STORY NUMBER NINE:
SLIM PICKINGS
“They’ve got Lila”.
Ray Rouge eased down the Rangers throttle; his arm shook as the airships engine cranks chugged to a crawl. The slam van shot off between two stars and wheeled east into darkness. He sat back in his seat and frowned, a finger scratched at his well groomed goatee.
“Why we stopping,” Tasha demanded. She lit a smoke and gave him that look.
“Look where they’re heading.” He unsnapped his seatbelt and flicked his wrist. An interstellar map glowed into life displaying a carousel of surrounding planets that danced before them, blinking like fireflies in the dark. Ray dragged his finger east and pointed to an ink black spot in space.
“So, what’s out there?” She snarled, her eyes burning into him.
“The Kraken,” Ray said. Meeting her gaze, her pupils growing large.
She turned away and slunk deep into her seat. “I thought that slam was just a myth Ray.”
He re-clipped his seatbelt and sat forward punching co-ordinates into the Alice’s computer. “So did I sis, until I met a crook who broke out, lets pay him a visit first,” he said.
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STORY NUMBER TEN:
STEAMSPACE
The SSS Moonwalker floated toward Jupiter, her boilers space cold and undergoing cleaning. The 'boy' engaged in the task was entirely clockwork (regulations on child employment passed by an unrealistic parliament two years previously having prevented the economically more reasonable solution) and had been very expensive, but required no sustenance, food, air, nor drink, and made no mischief during quiet times as cheap orphans might, so even if he did require a real crewman to rewind him quite frequently whenever he was on a serious job, like now, he was actually quite close to paid off.
Captain Joshua Threadking was clad in his vulcanised, airtight æthersuit, just the helmet and gauntlets detached, clamped beside him in their reserved spaces in the varnished walnut control panel, to prevent them flying around should there be an impact, while keeping them to hand should any leak, either their air escaping or poison mingling into it, occur- and they'd all trained to seal up in less than a minute. All workstations were set up like this; Joshua was a careful, methodical man who had been a commander in her Imperial Majesty's wet navy, and maintained a high level of safety, even at the expense of comfort - the suits did get hot and sweaty, and the constant volume joints reduced dexterity, but he'd never had a member of his crew damaged in a depressurisation incident, something that couldn't be said of all ships in the service.
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STORY NUMBER ELEVEN:
THE STING
The shooting in the street made Salvatore pause his cleaning. Laser weapons. He moved over to the door and glanced out. People are panicking and I smell the stench of cooking flesh. He flicked the switch on the door to illuminate the closed sign and lock up the building.
When he turned back, Tommaso had his head round the partition, shouting. 'Hey, Salvatore! Why you closing so early?'
Wash your ears out, Old Man. 'They're shooting up the Corazzieri again,' he said, making his voice sound polite. No one dared be anything else around Tommaso Mosca, next in line to be the capo di tutti capii of the Corleonasi Clan. 'No point in taking chances, Don Tommaso.'
The glare could have meant anything, but Salvatore took it to mean agreement. The big man had come here tonight without his usual protection. His men waited outside, hidden on rooftops and in doorways along the surrounding streets – there was no need for the lumbering, brainless muscle of the old days, not with modern surveillance equipment. The Family owned this planet and not a scitch-lizard moved without them knowing.
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STORY NUMBER TWELVE:
THREE WORDS
The lights flickered quickly down the hallway, making my vision swim. All signs over the past few weeks had pointed me to this moment. I nodded to Sarah who stood with her back to the door, and her salt gun raised. A strange odour cast out from the school's music room. The soundproofed door was black and didn't have one of those regular small windows with mesh inside like the other classrooms at this inner-city school did.
On the count of three she moved and I whispered three words as I kicked at the door. It went flying in, and was left hanging by the top hinge only. In that instant my body felt the weeks of sleep deprivation and mental exhaustion it had been brutalized by. I shook it off and raised my hand towards the blackness in the corner of the room.
It hovered there, crackling energy as it sucked the life out of the students hanging by their feet from the ceiling. The lights in the room had long ago blown out but Sarah and I had flipped our lenses over to darkness. I could see each of the kids wriggle and fight to stay alive but the demon just laughed at them. It hardly seemed to take us as a threat as we closed in on it, still sucking away. It was getting stronger every moment we let it linger and it knew it.
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STORY NUMBER THIRTEEN:
WELCOME IN, HUMANS
That's right, I'm a theropod. In a few hundred million years my descendants might be turkeys - and you've come here assuming that my intelligence is at least as low as theirs. What does that say about you, jumped up mammals? That, into which you have all fallen, is a pit trap, which you might get round to inventing some day. If you survive, which doesn't, at this point, seem likely. We also have sapling nooses, triggered rock slides, falling cages - all sorts of things you and your kin forced us to learn over the centuries.
Please put down those metal tubes. We have had centuries to learn what they can do, and doubtless more advanced models. We don't want to damage you, but would prefer to fill in the hole entirely - with you at the bottom - than let you out armed.
You've just discovered time folding, and the greater the displacement the greater the precision - you might even be the first on your time line to do so, if 'first' has any meaning in folded time.
I am Ghasssid, your interpreter and issuer of orders. Very few here will speak your language, but all will be treated as if they were your superiors - because we are.
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