A.R. Knight's Blog, page 5

Pandemic Legacy (S1) – A Midseason Report

Before you get worried, don’t. I shall not spoil this board game, which, arguably, began the increasingly popular trend of turning tabletop entertainment into TV series. Rather than a repeatable setup meant to tell a new story every time, Pandemic Legacy and its ilk instead endeavor to tie some measure of every game’s actions to a continuing narrative. It’s great fun, provided you can get the same group together.

And, most important, you’d better like the base game.

Because that’s the biggest critique I have with Pandemic Legacy, some 7 months into its 12 month campaign (each month contains a max of 2 ‘games’). Pandemic is a very specific type of cooperative game, played under a tight time limit and with a heavy vulnerability to ‘quarterbacking’, where one player can, more or less, tell everyone what to do. Sometimes it feels like some sort of Soviet ideal – everyone works together to determine everyone’s turn, and only through communal effort can the group survive.

Of course, fighting global disease requires this sort of cooperation, but we’re moving chits across a cardboard map of the globe here. What matters in a board game are the stories the players tell, both during and (crucially) after the game. If Pandemic Legacy strips players of individual agency, it repays that with cruel twists and sighs-of-relief that come with insane frequency.

I waver on whether it’s enough, and that’s why I’m thankful we’re not playing only this game, or bringing it out constantly. The luck-based pieces of Pandemic are frustrating enough that, combined with the feel that you’re not really getting turns because the group is making every decision together, immersing myself too often in the game would drain my enthusiasm.

So, midway through this adventure, I can say this: the story is rollicking, the additions seeping through are great fun and present true strategic dilemmas for the team to puzzle through. You’ll feel unstoppable one game and then get wrecked by those nefarious pathogens in the next.

My advice, though, would be to mix it up. Play some other games in between Pandemic sessions. Exorcise your disease demons by rolling dice or slapping cards down in another cardboard kingdom. Then, when it’s time to once more strap on the hazmats and start the long laying out of actions, trades, and cures, you won’t reach for the bottle. At least, not till the outbreaks begin to chain.

The Current Reading List

Books find their way to my shelf (both virtual and physical) through a combination of random bookstore visits – supporting independent shops I encounter on my travels is a compulsive habit – and donations from friends and family who shovel hordes of pages my way as if they get a tax write-off for the act.

At any rate, here’s the books I’m looking at in the near-term and what I know about each of them (answer: not much):

Currently Reading: Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy – an enthralling account of WWII that generally takes a narrative perspective, zooming out to give you the lay of things and then zooming in to give you the human take. If high school history courses taught these books, I don’t think we’d romanticize war nearly so much.

Books to come:

Anthony Ryan’s The Draconis Memoria trilogy – It’s been a long time since I’ve dug into a big ol’ classic fantasy march, and this one has dragons on the cover, so I feel it’ll fit the bill. Sometimes you just need some spells, some ships on the high seas, and some cryptic prophecies to fulfill.
Robert Jackson Bennett’s Foundryside – Another fantasy? Maybe with some steampunk elements to it? I dunno but the title evokes all sorts of metal and rivets, with a side of mystery. Normally I’m hesitant to pick up books beginning series that aren’t completed yet – blame Robert Jordan – but I’m taking a chance here, because I’m a wild man. Or something.
S.A. Chakraborty’s The City of Brass – I’ll admit to having this one on my pocket, secret list for a long time but never being in a position to buy it. A lot of my book browsing comes when I’m traveling, and squeezing something this size into the bag requires not only Tetris skills, but also a willingness to haul its weight around. And yet, on this last trip, I found myself with some extra space and the book was right there, staring at me, saying now’s your chance. And, guess what, it was.

So that’s where I’m at currently – I don’t like listing more than three because then things tend to get wobbly, with too much room for a rogue, insurgent title to knock others off. I’ll post back on these as I go, because why not.

Also, a random side shoutout to Dreyer’s English, which isn’t really a novel/narrative, but more a collection of musings and tips around copy-editing, which ought to be boring as dirt but which is, instead, a fun romp through all the oddities of the English language. A great pick-up/gift for anyone into the fiddly bits of words.

The Quaint Oasis – an ode to small town cafes

Arriving at a picturesque, rural haven for us entails the following, in this order:

An increasingly frenzied search for parking in a place determined to never have enough, leading to a desperate parallel parking job halfway into some random yard while dodging oblivious tourists (which we soon join). Finding the one real restaurant amid the hordes of shacks and shops, getting told of some unfathomably long wait, bailing to one of the shacks for delicious, greasy fried things only to, upon sitting on a bench with our sloppy gains, get the phone call that our restaurant table is now ready.While the food coma processes, Nicole and the others declare the incredible cuteness of, well, every little shop around. This, I am forced to admit, is an accurate characterization. Following this judgment, the shopping commences.

And here, friends, is the instant of mortal terror I face every time we find ourselves in an idyllic slice of paradise. Do I join them in their perusal of handmade charms and seashells plucked and polished?

My stamina for such things drains faster than an old phone’s battery, and before long I’ll be standing near the entrance, a look of such resignation on my face that random passersby will ask me if I’m in need of medical attention.

Or… the cafe. A miraculous place, usually small and with some fun name like ‘The Peach Tree’ or ‘Breezy’s Teas and Coffees’. It’ll have fresh-baked scones, espresso and a variety of locally-sourced thingamabobs. Wifi will be there, almost always teetering from the weight of other desperate urbanites trying to LTE in a land of 3G.

If I can, I hide there. Pull out a book, chat with a fellow non-shoppers, or even pull out a computer and tip tap away, leveraging the background scenery for inspiration. Every one of these cafes is special, a Shangri-La in the harsh crags of tourist-town stores. And I love them all.

So next time you’re going somewhere and you’re dreading the souvenir shopping to come, bring that novel, or a notebook, and keep your eyes open for the sanctuary that is the small town cafe. It just might save your day.

Tool Troubles

Living in our techno-age where miracles seemingly arrive in the palms of our hands every morning and get yearly refreshes, it’s awful easy to fall into a zen-like state of belief that nothing will ever fail. Writing, a process that spent millennia vulnerable to drops of rain or a wayward breeze sending sheaves of paper flying through the sky, has seen plenty of those miracles. You’re reading this on one of them right now, and I’m writing through another.

What’s more, I often (however strange this may seem) do this writing on multiple devices and in multiple locales. Perhaps I want to compose a blog post on the phone, or jot down a quick note to myself when I’m using my desktop Mac that I’ll want later when I’m editing dictation on my laptop. The option to have documents available simultaneously across these devices used to require all sorts of tricks (who remembers emailing themselves different versions?). Now, we have things like Google Docs (among many) that sync automatically in the “cloud”. I turn off my phone, turn on my computer, and my work’s right there, waiting for me.

My two primary writing tools are Scrivener and, because I find it easier to organize plots and characters in grids, Google Sheets (its version of Excel). I do try to keep a look out for new miracles, though, and Storyshop, an online app I dabbled with in the past, has been making a lot of effort to build in features and improve usability.

To that end, I figured I’d try typing out my next novel in Storyshop, using the free option, and see how it went. If things went well, the cost for a pro subscription would be minimal compared to the across-all-devices syncing of my full work. Scrivener, for example, doesn’t do this and its file structure makes it uniquely weird to shuttle between devices.

Anyway, things were generally going well until this past week, when Storyshop went into some downtime. I have no idea how long this will last (it’s been a couple of days already). But until they come back up, I have no access to the latest version of my work. On its face, I accept this. Software and servers need updates. In my IT work, systems will go down for hours at a time to get new versions installed.

There are, however, two key differences here:

Communication. Storyshop should have warned us about the downtime – if they did, I may have missed it, but I definitely saw the email notifying me that the site was down. With a bit of a heads-up, I could have downloaded/copied off the latest version and kept on going with another program. Also, being clear about when we can expect the service to return, or why the downtime’s going on would be nice so I can stop having nightmares about the entire file structure falling apart and my beautiful story disintegrating to digital bits.Writing is a creative enterprise (duh). Getting cut off mid-scene for days is worse than, say, losing access to email. When you’re in the flow, when you’re in a character’s mind trying to figure out how they’re going to save the world and suddenly you’re not allowed back in? For days? It takes time to rebuild that place, to recapture that tone. And, you know, it’s fun. I like having fun and miss it.

That’s the crux here. The future’s brought us lots of awesome things, and Storyshop seems like it’s heading in the right direction, but for now? I might keep using it, but I’ll be saving off every day’s version so I can keep on going elsewhere if it drops down again. Scrivener, locally installed, is always ready for action.

Sometimes, the old ways are better.

Where does the time go?

I started with the weekly Blast’em chapters as a way to keep a side story moving while devoting time to the bigger, shinier project that’s cocooned me since THE SKYWARD SAGA ended this past spring.

Blast’em, though, fell victim to that most frustrating of assaults – time and space.

Time flies is the expression, though summer and its endless demands (yards, I feel, are the true leeches of one’s freedom) make days feel more like sieves, with time bleeding through a thousand tiny holes and leaving you with nothing left for the extra bits. The extra bits in this case are not the words, really, but the pieces that go along with them – formatting, header art, putting it all into WordPress and hitting submit, that sort of thing.

If Time delivered the opening blow, Space swept in for the finisher, using the brutal realities of a screen over a smaller printed or ebook page. Blast’em, composed with generally shorter chapters, lacks presence on a bigger screen. Taking, say, five minutes or less once a week to read a piece doesn’t give the audience much time to get into the story, setting, or even the font of the thing before it’s done.

So, with that in mind, further changes are afoot. Chapter lengths for online pieces like Blast’em will be increased (or merged, such that two or three 1000 word chunks will come at once, giving folks a bit more story goodness in every bite). Additionally, I’m exploring some other ways to format the story so that you can view it in something approximating viability.

As for time, well, that’s a sticky beast. Like cleaning one’s room, every so often it pays to step back and sweep away the dusty habits whose moldering infections slow down or distract from the important tasks of the day. This takes longer, takes honest reckoning, and rarely seems pleasant in the near term, even if, from the heights of future accomplishment, the act is clearly worthwhile. Snip away at the inessentials, diagram out what really needs doing so that it gets done.

And mow the lawn, because the grass is ready. It always is.

Insertion Part Five: Rovo

The problem with words was that there’s so damn many of’em. And all the languages just multiplied the number. Which meant Rovo had a lot of learning to do. He tried, too. Right there, sitting by Eponi in the cockpit, he poured over the next lexicon: Casparian. More a series of tones and inflections than actual words. Once Rovo had learned to twist his tongue into all sorts of shapes, thus altering the ways his r’s, q’s, and p’s came out, Casparian began to make some sort of sense. Common had trampled most other languages, but, like so many other cultural artifacts, tongues lived in their niches across the stars, carried on by those who refused to let them die.

Speaking of tongues, Eponi was saying something. She always spoke rapid-fire, like her words were racing each other. Which, apparently, Eponi had done in the past. Fascinating what Rovo could learn from someone by how they spoke.  

“Hey, new kid,” Eponi said again, and this time she hit him on the arm with her hand. The suit blunted the impact, but the jolt knocked aside his little reverie. “You’re handling communications, right?” 

“Uh, yes?”

“Then why don’t you communicate?” Eponi pointed towards a blue cast coating his co-pilot terminal. 

An incoming transmission. Which made sense – Dyna’s green dot had grown to take up most of the viewport. They’d be in range of short-band messages, the sorts of things that’d scramble or take too long to transmit longer distances. The sort of things someone hidden away with a low-powered communicator might manage.

“Maybe. What if I don’t?” Rovo replied.

When his DefenseCorp Resource Officer told Rovo he’d be going to Sever Squad, the officer had recommended growing a spine and some swagger with it. Sever had a reputation of eating those who didn’t. Sometimes, so the rumors went, literally.

“I’ll kick your ass. Then Aurora will join in, and then Gregor will- finish you up.”

Rovo knew Eponi couldn’t see his face, but he grimaced anyway. The thought of Gregor laying into him? No thank you. So he pressed the console. Stared at the strange face looking back at him.

It was human, definitely. But not only that. The man’s skin sported green and black splotches, as if he’d been injected with mold. Wrapped up and left to rot for a while. Then taken out, steamed and oiled up. Not an appealing picture.

“We read your approach,” the man said, his voice watery, like he had a bad cold. “What’s your purpose on Dynas?”

“Just stopping by,” Rovo said. “Wanted to see the sights.”

There are some planets, ones with city centers, with grand natural wonders. There you could pretend to be a tourist. You could show some real, honest affection for what the planet had and land without a lot of hassle. Places like Dynas? The bumbling tourist act probably wouldn’t fly. Rovo checked the scanners – no visible ship traffic. No easy commercial excuse.

You needed a reason to go to Dynas, and Sever didn’t have a good one.

“What sites are you talking about?” The man said.

“Well, what sites do you have?” Rovo replied. 

He had one job on missions like these. Keep the people talking. Keep them confused, off-balance. Then, once Eponi got the shuttle below any defenses, he could fling as many insults as he liked.

Really, it wasn’t the worst job.

“None. Turn around and abandon your route.”

“We don’t have the fuel to do that. Have you got a place we can touch down? Refill?”

Not that the drop shuttle could. The craft operated on batteries, which could only be recharged given the right infrastructure. A thing Rovo didn’t believe Dynas had, going by hideously low energy readings, planet-wide commerce stats, and its nigh nonexistent population. On the consoles, readings sprang as the drop shuttle sensors pressed out. Giving locations to those meager stats. The overlays appeared on the front viewport. And they were few. Whatever settlements Dynas had, they were small.

“Your problems are not our problems. Turn around, or we will defend ourselves.”

“Doesn’t seem like you and I are getting along. You have a manager? Someone else I can talk to?” Rovo said. He muted his side of the call, pressed the suit’s transponder – already patched into the squads short-wave frequency. “Hey guys, get ready. Looks like a rocky entrance.”

“We always have rocky entrances,” Eponi said.

“Don’t lie,” Rovo said, after he’d released the transponder. “You like’em.”

Eponi didn’t say anything, but Rovo would’ve bet everything he had she was smiling under that armor. Who wouldn’t be? Everyone liked Rovo.

Dynas and its foggy green filled everything they could see. The shuttle began to shake as it hit atmosphere and heavy air. Rovo grabbed a pair of handles, then realized he hadn’t actually closed the call. On the other side, the strange looking man yelled at them, his splotched mouth opening, closing, and his face red. If anything, those spots looked larger, wetter than before.

Rovo touched the screen one more time. Figured there’d be an opportunity to score one last insult.

“You’re all going to die. Do you hear me? Every last one of you.” The man cut the call then. 

Rovo didn’t even get in his shot. 

He’d just have to deliver it in person.

Insertion Part Four: Eponi

She hit the switch break hard, shifting the splash kart to the right and around the large sandstone rock in the middle of the course. That was a new one, an obstacle the owners must’ve placed after last year’s zero fatality race. Almost caught Eponi by surprise. And, going by the fiery cloud in her rear-view camera, someone else didn’t make it. Two racers ahead of her, their splash karts cutting over the water as each played the wind and waves for advantage, their microjets keeping them just above the surf.

No chance for Eponi to catch up.

Not if she played by the rules, anyway.

A floating barge, covered with the audience, loomed ahead. A dome over the top played video feeds of the race from aerial drones, which kept the sides of the barge clear for actual viewing. Most would be cheering, drinking, partying – the race an afterthought.

The course, lined by glowing buoys on either side, split around the barge. At least, the visible part did. Eponi killed her microjets, and her kart dove into the water. The glass cockpit kept her dry as she plunged beneath the surface. Eponi shunted the energy to her rear fan to counter the water’s resistance, sped up and shot along the undercurrent beneath the floating barge. Before she cleared it, Eponi triggered the microjets back on again. Rocketed to the surface and shot up into the air just on the other side. The two racers ahead of her now kissing her wake.

Eponi couldn’t hear the cheers, but if the audience knew good racing from bad, they’d be hollering. As for the other two karts, they’d run out of course to race. The blaze-orange buoys that marked the finish were right —

“Eponi?”

The vision blurred. Then her helmet’s video faded and revealed the transparent windshield of the drop shuttle. On the other side, the static wall of the Nautilus. No race. No cheers.

Only memories.

“Going back a lot lately?” Rovo said. The little guy climbed to the cockpit next her. A two-seater. Aurora would normally take front with Eponi here, but in an unknown sector? You needed somebody who could talk no matter who picked up.

“Better days,” Eponi replied.

“Really? You didn’t know me then.” Rovo’s voice was deeper than you’d think for a man his size. Scratchy. Maybe he’d spent too much time in smoke-filled rooms, maybe that was where he’d learned to talk all those tongues.

“Believe me, life was just fine before you came in it,” Eponi said, wondering for a second at Rovo’s cockiness, then deciding that anyone who could get into Sever Squad had to have guts.

And Rovo had it right. No time for memories. Not with the rest of the squad on board. Or almost – Eponi saw Sai stumble into the bay. Man was always late. Like her, obsessing over other things. Unlike her, Sai kept his memories in his room, rather than where he needed to be. Amateur.

The second Sai’s foot hit the ramp, Eponi pressed the button to retract it. Made Sai scamper up the steps. Might teach him a lesson. At least it made her laugh.

“You could have hurt him.” Rovo actually sounded worried when he said that, like he cared.

“He gets hurt getting on the shuttle, that’s his own fault,” Eponi replied. “I’m the one that gets blamed if we lift off late.” Time for a topic switch, because Eponi wasn’t interested in getting disciplined by a rookie. “You know anything about where were going?”

The deflect worked – Rovo’s eyes went all out of focus. That look he had when he was trying to remember something.

“The same as you.” He said finally. “Nothing.”

“Dynas,” Aurora said as she entered the cockpit. She stood behind the two of them, putting her gloved hands on the backs of the chairs. “A wet, mossy place. A lot of natural resources. Interesting wildlife. We’re doing a search and rescue, then extract.”

“Only we don’t have an extraction,” Eponi said. 

The briefing had said almost nothing, but it had said that.

“We’ll just have to play it smart,” Aurora said. “Not burn out our drop shuttle for once.”

“That never works, and you know it.”

There’s a reason why drop shuttles had the name. Designed to get a squad down, giving covering fire, and act as a base of support until you’d done what you need to do. Most times they couldn’t get back up. Most times they weren’t meant to.

“Sounds like you’re doubting us,” Aurora said. “Don’t have room for doubt on the squad.”

“I don’t have any doubt,” Eponi said. “I’m just being real, commander.”

“In that case, stop being real and start getting us out of here.” Aurora turned and walked back to where the harness awaited her. 

Eponi radioed the bridge. Received the clear and activated, with a press on the center console, the departure sequence. Behind them, big metal doors slid open. At the same time, in front of her, the door leading out of the docking bay and back into the Nautilus closed. Then a secondary barrier slammed down over it. No chance of vacuum. Little chance of rescue if the drop shuttle blew up during departure.

As the doors opened to dark space, Eponi looked at the shuttle’s cameras and saw the Nautilus’ rocky exterior. The remnants of the asteroid. While the frame of the ship sat inside the rock, most little bulky exterior was left there. Provided good armor. Even some first-look camouflage. Distant starlight augmented by the Nautilus’ own blazing white illumination painted grayscale shadows over everything, like some old-fashioned films of the original Moon.

The drop shuttles engines started with the soft hum. The battery draining to spool up the microwave thrusters. They’d superheat a tank of fuel – limited, yet another reason why drop shuttles weren’t meant to survive, and thrust the ship forward. Beneath the shuttle, on its underside, four microjets started up. Bigger than those on the karts, and capable of bouncing the shuttle up an inch.

Eponi slipped a black and green glove onto her left hand and felt the tingle as tiny nodes in the fabric signaled a connection with the computer in her wrist. She raised the hand, careful to keep her fingers bent, until she reached eye level. Speakeasy kept quiet. Smart man.

When Eponi straightened her fingers, laying her hand flat in the air, the glove flashed red and stayed that color. Ready to fly. Eponi moved her hand to the right, keeping it level, and the shuttle started a slow turn. She held her hand steady until the shuttle faced outer space, a complete 180 degree twist. Then, with her right hand, she pushed forward on the throttle, kicking the shuttle out.

She’d marveled when DefenseCorp first gave Eponi a look at the technology. Virtual pilot. No need to grab the flight stick, no need to panic if a wire snapped or the stick stuck, or if Eponi was thrown away and suddenly unable to grab it. Now, so long as Eponi wore the glove, it would interlace with the tablet, and let her hand control the ship alone.

If she wanted to, Eponi could leave the cockpit. Could go all the way outside and still fly the shuttle. If she had this glove on, the ship would be like putty in her hands.

Out of the Nautilus, into the black void of space. Black except for a green dot, one that was steadily getting larger. They still had all the momentum of the Nautilus going at full speed. Though now that they were moving perpendicular, the cruiser quickly shrank in size. Even a massive thing like that disappeared fast when they were moving at thousands of kilometers an hour.

“Dynas,” Rovo said. “Never heard of this planet.”

“If you haven’t heard of it, then we’re all in the dark,” Eponi replied. Not necessarily true, but if a world wasn’t on the racing circuit, Eponi didn’t need to know existed. Not till now anyway.

In front of her, at knee level, the center console changed. A map of the region of Dynas where they were supposed to go. Suggestions of possible landing zones showed up in yellow. Not more than a few kilometers away from each other, which meant a defined objective. At least the area was tight. She hated being given a continent to choose from.

“A secret VIP?” Eponi said. “Who do you think this guy is? Some rich investor? A politician?”

“If I don’t know a planet, it’s because it’s a backwater. It’s because nobody cares about it,” Rovo said. “Which means if we’re going there, on this short notice, someone’s really screwed up. And, for DefenseCorp to care, really rich.”

Insertion Part Three: Gregor

Clomping down the hall and watching all the rookies and people who didn’t know better jump out of his way never got old. Every stomp made Gregor feel like a behemoth, a wrecking ball. Unstoppable. Gregor eyed the panels on either side as he moved; static metal when nobody came by, but as soon as there was motion, the panels would flip on. Meet them with your eyes and they would show your current orders. The fastest route to your destination. Anything else that you could imagine. It’s why plenty of people lingered in the hallways when they were bored. You could see what else there was to do. Where you needed to be.

Which meant Gregor had plenty of targets. As he went, clad in his mottled green-gray suit, he pantomimed blasting away everyone he passed. Occasionally took a swipe, though never quite connecting. Everyone either screamed, ducked, or dove out of the way.

“Gregor, get your shit together,” Aurora’s voice came over the suit’s comm array. “I’m trying to get my suit on and my tablet’s blowing up with complaints. I don’t have time for this.”

“Got to keep my reputation,” Gregor replied.

“Your reputation gives me headaches.”

“Sorry, boss,” Gregor replied, though they both knew ‘sorry’, as a concept, had no place in Gregor’s life.

Because a man in Gregor’s fashion didn’t just arise, fully formed, from some sort of super-soldier muck. No, Gregor had honed his brutish self in the same way a master violinist learned to play the trickiest solos; with practice. Most bullies, Gregor had discovered as a child, when he found his entertainment by picking fights with the biggest, nastiest kids, tended to fold when pressed. Give’em a good kick to the stomach, or a solid stare down and they’d find some excuse to run away. Do that enough times, learn to walk with the unbending confidence of someone willing to wreck anyone’s day at any moment, and you’d grow the sort of reputation that let’s you run wild aboard a mercenary ship. Nobody, except Aurora, stood in Gregor’s way anymore, and he didn’t even have to punch anyone to keep it that way.

Yet, if Gregor wanted to be honest with himself, it had been more fun when the long stretches spent hurtling through space had been interrupted by mess hall brawls or fighting rings in the work-out rooms. Apparently, though, broken bones make it hard to be mission ready, so Gregor had found himself barred from such exploits for the greater good of the Nautilus’ crew. 

Which is why, when the blinking flash stating a new mission had arrived, Gregor had leaped into his suit as though the metal casing held the key to his salvation. In this case, Gregor hoped as he continued clomping towards the transport, it actually would.

The passage through the Nautilus from the crew quarters that Sever had to their assigned docking bay was short. Five minutes or less transition time. Intentional. So when Gregor arrived, the sliding doors in the bay scanning, through a red eye at the top of the gate, Gregor’s suit, he paused for a moment, surprised he was first. Inside the bay sat their drop shuttle. Gregor saw the boarding ramp already down and realized he was wrong. There in the cockpit, relaxed and staring straight at nothing, sat Eponi in her rose-red suit. Figured she’d be here. Eponi practically lived in that thing.

Not that Gregor blamed her for it – given the opportunity, he’d probably live in to. They wouldn’t trust him with something like the shuttle though. Too many weapons. Too many temptations to pull a trigger and see what would happen. Not that guns were his favorite toys anyway; the things were cold, impersonal, and spoke to a lack of skill with more meaningful weapons.

Gregor reached up behind his back. Felt the cold metal handle of his namesake. The hammer topped a 1.5 meter long handle. More than capable, with its round head, of bashing in steel doors. And oh, if Gregor pushed the energy from his suit through the conductors in his hands, you’d better watch out. He’d knock you to the stratosphere.

Someone bumped him, squeezing by.

“You ever try being polite?” Gregor said. The new kid was in his ocean-blue suit. Small, quirky. The kind of thing that wouldn’t scare a fly.

“You ever learn to move?” The kid replied.

Rovo, that was the kid’s name. Sounded like one of those toys from back on Earth.

“Only for people that deserve it.” Gregor replied.

“Get in that shuttle, or you’ll deserve a lot worse,” Aurora’s voice came from behind them. Gregor turned and saw she wasn’t really looking his way. She had her eyes buried in her tablet, like always. Monitoring the squad’s progress. Her peppered black and white suit bled through that part of the wrist, allowed her to see what her tablet showed without exposing them to too much danger.

Seeing the kid and Aurora standing there, not even watching him, made Gregor twitch. It wasn’t like Gregor wanted to throttle his commander right there. It wasn’t like he wanted to squash Rovo. But at the same time, Gregor’s bones were ready. Once he got himself good and juiced, he needed to get to whacking, or else it would all be wasted.

“We dropping soon?” Gregor said.

Aurora looked up at him. “Like I said. You get on that shuttle, and we’ll go.”

Gregor shrugged. Fine. He turned and climbed over the shuttle, up the ramp that led to the interior. Crash netting and harnesses. Each one with a lever next to it that, if pulled down, would cut the netting’s connections so they could get out in a flash.

Gregor had pulled it three times. Two of those had been necessary. The third… there’d been too much talking, not enough action. Besides, nobody expected someone to eject into a fight from a fully healthy drop ship. That debrief explanation had earned Gregor some rolled eyes and a pay deduction to repair the netting, but getting to plummet into a hammer swing on the slimy, unsuspecting bulk of a rogue Graddle had been worth it.

He took a seat, clipped himself in. Stared at the countdown clock. Three minutes. A hundred and eighty seconds to grind his teeth and wait.

Insertion, Part Two: Sai

The bombs in the simulations didn’t feel real. That was his excuse, not that anybody cared. Sai sat back on the cot. Stared at the entire wall, a slate of black glass that doubled as his computer screen, and at the stats pouring out in columns, graphs, and dire percentages. He’d tried to make death within the boundaries provided, and, well, survival was a distinct possibility. The chemical mixture Sai had come up with didn’t quite reach the temp needed to cut through hard steel, and if the detonation couldn’t do that, then the whole idea was worthless. He raised his fist, ready to pound that screen wall and stopped. Hitting things never solved problems.

Not computer problems, anyway.

His cabin was one half cot, one quarter locker, and one quarter screen. His bed brushed right up against both. Sai fell back on on the mattress now. Hard scratchy blankets. A pillow. And when those didn’t work to get the scheduled rest, a little gas vent hooked up to the side wall. A lot people had trouble sleeping on a ship this size, with this much grinding machinery, random chatter, and general messages broadcast over the ship’s p.a. system. A couple deep breaths of the good stuff and Sai would cash out till his ticker, tied into his nerves through his spine, shocked him awake at the right time.

Sai would’ve taken a hit a right then and there, except his right eye started blinking. Green light. No incoming message, then, but an order. More exciting than sleep. Sai curled up and twisted on his cot, slipped his legs off the side and pressed open his locker with a palm to the door. The thin, crimson-painted panel slid open and revealed what had once been a standard issue DefenseCorp action suit. What was now, with Sai’s modifications, something far more fun.

Ridged, plated metal made up the suit’s core. Awkward, but the plates protected Sai from just about anything. Built-in heat dispersion, to send the hot energy from a laser spreading around his body and out the back. Effective enough that the only things that could really hurt Sai were concentrated beams, or close-up knives. Things that could get in between those plates. Of course, the suit weighed a ton. Use it in non-zero gravity and Sai would get tired quick.

But that blinking green light didn’t give him a choice. Anytime he saw that, it meant go and go hard.

Sai reached out with his arms and put a hand each palm of the suit. The suit felt the gesture and jumped forward out of the locker towards him. The first three times Sai had done this, it had been all Sai could do to keep from falling back and letting the suit crush him. Eventually, through practice and a healthy application of calming meds through the ticker to steady his jumpy nerves before every attempt, Sai grew used to it. Same way he learned to fire a gun. Same way he stopped being scared of seeing the eyes of the things he’d fought both before, in fear, and after, in death.

The bombs were different. Explosives appealed in the opposite way the suit, the guns did. They demanded respect, careful treatment, and if you gave them that, they’d wait for you to be ready before doing their thing. And they’d blow up, launch shrapnel, whatever, exactly the way you wanted them to.

The suit’s metal slates ran across his arms and legs. Fit to his torso and before Sai even had a chance to take a breath, the mask was over his head and the hard helmet pressed on tight.

An overlay appeared across his eyes. Quick readouts on system operations. How the suit was functioning, his oxygen level, temp, blood condition. The usual warning about sub-optimal levels of muscle tone and the deleterious effect it was having on Sai’s composure. The ticker could solve that for him, jack in steroids. But Sai’d hit the max for medical solutions for his problems, at least in his opinion. One of these days he’d get Gregor to draft Sai a regimen, end these weakling warnings.

One other thing popped up too. What Sai always looked for. Five out of five. The rest of his squad all punching up and getting in. That meant it hadn’t been a mistake. Sever Squad had received an order. Go time.

Before he left his quarters, Sai turned, a bulky ask in the suit, and a move that nearly had him falling over onto his own bed. He leaned over and wiped away, with a gesture, the bomb data. Then stared, briefly, at what filled the screen. A video. A direct feed to his parents, to his sister. Obviously not live – that kind of data took a long time to cross these light years – but he kept it streaming until new footage came in. The program looped through the recorded videos if Sai had nothing new to see.

The three of them were eating in the kitchen. A breakfast of real food, not the vitamin goop. Around a circular table in a house that had no glass windows. Open-air jungle letting the sun peek in from outside. Peaceful, calm. Normal. A present from the past.

When he left, Sai wiped that away too.

Blast’Em Episode 1: Insertion

What follows is the start of a weekly serial detailing the strange and ridiculous exploits of a bunch of far-future mercenaries. New, short episodes every Friday afternoon – welcome to the world of ‘Blast’em’!

He called her the wrong name. Twice. So Aurora whipped her hand back, and sent it crashing against the grunt’s face. Skin rippled, like an earthquake coming out from where the heel of her palm crunched into his cheek. His eyes flew up and his mouth screwed into a jagged line, as if all of the nerves in his face twisted at once . Then he dropped to the ground. Hit the floor like a bomb. One that sent the rest of the mess into deafening quiet.

“My name’s Aurora. Get it right.” She spoke down to the grunt, even though it was clear the man’s glassed gaze showed he was anywhere but here.

Aurora cast the same threat around the mess hall. Bunch of rookies. New drafts to the Corp. All of them staring back at her like she was a Gnarler, all tentacles and teeth. They were scared. As well they should be. Look at them there, elbows on the steel tables. Trays full of nutrient soup. The rookie grunts were all shades, all types. Even a few E.T.’s in the mix this time. A trio of willowy Caspers, their thin membranes making them almost translucent.

DefenseCorp must be expanding its horizons. Marketing to species that don’t breed like rabbits, like humans. Convincing them that hard-earned cash and the chance to fire big cannon were worth risking your life. Not the worst message.

It’d worked on her.

“You see what happened here?” Aurora announced to the silence. “He didn’t respect his superior. He didn’t respect me. And when you don’t respect me, you don’t respect who you work for. And if you don’t respect the Corp, this is what happens.” She pointed the body in the ground.

Another reason she liked working for DefenseCorp? This guy decorating the floor right here. None of that standard issue government regulation. Just good old-fashioned survival of the fittest. Fatter paychecks too.

Aurora resumed walking. Left the hall and the food that she didn’t want behind. As fun as it was to strike some fear into the rookies, she’d only been going through there on her way to someplace more important: the bridge.

The Odin-class cruiser Nautilus. The home of of nearly 200,000 people. Made from the core of an asteroid, hollowed out, refined and sent off on journeys to the most dangerous, most profitable parts of the galaxy DefenseCorp could find. Anywhere chaos planted its seeds, DefenseCorp showed up, ready to kill and clear. The company all others paid to take care of dirty deeds.

Speaking of dirt, Aurora stepped around a ridged patch of asteroid rock jutting through the side of the Nautilus’ central corridor. Molding a ship to an asteroid required certain concessions, like the occasional presence of space stone breaking through the polished perfection of refined manufacturing. Aurora had spent time on more standard cruisers, and they didn’t have the flare the Nautilus carried – some artistic DefenseCorp staffers had decided to coat these outcroppings in the colors of the various squads.

Sever’s gold and black was, of course, near the hanger and loomed down in a chunky oval from the ceiling. Aurora made a habit of tapping it with her hand before every mission, training or real. Luck was always desired, and ritual seemed the best way to ensure it.

Aurora glanced at her tablet as she walked – an easy motion, as it was bolted to her left wrist. Embedded, if you wanted to call it that. That way they couldn’t be lost. That way the batteries, if necessary, could recharge off of her own body heat. Keep it running in low mode no matter how long she was out. Until she died, anyway.

The tablet blinked at her. As it had been doing the last ten minutes. The length of time it’d taken her to go from her quarters, through the mess hall, knock out the lunkhead, and now to get here.

The bridge of the Nautilus was larger than most stadiums. A huge amount of space, for a huge amount of officers. Scanners, computers, giant domes for people to sit in that would provide, in case of some sort of battle, 3-D modeling of everything going on. Right now though, the Nautilus was in transit. Which meant everything out in front of the ship was awash in black. Off on the right, a pinkish nebula glowed. Pretty, if you had the time for that sort of thing.

“Took you long enough,” Commander Efron said. The man stood tall. Rippling in his skin suit that he never took off. That all DefenseCorp commanders had to wear as part of their rank. Seeing it made Aurora’s standard-issue cloth itch.

A skin suit provided the usual comforts. Regulated Efron’s body temp, killed poisons that made their way into his bloodstream, and happened to be a snazzy crimson uniform. One of the bonuses of earning Efron’s rank was the chance to have some style. The collar brushed up to the bottom of Efron’s chin, a dark one covered with not a millimeter of hair. A reflection, Aurora figured, of Efron’s start in an actual military force. Those things had existed until Defense Corp, with its lack of morals and rules, had put them all out of business.

“I tried to run, but someone got in my way.” Aurora didn’t bother shrugging; Efron knew any obstacle had been removed.

“It’s fine,” Efron said. “Twenty minutes ago we received a covert SOS. VIP customer, so it’s need to know. Your squad is being pulled from our main assignment to handle this one, and we’re almost to the drop point. Your team is ready?”

“I read the message,” Aurora said. “Sever will be ready to launch.”

“And you?” Efron replied. “You’re good on the particulars?”

“It’s a standard for Sever, right?” Aurora said. “Get in, raise all manner of bloody hell, then get out?”

“With the client, yes,” Efron smiled. “One warning though – you won’t be getting an extraction. We can’t delay our primary contract.”

No extract? That didn’t sound right. On occasion, Sever would do a drop and run. But that just meant the extraction would be delayed. Sever squad would hold their own, wait undercover after completing the mission and eventually some shuttle or another would show up and give them a ride back home. Efron wasn’t talking about that though. She could tell in his voice. A final note to it.

“What do you mean?” Aurora almost added sir, but this wasn’t the military. You didn’t have to call your commanding officers titles. They weren’t even really officers. Just bosses.

“It means you have to find your own way off world,” Efron said. “This contract is strictly classified. We can’t have evidence that DefenseCorp was involved.”

“Won’t it be pretty evident? My squad doesn’t operate in the dark.”

“You’re the best, Aurora. That’s why you’re getting this assignment. You and Sever will figure it out. Buy a shuttle, or steal one. You’ll be reimbursed.”

And if we can’t? Aurora didn’t ask the question, because there was only one answer.