#sf

Detective Lieutenant Dave Chandler never forgot the day he first met Iris. He'd only just made Detective, and was doing a coffee run for the 'pit and this girl - no young woman - bumped into him, quite deliberately, and made a big to-do about him walking into her. And in the middle of it all, he felt her hand go into his shirt pocket, so slickly and smoothly, he was certain she was a pro. But a shirt pocket? So when she'd moved on, and he was in the queue for the coffee, he'd checked it. And there was a folded note with times, dates, and what looked like cargo manifests with ship names.

It took some convincing of his then boss, but he got permission to do a stakeout. And it had all checked out.

With the photos he'd taken that night, they'd made quite a hit on the local drug smugglers.

It had stayed like that for a few years, this pretty woman with blue-green hair would bump into him somewhere, and he'd find a note.

So he'd asked around, and found out her name, and that she was actually a year older than him. The daughter of a fisherman who'd disappeared the day she turned eighteen. No one knew who her mother was. She had a small fishing shack and a boat.

Then one night he saw her get shot, and fall into the harbour.

He'd almost gone charging in, but there were far more of the mobsters than there were of him and his partner. So they called for backup, and by the time they got there it was all too late.

But the next day, Iris had bumped into him again, and this time softly said "I'm fine." She'd known he was staking out the scene. And somehow managed to not only survive, but dodge the sweep they did to try and find her body! He'd tried to grab her, but she'd given him the slip in seconds - despite the distinctive hair.

That was the first time. Over the past year, he'd seen her shot, clubbed, stabbed and run down at least eight times. Every single time ending up in the harbour, and each time she'd bump into him the next day as if nothing had happened.

This last time, though, she'd not been back.

And now there was this letter. Telling him to look after the shack and the boat. And to go out to the old pier tonight. Alone. He had not planned on following those instructions, except for two things. A single strand of blue-green hair folded into the letter. And another list.

#microfiction #SFF #SF #Microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting

A companion to https://aus.social/@rdm/114676145868865943

I live in a small country town. We don't rate a university, the best we manage is an agricultural college. One of the ecology lecturers is an amateur astronomer though, and when a meteor landed near town, he was the first one there.

When he came back, he said it looked more like a big lump of space junk had come down - and he'd found what looked like one of the on-board experiments had survived the reentry and impact. He said it was frozen, so he took it to one of the freezer rooms at the college so it would stay safe.

It took a couple of days, but eventually some bigwigs from the national research organisation finally rocked up, and boy, was there a to-do! There was nothing in the freezer room. Literally nothing. It was as clean as the day it had been installed.

So he took them out to the impact site, and they boxed it all up and drove off.

A few days later people started noticing that the stray animals around town had vanished. A couple of days later, so had the scattering of homeless and vagrant folks. That's when the police started looking around. They really got serious when Mr Antony vanished. He was like a hundred and five, and had served on the other side in the second world war. He'd been a POW, but decided he liked it here more than his home, and stayed. He'd been really sick, with a stroke and cancer and all that, but he'd built a little farming empire, and was a big deal.

Then came the really scary stories - people vanishing from their houses. And then all the patients in our little hospital. One of the nurses said she saw what happened to the last one, and it was really horrible - something had come up out of the drain in the bathroom, engulfed the woman she'd been helping, and dragged her down into the drain like she was made of putty.

That's when the army moved in and started looking for whatever it was.

But I'd been watching and taking notes. Everyone who'd vanished had been sick. Really sick. Me? I was in perfect health, so I snuck down into the storm drains one night. And I found them. Every person, every animal that had vanished. All lined up, covered in a yellow-green goo. And this big blob of the goo nearby. It reached a tendril over, ran it over my hand, and withdrew.

As I watched, I saw the goo ooze away from one of the dogs that had gone missing. It shook itself, barked at me, and then bounded over and gave me a big lick. It looked like it was in perfect health. A week ago it was missing an ear, an eye, and a leg.

I looked at old Mr Antony - the side of his face that had hung loose after the stroke was normal again.

So now I have a problem. How do I stop the army finding this place or trying to make off with this alien healing goo? Or worse still, just torching everyone down here?

#SF #SFF #microfiction #microfic #tootfic

art announcement: i'm very happy to announce that i have graduated from zine to MEGA-zine!

"keep dreaming of structured settings" is a 44 page full-color magazine of original collages on the theme of living in space and living under the ocean.

from the back cover:

"The year is 2025. The Amazon burns. Time is running out. How will humans live? The world is desperate for solutions.

In this magazine, you'll discover wondrous new opportunities for continued human life! Living with the dolphins, your own personal pool on Mars, exploration without limits, and so much more.

Join artist Marina Kukso on this new visual/textual adventure into the possible and ask yourself: is this a world you want to inhabit?"

it's available on etsy right now for only $10, so please consider getting one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/4316916338/mega-zine-keep-dreaming-of-structured

❤️ 🌌 🌊

#art #collage #space #solarpunk #SF #scifi #clifi #fiction #dystopia #environmentalism #zines

‘Honor And Fidelity’ Swings A Heavy Hammer of Action

The Fifth Foreign Legion 2: Honor And Fidelity (1992) by Andrew Keith and William H. Keith, Jr. makes no apologies for what it is. An antion fueled, combat driven story that offers the best military SF has to offer. The Keiths start the conflict early and never let up but they still find a way to twist and turn events to keep the reader guessing. Honor and Fidelity won’t change your life but it will get your heart racing.

Captain Colin Fraser, hero of the Hanuman campaign, finds himself and many of the other Hanuman veterans stationed on the backwater world of Polypheme. What’s worse is they are seconded as security for Seafarms Interstellar. As postings go it doesn’t get much worse for the Fifth Foreign Legion.

The native Nomad clans usually only attack the city-dwellers in small numbers and with backward technology. When the Nomads suddenly make attacks Seafarm installations in larger numbers and with high-tech weapons Fraser knows something has changed. The small Legion garrison must defend Terran interests and protect the tenuous relations with the city-dwellers.

With only a handfull of legionnaires, Fraser faces an unknown enemy using unexpected tactics. Fraser can’t help but think of a similar situation from the Legion’s past, Camerone. The odds are overwhelming and the chance of survival low but the Legion will make the price of a Nomad victory higher than they might imagine.

Legion and Fidelity picks up several months after the events of March or Die. The Keiths don’t stray far from the formula they used in March or Die but they add some interesting twists that keep it from being repeatative. They also do a great job making the battle situations unique and interesting but not so remarkable to make them unbelievable.

There is a sense of urgency to the story that starts from the beginning. The Keiths draw the reader in with this and keep the tension rising. Yet they don’t make the tension unbearable. There are small breaks that allow the characters, and reader, to catch their breaths.

It might seem that the Keiths are using Honor and Fidelity to glorify violence and war yet this is not the case. There are moments of heroism and sacrifice but the cost is never downplayed. War is terrible and the people who participate change irreversibly. How depends on their own experiences.

However, the story isn’t all about combat. There are several mysteries and situations that need to be worked out. With some stories these threads are just distractions that take away from the experience. This isn’t the case with Honor and Fidelity. To their credit, the Keiths make these subplots relevant and important to main thrust of the story.

Andrew Keith

Like any series several key characters return along with several new ones round out the cast. While action is the hallmark of military SF, the Keiths, however, also make character development paramount. It would very easy for the Keiths to keep the focus on the returning cast but they don’t fall into this trap.

William H. Keith, Jr.

Just as in March or Die, the Keiths use the history of the French Foreign Legion to add style and flare to the worldbuilding. Using the Legion as a base they then build on that to create a future history for their Legion. The rest of the world focuses through the lens of this future history.

Honor and Fidelity is not for all readers but for fans of action oriented and military SF it’s a treat. The story is often compelling, sometimes sickening, but never boring. Honor and Fidelity is an underrated gem waiting for readers to rediscover.

#AndrewKeith #BookReview #HonorAndFidelity #SF #WilliamHKeithJr_