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    20; A Collection of Short Stories
    20; A Collection of Short Stories
    20; A Collection of Short Stories
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    20; A Collection of Short Stories

    By Francis Bass

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    About this ebook

    A collection of four sci-fi stories exploring various futures, ranging from an isolated asteroid colony governed by questionable politicians, to an alien invasion so overwhelming that the sky over Atlanta is blacked out by spaceships, each with a brief afterword providing commentary on the origins of the story.

    First in the collection is “A Clash at Grozny Airfield,” a military sci-fi story about a battle with the first ever all-robot military unit, set in an airport café as various travelers watch events unfold on TV. Next, the novelette “The Wisdom-Goddess Star” tells the story of an investigative journalist’s endeavor to write an exposé on the most isolated asteroid colony in the solar system. “Beneath Them” is another short story which takes place at a remove from the real action, as Cheyenne and her cousin deal with roaches in her apartment during an overwhelming alien invasion. Rounding out the collection is another novelette, “ChannelCon ’30,” this one revolving around a disaster con and the intense fan feud which threatens to break the friendship of a popular livestreaming duo.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFrancis Bass
    Release dateNov 14, 2018
    ISBN9780463616505
    20; A Collection of Short Stories
    Author

    Francis Bass

    Francis Bass is a writer of science fiction and fantasy. His work has appeared in RECKONING, ELECTRIC LITERATURE, and others. He lives in Philadelphia.

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      Book preview

      20; A Collection of Short Stories - Francis Bass

      20;

      A collection of short stories

      Copyright © 2018 by Francis Bass

      All rights reserved.

      Cover font Built Tilting by Raymond Larabie.

      Distributed by Smashwords.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      A Clash at Grozny Airfield

      The Wisdom-Goddess Star

      Beneath Them

      ChannelCon ’30

      Foreword

      In the forewords to 19; A collection of plays and 19; A collection of short stories I stated that I wanted these books to be a kind of Complete Works of Francis Bass series, compiled contemporaneously. I also stated that they would be annual.

      I don’t want either of those things now.

      Recently, I’ve begun to think a lot about the pressures I put on myself to constantly produce or keep up with certain things—writing blog posts, reading Asimov’s Science Fiction, and, in a way, producing these anthologies. It just so happens that, normally, within a year, I write enough plays and short stories to be able to put together these small collections—but what if I don’t want to? What if I want to spend a year writing only plays? What if a novel-length projects takes up the majority of the year (as happened once before I started self-publishing anything)? So removing these pressures, which seem so fundamental and colossal as to be irremovable, has been on my mind a lot. I’ve decided that I’m going to let my subscription to Asimov’s lapse after this year. I’m considering how to transition my blog from weekly updates to totally sporadic updates. And then this series. Fortunately, I can catch the problem right now, right at the start, not after years of inertia have built up. So I’ll declare right now: this series will not be annual. Some volumes may be titled 22-26 or 29 pt. 1 or something. Each collection will deform and shape itself as necessary. If I don’t publish or write any plays in a year, fine, no plays from that year.

      Now, as far as the series being a complete works series, I’m going to renege on that too. The idea of completion is probably a chimaera anyway—would a complete works collection contain unpublished stories? If I adapted a short story into a play, would it contain both the story and the play, or just one? The reason this is an issue is that, while it’s perfectly easy to publish all the works I’ve self-pubbed in the past year, if I sell a story to be published by another entity, it could be a year or more before rights revert back to me. This series will be as complete as reasonably possible, but nothing is ever truly complete.

      So if it’s not annual because I don’t want that stress, and it’s not complete because honestly I thwarted that goal straight away by not including The Trial of Adbot 579 in 19; A collection of plays, then what is it, and what is my goal with it?

      Basically, I just want a nice, affordable way for people to buy my stuff. Honestly, if I weren’t Francis Bass, and I were a fan of Francis Bass, I’d only buy these (and even then I’d wait for a sale.) I get that. So, here’s everything together for cheap.

      This collection is an odd combination of two longer, more recent pieces, and two shorter, older pieces. A Clash at Grozny Airfield and Beneath Them were both written in 2015, the first a military sci-fi story about a battle with the first ever all-robot military unit, the second a tale of overwhelming alien invasion. Both take place at a remove from the action though—in an airport café and in an apartment with a roach problem, respectively. The Wisdom-Goddess Star was written in 2016, a novelette that tells the story of an investigative journalist’s endeavor to write an exposé on the most isolated asteroid colony in the solar system. Rounding out this collection is the most recently written story, ChannelCon ’30, another novelette, this one revolving around a disaster con and the intense fan feud which threatens to break the friendship of a popular livestreaming duo.

      As per usual, all the stories are paired with the afterwords they were originally published with.

      XOXO, enjoy the incompletion.

      Francis Bass

      November 2018

      A Clash at Grozny Airfield

      "In a moment we’ll switch to aerial coverage of the battle, which is heating up at the Grozny airfield where roughly five hundred RGIs—that is Robotic Ground Infantry—are stationed, almost fully surrounded by Russian forces—the first time an all-robot unit has fought in a real battle."

      Joshua Narvaez stares at the screen, a postcard framing of the war, perched in the corner of the café. He sips his coffee, hardly tasting it because he scalded his tongue a few seconds ago. He doesn’t truly need to taste it though. He just needs to stay awake through his layover so he doesn’t miss his flight to Hong Kong.

      Alright, we are live now from Grozny with footage coming in from separatist drones, and we can see here, those white boxes in the corner of your screen, those are airplane hangars. Most of those have been bombed, and around the edges you’ll see some debris, in lines connecting the hangars. These are the fortifications that some of the techbots have built, and that whole area is proving difficult for the Russian forces to take.

      Good, Narvaez thinks. It’s time for humans to get out of the war game, leave the work to the machines. That’s funny, because he’s getting right back into that game. Not as a soldier this time, as an advisor, but still in the game. A bishop instead of a pawn. Maybe it could be different though, if this little Chechen troop of robots can hold off the Russians. Prove that humans aren’t needed. Or maybe countries will keep sending the bodies of their young populace grinding against each other to the end of time.

      What makes this situation so tricky is that Alexandrokov has stated he does not want to cause any more structural damage, he wants to keep this airport as salvageable as possible, and so has stopped flying airstrikes and bombings against it.

      In the same café, Amelia Smith swirls the whipped cream with her straw. Why don’t the robots retreat, and then block the Russians going into Grozny? Because the Russians are already in Grozny, her older sister Sam says. But not all the way. Yes, all the way. But there are still cells of resistance. Do you even know what that means? It means they’re in there! Don’t yell, Sam laughs. I just want the Chechnyans to win, Amelia says. Chechens, Sam corrects.

      "Movement at the top of your screen now, those are Russian Robotic Ground Infantry as well as human troops, the RGIs acting as a shield while they all move into position. It looks like they are moving to take up shelter by the control tower just a few hundred yards from the fortifications, where they’ll be able to—oh and they’re taking fire now! It’s difficult to make out but it looks like there are a dozen or so Chechen RGIs firing from behind their makeshift fortifications, those are equipped with long range rifles, and they are deadly accurate."

      Narvaez clenches his cup tight. He never had severe PTSD. He could watch war movies without panicking, knowing it was only a movie. He could even watch live footage like this, since it was aerial, distant. But now he feels a thrill. The RGIs are giving them hell. They’re superior. They’ll prove it.

      Those Russian forces, out of our view now, are likely setting up, regrouping, tending to any wounded, and preparing to attack. On the right side of your screen, Russian tanks are coming in—no telling if these are human driven or AI driven. The Russian forces have the highest ratio of human to robot soldiers of any developed country, so it’s likely that these do have human drivers.

      You know, just because mom and dad support the Chechens doesn’t mean you have to, Sam says, then sips her tea. What? That’s not why, it’s because they want independence, and they should be able to have it. Like America. Amelia, this is not like that. Why not? Because Kadyrov is a terrible, violent dictator. He’s only declaring independence because he’s finally been removed from power. Well Russia’s a dictatorship too. … is what dad always says, murmurs Sam.

      "And more tanks are approaching—off screen is the sixth mechanized brigade, composed of a hundred of these tanks, and they’re going to just keep coming it looks like. This is the unit that destroyed forces in the Staropromyslovsky district

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