[Josh Madsen - 2]

Reekcha Headfeather listened through the overhead speakers just long enough to ensure the transmission from Fifth Fleet to Imperial Command was in full chirp before muting the line.

“The transmission is secure,” he said aloud for the benefit of his co-pilot trainee, Skook Specklewing, before turning his attention to the navigation console. Skook scanned the scout ship’s sensors for any sign of activity.

“Sol. Yuck. You ever seen such an ugly system, Specklewing?” he asked the trainee.

“No, sir, but the console does indicate intelligent life existing on the third planet. That blue and green one.” Skook tapped a wingtip against the surface of the console, pointing to a display of the planet Earth.

[Josh Madsen - 1]

Joshua Madsen was very much like any other twelve year old boy living in Repose, Missouri—or any other small town in the middle of the United States for that matter.

I could tell you about his bicycle, for instance. It was a beauty, with silver lightning bolts streaking through the flashy metallic green paint and chrome spokes supporting oversized off-road tires. The frame sported bold stickers screaming TURBO on each side, indicating the impressive speed with which one could be transported on such a fine machine, if one possessed the requisite skill and courage.

You might well wish you had been present the time Josh pushed that bike up to the very top of Whistler’s Hill, planted his feet firmly on the rear pegs, and released the brakes with both hands, determined to beat Tommy Brown’s downhill record (which had itself been established just minutes before).

According to the rumors at Edwin Murray Middle School, Josh shattered the record. Unfortunately, according to Doc Medlock, Josh had also shattered his nose and ground off the enamel on the tips of his front teeth. But I suppose you may have a bicycle just like that one, and you probably think stories about bicycles and such are boring.

[The Tree - 1]

There were five houses crouched around the cul-de-sac at the end of Highline Court. Ours was the second on the right. Dad said he picked that one because it was the only house with a mature tree in the back yard. It was an old cedar tree. Wind and ice storms had carved it into a peculiar sort of evergreen. Some of the lower branches were almost as long as the tree was tall. One branch in particular, the lowest one, jutted perpendicular to the trunk about seven or eight feet from the ground. There were snarls here and there in the boughs made up of trapped limbs and needles that failed to fall all the way to the earth. At the base of the cedar tree was a pile of rocks, accumulated over several years from the back yard. The rocks had been picked up one at a time and bounced off the trunk of the tree until they fell into a comfortably rough stack.

That tree was central to my person, the focus of my existence, the lens through which I dealt with the world. Every tree reminded me of that tree. Not a day passed that I did not see the tree in my mind and feel panic welling up inside. It was like a tsunami approaching my beached heart, an epic wave that could only be disrupted by the sheer force of my will. I had to consciously attack it and push it under the surface. Landfall would mean the annihilation of my personality, and landfall was always near.

I had murdered the tree hundreds of times in my mind. I stripped its bark and fed its soul to burrowing insects. I slashed hideous wounds deep into its core, causing it to rot from the inside out and topple under the weight of its diseased canopy. I rammed it with a concrete truck, toppling it with sudden violence and uprooting its massive tentacles. I dug a trench around the trunk, filled it with gasoline, and watched it burn at the stake like the witch it was. I gave it an exotic disease and watched its needles and branches wither away and fall to the ground until it stood naked and exposed to the elements. I vivisected it with a chainsaw piece by excruciating piece and fed its remains into a wood chipper. Still, it haunted me.

The low stubbornly proud branch of that tree killed my older brother Bobby when he was eleven and I was nine. Thirty years later and the damned thing still stood, imposing its existence on me. It was going to stand no more.  Tonight, Bobby would be avenged. Tonight, I would be able to rest in peace.

[Sergeant Treadway - 2]

Inside the Bunker, Treadway collapsed into a leather chair seated at the solid mahogany conference table that dominated the center of the expansive room. Ambassador Donald Breming sat beside Captain Staehley at the table. Even through the solid ceiling of the Bunker, Treadway could hear the small arms firefight raging above, punctuated now and then by the muffled explosion of a grenade or rocket.

He looked down at his uniform and discovered he was coated with a fine layer of cement dust that left him several shades lighter than normal. Part of the embassy wall, he realized with astonishment. He became aware of the scurrying of aides shoving files into the incinerator occupying the southeast corner of the Bunker. Another row of embassy staff sat pecking away at the small bank of computers positioned along one wall of the room. He brought his breathing under control and focused his attention on the ambassador and Captain Staehley.

“What happened, Gunny?” asked the ambassador.

[Sergeant Treadway - 1]

“Gunny, I need fire on top of those buildings!”

Lieutenant Hiram Stanton poked his head up from his crouched position only far enough to stab it in the direction the men were facing. The brim of his helmet bumped against the low cement wall surrounding the embassy, behind which all ten members of first squad and the platoon leader had prostrated themselves when the guard shack exploded. Incoming small arms fire was pounding the wall and a rocket-propelled grenade had just blown fragments of cement and dust into the air.

Gunnery Sergeant Michael Treadway saw the platoon leader’s expression of fury and moving lips, but could not hear what was shouted over the ringing in his ears and the noise of the battle. The not so distant clattering of automatic fire seemed quiet in comparison to the bone-jarring pulverization taking place on the other side of the only obstacle between him and the enemy’s fire. He gripped his rifle tight to his body, closed his eyes to avoid being blinded by the rain of dirt and rock falling around him, and rolled heavily over the backs of the two marines separating him from the lieutenant.

[One]

Lester Jenson sat perched at the window of his second story improvised home office. Located above his garage in a small residential subdivision, the view was nonetheless impressive. Jenson’s two-story brick house was built on the highest point in a neighborhood carved from a small valley. He surveyed the wooded east-west ridge positioned obliquely to the southwest face of his home. He could see the main north-south road as it crested the western tip of the ridge. Cars periodically emerged from the treeline and rounded the corner that had been carefully carved from the hill linking his little valley to the Johns River valley just south of him.

He tried to estimate the range mentally. Straight-line it had to be, what, 1000 meters? Probably more? It was hard to tell because he was sitting half-way up the north ridge line of the valley and the road crossed over the top of the south ridge. There was a lot of down and back up between the two points. For a moment, he considered going downstairs to the bedroom closet to dig his laser rangefinder out from the backpack he had still not unpacked since his mule deer hunt in Colorado several months ago. He chuckled. Get a grip, man, do you need to know the distance that bad?