{"id":2812,"date":"2025-09-14T10:20:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/?p=2812"},"modified":"2025-09-14T10:20:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T17:20:54","slug":"gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/14\/gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

prompt: Center your story around a mysterious forest fire, disappearance, or other strange event.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

available at Reedsy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImpossible!\u201d Fleet Commander Nerl gouged a deep groove in the conference table with his rending claw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommander, I would have to say that while it is highly improbable, the evidence is against impossibility.\u201d Political Advisor Grun laid her far larger rending claw on the commander\u2019s shoulder. \u201cIt is up to the fleet to figure out where they\u2019ve gone, while you determine the fleet\u2019s response.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the entire forest \u2026 gone \u2026 disappeared in the time we spent in transit from the realspace translation.\u201d Nerl swung his tail across the bench and dropped to sit with a heavy thump. Grun\u2019s claw maintained its position through the move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intimacy of her claw so near his throat, and the way she now stood over his slumped figure reminded him who was in charge. She clicked a small device and the view on the wall-sized screen changed into a split view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one side, a lush forest with a few well-maintained roads, and an uncountable mass of biological material, living plants and creatures, and the enemy, hiding like animals in the trees. The other side showed the same area of the moon, but there was nothing but a scar cut deep into the land, exposing the bedrock that had been far beneath the soil of the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything above the bedrock was gone. Not a speck of biological material was left behind in the boundaries of the former forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRemind me, Commander, what were the fleet\u2019s orders for this expedition?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you testing me, Advisor?\u201d Nerl sighed. \u201cEliminate all traces of the enemy from the inhabited body orbiting the system\u2019s lone gas giant planet. If possible, bring back live samples and any interesting technology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would seem that the enemy has achieved the minimum goal for you already,\u201d she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow I know<\/em> you\u2019re testing me,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know as well as I that \u2018if possible\u2019 means as long as I draw breath, that needs to be my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grun clicked the device again and the before<\/em> view switched to a series of images from all over the moon. Everywhere there had been a settlement of the enemy had been gouged out to bedrock. What had been agricultural fields were stripped as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She brushed the scales of his cheek with the back of her rending claw. \u201cTell me, Commander, how would you accomplish the same results?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nerl sat up a little straighter. \u201cI can think of only two methods. One ridiculous, and the other \u2014 wholly unrealistic \u2014 relies on tech that doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHumor me,\u201d Grun said with a purr. \u201cStart with the more realistic one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen they transformed the moon to make it habitable, they began by placing lifting plates on the bedrock. Then, once they brought in soil and water and atmosphere, and so on, they built only above the lifters. When we entered the system, the lifters raised in groups, to be picked up in atmosphere by some sort of transport.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having said it, Nerl blinked in annoyance. \u201cIt sounds even more ridiculous when spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, no. It\u2019s fine, dear Commander.\u201d Grun walked around the room, her tail swaying in lazy arcs. \u201cWhat was the unrealistic one?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTeleportation.\u201d He huffed at the thought. \u201cSome sort of magic technology that allows moving matter from one place to another through some dimension outside the spacetime we understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth excellent ideas, Commander.\u201d Grun stood before the changing images on the wall screen as though studying them. \u201cWhile the lifters sound more plausible, I rather like the teleportation angle. Imagine what the queendom could do with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven with that,\u201d Nerl said, \u201cthey would need to have transported it all out of the system somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, once you figure out where they might have gone,\u201d Grun said, as she approached and lifted Nerl\u2019s chin with the tip of her rending claw, \u201cwe can go get our samples.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, Advisor.\u201d The proximity alarm sounded, and he spun toward the door, leaving a shallow cut along the bottom of his chin from her sharpened claw. He tapped the control panel near the door as blood welled along the cut. \u201cReport!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommander, lone enemy vessel sighted around far side of the gas giant, heavy transport. We have a warp trace from there,\u201d the First Officer said over the comms. \u201cEighteen possible routes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long to narrow it down?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHard to say, Commander. It could take as long as\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind,\u201d he interrupted. \u201cIt\u2019s one ship, we are a fleet. Divide us up and make haste for all eighteen possible throughpoints. Don\u2019t forget, we want some of them alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, Commander.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grun ran her thumb along the cut on his chin, collecting the blood. She licked it off and made a noise as if savoring it. \u201cDon\u2019t make me regret the queen\u2019s decision to give some males command roles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know I won\u2019t, Advisor,\u201d he said as the flagship transited into warpspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

As the last ship warped out of the system, Sena let out the breath she hadn\u2019t been aware of holding. \u201cI can\u2019t believe that worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll keep the jamming running for a few more hours, just to be certain.\u201d Tris shoved her hands into the pockets of her jumpsuit. \u201cI just hope the crew on the Honeypot are going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sena typed a command and scanned the results on the monitor. \u201cThe fleet left in eighteen different directions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGives them better odds, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sena laughed. \u201cThe Valkor Queendom has been trying to take humans alive for the entirety of the war. I kind of feel bad for the ship that tries to board the Honeypot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, yeah. Dumb lizards versus a cargo ship full of Marines. Still \u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re worried about your brother.\u201d Sena patted Tris\u2019 leg. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just feels different when it\u2019s a war fleet rather than some pirates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re trained for.\u201d Sena raised the sleeve of her tee-shirt to show her Marines tattoo. \u201cHe\u2019s a good kid, and a good Marine, he\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sena looked out the window at the fields that lay between the outpost and the forest. Hectares of specifically engineered crops for survival on low-gravity and low-light worlds like this moon. The forest beyond was populated with animals, plants, bacteria, and fungus also engineered for the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat started this stupid war, anyway?\u201d she asked. \u201cWeren\u2019t we doing an expanded trade deal with Valkor just a couple years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t watch the news, do you?\u201d Tris huffed. \u201cQueen Gret died, Furg took over as the new queen. First thing she did was update the official religion, declaring all \u2018warm bloods\u2019 as evil. Second thing she did was declared war on all of the endothermic species. Humans just happened to be the closest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey won\u2019t survive without a regime change,\u201d Sena said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow so?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf a coup or assassination doesn\u2019t take out the queen, the war will wear them down until their entire economy and society collapses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tris hummed. \u201cYeah, we\u2019re way too good at wars of attrition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot just that,\u201d Sena said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t bother to look with their own eyes. They trust so much in their over-engineered, hyper-complex technology that they couldn\u2019t bother to look down and see that their scanners were showing them a fake image.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did it look like?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sena called up the model that had been fed to the Valkor ships. \u201cThis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose are the cutaway views that were generated for the geologic survey, aren\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExactly. Just without the infrastructure overlays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women discussed it over coffee as they waited for an update from the Honeypot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

prompt: Center your story around a mysterious forest fire, disappearance, or other strange event. available at Reedsy \u201cImpossible!\u201d Fleet Commander Nerl gouged a deep groove in the conference table with his rending claw. \u201cCommander, I …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[208],"tags":[210,228,209],"class_list":["post-2812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trunk-stories","tag-fiction","tag-science-fiction","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sxT7i-gone","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2813,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions\/2813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evardsson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}