Short Story Excerpt: FOR THE BIRDS

 Culver took position behind M'kar, one hand gripping her shoulder, ready to offer psi energy to brace her if necessary. The fact that she didn’t feel that humming sense of his presence and psionic strength encouraged her. It meant he trusted her to handle this without his help.

Greetings in Enlo’s peace, she called, making it a prayer as well as a gesture of friendship, and slowly lowered her outer mental shield.

Her first impression was of rising fury and terror in the birds, conflicting waves of icy, jagged teeth and scorching thorns. All that jangled and twisted sideways when the subliminal clang of the airlock opening vibrated through the ship. Taking a deep breath, she reached for memories of the floating sensation that came from entering the mind-circle with her Infrenx classmates, to spread through the mental contact and calm and sooth the birds. She needed them to accept her alien touch as friendly before she could penetrate their panic and jealousy and convince them it was good for Shay and his people to return to their own nests.

Her mental barrier sifting out the negative "blips" from the birds shuddered when it slipped, just for a moment, allowing more than their emotions through. The stench that reached her through the birds' noses was thick and gritty and pungent. The birds considered it normal, and even liked it. She fought not to let her initial nauseated reaction slip and undo all the good she was somehow managing. A friend who was sickened by their ordinary, comfortable world wasn’t a friend. Birds were especially sensitive to those who camouflaged themselves; bodies, scents, sounds, and minds.

Liars.

M’kar knew right then the ambassador hadn’t revealed even a fraction of a percent of the situation. These birds were too highly aware and intelligent, if they could grasp the concept of lies and liars and betrayal.

And still that stench thickened and coated her throat and reached down to her stomach. She tasted the fetid thickness and grit in the air.

Her throat ached with the effort not to gag and heave.

A single sharp thread wove through her brain, threatening a strain headache. M’kar reached into the center of calm she had learned in Infrenx class and pushed it out to share with the minds swirling all around her.

The churning of the bird minds smoothed out and calmed in spreading ripples. 

They were listening to her. They were aware she was something new.

This story is available as an ebook download from Ye Olde Dragon Books.

Short Story Excerpt: FOR THE BIRDS

 

M’kar was stunned when Captain Hollis revealed she was part of the reason the Defender had been assigned to assist the ambassador’s party. Shay had sent to the Academy, requesting the immediate assistance of a strong animal-focused Talent, able to endure difficult and uncomfortable environments, handle large numbers of strong-willed animal minds simultaneously, and impress a culture that admired agility, strength, and skill with knives. He didn’t ask for a recommendation, however. He wanted verification that the Talent he was requesting could handle the task.

“I don’t understand, sir,” she said, when Captain Hollis revealed that information in the privacy of his ready room. “It’s a migrant fleet, with people living on ships for decades, generations. I’ve seen some of the stats and specs for the fleet and –”

“How?” Her captain closed his eyes and shook his head. “Dumb question. Forget I said that. Of course, Lore is going to have his connections and get data that isn’t supposed to be released for general knowledge yet.” He sighed and opened his eyes. “I imagine he was babbling when he got hold of the report, and you were there with Treinna and overheard more than you wanted to.” 

“Pretty much.” M’kar decided her captain didn’t need to know that Lt. Genys Arroyan and Medic Tahl were present as well. They were visiting Treinna when Jasper returned to their quarters after duty shift, babbling pure exasperation and disbelief at the engineering impossibilities present in the Banscraqi fleet. 

Short Story Excerpt: FOR THE BIRDS

 Usually, the details of why exactly the Defender had to get involved, and the expertise of a specific member of the crew was needed, came while the ship was still gaining speed on its new heading. This time, however, the details didn’t arrive after two hours. Then a full day on the new heading. Then two days. Once the ship crossed over into unfamiliar territory, the missing details made Captain Hollis’s personal alarms ring louder than ever before.

When the delayed details finally came, he was dangerously close to being numb from the tension. According to his personal log:

 

Three lines into this assignment briefing, I started thinking I was the reason for the change of course. As soon as I saw my old friend Declan’s name as leader of the team, I got that sick certainty. Friendship debts make it impossible for me to cash in any of the favors my crew and I earned from the last few skin-of-our-teeth missions to get another ship and captain to switch places with us.

Then a paragraph later, my feelings of guilt toward my crew, who certainly deserve a longer break between crises and puzzles, turned to absolute head-twisting confusion, and then the awful suspicion that someone, somewhere, is laughing at me. And still hiding details.

Don’t any of those arrogant, know-it-all paper-pushers at HQ know how to read? Can’t they remember from one dec to the next that I and my ship don’t do diplomacy? No, correct that – we shouldn’t do diplomacy. How many brain-twisted, delusional diplomats do we have to rescue from their own arrogance and stupidity? And then instead of a little well-deserved appreciation they try to foist all their stupidity and bad choices on us instead of acting like the adults they pretend to be. Can’t they keep it straight in their bureaucratic heads that the farther my crew stays away from diplomats and ambassadors and negotiators and bureaucrats, the better for the entire Alliance? Because I’ve warned them nobody threatens my crew when they’ve risked their lives for arrogant buffoons who won’t admit they don’t know down from up. Forget the Alliance – for the universe in general.

Yet here we are, being assigned to assist a diplomatic mission.

Because despite my documented allergy to diplomats and ambassadors and people who insisted on using thirty fancy words where four simple, clear words – and too often, preferably a good right hook – will do, old friends and their requests for my help always overrule common sense and the rules of survival. My oldest friend since my first term in Basic needs me. Ambassador Declan Shay. Well, not just me. My ship. Specifically two junior members of my crew. I have to wonder, reading the specifics, if it’s just more of the Defender’s misfit luck at work here, and if they were on another ship if I wouldn’t be involved at all.

Somehow, that suspicion doesn’t give me any relief.

Because here’s the crux of the ugly knot sucking us in to tangle the Defender in another flustergating situation: I’m afraid my old school friend has finally met a culture and a negotiation he can’t unravel and untangle and find some sense in it, somewhere, somehow.

This short story is available for sale at Ye Olde Dragon Books.

Short Story Excerpt: FOR THE BIRDS

 

The Early Years in the adventures of the AFV Defender, before Genys was captain and M'kar was Chief of Talents, and Treinna was head of Linguistics/Communications.

M'kar's royal status on Nisandros, her psionic training with Master Reydon and Infrenx class, and teaching self-defense and Nisandrian culture classes at the Academy resulted in her leaping ranks when she graduated from Basic and went to her first ship in the Fleet. Instead of ensign, she was a lieutenant junior grade. Her Talent, a strong animal-focused psi rating along with the ability to sense emerging psionic Talents in others, was rare enough that the top-line E&D ships had first priority in requesting her. This high ranking also gave her some freedom in requesting her first posting. She knew exactly where she wanted to go.

Genys Arroyan and Treinna and Jasper Lore were all serving on the Defender by this time. They petitioned Captain Rob Hollis to request M'kar. Fleet had learned decades ago that the most efficient crews had strong personal relationships, preferably with some history between them before being assigned to the ship. Having friends already on board went a long way toward granting M'kar's request to be assigned to the Defender, with direct report to Chief of Talents Lt. Cmdr. Culver.

Fleet was coming to depend on the ship and crew's misfit luck to pull off miracles and find answers that everyone else felt sure had been blown to stellar dust. So when the Defender got orders taking them far from their assigned exploration-and-patrol route to assist a diplomatic team, no one immediately questioned the change in orders. It was becoming standard practice. 

This story is available for sale as a short story ebook at Ye Olde Dragon Books, and on Nook, Kindle, iTunes, and most other ebook sites.