The Stars in the Sky – Free, complete Short Story.

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*Yes, this is very late, because it exploded in size on me. (And made me write mil-speak, which I have issues with. Have mercy on me, okay.) And yes, I wanted to use “on the bounce” as a Heinlein homage. I might be trespassing, I don’t know. But I really wanted it in – SAH*

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.

(Removed because book — Christmas in Time — will be available for sale on Amazon 12-14-2025)

42 thoughts on “The Stars in the Sky – Free, complete Short Story.”

  3. Dust bunnies are at it again.

    Thank you Sarah.

    Very beautiful.

    Yes, foreshadowing was there, but if someone hadn’t pointed it out on the previous post, wouldn’t have figured it out so fast.

    Great story.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I hope I didn’t spoil it for you. I just knew Sarah had been writing time-travel stories recently, so when Isabelle disappeared in an impossible way I went “Gotta be time travel, hence why she calls her Mama and is upset when Mama claims she isn’t Mama, because she really really IS Mama!!!” And knowing Sarah, I knew that the man she had just met was going to be the man she ends up marrying, hence why I said that I also knew Isabelle’s last name.

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      1. And I completely missed the foreshadowing. I was looking at Marjorie Bruce, the daughter of Isabella and Robert the Bruce.

        And it’s dusty in here again.

        Thanks once again, Sarah.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. You didn’t.

        Foreshadowing is not bad if done well with correct timing, not too soon. Latter of which in a short story has to be early or it is too late. Sarah did the foreshadowing excellently. Just like she does with No Mans Land.

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  4. Did I say I really, really liked all of this year’s crop of Christmas-time-themed stories yet? Because as of this one, it’s still abundantly true.

    “Heartwarming” is an often overused word, sometimes massively overused. Here it’s just correct.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Glad I missed the snippet. I would have been spending may too much mental time guessing at the rest, and thereby ruining the story for myself.

    Another great tale, though. Enjoyed it immensely, dust storm not withstanding.

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  8. Quite good. Thank you.

    Don’t ever apologize/explain for dropping a hat-tip to Heinlein (or anyone else). Just do so. Anyone who knows will know.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Great story, the more I read the more I was convinced that it would somehow all come together at the end. The child had to be a part of her future! I loved this story Sarah, thank you again!

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  13. “Yatch” ?

    “Language, proper, Earls, for the use of.”

    The latter parallels a famous entry in an English quartermaster’s supply catalogue: Pot, chamber, rubber, handles (without), officers, lunatic, for the use of .

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I need to get it up today…. but I’m going to start with other moichandise till after Christmas, just because it’s SUCH a pain to get ebooks up.
      I’ll then slowly start putting ebooks on it.

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  17. At first I was afraid the little girl was going to be in the accounted-for-dead-before-they-hid group, kept reading because I couldn’t see how that would be even bittersweet and I knew that bittersweet is the lowest bar it’d aim for.

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  22. Sweet story. I love that you’ve built a world that we now know, and which can serve as a backdrop for lots more stories than just NML. Though more stories about NML are always very welcome too!

    Liked by 1 person

  24. I read the story this morning and have been thinking about it all day, trying to figure out why it affected me so. I think it has everything I like. A hard adventure. A handsome starship trooper (not a space marine) who we knew immediately was a good guy. A romance (I think Billy just happened to be there in Paris on purpose). Two steely-eyed main characters who are also nice. These are all good things.

    But it also had a trope first brought to me in my teens by Heinlein: the presence of other Earth-like worlds. The thought of them being out there can fill a person (ok, me) with such a yearning for them to exist, that when I find a story like this–which feels so real–I get taken back to a time when finding such worlds soon seemed possible. I think that was my favorite part of Friday, that there were frontier worlds to raise your family in. Sure, first they serve Britannia for years, but in this story, our heroes get a new home, too.

    I still don’t know if I figured it out, but, wow, it was a great story to get to spend the whole day feeling.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I also like the idea of those frontier worlds, where we could have a farm, and raise a passel of kids. At this point it would require rejuv and special tech for the kids, but…. I still want it.

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  27. “On the bounce” is from before Heinlein. He probably read it in Knickerbocker’s History of New York, by Washington Irving, where annoyances keep a governor “on the bounce,” meaning “in continual movement.” But it’s also in Atterbury before that, as “upon the bounce,” back in 1729.

    By 1889 in the UK, the meaning also included “with general liveliness.” There’s an example sentence in Slang and Its Analogues, describing men at Ascot “going to and fro ‘on the bounce.'”

    The sports meaning is usually to hit a bouncing ball just as it’s bouncing.

    Today in Indian English and English football, the idiomatic meaning is “one after another, with no pause inbetween.” The example sentence is “India sealed their victory with four matches won on the bounce.”

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