The young officer’s stomach fluttered, just a little bit. She’d been on the Kopus a bit less than a year, and she thought she had acquitted herself well. So she’d been a bit surprised when she’d been ordered to come up and see the DSO. She’d met the DSO perhaps twice; generally speaking, she reported …
Author: D.X. Machina
Chapter Nine: Alliance Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
Myo stared at Dr. Regda, her mind flashing to a hundred different things. It didn’t make sense, none of it did. “But…they attacked us.” “Oh, yes, they did,” Regda said. “I didn’t know why, exactly, until the humans told us that they’d lost at Tau Ceti. Lost! Gods, their force was overwhelming, they should have …
The Promise, Chapter One Background Chatter by D.X. Machina
Tiernan ColVanos, Fourth of that Name, leaned back in his chair. It was to be a busy day, as most days were. In a few hours, he would be going to the Senate, to see its new members sworn in. Three, to be precise, each of them taking their seats by his appointment. It was …
Chapter Eight: Forward Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
There is a common trope in film and fiction: A ragtag platoon walks through the shattered remains of a city, its crumbling, bombed-out buildings but a shadow of the vital place that once stood there. Perhaps the camera focuses on a charred doll, or a tattered advertisement for makeup. Perhaps, if the filmmaker is especially …
Chapter Seven: Impact Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
For the briefest of instants, Acolyte 22’s upward momentum precisely cancelled out the gravity of Hive Prime, and Hercule was weightless. Hercule remembered his first time he had undergone zero-G training. In 2172, when he’d been hoping to transfer to the JTSA, he’d gone through pre-application training in Houston. It had been summer, and he’d …
This Torch that I Found (Chapter One) by D.X. Machina
You’d never know it, but buddy, I’m a kind of poet, And I got a lot of things I like to say. –Harold Allen and Johnny Mercer, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” Tuesday is always a quiet night at the bar, no matter where in the universe you happen …
Chapter Six: Recovery Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
“Comms, incoming. Single tone,” Glyta said. “We’re go.” “Any following data?” Shagda Olthympo asked. “Hold on, quick burst…’Eight Pick.’ Not sure what that means.” “Vidol’s playing it close,” Olthympo said. “Can’t blame her, but would be nice to know their condition.” “Whose condition, ma’am?” “We’re picking up eight people,” Utti Larasin said. “Not the three …
Alliance: Intelligence Character List D.X. Machina
Hey, everyone, it’s your friendly neighborhood D.X. Machina here. I know Alliance: Intelligence has loads and loads of characters. Not all of them will be important, but many of them get mentioned, and frankly, it’s not easy keeping the eighteen human Acolyte officers straight. I have this stuff written down to refer back to. You should …
Chapter Five: Reunion Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
Standing in the usually-soft but currently-calloused hands of Mpola Vidol would have once been completely bizarre, the stuff of pure fantasy. For humans working with the Empire, it was Tuesday. Ahek Uɉa had long-ago stopped worrying about it; indeed, she barely noticed it anymore. (It helped, she would always admit, that her earliest experiences had …
Chapter Four: Rendezvous Alliance: Intelligence by D.X. Machina
The Flypaper flew casually through the Insectoid system, approaching Hive Prime on a precise vector that was laid out by an Insectoid behavioral algorithm. They had made it through the first two checks – their responses to standard queries from Insectoid ships had been accepted. They signaled they were carrying grubs in stasis, and had …