Story Work

Anthill Morning

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2017-07-01

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: Dark Conspiracy, Fiction, RPG, stories, writing.

Author’s note: The following tales are a composite of a single event, each told from the point of view of their narrative character: A local townie bent on revenge, a corporate employee, and a street thief. Each piece was designed to be a small bite of the environment at hand. The stories are set in the fictional world of Lester Smith’s Dark Conspiracy roleplaying game (Copyright 1991, Game Designers’ Workshop).

Anthill Morning

The Shooter

He’s ahead of me in the crowd and I ain’t planning to let him get away. That stupid red shirt from last year’s Decline concert marks him good and gives me a point of reference, but on the other hand the weather is not as crappy as usual and so the streets are packed. The sidewalk is like swimming through people, and when I try stepping onto the street itself I damn near get a Zil enema.

Homey’s keeping up a moderate pace. Doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. That makes it easier to follow someone, but to be honest I would just as soon he gets where he’s going. Shooting a man on a city street ain’t big on my list for today.

Witnesses are gonna be a bitch no matter what. Pop a couple caps in some monkey, even here in the upper Anthill, and folks are gonna take notice. The kick will be limiting exposure. If he’ll just go into a store or something, somewhere that limits vision and blocks some of the sound, I’ll splash his head all over the walls and just keep trucking. I kind of hope he goes into some clothing store. Wrap the .45 in a heavy shirt or something, and maybe that will mitigate the sound. Worked for Tyrone What’s-his-name in that spy film last year.

He strolls past the big Asian market thing like he can’t even hear them calling out to him. I snatch up one of those little bottled soda things and toss some aged mama-san a couple wadded notes as payment. I don’t care about any change, even though I hear her call out that I have some coming. I just turn and wink at her while taking a drink. She smiles and pockets the change.

If things go the way they could, I won’t need any money after today. Either I’ll get back the case and be able to sell it for enough to retire, or I’ll get arrested — or I’ll get dead. Either one means about the same thing as far as those bits of scrip go.

He starts cutting eastbound and passes by a Night Shift. I see his eyes reflected in the glass. I’m too close. If he sees me… The .45 feels like a brick in my waistband, but if I have to I’ll drill this asshole right here. He runs a hand back across his hair, slicking it down where the wind is getting to it.

The rain starts. Not sure why it waited this long, but it’s those early showers that just feel good and get you a little wet. The big storms will come later, not that this murdering sack of shit is gonna be around for any of it. That ain’t the kind of wet he’s gonna be. Dude comes into my house and ganks my friends, steals my cargo, and thinks I ain’t coming after him, then he needs to think again.

I stop for a second at a vendor. Let him get a few extra steps. The distance will help. I hadn’t realized I was getting that close until I was looking over his shoulder. A couple bucks later and I’m munching on some kind of meat on a stick. It’s either really shitty myco or it’s fairly tasty mouse. I ain’t asking which. I see him further east, ducking behind the big grocery store. I’m actually glad he didn’t go in there. They’ve got sec men that have good relations with the local badges. That means they remember people who do things like execute their customers. Hell, they’ll probably shoot back, and they actually know what they’re doing. Me, I’m running off what that Devil Bat showed me when he sold the gun to me.

I round the corner and see that he has passed the big game shop. There’s a little space out beside it with some tables and benches and stuff where people used to meet for chess games and romantic talks and such. I can see him making a casual approach. There are half a dozen people there at various tables. I’m throwing out the two Dobies making out, and the dude smoking a cheap cigar while he reads the latest issue of HiTek Dreamz is a no-brainer. It’s the mook in the business suit that looks entirely out of place and I figure that’s his mark. He’s gonna give my case to this nome wannabe? Not today.

As he takes another slow step forward, I make three of my own. My heart is racing faster than my steps. I reach for the metal and it fits my hand like it was made for it. I bring it out of my waistband and look down to make sure the safety thing is off. I cock it with my thumb and make the next few steps his last.

“This is for Shank and Leo,” I say as the gun comes up. He starts to turn and then it’s bucking in my hand. So loud. I can see the empty shell flying up and away as I pull the trigger again. His head is pretty much gone. He’s still falling but I grab the case and rip it out of his hands. It’s already sticky with his blood. So is Suit Boy, and a part of me thinks that’s pretty funny.

I turn and cut back up parallel to Penn in the alley. I keep seeing his head crack open. I’m gonna puke. I know I am, but I can’t yet. Heading north now, putting on speed. The badges will be coming. CorpSec or HardCop, it won’t matter if I get caught. Only difference there will be Corpers putting me down while the real ones do the arrest thing.

There’s a mushhead sitting by the sidewalk at Mackie’s, behind his coin bucket. Looks like he ate half of PharmaTech’s inventory. I can hear the sirens as I kneel down by him. Jesus, he stinks. He turns and mutters something as I shove a pile of scrip in his bucket and tell him some crap about God watching over him. The .45 fits real good under the piled up coat and assorted crap he’s got stacked beside him. I pat him on the head like a puppy and keep moving, though I change to the west now. Two blocks up and no pursuit. Time to change directions.

It’s about two more blocks when the thought of what I did really sinks in. I grab a trash can out beside Taste of Taipei and rip off the cover. The maggots crawling over whatever is in the can make it even easier and the fried mouse comes back up in a rush of cheap Japanese soda and bile. I wipe my mouth and straighten up.

“You did good back there,” I hear. I jump. Whoever they are, they got close without me hearing. I turn to see her, all slick looking and very much at ease here. Nice clothes. Heh. Nice rack. I look back up to see her smile. An eyebrow arches and she glances down at my waist. As I start to look down too, she’s in motion. The foot hits me square in the balls and the world explodes into brilliant swirls of color. I reach for her but she’s already inside my grasp. I can feel the knife then, in and out, in and out. Stabbing me so fast. It doesn’t feel like anything at first but now it’s starting to feel somehow cold and hot at the same time. That obsessive part of me wants to count the times she put it in me but I can’t. Making the thoughts stick is hard.

I can feel her pulling the case. It’s mine. I need it. You can’t have it. Gotta keep hold.

Cold.

Getting dark. Why is it so dark?

The Buyer

What a filthy place.

How do people even live here?

I dodge a puddle of water that is brimming with scum. That would ruin my shoes.

I passed out of the last Controlled Zone five blocks ago, but this area should be classed as a complete NoGo. I saw actual street gangs. Not the kind on the trid, but real, actual criminal gang members, with knives and bats and stuff. One of them even had a gun. I saw the handle thing sticking out of his pants. The briefing dossier on this area is in serious need of a rewrite.

This had better pay off or I am going to be angry. I can’t believe I had to come here. I deserve so much better than this. It has to be Brantley and his interference. I’ll be filing a complaint as soon as I get back and can get the stench of this place out of my clothes.

I step around a bundle that might well be a used diaper and keep walking. There’s a man in a robe up ahead, waving some kind of book. He sounds like some kind of trid evangelist. As I get near, his eyes light up and he starts talking to me like I’m some kind of long lost family member.

Someone bumps into me and I spin, reaching up to hold onto the thick packet in my breast pocket. Well, she wasn’t attacking me. She looks to be intoxicated or something. It’s a pity. She’s a pretty thing. She lifts her breasts and wiggles them through her soft grey blouse.

“Wanna party?” she mumbles, smiling at me. Why on earth would anyone want to ‘party’ with someone obviously on drugs? Unable to form words to express my level of discomfort and lack of desire to be with her, I point to my wedding band and turn back in time to see the evangelist grinning at the girl. She wanders away singing as he begins to tell me something about my soul. As if I need a lecture on my soul from a man lusting after that drug-addled street girl.

Giving up on the evangelist, I turn away and nearly walk into a gorgeous young girl with bright purple hair. I never thought that facial piercings were all that attractive, but on her, they certainly seem to work. For a moment I am lost in thought, and then I remember why I am here, just in time to catch an angry glare from the hairy man in the leather straps that is her escort. He looks like one of those arena fighters Mildred likes to watch on the trid. Knowing what I’ve seen in this area, he’s probably her pimp. I sigh and move on. It’s for the best. If they knew what I was carrying, they would probably rob me.

I step around the edge of some store selling “smoking accessories”, although what I can see inside there doesn’t have anything to do with decent cigars. There are yet more freaks in there. This place is horrid.

Someone has their music turned up too loud. It’s offensive. No one wants to hear your – it’s in a car? That loud and it’s in a car? How can they drive? If this was home, the security forces would have torn that thing into scrap metal and you dirty people would be – don’t get out! Don’t get out! No no no.

That man just pulled some kind of giant gun from under his jacket and stuck it in the nose of the man on the corner, and then dragged him right into the loud car. They just took that guy right off the corner! No one’s going to stop them. No police, no security force. How do people even live here?

There’s a coffee shop up ahead on my right that doesn’t seem to have too much going on. Maybe I can get something to drink. I wonder what the chances are of them having a caramel macchiato?

I order one and the fat man behind the counter – with a nose ring, of all things – tells me they only have coffee. I get one with as much cream as they will put in it. Powdered cream in what was undoubtedly thrift store coffee. It tastes as bad as it looks but it’s vaguely approaching coffee.

It’s started to rain, and I notice no one is carrying an umbrella. The majority of the people get closer to awnings or doorways, but no one is putting on any protective gear. What are they going to do when the acid hits?

South of the alleged coffee shop, I see my meeting place. Just past a place selling games and cards and little tiny figures, there’s a picnic area — or at least that’s what it looks like. Plastic tables and benches, a random assortment of round tables with loose plastic chairs, and the occasional trash can.

I take up space in a seriously uncomfortable chair. I’m going to get dust all over my suit, but at least I’ll be able to see the seller when he arrives. I figure I will have to burn the suit anyway. After being down in this neighborhood, there is no hope for it. I can smell the stink of a bad cigar on the wind, and when I look, I can see the fat man smoking it. He’s reading some magazine. HiTek Dreamz? Really? Look at you. The closest you’ll get to anything HiTek is right there in your magazine. You’re as likely to end up in my part of town as those two nasty men kissing behind you. Nobody wants to see that! Save it for the bedroom.

He’s three minutes late. Three minutes. I’ve seen men fired for less. When he gets here I’m going to give him a piece of my mind. I do not like being kept waiting. A lack of punctuality shows disrespect for your business partner.

Is that him? That’s a courier case, at least. He’s heading my way. It looks like this is the right guy. Time to remember that stupid code phrase. What was it? I can’t remember. Think. Think. Here he comes. Something about a giraffe.

Who is that? Dear sweet Jesus, he’s got a –

He shot him! He shot him! It’s so loud! I can’t hear anything. Oh God, he just killed him! It’s all over me and I’m gonna be sick and oh my God please don’t kill me!

He can keep the case, just don’t let him kill me please oh please.

He’s running away and I hear the men behind me screaming and running. All I can see is this thing on my table. It’s like some kind of opened fruit. A moment ago this was a human being. Now it’s just –

I lean over and vomit onto the concrete. My hands are shaking and I heave again. My eyes are stinging from the acid going up my nose.

“Well, damn. That’s gonna leave a mark,” I hear. I straighten up. There’s blood and brain on my shirt and I feel my body trying to be sick again. Swallowing, I turn to look.

She’s lovely, even squeezed into whatever that outfit is. I suppose it must be fashionable somewhere. I wish my suit wasn’t ruined. I can at least smile at her. She looks familiar.

“Hey, aren’t you -” I start to ask.

She sticks a hand out and I automatically reach to shake it before I realize she’s holding a knife. The smile hasn’t faded from her mouth, but she’s holding a knife on me!

“Inside right breast pocket, mister. You know what I’m here for. Don’t try to play hero and you’ll be back in your MikeTown haven by sunset. Anything stupid and they’ll find your bloody corpse right here with dead boy.”

As if I’m going to do anything. She’s got a knife. I’m not some trid hero fighter. And just like that, there goes thirty thousand. How am I going to explain what happened here? Money gone and nothing to show for it? God, they’ll fire me.

She’s a ghost now, just a flicker of motion beyond the next building, moving at a full run that I couldn’t keep up with on my best day. I scratch my head and look around. Everyone ran away, but now some people are starting to drift back and peek around the corners of the buildings. Oh no. They’re going to think I did this!

I’m up and moving. Back past the front of the game store, with its inhabitants peering through barred glass at me as I run. My suit is filthy and no one pays me a second glance this time as I fly past them. If they let me keep my job, I’m never coming back here. Not once.

The Booster

“Bring that case and all will be forgiven.”

You know, when you hear that kind of thing, it makes you wonder why you got into this line of work in the first place. When it’s coming at you from the Don, that question is a deafening scream. Most folks don’t get a second chance, but based on my past history, he’s prepared to allow me a shot.

So to make reparations, I’m shadowing this MikeTown idiot through the south side. According to our intel, he’s meeting with the seller this morning. If I follow him, he’ll lead me straight to the case.

Friggin’ tourist. He’s so lost here. You can tell he doesn’t come down from his ivory tower real often. I keep wanting to walk up and escort him to where we’re going just to get past the way he stops and stares at everything. I mean, seriously? What kind of dumbass is gonna give the hairy eyeball to a crew of Ragged Ones? I just hope he doesn’t do anything irreparably stupid before I can get to the case. After that, he’s on his own.

He wanders along with his head up his ass, heading straight for a street preacher. Dude’s all waving his arms and lecturing, but this idiot is gonna walk right into him. I wanna yell at him: Skirt him. Go right. Go right — but it won’t do any good.

And now I’ve gotta go past him while he hears the good word or some shit. Well, at least I can make this a profitable move.

I bump into him as I pass, just so. Two pockets checked and I’m snatching what feels like a bankbook of some type. No heavy wads of scrip. Unless this book has a fortune hidden in about three sheets I’m screwed.

“Sorry, man,” I mumble, taking on the affect of a stoned out Gidget. I let a sleepy smile pass across my face as I see him protectively clutch at the right breast of his immaculate suit. In response I cup both of mine and shake them at him a little. “Wanna party?”

He looks disgusted – which is, I must say, kind of an ego blow – even as the street preacher licks at his lips and grins at me. At least I’m not completely scragged.

As the mark sputters a protest I slide past, stumbling through the steps of some dance that goes with the Queenly Flux tune I start warbling. I slap the ass of an over-pierced drag queen with purple hair as she walks by, escorted by a tatted-up bear in some S&M leather harness crap who gives me a dirty look but doesn’t say anything.

I’m past them now and veering into a shite little bodega. I duck behind a merch rack and wait for Idiot Boy to get away from the preacher. Cursing my luck at picking the place with the most hideous fashion ever, I pluck a t-shirt from a rack and slip it over my head. Great. Alabama Meat Packing. Really? Souvenir shirts from a meat company? Whatever. It’ll keep the mark from recognizing me, I guess. I top it off with a skate beanie and an Adolph Coors – the only water I can see in this place with an honest-to-God factory seal on it. Twenty-seven bucks later, I’m out the door about fifty feet behind Suit Boy…and then ducking in the doorway of a taquiera while he stands open-mouthed and watches a Devil Bat snatch-and-grab. It’s a money hit, what with them actually throwing the guy in their car rather than just whacking him.

I flag the shopkeep and order a taco. The mark is arguing with the counter guy at a coffee shop, so I might as well get a snack. Why in the hell can this asshole not just go to his damned meet? I slip the pinched bankbook out and give it a glance. Not a bankbook after all. Corporate ID pouch. Nice. That’ll bring a few ducats.

It starts to drizzle. Cool drops. Not too thick yet, but as humid as the air is, it’s coming. I want to be through with this before the chem storms hit.

He moves again after a few minutes sipping at an overpriced something in a brown cup and now he’s cutting south toward some kind of game shop. There’s a Korean joint here, too. I’m half tempted to wait in there, but I just know the meet will come and he’ll wind up leaving some other way. I’m not going home without that case. He goes past the game shop to a section with tables and chairs, looks around and takes a seat where he can watch to the west. I slip into the shop itself.

It’s warm and dry in here. Some fuzz-faced dude with a fistful of card decks gives me the once-over. I grin and peel off the Alabama Meat shirt. He drops his cards when I toss the shirt to him. The beanie goes with it. I ruffle my hair back up, but the spikes are a lost cause, thanks to the stupid hat. Beardly McBeardson seems to think it looks good, though. That or my cleavage. Either one works.

I glance out through the window and Suit Boy’s still sitting there, looking around at the people at other tables. I pick up some big box with starships on it and pretend to read the back so I won’t get chucked out.

“You, uh, you play Centauri Command?” asks Beardly. I smile.

“No. Just checking it out. Do you?”

He starts to answer, but the sudden eruption of gunfire outside silences him. I spin and leap out the door, the game box sailing across the room as I do. Suit Boy is sitting with a terrified expression on his face — along with a lot of blood and brain. There’s a dead guy splashed on his table and some dickhead in faded jeans and an oversized FunkFerret t-shirt is ripping off my case. Dead guy is the meet, then. Great.

The FunkFerret guy is bailing and Suit Boy is puking his guts out. Everybody else is running and screaming like they were the ones that took a bullet. I catch a bead on the runner and then wander over to Suit Boy. There’s a .45 casing on the table. That’s something to keep in mind when I find the shooter. He’s got a cannon.

There’s a snick as the switchblade snaps open, and a minute later Suit Boy is passing me his wallet. Yeah. There’s the cash. A quick glance shows it to be probably twenty kay or more in Ford-Revlon scrip. I blow him a kiss and take off, hot on FunkFerret’s track.

He’s fast, and he’s blowing past crowds like someone who just shot a man. No attempt at stealth. That’s either gonna make this easier or one hell of a lot harder. If he attracts security attention, we’re boned. Cutting back behind Hubcap Haven and pushing those stringy legs for all he’s worth. Glad I’ve always been a runner. He won’t get away based on speed or distance alone.

I slow to a gentle walk now as he kneels by a human speed bump in front of a Mackie’s store. Nice chunk of change he’s adding to the boy’s bowl. Back up and moving, but this time he’s at a slower pace. No running now. He seems confident that there is no pursuit. He knows these alleys, though, and that puts him one up on me.

I catch up to him as he’s barfing out beside some Chinese joint. Why is it everybody’s gotta puke around me? These guys are gonna give me a complex.

“You did good back there,” I call out, and he whirls. The case is still dangling from his left hand. Predictably, he scans my body, so I smile and look down like I’m admiring his package. He glances down, too, and when he’s not looking at my eyes I know he won’t see it coming until it’s too late. Snapkick to the jewels, baby. I hit him like I’m punting at the Superbowl.

Before he can move, I’m in close, the switchblade working with me in a series of stabs that are not so much graceful as they are frequent. As fast as I can work the blade I’m tagging him, right through the FunkFerret logo. I can’t let him get to the pistol he had. Blood runs thick and hot over my hand, and his slapping blows are slowing and getting weaker. I grab the case with my left hand and boot him in the guts to break his grip.

He hits the deck and I’m gone.

<<End>>

Jake and Jasmine

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2017-05-31

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: Fiction, stories.

Cold was something Jake didn’t do well, but Connecticut in winter leaves a man with no real choice. He was standing leaned against a light post, watching over the parking lot. In the old days there would have been a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, but he had quit a few years back.

It’s a pity, he thought. The image would have been perfect with a cloud of smoke drifting from his position under the lamp. As it was, he stood there, one leg crossed at the shin in front of the other, his hands jammed in the pockets of his leather jacket, and his face shadowed by the brim of his hat. Snow swirled around his boots, borne on the chilly north wind.

The door opened with a tiny chime of sound, and the employees filed out into the night, heading for their cars. He watched in silence until his eyes reached her. He had situated himself so that she would pass within a few dozen feet of his location and he waited patiently as she approached. He was stock still now, even his breathing slowed. Deer had walked within ten paces of him when he was like this, and there had once been a bobcat that came close enough to sniff at his foot.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered in a husky tone. She started, hand rising in a defensive pose. Her eyes narrowed as she stared into the shadows.

“Who are you?” she demanded. He slipped off his hat and grinned as the light fell on him.

“I made the trip.”

“Jake?”

“In the flesh.”

He took a couple of steps toward her, unsure if he had made the right decision. Would she flee?

That adorable smirk stretched her lips. “How’d you do it?”

He held out a small box. Roughly the size of a television remote, its surface flickered with colored lights.

“I told you I was working on a teleporter.”

He was at her side then, hand reaching up to brush her silky hair aside. Her eyes flashed in response to his own. She tilted her head back.

“You built something that lets you go anywhere, any time, and you chose here?”

“Well, it IS your birthday,” he said.

Their lips met and he knew the teleporter had been a good plan.

Terry’s Birthday

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2017-03-31

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: Fiction, stories, writing.

The big hand landed on Terry’s shoulder and a gravelly voice spoke in his ear.

“Carrie wants to talk to you.”

The quiet man turned and looked up into the face of the bouncer. The man’s eyes were sharp and brown, set deep in a wide face. Terry, by comparison, was whip-thin and his green eyes seemed possessed of a faraway quality.

“Easy, pal,” urged Vincent. The bouncer could not help but notice that the statement was directed to Terry, and not to him, as would be usual. He expected people to tell him to back off, but the tone this man had used to the thin man he was with made the giant bouncer slip his own hand from the shoulder of the customer.

“What about?” Terry asked.

“Dunno,” the mountain said. “She just pointed you out and said if you was leaving, to stop you for a second.”

The blaring speakers concealed around inside the club were pounding out a bass beat that overpowered most of the song. Terry nodded and jerked his head in the general direction of the interior.

“I’ll be out front having a smoke when the song ends.”

The big man scanned him, practiced eyes looking for any sign of deception or ill intent. “I’ll be bringing her out. She don’t get out of my reach. You get it?”

“Got it.”

A handful of minutes later, the dark head of the bouncer peered around the door frame. In one direction, a group of what looked like fraternity members were passing around the remains of a bottle of Jagermeister before they entered the strip club. Looking the other way, he saw Terry and Vincent. The former stood in a relaxed pose that had a touch of wariness about it, while his friend was leaned against the wall. Both had cigarettes in their hands as they quietly conversed.

He stepped through the door, dwarfing the woman he escorted. Corded ebony muscle gleamed under the exterior lighting in a manner it had not inside. He was a truly massive specimen of humanity, and the frat boys quailed when they saw him step out. The Jagermeister bottle clinked against the pavement where it was hastily dropped.

At his side, the woman in the tan halter top and denim cutoffs grinned. She patted the bouncer on the arm and started off at a casual walk. He was right behind her, and she knew it. Marcus had seen her through many a bad scene, and she felt confident that this would be no different.

“Hey,” she said by way of greeting, tossing back her ponytail to let it fall on her back.

Terry nodded. “Miss,” he said in a pleasant tone.

“Got a sec?”

“Hey, Vince, gimme a minute, yeah?” Terry said by way of reply. His friend stepped away several paces and sat on the hood of a grey BMW.

“Marcus?” she prompted, raising an eyebrow at her escort. He didn’t budge, his eyes fixed on Terry.

“S’all good,” the thin man said. “He’s got a job to do.”

She smiled at that and reached out with one slim hand to pluck the cigarette from Terry’s grasp. Nails painted the same scarlet color as her hair contrasted with the white filter as she took a drag. When she returned it, traces of a pink lip gloss decorated the filter.

“How did you do it?” she asked.

“Pulled it out of a box and lit it.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it. No one has ever managed to make it through that performance before, with their pants staying dry. Not with me and Treasure both working on you.”

He grinned. “That’s why I told you to make it a timed performance, miss.”

“It’s Carrie,” she corrected, although she had to admit that she enjoyed the feeling of having someone use some kind of formality with her.

He tucked the smoke into the corner of his mouth, tasting the sweetness of her lip gloss. His hand extended before him in a slow maneuver designed not to antagonize the enormous bouncer.

“Terry.”

She thought for a brief moment that he had mispronounced her name, but then her eyes lit up and she reached out to take his hand in her own and gently shake it. His grip was strong but subdued, the feeling of one who knew they could crush her hand but consciously made an effort to control themselves.

“I could tell you liked it,” she said.

“That I did,” he admitted. “You’ve got a gift.”

“But you didn’t come,” she said.

“Nope.” He was non-plussed at her casual crudity.

“But that’s what the dance is about!”

She was confused and seemed to be a bit miffed by his lack of response. Terry took another short drag and handed her the Camel before tucking his fingertips into the pockets of his jeans.

“I don’t mean to insult you, Carrie, or your friend in there. You’re both amazing at what you do. I just prefer to save my…” He paused, thinking of the right word to use. “…my response, for a more private setting.”

“That’s a lot of self-control.”

“It’s all I have left,” he said. He half-bowed from the waist. “You have a lovely night, Carrie. It was wonderful to meet you.”

“Happy birthday, Terry,” she replied, her voice a little slow in coming, but friendly when it did.

“Thanks for watching over her,” Terry said to Marcus. “I know folks don’t tell you that, but you do a good thing.”

The big man grinned. “Thanks,” he said.

As he turned to leave, Carrie took a step forward. “Hey!” she called. He turned to see a strange look in her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“You aren’t gonna ask for my number or anything?”

“Most guys do that?”

“Yes,” she said. Behind her, Marcus silently nodded.

“I ain’t them,” he said. He opened the passenger door of the BMW as Vincent got in. With a final smile, he dropped into place in the leather seat and closed the door. He watched the dancer as Vincent pulled them out of the parking lot. In turn, she kept her eyes on the BMW through the whole exit.

Training Session

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-08-22

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Fiction, Miranda, Skeeter, Z262, Zeke.

The discharge of the carbine was a sharp bark, and it echoed long enough that the sound joined the clink of the empty casing as it hit the ground. Downrange, a neat hole appeared in the center of the standing target. If it had been a real rabbit, they’d have carted that bitch out in a bag. Not exactly a difficult shot, but to Folk not used to shooting, the whole thing seems magical.

I flicked the safety and ejected the magazine. A quick swipe of my paw saw the chambered round ejected and flying through the air. It hit the dirt and rolled. I laid the weapon on the table and turned to face the small crowd of Folk that had come with me to the range.

“That’s all there is to it,” I told them.

“It’s loud,” said one of them.

“That it is. There are quieter weapons, I’ll give you that. One of our scouts has a suppressed handgun that makes little sound at all.”

“So why don’t all of them do that?” asked a tall dog. He wore some kind of letter jacket and had the half-shaved-head look that was going around with the youth. It was a little odd the first time I saw that, but I’m used to it now. Fashion is weird. I remember when I was a pup it was all about the heavy boots that clomped when you walked. Every cub and kitten for miles had the damned things.

“Suppressors are another piece of equipment that gets dirty, breaks down, and has weight. I don’t need it. If I’m in a fight, I honestly couldn’t care less if it makes noise. I’m gonna do what I gotta do to come out the other side.”

With my luck, of course, winding up in a fight happened far more often than I liked it to.

“So for now, we can assume you all know how to use that weapon, right?” called Sergeant Sharn. There was a murmur of sound as Folk tried to decide if they would respond. I took the onus off of them after letting them squirm for a moment.

“You don’t! Just admit it. No harm here in admitting you don’t know what you’re doing. The harm comes in pretending you do and getting somebody dead for it.”

A paw raised. It was the fox that had earlier stated the carbine was loud. I jerked my chin at her.

“What ya got?” I asked, trying to keep the tone friendly. If they wanted harsh or sharp, they had Sergeant Sharn for that. Even at his best, most of the Folk on the colony didn’t know what to make of the vicious badger.

“Why are there so many?” she asked, pointing to the table. I looked away from her long enough to scan the inventory. There were indeed a few items there.

“Most of these you won’t ever deal with,” I said. “We want you to see them in operation more than anything else. You won’t be spending time behind the butt of a machine gun or a grenade launcher. But our standard carbine and the singles we issue to every household? Yeah. You’re all going to know how to load and fire those.”

“Everyone?” she asked again. “I mean, I’m just a clerk.”

“You a Tolean?”

When she shook her head, Sergeant Sharn responded.

“Toleans have been excused if they request it. Religious abstention and all. You’ll note that several of them declined that and are here for the familiarization process anyway. Everyone else on colony needs to at least know the basics. Even if you never fire a weapon after today, your duties here might leave you in contact with them and we don’t want you afraid of an object that has no will of its own.”

“Excuse me, Sergeant?” called a grizzled old hound from near the back. “If we had militia training back home, uh…”

“We’d rather you hung around in case we have something you’ve not used, but you can bolt if you need to. Come by our office some time, though, if you do. Give us a chance to talk to you about your capabilities.”

“Good enough. Just wanted to know,” the hound said. I was pleased to see he stayed.

“The administration has tasked us with making sure everyone gets a feel for this,” I said. “So here we are. My name is Mitchell Gerhardt, but you can all call me Mag. The badger to my right is Sergeant Sharn. He has requested that you refer to him as Zeke. If you forget our names, that’s fine. You can always just -”

“Please, don’t call me sir,” Sergeant Sharn interrupted. He shook his head in mock sorrow.

“Well, I was going to say ‘call us sir’, but that idea is out the window. Just raise a paw if you need us and we will come to you.”

No one seemed to have any questions or want any other information, so I stepped a couple paces to the side and gestured to the weapons arrayed on the table.

“We will be showing you how each of these operates today. You will be firing many of them. Tomorrow you may well be bruised and aching. That part we can’t help. You will, however, have gained valuable knowledge.”

“I don’t see why it’s so important.”

The dog with the suppressor questions. Who would have guessed? As I figured, Sergeant Sharn beat me to the response.

“Well, ignoring completely the fact that the Administration and the Team Leader believes it is necessary, there are several reasons why you might want to know. Let’s start with the fact that we’ve already stopped more than a dozen attempted invasions or attacks. If you find yourself caught up in the middle of something horrible, would you rather take a chance shooting back or be taken captive? We’ve all heard or read the stories of what the toothies do to prisoners.”

Some of us have more than that. After that snatch team got in and took Zinnia Worth and her two cubs, Frayker was the first to volunteer for the recovery trip. We all expected it, what with him having lived through their particular hell. Diem and Tristan took off with him and two other speed demon types. Between the five of them, we figure on a confrontation within two days. The gun bunnies are gonna lose that one, and we will be getting Zinnia Worth and her cubs back — hopefully still functional. Gann only knows what’s happened to them thus far.

“We’re not asking you to pick up a weapon, in anger or otherwise,” I told them. “Chances are you never will, with the possible exception of your HotShot.”

I hefted one of the long-barreled pistols that every house was issued (excepting the Toleans, of course). They don’t actually have a name beyond their technical designators, but some civvy started calling them HotShot shortly after we issued them and the name just stuck. Single shot pistols chambered for the same rounds in our carbines, they’re pretty much an “Oh shit” kind of weapon.

“This ugly, mass-produced piece of shit here,” I said. “There’s a switch on the left side that says, ‘OPEN’. It does just that. Push it in and the barrel hinges down. You slip a live round in there and snap it closed. Pull back the hammer and squeeze the trigger. Boom. It’s that simple. Every house gets one, Folk, along with a box of twenty rounds. You want more ammunition, come see us and we will issue it.”

“What good is that against those laser guns?” asked a thin bodied civet from the front row.

“First off,” Sergeant Sharn said, stepping forward and squaring his shoulders to the crowd, “we aren’t asking you to repel an invasion or save the planet with a HotShot. This planet has life forms on it that aren’t necessarily polite. You might well come across them in your garden, your back yard, or even inside your house if you forget to secure a door. If they’re bigger than a backpack, shoot them. A security team will respond to any gunshot to make sure you Folk are safe. If you’re just dropping the native wildlife, we’ll pat you on the back and go away. If it’s something big, we’ll take over. If you’re doing something stupid, we’ll cart you off for questioning by the Team Leader. It’s that simple.”

“So we just kill them?”

“Sure. Some of ’em make mighty fine eating,” the Sergeant said.

I waited until the civet finished nearly puking at the thought of eating the scaly reptilian things that wandered the area.

“Look, Folk, we’re here to help you all stay alive a little longer should something untoward happen. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be able to respond than just stand there and get a few new holes.”

“Why do the rats use lasers?” asked a short gray cat. She was holding the paw of a white-furred fox who wore some kind of leather longcoat despite the heat.

“Several reasons,” Sergeant Sharn said. “First off, they like shiny, flashy things.”

“My mom told me that was a myth,” interrupted Front Row Civet Girl.

“Your mom a sci-tech? Rodent researcher?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s where our info comes from. Scientific studies have shown that the toothies in general like things that are shiny and bright.”

“We’ve used that to our advantage in more than a few ambushes,” I added. “But back to the question. Empire Rodentia as a whole uses what works, but you’ll almost always find the energy weapons in the paws of their rabbits and occasionally squirrels – especially strike teams and first-wave attackers. The sound of a zap gun is disheartening. Scares Folk quicker than a simple gunshot. They’re tuned to a frequency of sound that grates on the nerves. We’ve got a saying when it comes to the kind of tech they employ: ‘Toothies like toys.’ They would rather use electronics and gadgets that make Garan priests shake their heads just to lock a door when all they had to do was shove a chair under the knob.”

“But they work good?”

“Zap guns? Oh, yeah. I’ve seen more than my share of Folk with las-holes in them. It ain’t pretty.”

“So how come you don’t use them?”

I chuckled. “It really is a good question. They’re effective, I’ll give you that. Plus, given time and equipment, you can recharge the power packs in the field. Not that anyone bothers to do that, mind you. They just detach and drop, slot the new one and keep firing, just like we do. Recharging from fusion packs or even solar is possible, but it’s a complex process, and not the kind of task a line shooter wants to have. You’re usually busy trying not to get dead.”

I held my carbine above my head. “This is a standard pattern Victor Model. The stocks are wood or synthetics, and the frame is milled steel. It’s capable of a clean hit past five hundred meters, though it’s recommended you keep it within three.”

Or you could be me and just take any shot that comes up. Most of them are nowhere near as far away as you’d want, and the number of them that got closer to me than my prom date is way too damned high.

“Sights are simple. We showed you in the classroom how to use them, and this one is no different. Some folks have fast-acquisition devices, scopes, or even laser designators on theirs. Me, I’m an open sights kind of dog. Get used to them, and everything else is an enhancement.”

“The lasers, you’ll note, all have optics,” Sergeant Sharn said. “Like Mag said: Toothies like toys.”

I tossed the laser at the jaguar on the furthest point of the group. He caught it with a slight fumble and hastened to point the muzzle into the sky. At least he paid attention to that part of the safety lecture.

“Take a shot,” I invited, gesturing down range. “Safety is on the left. Push it forward until the red spot shows up. Then sight it and squeeze.”

He slowly tucked the butt of the rifle into the pocket of his shoulder and breathed out through his nose. Pretty much like I figured, the whole place went silent. Everybody waited to see if he could hit the target. We had set them at twenty meters so they wouldn’t be daunting. The sharp whine of the weapon discharging was lost in the scream of coherent light splitting the air. Gann, I hate that sound. Twenty meters away, a hole appeared in the target. Low and right, but in the ugly bunny pic.

“Nice shot,” I told him, and he flushed with pride.

“Thanks.”

Sergeant Sharn extended a paw and the big cat laid the rifle in his grasp. The badger expertly stripped the power pack and powered down the weapon.

“This is the main reason we don’t use the zap guns,” he said. He whirled on the heel of one booted foot and the rifle went over his head, held like a club. He brought it down with all the force he could muster, right at my head.

The carbine, gripped in both my paws, blocked the descending rifle with a crash of sound. The force of the blow took me by surprise. I’m glad I knew what was coming, because he almost put me to my knees. If I hadn’t been ready I’d already be on the ground with a busted skull. He repeated the strike twice more, each time with the same power behind it. On the third hit I staggered a bit. He is deceptively strong.

“Now you’ll see,” he told the group, turning away from me and the stinging in my paws. A clicking sound as he inserted the power pack was eclipsed by the ratcheting of the charging handle. He sighted in on the target.

“Straight between the eyes,” he said. The shrieking sound rent the air once again. The target acquired a new hole, fully a hands-breadth above the eyes and nearly off the head entirely to the left. A tiny tendril of smoke drifted from the hole.

“Mag?”

I nodded at his invitation, already loading my carbine by feel and charging the chamber. I snapped the short weapon up and fired two rapid shots, calling out my targets a second before piercing the centers of both eyes in succession. Two more, spiking the base of each ear.

“Lasers are good weapons,” Sergeant Sharn said as the echoes died away. “But they are nowhere near as rugged as our weapons. That difference in my shot at twenty meters would be the difference between a kill and a wounding shot, and at fifty it would have missed entirely. The optics went completely off target and the weapon is not designed with a backup system.”

“We’ve seen zaps come out of hand to hand unable to even fire,” I added. “I can drop mine off a landing craft and it will still work. I know because I have.”

Technically true, although I didn’t mention to them that I was holding it at the time. Typical luck for me, which is to say, shit.

“So you just carry that?” asked the fox in the longcoat.

“This is my primary weapon here,” I said, leaving everything else open to interpretation. “We have specialists who carry other things: long, accurized rifles designed for distance shooting, machine guns, grenade launchers, and so forth, but the one thing you will find is that every one of us can run a Victor platform like we were born to it.”

“Why did you choose it? Why not a machine gun? Just mow ‘em down,” Longcoat asked.

I chuckled, seeing the old hound in the back doing the same thing. Beside me, Sergeant Sharn started to reply, but fell silent at my sidelong glance.

“How much can you carry, cub?” I asked.

“What?”

“How much weight? Twenty keys?”

“I… I guess.”

“Our MG comes in at ten keys with two hundred rounds attached. Add in another kilo for every hundred rounds, basically.”

“So I could carry…”

You could actually see the cub calculating, his eyes rolling back.

“Let’s ignore reality for a second and put you with a thousand rounds,” I said. I held up a single carbine cartridge. “One thousand of these.”

“That machinegun can run seven hundred out in a minute if you let it,” called the militia hound from the rear of the group. “Standard firing practice makes it about two to three hundred, but you see how quick that thousand is gonna disappear?”

“You a gunner?” I asked. He nodded.

“Trained to the GH460.”

“Good model.”

The cub was looking back and forth at us as if we had grown horns. I smiled down at him.

“We’ve got a gunner who can carry a lot more ammo than I can, and some of us still carry spare belts for him.”

“What happens if you run out?”

“Pistols. Knives. Axes. Claws,” Sergeant Sharn said. His tone was dark and his eyes distant. “We get in among them and we tear them apart.”

I’ve seen him lost in it. When it comes to getting close, he’s the one I’d want on my crew. Drenched in blood from the top of his striped head all the way down to the steel-capped boots, cutting and tearing. I truly think that’s where Sergeant Sharn belongs, but I’m not telling him – or this crowd – that.

The crowd fell silent after his words and I am about to try and add something to break the sudden tension when the tall dog with the half-shaved head stepped forward a full pace. He looked Sergeant Sharn in the eyes and a little smile quivered his muzzle.

“I’d like to try the Victor, if that’s okay with you,” he said.

“You’re welcome to, Rory,” he said.

When he handed the weapon to the cub, I saw a flash of pride in his eyes. It was almost as if he was teaching a cub of his own.

I started gesturing the crowd into a couple of ragged lines when the setter squeezed the trigger. A small cheer erupted from a few throats in response to the shot, and I grinned. Once they start having fun, it gets a lot easier. This could turn out to be a fun day, after all.

A Relationship of Convenience

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-04-22

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Camp NaNoWriMo, Chino and Harper, Fiction, writing, Z262.

The aisles of the cargo bay were cramped, even for someone not Chino’s size. His shoulders were brushing against the stacked boxes and a crushing sense of claustrophobia threatened to overtake him in the tight environment.

In front of him, Harper glanced back and forth, his nose twitching. His paws were clenched, a sure sign that he was agitated as well.

“It’s cold in here,” Chino said.

“No shit,” Harper said. “They barely heat it because it wastes energy. They toss stuff in here that’s supposed to be cold anyway, right?”

The overhead lighting flickered, drawing an involuntary gasp from Chino. A part of him expected the room to have been filled with guards, but as Harper had described, it was only ship’s supplies. Unless someone needed something specific from inside it, they wouldn’t even come in the bay. That made it ideal pickings for an enterprising pair looking for a few pharmaceuticals to slip in their luggage before landfall.

“I hate space travel,” Harper announced. “I don’t think I want to do it again.”

“Is this it?” Chino asked, interrupting Harper’s woolgathering. The elephant was tapping at a polymer box large enough to be a coffin. Harper glanced at the data tag strapped to the end and a wide grin split his muzzle.

“Even better,” he said, his voice in a whisper.

“What’s better than free drugs?” asked Chino.

“Free guns.”

Chino flipped the latches on the crate and popped open the cover. Inside, gleaming dully in the dim overhead light, rested two dozen of the short pump-action shotguns the ratings had been seen to carry. A separate section of the crate held a similar number of matte grey handguns.

“Holy shit,” Chino whispered.

“Promised land, baby,” Harper added. He slapped the big elephant on the back.

Carefully, he peeled away the data tag from the end of the crate and replaced it with one from within his jacket – a tag indicating it as personal belongings owned by Chino. He rolled the other into a thin tube and slipped it into his pocket for disposal. Bringing the parts for the printing machine along in their carry-on had been a wise investment.

“Now we find the ammo.”

It took a little time to make that discovery, and in the process a crate of assorted medical supplies, two boxes coded as ‘Emergency Survival Kit’, a case of personal hygiene items, and a large box filled with rechargeable batteries in standard sizes also got a special label reassignment. At long last they found boxes of ammunition for the weapons, and assigned a couple of those for redistribution as well.

“Think that’ll do it?” Harper asked. Chino nodded his big head.

“I can’t carry all of it,” he said. Harper held out his paws in a calming gesture. When he replied, his amusement was obvious by his tone.

“We don’t carry any of it at all,” he said. “Not one damn bit. Planetfall is in two days. We’ve got the whole ‘make sure all your shit is ready for drop’ speech to look forward to, and we can say that we’re missing some stuff. They know that some items got sent to ship’s stores for the cold storage, and they’ll check here. The Navy will move our shit for us, pal, and they’ll apologize for the trouble!”

“That’s a mighty fine plan you got there, pup,” declared a raspy voice from near the door. Harper and Chino whirled to find a scarred lion watching them, his mane shaggy and a black hat jammed on his head. A bottle of amber liquid was in his paw and a cigarette hung from the corner of his lips, although it was currently unlit.

“Who are you, pal?” Harper demanded. His paw itched for the knife in his back pocket, but he kept still as he awaited a response. If anything broke loose, it would be a race to see if he could get to it before Chino was swinging his crowbar anyway. For a giant that lumbered around as if he had no muscle control, the elephant was surprisingly quick on his feet when the occasion called for it.

“Just call me Jack,” the lion said.

“Yeah? Well, Jack, what do you want?”

“In.”

The simple answer caught Harper off guard for a second and then he grinned.

“In on what?”

“Don’t fuck with me, coyote. There’s crates and crates of free liquor here if you know where to look, and I know where everything is stored. Got a couple friends setting up a bar on planet and smuggling out a bottle or two at a time to boost their supply is a serious pain in the ass. Your system, though? Sounds like a quick way to get a little something for everybody with nobody but the Navy losing anything.”

“What’s in it for you?” Chino asked. He had taken a half-step away from Harper, increasing the space between them so the lion would have to choose a target if there was a fight.

“Free liquor,” Jack repeated, waving the bottle he held. “With ears that big, you’d think you could hear.”

“Fuck you, furball,” the elephant spat. “I heard your mom begging for more the other night.”

“Maybe if you’d been hung like anything bigger than a mouse she wouldn’t have had to beg for more.”

“Hold up,” Harper said, raising a paw to stop the argument before it could flare. “You say you know where everything is?”

“Spent a few nights in here,” Jack said with a tight nod. “Nothing to do but drink and read labels.”

“And these pals of yours, they wanna open a bar?”

“Yeah.”

Harper leaned close to Chino and whispered. “We can move a lot of goods through a bar.”

“Yeah. I just… He pisses me off.”

“Relationship of convenience,” Harper said. “When we get down to the surface we’ll need new channels to run products.”

Chino rubbed at a tusk and then nodded.

“Fine,” Harper said to the lion. “Let’s get back to the hab blocks, and then we can get started by you telling us what kinda shit is stored here that we missed. After that we’ll see about setting up some new labels. Five Folk in means we can divert even more.”

Jack grinned around massive teeth. “Now you’re talking.”

<<<END>>>

Into the Dark

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-04-14

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Fiction, writing, Z262.

The hole in the craft was leaking air into space at a rate that did not please Cutter, but he had more important things to worry about. He jerked back hard on the stick and twisted it to port, entering into a bank as he poured on the acceleration.

“Come and get me,” he said through clenched teeth.

He snapped the Bloodwing into a straight climb while maintaining the rearward pressure on the stick. The loop he was pulling was a basic maneuver taught to every skyfighter. He knew that the toothies taught the same things. If he could get them in the right position, though, he might well put paid to them for their little incursion into Combine space.

Screens lit with imminent attack warnings as a laser painted the rear of his craft. He shouted a curse and abandoned all subtlety, hammering a boot into the rudder and turning hard starboard as his paw slapped first at the ECM panel and then at the rear gunnery console.

From the aft tubes came irradiated chaff and sun-bright flares, spinning away from his Bloodwing as he put it harder into the turn and kept the accelerator wide open. The short-barrelled mass driver back there barked and bucked, spitting unaimed rounds into space. It was a desperate ploy to keep the rat from closing, but it had been known to be successful in the past.

“On your seven low, Cutter!” advised a voice across his radio. “Longtail on your seven low!”

“Take him!” Cutter shot back. “I’ve got two hits and I’m pissing air.”

“Trying. He’s good.”

“I’ll run a clean line. Get him when he reaches for the cheese.”

He flicked the shield control with a claw that snapped back into his paw, shunting all the power to the rear portion of the craft. He rolled over once and locked his flight into a straight line. Behind him, the Empire Rodentia fighter lined up a clean shot. Twin lasers flashed to life with a heavy pulse of energy. Cutter rocked as the beams impacted on his shields.

A second later and the Longtail shuddered beneath a series of mass driver rounds as Vapor overtook them and opened up with his main cannons. It seemed to falter in its flight and then erupted into a ball of flame.

“Splash one Longtail,” Vapor said, slowing his flight. “You good, Cutter?”

Cutter snarled, taking advantage of the lull in the fighting to rip open a sealpak and jam the metallic sheet atop the visible hole near his right foot. It smacked into place with a wet sound of adhesive sticking to the interior of the Bloodwing.

“I’m okay,” he reported. The other hole, according to his sensors, was in the ammo bay for the port wing cannon. Best case, it just stayed an open gap into space. Worst case, it would cause the weapon to malfunction. For now it was fine.

“Ready to get back in it?”

“Damned right.”

Together, the two Bloodwing fighters banked and flipped around. Hundreds of kilometers ahead of them was the massive form of the transport they were escorting. They both tweaked the throttle and headed back for the ship. It took very little time to spot the ongoing battles that surrounded the big beast, where dozens of fighters spun and danced in space, their weapons winking and flashing. The larger conflicts between the Flashpoint corvettes and the destroyer from Rodentia were a continuous interplay of energy weapons. Red and green beams seemed almost to connect them like colored string. At this distance it was impossible to tell who was winning.

“You’re upside down,” Vapor commented.

“I always am,” Cutter said with a chuckle. The joke went back to their training days, when Cutter was frequently reprimanded for the way he handled his craft. A training officer had once commented that while the squadron would eventually reach their objective, Cutter would arrive upside down, simply to be contrary.

He cut the thrust, content to allow the sleek craft to drift forward at the speed he had established for it. If he continued to build velocity, when he arrived at the combat scene he would blow through in an eyeblink and spend the next several minutes trying to reorient his craft.

A massive explosion caught his eye. As he started to comment on it, the radio crackled in his ear. Two lightning-fast beeps announced that the transmission was from the bridge on Dragon’s Head, the main transport ship that Cutter and the other pilots were assigned to protect.

“All fighters, all fighters. Breach of rodent destroyer, starboard aft. I say again, breach of rodent destroyer, starboard aft.”

“What say we take them some pain?” Cutter said as the broadcast cut off, tweaking the control to angle toward the damaged destroyer.

“I’d say you’re crazy. Shana’s gonna have every missile in the system directed that way.”

Cutter noted that the statement did not deter Vapor from banking along with him.

“Missiles only go so far,” he said, sweeping his eyes across his tactical board. All his weapons showed ready. “Sometimes you’ve gotta add in a few bullets to help things along.”

A flash of crimson energy flared from his shields.

“Longtails!” Vapor called out.

“Don’t they know they’re getting between me and something fun?” Cutter asked as his sensors locked onto the incoming enemy craft.

There were three of the Longtail fighters angling toward them. Narrow and tall, the enemy craft had a distinctive drive system that extended behind the main body, giving them the name that Combine fighters had tagged it with almost a decade before. The twin heavy lasers mounted above and below the cockpit were no joking matter, as the holes in Cutter’s Bloodwing could attest. With shielding that Combine experts considered ‘acceptable’ and armor thicker than that on his own Bloodwing, the Longtail was a foe Cutter could respect. He knew it had more issues than his craft, however, as the big lasers were a tremendous energy drain. Most Longtails carried two sixteen-inch ship-to-ship missiles to add to their firepower. If those beasts struck home, the effects were devastating, but the Bloodwing ECM suite usually did a good job dealing with those.

For their part, Cutter and Vapor were running in one of the Combine favorites. The Bloodwing was comprised of a long central drive with a narrow arch that ran above the cockpit, supporting a sweeping wing structure that ended in a pair of 80mm mass drivers, with a third cannon running along the drive axis and slung ventrally beneath the craft. The third was their can opener. Equipped with a 200mm mass driver, the main gun drew a lot of power to fire, but punched through fighter armor as if it was tissue. In a pinch, it could do a fair bit of damage to the body of even the destroyer Cutter wanted to reach. Tertiary weapons systems consisted of the aft-mounted light mass driver – intended to deter pursuit more than anything else – and a brace of ten six-inch ship-to-ship missiles. While carrying a lighter payload than those of the Longtail, the Combine missiles were designed to shred armor by separating into a series of submunitions just prior to impact. The hope was that the multiple warheads would manage to bypass shields where a single large round might fail.

While some Combine ships were possessed of laser weaponry, not every pilot wanted them, and most chose the more classically-oriented slugthrowing weapon systems. There were a few specialty craft out there, and most pilots could fly them if they had to, but the intimate familiarity that a pilot developed in a specific craft gave them the edge in combat.

“What ya think?” Vapor asked as the trio of Longtails began to spread apart. It was a move Cutter had seen before.

“Take out that middle one. The others are about to bank hard. They’ll loop out and around; try to come in behind us after the pass.”

“Done,” Vapor said. His wing guns began to chug, sending slivers of forged steel flashing into space. They sparked as they came into contact with the shields that the Longtail had up, but given the high cyclic rate of the guns, one or two of the high-velocity slugs was sure to get past it.

“Target,” Cutter ordered his shipboard computer. His paw stroked the rightmost image on the sensor screen, highlighting it with an orange aura. His claw flipped open the cage on the stick he was holding and he stroked the missile fire command three times. As he hit the third one, he used his finger to press the main trigger, adding his own guns to those of his wingman.

From along the wings of his craft, three long white missiles leaped on tongues of flame and arced up and out to follow the progress of the Longtail that Cutter had targeted. Until the rats either detonated the missiles, they ran out of fuel, or impacted on the target, they would continue their track.

The Longtail in the center began a quick roll, triggering the lasers as it did so. Beams slashed through space, missing the two Bloodwings by narrow margins. Cutter changed his angle of approach by a degree or two, working the trigger in short bursts to send stream after stream of steel shot out in a quest for the drive of the Longtail. Several of them passed through the shields as they closed and his shots were striking more along the port side of the Longtail. He saw them, sparking and shredding, biting holes in the long drive train. Vapor’s shots were a direct visual threat to the rat piloting the craft, and he kept his shields on maximum to prevent the steel from slapping into his cockpit.

A flare of magnesium-bright light signaled to Cutter that his rounds had holed the powerplant. Atomized fuel flashed into short-lived flame.

“Good hit!” Vapor shouted over the comm. Cutter started to reply when he realized the pilot had been talking about his own. A series of slugs had made it past overworked shields and slashed across the interior of the cockpit just as Vapor pulled clear of his approach. One last strike from the laser blasted a streak along his starboard wing, but hit nothing serious.

“The port ‘tail is the one to watch,” Cutter said instead.

Even as the words left his lips, twin crimson beams scraped across the armor of Vapor’s Bloodwing. Metal composite flashed to steam and ablative plates shattered into fragments, falling away in the face of the ravening energy.

“Shit!” Vapor cried. “Life support crash, Nav comp is down as well!”

“Pull out!” Cutter ordered, throwing his Bloodwing into a hard port climb. He wheeled the craft over and spun in an attempt to see the attacker. “I’ll get him.”

“Shield generators offline! Oh, fuck, here he –“

The blast of static was accompanied by a brilliant white explosion from Vapor’s craft as it exploded. Cutter was buffeted by a shockwave that passed almost as soon as he registered it. Tiny bits of the Bloodwing pattered against Cutter’s shields like rain on a tent.

“Mine,” Cutter said, his voice a low growl from deep in his chest. He flicked at the sensor array, setting off a sweep of his surroundings. The screen showed a blue haze as the bits of Vapor’s craft clouded the sensor, but three of the enemy craft registered on it were in his vicinity. One showed red, indicating it seemed sidelined, at least to the targeting array. The second was amber, and Cutter believed that to be the one they had just attacked as a team. It might be a problem if the pilot could forget about his damage long enough to take some kind of action. The third pulsed a bilious green, and was tracking rapidly around behind Cutter.

He triggered the rear mass drivers, feeling as much as hearing the chugging as the electromagnetic drives accelerated the projectiles to incredible speeds. As he did, he tried to imagine where the Longtail had come from and where it might be going next. He tried to think of what his own course of action would be if their positions were reversed.

“Target,” he ordered, poking the bright green object on the screen. It limned with an orange aura and he fired five of the remaining missiles at one second intervals as he twisted the Bloodwing in a spiral arc that brought him into a position where he could finally see the Longtail. The pilot had seen the launch and was now deploying countermeasures. Clouds of finger-sized flares and irradiated metal erupted into the space between the two craft.

Cutter’s face split in a death’s-head grin as he engaged the thrusters at full effect. He locked in the targeting for the cannons and laughed aloud as he passed by the first set of flares and chaff. Two of his missiles exploded there seconds ahead of his passage, and he used that effect to obscure his approach.

Coming in at a slight downward angle to the Longtail, Cutter squeezed the trigger of the cannon controls even as he fired the last two missiles. He saw the mass driver projectiles sparkle and flash as they were turned by the shields, but a handful of them slipped past the flickering field to rake and stab at the Longtail.

Out of habit, he glanced at the ammunition tally, but he discounted the numbers there as unimportant. This fight would go until his guns clicked empty and then if necessary he would ram the enemy ship. He slashed quick bursts at his prey over and over as his ship closed the gap between them. The Longtail wasn’t pushing the power as much as Cutter was.

A spray of ice crystals indicated a life support breach as oxygen vented into space. Electrical sparks followed and Cutter kept his aim focused on that point, sending a hail of cannon rounds tearing into the Longtail near the junction of the drive housing and the main body of the craft. Several of the rounds punched into the interior to wreak their havoc within the craft itself, and Cutter flashed by it as all acceleration within the Longtail ceased.

He cut power to the thrusters and flipped the attitude of the Bloodwing. It was now flying inverted as compared to his approach, but he was once again looking directly at the Longtail. Kicking the thrusters back to life, he bolstered the front shields and flew headlong into the target path of the Longtail.

No shots lanced out from the Rodentia ship, and Cutter wondered if the pilot had more important things to do. To remind the rat that he was still out there, he pressed the trigger again and watched as streams of high-velocity steel shredded the front of the Longtail. He eased off the throttle and flipped the switch for the retros, slowing his approach as he simultaneously angled the craft to be out of direct aim of the twin lasers.

His adrenaline began to climb steadily as he neared the still craft. The computer was now categorizing the Longtail with a red aura. Cutter kept his claw on the trigger despite that designation. He continued to drift ever closer, hearing his own breath coming fast and shallow. The Bloodwing edged between the firing arcs of the lasers and Cutter used his jets to keep the two craft face to face as he turned on his signal beacons. The brilliant white light illuminated the cabin opposite him and for the first time he saw his opponent.

Small and thin of build, with a pinched face that was now mostly hidden behind the bulk of a respirator mask, the rat was a hairless grey thing. Blood ran from a shallow cut on the side of its neck. The cockpit itself was a shambles, and Cutter recognized the look of a door closed and sealed against a breach. He flicked a switch and killed the beacons, using a pocket light to illuminate his own face for the other pilot. Holding up a paw, he tapped at his wrist chron and then pointed at the rat.

It sat still for a moment and then held up both spindly hands. One had three fingers raised, and the other was in a circular shape.

“Thirty minutes?” Cutter asked, making the same gesture and then tapping his watch again. The rat nodded and then tapped at the side of its respirator.

It was a horrible thought that all pilots had considered at one point or another: Slow suffocation in the endless night of space. Several that Cutter knew had vowed to take their own lives if it came to it rather than suffer the agony of their body fighting for air.

Cutter made his paw into a gun shape and waved it, then pointed at the rat and raised both paws as if indicating a question. There was hesitation for a moment, but then the rat shook its head. It gestured toward the instrument panel that was outside of Cutter’s line of sight and then jerked a thumb back in the direction of the battle. He used his hands to show sweeping gestures, then raised two fingers and pointed at himself before indicating the area behind him again.

“Two ships, huh? I guess that will help you be safe.”

Cutter saluted the rat and disengaged his craft from the Longtail, maneuvering up and around to come in behind it. He surveyed the damage he had done, and found none of it lacking. He had managed to chew the Rodentia craft nearly in half.

Chaging the attitude of the ship, he pressed the Bloodwing in against the Longtail, the nose of his ship against the rear frame of the other. From this angle he would be able to act as a pusher to move the rat where he wanted.

“But you took out Vapor and you don’t get to be safe,” he said, jamming the throttle open. It started out as slow going but soon they were leaving the battle behind them and flying hard into space.

“If they can find your ass out here in under thirty minutes then you’ve got more lives than me,” Cutter added, disengaging his Bloodwing and watching the blacked-out hulk drift silently away and into the dark.

<<<END>>>

Doing My Job

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-04-05

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Camp NaNoWriMo, Duggan, Lissa, Mag, writing, Z262, Zeke.

“Why are you here, Mag?”

The question comes without warning. No pleasant conversation leading up to it, nothing. It’s not like I’m not used to it. I think everyone in ArCorp has asked me at some point or another. In a world of specialists, I stand out – because I’m average.

I’m not a sniper, or a gunner, or a scout. I don’t drive a tank like it’s a sports car. I’m not special. All I do is go out every day and do my job.

Today is no different, and the only reason the question feels unusual is because of who is asking. Lissa is spectacular. I don’t think I’ve ever crushed as hard as I did the first time I was around her. That feeling is mostly gone now, buried beneath the afternoons spent sweating and bleeding under the same terrifyingly bright sun. Now she’s just a partner, or at least that’s what I tell myself. The delusions burn away like paper in a blast furnace when she speaks to me on a personal level.

“Well, I got on a ship, and it flew through space, and then it landed, and –“

She slugs me in the shoulder. Her paw is like an iron block and I feel the blow all the way through to my chest.

“You know what I mean, dickpuppet,” she says, shaking her head.

I shift the rifle a little on its sling and get it in a spot that doesn’t make my shoulder feel raw. That’ll last probably about another ten minutes.

“I go where the money is,” I tell her, but it’s an obvious lie. She doesn’t buy it. I guess my delivery really sucks.

“You could have had real money if you’d signed up for the airdrops on Sethyn,” she counters.

“At least that place has a real name.”

I step around one of those weird local cactus things. Sharp, barbed spines on them with a fiery toxin that make them about as much fun as reaching into a bucket full of broken glass to feel around for an arcing electrical wire. Sure, my boots should protect me, but seriously? Like I want to wander around through this whole sweep with that shit in my feet. Did I mention that I have shit for luck? Taking a risk like that is sure to bring something disastrous and stupid to the team.

She is quiet for a couple hundred more paces. Somewhere in the line behind us is Duggan, her partner for well over a year. I can tell she would rather be with him, but the Sarge has paired us together. Ordinarily I would be content just to march and get where we’re going, but I sense she wants to talk. I don’t really want to disappoint her.

“Petty criminal,” I confess, and she looks at me in sudden shock. Her sparkling eyes have gone wide and her mouth is open just enough to show those delicate points of white.

“I got caught stealing from a local Magistrate’s house. After his sec boys beat on me for a while, I got ‘volunteered’ for the local militia. I did okay there, and when the recruiter rolled through telling us how wonderful life was in the army, I raised my paw. I’ve done dumber things in life, but not many.”

“What did you steal?” she asks.

“Time,” I answer. She looks at me with one brow raised.

“Time?”

“Yeah. With his daughter.”

Her laughter is like a silken cloth caressing the pleasure center of my brain. Images flash through my head of hearing that laugh for the next twenty or so years. So much for the ‘crush is gone’ thing.

“That’s a great story,” she says after she stops giggling.

“Thanks. It got me a few years behind the butt of an L5.”

“Well, then it’s not all bad. You could have had that piece of shit 67 they used to issue.”

Now the talk turns comfortable. We’ve been here on this planet for a month and shared little more than six words. It’s because she wondered who I was. She’s not the only one. I wonder about that myself from time to time. What kind of mutt gets into a life like this because he can’t keep it in the sheath?

“So what’s your story?” I ask. She tightens up her grip on the rifle she carries and I think for a second that maybe I’ve touched a nerve, but it looks like a gesture of comfort for her. She treasures the rifle more than any prospective lover could expect, and it shows. We all get protective of our weapons in the field, but I think that her feelings for what she holds go beyond that.

“Typical, I guess. I wanted out of the home situation. Signed up to get away from my parents. They weren’t abusive or anything,” she hastens to tell me, and the expression on her face tells me she’s truthful here. She seems afraid that I’ll misunderstand her motives and lay blame somewhere.

“They just treated me like I was an inconvenience. By the time I was old enough for the militia, I knew the family’d be better off without me around, so I jetted. Signed up and went in with what I had on my back. The Combine came around after I’d been in for about a year. My scores caught the recruiter’s eye and he offered me a new bunk. Next thing, I’m hunkered down in a field snapping up Gun Bunnies. That’s how I met Duggan,” she adds, with a rearward jerk of the thumb.

Duggan is a lifer, and no doubt of that. Some Folk dream of retiring and leaving the killing behind. Some are a little more devoted to their craft. Duggan makes the most of what he is, I suppose, and he’s a killing machine. I don’t mind dropping a toothie, mind you. It’s just part of the job. Duggan, though? He lives for it. I doubt he has any outside interests or anything. He’s got kill marks all over him, and he would never blend into that mythical ‘polite society’ thing.

“We were on Ixxat,” Lissa continues. “Duggan’s running an MG, keeping lines of rabbits down. The toothies send a team of squirrels around the flank to silence him. I caught their advance and set up position behind him; started popping one nutmouth after another. Everyone they sent got put down. Eventually we started working together. He maintains the automatics, and I keep the distance threats from getting close enough to be an issue.”

“I didn’t think we had a dedicated sniper. That’s what they told me, anyway.”

“Oh, I’m not one,” she says, although I see her happiness at being compared to one. “I’m just good at long shots.”

“Yeah. I hear you regularly pull off seven hundred meters.”

“Who’s been talking?”

“You know how it is. Word gets around.”

“Good optics and an amazing weapon,” she says with a wink. “I can’t do the klick-and-a-half-all-day stuff that a true sniper can, but at seven, I can make reliable kills. Much past nine, and I’m hoping like hell I can tag ‘em. It’s like training, right? Where they made you make five hundred with the L5. They know in the field you’ll be inside of three most all the time.”

“Most of my days were within a hundred. That was on the days when they weren’t in my lap.” I look down into the waist-high grass we’re cutting through. It feels kind of good brushing against my lower legs. Soothing, somehow.

“Gara,” she says with a shudder. “I hate having them that close.”

“Me too. It just happens that way. I wind up in the middle of them and then the shooting starts.”

“Have you spent much time talking to Sergeant Sharn?”

“I’ve spoken more to you on this march than I’ve spoken to anyone since landfall,” I admit. Her brow arches again.

“Shy, are we?”

“Not really. I just do my job and go home, you know?”

She nods and I can see in her eyes that she knows. I’ve seen that look before on Folk who have been in it. It’s that look that tells you, I’ve been where you are and I know what you’re thinking, but having someone else around doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to disappear. Yeah, sometimes they do, but it’s not guaranteed. It’s okay to let someone in.

“Well, he has a thing for getting in real close,” she adds. “You know, like paws-on kind of close.”

“I much prefer not touching their kind. Takes forever to get the stink out.”

“Right? That’s why I like to keep them at range.”

“Can’t say as I disagree with that idea. With any luck I’ll just get to sit back and hand you magazines.”

“You should come hang out with us some night,” she offers suddenly. She sounds surprisingly sincere, and I can tell it was a spur of the moment decision to, in essence, ask me out.

“I don’t get out much,” I hear myself reply, and if I could kick myself in the face for that, I would. About a dozen times.

“First drink is on me.”

I shake away the image of body shots inspired by her last comment and shuffle the rifle again, flipping it on the sling so that it hangs over my right shoulder and points to the ground. I’m trying to think of something witty to say, something that won’t come out like, “Ogglebooglewogwog” if I manage to speak at all.

“I should warn you,” she continues, looking directly at me as she walks. “I don’t give up easy.”

“Then you should know I’m from a backwater town and I have really cheap tastes. That whole ‘first drink’ thing might end up costing you three seconds’ pay.”

She smiles and is about to reply.

The ‘click’ is a tiny snick of metal on metal that barely carries to our ears but seems somehow to echo loud as thunder. My hands are in motion, swinging up the rifle and mounting it to my shoulder as my eyes sweep the surrounding area for the toothies. I feel the cold rush of adrenaline through my veins and I am ready for whatever comes.

Or so I think. The muted whimpering sound from my left draws me up short and I turn to see Lissa standing stock-still and looking down at her foot. The clicking sound makes sense now.

“Pressure release. Don’t move,” I tell her. The words are unnecessary. She knows the drill as well as I do. They’re just something I can do.

I touch the microphone feed on my headset, breaking a radio silence that has existed since the third step off the transport four hours ago.

“Mines, mines, mines,” I chant in a husky voice that I hope isn’t a scream. “I say again: Mines. Lissa is on one.”

“Lissa?” Duggan responds. Anything else he has to say is covered by Sergeant Sharn. His frequency locks out the lower-ranking turtle.

“Full stop. Defensive stance. Mag, what can you tell me?”

“Pressure release,” I repeat. I’m kneeling now, and brushing away some of the thick yellow sand. I can see part of the device beneath her foot. I look up into her eyes, smiling in the most reassuring manner I can. I can deal with mines, but this situation was not what I wanted.

“Looks like a Frilltac Nine,” I report. “I’ll take a look at it.” I lay a comforting paw on her lower leg and use my other to cut off the transmitter. Not only do I not need to have the chatter distracting me, I don’t want any of them to hear anything said. The things Folk say when they truly believe they are about to die can be embarrassing if they don’t.

“I’ll get you out of here, Lissa,” I promise.

“Do it and all the drinks are on me,” she says, trying not to stutter. I see her swallowing again and again.

“Well, that’s not much of an offer. Remember? I’m cheap.” I lean over to blow against the dust, sending a cloud of it into my nose and eyes. Whoever planted the Nine was smart. There’s a blob of adhesive covering the hole where I could have safed the device with a wire. Did I mention I have shit for luck?

The first bullet hits her in the chest, just above the line of her breasts. I can hear it hammer into her armor and then she is toppling backward, unable to keep her balance. The sound of the shot rolls in behind the impact, low and loud. Without thinking, I grab her foot and press it as hard as I can to the fuse, throwing my own weight atop it as I hear her body hit the ground. She makes a strange, creaking noise as she fights to regain her breath. As she twists to fight the sudden pain, I keep wrestling her foot.

“Lissa, stop!” I tell her. Her boot is trying to slip from my grasp. “Stop moving or you’ll kill us both!”

Around us the entire force has opened up in a comforting display of weapons fire, and I can hear the sharper reports of toothies answering with shots of their own. I focus on the task at paw, blocking out all the sounds as best I can.

She is breathing again, with a thick wheezing noise as part of it. Based on the shot I heard, it’s got to hurt a lot. Probably dented the sheathing of her armor. She has stopped fighting me, and for that I’m grateful. I change my grip and lever my body into a partial rise, lifting my bulk away from the hole I have made. It takes a moment to get back to the semi-clear access I had before, and working with only one paw makes it even harder.

“M-Mag?” she chokes out.

“No. You’re not gonna die, so the answer is no.”

I hear her wheeze. Faster and shallower than before. She is starting to hyperventilate, and I can tell she’s about to speak again. I cut her off.

“Too many times. Too damned many times, Lissa. Always asked to get a final message to a sister, or a husband, or a fellow troop. Not this time,” I say, digging in my pocket. With a snick, the switchblade flicks open and I set to work on the adhesive.

“This time,” I continue, prying at the blob. It starts to give way and then cracks. A chunk falls away and I redouble my attack – on it as well as on my plans. “We’re making it home. I’m gonna take you out and we’re gonna have a drink. We’re gonna talk. I’m gonna tell you shitty jokes and you’re gonna laugh even though they suck. And then I’m gonna walk you home and when we get there, I’m gonna kiss you goodnight, and I don’t give two fucks if Duggan himself is standing there. Even he isn’t stopping me.”

The plug snaps free and I yelp out in elation. I paw around in my pouches until I find the little pack of spare parts. There’s a spring in there that should do the trick quite nicely. I rip the pack open with my teeth and the contents scatter into the dirt. I can taste the yellow dust as I grip one end of the spring in my teeth to straighten it. It has a metallic flavor, but I guess that could be from the spring I’m chewing on.

“You’d better,” I hear from Lissa as I slide the stiffened wire into the safety. It goes through to the other side and my confidence goes up a thousand points. I don’t have the specialized knowledge that a demo crew would, but I do know my job. I bend the wire so it can’t come back out. If I’m successful, at least no one else will have to worry about this particular little banger.

I shove Lissa’s foot away with all the force I can muster. If the Nine goes off she should be protected by me being in position above the explosion. A second that feels like an eternity later and I whoop in triumph.

“Get up and get in the fight, soldier,” I tell her, pointing to her rifle.

She grabs me by the strap over my left shoulder and drags me close. I taste her breath for the second before her lips touch mine. There is no deep passion, no promise of undying love, but there is a feeling that passes between us in the brief contact. I know for sure the crush is alive and well, just as much as she is.

“I didn’t want to wait,” she says.

Before I can answer, the barrel of her rifle passes by my head and my world becomes a blur of sound as she cooks it off. Behind me, the rabbit she has shot falls aside with an empty space where its brain was.

I roll over, shoulder the rifle, and rise into a crouch, seeing a dozen of the toothies popped up from their hidey holes. I flip off the safety and go to work.

<<<END>>>

Vives in Gladio

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-04-04

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Camp NaNoWriMo, Ten, writing, Z262.

Ten swung the axe in a hard overhead arc, snapping it down at the last second to intensify the force of the strike. The log split cleanly and fell into pieces beside the stump she was using as a platform, each half dropping into a large pile of split stock. She grabbed another log and balanced it atop the stump. A few seconds later, and this one snapped apart as well, joining the dozens before it.

She stopped when her count told her she had split one hundred logs into quarters. A gentle flicking motion sent the axe head into the stump to secure it as she began the task of gathering the quarters four and five at a time for the trek back to the woodshed. It was dull and repetitive work, and with every step, with every load of wood, she thanked Tole for the simple nature of the task at hand exactly as she had with each swing of the axe. She reminded herself again and again what an opportunity she had been given here. Every step, every swing was good healthy exercise. The grass beneath her toes reminded her that Tole had provided for her. The pale grey wood of the thick-boled trees, while dense in composition, was easier to carry than the weight of her sins.

Fifty paces to the shed. Fifty paces back to the piles. Nearly a hundred trips back and forth, half the time carrying a load of wood in her arms. When she got to the shed with each load, she stacked it carefully in the bins she had made. Soon split wood sections lined the interior walls to a height that made her stretch. This was not her first day stacking wood.

She returned to the stump and slipped the axe free of the scarred wooden surface. She held the blade up toward the sky, letting the evening sun tell her what she needed to know. There were minor scratches and a tiny chip in the blade near the tip, but nothing that couldn’t be filed out. That would happen before she went back into the house tonight.

She had yet to step away from the stump when the feeling swept over her like icy water poured down her back. Adrenaline flowed through her veins in response and she felt a sort of electricity take hold, stiffening all her hairs.

“No, please,” she whispered.

Her answer came in the form of a stinking, fleshy hand that wrapped around her face as a heavy body slammed into her from behind. The hand sought to cover her mouth, and Ten let it. There was no one here to overhear, anyway.

Old reflexes took over and she dropped a shoulder while shifting her weight. The thick furry form behind her slid over her right shoulder and crashed to the dirt for a second before righting itself and jumping once more to its feet.

The rat was average size for its breed, although a little fatter than she had previously seen on any combat force. He wore some kind of mottled brown coverall that was not much different than the sections of fur she could see on him. A belt and suspenders rig held equipment and a scabbarded knife hung low on his left hip. His eyes were glittering beads set wide in his face, and radiated hostility.

“I am sorry,” she said, striving to recover her calm state. “I did not mean to hurt you, but you struck me unannounced.”

“Well, this time, I’ll tell you,” he responded. “Stay quiet and I’ll make it quick.”

The knife slid free and he led with it, the tip held out and up. Ten sidestepped, spinning the axe in her grasp. The wide, flat head rang as it impacted against the knife, sending the smaller blade spinning away into the dirt. Laughter erupted from behind Ten as the rat looked with surprise at his tingling hand.

“Thought you said you could take her,” said a voice. Ten cursed in silence at her own failure to notice that he was not the only foe. She was obviously slipping.

Master Shear had hands like iron, and his use of them left bruises. Ten knew better than to sidestep the blow, however. She had earned it by not paying attention to her surroundings. His paw took her across the cheek, spinning her to the side.

“Your eyes see ahead but there is more to your world than what lies before you! Use your ears, your nose, whatever you must. If your opponent can arrive undetected, you will surely die!”

Her ears rang with pain, but Ten digested his words as the gospel they were. From that day, she became adept in situational awareness, using reflections to see behind her, sounds and smells to assess her surroundings, and growing to trust more and more that nagging feeling inside that told her she was being observed.

She paced to the side, turning her body away from the rat who had held the knife. Her movement brought her closer to the place where it lay in the dirt and, as he circled to maintain space, increased his distance from it.

They came into view in her peripheral vision. Nearly a dozen of them, all armed and prepared to do battle but currently laughing at their comrade and his discomfort at having been bested by a skinny-looking raccoon. In their ranks she saw rifles carried by all of them, and more than a few handguns of different sizes and styles. None had come into play yet, as this was a crew made for stealth. They would not want to expose themselves so far from their target by shooting a farmer.

The only constants among them were the uniform they wore and the malicious looks in their eyes. Of course, as was standard with the rats, the crew was exclusively male. While the vast majority of Empire Rodentia had no trouble mixing sexes in their armies, the rats themselves did not. Their females were scientists and inventors first. The Emperor had commanded that they be kept from the front lines and protected. The rapid breeding cycles and growth of the rats was what made them the most fearsome of opponents. They never seemed to stop. No matter how many were put down, others would flood to fill their place.

“Clearly you are an insertion force,” Ten said. Her voice was calm and flat. “I beg of you, turn back now. Do not do this.”

“I’ll show you an ‘insertion force’,” one of the rats called out, grabbing obscenely at himself.

“We’re coming through, ringtail,” declared another. He was larger than the others – not fat, but muscled and broad chested. Both his hands clutched rifles, one of which Ten guessed would belong to the one who had tried to tackle her.

“My land leads to nothing of strategic value,” she protested. “You will take longer to achieve your goals if you pass through here.”

“Bargain. Plead. Keep them talking. Take them off their aggressive front. Get them to relax their guard, even for a moment, and you will have the edge. Never let their numbers affect you, for no matter how many they are, you are from the Academy. Your life will not be cheaply traded.”

“You wear a Tolean amulet,” the big rat said. “You are no threat. We will restrain you and leave you alive. No harm will come to you.”

“Tole has put me on the path to a righteous life, it is true,” she said. She made a sniffing sound and looked up through eyes made wide. When she spoke, she forced herself to sound weak and looked past the leader to the rat who had groped himself. “You promise no harm will befall me?”

“None,” the leader said. He turned to glare at the subordinate, and all eyes went to the expected battle of wills.

Master Shear would have been proud.

The moment of distraction was at its peak, and the axe whistled up and out. It described a dramatic arc coming across from left to right, and the sound it made as it impacted the rat at the base of the skull was only minimally different than that it had made when she struck the logs. The heavy blade plowed through and emerged from the other side in a spray of blood. Before the others could react, the axe shifted and spun in her grip and two more rats fell to its bite.

She was in among them now, ducking and weaving as clawed hands reached for her. Long jagged blades sought her flesh, and more than one claimed a quick kiss as she continued to ravage their ranks with the axe. A diving roll across the blood-soaked ground, and she rose with one of the knives in each hand. The brutal axe was lodged in the sternum of a soldier, and her count put their ranks reduced by half. One of them was not mortally injured, but the missing hand was going to be an issue. She could feel the air on her back, and the fact that it felt cold told her that she had been opened there. The sticky wetness of her blood would be a sensation for later.

“Kill her!” shouted one of the rats, and they went for their rifles. The flurry of action gave her another few precious seconds, and Ten did not disappoint. She moved through them like a whirlwind, blades slashing and stabbing in a frenzy. A rifle came up and she spun to her right, slipping a blade under the barrel and stroking down across the metal. Fingers flew free from the rat’s support hand and he squealed. Six rounds thundered from the weapon as he gripped the trigger, but their intended target was no longer there.

“Never stand still. You are no tank. Your armor is your speed. Once the engagement begins, it must not stop until your foes are down.”

Her feet ached and bled as she danced her way through obstacles and across sharp-edged rocks, simultaneously dodging swinging poles that began as slow obstacles of their own but after weeks of practice became aimed stabbing attacks and brutal, bone-breaking slashes. She and her classmates learned the hard way that failure to avoid them was no laughing matter.

Sprints became longer and more frequent, with completion times that would frighten many a runner. At any point during the day, an instructor would point and yell, “Run!” The students who were pointed to ran. One hundred paces away and one hundred back, as hard and fast as could be managed. Those that were too slow were subject to a whip stroke, and the target was often far more sensitive than the student’s back. If two students were selected to run, the slower got the stroke automatically.

The class became faster and more agile with every passing day, and while some questioned how much value to ascribe to what they considered a daily torture, others recognized that there were times when the lessons learned would keep Academy graduates alive.

Her ears ached from the proximity to the rifle burst, but Ten kept going. A reverse plunge drove the left-hand blade through the paunch of one rat, the jagged edge catching on what she figured was his spine. She let it go and snatched the rifle from his hands as his voice rose in a keening shriek.

The next shot took her in the left shoulder, but the three additional rounds in the burst ripped through one of the rats that was still grasping at the fountain of blood that was erupting from his neck. She stumbled and went down, allowing the force of the impact to carry her into a gut-wrenching roll that put her body weight directly on the fresh injury. Unconcerned with hitting friendly forces, she triggered the rifle in a roaring full-auto string. Shining cases spat from the ejection port as flame jetted from the barrel. Her arm felt on fire but she managed to swing the weapon around in a lateral arc, slashing a line of bullets across the lower legs of her foes.

She thrust her hand forward, releasing the empty rifle to smash into the face of one of the rats. She stabbed down with the knife in her right hand, driving it between the shoulder and the neck of another, and then using the grip as leverage to spring back to her feet even as she severed the arteries that ran up along his neck. Caught up now in her frenzy, she snapped her teeth onto his face and ripped as her hands scrabbled to take his rifle from his grasp. She felt two more rounds strike her in the lower back and her world became a feverish agony.

Her surroundings were beginning to blur when she managed to wrest the rifle free from her opponent. Another bullet blew her right femur apart as she jammed the weapon back behind her and depressed the trigger with her thumb. Smoking cases bounced from her skin and slipped into her clothes, melting her fur and sticking to her flesh. She could not feel them, so lost was she in the fiery pain that was eating at her.

Her leg gave out beneath her and she fell to the ground, rolling onto her back in time to have the last rat who had shot her fall atop her. She battled out from under him, sweeping her gaze left and right in a desperate search for any remaining rat. The rifle came up and barked twice as she settled the sights on those that had been injured but not killed. She was not in the habit of leaving her foes alive to strike at her back, and even now that reflex was in full swing.

Finally satisfied that she had succeeded, Ten leaned back against the bloody corpse of the leader. The sky above her was slowly darkening, and she wondered if it was because of the hour or her injuries. Were she prone to gambling, she would have bet on the latter. She laid the rifle along her leg, pointing the barrel at one of the dead, twitching rats, and pulled the trigger again. After a minute, she did it again. She had fired a fourth round when she saw them.

The badger named Zeke was in the lead, his claws wrapped around a short little needle-nosed automatic carbine. Two more ArCorp mercenaries were visible behind him, but she did not immediately recognize them. She had spoken once to the badger at the Exchange, and she generally did not forget a face.

“Miss Bray!” Zeke shouted. His words seemed to come from a long distance. “ArCorp Security! Drop the rifle!”

She smiled around teeth tinted scarlet and let the weapon fall. Her eyelids closed as it struck the ground.

She finished the blink, letting her lids flutter open, and her surroundings were entirely different. It took her four full seconds before her brain processed that she was in a hospital bed, and her mouth protested the feel of the hard plastic tube down her throat. She tried to swivel her eyes around more, but they began to flutter closed once more and she felt darkness envelop her.

The next time she knew what to expect and she took a quick glance around the room, committing the layout to her hazy memory in case it should prove necessary. As she fell back to sleep, she willed the images to stay in her mind, that she might explore them in her dream state.

On the sixth occasion of opening her eyes, she realized that the tube was gone, replaced by a cannula that fed raw oxygen up her nose. She smacked her lips and looked around her.

“Would you like some water?” asked a voice. She tried to answer but her own voice was nothing more than a croak. It was apparently enough, as a copper-toned paw slipped from her right and into her vision, holding a small squeeze bottle. He dripped water into her mouth and she fought the urge to gulp it down. Instead, she held it in her mouth and let it moisten the tissues there before finally swallowing. He repeated the action twice more and then she managed to speak.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” the voice said. Moving with a slow precision, he stepped fully into her sight. He was a setter, she noted, and his eyes were kind behind the thin eyeglasses he wore. The high-collared shirt of cerulean blue marked him as an acolyte of Tole.

“My name is Sean,” he said. “Sean Goodwin.”

“I’m Ten.”

“Sergeant Sharn saw your amulet and asked me to come and speak with you.”

She remained calm, although her heart was pounding faster than she could remember. Everything around her felt cold, and she recognized the symptoms of adrenaline dump. Her fight-or-flight instinct was going into overdrive. At her side, her hand had clenched the sheet in a grip tight enough to crush.

“You do not attend sermons in the church,” Sean said. She looked at the wall rather than meet his gaze.

“Tole tells us that violence is pointless,” he continued. “That it creates a neverending cycle of more violence that escalates.”

“I remember. ‘Be not as the beasts who lose themselves in rage.’ I know.”

“From what I was told, that scene was an abattoir.”

“Will He forgive me?” she asked.

“Of course He will. The question of the moment is, will you?”

“I reacted, Father. It was not something I wanted to do. It is ingrained in me, and it is why I came here.”

He gave her some more water as he watched her eyes. He managed a smile.

“You are running from a violent past,” he said, and her silence was the answer he expected. He turned, and a scraping noise preceded the chair that he dragged over to her bedside. He sat and reached a paw out to take her hand.

“He understands, cub. He knows that not everyone comes from a place of purity, and that the darkest souls often shine the brightest when they have joined his light.”

“You will find none darker in this colony, Father,” she told him.

“Who are you, Ten?”

She made a sound that could have been a chuckle, despite the shudder it sent down Sean’s spine.

“In the grand scheme of things, I’m no one,” she said. “A hand gripping a sword. The finger on a trigger. A blade in the dark. All these and more, and you tell me that Tole can forgive me?”

“Any who turn away from the ways of the blade can see the truth He speaks.”

“I can’t understand. I am a monster.”

“He sees beyond that, Ten. He sees the part of you who wishes never to be violent again. Give that part to Him, and He will help you push beyond the past that ensnares you.”

“That’s exactly why I came here,” she repeated.

“Tell me what you are escaping. Together we shall stand with Him and I will speak your repentance to His divine ears.”

She settled her head on the pillow.

“I was five years old when I was chosen,” she began.

<<<END>>>

Meet the New Boss

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-04-01

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: anthro, Camp NaNoWriMo, Kurt, Maera, Tafiri, Vikki, writing, Z262.

Meet the New Boss

Maera wasn’t deaf, but she was certainly dancing on the edge. Her hearing loss was no big concern to the Folk with whom she worked, who recognized it as decades of working with various forms of explosive. The only time any of them complained was when the earbud for her chip player wasn’t seated properly and the rest of the crew was exposed to the horrific tones of what she liked to call music. At the volume she was forced to listen to it, the sound could easily be heard by those nearby.

The other hazard was Maera’s speech. She had no concept of how loud she was speaking. In field operations she often stayed silent rather than chance making too much sound, but at the moment she was not in the field. The massive desk that separated her from the chimpanzee behind it was buried in forms that seemed almost to vibrate in response to her voice.

“So he says, ‘make it a double’,” she shouted, breaking into a cackling laugh. Across from her, the chimp chuckled and then laughed with her. His head bobbed as he laughed, and the pen that was tucked behind his right ear slipped free and bounced from the edge of the desk before falling to the floor.

“You should tell that to the Folk down at Four Winds,” he said when the laughter subsided. He bent to retrieve the fallen pen.

“Them idiots can’t appreciate good jokes,” she responded.

As she did so, the door opened and a pair of Folk entered. One was a cheetah in standard casuals. His carbine was slung on his back across his body, barrel-down, and he had a friendly grin that displayed his shining teeth. The other was a snow leopard female in a stylish black-and-blue wrap. Her eyes flitted about the office, trying to take in every detail.

“Misha said to come straight in,” the cheetah began, pausing as he saw that Maera was seemingly alone in the office. He raised his voice a notch and called her name.

Maera wheeled and her lips stretched back in a happy grin. “Kurt!” she shouted. Both of the new arrivals winced at her volume.

“We’re supposed to meet with the Team Leader,” Kurt explained. Maera nodded and jerked a paw over her shoulder.

“Taffy!” she shouted. The chimpanzee raised his head back from beneath the desk. He smiled when he saw the arrivals. He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk.

“Please have a seat,” he prompted. He stood from the desk and made his way around it with a limping gait. It was when he cleared the desk that the reason for his limp became clear. His left leg was a prosthetic. It was a simple piece of plastic and metal, rather than the exotic fibers and motorized replacements that had been popular for the past few years.

“Who’s your friend?” Maera asked of her compatriot. She scanned the snow leopard from head to toe, and while her ears might have been damaged, her eyes were perfectly precise. Her brow furrowed.

“This is Vikki Duris,” Kurt introduced. When he fell silent immediately after, Maera knew that asking further questions would not benefit her.

“Here ya go,” she said instead, rummaging in one of the wide-mouthed pouches at her waist and emerging with a long piece of colorful material. She looked for just a moment at the snow leopard, cocking her head to the side by a few degrees as, at her waist, her paws twisted and shaped the material. A moment later, she extended a braided circlet. The ends were bent to allow them to slip through the loop at the other end.

Vikki took it, a nervous smile splitting her muzzle.

“Thank you,” she said, though her voice was barely heard even by Kurt. Maera had heard the words often enough to recognize the motions of the muzzle and her teeth flashed again.

“My pleasure,” she said. She turned back to see the chimpanzee leaning against the front of the desk. She winked down at the shorter Folk.

“Private, I take it?” she asked. When he nodded, she reached out with a paw and took his hand for a second. The shake was a relaxed one, with no vigor. “See you tomorrow then,” she told him.

“Bring that clacker in and I’ll take a look at it,” he said. The sleek dog turned at the door and waved at him before slipping out and closing the portal behind her.

There was a moment of silence, as was common when Maera left a room. It was that reflexive second when everyone recalibrated their ears and voices to more appropriately deal with one another in her absence.

“I met Maera on the way out,” the Team Leader said. He stroked at the outer rim of his ear in thought. “She and I became fast friends.”

“She is an interesting one,” Kurt agreed.

“She has a very discerning eye,” Vikki said. Her arms were up and she had clasped the choker around her neck. It was just loose enough to not interfere with her throat, but tight enough to remind her it was there. “She got my size right just by looking.”

“Maera is our demolitions expert,” Kurt said. “Estimating length of fuse cord is kind of second nature.”

“Fuse… You mean… She made…” Vikki gasped and made to jerk the circlet off her neck. Kurt laughed and waved a paw to show her she was okay.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ve all got something. Necklaces, bracelets, shoelaces. She just compulsively makes things for people. The primer cord is harmless as it is. You have to match it to a blasting cap to fire it.”

“Gara’s tail,” Vikki said, swallowing. She pulled her paws away from her neck with an obvious effort.

“If it goes boom, she’s the one you want dealing with it. Now, if she cooks something for you, that’s when you need to run.”

“Most definitely,” the chimpanzee added, nodding in an exaggerated manner. He chuckled once again and then moved to stand in front of Vikki. The snow leopard was a head and a half taller than him, but he had no difficulty looking her in the eyes.

“My name is Tafiri,” he introduced, shaking her paw. “I’m sure you’ve heard virtually nothing about me, since very few Folk deal with me directly. Kurt, here, is my liaison to the security forces, including Captain VonHogan. I believe you’ve already met him?”

Vikki nodded. “He seemed…intense, I think is the word I would use.”

“He has been tasked with not only providing all necessary security for the colony, but also for scouting the surrounding area and securing an entirely new objective. One can excuse him for appearing focused.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing!”

“No worries,” Tafiri said, shaking his head. “It’s the new objective I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve seen in your chart that you had a very narrow field of specialty before you threw away everything and came with us to Z262.”

“Contract law,” she said.

“Now, I’ll admit, the curiosity of what caused you to abandon everyone and everything you were familiar with in order to come try life as a farmer is driving me positively insane, but I’d like to think we will have time to talk about that later. We will be spending quite a lot of time around one another if you accept the offer I’m about to make.”

Her arms crossed over her chest and she stepped instinctively away from Kurt and Tafiri, taking a step backward. Eyes narrowing, she looked down at the chimp. Her tone was icy when she spoke.

“What kind of offer?”

“Not what you’re thinking, I assure you,” Tafiri said, raising his left hand. “I need your expertise.”

“As a lawyer?” she asked. Her tone changed to incredulity. “I don’t do criminal justice.”

“Oh, we cover that,” Kurt interjected.

“You will recall, I mentioned a new objective that Captain VonHogan is securing for us,” Tafiri continued, unaffected by the interruption.

“Yes.”

“ArCorp regulations require a great many things from us as corporate citizens, Vikki. Not least among them is to continue looking for new ways to increase the holdings of the corporation. You are aware of our mining operations, of course. What has not been discussed with any but a handful of Folk is what I brought you here to discuss.”

“Well, my curiosity is piqued,” she admitted.

“I need to be assured of your absolute discretion, Vikki.”

“I am capable of that.”

“I am aware,” he said. His hand slipped into a pocket of the tailored vest he wore and emerged holding a thin coin of hammered gold. “I am placing you on retainer as my attorney,” he said.

“You have me mistaken for – “

“No mistakes,” he said. “I am fully cognizant of what your specialty is and where your talents lie. That is precisely why I am ensuring that I am the first to hire you.”

“You have contracts in mind?” she asked. She glanced down at the proffered coin.

“I do. I need you to write them. Make them airtight. Help our colonists. Do your job, Vikki, and we will all be wealthy beyond avarice.”

“We’ll all what?”

“Take the coin,” Tafiri urged. “Be my attorney.”

Her paw moved forward in slow motion, as if she had no control. In a moment the coin was nestled in her palm. Tafiri grinned widely as she took the money.

“Take a seat, Vikki,” Tafiri said. “Let me tell you a story about a scouting mission that has gone incredibly well.”

<<<END>>

Slightly Curved

Posted by tmikemccurley on 2016-03-15

Posted in: Story Work. Tagged: Chino and Harper, Fiction, writing, Z262.

“Harper!” Chino hissed. His attempt at quiet was nearly deafening in the small room. Harper turned to him, an expression of alarm creasing his face. The big elephant was standing by a door that should not have been open.

“Be quiet!” Harper said, holding the pads of his paw toward the floor.

Chino nodded, lifting a limp body into the air for Harper to see. “I think I broke him,” he said, managing to stay relatively quiet. In his arms, the mob guard lolled loosely, head rolling and legs dangling toward the floor.

“What the –“

Harper dashed across the room, abandoning the safe he had approached, and laid his paw on the elbow of the big Shepherd. He gave Chino a glare as the elephant opened his mouth to speak. After a moment of concentrating, he took a long breath and nodded.

“He’s alive,” Harper reported. “What did you do?”

“He came in and saw us, then he went for his gun. I tapped him.”

In Chino-speak, Harper knew, tapping was code for ‘I slapped him in the head with a crowbar’, and it rarely ended well for the party being tapped. When you were strong enough to bench-press a ground car, swinging a couple feet of thick steel was a devastating attack. On the plus side, the elephant had heard the approaching guard and dealt with him before anything happened, and for that Harper was glad.

Rather than belittle his partner, Harper simply removed the guard’s gun belt and wrapped it around his own waist. It hung loosely, as the rangy coyote was nowhere near as solidly built as the Shepherd that Chino was even now laying onto the floor.

“Watch the door,” he said. He returned his attention to the safe, throwing the scope into place and spinning the dials with an expert touch. In moments it was open, and Harper was stuffing piles of cash into a bag. Gems and jewelry went in as well, and although he wouldn’t keep the printed material inside the safe, he took it with him. It could always be shredded later. Certificates of ownership and stock would be problematic in the real world, so proper disposal was important. Money was money, though, and the cash was in fat stacks. Bag in hand, he made his way back to Chino’s side and patted his partner on the back.

“Time to go,” he said.

They slipped out through the door they had used to enter and once more stayed in the shadows as they passed a guard shack. Soon, they were in the clear and broke into a run until they reached the car they had parked behind a stand of wide-leafed trees.

Chino took the driver’s position and Harper leaped into place beside him. The engine rumbled to life and they sped into the night. A half mile later Harper pointed to a telecom booth and Chino pulled over. Harper stepped out and slipped a coin into the machine, using the tip of a claw to punch in a series of numbers and then fitting a scrambling device over the mouthpiece.

“There’s gonna be a hit tonight,” he said when someone answered. His voice was distorted by the scrambler, becoming deep and mechanical. “Blackie’s crew is gonna take down one of yours. He’s saying you owe him money and he’s gonna collect.”

He hung up before anything else could be said or asked, and then reclaimed his seat in the car. Chino drove them away from the booth in a leisurely fashion. Now that it was all done there was no need for speed.

Within the hour, the Rincon Crime Family discovered the theft and assault of the guard. Calls were made, and Blackie Biggs ended the evening with a price on his head.

“I thought we was going straight?” Chino asked as Harper finished counting the money. The pair had made it back to their apartment unscathed. Orderly stacks of bills took up space on the kitchen table beside an open bottle of beer.

“We are. I mean, soon. We needed a little seed cash for this trip to the Colony, right? So we’ll go straight when we get there. Meantime, just consider us slightly curved.”

Author and Creator of Superhero Short Stories and more!

Story Work

Anthill Morning

Anthill Morning

The Shooter

The Buyer

The Booster

Jake and Jasmine

Terry’s Birthday

Training Session

A Relationship of Convenience

Into the Dark

Doing My Job

Vives in Gladio

Meet the New Boss

Slightly Curved

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