Sixy-sixth Issue! Galactic Heist
As June unfolds, ushering in longer days and the lush beauty of summer, we're delighted to present the sixty-sixth edition of the Flame Tree Fiction NEWSLETTER! Dive into two captivating tales crafted by our talented contributors, as we bask in the warmth of their galactic narratives. Thank you to everyone who sent a submission this month. We were kept very busy traversing the galaxies with you. Here's to a season filled with sunny days and endless inspiration!
Congratulations to both winners of the May theme: Sarah Crabtree and Larry Hodges!
The Galaxy by Sarah Crabtree – A sailor’s odyssey aboard the Galaxy unfolds from plundering in the Caribbean to surreal encounters and terrifying depths…
The Heist of Humanity by Larry Hodges – In a daring heist spanning the globe, Captain 33.2 and Crewman 12.7 risk their lives to steal iconic monuments for a noble cause…
This month's newsletter features:
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- FLAME TREE PRESS: New titles coming this month!
- Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales: Upcoming releases
- CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
- Original Sci-Fi Flash Fiction #1: The Galaxy by Sarah Crabtree
- Original Sci-Fi Flash Fiction #2: The Heist of Humanity by Larry Hodges
- Next Month’s Flash Fiction Theme
FLAME TREE PRESS | June Titles
We have new Flame Tree Press titles coming out in hardback, paperback and ebook.
Tempered Glass by Beth Overmyer
This is the second book in the Blade and Bone series. Verve survived her transformation into the Fire Queen, but can she survive the power that was given to her? Magic out of control, she seeks to tame and hide it. But when tragedy strikes, she’s forced to return to a land she never wanted to see again and confront – or evade – a darkness she hoped had died. With her secret husband at odds with her way of breaking the curse put on her, Verve finds that love can make an unreliable ally, and that anger is a potent weapon.
When The Night Falls by Glenn Rolfe
Rocky Zukas lives with the ghosts of what happens when you fall in love with a monster. Lucky to be alive, Rocky roams his beachside hometown living on autopilot, waiting for life to start again.
November Riley has never been far from the boy that stole her heart. She watches from the shadows, knowing she can never make things right between them, but never giving up on the chance they could try one more time.
A new documentary is bringing Gabriel Riley, the Beach Night Killer, back to national consciousness. The dead serial killer has a trio of new fans that are ready to make Old Orchard Beach, Maine, their home for the end of the summer season.
When the new strangers in town discover Rocky’s relationship to the past of one of their own, he becomes their number-one target. Can November protect him, or will these other vampires prove too strong?
When the night falls, blood will spill, and death will reign.
Original Sci-Fi Story #1
The Galaxy
Sarah Crabtree
When I joined the Galaxy, it was a privateering vessel hired to plunder French shipping in the Caribbean. Father would assume this ship named for the stars would be a goodly one. Each time I attempted to write him a note home, I was grabbed hold of and slung into a rowboat with orders to steal as much booty as I could from merchant ships. Along with my fellow buccaneers, I set sail for Cape Verde and the African coastline. For every man who died in the fighting and fire, we picked up other recruits. It was even rumoured that we were on our way to plunder a flotilla on the Red Sea, which was said to carry gold, silver and jewels worth tens of thousands of British pounds.
Before he went to Davy Jones’ Locker, I befriended a former slave, named Wise. I asked Wise how he had got here. He said, “From the legendary White City in the south.”
I said, “I had heard that no mortal man left the White City alive. How is it true that you know of this abandoned land?”
“Close your eyes, dearest friend, and I will show it to you in a dream.”
Thus I closed my eyes, and this is what I beheld: an evergreen wood of oranges, lemons, figs, scarlet oak and cork trees. I don’t know how I knew the names of these wondrous foliages, but they came to me in this dream, along with the damask roses, myrtle groves, and jasmine and rosemary. Next I saw something more eerie: Amongst these emerald glades were the unburied bones of an ill-fated army, bleached white in the strong sunshine. Then I espied fisherfolk pulling in giant nets of sole, gurnet, mullet, turbot, lobster, eels, shrimp, cod, rock and starfish. Hunters chased wild boar, hare, partridge and antelope. I saw a man seated on a sandbank that sloped slowly beachwards. He was laughing and playing cards, smoking a long pipe. There was a gun salute, everything disappeared in smoke, and the ship I was on rocked gently as it sailed away from this emerald outpost.
When I opened my eyes, Wise had gone to that place beyond.
There was no time to ponder, for the dull drizzle and light sou’westerly turned the waves choppy, and the pale gleam of the mainland across the horizon on the starboard beam blinked out.
I was alone with my ghostly crew and sailing towards my fate with the monsters of the deep. I tried to scream, but my voice carried nowhere, and indeed seemed to blow back within myself.
Spray sprang like giant moth wings over the deck; the ship pitched heavily, and nosed into the storm. We pitched and rolled, a whirling mass of spindrift, ploughing our way through impossibly high troughs. There was no sign of the crew, yet I felt their eerie presence.
I must have passed out because when I opened my eyes it was the Azores that filled them. There would be orange groves, steep cliffs, emerald fields and tiny white cottages with red roofs. I only know these things because I was told of them once. But they were invisible to me now, and despite terra firma being within a hair’s breadth, my ghostly crew kept sailing for the Sargasso Sea. It was a horrible thing with thick clumps of weed, which caught our ship up and whirled it like a comet, hypnotising me. And out of it came terrible creatures: giant eels like vampires with red eyes and huge, snapping jaws. I closed my eyes tight, willing it all to end quickly.
Again I must have passed out, for now we were pitching forwards and the rain came in thick iron rods, crashing over my body. Then, just as swiftly as it had come, it disappeared, and the sky was sapphire, and ahead lay a green, lush island topped with blue mountains. Calypso music filled the air, and the sun baked my sore skin. Silver sand and palm trees swayed in a delicate breeze. My eyes seemed to take on a magic quality, and I watched the tropical fish swimming amongst pink coral, and tiny octopi wriggling playfully.
How did I eat and drink? I didn’t. My body must have absorbed all its requisitions along the way. That is my only explanation. My tongue was numb and my gums had a furry texture to them. I swallowed a few times, and there was a definite bitter aftertaste in my mouth. The kind of aftertaste you get after taking tinctures.
Onwards we sailed through a narrow canal, past forested islands and through lakes and turquoise lagoons. I saw turtles and dolphins. Huge flying fish swept over the deck. Again, I thought of food, and again, I assumed sustenance streamed into me like water flowing through a hamlet. Rainwater sated my thirst.
Month in, month out, the vessel ground its way towards the New World. Scurvy, murder, and other unspoken-of things with flapping black wings decimated the crew. Soon, only a half-dozen souls remained after a mutiny resulted in the captain being thrown overboard.
“Every man for himself,” yelled the motley crew. I hid in the bowels of the ship awaiting whatever Fate had in store. Hidden in my self-made prison, I never slept calmly again. Horrors lurked in my mind of unhallowed blasphemies from elder stars. A hook-shaped cloud with a point at the end; the sting in a scorpion’s tail, a sting jet, made up of light and shade. Around the sting jet dark fingers reached out: a small yet deadly core of fast-moving, cold, dense, dry atmosphere; a day of darkness; snowlight panning through, broken-beamed as viewed via many-paned windows. The full force of an earthquake-born tempest heaved up from the sea-bottom a monstrous stone city again to sun and air.
A red moon rose, pulling the Galaxy up a silver path, so sequined that even through my blindness I perceived it.
Sarah Crabtree is a writer from the UK, and lives near London. She is a voracious reader and keen follower of the International Booker and Women’s Prize for Fiction, and has been writing horror, sci-fi and fantasy for over thirty years. Most recently, Sarah's stories have appeared in the anthologies Dead of Winter from M Presents, and Home Sweet Horror from Black Ink Fiction. Sarah has also published stories for children. Inspiration has come from so many authors, old and new. Learn more about Sarah’s work at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/~/e/B07QS39X3K
Original Sci-Fi Story #2
The Heist of Humanity
Larry Hodges
"Captain, stealing during daylight is too risky," said Crewman 12.7, both tongues shaking. "They’ll see us and we can't outrun their fighter jets at the surface; we’re too heavy and misbalanced with The Great Wall. We already have nine monuments. Enough!" He paced back and forth on hundreds of tiny mini-feet.
Already stowed on the huge hold of the Big Bang were the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Big Ben, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, the Sydney Opera House, Christ the Redeemer, and the Great Pyramid. Flowing behind them for thousands of miles like a curving kite string was the Great Wall of China, sealed and stabilized with neutronium gravitonic mesh.
"You are right, and we may die from their fiery might," said Captain 33.2. "But I want the Statue of Liberty. It has legendary cult status and will go for a lot. And it has my beautiful white eyes and head points!" She and 12.7 each had eight horns shooting out of the top of their mushroom-shaped, Homer-Simpson-yellow naked bodies, with an eye at the base of each horn. They sat in the bridge behind a purple horseshoe-shaped console covered with buttons and knobs, many of them just decoration. The furnishings were sparse as most funding went to the cause.
"Let's wait a few hours until nightfall over this New York and take it then," said 12.7. "Our camouflage won't work in daylight."
"Yes, they will see us and admire us and then they will kill us. But if we wait longer, we’ll miss the auction on Rigel. The richest collectors in the galaxy will be there. Proceed!"
"Fine, but these shenanigans are why they banished us to the farthest arm of the galaxy to watch this barbaric planet. They'll probably send us to Andromeda next."
"Whose dust rings are as spectacular as our deaths will be legendary."
"They look the same on our viewers here as they'll look on our viewers there. So why are we risking our lives for a few billion humans who wouldn't even be alive without us? Stupid poachers. Human teeth . . . jeez." 12.7 snapped a button with his left tongue.
The ship, hovering over London where they'd just taken Big Ben, proceeded over the Atlantic. Soon they left the cover of darkness and entered daylight as they approached the U.S. east coast. Hordes of New York City residents pointed at the sky as the heist began. It took less than a minute to pack the great statue and tractor it aboard, along with a few dozen cooing pigeons. Then they took the Big Bang high into the sky.
"Fighter jets approaching from below!" cried 12.7, his tongues vibrating in a panic.
"It’s a great cause that we shall fight for and die for," said 33.2. "But get us out of here!"
"Forget the cause, we can't go straight up without smacking the Great Wall against the ground," 12.7 said. "We'd lose it and kill lots of humans. We have to jettison it!"
"As long as my yellow blood flows and my hearts beat and the cause endures, we're not genociding or losing the Wall," said 33.2. "The Betelgeuse beetles will pay a fortune for it. Take us over the Atlantic, and then to space."
"Incoming missiles!" cried 12.7. The ship's deflectors pushed most away, but more came. Explosions shook the ship. "We're hit!" 12.7 cried. Another missile struck, knocking them off their feet. "Deflectors are down! We have to drop the Great Wall!"
"Never!" 33.2 cried. "Are the jets attacking from below?"
"Yes, and we can't withstand another attack."
"Gadzooks," 33.2 sighed, randomly waving her tongues about. There was no choice. "Drop the Great Pyramid over the ocean." After all, it was just a big hunk of stone, a massive paperweight mostly of nostalgic interest, and wouldn’t sell for as much.
"But-"
"As the humans say, Bombs Away!!!"
12.7 tongued a control and the pyramid fell. The dozen jets below dodged and fell back to avoid getting hit with six million tons and the ensuing splash, allowing the Big Bang to pull away. As the Great Pyramid smacked into the Atlantic, their ship escaped into space. There'd be some big waves hitting the shores, but any damages would be minute compared to what the toothers would do if left unchecked. Their mission a success, 33.2 and 12.7 high-tongued each other.
On the way back to Rigel they explored the monuments in the hold, especially admiring the paintings in the Louvre. They'd evacuated the building before stealing it but found a few dozen humans hidden away. They'd return them to Earth later. They did an impromptu amateur opera in Sydney Opera House and spacewalked on The Great Wall. When they tired of that, they went back to their lounge area and lay back in water tubs and watched Earth movies, including the latest heist film, Mission: Impossible XXIII, starring the great Tom Holland.
"But Cruise was better," said 12.7. They argued this for the rest of the trip. Earth was also split on the great Cruise-Holland debate, oblivious to the great toother threat.
They barely made the auction. The nine items sold for enough to fund the Earth Patrol for another fifty circuits, with the Great Wall, the Louvre, and the Statue of Liberty accounting for most. Even the pigeons sold.
"The Great Pyramid would've been another five quasar chips," lamented 33.2. But the never-ending fight against human poaching could now continue. The magical sexual properties attributed to human teeth were stupid, but you can't argue with superstition – somewhere in the galaxy someone was sprinkling over their food the wondrous ground-up teeth of poor Tom Cruise. But with the new funding, the Earth Patrol would be able to plug up some of the defensive holes the toothers had found, like the Bermuda Triangle and North Korea.
But the humans must be defended. And someday, just maybe, they'd advance enough to join the galactic community. And that would be something to high-tongue about.
Larry Hodges is an active member of SFWA with 202 short story sales, 52 of them "pro" sales, including five to Flame Tree, and others to Analog, Escape Pod, Dark Matter (3), Daily Science Fiction (3), and 19 to Galaxy's Edge. He also has four SF novels. He's a member of Codexwriters, and a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers Workshop and the two-week 2008 Taos Toolbox Writers Workshop. In the world of non-fiction, he's a full-time writer with 21 books and over 2,200 published articles in over 180 different publications. Visit him at www.larryhodges.com.
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