The squad leader came up the rear. The hypersat had been unscathed on the outside, but the interior was scattered with dead research staff and the control room torn to shreds.
The leader sided to the flank, signalling the team to move ahead. They angled their beams up and around the overlooking balcony. A sweep revealed a towering mass at the front of the room. Its form was similar to the technology the invaders had used. One of them was impaled on it. The control room raised more questions than it answered.
A large portion of equipment was simply gone, appearing to have been ripped from the floor and taken somewhere. The flickering main screen reflected off a wet floor.
The squad leader zeroed in on a life signal. He was restrained at the wrist, facedown on the floor and surrounded by broken bits and pieces.
‘Control room secure, ma’am,’ said a voice on the comm.
She rolled the survivor over with her talon. The Human man’s eyes shot open and he let out a howling scream while slapping himself in the face. Every torch beam swept onto him. After a moment he paused and twisted to look around. He blocked the light with his free hand and recognised her.
‘Jhaia, what a pleasant surprise,’ he said with a smile.
‘Can it, Leroy,’ she spat. ‘You’re done.’
An incoming transmission tugged her attention. She pressed her thumb to the comms device on her shoulder. ‘Go ahead.’
‘The station is secure, ma’am. It’s a negative on the hostiles. Surveillance shows one of our dropships towing out an unidentified craft thirteen harghs ago. Shall I send a tracker?’
‘Negative, sergeant, we need our manpower where it matters. Pursuit is not a priority.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
Jhaia turned back to the former Fleet Commander Magnus Leroy who sat with a wide grin, chewing his fingernails.
THE END
SPACE
A quick and dirty guide
So, you want to go into space, and you need some advice?
Here’s mine: don’t do it! Space travelling is an overrated, uneventful and most uncomfortable experience. It involves a lot of sitting around in a cramped, cold room doing nothing but pushing buttons and occasionally lifting heavy things (unless you shut the gravity off, but that would be unhygienic). If you still insist on going, there are a few things you should know about.
First, you’ve got your standardised time measurements:
Spuckon
A measureable amount of time, about a length of a heartbeat (that is to say from the average heart rate of a moderately sized adult humanoid creature)
Quanut
Fifty spuckons
Hargh
Fifty quanuts
Quarter Zircle
A term of 12,500 harghs
Zircle
Four quarter zircles (50,000 harghs)
Got it? Good. Let’s move on ...
Tokens
The currency of space travellers, honoured and redeemable on many civilised worlds.
Matraelium Fuel
Spacecraft grade for your manoeuvering thrusters. Burns glacially slow but molten hot. A barrel of this crap is heavy, so if you ever need to handle it, get a friend to help.
Hyperspace
A parallel plane of existence that allows efficient interplanetary travel. Within hyperspace, normal space is heavily condensed so a spacecraft’s speed is increased drastically. I hear the talented scientists of the Weiniean race are making great leaps into hyperspace research.
Hyperdrive
An engine consisting of many parts including a photon reactor and an antimatter supply, used to make the quantum jump to hyperspace. Warning: make sure the navi computer is calibrated correctly!
Tranquillian Composite
An alliance of participating worlds operating under a single banner for the public interest. Headquarters based on Cenyulone. Like most military forces, it’s full of gun-toting morons. Just avoid them if you can.
The Tyde
A powerful organised crime syndicate you’ll most likely never meet. In fact, I don’t even know why I stuck it on this list!
Nova Corp
Out of all the space exploration companies in the galaxy … this is one of them, dirt cheap and ready to recruit just about anyone.
Tristan Michael Savage
Tristan Savage was born in Maryborough and grew up in Townsville. He attended James Cook University and was awarded a Bachelor of Creative Arts, majoring in Theatre and a Bachelor of Theatre (Honours). Since graduating in 2010, Tristan has gone from strength to strength. In 2011, he won first place at a national stand-up comedy competition at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In 2012, he toured his one-person theatrical comedy show Australian Ghost to audiences across the country and, in 2013, he was awarded a black&write! Fellowship with the State Library of Queensland for his science fiction, adventure novel Rift Breaker. Outside of writing and performing comedy, Tristan likes reading, watching movies, riding his scooter, playing Tetris and jogging to keep himself fighting fit.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank everyone who encouraged my writing and helped me along the way, particularly the black&write! team; Sue Abbey, Linda McBride, Ellen Van Neerven and Katie Woods. Also a special thanks to Ms Debra Thomas and Dr Victoria Carless who never stopped believing in me.
About black&write!
Launched in 2010, the black&write! project is committed to the development of Indigenous editors and fostering Indigenous writing talent. Based at the State Library of Queensland, the project includes an annual writing competition, training of editors and provides workshops and mentoring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers. In addition, the project provides training for OnScreen editors based regionally, who work online from their communities. This aspect of the project is made possible through funding from the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.
The black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship competition is open nationally to both published and new Indigenous authors of fiction including children’s books, short stories and poetry. Two fellowships are awarded each year and the winning authors work with the black&write! editors to develop their manuscripts for publication by Magabala Books. The partnership between the State Library of Queensland and Magabala is central to black&write! and supports the project’s aims of providing long term professional development for writers and editors, and bringing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories to readers worldwide.
For further information on the black&write! project please visit the State Library of Queensland website.
“The competition gave me wings. I would have been too intimidated to push it through other avenues to get published.” Sue McPherson, author of Grace Beside Me, and inaugural winner of the black&write! competition.
Rift Breaker Page 26