The Expanding Universe Read online

  These eighteen authors have focused their talents to providing the drug of wonder followed by the chaser called curiosity as you read each one, enjoying the stories for both the value of entertainment and that little bit extra.

  That spark…

  That ingredient in the story we loosely brand ‘Science Fiction.' Why? Because the Science Fiction of the 1920’s and 1930’s is called Science Fact today and that is Science NON-Fiction. No, these eighteen authors are helping our readers dream up new stuff…So in another hundred years, we can call their stories…

  Science NON-Fiction.

  These eighteen artists all are part of the 20BooksTo50k group. A co-operative authoring group created in February of 2016 with just four people…that grew to a 100 in March and now numbers 1,500 Authors.

  Now, a HUGE amount of genre’s is represented in that 1,500 people. Romance, Paranormal, Horror, Thriller, Mystery, Erotica, Science Fiction, Literary, Fantasy and many others. However, Craig decided to put out the call…

  Who wanted to write a Science Fiction anthology together?

  In 20Books, our effort is very much a cooperative group. We support, help and enjoy each other. We have found friends and people who reach out and help us all. Those of us who are down, we get lifted up. Those who are up, lend a hand down and pull those who need a lift a little higher.

  I feel personally blessed to know the authors in the group, in this book and specifically Craig Martelle who herded (if you have ever done something like an Anthology, that is a very apt description) all of these authors across the finish line.

  So now, we read the fantastic Science Fiction of today, planting seeds in the subconscious, so that these stories can become the Science Fact of our future.

  I hope you enjoy.

  Many blessings and I wish amazing dreams to all of you,

  Michael Anderle

  12/1/2016

  Genre: Military Science Fiction

  Fear Peace by Craig Martelle

  Craig is retired from the United States Marine Corps and brings that military edge to this story, one of many in his wide range of science fiction novels. His reviewers have described him as “Craig Martelle has a great imagination and can put it down on paper for you to enjoy also, just like the great writers of the golden age. His writing is very reminiscent of their work.” More reviewers said this, “reminds me of Andre Norton.” Enjoy Fear Peace as it takes you on a journey through a warrior’s mind.

  Chapter 1 - The Peace of Battle

  “FIRE!” The order crackled through their earpieces. Instantly, three Mod-53s opened up, tearing into the enemy patrol. The soldiers from Globulus Major splattered. The shapeless aliens had landed on Jupiter’s moon of Io, and despite a peace treaty with Earth, combat continued.

  Nicknamed the Globs, they never died with one shot, despite the explosive projectiles tossed by a 53.

  With a battle cry muffled by their helmets, three soldiers charged into the mass of aliens and using hand flamers, little more than a boosted lighter, burned sufficient mass to keep the creatures from reforming. If given the opportunity, the globs hurled pieces of themselves, destroying whatever the projectiles touched through a mix of chemical and kinetic energies.

  The three didn’t give the enemy patrol a chance. The men moved fast, efficiently as they continued down the line of seven. Burning, blasting, and moving on, taking care not to let the alien bodies splatter them. They didn’t bother keeping any alive to interrogate, because they didn’t care to. The three men had a different reason for doing what they did.

  The three soldiers flowed past the seventh dismembered Glob and off the path into a stony ravine. With a well-practiced bounding overwatch, they quickly traveled to their small spaceship. Once inside, they removed their suits. Underneath, they wore military uniforms without rank, but with nametapes: Jones, Goldman, and Pinksley. Jaws set, faces grim, no one needed to talk. They took their seats and headed back to Cassiopeia, the massive space station orbiting Earth.

  Chapter 2 - Therapy

  Doctor Shlieffer projected calm as she always did. The veterans of the war with the Globs carried burdens the average person couldn’t understand. The screams of fellow soldiers, the impact tremors of incoming munitions, their own cries of pain and anguish. One of the newcomers to the group wasn’t cooperating. The man’s beady eyes shifted left and right erratically, almost frantically.

  She sighed, but the doctor considered this group easier than those who’d been physically injured in addition to the mental trauma suffered by most soldiers in the war. These five had served one tour, were furloughed after the treaty, and still young and healthy in the overall scheme of life.

  “Everyone close your eyes,” the doctor started, trying to get the other four men in the room from looking at the fifth. “Imagine yourself sitting on the edge of the pool, your feet are dangling in the water. Kick your feet. Feel the water splash,” she intoned flatly. The wild man jumped up and before she could stop him…

  BANG! And a throat ripping scream. Four bodies flew from their chairs as they sought shelter. There was none. They scrambled to get behind overturned chairs or each other. The wild man laughed maniacally, his chair broken from slamming it on the floor.

  “You, Fuck!” Goldy bellowed, lying on the floor, unable to stand as his heart pounded. His arms and legs felt like tree trunks, as thick and immobile.

  Jonesy struggled to his feet and yelled, fury and fear fought a battle to dominate his features, the veins standing out on his neck and forehead, face purple.

  The last two men lay on the floor in the fetal position. Pinks and Smith had their hands pressed tightly over their ears as they rocked. Pinks sobbed, while Smith cried silently.

  Jonesy fell back to the floor, eyes wide. “It’s supposed to be safe here. It’s supposed to be…”

  “Get out!” the doctor growled at the newcomer.

  “I was just funnin’,” the wild man quipped as she pointed toward the door. He remained where he was.

  She keyed the communicator on her wrist. “Security to Ward 4, Room 127 Beta.” Doctor Shlieffer held the man with her glare until he looked down, shuffling his feet.

  No more than a minute passed before two blue-clad peacekeepers appeared. They scanned her credentials and after she whispered a word to them, they cuffed the newcomer and dragged him away. His howls were cut off when the door closed behind them.

  The doctor had a good record of success in treating traumatic stress and understood that sometimes, people were beyond salvation. She walked slowly among the men, helped them back to their chairs. They sat hunched, withdrawn. Shlieffer was angry and sad at the same time. Another setback. There were always setbacks.

  Chapter 3 – A Conversation

  “What a fucking asshole.” Goldy spit on the ground before taking another long drag off his vape stick. He was still shaking. Usually it stopped by then, but this episode continued. The muscles in his jaw tensed as he vaped breath after breath.

  “Shake it, Goldy. It was just some guy being a dick. I don’t think we’ll see him again.” Jonesy attempted to placate his friend.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here!” Pinks stood there, staring at the ground, rocking.

  “Me, too. With Smitty?” Jonesy ventured. Pinks was out of it and Goldy just shook his head while sucking rhythmically on the vape stick. Jonesy pulled out his own and fired it up, enjoying the feel of chemicals hitting his lungs.

  They stood there, unspeaking for another hour as they huddled within themselves, afraid of the peace, unable to feel safe.

  “Fuck this. Meet you assholes at the ship in an hour. I’m getting a burger,” Jonesy told them as he stormed off.

  The others showed up at two and three hours after Jonesy declared a one-hour show time. He was prepared to wait days if he had to, and sometimes he did. The good doctor liked to refer to Cassiopeia as the real world. The veterans couldn’t. They lived in multiple realities, most of which occurred at the spur of the mom
ent. Differentiating between war and peace wasn’t as easy as looking at the shopping district and seeing stores with goods for purchase. Sitting in therapy wasn’t as easy as talking about their feelings.

  Goldy arrived not long after Jonesy. Without making eye contact, he stripped out of his street clothes and put on his uniform. He caressed it, smelled the musk of his own stench. It had been a while since it was last washed. Jonesy wrote a note on the pad he kept with him. After the op, he was always too hyped and forgot any mental notes.

  Pinks arrived looking gaunt. It had only been a few hours. Had he lost more weight in that short time? He stripped and started putting on his uniform. Jonesy saw the black and blue bruising on the man’s ribs.

  “What the hell, Pinks?” Jonesy asked, trying to keep his voice even, concerned about his friend. The other man mumbled it away, got dressed, and took his seat.

  Jonesy rotated his seat forward, closed his eyes, then requested an immediate departure. Dock control didn’t care where they went as long as they didn’t hit anyone on the way out. Jonesy let the computer accelerate them into space on a trajectory to intercept Ceres. He’d heard that the Globs had established a base within the dwarf planet’s ice caves.

  “I hope you gentlemen don’t mind the cold,” he told his friends. “Let’s smear the caves with their ichor. Maybe their blasted bodies will carve out more space and create a right friendly place to build a colony,” Jones joked.

  “Kill us some fucking Globs,” Pinks said, rocking as he cradled his Mod-53.

  “Put that thing away. If you kill us out here, I’ll be pissed!” Jones said, smiling as he gave Pinks the finger.

  “What do you think the hot doctor would have to say about our extracurricular activities?” Goldy wondered, speaking slowly as if trying to talk himself into something. “She seemed to have skipped the part where the only place we feel at home is in combat, so maybe we should just stay there. Heaven knows combat stays with me.”

  “She’d shit a brick!” Pinks exclaimed with a smile as he put his weapon back in the rack.

  “Maybe we won’t come back from this one and you know what? I’m good with that,” Goldy said, his face neutral, no fear, no excitement, nothing.

  “Let’s do it. Let’s clear them all out. No hit and run this time. We press forward. Them or us. The only way we walk is when none of those slimy bastards remain alive. Them or us,” Jonesy declared, getting nods from the other two men. Calm returned and a change came over them as the thought of being home caressed their tortured minds, the thought of ending the battle brought them peace.

  “What is there to eat in here?” Pinks asked while yawning.

  Jonesy smiled, seeing his friends return to being themselves. He felt better, too. Them or us, fuckers, he thought.

  Chapter 4 – Prepping for War

  The computer landed the small spaceship in one of the many craters pocking Ceres’ surface. This one also contained a fissure that the maps showed led past the crust to the frozen interior of the dwarf planet. At least there was gravity.

  They relieved themselves, drank plenty of fresh water, refilled their packs, and put on their suits. These were the long-term combat spacesuits, uncomfortable and bulky, only usable in low gravity environments because they were so heavy, containing a self-charging power pack and a full waste processing system. They could eat small amounts to sustain them for a week and with recycled water added to the fresh stuff they carried, they were good for two weeks, before the filters were no longer able to process the waste.

  “We have two weeks and a day gentlemen to clean out this rat’s nest. Radio silence until contact,” Jonesy ordered. The others nodded as they grunted understanding. Although they were civilians, Jonesy had been the highest ranking when they served, and on ops, they deferred to him. In the military, someone had to be in charge and others had to follow orders. They sealed themselves into their suits, locking the helmets in place. With their Mod 53s and hand torches, they headed out. They carried nothing else besides weapons.

  Anything else would have been superfluous. The helmets provided a rudimentary heads-up display and low-light capability. They needed neither flashlight nor instruments. They weren’t looking to map or record the engagement, only to make the engagements happen so they could punish the Globs for coming into the human solar system. The aliens’ crime was that they existed.

  Pinks took the lead as they forced their way into the fissure. Footprints from long ago remained in the dust, footprints from well before the Globs infested the outer planets.

  Corporal Pinksley, former of the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion had been left behind during a tactical retrograde that turned into a full-on rout. He’d had to find his own way off planet, which meant he had to fight through a confab of Globs all by himself. It took him to the end of his suit’s capabilities, but when he came out of the rocks, his sweat soaked face told the ship’s crew not to ask any questions. He never shared the story of his survival. He never would.

  His mantra was that the Globs needed to die, not just the ones within the sun’s heliosphere, but anywhere they were found, they needed to die.

  Jonesy was a front-line soldier, rising quickly to the rank of sergeant, where he led squads on search and destroy missions all over the moon of Europa. When his squad was completely wiped out, he hid until the Globs moved on. Then he walked back to the headquarters, dutifully reporting. No one seemed to care as they sent out patrol after patrol, to find and destroy the Glob squad that was on its own search and destroy mission. They gave him more men. He lost most of those on the final day of the war. They were still fighting from an entrenched position when the call came through to cease fire.

  They didn’t, of course, not until they saw the other side comply first. Jonesy had no idea how they communicated, but as one, they stood tall, solidified, and slimed their way back the direction they’d come. Jonesy and Goldy fired until they expended the last of their exploding projectiles. Smitty was curled up in a ball, having thrown his weapon away after auto-firing himself empty early in the engagement.

  They found themselves ingloriously discharged, sent to Cassiopeia, and released to undergo one year of therapy before being able to return to Earth. The three men met Pinks at group therapy. After one session, they decided that they weren’t getting anywhere, so they took Jonesy’s old ride, he’d been wealthy before getting drafted, and they went back to war. Smitty couldn’t take it. He was on the edge, finding no peace in war, while still finding war in his peace. He slept poorly at all times.

  The others looked forward to sleeping after the op. It was the only time they slept well, the only time they felt safe enough to rest.

  Chapter 5 – The Ice Caves of Ceres

  From narrow tunnel to amphitheater, the ice caves presented all varieties to the three men. They flexed their formation as they entered the different terrains, all of it spectacular.

  None of that mattered. The beauty of the ice caves was lost on the soldiers. It was a tactical exercise, combat in its pre-violence stage. The narrow tunnels meant one man up front, hyperaware, looking everywhere down the sights of his Mod-53. The man in the middle watched the flanks, swinging his barrel from the left, to the ceiling, to the right, and back. The men took great care never to point their weapons at a friendly. That had been beaten into them from day one of boot camp. Don’t point your weapon at something you don’t intend to kill.

  The man filling the role of tail-end Charlie watched their six, the six o’clock position. He was the most active, but the least attentive. The three professional soldiers rotated positions every fifteen minutes, to remain at the highest state of alert. When the point man’s turn ended, he stopped, dropped to a knee and covered the front while the other two tactically maneuvered past. He’d stand, face the rear, and then watch the backs of his teammates.

  Four hours later, they stopped as a group to rest. One on watch, two napping. Switch after an hour. Only Jonesy could operate on two one hour naps,
so he took the middle watch.

  They made no noise, used no light. They became nothing more than rocks blended with the ice walls.

  Pinks took first watch, and when it came time for him to sleep, he was out in an instant. He was home. No nightmares could touch him here as he cradled his weapon and felt his fellow soldiers nearby. Ninety minutes in, he was awoken by a gentle push. He came awake in a flash, his body understanding that it was early which meant that danger was near. He rolled to his knees and worked his way into a standing position. His IR mode showed Goldy making hand signals that a squad of Globs approached from the direction they had been heading.

  About fucking time, Pinks thought. He was ready. No mercy. No quarter given, none asked.

  Each of the three men evaluated their position, realizing that it wasn’t optimal for an ambush. Best would have been to catch the Globs in a crossfire, confuse them as to where the fire was coming from. Goldy took the initiative. He signaled that he was going to bolt across the opening, show the Globs a target as he assumed a firing position on the opposite side of the tunnel. He’d start firing after Pinks and Jonesy opened up.

  Create a dilemma for the enemy. Give them two choices for action, both bad, three if you considered a tactical retrograde. An exposed flank would allow the three man to mass fire without being exposed to a return attack.

  Jonesy counted down on his fingers. Three, two, one. He dashed across the opening, firing sideways at the enemy, only twice. He didn’t want to waste ammunition. The Globs attacked almost immediately, throwing, spitting, expelling, whatever the right term was for how they launched the nasty bits of themselves. Goldy dove for cover, crawling rapidly into a crevasse. Pinks low and Jonesy high, they opened up on auto fire, then switched to single shot.