Like a Fox on the Run Read online

  Like a Fox on the Run

  By

  J Morgan Woodall

  Book I of the Southern Sci-Fi Chronicles

  Like a Fox on the Run

  by

  J Morgan Woodall

  First Printing

  Copyright © 2016 by J Morgan Woodall

  All Rights Reserved

  Professionally edited by Final Draft Copyediting

  Kaye Blanchard, Editor

  https://www.facebook.com/FinalDraftCopyediting

  Cover Art by Vanesa Garkova

  www.facebook.com/Bookcoverart/

  This story may not be reproduced in any form for profit without the written permission of the publisher and author, the only exception being a magazine or a newspaper reviewer who may quote brief passages as part of a printed review.

  Disclaimer

  This story is a work of fiction. The author does not necessarily condone or endorse any of the activities described herein.

  This story is intended as adult entertainment. It contains material of an adult, explicit, sexual nature. If you are offended by sexually explicit content or language, please do not read any further.

  My Thanks To:

  My wonderful family who inspire me to do more than just write:

  Brittany, Landon and Layken, Jacob and Sydney

  My parents, who taught me it was okay to stand up for what you believed and that there was nothing wrong with being different. I may not have turned out exactly the way you wanted, but I know you’re proud of me, because I believe in and I stand for something. Love you!

  Tania Fitzgerald, P.A., for all the help, encouragement and time. In the dictionary beside selfless, there should be a picture of you.

  Kaye, for making my manuscript into a book and making me a better author in the process. Your work here will bear fruit in books yet to be written.

  Vanesa, for another great book cover! Catching their eye is half the battle!

  Dedication

  In memory of my Uncle Elvin

  (1926-2016)

  The inspiration for “Uncle Mud,” he loved his “Rocket City” and his “shittim wood” trees.

  Inspired by:

  The TV series Firefly (never given a chance by those morons at Fox)

  The Electric Light Orchestra concept album Time

  Somewhere Out There by Our Lady Peace

  The sci-fi master Gerry Anderson

  The overactive imagination of my teenage years

  Heavy Metal magazine (mostly the cover art)

  The girls of Japanese anime

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Introduction

  Science fiction has always been one of my favorite genres of reading. It ranks right up there with true crime, history and a good swashbuckler. Having said that, I’m not one who gets too deep into the science part of it. I’m not a scientist, a math whiz, or a computer guru. I don’t want to read something that, by the third chapter, I’m already looking back two or three pages wondering, “What the hell did I just read?” “Did I miss something?” or “Are they really wanting me to understand this new theory on the quantum physics of a black hole as it relates to the universe expanding?”

  Yeah, ummm, ok … here’s the problem with all that: I’m not an astrophysicist. Stuff like that goes over my head and eventually I bore quickly of it. Either that, or it is presented in such a way that shames me for my ignorance of such theories. I’m a simple man who enjoys simple things. I want to be entertained, not lectured. I don’t want to feel like I’m being talked down to just because I don’t have a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from MIT.

  I want a sci-fi story about things that interest me. Epic space battles with the forces of good and evil fighting it out in the great black void. Cool rocket ships with style and flare, as much a work of art as they are practical. Beautiful women in skintight flight suits armed with cool laser blasters; not just pretty faces, they can carry their own in any scrap.

  Oh, you say you don’t have all that silliness in your thesis masquerading as a novel? Next!

  Sure, there are people out there who are really fascinated by that mind-tripping stuff. That’s great … for them. With me, when it comes to science fiction, I’m more about the fiction. What can I say? I grew up in an era when Westerns were still popular, good and bad guys were easily distinguishable, and sci-fi was a bit more, shall we say, hokey. I’ve just always liked futuristic heroes lasering it out, getting the girls, and flying cool-looking spaceships. I like my sci-fi women sexy and exotic, with blue skin or green hair. Sometimes, they need rescuing. Sometimes, they kick your ass. But they always look hot doing whatever needs done.

  Now, that’s my kind of sci-fi!

  But, then again, I get it honestly. I was an 80s geek. I grew up with Jedi knights and dark lords and beautiful alien princesses. And let’s face it, Star Wars was not a movie that made you spend a lot of time thinking about the scientific elements of it. Did you ever ponder the technological challenges of hyperspace travel, a lightsaber, or the Death Star, somewhere off in that “galaxy far, far away?” Of course not! It was a fairy tale written to entertain, not to provoke deep thought (and if it did, it’s either time to move out of your parents’ basement, or you’re one of those MIT grads mentioned earlier). Even Star Trek, which, at times, tended to delve into more intellectual and scientific areas, shied away from explaining the detailed workings of warp drives, phasers, and maybe, the most curious and wondrous of all, that amazing teleporter.

  If you’re my age, admit it (no, not your age!), how many of you, when you graduated high school in the eighties, thought that in the year 2016, we’d be flying around in some kind of Jetson-esque cars and living on the moon, space travel would be as common as booking a flight across country, and yes, you’d probably even have a robot housekeeper (no, a Roomba doesn’t count). I certainly did. Yet here we are, almost fifty years since Neal and Buzz took their stroll across that hunk of rock out there. And where are we now? Stuck in low-earth orbit. The same place we’ve been for over forty years. We don’t even have a manned space program anymore. Our astronauts have to hitch rides with Russians. Talk about an insult to our national pride. And all the technology gleaned from what we’ve learned? Well, we’ve got titanium golf clubs, satellite TV, and oh yes, let’s not forget cool phones, some of which actually do look like the communicators on Star Trek. And what do we do with them? We play silly games on them, post what we had for lunch, and take pictures of ourselves in bathroom mirrors.

  Just for one second, imagine what this world or this solar system might look like today, if we’d only pressed on. Imagine our economy if we had factories building ships to fly to other planets, where permanent settlements might be decades old by now. Imagine vacationing on the moon or in an orbiting hotel. What about taking a deep space cruise on a luxury liner? Who knows, maybe by now we would have the technology to send ships to other stars, or at least be working on it.

  I might even have my Jetson car.

  Alas, with all the progress we’ve made, such a future still evades us. It remains the stuff of books and movies. For now, everything is speculation, who knows where we will be in fifty years, or even a century from now. Will we be more assertive in such areas of space exploration, the colonizing of the moon and other planets?
Or will we still be content to sit here on a polluted and overcrowded rock, distracted by all the latest technological play-pretties? Has the human desire to press the unknown been dulled by the instant gratification we are now surrounded by? Has our yearning to discover what’s just over the horizon, our need to explore, finally been appeased? I guess time will tell.

  If we can’t do anything else, we can at least imagine. We can look into our mental crystal balls and try to foresee what lies ahead. Of course, none of us will see the same vision. Some will see a paradise while others may see Hell on earth. Some will see utopias where all problems will eventually be solved and humankind will live free of war, prejudice, disease and poverty. Many predict dystopian societies with cold, unfeeling populations, desensitized and morally sterile. Other see post-apocalyptic wastelands, a world laid in waste by our own hands through war, financial collapse and pollution, or even plagues of super germs. Right now, one supposition is as good as the next. Any of these things are capable of happening, maybe all, who knows. Your guess is as good as mine.

  In the following pages, I present a future of my own creation. In it, you will find many of the same predictions others have made. You will also find a universe that, while grand and marvelous in many ways, is suffering from many of the maladies we have created, or are presently creating, in our time. It will be a time when humanity has reached for the heavens, yet even with all that he now possesses, in the way of technology and science, cannot solve age-old problems in its own backyard, nor can he seem to come to terms with the monster progress it sometimes becomes.

  I hope you enjoy my version of it all, seen through the eyes of a simple man from Alabama. Of course, it will have a Southern perspective on everything. That’s something I take great pride in. Even so, it’s not simply a matter intentionally limiting myself, it’s more a matter of what I know best. Whether that’s good or bad, it’s the honest truth.

  I sincerely hope I have not bored you already, and humbly ask you to continue just a bit further. I’ve never claimed to be a great author, but I do believe I’m a fairly decent storyteller. And I truly hope you find a good story in the following pages. I have tried to combine all of the things I love dearly into a good book: adventure, romance, action, a little shoot-em-up, some thought-provoking social commentary, and yes, even some steamy scenes. Be warned! This is not your daddy’s sci-fi Saturday morning radio serial. If some profanity and explicit scenes aren’t your cup of tea, this probably isn’t the book for you. Among all else, I respect each and every one of you as a reader. I would rather be open and honest upfront now than to have someone feel like they weren’t warned or were misled.

  So, without further ado, I am shutting up. I hope you enjoy the story. It is my hope that this is the first of a series, one that will take us from the Deep South to deep space and all points in between. Of course, a lot of that, as with most everything, depends on you, the reader. I enjoy writing, but more than anything else, I enjoy sharing my stories. I also, dear reader, truly appreciate you for taking the time to read my work, as I know how precious a commodity it is in this rat race world we live in.

  I truly hope to see you all down the road.

  Let’s light this candle.

  J Morgan Woodall

  June, 2017

  For Jennifer …

  Prologue

  Friday

  April 26, 2165

  0330 Hours CST

  An undisclosed location just outside of St. Louis, MO

  The specimen had been prepped and was now ready to begin its journey.

  The squat, nondescript building was located in a partially abandoned industrial park, most of the shops and factories long since idled by globalization and outsourcing decades ago. Surrounded by an electrified fence, no signs or markings anywhere indicated the owners of the property or what business was conducted there. Yet, there was an abundance of “NO TRESPASSING” signs attached at regular intervals to the fence. The tritium-infused paint that allowed them to glow in the darkness only made them appear more ominous.

  On the rear loading dock in the dark, a group of men toiled quietly in the blackness of the chilly, moonless night. Four men in lab coats rolled the subject out on a two-wheeled medical dolly. Strapped onto the vertical gurney with nylon restraints, the specimen was blindfolded, gagged, and heavily sedated. After its last frantic outburst, which had resulted in some very nasty gashes and bites for several of the staff, no one was taking any chances.

  One thing was certain, No one would miss it once it was gone.

  In the darkness, with a minimum of light, the men moved silently, no words being spoken, with clinical precision and efficiency. There was almost a certain nonchalant air about, as if they were simply moving a piece of furniture. Wheeling it up into the back of the van, they strapped the specimen and dolly both into the molded berth custom fit in the inside of the van. Each man, again without a word spoken and without interfering with the other, quickly, and with the greatest efficiency of movement, set about connecting hoses, intravenous tubes, and sensor wires. In less than two minutes this was achieved and the specimen was ready to travel.

  Their tasks completed, the lab rats exited the van and went back inside for hot coffee and donuts. Two figures remained on the dock. Both were burly, overweight men. One was an older man who wore the same white lab coat as the other two. He was, frankly, a rather unattractive man to look at, with a receding hairline, fleshy lips and saggy jowls. The perpetual scowl on his face gave him the appearance of a man afflicted with chronic constipation. Yet, the others moved around him in a subdued manner; obviously he was someone of significant authority at the facility.

  The man standing before him was only slightly smaller in girth, but was significantly younger. He was dressed in some kind of uniform and wore a sidearm. A security officer, maybe. Still, you didn’t have to look too close to see there was a familial resemblance. The two were closely related.

  Even his young relative seemed cowed by the big man, as he now addressed him.

  “You do understand the opportunity I am giving you here. Wilbur?” the elder man was saying sternly.

  “Yessir.” The young man’s reply was quick, almost automatic. Far too quick to suit the older man.

  “I certainly hope so!” his voice raised slightly, an edge to it. “By all rights I should be putting this thing on a scramjet to Atlanta. But I’m giving you a golden chance to further your career here at this corporation, to make something out of yourself, for once!”

  “Thank you, Uncle! I really do appreciate it.”

  “You’d better! If you screw this up, it not only will be your ass on the line, but mine as well!” He held up his Personal DataCom. Wilbur held his up and tapped it against his uncle’s, transferring the highly encrypted data file the boys in Atlanta would need.

  “I won’t let you down, Unc! Promise!”

  Uncle didn’t seem convinced. “Look, just get the package to Atlanta … without any problems. And I’ll make sure you and your partner get recognized in the report. Can you do that, Wilbur? Without screwing up?”

  “Look, Uncle Joe … if you’re still worried about that incident when I was assigned to the Capricorn Proje—”

  “Wilbur,” Uncle Joe sighed as his face turned red. Even in the blackness of night, Wilbur could see it flush. “This is your last chance with this outfit. Stop talking and get in the van.”

  “Yessir!” Wilbur knew from the tone of his uncle’s voice that this conversation was over. He moved around the old man and started for the loading dock stairs.

  “And Wilbur,” Joe stopped him.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t stop ‘til you get to Georgia.”

  Chapter 1

  Friday

  April 26, 2165

  1425 Hours CST

  “Von Braun-Huntsville, this is Blackbird Delta Five Niner Bravo, requesting permission for final descent, inbound west by southwest, Monte Sano Corridor.”

  “Blackbi
rd Delta Five Nine Bravo, you are cleared for final descent on Pad Five-A on a west by southwest heading. You may begin your inbound approach.”

  Tanner “Tiger” Thomas lowered his helmet visor and feathered the throttle of the big Super Charger. The Jenny Lou’s four powerful engines hissed angrily and quieted reluctantly as he redirected power to the retrorockets to slow her up for re-entry. She was a pretty girl, a blaze of glory in the black void with her shiny coat of atomic orange. She was a big girl and she had curves where she needed them, just like a real woman should. And she was a powerful girl. He felt that power now, as the braking rockets struggled to slow her momentum. The big ship shuddered roughly and an orange luminescence filled the viewport as she hit the mesosphere. Above the control panel, the dashboard hologram of a scantily-clad stripper, a souvenir picked up years ago in Luna Seven, picked up speed, enthusiastically increasing her revolutions around her ever-present silver pole.

  He always likened it to a baptism of fire; that transitional period when the ship left space and the earth’s atmosphere resisted the intruder. Fighting with all its might to return it to the void or burn it into a cinder as the heat shield glowed red and the air around the ship turned a fiery orange, as it rode a pillow of compressed, superheated air downward. And then, as soon as it had begun, it was over, the thin upper layers of the atmosphere resentfully conceded. Once more, he was reborn back into the fold, the prodigal child returning to that from whence he came, dust, air and water.

  He couldn’t help but grin and shake his head. You’re hopeless! You know that? You should’ve been a poet. The grin quickly changed to a grimace. No one would ever guess what a hopeless romantic you are by the way your life turned out, would they?