Sneak Peek—Stories from The Expanding Universe Anthology #4: ‘Duty’ by Bill Patterson

-

There are 20 short stories in the latest volume of Craig Martelle’s The Expanding Universe anthologies. Today, with his permission, we are taking a sneak peek at the start of Bill Patterson’s story, ‘Duty’. Here’s how it begins:
----------------------------------------------------------------

The greatest problem with doing one’s duty sometimes it deciding exactly where one’s duty lies.

Lieutenant James Benison leaned back in his command chair, surveying the crew of his small corvette.  It wasn't his first command, but a runabout just doesn't count.  Not when your corvette mounts enough weaponry to equal all the bombs released from both sides of World War II.  Sometimes, James marveled that the Grand Fleet of Earth would allow someone of his age to command a vessel capable of such destruction, but the constant war losses had the Fleet really dipping into its reserves recently.
"Lieutenant, we have a contact at three twenty-one, range ninety-two AU.  Emission lines match known Slorg engine patterns."
"Give me a plot, tactical."  The monitor screen at the front of the control room showed a glowing red dot in a moving three-dimensional space.
"Do you want it in the Tank, sir?" asked the navigator, hands poised over the controls.
"Do it."  The red spot blossomed in the holographic space occupied by various glowing dots representing known objects within one hundred astronomical units of their position in the outer Solar System.  Earth was a small, blue dot near the bottom of the tank, while Lieutenant Benison was more worried about things within ten AUs of his position.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Would you like to read more? 

TheExpanding Universe #4 is now available on Amazon. You can also find Volume 1, The Expanding Universe: An Exploration of Science Fiction Genre, Volume 2, The Expanding Universe: Exploring the Science Fiction Genre, and Volume 3, The Expanding Universe 3: Space Opera, Military SciFi, Space Adventure, & Alien Contact! on Amazon in paperback.

Location: Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Australian Insects: An Unknown Caterpillar eating Grevillea flower buds

-
Image
So, this little guy nearly bought it when I caught it eating the still-forming buds on my Robyn grevillea, but then I thought I might like to see which particular butterfly was responsible, so I took some pictures and decided to keep an eye on it, so I knew when it pupated. The first shot - caterpillar happily nibbling on flower buds:  Yup - definitely nibbling: And here's another view. Note the little yellow lumps near its back end. Same day, but it was one of those cloudy days with variegated light. And it kept nibbling for quite some time: Stretching out to get the more tasty tidbits, and using its hind feet to keep a firm grip on the branch. Eventually it looped back on itself... ...and headed into denser foliage. It didn't always move in a straight line... How come caterpillars have more feet than butterflies? Eventually, it got into some much thicker growth (well, for a young grevillea, anyway), meaning it was somewhat prot
Read more

PokemonGo Tips - Earning the Berry Master Medal

-
Image
Another relatively easy one to earn, but it takes time. Main tip? Feed Them All. Well, okay, it's a bit more like this: Only the berries you feed to a pokemon in a gym count. You can only feed berries to pokemon in a gym that belongs to your team. You can feed up to a maximum of 10 berries to each pokemon. You can feed any pokemon that belongs to a team member, as well as your own. You can feed your team's pokemon from home, as long as you have a pokemon in the same gym - as last week's post showed. It's interesting, but really annoying if you accidentally feed a golden razzberry to a pokemon in a gym... just sayin'. Sometimes, not having a berry on hand to help catch a pokemon is also annoying - especially when you've just fed all yours to your team's pokemon - so think about that before you go all out stuffing their faces; the medal is pretty, but catching stuff is cool, too. Also, pokemon are little piggies when it comes to berries. And that&
Read more

NEW RELEASE: AUTUMNAL THREAT

-
Image
An alien autumn. An unseen predator. Deadly burrowers and an oncoming winter. And bugs big enough to ride. Joaquin only wants to warn his daughter of a new danger. To keep her safe. To make her understand her mother isn’t coming back, while keeping her alive. But what if he’s wrong? What if Mariam really did survive? What if, when everything looks like it’s going wrong, it’s really going right? Autumnal Threat is Joaquin's story. It is a father's story...and the story of a husband who misses his wife, and wants to keep his daughter safe from a new threat on their frontier world. It's a story of hope, and not giving up, and of family, as well as an exploration of what an alien eco-system might look like. It was a lot of fun to write. You can find links to this newly released, stand-alone, science-fiction short story on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/mgyopK or read an earlier version in A Collection of Lost Ships and Colonies .  
Read more