Art entitled "Harder They Fall" by Steve A. Roberts.
It was him....or me. Whom do you think I was going to choose??
We were running against time
Our enemy was behind us and nothing would stop him.
My partner, my love, called out to me to hurry.
I slid across the waves on my hovercraft,
my stance wide and warrior-like as I hefted my laser sword, ready for anything.
He stood, likewise, on his hovercraft
waiting for me to catch up to him
as we sped across the choppy waves off the coastal city.
Suddenly he cried out, “Look out below!”
I looked down into the dark angry waves
and saw the bullet-shaped nose of
my enemy’s multi-terrain ship
ripping through the water up towards my small craft.
At the last minute, I shifted my light and maneuverable craft
out of the way of his more bulky one.
A split second longer and his ship would have torn
me and my hovercraft into pieces...either that or the backlash
of his exit out of the water would have done the job for him.
I slid my craft around and into position
as he opened the semi-transparent dome of his ship
to get a better view of where I was.
I quickly looked into the cramped quarters of his ship
and fired my laser sword into his nuclear engine.
My enemy and my love shouted at me to stop.
I kept my eye on the now pure white light
glowing around the nuclear dome as it grew hotter.
At the last second before the explosion
hundreds of thoughts shot through my head. Logistics mostly.
I could, as I had power to do so, move everyone in the nearby
coastal city to safety as well as my love and I.
Or.....I could move my enemy into more permanent quarters and
send his nuclear bomb of a ship out into empty space to implode...
thereby saving any life forms...as well as being a bit easier on everyone than
the previous solution I’d thought of.
As the nuclear engine gave off its last throbbing glow, I moved my hands in a gesture, much like one does when tossing a crumpled piece of paper toward a waste container,
sending the ship into deep (and more importantly to me, empty of life forms) space
and sent his owner into a secure triple guarded prison
with a full set of records (compliments of me) into their main computer.
My love and I landed our hovercrafts
into the main hanger of our spaceship and embraced.
Another day of defending our world was done.
Swashbuckling prose that would have made ther late Errol Flynn blush with envy !!
You have a knack for these inventive and condensed stories Celtic !
Peter
I liked the action, the pacing, and vision behind this work. It reads like an out-take however. Is there more before and it? If not, I think there should be. I'm especially interested in how these powers came to her. And a logic issue; if she can transport matter around like nuclear bombs and stuff, why does she need to use a hover sled an laser sword? Godlike powers would seem to be enough. What's she need technology for? background on the story--or knowing the rest of it--would answer some of these things.
A half-zythian bard gets caught up in an affair with the Duchess of Highlake. The Duke wants him dead and our hero is forced to flee through a forest that no one has ever returned from.
Second in The Chronicles of Illúmaril series, author Gary Caplan's The Return of the Ancient Ones is a distinct tale that illustrates how one's fiercest enemy can become one's most aggressive ally.
Winner 2012 NABE Pinnacle Book Award in Fan
