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A quote: “He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.” ~~ Herodotus
I’ll start with a story …
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I love my big brother. He was my hero, the one to teach me how to climb trees and banish closet monsters. So, of course, I had the right of little sisters everywhere to be a large PIA whenever possible.
Yet we always have each other’s back.
It’s not easy. Not when I hate The Thing.
My bro has a tender heart. He grew up handsome and smart. Not about women. When he brought The Thing home to ‘meet the family’ every alarm in my head went off. Brittle pretty with a smile never reaching her eyes.
Married, he was desperate to please her, and when a short-term contract for big bucks came his way, he grabbed it. It meant being out-of-town for a few months …
Keeping an eye on her wasn’t hard. City girl in the sticks, she had no clue that many a fall bro had taken me hunting.
Bro came home early. Home to feel scales falling from his eyes and his bride playing musical beds. Tore outta the house, armed, heading to his best friend’s house.
I must pivot. Oh, they’ll never find the Thing but I just started on the rest of the list.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock Standard license
Cameron says: We Warders are the dirty little secret of New America. Our job is simple; keep the borders secure. That’s it. How we do it is up to us and that means exactly what you think it means. And fifty years after our Founding, we are very good at this.
The fog is thick but I can see them from my position. Four feds from the Old US chasing six terrified looking people.
“One hundred yards out and closing fast,” I say into my microphone. A few seconds later, I hear my partner’s voice in my ear.
“No one else in the area. Targets can be Silenced.”
That phrase is all I need to take action. A moment later, I stand up and sight in at the targets. Six shots later, the runners up front are down. The feds come to a halt as we emerge from hiding and ring them in. I give them a smile as I get closer.
“It’s an old trick that they like using,” I said. “Make you wear the uniforms and chase them. It worked once and we’ve gotten wise to it. Come on; we have an immigration checkpoint nearby to get you looked at.”
Sheila Garrett says: It was much wetter here than it was at home. Colder too, and he shivered in his long, dark coat. ‘Oh, Miriam, neither of us belong where we are.’ he thought sadly.
It had taken months to find him. Once he’d left the country the trail had gone cold. Finally, Aza had turned to a group from the west bank. The enemy of my enemy you know. But it had paid off and here he was in a foggy English forest.
He heard soft hoofbeats from the track. Using a tree for a rest he sighted through the rifle scope. Yes, it was him.
He’d gotten Miriam’s last picture from her friends. Four young women in front with the thin, blonde Englishman’s arms draped over their shoulders. You could even see the engagement ring on Miriam’s finger. Her friends said that they’d felt safe, being in public. They’d even let the man buy a round of drinks. Then they got sleepy and the next morning Miriam was dead at the bottom of an upscale hotel.
He followed his army training, inhale, blow halfway out, squeeze gently. There was a thud and the sound of a horse startled into a run. Aza set the rifle against the tree and pulled his service pistol.
He wasn’t his own anymore. The terrorists owned him now and through him, his family. His brothers, his mother, they would be leverage for him to be a puppet against his country.
He thought of Miriam and nestled the muzzle under his chin. They would all be safe now.
As the sky grew darker, Danny’s skin prickled in gooseflesh that wasn’t just from the cooling air. What was this mist that was rising from the ground and spreading across the land? Was it just this exomoon’s ecology protecting itself from a night that would last for days, as it swung around its super-Jupiter primary?
No, those weren’t the sounds of wildlife, but of machinery. A glance to his flight leader, just in time to see Nyawral’s ears turn back and forth, then his whole head swivel as he fixed on the distant sounds.
Danny hazarded a whisper. “We’re not alone.”
A quick upward jerk of the Kitty’s chin. “And that is not our equipment.” He gestured toward their emergency equipment. “You know what to do.”
Danny might not have the night vision of a Kitty, but a night-vision scope would do just as well — and he’d been using them to hunt varmints back home in Alabama since he was big enough to be entrusted with a real rifle, not just a BB gun. Any Tchiador battle pods that came too close would get an unpleasant surprise.
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