J. Hamlet's Blog: Scarred Earth: A Serial Novel, page 2

Tahlia Newland's Lethal Inheritance on Sale for $.99

Yep, you did hear right; it's $4 off.

Lethal Inheritance, book one of the Diamond Peak series, is only 99c on Amazon and Kobo from the 30th of May to the 5th of June. Usually the book is priced at $4.99, but this is the first in a series of four books, and for this one week, the author wants to make it easy for you to have a taste. This is a great 99c ebook deal, and an offer rarely repeated, so snap it up while it's hot.

What makes this book different to all the other YA fantasy ?

The Diamond Peak series is more than just great fiction, it's also an education on how to deal with negative emotions and difficult people. You’ll get a tiny taste of meditation and Buddhist philosophy and learn how to banish your demons in a very entertaining way.

What's it about?

After an ordinary evening studying for her final exams, Ariel wakes to a scream and discovers that demons have kidnapped her mother and dragged her into a hidden realm. Ariel mounts a rescue mission, but to defeat the demons, who feed on fear and seek the enslavement of the human race, she must learn a secret esoteric wisdom to awaken the dormant but potentially explosive power of her mind.

Walnut, a quirky old wise man, guides her through treacherous inner and outer landscapes, and Nick, the powerful Warrior who travels with them, proves a dangerous attraction. Can Ariel defeat the sadistic demon lord before he kills her and enslaves her mother?

The stakes are high, death a real possibility. Fail now, and she fails humanity.

Is it any good?
Lethal Inheritance has received the AIA Seal of Excellence in Fiction and a BRAG Medallion for Outstanding Fiction.

“Lethal Inheritance rivals such young adult favorites as J.K. Rowling and Rick Riordian.”Tammy Dewhurst, Rabid Readers.

"Lethal Inheritance has it all - rich, detailed world building, insanely realistic characters, and a kick ass fantasy plot." Book Briefs Reviews.

“A fun read, seamlessly layered with philosophical themes adding depth to the adventure, with engaging characters and evil antagonists, a bit of humour and romance and great action sequences.” Kevin Berry, author.
Where did you say I can get it?
Buy it now on Amazon or Kobo

Please support this hardworking and talented author by sharing this with your friends.

Lethal Inheritance

By Tahlia Newland

 

 

Movement 1: Weeds and Thorns - #19

ENCRYPTED DISCUSSION CHANNEL – AFRICAN UNION SECURITY COMMITTEE

TOPIC THREAD – EHVOW INVASION – WHAT SHOULD WE DO

SUBJECT: CAPE TOWN ATTACKS

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 02:32 SAST

Dearest Friends,

We have suffered devastating losses in the last few hours. I, for one, have lost nearly a third of my ground forces, the South African President and parliament, and half of my command’s air force drones in an attempt to save Cape Town. I was not successful. Please see attached images and casualty reports. I hear that conditions are similar for Cairo. The conditions for the UAS, EU, GCC, and RUF are severely worse, as it is for many other highly developed nations. It seems obvious to me that the Ehvow are focusing on destroying every strategically important city they can locate. I have read additional reports of them targeting concentrations of military activity. I’m only halfway through the intelligence packet provided by our allies the Tarrare. I have seen the cables from the UAS Secretary of State, now Acting President, suggesting disbanding of the militaries in order to avoid them becoming targets of the Ehvow. I wholeheartedly concur with this policy and have already given orders to my own officers to commence such a disbanding and to produce communication plans. I have identified areas of low population density in neighboring nations and areas of South Africa where I intend to send my troops and to encourage civilians to evacuate. I have given orders to my soldiers to fight defensively if attacked but not to seek out further engagement with the Ehvow at this time until we have a clear strategy in place. I encourage you all to do the same and to tell your own militaries to stand down from attacking soldiers from our friends and neighbors who are simply looking for safe haven. We must disperse as much as possible and avoid areas of concentrated populations to avoid making ourselves targets. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and concerns.  

Best Regards,  

General Mongane Tafari House 

African Union Armed Forces

SAC (South African Command)

SUBJECT: RE: CAPE TOWN ATTACKS

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 02:58 SAST

General House,

Thank Allah someone has addressed this madhouse of a situation. I have finished the entire Tarrare intel package provided and have demanded my top officers do the same, and given what I have learned from it I concur with your strategy. I have ordered my military and militias to behave as you have suggested. Tripoli has already received some minor strafing and bombardment, but the mass of this Ehvow fleet has not focused on Libya as of yet. We will be staging in neighboring Mali and several other countries, as well as in encampments near our smaller cities as an interim measure. I hope I will be accorded a similar latitude by our friends and neighbors in the other commands even though such actions step outside of our national charters and could provoke certain questions of sovereignty. We should share our tactical positions once a secure method of doing so can be found. If our forces all converge on similar locations the likelihood will increase that the Ehvow take notice and attack. The so-called round ‘Doombloom’ ships the Ehvow have sent, with their hundreds of strafing guns as points, can inflict mass casualties on encampments in mere seconds. They did so to a substantial camp of refugees and my own forces outside Tripoli. We must avoid giving them easy targets.

Sincerest Regards,

General Mahmmoud Karaman
African Union Armed Forces

LMC (Libya-Mali Command)

SUBJECT: COMMAND PROTOCOLS

STATUS: URGENT

PRIORITY: HIGH

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 05:12 SAST

Generals House and Karaman (and other esteemed colleagues),

Need I remind you of the proper protocols in this situation? Your commands are not yours to do with as you please. The resources you have flow from the African Union’s Defense Committee, as do your command appointments. Both can be easily removed. Please consider the men and women who serve under you and refrain from implementing such a highly risky and dangerous strategy. We must come together and work through this crisis. We cannot have our commands dispersing and behaving on their own without regard for the orders and priorities of the African Union or its member countries’ national borders. This attack is just beginning and we must deliberate on what it means and what will occur before such drastic steps are taken. I urge calm on all sides and for us all to respect each other in such times as these. I am already drafting up a schedule for all of us to meet at a secured and undisclosed location to sort this situation out and come to a common understanding and agenda to avoid misunderstandings as we deal with the current situation.

Sincerely Yours,

Alphonse Zuma

Executive Director

African Union Defence Committee

SUBJECT: RE: CAPE TOWN ATTACKS

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 05:15 SAST

General Karaman,

Excellent point. We do not want all of our military, as it disbands, to gather in similar locations or locations of close proximity to one another. The Ehvow are likely to work their way to smaller and smaller population centers after they have finished eradicating the major cities. Moreso, I have deeply disturbing reports coming out of Paris, London, and New York about these Thornseeds, including that they consume the dead. Have you heard this? I’m unsure what is real intelligence and what’s rumor. I have heard rumors that they are attempting to establish a base of sorts and are making landfall in Cairo as they have in New York City of the UAS and in a few other places. I imagine our Egyptian colleagues would weigh in on this if they had been included on this discussion group, as I believe you and I both articulated the need for to our esteemed chair Mr. Zuma long ago. I will work on sending encrypted information regarding my troop positions as I receive them and transmit them securely upon request. Disseminating them through even a secured forum like this may be unsafe. As far as we know, these Ehvow have hacked our networks and could be reading these very conversations.

Best Regards,
General Mongane Tafari House 

African Union Armed Forces

SAC (South African Command)

SUBJECT: RE: COMMAND PROTOCOLS

STATUS: URGENT

PRIORITY: HIGH

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 06:00 SAST

FOLLOW-UP TASK: DUE YESTERDAY, 09:30 SAST

General House (and esteemed colleagues),

Have you not received my previous posting on this secure thread? We must not continue with this very risky strategy you are proposing. And, as I explained to you at the time, our supposed colleagues in Egypt ARE NOT PART OF THE AFRICAN UNION. They joined the Arabian Union. We have not, as yet, finalized the memorandum of understanding with them, let alone the appropriate interdepartmental protocols for the sharing of intelligence of this magnitude. I will reiterate that it is key that we must have a strategic summit to focus on this problem and to articulate a unified strategy going forward. The Acting President of the AU has a great many ideas he has directed me to share with you all regarding this war effort.

Sincerely Yours,
Executive Director

African Union Defence Committee

SUBJECT: RE: COMMAND PROTOCOLS

STATUS: URGENT

PRIORITY: HIGH

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 06:23 SAST

FOLLOW-UP TASK: DUE YESTERDAY, 09:30 SAST

Hey Mogane,

What kind of drug do you think our friend Alphonse is on? The world is crumbling around us, and he wants to have a meeting? God help us all. What a prick. I’m with you and will direct my people to do as you suggest.

Sincerely,
General Ali-Ben Grizard

African Union Armed Forces
ZC (Zimbabwe Command)

SUBJECT: RE: COMMAND PROTOCOLS

STATUS: URGENT

PRIORITY: HIGH

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 06:27 SAST

FOLLOW-UP TASK: DUE YESTERDAY, 09:30 SAST

General Grizard,

You have replied to the entire discussion group as opposed to General House individually via direct message, as I assumed you were planning to do. I believe my request is quite reasonable! Also, I do not appreciate the name-calling. If anyone is a prick, it is you.

Sincerely Yours,
Alphonse Zuma
Executive Director

African Union Defence Committee

SUBJECT: RE: CAPE TOWN ATTACKS

SUBMITTED: YESTERDAY, 06:47 SAST

General House,

I think this sounds like a good way forward. Let’s keep the communication flowing.

Mr. Zuma,

I don’t believe there’s a need for such meetings. If we can communicate directly with one another, I’m sure we can resolve this. If there are those who dissent with us other than yourself, I invite them to express their concerns. I also think the idea of a summit would be irresponsible at best. If the Ehvow have any strategic sense they would find a way to attack such a summit. I recommend you get the Acting President to a secure and isolated location and then you can find a way to communicate his vision to us all.

General Mahmmoud Karaman
African Union Armed Forces

LMC (Libya-Mali Command)

Image Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA
Acknowledgements: R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Serge Meunier

Spacetelescope.org

Through a Tangled Wood (Books: My Favorite Movies!)

Through a Tangled Wood by Jamie Campbell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A good short story anthology can be difficult to find, even if it has an intriguing theme. Individual styles can clash and make the anthology disjointed or they can mesh to much and leave the reader with a feeling of samey tales that start to feel dull and boring. Through a Tangled Wood is more than good, though. It is something truly special. A collection of fairy tale retellings, the anthology transports these stories to post-apocalyptic, alien, and dystopian fictional universes. Jamie Campbell, Katie French, Ariele Sieling, Sarah Dalton, Marijon Braden, H.S. Stone and Zoe Cannon all do a superb job with their fairy tale retellings. Some of the fictional universes they created are so fleshed out I wanted to read more and see what else could be done with such a richly textured environment. These stories did what they needed to do in hitting or subverting all the high notes of the fairy tale but did not overstay their welcome. Most left me wanting more, with moods and settings that ranged from bleak to comical, all while retaining an undercurrent of dread.

My favorites of the anthology were definitely Katie French's “Plan B,” Zoe Cannon's “Flight,” and Sarah Dalton's “I Am the Maid.” All three definitely show tis anthology and the concept of fairy tale retellings at their best. “Plan B” spins an almost unrecognizably suspenseful tale that transports sleeping beauty to a despair-filled and mysterious dystopia. “Flight” takes beauty and the beast and changes both lead characters into rebellious youth craving to be mages in a high fantasy setting. “I Am the Maid,” puts Robin Hood in a zombie apocalypse and changes him into a sidekick, making Maid Marian into a cunning and lethal hero in the process.

By keeping the number of stories down, the anthology feels short and brief but also lets each of the individual stories stretch out a bit when needed. Given the diversity of authors and story types, Through a Tangled Wood always left me wondering what would happen next and what creative twists would be applied to these well known tales. It never disappointed.



View all my reviews













Through a Tangled Wood

By Jamie Campbell, Katie French, Ariele Sieling, Sarah Dalton, Marijon Braden, H.S. Stone, Zoe Cannon

Movement 1: Weeds and Thorns - #18

He paused in the stairwell to check the social feeds on his interface. All of his friends and coworkers from the city, their faces full of smiles from their avis, simply said “offline.” They’d said that for hours. Only one lone message, from Nika, had come across. Was that a bomb it had said, right before the second barrage had hit Moscow. None of his messages had been returned. He’d begun to accept that they weren’t going to get returned. 

“Viktor, what the hell are you doing?” he heard as he stepped outside the apartment building. Viktor Pasternack couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been hiding in their apartment for a whole day since the Aliens had started to attack, and he wanted to see. 

“Nothing,” he spat back at his aunt. 

“Don’t go outside, Viktor,” Aunt Natasha yelled down the stairwell as he reached the ground level. “It’s not safe.”

“I want to see for myself,” Viktor said, walking outside. The site of Moscow loomed in the distance, a wall of fire pouring and smoke straight into the sky. Another series of energy bursts fell on it, shaking the structures around him and cracking windows even though they were kilometers away from the strike. His apartment building was on the edge of the city, such as it was after the Ehvow. It was on a high hill with a lot of other dilapidated high rises, so it offered a good view of everything going on in the streets below below and the ruins of Moscow. Distant columns of destruction and ash were all that remained of the city’s core.

Military vehicles rolled through nearby roads with the Russian Unity Federation symbol. He recognized them as the BTR-150. His father had worked in one of the factories that had built them. They were all going different directions, their all-terrain tires and axels crawling over sidewalks and even smashing over abandoned cars. “What’s going on out there?” Natasha said. She had come down to the ground floor, but was still too wary to come outside.

“First you don’t want me to come out here to find out what’s going on then you want to know what’s going on?” Viktor shouted back. “You’re sending mixed signals.”

“Since you’re already out there,” Natasha said. 

“They’re abandoning it,” Viktor said, hoping it would coax his aunt outside. He’d gone to live with her after being laid off a month ago, both of his parents long dead. “The soldiers, everyone, they’re all leaving.” The traffic was only going one direction. Natasha finally ventured outside.  

A few other people had collected outside of the apartment buildings. Many were getting in their own cars or even bikes and leaving. “Are they stealing a bus?” Natasha said, pointing to a gang of people down the block who were loading suitcases and bags onto a sizable piece of public transportation. 

“Looks like it,” Viktor said. If they were the type to steal buses, he wondered how many of the suitcases and the bags were actually theirs. There seemed to be piles of belongings coming from the lobby of the building.

“I don’t think the powers coming back on, it’s been hours,” Natasha said. Victor nodded in agreement. 

“What are those things in the sky?” Victor asked a young girl watching what appeared to be tiny flying specks in the distance chasing each other. Viktor thought her name was probably Mishka. He’d seen her standing around outside at night when she probably shouldn’t have been, sneaking stimsticks. 

“They’re the bad aliens,” the girl said. She seemed to be around 12 or 13, but Viktor wasn’t sure. 

“The drones are fighting them,” an older man, presumably her father, said. He seemed to come from nowhere, abruptly standing behind Viktor in a way that made him flinch. “Not very well either, by the looks of it. They’ve sent thousands of them at the alien ships and they just keep getting shot down. I think they’re trying to cover the retreat.” 

“How do you know?” Viktor asked him. 

“I used to be military,” he responded, his voice worried. “Or something like that.” Victor trembled with anxiety as he saw some of the specks getting larger, coming toward them. He could also see bursts in the sky as the smaller ones, likely the drones, were shot down by the round and spiky Alien ships. “This is a retreat. They’re abandoning the area. We probably should too.”

“And go where?” Natasha said. 

“Away,” Viktor said. The ships zoomed ever closer, some looking like big round balls with spikes jutting out the side and front and other looking like a small, broken and thorny branch. They were strafing everything, ruins and roads. High-rise apartments that looked a lot like theirs collapsed on themselves after seconds. The Ehvow ships even caught some of the military vehicles, the tanks and crawling all-terrain trucks popping in clouds of fire on a faraway road.  

“Do you know where our family in Crimea lives?” Viktor asked Natasha, his aunt stepping back at the suggestion. 

“That’s a long way,” Natasha said. “Are you sure it won’t be the same there?”

“I don’t see another option,” Viktor responded. “It’s looking like, at best, we’re about to be homeless.”

“Crimea is good. Not so many cities. Less targets. Do you mind if we go with you?” the girl’s father said. “My name is Yegor Krupin. This is my daughter, Mikka. What was left of our family and everyone I knew was there.” He pointed in the general direction of Moscow. “Not so much reason to stay here anymore unless you feel like dying.”

“You said you were with the military?” Viktor asked. 

“Or something like that,” Yegor corrected.

“What did you do?” Natasha asked. Mikka sighed, grinding her foot in the sidewalk and starting to wander away.

“Many things,” was Yegor’s answer. His face was set in a slight frown. He didn’t seem menacing, but Viktor wasn’t sure he could read the man. He did know that Yegor probably knew a hell of a lot more about surviving out there than he did. 

“You can come if that’s what you want,” Viktor said. “I can’t promise you much. Aunt Natasha, let’s go get everything we can carry.” She spent a long time looking at the Aliens flying in the sky, watching them strafe more ruins, ever closer to them. “I have a car, but it’s small. Let’s meet back here soon, twenty minutes.” 

Yegor nodded, then leaned in close to Viktor. “I recommend you bring any weapon you have,” Yegor whispered. “Knife, pepper spray, stun gun, regular gun, whatever, it could be quite useful.”

“Pepper spray, against them?” Viktor whispered back, rolling his eyes toward the Alien ships flying in the sky in the distance.

“They’re not what I’m worried about just yet,” Yegor said, swiping his eyes side to side at all the other people collecting on the sidewalk. Yegor collected his daughter and led her back into the building. Neither of them seemed too broken up about whoever they had known in Moscow. Viktor checked his social feeds again, the smiling faces of his friends and acquaintances and the offline statuses looking back at him. No messages, once again. 

“Strange that I was depressed when I had to leave Moscow to move in with you,” Viktor said to his aunt. “It looks like I’d be dead if I hadn’t.” The woman smiled, a rarity. 

“And to think this shitty apartment was just starting to feel like home,” Natasha said, following him as they went back inside.

Image Credit:

Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA/ESA)

Spacetelescope.org

Flashback Friday - The Long Bloody Road to Let's Dance

It's a fantastic song that is musically interesting and has a socially-conscious message. It's video is even interesting as well. You can never go wrong with Bowie. There's so much appreciate, from the bright guitar shuffle to the horns to the catchy bassline. This isn't even the long version with the zany trumpet solo (I seriously love the fuck out of that zany trumpet solo, btw). I remember hearing this song occasionally when I was very young because my mom did listen to the hipper radio stations when I was growing up in the 80s. Back when radio stations played more than five songs over and over again and would even (gasp) play a song that was a few years old. It faded from my memory for quite some time. At the time I didn't appreciate David Bowie at all. Mostly because I was a child and, well, David Bowie is some advanced shit. Today, I am a huge David Bowie fan. How did that happen? My secret shame is that this is how it happened. 

If you were alive during this era of music, you're probably at least cringing and possibly having an episode. There were many years there where Puff Daddy/P. Diddy dominated the airwaves with other people's reheated music in such a blatant and uncreative way that it all but killed sampling off. Which is a shame, because people like the Beasties and Beck used it quite ingeniously back in the day, but that's a topic for another time.

Among the PD siege that occurred during my latter high school years, something about this song triggered latent memories in me. Then I saw something on TV where people were pointing out the basis of a lot of these sampled songs and there it was: Let's Dance. A few second snippet of Bowie playing that guitar next to that upright bass. Months later I found myself in the used section of a CD store (haha, I know, right?) and I bought the Bowie singles collection. I listened to these songs and realized that the Let's Dance guy was the same guy as the Suffragette City guy who was the same guy as the Space Oddity guy who was the same guy as the Changes guy. My adolescent musical mind was blown to bits by this revelation. Weirdly enough, I have Puff Daddy/P. Diddy to thank for that. Not that it wipes out all the deep red in his ledger, but I can't deny that impact on my life.

I'm not going to let you off easy, though. Given the success of a new Godzilla flick, I'm going to make you remember this:

This story doesn't have a sad ending. Another Bowie song that would come along shortly after that and it would force me to notice him again, cementing me as a fan of his forevermore. It's still a bit of a guilty pleasure and enjoys regular plays alongside Let's Dance, Fame, and much better works.

Smell that Trent Reznor flavor. Also a subject for another day. 

 

Femmes Du Chaos (Books: My Favorite Movies!)

Femmes du Chaos by Kristen Duvall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Short story collections are a mixed bag, both within themselves and across the whole genre. They often have a very "mixtape" feel to them, taking on varied tones, genres, and themes. Sometimes this can have a jarring effect if the sequence isn't carefully chosen or a disjointed feel when one or two stories feel drastically different from the rest. Thankfully, Kristen Duvall's collection Femmes Du Chaos does not suffer too much from it.

A wicked and twisted series of tales, some of which are endowed with a grim sense of humor, Femmes Du Chaos starts on the outrageous side and keeps charging forward. Some of the stories are unrelentingly grim ("The Fallout," "The Chosen One," "Irreversible") and can be hard to take but are intense and vividly-written. Others are real classics. My favorites were "Like Father, Like Daughter," "Magic Shoes," and the closer for the collection, a dystopian horror story titled "The Price You Pay." Some of these felt like ideas that could've become entire novels but the author delivered them as fully-realized and carefully constructed stories that left me wanting more. It's not often that short stories feature such interesting, yet economical world-building.

I will definitely need to check out more by Duvall, as Femmes Du Chaos feels like a taste of what she could do with more pages. Given it's grisly content and often despair-filled moments, it may not be to everyone's taste, but I certainly enjoyed it.



View all my reviews













Femmes du Chaos

By Kristen Duvall

Movement 1: Weeds and Thorns #17

“Thornseed” was what was coming over her interface’s radio. She didn’t care for the name, but people were using it all over the comms.  As dawn rose over the landscape of toppled buildings and fire, Sergeant Alicia Kent stared down the scope of her sniper rifle. It was anti-materiel grade, the Hecate IV. Affectionately known as The Witch, or the Motherfucking Witch if you were so inclined. More lances of light fell onto New York from the sky. She hardly noticed the bombardments since they’d been coming every few minutes for almost a full 24 hours. 

There’d been 18 more snipers in the area with her until one of those orbital bombardments had fallen on them a few hours ago and an Ehvow starship had come by and strafed them to make sure. Even the small ships had guns so powerful they tore building supports apart. Only Corporal Danae Malvo and Alicia had survived. They had been assigned to watch and guard the George Washington Bridge after three national guard units had been wiped out. The bridge had almost collapsed but the Ehvow ships zipping by had left it standing so far. She wondered if it was just to lure as many people to it and kill them. If so, their strategy looked to be working. It had been hours since they’d seen anyone even try to cross it. 

Alicia looked sickeningly at one of the dead, Lieutenant Keith Lin. He was still bleeding out and had exposed, broken bones from the triangular gouges in his body. That was the wound the Ehvow guns left. Over the comms they’d been saying that the Ehvow bullets expanded after firing into spinning, three point objects that were about 15 cm long. Made it hard not to miss your target, which the skyrocketing UAS military casualties in Alicia’s combat interface feeds told her. She hated to even think about the number of civilians. The Thornseeds killed everyone they saw, regardless of whether they were armed or unarmed, adults or children. Alicia had positioned herself behind a scorched series of drop barricades that normally stopped every small arms fire humans had designed but were more of a mild annoyance to the bigger Ehvow guns. They weren’t cover so much as a hiding place. 

They came into view, four of the lumbering things. Their blocky bodies surged forward, squatty limbs holding their guns. “You ready, Danae?” Alicia said over her comm. “We’ve got some friendlies that need help.” They were chasing two men and a little girl. “Christ, a child.” One of the men was wearing the shambled remains of a UAS uniform. Her combat interface identified it as diplomatic security. 

“Got them in my sights, ma’am,” Danae said. “Nothing’s happening to her on our watch.” She had a larger Steyr anti-materiel railgun that packed more of a punch than Alicia’s but it couldn’t fire as fast. 

“Damn straight, soldier. I’m picking my target,” Alicia focused in on the closest one to the trio of survivors. Her combat interface showed their targeting choices, Danae aiming for the one behind Alicia selected. She knew it’s head with the dead colorless eyes and the toothy maw was far from the weak point. She aimed first at one of its legs, squeezing the trigger. She’d killed people with a Hecate before, turning them into a red mist with one shell. It was different with the Ehvow. The charged railgun shot burst from the sniper rifle across the bridge in a smoky trail, shearing off the thornseed alien’s leg off in gush of green fluid. The Thornseed took a knee, Alicia taking another shot that burst the Alien open as it squealed that horrible sound. Even almost a km away she could hear that ear-splitting cry. Green fluid leaked out of it and it began to fire indiscriminately at the survivors as they ran through a series of toppled and burned buses. Alicia took another shot, splurting more Ehvow fluids and finally the tell-tale glowing-green viral spores into the air. One down. 

Danae got lucky. She fired one shot into her target’s gun arm, taking the limb and its intimidating weapon with it. A second hit from the Steyr blasted its center-mass clear off it’s legs in a shower of more death spores. Alicia took another one’s leg off, Danae backing her up with a shot that took half of the thornseed’s head off. Alicia used her last round from her clip to finish it off in another cloud of death spores. That left one more. Alicia reloaded. Fortunately she had lots of ammunition. Unfortunately it was all the unused from the rest of her dead squad mates. The last Ehvow was close to the survivors. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” Alicia spat. Her interface told her Danae was reloading too. 

She couldn’t panic, she finally finished reloading, chambering a round just in time to take a shot into its midsection, then it’s head. The first shot was a good one, but the second was hasty and only grazed the target. It barely slowed the creature down as it bounded forward and leaked slime over everything. 

One of the survivors, the one in UAS uniform, turned. He had an old Thunderbolt assault rifle and he clearly planned on buying the other man and the girl a chance to make it. He backed away slowly as he sprayed random shots in the Thornseed’s direction. Alicia tried to help him, grazing the Alien’s leg as rounds from the Thunderbolt hit home. The Thornseed stumbled around as it took the hits, its insides rupturing. 

“No, no, run you fucking idiot,” Alicia hissed under her breath. The guy with the Thunderbolt was still trying to shoot at the Thornseed, even as the Alien burst open in a cloud of sparkly parasites. The spores flew free, showering him and burrowing into his skin. He began crying out in pain, dropping his gun and falling to his hands and knees.

The other survivor and the girl stopped. Alicia watched the him shout and wave at them. The downed diplomatic security officer was telling them to leave him and run. Alicia, against her better judgment, zoomed into them as far as she could. The girl tried to run to him, the other man holding her back. Through her scope watched the girl mouth “daddy” and yet another piece of her died. There wasn’t much left in Alicia, but she let out a defeated exhale. They did leave him, right as his body flapped in spasms. The spores did whatever they did. He didn’t look like one of the lucky ones who died in seconds. The spores were doing something to his body, poisoning him slowly. 

“We did what we could,” Alicia murmured into her interface, her voice scattered. 

“They’re going to make it,” Danae said. Alicia knew they were. They were close. She became aware of them running through and around her and Danae’s barricades. They’d crossed the bridge finally. They weren’t stopping, running as far and fast as they could. Trying their best to leave the bloody spectacle behind them. Her combat interface lit up with worse news from the nearby scanner arrays. There were Ehvow drop ships coming, and they were slowing as they approached Danae and Alicia’s location. Finishing the job. 

“We helped, what, two or three hundred people across that bridge?” Danae said. “Maybe more. There were a lot in the beginning. Maybe even a thousand.”

“Yeah, at least that much,” Alicia answered. More Ehvow ships were coming, the round strafing ships that had an energized, beaming core and dozens of gun barrels arranged around it. 

Alicia reloaded the Witch, switching it to full auto mode and positioning several clips next to her ready to load in an instant as she changed her orientation to behind them. With her interface and relays nearby, she prepared herself to fire the Hecate’s railgun power through her own barricades. “They’re coming for us, Danae.” She loaded the SMG, watching the pods fall from the dropship through the tangles of her barricades. They were less than ten meters away. She hoped the two last survivors would escape in the mayhem, but she knew that she and Danae weren’t making it out. 

“Ready to give them hell, ma’am,” Danae said. The Thornseeds climbed out of their pods, pointing their guns in Danae and Alicia’s general direction. Alicia took aim from the tangled barricades as their guns shredded everything around her, ready to take down as many as she could. Feeling the barricades and debris shredding around her, shrapnel digging into her arms and helmet, the sound of the Ehvow’s guns drowned out even her own gunfire as she aimed at the closest Thornseed and emptied her entire clip. 

Image Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA

Acknowledgement: Kathy van Pelt

Flashback Friday - De La Soul

On Valentine's Day this year, something crazy happened. De La Soul gave away most of their albums for free, just for 24 hours. When I downloaded them, and listened through the entire catalog again, it jogged a lot of memories. I was a late-comer to this music, I'll freely admit it. The first time I really became acutely aware of De La Soul was with this song. Why? Because my college roommate played it on loop early and often.

Granted, that was also how I became acutely aware of Usher, but that's a trauma to relive another day. Something about this song, with its low-key guitar riff and guttural chorus, really grabbed me. It made me (back in the days of early 2000s days of P2P misadventures) "obtain" as much of their music as I could. In High School, I'd known little more than Wu as solid hip hop, my ignorance compounded by the godawful radio selections from where I grew up and crowded out by my monomaniacal obsession with obscure jam bands at the time. 

"Oooh" was a key moment to change all that. From there I rewound to the joy of 3 Foot High and Rising and the stylistic marvels of Prince Paul's production. As I relived all of that a few months ago listening to all those songs again, I regained an appreciation for how much De La really did convert me into a hip hop fan, even if I came to them at a later point in their careers. 

Another thing I'll always remember about De La? Seeing them perform at the 9:30 club at a late show on a Friday night. As Pos demanded we sing back chorus to him at 2:00 AM with taunts of "I can't hear you!" I remember thinking, "that's because I'm too tired. I'm getting old." I haven't really been to a late show at 9:30 since. 

Movement 1: Weeds and Thorns #16

The displays and infographics had lots of nothing for everyone. Hours ago they’d been covered with status updates, formations, detected hostiles, and a feed from the Black Sphere. Only background data provided from Luna’s arrays and the Heimdallr program remained. Everything else only had “disconnected” or “offline” where a helpful widget had been. The one that used to provide data from the Black Sphere was the largest absence. 

“General Crouse, I place responsibility for this catastrophe at your feet!” Admiral Jude Revard seethed. “You shaped and ran all of the programs that were supposed to give us an edge. Those upgrades were useless, just like the entirety of your Joint Research and Development Service. The entire USSF defensive fleet has been eliminated. All their crews, lost. Their blood is on your hands. The Ehvow are beyond anything we have and it was your job to keep that from happening.”

“That should hardly be a surprise when even the Tarrare couldn’t stand, either,” General Ian Crouse responded. “I’ll refrain from discussing how many times my budget was cut and my schedules delayed, because it pales in comparison to how badly the civilian Sanctuary program was eviscerated by the same people. I fast-tracked and rescoped every design I could, but we never even contemplated something of this magnitude. I wasn’t even given this position until a year ago and the re-org to move all of your RDT&E commands under me still wasn’t complete. You should know since you fought me at every turn. I did the best I could with what I had.”

“All I’m hearing are excuses, Crouse. I don’t know why I expected anything different from an engineer. We’ve lost almost an entire branch of the UAS military, my branch, and you’re complaining about budgets and designs.  It was your job to find a way to get this done. We were powerless to stop this invasion,” Admiral Revard continued. The emergency session of the Joint Chiefs not going so well. 

“That’s enough, Admiral,” Regina Fleck said from her chair. She’d watched the Joint Chiefs bicker with each other for the past two hours. “The President is missing, assumed killed in orbital bombardments that have all but wiped DC off the map, taking most of Congress with it. The Vice President is confirmed killed at a campaign event with Senator Alvez. Make no mistake, this is a disaster.” She was their acting President, as far as the succession could be determined. They were safe for now in their secured bunker deep in the Appalachian mountains from hundreds of miles away from DC, but no one believed that would last. “That said, General Crouse is right. Whatever we did or could have done would not have been enough to prepare for this. I’ve been listening to you all indict each other and I’m sick of it. We’ve got work to do. General Estes, can you give me an update on the status of our ground defenses?”

“We’ve lost a lot,” General Maria Estes said. “But we still have pockets of capability and some numbers. Some of our anti-air defenses can shoot down the smaller ships, that doesn’t save us from these orbital strikes on the cities. The division we sent to New York is fighting them in the streets, but losing ground rapidly. They can be killed, but not as easily as we can. I’ve also got reports they release some kind of bioweapon when you kill them. I’ve sent orders out for everyone to wear full bio-warfare gear, but there isn’t enough to go around.”

“Our ships are being annihilated,” Admiral Barton of the UASN said. He was resigned, despondent. His entire command was being erased and there was nothing he could do about it. At least he taking it better than Revard. “We’ve lost all of our drone carriers, which would’ve been incredible assets. Even the Aegis Next-Gen are gone. They’re being targeted directly and can’t seem to outmaneuver the orbital strikes. The Ehvow seem to know better than to try to engage them with their smaller ships, the kind of threat they’re designed to counter. Only our submarines are not suffering heavy losses. My staff is trying to figure out how we can use them.”

“General Crouse, your opinion on this?” Regina asked him. 

“I’m just R&D, Madame President,” he responded, surprised he was anything other than a target. “Grand strategies are not really my expertise. That’s more Admiral Revard and General Estes’ department. For what it’s worth, I think we’re seeing Aliens with a truly, well, Alien way of thinking and an Alien physiology. We’re dealing with the same kind of thought exercises we went through when we used to prepare plans to fight off the Tarrare if they ever became hostiles. A lot of what-ifs. We only know a few things: the Ehvow obviously favor a more brute force and direct assault approach, which is predictable for the moment. They’ll focus on cities, concentrations of forces, and obvious threats. Our weapon systems don’t perform as well as we want, but they’re not wholly ineffective. I think our only hope is to work with Tarrare and find out as much as we can about the Ehvow. They’ve already dumped a lot of intelligence on us that we’re still sorting through. I think we also need to petition them for assistance with developing better weapons and building anything that could kill them more efficiently than we do now. In the meantime, we need to get everyone we can out of the cities and avoid large concentrations of people and forces. Once we have the right tools, we can adopt an insurgency strategy. I’m no expert on that, but those would seem to be the next steps.”

“What General Crouse says makes sense,” General Estes said. She started pulling things up in her interface. “I’d also recommend you exercise your powers under the Alvez-Bush Act. It only passed six months ago, but it made the Defense Priorities and Allocation System significantly more robust. Senator Alvez wanted it to be in place in case the Tarrare turned on us. You can waive testing and force all those contractors to show what cards they’re holding. They may be sitting on experimental tech that could help.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” General Crouse said. “I know IEI must have something. I’ve been hearing rumors about it from my colleagues in the black world for ages.” 

“I can’t believe you’re listening to him,” Admiral Revard said. “He doesn’t know anything about fighting wars and he’s dictating strategy.”

“I’m reminded of a lot of history at this moment,” Regina said, staring down Admiral Revard with an ego-melting glare she usually saved for petty dictators and corrupt foreign ministers. “For once, let’s teach the lesson to these new visitors instead of learning it ourselves. I want the map of so-called ‘low-risk’ areas disseminated in pieces to all of our ground forces, and I want them to disband and retreat immediately. General Estes, I’m leaving it up to you to come up with a way to contact and reactivate them once we have a more concrete plan. General Crouse, since you hatched this idea, I’m going to give you a lot of taskers. I want you to work with Tarrare to find out whatever is deadly to the Ehvow and find ways to manufacture and distribute it as quickly as possible. I’ll use my powers under Alvez-Bush to provide you with cover. I don’t care if it’s old technology, new technology, whatever. I want you and General Estes in communication on a daily basis to flesh out a more specific insurgency strategy once real options are identified.”

“Yes ma’am,” Estes said. Crouse nodded in agreement. 

“Admiral Revard,” Regina said, turning her attention toward him. “You may have lost the fleet, but you still have the networks and Heimdallr arrays. Once, you made a very public point in front of the President by explaining to me that wars are won on ISR: Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance. The Heimdallr arrays are just that. I want reports on the Ehvow fleet’s status for as long as the arrays are operational. The networks are also under your command. I want you to work with the Tarrare to determine their capabilities of intercepting our intelligence. We need to know what they know or can find out, or if the Tarrare know ways of protecting our network. If they can hack in and find out the locations of the Sanctuaries or are forces, this is going to be a very short resistance,” 

“With all due respect, ma’am, what if the Tarrare won’t work with us?” Revard said. “They’re already all going into that invincible hole in the ground they built for themselves. They can just sit back and use us as a distraction until reinforcements come.”

“I doubt that,” General Crouse said. “They’re trapped here too. Their ship was destroyed. I don’t pretend to know everything about the Tarrare, but a rescue fleet, whether it comes from or god-knows-who-else, will have to be sizable and will probably take a lot of time to get here. They’re in a bad situation just like us. Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s still plenty they’re hiding from us, but I don’t expect them to stand back and watch us die.”

“Agreed,” Regina said, cutting everyone off. “General Crouse, I think the best place for you to be right now is co-located with the Tarrare. Their embassy, or Sanctuary, has more than enough space and apparently substantial manufacturing and modeling facilities. They’ve already communicated an offer to house a select number of officials and I think you’re the best person for the job at the moment. Select a team to get you there. I’ll make sure JSOC has some people to make sure you get there safely. You all have your orders. I may not have been your President until today, but I’ve been working with all of you for the last three years and I’d like to hope we have enough mutual respect and will to live to work with each other on this. If you disagree, you can hand in your resignation, take your uniform off, walk outside, and see how you fare on your own against the Ehvow. I want all of you to remember that this is more than a war. This is going to be a hellish fight against extinction. There’s no victory, just survival. Dismissed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the unison response, though some were more enthusiastic than others. 

Image Credit:

NASA, ESA, K. Sahu (STScI) and the SWEEPS science team

Spacetelescope.org

Movement 1: Weeds and Thorns - #15

Dust fell, the muffled noises of guns seeping through the cracking cement. Stumbling through the flickering lights and uneven ground, Lina decided not to tell Patrick that he was about to break her wrist. He gripped her arm too tightly and ran too fast. 

The lit subway map activated her interface’s transit app. It told her that service had been shut down on all lines due to a police emergency. She gathered the app didn’t have a preset for Aliens.

They searched the subway platform for an exit. Patrick wanted to go underground, one of his only good ideas. Too bad he already wanted to reverse course. “How many of them do you think there are up there?” Lina said. Starships were landing on top of buildings, in the streets. Bulky greenish-brown Aliens plodded out of them guns blazing with their shrieks. 

“I don’t want to find out,” Patrick said. They’d only hooked up a few times over the last month, which had somehow morphed into running for their lives together. All because they worked a couple of blocks away from each other and this had gone down in the middle of a weekday. 

Collapsed concrete, plastics, and debris blocked the exits. Trails of blood were leaking out from under the piles. Broken pipes stuck out from the wall, gushing brown water. Patrick stopped, dumbfounded. “Where to now?” Lina asked, trying not to let her impatience show. She could tell that in his head Patrick saw himself as a hero rescuing her. It was getting tedious. 

“Not the way we came,” Patrick said. “They were swarming that other entrance..”

“What about the tunnels?” Lina said. She pulled out her more powerful display interface, opening its projected screens. “I’ve got all the maps already downloaded so I don’t have to sync.”

“You do get lost all the time,” Patrick said. 

“I’ve only lived here for a few months. It’s not exactly intuitive,” Lina replied with a sigh. “Service is out so we don’t have to worry about trains.” 

“Okay, guess we don’t have much of a choice,” Patrick said. The two of them jumped down on the tracks, minding the flickering electrified rail. They heard footsteps coming from the tunnel nearby, a group approaching.

“Is that a Tarrare?” Patrick asked, seeing what was leading them. She’d only ever seen them on the feeds, never in real life. Next to the Tarrare was a disheveled woman in UAS armor. More followed behind, some dressed for office jobs, a few police officers with dirty and burned clothes, and a couple of people in maintenance jumpsuits. She counted thirteen of them following the Alien altogether.

“We should join them,” Lina said. 

“How do we know that Tarrare isn’t leading them to the slaughter?” Patrick whispered.

“Really, Patrick?” Lina said. “We both saw the Black Sphere get destroyed. I doubt they blew up their own ship just to trick us.”

Lina approached them, Patrick lagging after her. The Tarrare paid them no mind, but the UAS soldier narrowed her eyes. “I’m Nitika, UAS Diplomatic Security,” she barked. “You can follow if you want, but stay quiet and keep up.”

“Where are we going?” Patrick whispered, speeding up to avoid being left behind.

“Away from fucking bad Aliens,” Nitika said. The Tarrare projected some sort of ambient light from the layers of material covering most of his body. It allowed them to see what was ahead but still dim enough not to draw too much attention. Lina tried not to gawk at the suit’s technology or the Alien himself.

“How far do we need to go?” Patrick whispered. 

“Far,” was Lina’s only response. 

“Can we trust it? The Alien?” Patrick tried to murmur at Nitika. He received no response, which was more than he deserved.

The Tarrare stopped, lights from the next station’s platform up ahead. “They are nearby,” the Tarrare said in his synthetic voice. “Remain here. I will eliminate them.” 

“You got it, Ambassador,” Nitika replied. The Tarrare stalked forward, its stick legs silent and graceful. His ambient lights switched off, causing him to disappear completely.

“Is he going to be okay?” Lina whispered.

“Oh, he’s going to be fine,” one of the cops muttered. A construct of pure energy appeared, exposing the Tarrare as he closed in on the platform. His hands began blasting chunks of destruction at whatever he was targeting. Since the only source of light was the intermittent, damaged subway lighting from the platform ahead and the energy coming from the Tarrare’s armor, it was hard to see. 

Shrill, inhuman noises followed. Then the noises of their guns. The hostile Aliens had guns that sounded like a chainsaw fighting a jackhammer. Lina’d never imagined something could be so loud. She saw the Tarrare dive to the side and stick on the ceiling as showers of glowing, bladed projectiles followed. The Tarrare’s lithe, insectoid form evaded it all as he projected blobs of explosive energy at whatever he was battling. She saw several green masses jump off the platform to try to get closer to their target.

Somehow, the Tarrare suddenly had a string of blades. He skittered in circular dash through and around the hostile Aliens, their bulky green bodies leaking fluids and howling. After a few more deft swipes from the Tarrare they collapsed onto the tracks and let out high-pitched hisses that faded to nothing. 

The Tarrare paused, a field of energy around him as glowing green particles burst from the corpses of the Aliens. They seemed to actively try to dig through the field, but couldn’t make it through. The Tarrare stood stark still until the parasites or whatever they were faded and dropped. 

“You may advance,” the Tarrare called from ahead. “It is safe now.” 

The Tarrare walked over to a nearby light source in the subway tunnel, flipping it open and tearing the bulb out. Lina watched as the bladed weapon he had apparently created to gut the other Aliens shifted and morphed into a hooked clamp. The Tarrare plunged it into the light fixture. The few non-flickering lights dimmed for a short period. “He needs to recharge his stuff,” another one of the cops added helpfully. After he was finished, the Tarrare gathered it and placed it back onto its armor, the material dissolving into it. 

“Unfuckingreal,” Patrick said. “Did it just make a weapon and then a tool out of its clothes? Then turn it back into clothes?”

“Yes,” Nitika said. “But HIS name is Sihs-Jin.”

“What are they?” Lina said, looking at the Aliens that the Tarrare Sihs-Jin had slain. She hadn’t gotten a good look at them, and now she had almost more than she could handle. 

“Never thought I would see a bug save me from exterminators,” a woman in a torn and stained business suit mumbled nearby to the no one in particular.

Lina noticed that they were bigger this close, about 2-3 meters tall and at least 2 meters wide. Each one was slightly differently shaped, and they had anywhere from two to five arms. Their shoulders and stumpy outcropping of a head were ringed with spikes and had a maw full of hundreds of sharp, thorn-like objects that she took for teeth. Their skin was hard, greenish brown with a texture between a sea-shell and tree bark with a membrane or oil covering it. In some spots they had colorful outcroppings like flower buds. Their insides reminded Lina of the fluid in a cactus, but with chunky sets of organs. They smelled awful. She noticed their guns. Fat, multi-barreled pieces of hardware that looked way too heavy and unwieldy for any human to use.

“They are from a race called the Ehvow,” Sihs-Jin said softly, approaching Lina. She didn’t know if he read her mind or just noticed her curiosity. “As for what this variety is specifically, we do not have a direct analogue in your language. The most direct translation would be ‘seeds that become thorns.’ They are evolved from a carnivorous species of invasive plant. They devoured or crowded out nearly every other species on their homeworld.”

“Thornseeds,” Nitika dubbed them. “That’s what we’ve been calling them. You can kill them, it just takes a lot of bullets and you don’t want to be too close.”

“Those glowing green things?” Lina asked. They were dull and lifeless on the ground where Sihs-Jin had been standing like a bunch of squashed bugs.

“Everyone that gets hit by them starts bleeding and spasming,” Nitika said. “Most die. The others seem to go into a coma like they have a disease.”

“They are spores,” Sihs-Jin added. “My defensive fields can block them. You have no such countermeasure as they can pierce any exposed skin. We must move. Others nearby will detect what I have just done and come looking.”

“Let’s move out, then,” Nitika said. “You heard Ambassador Sihs-Jin. We’ve got a long way to go before we get out of the city.”

“That thing is a killing machine,” Patrick mumbled under his breath. Lina was inclined to agree.

“I am not without my skills,” Sihs-Jin quietly replied. “Before we leave, there were human soldiers and others killed here on the platform. I recommend you take their weaponry quickly. We may need it later.” Lina was the first to act, crawling up on the platform and seeing a dead police officer who’d dropped some sort of shotgun.

“Are you crazy?” Patrick asked. “Do you know how to use that?” The other people in the group were picking up assault rifles and pistols from dead police officers and other people in UAS uniforms like Nitika. 

“I fired a gun,” Lina said. “Once.”

Image Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA

Acknowledgement: Det58