Sept 9 More science fiction from me, as the title says Five stories to be exact.
However not what I said. I had planned on dong the first 3,333 words of my first novel but too late decided that it did need some revising. I didn’t even know there were rules to writing when I wrote it. Nothing about passive Vs active, Telling Vs Showing, making sure the MC changes, using all five human senses in each major scene to draw the reader in, etc. Grammar no doubt is lousy too. And only the basics in punctuation.
So instead I present five mini and flash tales, each one except for the first one, were written from a picture. I tried to incorporate the pictures description into the story. Two of the stories had to be under 600 words when I First wrote them. They are now longer after I revised them. The three mini tales were all from pictures. The first tale wasn't from a picture but had to have five certain words in the story. I forget which words they were and I am not sure that since I revised it, deleted and added words that all five are still there.
Enjoy:
An Emergency Sell
Makueue sat at his controls, he frowned at the images above the slanted, grey panel. His eyes closed for a moment.
Nothing left to do.
His small cockpit seemed to close in on him. He could reach from one side to the other. It fit his small freighter and provided a bit more storage. Now though that extra room might cost him more. He wanted to bang his hand on the control panel but he had done that before-the panel was very hard. All it did was hurt and cause the images to jumble for a second.
A movement at the side made him glanced at the viewer at the side of his controls. An image of William Shakespeare showed. The real likeness of him. Or so who they now thought he was. He had turned down the sound and paused it when the call came through. Now there silence filled his ears, which fit. He had bought new versions of the plays, set in contemporary settings, to watch on this trip. He loved the Bard’s plays. Real life reactions mixed in with proetic lines. Shakespeare knew how to write.
Damn, that beep, which had signaled the note from the Commence Ministry of the Walton Kingdom, had distracted him from the beginning of “Taming of the Shrew”. Now he didn’t fell like watching it. Bile came up at the news.
The recorded memo had been short. The cost of the Temp commence license had gone up. That meant he didn’t have enough to buy one. Without it if he tried to sell anything or deliver cargo to anyone, he could face prison time as a smuggler. The Royal Family, of course, could buy things from anyone they wanted to. They wouldn’t want anything he had, even if the cargo belonged to him, which it didn’t.
His ship, the Surreal Camel, rested near the huge hourglass-like station. Sensor dishes, weapons and squarish long comm antenna marred the bottom and top. It was this system’s Royal courts, multi-governmental office complex. It also housed the HQ for their Smuggler Officers which also served as search and rescue. The home station, where most of the citizens lived, was another two hour trip at medium sublight speeds.
In frustration he looked over his shoulder, pictured his ship. Its streamline oval hull with two small, fat cigar shaped outriggers. The ship’s pulse drives and gravity twisters rested in those. The Camel had two smaller drives in the main hull, away from the main drives. They could be used as thrusters, or emergency propulsion, if something happened to the larger ones. The middle of the ship could be expanded upward to make more cargo space. Right now the hump was out all the way out for he had a full cargo.
Which I can’t sell now.
He looked to the side, to the ceiling and deck under his shin high blue ship boots. At the moment he wore something inspired by old Earth water pirate, even though with odd colors. His shirt had a basic brown with earth tone red panels and green short wide stripes. All white pants with wide legs, completed his outfit.
Nothing here to inspire me.
If he could deliver his cargo he would get paid and be able to pay for the Temp Comm license, but they didn’t work that way here. They wouldn’t do that even for a late fee. He wouldn’t get much out of this trip but at least his costumer would be happy and his rep would be in tact. Now he could lose the cargo fee and his rep if he had to leave without delivering the cargo. And the client might sue him for the price he would have gotten. All because these asteroid heads wanted more money.
He couldn’t sit here much longer either, or they would charge him for extravehicular docking fees. Makueue glanced at the side screen again. He shook his head. He had only a total of 27 hours and thirty-four and a half minutes to stay here and over half of that was gone. A strange amount of time-maybe it was a local day. No time to watch those flare blasted plays, not even just the Tragedies, to help him relax. Or to fix his mood before he had to pilot the Camel back home in defeat.
He stood. No room to pace in his control cabin and the rest of the small ship was too full to do a descent pace. He wanted to jump up and down; bang something. Another look at his controls. He blinked, titled his head as he stared at a tiny cube, smaller than dice, that sat in the player. What had he read about the King?
Maybe, I do have something to inspire me.
He sat down, dialed the call sign for a certain official. Two days later he piloted the Camel back home. It had taken most of the rest of the 27 hours and odd minutes to get in touch with a member of the Royal family. A buyer, who came on board and examined the video cube, bought it. That gave him more time. The cube was one of a type. It could not be copied which meant it would be rare here. The buyer paid him and took the cube. Makueue bought the license, delivered his cargo to the customer;s buyer, got paid all with his rep intact and ended up with 25% more money than expected.
Not bad for a bad day.
end
TRAPPIST-1
I stood behind the navigator with my arms behind my back. There were four work stations in the middle of the deck, with little room between them, and four more around located along the walls. I may have looked like an old Fictional star ship captain on an old TV show or movie, but I was just bored. On this flight of my unit of Space Explorers-a step up for over achievers like me in the Boy Scouts-we didn’t have a captain. The ship only had a ten member crew with the AI comp as back up for everything. This was a class too. Our mission was to check out the TRAPPIST-1 solar system. Not that it hadn’t been checked out many times since its discovery back in 2015 and 2016. But as young Space Explorers we had things to learn.
The 40 or so light years took us forty days to cover. We don’t get the fastest ships either even though one light year a day wasn’t too bad. We had time to study, goof around and study some more. The rest of the crew didn’t goof around as much as me, but I am not a nerd only an overachiever.
So I read some of the new fiction stories-the ones about wizards on spaceships-Galactic Fantasy-were good. Once at TRAPPIST-1 we popped the temporal-matter ghost bubble and settled into a far orbit around the system. The radiation the red dwarf star puts out is dangerous any closer. Of course our ship has shields but we didn’t want to take chances. Our orbit still was close enough to allow the radiation to fry us if our shields went down but the chances increased dramatically if we got any closer.
We, I, sent out probes and used the ship’s far sensors. I man the probe launch station and a side science station. Both are at the same panel which I like. Jill and Fred had to run back and forth between stations and Hillary had three separate screens to watch.
The seven Earth-like planets, at least in size, gravity and matter were interesting. It took hours of study to find out things about the system as we acted like we were the first to be here and to study it.
On the fourth day though Harry picked up an anomaly on the third planet, one of the four in the habitable zone. Not that that meant much here with all the radiation the sun poured out. I borrowed his readouts and zeroed in on the strange patch on Three. Metal.
Metal? What?
And a power supply.
Laura’s probe zoomed in almost to the surface. A manmade something along with a ladar signal. The message was a SOS. Someone had crashed there, but had survived and needed help. The readings even there were strange though. The metal didn’t seem to correspond with any we had on record, though.
Another Space Explorer maybe? Or a one man freighter? The message didn’t say. But who ever it was, they had been able to get to the side always away from the sun. Which meant they were in shadow and mostly protected from the red sun. And their ship would give them more protection if it hadn’t been damaged too much.
I told everyone we needed to rescue him or her. But they argued that because of the radiation and the fact that he didn’t say who he was we shouldn’t. It could be a pirate trap Harry said.
I said, “Our emergency shields will hold long enough for us to get the surviver and get back out. We can do this. After all it could be a test.”
I didn’t think so but I thought that argument could influence one or two of the group.
There was still too much discussion going on, most seemed to be against it. These nerds thought up too many things that could wrong. Jill wondered, because if the strange metal, if it could be a ship from some lost colony of humans, or a new alien race.
John said, “It could be someone from an alternate dimension. The radiation here could weaken whatever separates the dimensions.”
I silently shook my head. I was the one who read Science Fiction and even though a popular novel had that idea in its plot it still surprised me he would consider it.
Finally though Mary said, “We could use the shuttle without a crew, move into Three’s shadow but stay far enough away to escape if we need to, if it was a trap or some form of inter-dimensional gate.”
The way she said the last I doubted she believed it. I nodded and said I could live with that.
We finally agreed and set out to make it so.
Thirteen hours later we had the surviver onboard and were homeward bound. It turned out that the strange readings came from the various forms of radiation that had affected the probe’s sensors and the outer layer of the hull of his ship. The surviver was an Intergalactic Force trainee whose ship malfunctioned at the worse possible moment
end
Lost Cambot
The small figure stood there, looked at the paper that had slid out of a slot on the bottom of its body above its one wheel. It had somehow rolled out from the range of its programing. And it hadn’t heard any radio signals calling it back either. Now it didn’t know what to do. At least the rain that came down hard wouldn’t harm it, for it was made for outside use, in all weather conditions. Of course for appearances sake its wheel was rubber which might slip on ice, snow or even a wet surface.
The camera which made up half of its body would broadcast this image to anyone close by who had the correct devices. No bluetooth signals nearby. It knew it now sat on an old cement bridged without any smart tech that it might be able to connect with. Someone could plug in a three pronged device on the camera itself or even a USB wire plugged in a port under the camera. Of course most of bluetooth devices had security it could not get through.
The cold weather didn’t bother it but it did keep people inside, which was both good and bad. Bad in that there were humans that would steal it and tear it apart so they could sell its insides. Or reprogram it for some use it wasn’t made for.
Vibrations in the cement made it roll back from the edge of the street it had found itself. A big truck was coming, if it stood too close the suction of the vehicle could suck it under the truck or a part of the large vehicle might impact it damaging it.
What to do?
The truck zoomed by, the roar of its engines confusing the cambot’s hearing. It rolled on, saw someone running its way. No signal came from them so it decided they wanted to steal it. It rolled toward dark shadows, hid in a corner of the bridge’s railing. They looked for it but it shut down most of its components, so no light or noise would show them where it was.
Half an hour later it rolled off the bridge, to do so it had to go out onto the pavement for there were steps on the cement. It made sure it stayed there only for a minute. Another chase when those humans came back. It followed a cat who also ran. They both made it to a dark place under debris. An hour later it beeped.
What? It hadn’t done that.
Oh, a signal. When it came close enough the cambot rolled out into the open. A man in a uniform it knew saw it and came over.
The man picked it up and said, “There you are. We will take you back home with your buddies.”
His words and signaling device fit its programing perimeters so it now knew what to do.
end
New Factory world
The factories were busy, some, like the one to the left with its cargo bays now open to air, were old freighters no longer needed. They had brought passengers and raw materials to this planet but no one was going back home. What they made would but not them. Too many people on that planet who took up room needed for factories. So they sent some here to build everything they would want there. It freed up a tiny bit of room, for a few years-he had heard that people had already moved into the now empty buildings not waiting for government okays.
Here everything could be for manufacturing. Food was another issue. Reconstituted burgers never tasted right but later they would get some from the farming planet that had the same idea behind it.
Jorge thought a stink of pollutants plus overworked oil and metal had already invaded the air here. And that was with every attempt to cut the pollution before it formed. They wanted this planet to last a long time. The working factories created heat which produced light and warmth as the number of manufactering center grew no doubt the weather would change, at least here in this “city”, but some areas would not be effected of decades. Places with R&R spots. The weather in this spot didn’t matter so much for one lived here and hardly any flora. The noise may take a little getting used to but he would and so would most of the workers. Those who couldn’t would be sent up in orbit for what had to be built in low gravity.
He smiled the new autos and tablets would be headed back to what had been his home soon, soon after the kitchen appliances and traffic light computers. Then more and more.
end
Garbage pickers
I waited as the rounded ship came through the city streets. Even though bulky looking it easily avoided the tall buildings. Its bulbous superstructure made it look bigger than it was; about the same size as an old fashion fishing trawler. It was still before sunrise so its spots were on, but I could see fine by the city lights.
It settled over the pile of garbage those that lived in this underground complex had piled near the air ducts. The smell probably drifted down into this duct but they must not care. The garbage pickers had come to find anything they could use or could fix to sell. Others must have been here earlier, but these had waited for the last moment. Maybe they thought someone would throw out something just before pick up or they looked for items other pickers would pass over.
I stood on a box like unit: I had done this before so knew it would hold me easily as I directed the pilot of the ship to a good spot right above the pile. It was a touch longer and wider than the ship but that didn’t matter. The automated garbage collectors would mash it together in a smaller, condensed mass and the ship’s hydraulics would smash it even smaller.
The few pickers here now would keep going through it until the ship let the AGCs out. I have seen the pickers fight a AGC for a bit of garbage they thought was valuable. Even though stronger than a human they were programed to let a person win if they pulled or otherwise fought hard enough.
A warm wind created by the ship’s drives blew past me but I knew from long experience that it would get only so strong. The pickers knew this also.
I imagined that the pile had been picker over already since it lay here for over two weeks. But new stuff may have been added or some item one of these pickers could use or fix may have been missed. Different pickers wanted different types of items after all.
I got my attention back to directing the ship. It halted at the right spot and height. Side panels slid open and the small boxy units flew out. Each had four arms and wings. Thrusters and anti gravity waved propelled them. Their inboard comps knew what to do.
end
