Welcome to the Twenty-second CenturyThe Twenty-second century is barely 89 years away, and promises to be one of adventure and innovation as humanity spreads out to Earth's closest neighbours and the rest of the Solar System, before finally bursting out beyond to seek out new  The first story in my Iron Falls series, The Enemy Within, and accompanying short story: Thirteenth's Luck, is only the beginning of what I'm hoping to be my take of a time only a few generations away. The stories will start following the adventures of Gene Bukowski, a Joint Security Forces special ops soldier assigned to liaise between his superiors back aboard Liberty Space Station and the field offices of the United Nations Marshals Service, and those he befriends along the way. Others will pop in along the way, such as seeing what happened to Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Yamakawa of the Joint Security Forces upon capture by the Afrikaaner Vryheids Front, and how it took a Front member to save his life. While the stories are fictional, my endeavour is to make them as realistic and as pluasible as possible, but with some cool technologies to throw into the mix. I hope you'll enjoy. P. S. Mierzejewski  Iron Falls: The Enemy Within by P.S. Mierzejewski. Word Count: 47,780 © 2011 P.S. Mierzejewski. Released through http://www.equillpublishing.com/. November, 2100. Sergeant First Class Gene Bukowski, a U.S. Army Special Warfare operator, and his team are uprooted from a mission in Mali when Emilio Heerdan's right-wing terrorist group kidnap the daughter of the United Nations Energy Secretary. Yet the mission proves more dangerous than his team can handle. Thrown into a mission that had been designed to end in disaster by a rogue intelligence analyst, Bukowski begins a journey back to a land on the brink of collapse. Iron Falls: Transfer Point By P. S. Mierzejewski Word Count: 20.100 T  Finding himself the chairman of a clandestine committee whose roots date back a hundred and seventy years, Dmitri Tsarenko positions one of his agents to bring about a favourable situation that would distract the Joint Security Forces of the United Nations from the real threat to planetary security. Released from prison by the Joint Security Forces, only to be assigned aboard the UNS Dogger Bank, Captain F. Rachel Bowden teams up with Colonels Michael Schweizer and Andrea Beemster for a shakedown cruise when summoned to investigate how several hundred Vietnamese nationals were discovered by a security sweep aboard a soon to be commissioned Japanese space station near Earth orbit. Monday, 16 October, 2102 Binh Thuan Province Vietnam, Greater Asian Coalition The lagoon was eerily calm, quiet, as fog rolled across it and the village that rested along its shore. Equally, at such a late hour, the small armada of fishing boats were tied to the wharf. That didn’t mean that the area was empty of people. “I shouldn’t be going,” the raven haired woman looked back at her sister, shaking her head. “You’ll be better off out there, Doan,” her sister replied, a little girl in her embrace. Doan looked at her younger sister, and sighed. The time for crying was over, the two already shedding tears several hours in the privacy of the graveyard where their parents rested. “You’re the one with the family, Jan,” she said softly. In turn, Jan just shrugged. A trained nurse, she had been the village’s only form of medical care, and it was something she didn’t want to give up. Naturally, Jan’s husband had disagreed, as he had been the one who had arranged passage for Doan and several hundred others. Like them, he had hoped to leave. But then, Jan told him she was pregnant and any aspirations he had for his family thriving on the Moon, or Mars or the Belt evaporated instantly. A veteran spacer himself before his marriage, her husband knew that space travel would be stressful for someone pregnant. Then again, several airlines had made history by successfully carrying pregnant women several years ago. That alone was proof enough why Jan, not Doan, ought to have gone. “And you’re the one with a future,” countered Jan, while her husband kept an eye on the others. “But I’m just a receptionist-” Jan hushed her older sister, by pressing the toddler into her hands. “And I’m just a nurse,” she said lightly, and threw her arms around both her child and sister, “But you can go, whilst I cannot. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll try. But not now.” A low rumble thundered through the skies, making both sisters and the other families look up. “They’re on time,” Jan’s husband muttered, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot as he looked about. Several other men moved into position, their light peaked caps, blue bloused shirts and dark pants marking them as police constables. Not that they were here to stop the families. Like Jan’s husband, they were there to ensure that the families got onboard what was incoming. Louder, he turned to one of the constables, “Clear the roadway!” he instructed, and unclipped his radio. Prior to enlisting in the provisional police, Jan’s husband had been a spacer all his life, having been one of a small handful of human beings born onboard a deep space miner. He had seen his share of hardship as well, as others like him and his family struggled to make a living out in the Belt. There were violent clashes out there in the Belt too, as independent prospectors made it merry hell for those families on corporate contract. Perhaps that was why he readily agreed to serve as an unofficial recruiter for his former employers back in the Belt. “There!” shouted a young petite woman, pointing with slender finger. He swung his camera headset around to where she was gesturing, and bit his lip. The little speck was getting bigger as it approached, and took on the rectangular form with stubby wing of an Armadillo class heavy duty freighter. “That what I think it is?” one of the constables wondered. “Yeap,” replied Jan’s husband. “I still can’t believe it,” one of the other constables announced, “There must several hundred people here.” “Three hundred and eighty-two,” he answered. “Where the heck did they come from?” the constable demanded of him. Jan’s husband shrugged. All he knew was that both of them received a small note, slipped into their small abode. He had been cautious, first wanting to hand the note over to the duty officer in the police office in a neighbouring village. “Somewhere from the other villages nearby no doubt,” he allowed, his heart sinking when he realised what he was seeing. “They must be using Saint Kilda as a transfer point.” “Who?” “People smugglers,” her husband replied, and looked around nervously. “We need to get out of here.” “Why?” “Because I asked the cops to come find us if we don’t show up in ten minutes,” hissed Jan’s husband, suddenly feeling ill at ease.  Thirteenth's Luck An Iron Falls story By P.S. Mierzejewski Word Count: 3,070 © 2011 P.S. Mierzejewski. Released through www.equillpublishing.com A snapshot short story set in February of the year 2130, near the East Carona and Juventae chasms of Valles Marineris. The highlands were testimony that the entire countryside was a war zone, and had been since the United Nations endeavoured to restore order in the violent corridors through the eastern Valles Marineris colonies. Unrest had spilled to the other colonies and in near-orbit, as a war in all but name raged between those wanting a return to the status quo and those wanting the planet independent. Somewhat, inevitably, in the middle of it all were the members of the ‘Lucky Thirteen’. |