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Short Serial Story: A New Life: Part 2

Posted by dougdandridge on August 22, 2013
Posted in: Antimatter, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Kindle, Marvel, Military, Movies, Multiverse, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Space Navy, Titles, Websites, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Presented for your enjoyment, the second installment of a short story featuring the origin of one of my central characters in Exodus: Empires at War.  I will present this story in four parts.  Anyone interested in reading the story in its entirety can go to my website, Imagination Unlimited, or directly to the story page at Exodus Shorts.  The story can be downloaded in Word, PDF or Kindle format.  Or you can see all of my books at my Amazon Book Page.

 

The factory was working at full swing when Cornelius reported for his shift.  The robots on two of the lines were turning out aircars, moving the vehicles from station to station to have parts added, then nanowelded by a spray of microscopic robots, leaving not even a mark to show where the new part had been attached.  Men sat in the booths overlooking the floor, supervising the work robots. Each could only watch two of the bots at a time because of the Man in the Loop Accords.

Not that these robots are likely to rip themselves out of the floor and grow the processing power to be a threat, thought Cornelius as he reported to his booth, nodding at the guy they had hired to take Parker’s place.  Not his fault, he thought of the new guy, who just seemed happy to have a job.  Still, Cornelius couldn’t help but feel some resentment for the replacement who had taken the place of his old friend.

Cornelius sat at his station and started up his board.  The ticker said he still had five minutes before his lines started up.  He was in charge of the same two robots today that he was every day, something that made the job a little boring.  His would nanoweld and connect the control runs to the lift fans that the newbie’s robots would lower into place.  He just had to make sure that the robots were running within parameters, and watch that no mistakes got through his part of the lines.

The buzzer beeped and the line started up.  He could look forward to ten hours of watching aircars rotate in front of him, of his robots performing the same tasks over and over.  Three days a week he sat here, eating his lunch at the board, not even taking bathroom breaks, as his nanites were programed to delay bladder fill while he was at work, only allowing enough fluid out that he could take care of in his two ten minute breaks.  It was monotonous.  Or it should have been, except when the bot on the three line started to overheat, and stopped making all the proper connections.

“Shit,” said Cornelius, hitting the button that shut down the entire line.  That was considered  serious action, but he had been at the job long enough to feel confident that when he did it, it needed to be done.  He shunted his other robot off to the newbie, whose name he couldn’t even remember.  It was no use shutting down both lines, and the newbie could watch two robots on line four while Cornelius looked into the situation.

First he checked the computer readout for the robot, which told him absolutely nothing about why it was malfunctioning, other than that the actuator of one of the arms was hot.  There was nothing for it but to go on the line and give the unit a look.  If he could fix it he would.  If not, he would call in those who could.

The line was always noisy. It was easy to forget while sitting in the insulated booths, but this was heavy machinery, lifting large parts into place while assembling vehicles.  It could also be dangerous.  The three line, the one he was approaching, was still, but he had to walk over the four line to get to it.  Cornelius could see why robots frightened some people, tales of the revolt two centuries before notwithstanding.  The robots of four line were moving quickly, and even with built in failsafes they could still snag the unwary.

Cornelius kept a close eye on four line while he walked three.  Vehicles were still being put together over there, and the line would assemble hundreds of them in a day.  Three line was a row of unfinished vehicles that were not going anywhere at the moment.  He stopped in front of the recalcitrant machine and put his hand on the arm in question.  It was hot to the touch, and he noticed that a thin line of smoke was rising from a port.  He stuck a multitool into the port and turned it, and the arm opened up along the seam that appeared.  And more smoke poured out of the opening, along with a lick of flames.

What the hell, thought the man as he saw what looked like an oily rag burning.  With a thought he tapped into the factory com system and sent a situation report to management.  It doesn’t look like this problem is going to be easily solved, he thought.  They could clean up the rag easily, and replace whatever parts were damaged by the fire.  But this looked like something deliberate, and that meant this would be investigated, with all the hassle that entailed.  So much for a quiet day at work, thought Cornelius, knowing that he would be investigated as well.

*     *     *

“Would Milady like another cup of tea?” asked Katlyn, holding a tray with pot, sugar and cream.  The woman she was questioning, a guest of the Baroness, performed the difficult task of looking up and looking down her nose at the servant at the same time.

“Yes, I think I will,” answered the woman, holding up her cup.

Katlyn put the tray on the table and picked up the teapot to pour, her eyes glancing at the baby in the lap of another guest.  The little girl was smiling and laughing, and waving her pudgy little arms.  And why can’t I have one like you to hold, thought Katlyn as she poured the tea.  The baby was distracting, and she wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing.

“You stupid little whore,” yelled the well dressed guest as hot tea spilled onto her dress.

Katlyn looked down in horror, dropping the teapot to land on the carpet.  She scrambled to get to her knees and picked up the pot, watching the darkening stain of liquid spread across the fabric.

“I am so sorry, Marta,” said the Baroness, her cold eyes glaring at the servant who had burned her guest.

“I am sorry, ma’am,” said Katlyn, putting the pot back on the tray, then snatching up a cloth and moving to wipe down the woman’s dress.

“You stay away from me,” said Marta, knocking Katlyn’s hand away.

“Leave us, Katlyn,” said the Baroness, pointing at the door to the kitchen.  “Wait for me, and I will be in to talk to you shortly.  And send Kimberly out to serve us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said a dejected Katlyn, picking up the tray and carrying it to the kitchen, listening as the women talked about how clumsy and stupid she was.  She was near to tears as she entered the kitchen, but remembered to send a com call to Kimberly, summoning her to the kitchen.

“What’s wrong?” asked the other servant as she entered the kitchen and saw the tears on Katlyn’s face.

“I screwed up, Kimberly,” said Katlyn, feeling a sense of almost hysteria coming over her.  “I was paying attention to the baby and not to what I should be doing, and poured hot tea on one of the Baroness’ guests.”

“It will be alright,” said the other woman, putting together another tray.  “Just calm down, and it will be OK.”

Katlyn could tell from the expression on Kimberly’s face that the other woman didn’t think it would be OK.  She was just saying words she thought might calm Katlyn.

Kimberly came in and out of the kitchen several times over the next hour, while Katlyn sat in a chair and waited to hear the verdict from the woman who employed her.  It seemed to take hours, but eventually the Baroness came into the kitchen, her cold blue eyes fixed on Katlyn like lasers.

“How dare you injure one of my guests,” she said, walking over to the quickly standing young woman.

“Was she burned badly?” asked Katlyn in a panicked voice.

“Nothing that nanites can’t take care of,” said the Baroness, putting her hands on her hips.  “That’s not the point, you little common born trash.  You caused distress to my guests, and I will not have that.  You are no longer in my employ.  You will leave this house immediately, never to return.”

“Please,” said Katlyn, dropping to her knees and grasping at the employer’s dress.  “No.  It won’t happen again.”

“No,” said the Baroness, taking a step back and glaring down at the girl.  “It will not.  At least not by you.  There are a thousand girls out there waiting for your position.  And one of them will have it.  Now leave, before I call security to escort you out.”   The woman turned and started to walk away, then spun back around on her heel.  “On second thought, I don’t want you absconding with any of the silverware.”

A few moments later a large man in the uniform of a liveried security appeared and dragged a shocked Katlyn off, adding insult to injury.  She walked in staggering steps to the nearest bus line and caught the next one to the central station.  She stared straight ahead the entire trip, not even taking in the scenery from on high like she normally did.  What am I going to tell Cornelius, she thought.  They would still do well enough on his income, but she wanted to feel like she was contributing to their progress up the financial ladder.  Now she was to be relegated to the role of stay at home housewife, and without even any children to look after.  She cried her way to the central station, and then on the elevated train home, where she sat in the living room and cried some more, waiting for her husband to come back from work.

*     *     *

“And then they escorted me from the manor like a common criminal,” stammered a crying Katlyn as Cornelius held her in his arms.

Bastards, he thought of the people who had caused her such trauma.  And all because she made a simple mistake, spilling some tea on her betters.  Betters, he thought with a flare of anger.  As if any of those people are actually better than we are.  Cornelius knew he had above average intelligence.  He had been tested back in primary school.  But a commoner needed much more than above average to compete with the nobles for the slots needed for higher education, at least on New Detroit.  Maybe if we were on Jewel, or a University rich planet like Avalon.  It was said that even those with slightly above average intelligence scores could attend a University on those planets, if they had the proper work ethic.

He wiped a tear away from Katlyn’s face, looking into the eyes of the woman he loved.  So she’s not as bright as some, he thought, studying her classically beautiful features.  That’s alright.  I’m here to do the thinking for us.  “Look.  I’ll talk to my father and see what he can do.  He has the ear of the Duke, after all.  So what’s the word of some damned Baroness?”

“You really think he’ll be able to do anything?” she asked, sniffling.

Hell no, thought her husband, nodding his head.  You’re not important enough.  “Of course.  Look what he did for me.”

Katlyn’s eyes unfocused for a moment, the sign that she was accessing some information. “Your sister will be here in an hour,” she said, standing up from the couch.  “And I don’t have anything prepared.”

“You get cleaned up,” said Cornelius, giving her a quick hug.  “I’ll order a delivery.”  As the last word left his mouth he jacked into the local net and looked over the menus of the local delivery joints.  With another thought he ordered Chinese and authorized a debit from his account.

“You look beautiful,” he told his sister as she walked in the doorway with her husband an hour later.  Natasha did look beautiful, with a glow to her face he had never before seen.  Her husband, Larry, alternated between smiles and an expression of worry.

Natasha took off her coat, and even in the baggy clothing she was wearing it was obvious that she had gained weight, most of it…

“Are you pregnant?” asked Katlyn after hugging Natasha, then holding her back with hands on the other woman’s arms.

“I am,” said Natasha with a smile, her eyes taking on the worried look of a caged animal.

“How did you guys get a reproduction license?” asked Cornelius, suspicion raising its ugly head.  “You’re younger than I am, Larry, and I’m looking at slim to none chances.”

“We, we didn’t get a license,” said Larry in a hushed voice, as if afraid that he would be overheard.  “I had a friend who reprogramed our nanites.  Made us both fertile.  And then, it was just God’s will and nature.”

“Are you fucking crazy,” yelled Walborski, fear and anger warring with each other in his feelings.  “How in the hell did you expect to get away with that?  What were you thinking?”

“We wanted a baby,” said Natasha, as if that answered everything.

“We decided to trust in God,” said Larry, looking upwards.  “He will see us through this.”

“Christ,” cursed Cornelius, looking at the idiot his sister had married.  He turned his glare on his sister. “And how is God going to hide the fact that you are pregnant?  Or the child, after you give birth, if it goes that far?”

“God will protect us,” said Larry, trying to smile.

And you’re still freaked out about what’s going to happen, thought Cornelius.  Despite your assurances that your God will take care of you.

“Why don’t we eat?” said Katlyn, gesturing toward the dining room, where the Chinese delivery was laid out.

Yeah, why don’t we, thought Cornelius.  A last good meal for my sister and brother-in-law.

The meal was mostly eaten in silence.  Cornelius kept staring at Larry, blaming him for everything that was about to happen to his sister.  If they’re lucky they’ll just get a forced abortion, and a maybe some incarceration time in a work camp.  That didn’t happen very often.  There was always the possibility of mind wipe, and his sister would not know him, and he would really not know her, only her physical appearance.

“How in the hell could they do that?” he complained to Katlyn after their guests had left.  “What were they thinking?”

“That they wanted a child,” said Katlyn with a far away look.  “Just like most of us.”

“It’s against the law.  We are on a population controlled planet.  People just can’t have unlimited children, unless we want the overcrowding they were said to have had on old Earth.  I for one like some wilderness area to roam around in.”

“And you only get that because of your father,” said Katlyn in an angry voice.  “The rest of us have to make do with the parklands they allow us common folk to use.”

“It’s a job, honey,” said Cornelius, feeling a bit put off by her accusation that he was privileged to hunt the wilderness, something the average citizen couldn’t.  “It pays for things like this apartment, and our aircar.  I had nothing to do with being the child of a gamekeeper.”

Katlyn got up from the couch, glared down at him with a pout, and stomped away to the bedroom.  Dammit, thought Cornelius, ordering the trivee on with a thought.  I just can’t win today.  He knew he would have to watch some of the vee, and let Katlyn fall asleep.  Otherwise he would have to endure the tense silence of her laying with her back to him.  So he sat and steamed, while the trivee recreated the scene of a popular comedy, something he was not the least bit interested in.

A New Life: A Serial Short About Exodus.

Posted by dougdandridge on August 20, 2013
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Antimatter, Armor, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Military, Nanotechnology, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Proofreading, Quantum Physics, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Navy, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Wormholes, Writing. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Presented for your enjoyment, the first installment of a short story featuring the origin of one of my central characters in Exodus: Empires at War.  I will present this story in four parts.  Anyone interested in reading the story in its entirety can go to my website, Imagination Unlimited, or directly to the story page at Exodus Shorts.  The story can be downloaded in Word, PDF or Kindle format.  Or you can see all of my books at my Amazon Book Page.

A New Life

“Bastards,” growled Parker Murphy, slamming his hand down hard on the table.

Cornelius Walborski nodded his head in sympathy while taking a sip of the good beer.  He was treating this night.  Parker, while he wouldn’t starve, would not have the discretionary funds for nights out in the near future, if at all.

“You’ll find something,” he told his friend, raising his hand to get the attention of the serving robot.  Nothing too good for us workers, he thought as the machine flashed a light his way, then wheeled off for the bar.  Human servers were expensive, and one server specialist could run three of the robots, enough to cover the entire bar.

“How the hell am I going to find anything,” yelled his friend, attracting stares their way despite the noise deadening field around their booth. Noise deadening was the operative word, not sound proof.  People could still hear them if they talked loud enough, and a yell seemed to be loud enough.  “Those fucking bastards control all the work.”

“You won’t starve at least,” said Jonah Friedmoore, another of Cornelius’s close friends.

“I want more than to just exist,” hissed Parker, glaring at his friend.  “I want to get somewhere in life.  Not spend every day looking at the walls of my apartment.”

Cornelius nodded his head again.  He didn’t know what to say.  The dole allowed people to exist.  As Jonah had said, you wouldn’t starve, and your medical was covered, one of your rights as a citizen.  There was even the mind numbing entertainment of the vid stream, or the online library if you were someone who was into learning.  But to get ahead you needed a job, and jobs were hard to come by.  And the jobs were all controlled by.

“Those bastards,” said Parker again.  “Those greedy, privileged bastards.  I wish I could get that damned Baron alone somewhere.”

Good luck with that, thought Walborski.  Nobles had bodyguards, who would take Parker apart before he could do anything to their precious charge.

Their drinks came, and Parker downed his in a few moments.  Cornelius signaled for another.  After all, he had the luxury of two jobs, and his wife another, in a society where almost half the work force was idle. If not for the Man in the Loop accord it would have been worse, but someone needed to oversee all of those robots that worked the factories and civil maintenance

“There’s always the Fleet,” said Jonah, whose father had served in the Imperial Navy, a fact he was sure to let everyone know about, even if he didn’t join himself.

“You’ve got to have skills to get in the Fleet,” said Parker, grabbing at the next beer that the serving robot put in front of him.  “Or connections.”

Cornelius was not sure that was true.  He had always heard that the Fleet trained its recruits.  But to be away from family.  Parker had a wife, after all.

“Then join the Imperial Army,” said Jonah, never the most diplomatic of people.

“You join the fucking Army,” yelled Parker.  “Since you seem to love it so much.  Maybe you like taking orders from the Baron and people like him.  I think we need to put assholes like him in their place.”

Cornelius cringed in his seat.  The Baron was in charge of Windsor City and surroundings, and was not someone to mess with on his own turf.  Cornelius got his jobs from the Duke himself, the chief executive of the continent, but it still did no good to stir up trouble with the noble’s subordinate.  And Katlyn had her job directly through the Baron’s wife, whose husband also owned the factory Walborski worked in.

“Hey,” yelled the bartender, a real live human, walking toward the booth.  “I will have no talk of treason in my bar.  You understand me, Murphy.  Keep a tight lip on it, or get out.”

“I’ll say what the hell I want,” said Parker, standing up and glowering at the bartender, who was also the bar manager.  Parker picked up his glass and threw it at the tender, bouncing it off his arm.

“That’s assault, you asshole,” yelled the bartender back. “I’ll have your ass in jail.”

“And I’ll have you in a reconstruction tank,” yelled Parker, pushing Jonah out of the way and going for the bartender.

He can’t be that drunk, thought Cornelius, grabbing for his friend’s arm and missing.  He had to have taken something on top of the alcohol.  Not that drugs were hard to find, legal and illegal.

Parker pushed the bartender, a man he towered over, hard enough to send the man staggering back, where he fell over a chair.  Parker headed toward him, bringing a foot back to kick the man, when he wobbled on his feet, then fell to the floor in a limp mass.  Cornelius clapped his hands over his ears as the sonics sounded through the bar.  He felt a little numbness in his body as well, but nothing like his friend.  He spotted the Copeye robot in a second, floating near the ceiling, its front end, where the stunner was located, pointed at Parker.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Jonah, pulling at Cornelius’ arm.

“We’re on the thing’s memory,” said Cornelius, planting his feet and refusing to budge.  “They’ll want our statements.  You rather give it to them here, or at home.”

Moments later a pair of big police officers came walking through the door, big men in light augmentation armor.  They didn’t move with the grace of the biologically enhanced.  That was reserved for special units made up of military retirees.  But their armor gave them an advantage over any regular citizen that might want to try them.

“And that’s what happened,” said Cornelius to the officer that took his statement, after Parker had been removed from the scene.  “Look, he’s not a bad guy.  He lost his job today, and got a little messed up.”

“And how did he lose his job?” asked the police officer in a flat voice.

“He made a comment that the Baron overheard when he was touring the factory Parker worked at.”

“Teach him to speak in front of his betters,” said the cop, shaking his head.  He looked around the bar for a moment, then back at Walborski.  “You can go.  We’ll be in touch with you if we need more information.”

Cornelius nodded and walked away.  Moments later he was in his aircar, a luxury that multiple jobs gave him.  The city was lit up around him, though some of the windows of the skyscrapers were dark as the people inside went through a sleep cycle.  But many more were lit.  People on the dole didn’t have to keep regular hours.  He started to fall asleep himself along the way home, but his car knew the way.  Windsor wasn’t the largest city on the planet, which didn’t boast the largest cities in the Empire.  He dreamed one day of visiting Jewel, and see the capital city of Capitulum, home to over three billion people.  We might just be able to do that in a couple of years.  He and Katlyn were getting ahead, and recently they had actually started savings.  Interstellar travel was still expensive, too much so for most private citizens.  Unless it was a one way trip to the frontier.

“Katlyn,” he called out as he entered their apartment, again something they could afford with a regular income, a place to be proud of.  Boss Kitty, their four year old Tom, came at the sound of his voice, meowing like he was scolding Cornelius for being late to come home.  Probably just wants some food, thought Cornelius, walking to the kitchen with the cat weaving in and out of his legs.

She must be in bed, was his next thought, as he pulled a can of cat food from the cabinet, then emptied it into a frictionless bowl he pulled from the cleaner.  Maybe we can get a program for the robot that feeds the damned cat.  He shook his head at that last thought.  Katlyn liked to feed the cat, though she was quick enough to use the cleaning bot to get rid of the animal’s waste.

Cornelius pulled a joint of synthicanibus from the lower cabinet and made his way back into the living room, plopping down on the couch.  With a thought the trivee projector came on, and he was surrounded in the peaceful scene of a city park, children playing in a fountain, one of Katlyn’s favorite views. She forgot to reset it, again, he thought, flipping the surrounding scene to that of a tropical beach.  He didn’t like the park at all, as it reminded them of what they didn’t have.  And he had been to that park before, in New Detroit City, and had never seen that many children around.  Just another lie.

He ran down the list of entertainments in his mind, rejecting one after another.  He didn’t want to play a mercenary, or a tough lawman, or any of the other possibilities.  And none of the canned shows held any interest.  He dismissed the illusion with a thought and switched to a news channel, one that didn’t surround him with the surround of a studio, just replicating the anchor sitting in 3D at her desk.  Cornelius lit up the mild narcotic and took a puff, feeling the relaxation flowing through him.  Boss Kitty jumped up beside him, demanding attention, and Cornelius blew out the smoke while he kneaded the cat’s shoulder muscles.

I need to get to bed, he thought, looking at the time stamp over the tridee image.  He hadn’t slept much the last couple of nights, and even with nanite augmentation, a body eventually had to have a good night’s sleep.  Getting up he walked to the kitchen, picked up the now empty bowl and turned it over the disposal, letting the last crumbs of food slide off the surface, then put the bowl back in the cabinet.

He slid into the bed next to Katlyn, trying not to disturb her.  She woke up anyway, and turned over with a sleepy smile on her face.  She’s so beautiful, he thought, wondering how an average looking guy like himself had gotten together with her, much less gotten married.  Might be because we had been friends for so many years.  He had known her since they were toddlers, and just felt comfortable with her the whole time they were growing up.

“You’re home late,” she said, putting her arms around her neck.

“Parker lost his job today,” said Cornelius, running a hand down her arm.

“What happened?”

“He made a comment about the Baron,” said Cornelius, shaking his head.  “And it got back to the man himself, when he was touring the plant.”

“The idiot,” said Katlyn, her hands going to her mouth in shock.  “What the hell was he thinking?”

“He wasn’t,” said Cornelius.  Everyone knew in their society not to insult the nobles.  According to the constitution of the Empire they had equal rights, nobles and commons.  But the nobles still had privilege, in part due to their position in the governance of the Empire.   And in part because of their family interconnectedness and wealth.  It would be different out on the frontier, he thought, then remembered that some of those differences could be deadly.  New Detroit was a core world, and as such was well defended.  “And even worse,” he said, feeling rage rise in him at the thought of the nobles and what they could do.  “He got arrested for assault.”

“So he’s totally ruined his life,” said Katlyn.  “No work for him, doomed to be a Dole Rat for the rest of his life.”

“At least he won’t starve,” said Cornelius, knowing that he wouldn’t want to be a Rat himself.   You didn’t starve, but you also didn’t really live, other than what you could get vicariously through the trivee.  If you could afford the upgrade nanites to keep up with the transmission systems.  “And there’s always the frontier.”

Katlyn shuddered as he said that and he held her tighter.  “It might be the only way we’re going to get a reproductive license. You want a child.”

Katlyn looked up at him with a tear streaked face.  “I want a half dozen, but I know I’m never going to get that many.  Can’t your father help us?”

We’ll get a license to have a child when we’re both over a hundred, thought Cornelius.  People didn’t get reproductive licenses at a young age on a core world, which were all at the legal population limit.  Not unless you had some great skill, like a scientist, or were one of the nobles.  If they were lucky they could have a child in early middle age, when they reached that hundred year marker.  His father had been able to have two children, but only because he had the patronage of the Duke.

“Would the frontier really be that horrible?” he asked.

“Hold me,” she said, and she gripped him tight.  He held her, and things progressed until they were making love.  There was no danger of pregnancy, not while their nanites were programed to prevent such.

You Can’t Go Back Home, Or Can You?

Posted by dougdandridge on May 6, 2013
Posted in: Dragons, eBooks, Fantasy, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Magic, Military, Multiverse, Near Future, Plotting, Proofreading, science Fiction, self publishing, Sword and Sorcery, Titles, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

I took a trip to my home town of Venice Florida this weekend, a place I hadn’t been since 1995, and a place I hadn’t lived at since 1975. I met with old friends, gave away signed books, and general went around the area and reminisced. And thoroughly enjoyed myself. I left there like so many to see the wider world. And I did, first Germany and much of Europe, then North Florida and Alabama. Kind of got sidetracked after Europe I guess. Anyway, the quiet of the place was unbelievable. Seeing the old houses that friends used to live in, at least one of them housing for the poor that are now historical sites and probably worth a small fortune. Hearing the coo of a Mourning Dove, and the sounds of the wind whispering through the Australian pines of a local park. The sight and sound of breakers on the beach. All in all it was a wonderful experience, and one I hope to become more common. I will try to move back there next year, to the old home. It is not the same place it was, but is still a very nice place, with great beaches, restaurants and other activities, but without the hustle and bustle of places like Panama City Beach or Daytona Beach or Ft. Lauderdale. I don’t need a big house down there, just enough room for me and my cats, where I can write in a quiet neighborhood.
Working hard on the next installment of Refuge, which follow the war between the Earth people and the natives. The Earthlings have lost their technology, at least anything depending on explosives or internal combustion engines. But they have other tricks up their sleeves, centuries of improvements in transportation and shipping that didn’t depend on engines. And strategy and tactics totally unheard of to the residents of Refuge. They also bring the scientific method to the study of science, and make great strides there as well. Meanwhile, Exodus is being proofread, and will be coming soon.

Mapping the Future

Posted by dougdandridge on January 25, 2013
Posted in: Alien Invasion, Comics, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, History, Kindle, Military, Near Future, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Quantum Physics, Robots, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Space Navy, Titles, Tropes, Typos, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

I was recently asked a question by a reader on Twitter. (And that still feels so good to say that word, reader, like I actually have people reading my work, and liking it). He asked if I did star maps for the Exodus series. And my answer was: yes, no and maybe. Since I wasn’t really sure what he meant by star maps, I really didn’t have an answer. Do I draw a map of the Empire and label every important star on it. Well, no. The Empire is four thousand light years from end to end, and over three thousand light years thick, containing over forty billion cubic light years, with hundreds of millions of stars within that expanse. Now most of the stars are red dwarves, like much of the stellar bodies in the Galaxy. Not of much interest on the whole, though there will be some exceptions. I have a mention in book three about how survey teams visit these stars about once a decade, just to make sure nothing bad is going on. There will also be Blue Giants and Supergiants, again not of much interest, unless one happens to be near an inhabited system (as these stars tend to die early and violent deaths). There will be a book in the series that deals with this kind of problem. There would still be some odd millions of stars in that area that would be of interest. In Exodus I make about ten thousand of the stars in the Empire either having inhabitable, alien home worlds, sources of resources of special interest, or containing worlds that can be terraformed. Not sure if this is a hgih estimate, low or just right. I guess no one will know the ratio of inhabitable planets to stars in the foreseeable future. Still a lot of systems, and not really what I can keep track of. So what do I do to keep track of them?
There was a file on the internet some years ago, back in the late 90s, called the Astrogator’s Manual. There was a cool little three dimensional cube in the manual that represented all the stars within a twenty-five parsec on a side box, with Sol in the middle. Now the box was divided into smaller boxes, each five parsecs on a side. And then it showed one layer of boxes with all the stars in those areas represented, then the next section, until all five sections of twenty-five smaller boxes were covered. It did this from front to back, then from top to bottom. I did something like that with my core systems, all ninety some odd of them represented. I also did a chart of when they would be colonized based on how far they were from the central star, these being important for determining length of cultural development and population density of the planets. I haven’t used this box map much, but when I need it its there. I drew a look down map of the Empire and surrounding powers on a piece of graph paper. All very cool, except that stellar empires are three dimensional entities. So I do a slice of the empire from and surroundings starting at one end and doing another slice every two hundred light years, from coreward to rimward. Not all that detailed, but enough to get my mind around it. Finally I did one big map of the section of the Galaxy where all the action was occurring, showing the New Terran Empire in relation to old Earth and the Ca’cadasan Empire. And that’s it for now. I have a program that is supposed to make star maps and allows the user to input data and change parameters. Only problem is the stupid thing takes forever to run on my two years ago was fast computer. But when I buy my state of the art gaming machine in a month (you know, for work), then I will try it again and see what happens. Until then mapping and drawing allows me to keep my little boy’s mind active and develop ideas. Of course I didn’t discuss the smaller maps, the map of the Supersystem showing the stars and their orbits, solar system maps, some planet maps, and a map of Capitulum, the capital of the Empire. Not all the planets of course, but when I need one I will draw one, just to have the reference.

The Shadows of the Multiverse Promotion, Part 2

Posted by dougdandridge on October 24, 2012
Posted in: Acceleration, Alien Invasion, Antimatter, eBooks, Far Future, Fusion, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Multiverse, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Proofreading, Quantum Physics, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Space Navy, String Theory, Titles, Tropes, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

As stated in my last blog entry, I will be offering my sort of hard science fiction novel The Shadows of the Multiverse for free on Kindle from Friday, 10/26/2012 through Tuesday, 10/30/2012. I say sort of hard scifi because, while the underpinnings of the setting are based on real world physics, there are definitely some fantastic elements involving the quantum mind. Like, is Schrödinger’s Cat just a thought experiment, or, if there is no sentient mind to see it fall, does a tree really fall in the woods? And by logical extension, is a really powerful quantum mind able to change reality to suit its purposes. Still, in the reread just before setting up the promotion I was again fascinated by the possibility of humans become Gods for all practical purposes.
The other dimensional creatures who all have this power are the antagonists of the story. While not really intelligent as we would judge such, they possess powerful quantum minds that are able to warp and change reality in our Universe. And they fear the power of other quantum minds that might develop among the intelligences of our Universe. So they resort to the solution that so many humans have resorted to in the past. They exterminate intelligences in our Universe so they will not grow to threaten their hegemony over the dimensions. So intelligent species grow in our Universe, spread out through space, develop the rudiments of the quantum mind in some of their members, and then the monsters appear and wipe the Universe clean of intelligent life, until the next cycle.
I originally sent this novel out to publishers under the title Weavers of Reality, the Weavers being the transdimensional creatures who are the enemy. That name was change from Quantum Reality. The problem was I really did not like either name, and this after coming up with the title The Deep Dark Well for the book before. Sometimes titles are easy, other times they are very difficult. The creatures are still called the Weavers. I had thought of calling them the Shadows, but as a fan of Babylon Five I thought that name was already taken. But Shadows still came out in the title.
The idea for the gates of course came from many sources. Fredrick Pohl, Stargate SG-1 among others. The gates are a little bit different though. Each is a large globe with three million facets, each leading to another gate somewhere across the Universe. And every gate in the Universe also has three million openings, not all leading to the same places as other gates, linking hundreds of billions of star systems into a network. The bottom line is that though the nearest stars are still years of travel time away, a habitable system three billion light years distant is just a jump through the gate. Civilizations exist in bubbles of space linked by the gates, while the Universe at large is still a mystery. It has a great effect on strategy, as the only way to attack an enemy system is through the gates, and fortifications are built around them to prevent a successful assault. Also, reinforcements are only a jump away. So wars are normally a series of overwhelming assaults until both sides get tired of being whipped by forces that outnumber them at some points, while they outnumber the enemy at other places, and the ebb and flow really favors no one.
The Shadows of the Multiverse will probably be a stand alone novel. There is not a lot more to do with the characters (and you will have to read the book to see why). I may, someday, write in this Universe again, or maybe not. Still, I hope my readers will enjoy it, and it will make them want to try another one of my books. And now for an excerpt.

“Goddamitt,” said Lt. Marishana Mangana. Lucille looked up from the acceleration tank she was crawling into to see what the assistant tac officer was looking at. The image of a battleship appeared on the main viewer, leaving the gate far to their rear.
“Shit,” added the captain to the cussing going through the bridge. Flashes appeared at the front of the long cylinder as a dozen missiles left their acceleration tubes and headed for their targets. Matter/antimatter warheads exploded into one of the covering destroyers, while the invisible beams of lasers ate through the hull of another.
“We aren’t at war with the Tripods,” exclaimed Lt. Ngyen. “What the hell are they doing?”
Taking advantage of surprise, thought Lucille. The poor bastards at the gate picket hesitated for a moment and paid for it with their lives. A single warhead impacted on the alien battleship, blasting a small hole in the forward hull. Within a second the counterattacking destroyer was spiraling away from the gate, a lifeless wreck. Another cylinder rushed from the gate, a second battleship. Followed by a third.
The lone remaining destroyer maneuvered as fast as her crew could handle, moving along the side of the gate sphere as if trying to escape. Two of the Tripod battleships flared thrusters as they turned to follow, trying to lock their stationary particle beams on the target that was dodging and weaving away from their laser turrets. A missile left a tube, followed by another. But the destroyer’s crew was on the ball and a dozen interceptors left its stern mere microseconds after the missiles. Interceptor missiles struck, antimatter warheads erupted, and the space between hunter and hunted was filled with hellish radiation.
“They really foxed them,” said Ngyen, admiration in his voice.
Yes, thought Lucille. The radiation will interfere with target acquisition as well as helping to diffuse the power of laser and particle beams.
The destroyer rotated swiftly in a maneuver guaranteed to cause casualties if the crew wasn’t in the tanks. A message carrier streaked from a bow tube at thousands of gees acceleration, heading into a specific facet of the gate and disappearing before anyone could do anything about it.
Then the destroyer pulled another high gee turn, lining her own bow up on one of the pursuers and unleashing a volley of missiles. It was to be her last volley. Incoming fire tore through the radiation cloud. Some of the enemy missiles lost target lock and sailed past the smaller ship. Others smashed into her nose, warheads powerful enough to cripple a battle-cruiser like Navarin exploding into the thinly armored hull. The fire of explosion ran instantly down the length of the ship, engulfing her in a maelstrom of flame while pieces of hull and fragments of internal machinery spun into the cold of space, as if trying to escape the inferno. When the flame had attenuated enough to see the destroyer was gone as if it hadn’t existed. Gone too were the three hundred crewmen and women aboard.
Counter missiles from a tripod battleship took out two of the destroyer’s last volley. Laser fire from the target ship took out two more, leaving one to slam into the bow of the battlewagon. The battleship was most heavily armored at the bow, while the destroyer’s torpedo was not nearly as powerful as the ones that had been launched by the tripod battleships. But the fury of its explosion still caused damage to the battleship’s forward missile tubes and its particle beam projectors, as well as closing off its main KE cannon tube. It also took most of the ship’s forward momentum away in an instant, which couldn’t have been healthy for the crew.
The bridge crew of the Navarin cheered as the fury of the explosion stopped the enemy ship in its tracks. While not a deathblow, or even enough damage to keep the battleship out of action, it was still a weakening of enemy power.
The cheer died to a hush as another Tripod battleship popped from the gate, followed by another. Then in single file a mass of cruisers and destroyers. Within minutes the ships had clustered into task forces and all were boosting for destinations throughout the system. Lucille only had eyes for one of the groups though. On the tactical was displayed an arrow with figures showing two battleships, a heavy cruiser and five destroyers. Their heading was toward the convoy she was tasked to protect. The convoy she was nowhere near.
“Sharks are on the way,” she muttered to herself. “Already fifteen minutes on the way toward my minnows.”
“Into the tanks, everyone,” she shouted across the bridge. “Maximum accel in one minute.”
Crew scrambled into their tanks, completing the last second safety checks that would ensure that they survived the killing acceleration that was to come. All over the ship people did the same, disciplined to think of no other task than to seek safety. Because when full boost came in an emergency situation there would be no time to make sure everyone was safe.

The Shadows of the Multiverse Promotion

Posted by dougdandridge on October 22, 2012
Posted in: Acceleration, Alien Invasion, Antimatter, eBooks, Fantasy, Far Future, Future Prediciton, Future Warfare, Interdimensional Travel, Kindle, Movies, Multiverse, Nuclear Weapons, Plotting, Quantum Physics, science Fiction, self publishing, Space Industry, Space Navy, Space Program, Titles, Tropes, Websites, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

I spent a good portion of this weekend filling out online forms to have my science fiction ebook, The Shadows of the Multiverse, promoted during its Free on Kindle days. Starting on Friday, 10/26/2012, and running through 10/30/2012, this novel will be free. Now I did really well on my promotion of The Deep Dark Well, giving away 3,800 copies and since selling over four hundred. The promotion for The Hunger, my Anti-twilight Vampire Novel, did not do nearly as well, garnering 1,100+ giveaways and selling twelve books after. I believe that Twilight is actually hurting the sales of these kind of books, either by being found wanting by those who love sparkly vampires, or thought to be the same by those trying to avoid those books. It’s still out there though, and any sale is a good sale. The Shadows of the Multiverse is a different kind of science fiction tale, incorporating quantum physics and string theory into the background. Using the Schrödinger’s Cat thought experiment, in which nothing is said to be real until a sentient mind actually observes it (and I guess the cat doesn’t count) I thought about the possibility that some minds might be better at fixing reality than others. And a really strong quantum brain might actually be able to change reality despite the influence of lesser minds. I realize this might fall into the realm of fantasy or mysticism, but still, the idea seemed very cool to one who, as a child, watched Charlie X make people disappear in the original Star Trek.
Except for this little foray into mysticism, and the invention of the gates which transported ships across the Universe, the setting of the novel is pure hard physics. Lasers, antimatter, negative matter, all proven or at least hypothesized constructs. No force fields beside electromagnetic fields that we know exist. Ships move by sending mass in the other direction, though in a manner that makes our modern rockets look downright primitive. And thrusting has an effect of piling up gee forces on the passengers. A ship can thrust at ten gees, but the crew is going to catch hell. I really wondered if this would be a book that readers would like, or if it would be too far out there, both in the use of quantum physics and string theory and in the use of real world physics for space travel and battles. But several people who have read both books and praised The Deep Dark Well have said that this book is better. That is music to a writer’s ears. Both that one of his books was very good, and that the next book he wrote was even better. I’ll leave it to my readers to decide which is the better book. It’s just important to me that they are both considered good tales by the people who read them. So grab your free copy when it becomes available on Friday 10/26/2012, and remember to write a review when you finish. And now for an excerpt from the first appearance of the creatures.

Howard walked toward the door while the large negative matter gun was moved backwards on its frictionless rollers. Sarana continued to talk behind him, wrapping up her interview segment while a trio of holovid recorders caught the scene at the door from three different angles. Turner knew that they were joined by a multitude of sensory probes held by many of those present. Looking for any anomaly, any information that might be of interest.
“Go ahead and attach the opener,” he ordered. Men moved to obey, rolling the stout looking framework toward the door. Once in place they drove the laser bolts into the hard stone-alloy, holding the framework tightly to the wall. Armatures were swung out to the door while great suction cups were attached to the super strong material. As soon as the cups were pressed tightly to the door pumps evacuated what little air remained, forming a tight seal. Nothing else would connect. Not glues. Not electromagnetic forces. Not any kind of bolt.
“Crank her,” yelled Turner over the excited speech around him. The armatures began to move back, pulling at the door through the suction cups. At first nothing happened as the armatures, made of the strongest alloys known to human science, actually began to bend slightly. Turner was afraid the suction cups would pull free and he would have to rethink the project, finding another way to get through.
A loud cheer echoed through the chamber as the door began to shift, to swing outward slowly under the pressure of the pull. A centimeter at a time, as if it had a will of its own and was resisting its opening, the door moved. Turner studied his team as much as he studied the door. Good people all, they stayed at their instruments, recording every event as the vault was opened for the first time in millions of years.
With a last groan the door swung open. Turner swore under his breath as he took in the thickness of the material. Over four meters of that marvelous substance. If they could crack its secret alone they would all be rich beyond the dreams of the wealthiest mega-businesses in the Universe. The door continued to swing open, revealing a pit of total darkness that not even his light amplification augments could penetrate.
A couple of his crew moved forward with powerful laser flashes, shining the bright beams into the darkness. They might as well have flung matches into space for all the good it did. The darkness stood, undispelled, in violation of any physical laws Turner had ever heard of.
“Is there anything blocking the way?” he asked Smothers, who was monitoring the panel showing the accumulation of all the instruments aimed at the void.
“Nothing that I can monitor,” said the technician. “Nothing at all. Nothing on radar, ladar or hyperwave. It’s like the chamber doesn’t exist.”
“We’re getting an energy spike,” said one of the other techs. “Off the scale.”
In front of them the blackness of the void began to ripple, as if something on the other side was trying to push through. Weapons appeared in the hands of several of the crew. Howard had hired them for their toughness and ability to survive as much as for their archeological skills. Most had fought their way out of other sites, through aborigines or the hostile parties of other races.
A glowing tentacle thrust through the darkness, questing around as it felt its way. The crew started inching back, out of reach of the limb. A man raised his weapon to fire, a particle beam rifle from the look of it. Turner raised his hand to stop him as he shook his head. It had not shown hostile intent and he was damned if it would be his party that started a war with a race forty million years in the supposed grave.
“What the hell is that?” yelled Sanara Nakamura. Howard turned as the shadows began to materialize in the room, bringing feelings of terror with them. Nakamura screamed as one quickly engulfed her. A scream that turned into a croak as her body began to shrivel within the grasp of the creature. A desiccated corpse fell from the shadow as it moved on to the next target.
Turner backed toward the void as more of his people became victims of the unknown manifestations. Screams rang through the chamber along with the phuts and hisses of projectile weapons and particle beams. Weapons that did nothing to the things. Didn’t even slow them an instant, before they grabbed the weapon wielders and ended their lives. The shadows were growing more substantial with each kill and soon there was only one living human in the chamber.
Turner pressed his back against the black field, his mind reeling in terror as he tried to find some way out of the room. The tentacles continued to move about, almost cartoon like in the way they ended in midair. They quested about as if they knew he was there but couldn’t locate him for some reason.
Dr. Howard Turner frantically looked for a way out, a way past the creatures. He could find none. They quivered a moment as if confused, then all turned in his direction as if they had finally located him. They had him hemmed in and were tightening the circle slowly, as if they wanted to savor this last death. Howard pushed his back against the barrier with all his strength but it wouldn’t yield. His panicked mind forced him to try and put some more space between his life force and their ravenous appetite. Even if that space was measured in centimeters. He started as his back touched something soft, something moving. And he remembered the different local tentacle that had come through the void.
Without warning the appendage grasped him in a grip that was both secure and gentle. Through some connection he realized that this creature meant him no harm, and he did not fight it as it pulled him back into the darkness. There was an instant of resistance and then he was through, into another world, another dimension of existence. His poor monkey’s mind, only a couple of million years removed from the trees of home, could not grasp the world that was before him. Unconsciousness closed the world off from him in merciful blackness.