Further Conflicts Read online

  Further Conflicts

  Further Conflicts

  Edited by Ian Whates

  NewCon Press

  England

  First edition, published in the UK April 2011

  by NewCon Press

  NCP 035 (hardback)

  NCP 036 (softback)

  Compilation and introduction copyright © 2011 by Ian Whates

  “The Wake” copyright © 2011 by Dan Abnett

  “Unaccounted” copyright © 2011 by Lauren Beukes

  “The New Ships” copyright © 2011 by Gareth L. Powell

  “The Harvest” copyright © 2011 by Kim Lakin-Smith

  “The War Artist” copyright © 2011 by Tony Ballantyne

  “Brwydr Am Ryddid” copyright © 2011 by Stephen Palmer

  “Occupation” copyright © 2011 by Colin Harvey

  “The Soul of the Machine” copyright © 2011 by Eric Brown

  “Extraordinary Rendition” copyright © 2011 by Steve Longworth

  “Yakker Snak” copyright © 2011 by Andy Remic

  “The Legend of Sharrock” copyright © 2011 by Philip Palmer

  “The Ice Submarine” copyright © 2011 by Adam Roberts

  “Welcome Home, Janissary” copyright © 2011 by Tim C Taylor

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-907069-25-3 (hardback)

  ISBN:978-0-907069-26-0 (softback)

  Cover art and design by Andy Bigwood

  Invaluable editorial assistance from Ian Watson

  Text layout by Storm Constantine

  e-book conversion by Tim C. Taylor

  Contents

  Tips on Reading the Kindle Edition

  Introduction – Ian Whates

  The Wake – Dan Abnett

  Unaccounted – Lauren Beukes

  The New Ships – Gareth L Powell

  The Harvest – Kim Lakin-Smith

  The War Artist – Tony Ballantyne

  Brwydr Am Ryddid – Stephen Palmer

  Occupation – Colin Harvey

  The Soul of the Machine – Eric Brown

  Extraordinary Rendition – Steve Longworth

  Yakker Snak – Andy Remic

  The Legend of Sharrock – Philip Palmer

  The Ice Submarine – Adam Roberts

  Welcome Home, Janissary – Tim C Taylor

  About the Authors

  Tips on Reading the Kindle Edition

  Here are some useful tips to help you 'thumb' through the stories in this Newcon Press anthology. They assume you are reading on a Kindle Reader and have the book already open.

  To 'flick through' the stories:

  Use the left and right arrows of the 5-way controller; this moves you straight to the previous/ next story.

  To use the table of contents:

  Press the 'Menu' button. Select 'Go to...' and then 'table of contents'.

  To 'flick forward' to the author notes

  At the end of each story is some underlined text that reads: "Follow this link for the author's notes". If you use the 5-way controller to select this link, then you will jump to the notes written by the author for that story. When you have read the notes, you can press the 'Back' button on your device to return to the end of the story.

  That's it; now enjoy the book...

  Further Conflicts

  An Introduction

  Ian Whates

  Some books come together very swiftly and easily, others require a little more patience. Conflicts, launched at the 2010 Eastercon, was of the latter sort. It took longer than anticipated to find stories of the right quality and type to produce the volume I’d envisaged. The result more than justified the effort involved, and the book’s popularity both pre-launch and subsequently proved very gratifying. Of course, it was then announced that the 2011 Eastercon would be themed on military SF, and I almost wished that Conflicts had taken a little longer. It would have been the ideal book to launch there. That set me thinking. ‘Conflict’ lies at the heart of almost every narrative in one form or another. It’s a very broad theme, which a single volume could only begin to explore. Why not do another?

  I wanted this new volume to have an obvious kinship to the first but also to have its own identity; I wasn’t after a ‘Son of Conflicts’. So I decided to include a few of the same authors but mainly look for different voices to provide new interpretations of the theme. I also approached Andy Bigwood, who had created such a brilliant piece of cover art for the first book, and asked if he could do a new piece featuring the dart ships from that cover but in a radically different composition. Naturally, he came up trumps.

  I would have been happy to ask any of the Conflicts authors to take part, but started with that master of military mayhem, Andy Remic. His sensitive nature and subdued writing style made him a natural choice… okay, who am I kidding? His enthusiasm for action and violence, his whole-hearted rev-it-to-the max approach to writing made him a must. “Yakker Snak” took me a little by surprise. Quite untypical, quite unusual, quite wonderful.

  The second author I approached was Eric Brown. I knew his story in Conflicts to be one of several he’s written featuring the same characters, and it struck me as fitting that this new volume should feature another. Eric agreed, and “The Soul of the Machine” proved to be everything I’d hoped for.

  Right, that was the link firmly established; now for those new voices…

  Putting together an anthology has its joys and frustrations. Sometimes authors you really hope to include are already overcommitted and can’t take part; others who agree to submit fail to do so for all manner of perfectly valid reasons, and still others send you a piece which simply isn’t suitable. All these played a part in the development of Further Conflicts. Thankfully, fate/coincidence/luck also stepped in more than once to lend a hand, putting me in the right place at the right time to connect with exactly the right author. As a result, the book came together far more swiftly and smoothly than its predecessor.

  I’ve been wanting to get in touch with Stephen Palmer for a while now, having loved his two novels for Orbit, Memory Seed and Glass. In fact, while putting Conflicts together I’d obtained his email address from a friend with the intention of contacting him for a story, but other things distracted me and I never did. Then, in 2010, Stephen suddenly cropped up on a forum I frequent and we started talking, which led to my asking the inevitable question, “Do you write short stories at all…?” At NewCon 5 in October 2010, I had the honour of reading from Stephen’s latest novel, Urbis Morpheus and even from such a brief extract was instantly hooked.

  Dan Abnett is an author I immediately thought of when deciding to produce Further Conflicts, but Dan was somebody I hadn’t met; for some reason our paths had simply never crossed. Until, that is, I received an email from Lee Harris at Angry Robot asking whether the BSFA might be interested in interviewing Dan at one of their monthly meetings. Of course we were. Naturally, that put me in touch with Dan, and I was able to ask that all-important short story question. “The Wake” was one of the first stories I received for the book, and what a stonker it is, providing the perfect opener.

  The last story I accepted for the anthology was from South African author Lauren Beukes. I had the pleasure of spending some time with Lauren during her brief visit to London in the Summer of 2010 to promote her new novel Zoo City. I’d read her first, Moxyland (Angry Robot) and been suitably impressed. Lauren was delighted to accept my invitation to submit, but warned me that, due to her many commitments – TV, novel, jou
rnalism, family – it might be a while in coming. Fortunately, “Unaccounted” proved well-worth the wait.

  While organising the Newcon 5 convention, I received a membership form and cheque from one Philip Palmer. After a few email exchanges it emerged that this was indeed the same Philip Palmer who has written a number of deliciously retro space opera novels for Orbit in recent years (Debatable Space, Red Claw et al). Needless to say, I wasn’t about to let such an opportunity pass me by…

  I was still in the early stages of putting the anthology together when I bumped into Tony Ballantyne at alt.fiction in Derby. Having known Tony for several years and read and enjoyed both his short fiction and novels (and indeed published the excellent “Underbrain” in the 2008 anthology Subterfuge) I didn’t hesitate in asking him for a submission. After reading “The War Artist”, I was delighted that I had.

  Kim Lakin-Smith is one of those authors who are bubbling under, set to explode on the scene at any moment. I’m fortunate enough to count Kim as a good friend, and, while chatting one day, it emerged that she’d just finished work on a novel and was taking a breather before the Next Big Project. Perfect time to write a short story, then, I suggested. “The Harvest” is Kim at her very best: nasty, dark, violent, but with a ray of hope running throughout. Great stuff.

  Steve Longworth is already contributing a story to another NewCon Press anthology, Fables from the Fountain, so I definitely wasn’t going to include him in this one, oh no… Until he workshopped “Extraordinary Rendition” at the writers group, the swine!

  I’ve known Colin Harvey for a while, but his excellent 2009 novel Winter Song was what really brought his work to my attention. He was a natural choice to approach for the book, and his story, “Occupation” provides a sensitive counterpoint.

  It’s always gratifying when an author approaches you with a story, and this is precisely what happened with Gareth L Powell, who emailed to say that he’d written a follow-up to his Conflicts story. As I’d published the first piece, he was offering me first refusal on this one. Initially, that’s what I did: refuse. With two authors already included from the first book, I didn’t want to over-emphasise the link. However, a few weeks later I had second thoughts and asked Gareth if the piece was still available. Thank goodness I did. “The New Ships” is a terrific story.

  I already had a piece from Adam Roberts lined-up for the book, a left-over from another project which looked to have been abandoned. However, at the last minute, that project was resurrected (without my involvement this time around, I’m relieved to say) which meant that Adam’s piece was already committed. So I asked him if he had anything else that might be suitable for the ‘conflict’ theme. Almost apologetically, Adam offered me “The Ice Submarine”, explaining that this was something he wrote a while ago but had recently been working on again. He needn’t have apologised. It’s an excellent piece, which dovetails perfectly with the anthology’s theme.

  Tim C Taylor has been working around the small presses for a while now. The first time I encountered his work was in #3 of the late lamented Forgotten Worlds magazine in 2006, the same issue that featured one of my own early stories. He then joined the Northampton SF Writers Group and has workshopped some cracking stuff. I had no hesitation in asking him to submit for Further Conflict and he duly wrote “Welcome Home, Janissary”, one of his best pieces yet; strong enough to provide the collection’s final word.

  Thirteen stories, thirteen very different interpretations of the same theme. I hope you enjoy them.

  Ian Whates

  March 2011

  The Wake

  Dan Abnett

  We were going to miss Mendozer.

  He’d been with us, what, four tours? Five, Klubs reckons. Five. Well anyway, we were going to miss him. Mendozer was like a tin target. You know the kind? You knock them down, but the motor pops them up again, time after time.

  Mendozer had a tin target quality about him. You get blokes like that. I don’t mean immortal, indestructible fireproof angels of death like Boring, ‘cause blokes like Boring, they’re a whole other deal entirely. No, Mendozer’s type, they’re just reliable, like they’re always going to be around, and if something knocks them down they’ll soon be right back up again, thank you, banging away, making a joke.

  Like a tin target on the practice deck. Bang! Down he goes. Then up he pops again.

  When Mendozer got knocked down and didn’t pop back up, we grabbed him and got him to the extract. Moke and me, we hoiked him under the armpits and ran with him, dragging his legs. Moke was yelling medic, but I was pretty confident that Mendozer was dogfood already. None of us actually saw what got him, due to the fact that it had all gone a bit cack-yourself-and-keep-shooting nutty at the time, but it looked like he’d run onto a pitchfork. There was wet everywhere. The stuff was all over us, soaking our sleeves and hips.

  The Surge did his best. Credit for that. Tried everything. Split Mendozer’s body jacket off, cracked the sternum, tried to patch the internal punctures, tried to get the slack heart to restart. We ended up soaking wet up to our armpits, kneeling either side of Mendozer in a blood slick the size of a fish pond, with dozens of spent injector vials and wadding tear-off strips floating around in it.

  End of. Somebody find him a box.

  The Surge put him in the fridge. We stayed on site four more days, expending our remaining munitions at anything that came inside the floodlit perimeter. It was not the light-hearted fun and frolics we’d been hoping for.

  ***

  There was a technical problem with our extract, so we had to layover at Relay Station Delta for a week. All of us knew Relay Delta, because we stopped there every time on the way in to Scary Land, and none of us cared for it. Dark, pokey, rank, no light except artificial, no food except recyc. It was about as roomy and inviting as Mendozer’s casket.

  The trick was to recognise the up-side. A week’s layover meant a week added to resupply turnaround, and a week extra before we’d get deployed back to Scary Land. That was fine by us, even if it meant seven days of breathing farts in the dark at Relay Delta.

  We were all pretty sick of Scary Land, to tell you the truth. We were all pretty sick of banging away at the Scaries. We’d lost sixteen on seven tours, including Mendozer, and that was light compared to some platoons. The Middlemen, best of the best and all that, but banging away at the Scaries was beginning to feel like banging our heads against the proverbial. We’ve tangled with all sorts over the years, no word of a lie, but there was something relentless about the Scaries. Something cack yourself. Something shadow-under-the-bed spooky. I swear even Boring was beginning to get creeped out by them.

  “Bosko,” he says to me, “Scary Land is starting to make me miss Suck Central.”

  Which was saying something, specially coming from Juke Boring, shit-kicking fireproof god of war. Suck Central, as the name suggests, had not been a family bucket of fun and frolics either.

  Anyway, there’s us, Relay Delta, a bit of downtime. So we’re all in the Rec, just dossing around, and in comes Boring carrying a large carton pack, and behind him comes the Surge trundling a shiny plastic casket on a gurney from the ward. It rattles its castors as it comes in over the door trim. It takes us all of no seconds flat to realise this is Mendozer’s bloody box. Everyone gets up. Everyone says a few choice words, the same choice word in most instances.

  Boring, he points with his chin and directs Surge to park Mendozer in the middle of the Rec. The Surge does so, and heels the brake-lock on the gurney’s wheelbase. Boring walks over to a side table, indicates by a narrowing of his eyes that Klubs should instantly remove the hand of clock patience spread out on it, and then dumps the carton. It clinks. Glass.

  “We’re holding a wake,” he announces.

  He opens the carton. It had been a stores pack for cans of rice pudding in a previous life. His big hands scoop out sets of chunky shot glasses, a digit in each, five at a time. Cripes only knows where he managed to scare up real glass glass
es.

  Then came the best bit. Twenty four bottles of the good stuff. Litre bottles, actual glass. Boring twists the top off the first one, and I can’t remember how long it’s been since I heard the fresh metal collar of a screw cap strip open like that.

  He starts filling the glasses. Generous measures. It takes more than one bottle. We’re all wary. Juke Boring has a history of playing cruel tricks in the name of character building experience. The stuff he was pouring might just have been cold tea. We’re all braced for a metaphorical smack round the ear and a lecture on taking things at face value.

  But this isn’t a trick. You can’t fake the smell of fifteen year old malt.

  “Where’d you get this stuff?” asks Neats, the platoon sergeant.

  “Station commander owed me a million favours,” Boring says. “Now he owes me a million minus one.”

  He picks up a glass. He doesn’t hand the others out, but there’s a wordless instruction for us all to go help ourselves. We take a glass each, and form a loose circle around the gurney. Twenty-eight men: twenty-four, plus Boring, Neats, the Surge, and Mendozer in his box.

  Boring raises his glass.

  “Here’s to Mendozer,” he says. “Middleman from start to finish. Skull it.”

  “Skull!” we all say, and chug back our glasses. We clonk the empties down on the lid of Mendozer’s box, and Boring nods to Neats to refill them.

  As Neats gets busy, Moke asks the question we’re all thinking.

  “We don’t usually do this,” he says. “Why are we doing this?”

  “Because we should,” says Boring. “Shows respect. Isn’t usually enough time, or there’s no place to do it. Thought it was a custom we should get into.”