Tag: Federation

prompt:  Write a post-apocalyptic story triggered by climate change….
available at Reedsy

The boy sighting down his rifle beside me was barely fifteen. “Do you think they have any?”

“Water? Not likely.” I was looking at the defensive lines ahead of us through a sniper scope. I might have felt better about the situation if I had the rifle to go with it. “Maybe some food, probably ammo, too.”

“So why are we…” the boy began.

“Hush, Jordan.” Satisfied that nothing was happening ahead I lowered the scope and met Jordan’s eyes. “Either we take them out, or they take us out. That simple.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to join up, work together?” The innocent naivety poured off him in waves. With a little meat on his bones, and a scrub-up, he’d be one of those boys described as cherubic. Instead, his cheeks hollow, blue eyes sunk, skin darkened by sun and grime, and curly blonde hair plastered on his head with sweat, he just looked like another victim of the water wars.

“How well did that work out for your folks?” As soon as I snapped it out I felt terrible. Jordan turned away, looking back down his rifle at the quiet defensive works.

“I’m sorry, Jordan. Fuck, I… shouldn’t have said that.” I turned my attention to the horizon to hide the tears pooling and threatening to fall.

“No, you’re right.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Do you really think we can make it to the big lake?”

I stowed the scope in a pouch at my waist. “It’s Great Lakes. Honestly? I don’t know. But we’ll have to go through their territory to do it. Let’s get back to camp.”

We eased back down the hill behind us until we were safe to stand. We were less than an hour out from our camp if we moved fast, but the late afternoon sun made steady, conservative movement safer. The air shimmered with heat, making the sparse, dry grasses seem to swim before our eyes.

“How many gun placements did you see?”

“I counted four for sure,” Jordan said, “and maybe another one, but too far to see.” Jordan had the energy-conserving, ground-eating walk of those raised in the desert plains of Kansas. It had taken me a couple years to pick it up. “How did I do?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a test, but yeah, five.” I patted the pouch with the scope. “We’ll need to find another one of these, or maybe some binoculars if you’re going to be scouting all the time.”

“Was there anything else you saw?”

“Markers – little flags – in a row between the hills and the emplacements. Probably a mine field.”

“Shit.”

“Language.”

Jordan laughed. “As if you’re one to talk.”

“I’m more than twice your age. And I’m supposed to be teaching you how to be an adult.”

“That’s no reason to be a hypocrite. Besides, you’re not that old,” he said, a crooked smile lighting up his eyes.

“Don’t think that buttering me up gets you off the hook.” I gave him a sidelong glance, his expression taking on the sweet, puppy-eyed look. “Okay, okay. You’re old enough to decide what you say and when. Just not around Marla, she’ll tear me a new asshole.”

He laughed. “Why are you together with her? You’re way prettier than she is… and nicer too.”

“That’s not…” I stopped myself before chiding him again. “We’re together because we love each other. Nothing more, nothing less.” There was more, but I didn’t feel like talking about it. “She’s not mean, she’s just… focused — and sad.”

“A lot of people in the camp are,” he said. “Sad, that is. I don’t get it. They say they wish it was like the ‘old days’ and then talk for hours about how dirty the sky was, and how their parents and grandparents kept breaking the world.”

“You were born to this, so you don’t know anything else. They talk about the bad times, after the good times, so we don’t forget that all this,” I gestured to the arid landscape around me, “was our fault.”

“How so?”

“We, humans that is, decided we liked having limitless energy on demand and cheap plastic crap more than we liked the planet. When the oceans started rising and fresh water started running out, instead of trying to fix things, we burned more fuel harvesting the ice in the Antarctic.” I shrugged. “Even before that was all gone, we all started killing each other for whatever was left.”

“But no one in the camp could be old enough to remember that far back.”

“True, but our parents and grandparents were.”

“Huh.” He seemed to ponder this for a while as we walked.

“Gloria,” he asked, “why did you take me in? When my parents….” He trailed off.

“I think it was the sad, puppy-eyes you make.” I laughed, but it wasn’t real. It was the polite laughter that said ‘now that I’ve made a joke let’s leave this alone.’

If I had to be honest with myself, his expression was part of it. Another part was knowing that if no one claimed him, a ten-year-old boy would have been left in the wilderness on his own. Like Marla, when I claimed her. We found her starving on her own in the wilderness, maybe ten or eleven, she wasn’t sure. I was only fourteen myself, but I convinced my mother that I’d take on the extra work to make sure she had food and shelter. When my mother died of the fever four years later, I’d already managed to get my own tent and gear, and a herd of goats. Marla still wasn’t ready to face the world, so she moved in with me, and mother’s belongings were shared out among the camp. She’s never talked about what she went through, but I let her know, often, that when she’s ready to talk I’m ready to listen.

“That’s not really it,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. My sun-baked olive skin looked dark against his faded brown shirt. The copper ring Marla had made for me a few years ago was dull and left green marks on my skin, but I never took it off. “It was Marla. She wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“Really?” He had a momentary look of surprise, but covered it up with his all-too-frequently-common adolescent swagger. “I guess she can be nice. You know I would’ve survived anyway.”

“I know,” I lied. “You’re tough like that.”

“But, thanks — for saving my life.”

It was something I hadn’t heard from him in at least two years. Not just the thanks, but the sincerity of tone. As much as I wanted to hug him close I knew he was ‘too old’ for that, and settled for giving his shoulder a little squeeze.

As we neared the camp the smell of meat roasting over flame tempted us in. Twilight was  just setting in and I pointed out Venus on the horizon.

“Venus,” he said. “Good luck, right?”

“I don’t really believe in luck.” I walked into our tent and shucked my gear, and Jordan did the same, taking care to put our packs and weapons in their proper places. “Thank you, Jordan. Should we eat first, or give our report?”

“Let’s give our report first. Then we can take our time with dinner.” He looked as if he wanted to ask something, but didn’t.

“Yes, after dinner you can go make googly eyes at Karina.”

“I wasn’t going to — I mean that’s not…,” he sputtered.

“That’s exactly what you’ll do if you’re smart,” Marla said. She’d snuck in so silently that neither of us heard her. She held something out to Jordan. “I found you this. You know where the tools are.”

She handed him a piece of heavy-gauge copper wire and pointed to the metal-working tools at the side of the tent. He looked at the wire in confusion. Her brown hair hung lank over her pale, freckled face, hiding one of her deep-green eyes. She wasn’t out much during the day, instead taking guard duty most nights.

“You said you wanted to learn how to make one of these,” she said, pointing at the ring on my finger. “You might as well make one for Karina.” Turning to me she said, “Captain’s waiting for your report. You take care of that and I’ll fix you some dinner.”

“You heard the lady. Let’s go Jordan.”

The “Captain”, Howard Colm, pored over maps, comparing recent, hand-drawn maps to pre-fall maps, plotting possible courses to Lake Superior. He was our camp’s de-facto leader by dint of having been a military officer in the tail-end of the water wars, and staying alive as long as he had. I’m sure he was over seventy, but still limber, agile, and strong.

“What can you add?” He spun the map around so we were looking at it right-side up and pointed to the area we had just scouted.

There was a history of our entire journey on the map, years of traveling, detours, and areas marked as too dangerous to pass. Not far to our east was Kansas City, circled in red with the words “New Nation Army” written above. To the north, where we had just scouted, the map was blank, except for the penciled-in words “Army of the East” with a large question mark.

I drew in the earthworks that formed their defilade position and added a line where the markers had been. “I think this is a mine field, but there were no markings on the flags so I can’t be sure.”

Jordan added the five machine gun positions. “They don’t seem like they’re in a hurry to leave. You think they’ll actually leave all that work behind and attack?”

“Son, if they’ve got the same sort of water shortage we do, they might do anything, sane or not.” With that, Howard sent us on our way.

“Gloria,” he asked, “does that mean we might do anything, sane or not?”

“I hope not, Jordan.” I put my arm around him and headed back toward our tent.

We were halfway there when he squirmed out from under my arm. Karina was bouncing up to meet us, her face pink, as if she’d been scrubbing it with sand like we do the dishes. Her blonde hair was hidden under a cap, and her brown eyes reflected the light of the rising moon. “Jordan, can you come have dinner with us tonight?”

He looked at me and I nodded. “Have fun,” was all I got out before the two of them bolted for her father’s tent. Marla was watching, and shook her head with a little smile.

With the current lack of water for anything other than drinking, dinner consisted of rabbit jerky and dried roots that had been pounded out into a dry not-quite-paste and warmed over the coals. Not gourmet, but filling at least. The wind shifted and the smell of cooking meat blew into the tent, making our stomachs grumble.

“The goat will be ready in another couple hours,” Marla said. “Anita and Carla took over from Sten. There’s enough for everyone to have at least a little.”

“That was our last, wasn’t it?”

Marla didn’t answer right away, but the look in her eyes told me I was right. “No water, couldn’t keep her alive.”

I moved next to her and pulled her close. “Shhh. We’ll make it through.” I don’t know if she believed me or not, but she curled up next to me and laid her head on my lap. We fell asleep on the ground there, never making it to the pile of blankets we called a bed.

When morning broke there was a slab of goat meat on a plate in the tent. Too large, if Anita and Carla were sharing it out fairly. Or then, maybe not, since it was the last, and we’d been the ones that provided the herd for the camp in the first place. At some point in the night Jordan had returned and put a blanket over us. He was still snoring away in his own pile of blankets.

The usual sounds of morning, dry coughs, moans, cooking fires being lit, drifted in. Marla had moved up during the night, her head on my chest. I brushed the hair out of her face, expecting to wake her, but she chuckled. “I’ve been awake for a while, just enjoying this.”

“I’m enjoying it too.” I kissed the top of her head and started to rise.

She stopped me. “Wait. Can we go somewhere private, and talk?”

“Of course. Right now?”

“No, let’s make sure Jordan has something to keep himself occupied, then we can go.”

Karina’s voice came from outside the tent. “Are you decent?”

“Sure, Karina, come in.”

“Good morning!” She stepped into the tent and stopped short. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know Jordie was still asleep.”

“I’m not, now. Good morning, Kar.”

Marla nudged me and whispered, “pet names.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re up. If it’s okay with you,” she looked at Marla and me, “the Captain wants Jordie to go with me, my dad and couple others on another scout.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said. “Um, can I do that, Gloria?”

“Why don’t you ever ask me?”

“Sorry, Marla, um, can I go on the scout?”

Marla snorted. “You know I’m just giving you a hard time. Can he, Gloria?”

“Sure. You make sure to do what Jerry tells you. And stay safe.”

“I will.” He threw back his blanket and pulled on his dusty trousers and boots, faded brown shirt, and pack. Grabbing his rifle, he checked the magazine, then looked in the lockbox by his bed for more ammo. “Shit,” he muttered, “I’m running low.”

“Language!” Marla glared at me. “Are you letting him say things like that?”

“No, she’s not! Sorry Marla, sorry Gloria. I won’t do it again.”

I don’t know why he covered for me, but that was one less hurdle to jump before Marla would be willing to talk. Once he headed out to patrol in the north Marla and I went south to walk around the desert a bit.

We were far enough to just see the camp, where we could talk freely. Marla sat on the ground and I did the same. “Gloria, I… I want to tell you what happened to me, but I can’t. I don’t remember most of it — I mean, it’s there, in the back of my mind, and I see flashes in my nightmares, but….”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, or can’t. You know that I’ll love you no matter what.”

“I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’ll forget me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The goats…. I don’t think it’ll be long for the rest of us.” She grabbed my hand to keep me from interrupting. “There’s no way we’ll reach the Great Lakes. Dying is the only way anyone leaves the desert. If — if I die first, I don’t want you to forget me. But I want you to find someone else. Maybe Jerry, or Anita; they’re both lonely.”

“Why don’t you matchmake Anita and Jerry?”

“They hate each other’s guts.”

“And what about you? I could die on a scouting mission, what would you do then?”

“I wouldn’t forget you. I’d take care of Jordan until he’s on his own, then I’ll go back out to the wilderness.”

“Well, that settles it then.” I snuggled up next to her. “We’re just both going to have to keep on living and grow old together. So old, we’ll make Howard look like a child.”

Marla smiled, but it did little to dispel the constant sadness behind her eyes. We sat there a while longer, until it became too hot to stay. The walk back to camp was quiet, somber. I wished there was a way to ease her pain, but without knowing the root, all I could do was to be there for her.

We spent the day around the camp; Marla making another ring from the copper she found, while I cleaned my pistol and mended Jordan’s other pair of trousers. It was nearly nightfall when Karina returned running full tilt, tears streaking her face. She barreled straight into Howard’s tent. Curious members of the camp, ourselves included started to move closer.

Howard stepped out of his tent, waved us over, and called for Anita, the camp medic. “It’s Jordan, and it’s bad.”

“How bad?” Marla asked. I couldn’t ask, couldn’t speak.

Howard wasted no words. “Gut shot. We won’t know how bad until they get him here. They’re carrying him in.”

The world dropped out from under me and I collapsed. Marla squatted down, holding me from the back, shielding me from the world. I could barely make out the sounds of Anita getting a table ready for when he came in.

When Jerry and the others carried Jordan in, hours or maybe only minutes later, they laid him on the table and collapsed. Anita looked him over and sat down with me.

“There’s nothing we can do. His stomach is punctured. He’ll die, it’s just a question of how,” Anita said.

“What does that mean?”

“Either a slow, painful death from sepsis, or…” she held up a bottle and syringe.

“What’s that?”

“Overdose of morphine. He’ll go to sleep. Painless and quick.”

I nodded and she filled the syringe. I approached him on the table.

“Gloria, mom, I’m scared.” He’d never called me that, and my heart shattered.

“It’ll be okay. She’s going to put you to sleep and you’ll wake up all fixed up.” The tears fell down my face as I tried to keep my voice positive.

He looked at the needle. “Truth?”

I nodded and tried my best to smile as Anita pushed down the plunger.

Jordan grabbed my hand. “See you later, mom.”

prompt:  Write about a character arriving in a place unlike anywhere they’ve ever been….
available at Reedsy

The day after finishing her basic firefighter training, Maya Estrada travelled farther than she had ever before. Under her uniform she wore a ring on a chain. It had been her father’s, but her mother had passed it on to her when she left for mandatory service. Probably as a reminder of what could happen, she thought.

Maya knew her mother wasn’t happy about her choice of service, but she wasn’t one to intervene. “You are your father’s daughter,” was all she said. Maya was to be a firefighter, like her father before her. He had started in his mandies as well, and continued on until he died fighting a wildfire when she was nine.

It was her first time off-world. When the liner entered the jump gate she was prepared to be amazed. It turned out, however, that super-C was boring. An even, smooth, featureless grey filled the window. She watched for a few minutes, hoping for some change, but only strained her eyes. Maya darkened the window and ran her hand over her close-cropped, tightly curled black hair. The haircut was required in basic, and seeing her reflection made her turn away from the window. She felt the short hair made her least-liked features, a sharp nose and thin lips, stand out even more. While her skin was a deep black-brown with a reddish undercast like her mother’s, her features were sharp like her father’s.

When lunch was served she was ready to refuse in some way without making it clear she had no credits. Instead it was placed in front of her and before Maya could say anything the server said with a smile, “Compliments of the Federation. If you’d like any alcohol, cannabis, soporific or stimulant that will be charged, though.”

She was on her way to smokejumper school. Firefighters in areas too rough for robots or vehicles. When she was one of the four candidates selected out of training to go straight to advanced training, she already knew that was what she wanted to do.

The exit from super-C to normal space was at least a little interesting. The featureless grey flashed a blinding white, then was replaced with the blackness of space, stars becoming visible as her eyes re-adjusted. The planet below was far different from Earth. Maybe closer to Earth as it used to be eons ago.

She saw huge swaths of green around and between the cities. There were a few places on Earth that were still that way, but nothing like what she now witnessed. The cities were smaller than what she was used to, and most had an agricultural area directly around the city itself. Still, most of the planet was green.

Maya went from the space port to an airport where she got on the smallest plane she’d ever seen. From there it was a few hours flying over those vast expanses of green. They landed at a small strip adjacent to a small building, no more than eight or nine stories. The construction seemed solid enough, though lacking in any decoration besides a sign with a parachute over a flame.

The building wasn’t what held her attention, though. All around the clearing trees reached for the skies. The air smelled like the rooftop garden on the block, but stronger. The  sharp, resinous aroma of the evergreen trees mixed with the rich, loamy scent of decaying plants carried far in the humid heat. She stepped off the airstrip onto the grass. The ground was soft underfoot, and uneven. She dealt with momentary vertigo as her body tried to interpret the strange sensation of not standing on a truly solid surface.

As the other members of the cohort arrived she noticed that only one other was a Junior Troop like herself. Most of them had been wildlands firefighters for at least a year before qualifying for the program. A few of them, Troops wearing the green tab signifying they were still in their mandatory service period, eyed the two fresh recruits with obvious suspicion. The older candidates, those past their mandies and higher in rank, had no sour looks for any of them.

The other Junior Troop approached her. “Junior Troop Estrada,” he said, looking at her name tag, “Mel Travers, Sol 2. Just finished basic. You?”

She extended a hand. “Maya Estrada. Same, only Earth. You… look like you’ve spent a lot of time outside. Is that from training, or…?”

Mel laughed. “No, I’m straight off the farm.”

“Ah, yeah, Venus,” Maya said. “I didn’t want to assume.” She looked at the grass under her feet and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, getting used to the sensation. “So you must be used to this,” she said pointing at the ground.

“Have you really never been outdoors before?” Mel looked puzzled.

“Well, sure. But always in the city.” Maya inspected her nails. “Where there’s solid concrete underfoot.”

“You’ll get used to it in no time,” he said with a wink.

Eager to change the subject Maya pointed out that the head instructor was coming out of the building and the other candidates were beginning to line up. They joined in the line up, falling in as they’d learned in basic.

Once the line had settled the instructor called the seven highest ranking candidates forward. She passed a tablet to the senior ranking candidate and spoke with them in low tones for a moment before turning back to face the rest of the candidates.

“I am Commodore Jihane Ibrahim,” she said, her face reflecting the glow of the sun in its deep, cool brown; faint lines around her eyes visible only by the slight shadows there. “You may call me Commodore, or Sir. I am not your mother or your father, and I am not a civilian instructor.”

She wandered past the line of nineteen candidates remaining in the formation. “I’ve been a wildlands firefighter for 22 years, an officer and smokejumper for 19 years, and a Doctor of Government in Wildlands Emergency Management for nine years. I’ve run this academy for six years, and will continue do so until I retire.”

“I see I have five mandies with experience, and two fresh out of boot. I’ve selected the highest ranking candidates to pair up with you. The other twelve of you, pair off as you see fit.” She returned to her place at the front. “From this moment forward, you will do nothing on your own. Your partner will be in line of sight or hearing at every moment. If I ask you where your partner is you should be able to answer immediately and precisely. Losing track of your partner is an automatic fail.” She nodded toward the high ranking candidates she had pulled out earlier.

The first was Lieutenant Kal Markham, a lanky blond with pink showing through the dun of his tanned skin. “Junior Troop Estrada, you’re with me.” The next chose Mel, and the other mandatory service members, all Troops, looked at them with daggers in their eyes.

Kal took his place beside Maya, and leaned over to whisper in the nearest unhappy Troop’s ear. “We had to pick the fresh recruits, as they’ll need the most help to stay alive.” This mollified the Troop and the word passed through the rest of the formation in whispers.

Once the pairing-off had finished, and the assignments were noted in Commodore Ibrahim’s tablet, they were given their first task. “On the seventh floor you will find your rooms, marked with your names. You and your partner will drop your luggage there, then inspect and pack the rucksacks you find there with the gear that is laid out. You will mark your rucksack with one of the adhesive name tags that are being passed out now. Then you and your partner will report to the ninth floor to receive your fire suits. Mark the trousers, jacket, gloves, boots, helmet liner and helmet each with another of the adhesive name tags you have been given. You will then report back here in formation, geared up. There is no lift. You have thirty minutes. Go!”

“Sir, yes Sir!” the formation called out in unison, then began a mad scramble into the building. Kal and Maya both reached out to hold the other back, and laughed.

“Thirty minutes is a lifetime,” Kal said.

“Yeah, uh, yes, Sir. It was like this in basic,” Maya answered. “My bag is light enough I can run up the stairs if I need to, so why get caught in the crush?”

They finished their task, Kal taking time to show Maya how to inspect and pack the gear she wasn’t used to. The rucksack was heavier than Maya had thought, and carrying it up to the ninth floor was painful. However, once she had her fire suit on, Kal helped her adjust the numerous straps and pads on the pack making it far more comfortable than she had expected.

Kal and Maya, without rushing, arrived with five minutes to spare. Many of the others were sweating from the exertion of their mad scramble in the high humidity. Most of them, however, had made it back in under half the time allowed. Something she knew she’d have to get used to soon enough.

Commodore Ibrahim returned, followed by a Captain, and three Senior Sergeants. “The trainers will now hand out radios and navigation devices. You have forty hours to reach all the locations marked in the devices and pick up the markers at each stop. Each pair of you has different locations between here and the end goal. Failure to pick up any of the markers is an automatic fail of this school. Failure to show up at the end goal within the forty-hour time limit is a strike. Two strikes and you fail the school. Any questions?”

“Sir, no Sir!” the candidates called out in unison. As the trainers handed out the devices the pairs took off into the woods at the edges of the clearing. Kal and Maya were the last to be given their device and leave.

“I heard what you told that Troop, Sir,” Maya said. “Is it true?” 

“Not at all,” Kal said. “I argued with Sub-Lieutenant Obele over who got you. Your academic and fitness scores are no joke. Travers is a very close second. The rest of the mandies are all good enough, I guess, but you two are cut out to be exceptional.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Maya watched as they approached the tree-line. It seemed dark and otherworldly to her eyes.

“And when we’re out here, I’m just Kal,” he said. “There’s plenty of time for the Sir crap in garrison, but on the fire line there’s no time for that. If I, or any of the others with experience tell you to jump, you do it. That’s how we all stay alive.”

They walked in a silence broken only by the humming of insects, the chirping of birds and tree frogs, and the occasional check-in on the radio. The canopy closed over her head, the branches high above her threatening to fall on her at any moment. It was somehow both claustrophobic and comforting. Under foot, the ground was uneven, rich odors rising from every footstep. The air felt thick in her lungs, sweat soaked into her helmet liner, and more trickled down her spine. Every little breeze made the needles rustle in the trees around her and mixed the resinous aroma of the trees with the rotten smell of the loam below.

The day wore on, and they had picked up three of eleven markers, but Maya had trouble discerning where the sun was. They were in a place of constant gloom under the towering trees. “Sir, uh, Kal,” she asked, “how long have we been out here?”

He checked the navigation device. “Just coming up on nine hours. Let’s stop and eat.”

Maya nodded. “Gladly.”

Kal showed her how to quickly drop her pack by pulling on the latch at her chest. “It takes a little extra time to reconnect everything before you pick it up, but dropping it like this should become as natural as breathing.”

It took her a couple tries to find the latch without feeling around for it. “Yeah, if I needed it off in a hurry right now I’d already be too late.” She reconnected all the straps and sat down leaning against the pack. “Of all things, my ankles are exhausted.”

Kal smiled. “Yeah, I never left the block until my mandies,” he said, “so I know exactly what you’re talking about. It took me about three weeks to get used to walking in the wild.”

Maya pursed her lips, “I can handle three weeks. I’ll be used to it before I graduate, at least.”

They ate protein bars and sipped on their water. “With the way the light has barely changed I thought I might be too soft for this,” Maya said between sips. “Has it really been nine hours?”

“It has.” Kal looked at her. “I figured if someone as smart as you were coming to Dem 2, you’d have looked it up. 38 hours, 17.4 minutes per planetary rotation.”

Maya snorted, “I would’ve, only I didn’t know where they were sending me. Never saw my orders. They just said ‘get on this liner,’ and then ‘get on this plane.’”

“Well, then, welcome to Erinle, second planet of the Dem system.” Kal stood. “I need to piss, then you should do the same, and we’ll get to the next marker.”  He turned his back to her and relieved himself against a tree. “Don’t you start until I’m done. That’s another habit to pick up. One of us should always be on lookout.”

“Makes sense.”

When Kal finished up he said “your turn.”

She moved a meter away from her pack, dropped her trousers and squatted, keeping her eyes on Kal. “I’m going to pretend that my ankles aren’t tired and we’ll continue straight on through to the end, right?”

Kal shrugged. “The first three markers were pretty far apart. If they’re all like this we may well have to.”

Maya stood and fixed her undergarments and fire suit. She knelt down and shrugged into her pack the way Kal had showed her, and they continued on. The next marker was just a few hundred meters ahead and they reached it in what seemed like no time. The trail they had been following, though, came to an end.

“Hm.” Kal pulled the marker off the tree and placed it in her pack. “It looks like we need to make our own path from here.” He pointed off the side of the path. “The next marker is that way.”

Where the trail had been hard-packed, with an occasional rock or root to trip her up, making her way through the trees was downright treacherous. Ferns, which Kal told her were called fire ferns, grew out of the thick, soft pine duff. Fallen branches, some five or six meters long, provided constant obstacles. The occasional downed tree had to be circumnavigated or climbed over.

“All of this,” Kal said, pointing to the duff, the ferns, and the fallen wood around him, “is fuel for wildfires. A great deal of your job will be to clean stuff like this up.”

They reached a small clearing, where Maya could once again see the slowly darkening sky. She noticed a new smell here, too, reminding her that she’d grown accustomed to the smell of the forest. “What’s that smell?”

Kal stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh, nice.” He walked to a pine growing on the edge of the clearing, smaller than the ones they’d been walking past and with a different pattern of bark. He pulled off a small piece of the bark and sniffed at it before handing it to Maya. “Here, check this out.”

The bark smelled of vanilla. The scent was heady and sweet. “What is this?”

“Pinus erinle,” Kal answered. “Engineered from Pinus ponderosa on Earth.”

“Studying botany?”

“No, you’ll come to learn the names of the trees and plants you protect.” Kal shrugged. “Or at least, I did.”

“So you’re from here?”

“Well, no, I’m from Kiwa, Bul 4a.” They crossed the clearing. “I’ve been stationed here for two years. We’re at the end of the wet season, and it’s been drier than normal. Fire season’s going to be bad this year.”

Maya mopped the sweat from her brow. “This is dry?”

“For the wet season, yes.” Kal pointed out their next marker. He pulled it and put it in Maya’s pack. “Sure, it’s 80 percent humidity. But we’ve had less than thirty centimeters of rain this season. Come dry season, this entire valley will be a tinderbox.”

“It’s hard to imagine all this on fire,” Maya said. She was going to say more until she saw another clearing ahead. This one, however, was black, not green.

“Dust mask and goggles on.” Kal didn’t bark it like an order but Maya felt the seriousness of it all the same. “The ash produces fine particulate that’s both bad to breathe and painful in the eyes.”

Maya stepped into the burn area with Kal. Even with the mask the smell of burnt wood overtook everything. The ground was coated in a thick layer of ash, the ghosts of burned trunks dotted throughout the landscape. As they crossed the thousands of hectares of scorched land, Kal pointed out small green nubs, pushing out of the ashes. “That’s why they’re called fire ferns. They’re the first thing that comes back. This fire was last season.”

Maya compared the desolation she stood in with the trees behind her. If there was any way to protect them, she would do it. “Do you think I can be stationed here?”

“I don’t know,” Kal said. “But if you prove my instincts about you right, I’ll personally request you for my platoon.”

prompt: Write a story where the power goes out on a spaceship or submarine….
available at Reedsy

Quiet, too quiet. The engines were never audible from the bridge. The low vibrating hum that travels through the decks, up one’s bones and into the back of the subconscious, though, was painfully obvious in its absence.

If the missing vibration didn’t make the situation clear, the sudden drop out of super-C combined with the loss of artificial gravity and all sources of light did. The Tahiti Sunset was dead, adrift. The cockpit canopy was darkened. Without power to force a state change it would be as long as an hour before it would become translucent and stars would be visible. Her eyes ached, pupils trying to dilate further than possible.

Anj felt along the control panel in front of her, counting the switches right to left. When her hand reached the fourth she raised the cover and flipped the switch beneath it. Nothing happened. “No, no. Come on, baby, give mama something.” She flipped the switch off and back on, to no effect. She counted the switches by feel again. It was the correct switch.

Careful to keep a firm grip on her seat, she released the belts holding her in place. Sudden movements in microgravity were dangerous, especially when one is effectively blind. She felt her way along the bulkhead to the vac suit storage. Reaching in she felt her suit, hanging so she could back in and suit up in seconds. It was the one place in the ship where she was confident to let muscle memory take over and ignore the darkness. Eyes closed she scrambled into her suit as in a drill.

As she lowered the helmet the suit’s heads-up display popped to life. In most situations it was easy to ignore the display, but in the total lack of light it was excruciating, a searing stab of blinding light into her over-taxed eyes.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the spots to go away, and for the light she could still see through her eyelids to mellow out. When she could look at the HUD without pain she tried looking around the ship. The HUD provided no illumination outside her helmet, so she turned on the headlamp, on its lowest setting.

Looking at the control panel she could see that she had, indeed turned on the emergency battery power. “Oh, baby, what happened? I hope it’s just a loose connection.” She ran a gloved hand along the bulkhead next to her. It’s not that she believed that the ship itself could feel and hear her, but she had grown attached. It helped that the navigation AI had been upgraded with a basic personality, friendly, casual, and optimistic without being too chirpy.

Anj kicked off from the bulkhead, floating toward the hatch to the battery compartment, and the tool kit strapped to the deck next to it. She opened the compartment and checked all the connections she could reach by grabbing them and trying to move them. All were secure. She removed her right glove and ran her hand along the batteries. Cold. If the batteries were cold it meant they hadn’t been charging for a while. “Why didn’t you tell me, sweetie?”

She unstrapped the tool box and kicked herself toward the cargo bay. “Tahi, remind me to check the power warning circuit.” She said it before she realized that the ship’s AI was unable to respond, or even hear her. “Never mind, I’ll do it as soon as we get back up.”

In the cargo bay she opened the deck hatch into the engine room. The fusion reactor sat dark near the forward bulkhead. She approached and set the magnetized tool box on the floor near the main panel. She pulled out the tester and connected the leads to the port on the panel. The tester blinked to life, sending power and signals to the circuits in the panel. Lines of red text began scrolling up the tester. When the output stopped scrolling she scrolled back to the first line. FAULT K93-19747.

She pulled a small notebook out of the tool box. It was beyond old-fashioned, but at least the thin plastic pages didn’t require any power to work. When she was unable to find any notes about that specific fault she moved on to the next. By the time she’d tried to find the fifth fault she was beginning to think that she wasn’t going to solve it, and would likely die of asphyxiation eventually.

Still, she pressed on. By the time she reached the eighth error she found a note in her notebook. It was related to containment failure; specifically that one of the electromagnet’s output was unstable. It was as good a place to start as any. She removed the outer housing to get to the ring of electromagnets. She noticed a discoloration of the housing directly over one of the electromagnets, as though the metal had been heated beyond its rated capacity.

After checking the suit’s power was sufficient she turned on recording and slowly scrolled through the error messages on the tester. Picking up the housing and scanning the suit camera over it slowly she said “Looks like one of the e-mags overheated.” She pulled herself around to the back of the reactor to look at the component. Sitting close to where the housing had been was a junction box, also discolored. “This junction will need to be checked out as well,” she said, pointing to the burn mark.

Still recording, she grabbed the needed wrench and removed the questionable electromagnet, careful to stick each bolt to the magnet on her left suit sleeve. Once it was free there was no doubt. The connections beneath were loose and coated in carbon. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I should’ve checked everything after the reactor overhaul. They weren’t careful putting you back together.” She placed the component in a bag and clipped it to the tool box, then swapped out the wrench for a driver.

“Checking the junction.” Anj removed the junction cover plate and found two of the fine sensor wires fused to the housing. “Seems the heat killed the sensors before they could report, and shorted out the charging circuit.” She removed the entire board from the junction, checking the plugs as she removed them and deciding that aside from the sensor wires and the battery level return wire they were serviceable.

“Steps to correct: first, replace the e-mag. Second, replace the battery level return wire. Third, replace the sensor wires. Finally, re-run diagnostics.” She turned off recording, and the suit light, and let herself float aimlessly for a bit while trying to figure out how to make all those things happen. As her eyes adjusted she noticed faint light in the cockpit. The canopy must have gone translucent finally.

Unsure what parts she still had in the cargo hold from the overhaul she pushed back into the hold and opened the crate. “Please tell me they left the e-mags.” On top was the old main control board, not needed, thankfully. Beneath that was the ring, the frame on which the electromagnets mounted. Under the ring were the hydrogen injectors, the helium collector for when the reactor was cycled, and sure enough, the electromagnets.

She picked one up and compared it to the one she had removed. It looked similar enough, but she wanted to be sure. Turning her suit light back on she compared the markings and mounting holes. The manufacturer was different, but the two had the same ratings, and the mounting points matched exactly. “Let’s put this in and mark item one off the list.”

Anj placed the burned out electromagnet in the crate with the other scrap and closed it back up, after retrieving the main control board that had drifted lazily across half the cargo bay. The markings on the battery level return wire, which also acted as a ground, showed it as 0.3 ohm at 100 meters. “At least you’re not a superconductor. I think I can work with this.”

She looked around the cargo bay. There were no wires she could salvage. She thought about the wiring in the ship itself. Maybe the wiring to the recycler? That wouldn’t work, she realized, unless she had a dozen or so to weave together. She needed a beefy wire, about a meter long. She couldn’t pull any from the battery bay, where more of that same wire was installed. Taking it from the battery bay to the cockpit was non-starter as well.

Based on a hunch she opened another hatch in the cargo bay deck. The connections to the artificial gravity. The wires were slightly smaller, but there was enough to double them up. “Sorry, baby. This is gonna cost in repairs, but I do what I have to.” Anj pulled wire cutters from the tool box and measured out a one meter section in two of the wires before cutting. She placed insulating boots over the cut ends of the wires in the deck to avoid shorts, and replaced the deck hatch.

After getting the wires doubled and firmly connected she pondered the next problem. The sensor wires were hair-thin, and made of a special alloy. She returned to the crate of used parts. There was no old junction board in the crate, as the original was deemed in good enough condition to leave. There were only two sources of fine enough wire she had access to, her suit, and the old main control panel. Problem was, neither of them were of the right alloy.

She returned to the cockpit with her notebook, strapped herself in the pilot’s seat, and began slowly leafing through the pages, looking for anything she might have written in the past 12 years about those wires. There was a full page with the wiring diagram for the sensor wires, the type of wire they used, a site on the weave where they could be purchased at wholesale cost, and a note that said: “Buy some spares!”

“Why didn’t I listen to myself?” She thought about the state of the Tahiti when she bought it. The sensors had originally been shorted out with small pieces of plain copper wire. That’s why she needed all the details of how it was meant to go together. “I won’t like it, but I’ll do it. You hear me, Tahi? I’m doing this under duress.”

She left the cockpit and returned to the trunk in the cargo bay. A few quick snips on the back of the old main control panel and she had two copper jumpers to short out the sensors. After putting the jumpers in place on the board and replacing the board in the junction she started recording again.

“I don’t have replacements for the sensors in the junction, so for now I’ve shorted the sensors with copper jumpers. I’m about to re-run diagnostics.” And plugged the tester back in. A series of green messages scrolled by, followed by three yellow warnings and a message that the reactor was in need of service. “You think I don’t know that?”

She replaced the junction cover and the housing around the electromagnets. Now all she needed was enough power to start up the reactor. This would normally happen from the batteries when a restart was needed in space, or from ground power when docked. She had been drifting for more than three hours, and there was no way to determine her location or even send out a distress call without power.

Returning to the pilot’s chair and strapping herself in again, she began leafing through her notebook. Somewhere in there was a “recipe” for jump-starting the reactor. It was in a section marked by a red page that said “Last Ditch Only” with a skull and crossbones crudely drawn on it. It contained things she had learned mostly from other pilots, most of it questionable at best. She leafed through the few pages there. How to use a CO2 scrubber filter and charcoal to make urine drinkable. How to attach a vac suit’s ion drive and battery pack to a crate to send it on a one-way trip. Or, how to send off contraband toward your target before you dock, she thought. How to charge the ship’s batteries using a ground vehicle in the cargo bay. That would be handy, if I had one.

Finally she found it. A page full of notes and diagrams on how to jump-start a fusion reactor with dead batteries. In large print at the top of the page the pilot she’d gotten this from had written “Do not try this! Ever!” At the bottom he had signed it “Best, Kai.”

“Well, Kai,” Anj said, “I didn’t listen to me, not like I’ll listen to you now.” The instructions called for at least two vac suit batteries. She had the one in the suit she was wearing and one spare. A quick look at the HUD showed the vac suit battery at just over 65% charge. She checked the cabin oxygen levels. Since she’d been in the vac suit the whole time the oxygen in the cabin was still at a reasonable 18.4 percent.

Another trip to the crate netted her the burnt battery cable, from which she cut three pieces of usable wire. She grabbed the spare battery, stripped out of the suit, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the faint starlight that reached the reactor room. She could see her breath in the growing cold. 

After removing the main control panel bolts and lifting it up she had access to the wiring underneath. Using the light from the tester she identified the connection points in the instructions. After wiring the batteries in sequence she turned the main power switch on the control panel to the “start” position and touched the wires to the points indicated. She flinched as she was blinded by a bright flash and the smell of ozone. The reactor whined and sputtered, then stopped.

“Come on, baby. You can do it for mama.” She waited for what seemed like hours for her eyes to readjust, then touched the wires again. Knowing what to expect she shut one eye tight, and forced herself not to flinch. The reactor whined, then pop-pop-popped a few times before the turbine began turning. The instructions had clearly stated not to remove the wires until the turbine was at full speed or they were completely depleted. She held the wires steady, the heat building up in them burning her hands as the turbine sped up bit by bit.

Finally the sound she was used to, the turbine running at full power, was her cue to move the wires and close the main control panel. The batteries were hot, and the overload indicator on both had popped. She dropped them in the suit locker on her way back to the pilot’s chair. “I hope I don’t need to make a space walk now. It’ll be the shortest one ever.”

“I’m sorry, Anj.” The ship’s AI had a feminine voice, and did a good job of emulating emotive speech. “I seem to have been offline for the past four hours and sixteen minutes. We are no longer traveling super-C, has there been a problem?”

“Yes, there has. But first, three things. One, figure out where we are. Two, make a note to pick up spare sensor wires and e-mags when we get you in for repair. Three, remind me to add another warning on the page about how to jump-start a reactor. Oh, and remind me to demand a refund from the shop that did the reactor overhaul. Their shoddy work caused the failure.”

“That was four things,” the AI said. “The last three have been noted. I’ve just calculated the first. Based on the location beacons from the nearest and next nearest gate we are in this sector.” A star map hologram appeared over the pilots console. “We are about 83 light hours from the nearest gate, and 312 from the next. Based on our current trajectory and drift rate of just over 1286 kilometers per second we are somewhere in this band.” A donut shaped highlight appeared, growing slowly as they continued to drift.

“Bring us on-course to the nearest gate, and send out a distress call.” Anj strapped herself in her chair. “I hope there’s an escort cruiser nearby to give us a warp bubble.”

“Anj, artificial gravity seems to be malfunctioning.”

“I know, Tahi. I’m sorry. Had to pull some wires from the grav generator to get the reactor working again.”

“Oh dear. I’ll keep all acceleration to one gee or less, then.”

“Sounds like a plan.” The return of the feeling of gravity was welcome.

“Do you think naming you after a place that sank beneath the ocean was bad luck?” Anj patted the console.

“Of course not.” The AI paused. “There is no such thing as luck. Besides, the old pictures you showed me were very aesthetically pleasing. I believe ‘magical’ may be an appropriate adjective.”

“It may very well be.” Anj chuckled. “And since we have some time, how about a game of poker?”

“You know I still can’t bluff,” the AI said. “But no one said I could never learn it, right?”

“That’s right,” Anj said, glad to hear her friend’s optimism again. “We’ve got a few days right now, might as well try again.”

prompt: Write a story about someone looking to make amends for a mistake….
available at Reedsy

It’s odd that the things one has little to no control over can produce the most profound guilt. The same guilt that had Lily’s guts in knots. Her client was dead. If she had been there a few minutes earlier she could have prevented it.

Lily checked her outfit, crisp western-style suit in a medium brown-grey. Her porcelain-pale skin, pale blue eyes, and white hair with spiked blue tips contrasting with the warm brown. As a member of the Board of Security Professionals, this was to be her first time to stand on the other side of the bench in a hearing.

She took a deep breath and entered the hearing chamber. Seated were the other six members of the board, with her normal seat empty. The remaining members of the board looked like a photo of the Founders of the Federation; uniformly dark brown, some with warm, reddish undertones, others cool, but all with “normal” African features. Lily, on the other hand, had the “less-desirable” Euro features, in spite of the fact that her father was a genetic engineer and could have made her look like the majority if he had wished.

Sitting in the gallery were the members of the SIMI Trade Commission Board, the highest authority on the station. In a normal hearing they wouldn’t be there, but the BSP were to judge one of their own. Without oversight from the Trade Commission the entire hearing could be called into question. The Trade Commission was, contrary to what one would encounter in most parts of the Federation, made up of a broad array of face shapes and skin colors. What the Federation as a whole was supposed to look like.

 “Hearing number 302-13-21-LC is now in session.” Ania, Director of the BSP, spoke from her position in the middle of the bench. “Lily Cavin, you are called before the Board of Security Professionals to give an account of the events of the 12th day of the 13th month of Federal Year 302.”

“I travelled to Mars… excuse me, Sol 4, Dome 418, on a commercial shuttle. I was scheduled to meet Dr Nadine Ngata at 04:30 Federal time, to manage security for the FDF Ethics and Oversight conference.” Lily kept the guilt she felt from her voice. This was not the place for it.

“And what time did you actually arrive?”

“The shuttle was held in orbit for over two hours, and we touched down at 05:42.” Lily took a deep breath to calm her nerves and went on. “I arrived at the main level of the dome at 06:04 and stopped by the first toilet to freshen up. And that’s when I found Dr Ngata.”

“How did you find the doctor?”

“She was in a stall, shot multiple times.” Lily felt the guilt rising like bile. “I told her not to leave her room before my arrival, but I wasn’t firm enough in my warnings.” She didn’t add that the doctor had been distrustful, and had only hired her to squelch rumors of racism.

“Where were your local-hires while this was going on?”

“Locally hired security forces for the conference were due to arrive at 06:50 for a briefing,” Lily said. “The two body-guards who were assigned overnight lost her at 05:53 when she refused to stay in her room and used privileged access to cut through a Police barracks with two exits on each of three levels. They said she was carrying a satchel, but it still hasn’t been found.”

“Was Dr. Ngata working with law enforcement?”

“Not directly,” Lily said. “I did a full intel and background before accepting her as a client. Her work was as an ethics consultant with the Federal Defense Force, not directly with Combat, Police, Fire, or any individual FDF components.”

“What kind of enemies did she have?”

“The kind that send death threats.” Lily shook her head. “I’m sorry. She had received 118 death threats over the previous 10 months, all untraceable.”

“The reason I asked about what kind of enemies,” Ania tapped her tablet and a document appeared on the large holo behind the board. “This is the autopsy. Nine bullets, all FDF issue, serial numbers traced to the main Police barracks of Dome 412. The same Dome 412 that was destroyed last month in an horrific terrorist attack. They were fired by a rail pistol taken from that same weapons locker, and the pistol was turned low enough to be subsonic, but just high enough to cause fatal injury.”

Ania looked at the other board members, each nodding in turn. “We have already gone over your contracts, security plan as outlined in the same, and relevant communications logs with Dr. Ngata and the local hires. You are excused while the board makes their judgement.”

Lily returned to her flat, near the station’s dock. It was below the level where rotation provided one G, originally designated for storage when the station was still a mining platform. The 1.21 G felt comforting, the extra weight her cocoon. She lay down and rested until her comm chimed, letting her know they had reached a decision.

She stood at attention before the board to hear their judgement.

Ania pounded the gavel. “It is the finding of this board, that the death of Dr. Nadine Ngata was not a failure of the security measures instituted by Lily Cavin on her behalf. Dr. Ngata purposely evaded the bodyguards hired to protect her, and ignored the warnings of Ms. Cavin as they pertained to her own safety. Ms. Cavin performed her duties according to the standards of the Board of Security Professionals. It is the finding of this board that Lily Cavin shall face no fine, sanction, or censure, and her license remains in good standing.”

Lily left the hearing and stood on the promenade, looking down on the people one level down doing their daily routines. The floors curved slowly up in both directions. By walking in one direction she could end up right back where she started. Growing up on the station meant that planets felt backwards to her. That might have to change, though. It was too late to try to change her role on the station, but she could move to one of the colonies, take up a trade.

Her reverie was broken by Ania. “Lily, can we talk?”

“Sure.”

“Listen,” Ania said. “I don’t know how you’re feeling, or what you’re going through right now, except guilty. I know that one well.”

“I should’ve made sure the bodyguards had access…” Lily was cut off by Ania’s finger on her lips.

“Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve… that’s not the truth, and some part of you knows it.” Ania stepped back from the railing. “Walk with me.”

Lily walked beside her, content to let Ania set the conversational pace. They entered a lift and headed up two levels. Once there, Ania led her to her flat and invited her in.

“Would you like some tea, Lily?”

“Sure.” Lily looked at the small flat, the few decorations overshadowed by a display on a small shelf; an image of a much younger Ania in FDF Police gear, and a medal and commendation. “So you were police in your mandatory service?”

“And after.” Ania set down a cup of tea for Lily on the table. Lily took the hint and joined her there. “Until my partner died on the job. He should’ve waited for me to show up, but he didn’t.” A shadow crossed her face, and brief grimace of pain.

“I’m sorry,” Lily said. “That must be hard.”

“It was… still is, if I’m honest.” Ania set her tea down and fixed Lily’s gaze. “But the mistake I made was leaving the force.”

“Why?”

“I blamed myself.” Ania’s face relaxed, her gaze soft. “If I hadn’t been held up in court, maybe my partner would still be alive. It took me too long to realize that, more importantly, if he’d waited for me, he’d still be alive.” She took another sip of tea. “I blamed myself. I let guilt dictate my next move and I left the force, in spite of how much I loved it.”

“I don’t see the relevance,” Lily lied. She did, but wasn’t ready to admit it.

“I see how much you love what you do,” Ania said. “But right now, you’ve got guilt chewing you up and clouding your mind. I didn’t give myself a second chance, but maybe…”

“Maybe?”

Ania sighed. “Maybe, if I can convince you to not make the same mistake I did, I can at least feel like I tried to redeem myself.”

“So,” Lily said, “this is about making yourself feel better? I’m your proxy? I don’t know how I can keep doing this job without feeling like a fraud.”

“Yes, it’s about making myself feel better, but,” she grabbed Lily’s hand, “it’s mostly about helping you through what you’re feeling right now.”

“I was considering working for my dad,” Lily said, “not the one here on the station but my other dad. He’s in one of the colonies, growing potatoes. At least I wouldn’t get anyone killed that way.”

“You didn’t get anyone killed.” Ania patted her hand. “This is what I’m talking about. You should take a week or two off, think it over. And I want to you to talk to me, any time of day or night, when you feel ready. I didn’t give myself a second chance, but maybe I can help you give yourself one.”

“You say I’m not at fault, but it took the board hours…”

“The board decided before you even walked out of the room.” Ania smiled. “We spent two and a half hours answering questions from the Trade Commission before we could announce our finding, though. And then one of the Trade Commission members had the gall to complain that we took too long to come to an obvious conclusion!”

“Okay, I’ll give it a couple weeks.” Lily walked to the door, and stopped halfway out. “What should I do in the mean time?”

“Why don’t we start with breakfast tomorrow? The café on the promenade at 07:00. My treat.” Ania shushed Lily before she could raise an objection. “I’ll see you in the morning, unless you need someone to talk to before then.”

prompt: “Write a story that takes place in a writer’s circle….”
available on Reedsy

Kala sat at the terminal, ready to type, just as soon as the ideas started flowing. She had thought about this for years, and here she was at last. Still, nothing. No bolt of inspiration, no moment of “A-ha,” not even a glimmer of an idea. In retrospect, this seemed like a bad idea.

Maybe if I describe my characters first. She began to type. “161 cm, 58kg, euro complexion, bushy medium-blonde curls….” Kala sighed and deleted what she wrote. I just described my mother. The blank screen taunted her for forty minutes until her comm chimed to remind her the group was meeting again.

She closed the terminal and headed back down to the meeting room. The atmosphere was all too cheerful for her current mood, so she continued past to the exterior door. The scene before her, a wide avenue lined with rows of identical blocks could be almost any city in the Federation. If she had walked the one kilometer to the opposite exit of the block, she would be standing by a lake right now. Surrounded by trees derived from birch, alder, and spruce, the lake boasted the best freshwater fishing off Terra. That’s what the block information screens said, anyhow.

With only a hint of a decision Kala began walking to the north side of the block. If she took the outside route, she wouldn’t need to pass by the workshop to get to the lake. There was a certain novelty in walking outside a block.

Self-driving vehicles whispered past with no apparent order, traveling in what seemed random directions on the avenues. She stood and watched for a few minutes and realized how little attention she paid to such things. Those traveling farthest used the center of the avenue, and proximity to the shoulder told one where each would turn, and in what direction. What had seemed random chaos coalesced into an intricate dance. The algorithms that piloted the taxis, busses and delivery vehicles allowed them to avoid one another while maintaining the most efficient speed and travel distance possible. How did people ever steer these things manually? It must’ve killed millions.

Kala walked slowly, taking in the surrounding sights. She marveled that for her entire life she hadn’t paid attention to the world around her. Up close, the blocks looked impossibly tall at one hundred stories. Those in the distance, however, appeared as featureless, squat grey boxes, the square kilometer footprint far exceeding the height.

Rounding the corner to the west side of the block the lake opened to her left, beginning halfway down the block’s width and continuing south for another two kilometers. The only beach access was here, the rest of the lake guarded by the trees genetically engineered to survive on this planet. There were fish in the lake, also genetically engineered to survive here. That people stocked the lake with living fish and other people hunted them made no sense to her. She could go to any grocery in any block and pick up lab-grown fish, poultry, pork, beef… any meat desired, and nothing had to die. Short the funds for that, one could pick up the subsidized meat-replacement protein in any style, although the fish-style was rather tasteless and soft.

She walked right on the water’s edge, not concerned that the lake was lapping at her feet, soaking her shoes through. The air smelled green, somehow, as though the trees were painting the sky. Nice image, Kala, but I’m not trying to write poetry.

“Hey, Kala, are you…?”

The voice startled Kala out of her reverie. She turned to face the interloper. “Oh, Tal. What’re you doing out here?”

“I’m out here to ask you that same question.” Concern crossed his brow. “Why weren’t you in the group?” Tal raised a hand. “Wait, let me guess. You didn’t finish a paragraph to share, and you were… embarrassed… sad… afraid you’d seem out of place?”

“I didn’t finish a single word. All the talk about write what you know, find your voice, don’t be afraid of sounding foolish… it’s not working.” Kala crossed her arms tight across her chest. “I know what I want to write, but I can’t.”

“Of course you can. You just have to believe it.” Tal put an arm around her. “We’re just trying to convince you of that.”

“You don’t understand.” Kala pointed at a bench up the beach a few meters. “Sit?”

They sat in silence for several minutes before Tal spoke up. “Help me understand.”

“The story I want to write is about a conspiracy. What if all the crazy conspiracy theories about Dome 412 are almost true? What if… the truth is closer to those theories than the official reports?”

“That’s an idea. Ideas are easy, execution is the work. Remember that from yesterday’s talk?” He cocked his head to the side. “Perhaps it just feels too ambitious to begin with. How about starting with something a little lighter?”

“You still don’t understand. It’s the only thing I can think about, but I can’t write it. This story gets out, I end up in prison in the Oort Cloud.” She sighed. “Ok, now I sound crazy.”

“Well, I don’t expect you’d get locked in Federation Max for writing a story.”

“I always wanted to be a writer.” Kala looked across the lake, afraid that Tal was looking at her with pity for her sorry mental state. “It’s really all I dreamed about. Life got in the way though. Career. I made my home in the Federal Defense Force for twelve years.”

“What was your job there? Police? Fire? Combat?”

“Criminal Investigations. Dome 412 was the case that made me quit.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “The evidence we had was… destroyed. All of it. The official story was the one the media assumed and reported from the beginning. Over forty-nine thousand civilians and Federal troops dead. Zero separatist terrorists. I held the truth in my hands and let my superiors destroy it.”

“Ah, but the official reports said all the terrorists were all killed.”

“No, it said there were no surviving terrorists. The reason wasn’t that they were all killed, the reason is they were never there. Didn’t it seem strange to you that the official report redacted the number of terrorists killed, but not the number of troops or civilians?”

Tal leaned in close. “Look, Kala. I like you, you’re a good person, so here’s my final advice. If you have to drink yourself blind or take hallucinogens or beat your head against the wall to think about something else, do it. Come back to the retreat and write some inane kak about talking animals or ghosts or time travel… anything really. Because if you don’t, if you leave the retreat without writing some non-threatening, safe thing, you’ll never get to tell your story.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, Major Perrin, I’m not an aspiring writer, I’m a CI investigator. I want the story out too, but I wasn’t there. As long as you write anything here that’s not about 412, I can go back to my superiors and tell them you aren’t a threat. But I have to show them something.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because the truth is bigger than either of us, and I don’t want to be the one to shut it up.” Tal took a deep breath. “You start writing, you keep writing, and you get good. Really good. Get your name out there even if you spend every credit you earn on marketing. You have to be well-known before you can write that story safely. You may still go to FedMax, but the truth will be out there.”

“They’ll disavow me, smear my name, say I’m crazy. You know that.”

“They can try, for sure. It’ll be much harder after you’ve written a few popular novels. Your service records will be public by then. They should always be a part of your marketing materials.” He counted off on his fingers. “Nine commendations, youngest person to make Major in Criminal Investigations, glowing reviews from your superiors, all of it.”

She looked back to Tal. “I’m right back where we started, unable to come up with anything else to write.”

“Ok, writing assignment: a child, found stowed away on an interstellar flight. Why, how, all that stuff.”

“Thank you, Tal.”

“For the prompt? Don’t mention it.”

“For not sending me to prison.”

His eyebrow shot up. “Another of the things you should file under ‘never mention it again.’”  He chuckled.

Kala stood. “Walk back with me? I think I need to sit down and write now. I have an idea.”

“The stowaway?” “No.” She offered her hand. “And before you go asking, I won’t tell. You’ll just have to wait until the draft reading tomorrow morning.”