Category: Flash

Flash: Roulette Leadership

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net

 

Five, only five soldiers of the Imperial’s Two-Thousand and Thirty-Fifth Company was left. The group could only speculate on how the rest of the Fourth Army sent to conquer the upstart planet Minerva fared. Three hundred souls down to five. Doing the math, if everyone else ran into the extreme defensive capability of the Minervites and suffered the same loss ratio, the Glorious Fourth Army now constituted a little under 500 shell-shocked veterans nursing wounds in muddy holes.

 

“We should have bombed them from orbit.” Cecil cursed, trying to clear the slime from his rifle’s sight.

 

Virgil, always seeing things from more angles than a grub should, pointed out. “Couldn’t. Too good a force field around the major cities, and a nasty-as-pie orbital defense prevented navy from stayin’ close.”

 

“Yeah, talked to one of the engineer types as they loaded us in the cans.” Janus added. “Minotaur manufacture on the stations and mine fields, modified. For once, the back-water fuckers actually reset the defaults. Then they added their own twist. Minerva knows security. ”

 

“Should we surrender?” Maurice finished wrapping Emil’s wound. The two of them were the only ones with matching squad tags. Shit, they were the only ones with matching platoon patches. After everything they had been through, they refused to be separated.

 

“What is this, a democracy like Minerva?” Cecil sneered. “We need to get an officer. We can’t do anything without an officer.”

 

“They’re dead. They are all dead.” Panic laced Maurice’s voice.

 

“Battle-field promotion is required by the code. Which is the longest here?” Virgil’s left hand wave included the other buck privates.

 

“Don’t let the grays fool you.” Janus spat out as the rest looked at him.

 

Cecil shook his head. “Just how many times have you been busted back to nothing?”

 

“How much are you ledger red?” Janus countered.

 

Virgil interrupted the budding argument. “You be the oldest man Janus Culd-son. None of us top fifty.”

 

Janus wanted to shake his head violently in negation, but a concussion-powered migraine exploded at the first nascence movement. “May push seventy years in service and a whole cent outside of it, but not taking any Laurel.”

 

“How about you Cecil? You have the drive and come from the Capital. You got the best connections.” Virgil pointed out.

 

“Fuctuo, mingo, irrumatio. Fuctuo no! Not even if you shoot me in the head.”

 

Virgil looked over at Maurice and Emil and the two shrunk into the mud.

 

“How about you Virgil?” Janus asked.

 

“Not for all the cows on Bubona.” Virgil’s broken right arm was wrapped against his snapped ribs, restricting his back-planet gestures, but the motions of his good hand were as obscene and violently negative as Cecil’s curses to those that knew how to read them. “Don’t want the meetings. Don’t want the blame-beats. Like my entrails in me just fine.“

 

“So if can’t vote a leader. And nobody stupid enough to volunteer, …” Janus pulled out a rare trank pistol he had been assigned as Military Prodder. He emptied the six chambers. He picked up one of the tranks and they watched him load the round back into the unfamiliar MP weapon. “Russian Roulette.” He rotated the chamber and then passed the weapon to Cecil. “Rather get shot in the head. Prove it.”

 

Cecil handled the normally non-lethal weapon like he had just been passed a leaking nuke-head. He swallowed, then put the gun to his fragile temple and pulled the trigger. His head rocked from a light blast of air. Describing acts that would make Bacchus blush, he passed the weapon back to Janus.

 

“Five chances left. Don’t want to die, don’t pull and take instead Captain. Get hung either way; this one’s less pain.” Janus put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He dropped the weapon, screaming. Panting, he eventually was able to pick up weapon when his body stopped shaking from the pain racing through his head. He passed it to the next closest person.

 

That was Maurice since Virgil was at the edge of the ravine seeing if anyone heard the scream. “I’m no Captain. I don’t want to be responsible for others. I already am bathed in blood.” Maurice with a fatality put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

 

Sighing relief, he passed it to Emil. “Your turn.” Emil shook his head and whispered something only Maurice could hear. 


“Only for you.” Maurice responded. Helping his friend hold the pistol, Maurice brought the gun to Emil’s forehead; wrapping his finger around his friend’s, they pulled the trigger together.

 

The pistol was returned to Janus. “Only two shots chances left, one will kill. Fifty-fifty odds. How lucky are you Virgil?”

 

“I played bones with you. You know my luck.” Virgil sighed. “Guess you should be callin’ me sir.”

 

(words 803; Originally published 10/23/2013; republished new blog format 9/2/2018)

Flash: Small Wings

Erin Penn

Photo by Tikkho Maciel on Unsplash (Cropped and Color Adjusted by Erin Penn)

Someone wanted him here. The geocache might as well have made for him, taking him from one end of the city to the other on his skateboard for the last four hours. A couple of clues…. well, he had fallen for it.

Raff looked around the empty parking garage, his stomach saying it wasn’t empty. He learned to trust his gut a long time ago. The sibilant hiss of pipes in the ceiling and tires echoing from the streets above seemed too loud. Spreading his legs to drop his center of gravity, he called his true self to the surface, giving his eyes the ability to see elsewhere. As soon as his wings appeared, black snakes rose out of the shadows and raced at him, sliding back and forth on the cement.

His Cupid bow released three arrows before they had closed half the distance, and he hoped for some gender differences between the snakes, or at least a beneficial, to him, sexual orientation, so the lust would distract them. No effect. Snapping down his skateboard where it leaned against his leg, he jumped on it, using his right foot to push it hard, and he beat his tiny wings for what little help they could give to move faster.

The ramps all led up. The final stage of the geocache was in the bottom of the old Sears catalog building, three floors below ground. One of the periodic bumps lifted the board off the ground enough he turned it on edge to use a column to bank, aiming up a ramp. Two lights behind him snapped off; no sparks or flares, just dark. Spinning on the board to look behind, he saw the snakes enter one end of the deep shadows and exit the other end the next instant.

Cheaters.

Well, two can play at that game. Rounding another column, he reached out and crushed a chunk out. Twisting the board around, he took aim and threw the mass of concrete at one.

It sailed through the insubstantial creature.

The way the snakes were acting, they weren’t going to be insubstantial when they closed.

His arrows had hit them.

He likely could hit them too, thanks to his frisky pop’s sperm donation to his mom. Eros, like every Greek god in existence, couldn’t keep it under the toga, and Mom was never what you would call discerning in her choice of male companionship. But Eros was no Zeus, and Raff was no Hercules. Snakes would win if he wrestled. Coils trump arrows.

Making for a bank of bright lights, hoping to slow them down, Raff switched his push leg. Did Psyche send the snakes after him in revenge for Cupid’s wandering ways, like Hera did on Hercules? She hadn’t seemed upset, just tired, when Eros brought him by at age thirteen to get his bow. The one and only time he met his dad.

Maybe one of the other living mortal Cupids were ticked off at the new guy. But he wasn’t the new guy anymore, Shewon over in Tibet had that dubious honor, hitting thirteen last week. At nineteen, Raff was now one of the old guys and no longer the most powerful Cupid and well glad to be rid of it. Were any of the other twelve pissed off at him and had been waiting for his powers to drop?

The lights slowed them down. Though a few of florescent winked out so shadows became available for the snakes to slither through, the deep dark allowing the teleportation they had used before did not result. Raff had vaguely missed that aspect of being the head Cupid once he had his life back; having a life way outweighed the benefits of the extra magic, even if that life mostly focused on earning his GED after six year helping strangers hook up. Now he really wanted to blink up to the afternoon sunlight to keep his life, sad though it was, intact.

The ramp between level B and A was completely in the dark. He jumped off the board, flipped it into his hands and ran up the pavement.

The fastest snake exited the dark at the same time he did, snapping at his feet with its triangular head. Triangle means poison, right? Missing out on all of high school killed everything science. Popping around the world let him see its wonders, but he didn’t understand any of it. Fortunately his high ankle sneakers kept the fangs from breaking skin. Calling his bow back to his hands, he dropped his board, swung the bow to crack the creature on its jaw, then ran once he was free to jump on the board and start moving again. The first shadow snake’s brethren joined it after it reoriented on him.

Too close. He wasn’t going to make it.

(words 807; first published 8/26/2018)

Flash: A Dragon and a Witch

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Phil_Bird at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature

Leathery wings silently glided the dragon over the Nether Gate. Twisting to the pond as he dipped below the fruit trees scattered throughout the garden, Indigo called to the Inner Fire and flashed bright for a moment, transforming into human shape to touch boot on the stone pier.

“Well, if isn’t His Hotness invading my home yet again.”

His dark eyes searched the shadows for the witch whose vitriol-laden sexy voice had sent shivers down his vulnerable flesh form. He found her plucking a plum from a tree. Striding forward onto the rich loam, he closed the distance between them.

Not moving, she bit down on his favorite fruit, and he watched her cheeks hollow, sucking the juices out before she asked, “What did I tell you the last time?”

“That if I ever showed up here again, you weren’t going to kick me out.” The sometimes-man smirked down at the small, but curvy witch. “I fail to see the threat.” He grabbed the hand holding the plum and pulled it up to his mouth to take a bite where she had already broken the skin, Vera fighting him all the way but failing. Despite her inhuman strength capable of maintaining the magical garden, his arms could carry a dragon’s weight into the air. There was no real contest even though she pretended there was.

“I assume you carried this message to your queen as well.” She huffed, standing on tiptoes, waiting to regain her limb.

Taking a second to admire the juices flowing down the slim white arm from the half-eaten fruit, he eventually answered, “In all the glorious detail you provided. That you no longer owed fealty to the Air. The treaty had played out it four score and once more and anything coming from your garden will be paid for, not taxes and tribute collected.” He licked the juices which had reached the hollow of her elbow as she continued to struggle ineffectively against his greater might. He watched out of the corner of his eye her reactions while he followed the sticky line back up her arms, giving special attention around her wrist before prying the fruit from her fingers and releasing her arm.

During the entire time her eyes widened and darkened. She hadn’t stepped back, but instead licked her lips and her breathing deepened. The witch could have spoken a spell to throw him from the shade of the tree and into the water, but she hadn’t risked the start of a war, or maybe there was another reason. They had been playmates while she had resided as hostage-supplicant in High Aerie until her parent’s death and her inheriting their land.

“I also carried your warning that anything entering your lands is to be considered yours from now on to do with as you see fit.” One quick bite finished the fruit, and he threw the pit aside. “The queen does not care.”

After shaking out her arm, Vera brought the fingers to her mouth to suck the last of the stickiness from them. Pulling two moisten fingers from her mouth, the brunette looked up through her bangs and asked, “Is that Regina’s only answer?” She popped her thumb into her mouth, swirling her tongue around as her cheeks hollowed again, sucking firmly.

Indigo felt his eyes go completely purple as he watched her. Two sides of a cold, cold war kept them apart during their adolescent years while she became a ruler and he a trusted solider. The childhood friendship had changed into something else entirely the next time them met. Something that could never be pursued without total surrender on one of their parts, her part. Something the queen expected him to acquire before the next full moon – the surrender, not the results that both of them really wanted – to Void with the queen’s expectations. A short laugh twisted from his gut. “No. She expects the normal tribute to be brought by your farmhands in six days. And your presence to sign a new treaty.”

Satisfied all the stickiness had been removed, the witch wiped her hand on her apron, then pushed her long braids back bringing his attention to her long neck. He did like graceful necks in both his forms.

“Or?”

“I have been instructed to burn field after field until you capitulate.” Indigo’s broad shoulder’s shrugged, his face stoic.

Vera gasped, laying a hand upon her generous bosom. A feature he only appreciated in human form. “Oh, no!”

Indigo’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t fear but extreme overacting.

“You do know,” her voice continued with the excessive hyperbolized tones she would use back when they were planning something their caretakers would rue later, “that as an Earth Witch bound to my lands, burning them will send me into agony.”

“Which is why your grandparents surrendered the first time.” He cocked his head to the side, moving to lean under the fruit tree and crossing his arms. Flower petals drifted down from the ever-fruiting tree bearing heavy branches of pink flowers, green young fruit, and full purple plums. “Why are you even trying?”

“Because I rule here.” Her heart-shaped face firmed into marble, her tone cutting as sharp flint. “I owe those tied to these gardens and fields to try.” A small smile slipped in like gold flecks in a High Aerie mining vein. “Plus it affects all those in my family.”

He shook his head at her obstinateness. “You have no family left. You are the last of your line.”

“Except for my husband.”

A cold hollow formed within his Inner Fire. It roared back to fill the void and leaped higher, a hint escaping as smoke from his nostrils. He found himself suddenly learning towards her, his fists either side of his body. “What husband?” he growled.

“Fruit bit and shared, from lip to lip and hand to hand. Thus it is done. Thus is it done. It is done thus.” She stood on tiptoes and quickly pressed her lips against his where he leaned forward.

His world exploded, and he fell like a stone as the world, a land, rushed in to welcome him, bind him, ground him.

(Words 1030 – first published 8/19/2018)

Flash: Bowman

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Bowman reviewed the duty assignment screen wistfully. His unit-individual number was followed by a blinking active, in-port code, and after that was a duty code he was beginning to know far too well. No change from yesterday. Meaning he got to mop floors in the Mess … again. He grabbed his undress yellow blouse and made his way to the Port Kitchen, arranging the securing sashes before stepping out of the empty barracks.

His severed hand, a minor injury by modern standards, had held him up just long enough to miss the 94th Infantry Division’s deployment. The tattooed private inhaled as he walked into the cooking area. He had to admit after all the times he had been on brick rations, being around live food was nearly worth the monotony.

It did not make up for the loneliness.

He wondered who was left to cook for. The last remaining divisions using Squamata Port mustered out yesterday for the Orion Theatre. All the support staff except for a few old-timers went with them. He never did get to adequately thank the doctor who screwed up his nerve reattachment badly enough that even after the second and more successful surgery was completed, he had to go through physical therapy.

Stripping out of as much of his uniform as one could tweak regulations, Bowman tied an apron over his already kitchen stained trousers and made his way to the ticking sounds of rapidly moving knives. “So Fatso, what are we mutilating today?”

Rounding the corner, Bowman saw a perfect heart-shaped butt snugged in mustard yellow weave. His eyes made their way up a back bare of everything but two apron loops. His fingers twitched for a second as he contemplated untying the loops. A blond by the military fuzz adorning her scalp. Damn, he loved blonds.

“That would be Colonel Fatso.” Replied a heavenly contralto, with an unmistakable undertone of command. “And breakfast will be vegetable omelet.”

Served him right for forgetting Faraday had been on one of the outgoing ships yesterday. “I am so sorry, Sir. What do you want me to do, Sir?”

“Apology accepted; been in kitchens before.” Watching her julienne the potatoes, Bowman had no doubt about that claim. “Second, it’s Dame. Air Force not Army – civilized people have genders. Third get the food. Net closest to the entrance. Put all three meals there when got vegetables last night.”

Bowman looked at the officer’s profile out of the corner of his eye while pulling on the environmental suit. Her small breasts popped over the top of the apron, tangerine nipples puckered tight. Her face was young; she could pass for his age. Her golden-hued eyes gave away her home sector of Orion, pushing up Bowman’s age estimate from nineteen to twice that. His eyes dropped to verify her origin, sure enough, a Rigelian parasite had replaced the pinky and ring fingers on her left hand.

After a second staring at the red veins pulsing with human blood visible through the translucent green skin, Bowman discovered he was caught staring. Cold gold chips met his blue eyes, “Do you have a problem, Private?”

“No, Sir … Dame.” Normally he wouldn’t add more, the Army did not like explanations – either getting them or giving them, but he had heard Air Force was a little different. “I just haven’t seen one before. Not in person, Dame.”

She sighed, “Get the food and we will let you closer look. Can’t have you making an accident staring.”

Wanting to break the tension and trying to gauge the officer. “Does that count for the boobs too, Dame?”

A laugh escaped her. A surprised look crossed her face like she didn’t laugh much. “Get in the airlock Private. … And no. Men having accidents over knockers is inevitable. Nothing can be done to help there.”

“Getting in the airlock, Dame.” He sealed the door and starting doing what his superiors constantly grumbled was his defining characteristic. He started thinking.

While moving the food to from the cold storage nets located on the skin of the port habitat, he went over the puzzle represented by the new person in charge of the Mess. An Orion in a Sol uniform, Air Force in an Army Port, Colonel cooking in a kitchen where the highest officer since before today was a lost second lieutenant, a new person after the base has been emptied, – and most importantly – the sexiest woman he had ever seen. Whatever was about to happen in the Snake Rut was big and very, very secret.

The big question: Could he avoid the shit fan about to hit, while also getting a chance to hit on her? Rhetorical really, he admitted as he started the airlock cycle to return inside. No way would a mud pounder be able to avoid any shit fan, let alone the size that this one seemed to be. And no way would he be able to jump that high of a grade let alone fuck another military branch.

(words 837 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 3/25/2013 – See the picture that inspired the story! – As I do not know the copyright permissions, I have not copied it here; republished new blog format 8/12/2018)

Flash: Sunset Ocean

Erin Penn

freedigitalphotos.net (note – I changed the image from blue to red)

The ocean turned to blood and seethed as night fell. The gentle lapping waves of warm water, which had comforted Dylan’s feet as he followed the empty shore, transformed into crashing sprays hammering him and twisting currents sucking him into the heartless sea with each step. He had walked far from home, escaping meaningless condolences and unwanted sympathy. His own thoughts had chased him further than the five piers with the summer tourist traps, further than the sharp rock jetties built to protect expensive beach front properties from winter storms. To the end, where shore and sea fought the uneasy alliance man imposed on them elsewhere. A place neither earth nor water.

Black clouds were rushing in, their bottoms reflecting the setting sun’s crimson rage, gray streaks of rain and sleet underneath backlit by constant lightning. Deep thunder reverberated in his ribs.

Shelter was distant. Ease and comfort moreso.

Dylan had fled the house before lunch to avoid the next gathering. The morning’s activities surpassed his breaking point. He hadn’t been able to release the fist-full of dirt into the six-foot deep rectangular pit. The soil, now mud, still gripped in his right hand.

With a scream he threw the ball of mud into endless water.

Dylan shivered as wind pushed the dangerous storm closer. Stepping forward to embrace the front’s arrival, he accepted the just punishment of the fuming, foaming water against his unwelcomed intrusion. Each wave crashed higher on his legs. His jeans, rolled to his knees to keep them dry, swiftly saturated, bringing the cold raised from Poseidon’s depths to Dylan’s core.

He found the icy chill more truthful than the soothing warmth the sea had offered earlier.

The sun disappeared in a green flash, revealing the sea rising in a cone to meet a vortex descending from the clouds.

For a second, Dylan considered staying. And then a second more.

Only the thought of his passing inflicting this level of pain on another coerced him to retreat from the storm’s challenge and promise. To turn back from an ending.

(words 343; originally published 10/9/2013; republished 8/5/2018)