TREACHERY
A short story
by
Richard Alexander Hall
with another short story, “FORSAKEN,” and an extended preview of “COUNTLESS”
Copyright 2011, 2014
ISBN: 9781310539671
“TREACHERY” WGA #1546385
Cover design, artwork, and all interior artwork by the author, copyright 2014
Linked Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
PREVIEWS
Preview screenplay for "TREACHERY"
Preview of "FORSAKEN"
Abridged preview of "COUNTLESS"
FULL STORIES
TREACHERY
Illustration: planet Hebe
Illustration: back cover for "TREACHERY"
FORSAKEN
Illustration: back cover and story break for "FORSAKEN"
AUTHOR'S GREETING
EXTENDED PREVIEW OF "COUNTLESS"
Illustration: spec front cover for "COUNTLESS"
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
THREE PREVIEWS TO START
If you wish to get straight to reading the short stories in this ebook, go back to the table of contents and select the link to the “FULL STORIES” section.
Three previews are at the start of this book so that they will be fully readable in the percent of this book which is readable for free (via retailers or my own distribution). To add to the confusion is the fact that the third preview is in fact a preview of the third “story” in this book, which isn't a full story per se, but an extended preview of a story.
GENERAL SUMMARY
This book presents two original science fiction short stories, “TREACHERY” and “FORSAKEN,” and one extended science fiction story preview, “COUNTLESS.”
Incidentally, the first two stories are in the same universe, and might even feature the same characters—they may be different parts of the same story. We'll see if/when I finish a novel of it.
The first and third stories are written in fountain screenplay format, though slightly adapted towards ebook format. I introduce fountain format in the section entitled AUTHOR'S GREETING. As mentioned, before any of these are three previews of each for ebook preview purposes. But wait, there's more! The remainder of this section has short summaries, which you might regard as meta-previews.
If you'd like a sorta spoiler-ey super-mini-preview of each story (to decide which if any to read first), feel free to read the rest of this section. Otherwise feel free to jump in and read, by skipping to the FULL STORIES section.
In “TREACHERY,” Janus Thaddeus learns from his enemies how he may save humanity from Armageddon by way of his unique gift. This story has a unique take on time travel. This story is also written in fountain screenplay format. It is preceded by a preview or theatrical-trailer style short compilation of excerpts of the story, for quick preview perusal, and/or imagining that you're watching the preview in a theater—how very pretentious and hopeful of you and I!—which I hope you do imagine, and which I also hope you will eventually in fact see.
In “FORSAKEN,” a Mormon family falls under the event horizon of a black hole, Timothy imposes a surprise deathbed penance on Father, and the family faces a beguiling foe. This story is set in the same universe as “TREACHERY,” which story I also hope to interweave it with (it may be the same story. I'll discover how in writing it). If it ends up as part of “TREACHERY,” I'll update this publication and/or provide an expanded edition to readers, free of charge.
In “COUNTLESS,” which is an extended preview of a spec screenplay in development, Jake chances on a way to discover thousands of extrasolar planets, and wields his new-found fame to persuade citizens of the world to build a ten-billion dollar orbiting telescope, to photograph distant worlds. What will humanity discover, and what will it ultimately cost them?
In the AUTHOR'S GREETING section, I introduce myself, and the fountain screen format which I use for two of these stories. I also present my rationale for fountain screen format to be the new standard of electronic fiction and publishing.
PREVIEWS
PREVIEW SCREENPLAY FOR “TREACHERY”
Theatrical trailer-style excepts of the short story screenplay
FADE IN:
INT. JANUS' STARFIGHTER--NIGHT
Human Squadron Leader JANUS THADDEUS, male, twenty-three, wiry, worn, sharp, and usually glacially calm, pilots a starfighter, amid a space battle of incomparable light and fury, the war to end all wars. Outside his fighters' cockpit, five million laser streaks and five thousand explosions blink every second. His ship turns and plummets toward a very colorful earth-like planet with bright green Saturn-like rings. He plies the joystick in vain. It stays stuck. He tries the radio. It makes no sound.
JANUS
Leader to Squadron, MAYDAY!...Alpha One to fleet, do you read me?! MAYDAY!
He looks over his shoulder. No ship is near. Five thousand giant, worm-like alien ships have force-field shields which light up under the bombardment of starfighters. Thousands of bombs and laser streaks explode on the shields every second, but the aliens' shields hold.
A small, turbulent tremor overtakes Janus' ship. He looks forward at the planet in helpless terror, wide-eyed. The planet looms quickly larger.
Beyond the shield of the worm which he fell from, a white glare and fire sweeps over his fleet. His ship's turbulence increases. The worm's shield casts a shadow of eclipse over the planet. Light in the shadow undulates like water.
His ship violently crashes on the planet's atmosphere, which ignites around it in streaks of blue, green, yellow, and white.
EXT. AIRFIELD--DAY
A HUNDRED BIPEDAL, ANTHROPOMORPHIC SALAMANDER ALIENS stand guard over a hundred part-organic, part-mechanical fly space fighters and Janus' ship, which are all parked on the ground of a concrete airfield fifty miles in every direction. Ten Salamanders surround Janus. Two handcuff him.
Two large horseflies buzz from Janus' ship toward him. Two Salamanders whip their projectile tongues, catch the flies, retract them, and swallow. Janus shudders with disgust.
The Salamander XENON, thirty, wears light yellow military garb, and is burly, with a regal bearing, yet a friendly, happy face. His skin has a forest camouflage pattern with pretty yellow spots and splotches here and there. Xenon walks toward base. The guards prod Janus, but he holds. He is distracted by the breathtaking sights around him. The triple suns, sky, and cloud cover have fiery color variations of dark violet and pink. Mixed with these are vast, ghostly arms of auroras, of every color, all over the sky. Sparse streams of small meteorites sporadically burn up in small streaks, which quickly vanish as they drift from the planet's vast green and brown rings.
Janus stumbles backward as if this could help him encompass the whole scene of the planet's rings in a single view, which he can't. The rings arc from east-northeast to west-northwest. The rings vanish in the haze above distant mountains, but high in the sky, the far edges of the rings are visible fifteen thousand miles above the atmosphere.
The planet eclipses a swath of the rings from the triple sun, so that nebula light, like a skybound ocean of fairly bright, harsh red to violet light, causes bright cyan light to shimmer and play through the shadowed area of the rings like light in an ocean. The rings in turn partly eclipse the planet, so that broad, dark red to violet stripes of shadow alternate with thin fiery bands of red and blue light from the nebula and triple sundown. This shadow of the ring or striped filter of the sundown extends over a broad swath of the landscape.
A stream of hybrid plasma-lightning flashes from a high thunderhead, and traces up to the lowest, most opaque band in the rings. The lightning bolt vanishes, reappears in a trace from the ring back down to the cloud, and vanishes again. Borealis in the
full spectrum of a rainbow light up and crawl across the sky under the ring. A thunderclap sounds with a loud BOOM!
Xenon, the soldiers and Janus watch the borealis in rapt attention. The borealis light up, and lightning bolts trace up and down between the high atmosphere and the lowest ring, in a chain reaction which quickly spreads until the whole visible arc of the lowest ring dances with borealis and lightning. Thunderclaps rock the plain and mountains from east to west.
The chain reactions taper out, and eventually end, though many of the new borealis remain, and Janus still gawks at the fiery colors of the sky. Overwhelmed, he weeps.
JANUS
God! Lord God! That's, I've never...what was that? Is...is every day on your planet like this?
Xenon takes a deep breath, and exhales, refreshed by the natural sights.
XENON
Yes. Well, I haven't seen a ring storm that completely traverses the rings for quite some time, but they're fairly common. With all due respect to your resplendent Mother Earth, may she be forever remembered...
He pauses. All of the Salamanders stand silent.
XENON
Our Mother Hebe is, for me, the finest in the galaxy.
EXT. AIRFIELD--DAY
One sun is half-visible over the horizon. Janus lies on his back on a folding chair which is reclined horizontally. He looks up at the fiery cyan, green and warm brown rings and ring shadows.
Xenon and three guards arrive.