Dan Melson's Blog, page 4

First Draft Excerpt from Measure of Adulthood

"Look, I have an assignment. Asto's splinter will get you home. If I'm not back, expect a wakeup at eighteen forty. You'll be expected to be at your console ready to learn by nineteen zero.""Thought you said the days were fifteen hours.""The weeks are sixty hours, and that's how the clocks are set up. Add fifteen hours for times on day two. Family dinner at eleven thirty daily means twentysix thirty, fortyone thirty, and fiftysix thirty as well.""Where you going?""Contact trace in Osh City on Habitat One." I pointed towards the sky, where it shone bright against the stars, "Going to look for traitors.""Bring them in for trial?""That would be a pleasant change.""Huh?""These don't surrender.""Never?""Not a single one yet." "And you don't subdue them and bring them in anyway?""They've soulbound themselves to demonic parasites in order to become operant. That's how precious the gift of operancy is. If you need more explanation you'll understand when you get to Guardian training."I left the room before teleporting to the parking garage. I suppose I could have teleported direct to somewhere on Habitat One, but Osh City was over ninety (Earth) degrees away from Indra's current position, and I'd rather use a Starbird despite the time. Someone would probably do a portal linkage between the Rosette Worlds and the Major Habitats eventually, but it hadn't happened yet. I queried for an available vehicle, teleported again to its berthing area, did my preflight. I did not file a full route flight plan, which was part of the 'being careful' I'd talked to Lemarcus about. Instead I eased out of the Residence garage into aerial traffic, headed into a departure lane, and Vectored outside the participation zone before contacting System Control for routing to Osh City. Four minutes and another Vector later, I was landing in a public garage near my destination. A single portal put me within easy walking distance.I was roughly eight ithirds up an arcology called Player View. It wasn't actually on the shore of Player's Lake - A freshwater lake roughly the size of the Atlantic Ocean, one of several such bodies embedded within the city along with rivers connecting them - but it did have an unobstructed view on two sides. Most of the viewscreens in the public area showed sun glinting off clear blue water and white sands below, pleasure craft plying the shores. In the distance, several island arcologies were visible, towering as high as any on the mainland. The horizon curved ever so slightly upwards on annular habitats, but as on Earth, thick moist air near sea level often limited visibility. The public area was fairly dense with people around the portal, an otherwise open area roughly an ifourth square, the ceiling viewscreens six ififths overhead. The main access hallways crossed here; twelve ififths each wide, the occasional small delivery vehicle moving slowly among the crowd, basically impeller-driven pallet jacks with a seat for the driver. That might be a decent profession for Lemarcus once he learned some patience - you moved with the crowd in those, not faster. I, however, was under no such constraints. My target was two units, on adjacent floors but roughly ten ifourths apart. Four people were known to live in the first unit, two in the second. While I was there, I'd check Event Lines to see if anyone else was a matter of concern.The path I was on made the second unit the natural one to visit first. The residents were a man and a woman, Bezeers and Salama. She was a commercial dispatcher; he was a programmer for a company that had a contract to build military cruisers. I was hopeful; they'd called for Enforcers and there'd been a short engagement. Arriving, I pinged their door with "Investigations.""Identify yourself please.""Investigator JuaGrace, regarding the incursion." From outside, I could tell that the invader had indeed been a jopas. If they were legitimately innocent, it was a miracle they and all their neighbors weren't dead. Dipole moment for a duel between jopas and someone capable of killing - or even not being killed by - said jopas was likely fatal to natural state humans out to a distance of about two ifourths, maybe more.The door opened. Salama was a lot like me, almost exactly my height and as heavily built, medium dark skin, maybe a touch less olive and a touch more straight melanin, hair even darker than mine but still not quite black, although hers was straight and bobbed short. She was dressed in a beige blouse and brown trousers that wouldn't have been out of place on Earth of my youth. Bezeers was almost exactly the same size and build, a few shades lighter of skin but with pale green hair, perhaps a little longer than hers. Since I could immediately tell they were both operant, they were perfectly capable of changing anything about their appearance they didn't like; height and build were probably artificial as they conformed to the 'endurance' build that was the most common body type among operants. Everything else about their appearance was none of my business, right down to the ridiculous orange tunic Bezeers was wearing that would leave everything exposed if he bent over. Taking in my epaulets, Salama said, "They warned us there'd be an Investigator, but they didn't say it would be a Nonus' representative."While she was talking, I'd been using kored and spak to check for other event lines in congruency to the demonic high noble. "Jopas are powerful. Not the very strongest demons, but right below them. When one shows up anywhere in the Empire, we want to know why, and sometimes what they leave behind is dangerous. There aren't a lot of Investigators wearing green and purple." Fourth Order Guardians wore green Guardian insignia like I did; Fifth wore purple. Most Investigators were Guardians, but most were Second or Third Order, and weaker than average Second or Third Order at that. Too many better opportunities for the stronger or more experienced Guardians to keep working a government gig. I wasn't the strongest Guardian with Investigator authority in the Empire, but these days I was the strongest one on Scimtar's continuing payroll or any of his subordinate viceroys. When he had something I couldn't handle, he had to handle it himself or bring in a special contractor. "You do understand why there needs to be an investigation?""That has been made entirely clear to both of us," Bezeer seethed, "My programming clearance has been revoked, and Salama's been locked out of her work as well. The longer it continues, the more clients she loses."Salama had my particular sympathy; unlike starship pilots there were plenty of commercial dispatchers. Whatever her situation, there wasn't a lot of tolerance for her not working. "Then let's get it over with. The sooner I can certify you as uncorrupted, the sooner it will end. To make it clear, you have the option of not cooperating with the investigation as there is no evidence of an actual crime committed at this point. However, if I can't certify you uncorrupted, your employment options will be limited to those without any military or Imperial components." Even after thirteen Imperial years of war, the government share of the economy wasn't large, but few companies and even fewer large companies had absolutely no government contract work and didn't care for the extra expense of segregating those cleared from those not. Damned near every commercial flight had some military equipment or personnel onboard - just a consequence of the fact most commercial carriers were huge Size Six capital ships and any military or government cargo would be reason to bar them, even if it was three privates on routine reassignment or a pallet of rations the military found some reason to ship rather than creating out of a converter on-site. And even if there weren't a military or government component to a particular task, not many companies would be enthusiastic about potential threats to their own assets. I understood the bad place these people were in might be none of their doing, but there were good reasons things were that way - the fractal demons would take any advantage they could. "The investigation requires you drop your mental defenses and answer truthfully without evasion. If I sense mental evasion, a more active probe will be necessary. You have the option of stopping at any time unless I discover evidence of a crime or intent to commit one, however certifying you uncorrupted requires carrying the session through to completion.""Proceed."Copyright 2024 Dan Melson. All rights reserved.

First Draft Excerpt from Measure of Adulthood

Lemarcus was getting bored, so Helene included him in the conversation telepathically, What are your plans, young man? The sending was limited to Lemarcus and myself."I'll find a way to get by." I had to wince. It was plain from his surface thoughts that he was still in 'minimum effort' mode.Some advice from someone who's seen a little more of life - 'getting by' is the way into trouble, usually sooner than later. Learn to do it well. You may still encounter trouble, but not nearly so often and not nearly so much."I'm two hundred years old. I know what I'm doing."Clearly. Mindrape and fraud are such minor issues. I could feel the sarcasm dripping. Lemarcus, do not antagonize her! She'll eat you alive! I told him privately."I don't wanna be the mule making other people rich.""Teach this offspring of yours the way economics works," Helene told me in Technical, pointedly turning her back and walking away."Well done. You going to challenge Amras to a duel next, or just pull a weapon on Iaren?" Either one was suicide - but I wasn't certain he hadn't done something worse already - Helene ran the family, and her marriage to Scimtar was as close as mine to Asto."They can't be dissing me like that!""Listen up - everyone here knows what you did, and don't tell me you 'didn't do anything!' Losing your adulthood for mindrape and fraud is plenty to mark you as needing remedial life training! You do not 'know what you're doing,' because if you did, you wouldn't have committed fraud or mindrape, and you certainly wouldn't have been convicted! You want to be the buffoon the whole family laughs at and makes fun of? If that's your goal, you're right on track!""You said you loved me!"I made a prayer apologizing to Our Lord for putting Lemarcus up for adoption in the first place. Even then, I would have done better for him than what he got. "Love requires more than emotional support. It requires getting you off the self-destructive path you're on!" "I was doing fine!""You had thirtyfive luc in total assets! I make more than twice that per hour! Esteban, who became adult two days ago, has cubes in his personal account! Your four other siblings, who can't be legally responsible, still make more than that every single week!""Who told you that?" Lemarcus was outraged."It's in the accounting for your fines owed." I realized the whole room was watching us.Ilras broke in, addressing me in Technical, "Thirtyfive luc? Why are you bothering?" He turned his back in contempt."Because I'm his mother, and it was my responsibility to see he had a chance to learn better! What if I'd given you to strangers who should have done better by you, but didn't?"Ilras saw the point, and turned back around. "I'm sorry, Mom." He might not have had any tolerance for fools, but he could admit when he was wrong. Switching to English, "I apologize, brother. Your adoptive family was not your fault.""What you mean?""Stop right there!" I interrupted, "Ilras was apologizing for denigrating your efforts. The correct response is 'apology accepted.'" I looked from Lemarcus to Ilras."Apology accepted. But Mom, she done good by me. She always supported me.""That may be part of your problem," I told him again, "She should have demanded more. It's never easy to improve, and there's always a tendency to coast on minimum effort. But the people here have a strong motivation."Copyright 2023 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from Working The Trenches

Even before I got to the squad Leader, the first thing I noticed about my fellow trainees was their emaciated, hollow look, like they were on the ragged edge of repshanti. Was this what I had to look forward to? Available evidence said it was. And yes, it was outdoors in the rain and the mud just like you might have surmised, and the temperature was barely above freezing. "Sir, Trainee Grace Juarez reporting as ordered!" The Imperial procedure and salute were essentially identical to Earth, palm out like the British, for similar reasons. Convergent evolution of ideas. He was wearing the same uniform as Instructor Jereya, with one difference. His insignia of rank had red above the horizontal white bar in his insignia, green below. "Leader Dakar, trainee," he returned my salute, "Grab a set of weights and get started!" In a locker were sets of five weights, two for wrists, two for ankles, one for your torso that strapped on via a belt and shoulder straps. I quickly put on the wrist weights - five prime of mass each, or a shade under four kilos - followed by the ankle weights, which were twice as heavy, and the back weight, which was a full thirty prime, over twenty kilos. Altogether, it was just under forty-seven Earth kilos of weight, or about one hundred three pounds. Over the last couple years, I'd increased my height to five foot six (168 centimeters, or two ififths, thirtyfour isixths by Imperial measure) and my weight to 185 pounds (eighty-four kilos, or one square, forty-seven prime by Imperial measure) although thanks to high density tissue it looked more like 150 pounds. Over a hundred extra pounds was quite an addition. I could do it - I'd been augmenting my muscles since I went operant - but it wasn't trivial. "Tighten those shoulder straps, trainee!" Dakar told me, "Course rule: no matris assists! Follow Nushto!" indicating a man slightly taller than myself but who had probably the gauntest appearance I had ever seen, wearing some sort of tabs that made him stand out from the other trainees. I took note of the prohibition, complied with both instructions, and fell in behind the emaciated man. Matris was the ability it might be easiest to think of as telekinesis, although it could produce many other effects as well.I'm Nushto, trainee team leader, one of them told me, First thing you need to know, he sent to me, is that this phase of training is all about keeping us at the ragged edge of our strength, endurance, and agility. This particular course is testing if we've augmented our muscles well enough. Follow me and do the same things I do. If you slip, you are allowed to save yourself but then you have to go back to the start.The course was an ithird in length, or about two and a third kilometers, if you followed the track on the ground. It wasn't a horizontal course. It started out as a jungle gym, climbing and swinging, then a couple of standing jumps of about four meters - in the rain and carrying a forty-seven Earth kilograms in extra weight, mind you - at an altitude of over twenty meters. Four obstacle walls, each about thirty-five meters high, and you had to climb both up and down with Leaders telling you to "Go faster, you waste of an opportunity! People behind you might make soldiers if you don't hold them up!" Then a water tunnel where you swam/climbed uphill against a current, then a pair of things that looked like fifty meter paddlewheels you had to clamber up first like a monkey, switch to jumping on the outer edges of the planks - their edges were about five centimeters wide - to get over the top, and then clamber down the planks on the far side. Did I mention the planks were moving against your direction of travel and there was slick gooey mud at the bottom which stuck to everything? Then a comparatively short low crawl through thick mud that was the easiest part of the course, although I wished it could have been before the water tunnel, then back to more jungle gyms, more walls, several rope obstacles and a few pole obstacles, and finally something that reminded me conceptually of a three dimensional version of the training apparatus in Kung Fu Panda. It wouldn't kill you, but if you timed it wrong or zagged when you should have zigged, you took one hell of a blow and your lap didn't count. Your datalink was constantly updated with your time and where you should be if you wanted to pass the phase, judging from the time you'd last passed the starting beacon.Copyright 2014 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved

Excerpt from 'Empire And Earth'

I had just passed abeam the last Imperial beacon on my way back to Earth when I got a hard contact in the instance I was using for a Vector run. I was getting my breakfast and Lady's at the time, piloting by remote, mostly holding station, not really paying attention. I brought the shields up to full as I ran into the control center, Lady following behind. I brought the main weapon online as the shields recorded a hit. The energy drain was nothing to be concerned about; barely perceptible in fact. Even if I lost shields entirely, it'd take the aggressor days to break through my hull charge with that much energy.I hit the gas - immediate quick Vector to where I planned my next Interstitial. About four hundred years' distance, ran a quick confirmation of position, and applied the Interstitial. Wrench. It worked, but the ship wasn't happy about it, and the stress on the hull shot up to about twelve iprime torsion around one of my Interstitial field anchors. It was out of alignment - without hull charge the ship might have torn a hole in itself. I started re-aligning the anchor to align with the rest of the field, while trying to figure out what had gone wrong. My Interstitial velocity was about two thirds what it should have been, but it built back to nearly full as the torsion on the hull dropped and the system was restored to alignment. Lady whined; she could pick up there was something wrong, if not what.It wasn't life threatening, or even trip threatening, but as soon as I stopped manual precession, the anchor started drifting out of alignment again. I was hungry, and I knew Lady was, too, but breakfast was just going to have to wait. I tried taking the anchor offline, out of the system completely, and Interstitial velocity dropped to about sixty-eight Imperial years per hour - it should have been about seventy-four - while the hull stress picked up slightly from zero, but the temporary configuration was stable now, and no threat to the ship in any way. It would add to the maintenance load of the rest of the system, and I'd want to have the entire system checked out when I got back to the Empire, but first I was continuing on to Earth. However, I wasn't leaving the control center until I was grounded, or at least inside the solar system. Lady could tell my stress level had dropped, and she perked her ears and made false starts in the direction of the living quarters, as if to ask about breakfast, but I explained to her we were going to have to wait, be patient, be a good girl, breakfast will come but not now. Telepathy really did help with dogs; she understood and settled right down in her bed next to the command console.I'd have to look at the system when I grounded, to see if it was something I could fix. There was an Interstitial node right where the weapon had hit. My best guess was that the enemy weapon had done something weird to it. This was confirmed by careful review of the data from the attack. But there were other systems' components in that area of the hull, too. Net result: I was not leaving my command console until I could shut the ship down. Vector equalizers were fine, as were inertial integrators or there would have been a major irregularity in internal gravity, but what about the impellers themselves? There was an impeller not five feet from the failed Interstitial anchor. It was on minimal power right now as Interstitials were moving the ship, but what about when it was time for the impellers to take over? I was kind of regretting not giving that damnable pirate an in-kind response, but I knew I had made the right choice in ducking out. Technologically inferior or not, the other ship had been designed for battle, and probably had the crew to repair damage while the fighting was going on. My ship was designed for cargo, and I could hardly fight the ship effectively while unbolting hull plates to fix damage. I was a merchant, not a military vessel. For me, victory meant survival, and I had survived un-captured.It turned out the impeller I was concerned about was fine. I grounded at the sanctuary outside Mentone without further incident, but then Adela met me and asked, "Tia Grace, aren't you going to turn on the camouflage?"Oh, no. I had turned on the holographic camouflage before I entered atmosphere. The holographic system said it was working just fine. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case when you actually looked. The cruiser was a whale roughly twenty meters tall from belly to back and over eighty meters from front to back; it didn't shine like most Earth people expected metal to shine, but its dark grey towered over the citrus trees surrounding it, and anyone looking down the mountainside would see it plain as day. I could hear the dogs we kept for Earthside adoptions setting up a ruckus near the front of the property; stretching my perceptions I "saw" that a San Bernardino County Sheriff had turned up the drive, lights flashing. "Delay him thirty seconds if you can," I told her, "I'm getting out of Dodge. I'll call you later on the tachyonic communicator."Copyright 2013 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from A Guardian From Earth

This will all make more sense if you stay in a light link for translation, ScAnara sent, you may sit at the auxiliary station over there. A display activated, kind of like those banks of security monitors you see in the movies sometimes, but each one had a different view. One display was the exterior, which looked like one of the canyons around the edges of the mountains above San Bernardino, possibly on the north or eastern sides of the plateau where it drops into the desert. A second view was a hologram of the ship, which didn't look anything like any spaceship I was familiar with. The closest I could come was an elongated egg with the fat end as the front, the small end as the back, and the bottom flattened, with a pair of stubby triangular wings on either side of the rear two-thirds, starting at the widest point of the main body and widening only slightly before coming to an abrupt end slightly before the actual tail of the ship. A third view might be a three dimensional radar or sonar image, currently showing the topography of the land around us while above us floated various gnat-like sparks. My guess was that they were Earth aircraft. Other displays were gauges and status displays that I had no clue how to read. I noticed not only were there no windows, viewports, or anything of a kind used for looking out directly, there wasn't a main viewscreen, either. I supposed if you wanted or needed to see out, you brought it up at your own work station, like ScAnara had done for me.This is an Explorer Cruiser, ScAnara explained, based on a Patrol Cruiser, largest of our military small cruisers. Patrol Cruisers and their smaller kin are designed for extended missions, generally used for military patrols between stars. For scale, we're just over 100 meters, Earth measure, on the major axis. Crew is usually 110 to 116, but we're a little under complement because we were in a hurry. Our family only has eight of these, and this was the most quickly available. Explorer versions sacrifice a little weaponry for better sensor and survey gear and an emergency backup siphon and converter. Survey, prepare beacon drop as previously detailed. Navigation, plot a minimum trajectory spaceborne recovery, then beacon drop and homeward transition. Engineering, confirm Status Red. To me she sent Status Red is normal spaceborne operations. We've been maintaining it because we don't know what else might be in the area. We're about four grads from the nearest Imperial Survey Beacon. Close enough for it to be routine, if we are careful. If not, the universe is a big place. What she meant was that it wouldn't be difficult to get lost. According to survey, we're the first known Imperial vessel in this Instance. That doesn't necessarily mean we're safe. It means we don't know. There might be ston vessels lurking about, or possibly aliens of comparable capability. Nothing in-system, ScAnara explained, but with Vector Drive and Interstitial, they could have a corps waiting to pounce and we wouldn't have any warning until discharge. While linking with me, she had received several other communications. I couldn't keep track of it all. Not yet, but you will. Here we go.The ship lifted off, smoothly accelerating straight off the ground upwards, then rotating so we were facing in our direction of travel, and no, I didn't feel a anything. You know how you expect to feel force when your car is accelerating, cornering or braking? We had to be maneuvering more violently than any earth car, plane or rocket, and I didn't feel a twitch. It was like Earth's gravity, or our own motion, didn't translate to any kind of force. We got to a point where we were maybe a few thousand feet up, and...Blink! The exterior view changed. We were now in space. Earth was nowhere I could see. After some searching, I found a much shrunken sun in the distance, and a few small widely spaced irregular rocks around us. Your astronomers call these the Trailing Trojans, one sixth of the orbit behind the planet you call Jupiter. We're going to launch a beacon and recover our auxiliaries here. A roughly five foot radius sphere dropped from our ship, while suddenly four firefly sparks appeared around us in the radar display, arrowing in towards us. They had merged with the dot in the middle of the radar screen representing us before I saw any of them in the visual display. Their function was obvious as soon as I saw them - high performance fighter craft, and they were gorgeous. Not in painting or decoration, but in the manner of well-designed machines. They reminded me of diving falcons. Wide aerodynamic wings mid-body that were proportionally shorter than earth aircraft, small nacelles both over and under the ends of each wing. If you've ever idly wondered what it was like to fly one of the US's military fighters, you'll understand why I immediately had a serious lust to fly one. Think F-22 or F-35, and then consider what if they had way more thrust and weren't bound by atmosphere? One man Starbirds, military mark fiftysix. There are civilian versions, too, and you should be able to learn to pilot them. Oh, sweet Jesus, yes! The Starbirds swiftly attached themselves, one each above and below each of the "wings" of our cruiser I had noted earlier.Interstitial in five seconds. I should probably mention that it was about this point I realized that ScAnara was piloting as well as commanding and talking with me. I later learned they did have the capability of separating the functions in particularly demanding circumstances, but generally the Empire expected the ship's commander to also be its pilot, and even when the functions were separated the pilot was less independent than any of the other subordinates. It was a long five seconds. It's one thing to know that imperial seconds were longer, but that didn't tell the little timer in your head to stop counting just as fast as it always had.Copyright 2013 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from The Man From Empire

No matter what the song says, it does rain in southern California. All the damn time in March of El Nino years.The most recent storm had finished blowing through earlier that evening. I didn't like working after dark, but the compliance reports just couldn't wait any longer. My boss, "Call me George" Martinez, had informed me that the EPA was crawling all over him and that if the hazardous usage and disposal reports weren't completed by the time he got to work in the morning, I would be joining the ranks of the unemployed. In blue state basket case California, in the middle of the worst economy of the last eighty years. Jerk.Overall, Riverside's not a bad town. I've got a small apartment not too far from the UC campus. The complex is full of students with a smattering of old fogeys too poor and too stubborn to leave, and working class stiffs, not to mention hybrids like me. The ones I've talked to were alright.But this wasn't there. The warehouse sits in a commercial district near where the 91 dies and turns into the 215 at the 60 merge. There are some rough people nearby, in the old twenties and thirties housing they threw up back before tract housing. Tiny lots, old decaying houses, ancient plumbing and wiring, never updated. Paint cracked, chipped, and peeling. Calling them Craftsmen would be implying a level of charm that simply didn't exist. Streets jammed with old junker cars. Chain link fences, neglected lawns, junk left wherever someone dropped it because it was too much effort to clean up. An occasional abuela put in a few flowers that just made the rest of the neighborhood look even more pitiful. Rough people, mostly poor hispanics with the occasional white trash or black, human refuse that just didn't have what it took to get ahead in the world as it had become. Some were disabled, most simply never applied themselves much. Get a second or third generation in there, and you got some real gangbanging. Easy path to see, damned near impossible to make it work into a real life worth living. Enough to make me appreciate my parents, who escaped that world and made sure I knew enough not to fall back.The gangs had been cooped up inside most of the previous ten days. El Nino storms came through one after another. Maybe they wouldn't drown or freeze you, but they were cold, wet, and miserable - at least by the standards of California weather. Nobody came out when it was raining without a good reason why they had to be out there and then, but once it stopped a light jacket would keep you warm, and the hoodies would be out looking to burn off some energy. It's not like they had anything better to do.And here I was, a 28 year old woman leaving the building all by myself in the dark just after eight-thirty with no one around. Just bad luck the four guys in jackets walking up the other side of the street at the exact wrong time. No key to get back in - damn "Call me George" to hell. I picked up my pace. If I could get to my car - beater that it is - and lock the doors there was a chance I'd be able to drive away. Mistake. The hoodies started to run. Now there was some effort in it for them, things were looking worse for me. Cell phone, you say? I could grab the phone and push the number to dial 911, but it wouldn't do me a bit of good. Typical response time was thirty minutes. By the time the cops showed up, it would be long over. I was about to do it anyway when it happened.I swear on my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that this happened. He looked like an Angel of the Lord, minus the wings. Hanging up there in the air. Well, not hanging - he was falling, though not like he was getting pulled - more like he was riding an escalator that wasn't there. At least six five, thin as a rail, with a softly glowing sword of all the improbable things. Wearing what looked like some kind of uniform, dark with lighter trim, cut like nothing I'd ever seen.I don't know what he did to call attention to himself, but all of a sudden the 'bangers noticed him. Not just the 'bangers, but everything's attention was wrenched towards him as if someone grabbed our heads, sunk hooks into our eyeballs and made us look. Right down to the rats in the dumpsters.That was enough for the 'bangers. They hauled out their guns and started banging away. The visitor looked puzzled for an instant, then the sword vanished, and I saw a flash from him. Something in his hand - didn't did get a good look at what it was. The gang members fell over so fast it was over before I could twitch. Damn! The guy was fast. I'd never seen anything like that even in the movies.One look showed four lifeless bodies with blood starting to pool. The visitor lit with catlike grace, apparently as unconcerned as if nothing had just happened. I had a decision to make, and I did. I jumped in my car and got the hell out of Dodge. I didn't want to be anywhere in the neighborhood when the cops finally got there. I didn't stop to say thanks, I definitely didn't talk to him, I just jumped in and went. I didn't slow down until I was home. I might have run a red light or two; I really couldn't tell you with any certainty.Copyright 2013 Dan Melson. All rights reserved.

First Draft Excerpt from A New Embassy (Number Four)

For tolerably obvious reasons, our Morelli guests were kept confined in a special area of the ship; not really a jail or whatever they called a jail onboard a ship. Just spare crew quarters, modified for their use. Since I was their liason, I was summoned to the fabrication shop to hear the explanation of the shelter they planned for Motafo to prevent his death in the likely event his Council ordered him to be bombed. The set up the engineers came up with to protect Motafo was simple enough. They built a small bondsteel shelter and gave it a hull-charging unit. A battery, a life support system, and Motafo's own suit radio completed the setup. "They said they'd pick him up in a local day. Plenty of power to keep everything running for two, probably three days. Plug here, adapted to his suit's charger to keep him topped off. He'll get knocked around if they bomb him, but he should come through it just fine. Flip this switch as soon as he's sealed, use this wire to connect to his suit antenna. We recharged his suit, in case he needs the air and power in it. Tell him he might want to disconnect power and the antenna from his suit if he has warning of a bomb - It might transmit an electromagnetic pulse if connected. The whole thing will self-destruct when power gets to one iprime, in case they do actually pick him up." "You're not worried about them figuring out the tech?""Amn, the only thing they might figure out that they don't have now is the hull-charge unit. Even if they do somehow keep it intact, the only thing they might learn to use it for is hull charge." "Amn" meant 'someone of higher rank not in the chain of command.' I doubted that I ranked the engineer in any way; he wore the gold disc of a Section Private while I was a civilian specialist. Doubtless he was just being polite."Not the capacitor?""Amn, that's the one thing it's impossible to disconnect from the power supply and self-destruct."Point taken. I knew I was no engineer; I'd only been exposed to Imperial tech at a distance myself. I hadn't even saved up enough for my own converter. At home, I still cooked all my own meals. If I lived to be a thousand, I'd never sample half the food and drink recipes available in Hamthar Four's public database. That said, I was already missing my Diet Dr. Pepper; maybe I'd figure out how to buy that recipe for my personal use. "Thank you. Motafo may be an alien, but he doesn't deserve to die because his leaders are a bunch of useless leeches.""We all feel sorry for him. The situation isn't of his making, he's simply a convenient scapegoat."We didn't have long to wait after that. The Morelli had responded to Sergeant Mitrisa's request for routing by telling her basically, 'Get there as fast as you can.' Ambassador DeelKonosh said showing off our capability would be a good thing, so Mitrisa put us stationary at an altitude of two isquare in a single Vector. From there, we could have landed in a little over a minute if she'd wanted to risk high-power maneuvering during a landing, but instead she hovered in place while she had the shelter loaded in the cargo bay of a cutter for transport. A second cutter was tasked with bringing Motafo (and incidentally me and two escorts) to the surface.I'd worn an Imperial survival suit before. It was basically a skin-tight mesh with a layer of stretchy padded material next to the skin, and a metallized exterior layer. Small backpack with a siphon, converter, and air reservoir for eight or ten minutes, radio,and a glassteel helmet completed the ensemble. The siphon provided power, the converter kept the air reservoir full. If either the siphon or converter failed, you had until the air reservoir ran out to find a supply, but it generally wasn't much of an issue in the situations where you wore one. A cheap solution for the problem of going into zero pressure in a controlled situation; only the plumbing was uncomfortable.It occurred to me to ask, "What if I fart?"Private Mosser answered, "Assuming it leaks up to the helmet somehow, hold your breath until the converter clears it out. Twenty seconds will handle the worst of it. You're lucky; it takes longer for one of these." The two of them were wearing Planetary Surface combat armor. He was a big guy anyway, about 190 centimeters Earth measure, broad shouldered and heavy built. Even Private Justila, twenty-five centimeters shorter out of armor, loomed over me like an ogre. Combat armor really only added about fifteen centimeters of height, but the suits were so bulky it seemed like more."Must be tough if you're in a combat situation, and your eyes are watering.""That's part of what datalinks are for," Justila responded, "Helping you target and keep track of threats you might not be able to see." Motafo's eyes were enlarged. "I must say, you sound like you have experience."After I translated, Justila responded, "Yeah, been there, done that. Ripped one in the middle..." Mosser interrupted her, "Let's not burden him with too much information. The plumbing handles solid and liquid well, but gas sometimes leaks. Leave it at that.""Better than what we Morelli have," Motafo remarked, "The only thing to clear our suit environment is our own lungs."Must be rough - especially as the Morelli ate more vegetable matter than humans. Still, I understood what Earth's primitive astronauts contended with before the Empire found us had been essentially similar.It took Mosser and Justila about thirty seconds after we landed to haul the shelter out of the other cutter and set it down on the desolate, airless surface of the Morelli's outer moon. It was emplaced even before the cutter that had carried it down from Hamthar Four departed soundlessly. The shelter still had plenty of mass, but the gravity here was so light I had trouble walking. The two military people, however, had training in light gravity. I picked my way over to the shelter and explained to Motafo what the engineer had told me a half-hour previous. There was barely enough room inside for the two of us in our suits. "No sensors, but my understanding is we'll be keeping you updated by radio." Fortunately, Morelli were a burrowing species - claustrophobia was not one of their problems. "So I wait and hope.""And unplug yourself if we warn you of a bomb. We don't know what damage an electromagnetic pulse might do to your suit or radio, but inside the shelter and without direct connection, you should be well-shielded.""Noted.""I hope that your Community welcomes you back. If we do not see each other again, I wish you well, Motafo of the Morelli.""And I you, Tessa of the Empire."I shimmied backwards out of the shelter, and Mosser closed the hatch. There was no air to transmit the sound, but Motafo should be getting an indicator he was sealed. I started picking my way back to the cutter we'd arrived in. "Good day to my friends of the Empire," I heard Motafo say, as I reached the ship, "I have activated the life support unit and tested its product. I should be comfortable until the arrival of the Community vessel.""Good to know," I replied. I entered the human-sized personnel hatch and it closed behind me.What the hell? I sent to the pilot via datalink, Mosser and Justila are still outside!Relax, they're staying to play nursemaid, just in case.I heard nothing of this part of the plan!Because what you don't know, you can't spill , Mosser himself sent. Don't worry, Hamthar Four has moved to stationary orbit overhead. Even if we have to haul the alien along with us, our suits can make it in ten minutes or less.How come you're not wearing Guardian insignia?Because I haven't earned it yet. But auros, which includes telepathy, is the first of the disciplines operants learn. What if they bomb you?Combat suits are plenty to protect us from primitive atomic weapons. We'll be fine.Which was about the time I felt the cutter dock. Imperial ships could move if they had reason, but I hadn't felt any flutter in the onboard gravity. So far I never had, but for some reason I kept expecting to. The personnel hatch opened again, followed by the door to the control cabin. A dark-haired, olive-skinned woman I didn't know exited, gesturing to me to precede her out the door. I popped my helmet, still feeling outraged, "Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded of her in Traditional."Because the Ambassador said not to," she replied, as if it were as simple as that. When I stood there dumbfounded, she shrugged and passed by me, unconcerned.Copyright 2023 Dan Melson. All RIghts Reserved.Excerpt One is hereExcerpt Two is hereExcerpt Three is here

Excerpt from What Consumers Need To Know About Buying Real Estate

On Getting Rich Quick in Real EstateI keep running into people who paid money for a get rich quick seminar and are looking to buy property for zero down and immediately sell it for a $50,000 profit. Somebody With A Testimonial Told Them How It Could Be Done.Sorry folks but the people with the real secrets to getting rich don't sell them for $199 at the Holiday Inn. They didn't do it during the stock market bubble, and they're not doing it now in real estate. As I told people back then regarding the stock market, don't confuse a rising frothy market with investment genius. And that rising frothy market has now changed. Deals like that do happen, but they're always less common than the People With Testimonials will admit, and they are snapped up quickly. Usually they never make it as far as the Multiple Listing Service. Before they're even entered into the database of available properties, they are sold, and they rarely fall out of escrow because the people who buy them know what they are doing.Consider, for a moment, yourself on the opposite side of the transaction. You're not going to intentionally sell your valuable property for less than it is worth, are you? And if you're buying, you're certainly not going to pay more than market value, are you? Remember that Wile E. Coyote ended up at the bottom of the canyon under a rock for more reasons than that the Author was on The Other Side. "Super Genius!" Says so right there on the label. But betting large amounts of money on The Stupidity Of The Other Side is a mark's game.About the only reliable source of "quick flips" for profit are distress sales. In no particular order, most of these are people in foreclosure, estate sales where neither the estate nor the heirs can keep the payments up long enough to sell normally, and where somebody's been transferred and has to sell now. The requirements are that they have large amounts of equity, not short sales or even lender-owned property, and the need for a quick sale.These people get mobbed by prospective buyers, and by agents looking to represent them in the sale. Everybody wants something for nothing, and one of each group is going to get it. One agent is going to get a transaction where if it gets as far as the MLS, all he's got to do is type it in and bingo, the buyers will line up. One buyer is going to get to buy for a price less than other comparable properties. Usually, they're the same person. The multimillionaire brokers all usually each have at least one going on.The issue for these buyers in distress sales that is rarely addressed until it gets to actually making the deal is that they're going to need a certain amount of cash that they are prepared to lose. Putting myself in the position of the person who has to sell, I'm not going to give this person the sole shot at buying if I'm not pretty certain he can deliver. The only way to measure this is cash - how much they can put down on the property. How much of a deposit they can make that I can keep if they can't qualify. Remember that in this case the one thing a distress seller cannot afford is a buyer who can't consummate the deal quickly - unless the seller is going to get to keep something substantial for the experience. If you don't want to buy on those terms, than at that price someone else will. The multimillionaire real estate brokers, for instance. There are a lot of people who make a very good living at foreclosures because they go around from foreclosure to foreclosure offering cash for price below what it would otherwise sell for. Matter of fact, they pretty much saturate the foreclosure market. The chances of a seller in this position accepting an offer without a substantial cash forfeiture for nonperformance are basically identical to the chances of them having a listing agent that doesn't understand the situation. And quite often, that listing agent makes an offer themselves, in violation of all that is ethical.Get religion about this point: There is ALWAYS a reason for a low asking price. Usually, a noticeably low asking price should be even lower than it is. Unless they're a philanthropist looking for some random person to donate money to, this seller wants to get as much for the property as they can. What they're hoping for is a buyer who doesn't know what a really bad situation they're getting into. "A cracked slab? How bad could it be?" is probably the classic example of this (The answer was about $300,000 in one case, but it could be as low as $20-25k). These sellers have been dealing with the situation. They've had a reason to become intimately familiar with the problems. They're hoping for an unsuspecting buyer whose agent wants an easy transaction and will not explain to them, or simply does not know, what those buyers are getting themselves into. I could certainly keep my mouth shut and do more transactions, easier, if I didn't take the time to tell my buyers everything I know about what they're getting into. I just had a buyer who loved the floor plan so much on a property with mold infestation right out in the open that he wanted to make an offer, even after I told him "Anywhere from ten to two hundred thousand to fix, maybe more, and probably at the upper end of that because you can see how it has spread". Luckily, his wife talked him out of it. The universe knows that most of these good deeds don't go unpunished. But that's what I'm theoretically getting paid for, and as often as I do my job and it causes them to get angry and I don't get paid, it's preferable to the eventual consequences of not doing the whole job and getting paid for it.There's a newsletter I get from the State of California every three months. It's always got a long list of people who are losing their licenses. So if your agent tries to really explain something like this, listen to them. They're not trying to talk you out of the Deal Of The Century so that someone else can get it (the Deal of the Century in real estate comes around surprisingly often if you can afford it). They're trying to make certain you go in with your eyes open. It's likely to be a better agent than the guy who thinks "Okay, I've told you that the hill is known to be unstable, so I'm covered. It's not my fault that you didn't instantly understand that this means it's likely that one day it will fall on your house."(On the Mold House: In the meantime, I called and left a message for the agent, and she returned my call and left a very accusatory, defensive message about "What is the documentation for your accusation of mold damage?" Opening my eyes, you silly ostrich - it's clearly visible - Eeewww! - right there, and there, and there, and there's moisture coming out at the bottom of the wall downstairs. My guess is that it's coming from the standpipe in the walls of the upstairs hall bath. I look forward to seeing her name on the List of Dishonor)The typical property where there is real potential for quick profit is going to require work. Work as in physical labor that you're going to have to do, or pay someone else to do. Not to be sexist, but "The husband died (or became disabled) and the wife couldn't keep it up," is a clich�� because it is so common. Sometimes the work is easy - carpet, new paint, clean up the yard and bingo! The property jumps in value! Sometimes the work is harder, and the profit is larger. And sometimes the buyer is basically going to have to tear the house down and start over. There is always a reason why the seller didn't do the work so they could make the profit themselves. Sometimes it's because they're lazy, sometimes it's because they can't. Sometimes it's because the work was risky, sometimes because it was expensive, and sometimes it's because the seller can get some poor fool to buy it who doesn't realize that they're going to have to make an investment that isn't worth the payoff.Copyright 2016 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt from What Consumers Need to Know About Mortgages

Sorry this is late. There was some behind the scenes drama; the server the website was hosted on had a crash and the website had to be migrated and for boring technical reasons I couldn't log in to some functions for a while.*******It's quite fashionable in some quarters to brag about the low interest rate of your home loan. One question every good loan officer hates is "What is your lowest rate?" usually the first thing in a phone conversation. People think that this sort of rate shopping is going to help them. The fact is that it almost ensures they are going to get ripped off or worse, as millions of people have discovered in the last few years - and most of them don't understand that this attitude is precisely what got them into the toxic loan that ruined them financially.First off, everybody doesn't get the same choices. As I've said before, somebody who can prove they make enough money, has a solid history of paying their debts, and offers the lender a situation where there's 30 percent equity (or more) gets a different set of choices than somebody who can't prove they make enough money, has a questionable history of paying debt, and wants to borrow 100 percent of the property value (or more).Second, different loans get different rate-cost tradeoffs. The loan that most people seem to consider the most attractive loan, the thirty year fixed rate loan, is always the most expensive loan out there with the highest rate/cost tradeoff. Why? Because on top of the cost of the money, you are essentially purchasing an insurance policy that says your rate will not change for thirty years. Even when long and short term rates are inverted there is a premium charged for the thirty year fixed rate loan. It makes a certain amount of sense; insurance policies are never free, and the thirty year fixed rate loan is the most desired loan out there. Simple economics: Higher demand equals higher price. Goods perceived as more valuable carry a higher price tag. So if you're looking for a thirty year fixed rate loan, and all you say is "What is your lowest rate?" you are likely to get quoted a rate attached to some other sort of loan, or even a phantom, 'in name only' rate that isn't the real rate you're actually paying interest on. Even today with negative amortization loans gone, there are replacements which may not be quite so toxic, but are certainly nothing you actually want to be signing a contract for. There is a tradeoff between types of loans, where you pay for more features with a higher interest rate. To get thirty years of insurance that your rate and payment won't change, you must pay the highest interest rate. If you want to argue with me, consider the meltdown we've been having these last several years caused by toxic loans. If interest rate (or worse, payment) is your only data point from the various loan providers you talk with, you are likely to do business with the one who quotes you the negative amortization loan, not the thirty year fixed rate loan. Matter of fact, the loan provider who tells you about the loan that you really wanted is least likely to get your business in this scenario, because you're ignoring the important context of the tradeoffs involved.Third and most importantly, for every situation and every loan type, there is more than one rate available, a set of tradeoffs within the same type of loan. Why is this, you ask? It seems obvious to you: Why not just choose the lowest rate, which has the lowest payment? It takes a little examination to see why. The difference between the rates is in cost of the loan. There will be a rate called par. This is the rate at which the lender will loan you the money straight across. They don't charge you any money (discount points) to get a lower rate. They don't pay any of the costs of the loan. Getting a loan done really does take a minimum of about $3300 in closing costs (actually, that figure is for California, which believe it or not is one of the cheaper states to get everything done in - every other state I've done business in has higher closing costs), plus whatever the lender makes in order to do your loan. Whether points and closing costs are paid out of your pocket or added to your mortgage balance, you are still paying them. Indeed, when shopping for a mortgage, the phrase "nothing out of your pocket" from a prospective loan provider should immediately put you on guard. I explained at the end of the last chapter some of the legal fiction about why it's not always bad, but it should put you on guard. It needs at least one of two further phrases, "and nothing added to your mortgage," or "no costs at all," before it really means you aren't paying thousands of dollars. Why? Because loan officers have learned to sell loans based upon the cash that people have to pay, which is not the same thing as the actual cost. I've had people tell me they didn't pay anything for a refinance, when they had over twenty thousand dollars added to their mortgage balance. That money is every bit as real as cash out of their wallet or checking account. The only difference is they're pretending you're not paying it despite the fact that you are. Don't know about you, but I'm a lot more kindly disposed towards the person who tells me something is going to cost ten thousand dollars when that's what it costs, than I am towards the person who pretends it's not going to cost anything despite knowing full well it's going to cost ten thousand dollars.Getting a lower rate (assuming it's for the same type of loan) costs more money in terms of upfront costs. In all the years I've been reading rate sheets, I have never once seen an exception to this, from any lender. It's firmly grounded in the laws of economics. For rates below par, you must pay discount points. This is an upfront incentive to a lender to give you a rate lower than they otherwise would. Every situation is different and should be analyzed with numbers specific to that situation, but as a rule of thumb: Unless you're getting a thirty year fixed rate loan and you have a history of keeping loans at least five years before sale or refinance, you should avoid paying discount points if you can, and accepting a rate with a bit of yield spread to offset origination is probably a good idea. The lower payments you get, quite simply, are usually not worth the cost of adding points to your mortgage balance. People who don't qualify for 'A paper' may not have this option, but more people qualify 'A paper' than think they do. These days, with true subprime essentially extinct, it's 'A paper', what professionals used to call "A minus" which is essentially for people who barely miss qualifying A paper, or you fall all the way to 'hard money' - and that's if you have the equity. Otherwise you get nothing.The money you pay for a rate lower than par can be paid out of your loan balance, or it can be paid with cash out of your pocket, but it will be paid if you want that rate. If you keep the loan long enough, the lower rate will pay for itself, but those costs for the lower rate are an upfront cost and sunk into the loan whether you keep it long enough to break even or not. If you were to spend (for example) seven thousand dollars on an investment that only returned four thousand dollars before you sold it, most people would have no trouble seeing that it was a bad investment that lost money, but they have a much harder time seeing this with seven thousand dollars added to the balance of their loan that only returns four thousand dollars in lowered interest charges before they voluntarily refinance. When you refinance (or sell), the benefits to that previous loan stop. The lowered interest rate you bought for those dollars is gone, and is irrelevant going forward. But if you rolled the dollars to pay for discount points to get the better rate into your loan, they're still there in your loan balance. Not only that, but the higher number of dollars in your loan balance means that you are going to pay more in interest charges going forward. The higher loan balance keeps costing you money, even after it has been refinanced. If you sell and buy something else, it means you're going to have fewer dollars available, and therefore the loan balance on your new property will be higher and you will be paying higher interest costs because of it.Copyright 2015 Dan Melson. All Rights Reserved.

This Month's Author Swaps (November 2023)

The best way to find new authors and new material to read!Epic NovemberSciFi and Fantasy MegaSale November Fabulous Fantasy and Sizzling Sci-Fi target="_blank"Epic Sci-Fi & FantasyThe Magic of Pure Hearts (Free samples and stories)