Firefly Season 2
Page 5
Here’s a sample from a new novel The Powers of the Earth by Travis J I Corcoran that will be released shortly.
The Powers of the Earth
== chapter 1 ==
2064: Mining debris heap, Aristillus Crater, Lunar Nearside
The sky above the spaceport was as black as a freshly bored lunar tunnel before the lights were installed. Earth hung overhead, the once-bright cities of its western hemisphere glowing dimly with low-energy bulbs and rolling brown-outs. Except California. California was dark.
Mike Martin squinted against the brightness of the lunar noon and squeezed the trigger slowly, waiting for the break -
The thunder traveled through the rifle stock to his spacesuit and then into his chest like a punch from a giant. A moment later he was engulfed by a cloud of dust blown off the lunar surface by the muzzle blast.
Javier pretended to cough over the in-helmet radio. Mike ignored him and smiled like a kid. The first five versions of the rifle had failed in simulation. The next two had blown up in their test rigs. This one, version 0.08, had survived a hundred rounds in the rig... and now Mike had fired it by hand for the first time ever. He whooped in celebration.
Javier's voice came through his helmet speakers. "You sound pleased with yourself."
Mike grinned. "When am I not?"
The lunar dust settled onto the ground - and on the shooting bench and their suits. Javier brushed his faceplate ineffectively. "Seriously, Mike, why such a big round?"
Mike flipped the rifle's safety. "Because I'm from Texas."
"That was a serious question."
"...which is why I gave you a serious answer."
Javier shook his head. His helmet didn't move, but Mike saw it via his in-helmet display and grinned again. "During the CEO Trials they seized my company, my house -"
"I was THERE, Mike. Ancient history."
Mike held up a finger. "They took my dad's collection." He paused, inventorying it. "A 1772 Brown Bess, a few 18th century officer's swords-"
"But what -"
"I miss my dad's fifty."
"You MISS it?"
"Well, I only fired it once, but it was his favorite. So it's my favorite."
"So you needed to design and build a gun just as big?"
"Just as big? Fuck that! It's twice the diameter, and eight times the mass."
"Has anyone ever told you that you're a lunatic, Mike? I mean, besides me?"
"Not for about a week."
Javier tilted his head back and looked up at the Earth. "Darcy's on a run?"
"Getting back tomorrow. Or maybe the day after."
Javier grunted and then looked at the impromptu rifle target - just a piece of white-painted steel propped up on small mountain of tailings a kilometer away. "Did you even hit it?"
"The spotting scope is on channel four." Without waiting for Javier Mike brought up the feed in his helmet display. The target was clean. "Missed. Let me try again with a tracer." Mike pulled a massive round from the ammo box with two bulky gloved fingers; then a new voice, crisp and British, came over the radio.
"Michael, we've got an incoming flight. If you boys could put your games on hold for a bit it would be greatly appreciated."
"Albert, I'm facing in the opposite direction from the docks. The chance of a ricochet hitting a ship is - what? - no more than fifty percent?" He grinned at Javier, inviting his friend into the game. "At MOST. Probably not more than twenty five percent. Let me take a few more shots."
Albert gave a sigh. "I take it that SOME people are entertained by your behavior." A brief pause. "I need you to shut it down. Now, kindly."
Mike rolled his eyes. "Aye aye, Albert." He slipped the tracer back into the case and laid the rifle on the shooting table.
Javier pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Want to watch the ship come in?"
Mike affected an air of disdain even as he stood and turned to face Lai Docks. "These modern landings aren't nearly as exciting as -"
Javier groaned. "Spare me from yet another retelling of The First Landing. Rust, money, a jerry-rigged crane and a Chinese tunnel boring machine -"
"The first TBM was Korean -"
Javier continued as if Mike hadn't spoken. " - and one man, working alone-"
"Hey - I ALWAYS give Ponzie credit. His drive -"
Javier gave him a stern look. "Saying that ONE other person helped build Aristillus isn't much better than saying you did it yourself."
"Well, I mostly - woah!"
A shadow darker than any on Earth swallowed them. The rifle, the bench, Javier- all disappeared in the black. Mike turned. The incoming ship had slid across the sky, unseen by them - until it eclipsed the sun, cutting off the light like a guillotine.
Mike looked - there! A spot of dark in a dark sky, with just a thread of white along one edge - and then it was past the sun and the dark shadow was replaced by an actinic glare. Mike's helmet dimmed almost immediately, but not quite fast enough to prevent a small squiggle of afterimage color.
Mike watched the ship as it drifted through the sky. The oceangoing freighter wouldn't have been noteworthy in any harbor on Earth - except perhaps for its extreme age and small size. If it were bobbing in the salt water of, say, Matamoros or Durban, it would be lost among the Panamax container carriers and the odd 500 meter LNG tankers doing business under loopholes in the Carbon Law.
Such a ship would be nothing more than a bit of foreground clutter there - but here? Even after ten years, watching a container ship floating over the stark black and gray lunar surface struck him as magical and unreal.
He followed the ship as it dropped toward the solar farms, tailing dumps, refineries, and rolling plants. It slid lower, toward the open pit of Lai Docks. Mike noted the subtle restraint with which the ship's navigator played the game - small maneuvering rockets embedded in the cargo containers on the ship's deck fired from time to time to correct the course, but never for too long.
Suddenly its descent slowed and stopped. Slowly, laboriously, the massive ship rolled a few degrees one way and the other, as if it were being rocked in an invisible sea. The oscillation stopped and the ship resumed its descent.
Ha!
Mike raised one hand high in acknowledgment. Would she able able to see it from there? Yes, her cameras must be good enough; she'd waved first. Mike lowered his arm and turned to Javier. "Looks like I was wrong about the schedule - Darcy's back now."
The men continued to watch the ship until it dropped into the open pit of the hanger and disappeared and the vast concrete doors began to slide shut. Mike turned back to the shooting bench and reached for the rifle.
"Don't you want to go see Darcy?"
Mike looked at him. "Are you kidding? I'm not sighted in yet, and I've got a box full of ammo left."
Javier shook his head. "You've got to pay more attention to her. She's a good woman."
Mike loaded a tracer and locked the bolt forward. "I know."
"Do you?"
Mike pulled his helmet away from the stock. "Are you giving me dating advice now?"
"I'm giving you advice on getting along with people." Javier let a hint of a grin slide onto his face. "And, yes, part of that is dating advice."
Mike considered this for a moment before dismissing it. He pointed his chin at the rifle. "So what do you think of it?"
Javier sighed, then looked at the rifle. "It's impressive." He paused. "But I don't know what the point is."
"The point? Jav, if the government ever gets up here -"
Javier put up a hand. "I know. I know. But if it ever comes to that, negotiation -"
"Negotiation? Fuck the government and fuck negotiation. When the Bureau of Industrial Planning said I couldn't buy more earth movers, I negotiated. I paid three lawyers for a year and it didn't accomplish shit. Then the Racketeering and Unjust Profits Act -"
"Mike, my point is -"
"WHEN THEY PASSED R
UPA, I negotiated. I played by their rules, I went to court, and you know how well that worked. Fuck negotiation. If they ever come after us, I've got an answer for them." He slapped the rifle.
Javier shook his head. "Mike, let's pretend I accept your thesis and we've got this existential risk. If that's true, you're being an idiot."
Mike turned, shocked. "I - what?"
"If the government is trying to destroy us, then anything other than the plan with the best chance of success is idiotic."
Mike pursed his lips.
"If you're serious about this, and not just signalling that you're a crazy bad ass, then you've got to think strategically. You need to recruit allies, build a power structure, do -"
"I AM building a power structure. Once the rifle design is perfected I'm going to build a militia and -"
Javier sighed. "Hiring a bunch of guys and giving them rifles isn't what I meant. You don't need one militia; you need to need to motivate everyone to get ready. Build alliances, get other leaders interested -"
"Other? Other than who?"
Javier smiled ruefully. "Other than you, Mike."
Mike snorted. "I'm not a leader. What I am is the only guy who sees the problem that's going to be in our lap in five years, and the only one who's trying to get us ready