A little late in getting this posted, but here’s the livestream from May 15! Wrote the second half of Chapter 30 of Lost and Found during this stream.
Writing livestream – 15 May 2019
This is the playback from my writing stream from 15 May 2019. I wrote up the second half of Lost and Found, chapter 30 during the stream.
The full chapter is available for my patrons at Patreon!
Livestream – UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found, Chapter 28-29
Livestream from Mother’s Day 2019 (happy day, Mom!), finishing chapter 28 and writing all of chapter 29 of UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found.
That makes three chapters already this month. Time to write some more!
UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found – Chapter 1 (original draft)
When AJ McConaway picked up the phone on a February afternoon, she had no idea what she was in for.
One
“I’m getting sick of this bloody dodging bullets bullshit.”
I choked on a laugh, shaking my head as I met Kate Berkshire’s glower head-on. “That’s because you’re not getting any better at it.”
“No, I’m getting worse,” the Irish soldier snapped, then swore, glaring at the medic to her left. “What was that for?”
“Stop your bitching,” Joshua Talmadge growled, not looking up from his work on Kate’s left arm. “You’re lucky it’s just a through and through. If it was any worse we’d be at U of C Medical trying to explain how you happened to wander in front of a bullet and oh no, please don’t involve the police, there’s no need to report anything it’s just a silly mistake no real harm done as you’re bleeding on a freaking gurney.”
“I’m sure you could pull it off, Josh,” I said, patting the doctor on the shoulder. He snorted humorlessly and shook his head.
“Don’t patronize me, McConaway. You’re ill-suited to it.”
“I don’t know, I think she’s pretty good at it.” Kate smiled weakly. “Just a scratch.”
“You could be bleeding out with your intestines falling out of a hole in your gut and it’d be ‘just a scratch.’” I grinned ruefully—after all, there really wasn’t anything that funny about the hole in Kate’s arm—as I started to dig around for my cell, which had started vibrating in my back pocket.
“Popular today, aren’t you?” Kate waved me away with her good hand as she saw me digging around for my phone. “Go take it. I’m not going anywhere until the good doctor’s done with me.”
Don’t recognize that area code. “It’s probably a wrong number anyway. I’ll be right back. Try not to piss off Josh while I’m gone, huh?” I ducked out of the infirmary and into the hall. We’d been back in the Portal Corps headquarters in downtown Chicago for maybe fifteen minutes, returned from yet another off-world foray that had probably resulted in more trouble than it was worth. I glanced down at my phone’s screen again and shook my head as I tapped it and lifted the phone to my ear. This had better be quick. I don’t have time to break away from refereeing right now. “This is McConaway.”
“Hello, Dr. McConaway? My name is Brigid O’Connell, and I have some news about your brother.”
My heart stopped. Brigid O’Connell had been the name of the woman who’d led the search after Tim and Mat had disappeared over the deserts of Iraq. They’d found Mat’s plane but no trace of him in it.
What could she possibly know? She’s not with the Corps. I’d know if she was.
“Doctor? Are you there?”
“Of course. Of course. I—I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to will my heart to slow down, to force my guts to cooperate. “I’m here. I—what do you have to tell me, Miss O’Connell?”
“It’s Lieutenant O’Connell, actually, and…he’s here.”
“It’s nice to—wait, what?” This has to be a dream, some kind of hallucination. I got shot instead of Kate. That’s it. I’m hallucinating because I’ve lost way too much blood and I’m dreaming this.
“Here, you talk to her.”
“What? Wait a second here—”
It was his voice, unmistakably my brother. My heart thudded against my breastbone and every breath was a battle.
How did he get back? How is he—where is he? There was a tremor in my voice as I dared to speak his name. “Tim?”
He sighed into the phone. “Hey AJ. Are you okay?”
“No. No, not okay. Where are you?”
“Virginia,” he said. “Alexandria. Where are you?”
“Chicago. Where else would I be?” I squeezed my eyes shut. How had he gotten to Virginia without us knowing? Was there another Portal somewhere near there that we didn’t know about?
Goddammit, there’s too much we don’t know.
There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask him—chief among them was how the hell he’d ended up in Virginia without our knowing that he was back on Earth. I couldn’t ask that question over the phone, though, especially not with O’Connell there with him, not without knowing what she might know about him, about what he’d been through. I squeezed my eyes shut, sagging against the wall.
“Sis? You there?”
“I’m here,” I said, voice coming choked from a throat so tight I could barely breathe. “Are you safe?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I caught a hitch in his voice and shivered. We both know why—but do you remember that I know, that Kate knows?
He said that he wouldn’t. He was going to make himself forget so he could protect us. Damn it all.
“Just making sure,” I whispered. “I…I need to see you. I need an address.” Kate would want to come with me. Scott and Sierra would be expecting a report from us on the last run. There wouldn’t be time to write one before I—before we—left.
A thought struck me. Had they known he was back? Had he somehow shown up while Kate and I were on a run and they just hadn’t told us?
No. No, they wouldn’t keep a secret like that from us. If they tried, it would be a cover up of epic proportions. Bryn would say something. There’d be no hesitation. If she knew, we’d know. End of story.
Scott and Sierra couldn’t have known—no one connected to the Corps knew. That was for certain. Last we’d known, he was missing, list somewhere among the Portals and the gross and countless worlds. Even the Cabal had seemingly lost track of him, though they hunted for him—he was a valuable asset as far as they were concerned.
Tim rattled off an address. I wrote it on my hand, struggling not to drop my phone as I did. My heart was going three times its normal speed.
“You’ll be there?” I asked, my voice still shaking.
“I don’t know where else I’d go,” he said quietly. “If I’m not there, I’ll be here. Call this number if you need to.”
“Absolutely,” O’Connell’s voice said in the background. “I’ll help her find you if you’re not already here.”
“Not like I’ve got anywhere to go,” he said, his voice a little muffled.
My eyes stung. You could come here. You could come home. I glanced toward the door to the infirmary, biting down hard on my lower lip. Why hadn’t he come here? Why hadn’t he come home?
There must be a good reason. I’ll find out what it is.
“I’m coming there,” I said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I’ll be there tomorrow, as early as I can. I promise. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you.”
“Tim?”
“Yeah?”
“I missed you,” I said in a bare whisper. “We all missed you. I…I’m glad you’re back.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line before he said, “Yeah. So am I, AJ. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Love you.”
“I love you, too. Be careful.”
He hung up and I stood there in the hall, staring at the wall without actually seeing it in front of me. My brother was back on Earth. He was home.
Why hadn’t anyone told us before now?
I knuckled my eyes and exhaled a shaky breath, counting to ten before I straightened. Shoving my phone into my pocket, I headed back into the infirmary, hoping I didn’t look half as shaken as I felt.
“That was a long wrong number,” Kate said before her gaze met mine. Then she saw the look on my face and all good-humored teasing evaporated. Her expression grew serious. “What’s the matter?”
I closed the door behind me. “I just talked to Tim.”
“Tim? My Tim?”
“He’s my Tim, too,” I reminded her. “He was my Tim first.”
Her complexion was ashen. “Whatever. You talked to him? How is that even possible?”
“Should I be here for this?” Josh asked, glancing up from Kate’s stitches. “Because I can go if this is classified six feet above my ass.”
“It’s not,” I said, even though I wasn’t actually sure of that. “It’s fine. Just finish up.”
“He wants me to go get some x-rays,” Kate said with a slight glower. “Something about getting lucky if I didn’t nick the bone.”
“I just said it was a good idea,” Josh said. “You told me it hurt more than the last time you got shot and it hurt deep. That means bone or deep tissue damage. Do you want to be safe about this or not?”
“You’re the one who was moaning about U of C Medical.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Would you two stop bickering for twenty seconds?” I snapped. “Kate, I’m driving to Virginia. I’m driving tonight. Are you coming?”
“Why—oh. Is that where he is?”
“That’s where he said he is.” My lips thinned. “How the hell did he get back to Earth without our knowing?”
Josh frowned. “Is he one of those ones the Cabal nabbed a few years ago?”
“Yeah,” Kate said. “He’s practically the only one we’ve ever had a chance of bringing back, too.”
I could still hear the pain and regret in her voice when she talked about that missed opportunity, even though it had been the better part of two years ago—two years this coming June. It wasn’t that it frustrated me any less, but she’d been clinging even tighter to the hope of bringing him home in those few days than I had.
He’d asked her to keep a promise and I’d never quite been able to bring myself to ask her what that promise was.
There’s no way that she’s just going to stay here if he’s back, if he’s within reach. There’s no way. I just stared at her, waiting for the answer I knew was coming.
She didn’t meet my gaze as she said, “I’ll cover for you. Call your uncle and get going.”
“You’d bet—what?” Wait, she’s not coming with me? “Kate—”
“Scott and Sierra are going to need a report and I can make it for both of us,” Kate said quietly, finally lifting her eyes to meet mine. There was a familiar pain there, the deep one that I’d seen in snatches and glimpses since the day we’d left my brother on Mydiar. “I had days with him back then. You had five minutes. Go. Go see him and make sure it’s real. Make sure we’re not going to lose him again.”
My throat tightened.
She doesn’t want to come with me because she’s afraid that it’s not going to last—that we’re going to lose him all over again.
Truth be told, I was afraid of the same thing, but I had to believe that this time he was back for good. I didn’t know how he’d managed it, but I was sure as hell going to find out.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m positive.” Kate glanced down at her knees, shaking her head. “I’ll fly out tomorrow or the next day. Call me when you get there and I’ll call you about the flight or…or whatever. Go call Chris and tell him you’re going out of town and then get going before Scott or Sierra show up and stop you.”
“It’s going to be a lonely drive,” I whispered. I was sure she’d come with me. I didn’t plan on doing this alone.
“You’ll be fine,” Kate said. “Go.”
I shivered, nodding. This felt far too familiar. “All right. I’ll call when I get there.”
“Drive safe.”
I gave her and Josh each a tight smile and slipped out into the hall, heart thudding leadenly against my breast. Kate was right. I needed to get out of headquarters before Scott Andrews or Sierra O’Rourke caught up with me—otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting out of the city anytime soon.
I booked for the stairs that would take me up to the rehabbed print shop’s foyer and Printer’s Row beyond. If I was quick, I’d be able to make it to the L in time to be home before the sun went down. I needed my car and a couple of changes of clothes from the house.
It was out of the way, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed the clothes and the least I could do before driving east was let my uncle know that I’d be doing it. He’d come to terms with what I did every day—he knew about half of it, anyhow—but I knew it went hard on him when I was away.
I was all he had left. His brother—my father—was dead and the two boys Christopher McConaway had raised alongside me were missing and had been for three years.
Do I tell him, or do I play the waiting game and spare his heart like Kate’s asking me to spare hers? My lips thinned as I stepped out into the gloom of a February afternoon in Chicago, grimacing as I realized I’d left my coat downstairs before we’d left on our jaunt beyond the Portal. It was still hanging on the back of my chair in my office, the one I shared with Carson Matthews, a cultural anthropologist whose father had been one of the ones kidnapped three years ago the same way Tim and Mat had been. Carson was newer to the Corps, had only been with us six months, but he was catching on fast.
I shivered in the wind and shook my head as I felt around in my pocket for my keys and found them. Not going back down there. If I go back down there, I’m going to get waylaid. There’s no doubt about that. I’ll just make a run for the station. I won’t freeze to death if I hurry.
Sucking in a deep breath, I sprinted for the stairs to the Red Line station a block from where I’d been standing, hoping that my wallet was in the bag I was still carrying from the off-world run and that I hadn’t left it with my coat.
Too late now. Already made the run for it.
I stumbled down the concrete steps and into the warmth of the subway tunnel, already shivering from the late winter chill. It had been a relatively mild winter here in Chicago, but that didn’t mean it was much warmer than bitter cold—especially not this close to the lakeshore. I dug around in my bag, hoping to find my wallet and eventually locating it in the deepest, darkest corner of the bag as I made my way to the turnstiles guarding the entry to the train platforms.
I breathed a sigh of relief as my fingers closed around my CTA card. Small favors. That’s all I can ever ask for.
I took the train from Harrison and hit my connections—Red Line to Blue all the way to Rosemont where I’d left my car. Sometimes I took the Metra all the way in and out of the city, but when I didn’t know when I’d be coming home, I liked the convenience of leaving my Jeep closer to downtown rather than at the Metra stations in Barrington or Schaumburg. I stared out the windows of the train, at the city and at tunnel walls, fingers tapping against my knee in agitated impatience, all the way from the station where I’d gotten on the Blue Line to Rosemont, where my insane life with the Corps and UNSETIC had begun. It felt like a long time ago.
How am I going to tell him? How am I going to break that news?
I wasn’t sure if I was trying to figure out how to explain this to my uncle, or how I was going to break the news to my brother that our other uncle, our mother’s brother Peter, was dead. I didn’t know which one would be harder.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Dammit.
The train stopped at Rosemont and I got off, went hunting for my car. Somewhere between there and home, I’d figure out how I was going to tell Uncle Chris.
I really didn’t have much choice about that.
Livestream – UNSETIC Files: Lost and Found, Chapter 27
Livestream from 7 May 2019! I wrote the entire chapter on this one. Enjoy!
Accountability for When All’s Said and Done
If I get done sooner, that will be great—but I’m not going to kill myself trying to make that happen.
At least not at this point.
And now for something different…Ashes to Ashes, Chapter 52 preview
At the beginning of the month, I talked about an old project that had started to draw me in again–and after a read-through, I’m still drawn in. I’ve finished another chapter and while I don’t know what the posting schedule will be, for now at least there’s more to read!
Ashes to Ashes is the second book in the Legacies of the Lost Earth series. The first book, The Last Colony was serialized in draft form at www.embklitzke.com/e557 for those who want to take a peek. So has what’s been written thus far of Ashes to Ashes.
The chapter below takes place shortly after a major attack on E-557, the home of our cast of protagonists. It’s the first attack on that scale ever, and now our heroes (new and old) have to figure out what to do about it.
Fifty-two
They knew how to hit us and where to hit us—and when. The only thing they didn’t seem to know is how hard we’d fight back. Now we just have to figure out who the hell they were—and who our allies really are.
— Sarah Farragut, regarding the bombing of the provisional settlements at Tertius Prime, c. 4851
3 Eindecem, 5249 PD
“Your system defenses are shit, Grumpy.”
Adam grimaced, bracing himself against the edge of the console. Above them hovered a map of the Eridani Trelasia system, complete with data on all of their defensive emplacements, patrol lines, and the locations of the few ships attached to the defense forces. It wasn’t a very full map and some of the colors highlighting a few of the defensive emplacements and the orbital stations made it even worse.
That attack cost us too dearly. At least some of the orbitals would be salvageable, though it would take time.
Of course, time was the one thing that Adam Windsor knew they didn’t have—not in any sort of abundance, that much was certain.
Deacon stared at him, as if waiting for a response. Adam sighed and shook his head.
“Distance was supposed to keep us safer than any orbitals we have,” he said, the words tasting like ashes. “Up until a few decades ago, no one gave a damn that we were out here. The Foundation banked on that continuing.” He sighed. “We were fools, but we believed it, too.”
“Not entirely.” Deacon nodded to the map, waving a hand at the emplacements and ships. “You wouldn’t have had even this much in place if you were expecting distance to be your only defense against the inner homosphere.” He crossed his arms, staring at the maps for a long moment. “But it’s not enough. You’re right about that much.”
Silence stretched between the two for a few long moments before Adam cleared his throat. “How were your casualties up there?” His voice was quiet. He hadn’t gotten to ask the question yet, though in truth he had been dreading it. The men and women that had crewed Deacon’s forces were volunteers.
So are mine.
A quiet breath escaped the former professor. “Better than yours, I think. We pulled in some of your pilots on the way through the debris fields. I think most of them will make it, but I’m not that kind of doctor.”
Adam sighed. “We don’t have the pilots to lose, either.”
“Something tells me you don’t have the population period to lose.” Deacon rubbed at his temple, shaking his head. “Eridani Trelasia has all the resources a population needs to survive except for a population large enough to fight a war for that survival.”
“Aptly put,” Adam murmured. “Though I would argue that time is also a resource we don’t have.”
“There are ways to buy that,” Deacon said, his voice grim. “I’m just not sure any of us have the stomach for it.” He regarded Adam with a long, silent look. “Who else isn’t dead, Adam?”
“You mean besides America and Grant?”
A muscle twitched in Deacon’s jaw. “He might have the stomach for it.”
“America won’t let him out of her sight. Not now, not with everything that’s happened to them—and none of us are about to let him go haring off god-knows-where at this point.” No matter how much he wants to go haring off at this point to get the shit I hid. Adam rubbed at his temple, staring blankly at the displays without actually seeing them. He drew a deep breath, looked around. They were alone.
He deserves to know.
He went and locked the door to the room. Deacon quirked a brow, watching him.
“You’re taking precautions for something,” the other man surmised as Adam walked back to where they’d been standing near the plots.
“Always am,” Adam muttered. “Not going to tell me it’s like old times?”
Deacon gave an eloquent shrug, appropriating an empty chair with a good view of the map. He leaned back, watching him. “I could. But it’s not, is it? No matter who’s still alive, it’ll never be like old times again.” Silence drew on for a few long moments, then Deacon asked, “How long have you known that Freder was alive?”
“I’ve always known,” Adam said. “I helped Daci get him to safety after what happened. Rachel didn’t even know until a few weeks ago.”
“Sneaky bastard.” It was said simply, a statement of fact. Adam didn’t smile.
“He doesn’t remember who killed Mimir,” Adam continued. “He thinks that he’d figured it out before he was attacked, but he’s not sure anymore and doesn’t remember the last few days before the attack. If the information was archived anywhere other than his head, it’s never come to light.” He crossed his arms, shaking his head slowly as he stared blankly at the starplot. “And I doubt that anyone who was trying to kill him then would care if he said he doesn’t know now what he knew then. They’d still try to kill him because they’d still think he’s a threat.”
“Logic tracks, considering the prime suspects back then. They never figured out who did it, didn’t they?”
Adam’s lips barely moved as he spoke. “I think they wanted to forget.”
“Maybe some of them did,” Deacon agreed. “But I can tell you that not all of them did. How much of the feeds did you watch after it happened?”
“Not many. I was a little busy.”
“Understandably so, I imagine.” He dragged his chair over, closer to the plots, then settled again. “You seem to have quite a bit more than I expected on your plate.”
Adam grunted, glancing away from the plots to meet Deacon’s gaze. “What’s on your mind, Deacon?”
“What makes you think that—”
“We’re both too old to play these games, at least right now, at least given what’s going on here now. Whatever’s rattling around inside that skull of yours that you’re not saying I suggest you say before there’s not another chance.”
Deacon winced, sitting back. He cleared his throat. “Fine,” he said, his voice quiet, caught somewhere between thoughtful and matter-of-fact. “You need more allies, old friend, and you need them fast. You have resources to spare, but you don’t have human resources to draw on. You need to find a way to draw on what you do have and cultivate what you don’t and fast.” He paused, then added, “Before whoever killed Mimir tries again here.”
Adam’s stomach lurched. He swallowed the bile that bubbled up at the back of his throat, staring at Deacon for a few seconds. “You noticed.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t.”
Adam closed his eyes. “Wouldn’t matter if I did or not,” he murmured quietly. “In the moment, all it gave us with a vague semblance of what sort of pattern of events we could expect—a pattern thwarted by your timely arrival with those ships.”
Deacon exhaled, his gaze drifting toward the plots. “And I can’t do that twice.”
“No,” Adam agreed quietly. “You can’t. But we’ll think of something. We have to. There’s not a choice.”
“No. No, there’s not.” Deacon’s lips thinned. “Most of my people said they’d stay on. You’re working on getting their families here?”
Adam nodded. “Mission Systems has been a great help with that. Within the next two weeks, they should all be here and settled either on-planet or on the Mission Systems station out in orbit of E-Trel IV.”
“Good,” Deacon said, a faint note of relief in his voice. “They’re good people, you know? I’m lucky to have them.”
“So you’ll be our admiral of the fleet, then?” Adam glanced at him, watching the reflection of the plot’s light on Deacon’s face. “Shepherd the cap ships up there?”
“Did you really think I’d say no?” Deacon looked at him. “You don’t have anyone else qualified—closest thing would be you and we both know that you’re trying to juggle enough already. Aidan and Daciana are able, but ship tactics aren’t their stock in trade. They’re not trained for it the way you and I are and Grant’s got too much rust and not enough experience.”
“Grant’s a guerrilla fighter,” Adam murmured. “Guerrilla tactics and counterinsurgency—strange how they seem to go hand in hand, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be getting all uncharacteristically thoughtful on me now, Grumpy,” Deacon said, crossing his arms. “Stay on task. You’ve got a system to defend.”
“If you’re taking us up on our offer, so do you.”
Deacon shrugged. “True enough. Do we know what kind of operations Mission Systems already has up and running out here?”
“That’s a question for Mr. Scarelli,” Adam said. “He hasn’t submitted a report on their disposition beyond letting us know that they escaped damage and they’re pulling sensor and visual logs of everything they can to see if they can give us more information on those ships if any of their people spotted them.”
“Mm. I’ll have to meet with him. Is he on-planet?”
Adam shook his head. “Not right now, but he’s due to appear before the Council in a couple days. He’ll probably be here tomorrow. Do you want me to make introductions?”
“I would be very appreciative,” Deacon said. “Hopefully they’ll have what we need to get the ships repaired faster than if we were depending on just my people handling it.”
“Probably would be helpful.” Adam glanced at the plots again, eyeing the renderings of the damaged orbitals. “I didn’t ask you. Your wife’s people—you said they were Wanderers.”
Deacon nodded. “I did. Good people. We think they all made it, but there’s a couple cousins she hasn’t heard from yet.”
“Where do you think they’ll go?” Adam asked quietly. “The Whispers was as close to a home as any of them had beyond their ships. Where will they make their port now?”
“You say that like you’ve got thoughts on the subject.”
Adam sighed. “I don’t know what I’m thinking and the invitation wouldn’t come from me, anyway. It would need to come from someone else. Maybe Rachel.” Maybe Linny-pie. I don’t know.
“Invitation?” Deacon stood up, peering closely at him. “What are you suggesting?”
“They’ve always been good to us,” Adam murmured. “Maybe now it’s time to return the favor.”