Eric Gallant

Greetings to the March Hare! Witness to the trial of the Knave of Hearts and personal messenger to the White King. I tip my straw hat to you, Sir Haigha!

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

#chestatee #poetry

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Bitrate traces the filament of non-Euclidean rift-space permeating the local system. He plots a trajectory into the filament's slipstream and back to his #mothership. He’s almost in rift space when his ship alerts him to another anomaly on the far side of the red giant.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

@OminousHallways Nice! I'm going with the classic folk rock tune from Led Zeppelin, "The Battle of Evermore."

"Oh, war is the common cry
Pick up your swords and fly!"

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

A towering claw of burning plasma #projects from the red giant's churning surface. Cockpit gamma spectrometers join magnetometers in a chorus of alarm. The relic is lost to mankind for #evermore. Bitrate needs to get moving, or he’ll soon share its fiery fate.
#vss365
#scififri

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The pain and sense of loss watching the artifact #fall into the seething red giant is palpable. Bitrate has no idea what the strange object was, but its unmanageable behavior at the end of his tether was unlike anything he had ever seen. Which made it unique and valuable.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

In the late 23rd century, using principles of physics that no human mind could comprehend, artificial intelligence perfected faster-than-light travel. The bored and dwindling remnants of humanity immediately declared #victory over time and space and set out for the stars.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Space salvage is always a #gamble, and few pilots have survived the game as long as Dig Bitrate. Part of surviving is knowing when to fold. So with a grimace, he disengages his harpoon and watches the priceless relic sink into the hydrogen mantle of the massive red giant.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

A host of 3D imaging systems display data on the ship's position, the relic's trajectory, the tethers, and the looming red giant. In visible light, the relic is a featureless black triangle cutting through the #midnight black of space like the point of an ebony knife.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The ship shakes as thrust battles the relic's momentum. Warning lights blink, and the ship's AI begins a litany of suboptimal conditions. Deep inside Bitratge’s #primitive amygdala, an implanted limbic brake releases inhibitory neurotransmitters to quiet his rising panic.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Scanners tagged the relic as an anomaly but provided little information beyond that. It could be a worthless spent solid-rocket booster from an early spacefaring civilization or a priceless, potent Witchocracy techno-magic #remnant. Every salvage is a roll of the dice.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Bitrate applies power to the engines. His #rift-ship surges, then stops with a #jolt. The harpooned relic at the end of his tether refuses to change course. Instead of pulling the relic away from the star, the relic drags the rift-ship deeper into the red giant.
#vss365
#scififri

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Once the harpoons lock, dragging the relic away from the red giant should have been easy. The star is huge but old, and its mass is depleted. As a result, the #gravity it exerts on orbiting objects is weak. But as Bitrate begins to reel it in, the relic somehow resists.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Bitrate matches trajectory with the drifting relic and fires harpoons. Harpoon 2 #signals a positive lock. Satisfied, he adds engine power. This deep in the star's photosphere, there's plenty of reaction mass for the sublight engines to eat, and the ship surges forward.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The relic is doomed. Caught in a decaying loop around a swollen red giant, its remaining orbits are few. Only a #bold pilot would try to pluck it from so deep in the star's gravity well. Dig Bitrate arms his harpoons and #tethers and steers into the ruddy giant.
#vss365
#scififri

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

In spring of 1887, the year of Victoria's Golden Jubilee, her majesty summoned me to Whitehall. I had just completed an investigation into a ghost lion terrorizing colonists in Zululand. I had no desire to #linger in Africa and promptly boarded a troop ship for London.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Her Majesty dispatched me to Shetland to investigate the strange death of Capt. Lovecraft. Upon arrival, I explained my #intent to the local Council Leader. He was a dour man, insular and mistrustful of outsiders, a disposition I found typical of the island's population.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The old salt says, “Twas a #feral wave that took him.” He pronounces feral like ‘FEAR-al.’
“A wave?” I ask, “Took Capt. Lovecraft?”
He nods.
“From his bed?” I ask, incredulous, pointing to the house on the hill.
“Aye. A fear-al wave.” As if the word explained the mystery.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The old men tell tales of #feral waves. Sometimes playful, but more often cruel and dangerous, these rogue waves have cast many unwary sailors into the sea. A few lived to tell the tale, but many more never saw home again, their bodies tossed like toys on untamed waves.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

Garuda remembers soaring across blue skies, a shade of azure found only in worlds with a clean, oxygen-rich atmosphere. That was before the Witchocracy curdled the sky. The Witches committed many atrocities, but there would be no #forgiveness for what they did to the sky.
#vss365

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

The Witchocracy is fearsome and dire. Their dreadnought voidships, guided by demonic AIs, #unalloyed by mercy, terrorize the dark #cosmos between the stars. But among the Witchocracy’s dread necromancers, whispers of a secret, elite group persist: The Unclave.
#vss365
#scififri

[Eric Gallant @eric_gallant]

@layxsnv On X, I’m going with C. As a writer who tends to bump up against the 280-character limit, I’m editing for brevity and cutting the unnecessary comma. If there were no character limit, then B.