Can you smell the rain?
Lifting the dust from the street
Damping the parched pavements
And bouncing over your feet
Can you hear the rain?
Dancing a tango on the roof
Drops so fat they bounce and split
Tapping like tap-dancing hoofs
Can you feel the rain?
Blessing the thirsty earth
Flowers lift their wan little faces
Drinking their own rebirth
Can you smell the rain?
Thick and soft and sweet
The autumn rain that washed the land
And polished the shining streets

Jane Jago

A sci-fi story of love, betrayal and Space Pirates!

Bay one-nine-six-two.
She understood spaceports and knew this particular one well. Someone who didn’t would be checking the gates and the marked routes that every augmented display would show as paths. They wouldn’t follow the unmarked spaces between those routes. Spaces mostly blocked by mechs, freight crates, partly full supply tanks and other large, small and awkward objects.
Awkward but not impassable.
Bay one-nine-six-two was in sight when she saw the drones. There was not a lot she could do about it if they saw her, but like a living being, the AIs would be trained to look for movement and they would have vision that saw heat. She ducked down by a waste duct hoping that if any did look her way the shimmering haze of excess energy would distort her image. It was uncomfortably hot and the overdry air caught at her lungs and her acid-burned throat, sore from the vomiting. But to cough would be enough movement to attract a drone and after what she had seen happen to Tolin…
Legs aching from her cramped crouch and lungs burning unbearably, Pan kept her focus on the drones as they hovered and ran up and down the main path to the bays. She had a terrible certainty that they were going to stay there and not move. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, they shot away again, in different directions across the space port.
She couldn’t run, her legs were too stiff, but she managed a hobbling trot the short distance to the bay and was relieved to find the gate open and the main hatch into the ship still locked to its ground clamps. They unlocked as she reached them and the ramp began to lift as she scrambled aboard.
Ducky was standing in the hatchway, arms folded.
“You took your time. Thought I’d have to go without you. We’re cleared to leave in ten.”
Hair, skin and clothing blackened, scraped, damaged and filthy from scrambling through the back alleys of the spaceport, Pan dropped onto the one acceleration couch and pulled the straps home.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Ducky moved past to reach the pilot’s chair.
“Somewhere no one would ever think to look for you. To look for anyone, come to that. It’s a bit backwards, but you’ll be safe there.” Ducky shared a screen with a data page and then took her seat.
Safe.
That sounded good.
Pan closed her eyes for a moment and felt the ship lift in the gravity shield, its engine whining as the fusion core took up the load. Then the tone changed as the vessel moved from atmospheric to space flight and prepared for the leap into FTL. They were free. She opened her eyes and read the page Ducky had shared. The name of the planet stood out in bold letters. It meant nothing to her, but right then one place was as good as any other.
Temsevar.
Her new home.

Roguing Thieves is a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. If you have enjoyed this story in the Fortune’s Fools universe, you can pick up the entire Haruspex Trilogy for FREE for the next few days.

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Every Wednesday night, since time immemorial, it’s keep fit in the village hall. Runs for two solid hours – and they reckon you could fall to your death on the sweat slick that seeps out under the door. 

I went once.

Why have I never been again?

A bossy cow called Noreen dressed in pink spandex.

Half a hundred middle-aged women in leotards (the skinny bitches look worse that the fat buggers)

Laying on the floor next to someone whose pubes are out of control 

The distinctive aroma of the yoga mat

Need I say more?

Don’t do it people…

A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…

The whorehouse moved through space, while small drones cleaned up messes and ensured that the male animals ate and rested at suitable intervals. The exquisitely ephemeral females carried out their designated tasks, clad only in clouds of perfume and curtains of exotic silks.

The males smiled fatuously, while their every debauched fantasy was made solid before their eyes.

It wasn’t until the ship docked that the party ended and the painted houris dissolved away. Reality came hard to the meat animals when no-one cared to pacify them any more. Laughing butchers harried the tender flesh into the sausage factory.

Jane Jago

In an effort to educate the nominally literate and inform those with sufficient humility to understand their own lack of comprehension, Esme offers the correct definition of misunderstood words…

Glittering

1. (noun – pronunciation note: glitter ring) Gimcrack jewellery of base metal and glass notable for its initial shininess. Example: The glittering with which they sealed their engagement wasn’t going to last any longer than the relationship. 
2. (verb in the infinitive case – pronunciation note: gilt terring) The application of gold paint in an effort to make cheap furniture look expensively tasteful. Example: Unfair though it seems, as their employer was never caught, the women in the glittering factory all got custodial sentences.

If you have any words whose meaning escapes you, Esme Crockford is always happy to share her lexicographical knowledge and penetrating insight into the English language.

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

It was an unseasonably cold, wet August morning, and Julia was in her sitting room watching the sun try to break through a veil of black cloud, with her two wolfhounds Canis and Lupo asleep in a twitching heap by a small simmering fire. Their usual keeper, her personal bodyguard Edbert, was busy about some other business, so the dogs stayed close to her. Julia was breaking her fast in the British manner, seated on a chair with both feet on the floor. As she had a sneaking preference for that manner of dining, she wasn’t making an issue of it. Instead, she smiled sunnily at her beloved who sat opposite her eating bread and honey.
“You,” she remarked with mock severity “have honey on your chin.”
“Do I?” he asked. “It’s probably because I was looking as well as eating.” His startling blue eyes met hers. “Isn’t the love of my life sitting opposite me dressed in silk and looking good enough to eat?”
She felt the blush running up from her throat to her face and he leaned across the table and placed a chaste kiss on one burning cheek, then he chuckled.
To her intense irritation, the sitting room door banged open and the burly, hook-nosed figure of Decimus Lucius Didero, Tribune in charge of the praetorian guard in Britain, stomped into the room.
“Do come in, Decimus,” Julia said coolly.
“I appear to be in,” the big man spoke mildly. “And now I am, I will have some of that bread and honey and some words with your man.”
Julia gave up the attempt to bring her foster brother to a sense of his own impropriety and spread honey on a hunk of crusty bread. She handed Decimus the bread and grinned at him.
“What do you want with my betrothed?”
Decimus masticated carefully before answering her.
“I’m in the nature of a supplicant. Being as how your man is now, thanks to his deeds of extraordinary valour, a Roman Citizen and a submagistratus-in-waiting to boot, the civilian authorities in general, and that stupid cunnus of a prefect in particular, can’t just order him to look into something. They have to ask. And it goes against the grain. They’d sooner lick my arse than his. So I get to ask.”
“Ask what?” Julia didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Today and tomorrow are public holidays and Dai and I had plans on how we wanted to spend them.”
Dai patted her hand.
“Hush, love. Let the man explain.”
She snarled at him, but subsided.
“Dai, do you remember Lugh Tasgo’s designs?”
Julia looked into Dai’s eyes and saw a slow flare of anger in their depths.
“Oh yes. I remember. I remember a dead Briton and a fat Roman bastard. And an investigation called off because nobody cared that a woman died.”
Decimus met his eyes.
“So you wouldn’t mind another look at the case?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Dai got up and went around the table to where Julia sat. He lifted her out of her chair and sat down with her in his lap. She could feel the tension in his lean body and turned her face into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged tightly.
“Grainne Cathan died trying to protect those designs for her employer and he called the investigation off. So it depends,” he said harshly, “on me being permitted to actually investigate no matter what the outcome.”

From Dying to Alter History a Dai and Julia mystery by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, one of the fourteen alternate history short stories in Tales From Alternate Earths III from Inklings Press.

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

I am old and my needs are quite small
I will just make a list of them all
A home of my own
An iPad and phone
And a man with a good set of balls

© jane jago

September came with sticky fingers
Damply clad the browning trees
Blew on our necks, where dampness lingers
While wet grasses whipped our knees
And, wearing coats ‘gainst sulky rain
We struggled through the thickening air
As water muddied dusty drains
And droplets gathered in our hair
The dogs, who run through heat and sun
Draggled panting far behind
Or came to say ‘this isn’t fun’
To rather hope we’d change our minds
But where the river sings we stood
Listening, as they drank their fill
Finding the water clean and good
Before we climbed the final hill
We panting stood, as all around
September shouted ‘summer’s gone’
In words that needed not a sound
She plainly sang us winter’s song

©️jj 2021

A sci-fi story of love, betrayal and Space Pirates!

Things had been happening so fast she felt numbed by it and it was a few moments later that she remembered she was supposed to be watching the count. The door to the hygiene room opened again, making her jump and flatten herself instinctively against the wall. She didn’t recognise the woman who came in, but the look she got from her told Pan exactly how she must appear.
Muttering an apology, Pan forgot about the count and went back out into the bar. The way was blocked by a slowly moving wholesaler’s delivery cart, which shielded her from being seen by Tolin. So she walked beside it to the door. But there the cart stopped, its AI detecting people trying to come in. The trailer door was slightly open and without even thinking of the consequences of shutting herself in a cool store trailer, she stepped in and slid the door closed behind her.
Almost at once the cart moved on and she was jolted around in the pitch black. She was just starting to think that perhaps this had not been the best idea when the cart stopped and the doors unlocked again. Pan slid them open enough to see the trailer was backed up close to the wall of a retail booth, no doubt to make another delivery.
She slipped out and took a moment to get her bearings. The bar was away to her right on the other side of the delivery cart. She caught sight of Ducky walking briskly towards the docking bays and was about to cross over to follow, when she saw the freetrader approached by a pair of spaceport security personnel.
Pan wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying and so she turned her attention to the nearest legitimate distraction, the retail booth. It was a local speciality food stall.
“Panvia? Must be years. I’d heard you’d got a job in Central. How’s your aunt?”
Startled, she met the eyes of the trader and recognised them as someone she knew from school. Their name escaped her and she stuttered some reply. At least it provided her with both distraction and cover, answering the questions asking the right ones in return. She kept half an eye on Ducky and then on the security people who seemed satisfied by their ID check and were walking towards the booth. For a moment she felt time slip into a frozen tableau.
She kept her gaze on the old school friend who was talking about a prank they had pulled off back in the day. The skin on her back crawled and she fought the urge to turn round. From the corner of her eye she could see more uniformed figures with drones moving in to cover the exits to the bar.
“Did you see anyone head this way from the bar?” The two security guards were talking to her companion in an easy way that suggested they knew each other. And they probably did. This place was the kind where anyone working in the spaceport would grab their meal breaks.
“Only that woman you already spoke to. I’d have seen if anyone else came by. It’s a bit of a bottle neck here, part of what makes it such a good spot for me.”
There was laughter, which Pan joined in, before the security team walked off. But a few moments later they broke into a run as there was some kind of disturbance going on in the bar. Pan could see something was happening behind the plexiglass windows but was too far away to make out what. Then the door opened and Tolin was running out. It was hard to be sure whether it was one of the drones, or the woman with the metallic blonde hair who was out of the door right behind him, but a shot was fired. The energy burn hit him in the back and he dropped instantly.
Pan found she had brought both her hands to her face, palms pressed hard over her mouth and cheeks, holding in a scream. The blonde woman had reached Tolin and crouched briefly beside him then got up and started talking to the security guards who had closed up.
There was no rush, no sense of urgency. No one linking for medical assistance.
Pan turned away, fighting nausea. Her school friend looked stunned, pale, mouth open in shock.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to be…” Pan stumbled off, barely aware of where she was going, only that it was away and out of sight of the horror. She vomited up the food she had been eating only a short time before, sitting in the bar with Tolin… Some deep level of survival instinct seemed to kick in once her stomach was empty. They would be looking for her now. She had to move and keep moving.

Roguing Thieves is a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. There will be more Roguing Thieves next week…

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Queueing in the sunshine for an ice cream. The place has about forty flavours and a strict queuing system. Today’s flavours are displayed on a blackboard. Beside this there is a notice saying.

‘Please choose your flavour before entering so that other people aren’t kept waiting any longer than necessary.’

There’s also a little girl popping up and down the queue asking people to please choose their flavour from the blackboard.

I know the two women in front of me are too busy blethering.

In they go.

“What flavours have you got?” one asks brightly.

Read the $£%@* notice, assholes.