A Scout's tale

[Blue Ghost]

Aston convinced himself that it was no different than going beyond the rope barrier at a museum, which is essentially where he was. Only unlike other museums this one had a sliver slim stream of molten rock crawling a yard away from his feet and sharp rocks and crystalline forms sticking out from everywhere.

He reached the bottom of the ladder. It wasn’t’ a long descent, maybe the height of a man at most. Still, rotten-eggs, heat, steam, with only the dim red-orange glow and shafts of light from what little illumination trickled down from the crag mouth above.

“Hey!” Aston called out. He could barely see the silhouette of a child sized humanoid figure off in the distance. The crag was a full fledged open fissure the further he went. The small slow gelatinous ooze of cooled lava seemed to vanish into another smaller crag.

Aston, his light shining on a clearly marked path thought about going back, but his do-gooder instinct told him that it wouldn’t be long. He’d grad the kid by the arm, tell him what an idiot he was, and haul him back topside. Heck, for all he knew this was some kind of Geonee right of passage, like that Aslan boy some years back on the other side of the Imperium. At that time Aston had to defend he and the kid against a crystal based creature that was literally part of the cave.

There were clear markings on the rock face. Self-illuminating signs with letters and numbers, none of which Aston recognized as it was all in the local Geonee dialect. This was clearly some kind of maintenance access way, and Aston rethought his inkling to help what he thought was a mischievous wayward child. But, he was committed, and somewhat curious to see where this all led. If nothing else, it was a lot more interesting than the staged façade up above.

Aston heard some voices ahead. They were raised voices, no less, but voices all the same. They echoed too. One young, one old, Aston continued to listen and slowly stepped forward through what looked like a normal rock arch onto a flat pathway with decorative pattern etched in the stone. A few steps in and a set of fluorescent lights imbedded in the rock glowed to life as a pneumatic door closed behind him.

Aston turned around and tried to open it, but there was no handle or other control. “Oh great.” Well, now he had no choice but to go forward. A few steps forward and the pathway bent to the left, and then straightened out to open into another vast chamber, only there was no overhead lighting here, no staged fake mushrooms, no track lighting, no mine carts that went no where, just what looked like several prison cells, a desk with a single lamp, and an adult stocky Geonee wearing a one piece mining garb with a belt.

Muscular arms, body hair, stubble and a moustache with a full shock of black hair. By Terran reckoning he might’ve been in his late thirties, maybe a year or two older. Either way he was reading the riot act to the kid Aston had been following, although Aston couldn’t understand a single word of the harangue. Still, the adult finger in the face of a kid and the booming tone were universal enough.

The young boy protested, arms wide with open palms, then pointed up saying something else that again Aston didn’t understand. But at that point the adult backhanded him across the face, knocking the young boy to the ground. He then picked up the child to one of the cells, opened it and was met with a tirade from another voice—female by the tone, or so Aston judged.

It was her turn to protest, and she gave the adult male a mouthful before he threw the boy at her, angrily said something in return, and then slammed the steel door shut before locking it.

Aston resisted the urge to jump out and try the man hand to hand. Whoever he was he was well built, and if anything Aston knew that short muscular foes were often the hardest to beat in hand to hand. That, and this guy probably hefted boulders and steel beams as his job.

The matter required a different approach. The Geonee male went back to his desk and tossed the keys on it before going to a control panel at the far end of the chamber.

Aston crouched, and crept through the various shadows until he reached the desk. He grabbed the keys with his full hand, using all his fingers to keep them from jingling as he grasped them. He then carefully stepped back into the shadows and decided to wait and catch his breath before moving to the cell door.

Aston again ducked into the near black shadow next to the cell door and looked around the chamber. There was an obvious exit with an arrow pointing up. Still, it was a good distance to sneak over there. Aston figured he would have to chance it.

The Geonee seemed to take a seat at the control panel and work on one of the keyboards. Perfect. Aston carefully inserted the key into the lock and slowly turned. There was enough of a distant rumble from whatever subterranean volcanic activity was hidden behind meters of rock to mute the clicking. He heard and felt the key unleash the latch, then carefully grasped the handle and ever so slowly pulled on the door.

He opened to door to reveal a pretty young woman and a young boy who held a cloth to his lip. They both stared at Aston as he put his finger to his lips in what he hoped was a universal sign for them to keep quiet. They stared at him with mouths slightly agape.

“Don’t’ worry.” Aston quietly said, “I’m here to get you out of here.”

Both screamed.

Aston twisted his face in bafflement. “Wha-- What’re you doing?” Aston tried to get them to quiet down, but it was too late. The adult male Geonee was at full sprint, and slid to a stop to grab Aston by the back of the neck and pull him away from the door.

Aston twisted his body bringing his right elbow over the man’s arm, and locked his elbow. “Go on! Get out!” Aston called, momentarily forgetting the fact that not everyone spoke Galanglic.

Aston’s attacker cried out in pain, but also defiantly. It hurt, but it was also a fight, and he wasn’t going to be the last blow. The Geonee tried to take a swing, but Aston leaned his head back and avoided the blow. Aston shoved the man to the deck and ran into the cell to drag out both young woman and boy.

They both screamed and yelled in protest, shouting in the native tongue while trying to beat off Aston’s attempt at succor. Talk about reluctant victims, Aston thought.

He had managed to drag them half way to the exit before the adult male Geonee tackled him, forcing Aston to let go of his two would be victims rescued under protest. The Geonee connected his right fist with Aston’s jaw and cheek as he momentarily sat on top of the Imperial Scout, and was about to deliver another blow when through a combination of Aston just putting up his hands in an attempt to block another blow, Aston brought his left up and wound his foot over his attacker’s neck, forcing him to arch back and off of Aston’s torso.

Aston managed to get up, and then kicked the Geonee to keep him down. Both young woman and boyn again stared at Aston with mouths wide open.

“Get over there!” Aston yelled at the two as he pointed at the exit. Both quickly stepped to the door, and the young woman furiously worked the digital lock. The door slid open, and just as the three were about to ascend the stairs the Geonee jailer came barreling back at Aston. This time it was an even match as both squared off with one another. But much to Aston’s surprise the boy and young woman started throwing tools and garbage tucked inside the doorway at the adult Geonee, yelling what Aston assumed were profanities in the local tongue.

But the adult male Geonee wouldn’t go down so easily, and grabbed one of the tools to strike Aston. The boy and young woman gave Aston a shovel just in time for Aston to block a hard over head blow. The two went at it for several seconds, blocking, parrying, counter striking, blocking again and parrying again. Each time Aston’s attacker cried out in vengeful fury, each blow seemingly harder than the last. Slowly he backed Aston and his two rescuees back up the stairs.

Aston caught the last blow with the shovel’s shaft, pinned the attacker’s weapon against the wall, and then thrust kicked him down the stairs. The adult Geonee rolled all the way out the door back into the main chamber. Aston briefly ran down, closed the door, and busted the lock with the shovel.

He ascended back up the stairs to the two young ones and ushered them up and out of the depths the volcanic vents.

Topside Aston was the focus of attention as a throng of Geonee gathered around him and, men and women arguing over something of which Aston was the focus, but Aston couldn’t comprehend the context. All he knew was that there were blue skies the a layer of volcanic gray ash in the distance. Both the young woman and the boy tried to plead something to an older middle aged Geonee who had some gray and had become the focal point of the exchange. Wearing some sort of traditional or ceremonial garb, he carefully listened with a smile, and the young woman seemed to turn to Aston with a gleam in her eye and broad grin as the young boy took up the story.

That’s when Vash arrived on the scene looking bemused. Unlike Aston Vash actually understood and spoke the Geonee language, though it wasn’t easy to master. Vash heard several sides, and then listened to several other parties commiserate.

“Vash, thank goodness you’re here.”

Vash grinned at him. “I see you’ve been busy.”

The conversations seem to settle, and Aston’s attacker approached Aston with open arms, a smile, and gave Aston massive bear hug, burying a tear stained face into Aston’s chest. Afterwards the young woman threw her arms around Aston and jumped up to kiss him.

“Congratulations, skipper.” Vash said with cool gaze and impish grin. “You’re married.”

The End.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Turkey in the Straw

Flight Captain Richard Aston scratched on the stencil on his pad with his gloved hand. Working in pressure suits had gotten easier over the generations the things were used, but there never seemed to be a solution for bulky fingers. Even suits rated for worlds like Em, with microtubes that circulated liquid through the membrane coating the wearer’s body, there was still a degree of bulk that made working in the field on non-standard worlds a real pain in the backside.

Em was classified as a desert world. All around was mostly rocky desert with lots of loose rocks scattered about from millions of years of meteor impacts and volcanic activity. Desert World was a classification Aston had always questioned since most of the planets in known space were airless clumps of dirt and rock. Didn’t that make Desert Worlds the “norm” and not the exception, so to speak? Em happened to have a thin layer of air that was unbreathable (mostly carbon monoxide and Sulphur), though according to hypothesis it wasn’t always the case, and allegedly had lost its atmosphere through so-called ancient activity. Personally, Aston didn’t believe it, but here he was supervising a minor dig, one of many efforts throughout the Imperium to get at the truth.

Some meters away MAX, the dual tracked AI companion designed for hostile environments, hummed ‘Turkey in the Straw’ as it dug deeper into Em’s surface, kicking up tan and brown sandy soil, all the while Vash, Karen and Steve monitored the field computer processing huge amounts of underground echoes. Echoes that showed what might have been some kind of urban complex, but also could have been just a real curious geologic formation.

Even through the helmet Aston could hear Max gaily hum his tune as he kicked up sand, rock and soil, seemingly enjoying his work. The thing had a programmed personality, even though it was essentially a miniature tank with a half dome and various lenses in place of a weapon. At its front was a multi-use interchangeable appendage, which furiously scraped away layers of alien earth to get at whatever was underneath. MAX was the size of a child’s wagon, and at first Aston wondered what use he would be, but authorized the administrator’s assignment of one onto this mission all the same. In fact, Aston thought getting one that had a positive attitude might be a good idea, and so the techs who prepped MAX gave him a nearly child-like saccharine optimism. But, “Turkey in the Straw”? Aston would have to look at the robot’s programming later on, if nothing else at least ask the thing why it chose that tune.

Max stopped, and backed out holding a green glowing orb. “Was this it?” MAX’s high pitched electronic voice was blithely mechanical, an odd mix of high-tech electronic tones and with an almost celebratory attitude.

Aston shook his head in response, then remembered that MAX wasn’t programmed to read body language through vacc-suits. “No.” Aston finally said, and MAX tossed it aside. The sphere impacted next to a large nearby rock formation, cracked open, and seemed to lose its luster after that. MAX continued his merry excavation, occasionally stopping to consider a rock before cutting it open with either his miniature laser or reinforced micro-circular saw to see what was inside, and left a trailing heap of slicked rock with the excavated soil.

Aston clipped his stencil onto the pad and pulled his scanner from his belt. Shaped like a gun but with a small parabolic antenna instead of a muzzle, he waved it across the stark dusty yellow terrain with an equally afternoon yellow sky behind it. The same formations above and below ground correlated with the field computers. Nothing, but the odd formations under the surface. And yet both the ship’s and satellite data said that there was some kind of energy out here.

Aston figured it was geo-thermal, given the small contingent of Geonee on this world and again their propensity for things volcanic. But few subterranean heat sources were localized. And so far, even though they were right on top of whatever it was, MAX and the field computers had turned up nothing.

There was that word again; “underground”. Aston had had his share of caves, stalactites, stalagmites, volcanic vents, crystal structures, and all things related to geophysics, as well as the Geonee and their sexist patriarchal social structure. They had their own military, their own government, their own scientists, but still were part of the Imperium, and as such were prone to call in for help every now and then—like now.

The Geonee claimed they were what Aston came to call the much be-fabled Ancients with a capital A. The same race of people who had allegedly taken various samples of homo-sapiens and transplanted them on various worlds in ages past. That part he could go for given all the various human races discovered on far flung worlds. It was the idea that they were responsible for everything in known space that he found hard to swallow. And what he found even harder to swallow, like a lot of regular ordinary people, was the idea that the Geonee claimed to be the actual Ancients. A kind of fall from grace, as it were.

The theory of an antiquated interstellar conflict with some alien race other than the Geonee was already hard for Aston to accept. The Geonee inserting themselves into what Aston considered to be more legend than scientific fact, just ratched up Aston’s level of disbelief. Further, it sometimes made it difficult to work on Geonee dominated worlds if the idea ever came up in polite conversation. Often turning said conversation into a diatribe on Geonee society and place in the galaxy, or at the very least a heated debate which could turn into an all-out brawl depending on the setting. This wasn’t one of those times nor places, but there was enough of a Geonee presence (along with regular Vilani-Terran population), that Aston found himself still having to be careful back at the starport to not insult any of the local’s deeply held beliefs. He was here to get a job done, not stir controversy.

Even though the air was thin (mostly carbon monoxide with a strong sulphurous element, again as Geonee preferred) Aston could still hear MAX work, which oddly mixed with the team chatter over the radio channel. He could hear Vash, Karen and Peter talk about data and interpretations

“Well, what have you got?” A different voice. Male, slightly higher pitched than Aston’s own normal tone, and belonging to a tall thin made with a faded shade of auburn hair to compliment his freckled face.

Again he shrugged his shoulders, “Lots of rock and earth.” Aston re-holstered his scanner, “And lots of sliced mineral carnage.” He mused as he pointed to MAX’s handiwork.

“Well, where’s the heat?” Steve Tattersall was a friendly enough guy, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He wasn’t unintelligent, but more often than not Aston found himself confronted with a man who hadn’t thought through entire concepts, and was prone to letting speculation and fantasy outweighing hard evidence. Still, he had managed to make it through college and basic, and had found an assignment in the field as opposed to a desk job processing data. And to be honest, that’s about all Steve was good for.

“I don’t know.” Aston admitted. “Max has been digging, I’ve been scanning, they’ve been processing all the scanner data, but it’s like there’s nothing here.” Aston shook his head again, “It’s a hot patch of desert with no heat.”

A few moments later Aston could hear a faint yet auditory ping of a shovel striking a rock. MAX was quiet for a while, then his motor started whirring again as he thrashed at the earth once more. Then another ping, and another, and another.

“Oh, captain?” MAX called out. “I think I found something.” Aston scanned in MAX’s direction, but didn’t see anything significant. Moving towards MAX’s position and down into the mini trench he had excavated for himself in the process of trying to find the elusive heat source.

At first Aston thought it was just another subsurface boulder enshrouded in shadow, but the surface was polished to a fault. Were it not black it would have an almost mirror like quality, minus the few scratches MAX had put into it. Aston mused that it reminded him of an ancient video play he had seen during his historic cultural class. But that object was burred much deeper, and was an obelisk huge flat slab of black concrete. This was different.

Against his better judgement Aston put his hand on it. It was warm. No sudden alien sensation, no strange encounter with an ancient alien technology that would overwhelm his mind with some strange ultra-tech data feed. It was just warm. Buried as it was it should have been cold like the rest of the planet’s subsurface—like all things buried and hidden from the sun—but it was warm. As if it had been sitting next to a fire, or, Aston realized, was generating its own heat.

“I think Max found our heat source.”

 

[Blue Ghost]

I Apologize for the very brief chapter here. I've been trying to get my health back by shedding the biological "drop tanks". Gruelling work, but it's got to be done. Veggies, meat, and water. And no, pizza snacks and chicken McNuggets do not count as meat ... too bad. I was going to post my version of an old Twilight Zone episode, but was afraid I might get dinged for plagiarism, so I begged off. Instead I've got the current story unfolding ... however, I may go back to the first Geonee story, and tack on a racing element. As of the last story I discovered how fun the Geonee can be to write about because of all of their character flaws as a society, of which there are many. Even so, I'll finish this one off before forging on.

To be honest, I never thought I'd see so many views of my prattle. Group hug

It was not only warm, it had an ever so subtle and gentle vibration that translated up through Aston’s arm. Aston pulled his hand away and it immediately stopped.

“Good job, Max.” Aston complimented, not sure if the robot would register it as such nor actually have any feelings whatsoever. Aston pulled out his scanner again and aimed it directly at the obsidian like surface. He pulled the trigger and checked his pad. Nothing.

Aston knitted his brow as he thumbed through the pad’s settings, trying to find the right amplitude for the strange vibration. But there was nothing. He felt it. It was there. It had to register somehow, someway. Aston ran a quick check on the scanner to make sure it was calibrated correctly. He briefly thought the vibration might be a low amperage electrical current, but that didn’t even register. No EMF field, no sound, and oddly enough motion of any kind. Just a shiny surface with a tingling in his hand and arm.

Aston put his hand to the surface one more time just to make sure, and pulled it away. Then a third and fourth time, the last time keeping the scanner on his vitals under the medical setting.

“Are you okay?” A different voice. Peter this time, who was still in the ship. “Richard?” Peter then added after a non-response.

“I’m fine.” Aston replied with a hint of bewilderment. The mystery in his voice told all.

“Well, why are you scanning yourself?” Peter pressed.

Again Aston didn’t immediately reply, but mustered a weak response, “I’m not sure.”

“What did you find there, skipper?” Vash chimed in trying to get the captain to focus.

Aston pulled himself out of his bewilderment, “Good job, Max.” he complimented the robot once more before stepping out of the trench, “I don’t know, Vash. Max just hit solid rock, although it’s not like any stone I’ve ever come across. It’s not even registering on my scanner.”

Aston motioned MAX to back out of the crevasse, then waved Vash over. “Feel that.” Aston urged.

Vash plainly put his gloved hand next to the surface. “It’s warm. It also tingles.” He pulled his hand away and repeated Aston’s retouching. “What does the scanner say?”

“Nothing. But Max scratched it a couple of times.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” Vash commented, again putting his hand to it surface. “Nor felt anything like it. It’s like its got some kind of power coursing through it.”

“I hope that’s not your religious side talking.” Aston off-handedly commented.

“No, this is pure engineer.” Vash came back. “Besides, primitive forest and grassland spirits aren’t my style.”

That’s when Aston heard and felt a familiar whir of a medical scanner sending a gentle touch of energy over his body. Both Aston and Vash turned around to see Peter dressed up in his vaccsuit waving a scanner over both man and Vargr.

Aston paid the man little attention, “I told you I was fine.”

“I checked that last scan you did. Your neural activity went through the roof.”

Aston looked at him wide eyed, then looked at Vash. “I guess it kind of makes sense.” Vash said.

Aston pulled his scanner once more and set his pad to scan for life forms. Sure enough, his scanner went through the roof. “What the …” Aston hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Is this thing alive?”

Steve picked up his own personal computer and moved over to Aston and Vash. “What’s up?”

Aston gave him a pointed look, “When you were scanning for heat what settings were you using?”

Steve shrugged, “I don’t know, default I guess. Why, is it important?”

Aston would file that in his report, “This thing’s generating electricity.”

Steve stood there dumbfounded. “How’s that possible?”

Aston didn’t reply, and Vash knew what was on the captain’s mind. “Max, get back over here, and start digging around this thing.”

“Thing?” MAX merrily replied.

“The black stuff. The object you cut into.”

“Ohhhhh….hokey dokey.” MAX replied and continued his electric fast whir against the soil, kicking up dirt and rock, like a boat kicking up water at full speed.

Aston watched MAX for a few more moments, and decided that he’d wished he had had a couple more assigned.

“It’s important.” Aston said to Steve. “You were looking for heat.”

“Yeah.” Steve replied, “…and tectonic movement. The usual.”

“Why weren’t you looking for electrical discharge?”

“You don’t get a whole lot of subsurface electricity. Not on any world.” Steve replied, a hint of anger in his tone.

Aston had to admit that much. “Still, this thing is electric. Given the low voltage I’d say bio-electric.”

“Are you a biologist?” Steve asked, but Aston ignored the question.

“If it’s in the mili-volt range, then that means a medical scanner.” Karen finally jumped in. She was somewhat tall, though perhaps average height for a full blooded Vilani. Where she got the Terran name Aston didn’t know, it was enough that she was efficient in her job.

“Medical scanner?” It was Peter’s turn. “I thought you were joking about that thing being alive.”

“Alive or not, it’s generating electricity.” Aston replied.

“What, you think it’s silicon based or something?” Vash mused.

“I don’t know.” Aston replied.

“I’ll get my bio-kit.” Karen said before quickly stepping off to the airlock.

“Wait for me.” Peter followed her as he his tucked his pad under his shoulder.

“Silicon?” Steve questioned.

“I didn’t say anything about silicon.” Aston corrected. “It’s got electricity humming through it, and we need to catalog and find out as much as we can about this thing.” Aston tried to sound as official as he could,

Vash sheepishly grinned through his helmet and stepped back to the field computers. Aston was trying to sound official, but there wasn’t much to do unless the thing suddenly came to life.

 

[Blue Ghost]

MAX continued his dauntless excavation, and began to carve an ovular trail around the subsurface formation. The initial black surface was revealed to be a kind of three-foot diameter plateau. Soon MAX’s digging revealed that it was one of many such dulled spike like formations covered by unknown numbers of years of shifting sands, nearby meteor impacts and whatever else would move vast quantities of earth.

Aston had moved over to the field computers sitting atop thin sheet metal folding table, an old design that dated back millennia but was still effective. He stood over Vash’s and Steve’s shoulder watching the field cameras form and project a computer graphic of what MAX had exposed, but for whatever reason the computers couldn’t create a subsurface graphic no matter what kind of scanning trick Aston’s team tried.

Peter and Karen walked around the exposed plateau, mindful of MAX still cheerily scraping away earth. The two compared notes, then directed MAX to dig in a certain spot, and then redirected him to another, and then another. After two hours max had revealed not just one but two other such protrusions sunk deeper in the world’s landscape. As morning sun crept to high noon MAX had revealed that there was possibly a whole forest or hidden landscape of such plateaus, each connected to one another through a buried surface with the exact same properties as the protrusions.

And it was vast, possibly stretching the as far as the eye could see, all but one little patch excavated by MAX with the rest hidden by the world’s natural elements.

“Max, stop.” Aston said, resisting the urge to yell in his helmet even though there was atmosphere and MAX himself was within shouting distance.

“What’s going on?” Steve was the first to break the brief silence.

Aston sighed, loud enough that it registered over the radio channel, “It’s too big a job for him. This thing stretches for miles.” A queasy sensation overcame his stomach that seemed to stem from his feet. That’s when he and the rest of his team noted the field tables shaking, and the very earth itself was undulating and moving back and forth.

“Earthquake.” Karen immediately stated.

“Get away from the ship!” Aston ordered. The team moved away from the diamond wedge, its nose precariously swaying back and forth. Aston figured the fragile part of the ship’s landing gear was strong enough to resist something like an earthquake, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

The ground stopped moving for the moment, then a incredibly strong palpable vibration kicked up dust, moved the field computers on the table like toys, and sent an almost massage like sensation through everyone’s feet and up through their legs.

“What the…” Steve looked around unsure of what to do or say.

“This isn’t an earthquake.” Karen ran back to the table to catch one of the computers before it fell off the table top.

“What is it?” Vash’s tone was edgy. Normally his wolf and canine instincts would have detected frequencies beyond normal human hearing, but this caught him off guard.

The very ground shifted one way, then jolted in the opposite direction collapsing the table and knocking everyone to the ground. The ground then felt as if it were an ice float on the open sea, then another jolt followed by more traditional earthquake like shaking.

“Grab the computers!” Aston yelled over the channel. “Get in the ship!”

As he spoke he could see all around him the soil kicking up a thinly veiled ankle high dust cloud, while pebbles, bits of soil, even individual grains of sand and dust vibrated as if a giant’s jackhammer were pounding the very terrain from deep below.

“Max! Get in the ship!” Aston yelled, all the while helping the team grab the field gear. “Leave the cases and table! Move! Go-go-go!”

Aston stayed in the rear helping whoever lost their footing as they quickly made their way to the open cargo bay. The shaking grew more violent. A constant thrumming, a constant pounding breaking the very top soil, creating small cracks, some turning into miniature fissures the width of a human forearm broke the formerly placid and nearly faceless rock-strewn desert floor.

Aston threw the bundle he was carrying into the cargo bay, not caring if it was damaged or not. By all reason he should have left it, but his thinking told him that the data still in the survey equipment was worth saving to explain whatever was happening to them.

Aston helped push Steve, Karen and Vash up over the lip and into the bay, soon being pulled up by his team into the relative safety of the cargo bay. He turned back, and everyone saw a massive fissure creeping toward the scout ship all the while the ground grew more violent.

“Vash! Engines!” Aston ran forward. Steve slammed the cargo door switch, and Peter and Karen pulled the gear further into the middle of the bay before following Aston forward.

In the bridge the vibrations were dampened by the mass of the ship itself, and the nature of the landing gear, but with the increase in energy the pounding could be felt through the decks. By the time Aston had strapped himself into the pilot’s chair the twin engines had roared to life, their thunder was a welcome friend as Aston’s hands and fingers furiously went through pre-flight, a thing that normally should’ve been done between two people and taken several minutes to make sure of a safe takeoff, went by in mere fractions of a second and done by a single man.

There was no time for safety. Blasting off was safety in itself, and the minute he saw that the ship’s doors were all green telling the pilot that he could fly, he ratcheted up the thrust and pulled back on the yoke.

Peter, Karen and Steve slid back across the deck as the scout ship angled up steeply with Aston’s piloting. A few moments later they felt the familiar gentle pull of the ship’s own one-gee mechanism kick in, letting them stand no matter how the ship was oriented to the planet.

Aston leveled out the ship and put it into a lazy orbit around the survey point. The fissure that had crept towards the ship was now a full-fledged canyon, revealing a huge hemisphere obsidian black object with the same protrusions sticking out all over, like a massive geologic sea-urchin shimmying its way to the surface, dust, rock and sand dripping away like sea water. Tables and cases were long gone, as by now was most of the tan landscape for a hundred meters or so around a crested black dome with blunted points.

Karen and Peter both came forward to see. Aston tilted the scout even more to give a better view. The dome like structure shook, then rotated, kicking up dust and moving and grinding large rock formations as it did so. After several minutes it settled down, and more minutes after that Karen sat in the navigator’s seat and brought up the local starport office.

Aston was pretty sure no-one would believe it. How would you report such an event anyway? But Karen was all business, talking about earth movement, quakes, liquefaction, geophysics and a bunch of other terminology that Aston had to nod in agreement with. She didn’t say “Hey, we found this big giant living rock thing!”, which is what Aston figured they had found, but instead Karen described the events and the result of those events, leaving whoever was on the other end to interpret it for themselves.

Was it alive? Aston figured it was, but there was no way to prove it. In the following days he and his team along with whatever local Imperial science reps were around, braved re-approaching the thing. MAX got volunteered to attach electrodes and other sensors to the object, and data flowed from there.

As expected, the local Geonee rep went into a long diatribe of how this was a sample of ancient technology, but when Aston pressed him to explain it, what it did, what it was for, why it was built, the brash Geonee looked back as if shocked that anyone would question his authority. And, as if scripted, stormed off in a huff stating that he didn’t share ancient technological secrets with inferiors.

Within a few weeks’ time the service had dispatched more researchers, including a nearby lab ship that was a jump away, and arrived filled with an army of science-techs.

But inside Aston was puzzled, and felt somehow empty. Almost as if he expected a large holo-projection with a wizened alien or human with a long white beard to explain ancient forgotten history and their purpose in creating this thing, whatever it was. But nothing of the like. It just sat there, occasionally vibrating, occasionally turning and churning earth as it did so, but otherwise inanimate, and certainly non-conversive.

Exploring what it actually was would be another scout’s tale, not his own. And somehow before he and his team re-boarded the ship, he felt like somewhat denied the privilege of discovering what this thing was. But, that was the nature of the service. Not everything had a story book ending. Whatever this thing was, it was just another mystery to be explored. And sometimes the endings were just that. Such was the life of a scout.

The End.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Imperial Streets of Fire

No stars, only rain, neon signs, and the faint reflective glow of city lights off the formless night overcast. First Lieutenant Richard Aston made his way down an old fashioned paved boulevard riddled with shallow puddles and a steady shower of rain. Closed store fronts on the opposite side, and next to him on his right an antiquated steel truss holding aloft an equally antiquated rail road that had been converted to facilitate hyper-velocity magnetic trains. The thousands of droplets hitting the brim of his new duty cap and water-resistant windbreaker made him feel like he was in an automated vehicle wash, or so he mused.

That, and he was cold. His light duty uniform and cotton t-shirt underneath barely offered any warmth, which forced his university-student mindset to wonder how much warmer he would be if he were a black body object. But other than rain silhouetted cones of illumination from the street lights, the occasional diner or all night laundromat, there wasn’t much illumination of any kind save for the odd flash of lightening and the faint dull glow of city lights bouncing off of the night gray skies.

He told his flight captain that he would find a way back to the starport. He said that it would be no problem, that he would make the flight, but that he first needed to see the regional playoffs at the local stadium. Aston had been to a lot of sporting events back on Terra, and still fresh out of flight school his inner sporting fan wanted to take in a game while he had liberty.

Of course, forgetting his wallet back in his cabin and relying on the small wad of cash that had been in his pocket, was a big mistake. The tickets were expensive, the food doubly so (like all franchise stadiums), and not feeling the fingers of the pick pocket that ran off with the remainder of his money was the final blow.

His feet splashed over millimeter deep puddles while one of the hyper-grav trains rumbled above. He braved a glance forward to make sure the path was still clear, mostly keeping his head bowed to prevent rain from getting on his face and in his eyes. The train rumbled off into the night, minutes later a police vehicle, its sirens wailing, sped by on a cushion of air, leaving a cone of cold wind and water misting Aston’s face. Its lights dimmed in the distance until they were swallowed up by the city night and rain.

Whatever the emergency Aston hoped that it was far away. Far, far, far away, he mused. He quick stepped across an intersection, peaked to his left down the cross street, and saw a horde of flashing lights, very distant but still bright in the night elements.

One of the gray police cruisers erupted in a ball of fire, the thunder of the explosion taking a half second to reach his ears, and rippling through his body with low vibrations.

Aston couldn’t help but slow his pace as he stared down at the conflagration, which was followed by several more pops and then high pitched sonic booms whizzing mere inches from his head. Aston was stunned for a moment, but like a sobering drunk came out of his dumb-founded surprise and ducked next to one of the girders as the familiar ping of bullet metal striking metal accompanied the gunfire.

Unarmed, no radio, nothing but a thin water resistant windbreaker and his own uniform, Aston steeled himself and moved out of the arc of fire. He then began to run across the boulevard when something ran into him.

She had long chestnut hair that reached passed her shoulders, with a heart shaped face; holo-movie-star looks dressed in some kind of stage show dress made of dripping wet red-sequins. Well groomed, good looking, she didn’t belong here—not by a long shot. She was at least ten years older than Aston, maybe fifteen, he couldn't tell, but she was gorgeous in spite of the rain.

Another eruption took place. Both were out of line of sight, and Aston figured it was probably another police vehicle. More bullets plinked off street signs, lamp posts and girders. Aston moved the woman back across the street to where she came from. Bullets didn’t care how far they traveled nor how many layers of sheet rock or brick were between it and its target.

“Please, you got to help me!” she begged, her tears melding with the precipitation.

“Ma’am…” but Aston was at a loss for words as he chanced a quick peak around the storefront corner, knowing that a stray bullet could take off his head. He was duty bound to help, but found the dichotomy of not knowing how infuriating. “I … I …” he briefly stammered as he tried to figure out a plan of what to do.

Fortunately they heard more sirens, which made Aston think he could move her out of danger and let the authorities know he was an Imperial scout with a woman in distress.

“Get your hands off her!” Commanded a venomous voice belonging to an equally tall and toned male with a fierce wide eyed stare.

Aston pulled her back and tried to gain some distance by backpedaling while holding onto her. “Get behind me.” Aston told her as they reached the middle of the empty four lane boulevard.

The man didn’t charge. Dressed mostly in black he stalked Aston and the woman, keeping his distance, matching every footstep, watching, waiting. “I advise you to let her go.” He had a venomous tone. “She's nothing to you. She’s everything to me.” Aston kept his eye on him. He was probably about her age or a bit older. Late thirties, or so he guessed, and a good build.

“If you let her go, maybe you’ll go home tonight on your own two feet.” He threatened.

Aston didn’t see a way out. Potential stray bullets blocking one path, concrete and steel in the lateral directions. The only way left was forward, currently blocked by this man.

“Let her go.” His tone was almost reptilian as was his gaze.

Aston continued to shield the woman, but knew what was coming. He removed his windbreaker and gave it to her, “Put this on.”, letting his duty uniform soak up the rain and cool his skin and body.

“I’m coming for you.” A cool tone with intent. "And I play rough."

Aston wasn’t sure how to respond, or if he should at all. All he could do was meet his eyes with his own. Their soft steps were joined by dozens others pounding the water slick pavement.

Aston felt his thigh and upper torso to make sure that he truly forgotten his sidearm out of some subconscious desire to wish it into being. The foot steps revealed more black leather thugs. Some human, some Vargr, each with scars, sleek wet unkempt hair, and each a near black silhouette against the wet streets reflecting the city lights.

Aston counted them, but stopped after twenty. And still more came. That’s when the cat calls came, urging blood, demanding Aston's sacrifice. The combination of dialects, both human and Vargr, created an indiscernible din. They were voices calling for blood, but Aston couldn’t make out a single word or sentence with his attention focused on the one man, whom appeared to be their leader.

The man pulled an air horn from his coat, pointed it up and away, and then blasted it into the air. The dull deafening single trumpet laid out a blunt call that could be heard for blocks. And on cue a swarm of single headlights rounded a corner two blocks distant. They were all wheeled, no grav cycles, telling Aston that they weren’t very wealthy. A local bike gang that, probably poor like most of the people who lived in this part of town, and unlike the other denizens prayed off their neighbors to hoard their wealth and dump it into their dress, food, drink and their two-wheeled contraptions; contraptions from another time and place.

The collective thrum of two dozen or more motorcycles drowned out the voices calling for Aston’s blood. Aston knew he was a dead man. He was young, inexperienced, but practical. There was no point in being scared anymore. Whatever they were going to do was going to happen. He was the center of attention and would soon pay for it with his very life. He had one hope.

The crowd formed a wide circle. Aston could feel the woman clinging to his back using him as a human shield. Then suddenly she was yanked away by several hands, and their leader dropped his air horn and charged Aston as he looked away trying to reach for the woman.

Aston snapped his head back in time to see the lean figure pull a blade and rush him. What did his instructor say? If you see a knife, you’re going to get cut. It was inevitable, so there was no point in worrying about it.

Aston showed that he was going for his knife, but stepped on the side of his attacker’s knee instead, sending his joint crashing into the hard pavement to give Aston those brief fractions of heartbeats he needed to sweep the arm and knife wielding hand, then force it loose and sweep his arm around his attacker’s neck in his half knelt position.

Aston clamped his arm tight under the attacker’s jaw, using his free arm to pull it tighter while keeping his firmly stomped on the knee. The gang leader flailed trying to reach backwards, but Aston had him locked so that he couldn’t even twist his body.

Aston was then pushed down. The gang leader got up, pushed back and beat whoever had helped him, and went to kick Aston as he tried to get up. Aston was poised like dog on all fours, on the precipice of regaining his stance when he saw the gang leader’s leg and foot prepare for a near fatal blow.

Aston managed to stop it with a clumsy pan block with his free hand, but the effort sent him stumbling forward into the damp pavement, the water keeping him from scraping his face too badly on its rough surface.

 

[Blue Ghost]

The rest of the gang backed off seeing what their comrade had suffered. Aston tried his sweep, but the gang leader was an experienced fighter and merely hopped over it, then reached down for Aston’s body.

Aston returned the favor clinging to him trying to gain purchase with his feet. The two were locked with one another like two ancient Greco wrestlers, voices clamoring for death, rain coming down, another train rumbling by overhead, and several strobing flashes of lightening briefly illuminating everything in a deific white-blue flicker.

No matter how much training Aston had had since before he could drive, this man, this gang leader, was bigger, stronger, more experienced, and in his prime with lean bulk that dwarfed Aston’s light-weight twenty-something build.

Aston stepped into him, gaining a fulcrum on his hip and threw the man. But he refused to let go and took Aston with him. Both rolled on the ground for what seemed like forever to Aston, but the gang leader used sheer brute strength to sit atop Aston, and pounded him left and right.

After the first few blows the pain was obligatory, almost non-existent. Each blow was a combination of sharp jabs to a collection of neurons screaming pain in the impacted area, followed by a draining sensation as his body tried to compensate by pumping more blood, more fluid, burning more energy to try and compensate for the damage being suffered.

Somehow Aston managed to put up some kind of defense with his hands, avoid some of the blows, but the outcome was inevitable. Again, he didn’t think about what could happen. There was no more fear. The thing he feared was happening now. Cruel fate was being visited upon him. To die on some far flung world light years from home, while wearing his majesties’ uniform attempting to be gallant, but upon the precipice of eternal failure.

Light. Massive amounts of light. Blinding light. Light coupled with the sound of voice over a loudspeaker—the sound of vehicles. Big bulky armored vehicles rolling onto the scene.

The gang leader looked up wide eyed, his fist dripping with Aston’s blood, cocked and ready to strike, but like a deer caught in the headlights, he remained motionless.

Then another sound. Welcome, familiar, massively loud—louder than any of the motorcycles he had heard before.

“Drop your weapons!”

Aston’s vision was blurred as he tilted his head off to his left and right. Bright blue and red flashing lights with more armed figures shrouded in bright silhouettes. And overhead a huge familiar titanic diamond shape with the red sunburst and the Vilani interpretation of the old Terran Pony-Express emblazoned on the underside of its hull.

Huge amounts of local law enforcement. Some resisted, some ran, most found themselves floored followed by the familiar zip of plastic ties being bound around their wrists. Then a medical scanner waved over his face and body by a familiar form, but for the life of him Aston couldn't concentrate enough to think of a name.

“How is he?” it was Captain Tsukeda, a veritable blur after the pounding Aston had suffered.

“He’ll live.” What was the medical officer’s name? Again Aston couldn’t remember. Female, no-nonsense, "But no thanks to you." she added.

“Get him on board, we’re getting out of here.” Tsukeda, Asian descent, standing slightly taller than a Genoee, was a tough as nails man. If his crewman was hurt then he needed to be repaired like any other piece of equipment on the ship, and that was best done in the ship’s meat-shop, which meant triage in the galley.

Aston saw the black of the night clouds and sporadic white-yellow of hundreds of office building lights get replaced with the familiar white of the type-S’s interior after several men lifted and carried him up the ship's cargo ramp. He was no longer outside, it was no longer raining, the sound of engines and sirens was muted and all but gone, replaced by the gentle high pitched hum and relative quiet of the ship’s overhead fluorescent lights.

They set him down on the thinly cushioned yet regulation sofa. Non crew cleared out. Tuskeda said something terse and tough, followed and ended by a “I don’t’ give a …” filled with every explicative Aston had ever heard when he was training on one of the navy cruisers. "This is scout business. We're out of here."

Outside the woman’s friends had caught up with her. The gang had been rounded up. Statements were taken. She asked about what had happened to Aston. She didn’t even know his name. All she could get was he was safe. She and her compatriots looked up at the type-S as it's twin engines thundered to life, at first slowly moving her sleek bulk up and away from both buildings and railroad, then just when everyone thought they couldn’t get louder, the engines roared in defiance, shattering windows as the type-S plumed into the night overcast.

That night, with a packed theatre house, she picked an appropriate song and dedicated it to the young Lieutenant. A man she would never see again, but would always remember.

The End.

 

[Blue Ghost]

More roughage. It's good for your digestion...honest Seriously, just going back re-reading my stuff tells me that I need to not be so impatient. This "story" is just another scene. Not so much a random encounter as a full-fledged story that is brief with an understood background. The previous events in Aston's life do come across as random encounters as times ... its' a fault of mine. I may or may not write something a bit darker, maybe go ahead and steal from The Twilight Zone ... then we'll what happens from there. Of all the scifi media I've consumed, Traveller is still formless. The positive side is that you can do nearly anything with the game. The downshot is that you can do nearly anything with the game, if you see what I mean Regardless (irregardless?), I like putting a face on the setting. What other game can you roll up or write about an intelligent dog as your boom companion and travel in spaceships?

Homeworld
The only sound First Lieutenant Richard Aston could hear were the whir of the electric pump circulating coolant through his vaccsuit’s micro-fibers and that of his own heartbeat.

Before him the vast vista of a jovian body silhouetted by a G2 star, the star’s powerful illumination creating a brilliant thin arcing corona over the planet’s north-western hemisphere, it’s rings seemingly like a rocky desert, slowly and imperceptibly moving in a circular orbit millions of years old, perhaps older. The planet’s atmosphere was a lethal mixture of hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia and water ice, all of which would kill a man and most living creatures in known space, but was a veritable feast for a fuel starved starship.

The steady one-atmosphere pressure exerted by the suit onto his body was formless but functional. Combined with the eternal sensation of being at the apex of a rollercoaster or the middle of a jump, created a heavenly feeling as he gazed out at a massive world that was still tens of thousands of miles distant.

That’s when Aston became aware of his own breathing. Here he was falling, but with no ground to land on. It was akin to being born again, if humans could remember their moment of birth.

“We got you on scanner.” It was a different voice than the one he had been talking to earlier, but just as officious as any first responder. “We’re coming up on you now. Matching speed.”

Speed? Aston had forgotten, the vessel he had abandoned had been travelling towards the gas giant for a parabolic refueling run. He never liked them. Screaming through an icy cold atmosphere at high mach, relying on the careful balance of thrust and vector to counter the massive ten-g pull of a world that had no surface, was not his idea of being economical.

Even though the visage before him was something few people ever saw, he preferred to be in a vessel, and preferably planetside if it was going to take on fuel. Still, the piratical element he had been ordered to infiltrate and ride with, didn’t care where they got their fuel, as long as it was cheap—preferably free.

But it wasn’t supposed to end like this. The limpet EMF mine was supposed to disable their engineering section long enough for the staged flotilla to intercept them. Aston was to set it, then get in a vaccsuit, egress via the ship’s airlock and wait outside incase the pirates either discovered him or managed to squeeze enough juice out of their power plant to put up a fight.

But the poorly maintained drives and powerplant, repaired with retrofitted parts of other vessels, and a combustible fuel mixture, was a countdown to disaster. Aston remembered seeing the plasma leak as he pushed off from the battle-scarred type-t’s hull. At first he didn’t quite understand how or why the ship’s attitudinal control jets should be firing when they were headed for a gas giant. And seconds later that’s when he realized that it was the ship itself that was in peril with a luminous tear in her side that was a violent plasma leak consuming her hull. Disaster followed minutes later as the type-T silently coasted away until it was in full view.

He remembered the eruption that tore the vessel asunder, and waiting in sheer dread for a sharp piece of hull shrapnel to puncture his suit or slice his body in half. As luck would have it, it never happened, but the image of the bright sun-hot explosion was now forever burned in his mind.

He was chosen because he had E V A survival training, as well as knowledge of ship’s operations. Out in this nearly unpopulated region of space the Imperial marshals needed all hands. And so a scout got chosen.

Aston half laughed to himself and smiled as his sense of humor returned, he always wanted to see new worlds, and the natural beauty of space itself filled his entire view. To his left, like a banshee, the spearpoint nose of another type-T, one with clean lines, no battle damage, and the sunburst of the Emperor’s own, pierced his field of vision. It grew until the bulbous forward section, an almost hawk-like fore section, came into full view.

More small eruptions of light flared like the pirate ship, only these actually were the ship’s control jets to slow her down. Aston couldn’t turn to see, but minutes later he felt two sets of hands grab him and pull him inside the familiar white and gray of a government patrol ship.

For a few brief moments he was one with the stars.

 

[Blue Ghost]

So, I was going to post my version of a Blade Runner-ish / Bubblegum Crisis kind of story; i.e. cyborg / replicants / warbots gone bad and running amok in some downtown section of a major city on Efate, Jewell or Regina, but got tuckered out.

One of the discussion points I've had with Pakkrat is that the "stories" felt like random encounters. And truth be told that's kind of true, but only in the sense that I've put down what I think are cool scenes to help ground the setting for the game.

That, and I already had one cool street scene, and didn't want to repeat it with another cool "wet the streets" scene (movies are prone to wet pavement at night ... however cool looking, it is somewhat cliche).

I had a brief notion to write a "Christmas" scene with a Droyne as the befabled Santa Claus, and how he had been delivering what medieval Terrans thought were presents, but I haven't really formulated that one yet. It's an idea I've been toying with. Imagine an Ancient using some kind of grav sled, dressed in a red vaccsuit, using portable teleportation technology to teleport from the grav sled into the house, and leaving sensors in the shape of house hold appliances, or even toys. That kind of thing ... of course, I'd still have to explain the reindeer.

Then again I'm thinking of going back and editing what I posted, then expanding and re-posting proper fiction. We'll see.

Thanks for the views.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Apologies to the loyal readers of this thread. I've actually got a half dozen story concepts, all of which I've started, but I'm so fractured as to which one I want to pursue that I'm just kind of in a dazed state of where to go ... sooo ... I actually started another one last night that's a bit on the "short" side, so to speak. As per a few posts back I'm going to revisit that first Geonee story. At the point where the head-honcho Geonee says "Race, human!" I really wanted to cut to Aston sitting in a race car or race vehicle of some kind, but for some reason I just either got bored, scared with the direction of the story, or just ... I don't know, kind of stumped, I guess is the best way to put it. And yes, I realize it's blatant retcon...but it may not be as "retconned" as you think

We'll see where things go from here. My imagination is freed up and angry as heck that "forces beyond my control" stymied my wet-ware and prevented me from doing this years ago when Hunter and I were talking, and I was asking him about writing fiction for T20. Hunter is gone, but I can still post on his BBS / forum (I still call these things BBSes, can you believe that?).

The future looks bright for me and writing, and other things. I'm not sure what'll happen in my remaining years, but hopefully it'll be productive and entertaining for ya'll.

Back to work

 

[Blue Ghost]

The Stuff of Life

The odd mixture of scents of dust and water along with local flora, reminded Third Lieutenant Richard Aston of the American Midwest on a world light years from Terra, yet like the mostly arid world he currently stood on there was a sense of fertile desert that had given rise to some ancient society, now gone forever. Vast stretched of scrub brush flanked the muddy shores of a slow moving shallow river, beyond which lay the crumbling remains of an ancient lost civilization carved out of a stone formation several stories tall. They were in their bronze age, according to the experts, when whatever cataclysm occurred that brought the mud-brick architecture civilization to an end.

A massive irrigation system ran from water caches from atop the plateau down to the structures carved into the solid rock cliff face. Or it did at one time. Now bone dry the system was broken in several places, the irrigation ducts let what runoff there was trickle onto dust covered inlaid stone pathways that had been carefully laid down to weave through the many small canyons in the mountainous rock structures. Structures in which the denizens had built their society.

What was interesting was that this was the only such civilization found on this world. Or rather the remains of one. Aston carefully brushed his hand along one of the stone carved irrigation channels at shoulder height. He had visited ancient Droyne sites, and where they weren’t a dime-a-dozen there was something less special than coming across a lost civilization that no one had heard of before, and yet still used some of the same basic science and engineering principles discovered by a thousand different civilizations in known space. From the lever and wheel to the starship, all steps in between were necessary reach for the stars. And occasionally, like these people, some didn’t make it.

Aston could still hear the river’s miniature ripples as a portion of it flowed over rocks, and beyond that voices of the rest of the team setting up shop. The muted clang of folding tables being set up, and the gentle thud of equipment cases being set on soil and rock told the story of a scout survey preparing to do business.

Aston pulled his gun like scanner from its holster, and likewise took out his data pad before stepping forward into a wider area. The small canyon walls separated gradually to reveal the remains of mud brick huts and tenements carved out of the cliff face. The avenue was partially covered with the red brick dust, but also had a lighter shade that caught Aston’s eye.

He scanned it. Silt. But the pad had to be wrong, or there was something wrong with the scanner, because according to the databanks this sand came from the top of the canyon. Aston quickly surmised that there must have been some spillover from the top water caches. It wasn’t a ground breaking discovery, but Aston felt his imagination trying to image what this rock-borne metropolis must have been like with water flowing everywhere amidst an arid environment.

He glanced upwards to see mostly clear blue sky with just the wisp of white clouds whipping apart in high altitude winds in the afternoon sun. According to the survey this area was prone to flash floods. It was a thing that as a trained scientist Aston understood, but still had a hint of the lay person’s wonderment of how such an environment devoid of water could suffer such catastrophic inundations. Forested regions with lots of growth held water in its place as roots acted as fingers grasping at pliable water soaked earth. Sand and stone didn’t, and Aston found himself remembering that tiny factoid as he continued to marvel at the structures.

“Richard!” Aston recognized Scott Patterson’s voice, team leader for this Op. “Richard?” closer and quieter, Patterson, large of girth, stepped through the craggy walkway looking around in much the same way Aston had done. “Richard.” His tone was conversational now.

Aston, scanner in hand turned around and walked to meet the captain. “Captain.”

“Where’ve you been?” Patterson’s tone was inquisitive, not reprimanding. “We’re setting up out there.”

“I heard, but the admin back at HQ said to get some data before setup.”

“He did? Why didn’t you say so back at port?”

“I thought you knew … “ Aston shrugged his shoulders, and offered his tablet, “Wanna see?”

Patterson was casually dismissive, “No, I was just wondering where’d you gotten to.” Patterson looked around, taken in like the young scout by the canyon visage. “People used to live here, huh?”

Aston was kind of surprised a team leader would make that statement, “I guess archaeology isn’t your thing?”

“Eh,” Patterson replied, “I’m as interested in history as anybody else. But this looks a little run down for an Ancient site.”

Aston hesitated before replying, not wanting to appear to be a smart ass and double checking to make sure what he wanted to say was actually what he wanted to say, “Uhm, sir, I don’t think it’s an Ancient site. I mean, it’s not Droyne, if that’s what you mean.”

“It isn’t?” Again Patterson was genuinely curious. Aston was grateful for it. It’s part of the whole reason he joined the scouts and not one of the hard services, nor try to defect to Confederation space to “join the cause.” Fiery Terran rhetoric and crusades weren’t his thing unless the cause was really worth it, and knowledge and science were the only crusades he felt were worth anything. Patterson and the rest of the scout he had met exemplified that.

“No, sir.”

“Hey! Let the sir, be. Okay?” Patterson put his foot down. “This ain’t the army.”

“Yes …” Aston caught himself before he spouted another “sir.”

“Well,” Patterson continued. “Who lived here?”

Aston shrugged again, “I guess that’s why we’re here.” Aston felt like he had just put his foot in his mouth again by nearly telling his team leader what a team leader normally tells his crew. Inside Aston grimaced wondering if he should say something to make up for it, but begged off.

Patterson was gregarious, friendly, but also made sure everyone knew he was in charge without actually being the dictator that so many ship’s captains sometimes were. This was a scientific survey, not a military op, though he had his share of security missions in the name of the emperor’s service.

“All right.” Patterson sounded as if he were going to finish off the conversation, “Continue on. But if you pick up any technology, and I mean beyond pullies, levers, swords and stone wheels, you come tell us ASAP. You got that?”

“Yes, sir! Uh—I mean…”

Patterson rolled his eyes and casually waved him off as he turned back to the ship, “Eh, don’t sweat it. I’ll be back at base camp.” Then as he disappeared down the small canyon, “Keep scanning.”

Aston grinned. He had done something right, even though he had misspoke. He continued to scan, walking forward, waving the scanner over mud hut doorways, twig roof frames that he guessed once held up either mud shingles or thatch of some kind.

Aston ventured inside one of the huts. Dry dust scented air that was slightly cooler than the main causeway. Mud shelves, what looked like a stove, pottery, all covered with a fine layer of dust. The next room had a hearth in the middle, and much to Aston’s surprise, mummified bodies.

In a shadowy room like the one he was in it might have been normal to have been somewhat apprehensive in the presence of deceased people. But these were an exotic alien species from eons ago. This was history, not a psychological exploration of man’s innate fears. Aston became even more curious. With a town as well kept as this one had been, what could cause people to wrap their deceased in their living rooms, and then leave? A plague? Some kind of social upheaval like a war or famine?

Aston hit another trigger on the scanner and the low wattage LED to see the detail of the furniture, more pottery, and an assortment of other artifacts; a broom of some kind, maybe a sword and shield, spear, possibly a saddle.

He waved the scanner over the bodies. Lots of dehydrated compounds, and a complete map of inner shapes presumably organs. As he waved his scanner around he picked up low EMF readings, probably magnetism from the rocks.

Aston stepped outside and repeated the same process with two other huts. More magnetism, or so he concluded. He took one last surveying gaze. A few hundred years ago, maybe longer, this place was a thriving bronze age metropolis. Well, a village at least. He holstered his scanner and followed Patterson’s steps back to the ship.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Aston woke to the sound of rain hitting the hull. The pitter-patter was dull and muted but there. Aston rubbed his hand over his face, yawned, and against bodily protests, slowly swung his feed over the side of his single occupant bed, and then pushed himself to stand upright. Rain was rain, but world depending it sometimes slowed work, or, even if it was just regular water, could sometimes make it impossible to work altogether.

Sometimes special units were trained to take scout ships with reinforced hulls into worlds with corrosive atmospheres, and sometimes with specially hardened and reinforced suits the personnel of those crews would do the same kind of field data gathering that was done by other scout teams. Rain came in many forms, depending on the planet’s temperature and prevailing chemistry. Rain could be liquid superheated molten iron, corrosive acid, mercury, or even subzero liquid oxygen. The scouts braved conditions that the military on their best days were at best ill equipped to deal with. It’s what made the scouts, scouts.

Aston was thankful for not having been assigned to hazardous detail this early in his career. Still, scanning ancient stone age ruins of some people who had died out unknown years ago wasn’t exactly ground breaking science in his opinion. Still, he imagined that scientists of millennia past would have killed for a chance to do what was now considered routine. Civilizations came and went. Most didn’t make it. Disease and natural disaster were the most common culprits. Everything from a bad harvest due to a blight or drought, to a life ending asteroid colliding with the planet, or, worse yet, a rogue world colliding and shattering said world. Aston remembered reading of a scout team picking through what was thought to be asteroid debris, and finding thinks like bits of shattered pottery floating in space, or other artifacts embedded in planetary remains. For some reason he found that more intriguing than walking through the remains of a society that had mastered irrigation, but succumbed to something else. Something unknown.

Outside Patterson’s team had erected a canopy over the field lab computers and analyzers, all designed with the rigors of the outdoors in mind. Each computer or scanner had an extra thick outer casing to protect the delicate circuits and other sensitive engineering that would either fall apart or simply stop working if exposed to the elements.

Patterson heard Aston approach and looked up from his station, “Glad you could join us this morning.” Patterson’s tone was half mused. Like he said, it wasn’t the army, but Aston figured maybe he had slept an hour or so beyond what was acceptable.

The rain wasn’t heavy, but the banks had swelled, and the water within flowed faster than yesterday. That and the rain striking the canopy tarp grew ever so louder as the minutes wore on.

“I figured I go continue my scanning.” Aston finally suggested.

But Patterson didn’t reply immediately. He looked up again as if to contemplate the river and gauge the relative danger if any was to be had. “I’m not so sure about that.” Patterson’s tone was uncertain, but still light as he peeked out from under the canopy, and saw feint tears of blue in the otherwise overcast morning.

“No problem, captain.” Aston didn’t say “sir”, hoping that “captain” would be a good social compromise for his desire for etiquette and Patterson’s disdain of military hierarchy.

“Ah…” Patterson continued as he surveyed the sky for several minutes. “You know what? Go ahead. It doesn’t look like it’s going to get worse. Hey Paige?”

Paige Larson was the ship’s meteorologist. Unusually perky for a scientist, or so Aston thought. A lot of female scientists tended to be a bit more sedate and thoughtful, but Paige had a certain energy about her. Her specialty was in examining paleontological climates, hence the reason she was on this deployment. That, and she also seemed to have a knack for predicting the weather. “Yes, Scott?”

“Paige,” Patterson hesitated, “did we deploy any satellites before touch down? Didn’t we kick one out the bay for some kind of recon?”

“That was an x-ray band scanner.” Paige returned. “It’s meant to look below the top soil and find any subsurface formations.”

“So,” Patterson hesitated again, probably because he already knew the answer, “it can’t tell us what the weather’s like, or gonna be like?”

“No.” Paige flatly replied, “I might be able to get some imagery off of it, if you want.”

Patterson waved her off. “You know what, forget it. Hey Richard? Go do your thing. But if it starts coming down, I want you back here ASAP. You got that?”

Aston almost smiled, “Yes sir!”

“One more thing. Take this.” Patterson flipped him an ear piece. “Put it on, and keep it on.”

“Yes—” Aston caught himself before he uttered the impending “sir”, though he saw that Patterson already knew what he was going to say.

Patterson frowned at the unspoken “sir”, but didn’t say anything. Aston took off regardless, throwing his coat hood over his IISS issue ballcap with the sunburst emblem, pocketing the ear piece, and then carefully forded the river by way of a series of rocks upstream.

Back inside the canyon village there was the expected overflow in the form of steady trickles of water from the top of the rock formation down onto the muddied stone avenue. Some were nearly solid columns of water, all of which broke up into droplets before striking the ground in a splatter and coating the stone street with a thin slick layer of water. The rest was mud or wet stone. Even in the dull overcast wet bare rock still have a kind of shine to it, subtle though it was.

Aston pulled his scanner and waved it around with the trigger pulled. He furled his brow. Had the magnetism gotten stronger? The EMF registering were miniscule, but stronger when he scrolled back to yesterday’s data. Had the rain washed away a layer of something that blocked the EMF? Aston thought back to his high school and college chemistry classes. Was the planet rich in boron? But didn’t boron only stop certain kinds of radiation? Was there some other chemistry or physics at work? Even if that were true, then why would rain washing it away amplify an electromagnetic field?

He mentally smacked his forehead for being a meteorological ignoramus, and surmised that there must be a charge build up in the clouds that was being picked up by his scanner. Well, he was still early in his career. There was plenty of time to learn and make more mistakes. He hit some instructions on his pad and fired the data off to Paige’s climate station before continuing. Aston glanced up, but did not notice any thunder heads in the patches of blue. Well, his job was to scan, not interpret—at least not yet.

Aston re-entered the various tenements, his scanner still active. There were spikes in the EMF data. Not great spikes. No lightning strikes, especially since there was no significant electricity arcing from cloud to cloud. Was there something in the water? But there was something else, these were minor spikes, seemingly erratic too. Strange, Aston thought, and found himself unable to conclude anything else.

Aston continued to scan, then noticed the snake like stream of water meandering down the stone causeway, seemed to grow in strength. He glanced up, felt a sprinkle of droplets gently hit and splash off his face, but did not notice the clouds getting any darker. And yet the stream was more potent than before. Not by much, but it was noticeable.

Aston continued further into the canyon village to investigate.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Aston followed the canyon and impromptu stream further up. He noted the various sources, notably the canyon rim brimming with water over spill. Each trickle from the top combined with the others to feed the stream, until it was more than a stream, but still less than a full fledged river. Aston kept scanning and looking around, trying to figure something out, but he didn’t know what.

Something bothered him. What was it? The spillover. He looked up at the canyon ridge. And that’s when it struck him. The ridge was like a kettle or a sauce pan filled to the brim, and spilling over as if someone had left a tap on from heaven, perpetually filling a full sink. But how could that be? Aston was curious, and he also figured dumb enough like a curious young boy to want to go and see what was up top. The descent and orbit around the landing site looked innocuous enough. He didn’t recall anything special during the flyover.

Aston holstered his scanner and tucked his pad into his light duty backpack before finding an appropriate place to climb. The rocks weren’t as slick as they looked. Desert rock didn’t have the fine polish of river rock, though it did strike him as odd that some of the channels were polished as if they were river rock.

Aston came to a far entrance to the village, where a huge natural stone arch was used as a portcullis. On the rock face were carved stairs that led up to the arched entry, and off to the side was another partially collapsed stone staircase that led up to the top of the canyon. Fallen water coated stone steps and wet scree were a challenge, but Aston managed to climb up and over the damaged sections with some effort.

Up top was a mirror surface of the sky. That’s when Aston realized he was looking at a water cache. Trough, bath, swimming pool, storage area, vast amounts of water, of what had to be acre feet of fresh rain water, all stored up here.

Aston pulled out his scanner. The amount of water went off the scale. It was vast. But there was something else. Red. The stress-strain curve was peaking in the red. Dry sandstone and some other geophysics that Aston was uneducated in, was all under terrific pressure. That’s when Aston surmised that there must have been a deluge last night to top off previous rains.

But right now he needed to get down and tell the others what he had found. He could hear the gentle rumble of stone under terrific pressure. “Oh geeze.”

Aston tucked away his instruments and carefully but adroitly tried to climb down as fast as he could. Was it the right thing to do? Shouldn’t he stay up top?—he thought to himself, but the possibility of a torrent of foot-acres of water cascading suddenly being released and sweeping him down to certain death, told him no.

He needed to get down and outside of the village. He would head through the archway, and circle around the rock formation following the banks of the river back to base camp and the ship. He slipped several times on the wet stairs, each wet stone was slick with rain but he caught himself all the same, sending a shower of equally wet shale down into a growing stream.

Aston could hear the stone buckling, millions of crystals grinding against themselves trying to hold onto the shape that other natural forces had forced them into over millions of years of compression and geologic upheaval. All teetering on the verge of being undone by a liquid hammer.

He slipped again and again, and finally let himself slide down the wet side, figuring there was enough of a rock water mixture to act as a buffer against injury. He reached the bottom and hit the stone causeway which was now covered with a torrent of toe-deep water rushing over the arm he used to prop himself up on.

He scrambled to his feet and made a run for the archway, but stopped when he heard the stone on the verge of failure. There wasn’t just a small leak with an equally small number of trickles, but a growing collective of water showers pouring through the cracks and crevices in the arch ceiling. Should he make a run for it? Aston hesitated, but then as he took his first sprinting step the whole arch collapsed.

Truck sized boulders crashed down and were washed away down the causeway leading the vanguard of a wall of water. Aston tried to step to the side, was successful in avoiding the multitonned stones, but the water splayed out and washed him away with the rest of the debris.

“Help!” he shouted, and shouted again, but no one could hear him. The debris flow banked off of one wall and then another, and another, each time Aston was spared by the fact that he had been on the edge but had been swept into the middle of the flow, doing his best to keep his head above the water and dust and rotted wood riding on the surface of the torrent.

The flood crashed and scoured the village causeway, sweeping away artifacts and anything that was out in the open and not part of the canyon wall itself. Aston saw the entrance to the village rush towards him.

From the outside of the canyon entrance Patterson and his team heard the crashing rush of water and rubble coming towards them. And by the time they looked up and figured out what was going on it was too late, but by luck both camp and ship were just several meters enough upstream that the flood waters had flattened and joined the river before swelling the banks more a few feet more before flowing away down stream.

The massive boulders rolled to a stop in the middle of the river, sitting there like odd things discarded by a giant child. Following them was Aston who slid to a halt on the rocky mud on the opposite shore. Severely shaken, bruised and sopping wet from head to toe, he struggled to get up.

“Come on!” Patterson waved his team over, got up and ran through the ankle deep river. Aston was still on all fours when they reached him. “My god, are you okay?!”

Aston shook his head, “I think so, but … “ he coughed then spat silt filled water from his mouth.

Patterson didn’t wait for a full response, “Get the stretcher and a med kit!” then back to Aston, “I told you to call in if the rain got heavy!”

Aston shook his head, “It wasn’t the rain.” He managed. “I went up to grab some readings top side, and the thing just collapsed! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You’re lucky to be alive! Why did you climb to the top!?” Patterson berated.

“I wanted to find out where all the water was coming from.” Aston replied, this time a little less winded and little clearer.

“People die in flash floods!” Patterson continued his dressing down. “Next time, you get clearance from me! You got that?!”

Aston nodded before feeling like falling back onto the wet rock and mud. A couple of team members came running back with a stretcher. A few more words, Patterson giving instructions, and Aston was being carried back to the type-S standing undisturbed on wet bedrock.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Aston was more bruised, winded and a bit cold than he was injured. A few cuts and dings from being pushed into the canyon wall, but it wasn’t much different from riding a water slide, though the water was a lot colder and the canyon walls weren’t the smooth machined plastic of a water slide, but a mixture of surfaces, some of which might have killed him had fate been less kind.

“Hey Scott! Scott!” Aston recognized Paige’s voice shouting outside his cabin. He then heard voices from the rest of the crew followed by feet and the knocking on Patterson’s cabin door.

“What?” Patterson, again muffled by Aston’s own cabin door.

“You got to come outside! You won’t believe this. There’s something going on out there. They’re moving the boulder.”

“Moving the what? What’re you talking about?”

Then Aston’s door slid open, and Larry Courtridge, the ship’s engineer and geologist poked his head in, “Sorry Richard, but you got to come see. Hey, can you walk yet?”

Aston swung his legs out and grabbed the nearest jumpsuit, “I’m fine. What’s up?”

“Come have a look.”

Patterson walked by, none too pleased, “Richard, stay in your cabin.”

“I’m okay.”

“Suit yourself then.” Patterson’s voice faded as he disappeared down the corridor and into the ship’s hold.

Aston got his boots and coat on and headed outside, feeling every bruise and sore muscle as he did so. But, moving the boulder? Aston couldn’t decipher that, but then surmised that maybe there was another survey team that had landed last night and were unclogging the river for whatever reason. Why it warranted all the excitement he didn’t understand but would find out soon enough.

Aston turned right, headed down the white-gray corridor a few steps into the relatively comfortable common area and galley before heading into the hold and airlock beyond.

Outside the overcast had vanished, leaving clear blue morning skies and golden morning sun. A wisp of steam rose from the ground, and the river had lost some of its girth. But it was what was happening in the river and beyond that caught everyone’s attention.

The first thing Aston saw was Patterson, flanked by the rest of the team standing at the base of the stair ladder leading down from the aft airlock to the desert floor, staring out across the river. Aston quickly stepped down found himself also staring at a strange sight.

Indeed, the boulders were being moved, but not by machinery, nor Imperial personnel, but large dark grey skinned natives that resembled Bwaps, but had broader faces, almost no neck, and considerable tails. They seemed to move up and down the canyon face with ease, their hands being extra broad. A team of a half dozen stood in the swift river, now swelled with the rain, pushing the boulder while another team pulled on a block and tackle assembly with the lines lashed around it. The stone moved by some miracle, plowing up mud silt and then smaller rocks once it was dragged out of the water.

Paige shot Aston a look, “Those EMF data points? Those spikes?”

Aston looked back at her bewildered. “Yeah?”

“It wasn’t charged clouds nor magnetism in the rock.” She looked at him with a smile, as if expecting Aston to know what she was talking about.

But Aston still did not understand. He simply looked back at her with wide eyes and his typical dumbfound look, asking her to explain.

“They were electrical pulses characteristic of cardiac activity. Biologic discharge! You were picking up their heartbeats!” Paige was even more energized than she usually was.

“Skipper!” Someone else said.

“I see it.” Patterson replied.

Paige and Aston looked, but Paige only glanced, “Don’t you get it, Richard? They were in hibernation. Those corpses you found in their huts? They weren’t corpses at all!”

Aston was still digesting all of the information, trying to assembled whatever it was she was telling him, even though she had just flatly laid it out for him. Aston still didn’t quite get it. Hibernation he understood. Heartbeats registered with him and made sense. But the flood, these people? What did it all mean?

A trio of the amphibian or lizard like natives slowly and carefully approached. The one in the middle wore a decorative head dress and golden collar, and was flanked by two others carrying spears. They stopped a few feet away from the scout ship crew. The leader spoke, but the speech was more than alien. A series of sounds that sounded like mumbling were it to come from the human. The leader, Aston assumed it was a male if there were sexes on this planet, gestured to the sky, and then the river as he spoke. He then pointed to the boulder, to his people, to himself, and spread his hands out in an open gesturing to the cave entrance.

“Okay, I’ll spell it out for you. You’re from Terra, right?” Paige asked Aston.

“Yeah, what about it.”

“The mummification was dead skin designed to cover their bodies and hold in moisture. They cocoon themselves during drought. That’s why you saw all those water caches up top. That cave in or whatever it was you caused yesterday …”

“Hey, wait a minute.” Aston protested, “That stone bridge, or whatever you call it, came down on its own!”

“Whatever.” Paige smiled, “It flooded their village and brought enough moisture to revive them. “

“Team.” Patterson announced, “I think we’ve just been invited inside as guests of honor.” He looked around. “Good work, Richard. I’ll note this on your record.”

Aston slumped his shoulders and stood there as Patterson and some of the team crossed the river with the village chief. Paige took a few steps, then turned and grabbed Aston by the arm. “Come on, Richard. Let’s see what kind of trouble you’ve gotten us into.” She said it with a smile, and all Aston could do was follow her across the river with the rest of the team.

The End.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I hate rewriting. I really do. But, that's what a few other authors have told me that good writing is all about. Eh, maybe, but it is neccessary at times. I've cringed a few times this morning when I went back and re-read my stuff. But, they are first roughs, so they are what they are. I've got oodles more ideas, but it may be time to clean house some, and then repost. Argh. Oh well. It's a dirty job, but the author's got to do it.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Dragon Woes

First Lieutenant Richard Aston stood in the grassy courtyard of a medieval castle complete with a large curtain wall surrounding a stone gray hold. Pink and red streamers with white trim flapped atop spires in a gentle summer breeze, while pages, squires, and village folk went about tending horses, sweeping, cleaning, or doing other mundane maintenance without the benefit of modern tools. Aston, standing in his duty issue IISS jumpsuit with vest and baseball cap sporting his majesties Imperial Sunburst, stood out given the surroundings.

“Oh, brave sir knight. You have given me glad tidings this day!” Marion Lovelace, the duke’s somewhat nutty daughter, hands clutching the parchment to her breast in a swooning half stride, told Aston with an infectious smile.

“Uhhh…” was all First lieutenant Richard Aston could muster. Then another “Uhh…” followed by a “sure” stated with a happy grin. Lovelace batted her eyelashes in reply as she continued to smile.

The retreat on Lancelot-1 was a terraformed rich-man’s paradise. A few months out of Aslan space and back in the Solomani sphere of influence, and Terra’s historical trappings could be found in various places. This world, a twin of the world listed on the starcharts, had castles, archery, horses, thatch huts, jousting, but no vehicles or other technology allowed save for emergencies. It was an idealistic recreation of Terra’s so called “middle ages”, or medieval era. Well, a couple thousand years had passed since then, but the “medieval” term was still used by historians. And as for historical accuracy, well, Aston’s wry smile told all as he assumed that the travel brochure’s sales point on historical accuracy didn’t explain why each room had a full entertainment center, and unlike real castles, they not only had electricity when needed, but also indoor plumbing.

Lady Lovelace was dressed head to toe in a flowing gown with a conical headdress supporting a translucent scarf. She looked like a medieval princess, except Aston was sure women of earth’s middle ages didn’t wear as much makeup. That, and was somewhat wide of girth for a woman from an era when food was hard to come by.

“How can I repay such bravery?” she continued, she seemed to swoon again as she side stepped for dramatic effect.

“Uhhh….” Aston repeated. Should he go with the act or excuse himself? Well, discretion was the better part of Valor. “I am, uh, happy to, uh render service, my lady.” Aston gave a self congratulatory smile.

“Ohh” her voice was like a high pitched whistle, “no truer words have come from thy voice. Wilt thou not break thy fast with us? Forsooth, you have braved beasts, brigands and the elements. Such gallantry shan’t go unrewarded.” She smiled and clasped her hands once more before lightly stepping to the side like a dancer.

Aston smiled broadly. She was nuts, just like the rest of the re-enactors who lived on this planet, but she was also a noble, and an extremely wealthy one with political connections. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the term brigand referred to a type of armor that was developed and worn in the high middle ages, not the slop artist fantasy land these people called home.

The court yard also hosted a few hangers on dressed in courtly costume of the era, pretending to woo damsels with offkey singing and the poorest playing of lute and mandolin Aston had ever heard. There were also a few chain mailed guards with spears and swords, only they wore pink tabards with a red heart pierced by a white arrow whose arrowhead was also heart shape. Still, they seemed happy as they pretended to put on an act for the sake of each other, and for an era that Aston was sure was more than just misrepresented.

Such was the edifice of Solomani space, or at least the Imperial occupied areas. If this was the Terran confederation space, then either the place wouldn’t exist at all or it would be strewn with political officers due to the eccentric nature of the world, each trying to ferret out any anti-Soli plots or sentiments.

A tall portly man dressed as a peasant wearing plain brown cotton trousers and a leather jerkin over a white shirt, led a horse and cart into the courtyard. Again, unlike real peasants of the time, this man was clean shaven, and the mild scent of underarm deodorant and aftershave accented the smell of hay and horse that he brought with him. That, and the tin milk canisters in his cart would not be invented for another few hundred years—again, if this were truly a historic representation ... Aston caught himself thinking too much about it.

But that was neither here no there. Aston had, by the convention of the planet, delivered an old-fashioned dispatch to the lady of the local county. His job done he needed to find a way to gracefully excuse himself.

“Wouldst thou quaff a tankard of ale? ‘Tis only just.” She offered.

Again, Aston’s inner student of medieval studies wanted to correct this woman’s use of ancient Galanglic, often referred to as old English spelled with an extra “L” and the obligatory “e” at the end in the adverb.

“Uhh, you know ma’am, as much as I’d like to stay, I really have to get back.” Aston said apologetically.

“Oh, must you bustle, sir knight? I must hear of thine deeds brave and bold! Please break bread with us.” More smiles, another fake swoon.

“Some other time, my lady.” Aston didn’t want to get too much into the act, but placating to her fantasy was probably the thing he needed to extract himself.

The pounding of hooves galloping towards the portcullis grew until three men at arms wearing Lovelace’s coat of arms riding palfreys entered the courtyard. They reigned in their mounts, and then dismounted to pass their animals off to a couple of squires.

Maxine Lovelace turned to them with wide eyes and anticipation. “Ah, my men at arms. Pray tell, what news from yon valley?”

The tallest one stepped forward and knelt before speaking in a distinctly Bronx accent, “My lady, that fire lizard thing is on the loose.”

Maxine lost her faux-medieval sheen, and for a few brief moments spoke like a normal woman, “Dragon, you idiot.”

“Yeah, that thing.” He replied.

Then, back to her lady of the castle act. “Ah, a fell creature. What news? Has it devoured any of our cattle or peasantry?”

“Nay, lady.” The second guard said, his tone a little more convincing, “But it doth burn our crop and char your people’s home to cinders.” He smiled broadly, satisfied with his act.

Another swoon, “Oh, woe is me. Much dole does… doth? … this beast make upon my kingdom. ‘Tis black magic.” She looked around as she swooned once more, this time brining one of her hands to her head. “Will no one champion me?” She covered her eyes, but peaked at Aston and smirked.

Aston didn’t say anything, but merely turned and headed for the portcullis and the road beyond. A brisk walk back to the starport was in order.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Aston walked a winding tan dirt road grooved with cart wheel tracks. It snaked around grassy leaf covered hills dotted with trees and shrubbery. Rich greens and dark brown bark were backed by blue sky with wispy white clouds. It was very story book like, complete with reeds lining a brook off to the left, crossed by a stone bridge.

“Are you coming back? Where are you?” Aston rubbed the earpiece over his left ear to turn down Team Leader Herbineaux’s voice.

“I just dropped off the message, as per instructions.” Aston replied, seemingly to no one as a he continued his walk.

“Well, what’s taking you so long? Didn’t they fly you in there?”

“Ah, they only took me part of the way, captain. I had to hoof it the rest of the way to the castle.”

“So where are you now?”

“Heading back to the starport.”

“Well…” Aston could hear Herbineaux’s frustration, “…how long are you going to be? I can’t get a fix on ya.”

“I don’t know, sir. It took an hour to get to the drop off point by air raft, I’m guessing…”

“An hour by grav? If you walk you won’t be back here til the day after tomorrow!”

Aston was silent on that point, being never really sure how to respond to an angry declarative. Herbineaux was a large man with fiery red hair and full beard and moustache. He was just under regulation weight, though not very tall in spite of his mass. Either way he had a presence, knew it, and threw it around to get things done. Not really an angry egocentric man, but one Aston surmised who liked getting things done. And, well, getting back to the ship wasn’t getting things done, even if this op saw Herbineaux’s crew as a personal courier for some over-privileged noble who wanted to deliver an old fashioned hand written note to another of his clique.

“We can’t wait that long. I’m going to talk to the governor. In the mean time … walk faster. Herbineaux out.”

Aston mentally shrugged his shoulders and listened to the team leader close the channel. Was it his fault that this world restricted technology for entertainment purposes? Herbineaux had that effect with his voice, implicitly blaming people for things out of their control without actually accusing anyone. Aston had put up with it in younger days, and figured there were just people like that throughout known space. What could he do about it anyway?

Aston quickly forgot about it and took in the late morning as he continued back to port. Avian fauna, insect or insect like as well as warm blooded flyers with feathers. Like birds, but slightly different. There were even a few small flying reptiles, or reptile like creatures, fluttering around the tree tops, some skimming the waters for water borne insects riding the liquid surface tension. There were even deer like animals poking their dull brown camouflaged heads and bodies from the forest, only to perk their ears, and then stare at Aston before bolting off into the wood.

Small furry woodland creatures also crept from the bush and tall blades to bow their heads for a drink from the brook. Aston didn’t seem to be much of a threat, so they continued to come and go with greater frequency and in greater numbers. Well, none were perching on his shoulder, or so he mused. That truly would have made this a story book experience in spite of the act he witnessed back at the castle.

As Aston continued around the next hill, he heard and felt a terrible thumping that reverberated the very ground. It was irregular. It didn’t feel mechanical, but carried the force of an earthmover—as if someone were trying to compact the ground for a construction project. But it was also coupled with the threshing of tall grass and snapping of twigs. For a planet that had banned most technology for entertainment purposes, there sure were a lot of exceptions to the rule.

But as he began to round the corner he saw a long pointed thing, like a giant snake, but with the flexibility and liveliness of a warm blooded wild animal, and not a reptile that had lost its appendages through evolution. And, unlike a snake, it was thrashing with the liveliness of a trapped animal. Long, energetic, it glistened in the late morning sun with uncounted number of scales each locked perfectly into position, giving if the appearance of being wet.

Aston sighed apprehensively. “Why me.” It was the only thing he could think of. Unlike some of the other assignments he had been conned into, there was no briefing on this. At least not to his knowledge. The funny thing about being a scout was that most of the time one would survey worlds—collecting data, samples, taking pictures, gathering video footage. But, there was that small security detail to the scouts job. It ranged from getting cats out of trees to helping busting up local gangs, though more often than not it involved tracking down poachers and pirates.

But it also involved tracking wild life. And, occasionally, rescuing or trapping and treating the local fauna. But a thing with a tail like this was out of his league. Still, for the honor of the service, he stepped forward.

And the times just got more interesting with each step he progressed. Each cautious stride he took he slowed that much further as the entire length of the tail became more apparent. Capped with a spike like crest that ran its length, it sloped upwards to a bulkier hindquarters, almost cat like in build, but saurian in scope.

The thumping came from both tail and foot, accompanied by the cracking of tree limbs, and then capped off by a roar that sent a shot of adrenaline through Aston’s body, rattling him to his very bones. He thought better of stepping forward, and stopped, though still curious to see what an actual dragon looked like.

“Hey, there it is. We got it!”

Voices. Human. Male. Galanglic.

“Yeah, this is easy now. We can take him down now.”

Aston’s fright left him, replaced with his scout’s resolve, but as he quickened his pace he saw three gunmen with large caliber hunting rifles. Probably the proverbial “elephant gun”, so named because back on Terra the one creature that was difficult to take down with a normal weapon was the pachyderm. On the verge of extinction they were brought back. That, and hunters found larger and tougher animals off world to kill. Like, Aston grimly mused, a dragon.

Aston tried this earpiece, but there was static on every channel. He tried moving around to get a clear signal, but that only induced a change in pitch, which told him that there was something nearby jamming the signal. Which told Aston that these guys came prepared, and if so, they were professional poachers and wouldn’t think twice about gunning him down, scout uniform or no.

Aston hunkered down behind the grassy hill and tried every channel as well as a few fine tuning tricks. “Captain, captain, are you there?...” For a brief moment he thought he heard Herbineaux reply, but the signal went bad again, almost as if …

That’s when he felt the barrel of a gun press against his cheek. “Get up.” A large man, again in period dress, but holding a distinctly modern hunting rifle with LED sights and cooling jacket the length of the barrel. Aston wasn’t sure what animal required full automatic fire to be taken down, but then again poachers weren’t known for playing fair. All the same, he got up with his hands open.

“I’m unarmed.” Aston nervously said.

“I know.” The man said with a smile. Lean, unshaven, but still dressed in peasant garb to hide his true purpose, he gave the most cursory grin. “Now move over there.” He gestured with his head to move around the hill towards the large beast.

The dragon was now full sized, nearly the size of a grav bus, colored an off green with an almost metallic sheen due to the shine from its scales. Two leathen wings, one shredded and broken, the other splayed out as if to flap, a long spiney backed neck and a large head with fangs barred in a snarl and animal like eyes with an angry knitted brow. It tried to leap and snap at the poachers, but was prevented by a high tensile cable snare around its foreshank secured to a thick deciduous tree.

The poachers saw their comrade forcing Aston towards the dragon. The dragon looked at both, perplexed as it was at seeing another human being held at gunpoint, it was still angry.

“Now, you go near that critter.” Aston’s captor said without feeling.

The dragon lunged again, but again was held back, though the thick oak held the creature back, Aston could hear and feel the high pitched muffled rumble of earth being torn underneath his feet—like a house sized weed were being pulled by its roots.

“Go on, dragon, eat that guy.” Then to Aston, “You get closer, ya hear? Or I’ll plug you right here and now.”

Aston was visibly shaking. Get shot, and probably shot to pieces, or devoured by a ravenous dinosaur sized carnivore from myth and legend? There was no way out.

“I…” Aston stammered out of sheer fright. Wasn’t the hero supposed to be calm and level headed, and also brewing a plan? Wasn’t that how this kind of thing was supposed to transpire in the holo-vids, with backup coming in at the last moment to save the day? Aston’s adrenaline made speech impossible as both his lower jaw and whole body shook with terrifying fright.

The Dragon snarled at him, seemed to test his cabled tether, slowly pulled it taught, then snapped at Aston, it’s iron-blood red roof of its mouth and saber sized white teeth opened with a ferocity and speed that Aston had never seen before, and he was sure this was the last sight he would ever see in his entire life as the scent of brimstone wafted from the dragon’s breath with a defiant roar.

 

[Blue Ghost]

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ship,

No bridge warnings were stirring, not even a blip

The weapons were hung in the ship’s locker with care,

In the hopes that the IISS inspector, soon would be there.

The crew were all drunk, passed out in their beds,

Nightmares of misjumps, danc’d in their heads.

And the captain in his briefs, and I in my cap,

Had just finished a pizza, and a keg that was on-tap,

When outside the ship, there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my cot to see what was the matter.

Away to the bridge I flew like a flash,

Threw open the door, and slipped on some trash

The moon on the tarmac, and a local light show

Dazzled my eyes, but what did I know?

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a tractor-trailer air raft, with a trailer in rear.

With a Vargr young driver, so lively and quick

It was a corsair, come for our cargo to pick

More rapid than Ramparts his driving it came

And he whistled and barked other Vargrs by name

“Now Gasher, now! Thrasher, now! Lancer, and Trix-‘em

“On Vomet, on! Stupid, on! Plunder and Mix’em

“To the top of the ship! To the top of the door!

“Pry that door open, for loot for us more!”

As dry as I was, not a drop to spare,

Sober I was to not imbibe spirits-fare

So up to the ship’s top the corsairs they flew

With an empty grav cargo bay, and Vargr thieves too

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The cool steady sizzle, of a torch and a woof

As I pulled my head back, and was turning around

Came staggering the captain, in his underoos unbound!

He was dressed in his DC skivvies, from head to his foot

Blurry eyed he looked at me, and said “What’s a foot?”

A six-pack of beer was flung on his back

I said to him “There’s Vargr around—about to attack!”

His eyes, slightly bloodshot, from the party of merry

He was coming around, and was suddenly wary;

His big hanging mouth hung all agape

He drunkenly spoke “We can’t let ‘em escape!”

The tab of a beer can hung from his teeth

He spit it aside for his blade to unsheathe

An angry face, and beer full belly

As he ran for the locker, and grabbed his shotgun named Nelly

He was angry as heck, not his old self

And shouted foul curses in spite of himself

A bang of his fist on each cabin door

And each crewman aroused, hungover and sore

He spoke many words, all profane for the work

He called the Vargr names; scum, filth, and jerk!

And laying his finger on the gun trigger

He smacked the bay doors, with a shout and a shiver

The Vargr sprung to their raft with a dog whistle

And away they all flew, dropping their torch and a chisel

I heard the captain exclaim, 'ere they drove out of sight-

"And stay the *BLANK* off my ship, or I’ll give ya a fight!"

Merry Christmas

 

[Blue Ghost]

But the creature didn’t snap down at Aston. Instead it had been testing the tree, and with a massive saurian yank pulled the oak from its roots, sending top soil, earth and stone all over. Like a super-strength prisoner tearing away the very chains of his cuffs, it whipped the oak at the poachers, but not before one poacher got a shot off at Aston, sending him crumpling to the dirt road in searing agony.

“Oh god!” Aston grabbed the area of his vest where the thick dense projectile had struck.

Aston couldn’t make out what was happening. The huge beast, which Aston accepted as a bonafide dragon, thrashed the uprooted tree. More gunfire, than the familiar electronic thrum of an air raft. Was that Herbineaux? Had he made good on his promise? Was it the cavalry come to save the day? Subconsciously Aston’s thoughts recognized the possibility of the scenario, but his conscious thoughts were too busy trying to tear away from the idea of pain and to assess his body for damage. Part of him told him that it wouldn’t matter, because of the bullet didn’t kill him soon, the creature would.

Aston winced, his eyes scrunched closed, whimpering “Oh god no, no-no-no-no, no, not here, no!”, rolling on the dirt road, his body and brain nearly operating without his conscious approval, checking to see if the body were oriented differently would somehow alleviate the stabbing pain.

And the noise of the struggle continued, along with several more gun shots. The dragon seemed the thump away with the oak being dragged like a massive toy still tethered to its forearm. And that’s when Aston realized that they were gone, and that all he had left was his own company.

After more than a minute, maybe two, of writhing, Aston chanced a look at his hand covering the wound. Nothing. No blood. His eyes teared up with thoughts of his own mortality, only were now opening with perplexity. He rubbed both his hands around the area of impact, and found nothing. He opened his vest, and not even his jump suit nor undershirt had so much as a gray mark. His vest however, was a different story.

Where the bullet had impacted, sending him reeling back, was a large black streaked splayed out crater stain, minus any actual crater or hole of any sort. Aston furled his brow. Were they using rock salt? What happened? That’s when he recalled the duty vest construction, being made of reactive fibers that reinforced themselves when hit with a force beyond a certain measure—like that of a bullet.

Aston laughed. He only threw on the thing before leaving because it was cold that morning. He couldn’t help but laugh a little and shake his head. A simple decision to protect himself from the elements had saved his life. It still stung, but the guys in the IISS acquisitions department knew how to equip their personnel.

Aston took the luxury of leaning back flat on the ground, patting the impact area for the sake of it, thanking luck and the engineers who contracted with the IISS for having the forethought to make the cold weather gear bullet proof. Technically it wasn’t a bullet proof vest as such, but in function, that’s exactly what it was.

“Oh man.” Aston suddenly, if only for a moment, gained a new appreciation for his own life. He knew he was young, he knew there was a lot of life left, but for some reason this moment struck him as both fantastic, incredible, and just improbable—and yet it happened. Saved by both an ill tempered creature and his own forethought to keep himself warm.

But, there were still gunmen around, and a ravenous lizard—if it was a lizard; Aston had his doubts, but didn’t know how else to describe it. How do you describe a mythological creature? It had gone after the poachers, or so it seemed, so maybe it wasn’t important. Besides, he wasn’t here to survey, nor get shot for that matter.

Speaking of which, being shot was no laughing matter in spite of his laughter at being alive. He reached for the back of his left ear and the transmitter receiver attached to it, but there was nothing. He tried rubbing all the controls, but to no avail, then took the thing off to examine it. As he did so the feel of it told the entire story, broken plastic casing, exposed circuits, and maybe even a broken circuit board or a cut wire or two. Needless to say it was in pieces, probably having been smashed when Aston hit the ground and rolled around in agony.

He tucked its remains into his pocket and looked skyward, hoping that somehow there was an airborne patrol somewhere. In the field he would have had another earpiece and perhaps a field radio in his coat, but he hadn’t taken the extra precaution for what was supposed to be a milk run.

So, it was back to the castle. “Oh man.” He sighed. “What a life.” He felt his nerves rattle again with more adrenaline realizing just how close he had come to having his existence ended by poachers. Well, he’d been in worse, but only just. Still, he didn’t want to repeat the experience.

The air was still once more, and the ambient tones of the local animals that had vanished during the fight gradually returned. But Aston still felt himself to be in a mild state of shock. His vest’s inner lining kept his body heat from escaping, letting him to half way push himself erect again, when he heard the tremendous thud of a tree crashing behind him.

Aston spun around, eyes wide to see a grinning therapod with one good wing and one shredded. Standing on all fours, staring at Aston as if he were lunch, with the great oak still tied to his right foreshank via a thick cable.

“Oh no.” Aston quietly stated to no one. “No, please no.” Aston wasn’t quite speechless, but any other statement articulating his situation escaped him.

He beheld the thing in all its glory. Again, a kind of mixture of greens with a lighter underside, wings, tail, a long neck that was more characteristic of a sauropod, but with a head that reminded Aston of many a picture of mythological European dragons; horns, a rim of hair behind its cranium, and a large tooth filled snout.

But it was grinning. Aston took it as a sign that he could go, and leveled his hands in a peaceful gesture that he was leaving. But the dragon grumbled loudly, and snarled with the force of ten lions, or so Aston poetically mused.

“Okay.” Aston managed. “I won’t go.” He uttered.

With that the dragon seemed to grunt in approval, then, to Aston’s amazement, pointed at the cable and his right shank with his left claw.

But Aston was too frightened to even guess at why the thing was pointing at the cable. It then pointed to Aston, and then to the cable.

The message was a bit clearer, and Aston was able to overcome his fear if only momentarily. The dragon beckon Aston to come address the cable by pointing at him, and then with a finger wag for Aston to come over.

“You, want me? To go over there?” Aston said, summoning his courage.

The dragon smiled and nodded his head.

“You….you….you’re not going to….bite me or anything?”

The Dragon rolled its eyes skyward and wearily shook its head. Then casually it waved Aston over and again pointed to the cable, this time picking up the tree to show where it was secured, and then dropping it with a crash.

“You, you, want me….to come over there?”

The dragon was exhausted, and propped its head up on its left elbow as it looked up at the sky, while impatiently drumming the ground with his right claw. It then puffed up its cheeks and blew air from them, the brief scent of brimstone wafting in Aston’s direction.

Aston, calmer now, figured it was safe. If the thing could sneak up on him with a tree, then it could have devoured him many times over, even now. Still, the thing was huge, alien to him, potentially dangerous, possibly temperamental, although even though it hadn’t said a word, it did seem to understand him. Aston wondered why it couldn’t snap the cable, then he saw that it was biting into the thing’s scales.

“Look,” Aston began, more comfortable now, “…can’t you just bite that thing off, or chew through it or something?”

The dragon gave him a leery look, grumbled, sighed, then demonstrated to Aston by trying to bite the cable clean laterally. It then stopped, opened it’s left claw in resignation before resting its head on it again.

“Oh wow. That must be strong stuff.” Aston mused. The dragon grunted in the affirmative. “Well, okay. I’ve never freed a dragon before…” Then he stopped, “I mean, that’s the right term for you, right?”

The dragon gave a nonchalant grunt.

“Well, okay then. I don’t want to insult you or nothing.” Aston remarked as he summoned up more courage to approach.

The dragon just sighed again, as if to say “Whatever.”, then pointed again at the snare.

Aston steeled himself, and carefully approached, trying to show that he wasn’t terrified, which he was, but approached all the same. The thing was not only huge, but also muscular. He tried to ignore it as best as he could, even feeling its warm breath, which smelled like a quenched volcano as it breathed.

Aston then decided to ignore the fact that he was helping a dragon. It was too fantastic to consider, even though he was here experiencing it first hand. He looked at the snare wrapped around the creature’s right foreshank, then held the cable as he traced it to the oak trunk. He then climbed over the trunk to examine the other side, and found the snare mechanism.

 

[Blue Ghost]

It was a legal design used for mega-fauna on worlds that had issues with animal population control. Worlds that had actual dinosaur sized creatures that devastated the environment and threatened to render themselves extinct by killing off growth. They could only be used by his majesties own and licensed individuals contracted with either the local planetary government or the IISS. This obviously wasn’t one of those times, especially with a case of attempted murder.

Aston tried fiddling with the release, but it had been modified, no doubt by the poachers to keep someone like Aston from happening upon the creature in question and lawfully releasing it back into the wild. Aston pulled his pocket knife and popped off the loosely secured light metallic gray cover. There was a catch and a spring. Aston merely popped the whole assembly out, letting it fly to pieces, but also letting out slack.

Aston then went back to the dragon’s arm, and pulled the loop until the cable unthreaded itself and fell to the dirt. Aston had to smile. Dragon or no he felt he had done good. “There ya go.”

Aston folded his blade back up and put it back in his vest pocket when he felt a blanket of wet soft sandpaper slobber his right side. More brimstone.

“Thanks.” Aston replied, now wholly comfortable with the huge creature, but also expressing some disdain. “Dragon spit.” He tried brushing some of the thick viscous liquid off his body. “Great.”

The dragon didn’t pay him any attention, and instead grinned from large pointed ear to large pointed ear as it looked at and flexed its free limb. It grunted and hummed in approval as it rubbed its free appendage with its other claw.

Aston was more relaxed now. The this was huge, and just innately terrifying because of its power, but it had a conscience, and was obviously intelligent. He could appreciate it and relate to it now as a person instead of an unpredictable and temperamental animal.

But then the thing narrowed its gaze at him. Aston felt his sudden comfort leave to be replaced with new fright. The dragon grunted and pointed at Aston’s chest, specifically where he had been shot.

Aston felt a new sense of relief. Was it going to be like that with this thing? “Oh, you mean where I got shot?”

The dragon nodded and grunted in the affirmative. Aston stretched his vest in reply to show the area of impact. “The jacket soaked up the impact! Well, mostly at least. It still hurt like the dickens, I’ll tell ya that right now. Man that hurt. I thought I was a goner.”

The dragon grunted again, which to Aston translated as him being satisfied that Aston was unhurt, but none too pleased that the poachers had tried to end his life. At least Aston figured it was a male, he wasn’t sure, but it seemed a safe assumption.

The dragon then snarled and pointed to its back. Aston was unsure of what it was referring to, and shrugged in response. “What, something wrong with your back? Your spines?”

The dragon rolled its eyes again and shook his head as it gazed up at the sky. It then pointed to Aston and then pointed to its back. Aston suddenly got the message.

“Ohhh, you want me to ride on your back … uh, right?”

The dragon nodded nonchalantly, and half heartedly pointed to his back once more.

“Look, I’m headed back to port. Or I was, I need to get back to the castle to contact the local law….”

The dragon angrily pointed at its back and snarled.

“Okay, okay, okay…I’m coming.” Then under his breath “It’s official, I’m scared.” He approached against his better judgment, and felt the smooth texture of the creatures scales as he climbed its shoulders and nested himself between it’s spines, which were surprisingly soft.

The dragon flexed its wings and made a thunderous flap, in spite of one having its membrane torn. With Aston secured on its back it ambled over to the brook, and dipped its torn wing in the water. A few minutes went by, and it pulled it out, though it was still shredded. Somehow Aston half expected the waters to somehow super-heal the creature, though he wasn’t sure why. Still, it was less bloody than when he first saw it.

“Uh, I hate to ask this, but you know where the starport is, right?”

The dragon grunted in the affirmative as if exasperated by the question. Aston read it as being tired of trying to convince him that he was an intelligent creature, and at that point Aston decided to try and avoid treating the thing like a semi-intelligent wild animal. It had, after all, communicated with him, and understood his speech, although it didn’t speak itself—whether it could or not Aston still wasn’t sure.

The dragon’s stride was smooth yet oddly exercising, like being an equestrian on an oversized cat, it’s basic body shape being a kind of compromise between classic feline and sauropod physiology. The dragon’s shoulder movements undulated Aston’s body, and in effect gave him a work out by flexing his body for the entire ride.

After an hour of travel the dragon stopped in its tracks, almost like a hunting dog with its snout pointed forward and keen narrowed eyes. The path ahead wound around more grassy hills with the occasional tree or small clump of forestation of a dozen or more oaks and willows.

The dragon curled its neck to look back at Aston, and pointed at him to get down. Aston dutifully did so, then looked at the thing perplexed. “This isn’t the starport.” Aston asserted, but the dragon wasn’t in the mood to be insulted. It pointed at Aston to look over the hill.

Aston took the cue and clamored up the cool soft hill in a dog crouch, while the dragon crouched like a stalking cat, and crept around the side of the hill. More poachers off in the distance. And, as if Aston should have expected anything else, another dragon. Jet black, more reptilian than the one that had befriended Aston, this one was not caught in a snare, and was thrashing the poachers’ air raft like a dog shaking a rubber toy.

It threw it aside, the body and chassis crashing with a distant metallic crunch, then focused on the injured male humans splayed out on the grass, their long arms scattered about. Aston couldn’t see, hear, much less smell or otherwise sense this was happening, and chalked it up to his dragon’s superior senses. He also reminded himself that it wasn’t “his” dragon, but it’s own. It couldn’t talk, but it was definitely a sophont. Though Aston began to wonder whether it was real or an advanced droid made specifically for this world’s environment. But Aston reminded himself that the dragon bled. It might have been a genetically tailored animal, but it could still think for itself.

But the scene before him told all. Or so it appeared. And then a grumble and a roar from Aston’s own dragon, making itself known as it crept forward, it’s footsteps otherwise deafly silent against the soft ground.

The black dragon stopped as it was about to bite into one of the unconscious poachers, swung its head around and let out a venomous response, almost hissing as it let out its own roar. Same shape and build, though it’s eyes were more reptilian with narrow slit pupils.

Each glistened in the mid day sun as they circled an empty patch of grass, snarling, growling, stalking, even splaying their wings in a display of intimidation. The black dragon shot its head forward and spat a lime green liquid that splashed and smoldered on the green dragon’s skin upon impact. But the green dragon shrugged it off.

The green dragon tried to exhale something but only managed to eject a small stream of black gray smoke. The black dragon maliciously grinned and charged snapping its jaws. Both dragons reared up and collided like wild animals clashing on the plain.

The slapping of one massive biological mass with another sent a muted shock through the air, quickly drowned out by deep guttural roars and snarls as both behemoths grappled and wrestled, rolling down the side of the grade leading to the stream. Water and mud splashed reeds and shrubbery lining the shore were crushed and snapped. The two separated, the black dragon emerging with a kind of black reddish ooze dripping from slashes and bite marks on its neck and belly.

The black dragon scraped the earth, scoring deep divots in the grassy topsoil. Aston, marveling at the sight, figured it was another display of dominance. The black dragon’s hind claws excavated a layer of rock, some gray, some yellow, some crystalline, before charging again.

Once more the two reared up on their hind quarters and collided in another display of raw mythological power. This time the black dragon seemingly backed over the green dragon. Both separated once more, and the green dragon paused to glance at the yellow earth. It quickly bit an industrial shovel’s worth of the material, then just as quickly masticated it before swallowing. The two stalked one another once more, though the black dragon seemed to have had the worst of the contest, more black ooze trickling from wounds. It backed up but hissed and roared in defiance.

It was the green dragon's turn to grin, and a trickle of smoke rose from its nostrils and corners of its mouth. The black dragon continued to cautiously back up, splaying its wings once more, as if the green dragon, with new confidence, would be frightened. But the green dragon inhaled a storm’s worth of air, and let out a cone of fire that engulfed and seared the black dragon.

The black dragon didn’t so much as whimper, it merely bolted in the opposite direction, trying to take to the air several times, but only finally managing to do so upon its umpteenth try when it was a half mile away.

 

[Blue Ghost]

A couple of more roughs posted. Nothing much to explain here. I didn't follow D&D monster manual stats for this because, well, hey, it's not D&D and I think most myths have fire breathing dragons as green or reptilian gray in color. It's lazy stuff, but I thought it might be fun ... and I tried to not to go too over the top, and keep it "scientific" for what it's worth. Final part will come in short order.