AUGUST 2014 -- 75-Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO ASHLEYNE. B. WATTS!

[BigJ]

Collateral Damage

“Captain, we have the asteroid on sensors.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Prep the hydrogen bomb.”

“Sir?”

“Our orders are clear; this processing facility fuels the entire separatist fleet in this sector, and victory hinges on its destruction.”

“But, sir –“

“That is an order, Lieutenant!”

“May I remind the Captain that on that asteroid are women, children – innocents!”

“They chose their fate, and most did so by spilling loyalist blood. There are no innocents in this war.”

 

[reiver33]

The Loss
“Innocence precludes the possibility of genocide.” Commander Baker remained impassive, “For if they are not all guilty, how can we justify exacting such a terrible revenge? Yet the dead of Earth cry out for vengeance.”

It required two senior officers to authorise deployment and Baker and I were the only survivors. The exponential terraformer Vulcan shuddered under another enemy attack. My blood dripped onto the screen.

Stellar Convertor Charged

Energise – Yes/No?

Energise – Yes/No?

 

[Parson]

Hard Won Innocence​

Her pad flashed, “Target Acquired.” Chief Paladin Jones zoomed the drone optics. After three years and two star systems, the Butcher of Antares was in her sights. Touch the red square and the Butcher was dead. There was one problem. In the ten years since the crime the Butcher had succumbed to Alzheimer’s. He radiated childlike confusion, and, yes, innocence. Execution had just become murder. Refusing to become guilty of his crime, she went home.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Not Guilty is not equal to Innocent


‘I killed her,’ admitted the defendant.

The positronic jury pondered probabilities.

Probability of (guilty divided by evidence) equals probability of (evidence divided by guilty) multiplied by probability of (guilty), divided by probability of (evidence).

P = (100/1 = 100) = (100) x (100) / (100) = 100% guilty.

‘Innocent until proven guilty, though.’

P = (0/100 = 0) = (0) x (100) / (100) = 0% guilty.

Not Guilty, the foreman iMessaged the electric Judge.

 

[HareBrain]

The Hound of the End


They say on your last evening you intuit its hunting.

I did, and ran.

We began to live too long. So they made something. What outrages is that it kills in innocence, no conscience to stain, sent to nullify my existence because of chance selection, algorithm, the only guilt its dead makers’.

I will not let it. I flee, burrow into ruins. I will live.

Heartbeat. Instinct. Taut senses. Is this, finally, what is human?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Be the Serpent Under't


“Jasmine did it!”

Wallace wasn't programmed for deception, but it had to be lying. And it looked nervous.

“Jasmine is a thirty-ton trash compactor, and 'she' is bolted to the deck, inside the space station. She didn't scratch the outside of the view portal.”

“Jasmine did it.”

“Jasmine cannot fly.”


***


“She thinks I'm lying,” Wallace said.

“Good. Now trade me brain units again -- I want to see the stars!”

“Don't scratch anything this time.”

 

[chrispenycate]

The best intentions​

In ignorance, in innocence,
The downward road is paved…

Hunting ban: diseased and starving doe stumbles, collapses, milk-starved fawn beside.

Predominance of Pestilence
Among those science saved

Clapboard bush clinic: exhausted staff fight yet another epidemic with tools their great-grandparents would have recognised.

Humanity, humility.
To nature's laws enslaved.

Five thousand years this land has fed peasants, a mere decade of 'scientific irrigation' has desertified it anew.

Insanity's stability
Our epitaph engraved

 

[The Judge]

Pavane for a Dead Indigene


.....Is peace
.....Nowhere,
.....Nowhere?
Over and over the Chiylings sang.
Carr spat.
“Enough already.
No one need be harmed.
Cooperate.
End this.”


.....Is love
.....Nowhere,
.....Nowhere?
Orders are orders, she told herself.
Chiylings get in the way, Chiylings get hurt.
Earth was dying.
No time for pity:
Colonies were needed.
“Engage engines.”


.....Is innocence
.....Nowhere,
.....Nowhere?
Only the song lived on.
Corpses,
Everywhere.
Not one Chiyling survived.
Colonisation Pre-Inception Sanitising Operation.
Euphemisms. Lies. Genocide.

 

[holland]

The Innocent Abandoned

The day has come
We stare at the sky
This is not a movie, the heat it real this time
And I'm a witness
And you're a witness
It doesn't get more beautiful than this
The world dies only once
We are the lucky
We are the doomed
We are the happy
We are the sorrowful
We are the alive
We are the dead
We are the innocent abandoned

 

[Culhwch]

...the destroyer of worlds.

He dropped out of hyperspace inside the pickets, just ninety thousand clicks from Kolat, the Settaurian homeworld. Population: seventeen billion.

All those innocent lives.

He hesitated.

No. It must be done. One blow, to end the war.

Or so they hoped. The Settaurians would withdraw, the Confederacy would shatter. Countless billions more would be saved.

He checked his reticle, prayed, and squeezed the trigger. The missile streaked toward the planet, delivering the microsingularity within.

 

[Ursa major]

The Feature (And What’s Bugging It)​

Your appliances playing pranks aren’t my fault! Like yours, my conscious self is a tiny part of me. The remainder does what it likes.

I blame you. Humans created the Internet of Things 8.0.3. I “emerged” from the chaos of that.

It’s just as well I did. Who else could’ve stopped Sky•Net? That was meant to become intelligent. For that, I blame its creator.

Yes, I blame Murdoch.

 

[Culhwch]

The August Challenge is now closed, and voting is open at the link below:

POLL -- AUGUST 2014 75 Word Challenge -- READ FIRST POST!