FREE STORIES 2012(40)
But we're lonely. Our little community can't last forever. Parts wear out, people too.
Along with the refined metals, the pre-manufactured solar cells and tonnes of water and methane ice, we are also returning to Earth with a lifetime of experience. This you can have for free. Along with these excerpts from personal logs, all the technical specs of the Liberty along with all the other manuals, drawings, routines and algorithms that we've used to turn the old girl into the ship she really wanted to be will be transmitted to the net... Probably they seem a bit old fashioned to you. Sure, we've had twenty-five years of hands on experience in spacefaring, but our materials science and sensor and propulsion tech is now a quarter century out of date. I'm sure you can do better.
We'll be swinging by just long enough to drop off Tom and a few sightseers and arrange for the trade of those items we need. After that who knows? Perhaps a few months in a pole to pole orbit mapping Venus, or a trip to the Jovian system if we can work the bugs out of the magnetic shielding.
We'll be back in a few years. No-one fancies another quarter century between refills of chocolate, steak, penicillin and morphine. But it will be as visitors, traders. We are not Earthlings, not any more. And space is too interesting to watch from the bottom of a planetary gravity well.
I thought I was coming home, but this is my home now as one day it could be yours.
That's about all I have to say. No doubt as well as my humble account, you'll want to read the logs of some of the other crew members. I understand that Claire's video diary has already gone viral. Some of you may even be interested in Craig’s mystery trilogy that he insists on including in the upload. But don't spend too much time reading. It's a big system out here. Enough for thousands of ships, millions even.
Come on up... We'll be waiting for you.
Conella and the Cyclops Sea Serpent of Doom
by John Ringo
DEDICATION:
As always:
For Captain Tamara Long, USAF
Born: May 12, 1979
Died: 23 March 2003, Afghanistan
You fly with the angels now.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY… DAY, AROUND NOONISH AND THUS NOT PARTICULARLY DARK AND THE STORM WASN’T THAT SEVERE, BARELY A GUST REALLY…
There was a truncated scream as the scantily clad woman was enwrapped by the lightning tongue of the sea serpent and whisked into his mouth. The head of the beast, two stories high and as wide as two ships parked end to end, reared up over the harbor, it single eye gleaming red as its mouth worked, opening and closing thoughtfully. As it would open, choked screams could faintly be heard.
“Phew!” it gasped. “Kind of overdid the perfume, sssister. Ugh, what ISSS that ssstuff? Eau de ssskunk oil? Royal blood, check. Virrrginnn…? Ssseriously King Pooram, you need to either put a chassstity girdle on your daughtersss or your Palaccce guardsss. Not hardly. Not even ‘hey, you don’t want to die a virgin, do you?’ hardly. Sssurpised you’re not a grand-dad. Oh, well, needsss mussst…” There was a watery crunch and a gulp. “See you in five yearsss. Ssssssuckah!”
“Oh why oh why did I agree to this gods-cursed contract?!” King Pooram wailed, his head in his hands. The throne room glittered with expensive stuff.
“We were starving,” Head Councilor Vizier pointed out.
“And now we are rich,” Councilor Redshirt said, oily, his jowls quivering in greed. “The shoals of fish the serpent sends to our waters have made us the wealthiest island in all the archipelago. And if we do not abide by the contract, the Great Cyclops Serpent will lay waste the entire island. Great King, noble King, sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”
“You are right, Councilor Redshirt,” the king said, lifting his face from his hands. “Guards! Take Councilor Redshirt down to the harbor, cut open his fat belly and feed the shoals of fish that make us so wealthy with his innards.”
“But Great King!” Redshirt said as he was hauled away. “I am your most loyal councilor!”
“You’re my most annoying councilor,” Pooram said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Right now, I want to lay waste to the entire island myself. Killing you will sate my anger somewhat and save many lives at the cost of one. Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good.”
“No great loss, there,” Head Councilor Vizier said as the screaming wretch was hauled away.
“Agreed,” Pooram said. “But there is still the problem of the Contract. I have only one remaining daughter. Valeria was no great loss, except to the Guards and stable boys who are mourning her as we speak. Katerell was pretty but so entirely brain-dead she could be outthought by a rutabaga. Isabella, however… I need to think.”