“At least we’re alive,” Sadie said, grinning.
“Yeah, but we are, once again, walking away with nothing,” Tysha said, a glower descending. Tantor matched the expression.
“I’m not sure about that, Captain,” Wes said, nudging her in the shoulder. He pointed at the Marbok vessel. “How do you feel about upgrading your ship?”
Tysha met his gaze, and smiled. “I have a feeling your life is about to get a whole lot more interesting.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Wes said, smiling back. “Shall we?”
Q&A with Chris Fox
What inspired you to become an author?
I did it to impress a girl. We’re getting married so I think it worked. ;)
What’s a typical writing day like?
My writing is usually done by 11 a.m., and I tend to write in 20 minute sprints until I hit my 5,000 word goal.
Who is your favorite author?
Robert Jordan, because he inspired me to want to create my own worlds, then pissed me off enough to actually do it.
Where do you get your ideas?
I find that putting myself in solitude generates all sorts of great questions, and answering them leads to stories. What if there was an advanced culture that we know nothing about? What if aliens landed tomorrow?
You sure have a cool last name.
Yet somehow people still misspell it.
If you need to reach me I can be found at chris@chrisfoxwrites.com. I’d love to hear from you!
By day, I am an iPhone developer architecting the app used to scope Stephen Colbert’s ear. By night, I am Batman. Okay... maybe not. One can dream though, right?
I’ve been writing since I was six years old, and started inflicting my work on others at age 18. By age 24 people stopped running away when I approached them with a new story, and shortly thereafter I published my first one in the Rifter.
Wait—you’re still reading?
Ok, the facts I’m supposed to list in a bio. As of this writing I’m 38 years old and live just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in the beautiful town of Mill Valley. If you’re unsure how to find it, just follow the smell of self-entitlement. Once you see the teens driving Teslas you’ll know you’re in the right place.
I live in a tiny studio that I can cross in (literally) five steps and don’t own an oven. But you know what? It’s worth it. I love developing iPhone apps and if you want to work in San Francisco you accept that rent for a tiny place costs more than most people’s mortgage.
If you and about 2 million other people start buying my books I promise to move out of Marin to a house in the redwoods up in Guerneville. No pressure. Wait, that’s a lie. Pressure.
Procurement
by Adam Quinn
CAPTAIN JAREYN BROOK swiped through the notes scribbled on her palm-sized personal screen as she walked. “All right, JP, let’s take this from the top—should I say ‘mistakes were made and therefore the ship is not recoverable,’ or ‘the ship is not recoverable because mistakes were made’?”
“Neither.” Her dark-blue-skinned Archavian companion shook his elongated head. “’Mistake’ is a subjective term—one person’s mistake is another person’s tragic inevitability. Once you step into that committee chamber, you are that second person.”
“Got it.” Brook smiled, not least because JP had not responded to her use of his nickname. She had thought herself quite clever when she discovered that the initials of her political liaison officer spelled out the abbreviation for “Justice of the Peace,” a position which JP’s exhaustive knowledge of Meltian Republic law undoubtedly qualified him for. “So, how long is it going to take them to set us up with a replacement for the Kindred Spirit?”
JP had assured her that this was a routine process—talk to some committee here on Meltia, get their rubber stamp, and walk away with a shiny new starship—but every minute this process took was time that her crew was sitting around in some hotel in the Erian solar system instead of traversing the galaxy, saving lives like the Interstellar Emergency Service was supposed to do.
JP looked up at her, spreading his arms in a gesture of uncertainty—though average height for his species, he stood almost half a meter shorter than her. “Not as long as it took to retrieve the Spirit after you got it impounded on Walletarde.”
“Hey, now, if they didn’t want us in that shipyard, they should have posted signs,” Brook said.
“In space?” JP asked.
“Or something like that. Anyway, that was Walletarde; this is Meltia.” Brook waved her arm at the floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated one wall of the corridor, affording an exquisite view of the capital city of Telahmir. “As far as I can tell, bureaucracy is this planet’s official sport. And don’t tell me they’ll break the rules for us.”
“Break? No. Bend? Perhaps, if you motivate them to do so.” JP aimed an elongated blue finger at her chest. “Bureaucracy is only obstructive to the uninitiated. To the experienced—including those on this committee—it provides opportunities.”
A half-formed laugh hissed between Brook’s lips as they arrived at the committee’s chamber. “Whatever you say, JP. Just make sure we have all the boxes checked so we can roll—or preferably fly—on out of here after this.” The IES was a popular agency with the Meltian people, so there was no way this committee would deny her request outright, but if they wanted to make her life difficult, the Meltian bureaucracy provided far more “opportunities” to slow things down than to speed them up. That was part of the reason she lobbied the Emergency Service to create the IES in the first place: with a single starship, a small budget, and galactic purview, she could run her little agency without Meltian bureaucrats constantly looking over her shoulder. In fact, she was pretty sure this was her first time on the Republic’s capital world since that initial lobbying tour, four years ago.
On the wall outside the committee’s chamber, an engraved panel read, “Meltian Republic Legislature Subcommittee on Internal Procurements.” Below it was a screen listing the committee’s docket—she was right on time. She placed her hand on the door, an ancient thing that swung on metal hinges.
“Remember,” JP said, “this committee is not yet aware that the Spirit is no longer operational. As far as they know, we are here to make an ordinary procurement request. Make sure that before you acknowledge that fact—”
“I frame the question in a manner that appeals to their self-interest. I’ve got this, JP.” Brook gave the archaic door a push, and a groaning, creaking noise accompanied its opening. By the time she closed it behind her, the committee chamber was silent, and every pair of eyes in the room—plus the third eye of one non-human representative—was focused on her.
In total, there were nine representatives seated behind a severe semicircular metal desk, each identified by a nameplate and attended to by at least one aide. There was a lectern in the center of the committee’s long desk, so Brook strode toward that, smiling out at her observably unreceptive audience. “Good afternoon! So, how has everyone’s day been so far?”
“Welcome, Captain Brook.” Representative Divar, a human with glossy shoulder-length black hair, sat at the midpoint of the semicircle, so Brook assumed he was the chairman, or whatever Legislature Subcommittees had. “You may begin your appeal.”