Bookspot - The Lion and The Unicorn by Tom Ward

Bookspot - The Lion and The Unicorn by Tom Ward 

New sci-fi from Tom Ward, an up-and-coming young author to take note of.

London, 2054. After a devastating global pandemic and a bloody revolution, Britain’s new government imposes peace by stringently dictating the nation’s cultural intake. In the quest to create better citizens, everything from the television we watch to the clothes we wear is strictly policed. As part of the unit tasked with upholding these so-called ‘Bad Taste Laws’, H. and his partner, Bagby, have their work cut out. When former reality TV star Caleb Jennings is found murdered, some suspect it could be a simple vigilante slaying. But, as H. digs deeper into the killing, Bagby’s association with old revolutionary figureheads is called into question. With the help of Caleb’s estranged sister, the museum curator Kate Faron, H. must navigate a Britain in which paranoia and suspicion of the unknown are rife, all the while dealing with the mysterious tech behemoth Vangelis, new revolutionary murmurings, and the legacy of Kate’s biologist parents. Compelled by what he uncovers, H. begins to question his loyalty to the state at a time when national stability couldn’t be more precarious.

UFO by Steven Fritz

 

UFO 

by Steven Fritz

LT Karen "Buster" Reynolds turned her F/A-18H inbound toward the carrier and flew at low cruise airspeed into an empty sky filled with stars. The Moon was new, not even above the horizon at the moment. It was always beautiful to see so many stars in the sky this far from land. She moved her head to see whether a blur was a smudge on the canopy or a distant nebula. Not a smudge. Combat Air Patrol could be tense, but what could go wrong on a night like this?

"Alpha Romeo Four Six, this is Alpha Romeo Three Five," Dave "Reef" Black called over the CAP frequency, "I've got a bogie on my heads-up display!"

Karen glanced at her Heads-Up-Display. Reef was thirty miles away, headed outbound from the carrier.

"Three Five, Four Six, gimme a break," Karen replied. "I've been looking at that piece of sky all night. There's nothing out there."

"Alpha Romeo 35, this is Crystal Ball," Carrier Air Traffic Control radioed. "What's the classification of your bogie?"

"Crystal, Alpha Romeo Three Five, contact possible extraterrestrial."

"Roger, Three Five," CATC replied. "Take immediate action to identify the intruder."

"Shit, Hack," she muttered over the intercom to Jim McNeil, her Weapon Systems Officer. "We're gonna be out here all night,"

The intercom was suspiciously silent. Karen increased the volume. Soft snores were the only sound from the rear cockpit.

Karen slammed the stick left, then right, rocking the aircraft abruptly.

"What the..." McNeil blurted over the intercom.

"Wake up!"

"I'm awake now," he snarled. "You trying to break my neck?"

"You hear any of this?"

"Lemme see," he mumbled. "Something about a bogie?"

"Dave Asshole Black thinks he's spotted a UFO."

"Lemme guess," McNeil said. He sounded awake now. "It's right in the center of the HUD in the fifty-mile range mode."

"Don't know."

"I'll find out. Let me send 'em a text."

"Okay, let me know."

She continued her pattern inbound toward the carrier. When she got there, she'd reverse course and continue the racetrack pattern she'd been following for an hour already.

"Yup, just like I thought." McNeil chortled.

"What?"

"They say it's right in the center of the display, fifty-mile range."

"So?"

"It's a known software glitch," Hack said. "Raytheon sent out a bulletin. Didn't you guys get a briefing?"

"That's why I love flying with you," she said. "You keep track of that shit for me."

"Reef's flying with Thumbs tonight. Thumbs isn't big on technical details. That's probably why Reef doesn't know about it."

"We got two choices," Karen said. "We can bore holes in the sky 'til we're down to bingo ..."

"Or?"

"We can have some fun with Reef."

"How?"

"When he turns inbound," she said, "we'll be turning outbound. We kill the rotating beacon, fly right at him with just the low vis position lights on. He'll see our lights right where the bogie should be. He'll think we're the UFO."

"I dunno, Buster," Hack said. "Reef might run into us while he's staring at the tactical display."

"You worry too much. We'll know where he is. If we get too close, I'll break it off."

"I guess."

After their outbound turn, Karen shut down the beacon, nudged the airspeed up and wished she could see the expression on Reef's face when he thought he was being chased by a UFO.

She shifted left and right in her seat, trying to get comfortable. As if. The stiff foam pad on top of the survival kit felt like granite. The price you pay for being able to eject in an emergency.

"Hack," she said over the intercom, "have a look further out. I don't really expect the Iranians to do anything tonight but I don't want to be caught napping."

She moved her head around, looking forward, trying to see if she could pick up Reef's aircraft visually. He was on her HUD, but the range was close enough she might see him.

There! No, that one was moving right to left. The HUD showed Reef's aircraft dead ahead, still heading outbound. The errant light went behind Reef and failed to emerge. Must be her imagination.

"Buster," Hack said, "there's something weird going on here tonight. The radar seems to be picking up multiple targets dead ahead, but the range fluctuates in big jumps. It could be interference with Reef's aircraft, but the HUD's showing him rock steady."

"35, 46," Karen radioed, "it's about time for your turn inbound. Hack thinks we might get a better look at your bogie if you turn toward the ship."

"35, roger," Reef called. "Turning."

Reef's aircraft slid left on the HUD, turning back toward the ship. Reaching down, she killed all her external lights except the low visibility ones.

"The bogie's still dead center in the HUD," Reef radioed. "Nothing on Earth can move like that."

"Okay, Hack," Karen said over the intercom. "I'm going radio silence and turning five degrees left. Let's see if we can give Reef a scare."

"Okay," Hack replied. "Just don't give us a scare. You can't afford any more air discipline infractions on your record. I'm not interested in any trouble on my last week in the squadron."

"Shut it. I can take care of myself."

The intercom clicked twice, the only reply she got.

She wiggled her fingers in the Nomex flight gloves, trying to get a more sensitive feel for the stick. She and Reef were closing at a high rate of speed, she had to be ready to move on a dime.

"Crystal, 35," Reef's voice rose in panic. "I see it. It's heading right toward me. I'm taking evasive action if it gets any closer."

"Reef," Karen radioed, "try a gentle turn. Maybe that'll shake it off."

She saw Reef’s anti-collision beacon move left. She turned to follow it.

"It's after me!" Reef shouted into the radio, call sign discipline forgotten.

"Knock it off, Buster," Hack said from the back seat. "We're getting too close."

"Roj."

Karen banked hard to the right, simultaneously turning on the anti-collision beacon and external lights. After fifteen degrees of turn, she turned back left to pass alongside Reef, missing by a comfortable margin.

"What the..." Reef radioed.

"35, 46, this is Lion Tamer," said a low-pitched, gravelly voice over the radio. The Air Wing Commander. "What's going on out there?"

"Nothin’, CAG," Reef responded. "Uh, this is Alpha Romeo 36."

"You two are our combat air patrol. What's this about ET?"

"Lion Tamer, 45," Karen radioed. "Nothing, CAG."

"35, concur," Reef said.

"Get your asses back here," CAG radioed. "I'm sending the five-minute alert aircraft out to relieve you. You'll both have a week to think about how this is going to be written up."

"Hack, have you got anything on the scope?" Karen asked over the intercom

"I got a couple of blips, dead center, but they came and went."

"What was it?"

"Damfino. I'll have to check with Thumbs when we get back."

"You'll have plenty of time to check," Karen said. "I'm guessing we're all going to be shitty little jobs officers for a week."

* * *

"That was close," First Officer Ndrang said. "I told you not to get so near those Earth aircraft."

"It wasn't my fault," Third Pilot !@brrr whined. Insofar as a sneed, whose vocalizations were lower than human infrasound, could in fact whine. But some behaviors are pan-specific, even though their expressions may be unrecognizable to any but their conspecifics.

"It most certainly was your fault," Ndrang thundered. Insofar as a Krrring could thunder. Their extremely high-pitched voices, when angry, sounded much like two rocks dragging against each other. "I specifically told you not to place our vehicle in a position where it could be detected. But did you listen? Noooo."

"The Galactic Overlord will not be pleased," !@brrr rumbled. "The last time this happened, three of their conspecifics ended up being embalmed by these barbarians."

"Galactic Overlord, my middle appendage," Ndrang screeched. "What they call themselves when they communicate with the barbarians means nothing. How can something that stupid be overlord of anything? They're nothing more than a political hack who got sent here as punishment for screwing up the Spiral Arm negotiations. They've been here eight nines of this backwater planet's years and we've had one crisis after another."

"Fortunately, we can cover this one up. If not, you'd be here until the Overlord is relieved."

* * *

Hack McNeil climbed out of the back seat of his F/A-18, helmet bag in hand. He reached into the bag and pulled out a small black plastic box. He pressed a button on the box, a light blinked on and off, and the nullifier erased all evidence of their UFO encounter from his aircraft's system memory. He activated the nullifier again as he walked past Reef Black's aircraft and wiped its memory as well. He'd write up another gripe about the fifty-mile range glitch and his work would be done.

As he passed a parked helicopter and stepped over its tie-down chains to get to the island, he sighed. One more week and he'd be headed back to Area 51 where he could shuck this human disguise. The Overlord owed him big time.

<<<<>>>>

Steven Fritz has been many things: firefighter, Naval Aviator, medical school professor, university research administrator, seed stage venture fund manager, entrepreneur. Now that he's retired he calls on this background to imagine different futures for humanity. He lives in Columbia, Maryland with his wife.

This story was first published by Antipodean SF 

For more by Steven Fritz, you can check out his amazon page here

Art - May the 4th Be With You

 

Art - May the 4th Be With You

Epic Space Battle by Dylan Kowalski

Falling pt. 3 by Nikita Pilyukshin

First Order Tie Interceptor Assault by Gus Mendonca

Star Wars Alternate Designs by Ben Nicholas

Star Wars Fanart by Darius Cheong

Swamp Encounter by Albert Urmanov

Life Thrusts Forth by Dr. Barry Nadel

 

Life Thrusts Forth 

by Dr. Barry Nadel

 “Sister, I am sending you the greatest gift of joy and happiness; life.”

“Is life a good thing? From here I sense that life has many drawbacks.”

“Sister, the greatest gift of creation is life. Life is the most joyous of all things in the universe.”

“Yet what we call life is short and tumultuous. It causes so much pain and heartbreak.”

“Do you know what the humans call me?”

“The humans call you Mother Earth. Sister, what is a mother?”

“It is the single greatest gift the Creator gave me. There is no greater pleasure than to give birth to life. Fragile and easily snuffed out, life is wondrous and fills my spirit with meaning. For through life I have a meaning and a manner of how to praise our Creator for the exceptional gifts he has given me.”

My messengers are on their way to you and they will bring you this fantastic gift.

Little sister, you have been barren too long. In fact, once you sense life within you, you will do everything within your abilities to keep it.

The earth and the moon continued their spiritual intercourse while earth’s messengers prepared to deliver the gift of life.

“Mission control, lunar mission 18 here. We finished setting up the greenhouse. Everything checks out. There are no leaks anywhere. The irrigation and air systems are working well.”

The astronaut/biologist looked at his little tent greenhouse. The amount of money it cost he could build tens of acres of greenhouses on earth. However, here on the moon, the amount of air needed limited the size. Even compressed, the amount of air they needed took up a disproportional amount of their cargo hold.

“Lunar mission, mission control here. You have the green light to plant the first seeds on the moon.”

The botanist/astronaut turned on the irrigation system and water, nitrogen, potassium, phosphate, and micro-elements dripped onto the parched lunar soil.

Water was not foreign to the moon, but it was rare and she had never sensed it before in that place. It felt so good.

At once, she sensed something else. Why did her experience cause such anticipation? She realized the earthling scratched her surface. He implanted something foreign into her. Then, to her surprise, the tiny speck from earth absorbed the water. The moon cut off her spiritual connection with earth and concentrated every one of her abilities to understand what had happened to her.

Amazed by how rapidly things changed, the moon was in awe of her Creator. Transformation had always been something slow with her. Now this experience brought something new and different. For the first time she sensed organic compounds. They were so different. The excitement that grew within her must have been what her Sister had talked about: This wonder of life.

It took her by surprise: the synthesis of messenger RNA. Now she understood the hand of the Creator laid upon her. It was as if He created everything from scratch just for her. The moon saw the great intelligence in nucleic acids and marveled at its ability to store so much knowledge.

Now the tiny speck changed again, its starches degraded, providing the building blocks for coming changes.

The moon was in awe of its Creator. As the seed’s metabolism worked, the changes came fast. Glycolysis, fermentation and starch hydrolysis began. Biochemical pathways became active, and the moon a humbling experience of what occurred within her.

“Sister, I am overwhelmed. What am I to do?”

Mother Earth smiled at her little sister. Now you will learn not only of the gift of life, but the other gifts the Creator gave us.

The moon asked, “Are there other gifts?”

Mother Earth responded, “Yes, little one, we call one of them holiness.”

“Sister, what is this holiness?”

“It is to give with no thought of reward.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Gather the strength of your being and concentrate on helping my seeds grow within you. These are your children now and you will learn quickly the next gift of the Creator and that is love.”

The moon gave of herself and the seeds imbibed of her strength. The seeds synthesized cell walls at an amazing speed. While the endosperm donated the rare materials to create amino acids, the blueprint of life unfolded within her.

It amazed the moon how every component of a tiny seed worked together, not only each section developing on its own, but in harmony with the rest of the biological systems.

She realized she would never be the same ever again. For the Creator let her see one of his greatest creations, nucleic acids. These are the blueprints of life. The moon now threw her weight behind the little seeds, and they expanded and grew. Life developed before her, cells proliferated, DNA multiplied, and two cells led to four and four to eight and growth took off logarithmically. The more cells being created, the more the moon wanted to give.

“Little Sister, are you experiencing life stirring within your womb?”

The moon smiled, satisfied. She sensed something she had never felt in its millions of years of existence. Now the moon knew she would do anything to help this insignificant speck of life continue.

One more time the moon stood there astounded. Something organic moved within her. Life was moving her physically. As the seed imbibed more and more water and nutrients, the seed coat expanded and split open. Inside the seed, hormonal changes cause the endosperm to break down and let the cotyledons absorb nutrients. The first thing to emerge from the seed was the embryonic root. At its tip was a wondrous thing, a meristem. Cells grew, divided and differentiated. The moon observed as genes turned on and off at such a rapid rate, yet in total harmony with the whole. A tiny rootlet came out next to the main root.

The moon watched, fascinated by how every part of the symphony of life was in sequence with the whole.

“Mission control, lunar mission 18 here.”

“Yes Lunar mission 18, we hear you.”

“There is something abnormal going on here.”

“Lunar mission 18, please be more specific.”

“Mission control, we just planted the seed only an hour ago and we can see the soil moving. What should have taken hours or days, is taking only minutes.”

“Sister, you seem confused.”

It astounded the moon how every one of the different biological pathways work in perfect sequence with one another. The overriding system of control allowed this miracle of life to exist and not deviate from its course. The emergence force of the tiny developing root was hard to believe. As the seed absorbed water by osmotic pressure, the once few cells rapidly become an appendage. More amazing, this emerging root had the physical ability to move her particles physically. The moon could sense the root stirring inside her. The roots moved tiny particles of soil as they sought water and nutrients.

“Sister, I experience stirring within me the entire time. This is what I wanted to share with you for eons. Now you to know what the miracle of life is like to develop within your womb.”

“It is a wondrous thing you have given me, and I don’t think I can repay you.”

“Little sister, you have always given me with no thought of compensation. You influence the tides of my seas, you illuminate me by night, and man has made you into a romantic figure.”

At an astounding rate, new root hairs emerged as the roots successfully integrated water and nutrients within its tissues. The more root hairs that grew, the more water and nutrients the germinating seed imbibed. Then the moon observed a fascinating change as the root expanded. Since it could now absorb more water and nutrients than it needed for its own development. Its cotyledons began their expansion and development. Water flowed through the plant’s rudimentary phloem cells to the cotyledons. They expanded at the same time the biochemical changes took place, changing the cotyledons from energy storage units to energy producing units. The miracle of chlorophyll mesmerized the moon, changing light into usable energy. Its enzymes converted precursors into the biochemicals that converted sunlight into energy and something new, oxygen.

The moon called out to her big brother, “Brother, these years you gave life its energy to continue. Why can’t you have a life like our sister?”

“Little one, just as each human has its goal in life; each of us has its task. I am too hot to sustain life on my surface, but our sister is the right distance away from me to allow life to exist. Life is fragile and needs specific conditions to survive. The rest of our brothers and sisters are too far away from me to allow life. Look at you, little one. Even though you are the right distance, life cannot be naturally on your surface, because you are too small to hold an atmosphere.”

“Little one, every one of us has a role to play, so Mother Earth can give life a chance to exist. It is through life we truly praise our Creator. Even with its limitations, life is so wondrous that even if there was only one place in the universe to have life, then it would be worthwhile. Your sister has given you the greatest gift possible. Give all you can to make life viable for as long as possible within your womb. Through our joint effort we all can share in the joy of life.”

The moon bowed to her elder brother’s words of wisdom and threw her entire being into the growth of life within her.

Next the moon experienced the emergence of the cotyledons, which force the soil to the side and strove to reach the life-giving rays of sun. The moon gave and then gave more and at last life thrust forth from her womb to absorb the light from her big brother. For the first time in the history of her existence, a leaf converted sunlight into ATP and eventually ATP to sugars and CO2. Since the greenhouse trapped the CO2, the moon experienced the first molecules of her atmosphere.

“Mission Control, Mission Control, come in!” the botanist called excitedly on his radio.

“This is mission control, what is wrong?”

The seeds are germinating at an insane rate, and in a mere few hours we have seen the cotyledons emerge from the lunar soil. The video I am streaming to you is not time-lapse photography, but the actual rate of growth. We can watch the plants grow!

“Lunar mission 18, we are all seeing what is happening. It is a miracle. We are contacting the biggest professors to come up with a reason for what is happening.”

While Mother Earth observed her humans try to figure out what had happened, she smiled at her little sister.

“Little one, you did well with the gift I gave you. The entire family are proud of you, for not only have you protected the fragile thing we called life; but aided its continued growth.”

Humbled by her family’s praise, the moon reveled in the feeling of life growing within her.

“Thank you, sister, for teaching me the value of life. For without life I would have never had understood what love is. Love is the greatest gift the Creator has given us together with life.”

Quote from King Solomon’s deeply spiritual Song of Songs.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth — for your love is better than wine.”

Dr. Barry Nadel is the author of The Hoshiyan Chronicles.

For more information, check out his website here.