To be honest, the astronomy lecture made no sense, but there was going to be supper after the talk and Bella was perpetually hungry.
Outside, the night was cloudless and the sheer glory of the wheeling sparkling sky all but took her breath. When you’ve lived in the caverns all your life the sheer bigness of the firmament either excites or terrifies you.
Bella just looked and looked.
“That’s Orion the giant,” a voice beside her said.
Bella could see no giant, only the goddess’ stars on the blue bosom of the sky.
That night a moon priestess was born.

©Jane Jago

A brutal fantasy tale of piracy, friendship, romance and revenge on the high seas…

Midnight Runner was stalking a treasure ship from Hispaniola keeping a careful distance and doing nothing to draw attention to herself. But her captain, Tall Jack Stainless, was puzzled. Rey Don Phillipos was a big ugly bitch of a ship, riding low in the water, and seemingly unaware of an imminent tropical storm. If her captain had any sense he would have been crowding on all possible sail and beating for the shelter of the closest of a group of verdant islands – where the hidden teeth of a coral reef would hole his ship and leave it at the mercy of the pirate crew – or dropping the sea anchor and preparing to ride out the storm as best he might. However, he was doing neither, instead the ship held tightly to her course, making her majestic, if slightly wallowing, way across a sea that looked like molten copper.
Gobshite, the talking rat, stood on his hind legs and came as close to a frown as his rodentine physiognomy would permit.
“Whassamatter with the stupid bastards,” he hissed. “Don’t they know that ugly old scow will founder at the least breath of wind?”
“Apparently not.”
“What’s the plan then, boss?”
“As she ain’t gonna sail into Nombre Dios Bay, we have to take her in open water. So we wait for reinforcements.”
“Coming are they?”
“No. We’re just gonna sit here until the old Runner rots under us.”
Gobby scratched his scarred head. “What good’s dat boss?”
Jack clouted him ungently. “Of course they are coming you dimwit. I made the signal two hours since. The wrecker is on her way.”
“Why didn’t you say, Cap?”
“I just did.”
The rat opened his mouth, and Jack braced himself for further stupidity. A low whistle from the crow’s nest rescued his thinly stretched patience.
He hurried to the taffrail and looked windward. A dark-coloured three-master with steeply-raked sides was coming towards them as fast as every sail she could muster would permit. It was the wrecker, a fast clipper with a specially reinforced bow that would cut through most ordinary ships like a knife through butter. It would be crewed by whoever was idling their time away in the waterfront stews of Retiro de Ladrones. This lot looked keen, as the wrecker was already on a collision course with the overloaded treasure ship. As the raked clipper passed the bow of the Runner. Jack caught sight of a head of hair as red as the setting sun and realised who the crew were. He swore briefly before issuing a set of crisp orders.
“Crowd on the sail boys. Bony Mary and her mad girls are on the wrecker.”
The sails unfurled and the pirates armed themselves ready for a fight.
The crash as the wrecking ship hit the side of Phillipos could probably have been heard by the treasure ship’s owners back in Spain and it was quickly followed by the ululating cries of the female pirates as they swarmed onto the deck of the wounded ship. The crack of musket fire could be heard, even above the increasingly loud screams and groans.
Jack recognised the tall, handsome figure that stood on the poop deck of the crippled treasure ship at about the same time as his crew did. It was Don Carlos de Herrera y Corrado, whose cruelty was a byword across the Spanish Main. The Don used fire against crippled ships, castrated captured men with his own hands, and took women and children to be sold in the slave markets of Asia Minor. An angry hiss spread from mouth to mouth aboard the Runner and, as usual, it was Gobby who found his voice first.
“If it ain’t Don Carlos his own self. Nobody better get between me and that one.”
Jack ignored him.
“Grappling hooks ready boys. And boys. Make sure somebody takes out that arrogant bastard on the poop deck.”
The growls of assent suited Jack’s mood, and the instant the Runner rubbed her side against the stricken Spaniard he was over the rail with a pistol in one hand and a hook-bladed knife in the other. The Spanish soldiers guarding the treasure were well-drilled and operated in two ranks. One rank stood and fired muskets while their compatriots crouched to reload. Then they swapped. But for all their experience and discipline, none of them had ever experienced anything like the sheer ferocity of the female pirates under the command of the imposing figure that was Bony Mary. The women swarmed over them like a tidal wave, taking many wounds in the process but completely undeterred by injury to themselves or the screams of the men they got their hands on.
Mary herself led the charge, with a thick stave of ironwood in one massive fist and a wickedly sharp knife in the other. As her girls overran the musketeers by dint of sheer numbers and almost unimaginable savagery, Mary thrust her cudgel into a loop on her belt and bent over the first live musketeer. She cut him open with one swift stroke of her skinning knife. Ignoring his screams, she moved on to the next soldier. She had gutted about a dozen of them when her eye fell on the aristocratic figure of the Spanish Commanding Officer as he duelled with the blood-maddened gremlin that was Gobshite the rat.
Taking a running jump at the railing around the poop she crashed through the woodwork to land behind the hidalgo. Even as he pressed home the advantage his height and reach gave him over the berserk rodent, Mary slashed the tendons behind his right knee with scientific precision. Don Carlos turned his death’s head grin on her.
“Too cowardly to take me one at a time?” he hissed.
Mary laughed and licked the blade of her skinning knife. The Spaniard must have realised what the wall-eyed giantess had in mind, because he redoubled his efforts to disarm, maim or kill Gobby, whilst at the same time trying to keep an eye on the dangerous madwoman. It wasn’t going well for him until Gobby lost his footing momentarily, and the saw-edged poignard slipped from his sweating claw. The Spaniard ran him through neatly and turned to face Mary with his blooded blade moving like a snake’s head in the metallic light. Unfortunately for him, the rat wasn’t that easy to kill and Gobby reared up from the ground, jumping onto his foeman’s shoulders and sinking long, yellow teeth into the pulsing artery in Don Carlos’ throat. Even as the Spaniard desperately tried to dislodge Gobby, Mary attacked.
“Nooo.” The man’s despairing cry was loud enough to stop the fighting around him. “Nooo. You promised me I would be invincible.”
Whatever else he had been going to say was cut short by a scream of mortal agony as Mary slashed open his guts. and Gobby drank his lifeblood. A single pistol shot gave him the mercy of a swift death.

Jane Jago

There will be more from Bony Mary and her crew next week…

Oh what can ail thee, nightingale
Alone and with no song to sing
When moonlight strikes the underpass
And iron rails do ring

Oh what has made thee weep and cry
And huddle in thy threadbare coat
Why do salt tears seep from thine eyes
And clog thy long white throat

I see a faded summer rose
Entangled in thy midnight hair
And though the light shines in thy face
I see no spark of moonlight there

I met a man the maiden sighed
Full fat and fair was he
Who brought me from my garden green
And promisèd his love to me

But he was not an honest wight
For all his eyes were blue
He walked away one stormy night
And left me here to rue

My garden and my precious home
Within it’s sheltering wall
I know le beau homme sans merci
Me hath in thrall

And this is why I wait alone
All sad and palely loitering
He robbed me of my greatest gift
And left me with no song to sing

©jj 2021

The following day Avilon had deposited her travel bag at the spaceport and reached her chosen observation point in good time. A bench under a tree. She had identified it as giving her a clear view of three of the entrances to the mausoleum. Like most across Coalition space, it was set in a small park. Many mausoleums were polyhedral with the octagonal format being most favoured.  This one was smoothly round beneath its dome, three stories high, with curved alcoves pushing the building’s walls out in bulges, so it looked a little like a sophisticated dessert, upturned on a serving dish.
Considering the venue, she had dressed appropriately and wore a traditional mourning veil over her face. Just as most of the women and many of the men present were doing as a mark of respect or simply to hide the signs of their grief. Except this veil was not as traditional as it appeared. Aside obscuring her features and making her hard to recognise, the fabric was designed to disrupt facial recognition in a way no amount of current technology could correct.
The weather was overcast, which seemed to fit well with the mood of the place. Two funerals arrived as she waited, the people filing in solemn procession through one of the entrances, the coffins bourne on silent gurneys, flanked by smartly clad relatives and followed by friends. Once inside they would be shown into one of the side-chambers of the mausoleum, where they would sit and listen to speeches in praise and remembrance of the one who had died.
After the second of the funerals had gone inside, Avilon checked the time and took the security cameras offline, before walking slowly to join a third funeral procession making its way into the mausoleum. There was nothing preventing her simply walking in to honour the dead, but as part of a larger group she drew less attention from the staff and it was not difficult to detach herself unobserved once inside. She had spotted Car Torbalen walking in the middle of the second procession, a veil over his head and his demeanour as grave as the rest of the mourners, only recognisable by his bulk and the way he moved. She wondered if he was indeed there to attend that funeral. It would have provided a solid pretext to satisfy the Legacy whilst removing him from under their scrutiny. It was a good idea to keep in mind that he was a very clever man.
Even though it was dull outside, the dimly lit interior of the mausoleum seemed dark. Avilon had to allow a few moments for her eyes to adjust as she looked around. The funeral procession she had followed was still slowly filing into a side-chamber, guided by silent ushers. There were also a handful of people in the main body of the building, come to visit their dead. Avilon looked up to where the domed roof was set with thousands of shining points of light. Most were white but there were reds and blues and greens there too, illuminated from around the dome. Each point of light, a gemstone formed from the remains of someone who had died many years before. The gems of the more recently deceased were set in special cabinets where relatives could visit them and place flowers or leave other tokens. These cabinets were in the alcoves, tiered around the walls, accessible by open walkways on each floor so the echoing silence and beauty of the dome was omnipresent.
Torbalen was visible on the top walkway, leaning on the rail and looking up at the dome. He had removed the veil and seemed oblivious to her presence or that of anyone else, lost in thoughts of infinity and mortality, perhaps. It was hard to tell as the lighting was too poor, but it was very clear he was alone.
This was not a place to rush or be seen to move fast, so Avilon walked as quickly as she could without breaking convention and drawing attention to herself. Appearing to be a not-so-recently bereaved relative, moving with purpose to visit her dead. Once she was on the highest gallery she lifted her own veil. Torbalen must have heard her approach as she made no attempt to move silently but he remained, arms folded on the rail, contemplating the starry vault of the mausoleum dome. It was only when she was a couple of paces away, he turned, briefly, met her gaze and stepped into the alcove behind them. Avilon followed.
“My parents are here,” he said, not turning to face her. He opened one of the cabinets to reveal two crystals resting in a soft cloth bed, nestled side by side in the gentle glow of the cabinet’s lighting. “It won’t be long before they are set in the dome – five years I’ve been told. They need the space for the more recently deceased.”
Avilon wondered what to say. Her own parents, dead in an accident that she had long since doubted really was one, would be somewhere in a Central mausoleum. She had never been to visit them and was not sure she would want to even if it were ever possible. She was no longer the child they had raised or the person they had known, in more ways than the merely physical.
“This is your homeworld?” she asked after the silence stretched too long.
“It was. Once. I don’t think any of us really have a home as such now, do we? And yes, I am here for the funeral of a relative. My brother.” He lifted a hand as Avilon drew breath to speak. “No need for condolences and you are not intruding on private grief with this meeting. We were never exactly close. In fact, I can’t recall the last time we had a civil word for each other – and that includes our shared childhood. But it was still expected for me to be here, of course.”
“Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
Torbalen half-turned to sweep his hand over the cabinet, closing it again, leaving them in the dark of the alcove.
“You didn’t give me much choice. I need the information you have.”

From the eighth Fortune’s Fools book Iconoclast: Not To Be by E.M Swift-Hook .

I don’t know when it happened
But somehow I got old
Everything turned silver
When it once was gold

Except the music that I love
Is now all ‘golden oldies’
But to me it is as fresh
As this year’s new-sprung daisies!

I used to be unlabeled
Upon the internet
Now I’m a ‘silver surfer’
A term I much regret.

Yet e’en as my hair turns silver
I’m in my golden years
Though I see little reason
To grace it with such cheer

For all this precious metal
Is pointless simile
I’m as poor as the proverbial
No silver or gold for me!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Mother told Sebastian that conflict is drama. After which he spent his life engineering conflict and being dramatic about the outcome – loudly and to the detriment of the mental health of his workforce.
This was fine as long as his uncle owned the place, but then the old guy retired. Sold the factory to a swarthy individual with an unpronounceable name and a lot of cousins with calloused hands and intricate ink on their arms and shoulders.
Nobody knew precisely who Sebastian pissed off with his habitual dramatics. But they did know how quiet he was with a broken jaw.

©Jane Jago

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Fireworks.
What is the effing point of effing fireworks?
At any time.
They might look pretty for all of about ten seconds, but they leave disgusting litter all over the place when they come down that is positively toxic and someone always gets hurt.
At least the Americans, when they do it, is all about celebration – not remembering some poor bastard who got hung, drawn and quartered for failing to do something we’ve all fantasised about. And our colonial cousins have the sense to choose a nice warm time of year when you can sit out and watch the ruddy things without freezing your bollocks off.
But Brits on Bonfire Night?
Has no one noticed it’s November and freezing cold?
You stand shivering in your wellies in someone’s muddy effing garden and a drunk man in shorts sets fire to some stuff.
In November. In the cold.
Drinking iced strong lager and usually served some burnt offerings from the BBQ or break-teeth chestnuts thrown on the fire. And then you wind up with a jacket potato that’s raw in the middle, ditto a sausage…
Meanwhile your nextdoor neighbour’s cat has scratched someone in panic and your great-nephew little Oliver has singed his sister’s hair with a sparkler.
And then it always rains just as the fireworks begin.
I swore off the whole thing years ago and now me and Gyp turn the TV up and settle in on the sofa with a decent boxed set.
The sheer waste of money and effort beggars belief – not to mention you have frightened pets and toddlers all across the country whose idea of fun is not loud bangs and flashes.
And it’s not even as though it all gets over and done on the one sodding day!
Remember, remember the fifth of November…
Not the fourth, the third, the seventh or the ninth!
If you must set fire to your money please at least confine your efforts to one day so the rest of us don’t have to endure a whole bloody week of it.
Get a grip or granny will shove a riprap up your arse.

The door of the staff dining room banged open and the handsome figure of Launcelot Gribble stood in the doorway with his romantically tousled head held high.
“I think I’ve just broken my geek,” he announced. The Bursar sighed and looked up from the column of figures she was conning. “Again? And what makes you think this one is broken?”
“He’s just sitting staring into the middle distance and making strange sheep-like noises.”
Matron gave the dramatic figure in the doorway a look of deep dislike before grinding out her evil-smelling cheroot and heaving herself to her feet. She headed for the door, and as she passed Gribble she smacked him solidly across the back of the head with one large red hand.
“Ouch. That hurt.”
She didn’t even bother to answer him, just stalked along the dusty corridor like a vengeful leviathan.
Gribble dropped his pose of romantic ennui and ruefully rubbed his head.
“Why’d old iron tits decide to smack me around the head?”
Democratic Runes looked up from the volume of arcane verse he was studying and regarded his colleague in disbelief.
“Why wouldn’t she? You break geeks and she gets to fix them. How many is it this year?”
Gribble studied his feet and muttered something unintelligible.
“Come again?”
“This one is number thirteen.”
“Who else is egotistical enough to break geeks at that rate. Thirteen down and it’s only the ninth moon. You are a fucking liability, my friend.”
Gribble hunched a shoulder and turned his startlingly green gaze on the sturdy figure of the Bursar.
“I’ll just go choose another geek then, shall I?”
“No. Indeed you will not. There have been complaints. The University has generated a memo. Allow me to read it to you. ‘It has come to our attention that the Chair of Ancient Scrolls is somewhat careless of the technicians who assist him in his work. This is unsatisfactory. Should any more instances occur, the choice of assistant is to be removed from his remit’.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you don’t get to choose. You will be assigned a geek. And proper contracts will be signed.”
Gribble bridled. “I don’t sign contracts. It’s an honour to be chosen to help me.”
“As of now you do sign contracts. Because if you don’t, you don’t get a geek. And shut your mouth – you look stupid with it half open.” The Bursar got up and jerked a thumb at the gaping professor. “My office. Now.”

From Gribble’s Geek by Jane Jago which is only 0.99 to buy throughout November.

In leaving it, the earth was lost to me.
My heart twisted back and forth, between anguish and hope, anxiety and excitement. Yes, I was abandoning friends and family forever, but that was in order to embark on the greatest adventure humanity had ever undertaken.
The thrusting acceleration marked the moment I departed the womb of humankind and became isolated, cut off. Drifting in infinity, regrets and doubts whispering their woe to my innermost being.
Then the screens filled with images of the world we were heading to, beautiful beyond belief, and I fell in love with my new home.

E.M. Swift-Hook

It was a ‘click’ moment.
You know what I mean, we’ve all had a ‘click’ moment. A moment when something happens in an instant that changes everything in your life forever. It might be as transformative and huge as love at first sight or as destructive and small as breaking a front tooth. It might be the moment you hear you’ve won the lottery or the one where you get that diagnosis.
But the thing with a ‘click’ moment is it changes you, your perception of who you are and your ability to deal with things in life in the way you did before.
If you fall in love you have the instant burden of another’s happiness to maintain and if you broke that tooth it’s dealing with the fact your smile is no longer so attractive and people will look at you differently and treat you differently from now on because of it.
So why am I telling you all this?
Well, because of my own most profound ‘click’ moment in life, one that changed not just how I saw myself, how I dealt with things in life but – well – everything and forever. It kind of puts all the other ‘click’ moments, you, I or anyone else ever has into perspective.
It was the moment I realised I’d met an alien…

E.M. Swift-Hook