Ashes Snippet 1

   So, I got wrapped up in the Youtube video project so much that I forgot to post snippets. My bad. Oops?

It is rather difficult to post snippets from the short story anthology books. But we'll give it the usual try. :)

First up, I have another series of screengrabs for the video project.

  Still working on lighting and pacing. The second test video is done, I'm going to shoot it to Mechmaster to see what he thinks of it.

  The first and second test was interesting. I am rendering it frame by frame and then putting the frames together in a sequence in an open source video editor called Shotcut. It is cool but tricky to figure out. (I just figured out how to set the frame rate last night)

  It is an interesting project. Once I get the all clear I'll render it frame by frame when I'm AFK. (most likely in the evenings. It will most likely take a month or 2 to complete, and then I need to figure out the rest of it.) 

   No, I'm not rendering it at night while sleeping. My PC is an 8 core liquid cooled monster that sounds like a jet engine (7 fans) when it is revved up to 100%) It is 3 feet from my head in bed. Pass.

  I haven't done animation in a long time. I think I did a few things for the Wandering Engineer universe but I never rendered them. Maybe If I get a good response from this I'll do something about that someday.

Anyway, on to the snippet!

The following is from the story: An Act of Inspiration or Madness. I wrote the initial treatment and a lot of the story years ago. I tucked the story away until now.

Good Faith, Delta Sector Capital

 

Governor Renee Monet looked at the protest signs and then the law enforcement on the other side protecting the status quo. There were a lot more droids and a lot fewer organic men and women than he'd like in that line—not that he had a choice. The Police Union had kicked up a fuss about the lack of funds.

He couldn't help that they were in a depression. Everyone was in a depression since Sol had been destroyed and the ansible network had gone offline. All electronic commerce, banking, and information had died instantly. It sucked. But they still needed to survive. To do that they needed law and order.

Which was why the government was pushing the courts to keep the law enforcement people on the front lines even though they lacked the funds to pay them. He was certain they'd figure it out eventually.

As a core world sector capital, Good Faith had a population of over three billion souls. Most of that number was on the planet of course, but a sizable percentage were on habitats scattered around the star system. They worked or supported those who worked in the space industry around the star system.

His eyes narrowed as someone threw a rotten egg. It splattered on an android's plastic shield and dribbled down. It didn't matter.

As the sector capital, they had a small fleet of naval vessels defending them. They'd invested in a planetary defense network and class II shield. He had agitated to get more defenses around the star, which the admiral had complied with to the best of his limited ability.

And still it wasn't enough. They all knew it.

He shivered and turned away from the screen. Despite their massive population and industrial infrastructure, all he could see was them as a target.

The Xenos were hammering other star systems with the same system, using their version of the nova bomb when they ran into stiff defenses. It only took one ship to get through to end it all.

His fists clenched and unclenched.

They had to find a way out of the trap they were stuck in. They just had to.

Soon.

~~~O~~~

Rear Admiral Tag Lane looked at the icons on the plot. Some might take some semblance of satisfaction in the number and designations; he did not. He knew his boss Vice Admiral Blacklip wasn't happy either. What admiral worth his or her salt was ever happy with what they had? They always wanted that little bit more. That cushion. They never thought they had enough to do a job, or at least were never willing to admit it.

This time it was true. They had too many missions in one place.

The first was obvious—stop the enemy from doing any damage to the star system. Second, stop any nanotech they shot at anything including the planet; third, intercept any attempt to use a nova bomb to end it all.

Easier said than done when you had so much real estate to cover and only so many ships and fortifications to do it with he thought sourly.

Fleet 30, Task Force Delta, was limited to four hundred ships. Four hundred ships left behind—most too old, too slow, or under construction at the time of the Federation core world's call to arms. All of the other ships in the sector had rushed to Alpha and Beta sectors and were most likely dust or radioactive debris. None had returned. Not one and that bothered him.

His son had been on one of those ships.

They had been forced to abandon the largest yard in the sector, Bixbee, when the enemy had come in. According to the reports, they had read the enemy fleet was some sort of automated juggernaut. He could believe that last bit.

His bleak eyes turned to the star map.

There were small forts around the star; one on each Z axis and one on each Y and X axis. Shoals of Orbital Weapon Platforms were around them. Satellites connected them together. They covered the star and the solar tap and plasma extraction facility in orbit of the star. Nearby were the glittering solar farms.

Out beyond them were the occasional civilian Aten asteroid mining outfit. Then the planet and all of its orbital resources. There were twelve small forts there and dozens of OWPs and other structures there. The two moons were covered in colonies and mining facilities. There were several industrial centers at the Lagraine points including the navy's one and only remaining repair slip in the area.

The repair slip was a cruiser grade facility. That was great for anything cruiser size but not for the few capital ships they had in the fleet. Commander Shumaker, the CO of the facility, wasn't shy about complaining about that fact.

Beyond that were the dense asteroid field and the corporate mining outfits there. There were a trio of dwarf planets that had been converted into habitats for some of the population there. Then beyond the belt were the gas giants and their ecosystems.

And, beyond them were the pickets at the four jump points.

A lot of real estate to cover he reminded himself.

His eyes cut to the planet. It had layered defenses and an energy shield. But there was no guarantee that a planetary shield would protect the population from a nova. Definitely nothing outside of it. He hadn't heard any story of survival yet.

He shook his head wearily and then got back to work trying to make bricks without much straw.

~~~O~~~