I didn’t fit into the crew very well. I was the youngest member of the Gustavus’s complement, the only new crewman to be brought aboard at its last refitting.
Part of this was the relatively low turnover of the crew: Kadeshi was given extraordinary latitude in choosing his subordinates, probably because he was an immature ass who also happened to moonlight as a brilliant scientist of many stripes. Part of this was also probably because they had lost precisely one crewman on their last mission, and so Kadeshi decided to replace just the one dead guy.
At least they cleaned out the dead guy’s stuff before moving me into his bunk – I’ll give them that. Also nice was that because Gustavus had been refitted with the latest automation a year or so back, there were only twenty crewmen aboard a ship with room for a hundred or more, so I got a cabin to myself.
On the downside, the ship also had a Kafkan onboard, and he immediately latched himself on to me. The Kafkan was named asteague, and was one of those rare Kafkans who suffered from a psychological disorder they called the Fascination.
He was very annoying.
199 Words.
You’ve probably heard of the Gustavus Adolphus. It’s not a particularly new ship, though it was the Lead Ship of its class when it was commissioned. It is, however, the basis of operations for one Kadeshi Ikaya, a human who is famous throughout human space.
Kadeshi’s a sort of a hero, a romantic secret agent responsible for making contact with two of the three known alien species in local space, and a sort of Renaissance man who has kept human knowledge of the galaxy one jump ahead of the Noh for the past two hundred years or so. He’s also one of the oldest living people, having continued to be rejuvenated long past the cut-off for the average man or woman.
That’s all propaganda, of course. None of it has ever bothered to mention what an enormous prick he was, or indeed just how big all of this derring-do had made his ego.
153 Words.
In the news today, Nepal is declared a republic by the Nepalese assembly, which has forced its king to give up power after he seized it in 2005.
This is by no means as cool as the news of Bhutan’s transition to democracy was when I first heard of it – Bhutan’s kings have been (as far as I know) willingly been making the transition, with the intention of keeping the king as figureheads in the same way Britain has, while ensuring a democratic government holds real power. But it’s still great news – the current king of Nepal has never been popular, and a democracy sure as hell beats a constant insurgency by communist forces like Nepal’s been facing for several years.
Cool, cool news.
I suppose you’re expecting me to talk about training next. I could, I suppose, but the truth of the matter is that basic training was the same for me as it was for every other recruit, except maybe a little harder. A lot of the other recruits were from technologically advanced worlds, places where Geneva or the UNS – or another post-spaceflight polity – was in control, and had been for centuries.
My home planet, San Arnando, was rediscovered by Geneva and signed a treaty with the polity just thirty years ago. Much of the technology we were being trained to implement was the sort of stuff we only dreamed about having on San Arnando.
In any case, basic training was a necessary evil that I was just as glad to get out of. I hadn’t done spectacularly in training, but I hadn’t embarrassed myself either; someone somewhere saw promise in me, however, because as soon as basic ended I found myself shipped off to what’s known as an “A” School. There I was rushed through training, and assigned to the good ship Gustavus Adolphus as an Operations specialist.
187 Words.
Author’s Note: I saw this thing where you’re supposed to write a hundred words a day for a month, or something, to keep your creative juices flowing. I’m going to aim for a more general ballpark, between 100 and 200 words each day. Let’s see how well that works, shall we? I’m going to be writing all sorts of stuff, but I suspect most of it will be related to a story I’ve been working on in some form since high school. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see where this goes.
As much as I hated to admit it, the doctor was right. I had signed away my rights to object to any of the methods, operations, or procedures the navy deemed necessary to prepare me for the rigors of service on a navy warship. And nanotechnology was just the start of it. They had given me a physical basis for surviving intensely high-gee maneuvers, but that basis still had to be honed into a soldier capable of operating in such an environment.
You might find it curious that they put so much emphasis on us being able to function under combat conditions, considering that the average ship-of-the-line is completely automated, with a fully sentient artificial intelligence at its core.
When I joined the navy, we still hadn’t switched into decisive engagements with the Noh – the majority of combat was between human polities at the time.
It was standard tactics at the time to try to knock out a ship’s processing core with a deep-penetration kinetic strike, leaving the warship (theoretically) unable to effectively fight. Our job was to be ready for such an eventuality, and be able to respond effectively.
190 Words.
Author’s Note: I saw this thing where you’re supposed to write a hundred words a day for a month, or something, to keep your creative juices flowing. I’m going to aim for a more general ballpark, between 100 and 200 words each day. Let’s see how well that works, shall we? I’m going to be writing all sorts of stuff, but I suspect most of it will be related to a story I’ve been working on in some form since high school. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see where this goes.
“You’re going to feel weird,” he told me. “Those nannies are going to be infiltrating every part of your body and you can’t make a soldier without killing a few cells.”
Wait, what? Nannies?
“Yes,” the doctor said patiently. “We’ve just given you the chicken soup injection – various immunities, heightened repair rates, and reinforcement against high-speed maneuvering.”
I informed him that I had a religious objection – not really true, since it was my parents who were diehard member of the Church of Natural Living, but I didn’t really want to explain to them how I had been injected with what they considered to be abominations unto the will of Life.
“You signed those rights away when you agreed to be recruited, son,” the doctor said sternly. “Mama doesn’t have a say in what we do, because mama’s boy is in the navy now!”
That was just great.
147 Words.
Political solicitations from candidates running back home. I have voted already, thank you very much, and while I did appreciate the e-mails reminding me to request a democratic ballot (though these even lost their glimmer after getting about four thousand of them), the e-mails from half the candidates begging me to vote for them don’t really make me want to go there. Seriously guys, when I want to know what your message is, I go to your websites and I read the official literature the county and state put out describing the issues and your positions on the issues. I don’t read your emails. I don’t like receiving your e-mails, because it means one extra thing for outlook to download, and one extra thing for me to delete.
I mean, at least the republicans have given up on me ever joining their party: registered independent is not quite the same thing as pinko commie, but it apparently comes close enough in their books. So if you could let me know when there’s an open primary I can vote in without shackling myself to your party, but accept that the fact I’m not registered democrat is probably because I have no interest in being a democrat, that would be great, guys.
(the first-worst kind of email being spam, of course.)
Author’s Note: I saw this thing where you’re supposed to write a hundred words a day for a month, or something, to keep your creative juices flowing. I’m going to aim for a more general ballpark, between 100 and 200 words each day. Let’s see how well that works, shall we? I’m going to be writing all sorts of stuff, but I suspect most of it will be related to a story I’ve been working on in some form since high school. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see where this goes.
The first thing they do is they give you an injection.
I know, it was like the twentieth century all over again. When they grabbed my arm and shoved the needle in, I yelped like a stuck pig – and with good reason. My family wasn’t rich, but we’d always been able to afford real medicine – none of this needle in the vein kind of business.
In fact, after the doctor had depressed the plunger and withdrawn the needle, I was sure that my blood was going to be spraying everywhere like a high-pressure fire hose.
That didn’t happen, of course, but no one had bothered to tell me that. So I stood there, grasping my arm, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, while the doctor lectured me about what he had just done.
135 Words.
Author’s Note: I saw this thing where you’re supposed to write a hundred words a day for a month, or something, to keep your creative juices flowing. I’m going to aim for a more general ballpark, between 100 and 200 words each day. Let’s see how well that works, shall we? I’m going to be writing all sorts of stuff, but I suspect most of it will be related to a story I’ve been working on in some form since high school. Come back tomorrow, and I think I’ll have something different.
The man shouted something, and Imyre laughed. She responded sharply, and Tzareg flinched, and then spat something sullen back. Imyre ignored him, waving her hand dismissively.
“My lady,” Dysam said helplessly. “If this man is Tzareg…” If this man was the most infamous mass-murderer in history, something dysam had very public doubts about, “We should…”
“No, Dysam,” Imyre said. “We’re not going to kill him.”
“But…”
She smiled, and it was the most perfectly evil expression the elf had ever seen. “We’re going to do something much, much worse.” She turned to regard Tzareg, and even he blanched at the expression. “We’re going to enslave him.”
Dysam wasn’t sure if he should be thrilled or terrified.
116 Words.