By I’ll return with Chapter 4 of Stellar Flash in a few days. Or, you can find the book on Amazon here: Temporal Incursion. It’ll be on Google Books and Apple iBooks in June.
In the meantime, here is a short story I wrote recently. I was challenged to write a 500 word story, and decided to make it about a character that fails at getting something. I’ll talk more about what led to that in a future post. In any case, here is the result:
The Controller by Neil A. Hogan
Juset Oliga sliced her tarsus and dripped green blood onto the rectangular lock. Detecting her mitochondria, the temple forcefield dissipated, energy sparks showering around her like cascading diamonds.
I’m in!
She scampered through the plasticrete entrance, her antennae flicking about madly. With the field now off, she had to get to the Controller before the star discharged another burst of plasma, or she would end up like the rest of this lifeless planet.
She moved around the burns on the ground of those who had come before her, her mandibles curling with distaste. She would be different. She would find the weapon, then bring more planets into the empire.
A glint of light glittered to her right, and she turned and scuttled along the dusty floor towards it.
The Controller! This must be it!
A glowing dodecahedron sat innocuously on a pedestal.
No buttons or swipe screens?
Her proboscis twisted back and forth in dismay.
This is not what I was advised.
She scrabbled two of her tarsi around the outside of it, feeling for a connection or switch, but the facets were smooth. “How do I control you?” she asked it. “How do I stop your plasma bursts?”
For all she knew, a new burst was already on its way. She probably had just moments to live. She twisted her green compound eyes around, then came to a decision. Reaching around it with four of her legs, she lifted the multifaceted shape up.
Immediately, fear filled her thorax. Not heavy? What is this? She turned it over to see if she could look inside, then screeched and dropped it.
EMPTY?
A scratching laugh echoed through the room, and an old voice followed. “I knew you would come, my child. They all come, in the end.” A hologram of a bipedal being with chitinous wings lowered itself to the stones near the fallen shape. “You were sent to get the Controller. But, it is a myth.” It waved a spiky leg, and the dodecahedron rose in the air, then returned to its previous position. “Let’s put everything back the way it was for the next one.”
“But,” implored Oliga. “We need the Controller. That kind of plasma power would make us supreme rulers. We could control…everything!”
The hologram tilted its head. “There is no Controller. It is a natural cycle of Proxima Centauri. What better way to bait and trap greedy alien beetles than allow them to think there is a star-sized weapon hidden somewhere in the galaxy?”
Oliga felt faint. How would her race take over Trappist-1 now?
“Sadly,” continued the hologram. “Your time of worrying about your empire is now over.”
Before Oliga could even send a message, a hot burst of plasma exploded through the doorway of the fortress, vaporising her instantly. Her ashes joined the other shadows on the floor.
The hologram looked down at her remains. “When will your race learn not to make greed your controller?”
It reactivated the temple forcefield, then faded away.