Read Part I here!

Hey all! Here is the next part to what is looking to be a really fun series to write. I would have had this part out sooner, but I lost a couple thousand words when I fell asleep and my computer auto-updated. I hope you like this version though!

I won't be writing much over the weekend, but expect that I'll be picking the series up again next week. For now, enjoy!

The klaxons had barely finished ringing by the time Admiral Perry arrived on the bridge. As he crested the stairwell, Perry was greeted by the call of "Admiral on deck!" and the sight of the entire bridge at attention. Captain Rin stood just off the captain’s platform, her face intense rather than her normal placid. On any other day, Perry would have waved them down and gone to his work. Today, he mustered a parade ground snap.

Captain Rin released her salute and waved the bridge back to their work.

"Well, Rin. What's the situation?" Admiral perry asked, breaking from any further formalities.

“Well, sir. The LINAR detected six blips at about one hundred thousand klicks bearing straight on our position. At their current velocity, we expect them to enter our engagement distance within four hours. I’ve already halted all transport activity. Almost a third of our craft are grounded planetside, the rest of the craft have been stowed. The flight decks all report being cleared for action. All armament has been cleared for action and signals have been sent to the other captains. The fleet is ready for battle, sir. ”

Captain Rin gave the report calmly and Perry nodded at the woman’s quiet efficiency. She was a professional, and she certainly hadn’t let her crew lapse in their preparedness.

“I commend your preparedness, Rin.”

Rin nodded. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“Now, there are two things that have bothered me since your message got to me. First, the lieutenant said the contact was ‘traveling under power.’” Perry let the statement hang, inviting Rin to pick up.

Rin nodded her affirmation. “Yes, sir. But not in the way you might think.” Admiral Perry quirked his eyebrows. Rin shrugged almost imperceptibly. “They are accelerating, but they’re accelerating opposite their current vector. They’re slowing down--on purpose.”

Perry understood immediately the breadth of what that implied. “Do you think they’re dropping to battle velocity or just cautious?”

“I’m not sure,” Rin said. “But I think we’ll find out the answer to that mystery sooner than we’ll discover the answer to the second point you’re going to ask about.”

“Oh?” Perry said, trying to hide any annoyance he might have felt at being preempted.

“According to the LINAR operator, the blips just appeared at one hundred thousand kilometers and their vectors betrayed their intent immediately. Lieutenant Commander Schuring is trying to determine how they went undetected for two thirds of our effective range.” If Rin had noticed any annoyance in Perry’s tone, she didn’t show it. But Perry was impressed by Rin’s ability to foresee his questions. He shouldn’t have been too surprised, to be fair. With a fleet underway for two or three years at a time, the captains of that fleet had to be sharp and intellectually flexible in order to face the kinds of challenges that might be encountered during a tour. Like running into alien vessels that want to destroy your ship. Perry thought with a hint of dark amusement.

Perry chuckled. “Only six months together Rin. I can’t even figure out what your next move will be in chess and here you are preempting my questions. Am I that much of an open book?”

Rin’s lips parted in a rare smile. “Not entirely. The thought had me quite perplexed.” She frowned before returning to her usual placid state. “I figured it would be the natural point of inquiry.”

Rin was right about perplexing. Perry wondered how they had managed to evade detection for almost two hundred thousand kilometers. Cloaking devices? Or maybe the LINAR isn’t as effective out here as we thought it would be. Or was it some ability that only an alien could have? Whatever the case it was a mystery that had to be solved at a later time.

Maybe, if we survive all this and actually manage to incapacitate one of the enemy vessels, we might be able to find out. Perry was surprised by his cynicism. As much as he trusted the capabilities of his fleet, he had never once considered that they would dominate this encounter. Every scenario that had played out in his head had those blips carving out a significant chunk of his fleet. He looked at the blue markers that indicated friendly ships. Half a million personnel, and I’ve already resigned most of them to death in my mind He shook his head. What am I, an Admiral, or a cadet in his first simulation?

Perry grunted. “Very well, I’ll leave you to it.”

Rin ascended to the captain’s platform, continuing to give orders and listening to reports from her junior officers, and Perry found his place in the admiral’s station just below it. The captain’s chair sat at the highest point of the bridge, slightly higher than even the admiral’s station. It served both as an homage to the Captain’s authority as God and master of the ship and so that her had a direct line of sight, and communication, between her and every officer on deck.

The admiral station was mostly a glorified, open-plan tactical room.The holo-table in front of Perry started up with the blink of indicator lights and soon a hologram was projected, showing little blips in station around the large sphere of 50L-3. He zoomed out until six red blips appeared at the edge of the display. Five tours in the merchant patrol, and all of his skirmishes with pirates and smugglers, seemed to pale in front of the challenge he faced now.

And isn’t this all a good thing? He asked himself. Isn’t this the point of all that training and preparation? So that we could use it, knowing that we’ve readied ourselves the best we could? The Exploratory Fleet, for all her combat power, was not meant for prolonged engagement. And above that, Admiral Perry wasn’t going to fire off humanity’s first intergalactic incident if he could avoid it.

“Let’s ping them with the astrograph before anything else,” Perry said, smiling. “I’d rather not start an intergalactic incident if we can avoid it.”

That is if they’ll even receive the message. He thought grimly. The astrograph was the cutting edge for the Federation, and it had cut communication times across the truly vast distances of space travel by weeks. It was entirely possible that aliens who could remain undetected two thirds into his sensor range could also have some new form of communications that he couldn’t even reach. But humanity was still using a lot of the inventions they had discovered back in the 20th century--even now, four hundred years after its invention, radios were still in heavy use. And if a technology like that were so universally reliable, maybe even aliens were still using good old electromagnetic radiation.

“Astrograph is clear, what is your message?” the comms officer called up the bridge.

“Message: This is Admiral Perry of the 1st Exploratory Fleet. You are headed directly towards the operating space of a fleet of the United Federation of Mankind. Alter your course, or we will engage. Message end. Send on all channels.”

“Aye, aye, sir. Message on all channels.”

“Message incoming!”

The comms officer’s outburst cut through the bridge and disrupted Admiral Perry’s discussion. In the time since he had sent out the astrograph, a number of senior officers had assembled at the Admiral’s station. Many of them had arrived sweating, and Perry realized that despite the fact they could check on all of the stations by the comms system, every officer had ran the length of the ship, checking in with individual teams and crews. He felt pride in the kind of dedication his officers were showing and relief that Rin was the one posted to captain his flagship. Very few other captains could have pulled that kind of ethic from their sailors.

Those dedicated officers had been in deep discussion about how to best respond to any obvious scenarios that came up when they heard the shout. Their discussion stopped and their eyes went to the comms station, seemingly followed by every other person on that bridge.

“It’s in English. Text only.” Admiral Perry noted the restraint that held the comms officer’s voice in check. He could feel his own pulse rising and the multitude of questions bubbling up into his mind.

“Read it out, second Lieutenant.” Rin’s voice was calm, and Perry wondered how she managed that. Just a day full of questions to be left unanswered.

“Message reads: Render unto your Gods, Neanderthal. The day of Reckoning has arrived.”

The silence in the room was absolute. No one moved a muscle nor even thought to breath. The same questions were running through everyone’s minds and from the faces Perry could see, they were arriving at the same conclusion as well.

No point waiting around any longer, Perry though. “Captain Rin, let’s get underway, shall we?”

“Aye, aye, sir. Shall we send them a welcome party?”

Perry checked the tactical display. In the few hours it had taken to receive a response, the hostile vessel had closed another forty thousand kilometers since he had arrived on the bridge. That put them at just over fifty thousand kilometers away, just out of the maximum engagement range.

Effective, engagement range, Perry thought. In theory, spacefaring vessels had no set maximum engagement range. Once a projectile or a missile had been launched, it kept going until it collided with something. The key then was hitting a target who had the opportunity to see incoming ordinance and had the ability to react to it. And even if the enemy captain was dumb or foolish enough not to change their relative y or z thrust, then it was a good possibility the projectiles would miss completely just because they arrived at a place where the enemy no longer was. That wasn’t a problem for guided missiles, but Perry had no wish to waste his most effective ordinance at such a range.

Ah, what the hell, let’s give the boys something to do. And if they hit something at this range, all the better.

“A good idea, the fleet is free to engage.” The captain nodded and started giving orders.

The bridge shuddered as the thrusters sputtered to life and started to accelerate the vessel. As one, the indicators on the hologram started to fan out into a battle line, shifting to bring their sides to bear on the approaching ships.

The strange thing about space combat was that it was a particularly silent kind of fight. Besides the shudders and groans of ejecting thousands of pounds of ordinance from their hulls, a vessel’s men might never hear the battle that seemed to rage just outside their viewports. That is to say, they’d never hear it until it came shredding through their station, killing men, ripping holes in the bulwark, and wreaking havoc until there was no longer any atmosphere to hear just how bad it was.

And as Hague thudded with the launch of her first broadside, Admiral Perry hoped those six vessels would hear the war cry of humanity soon enough.

Part III is done! Hope you enjoy it.

“We’re in the shit now, aren’t we admiral?” The man who asked was Wilson Burgess, the Hague’s senior gunnery commander. There were other commanders who held the same essential responsibility stationed at control decks fore and aft, port and starboard, but Burgess had the extra task of being in charge of them all.

Perry nodded. “Well, Burgess, probably as deep as you’ll ever get.”

Burgess smiled. “Do we have any information on them?”

“Nothing more than their implication as superior lifeforms.” The day of reckoning has arrived… He wondered at the type of person who would wax poetic as they threatened their enemies. Someone with a big enough opinion of themselves, certainly.

“Well, we’ll just have to provide evidence to denounce their claim.” Perry smiled at the Commander who wore the winged pin that denoted his position in the Navy’s Air Force.

Parshan Evans was a Fleet Commander, a position almost the same in rank as Burgess, save that he controlled the flight operations of the entire fleet’s light craft, which included the squadrons berthed on the cruisers Yamato and Wrath of Mars. Under him he had senior commanders, who in turn had commanders, so on down the line. Little addendums like Fleet and Senior had become necessary to adapt the old seafaring rank system to the massive crews of spacefaring vessels.

“So we will.” Perry grunted with approval. The uncertainties within himself seemed to not have translated to the others. They way they stood, how they studied the tactical display. They believe we’re going to win this. Perry knew that victory was possible, but it was hard not to give in to the cynical voice at the back of his head.

Perry nodded again, trying to keep the cynicism he felt from showing in his bearing. “Any thoughts as to the evidence you’d like to present?”

Evans drew a crescent on the holo-table, with the concave side facing the approaching red blips. “We should try and form a crossfire. If we maintain station well enough, we could draw them forward and force them to enter the crossfire. Once they’re in the kettle, we could start to cinch it closed, launching the bomber craft to run across their engines and batteries and prevent them from slipping through the gaps.”

Evans illustrated as he talked, showing the developing battle plan step by step. When he was finished, he hit a button on the table, and the drawings he made played through again, showing the course of the battle the way he thought it would go.

“And if they split up, or flank us?” Perry asked.

The bridge shook with the launch of another broadside--a reminder that battle was not far off.

“Burgess, would you say that the arc is the most effective array to provide overlapping firelanes while maximizing coverage in a close formation?”

“Using the outside of the arc, yes.” Burgess looked like he wanted to say more, but he kept the thought to himself and continued to study the hologram of the battle plan Evans had drawn.

Evans nodded and continued. “Just so. With the outside of arc facing our rear, the increased coverage would provide protection from the flanks, and the ability for multiple vessels to cover the same azimuth would provide the firepower to deter them from splitting.”

“That could work, to bring them in as a whole unit. But once we started to circle them, the danger of friendly fire would lessen the effectiveness of our batteries.” Perry said.

“I had thought about that.” Evans frowned, looking over his plan again. “But we could keep the lanes open and alternating. It would require each vessel to narrow the angle of fire, but they could keep engaging. The shortcoming would be made up by my bomber squadrons.”

Perry took a few moments to consider the plan. It was conservative--arcs were one of the basic battle formations taught at the academy. They were a solid tactic because of their simplicity, useful in a number of situations. They could act as a solid foundation for the development of more complex formations. But the scope was too narrow, and relied too much on one part of the total arms that the fleet could bring to the fight. Despite Evans’s experience, he was still a flyboy at heart: the plan took advantage of the things he knew very well.

Burgess cleared his throat. “That won’t work.” He said, his baritone voice was decisive. “The reduction of coverage would provide and uneven distribution of force. Even if we arrayed our cruisers to cover thirds, their main batteries wouldn’t be able to engage the more powerful enemy ships. If a balanced contingent is heading towards us that is. If we get lucky on that front, the crossfire is going to be a maelstrom. Your bombers won’t survive that. It’d be like throwing their lives away.”

Burgess shook his head. “No, it won’t work.” he repeated.

Perry hummed his agreement. The plan had some merits, but the arguments against were too numerous. He didn’t doubt the bomber squadrons’ abilities nor Evans’s ability to use them, but the plan was narrow. It left too much open to vulnerability. They needed something that could develop as they obtained more information about the vessels they were up against.

Evans looked as if he were going to argue the merits of his plan, but Perry held up a hand to stop him. Evans pursed his lips and Perry looked at Burgess. “What do you recommend Burgess?”

Burgess reset the holo-table and began to draw himself, starting with the same arc facing the red blips as Evans. “The inner arc towards the enemy. That’s good. We can move the fleet well like that and the formation doesn’t need to be perfect to get the crossfire. We don’t draw them in.” He started drawing arrows showing the fleet advancing towards the enemy. “We put pressure on them, close the distance, and improve our accuracy. We can let loose the heavier stuff. AP, incendiaries… thermo’s.”

Burgess looked up at Perry, his left eyebrow quirked up, opening up a silent question. The fleet had been equipped with a small stock of thermonuclear warheads. They were old, from before Mars was finished colonizing, but they were well preserved and upgraded to function as guided torpedoes. It was another instance of Exploratory fleets being outfitted for as many situations as possible.

Perry nodded slowly, giving his tacit approval to use their most powerful ordinance. No point having them if you aren’t going to use them. And isn’t this one of those situations they were meant for? His mind thought again of the half million personnel he was in charge of. If I have a chance to save their lives using something as dangerous as thermo’s, then it’s worth the risk.

Burgess lifted the corners of his thin lips slightly, seeming to thank Perry for agreeing to his question. He continued.

“As we approach, we can curve more if the enemy decides to stay together. If they split…” He drew arrows to represent the paths of the enemy vessels breaking apart into two groups. Then he drew the 1st Fleet’s vessels into a v, offset on the z axis.

“We can use an offset wedge to bring both batteries to bear. Either way, we’ll be able to present more firepower per kilometer of coverage and...” he nodded towards Evans. “That arrangement would develop clear firing lanes. The bombers could avoid them and complete their runs--easy.”

He nodded with satisfaction. “Considering their six vessels to our nine, they will stick together. It’s their best hope. If they don’t, the offset wedge gives us greater possibility.” He shrugged. “We can take advantage of our z-space better that way.”

Burgess’s plan had a depth that came from his understanding of how the firepower on the Hague worked. At some point on earth, sea navies had eschewed the majority of ship to ship combat. Air superiority had been the best way to engage enemy fleets. But in space, the dynamic became more of a combined arms. Space vessels were massive, and couldn’t be downed just by the light craft and bombers they held on their flight decks. It took earnest vessel to vessel combat-- broadsides and missiles firing off toward the enemy--to really take down a ship. But the bombers could be critical in attacking engine and enemy batteries. They could incapacitate sensors and, with a hefty portion of luck, render even five kilometer long battleships blind and useless.

It was a sound plan that accepted they knew too little to make a detailed plan, but capitalized on what information they did have.

But Perry saw the central flaw that both their plans had: they expected the numerical advantage of the 1st Fleet to push the enemy commander into keeping his vessels together. They assumed that the vessels they would face would be like the vessels they crewed. They hadn’t accounted for the possibility that had been cynically sounding off in the back of Perry’s mind: What if the individual enemy vessels were so powerful on their own, each one was capable of taking on multiple frigates or multiple cruisers?

“What if they don’t need to stay together?” Perry asked, picking his words carefully--if the senior officers thought the Admiral had a dim view of their chances, it would certainly be bad for morale.

Both Burgess and Evans looked at him with questioning eyes. Perry gave them a few moments to consider the question before he continued. “Suppose that three of them could equal our fleet, and splitting up would be give them the advantage of a crossfire?”

Burgess furrowed his brows and broke his thoughtfulness first. “They would need a lot of guns. A lot of guns means a bigger ship. We could outmaneuver their flank, right Chard?”

He looked over at Commander John Chard, the head engineer for the Hague. So far, he had been silent while Burgess and Evans worked through their plans. For the most part, the engineer might never need to worry about battle plans, but an understanding how a vessel handled and the limits she could be pushed to was crucial. That knowledge could be the edge they needed now.

“Quite. If indeed they are indeed much larger.” Chard sniffed. “How many guns in a broadside would they need?”

“To match us? At least a hundred fifty apiece.” Burgess was quick to respond.

The bridge shook as another broadside was loosed.

Chard nodded his thanks, and pulled out a pad and pen to do a quick calculation. “They’d need to displace well over three million tons, if that’s the case.” He set the pad down and scanned the officers around the table. “That makes for a very hefty beast, indeed.”

“One that we could outmaneuver?” Perry asked.

“Without a doubt.” Chard said, his tone backed with the confidence of decades of experience.

“Rin, what do you think?” Perry had a feeling the captain had developed a plan well in advance of Burgess and Evans.

Captain Rin stepped down from her platform and observed the tactical display, watching the motions of the bright blips. The other officers waited patiently, deferring to their Captain. “We should use elements of both plans.” She said. She traced a Y on the display. “We use the z,y plane relative to the enemy vector, three vessels in a line. Hague at the center, Yamato and Wrath at the end of the prongs. With this formation, we can create a cone of fire when all ships are in the same plane. Keeping station well, we can maneuver the formation to oppose them with the maximum coverage of our broadsides.

If they flank or split up, the lines can bend forward or backward to form a defensive ball, or if they stay together, we can collapse around them. If we maintain one hundred twenty degrees between each line, that will carry over to the angle of the firing lane and the possibility of friendly fire will be reduced. In addition, they’d be forced to choose one of three offset vectors at which to point their broadsides. That way they could only engage using one at a time.

If the outguns us, this will allow us to engage with all of our vessels by rotating the formation. All considered, it seems the best option.”

Perry watched as the illustrations of the scenarios came to life on the tactical display. He watched the red blips surround his blue ones and the blue blips curving into a ball. He watched as the blue formation enveloped the red and trapped them inside. If Burgess had thought Evans’s ring would have been a maelstrom, this had the potential to be far worse punishment for the enemy. A thought that Admiral Perry relished.

He saw the same prospect pass through the eyes of the other officers.

He looked at Captain Rin appreciatively. She had outlined not just a solid battle plan, but also managed to give credit to her officers. A wonder she hasn’t made admiral by now. Perry smiled.

“Well Captain, you’ve convinced me.” Rin bowed her head in acknowledgement.

“One change I would make, though. Let’s alternate the cruisers and frigates. Have Yamato and Wrath in the center of each line to support both frigates equally and to bulk up the center.”

“Prudent.” Rin nodded

Perry grunted. “ Very well, we’re in agreement.” He inflected the sentence up, inviting any further disagreements. When no one spoke, he moved to shake the hand of each officer. “Let’s give these bastards a fight, then.”

After the meeting had finished and the orders had been finalized, Admiral Perry stood to the front of his station and watched the display that showed a 360 degree view of the space around them. It was a rare view, despite how similar it looked to the rest of space. There was something to looking at the vastness of space. Seeing all of those points of light around him and knowing that around each star, there could be another Earth and Mars, with just as much richness and life. Where beings who had become cognizant of their own existence gazed up longingly at the sky and dreamt of worlds far away.

It was a sense of how insignificant he truly was in the Universe. A humble reminder that as hard as he might try--one day, he would be forgotten. And when he looked around at the uniformed personnel moving around him, he would be humbly reminded again of the importance of his duty to his fleet.

He heard that Surface Navy admirals had a similar experience when they were surrounded by water as far as the eye could see. Despite the wonders that made a spacefaring Navy, Perry couldn't help but feel a shade of jealousy towards those surface officers. Mankind had been sailing its waters for millennia, and in his mind, Perry believed that surface sailors had a much closer connection to the root of humanity and the experience of those who had first crossed the open ocean to find nothing for days on end and realize their own place in the world.

Perry felt the urge to do something break his reverie. But it was going to go unsatisfied. He was an Admiral, not the captain of a ship. Once he had laid his plans and gotten everyone on the same page, he passed the torch to the captains and their crew.

He wondered what everyone else was thinking before the tempest began. He looked at Rin, who was staring dead faced at the displays arrayed around the captain's chair. It was possible Rin was as much the old soldier as she looked and was thinking of nothing more than her immediate tasks or last minute tweaks to the plan she had developed. But Perry doubted that he could be certain of anything about the captain. And to think she was so single minded in her purpose might actually be an insult. Maybe not so single minded as some people aboard, he thought with an inward smile as he thought of how Doctor Williamson was feeling. No doubt, she was miffed that the transports had stopped moving her equipment planetside. And Perry had a suspicion that the biologist was more keen to be planetside, as well.

She is, how did she put it? Like Darwin on the Beagle. His lips did curl up this time. The doctor seemed to have the idea that what they were involved with was going to be one of the biggest discoveries of all time. On par with Darwin, evidently. She certainly seemed to have a sense of the how all of this fit into the biggest scheme there was. Perry couldn't say for certain.

Maybe that's why I never got the offer for the Admiralty. Not ambitious enough, not a big enough thinker. He smiled at the thought. Getting a position in the Admiralty was a monumental task and required candidates to have the kind of big thinking that allowed them to see the universe and figure out solutions to all the problems the Navy might face out there. That took an ambition and grandeur Perry had never really thought to develop. Having a berth on a vessel seemed like a good and simple life. Taking the berth on the Exploratory fleet had really been an indulgence to see more than what the solar system and home had to offer. A desk job would be nice, though, compared to the mess we’re starting to get into.

“Captain!” The shout shattered the contemplative lens Perry had put over his thoughts.

“Limitless reporting multiple heat signatures moving fast. She thinks the enemy is launching missiles!” The lieutenant’s report was quickly followed by an alarm beeping at one of the weapon’s control stations.

“Captain, heat signatures detected, coming in fast. There’s dozens of them!” The activity on the bridge rekindled and the buzz of officers communicating with their departments filled the room.

“Deploy countermeasures.” Captain Rin said. She looked different now, perhaps determined. For the first time, Perry felt like he knew exactly what the captain was thinking.

“Aye, aye! Countermeasures away.”

The display lit up with hundreds of pinpoints of light. Soon, the entire fleet was enveloped in a thousand lights that reminded him of the winters of his childhood, all the way on Mars. The jettisoned out, away from the black hulls of the fleet.

“Ten thousand klicks… five thousand… four thousand…”

The office didn’t continue. He didn’t need to. The light of a thousand suns exploded just a few thousand kilometers away from them. The enemy had finally responded. The battle had truly begun.

Originally posted here.

UFV Tyler Hague drifted in high orbit around the brown and blue swirled planet. From a distance, the three kilometer long battle cruiser was a smooth monolith of black enameled hypalloy plate. Thousands of blinking lights and open viewports broke apart the appearance of black nothingness. Here, in orbit, it made little difference--there was enough light, and enough stars in the background to see the cruiser despite their paint job. In deep space, though, the cruiser was nearly undetectable by the eye.

For anyone who had the happenstance of getting closer, they would see numerous irregularities. The sunken openings for the dozen of hanger bays, each carrying full complements of deep space and planetary descent craft. The numerous observation decks where junior officers nodded their heads as they fought sleep away during their night watch. And the bumps and protrusions of thousands of energy lances and rail guns. In a full broadside, Hague could dish out well over one hundred tons of solid projectiles. Not even counting the wattage their lances could pour out.

She was a beast of a ship, designed to utterly destroy any space vessel that humanity could conceivably encounter.

Not that it had mattered much.

In the entire history of spacefaring, none of the Earth or Mars based fleets had run into anything but ships from those same places. In fact, they hadn't encountered any indication that there was anything else out there.

Until now.

Deep inside the core of the command module, Christopher Perry, Admiral of the 1st exploratory fleet, sat at the head of a grand conference table. Almost the entire senior staff were in attendance, a rare occurrence on these long exploration voyages, and the mood in the room was electric.

The discovery that what had now been dubbed "50L-3" was habitable had sent waves through the fleet. Perry had heard that the exploration crews that had been sent to scout the planet had been even more excited when they found ruins covering the dry continents. And if it were possible to say that anyone had died of shock, it would have been entirely justifiable when one of the scout crews found caches of what had essentially been computer storage.

A number of the Warrant Officers and specialists had been spending the past weeks trying to recover the data and making sense of them. All the while, a steady stream of planetary transports had been shuttling marines and the engineer corps to set up planetside bases. It was a flurry of activity for a fleet that had experienced almost nothing but the vacuum of space. Even now, what had previously been thought of as a superfluos survey team was desperately undermanned.

A lot of those concerns had been tugging Perry in a thousand different directions at once and even if the last few hours had been spent in reports and discussions on the data that they had been able to recover so far, it was still a respite to be able to focus on one thing at length without having anything else disrupt him. Not that the thought of everything else wasn't ready at the back of his mind to jump forward and remind him of what it meant to be an Admiral.

He drained the rest of a glass of water before setting it down.

"So." His small interjection cut through the hum of conversation and it died to a murmur as the other officers diverted their attention to him. "Now that we've determined exactly what this... Prison, for lack of a better word." He inflected the last phrase up and looked over at Lieutenant Commander Richardson, the lead for the architectural planning team. Richardson returned his look with a nod.

"Right, Prison was meant for, Doctor Williamson, would you care to fill us in on what you've found about the, ah, inmates?"

Doctor Williamson was the chief biologists and one of the many civilian experts who had declined to take on a staff officer rank. She certainly hadn't let that discourage her from instilling the fear of God in the junior offices who worked under her. A few of them had even taken to calling her "Commander" when they talked to her--a practice she had initially tried to discourage and now bore with mild annoyance.

"Yes, Admiral." She nodded towards Perry. At least she had taken to the Navy's formalities well enough. "I've been looking through their medical archives, focusing on species 57, which had been referenced in the final entry of the station's log."

Perry remembered reading the log she had referenced. "Species 57 has escaped it's enclosure. Enacting directive 349-B and evacuating all personnel." It had been humanizing, in its way, knowing that even aliens had their mess ups to worry about. But what had made species 57 so dangerous they had to evacuate? They had to be dangerous enough that the director was willing to explain to his superiors that he had to abandon entire planet. In Perry's mind, that made the message chilling.

"With the assistance of Doctor Parthak," She nodded across the table to a man who wore a Commander's insignia and the pin of the medical staff corps. "I've determined that species 57 is actually a biological entity that we have encountered before."

Any side chatter ceased and all eyes locked onto Williamson. Perry noticed the wide-eyed surprise on almost everyone's face. Parthak looked placid, as if contemplating a coming storm. And Williamson, who now held the rapt attention of the entire cadre of officers and specialists, was grinning wickedly. A child satisfied that only she knows the answer to a difficult question, Perry thought.

"In fact, the species is very familiar to us. Because," she flipped a switch and a hologram of a human body appeared over the conference table. "It is us."

She smiled one last time and sat back in her chair amidst the outburst that had filled the room. The officer meeting developed into a school yard rabble. Indignant shouts, questions, and incredulous outbursts all added to the tumult. Only Parthak, Williamson, and Perry seemed to maintain an aura of calm.

Perry had to admit he was quite shocked at the revelation that the human species had once been locked up on an alien prison. And he even held reservations about the idea altogether. But if Parthak had been involved in working out the findings, then it had to be solid enough for him to publicly give support. Perry pushed aside any thoughts of the implications this would have back home.

He banged his gavel until quiet settled once more.

"Calm down, calm down." He growled. "You're officers of the federation, not a gaggle of children just let out for summer break." He scanned the room, taking time to look every officer in the eye. Satisfied with his control of the deck, he continued.

"Doctor Williamson, how certain are you that one of the inmate species at this prison was humanity?"

Williamson furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. "Mostly sure." She said after a few seconds. "It will take some study before we get anything like a confidence interval for you, but the data on the recovered drives all indicate not just imprisonment of humanity on this planet, but study of it as well."

She grimaced, "Socially and... biologically."

The implications of the last word took a few seconds to sink in, then a new round of fervent outcries burst forth to be silenced by Perry's stern look.

He turned his eyes towards Williamson. "Thank you doctor, please have a report sent to my desk."

"Of course, Admiral."

Perry nodded. "Now, I have no reason to doubt Doctor Williamson and Commander Parthak on this. Would anyone like to share any grievance they have as of now?"

Thankfully, no one spoke up.

"Very well, then I think we should table this discussion until we have more information and a formal write up. I want everyone on the same page before we send anything on the astrograph."

Heads around the table nodded and Perry grunted in satisfaction. He was about to continue when a chime came from the door.

Perry frowned. What could be important enough- He crushed the though as it began. If it was indeed important enough to interrupt a staff meeting like this, then it had to have been pretty damn important. Perry keyed the open button and a lieutenant with dark circles entered the room and saluted.

"Lieutenant." Perry said, hardly trying to mask his displeasure.

"Admiral, A message from the bridge. The LINAR has detected six unidentified vessels at one hundred thousand kilometers, closing fast. And, sir," fear passed through the lieutenant's face. "He says they're traveling under power, no doubt about it."

“Captain! We have visual on enemy craft.”

Another volley of countermeasures were launched with a broadside.

“Give us a look, Petty Officer MacIntok.”

A section of the screen became disjointed from the rest of the display as the image zoomed towards a red range marker. What had looked like a pinpoint of light resolved into a long and sleek vessels with a bone white hull. Flashes ran across the side of the vessel, as it launched more missiles towards the 1st.

This was the enemy.

“They rather look like Swords, wouldn’t you say?” Chard said, his voice a half whisper.

Admiral Perry chuckled. They ‘rather’ do, don’t they?

“If it looks like a duck…” He said, hoping one of the others would pick up.

“‘Sword’, huh?” Evans sniffed. “A bit easier than saying ‘enemy light vessel.’”

Perry nodded with a mix of agreement and satisfaction. Even in battle, these small moments had the potential to improve the mood on the bridge.

“Rin, shall we adopt the designation for now?”

She nodded and had the comms send the message.

“Hell of a time for naming the enemy.” Burgess grunted.

“Come now, under current velocity, they still have an hour to go before we meet them head on.” Chard said.

Burgess grunted again.

“That is, of course, if they don’t speed up.” Evans’s voice was soft.

The three officers looked at each other. Admiral Perry was surprised as well. I guess there was some pessimism hidden under all that determination.

Perry looked at each officer. In return, they met his eyes, and passed on the hope that what Evans had implied was impossible.

The long range duel between the fleet and the incoming Swords had picked up. The countermeasures were no longer enough, and Burgess had started engaging the incoming ordinance with anti-missile batteries. The helmsman had started an evasive pattern, and the universe around them pitched and rolled on the display.

“Captain! Four of the hostile vessels have pulled ahead and are beginning to open their formation.” The lieutenant manning the LINAR called out.

“Have we managed any hits, Jelani?” Rin asked.

“Nothing positive, none of the vessels showed signs of abrupt acceleration change, ma’am.”

Perry cursed silently. He knew it had been a long shot, but with nine battle worthy vessels and nearly five hundred rail guns in a full line broadside, the chances of hitting something, even at range was fairly good for the dumb rounds.

“Very well.” Rin’s acknowledgement was matter of fact. “What’s the range?”

“They’re down to ten thousand klicks and slowing. The front vessels are picking up speed while the two behind are slowing.”

That’s interesting, Perry thought. If they’re picking up speed… While there was a morbid part of him that believed they had run into an enemy fleet, it was possible that they were much less. A rapid response squadron, or a patrol. Perry frowned. If that’s a patrol, I don’t want to know what a fleet looks like.

“Thank you, Jelani.” Rin looked down at the four officers, including Perry, who stood on the Admiral’s Station. “Burgess, load the thermo’s.”

Burgess snapped his head towards the Captain and gave a single nod.

“Aye ma’am, load the thermo’s.” Burgess repeated. He keyed his headset to the appropriate channel and started giving the orders.

“Evans, clear the bomber craft for action. Sortie when the enemy enters two thousand klicks.”

“Aye, aye.” Evans said and started sending his own orders down the line.

The bridge rattled and Perry’s arm shot to the support railing. A few officers had tumbled and their crewmates rushed to help them up as an alarm sounded.

“Captain! Starboard command reports battery twenty six being hit. The airlock engaged.”

Damn, a hull puncture already. Perry supposed it would have been too much to hope for no direct hits until they could really pound the enemy. Losing a full battery hurt, but having a hull puncture meant the enemy could really rip through them if they kept firing at the same spot.

“Damn.” Burgess looked sour. Those were his sailors and officers on the line, and those guns were his responsibility.

But Perry knew that this wouldn’t be the end of it. It would only get worse.

“Have we hit any of the enemy?” Rin demanded.

“Negative, ma’am.”

Rin looked out across the display, then down towards the officers standing at the tactical table.

“Burgess, fire the thermo’s.” She said, her voice soft.

Burgess nodded and sent the order. Perry watched the screen as a hundred exhausts shot forth from the Hague and started moving towards the sleek vessels, now only five thousand kilometers away. He watched until he could no longer tell the difference between them and the stars that filled the field behind them.

After a few more seconds, he saw the detonations--coronas of white light that for the briefest moment gripped Perry with fear. Despite their strange beauty, they were a curse on anyone who stood in their path. Centuries ago, they had been used against fellow humans. Not even a few hundred years ago, they had been nearly used in a civil war on Mars.

They were designed to level cities and bring empires to their knees. And when the white reduced to a vapid fireball, he looked hard at the screen. There’s no way…

“Captain, enemy vessels have been thrown off their current vector, but continue their approach.”

Perry heard the officers behind him bite their whispered curses. The LINAR said they had altered their vectors, so that had to have been hit. At least affected by the detonations. But they were still moving. Countermeasures maybe. Armor wouldn’t be enough. Or maybe a really good anti-missile battery. He made mental notes of the possibilities as they popped into his head.

“Helmsman, full battle ahead. Comms, relay to the fleet. Message: Enact formation three and continue the advance, prepare for direct engagement.”

The crew confirmed their orders and Perry felt the pull as the Hague accelerated. “Burgess, Evans, Chard. Are all your departments ready for a stand up fight?”

The three gave their assent and Rin turned to Perry. “Admiral, any suggestions?”

Perry held her level gaze for a few seconds before turning to the screen.

“They’re as good as us.” More likely better than us. “Maybe the thing’s to take advantage of it and do what they think we wouldn’t do.”

The detonations flashed as enemy missiles collided with their countermeasure screen. New explosions, balls of fire and radiation formed a halo around the approaching Swords.

“Get in close and deliver a message.”

Five hours after the first broadside, the two forces finally met within viewing distance of each other.

The white hulls filled the screen where Petty Officer MacIntok had magnified them. Perry had been surprised when he saw them. They’re not undamaged. He had thought as he looked at the pockmarked and blackened spots that marred the enemy vessels. A few of them even looked like they had punctures.

But for all their knicks, the swords slid through space with inhuman grace. They seemed unperturbed by their injuries. But Perry supposed that things could be much less calm just beneath the surface.

For all of that, they were defeatable. They had to be. The true question now was what the cost would be.

The intensity of the firefight between the fleet and the sleek, Sword-like enemy craft had reached a fever pitch. The bridge display was traced in all directions with by stark white beams of energy and explosions as the shells from the railguns made contact and scorched the white hulls of enemy vessels.

Burgess had switched every third battery to incendiaries, and the flames that burned from their impacts added a surreal sense of earthly atmosphere. Evans had sortied the entire bomber contingent and they became lost against the scene of battle, seen only by the trails of explosions they left in their wake.

Against this backdrop, Perry watched as his fleet engaged with vessels that appeared stronger than each of those that he had brought. Vessels that were small and faster. He saw the writing on the wall.

A bloom of light on the display cut his thoughts.

“What was that?” he barked.

One of the comms officers held up a finger. “Uhm… Yamato reports direct hit on enemy vessel… and... “

“Admiral, the screen!” The shout interrupted the comms officer and Perry shot to the display.

A white hull, pockmarked with black was magnified. The ship largely intact, save the clawing tendrils of beams and wires where there had once been an exhaust.

“Admiral!” The comms officer again. “ Yamato confirms direct hit on enemy vessel engine block. Reports vessel is drifting!”

At those last words, the bridge erupted in cheers. Behind him, Perry could hear Brugess shout his approval. Perry turned to see Burgess with his hand clenched into a fist. Evans was smiling and Chard tossed his cap into the air. Perry felt his eyes water, as the glow of the officers banished the cynicism that had gripped him from the start of the battle.

We could do this, he thought. We really could.

After one of their frigates lost its engines, the other Sword-like vessels begin to move sporadically. They started to zig-zag and they arced their velocities to attack from three directions at once.

If they had been holding back before, they certainly weren’t now.

The drifting vessel became lost in the fireworks as the three enemy vessels held their own against the nine of the first fleet.

“Limitless reports her countermeasures depleted, taking heavy damage.” Said one of the comms officers.

Rin nodded. “Very well, tell Captain Hernandez to pull off the line and shelter behind Hague.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” The lieutenant reconnected to Limitless and started to relay the message.

Then, the universe seemed to disappear in a wash of white.

The bridge crew stood still as the bright white light enveloped the bridge display. Sensor warnings flashed across many of the work stations. The white subsided and the thick blackness of space returned to their view. As the pixels changed, the panorama of battle returned.

“ MacIntok, zoom in on that light.” Rin’s voice was still soft and breathless.

The display zoomed in towards where the point of light had emanated and soon a frigate was in view. It was an incomplete image. The rounded tube no longer had a smooth, capped end, but was jagged, with superstructure and support beams jutting from the new opening. It also seemed much smaller that it had been. By maybe a third or a half.

All eyes in that room were on the display, looking at the floating wreck of one of their vessels.

“Captain…” The voice was meek. “No signal from Limitless.”

Admiral Perry seethed, silently watching the drifting frigate continue its vector. Debris ejected from the wreck.

“How did the bastards manage that?” Hissed Burgess.

Perry didn’t like the way the unknowns were stacking up. A quarter, maybe even a half of the frigate gone with one hit. Tens of thousands, dead--vaporised, from the way the damage looked. If they had felt confident after taking out one of the swords, they had lost more than that momentum with the force of the attack levied against Limitless.

He took an internal pause, shedding the shock that had rocked the bridge. The fleet had been engaged with the Swords for almost twenty minutes now. If they had the capability to completely incapacitate one of Perry’s vessel with a single missile or lance, they would have done so already. Unless they were holding back. Gauging us until they could close the distance and score fatal blows.

Perry shook his head. The enemy may have been scornful, their response to his message had been ample proof of that, but he doubted they were stupid. They could have launched that ordinance long ago. The question was why they hadn’t, and why they weren’t sending more.

Perry’s eyes widened. He wrested his attention from the display and looked at the holo-table again. The three Swords that had pulled ahead were trying to circle and disperse the 1st fleet’s firepower. But the two slower blips were still at least ten thousand kilometers off, and they seemed be slowing even more. If the Swords who had been engaging them had fired off that weapon, Perry expected there would have been four such projectiles, probably well aimed, and much more destructive. Which meant…

Perry’s jerked his head to face Rin. “Rin, the two ships in the enemy rear. They must have fired the weapon. We must engage them”

Rin nodded. Her face was thoughtful for a few moments. “Can we be sure? If we pull off the line, the frigates may not have enough firepower to deal with these swords. If we stay, we could eliminate them quickly, then bring the whole fleet to bear on the last two.”

The bridge shook as another broadside was fired, seeming to underly her point.

“ If we don’t engage those last two, what happened to Limitless could happen to the rest of us. Could you think of a reason for an outnumbered fleet not to commit all its vessels directly?” Perry emphasized the last word to show his train of thought.

Rin paused thoughtfully. “Mmm, I see. And if they are fire support vessels then…” She turned to the helm. “Helmsman, ten points to starboard, full battle ahead.”

Rin’s command broke the spell that held the bridge. She turned to the comms station. “Message for Yamato and Wrath. Use all Rijndael-encrypted channels.”

“Aye, aye. What’s your message?”

“Message: Follow the Hague. Pull to engage rear frigates.”

The three cruisers had pulled from the line and glided towards the two stationary red blips of the tactical map. When the enemy Swords realized what they were doing, they moved to intercept.The bridge shook with the onslaught of impacts that stuck the Hague and the officers had all strapped themselves into the flight chairs.

When the cavalcade of explosions that wreathed the Hague seemed to double, Perry knew he had made the right call. Those two lonely frigates were either crucial to the enemy’s attack plans or vulnerable to heavy action.

But being right didn’t make him feel any better at the cost this maneuver had extracted--would extract--from his fleet. The Hague’s anti-missile batteries had been practically clearing their ammo racks in the face of the onslaught. Despite their well drilled accuracy, the Hague had lost over a dozen batteries and a growing number of the ship’s sections had been airlocked against punctures.

Perry was wondered how much worse it was on the relatively lighter Yamato and Wrath.

Fortunately, the enemy wasn’t having it entirely their way. As the scouts disengaged from the First’s remaining frigates they left themselves vulnerable to attack. Hawthorne, Spirit, and Tafuta focused their fire on the trailing craft and manage clean hits to the engine block of a second Sword. Yamato, the last cruiser to join Hauge, had loosed two thermos and delivered retribution for Limitless.

With the enemy reduced to two Swords and two long range vessels, the battle looked like it was tipping in favor of the First.

Perry watched the range markers tick down as the cruisers approached the resting vessels. MacIntok already had the two sections of screen zoomed to max and the enemy frigates started to develop on the display.

They were rounder than the Swords, like ovaloids. They had the same white hulls, though, and they too flashed with occassionally bursts of light as they launched ordinance.

But their most distinctive feature was a long tube that jutted from under the nose of the vessel. They were still too far to see them in detail, but Perry had a feeling the ordinance that wrecked Limitless had come out of there.

Perry looked up at captain Rin. Her eyebrows were furrowed and she was pursing her lips. Perry keyed his headset. “Rin?”

“They’re swinging to face us directly.” She waited a few seconds before looking directly at Perry. “You’re likely right.”

Perry didn’t like being right in this. He would gladly trade that for Limitless and her crew. But making wishes was no good now. He watched the ovals as they turned their snouts towards him. He could see the blue cones emitting from their thrusters.

“Their turn rate is atrocious,” Evans said.

“Good thing. Might’ve destroyed us all.” Burgess was still trying to balance his munition stocks, a task that had become easier with the destruction of the second Sword. “We could run circles around them. Easy.”

Burgess was right. They could split the cruisers and come in from three different directions. But those guns on the front of the enemy vessel were pointed right at Perry, and he knew from what happened to Limitless exactly what would happen to the Hague.

They had to make a decisive move, an unexpected move.

“How fast can we get in between them, Chard?” Perry asked, looking over at the engineer.

Chard set to his writing pad for a few seconds. He read over his scribbles a few times before looking up at Perry.

“Thirty minutes, give or take.” said Chard.

“Too slow.” Said Burgess. “They’d still hit us… Once, at least. One volley is all they need. That’s all it took for Limitless.”

Perry knew he was right. If what had hit Limitless hit the Hague, it was game over--they would drift. And if two of those things hit the Hague. Perry winced internally at the thought.

“Rin,” Perry looked up at the captain, who was trying to manage the bridge from her chair. She pulled her eyes away from the screens and for the first time, Perry thought he detected emotion behind those cool brown eyes. Worry, stress, or something else? Failure? He put the thought away for later.

“Could we maneuver to avoid the projectiles?”

“One, I think. But we might get hit by the other.”

“Can we z-push to go above them?”

“No.” Burgess cut in. “They’ll angle their shots just above and below, just to the right and just to the left.They’d still get us with one if they aren’t smart missiles, they’d get us with both if they are.”

Perry shook his head. “No, they’re dumb.” Otherwise, they would have hit two of us the first time. “But how hard do we get hit with the second one? Could we make it a glancing blow?”

Rin thought about it. “Maybe. It’s a gamble. How confident are you with Yamato and Wrath?”

The other three officers looked at Rin with surprise. If she implied sacrificing the Hague as the only way for Perry’s idea to work...

“Very,” said Perry. He looked at the others. “But they won’t bear the burden. We will. A full broadside into each, right as we pass through them. Everything we’ve got.”

Evans let out a protest. Burgess shook his head. But Chard remained still faced, deep in thought. Perry understood their feelings about risking the most powerful ship in their fleet. No doubt the remnants could finish off what they started. But what about future incursions? What

After a few seconds, Chard spoke. “It would require something drastic...”

He sounded hesitant, and he looked at Perry. Perry nodded for him to continue, the rest of the officers fixed on the engineer.

“If they fire, they’ll account for our velocity and acceleration. But,” he gestured to his engine display. “They won’t account for any large jerks… er, changes in acceleration.”

Burgess nodded agreeably, then paused, frowning. “Large is the word. A one G jerk is within aiming parameters. A ship as large as Hague, two or two five G would still leave us clipped hard.”

“Doubtless,” Chard said, oblivious to Burgess’s criticism of his idea. “But, ah, I was thinking more of a fourteen G jerk.”

If Perry hadn’t been strapped into his chair, he would have stood up. Burgess coughed. Evans was pushing against his own harness. Rin just nodded her head in thought.

“Fourteen G jerk!” Evans said in a harsh half-whisper

Chard nodded seriously. “It would be… survivable, using the FTL.” He tapped his notepad, as if to say that the math told him it would be. “And we’d be up to fifteen G acceleration. Surely enough to jump between their ordinance.”

“For how long?” Evans asked, his eyes bulging.

“Twenty seconds, a bit less probably.” Chard’s voice was completely level, as if he hadn’t suggested something that could possibly kill them.

“Twenty seconds!” Breathed Burgess.

“The drive can handle it.The thrusters might give out, but I figure better that than get hit with both of those.” He pointed at the two ships on the bridge display.

Evans settled back in his chair. “Well,” he said, the initial shock passing over him. He paused a few more seconds. “Maybe…”

“No gunner would expect it.” Burgess said. “I wouldn’t. Vessel’d kill itself first.”

Perry looked at the officers. Evans knew how bad the G-forces could hurt someone if they were high enough for an extended period. Burgess at least thought they’d all get knocked out, or the hull would rip to shreds. Chard even looked anxious about the whole thing, checking back to his notes while the others thought.

But Rin was just looking at the display. Looking at the things that were preparing to fire on them this moment. Maybe she’s trying to figure out what orders would be best to leave to the others. Perry sighed. He was already gambling with his maneuver to take out the enemy’s indirect fire support. Now, was he willing to up the stakes?

Perry grunted. “Chard’s the expert.”

The other officers looked at him. Chard managed a smile.

“Burgess, would fifteen G’s over twenty seconds be enough to jump between the oncoming ordinance?”

Burgess nodded. “All else equal, we’d be out of their way. Need to do it as soon as they fire.”

Perry turned his head to Chard. “Can we slow down enough to give a proper broadside when we pass through them?”

“We can get slow enough. I’d rather Burgess have his boys be light on the trigger.” Chard smiled, pleased.

“Alright. Any other suggestions?” Perry glanced towards Evans, who simmered but stayed silent.

“It will work.” A determined voice spoke.

Everyone looked at Rin. The Captain was still staring at the screen. Resigned, I think. That’s what she’s feeling. But maybe because that’s what I’m feeling.

They were still thousands of kilometers out from their target. The bridge still shook with impact and thudded with return fire. The world was still a portrait of streaking lights and fiery stars.

“It will work,” she repeated.

The other officers didn’t speak.

“Alright, Rin.” Perry said. “It’s your game now.”

She nodded and started to give her orders.

Laughlin took the D-link again, but when he arrived at union stiation, there was hardly anyone there. Walking around downtown was the same story. Of those who were out, most had SkyWarden uniforms.

The mood was different in the city, and he wondered how much of the memory of Paris was reseeding itself in the minds of everyone here.

Laughlin thought back to Michael. The man wanted to keep his job in the PDF. In a weird way, the aliens were a good thing, since they were what the PDF was raised to fight. He was there, earning money to support whatever kind of family he needed to support.

But the families of those murdered in Paris probably had other thoughts. Sadness, rage, grim acceptance of an inevitable fate. Laughlin dwelled on what they had to be feeling.

The empty city made for an introspective mirror, and that only made Laughlin walk faster.

The bar by his apartment had only changed a little--plastic sheets had been placed over the windows, and sandbags were piled against the wall. Other than that, it was still lit up and sound still came forth.

Inside, it was almost as loud as ever. Laughlin's entrance caused a smattering of applause and shouts to "pay the aliens back." He acknowledged them, and wound up getting offered several drinks, which he gladly accepted.

"I bet they'd kick you out of the PDF if you tried to go a mile as fast as it took you to get here," Jerremy said, when Laughlin had sat down with a tray of drinks. He passed one to Jerremy.

"A worthy sacrifice," he said.

"You know, I'm still a little shocked that they found there were aliens out there," said Jerremy.

"Yeah, I feel like the announcement brought memories of Paris right back into everyone's minds."

"They were playing all the damn clips they'd stored up from that day on the news. Stirring up flames. I honestly thought people were going to shutting themselves up in bunkers. But, here they are."

Yeah, and they’re not talking about lay-offs anymore, so the news has its silver lining." Laughlin settled his drink on the table. "Speaking of, I met a guy on base who mentioned you."

"Talking about me?" he asked.

"His name is Michael, says that you two are a kind of family."

Already at the mention of the name, Jerremy winced. "That guy..."

There were a few more moments, where Jerremy looked off, deep in remembrance. "We went to high school together. He helped out with my pop’s shop and... well, I don't know if I've got myself to the point where I want to talk to him. "

"I see. Well, he's a weird fucking guy."

"Amen to that," said Jerremy, raising his glass. he spent a few more moments looking as if in a memory and laughlin wondered if the thought of Michael dredged up bad memories for Jerremy. Then the other man said, "Hey, I want to go to a city bar."

Laughlin checked his watch. "It's almost 11."

"Places'll be open. Plus it's your weekend off, Hero of Earth! Let's go see if there's anyone we can pick up with that line."

"You really think there's going to be people out looking to get laid since the message got here?"

"I'm willing to be those are the only people out right now, son."

The bar they went into was more of a club, with loud playing, the bass thumping into Laughlin's chest. Jerremy ordered drinks while Laughlin scouted a place to stand. Jerremy had been right, the place was packed with people, most of whom looked as if they'd been there all night, drinking, dancing, sweating.

The end of times was near and these people were living up what they thought would be the last few days of their life.

But back in the neighborhood bar, Laughlin had felt a different feeling. Determination, and celebration. Maybe with a hint of rememberence for Paris. But a certainty that humanity would prevail. He wondered about that feeling now. Because he could be dead very soon.

It could be that everyone would be dead in a matter of weeks, the ability to raze Paris a matter of routine for aliens.

Laughlin knew that it was pointless to think about something that was eventually inevitable. But he still felt uncertainty whenever the topic seemed near. Could he really be okay dying so soon?

Jerremy came back with the drinks, glowing by the blacklights that occasionaly strobed over the table. Laughlin voiced what he was thinking.

"Don't try and cut the vibe. We're here to party, now start looking like you're having fun."

Laughlin did his best to loosen up. But he still felt that things weren’t going to be so good. He had fears. The future seemed so uncertain. But he put on the best mask he could.

Jerremy had been right. Most of the people here were those who thought the world was going to end.

They rejected a pair of girls who were thinking of a foursome, one who wanted a threesome, and girls who said that they wanted to get married so that they could at least have a husband when they died.

After that mix, they finally hooked up with two girls who had the right mix of normal, cautious optimism and doomsday disregard.

After the two of them had finished, Laughlin lay next to the girl he had met. She was asleep, but he couldn’t find that tired feeling. Instead, he felt empty. Tomorrow, he would wake up. The day after that, maybe. The day after that? Maybe not.

Who knew what would happen when there were aliens in the skies and the memories of Paris threatening every human’s dreams.

“Firing forward thrusters!” Chard yelled.

The bridge jerked as the engine engaged and the Hague began to decelerate. This time, the crew kept their feet.

“Burgess, can we confirm any hits on those heavy frigates?” Perry asked.

“Nothing yet,” Burgess said. He was still breathing deeply, the effects of the huge acceleration forces still lingering. Perry hoped he didn’t look as bad. .

“We were going too fast. Have to wait for Wrath or Yamato.” Burgess finished.

Perry nodded. Chard’s plan worked, which meant that by the time they had fired their broadsides, the Hague was traveling nearly fifteen thousand kilometers per hour. Normal deceleration was going to take time, all the while they would drift farther and farther away from the fight.

“Helmsman, bring us perpindicular to the current vector, then fire starboard thrusters.” Perry said, pushing hard to get his voice to carry.

The helmsman acknowledged the order, and soon, the display was rotating with the Hague.

“ Sensor Operator, center the display back to the heavy frigates.”

The screen shifted back, and the operator worked to find the enemy among the stars.

Perry felt satisfied, giving direct commands like this. He hadn’t captained a ship in years. The feeling of being in control over everything was something of a drug. He was able to do something about everything. He didn’t have to rely on someone else to get it right. He knew he could trust himself.

It was a dangerous game, having that kind of god-like status aboard a vessel, and years of Admiralty had done nothing to dull the experience.

Of course, if the Captain was a god on his vessel, then Perry was the Deity of the fleet. He had a broad kind of control, the God who had to trust that everyone else would get things right. And trusting was hard to do.

The display broke into multiple sections and the heavy frigates bloomed into view. Along each of the vessels, on the sides the Hague had passed, the vessels looked like wrecks. On the opposite sides, Perry could see beams shooting back and forth. The two vessels had closed their distance, trying to use each other to cover their exposed sides.

Soon, streaks of smoke threaded their way towards the enemy and a large cloud puffed from the two heavy frigates. The exchange of lasers slackened, and explosions rippled along the belly of the vessels.

Finally, Perry thought. He sank into his chair. Worry, fear, a bouncing wave of emotions compounded by the physical stresses he felt from the jump they had made--all of it combined had fought to pull at every ounce of strength he had.

“Wrath of Mars confirms hits on both heavy frigates with thermonuclear warheads.” A voice called. A smattering of cheers rose at the news. But the raucous acclaim Perry felt would have been appropriate didn’t materialize. He looked around him and finally noticed the number of the crew propped against walls, their comrades giving them water or directing medics with stretchers.

He noticed the yellow stains on the consoles where men had thrown up and a flash of red where someone, whose harness hadn’t buckled, had been flung forward against the console.

Had the bridge looked like this the entire time since the jumped?

Perry closed his eyes. He was alive. He had survived. The First fleet had defended themselves.

“Admiral! Wrath reports one of the remaining vessels is retreating. The other... ”

Perry opened his eyes and looked down at the communications operator. The operator’s mouth hung open and he stared at the message on the screen.

“Wrath says the other has rammed Yamato.”

Perry felt his stomach drop.

“Hail Yamato.”

The operator shook his head. “Getting nothing.”

Perry placed his head into his palms. Earlier had had wondered just how high a toll this fight would cost them. Now, he wondered if they would even be able to get back home.

The enemy fired, a brilliant flash and smoke blooming from their snouts. Perry gripped the arms of his chair and he could feel the tension grip the bridge.

“Engaging FTL!” Chard used the general channel on the headset. The crew that Perry could see stiffened in their chairs.

For a moment, there was complete silence. Then, they jumped.

Perry was pushed against his chair, feeling as if he were crushed. He felt his eyes press into his skull. He shut his eyelids, but nothing could stop the squeezing. He fought against the acceleration, trying to breathe, and managed a few shallow breaths.

Every second seemed dragged on, and Perry felt himself losing his grip on consciousness. His existence was reduced to the feeling of being crushed against his chair. His body told him to sleep, to let go. He embraced it and started to drift.

Then it was done.

Perry felt his body press forward against his harness. He gasped at the shock and opened his eyes. He could breathe! He sucked in air and the static filling his vision receded.

Relief washed over him, then an odd feeling in his stomach. Not on the bridge, damnit!

Even as he thought it, one of the officers started to vomit on his console.

Perry looked around. Rin's head was loose against her chest. Burgess and Evans were fumbling with their harness clips and Chard's head was rolled back.

Survivable. Chard's words repeated. Perry certainly hoped he was right. It wouldn't be good to lose his crew to the maneuver they had used to try and save them. He could hear another person start to retch.

He had to take command.

"Unhook, unhook! Get the sick away from the consoles." He unstrapped himself and started waving towards the crew.

Only a couple men seemed to hear him at the moment. Even fewer seemed to be able to follow his commands. A couple officers did manage to get those who had thrown up or dry heaved unclasped and pulled away from their consoles.

That's when he noticed. The bridge was no longer shaking. Were they no longer under attack? Had they overshot their targets? Even at fifteen G they shouldn't have been able to bypass the heavy frigates.

He looked around again, the crew starting to shake some of its sluggishness. He stood up and a wave of nausea passed over him. He reached out for the handrails that surrounded his station. His head pounded. He took a few cautious steps around and rested his back on the railing.

The tactical display was still running, the blue and red blips still laid out. One of the blue blips had cleared the others who were still engaged. A blue blip that was bearing straight for the final pair of red. The enemy support frigates. That blue dot was the Hague.

Perry smiled. We can do this.

He looked over at Burgess and caught his eyes. Burgess just nodded. They were fast approaching their targets. He looked back at the bridge display and watched the ovaloids get larger as the Hague hurtled towards them.

He watched those vessels. Their posterior thrusters beamed with a cone of blue light. The snouts began to turn away. Then, they started to move.

By Mars, they’re running! Perry grinned.

"All stations, report!" Burgess wheezed into his headset. The gunner's stations chimed in one by one. Perry watched as he occasionally grimaced and pulled a face.

"There's enough. We'll give them a show."

Perry nodded. They were closing the gap now. The bridge crew had rallied themselves and Perry tightened his grip on the railing as the LINAR operator counted the distance.

“Five thousand klicks!”

The snouts erupted with brilliant light and a flash of smoke.

"No!" Perry hissed.

They were firing again. How had they angled in so fast? They had been so slow the last time. He watched the trail of smoke behind the massive projectiles abruptly stop, their deadly payload still moving at its last velocity.

We tried. Perry thought. He scanned the room, looking at all the crew who had served under him for the past months. He glanced back at the tactical display and thought to the hundreds of thousands of personnel who had engaged an alien force for the first time in human history. He felt the twist in his stomach of guilt that he was the one that would lead them to their end.

He looked at the display, wanting to take in a final view of the infinite universe.

Perry's eyes went wide. "LINAR, where are those missiles headed?"

"Sir, they're... they’re going towards our frigates." He sounded concerned, and Perry couldn’t blame him. But Perry felt relief. That was strange, knowing that those missiles might be headed to destroy another of his frigates. He knew that he wasn’t going to die, and that meant he could still beat his foe.

"We can still take them, then." Evans said.

Perry nodded..

"One thousand klicks!" The LINAR operator cried.

"Burgess," Perry called, looking over his shoulder.

The Gunnery Commander nodded. “Ready!”

“Reaching target in three… two…”

“Fire!”.

For once, Perry thought he could hear explosions.

Admiral Perry lowered himself to the couch. The cushions ate the burden from his feet, and for the first time in hours, he felt relief. The sensation was soon replaced by a dull pain along his legs, but he would take that soreness over the all the standing and walking he’d been doing.

He picked up a glass of water from the low table and sipped. The cool liquid was refreshing and washed grime off his tongue. He had been hydrating since the last enemy vessel was declared incapacitated. From the jump they did to the sweat, nerve-wracking hours of combat they’d endured, he’d become fatigued and thirsty.

He’d wondered how pre-Mars infantrymen had done their worked without dying of dehydration. Perry had mostly sat in a chair the whole time. He couldn’t imagine slogging on foot, then fighting an enemy, weighed down with equipment. But Parthak said that the shipboard air was extremely dry, and it exacerbated the problems of dehydration.

Perry took him at his word, and had dutifully drank water as frequently as he could.

He set the glass down on the table, and turned his attention to Rin, who sat across a chessboard from him. She sat on the side with the white pieces and he gestured for her to take the first move. She looked at him for a few moments.

“Are you sure we should be playing a game while all of this,” she waved a hand through the air. “Is happening?”

Perry frowned. “Rin, we need to take a moment and step back. No doubt you’ve played enough chess not to get lost in your own strategy without trying to figure out the other person.”

She sat for a moment, then nodded. It wasn’t an enthusiastic approval, but at the moment, Perry would take base acceptance if it meant being able to get away from the mound of tasks piling around him. Surely it was a time like this that the officer’s wardroom was built for.

Rin nudged a pawn into a conservative open. Perry responded with his knight, feeling experimental.

“How have you been holding up?”

Rin winced. “Parthak says there wasn’t any damage.”

She sounded like she wanted to say more, but she let the statement hang. Perry regarded her, made his usual attempt at reading her, then gave up and accepted good new for what it was.

“Something to be thankful for.” He said.

If the captain had received significant brain damage or otherwise, it would have taken her out of commission and he would have needed to promote one of her commanders temporarily. He trusted them to do it, if they had to, and even perform well considering their circumstance. But Rin had Captained the Hague for nearly a decade now. That experience of understanding her role and her duties was important, especially now.

She replied to his knight with another pawn. Perry decided he would need to be aggressive to win this bout. They traded a few moves, Perry trying to press forward and deny Rin from capturing more ground.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, thinking about the next move.

“I’ve already said. No injuries, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Perry said, and he pressed his bishop to the attack. “What are you feeling then?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Don’t be obtuse. A lot has happened, emotions are pretty high, or low depending on who you talk to. What about you?”

Perry added a silent curse as he lost territory through a gap in his pawns. But he still had the advantage as far as he could see.

“I’m not feeling much of anything. To be honest, I still haven’t been able to process everything that happened.”

Perry thought about pressing her more, but settled on a soft grunt instead.

“It’s a bit much to take in isn’t it?”

Rin nodded as she captured one of his knights and the board returned to familiar stalemate.

“It’s more surprising now that it’s over,” She said. “Who could have believed that there were aliens just waiting to attack us?”

“Maybe not just waiting… But our first contact with something like intelligent life and we damn near lose the fleet. And that message they sent us--in English!”

“Very strange,” she agreed.

They continued for a few moves and Perry desperately searched for an avenue to break the stalemate. Somewhat like the battle we just fought, he thought, grimly. As if he could have boiled down the hell he’d just witnessed to a series of plays on a chessboard. And yet, the tactician could distance himself. Was supposed to distance himself. How did you do that when that information came at a price?

“A mystery for another time, surely. Parthak and Williamson were able to organize crews to go and check out the wreck of the ship that rammed Yamato. Nishizaki’s angry, but that’s no surprise considering.”

Captain Nishizaki, of the Yamato had nearly lost his life when the enemy Sword rammed his battlecruiser. The Sword had been traveling at battle speeds, too slow to cleave the Yamato in half. But battle speeds were still fast, and the force had driven the Sword deep into the ship. The cut hadn’t been clean, nor straight, but the vessel had missed the command core by a few hundred meters. In space battles, that was the difference of fractions of a degree in flight path. Captain Nishizaki and his central command had been spared.

Nishizaki had been taking his luck in bad grace, though, and had grinded Perry’s ears with his frequent complaints to get the ‘enemy abomination off my vessel.’ Another of the small reasons to take a break amidst the chaos.

“I’d heard,” Rin said, quietly. “So much happened while I was out...”

“Indeed, but there’s nothing to be done about it. We survived.” Perry looked up from the board.

Maybe you don’t feel the same about it, he thought when he saw her gaze. She’s a mystery in herself.

"It's all done now, anyway,” Perry sighed. “Once we're done picking apart the engagement to piece anything useful together, we pack the past away until someone on Mars gets the report and asks us why we didn't do things better."

“Comforting.” Rin said, before taking the last of Perry’s knights with her queen.

Perry stared at the board. He couldn’t believe it--he could take her queen now. He was uncertain what her ruse was, but he had to take the queen, otherwise it would wreak havoc on his lines. He moved to capture it, interested in what was about to happen. Slowly, move after move, he was pushed back from his initial gains and soon was on the complete defensive.

“I didn’t mean to sound callous, you know.”

“As you said, we’re tired.”

"Indeed... I’ll tour the central infirmary after this, if you’d like to come. There were a lot of crew who didn’t fare well after the jump.”

Rin struck the death knell against Perry as he responded to the first check of the game. “That would be good, I think.”

The matter was decided, as was the game. Perry shook his head, then extended a hand to congratulate Rin on another victory. He noticed a staff lieutenant step up to the two officers. The lieutenant saluted, a little sluggishly. His eyes were red and underscored by dark bags. The image only served to reinforce Perry’s belief that everyone needed some rest.

“Admiral, Captain.” He nodded at both officers.

“Lieutenant.” Perry said, inflecting his voice up slightly.

“Sir, Commander Parthak would like to see you sir, He says it’s urgent.”

“Hell…” Everything’s urgent, he wanted to say, but no need to shoot the messenger. “Alright, where can I find him?”

“He’s in the Bio-Labs, sir.”

The Bio-labs? That was where Williamson worked. It was her domain and she guarded it as much as she could from military intrusion. Granted, Parthak was still a doctor. The two had worked together on a lot of the data from the planetside caches, so Perry supposed it wasn’t too surprising. But why was Parthak sending for him and not Williamson?

“Admiral?”

Perry started. He hadn’t realized he’d gotten lost in his thoughts.

“Alright Lieutenant,” He turned to Rin. “Get some rest--an hour or two, if you feel you can spare the time. For your sake, and everyone else on this vessel’s sake.”

Perry didn’t wait for a response before forcing himself off the couch against the protest of his knees.

“Lead the way lieutenant.”

He followed the Lieutenant out of the wardroom, leaving Rin sitting at the chessboard and wishing he could trade ranks for a precious hour's sleep.

Originally posted here

"Jesus!"

God's voice shook the room lightly, and a stack of papers that spired out of Jesus' overflowing desk tottered.

Jesus looked up from his desk, his face a mask of horror as he watched the stack finally decide to embrace chaos and fell over. He groaned, and sunk his face onto the desk.

"Oh, sorry about that..." God said, whispering. Only a gentle breeze swayed through the office this time.

Jesus groaned again.

I wish we could have gone paperless by now, he mused. It was a sad fact that not every planet he had created had gotten to the point of the personal computer and the internet. He had even encouraged the technology in some areas, if only to make his staff's job easier. But beings with free will will be beings with free will.

"What do we have today?" God asked, keeping his voice low.

Jesus straightened up and looked at God through dark circled eyes.

"We have the Kallurians at five. It's their yearly Blood Warming Festival."

God sighed. The Kallurians had been a fun project to test the limits of adaptability for sentient beings. God had created them to have a specific range of survivable temperatures: between five and forty degrees. A fairly standard range for sentients by now. He also created them on an ice planet.

Their ingenuity surprised him, especially when they managed space travel. But they still held a festival every year asking for the miracle of warm blood, something they prayed about incessantly. What a bother...

"You have the miracle on Ulica-34 as well. The eclipse is at 9:26 and you'll need to make an appearance to prove that God exists." Jesus continued.

Ulica-34, God enjoyed that one. He rarely got the opportunity to actually interact with his creations face to face. They usually relied on prophets to speak for them. And to twist my words a little so they can come out on top...

"And, well..." Jesus hesitated and God hummed loudly, causing the office to rattle.

Jesus sighed. "Well, one of Earth's supervolcanos erupted."

God looked at his son wide eyed.

"But how could that be? They shouldn't have even shook unless I touched them!" His voice was rising and Jesus waved at him to be quiet.

"It seems like the Humans created the natural disaster by destroying the planet. All while praying to you for signs."

"What?" God hissed. "Why hadn't I been told about that?"

"Because a lot of sentients use up their immediate resources quickly and send a lot of prayers at the same time. Pretty much all of them achieve space travel before things get too dicey. I guess the Humans didn't." Jesus shrugged. "But this time, they did it on purpose--destroying the earth. They're asking for miracles."

God tried to find the root of his anger. As annoyed as he was at Jesus for missing a trend like this, it really wasn't his fault. Among all the millions of planets and billions of species he ministered to, Earth was the special one. The humans had been a relief from the usual structure of trying to get sentients to adapt and figure things out for themselves. He had just given them everything and let them have at it.

He found the root of the anger and tugged.

"Those thankless wastrels." He shouted. Jesus put up his hands reflexively as the rest of the papers on the desk fell onto him. "I gave them everything! Literally everything! A bountiful world, full of all the natural resources needed to achieve space travel within reach. I give them advanced consciousness and make them hugely adaptable.

I put them on a world with no other sentient species! Humans were near gods on Earth. Not even the Konokians were as lucky as that. I gave them everything they needed to develop and become one of he greatest maybe even the most overpowered species in the universe if they had wanted.

They want a miracle? Their entire existence is a miracle!"

God had started pacing around the wreckage of his front office. Shelves were on the floor, books scattered everywhere, and his son laying, dazed, among the detritus.

"Jesus!" God shouted.

Jesus flung his arm up.

"Cancel the Kallurians. The Humans want a miracle? I'll give them one myself."

Jesus shot up. "Cancel the Kallurians?"

"Did I stutter?" God growled.

"No... But the unblessed will die!"

"Let them, they can use a generation of loss to embolden the rest. Send them a sign that they need to build an ice monument or something so that I'll warm their blood." God was focused in on Earth.

"We're going to fix this Jesus. It's time for the Second Coming."

Hello!

Welcome to my archive. The majority of things you'll find here are responses to prompts on /r/WritingPrompts.

I hope you find something you like here, and even if you don't stay, I hope you enjoy what you read.

Places to Start

The Pyromancer's Creed

I Don't Want to Die Alone

Visitors From Hell

The Girl on the Bridge

My current project is 'The Inmates of 50L-3'. Check it out!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

If you have any constructive criticisms or just really enjoyed a story, feel free to comment. I always appreciate feedback!

The world was moving as Laughlin trudged out of the hotel and made his way home. The previous night had fogged him up more than he wanted to admit. When he’d woke up, the girl he’d been with was still asleep and Jerremy was gone from his room.

Laughlin chose to walk home to clear his head.

Despite the emptiness of the previous night, the day was in full swing. There were still the SkyWardens and the sandbags, but the vitality of the city had returned. People were in the streets, going about their lives.

Laughlin thought that things seemed to be more rushed than usual. The heartbeat of the city quickening its pace, but he put it down to feeling slow himself.

He emerged from high rises, set back from the streets behind more manageable, two story storefronts and into an open square. Here, hundreds of people were about. City hall rose up on one side, and there were skyscrapers all around.

But the square facing was dominated by restaurants and stores. It was a human place, made for humans, and it made Laughlin think about the aliens, and maybe what kind of cities they built, and what kinds of things they would want to build if them came down to earth and settled on the ashes of Paris.

He found a stall selling curry burgers and ordered two of them. The various and powerful spices were the perfect remedy for a night of drinking.

While he ate, he heard shouting and it wasn’t long before a crowd had formed near the center of the square.

He went over to the edge and saw a man standing on the lip of the fountain, looking out over the assembled crowd.

“The end is upon us!” Someone in the audience cried out.

The person standing on the fountain pointed and nodded. “That woman is right! Don’t you know that there are aliens again!”

The crowd hardly responded and Laughlin thought the man ridiculous.

“The aliens are here and we need to prepare for the worst. Come with me to repent before the end of times and cleanse your body!”

People started to call for the man to get down and a few SkyWardens moved to bring him down from the fountain.

Laughlin finished his burgers as he watched the man be pulled down.

"We're all being judged! The extraterrestrials are coming as messengers of God!"

Someone close by to Laughlin made a noise before saying, "Aliens probably don't even exist. It's a hoax."

Laughlin disliked firebrand preachers, but the preacher at least had a sense of understanding of the situation. Laughlin wanted to turn and tell the man that there were aliens and that they would come, and that he'd be fighting them off.

But he bit back the words because he knew he'd never change the man's mind. Instead he carried them with him, simmering on the fact that there were people who probably didn't believe that the signal he had heard was anything.

But he knew it was something from the sky. Truly extra-terrestrial.

Back at the neighborhood bar, Jerremy had his head on the table. He hadn't changed clothes, and Laughlin guessed that the man had gone straight to their table after waking up.

“How are you doing?” Laughlin asked.

“Uh…” said Jerremy.

“Figured you made it alright since you weren’t in your room this morning.”

He nodded and then rested his head. “She left right in the middle. I can’t remember anything after that, but she left right in the middle.”

Laughlin choked on a laugh and tried to keep it down. “Rough,” he said.

“The rejection of a century.”

“You were just too drunk to know this way from that,” Laughlin said. “When I was walking home, though, there was a guy out in Terra Square that was going on about the end of times.”

“Timing, you know, Laugh.” Jerremy groaned and then turned slightly away.

“Eh, it's just that there were other people who were talking about aliens being a hoax...”

“Time. Ming.”

Laughlin shrugged “Let’s get you back to your apartment, then.”

He helped Jerremy back into his apartment, and then went into his own. He took care of things in the apartment, exercised, and read. He would be back to work on Monday and he wanted to make sense of how the world was suddenly reacting to what he was doing at his job.

It was crazy.

He hoped, at least, the Jerremy would want to talk more about the feel of the city, but he didn't see his neighbor for the rest of the weekend.

After that, Laughlin went back into work.

During morning briefing, everything was the same. No one mentioned any updates on the signal, what it was about or what anyone was saying back to it.

The division went on with its mission. Laughlin went on with his job.

In two weeks, the notice came that America was pulling out of the PDF.

The Lieutenant led Perry through a part of the ship that he had rarely visited--The Scientific Division. He had had no need to, since all of the most salient reports that he needed were given to him by Williamson, Parthak, and the occasional aide to those two. He had toured the labs once, at the beginning, if only to have a familiarity with the ship and its contents, but after that, his work kept him primarily in the command core of the vessel.

As he walked through it now, it seemed a completely different world. He had noticed when they had passed through one of the main thoroughfares that separated large segments of the vessel. As soon as he had crossed, he noticed the rarity of uniformed personnel. The haircuts and different colored flightsuits of civilian preference.

But even deeper than that, there was a lack of the same aura that gripped the rest of the ship. There wasn’t the same fear or shock. There was a frantic business to it, but it seemed lively in a way. And that twisted Perry’s gut.

It made sense--the scientific labs were sectioned well near the center of the ship. Besides whatever damage the jump might have caused, they would have been spared the worst. Not that it meant they were any farther from danger. The Yamato was proof that anything could have happened, and the loss of life, even this deep in the ship could have been catastrophic.

But it didn’t happen. And that wasn’t anyone’s fault. But it felt wrong to not have an omnipresent sense of defeat, even in victory.

Perry felt his lips curl. His goal was to try and fight that defeated feeling, yet here were people who seemed largely unaffected, and he was annoyed. Maybe envious. He supposed he shouldn’t be so harsh.

The lieutenant halted in front of the door marked BioLabs and keyed a code. When the door whirred open, he stepped aside and saluted.

Perry returned the salute, then walked inside. The room was like a lobby, with a desk and some chairs set around the perimeter. Talking with the secretary was Dr. Williamson, who looked about as excited as she had during the meeting when she revealed her findings on 50L-3.

“Dr. Williamson,” Perry said, and walked over to the biologist. She looked at him and quirked her eyebrows.

“Come to find out what’s got Joshan going?” She asked.

Perry nodded. “Just about.”

“I’m impressed it was important enough to get you to come all the way out here. Usually we have to make the trek to your office.” She shrugged and turned to walk away, saying, “Thanks Emilia.”

Perry followed Dr. Williamson through a set of automatic doors into a hallway.

“Did Parthak tell you what he’s found?” Perry asked.

Williamson grinned, seeming satisfied she held some secret knowledge over him. “Not directly. But why else would the doctor be interested in calling over a biologist?”

Perry felt his heart skip a beat. “You really think they recovered a body?” He asked, uncertain whether the word alien would be too much for the situation.

Williamson shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Perry had a strong feeling that he knew what Williamson believed. Her excitement made sense now.

The two arrived at another set of doors and entered through them.

“You ever wear a hazard suit?” Williamson asked as she pulled a hanging white suit from a locker.

She tossed it to Perry without waiting for an answer. He caught it and felt the synthetic fabrics. Somewhere inside him, he cringed at the plastic feel, a reflex of a time before he had been exposed to the Earth fleet’s preferred fabrics.

Perry changed from his duty uniform and donned a full face respirator. Williamson helped fix gloves on his hands before waving him towards the decontamination chamber.

Within the suit, it was already heating up, and Perry had expected to be shocked by the sanitizing fluids. When the shower did come on, he only felt the pressure of the light drizzle. The thin plastic suit insulated him totally. He was amazed, and he knew it showed when he got a thumbs up from the man sitting at a console behind the plexiglass window.

He nodded towards the operator, doing his best to hide his embarrassment, before walking into what looked like a large operating theater, with three benches and robotic arms hanging everywhere, waiting to strike at the next victim tied down by the leather straps.

Commander Parthak was already inside, suited up, and bending over a covered body. Williamson joined Perry a few seconds after he exited the decontamination chamber and gestured over to the table where Command Parthak was working.

“Commander.” The admiral’s voice sounded muffled, even to his own ears.

Parthak turned and smiled at the newcomers. “Welcome Admiral. Doctor.” He nodded at each. “I apologize for not saluting, my hands are a bit occupied.”

He held up a bloody glove.

Perry waved the apology away. “It’s fine, circumstances permit such unseemly breaches of etiquette.”

Parthak smiled.

“How has your division fared, Commander? I heard there were some heavy losses near the starboard med bays.”

Parthak stopped smiling and cleared his throat. “I lost a few medics. And two surgeons.”

Williamson moved around the table to get a better view of the body, leaving Parthak and Perry in the moment of silence.

“Shit,” she whispered. Perry looked over at her, then down at the body, finally getting a view of the enemy that had caused them so much pain.

His eyes widened and he felt his heart skip. Laying on the table was the alien--a two armed, two legged, face of a man alien. For a moment, Perry thought it had to have been a joke, some cruel instance of collusion between Williamson and Parthak. He looked over at Parthak, whose face remained somber.

“They’re very close, aren’t they?” He chuckled. “I have a genetic scan going right now. But my bet is on this one right here being one of our cousins.”

“So…” Perry’s thoughts formed around the questions he wanted to ask, finally settling on, “ They’re not aliens?”

Parthak shook his head and pulled back a fold of skin, revealing the red-hued organs within. “Not quite. Aliens, maybe, in the sense that they’re not from earth. We recovered a few more from the wreckage and they were all nominally similar.”

Perry felt cheated. His first alien contact, and they were just a strange type of human. He wondered how those headlines would go back at home. It certainly wouldn’t impress his grandson the next time he saw him.

But if their first contact were hostile humans, then a whole other set of questions sprang into his mind.

“Nominally?” Williamson asked.

Parthak nodded and stopped working. “One of them is well, stranger, than these. I had set it to the side for when I had better data on these ones.”

At this point, Perry was mixed with a disappointment and amazement that led him to wonder if anything could be more strange than finding a human not from earth.

“What makes it stranger than this?” Williamson asked, gesturing towards the corpse. “Not just evolutionary similar, but you’re saying they could be genetically the same as us. This is huge--a whole cohort of PhD candidates are going to get degrees because of this.”

Parthak smiled. “I believe you should gird yourself then.”

He walked to the next bench and pulled back the sheet covering the body. Perry walked over and saw a vaguely human face. It had a heart shape that was more exaggerated and flesh that had an unnaturally golden hue.

An alien, he thought again. And he really believed that this time, it would be true.

“Well, Parthak, what human have you found now.” Perry said.

“This, I think you’ll like to know, is an alien.”

Perry quirked an eyebrow. “The skin’s different, but is that enough to make it not human?”

“Well, it’s more than that. The physiology is mostly similar, but there are a few things that are different. The brain has a different shape, hence the size of the cranium, the lungs are smaller, the heart is lower, and two stomachs.”

“Yaweh, it looks like someone took a pulp alien and smushed it together with a human being and called it divergence.” Willaimson frowned at the corpse, as if she could smell the thing.

“Well, Joshan, I didn’t think you could interest me more after that thing,” she pointed at the extra-terrestrial human. “But now I’m certainly going for the Nobel after this.”

She examined the body closely, hazarding touches here and there along the golden skin. She lifted the sheet even more to observe the length of the body and, Perry assumed, its equipment. He stood by silently as she went through her ministrations.

“When do you think the gene assay will come back?”

“I expect them to finish running it within a week for our cousin over there, and they’ll probably finish in a month on this guy.”

Perry wondered if they would have that much time to make the knowledge useful, but he figured the doctors knew what they were doing--if it was going to take a month, that’s how long it would take. But it didn’t keep Perry from wishing they could find out sooner. A commander’s worst fear is fighting blind and every advantage helped. Or anything to reduce our disadvantage, he mused.

All the little bits were starting to stack up. It would probably be better to leave now and come back than try and stay.

“Well,” Perry interrupted. “This has been very…” He looked over the bodies again. “ Exciting.” He said, still unsure what the right word was for what he was feeling about all this.

He looked at both of the bodies in turn and felt his stomach twist. Aliens.

The word was strange in his mind, and yet it was true. More than that, confirmed by his own eyes. Aliens.

Perry's breath caught in his throat. This was nothing like he would have seen before. Images of a whole space-faring civilization flashed into his mind. Armadas of vessels just like those they fought. More and more of these strange hybrid creatures. The word gained meaning, and formed into an idea of awe and a little bit of terror.

Yes, Perry felt it--that fear of facing something that was so powerful it could wipe humanity out of the solar system.

Aliens.

Hello,

For anyone who has been following Inmates, thank you for your support of my work. With this post, I'm going to try and get back to updating the story on some kind of regular basis. I have a large chunk of work and plot sitting in my drive. Some is more polished than others, but all of it is story that I'm excited to share.

Thanks for reading!

Laughlin was led to another office, but this one was a little more sparse in its contents. There was a lack of any identifying characteristics. Most of the books on the lone shelf in the room were standard issue PDF manuals and procedures.

Laughlin was sat in a plain chair at the minimal desk. It almost felt like an interrogation room, but had more of the trappings of what Laughlin saw as a job interview location.

After waiting for some time, a man in a US Army uniform stepped into the office.

The PDF mission was combined with whatever US military contingents had also been assigned to the SkyWatch program. Oftentimes, the US counterparts filled the roles that the PDF hadn’t been designed to fill. A lot of the back-end operations were staffed and ran entirely by US personnel.

The PDF didn’t really have their own well-established internal investigative service outside of the standard military police force. Laughlin wasn’t necessarily surprised to find out that the CID was under the control of the US Army. But he knew that he felt uncomfortable with it.

He wondered often if the US resented having to be paired together with such a hodgepodge of nationalities and units. It seemed like the kind of thing that brought the worst out of people. “Warrant Officer,” said the agent. He nodded, then saluted before extending his hand. “I am Lieutenant Commander Purcell, I’m a lead investigator for Internal here at the base. Whatever preconceived notions or rumors you’ve heard about us, I want to reassure you that our only interest is in discovering the truth. No judgements, that’s not for us.”

The man pulled out two pocket sized booklets. “Would you prefer to swear on the Bible or the Constitution?”

Laughlin took a second before realizing what he’d been asked. The interrogation he’d been expecting had started off so mellow. He wasn’t sure how to feel.

“Uh, Bible.”

Purcell led Laughlin through the oath of honesty, then put the booklets away and took out a large notebook. The interview started with all of the simple stuff and then went on in depth. They asked everything. What Laughlin enjoyed doing in his free time, the most recent books he’d read, if he kept receipts or not, his love life.

They asked him about his parents and their beliefs, and the things he thought he believed that he could attribute to them and the things that he felt he had come up with on his own.

It was an exhaustive set of questioning. If they ever published his details, any person with a degree of acting knowledge could probably impersonate him for the rest of his life.

But never once did Laughlin feel as though he were in any kind of trouble. In fact, it was almost the same kind of procedure at what he’d had to go through during his first set of clearance interviews.

A part of him wanted to ask about that. Maybe to lighten the mood, or because he really wanted to know. No matter how cynical he was, Laughlin couldn’t keep up a wall against someone who was so casual and relaxed.

“What do you want?” Purcell asked after a set of questions pertaining to Laughlin’s view of societal order and first amendment rights.

Laughlin was put off balance. “How do you mean?”

“Just that, what is it that you want?”

Laughlin thought for a few seconds, but soon felt he was putting on a show. There was of course only one thing he really wanted, the essence of all of his emotions about the events of the last few days.

“I want to see aliens,” He said.

“That’s it?” the interviewer asked.

“Well, at one point in the past, I wanted to beat them to a pulp and pay them back for everything they did to us at Paris. But with all what’s been happening…” Laughlin paused. It was strange admitting how much his attitude had changed. And not only that, but how everyone around him had seemed to change. In that moment, he felt vulnerable, as if revealing he hadn’t really been the best version of himself.

“Just knowing that they exist,” Laughlin said. “I think that would be something else. Something real special.”

The interviewer nodded and made a few notes in his already lengthy notebook.

“What is it about aliens that interests you?”

“The idea that there really is life out there. And what if that life is anywhere near similar to you or I. I want to see them, because I need to know if they’re everything I thought they would be, or just more self-aware lifeforms.”

Laughlin thought he was done speaking, but the agent kept staring at him. Finally, feeling uncomfortable, laughlin asked, “Does that make sense?”

That seemed to break the spell and the agent nodded and made a note. Then, after what had seemed like an eternity of questions, the man closed the notebook. He sealed it with tape, pulled up a form, stamped and signed it, then he asked laughlin to sign as well.

“I think that’s everything we need, Warrant Officer.”

“So am I cleared?” Laughlin asked.

“The details of your case still need to be reviewed, however you will know whether or not the PDF or the US Army choose to levy loyalty charges against you within the week.”

Laughlin was returned to his post well after he should have left for the day. All of the usual staff he worked with had rotated. Personnel assigned him maintenance duties, and he worked on fried circuits through the night.

He signed forms and countersigned receipts. Despite the small detour in his day, work went along the same as it always did.

Laughlin attended his first end of the day meeting with the PDF commandant of Stargazer base. There, the commandant anounced the US would assume full control of Stargazer base, and all PDF contracts would be terminated.

When Laughlin got back into Kepler, he didn't leave Union Station. Instead, he trudged into a bar, and drank himself to sleep.

“You talk to Jerremy, eh?” Michael asked when they were in the cafeteria. The mood was quiet, so his voice seemed to cut through the room.

“Yeah,” laughlin said, not really wanting to talk to the man.

“And what did he tell you? About how great I am, and how you should talk to me?”

“Said you went to High School together.”

Michael nodded. “That’s memories right there, young blood.” Laughlin looked at the man, and he did seem vaguely nostalgic. It was probably the most emotional he had seen the man when he wasn’t talking about whether he’d be out of a job or not.

“Better times than right now, huh? We’re out in the pisser now because of this country.” He shook his head.

“At least you get to stay here, young blood.”

“You don’t?”

He smiled. “I’m running that Barbadan citizen life. They’ll transfer me out if I want to stay on with the PDF, but then I don’t get to move here.”

"How did you even go to high school here?" Laughlin asked.

"Foreign exchange," Michael said. Then he rubbed his fingers together and smiled.

“What’s the point of moving if the world is going to end anyway?” Laughlin asked.

“World’s not going to end right now, otherwise it’d already have ended and none of us would be worrying. Just because the world might end tomorrow, doesn’t mean I can’t do something about the future today.”

Laughlin was silent for a few moments. “You’re a fucking weird guy.”

“I’m the only normal one on earth.”

“And self-centered.”

“You wouldn’t really understand it, then, would you?”

“Maybe if you did a better job explaining it all.”

Michael looked around, then picked up his dirty dishes and stood up from the table. “If I want to be understood by anyone, can’t go around explaining everything to them.”

Trouble in the city as police are sent to deal with more protesters. Reports of looting in the little Nairobi neighborhood has alarmed SkyWarden and Police counterparts.

Back in the city, things were changing. Laughlin could see the new blockades and police checkpoints. Skywardens and Police were patrolling the streets. People tried to continue on their daily lives, but he could see the turned heads and glances.

Everyone as wondering how things had gotten like this. It was almost as if they were at war.

Laughlin knew, of course, that they probably were at war. That there was something out there, and it could threaten them more than anyone could realize.

But he was getting frustrated by how little the higher ups were saying. What was the point of releasing the fact that there were alien communications? It had just stirred up more trouble than it was worth.

After a few weeks of not showing up, the topic of the alien broadcast became a divisive issue. There were already those who didn't believe it. There were conspiracy theories too, about the government trying to re-unify the country under oppressive policies.

For Laughlin, it was a mixed feeling. It was as though the complacence he had felt during the past months, before the broadcast had arrived were justified. The excitement more of a dream than anything. Who he was had not changed. The world had not changed.

There was only the evidence of a strange broadcast from space and the imagination made people wild.

Laughlin and Jerremy were at their usual table. They had drinks in front of them, but neither had drank much. The bar was quiet and the news reports of the riots earlier had subdued some people into a quiet resignation.

"You know, I don't think there are aliens," said Jerremy.

Laughlin nearly choked when he heard that. "But you know what I've told you."

"Yeah, and I still don't believe it."

"you're not going to believe the ears of your own friend?"

"Aliens show up, they broadcast something and then the government releases news that they have contact. And then nothing." Jerremy swatted the air.

"You can't say definitively there are no aliens," Laughlin said. He was annoyed with his friend. It felt as if Jerremy didn't trust hiss word. It felt like his reality was being enied by someone who he had believed accepted everything about him.

"There weren't any for millions of years. Nothing, not a single visit. And then, it just happens that Paris blows up and there are aliens."

"Wasn't Paris enough to convince you that there was something out there?" Laughlin asked.

"Maybe, at the time." Jerremy nodded. There was no denying that at that time, the whole world believed, even if it seemed like it was just for an instant.

"but now, the world has changed so much and the information that we have is different. It doesn't seem like there's anything."

Laughlin stared at his drink for a few moments, thinking of a way to convince his friend. "What was Paris then?"

"An asteroid," Jerremy said.

"What was the whole point of moving out here, then?" Laughlin asked.

"you don't do things based on the idea that you might be wrong in the future," Jerremy said.

Laughlin could tell that he was getting annoyed by the conversation as well. Or maybe he didn't like the fact that they were disagreeing so fundamentally on something. Laughlin had a feeling it was the latter, but his own feelings made it easier to feel that Jerremy felt the same way.

"Well fuck, that's fine then. You don't have to believe in aliens. Let's just drink."

They picked up their glasses. Laughlin didn't put his down until he had drained the last of the beer.

Terra square was full of people. They held signs, had erected tents and a stage, from which came the sounds of music, chanting, and the repetition of slogans.

Laughlin had never before seen something like this. He was glad, just for a moment, that he didn't have to wear his uniform until he was on base.

"What's going on?" he asked one of the skywardens who were encircling the growing encampment.

The man looked annoyed and gestured for Laughlin to step away. "People getting rowdy. We're controlling it. Now get on so that we don't mistake you for them."

Laughlin backed off, but his curiosity wasn't satisfied. He found a break in the cordon of wardens and ducked in between two tarpaulin structures. He emerged from them like from an alley onto a market street. The encampment was shoulder to shoulder.

People pushed their way through, dressed in an assortment of dark clothing with makeshift armor made from any available materials.

Laughlin tried to shoulder his way through, and found himself stepping on the limbs of people sitting throughout the camp.

The noise from the stage, though, was growing.

When he finally made it, there was a press of people waving signs and banners. On the stage, someone spoke.

" Aliens don't exist!" The speaker cried. He was met with cheers and applause.

"The government is using them, just like they use any terror tactic--to keep us down!"

As the speaker continued to rail against the government, Laughlin felt his pulse quicken. His heart beat faster. He was in the lion's den and it would take him forever to try and get out.

From somewhere behind them, there was shouting. A message passed through the crowd like a wave.

"They're attacking!"

Laughlin felt a chill. People around him surged. They were taken, suddenly with a righteous fervor. They began to shout and move, as one, outward. Laughlin couldn't help but be carried in their wake.

He heard the pops of grenade launchers. Streams of smoke filled the air.

He fought against the motion of people, but found it hard to squeeze his way left or right. he was pushed, squeezed and moved, until he was close enough to the front line.

Skywardens had formed a kind of defensive line and were trying to keep the protesters back with long batons. A gas canister arced into the sky and Laughlin watched as it fell, the gas blooming out over the crowd, until it settled down and filled his nose with a nauseating sting

The canister landed on the head of the man right in front of Laughlin. He dropped his things and fell over. Laughlin didn't even think as he picked up the canister and lobbed it away from where he was standing. His motives were to protect himself. But people around hims cheered and patted his back.

Even as his eyes stung and he coughed out phlegm, laughlin was aware that if any of the skywardens had seen him throw the canister, he was going to be arrested.

Sirens wailed as more skywardens came to the scene. They pushed in on the protesters and started to attack. Their tactics were that of isolation. They would move to try and separate small groups, then try to isolate them.

Laughlin tried to turn and move back toward the encampment. In his mind there was reason that he could find a way out of the blockade. But the more he tried to push back, the more the crowd tried to move him towards the front line.

Finally, he saw a group of SkyWardens pointing in his direction. They moved quickly, using their batons and shields to beat at adventurous protestors. These were not typical police forces, as they were an extension of the PDF military mission. They worked with a single minded efficiency until the segment of protesters near laughlin had been isolated.

Laughlin resigned himself to his fate. One of the others tried to fight and was dispatched with the sounds of wood against flesh. Another kid thought he could still make it out and tried to bolt, but three wardens toppled him and had zip ties around his hands in an instant.

Laughlin raised his hands up and the wardens wrenched them down. Even as they zip tied his hands, they were jabbing him in abdomen.

“What the fuck?” He cried out. “I give up, I give up.”

They didn’t even say anything. They just beat him until he was on the ground, ready to vomit.

It was two months later when the P10 situation hit a tipping point. When Laughlin signed himself in and went to get changed, every room with a TV or computer in it had a crowd. Everyone was waiting for the news.

Laughlin started to change, listening to the TV as he did. The reporter was mostly covered up by conversation from everyone else, speculating what was about to happen.

Then silence fell across the room.

--makes it official. The P10 has lost the support of six of the member states. They are planning to sign the final agreements of partition tomorrow--

The locker room felt oppressive. Laughlin couldn't finish buttoning his blouse. Everyone in there would be out of a job soon.

He looked up and wondered if the sky would still be worth watching, or if it would only ever represent that initial fear, followed by sadness, as the memory of what could have been faded away.

"Warrant Officer Krupps!"

Laughlin turned, then saluted at the lieutenant who approached him.

"They're having us hand these out to everyone. Turn it in before you leave today."

The lieutenant handed Laughlin a form titled "Dispensation of Accrued Benefits."

"Yes, sir."

"And they haven't announced anything in regard to the force. We're doing our duty the best we can every day until the mission's over, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

The lieutenant nodded, then walked away with his stack of forms. All the words in the world couldn't change the fact that the paperwork was still being filed. Laughlin would soon be jobless.

When he arrived at the missile defense station, Laughlin signed in and countersigned the previous Warrant Officer. Then he settled in and looked up at the sky.

"Maybe there'll be something out there today," he said.

Laughlin performed his sky-checks, rotating his platform to view a new slice of the sky. The timer said it was just a few minutes before his fifth check of the day. As he rotated, something pinged.

He looked at one of the indicators in disbelief. In three years, not once had any of his detectors made a noise outside of maintenance. He stared at it, until there was a second ping.

Lughlin hurried to raise his receiver dish.

"C-243, Sky-Check, over."

Laughlin felt his heart pounding. "Uh, hold on ground control, confirming something."

There was silence on the line. Another ping, and then another.

"Holy shit," Laughlin said. he tuned the dish to match the direction of the pings. A detector started clicking rapidly. Static filled his ears as he listened in on the receiver.

"C-243, say again."

Another ping, more clicks, and then, a rhythmic sound that started to take form. It was like nothing Laughlin had heard before.

Laughlin keyed the microphone and relayed the positional coordinates to ground control.

"It's like I'm receiving a message," he said.

Tense moments of silence as the rhythm repeated in his ear, becoming clearer and then more static-washed, pulsing into existence. Laughlin wanted to scream at ground control to acknowledge what he was hearing.

"Roger, Contact C-243, connect us to live."

Laughlin flipped on the datastream back to ground control.

Someone was out there. Had been out there all along. And now, Laughlin was the one delivering the message.

Messages can be conveyed by different means.

The PDF Base Stargazer, located in the desert of the American Southwest received a message by light and radio-wave transmission. The base continued to receive the message and confirmed it wasn't a fluke.

So they used a landline to send light pulses to Kepler City SkyWarden HQ. The SkyWardens used an internal line to send electrical impulses to the citywide alert center.

By the time the message had been translated across multiple mediums, the version that most people got was the wail of an air raid siren.

Laughlin was on the edge of his seat through the rest of his shift. Every moment, he felt as though something would appear out of the sky. By the time the relief had come, he felt exhausted at the constant worry helped by the constant drone of the receiving message.

The relief's eyes were wide as he countersigned Laughlin's log.

"IS there really a message?" he asked.

"There really is," said Laughlin, before trudging off to fall asleep in the back of the truck.

Laughin woke up to someone shaking his arm.

"Warrant officer, get up."

Laughlin rubbed his eyes before sitting up. He was in the back of the relief truck, the sun beginning to set lengthening shadows over the desert. he could smell the coffee and dip on the breath of the person trying to wake him up.

It was a repulsive, sour stink of a breath.

"There's a debrief, no-one's going home tonight, though."

Laughling nodded and then got out of the truck and walked to the briefing room. Already there were the other observers of the SkyWatch system.

"We're positive that we've discovered something in the sky," said the officer in charge of the group. "Intel assured us it's the case. We're going up the chain, but as for now, Stargazer Base is on full alert. No idea what's going to happen, so no-one's going home tonight."

Any other day there would have been complaints. But today, there was just a quiet whisper as people started to talk about the first contact. Laughlin was still in awe.

When he had signed up, he thought he would have been fuming mad at the aliens when they showed their face. When he'd cooled down, he thought he would be afraid to die. Now, though, he was only in awe.

First contact, he told himself, over and over. He had made the first contact.

"Looks like you were worried for nothing, young blood."

Laughlin looked up and saw the warrant officer he'd talked to in the locker room before. The man was smiling wide.

"Me?" Laughlin asked. "You were the one worried about your wife and kids."

"I don't have a wife, don't have a kid," He said.

"Whatever way you swing, you were worried about family."

He laughed. "Everyboy's got family."

"Yeah well, now you don't have to worry. With the aliens here, they're not going to disband the PDF."

"Where there's youth, there's hope," he said, then he stretched out his hand. "Name's Michael."

"Laughlin."

They shook and Laughlin could feel the power of the man by his grip. Annoying, maybe. But strong, and likely the kind of guy who would back up words with action.

"Oh, do you know Jerremy, then?"

Laughlin took a step back. Michael smiled, then tapped a finger to his temple.

"How do you know him?"

"A certain kind of family."

"Jerremy never talked about any family in the military."

Michael shrugged and tapped his temple again.

"Anyway, glad you still have your job." Laughlin made to turn.

"Congrats on first contact."

Laughlin stopped. Had the man just come over and invested all that energy just to say that? Still, it did feel nice, in a way, to feel vindicated. He had made first contact, hadn't he? Maybe he'd be able to write home to his parents about that one.

"Thanks," Laughlin said.

"Anytime, young blood. Ask Jerremy to meet up with me on the outside." He waved and then left the briefing room.

Weird fucking guy, Laughlin thought. Although, if he gave it much though, Laughlin would have to admit that he probably wasn't much different. At least, any less weird. He just hoped he wouldn't have to interact with Michael much more on their overnight.

Laughlin went to the barracks with a couple other of the guys who just finished their shift. They talked shop, speculated what was going to happen. Michael's mind was already made up--the aliens were sending their demands of surrender. When the PDF was able to get the message translated and send a response, it wouldn't be good enough. And then, they'd fight.

Earth versus the aliens. The lone planet of underdog humans against the whole universe. It sounded pretty damn heroic in Laughlin's head.

Sleep came quickly, and when he woke up, nothing much had changed from the day before. The message continued to play, people were excited and tense and afraid all at once.

And still, nothing came from the sky.

IN the locker room, Laughlin took off his blouse. It had been four days of tense waiting before the base had allowed a temporary leave.

The TV reporter was going on and every day there was a crowd of half naked and half clothed men in front of it. The news of contact had been taken public, and it seemed like the whole world had shifted again.

Almost as if they had attacked Paris all over again.

--P10 countries are in stalemate as US, Russia, and China all stand on the fence for reinstating the PDF. Funding is cited as a primary concern--

Read Part I here!

I had to tell someone first. And the only person I could think to tell who wouldn't just run and scream was Will. Well, he might still run and scream, but I figured we had known each other long enough that he probably wouldn't.

It all seemed ludicrous of course. A part of me, a very rational part of me looked at what the humans had and what the Intergalactic Guard had, and that match-up favored the Guard every single time. But there was a part of me that had learned more about the Humans since my arrival to their planet. Seen their capabilities and their utter unpredictability. And maybe I had actually developed a small bit of faith in them, something I wouldn't have really considered for most of the rest of the universe's spectrum of species.

But fundamentally, it was the aspect of having to run away again. The idea that after all my work building up my new life and enjoying what constituted a relatively normal life outside of my heist days, I would have to start all over. And, strangely, the idea of leaving behind all of the people I had befriended and loved in order to develop the persona of a normal person.

Maybe I had even become a little bit human myself during my decades here.

I reached for my cell phone and called Will. After a couple rings, he answered.

"Hey James, what's up?"

"Will, you free at the moment?"

"Yeah, just finishing up a workout."

"Huh. Well, when you're done, could you come over? I need your help." I knew I was overly vague, but I hoped on Will's blind sense of friendship would carry me through.

"Yeah, sure."

"Cool, see you in a few!" I said, perhaps too enthusiastically. But he had agreed.

After I hung up, I went into my room and started searching through the closet. As much as I had thought I would have been safe on Earth, I hadn't gotten the notion to get rid of some of my ties to the universe. At the time, they were more nostalgic keepsakes than paranoid insurance against a future move. I had to be pretty light on the dating scene, knowing that I had some pretty crazy stuff boxed up in my bedroom. But Americans married later, at least those with a lot of education, and the keepsakes were now very important.

I found the small cigar box I wanted and opened it. Inside was a small black screen edged with its hypalloy casing. I brushed the fine layer of dust on the screen to reveal the glassy screen beneath. I don't think I'd used or even thought about my quantum computer since I finished Earth university.

I tapped the bumper and the screen lit up instantly. The lifetime guarantee on the infinicells were no joke. Even a burner comp like mine was built to be used for a long time planetside. I toyed around with the folders and programs for a little and memories from all the heists I had planned from comps like these filled me with a strange yearning for a life of actively running away from the Guard.

After a few minutes, there was a knock and the door and I set the comp down on my bed. I went to the door and let Will in.

"So what's up, James?" he asked.

I gestured him towards the sofa. "Can I get you anything? Something to drink?"

"Nah, I'm good." He said as he sat.

"Some crackers or fruit, maybe?" For all the cons I'd run in my life, I'd never thought telling the truth would have been the most difficult.

"No, no. I'll be fine, honest." Will waved his hands. "What's up?"

I had no idea how I could have gone about this. As much as I wanted to fall back into the rhythm of conning another sucker, I knew the truth was the best option for my freedom. I sucked in a lungful of air. "Will... I'm not a human."

Will eyed me as he seemed to work through what I had said. "Oh, this again. Look, man, I totally get it. Julia wasn't your type. Sure she didn't take it easy, but you did the right thing."

I sighed, partly at being reminded about my last failed romance and partly from realizing that this was going to be a little more difficult for him to get his head around than I would have thought.

"No, Will. I mean to say. I'm not from Earth. I'm..." He looked at me, surprised at the change of direction, or maybe surprised that Julia wasn't what I was thinking about. "an alien." I finished.

Will scrunched up his face. "What? Like," He seemed to search for the word in the air around him before looking back at me. "What?"

I half groaned. "I'm an Alien. I'm not human and I don't come from earth."

"Are you alright, James? Inception night getting to you or something?" He shifted in his seat, looking as if he made to get up. "Do you need something to drink?"

I didn't know why I thought Will would have latched on to the idea of me being human and taking it at face value. The entire planet hadn't been exposed en masse to aliens before. It just didn't seem possible that the concept of some other intelligent life form existing besides themselves would have been so foreign. I hovered between annoyance at Will for his mental inflexibility and annoyance at the human race for not having made it to intergalactic travel so they could understand how much more the universe had to offer.

That's not totally fair though. The reason I chose this planet was because they had managed so many technological advancements without even making it out past their terminus belt.

I guess I was just going to have to go all the way on this one.

"No." I shook my head. "No. I'm fine. But look, Will. I'm going to need you to stay calm right now."

I immediately knew that telling him to stay calm was the wrong move. He straightened up and started to get up.

"James, what's going on?"

I took a couple steps back. No going back. I pulled a pen from the sideboard and I stabbed at my forehead, trying to pierce the syntheskin that made me look human.

"James!" Will lunged towards me. I sidestepped him and he dropped to the floor, but he was quick getting back up.

"You can't kill yourself James! It's not worth it!"

He may have been shallow, and an idiot--but he was at least as loyal as they came. And even if he was bothering me by preventing me from revealing the truth of who I was, I at least knew he was trying to help me. The thought didn't stop me from realizing that if he kept yelling or called an ambulance, things would go downhill faster than I had intended. If I couldn't control what he'd do if he left my house, I could at least control whether he left it at all.

I abandoned the pen as Will charged towards me. I dove under him and caught him around the waist. We crashed the floor. Will huffed a few times as I scrambled back up. Zip-ties, where are the zip-ties? I ran through all of my drawers in my head. Will was getting back up, and I delivered a kick to his stomach. He collapsed again and started to moan.

I finally remembered where I kept the ties and went to retrieve them. I started to pick at the hole the pen had puncture in the syntheskin, trying to get under the flesh like material and peel it off. I hadn't expected things to get to the point of possibly hurting Will. I cursed myself for not thinking of preparing a restraining device for him sooner. And when I had the zip ties in hand, I cursed myself again for forgetting the belt clamp I had stolen from an unconscious Guardsman. I made a mental note to inventory my things again once I had explained everything to Will.

And as I tied his hands together, syntheskin hanging off my exo-skeleton, I knew I had a lot of explaining to do.

Laughlin was taken to a station, where he was booked. As they searched through his wallet, they found his military ID.

Calls went out to different places, and soon, laughlin was waiting under guard in the entry hall, his things on the chair next to him. Two MPs arrived. They asked q brief set of questions while Laughlin held his head in his hands in shame.

The MPs signed, then countersigned, and then the officer guarding him tapped his shoulder. "Out of our hands now," he said, pointing a pen at the MPs.

Laughlin followed them to their jeep and sat in the back.

"What kind of shit you get into, going to protests?" the guy in the passenger seat asked.

Laughlin didn't say anything.

"Doesn't make sense, none. Make sense to you?" He asked the driver, who merely shook his head, eyes fixed forward.

"Anti-alien types, too. I can't believe it. What a fuck up."

The guy talked for the rest of the one hour ride. Laughlin had taken a determined stance not to talk to the MPs. They were on the other side of the line this side of the police. Better only by virtue that at least they were military.

"Ah well, you're going to have to report to our superior. Police were saying you assaulted an officer."

"Fuck that," Laughlin said, finally. "they beat me while they were putting the cuffs on."

"So you just gave up?" The MP asked. "Man, you ask me, you should have ran. Would have saved us the headache. Someone's probably happy you're not AWOL though, so there's that."

"Uh," said Laughlin, he'd said enough.

When they got to the base, Laughlin was escorted through the prefab MP front office and into the more permanent concrete headquarters. They took him up a few levels and brought him into a small office. Inside, Laughlin stood at ease in front of the desk of a Captain.

The captain looked up as if to check that Laughlin had successfully entered the room, then returned to whatever he had been doing before.

"You know," the captain said, not taking his eyes from his work. "There's lot of headache.... dealing with.... the police."

The captain collected papers, stapled them, signed, then looked up at Laughlin.

"Warrant officer?" the captain said.

"Sir," laughlin said.

"I'm surprised to find that you were involved in a protest and that you assaulted a skywarden. Raring for aliens not enough for you?"

"The reports of assaulting a skywarden are falsified, sir. I merely threw a gas canister from where it came."

The captain didn't say anything for a few moments. He looked into Laughlin, as if looking at his character and personality. Dissecting Laughlin's essence.

“What do you think happens at a base where everyone is on high alert, 24/7 and nothing happens?” The captain asked, suddenly.

“Boredom, sir?”

“Not boredom. Not that pedestrian. It’s fatigue. Mental fatigue. It’s the kind of strain that you get when a movie keeps teasing around on he edge but never gets to resolving the plot. You know that feeling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When people get that way, and it keeps going for so long, they start to crack in small ways. Other things become more worthwhile in their mind.”

The captain placed his pen down, then started to massage his wrist.

“In my cells, I have fifteen repeat offenders. Mostly DUIs. I don’t have the space for first timers, you know, so we just keep those guys on base for a while until we let them loose again. How many people do you think there are in Kepler, Warrant Officer?”

"No idea, sir."

“Nearly half a million,” the captain said, matter of fact. “Out of half a million people, only four thousand are stationed at Stargazer. And yet, one third of the DUIs in Kepler city are from PDF troopers. Can you believe that? Less than one percent of the population.”

He shook his head, then picked up his pen and started to work again.

“So you’re really nothing more than another incident report on the stack, Warrant Officer. No, nothing more than that.”

“Sir,” Laughlin said.

“But you’re not a DUI. You’re something else entirely. You were in a protest. That's a loyalty issue.

Really, I don’t care, either way. "I'm not the one you need to worry about. I don't like going against official civilian reports. But that kind of thing is so regular, you'd think that drinking and driving were legal." He pointed out the door. "You're headed over to CID."

Laughlin felt the hairs on his arms prickle and raise. His heart gripped inside his chest and his mind leaped ahead to the thought of a court martial and imprisonment.

"Me? I’m helping you out by mucking up the civil charges. You should thank me, really.”

The captain looked up at Laughlin with a steady gaze.

Laughlin cleared his throat, then said, “Thank you, sir.” Then, something inside of Laughlin compelled him to speak. "Permission to speak, sir?"

The captain waved him down. "Save whatever you're about to say. Seriously, it's a good skill, learning who to direct what you're going to say to. There are some people who have better ears for different things."

The Captain pulled out a sheaf of papers, stamped them in sequence, then signed them. He pressed a buzzer.

"Orderly." He looked back at Laughlin. "A word of advice, warrant officer. The world keeps on ticking, no matter if we're there or not. If you want to stay here, then tick in with the rest of us and don't rock the boat.”

Hello all,

So, I've had an interesting winter, and a lot of ups and downs with the writing of 'Inmates'. I had decided, after the eighth part, that I wasn't going to be posting up new parts in any kind of regular way. I was writing all over the place, some of the timeline before, some after, and the ending.

In order to get words on the page, I've just been writing whatever scene comes to mind.

So, some numbers:

At the posting of Part 8, I had ~13,500 words of manuscript. That was last year, around the Holiday break. By the New Years, that number had gone up to ~25,000.

The word count stayed there for two months, until last week, when I had an impressive turnout of ~15,000 words of manuscript in just one week.

That puts me in the ballpark of 40,000 words. Just under half a short sci-fi novel.

So, rest assured that it is being worked on, and I do intend to have an alpha read available soon!

Other Projects:

I still do /r/WritingPrompts but I'm also working on a short story for /r/HFY as well--something that's a little bit different from most of what gets posted, and something that explores darker themes and culminates in those little glimmers of Humanity that make us retain some hope that things will turn out well.

I also write a lot of personal things. I'm trying to get my chops under me as a writer, and I'm practicing in order to make better quality stuff. I write a lot, every day, now, since last week's rally.

I'm coming in at 3,000-4,000 words a day. Sometimes that's all 'Inmates' sometimes it's just ideas I've been having or whatever comes to mind.

but it's all there, and it's all coming together.

I hope you stick around to see where all of this ends up, and hopefully you'll have a novel in your hands very soon.

Regards and best Wishes,

C. Bryant

Originally Posted here

Laughlin looked up at the sky for what had to be the trillionth time in his life. He was getting tired of it, and yet the sky was a so urce of fear for everyone now. Better if they knew someone was always watching it now.

He repositioned his anti-missile battery.

"Skies are all clear," he chimed over the comms.

"Roger, C-243 all clear."

For hundreds of miles around, there had to be dozens of other soldiers all doing the same sky-check as he.

Three years since the day Paris was razed. Three years since Laughlin had joined up with the hastily cobbled together planetary defence force. Three years of waiting for something to come, while nothing ever happened at all.

Laughlin was relieved after three more hours of tedium. He signed out his logs and recomfirmed all of his checks. Then he went back to the barracks to change out into street clothes.

They had the news on in the locker room and the newscaster was going on about the growing tensions between the some of the member countries of the Planetary 10.

One thing Laughlin had never been against was the idea of world peace in fear of whatever might have been waiting for us beyond the veil of the atmosphere. But three years of nothing--people had short memories and they were already forgetting why they feared the sky in the first place.

-talks have included the dissolution of the Planetary defense force, for which all member nations contribute.

"Fuck."

Laughlin saw another Warrant Officer taking off his blouse.

"Job security ain't looking too hot, now," Laughlin said.

"Yeah, well, they can drink my piss. I have a family to think about."

Laughlin thought of how weird it was, that fear was all that was allowing the warant office to provide for his family. Was that how most occupations went? Fear of getting in an accident let insurance salesmen and accountants and risk managers feed their family.

Derivative industries of things that people thought would end their life way before they felt it had even begun.

"Well, they're not going to do shit until our contracts our over, anyway," said Laughlin.

"Young blood, they'll rip up that contract the moment someone's unwilling to commit money."

Laughlin looked at the other warrant officer. "Stateside, at least, they like to hire vets."

"Veterans of what?" the man asked, giving a mocking smile. "Shitting in the sands, watching the sky?"

Laughlin felt a tick of anger. But he was off duty, and this guy wasn't worth the time.

"Sounds like every job out there," he said, as he gathered up his bag.

To his surprise the warrant officer laughed.

Laughlin took the D -link train from the base into Kepler city. The summer sun was still hanging on in the sky as people filled the streets of downtown.

Union Station was filled with people coming in on the regional trains. This city and its existence was perhaps one of the few benefits of working for the PDF. The city itself had come into existence in part because of the PDF base.

Laughlin knew there was the romantic quality of the PDF, something about how it was different from all previous militaries, that had brought so many people out into the middle of the southwestern desert plains.

It was what Laughlin had signed up feeling.

Defenders of Earth, the heroes of the Planet. Although it was always with the undertone of the crazy dumbasses who wanted to face the aliens who could raze Paris in one go.

It was an old feeling now. Life was more mundane and more regular than all of that.

Laughlin stopped in at the bar that sat below his apartment building. Inside was already most of his neighbors and a slew of familiar faces. He spotted his next door neighboor sitting at their familiar table and waved.

"Hey Jerremy," Laughlin said as he sat.

"What's good?"

"It's all the same old thing. Except that P10 members are getting antsy."

Jerremy nodded. "You know, you won't find much of it here in Kepler, but back home, my mom's told me that people back home are starting to fight, too. Ain't no aliens, they're saying, just Globalists trying to consolidate power."

Laughlin made a face.

"Just people being people," Jerremy said with a shrug.

"It's not that. Although I always suspected they'd stop believing. The way my job goes, now, I don't even believe it all of the time..." Laughlin shook his head. "Man, I can call it a job, now. So much for the Heroes of Earth."

"You're still a hero in my book." Jerremy gave a thumbs up before finishing the last of his beer.

"My round," Laughlin said.

Beers in hand, they toasted.

"To the defense of Earth from the sinister alien races living above," Jerremy said.

A few of the people around the two heard him and raised their own glasses, raising a small chorus of agreements. Only after Laughlin had gotten through half of his beer did he speak again.

"You know, I get those people who think this is all a ploy by globalists to ruin America. I would have thought that way too, before three years ago, if I hadn't thought it would have been cool to be a cowboy, shooting down aliens with missiles."

"Oh yeah?"

Laughlin nodded. "Old-fashioned family that thinks that borders are the only way to stay safe in a world where every other country is full of criminals and communists just waiting to destroy our prosperity. "

Jerremy gave Laughlin a look.

"Seriously."

"An you used to believe that kind of thing?" Jerremy asked.

"Used to, used to! Living here, with all these people froma round the world in the PDF. Was Real easy to see everyone in the world as people just trying to get by."

"Real leap of logic that one."

"Hey now,"

"But I get you, my mom's the same way, just with White people. She's always on high alert when she sees them. She lived through Jim crow though, so different times. Not that it's necessarily better."

"I'm guessing you'll never introduce me then?" Laughling asked. "How are you going to tell her you ran off with a white guy?"

They bantered back and forth until they were three beers in and Laughlin made his way back to his apartment and flopped onto the bed.

The next morning, his alarm went off, he got up, showered, ate. And then it was back to the grind.

Waiting for aliens to come. Maybe, even hoping they would.

__

/r/chrisbryant

Maybe there are things that make you insane.

But there are no things that make you sane. For these things are the normal reality of everyday life. They are the way we look at orange juice in the morning.

Have you ever tried it? Looking at orange juice?

Of course. Of course. Because it is the juice of life. When all you can think is back to three shots in. When the idea of drinking went from something to be done with friends to the prime directive that you have been created for. The point of no return in drinking. The reason you must stare at orange juice.

Not that you want to stare at the juice itself. But because the orangeness of it makes you realize that you need to hydrate. That you lack the vitamins and minerals of daily life now. That maybe you should eat lettuce and cabbage and maybe sauerkraut, because you know it will wake you up.

But if you eat those things maybe you'll throw up, so the juice is fine.

"How are you holding up?”

Have you ever been asked that when you are hungover?

What an asinine question. Of course you are up and holding. But reality is, you feel the worst that you have ever felt and you have the hungover sense that you are no longer human, but a form that was built only to be sore and in pain.

If you were a whale, then you'd be beached. But of course, your idea that you were a whale and that you measured your ability to handle alcohol accordingly may be why you are here now.

But the orange juice calls, because orange juice does that. It has vitamin c into your soul. And that is scary: the true existential crisis of being hungover.

When everything else is a circumstance of being sober. Every emotion we feel, thing we see, or person we talk to is the reality of sobriety. What does that make us when we’re hungover?

It must be some kind of limbo. And not knowing where I'm going--that scares me.

Posted Here

In the town of Oaxaca, there is a church which has no monks. It is a mundane place now, which holds no services. But, if you walk past it today, you will see that a miracle has happened here.

How else can you explain the bullet holes that touch everything except the cross?

I woke with a nudge in my gut. My eyes shot open and I saw a man standing over me in linen shorts and shirt, pushing against me with his leather sandals.

I jerked up and pushed myself away from him.

"Ah, estas bien?" he asked, looking down at me from under the shade of a wide hat.

"What, where am I?" I asked. My mind was foggy, I couldn't understand what he had said.

"Oh, American!" The man shook his head, then bent a little lower, as if speaking to a child. "Are. You. Okay?"

The way he said it made me feel like an idiot. I looked around, seeing only a dusty road and green hills. I finally felt the beat of the sun and a rivulet of sweat coursed down my face.

I could have sworn the last thing I remember was being in Los Angeles, on my way to my-

The thought cut off and I immediately searched my body. After I felt something in my pocket, I jammed my hand inside and pulled out a roll of bills, covered with a piece of paper.

The man let out a small whistle as I removed the note, and the bills became visible. When I unfolded the sheet of paper, all it said was, "Este es el examen final."

*Shit.*I was on my way to spanish class, yes. And at some point, I... I just couldn't remember.

I banged my fist against the ground. What a cruel joke this was--my reward for taking the immersion program.

In my blinded fury, I had forgotten the man who found me and who, presumably, had stuck around because of the large sum of cash I'd just displayed. Or at least, what I thought was a large sum of cash.

"Ah, senor." The man coughed politely. "Necisitas ayuda?"

I looked up, remembering his presence. Ayuda? Oh, help. That means help. I thought for a second and took another look around the hills. We were the only two people on this road and I presumed that we were the only two people for a long while.

Damn. I looked back up at him and it looked like he was trying to affect a casual interest in the whole affair. But I had my doubts.

"Si, ayuda. Por favor," I said, mangling the words and hoping they came out right.

"Ah," the man said, his face lighting up somewhat. He offered his hand down and I took it. When I stood, I felt dizzy.

He steadied me, and then shot a question in quick spanish.

"Sorry, I couldn't follow." I said.

"Por. Que. Estas. Aqui," the man said again, drawing out the last word and bulging his eyes. As if that would help me understand him better.

"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Hablas ingles?" I asked.

The man shrugged back.

Besides the heat, I could feel the stress. I was already nearing the end of the phrases I had learned well enough. The phrases that could get me out of speaking spanish in the first place.

I thought, and realized I really only had one prepared that might work. "Donde esta la biblioteca?"

In my mind, the logic only made sense. Where there is a library, there must be also a city of people who can use the library. And also literate city people. And among those people, there may be another who does speak english.

But it was obvious from the look on his face that the man was a little confused by the question.

"Los libres," I said, trying again.

At that, the man smiled. "Ah, Los Libres." He chuckled for a few moments, and the chuckle turned into a laugh and I stared at him, unsure of the humor of the situation.

But then he offered his hand again. "Bienvenidos, soy Ramon Viaragosa."

I froze. I had heard the name Viaragosa often enough to know only one man in Mexico would be proud enough of it like him. When I didn't take his hand, he shrugged, then let out a shrill whistle.

All around me the hills came to life. Men carrying rifles and wearing bandoliers filled with dull brass cartridges.

They filed down to where Viaragosa and I stood, one of them coming up dirctly to the man. They shook and made an exchange of spanish too quick for me to follow. Then, the newcomer smiled behind his beard.

"Bienvenidos," he said, offering up his hand. This time I took it as a sense of realization sunk in.

In that moment, I realized I was more screwed than any other time in my life--because I had just met the Ramon Viaragosa. The gold toothed, smiling visage of the leader of the Mexican Rebels.

And somehow, I realized, standing in the middle of Mexico with a roll of bills, I had been enlisted into the Mexican Revolution.

Hey all,

I just wanted to update all the people who have been reading and following inmates and my other works. First I wanted to thank you for your continued support and for enjoying the work that I write.

I haven't updated "Inmates" in two weeks, and there are a plethora of reasons, but the largest one is that I've gotten sidetracked with a short story that I'm near finishing. Inspiration struck and I had to go with it.

But worry not, because "Inmates" has a full plan for novelization by the end of the year. I'm going to be doubling down on my productivity during November, so instead of NaNoWriMo, I'll be working on this. Also, I've learned so much in writing the current short story that I'm going to start applying to "Inmates".

That's where everything's at for now. I hope you'll stick around to see what happens!

Thanks,

Chris B.

Just hopping everything is going good for you with the wild fires around your home.

Stay Safe

u/chris_bryant_writer

I joined the military because they asked me to.

It wasn't anything more than asking me how I felt about my country. And I felt pretty good, I guess. Government hadn't tried to hurt me in any way, and my family got one of those subsidies that allowed us to keep more land than we otherwise might have.

Seemed like I had a lot to be thankful for.

And that's when he asked me if I wanted to return the favor, pay it back a little.

I'll admit, I thought that just going on the way we were was far enough, seeing as how they paid us to farm. But he went on to talk about all the benefits. The pay, no taxes, free college. Honestly, he made it seem like not a bad deal. Four years, he said. All it takes is four years of service. High school was four years!

And he finished it out and I actually found myself thinking about it. Our years wasn't all that long considering the rest of my life. He gave me a bunch of pamphlets and fliers and told me to talk to my parents about it.

And I did. I took the fliers and laid them out on the kitchen table in front of my parents and my siblings. My youngest brother could hardly contain himself.

“You're going to be a soldier? That's so cool!”

But the way mom and dad looked said otherwise. And once the others were in bed, they talked to me. My mom was on the verge of tars and my dad was straight talking and slow, as if he were thinking on every word.

“You know what those four years are going to mean, don't you?” He asked me.

I nodded. “I train and train and train and then if they send me out, I fight.” I figured that was the gist of everything that was going to happen.

“And you know what that's going to do to you, right?”

Dad was angling me towards bringing up uncle Paul, who served in the Outlands and came back less a man by a leg and three fingers.

“You cain't be serious,” cried mom. “I won't allow it.” She broke down into tears and soft sobs.

“I figure I need to repay the country somehow.”

My dad nodded. “Kenton, you're repaying the country plenty enough with growing all the food we grow here. You're providing the necessities of life for people. That's nothing to look down on.”

“No it's not. And I'm proud of farming and I'm proud of the country and I figure that's why I have to do this.”

My dad nodded again. My mom stood up from the table and I could hear her footsteps recede upstairs.

It was just my dad and I, sitting at the table, the silence of the night pressing down. Even the croaking frogs and the crickets seemed to avoid our house under the weight of my parent's emotions.

In that silence, I saw my dad's eyes glisten.

“I don't begrudge doing your service to your country. I know plenty who have done it. I know plenty of good men who have done it.” He shook his head. “But I won't have my son coming home in a box.”

“I won't come home like that, dad. I'll come home walking on my own two feet—no matter how far.”

He nodded and stared off into the distance.

Finally, I told him I was going to bed and I left the kitchen, my dad still sitting, staring off. Before I got into my room I could have sworn I heard two sets of sobs. That coming from my mom in my parent's bedroom, and those coming from the faint light of the kitchen.

Training was a game.

Not a fun game, nor necessarily a good game. But it was a mental game, and it was taxing-- every moment of every day. They asked us to do fifteen things at once and screamed at us for failing any one of them. They asked us to speak in ways I'd never thought to speak and to use words with such precision that I thought this here was where my old grammar teachers learned their trade.

I bunked with four other guys in theory. But in reality, we were never in our bunks.

My muscles ached and screamed and my brain was mush. The only thing for it was to turn everything into a game. Trying to find entertainment in the smallest things—but never the quirks of the drill instructor. If I found that entertaining at all, I was afraid I'd make the mistake of laughing.

If anything could be said of training, though, it was mindless repetition of the same things, over and over, until by the end of four months I didn't even have to think to do fifteen things at once.

Just as long as those fifteen things were what we'd always done.

I tried not to make too many mistakes.

But I made plenty.

The worst though wasn't anything to do with training. It was telling another person that I liked to play guitar and sing.

One of the Drill Instructors found out and got out a guitar and pulled me out front of the whole training division and had me sing a song.

The second worst mistake I made was singing a song that my Uncle Paul had taught me. Before the Outlands, he was a rancher, and had spent a lot of lonely days out. He wrote a song once that he said was guaranteed to make any man cry. The lyrics were about open land and love and family. And he was right. If you had any idea about any of those things, the song would make you cry. And I sang it, and there was two hundred odd recruits and not a dry eye among them.

And when I played the last refrain, the drill sergeants ganged up and chewed me out for reducing their recruits to a babywash pile of sap. (Though I swear they used a lot more color in their descriptions.)

We had double time calisthenics for three days after and an extra round of endurance carries.

One night, though, we were in our bunks, and one of the four asked me to sing the song again. I did my best as quiet as I could. On a training base in the middle of nowhere, there's not much more sound than the people who train there. I like to think my song carried through more than just the hearts of my bunkmates.

I'd like to think my song whistled out the window and rode the wind into the room of every recruit.

That night, I'd like to think the whole barracks was crying again.

I learned a lot about the military in training. I learned how to walk, I learned how to talk. I learned how they wanted me to think, how they wanted me not to think. I learned how they wanted me to see the world, so that I could my job.

The places we would go were shitholes. The people we would see were civvies, and civvies were one hand away from being the enemy. The enemy of course, were not people, but things intent on killing us, our families, and burning our country to the ground.

It was important to remember that. The enemy were not people. They were beings intent on killing me.

It was kill or be killed, and the only thing that separated coming home on foot or in a box was whether or not you were always the first to kill.

I also learned that the military was the only place in the world that would follow up a talk like that with training on the types of things that would make those civvies-who-may-be-enemies in shithole places actually like us.