Homebound for the Horizon

  “It’s from your Brother” Jac looked up in surprise. He was a large man, muscular, his brown hair just starting to show flecks of grey. His wife stood before him, one good hand trembling slightly as he offered him the electronic holo pad. Her red hair was tied back in a practical bun, her face tired as always, and the most beautiful face in the Empire as far as Jac was concerned, as always. “You’re serious?” Jac asked in disbelief. “He hasn’t talked to me since I left the service” “See for yourself,” Red said brightly, handing him the Pad. Jac took it and read quickly, eyebrows rising. It was indeed from his Brother: Cyrus Krueger, youngest officer to ever make Captain of a Typhoon -class Battleship and, once upon a time, inseparable from his twin brother. Now, Jac scanned Cyrus’s writing carefully, trying to read between the lines of the state-mandated formalities. “It’s an invite” Jac finally said. “He wants us to come on the maiden voyage of The Fortress Maximus . And… he wants...

  This was far from the first time Pope had woken up surrounded by angry villagers. Even the swords weren't that unusual in the year 2250, becoming more and more popular as ammunition became scarcer and scarcer. “Can I help you folks?” Pope said groggily, pushing his sunglasses up and one of the sword-points away from his face. A short woman with curly hair and a homemade javelin stepped forward. “You can tell us what you're doing here,” she demanded. “I was just hiking to Column-town,” Pope explained. “It was after midnight and I bedded down here with the sheep and whatnot. Hope that's not a problem” “Two problems” the woman narrowed her eyes. “This IS Column-town and those aren't sheep” Pope looked down and saw that he was actually laying amongst chickens. Chickens that the cat had apparently been enthusiastically chasing all night. VERY enthusiastically. “Ah,” Pope said. “In my defense, I was very tired. How can I begin repaying you?” “Leaving town would be a good st...

  Pope took a deep breath and a contented sigh. Standing on the top deck of the Mount Vernon, nine stories in the air, he lost himself in the view, the sunshine and especially the fresh air. He absentmindedly scratched the sleek grey cat behind the ear. Certainly an improvement over spending a month down in a mine. The Mount Vernon trundled along at a ponderous pace that matched its incredible size. The Giga-harvester stretched some eight hundred feet, practically a land-based aircraft carrier, but if anything she was undersized. The grain fields under her care stretched nearly a half million square miles, over half of the Great plains of North America. If the Mount Vernon represented the height of Human technical achievement, the robotic behemoth pulling it represented the Stranger's. The “Boarder”, as they were called, stood even taller than the Giga-harvester, pulling it along with a massive pair of chains like a plow horse, shaking the earth with each methodical step. Its face,...

  Able, A young man with jet black hair and leathery hands, frowned as he stared up at the foreman, ignoring the angry whispers running through the crowd. Able often thought his squat, burly boss would have been happier as a circus ringmaster, selling people on the most incredible and unlikely ideas out there. It helped that he had the moustache for it. “Friends, brothers,listen up” The foreman called, silencing the crowd. “Listen to me. Hear alright in the back? Good. Listen: one hundred years ago, this summer, the Strangers first visited our humble green world” Able was not the only one to groan and role their eyes at an opening they had heard far too often. The foreman frowned but plunged ahead “It was a century ago that most of our fellow Humans forsook this world, the place of our kind’s birth. But not us! Not our forefathers! Not your Grandparents or their Grandparents. We, the loyal few, have remained to tend and care for the soil we first crawled from, the world that gave u...