Christopher B. Wright's Blog, page 39

A Rake by Starlight - Chapter 11

WHEREIN Our Hero Recognizes the Gravity of His Situation

Amys, Cyrus, Ktk, and Grif stood around the Captain’s Table, watching a holographic display of their tactical situation as they all frowned deeply. Well, the humans were frowning—Ktk ground the plates set behind its mandibles, a low, throbbing, grinding sound that communicated displeasure. It was the bug equivalent of a frown.

The holographic display was split into three views: the first showed the Fool’s Errand in orbit around Uru, the s...

Top Seven Characters of Middle Earth who Resisted the Corruption of the One Ring Rather Well

Last week I had to go on a business trip to Richmond. It's an 11-13 hour drive each way, and part of that journey gave me enough time to listen to about 5% of the audiobook recording of The Lord of the Rings (seriously--that's a ridiculously long audiobook, even if you skip over all the appendices at the end). As I was listening to this audiobook, I noted two things:

1. Listening to someone read about Hobbits makes me hungry.

2. For all the talk about how absolutely fatal the One True Ring was...

A Rake by Starlight - Chapter 10

WHEREIN Our Hero’s Daring Plan Encounters an Unfortunate Wrinkle

The Fool’s Errand was not a tempting target for most pirate ships, and Grif was almost completely convinced they were the only ship in the system. That said, as they sat in orbit around Uru he couldn’t shake a vague sense of paranoia. They’d launched the fuel drones thirty minutes ago—four unmanned, cylindrical craft designed to dive deep into a gas giant’s atmosphere without being crushed like a grape, collect all the hydrogen t...

A Rake by Starlight - Chapter 09

WHEREIN Our Hero Senses a Limited Opportunity and Resolves to Act Now

The Wardroom of the Fool’s Errand was Grif’s second-favorite room in the ship.

As part of a military vessel it had been the officers lounge and mess, but when he first bought the ship it had been entirely gutted. Grif spent a great deal of time and money trying to restore it to its former grandeur, and to a large extent he had succeeded admirably. A year ago, however, they had to gut it again—in order to prevent one of the gr...

Missing Links: Part Four

New York City, 2AM

Phillip Henry is dreaming his favorite dream.

He’s retired, sitting in his living room, watching television when the doorbell rings. He tries to ignore it, sinking further into his favorite chair and trying to concentrate on the infomercial for denture cream so strong it can also be used to tile your kitchen floor. The doorbell rings again, and again, and again and again until finally he decides whoever it is isn’t going away.

He turns off his television, gets out of his chair...

Missing Links: Part Three

Crossfire Safehouse

“Are you absolutely sure?” Vigilante is sitting back in an old metal folding chair, arms crossed. He’s in civilian clothes today—a dirty gray t-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes—which David thinks means he’s starting to get used to the “new team.” But he still insists on referring to everyone by their code name… except for David, since he doesn’t have one any more. He calls him “Lieutenant” instead.

Red Shift nods through the monitor, his face pixellating slightly from the movement...

Missing Links: Part Two

Farraday City Bunker

Red Shift is already up—CB isn’t sure he really sleeps—and has apparently already made breakfast. A lot of breakfast: eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, ham, and various combinations of each. CB steps over a puddle of batter and adds pancakes to the list.

Red Shift sits at the small table set in one corner of the table, eating what appears to be a five egg omelet, six pieces of toast, and a pile of sausage and bacon set on top of seven pancakes. In contrast to the enormous volume...

Missing Links: Part One

Farraday Free Clinic

It’s been almost an hour and a half since he first filled out all his paperwork, and he’s waiting as patiently as he can, despite the fact that his Saturday is slowly slipping away from him. It’s another thirty five minutes before a young nurse finally calls his name, at which point he stands up and shuffles past all the other people in the room, following the nurse into a small examination room in the clinic where he stands, just as awkwardly, looking at the examination b...

Issue 14: Missing Links

Story: Christopher Wright
Cover: Pascalle Lepas
Logo: Garth Graham

A Rake by Starlight - Chapter 08

WHEREIN a Really Big Thing is Explained

Inside the container sat a silvery, translucent, cylindrical object. It looked vaguely like a coffin—a feeling re-enforced by the medical insignia stamped at one end—but there were no seams where you would expect to see them for a lid. Underneath the medical insignia was a data port, and through the translucent material, Grif could see dark spindly shapes twisting their way through the entire structure. There was no way to determine what they were for.

Gr...