Right Ascension
Page 25
“Yes, Admiral Daniel Caesar Atgard,” came the being’s delayed response. “We do indeed remember you.”
The words—or, more accurately, the thoughts—of the creature were not spoken aloud, but instead reverberated only in Daniel’s mind.
“Good,” replied the Admiral, leaning forward in his command chair, uncomfortably aware that he was alone on the ship. “Then you remember what happened the last time you killed innocent people without provocation.”
“Yes,” replied the being, in the same manner as before. “We do indeed remember what happened.”
“Yet you destroy entire planets,” spat the Admiral, only peripherally aware that his emotions were threatening to overcome him. “And you come again to destroy another. Must we trade death for death? How many will be enough? How many humans do you have to kill before the ‘justice’ you claim you seek has been meted out?”
The aliens appeared to ponder this for several moments, flickering in unison as they presumably discussed their response. Abruptly the flickering abated, and Daniel thought he sensed an increase in the beings’ luster.
The light-being in the center seemed to float slightly closer as it spoke.
“All of them,” it said.
The viewscreen suddenly went black.
Continue the adventure!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Derrico was born just north of Miami, Florida, and developed his appreciation for complex moral issues while receiving a degree in philosophy from the University of Florida in Gainesville. He wrote his first novel, Right Ascension, before attending law school at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). Right Ascension was first published by Bookbooters Press in 2000, and garnered its inaugural eBook of the Year Award.
Derrico wrote his second novel, Declination, during law school, while he was probably supposed to be studying. Nonetheless, he graduated, passed the California Bar Exam, and worked as an attorney at a large, international law firm in Los Angeles for several years. While practicing law (all that practice actually made him pretty good at it), he managed to write some short stories and a novella, The Twiller, while always yearning for more time to write his next novel.
Recently, Derrico retired from his “day job” as a big-firm attorney and moved back to South Florida, where he is working on that next novel, Face Value, a story about a genetically-perfect Utopia where society’s perfection is only skin deep. Derrico maintains a website with reviews, excerpts, current news, and purchasing information for all of his novels and other works at www.rightascension.com.