When an ethereal voice begins calling Karol from her bed, she has to investigate. She quickly finds herself in a hidden underground cavern being shown images of the past by a ghost.
What is really going on? Why does the apparition need her to see this? And what is she going to do when she finds out the real truth?
Find out more in Layers. #31 in the Science Fiction Weekly Short Reads Series.
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
Episode 1: The Hand Continued
Chapter 5
Heartness and the boff
appeared next to a large window looking out onto a wide starscape. Resignedly,
she stopped struggling and looked out. Her years in space meant she recognized
the view. The constellation of Cassiopeia. It was the same image that might
have been visible from her station at a point in the orbit around Saturn, but
with an additional star near the middle.
Sol.
She sniffed the air and
almost choked. Stale and recycled. Not a single whiff of perfume. Gravity felt
slightly lighter than Earth normal. Possibly Proxibee normal. Proxibee was
larger than Earth but its mass was made up with more low atomic weight elements,
so there wasn’t as much gravity. But the humming below her suggested that she
wasn’t on Proxibee. She was on a ship of some kind.
The boff released
Heartness and stepped back, allowing her a moment. Heartness rubbed her arm but
there wasn’t a mark. The robot had gripped her firmly, but gently.
Was it
possible to escape? She looked about. Far away, on the other side of the room,
was what looked to be the pilot’s area. A tiny flickering dot from where
Heartness was standing, but filled with a massive view screen. Any pilot
sitting there would think there wasn’t a ship, and that they were just in space.
Heartness decided the pilot section was probably for emergencies. Still, it was
an option.
While Earth council ships
were quite conservative with their space, with every centimeter used and
accounted for, corporations could be excessive. The room was at least a
kilometer wide. Even with her augmented eyesight, she could barely make out the
other side of ship in the distance. A prismatic point finished the ceiling far
above her. Was the outside of the ship like a pyramid? The floor seemed to
suggest it, stretching in an almost perfect square shape, apart from some exits
to corridors on her right.
The entire one
kilometer-edged triangular ship, the Stellar Flash, could fit inside with some
room to spare. Was this a mother ship of some kind? She accessed data through
her newly installed lobe system under her left ear, but expected it would be a
while before it retrieved the information she wanted.
And then she remembered
her date tonight, and sighed. Zhou would have simply told him she’d been called
away on urgent business. At least it was better than telling him she had
disappearing ring ice to watch.
“Alright, boff. You’ve brought me here. I’m
sure your corporation couldn’t care less about the potential fine and jail
time, if I was to complain, so now what? Champagne?”
The robot officer slowly
turned its retro cube-shaped head to Admiral Victoria Heartness, then lifted up
its plastic four-fingered hand. “What I’m about to show you is private and
confidential.” A bluish hologram began to form above it.
Heartness glared at the
image taking shape. “If you’re going to tell me I’m your only hope, I’m going
to have words.”
The boff remained silent
as the hologrammatic video became more defined, then began playing.
It was not what Heartness
was expecting at all.
A macabre image of an
indistinct human hand rotated in the air in front of her, tiny waves of
electricity sparking and cascading across its surface. The skin looked alive,
with faint veins swollen in mid throb near the wrist. The nails were chipped
and dirty, with shadows of dust in places. Dark oil marks on the finger tips,
and the general blurriness of the blue image disguised its owner.
“What is it?”
asked Heartness, fascinated, as the hand continued to turn. “A piece of
artwork?” For a moment, she had thought it had simply been cut off by the edge
of the visual reference. But then the wrist had faced her, showing a cross section
of the marrow in both the radius and ulna, surrounded by muscles, veins and
skin perfectly sliced through as though separated from the rest of the body at
the molecular level. There was also a flickering field right at the edge,
suggesting that whatever the hand was attached to, was accessing some other
dimension.
“A human hand,”
answered the boff, anticlimactically.
Heartness sighed, her
curiosity changing back to annoyance with the robot. “I can see that,” she
growled. “What happened to it? Who’s it from?”
The boff pointed at the
hand above his hand. “This was found at the Proxima Centauri B Frequency
Research Center, inside hexicle 18.” It turned the image off and the
bright light of the field faded away, revealing the expansive room once again.
“My leasor has not
informed the interstellar military yet,” the boff continued. “She
wants this to be discrete. She sent me as soon as she realized some delicacy
was required.”
“And so, you decided to
strongly encourage me to come.” While she hadn’t taken any private gigs for
some time, thanks to her work with Earth Council and the Interdimensional
Coalition, she knew from experience that initially, most private organizations
and government parties required some secrecy before announcing the solved
problem to the world.
“We have sealed
hexicle 18 until you are able to have a close look at it.”
Heartness had no idea how
getting closer to the floating hand would help her be any the wiser. “Any
other records? What about others on the base? Do you have any other evidence of
the missing 27?”
“Updates received.
The hand is the only living thing that has been found so far. Though, our
benefactor is not sure about something else nearby, which she plans to show
you. However, only 17 of the 54 hexicles have been explored. Investigation has
now been paused while we await your response.”
“The hand is
alive?”
“Still. It hangs
there, not dying. The hand could not be shown to you on your station. Now that
you have seen it, you are free to decide. You have your flash band and can
leave from this point in space at any time. Please let me repeat that 27
scientists have disappeared, and your presence is required.”
Heartness knew this was
her field. She was contacted when there was anything the bot officers, A.I.
detectives, or government organizations couldn’t solve. With her extensive
experience in multiple dimensions and realities, there weren’t that many in
humanity’s sectors that could do what she did. She smiled ruefully. She would
be happy to give them a hand. “You know my price.”
“Yes, Admiral
Heartness. Labor credits are ready to transfer to your charity the moment you
sign.”
Heartness moved some hair
out of the way, and touched her implant. It was still searching for information
on the ship, but the work contract had already been transmitted directly to
her. It displayed in front of her eyes. Her analysis software did not detect
anything unusual, so she sent a simple thought, and her brain wave vibration
signature was transmitted via flash communication to the authorization department
in the main brokerage on a satellite orbiting Proxima Centauri C. Within a
couple of seconds she received the confirmation back via flash satellite relay
that the first 100,000 credits had been transferred to her charity. “Boff. As
you can now independently confirm, the contract is signed, and I will help the
F.R.I find a solution. Please advise Space Station X-1a that I am fine and that
everything is under control.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral
Victoria Heartness,” said a voice in the air near her. “We must keep this a
secret for now.”
“Have you been standing
there invisible the whole time?” Heartness asked the air.
“The boff alerted me that
you have signed, so I drifted over.” Then there was a click, and a woman
phase-shifted into reality next to them, taking a couple of steps to reorient
herself with the floor. She looked at Heartness seriously. “The hand you saw
isn’t the only problem we have. We moved to an outer orbit to collect you more
safely. The moment you arrived, the ship began moving back to the closest point
we can get. We can’t flash jump closer due to the disturbances, but we’re only
a few million kilometers from Proxibee.”
Heartness was unfazed by
the woman’s phase-in, and briefly noted the boff had shut down as she appeared.
But she had to know more. “What sort of disturbances?”
“It’s better that I
show you,” replied the woman. She walked towards an exit in the distance, expecting
her to follow.
Heartness sighed to
herself. Well, if the woman wasn’t going to go through the introduction niceties,
or at the very least say her name, Heartness would look it up herself. These
outerworlders assumed everyone used facial recognition as a normal part of
socializing and business, but Heartness was still a bit old school.
Her lobe storage unit had
finished downloading anything related to Proxima Centauri, decades of data, and
had accessed the most relevant information, predicting Heartness’ needs. The
woman was Doctor Vilanna Szuki, born on one of the envirostations circling
Proxima Centauri D. 37 years old. Seven PhDs. Her father was from Japan and her
mother from Ghana, so her features were almost movie-star like. High cheek
bones, blue eyes, mocha skin, and a lithe movement that could probably break a
few hearts.
Heartness guessed her
model looks might be one of the reasons why the woman was hiding away on a
massive ship in another star system. Every media outlet from here to Sirius
would want a piece of her. Though, if she ever got her back to the space
station, that moodhair would have to go.
“I hope you don’t mind if
I ask a lot of questions,” said Heartness.
“Of course.” Szuki smiled
demurely as Heartness caught up to her. “But there are some things that can’t
be explained and will need to be shown.”
“But what about this
space? Why so large?”
Szuki laughed, her frizzy
hair flickering with gold highlights. “Oh, daddy had this built for me for my
16th. You know, on Earth, parents used to give their children houses or cars.
My daddy gave me this spaceship. Big enough to enjoy an almost infinite number
of worlds in. I call it the Traverse.”
“Isn’t that a verb?”
Szuki touched her
flashband, and the room was transformed into a mountainous terrain with a
corral of horses. One of them whinnied and came over to her. She stroked it
affectionately, though to Heartness it looked like she wasn’t quite touching
it. “Hello stony. See you again soon.”
Szuki clicked her band
again, and the entire paddock and animals disappeared, replaced by towering
fluid rocks, three suns, and a group of large spikey aliens gathered around an
upturned-mushroom-shaped table. “Hey, Sharpie, congratulations on your new
spores!”
A slapping sound came
from one of the spiny aliens, which was quickly translated to “Hello Vilanna.
Thank you. Good to see you again.”
“You too!” Szuki smiled
and clicked her band again, and the tableaux disappeared, revealing the empty
space once more.
“So, it’s a hologram
room. A gaming place,” said Heartness.
Szuki pursed her lips and
her hair changed to a light green. “Not exactly. Follow me. I’ll tell you on the
way.”
Heartness frowned. Getting information out of people here was going to be harder than she thought.
Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
This is the last of the preview chapters. I hope you enjoyed them. Thank you very much for reading.
Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
Episode 1: The Hand Continued
Chapter 3
“27 scientists have
disappeared, and Victoria has a date. Interesting.” Patel leant back in his
chair with a curious look on his face, and steepled his fingers. “Very
interesting.”
“Putting aside Victoria’s
personal life for a moment, John, Proxibee is your jurisdiction. It’s my
understanding that the Secret Services has a gravity and frequency research
base there in association with the F.R.I. I realize you can’t personally
monitor all S.S.’s 100 billion projects, but 27 scientists?” Zhou paused and
leaned forward, looking Patel in the eye and smiling slightly. “You must be at
least a little curious. With me now in charge of the station, perhaps you
should check it out? You’re probably the best person for the job.”
Patel frowned. “Young
lady, you might now be my superior on this base, but I’m over 150 years old. It
is not possible for you to use subtle persuasion targeting my curiosity to get
me off this space station quite so easily.”
Zhou grinned. “Only
looking out for your best interests, of course. Your I.Q. is off the charts.”
She leant back in her chair. “This station must be incredibly boring for you.
You know. Really, really boring. After all, you did originally hire me so that
you didn’t have any excuse to stay.” She tapped her chin. “I know, maybe you
could go spelunking on Enceladus again until we find out some more information.”
Patel blinked. “Wait. You
are doing it again!”
“Then, tell me why you’re
still here? You’re practically maintaining all of human occupied space. Why hang
around Space Station X-1a?”
Patel allowed a slight
smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He then turned to the center of
the room. “My turn to supply a recording, it seems. A.I. Display Saturn orbit
survey 15th February 2129 video stream. Reference: Temporal
Incursion. Slow the video to a speed we can comprehend. Authorization vibration
Doctor John Patel.”
“Confirmed,” said the
A.I. “Accessing. Displaying.”
An image materialized of
Saturn and its rings, blurred and seemingly frozen. A green, circular target
moved across the image then snapped at a tiny spot towards the center. It
zoomed to show a floating object shooting away from them, leaving a black line
through the rings in its wake.
The image shuddered as
the drone adjusted its position, flashing closer. What previously looked like a
glowing light now looked like it contained multiple stars flickering in and out
of it.
“Is it alien?’ asked
Zhou.
“One moment.”
The drone shot forward several
times as the light flashed further away from it, but it quickly lost it.
The recording turned off.
“So, maybe it was a drone
from another civilization,” offered Zhou. “You know, Earth has been visited by
billions of drones from other civilizations in just the past thousand years. As
UFO traffic officer monitoring Earth’s intersection, I should know.”
“Not exactly,” said
Patel. “It was a piece of time. In fact, a piece of reversed time. When we
retrieved the drone, we found it had become several minutes younger, just by
being near it.”
“But, time doesn’t usually
travel around in chunks. You can’t have time without space, or matter. They’re
inseparable. And it looked nothing like a rogue, hyperdense black hole.”
Patel leant back. “An
unsolved mystery. What concerns me is that, at that time, it wasn’t the only
one. There were several occurrences of these pieces of time in the Solar system
in 2129. Admittedly, most of them were on either side of the Oort cloud, apart
from one we suspect caused something similar to a Tunguska event in Bimini. But
one thing we know for sure is that they were all heading in one direction at
close to the speed of light.”
Zhou thought for a
second. “The date was just over four and a half years ago? And from the stars
in the background…”
“They should be arriving
at Proxima Centauri B any day now,” finished Patel. He got up off the chair.
“Which might even explain the missing scientists. So, I hope you don’t mind if
I hang about the station a bit longer?”
“But, what can we do
about Victoria?”
“Well,” Patel said as he
dissolved the door and exited. “I’m sure she can look after herself. And if she
runs into a micro time particle, I guess she’ll get a bit younger!” He nodded
goodbye to Zhou, and the door reformed behind him.
Zhou knew Patel was being
cryptic again. If the drone only had to be near the object for less than a
second to become a few minutes younger, she was sure Heartness wouldn’t just
gain a few years.
She could be quickly reduced to a fertilized egg.
Temporal Incursion. Stellar Flash Book Three. By Neil A. Hogan
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
Available in Digital and in Print Formats from Amazon
Temporal Incursion: Stellar Flash Book Three
By Neil A. Hogan
Dangerous temporal disturbances are appearing throughout the Proxima Centauri system, and 27 scientists have gone missing from the Frequency Research Institute’s base on Proxibee.
When Admiral Victoria Heartness declines the request to help, she mysteriously disappears, too.
Doctor John Patel quickly enlists Admiral Wei Zhou to manage the station, and look into Heartness’ disappearance. But with builderbot’s going rogue and attacking some of the station’s residents, Zhou’s hands get full pretty quickly.
Captain Jonathan Hogart would be the next best person to help track down Heartness, but then the Stellar Flash ship goes offline, internal doors stop working, and rooms start being erased. With just Raj Kumar and the ship’s Japanese avatar available, and no access to communications or flash jumps, Hogart is unable to even get his crew on board.
In desperation, Patel requests Commander Sue Lin of the Proxima Centauri Space Force to investigate the F.R.I hive,and find Heartness. But with her soldiers being wiped out by a crazed energy cloud, it’s all she can do to stop herself from destroying the base from orbit.
With micro time particles converging, a deadly alien entity expanding, a robot uprising spreading, and flash ship problems increasing, can the Stellar Flash crew get to Proxibee in time to not only rescue Heartness, but also prevent Commander Lin from making a mistake that could destroy the entire universe?
Temporal Incursion is Book Three in the Stellar Flash series. A self-contained story of about 63,000 words.
The pod members on the inside of their bubble world roll back and forth in fear as the strange triangular shape breaks into their universe, and reveals something horrifying inside.
What is this long creature made of lines?
Why is it frozen in the air above them?
And what will happen if it touches the energy skin of their world?
First Interdimensional Contact is #19 in the Science Fiction Weekly short reads series. A short story of about 4500 words.
When Captain Dhead’s ship appears near a black hole binary system, his alien first officer Khyrks eagerly tells him that there is treasure in a tear in space-time, right in the center.
Slightly uneasy at being in such a dangerous part of space, Dhead sends a drone into the tear to investigate.
And finds something incredible.
‘Oh My God. It’s Full of Stars’ is #16 in the Science Fiction Weekly Series. A short reads story of about 4200 words.
When Kamryn Jones’ houseboat is destroyed by a black drone, she is contacted by a mysterious woman who sends her across the country to locate evidence of a UFO. Determined to uncover the truth, she follows the trail.
But what she finds is a lot more disturbing that she would ever have expected.
And how is the President of Australia involved in all this?
Alien UFO Disclosure is #15 in the Science Fiction Weekly Series. A short story of approximately 7700 words.
Yes, great news! A new series of Science Fiction weekly has begun. I’ve created some new stories, and rewritten some recent stories to be released on a weekly basis from this week!
Stories 1-13 were released last year, and I’ll release stories 14-26 this year.
The Andromeda Effect. Stellar Flash Book Two by Neil A. Hogan
Now Available in Digital and Print
Sent back 2.5 million years in time to the Andromeda Galaxy to investigate why there’s a record of them having been there, the Stellar Flash crew encounter a creature so powerful that it has taken control of the entire galaxy by thought alone.
With most of the crew unconscious, Captain Jonathan Hogart is in a race against time to defeat the plant-planet, save the galaxy, and find a way to return to 2133.
But another force is attempting to take control, to use the power of the creature from the past to take over the Milky Way Galaxy in the present. And, for this, Hogart has no defense.
How is the creature controlling an entire galaxy?
Who has the technology to transmit the creature’s power from the past to the present?
And will the Stellar Flash crew and the Space Station team be able to save both galaxies?
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