Tin Universe Middle Grade Series.

Someone is zombifying athletes at Clear Cut High School in Utah. Lucky the school has its own young superhero in the person of Mildred Betbeze to try and figure out what's going on. Pep rallies, cheerleaders, new kids in the neighborhood are just some of things our hero and her sidekick slash best friend Aisha have to deal with in the first audio book adaption in Tin Universe's middle grade series. $2.00 Profits from the sales of this audio book will go to Trans Lifeline for as long as the books is sold on Podbean.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Tin Universe Daily #273


#273

A First Shot Fired
Part 9

BREAKING NEWS: Group of Cardinals say if Pope starts reaching towards the modern world his position will be rethought by those who put him there. These comments come after the Pope surprisingly said, “We cannot let our fear of Beyond Human separate us from our own humanity.”…

BREAKING NEWS: Heath care providers in some hospitals in Seattle are saying if more laws are passed against treating Beyond Humans and reporting them they will be forced to go against the law and will do so willingly…

BREAKING NEWS: Woman whose husband was found to be a Beyond Human while serving in the military goes to court to try and get information on his location since being arrested by his fellow soldiers. Senator says her pursuit of this information should be seen as treason in itself…

No matter how you want to twist the thinking when it comes to law enforcement or being a soldier it is a life atmosphere in violence. This is the reason why to survive in law enforcement, officers tend to develop pretty twisted since of humors.
This is also why police and military love to tell stories but here’s something most people don’t know. The stories they tell are to hide the things they don’t want to talk about.
Living a life dipped in violence at any moment requires a person to develop coping mechanisms whether they are fucked up jokes, drunken stories, or even sometimes like something out of an old shore leave movie with a bar fight or two.
If you asked Sergeant Luke what was the worst fight he had ever been in, he would probably tell you about some fight when he was in the police academy or during a football game in high school, but if he was honest this story would be what he would tell you.
Also of course he was in the military and a mere private during the time of this story so this is about Private Luke.
Private Luke was a young man with broad shoulders. He was heavily recruited by a number of colleges to play football but he wanted to join the military. To serve his country during very chaotic times was very important to him.
He went into the military thinking it would be a lot like football. Hard days training but also a building of lifelong friendships. He thought it would be about people dedicated to one goal, and in the case of the military he thought that goal would be the protection of freedom.
There were a lot of fellow soldiers who thought the same as he did but what he never expected were the bloodlusting ones. The men and women who were itching at the chance to kill people and not be arrested for it. Not itching to get at some enemy but just whoever was placed in front of them.
He quickly learned this wasn’t the world of high school football.
Or the world of John Wayne movie.
More like something by the overstuffed Oliver Stone.
The training of basic training wasn’t that bad for him. His high school football coach had actually based their Two-A-Day practices during the summer and after school during the school year on his own experiences in the military.
But after only a few months Private Luke found out he was among a bunch of very nasty people.
The ring leader of this bunch was one Private Saul.
Out of every group of new recruits there are usually one or two real standouts. In this group the two were Private Luke and Private Saul. This fact and the fact that Private Luke didn’t take part in their talk of raping woman and killing like it was a sport, and not to mention the torturing of lesser recruits, this put Saul and Luke in a direction heading right at each other and it was only a matter of time.
Private Saul saw Luke as a threat to his own bullying of the other recruits and a threat to him being the golden boy of their drill sergeant, Sergeant Tucker.
Sergeant Tucker turned a blind eye to what Private Saul and his underlings were doing, he saw it as survival training within the group. He hoped Luke would step up and be one of the strong but had his doubts after Private Luke reported some of what Saul had been doing and saying over Tucker’s head.
So with that insult in mind Sergeant Tucker set up a lesson to be taught, and one was taught, just not the one he was thinking.
Sergeant Tucker had forged papers that showed Saul was on the other side of the base with him but in fact he was heading for a storage unit with two of his cronies, a storage unit were Private Luke was taking inventory after a break in two nights before.
Guess who did the break in?
The storage unit was about the size of good sized backyard storage shed. It contained for the most part military manuals on everything from kitchen equipment to personal weapon usage.
Luke was going through each box and counting against inventory lists of what should be there when the door shut behind him. He turned and in the small light of the shed spotted Saul.
Saul’s two friends where standing outside the storage shed to make sure they could alert Saul in case someone not part of their plan showed up.
Luke had watched Saul in training. He was well trained in MMA hand to hand combat techniques. Sergeant Tucker had even started having Saul show the other recruits a trick or two which Saul loved, he was shown before the others to be superior to them and also got to break some bones on order.
He was also twice the size of Luke, nothing but muscle, and every move he made was about strength, about large strikes.
He had made a mistake choosing this as the place to confront Luke.
Despite his MMA training Luke had seen Saul fight, and he was always thinking about maneuvers. He could see when a weakness came up it was because people had made him face something he wouldn’t normally face in training or a MMA match.
Saul started moving towards Luke but Luke quickly jumped up and punched the free hanging light bulb and when it went out he know what his next move was going to be before his feet hit the ground.
He knew Saul would be trying to grab him in a standing position so he landed not on his feet but his knees and immediately punched his enemy in the nuts as hard as he could.
He could hear Saul stumble back against the door and shouting profanities so he knew his punches hit the spot really nice.
Outside Saul’s cronies were smiling thinking their friend was kicking the shit out of Luke.
Saul charged across the dark storage unit in a rage and with all the profanity Luke was able to pretty accurately time an elbow right to the face which dislocated his elbow but shattered Saul’s face into many broken pieces. A shattered nose, broken orbital bone, and split jaw.
In a couple minutes Private Saul passed out from the pain but that was only after Luke stomped on his face a couple more times.
Then Private Luke had to decide what he was going to do about the guys waiting outside. He knew how Saul and his bunch operated and knew they had to be at least a couple of them out there waiting for their friend to emerge and talk about how much pain he had put Luke through.
Luke reached to push the door open and get this over with when he was grabbed from behind. He had a quick thought of Saul being one tough mother fucker but throwing back some head butts to already shattered face make him let go and collapse to his knees and then face first onto the floor.
Luke kicked the door open and started dragging Saul out. The two buddies just looked on. They wanted to attack but the sight of Saul in that sort of shape scared them so they watched as Luke dragged him across the grounds, three buildings down to Sergeant Tucker’s quarters.
Luke dropped him there and knocked on the door and walked to the stockade and waited.
The trail found Luke innocent of an attempted murder charge that Sergeant Tucker had pushed for. Further investigation uncovered Sergeant Tucker’s involved in the incident and he was dishonorably discharged.
The worst fight Luke ever was ever in was the fight he fought every day in the military after going against the grain but it was a lesson he did learn. Authority and law are not always right.

What’s about to happen will probably be one of those moments that Sergeant Luke and Chris keep for the most part to themselves. It’s going to get really personal because make no bones about it violence is always personal, otherwise you would end up dead trying to play moral standard playset.
Sergeant Luke and Chris were riding down in a freight elevator to the training floor of Pompeys Pillar. The elevator was playing old big band tunes. They have tried to track the wiring to find out where the music came from but so far they had no luck.
Sergeant Luke had just explained to Chris the next stage in their plan and you would expect them to be tense but they actually weren’t. Sergeant Luke noticed that and was happy Chris’s training was coming along to the point where he was able to be calm right now.
‘No holds barred?’ Chris asked.
‘Until one of us taps out, says no more.’ Sergeant Luke make the point clear with his words.
‘So is this my coming out party?’ Chris
‘More like one of several final tests.’ Sergeant Luke told him.
‘And if I fail any of them?’ Chris
‘It’s over before it starts.’ Sergeant Luke
‘No holds barred?’ Chris
‘Yep.’ Sergeant Luke
Chris went for an elbow strike to the head but Luke ducked and the elbow hit the elevator. By the time that happen Luke had taken Chris’s legs out from under him with a shin kick.
Luke tried to gain a mount position on Chris but the door had opened and Chris rolled out into the training area.
Sergeant Luke noted in his own head how Chris’s scramble instincts were improving.
They both returned to a standing position smiling at each other. It takes a certain kind of person to get a kick out of this sort of thing.
‘Are you sure you really want to do this?’ Chris asked, yes still smiling.
‘Are you scared Banks won’t be able to patch you up?’ Sergeant Luke asked the young man he was training.
‘Trying to jolt me old man?’
‘Trying to get me pissed kid? You don’t have any moves I didn’t teach you.’
They moved in towards each other.
Luke knew this was the answer to his question. Will this end before it even got started? If Chris can’t stand against him then he isn’t the man for this mission. If he can’t get through this, he would just get them killed at a later point because he wasn’t good enough.
Chris swung, Luke spun away from the punch and in the same second he went for a spin kick but Chris hit his knees to duck it and then got on his back to dodge another kick.
Chris kicked up from his back going for Luke’s knees but Luke deflected the series of quick kicks.
Luke went in for a punch but Chris rolled away, the punch hit the floor, and quickly both men were back to their feet.
A restart and more smiles to try and psyche out the other one but they knew it wouldn’t work on each other. The smiles were more a are you getting into this because I’m really getting into this.
Luke walked over to one of the walls in the training room and pulled down two daggers. The room was decorated with all kinds of handheld weapons.
He slid one of the daggers on the floor over to Chris.
‘Your hand to hand unarmed is good but this is America, no one comes at you with bad intentions unarmed,’ Sergeant Luke
Chris picked up the dagger, ‘Blades?’
‘You can use a blade to cut, disable, torture, or kill. You make those choices in a moment.’
Chris watched Luke as they sized each other up. He knew Luke was going for the kill. This was an end lesson he needed to survive to pass. This wasn’t about them not being able to do this and going their separate ways, there was this or failure for both of them.
Luke went for a stabbing thrust with his dagger. Chris was distracted blocking that blow so that allowed Luck the opportunity to sneak in a kick to the ribs.
Chris thought he heard a crack but tried not to give anything away in case Luke didn’t hear it.
As he moved Chris thought he could feel part of his ribs rubbing up against other parts and it hurt.
‘That was probably a rib. Even a small crack will take your breathing down ten percent,’ Sergeant Luke explained to his acolyte.
He did notice.
This wasn’t good for the student.
Chris tosses away the dagger knowing he needed to change things up and go for something blunter so he pulled two maces off a wall. He dropped one and backed away from it.
‘Maces don’t give you much wiggle room?’ Sergeant Luke
‘Most final exams don’t have a do over or did I miss hear and you’re grading on a curve?’ Chris
‘I thought for a while this is when it was going to end. That you couldn’t take these steps,’ Sergeant Luke
‘I’m flattered you thought I would fail,’ Chris said, no longer smiling.
‘I didn’t think you were going to fail, just that you wouldn’t take the next step against another human being.’
‘So you trained me and pushed me into a situation where I will bash your head in?’
‘What you should have said is, try to bash my head in.’
They run at each other, maces in hand, but Chris jumps in the air dropkicking Luke in the face Brad Armstrong style.
He learned almost everything he knows from Sergeant Luke but he also watched a lot of Smokey Mountain Wrestling.
As Sergeant Luke tumbled backward from the dropkick his mace flew out of his hand hitting the ground with a big thud. Chris had totally caught him off guard.
Chris picked up the other mace without hesitation. Then he ran over to Luke and started trying to take out his legs slamming them down one after the other.
Luke scrambled and dove under a table covered in throwing knives. He kicked the table up sending knives and the table flying hard against Chris.
They both stood up, but now both were tired, but Chris more so. Swinging both of those maces took a lot out of him.
‘Control your breathing during a fight, especially if you have a cracked rib,’ Sergeant Luke told him.
‘No more toys?’ Chris asked his teacher.
‘Ok with me.’ Sergeant Luke answered.
Luke ran over and tackled Chris. He was going to see how his student could handle pure brutality and how much he was willing to give back to someone.
Here endth this lesson.

Check out all other Tin Universe releases at the below places:
SMASHWORDS:
Also can be found in Barnes&Noble Nook Store, iTunes, and many more places to buy ebooks.

The sale of this book without its cover….well, is, sort of, impossible since it really doesn’t have a cover but let us go through the legal spray out anyways. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Hands up to you who have books like this in your collection? Now that I put my hand down we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing, a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian C. WilliamsSystem*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just in search of a ways to tell our stories and enough money to add to our Doctor Who collections….well, at least that fits me. For more information on Tin Universe Daily, the artists who contributed to this book, and Tin Universe contact System*Productions at hangofwednesday@gmail.com
Written by Brian C. Williams

Edited by Brian C. Williams

No comments:

Post a Comment