The bite of the field, the curling snap of it, faded away with the red hot twist of nails on glass. It clawed through air and slid across his skull as it parted, flashed off and fell into distal silence ( Read more... )

Waking clean was strange, but waking relaxed was stranger. It was slow, a tug and shift. There were tired limbs without soreness, light wounds that didn't exactly throb from grit, but itched. The ground was down and the bed didn't smell quite right, but the cold was gone ( Read more... )

The angle of landfall was strange, unlike it had been before. The klivam superstructure put the bridge forward, tilted the floors toward the bow. Leaving was an uphill climb. When was the last time they landed? Before the weapon, before-no, just after Spock. More than twenty five years and a century ago. It was worth the climb ( Read more... )

Klivam ships were all built the same, predictable, even in this century. The bridge was foremost, after the gunner, the umbilical ran against the cargo-bay, and the dilithium matrix was on top of the shield emitters. The room beside the matrix, at the center of the ship, had a separate shielding. It was the safest place, the place no one would ( Read more... )