Quizzling

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep Robert Frost Some things were so familiar it was as though no time had passed at all. Others had changed so much that it almost felt like the next town on the road, just another anonymous place to pass through. Had the parasitic city really existed? The story was so bizarre that he sometimes wondered if he'd abstracted it from all the other stories he knew, but these moments were brief – all he had to do was brush his fingers over the scar on his chest, still tender although fully healed years ago, to feel i

I'm finished. Mission accomplished. Entering the final commands into the mainframe, and initiating the irreversible destruct sequence, I turn and run hard for our ship. Not the Reliant, just a junky little fighter that we thought would slip past the perimeter during a major offense. Harmless-looking, but fitted with some decent weapons. And, thank fuck, a state of the art medichine unit. The little ship is parked in a bay several decks below, and I take a moment after skidding into the service lift to breathe while I punch in my destination level. The doors slide shut, and I'm closer than ever to making it out of here alive. Reviewing the ro

Blinking hard, I shook my head. The visuals on the compad hazed back into view and I felt the strain in my eyes as I forced them to focus on the readings again. Blue above, I need some sleep. I thought longingly of falling into bed. Uncomfortable, cramped and stark as it was, the dorm was my only escape from the constant demands of wartime activity. Still, there were...other demands associated with going back to the dorm. If Cain were there, my chances for sleep would be minimal. Right now, I would probably even sleep through that. The thought flickered through my head, and I jumped as a hand fell lightly on my shoulder. I spun around ref

It had been a rough flight today, and our navgroup was instructed to take a couple of Phita-L tabs and get some sleep. Oh those magic pills. No war-sickness, no heart-sickness or home-sickness. No nightmares. A 35% decrease in suicide attempts with the first generation, and now we're up to the L-series. Navs are a sensitive sort, you see. What was it he'd said? "Intelligent, but still weak"? Harsh, but accurate in its way. Still, I tap two pills loose from their small white bottle and into my hand. Looking at myself in the mirror, I see a skinny, frightened face. I try to adjust my expression to look certain, or confident, but the closest I