The Future Is Short (13 page)
The conflagration will consume us and protect us, and the volcanoes’ blessings will replenish our food sources from the belly of our planet. In time, my family and I will rise from beneath the ashes, and reclaim our home. When, in our eternal cycle, we arise again, and again, we will tell of this Time Before and vow that our world always will belong only to us.
Carrol Fix is a short-story writer and novelist whose science fiction work includes the novel Mishka: Book One of the Quadrate Mind. She is currently writing the second book in the Quadrate Mind series, while working on a young-adult fantasy novel, Worlds Apart. “Time of the Phoenix” appeared in the May, 2013 issue of Perihelion Science Fiction.
[email protected]
http://www.mishkabook.com
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28.
Richard Bunning
No one really knows how long Treen have lived on the Earth: literally, sub-terra, under the feet of humans. They, themselves, claim to have almost always been there, though it is hard to find many traces of them in the historical records, between the writing of the Book of Revelations and the treasured Eagle papers of the 1950s. However, Venus is so close that it is hard to believe that they didn’t at least regularly visit.
The Current Meekon of the Treen, Ampson Meek, had greatly expanded Treen bases on Earth. As humans had emigrated, they had steadily been replaced by Treen settlers, who have no trouble dealing with the oxygen-depleted atmosphere. Most humans had left for less overexploited planets centuries ago, but ties had never been completely broken. There had been a state of peaceful coexistence between all but a few renegade Meeks and humans since the death of “The Supreme Scientist, Chairman Mekong” in the 1990s.
***
We imagine ourselves looking back through history into the last human military outpost, entrenched deep in the Underground tunnels of the once City of London, the Waterloo Brigade. In these final days of mankind’s tenure of the Earth, the troops are being led by General Don Read. He has a deeply ingrained hatred of Treen and is determined to make sure the Meek never inherit the Earth.
By then, most humans have long accepted that prophesies in the old scriptures would be fulfilled. The Governors of Gliese were only too pleased at the prospect of being able to rid the exchequer of the expense of running the last Earth Unit. Read knows that departure is inevitable. However, if he can help it, this won't be before he has seen the Treens “burn in Hell”. Reed is intent on making the Earth uninhabitable, even for the hardy Versuvians, before man departs.
***
“I will turn the surface of the Earth into the fires of Hell. I’ll watch the bloody Meeks burn. How can I convince the fleet to launch a full atomic strike against the Meekon? I need to make out that we come under attack as we dismantle our defences prior to withdrawal. Those I trust least, Dare’s second division, will be my pawns. No other units ever question my orders. That bloody Meekon-loving Colonel Daniel Dare, how fitting to destroy him with his alien friends.
***
“Launch a drone strike on Bedford, wide pattern, atomic warheads. Fire on my command!”
“But sir, isn’t that where Dare’s unit are?”
“They have been overwhelmed in a Treen attack, led by the Meekon himself, who intends to keep humans to breed as slaves. We will also be overrun before the Evacuation Force arrives, unless we strike whilst we are sure to catch the Treen leadership off-guard. I have received a dispatch telling me that Dare himself is already dead. We must act now, burning them and all the Earth.”
“Sir, I refuse to carry out such an order.”
“Launch, damn it. How dare you disobey a direct command, Lieutenant Dolos.”
“I have higher orders, sir. In fact, you are under arrest. You see, the Quads never left barracks. You have been fooled into believing that your earlier orders were carried out. Colonel Dare is still right here. We all knew that your hatred runs so deeply that you would try to destroy the Treen at any cost. We are at peace with the Meekon, as you well know. They are even assisting our safe evacuation. The Governors now have reason to be done with you.”
“This is insubordination. I command you to fire. You are deceived if you think you can defy me. We will leave nothing but a burning desert for the little Meek bastards.”
“It is not we who are deceived. Chekov, show Mister Read to his quarters. As from this morning, General Dare is in command. We simply preferred you to condemn yourself before we acted. It is General Dare’s personal wish that you be slung into Mount Etna, right down into the fires of hell. A bastard that would see his own troops murdered to deceive mankind into unleashing a holocaust on other peace-loving sentient beings deserves no less a funeral pyre."
[Story inspired by the original Eagle comic, 1950–1969, UK]
Richard Bunning is an author of speculative fiction. He has also published reworked neoclassical plays, a totally daft gift book, and short stories in a mix of genres. His best-known book to date is Another Space in Time. His website, geared towards the support of independent authors across many genres, is
http://richardbunningbooksandreviews.weebly.com
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[email protected]
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29
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Tom Tinney
It was five hundred years ago, when the Horde had arrived. It was an early spring, before the crops had even sprouted. That is how the story goes.
They were here twenty seasons. That is all the time they needed to strip the Earth bare, lay waste to the great cities and scatter the survivors.
They came from the heavens.
They did not speak or announce their intent to the people, nor ask their permission; they just began mining.
They did not attack the nations or announce a conquest; instead, they took no notice of the humans, as if they did not even exist.
The Horde’s machines landed all over the Earth to begin digging and extracting every ounce of metal from the planet. Giant constructs came from the heavens and latched onto the earth like the leeches that lived in the swamps that now covered any low-lying land. They sucked up raw ore, man-made tools, power generators, wire, and vehicles. They found anything that contained metal and took it.
The shamans of the day surmised that they were waging a galactic war and needed more raw materials. The Horde did not interact with the people in any way, treating them as pests that inhabited their latest claim. They processed the metals, precious and basic, out of all previously made products in their orbital smelters and dumped the nonmetal waste materials across the sky, raining down on the Earth for the next five hundred years.
The great chiefs of the day sent messages and demands, then pleas for the Horde to stop. No answers came. Men sent their powerful armies against the Horde, but they were ignored, except when their metal weapons were taken away, with no regard for the men using them.
The cities fell, forcing the tribes to become nomads and scavengers, living on the strips of arable land during the last ten years of the mining and for the subsequent half millennia.
Gunty was riding his juka beast through the canyons. The canyons crisscrossed the entire world, formed when the Horde had stripped away the land to mine deep into the Earth. Juka beasts had been winged passengers on the Horde machines; they had leaped off to scavenge. They resembled ancient reptile-like birds and could carry a small man.
Gunty was excited. At fifteen years old, he was one of the youngest to take to the air, and he had just pulled off his first raid. While the others focused on grabbing food and medicine, he had gone to the Harlum tribal chief’s dwelling and found his prize.
The S’eak S’ell.
The S’eak S’ell was technology. It was powerful and known to help predict important events when used by a powerful shaman. The Horde had consumed most technology, but some items had survived. His own village shaman had ten artifacts from the past, and an eleventh would bring Gunty more standing in the tanasi.
Gunty had been smart during the raid; he had also found a sun-power plate with two wires. The wires themselves would bring the price of a small herd of livestock or two young juka beasts. The sun-power plate was priceless. When held toward the sky, it could bring technology to life, as long as the wires were good. Now the S’eak S’ell would work for his tribal shaman.
Gunty flew below the canyon rims so the others would not see him and try to take his prize. He returned to the cliffs; there, the flat land on top was reserved for crops and livestock, with the houses, workshops and other dwellings built into the canyon walls below. Gunty landed on a communal platform and ran to the shaman.
The shaman smiled as he took the prize, holding it aloft for all to see. He placed the panel, connected the wires, spoke an incantation. He touched the S’eak S’ell.
“Play,” said the S’eak S’ell .
The people gasped. The shaman held up his hand for silence and touched the artifact.
“Now spell Water.”
The shaman touched the S’eak S’ell numerous times and the S’eak S’ell said, “Correct; now spell blood.”
The village cheered. They would have rain this year, but it would require a sacrifice.
Tom Tinney is a biker nerd and USAF vet with experience in radar systems, aerospace, and instrumentation industries. When not at work, he spends time motorcycling and writing for biker magazines, as well as conservative blogs. He now writes science fiction novels, his favorite genre to read (and watch). Ride safe. Ride often.
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30.
Jot Russell
“The Earth is dying,” said Luke.
“What do you mean, dying?” asked the President.
“According to our best estimates, the desert’s growth is accelerating by an additional fifty thousand acres a year. At that rate, it will span the planet and overcome even our most fertile land within a hundred years.”