Category: Visual

Flash: Saturn Shines

Erin Penn

Titan may be big in this week’s Downlink, but it looks pretty small from our perspective on Earth. Astrophotographer Damian Peach captured this image of Saturn (the bright object at the very center) and Titan (the tiny bright dot to its right), set against the backdrop of the Milky Way.  Damian Peach (https://www.planetary.org/space-images/saturn-and-titan-in-the-milky)

“Let me see, let me see.” Mallory elbowed her way to the viewing screen. Everyone knew it wasn’t a real window, something her schoolbooks described as a piece of transparent silicon allowing a view of space. No one on the ship had ever experience a window before in their lives, but the forward viewing screen was the most forward screen on the ship and there is just something about knowing the forward camera fed directly to this screen always and constantly.

At age eleven, her elbows were sharp, and the adults let the children recently released from the learning pod through without much of a battle as they could see over the shorter bodies. Mallory, similarly, let the six- and seven-year-olds in front of her as they wiggled through. But she could see the screen. The first view of Saturn, reflecting the light of the distant sun.

She had never seen a real planet before and stopped in awe. Soon they would see the rings as they slingshot by on the way to Titian for resupply before the Hunter returned to the Oorts cloud. Two years of her life had been dedicated to maneuvering down-system to utilize the Titian infrastructure. Resupplying nitrogen and oxygen for their atmosphere, methane for fuel throughout the construction ship, and hydrocarbons to restock the kitchen printers. A few of the oldest folks would transfer off, a few scientists willing to participate in the eighty-nine-year cycle in and out of the Cloud would transfer on.

Life would change, according to her lessons, as they picked up new technology which wasn’t transferrable through transmission. Bandwidth would be effectively infinite for two months while the Hunter got an update and shine.

For sixty-two days, Mallory would see people she had never seen before in her life. Titan had nearly six hundred people on station. Quadruple what Hunter could hold.

All lit by the Sun. She had seen the effects of its gravity and its radiation all her life. But seeing Saturn shining brightly against the black took her breath away.

(words 342; first published 6/26/2026)

Flash: Always Lead with Kindness

Erin Penn

ID 75056156 © Mik3812345 | Dreamstime.com

“Pops, will you slow down? Ain’t we suppose to be running in the other direction?” The thirty-five year old man scrambled over fallen pine trees.

At the crest of the impact crater, his gray-haired father bellycrawled the final few feet, his deer bow in hand. Pye, Junior’s teenage daughter, right beside him. Nuts, the two of them. And him, the tree tying them together following in their wake. He crouched crawled to their location.

Looking down in to the cleared sand of the pine barrens, he saw a circular UFO with the disc vertical and the half the circumference buried deep. Junior quiet-whistled against his teeth, “Someone is having a very bad day.”

“I’m not sure,” Pye squinted through the early mist rising out of the aquifer below the pine barrens sand. “I mean if they are a spinning ship, and that is kind-of what it looked like as they streaked overhead, then the gravity would be on the outer edge, so if you were to dismount, it would be through the floor. It would make sense for flying saucers to land edge up, right?”

“Good point, girl” His father whispered.

Junior was glad all those comics and adventure books leaked something into his kid’s brain. “Still it is a crash, pretty sure.”

George grunted agreement.

“Any landing you walk away from is a good landing, isn’t that what you say Pops?” Pye asked.

“Not seeing much walking.” George observed and started to stand. “The mist has made down the walls and isn’t burning off near the hull. Whatever that material is, it took care of the heat quickly. Come on, they might need help.”

Pye bounced up, following her grandfather down the sandy sides of the crater in a sideways slide. Youthful curiosity burst the question out burning in Junior as he followed the two with the dune-sand walk he picked up during his time in Afghanistan.  “What should we do if they say, ‘Take us to your leader’?”

“Well, election is next week, so I guess I’ll make introductions depending on their attitude.” George limped across the loose sand in the bottom of the crater. “If they are rude, they’ll get one. Nice, the other.” He winked at Junior. “But in the meantime, they might be in trouble. Always lead with kindness.”

“But pack heat while doing so.” The perky teenager touched the flare gun she carried beside the hunting arrows.

(words 402; first published 11/2/2024)

Flash: Sandwyvern

Erin Penn

Image by Leo on Unsplash

Kai flattened to the ground, spreading legs and arms and hoping the preysuit masked his breathing and heartbeat sufficiency. Beside him, Pele slowly lowered into a similar position, disturbing the gravel as little as possible where they had been searching for gold and minerals. Sandwyverns hunted by vibrations, lacking eyes. The tumbled rocks lining the Broad River’s summer-dry flood plain provided perfect opportunity for the creatures to swim upstream from their primary shore habitat to reach their laying grounds.

The clay red creature screamed, tilting its head this way and that to pick up the echo in its sensing antennae. It licked its long, forked tongue into the air, clearly smelling the humans, but unsure where they were. Another scream sent synapses scrambling to remember not to scream back as the register climbed shrilly and raked their eardrums.

The two gatherers managed to retain their wits and remained silence and still. Kai ignored the scorpion walking across his hand. The preysuit masked heat perfectly.

The most a sandwyvern ever screeched according to the records was nineteen times. Normally only four would satisfy it, but heading upstream to lay eggs, they became determined hunters. The colony biologists believed recent blood may be needed for one of the species reproductive processes, and it seemed human blood served just as well as banthum and wicket.

Lucky them, the planet could eat them as easily as they could eat the animals and plants of the planet.

Six shrieks. Hopefully, this creature won’t be a record-breaker.

(words 251; first published 9/22/2024)

Flash: It’s Not My Fault … For Once

Erin Penn

Image by Alexander Jawfox on Unsplash

Nebula formed out of the fog, all judge-y like. His side-eye is strong.

“What?” My voice breaks on the question. “I found him like this.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Really, really, really, one hundred percent.” I cross my heart, touch two fingers to my lips, and lift them to the darkening skies. “God as my witness.”

He turns his body to face me head-on and spreads his legs.

I sigh before saying, “How can you think so poorly of me? We are partners.”

The old man crashes his eyebrows together at the last statement.

“Okay, not partners, but friends,” I step around the body that recently bleed out leaving a mess all over the road, “Right, friends?”

“So what did happen?”

(words 121; first published 8/25/2024 – created based on a visual prompt for a Facebook writer’s group, aim is about 50 words)

Flash: When a DM asks a question, you say yes

Erin Penn

Image from Rock Vincent Guitard on Unsplash

The white dragon rises, shimmering in the slanted rays of the winter sun, her moves sounding like icicles crackling as her great head—

“I cast fireball.”

The DM stops her description and sends a sharp look at the player.

“What? I cast fireball, a surprise attack, right?” Jeremy starts picking up his six-siders.

“She is well aware that your party is there.” Emily places the sheet she had been reading down behind her screen. “Even the thief failed his stealth roll.” She sent her boyfriend a sympathetic smile.

Mark slouches further in the Snorlax bean bag lounger, crossing his arms. “Stupid nat one.”

“Yeah, that was a bad one.” Jeremy laughs.

“Now do you want to roll initiative, or hear the rest of the description?” Emily laces her fingers and rests her head on them.

I and Andre perk up and look at each other. As the other DMs of the group, we know exactly what she is saying.

Time to meta? I raise my eyebrows at Andre.

The group formed around three high school best friends: Andre, Jeremy, and Chris. They picked up Emily from a book club, and me from an advertisement at a comic store. Mark joined when he moved in with Emily, as she and Andre alternate hosting the sessions.

The problem is Jeremy. He likes action, and the rest of the group leans more toward roleplaying. To make matters worse, he doesn’t really listen well to women, even with two out of three of his DMs being female. So whether to meta is an Andre call. Will he yank Jeremy’s magic user back?

While we are talking with facial expressions, a die rolls. “Twelve for initiative.”

Andre sends me a shrug of I-guess-we-are-doing-this. “Sixteen.”

“Five” I say, then mouth ‘sorry’ to Emily.

She gives me the same smile I gave the party after a superhero TPK three months ago where they ended up in the realm of Death and Dreams, before looking down behind her screen with an air of concentration. Not good.

I notice her scratching out things with her pencil and writing new stuff. “So, what are you doing Em?”

“Hmm.” She casually raises her eyes with an innocent look on her face.

No DM ever gives a look that innocent without doing evil things.

“What.are.you.doing, Em?” I clearly enunciate each word.

“Oh, nothing big. I’m adding a hit point for each die of the dragon since …someone…” Emily glares at Jeremy, “cut me off.”

“Hey, that is not fair.” The man protests.

She points a finger at him. “Zip it. I spent hours on this campaign. I can choose to alter things.” Emily drops her voice. “Pray I do not alter the contract further.”

“You can’t just—”

“No.” I yelp, and Chris hits Jeremy with his journal. Simultaneously, on Jeremy’s other side, where the three core friends of the group sit on the couch, Andre says, “Dude, don’t.”

“Max hit point it is.”

Mark palms his face and mutters. “I’m getting the strap tonight.”

“If you survive,” Emily blows him a kiss.

“Jeremy, let me explain to you a fact of life.” Chris says, reopening his journal to the appropriate page. “DMs are gods. We live in their worlds. You, my friend, are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Do not antagonize them.”

“Whatever.”

“Everyone else, your initiatives please?” Emily pulls her sweet persona around herself, and the guys relax.

Six and eleven finishes out the group.

“The dragon’s initiative is a 23, and her mate’s rolled fifteen.”

Chris surges forward on the sofa. “What mate?”

“The one I would have described. Why don’t you roll perception and if you get a ten, I’ll give you the sheet to read. Your fighter has that study opponent’s skill, right?”

Chris didn’t even hesitate on the roll, “Fifteen, give it here. I don’t get to act until six so I got time to read it.”

After creasing the paper and tearing off a small part, Emily passes the rest of the paper to me, since I am the closest to the DM table. I do a quick glance over the sheet and notice the words nest and eggs. Wincing, I rock forward on hands and knees to reach over to where Chris sits on the couch.

“Now, where were we?” Emily picks up her favorite silver and black twenty-sider and contemplates it. “Ah yes, a towering ice dragon and a party threatening her. I do believe her first action is to breathe. So nice of you to be clumped together after going through the ravine. Everyone roll dodge.”

(word 765; first published 3/3/2024)

Roleplaying Group Series

  1. Roll to Hit the Ceiling (5/30/2021)
  2. When a DM asks a question, you say yes (7/28/2024)