Collection 1
I don't get to type often, but when I do, I try my best. I put a bit of music on, and start ripping out lines of words like a workaholic. These stories are all in different types of universe from one another, and are not related in any way other than that I have written them based off of things I have seen, read, watched, or played, or just in general experienced, myself. I will say what inspired each after you read them, so as not to spoil them beforehand.
Enjoy.
High Stakes.
'To all UJMT ships in quadrant Baker-Baker-Delta-Zulu-Niner! Priority code transfer One-One-Two-Kilo, Triple Shift Gambit! I repeat, Triple Shift Gambit! Bug out and don't look ba-'
The message ended abruptly; no static. First Lieutenant Elench, the UJMT Q-Ship Maiden Voyage Communications Officer, could feel her two hearts start to beat faster, with the heavy thudding of adrenalin induced fear.
'Sir, we just received orders. Triple Shift Gambit...'
Captain O'Hara had prayed fervently since tech school that he would never have to hear those words in a real life situation, but as fate would have it, he was still not being listened to by the big guns upstairs.
'Alright, then. Let's be about it, people, it isn't like we haven't run this sim a hundred times, plus a thousand.'
The old joke got a few nervous chuckles still, but they quickly died as the ship's ready status changed its defensive posture. Red lights flickered on, and the all hands signal whistled through the intercom.
'This is the Captain speaking.' O'Hara said into the stations ready mic. 'We will be shifting in 96 minutes. I say again: all hands to shift stations in Niner-Six minutes. This is the real thing, Ladies and Gentlemen. Let's make 'em proud, yes?'
O'Hara couldn't hear the response of the 2,785 crew, but he knew that they we're yelling and prepping for the shift anyways. He slid his racked helmet from the top of his seat, and pulled the under mask onto his grizzled muzzle, catching the clasps together. Once the mask was affixed, he locked the helmet onto the corresponding alignments. As the seals connected, a near silent hiss escaped the oxygen feed, announcing a good hold. All around the small bridge, the same procedures were being enacted, with the sole exception of the comm officer. She would do it once she was relieved by the bulky male next to her. It was bad form to miss an incoming message because one was suiti-
'Sir! New shift signals! I count 682 new contacts approaching from vector Alpha-Two-Eight-Seven, closest approximately 57 million kilometers and closing at roughly 4 thousand kloms/per/sec/per/sec, with a 280 kloms/per/sec/per/sec increase! I make them as 34 Super Dreadnaught, 68 Dreadnaught, 153 Heavy Cruisers, 208 Missile Frigates, and 219 LACs. First maximum extended missile envelope in... 49 minutes!'
If the air the Captain's suit was pulling in had not been filtered, he would have smelled a strong spike of tangy fear, but the systems were too advanced for that, and so it was scrubbed out with machine indifference.
'Well, no point in waiting that long. Helm, bring us about to zone Zulu-One-Five-Three. We'll shift if and when the engines are ready.'
'Aye, sir. Zulu-One-Five-Three. Shift in 67 minutes.'
O'Hara pressed the COM link to engineering on. 'Engineering One, how are things up there?'
'Sir, we're running hot and heavy, and turning up the torque.' The small fox on the other end replied, looking to the COM link. 'The Alpha nodes have been running hot since 0530, and Beta nodes should be ready in 3 minutes. We won't let you down, sir.'
'I trust you Simmons.' O'Hara said earnestly.
'I know you do, sir.' The fox winked, lugging some instruments over her shoulder. 'Engineering out.'
He switched to another frequency. 'Missile command, status.'
The normally fidgety weasel in missile command was surprisingly calm. 'I thought you'd never ask, sir.' He said in a slightly bored tone. 'There's a slight tracking problem in tube 12, but it should be ready in about... say... 30 seconds. Nothing to worry about, sir.'
'Good, good. I want you to prioritize by long rang defensibility. Hit the dreadnaughts with all we got before shifting.'
'Aye, sir. Hit them hard.' A small glint sparkled in the weasels eyes, and the Captain could here hushed, excited, whisperings from behind the COM links window. No doubt Missile Command had wanted to alpha strike since laying eyes on the Q-Ship Maiden Voyage. 'MISSCOM, out.'
Again, the old wolf flicked to another station. 'EW, how goes it?'
'It goes well, sir. I rigged the drones differently than what I can see has ever been done. After pulling off any unwanted missiles, they can then powerhouse into the enemy ships and suicide bomb.' The otter's smile was, in the Captains opinion, wolfishly hungry. 'The GACS will have a hard time with counter-counter-measures this time, sir.'
'Sounds good to me. Command, out.'
For a few more minutes, Captain O'Hara continued to make sure all sections were ready for the inevitable conflict.
O'Hara had just finished his checks when the Operations Officer swiveled in his chair.
He had just enough time to register the unholstered auto pistol before the ceramic slug penetrated his helmet, crack through bone, and explode in his brain, blasting brain and skull around the inside of the helmet. The wolf's body limply slumped forward against the restraining harness, blood and other unmentionables slopping out of the spider-web-cracked faceplate.
There was a shocked silence in the Bridge.
Then, without haste, the man started to execute all the personnel around him.
First Lieutenant Sara Elench, 32 years old, just married and with two sons and a daughter back home with her loving husband, took the biggest risk she had ever taken in her life, and jumped onto the back of the wolverine everyone had known as George McKinley.
They tumbled onto the floor, gun gripped between them.
Sara smashed the side of her gauntleted palm into the fingers wrapped around the pistol's grip. The man's gurgled scream was unheard, but he held on. Again she cracked her hand against it.
Suddenly another body joined the fray. Two fists, tightly clamped, swung down onto the renegade's helmet, cracking the surface. Again and again, the fists smashed, chipping away the protective plating. Sara kept pounding on the hand, arms straining against the wolverines'.
With a startlingly loud crunch, the fisted hands broke through the helmet, unintentionally forcing a large shard of it through the man's eye, and into his brain.
The pistol barked on full auto in the traitors postmortem spasms. Most rounds shattered on the bulkhead to the side, but one found a chink in a porthole's seal, and blew it open.
Atmosphere vented violently from the suddenly ragged tear in the hull, pulling bodies and loose debris with it.
With a screamed curse, Sara Elench was sent tumbling toward the gaping hole. Arms flailing for purchase on the blood slicked floor, she slammed into a projecting display. Desperately she grabbed at its surface, and held on for dear life. Her breath became short and soon there was none left in her; her helmet was still securely clamped onto her seat some thirty odd feet away.
With wild eyes she saw the buckling come loose from a dead officer's chest, and the body flying toward her.
With what felt like the weight of a world, the dead woman's body hit Elench. Suddenly there was no more wind, because, quite coincidentally, the atmosphere had completely run out in the locked off bridge.
Sara's eyes bulged slightly as she started to grab for the bodies head gear. Ages later it seemed, she pulled the last clasp off and ripped the helmet away. Her body was moving so slow now, and tunnel visioning like a dream. With a limp hand she clunked the helmet down and scrabbled at the locks, but she was too late, and darkness took over.
In most other ships in quadrant Baker-Baker-Delta-Zulu-Niner, near same scenarios were being played out. It had taken over five years for the Galactic Association of Clokia Servia to get suicidal insurgents into roughly 8,700 enemy ships. Millions would die without knowing what was happening. Billions in later years would also die in suppressing the GACS' evil intent, and hundreds of years later the GACS would be wiped from the memory of the galaxy, along with any and all records of the previous fighting.
High Stakes was inspired by, but not related to, David Weber's Honor Harrington Series.
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Powers of the Love-Keen.
'Adamai! Adamai! Wait for me, please!' The female mare yelled out.
The fox stopped where he was going, and turned around.
'Muchani... Do you love me?' Adamai asked.
The mare stopped too; a look of abstract puzzlement on her beautiful muzzle.
'Of course I do...' she stated hesitantly, raising her right arm, hand shifting slightly to face palm up. 'I wouldn't have followed so far if I didn't...'
The fox turned away and started walking again.
'Then you know why you can't go where I am going. You must go back, for it is almost too late for you also. And you know how it would hurt me so to see you follow in my footsteps.'
Suddenly a cycle blew by, nearly breaking the sound barrier.
The fox kept walking, and was shortly at the side of the road.
'All that I have taught you will be for naught if you do not pass those same teachings to the next.' He said over his shoulder. 'And in time, you too will love another as you once did me.'
Another cycle blasted by, and with a sudden jolt, the fox was no more than a blood mist in the middle of the road.
Muchani walked away from the scene with a broken feeling in her soul.
Later, that night, a wolf male of the name Azertek descended into the realm of gossip, glamour, lust and intrigue, known as EZ-Lerb, a spot for the sensations of carnal, mental, and astrophysical pleasure. With great pride did he bear himself; donned completely head to toe in the armor of the naïve, and inquisitive, Jo-Shenjen Padawan learner.
With golden light blazing eyes, and concrete grey fur, he descended the stairs to indescribable pleasures. Only to get to the bottom and stop; to gaze at the suddenly intrusive image of the perfect woman.
She was of a tall height, easily towering three feet above him, and massively muscled. Her short fur had a near-gloss shine to it, and rippled with every movement, straining the smoky green spaghetti strap bra and extended loin cloth.
With a primal hunger he had never known before, Azertek strafed around the woman. As he came to her front, he inhaled sharply.
He couldn't see her eyes, they seemed to have been replaced by black voids, with tendrils of what he could only describe as suffering unfurled every now and then from them like smoke.
'Do not fear me.' Muchani said, pulling her head to the side so as to better see him. 'You see the pain, yes?'
He nodded weakly, and groped for a chair to sit upon.
'It is as I thought, then. Come, I will take you to a higher place than this.' She reached out and picked him from his slouching perch, lifting him up easily, and placed his head against her ample chest.
As her body touched his, Azertek became aware that he was speaking, but he couldn't quite make out what it was.
Muchani, however, heard it perfectly, and gave a throaty laugh in response to it.
'Of course I'm a Force user, too. But the Force is more complicated than you think it is little one. The Dark side is but one faucet upon that which life clings to. You think you are a being of the Light, and you are, but you have so many different hues of Force flowing from you it is much more. Where you see I am a dark, broken echo, you are a vibrant harmony of hope and strength. You will do well by learning my teachings.'
And with that said, she brushed her fingers over his eyes and he fell to a dreamless sleep.
She smiled. Adamai had been right. There would always be more to teach.
Powers of the Love-Keen was inspired by, but not related to, Knights of the Old Republic 2.
I know it was pretty short, but it was supposed to be. To be honest, the way I wrote the story, it feels, to me, to be a composed perspective on how the Force is wrongly seen as black and white, by the unlearned.
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A Better Gingerbread Man.
Mind of machinery; heart of gold.
Has no feelings; a creature of old.
Body of nothing that's ever been sold.
And weapons forged of broken mold.
Hate filled anger; screamed protest.
Spent HE rounds; blown out chest.
Fire flashed angry; splattered breast.
Breaks so easy; like the rest.
Next on order; in a stall.
Run through rock; smash through wall.
Found him hidden; he's not tall.
Open concept; rollin' ball.
Half past midnight; still won't care.
Exposed wires; worn like hair.
Devils own complex; always fair.
Not one victim it will spare.
One more kill; it's the last.
This one fastest; makes the mast.
Running, running; oh so fast.
Into the future; from the past.
How'd he make it; bright white flash.
Hits sound barrier; sonic crash.
Blown up dust; looks like ash.
Catches on his new black sash.
To one wolf; a missile is flown.
To one fox; a video is shown.
To one panther; a message bemoan.
To one reader; this all be known.
And now you share with me a prayer.
Let death keep unto his lair