Three weeks ago my fiction and poetry collection, How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend received a Bram Stoker Award!!!! Amazing! The competition was all good so I'm honored to have received it.
Then two poems from the collection are on the Honorable Mention List for Best Horror of the Year, volume 4 (by Ellen Datlow)
[http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/391918.html]
Feeling real blessed here...linda
One day I was playing with the Ford coil, punching holes in paper with the sparks, and the paper caught on fire. Soon I couldn't hold it any more because it was burning near my fingers, so I dropped it in a metal wastebasket which had a lot of newspapers in it. Newspapers burn fast, you know, and the flame looked pretty big inside the room. I shut the door so my mother--who was playing bridge with some friends in the living room--wouldn't find out there was a fire in my room, took a magazine that was lying nearby, and put it over the wastebasket to smother the fire.
After the fire was out I took the magazine off, but now the room began to fill up with smoke. The wastebasket was still too hot to handle, so I got a pair of pliers, carried it across the room, and held it out the window for the smoke to blow out.
But because it was breezy outside, the wind lit the fire again, and now the magazine was out of reach. So I pulled the flaming wastebasket back in through the window to get the magazine, and I noticed there were curtains in the window--it was very dangerous!
Well, I got the magazine, put the fire out again, and this time kept the magazine with me while I shook the glowing coals out of the wastepaper basket onto the street, two or three floors below. Then I went out of my room, closed the door behind me, and said to my mother, "I'm going out to play," and the smoke went out slowly through the windows.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, Part 1: From Far Rockaway to MIT: He Fixes Radios by Thinking!
NobelPrizedotorg: Richard P. Feynman
LuLu’s Dance
By Rebekah L. Pierce
(a dark, smoky dance hall room circa 1940s – men in uniform and some not laughing and drinking uproariously along with female counterparts to Benny Goodman’s “Wartime Swing”; a .50 cent per dance club- a lone woman sits with her back to the party dance holding on tightly to an empty glass eyeing the clock above the bar fervently – deep frowns crowd her face; she is named LuLu; she is wearing a black wrap dress with red lipstick on pencil thin lips; her skin is pale & she has thick, black hair which is rather tangled up like a spider’s web)
BARTENDER
You want another drink, LuLu?
LULU
(a raspy voice, tired)
Yeah, sure! Why not?
BARTENDER
(suspicious)
You got money to pay for this one? We’re closed for freebies, girl.
LULU
(closes her eyes and shakes her head no)
But I’m good for it, Frank. I swear. I got money comin’ tonight.
BARTENDER
You’ve been saying that every night now for 3 weeks.
(leans in closely)
He ain’t comin’ back, LuLu. There ain’t no money.
LULU
(near broken now)
You don’t know him, Frank. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not Jimmy. Not now. He knows how badly I need to return home. He wouldn’t leave me here … alone.
STRANGER
(grabbing LuLu)
Hey, sugar! You wanna dance?
LULU
Leave me alone!
(pushes him violently and flashes a small pocket knife at him)
STRANGER
Hey, you ain’t gotta be nasty about it! Bitch!
(storms off sloppily)
BARTENDER
Calm down, LuLu! We don’t need no trouble in here tonight. Here’s a drink. It’s on me this time.
LULU
(eyes Frank suspiciously, but then downs the cool drink)
What’s the date, Frank?
BARTENDER
June 2 … 1943.
LULU
1943. Are you sure?
(bartender nods his head in confirmation)
That long?! It’s been years … since I came here? All those many years gone by … that fast.
Isn’t that funny, Frank? Seems like centuries, even.
BARTENDER
(nods his head watching her closely – she is a danger to herself and others, he knows)
Yeah! Time don’t seem to move around here.
(the music stops and the dancers clamour gloriously back to their tables for fantasy and more drinks – LuLu watches the door intently, waiting)
LULU
Remember when he first came here, Frank? I … I was new, fresh off the bus.
BARTENDER
Yeah, came here to find your fortune … same as everyone else.
LULU
(glares at him for interrupting)
I wasn’t like them other girls, Frank, and you know it. I had big plans for my life … real plans. I’d already saved $10 when he came here. You know how hard it is to save that kind of money these days, Frank? The war has everyone clutching their wallets close to their hearts. You need a knife to remove it, but back then, it was so much easier.
BARTENDER
LuLu, ain’t nothing easy no matter what it look like on the outside.
LULU
What?
BARTENDER
(pouring her another drink)
Drink?
LULU
(looks at the glass softly then back to the door waiting)
He’s gonna come tonight, Frank. I can feel it. None of these guppies got anything on him. We’re gonna make it big, I tell you.
(pause)
Hey, remember when he proposed to me? Right here!
(she tries to stand up, but must use the chair as support)
He got down on one knee … right here. He didn’t care I was a … a … dance girl. No, he saw somethin’ special in me. I always knew I had it, too. All that travelin’, I knew it.
(the band starts playing again, a swing, Glenn Miller’s “One O’Clock Jump” ; the dance floor is alive and breathing again; LuLu glares heatedly at the dancers and then gives up; her eyes soften towards the door)
Why’d he have to go over there? They could’ve got on without him. Time is leaving me behind, Frank. I gotta catch up soon.
(in walks a lone man in an Army uniform – tall and dark, he looks unsure at first, hesitant, but then he storms in with fake exurberance and heads for the bar where LuLu is watching him)
SOLDIER
Bartender, a bourbon, please.
(he turns to notice LuLu staring at him; a small smile crosses his face reluctantly)
And one for the lady?
LULU
(silent, staring)
SOLDIER
You like bourbon?
LULU
(finds her voice)
It’ll do.
BARTENDER
(eyeing LuLu carefully)
Sure thing.
(pours more drinks for the two)
SOLDIER
My name’s John.
(LuLu is still silent; Ellington’s “Take the a Train” serenades the dancers)
What’s yours?
LULU
(eyes him squarely, sizing him up)
Are you sure it’s not Jimmy? You look like a Jimmy.
JOHN
(laughs a little squeamishly)
No, I know my name. It’s John.
LULU
(inhales and returns to looking at the clock above the bar)
It’s .50 cents to dance; a quarter to know my name.
JOHN
Whoa! Ok, then! Let’s dance.
(pulls .75 cents from his pocket and places it in her outstretched hand – they exit to the dance floor where Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” now plays)
I paid. Now can I know your name?
LULU
(crestfallen)
You mean you don’t know already?
JOHN
(smiles sheepishly)
No I don’t. Why? Should I? Have we met before? I think I’d remember if we did. You’re not the kind of girl a man could forget.
LULU
What kind of girl am I to you?
JOHN
Oh, I don’t know. A nice girl … to hold onto in a dance.
(a little nervous)
(Maxine Sullivan’s “When Your Lover Has Gone”)
LULU
I love this song. It makes me whimsical.
(chuckles)
JOHN
What’s so funny?
(turns her round, dancing)
LULU
Where are you from, John?
JOHN
Oklahoma. This is my first tour of duty. I ship out tomorrow for Europe.
LULU
So you came here for one last dance, then?
JOHN
Yes … something like that. I mean … Where I come from, there aren’t too many pretty girls like you to dance with.
(the band has stopped playing for another rest; LuLu and John go back to the bar)
LULU
You think I’m pretty?
(sips her drink)
JOHN
Why yes!!!!! The most beautiful girl in the room! I noticed you first … as soon as I came in … So where are you from?
LULU
Does it matter where I come from?
JOHN
Oh, I don’t know. Just making conversation, I guess.
LULU
I’ve been waiting here for a long time … for someone special … to return. We have plans to marry and move to my home … where I’m from … to start a family.
JOHN
Really? A family … well, I … wish you luck with that.
(prepares to leave)
LULU
Where are you going?
JOHN
Well, I don’t want to intrude on some other man’s space, you see.
LULU
(narrowed eyes; John wonders if she can see him out of them)
Texas. I’m from Texas. Yes, there’s plenty of space there … and time.
JOHN
(anxious to leave now)
That’s nice. Why, we practically live right next door to each other. Well, I gotta be going now.
(stands to leave)
JOHN
(grabs his arm)
LULU
Won’t you stay a minute and buy me another drink? It feels as if I’ve been waiting forever and I’m awfully lonely.
JOHN
Lonely?! But you can’t be … wait? What is your name? You never told me.
LULU
My name?
(pauses)
I’m whomever you want me to be, John. I’m your private dancer, you see.
JOHN
(nervous again)
My pri … well that sounds crazy¸ you know! You gotta have your own name. I can’t give you one.
(Band plays Glen Miller’s “In the Mood” – the soldiers and girls dance)
LULU
Do you want to dance?
JOHN
No … I …
LULU
(smiles sweetly into his face and lays her hand on his arm)
No charge, John. Please. I have to earn my keep or I can’t go … home, you see. We must all earn our way home … John.
JOHN
Oh, alright! I don’t like to see a pretty girl such as yourself put out. But I really must go afterward.
LULU
Yes, you will go … afterwards.
(they dance in the middle of the crowd – John is beginning to enjoy himself as they twirl around to “In the Mood”; LuLu takes out the small pocket knife and stabs him in the heart where her head had laid as they embraced in the dance; no one notices his body fall to the ground)
LULU
It seems we’ve run out of time after all, Jimmy.
(LuLu walks back to the bar, blood dripping from the knife onto the dance floor creating a trail)
BARTENDER
What happened? Wasn’t that him?
LULU
(looking earnestly at the door to the club)
No. He didn’t even know my name.
BARTENDER
Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow night! Another drink?
LULU
(slides a quarter absentmindedly towards him as she eyes the clock once more)
Yes. Maybe.
(the end)
Chamberlain rose from his walnut-framed bed. He was a thirty-two year old, blond man with gray eyes, solidly built and ruggedly handsome. His butler had already drawn the silk curtains, and a cup of espresso flavored with fresh cream and lemon peel, placed on his matching walnut dresser.
He pushed the first button embedded in his nightstand. The hovering computer screen facing his bed powered up, and his personal assistant Helena appeared on the 25 inch screen. Her skin was the color of tanned coconut, and she had blue eyes, with a wide nose and full lips. Her thick, black hair was pulled back in a bun.
The Free World Genetics Division was working on a formula to breed out dark skin and negroid features from the coming generations. Chamberlain smirked. I sure hope not. I like my meat dark... Still, that's not my call. Space Travel and planet colonization— now that's my specialty.
Helena's lips turned up in a professional smile. “Good morning, Mr. Paschal.”
He sipped his coffee. “Good morning, sweetness; what do we have on the menu today?”
“You're free until noon, sir. At 12 pm, you're having lunch with Senator Schuyler to discuss financing the experimental Probe flights.” Her smile widened. “And you're going to sell hard, because they're going to cost billions.”
Chamberlain scowled. “Despite the fact that we still need to find a planet to sustain human life —and an alien species willing to share. We know they're out there! But I swear they're running from us.”
Helena raised an eyebrow. “If you were them, wouldn't you run? I mean, we've destroyed our own ecosystem.”
“Careful baby, keep that kind of talk up and you won't get a raise.”
The secretary smiled flirtatiously and said nothing. She was extremely talented and they'd worked as a team for years. She could take liberties from time to time. True, there were hundreds he could replace her with, but it would take too long to train them; and she knew him better than he knew himself.
Good thing I'm too light to suit his taste, thought Helena.
Chamberlain grinned back. “Is that it?”
“No sir. At three you're meeting with General Pica, of Intergalactic Space Travel to inspect the experimental Probe ship technology and meet the new recruits.
“At 6:00 you have to meet with the head of Colonization and Earth Housing, Natalie. I don't have a last name for her.”
Chamberlain furrowed his handsome face. “Keep working on it...Is that it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good deal. Find a suitable place for me and Schuyler to have lunch.”
Helena flashed her professional smile again. “I email the reservations to you within 30 minutes—along with the notes for your first meeting.”
“Helena, you're a doll.”
She chuckled. “Yes, I know.” The screen went dark.
Chamberlain pushed the second button on his nightstand. “Good morning, Mr. Paschal,” a voice on the intercom above the table responded.
“Good morning Darla, I'll be down in 30 minutes.”
“Yes sir. Breakfast will be ready.”
He stepped into the bathroom to the right of his bed for a shower. He finished, and emerged, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. His suit, shirt and shoes were already lying neatly across a made bed.
Chamberlain dressed and headed downstairs through a spacious hallway to his dining room, where his breakfast of porridge, toast and eggs was waiting. It was, of course, still warm. He had a very efficient staff.
* * *
Chamberlain called his driver, Sammy, using his combination watch and wrist band. By the time he stepped outside, his sedan was in the circular driveway.
Sammy, a heavy set black man, got out and opened the door for him. “Good morning, Mr. Paschal.”
“Hello Sammy,” he slid inside.
“Where to sir?”
“Let's take a drive into the city.”
“Very good, sir.”
Sammy circled the driveway and drove the twenty miles through his gated community. Miles overhead a livid orange and black sky glared down on them through the dome ceiling. Once the chauffeur reached the exit, he keyed in the code. Double doors slid open to his left and right, and Sammy drove out. Immediately, a cloud of mutant bees swarmed over the car, and the chauffeur pushed another button on the dash: electrifying the car. Dozens of them were fried, and the rest flew off for less dangerous territory.
Chamberlain lived in a 30 room mansion. He had no wife, children and his parents, who'd both been scientists, were dead. But they'd been kind enough to leave him a hefty inheritance, and the keys to a burgeoning astronautics empire.
Which was very fortunate for him, because the Earth was dying.
The planet's waters were polluted (he had his decontaminated and shipped in). Ninety percent of the animal population was dead, and the rest were horribly mutated. The air was poison. And the weather...the weather was a miasma of storms, heat waves and solar flares—shifting from 50 degrees to 90 within the space of a day.
The rich, like him, lived in gated communities under domes. Their purchased oxygen was pumped in. Earthlings without jobs wandered the streets, panhandling, and squatting in deserted building—those that hadn't been already demolished.
Those with jobs also lived under domes, but in rooming houses with rationed water and oxygen; the rest of their earnings going toward rent and food. This was with the exception of a fortunate few like Helena who thrived as personal secretaries, chefs, maids, butlers...
And astronauts.
Space cadets were plucked and groomed from the age of 12 for their exceptional math and science abilities. By eighteen, they were eligible for Space academy training as pilots and technicians. Once they graduated they were given their pick of the finest dome apartments, and other niceties.
Astronauts were quite simply Earth's elite. For they held the future of humanity in their hands...
To be continued
Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers 2012 all rights reserved
Washington Post: Shuttle Flies Over Washington DC
Kepler...and Tatooine. They went there. 
The Christian Science Monitor: NASA's Kepler observatory to continue hunt for strange new worlds
Described in the April 5, 2012, issue of Nature,* the JILA laser prototype relies on a million rubidium atoms doing a sort of synchronized line dance to produce a dim beam of deep red laser light. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder (CU).
JILA/NIST physicist James Thompson says the new laser is based on a powerful engineering technique called "phased arrays" in which electromagnetic waves from a large group of identical antennas are carefully synchronized to build a combined wave with special useful features that are not possible otherwise.
NIST: JILA Team Demonstrates 'A New Way of Lasing': A 'Superradiant' Laser
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| Read the full bios here |
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| Album CD. Isn't it pretty?! |
Governor-General Jaqualik could have delegated command of the Silhouette battle ship he was on board to a capable subordinate. He huffed at the thought. As the one hundred ships of his vaunted Border Fleet neared the rebel occupied moon called Ponrek Point, Jaqualik gave in to a tingle of joy. How many years had it been since he had personally commanded a mission as pivotable to his career as this one? Dribik succeeded in eliminating a notorious terrorist and traitor. Now it was left to Jaqualik to wipe out the organization that its deseased leader had spawned.
“Surface readings are active,” an officer at the scan station announced. “I’m getting massive vehicle mobilizations and heightened power surges indicative of weapons going online.”
Jaqualik, standing beside his command post at the lowest level of the bridge, looked up at the elevated scan station. “Excellent,” he said to the station’s occupant. Any doubt he may have had as to whether the GLFF base was actually on that drab looking slab of a moon had been effectively put to rest.
Of course where the Watch Department and its director were concerned, Jaqualik shouldn’t have had a morsel of doubt to begin with.
“Weapons range in ten seconds,” Olek, his first officer reported, glancing up from the table top near-space status screen. “Orbital defense satellites are deploying.”
No sooner had he said that did Ponrek Point’s higher orbital plain light up with the flaring discharges of over three thousand satellite-mounted pulse cannons. Highly condensed bursts of energy whipped out into space, streaking toward the inbound Opheren ships like a horde of avenging angels.
The Silhouettes at the forefront of the formation opened up with responding volleys. First, they fired molecular missiles in the paths of the energy bursts. The missiles detonated at mid point, releasing vaperous compounds. Well over ninety percent of the energy bursts plunged into white cloudy mists formed by the molecular missiles and dissipated as if they were doused in an ocean. Which, essentially is what the compounds were: heavily fortified water capable of negating the effects of energy based weapons.
A rapidly forming cloud from thousands of pulse/missile impacts billowed across the front of the Silhouette line. Dozens of ships disappeared in the artificial cumulus, reappearing on the other side or as parts of the cloud began to fade.
The Silhouettes fired a second wave of missiles, targeting the satellites. Brutally simplistic affairs those missiles were. The missiles exploded when in close proximity to their targets. Only, instead of releasing water clouds, they released swarms of ball bearings. Every satellite directed toward the invading fleet was flayed to its core components in a savage typhoon of hyper accelerated metal spheres. In seconds, the satellite ring girding Ponrek Point fell apart like an unsnapped belt and died in a churning compression of hot reactor-spawned fury.
“Arm planet missiles,” Jaqualik commanded. He fixed a borderline crazed look on his second-in-command. “Have you pinpointed their piss hole of a base?”
“We have,” replied Olek.
“Good, open fire!”
Triangular missiles the size of heavy fighter craft and armed with neutron warheads exited every ship in the Opheren force. They descended upon the moon, their guidance computers directing them toward the target that sprawled beneath its atmospheric shroud.
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| Technology Review |
That's triggered more than a little green-eyed jealousy from physicists and engineers who would like to have molecular machines at their own beck and call. So there's no small interest in developing molecular devices that can be easily harnessed to do the job.
Today, Jin Zhang at the University of California Los Angeles and a few pals say they've identified a machine that fits the bill.
A couple of year ago, chemists discovered that groups of 13 or 19 boron molecules form into concentric rings that can rotate independently, rather like the piston in a rotary Wankel engine. Because of this, they quickly picked up the moniker "molecular Wankel engines". The only question was how to power them.
Physics arXiv: Photo-driven Molecular Wankel Engine, B13+
Have you ever been been playing video games and woundered how in the world they make these stunning levels? It almost seems magical how the levels in the game are made, but its far from magic! A Lot of blood,sweat, and tears are poured into those levels. But, there are major tools that make this process easy somewhat. I'm taking about the game engines baby! A game engine is set of tools already programmed out the box! Simaler to a framework for the internet coders like jQuery or jQuery moblie. I'm going to talk about three of these engines, but be forewarned. Even though these are pre-programmed tools for game development use, these engines are very powerful and can be very hard understand without broud understanding of multiple disciplens in the digital and fine arts. Before any polygon is layed out, a lot of work goes into the planning stages (or pre-production). It's best to splash out all of your ideas in a mind-mapping format. Once your ideas are out of your head and onto paper you can start layout your map.
Now with you're data planed out you need to start blocking in the your level, lets look at the easiest engine to use and then the most powerful!
The Unity Game Engine is one of the most flexible game engines on the market. It has support for many 3D modeling programs like 3Ds Max and Maya. Along with this great terrian creation tools, support for shaders and normal maps, programming in JavaScipt, C#, and Boo. There is also support many audio and video formats, great particle effects tools, and much more! Unity is also free to use, but there is also pro addition worth $1,500. This such a great entry level engine its hard not to reccomend it!
When Unity begins to get small for you (really?) then check out the Cry Engine! They named this engine right because of the sheer graphical power this thing has is unbelievable! Like Unity, the Cry Engine has support Maya and such programs, but at much stricter and more powerful way for example; a more powerful audio system (7.1 anyone?) S-3D veiwing, the sandbox editer, and more!
The Unreal Engine is pretty much the most popular engine to date. Epic Games really put a lot of pain into making this engine avalible to all that wish it. The Unreal Enigne is just as powerful as the Cry Engine, but Unreal is used for more game productions then Cry. This has ton of features, but also has support for Adobe Flash! Yes, the means that all Ureal developed games can be exportable to Flash in full 3D Glory!
As you can you can see, these are very powerful tools! I think it's a good idea for you to take each tool step-by-step, and be ready to have an understanding of programming fundamentals. These tools give you a great chance to make amazing games! Make sure you done your're homework by going to sites like http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/. Be safe and keep gaming!
All Links:
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/
Go to:
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| Matthew J. Laznicka - Popular Mechanics |
Read more: Why We Need Big, Bold Science Fiction - Popular Mechanics
See also: FutureMorphdotorg
High-gain nuclear fusion could be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields, according to a series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National Laboratories.The simulations show the release of output energy that was, remarkably, many times greater than the energy fed into the container's liner. The method appears to be 50 times more efficient than using X-rays—a previous favorite at Sandia—to drive implosions of targeted materials to create fusion conditions.
"People didn't think there was a high-gain option for magnetized inertial fusion (MIF) but these numerical simulations show there is," said Sandia researcher Steve Slutz, the paper's lead author. "Now we have to see if nature will let us do it. In principle, we don't know why we can't."
High-gain fusion means getting substantially more energy out of a material than is put into it. Inertial refers to the compression in situ over nanoseconds of a small amount of targeted fuel.
"He said: 'Baby you know what I like, and I love showing you time after time. Let me give you my lips—anywhere I want to put them on you, so romantic and very intimate.'
She said: 'Daddy, I love doing what’s right to you—giving you all of me—being freaky and naughty to make you happy.'
Unexpectedly, she lifted up her miniskirt: showing her thick, smooth thighs and fire-engine red panties and boots. She walked slowly over to him, and put her arms around his neck..."
Come into the garden of United Souls. With his second volume Quinton Veal gives us erotic fiction and poetry just for lovers.
Sit back, relax and enjoy...
Cover art and design by Quinton Veal
Check out my new book United Souls: Stories and Poetry of Seduction contact me at quintonveal@hotmail.com
available too at amazon & barnes and noble
Okay. Today is a pretty good day, the manuscript for the second installment of my Darkside Trilogy is completed, subject to some rigorous editing.
For those who do not know, The Darkside Trilogy tells the story of what happens in the United States of America when the country discovers that Black folks have been secretly living on the backside of the moon since before Neil Armstrong set foot there.
Volume One, Discovery, tells the story from the viewpoint of an unsuspecting earth, combining a forty year missing persons trend consisting exclusively of African Americans, an advanced aircraft shot down in the Middle East, a newly invented gravitation anomaly detector, and an asteroid inbound toward Earth's orbit originating in the asteroid belt out past Mars.
Volume Two, Conception, hot off the word processor, tells the forty year story of the young man who discovered a startling principle of physics that permits him to control the force of gravity, and the people he collects along the way toward making this secret settlement on the moon.
The thing that made me laugh when I typed the last words in the manuscript tonight was the slight despair when I started Chapter 1 and saw the long, uphill climb ahead in October.
Tonight I celebrate the first phase in the trip to publication. Now the editing begins. However, I fully expect to see it available for sale in early summer...
WmH
April 15this the day! Countdown at the link below.
Or...you can commiserate over your taxes (ahem: like me). 
More at: PhDComicsdotcom/movie
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| Brookhaven National Laboratory |
The new research — reported online in Physical Review Letters March 30, 2012 — helps nail down the exact process of kaon decay, and is also inspiring the development of a new generation of supercomputers that will allow the next step in this research.
BNL: Supercomputing the Difference between Matter and Antimatter
Good morning fam:
I just wanted to let everyone know that my 4th and 5th novels Immortal IV: Collision of Worlds and The Switch II: Clockwork are now available at amazon and barnes and noble! Readers can also contact me for purchase :)
The long awaited sequel to the Switch! Includes Book 1 & 2
"As she looked on, the target unzipped his jumpsuit and pushed it down. His blond companion sauntered over to his desk, and slipped off her pants..."
York is a city of contradictions. Women are hard-pressed for lovers, because lovemaking can be dangerous. The upper city is powered by computers, the underground by steam. And the wealthy don't work for a living, underdwellers do it for them.
But certain underdwellers have a big problem with this arrangement. And so does the time keeper.
Welcome to the Revolution...
Cover art and design by Quinton Veal
Danita Henries awoke at the helm of her Star Sprinter, grimacing as pain roared through her head like a tornado. She leaned back in her chair, massaging the ache out of her skull until the worst of the storm subsided. Reaching up to an overhead compartment, she pulled out a first aid container, opened it, took out a thin blue tube, and popped a pain tab. She placed the tab on the tip of her tongue and felt it dissolve in her mouth. The pain vanished in seconds, enabling Danita to focus on her current predicament.
The last thing she remembered was eluding a raider ambush by entering a nebula. There was a reason why those raiders didn’t follow her into the cloud. Raider anti-ship missiles degraded her shield, increasing the Sprinter’s vulnerability to the nebula’s harsh radiation. When her instruments went haywire and her screens turned fuzzy, thoughts of frying pans and fire flashed through her mind.
She undid her restraint harness and stood, stretching out kinks, making sure the rest of her was whole and fully functional. Then she checked her panel, tapping buttons to get her instruments active. Her electronics were quiet as a graveyard.
She hit the panel in frustration, but in so doing the forward monitor sparked to life.
A surface of silvery grass popped on the screen, stretching to a treeline in the near distance. Beyond the treeline loomed a cluster of ivory colored buildings.
Danita’s felt relieved that she at least crashlanded on a world appearing to harbor higher life, judging by the structures. Apprehension poured a damper on that relief, though. What if the higher life was hostile?
She mulled over the possibility as she removed a console access panel and fiddled with a few relays. Additional screens came on.
Danita checked the diagnostic readout. Most of the Sprinter’s drive capacitors were damaged in the landing…such as it was. Five thrusters were down along with a series of burnt out optics.
No worries. Well…mostly. She was a good enough mechanic where she could effect necessary repairs. But she needed parts. They didn’t have to be perfect, just compatible.
Danita eyed the buildings on the screen, rubbing a hand through the woolen thickness of her jet-black hair. It was time to find out how friendly and generous the locals were.
Ten minutes later, Danita departed the Sprinter, wearing a nanotube-lined flak vest and a mirror tinted sun visor. She carried a Nova-Cell carbine, with a Durex 12 assault pistol holstered on her right hip. The weapons belt around her waist accommodated a combat blade, solid munitions clips, a brace of grenades, and a first aid pouch.
Preparation is the first rule of self preservation. She always harkened back to those words prior to a new venture. Words of wisdom from a revered combat trainer.
Danita’s mood brightened in recollection as she tread cautiously through stiff, chafing knee high grass.
The sky twirled with every color in the spectrum. The same blaze of colors as the nebula, except the rays of a bright sun ameliorated its visual intensity.
According to the Sprinter’s computer, this world didn’t have much of an ozone layer.
Before stepping outside, Danita slathered a special sunblock on exposed parts of her ebon skin to protect against the environment’s heightened radiation. Her well-toned arms gleamed with the gel based application.
As Danita neared the stand of towering red-leaf trees she slowed.
There were bodies tied to the trunks of five trees. She paused, easing her carbine to firing position before resuming her approach. She spotted additional bodies, counting up to thirty. The corpses had been gutted and from their obvious dessication, drained of their life fluids.
A low keen graced Danita’s ears.
She shifted to the sound’s source and saw that one of the victims was alive.
The local stood about her height, bearing a slender build topped by a large, oval head embedded with tiny facial features. Its head lolled unsteadily, its distended eyes half lidded.
Thin chains coiled around the victim, pressing it securely to the tree.
Danita approached the local, took out her blade and hacked.
Solid metal links gave way to her blade’s carbon edge. The chains dropped.
Danita clutched the local, easing it gently to the ground.
The local’s eyes fell on her and widened, revealing dark, green pupil less orbs.
“Don’t worry,” Danita soothed. “You’re alright now.”
The local’s gaze traveled past her.
A sound of engines reached her ears. Danita twisted about to see inbound creatures riding grayish, sloped, open top hover vehicles resembling ancient Earth snow sleds.
Up to a dozen sleds zeroed in on her.
The local tried to clamber away as Danita rose, her carbine leveled upon the intruders.
She deliberated on whether she should hold fire until the arrivals’ intentions were determined.
The foremost sled decelerated in front of her.
The pilots’ purplish body was a formless, undulating blob, layered with a network of overlapping, pulsating veins. Six spindly arms, ending in clawed three fingered hands, sprouted from its body, giving the thing an insect-like appearance. A pair of glistening nubs that may have been eyes poked from the top of its body.
Bending its forelegs, the creature leapt from its sled toward Danita.
While airborne, black, suction-covered, tentacles slithered from an orifice in its torso, grasping Danita’s left arm.
At that point, the creatures’ intentions were clear enough.
Danita wasted no time dousing her opponent’s center mass in an incandescent riptide of carbine fire.
