BLOGS

I found myself sitting in my living room, with a view of my neighbors home several hundred yards away, like most Sunday evenings. Then everything changed. After blinking and rubbing my eyes, I noticed a change in scenery. My neighbors home was no longer there. My four acre estate's scenic view, however was still scenic, albeit now all wilderness. I began turning on the electronic devices that I use almost solely for maintaining a link to the outside world and as I suspected, none of them were working. Next, I ran outside to confirm my hypothesis.
I grabbed my pistol, put on my clothes and stepped out the door and walked a hundred paces in order to give myself a vantage point for a good 360. All around me save for my homestead was wilderness. A thick forest dense as if nothing could live here. That theory was disproved when the howls of animals familiar and strange cried out into the night. The fourteen breeding pairs of dogs, with their six litters of puppies, I kept in a kennel fifty yards to the rear of the house, answered their wild brethren, adding their yips and howls, to this irregular, eerie chorus of the night. Where was I?
Realizing I'd better quiet them, I went back in the house and exited through the rear. It was a necessary precaution, as walking around outside even armed, was not to be risked for the foreseeable future. Once inside the kennel, I was greeted with the relieved barks of my pack. I inspected each stall and found none of the animals harmed. I decided that I wanted all the puppies in the house with me. Both terrier pairs, one of my mastiffs, my greyhound and two of the pitbull pairs had litters. Forty two puppies out of forty five born ( I had high survival rates ), plus twelve parents., the sires would be necessary for the extra security. I couldn't keep them indoors forever, that was close to five dozen animals, but if I was where I thought I was I'd need fortifications, sturdy ones, anyway. Once those were built, they could go back outside.
First, I took the females and the puppies indoors. I didn't have much in the way of furniture in the living room, just two sofas, two recliners, a coffee table and a books shelf. There was now room for all of them as I overturned the furniture and barricaded the front door. I only used two of my five bedrooms, so I'd put one litter and mother on each room and keep the largest three downstairs, plus all the sires (who would stay in the kitchen).
"Mr. Richards," a firm contralto uttered.
"Ms. Gonzales," I answered, relieved in fact. I'd forgotten that she was here late. April Gonzales was the woman who ran the cleaning service I used. She was about a dozen years younger that my thirty nine and a smart and resourceful woman.
She owned and operated a cleaning service with twelve cleaners, the profits from she used to pay her way through college. She often bragged that here business would have a dozen branches with a dozen cleaners by the time she was my age. I believed her as the only reason she was here due to the fact that one of her workers called out and she didn't get the message until Saturday. A woman to keep her word she showed up Sunday at three. When I kidded her about her duty to God, she said that keeping her word was an important part of that duty.
A frighteningly competent woman she not only cleaned along with her staff, she did most of the admin work herself and had enough mechanical aptitude to handle the maintenance of her cleaning machines. The fact that she was here meant my chances for survival improved greatly. So I started talking about what I thought our situation was, as much for myself as for her.
"Do you now all those alternate history novels I'm reading?"
"You mean like if Robert E. Lee shot Lincoln?" she asked. This she delivered with more than a trace of sarcasm.
"Not quite, and not everyone who writes those novels is a conservative, but yes."
"So where are we?" she asked.
"I'm not sure, but this seems to prove a theory about alternate timelines I read about in a story. That theory being we travel back and forth between timelines so similar that we don't notice, save that something is out of place, like a piece of paper or a grocery item you swore you bought.
Perhaps there's even more of a difference, like someone only you remember, that all of your friends or acquaintances don't. Maybe that's because you changed timelines, but maybe that's because they changed timelines, but that goes without saying," she rolled her eyes and I continued.
"It may be possible that person went to a timeline that is very different from their homeline, like for example, a person you remember from a long time ago, no one else remembers, despite the fact, that as this theory hypothesizes, you are traveling through timelines on a regular basis. That person may have a greater flux or variable range, and tends to get sent to far away timelines, you only know them from a period of relative stability."
"You mean we're those people?"
"I hope not, but yes." I answered.
"How do you know that we're not just back in time?"
"Let's have a look at the moon," I said ushering her to the window. The moon was full and I held my finger up to measure then explained.
"The moon is away from us at a quarter inch a year."
"You measure the size of the moon in the sky regularly?" she asked incredulously.
"Well, I didn't just read the story yesterday." "You're too weird for me."
"I know, but bear with me."
"Can you figure a way out of this?"
"I'm afraid no one alive has the technical skill."
"Then let's just figure out how to survive."
That was Ms. Gonzales for you. She was a competent and able woman but not given to abstract thought. She no doubt understood every word I said and then decided not to give a hoot.
"Well, we need to protect the property. But we also have to survive the night. So grab those old wooden chairs and start breaking them down, use a screw driver and keep two legs intact. The rest we'll use to add to our supply of fire wood. I'm going to unlock the parking break on the Volvo wagon and push it to block the back door.
"Won't we be trapped in," she interrupted.
"No, I'll sleep with the keys in my left front pocket. We'll each pack a bugout bag and take them with us if the house is overrun. We'll put the motorbike on the roof of the wagon and ride it as far as we can then continue on the bike if we have to."
"Got it."
"I'm going to build a large fire to keep animals at bay. Then we'll go to sleep. Here take this," I said giving her the forty-five on my waist and a brief tutorial in it's use. The I went to get one of my other pistols, also a forty-five.
" I also want you to meet someone," I called for my house dog, a husky with one of four grandparents being wolf.
After building the4 fire. I bought in the sires. I told Ms. Gonzales to go down to the basement where there was a small range. I gave her a more thorough explanation and had her shoot for an hour then we turned in.
The next morning, our second day and first full day, I began the wall after tending to the fire. I took all the male dogs and the non-nursing females and took them to a spot one hundred paces from the home, just past the kennel. I then had every dog stand ten yards apart, forming a line of defense two hundred and twenty yards long. I stood ten yards behind them with a shovel and gave the order to dig. Once they had dug wholes twenty four to thirty six inches deep, I had them stop, then moved them over a yard and had them dig again. This process we repeated, with me going over their work. After about fourteen hours, there were post holes, adjacent to each other for a quarter mile. In between supervising the dogs work, I had dug a pit shoulder deep, twice as long as my six feet and half as wide, about four hundred and thirty to four hundred and fifty cubic yards. I covered the whole thing with a tarp and laid the largest rocks I could find on each corner.
Since it was apparently summer, we had about fifteen hours of sunlight. Which was why I built another large fire. Then I took six dogs back to the house with me ordering the remainder to stay. I hitched a trailer to my BMW and loaded some lumber I had made into poles for selling. Each was about nine feet long and about nine inches in diameter. I'd need almost sixty seven hundred, about sixty six hundred and seventy eight to cover my four acres. We'd already dug four hundred forty yards, leaving a little over twelve hundred yards exposed. I had four fifty piled near my shed and I brought thirty with me this first trip. I napped for four hours inside after loading the lumber then spent the next ten hours pounding the posts into the holes. At about two minutes per post, and a half hour to load the trailer, I'd placed a hundred and ten poles covering eighty two and a half yards of a sixteen hundred and seventy yard perimeter. I left up the lights I had jury rigged to poles and tended the second fire, I had set and headed in. Seeing that Ms. Gonzales had tended the first fire I turned in around two in the afternoon and slept until ten am on the fourth day.
Two more days of hard labor saw that we had a wall six feet high covering three hundred thirty seven yards. The rest of the wall I made of rock and dirt slightly ahead of the remainder of the perimeter. What would have taken me three weeks alone, I was able to do in eight more days of back breaking labor. In a week I'd dug post holes and began working on the posts to fill those with. In just two short weeks we were relatively secure.
April, we had since stated calling each other by first names, had taken on many responsibilities. She learned to cook the combination of human and dog food, that I tended to feed my animals over store bought. She helped to mix the concrete that I used to line our miniature reservoir and later the second larger reservoir I dug. She even poured once I was comfortable no animal could randomly penetrate our defenses. Finally, she made most of our fire hardened bricks.
Over the next few months we made a home for ourselves. I collected enough rocks, during that time to ring our house with a stone wall that was nine feet high replete with mortar made from materials that I had stored as well as scrounged. I was able to do this by clearing the forest that edged our house. I was able to do this safely by standing on a ladder near our wall and shooting anything that strayed too close. This solved our food problem and insured animals gave us a wide birth. When I wanted to chop wood or collect rocks, I had April stand on the ladder and cover me. Then the dogs helped me drag it back in.
By winter I had foraged enough wild grains, berries and nuts to see us through. So, we holed up in our new home; which I had determined through astronomy and the identification of the flora and fauna, some long extinct in our world and others as familiar as my left hand, to be roughly our time period, the second decade of the twenty first century give or take a decade.
We were so well provisioned I only went out to get firewood and train and exercise the dogs. Thus April and I spent our evenings by the fireside chatting. She was a charming Latina of African and Indigenous American parentage, out family histories were far more similar than I, a disciplined student of history ever realized. This ritual continued, even after we distilled enough alcohol to supplement the several hundred gallons of gasoline I had, making the fireplace a luxury rather than a necessity. Always attracted to her, but never overstepping my boundary as her client, I found myself conflicted when she approached me on the night we had determined was New Year's Eve.
"We may be the only humans on this world."
"We'll make more," she whispered.
"What kind of lonely existence would we condemn them to, go marry that homo erectus over there," At that she laughed.
"We both have needs."
"But we have to use these," I pulled out a condom from my robe.
"Okay."
I carried her to my...our bedroom, where we spent the night.

Faraji wiped the last speck of blood off his scimitar and held it up against the campfire's light. Even after all the nicks and scratches it had collected over years of combat, it still shone with an almost heavenly brilliance. The inscriptions in its blade, written in cursive Aradyic, invoked the Moon's blessing of strength towards whomever wielded the sword. Thus far it had never failed Faraji, and certainly not during his latest raid.

Around the fire his warriors bantered, joked, and laughed with each other, as warriors across the world always did when resting at camp. They were all Kiswahans like himself, dark brown-skinned with off-white kanzu tunics and turbans over their black, tightly curled hair. In truth, their physical features differed little from the miserable heathens they had yoked and manacled to one another in the darkness at the camp's edge.

But those sad-eyed idolaters, naked but for loincloths of woven bark and jewelry fashioned from cowrie shells and dinosaur teeth, were not lovely to look at. Even the nubile young women in their ranks had their skin blemished with hideous scarifications of pagan significance. They may have been kin to the Kiswahan race by blood, but the old superstitions they clung to made for a very different, barbaric culture.

A faint yet high-pitched cry, almost like some kind of flute, whistled from the black depths of the surrounding rainforest. Even with the nocturnal humidity and the campfire's warmth, Faraji could not deny the chill prickling his skin from that eerie noise. He had made a whole career of penetrating these jungles from the east, braving an immense variety of beasts and heathens alike. But never in all his previous ventures had the Kishawan slaver heard such a sound.

Then again, the jungle housed more species of creature than could fit in all the world's menageries. It might have been nothing more than some rare bird that had sung. Regardless, it did not call again. There was nothing to fear.

"Bwana!" Hasani, Faraji's right-hand fighter, rushed to his side and tapped his shoulder. Sweat sparkled on Hasani's terror-wrinkled brow. "I think I saw something."

He pointed to the darkness close to where the heathen captives squatted. "I could have sworn it shone like iron in the night."

"Jungle sickness must be getting to you," Faraji said. Cold sweat may have started to bead his palms, but as the party's Bwana, he had to maintain his composure as an example for his followers.

Hasani shook his head. "Come see for yourself. I think it is a djinni."

According to the sacred scriptures, djinn were beings made of smokeless fire, but they could take on many forms as part of their tricks. Faraji wondered if the whistling he had heard earlier had any connection to whatever Hasani had seen. If so, there could very well be a djinn lurking out there.

Faraji followed Hasani to the far edge of the camp, passing the captives who murmured amongst themselves in their barbarous tongue. In the corner of his eye he spotted some of them smiling instead of sulking as before. No, they could not have summoned the djinni. Such ignorant unbelievers probably did not know djinn even existed. But they must have sensed something out there.

Other than faint light from the fire and the Moon dappled on a few leaves, Faraji could only see a towering black wall of jungle ahead of him. The crickets chirped, the frogs croaked, and the nocturnal birds hooted, but no other sounds escaped the darkness. The only other thing Faraji could hear was the thumping of his own heart.

He turned around, and he caught the gleam of an iron point high up in the branches. Right next to it twinkled a pair of eyes---not the glowing gaze of a jungle creature, but dark glaring ones like those of a human being. In one blink, they vanished, leaving a vine shaking in their place.

Hasani raised his scimitar with a trembling hand. "Show yourself, djinni!"

"It might not be a djinni after all," Faraji said. "I think it might be human."

"You mean one that can climb trees like a monkey, Bwana? That’d be a rare breed of human.”

Faraji grinned. "Then we could price them for extra at the market---if we can catch them."

The two Kiswahans plunged into the jungle with a sprint, following the direction whence Faraji had seen the eyes disappear. They hacked their way through the undergrowth between bursts of jogging while shouting after the being. Even as they went deeper into the forest, they had yet to catch even a glimpse of their quarry. Not even the guiding glow of the Moon, which shafted in scattered beams through the treetop canopy, had revealed it to them.

Sooner or later, it would. Faraji had sworn it to himself by the inscription on his scimitar. The blessing of the Moon could never fail him.

Hasani stopped to pant. "We should go back. We lost---"

He fell onto the jungle floor with a gag. Sticking up from Hasani's breast was the slender iron head of a heathen spear.

Faraji stood there, motionless except for the wobbling of his shins. His scimitar slipped out of his hand to bounce onto the spongy earth. Every vein in his body was cold with sheer horror. "What are you, demon?"

At first it appeared as a black apparition when it dropped from an overhanging branch before him. When it stood up, the Moon's light revealed it as a svelte young woman who glistened like polished ebony. Though clad with nothing more modest than a brief breast-cloth and thong, she had raptors' teeth, claws, and feathers looped around her neck and limbs, and even a raptor skull crowning her head. It was a shame that this maiden would have appeared quite attractive, even beautiful, were it not for such savage attire.

"Call me Matadi." She plucked the spear out of Hasani's body and pressed its bloody tip into Faraji's neck. "I'll make this simple. Cut the people of my faith free and I'll have you and your companions spared."

Faraji laughed, trying to sound mocking even if it came out uneasy. "My companions? Do you plan to take on all of them by yourself?"

Matadi touched a bone with holes drilled into it, like a primitive flute, that hung from her necklace. "I have already summoned some allies of mine to take care of your friends. I won't say it again. Free my people and I'll call them off."

Faraji did not know what she meant by "allies". But he could not let this pagan harlot intimidate him. He and his slavers had fought off whole armies of pagans deep in these jungles, all because they had the Moon's blessing flowing through them. To give into this barbarian's demands would insult the Moon that had listened to all his prayers and watched over him with a perfect father's love. Faraji would betray his faith, everything he believed in, and his friend Hasani's memory if he made the slightest concession to this savage.

He lunged and grabbed his sword back. "How about we fight you off instead!"

Faraji swung after Matadi, but his blade only sliced through empty air. He spun around, searching the jungle overhead for the slightest sign of his opponent. She must have disappeared back into the darkness, like a true Moon-forsaken coward.

"So much for your threats," Faraji muttered as he sheathed his scimitar back into its scabbard. "Must have been bluffing about her 'allies' too."

He turned again to Hasani's body, which stared straight up with still, unblinking eyes that shone wet under the Moon's light. Kneeling by its side, Faraji whispered a prayer for his friend's passing through Judgement into the Paradise that awaited all righteous men. "May peace forever be upon him."

When he got back up, Faraji found a spear flying straight from the darkness towards him.

He sidestepped, but its edge still grazed him on the arm. He stumbled onto the ground, with the pain seeping deeper into his flesh, and struggled to push himself back up.

Matadi stood over him with spear digging into the nape of his neck. "Now will you free my people, Kiswahan?"

"Not for the friend you slew!" Faraji rolled himself into her shins, knocking her off her footing, and sprang up with scimitar back in hand. He laid one foot onto the head of her spear and chopped its shaft in two before she even had the chance to retrieve it.

"You better call your 'allies' as soon as possible, lest I send you to the flames of sin," Faraji said with a triumphant sneer.

Matadi looked up at him, at first with fear or resignation, but then her expression shifted a defiant smirk of her own. "By now they should be too busy playing with your own friends."

And with a cackle she leaped back into the jungle's darkness.

Faraji remembered the flute she had indicated on her necklace earlier. Only it could explain the whistling he had heard back at camp. He could only guess what the tune had meant, or what it had called. But if that heathen had spoken the truth, he had no time to waste before his comrades fell into serious peril.

He raced back along the trail he had cut out earlier. The hollers and screams of men and women reached his ears, as did the rustling and thrashing of foliage. Adding further to this chaotic clamor were bestial barks, screeches, and shrieks which Faraji recognized all too well. They were the cries every man who dared venture into these jungles dreaded to hear.

The moment he returned to camp, Faraji saw his worst nightmare play out before his very eyes.

Raptors were attacking his party. Blood sprayed all over the campsite as the feathered devils slashed, shredded, and ripped his fighters into pieces with their oversized talons and jagged teeth. Neither the Kiswahans' spears nor scimitars could match the monsters' lightning speed and agility, or their zealous bloodlust. Not a second passed without the petrified Faraji witnessing at least one more of his brethren fall beneath this storm of saurian savagery. One man, after taking a blow to the chest, even collapsed onto the campfire and exploded into flame himself.

Faraji had seen enough of his people die. Yelling the Kiswahan battle cry, he charged into the fray brandishing his scimitar. Hatred blazed like the fires of sin in his soul as he stabbed, cut, and cleaved his way through the raptor pack. Their claws raked across his flesh and their teeth tore it off in slivers, but the sheer heat of Faraji's rage drowned out any pain their attacks would have inflicted. And if he were to die, he would rejoin his friend Hasani in Paradise. Faraji had nothing to fear anymore.

Something long and sharp pierced through the back of his skull into his brain. Cold and metallic, it felt less like a raptor's talon and more like the point of a spear. But before Faraji could look back, pure darkness consumed everything Faraji saw. And every muscle in his body went numb.

At last, the blessing of the Moon had failed him.

##

Matadi picked up the scimitar that the slavers' Bwana had dropped. She could not read the script of strange cursive letterings written into its blade, but guessed they invoked some kind of power from the foreign god these Kiswahans had come to worship. Regardless, Matadi needed a new weapon. She could only throw the head of her former spear so many times before it too broke.

She did not fear the raptors who feasted on the Kiswahan corpses around here. They had made their kills for the night, so they would not pose a threat either to Matadi or the captives who awaited her beyond the scene of carnage. Even if they did, she could talk them out of it through her flute. It was through that makeshift instrument that she could tame even these most fearsome of jungle predators.

To see the slavers' victims sitting there, bound to one another through yoke and manacle, made Matadi's heart ache. She herself had experienced such treatment when she was a girl, also at the hands of Kiswahan slavers. They had burned her village to the ground, massacring half of her people and then marching the rest in chains like cattle through the wilderness. And all because Matadi's people had not sacrificed their native religion for this strange cult of the Moon as the Kiswahans' own ancestors had done.

It had taken a rare miracle sent by the gods, in the form of a tyrannosaur attack on the slavers, to free Matadi from their clutches. Since then, she had sworn to do the same for all the people the Kiswahans terrorized. Someone out there needed to stand up to them, so the gods had chosen her.

With the scimitar she sawed through the yokes and manacles until she had freed all the men, women, and children. "Show me whence you came, and I will lead you back there."

The people all clapped and chanted with glee as they followed her away from the devastated campsite and the raptors who gorged in it. At that hour, the light that beamed down at them from the jungle treetops came not from the Moon, but from the waking Sun.

Captain Mingana, her officers, Observer Helm, and Rasellin gathered in the ship's executive lounge to celebrate Liberation Day.

            Mingana could think of a dozen places she would rather have been, but opting out of a Lib Day affair was no option at all. Circular windows surrounded the fairly spacious lounge, offering a grandiose view of a star sprinkled void. The Horseman traveled three times the speed of light. A mass inhibitor field surrounded the ship maintaining its structural integrity. Soft jazz playing in the lounge intermingled with conversation and laughter. Food and drinks sat atop white, round lounge tables.

            “Captain.”

            Mingana snapped out of her thoughts and looked up to see Povich holding two cups of ice tea. He handed a cup to her and the captain accepted with a gracious smile. “Thank you, Arie.”

            “Enjoying the party?” Povich asked.

            The captain rolled her eyes and took a sip from her cup. “Bored to tears.” She spotted Helm heading toward her and gritted her teeth. She supposed it was unrealistic for both of them to share the same space without coming into contact with each other.

            Povich saw the observer and cleared his throat. “By your leave, Captain, I should be going back to the bridge.”

            “You don't have to go. I'm sure Lt. Jasper has things well in hand. How many times has he covered the bridge?”

            “Three,” said Povich. “But...well...”

            “Mingana decided to be merciful. “Go.”

            Povich leaned close, grateful. “If you were not my captain, I would marry you.”

            “I'll hold you to that,” Mingana said in amusement.

            Povich brushed past the observer toward the lounge exit.

            “Captain, your presence on this special occasion is much appreciated by myself and your crew,” said Helm. “However...” He cut a surreptitious eye toward the alien dignitary. “You neglect our guest.”

            Mingana glanced at Duke Rassellin as he stood rigid and silent, flanked by his armored bodyguards. “Our guest doesn't appear to be interested in mingling. I'm simply respecting his space.”

            Helm gazed earnestly at the captain. “The Duke and the Consortium freed us from Calaar tyranny. Thanks to their efforts, Earth is back in human hands. I think we owe the Duke more than distance. Don't you?”

            Earth had always been in human hands, Mingana thought irately, suppressing a flareup of anger.

            Helm, up to this point, had not given her any orders. He seemed content to let her run her ship as she saw fit. But in this matter, Mingana knew a veiled order when she heard one. She considered disregarding it, but thought it best not to push her insubordinate attitude any further than it already was.

            “I suppose the Duke could use some company.”

***

            After receiving her aerospace engineering degree, Justine enrolled in one of the space-farer academies. Established by the Calaar to prepare humanity for the stars, space-farer academies existed on every continent but Antarctica. The course offerings at the African branch of the academy dazzled Justine: Xeno Sudies, Warp Transit Dynamics, Propulsion Engineering, Star Mapping, History of Sentient Relations, Trans-Dimensional coding, the list went on.

            The academy also offered military training, which was of particular interest to Justine. Although she never pictured herself a soldier, she saw an opportunity to actively demonstrate her gratitude to the Calaar for all they were doing for her...for Earth. The Calaar were involved in a conflict elsewhere in the galaxy. They never specified, but Justine was certain that any enemy of the Calaar could only be a threat to Earth. She was prepared to lay down her life to defend against any foe that threatened to return humanity back to the miserable state it was mired in before the Calaar's arrival.

            She let the idea percolate in her head. When she made her decision, her parents balked. They tried to dissuade her, but their efforts collided against the impenetrable bulwark of their daughter's stubborn determination. Justine was a woman now. For good or ill, she chose her own path.

I recently took a break from writing the 2nd book in my "Ruins of the Fall" trilogy to write something lighter.  It was a little short story with a giant robot which turned into a religious allegory.  What was I saying about God?  I have no idea, but I did find out that God metaphors make fantastic robots.  I let my wife read it, as I often do, and she said that it was REALLY good, which is great!  My problem is that this story didn't include any of the violence and sex I include in the rest of my stories.  Now before you shrug your shoulders at that, I need to tell you what kind of violence and sex I usually include.  In my book "Squirrels & Puppies", I included a story where a futuristic government uses cyber-ized rapists to force procreation on the populace in the wake of a drug being popularized that feels just as good as sex.  In that same book, there's a story about a group of squirrels that turn to terrorism to coax humans into giving them more crunchy snacks.  How can a group of squirrels commit an act of terror?  Why, by devouring a college student in front of his frat house, of course. 

Then again, I like to test the limits of my weirdness in my short stories, so I try to take the strangest and most interesting things I can think of and make a sensible story around them.  However, when I wrote "Tree of Might", the first book in my "Ruins of the Fall" trilogy, I wasn't trying to be weird at all.  The book is about a Black civil rights leader who decides to take the "Kill Whitey" approach to Black civil rights.  I understand that many Black people find this a more romantic approach, but I wanted to flesh together all the elements for such an event to occur in this country, the pitfalls of the plan, and the long term pros and cons of such an event. 

But...

I have to make sure no one believes that this book is an endorsement of the "Kill Whitey" approach.  The main character, the civil rights activist, is the villain, but when writing this book I found myself agreeing too much with the villain.  So I had to make him more evil.  Sooooo...I gave him a hobby.  The villain likes to see people get raped by animals.  Soooo... yeah, there's two scenes of that in the book.  

But is that so bad?  Is this what's holding me back?  I've found that people like my writing style. They like some of my short stories.  I like to write in the present tense (why write about the past?).  No one complains about that.  Still, my wife and a couple friends have said that my stories could stand a little toning down.  At which point, I look to the Bible for inspiration.  After the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot gets raped by his daughters because they want kids and their husbands are dead.  Children were really important back then.  Remember that story where David meets King Saul in a cave and spares him?  Many people, including some pastors, tell the story that King Saul was asleep in the cave.  The Bible doesn't say that.  It says that he was "covering his feet".  This is a euphemism for defecating, or taking a dump, dropping a log, etc.  Thus if the Bible has poop jokes and scenes of familial gang rape, why should I tone down my stories? 

Then again, I already self-censored myself when I tried to make "Ruins of the Fall" sound less militant.  So am I a hypocrite already?  What are your thoughts, BSFS?

Great piece

The battle alert yelped and the prosaic images covering the bridge screens switched to a dynamic multitude of tactical displays and constantly shifting battlespace data.

            The bridge crew linked their interfaces to the larger screens and awaited orders from their section officers.

            Blips representing enemy vessels materialized on the displays. Near-space swarmed with the enemy.

            Mingana flicked an eye to Gunnery. “Target incoming. Fire on my word.”

            The gunnery officers acknowledged and began inputting targeting solutions.

            U.N. Senior Observer Jason Helm entered the bridge.

            Mingana gazed in the observer's direction, making no effort to hide her displeasure. “You're supposed to be in your quarters. I'm running a shipwide drill.”

            “Carry on,” said Helm, with a bored look. “I'm an observer. I can't exactly observe if I'm cooped up in my quarters.”

            “You should be observing protocol,” Mingana countered with an insolence that had not gone unnoticed by the bridge crew. They did a superb job of executing their duties without letting the observer know that they noticed.

            U.N. observers posted on starships possessed a power and a mystique to match the dread they invoked. Everyone deferred to them, even captains. An observer reported a captain's every action, every decision to U.N. Command. That in itself was enough to make sure a captain kept him or herself in an observer's good graces. An observer could also strip a captain's authority and assume command of a ship based on whatever grounds the former saw fit.

            Not showing the proper respect toward an observer served as sufficient grounds for dismissal. But Helm took no action. Dressed in a navy blue business suit and wearing trendy wraparound wire-frame glasses, the observer stood next to the captain's chair, his hands clasped behind him. “You do realize that we are unlikely to encounter or engage an enemy in this part of space.”

            “The operative word being 'unlikely,'” said Mingana. “This drill will keep us on our toes so that we will be prepared if the unlikely becomes likely.” She gave a nod to Gunnery. “Fire forward long range DE (direct energy) blazers 5 through 10.”

            “DE 5 through 10, acknowledged,” announced the lead gunnery officer. She initiated fire control and on a current-time tactical screen, a simulated blast of blazer energy whipped furiously across a simulated stretch of space.

            “Direct hit on eight targets,” the officer reported. “Targets neutralized.”

            “Good,” said Mingana, with eyes on the largest tactical screen. “Fire at will.”

            “Switching to free-fire,” said the officer.

            Mingana tapped her chair intercom. An image of a blond woman with an angular face projected in front of the captain. “Lt. Winter, Beta One.”

            The lieutenant nodded crisply. “Right away, Captain.”

            Helm scrunched his face. “A boarding action exercise? Enemy boarders breaching this ship is even less of a possibility.”

            “Again, Observer Helm,” Mingana replied with as much patience as she could muster. “I'm keeping us on our toes.” She switched several displays to internal views. Images of Shipboard Marines in combat armor, wielding M82 assault rifles, beamed from the displays. Armored units on three levels deployed to areas of the ship where simulated breaches had occurred.

            Mingana silently applauded their efficiency.

            “Enemy vessels are in retreat, Captain,” Commander Povich announced. “Shall we pursue?”

            “Negative, maintain course, extend sensor range to maximum, omni-directional active sweeps.”

            “Omnidirectional it is, Captain.” Povich relayed her command to the sensor specialists.

            Within ten minutes, Mingana declared an end to the drill and congratulated the crew on a job well done.

            “In spite of my reservations,” said Helm. “I, too must commend you and your crew on such a fine performance.”

            Mingana met the observer's smile with a guarded stare. She hated their lot and no amount of flattery from this pasty-faced specimen before her was going to change that outlook. “Thank you, Observer Helm. Don't forget to add what you witnessed here to your report.

            Helm's lips compressed with stifled laughter. “Captain, I never forget what I see. Now, I may omit on occasion. But I never forget.”

***

            Justine held her diploma in a firm grip, gazing upon as if it were a bar of gold. In so many respects, it might as well have been. The graduation ceremony had just concluded and Justine exchanged happy hugs with her friends. Even amidst the celebration, she took in the totality of her surroundings and realized how so very full the gymnasium was. Every student in her class had graduated. Not a single dropout. Her classmates were not the sons and daughters of privilege. Far from it. They were not destined to take the reigns of government, business, and academia. A prosperous future was never promised to Justine and her peers based on who their parents were: menial workers, scrabbling for just enough pennies to keep their families out of the bubbling muck of total destitution.

            And now, having graduated from secondary school, they would soon be attending universities of their choices.

            Justine embraced her mother and father. The pride on her father's face revitalized him. He once had ambitions of attending University to study engineering. But his parents could not afford the tuition. Even if they could, poor instructors hobbled his primary education. Justine inherited her father's deep interest in the field. She had always been been fascinated with air and space craft. The idea that she would have a degree in aerospace engineering in four years or less was as much a dream fulfillment for her father as it was for her. She had the Calaar to thank for that.

            Five months after the Calaar's arrival, Earth joined the Calaar-led League of Sentients, an alliance spanning hundreds of star systems. The benefits the Calaar spoke of came to fruition when Earth became a member planet. The Calaar cured diseases, cleansed Earth's atmosphere of pollutants, repaired a damaged ozone layer, eliminated famine, and introduced wondrous technology beyond anything humans had ever seen.

            The only 'payment' the Calaar asked for in exchange was that humans be willing to overturn their inequitable social and economic structures. With the Calaar's assistance, revolutionary but peaceful change, swept the globe. Doors of opportunity for billions of humans opened wide as old systems of gross inequality based on race, caste, gender, religion, class, and ethnicity faded away. The Calaar built millions of schools in every country, providing Earth's children with the type of quality education that would prepare them to take their places as citizens of the stars.

            Justine became an enthusiastic beneficiary of alien benevolence, which only heightened her resentment of her own species. Humans could have granted what the Calaar gave so generously. But human hatreds, greed, corruption, bigotry, and all manner of destructive folly kept the masses of humanity locked in a desolate cycle of poverty and despair. As she looked to her future, she vowed that the opportunity the Calaar created for her and her peers would not be wasted.

Captain Justine Mingana sat cross-legged in her command chair, perusing updates on a tablet handed to her by Commander Povich, her Second. She pressed her lips in approval. Shipwide systems. Check. Full staff in every department. Check. No disciplinary issues. Check. Non-crew personnel present, accounted for and, sufficiently content. No easy task in that area, but nevertheless, check.

            Suppressing a tedious yawn, she handed the tablet back to Povich and surveyed the bridge. Officers and specialists sat at their stations, bathed in the ambient glows of data-filled interfaces. Multiple screens covered a large section of bulkhead in a vivid panorama of images.

            Mingana idly brushed over the images, settling on one, a star chart. She tapped a prompt on her chair's armrest, highlighting and enlarging the chart.

            A blinking diamond shaped icon representing her ship, the UNSS Horseman, inched languidly across a realistic star field. Lines, place names, and calculations covered the field and in the upper right corner a planet floated, rendered in full topographical detail.

            “It won't be long, Captain,” Povich commented, his deep, thrumming voice massaging Mingana's ears. The man would have made a perfect voice-over artist.

            “No,” the captain agreed. “It won't be long at all. What is the status of our...package?”

            “Mint condition, Captain. At least according to what I was told. Ready to deploy at a moment's notice.” Povich shrugged. “From my understanding, the targets will never know what hit them.”

            Mingana tried with effort to match her Second's sentiment. “Yeah. That was my understanding, too.” She gave Povich a wry glance and stood. “The bridge is yours, Commander. I'll be in my office catching up on reports.”

            “Of course, Commander.” Povich seated himself in the captain's chair as Mingana headed toward the bridge exit.

            Just as she was leaving, Three tall figures with faces vaguely suggestive of felines stepped into the bridge.

            The central figure wore a draping green silken robe that seemed to cast a shimmer that had little to do with the moderately bright light bars lining the bridge ceiling. Gold colored glyphs were etched along the being's red toned jawline, markings of status in his culture. The haughtiness in his bearing revealed how insufferably elevated that status was.

            Mingana groaned internally.

            The beings flanking the green-robed dignitary wore gray combat armor with large snub-nose blasters magnetized to their hips.

            In her six years as starship captain, Mingana never allowed guests, human or otherwise, to be armed. U.N. Command overruled that prohibition in this case. The way the U.N. sucked up to these aliens had rankled her long before she was sent on the current mission. Mingana, of course, bottled her feelings on the matter and feigned her usual pleasant disposition at the sight of these guests. “Duke Rassellin, forgive me. I was not expecting you on the bridge. You did not make an announcement.”

Mingana stressed that last sentence as pointedly as she could without breaching the boundaries of courtesy. Important as the U.N. deemed Rassellin, that did not give him license to wander around her ship with his armed goons at will as if he belonged.

            “I wanted to see where we were in our journey, Captain.” Rassellin spoke unapologetically, with the well oiled arrogance of an aristocrat accustomed to following his own dictates and answering to no one he considered an inferior. He peered down upon the human captain from his towering height, his leathery face highlighted by eyes the color of sun-dappled honey. “So, Captain. What is our progress?”

            “We just entered a nebula we call the Adolphi,” said Mingana, keeping her tone even. “That places us 320 light years past the half way point and that much closer to our destination.” She eased past Rassellin, stepping around his immobile guards. “My Second will fill you in on the details.”

            Rassellin cocked his head. “Captain, where are you going?”

            Now, he was questioning her movements on her own ship? It was all Mingana could do to keep from issuing this pompous ass the dressing down of a lifetime. Instead...”I have important business to attend to. Do you you require anything of me at this time?”

            The Duke interlaced his ring bedecked fingers. “No. It's just that you leave the bridge quite frequently. On a Consortium ship, the captain never departs the bridge in the middle of a duty shift.”

            Mingana shrugged. “Well, Duke Rassellin. As you have obviously noticed, an Earth ship captain enjoys greater prerogative, less restriction. If you'll excuse me.” She turned her back on the aliens and walked leisurely down the corridor.

***

            The captain's office was located between Bridgespace and Engineering Central, the ship operations office. The location kept the captain in close proximity to the most relevant areas of the ship.

            Mingana stepped into her office and the walls lit up with interfaces linking to various departments. She eased down in her chair and pressed a tab on her desk console. A screen unfolded before her, bearing the face of a square jawed man with dark brown eyes.

            “Captain,” said the officer, with a just enough of a whimsical air to scrape a bit of edge off of his formality. “What can I do for you?”

            “Nothing special, Kochran, just looking for an update on those modifications.”

            Lt. Commander Kochran, head of Engineering raised a confident brow. “Installation of the impulse booster proceeds according to schedule. By this time tomorrow, expect a twenty-five percent increase in sublight velocity.

            The corners of Mingana's mouth lifted in approval. “That's what I wanted to hear. And the other...matter? How far along are you on that?”

            Other than a furtive glance behind him, Kochran's exuberant manner never slackened. “The warheads' guidance mechanisms have been examined.” That was all the engineering officer had to say on the matter.

            Satisfied, Mingana left it at that. “Thank you, Joel. I'll let you return to your duties.”

            “Or you could give me the rest of the day off so I can finish that bottle in my quarters,” Kochran quipped.

            “Not until the mission is over,” said the captain with a wry smile. “If we succeed, you can share that bottle with me.”

            “Deal,” Kochran replied, earnestness seeping into his joviality.  His image vanished from the screen. A heartbeat later, the screen winked out of existence and Mingana leaned back in her chair, contemplating events to come...until her thoughts drifted to the past...

***

            The noon sun glowed like a hot ember when the ships appeared over the city. Justine jumped with joy that precious Saturday when she saw them. She turned 14 on that day and there could not have been a better birthday present. Justine absorbed science fiction like a sponge and those ships...spaceships! Had to be! Those spaceships were the realization of her burning  desire to make first contact with aliens! Real live aliens! Her parents could only wish that she channeled a smidgen of her over-abundant enthusiasm for tales of the fantastic into her studies.

            The ships were large, hauntingly beautiful ovals and octagons and tetrahedrons with glazed surfaces the color of topaz. Even in a  haze-blanketed sky, the strange vessels displayed an uncanny vividness that reflected none of the pollution-filled murk surrounding them.

            From Justine's vantage point, the closest one was the size of a baseball. Her father worked as a maintenance man in one of the downtown towers. What a breathtaking view of the ships he must have had! She couldn't wait for him to get home to talk about it.

            “Justine get in here!' Her mother insisted in an agitated whisper, as if the alien ships would be alerted to her presence if she spoke an octave louder. She stood in the doorway of a house much too small to accommodate a family of five. Yet, it was one of the larger units in the shanty district. Justine's younger brothers clung to her mother's skirt, their faces an endearing blend of wonder and trepidation.

            “There's nothing to worry about, Ma,” Justine remarked with her usual teen bravado. “They're friendly.”

            She had nothing to base that claim on, just an optimistic hunch.

            Her mother thought otherwise and demanded Justine come inside. Reluctantly she obeyed.

            Days later, Justine's hunch proved valid. The aliens met Earth's leaders at the United Nations building, introducing themselves as the Calaar. The Calaar proclaimed their peaceful intentions and a desire to forge a relationship with Earth that promised tremendous benefits for humankind.

Image Source: Hiroshima Peace Media

Topics: Existentialism, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power

Image Source: Thermonuclear Weapon on Wikipedia

Excerpts from The Atomic Archive:

Atomic Archive: Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War - Radioactive Fallout

I have free copies of The Nettle Tree Anthology, which includes my short story, Ephemera, for 13 lucky winners!

The Writers

The Nettle Tree anthology includes short stories by some fantastic authors such as Jeremy Shipp, Phil Richardson, Casey Wolf, John B. Rosenman, Christopher Wolf, Clayton C. Bye, Leigh M. Lane, Richard Godwin, Sal Buttaci, Kennethe Weene, Kenny Wilson, and James L, Secor.

How to Enter

Go to

http://tonyarmoore.com/2016/08/win-a-copy-of-the-nettle-tree

and scroll down to the entry form.

Image Source: Carnegie Mellon Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Science

Topics: Computer Science, Education, Mathematics, Neuroscience, STEM

Carnegie Mellon: Watching the Brain Do Math, Shilo Rea

Review By Ricky L. Brown, Amazing Stories Magazine

The novel S.Y.P.H.E.N. by Cortez Law III is an engaging adventure of current global concerns mixed with a darker science fiction future. Published in October 2015 from Metro Black & Blue Books, readers will find a unique kind of military science fiction where reality and imagination are woven into a maze of suspense and patriotism.

Lincoln Boddies is the commander of “The Unit,” a select team of special operatives whose primary role is to prevent terrorists in the United States. But when Lincoln’s suspicions put his team hot on the trail of a couple of suspected suicide bombers, what they soon discover is more frightening than anything they have ever experienced or witnessed before. This is where the story takes on more of an X-Files feel where the global threat no longer comes in human form.

The characters in S.Y.P.H.E.N. are all well developed and the author does a fine job of quickly establishing a sense of realism as the story takes place someplace between current time to a not too distant future. The narration is comfortable and the technical jargon is often explained with unobstructed ease, which helps maintain the fast pace without slowing down to tell the reader “this means this” or “that is a that.”

Sure, there are a lot of acronyms thrown around, but sometimes they are a necessary evil when it comes to military science fiction. Though distracting, as long as the reader is informed regarding their meanings, the narration can become much smoother when used correctly. It is not a spoiler by pointing out that S.Y.P.H.E.N. stands for Systematic,Yield of, Proliferating, Hazardous, Extraterrestrial, Nanotechnoligical and Chemical Weapon. As you can see, accepting this type of literary device can make reading this type of story a little easier.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the story occurs in the interactions between the Delta Force characters and their captive terrorist members. Aside from the awkward verbal abuse between the two opposing factions that does more to distract the reader away from the plot than help the story along, the idea of two polar opposites possibly having to work together is a powerful literary element that I encourage the author to pursue in future works as well. The absorbing possibilities of these two varying beliefs facing a common enemy makes one wonder if something like the S.Y.P.HE.N. could bring these seemingly eternal enemies together. Perhaps there is hope for humanity.

On the down side, the author’s intent on realism does tend to lean heavily on the character’s use of slang, nicknames, and derogatory diction that is at times more distracting than beneficial to the character’s development or perspectives.

It is also apparent that Law is an avid fan of films in the genre as his narratives often refer to works of others when describing the scenes. As a reviewer, this is a common practice (ex. X-Files above). But in a narrative, it can be distracting. Don’t be surprised to find references in this novel like, “psychotic-like The Joker graphic novels and movie portrayals”, “it’s like a Paranormal Activity Eight movie”, “the winged metal spike that would make all of the Mad Max movies proud,” or “he heard the voice of Tony Stark/ Iron Man from the movies.” This type of aside works well when used in dialog from the characters as it can help create credibility. But from a narrator, this type of reference might come off more as work of fan fiction than that of an established writer.

For those interested in other works of Cortez Law III, he has three other independently published books to his credit. My Brother’s Keeper (2001) is a romance novel while Kremlin Tide (2014) and Cold Lick (2015) are suspense/mystery works in the popular X-Men world.

For fans of military science fiction, S.Y.P.H.E.N. by Cortez Law III will satisfy that thirst for adventure while allowing readers to experience the blurred line between a modern reality and a darker future. The book may have a few flaws, but the author shows a knack for storytelling that is bound to carry over and improve in future novels.

Burkard Hillebrands of the University of Kaiserslautern and colleagues say they have detected the first ever supercurrent at room temperature, but certain peers are sceptical of the results and say the claims are premature. (Courtesy: iStock/Johan Swanepoel)

Topics: Bose-Einstein Condensate, Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics

Physics World: First ever supercurrent observed at room temperature, Tim Wogan

We are usually joking when we ask how long the Black character is going to survive in a movie/TV show, but that is a real question that comes from years upon years of characters of color being killed off in or erased from books, comics, TV, and movies. Many creators of color see this and try to fix the problem, but many are pressured to remove their characters' humanity. By not allowing characters of color to learn, grow, mess up, and be wrong from time to time we may keep these characters alive, but are we really allowing them to live? Find out here! ‪#‎TheRatchedemic‬ 

Artistic rendition of atoms in an optical lattice. Image Credit: Public Domain

Topics: Computer Science, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics

Physics Central: Quantum Computing, Human Processing, H.M. Doss

Once more The Priestess Second Saga continues as Aesir Chief Svengald's tribe find themselves lost at sea after the Chief ignores the warnings of the gods and brings disaster onto his people. Now lost at sea, they now begin an epic struggle which will determine their survival as a people! Can Svengald find his people far out on the 'Seas of Time' before they vanish forever? This and other answers will be revealed in 'The Priestess: Stone, Sea and Serpent, Part II!

MPI FOR GRAVITATIONAL PHYSICS/SIMULATING EXTREME SPACETIMES/AIRBORNE HYDRO MAPPING Citation: Phys. Today 69, 8, 10 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3249

Topics: Astrophysics, Black Holes, General Relativity, Gravitational Waves, Spacetime

American Institute of Physics:
Commentary: How gravitational waves went from a whisper to a shout, Robert Garisto

The following is an excerpt from a story I'm writing called Obasi's Honor. Hope you enjoy it.

The artist is Gauntlet.

    Behind him lay the bodies he’d killed; it had been, at best, serendipity, and not skill.

    He would rather that it had been skill.

    The town was in the distance, indistinct in color from the sand everywhere, save that it had shape, and he could see the shapes of the buildings through the haze and the heat shimmer that felt like it would boil his eyes in their sockets.

    I did not avoid being a sacrifice only to have my bones bleach in this merciless sun.

    He stopped, and taking the knife he pilfered from the body of the man that had sought to tie the rope around his neck, he put his hand on the camel’s neck and said a silent prayer of thanks to its spirit for providing him life.

    And he cut its throat, cupping his hands around the fount that spurted as the animal bellowed a final curse, and toppled. The taste of its blood was rancid and bitter in his mouth, but he was going to die if he didn’t drink, and water was not to be found anywhere nearby.

    And as he had no water, he made no urine, or he would have used that instead.

    He was tempted to skin the camel and make a tent, but the sun had already crested its zenith, and would be down soon; if he skinned it now, night would catch him crossing the dunes, and the chill wind would ice the blood that was now boiling.

    Breathing heavy against the urge to vomit, which would dehydrate him further, the burning sand licking at the sides of his feet in the leather sandals that adorned them, he pushed on.

    Distance was a tricky thing in the desert, and if the town wasn’t as close as it looked, the relentlessly flowing sand would cover him, burying him in an unmarked grave so deep and remote his ancestors would never see him.

    “You will not die, Obasi. Your ancestors will strike you in the afterlife if you do.”

    He didn’t know if the part about his ancestors was true, and anyway, it was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep; he only knew that if he didn’t hear himself make it, he wouldn’t survive.

                                                ********************

    Two horsemen came out to retrieve him from the sand, where he’d vomited and lay in a pool of rancid blood.

    “Fool boy, drank the blood of his camel.”

    “How do you know?”

    “The hairs on his robe, his skin. He was unskilled, and favored by the gods that he made it here.

    The other guard that noticed the camel hair when they threw the boy across the saddle, and he walked his horse back to the city gates.

    The watchman called. “Is he alive?”

    “Barely, but yes.”

    “Take him to see –“

    “I know, I know. He needs water though, and now.”

    The watchman threw his canteen down, and they dribbled water into the boy’s mouth, held him as he sputtered and coughed, gave him some more, and he spat.

    The water was a bright red, and both men made the sign against evil.

     “Get him out of here,” the watchman said.

    The other guard proffered him to take his canteen back, but the watchman smiled and shook his head.

    “I’ll get another; he can keep that one. I should’ve let the vultures have him. If it hadn’t been for their circling, I wouldn’t have seen him.”

    “You did well to save his life; these things come back to you.”

    “As I well know. Take him quickly.”

    They proceeded to the town sick house, as they called it, and the boy began to stir.

    They were carrying him on a horse, sideways across the saddle, as if he was a sack of something heavy and unpleasant, but he didn’t know who ‘they’ were or where ‘they’ were taking him, but their robes were dark, in stark contrast to the sand, and against the normal dress of white and tan, which kept the heat of the sun away.

    He noticed they were on a road of stone.

    “Where am I?” His voice came out like a croak, and he coughed.

   The horse nickered in warning, not liking the smell of stale camel blood in its nostrils.

    “In the land of Fatinah, south of your lands. We are taking you to the sick house; our doctor is an elder, and will see to your needs. Rest now, boy. There is time enough for introductions and conversation; this is not that time.”

    Not willing to trust his voice again, or have the horse bite him, he closed his eyes and mouth again, and swayed to the animal’s rhythm, his insides rolling, as unconsciousness reclaimed him from the waking world again.

The Second Saga continues as the Aesir Chief sent out onto the Seas of Time for the rescue of his people. Even if he can come to the aid of his countrymen, his next task will be to find Little Fish somewhere in time or he won't be able to return to the Valley Realm! But a great and all too familiar danger looms before his people and the Chief must face it alone in order save his own life and secure the future of his people. May the Priestess watch over him! Monday August 1st, the Chief begins his trial in 'The Priestess: Stone, Serpent and Sea!'