The ‘priors’ in question being, “Google and Facebook have between them managed to ruthlessly stamp down on this site’s ability to make money. And let’s not even get started on book advertising.” I am so keenly aware of this, I instinctively mistrust anything that might cheer me up. Like a federal judge declaring Google to be a monopoly:
So, yeah, this is in the same universe as GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND.
Seen from the sky, the alien transport was huge. It couldn’t have been anything else, either: the impossibly clean lines were still beyond the reach of humanity, even decades after No Contact. It nestled in the waters by the north side of town as if it’d been designed to rest there, and Norm Baker thought it very well might have been the most beautiful made thing that he’d ever seen.
Beltran was clearly more used to sights like that, though. “That’s the Arthur Phillip,” he told Baker. “Horrible name, but the Old Man had a rough sense of humor. We’ve got it fitted to take a hundred thousand settlers at a time, so Churchill was a drop in the bucket. It’s still only half full as it is.”
The helicopter cabin was a lot quieter than Norm had expected, and had the jarring clash of aesthetics you associated with jury-rigged alientech. But it worked, like all alientech did. “I thought we were moving transportees to camps, then sending them to the colony worlds all at once?”
“That’s the old way,” Beltran grinned. “The eggheads finally got cold sleep reverse-engineered, so now we can just pod transportees up and stack them in the ship until we’ve got a full load. It’s nice and quiet, and we can stuff in three times as many people without casualties. Hell, we can even move the ship to the process sites, and that cut down the spoilage rate all on its own.” He looked out the window at the scene below. “Nothing against the Old Man,” he continued, “but it’s a Hell of a lot better now.”
#commissionearned
She’ll just be checking edits and looking for any typos we missed. Afterward, I’ll do the same, and then it’ll be time to prep it for publishing. I have every confidence that Kickstarter backers will get the digital versions before the end of August, and the print copies will hopefully not be too far behind. I make no promises about early fulfilment, mind you. There are still places where the system can break down.
Meanwhile, read the first volume of TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION here.
#commissionearned
We’ve gone over this, Jim.
I didn’t die in THE FALL OF DELTA GREEN game, but there was a fun moment where somebody had to slap the Stability back in me. But I got all I wanted in the TRAIL OF CTHULHU game; my character blew a Stability roll at just the right time to lose some Sanity, I got a good last line in while the darkness rushed to surround me, and I saved the last bullet for myself.
I think I’d like to do Pelicon next year, too.
…but it’s somebody’s Hell:
Oh, things look so much better for our protagonist, now…
Federal Security Agency
Training Facility Iod
Mt. Shasta
State of North California
Three months later
“Cadet Baker! Front and center!”
It was weird how the FSB never used a computer, or even an intercom, when a person would do. It made everything feel less urgent, more deliberate. Norm jumped right up and ran over anyway. The trainers might have been a lot less vicious than Peep drill instructors (the idea of them getting hanged had been a cheery one), but they expected you to go everywhere on a dead run.
At least you didn’t have to scream. “Baker present and ready, instructor!” Norm declaimed, in that pitched-to-carry growl the FSB expected. He did stand straight as a board when he did that, but the instructors hadn’t given him crap about it. All the ex-Peeps did the exact same thing.
The instructor was a runner, but she didn’t correct him. “You’re being pulled for your field assessment, Cadet Baker. Here’s your paperwork. Report with your go-bag in one half hour at the room in your packet. Questions?”
“No, instructor! Everything I need will be in my paperwork, instructor! I am to arrive with my go-bag at the assigned room in one half hour for my field assessment, instructor!”
She nodded “All correct. Get going, Cadet Baker!”
“Yes, instructor!” And, perforce, Baker got going.
“First Contact” is set in the same Unfiltered univers as GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. …I really need to find a better name for this series than ‘Unfliltered.’ It’s a joke that I get, but possibly nobody else does.
