Beech Wood Embers

  It was a cold clear morning on Proxima Centauri, when the shift change siren blew twice for the call to work. Hanek Jones, his face hidden in a hood of green fur, walked lazily through the air-lock of the Utopian Ministry, savouring his last breath of un-processed air.               The foyer smelt of industrial pine and stale farts. At the far end a brown mural, peeling from age, stood above the stairs to the labs. It depicted a rural scene, seven metres wide: the happy farmers, with sickles, joyfully gathering the harvest. Hanek went up the stairs. He took them at a pace. The heating only worked properly when the data processors were running at max capacity, during a code white threat to utopian stability, the current threat status was code pink, it had been for months. They were due for a code white, Hanek could sense it. The Compliance lab where he worked was three flights up, and Hanek, who was twenty and had more...

  YEAR: 52033 HE SHIP: Matriark II, Super-Frigate Exploration class LOCATION: Nojo Memorial Farms and Gardens IN ATTENDANCE: Sub-Captain Ortner, Private Silverman   Drone Surveillance Audio 03:05      SILV: We’ve had five years of this shit. I can’t take it. I can’t take another watch. I need a break.      ORT: We’re all feeling it Private.      SILV: I have been on watch for forty-eight hours. Where is my relief?      ORT: We have to get the road completed. We have no one left to relieve you.      SILV: I can barely keep my eyes open.      ORT: Take thirty Private, I will cover your post   03:25      ORT: Wake up private. Contact to the east of the road.      SILV: I see them, permission to fire?      ORT: Fire at will.   03:50      SILV: They running. I got one.  ...

  YEAR: 52028 HE SHIP: Matriark II, Super-Frigate Exploration class CHRONICLER: Markus Hadey LOCATION: Nojo Memorial Farms and Gardens   DAY SIXTY HAHAO EXPLORATION CHRONICLE It’s been two months since we set foot on Hahao and we are at war. Sub-Captain Ortner failed to stop Sub-Captain Pines from firing the Death Shower at the Grey-Skins. In the weeks that followed the Grey-Skins attacked. We have been confined inside the ship. Supplies are running low.      The main weapon used against us is the worm. The Grey-Skins have a way of calling them to battle. The worms obey their commands. We lost Sergeant Dinn to a worm attack.      After a week of floundering, it was agreed that we needed to manufacture concrete. Larkina sent a one hundred-strong protection unit, with the Professors of Geology and Architecture, out into the wilderness to source some limestone, clay, and sand. A Kiln was built and Ortner’s wall has been rein...

  YEAR: 52028 SHIP: Matriark II, Super-frigate exploration Class LOCATION: Purple Mountain Valley, North of the Landing site.   Professor Adam’s Earpiece Log DAY EIGHT      They have taken me back to the surface. Something is wrong. The Pond Apes are screaming. All of the Ruki are dead. There screams are loud guttural cries of grief. They keep looking my way as if I know something.      They have been screaming for hours. They keep trying to shake the Ruki back alive. The Ruki are dead no movement no life. They are clearly more than mere mounts. They keep taking water from the lake and trying to get the Ruki to drink. The sight of them screaming for their loss is disturbing.      The leader is shouting at me. I can’t understand. He keeps pointing at the dead and then back to me. I think he thinks it was my fault. Or maybe he thinks it’s my people who have done this. I don’t know for sure but I think he...

  YEAR: 52028 SHIP: Matriark II, Super-frigate exploration Class LOCATION: Nojo Memorial Farms and Gardens IN ATTENDANCE: Citizen Grebe, Citizen Marlow   Drone Surveillance log      GREB: I sick of this.      MARL: Sick of what?      GREB: Shovelling shit. I travelled seventeen million light-years to shovel shit. What’s the point of defrosting me after thousands of years, if all they can offer me is shit detail.      MARL: It won’t always be like this.      GREB: We shouldn’t be doing this. This is work for androids. I don’t see the scientists out here with a shovel, or the troopers for that matter. We are the bottom of the shit pile and they have the audacity to call us citizens.      MARL: You know the protocol on androids. They are only used in space. They can’t risk another AI dictatorship. If you’re that angry about it, why don’t yo...

  YEAR: 52028 SHIP: Matriark II, Super-frigate exploration Class SUPERVISORY COMPUTER SYSTEM: Guard Drone Eight LOCATION: Purple Mountains, Hahao   Drone Audio Recording      ORT: We need to talk.      PINE: That bitch Larkina sent her dog to come and get me did she.      ORT: I came of my own volition.      PINE: Go back to your master.      ORT: What’s wrong with you? You steal a death shower and take a hundred troopers into the wilderness. You think we wouldn’t come and try to reason with you?      PINE: Reason? Reason? Larkina has lost all reason. She thinks these grey mother-fuckers are peaceful. They have killed one of ours and they have taken another into their lakes. He will not come out alive. The time for reason is over Captain. The time for action is now. We have tracked the raiding party to this lake. We’re just waiting for them to show themselves...