Poem: "A Solitary Secession"
Today's first freebie is courtesy of new prompter 
chordatesrock, who wanted to read about autistic separatists. I combined that with a prompt from LiveJournal user Paka about surveillance bases, which gave me the setting and context.
"A Solitary Secession"
It began not with armed conflict but armistice,
a long lull in an unrelated war
when the two sides entrenched themselves in space
and established surveillance stations
to watch over the no-man's-land between
the Orion-Cygnus Arm and the Carina-Sagittarius Arm.
The stations were dark and silent,
with a skeleton crew of soldiers
assigned to supervise the equipment.
Communication was only allowed on rare occasions
when ships arrived to resupply and exchange personnel.
For most, the posting was a hardship,
a punishment for mediocrity or disciplinary issues.
They grumbled and sulked and gritted their teeth
through their time "in the can"
until they could leave for a new assignment.
Some of them didn't make it.
Some of them broke under the pressure,
social beings torn out of society.
For a few, though, the posting was perfect.
The stations all used exactly the same design.
The schedule never changed.
There were no crowds of people pleading for attention
and demanding a pretense of empathy.
The military didn't care about empathy, only performance;
it was willing to make allowances for soldiers
who could work wonders in codebreaking or programming.
They were quiet soldiers, alert in their own way,
attention fixated on those matters that concerned them.
They had little interest in most of the entertainments
that absorbed their troopmates -- the smuggled newsvids,
the nudie pictures, the letters from family or lovers.
They were rarely invited to a second poker game after
people realized how little emotion ever showed on their faces.
They loved the combat simulations, though,
and would play those for hours even when off-duty,
racking up scores that delighted the officers.
Then the armistice dribbled into peacetime.
Nobody wanted to keep funding the stations.
They were decommissioned one by one.
The soldiers were cycled back into the rest of the fleet
or demobilized and returned to society.
Society was ... less than welcoming, of those
who had thrived in the quiet environs of surveillance.
It pushed and pestered and pressured them to fit in
until they wailed and flapped their hands to make it all go away.
Word got around.
They were not, after all, incapable
of noticing the newsvids --
they were simply uninterested
in matters that did not concern them.
This concerned them deeply.
The soldiers still on surveillance
began to pass the news amongst themselves.
They knew -- had always known -- the secret ways
to send messages across the breathless void.
They had more in common with each other
than any of them did with either side of the erstwhile conflict.
So they refused to leave their stations
for the bedlam of the settled planets.
The Carinan army shrugged and said
they were welcome to the relic bases
if they could somehow provide their own supplies,
because damned if the army would pay for it anymore.
The Orion army was not so accommodating, and said
they would by god return to active service elsewhere
or be decommissioned and put down on planets
just like everyone else.
The war of secession broke out with a volley
not of gunfire, but distributed denial-of-service
and datamining and viral attacks.
The Orion army tried to remove soldiers
from the stations by force -- and since
the surveillance personnel from both sides
were now working together,
they moved against bases of both armies.
The Carinan army was not so blase about that.
They struck back hard and fast.
The Orions opened fire.
The war of the arms was back on again.
From the shadows of the surveillance stations
came a new attack, one that wiped records
of where the bases were and who served on them.
A whole handful of silver needles
disappeared into the black haystack of space.
What had once been no-man's-land
became a whole new territory,
claimed and defended by those
who had moved in and found it hospitable.
It did not matter
that they were less than sociable,
connecting with each other only over
a rare shared passion,
that they were better at individual skills
than at teamwork or loyalty,
that they communicated better
via keyboards than conversation.
It only mattered
that they had found a cause
worth fighting for.
chordatesrock, who wanted to read about autistic separatists. I combined that with a prompt from LiveJournal user Paka about surveillance bases, which gave me the setting and context.
"A Solitary Secession"
It began not with armed conflict but armistice,
a long lull in an unrelated war
when the two sides entrenched themselves in space
and established surveillance stations
to watch over the no-man's-land between
the Orion-Cygnus Arm and the Carina-Sagittarius Arm.
The stations were dark and silent,
with a skeleton crew of soldiers
assigned to supervise the equipment.
Communication was only allowed on rare occasions
when ships arrived to resupply and exchange personnel.
For most, the posting was a hardship,
a punishment for mediocrity or disciplinary issues.
They grumbled and sulked and gritted their teeth
through their time "in the can"
until they could leave for a new assignment.
Some of them didn't make it.
Some of them broke under the pressure,
social beings torn out of society.
For a few, though, the posting was perfect.
The stations all used exactly the same design.
The schedule never changed.
There were no crowds of people pleading for attention
and demanding a pretense of empathy.
The military didn't care about empathy, only performance;
it was willing to make allowances for soldiers
who could work wonders in codebreaking or programming.
They were quiet soldiers, alert in their own way,
attention fixated on those matters that concerned them.
They had little interest in most of the entertainments
that absorbed their troopmates -- the smuggled newsvids,
the nudie pictures, the letters from family or lovers.
They were rarely invited to a second poker game after
people realized how little emotion ever showed on their faces.
They loved the combat simulations, though,
and would play those for hours even when off-duty,
racking up scores that delighted the officers.
Then the armistice dribbled into peacetime.
Nobody wanted to keep funding the stations.
They were decommissioned one by one.
The soldiers were cycled back into the rest of the fleet
or demobilized and returned to society.
Society was ... less than welcoming, of those
who had thrived in the quiet environs of surveillance.
It pushed and pestered and pressured them to fit in
until they wailed and flapped their hands to make it all go away.
Word got around.
They were not, after all, incapable
of noticing the newsvids --
they were simply uninterested
in matters that did not concern them.
This concerned them deeply.
The soldiers still on surveillance
began to pass the news amongst themselves.
They knew -- had always known -- the secret ways
to send messages across the breathless void.
They had more in common with each other
than any of them did with either side of the erstwhile conflict.
So they refused to leave their stations
for the bedlam of the settled planets.
The Carinan army shrugged and said
they were welcome to the relic bases
if they could somehow provide their own supplies,
because damned if the army would pay for it anymore.
The Orion army was not so accommodating, and said
they would by god return to active service elsewhere
or be decommissioned and put down on planets
just like everyone else.
The war of secession broke out with a volley
not of gunfire, but distributed denial-of-service
and datamining and viral attacks.
The Orion army tried to remove soldiers
from the stations by force -- and since
the surveillance personnel from both sides
were now working together,
they moved against bases of both armies.
The Carinan army was not so blase about that.
They struck back hard and fast.
The Orions opened fire.
The war of the arms was back on again.
From the shadows of the surveillance stations
came a new attack, one that wiped records
of where the bases were and who served on them.
A whole handful of silver needles
disappeared into the black haystack of space.
What had once been no-man's-land
became a whole new territory,
claimed and defended by those
who had moved in and found it hospitable.
It did not matter
that they were less than sociable,
connecting with each other only over
a rare shared passion,
that they were better at individual skills
than at teamwork or loyalty,
that they communicated better
via keyboards than conversation.
It only mattered
that they had found a cause
worth fighting for.