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    Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder
    Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder
    Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder
    Ebook47 pages40 minutes

    Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder

    By B. Morris Allen

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    About this ebook

    Anjica is a human scout searching for resources and mapping the edge of Mechanic space - the systems occupied by the mysterious, implacable foes that wiped out Frexi colony for no reason. All that mankind has in its favor is the faster than light Duncaster drive. But then Anjica finds a secret that explains the Mechanics' enmity and may give humans an edge. If she can survive to bring it home.

    This book contains two linked SHORT STORIES (about 11,000 words).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherB. Morris Allen
    Release dateApr 3, 2013
    ISBN9780985609122
    Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder
    Author

    B. Morris Allen

    B. Morris Allen grew up in a house full of books that traveled the world, and was initially a fan of Gogol and Dickens. Then, one cool night, he saw the light of Barsoom... He's been a biochemist, an activist, and a lawyer. He pauses from time to time on the Oregon coast to recharge, but now he's back on the move, and the books are multiplying like mad. When he can, he works on his own contributions to speculative fiction.

    Read more from B. Morris Allen

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      Book preview

      Drive Like Lightning ... Crash Like Thunder - B. Morris Allen

      DLL-CLT_Cover

      Drive Like Lightning...

      ...Crash Like Thunder

      by B. Morris Allen

      metaphorosis

      Metaphorosis Books

      Neskowin

      Drive Like Lightning ...

      She is a flash of yellow when she drops out of FTL, going .9 c in a sleek ship marred by a tracery of energy-weapon scars. She is a spray of actinic blue when she crashes through the Engsson barrier at the edge of Norbeq system. And she is a steady burn of fusion red as she decelerates at tremendous g to allow Norbeqi fast cruisers to catch up and arrest her.

      Who are you? they ask when the cruisers reach her. Why have you come here? And, most important, How did you survive deceleration?

      I am destiny and doom, she answers when the soldiers let her go. I am hope and hatred. I am trouble and terror. When they call for doctors and drugs, she says. I am Periphery Scout Anjica Zelnov. Tend my wounds, and I will tell you about future and fear.

      ***

      We have an anomaly.

      Anjica flipped her seat vertical with a neat kick. Hours spent mapping the edge of Mechanic space had left her eager for any distraction. As the ship liked to say, the work was an exhausting mix of tedium and tension – annotating mineral analysis reports while waiting for the alarms that would signal Mechanic presence and a terrifying wait for the faster-than-light drive to charge. The fact that the scout was unarmed and unarmored only made it worse, though she knew that the Mechanic advantage in speed and maneuverability made weapons a pointless waste of mass. Scouts relied instead on two advantages – a highly sensitive array of sensors, and the FTL drive. The Mechanics might be effectively immune to the effects of acceleration, but they could still travel no faster than light – one reason why their rate of expansion could be mapped and predicted.

      Roger, Dodger.

      Never tire of that joke, do you? The ship’s voice was the epitome of long-suffering patience.

      It’s what made you what you are. Anji’s first words to the ship when she had finished its programming, they had left it with a love for assonance that she had long since given up try to eradicate. By now, she even liked it. What kind of anomaly? Boring or bastard? Most anomalies fell in one of two categories: asteroids with an unusual mineral makeup or new varieties of Mechanic ships.

      "Oh, definitely or."

      Anji chuckled. She had only herself to blame for the ship’s odd sense of humor.

      "OK, what kind of ‘or’, Dodger?"

      Communications, the ship answered. We’re receiving long-wave radio communications on a human frequency, but they’re not in a current code. In fact, I’m not sure it’s a code at all.

      "Really? Now that is interesting. You’re sure it’s not a Mechanic transmission?" Mechanics seemed to eavesdrop on human radio, but rarely used it for their own communications.

      It’s unlikely. But it will take me some time to understand it. I may have to decompress the deep archives. The ship, naturally, expressed no concern about the prospect of searching and sifting vast amounts of data for pattern matches.

      Do we know where it’s coming from? Anjica glanced at the system schematic that had occupied her recent hours. It

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