Untold Podcast

A conservationist returns to her compound just after poachers have slaughtered everyone.

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Elena slapped a tree trunk for balance as she skidded past and flung herself down the faded trail to the lower stream. Her breath sobbed in her throat and hot tears threatened her vision.

They were close behind, but near the jackfruit tree she forced herself to a walk. She took small steps, rolling heel to toe, and counted the meter of “Rock-a-bye, Baby” as she stepped. She hesitated as she neared the rotting log and then veered to the right. Even in her haste—especially in her haste—Queenie was a safer bet than Elvis.
She glanced at the nearby mound and saw a telltale strip of olive-brown among the decomposing leaves. Nothing more. Her familiar tempo had bought her passage.

She veered left again, safely past the leaves and log, and reached the jackfruit tree. Its foliage was thin but with luck, she might go unnoticed among its enormous fruit. She hooked a leg over the lowest limb and wriggled as high as she trusted it.

She touched her phone, secure in its belt clip. It had no signal here, but she had to keep it close, for Dr. Morrison and Dr. Laghari.

She had been away when the poachers came.

A Rescue Operations robot must put its existence on the line to save a crew shipwrecked in space.

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The six-brace cargo vessel had been family’s livelihood. One wrong maneuver too near a planet’s gravity well, and it was fast becoming their graveyard.

SN127-AK3 hurtled across the empty kilometers of space between his home aboard a Rescue Operations starship and the six-brace, solar winds and the planet’s pull accelerating it faster than a human’s body could stand. He was a three-meter-long Rescue Ops Survival Servitor, a robot designed to contort itself into the tightest spaces of the most twisted wreckage. His body was 10 centimeters across, with a micro-armor surface covering self-repair systems, dozens of servos that let him twist into all manner of shapes, and delicate sensor arrays, as well as five storage compartments. Like standard ROSS units, he’d earned the sobriquet “space snake” from his biological directors, who like to replace the designation “Servitor” with “Serpent.”

Tucker and his friend go looking for a dangerous gang that might be able to help his grandma keep her house.

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“How much longer we gotta walk?”

“Just at the end of this alley.” Tucker tripped over a stray tin can but fought to find his balance before Benny saw.

“I still don’t see why we’re goin’ to see these guys.” Benny twisted his mouth like he smelled something rotten—which they both did, considering how much garbage they’d stumbled past.

Tucker resisted rolling his eyes. Benny was a full year younger than him, only ten. He sometimes still acted a whole lot like a baby.

“I told you, I gotta go. I don’t gotta choice.”

“Yeah, but The Snakes? Those guys are bad news, Tuck.

A police snake in a mechanized suit of armor faces a peculiar reaction from a hostage during a standoff.

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“Let the lady go, Thomas,” I say, my forearm cannon armed and pointed at the man in front of me. “My backup’s already on the way. You’ve got nowhere to run.”

Tom Crougar’s forehead, shoulders, and upper back are covered in jagged, bony protrusions, and a long bone blade extends from his right forearm to press against the neck of his unfortunate hostage.

“Not a chance, freak,” he sneers at me. “You let me walk, or I open her jugular.”

“You’re only wanted for robbery and grand theft auto, Tom,” I say directly. “Adding murder to the list will only make things worse for you.”

“I’ll die before I go back to the pen,” he insists. “You can’t make…”

“Um...excuse me?” the middle-aged woman in Tom’ grasp interrupts, looking at me. “I’m sorry, but...what are you?”

An up and coming fighter pilot, Dex D'Felco seeks glory as a Blood Ace in the depths of space.

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Dex D’Felco had every reason to feel good. His polished dress uniform shoes clicked smartly on the duranium deck plates of the United Coalition carrier Callisto as he navigated the thick press of the always-busy passageway. He nodded curtly to new subordinates making eye contact while smiling in acknowledgement to peers offering their congratulations. Typical of most Coalition Navy observances, Dex’s promotion ceremony had been short but meaningful.  Under the clear panoramic dome of the Callisto’s observation lounge—the pure white void of etherspace playing havoc on reality just beyond—he had stood at attention while Captain Anton Walters pinned the UCN Medal of Valor and a new gleaming gold bar to his uniform tunic. The recognition of Dex’s heroics in the Oranos engagement had only taken two weeks to clear the customary bureaucracy, and now it was official. Dex D’Felco, the pilot who had single-handedly saved a civilian light transport from six bandits, scoring kills on three hostile Razors in the process, was now a full-fledged lieutenant.

As Dex strode purposefully down the passageway, his friend, Lieutenant Hagen Lebrian, kept pace just behind him. Broad-shouldered and nearly two meters tall, he had to juke and jostle a little more than Dex to avoid the surge of pilots, deck sergeants, and support personnel all wanting to acknowledge the young hero.

​ ​ ​When the Dragon takes over St. Nick's operation at the North Pole, St. George intervenes

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“Name, please,” the figure in the helm rasped.

George had seen such helms before, of course, just not on minor bureaucrats. “George—Saint George, technically, but I don’t like to—”

“Neither do we. We don’t mind religion, you understand; Pharisees and Sadducees, so crunchy and…” The voice broke off abruptly, then resumed. “I mean, religion leads to lawsuits, you know.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I disagree, in fact, but lawsuits are distasteful.”

“No, no—they’re delicious! Pain and suffering, hatred, revenge…” Steam rose as drool fell. “It’s just so distracting.”​

In ancient Norway, Erik Lambskin the Viking is forced to foster a little girl.

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Norway, 1025 A.D.
 
I sat in the cold around a small fire. Alone. I kept the mead hall at my back. The biting cold blew hard, then abated. My strength, my sight and even my once keen hearing deteriorated in my old age, but I still heard cautious steps moving through the snow toward me.

I placed a casual hand on the hilt of my hunting knife. In one motion I unsheathed it, spinning around to meet my first attacker.

“Erik Lambskin, put that away. I’m not here to avenge myself on you.” Hilda Bearroll stood before me. She was old. Not quite as old as me, but time had not been kind to this once beautiful woman. Her hand rested on the handle of her dagger.

I sheathed my blade, turning my back on her and returning to my fire.

Shouting against the wind, still with my back to her, I said, “You should not be here. I have rejected the people’s will at the Thing. I am an outlaw. Someday one of you will come here to claim my lands, my weapons and what’s left of my treasure-horde, after they’ve claimed my life.”

Isabella charmed Demetrius with her innocent beauty and effortless grace from the moment they met. Her virtue hides a deadly secret that threatens to destroy their blossoming romance and everything he holds dear. Evil comes in many forms, but none so twisted and destructive as the promise of true love.

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The clear water of the reflecting pool shimmered like diamonds. The humidity made everything sticky, and the climbing mercury did nothing to temper the madness that came with it. Demetrius told himself he never intended for things to go as far as they did. He had always tried to maintain a calm and even demeanor as was demanded of him by breeding and upbringing. In stark contrast to his lifelong training, he lay half on and half off the stone bench surrounding the pool and stared into the water, tears streaming down his soot and blood covered face.

Everyone else was gone, and he was left to deal with the fallout alone. He remained partially on that bench throughout most of the day and into the evening, contemplating what had happened and what was next. One thing he knew for certain. His chance for a life in Paradise Valley had vanished.

Unlike humans, snakes can't cry . . .  even in space.

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Tears don't fall in space. They just pool around your eyes. At least… that’s the case if you’re a human. Us snakes don’t cry. Our tears just drain back into the roofs of our mouths.

In the very near future, Trevor tells his pastor he wants to get a plastic uterus and become pregnant.

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"Pastor, I'm young and healthy. I have a whole summer before college starts. I think it makes sense if I -- I think God is leading me to spend the summer pregnant."

"I . . . see." Pastor Williams suppressed a frown. "Tell me more, Trevor."