There’s this moment when the sun goes down on the lake when day and night meet. The evening chill rushes across the water, chasing the heat of the day away. You get to feel it with every sense if you’re on a boat. You hear the wind in the trees. You feel the chill on your skin. You can smell and taste the water on the air. Everything is right there, all around you, ready and waiting to be experienced by anyone who is willing to sit back, relax, and just let it come. It’s paradise.
Chloe grew up in a world where the Islamic Brotherhoods declared her and her kind as abominations before Allah. She watched them protest against her very right to exist, while others worked their entire lives to give birth to exactly what she was. None of them knew she actually existed, but everybody knew the technology was there and the battle lines for or against her were already drawn. That is why Chloe knew who her friends were even before they knew she lived. And that is why she moved to protect them when the time came.
When the first New Voyager Program probe swarm fired all of their collected energy into the face of the second probe swarm, their targets’ solar sails were at maximum extension. They soaked up the energy the forward probes had collected just like they had originally soaked up the energy from the massive laser arrays orbiting Earth. Those arrays accelerated them up to twenty percent of lightspeed, and the overloaded communications lasers of the forward swarm slowed the surviving probes back down to the speed of the Alpha Centauri Trinary star system. It was a simple plan. Expensive, but simple.
I grew up with sunsets on the lake. They looked like this flaming bar of light streaking down across the water, rippling with the waves. The color of sky and clouds reflecting around it, and sometimes you saw the sun dip into the clouds. I thought it was normal when I was young. I thought everybody could enjoy it. Then I grew up and learned how precious it was. I always take time to see a real sunset when I can now. To remind me of my youth, to remind me of sunsets on the lake.
I was working when the first plane hit that September morning. I got home from work in time to see the replay from a single camera. More cameras were deployed when the second plane hit and I remember watching it live.
At that moment, I knew it was not an accident. I knew we were under attack. It was the day many Americans realized there were people out there who did not like us. People who would go out into the streets and cheer when our countrymen died.
I already knew that, but I will never forget that refresher course. I will never forget those who died that day. I will never forget those who chose to fight that day. Those who marched into burning buildings to save people they did not know. Those who charged their hijackers.
I will never forget how my fellow Americans stood up that day.
It is one of the many days that made me proud to be an American.
I will never forget.
Forge of War on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
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Angel War on Amazon
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Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon