Fish in a Barrel

I
2050 CE
By an act of the Imperial Congress and the 4th Constitutional Convention, Presidents of the United States are elected for a single 10 year term. Newly elected President, Rose Katenbach is being briefed by her Chief of Staff, General Gregory Precuneus, prior to her first meeting with Galactic Ambassador Pan.

Reflection

Gradually, she stirred from sleep, though not because of the thick fur constantly undulating like a lulling stream against her cheek. Her hands clutched those tufts, her bare feet buried deeply in their velvet warmth. They traveled this way tirelessly all day and now through half the night. Those subtle vibrations, the waves of motion rising and falling, comforted her sad but determined heart, giving it all the more drive to press onward, ultimately singing her to sleep in their silent yet rhythmic way.

Colors Of Heaven

God created Man in his image: what goes around comes around.

BC pressed a fingertip against the porthole and adjusted the sensors within the window. In his quarters, he listened while gruff voices spoke back and forth over the com system.“Pretty hydrogen,” he said, as the spectrum window shaded the element into rich yellow-gold hues.    He liked a lot of colors: gold, reds, greens and blues, rainbows of colors. It wasn’t real, especially, the rainbow part. He’d never seen rain, but Meopes had told him about rainbows.

Has Tim Burton spoiled Johnny Depp?

Death Ship

Tom Harris, Stephen White's best friend and co-worker at Animatec, a startup computer-generated graphics company, in their hometown of Nevada, Missouri, had decided to take the scenic route to the Maifest celebration clear across the state, in the little green hamlet of Hermann.

Blow Back

I
2025 CE, Reston VA
I woke to very heavy knocking on my condo door. It was more banging than knocking. What was it this time? I’ve got rugs, the XM Radio was low, and the cats were not chasing each other.

“Oh go away,” I mumbled. I’m still half asleep. “Hang on, Hang on, I’m coming.”

Silent Cage

The room hurt. Reynolds opened his eyes and the light from outside jangled, as it squeezed through the Venetian blind and fell upon a vase of daffodils, whose yellow made him wince with its trill piping. The vase rested upon some sort of trolley, and the angles of this jarred like out-of-tune violins. Where his body and limbs rested against the bed a continual low buzzing sounded. He wondered what had happened.

Dutch

The Ranger tower was there on top of the hill overlooking the wooded valley to the shoreline, 30 or so miles distant and 7 miles south of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Fire roads ran through the wooded and briared acres to the Pine Barrens. They were called highways, they were paved, but that’s what they amounted to, fire roads. This tower survived the initial influx of starter families fleeing the city. These post warriors, looking for the dream they had been promised, their liberated wives now back in the shackles of propagandized benefits of motherhood and restraint, bred like sows on a farm.

Let The Games Begin

The Opening

Comrades and enemies stood shoulder to shoulder in truce on the eve of battle, retelling their favorite skirmishes over cocktails in the New York Weston Hotel's lounge. Angelo Torres kept his distance from the pack. He had no interest in bragging. He was better than all of them, and he'd prove it at tomorrow's chess tournament. He was standing at the corner of the bar drinking a Coke hoping to catch sight of the person he did fear, the one who'd mailed him a personal challenge.

UAS: Unmanned Aerial System

Bob hemmed and hawed. He did not know what to do. He reviewed the rules of engagement (ROE) one more time, and found the situation unsatisfying. There was room for interpretation.

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