Sparks Snippet 1

 So, I sent Sparks off to Goodlifeguide.com yesterday. The countdown has begun.

  Inferno is complete and in the hands of the Betas. I think only Wayne is left with it. If anyone else wants a go at it, let me know.

  I am a little over half way done Wildfire, the first of the Tales of Ragnarok duology. I'm also poking at Embers, the last of the Ragnarok trilogy. :)

  The current plan is for me to finish the series, the trilogy and the duology this year... if I can keep this pace up. We shall see.

Anyway, on to the snippet!:

Note to the Reader

 

So, I goofed a bit. Normal actually, I am after all, human and fallible.

Over the years, I tried to identify where the Xenos came from. The Andromeda Galaxy was used once, and the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy was mentioned in Pirate's Bane.

After crunching the numbers with Ulrich's handy hyperspace spreadsheet calculator (which I've misused and he mislabeled), I realized that wasn't going to work. Sagittarius is 70,000 light years and Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. The calculator put a transit at 3,713 years at the highest octave of Foxtrot band.

I was going to fudge the Andromeda Galaxy, have an additional 100X isomorpher that kicks in after a couple hundred light years, but then hit on something else, something simpler.

The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy is just twenty-five light years away, a hop and skip for a civilization used to crossing our own galaxy on a regular basis. When I plugged the numbers in, lo and behold it worked out, thirty-seven years give or take a month. Okay, that works.

So, I'm retconning the location and using that. Sorry about the confusion.

Carry on!

 

Chapter 1

 

Sol, Alpha sector

 

President Fergus Hagus felt his fur rise as he considered the future. He had yet to make his mark in office; many of his opponents were saying he was a wash, a nonentity, a place holder. A yawn was the usual shtick from the pundits.

His simian face grimaced as he looked out the vast virtual window. It wasn't real of course; you couldn't have a window directly into the office of the Federation president, not in this day and age of piracy, assassins, and terrorists. It was still nice to pretend that the view was real though.

He needed something big. After the previous administration had come up with the gates and the one before that had come up with the Canis Expedition, he didn't want to be known as the Neochimp from nowhere.

He also needed to solidify his base. Terrans still had the largest voting block and therefore most presidents were Terran. That wasn't going to be forever though; he knew that. Just the knowledge that he'd had to choose a Veraxin running mate made it clear that the times, well, they were “a changin" as his grandsire had liked to say back in his heyday.

He turned to the list of bills making their way through Congress.

His hundred-day bills had been okay, nothing spectacular. Unemployment was way down, the economy was up, and commerce was doing well. There were a few minor fires on the war front but nothing threatening to really overwhelm them and turn into a galactic war again.

No, the bills were his best bet. He needed to find something that matched his administration's theme and get behind it and push. But, he had to do it in such a way that it didn't threaten to destabilize or undermine the bill itself. People were ornery; his detractors and political opponents were known for going up against something just because his side wanted it. Hell, he'd done it a time or two himself!

He shook his head.

The biggest bill was one to move the capital. That was a dead-end. There was no way, no way in hell he was going to get behind something like that. Nope, nonstarter, and not just because of the political fallout. The politicians in favor of it wanted a roving capital. They were idiots. It was good image, but not in practice since the capital would be in transit and thus unable to administer the government for those periods of time. Besides, it wasn't like you could pick the ansible network up and move it! All roads led to Terra.

He shook his head.

Well, if he couldn't find something to get behind, he could and would help to block that stupid idea. He just needed his people to craft a message that kept it neutral and his reasoning for practical and pragmatic thinking and steer well clear of anything even remotely sounding racist.

He nodded to himself and made a note about the inability of moving the network, the costs involved, the time spent, and the time in the limbo of hyperspace.

Just about all of those messages would appeal to one or another branch of Congress. The deficit hawks would not like the costs involved, not that the Federation had a deficit anyway! But they still wouldn't like it. The strong executive branch groups would not like having no one at the rudder while they were moving around. The big argument was the ansibles. He made a note to have the scientists and engineers involved in explaining the impracticality of that one.

When he was finished, he made a puttering sound and looked away. He checked the clock on his virtual HUD; he still had ten minutes to mull things over before his next appointment.

There was a movement to downsize the military, specifically the navy. Their push for bigger and bigger ships had gotten a trifle ridiculous over the years; the new Olympus class battle planet was the latest debacle. They honestly didn't need the damn thing; no one in their right mind would go up against something of that fire power.

It was also impractical in that the thing was too vast to go through a gate. Which meant it couldn't respond to any of the quarterly police actions that cropped up.

He frowned thoughtfully, considering the problem. He'd been in the senate when that debate had been underway; he wasn't sure if he wanted to bring on that sort of fight and anger the hawks. Could he offer some sort of compromise? Scale back on the number of the things the navy wanted to build in favor of something else?

He frowned and tapped a stylus on his chin for a few moments, considering the problem from all angles. No, he couldn't see it. Each of the things was a fleet unto itself, with an additional fleet supporting it. The closest he could come to scuttling the program was to take away the interstellar ability. That part was silly.

He checked and noted one flag officer had been against the idea. He read the name and then nodded. Commodore Irons, yes. He checked and noted that despite his opposition Irons had been recently promoted to Rear Admiral. So, he hadn't made friends with anyone for his opposition but he hadn't won enough enemies to scuttle his career.

That meant there was some hope for reason and sanity. He just needed the right approach to the problem.

He heard a tap and then a soft click as the door opened. He looked up. His chief of staff stuck his head into the room. “Time's about up …” he said softly.

“All right, I'm done woolgathering for the moment anyway,” the president rumbled good naturedly.

“Gaming?” the Neodog asked as he came fully into the room.

“Gaming the future. Trying to find something to stand behind,” the president said. “It's tough in this day and age to find something you can get behind and push.”

The Neodog nodded. “I hear you, sir. We're trying to craft some legislation but were curious about your thoughts. I can send you the brief.”

“Please do,” the president said. He'd seen it before but was curious if it had been updated.

“In the meantime, we've got a delegation from Tau on deck. The Taurens are still waffling at the price of terraforming in their sector …”

The president scowled. “None of that. They know the deal. If they want Federal funding, they have to accept open admission to all species.”

The Neodog's ears flicked. “I know that, and you know that. They just want an outlet to express their concerns …”

The president sighed internally but nodded. He settled himself and mentally pulled out his best polite but firm expressions from his playbook. He didn't want to aggravate anyone but he had to hold firm to this xenophobic claptrap. You couldn't cater to bigots. That offended the rest of the population when they heard, and it wouldn't do him any favors in the upcoming election.

“Here is the thumbnail brief …”

<(((@)))>