Monday, December 16, 2013

Further continuation of Kate Bakers masterpiece....

Continuation of Kate Bakers masterpiece….worth a read…then I added to it?
by hpetterson. So this is my addition to the story...(glshade)

Here is the link back to Chuck Wendig's Terrible minds blog so you can read all the rest of the stories from this week...http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/12/13/flash-fiction-challenge-200-words-at-a-time-part-4/

We are always meant to be pregnant; we daughters of Queens. We mothers of Queens. We are destined to hold a screaming infant upon our breasts, bloodied and exhausted from delivery and rooting for sustenance. We are meant to swaddle, cuddle and coo down at our future rulers. We, the perpetual regents. 

The first daughter set foot upon Winter colony, shielded against new and foreign elements in a sealed white suit and gold-plated helmet. In the older, rarer reels, she mimics a kiss through the raised, visor, touching the glass with thickly padded and protected gloved fingers. Unfastening the bulky suit, slender and still protected hands settle upon the United Agencies logo which adorns her chest and the sewn-on identification patch. Commander Eridana has landed in her new home. In the glare of sunset, the one photographer who accompanied the journey is unable to mitigate the fading light but captures the silhouette of a now noticeable pregnancy.

We will never be called “Princess”, nor inherit any throne. Should our perfect Queens fall, we simply produce another. Some have written us into our history holos as drones, reminiscent of ancient Apis mellifera.  We are the enduring members of a hive, feeding our potential matriarchs with the royal, nanotech jelly, occasionally coveting a taste but wary of the price. 

Free of the suit, she walks to her balcony. The doors open as she nears the threshold and she paces to the edge.  A slight movement to her right catches her eye.

“Mir…there you are.” She murmurs holding her forearm aloft. The Kestrel adjusts its flight and performs a lazy chandelle, then arcs to land on her offered perch. Mir flies by the offered arm and instead circles the room slowly. The first daughter turns and just catches the disturbed image of her hawk. Mir continues and lands on her forearm, and stares into her eyes.

Yes I did notice it Mir. She looks demure showing no notice of the fact there is a invisibly cloaked person in her private chamber. A guard would be executed for such a breach.  She deftly releases the meter long microbe thin spool of nano-wire from her wrist communicator. And remembers her father’s last words.

“Your child is first, your people are second, and you are always tertiary darling….You are a Kestrel…in name and spirit. Although you are a bird in a gilded cage, never show mercy on anyone who thinks you are a songbird daughter…you are a Kestrel…a raptor of the sky….fly daughter…fly.”

Eridana knows what duty demanded feeling the weight of the garrote anchor in her palm, the off balancing weight of the child queen in her belly. Inthe periphery of her vision the cloak rustled and revealed in the passing flight of Mir settles and shifts. An assassin would have already struck, then some other princess would carry the future queen not her. Somewhere the photographer was still capturing the moment, this moment for posterity. Regent protector Commander Eridana alone in her guilted home in the ice facing the cold clean winter and an unknown assailant. Drama for the future ruler to know about herself and the woman that she would call mother. 

You are tertiary her fathers voice rang again in her head as she shook Mir away and spun in a graceful pirouette given her condition and het the weight fly. Refusing it kill was her choice. Come spring she would have enough blood on her hands. This pawn she did not want to kill. The distortion changed as the anchor sailed into it and contacted rather then passed through. Hand protecting her belly she glared at where the recording photographer was, a pose for the eyes upon her. 

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Joe's bar part three...

 Chuck Wendig flash Friday round robin story....

I added the part three section below to the story started by Paul Baughman....here is the link to the blogpost...http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/12/06/flash-fiction-challenge-200-words-at-a-time-part-3/

Fiction: Joe’s Bar (Part 2 of 5)

Part Two of Chuck Wendig’s Latest Flash Fiction Challenge. A continuation of Mr. Urban Spaceman’s story: Joe’s Bar.


“Buy me a drink,” he said, bloodshot eyes meeting mine from further down the bar, “and I’ll tell you how I broke the world.”

I gave a snort, took a long swig of my G&T, and turned my attention back to the game being shown on Joe’s decrepit TV.

“Go on,” he insisted, in a voice ravaged by years of strong alcohol. “It’ll be worth it.”

Glancing around, I looked for help, but none of the other patrons of the grotty bar were paying attention to me being pestered by the old loon, and the bartender was very focused on cleaning a glass. The old man’s eyes bored into me from beneath his dirty mop of hair, and in the dim light of Joe’s Bar I saw the dark red stains on his grey trenchcoat.

“Alright.” The game was dull anyway. “What’s your poison?”

“Scotch on the rocks.”

I nodded at the barkeep, and the old man watched hungrily as the amber nectar was poured.

“Go on then,” I prompted him. “Tell me how you broke the world.”

He took a sip of his drink, gave a happy sigh, and looked up at me with those bloodshot eyes.

“It all started in 1939…”

Part 2

“Wait,” I said. “1939? That was over two hundred years ago!”

“This is the story you paid for,” the old man grumbled. “Let me tell it.”

I nodded for him to continue.

“I could see what was coming,” he said after another sip of his scotch. “It was obvious. So I did what I did to cut it short.”

He shuddered. “I forgot about consequences. No, that’s not right; I thought about consequences, I just didn’t think they’d be this.” He waved behind us.

I glanced at the only unique feature of Joe’s–the window–and jerked my head back. Everyone looks out that window, and no one can stand the sight of the shattered planet hanging above the lunar surface for more than an instant.

I drained my drink desperately and waved at the bartender for a refill. He cocked his head at the old man and I nodded for his refill too.

“Do you believe in magic?” the old man said quietly.

“No, of course not,” I said.

He jerked his head at the window.

“That’s not magic,” I said, “that’s just physics we haven’t discovered yet.”

He snorted his derision. “That’s what everyone says, but no one has yet explained the physics.”


Part 3


Like no one has ever said that before I thought. 'So how did this start in 1939?' I regret the question once its out of my mouth. The crazy eyes catch mine over the drinks the epinomius Joe set in front of us which I coughed up for. He was the third Joe that I knew of here and the first I knew by name actaually was named Joe.


The physicists today said that in some thousands of years the old moon now home to the local remnants of humanity would have a ring of what used to be earth. A ring system that might locally rival that of Saturn.


'Physics like magic ain't a fixed point' he took a sip of his drink this time rather then downing it; scotch wasn't cheap to make so I hope he'd get to the point before my spending limit was met.


'And what's that supposed to mean?' I followed his lead and only took a sip of my drink and hoped this would at least be an interesting fantasy, one I could use he next time I was the lost one at the bar sharing bullshit for a ver needed high he at the ass end of the human race.


'Recall when the astronomers found that the universe was expanding faster then it sould have been, exponentially faster, sometime last century?'