ISSUE.

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 ISSUE 55

v55a

TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 Santa’s Spaceship 64 THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
by Clinton Lawrence Season Three, Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!
by Johne Cook
4 First Film
by Alexander Field 70 RGR Author Bios
11 Doors Through the Places You Live
by Michael Merriam
17 The Grand Illusion: A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
by Andy Heizeler
24 RGR REVIEWS
28 This Raygun For Hire: Forever Eden
by John M. Whalen
39 ARTIST INTERVIEW
Juha Järvinen, Finland
41 TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN, The Ties That Bind, Part Four
by Justin R. Macumber
46 Calamity’s Child, Chapter 8
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
by M. Keaton
54 THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
60 DEUCES WILD, Season Two Ray Gun Revival Issue 54 © 2009 by Double-edged Publishing,
Holding Pattern a Memphis, Tennssee-based non-profit publisher.
by L. S. King

OVERLORDS (FOUNDERS/EDITORS) Serial Authors M Keaton, Keanan Brand. Justin R. Macumber

Johne Cook, L. S. King, Paul Christian Glenn
Cover Art
Matthew Winslow Book Reviews Editor “Spectral” by Juha Järvinen
Shannon McNear Lord High Advisor, Grammar Consultant, Listening Ear for Overlord Lee
Paul Christian Glenn - PR, Executive Tiebreaker, Desktop Publishing Bill Snodgrass Site host, Web-Net Solutions, admin, webmaster, database admin,
L. S. King - Lord High Editor, proofreader, beloved nag, muse, webmistress mentor, confidante, liaison – Double-edged Publishing
Johne Cook - art wrangler, desktop publishing, chief cook and bottle washer
Special Thanks
Submissions Editors John M. Whalen, Alice M. Roelke, Martin Turton Ray Gun Revival logo design by Hatchbox Creative

Page 1

Santa’s Spaceship
by Clinton Lawrence
J essica was looking out the win-
dow at Proxima Centauri. The red
dwarf hovered just over the moun-
tains on the horizon, shining like a
scarlet beacon. A branch from the
bright violet Christmas tree brushed
her cheek. This was her seventh
Christmas, and she could remember
all but her first.
Her father walked up behind her,
and she turned at the sound of his
steps.
“I was looking at the stars,” she
said as she released the curtain and
stepped over one of her presents.
Her father smiled. “You weren’t
snooping around in your packages,
were you?”
“No. Will you tell me a Christmas
story?”
“Of course. How would like to
hear the story of Santa Claus?”
“Who is Santa Claus?”
“I see you need a history lesson,”
her father said. “On Earth, all the
children know about Santa Claus.
Long ago, when all people still lived
on Earth, Santa Claus would come
every Christmas Eve, and at exactly
midnight, he would leave presents
for all the good children under the
Christmas tree. No one ever saw
him, but they knew about him.”
Santa's Spaceship, by Clinton Lawrence
“How did he reach every house?”
“He lived at the North Pole, and
he used a sleigh pulled by rein-
deer. The sleigh flew through the
sky and landed on the rooftop of
each house. Santa would then take
the presents reserved for that fam-
ily out of the sleigh and slide down
the chimney very quietly so that he
could put the presents under the
tree without waking anyone. This
worked very well until humans first
left Earth. Neither Santa Claus nor
the reindeer could fly through a
vacuum.”
“What did he do?”
“I told you he lived at the North
Pole. Living with him were elves
who built the toys he gave away for
Christmas. He told his elves to build
a spaceship for him so that he could
reach the space colonies. Of course,
he had some special requirements,
such as a docking mechanism that
couldn’t be detected. He also had to
have a new generation of reindeer
genetically altered to serve as his
crew. As all this was occurring, more
colonies were established, and they
were farther from Earth than ever.
He had to have new, faster engines
built for the spaceship, and eventu-
ally he gave up trying to reach the
colonies on Christmas Eve. He would
take care of them in the weeks be-
fore Christmas, and save the Earth
for the traditional Christmas Eve
flight. And then the Yasuko Drive
was invented, and with it the hope
of expanding civilization beyond the
Solar system.”
“We learned about the Yasuko
Drive in school last week.”
“Well, you know how important
it was. The first true interstellar
probes discovered this world and
one circling Tau Ceti that seemed
suitable for habitation. A coloniz-
ing ship carrying our ancestors set
out for Alpha Centauri twenty years
later, with an estimated travel time
of seventeen years. And Santa Claus
had to find some way of delivering
presents to the children on the Star-
flower. He needed a ship that could
overtake it and return in time to de-
liver the presents and still leave him
time to deliver gifts to the rest of the
space colonies and Earth. He turned
to his elves again with his problem,
and a month before Christmas, they
had a new spaceship ready, with the
sleigh and reindeer and Santa him-
self painted on the side. It rested on
the ice on a long pair of skis.
“’Will it get me to Alpha Centauri
ISSUE 55
and back in a week?’ Santa asked
the elves.
“’No problem,’ the elves said.
‘We built the finest faster-than-light
drive imaginable.’”
“Wait a minute,” Jessica inter-
rupted. “Doesn’t the law of special
relativity forbid FTL travel?”
“I’m getting to that. Anyway,
Santa tried it out. He climbed the
ladder into the spaceship, and the
reindeer followed. An elf gave San-
ta the instruction manual and told
the reindeer how to start the ship
and maneuver it. Then the engines
started and the ship lifted off the
ground. In minutes, they were in
empty space. They flew all the way
out to Pluto and around the Solar
system three times, and got back to
the North Pole in twenty minutes.
Most of the time spent was for take-
off and landing.
“’This is great,’ Santa told the
elves. ‘Of course, you better get to
building the toys. There’s not much
time left.’ You see, the elves had
spent all year on the spaceship,
and had not started building the
presents yet. The spaceship wasn’t
much good without the presents.
So the elves worked all day and all
night, and barely finished one gift
Page 2

per child by the deadline. They were
all simple toys, and it was a bleak
year for the children, but Santa
promised that they would have the
best Christmas ever the next year.
The elves, on the other hand, had
a big party to celebrate the end of
their ordeal.
“As Santa Claus prepared to
leave, he did not yet know this, but
a special agency exists to enforce
the laws of the universe. The agency
is best known as the Cosmocops.
Santa’s spaceship definitely violated
the law of special relativity, as you
noted, by being able to go faster
than the speed of light.”
“Well everyone should know
that,” Jessica said. “Santa Claus did
pass preschool, didn’t he?”
“You have to remember, Jessica,
that Santa Claus is almost as old as
Christmas itself. He was an old man
delivering presents before Coper-
nicus discovered that the Earth re-
volves around the Sun.”
“Well, surely he should have read
it somewhere. Or Einstein could
have told him. Or the elves, they
must have known.”
“The elves were engineers, not
physicists,” her father said. “All they
cared about was whether they could
make something work. The point is
that the Cosmocops detected a dis-
turbance in the space-time continu-
Santa's Spaceship, by Clinton Lawrence
um near Earth and promptly sent a
patrol to investigate.
“Santa was just loading the space-
ship when the Cosmocops entered
Solar orbit. After calculating the po-
sition of the Starflower, he ordered
the ship to take off, and it did, and
as soon as they engaged the FTL
drive, the Cosmocops docked with
them and forced open the door.
“’Who are you?’ Santa demand-
ed.
“’Cosmocops,’ they said. ‘Stay
where you are. You are in serious vi-
olation of the laws of this universe,
and we have no choice but to arrest
you and seize your ship as evidence.’
“Santa cooperated, having no
other choice, but he wiped a tear
from his cheek as the Cosmocops
marched him and the reindeer into
jail cells in their ship.”
“Didn’t they even tell him what
law he broke?” Jessica asked.
“Yes. I forgot that part. Anyway,
they took him to a planet orbiting
Sirius for trial. He and his reindeer
had to stand in an empty room, and
the judge was only a voice that filled
the chamber.
“’You have been accused of
speeding,’ the judge said. ‘How do
you plead?’
“’Ignorance,’ Santa replied. ‘I had
no idea we were breaking the laws
of the universe.’
“’Nonsense,’ the judge said.
‘These laws are well known on your
planet and have been for several
generations. We cannot allow bar-
barians from primitive worlds to
cause the kinds of cosmological dis-
ruptions you are responsible for just
because you claim ignorance. You
are guilty as charged and sentenced
to confinement for one galactic year
in a black hole.’
“’But I was only doing it so all the
children would have presents at
Christmas,’ Santa protested.
“’No excuse,’ the judge said. ‘Let
their parents give them presents.
Take him away.’
“Santa thought as he was led
away that he would like to give the
judge three ghosts for Christmas.
But the Cosmocops let him send a
message back to Earth (it took al-
most nine years to get there, of
course), informing us of the situa-
tion and instructing all to act as his
substitute, though at least for Earth,
Mrs. Claus filled in. And you know
what happened then?”
“What?”
“The people of Earth formed
a protest movement to get Santa
freed. They called themselves the
Santanistas, and they beamed their
plea throughout the cosmos. And
the ruler of the universe heard it
and freed Santa on the condition
ISSUE 55
that he never build or fly another
faster-than-light vehicle. So Santa
Claus once again delivers gifts to
the children of the Solar system, but
here, we parents still have to act as
his substitute.”
Jessica’s father waited for a few
seconds, and then asked, “Well,
what did you think of that story?”
“That’s one of the dumbest sto-
ries you’ve ever told me,” Jessica
said. “If Santa Claus would have
been intelligent, he would have just
cloned himself ahead of time and
trained his clone to carry on his work
on other worlds. Then he wouldn’t
have had to build a faster-than-light
drive, and he wouldn’t have broken
the laws of the universe.”
Jessica’s father laughed. “I’ll try
to do better next time. I think din-
ner is almost ready.”
Page 3

First Film
by Alexander Field
The digital billboard flickered to mid stream, and onto a flaming ve-
life with a small pop, the screen hicle riddled with suit-clad bad guys,
humming on, and then bang! a pow- Fargrave’s selective audio synapse
erful explosion leapt out into three- panged annoyingly, pestering him
dimensional space, like a fireworks to turn the sound back on.
display spitting out of a gargantuan He ignored it, and instead
set painting, only five-hundred feet watched his cigarette burn down.
up in the air. It was hard not to be jealous of Mc-
As the fireball disappeared, Naulty’s budget, his vision and his
flames roiling upward, the billboard multi-dimensional campaign; a slo-
lit up and launched into the movie gan like Raindown Justice crossed
trailer for Raindown Justice. The over into so many audiences that
trailer opened with a massive explo- his message could play in both an
sion as subway cars crashed into a action film and a sensitive TV ad
spiked barricade at high speed and about immigration.
then a half dozen flycars slammed Maybe Mantrove is right, Far-
sideways into one another as they grave thought. This is probably the
sped along the superhighway best way.
stream. He looked back up at the billboard
This looked like an expensive as the trailer wrapped up with more
movie. explosions and a series of words de-
Fargrave Goodman tapped a claring the film’s critical acclaim lit
dash of cigarette ash into the slag up the screen: “Superb,” “McNaulty
tray hanging off the small balcony Strikes Again!” though it wasn’t
on which he stood. He leaned on clear who had said what. Fargrave
the railing with his elbows, switch- allowed his selective audio synapse
ing off his selective audio synapse to flick back on just as McNaulty’s
and watching the move trailer play rattled off a one-liner from the back
on in silence. For the rest of the ad- of a meaty, green tank, “McNaulty’s
vertisement, during which he saw justice will hit the streets!”
McNaulty, Richard McNaulty, presi- He dropped his cigarette into
dent of the United States, leaping the small tray and watched it melt
off a chromed-piped floatbike in and disappear. In the early evening
First Film, by Alexander Field
light, he watched the superhigh-
way stream pass beneath the giant
billboard, a trail of cars that looked
like a string of cheery Christmas
tree lights circling the city from five
hundred feet up. He wondered how
much it would cost to run a movie
trailer on that billboard then, guess-
ing that it was beyond his budget,
he banished the thought from his
mind.
He took a deep breath and
stepped through the heavy sound-
proofed door into the sound stage,
taking the iron stairs down the back
wall to the stage floor where gaffers
were preparing some rusty old float
lights at varying heights arranged
around a huge set piece.
He looked down at the small
crew, most of them unpaid univer-
sity students, his cameraman, Señor
Andas, the director and Mantrove,
his producer and father‘n’law, the
man who had imagined up the story
for this infernal little venture. As far
as equipment was concerned, they
had precious few cameras, all rent-
ed, a set of old lights, some dingy
microphones and booms, a rickety
track for the makeshift dolly, and a
rented deck that had been digitally
recording their efforts all week long.
He knew that the set of Raindown
Justice looked nothing like this.
The focus of the crew’s efforts
on the final scene was a towering
twenty-foot posifoam sculpture of
ISSUE 55
a snowy cliff face, all jutting ledges
and gnarled outcroppings topped
by a dangerous looking peak. The
cliff sat directly in front of a matte
painting of a sprawling white-moun-
tain range, a diving sun, and a sky of
deep reds and oranges with hints of
impending dark.
Mantrove had lassoed an art stu-
dent into creating the backdrop as
an art project.
At the back of the stage, Man-
trove showed Señor Andas, through
a square lens formed by his fingers,
just how he felt the next shot should
go. Señor Andas, the film’s director
and a very talented man, watched
with his eyebrows raised, his eyes
distant.
“Are we ready to shoot this
thing?” Fargrave said as he ap-
proached Andas and Mantrove.
“C’mon dad, let Andas direct this
picture. Let’s get this movie in the
can.”
“Mr. Governor!” Andas said. “We
are ready for you, yes. Why don’t
you take your place on ledge of the
cliff and we’ll get Karla up there
with you so we can finish this thing
with power! And here, put on these
camglasses so we can capture the
opposite angle.”
“All right Andas, let’s get it done
and get out of here by midnight.
And stop calling me Mr. Governor,”
Fargrave said, putting on the glass-
es.
Page 4

“Fargrave, come here,” Mantrove
took his arm. “When you say that
last line, steel your eyes, you know,
McNaulty always does that, and
kind of boom it out, you know, like
‘I’m going to pulverize Peterson and
put a ‘Man’ back in the governor’s
mansion!’ Can you say it like that?”
All Fargrave’s doubts resurfaced
in an instant. Why am I doing this?
He thought. He had seen the suc-
cess that the president had had per-
fecting the art of agitprop, and he
knew that movies these days could
be cheaper to make than most cam-
paign bus tours but something in-
side him didn’t feel right. Maybe he
wasn’t supposed to go into politics
after all.
“I’ve been thinking about that
line,” he replied. “It needs to be
more honest, this whole film needs
to be more sincere, it needs to be
about me, do you know what I
mean, not about some caricature of
me. Don’t you think?”
Mantrove laughed heartily, as if a
four-year old had just told him how
the clouds look like teddy bears. He
put his hand on Fargrave’s shoulder
and walked him slowly away from
the set. “Listen, if you really want to
be the next governor of this state, if
you really want to help people, we
need to play the game, you need to
create a persona that people can re-
First Film, by Alexander Field
late to.”
Fargrave stopped. “All right then,
let me say something different. How
about this, I could say, ‘Karla, I’m go-
ing to help change this state. I just
want the people who live here, to
live better.’ Say it from my heart,
with some passion and sincerity.”
“Hmmm,” Mantrove looked at
him. “That could work, empathetic,
a man of the people, a robin hood
swooping into the political machin-
ery with a wrench, not to jam it, but
to fix it right up. I think that could
work Fargrave. But why don’t we go
with the first line in this film, and
when we make your sequel, in the
next election, we’ll use that as the
theme. Show that you’ve got some
depth, show that you’ve grown.
Good? People like characters who
grow, change. So the line again is
‘I’m going to pulverize Peterson and
put a “Man” back in the governor’s
mansion.’”
Fargrave sighed, frustrated with
how his first film was turning out.
“All right, let’s get this over with.”
“Mr. Governor, step up on that
cliff face, okay?” Andas called out.
Karla, his co-star, already stood on
the posifoam peak, in place and
ready to go.
Fargrave walked up to the bot-
tom of the posifoam cliff and began
to pull himself up. As he groped for
handholds and made his way along
the sculpture, he noticed that the
cliff face was lined and pocked with
tight crevices and small granite-like
grooves. The art student had been
a steal to get this thing made so
quickly. Breathing heavy, he pulled
himself to the top ledge next to
Karla, swinging both legs onto
the pseudo-summit sending small
spouts of foam dust spinning lazily
into the air.
He stood up and wiped the dust
off his pants, turning toward the
camera as he did.
Below, he saw Shon walking to-
ward the cliff face, talking rapidly—
always talking—she probably talked
on her synapse phone more often
than she talked to anyone face to
face, although that wasn’t necessar-
ily a bad trait for a campaign man-
ager.
The makeup woman stepped off
the rusty crane lift to touch up Far-
grave’s face and he tried to stand
still while she powdered the sheen
of sweat on his forehead. He over-
heard Shon say, “Please hold on,”
from below.
“Mr. Goodman, we got just word,”
Shon called from the stage floor.
“Peterson is working on something
interactive. We don’t know what it
will be exactly but our sources say
that it’s a low-end virtual game;
ISSUE 55
two-player adventure, maybe first-
person shooter. We also think he’s
working on an alliance with the
State’s Gaming Consortium that
would get the game distributed fast
and cheap, statewide.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
Fargrave called back, as the makeup
woman continued working on his
face.
“I’ve got a credible source, sir, but
it could be a plant, though that’s not
likely.”
“It sounds to me as though he’s
targeting a younger audience this
time, Fargrave,” Mantrove said,
now standing next to Shon.
“Sir, I’ve got somebody working
on scooping a copy of the game,
an independent ‘researcher,’” Shon
said with a sly grin. “We’ll see. I
don’t think it’s even finished.”
“Shon, call off your researcher,”
Fargrave said. “Remember we’re
counting on the issues here. This
guy is a slam-dunk on the state
economy. We can nail him on the
five of the top seven voter con-
cerns. Have you sent out a press re-
lease on that?”
“I’ve got a writer working on five
variations of that press release right
now, sir, one for each of our issue
priorities, but whatever we can get,
we can use,” she said. “At the very
least, I’ll get our team working on
Page 5

spinning some stories we can throw
at the press before Peterson does
any PR himself. We might be able to
sell the idea of the game being too
violent or too dull before he’s even
finished it.”
“Shon, please hear me, let’s focus
on the issues.”
“No problem, sir, focus on the is-
sues. Consider it done. A gaming de-
bacle would simply be icing on the
cake.”
“Let me know how that press
conference is shaping up for tomor-
row,” Fargrave said, but Shon was al-
ready walking away. Mantrove had
taken her arm, walking Shon back
to the small office in the back, but
she nodded her response as they
moved away.
She was a hard-working cam-
paign manager, and the woman
who convinced Fargrave to make
this film when he had balked at the
idea. “Mantrove is right,” she had
told him. “If we air it on key regional
stations, everyone in the state will
see it, and even those without TVs
will hear about it with a couple of
well-timed marketing hits.”
“Places people!” Andas called out
from below as he stepped in behind
a bay of monitors showing various
angles of their final scene.
The young actor playing the lead-
ing lady, a sculpted six-foot brunette
First Film, by Alexander Field
named Karla, stepped forward to
the edge of the mountain in full
mountain climbing regalia, and
now Fargrave was going to save her
life. He took a deep breath, settled
himself, and rolled his head around
slowly.
Then everything moved quickly.
Karla got into position below him,
poised to grab the handhold above
her, Andas grabbed his megaphone
and a pair of floating mics hovered
and darted overhead.
“Rolling,” a volunteer called out.
Andas let the stage breathe for
a long second and gave a dramatic
cue.
“Action.”
Karla reached up toward a hand-
hold as Fargrave talked her through
it.
“Be careful, darling, it’s only a
little further. You can do it,” he said.
She scurried up a little further, then
paused, and suddenly a look of
alarm came over her face.
At that moment Karla’s hand
slipped from its hold and she let
out a shriek as she slipped—until
Fargrave’s arm shot out and caught
hers in mid-slide.
The moment had been perfectly
timed in rehearsal, her feet land-
ing on the ledge below—but from
the camera’s point of view he had
caught her in a one-armed display
of brute strength.
Fargrave held Karla there for a
moment, gathering himself, then he
reached down toward her with his
other arm, locking both his hands
around her wrist, and he pulled her
up, working every moment for max-
imum effect.
He flexed his muscles, leaned
his head back, the veins in his neck
pounding with the effort. Then Karla
was on the summit with him and the
two of them were together, smiling,
hugging, and breathing deeply.
“Fargrave Goodman, you saved
my life! You’ll make such a wonder-
ful governor!”
He steeled his expression and she
melted into his half-embrace. Then
he readied himself to bestow his
father’n’law’s superfluous one-liner
upon the world.
“Darling, I’m going to pulverize
Peterson and put a ‘Man’ back in
the Governor’s mansion.”
BAAAM! A burst of hard white
light knocked everyone down. Far-
grave covered his face instinctively
as a small shockwave hit the cliff
face. Suddenly he, Karla, and the
posifoam sculpture slammed back-
wards into the painted backdrop,
the set piece shattering.
Fargrave felt himself tumbling
into large posifoam chunks, his eyes
blinking white flakes, the bitter taste
ISSUE 55
of posifoam dust on his tongue. He
hit the stage floor, landing in a bed
of foam shards as the sculpture
crumbled into chunks, breaking his
fall entirely.
His mind swam and reoriented,
seeing the set totally destroyed. He
wouldn’t have the money or the
time to rebuild any of it. At least we
got that last shot.
After the initial shock of hit-
ting the ground wore off, Fargrave
stood up, finding himself in a hov-
ering cloud of posifoam snow that
swirled and drifted around him. He
went to Karla, and helped her to her
feet; she coughed to herself but ap-
peared to be unhurt.
He turned and made his way
through the cloud toward the cam-
era setup.
He didn’t see Señor Andas, Man-
trove, or Shon. He saw movement
at the back of the sound stage—a
person darting around purposefully.
Then the person was gone. He ran
toward the back of the stage, mak-
ing his way past chunks of foam,
fallen float lights and found nothing
but more swirling foam.
“Shon? Andas?” he called. He
heard muffled replies behind him
back toward the set. Maybe they
were looking for him.
He groped around in the hazy
white aftermath until his hand met
Page 6

the catering table. He moved right
until he reached another empty
table, and time moved slowly, per-
haps because his ears rang and his
eyes blinked through the posifoam
dust trying to focus.
Wait. An empty table? The digi-
tal recording deck. Fargrave whirled
back to look at the table again. The
digital recorder deck they had rent-
ed, was gone. Then he flashed on
the movement he had seen earlier.
It had been a person, moving pur-
posefully in the midst of the posi-
foam snowfall. His mind did a back
flip. Had someone has sabotaged
the movie?
Someone had stolen his film!
# If he didn’t get the footage back,
Fargrave slammed down the door
handle and rammed his shoulder
into the back door of the sound
stage, sprinting out into the night.
Outside it was dark, the blinking
lights of the superhighway stream
flashing in the air above the city.
He looked right and left, and saw
no signs of movement. Ahead of
him there were more warehouses
like the one they had rented, most
of which were only used during the
day, meaning that most of them
were now empty of life or aban-
doned.
He ran forward cautiously, his
head swiveling as if on a tripod.
First Film, by Alexander Field
After a few moments he caught
sight of a man running. Fargrave saw
a man wearing dark clothes ducking
around a corner. Fargrave sprinted
after him.
His mind raced. This was his first
film, hours worth of footage, over a
week’s worth of work, gone. More
importantly, a large chunk of his
meager campaign budget was in-
vested in that footage. He tried to
remember if they had backed up
everything on the digital record-
er deck. Señor Andas may have
backed up the footage, but even if
they had everything from the week,
they would still be missing the final
scene on the snowy mountain face.
they would have reshoot the scene
somehow, somewhere.
Fargrave quickened his pace and
reached the corner, ducking around
it quietly, hoping to surprise the
man wherever he had gone. Turn-
ing the corner, Fargrave spied him
about two warehouse blocks away,
and it looked as though he ran for
the superhighway launch strip.
Surely the man had a car waiting in
the parking structure.
Fargrave chanced a short cut and
ducked into a side alley running as
fast as he could manage. He found
the end of the alley and scaled a
fence, landing on the other side
softly. Then he sprinted straight to-
ward the parking structure.
Fargrave could see the three level
structure ahead, three warehouses
away. He put his head down and
ran, sweat sliding down forehead
and ruining the thin layer of makeup
he wore.
That was when it occurred to him.
The saboteur wouldn’t just de-
stroy this film. He or she would give
it to someone, or sell it to Peterson.
After all, this saboteur had in pos-
session, footage that contained ev-
erything they had shot that week;
including outtakes, line mistakes
and even whole sections where Far-
grave had tried to improvise a scene
that eventually went nowhere, or
worse, ended with laughing and
cursing amongst the crew.
He tried to think like Shon for
a moment. Was there anything
on those reels that could be used
against him? There were plenty of
line mistakes and gaffs that were no
big deal normally, but it amounted
to an amazing batch of footage for
a competitor’s campaign or press
release package that the networks
would pounce on.
Fargrave groaned.
It had come to this and in a mat-
ter of moments his entire political
career had been put in jeopardy.
One moment he had been a guber-
ISSUE 55
natorial candidate of immeasur-
able strength and vast, but as yet
unknown potential. This small act
could destroy everything he, Shon
and Mantrove had worked for.
As he neared the end of the al-
ley, the parking structure loomed
before him. He had taken a chance
coming this way, betting that the
saboteur would take this route.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
He peeked out of the alley look-
ing both directions, warehouses
stretching as far as he could see.
The parking structure sat in front
of him, and beyond that, the super-
highway launch strip pealed off into
the sky—a horizontal highway that
ramped upwards, quickly morphing
into a vertical strip of roadway that
ended abruptly a hundred feet into
the air. The launch strip appeared
as wide as a skyscraper or thin as a
flagpole depending on your vantage
point.
But still, he saw nobody, no
movement, and no sound. Nothing.
Fargrave dashed toward the right
hand side of the parking structure,
hoping to catch the man off guard.
He couldn’t have gone too fast car-
rying the digital recorder, but the
man did have a head start.
Just as Fargrave began to doubt
his decision to head toward the
parking structure, he heard footfalls
Page 7

on the second floor. Fargrave ran to
the nearest stairway and took the
steps two, three at a time. He leapt
out the door on the second floor to
see a car starting up on the far side
of the structure.
Quick! Think! Where is my car?
The saboteur’s car was pulling out
of its spot fast; he could hear him
jamming the gear stick into first gear
so quickly that Fargrave guessed the
man must have seen him.
He dove back into the stairway,
taking the stairs down, four, five at a
time. He could hear the car squeal-
ing across the second floor now. He
burst out of the stairway and made
for his own car, halfway across the
first level lot. The grimy, stained
floor of the lot was slick, forcing
Fargrave to slow down to a careful
sprint. He sweated heavily now, his
shirt sticking to him, his legs starting
to throb at the sudden, prolonged
impact.
Yelling out his unlock code, his
own car door popped open just as
the saboteur’s car came into view at
the other end of the structure.
Fargrave slid into the front seat
of his two-door sedan, slammed
the door, and started the car in a
series of swift motions. The motor
roared to life and he jammed it into
reverse.
He looked at the rearview cam-
First Film, by Alexander Field
era screen when the other car sped
past, behind him. He swiveled to
look out the window and caught a
glimpse of the driver. It was a man
wearing black driving a sporty pur-
ple sedan, and driving very fast.
Fargrave kicked his car into re-
verse, pulled it out of the park-
ing spot, slammed it into drive,
and peeled out across the lot. As
he neared the exit he kicked the
car into overdrive readying for the
deafening launch onto the super-
highway—as he did so he fishtailed
through the last of the parking lot,
sliding across the concrete, correct-
ing slightly, and shot out the exit
with a lurch—close behind the pur-
ple sedan.
Both cars gathered speed quickly
and began the ascent up the launch
strip.
Just as the highway went verti-
cal, the sedan in front of him took
off with a burst of speed, shooting
up the launch strip and taking to the
air in a flurry of exhaust fumes and
a small exploding fireball.
Fargrave reached the minimum
launch speed seconds later, en-
gaged his booster, and took to the
incline abruptly, slamming up the
vertical ramp.
The superhighway stream flick-
ered in front of both of them now,
a thick braid of lights and exhaust
fumes, cars, flybikes and small air-
craft that blinked erratically and
continued on as such night and day.
He flicked on his signal, showing his
intent to enter the stream.
But before he had the chance to
dive up into the stream of cars and
flybikes, he saw the purple sedan
spin about and catapult into the
stream going the opposite direction,
a dangerous maneuver that might
have suggested he didn’t want any-
one following him.
Fargrave spun his wheel around
and followed, watching the sedan
enter the stream at high speed,
another dangerous maneuver. Far-
grave increased his speed, dodging
cars as he flew up underneath the
stream, waiting for the next avail-
able window.
A steady band of cars sped over-
head as he maintained speed and
kept an eye on the saboteur a few
cars above and ahead of him. As
he watched the stream continue
to move overhead, he checked his
rearview camera angles and saw
that there wouldn’t be an entry win-
dow between cars for some min-
utes. In a few moments he would
have to slow down because he was
flying too low and coming danger-
ously close to the hovering super-
highway markers.
Somehow the saboteur had got-
ISSUE 55
ten extremely lucky.
But Fargrave didn’t have time
to wait. He checked his rearviews,
looked out both sides, gauged his
thruster for evasive action, and
swerved his car out from under the
stream diving up and to the right
so that he was flying parallel to the
stream itself. He leveled his car with
the stream, earning a few nervous
looks from the other drivers passing
him only a few yards away.
He could no longer see the purple
sedan he was following. This was
costing him too much time!
Even more abruptly, and just be-
fore slamming into a flashing super-
highway marker, Fargrave threw his
car above the stream at high speed,
passing the cars below him.
Flying at a deafening speed, Far-
grave caught sight of the saboteur
and his purple sedan about a mile
ahead. Finally seeing an open sec-
tion in the highway up ahead, Far-
grave brought his car down, drop-
ping into the stream a few cars
behind the purple sedan.
An instant later the purple fly-
car moved to the left, and dropped
through one of the stream gates
which led into a downramp tun-
nel that would direct it to the city
streets. On the streets, the sedan
would disappear completely.
Without thinking, Fargrave took
Page 8

his car across three lanes of stream
traffic, dangerously cutting off a gi-
ant airbot trash compactor, which
heaved suddenly at the rude en-
counter, and dove his car into the
downramp tunnel. He sped through
the tunnel, blind to anyone in front
of or behind him.
Fargrave took a deep breath, pre-
pared for reentry as the tunnel guid-
ed him down. In a moment he shot
out onto the bustling city streets,
seeing no sign of the purple sedan.
As he slowed his flycar down to a
normal speed, he analyzed the road
for a moment.
He looked left, and looked right,
seeing nothing.
Valuable seconds were passing
by, and the purple sedan was get-
ting away.
Then on a hunch, Fargrave spun
his steering wheel 180 degrees,
swung his car around and drove past
the tunnel from which he had just
emerged, shooting underneath the
stream downramp and into another
part of the city. A moment later, Far-
grave caught sight of a sedan diving
down into a driveway that took the
car below street level, under a non-
descript office building. Fargrave
couldn’t tell if it was the purple se-
dan, but seeing no other similar cars
in sight, he followed.
The ramp down was dark except
First Film, by Alexander Field
for a few ineffective pale wall lights.
There was no gate or service booth
at the bottom of the driveway, and
the rest of the area was only subtly
lit. Fargrave drove slowly past a few
rows of cars, looking for movement,
scanning the dark.
When he reached the last row
of cars, he saw it. The purple se-
dan sat in the last stall in the row,
no occupant anywhere in sight. He
breathed in, feeling a burst of confi-
dence knowing that his film footage
was here in this place and that he
was going to find it.
He smiled to himself. For the first
time in the last couple weeks, he
just wanted to finish this film for
himself. He wanted to be governor
of this state.
Fargrave parked his car nearby.
He got out hurriedly and ran to
the purple sedan, looking through
the windows of the car for any trace
of the recorder. The sedan was emp-
ty.
Across the lot Fargrave saw a pri-
vate elevator, but it wasn’t moving.
There was only one other possibility
for so hasty an exit: An unmarked
service door in the back wall of the
parking lot.
Fargrave walked toward the door
confidently. He grasped the handle
and pulled the door open wide.
There at the end of a dingy concrete
sewer tunnel stood three conspicu-
ous looking men.
The men, who had been talk-
ing in quieted tones, hushed when
Fargrave opened the door, turning
toward him. The dark service dock
was not well lit, but he could see
the three men well enough, stand-
ing in a makeshift circle. He heard
the sounds of rushing water and he
noticed that one man held his digi-
tal recorder.
Fargrave wasn’t a necessarily big
man, but when he found himself in
awkward or threatening spaces, he
always tried to assume control of a
situation to turn it in his favor.
“All right, now which one of you is
going to return my recorder? You?”
Fargrave strode swiftly down the
short hallway toward the three men
as if he were entirely unsurprised
to find them there. Two of the men
stepped backwards as if caught by
surprise, while the man holding the
recorder was so dumbfounded that
he just stood stock still.
“Well, if it isn’t Fargrave Good-
man,” one of men said, in a voice
Fargrave recognized.
Fargrave stopped and looked at
one of the men, who had stepped
forward.
It was Peterson.
“Mr. Peterson, is this how you win
your elections? Is this how you took
ISSUE 55
Spangler for a ride four years ago?
You’re trying to sabotage my film.”
“Listen, Goodman, you can stop
right there,” Peterson said calmly.
“Everyone knows that political rivals
look in on each other’s campaign
strategies. That’s just the way of
politics these days, rookie.”
Peterson moved forward as he
spoke, his voice smooth, his hands
reaching out and taking the record-
er from his associate.
“That is not the way of it—that’s
called political espionage.” Fargrave
said. He moved forward, matching
Peterson’s movements and grabbed
recorder at the same moment, both
men taking hold of the box, trying
to wrest it from the other.
“You know what, it’s your word
against mine, and who are you?
You’re a political neophyte, some-
one with nothing going for you. In
this state you’re no one, Goodman.
No one.” Peterson lunged at him,
pulling on the recorder.
“That’s grounds for disqualifica-
tion,” Fargrave said through gritted
teeth, as he pulled at the recorder.
“Mr. Peterson, I’m going to have to
ask you resign your post as gover-
nor and forfeit the election to me.”
Fargrave leaned over and tried to
wrap his arms around the recorder
in a sprawling bear hug. The other
two men had slowly backed off,
Page 9

stunned by the sudden wrestling
match that had sprung up between
the politicians. Peterson leaned
backwards now, both his hands
straining on the sides of the record-
er, his face red.
“What do you think you’re do-
ing?” Peterson growled, his tone
shifting abruptly. “This is just poli-
tics! It’s not my fault you squan-
dered your campaign money on a
film so bad, you decided not to re-
lease it!”
“What are you talking about?
Your record in office hasn’t even im-
pressed your own party!” Fargrave
shot back through clenched jaws,
wrenching even harder.
“My party! I am my party, Good-
man!”
At that moment, Fargrave stepped
forward, latching his arms together
around the recorder. “Instead of
wrestling over my movie we should
be debating the issues of this cam-
paign. If you’re man enough, why
don’t we set a date and stage a
debate—the winner gets the other
person’s vote!”
At that moment, Fargrave lunged
backwards, pulling on the recorder
with all his might, almost bringing
his opponent down on top of him.
But Peterson quickly brought up his
foot and slammed his size ten-dress
shoe against Fargrave’s shoulder in
First Film, by Alexander Field
a single blunt motion.
The force of the kick loosed Far-
grave’s arms from around the re-
corder and sent it flying backwards
through the air, tumbling end over
end toward the sewer tunnel. Far-
grave watched it clatter against the
sewer wall, fall and crack, breaking
open and splashing into the water
beyond the tunnel’s end.
Fargrave jumped to his feet just
in time to watch it all bubble in the
dark water, its battery crackling and
sparking as the expensive piece of
equipment died, and sank to the
bottom. Fargrave wondered absent-
ly how much his campaign would
have to pay to replace the rented
recorder. It would probably cost him
more than he had left in his meager
budget.
“A debate?” Peterson said with a
growling laugh. “Why would anyone
want to watch that?”
Fargrave slumped to a heap on
the ground. His film was ruined. It
was irrecoverable. His campaign
budget was spent. There was no
money to reshoot the final scenes.
Fargrave didn’t care. He had always
hated the last line of his first film
anyway. That silly line Mantrove had
written about putting a man back in
the governor’s mansion. So ridicu-
lous, he thought.
The three men laughed as they
left the sewer tunnel, leaving Far-
grave slouched on the ground.
“Hey Peterson,” Fargrave said,
coming to his feet.
Peterson turned around. “What?”
“Peterson, you’ve made a mock-
ery of this state, and even if I lose,
somehow I’m going to help change
this state. The people who live here
deserve better.”
Peterson laughed out loud as he
left, his men following him back into
the parking garage.
After a few moments, a slow
smile broke on Fargrave’s face.
Maybe this is the best thing after
all, he thought. My campaign will be
about this state, not some movie or
interactive video game. He dusted
off his pants, rose, and made his
way toward the door.
# son is ruined!”
Back in the car, Fargrave called
Shon.
The first words out of her mouth
were, “Brilliant work, sir.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t get
it back. The film is six feet under wa-
ter—”
Shon cut in. “Forget the movie
Fargrave, we had a backup recorder.
Your little adventure just played on
live feeds to the entire state. Every-
one saw it unfold, Peterson, the re-
corder, your last line about the peo-
ISSUE 55
ple deserving better, everything!”
“What are you talking about?”
Fargrave said, wanting to share her
excitement, but feeling skeptical.
“Your camglasses sir,” Shon said,
and Fargrave sighed in shock taking
the glasses from his face.
“Sir, we recorded everything.
From the moment you left the
sound stage. I had Señor Andas
patch the feed from the camglasses
to an open channel, I made a few
calls and suddenly Internet feeds
across the state were broadcasting
the feed and following your chase
live. The newscasters have been re-
playing the last bit on every evening
news update for the past twenty
minutes. You don’t even need a film
now. This was your first film! He
doesn’t even know it yet, but Peter-
Page 10

Doors Through the Places You Live
by Michael Merriam
“N ice and gentle now.”
Gary Ampierre eased on
his suit’s control thrusters, steering
himself up to the derelict warship.
Through his visor he saw Terrell
Bingham, his partner for the mis-
sion, flip over and point his boots at
the hull of the vessel.
Gary mimicked the maneuver, al-
lowing the soles of his boots to gen-
tly touch the metal of the warship.
He engaged the magnetic grips,
sticking him to the hull.
Gary turned and looked back to-
ward the ship he and Terrell had
traveled from. It floated only a few
hundred meters away, illuminated
by its running lights. As he watched,
a thruster fired, keeping the salvage
vessel lined up with the old warship.
“Ampierre to Wanderer: we’re
here.”
The voice of Lycinda Tomlinson,
the ship’s owner and captain sound-
ed in his helmet. “You’ve got two
hours. Get what we came for, and
get back to the nest.”
“Check that,” Gary said. He turned
and looked at his companion. “How
do we get inside?”
“The entry hatch should be about
two meters that way.” Terrell point-
ed along the hull toward the stern
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
of the vessel, the lamp on his hel-
met illuminating the way.
They reached the hatch, sweating
in their clumsy suits from the strain
of walking with the magnetic grips
turned on.
“What do you think happened?”
Terrell asked as he knelt on the hull
to grab onto one of the manual ac-
cess switches. Across from him,
Gary did the same.
“I don’t know.” Gary pulled up
on his switch. He glanced up to find
Terrell’s switch pulled up as well.
“On three.”
Terrell nodded.
Gary counted to three, and both
men turned his switch counter-
clockwise. The hatch opened, expel-
ling particles of dust into space.
The two men climbed inside. Ter-
rell closed the hatch behind them
and gave the internal locking mech-
anism a sharp turn. They climbed
down the metal ladder and landed
on the deck below, facing the door
leading to the ship’s interior. Gary
looked through the small window
while Terrell fumbled in his kit, fi-
nally withdrawing a small electronic
device and placing it on the wall
next to the access door.
“See anything?” Terrell asked as
he pressed a series of buttons and
the device beeped.
“No. There’s too much dust on
the window.”
Terrell pressed another button. A
series of lights started to flash as he
looked around the little airlock. “I’m
telling you, I saw someone in one of
the port windows.”
Gary frowned. “There’s no one
alive on board.”
The Wanderer and her crew had
been traveling to the site of a re-
cent skirmish between two mem-
ber worlds of the Colonial Alliance.
A minor dispute over asteroid min-
eral rights had escalated into an
exchange of fire between ships be-
longing to two colony worlds. The
Alliance parliament had stepped in
to mediate, but not before an Alli-
ance frigate was damaged in the
crossfire. The Wanderer was hired
to tow the stricken vessel back to
its home port. It was the kind of job
the small, powerful Wanderer was
designed to accomplish.
They had discovered the derelict
warship adrift in space five days
from their destination. Scans, both
electronic and visual, showed no
signs of activity on the ship. There
was no active power signature, no
lights, and no distress beacon.
There were also no obvious signs
of damage. No blast marks, all the
ISSUE 55
hatches and airlocks secure, the es-
cape pods unlaunched.
Gary had identified the ship as a
Caryago-class heavy cruiser of the
defunct Earth Space Navy. He told
his captain that the ship had been
old when the war between Earth
and her rebellious colonies had bro-
ken out.
Captain Tomlinson had dutifully
radioed the contact, including the
ship’s registry numbers, to the Alli-
ance military and continued on her
course.
Five hours later they received a
priority message from Alliance Fleet
Command, requesting they return
to the Earth vessel to collect its logs
and any other surviving information
they could retrieve from the ship’s
computer. They were to disturb the
ship as little as possible and to take
nothing off the vessel except the
requested data. They were to set a
tracking buoy on the warship and
make best possible speed toward
the Alliance command post at New
Helena. A military courier would be
dispatched to meet them in route to
take possession of the logs and files.
Captain Tomlinson had served in
the Alliance fleet long enough to
read between the lines: something
about this ship was important to
the Alliance, and the Wanderer was
the only vessel nearby. Tomlinson
Page 11

knew the military would revoke her
captain’s license and impound her
ship if she did not cooperate. They
turned about and made best speed
back to the warship. It was right
where they had left it, floating in
space, dead.
A soft click came from the door in
front of them.
“Got it,” Terrell said.
Gary stepped away from the door.
“Ready?”
Terrell nodded and pressed an-
other button on the electronic de-
vice. The door groaned and swung
open.
Gary stepped cautiously into the
corridor, looking both directions.
The ship appeared empty: no signs
of whatever incident caused the
vessel to end in its current state.
Behind him, Terrell unhooked the
electronic door bypass and returned
it to his kit, then stepped up next to
him.
“Let’s do this,” Gary said, setting
off down the corridor toward the
left, heading for the maintenance
tube leading to the ship’s computer
core.
“I was expecting bodies,” Terrell
said.
“Me too. I think this is worse,
though.” Gary kept himself moving
steadily toward another bulkhead
door. He knew a ship of this type car-
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
ried a crew of over seven hundred.
He had expected to find human re-
mains as soon as they entered.
Gary and Terrell took hold of the
door and pulled, opening it enough
for both men to step inside.
Gary nearly knocked Terrell off his
feet as he tried to enter through the
narrow gap. “Jeez, Terrell, what are
you—” Gary stopped talking as he
noticed what had made his partner
stop in his tracks.
The corridor beyond the door
was brightly lit. Crewmen, dressed
in modern Alliance uniforms,
went about their business. No one
seemed to notice the two intruders
in their bulky suits. No one stepped
up to challenge them.
Terrell stopped front of a crew-
man, a technician first-class if Gary
was reading her insignia correctly.
The crewman ignored them. Terrell
reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Don’t” Gary cried, an instant too
late.
Terrell’s gloved hand passed
through her body. The crewman
shivered and stopped working for a
moment. She looked over her shoul-
der, blue eyes scanning the corridor.
“Help me,” she whispered, before
turning back to the communication
panel. She snapped the panel back
into place and a voice filled the cor-
ridor.
“This is the Captain: space trials
of the new engines will begin in one
hour. Engineering and damage con-
trol crews report to your stations.”
Gary turned toward Terrell as the
blonde technician stood and turned
around. He noted the name “Jen-
kins” on her uniform before she
walked past him and through Ter-
rell, moving purposefully toward
the bulkhead door they had entered
from. “I think we need to get out of
here,” Gary said.
Terrell’s voice sounded thick and
muffled in his ears. “Yeah.”
Gary toggled his communication
unit as he turned to follow the crew-
man. “Ampierre to Wanderer, do
you copy? Wanderer, this Ampierre,
can you hear me?”
Terrell fell into step beside him.
“Is the hull too thick?”
“Maybe,” Gary lied. He knew
the armor thickness on this type of
ship. His transmission should have
no trouble reaching the Wanderer.
Something was definitely wrong.
Gary and Terrell followed the
young technician through the bulk-
head door, back toward the corridor
leading to the hatch.
“Sweet mother,” Terrell whis-
pered through his radio.
They were on the bridge of the
cruiser. The desiccated remains of
the crew surrounded them, each
ISSUE 55
body at the duty station they had
manned in life. Gary swung his light
around.
The thin remnants of a blonde
ponytail sticking out from a decom-
posing head caught his attention.
He pointed his light at the corpse’s
name patch: “Jenkins.”
He looked up to find Terrell clear-
ing dust from a panel, cautiously
moving around another withered
body. Near the panel was a placard
giving the name of the ship: UES
Gambia.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to download the logs.
That’s what we’re here for, right?”
He chuckled. “Though if I didn’t
know Lycinda would have a fit, I’d
dig through this ship’s systems a bit:
I’ve always wanted a closer look at
one of these old-time warships.”
Gary grunted at the engineer. “As
if Wanderer isn’t enough of an an-
tique.” He looked back at the corpse
of Technician Jenkins, then turned
away to scan the bridge. There had
been a battle here. Spent cartridges
lay on the floor, and he saw bullet
holes in both equipment and bod-
ies. He turned back to the remains
of Jenkins. There was a rip in the
upper part of her uniform’s left arm
and a dark stain around the area.
Behind him Terrell’s equipment
beeped and buzzed.
Page 12

“Can you get anything?” Gary
asked. He was ready to get off this
ghost ship.
“No, I need to be at the computer
core.”
Gary sighed. “Let’s try to walk for
it.”
Terrell repacked his kit and looked
at Gary. “Lead on.”
“Help me.” Technician first-class
Jenkins—or something in the form
of Technician Jenkins—stood in the
corner, pale, translucent, washed-
out.
“Gary,” Terrell said, looking to-
ward the spot where Gary’s light
shone.
“Do you see her?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Gary Ampierre turned to look at
his partner, then turned his light
back on the corner where the ap-
parition had stood. Dust and debris
was all to greet him.
“Come on,” Terrell said, his voice
low and shaky. “Let’s try to reach
the computer core.”
They walked across the bridge,
past the navigator’s station and
helm controls, to a door just off
the bridge. Gary stepped over the
fallen body of a marine and pulled
the manual release lever. The door
popped open and Gary, with Terrell
following, passed through.
A marine with an automatic rifle
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
leveled his weapon at them.
Gary instinctively ducked to his
left and flattened himself on the
deck, trying to dodge the weapon’s
fire. He did not know if the bullets
could harm him in this place, but he
did not want to find out.
Behind him, Terrell gasped. Gary
rolled and found Terrell looking
down at his chest, the man’s hands
clutching the front of his suit as if
expecting damage. For a moment
he thought his friend was shot, but
there were no wounds or blood on
Terrell’s suit.
A guttural roar caught Gary’s at-
tention. Technician Jenkins sprang
from the ground near him, bleeding
from her left arm where she had ap-
parently been hit. She smashed into
the man with the assault rifle, slam-
ming him backward against the hull.
Before he could react, she struck
him between the legs with a raised
knee. The man doubled over and
Jenkins brought her knee up into his
face.
Technician Jenkins tore the rifle
from the stricken Marine’s hands
and fired one round into his head.
Seeming satisfied with her handi-
work, she turned to another crew-
man lying stretched out on the deck
in a pool of blood, and touched the
still form’s neck.
“Somebody help me!” Jenkins
cried. When no one appeared, she
scowled, stood, and started off
down the corridor at a trot.
“Stay with her!” Gary cried out
through the radio and took off after
the receding form as quickly as his
suit allowed.
The two men followed Jenkins
around a corner. Strewn along the
deck like so many broken toys were
bullet-riddled members of the crew,
officers and enlisted both. Occa-
sionally they would find a dead ma-
rine or two surrounded by several
bodies of the ship’s crew.
“What happened here?” Terrell
asked.
Gary ignored him, saving his
breath for the mad dash he was en-
gaged in.
Jenkins reached a door and
stopped. She pointed the rifle up
and took two deep breaths. In one
fluid motion she slapped the entry
switch on the door and, lowering
the rifle, dived through the open-
ing. Gary followed her.
He stopped in his tracks. “Um—
maybe we should leave,” he said.
Terrell pushed his way inside.
“Why? Oh!”
Technician Jenkins was most of
the way out of her uniform, her
arms and one leg wrapped around
a crewman in a similar state of un-
dress. They toppled over onto the
ISSUE 55
bunk, Jenkins landing on her back.
Terrell walked deeper into the
room, heading for the computer ac-
cess station. “I wonder if I can use
her access panel.”
“Terrell—” Gary said as the en-
counter on the bunk became more
intimate.
“What? They don’t know we’re
here. They’re both long dead, Gary.
It doesn’t matter.” The engineer
turned his back to Gary and started
pulling equipment from his kit. “If it
makes you uncomfortable, you can
wait for me outside.”
“That would be a terrible idea.
We shouldn’t separate.”
Terrell placed a hand-held com-
puter unit on the panel and pressed
a sequence of numbers into it.
Gary turned his back on the amo-
rous encounter between Jenkins
and her friend, ignoring her gasped
cries of “Help me.” He walked over
and stood next to Terrell. Terrell was
the ship’s engineer on the Wan-
derer. He was the tech guy on the
mission. Besides the requirement
that a minimum two crew members
be assigned to any off-ship mis-
sion, Gary was here because of his
knowledge of this model of ship and
the fact that he was Tomlinson’s ex-
ecutive officer as well as navigator.
He sighed. All the—oddness—had
made his knowledge of this vessel
Page 13

useless.
Terrell swore and packed his
hand-held in his kit. “Nothing. The
hand-held says there’s no power to
this console despite what my eyes
tell me.”
Gary nodded his head. “Let’s go
back out the door and see what
happens.”
“Age before and all that.”
“Very funny. Stay with me.” Gary
opened the door and stepped
through, Terrell on his heels.
Outside the room they found
themselves in a corridor near the
outer hull. The ship around them
was dark and dead.
“Well? What now?” Terrell asked.
Gary peered down the dark cor-
ridor. He was in charge of the mis-
sion. What they did next was his
call. “I think we should try to get off
this ship. The military can retrieve
the logs themselves.”
“Good. How exactly are we get-
ting off this tub?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, we better figure some-
thing out before our oxygen fails.”
Gary walked down the corridor
a few feet and looked out of a port
hole. In the distance he could see
the lights of a ship illuminated the
dark. “There’s Wanderer.”
Terrell moved next to Gary and
looked outside of the warship.
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
“Looks like the Captain and Stevner
are coming to find us.”
Gary gave the two figures com-
ing toward the ship a closer look.
As they approached he suddenly
recognized them by the way they
moved in their suits.
“Get down!” Gary cried, grabbing
Terrell and dragging him from view.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“That’s us out there. Come on,
there’s an airlock this way, away
from where we came in. Let’s make
for it and hope for the best.”
The two men started down the
corridor. As they turned a corner,
they found themselves facing the
form of Technician Jenkins.
She stood, or more accurately,
floated, in front of them. Pale and
grey, her skin peeling from her face
in narrow strips, her eyes pale and
sightless, tendons and muscles
on her neck visible where the skin
had rotted away. Her uniform was
bloodied and shredded below the
knees. She opened a mouth full of
yellowed teeth.
“Please. Help me.”
Gary leapt backward as the appa-
rition reached for them. He grabbed
Terrell, too late. Jenkin’s own ghost-
ly hand shot out and took Terrell by
the arm. It passed through his suit
and the man screamed.
Gary yanked Terrell away and
both men fled, the creature that was
once Tech Jenkins following them.
Gary decided to take a chance and
dived through an open hatch, pull-
ing Terrell with him.
“Hull temperature at critical!” a
man’s voice cried.
Gary and Terrell found them-
selves back on the bridge. This time
it was chaos, as crew and officers
dashed from station to station,
checking readings. Outside, Gary
saw the bright orange-yellow orb of
a star he could not identify growing
larger in the window. Around him
equipment shorted out, causing
sparks and smoke to fill the bridge.
He caught a glimpse of Technician
Jenkins, her ponytail loose and
her blonde hair in disarray as she
worked, lying on her back under the
navigation console.
“Navigation?” a man’s voice
asked, strained and tight.
Gary turned to the sound. An old-
er man sat in the command chair.
“Still nothing,” said a young wom-
an sitting at the station Jenkins was
working on said.
“Engines?” the captain asked.
One of the officers checked a dis-
play station. “We’re at full power.
Without the navigation computer
online, and connected to the jump
drive, the rest of the sequence
won’t finish.”
ISSUE 55
Terrell leaned over one of the
display stations, wheezing hard.
“Gary? Gary, they’re trying to jump
to another star.” Terrell could not
keep the slight note of awe from his
voice.
Gary dashed over and looked at
the display. “Jump technology’s a
myth. It’s impossible.”
“It possible in theory, but they
don’t have enough power or
speed.” Terrell said. “This ship has
an early stage Pratt and Lockheed
power plant. Probably a type two.”
“All hands, this is the Captain:
abandon—”
“I’ve got it!” a female voice
called. Gary recognized as the same
voice that had asked him and Terrell
to help her.
Technician first-class Jenkins
screamed as a shower of sparks
rained down on her. Her body
jerked and bucked, as if caught in a
powerful electrical current.
The Gambia seemed to hesitate
for an instant, then moved with a
sickening lurch, Gary and Terrell
were thrown backward. The burn-
ing orb outside filled the window.
Gary screamed. He could not
help it: he knew he was going to
die, so there was no reason to hold
back. He screamed until his throat
was raw as the bright light washed
over the warship. The Gambia gave
Page 14

another lurch, and Gary was thrown
across the bridge. His helmet struck
the corner of the navigation station
with a dull crunch. He heard the hiss
of oxygen escaping his suit.
Gary turned his head to the left.
Technician Jenkins lay on the deck
next to him. She looked at him, a
horrified expression on her face.
Gary Ampierre blinked at her. She
mouthed the words “Help me,” and
then his world went black.
# “No.”
Gary pushed away the dark-
ness, forcing his consciousness to
rise to the surface. A quick inspec-
tion showed that his suit had been
damaged, but someone had already
patched and sealed the cracks in
the helmet. He hoped it would hold
on the trip back to the Wanderer,
assuming there was a trip back.
He saw Terrell’s form lying next to
him. Gary reached out to shake him
awake.
“Welcome back.”
The voice sounded muffled, dis-
tant to his ears. Gary sat up and
looked at his companion.
Terrell Bingham squatted in front
of him in his lightweight uniform.
Gary gasped and looked at the form
lying on the deck. He reached over
and rolled the suited body toward
him. Technician Jenkins’ face greet-
ed him. Her eyes were closed, her
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
lips slightly parted.
Gary turned back to his friend.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Hopefully, saving your life.”
He nodded toward the still form
in his suit. “Saving hers too, if I’m
lucky.” Terrell drew his hand across
his nose: It came away smeared in
blood, and a line of deep crimson
ran slowly down, toward his upper
lip. “As for me, I think I might be
done.”
Terrell smiled a small smile. “Ever
since her shade passed through me
back in that first corridor, I’ve felt it.”
“All the more reason for me not
to take her in your place!”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think that’s
how it works.” Terrell wiped his face
and coughed. “Look, I went through
the trouble of stuffing her into my
suit. The least you can do is drag her
out the door.”
Gary gave his surroundings a look.
They were still on the bridge, the
crew frozen in their positions from
the moment before the attempted
jump. He turned toward the viewing
windows. The star that had filled the
screen was gone. There was nothing
out there. No other stars or ships,
just blankness.
“How come we’re not frozen?”
Gary asked.
Terrell shrugged. “I think be-
cause we technically don’t exist in
this space. If you take a closer look,
they’re not frozen, they’re still mov-
ing.”
“Jenkins saw us,” Gary said. He
looked back out at the other mem-
bers of the Gambia’s crew. “They
must have all seen us.”
Terrell shook his head and
dabbed at his nose with a sleeve.
“No. The rest of the crew never ac-
knowledged either of our existences
in any way. It’s just her. So I knocked
her out and put her in my suit while
the world around me slowed to a
crawl.”
Gary frowned. “I still don’t under-
stand.”
“I think she’s a part of why we’re
trapped. Take her out of the trap
and we, or at least you, should be
able to escape. She’s the only thing
or person on this ship that interacts
with us. I think when that charge
went through her body, she con-
nected for a moment to the jump
drive, and it tore something in
space-time.” Terrell leaned forward.
Resting on his hand and knees, he
put his head down and coughed,
long and wet. He caught his breath
and looked back up at Gary. “She
keeps asking for our help. I think we
should give it to her.”
Gary nodded. “So if I take her
with me through that door, do you
ISSUE 55
think I’ll find my way back out? And
what about you? If I walk out and
leave you behind, do you just disap-
pear?”
“I don’t think so. I may not exist
in the same space or time as you do
anymore, but I don’t think I’ll cease
to exist. I’m not completely clear
on what will happen, but—” Terrell
smiled at his friend and dabbed the
blood off his lips. “—the engineer
in me really wants to see this jump
through.”
Gary nodded and exhaled slowly.
“You realize this jump, if that’s what
it is, will most likely end in the mid-
dle of some star somewhere?”
“Possible. But if it does, I’ll never
notice anyway.”
“Terrell—”
“Get out of here, Gary. Take the
girl. She’s the key to all this, I think.”
“We were told specifically by the
military not to take anything off the
ship.”
“She’ll be a better source of in-
formation about what happened
here than the logs ever would. Take
her and get back to Wanderer be-
fore your oxygen is gone.”
Gary lumbered to his feet. He
reached down and took the limp
form of Technician Jenkins un-
der her arms and started dragging
her toward the hatch. He reached
around behind his back and opened
Page 15

the hatch with one hand. Pausing,
he gave Terrell a last look. His friend
sat cross-legged on the deck. He
had his arms around his body and
was shivering.
“It’s been a pleasure working
with you, Terrell. You’re the best
engineer the Wanderer ever had, at
least in my time on her.”
Terrell smiled. “Thank. Tell Ly-
cinda—tell her it was an honor.”
Around him, the bridge crew of
the warship started to accelerate in
their movements and Jenkins stirred
in the suit.
“I will,” Gary said.
He stepped through the hatch,
dragging his burden, and turned.
He found himself facing the airlock
to the hull, the same airlock he and
Terrell had entered the doomed
ship through.
Gary took the rescue straps from
his suit’s kit and, after several clum-
sy moments of moving her limp
form around, cinched the two of
them together, her back against his.
Gary climbed the ladder, struggling
with each step. He reached the lock-
ing mechanism for the outer hatch
and hesitated. He had no idea what
would happen. Wanderer might not
be there. His damaged suit might
fail. He might find himself standing
in the Gambia armory. Gary took a
deep breath from his nearly deplet-
Doors Through the Places You Live, by Michael Merriam
ed supply of oxygen and turned the
hatch mechanism.
The hatch opened, and Gary
clamored up and out onto the hull.
In the distance he could see the
Wanderer, her maneuvering thrust-
ers firing as she slowly closed the
distance between herself and the
Gambia.
“Ampierre to Wanderer. Wander-
er, come in.”
“This is Tomlinson: Gary, are you
two all right?”
“That’s a long story, Captain. I’ll
tell you more when we’re on board.”
Gary maneuvered himself and
Jenkins toward the Wanderer, which
had taken up a stationary position
only few dozen meters away. He
managed to reach the outer airlock
and run the cycler. He knew that
once he was inside, one of the crew
would handle the rest. He climbed
into the airlock, closed the outer
door, and collapsed on the deck.
The next thing he was clear about
was Captain Tomlinson and their
medic and freight master, Karl Ste-
vner, peeling him out of his suit.
“What happened over there?”
Tomlinson’s asked, her anxiety obvi-
ous.
“I—um, we ran into some trou-
ble.”
Stevner chuckled darkly. “I’ll say.
I’m surprised that helmet of yours
held together. Did you two fall
through something?”
Gary blinked. “I don’t remember.”
He watched the captain and the
medic exchange a look.
Gary looked around. “What
about—”
“Samantha’s fine,” Captain Tom-
linson said. “She came around
shortly after you got back.”
Stevner gave a low chuckle. “That
wife of yours is the most stubborn
person I know. She’s already down
in the engine room.”
“Breaking who knows what,”
Tomlinson added.
Gary smiled. “She keeps this
bucket flying, doesn’t she?” The
smile faded from his face. It had felt
natural to say that, but something
seemed off.
“That she does,” Tomlinson said
agreeably. “You, on the other hand,
are going to go to your quarters and
get some rest.”
Gary nodded in agreement. “Fine.
Captain, about the logs and files—”
“I found them in Sam’s kit. Don’t
worry, the Melpomene navy sent a
destroyer to meet us. It will be their
problem by tomorrow. I am still a li-
censed pilot: I think I can still plot a
jump course without your help.”
Gary laughed in agreement and
let Stevner finish his examination
before return to the cabin he and
ISSUE 55
his wife called home.
Samantha had come by to check
on him, and for fleeting moment
he felt something was wrong. The
memory of ghosts and a man who
he thought he should know flitted
through his mind, but Samantha
banished those images, pushing
him onto his back and straddling
him as she whipped her tunic over
her head.
Later, he lay on his bunk, watch-
ing the ruined hulk of the Gambia
drift in space, her hull and super-
structure ripped and torn from bat-
tle, and worried that he could not
remember his time aboard the old
warship.
The Wanderer jumped away from
the ruined warship, and it was no
longer his problem.
Page 16

The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
by Andy Heizeler
“T hank you!” cried Dean, tak-
ing his hands from his ears
as Captain Sedona shut down the
alarms. Dean had been in his fair
share of shipboard emergencies
and remained certain that none had
ever been the least bit improved by
blaring sirens and flashing red lights.
“What in the devil was that all
about?” shouted Creon, working
his way towards the cockpit where
Dean and the Captain waited amidst
screens full of error reports. Though
the chances of being jumped by pi-
rates in deep space were beyond
vanishingly small, the big ex-merce-
nary had armed himself just incase.
“Something’s wrong with the
Bohm Drive,” answered the Captain,
keying the intercom to engineering.
Moments later Cloey’s voice broke
through in a series of static ridden
sobs.
“Oh, it’s horrible! She’s gone un-
stable, boss! If we try to jump again
the whole ship could end up as a
cloud of atoms spread across the
Galaxy!”
“All the king’s horses and all the
king’s men wouldn’t even bother,”
muttered Dean.
“Just take it one step at a time,
Cloey. What do you need to fix
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
her?” asked the Captain gently into
the intercom.
“I’ll have to replace the entire in-
verter core. The old one is cracked
so badly that I can actually see the
fracturing! We just pushed her too
hard,” answered Cloey with sympa-
thetic pain laced into her words.
Captain Sedona narrowed her
eyes and balled up a fist. Dean had
seen that expression only once be-
fore, and it had ended in three un-
conscious bar patrons. Dean could
understand her upset, however.
They’d just offloaded their last run
of less than legal cargo and taken on
a pallet of Post Martian Federation
Cred-Sticks. The territory they were
passing through had no use for the
PMF or their credits, and the entire
region remained a Quantum Wire-
less black-out area since no one had
bothered to launch repeaters out
this far.
“Cloey, would it be possible to
squeeze one more jump out of the
drive without killing us?” asked the
Captain with a glimmer of hope.
“It’s possible, boss, but risky. I’d
say we’d have a sixty percent chance
of survival at best. After that our
odds drop down to zero,” said Cloey.
“Arc, could we get clear of the
black-out area in one jump?” asked
the Captain with a renewed, deadly
calm. The answer came back only
moments later.
“Sorry, Captain. It would take at
least three just to get us anywhere
near the outer range of the closest
quantum repeater,” said Arc in dis-
mal tones from the intercom. From
his perspective on the couch in the
mess lounge, things were headed
towards certain doom. Such a jour-
ney at sub-light speed would take
several thousand years.
“Bring up the chart,” ordered
the Captain. Dean had already be-
gun punching commands into the
noisy keys. His heart didn’t know
if it should lift or drop as the data
emerged.
A series of large, violent stars sur-
rounded by barren planets leaped
onto the main screen. One lonely
system within their jump radius in-
dicated settlements. The computer
displayed its elderly records next to
the binary planets in the solar habit-
able zone of a G class primary.
“The planets Golgotha and Os-
sining, originally occupied by pris-
oners of the Dai Kon Empire as far
back as 2719. Traditionally Golgotha
received political and nonviolent
offenders, while Ossining was re-
served for the most dangerous of
the Empire’s offenders. After the
Great Galactic War and the fall of
Dai Kon in 2943, Golgotha and Os-
Page 17
ISSUE 55
sining were added to the no-travel
list in the treaty of Ending. In the last
three years, no one has attempted
any landings on either planet. That
entry was made six years ago,” nar-
rated Creon in his deep, clear voice.
“On the upside we’re not going to
have to take bets on weather we die
of starvation or asphyxiation first,”
said Dean. No one gave him even
the slightest hint of a smile.
“Captain, the chances they have
any Bohm Drive technology are
pretty slim. Prison planets are tra-
ditionally kept low tech. Besides, if
they did somehow manage to cre-
ate Bohm Drives, they’d have used
them to escape,” said Creon with
growing dread.
“Cloey, what would you need to
build a new inverter core?” asked
Captain Sedona. After a short pause
filled with quick thinking, Cloey re-
sponded.
“A new fusion torch, about thirty
pounds of neutron enriched silver
and an industrial grade compres-
sion chamber.”
“I don’t know if they’ll have
those things, but we don’t have any
choice. Arc, set a course for Gol-
gotha. Cloey, say your best prayers
over that Drive. Everyone else, hold
on,” ordered the Captain, her eyes
aflame with wild desperation.
“You know what’s worse than a
prison planet,” asked Dean in low
tones to Creon. Creon arched an

eyebrow.
“Two prison planets,” answered
Dean, holding up two fingers just
before the Tachyon Valkyrie leaped
across the dimensions into possible
oblivion.
# heavily modified with thruster banks
“Can anyone tell me what pre-
space submarines are doing in high
orbit?” asked Dean, leaning over
the flickering scanner display. Cap-
tain Sedona crossed her arms and
frowned. They weren’t submarines,
but they could have been, if one dis-
counted their aft fission rockets.
“I don’t know, but it looks like
they’re shifting orbit to interdict us.”
“Of course they are,” said Dean,
checking the low band frequency
monitors. Nothing came across as
four tiny vessels approached from
the steep gravity well of Golgotha.
Six others waited in orbit.
“Our thrusters are far superior,
boss. We could easily out run them,”
said Cloey from engineering.
“That’s our girl, Cloey. Let’s hope
we don’t need to,” said the Captain.
Dean thought about fleeing at sub-
light speeds. The only place they’d
have to go would be the other prison
planet, which probably wouldn’t be
any more hospitable. Dean dialed in
a long range scan of Ossining. Mo-
ments later images of similar ships
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
populated the scanner sub-screen.
From the looks of it, they had twice
as many ships as Golgotha.
“We’re being pinged by old fash-
ioned radar! I’m also picking up fre-
quency modulated radio signals,”
exclaimed Arc over the intercom.
“I never thought I’d say this but,
those guys make us look state of the
art,” said Dean.
“Hush, Dean. Arc, patch that sig-
nal through!” ordered the Captain.
A crackling, garbled voice erupted
from the speakers a moment later.
“This is Captain Roberts of the
Golgotha Planetary Defense Ship
Sidney. Identify yourselves!”
Dean put a finger to his lips, then
tapped it on his temple. Captain Se-
dona narrowed her eyes for a mo-
ment in deep thought before giving
Dean the go-ahead for whatever re-
sponse he’d cooked up.
“Sidney, this is Hal Hutchinson of
the Greater Star Republic aboard
the GSR J. Carter. We’re on a diplo-
matic mission of peace,” said Dean
boldly, to the eye rolls of Captain
Sedona and Creon. Dean lifted his
finger off the transmit button and
smiled.
“We’re going to pull this off,
how?” asked the Captain.
“Very smoothly, thank you. I’ll ex-
plain on the way,” answered Dean.
“Captain, I’m picking up radio-
logical signatures from the forward
sections of those ships. They’ve got
some form of nuclear weapons,”
said Arc.
“The Valkyrie’s armor plating
used to be rated at 588 megatons,
but I don’t think it’s up to that kind
of beating anymore,” said the Cap-
tain. The venerable spaceship had
been through more than one scrap
and taken its share of poundings
just since she and Cloey had rebuilt
her.
“The best armor in the world can’t
stop a bullet like a few well placed
words before the trigger’s pulled,”
said Dean, hoping he sounded more
confident than he felt.
After several minutes of what had
to be an intense series of commu-
nications between the picket ships
and the surface, a response came.
“Mr. Hutchinson, you couldn’t
have come at a better time. We’ll
escort you to orbit where our space
planes will guide you to the sur-
face. Our foreign affairs minister will
meet you on landing pad eight.”
“Excellent, oh, and call me Hutch,”
said Dean, spinning to face his com-
panions.
“Ok, we don’t have much time.
They’re playing along but that
doesn’t mean they bought our sto-
ry. The fact that we tried should gain
us some credit, though.”
Page 18
ISSUE 55
“A prison planet has a foreign af-
fairs minister?” asked Creon, stuff-
ing more shells into his pulse gre-
nade launcher.
#
The old Izar Class light cruiser,
for added lift capacity, dwarfed its
escort of crude space planes on
the landing pad. Nearby the white
walled capitol building glowed in
the light of the deep red sun and
the giant moon of Golgotha’s sister
planet.
When the loading ramp touched
down, the crew of the Tachyon Val-
kyrie was met not with a minister,
but a large contingent of armed men
and women in grey thermoplast ar-
mor, their cartridge based firearms
consistent with the technology level
the crew had witnessed on the way
down. Massive steel and concrete
buildings, economy sized petrofuel
vehicles, and dirty fission plants for
energy sprawled across a landscape
webbed by blacktop roads. It re-
minded Dean of a time he’d never
experienced on old Earth, and was
glad he hadn’t.
Dean rested his hand on the rail
pistol seated in a black holster on
his side. His T-shirt bore the words
“Blame The Snake, Not The Sales-
man.”

On Dean’s left Creon waited with
his double barreled particle gun.
Slung across his back the pulse gre-
nade launcher provided a deadly
alternative weapon and a sharp ac-
cessory to his parabolic battle ar-
mor.
Captain Sedona stood to Dean’s
right in her black leather Echelon
test pilot’s suit complete with laser
pistol. She held a small, shiny box
with a long metal antenna in a men-
acing outward salute.
“Mind the lady with the detona-
tor, folks. One twitch from her and
we’re all a very colorful demonstra-
tion of what happens when matter
and antimatter play demolition der-
by,” shouted Dean, hoping no one
would guess that they didn’t have
antimatter aboard.
“No need for that, I assure you!”
shouted a green suited figure who
emerged from the back. The armed
contingent parted to allow him
through. Once before the crew, the
well groomed man bowed deeply.
“I’m Sam Neuman, foreign affairs
minister and personal advisor to
President Dixon. Please, follow me,”
he said breathlessly, flashing his ex-
pensive, if archaic gold watch.
“’Never buy something from a
man who’s out of breath,’” quoted
Creon quietly. “David Carradine.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Dean,
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
nodding to the Captain before the
three of them started off. The ramp
closed behind them, sealing in Cloey
and Arc.
“That man is a con artist if I’ve
ever seen one,” said Arc in worried
tones.
“It’s like being on a whole planet
of Deans,” said Cloey thoughtfully.
“This is far worse than I thought,”
replied Arc, heading for the com-
forting embrace of the broken down
old couch in the mess lounge.
# “And you think that your old Izar
“If y’all are with the Greater Star
Republic, I was never convicted
of running government contract
schemes on Dai Kon,” said Neuman,
who had unsurprisingly turned out
to be President Dixon. After drinks
were handed around and the ser-
vants dismissed, Neuman settled
right down to business.
“Where we’re from isn’t impor-
tant. What is important is that your
world is about to be invaded,” said
Dean glancing up at the looming
orb of Ossining through the large
transparicrete dome of the Presi-
dential Office. Creon and Captain
Sedona kept an eye on the door,
their hands never straying far from
their weapons.
“So you’re not blind. We’ve got a
Space Navy to deal with Ossining. I
don’t see how that concerns you,”
said Neuman, waving a dismissive
hand.
“Like you said, I’m not blind, and
neither were our scanners. Ossin-
ing’s got you outgunned two to one.
All other things being equal, they’re
going to kick your asteroids, so let’s
cut through the bull here. If you
want to defend yourselves against
Ossining, you’re going to need
help,” said Dean before finishing off
his drink.
Class cruiser out there is going to be
able to stand up against their entire
Navy?” asked Neuman, an eyebrow
arched for effect.
“Not exactly, but it’s a start. You
ever pulled a Quaker con?” asked
Dean. The blank stare gave all the
answer he needed.
“Refill my drink and I’ll lay it out
for you. Then we’ll talk about pay-
ment,” said Dean, pleased to be
educating the youth.
#
“We don’t want any!” shouted
Cloey through the closed hatch
door. Hordes of enterprising sales
people had surrounded the ship for
the last two hours.
“You realize that by talking to
them, you’re just giving them hope,
right?” asked Arc, reviewing the
Page 19
ISSUE 55
product literature for stereo-projec-
tor lens cleaner that had been plas-
tered to one of the high cargo bay
viewports.
“Where could they be? This deal
needs to be closed before the mob
out there starts wrenching off our
thruster bells just so they can sell
‘em back to us,” said Cloey, glower-
ing at the people outside the hatch.
Arc had never known her to get this
upset.
“Me too,” said Arc, turning back
to Cloey. “You think this plan has a
golf ball’s chance in a black hole?”
“Don’t ask me!” she said, “I never
play golf, it’s too violent!”
“What are you talking about?
Golf isn’t violent.”
“You’ve never seen me play it,”
said Cloey with a distinctly non-Clo-
ey like evil grin. Arc thought about
that for a minute before giving up.
“Open up, we’re back,” said Cap-
tain Sedona over the intercom.
“Sure thing, boss! Glad you made
it, Arc was getting agitated,” said
a smiling Cloey, slapping the but-
ton next to the big cargo ramp. Arc
dropped his jaw with a squeak of
betrayal.
Once the ramp touched down,
Creon, Dean, and Captain Sedona
strode quickly up into the ship,
keeping the sales crowd at a dis-
tance with pointed weapons.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do
and not a lot of time to do it. Arc,
we need to check our database for
a formula on radar-absorbing paint.
Cloey, you and I need to start work-
ing on the engineering specifica-
tions for a Greater Star Republic
Dreadnaught Class Super Cruiser,”
said Captain Sedona, hitting the
hatch button to close up.
“I’m going to go prepare my
speech for the newsies. Creon, I
suggest you start getting things
together for your special mission.
We’ve got just two weeks before
the Ossining Navy attacks accord-
ing to Golgothian intelligence. With
timing like this, I’m thinking the uni-
verse has a sense of humor after
all, unfortunately we’re the butt of
the joke,” said Dean, setting his hair
with a comb.
“I think our golf ball just passed
the event horizon, Arc,” said Cloey.
Everyone else except for Arc adopt-
ed a confused expression.
# doomed anyway, but thank you,”
“Thank you, and welcome to the
Republic!” said Dean, enthusiasti-
cally shaking the hand of broadcast
host as the interview ended. The HD
crew started packing up to leave as
Dean jumped into one of the many
taxicabs of the capitol city.
“Take me to the landing site,”
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
ordered Dean before leaning back
with a sigh, trying not to notice the
strange smells of the cab. In the
past week he’d spent more time in
front of cameras than sleeping. The
relentless schedule had kept him
away from the heavy labor, though,
which he couldn’t complain about.
The news of the “New Alliance,”
had spread like wild fire, with more
companies now producing Greater
Star Republic flags, coffee cups, and
T-shirts than Carter had liver pills.
If Ossining was watching, which he
was sure they were, the deception
had to be at least somewhat con-
vincing. With just a little luck, the
plan would work. If not, at least he’d
gotten more than his fifteen min-
utes of fame.
“We’re here,” said the cabby,
reaching out his hand.
“It goes on Mr. Neuman’s bill,”
said Dean to the driver’s dismay.
“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
Once free of the cab, he quickly
found Creon loading the last of the
heavy cylinders onto the Assault
Shuttle Eris. The elderly shuttle’s
skin had been neatly painted in
stealth black as well as receiving a
tune up on her thrusters.
Captain Sedona came around
from the other side, completing her
external pre-flight checks.
“Any chance of talking you out of
this?” asked Dean, still wishing she
would have agreed to let someone
else pilot the shuttle.
“None, so no sappy stuff. Do your
part. I’ll see you when we get back,”
she said with a quick peck to his
cheek before climbing in.
“How about you, Creon. Any last
words before your mission?” asked
Dean.
“If you are far from the enemy,
make him believe you are near,”
said Creon, grunting as he sat the
big cylinder down in the smallish
cargo compartment. “Sun Tsu,” he
finished.
“Someday you’re going to have
to tell me how you memorized all
those quotes,” said Dean.
“If we live, I just might,” said Cre-
on, shaking Dean’s hand.
“Good luck,” said Dean, accepting
a quick hug from the big man be-
fore heading back to the cab. He still
had more interviews, after which he
would be taking a trip aboard one
of the space planes to the planet’s
dark side orbit. With Cloey supervis-
ing, everything should be going well
there, but with the Captain out of
the picture he felt the need to get
eyes on the project. He just hoped
the Ossining spies here hadn’t
caught on to the entire plan. It was
all a long shot with a few critical
lynch pins waiting to bring it all tum-
Page 20
ISSUE 55
bling down. If he’d gone with his
first plan, things would have been
even riskier, but as it stood, he still
wouldn’t have laid good money on
their odds.
#
Dean paced in the cockpit of the
Tachyon Valkyrie, the main screen
quickly filling up with enemy icons.
“They’re almost to attack range,
Dean,” said Arc from the mess
lounge. Dean wished Arc didn’t
have a special brand of Post Trau-
matic Stress Disorder preventing
him from entering a cockpit. Dean
didn’t care about having to use the
intercom, but without anyone else
there, the cockpit felt lonely. Espe-
cially with a nuclear armed Space
Navy approaching at near relativis-
tic speeds.
“Cloey, are the engines ready?”
“As ready as ever, Dean. Just let
me know if we need extra juice to
run,” said Cloey.
“If it comes to that, we’ll be
said Dean, realizing he sounded
more like Arc than himself these
days.
Dean opened a channel to the
ships of Golgotha’s smaller Navy,
taking a deep breath.
“Hold your positions and keep
your fingers off your triggers. I’m

going out to meet our enemy.”
Arc lit off the main thrusters,
pushing them ahead of the forma-
tion. In the vast distances of space,
such an act was merely symbolic,
but hopefully enough to designate
their icon as the scout ship on en-
emy screens.
“How’s the patch to the Victory?”
asked Dean.
“Perfect. She should be round-
ing the curve of the planet in just
a few moments,” replied Arc. Dean
felt a glimmer of hope as his screens
caught sight of the Super Cruiser
sized ship. To the relatively modern
scanners of the Valkyrie, the Victory
could be seen for what it was; a gi-
ant mock-up made of aluminum and
plastic, equipped with low cost, low
yield thrusters, running lights and
plenty of radar reflecting surfaces.
It also had a battery-powered RF
repeater and a parabolic antenna.
With some creative wiring and a
simple low band transceiver, Arc
had complete control of the faux
ship from his telepad. To the old,
radar-based scanners of the Ossin-
ing Navy, the Victory would appear
to be the most deadly class of star
vessel known to man. One of them
could destroy a planet without even
pausing for lunch. If everything
went well the Ossining Navy would
be turning tail in no time.
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
Dean activated the RF transceiver,
opening a channel to the Ossining
Navy which would appear to come
from the remote controlled vessel.
“This is Captain Nelson of the
GSR Victory. Planet Golgotha is
now under our jurisdiction. Any act
of aggression against them will be
taken as a formal declaration of war
against the Greater Star Republic.
Cease your advance at once!” de-
manded Dean, hoping his timbre
had been sufficiently gruff. The re-
sponse came immediately from a
smooth female voice.
“This is Admiral Von Brustien of
the Ossining Navy Ship Bloodstorm.
As much as you’d like us to believe
you, Captain, it appears all your
hard work has been for naught. Our
spies reported that your leading
vessel is hardly GSR material and
furthermore, your ridiculous fake
contraption out there isn’t a threat
to anyone. I highly doubt you peo-
ple are even from the Greater Star
Republic.”
The words pounded into Dean
like lead pistol slugs from days gone
by. He flipped a special switch on
the control panel and checked the
system clock. He kicked his brain
into “Plan B” gear.
“I’m afraid you’re sources are
quite mistaken, Admiral. I will give
you one last chance to stand down
before you face the consequences,”
said Dean. Ossining resided exactly
one and a half light minutes from
their current position. Allowing for
an acceptable margin of delay and
human response times, he had to
stall for at least three and a half
minutes.
“Dean! Their command ship just
launched a missile!” shouted Arc.
Dean snapped his attention to the
scanners, flashing his fingers over
the command keys. In moments he
had the calculations he needed. In
one minute and twenty two sec-
onds, the Victory would be an ex-
panding sphere of hot, irradiated
aluminum and plastic molecules,
blown apart along with the charade.
Admiral Von Brustien would simply
wait for confirmation of the decoy’s
destruction, proving her spies right,
then annihilate the rest of the ships
before her. Dean checked the sys-
tem clock again and talked fast.
“Congratulations, Admiral, you
fell for our plan.” The triumph in his
voice carried even over the primi-
tive radio frequencies they were
forced to use.
“What are you talking about?”
demanded Admiral Von Brustien.
“Your spies learned exactly what
we wanted them to. While your en-
tire fleet is out here facing off with
our fake Super Cruiser and Gol-
Page 21
ISSUE 55
gotha’s underpowered Navy, our
very real Stealth Destroyer has po-
sitioned itself in a strategic location
to bombard your planet’s cities with
nuclear hellfire missiles. We may
just be a small diplomatic force, but
we have more than enough to take
on the likes of you,” said Dean, lis-
tening with relish to the lack of im-
mediate response.
“You’re bluffing again, Nelson.
You have ten seconds to power
down and surrender before we end
you,” said the Admiral.
“They’re not going for it, Dean,”
said Cloey over the intercom.
“I can have us running before
they turn their launch keys, Dean,”
said Arc.
Dean closed his eyes, the num-
bers of the countdown racing in
his head. The Victory exploded into
silent brilliance on the scanners.
Dean took one last, deep breath
again and hit transmit.
“On your planet is a corrupted
reproduction of an old Earth monu-
ment known as Mount Rushmore.
In twenty seconds you’re going to
receive a transmission that it’s just
been destroyed in a nuclear blast.
Worse yet, your planet’s defenses
won’t even have seen the missile
or our stealth ship. I’ll be waiting
for your unconditional surrender,
unless of course you want to be re-

sponsible for the complete destruc-
tion of your world,” said Dean, nev-
er looking away from the scanners.
If they didn’t wait, if they launched
their salvos anyway, there was noth-
ing Dean or anyone could do to
stop the demise of the Golgothian
Navy and very possibly the Tachy-
on Valkyrie. With violent criminals,
it didn’t always work to appeal to
their sense of self preservation.
The seconds dragged through
space-time as if it were mud. Dean
could feel his heart pounding right
until the moment when the Ossin-
ing Navy would be receiving the re-
ports.
# them as far as they wanted to go
“That’s the signal,” said Captain
Sedona, looking up from the blink-
ing light on the control panel in the
Eris. Creon nodded and flipped the
switch on his transmitter. Far be-
low, on the surface of Ossining, a
nuclear fire bloomed into existence,
followed by the grand plume of a
traditional mushroom cloud. The
monument had been sufficiently far
from population centers to make for
a casualty free blast, but the people
down there had to be wondering
where the next hit would land.
“Ahh, nicely done, Creon. I love
the smell of stark terror in the
morning,” said Captain Sedona with
The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler
a wicked grin. The work of flying
under cover of darkness to various
locations, sneaking past armed pa-
trols and gangs of madmen while
hiding nuclear bombs now seemed
all worth it.
“That quote isn’t right,” said Cre-
on.
“It is if it’s mine,” said Captain Se-
dona, setting a course back to Gol-
gotha.
# had demanded the contents of
“All finished, Boss!” said Cloey
from the engine room. Captain Se-
dona looked up from the Bohm
Drive Status monitor with a smile.
The Tachyon Valkyrie would take
once again. With the Ossining Navy
now part of the Republic, after a bit
of creative negotiating, all was well
on Golgotha.
“Excellent! Break out the cham-
pagne,” she said.
“I wouldn’t get too hasty, Cap-
tain,” said Dean, ripping off a dis-
solvable printout from the wall
printer.
“What is it now?” she asked in ex-
asperation.
“Neuman just wired this from a
‘secure location.’ He says that if we
don’t give him our ship, he’ll deto-
nate the bomb his agents planted
on our hull while we were on the
landing pad,” said Dean with a
touch of admiration. He’d expected
something of the sort, but nothing
so very close to what he would have
done himself.
“That ingrate! Doesn’t he realize
we really can set his planet up with a
meeting from GSR representatives?
Hell, Tim owes us that much after all
we’ve done!” she screamed.
“You know that, and I know that,
but Neuman doesn’t trust us. I can’t
say I blame him, we did just prove
ourselves to be quite capable of de-
ception,” said Dean.
“Why are you defending that
weasel? I’m going to find him and
burn a hole right through his skull!”
said Captain Sedona, reflexively
drawing her laser pistol.
“You’ll have to settle for shooting
what’s left after I’m done with him,”
said Creon, pumping the slide on his
pulse grenade launcher.
“As pleasant as you both would
find that, we have no way of know-
ing where he is. We’ve got one
move left to get off this planet. Let
me write the response,” said Dean,
ripping the tab off the printout to let
it bubble away.
Captain Sedona holstered her la-
ser pistol with obvious hesitation.
Creon looked ready to chew bullets.
“If this doesn’t work,” she started.
“I know, I know. You’ll space me,”
Page 22
ISSUE 55
said Dean, not mentioning they’d all
be dust if things went sour, as was
usually the case.
#
“Tell me,” said Captain Sedona,
holding Dean down on the couch.
Cloey stood ready to tickle him
again while Creon and Arc lounged
nearby, watching in amusement.
With the prison planets several
jumps behind them, the Captain
Dean’s last transmission.
“An artist does not reveal all his
secrets,” Dean started before break-
ing out into uncontrollable laughter.
Cloey let up at the Captain’s signal
after a good bout of tears from
Dean.
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you,” Dean
started, panting. The Captain re-
leased him but sat down close on
the couch.
“I told him that if he didn’t let
us go, I’d radio the truth about the
operation to Admiral Von Brustien,
detonate the nukes we covertly
planted under his cities and not
give him the antidote to the virus
we released just that morning,” said
Dean.
“No one would believe all that,”
accused the Captain.
“Oh, of course not,” said Dean,
reaching for his glass of champagne
 ISSUE 55

now that he’d stopped laughing.

“But if even one of those things
were true, Neuman would be ru-
ined. Besides, we were both bluff-
ing. It was more of a parting hand-
shake between cons than anything,”
said Dean, sipping lightly.
“I’ll never understand your kind,
Dean. For all I know you could still
be running some kind of long con
on all of us. I should have stuck with
armed robbery,” said the Captain,
reaching for her own glass now.
“All the Galaxy is a con, and we
are but the Space Rogues,” said
Dean, adopting his Paradoxus the
philosopher voice.
“Get him, Cloey.”

The Grand Illusion:
A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
, by Andy Heizeler Page 23

RGR REVIEWS
The Mote in God’s Eye
By Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Simon and Schuster, 1974, 537pp.
T he title of our favorite magazine
implies that we—editors,
readers, and writers—are together
bringing the space opera subgenre
back to life. There is a newness to
what we are doing. But there is
also a connection to what has gone
before. For our revival to truly take
hold, we need to breathe into it the
same spirit that has inspired space
opera through the decades.
To help further that end, I
occasionally review classics of the
genre. This issue, let’s examine Larry
Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The
Mote in God's Eye, first published in
1974.
This long (500+ pages) novel is
intricately plotted, but I will attempt
to give a brief summary, knowing it
will be inadequate. (When there's
a dramatis personae list before the
first page of the story, you know
things are going to get complex.)
The protagonist of The Mote
in God's Eye is Roderick (or Rod)
Blaine, of the Imperial Battleship
ISSN MacArthur. It is 3017, and
Blaine has been promoted in the
RGR Reviews
field from first officer to captain,
due in no small part to his efforts
in suppressing rebellion against
the Empire on the planet of New
Chicago. He is ordered to take his
new command for repair in the New
Caledonia system.
While there, Blaine receives
word that an alien spacecraft has
been detected, and he is ordered
to intercept it. The MacArthur is
fired upon, but is able to retrieve
the craft. Its pilot is dead, a bizarrely
asymmetric alien. And there is
only one place the ship could have
come from—the yellow star near
Murcheson's Eye, sometimes called
the Eye of God, a red supergiant
near New Caledonia. (The yellow
star is thus the «Mote» of the
novel's title.)
Blaine takes the MacArthur to the
alien home system, where due to a
peculiar astronomical arrangement,
the aliens have been bottle up for a
long time. The aliens—christened
«Moties» by their human visitors—
are highly intelligent and have
evolved into a number of distinct
castes: Engineers, Mediators,
Masters, Doctors, and more. In
many ways they are far beyond
humanity in their knowledge and
abilities. And they seem more than
friendly.
Yet a series of mishaps starts to
suggest that things are not all as
they seem. Captain Blaine must
decide whether it is safe for the
Empire to enter into relations with
the Moties, or whether they must
be declared enemies to the state.
This summary, as spoiler-free as
I can make it, in no way captures
the complexity of The Mote in
God's Eye. The cast of characters
(as I've noted) is large, and there
are a good number subplots. Even
the MacArthur's lowly midshipmen
get a chance to shine. Niven and
Pournelle assume that their readers
are smart, able to piece together
the mystery of what the aliens are
hiding from humanity and what
they really want.
The Mote in God's Eye was
published during a dark time for
space opera, during the so-called
«New Wave» of SF and before
publishers like Interzone magazine
in the UK and Del Rey books in the
US created a place in which a space
opera revival might occur. Some
might object to The Mote in God's
Eye being classified as space opera,
preferring instead the designation
ISSUE 55
«hard SF».
One cannot deny that the science
of the novel is rigorous and directly
affects the plot. The description of
combat in space strikes me as true
to the laws of physics, as does the
astronomy of the story. And the
aliens' physiology and psychology
are rationally thought out. If plots
strongly dependent on the physical
sciences define hard SF, then can be
no doubt that The Mote in God's Eye
is hard SF.
But there can also be no doubt
that The Mote in God's Eye is
space opera. You have a far-
flung interstellar empire dealing
with rebel planets. You have
an interstellar navy complete
with battleships. You have first
contact with an alien species with
questionable motives and a secret
to hide. There is adventure, mystery,
intrigue, suspense, even romance.
All marks of the action-adventure
military-style SF that defines space
opera (or at least a large subset
thereof).
One of the most important
lessons we can take from The Mote
in God's Eye is that space opera can
be both a page-turning adventure
and scientifically rigorous. Niven and
Page 24

Pournelle use the limits provided
by the science framework of their
story to their best advantage. The
science becomes a rich element
of the story's setting, making the
speculation more believable.
I have read that in writing
The Mote in God's Eye, Niven
and Pournelle set out to write
the ultimate first contact story. I
challenge every reader out there
to read (or re-read) the novel and
see if you agree. I challenge every
writer out there to write a better
first contact story yourself.
Reviewed by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt
We the Underpeople
by Cordwainer Smith
Baen Books, 2008, 619pp.
I magine a universe where humanity
has traveled to the stars and
settled hundreds of worlds. Imagine
a world where disease and disaster
have been eliminated. Imagine a
society where life span has been
extended to 400 years—to the exact
day. All worry and care have been
eliminated from life, thanks to the
robots and underpeople who do the
real work.
Imagine the underpeople, beings
formed into more-or-less human
RGR Reviews
shape from the animals of Earth,
who now do what humans no longer
care to do. Beings who must do as
they are told and enjoy it or they will
be euthanized and a replacement
instantly manufactured. Beings as
intelligent as humans, but with the
physical advantages of their various
root species. Plus the knowledge
that if they make a single false
move, death awaits.
We the Underpeople is a collection
of five short stories and a novel by
author Cordwainer Smith. It is the
companion volume to Baen's other
collection of Smith's fiction, When
the People Fell. In my review of that
work (published in RGR issue 48),
I commented on the wide range
and power of the author's intellect,
how his stories roam 15,000 years
into humanity's future yet form a
coherent whole.
The stories in We the Underpeople
are part of the same sequence
of stories, sometimes called the
«Instrumentality of Mankind»
stories, but they all deal with a
(relatively) narrow slice out of
Smith's timeline. The range of c.
A.D. 14,000 to 16,000.
The Instrumentality of Mankind,
lords of Earth, rule humanity for
the good of the species, at least
as they perceive it. Thanks to the
miracle drug stroon, produced
only on the planet Norstrilia, the
average person lives for 400 years,
a lord or lady of the Instrumentality
for a thousand. Everyone is happy.
They are conditioned to be, with
psychological reconditioning should
anyone become unhappy.
Only a few lords of the
Instrumentality realize that this
enforced happiness has led to
a stagnation of the species. The
Underpeople, made from animals
to serve mankind, could cause real
problems for mankind were it not
for the draconian measures used
to keep them in their place. And
even these measures breed into the
Underpeople a will to survive that
mankind seems to be losing.
The stories in We the Underpeople
focus on two interrelated events in
Smith's future: the peaceful revolt of
the Underpeople and the so-called
«Rediscovery of Man,» where the
Instrumentality has reintroduced
danger and uncertainty into the life
of the human race in the hopes of
invigorating the species again. All
of the stories touch on one of these
two issues, and many both.
The first story, «The Dead Lady
of Clown Town,» investigates the
beginning of the revolution of the
Underpeople, focusing on the dog-
girl D'joan and her human friend,
Elain. «Under Old Earth» shows
ISSUE 55
the decadence of the home planet
of humanity and the need for the
Rediscovery of Man.
In «Mother Hitton's Littul
Kittons,» we see our first glimpse
of Norstrilia—or as it is listed on
the star charts, Old North Australia.
We learn a little more about the
longevity drug, stroon, and the
lengths to which the Nostrilians go
to protect their monopoly.
«Alpha Ralpha Boulevard» is
set during the first stages of the
Rediscovery of Man. It is a poignant,
tragic story, raising the question
if the risk of such tragedy is worth
more than stultifying happiness.
And in «The Ballad of Lost C'mell»
we see the revolution of the
Underpeople taking a new turn and
finding an unexpected ally.
And then there is Nostrilia.
Smith's only novel among the
Instrumentality stories, it stars
young Rod McBan, heir to a large
estate on Old North Australia. A
friendly computer AI manipulates
Rod's finances in such a way that
the young man winds up owning
the planet Earth, which puts his life
in danger and sets him on a journey
in which we meet a number of other
people familiar to us from Smith's
other stories. And we watch Rod
grow up through all his adventures.
Of course these brief sentences
Page 25

do no justice to the 450+ page
collection. Cordwainer Smith must
be read to appreciate his thought
and his utterly unique voice. It has
been said that reading Smith is like
reading a translation from another
language. I know that I have read
few other SF authors whose prose is
as invigorating as Smith's. I cannot
recommend his writing enough.
Baen is to be highly commended
for re-issuing Smith's works in an
affordable two-volume edition.
Unfortunately, as of this writing,
We the Underpeople is out of print.
I hope that Baen will reprint the
volume soon. Until then it is possible
to get the volume (and other out-
of-print editions of Smith's works)
through various online sellers of
used books or as an e-book through
Baen's e-book seller, webscription.
net.
Reviewed by Donald Jacob Uitvlug
RGR Reviews
The New Space Opera
Edited by Gardner Dozois and Jona-
than Strahan
Eos Books, 2008, 656pp.
G ardner Dozois and Jonathan
Strahan’s anthology,
New Space Opera, is a collection
The
of short stories and novellas by
eighteen authors at the forefront
of the revival of space opera that
began in the 1990s and continues
to the present day. The editors
define space opera as «romantic
adventure set in space and told on
a grand scale,» although they are
less concerned with definitions than
with presenting fun stories. They
succeed.
Gwyneth Jones's story «Saving
Tiamaat» presents an interstellar
diplomat who must make a difficult
decision for the sake of peace. In so
doing, she is reminded that she is
much more like her enemy than she
would like to be. Ian McDonald's
«Verthandi's Ring» is high on the
wow scale. It posits that in a finite
universe, total war must in fact be
total on a literally cosmic level.
Robert Reed's «Hatch» is one of his
Great Ship stories, set in a kind of
Gormenghast in space.
Paul J. McAuley's «Winning
Peace» tells the story of a prisoner
of war sold into slavery who finds
escaping even harder than he
thought. Greg Egan's «Glory»
displays the contrasts between
civilizations that are composed
of Seekers and those composed
of Spreaders. Kage Baker's
«Maelstrom» is a comic reminder
that sometimes art is what we
need to survive life, especially life
among the stars. Peter F. Hamilton's
«Blessed by an Angel» suggests that
the future battlegrounds of warring
ideologies may be surprisingly
personal.
Ken Macleod contrasts life in
space to life on a planet in «Who's
Afraid of Wolf 359?» Tony Daniel's
fascinating «The Valley of the
Gardens» holds that in battle
between beings of two radically
different realities, love and art
may make all the difference. Living
forever presents strange new
challenges in James Patrick Kelly's
«Dividing the Sustain» for post-
humans whose greatest fear is
becoming bored.
Alastair Reynold's «Minla's
Flowers» is a poignant reminder
that even plans made with the best
of intentions can have unforeseen
consequences, especially when
people are involved. Mary
Rosenblum's «Splinters of Glass»
is a taught cat-and-mouse tale
set in the ice-caves of Europa
ISSUE 55
with poetic folklore overtones.
«Remembrance» is set in Stephen
Baxter's Xeelee universe. As
humanity recovers from an alien
invasion, one man claims to know
what really happened when the
aliens first arrived.
Robert Silverberg's «The Emperor
and the Maula» presents a complex
galactic empire in which humanity
is just one of countless minor
barbarian species. In such a world,
perhaps our greatest weapons as a
species against our conquerors are
audacity and the power of story.
Gregory Benford's «The Worm
Turns» shows that discovering
where a wormhole leads may not
be as problematic as figuring out
how to get home again.
In Walter Jon Williams's «Send
Them Flowers,» two rogue
adventurers find that no matter
how far they go in the multiverse,
the past has a way of catching up
with them. Nancy Kress's «Art
of War» raises a very interesting
question. Humanity tends to see art
and war as antithetical occupations.
But is that necessarily the case? Dan
Simmons's «Muse of Fire» posits a
future where the fate of the human
race depends on an interstellar
acting troupe.
One can read The New Space
Opera simply for fun. All of the
Page 26
 ISSUE 55

stories are well-written, though a bookshelves. The New Space Opera

couple aren't to my personal tastes. should be a welcome addition to
Fun is one of the things space any fan's library, and even more
opera is all about, and on this level welcome to anyone who wants to
The New Space Opera certainly write in the genre.
succeeds. Some of its stories are
much more. Reviewed by Donald Jacob Uitvlug
Another sort of reader might look
at the anthology more analytically,
looking for trends in what critics call
the New Space Opera. For instance,
of the eighteen authors in Dozois
and Strahan's volume, seven hail
from the United Kingdom and one
from Australia. Almost half from a
non-North American milieu.
Four of the anthology authors
are women, a significant but low
number. Female authors have
always played an important role
in space opera: C. L. Moore, Leigh
Brackett, C. J. Cherryh, and Lois
McMaster Bujold come immediately
to mind. It would be nice to see the
22 percentage of The New Space
Opera increase in the future.
The New Space Opera is
an important anthology of
contemporary stories in the space
opera genre, ranking a close
second to Hartwell and Cramer's
The Space Opera Renaissance. (I
note in passing that seven authors
are represented in both volumes,
though no story is duplicated.) The
two volumes sit side by side on my

RGR Reviews Page 27


This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden
by John M. Whalen
“I
ity.”
don’t have to tell you this is a
matter of utmost confidential-
Byron Murchison, CEO of Mur-
chison Corp. took the 100 Univer-
sal Credit Darlan cigar out of his
clenched teeth and set it down in
a brass ash tray that rested on top
of his Centauri cherry wood desk.
Although the business executive ap-
peared concerned, Frank Carson,
who sat in a chair on the other side
of the desk, noted that his shaved
bald head was absent any perspira-
tion and his brow was unwrinkled.
The man was the head of one of
the known Universe’s biggest inter-
galactic conglomerates, and he had
a reputation for not sweating the
small stuff.
“If word of this leaked out to the
media, it would mean disaster. Not
just for the company, but for all our
stockholders. That’s why I haven’t
brought the police into this. You
must act with complete discretion.”
Carson crossed his legs. The black
gabardine pants leg of his business
suit rode up, exposing the embossed
Krylor boot that covered his foot.
They were sitting in Murchison’s
skyscraper office in the company’s
main headquarters on Zeta-4.
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
“You said this scientist, Dr. Patrick
Shannon, killed the project director
on Reynolds III,” Carson said, “tak-
en over the lab, and is conducting
some sort of experiments.”
“The man’s gone mad.” Mur-
chison’s eyes shifted to the young
woman, his administrative assistant,
sitting in a leather upholstered chair
at the other end of the desk.
“Genetic mutations,” Sari Riegel
said. “New life forms.” Her dark eyes
looked straight across the room
at Carson as she spoke. She was in
charge of Murchison’s security, and
an old acquaintance of Carson’s.
He’d known her when she was a se-
curity agent for Trans-Exxon back in
the days he’d lived on Tulon. They’d
had something that might be called
an affair. Whatever it was called,
he’d ended it when he realized they
were too alike for it to ever work. He
was surprised when she called him
about the job.
She was in her early thirties now,
still attractive and the tailored, black
business suit she wore did a nice job
of making her ample curves neither
overly conspicuous nor un-busi-
nesslike.
“It’s beyond all ethical scientific
research,” Murchison said. “There
could be far-reaching repercussions.
We sent a team of neurobiologists
to check on him. They’re all dead
now. One of them sent word back
before he died. Shannon has creat-
ed some sort of humanoid creature.
A mutation of one of the indigenous
life forms on Reynolds III. For what-
ever purpose, we’re not entirely
sure. He won’t let anyone near the
facility. He’s cut off all communica-
tion on Reynolds III, and rigged the
lab and manufacturing plant to ex-
plode if anyone tries to enter.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Carson asked.
“This is a job for one man,” Mur-
chison said. “One capable man.
Sari has convinced me you’re that
man.” He picked up a small plastic
object from his desk top. “I created
the security system for the lab. This
key will momentarily circumvent
the system and allow you to enter
without being detected. I want you
to get in there and subdue Shannon,
if possible. Or, in the worst case sce-
nario, terminate him. I want the fa-
cility on Reynolds III closed down.
The man must be stopped. If he
succeeds in his plans, the cost to hu-
manity could be incalculable.”
“To say nothing of Murchison
Corporation’s bottom line, eh?” Car-
son said.
Sari Riegel shook her head. “No
need to be cynical, Frank,” she said.
“But then you always were a glass
Page 28
ISSUE 55
half empty kind of guy. Stopping
this madman can only be for the
public good. You can see that can’t
you? Byron funded this project as
a philanthropic enterprise. Some-
thing that would benefit human-
ity. Dr. Shannon has turned it into a
nightmare.”
Carson didn’t know if he believed
that Byron Murchison had philan-
thropic motivations. He wasn’t par-
ticularly known for that. But Sari
seemed convinced. He wondered
what exactly her relationship with
Murchison was.
“If I can take him alive, what will
you do with him?” Carson asked.
“Turn him over to the authorities,
of course,” Murchison said.
“What about media attention
then?”
“Once we have this under con-
trol,” Sari Riegel said, “and Shannon
is locked up our PR department has
a full media package prepared to
show the extraordinary steps Mur-
chison Corporation took to prevent
what could have been a catastro-
phe. You can be at the center of me-
dia coverage, if you wish. You’ll be a
galactic hero.”
Carson pulled his lanky frame out
of the chair. “I prefer anonymity,” he
said. “You know that, Sari. I’ll take
the job. But leave me out of the
limelight.”
“That’s what I told them,” the
woman said, standing up. “Anonym-

ity is a prerequisite for your line of
work.”
“It helps.”
A sarcastic half-smile played on
the woman’s full red lips. “I’ve al-
ways wondered what makes a man
become a hired gun,” she said. “Kill
or be killed. All in a day’s work.”
“Nobody dies who doesn’t need
to,” he said. “You know that. You’ve
taken down your share, I seem to
recall.”
“But I never free-lanced,” she
said. Her eyes suddenly flared hot.
“I always tried to belong to some-
thing. Something bigger than my-
self. Was it a rough childhood that
made you what you are, do you sup-
pose?”
A little boy stood under a starry
sky, raising a clenched fist. “I’ll kill
them,” the little boy said. “I’ll kill
them all.”
She evidently held something of a
grudge against him, not surprisingly.
He shrugged it off. “Not rough,” he
said. “Just short.”
Murchison pressed one of a doz-
en buttons on his desk top. “You’re
fee has been transferred to the ac-
count number you’ve given us. With
a small bonus.”
“Then I’d better be on my way.”
# on something else entirely. Sari Rie-
Carson felt the lurch in his stom-
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
ach, as The Corvette jumped out of
hyper speed. A blue-white orb hung
in the black void ahead. Reynolds
III was a Class B planetoid that trav-
eled a distant orbit around a weak,
dying sun in the Morrow Sector. Ice
and snow covered its gleaming sur-
face. Carson switched on the gull-
wing’s cloaking shield, and brought
the ship down closer.
“Seventy kilometers to the Mur-
chison Corp. facility.” The on-board
computer reported.
“Any life forms, Bogie?” Carson
asked. The voice of the computer
had been created from samples tak-
en from the voice of an actor popu-
lar back in the twentieth century.
“Some primitive animal life scat-
tered all over the planetoid. More
complex forms within the facility
where we’re headed. These appear
to be humanoid.”
“How many inside?”
“Thirty.”
Carson punched in landing coor-
dinates supplied by Murchison and
set the autopilot on. As the ship
turned slightly and descended clos-
er to the surface, he sat back and
watched the snowy terrain moving
beneath him. But he was only half
paying attention. His thoughts were
gel. He couldn’t stop thinking about
her and those luscious red lips.
Seeing her again had stirred up old
memories. But even more, he kept
thinking about the question she’d
asked. What was it that had made
him become a hired gun? Nobody
had ever asked him that before.
He’d never given it much thought,
either. A rough childhood? she
asked. A short one, he’d joked.
He didn’t believe in digging into
the past. None of that mattered, to
his way of thinking. What counted
was the present. You make your
choices as you go along, and what
happened way back when didn’t
have anything to do with that.
And anyway his childhood was no
rougher than anyone else’s on plan-
et Earth. Terror wars had messed
up his world. The destruction and
economic chaos that resulted left
no one with a normal life. His par-
ents killed by the Kerulian terror-
ists when he was only four, he was
raised by a crazy aunt and a mean
old man of an uncle. As soon as he
was old enough, he ran away and
joined the United Tech Territories
Army. Nothing unusual in that. A
common story in these times.
The Army taught him the skills
that would later serve as a way to
earn a living. When he quit the
Army, he took a job on an oil tanker
bound for Tulon, he found the fron-
tier conditions on the oil-rich planet
Page 29
ISSUE 55
an ideal place to begin a career as
a gun for hire. The rest, as they say,
was...
A little girl with long golden hair.
Laughing. There was water splash-
ing all around. A little boy was with
her in the water. He was laughing
too, just as hard as the little girl.
They were naked as jay birds.
The rim of a crater rolled toward
him from the white distance ahead.
The ship banked right, running along
the edge of the rim. A large complex
of steel domes and square-shaped
buildings nested in the center of the
crater. A computer readout told him
the crater was forty kilometers wide
and the complex lay in the center
of it. Murchison had warned him
that an Electro-Radar system was in
place. Anything that moved across
the crater would be detected and
automated laser cannons would
blow his ship to pieces.
When the autopilot indicated
the landing coordinates had been
reached, Carson brought the gull-
wing down. The ship slid along in
a spray of snow and came to rest
by the high, ice-covered wall of
the crater. Carson donned a fur-
trimmed parka and sprayed his face
with Therma Spray to protect his
skin against the -60 degrees C tem-
perature outside. He strapped on a
backpack that contained commu-

nications and survival equipment,
then checked the Ruger Plasma pis-
tol holstered on his leg. He took a
Laser Rifle down from a rack on the
wall and disembarked The Corvette.
A fierce wind whined mournfully
over the top of the crater’s edge,
as Carson trudged across the snow-
covered ground. It sounded like
ghosts calling from another world.
The high wall of the crater’s rim
towered four hundred feet above
him, making him feel small and in-
significant. To his right stretched a
flat snowy plain. The dim light of the
distant sun was enough only to give
the snow-covered surface a weird
twilit glow. Stars glittered feebly in
a charcoal grey sky.
A black door appeared ahead,
built into the side of the crater wall.
Carson heard his boots crunch in the
ice-crusted snow, as he approached
it. He reached into his pocket with
one gloved hand for the electronic
key Murchison had given him. There
was a layer of ice covering the lock.
He pulled the Ruger and clicked the
Plasma Regulator to its lowest level.
A faint purple ray melted the ice and
he inserted the key. The door swung
outward slowly and he stepped in-
side.
The greenish light of a radium
torch taken from his backpack re-
vealed a long dark tunnel. The
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
door whirred shut behind him and
he heard the lock turn. The light in
his hand revealed a car sitting on a
track. To the right, a metal box hung
on the side of the concrete wall,
where Murchison said it would be.
He opened the box and lifted the
handle of a circuit breaker. There
was the hum of electricity and a
pale yellow light filled the entire
length of the tunnel.
Carson turned the torch off and
got into the car. Pressing a button
in the center of a console, the car
moved forward with a clank. He
checked his laser rifle, and blaster,
making sure they were set on full
power. As the car rolled along, the
temperature in the tunnel seemed
to rise. Carson took his parka off.
The black Spandex pants and turtle
neck sweater he wore underneath
would suffice.
The little girl with the golden hair
took off her bathing suit and the
little boy did too. They were gig-
gling as they climbed into the plastic
swimming pool. Then a shadow fell
over them.
The car rolled clicked along on
the track for almost ten minutes
when the tunnel suddenly went
dark. Carson felt a sinking sensation
in the pit of his stomach as the car
came to a halt. He reckoned he had
traveled about fifteen of the twenty
kilometers to the complex. Some-
thing grunted in the pitch black
darkness ahead of him. His blood
turned to ice as he flicked on the ra-
dium torch again. A mass of shaggy,
blue hair and a hideously distorted
face that was half-human, half-
beast appeared in the light. A hairy
arm swung, smashing his wrist hard.
Numbing pain shot up his arm, and
the torch flew from his grip, throw-
ing the tunnel in darkness again. A
powerful hand grabbed the front of
his turtleneck. Fetid, stinking breath
filled Carson’s nostrils, as the thing
that had grabbed him lifted him
from the car. It was strong, and he
felt powerless in its grip. A deep
growl rumbled and powerful arms
threw him through the air. Carson
crashed hard against the tunnel
wall, and landed next to the tracks
behind the car, knocked nearly
senseless.
His heart hammered wildly as
he lay there. He shook his head to
clear it. He still had his rifle but his
right hand was totally useless from
the blow it had received. He swung
the rifle from his right shoulder to
his left hand. He could hear the
thing coming closer. Carson fought
to keep panic down. If that thing
got him again he wouldn’t have a
chance. The index finger of his left
hand tightened around the trig-
Page 30
ISSUE 55
ger of the laser rifle and squeezed.
And kept on squeezing. White laser
blasts strobed the tunnel. A huge
shaggy form loomed in the flashing
light. Carson kept firing. There was
a savage, animal scream and the
sound of something heavy falling.
Carson scrambled to his feet
breathless. There were footsteps
in the darkness. More of the things
were coming. Several loud roars
echoed, and Carson fired the rifle
again. More white lasers leaped
from the barrel of his gun, illumi-
nating flying tufts of shaggy blue
fur. He kept firing. A cacophony of
savage screams and roars echoed
loudly and mingled with the loud
blasts from the laser gun, tearing at
his eardrums. Then Carson stopped
shooting and all was silent.
He waited tensely, rifle ready.
The lights came back on in the tun-
nel suddenly. Before him lay half a
dozen of the things he’d killed. Red
blood streaked the long blue hair
that covered their bodies. He crept
closer. The creatures were all dead.
Mutants of some kind. Their large
bodies were a weird mixture of sim-
ian and ursine characteristics, but
their grotesquely distorted faces
looked almost human—like the fac-
es of a missing link lost somewhere
in the chain of evolution. Their
eyes stared up at him, empty and

almost sad. He reasoned that they
were the products of Dr. Shannon’s
experiments. A shudder ran down
Carson’s spine. Why would anyone
create such things, he wondered?
It wasn’t for him to worry about
such things. He was here to do a job.
No questions asked. With power re-
stored, Carson believed he could
continue his journey to the end of
the tunnel. With great effort, pulled
the fallen beasts clear of the tracks
and then got back into the electric
car.
# sight that met his eyes. Palm trees
The car rolled to a stop at the end
of the tunnel and Carson stepped
out of it. He saw a flight of concrete
steps that ran up the tunnel wall to
a railed landing where there was an
elevator. Carson crept up the steps
cautiously. A roar echoed behind.
Carson wheeled. Three more of the
shaggy, ape-like creatures lumbered
out of the shadows toward the
stairs. Carson drew his plasma pis-
tol and fired. The creatures tumbled
down on the tunnel floor, but more
of the beasts were coming from fur-
ther down the tunnel.
Carson ran up the stairs and in-
serted the key Murchison had given
him into the elevator lock. The door
slid open and he got in. The shaggy
blue creatures roared savagely as
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
the door closed and the car ascend-
ed. The bestial sounds of the crea-
tures faded away below him.
Carson stood ready, the pistol still
in his hand. He had no idea what
to expect when the elevator doors
opened. “All in a day’s work,” he told
himself, recalling Sari Riegel’s words.
Something told him this would be a
day’s work unlike any other.
When the doors opened, he
stepped out. He took only a few
steps and then stopped, his mind
reeling, trying to comprehend the
rose high up over his head, green,
green vegetation and bright colored
flowers—orchids, roses, sunflow-
ers—dazzled the eye. The sound of
falling water came from far off and
unlike the frozen world outside, the
temperature here was balmy. Car-
son looked up and saw an impos-
sible blue sky and a warm, burning
sun shining down. He was sure that
most of what he was seeing couldn’t
be real.
“Welcome,” a deep baritone voice
said. “Welcome to Forever Eden. I’m
Dr. Patrick Shannon.” A tall, broad-
shouldered man in a blue jump suit
and high top boots stood there in
front of Carson. A thick head of dark
hair covered his head, in stark con-
tradiction to the nearly white beard
on his face. He smiled at Carson and
bright blue eyes sparkled.
Carson still had his plasma gun
in his hand and kept it aimed at the
man.
“I can see you’re having trouble
comprehending what you’re seeing,
Mr.—eh—”
“Carson.” He looked around at
the lush setting. “What is this place?
Is it real?”
“Mostly,” Dr. Shannon said. “Some
of it is a digital recreation. Some
is the result of my experiments in
dimensional expansion. Creating
space where there is none. What
you see is my attempt to recreate
the Garden of Eden as described in
the Book of Genesis. I thought such
a setting was appropriate for the
work going on here.”
Carson stared at him and won-
dered if the doctor was insane or
just putting him on.
“You’re confusion is understand-
able, Mr. Carson, especially consid-
ering what Byron Murchison prob-
ably told you.”
“You know Murchison sent me?”
“I knew he’d send somebody.
Somebody like you. A mercenary, no
doubt. A gun for hire.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
The doctor looked at the pistol in
Carson’s hand. “Have you come to
kill me?”
“That’s up to you,” Carson said.
Page 31
ISSUE 55
“They want you brought in. They
want to turn you over to the police.”
The doctor smiled. “You believe
that?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter,”
Carson said. “I’m being paid to do
a job, and I always finish whatever
job I take on. Murchison wants this
place shut down and you brought
back to Zeta-4.”
“What exactly did Murchison tell
you about me and this place?”
“He said you were experiment-
ing with mutant life forms.” Carson
pointed down below. “I ran into
some of your experiments down
stairs.”
“I see,” Dr. Shannon said. The
doctor smiled sadly. He started to
turn. “Come along,” Shannon said.
“Let’s walk. I want to show you
something.”
Carson raised his pistol. “Hold it!”
he ordered.
Shannon turned and faced him.
“Please, Mr. Carson,” he said. “I
mean you no harm. If I didn’t want
you here I would never turned the
power back on inside the tunnel.
The Shivoths— those ‘things in the
tunnel’ as you put it—they turned it
off before they attacked you. They’re
primitive creatures, but their minds
are growing more intelligent every
day. You have nothing to fear from
me. No need for violence.”

“I didn’t come here for a little
chat, doctor,” Carson said. “Why
don’t you get your things. I’ve got a
ship waiting.”
“I have no intention of leaving
here,” Shannon said defiantly. “I’ve
done nothing wrong. The only rea-
son Byron wants this place closed
is so he can keep the public from
knowing what he himself has done
here.” He looked Carson straight in
the eye. “Come along with me, and
I’ll explain everything. When I’m
done, if you still want me to, I’ll go
with you peaceably.”
Carson didn’t want to waste time.
But something bothered him.
“How did you know I was in the
tunnel?” he asked the doctor. “Mur-
chison said you wouldn’t be able
to detect my arrival, if I came that
way.”
“Just one of the many lies I’m
sure he told you,” Shannon said.
“Wouldn’t you like to hear a least
some of the truth?”
Carson was convinced the scien-
tist posed no immediate threat. He
could take him down and have him
on board The Corvette whenever
he wanted to. He didn’t like the
fact that Murchison had told him
the tunnel was safe, when in fact it
wasn’t. That kind of misinformation
could have gotten him killed. He
had felt at the outset that Murchi-
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
son hadn’t been completely truth-
ful about everything. It might be
wise to hear what Dr. Shannon had
to say. A few minutes more or less
wouldn’t matter. He holstered the
Ruger.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he
said, and followed the scientist as
he started down the tree-lined path.
# “I don’t remember much of my
As they walked Carson observed
the foliage that grew all around the
place. Big lavender orchids, bright
orange and blue Birds of Paradise,
and a hundred other flowers he
couldn’t name. Bright plumaged
birds flew high up in the trees and
hopped along the forest floor. From
far off he heard the sound of falling
water.
“Have you ever wondered,” the
doctor began, “what it must have
been like in Paradise? The Garden
of Eden? How Adam, the first man,
felt before he was expelled from the
Garden for eating the fruit of the
Tree of Knowledge?” He turned and
gave Carson a quizzical look.
“Can’t say I have,” Carson an-
swered. “Haven’t read much of the
Old Testament. These days hardly
anybody has.”
“I’ve often thought it must have
been like the way we were when
we were children,” the doctor said.
“Can you remember your childhood,
Mr. Carson? Can you remember
that glorious time when the world
seemed bright and clean, not grey
and dirty, the way we see it now as
adults? When sound and color and
smells were so vivid? When life was
a promise to be kept, and no lies
had yet been told?”
childhood,” Carson said. “And I don’t
believe in looking back.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot
lately,” the doctor said. He stopped
walking and a cockatoo flew down
and landed on his shoulder. He took
a seed out the pocket of his overalls
and fed it to the bird.
As the bird fed, the doctor’s eyes
narrowed suddenly and he looked
at Carson with sudden rage. “Do
you know what this place is, Mr.
Carson? Do you have any idea what
it was built for? Did Murchison tell
you what he wanted me to do?”
Carson was surprised by the
man’s sudden change of mood.
“Not really,” he said.
“I have no right to condemn him,”
the scientist said. “I agreed whole-
heartedly to do what he wanted.
I was lured by his money and the
chance to prove I could do what no
one had ever done before. God, I
wish now I hadn’t listened to him.
But I wanted to be the first neuro-
Page 32
ISSUE 55
biologist to successfully create a
humanoid creature by mutating the
genetic pattern of a previously exist-
ing species. That was the nature of
my particular brand of hubris.”
Carson let the scientist go on.
“Byron Murchison’s corporate
empire was in trouble,” the doctor
said. “Labor unions were cutting too
deep into his profits. He had a solu-
tion. He wanted a humanoid work-
force created especially to work in
his mines, refineries, and factories.
I’m a neurobiologist. He knew I was
foremost in my field. He’d heard of
my work altering the genetic codes
of lower life forms. Protozoa, in-
sects, reptiles, chimps. He came to
me. He knew I wanted to move up
to higher life forms. But the laws of
Zeta-4 forbid such experimentation.
“He asked me, if I could work
unhampered by restriction, could I
create the kind of creature he was
looking for. I told him I was certain
I could. He said knew about this
place, Reynolds III, and the Shivot-
hs, those creatures you saw in the
tunnel. Despite their appearance,
they have a genetic structure amaz-
ingly similar to humans. He offered
me what I thought was the chance
of a lifetime.”
The cockatoo flew off the doc-
tor’s shoulder and soared up into
the trees.

“Murchison gave me the resourc-
es to build this place,” Shannon said,
“if I agreed to create a race of slaves
to work for him.”
The doctor stared up into the
trees, watching the bird land on
a branch. He turned to Carson.
“Sounds diabolical, doesn’t it?”
he said. “It was diabolical. And I’m
ashamed to admit my part in it now.
But arrogance and pride blinded
me. It took five long years. There
were many failures, but eventually I
succeeded.”
“Succeeded?” Carson said. “You
call those things in the tunnel a suc-
cess?”
“No, Mr. Carson,” Doctor Shan-
non said. “Not those pitiable mon-
sters down below. Come. Look!”
# Corp. to be made a slave. I contact-
They came to a pool of blue water
that sat at the base of a waterfall. A
high wall of rock extended up into
the blue sky and Carson could not
tell if it were a real cliff or only some
kind of digital projection. All around
where they stood, rose a lush tropi-
cal forest.
“Adam!” the doctor suddenly
called. He cupped his hand around
his mouth and shouted the name
again. “Adam!”
Carson heard something moving
up in the trees. The expanse of the
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
forest seemed incomprehensible,
given the size of the domed build-
ing they were in. What he saw must
have been the product of what the
doctor had called dimensional ex-
pansion. He looked up and unbe-
lievably, he saw a young man swing-
ing through the trees on thick liana
vines. The boy had long golden hair
and wore a dark loincloth. The youth
swooped down in a long, graceful
arc and landed on the ground a few
feet away from them.
“Doc-tor!” the young man cried
out. “Hel-lo, doc-tor.”
“Adam, come meet someone,”
the doctor said. “This is Mr. Carson.
He’s come to visit.”
The youth came nearer, his face
illuminated by a bright, open smile.
His clear grey eyes seemed honest,
holding nothing back. The eyes of a
child, Carson thought.
“Hel-lo, Car-son,” he said. “Wel-
come to our Garden.”
Carson nodded but said nothing.
The youth glanced excitedly over
at the doctor. “Doc-tor, I saw some-
thing new!” he said. “Up there in
the trees. A nest. A beautiful bird.
It flew away, and I looked inside the
nest. I found these.”
He lifted a pouch tied to his waist
and opened it. Three small blue
eggs rolled out into the palm of his
hand. “See!”
Doctor Shannon laughed. “Those
are eggs, Adam,” he said. “You must
put them back in the nest. The
mother bird must be sad, you took
her eggs away. In a few weeks they’ll
hatch and baby birds will be born.”
“Hatch?” the youth said. “Baby
birds?”
“That’s right,” the doctor said.
“Now you go and return them to
their nest.”
The youth looked at the turquoise
eggs resting in his palm. “But they’re
so pretty!” he said. Carson couldn’t
help noticing how the boy’s eyes
gleamed as they peered intently at
the round objects in his hand. Al-
though the boy appeared to be in
his late teens, early twenties, he
seemed nothing more than a child.
Every experience, every sensation
seemed to be a new delight to him.
“You must take them back,” the
doctor admonished.
“All right, Doc-tor,” the youth said.
He put the eggs back in the pouch.
“I will.” He looked at Carson. “Good
bye, Car-son. Nice to meet you.”
Adam turned and, with the grace
and speed of a jungle cat, ran for the
vine that he’d swung in on and flew
up into the trees. Carson watched
in amazement as the youthful fig-
ure disappeared into the seemingly
endless forest.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it, Mr. Car-
Page 33
ISSUE 55
son?” the doctor said, “that Adam
comes from the same embryo as
those wretched things down be-
low?”
“You’re saying Adam is your cre-
ation?” Carson asked. “Then what
about those things down in the tun-
nel you created?”
“I didn’t create them, Mr. Car-
son,” the doctor said. “Byron did.”
#
“Adam was something more than
I ever hoped to create,” Shannon
said. “You saw him. He’s pure, full of
life, and hope. He knows nothing of
the ways of the world. He has not
yet tasted the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge. When I saw how Adam
turned out, I no longer had the
heart to turn him over to Murchison
ed Byron and told him I couldn’t go
through with it. He came out here
with a team of technicians and a
security force. They locked me up
when I refused to cooperate and
Byron set his team to work, using
the data stored on my computer, to
duplicate my efforts. He went back
to Zeta-4.
“They were incompetent fools.
You’ve seen for yourself the results
of their work. They produced fifty
of those pitiable monsters, hoping
each one would turn out better than

the last. But instead the results be-
came more and more grotesque. But
they paid for their incompetence.
They were destroyed by the very
monsters they created. The Shivoth
mutants broke lose from the cages
they kept them in and killed every
last one of them. Adam freed me
from the cell I had been put in and
we managed to lock the creatures
out of the Garden, when they tried
to return to their world. Being half-
human, they can no longer tolerate
the freezing temperatures. They are
doomed now to roam the tunnels
and other underground parts of the
compound like damned souls, un-
able to return to their world and
locked out of the garden.”
Carson’s mind reeled. Was the
doctor telling the truth? It was all
too nightmarish, too impossible to
be true. Yet he had seen the beasts
down in the tunnel. And he had
seen Adam. He stood this very mo-
ment in a place that for all practical
purposes could actually be a virtual
Garden of Eden. He felt as though
his mind was beginning to unravel.
“I’ll kill them,” the little boy said.
“I’ll kill them all!” The little boy
raised a clenched fist to the sky.
I swear I’ll kill them. If it’s the last
thing I do.
“I want to show you something
else,” the doctor said.
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
# son felt the hair on the back of his
They entered Shannon’s labora-
tory. Stainless steel, glass tubes,
powerful generators, electron mi-
croscopes. They stood in front of a
glass tank filled with a blue, bub-
bling liquid. Carson was awestruck.
In the liquid, a young, naked girl
floated, her dark hair splayed out
around her head like a fan. Her
features were not yet fully formed,
but Carson could see she would
be beautiful. Plastic tubes were at-
tached to her nose and mouth. She
floated with her eyes closed, her
arms down by her sides but seem-
ing to reach out.
“Eve,” Dr. Shannon said. “She is
almost finished. Only another day
or two. Then Adam will have his
companion. He won’t be lonely
anymore. They will be like the first
couple in that mythical garden.
But in their garden there will be no
serpent. No fruit from the Tree of
Knowledge to tempt them. Nothing
to cause them to be expelled from
Paradise. I’ve done what no man
has ever thought to do. Created a
Paradise in this life. They will live
happily and reproduce with no guilt,
no shame. They will be innocent in
their nakedness, as innocent as chil-
dren, and from them a new race will
be born.”
Innocent in their nakedness! Car-
neck stand up. That phrase. It meant
something to him. Something from
the past. What? He never ruminat-
ed on the past. But suddenly images
poured into his mind. Memories
of long ago. Earlier the doctor had
asked him if he could remember
a time “when the world seemed
bright and clean, not grey and dirty,
the way we see it now as adults?”
He did remember a time like that.
He remembered a little girl named
Judy.
He was only seven or eight years
old. Judy was six. He remembered
how that golden-haired Judy girl
could really make him laugh. They
lived in a housing project built for
those displaced by the Terror War.
One day they played in a plastic
swimming pool, in back of the build-
ing that served as living quarters for
six families. They played there most
every day that summer. But this day,
just for fun, they decided to take
their bathing suits off. They swam
around, splashing each other. They
could not stop laughing.
Now that he remembered, he re-
alized he’d never laughed that hard
before or since. Innocent in their na-
kedness. That described it perfectly.
Two children happy, laughing them-
selves to death, oblivious to the dan-
ger that lurked near them
Page 34
ISSUE 55
Then something blocked out the
sun and a shadow fell over them. It
was his Aunt Sadie.
“What is this?!!” she shrieked,
her big nose hovering over him.
“What is this?!!!”
He was yanked out of the pool by
his ear.
“For shame. For shame,” his aunt
screeched. “What do you two think
you’re doing? Get some clothes on,
young lady. I’ll speak to your moth-
er about this. And you, young man.
You’re going to bed without your
supper. And wait until your uncle
gets home. You’re bad! You’re bad!
And you’ll get the licking you de-
serve. Believe me!”
Uncle Vernon and his razor strop.
Carson remembered how he had
wondered what she was so angry
about and how hard he had fought
not to cry.
“Stay right where you are!” a
voice said from behind, shatter-
ing Carson’s vivid recollection. He
turned, startled. Yet somehow he
wasn’t surprised to see Byron Mur-
chison standing there. Sari Riegel
stood next to him. They both held
pistols in their hands. Behind them
stood four armed uniformed men.
“Don’t even think about using
your weapons, Carson,” Murchison
said. “Unsling that carbine and drop
it on the floor.” Carson saw there

were no options for this play. “Kick
it over to me. And then the pistol.”
Carson kicked the guns away.
“You’re slipping, Frank,” Sari Rie-
gel said. “I thought maybe it was a
lousy childhood that made you the
hard-nosed louse you are. So hard,
nobody could ever take you. But
maybe I was wrong. Maybe your
childhood wasn’t that rough after
all.”
That joke again. “I didn’t say it
was rough,” Carson answered. “I
said it was short. Anyway I don’t be-
lieve in looking back.”
“There’s no reason for you to be
stupid, Frank,” Sari said. “You’ve
done your job. You were Murchi-
son’s Judas Goat. You’ve been paid.
Just walk away.” She motioned with
the gun for Carson to step away
from Dr. Shannon. “But keep your
hands up.”
Carson stepped back from the
doctor with his hands shoulder high.
“There’s no reasoning with this
mad man,” Murchison said, nodding
at Shannon. “I tried. But he won’t
listen. He threatened to blow ev-
erything up and himself with it, if I
came near this place. That’s why I
sent you, Carson. A distraction.”
Carson felt anger heating up in his
stomach. He didn’t like being used.
He glared at Sari. It was obvious she
still held a grudge against him for
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
what happened back on Tulon.
Murchison turned and his eyes
feasted on the girl floating in the
tank.
“All I want him to do is make me
more like her and Adam with one or
two minor modifications.”
“I will not make compliant slaves
to do your bidding, Byron,” Dr. Shan-
non said.
“We’ll see,” Murchison said. He
looked back to the doorway to the
lab. “Bring him in!” he shouted.
Two more uniformed men came
into the room dragging Adam with
them. The youth seemed frightened
and confused. The men marched
him up to where Murchison stood.
Carson noticed how Sari’s eyes wid-
ened in surprise at sight of the boy.
She stared at him in fascination
as he came in. Murchison’s pistol
swung around and the muzzle of
the gun came to rest against Adam’s
temple.
“You’ll do what I tell you, Shan-
non,” he said. “Or would you rather
see your creation dead?”
“Doc-tor. Shan-non,” Adam cried.
“Who are these men? Why do they
want to hurt me?”
“They won’t hurt you, Adam,” the
doctor said. “Don’t be afraid.”
“You have three seconds,” Mur-
chison said.
Carson could see that the plas-
ma pistol in Murchison’s hand was
primed and ready to fire a lethal ray
into the boy’s head. His eyes shifted
to Sari, as Murchison counted. He
noticed a frown on her face. Surpris-
ingly, she seemed distressed.
“Please,” the doctor said. “Don’t
do it! I told you, it would be point-
less anyway. This boy knows nothing
of work. It’s a concept he’ll never be
able to grasp. He exists only to ex-
ist. Like the lilies of the field. They
toil not, neither do they spin. He
wasn’t made to spend his days in
your mines and factories. His brain
is useless for your purposes.”
“Then alter it,” Murchison said.
“What?”
“Alter his brain,” Murchison said.
“Give him a virtual bite of the Tree
of Knowledge, as you so eloquently
refer to it. Make him know his real
place in this world. Make him know
he was made to serve me!”
“No!” Shannon screamed.
The barrel of Murchison’s gun
cracked down hard on the side of
Adam’s head. Sari Riegel let out a
startled cry. The boy yelled and sank
down on his knees. He began to cry.
“Byron, what are you doing?” Sari
Riegel said. “Is that necessary?”
“What is necessary is that this
fool understand I mean business.”
“You said you were going to rea-
son with him,” the girl said. “Nobody
Page 35
ISSUE 55
would be hurt. There’s no need—”
“Shut up,” Murchison said.
“There’s a lot you didn’t tell
me about what’s going on here,”
she said. “I guess Carson isn’t the
only one you’ve been deceiving. I
thought you were funding a human-
itarian project out here. Something
that would help people. Cure dis-
ease. This is nothing like that at all.”
“I’ve no time for this, Sari,” Mur-
chison barked.
“I’ve gone along with you on a
lot of things,” the girl said. “Some
things I wasn’t too crazy about. But
I always overlooked what I saw, be-
cause I admired you. I thought at
bottom you were a good man. But
you’re ruthless. What’s happening
here is too much. It’s sick. I won’t
go along with it. I think you’d better
stop.”
Murchison turned, his gun swing-
ing around to point at her. “Do you,
really?” he said.
“I’ve got a gun in my hand,” the
woman said.
“Do you think you can fire it be-
fore I or the men behind you cut
you to ribbons?” Murchison’s eyes
were hard as steel.
Sari hesitated.
“Take her weapon,” Murchison
barked. One of the security team
snatched the pistol from her hand.
“Just stand back and be quiet, Sari.

Let the grownups handle this.” He
snapped at the guards. “Cover her.”
“Welcome to the human race,”
Carson told the woman. “But you
should have plugged him.”
Murchison pointed the gun down
at the kneeling boy. “Now, Shannon,
we’ve wasted enough time. Do it, or
I’ll blow his brains all over the floor.”
The doctor glared at Murchison.
“What is it, doctor?” Adam blurt-
ed tearfully. “What do they want?”
A steely resolve came over the
doctor. “Get up, Adam,” he said qui-
etly. “Come, my son.”
# grid flashed to life, with light rip-
They moved to the rear of the
laboratory and came to an operat-
ing table that stood before a wall
lined with electronic equipment.
“Lie down, Adam,” the doctor
said.
The boy looked around at the
armed men, Murchison, Sari Rie-
gel, and Carson. “I don’t want to lie
down, doctor,” he said. “Something
is wrong.”
“No,” Shannon said. “Nothing is
wrong.”
The doctor helped the boy up on
the table. “You trust me, don’t you,
Adam?”
“Yes, doctor.”
Carson’s eyes darted over to Sari
Riegel. She stood now, like him, with
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
her hands in the air, covered by the
guards’ guns. He wondered if he
made a move, would she try to help
him?
Adam stretched out on the ta-
ble and the doctor fastened straps
across his chest, thighs and ankles.
He placed a mask on the boy’s face,
inserted an IV into his arm that was
connected to a plastic bag filled
with green liquid. He lowered a grid
of neon tubes over his upper chest.
He moved over to the electronic
console alongside the table and
flicked some switches. The neon
pling through the gas-filled tubes
in rhythmic waves. The green liquid
began to run down the IV to the
boy’s arm.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” the doctor
said, stroking the boy’s yellow hair.
“Just close your eyes.”
“I urge you, doctor,” Murchison
said. “Not to try anything foolish.”
He had his gun on the doctor’s back.
The security team stood ready, their
weapons cocked.
The light in the neon grid rippled
faster and the electronic machinery
behind the table pulsated with a
deep rhythmic thrum that seemed
to shake the floor. Carson looked
down at the boy on the table. Some-
thing was happening. Adam’s body
started to tremble. His face turned
pale. Then long tendrils of blue hair
shot out of the follicles on this legs
and arms. His face began to change
shape. His nose widened and flat-
tened, his brow jutted out over eyes
that were receding into his skull.
“What is going on?” Murchison
asked. “What have you done?”
Long blue hair now covered Ad-
am’s chest and torso. His body was
growing enormously in size. The
boy’s mouth opened in a wide snarl,
revealing long, sharp yellow teeth
and fangs. His chest expanded. The
restraining strap snapped in two.
With a guttural roar the thing that
had been Adam leaped up on the
table— a giant, slavering beast.
“I warned you!” Murchison
shouted, firing his weapon. The
purple ray struck Dr. Shannon in the
back. He spun around. The creature
let out a roar and sprang off the
table, landing on top of Murchison.
The security team’s laser rifles spit
white beams. The creature picked
Murchison up and threw him across
the room. Murchison crashed down
on a table. Beakers and microscopes
fell in shattered pieces. The creature
leaped on the men firing at him,
tearing and ripping them apart with
his teeth and claws.
Carson sprang forward. He saw
that the gun that Sari Riegel given
up now lay on the floor. He ran for it.
Page 36
ISSUE 55
One of the uniformed men saw him
go for the gun and fired a shot at
him. Carson dove for the weapon,
and still sliding on the floor, fired
it. The security guard crumpled and
fell. Sari ran in and picked up the
fallen guard’s rifle.
For a second they stood facing
each other, weapons raised. Carson
saw Sari’s finger tighten around the
trigger of the gun.
“Let’s get out of here!” she shout-
ed.
Carson turned. “The doctor!” He
pointed at Shannon, who was stag-
gering to his feet. “He’s still alive!”
“Wait here.” Carson ran over to
Dr. Shannon. There was blood on
the front of his overalls. Murchi-
son’s shot had gone clean through
him.
“Can you walk?” Carson asked.
“Yes,” the doctor said.
Carson put his shoulder under
the doctor’s arm and started wak-
ing him toward the doorway at
the front of the lab. “Come on,” he
shouted at Sari.
There was a loud crashing sound.
Carson turned and saw the tank
containing the female humanoid
shattering to pieces. It had been hit
by a laser blast. The water shot out
and the unfinished body spilled out
onto the floor.
“No!” Dr. Shannon cried.

Sari Riegel came up on the oth-
er side of the doctor and she and
Carson dragged him to the lab en-
trance. They got out of the lab as the
sounds of carnage continued to rage
behind them. They got through the
door and stood in a hallway that led
back to Forever Eden. The wounded
doctor pressed numbers in a key
pad on the wall and the vault-like
door whirred shut. Even behind the
thickness of the massive door, they
could hear the crashing, screaming
rampage still going on.
The doctor leaned against the
wall for support. Tears streamed
down his cheeks.
“I know there’s no forgiveness
for what I’ve done,” he said. “This
is all my fault. But I had no choice. I
couldn’t turn Adam into what Mur-
chison wanted. God help me!”
“We better get you some medical
care,” Carson said.
# suddenly saw the face of that gold-
They walked him down the hall
and carried him through the por-
tal into the jungle garden the doc-
tor had named Forever Eden. The
waterfall and the plumaged birds
seemed like a mad hallucination to
Carson now.
“Let me rest by the pool,” the
doctor said. Carson and the girl set
him down on the concrete bench.
This Raygun For Hire:
Forever Eden,
by John M. Whalen
“You two must go, immediately,”
Shannon said. “I’ll give you fifteen
minutes. You can get back to your
ship. After that Forever Eden will
cease to exist. You must hurry.”
“What do you mean?” Carson
asked.
Shannon reached into a pocket
sewn into his jump suit and pulled
out a remote control detonator.
“One thing Murchison told you is
true,” he said. “I’ve set this facil-
ity up for destruction in the event
something like this happened. All I
have to do is press this button. Ev-
erything will be destroyed. Now get
out of here.”
“But why?” Sari said.
The doctor cocked his thumb
over the red button in the center of
the remote.
“Don’t make me kill the both of
you too,” the doctor rasped. “This
is the only way I can pay for what
I’ve done. I made a pact with the
Devil. I tried to do something no
man should ever try. I was foolish to
think I could redeem myself. I tried
to fight Murchison. But the Murchi-
sons of the world always win. It is a
grey, dirty world, after all.”
Carson could see the doctor was
finished. He wondered if he would
even last twenty minutes.
“Better to destroy everything,”
the doctor said, his voice sounding
weak, “than take the chance Mur-
chison, if he’s still alive, or someone
like him, tries to start over again.
Now go.”
Carson stood over him a moment,
watching the life draining from his
eyes. “So long, doctor,” he said.
He started to leave but Sari bent
down over the doctor. “I’m sorry,”
she said. She looked up at the beau-
tiful environment Shannon had cre-
ated. There was the rush of the wa-
terfall and the call of one of the rare
exotic birds.
“Let’s go,” Carson urged.
They got to the elevator and Car-
son unlocked it. As they got into the
car he took one last look at Forever
Eden and then the doors closed and
the car descended.
It was a long fifteen minute ride
through the tunnel. They found a
dozen dead Shivoths lying at the
base of the elevator. Killed by Mur-
chison’s security team. Along the
track they encountered more of the
beasts alive and Carson let them
be. He did not stop the car until it
reached the end of the tunnel.
He used the key Murchison had
given him to get out the door and
staggered out into the freezing wind,
towing Sari along. It was snowing
forcefully now, and the large white
flakes hit his face with surprising,
stinging force. Carson’s heart lifted
Page 37
ISSUE 55
when he saw The Corvette loom-
ing ahead. Behind it, barely visible
in the blowing snow, was the ship
Murchison and Sari had arrived in.
#
Moments later, he was in the
cockpit of The Corvette. Sari sat in
the co-pilot seat. He fired up the en-
gine and lifted the gull wing off the
surface. He got as much altitude as
quickly as he could.
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
Sari asked.
Twenty kilometers above the sur-
face, Carson looked down at the re-
ceding white globe of Reynolds III
and without warning a bright red-
orange flower bloomed in the cen-
ter of the planetoid. They were too
far up to hear the explosion.
Carson had sufficient altitude
now to engage Hyper drive. He hit
the button and there was a blinding
flash of blue light. In that flash, he
en haired girl of his childhood. For
a man who didn’t like to remem-
ber the past, he’d been doing a lot
of that lately. Sari had asked him if
it was a rough childhood that had
made him the man he was now.
He’d always scoffed at the idea that
the past had any hold on you in the
present. It wasn’t rough, he’d joked.
Just short. He knew now why he’d
 ISSUE 55

stopped remembering the past. all.”

Most memories were too painful. “What are you thinking about?”
He got the beating of his life when Sari Riegel asked, as the memory
Uncle Vern got home that day his exploded into mist.
aunt caught him skinny dipping. His “I was thinking about my lousy
uncle really knew how to use that childhood,” he said.
razor strop, and he seemed to enjoy Sari looked confused. Those full
it too. After that, he and his friend red lips started to smile sympa-
Judy were never allowed to play thetically. He pulled her to him and
together again. It broke both their kissed her hard.
hearts. They passed each other
notes saying no matter what, they
would stay friends forever. But sev-
eral weeks later, she and her family
were moved out of the project and
relocated to another settlement
camp. He never saw her again.
He heard that winter that the
camp they’d moved to had been
destroyed by the Kerulian terrorists.
A small nuclear bomb in a suitcase
had leveled the place and there
were no survivors. He remembered
how, when he heard the news that
night at the dinner table, he didn’t
cry. He’d just turned eight. Too old
to cry. He just stood behind the
building where he and Judy used to
play and felt hot waves of anger and
hatred washing over him.
At that moment he wanted to kill
everyone. His uncle. His aunt. The
Kerulians. Everyone in the whole
world. He clenched his fist and
raised it to the starry sky. “I’ll kill
them,” he said. “I swear, I’ll kill them

This Raygun For Hire:

Forever Eden, by John M. Whalen Page 38
 ISSUE 55

ARTIST INTERVIEW:
Juha Järvinen, Finland
Greg Martin’s celestial art.

What are your current influences?

Name: Juha Järvinen Everything and nothing.
Age: 19 What inspired the art for the cover?
That was a early work of mine, probably inspired by the possibilities of color
Country of residence: Finland
usage in digital media.
Hobbies:
How would you describe your work?
Literature, music, visual art, gym
Vivid. 
Favorite Book / Author:  
Where do you get your inspiration / what inspires you?
The Pearl by John Steinbeck.
I get huge inspiration from modern art, music, books, movies, and people.
Favorite Artist:
Have you had any notable failures, and how has failure affected your
Impossible to pick one now.
work?
When did you start creating art? The problem is, I see each of my works as some kind of failure, and that re-
Some would say at the age of ally affects my work—always trying to push further. I’ve made some awful
two, but I’d say fourteen. posters and CD-covers for example, which I don’t want to admit are mine.

What media do you work in? What have been your

Digital media mainly, but nowa- greatest successes? How
days, more and more traditional has success impacted
ones. you / your work?
Success always increases
Where your work has been featured? self-esteem, and for me
Mainly in some small publications, posters, websites, etc. it opens new ways to
execute a vision. I haven’t
Where should someone go if they wanted to view / buy some of your
had a single ‘huge suc-
works?
cess,’ I feel successful
They should go to www.nordicvisions.com and wait for an update.
every time someone
How did you become an artist? comes back to me for a
If I knew that I probably could avoid making further mistakes in my life. :) new commission.

What were your early influences? What are your favorite

tools / equipment for

Artist Interview: Juha Järvinen Page 39

 ISSUE 55

producing your art? 

When it comes to hardware, I plainly love my MacBook pro, as I can take
it anywhere. Also, I could never abandon my drawing tablet. Software of
course, Photoshop, but as it’s too narrow an answer, I’ll say layer blending.
I also like all kind of combining, for example: traditional Chinese inks and
hazy-glowy Photoshop layers—that’s really tasty at the moment. For poster
designs I mainly use InDesign.

What tool / equip-

ment do you wish you
had?
I wish I had a bigger,
about 50sqm studio,
which I could decorate
for a more inspiration-
al look.

What do you hope to

accomplish with your
art?
I’ve never thought of
this. I feel I’ve accom-
plished something
every time somebody
simply likes my work.
Drawing emotions in
an audience is some-
thing which makes me
very happy every time
it happens.

Artist Interview: Juha Järvinen Page 40


TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
The Ties That Bind, Part Four
by Justin R. Macumber
“A ttention incoming vessel,”
a voice said over the loud-
speakers in the bridge of the star-
freighter Breaking Dawn. “You have
entered a restricted area. Please
state your business and prepare to
be boarded.”
As Jessica was about to reply, an-
other voice came through the open
communications channel and said,
“Breaking Dawn, this is Traxal Dip-
lomatic Vessel A-A17. If you turn
about immediately you can disre-
gard that order. You have not yet
broached the zone of contention
that surrounds Tol, despite what-
ever that overzealous Yinushan cap-
tain might say. But, if you continue
on your present course, you will do
so in less than one standard minute.
Turn back now and stay under our
protection, or carry on and risk the
tender mercies of the Yinushan mili-
tary. Your choice.”
“I appreciate the advice, A-A17,”
she said into her headset, “but I’ve
got a package I have to deliver.”
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,
Breaking Dawn,” the distant Traxal
officer intoned. “More Yinushan
ships are on the way, so if I was you
I’d get my business here done quick-
ly. Traxal Diplomatic Vessel A-A17,
TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
, The Ties That Bind, Part Four,
by Justin R. Macumber
out.”
The small flotilla of ships grew
closer and closer by the second.
Pressing her intercom button, she
said, “Duka, I’m about to punch this
baby way past the red line. Tell me
you’re ready for it.”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be!”
Duka replied, shouting to be heard
over the noise of the engine room.
“Good.”
Behind her, Boo said, “Any ideas
about that fleet?”
Jessica brought her navigation
screen up to her elbow and quickly
took in the situation. Their desti-
nation was a landing port on Tol’s
fourth moon, which was unfortu-
nately on the far side of the planet.
But, three other moons were on
their side of the Tolesian home-
world, and she knew those could
help even the odds. With her right
index finger she traced out a flight
path and sent it over to Boo’s con-
sole.
“Slalom, huh? With that many
turns and burns it’s going to be
risky, but if it does work, there’s no
way those big boys will be able to
keep up.”
“Do you see any Yinushan ships
that look like fighter carriers, Cam?”
she asked.
“Not yet, Captain,” the android
replied, “but these ships are of an
unfamiliar design, so I could be mis-
taken due to insufficient data.”
Nodding, Jessica locked in the
flight plan on her nav screen,
opened the ship-wide intercom, and
said, “Buckle your seatbelts, ladies.
This is going to be a bumpy ride.”
As soon as the last word left her
lips, she silently counted to five,
and then hit the afterburner switch
on her throttle. The small freighter
leapt forward with so much force
that anyone not strapped in would
have been slammed into the near-
est bulkhead. It didn’t take long be-
fore red lights started flashing.
“Private vessel, you have now
officially crossed into restricted
space,” the Yinushan voice from
before said. “The Traxal cannot in-
terfere now. Heave to, or we will
destroy you.”
She could feel the wild energies
of her engines throbbing through
her veins, seeping into her skin, and
it gave her an almost uncontrollable
feeling of power. “You have to catch
me first,” she told the officious voice
with a snarl.
Two thousand kilometers ahead
of her was Tol’s third and largest
moon. The heavily cratered object
was huge on her screens, and she
angled her ship toward its outer-
most edge. The Yinushan picket
Page 41
ISSUE 55
force hustled to intercept her.
As they neared the large moon,
a new voice came over the loud-
speakers.
“Cargo Vessel Breaking Dawn,
this is Tol Defense Command. Why
have you broken the zone of re-
striction around our planet? Speak
swiftly, or you’ll have more to worry
about than those Yinushan blow-
hards.”
“Tol Defense Command,” she re-
plied, “we’re on a mission to deliver
a cargo container. It was supposed
to be delivered by Jack Connelly, but
he had difficulties, so I’m bringing it
in for him.”
“Connelly you say?” Tense sec-
onds ticked past as the Tolesian
reviewed his records. Finally he
said, “Oh, that! Excellent! Break-
ing Dawn, you are cleared for ap-
proach. I’m transmitting authoriza-
tion codes to accept the cargo now.”
Smirking to herself, Jessica
looked at her screens and saw that
the codes were a match. “That’s
wonderful. Now, why don’t you tell
those Yinushan ships that? It sure
would make my life easier.”
“I doubt they’d listen to us,” the
Tolesian told her. “Not that that
would be anything new. But, I think
we can assist you. I’m sending three
of our fast attack gunships out to
keep those buffoons busy.”
“That would be most helpful.
While you’re at it, why don’t you

get a ship ready out at your fourth
moon? I don’t think I’m going to
have time to stop by for drinks, and
I don’t want to just shove this cargo
out on your front lawn.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Breaking
Dawn. We’ll be back in touch short-
ly.”
Glad that all the talking was over
with for the moment, she tilted her
control stick to starboard to increase
her angle away from the Yinushan
ships. As all of the spaceships drew
closer, three small blips suddenly
appeared on the top of her radar
and quickly blazed a trail in her di-
rection. Three of the Yinushan ships
immediately peeled off to engage
them, but the fourth one kept com-
ing straight for them.
Leaving a torrential outpouring
of energy in her wake, the Break-
ing Dawn slipped into the gravity
well of the large Tolesian moon and
sped along the outer edge of it to-
ward the far side, boosting the small
ship’s already hectic speed far past
the point of sanity. Tiny pinpricks of
light danced in her eyes.
“Jessie, I said I would give you ev-
erything the ship had,” Duka shout-
ed in her ear, his engines roaring in
the background, “but this is ridicu-
lous! We’re popping coolant valves,
and I’m losing antimatter stability!”
The captain looked down and saw
TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
, The Ties That Bind, Part Four,
by Justin R. Macumber
that her engines’ heat levels were
nearing critical levels. Fortunately,
the space between her and the
chasing Yinushan ship had grown to
a respectable distance, so she slid
her aching thumb off of the after-
burner switch.
“Better?”
“For now.”
“I might have to do it again, so be
ready.”
The engineer grumbled, then
said, “Understood.”
Quickly, they broke free of the
large moon and headed toward
the planet’s inner most moon. The
chase continued as the ships hur-
tled across space, neither one giving
up. Finally, as they started to round
the moon, Cam said, “Captain, that
Yinushan vessel has launched two
smaller ships. They might be fight-
ers, or they might be shuttlecraft.
Either way, it’s trouble.”
“Launch half of our drones and
power up the weapons systems. I
don’t intend on becoming a part of
this war, but we’ll defend ourselves
if they give us no choice.”
“I understand, Captain. Launch-
ing drone unit Gamma now.”
Multiple blips appeared on Jes-
sica’s radar screen. The small bits of
light drifted back from her ship and
started to run crisscrossing patterns
with the two smaller Yinushan ves-
sels. Energy blasts lashed between
them. In the short skirmish the
Breaking Dawn lost several drones,
but they took one of the attack-
ing ships with it. The second one
poured on the speed and gained on
them, but the remaining drones de-
stroyed it before it could get close
enough to shoot the freighter.
As they shot past the inner moon,
she hit the afterburner switch again
and urged her ship onward. The en-
tire vessel shook around her, but
within minutes they were passed
yet another moon. After letting off
the afterburner she banked toward
their destination.
“Breaking Dawn, this is Tol Mili-
tary Command. Sorry to keep you
waiting. We have a cargo ship in
standby on the far side of the fourth
moon, just as you asked for. What
exactly do you have in mind?”
“Can she catch?”
“If you can get down to half your
current speed and drop the pod in
a stable wake, I believe we can ac-
commodate that.”
“Then get ready, because I’m on
my way”
“Understood,” the Tolesian re-
plied. “We’ll be ready. Out.”
From behind her Boo said, “Aren’t
you cutting this a bit on the danger-
ous side?”
Jessica laughed in spite of her
Page 42
ISSUE 55
aching body. “Desperate times call
for desperate actions. I don’t like
it either, but this place is just too
damn hot to stop and enjoy the
scenery.”
The Kleeetan copilot couldn’t dis-
pute her words, so he nodded and
went back to reviewing his screens.
Opening her comm, she said,
“Ferron, are you ready to drop our
little package off?”
“You do know, Skipper,” the Du-
nadon replied, his tone almost chid-
ing, “that this goes against every
fiber of my being, right?”
“Considering your recent exploits,
I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The cargo chief grunted. “We’re
just about set. I’ve got the pod
moved to the rear doors, and I’m
lowering the grappler now. So long
as you can keep a steady hand on
the stick, I should be able to let her
slip smoothly into our wake.”
“Good to hear, Chief. I’ll call you
when we’re in place.”
The next several minutes
whipped by in a blur. The Breaking
Dawn raced faster than she ever had
before, and the crew endured the
stresses right along with her. The
Yinushan ship behind her still gave
chase, but there was no way they
could catch up before she reached
her destination. As they slipped into
the fourth moon’s gravity field and

rocketed toward the dark side, a Tol
freighter pulled in behind them.
“Breaking Dawn, this is the Valor-
ous,” the new arrival said over the
comm. “We’re ready to accept your
delivery. Call the drop.”
Hitting a button, Jessica replied,
“Valorous, give us a moment to
ready the package. Slowing to a
matching speed now.” Pulling the
throttle back, she then pressed an-
other button and said, “Chief, are
you ready?”
“I am if you are, Skipper.”
She chuckled. “We’re as steady as
I can make it. It’s all up to you.”
“I’m lowering the rear cargo
doors...now!”
Through her earpiece she could
hear a sudden rush of noise.
In the cargo bay, Ferron Cth hit a
button. “The grappler is activated,
and the package is spooling out.
Give me another few seconds to
find the sweet spot.”
Jessica leaned over to a screen
on her left and pulled up the rear
camera. On it she watched as the
cargo pod drifted behind them on
its line, swaying slightly from side
to side in their wake. As the nano-
fiber unrolled and the distance in-
creased, the swaying decreased,
until finally it was as still as if it were
sitting cozy on a cargo deck. Further
behind them the Tolesian freighter
TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
, The Ties That Bind, Part Four,
by Justin R. Macumber
followed them exactly, her forward
facing doors open and ready.
“Releasing now, Skipper!” Ferron
shouted.
Two seconds later the electro-
magnetic head on the grappler de-
activated, and the pod was in free
fall, though at first it was barely no-
ticeable. It wasn’t until the grappler
was well back from the pod that it
became apparent just how insane
the whole thing was.
“You’ve got the drop,” she told
the Tolesian ship.
“Acknowledged, Breaking Dawn.
The drop is clean, and we’re moving
to intercept.”
Jessica increased her speed, and
in their wake the pod slowly tum-
bled though the vacuum of space
toward the Valorous. Several sec-
onds later the alien vessel crept for-
ward and swallowed it with all the
ease of a deep sea predator snack-
ing on an unsuspecting guppy.
“The package is safely in our hold,
Breaking Dawn. Command said to
pass along their thanks for your ef-
forts on our behalf.”
“If you can keep those Yinushan
ships off our backs long enough
for us to make it back to the Coven
gate, that would be thanks enough.”
“Consider it done. Safe journey to
you.”
Hoping for exactly the same
thing, Jessica angled the freighter
up and then shot toward the planet,
which would give them a final boost
of speed to assist them on their way
back toward the gate from which
they had come, picking up their
few remaining drone fighters along
the way. With the job done, a pal-
pable sense of relief filled the car-
go freighter. Jack, she knew, would
feel the same once she told him the
good news.
# around her was one of them. A
The trip out to Outpost 8A-14,
where Jack’s ship was being re-
paired, was anticlimactic after the
blazing trail that had been torn
through the Tol-Yinush System.
Once they cleared the war zone
they’d sent Jack a message letting
him know that the mission had been
accomplished, and a short while lat-
er he’d replied with an invitation for
the crew to have dinner with him at
Sun’s Sweet Smile, an upscale res-
taurant on the outpost.
Once the Breaking Dawn was
docked, the crew spent plenty of
time getting ready. By the time they
finally assembled outside the ship,
Jessica couldn’t remember them
ever looking so well put together.
“You bunch of roughnecks clean
up pretty well,” she told them with
an appreciative laugh.
Page 43
ISSUE 55
Turning her about and walking
her toward the nearest station en-
trance with his lanky arm entwined
around hers, Duka replied, “You
don’t look so bad yourself.”
“You mean this old thing?” Most
of her wardrobe consisted of stained
pants and shirts that had seen far
too many dirty nooks and crannies
of the ship, but in the far reaches of
her closet hung a dress or two, and
the strapless green number draped
green clutch purse in her right hand
held her ID and a few credit chits,
and her red hair was accented with
an emerald and ruby dragonfly clip.
Her meager makeup selection had
held her back a bit, but she’d cob-
bled together enough lipstick and
blush to pull it together.
It was a long walk to the Sun’s
Sweet Smile, especially in heels,
but when they approached the res-
taurant’s doors and saw how well-
appointed it looked, they knew they
were in for a treat. Inside they were
greeted by a Traxal maitre d’ who
whisked them to a table with little
delay, at which was already seated
the crew of the Wandering Star
save for the captain himself, who
was expected at any moment.
More than ready to enjoy them-
selves, everyone at the table
consumed plenty of drinks, hors

d’oeuvres, and pleasant conversa-
tion. Everything flowed so well that
for a while none of them noticed
that Jack had yet to arrive. But, as
the empty glasses began to pile up,
Jessica glanced down at her watch
and realized that they’d been in the
restaurant for over an hour. When
she looked at Jack’s second in com-
mand, a fellow human by the name
of Albert Reeves, she could tell he’d
lost track of time too.
Reeves reached into his right
pocket, pulled out a small commu-
nications device, and casually spoke
into it. When a reply didn’t come, he
tried again. When the third attempt
failed, he stood up and started walk-
ing toward the exit. She followed
after him, but not before putting
on a relaxed expression and telling
everyone to stay where they were
and enjoy themselves while they
checked on Jack.
Seeds of concern had taken root
in Albert and Jessica’s minds, and
they quickly walked toward the ac-
commodations Jack had secured for
himself and his crew on the station.
By the time they reached the corri-
dor that lead to his quarters, both of
them were running.
The door to the suite was locked.
Albert took out his passkey and
swiped it against the scanner plate.
It whisked open, and instantly
TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
, The Ties That Bind, Part Four,
by Justin R. Macumber
they knew something was horribly
wrong. The lights were off, and it
was silent, but there was a faintly
familiar smell in the air that threw
their concern into full-fledged pan-
ic. Albert dashed to Jack’s room, and
the doors opened automatically. As
his hand reached up to activate the
lights, Jessica almost asked him not
to. She knew what they were going
to find.
In the sudden harsh glare of over-
head halogens they saw Jack sitting
on a chair near a desk, his arms
hanging down to his side. His head
was tilted back, his eyes looked life-
lessly at the ceiling, and a hole was
burned into his brow. There was
almost no blood in the room, and
they couldn’t see any marks on his
skin, so it didn’t appear as though
he’d been beaten or tortured. It had
been a straight hit, nothing more or
less.
Jessica knew that there was noth-
ing she could do, no aid she could
give her old friend, so she dropped
to the floor and cried. She could
hear the material of her dress rip
as she fell. Albert contacted the sta-
tion’s security department, though
they both knew that Jack’s killer
would never be brought to justice.
Questions came fast and furious
once security arrived. Evidence was
searched for, pictures were taken,
statements were made. By the time
it was all over and both crews were
released, the hour was very late.
The walk back to the Breaking
Dawn took all the strength she had.
Once aboard ship, the crew filed off
to their sleeping tubes wordlessly,
already having expressed all that
they had to say for the moment.
Jessica fell fully clothed onto her
bunk in exhaustion. As sleep was
reaching out to claim her, the com-
puter on her desk chirped. She ig-
nored it at first, but it continued
to twitter until the aggravation of
hearing it was more powerful that
her fatigue. She got up, slumped
into her cluttered chair, and activat-
ed her console.
As soon as the screen lit up she
saw that she had an incoming call.
Assuming it was from Albert, she ac-
cepted it, but instead of the fellow
human she saw an alien looking out
at her. Its skin was dark and moist,
and the face had a vaguely amphibi-
ous appearance. She’d never seen
the being in her life, but she knew
who it was instinctively. Or, at least,
whom it represented.
“Captain Jessica Quimbly,” the
figured uttered, the English words
sounding fat and heavy as it spoke in
ponderous tones, “I realize that the
hour is late, and for that I apologize.
Now, I’m sure that I do not need to
Page 44
ISSUE 55
tell you whom I represent. You’re an
intelligent woman, someone who is
wise to the ways of the universe, so
I trust that you understand the grav-
ity of this particular conversation.
Am I correct?”
“Yes,” she replied, keeping her
tone as even as she could.
Nodding slowly, the figure gave
her a repugnant grin that was slop-
py and wet. “Very good. Now, let
me first say that I am sorry for your
recent loss. It is never an easy thing
to lose a friend. I understand that.
But, when promises are made, and
those promises aren’t fulfilled, ret-
ribution must be met out. You ap-
preciate that, yes?”
“But they were fulfilled,” Jessica
said, her voice taking on a plead-
ing quality that she was horrified to
hear echo in her ears.
“Yes,” it replied, eyes blinking in
slow motion, “but not by the prop-
er people. Perhaps, in your view,
there’s no difference, but in our
world it makes all the difference. If
it will give you a small measure of
relief, know that were it not for your
swift and successful action, more
than one person would have met
an untimely end tonight. Several
more.”
Chills ran down the length of her
spine as the creature before her
spoke of death and killing in such

casual tones. She didn’t want to
know what evils it had committed,
what evils it was capable of, so all
she had was silence in response.
“But let’s not continue to speak
of such unpleasant things,” it said.
“I called to congratulate you on a
job well done. My employers and I
were impressed not only with your
professionalism, but also with your
courage and daring. The situation
gave us cause for concern, but you
and your crew performed magnifi-
cently. As such, we wanted to ex-
tend to you an opportunity for fur-
ther employment. This offer would
also be an opening to other benefits
as well, such as a Guild member-
ship. We would, of course, pay your
admission fees, along with sponsor-
ing your application. You would be
wise to see the opportunities that
are being given to you and to take
advantage of them, Captain. Shall I
forward your acceptance of our of-
fer to my superiors?”
Jessica would have been lying to
herself if she didn’t admit that, for a
fraction of a second, she was tempt-
ed. More contracts would be open
to her, as would faster conduit lanes
and cheaper docking fees. She’d
never have to deal with the Coven
again. But, none of that meant any-
thing if it meant she would have
to make deals with the likes of the
TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN
, The Ties That Bind, Part Four,
by Justin R. Macumber
ISSUE 55
Gorawnies. speakers in her cabin, and in the
“No, I’m afraid I can’t accept your silence that followed she started
offer,” she replied. to shake. It was slow and subtle at
“That is...unfortunate,” it said, first, but it quickly built in intensity,
eyelids drooping. until her hands were clinched into
Sitting forward, she said, “Don’t white-knuckled fists and her body
misunderstand me. I’m not de- was doubled over. Through her ran
clining because you murdered my jagged spears of anguish, or rage, of
friend. He was a big boy, he knew impotent fury, of helplessness, and
what he was getting into. I’m declin- mostly of sorrow. She wept for the
ing because, as meager as my life is, life that had been lost, and vowed
I like it, and it’s my own. I make my that nothing like it would ever hap-
own friends, I do my own chores, pen to her or her crew. The Breaking
I pay my own bills, and I do every- Dawn was her ship, the crew aboard
thing I can to make sure that the it her family, and she’d be damned
choices I make are my own. No one before she would let anyone take
owns my soul. So, while I mean no those things from her.
disrespect, we have nothing more
to discuss, now or ever.”
She expected anything from
veiled warnings to outright threats,
but the clammy creature on her
screen only blinked liquidly and
nodded. “Very well, Captain. As I
said, you have a great deal of cour-
age, so I cannot fault you for using it
now. I regret that you’ve decided to
not make your services available to
us, but that is your choice. We are
indebted to you, so we shall, as your
people say, wipe the slate clean be-
tween us. I doubt that you will ever
hear from us again. Good night,
Captain, and goodbye.”
The screen snapped to black as
the last word came through the
Page 45

Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
by M. Keaton
B orn Wayne Boles, they called
him Skunk for the gray stripe in
his hair. He hated the nickname, but
it stayed with him. It was emblemat-
ic of his life; what he loved or hated
was irrelevant to what other people
thrust on him. The latest chance
for fate to spit in his face landed
him stuck on some armpit world
so worthless it did not even have
a name, hunting an alien that had
already blown away half his squad
and that ship that brought them.
And now that strutting martinet of
a commander was telling him he
could not even take a leak without
having another guy along to hold his
hand. Well to hell with that.
Skunk was still fuming over the in-
justice of the universe when some-
thing reared up out of the sand,
blocking the sun. His last thought
before the Cillian’s knives struck
home was how unfair it was that he
would die with his pants down.
# teresting.
“Tell me what we’ve got.” The
words came out harsh, pinched be-
tween tight lips clamped around a
cigarette. The man who spoke them
still wore the gray BUDs and scar-
let beret of Special Earth Services
despite leaving the service under
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
questionable circumstances more
than decade ago. No charges had
been brought, and the SES com-
mander retired on reduced pension.
Less than a month passed before he
went into ‘private practice.’ Along
the way, he gained the scar that ran
from his right collarbone, beneath
the curve of his jaw, to end behind
his right ear. He had also become
wealthy, enough to equip his men
with the best armament available
and live quite comfortably, but that
was not why he did it. What mat-
tered was his ability to stay active,
moving from one private war to an-
other, avoiding the crushing dark-
ness that awaited him away from
the rush of the battlefield. Unlike
the men under his command, ‘Gen-
eral’ Anopheles Nagana did not
view their disastrous landing as a
crushing setback. It was what it was,
a thing that happened. No more, no
less, and now the fight was more in-
While the General surveyed
the deployment of his perimeter
through eyes locked in a perma-
nent squint, Stet sat passively on a
mound of rock, his own eyes blank
orbs of gunmetal. If he regretted
his decision to join Nagana instead
of accepting Kingfisher’s offer, he
would never show it. Stet seemed
as devoid of emotion as the broken
mountain crags around them.
“The shuttle’s a total loss,” Stet
said flatly. “Internal radiation levels
are too high to make salvage at-
tempts worthwhile. We’re better off
leaving it sealed up by its own fail-
safes. This,” he pointed to the heavy
.50 caliber machine gun at his feet,
“is all that’s left of the buggies. Sec-
ondary explosions destroyed about
half of the supplies we had off-load-
ed. We’ve got food for a month.” He
stopped, almost smiled. “Make that
two months. We’ve fewer mouths
to feed now.”
Nagana snorted. “Looking on the
bright side, I see.”
“Water for half that long,” Stet
continued. “Maybe less. Atmo-
sphere’s thinner here. In the long
run, evaporation might become a
problem.”
“Don’t think the long run is an is-
sue.”
“Me neither. We lost most of our
heavy weaponry and electronics.”
Stet shrugged. “Could be worse.”
“Men and guns,” Nagana said. “It
always comes down to that in the
end.”
“It might come down to men and
stones,” Stet countered. “We’re
short on ammunition.” After a mo-
ment he added, “Short on men too.”
“How bad?”
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ISSUE 55
“Ammo we’ll have unless we bog
down into a siege. Men are a differ-
ent story. We’ve got sixteen ables
plus you and me.”
“Sixteen?” Nagana asked, duck-
ing his head against a gust of wind-
blown sand.
“Skunk took a walk about an hour
ago; didn’t come back.”
“Alone?”
“Of course. All we found was
blood and sand.”
Nagana cursed violently, calming
with visible effort. “If he couldn’t
follow orders, we’re best rid of him
anyway.”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t mind a few
more walking mine detectors,” Stet
replied. “What next?”
“We do the job. Secure our posi-
tion so the bug can’t keep nipping
away at us then send out scouts to
find where he’s holed up.”
“Why do you think he takes the
bodies?” Stet asked.
Nagana shook his head. “I’d rath-
er not know.”
#
“Hey Tumbo, Calamity and I are
heading out!” Ivan shouted, pre-
tending he did not know Pharaoh
was asleep in the tent mere feet
away. He glanced at the girl, who
returned his mischievous grin.
“Fine, little brother,” Pharaoh’s
voice rumbled from the tent. “Take
the flare gun so I can find you when
you get lost.” Kylee chuckled, burst-

ing into laughter when Ivan glared
at her.
“I’m taking the entire jeep.” He
hefted his rifle in one hand and a
rucksack in the other. “Come on,
kid. We’ve got about an hour’s drive
ahead of us.”
“Don’t hurt the jeep,” Pharaoh
called after him, emerging from his
tent to squint at the newly risen sun.
“Make one little mistake twenty
years ago...”
It was a good morning to drive
across the veldt. Clouds brooded
on the northern horizon but the
remainder of the sky was clear,
blue streaked with the vivid reds
and pastel purples of dawn. A light
breeze meandered above the grass-
land as if adding wings to the herds
of bushbuck pronging across it. The
grass genuflected at their passing,
at times barely a foot high, at others
rising up taller than a man, almost
touching the dipping leaves of the
acacia trees.
“Looks like it might rain tonight,”
Ivan said over the noise of the jeep.
“It can get pretty bad, especially on
the more open parts,” he contin-
ued. “Lightning like you wouldn’t
believe.” When she did not reply, he
added, “This one shouldn’t be too
bad though. Probably just enough
to knock the dust down.” She gave
a non-committal hum. “What’s the
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
matter?”
Kylee frowned, continuing to
watch the bushbuck. “I don’t know.
I’m worried, just feel tense, like
something bad’s about to happen.”
“Probably the weather shifting.
The animals feel it and change their
habits. In fact,” Ivan slowed the
jeep, turning off the game trail they
had been following to angle toward
the river that separated the veldt
from the northern jungle, “James
spotted something the other day
when he was up in the chopper. I
thought we’d take a detour if you
don’t mind.”
Kylee shrugged. “I don’t know
where we’re going anyway.”
“Then it’s settled.” The grass
thinned and the jeep sped up again.
“They usually don’t come this far
east but Pharaoh says it’s been a dry
year.”
“They what?” she asked, curiosity
overcoming her mood.
“You’ll see.” In the distance
ahead, a pseudo-forest of acacia
formed a crescent at the edge of
the veldt, extending toward the riv-
er and its stony bank. Ivan stopped
the jeep, killing the motor. “I doubt
we’ll need the guns but...” He did
not need to finish the sentence;
Pharaoh had drilled into her head
to never go alone or unarmed into
the bush. Most of the time, she lis-
tened. “The only thing I really worry
about,” Ivan continued, “are the
crocs. When we first brought the—”
He stopped himself, smiling at Kylee
as he slung his rifle across his back.
“The ‘what I’m going to show you,’
we thought the crocodiles might be
a problem for them. We didn’t need
to worry.” The grass rose to just
below his waist as he led the way
forward toward the trees. “These
were the last animals imported to
Selous. It took all four of us to do it,
Old Pete, Nimrod, Pharaoh, and me.
Dad died less than a year later,” he
said sadly. “He never lived to see if
they took.”
“And they did?” Kylee asked be-
hind him, walking with her own gun
held up, near shoulder height above
the grass.
“There were two stable herds
before...before I left. Pharaoh says
there are three now. It’s hard to be
certain, because the males especial-
ly spend a lot of time either alone
or in smaller groups.” Ivan glanced
back over his shoulder. “If they
charge, climb a tree. It takes them a
few minutes to knock one over.” He
led her closer to the river.
“But what are they?”
Ivan stopped and pointed toward
the water. “Kallu. Boulders.”
At first, seeing them from a dis-
tance, that was exactly what they
Page 47
ISSUE 55
looked like. Lumps of gray and
brown stone on the riverbank and
in the shallows of the river. Then
one raised its trunk and sprayed.
“Elephants?!” Kylee yelled. “I
thought they were extinct!”
“Shhh! Don’t startle them,” Ivan
cautioned, smiling. “We went all
the way to the Inner Hedge to find
them. They were at a genetic re-
search lab on Kensig. The original
herd were left over from an experi-
ment with frozen embryos implant-
ed in surrogate mothers of different
species.” He shook his head. “In a
way, you could say their mothers
were hippos.”
“You’re kidding,” she whispered,
edging closer to the herd.
“Nope. The lab wanted to get rid
of them because they cost a fortune
to feed. But they didn’t want to put
them down, because as far as any-
one knows they may be the last of
their kind.”
“They gave them to you for free?”
Ivan snorted. “Sort of. It took ev-
ery penny we had plus a loan from
the Kwakiutl we’re still paying off to
transport them. They take up a lot
of space.” He followed in the wake
of Kylee’s tentative approach.
“They’re not as big as I thought.”
“They’re Indian elephants, not
African. Kallana, to be specific. Al-
most pygmies. Biggest one I ever

saw was the old bull. He was about
seven foot at the shoulder.”
Kylee stopped at the edge of the
trees, watching the herd bathe and
play. Eventually, she turned back to-
ward Ivan. “Why?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Why
what?”
“They’re beautiful, but you said
you had to borrow money to get
them and you didn’t even know
if they’d survive here. I just—you
know, why risk everything else
that’s here for them?” She shook
her head. “I mean, they’re great
and they’re worth saving, but so are
the bushbuck and suni and the rest.
You gambled everything to take a
chance on the elephants. I’m just
not sure it makes sense.”
He shrugged, looking past her
toward the river. “I wondered the
same thing when we did it. I can re-
member Old Pete and Nimrod stay-
ing up nights going over figures at
the table and worrying about losing
the lodge.” Ivan breathed deep, let-
ting it out in a burst. “The older you
get, the more it makes sense. Some
things are worth the risk. It’s like, if
John were in trouble, we’d take the
same risk to help him.”
“Yeah, but that’s people,” Kylee
insisted. “Family and loyalty and all
that.”
Ivan watched the elephants with
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
a sad smile. “It’s the same thing.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, kid.
I’m not real good at explaining stuff
like this. Ask Pharaoh.” He sighed,
meeting Kylee’s eyes at last. “Okay.
The elephants, they’re Earth, what
Earth was. They’re like a living sym-
bol of what Earth used to be at its
best—maybe even us fool humans
at our best, in a way. It’s not a mat-
ter of making sense or being worth
the risk, it’s just something you have
to do. Because it’s worth it and you
feel it inside...so you do it.” He sput-
tered to a halt, Kylee watching him,
face intent. Frustrated, Ivan rubbed
the back of his head and scowled.
“It’s life,” he said finally, his voice
tinged with rising anger. “Everything
life throws at you that just keeps
coming and coming, and everything
going to hell faster than you can
bail. Nothing goes right and peo-
ple die, and all you’ve got is being
mad and getting ready for more of
the same, and it’s all a damn crying
shame with no hope of nothing and
then—” He stopped, holding up his
hands in surrender. He took a deep
breath, letting his hands fall to his
sides. “And then somebody gives
you free elephants.”
# the cans exploded behind him. The
The point man, Robbins, let the
muzzle of his gun follow his gaze as
he swept it across the narrow rock
ledge in front of him. Satisfied, he
scanned the cliff that rose on his left
and continued forward. A few yards
farther, he stopped, repeating the
ritual, ignoring the complaints of
the man behind him.
“I don’t get it,” the second com-
plained, his own gun still slung across
his back. “What are we supposed to
be looking for? Bug tracks?”
The commander of the three-man
patrol was as disgusted with the
second as Robbins. “Everything,”
he said, making no attempt to hide
the irritation in his voice. “Nagana
wants us to look for anything out of
the ordinary.”
“You mean like this?” Robbins
gestured with the barrel of his rifle
toward a metal can partially buried
in rubble. The second man stepped
in front of him, kneeling to dig at the
loose rocks. Robbins stepped back
to give him room.
“There’s maybe a half-dozen of
them,” he said, standing with one
in his hand. The can disintegrated
in a thunderclap as he turned, along
with most of the man’s arm. Frag-
ments of metal buzzed through
the air like hornets as the rest of
second jerked like a marionette on
tangled strings as steel bearings and
shards of rock ripped into his back
Page 48
ISSUE 55
and side, spinning the man toward
Robbins. The point man fell back-
ward, tangled in the corpse, just in
time to avoid the second blast. A
mine, unaffected by the rock piled
in front of it, blew the patrol com-
mander in half.
Robbins rolled instinctively with
the blast, letting the concussive
force throw him across the ground
like a leaf in the wind, clutching the
second’s dead body as a shield. In-
stinct saved his life but it did not
take minor details such as ledges
into account.
The cliff was not a clean drop.
The shelf gave way to a ferociously
steep slide of loose gravel and shale,
a near-vertical fall on an avalanche
of thousands of razor-edged sleds.
Robbins reached the bottom an
eternity later, clothes sliced to rags,
covered in blood, much of it his
own. His rifle had been torn away
in the nightmare, its strap snapping
his wrist in the process and the ache
in his side that stabbed with each
breath warned him of broken ribs at
best. He lay for what seemed hours
before he attempted to stand, dis-
covering in the process that his
left ankle was swelled to twice the
size of his fist. It held, supporting
his weight, but barely. He hobbled,
teeth grinding in agony at every
step, through the ravine in the di-

rection he hoped led back to base
camp.
It was night before he reached
it, delirious with pain and fever. It
would be hours later before he was
able to say he was the only survivor,
longer still before he stopped shak-
ing.
# “I’d like to take an eland,” Kylee
Ivan stopped the jeep. “This is
it,” he told Kylee, stepping into the
knee-high grass. Unlike the sprawl-
ing plains behind them, the hillock
they faced showed clear signs of
human habitation, once. Trees had
been planted around the base and
crest of the hill for shade and shelter
from the weather. Flowering shrubs
once well tended ran rampant, spill-
ing color down the low slope. Over-
grown bougainvillea loomed above
the rest, in places standing as tall as
trees. Wildflowers struggled to sur-
vive beneath the onslaught of pam-
pas grass. The skeletal remains of
what once must have been a house
peeked out from beneath a blan-
ket of trailing vines, purple wisteria
blooms hanging from the leaning
spire of a stacked rock chimney.
“Who lived here?” Kylee asked.
“Everyone,” Ivan replied softly.
“The eland still do. Alex used to feed
them. These days I suppose they
come for the flowers.” He leaned
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
against the hood of the jeep. “Go on
up if you want to.”
“You’re not coming?”
He looked down at his hands, an-
swering in a mumble. “I don’t come
here anymore. Wouldn’t have come
at all but Pharaoh had a burr under
his saddle. Said you ought to see.”
said, her tone subdued. “I’ve only
seen the one James and John
brought back to camp to eat. It was
already dressed out but it was still
beautiful.”
“They are. So go on, there’s al-
ways at least a few on the far side
of the hill.”
She hesitated, looking at him,
her expression torn. “Nobody hunts
alone,” she said stubbornly. Ivan
jerked his head up to glare at her,
an angry expression unsuccessfully
masking a deep hurt.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he
snapped.
She set her feet, shoulders
square. “I went to Nevrio.”
Ivan opened his mouth then
stopped, biting back a response. He
stomped to the back of the jeep, lift-
ing his rifle. “Lead on,” he growled,
scowling, his lips pressing together
in a white line.
Kylee turned with a sniff, match-
ing his anger with her own. She did
not approach the house, choosing
instead to skirt the base of the hill.
The grass was taller but the trees
fewer. “Watch for cats,” she ordered,
snuggling the rubber shock cushion
of her rifle against her shoulder. She
let the muzzle part the taller stands
like a narrow wedge as she moved,
taking deliberate, cautious steps.
“Swing left,” Ivan said grudgingly
behind her.
“I know what I’m doing.” She con-
tinued forward several yards before
turning where the rise was lower,
the slope gentle. Beyond the hill-
ock, the veldt spread into a shallow
depression before rising again. In
the wadi, the eland grazed. Giants
compared to the tiny bushbuck,
they stood as tall as Kylee, their
coats shining in the sun like golden
cream dusted with cinnamon. Their
spiral horns corkscrewed into the air
as they cropped contentedly at the
tops of the grasses.
Ivan leaned to whisper in Kylee’s
ear. “They’ll spook if you get close,”
he warned. She gave a shallow nod,
thinking of Pharaoh’s comments that
the lack of predators had made the
herds too bold. She swept her rifle
slowly, surveying the land through
its scope. Something caught her
eye. She hesitated, studying it, then
continued her sweep, thinking. With
a heavy breath, she started forward,
moving slowly now, watching as the
Page 49
ISSUE 55
wind bent the grass stems, insuring
she remained upwind of the herd.
Ivan followed, dropping back a
few feet, giving her more room to
set the pace, watching her work.
Her hair was longer, still fighting to
turn dark in spite of the sun’s con-
stant assault, blond glittering atop
brown. She had grown while he was
away, and not just physically. She
moved with confidence now, head
up, eyes keen. How much of the
little girl he had only begun to know
had already burned away into wom-
anhood? He felt an odd tightness in
his chest and grimaced at the direc-
tion of his thoughts. He wanted to
warn her she was getting too close
to the herd but, at this distance,
even a whisper might send them
running.
She continued her slow stalk
across the depression, tacking side
to side rather than approach the
herd directly. Reaching some prede-
termined spot, she stopped, shifting
the rifle muzzle ever so slightly as
she sighted in. Ivan’s gaze followed
her aim, looking for her target.
It was a huge buck, a genuine
trophy kill. Ivan guessed it to be six
foot at the shoulder with a heavy
dewlap and elegant twisting horns,
nearly a ton in weight. Kylee stood,
zeroed in on the buck. Ivan found
himself holding his breath, won-

dering what she was waiting for. To
his surprise, she raised one foot,
stomped it back to the ground. Ev-
ery head in the herd whipped aloft,
staring. The buck snorted, stamping
his own hoof, staring her in the eye.
“Go,” Kylee breathed. The herd
burst into motion. Behind them, the
buck jerked his head as if snapping
an invisible thread between himself
and the girl, hurrying after the oth-
ers. Kylee watched them go, lower-
ing the gun with a smile. “I could’ve
had him,” she said casually.
“I know.”
“It’s enough.” She wiped the
sweat from her face with her arm.
“You didn’t hunt them this close to
the house, did you?” she asked.
“No. Kind of liked seeing them
around, and Cat loved them.” He
smiled thinly. “Tried to make pets of
the lot.” He scratched his forehead,
pushing his hat back on his head.
“You knew I didn’t hunt here, didn’t
you?”
“I guessed.”
“Then why all this?”
Kylee grounded the rifle, held
up three fingers. “First, I wanted
to see them.” She ticked off a fin-
ger. “Second, I wanted to see how
close I could get.” Another finger.
“And third,” she pointed to the trio
of wooden crosses almost invisible
in the grass on the hillside, looking
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
at him expectantly.
Ivan looked away, turning to start
at the retreating eland. “They’re
dead,” he said harshly. “What’s to
tell?”
“Why three?” she asked gently.
The muscle of his jaw stood out
in taut relief. “One’s for me. I died
when they did.”
“Still believe that?”
He searched for more anger to
sustain him, could not find it, not
against her. His shoulders dropped
and his entire body seemed to sag.
“No,” he said wearily. “Not any-
more.”
“Me neither,” Kylee said and Ivan
wondered if she were referring to
him or herself.
“Pharaoh put you up to this?” he
asked.
She snorted in disgust. “No.”
He turned his head to smile at
her. “Sorry. Seemed like the kind of
thing he’d do.”
“He’s a meddler,” she replied so-
berly, making him laugh. When he
stopped, she said, “I love you, you
know.”
Ivan squeezed his eyes shut, low-
ering his head until his chin almost
touched his chest. “Love you too,
kid. Sorry I never said it sooner.”
“No big.” She stepped to slip her
arm under his, leaning against him.
“What’ll you do now, if something
happens, I mean.”
“You mean if you get hurt?” he
asked.
“Or killed.”
“Don’t.”
“Well I’m not trying to,” she said
in exasperation. “But, will you be
okay?”
“No.” He squeezed her arm
against his side. “It’d hurt like hell,
and I’d never get over it. Plus Red
Dog’d never talk to me again.” He
looked at her, realizing she was al-
most as tall as he was now. “I’d live,”
he continued seriously. “I might
have to hurt a few people first, but
I’d live. What about you?”
“I’d be fine,” she replied promptly.
“Kylee.” His tone turned the name
into a warning.
She flashed him a timid grin.
“Teasing. But I would be, sort of. Like
you said.” She let out a curt chuckle.
“Martha likes to tell me ‘girl, ain’t
always all about you.’ It’s kind of like
that. Life goes on and, you know,
we’ve still got people.”
“Family.”
“Yeah,” she said happily. “We’ve
got family.”
# invisible ball, “—pressure, humans
Priest lowered his binoculars,
wishing he was a better lip reader,
as Red Dog joined him on the ledge,
standing at the feet of the prone hu-
Page 50
ISSUE 55
man. “Sundown soon. Are you go-
ing back down?”
“No,” the Cillian replied. “Red
Dog has culled as many fool humans
as possible for present. Must wait
for herd to settle again.”
“The way they’re clumped up,
I’d love to see the damage a hand
grenade or two would do to them.”
Priest paused, considering. “Why
don’t you?”
“Stick bombs would not kill
enough fast enough. Survivors
would find Red Dog.”
“So what now, great one?”
“Red Dog waits. Now Red Dog
uses greatest weapon against hu-
mans. Red Dog uses fear.” The Cil-
lian grabbed Priest by his feet, pull-
ing him backward, away from the
ledge. “Back to cave.”
“You could have just said so,”
Priest snapped. “I can get up on my
own.” He stood, slapping dust and
sand off the front of his crimson
robes. “How is fear a weapon?”
Red Dog chittered in amusement.
“With enough fear, enough—” the
alien bounced his upper arms to-
ward each other as if squeezing an
will do Red Dog’s work for Red Dog.”
Priest gave up trying to undo the
damage to his robes. “I still don’t
get it.”
Red Dog tilted his head to one

side then the other. “Red Dog is
warrior. Drone does as told,” he
said, starting the long walk back to
their cave. Priest suppressed his ir-
ritation and followed.
# She smiled back but her eyes
Kylee and Ivan stood together at
the graves until the afternoon sun
became stifling. “I wonder,” Ivan
said, stepping away from her and
lifting his rifle, “if I should’ve been
going after Casey harder.”
“How much harder can you go?”
“Dunno. I just always figured,
maybe there was a way, if I pushed
hard enough. If I’d just said to heck
with the law and went after him
full out. Just tried to find where
he’s holed up and put a bullet in
his head.” He gnawed his lower lip,
showing teeth. “Lot of people’d still
be alive, including your folks.”
“Bullshit,” Kylee said matter-of-
factly, hefting her own gun. “Ain’t
always all about you.”
“Watch your language.”
“I’m serious,” she protested.
“Maybe you’d have got him. Maybe
you’d have got your fool head blown
off, and then where would we be?
I’ve been reading Pharaoh’s history
books; I’d bet you that even if you
capped him, nothing’d change but
the name. There’s always been evil
people doing evil things and there’s
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
a line waiting to take their place.”
He stared at her, a smile gradually
working its way onto his face. “My
little girl’s all grown up. More grown
up than I am, come to think of it.”
were deadly serious. “You do the
best you can at the time with the
best you’ve got. Old guy named
Kipling said people have to be what
they are and do what they must. I’m
comfortable with that.”
They started back to the jeep.
“You’ve got a ruthless streak, kiddo.”
“Gee, wherever would I have
picked that up?” she fluttered sar-
castically.
“Me, I think it’s because you read
too much,” Ivan teased.
“Twain’s my favorite. What about
you?”
“I don’t read much.”
“But you can, can’t you?”
“Barely,” he admitted. “I can get
by, but it’s hard. The letters get
twisted around in my head. I’m bet-
ter than Red Dog, though.”
“He has trouble?”
“He can’t read at all, not human
languages anyhow. Always said
that’s why he puts up with me, be-
cause he needs somebody to read
wanted posters to him.”
“Ever try to teach him?”
“Not me. You can try if you want
to.” Ivan paused. “Problem is his
eyes. I don’t think he can pick up
the small differences on flat surfac-
es. Maybe if something were writ-
ten really big...I don’t know. I know
Cillians have horrible depth percep-
tion.”
“Hunh. I always figured the stick
bombs and shotguns were just his
style.”
Ivan laughed. “Oh, they are. They
definitely are.” He continued to
chuckle as they reached the jeep.
“But that does explain why you’ve
never heard of a Cillian sniper.”
“I just can’t picture Red Dog as
anything but up close and person-
al.” Kylee dropped into the driver’s
seat of the jeep. “I’m driving.”
He tried to move her with a glare
and got a good look at her tongue
for his effort. “Up close and anti-
personnel,” he countered.
Kylee rocketed the jeep into gear,
almost tossing Ivan from his seat.
“You believe in God?” she asked,
fighting the wheel and gaining
speed at an alarming rate.
“I do now.”
“Seriously.”
Ivan braced a hand against the
dash. “Yeah, I do. Why?”
“I’ve been wondering.” She jinked
the wheel to avoid a meerkat den.
“There’s so much bad stuff that hap-
pens for no good reason—”
“Like jeep wrecks.”
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ISSUE 55
“—and the bad guys just keep
getting away with it. It’s kind of hard
to figure out.”
“I don’t suppose you’d settle for
asking Pharaoh?”
Kylee laughed and pressed the
accelerator to its limit.
“It’s a big universe,” he said. “Too
big for you or me to keep score on
everything. It ain’t always all about
you, remember? Well maybe it ac-
tually is, but we’re on a need to
know basis. Even if we were to
get an explanation for everything,
could we even understand it all?”
He bounced painfully in his seat and
wished he had remembered to fas-
ten his seatbelt. “Slow down. You’re
going to roll the jeep.”
“You can just flip it back onto its
wheels again,” she shouted back
over the wind. “James and I do it all
the time.”
“And Pharaoh trusts that boy
with a helicopter?” Ivan gripped
the dashboard harder, watched his
knuckles turn white. “Anyway, just
because we don’t see the reason,
doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason.
Same thing on the bad guys getting
away with it. Maybe it looks that
way, but we don’t get to see the
whole scorecard. You follow me so
far?”
“Yeah, but it’s hard to swallow
when there’s so much pain. I mean,

you lost your wife and daughter,
I lost my folks, seems like it’d take
an awful lot of explaining to make
things balance out.”
“That’s the thing that—” Ivan
broke off, almost biting his tongue
in two as Kylee stomped the brakes,
sliding the jeep to a halt before start-
ing forward again. While she was
busy creeping down the loose dirt of
an incline, he rushed to strap himself
into his seat. “That’s the thing that
makes it balance, though,” he con-
tinued. “You’re looking at what we
lost like we’re entitled to it. You’re
not looking at what we gained. I
can’t think of anything I’ve ever
done that could possibly have made
me worth Alex. Sure, I lost her, but
before that, not only did I have her,
we had Catharine too. Who am I to
deserve that?” The jeep bucked as it
reached the bottom of the slope and
Kylee floored the gas. “And what’d I
ever do to deserve you?” he yelled
in mock-despair.
“So you’re saying that, if every-
thing was even, we’d get nothing to
start with, so it’s okay if we lose it?”
“No. I’m saying we don’t know
the bad, but we do know the good.
And the good makes it all worth-
while. The good is too good for
there not to be a God.” The jeep
springs screeched in protest and
Ivan’s teeth snapped together as
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton
they shot across a shallow ditch.
“You want a better answer than
that, ask Pharaoh. If we live.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I think I get it.”
“And you?” Ivan asked, wonder-
ing if they really were outrunning
the antelope alongside or if it was
an optical illusion.
“Believe in God? Oh yeah.” She
smiled, taking her left hand from the
wheel and leaning further back in
the seat. “I’ve seen the elephants.”
# snapped. “You could take him your-
Night in the desert was as cold as
the day was hot. Nagana allowed
his men what fire they could build
from the scraps of material scav-
enged from their landing site. He
made certain his sentries were well
outside of the tiny circle of light and
facing away from it. He sat at the
edge of the huddle of men around
the fire wearing a pair of flip-up
sunglasses to offset night blindness
if he had to move quickly. Beside
him, Stet lounged, hands behind his
head, staring at the sky with blank
eyes.
“We’ll have him run to ground
soon,” Nagana said, half to himself.
“Every attack gives away more of his
position and tells us the limit of his
range.”
“Trading men for info,” Stet re-
plied in a monotone.
“Given the quality of material I
have to work with, it’s a fair trade.”
“Not much longer.”
Nagana rolled a toothpick from
one side of his mouth to the other.
He desperately wanted a cigarette
but the glow would have made him
an attractive target in the dark. “We
don’t need much longer. Once he’s
pinned in, we can roll over him.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s just one bug,” Nagana
self.”
“True.”
The general curled his lips into a
sneer, vaguely disgusted by Stet’s
dry tone. He stood, flicking the
toothpick to the ground and un-
snapping the flap across the top of
his holster. “I’m going to check the
perimeter again.”
A screaming whistle split the air
as a flickering streak of light arched
over the camp. The flare lit with a
pop, flooding the darkness with
blinding white light, giving the en-
tire scene a pallid cast, men’s faces
gaping upward like bloated corpses.
“That way!” Nagana shouted,
pointing. “Get men out there—”
A sound like the rattling of the
cages of Hell interrupted him, echo-
ing off the rock face, booming loud-
er and louder the longer it went
on—a buzzing, chittering rattle un-
Page 52
ISSUE 55
derlain with a pulsating drone like a
didgeridoo resounding without ori-
gin or end. The flare sputtered; the
light seeming to dance in rhythm to
the noise.
“There’s more than one. They
lied to us.” The man’s words were
barely audible when he started
speaking, rising in tone and volume
until he was shrieking. “They lied
to us! There’s an army of bugs out
there! We’ve got to get out of here!
We’ve got to—”
Nagana slapped him as hard as
he could swing. The man staggered
to his knees then his feet, grabbing
at the general. “You gotta get us out
of here, sir! We’re dead men! Out-
numbered!” The man’s eyes were
wide with fear; spit flew from his
mouth. Nagana backed away from
his frantic clutching hands. “We
can’t fight ‘em all! They lied to us!”
Nagana glanced to the other men.
They were still sitting, staring like
fish on the bank waiting for death
to come collect them. Frustration
surged through him. He swung with
a closed fist this time, knocked the
man sprawling in the dirt. He fol-
lowed the punch with an angry kick
hard enough to lift the man from
the ground.
Panting now, frantic himself, he
kicked again, flipping the man onto
his back. “You’re afraid?” he shout-

ed. “Afraid of him?” Nagana jerked
his sidearm from his hip. “Be more
afraid of me!” The crack of the bul-
let put the exclamation to his words.
He turned, gun in hand, glaring at
the staring men. “Anybody else?”
No one moved to challenge him.
“Then form up and get moving!” He
jammed the pistol back into the hol-
ster. Men scrambled, suddenly gal-
vanized into motion.
The flare winked out, plunging
him back into darkness. The chitter-
ing faded, dwindling on the night air
like a lingering, mocking laughter.
# but stopped when he saw the mon-
The sounds of machinery and
grinding rock conspired to drown
out the roar of the ship’s landing
jets. Cobalt-neon light banks bathed
the area in their blue glow, illumi-
nating as much airborne dust as ac-
tual workspace.
Kingfisher stepped from the
transport’s ramp, pulling his hat
lower against the glare and wind.
Cupping his hands, he stopped to
light a new cigarette.
“No smoking!” yelled a heavy
red-faced man in blue coveralls.
“You the mine foreman?” Round-
er called back, stepping between
the man and Kingfisher.
“Dock foreman. Who are you?”
“What’ve you got for surface
Calamity ‘s Child, Chapter 8,
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
, by M. Keaton Page 53
ISSUE 55
transportation around here?” King-
fisher asked.
“Got some crawlers we rigged up
from old mine cars.”
“They fast?” Rounder pressed,
keeping the man off-balance with
questions.
“Hell no. But they got them solar
batteries, run forever on this dust
ball.”
“We’ll take one. We’ve got a long
way to go before we get to the origi-
nal landing and I ain’t walking. Pay
him, limey.”
The foreman started to protest
ey. “Who are you guys?” he asked
again in a more subdued tone.
King took a drag from the ciga-
rette pinched in one corner of his
mouth, blew smoke out the other.
“Dependin’ on who you are, I reck-
on we’re either the cavalry or the
Red Legs. Whichever, we’re here to
fix your bug problem.”

THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
Previously, on Thieves’ Honor:
Finney, the pilot of the pirate
freighter Martina Vega, was cap-
tured by an extraction team hired
by former port governor Tarquin,
the woman whose actions resulted
in the death of Finney’s grandfa-
ther, Admiral Cunningham, when
Finney was a girl. As an adult, she
encountered Tarquin and tried to
take revenge, but accidentally shot
the governor’s grandson. Finney
was jailed but escaped. Now, years
later, she was finally going to face
retribution.
However, rebels living as servants
in Tarquin’s household helped her es-
cape not only her shackles but also a
bomb that had been locked around
her neck, and their fellow rebels in
the desert have taken Finney into
their underground hiding place, a
colonial military bunker abandoned
after the war.
Meantime, Captain Kristoff and
the crew of the Martina Vega are
trying to rescue Finney, not knowing
she’s already safe.
And Governor Tarquin is waiting.
And now, on Thieves’ Honor:
L
ocked in shackles of his own mak-
ing, the bondsman paled as Willa
THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
stepped closer, the carlinnian col-
lar in her hands. She slid the device
around his neck, snapped it shut, in-
serted a key into the almost invisible
lock. Saw a line of sweat slide down
the man’s face. Turned the key.
He whimpered.
With a click, the tumbler engaged.
Willa stepped back, bowed to
Governor Tarquin, and held out the
key on her upturned palm, her head
still lowered. Shiny boots appeared
just inside her vision, their black tips
brushing the pristine hem of her
white tunic, and rough-skinned fin-
gers plucked the key from her hand.
The boots stepped out of sight.
She straightened. The governor
gestured her aside, flicked a hand at
the guards, and they half-dragged
the stumbling bondsman along the
palm-shaded path to the gate, his
boots furrowing the neatly raked
gravel.
He fell to his knees—”Please.
Please!”—but was yanked upright
again.
The guards kicked him through
the open gate then ran.
The sonic barrier hummed. Light
flared around his neck. In an almost
soundless blast that pushed against
Willa’s chest, the bondsman’s head
and torso disappeared. Bone frag-
ments pitted the garden wall.
Bile tainted the back of Willa’s
throat.
Governor Tarquin lifted her
brows. “Hm.” Then, in a meditative
tone, her gaze fixed on the bloody
mess, the old woman said, “Girl,
tell the extraction team to employ
a new bondsman. Not just a smith
who can forge strong shackles, but
someone skilled enough to dupli-
cate the collar.”
Tarquin looked at Willa, a sharp
gleam in her cunning eyes.
Does she know? No, I am still in
her service. Obey, and put lie to her
suspicions. Willa bowed acknowl-
edgement of the command, and
stepped toward the entrance.
“Eight collars,” added the gover-
nor. “By sundown. I expect visitors.”
# garrison’s notice.”
“Tell me again why we’re walking
to Horatio?”
“I’m a sadistic son of a sailor.”
Kristoff cast aside the arm sling then
tucked another gun under his loose
brown tunic.
“I’m an engineer. I invent things.
I maintain things.” Through dusty
glasses, Alerio stared at the expanse
of desert, his face as forlorn as that
of any sailor forced to travel with-
out his ship. “I’m not supposed to
sweat.”
“I’ve seen you sweat,” remarked
Mercedes, lowering her medical bag
Page 54
ISSUE 55
into a drawstring sack and cinching
the mouth tight.
Sahir grinned, Ezra looked puz-
zled, and Alerio turned red.
Kristoff tossed him a coarse tunic.
“Ditch the lab coat, and bring extra
ammunition.”
“The garrison, assuming it is still
manned”—Alerio pulled the tunic
over his head, muffling his voice—
”has to know a ship landed.”
“I’m counting on it.” Kristoff wait-
ed for the crew to disembark, then
pressed the exterior controls that
folded up the gangway and closed
the freight hatch. He set the security
shield. “No experienced crew would
foul their navigation so badly as to
overshoot or fall short of a known
destination, nor would a pirate crew
worth their bounty travel on foot.
By doing so, we’re not worth the
Alerio gave an unconvinced
grunt. “By walking, we delay finding
Finney.”
“But we have these oh-so-fetch-
ing disguises.” Mercedes held out
the sides of her tunic and curtseyed.
“I can’t wait to see how the women
in Horatio are wearing their burlap
these days.”
Towering over them all, Corrigan
fumbled to tie a bandana around
his head. Despite a broken hand, he
refused help, grimacing instead at
Mercedes. “You’re such a girl.”
“I’m logical.” She shot a glare at

Kristoff. “If not for a visit to the Katy
Joy”—the glare shifted to Alerio—
”we’d at least have a runner.”
“It was only a two-man kayak.”
The engineer cleared his throat.
“Captain, what do you say to bring-
ing along the cart? It’s solar. Won’t
use any of our fuel.”
Kristoff shook his head. “Nice try.”
Wyatt held out several canteens,
their straps hanging from his open
hand. The crew grabbed one each
and slung it over one shoulder and
under the opposite arm, so the
strap crossed the chest. The excep-
tion was Sahir, whose girth required
ingenuity. He looped the strap a few
turns around his belt then let it go,
and the canteen bumped against his
knee.
Adjusting the pack on his back,
Kristoff set the pace toward a green
fringe of trees.
The petty arguing continued.
The crew had shown uncommon
restraint, but they were tired, on
edge, and this sniping sprang from
their concern for Finney. Sahir, how-
ever, sweat streaming down his dark
face, chuffed along in stoic silence.
Kristoff pushed their bickering
back until it was only an annoying
static behind his thoughts. Ahead,
heat waves radiated from a boulder
surrounded by smaller satellites: a
god rock and its acolytes, or a wom-
THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
an beaming on her admirers.
A tall woman with a long red
braid over one shoulder, a bright
bandanna around her neck, lounges
on a stack of freight, one leather-
clad leg bent, an arm resting on the
knee, the other leg swinging like a
lazy pendulum. She watches the
wharf busy with stevedores and sail-
ors, a smile on her lips.
Does she smile because she slacks
while they labor, or does she enjoy
the sight of sweaty, shirtless men?
She’s Finney. It’s probably both.
Under the awning of a dockside
tavern, Kristoff rolls a colonial coin
between his fingers. She hasn’t seen
him yet. Or maybe she has, and is
being careful not to look his way.
Someone jostles his elbow. “You
gonna finish that sandwich?”
He shakes his head.
“Don’t know why you keep pining
for that one.” Corrigan’s words are
mashed by the food in his mouth. “
She’s not the only pilot can fly our
class of ship. If you really want to
add a woman to the crew, I know
this girl—”
“Shuddup,” says Wyatt.
“You didn’t let me finish!”
“Captain don’t want your chip-
pies.”
“Chippies?”
Kristoff slams the coin on the
table. For maybe thirty seconds, si-
lence reigns.
Then, “Hey, cap, beer’s gettin’
warm.”
With the edge of his hand, he
pushes the bottle toward Corrigan.
On the crates, Finney folds her
legs and leans forward to address a
stevedore grinning up at her, mop-
ping his chest with an old shirt.
Wyatt sets down his beer and
sighs. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“Thirsty, eh?” asks Corrigan.
“It’s not men she hates. Just us.”
“Not me! I’m too pretty.”
“Cor,” Wyatt’s voice is dry as the
sand that grits the lumpy stone floor
beneath their feet, “you got a face
only a rear exhaust could love.”
The mechanic shrugs—”Love is
love”—and raises the bottle of beer.
Kristoff snags it and downs the
contents. Corrigan protests, but Wy-
att laughs. “Go get ‘em, captain.”
An intense star that bakes half the
planet into desert but incubates the
other half into a jungle, Ariel’s sun
blasts the back of Kristoff’s neck as
he crosses the dusty street carving
a reddish path between the docks
and Vortuna. The city-province
perches on the rim between colonial
rule and rebel territory, and more
and more folk are leaving the city
proper, collecting on its outer edges.
Most don’t care that the war has
Page 55
ISSUE 55
technically been ended for a year,
that it was a draw, or that rebel-
lion still festers. They want freedom.
They want to be left alone.
He’s flown the Martina Vega here
to deliver a load of smuggled goods
for the rebels, to duck from the law,
and to ask Fiona Grace one more
time to join the crew.
If the third time is the charm, as
the ancient saying promises, what
about the fifth time? The tenth?
Twelfth? How many times until each
request is an embarrassment?
Well, that answer is easy: Any
time after the first rejection.
Kristoff strides along the dock.
Finney turns her head, meets his
gaze. He almost walks slam into an
upended trunk. She smiles.
If her captors wanted to live, he’d
better see that smile again.
Behind him, the crew stopped
squabbling. Kristoff turned.
“So, cap”—Wyatt jerked his chin
toward the colonial troops rising
from behind jagged parallels of
tumbled stone—”friends of yours?”
#
“Friends of mine?” The captain
frowned. “More like Corrigan’s
pals.”
“Hey, don’t look at me!” Corrigan
raised a hand. “But that fella on the

end reminds me of Sahir’s old bud-
dies.”
The cook squared his shoulders.
“I make no friends with uniforms.”
“Only ‘cause they wouldn’t fit.”
“Well, some uniforms might,”
said Mercedes with a smile. “Cap-
tain Zoltana seems to think Kristoff
is just right.”
Corrigan added, “And that Ser-
geant Frank turned out to be use-
ful.”
Ezra cleared his throat and joined
the fray. “Sahir, didn’t you and the
captain used to wear uniforms?”
Narrowing his eyes, Sahir
touched the haft of his knife. “Long
time ago, puppy.”
A shot cracked the air. Ezra
flinched. The crew’s hands twitched
toward their weapons—force of
habit—then relaxed. Rifle pointed
skyward, a man in a beret strode
from behind the rocks and stopped
a few yards from the captain. Each
man studied the other. No one
moved.
Just when Ezra couldn’t stand the
itch of sweat and burlap any longer,
the man in the beret spoke. “De-
clare yourselves.”
“Freighters,” said the captain,
opening a supple leather wallet that
held the appropriate papers; forged,
of course. “Out of Port Nora.”
“A little far from the mark.” Beret
THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
nodded toward the Martina Vega,
her silver hull dulled by layers of
dust and sand. “Your business in
Horatio?”
“None but curiosity,” replied
Kristoff. “We haven’t traded here
before, and our hold is empty.”
Beret took the papers, glanced
over them, then folded the wallet
and handed it back to the captain.
He didn’t look entirely convinced,
but he stepped back and waved the
crew onward.
Kristoff glanced back at them,
and nodded. Only then did Ezra fi-
nally reach up and scratch the back
of his neck. His hand shook—he was
unsteady from lack of sleep—and
he couldn’t move his feet, but Alerio
grabbed one arm and Mercedes the
other; after two or three steps, his
legs decided to work again.
Thick grass bordered the cobbled
streets of Horatio, and the sand-
colored buildings with signs swing-
ing over their colorful doors looked
like they’d been plucked from an old
storybook and planted in the oasis
by a giant. In the center rose the
squat, square garrison, a tower at
each corner, guards patrolling the
walls.
Singly or in pairs, soldiers walked
among the townfolk, weapons slung
forward, ready to hand, instead of
hanging down their backs. They cast
incurious glances at the pirate crew
and walked on.
Martina’s crew split up. Alerio
and Mercedes wandered hand-in-
hand down a street. Kristoff sent
Corrigan and Sahir to the plaza.
“We must sit like old men in the
shade?” His face no longer dark and
sweaty, but pasty and not sweaty
enough, Sahir looked displeased.
“You’re intimidating,” said Krist-
off, with a significant glance at Cor-
rigan when Sahir looked aside. The
mechanic tapped his canteen, and
nodded.
“C’mon, old man,” said Corrigan
with a smile that still caused Ezra to
shudder at its horrifically ugly good
humor. How Corrigan attracted so
many women—Ezra shuddered
again. “We get the benches. We get
the shade. We get the fountain.” The
mechanic draped a long arm over
the cook’s round shoulders, and led
him away. “Let everyone else do the
hard work. I, for one, could use a
good long nap.”
“Wise man,” chuckled Sahir, but
the laugh ended in a wheeze.
“Yep.” Corrigan slapped him on
the back. “About time someone rec-
ognized it.”
That left Wyatt, Ezra, and Kristoff.
They entered the marketplace.
# Yeah. Some kind of hero.
Page 56
ISSUE 55
Finney refused the pain shot, but
let the medic change the dressing.
Sitting up, a couple of thin pillows
between her back and the wall,
she stretched out the injured leg.
“What’s your name again?”
“Leo.” He dumped the soiled
gauze into a bin then held his hands
under a spout that sprayed a fine
mist of chemical sanitizer. “But
you’re not making conversation.”
“Not the chatty kind, no.”
He smiled. “Shoot.”
“Why join the rebellion?” She
gestured toward the open door.
“Why not return to Earth, or live
outside colonial law? It’s not such a
bad life.”
Wiping his hands, he sat on a
metal-frame stool. “Earth has its
own troubles.” He crumpled the
green towel into a ball. “And, after
so many generations, the colonies
are our home.” He looked at her.
“What about you?
She shrugged. “Never was one
for causes.”
“So you sail with pirates.”
“Captain Kristoff is a freighter.”
“Kristoff.” He said it with the flat-
ness of a concealed sneer. Leo swiv-
eled on the stool and tossed the
towel into a second bin. “Heard of
him. Some kinda hero.”

Bruised, cuts crusted with long-
dried blood, she closes her eyes
against the stringent glare of the
cell’s floodlight. “God. God, where
were You?” She squeezes a wad of
rough blanket in her fist. “I said Your
name. You could have stopped him.
You could have guided the bullet to
the right mark. But why am I com-
plaining?” She turns on the hard,
narrow bunk. “You probably don’t
even exist.”
“He’s just not in the business of
helping murderers.”
Finney opens her eyes.
It’s Kristoff, shaven and shorn and
in a dark blue colonial uniform, chest
loaded with medals and ribbons. He
smiles. “Hello, Finn.”
“You look funny.”
“I look better than you.”
“You sure know how to flatter a
girl.”
He shrugs. “It’s a gift.”
Wincing, she pushes herself up-
right. “How’d you get in here with-
out being arrested?”
“I’m a war hero. See?” Kristoff
points to his chest.
“Fun with arts-and-crafts?”
“These aren’t fake. I earned ev-
ery one. Well, except for maybe this
one.” He indicates a decoration in
the shape of a torch. “It’s a gimme.
Sahir has one, too. Got it just for be-
ing in the Promethean Theater for a
THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
couple of months. Didn’t see much
action there—two, three skirmish-
es, tops.”
But there are several Scarlet
Swords, too—fifteen, at least—and
they’re not awarded for hangnails.
He saw action somewhere. Finney
looks down at her scraped knuckles,
ashamed at her whining to God.
“But it’s not just the pretty-pret-
ties that got me in to Coopertown
Jail.” Kristoff hunkers down beside
the bars, and lowers his voice to a
mock-ominous rasp. “I know se-
crets.”
“Know a way outta here?”
“As a matter of fact.”
Then he reaches through the
bars, takes her chin between thumb
and forefinger, and turns her head.
Frowns.
“Secrets, eh?” Anything to dis-
tract him from studying her face.
Releasing her, he stands. “Once
upon a time, my daddy was in the
prime minister’s secret service.”
Kristoff smiles again. “Knew your
granddaddy, too.”
“Admiral Cunningham was one
of our heroes,” Leo said in a quiet
voice.
So. Finney lifted her brows. You
know who I am. He waited for her
to speak; she looked at him and said
nothing.
“When Willa sent the first mes-
sage, right after your capture, our
leader—Daniel—started planning
your rescue.” Leo’s gaze sharpened.
“We don’t usually meddle with
criminals.”
“What are rebels, then?”
“Good citizens?” He shrugged.
“ Some fight for justice or for free-
dom. Some want the government
to honor broken promises. Some of
us—peace makes us nervous.”
“Which one are you?”
Leo stood. “Four men died for
you today.”
Finney swung her legs over the
cot’s edge, grabbed crutches in one
hand and gunbelt in the other.
“Hey. Hey!” He blocked her way.
“That leg will start bleeding again,
and those ribs need a chance to
knit. You’re not going anywhere.”
She hung the heavy belt around
her neck, leaned forward on the
crutches, and shouldered him aside.
“I didn’t ask anyone to die for me.”
“Doesn’t matter what you asked
for.” Leo grabbed her arm, forcing
her to stop, to look him in the face.
“It’s done. Honor the sacrifice.”
# Corrigan an apple that looked like
Kristoff bought two hats woven of
strips of dried frond. He palmed the
crowns, plunked one on Ezra’s head,
the other on Wyatt’s, but the stew-
Page 57
ISSUE 55
ard pulled off the hat and slapped
it on Kristoff’s head, pulling it down
over his eyes.
Wyatt muttered, “Your face is
more famous than mine.”
Right. Kristoff bowed his head
a little, hunched his shoulders un-
der the big tunic, and kept his walk
between a step and a shuffle. That
wasn’t difficult to do, considering
he was exhausted, but adrenaline
kept him alert. Most “wanted” post-
ers—printed or holographic—por-
trayed him in civvies, sometimes
in colonial uniform, and generally
clean-cut. He hadn’t shaved in—
what? Two days? Three? He rubbed
his chin. Enough there to keep ‘em
guessing. “You take the kid. I’ll head
the opposite direction.”
After an hour spent listening to
conversations and gossip, and en-
gaging in a little of their own, the
crew wandered toward the plaza
as if by happenstance, and sat on
the benches there or leaned on the
waist-high wall around the fountain.
Ezra squatted with his back to the
wall, and set a burlap bag in front
of him, rummaged in it, then tossed
it’d had a hard journey across the
universe.
“Tarquin’s got a villa on the out-
side.” Corrigan bit a large chunk of
the wizened fruit, and talked around

it. “Right on the edge.”
“Some kinda ruckus earlier,”
added Wyatt, one hand hiding his
mouth.
Kristoff pulled his hat brim lower
and tried not to fidget. He hadn’t
uncovered the information he want-
ed. “Anything about Finney?”
“Only some talk about rebels and
an escaped prisoner.”
Thus the ruckus. “Yeah, I heard.
Prisoner get away?”
“Not sure. Rebels lost a few men.”
Mercedes scuffed a paving stone
with the toe of her boot, turned her
back to the rest of the crew. “Co-
lonials lost a few, too, I’ll bet, but
they’ll never admit it.”
Strolling past, a soldier glanced
at the haphazard group. His nar-
row gaze snagged on Sahir then
Ezra then Kristoff, who lifted his
chin, smiled, and waved. The soldier
looked at him a second or two lon-
ger, curled his lip, then continued
around the plaza.
“Trust you, cap,” grumbled Cor-
rigan, “to be first in line to be shot.”
“Just my way of avoiding the aw-
ful anticipation.” Sunlight hit the
fountain at a steep angle, turn-
ing the water red. Yeah, maybe he
was getting slaphappy. “Once more
around the market, then meet me
at sundown near Tarquin’s place.
We need to find out if that prisoner
THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10
The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
was Finney, and if she escaped.”
But the townfolk didn’t know any-
thing beyond the skirmish between
the troops and the rebels—or, if
they did know more, they kept it
close. The crew met in the gathering
shadows on the edge of the oasis,
where trees and unkempt shrub-
bery formed a shield between the
last row of houses and the desert.
A long arm of green sward stretched
to surround an opulent villa, its pale
walls burnished by the sun clinging
to the horizon.
“So,” Ezra capped his canteen,
“we have a plan?”
Sahir laughed, “Plan? What
plan?” and Mercedes said, “With
this bunch, a plan is only Posterior
Locus-Aided Navigation.”
Kristoff hunkered behind a scraw-
ny-looking scrub of a bush, pulled a
spyglass from his pack, and studied
the building.
“Ez has a point, cap.” Wyatt
crouched beside him and lightly
tapped the back of his shoulder,
where a thick pad of gauze still
marked the exit wound. “Thought
maybe Marty and his boys and the
Katy Joy put an end to seat-of-the-
pants operations.”
“How long you been on my
crew?” Kristoff swept the glass the
length of the wall, but didn’t see any
guards. “We do our best work when
we don’t have a clue.”
# thank God—but you sure act like
“Problem?”
A man who could have been any-
where from a rough thirty-five to a
young fifty stood in the doorway,
flanked by half a dozen men carry-
ing an assortment of large weapons.
Leo bowed his head slightly, and
stepped aside.
“Yeah,” said Finney, too angry to
be intimidated, “I need to contact
my crew and get outta here.”
The man smiled a little—a very
little—then said to Leo, “Give me
the room.”
“Yes, sir.”
The medic left, and the stranger
stepped in, closing the door. He
looked at Finney. “How’s the leg?”
Hurts like hellfire. “It’ll do.”
“Mine won’t.” He crossed the
room, favoring his left leg, then
eased himself down to the metal
stool. “Daniel.”
“Finney.” Shifting on her crutches,
she leaned against the counter. “Leo
said you saved me.”
“He did the saving. I just removed
you from the line of fire.” Daniel
gripped his leg and winced. “Couple
of hefty guns you snagged off those
guards.”
“They were handy.”
He smiled, and deep lines fanned
from the corners of his eyes. “You
Page 58
ISSUE 55
don’t look much like the admiral—
him.”
What was it with these rebels
and her grandfather?
I’m such a fine fellow, Gracie, who
can resist?
She gasped, and almost said
aloud, You’re back!
Daniel frowned, but Finney cov-
ered the aural hallucination with
a cough that earned a sharp jab
from her ribs. “I don’t want be un-
grateful,” as soon as she caught her
breath, “but I need to tell my crew
I’m safe. Knowing them, they’re do-
ing something insane right now.”
#
From a gate in the wall appeared
a young woman in a white tunic
and wide trousers that rippled as
she walked. Her long hair blew back
from her face, revealing a strange
collar around her neck. As Kristoff
followed her progress, she turned
her head and looked straight down
the spyglass.
He jerked his head, and slammed
the cylinder to its shortest length.
“Captain Kristoff?” she called.
“The governor bids you welcome.”
 ISSUE 55

THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10 The Rescuers, Part 1 by Keanan Brand Page 59


DEUCES WILD, Season Two
Holding Pattern
by L. S. King
“D on’t touch anything!”
Slap blinked at Tristan and
gestured around him in the passage-
way. “I’m just gonna get the bots to
clean up the mess I made, then take
a shower.”
“Not yet.”
“Uh, Tristan, in case you hadn’t
noticed—”
“He stinks.” Addie wrinkled her
nose. “So does this whole corridor.”
“I don’t care. I know Reggie. He
has booby traps in place in case this
ship is taken over. Until Carter and I
can determine it’s safe, touch noth-
ing.”
“Can we sit down?” Addie sniped,
crossing her arms. “Lean against the
wall?”
Slap put his arm in front of her,
a physical barrier to hopefully stop
the sparring before it started. Addie
drew back, making a gagging sound.
“Not even a shower?” he asked.
“Be patient. It might be the dif-
ference between being able to
shower and having your smelly at-
oms scattered all over this sector.”
Tristan turned fore, and said over
his shoulder, “I mean it: don’t touch
anything.”
#
Face to face on the bridge, Tristan
DEUCES WILD, Season Two,
Holding Pattern
, by L. S. King
in the pilot’s chair, and Carter at
Ops, the engineer’s icy-blue eyes re-
mained fixed on Tristan as the latter
explained both Reggie’s and Dray’s
methods.
The lines in the older man’s face
deepened in a smile. “They both
sound paranoid.”
“It’s why they’re both still alive.
Why I’m alive for that matter. Dray
teaches well.” Tristan ran a hand
through his hair. “I don’t know how
many booby traps might be installed
to circumvent hostiles. Something
as simple as making coffee might
trip something if a code hasn’t been
entered as an ‘all’s safe’ after an in-
cident such as a pirate attack. And
for all we know, if the code isn’t
entered within a certain amount of
time, the ship will self-destruct or
completely shut down in any event.
An attempt to overwrite the system
would probably trigger something
unpleasant as well.”
“Sticky problem.” Carter’s eyes
were sparkling. “I have the answer,
however.”
Tristan didn’t trust that maniacal
gleam. “Oh?”
Carter shoved a hand into a pock-
et of the worn jacket he was rarely
without. He rummaged for a bit
and produced a data crystal, which
he held up proudly. “Military grade
A.I.”
Tristan leaned forward, teeth grit-
ted. “Did you hear me? Any attempt
to tamper or overwrite the comput-
er—”
“She’s a Black Ops type—created
to circumvent systems, takeover.
She will win any fight, deactivate,
and seize control in minutes, then
install her own OS.” Carter twirled
it in his fingers. “Only a few yotta-
bytes in size. Compact, neat, and...
one of the reasons the Confedera-
tion wants me back.”
“’One of the reasons’? What else
of theirs do you have hidden in that
jacket?”
Carter grinned. “Captain, do I ask
you what you store in your vest?”
Tristan pursed his lips, glaring.
“Get to it.” He watched Carter with
a feeling of dread. Such a genius as
his was a prize to be coveted. The
Confeds wouldn’t stop until Carter
was either back under their control
or dead. Tristan wondered how long
the engineer had until his luck ran
out.
Carter hummed to himself as
he worked at the Ops station, but
stopped as the lights blinked out
and they began floating. “Uh oh...”
Tristan gripped the arms of the
chair, blind until he adjusted to the
dim, blue glow of the emergency
bulkhead lighting. “What is it?”
Page 60
ISSUE 55
“It seems they had failsafes on
some of the systems so that if the
computer was messed with they
would shut down.”
“What systems?”
“Looks to be main reactor and life
support. Aaaand...all propulsion.”
“So despite your miracle A.I.,
we’re dead in the water?”
Carter snorted. “If I can’t get
the reactor and life support back
up we’ll pretty much be dead.” A
pause. “Don’t worry, I think I know
how to get past these failsafes.” A
diagnostic display appeared over
Ops, glowing in the dark. “Oh, I take
that back. The A.I. detected the fail-
safes and shut down the affected
systems. I just need to remove the
booby trapped hardware so the A.I.
will allow those systems to power
up.”
“How long will that take?”
“Well, with only the reserve pow-
er, which is being shunted to the
main computer so the A.I. can tell
me what’s booby trapped and how,
the doors aren’t working. I’m going
to have to use crawl spaces to get to
engineering.”
“Then the actual work itself. So
this is likely going to be some wait.”
“Sorry, Captain, but yes. Now we
just need to find the magnetic lock
release mechanism. There must be
one on the bridge somewhere.”
“Most people would just call it a
‘key.’”

“But it’s not just a key. It’s a com-
bination micro power supply and—”
“Carter, just look for it.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Tristan began searching around
the captain’s chair. Reggie would
want the key accessible but hid-
den. A small compartment, perhaps
easily reached when sitting in the
chair...? Tristan eased himself into
the chair, and felt down the sides,
inside and out. His fingers touched
a groove on the right side, and be-
low it, a small niche. He pressed his
thumb and a small panel opened.
“Found it.”
He gave the key to Carter, who
floated near the floor just in front
of the chair. Tristan joined him and
helped heft the plating out of the
way so Carter could drift into the
crawl space.
“Try to hurry. Between Slap spew-
ing in zero-G and whatever that
hellcat might try, who knows what
might await us.”
Carter laughed, his voice echoing.
# to engineering after realizing he
Darkness overtook Slap and Ad-
die, and as they began to float, Ad-
die cussed. Slap merely gulped. His
stomach was sore and his throat
already raw, he didn’t need this. He
really didn’t.
Addie’s cussing turned to wails of
DEUCES WILD, Season Two,
Holding Pattern
, by L. S. King
fright. “We’re going to die! We’re all
going to diiiieeeee!”
Slap grabbed her arms and shook
her. “Hush, gal! We ain’t gonna die.
Not now, anyway. If we were, we’d
a done it already. The ship’s just
powered down so Carter and get rid
of something they found, that’s all.”
“You sure?”
No, he wasn’t, but letting her
know that would lead to more cry-
ing and screaming. “Sure, I’m sure.”
The wildcat subsided with sniffles
for a moment then gagged. “Ugh!
Ew! Oh, this is nasty! Your puke is
floating around me!”
“Then go somewhere else to
wait. But don’t touch anything.”
“I know, I know!” He could see
her outline as she tried awkwardly
to swim aft.
“Not a thing.”
“Old auntie,” she spat, continu-
ing down the corridor.
Slap grinned.
# seemed important then. The pain
Tristan belatedly followed Carter
had no other way to be updated
other than being on site. He finally
found Carter in the port wing bay
floating sideways under a console
for the main gravity generator.
“How is it going so far?”
“Not bad. The air handler is al-
ready done. After I get life support
taken care of, I’ll do the reactor.
That’s going to be the hardest one
to remove.”
“If you can use an extra hand, I do
know how to handle a spanner.”
“I know. Thank you, Sir. I’ll let you
know.”
Tristan drifted away, stifling a sigh.
He knew how to wait, but to stand
by while someone else worked and
not be able to contribute, that was
hard. He floated around engineer-
ing, familiarizing himself with the
set up.
Before long, Carter swam into
main engineering. Tristan helped
remove the panel so the engineer
could wiggle under the port be-
neath the reactor.
Tristan resisted the temptation to
ask “how long?” He flexed his right
ankle, stretching his calf muscle.
He should have seen a doctor right
after they left Eridani, but it hadn’t
was bearable, and he could hide the
limp most of the time, but the lim-
ited movement irritated him.
He began methodically stretch-
ing as he would before a work out.
He should warm up first, but wasn’t
sure if swimming around engineer-
ing would do much good. A slow
limbering up would be fine. He
eventually worked up to some zero-
Page 61
ISSUE 55
G acrobatics. Not his usual fare, but
he could kill time by seeing how
many front tucks he could throw
from port to starboard bulkheads.
He glanced at Carter’s legs stick-
ing out from under the reactor and
bit back any questions about prog-
ress. Just then, the engineer called
out, “Captain? Would you be able to
lend a hand?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He
pushed off the bulkhead, aiming for
Carter. “How much longer on the
reactor?”
“With your help, not long, I hope.
After that is propulsion, shields,
weapons—”
“What about Slap’s shower?”
Tristan countered wiggling into the
space next to Carter.
The older man shook his head.
“All systems must remain offline un-
til I can get a look at them. I mean
all! No shower.”
“Remind me to avoid him for the
time being.”
Carter snorted and returned to
work.
#
Addie floated toward Slap—but
not too close. He smiled to himself
as he continued biting his nails; that
was one way to keep her at a dis-
tance.
“How much longer do you think it

will be?” she asked.
“Dunno. As long as it takes to
make sure we’re safe.”
“The doors won’t open.”
Slap laughed. “Nothing I can do
about that.”
“Didn’t you get the doors open
earlier without power?”
“Yeah, but I ain’t touchin’ nothing
till Tristan tells me it’s all right.”
“I have to use the bathroom.”
“Me too. Just wait.”
“I can’t!”
“Well, go find a corner—far away
from me, please.”
Addie didn’t move away, just
crossed her arms. After a few min-
utes silence, she said, “I’m bored.”
“Big surprise.”
“You’re about as talkative as
Tristan.”
“I’m tired.” He was. The enforced
inactivity of that cabin he’d been
locked in, then all the fighting, not
to mention the vomiting, had taken
its toll. He’d love to just curl up on a
bunk and sleep.
“What do you think Tristan will do
once we get moving?”
Slap inhaled, trying to think of
his priorities as ship owner—well,
former ship owner. I miss you, ol’
gal! “We have to report back to the
Medani queen and hopefully get
paid. Tristan thinks the intel on the
Confed base will help the Medanis
DEUCES WILD, Season Two,
Holding Pattern
, by L. S. King
convince Cygnus Hegemony to step
in and do something. I hope so. I’d
like to make a return run to Zenos
with supplies, but I won’t know for
sure until this mess about the block-
ade is cleared up. I’d love to com-
municate with folks back home.”
“Do you think they’ve got some
sort of government set up yet?”
Slap shook his head. “The way
most folks can’t agree or get along,
probably not.”
“My daddy says a government is
going to ruin everything.”
“I don’t see how it can be worse
than the Mordas was.”
“How were they so bad anyway?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Slap spat.
“Maybe because they took by force?
Didn’t mind letting women and ba-
bies die screaming in a fire?” His
hands shook as he rubbed his face,
the nightmare replaying in his mind.
He took a deep breath and tried to
think of something else. Anything
else. Shallah!
Addie didn’t answer right away.
Finally, she whispered, “I’m sorry.
I...I forgot.”
“Forget it...you’re just a stupid
kid.”
“I’m not a kid! I’m about your
age!”
“What have you ever done to
show you’re grown up? I was or-
phaned at fifteen and ran my folks
ranch by myself. Married at sixteen,
became a pa at eighteen. There
ain’t a kid half your age among my
people who acts like such a selfish,
thoughtless, spoiled brat like you.
You want me to think of you as an
adult, start acting like one.” Futility
washed over Slap—he gave her the
same lecture how many times? She
didn’t get it; he wondered if she ever
would. How could a gal be so smart
and so stupid at the same time?
“You always say that, but—”
“But what?”
“I don’t...know what you mean. I
don’t know how to be any different
than I am.”
Slap stifled a chuckle, then real-
ized she was serious. Too bad his ma
wasn’t alive. She could teach the
girl a thing or two. Huh. That was it:
“What you need is a ma.”
“I don’t have one. Mine died
when I was a baby.”
“Just a pa who spoiled you rot-
ten.”
“I...guess. He always gives me lots
of things.”
Slap snorted. “And never paddled
your hind end once, I imagine.”
“That’s barbaric!”
“Letting you grow up to be a wild-
cat with no manners or regard to
anyone but yourself is barbaric.”
“Don’t you talk badly about my
daddy!”
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ISSUE 55
“I ain’t sayin’ he did it on pur-
pose, but you tell me: how many
folks like you?”
“You do.”
“No, I actually don’t. I just figure
you need someone to keep you in
line. Like a big brother.” In a softer
voice, he added, “I kinda miss being
a big brother.”
“You had a sister?”
“And a brother. He ‘n my sister
and pa all died close together. Fever.
It was just me and ma after that.”
He stared into the near-darkness.
“Then she took ill several years later
and died.”
“You...don’t have any family at
all?” Addie sounded distressed, like
she actually cared.
“Closest I’ve got is my father-in-
law’s family. And Gran is kinda fam-
ily to everyone, of course.”
Addie sighed. “I have older broth-
ers and sisters, much older. I was
the baby. They never bothered
much with me. They’re all either off
planet or too busy, and of course,
my one sister had a fight with daddy
so they don’t talk.”
“Too bad.” Slap nibbled his nails
again. “An older sister might have—
”
The lights came up, down be-
came down, and air flowed again.
Slap exhaled slowly as he settled to
the deck. At least his stomach was
 ISSUE 55

happy. Addie ran for a door and “Thanks, Tristan.” Slap hauled him-
pulled up short when nothing hap- self to his feet. All he wanted was a
pened. head, shower, and a bed. Even food
“They’re not working!” could wait.
“I can’t do anything about that.” #
“But I have to go!” She stomped a
foot and squirmed. “Is that the last of it?” Tristan
“Find a corner aft. I guarantee I’ll asked, slowly unkinking his knees
stay up here.” and standing. This engine room was
Addie waved her arms. “I can’t gorgeous, so spacious and clean—
just...do it someplace in the corri- such a change from Giselle.
dor!” Carter scrambled out from un-
“When everything’s working, the der the console and rose, stretching
bots’ll do all the clean up.” both arms above his head. “We’re
“But I can’t!” good to go, Sir.”
“Then hold it.” “Good. I need to revise the Reg-
Addie plopped to the floor with a istry for the ship, and a new name.
pout. Despite the fact he had to go Then we can put into port.”
badly himself, he grinned. “Any idea what you’ll name her?”
Before long, Slap was ready to Carter asked, following Tristan to
shove Addie out an airlock him- the lift.
self. She wouldn’t stop whining and “I was thinking of: Phoenix.”
moaning. Finally, he said, “Look, gal,
if you can’t be quiet, go aft. I don’t
want to hear it anymore. Your needs
ain’t any worse than mine.”
That shut her up for a while, and
when she started again, he ordered
her aft. She kept quiet then.
After what seemed hours, Tristan’s
voice filtered over the comm. “Slap?
We’re working through the systems
one by one. Doors and plumbing are
next, it should only take a few min-
utes.”
“Hooo, yes!” Addie squealed.

DEUCES WILD, Season Two, Holding Pattern , by L. S. King Page 63


THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Season Three, Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!
by Johne Cook
T he pounding in his head told him
everything he needed to know.
He didn’t know exactly what had
happened to him, but he had a very
good idea who was responsible. He
used his rage to overcome the pain.
As he clawed his way back to con-
sciousness, he was already planning
his revenge.
His eyelids opened. He was still in
the jungle, and it was still dark. He
tried to move but discovered that
he’d been tied with what felt like
stout vines. He was seated with his
back to a tree with hands tied to-
gether in front of him, and his boots
tied together at the ankles. He ex-
tended his right forefinger, carefully
fished into the inside top of his right
boot, lifted a small flap of leather.
He slowly worked out a slim, sharp
blade. He awkwardly sawed at the
vines at his wrists, parting them af-
ter a few minutes work. He untied
his ankles and returned the thin
blade to his boot by feel.
He gingerly felt around at the
back of his pounding head and dis-
covered a little blood. His lip curled
in a silent snarl. Slowly, he rose,
stretched, cracked his neck. Then he
moved out into the full darkness. As
he felt his way through the jungle,
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
the Barracuda assuaged his pain
and professional shame with the
thought that there was one shifty
navigator who had just earned his
unfortunate nickname.
#
As it happened, the last under
was the first to stir. From her cage
suspended out over the water by
the edge of the island, Bola yawned
and stretched as calmly as if she
were awakening from one more in-
dolent night.
Blind Bart caught Flynn’s eye and
gestured at the cage.
Bola’s hand brushed the wicker
basket. She blinked. “Where am
I?” She waved her hands at the
flies swarming around her face and
touched the sticky mess on her jer-
kin. She sniffed it, and then wiped
her hand on her breeches. “And why
do I have honey smeared all over my
clothes?”
Flynn looked at the Friar and lift-
ed his mug in a mock-toast. “I guess
you get to live,” he said, grinning.
The Friar lifted his mug in silent
acknowledgement. He had the
grace not to look smug. “How are
we going to let them know you’re
back in the land of the living?”
“We don’t have to do anything
Page 64
dramatic. I’ll help you get them
down.”
The Friar yelled over to Bola, “We
were protecting you from the Hadd-
iron Navy by drugging you and mak-
ing it appear you were dead. The
honey was for effect. We’ll get you
down from there.”
“I think I need a bath,” said Bola.
“And maybe a little more of the
grog.”
Flynn laughed and stood. The
glow of the fire lit half his face with
warm color, leaving the other half in
shadow. “Let’s get them down. Are
these doors roped shut?”
Bola looked up, her eyes wide.
Pikir said, “No, just push, and the
door will open.”
Flynn looked at the Friar, who
said, “They just had to look like
prison cages. They didn’t have to ac-
tually be roped shut for the illusion
to work, and we didn’t have a lot of
time as it was.”
Flynn nodded in approval.
Bola leaned forward and grasped
the vertical ropes, the cage creaking
and rocking with the shift in weight.
“Is that...Flynn, is that you?”
Flynn laughed and sketched a
jaunty bow and salute in the flicker-
ing firelight. “Hola, Bola,” he said.
Bola drew her legs up from be-
tween the slats and pushed the door
open with her foot. She skootched
forward.
Pikir called over, “You can grab
ISSUE 55
the rope from there and hand-over-
hand down...”
Bola pitched forward, hooted,
and dove headfirst down into the
water with a loud splash.
“...or, you can simply jump out,”
finished Pikir, turning to shoot a
look at Flynn.
Flynn flashed him a grin. “Wel-
come to my world.” He walked to
the edge of the bank and looked
down into the water. “Let me throw
you a rope.” He saw a coil of rope
near him and threw it down. Bola
thrashed around a little, grabbed
the rope, and climbed quickly up.
The taller Bola enveloped Flynn in a
sticky web clasp that left him drip-
ping and laughing.
“How...?”
“I’ll explain it when the rest are
awake and onshore.”
Bola stood there, a dripping
mess, apparently loathe to let him
out of her sight.
The Friar smiled and shook his
head silently. Flynn turned to him.
“Well done, my friend.” He looked
at the dripping, disbelieving Bola. “I
guess.”
The Friar laughed, and it sounded
like redemption.
#
The Barracuda found the port of
Parrot Bay, and stepped into the
bar he found there. He ordered a
mug of the local rum and took a stiff
swallow. Then he turned and spoke

loud enough to gain the attention
of all in the room. “I have thirty sil-
ver coins for the first person who
can tell me where the pirates cages
are.” A man with calloused hands
who stank of fish stepped forward,
looked him in the eye, and gave him
directions. The Barracuda smiled as
he paid the man. It was a literate re-
ward that no one but himself would
appreciate. Life’s pleasure came in
the little things.
He finished his rum, overpaid
with a gold coin to make an impres-
sion, and left. It was too late to fish,
but not too late to hunt.
# prised appraisal. “You’ve put on
The rest of the crew started to
wake, and they got busy helping the
others down. It went well enough,
although they had to retell the story
of how they all got up there with
each new awakening. There was a
lot of confusion and some epithets,
but the strangest thing of all created
more questions than it answered.
Mr. Pitt was the last in his cage,
and he still hadn’t awakened. The
others had cleaned up in the moon-
lit water and were wrapped up in
blankets around the fire getting
caught up with what had happened
and speculating about Flynn’s reap-
pearance.
For his part, Flynn was trying to
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
figure how to get his friend out of
the cage with a minimum of com-
plexity. He ended up asking for a
long-handled boat hook. “I’m going
to snag the bottom of his cage. You
cut the rope and get some people
to gradually lower the cage. We’ll
see if we can get the cage back on
land and let him come to his senses
ashore.”
It was a good enough plan, but
turned out the way most good plans
do—unexpectedly.
When she came to, Deena came
up to Flynn and gave him a sisterly
hug, and then stepped back in sur-
some muscle,” she noted.
“I missed you, too,” said Flynn.
“Mr. Pitt’s taking longer to wake
up than the others. Should we be
alarmed?”
“Not yet,” she said. “It would
have taken more to knock him out,
and could take longer for him to re-
gain consciousness.”
“Let’s get him down and see if we
can help things along.”
They untied the rope from the
stake in the ground and started low-
ering the cage while Flynn used the
boat-hook to draw the cage toward
shore. However, the cage walked
around as Flynn pulled the cage
toward him, and the unconscious
Mr. Pitt started falling forward. As it
Page 65
happened, the door was facing the
water. Mr. Pitt’s body pitched for-
ward against the door, and he fell
straight out the bottom of the cage.
But that wasn’t the weird part.
The weird part was that as he fell
face-first out of the cage, Flynn
dropped the boat-hook and instinc-
tively reached out.
He caught the 7’2” Mr. Pitt by
his ankle, and held him dangling at
arm’s length out over the water. The
boat-hook hit the water with a thin
splash.
Startled, Flynn dropped Mr. Pitt,
who seemed to fall a very long time
indeed before he disappeared into
the dark waters below with a much
larger splash. Flynn stood looking at
his empty hand. A flash whipped by
him and dove cleanly into the water.
Deena said, “What was that?”
Flynn said, “I think that was Bola.”
“No, I mean with Horatio. It
looked like you held his entire
weight without effort.”
Flynn shrugged helplessly. “It cer-
tainly did, didn’t it?” He stepped
aside and threw the rope back
down to Bola. “Tie the rope under
his arms and we’ll pull him up.”
#
They got everybody wakened and
dried off and cracked open some
mulled wine.
ISSUE 55
Flynn said, “It is so very good to
see everyone hale and hearty. There
was a tense moment there when I
finally returned and thought you all
had been tragically dispatched. But I
misjudged the Friar here, who really
did have your best interests at heart
while I was gone. Thanks for taking
care of the crew. They are the clos-
est thing I have to family now.”
From where he sat, The Friar
put his hands together and mock-
bowed.
Bola finally bounced to her feet.
“What happened to you? When
you and the Riven took off into the
heavens, I feared for you. And when
the ship exploded into flames high
in the sky and crashed down into
the sea, I thought you were dead!”
Flynn smiled ruefully. “So did I. I
had a SkyPack but it was sliced dur-
ing our battle. I resolved to go down
with the ship, but I sort of spilled
that sail.”
The Cleric said, “You’re telling us
that you were in the process of dy-
ing, but made a mistake, and here
you are?”
Flynn smiled. “Sort of, yes.”
Gillings said, “How do you explain
that?”
Flynn shrugged. “I make mistakes
like everyone else?”
They all looked at each other.
Cleric Vaneras said, “If you were

flung away from an exploding air-
ship after stopping an implacable
killing machine and the mistake you
made was of not dying when all you
had to do was succumb to gravity
itself, I feel safe saying you do not
make mistakes like everyone else!”
Deena said, “Or anyone else, for
that matter,” looking at Flynn with a
curious expression.
There was a brief silence while
they sipped their wine and mulled
their sudden good fortune, and
then Bola broke the quiet moment.
“Right!” she said. “When’s break-
fast? I could eat a horse!”
They all laughed. The Friar said,
“Come with me, and we’ll put you
up for the night, and then make our
plans on the morrow as to what
to do next.” With that, they broke
camp, lit some torches, and headed
toward Parrot Bay.
# The cleric thought it over. “With-
By the time the Barracuda
reached the clearing, the pirate cag-
es were all empty, the fire was out,
and it was too dark to do any further
tracking. He shook out one of the
blankets he found draped over a log
and curled up to catch a little sleep.
# a cleric, and when you asked me to
Flynn woke first and stood. Cler-
ic Vaneras, a light sleeper himself,
awoke and stretched in his ham-
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
mock. Flynn saw him and nodded
toward the door of the dormitory
house. Vaneras nodded and rolled
out of the sleeping hammock to
join him. They passed by the bar, ac-
quired mugs of hot java, and walked
wordlessly a little way off into the
trees until they came to a small
clearing.
The cleric said, “What’s on your
mind?”
Flynn kicked idly at a root. “Some-
thing strange happened yesterday,
and I don’t know what to make of
it.”
“How so?”
Flynn picked up a twig and start-
ed flipping it dexterously around
with his right hand. “What makes a
man? I mean, set aside one’s back-
ground and one’s racial heritage
and financial situation and all that.
What’s left?”
out drifting into Theology, you’ve
taught me one thing this year that
comes to mind.”
Flynn said, “Oh?”
Vaneras said, “When you ‘re-
cruited’ me for your crew, I was an
assassin playing a part, the role of
a cleric. But you expected me to be
pray at the battle of Roarke’s Island,
I did, and something happened,
something I can’t explain. I stopped
Page 66
pretending to be a cleric, and start-
ed becoming one.”
Flynn screwed up his face. “You
want me to become a cleric?”
Vaneras laughed, a hearty, sin-
cere thing. “I’m saying that who we
are depends on what we do. If you
say you’re a kind man but do noth-
ing but belittle people, you are both
a hypocrite and a cruel man. If you
repair teeth, you’re a dentist. If you
create boats, you’re a shipbuilder. If
you sail them, you’re a sailor.”
Flynn flipped the stick to his other
hand and started working it around
with that hand. “What if one was
born into a family of killers? What
does that kind of blood do to a per-
son?”
“Where you come from doesn’t
matter as much as what you do
yourself.”
Flynn nodded and casually broke
the stick between his fingers.
They were quiet when Bola
found them. The cleric had his arms
crossed and leaned idly against a
great rock. He had a long blade of
grass in his mouth. Flynn stood
pressing his forehead against the
side of a thick, hollow tree whose
top was snapped off. He had the air
of one whose mind was miles away.
Every so often, he thumped his fore-
head against the tree trunk, produc-
ing a pleasant, hollow echo. In his
ISSUE 55
reverie, he didn’t seem to be aware
of what he was doing.
Bola watched Flynn for awhile.
The lightest rap produced a reso-
nating sound. Such was Flynn’s
concentration, it was hard to tell if
he even knew he was doing it. Fi-
nally, her curiosity got the better of
her. “Why, uh... Why are you doing
that?” asked Bola.
Gong.
The cleric grinned. “So he will
have an amusing anecdote to relate
later?”
Gong.
“Anecdote,” said Bola flatly, with
the air of one unfamiliar with the
word.
“Hm?” Flynn blinked. “Oh.” He
broke into a sheepish grin. “I guess
I’m thinking,” he said quietly. “Or
trying to.”
Light broke out over Bola’s face,
and she raised a quick finger in
comprehension. “Ah! Thinking!”
she said sagely. “How hard can that
be?” Smiling broadly, Bola strode
quickly up to the tree, reared back,
and drove her head hard against
the trunk. A sound like a loud gong
echoed throughout the clearing
and scared a flock of birds out of
the surrounding trees with a clatter
of chirps and fluttering wings. The
frantic exodus muffled the sound of
Bola’s body as she crumpled to the

ground, out cold.
Flynn frowned as he looked down
at her unconscious form. He turned
to the cleric. “What the...?”
Vaneras slowly stood, carefully
took the blade of grass from his
mouth between thumb and fore-
finger, and deliberately dropped it.
“Some people think harder than
others,” he said, dryly. “I’ll go get a
bucket of water to rouse her from
her contemplations.”
“I guess this kind of thinking is
a little harder for you than it is for
me,” said Flynn to himself under his
breath, and then he snapped his
fingers. Flynn rapped the tree trunk
firmly with his knuckles, launching
more birds into the air. “Bola,” he
said to no one in particular, “you’re
a genius.”
When the cleric returned with a
bucket of water, Flynn said, “I’ve got
it.”
The cleric prepared to douse
Bola, but set the bucket down be-
fore he used it. “You do?”
“Yes, or at least, I think so. It’s not
just what you do, it’s also who you
are. Everyone has different weak-
nesses and different strengths, and
each is responsible to use those to
the level of their unique abilities.
How’s that sound?”
The cleric raise the bucket again,
but set it back down. “It sounds like
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
you’re still dancing around some-
thing.”
“Perhaps no,” said Flynn, “and
perhaps yes. I can’t tell. But I think
I’m getting closer to it. Thanks, my
friend.”
“My pleasure,” said the cleric.
“Now you may want to want to
step back—Bola can be a bit unpre-
dictable when she awakens.” And
with that, he raised the bucket and
doused the sleeping Amazon.
# assailant.
At first light, the Barracuda awoke
and slid off the blanket. He felt
the knot on the back of his head,
winced, and stood. He stretched
and went straight into twenty min-
utes of various stretches and calis-
thenics. Then he loosened a knife
in its sheathe at his hip and started
tracking the group who had quit the
clearing the night before.
# Flynn’s voice rang out. “Stop!”
It was mid-morning, and the crew
were gathered in a field nearby play-
ing a game of pass the stick. There
was row of rustic tables made of the
local lumber facing a playing field
for sports such as that one. They
were divided up into teams and
took turns throwing a stick to each
other. One team were the attackers,
and the other were the protectors.
It was a lively game, and they were
Page 67
all laughing and in high spirits.
Until a large shadow came up be-
hind Blind Bart, and a strong arm
pulled back on his forehead. A deep
voice hissed into his ear. “I told you
what would happen if you crossed
me.” There was a flash and then Bart
was down on his knees, screaming,
holding his right eye, blood welling
out between his fingers.
As one, the crew grabbed blades
and turned to face the shadowed
“Bring me Cooper Flynn!” bel-
lowed a deep, cruel voice.
A sailor darted forward, and the
Barracuda sliced his belly open for
his trouble. He drove another back
until he tripped over a log and lay
still.
Bola and Mr. Pitt came together
and faced the assassin. The Barra-
cuda barked laughter and stepped
forward. “Ha! Yes! Resist!”
Surprisingly, everyone did, includ-
ing the assassin. They all looked
back at Flynn.
Flynn’s eyes sparked dangerous-
ly. “If this man seeks an ‘audience’
with me, let him approach.”
The Barracuda said, “Oh, don’t
intervene on my account. I’ll take
out everyone between you and me
and count it as sport. I’ve certainly
waited long enough to get what I’ve
ISSUE 55
come after. I’m rather enjoying the
collateral damage. Think of it as in-
terest on an overdue account.”
Flynn opened his hands. “You
came all this way for me. Why both-
er with middle-men? Here I am.”
The Barracuda shrugged and
walked between Mr. Pitt and Bola,
brushing her shoulder rudely as he
passed. “We’ll dance later,” he mur-
mured as he passed.
A feral, wordless growl escaped
her gritted teeth. Mr. Pitt’s hand
shot out to grasp her wrists, and he
restrained her from following.
The Barracuda looked slyly back
and strode toward Flynn, who stood
alone in the center of his crew, fists
on his hips. The Barracuda ap-
proached until he was a little over
an arm’s length away, towering over
the smaller, thinner man.
Flynn said, “You have the advan-
tage of me. You seem to know my
name, but I don’t know who you
are. What do they call you?”
The assassin regarded him for a
moment. “They call me the Barra-
cuda, but my name is Horus Black-
swell,” he said.
Flynn arched his eyebrows.
“Blackswell? That’s pretty melodra-
matic. Was Snarly Whiplash taken?”
They laughed.
The assassin was nonplussed.
“My family possesses some of the

ancient texts. Yes,” he said, voice
dripping with sarcasm, “...I read.”
“What is a ‘barracuda?’”
“It’s a killer fish known for its
fierce deadliness, sharp teeth, and
ruthless behavior.”
Flynn said, “I take it your visit isn’t
pleasure. Who’s paying you?”
The Barracuda smiled. “You made
a dangerous enemy at court. When
he died, I received a posthumous
contract. Nothing less than your
death will do.”
Flynn nodded. “Then a death it
will be.”
“I’ve come a long way for this,”
said the Barracuda, idly swinging his
sword between them.
“I regret your pending disappoint-
ment,” said Flynn, bemused.
“On the contrary, I’m going to en-
joy this,” said the Barracuda.
Flynn crossed his arms over his
chest and observed, a little sadly,
“You have no idea what’s about to
happen.”
The Barracuda sized Flynn up. He
pointed the tip of his sword negli-
gently at Flynn and gestured with it
as he spoke, drawing lazy patterns
in the air between them. “I’ve had a
long, long time to envision what will
happen. I’ve played what is about to
happen so often in my mind that the
actual skewering is now a foregone
conclusion in my mind. All that re-
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
mains is to execute the sequence re-
sulting in my sword running entirely
through your body.”
Flynn hmphed and drew his fa-
mous, electrically sparking sword.
“Very well. Having dispensed with
the pleasantries, here I am. Com-
mence with your skewering,” he
said. “If you can.”
The Barracuda waved at Flynn’s
sword. “That’s quite the blade. How-
ever, it will do you no good against
me. I am up to the challenge.”
Flynn stopped and held up his
sword. “You’re afraid of Baladon,
here?” He wooshed it around twice
in a circle from his wrist, the blade
trailing circles of sparks and an an-
gry hum. “You are wise to fear it—
there are none others like it.” He
sheathed it with an smooth stroke,
the blade swishing into the sheathe.
Without taking his eyes from the
Barracuda, he quickly unfastened
the sword and wrapped the leather
belt around it. “Mr. Humble,” he
said, and tossed the bundle over to
the astonished sailor.
“Captain?”
Flynn snapped his fingers. “Your
cutlass, if you please!”
Mr. Humble looked to Mr. Pitt,
who shrugged. Humble pulled his
cutlass and tossed it hilt-first to his
captain. He took a couple of experi-
mental swipes with the blade and
Page 68
opened his free hand to the assas-
sin. “Is this better?”
The Barracuda bristled. “I have no
need of edge with you,” he said.
Flynn sighed loudly and stepped
quickly forward, brushing the Barra-
cuda’s blade aside with the back of
his hand. His nose was bare inches
from the Barracuda’s. “Do it, you
ninny!” he hissed.
Flynn danced nimbly backward
in time to avoid the Barracuda’s
roar and charge, knocking the Bar-
racuda’s blade down with his simple
cutlass. The Barracuda stepped for-
ward and leveled massive swings.
Flynn gave ground easily, deflecting
the great swings with one-handed
blocks seemingly from the wrist,
putting no great effort into his de-
fense. The tremendous clanging
filled the clearing with the sound of
combat. The Barracuda’s face was
filled with implacable concentra-
tion, his dead mean eyes unblink-
ing. For his part, Flynn’s eyes were
dangerously amused, like he knew a
secret.
The more the Barracuda whaled
away, the less Flynn seemed to
try, standing straight up and eas-
ily parrying the onslaught. Without
breathing heavy, Flynn said, “Is this
what you envisioned?” He started
to push back, driving the Barracuda
back with a blistering attack of his
ISSUE 55
own. He was everywhere, pressing
the attack with his lighter, plainer
cutlass. “Are you even awake?” Fi-
nally, he flicked his wrist, knocking
the Barracuda’s sword aside, and he
stepped forward, rapping the Bar-
racuda’s temple with the flat of his
cutlass.
The Barracuda’s head rocked to
the side, and he blinked in pain and
confusion.
Flynn stopped and opened his
arms wide. “Strike me,” he said.
The Barracuda shook off his cob-
webs and started stamping forward,
driving his blade straight at Flynn’s
chest.
Flynn casually knocked the
strokes aside with his wrist. “Come
on, put some spine into it. Strike
me!”
The Barracuda stamped and
thrust, stamped and thrust.
Flynn clenches his fists and
roared, “Strike me. Strike me! Strike
me!” He extended his arms out to
the sides, exposing his chest.
The Barracuda didn’t miss the op-
portunity—he darted forward and
drove his sword into Flynn’s chest.
The point clanked on something
and the shock went all the way the
Barracuda’s shoulder. He pulled the
sword’s tip out of Flynn’s chest and
looked at the bent tip.
“Ow,” said Flynn.

And then he started to laugh. It
started as a quietly bemused chuck-
le, quite at odd with the baiting
tone of the moment before. He took
a breath and laughed harder, louder.
The Barracuda grunted and
lunged forward again, sticking Flynn
in the calf. Again, the blade clanged,
and the Barracuda felt the shock all
the way up his arm.
“Hey,” snorted Flynn, who started
laughing again. He sounded just a
little unhinged, just a little hysteri-
cal.
The Barracuda’s eyes narrowed.
“What manner of man are you?”
Flynn calmed down and regarded
the assassin. “I could ask the same
of you,” he said calmly. Before the
Barracuda could so much as flinch,
Flynn reared back and backhanded
the assassin, stepping into the blow
with his forward foot.
The Barracuda’s head snapped to
the side, and he was flipped off his
feet and spun around twice before
he fell into a crumple on the ground,
his sword flying off into the green-
ery.
Deena ran up to him. “Flynn, are
you unwell?”
Bola stalked up to him. “What are
you?”
To Deena, Flynn said, “No. And
yes. And of course not, no.” To
Bola, he said, “I think I’m Riven.”
THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE
Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!,
by Johne Cook
ISSUE 55
He looked at Deena, stricken. “I’m And then he fell to his knees and
Riven.” buried his head in his hands, weep-
Bola put her hand on the hilt ing uncontrollably. Deena and Bola
of her dagger, a look of ferocious exchanged looks, and then Deena
concentration on her face, but she stepped forward and carefully put a
didn’t draw it. Deena took an invol- hand on his arm. He blindly brushed
untary step backward. “What? No, it her aside and raised his face to the
can’t be.” sky. “Feeellllooooo!”
Flynn strode to the nearby table
and clubbed it in the middle, snap-
ping it in half. “Ahhhhh!” He ran
along the line of tables flipping
them over like ten-pins.
Mr. Pitt and Bola looked at each
other, and followed closely. “Flynn?”
He smashed another table into
kindling.
“Flynn?!”
He picked up one table and
slammed it into another, destroying
them both.
Mr. Pitt stooped and wrapped his
arms around Flynn. Flynn shrugged
and sent the much larger Mr. Pitt fly-
ing.
He approached a stone build-
ing and started bludgeoning it with
the bottom of his fists. “Ah! Ahh!
Ahhh!” The stone started splinter-
ing and cracking under the bar-
rage. He brought both fists up and
brought them down together, send-
ing a great crack down the side of
the building. He reared back and
bellowed and kicked it, widening
the crack.
Page 69

RGR Author Bios
2 Santa’s Spaceship
by Clinton Lawrence
Clinton Lawrence is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. His fiction
has appeared in Galaxy, Reflection’s Edge, T-Zero, The Fortean Bureau, Walking
Bones, and a number of other publications. For several years, he was a staff
writer for Science Fiction Weekly. A former electrical engineer, he now teaches
high school science, and lives in Davis, California.
4 First Film
by Alexander Field
Alexander Field edits books during the day, and writes in the evenings and on
weekends. He is an aggressive film lover, a husband and father of three.
11 Doors Through the Places You Live
by Michael Merriam
Like most writers, Michael Merriam has worked a variety of odd jobs, includ-
ing as a musician, short order cook, and freight logistics manager. After being
declared legally blind, Michael began writing.
Michael has sold short fiction to several magazines and anthologies, including
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Fictitious Force, and Ruins: Terra. He
received an Honorable Mention in The Years Best Fantasy and Horror 2008, was
nominated for the James B. Baker Award, and is a two-time semi-finalist in the L.
Ron Hubbard Writers of The Future Contest.
Michael is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the Minnesota
Speculative Fiction Writers. He lives in Hopkins, Minnesota with his wife and an
ordained cat. Visit his homepage at www.michaelmerriam.net.
17 The Grand Illusion: A Dean The Space Rogue Tale
by Andy Heizeler
David Bridgette started writing at the age of ten in 1985 on a Tandy TRS-80
Computer. By 1995 he had enough rejection slips to account for the shrinking
rainforests. Off and on he continued writing in spurts, submitting randomly but
mostly pursuing the art of daily living (as opposed to the art of daily starving.)
He joined the Army in 2001 after the terroist attacks of 9/11 and has deployed
to Iraq a total of three times. During his third deployment, at the age of 32, he
decided after a near-miss (which is just as safe as a far-miss, only more personal)
by a mortar round that it was time to achieve his dream of being published.
The pen name Andy Heizeler was created as a conglomeration of the initials of
his favorite authors, under which he created a series of stories about Dean the
Space Rogue. The first Dean the Space Rogue story to be accepted appeared in
the anthology Star Stepping by Wild Child Press. The second, but first chrono-
logically, Dean the Space Rogue, appeared in Ray Gun Revival #40, with another
RGR Author Bios
ISSUE 55
Galactic Saviors, that appeared in Newmyths.com magazine. A separate story
will be appearing in issue 42 of the print magazine Cosmos, titled The Broken
Hourglass.
David and his wife Kit have recently moved to the northern artic regions of WI
where they will be rediscovering the joys of deep snow and cars that need to be
thawed before starting. Since he is now a U.S. Army Recruiter, he won’t have as
much time for writing, but assures his small but untimid fan base that ultimatly,
more Dean will come!
28 This Raygun For Hire: Forever Eden
by John M. Whalen
John M. Whalen’s stories have appeared in Flashing Swords ezine, Universe
Pathways magazine (print), pulpanddagger.com, Spacewesterns.com, and Science
Fiction Trails magazine. Look for Jack Brand: The Search, a novel coming soon.
41 TALES OF THE BREAKING DAWN, The Ties That Bind,
Part Four
by Justin R. Macumber
A victim of the economy, Justin is now a full-time writer of space-faring opera
and daring-do, working to earn his big break. He’s written stories in almost every
genre, but science fiction is hwere his heart belongs, and it always will.
He also created and co-hostsa writing podcast called The Dead Robots’ Society,
which you can find at www.deadrobotssociety.com.
And if you want to learn more about him and read some of his other works, you
can go to www.justinmacumber.com.
46 Calamity’s Child, Chapter 8
ROP: King in the Corner, Part Two
by M. Keaton
Growing up in a family with a history of military service, M. Keaton cut his linguis-
tic and philosophical teeth on the bones of his elders through games of strategy
and debates at the dinner table. He began his writing career over 20 years ago as
a newspaper rat in Springdale, Arkansas, U.S.A. before pursuing formal studies
in chemistry, mathematics, and medieval literature at John Brown University. A
student of politics, military history, forteana, and game design, his renaissance
education inspired the short television series: These Teeth Are Real (TTAR).
His literary “mentors” are as diverse as his experiences. Most powerfully, the
author has been affected by the works and writers of the “ancient” world,
including the Bible, Socrates, and (more modern) Machiavelli, Tsun Tsu, Tacitus,
and Von Clauswitz. (This horribly long list only scratches the surface; M. Keaton
reads at a rate of over two books per week in addition to his writing.)
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54 THIEVES’ HONOR: EPISODE 10

The Rescuers, Part 1
by Keanan Brand
Writing since age nine, when an English assignment required a short story, Kean-
an Brand dreamed of writing Westerns or books about history, or recording the
crazy stuff of dreams. Late teens and early twenties witnessed the imposition of
real life and the putting away of dreams. For a time, he dabbled in nonfction and
freelance journalism, then a supervisor suggested a free writing seminar at the
local college, and Keanan returned to a greater love: fction, specifically fantasy
and science fiction. He started entering contests, winning awards for poetry,
essays, and short stories. These successes led to freelance editing for other writ-
ers, and for a science fiction small press.
His frst story to be accepted by a Double­Edge Publishing, Inc., publication was At
the End of Time, When the World Was New, a short piece of speculative fction
that appeared in the fnal issue of Dragon, Knights, & Angels. History, mythology,
folktales, C.S. Lewis, Howard Pyle, J.R.R. Tolkien, William Shakespeare, Robert
Louis Stevenson, and the Bible remain great infuences, as do the family tall tales,
pioneer stories, and Southern gothic with which Keanan grew up.

60 DEUCES WILD, Season Two

Holding Pattern
by L. S. King
L. S. King is a science fiction and fantasy writer with one book, several published
short stories, a column on writing, and an ongoing monthly serial story to her
credit.
When on the planet, this mother and grandmother lives in Delaware with her
husband Steve, homeschools their youngest child, and also works as a gymnas-
tics coach. In her non-existent spare time she enjoys gardening, soap making,
reading, and online gaming. She also likes Looney Tunes, the color purple, and is
a Zorro aficionado, which might explain her love of swords and cloaks.

64 THE ADVENTURES OF THE SKY PIRATE

Season Three, Chapter 28 — The Barracuda Strikes!
by Johne Cook
Johne Cook is a technical writer by day and creative writer / editor at night. Mar-
ried 24 years to Linda, they share two kids and two dogs. They live in the rolling
hills of South-central Wisconsin, and are ardent fans of the Green Bay Pack-
ers. His interests include prog rock, film noir, space opera, and racquetball. His
friends call him Captain ADD. And also his enemies. Squirrel!

RGR Author Bios Page 71