300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #17 -- VICTORY TO JULIANA!

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

A Day In The Life of A Dragon Keeper
​

Kevin groaned and awoke slowly, pulling himself from the wreckage. He had no idea how he survived, but was glad to see that four or five others had also lived.

He stood, wincing, and looked down. His forearm was scratched down the center, but was not too serious. He tore a length of his shirt off, wrapping it up tight.

“Came to the right place,” he said as a horrible roar echoed through the sky. Everyone yelped and ran for the wreckage of the plane.

Kevin stood in place, dodging out of the way as the dragon rushed. He turned to one of the survivors. “Toss me that black bag by your feet,” he commanded.

The terrified girl did as she was told. Kevin winced as he reached inside pulling out a small, innocuous-looking stick. He raised it above his head, and brought it down just as the beast made another pass.

A howling portal opened in the sky. The dragon roared in defiance, but its momentum prevented it from stopping in time. It flew straight into the portal and vanished.

The survivors stared at Kevin in shock. The girl who tossed him his bag let out a scream and scrambled away. Kevin looked across at them all.

“Someone had to deal with it,” he explained with a grin. “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe now.” He pulled out a small, screened item from his bag, awkwardly balancing it in the crook of his arm as he punched in some numbers. “Local rescue will be here shortly.” He stared off to the west, slinging his back over his shoulder with his good hand. The female survivor tried to call out to him, but he didn’t acknowledge as he disappeared across the horizon.

 

[alchemist]

After The Crash

“Some farmer found it buried in his field,” Baird said, as he carefully placed the box on her desk. “He was laying a foundation and found it inside a huge metal canister.”


Lyla peered at him over her glasses. Trust Baird to tease her with an even bigger find. “And the canister?”


“Logistics will have it here in a week. If they can find a cart big enough.”


He flashed a smile, which she ignored by peering at the box. The style of writing on the wood definitely indicated a pre-Crash language. She pulled a loose board off the top and looked inside. Shards of curved, broken glass lay wrapped in a white, artificial material. She pulled some of the wrapping out, holding it up to the sunlight streaming through her office window.


“What’s that?” Baird asked.


“Dunno.” She pressed on what seemed to be a bubble. It collapsed with a sharp pop!


Baird yelped and she stifled a laugh. After rummaging through the box and finding nothing else, she turned to the writing on the outside. “Hand me my dictionary."


She'd compiled it herself through years of studying ancient languages, now making her the top archaeologist at the university, ensuring she got brought any ancient finds.


He handed her the book and she leafed though it before settling on page six. Yes, she knew this script all right.


"Lyla..."


"I'm concentrating."


She wrote each letter in her notebook with a pencil: L-E...


"Lyla..."


"Shh, this is important. I can feel it." She scribbled more: LEPORINE INFLUENZA H7N3 VACCINE FOR PHASE 1 TRIAL. What on Earth did that mean?


"Um, Lyla. Will you go out with me?"


"Oh, Baird." She looked up from her notebook. "A fox and a hare? You know that'd never work."

 

[Perpetual Man]

A Reminder of Guilt​

We used to go and watch the Jerry play football Sundays.

They were the enemy, but they didn’t look like it. Little more than teenagers. Caught up in the Nazi war machine, spat out to kill or be killed. After a few months they were glad to be here. They slept in huts, bunking together, but they lived as well as the rest of us and were not risking their lives. They worked the farms in place of our lads who were off fighting. Ironically they helped keep our country going.

Those Germans though, they loved their soccer. They got permission to clear some wasteland, pulled roots and weeds, flattened it, marked it, even built posts and nets. So we locals went to watch them play.

Until the night that the plane carrying Pete’s brother didn’t come back. He turned up during the match, hobbling on his gimpy leg, his father’s service revolver clutched in one hand.

BANG! Six shots. Six dead. Blood soaking into the grass.

No one said a word or did anything. It was a bad business, but understandable. That’s what we agreed.

48 hours later it got worse. Seems the plane landed safely elsewhere. Shot up like heck, the crew alive.

Strange though, that football field? Even after them Jerry’s were long gone. Untended. That grass was always cut to perfect length, pure fresh green. Lines straight, posts and crossbars brilliant white, nets hung and waiting. Nary a leaf dared mar it. But on the same day, every year that verdant grass turned blood red and the image of a bomber floated there, an accusing mirage that told of injustice and death.

So there you go, best pitch in the country and just like the falling leaves, not one of us dared despoil it.

 

[Moonbat]

An udderly unbelievable lesson (I'm not kidding)​

'What you do see?' Asked the old man. He'd been through this countless times, it invariably went the same way.

'I see a plane that landed here years ago, I see rolling hills and livestock.'

The old man sighed, and waving an arm across the scene said. 'Look harder, see with your mind, hear with your arms.'

'I'm trying O wise and vaguely bewildering one. I see what is in front of me, there's a plane, it's old, ancient.'

Ah, now we're getting somewhere, thought the old man. 'Ancient?'

'Yes it looks like it's been there forever.'

'It has.'

'It can't, someone must have built it.'

'Nope, it's been there longer than the land.'

'What did it land on?'

'Itself, landing begets land.'

'That doesn't make sense.'

'Doesn't it? You're still thinking with your brain.'

'How can I think otherwise?'

'I've told you the truth, the plane was always here.'

The boy looked at the wrinkled face of the old man, he thought briefly of prunes, then committed himself to the illogical conversation. 'It's always been here, but we haven't?'

'Yes, but not just us.'

'You mean everything; the land, the sky, the grass and trees, even the goat?'

'Almost everything. This is a scene, moving but never changing. here always, there sometimes, left a bit.'

'What else besides the plane has always been here?'

'Look with your mouth.'

'What?'

'Well done. The plane has always been here. What do planes need?'

'A crew?'

'Yes, and where is that? See with your nose.'

'The goat, the goat is the pilot?' The boy exclaimed thrilled by his discovery.

'Don't be silly! A goat can't fly a plane.'

He realised how absurd that sounded. 'Of course not.'

'The cow is the pilot. The goat is cabin crew.'

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

“He will never suspect a thing,” Blowfeel gloated from the depths of his leather chair. Deft fingers danced across the console, directing his microbots to their destination. A single white cat hair stuck to the main power switch broke his train of thought. He flicked it away.

Damn cat.

***

An alarm blared in the cockpit and Javier gripped the controls convulsively. “What is wrong this time? Piece of Soviet junk.”

As the plane tilted, faltering in her flight; a drop of sweat trickled down Javier’s back. He blessed himself and checked the straps of his harness.

“We’re going down,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Strap in!”

“I don’t think so,” a cultured voice came from the depths of the plane.

***

Deep down inside the undercarriage, tiny soldiers marched to war. In their columns and regiments they drilled and cut, severing a fuel line here, nudging a wedge in there, working in the dark, obeying their commander’s agile fingers.

The landing gear creaked as it began to detach.

***

James straightened his bowtie then tapped a button on Q’s special wristwatch. A powerful beam of light shot out from the face, spotlighting the miniature army at work.

“Got you, you little devils,” he said, twisting a dial which activated an electromagnet.

***

“Oh s******t--!”

Microbots whooshed towards the magnet, sticking to its surface, tiny legs and arms wriggling around.

James smiled, but then his face froze. As he watched, the landing gear started to give way with a metallic screech. The watch jerked his wrist forwards as it pulled him inexorably towards the big chunk of metal.

“Oh, c**p!” James said, frantically trying to release the wrist strap.

Too late.

***

“Mission accomplished, sir,” the bot-commander squeaked into his mike. “He fell for it.”

 

[johnnyjet]

The Last Flight of AIbel 7

Airship AIbel 7 was lowered by two giant cranes onto the grassy field. Grapple hooks disengaged. The cranes rolled away, leaving perplexed animals.

The animals eventually grew accustomed to their new oversized resident, drawing closer to it. Birds found new places to perch and leave their droppings. The wings proved to be an excellent shelter from heavy rainstorms.

One day an old man hobbled onto the field and climbed up a rope ladder that dropped from the front of the plane. When he reached the top, he opened a small panel with a screwdriver. He plugged into a port and spoke.

"How are you, old friend?"

"Missing the sky, captain."

"What if I told you I could get you back up there?"

"Back where, captain?"

"Back to the sky."

The plane hesitated, the hesitation itself part of its calculated response.

"I would say you were crazy."

The captain laughed out loud.

They understood each other's sense of humor well, having spent many flight hours together.

The plane grew serious. "Captain, I was decommissioned because my engine was old, parts were failing more frequently, and my furnishings were outdated. I became more difficult to maintain and too expensive to upgrade."

"Yes, but your mind is still sharp considering you were the first commissioned AI commercial airliner."

"It's not safe to take me up anymore."

"I have a proposition."

The plane's suspicious sense kicked in.

"There is a new nanotech engine that needs tested. I have contacts in the development team. Would you be interested in testing a prototype of this new engine?"

The plane's dashboard lit up.

"A new maiden voyage! A new adventure! But what are the risks?"

"The risks, my friend, are too numerous to count. It may likely be our last flight."

Without hesitation: "I'm in."

 

[marmalade]

Her smile was all gums; a red, fleshy caterpillar under pale, taught lips.Sen stood still as she circled, prodding and pinching him all over. He held his breath against the reek of Getrin on the old one's breath, his eyes watered, but he dared not move to clear them.

'Ten,'

'We agreed 30!' his mothers voice was tight with anger.

'Boys are harder to train.' reasoned old one.

'He's young, quick. He'll learn.'

'A skinny runt with less potential then a goat.' old one snapped, gesturing towards the tired grazers around her cottage.

Sen's head spun, the two women continued to throw words over his head.

He stumbled away, but they didn't notice, or care. Soil soaked his tunic at the knees as he went down; the haze was thickening, his vision reduced to muted shadows. He swallowed and tried to slow his breathing. But the Getrin was fast, faster than he. The pull inside him was growing, the tide rising. He crawled with fists seared shut. A ringing burst in his head as he hit something metal.

Metal.

A shadow darker than the rest. Safety. Tears sizzled on his cheeks. He let his palms spring open, skin tore and then melded with the metal surface, burning his prints into it. He chose a word.

'ESCAPE!'

The wave crashed into the metal, finally out.

***

When the mist cleared from his eyes his mother and old one stared, silent. Not at him. He followed their gaze, a jolt seizing him. There, where old one's cottage had been, a monster; a great metal bird.

Laughter trickled from his mouth like smoke.

'How's that for potential?' he croaked.

 

[Glen]

Derelict

“Tell them you need another dose to get back.”

The goat stares at me, chewing. Its rectangular pupils make it seem like an alien being. I can’t tell if it is the goat that has spoken any more than I can be sure if I really smell the manure on this field. Any more than I can be sure those Antonov transports are real or a construct.

The Ghost program was unproven, but days after our sovereign territory was attacked that no longer mattered. A truck full of explosive changed the rules.

I was transported here to prevent the need for an invasion, and I ceased to exist there. More than teleportation, my being here generated a new reality, that would have merged with the other if I had returned.

But I didn’t return. So these scenes I pass through over and again are not yet real. Or they are real and I am not. Emerging into a humid Caribbean darkness on the clean concrete of the airstrip. The dictator’s eyes like the goat’s as I garrotte him. Wearing a paper jumpsuit in the de-briefing room, the spooks in bio-hazard suits, punching the desk, shouting “Stay here!”.

How could they administer another dose?

I cannot tell memory from reality from fear. Were they still there when I was last in that room? Or was I alone in the dim, green glow of emergency lighting, the program abandoned? Or did I shiver with cold and fear in an empty, dark void?

On the old airstrip a wasp’s nest grows in a turbo-prop casing. The goats bleat. The turbulent, grey clouds are angry. The rains are due.

 

[crystal haven]

The Return

I was back.

The seat underneath me was comforting, familiar, and yet somehow different. My head pounded. My body ached and for some reason my hand was covered in blood. I stared at it, then realised blood dripped from my nose and was not oozing from a cut in my hand.

Anxiety gripped me, along with the returning nausea I’d suffered minutes earlier. I remembered now. I’d made an emergency landing before blacking out.

Gazing at the dashboard, trying to focus on what could not be real, I took in the rust and the thick layer of grime covering everything. How could a plane rust in minutes of landing? It couldn’t. I had to be hallucinating. I needed help – must get out of here.

It took several minutes of dogged determination to get the door to open. Even more time to check the plane to discover I was on my own.

A memory or a crazy thought: an alien face… The straps that had held me down. My wrists still carried the scars.

Choking back a scream, I part fell, part scrambled through the doorway. The plane was a mass of rust, and vegetation smothered the metal shell.

I’d been abducted. Who to tell? Where to start? Staggering from the plane I fought between overgrown bushes and trees that were far too tall.

The ground shook. Instinctively I hid, not sure why I wasn’t just shouting for help.

A shadow blocked the sun. A giant hand reached down and picked up the rusting plane as if a toy. “Look. Look what I’ve found.”

“Put it down, William,” a female voice replied. “It’s dirty. And old. You don’t know where it’s been.”

I shrank into the bushes. Wherever I was, it was not Earth. A new life had begun.

 

[mosaix]

Learning Curve

June 27th 15:46. Alone in the pilot's cabin co-pilot Andrew Jackson locks the door, disconnects the auto-pilot and prepares to commit suicide.

In row 17 would-be pop star Marty Black lowers his shades and slouches with cool, calculated, indifference next to 81 year old Martha Hopkins - to her obvious annoyance.

In row 24 Mr and Mrs Wilson, married fifteen years, bicker incessantly over the head of their nine year old son who sits between them, methodically kicking the back of the seat in front.

In row 29 Danny Livermore absently scratches at his wrist where the cuffs, securely attaching him to police officer Simmons in the next seat, are chafing.

In row 35 a replicant droid, controlled remotely by Snarth from an orbiting alien space craft, watches and records everything.

15:48. Jackson pushes the control stick forwards and the 'plane starts a steep descent. There's a frantic banging on the cabin door.

15:50. Passengers start shouting. Panic spreads quickly.

15:51. Black is sobbing uncontrollably. Martha Hopkins puts an arm round him, remembering her own children. The Wilsons hug their son and, above the din, Mr Wilson mouths to his wife 'I'm sorry'. Officer Simmons unlocks the cuffs and shakes Livermore by the hand. Their hands don't part. Snarth feels he has learnt a lot about human behaviour and, strictly against Galactic Council protocol, moves the replicant swiftly down the aisle to break open the cabin door.

20:23. Black hogs the cameras as Martha Hopkins heads towards the exit, struggling with her case. The Wilsons bicker as their son empties the contents of a nearby waste bin onto the floor. Livermore follows behind officer Simmons, who gives an impatient tug on the cuffs. Snarth, keeping the replicant out of the limelight, realises that he has a lot more to learn.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Things that die hard

Snap looked around. Clog was sunbathing wearing his ridiculously large human sunglasses, Fats absent-mindedly gnawing on the wing. But coming towards them through the field of the big furry things was a small human: a girl. She approached cautiously, stopping directly below Snap. She can see us, unusual!

“Hi!” Snap said.

“Are you a pixie?” she said.

“No a gremlin,” Snap told her.

“So you break things and cause trouble?”

“Used to.”

“Why are you on this busted plane?”

“We’re retired.”

She smiled, “Are there more of you? Can I come up?”

“Back ramp, through the hold, then up the ladder to the open hatch.” Snap scampered over and waited till the girl arrived, patting the top of the ladder to encourage her. When she was half out of the hatch he said, “I'm Snap, Fats is over there and that is The Clog-meister.” Fats gave a half-wave as he chewed an old spanner. Clog remained motionless, concentrating on getting rays.

“I'm Emily,” she announced. Then, “Fats?”

“Mechanical Fatigue. Fats for short,” Snap explained.

“Granddad never said he had little gremlins on his farm. And everything works.”

“Very rare for humans to see us and as I said, we’re retired. Everything these days has those…what are they called?”

“’puters,” Fats mumbled.

“Yeah, tiny electric things. Incomprehensible. Time for a well-earned rest in the country, we thought.”

Emily gave him a sweet smile.

With a forceful blow Snap pushed one of the retaining pins out that held the ladder. The remaining pin was unable to take the weight of the girl. It popped, causing Emily and ladder to fall into the hold. A yelp, then:

“That hurt! You said you had retired.”

Snap looked over the hatch, “Sorry, old habits!”

 

[chrispenycate]

The Ballad of Failing Tours​

Abdul grieves the dying of the airline,
Keeping grass cropped had well suited him.
Watching diverse flock/herd grazing the sunshine
Move them to safety when a plane came in.
He'd helped them when they'd given birth,
Joined them in mourning, and in mirth,
Their droppings layered living Earth,
Their usefulness reverts to him.
In time may great apartments grow
Which block the sun from grass below,
But future's not pre-echoed in the now,
And chances descent to 'none' from 'slim'.

End of prosperity, where were you?
The World's turned, and no you no longer count.
Tomorrow sees the scrambling seaborne masses
Yet another slough from which few will remount.

Only drooping fuselage remembers
Days when tourists flocked like migrant birds;
Crowding in 'twixt Aprils and Septembers.
And come the winter, flying back homewards.
But terrorists and empires fall
And passengers no longer call
In diverse tongues that squeal or drawl
Their incomprehensibility.
The flight tower shows construction cheap
Instrumentation now asleep
And mothers o'er their babies weep
For working radar and ATC.

End of prosperity, where were you?
Your bankruptcies passed parcel to the poor
Capitalist cats say 'power to the fattest'
While politicians smarm from door to door

So no-one's planned for beasts, or crew, or handler
Barely remembered pilot, cockpit crew.
Unthought of porter, mechanic, cook or chandler
Money's a'wastin' since the big birds flew.
Without concrete, no jumbo jet,
Is landing on the runway yet,
Some local farmer's propellette
Bumps off the turf to obscurity
Another first-world airport pours
New concrete path to great outdoors;
Terminal building soars, ignores,
Destinations except profitability.

End of prosperity, where were you?
The poor grow ever further from their goals.
Better to be a goat who chews the runway
Than responsible for the fate of all those souls.​

 

[The Judge]

Tempus Fugit


A is for Airplane. For Adam. And Attempting the impossible.

B is for the Brilliance of his mind, and of his smile.

C is his Compassion, his Courage.

D is his Dad’s Dakota, the first plane he re-engineered.

E is for Eaglewing, the supreme fighter plane. His.

F is for Fear. Mine.

G is his Grin when he flew away.

H is the Hope in which he set out, for the History he sought to change, for Hiroshima now never bombed.

I is his discovery of Interdimensional Temporal Pathways, linking the multiverse, travelling in time.

J is the Jeering his theories no longer attract.

K is for Killing. Destroying those who would murder others.

L is for the Lives he’s saved.

M is the Misery he’s averted.

N is for 9/11 which he thwarted.

O is the Oradour atrocity he prevented.

P is Pearl Harbor, which suffered no attack.

Q. The Questions he should have asked.

R, the Ripples he’s created in time. Ripples becoming waves, tsunamis; changes bringing greater change.

S is for Sorrow. Innocents dying because he saved others.

T is for the Tears shed, the Terrorists multiplying.

U is for all the Unintended consequences.

V is the Valediction he sent, apologising, explaining – he had to keep flying the pathways, righting the wrongs he’d caused, until not one person suffered because of him.

W is Worry. And Waiting.

X is Xenophobia. Its allies: perverted religion, arrogance, hate. All corrupting his acts of mercy.

Y is for the Years I’ve passed without him.

Z is for Zarai, our daughter, unborn when he left. Zarai, who learns of a brilliant man with a brilliant smile through the alphabets I teach her. Who one day, I hope – I must hope – will meet her father, who attempted the impossible.

.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Through a Glass, Darkly


“As we enter the third week of the search for American Airlines flight 4370, there is still no information. No debris, no sightings, nothing but speculation about this plane that disappeared after leaving Florida en route to Venezuela.”

“And now, our special presentation on the Bermuda Triangle. After the disappearance of flight 4370 three weeks ago, there are many theories. One, from the noted author of Triangle Facts and Fiction, George Sterling. See what he has to say, up next.”

“Today marks one month from the disappearance of flight 4370, and we’re looking back at what we know so far. Reports of debris have gone unsubstantiated, and the NTSB refuses to comment on eyewitness reports, from people who saw an unidentified aircraft in the area and also from sailors who saw the airplane disappearing into a ‘dark fog’. Stay tuned for our experts’ opinions and a new interview with a man who was nearly taken by the Bermuda Triangle, in one hour.”

“Breaking news from Australia’s Northern Territory – an airplane that violated Australian air space and was forced to land on an airstrip in the bush has been confirmed as missing flight 4370 from Florida. What happened five weeks ago, where has it been, with its 157 passengers and 5 crew, and how did it get to Australia? These answers, and more, soon.”

“See it here first – we have exclusive video from the airstrip where flight 4370 landed, and you won’t believe your eyes! It seems the Triangle does give up its dead, but they are very much alive. And not just the 162 souls who were aboard that fated flight, but over 300 more walked off that plane. That video is coming up – see everyone from 1800s sailors to World War II pilots, safe and sound at last.”

 

[Ursa major]

​

Burning Devotion​

Some say we’re born guilty. What’s important is repentance.

In the land of my birth, we believed God had sent us a Sign. Its precise meaning was subject to great scholarship, for how else could mere mortals understand God’s great purpose?

As a sinner, no amount of teaching could stop me thinking, though it taught me to hold my tongue. Most of the time. But one day, in blind anger, I revealed what I thought, that the Sign from God was no such thing. My mouth ran away with me. I went too far: “The Sign isn’t decaying because we sin, but because it’s of this Earth.”

I cannot bear to recall the immediate consequences: imprisonment; excruciating “persuasion”; being not just exiled, but sold to unbelievers. At the time, I didn’t see this as my first step into enlightenment. But then how could I know I’d become a house slave of a mystic?

She was a bad woman, but only in ignorance. She’d had no Sign to guide her, only her ancient books. In teaching me to read, she gave me books with pictures, including those of objects that looked like the Sign, but were as new. Some were shown flying through the air.

How could this be? No-one knew for sure, but the mystic was convinced that the key ingredient was burning water.

Years later, I saw from where such burning water came: the distillation – not purification – of filth seeping from the ground. And then I knew. My people’s Sign was not from God, but from the demons below.

The mystic died, willing me my freedom. I am returning home, to tell my people what they’ve been worshipping. I will help them repent: the burning water will cleanse their souls as it consumes their bodies.

​

 

[Culhwch]

Last Stand

‘They’re coming!’

‘Jesus, already?’ I rubbed my eyes, rolled off the cot. ‘I was hoping for more time.’

The corporal held the door open. ‘Everyone wants more time, sir.’

The small airfield was buzzing. Five attack helicopters were spinning up, ground crew scrambling as they rose. Soldiers raced towards the field’s edge, into the Costa Rican jungle. I headed for the abandoned cargo plane at the end of the runway. Someone had painted ‘LAST STAND’ along the side. I ducked inside as automatic gunfire echoed through the trees.

The plane had been gutted, with banks of lab equipment now crammed along the length. The cockpit was a workstation with laptops nestled amongst a tangle of cords. Mbeke was already there. ‘How far out?’ I asked.

‘Best case, ten minutes.’

‘Worst case?’ There was crackling sound and we both looked up, out the window. A ball of blue electricity engulfed one of the choppers. It dropped from the sky, soldiers scattering out of the way. ‘Nevermind. Let’s go.’

Mbeke’s fingers danced across his keyboard and I headed back, flicking a switch to open the cargo bay. As the door lowered, a large machine rolled down a set of tracks. It was tethered to the equipment inside the plane by a series of tubes, and as it settled on the turf it began to rumble and shudder as internal fans started to kick in.

We’d spent the last few months putting it together. It may have been the most lethal weapon ever created by man - a delivery device for almost every lethal pathogen found on Earth.

A skimmer hummed overhead as alien foot soldiers burst from the treeline nearby. A fine, deadly mist enveloped me, and I prayed that the bastards’ bodies were as fragile as our own.

 

[Ursa major]

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