SF Drabble #494: “Breakdown”

“Nope”. He slid out from the access space, tools in hand. “Bone dry, and completely shot. There’s a crack in the housing all the way from the forward mounting plate to the second amplification ring. The coolant’s probably pooled at the bottom of the space between the inner and outer hulls.”

“So we’re dead in the water?”

He sat up. “We could seal the crack, temporarily, pump the coolant back in. Four days? And that’ll buy us one jump, maybe two.”

“The closest repair station is six jumps away.”

“How close to Woolie territory are we?”

“Don’t sneeze too loud.”

Attrition

He was standing at attention, but staring down at the floor, lost in thought. He hadn’t heard his name.

The General repeated, “Lieutenant Asche.”

“Ma’am.”

“I’m told that you were the only member of your unit to reach your objective, and single-handedly destroyed it. You must be very proud.” She turned to take the medal box from her aide-de-camp.

“I suppose so, Ma’am.”

“You suppose so?” She looked amused as she pulled the award from its box, smoothed out the ribbon, prepared to hang it around his neck. “Why wouldn’t you be proud?”

He opened his mouth, paused, said nothing.

“Out with it, Lieutenant.”

“It was… the target was a crèche, General. A Woolie crèche.” He couldn’t meet her eyes as he spoke. “No military value at all. Just… babies.”

“Woolies gestate twice as fast as humans, did you know that, Lieutenant Asche? And they’re four times as likely to bear multiples.” She stepped a bit closer, placed the ribbon over his head and around his neck, speaking quietly. “If we’re going to win this thing, we’ve got to do what’s necessary. It’s a numbers game, Lieutenant.”

She winked, stepped back, saluted him smartly, moved on to the next soldier.

SF Drabble #457 "Birdshot"

Eight years in the can between Proxima and Epsilon Eridani, eight years of nothing but maintenance and exercises and anxiolytics.

Before I left, they threw me a send-off party, but we all knew it was a wake: there's no coming back from something like this. Knowing it was one-way, that was a choice Ellie didn't get to make.

Less than a year, ten thousand ball bearings going ninety-three percent of c are going to rip into that planet, the one they took from us, and after them, this ship. Somewhere down there is Ellie's grave, but there's no helping that.

SF Drabble #437 "The Hinge Of Fate"

We won the Battle of the Kuiper Belt with mass drivers and x-ray lasers and by the skin of our teeth. I counted the UNAF ships left undamaged at the end of the battle on my fingers, but the Woolies' invasion task force was an expanding cloud of gas and debris in a highly eccentric cometary orbit around Sol.

We spent a year building for the counterattack. I hear things were bad on Earth during that time, with planetwide rationing and fuel shortages, everything going towards the war effort.

But it was Midway: we never lost a battle after that.

Whose Little Girl Are You?

I joined the UNAF when the Woolies attacked the colony at 47 Ursa Majoris, like so many people did. By the time I was through basic training and zero-gee combat training and astrogation training it was a year later and the Woolies had taken everything up to and including Epsilon Eridani.

My unit is all greenhorns like me and old men with the shakes, and we're all that stands between the enemy and Sol. I can still hear my father saying, but you're just a girl.

Not a problem.

Entrapment

The security door closed with a whoosh of sucking air and a loud click.

"Lieutenant." Of course they'd sent someone like her in: pretty, clothes a little too tight, disarming smile. They're too sophisticated to send in a heavy with a phone book.

"How're you doing?"

"I should ask you how you are. Have you been treated well?"

"Nobody's beat me up, if that's what you're asking. They could be more polite."

She sat down opposite me, across the table. In front of her she set down a file folder, a PDA, and a plastic baggie. "People don't tend to be polite to officers who talk about losing the war."

I shrugged.

"Do you think we're losing the war?"

"The first battle was seventy light-years away. The next one will be here. At Sol. What does that tell you?"

"We'll be ready for them."

"That's what we said before Epsilon Eridani. That's what we always say, officially, isn't it? Isn't it?"

She'd been trying not to stare at the burns on the side of my face; now she let me catch her doing it. "You had quite a hard time at Epsilon Eridani, didn't you?"

"I came back. I'm the exception." I shrugged. "Forty ships, plus the troop carriers. Nearly a hundred thousand dead? Or worse, captured? I had it easy at Epsilon Eridani."

"Is that why?"

I let it hang there. Eventually I said, "Is that why what?"

She held up the plastic baggie. I couldn't read the markings on the bag, the writing was too small, but my slipdrive was clearly visible at the bottom. "Why you were taking this out of the building—"

"I work from home sometimes."

"You know that's against the rules."

I shrugged again. "You know everyone does it anyway. If we didn't, the work wouldn't get done. Is that what this is about?"

"No." She opened the file folder, took out an 8x10 photo — actually printed on paper — and held it up. "Do you recognize this man?"

Of course I did. "No."

"You were in the same place as he was eight times over the past year, always on a Sunday, always after copying classified data to your slipdrive."

"It's not a crime to be in the—"

"Did you pass the data to him?" She leaned forward. There wasn't anger on her face. She was showing just enough cleavage to be mildly distracting. "I can't help you if you're not honest with me."

"You think he's a Woolie agent?"

"I think you think he's a Woolie agent. He actually works for us."

I blinked. "So then why all of this? Why am I not already out in front of a firing squad?"

She leaned back in her chair, sighed. "Because regardless of what you say, you did have a hard time at Epsilon Eridani. I read the file. You floated in an escape pod full of smoke and your own filth for three weeks. It broke you. You're not a traitor. You're sick."

SF Drabble #393 "New Ardennes"

No supply ship for nearly three weeks, not with the flare activity. Word came in from the CP, deep underground, to save charge packs: no more covering fire, no more harassing fire. Every charge is a dead Woolie or we're through. Then the orbital bombing. Not of us; of them. Woolies started approaching our lines to surrender. The pounding must have been absolutely hellacious.

A couple hours after the bombing stopped a 2nd Louie with a clean uniform walked up. "You men are the 7th?"

"…Who's asking?"

"The Ninth. We're rescuing you."

"Fuck off, Ninth, we don't need no rescue."

SF Drabble #384 “Hand To Hand”

The ship rang like a bell, again, and she was thrown forcefully against the bulkhead. She kept her grip, and was regaining her bearings when Reese floated by with blood globules leaking from his flattened nose and disturbingly open eyes.

The intercom buzzed. All hands, prepare to repel boarders.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She pushed off, sailed across the half-lit compartment, and grabbed a handhold close to the weapons locker. “I hope somebody remembered to charge these things this time.”

No such luck: plenty of beam rifles, no live power cells. “That’s it. I’m not re-upping again.”

SF Drabble #377 “Adrift”

We find them all the time: cryo-stasis escape pods from late in the war, floating out in the cometary belt. Our metal detectors will go nuts, we’ll think we’ve struck pay dirt, and there they’ll be.

Half the time they’re amazed they’re alive. After this long, I’m not surprised. Last week we found a guy from the same ship as a guy I picked up on my first job out, twenty years ago.

We don’t make much on the salvage, after fuel costs: you have to run them back to Earth, by law.

Sometimes we don’t bother picking them up.

SF Drabble #342 “Prisoner Of War”

I was captured by the Woolies on the seventh day after landing. We were with the second wave, and I gather the first wave had been fighting for two days already, so I suppose it was the ninth day of the Second Battle of Brikket.

They were in a terrible disposition after losing the fight, and I suppose they should have left us behind when they evacuated, but they took us. Some of us, anyway. They stopped feeding us after two days in space. We didn’t get food again until the cease-fire was announced.

I’m just glad to be home.

SF Drabble #334 “Relief”

He peeked around the corner, spyglass to his eyes. “They’re moving.”

Before anyone could respond, there was a deafening sound like a tearing of the fabric of the universe, and they all dove to the ground for cover.

By the time he was brave enough to look, the smoke had started to clear. “Jesus. I think our air support is finally here.” Where the Woolies’ positions had been, now there was only a smoldering ruin, stretching for hundreds of yards in either direction.

“What does that?”

“Battleship main gun; particle beam.”

“Boy, those Navy guys get all the nice toys.”

SF Drabble #321 “S.S. Imperator”

It’s a kilometer walk from my cabin to the secondary reactor room where I work. Which is not bad, there are people who work in the control pits on the bridge whose quarters are more than twice that far from their posts. I guess the rear echelon types never think about things like that when they design these ships.

We’ve been on this hunt for eight weeks now. The Woolies have been on the run since 61 Ursae Majoris, but they’re still dangerous. A lot of people are worn out from the fighting; I’m just tired from all the walking.

SF Drabble #300 “For Those Who Peril On The Sea”

We dropped into normal space and knew immediately we were on a salvage and recovery operation. We were amidst an expanding cloud of debris with a broken hulk at its center: the Resolve. She’d left New Malaysia only a week before, gone to search for Woolies skulking around between systems. Apparently she’d found more Woolies than she was prepared to face.

It took us eight days to cut all of the dead out of her; then we towed the hulk back and dropped her into New Malaysia’s sun. The ship’s band did a wonderful job on the hymn. Really stirring.