Stellar Cloud: A short story collection

by Charity Bradford

  What would I miss the most?

  Who knew?

  I guess I would know soon enough.

  The plexitube connecting my apartment to the government compound ended before I had the chance to locate all four moons in the sky. It hit me that I’d never see the fifth moon arrive from Beh’klan. I willed my feet to obey me and not the puppet masters, to no avail, and my world disappeared as we entered the council chambers.

  The Three sat on their dais staring straight ahead while the guards positioned me in the middle of the room. Another slap to the head and the bars retracted into the ring.

  The Maguinoo, the Ginoo, and the Poon sat by order of seniority, with the newest Poon in the highest chair. Their clothing consisted of the traditional bindings wrapped along arms and legs and up the neck. The flowing robes of power covered their bindings in progressive shades of green. The Poon wore the darkest shade and his sleeves trailed along the ground. All three looked too young to hold such powerful positions.

  I guess that’s my fault, but they had the money to pay for the right contracts. Did they think that by removing me from Urovius they would retain their seats longer than their predecessors had? The laugh that rose up my throat erupted as an ugly and grating rattle. There were other assassins waiting for the call. Audra top of the pack.

  A woman bound entirely in white approached me cautiously and wrapped a leather belt and pouch around my waist.

  There’s enough money in here for a week’s worth of food and lodging. Use it wisely and you may yet have a long life.” She backed away carefully keeping eye contact until she was safely out the door. It hissed shut.

  My mouth tingled and I was able to lick my lips. I closed my eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths, each one purging more of the neurolizer out of my system.

  Rortha ben Yundenzel,” the pale green-clad Maguinoo spoke from his seat, “for our safety you must be removed from Urovius. An assassin of your caliber cannot be trusted.”

  He turned to the woman beside him. As Ginoo, she had her hair buzzed and the black stubble had been shaped into a skull cap with tiny baltrac wings shaped over her ears. The baltrac emblem was to remind her of extinction if she tried to fly higher than the Poon gave permission. Her cutting eyes were proof enough she needed the reminder. It was only a matter of time before she made a move for more power.

  She inclined her head in my direction. “In thanks for your service to this council, we have chosen to end your career with us in this way. You will be exiled out of time and place. No doubt you considered this a mercy, but we shall see.”

  All three laughed and then the Ginoo finished her part, “Too bad we’ll never know if you think so after you’ve experienced it for yourself.”

  The Poon finished the sentencing, “The quantum clamp has embedded the language translator deep into your cerebral cortex. The ring and vest will dissolve after you arrive at your location. We chose somewhere special for you. There is no hope of you returning, or tainting our lines of history, so don’t bother. However, you could fare well in such a forsaken pit filled with those like you. Good luck and thank you for your service.”

  Lies. The quantum clamp sent people to random places. They could not be programmed.

  The Poon waved his hand and a soldier approached from the side. I took another deep breath and concentrated all of my energy into my right hand and arm. The guard reached toward my head to flip on the quantum displacer that would send me through a rip in space and time to the realm of my punishment. I breathed out and grabbed the dagger from his belt as my world faded away.

  The pounding in my head intensified with each heartbeat. With my eyes closed, I breathed deep. Mud, grass, manure and an occasional whiff of flowers. I could hear horses and carts trundling nearby. It smelled like G’dan but sounded like T’asth. Where had they sent me?

  My chest no longer constricted from the heavy weight of the vest. A light breeze ruffled my hair and I tasted something briny on the air. All of it together formed a combination of smell and taste that I had never experienced before. Not on any of my off-world journeys.

  It was time to try and move regardless of the detached feeling clouding my head. I opened my eyes first and almost hyperventilated. A vast expanse of blue stretched above me. No protective barrier separated me from the planet’s atmosphere.

  What diseases now festered in my lungs?

  I lay there until my body became my own again. Other than the rash around my head from the ring pins, I felt normal. Maybe the air was fine.

  Trees and bushes surrounded me, all dripping with the remnants of a downpour in spite of the clear skies. My rough clothing hung heavy with moisture as I sat up. Two beady eyes stared at me from the dirtiest face I had ever seen.

  The man crouched a few feet in front of me, ragged and strangely familiar. A thick brown beard covered his face, and his hair hung in shaggy clumps over his forehead. It was the eyes I recognized. Crystal blue. I remember the tears that fell from them when I fastened the clamp on his head.

  He had been Poon once. His contract had been the one that made my career. Thinking back I remember that he had deserved death, but I used him as a test for a black market quantum clamp.

  His eyes were not pleading now. In fact, the hard bite to his gaze put me on my guard. I tensed my hand around the dagger I’d swiped on my way out of reality. It wasn’t there. The man in front of me smiled to reveal his once perfect white teeth, marred now by a few gaps and one broken front tooth.

  “I thought it was you.” The man held up the dagger and my money pouch. “Thank you for sending the others.”

  “What are you talking about?” My head pounded as if my eyes wanted out of my head. The last of the neurolizer worked its way out of my system.

  “The other contracts. They always had something I could use.”

  “Other contracts came to this same place?” That couldn’t be true. The quantum clamp was supposed to open a path to many worlds. Scientists had been unable to program locations and speculated an infinite number of possibilities. All these years I had worked under the assumption that each mark had been sent to a different world. How many had come to this place? “How many?”

  “I lost count after twenty.”

  “Is it possible? Did all of them come to the same place?”

  “Fascinating isn’t it? All our technological advances and there’s so much we didn’t know about our universe. So much we had wrong.” He hefted the purse in his hand and then tucked it into a pocket. “It’s so much smaller than we ever imagined.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He just smiled and shook his head while he watched me closely. Something was different about the way he held his body. He had learned how to survive. How to kill or be killed. But had he learned enough?

  I maneuvered my feet underneath me into crouching position. Now I needed to get as much info out of him as I could before taking him out.

  “Are the others in this town or did they move on?” I asked and flexed my muscles beneath the clothes that were now irritating my skin.

  “They never made it out of Axton Green. You see, there’s only room for one Urovian in Le Havre.”

  The weight of all those lives settled on me. My efforts to give them a chance and maybe redeem myself had been in vain. I pulled the pain inside and let it solidify in the pit of my stomach. Pain was power.

  The sun flashed off the blade as he lunged. I stood and took his weight head-on, deflecting his knife hand. In the same motion, I twisted his arm around and broke it at the elbow while pulling him closer. The knife dropped to the ground, and the Poon found himself in my embrace.

  “I’m not the best for nothing.” A quick twist and his neck snapped with that satisfying pop. I let the body slide to the ground. “You were right. There is room for only one Urovian here.”

  Chapter Six

  Instinct

  This story has a two word prompt—“Lightning flashed.” The rest came from a terrifying dre
am that I had about the same time.

  Lightning flashed. It looked just like the electrical storms on earth. Only this wasn’t earth, and I had more to fear than being struck by lightning.

  I tried not to flinch at the creatures roaming over the ground. Thousands of insect-like aliens cleaned the area of anything living. Any movement and it would be over in minutes, just like the poor man in front of me.

  I closed my eyes as slowly as possible to relieve the growing dryness. Visions of the giant Arco taunted me. The spaceport was a veritable fortress situated on the top of a mesa in the desert region of Avalon. I should have insisted they let me stay with my children at the massive steel and Plexiglass pyramid.

  Exhaustion threatened to be my undoing. Ever so slowly, I opened my eyes once more.

  At least the screaming had stopped. And the pile of sludge that used to be the Colonel had been reduced to clean white bones. His last words echoed in my head, “Avalon is perfectly safe. I promise.”

  This had been the Colonel’s first trip away from the Arco. I guess he didn’t realize sunset came early on the edge of the giant forest at Alpine Settlement. The sunlight kept the creatures at bay because of a chemical reaction with the UV rays. They tunneled underground or hid in the forests until nightfall. The Colonel said they were close to duplicating the UV combo with the floodlights.

  I guess they weren’t close enough. The glare of white light flooded the courtyard in front of the biodomes giving a false sense of security even now. Although they didn’t send the creatures scurrying back to the shadows, those lights had probably saved my life. At least for a while. They snapped on as the Colonel made his promise and the glitter of approaching hard-shelled backs caught my eye moments before the first wave hit us.

  Instinct had frozen me in place, sealed my lips and glued my eyes open. I became a living statue praying to go unnoticed. But my mind couldn’t stop the stream of questions. Had the colonists watched his death from behind the safety of their windows? With my back to them, I had no way of knowing. But I did know that no one had come to save us or the others from the bus. From the corner of my eye, I could see two other piles of bones.

  Why didn’t the colonist try to help?

  Was it really pointless to fight these creatures?

  Lightning hit the generator and the courtyard went dark, but my ears picked up every click of mandible. Every hiss and whistle. I stifled the sob before it could escape. Things brushed by me in the night and the only thing that kept me still was the years of trying to be invisible in my own home. And the thought of my son and daughter.

  Did someone read them a bedtime story?

  How could I bring them to such a place?

  My mind drifted back in time to my earthly nightmares. Days and nights of sitting as still as possible while Norman tried to wash his sorrow away with Plutonian whiskey. When the strongest drink in the solar system couldn’t make him feel more like a man, he’d search for me. Luckily the whiskey affected vision and if I didn’t move he often passed out before locating me. I could have survived that miserable life, but I wouldn’t put my twins through it. How do you teach a three-year-old not to move or make a sound for hours on end?

  I pushed the memories of their bruised bodies away. My reasons for fleeing earth felt justified at the time, but to trade that for this? At least the children had been required to remain at the Arco for more survival training. A shiver ran through me at the knowledge they would be dead now if they had come with me.

  The ground became strangely silent. I held my breath and cursed my body’s natural reactions.

  Sounds started up again. Clicking, bumping of shell against shell. Larger shadows had joined the flood of Earth-sized insects. These were the size of dogs and cats. Lightning split the sky again and revealed the larger ones snacking on the smaller creatures. The crunching finally made sense.

  I wished it would rain. Maybe the creatures would retreat in the deluge. But no, only lightning continued to pass through the night. Each flash showing me the nightmare around me. The larger insects moved on to devour the bones of the fallen.

  Every muscle ached. I couldn’t even look at my watch to see how long until dawn.

  Lightning flashed and I heard soft laughter in the night. The colonist continued living while I waited to die. If I survived the night, would I become like them? Calloused to the death that waited in the shadows?

  I wished I was safe behind windows. But only because my children would leave the Arco in a few days to join me. My motherly instincts mingled with those of the battered wife, making me stronger, tougher. If anyone could survive the night, it would be me.

  I would be there to greet and protect my children.

  Chapter Seven

  Perspective

  For this last short, we were challenged to write 99 words or less and I think we had to use the word goldfish? My memory is hazy, but I enjoyed the challenge. This was exactly 100 words including the title.

  The goldfish bowl teetered on the edge of God’s knee.

  A shiny blue and white marble floated inside the blackness within the bowl. Billions lived their lives on the spinning orb unaware of those who watched.

  They toiled, fought, and reached for more. There must be more.

  As their numbers strained the planet’s resources they ventured onward—out into the black void.

  And His kitty’s tail twitched.

  “Trust me, little humans. It’s much safer in there than out here.” He pushed the tiny spaceship off the lip of the bowl and watched it fall back to the earth.

  Thank you!

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  About the Author

  Charity Bradford has been a voracious reader ever since her 5th grade teacher introduced her to the world of books with WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS. She soon became kindred spirits with Anne Shirley and got lost in the worlds Card, McCaffrey, Bradbury, and Nagata. By college she was sewing her own Starfleet uniform and developing her alter-ego as a comic book sidekick.

  She lives in Northwest Arkansas with her hubby and four kids. Some of her guilty pleasures include binge watching Doctor Who and Ancient Aliens.

  Other books by Charity Bradford

  The Magic Wakes Series

  The Magic Wakes Book 1 (2013, 2017)

  Dawn of the Mages Book 2 (2015, 2017)

  Demon Rising Book 3 (Coming 2019)

  Birth of a Dragon Book 4 (Coming Soon)

  * * *

  Other Books:

  Stellar Cloud: A short story collection

  Fade Into Me—a modern day fairy tale

  The Hand of Atua (February 2019)

  Charity Bradford also writes clean contemporary romance under the pen name River Ford.

  Eureka In Love Series

  Chocolate Kisses

  Landscape Love

  Teacher’s Crush (Coming 2019)

  * * *

  Others

  A Christmas Prayer (November 2017)

  Christmas Magic (November 2018)

  The Magic Wakes (Sneak Peek)

  The Planet Orek—200 Years Ago

  His resolve weakened. The candle gave off just enough light for Jaron to see the deep hole in the center of the small cave. There would be no turning back from this choice. No chance at redemption. It didn't matter since there was no one left to condemn or forgive him.

  He closed his eyes. An image of his wife danced through his mind. He lov
ed how her long hair curled around her face in the breeze. Her eyes as pale blue as the sky, and just as clear, still haunted him. Standing in the dank chamber, he imagined her warm body in his arms. Her hair that smelled of flowers.

  "Betyia, please forgive me." His whisper echoed back to him.

  Eyes open, book tilted to the light, he read the chant to call a demon from the depths of the earth. He spoke slow and soft until his resolve solidified. His voice grew stronger and the ground trembled.

  The stench in the air intensified when a breeze sighed its way out of the dark hole. It looked like an insubstantial swirl of smoke writhing in the air, but Jaron new better. He took a step forward, opened his arms, and invited the monster in.

  With the final words uttered, the smoke coalesced and rushed toward him. It pushed its way down his throat, up his nostrils, and seeped into his ears and eye sockets as he fell to the ground. He gasped for air, sucking in more of the evil substance that burned nose, throat, and lungs.

  He was drowning in evil. The demon screamed through his veins and mind as it forced its way inside. Anger and fear battled for control of Jaron's emotions. He didn't know if he wanted to torture someone or throw himself into the pit for a welcomed death.