Justin’s Comments (group member since Mar 13, 2016)

Justin’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Uman Obsession

“What are you doing Previck?” asked a sly voice.
Startled, Previck whirled quickly around to face his tormentor.
“None of your business Tyrex,” answered Previck, trying to keep his face from radiating embarrassment.
“On one of your little expeditions again?” Other boys moved in behind Tyrex, forming an impenetrable phalanx.
“Looking for Umans again?” asked one.
“Kid believes in fairies,” said another.
Previck deftly slid his magnifying glass into his satchel and retrieved the cudgel he kept handy for situations just like this.
“Doesn’t really matter what I’m doing,” he retorted defiantly. “I’m not bothering you so go away if you know what’s good for you.”
“Oh ho! Look out boys! He’s got a club!” taunted Tyrex, who still took a half step backwards.
A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, followed by a shrill, “PREVIEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
“Go home to Momma, PREVIEEEEEEEEE,” Tyrex mocked, and kicked a stone towards Previck.
The stone glanced off his exposed shin, leaving a darkening welt, but missed the small dig site behind him.
As Tyrex and his band of brutes melted back into the forest, Previck gently picked up the small bones he had collected and headed home under the lengthening shadows of a warm summer afternoon. He glanced up, savoring the view of the shimmering ring around the planet most took for granted.

***
Doctoral candidate Previck Monmouth smoothed the edges of his suit and tried to subdue the nervous gnawing of his insides. The final defense of his dissertation was no longer an exercise in ivory tower idealism. No, it had become a media circus, complete with the attendant clowns, fools and jokers who were part and parcel of such things. Cameras flashed and snapped, devouring his carefully arranged displays of tiny bones to regurgitate back to the frothing masses. Wire services, newspapermen, politicians, and clergy sat expectantly in the observation gallery. The University had even requested additional officers from the constabulary.

“I don’t envy you son,” his mentor whispered.
“I’m confident in my findings,” Previck replied evenly.
“Quite so, quite so, but ah…”
“Yes, I know,” Previck cut the older man off.

A gavel sounded, bringing the room to order with a courtroom flair. The University Dean, college chair, and select group of senior professors – all of whom he knew to some degree – entered in a line of flowing robes weighed down by age and academic honors. After much creaking of seats, the final panelist entered. Per tradition, the Skeptic’s Chair was open to anyone outside academia but was typically reserved for persons of some renown or social standing. Today it was a captain of industry, a man who had single-handedly revolutionized shipbuilding but was now dabbling in the new frontier of rocketry: Tyrex Pompei. With his characteristic smirk, he sat down with a flourish and flashed a toothy smile to an adoring, sycophantic press.

Previck’s heart sank.

***
Inevitably, Previck’s doctoral dissertation about the prior existence of a sentient species on their home planet was too much for even the learned University masters to accept. Pilloried by the press, burned in effigy by the public, Previck’s work was too unpalatable and unacceptable. Exiting the Odeon by a back door, Previck slipped away in the deepening dark as manic hordes destroyed his carefully constructed skeletal proofs. An overwhelmed constabulary gave way.
Hands thrust deeply into his pockets, he fought the rising tide of bitterness in his soul. So much of his life had been spent carefully collecting samples that many of his friends called it an obsession. Now it was over and done. He looked up at the glittering ring, illuminated now by the moon, and wondered if the proof lay there. Suddenly he heard someone calling his name.

It was Tyrex, moving uncharacteristically fast towards him. Previck continued on.
“Hey Previck! Will you wait a minute?!”
“Came to gloat?”
“No old boy! I came to congratulate!”
“On what? Failure of my life’s work?”
“Failure?! No! You were right the whole time! My first rocket just came back from the ring. Do you know what it’s made of?!
“I don’t care Tyrex.”
“It’s debris! Debris from rockets and satellites and things we can’t even describe!”
“Then why crucify me in front of the world?”
“To protect it! To protect it from itself. You saw how people responded to your work. You’ve upset the entire order of things. God. Religion. Origin of the Species! Everything! The world will never be the same again because of you!”
Tyrex offered his hand.
Previck took it.

(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2020
Reviews/critiques welcome

I'll get something posted. I've had a hard time trying to develop something. My Muse is depressed. However, I'll meet the deadline for sure. :)

Congrats Tom! Best wishes for its success. I just picked it up and look forward to reading it! I'll be sure to post a review when I'm done.

Yea Paula! Another great story from you as always!!

Tom wrote: ""Does Hope Abide?" by Justin Sewall

A very artfully written tale, spun like a cosmic tapestry...of an offering of hope from on high.

Two celestial beings, brother and sister, reach across infinit..."

Now you're just trying to make me cry. Thank you for this Tom.

Okay, so I've changed the title and I've extended/revised the ending. It felt unfinished and now I feel better about it.

So if you've read my story already, there is a new ending.

Thx!

Oh jeez, did I really title my story the same as Chris's? Sorry about that Chris! I'll come up with something else. I wasn't that happy with it anyway. Sheesh!

Thank you Tom, much appreciated - and the performance too. For whatever reason I had a really, really hard time with this month's prompt.

Does Hope Abide?

Her consciousness swept across the cold vastness of space, surveying more than mortal eye could ever see or comprehend. Stars, nebulae, entire galaxies were laid bare before her, offering up their secrets down to the smallest subatomic particle. It was tempting to tarry and bask in the infinite beauty of the universe, yet purpose drew her mind onwards. Yes…there it was, coming into focus now – another beautiful world set in the crown of the cosmos.
“You’re late.”
“And since when do we mark time as in the elder days?” she responded, yet without reproach.
“You speak true sister, as you are oft. But swiftness and set marks still hold fast when needs call.”
“I am sorry my brother, for I was held in rapture then as indeed I am now.”
“Is this truly necessary then?” her brother asked, already knowing her intent.
“It is. Still thine own thoughts for a time.”
Her full consciousness surrounded the glowing world. Then slowly, by immeasurable degrees of infinite smallness, she allowed the thoughts of lesser minds to wash over her.
She descended into a sea of tumult, sorrow and pain.
“I cannot find it my brother. It is lost here.”
“As it was on the one before and others beyond count – were that even possible. The pattern holds true.”
“They are without – as we once were, so they will destroy themselves.”
“Why do you trouble yourself sister? If it is their end -”
“It does not have to be,” she demarked.
“You do not want it to be,” he countered. “Some things are beyond even you, beyond us.”
“Will you help me? Time grows short and the threshold is tenuous even now.”
A millisecond stretched into a millennium, then folded back upon itself as temporal elasticity played between the two minds.
“I will help you my sister, ere you pursue this thankless task alone. Though I do not see what good may come of it.”
“Then come my brother. We are in haste!”

***
“Sister, this is truly a wretched place. Have you gone astray?”
“No my brother. The threshold is here. I can feel it.”
“And have you felt the darkling mind that lurks among the pestilence and depravity of these feckless beings? It is trying to close the way.”
“Yes, which makes our task ever the more important.”
“Will they not simply be annihilated when they rend the atom? Or unleash a wasting plague? Already they foul the air with their combustions…”
“As we once did. Are we not to give them the very thing that led to our own path?”
Her brother was silent.
“Has compassion died within your heart? Or your memory failed at these same shortcomings that once ruled us?”
“Perhaps.”
“Eons have passed unhurried for us, yet now we are hard pressed. This is within our power to give, now let us give it! Whether it survives or is stillborn is beyond even the wisest of us to see. Behold, the threshold falters. It must go now or never again!”
“Sister, how will they know what they have been given?”
“I have an idea,” she replied.

***
It was a cold, clear winter evening and the very stars seemed to hover closely over the land. Few of the beings there were, out tending beasts of burden under the pale celestial light. Their hearts were weary and downcast, for life nor death held any promise for them. All was grinding oppression and bitterness, each day a succession of tortures and terrors. Then suddenly, a light brighter than all the rest shone in the firmament, drawing their eyes – and their hearts – up to the heavens. A single point in the night sky gleamed like the brightest of all jewels, and from it sprang a great company of the heavenly host wrapped in light and song.
“Do not be afraid,” said brother to those cowering in fear upon the ground.
They were transfixed and hung on every word spoken to them out of the rapturous light.
Sister continued, “I bring you good news of great joy, and hope, that will be for all of the people…”

***
The glorious light receded, the threshold closed and the darkling mind swept in like a tide to smother all in a veil of despair. Sister and brother remained close, encompassing the blue world with their minds but cut off from it.
“Were we successful?” asked brother.
“Only time will tell,” replied sister. “Yet it remains in evermore in my heart.”
“Hope?”
“Yes. Hope.”

(750 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2020
Reviews/critiques welcome

Carrie wrote: "129 words is better than 0 words....right?

😏😏😏😏😏"

It was great!

Great stories Paula and Tom! Loved them both!

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day!

Way to go J.J.! Great story!

Tom wrote: ""The Wrath of GOD" by Justin Sewall

Temporal war. A grieving, guilt-ridden father and a cosmic suicide/genocide.

Striking military memorial images open the story, the emotions potent and direct a..."

Thank you sir, much appreciated as always!

Paula wrote: "I wanted to mention, before mention of the book gets lost here, that Jack's novel Purple-Hearted Man, works as a deeply felt vision of, and tribute to, the experience of those war-wounded who came ..."

And it's narrated by a really swell guy... LOL! :)

That's a great story Dean, thank you for sharing it with me. I'm glad you enjoyed mine!

The Wrath of GOD

Duty, not domination
Responsibility, not rule
Protection, not persecution

- Soldier’s Cenotaph –
New South Wales colony

The last strains of Taps faded away over the manicured field of immaculate white headstones. Preceded by rifle reports and a missing-man formation of aerospace fighters, it was, to those few assembled in somber black, only the first step on a long, bitter road to recovery. A clutched, folded flag and a Chaplin’s gentle admonition to trust in Almighty God were – for now – scant comfort in the face of aching emptiness.
Yet Duty still remained.
It persisted and demanded attention even now. In the face of an enemy so alien, so unlike, and so very deadly, Duty whispered or screamed depending on the individual. For Admiral Thomas Mathison, it mocked his own years of faithful service, for it was his son – what was left of him anyway – now at rest six feet below the lush grass of the New South Wales colonial cemetery.
His wife reluctantly accepted the proffered flag from his arms, bracing her eyes that could shed no more tears. She turned away and walked slowly past the black caisson festooned in service liveries, silently blaming him for their loss.
GOD could have prevented this, Mathison thought to himself.
If only GOD had been ready!!
If only.
But GOD was too late for Lieutenant Miles Mathison, formerly of the New South Wales Colonial Marine Expeditionary Forces.
“Miles…I swear to you…I swear upon your grave. I will bring the wrath of GOD down upon our enemies…even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

***
GOD sat alone in the main hangar bay of the colonial fleet flagship Ajax.
Silent.
Asleep.
Powerless, yet promising terrible power.
Technicians swarmed around it, working feverishly to complete the weapon of mass destruction. It was the best hope against an enemy who fought outside of time. The Chronix time shields made their ships, vehicles and ground troops nearly impervious to all conventional weapons. How could you fight an enemy who flickered in and out of time? Always a half-step ahead, the Chronix could outmaneuver, evade, encircle and destroy almost anything that stood in their way.
Only light speed weapons had any chance of catching them when they momentarily entered real time. Yet they consumed so much power only a few colonial capital ships could deploy them – including the Ajax. Ground forces did what they could with kinetic weapons. But when your enemy could sidestep a projectile as easily as someone steps out of the rain, what chance did the colonies have?
Admiral Mathison gripped the catwalk handrail and stared down, oblivious to everything around him.
I sent all those men to their death as an act of desperation – including my own son!
My own son.
“Excuse me Admiral…” a tentative voice interrupted.
“What is it Pope?”
The lead scientist hesitated briefly.
“Well spill it man. Is GOD ready?”
“Yes and no Admiral.”
These equivocating science types! They got on his nerves with their qualified yeses and circumspect no’s.
“GOD is ready for deployment and firing. But the temporal distortion inside prevents any kind of remote activation, not to mention the constant calibration necessary to keep the firing chamber chronometrically stable.”
“I assume you have a solution?”
“Someone will have to deploy with it…” Pope trailed off.
“And?!”
“We have no idea if that person will survive the discharge.”
Mathison did not hesitate.
“I’ll go.”
“But,”
“It’s settled Pope. I’ll go say my Hail Mary’s. Prep the Geosynchronous Orbital Devastator for immediate deployment.”
The Ajax folded space, itself temporarily outside of time, and hurled like a dagger towards the Chronix homeworld.

***
Suddenly.
Unexpectedly.
Ajax tore into real time and hung like an avenging angel over Chronix Prime. Time was not on its side. Chronix orbital defenses flickered and danced in and out of existence, back and forth from the future to real time. Ajax swept them aside at the speed of light in a halo of cerulean blue energy. Yet the respite from attack was only momentary.
GOD hurled forth from the main hangar bay, pulsing with chronometric energy.
Admiral Thomas Mathison, attired in his best dress whites – complete with ceremonial sword – continued through the pre-firing checklist.
Through blurred eyes it appeared his arms were in twenty places at once. He had to concentrate…think through the confusion…
All systems were green across the board. Firing chamber stable.
For you Miles.
The wrath of GOD enveloped Chronix Prime in a temporal blackhole – erasing it for all eternity.

(748 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2020
Reviews/critiques welcome

Nice story Jot!!

Great stories. Moving stories. Nice work all!!

C. wrote: "C-ya Critique Corner

This month’s theme: Home
Required elements: Something borrowed; a scent

THE HERMIT CRAB
By Tom Olbert
A. Overall story enjoyment: 5 Exciting story action without overdoing t..."

Thanks C, much appreciated!

Tom wrote: ""A Life Worth Living" by Justin Sewall

A poem of mental disintegration at life's end. A wild ride down the rapids of jumbled memories spanning all of human history from the caves to a far-flung in..."

As always, thanks for the thoughtful review!