ARGH — Reprise, once more with CEILING.

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Guys, this thing changed name. It’s now not Lost and Found, but The Stars In The Sky and it’s gone…. wails MILITARY which drives me nuts because I cannot CANNOT do mil-speak. As in, at all.

And I’m clocking in at 3 words, and have erased at least that many and…. am still in the initial movement of the story and….

Hand reaches above the computer: SEND HELP.

Okay, fine, you can have the opening movement:

It was Christmas day and I was lost.

***

“Is anyone alive here? Come out. Come out,” it was a male voice, young and confident, if slightly on edge.

I had a minute to decide. Did I speak up? Did I trust this voice? I’d been hearing explosions and screams for the last twelve hours. I could smell the blood.

But the screams and explosions had stopped a couple of hours ago. So, maybe it was safe now? Or maybe– Or maybe it was a trick of the attackers, seeking to make their mop up complete. Isabelle — the child — put her arms around my neck and shook. I’d stopped singing to distract her when the bad noise stopped, and I thought she was asleep. Apparently not. She was shaking slightly, and smelled of tired, sweaty child.

I took a deep breath.

“Hello?” the voice sounded again. Most of all he sounded young, and there was something else behind it. Something shaky, I thought, as though he’d just been shaken. By seeing a lot of death and carnage? Or by causing it.

I had no way to know. I had to risk it. I had to risk it. I couldn’t continue hiding in here forever with someone else’s child. If her parents were alive, they would be looking for her. And if they weren’t someone else would be looking. And my own parents would be worried out of their minds, if they knew where I was. Which Father at least probably did.

I kissed Isabella and whispered in her ear, “Be very quiet, I’ll be back for you.”

“Mama,” She said, and tried to hold me, her arms tighter. I pulled away gently, “It’s all right. Count to 100 and Mama will be back.”

I wasn’t her Mama. Her Mama was probably in the carnage outside, but I’ve given up on convincing her. During the hours of horror, when I said I wasn’t her Mama she cried harder. I hesitated a minute, then kissed her forehead, amid the little wisps of her bangs. She was maybe five, maybe six. She’d told me, but she was hard to hear amid the explosions. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I promise.”

And then I stood up, and walked out of the utility closet in which we’d been hiding, right behind the automated cleaners. I walked out with my hands up.

The young man in the uniform of Britannia’s Spatines jumped about three feet but — a witness to his training — spun around and had his heavy duty burner pointed towards me, held in both hands for better aim.

“I am Marjorie Starr Forster,” I said. “I was in transit through the station.”

He unfocused his eyes, and I suspected he was looking at a list of passengers projected by his memory nanos. I could tell when he found my name, because he relaxed a little. His shoulders went down just a little and he drew a deep breath. “Thank God,” he said, which I had a feeling is not something men in his service — the ones particularly tasked with fighting terrorism and mass attacks in space — usually said. But he looked suddenly very young. Maybe younger than I. Not that he looked old before, but the uniform — the grey, blue and silver camouflage that worked in space stations and technological environments, and the burner about half as long as he was and big around as two of his arms put together lent him gravity.

But the easing of his expression made him look young. Just a blond boy from a farm colony, with a bad haircut, and a look of relief almost as if he were the one being rescued. “Thank God you’re alive. You might be the only survivor of this station.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “There’s another one. She’s been hiding with me.”

He looked like he was going to kiss me or cry, perhaps, and said, “Where is she? Is she wounded?”

“No, no. I just told her to wait, because– Well, I couldn’t be sure you were friendlies.”

He nodded and said, “Brave,” as though to himself. He let his burner fall so it hung on its sling, and said, “Where is she?”

I led him through the hallway, to the cleaning closet and opened the door, “Isabelle? You can come out.”

I was surprised she didn’t come, but when we went back there to look, there was no one. The Spatine gave me an odd look. I was frantic. “Maybe she got out while I was talking to you,” I said.

“Miss, no one left. I’d have seen movement. After my training and after– Miss, there’s no way I’d miss movement.”

“But she was here with me,” I said. “Since last night.”

He shook his head, not in doubt but in bewilderment. “What… what’s her name, Miss?”

“Isabelle. She didn’t give a last name.” I’d had a heck of a time getting “Isabelle” out of her. She’d kept shaking her head and saying, “You know my name mama!”

“Uh.” His eyes unfocused. “There is no one by that name on the manifesto. Could she have given you an assumed name. Maybe an hostile?”

I shook my head in turn. “No way, sir. She was all of is five or six.”

He gave me a really odd look. “There was no girl that age on the station, not in the manifesto.”

“What?”

“Oh, there were children aplenty, in the Amber Sanctus colony ship.” He swallowed. “They were waiting while their ship stocked some tech form Neue Zambia.” He shook his head, and his eyes glistened suspiciously. “Ten infants, mixed genders. Twenty five toddlers. Ten boys between four and ten, and a passel of teenagers.” He swallowed hard. “They’re all accounted for.”

The tone of those last words was like the closing of a heavy stone over a tomb. I remembered again, “You are the only survivor.”

The Spatine was talking into his com. I couldn’t see the com, and he was talking just above a whisper, so it was probably a nano thing. Which made sense if you didn’t want him to lose it.

“Lieutenant Allsop, Leading Spatine Beech here. Section Three-Baker, Deck Seven, compartment seventy-two. Sir, I have a survivor—civilian, female, approximately twenty years. Name Marjorie Starr Forster.” He paused and listened. Then nodded as if his superior could see him. Maybe he could. “She’s conscious but distressed. No visible injuries, but she’s been here a while and she’s… she’s insisting there was a little girl with her, sir. A child, age five or six, named Isabelle. Says the girl was right beside her all through… All through what happened.”

22 thoughts on “ARGH — Reprise, once more with CEILING.”

    1. Concur; sounds okay so far. More please.

      Shades of the dead chicken on the bus near the end of MASH There could be something unseen going on here.

      Is protagonist hallucinating or is child elusive?

      Liked by 1 person

  3. I recommend an article on (gasp) Literotica written by Todd172 entitled “How to Pew Vol. 1”

    He’s a former SOCOM operator who happens to write, with the aid of The Missus, extremely readable stories. Some of the stories would put him on the NY Times best seller list. One has been read over 600,000 times. It’s not p0rn! It’s just very well written.

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  4. Welp. I suspect I know why Isabelle insisted that Marjorie was her mama. And I suspect I also know her last name. Not that that would prevent me from thoroughly enjoying the story.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. The foreshadowing has gone way over my head, so I’m not spoiled at all. Looking forward to the rest of the story. (Nods to the spirit of Paul Harvey.)

        Liked by 2 people

  8. I’ve got a little general information about military communications:

    Messages should be kept short, simple and to the point.
    First, identify who you’re calling.
    Second, identify yourself.
    Convey your message and end with “Over.”

    “Flight leader four, flight commander, bandits at one-four-two by minus-eight, range fifteen thousand, intercept and engage, over.”

    “Flight commander, flight leader four, confirm bandits at one-forty-two by minus-eight, range fifteen thousand, setting course now, over.”

    Oh, ‘bogeys’ are unidentified contacts, ‘bandits’ are known enemies, ‘friendlies’ are ours. It’s a space battle, and the range is 15,000 kilometers.

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  9. From r/worldbuilding
    “What do you call the people serving in your space fleet?
    …
    Marine comes from the Latin word marīnus (ad. ‘of the sea’) from the compounding of mare (‘sea’) and -īnus. By analogy, we could look at the Latin word for space, spatium and produce spatine.
    I don’t love it, but I worked too hard not to post it.”

    I love it.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. More please.

    And if you’re having with the arcane language of the .MIL, drop me a line. Would be happy to advise.

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    1. I have ELEVEN PAGES ABOUT THE SPATINES. And their attire. And their traditions. And their … like Beech’s unit?
      1. “The Irregulars” – Third Company’s reputation across the Spatines
      2. “The Dirty Third” – Section Three’s reputation within the company
      3. “Baker Street” / “The Bakers” – Burns’ specific subsection

      Two Spatines from another company: “Who’s doing the station cleanup?” “The Irregulars drew it.” “Poor bastards.”
      Within Third Company: “Which section’s on point?” “Dirty Third. Again.” “Course it is.”
      Lieutenant Allsop on comms: “Baker Street, this is Allsop. Report status.” “Three-B reporting, sir. We’ve got a survivor.”
      Beech, introducing himself casually: “Leading Spatine Beech, Dirty Third, Irregulars.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. We likes it.

        Ot sure where it came from; but stuff happens sometimes. Like that silly Mechatexilla book…

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  11. Just as auspicious a beginning as the others were wonderful stories. Yes, more! (Please.)

    ‘Milspeak’ can be a little opaque, especially if you weren’t raised on an abundance of World War II era war movies (with veterans or active duty so much of their audience, they had to get it right; with so many ex-military around, that wasn’t at all hard). But ultimately, Britannia’s Spatines are <I>your</I> people, so they can talk however you (and the gateway) decide.

    For my part, I have Izabella Verkooerk who grew up speaking Piedmontese and Italian plus English outside the home (23rd-century New Canaan); Emese Hunyady, Hungarian plus German and English etc. etc. (Habsburg-era Hungary); Hannah Mackenzie, Scottish and English with a dash of Japanese (23rd-century Marquesas). Izabella riffs off Homer as quoted in Gordon Dickson (it’s in Solider, Ask, Not, in the classic Greek): “Questa non e la storia della mia ira; per a volte, l’ira non e basta.” Emese (it’s more or less Emma-shuh, BTW) even thinks in interlinguistic puns: “Again. Igen. Yes.” Hannah speaks Scottish and quotes Japanese proverbs, like <I>Issun saki wa yami,</I> “Darkness waits an inch ahead” (when she sees the Empire of Man’s planet-destroyer imaged for the first time). It’s who they are. This is the sort of people my gateway writing brings up… and my non-gateway writing (of fiction at least) is pitiful and scant without exception.

    I still don’t “speak” or “read” Italian or Hungarian, at all; I can say Tha mi ag ionnscacadh Gadhlig, I’m learning Scottish, with a more or less straight face. Tightrope walking, anyone?

    So, yeah, as long as the brevity and clarity and other functionally necessary things mostly already-mentioned above are there, future-mil-speak not likely going to ring false.

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  13. Keep in mind, you are writing the “mil speak” of your future folks, which may be based on prior, but not literally word-for-word same. I guarantee you that 88AD Centurion Grumblerage spoke not at all the same -words- as 1988AD 1SG R, but they probably spoke the same -way. Short, blunt, and to the point. Laconic, when not occasionally padded with swear-chaff.

    That phonetic “I spell Sierra Papa Echo Lima Lima” changes over time and allies, too. WW2 US Army used Able Baker not Alpha Bravo of US Army + NATO. You could use Ace Bar or Angel Bible, as long as it is consistent. Better if it ties to something contemporary in-world. And the humor value of civvy LEOs using yet another version, say all one syllable ones, versus mil two-sil. “Ape you stupid drop-monkey! “Angel you grifting brothel-warden!”

    Its the how/why of interactions with others that give it the ring of truth, not the verbiage.

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