Seen the Lights go out on Broadway

"Congratulations, love, you're going to have a baby!"

Mark read the email again, for the thousandth time, still he teared up. That was the last email he got from his wife, the last email he would ever get from her. The last reminder of his wife.

Mark put those thoughts out of his mind as an alert popped up. "Connect. 1003Z" Almost time for today's update. He brought up the comms app. "No signal." As expected, the tablet was in a CON enclosure, commonly called a "condom". It made using the tablet about as much fun as a fucking with a condom on. A causal onlooker might think the tablet was in an anti-static bag, the CON was translucent pink. The CON was higher tech than that, it was a radar absorbing stealth enclosure, reducing the content's radar cross section to almost nothing.

That was important when the enemy was out looking for him. But also someone, somewhere was thanking god most sincerely that the CON enclosures also reduced the dampening field, so the contents would continue to work, despite the enemy's best efforts. That dampening field was why he was here in the middle of god forsaken nowhere, wearing the silly suit, paddling a fucking canoe. It was his mission to take out the field generator. The CON-dom also blocked any comm signal, so he was going to have to unzip the bag to make the connection.

He looked up. He revised his opinion, maybe god hadn't forsaken this part of the world. The view was incongruously serene as the sun rose over the hill opposite. There was no wind, the lake was a mirror reflecting the blue sky, scattered clouds and fringe of trees. Claire would love it here, … Except Claire was dead.

Back to reality, it was almost time to connect. The timer counted down, he unzipped the top of the CON-dom and pointed in the indicated direction. "Signal acquired.” The tablet had found the signal from the XES-3 making a hyperbolic orbit just above the atmosphere. That was serving as com relay. "Downloading, … Done." He quickly zipped up the top of the bag, and crawled into the underbrush. Then he waited. Had they noticed? Had they got a fix on him?

If they had, they'd be coming looking for him, his best defense was to be invisible. Invisible to their sensors, they relied to much on their sensor and didn't bother to use their eyes. He had nothing which would show up on their sensors, the only metal he had was the tablet, shielded in the CON-dom. Even his side arm was plastic, its barrel was ceramic wrapped in carbon fiber. It worked, but the barrel wore out, and was fragile. He had a couple of spares, just in case. The bullets again, were ceramic and the casings were plastic, formed from the propellant.

Even if they looked, they might not see him, the suit he hated so much might just save his life. It looked like more underbrush. In another place, it would be called a ghillie suit, the army had a much less romantic name for it. The high tech fabric it was made from was fire retardant, bullet resistant and reduced his IR signature. However as he lay there, no one came looking, but still he lay there.

After half an hour, he considered it safe. He looked at the tablet, wrapped in its enclosure and found the details. There were updated reconnaissance photos, best guess diagrams and observed personal schedules. The enemy were creatures of habit. Mark fervently hoped that was to be their undoing. To his training, it was big mistake on their part. Either they didn't know any better, or they weren't expecting an attack. The latter option was best case for Mark.

The plan now was to wait. He would cross the lake near sunset and lie low overnight on the island, then make his move at dawn. So now he just got to lie there, and day dream. Or really dream, any sleep he could get would be a bonus.

His mind drifted, back to the last time he saw Claire. He was now a full lieutenant. His mission had gone well, and he was furloughed so he could get to see her for once. He had barely seen her for two months in the two years they had been married. He couldn't even tell her of the missions which kept them apart. She didn't complain. She met him at arrivals at airport, she was waving a small stars and stripes. That's not what got his attention. When she ran up to him, jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. That got his attention. Then amid the kisses, she whispered in his ear. “I'm fertile, I want you to fuck me." That really got his attention.

They made haste to get out of the terminal building to the curb, where their car was just pulling up. Mark put his bags in the trunk, as Claire claimed inside. Mark claimed in beside Claire and the car started for home as Mark looked over at Claire. She was discarding her yellow sundress onto the floor of the car, on top of her panties. She was naked. She lay back and opened her arms and legs. "Fuck me, please." Mark looked around nervously, and noted the windows were in privacy mode, so no one could see them. Being a soldier, following orders came naturally to him, his orders were clear.

He unzipped himself and took his position between her legs. He slid into Claire, she sighed contentedly. This wasn't going to last long, not after three and a half months apart. Mark looked down at the woman he loved in the throes of passion, he loved her now more than ever. She came, Marks heart melted as he shot his load into Claire. Sinking to his knees, he rested on Claire briefly, before rolling over onto the seat.

He looked lovingly over at Claire, expression was returning to her face. She opened her eyes, looked over at Mark, and smiled. Marks heart melted again. She wiggled around, so her butt was resting on Marks thigh. With a sigh, she explained, "This'll keep it where its needed." Meaning elevating her butt, would keep his come against her cervix so she could conceive. The with a grin, she added, "It would help if I came again. That's good for conception."

Mark considered the situation, going down on her would get her off like a rocket, but in the car there wasn't the space for that. Resigned that he couldn't go down her, he held her knees and gently separated her legs. With one hand he massaged her clit with his thumb. With his other hand her reached over to her boobs. He couldn't use his mouth on her small but exquisitely shaped and perky boobs either, another disappointment. He cupped her boob and rolled her nipple between his thumb and finger. She moaned loudly at that.

He made to stick his fingers in her pussy, but she moaned, "No, no, leave it." She didn't want to disturb his cum. He kept on his assault on her nipple and clit, she moaned louder and louder. Then went rigid, she was coming. Her thighs clamped around his hand and her back arched. Then she relaxed. Mark smiled at Claire as she recovered. She opened her eyes, stretched languidly, and smiled at Mark. Mark melted again, he loved her so much. She said, "God, you're good. I can't wait for your tongue. I love you."

Reflexively, he said, "I love you too." But he really meant it, more than he ever had.

"I'd love to reward you." That was how she referred to blowjobs, "I'd love to taste your come, but you should come in here." She pointed to her pussy. "You can fuck me whenever you want."

Mark was digging the conceiving. Claire was usually horny, on the rare occasions, when he was home. But this was even better. He could even live without getting a blowjob. He followed her orders faithfully over the next three days, she counted fourteen loads deposited in her pussy.

On the morning of the third day, after the fourteenth load, She lay in his arms, the world was at peace. The peace locally was shattered by his phone, it was his C.O. He had new orders. He didn't know it just then, but peace had been shattered globally as well. He headed straight to the airport and got on a midday plane. A tearful Claire climbed in the car with Mark, and as it set out for the airport. She knelt on the floor and unzipped his fly. "I can't let you go without rewarding you once." And rewarded he was. He'd been flagging some after all the sex of the past few days, it took him most of the forty-five minutes it took to get to the airport for him to finally come. It was quite a send off, he though of it often in the days to come.

Back at his base he was apprised of the situation. There had been landings in remote parts of Canada and Alaska. “Most probably of extra-terrestrial origin.” There were similar reports from various other countries around the world. Reconnaissance flights had been sent by the US and Canadian governments, but contact had been lost with the planes. They were presumed down. Mark's unit was tasked with reconnoitering the Alaska site on foot, but Mark was attached to the Canadian operation as an observer. He observed the operation from the forward base, one hundred miles from the landing site.

He was brought back to the present by the unearthly shape of a skimmer flying low over the lake. It was black and menacing, looking like nothing on Earth. A scorpion on its back was the closest anyone had come to describing it. It flew low enough that ground effects kicked up a wake across the lake, giving them their nickname, they had an official codename of Macaque, but were usually called skimmers. Apart from the whoosh of the disturbed water it flew eerily silently towards the hill on the island. It flew straight and unwavering towards the hill, then disappeared, leaving only hill side.

Mark got a fix on that bearing, that was his way in. The hidden entrance to the enemy facility. He entered the bearing onto the tablet, and it marked the probable location on the map.

That done, mark went back to waiting, and dreaming. He remembered the opening of hostilities. There was a commotion in the officer's club, the TV switched onto a live feed from New York. Black shapes swirling around the Empire State building. The shapes were indistinct, and puzzling. Now we know the enemy's stealth technology made them hard to see. Now we know they were the attack ships, now codenamed Baboon. Then they appeared as specters from a nightmare.

They'd gotten the media's attention, they were live on national TV. The Baboons did their thing. They broke the swirling pattern and headed directly away from the building directly towards the news trucks which had gathered. As the cameras were concentrating on the spectral shapes, the 22nd floor of the Empire State building erupted in clouds of smoke. The cameras quickly refocussed their attention on the building as so slowly it collapsed down on itself. Those old enough to remember said it looked like the towers coming down on 9/11. Mark wasn't old enough to remember that, except in videos. The cameras saw an expanding front of dust coming towards them, then went black.

In the studio the anchors were shocked speechless. Then they were prompted as more pictures were coming in. The screen cut to a concert in a park the Brooklyn bridge in the background. Macaque skimmers were making their eery way down the East River. You could make out the shape of the skimmers, but it was nothing you recognized. They flew under the bridge, they looped up and around the bridge deck. Having made a complete loop, they broke formation and flew off in different directions, one directly towards the camera. Again in their wake there was a cloud of smoke and the bridge majestically collapsed into the river.

These would be images no one forgot, if the power hadn’t gone out. The first indication of that was an aerial shot of the Baboons swirling around Lady Liberty. It took some kind of balls to cover an air war from a news chopper, but the enemy left them alone. The enemy wanted the coverage. There was excitement as the shot focussed in on the distance as a flight of F-43 came in on an attack vector from out at sea. The Enterprise was off New York, out of Norfolk on its way to maneuvers in the Atlantic. It made the first military response, and the last.

The camera focussed on the F-43’s streaking low across the bay, there was a barely perceptible wobble from the planes, then their engines cut, they tumbled into the water. Splash! There was no ejection, no parachutes. No visible shots had been fired. The camera then focussed on Manhattan as the lights slowly went out as the sun set. Block by block from the Battery up, Manhattan went dark. The diagonal slash of Broadway kept light momentarily longer than the blocks around it, but that too faded. Then the camera went black.

Now we know this was the dampening field. Having made a point with the high profile attacks, the enemy then shut down civilization. Within the dampening field, technology did not work. Electricity did not work and with it went civilization. First the lights went out, then choppers and planes fell from the sky. Then the studios stopped broadcasting. Left in the dark people panicked. Without the crutch of technology, you could not live in a big city. There was chaos and mass migration to the country. Millions died in that chaos as the dampening field spread all over the US. Millions more would die of starvation as the infrastructure collapsed.

The government tried to put emergency procedures in place, but with communications now limited to the speed of a horse. It was an impossible job to govern. It was an impossible job to produce the food needed to support the population.

That afternoon Mark had gotten that final email from Claire, with the result of his furlough. The euphoria of that message lasted a few hours until that final broadcast. Then it was replaced with the agony of not knowing. Was she alive? Was she dead? Those thoughts were largely displaced by practical matters. How to stay alive. How to strike back at this enemy.

The base organized itself, as the military will do and waited for orders, as the military will do. The base took any civilians who passed under its protection. It organized farms to grow food for the base and the civilians. Then it waited.

Two months later there was a commotion as an unknown unit of soldiers arrived on horseback. They had the correct recognition codewords and they had orders. Very few people knew what happened next, Mark was one with a need to know. He found out that they brought the CON material. Select equipment was wrapped in it and it started working again. The equipment selected was the fiber optic communications terminal. The light in the fibers was not affected by the dampening field, but the equipment to interface it to the base electronics was. So with a terminal hooked up, the base was back on the net again.

The government was slowly rebuilding the net with the fiber lines and shielded terminals. Once communication was established there was some hope of governing. The existence of the new net was a closely guarded secret. Having any communication at all was an advantage they didn’t want to let on to the enemy about. Mark was told only after the fear of god was put into him, complete with two loaded and cocked side arms pointed at him to enforce the point. Never let on the net existed. The existence of the net was codenamed “Ultra” by someone with a keen sense of history. Even the codename was not to be uttered except to those cleared to know.

One thing knowing of the existence of the net did was allow Mark to be told Claire’s death. She was listed on the official casualty sheets. The government as always was trying to keep records, even amid the chaos. With Mark cleared for the Ultra secret, he could now be told. He couldn’t let on that he knew though, that would betray that he knew something he couldn’t otherwise know. His determination to strike back at the enemy only increased with the news. He didn't care if he forfeit his life, he just wanted to strike at them.

Mark’s unit was again tasked with approaching the landing sites, this time with a view to destroying the dampening field generators. There had been no contact with any government in Canada about the mission on Canadian soil, this was a unilateral action on the US’ part. Now he was lying on a lake shore, waiting to put the plan into action. He briefly considered if today being 9/11 was a good omen, but he put that thought away.

He dozed. He dreamed, dreams filled with the faces of the dead and dying. Among them Claire. He jerked awake, that dream again, he hated that dream, except it was the only time he got to see Claire.

It was getting dark, time to make his move. He crawled forward and into the moored canoe. To the army it was a “low radar cross section canoe.” To anyone else the manufacturer’s plate said, “Woden Canoe Company, Silver Solo”, before the plate was ripped off because it was metal. The rest of the canoe was wood, a pleasant reddish toned wood, when you weren’t worrying about an alien unleashing death in an unknown manner on you. Mark pushed off from the shore and paddled steadily and deliberately across the lake. Trying to make as minimal disturbance as possible.

He heard a whoosh behind him, a skimmer heading his way. He froze, the skimmer passed by, the wake rocking the canoe. They couldn’t even see a guy paddling a canoe across the lake to kill them. There was something screwed up in their perceptions, something he was thankful for. Again he got a bearing on the skimmer as it disappeared into the hillside. The bearing was again entered into his tablet, he had a good fix on the entrance now.

He finally made the shore he was headed for, the Moon, just poking above the hill provided enough light to see what he was doing. He dragged the canoe on shore and hid it in the underbrush. He dropped a pin on the tablet's map, so he could find it again. He hoped he’d be able to find it again, the tablet had been without a GPS signal since the checkin that morning and was navigating inertially. The inertial navigation hadn’t been designed to run so long between GPS fixes. At least the GPS was still working, the dampening field didn't reach into orbit. He found a position at the edge of the trees where he could observe the entrance and melted into the underbrush.

Again he got to just wait. Anyone in the forces was used to waiting. Some said it was the brass’ favorite order, “Wait!” But Mark was using all his training to be less observable. He moved only slowly and deliberately. He hardly breathed, his heart rate was way down. Again he day dreamed, and really dreamed.

This time the thoughts and dreams were the good ones. Of when he’d met Claire. He was awake. Where was he? A brief confusion as he remembered his situation. He looked at the tablet. 0959Z. It would be dawn soon. The sky was showing a deep dark blue, confirming it would be dawn soon. The moon had set a few hours earlier as he was sleeping. Time to make his move.

There were trees about 100 meters distance, more cover. He had to cross open ground to reach them. He crawled forward onto the open ground, slowly, so he wouldn’t be noticed. It took him roughly fifteen minutes to gain the relative safety of the trees. Then he moved along the tree-line towards where the skimmers came and went from.

The tree cover ended about 25 meters from the position he was aiming for, so again he crawled. Then it went black. He was on a hard smooth surface. He didn’t think he’d blacked out. He slowly and deliberately got out the tablet, and put it in night vision mode. The image would be bad, from inside the CON-dom, but he’d be able to see something.

“Hanger.” Was his first thought. He was in a large smooth walled cavern. There were several skimmers parked to one side, one Baboon and one larger ship of unknown configuration. He focussed in on the larger ship, intel was his number one priority. This was valuable intel. He then focussed on the Baboon, there were very few images of a Baboon without its stealth cloak up, so again, valuable intel. Finally, the skimmers, they were a well known configuration, but not often seen still.

He looked around, the lower part of his body was not there. He reached back, his hand disappeared. There was a definite interface there. He moved back, when his head crossed the interface he could see the grass outside, with just a hillside in front of him. The illusion of terrain was expected, now he had confirmation of that. He gathered more images, crossing the interface, more intel.

He crawled through the interface and observed with the tablet again. He made for the wall opposite the parked ships. Standing up he again scanned the hanger. There was a passageway leading off the back corner, he made for that. The passageway was a smooth ovoid, about 2 meters high and four wide. That made him nervous, no wall to hug, he readied his side arm for a quick draw, drew a breath and started down the passage.

He had walked a few minutes past some smaller side tunnels when he heard a noise. He froze. Carefully, he tried to tuck himself out of the way in the “corner” of the passage, and readied his side arm, already fitted with the suppressor. The noise was a rhythmic clicking/rustling sound. An odd rhythm. He observed the direction of the noise with the night vision. From around a bend in the passage emerged, something.

His mind said, “caterpillar.” It looked like a giant caterpillar, walking upright on six of its hind legs. Its “face” had two enormous eyes, the size of saucers. The six walking legs were making the rhythmic sound. The body was segmented, it was reminiscent of the shape of the ships.

The caterpillar walked on by him, either ignoring him, or not seeing him. That in itself was a puzzle, but was typical of the enemy. This was going to be really valuable intel, the first pictures of the enemy itself. He debated going back to make sure this intel was uploaded, but decided to push on. He was glad he did, as just around the bend was a cluster “rooms”. Small smooth walled caverns off of the passage way.

There were more caterpillars in one room, clustered around something. There was an amorphous mass of shapes in the middle of the room. The caterpillars were either sleeping on them, or hunched over them studying them intently. He had no idea of caterpillar body language. He guessed "control room”, one of the targets he was to look for. In the next room there were no caterpillars, but the large blob things in the middle of the room were humming softly. “Power supply” was his guess. In another room he guessed “ray domes”.

Those were the targets he was to identify and disable for his secondary mission: Destroy the dampening field generators. Hoping his guesses were right, he laid charges on the power supply and ray dome things. The time was now 1017Z, his scheduled connect was in 23 minutes. So he set the detonators to 25 min. He hoped the non metallic, purely chemical detonators were that accurate.

He didn’t think he could enter the control room without being seen, even by the enemy’s low standard for observation. So he rolled the charges into a cylinder, stuck a detonator into the end and rolled them across the floor to come to rest at the base of what he hoped were control consoles.

Now he beat a hasty retreat. Hasty in the manner of a man trying not to be seen, knowing that several kilos of high explosive were armed behind him, with detonators of unknown reliability. He got back to the hanger without further incident, got to the interface and crawled out into the grassland beyond. It was getting light now, the sun was just about rising. He crawled to the tree-line, then made ready to connect.

The timer counted down, then he unzipped the bag. "Signal acquired. … Uploading, … Done.” His primary mission was now fulfilled and the secondary mission became primary. Destroy the dampening field generators. He’d just zipped up the CON-dom when a gout of flame erupted from the direction of the hidden entrance, and a compression wave knocked him flat. Somewhere in his consciousness he recognized that that was more than a few kilos of high explosive.

He lay face down, trying to gather his wits. He made a personal inventory, he still had all his limbs, and they all were working. Next he needed to know if the dampening field was still in effect. The only way to do that was to take the tablet out of the CON-dom and risk it failing. He did that, the tablet continued to work. He signaled the forward base, and got a response. He sent the message. “Larger than expected explosion at enemy installation. Unknown damage to installation. Coordinates to follow.” He followed with the coordinates of the entrance.

The reply came back, "Acknowledged. Hold Position. Relief on route." The army did love telling him to wait. About 45 minutes later he heard the muted whomp-whomp of a flight of four UH-82. They circled the clearing in front of him, and two of them landed. Each disgorged a squad which took up defensive positions around the clearing. The two choppers quickly took off and two more landed, the two squads unloaded and advanced on the entrance to the enemy installation. The choppers took off behind them.

The second two squads disappeared into the hidden entrance. Nothing obviously happened for some time, then a message came through on his tablet. "Recognition green. Evac on chopper." A chopper landed in the clear area. Mark switched the tablet to recognition mode, green. Then slowly got up and emerged from the trees. He was holding the tablet up, it was flashing green as the recognition signal.

He made it to the chopper, hands reached out and helped him up. "Welcome aboard sir." The occupant indicated he should sit and handed him a headset. Then he shut the door, took the pilot's seat and the chopper flew up into the air. "We should be at forward base in forty minutes, sir." Mark indicated his thanks to the pilot, then was asleep.

They got to the forward base. There was a lot more activity than the last time Mark saw it. Now the dampening field was gone, they were uncrating more equipment. All the equipment had been laboriously transported by steam train, and then by mule train from the railhead. The equipment had including the four choppers which had been in crates the previous time he saw them. Mark was thoroughly debriefed, though the surroundings were incongruous, the tent was a most unmilitary delicate pink on the inside. More of the CON material.

Finally he was left alone and he could get back to his quarters. Finally alone, he broke down in tears. He finally allowed himself to grieve for Claire. These past months he'd been so focussed on the mission, he hadn't had that luxury.


Afterword.

The operation to disable the dampening field generators was the start of a long process or restoring normality to the world. The intelligence gathered at the two installations allowed counter measures to be developed. The remaining generators around the world we similarly disabled.

The intelligence gathered also explained the behavior of the enemy. The landings were an advanced force, to soften up the Earth in preparation for a full scale invasion to come later. It had been remarkably successful, just the dampening field alone had shattered civilization and reduced the effectiveness of the armies of the world.

The anatomy of the enemy was also studied. They dwelled underground and saw in infra-red. The ghillie suit Mark was wearing, fortuitously, made him almost invisible to them.

For his part, Mark was awarded a medal. He never found anything which could fill the void left by Claire in his soul though.

 

That went in an unexpected direction. From happy event to a tragic love story to a military near future SF apocalypse. The actions were scattered and the emotions were scattered. Not sure if its disjointed, or stream of consciousness.

The sex in a self driving car was getting good, but came to a hurried conclusion. Good how the self driving car was so unremarkable, as to be unremarked. The story of how he met Claire is also missing.

The afterword helped to explain some thing, but the aliens were left largely unexplained. They were acting strange, alien I suppose.

 

Great!!! This was my first read (picked at random)

I started to read and was worried that this was going to be very sad. Well, it was, but also it was exciting. Mankind struggling against superior technology, trying to overcome the odds. It brought to mind the movie Independence Day.

The action was good, as well as the explanation of the equipment. The stream of consciousness noted above worked in my opinion. He was a soldier trained to keep his mind on the job. He would only allow himself the memories during times of rest, so the story evolved in breaks.

The sex scene was very nice. I would have liked a little bit more description, but the sex for procreation angle kinda got me. ( points for that! )

The sadness was just that, sad. Losing the one he loved as well as his unborn child brought tears to my eyes, but a story doesn't have to be all happy endings for my vote.

I think this is very good, and I hope you do well in the voting!

 

I mostly liked this one.

Earth is well and truly fucked after this, even if they did mange to repel the coming invasion, depressing. The love interest dead in the second paragraph, depressing. Depressing doesn't mean bad story and the rest made up for it. The sex was hot, your love throwing them at you and not having to worry about contraception, hot. The send off, hot. It did seem truncated.

The tech was interesting and mostly plausible. Then he was reduced to using a wooden canoe. In general mixing high tech and non-electric tech could be interesting. I'm not convinced by the suit reducing his IR signature. There are sound thermodynamic reasons why that doesn't work, at least without cooking the occupant.

This did read like it was the start of a series, but at least the afterword fill in some blanks.

 

The fifth CAW 25 story I have read and I loved the change in genre: military/science fiction. I think the author accomplished what he or she wanted to accomplish. We have Mark, the protagonist, and his memory of his wife Claire. He's also on a mission for Earth versus some alien baddies, who weren't described in anatomy until the end. We only know what their ships looked like. Mark's motivation is clear: revenge for his wife's death. His mission is told to us in this story, while also including flashbacks of his personal life and the major event of an alien invasion. The new world order and resistance forces are adequately described as we are kept up to date with his movement closer and closer to the enemy. This story also deserves some recognition for giving us some insight into what our technology would be like in the event of an invasion where an alien enemy shut down all electrical devices by neutralizing electricity. I thought this story was well-told and would like to say bravo to the author for doing what he or she set out to do. Good work!

 

Wow, another well written caw25 story, I really like this one also. Very well written, easy to follow and understand , lik the way you got caught up on things whenever he slept, or napped. Thanks for you hard work and time, again loved the story.

 

It is amazing what one man can do when he is driven. The hard work that the writer did is appreciated. Good job

 

Sci-fi and fantasy, erotic or not, are my favorite, so I have to remember that while evaluating all the stories. A great story, wish it was more descriptive, especially the sex, but I really liked it. Lone military guy versus the alien, tried and true, but so appealing just the same. Enjoyed it and hope to read more. Good job and good luck!

 

I liked the story line. I enjoy sci-fi and this fit the bill. The writing style reminded me some of Harry Harrison when he wrote The Stainless Steel Rat.

There were a number of grammar issues, probably didn't have a good proofing done, which is a shame because the quality of the writing is good in that I could easily visualize the terrain, the equipment, the settings, and the bleakness.

One thing that I did want to bring up is the lack of conjunctions. I found many places where the word "and" was missing. I can supply this info if the author desires, but no need to set a bunch of examples here.

With some polish and expansion, this could turn into a nice series.

 

Good story, although I'm not a huge sci-fi fan. For my particular taste only, I wish there had been more dialogue and less narrative. I feel more emotion from a character then strictly told about his feelings. Good story and would like to see it fleshed out a bit.

 

When I'm reading something as someone who has to vote, I need to look at the story and how well it is written. I found this very difficult to read because of many issues.
Take this paragraph for example:

His mind drifted, back to the last time he saw Claire. He was now a full lieutenant. His mission had gone well, and he was furloughed so he could get to see her for once. He had barely seen her for two months in the two years they had been married. He couldn't even tell her of the missions which kept them apart. She didn't complain. She met him at arrivals at airport, she was waving a small stars and stripes.

His mind drifted back... He was now a full lieutenant. This would be clearer if it was, He was a full lieutenant. Or, Back then he was a full lieutenant.

He had barely seen her for two months in the two years... Much better to say, In the two years since their wedding, he'd been on assignment for twenty-two months.

She met him at arrivals at airport... She was there when he arrived at the airport, waving the stars and stripes.

There were sentence fragments, punctuation errors and incorrect words used. i.e. Claimed instead of climbed. To instead of Too. Ect.

As a writer it is critical to make your story easy to read. This one was too much work for me.

I'm not just trying to be negative. I hope feed back can help. I'll try and remember that when I submit one of my stories.

 

I really enjoyed this one. The epic battle between mankind and an alien race bent on destruction. New? Not really, but still exiting and entertaining.

Now this will be all my opinion, so don't take too much from it. I loved the way the backstory was told in flashback. So much so, that I almost wish you had drawn it out more. The beginning was great, him reading the E-mail that Claire was pregnant, but maybe if you had left off that she was dead. Keep telling us the history while he has moments to remember. Then hitting us with the bad news later in, after we have developed a connection with her. Just my opinion, and you know what they say about those!

As someone else commented, I liked the relying on a low-tech wooden boat to counteract such superior technology. The tech itself seemed realistic enough to me. When reading something that goes over my head, it's easy to me to just believe the author. I did that here, and just nodded my head... "Well of course! Anyone would have made a electronic shielding con-dom!" But really, all of the tech seemed reasonably doable to a novice like me.

The sex in the car was very good. I liked that Claire didn't want to give him oral so as not to waste any "seed". Don't try and argue with a woman at that point, just sit back and enjoy the ride! There could have been a little more description to the sex, but it's good the way it is.

There were some errors in the writing that I will let those who know more point out. Listen to @ahorsewithnoname ... He doesn't criticize to get his jollies, he knows his stuff, and is always willing to give you the goods.

Great sci-fi story with some sex and tragic romance thrown in. Thanks for your hard work.

 

This is what happens when I don't read and comment early -- all the important things have already been said.

I, too, wish there had been more dialog. Your descriptions are clear, but in some cases a character could have verbalized them instead of the narrator. You could interject dialog into some of the stream of consciousness stuff, too. It's a way to liven up a story and to bring the reader closer to the characters.

This seems like the possible start to a series. I hope it is. When this is all over the writer could re-post a version of this, taking the constructive criticism here into account, and expand on it.

At least, I hope that's what happens.

Good entry!

 

I really like this entry , and a sci-fi story with some sex thrown in ,(yippee! ) granted there wasn't a lot but I was happy that it was there.

It did seem a little strange that the first thing she said was she was fertile , to me having been a part for so long that wouldn't be a concern , introducing the fertility angle just after sex would have sat better (from my point of view ) and would have introduced a little brevity . I did love just how many times they were at it , but I would have liked more detail .
(Tinted windows pha! I've got to get me one of those cars with privacy mode !

I loved the condom joke , the disappearing vegetation the
hi-tec stuff , wasn't too technical , it was great the having to go back to basics to survive and even circumvent the "superior weaponry of the aliens" and I loved the apocalyptic vibe throughout.

I was gutted that she died and even right up to the end I hoped there had been a mistake and he'd been misinformed (just the soppy bugger in me ) but it did work well with the story.

I didn't notice the missing words and punctuation but when I like something I think my brain , fills in the missing parts (not good when reviewing work , oops !)

It was an enjoyable story and though I wished shed lived , her dying brought an extra dimension to the story .

I loved it , thanks for your hard work , a really enjoyable piece for me , a great read . Good luck . I thought it was a fab read . Xx

 

I had a lot of trouble getting into this story at the beginning. I re-read the first paragraphs a few times because I was severely confused. I don't read a lot of Sci-fi (really any other than the last KAW challenge). So I find it hard to "get into" a story with a lot of code names, alien species and foreign terms. Especially when you start with the wife's email, then go straight into mission "kill the bugs". Once I pushed through the first few paragraphs, I didn't have as much trouble keeping up.

I am going to be a little hypocritical here by saying I think there should have been MORE explanations about these aliens. I know I just complained about "foreign terms", but to just say, there are these ships that 'dampened' all technology, which in turn made civilization collapse and then millions (including my wife) die. While I appreciate your attempt to have some explanation through sort of an "autopsy" of the aliens. Again, I think a little more detail needed to be used. These things are just too important to the story overall to "gloss over".

If you are going to write a sci-fi story, you have to go 'all in'. It's one of those genres that you can't do it "half-way".

I think this story has great potential, especially for people who like sci-fi.

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback (even the parts I don't agree with). That was fun.

This isn't the story I intended to write, I just ran out of time. (Not making excuses, just saying. I started late. When I checked the deadline, it was the next morning before I'd be up, so I had to submit what I had). I intended to have more in the conception scene, and have a scene for "when he met her", which was cut to just half a sentence. I've written those now, and cleaned the rest up some, which I didn't get to do. After the KAW feedback (thanks to everyone), I intended to be less hurried, it didn't work out that way. BTW: These scenes are some of the first sex scenes I've written.

The idea for this one actually started with the picture of the lake and the canoe. No one has commented on that. I thought my story would move away from the lake, so I didn't think I could use the picture as the theme. The baby line provided a hook, so I could start with some shock and awe, I was successful with that. It also provided the Claire side story.

The Claire story made it a much better story than just guy vs aliens. The Claire story is greatly expanded in the new version, it makes the new version an even more different story. As to UncleB's point, it would be implausible for him not to mention Claire at that point. Once you have the first line, he needs to be saddened by it. His sadness needs an explanation. With a different opening line, maybe I could have strung that out. (Building suspense was also feedback from the KAW.)

No one commented that the story is also set in a foreign country, Canada. The Canadian wilderness is hardly different from Northern US wilderness, so I couldn't use that as the theme. I also put the reference to "Silver" in there, as suggested in the CAW themes thread. (The Griswalds were the only other story to do that.) The Wooden Canoe Company is a real company, the Silver Solo is one of their products, it's the canoe I could find which looks most similar to the one in the picture. Again no one commented.

The expanded version may satisfy those who wanted more dialog. As it is, there's no room for dialog in a story where a guy is trying not to be seen (or heard), except in the flashbacks.

If anyone does have any notes on spelling, grammar, punctuation etc, I'd be glad to get it in a PM. I've scoured the story, and I can't find an instance of to/too confusion. I'd already seen claimed/climbed and a few others. I suspect autocorrect for that. I'm beginning to think autocorrect is out to get me, I might turn it off.

Some of the comments may be just differences in style. I was going for a clipped style, so there could be missing conjunctions. They may be deliberate, I do not see them. But I'd still like to know what I'm missing. There are sentence fragments, my grammar checker points them out. I'm comfortable with them as a stylistic choice. They also occur in dialog, that's how people speak.

As for Independence Day the film (ID4), my first thought was to set the attack on New York on the 4th. Then I thought of ID4. The attack I had in mind was much too much like ID4. So I had to come up with an entirely new attack scene, which was different from anyone else's. This was difficult. No one has commented that the attack is based on the lyrics of "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" by Billy Joel. Hence the title, and the "diagonal slash of Broadway". There aren't many SF songs in the world, it deserves some recognition. [Aside: The name of the song is unclear. My 1976 Vinyl version is "Seen the Lights", my iTunes version from Apple is "I've Seen the Lights". Billy himself lists it as "I've Seen the Lights".]

I'm also surprised I got away with a military story. That's really not me. I'm surprised I got away with so little conflict. He went in, he came out, not much drama. I considered putting in a shoot out, or similar, just to have something. But that's not the story that unfolded. All the sneaking around in underbrush, for days, is based on what a guy I used to know would talk about. He'd been in special forces and some anti-terrorist operations were just hiding for days.

The human's tech is pretty much current day, just I chose higher numbers for the vehicle designations. (And threw in a spaceplane. Xperimental-Electronics-Spaceplane-3. Based on US military nomenclature.) The CON material is not based on anything extant I'm aware of, but is something the military would love, and should be researching if they aren't already.

Alien tech is of course Alien, and way beyond Earth tech. I can't think of any rational basis currently for a "dampening field". You could also poke holes in it, like what about nerve impulses. Why isn't everyone dead.

The story did read like the start of a series. It was never meant to be. It was always just Mark's story. That left a lot of questions, so I put in the afterword, after all the criticism of series in the KAW. I never had any intention of writing any more about this, and as I said in one KAW criticism "I find post apocalyptic depressing." So I don't know if I'll ever do another. Its going to take a lot of work to build up civilization again, a lot of work on my part to plot that, even if background. A sequel s daunting. Also as I said, Military is not me.

I'm aware of that, and thought of potential ways around it. As usual, thermodynamic theory is a gross simplification of the system. I decided not to put any of it in the story to not distract the casual reader. Again, feedback from the KAW, where I was too technical for some.

The thermodynamic model assumes only black body radiation. There are other methods that could be used to dump head out of the suit, short of cooking the occupant. Several ways it could be done:
1. A suit surface which promotes air cooling. I can think of a fractal surface texture with little cilia which promote airflow over it. As a bonus, the cilia are a heat engine, using some of the waste heat.
2. The camouflage (grass and/or twigs and branches) of the suit acts as an efficient heat sink to air.
3. The waste heat is stored inside the suit and dumped at convenient times. It could be dumped by:
3a Dumping hot water. (Urine would make a good source. The suit excretes boiling pee.)
3b Driving a heat sink into the ground to dump the excess heat. Could be done when he's stationary.

#3 could be dangerous as you leave a large heat signature behind you. It could also be that the suit just needed to change the spectrum of the emitted radiation from body heat down to something the aliens weren't looking for. Though that wouldn't be much good vs human IR sensors.

I'll take that as a very big compliment.

Definitely interested.

Its not necessarily the first thing she said, but the first he remembered her saying, he is a man. They'd usually be hurrying off to fuck, she was more eager than usual. I considered putting in some explanation that they'd been emailing about it, and had come to the agreement to try for a baby, to put the comment in context. I like the way it is in the story.

With the expanded version, you might see that its Claire being Claire. The published version leaves out most of Claire's character development, which is back in the expanded version.

Also, I like it when my wife asks me to fuck her. It gave Mark a really happy memory. (I identify with my characters.)

That made me think. There are lots of reasons why she had to be dead. Not least is his motivations. But, I'm also bummed that she's dead, so I've been wondering if I could change that for a sequel. I had several ideas how it could be done, one of which is below. I put a different one in the revised story.

I almost missed these comments, the comment comments don't show up as new comments, so can get lost (Not impressed with the UI design of this feature.)

I wrote those on the 8th or 9th. The first one because it makes it easy to describe a tower coming down, without describing anything. Just about everyone has that image in their head, so I could just tap into it. It also gave me a chance to put some idea of an era on the story. A mid twenties army guy only remembers it as history, must be in the future.

The second one is there for much geekier reasons. I use an astronomy app to work out what's going to happen. When the sun and moon rise and set. Where in the sky the sun or moon is at any time in the story. So I know the moon will be just poking out from behind the hill at that point in the story, or is set when he wakes. (Like I said, geeky. I'd guess no one appreciated all the work I did there.)

I knew the year its set (but don't mention it). I put the action sometime in September, given their backstory (a few more of those details are in the expanded version). I picked an actual lake in Canada for the position. So I dialed in the year and September and the coordinates of the setting, and then spun the day dial randomly. It landed on the 12th. That's the day when he was going to attack, so the day waiting must have been 9/11. That was something which couldn't go unremarked, more so as he'd already mentioned 9/11.

Of course its true, I do my research. Its a widely held belief. I don't know there is any medical evidence to support it. Claire believed it, that's all that mattered. In this case, its more I lived the research. The sexiest thing in the world is a woman demanding sex, so its good to put it in.

Being as I patterned the hero on myself (adding in the army bit), including the emotions. I don't know what that's telling me. Is the story unbelievable, or am I a mushy romantic (my wife says that). More practically, chicks dig emotions, so its good to put them in.




Here's my Bobby Ewing in the shower version of how Claire might be alive.


He was wake. Where was he? "Are you all right love?" That oriented him, he was in his bed. The note of worry in her voice concerned him. Claire buried her face in his chest hair, hugged him and continued. "You were making very mournful noises, is it the dream again?"

The dream was slipping away, leaving only the terrible hole in his soul he'd felt. "Uh-huh. You died after New York. I couldn't bear to lose you like that."

She rose up, an incongruous grin on her face. She was plotting something. "Did you at least blow them up this time?"

"Yeah, the caterpillar didn't see me and half the hillside went with them." He'd had various iterations of the dream, based on that op. This one ended with the biggest boom of all.

"So you should be rewarded for your bravery."

'So that's where this is going.' He thought as she crawled down the bed. He looked at his wife as she made her way down to reward him. Time had been kind to her. She looked like an adult now, maybe in her early twenties. Woe betide anyone who asked if she were his daughter. The looks he got when they were informed she as his wife were priceless. Thinking he were robbing the cradle.

She'd put on a little weight, but a little goes a long way on Claire, most of it on her boobs and hips. She was even sexier now. If you looked closely, there were threads of silver in her hair. The hair was showing a tendency to curl now. She just got more beautiful. While neither of them had the appetite they did in their twenties, there was still plenty of action. Quality emphasized over quantity.

She found his dick. It was already stiffening in anticipation. She approached it her usual manner, grasping it half way down, pulling to expose the head and licking sensuously around it. He lay back on the pillows and groaned softly.

His phone rang. He glanced at it, it was his XO. "Fuck! I gotta take this." He flipped on the speaker. "What!?"

In an apologetic tone, the speaker said, "I'm sorry to disturb you General, but Skynet just reported first contact."

Shit! This was it, the day they'd been waiting for. "Roger, I'll be right there." Then flipped off the phone. He realized that Claire hasn't stopped during his conversation. He was fully hard now and thinking of coming.

Claire stopped to ask, "Should I let you go?" Then carried on with her sucking.

Mark tried to form a coherent answer and failed. "Uhrr." He was torn between the imminent invasion of the Earth and his wife's blowjob. He was failing to reach a decision.

"I should let you go save the world." Claire said as she stopped her efforts and sat up.

The interruption gave him enough brain back to reach a decision. "No need to go that far." He reached for her, grabbed her shoulders and encouraged her back to her task.

Sigh. I was waiting for your response, I hoped this one would be more accessible to you. At least it was only a few paragraphs which were a problem. I'm again failing to see the problem. He reveals the maguffin, and reveals its his mission to destroy it. Pretty standard structure.

At first I wondered if you were having much of the trouble with it being a Military story. They're the ones who love codenames so much. I can add a few words of explanations after the codenames, that may help.

Not sure about foreign terms, unless you mean unfamiliar ones.

I chose third person limited for the point of view, and this is Mark's story. He doesn't know anymore than is said. At the time of the action, nothing was known about the aliens. The afterword is about all you can get for that. Again, it is crying out for a sequel.

Thank you for taking the time to write this. I'm sorry the story did not work for you, but I don't think I could incorporate these sort of suggestions without compromising the style I set for the story. Though one of the comments did prompt a small change in wording in the revised version.

"He was now a full lieutenant. This would be clearer if it was, He was a full lieutenant."

This changes the point of the sentence. The "now" is a key here. The implication is that on this visit he was a full lieutenant, but was not the previous time he visited, and that the promotion had been recent. This is important to the character, and also provides a timeline as promotion to O-2 is pretty much guaranteed after 18 months.

"He had barely seen her for two months in the two years... Much better to say, In the two years since their wedding, he'd been on assignment for twenty-two months."

I find the suggested version much less clear. The point made is the paucity of time he had spent with Claire. Two months is a definite time, and is obviously much smaller than two years. (Repetition of two, conduplicatio a rhetorical device.) To say 22 months and compare it to 2 years, necessitates the reader to do arithmetic to work that out for them. Also 22 months is very definite. Two years is less so. I could write two years and mean anything from 22-26 months. So its entirely unclear how much time they spent together. My version says it explicitly.

I did amend the phrase to be "a total of two months". To make it clear that the two months was not all in one lump.

"She met him at arrivals at airport... She was there when he arrived at the airport"

In my vocabulary. When you meet someone at an airport, you are ground side, and you meet them when they exit airside. "Arrivals" is the place this happens. This is the word that is printed all over airports. (In effect "arrivals" is used in a technical sense.) When I "arrive at an airport", I do so by ground transportation, which takes me to "departures", so I can take a plane to somewhere else. Your version reads totally different to me.

I notice that I did miss a word, and it should have been "at arrivals at the airport". (at … at, more conduplicato.)

As I said, I'm sorry it didn't work for you, I did consider your ideas carefully. But I've learnt that you can't please everyone.

 

Glad you found something useful. As you said, I've learned that you can't please everyone. Those were only my thoughts, but yours are good and correct in your better understanding of the story you were writing.
Thanks for writing the story and feel free to comment if I enter a story in the future.

 

I am going to try to explain one part in the beginning I found confusing.

Timer- What timer? Is the timer in the tablet?
Signal- What is the XES-3? What is hyperbolic orbit? What is "com relay"?

There are so many things in science, technology, etc. that you are so proficient in that you speed by them as though "everyone would/should know this" The problem is that everyone doesn't know it, and at least I get tripped up on them every time. If you could just break down the 'challenging parts' a little more,, with words that aren't scrabble worthy. I think your readers, well the ones like me at least, will better appreciate it and your stories.

 

Interesting, thanks for the explanation. I really do appreciate the help.

Guilty. Though I kinda agree with Horse and UncB, "just believe the author" and carry on. Its a minor plot point.


I know its not the point of the conversation, but I gotta explain.

The timer is the tablet, an app or something like that. It is the only technology he has with it, so its the only thing it could be. The tablet already prompted him that he's going to have to connect soon. There's a very limited time window in which he can connect, so the tablet is telling him when to initiate the connection. He only has a limited time, as unzipping the CON-dom to allow the connection also exposes the tablet to the dampening field, which will kill it if exposed for long enough. He also only has a limited time as the thing he's connecting to is only in the right position for a short time.

So the XES-3. In the revised version I put in some explanation, adding "Spaceplane" after the designation (after your comment). The important thing is its a space vehicle of some description. That's obvious as its making an orbit above the atmosphere. If you decode the military designation, the X is telling you its experimental. Earth tech doesn't yet typically make use of space planes. The E is a mission designator, which is telling you its for electronics missions (comm relay in this case). The S actually stands for Spaceplane. The 3 just tells you there haven't been many, if any before it.

This is all based on the current way the military names things (they do have the designation S for spaceplane). I don't expect the casual reader to know all that, but for the interested it could be discovered. But really it could have been "Fireball XL5", "Thunderbird 3" or anything.

As Horse says, "comm relay" is just communications relay. Its taking the data from somewhere else, or from our hero, and relaying it to the other party. One of the implications of this is that there is somewhere else where tech is still functioning.

Hyperbolic really isn't that important, but for the interested it adds flavor. The main thing is its fast. The spaceplane is getting in and out as fast as possible. The other thing is the spaceplane is traveling at greater than escape velocity. It came from, and is going back to somewhere extra terrestrial. There's a lot I could say about orbital dynamics, but the important thing about hyperbolic orbits are they're fast and not captive to the primary.

OK, after writing that, I can see I could put in a word or two of explanation. But really that's all background, its there to catch the interest of the initiated, but doesn't really affect the narrative.