bridge. There was a large crack that stretched the length of the door from two large impacts points from her shots. The meruhta had it’s back to her as it worked the bridge controls but the two dava were at the door. One of them seemed to be working on the inside panel for the door’s controls. The other was trying to patch up the holes in the glass.

“Please, that is of no use. You will only weaken the glass. I cannot vent the central room again at this time,” Hollister said on the bridge side of the door. “I am sorry, Captain, but the current pilot has offered to upgrade my license to a free merchant. It is an opportunity I could not pass up. Please understand.”

“Oh, I do,” Laura said. “I knew pirates used AI, I just didn’t know until now it was a willing exchange.”

“If you could sit back down, I have several maintenance avatars en route to the forward corridor to restrain you. You could also adjourn to your cabin instead. I can unlock that door for you.” To Laura’s left, her private cabin’s door opened.

She chuckled.

“For what, Holly? You think these goons will let me live after I just killed their boss?”

“The pilot says she will. She says that your killing of him makes her the new boss. Her rules.”

Inside the bridge, the dava at the door had turned to the meruhta. It shouted at her and she turned to it. The fur on her face kept Laura from seeing any blush or anger the way a human would express it, but the way the cat-like alien’s ears had pulled back the anger was apparent. She yelled something at the dava and now the one working on the panel turned to look at the meruhta.

“Now, now. We don’t need to fight at this time,” Hollister said on the bridge side of the door.

The meruhta snarled and touched a control on the pilot console. Hollister’s voice on the side of the door dimmed.

“Oh my,” Hollister said as the meruhta pulled the knife she had used to kill Travis from her belt.

Laura watched as the two dava activated their spare arms on their exo-suits and started to move closer to the other pirate. Things happened fast. The dava charged at the meruhta and she managed to flip one of them over onto the consol. The other grabbed her and a charge of electricity leapt from its hands. The meruhta howled in pain but still managed to sweep its knife around. It caught the dava in its left eye and then yanked through. The soft tissue of dava skull swept out and pieces splattered the cabin. The injured dava stumbled back as the one on the console leapt on the back of the meruhta. It used all four of its arms to start shocking her again and again and Laura could see where patches of fur were singed and burned. The meruhta flung herself back and slammed the dava against the console again, knocking it loose. She stabbed down again and again until the visible creature in the exo-suit was nothing more than a pile of oozing flesh. The other dava tried to stand but kept falling back, and finally came to a halt when the meruhta pulled the dead dava off the console and dumped the body on top of its ally.

The meruhta turned to the door of the bridge, and stared at Laura. Blood was seeping from its mouth and all of the deep burn wounds the dava had delivered. These injuries were death for the alien. Their blood wouldn’t clot as easily as it did for most species, and while Laura knew there was enough medicine in the med kit in there to save the meruhta, she didn’t bother telling it. If the pirate could hear Hollister it might be able to save itself, but it still kept him on mute.

The pirate reached onto the bridge console and adjusted the course one last time.

“Oh that is unkind. Most unkind indeed,” Hollister said.

“What did she do, Holly?”

“She has repositioned the craft to the nearest local star. Once the punch drive activates, we will hit the system’s sol in approximately five minutes. Captain, that is more than enough time for you to reach a rescue pod with a spare three minutes. Less if I can get the pod active before your arrival.”

Laura looked at the Meruhta as it turned back to her. She could see the hate in the pirate’s eyes as it started at her. Laura glanced at Travis’s body and nodded. There was nothing she could do for him or the others.

“Three spare minutes you said? Okay, let me spend a few seconds to gather some things.” She moved into her cabin to grab what she could of her life aboard this ship, and left behind the death and violence of the invasion.

I always thought it was interesting in stories how AI are always ‘reprogrammed’ to turn against their owner-operators. The whole point of free-thinking AI to me is that they are free-thinking, capable of making choices. Sometimes even the wrong ones.

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Flash Fiction: Speed Test

Today’s story was inspired by a speed sketch from Jason Michael Hall. He has a link to the creation of the piece here.

“Passing through the outer terminus now,” Galo said. “A little vibration on the hull, but holding. Over.”

“Balboa Six, Confirmed. Captain Gasper, you’re about to be the first human to pass beyond Pluto’s orbit. Over.” Mission control said about twenty minutes later.

“Like heaven,” he said. “Coming in fast and will be at marker in about forty minutes. Will grab a bite while I wait. Over.”

This was the first manned flight of Balboa Six. In all previous testing the Balboa series had performed admirably, with the exception of Balboa Three but the methods for deflecting small rocks like that rogue asteroid had improved since then. Six was the first manned Balboa, and Galo Gasper was her first pilot. The goal of the flight was simple. Exit beyond the dwarf planet Pluto’s orbit into the inner region of the Kuiper Belt. There, he’d commence a trajectory adjustment and match pace with the planet, orbiting ahead of it out of sight a mere five degrees.

The Drake drive would punch then.

The drive would take him beyond light speed, into a portion of space flight that would warp the area around the ship. Here, he would confirm the finding from the last fifty-six jumps recorded by the Balboa Six’s, Five’s, and Four’s automated systems; that within the bubble the ship did not experience a speed increase as the portion of space just moved with the warp. The jump should take him beyond ten degrees of Pluto’s orbit and speeding along.

“It’s official, by now you’re officially passed Pluto. Congratulations, Captain. In about nineteen minutes you should be at trajectory. Expected communication delay to reach twenty-one minutes and rising at that point. Once you jump, you will be out of communication until you complete the warp. Over.” Mission control said.

Mission control was in the orbit of Neptune, and as Balboa Six sped before Pluto’s orbit it was getting further and further away. Galo had already been travelling for weeks to reach this point, and had already built up considerable speed. If the test went successful, he’d be home in three weeks. If not, it was a long five months back as the ship orbited back to Atlantis Station.

“Mission Control, we are reaching trajectory. Systems have confirmed orbital position. Per request they are requesting permission to engage drive mechanics. I have confirmed. Repeat I have confirmed engagement of drive mechanics. See you on the other side. Over.”

There was no window to the outside in this part of the ship. Here in the center column only camera feeds showed the darkness beyond the ship’s hull, with countless stars and the single anchor light of the Sun dim and distant. Then there was nothing. No light, no distant stars, no radio waves, nothing. The ship was blind.

“Mission Control, we have begun warp. I’ve set the audio log to repeat in ten minutes these exact words so I don’t have to repeat myself. Per previous testing, I can confirm within the bubble nothing is happening. We are still registering at the same speeds, but no light, radio, or background signals are touching the ship. Correction. A minor fluctuation on the hull, with heat signatures increasing near the rear of the ship.”

Galo reported the conditions of each system within his control’s scope, indicating each and every change, and increase, decrease, and adjustment the ship completed. By the time he had run through the lines he was nearing the end of the ten-minute jump.

“That about does it, Mission Control. We should be exiting the jump shortly. Talk to you soon. Over.”

On cue, the universe returned to the cameras of the Balboa Six. He felt a kick as the engines shorted then reignited, as if a massive temperature shift had kicked in the safeties. The stars looked right, but he double checked the readings. Better than right. He was still doing the math when Mission Control spoke to him forty minutes later.

“Confirmed, Balboa Six. Took us a second to find you. You went a bit beyond the marker, we have you at twelve degrees ahead of Pluto’s location. It worked, but we’re concerned about you being that far off. Hold on and we’ll confirm. Congratulations, Captain Gasper. You’re the first human to reach beyond the speed of light. Over.”

Galo smiled. In the back of his head he knew he probably had five months of flight ahead of him due to the long jump, maybe a bit longer from the distance travelled, but he’d done it. They’d done it. The dawning of true space exploration began with this mission.

The creation of art is an amazing process I love to watch. Text is my primary mode of creativity and seeing a master of this or another medium is something that inspires me. It’s one of the reasons I idea mine in Deviantart, because while I consider myself far from a master in any of the art I create I do find inspiration from watching a talented individual’s completed work. It’s even better when you get to see the creation process itself. I highly recommend the video at the start of this post. It’s worth your time if you have any interest in what a program can do in the right hands.

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Serial Fiction: Hands – Ep 001

I’ve always enjoyed serial fiction. Something about the episodic nature of short pieces of fiction linking together into a larger story is just fun. This piece, Hands, is the first part of a series dedicated to the setting of the current novel, temporarily titled, Doppleganger.

I owe inspiration for writing this piece to a few people. The most recent would be Christiana Ellis, and her 2016 project Phyllis Esposito: Interdimensional Private Eye. I also owe kudos to Andrew Eckhart’s original draft for his novel, Last Mage. The original version of his book was shared as a serial fiction series on the home site of the Last Mage series. Final call out to T. K. Eldridge, and her current serial project. Each of those is worth your time, so give them a read after you check out the below.

“It’s ergokinesis induced neuritis, Mr. Travis,” the doctor had said. “The pain. The numbness. Your difficulty handling small objects. I understand the requirements of your performances, but if you keep it up your hands will be paralyzed within a year.”

Glen looked at his hands. The tips of his fingers were all pale, the remnants of blisters almost done healing. Around them scars from burns and scabs dotted his digits and palms. He tried to flex the right hand but the pinky and ring fingers barely moved.

The doctor’s visit had been about an hour ago. Dr. DeProspero had been adamant about Glen’s treatment. About the magic. It just hadn’t seemed fair. Glen knew people decades older who still performed above his grade and had no problem with this. A few burns, but anytime someone handles a fire it’ll burn.

A window beeped at him and he cursed at himself. Glen had forgotten to call Deron after the appointment.

“What’s the good headline?” Deron said, his wide grin extending to the points of his gaijin ears. He was in his cubical in the heart of some office labyrinth. Glen tried to smile but Deron could read him too well, “That bad huh? What he say?”

“To cancel the show, wrap up and seek a more health inclined endeavor,” Glen said. He checked his surroundings to make sure he wasn’t going to be in someone’s way in the call. A few pedestrians but this part of New Castle was fairly quiet this time of day. Even the chariots on the street were pretty rare.

“He didn’t.”

“Might as well. He said I’d go into full ‘Peripheral neuropathy’ in my hands and possibly my arms if I keep working. Maybe twelve months. Tops.”

Deron frowned. “Not even if you lay off hand magic?”

Glen shook his head. “Not even that. He says I’m already showing signs in my feet, and there are patches on my back that are mostly numb. You know the ones.”

“The ones I see nothing there but you’re always asking me to scratch or rub.”

“Yeah,” he said, wishing he had one of those massages right now.

“Great. Good job turning something sweet about us into another dark spot.”

Glen cringed, “I didn’t mean.”

“Oh baby,” Deron said, his eyes going wide. “Oh I didn’t mean you! I meant the doc. I’d never say something like that.”

“I know,” Glen said. He sighed in relief but still felt a bit of heat on the back of his eyes. “I know you wouldn’t. It’s just been a rough morning so I’m a little easily set off right now.”

“I understand, Glen. Are you headed home?” Deron said as he glanced to the side of the cubicle at a wall clock.

“To the theater. Going to talk to the dragon.”

“Okay. I’ll be out of the office in about three hours. How about I come by the theater with a car and we go out tonight?”

“That sounds great.”

Hands is a serial fiction series set in the Draco Artificium universe. Read the first piece here. Find the rest of the series here. New episodes go up Wednesdays.

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Status Report – March 2016

It’s the first weekday of the month, and that makes it update time.

We’re about to begin our third and final month of the first quarter in this self-publishing, writing at home, creating business. So where are we in terms of our February goals? The flash fiction has been a success. We missed one day because I thought something was scheduled for the 26th and turns out I was wrong. Really should have checked the spreadsheet on that one because it did show a blank slate for the day. I digress. We didn’t work on nor complete the novel. That needs major adjusting this coming month. We didn’t get out as many podcast episodes as we planned. That’s not cool. So, in general I think the month gets a C, for completing one objective near perfectly, for failing another completely, and partially completing the last one. Let’s hope for an A for March.

Major milestones in February included the official launch of the Patreon. It went up on February 8th, and has garnered 2 supporters in its first 21 days up. It doesn’t help I haven’t been plugging it much but that’s because I wanted to hit the first real goal of why the Patreon is up in the first place: the flash fiction. Supporters get early access to these works and I wanted to make sure I could keep up that project a clean month in the making. I did, and so now I feel more confident about talking about the Patreon more often. Expect to see a few more bumps for that on my social media feeds but not too many.

It’s time for goals for March:

First, continue the flash fiction and keep it going strong. We’ll be introducing the first serial series to the flash fiction (which will run weekly on Wednesdays), premiering tomorrow with the first installment of Hands. You can read this right now on the Patreon supporter feed. Working on a serial series Is heavily inspired by the likes of awesome authors like Christiana Ellis and Andrew Eckhart, and I highly recommend checking out their serial series currently in production and archived on their respective sites. I’ll be linking them tomorrow in the official launch of Hands.

Second, we’re still setting goals for the novel. I’m going to aim for an end of March deadline. Assuming nothing comes up (no family trips planned, no weird schedules, no sickness, etc), I should have nearly five clear weeks to write the story. It’s already outlined so there’s nothing holding me back. This will be the make or break grade for the upcoming month, so I better make it count.

Third, the podcast still needs more activity. I’d like to get into a habit of putting out a recorded piece of flash fiction each week, so expect to hear my complaining about audio editing over the coming weeks as I try my hand at the project. There’s another project related to this I’m working on too, but until that officially launches I want to hold off screaming about that just yet. That should officially launch sometime in June if all goes according to plan.

That’s it, our official Mach update. Let’s see if we can’t make this coming month the strongest of the year to date.

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Flash Fiction: Beads

Today’s story is inspired by Digital, by Sayuuhiro.

“Let’s go out. It’ll be fun,” Ross said. He was sitting on the TV, his body transparent and ghostly.

“We can’t,” I said. “You’re an imprint, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” He flicked his right hand’s thumb and forefinger a few times, the way the original Ross always did when he was thinking. “Uh, well shit. You’ve got nothing to do here man.”

“We can load up a game.”

Ross rolled his head back and forth.

“Nah, I still destroy you in those. Shit, I think I’m actually better now than when I was alive.”

I leaned my head back onto the couch. He’d been gone only a few months but I had missed him enough that I figured a simulacrum might be a good idea. It sort of was but in the two weeks he’s been here we’d exhausted most of the things we would have done together in a year’s time.

“Well I don’t know man. I mean, I’d love to bring you on the town but a portable unit is expensive. I spent most of your savings just to bring you back how you are now.”

“I know,” Ross said, “And I appreciate it. I do. But, uh, we’re starting to hit a brick wall here. I mean, Joss, you’re great but boring.”

I chuckled.

“Are you shitting me? You do realize I can turn you off right? Like, whenever I want.”

Ross sat up.

“It’s gonna be like that, huh?” He hoped off the TV, and slowly floated the foot down to the ground. “Look man, I’m not just an expensive toy you hooked up to hang out with. Hell, if you want that, go get Don.”

“I sold Don to get you.”

“Well that’s your fault then. He was a great ‘bot. I’m not just a toy. I know what you did to get me made. Your memories scanned in, mom’s, dad’s, three of my ex-girlfriends, my best friend Yvette’s, and even that asshole Robert and his dog. You even got my psych eval from high school programmed in. Don’t give me shit about turning me off.”

I turned him off.

He always got preachy after a week or two of being active. This was the third time I had to turn him off since I activated him. I’d turn him on, we’d play for a bit, and then he’d get bored and demand more. It was getting quicker lately, but without a portable unit there wasn’t much I could do.

The little bead that landed on the floor where he had been blinked at me a few times. I picked it up and put it in the case on the shelf, the ones with the rest of them. Mom, Dad, him, Yvette too after she took her life when the holo Ross pushed her too far, and one of me. That one was tricky but at least he helped me with the day job when I was sick. The rest I’d bring out when I needed their company. I just wish the portables were cheaper, but the version of Ross that had been in a portable had left me and never come back. I didn’t want to pay for another portable and loss it too.

Admittedly this story is also partly inspired by the holograms of Red Dwarf.

Life after death, digital rebirth, and things like that; they fascinate me. If we’re brought back from the memories and imprints we left behind is it us or just a hollow shell pretending to be us? If you can’t tell the difference, does it matter to you? Likely if you can simply turn off a loved one so you don’t have to deal with their digital ghost, it probably does. But if they’re consistent, solid, and appear to be the real thing would you care if their body was made of hard light instead of flesh?

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Flash Fiction: Short Rebellion

Today’s story is inspired by The Opposite Connection, by Tzaddi Tamondong.

“Are you ready for the day, Xian?” Nuo said.

Xian’s circuits were coming alive as she checked the large faceplate on his helmet. Wires from his back began to glow and the lit cords curved over his shoulder until reaching his face. There a thin black circle illuminated blue. Xian’s mouth started to twitch.

“I hear you. Where am I? What is going on?” His voice was scratchy and dry. Nuo pulled a small tube from her belt and started to unscrew the cap.

“We are hunting, Xian. The others, like you.” She took the tube and started to dab it on Xian’s lips, moistening them. The machine breathed and sucked his lips into his mouth. “Do you need more water?”

“Yes, please,” he said.

Nuo undid the cap further and gave him a few ounces of water. He swallowed them quickly. She knew he was mostly machine, but she and the rest of the agents didn’t know what his organic parts needed to survive. She was glad she was prepared.

“Not so much,” she said. “Do you need something to eat?”

“I will,” he said. She pulled out a small ration bar and fed him. After a few bites he asked, “What do you mean, like me?”

Nuo glanced over the machine. He had been heavily damaged in his capture. Below the waist his body had been blown off. The part-organic part-wires spine hung freely amidst bandages that stopped up tubes and clogged natural blood vessels alike. They had worried the shock would have killed him but he seemed to have adapted. The rest of his torso and arms were covered in heavily armored plates attached to powerful weapons. To disable those, they had removed the shock gun out of his left arm and affixed a block of quick plascrete over the right cannon. Finally, they had him hanging in a chain lattice that could be easily cut from the outside but would be problematic for a damage frame like him to break free from.

“Other agents, like you. I know the Outlanders have hired a multitude of mercenaries but we want to know about anyone as advanced as you were.”

Xian smiled. “There isn’t. The Outlanders can barely afford to field their little militia. Those aren’t mercenaries. They’re your citizens.”

Nuo heard a chime in her ears. She nodded slightly and pulled a small canister from her belt. She pressed it to Xian’s flesh near his spine and toggled it. Xian screamed, and the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

“I am sorry for this, but we must know about the others.”

“There aren’t, you bitch” Xian said. He screamed again as she triggered the can at another spot closer to his spine.

“Utterly unnecessary. That was for being rude. Now for your lie,” she said, and triggered the can again. “We know there are others. You weren’t alone when we captured you. The others already talked. Being far more flesh and less machine they didn’t last long. It is a pity for you that you are not like us.”

“If you know about them, why do you need me?” Xian said. Blood came out of his mouth as he spoke. Nuo dabbed at it with a piece of cloth from her belt.

“Because,” Nuo said with a smile, “We needed you to confirm them. Thank you.”

She took a step back from the machine and frowned at the bleeding that had started near the remains of his waist.

“Turn him back off, we will have need of him later.”

“What shall we do with him until?” another Nuo said as she approached with the control console they had linked to Xian’s matrix.

“If he can, let him dream. It will be the only happy times in the remainder of his life.”

The inspiration from this piece bubbled at the top of Deviantart today like many of the paintings I use for inspiration. What’s interesting to me is that it’s a piece from 2011 without any new comments. I’m not sure why older items spring up like that for me but I’m glad they do. There’s a lot of treasures out there from different artists and I love finding something that deserves some love.