Expanding Horizons Snippet 1

 Sitrep:

I am still plugging away at Shelby 8. I am almost at the act III mark. Fun. I am also still plugging at AI art on SeaArt. You can check some of it out there under my name.

Eventually I plan to update the Wiki. Hopefully before June. No promises!

 In other news I'm also making some progress on my SC Viking as well as my J5. I am hoping to get 1 long term project completed before June.

 

 Anyway, I have been working on the AI art enhancing and remaking some of the covers. Expect to see the update hit Amazon and B&N sometime in the near future. (After I finish Shelby 8 most likely!)

 

 So, Rea sent me back Expanding Horizons yesterday. I changed the schedule to put that book out next. So, in a couple of weeks we'll see Expanding Horizons published, and then in May the Roo book, and then Bootstrap Colony 5 in July (?) and then Shelby 8 and so on and so forth. 

On to the snippet!

Chapter 1

 

Antigua, Capital of the New Federation

 

Fleet Admiral and acting President John Henry Irons sighed under his breath as he came into his office and took a seat. He looked up to the ceiling and then over to the two glowing beings floating nearby.

As he studied them, he noted they turned slightly to seemingly look at each other. He couldn’t tell a face from, well, any side actually. They were amorphous, mercurial, he thought. Their bodies were blobs that changed shape. They had tendrils of energy that were sometimes tentacles, sometimes hair, and sometimes … other things. Even with his enhanced senses, it was hard to keep track.

They were beings of energy, of that he could attest. They had no mass yet were there. Looking directly at them without eye protection was equivalent of looking into the sun. Proteus had to filter his vision so he could see them and the room clearly.

When they testified on the hill, it had been hilarious. The clerk telling them to raise their right appendage had been fun. Threats of a subpoena … and the ultraconservatives having tizzy fits and trying to insinuate that they were delusions or constructs … all fun but exhausting.

The Spirits had crashed many inquiries about them and apparently private discussions too. They had been at various press conferences—they or their gremlins.

Now the gremlins were beings he could see, though just the eyes and hands most of the time. Only very rarely a toothy grin under the eyes, usually when someone did or said something stupid. The teeth were, again, made out of energy. Sometimes they were dark, sometimes bright. They tended to have smoky contrails around any part that he could see.

He had to wonder if it was for show or not. He had to wonder about a lot of things as of late.

No one else could see the gremlins. Even the cadre had trouble picking them up. Security was having fits over them. He didn’t understand why. They’d been around for ages, and it wasn’t like they’d known then. Well, they had known; they just hadn’t believed.

Now they did and well, some people were just a trifle upset over it all. In any other day, he’d be amused. At the moment, not so much.

“Forgot your coffee?” one of the energy beings asked. He knew that most people still had a hard time classifying them as Spirits. Technically, they were evolved people, a merging of the life orders into a higher consciousness of pure energy.

Or so history said at any rate.

“No, why?”

“You seem perturbed,” the voice said. There was something … almost holy about the spirit voices. There were echoes in the voice, something that reverberated deep down. It had a female timber so he classed it as the female Murphy, Luscious.

“No more so than usual.”

“Ah. Politics?”

“Pretty much. The bane of my existence,” he sighed.

“Well, speaking of perturbed, Eve is really pissed at you by the way. I’d avoid her if at all possible.”

“Oh? Why?” He frowned thoughtfully at her. Eden was one of the spirits, the first modern one if the histories were right. She and her AI counterpart had merged in an unsanctioned experiment gone wrong. Or, from her point of view, very right.

Each spirit took on a hobby as he thought of it. In their case, it was a calling according to them, a job much like the mythological gods of Terra and other species. The Murphy twins were in charge of chaos and luck in all forms. Their gremlins were their agents.

Eve was the spirit of creation or one of them at any rate. The list went on and on.

“The novas.”

“In other words, this mess is partially your fault,” Murphy said in a dark voice.

“Ah …?” He frowned and lifted his right eyebrow in curious inquiry.

“To paraphrase an old movie quote, scientists are always preoccupied whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should,” Murphy said.

The admiral blinked and then his eyes narrowed.

“Specifically the nova bomb,” Lady Luck interjected as if her brother had not said anything.

Admiral Irons blinked. “Okay, I admit I had a hand in making it, but the idea was already out there. It had been dreamed up for many, many years.”

“But you made it happen.”

The admiral’s lips puckered but he remained silent as he digested that.

“Eve was seriously pissed when you navy blokes came up with weapons that could destroy planets. Then you come up with a way to blow up a star? Destroying everything in the star system?” Lady Luck seemed both awed and yet annoyed. “You did one up on Shiva, destroyer of worlds.”

“Oppenheimer,” Admiral Irons murmured as he caught the reference. He frowned and then shook himself.

“True. But I admit that the idea has been out there for centuries as I just said. In my defense, my plan had been to trap the enemy fleets and blow them away in strategic strikes in unpopulated star systems not … that.”

He glanced to the side of his desk where his AI appeared as holographic avatars.

“And he didn’t intend for the enemy to get the weapon,” Lieutenant Commander Protector stated, coming to his defense.

“And all paths to a certain infernal place are not paved with good intentions?” Murphy asked.

Admiral Irons winced slightly. He had thought he’d faced his demons over his involvement with the Nova bomb. Apparently, they were coming back to haunt him once more.

“No one ever intends for the other side to get a weapon. But they have to contend with the outcome if and when they do. Such as during World War I when gas weapons were introduced on the battlefield,” the male Murphy stated flatly.

Admiral Irons grunted and nodded slightly, conceding the point.

“Admiral, you of all people should know half of research and development is knowing a technology is possible. Seeing someone use it makes it possible for the other side. They have to have a counter and their own version to level the playing field,” the female spirit stated.

“True,” he conceded with another nod.

“In your defense, you were not in charge of security. The Xenos did have trouble getting it but eventually, they managed to do so after you went into stasis.”

The admiral nodded again. “Thanks … I think.”

“Destruction is so much easier than creation. All species go through that phase. Fire … oh, shiny! Learn how it burns by torching something before using it to create,” Murphy complained.

“You always loved fireworks,” Lady Luck said. “And you are the one that loves chaos,” she reminded her twin just as some of the cabinet and staff entered the room.

The mortals looked from her to Murphy and then back, again arrested by their presence.

“True,” Murphy replied. “I still do. And yes, I still revel in destruction. That part of me never changed.”

“I see we’re nearly all here. How about we get this show going then?” Admiral Irons suggested as Admiral Sprite appeared on his desk in holographic form and other beings appeared in the same manner or in person. “I know we have a full agenda …”

“Very full. You need to get your house in order. I know it will never happen completely, but it does need some sorting out on multiple fronts before we can get serious about the star problem you mortals created,” Murphy said.

Admiral Irons grunted and nodded once more.

“And no, we can’t tell you anything. We’re forbidden to tell you the location of the pirate bases, or what’s going on in a neighboring sector … or across the galaxy …”

“Quit teasing them and giving them hints bro. They are having trouble sleeping at night as it is,” Lady Luck scolded.

Murphy made a shrug gesture but the gremlins around him seemed to smile a feral Cheshire grin.

Admiral Irons exchanged looks with some of the other morals in the room. “File that away under things we’ll have to look into I suppose,” he said with another sigh.

“Yeah,” Admiral Sprite drawled. She still seemed fascinated with the Spirits.

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