by Nick Webb
Contents
Forward
List of Nick's Series
Second Place
Novel Excerpt: 1st 10% of Constitution
Legacy Fleet short story: Hero
Pax Humana short story: Against the Rising Force
Pax Humana short story: Darkness Defied
Pax Humana short story: To the end of the world
Novel Excerpt: 1st 10% of The Terran Gambit
Pax Humana short story: Green gifts
Pax Humana short story: The Bernoulli Equation
Masks of Terremar short story: A gift of shadow
Novel Excerpt: 1st 10% of The Maskmaker's Apprentice
Hope 91
The Stars that Bind
Novel Excerpt: 1st 10% of Mercury's Bane
Novel Excerpt: 1st 10% of The Last War
Novel Excerpt: 1st 25% of Metal and Flesh
Assimilated
I remember as a mid-teenager sitting on the couch, plowing through all the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation with vague interest in Sci-fi—only there because, hey, I was a pimply teenager, what else am I going to do besides sit on the couch and binge-watch TV, and if I was going to watch TV there had better be some good explosions. I’d already re-watched all the A-Team reruns, so STTNG was it.
And then I watched the season finale: The Best of Both Worlds. Oh man. Suddenly, “you will be assimilated” was one of the coolest catch-phrases I’d ever heard. The Borg made Star Trek riveting for me. It was good before. It was amazing afterwards. There’s something magical about a good character (or, in this case, an entire civilization) that can breathe new life into a book or a movie or a TV series. From then on, I was hooked. I was assimilated.
Life took some fun twists since then. I got married (pimply teen made good!), got a PhD in physics (how else was I going to build the Enterprise?), and moved all over the country on the science funding chase until it finally hit me in 2015: I could tell stories for a living instead of writing funding proposals. I could write about space ships instead of dreaming about them. I could invent new Borgs, new Klingons, new Jedi. And so I started writing Science Fiction and never looked back. I was assimilated.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of readers have met Captain Granger in my book Constitution. They’ve met the Swarm: a race of liquid beings that share a single consciousness (but there’s a twist at the end!). They’ve met evil brilliant mastermind Admiral Trajan in my Pax Humana series and the Belenites who, as human survivors of the only other world in the galaxy known to have developed indigenous lifeforms, tattoo themselves with the ashes of the forests of their destroyed adopted planet. And it gives them mysterious powers. They’ve met the alien Telestines, who, in the Earth Dawning series, exile humanity to the solar system instead of killing us outright for sinister purposes that aren’t revealed until they learn that it was one of their own that destroyed their own sun. And so on and so on….
And many more to come.
So sit back and enjoy these short stories and novel samples. Nearly every short story I’ve ever written is here in Assimilated, along with the first 10% of every “book 1” I’ve written. If you like the excerpts, the complete novels are available on Amazon as ebooks and other retailers as paperbacks. And if you want to hear about new novels from me, please sign up for my newsletter! Subscribers are the first to know when I’ve published a book, and will usually get a good discount by being the first to know. On average, I’ll email you about once per month, so don’t worry, you won’t be flooded with updates every time my cat does something interesting. Also, I don’t have a cat.
Ensign, engage!
Nick Webb
Before we get to the actual stories and excerpts, here’s a handy list of all my current series and novels, in their reading order.
Space Opera
The Legacy Fleet Series
1: Constitution
2: Warrior
3: Victory
4: Independence
5: Defiance
6: Liberty (coming soon)
(And probably 3 more books. But books 3 and 6 are good stopping places that don’t leave you hanging too badly.)
Also, there are many authors who have written novels in the Legacy Fleet universe as well, with my permission. The list is always expanding, so find the full up-to-date list at my website: www.nickwebbwrites.com/p/legacy-fleet.html
The Pax Humana Saga
1: The Terran Gambit
2: Chains of Destiny
3: Into the Void
4: The Sons of Oberon (coming soon)
(And probably 3 more books for a total of 7.)
The Earth Dawning Series
1: Mercury’s Bane
2: Jupiter’s Sword
3: Neptune’s War (coming soon)
(This series is complete, “for now”. Meaning book 3 wraps things up nicely but I reserve the right to add to this universe in the future, since it’s quite a fun one.)
The Last War series
(Co-written with David Adams, under the pen name Peter Bostrom)
1: The Last War
2: The Last Hero
3: The Last Dawn
4: The Last Champion (coming soon)
(And probably 3 more books)
Non-Space Opera
High Fantasy
Masks of Terremar
1. The Maskmaker’s Apprentice
(All books in this universe will be standalones, but I haven’t gotten around to book 2 yet. Someday.)
Fantasy/Sci-fi mishmash:
The Rohvim Series
1: Metal and Flesh
2: Water and Blood
3: Earth and Sky (coming … someday)
(I had originally planned a long series for this one, but I think I may end it at book 3.)
Second Place is a departure from my usual fare of shoot-em-up space opera sci-fi. In Second Place, we meet Frank Bickham, the 2nd man to set foot on Mars, who, for the rest of his life after that mission feels overshadowed by “only” being second, and now near the end of the life is determined to be the first at something: the first man to die on Mars. As grim as it sounds, the story is more along the lines of “feel-good comedy”. Frank is this guy that projects a grumpy yet heroic persona but at heart is an old softy beloved by his grandkids and the public, who is about to learn that living for someone else is just as heroic as dying for someone else. Enjoy!
Second Place
By Nick Webb
November 5th, 2067
Sweetie, before I answer your question, just keep in mind who the hell I am. I’m the second god-damned human to set foot on Mars. THE SECOND. And more people are moving there every day. Here, I’m nothing. Some nameless retiree in some nameless god-forsaken suburb of Dallas. There, I’d be a god-damned prophet or something. Like Adam. Or, uh, Columbus, except less, you know, genocidal.
Frank Bickham, second human to set foot on Mars, punched the ‘send’ key a little too aggressively, accidentally hitting delete instead.
“Aw… sh—” he began, before looking over his shoulder to see if the great-grandkids could hear. Sure enough, the littlest was peering up at him with her wide six-year-old eyes. “—amwow,” he finished.
“Don’t you mean shit?”
He spun around to face her. “Samantha! Don’t say that! Who the hell taught you to say that?”
“Grumpy,” she said, laughing, pointing at him.
Frank sighed. “Grumpy,” he repeated. The computer behind him chimed. Another message from his grand-daughter, probably wondering why he hadn’t responded yet. When the hell was she going to pick up these rugrats, anyway? He tousled Samantha’s hair playfully.
She grimaced, and in a solemn six-year-old voice said, “stop, Grumpy. I’m having a bad hair day.�
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What six-year-old has a bad hair day? “Go,” he said, pointing to the other room. “Go be a kid.”
Samantha ran off, giggling, and Frank strained to read the new message before cursing again and ramming his reading glasses onto his nose.
So are you going to answer the question, Grumpy? Or just start ignoring me again?
He punched out the previous message he’d erased as best he could remember and fired it off, before switching to his other message feed from the pencil pushers over at Interplanetary Reserve Inc. Nothing new yet. Dammit.
Another chime. Her reply was just a terse, Call me.
“Shit,” he said again, yanking the glasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have time for another long conversation with his granddaughter, convincing her why he needed to go to Mars. To go there for good this time. She had a husband, for god’s sake, she didn’t need old Grumpy around to watch the kids. Why the hell was she clinging on to him? “Aw, hell. Fine. You want me to call you? Let’s talk, sweetie.”
Before he could even pick up the phone, the computer chimed again, this time from the other feed. It was Interplanetary. He punched over, his hand shaking ever so slightly. Parkinson’s? The doc assured him it was under control. Naw, just nervous. Ha. Frank Bickham, second man on Mars, nervous about what a bunch of good-for-nothing pencil pushers would say.
Mr. Bickham,
Pursuant to our conversation on 10/29/67, your status as Mariner Valley colony member #10,257 is approved. Attached, please find the orientation packet and final paperwork that must be completed by….
He stopped, and began again, rereading to make sure he wasn’t imaging it. A thrilling jolt ran up his spine.
It happened.
He’d done it. Well, almost. One last step remained, but for all intents and purposes, barring any unforeseen unfortunate events, it was going to happen.
Frank Bickham, second man on Mars, was going to be the first man to die on Mars.
Switching over to a third feed, he fired off a message he’d composed months ago, to his rival, Jerry Su, first man on Mars.
Suck it, Su. I won.
Signed,
Frank Bickham, first man to die on Mars.
And he grinned.
Six months later.
Frank looked up from his datapad, thinking the approaching person was his new friend, but no, just another passersby. In Dallas, when random people walked by his table outside the cafe, they wouldn’t even make eye contact. Who cares about some cranky old bastard having his morning coffee? But here, on the main plastic boulevard under the clear composite glass of Huygens dome in Mariner Valley on Mars, he was a god-damned celebrity. Shit, even the street was named after him. Bickam Boulevard. They spelled his name wrong on the sign, but he could overlook little details like that. Better than drinking a cup over on ass-ugly Su Avenue. In a few months, he’d be frickin’ immortal. First man to die on Mars. Bam. They’d rename the whole god-forsaken valley after that shit.
The approaching woman kept surreptitiously glancing at him, looking like she was taking great pains to not look like she was glancing at him, but by the time she passed his table she dropped all pretense.
“Are you…?”
He smiled his strained, fake ‘for the adoring masses smile’.
“The one and only.”
She looked young. Well, probably in her late forties. Young enough for him to not be overly concerned for her health, thank god. And therefore, not worth his time. “Charmed,” he said, accepting her handshake. Briefly. He had work to do—no time to schmooze with his fans.
She held on to his hand a split second too long. “Ma’am?” he began, before she pulled the hand away, looking mortified. “I am terribly busy. But so very good to meet you.”
She looked terrified, chagrined, and flustered all at once. “Oh! And, uh, you too! We’re so proud to have you up here with us. Or down here. Or … here. You know. Mars. Huygens Dome. Su Avenue.”
Su avenue my ass. “Bickam Boulevard, actually. Yes, yes, I know, thank you,” he said, smiling his strained smile. He spied an elderly man shuffling down the boulevard towards them. Ah. His new friend. “If you’ll excuse me, Mrs…?”
“Martinez. Jackie Martinez. I’m an environmental engineer working on CO2 filtration and sequestration over in satellite pod ten. I don’t get over here to the main strip very often—I haven’t had a good cup in coffee in forever. How’s this place? I keep meaning to try it, but I’m always so rushed when I come over here, you know, what with work and all, but it certainly looks like a decent coffee shop. You come here often? Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m rambling. Sorry. I’ll be going. So nice to meet you, Mr. Su!”
“Bickham!” he called after her. Once she was gone, he stretched his cheeks and lips. “God, that hurts.” He’d held his ‘for the masses smile’ the entire time, which tended to strain his face. He stood up to greet the elderly man who’d finally made it to the coffee shop. Bickam boulevard in Huygens dome wasn’t that long—just under a kilometer, but his new friend looked like he’d just completed a fifty kilometer hike.
That didn’t bode well.
“Mr. Smith? Very pleased to meet you. Frank Bickham.” He extended a hand.
“Mr. Bickham! A pleasure!” Smith’s handshake felt weak. Damn. Another bad sign.
Frank waved him to a chair at his table on the narrow, plastic composite sidewalk. “Have a seat. Can I order you something? Coffee? Orange juice? Quinoa extract? Something healthy?”
Smith waved him off. “Just had breakfast, thank you.”
“Good. Best meal of the day. Very healthy habit. Good, good,” mumbled Frank.
Smith nodded and glanced up at the monitor hanging from the roof of the boulevard, gaudily flashing the news and analysis as delivered by some loud-mouthed talking heads and competing news ticker streams. Luckily, it was muted. Smith pointed up at the screen. “Can’t get enough of us back on Earth, can they? We’re celebrities. If only they knew what it was really like up here. All work, no play, no booze, no women. At least, none for me. Who the hell wants to get in the sack with an eighty-year-old man?”
Frank laughed gruffly. “Tell me about it,” before adding, tentatively, “so, you drank a lot before you got here?”
“A lot? Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. Just a beer or two after a day’s work. Welder,” he added, tapping his chest. “After a day of gluing aluminum prefab modules together, a man needs a cold one, you know what I mean? But do they think about us? Nope. Just their god-damned bottom line. That’s Interplanetary for you. Profit margins and stock prices. They’re up, the colony’s a success. They’re down, and we’re all horse shit, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, you said it, brother.” Frank nodded, watching the monitor switch over from Earth’s CNN feed to a locally produced news program. Hell, they even brought an anchorwoman up here. They were talking frantically about something, with earnest expressions. Probably the stock price. “Say, Ed—can I call you Ed? You getting good exercise?” He noticed the other man’s raised eyebrows. “Just wondering, you know.” He tapped his datapad. “For the job. You know they sent me up here to be a community health analyst, or whatever bullshit they want me to do. Honestly, I’m just here for the low gravity. Good for the joints. Arthritis sucks, man.”
Smith chuckled. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth.”
Frank nodded. “So? Exercise? Generally feeling pretty good? No major health issues?”
Smith looked mildly flabbergasted. “Well, I—”
His datapad chimed. A message from Earth, probably Samantha—the little girl must send him five video messages per week. Sometimes five per day. Earth was still close to inferior conjunction with Mars so the delay was only five minutes or so. God—he loved that little girl. He was half tempted at times to scrap the whole plan, just to have a few more years hosting tea parties with her and her stuffed fluffy friends. But no turning back now.
He tapped the pad. It wasn’t
from Samantha, but a note from her mom, Ramona, his granddaughter.
Grumpy, have you seen the news? Is it as bad as it looks? I hope you’re ok.
-Ramona
The news? Smith was still talking, and Frank raised a hand to quiet him, while simultaneously waving at the monitor hanging from the transparent composite ceiling. “Volume up,” he said.
“—ently unknown how many casualties we’re looking at here. Reported injuries are ranging from minor to severe, and several colonists are still unaccounted for. Colonial engineering operations chief Cena said just a few minutes ago that the affected area inside habitation module twelve has been fully vented and now has a stable atmosphere, and first responders will soon be able to—”
Frank bolted out of his seat and started running down the boulevard. He heard a grunt behind him, and saw to his chagrin that Smith was trying to follow. “I’m coming! I can help! You’re right, I need the exercise anyway—” He cut off as he stumbled stepping from sidewalk to street.
Shit—the man was probably going to have a heart attack from the effort. Frank waved him off. “Stay. I’ll handle this. You go … eat a carrot, or something.”
Seven minutes later
Frank was out of breath when he arrived at the entrance to habitation module twelve, and if not for the adrenaline surge he’d have collapsed in a puddle of sweat, leg cramps, and geriatric back spasms. The scene was utter mayhem, with the colony’s emergency team, medical staff, engineers, and even volunteers rushing around, frantically carrying victims out of the habitation module or working on emergency equipment or tending to wounded people lying on the ground.
