by Michael Kingswood The humid air seemed to drag and flail, resisting being inhaled, as Patros made his way from his little cell in the trainees barracks and across the carefully-trimmed field of grass toward the testing ring. Five years he’d been here, at the martial academy. Five years of running and jumping and study…
Tag: Story Time
Finding Bobby Jenkins
by Michael Kingswood Pan blew away steam that was rising from his coffee mug, then lowered his nose over it to catch the fragrance without getting his nostrils scalded. Deep, dark, and thick said his scent neurons to the rest of him, and he smiled slightly in approval. What was it his first captain said? …
Santa Fe Station
by Michael Kingswood Though she’d been living in San Diego for ten years and had lived less than two miles away from it for most of that time, Kim hardly ever came out to Balboa Park. But every time she did, she left asking herself why she didn’t come more often. The entire city was…
Terran New Year
by Michael Kingsworth Why on God’s green Earth did the New Year always have to fall on the exact date and time that Terra had set for it, centuries ago? It would have been one thing if Persephone’s orbital revolution and rotation had matched Terra’s. But it didn’t. One day on Persephone was 1.0498576 Earth…
Playing for Scraps
by Michael Kingswood I was just tallying up the invoice for my latest case, an easy job for a little old lady down on the station’s third level, when Jason commed for entrance to my office. I’d known Jason for a couple years, and when he commed the image of his face popped up into…
Love In The Apocalypse
by Michael Kingswood Light flashed into Silva’s eyes, rousing her from what had been a deep and dreamless sleep. She squirmed and stretched, raising her arms above her head and letting out a long, low sigh that was almost a groan as she forced herself to full wakefulness. Then she remembered where she was, and…
Caledonia
by Michael Kingswood Saul looked through the scope on his rifle and grimaced. In the viewfinder, five times normal magnification, he saw a dozen grey-brown scaled and armored bodies, each with eight legs and four manipulator arms below an oval head with external mandibles and at least four visible eyes. They were moving in seemingly…
Hunting For Game
by Michael Kingswood George opened up the trunk of his blue Ford Focus and hefted a brown canvas duffle bag out. He shifted his torso, slinging the duffle over his left shoulder, and grunted softly at the weight of the bag’s contents. He’d thrown that shoulder out once about five years earlier while weight lifting,…
Lost Credit – A Glimmer Vale Chronicles Story
by Michael Kingswood Raedrick Baletier looked up from the parchment he was reading as the door to the Constabulary swung open, admitting midday sunlight that brightened the place more than the lamps hanging on either side of the barred wrought iron doorway leading back from the front office to the cell block ever did. His…
Miss Melody And The Knight Gallant
by Michael Kingswood Henry ran as hard as he could remember ever running. His heart pounded in his ears and his breaths came in gasps as he pushed himself to greater speed, but above even the cacophony of his racing pulse he could still hear the footfalls behind him, the mocking shouts as his pursuers…